The Gospel Reality

INTRODUCTION:

Interest:

This past week, our missionary Scott Williquette, who I traveled to Myanmar with last fall, sent out an update of his most recent trip to Chad, Africa. Scott was teaching the same course during this trip in Chad that I helped him teach in Myanmar. It was exciting to hear that around 160 people showed up for the course, far exceeding the number that they were anticipating.

During that trip, Scott wrote that there were several miscellaneous questions asked by the students along the way…we had the same experience in Myanmar as many of the men asked questions regarding topics and questions that they had faced in their own church.

Scott wrote that one of the questions that he was asked during this trip was, “What language did they speak before the Tower of Babel?” He knew that he could have simply answered “I don’t know” to this question and moved on to the next question, but he thought this was a great opportunity to make a needed point. So, he wrote that he asked, “What passage in the Bible answers this question?” The men looked at each other. He asked, “In all the Bible, is there a passage or verse that answers this question?” (I can actually imagine the gestures and expression that Scott would have used asking this the second time). Finally, he wrote that the men answered with a collective “No.”

So he asked, “Then why are we asking this question? If God has not told me something, I don’t need to know it. We cannot go beyond the Word of God. God is not obligated to tell me everything I want to know.” He told the pastors in the class, “When your people ask you about things that the Bible does not address, tell them you don’t know because God has not told us.” Scott recognized that many of the men in the class were spiritually young and have not learned to think biblically or theologically. They need to learn that the Bible is not designed by God to answer our hunger for trivia.

Involvement:

I would suggest that these young pastors are not alone, though, in needing to learn this; we all need to learn the same thing. In fact, we will see in our passage today that curiosity for further information goes all the way back to the earliest days in the NT church and even before.

Context:

Last week we looked at Paul’s response to questions that had been raised by the new believers in Thessalonica regarding the fate of deceased Christians when Christ returned. Remember, Paul has been dealing with a number of questions that arose in this new church largely because of the short time that he and the other missionaries, Silas and Timothy, had been able to spend with the new converts before they were driven out of the city by strong Jewish opposition. Timothy had gone back to check on the church as soon as he could and now Paul wrote this letter 1 Thessalonians in response to the report that he had received when Timothy caught back up with him.

Paul had taught as a core component of the gospel message that Jesus, our risen Lord and Savior, is coming again. He had also apparently taught that He could come at anytime; leaving the expectation that it would be soon. He wrote the verses that we looked at last week in order to assure this young church that those who died before His return would not miss out on that exciting event.

Preview:

As we start looking at chapter 5 this week we will see that apparently the believers in Thessalonica had further questions regarding the return of Christ as well. This morning we are going to begin looking at the further things that Paul says about this topic by looking at the first three verses of this chapter. In these three verses we really find two principles that Paul gives. We will consider each of these principles and then draw a conclusion based upon them for us—a conclusion that continue to expand on the various gospel duties that we have due to the gospel life cycle in which our salvation has placed us. Since the beginning of chapter 4, we have been looking at duties in which we are to continue to excel still more and more. The gospel that gives us life adds these duties to our lives and thereby incorporates us into the process that continues the gospel life cycle—these duties roll us into the God’s gospel process.

Transition from introduction to body:

Let’s go ahead and read our verses…<read 1 Thess 5:1–3>.

There are two principles that we can readily extract from these three verses. The first principle is that…

BODY:

I. We must limit ourselves to what God has revealed about the return of Christ

We must limit ourselves to what God has revealed about the return of Christ. So often we want to know more about so many things.

Illustration

I think we are all a bit like my son, Daniel, when he was young. Apparently he just couldn’t stand to wait for Christmas to know what he was getting so one year he searched the entire house when Grace and I would gone until he found where she had stashed the Christmas presents. He was content waiting until Christmas to play with his presents, but he couldn’t wait to know what he was getting. What I think he learned is that Christmas was not quite as exciting without the anticipation…at least he didn’t do a very good job of faking surprise when he opened his gifts that year.

Yet, even as adults, limiting ourselves to what God has revealed is often one of the most challenging things there is for us to do…we want to know more. This was the problem that the men in Chad were having—they were curious about the language spoken at the Tower of Babel. Countless books are written…and purchased…speculating about what heaven will be or what hell will be like. One of the things that the 70s were well-known for in America was all the attention that the end-times generated. There were numerous prophesy conferences held. Men would get up with massive charts detailing how things were going to unfold and then begin to weave in current events in an attempt to pinpoint exactly where we were in our approach to the end times. We struggle to be content not knowing something we want to know.

And this is not new. The desire to know when Jesus will return is as old as the NT church. In fact, we can even trace this desire earlier than the start of the church. In Luke 17 we find the Pharisees asking Jesus when the end times were coming. In Matt 24 the disciples are asking the same question. Even after the cross, Acts 1:6 has the disciples still asking Jesus if the time had arrived for Him to establish His kingdom. But we can go back even further tracing this question as being matter of great curiosity for people. Peter tells us in 1 Pet 1:10–11 that prophets of long ago sought to know who the Christ would be, when He would come, and when His glories would follow.

Paul is addressing curiosity regarding the timing of Christ’s return here in verse 1 of chapter 5. Unlike the question addressed last week, apparently Paul had taught them something about this question before because he says that they have no need for him to write to them about this topic…they already know what God has revealed.

Paul uses two words to refer to the coming of the Lord in this verse; we have the words translated as “times” and “epochs” in the NASB; several other English versions translate them as “times” and “seasons.” These two words often show up together and are quite similar, but they do have subtle differences which make them such a good pairing of words to refer to a future event.

The word we have translated “times” is a Greek word that conceives of elapsed time and thus points to the idea of a particular date. The word we have translated “epochs” gives attention to the character of a given period and points to the idea of signs that will accompany an event.

Illustration

Think of the idea of the coming of spring. If we want to know when spring will come the first term would move toward an answer of, “Spring will officially arrive in X days.” This would be describing the number of days are until the First Day of Spring on the calendar…I didn’t bother to count how many days that is from today. The second term would move us toward an answer of “When the crocuses begin to bloom, spring has arrived.” Both approaches give an answer to the same question, but from different perspectives in an attempt to determine the when of spring.

Application

The point that Paul makes is that God has not revealed neither time details nor exact signs that allow us to determine the date when Christ will return. And we must limit ourselves to what God has revealed. All these people who attempt to set dates for His return are not only foolish, but actually sinful because they are going beyond what God has revealed. We must resist being pulled in to such activity.

Transition:

Principle number 1: We must limit ourselves to what God has revealed about the return of Christ. Let’s move on now to principle number 2,…

II. God has revealed that the return of Christ will come

This is what God has revealed…most clearly and definitively—Christ will return. In Acts 1:11 the disciples were told right after Jesus’ ascension “This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.” He is coming again, of that we should have no doubt because God has most certainly revealed it in His word.

Transition:

In fact, if we look at the rest of our verses this morning, we see that through Paul we are reminded of specific aspects of Christ’s return that God has revealed. The first aspect is that…

A. The return of Christ will be sudden

It will be sudden. In fact, Paul uses several images and phrases in verses 2 and 3 to make this point.

Before looking at the sudden aspect though, I want us to notice that Paul refers to the return of Christ as the Day of the Lord. This is an OT expression, the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord was phrase that referred to the culmination of God’s promises to the nation of Israel in which the enemies of God would be punished and God’s chosen people would experience blessing. Paul connects these prophesied events to the return of Christ in these verses. By doing this, Paul is pointing to the fact that the return of Christ will involve a number of events in addition to the rapture of the church that was just addressed in the previous section.

Paul says that the Thessalonians know “full well” that “the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.” That expression “full well” translates a word that points to careful precision.

Illustration

It is the idea conveyed in the expression that a mother might use here she told her son to go wash his hands for dinner and he runs into the bathroom barely splashes water on them and comes back wiping the dirt/mud on his shirt. Mom might look at him and say something like “You know full well what I mean when I say to wash your hands. You are to wash them with soap, scrub the dirt off, and dry them!”

There is a bit of tongue and cheek irony in Paul’s use of this expression here. He is saying that regarding the return of Christ you have the precise knowledge that you can date it with the same precision that you can date a thief breaking into your house at night. This image seems to be chosen specifically to emphasis that it is impossible to know the “times” of the Lord’s coming. A thief does not call ahead and make an appointment; he comes unexpectedly.

Paul also uses the image of the suddenness with which labor pains come upon a woman with child to picture the sudden return of Christ though. This seems to be an image specifically selected to illustrate that you cannot know the “epochs” or “seasons” of Christ’s return. You cannot point to a specific set of signs to determine when Christ will come.

Illustration

I think my daughter, Katie’s, delivery a couple of weeks ago helps to illustrate the point that Paul is making. As you know, Katie did not have a normal delivery. Rather than the normal process of labor pains coming on and her giving birth, she was suddenly hit with appendicitis. Because she was so far along there was no safe way to remove her appendix with the baby in the way, so the doctors wisely chose to first remove the baby surgically and then remove her appendix. What I want you to think about is the difference between the suddenness of birth because of her appendicitis and the suddenness of birth via regular labor pains. In her case, there was absolutely no advance warning that she was about to have appendicitis. It just struck, seemingly out of th blue, as appendicitis tends to do.

Regular birth, by contrast, is different, you have plenty of indication that it is coming; after all, the woman is pregnant for 9 months, her belly consistently expands as the baby grows, you know when the end is getting close. Still, even with all that advance warning, the labor pains hit with an expected suddenness; no doctor can predict when they will begin.

This is the image that Paul is using for the suddenness of the return of Christ. There are many signs that it is coming, but none of those will tell us exactly when it will occur. It will come with unexpected suddenness when it happens.

Transition:

The first aspect of the return of Christ that God has revealed is that it will be sudden. The second aspect that God has revealed that we see in our verses is that…

B. The return of Christ will be destructive

It will be destructive. AT the very moment that people are convincing themselves that they are living in “peace and safety” Christ will come and destruction will come upon them.

There is no way to put a positive spin on the word that Paul uses for destruction; it means utter and hopeless ruin. And the point that Paul emphasizes at the end of the verse is that none of the people who have convinced themselves that they are living in peace and safety will escape this destruction. The phrasing used at the end of the verse is most emphatic; we could translate it “they will most certainly not escape.

Illustration

Think of the most destructive elements of nature: a huge tsunami or the flowing lava of an exploding volcano or the rapid destruction of a forest fire driving by gale-force winds. We know from experience that each of these bring absolute destruction to anything that happens to lie before it.

Yet, none of these natural destructive elements can truly begin to depict the destruction that will come with Christ returns and He begins to pour out the wrath of divine judgment out upon the enemies of God. When Jesus came the first time He came to save those who repent from their rebellion against God; when He comes the second time He is coming to judge those who have rejected His offer of salvation and have continued steadfastly in rebellion against God…and this coming will be destructive—destruction without escape.

Transition:

Here is our second principle from these verses: God has revealed that the return of Christ will come. He has also revealed to aspects of this return of Christ: it will be sudden and it will be destructive.

Let’s review…Principle 1: We must limit ourselves to what God has revealed about the return of Christ. Principle 2: God has revealed that the return of Christ will come…suddenly and destructively.

Putting these principles together leads us to a conclusion about our gospel-duty…

III. Our Gospel Duty is to trust all that God has revealed

Our duty is really that simple; we are to trust all that God has revealed. Of course, the challenge comes with that little word all, doesn’t it? We must trust all that God has revealed.

Transition:

Let’s take the specific verses that we are looking at this morning. If we trust all that these three verses tell us this morning, two implications fall out. The first implication is that…

A. We must endure hardships with confidence and patience

This is likely the underlying reason that Paul wrote these words to the Thessalonians in the first place. They were going through times of great hardship. There was incredible opposition from those who hated the church. There was the stress and grief that death and brought on. Yet, in the midst of all of this, Paul focuses in on the fact that the Lord will return. Why? For the simple reason that looking beyond the immediate hardships of the day to a glorious future is the solution to enduring the hardships. Looking to the coming of Christ brings hope, of course, as the verses last week conveyed so well…and such hope generates confidence and patience. But looking to the coming of Christ with the reminder that all of the enemies of God will be judged also serves to generate confidence and patience in the midst of hardship. Knowing that the enemies of God will most certainly not have the last word has allowed believers to endure numerous hardships throughout church history since the day these words were first written.

Application

I am convinced that we need this reminder today in our country. It truly seems as if the enemies of God are winning…the unborn is being killed daily, the biblical ideal of marriage is completely undermined, even the very definition of male and female is being denied. These, and many other examples, can cause us to become dismayed if we do not remember all that God has revealed—the King of kings will not…cannot…even be overthrown by such things. And He is coming again.

Illustration

I don’t normally use interactions with church members during the week as sermon illustrations because I don’t want you to worry that if you interact with me you are likely to turn up as a sermon illustration. I’m going to make an exception to that policy this week. One of you sent me a link this week to an article reporting that Franklin Graham had been dropped from every venue that he had planned to use on a UK tour because of some of his biblical stances that are considered politically incorrect at this time…things like stating that homosexuality is a sexual perversion of God’s design. While we could look at such events and become discouraged…after all it seems as if the enemies of God are winning; I was encourage that the person who sent me the link simply observed that Jesus had told us to be prepared for the hatred of the world and that God word will prevail.

Yes, hardships will come. God’s has revealed that to us and it is our gospel-duty to trust what God has said. God has also revealed, though, that He will prevail because Christ will return and judge God’s enemies. We are to trust that revelation just as much as we endure the hardships with confidence and patience.

Transition:

We are to endure…endure hardships with confidence and patience. That is the first implication that comes from trusting all that God has revealed in our verses today. There is a second implication as well,…

B. We must warn others of the coming judgment

We must warn others. Folks, that is why we are here. The coming judgment was described in our verses as destruction—complete ruin. And when it comes, it will be inescapable. Yet, we know that there is a way of escape; the way of escape is the gospel message that is the beginning of the entire gospel life cycle that this letter has been about. But the time to escape is now, before the judgment arrives; before Christ returns.

Illustration

I remember several years ago I was driving home one evening after work in the winter. I went past this house and I saw what looked like possible smoke coming up from under the front wooden porch. Now, it wasn’t black; rather it was white so I figured it was possibly a drier vent but venting a drier under the porch seemed unusual and I knew that I couldn’t life with myself if I were to discover the next day when I drove past the house that it had burned to the ground. So, I circled around the block, pulled into the driveway, and rang the bell. The lady who answered the door thanked me for checking even though it was indeed a drier vent with the associated steam-cloud in the cold air.

Application

Let me ask you, do you believe all that God has revealed? Do you believe that people you care about are going to fall under the wrath of God if they do not trust in Jesus Christ? Do you believe that they are facing eternal destruction? I have got to believe that if we truly believe that this we will be doing all that we can to warn them. We will warn them of the coming judgment and share with them the offer of salvation that God gives. Yes, we know that the Bible tells us that many will ignore the warning. But our job is to warn them anyway. We must share the gospel message that contains the warning of judgment and the offer of salvation.

Transition from body to conclusion:.

Our gospel duty is to trust all that God has revealed. Trusting all that God has reveals implies that we must endure hardships with confidence and patience and that we must warn others of coming judgment.

CONCLUSION

Our gospel duty is to trust all that God has revealed.

Do you trust all that God has revealed? We must limit ourselves to what God has revealed about the return of Christ. God has revealed that the return of Christ will come. The conclusion is that Our gospel duty is to trust all that God has revealed.