TRUMPET CALL
Third of three devotions in Come, Jesus Series
1 Thessalonians 4:16: “For the Lord Himself will come down from
heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet
call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
Will we hear a loud command from the
archangel first? Will everyone in the
world see Jesus coming down from Heaven?
Or, will we hear the trumpet call of God first announcing this extraordinary
event?
What will be
first? I think it’ll be the trumpet
call of God, then the archangel’s loud command.
We—who knows what that means—will crane our necks staring into the sky
searching for Jesus coming down from Heaven.
Will we actually
see the dead in Christ rising into Heaven from opened graves?
C.
H. Spurgeon said, “It is a very blessed thing to be on the watch for Christ, it
is a blessing to us now. How it detaches
you from the world! …Untold blessings
are wrapped up in the glorious hope.”
As we learned,
we can be happy waiting and working until Christ returns, but won’t we be pleasantly
surprised when the first thing happens?
“I can’t wait”
is an expression people say when we’re so eager for something—that we think about
it all the time. That’s me. I really do measure things I hear to decide
if it could be the trumpet call, or archangel’s loud command.
But what comes
next will REALLY blow our minds. “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.” This is what
people refer to as the Rapture.
“Rapture” means ecstasy, delight, and pure bliss. And
then “we’ll be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
“But we know
that when He appears, we shall be like Him,” (1 John 3:2b), is REALLY
exciting! 1 Corinthians 15:40 and 42b-43 says, “There
are heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the
heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is
another. …So will it be with the
resurrection of the dead. The body that
is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is
raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a
natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.”
Take Home Nugget
We will be raised—or resurrected, or
changed (if we’re still alive)—with GLORIOUS bodies when Jesus returns. Our spirit will join our new body. 1 Corinthians 15:46 says, “The spiritual did
not come first, but the natural, and after that, the spiritual.”
Come, Jesus, I’m watching and ready.
J.D. Griffith
Written
for http://www.Biblestudyforkids.com
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