Be ReadyDon’t Sleep in Your Walk!

Chapter 81 Thessalonians 5:1-11

• Jesus both unites and divides. He unites those who trusted in Jesus as Savior and God’s children. He also divides us spiritually from the rest of the world. John 17:17 says “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” His purpose is to encourage the believers to live holy lives in pagan surroundings.

• Contrast between the believers and unbelievers:– Knowledge and Ignorance– Expectancy and Surprise– Soberness and Drunkenness– Salvation and Judgment

• Knowledge and Ignorance (5:1-2)– “Times and Seasons”

• 3 times in the whole Bible (Daniel 2:21, Acts 1:7, and 1 Thess. 5:1) and those refer to God’s plan for Israel. Israel is the key nation. “History is His story” (Dr. A. T. Pierson). This leads to the Day of the Lord.

– “The Day of the Lord”• Not a 24-hour period• It’s a time that God will judge the world and punish

the nations while at the same time He prepares Israel for the return of Jesus Christ as the King to the earth to set up the millennial kingdom. (Amos 5:18ff, Joel 2:1ff, Zephaniah 1:14-18, and Isaiah 2:12-21)

• Another terms: “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jeremiah 30:7) and Tribulation in Rev. 6-19

• “Thief in the Night” (Matthew 24: 42-43, Luke 12: 35-40)– It explains the suddenness and surprise in the coming of

the Day of the Lord (Rev. 3:3, 16:15)– We don’t know when Jesus is coming, but we must

watch and wait while we continue to serve Him and share the Good News to the lost world. Paul described Jesus coming for the church in 1 Thess. 4:13-18. He then explained the seasons and times referring the events after the rapture of the church. Jesus will come in the Day of the Lord!

– The believers know while the unbelievers have no ideas of God’s plan for Israel and that’s ignorance.

• Expectancy and Surprise (5:3-5)– “they” refers to the unsaved, or unbelievers. They will

say peace and safety which is false security while we say “Judgment is coming” and “Jesus is coming!”.

– God warned that flood was coming and only 8 were saved. The world was taken surprised (1 Peter 3:20)

– Lot warned his family that the city will be destroyed, but they weren’t listened (Gen. 19:12-14).

– Jesus warned his generation that Jerusalem will be destroyed, but they wouldn’t listen. Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD and many perished in the siege.

– Jesus used those examples considering the coming judgment.

– No signs are to be fulfilled before the rapture. – Christians are “the sons of the light”.

Therefore, they are not in the darkness when it comes to the future events. The unbelievers scoff at the coming of Jesus Christ. “Knowing the first, that there shall be some in the last days scoffers walking after their own lust, and saying. ‘Where is the promise of His coming?” (2 Peter 3:3-4) God still keeps His promises for “One day is with the Lord

as a thousand years, and thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8)

– Paul compared the coming judgment to “travail upon the woman with a child” (5:3). “The beginning of sorrows” by the Lord Jesus (Matt. 24:8) relates to the early part of the Day of the Lord. Sorrows in Greek means birth pangs. Out of the Day of the Lord comes the birth of the millennial kingdom.

– Live expectantly. It mean to live in the light of his return knowing that our works will be judged and our opportunity to serve our Lord will end soon.

– Difference between being ready to go to heaven and being ready to meet the Lord at the Judgment Seat. I John 2:28

• Soberness and Drunkenness (5:6-8)– To be sober means to be alert, to live with your

eyes open, and to be sane and steady– The drunken sleepers were not aware of the

danger while the sober group were ready and not afraid.

– The “sons of the day” should not live in darkness and should cast off the works of darkness.

• As the sons of the day it’s time to wake up, clean up, and dress up.

• Dress up: put on breastplate of faith and love and for helmet the hope of salvation (5:8). The “armor of light” (Rom. 13:12)

– The sober minded believer has calm and sane outlook. He isn’t afraid. He may experience difficulties, but he doesn’t give up for he knows he is secure in God’s hands.

– The unsaved people are not alert.– Armor to protect us in this evil world:

• Faith and love are as a breastplate covering the heart; faith toward god and love toward people

• Hope, a helmet that protects the mind for the believers set their minds on the things of God (Col. 3:1-3) The unbelievers fix their minds on the things of the worlds.

– Hope of salvation meaning the hope that salvation gives to us.

– Past – I have been saved from the guilt and penalty of sin– Present – I am being saved from the power and pollution

of sin– Future – I will be saved from the presence of sin when

Christ returns.– The blessed hope of our Lord’s return the hope of

salvation.– The unbelievers are without hope (Eph. 2:12)

– Sleep• In 1 Thess. 4:13-18 it means death• In 5:6-7 it describes the attitude of the lost world:

moral indifference and carelessness about the spiritual things (Mark 13: 32-37)

• We must be morning person when it comes to Christ’s return: awake, alert, sober, and ready for the dawning of the new day

• Salvation and Judgment (5:9-11)– Believers do not need to fear the future

judgment for we are not part of God’s plan for us. (1 Thess. 1:10, 5:9)

– Tribulation is appointed for the godless world– Reasons the church will be raptured prior to

the Tribulation period.

• The nature of the church– The church is the body of Christ and He is the head of

the church (Col. 2:17-19); He bore the judgment for us for our salvation when He died on the cross.

– The Day of the Lord is the day of wrath• The nature of the tribulation

– God will judge the Gentile nations and prepare Israel for the coming of the Messiah

– The earth-dwellers will taste of the wrath of god (Rev. 3:10)

• The promise of Christ’s imminent return– Imminent means ready to happen at anytime– Christ will not return until the church is raptured;

otherwise we will know when He will come for the sequence, signs, and times were revealed in Rev. 6-19

– The word church is not used in Rev. 4:13-22:13– Paul used we and us when discussing church rapture– John closed with a prayer “Even so, come, Lord Jesus”

(Rev. 22:20)

• The course of the seven churches in Revelation– Each church represents the course of history– Philadelphia represents the weak but faithful church of

the period before Christ returns» An evangelistic church

– “Thou has kept the word of my patience” meaning the deliverance from the day of judgment (Rev. 3:10)

– I will also keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth (Rev. 3:10)

– This parallel to the promise in 2 Thess. 5:9 “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ”

• The order of the events in 2 Thess. 2

– Encouragement and edification (5:11)• Comfort – 4:18 & 5:11• The truth of Christ’s return encourages us to keep

clean (1 John 3:1-3)

• It encourages us to do the work faithfully whatever is before us (Luke 12: 41-48)

• It encourages us to attend church and love the brethren (Heb. 10:25)

• Knowing that we shall be with the lord strengthen us in difficult times ( 2 Cor. 5:1-8) and motivates us to win the lost to Christ (2 Cor. 5:9-21)