Chapter 4: 13-18

¹³ “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. ¹⁴ For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.

^{15 “}For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus, we shall always be with the Lord. ¹⁸ Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

All of us face the trials of life in different ways. Some are overthinkers or worriers; others tend to go numb; some sleep, some can’t; others get busy, and on and on we can go. The last 20 months for a lot of us have been eye-opening. We have seen the very systems that the Bible talks about come to life right before our eyes. For some that are saved, this has been eye-opening; it has reassured us that the Bible is real, the words are true, and the promises are secure.

It has also answered a lot of questions for us. We can see, maybe for the first time, how the world system will get the vast majority of the world left after the Rapture to take a mark that allows them to buy and sell goods. We can see how the powers that be will know who has and does not have the mark. We see the apps coming to life that gives us permission to live, to go out to eat, and to buy and sell in some cases right now. We can see how they will be able to track purchases as they move us to more and more online purchases with digital monies and/or currencies. We can see how a global event like the Rapture can unite the governments of the world. People from all walks of life, all religious backgrounds, all political spheres and financial circles can come together around a common ‘enemy.’

Paul lived in a time when death was rampant. The sanctity of human life outside of Christianity simply did not exist. The Roman government used death and death by torture to quell uprisings and to enslave millions. They made death into a sport. The Roman coliseum was built to entertain the masses with death. All around them, these Christians in Thessalonica could see their friends, their brothers and sisters in the Lord, dying, and they wondered if the promises were true.

How could the world get any worse? Surely, Jesus is coming soon.

• The Hope we have in Jesus, verses 13-14

According to Guzik’s commentary, there were prevailing ideas that death was the end for all people. Ancient writers like Aeschylus, Catullus and Theocritus all taught that death was the end. But Paul talks about those that have fallen ‘asleep’; they are just sleeping. Remember that Jesus, as he went to heal Jarius’ daughter, told the mourners that she was just asleep. The word ‘cemetery’ was actually coined by early Christians; the word means ‘dormitory’ or ‘sleeping place.’

We need to be careful how far we take these analogies; the Bible does not teach ‘soul sleep.’ Our bodies go into the ground and decay, and they will be resurrected one day. But ALL people live forever. When we were created, we were created as living souls. We will live eternally somewhere; heaven or hell are the two options offered by God. The choice of where we live is up to us. Those of us that die in Jesus are immediately in His presence, and we are there forever. The idea of ‘falling asleep’ is a reference to the body only.

While we mourn the loss of loved ones – mothers, fathers, children, grandparents and friends – we who know Jesus do not mourn as though we will never see them again. As well, we also know that those who died with an illness are ill no longer. They are whole and happy in Jesus. My mom has Alzheimer’s; she will be 88 next week if the Lord spares her life, but one day she will remember us all. No PSWs or nurses will be needed to care for her; she will be whole. I have a father, a brother, countless friends, and acquaintances that have died in Jesus; they and I will all be reunited one day, maybe sooner than we all think. But this is the hope we have. This is what carries us through the grief and the loss. Hope is one of the remaining supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 13:13).

We are confident in the empty tomb of Jesus, the proof that there is life, a good life after death for the saved. We can even see the events like Jesus’ transfiguration in Matthew 17 and see Moses and Elijah, men who had been dead for millennia physically, but yet they walked and talked with Jesus. The witch at Endor knew she was talking to Samuel that night; for the very first time, she was actually speaking to the dead, and it shook her. Paul tells of his ‘life after death’ experience, and he does so in the third person: “I know a man.” Well, he was the man. This man died and saw things that he simply could not put into words. Yet here he was, that man, talking about the resurrection and about life after death.

Jesus will bring the saved dead back with him, and we will see them again. Paul uses the term ‘we’ in these verses (see verse 15, “we who are alive”). He expected the Lord to return in his lifetime. He lived each day longing and expecting the Lord’s return. Later as we read, Paul starts to use “you.” He understood that Jesus would not return in his lifetime, and it changed his writings.

But I can say that we have a very good chance of seeing Jesus return in our generation. I will not set dates nor times; that is forbidden. But we can surely see more and more that framework for the power and rise of the Man of Sin. We can see the mechanisms that will help him dominate the world. We can see the forming of the One-World Religion as the Muslims, Catholics and Jews begin the building of a worship facility in Berlin, Germany. China is fast becoming the military superpower; Russia continues to encroach unabated into Europe, and the US military is being depleted both of arms and people.

• The Job we have in Jesus, 2 Peter 3:9

While we are excited about the return of Jesus, we need to be aware that His return, though good news for us in Jesus, is a damning event in the lives of those that don’t know Him. Shortly after His coming for us in the Rapture, the world will be plunged into chaos, disease, food shortages, natural disasters, and the breakdown of law and order. Death will be rampant, and the Gospel will be scarce. Most of the people that don’t know Jesus before the Rapture will never get to know Him after. They will die in their sins and spend an eternity in Hell. What are we to do about that? Tell others about Jesus. We need to be about the business of the Kingdom.

We can see that the people in charge already understand that a vast majority of the people will do what they are told. When the Mark of the Man of Sin comes into play midway through the Tribulation, the vast majority of people will simply line up to get it; they will not question nor challenge the order. ALL of these will go to Hell; none can be saved. Once you take the Mark, you are sealed for eternity. There will be those that understand what is happening; either they are saved, or many of the Jews will realize that this Mark is evil as it requires you to worship a man and not God. These rebels will be hunted down and executed.

Take the time to read Revelation 11-13. I am sure you will not be able to put it down once you begin. The point is that all of our friends, family, co-workers and neighbors who don’t know Jesus as Savior will not have a great life after the Rapture. Theirs will be hell on earth and then hell for real without Jesus. We need to be about the work of sharing the Gospel. Jesus is the only way.

Like Paul here in this letter, ‘we’ should expect to meet the Lord in the air. ‘We’ should expect to hear the Trumpet. ‘We’ should expect to see the dead in Christ raised. ‘We’ should expect to see the dormitories open and the sleeping bodies of our loved ones in Jesus awake. ‘We’ should expect to fly in the air to meet Jesus. Sadly, not many of us, myself included at times, live this way. Maybe some of us have become the end-time scoffers, not by our words, but by the way we live. We do not take hell seriously, and just maybe we don’t truly believe that actual people that we know are there and others are on their way simply because they don’t know Jesus as Saviour.

If you and I truly believed that Hell was real and that the people we sit and work with every day, the people we eat lunch with and joke with and host football pools with every day, are going to die without Jesus and spend eternity in Hell, how would that change the way we share the Gospel? Jesus is coming to get us; this is a fact. How many of us will there be to go, and how many will we help be in that group? God wants ALL to be saved, and He is giving mankind as much time as He can.

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding

Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca

Chapter 4: 1-12

¹ “Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God; ² for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

³ For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; ⁴ that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, ⁵ not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; ⁶ that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. ⁷ For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness. ⁸ Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

⁹ But concerning brotherly love, you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; ¹⁰ and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; ¹¹ that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, ¹² that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.”

We live in a world that is so ‘self’ focused that it is almost impossible for it not to creep into the Lord’s churches and into our Christian walk. The world is self-centered; do what feels good to me and avoid any kind of pain and hurt at all costs. Paul is an example of one who did the very opposite of this; he lived and eventually died for the Lord. Once he was saved and gave his life to the Lord, Paul stopped living for himself. He stopped living for fame and fortune and anything that did not please God. He lived in a time when living for the Lord was not a cheap choice to be made. In the 30-40 years after Jesus’ resurrection, the dangers that being a Christian brought were serious, from serious hurt to brutal death.

Right now, we do not face any such issues in our time here in North America. We are inconvenienced, and we are disliked, even hated; but as of right now, no Christian in North America is in imminent danger of losing his or her life for the Gospel. That time may come and maybe sooner than we think. In contrast, I know of Christ-followers right now that live in danger, maybe not death danger, but in hurt danger. They have no rights whatsoever; they are preaching the Gospel and sharing Christ in a predominantly Muslim nation that offers them no security and no guarantees.

We are called to live as pleasing to God, not self, not others, simply living pleasing to the Lord. Let us explore how.

• Sexual Purity, verses 3-5

God invented and designed sexuality. We are made as sexual beings. God designed sex to be an intimate act between a husband and wife only. In Hebrews 13:4, we are told that the marriage bed is undefiled, which simply means that God allows a man and his wife to explore their sexual union in any way they deem fit as long as it is between them. Any sexual activity outside of this union of marriage between a man and a woman is wrong. As well, any union that is other than a man and a woman is wrong.

Of course, in the Bible, there are many of our Biblical heroes that did not obey in sexual purity. From Abraham to David, to Solomon, and many others, there are examples of sexual misconduct. Sadly, this was still prevalent in Paul’s day and ministry and just as much today. Paul, through the Holy Spirit, calls us to sexual purity as children of God. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul tells us to get married if we cannot control our sexual urges. God has provided a way out if need be. Too many Christians are still putting off marriage into their thirties and forties. This is not normal. If you are able to control yourself, so be it. But for the vast majority of persons, this not the case, so there are sexual sins in our churches. We need to encourage young men and young women to be married early in life.

As well, there are other things that can lead us into sexual impurity, like pornography. This is nothing new; it is more accessible because of technology, but pornography or sexual writings have been around as long as man has been around. These can be very appealing to the young and leave lasting scars that are hard to shake. God is greater. But in the area of sexuality, we need to be determined to live pleasing to God.

• Financial Purity, verses 6-7

Sadly, money and the need to have lots of it has caused a lot of corruption and carnage in the Lord’s churches. There are countless stories of fraud in churches; from pyramid schemes to bold-faced theft, money and the temptation that comes with it have infected our churches. The church, while it should be run as a business to some degree, is not a business. We need to balance our books and live within our means, so to speak, but churches also need to step out in faith and stretch beyond what they can see and seek God’s miraculous provisions.

All around us, there are churches that are just about money. The preacher or preachers get richer and richer while promising riches to those that give to them. Many live extravagant lives while their congregants live very hard lives, and some are in abject poverty. There is nothing wrong with money nor with riches, for that matter. Abraham, Solomon, Jacob, David, and many others – godly men – were very, very rich. God made them rich. In the case of Solomon, God made him so rich that no one since that time has been as rich as Solomon.

Money is not to be our God. Being rich is not to be our goal. Even being financially secure is not to be the goal. God is to be God, and all we have is from Him and is for Him, His glory, and His use. We should not be defrauding our brothers and sisters. We should not be defrauding anyone. We bring shame on the Lord’s name and people when this kind of behavior exists around the Lord’s people and churches. The book of Proverbs tells us that a ‘good name’ is more important than riches (Proverbs 22:1). All too often, even in the Lord’s churches, we have seen riches chosen over a ‘good name.’ Do not cheat each other; do not take unnecessarily from each other. And whenever possible, share in our good fortune and seek God’s favor, not more riches. In the area of money, let us live determined to please God.

• Relationship Purity, verses 9-12

We are called to love each other as brothers and sisters in the Lord. This is the sacrificial love that we have from Jesus to us. We are to exhibit this kind of love to each other. We are to esteem each other (Philippians 2:3). Let us honor all men [and women] (1 Peter 2:17). When we live this way, both in the Lord’s churches, in our homes, among our friends, and with our businesses, we live to please the Lord. In Leviticus 19:18, we are told not to even bear a grudge against anyone but love our neighbors as ourselves.

In Proverbs 16:7, we are told that when a man’s ways please the Lord, the Lord makes even his enemies be at peace with him. This is relationship purity. Our love should extend to the brothers and sisters everywhere. It never ceases to amaze me how my wife and I can meet Christians for the first time, and once we know that we are all in the Lord, there is a comfort that comes and a familiarity that binds us together. We can see people once a year at camp or at functions, and the relationship just picks up as if we were never apart. Why? The Holy Spirit in us, the love in Christ that we share for and to each other.

We should love each other this way all the time. Sadly, this does not always happen, and every year, thousands of church members quit church because of a relationship failure. Someone hurt them, someone offended them, and they quit. Once they quit, the fallout of family and other friends leads to even more people quitting. Brothers and sisters, it should not be this way. If we have Godly love for each other, we will seek to forgive and move on. In 1 Peter 4:8, we are encouraged to love each other deeply, and that love should cover a multitude of sins committed against us. Jesus encourages us to forgive continually. Stop keeping score; just forgive as God forgives us.

In the same manner, when we put others first, we seek less and less to offend them. In so doing, we seek to build each other up and not tear each other down. When we have people who constantly build each other up and who constantly forgive each other, there is no room for the Devil to cause division, and we can keep our relationships pure.

When we seek sexual purity, financial purity, and relationship purity, we are living lives the apostle says that “lack nothing” (verse 12). Listen to that; lives that “lack nothing.” What kind of lives do we have? We have lives that are lived pleasing to the Lord and that lack nothing. Wow!! What more could we ask for in this life? Let us endeavor as much as lies within us to live lives that please the Lord.

God bless you,

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church

How to Connect with Us

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MississaugaMissionaryBaptistChurch

Online: https://www.mississaugamissionarybaptistchurch.com/ (under construction)

Email: missionarybaptistchurch76@yahoo.ca