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First Thessalonians chapter 5,
I think I might have had in the bulletin about reading the whole
chapter, but we'll read just the first 11 verses of this chapter
and our text taken from the first six verses that we read. in God's
providence, in what we're up to in the series on Thessalonians.
This is very apt for the first Lords that have 2025 as well.
This one, likewise, as you see, it speaks of the times and the
seasons. And we'll see, it very much is
worthwhile us having this at the beginning of another year.
Let's read then the first 11 verses of 1 Thessalonians 5. But of the times and the seasons,
brethren, we have no need that I write unto you for yourselves
know perfectly that the day of the Lord. So come up as a thief
in the night for when they shall say peace and safety, then sudden
destruction come up upon them as travel 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. 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 had 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. Amen. Thus far we read in God's holy
and inspired word. Beloved covenant people of God,
Paul having, you remember last time at the end of chapter four,
he had addressed that error that arisen in the Thessalonian congregation,
that error that said, It's only as we're alive and waiting for
the coming of the Lord Jesus that we'll experience that coming
again. And Paul said, no, that's not
true at all. You've misunderstood. We won't
miss out on anything if we die before Jesus comes again. In
fact, it will be a glorious time. And he went on to then outline
and give further instruction and encouragement with regards
to that coming of the Lord Jesus and that day of glory with the
trump of the angel and that mighty command that caused the resurrection.
And so we looked at that last time. Especially notice that
he addresses the second coming of Jesus Christ. And it's referred
to in what we look at tonight in those first six verses. In verse two, it's referred to
as the day of the Lord. And we ought to be fairly familiar
with that expression, the day of the Lord. All through the
Old Testament, when you look at the Old Testament scriptures,
When it speaks of the day of the Lord, it's actually looking
forward and the prophets are looking forward toward the first
coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and then everything in between
and then the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's
all in together, as it were. And so right now, in a sense,
we're living right in the middle of the day of the Lord right
now. Jesus has come. He's died. He's risen to heaven.
He's given his promise to his bride. He's gone to prepare everything.
and he's going to come shortly to take his church, his bride,
to be with him. But, of course, now moving into
the New Testament Scriptures, now when we hear that expression,
day of the Lord, that's coming, it's referring exclusively, really,
to that second coming of Jesus Christ, when he will come again
on the clouds of heaven, and that's what we looked at last
time in the end of chapter four. So, We're looking at the day
of the Lord. And remember that last time we
saw that there was that graphic difference between the resurrection
of those who didn't believe in Jesus Christ, that it would be
a resurrection to damnation. as compared to the glorious resurrection
of those who had died in the faith, believing in the Lord
Jesus Christ, that their bodies would be raised, and they would
be raised in glory, they would meet with, then join with their
souls that Jesus brings with them, and then those who remain
will be caught up together in the air and to ever be with the
Lord. But Paul is then drawing our
attention to the fact that just as there is that huge difference
at the last day, That means that there's also, right now, a big
difference between believers and unbelievers, or there ought
to be. There really should be a big
difference between the very way in which we live. As he reminds
them of this important, this life-altering truth, he comes
to this conclusion, and the conclusion is really what we need to start
with. That's verse 6. Therefore, he says, on the basis
of these things, therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but
rather, here's what we are to be, this is the way we are to
live our lives, let us watch and be sober. You can see a graphically
different way of living. On the one hand, sleeping, on
the other hand, watching and being sober. in God's providence, of course,
as I've already mentioned. I mean, this is something we
need to be reminded of all the time, but it's something very
important to be reminded again of at the beginning of another
year. This is how we are to live in this way, to watch and be
sober. And therefore we take up our text under that theme,
be watchful and sober. Three different ways, first of
all, where to be watchful and sober for the Lord's coming.
Secondly, to avoid destruction. And thirdly, with great blessing. Be watchful and sober. Paul's central message, as I've
said, his conclusion in verse six is those words. Watch, be
sober. But if I was to ask you, what
does that mean? What does Paul mean that we're
to be doing? What does it mean to watch and be sober? Do you
have a clear idea? Well, let's dive into it a bit
more and unpack it and see what's being spoken about here. Because
if we don't really know, it's a bit hard to follow and do what
Paul tells us to do, unless we understand. To watch here means
more than just to observe. Sometimes we can plonk ourselves
down on a bench on a footpath and watch the world go by, can't
we? And go, ooh, look at that person. We're kind of watching,
but it's not really what's being spoken of here. This watching
is the word, for example, used in 1 Peter 5 verse 8, where Peter
is warning about Satan. And he says, be sober, and here's
the word, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, is
a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour. Imagine
if someone comes along to you on the street and says, watch
out, there's a lion wandering around here. Okay, would you
sort of just sit down on the bench and go, oh dear, there's
a lion, you know. Not at all. You'd be there going,
whoa! You'd be high alert, watching
every single little movement. What's going on? Where's the
lion? That's the idea of watch. Be vigilant. Watching very, very
carefully. It certainly is the opposite,
and that's the idea here. This word in the Greek actually
means not to be asleep, but it has a completely opposite effect.
It's the opposite of being dopey, nodding off or snoring. It's
to be wide awake. Has anybody of you seen meerkats? Certainly if you've been to Australia
Zoo, you've probably seen them. You may have seen them in video.
They're the mongoose-like creatures that live in southern Africa.
Well, the meerkats, they have a sentry. So, whenever there's
a group of them, the sentry gets up on the highest point, and
he stands up on his hiding legs, and he's sitting there just constantly
looking around and watching. Doesn't he? Doesn't do anything
else. That's his job. He's just looking, and his eyes
are moving, and his head's moving, and if there's any threat, immediately
calls on the whole group of them, dash for cover. So, that there,
that's a kind of a picture to us of what we're being called
to do. Watch. Be vigilant. But there's more than watching.
We're also called here to be sober. And once again, like the
first word means not asleep, this word means not drunk. So
it's telling us that we're not to be drunk or affected by alcohol,
but it's not literally meaning alcohol. There's certainly a
warning there against that, but that's not its primary meaning.
It means... Literally, as it says, to be
sober. Some people mix that up. Some
people think that sober actually means being somber. They sound
the same, but they're actually quite different. Like somber
has the idea of, you know, someone who's just stern looking all
the time, a stick in the mud, no fun kind of person. But that's
not what sober means. Sober has a couple of different
aspects to it. First, It means because we're
not affected by alcohol, that our thinking is to be crystal
clear, sharp in what we're thinking about. So it calls us to have
very clear thinking about everything that we're doing. So it ties
in with being vigilant. But this is a vigilance of mind
to truly understand what's going on around about us, to be logical
in all the faculties of our mind. But it also means this, so that's
the one aspect of sharp, clear, logical thinking about things.
But just the same as the drunk, we know how horrible drunks can
be, raucous, obnoxious, laughing and supposedly having fun in
a totally inappropriate way and causing all sorts of distress
to people. And even at times when they don't like what's going
on, becoming angry and violent very easily. All of those things
are exactly the sorts of things that we need to be right away
from. The total opposite of that. In
other words, the Christian is to have always a quiet and a
calm and considered and gracious response to everything that's
happening to them in life. Sharp, clear thinking, so we
understand what's going on, and then a considered and calm response
to all those things. How do we do that? Well, this
watching and being sober arises out of all that Paul has just
been saying in the previous five verses. And that's why he then
says, therefore, watch and be sober. So let's go back and work
our way through what Paul has been saying here. He says that
the Thessalonians, and I hope that we also, he said that they
already know the times and the seasons, and because they already
know, he says, I don't need to write to you about this, I don't
need to now go through everything about the times and everything
about the seasons in order for you to know this, because you
already know it, and particularly, and he's going to come to that
then, you know perfectly that the day of the Lord comes as
a thief in the night. What's he talking about with times and
seasons? The words here, In fact, both of them can be translated
times. So you could in fact say, but
brethren, you have no need that I write to you about the times
and the times. They're both Greek words meaning
time, but they're two different words. The one has the idea of
the continual succession of moments, the ticking of the clock that
goes forward. And so he's saying, you already
know that this whole world has a certain time, and it's continually
travelling, and it's moving forward, and there is a time that's ticking
down until Jesus comes again. So, you know that it's all moving
forward, and we're growing closer and closer to when Jesus comes
again. So, you know the times in that way, that succession
of moments and using up the time. The second one is the idea of
appointed times. And so what Paul is saying here
is, you also know this, that God has appointed certain things
that he will achieve in time. He will do this, and it's completed,
where it's ticked off. And then he's going to do that,
and that's ticked off. And we see that in the history of the
Bible. There's the time of the creation and the time of the
fall. And then there's the time of the patriarchs and everything
God would reveal there. and then there's the time of
going into Egypt and then there's the time of being brought out
and the whole wilderness wanderings and then there's coming into
Canaan the time of the judges and then there's the time of
the kings and they're all appointed times that everything has its
part to play all bringing it forward to the time when Jesus
Christ would come. when Christ comes in his perfect
appointed time. And then there's the time of the apostles, and
then there's the time of the growth of the New Testament church.
And we know also, if you want to abbreviate it, Middle Ages,
Reformation, development since then, and the gospel has gone
out into all the world. All the appointed times. If we
as Christians, if we're vigilant, we've got our eyes open, we're
seeing, we see what the word of God says, we actually see
and go, wow, This is all the amazing work of God. I know the
times, the movement toward history and the end of it, and I see
the appointed times, and I see what God is doing. And Paul has
no need to write to us about those things. We should know
them, we should see them, and stand in awe of what God is doing. We understand, therefore, that
God always planned to show forth his glory. and he planned to
do it in the way of creating man and then through the deep
dark way of man's rebellion and sin and then the revelation of
all of his glory and grace in the sending forth of his son
to redeem a people to himself and bring them to glory forever
with him. We know all that. When he has
finished all the work that he plans to do and all the appointed
times have been completed, then the end of the world will come
and everything but everything will be shown to have worked
that perfect plan and decree. Why are we to watch carefully
and vigilantly and to know each season or each appointed time
as they come and go in God's timeline? Well, it's because
we're the recipients of God's grace and truth. He's woken us
up and made us alive and made us to be a part of it, inserted
us into those things to be active participants in his appointed
times. We are, as Paul says, we are
children of the light. We are children of the day. We
have been brought into the light of his marvelous kingdom, which
is now active and vibrant and growing. And we are therefore
to be actively living in the midst of that. He has powerfully
come and rescued us out of spiritual death, out of the darkness, out
of the ignorance, out of being all in the way in which the world
is sleeping in spiritual death. And he's brought us to be alive.
And he says, I've woken you up. Be awake. Be awake, live, have
a wondrous life in what I have given to you. So this reason,
first of all, if you are the children of light, of life, of
wisdom, of glory, then live that way. Be alert, think like that,
have that understanding. lay hold upon these things and
then be full of wonderment, amazement, thankfulness to God, praising
him for everything that he's doing and that he is rapidly
bringing to pass his perfect plan in time. But it's not only
where we've come from but who we are and what we are becoming
by God's grace and in his perfect working of these times and seasons
by the saving power. We are watching and we're to
be alert and vigilant and seeing as time passes for what God is
working in us and what God is working through us and to be
then responding and that's the idea of being sober, be responding
as appropriate way as individuals and as church as a whole were
to be responding to what is happening nationally, in the world, in
the society, in the things that are going on around about us,
then we ought to be responding out of the beautiful truth of
the Word of God working through us and then appropriately with
what God is doing. As church, we are not only recipients
of grace and stand amazed at the salvation we've received,
But we are also to be the pillar and ground of the truth. We're
meant to be as a city set on a hill that is shining and saying,
this is the wonder of what God is doing. This is what this world
is all about. We live out of God's grace in those times and
those seasons so as to witness to God and to be a part of his
active incoming kingdom. We're to be just like Chronicles
speaks about, about the sons of Issachar. It says that they
understood the times so they knew what Israel should do and
that's for us now in the New Testament where to be the sons
of the Lord who understand the times and then know what the
church should be doing and how we should be living but then there's after that where
to be watchful and sober for a second reason and that's a
serious warning that Paul issues here too and that's to avoid
destruction. God says to us here, you know,
you know. In fact, it says you know perfectly. And the idea of this is you have
come to that understanding and it's impressed upon your souls.
This is something you know to the depth of your being. You
know perfectly well that the day of the Lord comes as a thief
in the night. And as we see that, we ought
to notice that immediately Paul clarifies that He then goes on
to say, but you, brethren, because you're children of the day and
the children of light, that day is not going to overcome you
as a thief in the night. It's coming like a thief in the
night, but not for you. It's not going to be like that.
Let's come to that in just a tick. But he says the day of the Lord
comes like a thief in the night. Can you picture that? Can you
imagine that? The illustration that's being
given to us here by God. Here are these people. They're
in their house where they've got all their valuables and possessions
and things that they hold as precious. And they're asleep,
sound asleep perhaps. They're even in a bit of a drunken
stupor because they've had way too much alcohol, so they're
drunken and asleep. But they know nothing therefore
of the vicious criminal who's breaking into their place. And
he comes in and he knows that he wants all their stuff. The
only way he's going to get that is by overcoming them. But these
people are drunken, stupid. And therefore they know absolutely
nothing about the fact that this thief has broken in and he's
coming in and creeping in. And the only thing they know
is when the club or knife comes down upon them. And it's too
late. That's the picture that is given
to us. A thief in the night. Well, that's
just the picture. A picture of utter ruination,
utter destruction and everything gone. But it's a spiritual picture. The truth that it illustrates
is there are so many people living now, living physically, day by
day, and they are purposefully oblivious to the truth that is
all around them. Some of the stuff that we were
looking at this morning, the fact that we're surrounded by
God's creation, we're living in his history. The fact that
the whole history of the world points to the times and the seasons
that God is working and what he's working towards. That's
the truth. And it's coming and it's coming
rapidly. The day of the Lord is coming. It may come for us
because we're still on earth when the Lord comes on the clouds
of glory. But it may come for us tonight. The Lord may come for any one
of us tonight. There are thousands of people
that die every day. Here is the sadness of the darkness
and the blindness of sin. That sin means that such people
they cannot see. that time is rushing on to the
coming of Jesus Christ. And they will never perceive
that rapid counting down of time. They will never perceive those
appointed times of God, all of which are pointing to God's eternal
purpose that indicate the coming of the great king and the judge.
They will be unaware of that sudden destruction that's bearing
down upon them and that destruction they deserve for all their rebellion
against the Holy God. Instead, what will they be saying?
Peace and safety. Everything's wonderful. You know,
we're doing so well for ourselves. We're wonderful as a human race.
Look at all the technology we're developing. We are just making
ourselves better and better. Look at us, we're such a tolerant
people. We now tolerate all sorts of sexual perversions and strange
gender ideology because we're making ourselves into a better
and better people. Isn't it wonderful? We will accept
all kinds of horrible immorality. And this is bringing to us peace
and safety. We are safe with all the things
that we're doing. We're doing all sorts of things
to try and protect ourselves from climate change. Isn't that
wonderful? We're going to preserve the Earth.
We're going to move to Mars. We will be our own saviors. We're
such clever people and we're reaching for the stars. But that's not the story at all.
That's to be drunk. That's to be asleep. It's to
be in darkness and ignorance, in wickedness and lies. And they
do not see that so much of their thinking and their attitudes
and their actions and what they're about leads to the utter destruction
of individuals and families and societies. Just as Paul says, a pregnant
woman who's going along and she feels perfectly well, one minute,
next minute, the birth pains start. And she goes from feeling
just fine to half an hour later, waters broken, doubled over with
tons of pain wracking her as birth truly kicks in. Well, Paul
says, so it will be for them. Sudden, horrible realization
of the truth, but all too late. The day of the Lord has come
as a thief in the night. When the Lord comes, when the
Lord comes, Maybe in the last day or it can be for us personally. It can be the traffic accident
on the way home from worship. It can be disease, it can be
old age. If we are asleep spiritually,
that we are not awake, that we have not heard the truth of God's
word as it's come to us and says, wake up, there is a God and you
have to do with him. And you need the covering of
your sins in the blood of Jesus Christ, the saviour, if we are
asleep and thinking, oh, no, I'm living the life, it's OK.
Then Jesus will come, he will take us from this life and we'll
stand before him and he will say to us. What have you done
with your life? All the signs that I gave you,
all the truth of who I am, of your dire need of salvation,
of having your sins covered to be made righteous before me.
And so have your relationship restored with the living God. All those things were right there
before you. And what were you doing? Sleeping, sleeping in
the night of your lives and the darkness that you preferred over
the truth. drunken in your folly and pursuit
of personal pleasure and fulfillment, instead of living the light and
truth of what this world is. And instead of repenting and
seeking God and life and forgiveness and His truth, you have hard-heartedly
pursued death. And now death has come upon us. They're serious things, aren't
they? These are matters of life and death, and these things are
ruined. These are not minor things, as
in this life, like bankruptcy, or your house burning down, or
having your leg amputated, not minor little things like that.
This will be to lose life itself for eternity. As Jesus said in Luke 17 verse
33, whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, but whosoever
shall lose his life shall preserve it. If we're pursuing selfishly
after life and all of our pleasures and what we want, then we lose
it. But if we lose our life, we come
before God and say, I am hardly bereft of anything, and yet I
know there is mercy in you. We cast ourselves upon him, he
will never turn any away. We will find life, life forever,
for eternity in Him. Brethren, may it not be that
there are any here who are asleep in that sense, with no concern
for their eternal well-being. You notice the seriousness of
what Paul says there. He says that they will not escape. They shall not escape. End of
verse 3. It's really emphasised in the words here in the Greek.
And so the words actually mean there is no chance that they
will ever escape. There is no possibility of that. But may it be that instead, here
tonight, for each one of us who are here tonight, May it be that
it's true, as Paul says here, but you, brethren, are not in
darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. You
are all the children of the light, children of the day, not of the
night or of darkness. May that be true of each one
of us here. In contrast, contrast with that
sober warning that is given to us here, Notice that in fact
watching and being sober is associated with great blessing. The blessings
which Paul indicates here are not so easily seen. Perhaps you're
not seeing them at the moment, but let's think about this. First of all, think about this.
We are the children of the light and the children of the day.
God has blessed us by his wonderful grace and made us awake. We are
now awake, alive. We're not asleep. A person that's
asleep, a person that, as we're looking at this morning, spiritually
dead, they can't respond to, they can't see, they can't know.
But we do. Be thankful to God. What an amazing
blessing that that is, that we are awake, we are alive, we hear,
we see spiritually. Maybe we don't see as much as
we'd like to do, maybe we still are struggling, and that's true
in lots of ways, but we see and we hear. Oh be so thankful to
God. God has graciously opened our
spiritual eyes and ears and now we have the ability to even grow
further and to know more of his truth. Those in the dark cannot
grow in knowledge, they cannot see nor hear. The more we know
of the truth of the Bible and of God and of our Saviour, then
we know more and more of what it means to really live in Him.
And it causes us to then even have a greater hunger and a greater
thirst of knowing even more to grow in Him. In fact, we realise
right now, oh, look, I'm so slow. I know so little and I want to
know so much more. Remember what Jesus said to his
disciples? He said, oh, fools, slow hearted
bully. And if we really examine our
hearts, we say, well, that's me. I'm a fool. And I'm so slow of
heart to believe all the beautiful truth that God lays before me
and gives to me. But we have a wonderful saviour
who's so patient with us. He knows we're little children
and he patiently continues to teach us and lead us. And we
can understand more each Lord's Day as we have the word given
to us again and again. Every time we come personally
to open the scriptures and God speaks to us as to the children
of the light and the children of the day so that we can know
more of him and grow more in that beautiful truth. It fills
us then with a desire to know more. We anticipate and we say,
Lord, fill me up more with that knowledge and make me to grow.
This knowledge, in fact, then makes us to eagerly anticipate
the coming of the Lord Jesus, doesn't it? because right now
we're so impeded by our sin and our corruption and our lack of
understanding. But when he comes, because we
know he's coming, because we know that time is marching on,
we see it, we expect it, we want him to come because we realize
Whether it is that we are alive when he comes and we rise to
meet him in the air, or whether he comes again on the clouds
of heaven with us and our bodies rise and we're resurrected from
the dead, we will be at that time made perfect in holiness
and righteousness. What does that mean? Well, it
means I'm never ever going to be slowed down, hampered, held
back by sin, and all of its corruption on my thinking and my mind. I
am then going to be perfectly vigilant, perfectly alert, thinking
clearly, understanding and seeing as I ought to see, and I'm going
to be growing, as it were, exponentially in the knowledge of God and all
the beauty of His truth and filling our heart to overflow. Imagine,
no sin, perfect love and obedience and a knowledge of God and His
works that fills our mind and heart with His love, with His
grace, with His truth, with an awe and a wonder and a worship. You see, it would be exactly
the opposite to what it speaks of here. It says that the day
of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night And then it says
that that day will overtake them. And the idea of overtake them
is like the thief creeping up and leaping upon them and grabbing
them and apprehending them. But for us, instead of the day
of the Lord coming and we're not expecting it, it apprehends
us. We're going to see the day coming. and we're going to be
eagerly anticipating it, and when it comes, we're going to
apprehend the day. We're going to be leaping up on it and saying,
yes, it's here. How wondrous. That blessing will be to the
uttermost, the fullness of what Jesus has worked and purchased
for his people with his own blood. Our King and Redeemer, will at
that time bring all of his work and everything he's been doing
to its perfection. That's the appointed time, the
day of the Lord coming, the final appointed time, the final piece
in the jigsaw puzzle when everything will be completed. He will come
to receive his bride, his church to himself, present her spotless,
and then enter into the fullness of covenant life forever. that
glory of God, the fullness of life, salvation brought to its
perfection in Jesus, that's the day of the Lord that we so long
for. Do you see the importance then
of what we began with? Paul's conclusion of verse six,
therefore he's saying, if all of this is true, if it's true
about the day of the Lord, if this is who we are, children
of the day, children of the light, and this is what it means for
us, Then, as children of the light, let us be those who are
watching, vigilantly understanding everything that has happened
in history and vigilantly understanding what is happening and what's
coming to pass, and then being sober, having a calm and considerate
and gracious response to everything that God is bringing and saying,
here it comes. We will see the signs that Jesus
is pointing out in Mark, Matthew 24 and other places. And we will,
just like he said, you'll see pictures just like you see the
fig tree and you know that summer's here. You're going to see the
signs and you're going to know, no, no, no, I'm coming. And we
will be expecting him and anticipating him. Right now, we're to be doing
that. In this way, knowing and seeing
Jesus coming, we'll be rejoicing and living the fullness of the
Christian life in him, day by day. Amen. Let's stand to pray. O Lord, our God, These things
do fill our hearts with amazement and anticipation. We pray, Lord,
as we do know these things, as you bring them home to our hearts,
that we may anticipate the day of the Lord, that it will not
overtake us as a thief in the night, but rather we will expect
it, anticipate it, and therefore what manner of people ought we
so to be Lord, people who watch and are sober, bless us with
your grace so that we may be just those people with a delight
in our Savior, all that he is doing and all that he is coming
to do. We pray it in his great name.
Amen.
Be Watchful and Sober
Series I Thessalonians
- For the Lord's Coming
- To Avoid Destruction
- With Great Blessing
| Sermon ID | 172502344622 |
| Duration | 37:06 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | 1 Thessalonians 5:1-6 |
| Language | English |
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