Our scripture reading this evening is 1 Thessalonians chapter five. 1 Thessalonians chapter five. Really the theme or the reoccurring topic of the entire book of Thessalonians, this first and second really, has to do with the coming of Jesus Christ. And this chapter, as well, has a good deal to say about it. 1 Thessalonians 5, 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 darkness, Let us not, 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. And we beseech you, brethren, to know them which labor among you and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you and to esteem them very highly in love for their work's sake, and be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man, But ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the spirit. Despise not prophesying. Prove all things. Hold fast that which is good. abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that called you who also will do it. Brethren, pray for us. Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss. I charge you by the Lord that this epistle be read unto all the holy brethren. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. So far we read God's holy word. The text for the sermon is verses four through six. 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 darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, Paul was acquainted with the church in Thessalonica to whom this epistle is addressed. He had labored there as a missionary on his second missionary journey accompanied by Silas. During their stay, Jews and Gentiles and a number of prominent women among them were converted to faith in Jesus Christ under the preaching of Paul and Silas. But when the Jews in the city, out of envy, stirred up the city against Christians, the believers there sent Paul and Silas out of the city for safety's sake. The young church at Thessalonica was remarkably strong in spite of the relatively short time that Paul was able to be there. The church endured the persecution that followed after Paul left. God, by his grace, strengthened that church in their faith and they persevered. Yet there were a few problems in the church. Most of them stemmed from misconceptions about the coming of the Lord Jesus, his second coming. And the idea had come into their mind that Jesus could come any day. In fact, he was sure to come any day. And it wasn't necessary any longer to work because Jesus was coming. And so some of them quit their jobs and just sat around waiting for the Lord to come again, as Paul had instructed them. Others were grieved because some of their loved ones had died and now they thought, well, our loved ones will not be able to participate in the coming of Jesus. They were so close and now they're dead and we're going to get to see Jesus, but they will not be able to participate in his coming. So these problems, led Paul to write this very personal, but inspired letter to the saints in Thessalonica to address these problems. The text for this sermon is really the heart of the instruction concerning the second coming. It flows out of chapter four, where in chapter four, Paul actually described one of the most beautiful descriptions of the coming of the Lord on the clouds of heaven with a great sound of a trumpet and Jesus coming with thousands of his saints and raising up those who are dead and then the people who are alive being caught up into the air to meet him. All of that, Paul has just set forth in chapter four. All the elect will participate in that because those who died will come with Christ, the dead will be raised, and the living will be caught up with him. So everyone who is elect will participate in some way. Now in chapter five, Paul points out immediately that they knew a good deal about the coming of Christ. He writes, but of the times and seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. Then he says, for yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord cometh as a thief in the night. So he's changing the topic here from what it will be like when Christ comes to, well, now that he is coming, How do we prepare for that? How should we, you know, that it comes as a thief in the night, not so that the church, I mean, the church knows that, but he points out in verse three, but the others, those who are not of the church, when they shall say peace and safety, then come a sudden destruction upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. So what Paul writes there in many ways applies to our situation as well. We know a good deal about the second coming of Jesus Christ. He's been preached, taught in catechism. We certainly know about his coming on the clouds and the signs of his coming, but we always need the admonition that the saints here needed. And that is to watch. Watch for the coming of the Lord. And this is one of the main reasons even why the church commemorates the end of the year with a special service. And what we used to call Old Year's Eve or Old Year's Night, and that was taken away as a separate service, but now we're doing it here this Sunday, Sunday of the year. While the world looks toward a new year with some hope thinking what man will be able to accomplish with all the problems and the trials of this life, we gather together in hope of the coming of Jesus Christ and exhort each other to watch for his return. So the theme for the sermon tonight is watchful, sober children of the light. Watchful, sober children of the light. We'll notice in the first place, antithetically distinct, secondly, ever vigilant, and finally, eternally blessed. Antithetically distinct. What does that mean? The words even, what do we mean by that? Well, to be distinct means there's something different, something that sets it apart. As human beings, we all have a lot of similarities and yet there are certain things that distinguish us from other people that make us to be different or distinct. So that's the idea of distinct, something a bit different, markedly different. but antithetically means very different. Antithetical means opposite of each other, opposed to each other. So antithetically, distinct. Paul really illustrates that with the figures that he uses in the text, day and night. Those are antithetical to each other. They're opposites, day and night. They cannot exist at the same time in the same place. When it is day here, it may be night on the other side of the world, but you cannot have day and night at the same time in the same place because they are absolutely opposed to each other. They're opposite because of what they consist. Daytime is obviously light and night is the absence of light. It is darkness. And so it's impossible to have them together. You cannot mix light and darkness. If it's dark, it's dark. If the light is turned on and suddenly the darkness is driven away. Paul first describes to the Thessalonians darkness. Now, when you think of darkness, one of the first things that you think of is the effect that it has on our eyesight. In darkness, it is difficult, sometimes impossible to see, to distinguish clearly objects and colors, and shapes and people and things to be able to distinguish, identify them. Someone who has absolute darkness, a totally blind person sees absolutely nothing and might even well stumble as he tries to walk in an unfamiliar area. So darkness, first of all, affects a person's eyesight. Darkness is also a part of death. because every living thing around us needs light to exist. If the sun would cease shining, everything in this world would die. Darkness also cuts off from fellowship. As the Egyptians found out in the ninth plague, when God gave them three days of absolute darkness, they didn't move, they didn't speak, they were cut off by darkness. So now darkness is a picture. It's a picture of the spiritual darkness of natural man. Think about that. He is spiritually blind. spiritually blind. His darkness is a darkness of his mind and will. He is ignorant, but he's willingly ignorant of God. He does not want to know him. The foolish heart is darkened. There is no light. There is no true knowledge of God there. He is born into pitch darkness. His natural eyes can see the things of the world around him, but his spiritual eyes cannot. He cannot see the truth about God. He cannot distinguish spiritual objects, the hand of God, the word of God, heaven, hell. Those things mean nothing to him. He cannot grasp them. He's in darkness. This darkness is the power of sin and depravity. Man is born dead in sin and under the power of Satan, who, remember, is the prince of darkness. The prince of darkness, natural man can do nothing but sin. All his thinking, all his willing, all his desires are evil. Darkness, unable to see and discern things, horrible depravity. And darkness means he's spiritually dead. He's cut off from God. He does not have fellowship with God. God is life. If you have fellowship with God, that's eternal life, but natural man is cut off from God. There's no life in him. He is spiritually dead. That's darkness. But in distinction from that, Paul says in verse five, but ye are children of the light. Ye are children of the light. Now we have the exact opposite of darkness. With light, one can see. One can see people and trees and flowers and majestic mountains, can behold the glory of the sun and distinguish colors and shapes and thus move around without falling over, without tripping over things because one can see with light and light is life. All the plants around us need light to continue to live and light makes fellowship possible as you can look into someone's face and behold the face and the love and the fellowship that is there. Light makes light fellowship possible. Now all of that is a picture of the spiritual that Paul has in mind here. In three ways, light is antithetical to darkness. Light is freedom from sin and corruption. 1 John 1 verse 5 says this, God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. And that points to purity, that points to holiness, which God is. That's what light is also in people. It's ethical purity and holiness. The child of the light is someone whose mind and will and heart are filled with the righteousness and the holiness of Jesus Christ. Been renewed in the image of God, and of Jesus Christ. So light in a child of God is freedom from the corruption and the defilement of sin. Secondly, light within a child of God is knowledge, true knowledge. It refers to someone who has been illuminated by a true spiritual light, has true knowledge, is able to understand spiritual things, and embraces them. And then thirdly, if he has light, he has life. He has life. He has the life of Christ, who is the light of the world. Jesus is the source of all life and light. The light of Jesus Christ illuminates the mind and the heart of the believer, gives him the gift of faith, and enables him to see and believe the truth. In Jesus Christ, the child of light has life and fellowship with God. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, No one comes to the Father but by me. I'm the only way that you can have life with God, fellowship with him. Paul says to you and me, you are children of the light, not of darkness, but of light. Antithetically distinct from darkness. Now that darkness, that rather that difference, must be manifest in a distinct walk of life, as Paul indicates by the terms day and night. Day and night. They, the wicked, are of the night. Of the night. Night is used as a figure also. What is it about night that describes the ungodly? From a natural point of view, just thinking about what night time is, night limits what a person can do. In Paul's day, people would be severely limited. The only way they could see anything would be a flaming torch. or a little oil lamp that would give a little glow a few feet away from them. That was the extent of their light bearing instruments in his day. So they were obviously very limited in what they could do. And now today with man's inventions, we can have light and have a service at five or six o'clock when it's completely dark, we can do many more things. And yet for most people, the night is a time of inactivity. Paul writes of that in verse 7, they that sleep, sleep in the night. That's part of it. Inactivity from a spiritual point of view is what we're going to get to. But night is also a time when the works of iniquity are performed. The works of darkness, thieves operate at night. Fornication and adultery often happen at night. Partying and drunkenness are usually nighttime activities. Jesus speaks of that connection in John 3 20. For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. Those who are doing sin stay away from the light. They don't want to be exposed in what they're doing. The lives of those, therefore, who are of the night, spiritually, they are asleep. They're uncaring with respect to spiritual things, God, salvation, eternal life. They care not for these things at all. Accordingly, they have no interest in the second coming of Jesus Christ. They are asleep as regards important spiritual truths. And their lives are characterized by sin. Their only thoughts and goals are earthly. Pleasure, money, material things, power, fame, all earthly. That's all their interest is. And their sinful flesh lusts after everything that is evil and takes all the new inventions of this world and press it into the service of sin. Children of the night. But Paul says, but wait a minute, You are children of the day. You're children of the day. Again, the figure of a day. The activity of a day is of a very different nature. It's honest work that a man does during the daytime. During the daytime, one ought to be alert and ready to do what needs to be done, to be active, not sleeping. So spiritually, a believer who is a child of the day, it points to, first of all, the activity, spiritual activity of the believer. They live out of the principle of light and life, which has been given to them by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. They love the light. They love life with God. Out of that life, they sing, Oh, how I love thy law. They sing that, they mean that. They long to experience fellowship with God, to experience the full joy of their salvation. They hate the works of darkness. They hate their own sinful flesh. They are seeking to crucify their own flesh. Children of the day are longing for the coming of Jesus Christ. They're spiritually alert, they're not sleepy, they're not drunk, but they're very much awake and watching even for His coming. Are we children of the day? It should be pretty obvious that to distinguish between the children of the night and darkness and the children of the day That should be easy to distinguish between the two. They're antithetically distinct from each other. Paul emphasizes the tremendous difference between those two, those of the darkness, those of night, and those who are of the light and of the day. Let me point out four things in the text that really drives this home. First of all, he repeats it positively and negatively. Verse 4, brethren, ye are not of the darkness. Verse 5, ye are children of the light. You're not this. You are this. That, first of all, is a way that he emphasizes the difference. Secondly, he emphasizes it with the emphatic use of pronoun ye. Again, you can't see that in the English, but in the Greek, ye is something you could underline in your Bible here. Verse four, but ye, brethren, are not of the darkness. Verse five, ye are all children of the light. You're different. Ye, he emphasizes. He associates the saints of Thessalonica with himself and with Silas and with all those who travel with them, other fellow ministers, when he says in verse five, we are not of the night nor of darkness. We, who is that? Well, you in Thessalonica and me, Paul, and all the people with me, we are, we're of the light. So that's the third way that he emphasizes the difference And then finally, think about that word children. He doesn't merely say you are of the day or of the night. No, you are children of the day. Children. Children are born. Children have a certain nature that reflects their birth and their parents. And he says, you are the offspring of day. Right to the very core of your being, you are different from those who are of the night. You are absolutely different in all of your life, in all of your thinking, right to the core of your being. You are children of the day. They are antithetically distinct. That's what they are. And therefore, they are ever vigilant. That's the second point. Ever vigilant. What does that mean? Children, what does it mean to be vigilant? To be vigilant. The idea of vigilant is that you are watching carefully. If your mom would say, watch your little brother or your little sister as you go outside to play, watch your little brother or sister, and you did that, and you didn't take your eyes off, you were with that child and you watched and made sure that didn't go by the road, didn't get into any danger. If you did that, you would be vigilant. You didn't give up. You didn't stop. You kept watching. You were careful. That's vigilance. Vigilant. Vigilant for what? That we are to be vigilant is evident from verse six, but let us watch and be sober. Let us watch. What are we to be vigilant for? What are we to be watching for? Well, obviously, the coming of Jesus Christ. And why does that require vigilance? Why does that require constant, careful attentiveness? Well, on the one hand, it's because the coming is sudden and unexpected. Sudden and unexpected. As a thief in the night, that's how he started out the chapter here. The thief in the night does not refer to a bold robber that goes into a bank and robs it in daylight. Or in Paul's day to a highway robber that would stop people and rob them along the way. Not that, but this thief is a thief who sneaks into a house in the middle of the night. and steals and tries to get away without being caught. Because he works in this way, his coming is sudden and unexpected. It is sudden because you don't see him coming a long ways off. He is hiding in the cover of night, in the deep shadows. He doesn't want anybody to see that he's coming close to the house. And suddenly he's there. You don't see him coming a long ways off, but suddenly he is in the house. And that makes it unexpected, obviously. The thief strives for that. He intentionally comes at a time when he's not expected. In the middle of the night when he thinks people are sleeping the soundest or when someone has gone away to visit someone else, the thief comes when he thinks the owner is not watching, is not ready for him to come. Both these elements, suddenness and unexpectedness, are found in the coming of Jesus, His second coming. Christ's coming is sudden. No one will see Jesus way off in the distance on the day of his coming. And then think I've got a couple of hours yet. I've got a couple hours to prepare myself for the coming of Jesus. That will not happen. His coming will be without warning, without notice. He will simply be there suddenly. As a thief comes out of the dark shadows and suddenly he is there inside the home. So Christ would appear as it were piercing through the darkness. You didn't see a thing. And all of a sudden he's there. He's there. Or you could describe it as a man who is behind a door and you do not know he's there, but all of a sudden he opens up the door and he's there. He's inside the room. Sudden. Unexpected, sudden, that's the word sudden, but unexpected has the idea then that Jesus will come at a time when no one expects him, no one's planning on him. Jesus taught his disciples that very clearly in Matthew chapter 24, verses 42 through 44, Jesus said to his disciples, watch therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come, But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch, what time of the night the thief would come, he would have watched and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore, be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of Man cometh. That's deliberate. That's deliberate. The thief comes deliberately when he's not expected. So Jesus will come at an unexpected time and will catch many people unawares. Many will not be ready. And again, prior to the text, verse three, when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction, when they least expect it, when they think everything finally is good and we've got the kingdom of man established here, then Christ comes unexpected. Accordingly, because his coming is sudden, because it is unexpected, he says, you need to watch. You need to be vigilant. But watch for what? If his coming is sudden and unexpected, then what are we to watch for? And the answer is for the signs of his coming. A thief does not want to give you signs that he's coming, but Jesus said, I'll give you signs. I'll give you things that you can look for that you will know I'm coming. What are they to watch for? What are we to watch for? There've been signs all through the ages from the day that Jesus ascended into heaven. He said, from now on, I will be coming. And this will be the evidence that I'm coming. This will be the signs that I'm coming. Number one, the gospel will be preached through all the world for the gathering of the church. That's number one, because Jesus will not come until every last elect is gathered. So that's the number one sign. the preaching of the gospel to the ends of the world. Two, wars. Wars and rumors of war are a sign that Jesus is on the way. Three, social conflict, revolutions in this world and all the conflicts between rich and poor, male and female, all the political conflicts are part of Jesus coming. Number five, increased death through pestilence and earthquakes and all the disasters, the natural disasters, as we call them, more and more people dying from them, a sign of his coming. Number five, apostasy from the faith. The great in the end, the great falling away. And as I reminded, or I pointed out to the, Confession class a couple weeks ago, the major Presbyterian Church of America once had 2,000, rather 2.5 million members in it, and they lose 1,000 members a week, falling away, falling away. Watch for that, Jesus said. people forsaking the faith, not wanting it any longer. Number six, the development of the anti-Christian kingdom, where man comes together under a ruler or a group of men and rules the world, the kingdom, the development. Watch the development of the kingdom of man. And then seven, the Great Tribulation, The church has been persecuted in different times, sometimes severely persecuted, but the Great Tribulation is the final one. Now, these are signs, you understand, that are not merely arbitrary that Jesus said, well, here's another one, here's another one, here's another one. No, these are the evidences that He is coming. As you hear the sound of a jet airplane and you know it is coming, Because it's making a sound. Jesus is making sounds. That's what he's doing here. So they're not arbitrary signs. He just pulls out some things. But he said, this this is how I'm coming. And when you hear these things, you know, that's that's me. That's that's me coming. Watch for them. So all through the ages, these signs have been on display, but right at the end, there will be signs of the heaven. The sun will not give its light. The moon will be changed to blood. The stars will fall from the sky. And then the sign of the son of man and Jesus Christ will be here. These are like signs of spring or summer. When we look at the trees in the spring and we keep looking and hoping those leaves will pop, the buds will come and we'll have leaves. And when we see it, we think summer is almost here, it's coming. Jesus said, so likewise, when you shall see all these things, those things I just described for you, know that it is coming is near even at the door. So the question arises then, is the coming of Jesus really sudden and unexpected if we have all these signs that we can watch for? Well, indeed it is, because the signs tell us that Jesus is coming, but he never gives us a date. He never gives us a time of the day. We do not know when this will be, We only know that He is on the way. We know that. But evidently it is possible to be at least watching for His coming. The wicked will not. They will ignore all the signs. Find it interesting that the world will tell us on the news media all the things that are happening, earthquakes and wars and all of the things that are happening. They're informing us and they're closing their mind to it. This has nothing to do with Jesus. These are plates under the ground, scraping together and causing earthquakes, has nothing to do with Jesus. But we should be watching, vigilant. For we are not asleep, said Paul, we are not asleep. Paul exhorts us to a greater watchfulness. He does that by exhorting us negatively in verse 6. Let us therefore not sleep. That's the negative. Do not sleep. And now in spite of everything that I've said so far about children of God being children of the light and children of the day and they're active and they're awake and they can see, in spite of all that, That admonition of Paul is a bit discouraging because the grammatical form of the admonition implies, indicates that believers often fall asleep. You could translate it. Let us stop falling asleep. Why is this? Why do we fall asleep? Well, in the first place, we're no different from the world by nature. Our nature is identical to theirs. We're prone to seek the things below. Our flesh has no interest in the coming of Jesus Christ. And then secondly, the devil and our own flesh lie. They lie to us. And they reassure us, don't worry about Jesus coming again. That's a long ways off. People have been saying it for a long time that Jesus coming is soon, he's near, he's coming. And it hasn't happened. It's a long ways off. You don't have to watch for that. You're gonna just sit down and watch for his coming? Get busy. Get busy in this life and earn some money and make something of yourself and enjoy life. And so we are lulled into spiritual sleep. Let us not fall asleep. Let us stop falling asleep, Paul says. This is all the more true when it seems that the Lord tarries. When we look back and see that it's been 2000 years since Jesus left almost 2,000 years since Paul wrote these words to the Thessalonians, and he still hasn't returned. And children, if you were vigilant for an hour, if you gave yourself committedly to watching your little brother or little sister for an hour, okay, you were vigilant. What about 12 hours? What about a month? What about a year? And so you see, It's easy to lose our vigilance the longer we have to watch. Sometimes the child of God therefore relaxes and assumes, it's a long ways off. It's a long ways off. Why do I have to keep watching? So the positive exhortation is all the more Urgent. Negative, let us not sleep. Positive, be sober and watch. Be sober. Being sober is the very opposite of being drunk, obviously. Those of the night are drunk in the night, Paul points out in verse 7. They're not in full control of themselves. Their vision is blurred by their drink. Reality is distorted because they are drunk. They are drunk. on the pleasures of sin. They are drunk on that and their senses are numbed to spiritual reality, standing right in front of them. They can't see them, can't distinguish them. Over against that, Paul writes, let us be sober, verse six. We must abstain, therefore, from the intoxicating wine of the sinful pleasures of this world. We must live soberly. We must be alert, not drowsy. Recognize the reality of the signs when they come. Oh, another sign. He is coming. He is. See the significance of a war, of an earthquake, of apostasy, and see the development. Do you see the development of one church here in Little Byron Center? The signs that are put by a Roman Catholic Church and a Christian Reformed Church? One book, one body. We're all together. That's what will happen. The church will come together, the false church. One book, one body. We're all together. Do you see the power of a presidency? What's he preaching? Peace and prosperity. Peace and prosperity. Those, that's the bywords of the Antichrist. I'm not saying he is that, but that's what the Antichrist will use. For the whole world, you want peace. You want prosperity. I'll give it to you. And he will. That's the movement. One world united in peace and prosperity. Do you see it? You see the signs. In that way, we must be ever watching. Okay, what's included in that? What's involved in that when Paul, echoing Jesus in Matthew 24 and other places, when Paul says, let us be sober and watch, watch. What's involved in that? To my mind, four things. Four things. In the first place, if you're watching, you are ready. You are ready for the coming of Christ. We are like servants who have been given the householder's property to take care of it, and he has gone away on a long journey, and he expects us to be busy there and to be ready for him when he returns, whenever that may be. children of the day, children of God living in obedience to him. And Jesus made that very plain with a parable where he pointed out that a man did, in fact, go away. And when he came back, he found his servants living in a riotous life, not doing what they were supposed to, not in any way ready for him to come back. And that really isn't that hard to see what that means. Just consider this question, what would be going on in your life if you knew Jesus was going to walk in the front door? What would be on your television set or would it even be on? What kind of music would be playing? What would be on your computer screen or what would you be scrolling on your phone? Being ready isn't all that hard to understand. means you're ready for Him to come, whatever you're doing, wherever you are. So that's readiness, ready for Him. Watching is being ready. Secondly, watching is being busy. We're of the day, we're active. but not active now seeking the things of this world, but busy in the church, busy with the spiritual things. That's busyness. That's the kind of thing Jesus wants us to be doing. We are caretakers of his church, his property, and now he expects us to be working in it. So busy in the things of the kingdom, ready for his coming, busy in the things of the kingdom, thirdly, having to desire If you're watching, you're watching with desire, not with foreboding. You want him to come. That's what watching involves. We are living as those who are longing to come and deliver his church from this world. We are praying for his coming, expressing that desire that Jesus comes again. soon. We're ready. We're busy. We're desiring. And fourthly, watching means we're exhorting each other. That's what Paul is doing here. Let us, that's an exhortation. Let us not be sober. Let us not be sleeping. Let us be sober. Let us be watching. That's what we should be doing. Encouraging each other. Are we looking for the coming of Jesus? Let us be watching. We're children of the day. We're children of the day. We should be watching. vigilant, ever vigilant. Because as children of the day, we have the expectation when Jesus comes of a great blessing, a great blessing. This is certainly not true of those who are of the darkness and of the light. As verse three points out, when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman and they shall not escape judgment. Destruction, all their hopes and dreams will vanish, will crumble, will be burned, and they will enter into their final eternal destruction. Dreadful, dreadful to think about it. That's what their expectation is. But the children of the day are looking for something glorious, entering into the blessed fellowship with the Father. Even as the parable, the five faithful virgins who had oil in reserve, and when the bridegroom came, he saw them faithfully tending their lamps and brought them into the the joyous feast. Believers will hear the amazing words, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. The inheritance of the children of God will be theirs, eternal inheritance. They've been adopted in Jesus Christ and they will receive the inheritance. This is absolutely certain because it was all accomplished in the cross of Jesus Christ. On the one hand, the cross sealed the destruction of the ungodly, but it sealed also the certainty of the inheritance for the children of God. The cross also guarantees the triumphant return of Jesus on the clouds of heaven. His coming is absolutely sure. From our perspective, we might say, He's tarrying. He's tarrying. Is He coming? But from His perspective, He's on the way. That's what all these signs are showing us. He's on the way. and His actual appearance will be exactly at the moment God eternally determined He will come. That's certain. The cross guarantees the triumphant coming of Jesus. God has planned this as part of the reward of His Son. When you look at the steps of Jesus' exaltation, the last, the highest is what? Coming again to judge the living and the dead. That's the highest. That's his reward for humbling himself to the depths of hell. That's God's plan. And that's also the way that God will finally gather every last elect out of this world and bring them unto himself. This is a blessing, obviously, only in Jesus Christ. Believers have been redeemed in the blood of Jesus Christ, and he will come to finish his work. This includes the reward for the children of the day that God has planned. And that's part of Jesus own reward that he will share with us. Obviously completely unmerited. We do not earn anything by watching. That's, that's not the point here that you, you earn something by being watching. No, and how well we know that we fail so miserably to watch that you can hardly even call it that. We earn nothing. But here again, it's all in Jesus, and he will uphold his people so that they're not lost in this wicked world. He preserves us to the end, and then he graciously rewards us with his own reward. Let us, therefore, be sober, be sober, not living as the children of darkness, but watching for the coming of our Lord with all that that watching includes. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, again, we are humbled and astonished at thy amazing plan of salvation and the culmination and the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord, fill our hearts with that, that desire. The things of this world so attract us and capture our time and energy whereas the things of heaven, that, that's where our hearts and minds should be. So keep us vigilant, ever watching, longing for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen. Psalm 144a. Psalm 144a. Bless me, the Lord, my rock, my might, my constant helper in the fight, my shield, my righteousness, my strong high tower, my savior true who doth my enemies subdue, my shelter in distress. We sing stanzas one, three, five, and 9, 1, 3, 5, and 9 of 44A, 144A. I shelter in through, and we shall smolder and flee. As their roast and thy lime be done, to work thy hand out, Will I see God when you smile? By praise, O God, I will proclaim, For Thou hast heard my prayer. Salvation, Thou dost give to me, Thine own dust and praise the workful's glorious name. God bless the Lord in ev'ry way, God keep all the good of thy way, ♪ I will tell all of this gladness ♪ ♪ To thee, dear God, of old ♪ ♪ Praise ye the Lord ♪ be right. Then bless the Lord, ye saints below, who in his grace delight. By all his creatures let his name be outpoured. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen. Charge.