1 Thessalonians 4  ¹⁵ 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. ¹⁶ 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. ¹⁷ 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 . ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

5 ¹ Now concer8ning the times and the seasons, brothers, 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 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.

what they need to listen for

• 5 central realities

the first reality

The ultimate Day of the Lord is somewhere in our future

I spent quite a bit of time in the sermon last Lord’s Day, and also in that article I made available last week, showing how the Old Testament talks about several different comings of the Lord God of Israel in judgment against various cities and peoples over the centuries. In Genesis, those comings were personal and sometimes even visible or audible. Later on, the Hebrew poets and prophets described and prophesied other comings, but experienced as a military disaster perpetrated by some evil human actor. Yet because tose calamities were accomplishing the sovereign purposes of God as he ruled over the affairs of men, each was identified as an act of . And each was referred to as the Day of the Lord. And they all seemed to be leading up to one terminal event. While he was here on the planet, Jesus the Messiah also promised to come in another day of the Lord.

Paul is aware of those prophecies from the Lord Jesus, and he has taught them to the Thessalonian’s. Here he is talking to them and us about one great final Coming, the ultimate Day of the Lord. It was somewhere in their future then, and it’s still somewhere in our future, but we don’t know where

¹ Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, 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… 

Paul uses the precise wording that the Lord Jesus had used when he spoke to the Apostles right before he ascended to his throne at the Father’s right hand

Luke 1 ⁶ So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷ He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. ⁸ But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” ⁹ And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰ And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, ¹¹ and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

This is the clearest promise in the Bible that there was a literal, physical, final Second Coming of Christ still to come in the Apostolic Age, and still to come for us in this present day. This ultimate Day of the Lord was in their future, back then, and is still in our future today. We are still eagerly awaiting it.

the second reality

That Day will come suddenly, savingly, and devastatingly

¹ Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, 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,   •   •   •    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. 

Remember that in the Old Testament the Day of the Lord always included both:

1. the salvation and vindication of God’s people and
2. the condemnation and destruction of God’s enemies.

Here Paul is talking about the final, ultimate Day of the Lord—the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. He says the Thessalonian’s don’t need anybody to tell them about it because they already know. He describes that Day using language directly taken from the way the Lord Jesus had described his judgment coming in his Olivet Discourse. Our Lord himself found that same language in the Hebrew prophets who had written hundreds of years before he was born.

When Paul first taught the Thessalonians about the coming of Christ, he started with what Jesus had said. That makes total sense. Jesus is always the starting point. Jesus it was clear that no man knew the day or the hour. Paul certainly recognized that he didn’t know. He knew that Jesus was coming back to save and to judge. He knew that Jerusalem would be judged, its Temple would be judged, the Jews who rejected their Messiah Jesus of Nazareth would be judged, and the new, true Jews, the followers of the Messiah Jesus, both those raised Jewish and those raised pagan, would be vindicated and rescued from Jewish persecution. And he knew that all of that was going to happen to the generation he was living in. He also knew that those four “R”s (the Return, the Resurrection, the Reckoning, and the Rest) were going to happen sooner or later, but he was very clear that he did not know when that Resurrection Day was going to happen

Peter and Paul were both dead by the mid-60s, victims of Nero’s horrendous atrocities in Rome. James, the Lord’s brother and the author of the book we have in our Bibles, died in Jerusalem during the siege, most likely AD 69, executed as a heretic and traitor by the same Jewish leaders who had rejected the Lord. I am beginning to think that John’s Gospel is the only New Testament book that was written in the 80s or 90s. All the rest were written prior to 70. It’s noteworthy how John so often quotes Jesus speaking of the final resurrection in his Gospel.

The earlier apostles (Peter, Paul, James) may not have understood how long the interval would be between Jerusalem’s destruction and the final resurrection. Perhaps they didn’t even realize there would be a gap at all. On the other hand, John, writing after AD 70, clearly knew that some events had occurred without the others. The Second Temple was desolated, the Old Covenant was terminated, and the Holy City was devastated. But the return of Christ, the resurrection of the dead you’re reckoning before Christ’s judgment seat an eternal rest God’s people did not come about. Christ and his churches had a whole world of Gentiles to disciple and add to the people of God.

• Until the final day of the Lord
• return resurrection reckoning rest

Back to Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5. Specifically, he recalls two pungent images used by the Lord Jesus and the Hebrew prophets before him:

1. a homeowner who has no way of knowing when a burglar is going to break into his house, only that one might
2. a woman who has no way of knowing when her labor pains are going to begin, only that they will

Both images powerfully illustrate the need to be ready for the event to happen at any time.

And that is the point we come to next.

the third reality

The Lord Jesus urgently calls us to stay awake and ready

⁴ But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. ⁵ For you are all children 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. 

• Clearly reminiscent of so many parables
• remarkably similar to Ephesians 5
• in particular when you notice how the two chapters focus on the uniquely destructive sin of sexual immorality

Ephesians 5 ³ But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. ⁴ Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. ⁵ For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. ⁶ Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. ⁷ Therefore do not become partners with them; ⁸ for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk a8s children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), ¹⁰ and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. ¹¹ Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. ¹² For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. ¹³ But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, ¹⁴ for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper,
and arise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”

• a whole lifestyle that’s astonishingly different from the people of the world around us
• the purple article: other clear, specific instructions

the fourth reality

The coming of Christ brings courage to Christians

4 ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

5 ¹¹ Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

• so many believers are afraid… guilty conscience
• he will either find us doing something or find us doing nothing
• not fear but courage
• Our Lord is coming to rescue us and to vindicate us

what God wants them to do

• Meditate much on what your Lord might want you to do to prepare yourself
• purple article

Eternal Father, in this very moment, we turn again from our sin and ourselves to you and your glory,

Trusting only in your Son’s sacrifice for our sins to make us right with you.

We want to shelter ourselves in the shadow of his cross,

Bathe ourselves in the blood that he shed there for us,

Rest ourselves on his redemption

Robe ourselves in his righteousness,

Renew ourselves in his resurrection,

Lose ourselves in his Lordship,

And find ourselves in his friendship.

We want him to become for us, for today and forever, wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and salvation.

For he is the One who suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to you, our Father.