Is this the End?

Song of Response… O Jesus, I have Promised UMH 396

Sermon Title : Is this the End?

Occasion : English Sunday Service

Location : Paya Lebar Methodist Church

MPP : We would need to respond appropriately to the impending Parousia, not with arrogant complacency, but with continuous sanctification.

Song of Response… O Jesus, I have Promised UMH 396

Good morning/afternoon!

Come, let us pray.

This morning/afternoon, I am going to continue our sermon series on the first letter of Paul to the church in Thessalonica and knowing that the type of text that we are reading in the Bible is important, as is the case for every aspect of our lives. I mean I am quite confident that you will read an instruction booklet for your new phone (ok, bad example… most of you would just rip the phone out of the package and start playing with it, without reading the instructions…), hmm…. Then how about a fairy tale that begins with “Once upon a time” versus The Straits Times…

The fairy tale, you know that it is fictional writing and you wouldn’t be convinced that there are talking pigs in the world that build houses and mock a big bad wolf that says “by the hair on my chiny chin chin” right? <slide>

Whereas, The Straits Times is meant to convey news, and you generally take their word for it when something is reported in it. Even in today’s world of alternative reporting and fake news, people still generally trust The Straits Times to give accurate news, and we trust it enough to make decisions based on the information given by it… Enough to decide where to go for lunch on your free day… (I mean look at this… I saw, I sent, I conquered with my wife, and we were satisfied) <slide>

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base our prayers on it… And this is endorsed by one of the greatest Christian thinkers of the 20th Century, Karl Barth who proclaimed that Christians should live each day with a newspaper in one hand and a Bible in the other.[1] <slide>

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So, my point is that when we are reading today’s text, we need to know that it is a letter, written by Paul to the Thessalonians, and being a letter, it is able to convey information clearly to us… And I can demonstrate this by showing you this letter that I got recently…

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Well, the part that got me really excited was this portion that informed me that there is a service centre in Ubi, which is not too far from church, so I can potentially drop off my car, come to work, and when it’s ready, can pick it up rather conveniently… that’s great news…

In the same way, we are able to gleam some wonderful information from the letter that we are reading today, and the topic?

I guess it would be obvious in most of your Bibles, which prominently there, the theme of the section, the new versions of the NIV entitles it “Believers Who Have Died”, the traditional NIV and the ESV entitles it “The Coming of the Lord”, while the Message entitles it “The Master’s Coming”, which are essentially variations of the same thing…

It is about the transitional time on earth, what is commonly known as the second coming, or in short, the Parousia, as promised by Jesus when said “My Father’s house has many rooms… I [will] go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me” as recorded for us in .

I mean can’t it be more obvious from these words?

Listen to this… <Slide>

“ 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.”[2]

Having thus studied the text carefully, I’m able to have an accurate understanding of what is going to happen at the second coming… and am even able to capture it in video… do you want to see it?

<show video of NDP>

Yes, that’s right… The second coming is going to happen right here in Singapore, on the floating platform <slide> and tickets are available in the contact point downstairs, after the service…

Pastor Alex, are you for real? Are you so stressed at work that you’ve gone coocoo?

Hear me out… Let me explain… <show slide with verse 16>

First, we have the trumpet call, which we heard in the beginning of the clip, with the bugle call…

Secondly, we have the shout of the Archangel which we heard when the parade sergeant major shouted a command to gather the assembly…

Thirdly, we have the arrival of the Lord, which is analogous with the arrival of the person with the highest protocol, which for NDP would be our President, but for the second coming will be the Lord Jesus Christ Himself…

So, are you now convinced that the second coming will take place at the floating platform?

Don’t you see the evidence I’ve provided you from the scriptural text?

Well, before Ps Jon and the rest of my pastoral colleagues, have a heart attack and I get dragged off the chancel, what I’ve tried to demonstrate to you, is how NOT to read our text for today…

Remember the letter I shared with you in the beginning of the sermon?

<Slide - letter>

When I first got the letter I was so excited I texted my friend who is also the sales person for my car and told him “eh… how come you never told me you guys have a service centre in Ubi? Making me go all the way to the West to service the care…”

He took a while to reply me with the words “erm… we don’t have a service centre in Ubi” to which I replied… “got what…” and I promptly and confidently took the picture of the letter and sent it to him… and finally he replied “Alex, this letter is from Mazda”…

For our information, I don’t drive a Mazda… at least not anymore…

Needless to say, I was super embarrassed… and he… he told me he didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry… then he finally said that I must be too busy…

Well, the point of the story is that context is very important in interpreting the Bible, and our text is no different…

I think the first reflection I would to make today is that

1. Regarding the End-times, do not to read things that are not there…

If we forget the context of our text, we can interpret it really wrongly and to start, we need to remember the purpose of this letter…

If you recall Mrs Seet’s sermon, she was talking about the how the church was persecuted and hence they were sometimes writing in codes so that even if the letter was discovered by people, the authorities would find it harder to realise that they were talking bad about the situation (I mean that’s what we do sometimes right? Admit it… I’m sure you do that when you are complaining about your boss… No?)

Another use of using codes and symbols is that we are able to bring into our mind things that are sometimes incomprehensible to our minds…

For example, when we talk about the thickness of our atmosphere, the layer of air around our earth that protects us, and enables us to breathe, some scientist use an analogy by comparing it to the orange part of the skin of the fruit…

You wouldn’t ask the scientist, what kind of orange ah? Mandarin orange or Indian Orange or Kam Kuat right? Big or small, how ripe is it…

You kinda have a picture have a mental picture, appreciate how thin and fragile our atmosphere it, which is the main point… and move on…

In the same way, if you start reading into this text, things like oh there will be a series of events in the last days, people will start seeing Jesus in mid-air… then there will be a large voice… then there be a trumpet sound…

Or it’ll be better to die before Jesus comes again because those dead will be first to be raised and hence be of higher ranks…

These over interpretations will be like asking the shape of the orange in the analogy above…

And over the years, there were some who had indeed done so, such as The Movement For The Restoration Of The Ten Commandments Of God, the Dami Mission and the God’s Salvation Church in the 90s[3]…

Needless to say, all the predictions of these cults did not come to pass, and reminds us that our scriptures are indeed more reliable then these apocalyptic predictions. And when Paul wrote in Chapter 5 verse 1, Paul wrote, “There is no need to write to you… about the times and occasions when these things will happen” [The Good News Translation], and in which Jesus said “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” [NIV].

So what then is the context of the letter that we must read it in?

If you remember the sermon by Ps Wendy, you will remember that this letter was written by Paul to the church after receiving news from Timothy about the church…

I and hence, Timothy was sent to check on the status of the church because Paul and Silas had to leave Thessalonica quickly after starting the church there, because the Jews were creating problems for Paul and his travelling companions…

When Timothy came back, he brought back “good news about [their] faith and love” [], but in addition to the news, Timothy also brought back questions from the church, and this is the context for this section of the letter…

More specifically, they are probably asking what will happen to Christians who have died before Christ returns? And will Christ ever come back again?

It seems like a real silly and basic question right? Haven’t they attended the discipleship class by Kuan Meng or the baptism and membership class facilitated by Andy?

Well, the truth of course is they have not…

Remember that this letter was probably written less than 2 decades from the crucifixion of Christ, and if you read , you will realise that Paul was most probably there for only 3 weeks and more importantly, you will realise that a large number of the members of the Thessalonian church are Greeks as well as some Jews…

For the Greeks, the prevalent worldview is that when a person died, the person will then make his way to the underworld, the resting place for the dead, called Hades…

But along the way, there are obstacles along the way which prevents one from being successful in one’s journey, such as a guard multi-headed monster dog, called Cerberus, to test whether someone was worthy to enter or because of sins, would not be able to enter the rest and left to be a wondering spirit and be lost forever[4]…

However, there is one way, which is to bribe Charon, the boatman who would carry people down and cross the underworld river, the river Styx, thereby bypassing all these obstacles…

And how would a dead person have the ability to bribe Charon?

They would place coins in the eyes of the dead so that when he woke up on the other side, the dead would be able to use the coins to bribe the boatman and be successful in his journey to the underworld…

Another manner is to have some sort of a spiritual guide or the medium who would be able to guide the souls of the dead along this path..

This is of course not too different from the practices of some non-Christian funerary practices during which, coins are placed in the hands of deceased to pay the guardian or guiding spirits to ensure they have a smooth journey to the final resting place[5]…

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Therefore, for the Greeks and even the Jewish Christians, they look upon Jesus as the one who is functioning in that role, and was hence expecting for Jesus to come and be our spiritual guide to come and journey with us as we make our way home…

But the problem for them was that some people had already died even before Jesus had returned… So what happens now?

Without a guide, does that mean that all the dead Christians are hopelessly lost?

Does that mean that they wouldn’t be able to see their loved ones anymore?

And also for themselves, with the increasingly incidences of martyrdom, they are not just afraid of death itself but are actually afraid of what would happen to them after death…

Will they become hopelessly lost as well? Since the Lord Jesus, their spiritual guide is so long in coming?

I’m sure you can start to appreciate the depth of their fear and question for if there is nothing beyond our life as we know it, and if death is the absolute end point, then our life really becomes quite meaningless doesn’t it?

If our earthly life is all there is to it, and our life is merely initiated by our birth, our life marked by our constant toiling in our life, and ends with our death, then what’s the point of morality and a constant work towards trying to do and be good?

But on the other hand, if our life here on earth is merely a fragment of our actual life and everything to do here has a bearing on eternality, then…

Then your whole perspective on your life changes drastically…

Life may be tough and sometimes overwhelming… but if you see the greater purpose in your actions and your behaviour, you will be able to find meaning even in the ordinary…

This is a complex issue which may not be fully comprehended on this side of heaven… which is why Paul used symbols to convey spiritual truths…

Just like the story of the Three Little Pigs that I alluded to earlier, which even though many aspects of the story are not to be taken literally, like the presence of talking animals and that there are symbols in the story that are used to convey certain truths like how hard work pays off…

Similarly, here, Paul used analogies to explain the truths about the end times so that not only are the Christians encouraged, the Christians are able to encourage one another as well, even during these very difficult times that they are facing…

And Paul chose to use the analogy of a military formation to convey this truth… Why?

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You see, Thessalonica is located right at the intersection of two rather important roads, the Via Egnatia and another North-South road here…

What these roads are used for, other than trade which they are well known for, is military control, and the Roman soldiers would use these links to move contingents around quickly across the entire Roman empire to exert control over the empire…

Especially Via Egnatia, which cuts all the way from Rome here, to Byzantium… Therefore, the Thessalonian Church would not be unfamiliar with the presence of the military…

But what is so significant about this scene that is painted by Paul is that in contrast to the worldview of the Greeks in which the process is done in secrecy and as quiet as possible so as not to awaken the spirits in the underworld and the rest of the obstacles that will prevent the deceased from making their way successfully to the place of rest, was a lonely process, filled with anxiety, knowing that perhaps the deceased may not make the mark because of sin…

The picture painted by Paul was quite the opposite, for it was a noisy affair, with the Lord shouting a loud command, there was the voice of the archangels, and there was a trumpet call of God…

The picture painted by Paul was that of a great assembly of military soldiers, a military formation, gathered by the sound of the trumpet call, which the Thessalonian Church would be familiar with, which the Jews among them remembering how the trumpet was used to gather the Israelites in the desert, in fact, and which the Greeks would be familiar with, knowing that the trumpets were used in the military camps to send signals across the entire camp and in this case, to gather everyone to form up in columns, each, in a group where they belong, not too different from the NDP video I showed just now…

And what was the use of the formation?

One tradition purpose for military formations is for commanders to survey the troops and determine the readiness of the troops…

It is close level of trust between the troops that are presented in the formation and the commander who is inspecting the troops…

It is the troops telling the commander “we are your people, at your service” and the commander telling the troops “you are under my command, my people, and I am responsible for your lives”

Therefore, when Paul used the analogy of the trumpet, the truth that he wanted to convey was to draw from the Old Testament association of the trumpets, that trumpets accompany the presence of the Lord and hence, God is with His people

Hence, the next point we can gleam from this text is that

2. Regarding the End-times, it would not break our communion with God…

In fact, the word ἀπάντησιν (apantesin) here provides a picture of how the citizens of a Greek city would stand at the gate of the city to welcome dignitaries, and ceremonially escort the dignitaries back into the city…

So close is God to His people that instead of leaving the job to calling His people home to His deputies and angels, He had been described as personally descending from Heaven to welcome His children home…

Hence, unlike the dark, quiet, shadowy image of the so-called afterlife that was painted by the Greeks, the image Paul painted of our life beyond earth is one that is bright, open and noisy, because unlike the Greeks that paint a picture where we go after physical death is an unknown place, filled with uncertainty and tainted with deceit and bribery, we can be filled with assurance, because, yes, you’ve already heard it…

The very boss of the heavens will be there metaphorically speaking of course, welcoming us home!

The creator of Heaven and Earth will be there waiting for us, declaring us fit to come into His presence and staying with Him for all eternity!

Imagine that!

Can you begin to comprehend what that means?

We are declared by God to be His people, and verse 14 of chapter 4 reminds us that our belief is that “Jesus died and rose again, and… God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him”

There is no need to bribe any boatman to try to get a safe passage…

Jesus already told us that He is the “way, the truth and the life” [] and He will promise us a safe passage into everlasting communion with Him…

It’s a profound and mind-boggling truth as it was then and as it is now…

And yet, it’s just so simple…

You don’t have to come to God perfect… you just need to come to God as you are…

You don’t have to pierce, cut or torture yourself just to get into His good books…

He has already done the hard work that we cannot do for ourselves…

In fact, 5:9 states that “God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Therefore, knowing that

3. Regarding the “end-times,” it is not really the end-times, and “death” is not really “death”

Because in reality, death is not death per se, but really a pause to continuing our communion with God…

You need to know that your future is already secured in Christ Jesus for died for you and me and more importantly, has been raised again…

The victory has already been won…

And knowing that there is life beyond this earthly life, when our time comes or when the time for our loved ones to return to the Lord, we can have the assurance knowing that our Lord had already won the victory…

And when we need to say goodbye to our loved ones, when we say we hope to see them again…

It is not a hope that is founded on a game of chance like in the same manner in which we say that we hope it would not rain, but rather, it is a hope that is based on complete assurance on the One who is the one that had been deemed worthy to have power over life and death…

Our Lord Jesus Christ…

And when He returns again in the end days at the close of the chapter of the worldly existence, just like how it is portrayed in today’s text on how all who belong to the commander will be assembled before the Commander, you can place your hope in God that all who believed in Him will be assembled before Him and your loved one who had gone on before you will be there in the assembly, for the great union called forth by Him who has the authority to do so, and nobody will be left out because the trumpet gives a picture of something that permeates across the entire landscape and perhaps time so that nobody that belongs to God which is all of us here will miss the call to come back to Him…

Now, don’t get me wrong for I am not saying that it wrong to miss our loved ones who had passed away, or be anxious of the dying process itself…

For our loved ones who had gone home with the Lord, because they are our loved ones, they naturally occupy a large portion of our lives, and it is natural and healthy to miss them… But what I’m saying is that we can look beyond the immediate because we know the ultimate end point in which we will be united with one another and it’s just like participating in a race in which the run itself is somewhat painful as you are straining to try to complete the race, your muscles and cramming, screaming at you to stop, and perhaps you’re a little dehydrated but while you’re at it, it feels like the race will never end…

but soon enough you will reach the finish line, and you know in your head that the race will end soon enough and that will motivate you to keep on keeping on…

Likewise, when we look towards the end point at which we will be reunited with our loved ones once again…

While it does not take away the pain and the hurt we are feeling, it does help put things into perspective and make life that much more liveable… and gives us a chance to deal with the pain and hurt we are feeling…

Perhaps while that doesn't explain fully why God didn't heal your loved ones from that cancer or why did your friend get involved in that fatal accident or why was your baby born malformed... But looking at situations knowing that there is more to life than our early life may help make that situation that little bit more bearable?

Ok, pastor, I get it…

This passage has lots to say about the end times but what has it got to do with me right now?

I am not about to die, and I don’t have anybody I know who is dying…

What has it got to do with me?

Well, I got two responses to that…

First is that in case you haven’t noticed, the mortality rate so far in human kind is close to 100%...

Everybody who has ever lived has died… well, except for that one example in the Bible… Elijah…[6]

So, it is a matter of time before you will encounter death one way or another…

But the second response is what I want to concentrate on…

Which is that Paul did talk about how we should respond knowing that our hope in God is secured…

The very fact that the return of Christ is imminent and life does not end at death has huge implications on how we should live our lives…

Therefore, our final reflection this morning/afternoon is that:

4. Regarding the End-times, it should impact how we live…

And how Paul addressed this was to encourage the Thessalonian Church not to bow down to the influence of the culture around them and conform to it…

Though the return of the Lord did not happen as quickly as they had expected, firstly they should not lose hope but keep on looking forward to the day in which they will be liberated from all the sufferings they are facing right now…

This can be drawn once again from the analogy of the military formation Paul used in His letter…

In today’s context, formations are almost exclusively used for display and commemorative purposes, but in the old days, the formations were the way they fought…

They were organised in order to fight, and the tighter their formation was, the higher the chances of winning and surviving…

And what is even more amazing, is that the one who leads the military formation, the one who is calling everyone to gather, and the one who is leading the fight is God Himself…

And this, Paul, by carefully using the imagery of the trumpet was able to marry a contemporary image with and Old Testament image, to declare the truth that God will be with His people and will fight for them….

This, see in that says “Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. Our God will fight for us!” also in which reads “Then the LORD will appear over them; The Sovereign LORD will sound the trumpet… and the LORD Almighty will shield them… [And] save his people on that day”.

In fact, the analogy used here is a reflection of the soldiers in the Roman empire, after the troops had been formed up, the trumpet will be sounded three times, and the herald on the side of the commander will then ask the troops 3 times “are you ready” to which the troops will reply “we are ready!”

So, his message to the Thessalonian Church as well as to us today, is not to give up!

This is consistent with what John wrote in the book of the revelations “the one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death” ()

For the Lord Himself is the one who is leading the fight, helping you to overcome the things in the day…

Do not give up!

Do not lose hope!

The Lord, our God, is the one who is standing in front, leading the fight, with us, giving us the assurance that things will be alright because He Himself, the Lord of Heaven and Earth is with us…

Finally, the second caution Paul gave to the church is that they should not go the other extreme, and start to think that perhaps what was spoken about the end times was untrue, the world will never end, and whatever they do will have no consequences whatsoever…

And even if they do not go to the extreme and be promiscuous or indulge in sins, they may be tempted nevertheless to compromise in their standard, bit by bit… a little by little…

And isn’t just as valid a warning to us today as it was in the first century?

Just a little less quiet time today never mind lah…

Just skip a cell group meeting here and there never mind lah…

Just julip a little money (steal a little) here and there nevermind lah…

Just lie a little here and there nevermind lah…

Just a little bribe here and there nevermind lah… just to keep the peace…

Well, Paul tells all of us to be on guard, in fact, he uses the word “keep sober” which is probably better translated as “be alert!” and tells us that the end times may come “like a thief in the night”…

Needless to say, we are living in times that is getting darker and darker, there is a growing prevalence of vices in our world, more skin is shown on TV, cable, and other medium platforms, there is more profanity being spouted and normalisation of vices…

There is a creep in our value systems in the world and there is greater pressure to conform to it…

Paul tells the church then and now… stop compromising to these standards…

Norm doesn’t make them right…

And where do we see this?

Here in 5:3, we note that the people in Thessalonica are so afraid to displease the culture and norm of that time, so eager to please the Roman empire, so eager to ensure that their comfortable life and political system that they were not rejecting Christianity and the Christians because they don’t agree with their teachings or because the Christians were causing them trouble… they just didn’t want to change the prevalent culture at that point in time…

What about us?

With the pornography being so widely available, the effects on our children are becoming increasingly devastating… just look at this report…

And in fact, many times, the children are not even looking for the websites, the websites come and look for our children, through popups…

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/half-of-teens-in-singapore-exposed-to-pornography-survey

What are we doing to guard our young children and even ourselves from these influences?

And this applies to the other things in life too…

And how about Cigarettes…. Drugs… alcohol… profanities and the list goes on and on…

What about how we are treating out domestic helpers at home or our subordinates?

Are we engaged in conversations that are less than pleasing?

Friends, are we really doing things that are glorifying God or are bringing shame to His name?

Can you proudly say that you’re a Christian, bearing the very name of Christ with all the actions that you do?

Friends, instead of conforming into the likeness of the world, we need to continually be conformed into the likes of Christ… and we do this by spending time with Him, being open to Him, spending time in accountability groups and allowing them to speak into our lives…

So that we can continually be changed into His likeness more and more…

So that we can be like the formation that Paul painted in which when the Commander, our Lord calls upon His herald, the archangel to ask us “are you ready”…

You can say whole-heartedly, “Yes we are!”

Yes, we are ready

Ready because we have been preparing for the end days, knowing that it will come one day, equipped with the knowledge that the scriptures are here not to paint a literal view of the end-days, but to assure us that it will come one day, and we need not fear it because our God Himself is fighting for us, granting us safe passage into His heavenly Kingdom… Because God Himself is there at the door, inviting us into His Kingdom… Because He had been preparing us for the great day in which we can all be united in Heaven once again… with Saints that had gone before us and Saints that will come after us… that we may all enjoy in the Heavenly banquet that He had prepared for each and everyone of us…

So regarding the end-times…

Do not speculate on things that are not there…

Know that death and the end times will not break your communion with God…

And the end-times should impact how we live right now… So go forth with the confidence that God is with you, and go with the constant desire to be continuously prepared to meet up with Him, being constantly sanctified, in your living, bringing Glory to God today and ever more!

Amen!

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[1] Fritz Kling, The Meeting of the Waters: 7 Global Currents That Will Propel the Future Church (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2010).

[2] The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), .

[3] https://listverse.com/2016/10/19/10-doomsday-cults-of-the-20th-century/

[4] Gene L. Green, The Letters to the Thessalonians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Leicester, England: W.B. Eerdmans Pub.; Apollos, 2002), 188.

[5] Tong, C. K. (2004). Chinese death rituals in Singapore. New York: Routledge Curzon, p. 30

[6] Enoch is not a very clear example… “God took him away” maybe euphemism.