Therefore Encourage One Another With These Words - [I Thessalonians 5:1-11]

Acts, Thessalonica, and Paul’s Evangelistic Style

And part of the 18th chapter of Acts. Paul and his companions then went over to Macedonia, first of all to Philippi, where in that city and in the others which would follow, Paul followed his usual style of evangelism, which was to go first to the Jewish synagogue.

He would last there about two or three weeks, a little longer in some places, and he would tick the Jews off because he declared that Jesus was the Messiah and that they ought to embrace him, and that the law of Moses had been fulfilled in Christ, and all of the things that they thought they must do under the law of Moses, they would no longer do, and they needed to embrace Jesus of Nazareth.

He would last two or three weeks, get beat up, thrown out of the synagogue, and then he often went someplace else, to a Gentile house often, as in Ephesus or here at Thessalonica, and when he went over there, the uproar continued, and then Paul was beaten up and thrown out of town.

That's basically how the evangelistic style of the apostle Paul went. One might even say Paul's view of evangelism was, tick them off, because that's what he did regularly as he proclaimed the gospel of Christ.

I don't think he probably had ever been to one of the conferences on evangelism where you are given 17 different ways to sneak the gospel in, just make sure you don't ruffle any feathers, or he had not been to a church growth conference where the strategy is get a Ferris wheel and a merry-go-round in the parking lot.

They will love it. They will come in. The pagans will stream in off of the golf course at 11 o 'clock each Sunday morning, and that was not the apostle Paul. In any case, that's exactly what happened here in Thessalonica.

Paul, it got so bad in Thessalonica that Paul went up to Berea. There he preached the gospel to the Bereans, who were said to be more noble than the Thessalonians and the Philippians, because they examined the scriptures and found some of them to be true.

But the Jews in Thessalonica found out that Paul was up at Berea. They went up there, caused more uproar, and so finally Paul has to leave, and he goes to Athens. And before he goes to Athens, though, he tells Timothy in particular, he wants to know what's going on in Thessalonica.

Why? Because he was there only a short time. And so there was a lot that he had told them, and there was a lot that he had not told them, and they had questions that came back to Paul. Timothy's report to Paul basically was that they're doing fine in Thessalonica, but they have these questions.

And so the letters to the Thessalonians are written essentially to answer those questions. And the basic question that they had was, we understood that we would not die, that Jesus would return in our lifetime, and now we have some believers that have died, and so what's the deal?

That's kind of the condensed version of what the questions must have been. So when you get to the letters to the Thessalonians, you sort of get plunged into the whole eschatology thing. What's going to happen at the end?

Because Paul answers their questions. What about these people that have died? And he speaks of things to come. And so we are thrust into eschatology, like it or not. So I need to tell you right off the bat that I am a millennialist, all right?

I believe that when the Bible says that the Jewish Messiah will reign on the throne and in revelation for a thousand years, I believe that's exactly what it means. I am not a replacement theologian. Some of our Amillennial brethren in particular want to replace all of the promises of Israel in the Old Testament.

They want to replace that with the church. And so we have become the Israel. And as we go through this this morning, I'll mention some of those commentators, particularly from the time of the Reformation, including John Calvin, and their view of how all of this goes, which I think is not correct.

Here's what I think we need to know. That we have, we, Gentiles, you may not all be Gentiles, but as far as I know any of you, you are, all right? You are not Jews. You are not Israelis, as far as I know.

Maybe somebody here is, but I don't know about it. So I'm going to assume we're all Gentiles here. Our salvation is rooted in Jewish roots. We are, in the words of Paul, over in Romans, chapters 9, 10, and 11, we are branches grafted in to a root, which is the living root, which is the true root, which is Jewish.

And what has happened over a period of several thousand years is, a couple thousand years, is that the whole Christianity thing has come to be looked at as, this is a Gentile deal. No, it's not a Gentile deal.

It's a Jewish deal. And we Gentiles have been grafted into that. And if you take that view, then you end up in this replacement theology, as Andrew said last week, impressing upon the Old Testament your view of end times truth.

Our Amillennial brethren, in particular, want to do that. And so they read the New Testament back into the Old Testament, replace what the Old Testament prophets, what the Old Testament patriarchs would have understood when they were told certain things, when things were revealed to them by God.

And then we look and say, well, yeah, but they didn't really get it right. It's over here in the New Testament that we understand what happened there. So, this whole issue comes down to a matter of interpretation, how you view the Scriptures.

And I view the Scriptures in a grammatical, historic way. I'm going to shy away from the word literal, because that says things to people that isn't true. In other words, you just take the language at face value.

You place it in its historic context, in its cultural context, and in its grammatical context. Old Testament to New Testament. We don't start a new method of interpretation because we have replaced Israel.

If you do that, you have to spiritualize, allegorize, analogize the Old Testament. And I think we do not want to do that. So, I am a millennialist. Not only that, it gets worse. No, I am a pre-millennialist.

I am a pre-tribulational pre-millennialist. And if that means anything or a lot to you, okay, I have not time to explain all of that today, except as it touches on the letter to the Thessalonians. So, let's jump right into the first Thessalonians again to review what's gone on here.

The Thessalonian Questions and the Coming of Christ

Paul writes to them in chapter 1, and he commends them for their faith which has been heard all through Macedonia. And then over at verses 9 and 10, he says to them at the end of chapter 1, they themselves, that is those who have heard about your faith in Macedonia and Achaia, that's basically Greece and northern Greece, they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God.

Now, in Thessalonica, it was an idol-ridden city, but it was also a city in despair. One of the inscriptions that has been found from ancient Thessalonica kind of ends like this, after the grave, nothing.

That's an inscription that was found there. So, that's the idolatrous and despairing kind of atmosphere that the gospel of Christ goes into when Paul and his companions went there. In any case, those people believed, and they had a good report throughout all of the Greek peninsula and in the northern parts up in Macedonia.

And so, Paul commends them for that. They turned from idols to serve the living and true God. Now, watch this. And to wait for his son from heaven, he must have told them about the second coming of Christ, perhaps from John.

You know, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. So, they knew something about the Lord Jesus returning. So, they are waiting for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

And at those two verses, the apostle Paul introduces what is going to be the discussion eschatologically. You know, eschatology, that's the Greek word for eschatology. End times things. And we get all excited about some of these words, eschatological and dispensational and all of that kind of thing.

I don't want to get hung up on that. When I say eschatology, just get it. It's what happens at the end. What happens at the end of the age and so on. Okay, but Paul introduces that as he commends them for embracing the gospel to wait for the Lord Jesus from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come.

Then he goes on to review his own ministry with them, to rehearse Timothy's encouraging report from them. And that brings us over to chapter 4, where now he gets down to business about answering one of the questions that they must have had.

And that is, what about these people that have died? We thought Jesus was coming to receive us to himself, and we have been waiting for his coming. Okay, so Paul says at chapter 4, verse 13, here's what he says to them.

We looked at this in pretty good detail last time I was with you. But let me just review it. I want you to listen carefully now, because there's a test at the end of this. And after I get into chapter 5, and I'm going to ask you a question.

And it's a question that you've been asked often in school on the tests that you take. You know those essay questions that start out this way? Compare and contrast, okay? And then you know, oh, we're to deal with the similarities and the differences between.

We're going to do that in a minute, okay? Here's what Paul says to them about the coming of the Lord. That was one of their questions. What's the deal with the coming of the Lord? We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others 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. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord. I've been thinking about that.

I think that's interesting. Because this is the first time that we hear about what I'm going to read about next. Apparently the Thessalonians had not been given this kind of detail. So Paul says, look, and he doesn't say about this that he had told them about this when he was there the first time.

About the second thing in view he does. But not about this. This I 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 trumpet 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 clouds.

I don't think the definite article is there. In the text. Anyway, in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Where are we going to meet the Lord? In the air. This is Paul's description of the great meeting of believers.

These Thessalonians were a mixed crowd. Some Jews, probably mostly Gentiles. This is the account and the prediction and the prophecy of the great meeting in the air of the church. We will meet them in the clouds.

We will meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. What was their question? What about all these people that had died? Okay, here's the deal.

The Lord is going to come to the air. Not to the earth, to the air. The Lord is going to come there. We will be snatched up. That's where the whole term rapture of the church comes from. Rapture comes from the Latin word meaning to snatch something.

You walk in and there's the Oreo on the counter. You snatch it. It is a raptured Oreo. All right. And that's exactly what's going to happen. You may not want to put that in your notes. Okay. Anyhow, we can talk sometime about baptizing Oreos too.

But anyway, that's another story. All right. The church is going to be snatched up. And so, that's where we get that word rapture. And so, Paul says to these Thessalonians, don't worry about the dead in Christ.

They're going to precede you. If you are alive when the Lord comes back, He is coming back to the air. Those who are dead in Christ, those who are asleep in Christ, they will rise first. Then we who remain, we will go with them.

We will meet the Lord in the air. And so, we will ever be with the Lord. Now, I want you to keep that in your mind. Because that's part of the compare and contrast thing that we're going to come to. Now, we come to chapter 5.

The Day of the Lord in the Old Testament and the New Testament

So, Paul says, you Thessalonians need to encourage yourselves with the fact that the Lord is coming back to snatch you out. And you're forever going to be with the Lord from that point on. All right. Now, chapter 5.

Now, concerning. Those two little words are important. Because they are a phrase that is used often. Meaning, okay, now we're going to talk about something else. Now, we're going to talk about something that I told you about when I was here, says Paul.

Now, concerning the times and the seasons, brothers. The times and seasons are not the same word. It's not just redundancy. It is, times is chronos, I think. Chronology, the chronology, we know about chronology.

Because we are very taken up with chronology by the time civilization has come on to this point. Where we can talk about thousands, and ten thousands, and hundred thousands, and nanoseconds, and all of that stuff.

Well, that's the chronos. All right. Now, concerning the times and the seasons. The seasons are more like the epics. You know, fall has come. Summer was yesterday. Fall has come to New England. Okay. Summer might return for a couple of days.

And then three weeks from now, we expect to have the snow shovels out. And winter will be upon us. Okay. These are the epics. Okay. The seasons that Paul is talking about here. That's going to be important.

Because we're going to look at a question that Jesus' disciples asked of him about the seasons, the epics that were going on. Okay. Now, about those things. The chronology, the times, and the seasons, brothers.

You have no need to have anything written to you. Really? Well, we asked a question about that. That question is described in 2 Thessalonians. And we'd probably get there next week. Now, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm at 2 Thessalonians chapter 2. Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to Him. We ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to come from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

We're going to look at that today. What is the day of the Lord? What's he talking about? Paul says, I talked to you about that already at verse 5 of chapter 2 of 2 Thessalonians. He says, Do you not remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things?

But notice, it doesn't look like he told them about the snatch. It doesn't look like he told them about the great meeting in the air. But now he says that in his letter, his first letter to them. He says, By a word from the Lord, I'm telling you this.

It's the first time that issue has come up. It doesn't appear in the Old Testament and it has not appeared up to this time. But now the day of the Lord that's being talked about here, Paul says, I told you about that when I was here.

I get it. There are people that are sending letters or they are coming, bringing messages, saying that the day of the Lord has occurred and you're all excited and bent out of shape about the fact that the day of the Lord has come already.

Now he's going to tell them the day of the Lord has not come already and that's going to be part of what we discuss today. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.

It will not come by a letter or a rumor or a message from somebody. It will come like a thief in the night. 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.

At the end of this, at the end of this, he says, therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. After this recitation about the day of the Lord, which comes like a thief in the night, which is sudden destruction that comes on people that are saying peace and security.

And the comparing, the compare and contrast question is going to be compare the meeting in the air and the day of the Lord. Contrast the meeting in the air and the day of the Lord. But before you do that or before we do that, I want to read to you from the Old Testament.

Just happened to jot these down from my computer. All right. There are 19 Old Testament references to the day of the Lord. What Paul is talking about here to these Thessalonians. Let me read them to you so you get a flavor of what the day of the Lord is all about when it is mentioned in the Scriptures.

Isaiah chapter 13 verse 6. Wail for the day of the Lord is near as destruction from the Almighty. It will come. Verse 9, Isaiah 13. Behold, the day of the Lord comes cruel with wrath and fierce anger to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it.

Jeremiah 46. That day is the day of the Lord God, the Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance to avenge himself on his foes. The sword shall devour and be sated and drink its fill of their blood for the Lord God of hosts holds a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates.

Ezekiel chapter 13. You have not gone up into the breaches or built up a wall for the house of Israel that it might stand in the day of the Lord. That's an accusation in Ezekiel that it might stand in battle in the day of the Lord.

It's going to be a battle in the day of the Lord. Wait, we're not going to compare and contrast yet for the day is near. The day of the Lord is near. It will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.

Joel chapter 1 verse 15. Alas for the day for the day of the Lord is near and as destruction from the almighty it comes. Joel chapter 2 verse 1. Blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm on my holy mountain.

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord is coming. It is near. Joel 2 .11. Ahem. The Lord utters his voice before his army for his camp is exceedingly great. He who executes his word is powerful for the day of the Lord is great and very awesome.

Who can endure it? And then from chapter 2 verse 31, which is quoted by Peter on his sermon on the day of Pentecost, the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

Joel chapter 3 verse 14. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. That would be when the Lord gathers the nations to the valley of Jehoshaphat to deal with them face to face, he says. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

Amos chapter 5 verse 18. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light. Amos chapter 5 verse 20. Is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it?

Obadiah verse 15. It's only one chapter. For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deeds shall return on your own head. Zephaniah chapter 1.

Be silent before the Lord God for the day of the Lord is near. The Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests. Zephaniah chapter 1 verse 8. And on the day of the Lord's sacrifice, I will punish the officials and the king's sons and all who array themselves in foreign attire.

Zephaniah chapter 1 again. The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast. The sound of the day of the Lord is bitter. The mighty man cries aloud there. And finally, Malachi chapter 4. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

That prophet, incidentally, was identified by Jesus as John the Baptist, the Elijah-like prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. In the New Testament, there are four references to this.

And the New Testament writers, of course, base what they write on the Old Testament prophets that I have just quoted to you. Acts chapter 2. The sun shall be turned to dark, quoting Joel. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 2, which is where we are right now. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. Second Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 2, you are not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed either by a spirit or a spoken word or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.

In 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 10, but the day of the Lord will come like a thief and then the heavens will pass away with a roar and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

Compare and Contrast: The Meeting in the Air and the Day of the Lord

Now, compare and contrast the meeting in the air and the day of the Lord. You see that the day of the Lord is sort of a technical term used throughout the Old Testament and quoted in the New Testament to describe something very specific.

So compare and contrast. First of all, compare. How are they similar? Get your blue books out. Okay, how are they similar? Yes, they are unexpected. Okay, anything else? Jesus is instrumental in both of them.

And where is he coming from, by the way? In both cases, where is he coming from? Berry Plains? No, he's not coming from there. All right, West Boylston? No, not coming from there. Where is he coming from?

He's coming from heaven. Remember what Paul said? Well, you're going to see what Jesus says in a minute. But he's coming from heaven. All right, now just contrast a little bit. What are the differences between the great meeting in the air and what I've just described here from the Old Testament and the New?

Joy versus wrath. Thessalonians, calm down. Here's what's going to happen. The Lord is coming to the air. He's going to snatch you out of here and you will ever be with the Lord and all the dead in Christ will rise first.

That is a joyful thing. And what happens on the day of the Lord? It's not a joyful thing. It's a disastrous thing for somebody. All right, so I want to turn over. We have to do this. I want to turn over to Matthew chapter 24 where Jesus talks about this very thing.

This is also found in Luke 21. And a question of the Pharisees, which is the same as what's here, which was the questions of the Thessalonians. Okay, now this is Jesus talking about these things. Get an estimate of several things, and we can't take time to do Matthew chapter 24 in the next 10, 15, 20 or 30 minutes, no, the next 10 minutes or so.

We'll get started anyway. And Jesus left the temple and was going away when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. This is the second temple in Jerusalem. But he answered them, you see all these, do you not?

Truly I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down. Now we know that that prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD when the Romans invaded Jerusalem and they took the temple apart stone by stone.

Some have reported that they did that because in the burning of the city and the temple, the gold which overlaid so much of the temple ran down between the joints and the stones, and so they took it all apart, at least in part, to get the gold.

Jesus said to these guys, this would be about 30, maybe 31 AD, said to these guys, not one stone is going to be left on another. That prophecy was fulfilled in AD 70. And a temple has not been built since, all right?

As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us when these, now here are their questions, tell us when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age?

Now notice this one thing. These Jewish disciples knew that there was an age that would be closing. There is a close of an age. Apparently the age they thought in which they existed. Now where would they get an idea like that?

You know, when we look at history, there are many people who look at history and it's just this, hey, what goes around comes around, and what goes around comes around, and what goes around comes around.

I think it's Arnold Toynbee that listed something like 19 or 20 or so cycles of what goes around comes around. Civilizations come, they rise, they reach a pinnacle, and then they go, and then the next guys come, and they rise, and they reach a pinnacle, and then they go.

That's not a biblical point of view. The Bible says history is going somewhere, and this description that Jesus is talking about here to these disciples as they ask the question, we see that they have in their minds, whatever age this is, it's going to close, and the idea that they got to close that age is this.

They read the Old Testament prophets, and what did the Old Testament prophets see? The Old Testament prophets saw and prophesied and were persecuted for telling the people of Israel that they were deep in sin and idolatry and a variety of other things which displeased the Lord, and in accordance with what is said in Deuteronomy, about chapter 4, when the people of Israel did not keep their covenant with God, that is the Mosaic covenant with God, they would be punished and scattered throughout the world.

Now, that happened really about three times in Israeli history, okay? The first time was when Abraham goes down to Egypt, and then he comes back to the land which God had promised him. And then Jacob goes down to Egypt and comes back to the land that God had promised him.

And then the people of Israel are sent into exile, but they come back to the land that God had promised them. And then in 70 A .D., Jerusalem is destroyed, the temple is destroyed, the people are scattered all over the world, and they remain scattered all over the world to this day.

You need to understand that the people of Israel are under judgment. This is all not just what goes around comes around, what goes around comes around. It is because, in this case, in the modern case, they have not embraced their Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we look at Israel back in the land, 50 years now, they celebrated this year 50 years of being back in the land. All kinds of people, before they got there and after they got there, said, it will never last.

It will never last. Well, 50 years, it has lasted against insurmountable odds, and they are in the land now. But they are still under judgment because the observation would be, except for a small number of them, Israel is a very secular place.

There are many people in Israel who want nothing to do, particularly with these Orthodox Jews, who are still believing in the promises of the Old Testament. A lot of Israelis want nothing to do with that, and they certainly want nothing to do with the proclamation that Jesus is the Messiah.

They are under judgment. God had promised that if they did not believe Him, that they would be under judgment. I want you to understand that when Jesus says what He is about to say here, that He is talking to Jews.

All right? This concerns the nation of Israel. It doesn't concern West Boylston, except, except, as there are some things that we can learn from this to help us be alert, looking for and waiting for what we say in our statement of faith, I trust, that we believe in the imminent return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is no prophecy that must be fulfilled before the great meeting in the air. We are the guys that ought to have one eye cast upward all the time because Jesus could return to snatch the church out of here at any time.

We will see that there are all kinds of things that have to happen before the day of the Lord. But these disciples, being Jews, would have seen this kind of chronology in the Old Testament. The Jews are scattered.

They are restored. They are scattered. They are restored. But the day comes when they will be restored, and that day is the day of the Lord. The Lord will return to judge the world and to judge their enemies.

And you heard the word vengeance in the quotations that I gave several times. That's their chronology. We are scattered all over the world. We are restored from time to time to the land. But the day comes when Messiah comes and sets all of this straight.

That's what they knew. All right? They knew nothing about the great snatch because that doesn't even come up until you get to the Thessalonians. As He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came privately and saying to us, tell us when will these things be?

First question. What will be the sign of your coming and of the close of the age? Second question. These are the times and the epochs. These are the times and the seasons that are mentioned over in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

That's the same question that these disciples were asking. So Jesus answered them. Here's the beginning of the answer to question one. Jesus answered them, see that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ and they will lead many astray.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed for this must take place. But the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. And there's even, I think we are even observers to the beginnings of the beginnings of birth pains. All right. We see that. We see all of those things described in the world around us right now.

But this is not about us. This is about the nation of Israel. Then they will deliver you up the tribulation. Good word. Tribulation. And put you to death. And you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

Hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved. This is not about eternal security, by the way. This is about the nation of Israel. This is about who survives after all of the chaos that the Lord has just described.

And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. Say, well, what's that all about? Well, we see the precursors to it, do we not?

The gospel of the kingdom is preached throughout the whole world. Our post-millennial friends, our optimistic friends say, and what's going to happen is the gospel is just going to be preached and everybody's going to get better and better and better.

And finally, the whole world is going to say, Jesus is Lord, and we will enter what the Bible describes as the millennial kingdom. A casual look, I guess, at the internet these days on any morning will tell you that's not how things are going.

Even a casual listen to PBS will tell you that's not how things are going. In fact, things are going more like Jesus described. Nation will rise against nation and so on and so forth. Wars and rumors of wars.

Many will come claiming I am the Christ and lead many astray and all of that. Nevertheless, in the midst of all of that chaos, the gospel is preached throughout the whole world. We're going to have to stop and I'm not there, but we're practicing the bailout school of homiletics.

So I'm going to bail out in a minute. All right. If you think the gospel isn't preached through the whole world, throughout the whole world, you need to examine some of the things that are going on. I'll just close with this this morning.

You keep your finger in Matthew 24. Take your Bible even to work with your finger in Matthew 24 because I'm coming back there next week and to some other places too. I don't want to leave the Thessalonians hanging, so I'll finish that up too.