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

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

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

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

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

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

Was man made mortal, Bill?

Was Jesus made mortal? What does mortal mean?

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

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

Greg, turn to Galatians 2 .17.

Read it when you find it. Greg?

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

Well, come to 1 Thessalonians 4 .1.

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

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

Thessalonians 5. All right, verse 1.

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

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

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

Lord begins with night because that's

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

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

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

They are the property of the world.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I asked? All right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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,

I would never have chosen it. Yes.

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

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.

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

Ridiculous. It's true,

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.