Paul is very explicit on the subject. Writing to the Thessalonian Saints, he says: "I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep (the dead), that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." [16] Writing a second time to the same people, evidently to encourage them in the midst of their tribulation, he said: "And to you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power; when he shall come to be glorified, in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was not believed) in that day." [17] Closely allied with these prophecies is the prediction of the writer of the Apocalypse which tells of the binding of Satan for a thousand years and the resurrection of "the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God * * * And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years * * * This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. [18]" The orthodox sects of Christendom have either so spiritualized these prophecies as to explain away their plain meaning, or have put off to so distant a day the Lord's glorious coming that real and active faith in that great event can scarcely be said to exist.