What can you say at the funeral of an unbeliever? They aren’t in a better place. Their suffering isn’t over. I don’t think that we want to go out of our way to be cruel, but what good does it do to lie? These are touchy subjects so it’s best to be careful and go with God’s Word every step of the way.
There are plenty of details that go along with the Last Day. A skimming of Matthew 24 and 25 will give the reader a great picture of what might happen. There are some well meaning Christians who go into various books of the Bible and cherry pick a vision here or a detail there and try to piece together a picture of the Last Day. The problem with this is that it doesn’t match up to the words of our Lord from Matthew 24 and 25. One of the main themes of Biblical interpretation is to the let the clear passages interpret the unclear – not the other way around.
The piece of Scripture I wanted to focus on for the rest of this blog post is 1 Thessalonians 5:1-3. The Last Day will come like a thief in the night and like labor pains on a pregnant woman.
How will it come like a thief? I think most of us remember this billboard
. Harold Camping meant well when he told everyone who would listen that the world was ending on May 21, 2011. The problem with this prediction was that it didn’t. We’re still here. Harold was wrong because tried to find meaning in the Bible where God hadn’t placed any. If our God says that we won’t know the day or hour when the world will end, I doubt the like of Harold or a group like the Jehovah’s Witnesses (also known for their date setting) will have the information.
What about labor pains? If you’ve never experienced labor pains (I have not) THIS might help give you a picture. The point is that the destruction of the Last Day will come and no one will be able to stop it. I’m told that a woman might love to hit the pause button and catch her breath because enduring another contraction, but she can’t. That’s baby, along with those contractions will continue until the birth is over. One the Last Day arrives, it’s too late.
Want to hear more? Watch this week’s lesson – Funeral from our study, Worship Windows.
Please click HERE for the Bible class slides.
Please click HERE for the other lessons from our series Worship Windows.4