1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 (Part A)

Once the church is removed, then strong delusion will come from God. They will believe in the lie. They will run to the world. The apostate church will be in full gear. They already are here. They're gaining momentum. They're sucking up our youth. They're making people think that Jesus is just the pastor.

But the blood of Christ, the cross of Christ, they don't mean anything to them. To hear more information about Cross Reference Radio. Specifically, how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now, here's Pastor Rick in the book of 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, verse 1, with today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. Let's open our Bibles to the first Thessalonian letter, chapter 5.

We will not finish the letter this morning unless there is a miracle. And we might get to verse 11, but probably only as far as verse 6. And the reason why is because Paul brings up the subject of the day of the Lord. And we need to take time to discuss that. It is a monumental moment in human history. Now, to you who are prophecy buffs, all of this may be a bit redundant.

Well, you'll have to bear with me. To others, it may be very new information. And still to another group, it is still not very well understood. The outline, the sequence of events, and we'll try to help you with that. In the fourth chapter of Thessalonians, towards the end, from verse 13 to verse 18, Paul has been giving detailed instruction on what is known as the rapture of the church. It is a miracle. It is a miraculous event. The arrival of the church was miraculous, the day of Pentecost, for those of you who are familiar with the story of Acts chapter 2. And the removal of the church will also be miraculous, the rapture.

And within the end time scenario, the rapture launches the beginning of the day of the Lord that extends through the millennial reign. So when you're in the scripture and you're looking to understand it, you have to take it within the context of exactly what period of time within the day of the Lord you are reading about. Now, it's important also to remind us all that all of the New Testament letters, the epistles, were written to Christians.

None of them were written to unbelievers. The information, of course, is designed to strengthen believers so that they can reach unbelievers. And this is why we go through the scripture verse by verse, and if there are unbelievers in the audience, we know that the Holy Spirit speaks to them. And He can speak to them no matter what topic we're on. He will extract and apply as they will allow Him, or they will harden their hearts up and hate me a lot at the end of the messages. So again, since chapter 4 verse 13, this glorious portion of scripture, and it is glorious, it's one of those sections of scripture where you cannot allow your theology to stifle the joy.

We can do that very quickly. A pastor can get so into delivering messages that he's not getting it himself, and it becomes a presentation. He's formed more of an outline than deliver what God has first delivered to him to share with the congregation, and that is how God shares typically with the congregation. That does not mean He cannot speak to you on your own time either. It certainly does not mean that at all. Where else are you going to go when somebody's going to punch you in the nose with facts you need to hear that you otherwise would not receive? The house of God.

It is quite ingenious. Well, the scent of death, that is what the rapture is to the unbelievers at the time of the rapture. But to the believer before the rapture, it is quite wonderful, and we quoted this last session from 2 Corinthians chapter 2 and Paul in this section of scripture. We get to the Thessalonians eventually.

Just hold on. Through the spirit of love, joy, peace, long suffering, patience. Anyway, 2 Corinthians 2 16, to the one, the aroma of death leading to death. This is what the gospel message and those who bring it are to one group of people on earth. It is the aroma of death to death. It is a message of judgment and doom.

And he continues, and to the other, the aroma of life leading to life. Because they've received it. Because they've accepted it.

They've thought it through, and they've made their decision, and they've made their move. And so, as we have been going through this study, we've entitled it, The Coming of Christ, because that is what comes out of the details of what Paul has to write. Now, briefly concerning this day of the Lord. Jesus said this in Matthew 24 verse 22, And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved, but for the elect's sake those days will be shortened.

The elect is Israel in this section of scripture. And the day of the Lord is so fierce, it would wipe out the earth. That's what God is saying here in Matthew 24, and that's what Paul is going to talk about. And Paul's purpose is to say, listen, you believers are not going to be here for this. This is the wrath of God poured out on those who thumb their nose at him, who've mocked him, who've tried to get him out of everything they could. It is his judgment upon them. It is not a judgment upon the church. And so he ends the last verse of chapter 4 with, Comfort each other with these words. And how Christians can say, well, the church goes to the tribulation of some portion of it, is beyond me, because it's not in the scripture.

But we're not here to argue and fuss over all those other guys who are wrong, and I'm right. Why does the world gang up on Christian? Why is that the case?

I'm working on a message on the last days, but I'm really having a lot of fun getting my notes together. Getting them organized is another topic. But why is the world ganging up on us? Why do they gang up on us?

Why have they? Well, they're threatened, that's why. That's why they're threatened by the truth. The truth that goes against their culture and their traditions. The truth that says, listen, there's no room for two truths when they contradict each other.

One of them's not true, in this case. Because in the world you can have two supposed truths, and they're both wrong, and they're both errors, and not truths at all. And thus, our schools, our governments, our society seek to outlaw Jesus' name. But Jesus says in the scripture, in the Psalms, I will honor my word above my name. You might be able to silence the name, but you're not going to silence the word, which means you can't silence the name.

Because it has circular reasoning, you can call it what you want. Let all men be a liar, God is not mocked, he is true. Satan has looked to distract the church from Christ from the beginning. This is why the holidays that belong to our culture, and again, none of them mandated to us by scripture, they've sort of evolved, long story behind all of them, not to get into it, it's now part of the culture. But you look and you say, what is the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus doing around this spiritual event?

It's a distraction, that's why, they don't belong there. If you're going to celebrate the birth of Christ, there's nobody else to look at but him. He's the one that brings the gift of salvation. And if you're going to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, which we do, daily hopefully, the Easter Bunny, I mean, what is that?

Poing, poing, poing. The Aussie should rise up, why isn't it not a kangaroo? Anyway, well it's because the bunny, not that they're selling us batteries or anything, the bunnies represent life, fertility.

And you know how rabbits multiply, that kind of thing, not arithmetic, but more rabbits. And so the world wants to say, this is a celebration of life. And to one, it is the aroma of death, and to the other, it is the aroma of life, it is the truth of Jesus Christ that there is no life without the truth of Jesus Christ. And so, while I'm not so sure that those who have not received Christ, who claim themselves to be Christians, or those who are not Christians, who have not received the gospel, when the rapture comes, I think the scripture teaches that those folks will not have a second chance after the rapture. The only ones that will have a second chance are those who have not heard the gospel.

Now there's some, you know, fuss amongst Christians about this, not to me. If I am wrong, and I hope I am, then I've done no harm. But if I am right, and I've preached otherwise, I could have done great harm, because what it does to tell people, well, if I get raptured, you just go get my Bible and read my notes, or something like that. What you're saying is, today is not the day.

The scripture says, today is the day. There's an urgency belonging to this, because once the church is removed, then strong delusion will come from God. They will believe in the lie. They will run to the world. The apostate church will be in full gear. They already are here. They're gaining momentum.

They're sucking up our youth. They're making people think that Jesus is just a password, but the blood of Christ, the cross of Christ, they don't mean anything to them. And so, these end-time things have everything to do with the present things. And you say, well, how will the lost get saved? People will get saved during this great tribulation, this day of the Lord that's coming upon the earth. They will get saved because the church has left enough material here for them to go over, number one.

And number two, God will raise up two witnesses, and they will preach it. Their focus will be on Israel, the Jews, and the Jews. Many of them will be saved. We're told 144,000 from each tribe will go out and spread the gospel. They will be untouchable. And the Gentiles will be receiving it also.

We know that during this great seven-year period, the Russo-Islamic alliance will be wiped out by Antichrist in his quest for power. We'll get to that at some other point. I'm kind of getting off track here, and this is why we never can get past two verses.

It's your fault. And so the rapture, the extraction of the church, can happen at any moment. And some of you, when you first heard about this teaching, you're very excited about it.

You wake up in the morning, you go, huh, still here. But now you're kind of like, you know, maybe the church is supposed to be very excited about this all the time. It's not a condition of our faith.

It is a hope within our faith that God is going to one day say to everybody who believes him on earth, you shall not die, I want you to come here now, and miraculously they will be gone, vanished. And now we come to the first verse. And there we read, Paul continuing the thought, he says, but concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. Now, remembering that this letter is not a book, it is not divided in chapters and sections and outlined like that, not even verse divisions, it's a letter. He sat down and he wrote this right out to them.

There is no break between chapter four and chapter five. So when he says, therefore comfort one another with these things, because we're not going to go through this great tribulation period. And he says, and about these times and seasons, I've taught you these things.

You've been well schooled on this very thing. And so this disjunctive, we're in verse one, the first word, but it links what has been said, continuing the thought, but bringing up other details is a good study to do at home at some point. In chapter five of Thessalonians, verses one through 11, highlight all the pronouns.

And notice the lesson that is just right there and this comes right out from it. We, you, us, and also he says each other and one another, verses they, them. I think it is very significant that these plural pronouns of indefinite gender, indefinite number, they and them, he's speaking about those left behind for the day of the Lord, verses we, us, who will be taken in the rapture of the church. There's over 20 references just in these verses of one through 11. These 11 verses, there are 20 references in the pronoun to believers and about five to non-believers. And so he is making it clear there is a distinction between those who are right with God and those who are not and what's going to happen. You say, well, why don't the churches talk about these things? I don't know.

Ask them. So he continues, but concerning the times and seasons here in verse one. The times refers to the various time periods involved in God's dealings with the human race. Theologically, if we were students in a seminary, we would use the word dispensation. Why use it? Why not just say period of time?

It's harder to spell, too. Anyway, Hebrews chapter one, verse one, God at various times and in different ways spoke to the fathers in times past, has in these last days spoken to us through his son. See, the last days began when Jesus was resurrected, the church began. But we're in the last of the last days because of the seasons that are unmistakable. Before I get to the seasons, that word here for times is chronos in the Greek, from where we get our English word chronology. Seasons is kairos, and the seasons speak of the character.

The timetable is in the time, but the seasons are the character of the time. What's happening within this period? They're troop movements.

We understand when an army begins to move troops towards the border, they're probably going to invade or they're going to defend. If you were in Nazi-occupied Europe, you were part of the resistance. You know, to say Nazi is not enough. You have to, I think, now qualify it because people are conveniently forgetting what that was all about. The demonic Nazis, you had an entire nation demonically possessed. And if you don't know the history of the Nazis, I mean, what world was happening with you?

How can you miss this? It was so horrific. The world has said, you know, this could never happen again. They're going to be shocked when Antichrist is worse. He first tried to get rid of the Jews, that didn't work. Next, he will try to get rid of the Christians first, then the Jews.

And that's the sequence of those events, but we won't be here to see that happen. Now concerning the Christian looking at prophecy and scripture, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for not understanding Old Testament prophecy. He said, hypocrites, that's his sermon, you know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the Kronos, the signs of the times.

You can't tell that I'm the Messiah. Jesus expected the Jews to recognize his first coming. Some did, of course, those were his disciples. In fact, Nicodemus couldn't find rest until he got to the bottom of it, had a personal interview with Christ. John has recorded the interview for us. From that interview, we have one of the most heralded verses of all the Bible, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that's the emphasis there, that whosoever should believe in him should not go to hell.

That's what it says, they should not perish. So, Luke chapter 7, Jesus answered and said, and he's talking to a prophet who was a student of the Old Testament, a great man of God, the last prophet of the Jews, John the Baptist. And John is arrested and he's wondering, he's saying, if this Jesus is Messiah, why am I behind bars? Why does this current government still exercise authority over Israel if he is the Messiah? John struggled with this because the Jews weren't sure about their Messiah. There were different thoughts. Would he be conquered and then conquer?

How would this play out? If you look at Isaiah 53, they should have known, they should have understand. We say in hindsight, Monday morning quarterbacking, there are Christians that do this with the second return of Christ.

They don't look at the scriptures, they're just like the Jews, they're missing what's written right there. Well, John the Baptist, he sends his disciples to Jesus to say, are you the one or do we look for another? Jesus answered and said, go tell John the things you have seen and heard. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preached to them and you ain't never seen anything like it. He didn't say that part.

But that's the meaning. John, you ain't never seen anything like this. Of course I'm the one. Who comes close to this? Who's raising up the dead? Who's preaching the kingdom at the same time? Who's making lepers clean?

Their smelly selves with their broken bodies? Who with just a word, a glance, and they are made right? John knew the answer. That's all that had to be said. That settled it. See, we are supposed to pay attention.

It does mean something. Now there are some times and seasons that are out of our reach. God has put them there. He's told us about them. Jesus said that even the angels don't know. The Son of Man in his incarnate state was not opening the vault of future information in this area.

That's how serious a matter it was. He says even the Son of Man does not know. Now that all of course evaporated when he rose again from the dead. But when he rose again and he was about to go to heaven, he met with his disciples. When they saw him ascend into heaven, you know that silly looking scene? And there they were with their jaws dropped open watching him ascend. And the angel says, Men of Galilee, what are you doing? Look at you.

Take out a little camera and post it on. Anyway, you have to kind of be there in your head that there are the apostles watching the Lord ascending to heaven like we've never seen anything like this before. And the angel said, This happens all the time.

What do you stand, gays? The same Jesus. The same way you see him leave.

He's coming back. There's further insight on the rapture. You mean to tell me the scripture says the way we saw him ascend out of here is the way we're going to see him come back?

Yes. But Acts chapter 7, Jesus said to them, It is not for you to know times and seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. That means the precise day, the precise hour, the precise month and year. We don't know when the Lord will come back for his church. But the precise time when he comes back with his church, that has been revealed.

It will be seven years after. Daniel talks about it in Daniel chapter 9 and Daniel chapter 12. And throughout the scripture there are large clues and facts given to us to know these things. But we have to be concerned with right now.

I remember this last week but I think it merits a second review. What makes the time we live in, the season to be looking for the Lord's return? Well, the rebirth of the nation Israel. That is one.

But then there's more to that. Israel rebirthed as a nation 1948, May 14th. Attacked the next day. Whooped everybody who dared to come into their land for the first time.

Because there would be more. Beyond reason how this nation can be such a survivor in the midst of such global hatred. It is not an anomaly. It is an act of God. And the world, they might not see it. The Christians supposed to see it. There is a growing movement in Israel.

This is big news. For the Jews to pray at the Temple Mount. Right now they can't pray there. Right now the angry Muslims have possession of the Temple Mount.

Their little chrome dome is there. They say, oh, come on, show them some respect. No. They're sending people to hell. I have no respect for their beliefs.

I'd love to reach them as individuals and preach the Gospels. You know, this whole idea about hey, give the other guy a chance to speak too. Why? They don't do it to us. If Eve had said, eh, shut up, to the serpent, none of this would have happened. This comes out of men who aren't sure about the truth. Well, let's hear the other guy out.

Sometimes, sometimes I know what he's going to say and I don't want to hear it. I think some of that attitude needs to find its way into our witness. Yeah, yeah, you've had your say with your killing the unborn and your sodomite behavior and all, you've had your say. This is our say in the midst of all these things. This is, again, they know, they know this is powerful stuff. That's why they won't let you.

That's why there is a mainstream, which is a polluted stream, media. They want to control the voice. That's why they want to shut the church up, put a gag on it, don't say Jesus when you pray.

Make me. That's really the response that the church has to eventually have. Whether you think it is more important to believe men or God, you decide, but I've already made my decision. The church has been through this. Jesus said of Antipas, my faithful witness was martyred because he stood up for me. But back to this, the Jews in Israel are saying, we want to start praying on the Temple Mount. That's big news in Israel. So this growing movement to pray at the temple, them fighting words to the Muslims. It's going to happen. Antichrist is going to bring this about.

Why do I bring it up? Antichrist, according to Daniel chapter 9, the great day of the Lord, the 70th week of Daniel, he's going to rebuild the Jewish temple. He's going to allow Jews to worship again, bring their mosaic offerings to the temple. Thanks for tuning in to Cross Reference Radio for this study in the book of 1 Thessalonians. Cross Reference Radio is the teaching ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia. To learn more information about this ministry, visit our website, crossreferenceradio.com. Once you're there, you'll find additional teachings from Pastor Rick. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast. When you subscribe, you'll be notified of each new edition of Cross Reference Radio. You can search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app as well. That's all we have time for today, but we hope you'll join us next time as Pastor Rick continues to teach through the book of 1 Thessalonians right here on Cross Reference Radio.