Ready and Prepared

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the Gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now,.

Here's a message from Pastor Chris Rosebrook. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the 24th chapter. Jesus said, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, let the reader understand.

Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let the one who is on the housetop not go down to take what is in his house. Let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight may not be in the winter or on a Sabbath.

For then there will be a great tribulation such as not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short.

Then if anyone says to you, look, here's the Christ, or there he is, do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.

See, I've told you beforehand, so if they say to you, look, he's in the wilderness, do not go out. If they say, look, he's in the inner rooms, do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Brothers and sisters, we are at war. I think you all know that. I'm not talking about war between the United States or any other nation.

I'm talking about the fact that Satan has declared war on us. And you'll note, Satan is a terribly crazy and maniacal, powerful energizer bunny of evil, and his great intent for you is your harm and your eternal demise.

I am not overstating the case. If anything, I may be understating it. And anybody who does not understand that we are at war is, well, they become what the military calls casualties. That's how this goes down.

So I want you to think of it this way. Bad preaching regarding the end of the world always goes something like this. Jesus is going to return in a secret rapture, and you need to make sure that you are prepared so that you are not left behind.

And being prepared means making sure that you don't drink, dance, smoke, or chew, or do anything that would jeopardize your readiness for the rapture. I remember a viral video that came out a long, long time ago before we even had the term viral video.

Some church members decided to play a joke on somebody in their congregation, and they all went out to a fast food restaurant, and everybody was in on it except for this one girl. And what they ended up doing, a terrible thing to do by the way, is that when she got up to use the restroom, everybody had a pair of clothes.

They put it on their seats and all this kind of stuff, and they left the restaurant. And when the girl came out from the restroom, she saw all the clothes there, and she went into a panic thinking that she had been left behind.

Horrible thing to do. Here's a better way to think about it. Y 'all are here because you is saved. Bad grammar intended, right? Y 'all are here because you want to hear the Word of God. You have heard today that your sins are forgiven, and you will be reassured over and again from this pulpit that you are bled for.

All of your sins died for. God's wrath has been propitiated. You have been forgiven and pardoned. God has made you alive in Christ, and He is the one who continues to sanctify you and work through His Word through the Holy Spirit to continue to conform you to the image of God, and you are being assured today of the forgiveness of all of your sins.

That being the case, a good way to think about it is that this then is a military meeting of the soldiers who are fighting for Christ, who are in a pitched battle. That being the case, I would note that in military terms, it's a good idea to have some reconnaissance, to have an idea of what the enemy is up to so that you may be prepared for the battles ahead.

When we consider what Christ reveals in our Gospel text, and we'll add a little bit more context to it, you'll note that Christ is preparing us. But here's the thing. Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

He knows the end from the beginning, and there is nothing that Jesus doesn't know about how things are going to go down as we get closer to His return. That being the case, His intelligence is impeccable, right?

So that we would never be caught off guard. We understand that we are at war, and so a good way to think about it, one of my, you know, I always have a love for studying or hearing stories about the guys who flew the B -17 bombers during World War II, right?

They would be waked up in the middle of the night to get ready for their mission, and they always knew they were going on a mission because the meal they had the night before was always a good one. They were generally given good food, but they were always given a good last meal because many of those guys didn't come back.

And then at O-Dark 30, whatever the time is, they would go into the ready room, and they would open up this big old curtain, and on the wall would be a map showing them what their mission was going to be.

That's what Matthew 24 is. It's a big map showing us what our mission's going to be, but here's the thing. Christ isn't guessing about what Satan's going to do. In fact, the map reveals this, and that is that as we get closer to the return of Christ, as it says in the book of Revelation, Satan himself will be unbound.

Currently, I think we still are. It may have changed five minutes ago. I don't know. Currently, we are in the era where Satan is bound. There is a time when he will be unbound, and the best way to put it is like all hell will break loose.

It's going to be like the Battle of Armageddon. It's the final battle between good and evil, and all of us are in the crosshairs. If you don't understand this, then you are likely to fall to the deceptions that are coming in the last day.

So Christ here in Matthew 24 says, here's the map. Here's Satan's goal. Here's how he's going to do it, and he's preparing us all ahead of time for the battle that's ahead because you are ready, because he hasn't left you behind, because he wants you to know what's coming, because his intent is to bring you safely into his kingdom.

Now, this does not mean that there will not be physical casualties. As we read in the book of Matthew 24, there actually will be casualties. Many of them, just like in any battle. So we all have to be prepared for that.

So backing up into the context, Matthew 24 verse 1, Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to him to point out the buildings of the temple, but he answered, you see all of these, do you not?

Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Christ, decades before the armies of the Roman legions under General Titus showed up in Israel, prophesied that the temple would be destroyed, and it was in 70 AD.

Absolutely was. In fact, many of the stones of that temple lie still to this day in a rubble heap off to one side of the temple mount. Jesus knew what he was talking about. He knows what's coming. So the disciples hearing this are a little like, whoa, whoa, did not expect to hear that.

So as Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, so tell us, when will these things be? What will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age? I would note that the question that the disciples ask takes several topics and squish them all together.

Listen to what he says. When will these things be? The destruction of the temple that Jesus referred to. When will be the destruction of the temple? But watch where their thinking goes. And what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?

Did the age end with the destruction of the temple in 70 AD? No. So you're going to note these guys are thinking the destruction of the temple has to be something like the judgment of God and the end of the world, the end of the age, and the coming of Christ.

And so Jesus doesn't sit there and go, oh man, boys, I've got to send you back to Eschatology 101. He just doesn't do that. So what he does is he does what a lot of the prophets of the Old Testament do.

He gives us what is called a proleptic prophecy. A prophecy where there are parts of the prophecy that will be fulfilled in the near future. And there are parts of the prophecy that will not be fulfilled until way later.

So for instance, you think of Isaiah. He's told to go confront King Ahab, who's preparing for a siege. He's checking the water supply of Jerusalem. And God is basically telling him, listen, don't worry.

I've got your back. Just trust in me. And so Isaiah is told by God to tell him, I'm going to take care of you, so ask for a sign. May the sign be as high as heavens or as low as sheol, whatever you want.

I will give you the sign so that you know that my intention for you is good, that I will rescue you. And Ahab, the boneheaded nincompoop that he is, says, I'm not going to put the Lord God to the test.

Oh, feigning piety. Just nonsense, right? So Isaiah then, by God, is prompted to give a prophecy. And this is the prophecy where he says, God himself will give you a sign. The virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and you shall call his name Immanuel.

Now, did that happen in the lifetime of Ahab? No. Not even close, right? But you'll note then that there's more to the prophecy that's a time prophecy that has to do with the idea that about the time it takes for a woman to conceive, bear a child, and then wean the child, by that amount of time, the people who you are worried about, they won't even be a problem anymore.

But you'll note then that that's not a complete prophecy because in Ahab's time, Jesus didn't show up. So then that part of it then is fulfilled later, much later, centuries later, when Christ is conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

So similar things are going on here in Matthew 24. And the idea then is this, is that yes, there are parts that clearly are dealing with the destruction of the temple in 70 A .D. But I would note there's a group of theologians who call themselves preterists who will sit there and say, Matthew 24 is only referring to 70 A .D. and the whole thing has already been fulfilled.

These are people who basically have theological obsessive compulsive disorder. They don't know how to deal with proleptic prophecies, so it's got to be all of one thing and not the other because in their mind they don't understand how prophecy works.

That's not what's going on here. And Jesus will be talking about the temple, but in so doing, he's going to take the destruction of the temple, which is God's judgment against Israel for their continued breaking of the Mosaic Covenant where God is going to invoke the last clauses from Deuteronomy 28 and bring them to pass upon impenitent Israel.

And that then becomes the template, the type and shadow of what will happen at the end of the world. The themes work together and you can't undo them. They all kind of mingle together. So here's what Christ says.

First thing, see that no one leads you astray. Why? Because Satan is waging war against the church and one of his major weapons is to basically overload your ears with so much nonsense that it's hard to hear the voice of sound doctrine.

And so he says, many will come in my name. He doesn't say some. There'll be a few, a smattering. He says, no, many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ and they will lead many astray. Bless me.

So note here, many will come saying, I am the Christ. Now here's where we've got to recognize something. Is that the way this reads in the Greek, it's not merely people saying, I am Jesus. This is somebody claiming to be a special anointed one.

That's what a Christos is. And I would note, point to the New Apostolic Reformation if you're familiar with what goes on in those particular circles and in those networks. There's a bunch of people running around the landscape and the internet claiming that they have special anointings, which means they are little Christos, right?

They're little Christs. That's what's going on here. I would note that I've heard many a people say that Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, California has an apostolic anointing on his life. And when you hear the word anointing, you need to translate it back into Greek.

They're claiming to be a Christ, right? So many will claim that I am a Christ or I'm the Christ and I will lead many astray. You'll hear of, now this next part, pay attention to this because Christ is going to dismiss this.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not alarmed for this must take place but the end is not yet. So you're not supposed to be looking at the geopolitical world. If China invades Thailand, right?

And we end up going to war against China and against Russia. And World War III breaks out. That's not a sign of Christ's imminent return. It's just not. That's the normal way in which humans have been operating since the fall of humanity.

So you hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not alarmed. This must take place but the end is not yet. Nation will rise against nation. Kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

And then what does he say? All of these are but the beginning of birth pains. And those of you who've had babies, you women who've had babies, you know that labor is an intense experience, right? It is.

There's nothing that anybody can do to prepare you for it, okay? My wife and I, we went to lamaze classes, okay? And I'm convinced that lamaze classes are basically designed to make the husband not look as stupid as he could be when his wife goes into labor.

I think that's the whole point, okay? Because when the real labor kicked in and the contractions kept coming and coming and they got stronger and stronger and stronger and more intense, that nobody could prepare us for what was going on.

All we could do was kind of like hang on and pray that it would end soon. That we would get to the end of all of this. But that's kind of the point. So here's your big metaphor. Jesus is saying that the end of the world is going to be like labor.

It's going to get worse. It's going to get more intense. It's going to get stronger. What's being birthed here, I hate using that word because it's a prophecy bingo, but what's being birthed here is the new earth, right?

And so the humanity, the planet, the creation itself is in these birth pains and it's just going to get stronger and stronger and stronger. But then pay attention to what happens next. This is up on the map.

This is what Satan intends to do. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. It doesn't say some. It says all. You think about when things went bad in Germany when the Nazis took power.

What did the Jews, a lot of the Jews who had a right mind about what was coming, they fled the country. They sought asylum in the United States and other parts of Europe and around the world because they could see what was coming.

But I think Jesus here is basically saying that you're going to be hated by all nations. That kind is prefiguring a time when Christians will be so despised among all of the people on planet earth that there will be no nations for them to seek asylum in.

Are you ready for that? It's on the board. This is what Christ says their strategy is going to be. Because of this, and here's the reason why Satan has this strategy, many will fall away. And I would note there are many Christians today who do not know their Bible.

They don't understand even the basics of eschatology. And worse, they think that Christianity is all about having your best life now. And so when this happens, do you think they're going to stick around?

No. Here's what's going to happen. Jesus says many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. That being the case, you can see what's going to happen is that those who didn't sign up for persecution, they were just looking for Christianity to be like any of the other fertility cults.

They wanted to have more children, more wealth, more power, and basically use God for having their best life now. When persecution comes, they're going to say, I'm not a Christian. I recant being a Christian.

Oh, and by the way, to show you my sincerity about the fact that I'm not a Christian, I know five people who I used to attend a small group Bible study with. Here's their names and addresses. You can go and arrest them.

Does this sound like a safe situation? No. So many will fall away. They will betray one another. They will hate one another. And then here's the next part. And I'm convinced that this is being fulfilled right now.

These are not in linear order up to this point. He's just throwing out a bunch of things. He says many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. There have been false prophets throughout the entire history of Christianity.

They crop up from time to time and notable ones like Joseph Smith or Ellen White or people like this, right? But here's the thing. I look at what's happening right now and I cannot remember when I was growing up as a Nazarene hearing about this many prophets.

Every time I go on to prepare for prophecy, bingo, it's a huge list of so-called prophets who are out there prophesying and giving words of the Lord. And the list gets longer and longer and longer and longer with each month.

And I'm thinking where did these all come from? It's like flies at a picnic, right? So Christ says many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. Check. That's happening now. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

Help me out on this one. I need a little bit of leeway to explain this. You'll note that the world we live in, lawlessness is really the rule of the day, right? And so when you think about the trans agenda and all the weird stuff that's going on where people are rejecting what God has made them and the pushback against anything that is godly or has any morals, you'll note that the increase of lawlessness is really among us.

But I would note the love of many growing cold, the example of the overreaction to the lawlessness would be the, well, the rise of Nazism in our day again. That's the ultimate example of the complete love of many growing cold.

Thinking that the solution to the problems that we're facing with dealing with the woke agenda is to somehow believe that Hitler is a saint and that the Nazis were showing us the way. This is the exact this is exactly how people, their love grows cold and Christ prophesied it.

But Christ then says this, the one who endures to the end will be saved. The one who endures to the end will be saved. How does one endure? I've said it before, I'll say it again. The band Journey was prophetic.

They wrote a song and you should keep this in your head. Don't stop believing. That's how one endures. Regardless of how much the world has gone nuts, you keep humbly believing Christ has bled and died for your sins.

You keep coming to hear that your sins are forgiven. You continue to receive the body and blood of Christ, given and shed for the forgiveness of your sins. And despite your own sin and the insanity of the world, you say Christ is true.

His promises are sure. I continue to believe in him even at the cost of my own life. That's the idea. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations and then the end will come.

The Abomination of Desolation and the Man of Lawlessness

Next part, a little bit of a controversial portion, but I will make no apologies for the fact that I think that the man of lawlessness is a real dude. I know that some Lutheran theologians deny that he's a real dude and other theologians in the Lutheran church believe he's a real dude.

I'm with those guys. When you see the abomination of desolation spoken by the prophet Daniel standing in the holy place, watch the parenthetical statement. Let the reader understand. So, Paul says in 2 Thessalonians that the end will not come until the man of lawlessness is revealed.

The one who exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, proclaiming himself to be God in the temple of God. That's what 2 Thessalonians says. So there's a time coming when somebody so empowered by Satan practically sounds exactly like Satan.

Remember when Jesus was being tempted by Satan in the wilderness, the final temptation, Satan said, I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth if you will bow down and worship me. Satan wants to be God.

And so his final emissary, his final manifestation in human flesh, if you would, is the abomination of desolation. Daniel writes about him, Christ is telling us about him, Paul warns us about him, and you get glimpses of him in the book of Revelation.

So when you see him standing in the holy place, this is not talking about a third temple being rebuilt in Jerusalem. I would note that if they do succeed in building another temple in Jerusalem, that thing would be an abomination.

And the reason why is simple. Because the Old Testament temple was a type and shadow pointing us to Christ. All of the sacrifices that took place in the temple were pointing to the once for all sacrifice in Christ.

To go back to the types and shadows is not a good thing, and whatever they set up as their holy of holies would be the opposite of it. So seeing the abomination of desolation standing in a Jewish temple makes no sense.

None whatsoever. What is being referred to here, then, is this man of lawlessness arising within the visible church proclaiming himself to be God. And I would note, TBN, God TV, and other so-called Christian television stations are well prepared to embrace him and think that this is Jesus in the flesh when it's not.

And too many Christians don't know their Bible and are going to fall for it. So when we see this, here's where there's parts of this that deal with 70 AD and parts that deal with what's coming. Let the one who is in the housetop not go down and take what's in his house.

Let the one who is in the field not turn back to take his cloak. And alas for women who are pregnant and for those who are nursing infants in those days, pray that your flight may not be in the winter on a Sabbath.

So here Christ is saying, when you see this happening, run away. It's the strategy from Monty Python, the Holy Grail. When you see the fierce bunny rabbit, you run away. That's what you do. You run and you hide.

And I would note that when the armies of Titus showed up in Israel and they were heading towards Jerusalem, Christians at that time, remembering the words of Christ, got out of Jerusalem. They were not there for the siege.

They had scattered and dispersed, and as a result of that, they did not die. They lived through it. Similar then, when things get this bad, if you have the ability, run. If you want to be here when Jesus shows up on the last day, your best chance of doing that is to disappear.

That's the point that's being made here. Now, I'm getting close to 60, so I don't see the point of disappearing. So when they arrest me, I'll go, oh no, don't kill me. You'll send me to Jesus. That sounds terrible.

But you get the idea. That's how bad this is going to be. So he goes on. Then there will be great tribulation, such as not been from the beginning of the world until now, no and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved.

What Christ is saying here is that this period of time, Satan's little season after he's unbound and all hell breaks loose, Christ himself is going to have to say, this can only go this far. Because if it were allowed to run its course, it would result in the suicide of humanity.

A good way to think about it is that Jim Jones, remember Jim Jones? Some of you don't remember him. You have to have read about him. I remember watching stories on the news and seeing the helicopter fly over that compound in Guyana, right?

Jim Jones was an antichrist. He was a type of antichrist. And what happened to him and what happened to his followers? They all unalived themselves. Satan, Christ says in John 8, was a murderer from the beginning, which means the whole point of what took place in the Garden of Eden, it was a murder plot.

Satan himself wanted to murder humanity, made in the image of God, and wanted God to be the murder weapon. It's just that simple. God said, the day you eat of it, you'll surely die. Satan said, cool, I know how to kill him.

And God's going to be the one that does it. That's what Christ reveals when he says that Satan was a murderer from the beginning. So the days that are coming, Christ is going to cut them short, because if he didn't, there would be no humans left.

But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short, which means there will be some of Christ's elect on the last day when Jesus returns. Then if anyone says to you, look, behold, the Christ, the anointed one, or there he is, do not believe it.

For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Now, this then shows a slight turn in an intensity of things. Right now, there are false Christs and there are false prophets running around, but the signs and wonders they perform are stupid.

They are just dumb, like Todd White lengthening legs. People claiming healing for invisible diseases that nobody can verify. I always point out that the miracles today being performed by the so-called prophets is the equivalent of this.

Ooh, look, I can pull my hand out. Isn't that neat? Ah, it's a miracle. But here's the thing. There's a day coming when they will be able to perform real miracles, and just this past week, I found a group of NAR guys talking about what they intend to do on the day of Pentecost, 2033.

Work with me here. Now, they could be just delusional, but I do think it's interesting. What their intention to do, 2033, the day of Pentecost, will be the 2 ,000 year anniversary of the day of Pentecost.

And so, their intention on the day of Pentecost is to call down fire from heaven as a sign to the world of the truth of Christianity. When I read that, my jaw hit the floor because the book of Revelation says that these false prophets would be able to call down fire from heaven.

Now, I'm not saying that's going to happen on Pentecost 2033. The text says, though, that that will happen at some point. So that's on the board. It's part of the strategy. You know it ahead of time. And watch what Christ says.

"...if possible, even the elect.". And then Jesus says these things. See, I've told you beforehand. You know what's coming. So when they start doing these undeniable miracles, I can tell you how this is going to go down if I'm alive for when it happens.

Because I have no clue when this is going to happen. I don't know what the timeline is. The Holy Trinity has not told me. And I always just work in marketing and the management never clues me in on times and dates and stuff like that.

But I can tell you how this is going to go down if I'm alive. These guys are going to pull down fire from heaven. It'll be undeniable miracle. Michael Brown will come to their defense and say, see, this is true.

You can't deny that this is God. I'm going to go on YouTube and say Jesus said that this was going to happen. He warned us beforehand. And therefore, you should not be listening to these people because they are deceivers sent by Satan to deceive the elect if possible.

And then I will be branded once again as a hypercritic. And as somebody who's dividing the body of Christ in nonsense like this. And if it's not me, it'll be somebody else. You get the point, right? Christ says, if they say he's in the wilderness, don't believe it.

If they say he's in the inner room, don't go. The point here is this. Is that when the man of lawlessness shows up claiming to be God, it's not going to fit. It's not going to match. Somebody's going to get on Christian television and say, we're going to see Jesus and he's in the Nigerian wilderness and he's set up some tents and we're all going to see him and he's going to come out and reveal a word to us.

And you sit there and go, that's not how Jesus comes back. That doesn't even sound right. Well, we've got news for you. Jesus is in the green room at Saddleback Church and he's going to make an appearance for five minutes and come out and talk to everybody.

That's not how this works. Jesus says, as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the son of man. If you have to ask yourself, is that Jesus? Because it doesn't seem to make sense that that would be Jesus.

If you have to ask that, it isn't. Nobody's going to sit there scratching their heads going, is that Jesus coming back now? Everybody's going to know. So as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the son of man.

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures gather. You see a bunch of vultures circling overhead. You know there's a corpse, right? That's the point. And then he continues. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.

So there's a day coming in this time period where you wake up on a Thursday morning. I always think it's a Thursday, right? You wake up on a Thursday morning and you go outside. It's nine o 'clock in the morning and it's summer.

You'll go outside and you go, where's the sun? Why is it still night? And you look up and there's no stars. What's going on? Answer? Christ is now on his way. He'll be here in five minutes. That's the point.

When I was growing up, my mom would sometimes have to stop by the grocery store and have to pick up a few things. And every single time she'd say, I'm just going to be a few minutes. She never was. And my mother would always show up at a time in an hour we didn't expect her.

Similar idea here. So in those days, the sun will be dark and the moon will not give its light. The stars will fall from the heaven. The powers of the heavens will be shaken. By the way, when this happens, all of the planet Earth, every media outlet, all the YouTube channels are going to go berserk.

But when they are all freaking out, we're going to go, yes. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the son of man. And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

He will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call. Note, not a secret rapture. Loud trumpet call. They will gather his elect from the four winds from one end of the heaven to the other. Thessalonians, our epistle text in 1 Thessalonians 4 says it this way.

We don't want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. You'll note that we all lose people along the way. Christ continues to tarry.

We all go by the way of everybody before us. We all eventually die. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, we will not precede those who have fallen asleep.

The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God and the dead, and Christ will rise first. And this is what we're supposed to get to.

And here's the thing. If you don't make it there physically because you die, you get sick or something like that, and your body expires, don't worry. It says Christ is going to bring you back with him.

And if you make it to the very end, because there will be some who do, then rejoice, because you know that's the goal. The one who endures to the end will be saved. And you endure to the end, all the way to the end of your life, and Christ will bring you back.

Or you endure until the very end of the world, and Christ will raise you after he first raises those who have died in Christ first. And so then, here's what it says. The Lord himself will descend with a cry, with the trumpet of God, the dead and Christ will rise, and then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord, therefore encourage one another.

And here's where we recognize something. At the end of every military mission, there is truly an end of the operation. When the planes land, the troops come home, or something to that effect, and the operation is finished.

And always and again, military men encourage each other by saying, I'll see you on the other side. Or those who have faith, they'll say something like this before they go into the operation. Godspeed.