LIVING LIFE ON THE WATCH

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on October 24, 2018 under PM Bible Study |

PM Bible Study Group; October 24, 2018 – from 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Theme: The promise of the Lord’s coming gives us comfort with regard to fellow believers who sleep in death.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

It’s hard to think of anything of as great an interest to the follower of the Lord Jesus in this dark and fallen world than the promise of His return. As redeemed people, we love to think about it. But many people also love to speculate about it beyond the limits of what the Lord tells us about it—and as a result, they sadly make predictions that end up harming the faith of some. One of the things about which people make the most frequent erroneous predictions is in the timing of the Lord’s return.

Jesus Himself warned His followers that this would not be appropriate to do. In His teaching about the promise of His return, He told His disciples;

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32).

Think of that! In the mystery of the distinction of the Persons in the triune Godhead, our Lord affirmed that He Himself did not know the day of His return. We certainly cannot know it either. To be sure, there are signs that the Lord told us to watch for that indicate the nearness of that day; but the exact day remains a mystery hidden in the plan of the Father. As Jesus told His apostles just before He ascended to the Father, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority” (Acts 1:7). It’s not our place, then, to set dates and speculate about the timing of things.

But our Lord did tell us this much with regard to the hope of His coming;

“Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning—lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!” (vv. 33-37).

The return of the Lord was a big matter to the Thessalonian believers. There were even some in their midst who had been disturbing them with ‘end-times speculations’ (see 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 2 Thessalonians 2:1-3). Apparently, they had asked Paul and his ministry colleagues to write to them and answer their questions about it all. And Paul does so. But he doesn’t gratify the desire they might have had to know the timing of the Lord’s return. Instead, he teaches them—and us—a much more valuable lesson; that the anticipation of the coming day of the Lord is a comfort to those who watch for it.

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Notice first how Paul affirms …

1. THE UNEXPECTEDNESS OF THAT DAY (vv. 1-3).

He began by telling them, “But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night” (vv. 1-2). The reason that they know this “perfectly” (or “accurately”) is because it is what the Lord Himself had already told them about it. In speaking of the day of His return, the Lord had said;

“But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matthew 24:43-44).

A thief does not send out a courtesy notice—a few days in advance—to let you know that he is coming to steal from you; not a good one anyway. He keeps it a surprise. That’s why a home-owner needs to keep on the alert. And in the same way, we are to keep watch always; because the Lord’s coming is like that thief—unannounced and unexpected. As the apostle Peter also says, “the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night” (1 Peter 3:10). And as the Lord Himself warned the spiritually dead church in Sardis, “Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know what hour I will come upon you” (Revelation 3:3).

To highlight the unexpected nature of that day to the Thessalonian believers, Paul went on to say this about the impact it will have on this world: “For when they say, ‘Peace and safety!’ then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape” (v. 3). The reason the world would be saying “Peace and safety” might be because of the false peace and security with which the Antichrist will delude this world (see 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12; Revelation 13:1-10). But just like when birth pangs suddenly come upon an expectant woman, the day of the Lord will come and catch the supposedly ‘peaceful’ and ‘safe’ world by surprise. Sudden destruction will come; and as Paul strongly puts it in the original language, those who are caught by it all will “by no means escape”.

Any time we hear of someone making a specific declaration of when the Lord will come, we should immediately ignore them and not let ourselves be troubled by their prediction. We can know for certain that they are wrong and literally do not know what they are talking about; because the Lord already said that they cannot know. The Lord said that He Himself did not know. That day comes ‘unexpectedly’—like a thief in the night.

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And that ‘unexpected’ nature of the day leads Paul to go on and affirm …

2. THE ALERTNESS OF THE SAINTS (vv. 4-7).

Thieves usually come at night—under the cover of darkness. But Paul tells the Thessalonians, “But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness” (vv. 4-5). The kind of ‘darkness’ that Paul is speaking of is of a spiritual nature. It describes the kind of spiritual state in which someone is unenlightened by God’s revealed truth, and who lives in the darkness of sin. In Ephesians 5:8-14, Paul wrote;

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest is light. Therefore He says:

“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light” (Ephesians 5:8-14).

It is the character of a genuine believer to no longer be walking in such darkness. They are children of the light and sons of the day. They live in the hope of the glory of our Lord’s return. And so, they live—as it were—in the daylight of that glorious hope. To do otherwise is contrary to who they are. As Paul says, “Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night” (vv. 6-7). Just like a thief operates in the night, so those who perform acts of spiritual darkness do them in the cover of spiritual ‘night’. As the apostle John wrote—perhaps actually quoting the words of our Lord;

“And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God” (John 3:19-21; see also 1 John 5:1-7).

One of the great ways that we, as believers, live in the spiritual daylight is by the way we live a holy life in conformity to the constant expectation of the ‘unknown’ day of the Lord’s return.

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And there’s good reason why we live in the constant expectation of this day. Paul goes on to affirm …

3. THE CONFIDENCE OF THE OUTCOME (vv. 8-10).

He encouraged his readers to live in a manner that is truly becoming of those who walk in the light. He wrote; “But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation” (v. 8).

Those words should be familiar to us. They’re the kind of words Paul used in Ephesians 6 in describing the armor of the believer. But even in that Ephesians passage, Paul took those images from out of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. In Isaiah 58; the prophet wrote of the Lord Himself as our Savior and said;

He saw that there was no man,
And wondered that there was no intercessor;
Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
For He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,
And was clad with zeal as a cloak (Isaiah 58:16-17).

Paul told the Thessalonians that, in the light of the promise of our Lord’s return, we should live in readiness by putting on a ‘breastplate’. A breastplate is a piece of armor that protects the vital organs. And in this case, we’re to put on the breastplate of faith and love—living in these vital principles of the Christian faith in our daily walk. What’s more, we’re to put on something ‘as a helmet’. A helmet protects the head; and in this case, in our daily walk in this world, we’re to put on ‘the hope of salvation’. We’re to keep our thoughts on what Jesus has done to save us, and turn our focus toward the future glory that will be ours at His return. Because of the ‘Isaiah connection’, these amount to putting on Christ Himself in our daily lives.

And why do we do this? Paul goes on to write, “For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him” (vv. 9-10). This fallen world is destined for wrath. Revelation 6 describes how the world will respond to the promise of the Lord’s return. The apostle John wrote;

I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” (Revelation 6:12-17).

Note those closing words—that “the great day of His wrath has come”! How horrible! But we don’t have to hide in fear from that day. The day of the Lord’s return is salvation to us! This is our hope whether we live on this earth to be ‘awake’ and watch, or—as he wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18—we ‘sleep’ in the grave and await the day of resurrection.

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And note in closing the practical value of our call to wait. Paul writes in verse 11 of …

4. THE COMFORT OF THE HOPE (v. 11).

He tells the Thessalonian believers, “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing.” He knew—as he stressed in Chapters 1-3—that they were already working faithfully to build and edify one another. But he wanted them to also take this doctrine—the doctrine of the call to wait and watch for the unexpected return of our Lord as the great day of our salvation—and make it a cause for comfort to one another.

Let’s always remember that. Unbiblical speculations about the day of the Lord do not bring comfort. They bring division and fear. They do so because they are speculations concerning something that the Lord said we absolutely cannot know. The clear teaching of our Lord is that that the day of His coming is an intentionally-unknown mystery to us. But He also taught us that it is a day of great hope for which we are to watch and look forward to, and that is meant to bring consolation and encouragement to us.

Therefore, let’s live a life of watchful anticipation of our Master’s glorious return—and thus work as sons and daughters of the light!

EA