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Introduction
1 Thess.
5:1-11 “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you.
For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord 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.
But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.
For you are all children of light, children of the day.
We are not of the night or of the darkness.
So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.
For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night.
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.
For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”
This passage is primarily about the Day of the Lord and being ready for it.
As I was preparing for this sermon and trying to find some good illustrations, I stumbled upon this TV show that started 10 years ago called Doomsday Preppers.
Naturally, I had to watch part of the first episode.
This couple believed the polarity of the earth would shift at any moment causes mass chaos to break out.
So, they built their house out of steel shipping containers.
In the first scene they are firing civilian rifles at their own house to make sure it’s bullet proof.
They had made alternate energy sources so they could survive off the grid.
They used methane gas from themselves and from their animals to use for cooking.
Sort of like Ezekiel, if you don’t know that story you can look it up in Ezekiel 4.
In stead of cooking three meals a day, they cook eight meals a day and can the rest.
They claimed to have enough food in their pantry to last 22 people 15 years.
They put in 50 hours a week all for something that may or may not happen within their lifetime.
In our passage, Paul tells us how to be ready for the last days; however, in a much different way.
The Nature of the Day of the Lord (vv.
1-3)
Paul writes in verse 1, “Now concerning” this is the word he uses for transitioning to another topic.
In the previous passage, he was discussing the fate of those who were dead in Christ.
Here, he transitions to discussing the Day of the Lord.
“The times and the seasons” he mentions in verse one are end times references.
He goes on to say, “you have no need to have anything written.”
Paul, here, is probably referencing what he had previously taught them on the subject.
In verse 2 he explains why they don’t have need while also expanding the teaching on the day of the Lord.
He says, “For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief int he night.”
We need to pause for a moment here and take an excursus on the topic of the Day of the Lord.
When using the Day of the Lord, Paul pulls from a great wealth of information all throughout the Old Testament, especially in the prophets.
I want to cover some major things concerning the day of the Lord
The Day of the Lord is sudden and unexpected
Paul says, “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
Whenever you see a comparison in scripture which is indicated to us by the word “like” or “as,” we have to identify the point of comparison.
If I say someone is walking like a duck, what do you expect to see? Someone waddling, right?
I’m not trying to say that they have webbed feet or have very thin legs or have grown feathers, or a bill.
The point of comparison is how a duck waddles.
And this is where we need to be clear, when the passage says that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, this does not mean that Jesus will come and steal things.
Nor does it mean that it must occur at night and can only occur during a solar eclipse.
Y’all think I’m being weird here, right?
Maybe I’m being a little overly clear in my explanation.
But let’s be honest, here. . .
when we get to talking about the return of Jesus, people get a little weird.
This is when we get the 88 reasons Jesus is returning in 1988 and the blood moons and we start measuring all the earthquakes and such.
Let me just add some extra information here, sort of an aside.
If talking about the return of Christ encourages us to read the newspaper more than the Bible, we probably have a skewed understanding of Christ’s return.
Back to the point of comparison: the day of the Lord coming like a thief in the night is not that Jesus will come a steal things, nor is it something wicked that had to be done in darkness.
The point of comparison is that it is unexpected.
Have any of you in here been robbed before?
Don’t you remember how vulnerable that made you feel, and how unexpected it was?
I mean, it would be totally different if we expected the robber to show up.
I mean, could you imagine the robber giving you a heads up?
“Hey there, this is Jim Bob and Sally.
Yes.
We’re just giving you a courtesy call to let y’all know that we’re going to show up at about 1:15 AM to rob your house.
Do you have any valuables you would like to go ahead and list over the phone for us?
Okay, thanks see you soon.”
That would be ridiculous!
I mean, what would you do then?
Get ready of course!
Update your security system, start packing some heat, call the police.
You would be ready.
But that’s not how thieves work, they come when you least expect it to get past all the security and steal valuables.
The day of the Lord comes when we least expect it so that we always stay diligent, eager, and expectant.
The Day of the Lord is a day of Judgement
The Day of the Lord is a specific time when God plainly makes his justice known.
Romans 2:5 “But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed.”
God is currently “storing up” wrath against the ungodly.
God has in history unleashed his judgment locally.
In the Bible, you can think of Sodom and Gomorrah, his judgement on Nineveh in the book of Nahum, his judgment on Israel when they were taken into exile in 722 and Judah in 586.
All of this points to a future Day of the Lord when God will judge not just a single location, but the entire world, similar to the judgement we see in the flood.
Just to give you a survey of what the prophets have to say about the day of the Lord:
Isaiah prophesying against Babylon says, Is. 13:9 “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.”
Joel 2:1-2 “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, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Amos 5:18 “Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light,” Remember the repeated imagery of light and darkness, because Paul brings this up later in the passage.
In the book of Amos, presumptuous Israel was calling for the day of the Lord because the believed God would judge everyone out there.
But Amos is reminding them that the judgment of the Lord falls equally on everyone.
And this is what Paul reiterates in verse three.
He says 1 Thess.
5:3 “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.”
The language in the verse is chalk full of judgement language against the sinners.
First they are judged in their thinking for the are unable to discern God’s will and how he operates, or have completely thrown him out of the picture and just expect peace and security.
Second it says instead of peace they will receive destruction.
And finally, you can see the phrase, “they will not escape.”
The main subject and verb of this sentence on which everything else is built is “destruction will come.”
And I know talking about God’s judgement can make us feel squeamish.
It makes me feel like when I was a kid and staying the night at a friend’s house and the friend’s parent was yelling at him, and I just wanted to leave the room.
But I think that it is important that the Bible has so much space devoted to teaching about God’s judgement.
I’ve noticed a pattern in my classroom at school.
Whenever I slack off in giving write-ups, the student behavior slowly gets worse.
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