1 Thessalonians 5:1-2 (Part B)

So in the scripture, when Jesus says, his lightning flashes from east to west, so will the Son of Man coming, and every eye shall see me. How's that going to happen? Well, there are two ways that can happen. Well, one, two kind of woven together. He can make a slow descent to earth that every camera will pick up and broadcast.

He could do it over a period of, you know, hours or days, slowly descend. I mean, there's a lot of options there. You can play with that if you'd like. 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 1 Thessalonians, Chapter 5, with today's edition of Cross Reference Radio. 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 1. 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?

And it's harder to spell, too. Anyway, Hebrews Chapter 1, Verse 1, 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's 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.

Yeah, 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. You 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 gaze? The same Jesus. The same way you see him leave.

He's coming back. 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.

Now, I went over 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 14. Attack the next day. Whooped everybody who dared to come into their land for the first time.

Because there would be more. It is 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 in 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? Because the 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 is going to allow Jews to worship again, bring their mosaic offerings to the temple.

And then in three and a half years, he's going to go in there and wipe it all out and say, you're going to worship me now. So my point is, the season that we live in, we're watching this happen unlike ever before. There is also a movement in Israel to defy the Arab problem.

This is unprecedented. The Jews are beginning to say, you know what, we're about sick and tired of catering to your needs and then you blowing us up. And so they just approved the giant statue of Jesus in Nazareth, Bethlehem.

I think it's Bethlehem. Anyway, the details. This is big news because that is a Muslim heavy environment. And the Jews are saying, we don't care.

Used to be a time where I can't do that. You get them all upset. We'd be dealing with, you know, Hezbollah. So you see a change in direction in the heart of the nation of Israel that we've not seen. There is a growing movement in Israel to reinstitute the mosaic sacrifices which none of you Christians are allowed to participate in. Our sacrifice was on the cross at Calvary. That's the whole purpose of the letter to the Hebrews. You say you're Christians. If you go back to that temple to find relief from your sins, you have renounced Christ.

Serious business. Well, the Temple Mount Faithful is the group that I have in mind. They've been around for a while, but what's not been around for a while is they've now moved their office right by the Temple Mount. You know what property value is over there? To get a little flat, a little refrigerator size apartment overlooking the Temple Mount or the Western Wall for a Jew.

You're getting millions of dollars. That means if they got property there, somebody's funding them and it's not one person. It's an indicator that there is a movement stirring amongst the Jews worldwide to have their temple back. You're watching it. You're living in a time where prophecy is being put in place.

The props, the scenes are being set up. I mentioned that there was globalization. That's Babel, the rebuilding of Babel. Everyone spoke the same language at Babel.

Everyone was in the same place at Babel. They were a microcosm of globalization. The rest of the world was left alone. The dinosaurs were thumping around.

Wait until the archeologists find us, not the anthropologists. Many of them got, never mind, got stuffed. Satellites. Satellites are an important part of the Old Testament prophecies. The two witnesses, according to Revelation 9, was 11.

Either way, not having a good math day. They will be finally killed by Antichrist and his forces and they will be left in the streets dead for three and a half days. And the Bible says people from every tongue, every tribe, every kindred will see this.

How? Are they going to take bus rides there? Well, they're going to see it on television, on the internet. Well television, television is like gone.

The internet, they'll have it right there on their phones. You couldn't have this fulfillment 50 years ago. It would have been difficult to bring this about. Well, maybe not 50 years ago, but there's another math issue. But you know what I'm talking about. Okay, 100 years ago, you would have been able to do this. Now you can.

So in the scripture, when Jesus says his lightning flashes from east to west, so will the Son of Man coming and every eye shall see me. How's that going to happen? Well, there are two ways that can happen.

Well, one, two kind of woven together. He can make a slow descent to earth that every camera will pick up and broadcast. He could do it over a period of, you know, hours or days, slowly descend. I mean, there's a lot of options there.

You can play with that if you'd like. I mentioned the dawn of the nuclear age. Ezekiel 38 and 39, you read it. It's like it's right out of the nuclear, the military's manual on handling nuclear contaminated items on the battlefield.

Some will go through, they will mark the bones, and another group will come and dispose of them. Ezekiel gives us these details written 500 years before Christ came. That's 3,000 years ago, 2,500.

Math is just not going well for me. The rise again of the Russia Islamic Alliance, Ezekiel 38 and 39. Ezekiel lists the nations. Huh, almost all of them are Islamic, before Islam was ever a thought. In fact, a thousand years before Islam was a thought, Ezekiel names the alliance of Russia and all of these Islamic nations, Turkey and Saudi Arabia and Persia, all coming into Israel, trying to wipe her out. We see this alliance in place now. Who's helping Iran build their nuclear reactor? Russia.

And so, the global mark of the beast, I'm so off of Thessalonians, I'm going to have to speed this up. The sodomite society, the technology, buy or sell, you will not be able to do without the mark of the beast. How could you enforce that in some little village in Tibet? Or, well, Tibet would be easier, but there are other places in the world that are more remote.

South America and other places in India and all those little villages. Antichrist is going to have a solution to that. Everything's going to be on the grid, and you will not be able to make a move. This whole thing with the NSA, the only part of government that's listening, they, it's not original, but it's good. This is just making the way for Antichrist.

Not only will he be able to listen, he'll have a drone at your front door in five minutes, and it won't be Amazon delivering you a package. Global persecution of Christians, the global apostate church, there's always been apostate churches. John talked about diatrophes and him, and all of that, but there will be a global apostate church, all having their own separate little, we're Protestants, we're Catholics, we're Baptists, we're Pentecosts, and we're all agreeing with each other, because they're going to be left behind, some of them. And so anyway, Paul says, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you, and now he begins to open up verse two, he says, for you yourselves know perfectly, and here it comes, that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. It says, it's such a, you know, the day the Lord comes like a thief in the night, you know, I'll have fries with that, yeah, and then by the way, it's sort of like casual, but it's profound. He says, for you yourselves know perfectly, he gives them a good schooling, that word perfectly in the Greek, akribos.

It means exact, accurate, cautiously, circumspectly, I went over this with you, line by line, precept upon precept, detail by detail, I covered this with you, and we talked about how difficult it is to get an outline in the early stages of your faith on the end time scenario. Well, Paul is living through that with them, he says, I went over this with you, and I know you don't get it all, because it is so incredible, it's outside the box of natural thinking, until you begin to see that everything with God is outside the box in one sense of the word. That the day of the Lord, it begins with perplexity, it transitions into dread, and it ends with great carnage. There will be over four billion people wiped out, and the whole process is not done yet. After a while, you just can't count anymore, as you go through the book of Revelation, you try this, and a third of the population of mankind was wiped out, and you say, I can't keep up with this after a while, who's not being written down?

Shock and awe. And so Paul is saying, we're not going to be here for this. Matthew 24 verse 38, Jesus speaking for as in the days of the flood. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, although when the end comes it will be perverted marriage.

He continues, it already is. Until the day Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will be the coming of the Son of Man. They're going to be having a good time, a portion of society here when the rapture comes, and right after the rapture. It will start off with some perplexity, but great joy, false joy. I'm going to take the time to read from the Old Testament primarily, what the scripture has to say about the day of the Lord, because it is fierce.

Isaiah perhaps has, really I think is the lead off hitter. Behold the day of the Lord comes cruel with both wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate, and he will destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light, the sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its light to shine. I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will halt the arrogance of the proud, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. That just says it all. God is like, you know, this is going to be a time in history where I'm going to say I've had it, and I'm going to demonstrate this wrath. And guess what? All that they go through in the great tribulation period without repenting, because revelation tells us they will start grinding their teeth against God.

How dare you do this to us? Calling for the mountains to fall on them, to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb, but they still would not repent. It gets worse. After they die, then they're judged.

And it's not a good judgment. It is the great white throne judgment eventually for them. Joel chapter 1 verse 15, alas, for the day of the Lord is at hand. It shall come as destruction from the Almighty. Joel chapter 2 verse 1 and 2, blow the trumpet in Zion, sound the alarm in my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. For it is at hand, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. Amos sways in, woe to those who desire the day of the Lord, for what good is the day of the Lord to you?

It will be darkness and not light. And the prophets are saying, this is not a joke. What is the New Testament supposed to do with this? The New Testament, a Christian is supposed to say, I better be fast about my business in preaching the gospel. Because as awful as the day of the Lord is going to be on earth, the day of hell will be worse, and it will be without end.

We are supposed to look. Many Christians, I think, get into this place where they just have sort of an advocate role when it comes to reaching the lost. They themselves are not looking to preach Christ. They're hoping the pastor does it. They're hoping some new ministry pops up to do it.

They hope they can support something, but the critical feature missing is they themselves are not ready to share Christ. Afraid what people are going to think of them. What do you think they're going to think of you when they land in hell and you never told them about it? You live right next door and you had a chance. If you get a shot, take the shot. Squeeze the trigger. You know, sometimes it's hard to pull the trigger.

You know, maybe you write an email that you want to send to somebody and you just can't hit send. Well, that's understandable. But not when it comes to you get them before you and God says, give it to them. And you don't.

Because you're afraid of failure. That's a self-centeredness there that needs to go away. There's a view that's wrong in that kind of thinking in the view is simply this. I'm a bit ashamed of what I'm about to say that may not be thought out that way, but that is what's beginning to happen. We have to understand it is an honor to preach the gospel. It is a dishonor to hide it.

Pray for God to bring into your life first a burden to win the loss and then bring in some lost people. Amen. Zephaniah.

How often do you hear him? The day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness. What do you think Paul was teaching them when he was said, I taught you about the day of the Lord.

This is what he was giving them. Revelation chapter 6 for the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand. 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.