Live from Buffalo Creek. Turn in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. We're going to read through verse 11 just to kind of get the sense. We're not going to cover all those verses. We'll probably just do verse 1 and maybe two tonight, but I do want to read 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 1. But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light and the children of the day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep, sleep in the night, and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Wherefore, comfort yourselves together and edify one another, even as also ye do." Now tonight we're going to cover the uncertainty of the time of Christ's coming. Verses 1-5 specifically deals with the doctrine of the Day of the Lord. There are two metaphors used by Paul to describe the way in which the Day of the Lord will affect the unbelievers who are left behind after the catching away of the saints in I Thessalonians chapter 4. prior to the tribulation period. So first of all, it'll come unexpectedly as a thief in the night does. In fact, so many people are going to be deceived. They're going to be under the rule and reign of the Antichrist, the man of sin. They're going to believe a lie. And they're going to be dwelling in the darkness of moral depravity And so they will not in any way be looking. In fact, they're going to be saying peace and safety. Everything's all right. The economy's back on track. The civil unrest is now we've solved all those problems. People are not going to be ready because it's going to get a whole lot worse after the unveiling of the Antichrist. Secondly, It will come, this day of the Lord will come inevitably and painfully as a woman giving birth to a child. Now in verses 4 and 5 you have a contrast. Here we're assured He says, but ye brethren, brethren, you're children of the day. You're assured that you'll not have to go through this period of judgment. You're the children of light. You are expecting the coming of the Lord. You're looking for that blessed hope and that glorious appearing of our great God and Savior. You are going to be ready, watching, praying. And they'll have already been caught away in the clouds prior to the judgments that are unveiled during the day of the Lord. Now, in verses 6 through 11, you have exhortations for Christians to live as saints in light who are soberly watching for the coming of the Lord. The basis for their deliverance from the day of the Lord, a time of intense judgment is alluded to in verses 9 through 11 once again. God's not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation, to obtain deliverance. They've been eternally appointed by God to salvation rather than the wrath that will characterize the day of the Lord. You look at the book of Revelation. as it, I believe, unfolds the characteristics, if you will, of the tribulation period in different symbols, trumpets that unveil the wrath of God, seals, vials of wrath outpoured, and then culminating when Jesus comes back with the saints to the earth to judge, to make war, to set up His millennial kingdom. Now, these believers are partakers of the rich love of Christ who manifested His love for them by dying in their place. And then Paul ends verse 11 by telling the believers that they ought to use these precious truths to comfort and to edify one another. The fact that you have not been appointed under wrath. You have been appointed for salvation, for deliverance. The Lord died for you. You're going to be rescued. Now verses 1 and 2 is what we'll look at tonight. And it starts with a change with the word but. But of the times and of the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you." It starts off with that word to signify a new subject matter that is being introduced. Now mind you, in chapter 4, they had just been assured of the certainty of the coming of the Lord when He will come in the air. to catch them away, those that are alive and remain at the coming of the Lord. The dead in Christ will rise first, and those who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them. That phrase, caught up, we looked at several ways it's used in the Bible last week. The common term that people use today is the rapture. Now, some don't like that term. It's not in the Bible, It does convey the idea that Christ is going to lift us out, catch us away. Now in chapter five, they're given some instruction proving once again, have you gotten a theme? Every time you read about the coming of the Lord, every time, He's constantly emphasizing, you can't set a date for it. The times and the seasons, you have no need that I write unto you. They had just been assured of the certainty of the Lord in the rapture, coming in the rapture. Now they're given instruction proving that the exact time of His coming is uncertain. This is taught all the way through the New Testament. I've always said this, it gives premillennialists, which is what I am, a bad name when people go off the rails and they make predictions and they write up a bunch of formulas that they predict all. He's coming. Remember the booklet that went to every mailbox in 1988 that he's coming in? I got that booklet out of our mailbox at Providence Baptist Church, Birch Road Baptist Church. As soon as I saw it, I said, this is trash. You cannot fix a date. In fact, I think anybody who fixes a date for the coming of the Lord should immediately be labeled as a false prophet. Don't listen to another thing they say. Because Jesus said time and again, watch and pray. For you know not what hour the Son of Man cometh. We're just supposed to be ready. We're never told the precise time of the Lord's return. And if this either for the first or second advent or for the second, the first phase or the second advent, if the saints and former ages would have known the exact dates of the Lord's return, they would have ceased to anticipate the coming of the Lord in their lifetime. And I believe it's a teaching of eminence that we're just to be ready. He could come at any moment. So those who predict the exact date of the Lord's return are way off base. And believe me, there are lots of people out there. Right now, I mean, there are all kinds of theories floating around. And I'm telling you, just stick with the Bible. Just stick with what the word of God says. Now, in 1 Thessalonians 5.1, Paul echoes the words of Jesus before he ascended back up to heaven. In fact, it sounds so similar to what Jesus said in Acts 1.7. And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power. The reason why the saints at Thessalonica would not need for Paul to write to them concerning this matter is because they had already been instructed and taught concerning the uncertainty and the exact timing of the Lord's return. They'd already been acquainted with the teaching through verbal instruction. That's why he said, you don't have need for me to talk or to write about these times and seasons. They knew that they could not pinpoint the exact time of the Lord's return. D. Edmund Hebert said this about this verse. It had been made plain to them that the coming of the Lord was not an event that they could mark as a fixed date on a calendar. They had been told that the times or seasons are a matter of divine determination and not a proper subject for Christian speculation. Biblical interpretation transcends its legitimate function whenever it presumes to establish fixed dates for the coming of prophetic events. The scriptures do not sanction the senseless practice of setting dates for the return of Christ. The failure of such attempts only serves to bring the prophetic hope into disrepute. It hurts the cause. When somebody predicts that the Lord's gonna come back and they've figured it out, it's just not biblical. And it does, it brings a lot of harm, and I'm convinced it's one of the reasons why a lot of people turn away from premillennialism. Believe it or not, in the last 50 years, there's been a renaissance, if you will, of postmillennialism, which is, to me, nonsensical. There ain't no way that we're gonna usher in the kingdom with as much wickedness that this world is in right now. And then, And then amillennialism, the idea that there is no literal millennium. You know, again, that is something I can't even embrace at all. You know, I mean, Revelation 20, how many times do I have to say it? How many times does the Lord have to say it? He has to say it six times. in seven verses that He is going to reign on the earth for a thousand years. I believe it. I believe the Old Testament teaches it. The New Testament teaches it. Now, with that said, I don't make this a test of fellowship with people. There are a lot of people that I know that some of them are, I'm pre-trip, some are mid-trip, some are post-trip, some are pan-millennialists. You know what a pan-millennialist is? That's what Brother Cockrell used to call them. It's all gonna pan out in the end. That's what they believe. Yeah, it's all gonna pan out in the end. I've got friends of all prophetic genres. So I don't make it a test of fellowship. Brother, I believe what the Word of God teaches. Now the phrase, the times and the seasons, refers in general to the events associated with the end times. The Greek word for times is chronos, which indicates chronological or calendar times. The Greek word for seasons is kairos, which refers to time in terms of events or eras. John MacArthur had a great comment about the significance of how these two terms are used here. Taken together, the two terms suggest that the Thessalonians We're curious about the timing of the end time events. That both nouns are plural indicates that many different periods and events, example, the rapture, the rise of Antichrist, the salvation of Israel, the seal, the trumpet, the bowl judgments, the second coming, the battle of Armageddon, the sheep and the goat judgment, the binding of Satan, the millennial kingdom, the loosing of Satan, and the subsequent worldwide rebellion at the end of the millennium, the great white throne judgment, and the new heavens and the new earth make up the end times. That's just a summary of what eschatology really is, the study of the end times and those times and events. Now in verse two, Paul reiterates that the saints at Thessalonica knew that the day of the Lord would come as a thief in the night upon those unbelievers who are dwelling in darkness. Verse 2, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. They knew perfectly, meaning that their information did not need to be corrected or supplemented by further revelation. They had already been taught it. They had obviously been the recipients of instruction that corresponded with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus had taught that the precise time of His coming was uncertain, was unexpected. Matthew 24, verses 43 and 44, watch therefore For you know not what hour your Lord doth come, but know this, that if the good men of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. What are we to be looking for? What are believers to be looking for? Looking for that blessed hope. and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ. Not signs, not the Antichrist, but the Lord Jesus Christ who's coming in the air. We're to look for Him with joyful anticipation, with a sincere enthusiasm and longing for that event. We are looking for the coming of the Lord. By way of contrast, unbelievers are blinded by Satan, they're shackled by their sins, they're in lockstep with a world system that hates God. So when the day of the Lord begins, after the rapture of the saints, the unsaved world will be totally unprepared. For it's suddenness, it's violence, it's fierceness. And that's why it's likened to a thief coming unexpectedly in the night to rob and to steal. MacArthur said the metaphor of a thief coming is never used to refer to the rapture of all believers. It describes the coming of the Lord in judgment at the end of the seven-year tribulation period and the judgment at the end of the thousand-year kingdom of Christ on earth, 2 Peter 3.10. A thief coming is not a hopeful, joyful event of deliverance, but an unexpected calamity. It's not something you're looking forward to. I think I'm going to stop there tonight because next week I want to give you kind of the meat and potatoes of what we mean by this phrase, the day of the Lord, as it's used in the scripture. And so we'll stop there, it's a good place to stop, and we'll pick it up next week. Let's all stand.