Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Okay, so turn to First Thessalonians.
[00:00:04] We're still in chapter four, First Thessalonians. We'm going to be in 4:13 through 5:11 tonight.
[00:00:16] You know, years ago I found this website called raptureready.com raptureready.com don't look it up right now, but you should look it up later. And you know, to tell you the truth, the people that made this website, I don't know who they are, they're probably great and are wanting to serve the church. But it is kind of funny. This website, raptureready.com if you search for their page, you'll find links on the website like Rapture ready news nearing midnight Israel watch information for those left behind.
[00:00:56] There's a, there's a link for the King James Bible. Of course there is. You can even get your Rapture ready wallpaper for your desktop so you can be ready. And if it is too dire for you to think about the end of the world, they do have a link called Humor Break lol.
[00:01:14] So they just have jokes to lighten the mood.
[00:01:18] What is most interesting to me though is this link called the Rapture Index. Here's how it works. It adds up numerous factors, gives them a numeric value and then adds them up and the sum is put on a scale so you know how near we might be to the end times. If the number adds up and it's less than 100, this is just slow prophetic activity.
[00:01:43] If it's between 100 and 130 it's moderate prophetic activity. And between 130 and 160 is heavy prophetic activity.
[00:01:54] Now what happens if it's over 160?
[00:01:58] Fasten your seat belts.
[00:02:00] That's what it's called. Fasten your seatbelts. Get ready. The all time high fun fact was on October 10, 2016 we can maybe make some guesses about what was happening. And it was 189.
[00:02:16] Quite a bit above 160. 189. Now as of Monday we're sitting at 184.
[00:02:24] Fasten your seatbelts.
[00:02:26] Actually, as long as I've known about this website we have been in. Fasten your seatbelts.
[00:02:31] Which doesn't mean that they're wrong. They're not predicting a specific time on the website. They're just saying be ready just to be fair. Now I do have some theological disagreements with the people that do this, but I get where they're coming from. They want to serve the Church. They want us to Be ready. And I think that that's helpful. You know, even in this passage, we'll see. Paul wants the people to be ready, the church to be ready for the coming of the Lord.
[00:02:55] I don't think everything on the website is very helpful. I don't think, you know, listing out different factors like Satanism, Iran, Russia, inflation, crime rate, anti Semitism, earthquakes, the mark of the beast, and on and on and on is necessarily helpful, but that's what they're trying to do. I just don't think we should be alarmists, raising the alarm, every little thing, obsessing over details in the news to try to figure out when things are going to come about.
[00:03:21] Because the coming of the Lord has at many times been abused or misused to raise false alarms or to scaremonger people into faith, even if that's not the intention. Again, I don't think that's the attention of the people that made the website, but I think that is the result sometimes. And I think what we Read here in First Thessalonians 4 and 5 is that such beliefs can. Can hurt the church.
[00:03:48] However you might, you know, however you might view the end times, the day of the Lord, you should not despair those who have died.
[00:03:58] We'll see why Paul talks about that. Specifically, why should we not despair those who have died? Because they're not going to miss out on the coming of the Lord. They're not going to be left in the grave.
[00:04:10] You must also continue in life being a public Christian, being in the community like Paul kind of addressed at the end of the last section in verse 12 or 11 and 12.
[00:04:21] We want to continue to be Christians, not shut up in our cupboards, in our closets, in our houses, awaiting this, this time. We want to be out there being a light to the world.
[00:04:32] And, you know, this seems to be one of the key issues facing this congregation. And if we think about it, it's really not that crazy. Our context is very different from that of the Thessalonians in the first century, but worrying about and debating about the end time, what it'll look like when it'll come, that sort of thing happens all the time. It still affects us even if we don't acknowledge it. This doctrine, these beliefs that we have about what is going to happen, do affect how we live. Hopefully, as we see now, before we unpack it all, I want to be clear.
[00:05:10] You know, I certainly have an opinion about it all. I'm not going to intentionally cover it, but I want us to try to focus the best we can on the main idea.
[00:05:20] Because, you know, whether you or your parents or someone you look up to disagrees, we should remember where this lies in importance.
[00:05:30] Questions about what it'll look like when Christ returns are hard to know specifically from Scripture. And so we shouldn't be too stubborn or dogmatic or prideful about it. We should be humble and avoid such things.
[00:05:46] Our differing views typically don't even affect how our churches relate to one another. And so we should be charitable. So let's not divide them necessarily. Let's be humble, seek humility, even in the midst of something that can be controversial. So I want to challenge myself and you guys to keep our eyes on the main idea.
[00:06:07] There's a couple, you know, main ideas. One is of the letter. The theme of the letter, which we said before, excel still more in faithfulness, for this is God's will.
[00:06:16] We want to be more and more faithful, more and more, because it is God's will. It pleases Christ. That is the purpose of the Christian life, to be faithful and to do it more and more, to grow.
[00:06:31] And while awaiting the day of the Lord, we should be faithful always more and more. Now, the main idea of this specific passage, where we really want to focus throughout the whole thing, is this. There is great hope in the coming of the Lord. There is great hope in the coming of the Lord. So Christians should be ready, be sober, be guarded, and be encouraged. So since there is great hope in the coming of the Lord, Christians should be ready, sober, guarded, and encouraged.
[00:07:06] Let's read the first part of our text. We're going to read 1st Thessalonians 4, 13, 18.
[00:07:14] But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
[00:07:31] For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpets of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
[00:08:08] So point number one. Be encouraged, the dead will rise. Be encouraged, the dead will rise. So again, just on the heels of encouraging the Thessalonians to be public Christians, as I've been saying, living out their faith in the church and in the community, to be lights to the world, he turns then to the coming of the Lord. So they need to be these sorts of Christians until the Lord comes. So that would include us. Now, we can be pretty sure that they're not completely uninformed about what Paul writes to them about the day of the Lord.
[00:08:46] But they've either forgotten what they were taught, or they're just misapplying what has been taught, or they've been taught false things and they've just been confused. So let's set the stage the best we can. We don't know exactly the scenario, we don't know precisely what's being taught, why they believe what they believe, but we can say is this, that the Thessalonians were not thinking properly about death.
[00:09:12] Christians should know how to think about death. Much of the world doesn't know how to think about death. But Christians of all people should be able to think about and talk about death and also the coming of the Lord.
[00:09:24] This doctrine, the doctrine or belief about the day of the Lord, the coming, the return of Christ, it should give us hope and joy. But for the Thessalonians, it was not doing that. It was useless. They were in despair. And this doctrine that was supposed to give them hope and joy was not giving them hope and joy. In fact, they were in more despair, believing that the dead were going to stay dead. They would miss out on the resurrection, they would miss out on Christ coming back because they've died, they've missed it, they didn't live long enough.
[00:10:01] As a side note, this is why theology is important. We all do theology, we all believe things about God, but we want to believe true and right things about God that we learn from His Word.
[00:10:13] And so even in this, what we believe about God and how he's going to return specifically affects how we live. Are we going to be able to handle death or not? Are we going to be in despair? Or are we going to be hopeful when those in Christ pass away knowing what the future of eternity holds?
[00:10:34] So the Thessalonians, they were thinking like non Christians, about death, which is terribly sad. I'm not sure how many of you have been to a funeral, a non believer or non Christian funeral, but they're quite sad. Even when grasping for hope, you can see that it's not there, it's not really there, it's false. And often they don't know where to look for hope. They don't. Even people who did not live Christian lives will want to have their families want to have a funeral in a church, because they are grasping at something to hope for.
[00:11:16] They want to know that there's something more, there's something good out there beyond death.
[00:11:21] But there is no true hope in such funerals. But because of the Gospel and Christ's work on the cross and his resurrection, the deaths of Christians are filled with hope and joy, even in the midst of mourning and sadness. This mixture of worldly sadness and grief and mourning that we should have also is mixed in with an eternal knowledge of hope and joy that awaits those redeemed of Christ.
[00:11:55] We know this, and Paul tries to make this clear with his language. See what word he used? I'm talking about death. Christians dying. He doesn't really use that word, at least not very much. He starts by saying, those who are what? Asleep. He talks about sleep.
[00:12:13] It's interesting because when people sleep, they wake up.
[00:12:18] They wake up.
[00:12:20] Now we're borrowing this, Paul's borrowing this from Jesus and other parts of Scripture. Even in John 11, verses 11 and 13, we read after saying these things, Jesus said to them, our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him now. Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought he meant taking rest and sleep. This is where, maybe where Paul is getting his language. And Jesus later in this passage says that he is the resurrection and the life.
[00:12:53] So paradoxically, anyone who dies in Christ, so dying, having faith in Christ, already actually lives and lives more than we live, because their life is eternal. It is fully realized, it is joyful in Christ.
[00:13:12] So the living person like us knows far more about or far less about life than those who have passed away in Christ.
[00:13:22] So in the same way, the Thessalonians should understand that their loved ones who have died have really just fallen asleep. They will wake up again because the Lord Jesus will call them. He will wake them up. He will gather them together with those who are alive. Their life is and will continue to be eternal. Once again, and this is a Christian belief, I want to be clear. We can't throw this aside and say, well, it's a little fanciful to imagine this Jesus coming from the sky.
[00:13:55] We believe he died and rose again. We believe far more. This is absolutely central and crucial to Christian evangelical belief, the belief that Christ is coming again and raising the dead.
[00:14:10] Paul likens it to the belief in Jesus, death and resurrection, saying, basically, if we refuse to believe that Christ is coming again to raise the dead, then why can we believe that he was raised from the dead in the first place? Our faith would be null and void without believing in the future resurrection of those who have fallen asleep. And so here is the good news for those who die in Christ, they actually just sleep because Jesus actually died.
[00:14:43] His death brings them life.
[00:14:46] He endured the wrath of God on the cross and then endured the throes and descent of of true death, so that through faith in him, you can be delivered through his death.
[00:14:58] Your death is temporary. In Christ, your death is just sleep. And so we don't have to be afraid of death anymore. Just like we're not afraid to go to sleep. We know we will wake up.
[00:15:15] I pray that you all, if you're in Christ, never forget the hope of the coming of Christ and the resurrection of the dead. It is too crucial for us to ignore, to not apply, because there is joy when loved ones fall asleep, and there is joy in our own as well.
[00:15:36] Paul then, after kind of introing this topic, he gives some maybe clues or some descriptors of what this return of Christ or the day of the Lord will be like.
[00:15:50] Though it's far from comprehensive, he's not intending to say this is exactly what it'll look like in every event, perfectly literally. That's not the point of what he's trying to do. But notice first that along with the fact that Christians who believe in Jesus death and resurrection, there's actually another reason to hope in Christ's coming. He says it's the word of the Lord. We see that for this we declare to you by a word from the Lord. Now what does that mean?
[00:16:20] Is this a prophecy or what? I think what he's actually referring to is a teaching of the Lord Jesus during his life.
[00:16:28] And I think this because we have Jesus during his life addressing with very similar language this exact event in Matthew 24. So I'm going to read some verses. It's basically Matthew 24:29 31 and 40:41, if you want to write it down. Matthew 24:29, 40, 41. Jesus speaking says, immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven, the sign of the Son of Man. And then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
[00:17:17] And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
[00:17:27] Then two men will be in the field. One will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill. One will be taken and one left.
[00:17:37] So in keeping with this teaching from Matthew 24, Paul is clarifying and reminding the Thessalonians that the Lord will descend from heaven where he currently is today.
[00:17:49] And when this happens, there will be a shout from the archangel, there will be a trumpet call of God.
[00:17:56] Now, how literal this will be and how exactly it will look, I can't say what exactly it is, but I don't think that, again, is the point that we're getting at. I think what we can tell clearly at this point is that it's going to be obvious and sudden.
[00:18:14] Obvious and sudden.
[00:18:18] Those who are asleep will be awoken. They will come back.
[00:18:24] They will not be forgotten by Jesus.
[00:18:29] He will remember them all.
[00:18:32] That is the hope we have in him at his second coming for the fallen ones, the dead ones, the asleep ones in Christ Jesus.
[00:18:41] And then we see also that those who are alive will be what, Caught up together with them.
[00:18:49] Caught up together with them. Now, this phrase is actually where we get the term rapture.
[00:18:54] That's at least where it's derived from primarily. Now, regardless of what we think of the word, whether we need it or not, we believe that we'll be caught up in the sky again. That's the main point. We will all be called to meet the Lord Jesus, the living and the dead, in Christ as he returns to judge the world and renew the earth. Now, I don't necessarily think we're being taken out and then a bunch of stuff happens and then people come back. It seems to me that Matthew 24 seems to suggest that the coming of the Son of Man would happen at the end of this great tribulation, this time of persecution, that indeed, the Thessalonians would have known all too well as they're enduring the fires of intense persecution. And today, Christians all over the world still, still are being persecuted. And even in our own world, we experience afflictions and difficulties as Christians. At the end of this all, Christ comes again to redeem us completely, to sanctify us, to bring all of that to an end.
[00:20:03] That is encouraging news and so encourage one another with these words, with the reality and the truth that Christ is coming again to take us out to redeem and renew the earth, to judge the living and the dead.
[00:20:20] So I think we should actually think more about this day. We should think more about this belief. We should think more about this doctrine than we do, because it is our great hope in a world of trouble.
[00:20:36] What greater hope do we have than knowing that he is coming again to fix it all?
[00:20:42] That is actually why there are a lot of hymns and Christian songs about the coming of the Lord. Maybe you recognize some of these. One says, lo, he comes with clouds descending once for favored sinners slain. Thousand thousand saints attending Swell the triumph of his train. Alleluia. God appears on earth to reign.
[00:21:07] You may not recognize that one, but you'll recognize this one. Joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her king. Yeah, that's about Christ coming again.
[00:21:20] So be encouraged, because the dead will rise.
[00:21:25] Point number two. Be encouraged. The living are ready.
[00:21:30] The living are ready. Now we're going to read the next part of our passage first. Thessalonians 5:1, 11 now, concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you, for you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying there's peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
[00:22:04] But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief, for you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober, for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet. The hope of salvation for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might live with him.
[00:22:48] Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing so, be encouraged. The living are ready. Now, when I say the living are ready, I want to clarify. Those who have been made alive in Christ through faith, they are ready. Merely having a pulse and steady breathing does not make you ready for the day of the Lord.
[00:23:13] Now, I talked about the day of the Lord. We know it's about the coming of Jesus, but let's think a little deeply about it so we understand this term. The day of the Lord comes from the Old Testament, is used frequently, and there it referred to a future day when God would punish the wicked and vindicate his people, punish the wicked, vindicate or save his people, salvation for his people through the judgment of the wicked. That's what would happen. And so Christians quickly took this Old Testament term and appropriately began to apply it to the day that Christ would return, as he taught multiple times that he would be coming again.
[00:23:55] And they applied it to this because in that day, too, when Christ returns, the same thing would happen.
[00:24:02] God will judge the living and the dead. He'll save his people through the judgment of the wicked. The wicked will go on to eternal punishment, and those found righteous by Christ's work. His work, not yours, will be saved. So this climactic day is actually exactly what Christians hope for. Our hope is in this day, we long for that day when all wrongs are finally made right, when pain ceases, when joy abounds. That's what we await at the day.
[00:24:36] But it will be a terrible day for anyone who's not trusted in Christ.
[00:24:43] And the missionaries led by Paul make that very clear that the day will come. Like a thief in the night in college one night, I woke up to my roommate Sam rushing into my room, waking me up, saying, austin, Austin. Someone broke in, middle of the night. So I jumped up, grabbed my bedside pistol, and I secured the area. There was nobody there. There was nobody there. I found nobody. But somebody had broken in in the middle of the night. And it quite startled us when the thief walked in.
[00:25:25] Basically, here's how it was. In my college house, I had four roommates. We had a couple other people staying over that night. Basically, there's a big couch in the room. You'd walk in the front door, you know, the living room and the kitchen is all one big room with four bedrooms in the corners. And you can see the back doors. It's not very big. If you're in the middle, you can see everything. I had a friend sleeping on the couch in the middle. When the thief walked in the back, my friend sleeping there woke up, but he froze.
[00:25:56] Froze. He didn't know what to do, which I should say is not an uncommon response. He had nothing to protect himself or others. He didn't know what the intruder was doing, what his intentions were, what he had. So we should have sympathy for my friend. But fortunately, Sam was actually sleeping in the loft that night, overlooking it all. And Sam shined his light down and shouted. He said, hey, hey. He didn't know what to do either, but he shouted and it startled the intruder and he ran away. And that's when Sam ran into my Room to wake me up. Now, our intruder did not steal anything. He didn't actually get to be in the house all that long. But to wake up to a thief or any sort of intruder, home invader in the middle of the night is scary. It's shocking. It's sudden, unexpected.
[00:26:44] This sort of feeling that you maybe can't imagine, maybe you've experienced it. This is what the day of the Lord will feel like to non believers. It is sudden, unexpected in the night.
[00:26:56] Not ready, not prepared, frozen in place.
[00:27:02] If you don't think he will return, then it would make sense then why you would be surprised, you would not be prepared. My friend on the couch went to sleep that night thinking there's peace and security in this house.
[00:27:15] Well, not when someone forgets to lock the back door. He was wrong. And so I came in.
[00:27:23] That's the main difference between the two groups of people that Paul is contrasting in this passage. Children of the light and children of the night. The children of the night or darkness, they're not ready. They will be caught off guard by Jesus, return. No matter what they do, they will not be ready. They might be sleeping, which could mean that they're just not paying attention. They're apathetic, they don't care, so they live life how they please.
[00:27:52] Maybe they are. They are drunk, which I think could mean they're not thinking rightly.
[00:27:57] They are engaged in sinful practices like. Like drunkenness, even.
[00:28:02] A child of the darkness might be obvious. But sometimes people are children of the darkness that may not. We may not expect. A child of the darkness probably doesn't act like a Christian when he is outside of church with certain groups. So he could be someone that comes to church but really doesn't take away that apparent faith to the world. A child of darkness probably doesn't care to read her Bible or pray on her own.
[00:28:31] A child of the darkness might think that he can be a Christian without a church. He's okay. You don't want other people to slow him down. He's fine.
[00:28:40] See, a child of darkness can look a lot of different ways. Sometimes very obvious. Sometimes it's sinister and something hides within us. Are you a child of the darkness?
[00:28:52] Or are you living like one when you aren't?
[00:28:56] We ought not live that way. Paul and the missionaries are writing to. To whom? The Church of Thessalonica. They are writing to a Christian audience, which is why he can say we belong to the day. People of the day don't live in darkness. They don't act like they live in darkness. They don't live that way. They can be ready. They know these, these truths that the Word tells us that Christ is coming again. They are people of the day.
[00:29:28] Now I think similarly in this world there are two types of people and only two. There are lights on people and lights off people.
[00:29:39] When I lived with my friend Grubbs, he would go into any room and every room and he would turn the lights on. Maybe this is you. You just turn all the lights on and you don't really think to turn them off. He was a lights on person.
[00:29:54] I'm a lights off person. I basically had a second occupation of turning the lights off behind grubs. That's what I would do. I would turn all the lights off and I was even content to sit in pretty dark rooms. I'm just a lights off person. Katie, I've married her now. Since then she's much more of a lights on person. She's not as careless as grubs and I do mean that, but she's a lights on person. I'm lights off.
[00:30:19] Maybe we need balance in that way, but Paul's not calling for balance.
[00:30:28] We must all be lights on people in the spiritual sense. We must always be ready, able to see, looking to what we can be doing to be more faithful, to be lights to the world, a dark world. We should be ready, keeping our eyes open, being sober, that is to be clear minded, to be thoughtful.
[00:30:52] That's what it means to be a children of the light.
[00:30:56] Now that first verse of chapter five I want us to pay attention to. I kind of skipped over it.
[00:31:03] He says that they don't need a letter or anything, any writing concerning the times, the seasons. I want to clarify this concerning times and seasons. You have no need to have anything written to you. This doesn't mean that they have all the answers. It doesn't mean that they, they have the keys. If they can just get the key just right, they can figure out precisely when it'll come. Maybe they can find out all 88 reasons why the Lord will come in 1988, which was a book, you know, maybe they have all of the answers like that.
[00:31:37] Well, that's not what he means.
[00:31:42] They know the Lord is near. In fact, we've always known the Lord is near, that his time is soon. This language has been used since the first century and it's still true. He is near. He is coming soon.
[00:31:55] So why waste a lot of time and capital on trying to calculate it out and figure out a day rather than this isn't A verse telling us that we have all the info we need to calculate the timing of his coming. This verse is actually telling us, don't worry about that, but be ready, be faithful now, and be ready. You don't need to know these times and seasons. And I say this because Jesus says the same thing. In Acts 1:7, Jesus said to the disciples, it is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father is fixed by his own authority. So he uses the same phrase to help us know. He's talking about the day of his return. He's telling us about the day of the Lord. It's not for you. You're not going to be able to know times or even seasons that I will be coming. But be ready, be witnesses. He then says to people, through all the ends of of the earth.
[00:32:58] But even though we don't know precisely when he will come, we are expectant and we shouldn't be surprised one day when we hear the trumpet, when we hear the shout of the archangel.
[00:33:10] So, children of the day, if you are in Christ, if you trust in him, what do you do? What do we do as children of the day? Well, Paul tells us, and he quotes from Isaiah 59. This is Isaiah 59, 17, 20. The Lord put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak according to their deeds. So he will repay wrath to his adversaries, repayment to his enemies, to the coastlands. He will render payment. So they shall fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun. For he will come like a rushing stream which the wind of the Lord drives.
[00:33:57] And a Redeemer will come to Zion. To those in Jacob who turn from their transgression, declares the Lord, the day of the Lord is a day when God comes in righteousness to judge, but also to bring salvation from his people.
[00:34:18] Therefore we must prepare for this cosmic battle, which is more of a routing and a slaughtering than a battle, by putting on, as Paul says, a breastplate and a helmet, much like the Lord adorns in Isaiah 59.
[00:34:37] God's breastplate, we'll contrast them, is his righteousness, his perfect holiness and justice, in other words. But you, Christian, should cover your chest with faith and love. That's what Paul says. I think what he's telling us is to put your faith in Christ, love him with all your heart. And if you do this, then God's righteousness is given to you. It is credited to you and guards you from the wrath to come. That's exactly what Christ accomplishes on the cross. His righteousness is credited to your account.
[00:35:14] That is how we are saved, by grace, through faith.
[00:35:18] God's helmet is of salvation. What does Paul tell us to put a helmet on? The hope of salvation. Christ coming again is the hope of salvation. It's not completed until he returns. If you are found in Christ, then this seemingly to terrible scene is actually your salvation. The consummation of his kingdom in which you will live for eternity.
[00:35:45] And we can be confident in this because Paul says for God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation.
[00:35:54] You just need to make sure that you're ready for that day. We want to be ready. I've been trying to stress this, but just one more time. How can we be ready?
[00:36:06] Can we merit up a bunch of things? Can we be as holy as we can? Can we be praying and know the Bible as well as we can? Can we just do every. We gotta come to church and be super involved and do absolutely everything? No, that's not what it says. That's not what the Bible teaches us. Ever. The only way you can be ready is not by being the most holy. The most important way to be ready is to put your trust in the Lord Jesus, trusting in his righteousness, his holiness, and then that being credited to you, you being guarded by the righteous breastplate of God in the face of wrath.
[00:36:40] That's how we be ready.
[00:36:43] So are you a child of the darkness or a child of the day? A child of the night or a child of the light?
[00:36:52] Be ready. So we can be ready by knowing the truth that Jesus will return. We can be sober, as Paul also says, by not being distracted and lured away by sin. We can be guarded by our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, and we can be encouraged. So again, like that first section, Paul ends this section also on the note of encouragement.
[00:37:16] So at first be encouraged that those who are asleep will be woken up. Christ won't forget, but also be encouraged because he is coming again to accomplish salvation. He will come. That's what we know for sure.
[00:37:33] As Mark Howell notes, it's easy to get caught up in debates about signs and seasons.
[00:37:41] However, the true test of whether we get it is not that we gathered all the facts, but ultimately whether or not we get the point. And the point of this passage from beginning to end is that our only hope is Jesus.
[00:37:58] Our only hope is Jesus walk away knowing that there is great hope in the coming of the Lord. So Christians should be ready, sober, guarded and encouraged.
[00:38:12] Let's pray.
[00:38:17] Lord, we pray and ask that you would indeed come. Lord, we long and expect you. But Lord, even while we wait, while you remain on your throne in heaven, oh God, we pray that you would give us the boldness and the ability to proclaim the gospel to those who are far off, that more and more people may be reconciled to you. O God. Lord, help us to do this work as the church, to make disciples of the nations. Lord, help us to see that there is hope in the day of the Lord, that those who have died in Christ will not be forgotten, even if that is us too. If we die in you knowing that we won't be forgotten. Lord, help us to be confident that you are coming and you will come soon. We pray this all in Christ's name. Amen.
