Regarding our loved ones who have fallen asleep in Christ, and whose resting-place in God's acre we had to prepare with bitter grief and sorrow, the Apostle would comfort us, that we do not sorrow as those do who have no hope extending beyond death and the grave. We children of God - thus the Apostle comforts us - know and believe that Jesus died and rose again. Even so God will bring them with Him that have fallen asleep in Jesus; He will bring them up from the grave as He did Jesus. Yes, this is an unfailingly sure promise of the Lord, proclaimed by the Apostle, that all those Christians even who will be living when the Lord will come on the last day, shall not precede those who are resting in their graves. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then those children of God who will then be alive, together with the dead that have been raised, will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus all the children of God, and we also, together with our loved ones who departed in faith, will always be with the Lord. This the Apostle says to us "by the word of the Lord." We comfort ourselves with this. We sorrow indeed when our dear ones depart from us. But we do not sorrow as do those that have no hope. Our loved ones only precede us; we follow after. And with the Lord we shall find them again and have them with us forever.