Book of 1 Thessalonians - Ch. 5, Vs. 1-28 (01/20/2002) | NOTE: Incomplete tape

Park Meadows Church

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Did God make man the entire human race from the first couple,

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Adam and Eve, or was there some other source? No, he didn't.

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How many think that he made the human race from Adam and Eve? How many think he made them from someplace else?

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How many don't know? He made the entire human race from Adam.

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Eve is a descendant of Adam. Well, let me ask you an easier one.

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Was man made mortal, Bill?

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Was Jesus made mortal? What does mortal mean?

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Adam was made mortal because he had a choice to die or live.

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Now, an easier one. Is physical death an outworking of a natural process?

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Greg, turn to Galatians 2 .17.

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Read it when you find it. Greg?

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Yes? Then death is not an outworking of a natural process.

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Well, come to 1 Thessalonians 4 .1.

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How many have it? Where are the rest of you?

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What? Well, the bulletin's right. Now turn over to 1

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Thessalonians 5. All right, verse 1.

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But of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write unto you.

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The believer in Christ is to be awake and alert in view of Jesus Christ's return.

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The great tribulation period, which is labeled the day of the Lord, that day of the

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Lord begins with night because that's

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God's way of marking time. He began in Genesis with darkness and he worked toward light.

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God begins in night but moves to light. So the great tribulation leads into the glorious millennial period reign of Jesus Christ when the

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Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in his wings. Times and seasons does not belong to the church.

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They are the property of the world.

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They belong to the earth, to an earthly people, both

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Israel and Gentiles, who will be saved in that day. The church is looking for a person, not for times and seasons, for a person.

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The word for time is the Greek word koronas, and we get our

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English word chronology from that. The times and seasons or the chronology is not for the church.

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How do we know that, Greg? Okay. He said, let's look at what he said.

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But of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write to you about that.

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He doesn't need to write to the church about times and seasons. So what was the question

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I asked? All right.

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For yourself know perfectly, instead of times and seasons, you know perfectly, the

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Lord is coming as a thief in night. Now, he comes as a thief in the night.

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That conjures up ideas of darkness, of mysterious, of somebody slipping around, slipping in.

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Suddenly, he will come as a thief in the night, but not to the church.

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Why, Greg? We're expecting him. He can come any time.

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Yes. But the world doesn't want him to.

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In fact, they don't believe it. Is that going to stop it? No. The Lord Jesus will not come for the church like a thief in the night.

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The church is looking for him, but he will come to the world as a thief. The day of the

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Lord will come suddenly to the earth. They'll think it's suddenly, and it will be whenever it happens.

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Now, in the next verse two or three, follow the pronouns.

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Verse three. For when they shall say, they shall say, safety, when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail on a woman with child, and they shall not escape.

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Who is the they? David. Right. So all of the governments in the world today, if he should come now, they're not looking for him.

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He'll come suddenly upon them, even though they say, well, he's going to return. It will be sudden.

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Let me relate to you a story that kind of goes along with this. There was a woman observed pacing back and forth on the top of a house six stories up, and it was at nightfall.

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An anxious crowd was assembled to watch her movements. She was evidently dreaming of some coming festival and was humming to herself a lively tune.

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Again and again she approached the edge of the roof on which she was standing, and again and again she would turn and go back, always smiling, always unconscious.

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She was walking in her sleep. At length her eye caught light of a candle in the opposite house.

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She awoke. There was a scream, a heavy fall, and all was over.

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Thus will it be for the last with the ungodly, the light of the other world, as it streams in upon them, will awaken them from sleep.

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But as they awake, it will only be to discover the precipice on which they have been so long standing, and down the steps of which they must now plunge.

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For, but ye, but ye, we've switched pronouns, but ye are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

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So the church is not going to be surprised when he comes. You are all the children of light and the children of the day.

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We are not of night nor of darkness. The children of light are who?

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Us. The children of devil walk in the darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others, but let us watch and be sober.

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The rapture is going to do two things. It will end the day of grace, the age in which we live.

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It begins the day of the Lord. The great tribulation will get underway. I don't know when it's going to be.

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I don't know whether it's going to be before I think this is tribulation or whether I'll go through what

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I think is tribulation and then he'll come. I don't know. I just know that I'm not going through the worst of it.

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In 414, we had the word sleep. Here we have the word sleep.

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The first sleep is coimeo, to be dead, deceased.

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The second found in verses 6 and 7 is cathieto, to lie down, to fall asleep.

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So we should be watching, alert, looking for his return and working. For they that sleep, sleep in the night.

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And they that be drunken are also drunken in the night. It used to be that sin took place at night, always under the cover of darkness.

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And that's still a preferred time. But I said this the last time we were at this point.

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Today, it's not like that. They'll commit sin in broad daylight at night also, but they don't need to restrict it to night.

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God has appointed us to obtain salvation. Can you defeat that,

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Bill? No, no way. The us in the next verse is singular collective.

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Only God can use English like that, meaning each of us individually as a group.

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But let us, individually as a group, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

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Brother David talked about the helmet this morning. We put it on each morning. I take it it is the article to be worn when you're up and around, not when you're unconscious, asleep.

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Verse 9, and I have underlined this verse. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our

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Lord Jesus Christ. He has appointed us to that. We didn't select it.

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We didn't choose it. We couldn't. We never would. If Christ had not died for me and set up the plan of salvation, and if I had not already been in it,

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I would never have chosen it. Yes.

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Absolutely. That's right. The wrath of God means, or the wrath means the wrath of God.

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Now, wouldn't you like to be in that group? We learn from this verse, as Greg has said, there are those that are appointed to wrath.

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Mercy. These are the seed of Satan. They're doing the work of God.

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If they were not here, we wouldn't have a very hard time. But we grow because they are here.

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He structured everything, so I will grow in his kingdom. Who died for us that whether we be awake or asleep, we should live together with him?

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This sleep is coimeo. It means to be dead. Instruction and profitable only to those that are capable of receiving it.

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The light demands a receiver. It's no good for the light to be in the world if there were not something that could see that light.

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That's why his children are here. The children of Satan can't see the light.

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They never will until they wake up. Then it's too late. So the light must have a receiver.

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If you bring a pig to class, he'll return still a pig.

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You can't change him. Oh, none of you are trying to change people.

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That's not our job. Will a farmer pour his strength into his field by the heat of the day, working until he is exhausted, and when the grain is ripe to harvest, not reap the crop?

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Would he not reap it once it's ready? Shall the

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Lord Jesus toil and groan and grieve and die and then leave us to perish in our own sins?

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Ridiculous. It's true,

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Jesus did not die for me. He died for the Father. But because he pleased the

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Father, it pleased me. And I was the benefit of it. It's impossible for anything, and I mean anything, in creation to be between you and eternal life.

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Wherefore, comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also you do.

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And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you, and are over you in the

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Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake, and to be at peace among yourselves.

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He cautions us to be aware of the brethren that are working among us.

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Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble -minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.

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I'm so glad that verse 14's in the Bible. Now we exhort you.

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Paul is saying we exhort, we admonish, we beg of you, brethren.

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He's talking to Christians. Warn them that are unruly. Well, Greg, what do you suppose these people are that are unruly?

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That's right. That's absolutely right. Comfort the feeble -minded.

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Virge, what's he mean, feeble -minded? David, what's the feeble -minded?

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Well, it says the feeble -minded and support the weak, so they're not the same thing. Yes, we could apply the weak -minded and the feeble -minded and the weak.

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These are people that they don't understand the word. They're Christian all right, but they have not studied.

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Maybe they've never been under the right tutorship. Maybe they've never. We can assign a whole lot of reasons to it, but maybe the potential is there.