1 Thessalonians 4:9-14 (Part B)

God does not take pleasure in us fretting. Psalms are loaded with songs that we are to sing about in times of fear. How many times does Jesus say, fear not? And then He says it so tenderly, fear not little flock, it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Who would walk away from that? Oh, I hope I'm saved.

If the sun makes you free, boom, baby, you're free. That's it. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Thessalonians.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now, here's Pastor Rick with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio in 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 4. The Bible teaches clearly in the New Testament that when a Christian dies, they go right to be with Jesus. When Jesus said to the thief on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. That's what He meant. And if anybody had cause to go to that place known as purgatory, that would have been that thief, that outlaw on the cross. No, he goes right to Jesus and he doesn't go to Betty by when he gets there. It's one thing for someone to teach something silly.

It's certainly more irritating when you find people who fall for it. You know, what are you doing? Well, I know years ago when my mom is having already gone through a few strokes and would sit out on the porch and one day these Jehovah Witnesses, who were neighbors actually, had become Jehovah's Witnesses. I came home and there they were on the porch with my mother. They don't know how close to death they came. I didn't care that they were women.

You are not going to leave my mom to hell. And so they were very shocked. I can still remember their faces and I am not ashamed. I don't apologize for it.

It wasn't true what they were trying to tell her and you need to go feed your apostasy somewhere else. It's funny how we can remember things so long ago like it was yesterday. The soul does not get tired. It does not get old. As I mentioned, it is eternal and it never sleeps. The body dies. That is what sleeps.

That's what's gone. That's what's sowed in corruption, raised in incorruption. It is corruptible. It cannot even withstand heaven. It is not fit for it. I mean, there are altitudes on earth where you have to have a suit.

I forget the name of it, but the fighter pilots wear it and these things are designed to keep them conscious and alive at high altitudes. And so, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. Now you notice that he's not saying we don't sorrow. We Christians do sorrow.

And that remains a part of life. But it is accompanied by divine hope which is eternal relief. Imagine serving a God who offered no hope. There are Christians who have followed these hokey doctrines who aren't sure if they're saved or not, who teach the Bible, who write books, but their theology has got these bad boys in it that cause them to doubt. And Jesus, he said, is surely you will be with me in paradise. You think he just says that again to the outlaw on the cross?

That's blessed assurance. You can't have an army that's running around spooked, afraid. There's no power in that.

Legalism does this to us. Maybe I didn't earn it. Maybe I didn't do enough right.

Maybe I got something wrong. Jesus didn't die for us to run around like that. He says, do you believe I died for you? Yeah, then enter into the faith that I've made available. Now, in his kindness, he doesn't say, oh, you of little brains. But he does say you of little faith. But he didn't say, you know what? You don't have any faith.

That's it. Where did you doubt? But he still extracted Peter from the sea that was about to engulf him. God does not take pleasure in us fretting. The Psalms are loaded with songs that we are to sing about in times of fear. How many times does Jesus say, fear not? And then he says it so tenderly. Fear not, little flock. It is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Who would walk away from that? Oh, I hope I'm saved.

If the sun makes you free, boom, baby, you're free. That's it. But get a little riled up there because it is disturbing to have these folks teach such things because of, again, bad boy doctrine. Doctrine that gets in there and breaks things and puts graffiti on the joy and the beauty of the gospel that we have. And so Paul wanted them to know that death did not have power, does not have power over us. And it is the last enemy because of we who live. We suffer the sorrow of loved ones lost.

But that's as far as it goes. The unbeliever has to guess. I would not want to base my eternity off of guesswork.

I need something real. And so these Thessalonian Christians feared that the Lord had already come and passed them by. And then they worried about, well, wait a minute, maybe he didn't come, but the ones who died and maybe some were killed in persecution as we covered in chapter 3, they were being persecuted.

Maybe they're going to miss out now. And so Paul's having to tidy all this up. And so he's taking time to talk about death in relation to the Christian and the rapture. And that's how he ends up where he is. He continues in verse 14, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus.

Now they're not sleepwalking. He's talking again about death. Those who have died, they're coming back with him. Now this for if in the Greek, it is not the if of doubt, it is the if of sense.

It is not built on fantasy or fear, but faith. Now we're told by the Greek scholars that there are four conditional if structures in the Greek New Testament. There is the if that is contrary to fact is not so. If I were to say, if I could fly, well, I can't. But that's the if of I can't, the not so if. There is the if of remote. The remote if is remotely so least probable. If I said if pigs could fly, it's not likely what you can throw them out of a window and that's not flying, that's falling.

Next time you clean your windshield, you'll be glad pigs can't fly. But anyway, back to this, there is the if of likely, most probable. If my guess is right, I'm thinking I'm right, but I'm leaving some space for doubt. Then there is the if of since that we have here.

It takes the position of it is so. If I say, well, if I'm human, I'm going to fail. Well, I am human. Since I'm human, it's not the if of doubt. So when he says, for if we believe, he's saying, so you said you're believers. And since we are believers, this is what happens with us. He says, since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, that that right there is Christianity. This is the fact that forms the foundation of our faith. Jesus died for sinners.

That's not the whole story, but that's the point. And he rose again from the dead. On Earth, we saw him.

He got up. Death could not hold him. The details to this are given to us in both Old and New Testament. In fact, it forms our Old and New Testament. 1 Corinthians chapter 15. This is the Christian statement. This is Christianity in a nutshell. It says, moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which you also are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you. Now, that's a different if.

It's conditional. Unless you believed in vain, even the context brings it out. If you stand in Christ, you're fine.

But if you believe for nothing because you didn't plan to believe all the way, then you're going to have issues. He says, for I delivered to you first of all that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. And so there you have the Old Testament, the New Testament, statements of Christ dying and rising again, as he says here in Thessalonians 4, we believe that Jesus died and rose again. You see, Christianity is not a church. Christianity is Christ. Christianity is life. Beyond this one, this one included, it is mechanical zero of God.

It is not something extra or different. It is what is right. Hell is the anomaly. Hell is what went wrong. Hell is something that never should have been.

Satan has no reason that he can give for his rebellion to God that is acceptable and neither does man on earth. Christ is the truth without competitor. There's no equal. You can't say, yeah, well, so is Confucius.

No, he's not. Buddha, nope. Muhammad, certainly not. And on we go down the list. All of them, imposters, all of them, only good for one spin at the life. When that life is over, they're done.

Can't take you any further. Only Christ. Only Christ died for sinners. Only Christ came back to show you it worked. And show me too.

I mean that number. And so where one stands on this truth forms the most important fact about them, about every human being. And here it comes, the protesters. Wait for them. Hear the patter of the itty bitty feet.

What about those who never heard them? It's none of your business. Didn't you just hear them say mind your own business? God will do right. He does it every time.

It's just like kids play for him. He'll take care of that. You worry about you. You heard it now, as Jesus said in John's Gospel. You know, before you heard this, you really had no sin. Now you heard it.

Now it's on you. God always does right. That heart that says that he does not is a heart that is at war with God, and therefore it is soul aside. It is destruction upon soul. Now that word is not in the dictionary, but it should be.

So, you know, like homicide. Well, there's me aside. All right. Anyway, I don't know. You know, at this point in the sermon, a pastor will say, is there anyone here this morning that doesn't have Jesus as Lord? Where do you stand with this, this truth of Christ? I feel most of the time when I step into a pulpit all the time here in this church, most of the time they're all believers. But every now and then, I don't know. I mean, we don't have like some sort of an unbeliever counter, like a Geiger counter.

It starts rattling when you show up. We just preach it and let the Holy Spirit do it. But I would ask if there was someone that was not a believer, where do you stand with this? Do you believe that Christ Jesus died for you? You know you need a Savior. You know you have troubles. You've got issues, spiritually speaking. You're not perfect. Then God is. Why would you expect to stand before a perfect God with your imperfections?

You're going to need help with that. That help is Christ Jesus and no one else. And so don't suppose that any human being is so special or so important that heaven will be cheated if they don't get in. You know, some are so shocked at the idea of hell as though God can't damn a soul or that he won't, which then charges him with being a liar. And the way they dispense this is they simply say, well, the Bible's not God's word. To which we reply, prove it. To which they might reply, prove it. And then we do. Then they either get converted or they don't like us.

That has been my experience and that is my understanding. And so if God damns people to hell, then there are people arrogant enough to then charge God with wrong. Well, he's unloving. He's mean.

He's wrong for doing this. He can't be God. So again, don't suppose God won't do what he said he would do. He does not need us but he wants us.

He can get followers from rocks and mules if he wanted to. And again, the pinnacle of arrogance is that God really is going to benefit from me. You know, the only thing we bring to heaven is sin. Gone, sinners saved by grace. That's what we bring.

But God in his goodness says, I'm going to wash off all the dirty stuff. I'm going to keep the good stuff because I love you. That's why I made you. I made you to be loved by me and to love me back. And the ones that opted out, I'm sorry, they're just things in our nation right now you can't opt out of but I digress. Nero care.

But anyway, back to this. Our God loves us and he truly does care. And what makes heaven so special is that we as sinners don't belong there but we're invited in and we're treated as family and we are there forever. Jesus Christ is not crucified dead Jew. He is risen. He is the living son of God. He is our savior and that's the message we have to give. And I affirm and I hope I preach and I hope you can say the same thing, that he is God the Son, equal with God.

That is the deity of Christ. I affirm and I preach the Trinity, the Godhead, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit because the Bible teaches this. If it taught anything less, then you would have to charge the Holy Spirit with blasphemy for receiving worship. You would have to charge Jesus with blasphemy for receiving worship.

They do receive worship in scripture because they are worthy. I believe in the immersion of the Holy Spirit. I believe that God wants to take up residence in our hearts. I believe in the inerrancy of scripture even though there are difficult spots and inconsistencies on the surface. When you dig into the context and the facts, you find there are no inconsistencies or errors. I believe in the virgin birth of Christ as a miracle that God has done and I will not restrict him from doing miracles. Science talks about miracles. All creation is a miracle. They just found another planet.

You know I goof on science because I got three of them, two of them really. One is they finally decided that men and women are different. They've got a picture of the brain. Okay, they're different.

I know they don't say it that way, but they do because they want to hold the controls. And so it's not official until they say it's official. And the other one is they found DNA of humans four hundred thousand years old. Sorry. How do you know that?

Is there a date on there? There's no equipment in existence with anything near accuracy like that. And yet it doesn't stop them from saying it. And there are people as well. They said it. That's it. It's true. I told you they lie.

Every so many years they'll find an older skeleton so they can get a new or grant. And this is what they do. Because they get some things right, people tend to believe that they're always right. And it's not the case.

Be very careful. We need Christians who are scientists. We don't need any Christian scientists. We need Christians who are scientists.

And we have them. They're great men and women of God who know better. Anyway, I just wish they would stop sort of playing by the other team's rules and play by God's rules. You know, I don't have to leave certain things open for debate. I can condemn it as wrong because God has already done it. I don't have to say, well, you know, I can say thus saith the Lord and leave it at that. Well, I want to finish this list of doctrines and not all of them, not an exhausted list, but I do affirm and preach the doctrine. Now I love this. Substitutionary atonement.

Well, you know, when you're dealing with a lot of writing, it does help to bake things, boil things down to that lowest common denominator, I guess. But basically that's the cross of Christ. I believe Christ died in my place and made me right with God. I believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not only do I affirm these things, I preach them, not only from a pulpit, but any chance I get to someone who doesn't know better and God will open the door. I believe in the sanctification of the saints. I believe that it is a process.

I believe we are justified, we are sanctified and finally we will be glorified. I know the world does not know this, won't stumble into it, and so I am here to tell them. My mom had a friend. One of her favorite little sayings was, I'm here to tell you. But she never told me the gospel. Well, I'm here to tell you.

Now, no slight on her. But it just came into my mind, you know, funny how things are. But I am here to tell. That's why I'm here, to preach the gospel.

Because without it, it doesn't take long for man to mess it up. Consider Noah. Noah knew God. How long did it take before the Tower of Babel?

They were hard at work at Babel. Well, I believe in a literal devil and a literal hell, a devil who preaches that there is no hell while he is going to be sentenced to it. When the Lord thunders with the voice of an archangel. In Revelation, there are some powerful angels, but my favorite one is the one who snatches hold of the devil, that dragon of old, cuffs him and tosses him into the huskow.

I love that scene. I bet you he's eating a sandwich while he's doing it. So at least I picture him that way. We think of Michael the archangel. Well, listen, there's some other guys up there who are really tough. But anyway, I believe in the imminent return of Jesus Christ, that on any given day, at any given moment, he can say to his church, you're done.

Come here. I also believe that we are supposed to believe these things and we are supposed to be excited about them. And when you lose the excitement over these doctrines and others, you're not where you should be. Regardless of how many times you've studied it, heard it, it should never get old. Breathing never gets old, does it? This is more than breathing.

This is eternal. And so he says here in verse 14, even so God will bring with him. There is the coming of Christ for his church, the rapture.

There is the coming of Christ with his church separated by seven years, the second coming. And those who sleep, he says here also in verse 14, in Jesus. The Bible teaches that there are those that are dead and shall receive their resurrected body. Then there are those believers who have not experienced death, who shall be called to him and receive their spiritual bodies.

First Corinthians chapter 15, it says, now this I say brethren that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery. Now it's not going to be a mystery once he tells them. The mystery is gone. We shall not all sleep, that is die, but we shall be changed in a moment in a twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible.

No more acne, asthma, bad knees, burping. All of this is going to be gone. He continues, and we shall be changed because we need it.

Is anybody? No, I'm good. I'll stay like I am.

Back to the line then, because I want to be upfront. Anyway, he continues for this corruptible, that's this weak body, must put on incorruption. This mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immorality, then shall be brought to pass the saying as it is written, death is swallowed up in victory.

Yeah, man, that's going to happen. The men who taught this have lived through the entire cycle. Paul taught this, and now he's lived through it.

We are teaching it and learning it. We will live through it. And so there are three kinds of death in Scripture. There is physical death, and the day you eat of this tree you shall surely die. And then we come to chapter 5 in Genesis after that whole ordeal with Adam and Eve sinning, and then Cain murdering his brother.

And then we come to the fifth chapter, and after each one it says, and he died, and he died, and he died. Fulfillment of God's word is physical death. But there is also spiritual death, and that is the person that's not right with God alive in this life but spiritually dead. Being born again is a way to overcome that. And then there is the eternal death, and that is the judgment upon those who don't make it to heaven because they don't want to be there. They want what heaven has to offer.

They just don't want the one who offers it. Aaron's rod that budded is an illustration of God's life-giving powers. Imagine taking an axe handle, a nice hickory stick, and putting it in your shed and coming back the next morning, and there it has blooming ripe hickory nuts, which are really hard to get open.

But anyway, and it's just a little nut in there. Well, you can say that about a lot of pulpits. Anyway, Colossians 3, we'll close with this. For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

In other words, take this to the bank. Be assured of these things. Paul wrote that from jail when he himself was not absolutely sure that he would survive this round of imprisonment. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of 1 Thessalonians. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app as well. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of 1 Thessalonians right here on Cross Reference Radio.