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November 16, 2008
“Preparing For the Day of the Lord”
I Thessalonians 5: 1-11
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The folks who came out to Bible Study at our house a week ago last Thursday were surprised to discover that my neighbors have already decorated their house for Christmas. I must confess that I was initially surprised myself, but then I went to Walmart last Friday and heard that they were playing Christmas music on the PA system. At least my neighbor is in sync with Walmart.
Even though most of us prefer to prepare for the Thanksgiving Holiday before we prepare for Christmas, the time of preparation is upon us. We have travel plans to make, menu’s to prepare, food to purchase, and sleeping arrangements to make for visiting relatives.
The Seasons are upon us. In the midst of all of these seasonal preparations I would like to remind you that we are always to be prepared for a very important season, the Season that is referred to in our Scripture passage this morning. This season is alluded to in the first verse when Paul writes “Now concerning the times and the seasons, you do not need to have anything written to you”.
I want you to notice two things about this sentence. First of all, Paul doesn’t seem to have meant it in its most obvious meaning. Paul evidently did think they needed some instructions regarding the “times and seasons” because he dedicated the rest of the chapter to giving them some instructions. In that light, what he seems to mean in the first verse is that they needed no new writings about the times and seasons, they only needed to be reminded about the instructions they had already been given. In the rest of the chapter, Paul seems to be merely reminding them of the things he had already taught them.
The other thing I want you to notice about the first verse is the appearance of a redundancy in it. Paul is writing to them about “the times and seasons”. To us the words times and seasons both refer to the passages of time. But the early Christians used two of the Greek words meaning times and seasons in different ways. The Greek word that is interpreted “times” here = Chronon. This is the word from which Chronometer comes. It means the measure of the passage of time, the time that is always passing. The days, hours, minutes, seconds that are measured by the clock.
The word that is translated “seasons” here = Kairon. This word was used to denote specific periods of time marked by certain characteristics or events. And for Christians of the first century the Kairos or season they were most interested in was the second coming of the Lord.
So in the phrase “times and seasons” we have the juxtaposition or intersection of two elements of time, the constant passing of time marked by days all of the same length and a pre-ordained season of God. Paul is writing about that coming time when God’s Season will become a part of one of our days.
This day is in the second verse referred to as the “Day of the Lord”. This term has its derivation in the Old Testament. The prophets often spoke of the Day of the Lord and it usually referred to some event that was not good for Israel. It was used to refer to some coming judgment from God. So the attacks on Israel from the Assyrians and the Babylonians were spoken of as the Day of the Lord, the day when God would pay Israel for her sins.
Among Christians the term Day of the Lord was used to refer to the final judgment of God, the day or time when our lord Jesus would return to earth and begin the final judgments of God.
Some Christians have felt uncomfortable that the return of Jesus is described as being like the coming of the thief in the night. To be strict with the language here, it is Christ’s coming, not Christ himself that is referred to as being like the coming of a thief in the night. It will be unexpected, it will be stealthy. There will be no warning signs.
But I think there is some appropriateness to Paul’s metaphor here. When Jesus comes again, it will mean the loss of everything for those who are not apart of his covenant of Grace. Those who do not believe in Christ will loose everything when Christ returns. For them He will be the ultimate thief in the night. That should be a sobering thought for those of us who have relationships with unbelievers.
On the positive side, the other metaphor Paul uses is also appropriate. He likens the return of Christ to the suddenness of labor pains in a woman approaching childbirth. It is good for us to remember that although the return of Christ may have some unpleasant aspects even for us, it will be the birth of the final form of the kingdom of God.
But the bottom line here is that the return of Christ will bring disastrous judgments and glorious redemption, and that it will come unannounced. We will not know ahead of time when He is coming.
So how can we prepare for this surprise event? Well, the obvious answer is to be prepared at all times. But how do we prepare on a permanent or constant basis for the return of Jesus and the final judgments that will commence with it?
Paul says we are to be awake and sober. Does he really intend that Christians not sleep? Although some noteworthy Christians who are connected to this congregation are known for not sleeping much, I don’t think Paul meant that Christians must be insomniacs. I think he meant we are to be alert, aware that Christ might return or that we might face him in death at any moment.
So, other than being alert, how can we prepare for the return of Christ?
We need to put on the Christian Armor that Paul talks about in verse 8. The imagery of Paul’s metaphor here comes from the suit of armor worn by the Roman soldiers in his day. The large pieces of armor were the chest plate or breast plate and the helmet.
The breast plate covered the area from the waist to the shoulders in the front. The helmet covered the head with the face exposed yet protected by projections on the helmet.
The vital organs were thus protected from harm by these two pieces of armor. The mind and the heart were protected. For the Christian living in the age before the second coming of Christ, God has given us the armor that Paul describes. The Christian equivalent of a breastplate consists of two virtues: faith and love.
Faith is that commodity that connects us to God. Love is that which connects us to others and to God. But you have to remember that whenever the bible speaks of Love and often when it speaks of faith, it describes it in terms of the actions that should logically proceed from them.
In other words, when we are commanded to love our neighbors we are commanded to do good deeds for them, to perform loving and king acts for them. When the OT saints are commended for their faith, the commendation is not based on some warm feeling or mere profession of faith that the OT saints spoke. They are commended for the faithful acts they performed, such as following God in the wilderness, obeying the commandments of God, obeying God in the face of opposition. It is our loving and faithful acts that build us up and help us to persevere until the Lord returns or we meet him at our death.
The helmet in Paul’s armor metaphor is “the hope of salvation.” This is HOPE in the biblical sense, of something we are assured of, something that we have no empirical evidence of but that we nonetheless are convinced is true.
This helmet protects our minds from wandering and our eyes from leading us astray. This helmet comes from the word of God. It is the Word of God, the bible, and fellowship with other Christians that provide our helmet for us. These are the things that build up our hope and keep us strong.
So as we prepare for the upcoming holiday festivals, we need to remember that we are to be prepared for the return of Jesus and the Kingdom he will cause to exist.
We prepare ourselves by exercising our love and our faith, by doing loving and faith driven acts, and by reading and studying scriptures and having faith discussions with other Christians. And as we prepare, we are to help others prepare, as Paul wrote in verse 11, we are to “encourage one another and build up each other”.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at November 16, 2008 02:30 PM