Grief and Hope
How should we face the reality of death and the uncertainty of the future?
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1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11
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13But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.
14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.
15For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.
16For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,
17then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.
18Therefore comfort one another with these words.
1But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need that anything be written to you.
2For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord comes like a thief in the night.
3For when they are saying, “Peace and safety,” then sudden destruction will come on them, like birth pains on a pregnant woman. Then they will in no way escape.
4But you, brothers, aren’t in darkness, that the day should overtake you like a thief.
5You are all children of light and children of the day. We don’t belong to the night, nor to darkness,
6so then let’s not sleep, as the rest do, but let’s watch and be sober.
7For those who sleep, sleep in the night; and those who are drunk are drunk in the night.
8But since we belong to the day, let’s be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.
9For God didn’t appoint us to wrath, but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,
10who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him.
11Therefore exhort one another, and build each other up, even as you also do.