Harvest of Hope 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

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1 Harvest of Hope 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 The winter wind made spruce trees lean and lisp; A silent snowfall muted marble stones, Each flake like hair as white as willow wisps. Somewhere a raven echoed stifled moans As strangers closed the lid upon that face I first saw as an infant babe in arms. And suddenly the sky was empty space, The earth forsaken but for fields and farms. And yet the flicker of a flame inside Reminded me of long forgotten words: A comfort and a counsel and a guide When sorrow stifles hope and vision s blurred. Believe in Me: the Life of Eden s breath, The grave s First Fruits, and Victor over death. You have to know where my family cemetery is to find it. It is tucked away in the southeast corner of Iowa at the end of a maze of dusty gravel roads that wind past big, red barns and green fields. My grandfather died in 1916 after a sudden, two-week illness. My grandmother watched as porters pushed his casket through the doors of a baggage car. And rattling over steel rails, they brought his body here to these green hills. He left behind a young wife and nine children. Six months later one of those children died. They brought him here, too. My grandmother was a widow for thirty-five years. Then they brought her to this same cemetery. And in a pouring rain, they buried her beside her husband. The aunt who raised me has joined them now. And so have a host of aunts and uncles, each behind their own granite gravestone. Following a casket over a thick carpet of bluegrass to fill another grave can make us feel helpless. But it should not fill us with hopelessness. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. Verse 13 Believers at Thessalonica rejoiced when Paul told them the Savior loves them and laid down His life that they might live. And they were thrilled when he told them Jesus would return one day. Those new Christians really believed the great missionary s message, too. Each new day they rose with the sun with one thought in mind. Today might be that glorious day. But days stretched into weeks and weeks into months. And there was not so much as a hint from heaven about Redeemer s return. Still, those saints were not discouraged. Then some of those new Christians got sick and died. Others were caught up in riots or persecution and were killed.

2 That left those Thessalonian saints with some stark unanswered questions. So Paul paused to tell them the truths they needed to hear. The Purpose The church was never quite so close to Christ as it was when Stephen was stoned by angry Jews. When his battered body was finally cold and still, the mob moved on. And believers buried him....devout men buried Stephen, and made loud lamentation over him. Acts 8:2 When Timothy returned from that Macedonian port city, he told his mentor how heartbroken some of those saints were that beloved believers had died. So at Corinth, Paul set his busy workday aside and wrote words of both command and encouragement to those saints he was forced to leave behind at Thessalonica. But do not get the wrong idea. The apostle did not tell those Christians they were not to grieve when godly friends and family members died. After all, believers grieved after Stephen s death. And such sorrow is more than merely understandable. It is natural and healthy. Paul s real point was that he did not want those Christians to grieve as the pagans who lived all around them did. There is a hopelessness in the grief those who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord feel when someone they love dies. Some unbelievers salve their sorrow with myths and fantasies. They imagine the dead will be reincarnated to live another life. Other unbelievers spin stories about the spirits of the dead wandering the earth. And they seek muttering mystics to communicate with the spirit of a father or a friend. Most pagans understand that the spirit and soul of person is not a flame that is eternally extinguished by death. And they are right. With blood dripping in His eyes and agonized by pain, our Savior gave a dying thief beside Him an eternal promise that gave that man the ability to endure a savage death. He said to him, Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise. Luke 23:43 When the setting sun sagged down toward the hammered steel of the Mediterranean, Roman legionaries pounded on that thief s shins with iron bars until the bones broke. And within in a very few minutes the thief hung, limp and lifeless against the nails. As dusk drew ever nearer, the soldiers took the thief s body down from the cross. Then they threw his lifeless corpse down onto the smoldering flames of the city dump in the Valley of Hinnom. But they could not dispose of that man s spirit. Yes, his body did die. But his soul did not. It was in paradise, just as the Lord Jesus promised him. The Thessalonians grief was intensified by hopelessness. They were distressed by the thought that they would never see departed saints again. Later, Paul wrote a second letter to Christians at Corinth. And in it, he expressed his own eternal hope....we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:8 That is the first installment in the legacy of hope that all of God s children possess. Yes, death does separate saints for a season. But there is no power in all the universe that can make that separation permanent. We who love and live for the Lord Jesus will surely be reunited with believers we knew and loved here on earth. Jesus once told a story about a wealthy but worldly minded man and a godly beggar named

3 Lazarus who begged outside his gate. In that story the beggar died. But that was not the end....the poor man died and was carried away by the angels to Abraham s bosom; Luke 16:22 Once again, that beggar s body was probably thrown down onto the fires of the city dump. But not his soul and spirit. All that made that man conscious, that made him think and feel, was carried by angels to be with all the Old Testament saints. Paul did not want believers at Thessalonica to be tortured by false ideas. He wanted them to know for sure that they would see departed saints again. And it is the same with us. Our Lord does not want our sorrow to sour into hopelessness, either. Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:1-3 The Promise Yes, many pagans do anaesthetize their grief by rightly believing that the spirits of departed loved ones are not snuffed out like a match in the wind when they die. However, there is one important difference in their hope and ours. Our Savior s promise to His people is not merely that their spirits will not die with their bodies. His promise is that their bodies will also live again. God gave us that promise through the prophet Isaiah generations before our Savior was born at Bethlehem. Your dead shall live; together with my dead body they shall arise. Isaiah 26:19 (NKJV) The promise that believers physical bodies will rise always has been based upon the resurrection of our Redeemer. That has not and will not change. Indeed, it cannot change. In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul explained it in detail. Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain. Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. 1 Corinthians 15:12-18 In the gray light of dawn the first day of the week after He was crucified, Christ rose up from His grave. His cold corpse breathed and walked and lived. He thought and felt. He reacted and responded to people around Him, too. He was truly alive, never again to die. But when He appeared to His disciples in the upper room, those men thought He was a spirit. So our Lord repeatedly proved to them that He really had returned to them in both body and spirit. See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. Luke 24:39 In the end, the disciples could not believe Jesus had been bodily resurrected until they saw Him eat some broiled fish. We recall that story to remind ourselves that the bodily resurrection of our Redeemer is a reality. Indeed, Paul wrote that more than five hundred people saw Him at one time.

4 And we cannot stop short of believing in Christ s resurrection yet still be saved. That was Paul s declaration to the Romans....if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; Romans 10:9 And that is not all. Choosing to believe that God s Son rose from among the dead is also the key to conquering debilitating doubts. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. Verse 14 Our Savior s victory over death is His eternal assurance that we will live too. And we will be raised up to be just as He was. Our Lord walked the dusty road to Emmaus with two of His followers. And never for a moment did they think He was anything other than a living, breathing person with a physical body. Our Savior also spoke to people He loved after He arose. Outside His garden grave, He spoke with Mary Magdalene. And when Jesus said her name, she instantly recognized Him as the loving Lord she had followed for months and years. Paul did not write these words to teach Thessalonian believers dry doctrinal truths. He had a more practical motive in mind. Therefore comfort one another with these words. Verse 18 It is mind numbing to see someone we love battered and broken as Stephen was. And it stuns the spirit to watch a dear saint waste away with age and illness. That is why Paul commanded that we are to comfort one another. When saints are so deep in sorrow they cannot see anything else, we are to remind them. Because He lives, we will also live. The Parousia In his first letter to Christians at Corinth, Paul included a promise that shines a light of eternal hope to those who sorrow. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 At the end of the age, our Redeemer will return. And His promise to resurrect all those who trust in Him will be fulfilled. That is not open for debate. His resurrection is proof positive He will raise the living and the dead. Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. 1 Corinthians 15:20 Calling Christ s resurrection the first fruits tells us a great deal. When a farmer s crop was ripe, he would pick the first of his crops that ripened as an offering to God. That offering was not only a way of thanking God for the crop. It was also a statement of faith that the full harvest was to come. The great harvest of souls is what Paul wrote about to Christians at Thessalonica. The New Testament calls it the parousia. 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 not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will

5 descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Verses Believers who have died and were buried will rise up from their graves. Even those who were lost at sea or vaporized by explosions will be raised. Not one believer s body will left behind. An instant later, saints who are still alive when Christ calls will also be caught up to be with the Savior they served. And both those raised up from graves and those still living will be suddenly and eternally changed. That is the harvest. But a third part of the harvest metaphor remains. After the scythes had finished their work, the poor went into the fields to gather any of the crop the harvesters missed. And so it will be at the end of time. The great harvest of souls will take place just as the world is descending into a time of terrible trouble and tribulation. During those years, an evil man called the beast will rule the world. The seas will die. And mountains will shake and melt. It will be a time of trial such as the world has never known. However, at the same time, God will send 144,000 evangelists to share the Gospel with a lost world. So some people will still respond and trust in Jesus. But the cost will be a horrendous death. At the end of those seven years, God will send angels to glean the world of those believers bodies, And they too will be raised....the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other. Matthew 24:30-31 That is the gleaning. And with it, the great harvest of souls will be finished. When Paul wrote of those who will be alive when Jesus comes for His people, he used the word we. That means the great apostle looked for His Lord to return for him during his life time. There is no shame in the fact that he was wrong about that. The Lord Jesus said that, although He is the Son of God, even He did not know the exact day and hour He would return. It is the same with us. We might well see signs that our Redeemer s return is near. But we cannot know when He will return. However, not knowing when our Redeemer will return must not encourage complacency. Quite the contrary, it must motivate us to be forever watchful, alert and ready. Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. Matthew 25:13 (NKJV) That is the message of the coming harvest. We must live as if our Lord will return any moment. For one day, He will.