Part 6 of “Standing Firm: A Study in 1 Thessalonians”
August 11, 2024
Glynwood Baptist Church, Prattville AL
James Jackson, Pastor
Main Idea: When we know there is only a little time left, it changes how we live our lives.
Eschatology: The study of the end times. The core conviction that history is going somewhere. It has a beginning, middle, and end.
Good morning. Please open your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 5, as we conclude our series in 1 Thessalonians called, “Standing Firm” Next week we are going to begin a new series. Something I don’t think I’ve done before. Rather than focus on a book or a passage, we are going to focus on a character. The series is called Meant for Good and we are going to look at the life of Joseph from the book of Genesis. So I’m excited about that.
Well, school has started again, we are just a few weeks away from what everyone else in the world refers to as fall, or autumn.
However, in the south we refer to it as football season.
There are a lot of questions leading into this season of college football. What will Bama be like without Saban? What will the SEC look like without divisions? What will the playoff look like with twelve teams? But even with all the questions, there are a few certainties in the world of college football. And one of them is this:
You have to make smart decisions when you know time is short.
This week, I spent way too much time on YouTube searching for the worst examples of clock management. And there were plenty to choose from. I found one fifteen-minute compilation of the biggest clock management fails in NCAA history. Fifteen minutes. Thirteen games. Lots of mistakes. But out of all of them, there was one game that stood out to me:
It was November 21, 2009. 8th ranked LSU was facing unranked Ole Miss in Oxford. With 9 seconds to go, LSU was down by two. It was 4th and 26th with the ball on the 50 yard line. LSU quarterback Jordan Jefferson completes a career long, 43 yard pass to Terence Toliver to put the Tigers on the 6 yard line with one second left. So let’s watch what happens next.
Roll the tape, Cindy. [play video]
The clock’s run out. Time’s up. Over. Plow.
And I don’t want to rub it in because I know John Guyon is here and he’s cooking jumbalaya for our meeting with our music minister candidate next week, but there were thirteen games on that fifteen minute compilation. And three of them were LSU losses under Les Miles.
Now if you’ve ever coached, then you know it’s a whole different ball game (no pun intended) when you are on the sidelines in a packed stadium. There were a lot of factors that contributed to losing track of time. LSU was playing Ole Miss at Ole Miss, and there was a stadium full of Ole Miss fans who were determined to see LSU fall, and so were being as distracting as possible. And of course, there are a thousand details a head coach has to focus on.
But at the end of the day (literally), an awareness of how much time is left is job one of the head coach when you are late in the game.
And for the football fan watching the game, it is a helpless, frustrating feeling to just sit there while someone else seems oblivious to the fact that time is short and the game is on the line.
I wonder if that’s how the Lord feels when he watches His church in the last days? I wonder if He’s looking at us and saying, “Guys, the clock is ticking. The world we know is coming to an end. You’ve got to move the ball down the field!”
When you know there’s only a little time left, it changes how you play the game. It should change how we live our lives.
Let’s look together at 1 Thessalonians 5. The outline this morning is really straightforward, and once again I’m thankful for how pastor Ben Stuart of Passion City church in Washington DC outlined this passage.[1] He said that when it comes to the end of the world and the return of Christ,
- We don’t know when it’s coming
- But we know that it’s coming
- So we live like it’s coming.
Let’s start by reading 1 Thessalonians 5
5 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers,[a] you have no need to have anything written to you. 2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children[b] of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 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. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11 Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
Let’s pray together
1. We don’t know when it’s coming, (v.1-2; Mt 24:36)
Matthew 24:36
Theologians and Bible scholars have a fancy word for the study of the end times and the return of Christ. It’s called eschatology. The Greek word eschatos means last, and so they just added “ology” to it to get “the study of last things.” I’ve always remembered it by thinking of the word “escape” when I hear “ESCHA-tology.” How are we going to escape this world? How do we plan for it? And when is it going to happen.
And Paul is clear that we don’t know WHEN it’s coming.
In verse 1, Paul says “concerning times and seasons, you don’t need to have anything written to you.” And I sure wish some modern authors would have the same attitude.
The day after the most recent solar eclipse in April, the Christian website relevant.com published an article titled, “We made it! Seven other times Christians predicted the rapture but were wrong.”[2] Apparently there were several people who were predicting that the total eclipse was a sure sign that the end was at hand, and this was far from the first time.
- In 1988, Edgar Whisenant published 88 Reasons the Rapture will be in 1988.
- In 1997, Ed Dobson published “50 Remarkable signs pointing to The End in 2000.”
- Christian radio broadcaster and evangelist Harold Camping first predicted Judgment Day would occur on September 6, 1994. When it didn’t happen, it revised the date to September 29, and later to October 2. He came back in 2011 with a new prediction: May 21, 2011. And when that didn’t happen, again, he quickly revised it to October 21, 2011.
Paul says, you don’t need to have anything written to you about the times and seasons of the end of the world. Times and seasons are two different words. The first is chronos—calendar time. The second is Kairos, which is a divinely appointed moment. So in other words, stop worrying about how many days or hours or months or years there are (chronos) before the divinely appointed time of Christ’s return, (Kairos) because according to Matthew 24:36, Jesus Himself doesn’t even know that. So why would God the Father reveal something to you, or me, or John Hagee that he wouldn’t reveal to His own son?
Paul says the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Mike Vineyard, when you were a cop, did you ever investigate a robbery where the robber called in advance to schedule the robbery? Of course not. That’s like the first thing they teach you in Robbery 101. Don’t call ahead.
Jesus taught In Matthew 24,
43 But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. 44 Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
Key in on verse 44. Jesus didn’t say, “The son of man might come, or the son of man could come.” He said, the Son of man is coming. So We don’t know when he’s coming, but…
2. But we know that it’s coming (v. 3; 2 Pt 3:3-6, 10; Mt 24:36-39
The return of Christ is a guaranteed promise made by Jesus Himself, and Jesus always keeps his promises. When Jesus ascended back to heaven and the disciples were all just standing there with their mouths open, an angel appeared to them and said, “Guys, why do you stand here staring at the sky. This same Jesus who has been taken away from you into heaven will come back in the same way.” (Acts 1:11).
The Bible is full of promises of Christ’s return. David Jeremiah notes that scholars have identified 1,845 different biblical references to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, no less than seventeen books mention Christ’s return. The New Testament authors speak of it in 23 of the 27 books. Seven out of ten chapters in the New Testament refer to His return. [3]
In verse 3, Paul uses a second image to talk about Christ’s return. Not only will it come like a thief in the night, but it will also come “like the labor pains of a pregnant woman.”
I know we have a couple of families in our church right now that are expecting children [Riff on this]
And so for the believer, the promise of Christ’s return is as joyful as the promise of a newborn baby. And just as we refer to a pregnant woman as an expectant mother, we should think of ourselves as expectant Christians, because we are awaiting something joyful.
But with that is the realization that Jesus’ return is not going to be a joyful event for everyone. Don’t miss that Paul says in verse 3, “While people are saying peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly.”
What believers long for, unbelievers should dread. This is what the apostle Peter was getting at when he wrote about this. Check it out in 2 Peter 3:
3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
We don’t know when it’s coming. But we know that it’s coming. And so,
3. So we live like it’s coming. (v. 5-7)
4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children[b] of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
To be sober means to have clarity of thought and mind. To not let your judgment be compromised.
[Riff as there is time]
Conclusion: Being a different kind of prepper.
“It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.”
C. S. Lewis[4]
Conclusion: A different kind of prepper (vs. 7-24)—
[rather than building a bunker to wait out Armageddon, Paul gives a very different image of what it means to prepare for the end of the world]
At the beginning of this sermon, I asked you to imagine how God feels when he sees Christians seemingly oblivious to the fact that there isn’t much time left on the clock. That the return of Christ is near, but we aren’t living our lives with any sense of urgency.
But now, I want to ask you another question: Do you ever wonder if on judgment day, the unsaved world is going to stand up and look at us Christians and say, “Why didn’t you do everything you could to tell me about Jesus before time ran out?” How could you not know how much time was left on the clock? Why didn’t you invite me to church with you? How come you never told me about what you say was the most important relationship in your life?
[1] Ben Stuart is the pastor of Passion City Church in Washington, DC. This is how he outlined this passage in his RightNow Media video study of 1 Thessalonians.
[2] https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/we-made-it-7-other-times-christians-predicted-the-rapture-but-were-wrong/
[3] https://davidjeremiah.blog/the-second-coming-of-christ/#:~:text=Scholars%20have%20identified%201%2C845%20different,Testament%20refer%20to%20His%20return.
[4] Knute Larson, I & II Thessalonians, I & II Timothy, Titus, Philemon, vol. 9, Holman New Testament Commentary (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2000), 66.
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