Robert Louis Stevenson once described a storm that caught a vessel off a rocky coast and threatened to drive it and its passengers to destruction. In the midst of the terror, one daring man, contrary to orders, went to the deck, made his way to the bridge and there saw the steersman, tied tightly with rope to a post right in front of the ships wheel. Holding the wheel unwaveringly, inch by inch he was turning the ship out to sea. The pilot glanced over at his unexpected visitor and smiled. This daring passenger then went below and gave out a call to his fellow passengers: ?I have seen the face of the pilot, and he smiled. All is well.?   

What is it that will bring comfort to you, here, this morning? You saw the memorial services that sought to console the soul of the nation this week, you hear of the debate about whether we as a country should re-define marriage and you feel the country tremble at the unknown consequence of such short sightedness. Let me ask you, can you see the face of the Pilot of your soul, can you see His smile of assurance, do you see His hand set firmly to the wheel, do you see what holds Him in place to complete this task?

I want to talk with you this morning about a kind of comfort that is transcendent, it transcends the terrors of death, it transcends the distractions and seductions of our will as it speaks to us from a place higher than humanity. Read with me the words of Scripture in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-18.

I. There is the Comfort of a Great Promise.   

Look for a moment at verse 15. Paul says that what he is about to say comes as something that Jesus Christ has promised. What does that phrase,  ?by the word of the Lord?, mean? Had the Spirit of God directed Paul uniquely to know this and so he wrote what he did? This is what most hold to be the correct understanding of this verse, and frankly, it is what God has been saying to people again and again for the last 4000 years. The essence of what Paul writes in verse 15 is that God will raise up the dead. Paul is specifically talking about timing of the event, who goes first to be with the Lord, the need to know that none are over looked who are united to Christ by faith. Those are the specifics of what he says, but the essence is that God has designed resurrection to be experienced by every human soul. For those who are saved and in Christ, this is the great promise that is for our comfort. Listen to how it has been phrased over the history of man:

Job 19:25,26... One of the earliest records of human history?  ?And as for me I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth. Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God.?

Abraham had a resurrection faith knowing that if he killed Isaac God would still keep the promise of making Isaac his heir, that's resurrection faith.

Isaiah 26:19 ? ?Your dead will live, their corpses will rise,  you who lie in the dust awake and shout for joy, for your dew is as the dew of the dawn, and the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.?

Danial 12: 2  - ? And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.?

John 5:28 - the apostle John wrote ??an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice and shall come forth...?      

1 John 3:2 ? ?`We know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.?

1 Corinthians 15:51,52 ? ?Behold I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall all be changed.?      

The promise of resurrection is a great promise not only because of the extent of what is being promised but also because of Who it is that promises it. Can you imagine speaking to young mother who has conceived for the first time. She is excited about the pregnancy but as the ninth month draws closer she greatly desires the pregnancy to be over and birth with all its? unknowns to now take place. Now imagine speaking to her unborn child, increasingly aware of itself, of life in the womb, of other life which is it's mother. It too experiences a wonder of life that all too quickly becomes uncomfortable, it gets tight for space, the fluid filled environment is fragile. Life in this way can only go so far. Then, as wonderful as it has been, it must change?and birth then occurs. My brothers and sisters, the promise of resurrection is like that for us. It is the promise of new, eternal life in holiness into the presence of our Father, in the arms of our Savior. There is such great comfort in this promise.

II. There is the Comfort of God's Sovereign Will Initiating, Directing and Completing These Things.            

Initiaing?God sovereignly initiates the resurrection moment for the church, at His timing in His way. Take a moment to look at Matthew 24, especially verses 36-41, they describe the sovereign imitative of God, from the echelons of heaven to the peoples on earth. We can, as Christ already does, trust completely in the Father's timing of the resurrection of the church.      

Directing? 'the Lord Himself will descend from heaven?, this is not something that would be delegated to even an arch angel, the Lord Himself directs it. Look at the three ways this is described: 1. with a shout ; 2. with the voice of the archangel ; 3. with the trumpet of God. Our resurrection comes at the shouted command of Christ. When Jesus speaks things happen! Storms in full gale suddenly quell, demons of great strength whimper, bodies that have been dead for four days surge with life? the world was created! Now Jesus shouts and the order of death is overruled, mortality bows low and is clothed in immortality! The voice of the archangel is perhaps a reference to the summoning of the entire angelic kingdom to act as an attending nurse to this great surgery. The trumpet of God is like the trumpet of God was when it called all the people of Israel to Himself, when they were going to see Him in the thick cloud upon Mount Sinai . It was then that a great trumpet sound, a rams horn, began to be heard by them as they were about to receive the covenant of the being called God's people, a signal of their deliverance (Exodus 19:5-16). The sovereignty of God directs the event of your resurrection in imagery that though foreign to you has been consistent to Him. He directs it to His glory, according to His consistent design and by His sovereign might!  

Completing?at this moment in time there will be two kinds of believers on the face of the earth, the raised and the changed. The latter are those who were alive and have experienced instant transformation from mortal beings to immortal, sinless, humanity (1 Corinthians 15: 52-54). Together then, these two groups are caught up in clouds, the article 'the? is not there in the Greek. Cloud was what God manifested Himself in as He lead Israel in the wilderness, cloud is what God manifested Himself in Exodus 19 as He drew Israel to Himself, cloud is what God spoke from on the Mount of Transfiguration, cloud is what Christ ascended into in Acts 1:9, cloud is used as a symbol for the personal presence of our God. Our God redeems us through the blood of His own Son, our God sanctifies us while we live holy lives in the midst of imperfect natures, our God sends His angels to bring us to Himself in the event of death, He clothes our souls until  the coming of Christ for the church, He resurrects and transforms the entire population of faith in Christ, and then by His own hand He picks us up and holds us to Himself forever more. He completes it! If it were possible at that moment, our head would lean on His breast and we would declare in our spirit to Him?. ? I'm home ?.

Oh Church, comfort one another with these words.

Rev. Spence Laycock pastors at Church of the Open Bible, Ponoka, Alberta, Canada.
www.churchoftheopenbible.ab.ca