Back in the Future...Where's Waldo? (part 1)

Remember the old “Where’s Waldo?” videos, books and puzzles? For hours you would look at mobs of people and detailed places until your eyes hurt trying to pick out the funny looking dude with the glasses wearing the dorky looking red and white striped shirt and hat. “Where’s Waldo?” was just a game. But one day, when Jesus returns to rapture His church, people are going to be searching for an awful lot of people who are missing!

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 give us the most detailed description of this moment in time. Instantaneously, four events will take place. The first is the return of Christ. Verse 16 tells us that the Lord Himself will descend from heaven. That shouldn’t be surprising. After all, He promised to do this in John 14:1-3 and the angels promised the day that He ascended back into heaven that He would return as well (Acts 1). The wording in chapter 4 of 1 Thessalonians, however, is in an intensive form. It literally could read, “And the Lord Himself and no other will return…” Jesus isn’t going to send an angel for His church nor is He going to send some type of heavenly taxi service. We mean too much to Him. Jesus Christ is going to return Himself for His church.

The verse goes on to say that when the Lord returns, He will do so with a “shout.” This is a verbal shout…a command that comes from Christ. I believe it is a command to the dead bodies of believers. It would be similar to the command that Jesus gave to the dead body of Lazarus in John 11:43-44 when He cried out, “Lazarus, arise!” And what happened next? Lazarus came hopping out of his grave, bound by his no longer needed grave clothes. When Jesus returns for His church, He will give out a verbal command for the bodies of all believers who have died prior to the rapture to arise…and they will.

The return of Christ also involves the voice of the archangel. There is no definite article in the Greek language. It literally reads “an” archangel rather than “the” archangel. Michael is the only archangel named in Scripture (see Jude 9) but that doesn’t mean that there could not be others who hold this position as well. This return will also include the trumpet of God (see 1 Corinthians 15:52). Some see this as a trumpet of warning due to the judgment of the tribulation that will immediately commence. Others see it as a trumpet call for the purpose of assembling all of God’s people. Perhaps it’s both!

I remember as a kid sitting around the dinner table talking as a family about the “end times.” I remember my dad looking at my sister and I and saying, “If Jesus doesn’t come in my lifetime, I believe that He will most definitely come in yours.” How cool is that!

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more
And the morning breaks eternal, bright and fair
When the saints of earth shall gather over on the other shore
When the roll is called up yonder,

I’LL BE THERE!