Revelation
This weekend I began a message series on Revelation, the most misunderstood and misused book of the Bible. It was not written to just foretell the future, it was written to encourage the Christian. If I am not encouraged in the reading, then I either am reading it wrong, don’t understand who Jesus really is, or I have yet to enter into a saving relationship with a loving savior whose full character is not complete without the picture of Him shown in Revelation. Yes Jesus is compassionate and gentle, He died for our sins, was raised from the dead, teaches us how to live, but He is also Lord and King: “In His right hand He held seven stars; and out of His mouth came a sharp two edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining its strength, and when I saw Him, I feel at His feet as a dead man. And Jesus laid His right hand on me, saying, Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive forevermore and I have the keys of death and hell”! (Revelation 1:16-18)
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Mike, I have always been confused by the Scripture you discussed in this past week’s sermon, “The Rapture”, that is I Thessalonians 4:14, 16-17. The Scripture seems to imply that people who have died are just dead, and will be raised to heaven only at the time of Christ’s return. Yet we all seem to believe, and state, that our deceased loved ones have gone to heaven and wait for us there. Do our souls after death just go into some limbo state? Or do our souls, as believing Christians, immediately go to be with God? What does Scripture tell us versus what we tell ourselves to comfort ourselves in our grief?