The following sermon is by John MacArthur, pastor, author, and Bible teacher with Grace

to You.

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And now unleashing God's truth one verse at a time.

Here's Grace to You, Bible teacher John MacArthur.

The point of this whole chapter is to bring comfort.

That's how it ends.

You see the final little benediction in verse 16 and 17.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father who has loved us and given us

eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strength in your hearts in every

good, work, and word.

The whole idea of talking to us through the text of this passage is to give us comfort.

This is about comforting us.

And that is really Paul's purpose all the way through his two letters to the Thessalonians.

Go back to chapter 4 of 1st Thessalonians for a moment and you will find there that at the end of chapter 4,

where he has talked about the rapture of the church, which is the next event as we've learned on God's timetable,

in anticipation of the fact that the Lord Himself, verse 16, will descend from heaven with a shout,

with the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first,

...