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LSB  1 Thess. 5:1 - 11

1 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. 3 While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman who is pregnant, and they will never escape. 4 But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief, 5 for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness; 6 so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be awake and sober. 7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. 8 But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. 9 For God has not appointed us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. 11 Therefore, comfort one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

A close friend of mine recently went through an extremely painful experience.  He's my age and a mass of tissue was growing inside of him and causing all kinds of problems and so the surgeons and Doctors went inside of him and removed the mass and sent it out to determine if it was cancerous or benign.

It turned out it was aggressively cancerous and if it had remained would have eventually spread and killed him.  They believe they got it all in time but I know he'll watch cautiously for similar invasions.

All of us who know this person applauded him for his wisdom to quickly undergo the painful remedy.  No one questioned his rights and his morality to undergo the removal of a tissue mass.  Never entered a single mind that there was any morality involved.  His body.  His care over his own body.  He used wisdom and bravery to undergo the very painful cure.  His choice of necessary care over his own body.  

So why then for 50 years has there been a constant agitation and fuss over women who have tissue masses removed from their bodies.  Why is there a continuing moral question about millions of women having an invasive mass of tissue removed, but for my friend there was no moral issue raised?

Think about the similarities.  Two people go into a surgeon and have an invasive mass of tissue removed, and in one case we are horrified, and in the other we consider the person wise and brave and lucky indeed.  What's the difference?

Is it because men are privileged and brave when they have a mass removed and women are un-privileged to do the same thing?  Inequality between the sexes?  It's good for the man to do but bad for the woman?  

You all know where this is going so I'll spare you any further silliness.  My friend had a dangerous cancer removed prolonging his life.  The women in my illustration and comparison have had a human being who is an image bearer of God removed and discarded into the trash.  No further tests needed.  No one needs to know if the mass removed from the woman is cancerous.  Everyone knows it isn't a dangerous harmful mass, it was a person.  That mass of tissue is human life.  A person.  Extinguished.

We have a name for that activity.  Murder.  And so for 50 years people who recognized this activity for what it is have been horrified for the extent of the crime that has been committed by our nation.  10's of millions of lives cut off and discarded.  50 years.  Most of those lives discarded would be parents and grandparents by now.

Where am I going with this?  Very simple.  It illustrates what Paul is going to describe for us in 1 Thess. 5 in our passage this morning.  Darkness.  Blindness.  Actually delusional deliberate untruthful darkness.  For the sake of absolute personal autonomy, people in darkness refuse to see the obvious.  As opposed to truth and light.

Last Friday when the news came about the reversal of Roe V Wade, I also got a message shared from someone I don't really know very well, they had bought a lens from me and I guess I was in their address book, but it was pretty telling.  The message was this;

Rightwing Christianity has become cultish & dangerous. This is NOT OK. Christians, you are either openly & loudly opposed to this, or are complicit to it

Somehow the actions of the supreme court of the United States to protect unborn human lives is the fault of dangerous cultish rightwing christians.

And actually the court didn't necessarily save any lives, all they did was decide that the original decision 50 years ago was outside of the jurisprudence of the national Supreme court and should be returned to the states.  Whether that tissue mass is a human worthy of protection is now the decision of the state you live in, not the country the state is part of.

My point is that the middle ground between those who would uphold a morality based in the revelation of a supreme being and those who are godless has vanished.  Now it's just a shouting match between radical lunatic parties on either side with zero hope of any middle ground.  Black and white.  Darkness and light.

What is the difference?  I'm going to submit to you that it is based in a fear of God vss no fear of God.  Without a fear of God, existence for those who can not fend for themselves becomes a matter of cost and convenience.  That's the obvious and end result of secularism.

The unborn go first.  The most helpless of all.  But close behind is anyone else who becomes "unworthy of life".  Old people.  Incurably sick people.  Crazy people.  Perhaps conservative christians who will not yeild up the authority of the Word of God.  "life unworthy of life" The German term (Lebensunwertes Leben) was a Nazi designation for the segments of the populace which according to the Nazi regime had no right to live.

Caution.  My illustration is only an illustration.  Please do not confuse what I'm saying here that anyone who opposes abortion is an automatic christian, that being a republican is being a christian.  I am not!   Most republicans are anything but.  

What I am trying to say is that evil is getting increasingly more evil and while righteousness never gets more righteous, the gap between and the contrast gets more radical, more distinct.  What was ordinary christian holiness a hundred years ago is now considered as fringe lunacy by the world.  Who changed?

The christians didn't get more holy.  The gap between got wider because the world has moved deeper and deeper into darkness.  Now the norm in the world looks at christians and says, those folks are a dangerous radical lunatic fringe who remove our liberties.  Christians are dangerous crazies.  They need to go.  This is NOT OK.  

Back to our study of 1 Thess. chapter 5.  Paul is outlining the great separation that occurs at the "day of the Lord."  The day of the Lord is the great separation between two groups.  The church goes to heaven, the rest have been submerged by a tidal wave, although they don't know it yet.  

Paul is talking about the church and the world.  Two distinct separate groups. If you look at the pronouns in vss. 1 - 11 of chapter 5 it goes something like this;  just the pronouns about 2 groups.

Vs 1 brothers, you, you.  Vs 2 you, yourselves.  Vs 3 they, them, they.  Vs 4 you, brothers, you.  Vs 5 you, sons, sons, we.  Vs 6 us, others, us.  Vs 7 those, those.  Vs 8 we, us.  Vs 9 us, our.  Vs 10 us, we, we.  Vs 11 one another, one another, you.

That was quick and painless and very helpful.  Paul is speaking of two distinct groups of people.  And in fact there are only two distinct groups of people in the entire world.  Only two.  Period.  You're either in one group or the other group.  No middle ground.  Are you ready;  ?

There are christians, those who are in Christ, those whose sins have been forgiven them, those who have been purchased out of this condemned world to be Christ's own possession, and the other group, the condemned.  The lost sinners.  The blinded dupes of Satan.  Those who grope about in blindness, hopelessly lost, condemned to the judgement already the verdict spoken by God who they are in rebellion against.  Those who cling to blindness because they love their sins.

Sons of God, adopted, protected, valued, heirs.  Enemies of God.  Two groups.  Someone has said, "The saints, and the aint's."  

And in chapters 4 & 5 Paul speaks about the distinctions between those two groups using several metaphors.  Darkness and light.  Sober and sleeping.  Drunk to the point of loss of faculty and dead sober, daylight and night time.

In chapter 4 and 5, and also in 2 Thessalonians we understand the problem Paul is addressing.  There was confusion about the return of Jesus and even more confusion and fear because someone had written them a letter as if from Paul and told them that in fact Jesus had come, and they missed it and they were now living in, enduring the time of judgement.  

And so Paul has set the record straight in chapter 4 about the rapture.  No christian misses it.  Christians who have gone to sleep in Christ will rise first and preceed those of us who are alive when we are changed and get our heavenly bodies.  

Chapter 5 is a continuation of that discussion by Paul.  Christians will not endure the end times judgements, but unbelievers will be caught up in horrific judgements in that time period.  He's arguing that point in terms of the redeemed as opposed to the lost.  God's own possession as opposed to condemned enemies of God.

For the sake of our context let's briefly re-visit vss 1 and 2 that we looked at last week.  

1 Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night.

The rapture of the church begins the time period known as the Day of the Lord.  Paul is arguing that the Day of the Lord has not happened because the christians are still very much here.  

In 2 Thess. 2 Paul has to say;  Now we ask you, brothers, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, 2 that you not be quickly shaken in your mind or be alarmed whether by a spirit or a word or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. 3 Let no one in any way deceive you,

If our feet are still on earth, the day of the Lord has not begun.  That's simply what Paul is teaching these jittery nervous Thessalonians.  The day of the Lord has two distinctive opposite effects on the 2 groups of people who inhabit earth.  

First of all, the day of the Lord will come without warning.  The day of the Lord will come without warning.  Like a thief.  Total surprise event.

For christians, a shout, Come Up Here, along with the trump of God, and we will meet Jesus, in the air, our new heavenly bodies will have been created for us in the twinkling of an eye as we rise up to meet Jesus.  Eternal bliss begins at that moment.

But for the rest of the world, it's a trap and a snare.  The day of the Lord will spring upon the rest of the rebellious world like a bear trap in the woods.  Snap!  Gotcha.  Paul defines that event for the lost.  He uses distinctly "other" pronouns to describe those who are caught in the trap of the day of the Lord.

3 While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman who is pregnant, and they will never escape.

After the church is removed, the world actually begins to thrive.  A one world government arises because of the messiah like leadership of a single individual.  A person who can fix everything that's broke.

This single man can put humpty dumpty back together.  Magically.  Quite literally, miraculously.  And the entire world is going to be singing the song in verse 3 to the praise of this man.  Peace and Safety!

But destruction comes suddenly.  Like labor pains.  Something I've never experienced, but I spent some time with a lady who did.  She'd be exhausted and actually sleep for 90 seconds or 2 minutes, whatever it was, and then like an electric shock, she would be awakened by sheer pain.  

That sudden electric jolt of pain is what Paul describes for us in vs. 3.  But notice the pronoun.  They, them, they.  This description isn't for christians.  It's for the world left behind at the day of the Lord.

Vss. 4,5 listen to the pronouns here;   But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief, 5 for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;

Notice the pronouns here.  You, brothers, you, sons, sons, We.  Vss 4 and 5 are about the redeemed.  The christians.  The day isn't going to overtake us like a thief, because we're not going to be here.  We'll be with Jesus.  Judgement doesn't surprise and overtake the saints like a trap and a snare.
We are sons of light.  We are sons of the day.  We are NOT sons of darkness.

To be a son of something was a hebrew idiom that we have adopted.  It is descriptive of the character of the person.  James and John were sons of thunder.  We picture them as boisterous to a fault personality type men.

For us now, the use is mostly derogatory.  Son of a ____________.  You fill in the blank.  Same idea.  Christians are sons of light.  Sons of day.  Unbelievers are sons of darkness.  Sons with no light.  Sons who are blind.  

Judgement is going to snare the sons of darkness like a trap.  It overtakes.  It overwhelms.  It's a tidal wave that rolls over you instantaneously.  Trapped.  Overwhelmed.  But not for us.

4 But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that the day would overtake you like a thief, 5 for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness;

Paul's argument here is so simple.  Judgement that is coming upon a condemned and rebellious world does not overtake, overwhelm, capture christians in it's sudden grasp.

They were worried that somehow they had missed out on the rapture and they were enduring end times judgements.  Paul says no.  That day doesn't overtake and overwhelm those who belong to Jesus.

The word translated overtake is interesting to consider.  katalambanó  It's a compound word.  Kata is to take down, and lambano is to seize, to capture, to take hold of something.  Sounds like tackle football.

The day of the Lord effectively does that.  This world's day is over.  Satan's day is over.  God captures this world as a policeman captures a criminal.  After the rapture, the next seven years are all God.  They lead to an inevitable return of Jesus in judgement.  Captivity with a terrifying pre-written end.

If you belong to Jesus, that day won't capture you in it's terrifying grasp.  It's a time of judgement.  But our due penalty and judgement has already been paid.  Jesus paid our penalty due us for our sins with His death on a cross.  This time of judgement is not for us.  It doesn't overtake us like a thief.

Nothing could be sweeter to our ears than to hear that trumpet and that shout, Come Up Here.  This is perhaps the single greatest argument for a pre-tribulation period rapture.  Paul just paints the separation of church and world in black and white contrast here.  We go to heaven.  They get captured and judged.  Don't be a they, those, them, be a we, brothers, us, you.  Be a part of the group that doesn't undergo judgement because it's all been paid for.

6 so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be awake and sober.

Paul has taken great pains to elaborate for them their position in Christ.  Everything Paul has told them is because of their position in Christ.  We are in Christ.  We are in the light, not the darkness.  We are of the day, not the night.  We will not endure the coming judgement because of our position.  

We are purchased, owned, redeemed, made alive together with Christ.  We are not citizens of this rebellious place.  We are citizens of heaven.  Jesus has prepared a place for us there.  All of that truth is positional, right?  It must be.  Because, pinch yourselves, we're still here in this world.

Paul takes this moment after painting this picture of our glorious position to say, OK, act like it.  You are this, act like this.  You are sons and heirs adopted into unimaginable wealth and status.  Your Father is the Creator of all things, and you are collectively the bride of His Beloved Son Who has been given authority over all things.  That's your family.  That's your status, your position.  Act like who you are.

When it comes to God, the world is sound asleep.  Secularism believes there is no God and lives as if there is no God.  It's a complete disconnect from reality.  Sleep is one metaphor, drunkeness to the point of loss of your faculties is another metaphor.  The world is in a drunken stupor regarding God.  Sleeping with their eyes wide open.  

Disconnected from the reality of a God who created them, who owns them, who is their sovereign, and who will require from them due punishment for their dis-honor and disobedience of His ownership.  The world is in a substance induced sleep like stupor concerning the God with Whom they will answer.

Paul tells the christians, this is your position, act like it.  We don't sleep like the world sleeps.  We live every moment in the knowledge of and for the pleasure of and glory of our God who loved us and purchased us for His own possession.

6 so then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be awake and sober.
7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night.

In vss 6,7,and 8 Paul does a little play on his own metaphor of darkness and light, daytime and nightime, day people and night people, sober people in daylight and drunken people in the darkness of night.

This is the world.  Asleep in regard to God.  In a drunken stupor in regard to God.  Their life is in the darkness.  Stumbling around in the dark, in a stupor, sleeping in the gutters of this world.  Satan has turned out the lights.  And they love it so.

8 But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

Unlike the world who are lost in a drunken stupor of darkness, the christian is pictured in daylight, sober and alert, and we are dressed in battle array in order to withstand our sojourn in this lost and dangerous foreign to christians world.

Positionally we are citizens of another world, waiting for our rescue, waiting to go home.  But while we are here, we are alert, sober, and we have three protections against the onslaught of this hostile environment we have been left in.  Faith, Love, and Hope.

We have faith.  Belief in revealed truth's not yet seen.  Faith is directly connected to revelation from God.  Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.  It's a direct connection.  God's word causes increased faith.  

But it isn't an empty disconnected mental faculties faith.  Real faith causes real love.  Reading and studying and meditating and singing this book of ours causes God's love to be poured out in us and through us to others as a channel.  God pours His love and blessing into us and it just flows back out of real believers.  We all have that special connection with each other.

Faith and Love are our breastplate.  Faith and love are our bullet proof vest.  That's why this book is so important.  40 minutes a week isn't enough.  We need to be daily, daily, daily meditating and reading and listening to good preaching and growing strong in God's words or we're vulnerable.  

Ignorance of this book is like walking into an active shooter situation with no bullet proof vest.  Ignorance of God's word makes you vulnerable.  Hosea 4:6  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge

OK, that's our bulletproof vest, what about our heads?  We need a helmet.  

8 But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation.

Hope of salvation?  What's that?  I thought we were talking about the saints here.  Why are they hoping for salvation.

We talked about this.  Positional truth, practical truth.  Positionally I am an adopted son and an heir of all things with Jesus.  Positionally I am wildly wealthy, possessor of all things, my bank account in heaven is loaded.  I'm loaded.

But practically, I'm still here.  An enemy combatant in a hostile land.  What little money and possessions I have can evaporate almost overnight.  No guarantees in this place.  Like the jews in germany in 1938, or the Japanese in California in 1941.  We think we own stuff, but in this world, it can all evaporate and be gone.

Here's what I do have.  I may be an enemy combatant in a hostile land with bullets whizzing past me, but I've got a book that tells me, the helicopter is on the way.  Rescue is imminent.

Jesus is coming to call me out of this world.  I'll rise up and meet Him in the air.  He's coming.  All this world can do is kill my body.  Doesn't matter.  Rescue is on the way, whether I'm awake or asleep in the grave.  All of us who have known Him intimately and personally will hear that shout.  The living and the sleeping will all hear Him when our salvation arrives to take us home.

Faith and Love and Hope sustain us until He calls us home.

9 For God has not appointed us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.

Vs. 9 may be the single greatest argument for a pre-tribulation rapture in the whole Bible.  For God has not appointed us for wrath,

This world has an appointment with wrath.  What God did in the flood, and what God did at Sodom and Gomorrah, those are just types.  Little tiny visuals of the real wrath that is coming on this rebellious world.

And God stores up wrath.  This world thinks there is no God.  Where is the promise of His coming, for since the fathers fell asleep, all things remain the same.  

In Malachi 3:6 God reminds Israel, and by extension, everybody else, judgement is witheld, stored up, because of His unchangeableness.  “For I, the LORD, do not change; therefore you, O sons of Jacob, are not consumed.

The only thing that kept Israel from being consumed like Sodom was, is the promises God gave to them.  They deserved to be consumed.  But God waits for the day of wrath, and He stores up the judgements due.  They're there.  They're coming.  Count on it, it's stored up in the bank accounts of wrath.  Waiting for the day.

This world has an appointment with wrath.  All of the wrath that is due, will come.  God's waiting for the appointed time that He alone knows.

There is however, a single exception.  1 Thess. 5:9,10
9 For God has not appointed us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.

The world has an appointment with the wrath of God, but christians, true Holy Spirit indwelt christians are opted out.  It couldn't be more plain, more simple.  How could you say it any more straight forward and simply.    For God has not appointed us for wrath,

We have an appointment to meet our Lord in the air, to be rescued out of this condemned world.  We have an appointment for our positional salvation to become realized.  We have an appointment where the faith in all of the positional truths that we read and studied and stored away in our hearts against that day, will become practical truth.  Truth's realized.  Promises fulfilled.

Beloved, the Holy Spirit who dwells inside every true christian is only our down payment.  The Holy Spirit is the good faith money that secures the deal until the full payment happens.  We have our down payment, we wait for the day when we will see Jesus, face to face.  That's our inheritance in full.

The world has an appointment with wrath.  We have an appointment too.  See it in vs. 9b and 10  We have an appointment with salvation.  Rescue.  Out of this world that has an appointment with the fierce wrath of God.

9 For God has not appointed us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him.

Finally, in the logical conclusion in view of our rescue out of this world whether we are awake or alseep.  And, Oh, by the way, that language of rescuing both the sleeping and the awake can only hearken back to the teaching about the rapture in chapter 4.  That sentence makes no sense without Paul's teaching that the dead in Christ will rise first.  Those who are asleep will preceed the living when Christ comes to remove His church, rescue His church out of the worlds appointment with wrath.

Then Paul says, in view of all of this rescuing and home going and realised promises of salvation, complete payment in full realised for those who have the downpayment living inside them, Paul says comfort one another with this particular truth.

Bullets are whizzing by your head.  Take comfort in knowing the helicopter is coming to get us out of here.  Rescue is under way.  We're just waiting for that day.  Meanwhile, all this world can do, the most they can do, is kill us.  We get rescued whether we are awake or asleep.  I'll take either one.

11 Therefore, comfort one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.

These are words of comfort.  These are words of edification.  Which raises the obvious question;  What do you do with this verse if you believe that the church will endure the wrath of God that is about to be unleashed on this rebellious world.

God's got bowls of wrath stored up that makes Sodom and Gomorrah look like Miss Pam's pre-school.  These guys who insist on a post tribulation rapture, what do these verses mean?  Comfort one another that we're going to be here when God pours out all of the wrath that He has stored up for 7000 years?  Really.  

Even Job's comforters had that beat.  This passage singularly promises that the church does not have an appointment with wrath that God has made for this world.  We have an appointment with salvation.  Salvation fully realised.  Salvation completed in the twinkling of an eye as gravity becomes something that no longer holds us here, and we rise to meet Jesus in the air.

I don't know about you, but I find that very comforting.  Especially as the world gets increasingly in God's face, poking Him in His eyes, proudly boasting of their vile abominations, believing there is no God and they can be just as vile as their imaginations can imagine.

I think the wrath is about to spill over.  I don't know about you, but I'm very very comforted in knowing, that appointment with wrath isn't for me.  The wrath that I was due to receive was paid for in full by Jesus who took the punishment that was rightfully due to me, on Himself.  He paid my debt.  And then He rose from the grave.  Why wouldn't I believe that He will call me home, in His time.  Awake or asleep, I'll hear His voice.  Come Up Here.