The Worlds Lighthouse No.9 The day the Lord comes

One of the things that I like best about the Gospel of John, which I won't be reading from in a moment, is that he tells us things about Jesus that the other Gospel writers don't. In particular, I enjoy his account of Jesus' third resurrection appearance to his disciples on the shores of Galilee after they'd had a hard night's fishing, with the invitation to come and have breakfast. John says simply, we knew it was the Lord.

Well, as part of the centenary celebrations, we're holding two breakfasts on the 19th of April and again in November, when as women in the church, we want to issue the invitation to other women in the name of Jesus to come and have breakfast, with the hope and prayer that for many it will be a significant step towards recognizing, as the disciples did, that Jesus is the Lord. The breakfasts will be held at the Windsor House Hotel just along the road to the east from here, which provides a attractive and non-threatening environment between 8 and 10 in the morning on Saturday, the 19th of April. A continental breakfast will be served.

The speaker will be Dr. Karen Truinard. She's a Southampton GP. She's a mother of four young children.

She's written a book on family health and she writes health articles for Woman Alive magazine in particular. Her special interest to us is the fact that she's just spent six months on Doulos with her family, where her husband was a doctor and she ran a clinic for the women. We very much want this breakfast to include all age groups in the church.

We hope that all the women will be involved, from the young women in Manor to the oldest ladies we have, married or single. We want this to be an opportunity for you to bring that family member, that other mum you meet at the school gates, that work colleague, that neighbour who maybe wouldn't come to a church service, to hear the gospel presented in a non-threatening way in a relaxing environment. But please do come even if you can't bring a friend.

We hope the men in the church will be supportive, maybe by looking after the children for a couple of hours so your wife can go. Maybe by buying your wife a ticket for her and her friend. Maybe there are men and women who would like to sponsor a ticket for somebody else and if there is, do please see us.

Or maybe there are several people you'd like to ask and you can't afford tickets for all of them. Again, do see us. And by us, I mean those of us who've been involved in putting this together.

It's June Macara, Linda Vince, Sherry Turnbull, Debbie Newman and me and Anne White. Tickets, we'd like to sell them quickly. They're £5 each or £9 for two and you'll be given a little flyer as you leave this morning with details.

And tickets are available from today from Linda Vince in the foyer. If you don't have money with you or you're not comfortable with buying something on a Sunday, then please do just put your name down with Linda. We'll look forward to seeing you there.

Now I'm going to read the scriptures this morning from Jeremiah. Jeremiah. Why did I say Jeremiah? It's open at Jeremiah.

Do you like me to read Jeremiah? I'm very keen on Jeremiah actually. He's so real with the Lord. It's 1 Thessalonians 4. 1 Thessalonians 4 from verse 13 and I'm reading to 5.11. The coming of the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words.

Now brothers, about times and dates, we do not need to write to you for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape. But you brothers are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief.

You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be self-controlled and alert.

For those who sleep, sleep at night and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

He died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up just as in fact you are doing. Amen.

The sweet light in his eyes Shall enhance all the waiting And we shall behold him Then face to face We shall behold him We shall behold him Face to face in all of his glory We shall behold him We shall behold him Our savior and lord The angel shall sound The shout of his coming The sleeping will rise From their slumbering graves And those who remain Shall be changed in a moment We shall behold him Then face to face We shall behold him We shall behold him Face to face in all of his glory We shall behold him We shall behold him Face to face Our savior and lord We shall behold him We shall behold him Face to face in all of his glory We shall behold him We shall behold him Face to face Our savior and lord Face to face Our savior and lord Would you have your Bibles open at that passage? From Thessalonians Which was read to us so clearly I'm mindful of a young lady by name of Prisca I never knew her, that is I never saw her alive It sounds a little stark But my only recollection of Prisca Was in the traditional open coffin That greets you in an Indian burial Not that she came from India, she was Korean A young lass on board Doulos which had come into Bombay She was first of the O.M. evangelistic teams To catch a bus down into the center of that sprawling metropolis The buses slow but don't often stop She jumped, caught a heel on a broken pavement slab Keeled over, bashed her head, went into a coma And despite the prayers of hundreds of youngsters on board the ship She died, and I had the job of flying out from this country To speak at her memorial service and to be present at the funeral And as I looked at that beautiful face In the open coffin of that Korean girl Some of the questions that we're looking at That were faced 2,000 years ago by the Thessalonians Also went through my mind How do you handle bereavement? When you struggle to quote Leighton Ford to bring your faith And your emotions together You see, Paul had had his emissaries in Thessalonica And he himself had been present And the people who received this letter, they didn't have, as you do, a full complement of Scripture They'd only got the abiding memory of Paul's words There's a limit to what you can preach no matter how long you go on for Within a compass of a matter of a few weeks And there were questions left within the minds of the Thessalonians And when Timothy came out with some of these questions They put to Timothy who spoke on behalf of his own understanding And what he'd learned from Paul and more dynamically from the Spirit What happens when a person dies? And those who've died before Jesus returns Because Paul, you spoke a lot about the coming of Jesus Are they in some ways disadvantaged? And come to think of it, Paul If we are alive when Jesus returns, do they have the cutting edge on us? And this is what the Apostle Paul deals with in these few verses Which become one of the finest statements in the whole of the Bible Bringing comfort and consolation And hope and some insight Into what one of our hymn writers have called the tremendous hour of death And that's the reason why this book Over against the bag of the Gita and the Koran And all the religious books of Hinduism and Islam And Confucianism and Buddhism all put together They do not speak, and I have respect for some of these books And some of the people who contributed towards their writings But they do not speak with the clarity and the authority that this book speaks And they do not answer the questions that this book gives an answer to So we consider that great day of the Lord When He shall come again, when Jesus who was born Anonymously, so to speak, in Bethlehem's manger Shall return in the fullness of glory, when He shall occupy the media When He shall be the media's man, the God-man Who will have bowing before Him all intelligent beings Who have ever lived, for Jesus is Lord of the cosmos The creator of the world, as well as Thank God, its Savior So here is the Apostle Paul, and let's open up on this overhead As I try to bring the teaching of these verses to you inadequately For who can plumb the mind of Paul who has been inspired by the Spirit Here is the Apostle Paul, speaking to the Thessalonians and by the gift of inspiration To us today, and in regard to death And more particularly the coming of the Lord He first of all tells us in the 13th verse what he does not want Paul never put a premium Paul never put a premium on ignorance He doesn't want us to be ill-informed One of the reasons why Protestantism Has always emphasized the need For a sermon is because the word of God Is to be proclaimed And Christian people are to be thinking people Who out-think all other people For the Christian gospel is directed to the emotions, to the will And also to the mind So he says, brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant He didn't want them ignorant about spiritual gifts when he wrote to the Corinthians He does not want us to be ignorant At the point of not only our death, but the point of being present At the memorial service, the funeral service of others Neither did our beloved Lord want us to be ignorant That's why he reveals himself as the Lord of life I am the way, the truth, and the life No man comes to the Father but by me But the apostle Paul, and the whole of scripture Also indicates that though it does not want us to be ignorant About death and the mechanics of death And what happens beyond Neither are we to engage in unrelieved grief Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep Or to grieve like the rest of men Who have no hope Now notice, the Bible doesn't say it's wrong to grieve Here is our beloved Lord, and one of his dear friends has died And Martha and Mary, they're emotionally distressed besides themselves And when the beloved Christ comes alongside the grave, he too weeps And the prohibition is not on mourning, that would be ridiculous How can you not mourn for a beloved wife, a beloved husband, a beloved friend Of course you do, but what is prohibited is mourning without hope The wailing, the unremitting remorse Of pagans who have no hope Whatsoever. If you were to go to the catacombs In Rome, even today there is some Etchings left in those ancient graves As to how Christians coped with the phenomena Of death, for the catacombs really were the Christian burial chambers And if you go above ground and contrast the Monuments of the pagans, I'm going back to the 1st and 2nd And 3rd century, you see such a disparity The above ground, there is no hope whatsoever, there is just Unremitting remorse. Death, the great enemy Has done its damnedest, and there is no answer But read those crude etchings of those early Christian Graves, and you will see that they were written by men And women, who were filled with hope And it's this to which the apostle makes reference in This verse, we don't want you to be hopeless Like other unbelievers are Hope is defined as the joyful, confident Expectation of eternal life through Jesus our Lord One of the philosophers, the pagan philosophers in those days He wrote, in language very dissimilar to that of the apostle Hopes are for the living, the dead are without hope But here is Paul, and he's writing to the Thessalonians, he's writing to you and me Here we're faced with the burial of some beloved person Maybe some child who prematurely from our vantage has Slipped into glory.

What is the condition we are To be in? Well, we mourn, we cry But we are not without hope. Why? Because there is a real sense in which that person, that child That adult, that elderly man or woman has fallen Asleep. Very often in the Old Testament And the New Testament, when reference to death is made The euphemism is used Sleep.

I mean, you see someone who's just died And they do appear to you to be asleep And it's a reasonable metaphor to employ The Old Testament goes a little further and it says that those who die The righteous dead, they depart from their labors They enter into rest And when you move on into the New Testament, the teaching goes A little further. The believer who has died He actually has lost nothing. He is Still in unison, in unity with the Lord What has happened is that his earthly body This perishable, this mortal body Has come to a point when it can sustain life No longer.

But the apostle deals with the two separations In this teaching. The separation that One might think that death brings between man and God And the separation between man and his fellow And the apostle teaches you that this is illusion This is not real. When a man dies, his body dies But he is in Christo.

He is in Christ He is so bound into the life of Jesus That it is impossible for that man's spirit to die And this is the glory of the New Testament. This is the glory Of Christianity. This is the unique cutting edge of its message That's why when the apostle goes On to speak further of his teaching here He tells you of the vital need that there is For Christian people to acknowledge the historicity Of the resurrection of Jesus.

What Paul doesn't want He doesn't want you to be ignorant. He doesn't want you to be Without hope. He wants you to realize That when a believer dies, he's actually lost nothing He's gone to be with the Lord.

There is a union Between Christ and those who trust him That is so close. Their destiny Is part of his destiny. A union That is so close.

Their destiny is part Of his destiny. I will never leave you I will never forsake you. Oh, death, where is your sting? Oh, grave, where is your victory? You see, it's only on that basis That you dare mock about death itself Because of the union that the believer has with Christ.

So, that's What Paul doesn't want. Let's go on. What Paul believes And what Paul wants the Christians in Thessalonica To cling onto.

Here in the 14th and 15th verses I say Is Paul's creedal statement. We believe That Jesus died and rose again We believe that God will bring with Jesus Those who have fallen asleep. We tell you We believe, we believe, we tell you One of the reasons why the pulpit is unfashionable in these days The pulpit that is rightly exercised is because it doesn't go in for speculation It doesn't say if, it doesn't say maybe, it doesn't say perchance It doesn't say come and let's pool together our thinking Christianity at its cutting edge is dogmatic This is what we believe.

If he is not raised from the dead Then we have no hope, says Paul at a different point in one of his letters But the context is similar. We believe that Jesus Died and rose again We believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen Asleep in him at his coming The word coming there is the word presence In a couple of weeks time I will be in Nairobi One of the most influential men I've met During my span of traveling Is Daniel Moy, the president of Kenya. From time to time I send him Tapes.

When Moy Is seen on the roads going say from Machakos to Nairobi Then it's incumbent upon the Kenyan African citizens to stop their car And even to get out as a sign of respect Why? The presence of authority there In Daniel Moy. He's going to come The parousia. He's going to come with great Presence into this world.

The king Is coming. This is the summary Of Paul's belief. Jesus will Come.

You can't get away from that You cannot without abusing scripture Go through all the references to the predictions that Christ Makes of his return and say that this is just to be Understood in a spiritual fashion. I go further. You cannot Even say that the events on the day of Pentecost fulfilled the predictions of Jesus True, he came in the power of the Holy Spirit, but his Promise to the disciples were that he would come again And they would see him as they had seen him during his earthly Ministry.

He will come And when the Christian church loses hold On that express belief, then what it is left with Is an emaciated gospel that does not even Deserve to be so defined as Good news. Jesus will come This is what Paul believes. What is more, Jesus Will come and bring the Christian Dead with him.

He will come And bring the Christian dead with him So we believe that God will bring with Jesus Those who have fallen asleep In him. Bring, says the spiritual Commentator Bengal, sweet word. It is spoken Of living persons.

The dead for whom we mourn are not dead They lift to God and when That great day comes, God will bring those who have gone Before and unite them to those who have been Left behind. So the apparent separations Are really just an illusion. Oh yes, they've gone From us.

We have no contact with the dead, the Departed, those who are with the Lord. We seek no Contact. We are allowed no contact, but they are Safe in the keeping of Jesus But death has not broken the Relationship that they have with him That is indissolvable as the relationship we too On this earth have with our Saviour and any Passing and any breach in our earthly relationship Christian brother to Christian brother, Christian sister to Christian sister And across the divides, that is just a temporary breach I will one day have Company with my predecessors in this pulpit I will one day have company With my father.

I will One day be able to put the questions to the apostle Paul that have baffled Me for years, but perhaps in that day when I have All knowledge, the questions will disappear Jesus will come and the Righteous will come with him Paul does not speculate, he does not qualify He says we believe and he expects the Thessalonians to embrace that truth Also. Jesus did not rise, Jesus did not Die and rise alone, for those who have died in him Will be raised with him. God will Bring to life.

If God did not abandon Jesus at the grave, neither will he Abandon the Christian dead So, synonymous with the Perusia of our beloved Lord is the resurrection Of the bodies, of those whose spirits have gone Unconsciously into his presence. That must be the case Or else the apostle Paul would never have said, absent from the Body, is present with the Lord. I'm looking forward To a new body.

Every time I take a glance of myself In the mirror, I realize that I would settle for The age that our Lord was When he died. Thirty-two or thirty-three I mean, weren't you at your peak at thirty-two or thirty-three? And when he appears, we shall be made like him. I'll settle for A thirty-two year old's looks.

Amen When he shall appear, we shall be like him And our bodies shall be refashioned And repatriated with our spirits. Our Lord Jesus will come. He will come personally.

He will come with the Righteous dead. And thirdly, the Christian living Will not be disadvantaged. Even though the righteous Dead precede them, they will not lag Behind.

There is for them an unbreakable solidarity Between Christ and themselves As believers. Death cannot destroy this We will certainly not precede those who Have fallen asleep. But says the Apostle Paul, we too Shall be with the Lord forever How do we know this? How do we Know it? I mean, this is what the Apostle Paul Demands that we should ask in terms of a question because look what he says in this Fifteenth verse.

According to the Lord's own word, we tell You that we are still alive. We're left till the coming of the Lord will certainly Not precede those who have fallen asleep. What does he mean by according To the word of the Lord? You see, you can ransack the Gospels and there's no Obvious answer to that.

What I'm suggesting Is this, indeed I'm not suggesting, I think there is no other alternative Than to bring in this conclusion Let me enlarge on the matter and then I'll come a little More narrow in a moment. There were things Statements which our Lord Jesus made which were not Written in the Gospels. For instance, it is better To give than what it is to receive.

Remember the Paul makes reference to our Lord's statement in this respect in Acts Chapter 20. No, it's not there in the Gospels. What Seems to be the case here as there Is that the Apostle Paul is referring to some logia Some statement which the risen Lord made In addition to the statements which have been written into our Gospels Now isn't it interesting that when the Lord gives an additional A supplementary statement, not recorded in the Gospels But the content of it can be unraveled by the Comment the Apostle Paul makes here.

The statement Regards death and our safety in death And our assurance of life with the Lord Eternally. How do you know this Paul? According to the Lord's own words You remember on another occasion he said a similar thing For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you. How can I be so bold as a memorial Service? How can we be so bold by an open grave or up at the crematorium? Well because this word of the Lord spoken to Paul Shared with the Thessalonians which speaks about this occasion Allows us to be so dogmatic.

According to the Lord's Own word we tell you that we who are still alive Who are left to the coming of the Lord will certainly not precede those Who have fallen asleep. Did Paul expect the coming Of Christ in his own lifetime? Well sometimes he seems to As we all anticipate that the Lord will come in our Lifetimes. Sometimes the Apostle thinks That it's going to be after he has died because he refers In Philippians to this body of corruption putting on incorruption And how at the last eschatological moment when Jesus Comes Paul will not be encased in that Inadequate body that he has known.

So here is the Apostle Paul and he wants, he loves the Lord Jesus as you want and you love the Lord Jesus. He wants his imminent return but even if he doesn't come Imminently nonetheless as the Apostle Paul if he has to go through the bowels Of death himself he has sufficient information To face death with optimism and bravery knowing That the cord between him, the umbilical cord between him And Jesus can never, never, never Be severed. Well finally What God has programmed.

Here the Apostle speaks about what we shouldn't Believe and what we should believe, what we should hold on to. What about The program of God for the future events verses 16 and 17. Now be careful Because here what you get is a cameo.

It's a Summary statement. It's not a filled out Picture but there are sufficient Movements of the brush for you to Realize that something way beyond your wildest Dreams is there for all who are one With Jesus Christ. Four things Paul Particularly emphasizes the return.

He's touched on that before But Paul is always repeating. For the Lord himself Will come down from heaven With a loud command, with the voice of the archangel And with the trumpet of God. Here are Three things that are synonymous with The coming of the Lord.

How literally they are to be taken I don't know Our Lord's coming is going to be universal It's not just going to be in one location. It's going to be like a flash of lightning Which is seen in the west and also in the east. So here the Apostle Resorts to this symbolism which in no way detracts from the literal Nature of his teaching as he says that when Jesus comes it will be With such power, with such glory there will be such a media Presentation that it will be as though the trumpet Of the archangel himself has sounded and Has echoed around the universe The return of Jesus Christ, the greatest Event that men and women will ever Witness.

And with the return The resurrection, the resurrection And the dead in Christ Will rise first. The resurrection Proceeding in some way the coming of our Lord Jesus Those who've fallen asleep as far as their bodies are concerned Now go to be with the Lord, to receive their Spirits and together they return As sometimes Daniel Moy When he's going back from the Charcas to Nairobi His cabinet will leave Nairobi and meet with the president So that together the full complement will be in Nairobi So the righteous dead And those who are raptured At the point of the return go to meet With the Lord and accompany him Back here enjoying something Of the power and the glory that befits This occasion. Now I argue this is not a complete picture There are other references in the bible Which you need to bring alongside You would be frustrated if you try to flesh it all out To fill out the whole of the Frame, of what's between the frame There are certain things on which the apostle doesn't touch He doesn't speak about the judgment, he doesn't speak about hell He only gives some vague insight Into what the eternal era is going to be like But nonetheless He gives you such a lot to go on For the concept of the return of Christ to dominate the thinking Of the horizon of your life We're going to be caught up to meet with the Lord It says in the air I wonder why it says in the air Maybe because the bible sometimes refers to the devil as the prince of the power of the air And here is our Lord having the last laugh In the very area where Satan has hoiled sway The supreme power and authority of our Lord Jesus shall be exhibited We shall be caught up in the air, in the clouds It was from the clouds that the voice of God spoke in Old Testament times It was the clouds that spoke of the home of God So Paul uses all this poetry and metaphor In order to underline this grand thing That our Lord will return, there will be a resurrection There will be a rapture of those who are alive at the point of that return And then there will be a reunion Which will last forever We shall ever be with the Lord Everlasting fellowship The ultimate reunion There's nothing in here for curiosity There is everything in here for comfort Says one of the Puritans You are not permitted to debunk What the Apostle Paul has to say You cannot explain it away Even though you are prevented from filling it out To the degree that perhaps idle curiosity Would want even more descriptions and definitions You are left to expect a cosmic event Which includes the personal return of Christ to all his people Whether dead or alive Then finally, what do you do with what you know? What do you do with what you know? Well, the Apostle tells you, therefore encourage each other with these words This is marvelous, I mean really if you weren't English You would be on your seats, on the wood of the pew And you would be dancing in delight, but I'll settle for you dancing in your spirit I mean, this is tremendous comfort This is tremendous encouragement When Jesus was with the widow at Nain, what did he do? He encouraged her When he was with Jairus' parents, what did he do? He comforted her He comforted them The preachers in the Old Testament were given the command Comfort you, comfort me, my people, saith the Lord Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem Well, how do you speak words of comfort to the church down the years, down the centuries? You do so by taking the promises, the teaching Encapsulated in these four or five verses and applying them Especially at the moment of death, comfort one another with these words So you are prematurely bereaved But your loved one trusted the Lord and is with the Lord So the separation does not exist between him and the Savior And of course that applies to our women folk Equally And the separations that we have at the human level from those who have gone on before They are but temporary Ten years is a long time, twenty years is a long time Yes, I'm not detracting from that nor the difficulty of coping with bereavement But what I am saying is that when we are in eternity Our concept of time on this earth will reduce it to a mere span The fluttering of an eyelid Comfort one another with these words The apostle lifts the curtain so you can see a little What congregation does not need to be comforted? Some of you needed to be comforted yesterday with this word Some of you today, all of you at one time On a tomorrow will need this word What speaks to the condition The final condition of man More than this word For death, where's your sting? Grave, where's your victory? The devil hasn't had the last laugh Our Lord shall have him in derision Those that die in Christ are safe with Christ And the day shall dawn when our Lord shall return to this world And the government shall be upon his shoulders And all that was lost at Eden that has been regained at Calvary Shall be realized in the future that is yet to be Wherefore, brothers and sisters, comfort each other with these words This, says the apostle Paul, is what we believe He is Lord He is Lord He is risen from the dead He is Lord Every knee shall bow Every tongue confess That Jesus Christ is Lord Father, those who are bereaved in our mourning, we commit them to you And ask that the therapy of your word may have blessed them this day We ask, Lord, that you'll send us all out More convinced as to the truths of these things That we may live out the remainder of our days under the shadow Of these promises, and that you'll constantly be encouraging us And help us to encourage one another Send us out from this place to see you more clearly, to love you more dearly To follow you more nearly all our lives Amen.

Do sit down Thank you for coming, hope you've been warm enough Tim's got these special seminars next Friday, do come along Sometimes more ladies than men come and we would like an equal number and there are some lovely leaflets advertising our Easter services in the foyer area, please take them as you go, and if you can come tonight to a very thoughtful, challenging subject matter to study it through, then we'd be glad to have your company, Why Should I Care about the Planet. Thanks for coming this morning, goodbye, God bless