Asking The Right Question Series

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

› Engagement

Since 1947 a magazine called the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has kept the “Doomsday Clock,” a symbolic clock that shows how close we are to global catastrophe. As the situation in the world gets better or worse, the hands of the clock are set closer or further away from midnight. The clock has been adjusted 24 times since its inception when it was set at 7 minutes before midnight. It was moved back as far as 17 minutes before midnight in 1991. In 2020 it was adjusted to only 100 seconds before midnight and it remained there in January of this year.

That doomsday clock is a reflection of the kind of panic that we see every day in our world. And we really shouldn’t be surprised at that. The world we live in can be a very scary place. No doubt the COVID pandemic has taken that panic to a new level over the last year and a half or so, but that is just one of many predicaments that we face on a daily basis. And while many of those fears are certainly real, the media and many of our politicians have undoubtedly played up those fears to drive up ratings and to try and make people more dependent on the government.

› Tension

And unfortunately, Christians are not immune to getting caught up in that fear and panic. While that has always been the case, it seems that some have taken that to a whole new level recently. Some of the same Christians who claimed “God showed up” when their candidate was elected just over four years ago are now wringing their hands and acting as if God is no longer sovereign. Others have been busy promoting all kinds of theories about how the events we see happening around us are the fulfilment of biblical prophecy and begging for people to do something to put a stop to it.

So I really wasn’t surprised this week when I saw a social media post that seems to pop up every time there is a lunar eclipse. That post claimed that the red moon that would result is the fulfillment of several biblical prophecies about the return of Jesus. Now it is true that there are several passages in the Bible that connect the return of Jesus to the moon turning red. Of course what the post failed to mention is that lunar eclipses happen every year somewhere in the world and a supermoon eclipse like we had this week occurs every three to four years. So since Jesus left this earth after his first coming there have been thousands of occurrences of a “red moon”.

But, as we saw clearly last week, if in fact the events we see around us are bringing us closer to the return of Jesus, that ought to be a source of great hope, not a reason for fear and panic. That is a message that Paul is going to confirm again as we continue our study of his first letter to the church in Thessalonica.

› Truth

This morning’s message is the next to last in our current sermon series - Living in Light of Eternity. We’ve been studying the letter that Paul wrote to the Christians in Thessalonica just a few months after he had established the church there. The main purpose of that letter is to encourage the disciples there and to give them some instructions about how they were to live in light of what they believed was the immanent return of Jesus.

This morning we’ll cover the first part of chapter 5 and we’re going to see that Paul continues to encourage the disciples there to look forward to the return of Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:1–11 ESV

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.