"Comfort on another with these words." This world, as it is, is not all that believers have. Our Lord is coming back. He is not finished with this world or with His people. Jesus Christ will return to this world, bodily. He will descend from heaven. Do not worry if we are alive when He comes back. If we are alive then, it will not prevent the return of those who have gone on before us.

The dead in Christ will rise first. Paul refers to these, before verse 16, as "them which are asleep." In PSA 23:4 David said that we "walk through the valley of the shadow of death." Believers do not walk through the valley of death, only the shadow of it. Christ Himself said in JOHN 11:26: "whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." Believers will never die. This is one of those "great and precious promises" given by Christ Jesus to His people. Those who sleep will awake on that day when the Lord descends from heaven with a shout and with the trump of God. Then those that are alive and remain will rise with those that were asleep in Christ to meet the Lord Jesus Christ in the air. After that nothing else much matters, for we have this promise: "and so shall we ever be with the Lord." I do not know all that will happen then, but I do know some things from the scriptures. His people are going to live and reign on the earth with Him. They are going to be perfect like Him; these mortals will put on immortality. Their corruptible bodies will be made incorruptible. This earth, one day, will be totally cleansed and remade, and in it will be righteousness. Jesus will be the light. There will be no darkness. Comfort one another with these words.