[0:00] open to 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and we're continuing in our series. Now, as you're turning there, if you didn't get a chance to grab one of the outlines for tonight, if you'd raise your hand up and hold it up, Justice has a few of those, and he'll be bringing around. So keep your hand up until you get one, and we'll make sure you get a hold of one of those. We've got lots of blanks to fill in tonight, so it's exciting, and I'll try to make sure we get everybody all the blanks, because I know that is an important thing, right? Got to get every one of them filled in.
[0:27] So 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 is where we're turning to this evening, and I thank you for praying for Pastor Trent as he's traveled to Ecuador. Kind of a shorter trip. They left on Tuesday.
[0:38] They'll be heading back on Sunday night, I think getting in early on Monday morning, so be praying for them. Be praying for the chartering service of the church there. That's the reason they're there in Ecuador with Cason and Bethany Bloom, and he's going to be teaching a number of times. It looks like it's already been a wonderful trip, but just pray that God really uses them to encourage and to help the church, and as they're with the blooms, that it'll just be a wonderful time together. All right, y'all doing okay this evening? We good? All right, let's get into this. I'm excited about this passage. This passage is one of the clearest passages on the return of Christ. Now, I need to be careful, and we're going to be careful in our wording on the rapture, the rapture of the church, and, you know, as we look towards things to come, we're going to be talking a little bit about eschatology tonight, about the things that are planned out in the future.
[1:37] Now, that is a portion of this study, but what we're going to find is that the main emphasis is, and I want to be careful how I say this, it's not even necessarily the things to come, but it is what we're supposed to do with that truth now, okay? What we're supposed to do with that truth about that day today. That's really the emphasis of this, and that's where we get our title, Live in Hope and Give Comfort, right? God wants us to know and to be well-versed in the hope that we have in Jesus Christ, the expected future that we're looking forward to. You know, when we talk about, or when people in general talk about death, death is not necessarily a fun topic, and I'll be frank, I don't like thinking about death, talking about death, because I'm a little bit of a scaredy cat, because I think about, like, how am I going to go? And I'm like, I hope it's an easy way to go, and not a lot of suffering way to go, because death is, even though, even though we have eternal life, right? Believers have eternal life. It is given to us. It's not a comfortable thing to talk about, because death has something of a finality, right? Something's dead, life has ceased, it's all over. Now, it's not all over for the Christian, right? We're all clear on that, right? It's not all over for the Christian. Death is a gateway, it's a door into everlasting life, but especially when we talk to those around us, or we interact with a world that is apart from Christ, death is pretty much like, it's the end of the line, right? And it is avoided almost at all cost.
[3:23] You know, when you, there's all kinds of things we hear people talk about, you know, ways that they try to cope with the idea of death, or the thought of dying. You know, you might watch a TV show or a movie, and it portrays a funeral, and you'll hear all these nice flowery words about, like, you know, this person, they'll always be in our hearts, and they're, you know, they're always with us, right? And there's like, there's a religious way of framing that, where it's like, oh, this person became an angel, right? And now they're the star up in the sky, and, you know, their spirit's always with us, and all these different things that are not founded on God's truth, but they're ways people are trying to cope with the reality of death. There's even ways people cope with death by, you know, like, ignoring it, and it's kind of like, you know, the, what is it, the YOLO, you only live once. Like, I'm just going to push that off as long as I can, and I'm going to get everything I can out of life, right? And I'm just going to go for it and give it all I have, because you know what? You only live once. Sometimes, it's even dressed up in evolutionary terms. Like, you know, it's just, death is just a natural part of the universe.
[4:35] It's just the cycle. Things live, and then they die, and then new things come, and that's how evolution happens. There's an evolutionary way of talking about it that is, again, also not founded in truth. There's attempts to even overcome death, where people, you hear about these things where people are investing in research into human longevity, right? How can we medically extend our lives and to push death a little bit further off? There's even belief that, you know, hey, technology might be the next step in evolution. Maybe we'll upload our brains into the cloud and exist in some simulation somewhere, and there's like a techno eternity, if you will. That's all over science fiction, right? And what is it? It is, there's no hope. That's what every single one of those things are. No hope. So, when we are faced with death, and I say we as in people in the world, mankind, when mankind is faced with death, they are going to try and find ways to cope with it, to dress it up, to make it pretty, so that they can just live life, a hopeless life, with some sense of sanity, for lack of a better word. It's not sanity because it is a weak, it is a false, it is even a
[5:59] God-defying way to approach death. Can I say that again for a second? All of those things that we hear and we see, they might sound flowery and pretty or educated or any of these things, but they're all weak, empty, and sometimes even God-defying ways of approaching death. You know, and some would say that the Christian belief of life after death, of heaven and hell, you know, or eternal life is just a weak coping mechanism, right? It's just lump it in with all the spiritual verbiage around death or someone dying. Christian is just another one of those weak coping mechanisms. And it would be if Jesus didn't rise. It would be if Jesus did not rise from the grave. But here's the thing, this passage points us back to the resurrection and says, listen, since Jesus did rise, and if we believe that He rose, then there's a day that we're looking forward to when He will come in the clouds, He will rapture those who have died in faith, He will raise them, and He will catch us away, those who are alive in faith, living believers, and we will go to be with Him forever.
[7:19] And He says, that is the hope that we are looking forward to. That is our expected future. And don't lose sight of this. That is essentially the thrust of this passage is don't lose sight of it.
[7:31] There's going to be a word we come to in a moment where He says, don't be ignorant, right? Don't ignore this because this is everything. See, as Christians, we follow one who overcame death. Amen. That ought to make you a little bit happy, right? It ought to make me a little bit happy to say, man, the Savior that I follow, He defeated death, and He gives me comfort today in the face of death, and He even goes so far as to call death sleep. That's a pretty fascinating thing that we're going to dive into in just a second as well. You see, the Thessalonians, they had gaps in their faith. In 1 Thessalonians 3.10, we've looked at this verse a number of times, but 3.10, He says, night and day, praying exceedingly that we might see your face and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith. He's saying, we're praying, we're asking God, we're expecting that we'll be able to come to you and help fill in all those gaps in your faith.
[8:30] Because they looked and said, I have friends, I have family members who they were believers and they died. We know Jesus is coming back. Did they miss that? That's the question that they had. And so Paul writes to fill in those gaps, to say, hey, listen, no, no, no. Look at the resurrection, look towards the future, have hope, and be comforted. And so that's what we're going to look at tonight.
[8:56] Let's pray, and then we'll get into our passage of Scripture this evening. Father, we come to you, and Lord, I just want to ask you to help each person that there would be an incredible comfort that would fill each heart here tonight, knowing that the resurrection of Jesus gives us a durable hope for the future as we look forward to the rapture, to the coming of Christ in the air. Lord, you are so good that you've given us your word. You've given us what we need to know to be comforted, to live confidently and boldly in this life. Lord, thank you that you defeated the enemy called death, and thank you that we are in that victory that you won. Praise things in Jesus' name. Amen.
[9:49] If you look with me at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, we're going to begin reading down at verse number 13. We've come out of the passage where he's talking about a quiet, well-ordered life.
[10:01] There were some that were, they had gotten off track, and they had gaps in their faith. They had gaps in what they need to know, and they weren't laboring, even though they should have been. In verse 13, he's going to start filling in another gap. Here we go. But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
[10:20] For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with the Lord in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. Can I encourage you to maybe mark, if you mark in your Bible, you may have already had this marked. Look at that word comfort. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words. That is really what this all centers around. Why does Paul write, why does God inspire him to write to the Thessalonians about the resurrection, about the return of Christ for the church? Because this is something they needed to know for comfort. And this is the first time where we've come to in the book of 1 Thessalonians that a command is given. And when we're studying grammar, it's the imperative, right? The imperative verbs. This is one of those. It's a command saying, you go comfort your brother. You go comfort your sister. You go find somebody to comfort and use this truth to help them. So first of all, we better not be ignorant to what this truth is. Let's begin back there in verse number 13, and we're going to start working through this and filling in our blanks.
[12:04] First off, God gives us hope in our sorrow. God gives us hope in our sorrow. Now, I want to walk carefully through this portion because when we talk about death, even for a Christian, in our humanness, there is sadness, there's sorrow, there's grief. It's not sinful to be sad.
[12:28] Anyone with me? It's not sinful to be sad. But even in our grief and even in our sorrow and even in sadness, God gives us something where there can be hope and encouragement within that same moment, within that same heart that is often overwhelmed with sadness and even sorrow. He writes and he says, listen, sorrow not as others which have no hope. Because what he's going to do is he's going to take us, it's almost like I imagine Paul setting these people down saying, listen, I know that you're sad. I know that you're concerned. But there's some things that I've really got you, I really got to get you to understand. Because if I get you to understand this truth about the resurrection and about the return of Christ, it'll help you. Because there's a way of sorrowing that is hopeless and there's a way of sorrowing that is hopeful, right? And he says, the world, all those things we talked about at the beginning, all of those things are hopeless ways of sorrowing. Now, I don't want to spend too much time on this, but anyone ever went and tried to find one of those cards like at Kroger or you go to the dollar store and it's like, I want to find, you know, the greeting card for sympathy, right? I want to find a sympathy card that I can send to somebody. Just let them know that I love them. I tell you, it takes me probably 25 minutes opening cards and reading this. I'm like, this ain't good. This ain't Christian. This ain't going to help anybody. I open another one. It's like, thoughts and prayer or, you know, sending, what is it? What is it? It's not even thoughts and prayers. It is like sending like almost like good vibes towards you. You know, it's like I'm sending good thoughts your way. I'm like, how's that supposed to help anybody? I'm glad you got good thoughts, but how's that help me?
[14:26] Like I open these things and it's like, this is not real durable, helpful hope. But what Paul says is, listen, I'm going to tell you something that's going to help you. We don't have to despair like those without hope because here's the phrase, here's the sentence that we've got in front of us, because believers have comfort through hope that is founded on truth. I want to say that again as we're writing that out, believers have comfort through hope. Hope is that expectation, that looking forward to what God has promised, and that is founded on truth. That is founded on truth.
[15:05] And so no matter how deep the sorrow, truth begins to spark a little flame of hope in our hearts, right? But the key is not being ignorant. That's your next blank. The key is not being ignorant, because these Christians in Thessalonica, they were ignorant. There were some things they didn't know.
[15:25] And he says, listen, you don't have to stay in this place. You don't have to stay in this place of deep despair and even, what is the word? Despair. There's like sorrow, there's despair, and there's just like the soul-crushing blackness of like all is lost. You know what I'm saying? Right? He says, you're sad, you're separated for your loved ones who's passed on, who's died, who's gone to be with the Lord, but you don't have to be despairing. You don't have to be distraught. Truly, this is a game changer.
[16:00] This is a game changer for the Christian. And when he says what that game changer is, is the bodily resurrection. That is the thing that changes everything. We need to get into that, okay? Here's our next big heading. Our hope is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus. Now, would you look with me at verse number 14?
[16:18] Because this is now, there is way too much here for us to, you know, go into all of the truth that, all the things that the Scripture says around the resurrection of Christ, and particularly about the bodily resurrection. We're going to talk about that in a moment. But our next blank is this. Our hope is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus. Now, before we get to that, we need to clarify a term.
[16:44] Did you notice in verse number 13, he says, I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep. Now, there's a couple times when the word asleep or sleep or sleeping is used. You see there in verse number 14, if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. Who are these people, right? And simply put, those he's referring to as sleeping are Christians who died. They're Christians who died.
[17:20] That's your next blank. Christians who died. We see that in verse number 16, because he says, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. You know, there's other places in Scripture where Jesus even spoke about one who died as sleeping. Do you remember Lazarus, right?
[17:45] Jesus receives word and says, Lazarus is sick. And then Jesus says to his disciples, he's sleeping, and I'm going to wake him from sleep. And then the disciples, they're confused.
[17:56] They're like, wait a minute. If you have somebody who's sick and they're sleeping, that's a good thing, right? If you're sick, you need to rest. That's going to help you get better. Why are you going to wake him up, right? Don't be like an annoying little kid that comes in when you're feeling terrible and like jumps on the bed and wakes you up. He says, but then Jesus looked at them and said, when I talk about sleep, I'm telling you he died. Lazarus was dead. But Jesus looked at that situation and said, he's sleeping, and I'm going to wake him up. That's an incredible thing. What is that?
[18:33] Why sleeping? Why use those phrases? Think about this. Think about the fact that when Jesus talks about raising someone from the dead, he says, it's just like going and waking someone up who sleeps.
[18:51] All right, think about that. What is he saying? It's almost like he's saying, it's not too big a deal. I'm going to go wake them up. Sleep is temporary, right? You go to bed, you fall asleep, and then you wake up in the morning. In my 30 years, I've woken up, slept and woken up, not including naps, some 10,950 times. All right? That's a lot of going to sleep and waking up. Sleep is something that is, it's like a normal part of our lives. Isn't that amazing? And so when he says sleep, he's like, listen, don't forget, this is a temporary thing. This is not the end. They're not gone, right? All is not lost. They're sleeping, and they will be raised. Now, there's a little bit more to this that we need to get into.
[19:44] When it talks about sleeping, there's two things happening. We know that the Scripture tells us that to be absent from the body is to be what? You know this one? Present with the Lord, right? To be absent from the body is present with the Lord. But what happens? The body goes in the ground when a Christian dies, and the Christian, the soul, goes to be with God, to the presence of God. And so what's sleeping? Is it the person who's present with God? No, I think that's not exactly the idea here. It is saying their body is in the ground, right? It's separate from them. But what's going to happen is that they are going to be raised. Now, you know, as I started studying this, we're very familiar with the bodily resurrection of Jesus, right? The fact that when Jesus rose, he wasn't a ghost, he wasn't a spirit, he wasn't, the disciples weren't hallucinating, they weren't having a vision, they weren't having a dream. He literally walked on the ground, and he was touched, touched, and he touched things, and he ate things, and he talked to people like he really was physically, bodily alive. Now, it was with a new body, and this is part of what we find in 1 Corinthians chapter number 15. And I would challenge you to jot that down and maybe work through that chapter. We're not going to have time to go through all of that, but there's an incredible amount of teaching on this bodily resurrection because he says, listen, what's going to happen with believers is that if we believe that Jesus was raised, we too are going to be raised. There is a bodily resurrection for believers to a glorified body because what's going to happen is when we get down to verse number 15, he says, for this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. He says, they're going to rise. They're going to rise, and they're going to rise like Jesus did.
[22:05] They're going to rise bodily. They're going to rise like, I don't, now this is, we're coming up against the limits of my ability to explain this, and there's so much in the scripture that we would need to dig into on this, but how incredible is that? They says, listen, even though you're separated from your loved one who died, you're separated from your friend who died in faith, they will rise.
[22:31] They will rise. And not only that, we will be reunited. The Lord, those who've died in Christ, and those who are alive in Christ, we will all be reunited at the rapture.
[22:48] Why is the bodily, here's your next blank, this is the bodily or physical resurrection. It's such a big deal because it's true of Jesus, because it's true of the believer who's died, and it's just something that is, it honestly, it blows our minds.
[23:08] Now, you might be thinking like, okay, hold on a second, this is a little bit weird. What's that glorified body going to be like? There's a quote I found that I think describes this pretty well. Listen to this. The Bible nowhere teaches that God raises and unites every particle of the believer's body, like all that dust. But what it does teach is that the resurrection body has identity with the body that was buried, just as the seed that is planted and that dies in the ground has identity and continuity with the seed it produces. So the resurrection body will have identity and continuity with the body that was buried. It's kind of like this. Up in Ohio, we, in the winter, we had this thing called winter wheat. And after, in the fall, after they harvested, they would go out and they'd plant winter wheat. And those wheat grains would be in the ground and they would be there like all winter. And they, sometimes you'd get a little bit of green sprouts up before the snow and stuff comes. But oftentimes it's like, there's almost like nothing there.
[24:07] But in the spring, it starts growing. In the spring, it comes up. And in that coming fall, there's a harvest. And you know what you get? You get wheat, right? There's, in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 35 to 44, it talks about that using that same analogy of a seed that dies and goes into the ground and that is, that produces something new. We need to move on to the next thing. Our future is reunion in the air with Jesus. When we get down to verse 15 to 17, this describes this event, this future event that we sometimes give the term, the rapture. Now, this is not to be confused with the second coming. And on the back of your handout, there's a little table that hopefully this helps clarify the difference between these two things. And I heard this from Pastor Kerry Schmidt up in Connecticut. I thought this was so good. The rapture is the Lord coming in the air. The second coming, as described in Revelation, is the Lord coming to the earth. This one is the Lord coming for the church to gather the church. The second coming is the Lord coming with the church. This coming is comfort.
[25:21] It is reunion. It is resurrection. The second coming is judgment. Is there one more on there? I'm working off memory. He comes as a bridegroom. And then on that day, the second coming, he will come as a king.
[25:36] Joy for the believers at the rapture. At the second coming, judgment for the lost. Judgment upon the world. That is this rapture that's talked about. That's your next blank there. The rapture. Let's read that one more time and we'll look at a few of the elements of what's described here. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout. There's this noise.
[26:08] There's three things. What does he say? A shout. He says, the trump of God. Oh no, we forgot the voice of the archangel and the trump of God. And then what's going to happen? That's when the dead in Christ are going to rise. And he says, they're going first. Now, it is kind of funny because as I read this and I study this, it's almost like it's all kind of like boom, just one event of like trumpet, voice, shout, and it's just all taken up, right? Those who are asleep, those who are alive, all taken up together. But he noticed what he says. He says, those dead in Christ, they're going first, right?
[26:48] They're going first. Now, what is that? What's the difference? Who goes first and second? Almost sounds a little bit trivial. Like, you know, can I be first in line for lunch or is someone else going to be first in line? But think about it. What's the point of this? Comfort. Comfort. And what he's saying is, listen, they're going up. God's got them. They're already with him. They're going to be raised and we're all going to be reunited together. God's not forgotten them. They haven't missed out on anything. In fact, they're going first. They're going up and we're going up. And look what he says in verse 17, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. That's the place of that meeting, in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. That's the reunion. Think about those words. When you're discouraged, when you're worried, maybe there's someone even right now that you're missing, those words can give you some comfort.
[27:50] Those words can give you some hope. So shall we ever be with the Lord. Who's the we? That is those who have died in faith, those who are alive in faith at the rapture, and with the Lord himself.
[28:04] That is going to be a wonderful day. Now, finally, we got to get down to our calling. Our calling is to comfort others. Our calling is to comfort others.
[28:19] The responsibility of comfort. That's your next blank. I want to talk about the responsibility of comfort. Let's read verse number 18, and I'll give you a few more things, and we'll close out.
[28:30] It says, wherefore, comfort one another with these words. Again, I want to remind you, this word comfort, this is written as a command to a group of Christians to say, you have a job. You have a job with your brothers and sisters in Christ. You have a job with those around you, and your job is to deliver comfort. Your job is to be a comfort to them. We cannot never underestimate the value and the responsibility of comforting those around us. You might say, well, man, I'm glad there's touchy-feely people out there. They can go comfort all day long, and that might not be you, but it is you.
[29:12] It is you, because we bring this comfort based on what? It's not based on touchy-feely, you know, I just want to give you a hug and hope you have a great day. It is, I want to give you God's truth.
[29:25] I don't want you to be ignorant. I don't want you to ignore and not know and not benefit from what God does tell us about that day. Now, we don't get all the details, and I know there's something, there might be something in here that that's a little frustrating. It's kind of funny.
[29:40] This portion about the rapture, it is one, two, three verses. Three verses. That's not a whole lot that Paul wrote. I would really have preferred if he wrote a book and said, here is the definitive guide to the rapture and the second coming and all things eschatology, but he didn't, right?
[29:58] There's a lot more in Revelation and other places in the Bible that we can benefit from and we can study and we certainly should benefit from, but what he says is, take these words and go comfort them.
[30:09] That's your job. That's my job. Look at the next thing, the source of comfort, the source of comfort. You see where he says in there? Comfort one another with these words. Take these words, carry them, give them, help people with them. Again, this is a durable comfort. I am so thankful that God does not give us something flimsy, touchy-feely, feel good, happy vibes, thoughts, and anything else that, you know, the world throws out to make people feel better. He says, I'm going to give you something that is durable. These words, this truth, that will help you and that will bring comfort to your heart. Now, we got two more things. The third thing is the heart of comfort, the heart of comfort. Now, we can take this passage and we could go away from this time tonight studying the word and you could walk into a funeral and say, everybody, stop crying. Stop being sad. I got some words for you. You know what? We don't need to worry about this because it's all going to be good and we have hope and we have truth and we have all of these things. Does that, is that the heart of comfort? Is the heart, is that the heart that delivers comfort? Because there can even be a way that we can, we can take God's truth and we can kind of use it to like, pull yourself together, brother, sister.
[31:39] Think of, think back with me to the account of Lazarus and I think this is so instructive, right? Jesus, he was full of grace and truth. When Jesus was dealing with people who were a little bit ignorant of what was going to happen, that's Mary and Martha and his disciples and the, the Jews that were around at that time. Remember, so Jesus, he shows up late after Lazarus has died and Mary and Martha, I mean, they are distraught and they're coming out to Jesus and they come to him and say, listen, if you had been here, my brother would have, would not have died. And the way that Jesus responds is so instructive. He, he does remind them. He does remind them and say, listen, if, if you believe, like, we'll be okay here, right? He will rise. Now they still had some misunderstanding about like what's going to happen because they did believe in a future bodily resurrection, but Jesus was talking about like, Lazarus is going to come out of that grave here very soon. He comes to them and he says, listen, let me remind you, you can trust me. Let me remind you, he's asleep and I'm going to wake him up. Mary comes to him. Now this is, I don't know if there's much here. I think this would, would take a bit more study. It seems like when Jesus talks to Martha, he's like a little more down to business of like, listen, trust me, believe the truth. It's going to happen. He's going to, Lazarus is going to be okay. When it comes to Mary, it's amazing that Mary comes out to him and Mary, it almost seems like Martha was kind of like the get to work, you know, let's, let's take care of business.
[33:20] Mary was the one, you remember she was, she sat at the feet of Jesus and she's more like, just like, Jesus, I want to be with you and I want to hear your words and I just love you. When he comes to Mary and he sees Mary and Mary's saying the same thing, he's dead. Though that famous short verse in the Bible, it's right in the middle of this account. What are those two words? Jesus wept. Jesus wept. He, and did he not weep with those who weep? Like we find later in the New Testament, he wept with one who was weeping and he showed emotion and even a little bit of sorrow and a little bit of brokenness for the heartache that those two sisters felt. I mean, he could have gone, like said, Mary, quit your crying, get your act together, we're gonna be fine. But he shows emotion. There's a heart of comfort. There's a heart of compassion. It's almost like when, when we take and we carry these words to people, and we must carry these words, right? Because no amount of other words, man-made words is going to help. But when we carry these words, there is a heart of comfort that carries those words and speaks them with love and feels the pain of those who are involved, those who are hurting. Finally, we come to one that we can never forget, and that's the person of comfort. That's the Holy Spirit, the person of comfort. It's amazing that even in this, look what God is doing. For the believer who is struggling and hurting and sorrowful and sad, what does God give them? God gives them his word to help them. God gives them other believers who have been given a calling to comfort, and he gives us the Holy Spirit that is the comforter. God is giving us everything we need to be okay in the face of death. That the world looks at and says, it's the end, it's despair, it's all over. He says, no, no, no, you can have hope. You don't have to sorrow hopelessly, because I've given you everything you need to have comfort. That's pretty incredible, is it not?
[35:36] He gives us the person of comfort. So, first off, what do we need to do with all of this? Well, I think the one is obvious. Is there somebody in your life that you need to step into their life and give comfort? Be the one that would deliver comfort. Is there somebody? Think about that. It's not always easy. I mean, come on. Knowing what to say at a funeral, that is one of, like, my worst nightmares of, like, standing in front of somebody who's grieving and hurting, and it's like, what in the world am I going to say? It's hard to step into that moment, right, to be there with somebody and to care and to give comfort, but that is what we are called to do as believers. I think there's an element of this where we got to ask ourselves, are we ignorant to the future of what God has told us about in His Word, right? This is also kind of a call to, like, know your Bible, right?
[36:31] Know the Scripture. Don't be ignorant. We got to get clear on what the Scripture tells us about what's coming down the road, because what's coming down the road is going to help us today in how we live and walk through life. So don't be ignorant of it. There might be some gaps in your understanding of the things to come, or of the rapture, or of how it applies to our lives, or even of the bodily resurrection, of all these things. You can get in there and study those things. Don't be ignorant towards them. And finally, we got to say, are you ready for death?
[37:05] Are you ready for death? It is appointed unto men once to die. That is the reality of a world of sin.
[37:18] We've sinned. The wages of sin is death. And you need to be ready. And the only way you can be ready is by believing in Jesus. And if you've not done that, you need to do that. Because He died for your sins. He was buried. He rose again. And He will save you if you'll simply come to Him in faith and believe in Him and what He did for you. And you can be ready to face that day. You can be ready for that end of this physical life and ready to step into eternity. There are many people in here that would be more than happy to answer your questions and to talk with you and to help you know for sure that you're saved, that you have eternal life, and that you're ready for that day. Would you bow with me?
[38:08] Father, we come to you this evening. God, I thank you for your word. I thank you that you give us what is needed to be comforted, to be helped, to be strengthened. And God, I ask you to work in our hearts in these matters, that we would not be ignorant to the truth, that we would be ready to comfort one another with the words, because inevitably, inevitably, we're going to need comfort. We need to know your truth and allow your truth to fire up hope in our hearts. God, I pray if there's one who's not saved, that they would believe in you tonight. They would trust in you as their Savior. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.