1 Thessalonians 5:3-11 (Part A)

Initially, again, they will be glad to be rid of the Christians.

Whether they did it or not is irrelevant. They just won't have the conviction of the church anywhere around. Judaism is next.

They don't know that. Satan knows that. Antichrist will be determined to purge the world of every last lingering trace of Christian influence that he can.

Then he will launch his final solution. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of 1 Thessalonians.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now here's Pastor Rick with today's edition of Cross-Reference Radio in 1 Thessalonians Chapter 5. Let's open our Bibles to the first Thessalonian letter, Chapter 5. We are continuing our analysis of biblical prophecy that is given to us as we go verse by verse.

Last session we discussed the Day of the Lord. This morning we will turn more attention to the rapture of the universal church. And then the Great Tribulation Period follows that. In fact, that kicks it off for the next seven years on earth. It will be known as the Great Tribulation Period.

Three and a half years relatively peaceful, but the last three are horrific. And then the Second Coming of Christ. And so, again, last session we considered the Day of the Lord, His wrath. That's what the Day of the Lord involves, the judgment of God on earth. And now we return to the Day of the Lord in rapture. Now what is holding up the rapture of the church? What is holding up this next period on the prophetic calendar? And we're waiting for the last person to get saved that can get saved in the church.

And if you're here this morning, you get saved, we all get out of here. Romans Chapter 11 verse 25, it says, Blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come. That fullness of the Gentiles is the last Gentile saved through the church, and then that will bring the time where God again speaks to the world through Israel.

Right now, God speaks to the world through the church. And Israel will again take that position. Now, the fullness of the Gentiles is a little different from the time of the Gentiles. That ends when Christ comes back to earth and sets up His kingdom. And so if you're a prophecy buff, you know you need to make the distinction between the fullness of the Gentiles, when the last one gets saved, the church is out of here, and the times of the Gentiles ending when Christ returns.

That time of the Gentiles began with Nebuchadnezzar when he conquered Jerusalem. So that's why Paul the Apostle said, Maranatha, even so, Lord, come back. First Corinthians Chapter 16 verse 22, if anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let them be accursed.

That's powerful. Let them be anathema. If they don't love Him, that's the way they are.

That's their choice. And then he adds in the Aramaic, O Lord, Maranatha, come. Come again. Well, we pick up now verse 5 with that brief introduction on what we're talking about. First Thessalonians Chapter 5 verse 3, for when they say, peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, they shall not escape. And we talked about between verses 1 through 11 the pronouns that have to do with us versus them. And here is the they and the them who are outside of Christ, who refuse His Lordship. This distinguishes unbelievers from believers. They will be here.

We will not be here. Whenever you come across someone who believes that the church will go through this great tribulation period, to me immediately my understanding of their understanding of scripture is that they don't understand. It's so clearly stated.

What do you have to do? You say, why does someone believe that? And they've got all these special names. Are you amillennial, pre-millennial, post-millennial, calyx cornflakes? Well, who cares? Do you believe we're going to go through the tribulation period? What does the scripture say? That's all I care about. I do get a little tired of all these fluffy names that the doctrines have to have.

The apostles didn't use them. Anyway, I don't want to go on a rant. I do, but I'm not going to. Yeah, you're glad.

It's never fun to see someone going on a rant, is it? Peace and safety, then sudden destruction. How awful to feel safe and secure, then suddenly, horrifically, without remedy, the rudest awakening in history hits you. That is going to be the mood. That is what is going to happen.

That is what is coming. Unprecedented phenomena, distress, far exceeding what was experienced by those who drowned at the flood of Noah and those who perished in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is what Jesus has to say about that day, one of so many things he had to say. He said, there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars, and on earth, bless of nations with perplexity. The sea and the waves rowing, men's hearts failing them from fear, and the expectation of those things which are coming on earth for the powers of heaven will be shaken. Revelation chapter six begins with Jesus opening the first of seven seals, and each seal issues in another wave of judgment. The seventh seal then issues in seven trumpets, then seven bowls. The judgment just intensifies, and we'll go over some of that as we move through this, but what is coming to earth will make what Europe suffered through the Nazi occupation appear as nothing, especially in those last three and a half years. The terror that Antichrist and his armies will unleash, along with the cataclysmic bombardment of God's wrath using earthquakes, volcanoes, tornadoes, hurricanes, everything, and that's not all.

Other things will be happening too, and again, I'll get to that momentarily. Now, you may be saying, well, where is this in the Bible? It's in several places. It's here in Thessalonians, it's in Joel, it's in Isaiah, it's Ezekiel 38, 39, Daniel 9, in chapter 12, Matthew's Gospel 24, the book of Revelation. It's in the scripture.

What I'm simply trying to give you is a condensed and concise overview of what the scripture says is coming. God does not lie. First off, he's too holy to lie. Secondly, he's too big to lie. He does nothing to fear.

There's no motive for him to tell us what's not true. He's telling us this is coming your way. It says it comes upon them here in verse three. That is sudden, but not without 1,900 years of warning. God has been warning the church. God has been warning mankind through the church that this is what is going to happen, and so they are those who thought they had peace without Jesus. Well, the church is going to be gone. They're going to be celebrating its absence. The strong delusion of 2 Thessalonians chapter 2 will include this false sense of peace that will also be short-lived. Initially, again, they will be glad to be rid of the Christians.

Whether they did it or not is irrelevant. They just won't have the conviction of the church anywhere around. Judaism is next.

They don't know that. Satan knows that. Antichrist will be determined to purge the world of every last lingering trace of Christian influence that he can, and then he will launch his final solution. Israel will become a bloodbath. In fact, it will be earth's last killing field. God himself and the Lord Jesus Christ will come and put an end to it. What he craves is unfettered, uninterfered worship because he will be the consummate demon-possessed leader such as the world has never known. Hitler will look like his coffee boy.

Technology will certainly be a big asset to him in the destruction that he unleashes. This is Daniel's 70th year that Daniel spoke about. He said there's 70 weeks determined.

Each week is a seven-year period. After Messiah is cut off, it stops. In between the crucifixion of Christ and the rapture of the church, there is that break. Then comes the rapture and the 70th week begins.

And when that three-and-a-half-year period kicks in after Antichrist makes peace with Israel, rebuilds their temple, mocks the Islam, destroys the Russo-Islamic alliance, then the time of Jacob's trouble that Jeremiah spoke about in Jeremiah chapter 30. Understand when the scripture makes statements, I say this all the time, that God has this flare for understatement. It is on our side, not his side. There's no pre-variance on his end. He's not withholding anything. When he says, I am going to pour out wrath, we read into, well, I didn't hear the tone.

I didn't see his eyes. And so, you know, this is just not going to be a good day. But God is saying, when I say there's going to be wrath, I mean it. You can't even measure it, the amount of carnage that will take place. Now, I know some of you who are ignorant of scripture may be still fussing to yourself, well, what about the love of God? Well, we cover that all the time. We're not at that place at this time in history. That's why the church is removed. The love of God has been rejected. It can go no further.

No one else can get saved through the church. Things have come to a head. Listen, all these people out here trying to get rid of the name Jesus when you pray, crosses on cemeteries, crosses here, trying to get rid of, this is laying the launchpad for Antichrist. He will find a global agreement just waiting for him. The citizens of earth will be waiting for him, wanting him, craving him, and God is going to give it to them. And so it will burst upon Israel, what Daniel prophesied and said at the time of Jacob's trouble.

He talked about it, Jesus did, he ratified it in Matthew's gospel chapter 24. He says, when you see the abomination of desolation spoken to you by Daniel the prophet, then you better get out of Israel. And what he's talking about in that is the prophecy that Israel will have rebuilt their third place of worship, the third Jewish temple.

There have been two in history. Both of them have been destroyed. There is now no Jewish temple. Isaiah said, you're going to go for a time without sacrifice. There'll be no place for you to bring your offerings. And that is because their temple is destroyed. Antichrist is going to rebuild that temple and he'll be able to, of course, once he wipes out, completely wipes out the Russian army. Ezekiel 38 lists the nations coming into Israel with Russia and they're Islamic and it includes the Ruskies.

No slight on the people. I believe during the great tribulation period, hordes of one time Muslims will be coming to Christ. Those who've never heard the gospel. And so the church as we know it, which did not exist in the days that Christ walked the earth, he systematically introduced the teaching of the church and he gave it to the apostles to develop. John chapter 16 verse 12, Jesus said, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

That's an exact quote verbatim. The apostles were Jews and they were not ready to receive the concept of Gentiles achieving salvation without first becoming a Jew. Their whole understanding, if you're going to be right with Jehovah God, you better be circumcised, honor the Sabbath and all of these other rules that the Mosaic law gave them.

That was their understanding. Jesus swept all that away and he told the apostles, I want you to develop this teaching. On several occasions, it almost cost the apostle Paul his life when he began to define and point out the identity of the New Testament church. To this day, you have churches that don't know who they are. One of them thinks that God wants them to be financially wealthy. It is such a failed project. You think people would look around, you know, prosperity teaching didn't pop up yesterday.

It's been here. And the only people in there prospering are the jive time punk, no good, apostate pastors that belong to it. I tell them that to their face. Because they're leading people to hell. I have a family member who I believe died because some of that poison teaching got into his head.

Don't call the doctor. God wants you rich. He wants you healthy. The gold teeth.

Okay, I'm back. It is not fun watching Satan trick someone in Jesus' name. It's not fun watching him do it anywhere, but especially to use the scripture, to twist it. Listen, you can go on the internet and you can find any subject you want in scripture and somebody's twisted it to the point that you can't untwist it.

I was just on a site the other day, I stumbled onto this. I don't go looking for these things, talking about the flood. You know, here's why the global flood never happened. And as you listen to what this guy is saying, you say, you know, if you don't know better, he sounds like he's got you. But he's wrong. And he's lying.

If they lie about climate change, what makes you think they're going to be honest about a global flood? But back to this. He says, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, once the seals are opened, once the Lord pops open that first seal, nothing in heaven or earth is going to stop that process. I remember when my oldest daughter was being born, we were living in New York City and my wife said it was in the morning during rush hour, New York City rush hour. And the place she had to go was in Manhattan. And it's like, well, it's time, let's go. And I said, I command you, I'm your husband, not to have that child.

And she waited. But and so that child was coming and there was nothing anybody could do to stop it. And this is what the expression Paul is talking about. He says, and they shall not escape. They're the target of the day of wrath. There's no place to go.

There's nowhere to hide from these things. Isaiah 13, 9, again, we read, behold, the day of the Lord comes cruel with both wrath and fierce anger to lay the land desolate and he will destroy his sinners from it. That is the day of the Lord. Now, most of the time we go through the scripture, we talk about salvation and the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. Oh, well, now we're talking about wrath. That is our assignment from the Lord.

Now, I also mentioned this morning that there are those who mock this. Oh, it's not coming, you know, scripture. Well, Peter, the apostle addresses this in his second letter. He says, knowing this first that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts and saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.

They do continue as they have from creation on the surface. But if you look a little bit, you'll find out things are moving to a conclusion that has been prophesied, but we are seeing prophecy being fulfilled. Verse four, he continues, but you, now here's that disjunctive conjunction. He makes the distinction between the believer and unbeliever. He says, but you brethren are not in darkness so that this day should not overtake you as a thief. An emphatic difference is established throughout scripture between the nature and the destiny of believers and the nature and doom of unbelievers. Darkness here in verse four refers to the world's ignorance of God's person and purposes and plans because they want it that way. Peter points it out. He says, walking according to their own lusts.

They want to satisfy themselves on whatever it is that they enjoy. Now, unbelievers may be listening to this and they are saying either one or two things, maybe a third is happening. Either they're saying to themselves, you know, I don't like the conviction of the Holy Spirit and they're ready to go out, turn it off, or they're responding to him. I sense God calling me saying, wake up.

This is happening. You are not made for this. You deserve better than this. Why be judged? Ezekiel put it this way, turn, turn. Why should you perish? Ephesians chapter four, verse 18, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

The apostles had to deal with the same things we do in people who don't believe it, don't want it. They have no evidence. Their premise is wrong and therefore their conclusion, the outcome is wrong. Their way of thinking is like a broken compass. It's going to point in the wrong direction. So long as it isn't broken, it will never give them true direction. He continues in verse four, he says, so that this day should overtake you as a thief.

Again, sudden but not without warning. Attempts to pinpoint the precise time of the Lord's coming for his church are wrong. The scripture prohibits that.

It does not say, thus I command you not to do it. He says it in a different way, but it's the same result. Matthew 25, 13, watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the son of man is coming. Now we know, we know when the second coming is going to happen. He's told us that the time period, the events that will be taking place, Israel, their army will be getting wiped out. We know that, but we won't be here for that part of it. He's talking about the rapture.

And I don't know why. All I do, some of them just get excited. So many Christians, you know, they love the Lord so much they get carried away by their feelings and they begin, I think he's coming back and God says don't do that. You know, it's sort of like, you know, the parents buy gifts and we're going to hide them from you. That hide them, we're going to hide them means don't touch them.

Well, the child's nature is going to recondition and try to locate and open. You know, once when I was a kid I did that, I felt so bad. You know, it's like why did I do that? I never did it again. But anyway, the Lord says don't go looking for this. I've hidden this from you. And it's not wrong to recognize the stage is being set, the props are being put in place, you know what act is coming. There's nothing wrong with seeing that happening. It's just something wrong and saying the curtain will go up in 30 seconds.

We don't have that privilege. Matthew 24 verse 32. Matthew 24 is that section of scripture where Jesus is teaching the disciples about the end times. You cannot get a chronological outline just from that section of scripture.

You have to do detective work and bring in other things that he has said about that time. He gives them a condensed class there. But he says this, he says, now learn this parable from the fig tree. He says, learn this parallel story, this thing that runs right beside what's going to happen. This microcosm of truth is going to have a greater fulfillment.

That's what he's saying. He says, learn this parable from the fig tree. When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near.

So you also, when you see these things, know that it is near at the doors. The fig tree is Israel. How do we know that? Well, every time we see the fig tree in parable, in Old and New Testament, it speaks of Israel. And so we know that he says, when you see Israel begin to come to life and have fruit, well, the leaves on the trees of a fig tree says, hey, I've got fruit. And we see that Israel became a nation again in 1948 and she's very fruitful.

We know the stage is being set. We are in the last of the last days, unlike ever before. I don't think the world can sustain the technological advances that we are seeing unlocked. I think the lesson from the Tower of Babel teaches that. God says, listen, if we leave them with one language, they are going to destroy everything.

Now the world again is rebuilding the Tower of Babel. They once again have a common language and a common goal, and God is on the outside of it. That is the definition of the world. It's not what we have or have not in common with the world that makes them different from us.

It's who we have not in common. That is Jesus Christ. And so when he says that day will not overtake believers, when he said that day should not overtake you because you're in the light, he's saying because the Lord comes for his church as a thief in the night.

Just like in the parable of the 12 virgins with their lamps, those that were ready at the midnight call went out to meet him. Now if you're a struggling Christian, you say, I know I love the Lord Jesus. I know he is my savior. There is no other. I worship none other but him, but I'm not ready because I fail too much.

I trip up, I sin, I just can't seem to get ahead. God replies to that. He's already put the answer in, the lifeboat is in the scripture.

He says there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. He wouldn't have to say that if we were perfect. We'd say, you don't have to tell us that. We know that because we're perfect. We're not perfect. We're made perfect. We're pronounced perfect by what Jesus has done for us. You have to remember, Jesus died for only one kind of person, a bad one.

And for no other type of person did he die. Now if you're foolish enough to go comparing yourself next to your neighbor or the people in jail, then you have added, God's not going to compare you to him. He's going to compare you to his son, Jesus Christ. And so he said, I'm a good man compared to who? Compared to, you know, Jesus or to your neighbor? And if you say compared to my neighbor, then you're dirty.

If you say, well, compared to Jesus, I'm dirty, then there's hope. 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.