Pandemic Preaching - The Lord’s Coming

"For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Therefore encourage one another with these words."

1 Thessalonians 4:15-18

Encouragement

This world will always be marked with broken hearts, broken dreams, disappointments, lost opportunities, sickness, pain, fear, regret, worry, guilt and shame. Yes even a pandemic.

But God's Word will always be about love, inner peace, joy, hope, healing, forgiveness, new beginnings, courage, peace of mind and encouragement.

We can say the same about the leading and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Which is basically that of the Hand of God, Our Father in heaven by His love and the sending of this tangible Love in the person of Jesus Christ -- the very Word of God, in human flesh and blood, sweat and tears. He who lived among us, lived like one of us, went through the same things we have gone through and was the first to come back home and conquer death and separation from where we came from and where we belong.

He is Coming Back

Jesus will come back a second time. Those who went on ahead of us (those who have fallen asleep) will be with Him.

Then us, who are still alive (awake) at that time will meet Him, not down here on earth but up in the air. Not in our mortal bodies but in our immortal spirits.

At the precise moment we will be instantly changed.

"It will take but a moment, the blink of an eye, at the final shofar.

For the shofar will sound, and the dead will be raised to live forever, and we too will be changed."
1 Corinthians 15:52

"God ascends among shouts of joy, the LORD, with the sound of trumpets." (a ram's horn, a shofar).  Psalm 47:5

The sacrificial Lamb, the Lord is our ram -- our shofar, our joyful sound of victory.

Like when Abraham took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son, Isaac -- the one he saw in a thicket, caught by its horns.

God sent His own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to take our place of punishment and restitution, for us to receive back eternal life and eternal fellowship with Our Creator, Our heavenly Father -- that which was taken from us through the fall of the first man, Adam, son of God and regained by the Ultimate Adam, Jesus of Nazareth.

Indeed something to shout for joy about, even in the middle of a pandemic and these uncertain times.

Pandemic Preaching Series