The Resurrection and Christ’s Coming
BUT I wish you, brethren, not to be ignorant with respect to them that are asleep, lest ye sorrow as other men without hope. For if we are persuaded that Jesus died and came to life again, then must God through Jesus bring with him them also that are asleep. For this we declare unto you by a declaration from the Lord: that those of us, which are left alive at the coming of the Lord, will not go before them that are asleep; because the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a commanding voice of an archangel, and a loud-sounding trumpet: and they who have died in the cause of Christ, will first come to life; afterwards we who are left alive shall be caught up together with them in clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore encourage each other with these doctrines.—Wakefield's translation of first Thess. iv, 13-17.