Friday, September 6, 2024

What’s Going to Happen at the End? 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

 


google image of ancient Thessalonica

Many of us are interested in what is going to happen at the very end. The apostle Paul was informed by God what would happen! These happenings are recorded in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11. To my surprise, this passage is all about encouraging one another and hope. Disciples of Jesus also need to give encouragement and hope and not leave people without hope. Yet today many of us are fearful and hopeless. Paul repeats his point twice, at the beginning of our reading and at the end of it:

4:18 “Encourage one another with these words” and in 5:11 “Encourage one another and build up one another, just as also you are doing.”

I.The first explanation in 4:13-17 is in response to a question the Thessalonians had: What happens to Christians who die before the Lord returns?

The second explanation in 5:1-10 is a reminder of what Paul already taught them about the day of the Lord.

As you know, Paul and Silas visited the major city of Thessalonica on their second missionary journey, around AD 52, recorded in Acts 17:1-9,. For three weeks they taught in the synagogue there. Some Jews and many Greeks became believers. The non-Messianic Jews became jealous of the positive response Paul and Silas had and they got angry at them and dragged some believers to the city officials, shouting that Christians believed in another king, Jesus, and not the Roman emperor, who was Claudius at that time (Acts 17:7; 18:2). Because of the danger to their lives, the believers at Thessalonica sent Paul and Silas to a neighboring city for safety—Berea.

The Thessalonians are like many of us: they were loving, but they could love even more (4:9-10).

I’m not sure how much teaching you’ve received on Jesus’s second coming, but in a month or so time, Paul and Silas made sure to let the Thessalonians know the basics.

Illus. I didn’t know about Jesus’s return until my late teens after many years of attending church. I remember when it happened. I was at a college Intervarsity retreat out at Hudson House in New York, where the guest preacher mentioned several times about Jesus coming back. At the question-and-answer period after his talk, I raised my hand, and asked: “Just to be clear, are you saying that Jesus is returning?” He affirmed: “Yes!”

“Well,” I thought, “I didn’t know that!”

Paul begins by saying: in verse 13: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”[1]

Illus. A few of you may remember Bill’s mother, Helen Spencer. She lived in New Jersey before we brought her up to MA to live when she developed Alzheimer’s. She lived in Hamilton safely many years. Even with her memory loss, she never forgot that she was a disciple of Jesus.

When she was dying, the nursing home called us to be there so Bill and I came. Bill was with her at the very end. She no longer spoke but she lay there quietly, holding onto Bill’s hand for hours. When she finally stopped breathing, her African nurse asked Bill:

“Was this a Christian woman?”

Bill answered, “She was very devout and loved Jesus.”

The nurse responded, “You can tell.”

Bill asked, “How can you tell?”

She replied, “The peace, you can feel it all around.”
Bill questioned her: “Isn’t it the same with everyone?”

She insisted: “Oh, no, sometimes it is terrible, even I hear screaming.”

Both of them paused and looked around because they could feel the peace in the room.

Why is it Christians have hope?

Paul explains in verse 14: “If we believe that Jesus died and rose, in a similar way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.

And in verse 17, he adds that believers will always be with the Lord, now, when we are alive, and, in the future, when Jesus returns.

Paul describes the dead as “sleeping,” using a metaphor to describe that the death of believers is temporary. In the same way, Jesus described the death of Jairus’s 12-year-old daughter as “sleep” although both Jesus and the family and friends knew she was indeed dead. Nevertheless, Jesus commanded her to live again by saying in a loud voice: “Child, rise!” And she stood up immediately (Luke 8:40-42, 49-56).

How will the end happen?

Paul’s answer is not one that he and Silas made up (4:15). The Lord told them of the 4 steps involved:

First, The Lord himself will descend from heaven with a signal, the loud voice of the archangel (Michael), and with God’s trumpet sound (4:16).

Jesus’s return will be loud and self-evident! (vs. Acts 1:9-11)

Second, The dead in Christ will rise.

We get a preview of this in Matthew 27:52-53:

When Jesus died, there was an earthquake, many tombs broke open and believers were raised to life, entered Jerusalem and appeared to many.

The apologist Quadratus around 75 years later mentioned that the deeds of Jesus “were always there to see, for they were true: those who were cured or those who rose from the dead were seen not only when they were cured or raised but were constantly there to see, not only while the Savior was living among us, but also for some time after his departure. Some of them, in fact, survived right up to our own time.”—Quadratus’s time (Eusebius, Church History 4.3)

Third, Those who are alive at that time, together with the resurrected dead, will be taken forcefully into the clouds in order to meet the Lord in the air. (arpazō)

At that point, there is no hemming or hawing or hiding or being forgotten. We will suddenly be snatched up or seized, just like Philip was snatched away by the Spirit from the Ethiopian eunuch and taken to Azotus in Acts 8:39-40 and Paul was caught up to Paradise in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4.

In 1 Corinthians 15:51-53, Paul adds that in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, we will be changed, our bodies will become imperishable.

Fourth, We will always be with the Lord.

This is encouraging news!! Use it to encourage one another, Paul writes.

II.The second explanation begins in ch. 5,

the Thessalonians had been told that the day of the Lord comes, like a “a thief in the night” (5:2).

Illus. When Bill and I lived in downtown Newark, NJ, in the last month several times thieves broke into our house. Our building had been hidden by the neighboring ones, but they were knocked down and only our narrow townhouse was left. We lived in community with a few students, but on the weekends they all left for their homes.

I had planted some grass seeds in our little backyard, which was enclosed inside a wall. On one Friday I saw footprints in the new grass. I showed them to Bill and one of the students. The student got very scared, so we told him not to worry, and we did nothing.

          What we should have done was reinforce the windows that did not close tightly. God gave us a warning, but we didn’t act on it. Exactly one week later, Friday, the thief broke into our house late at night. Only Bill and I were present. We were sleeping. A mosquito woke me up and then I heard sounds. Our bedroom doors were all closed, but I could hear noises in our small office next door. I woke up Bill. By then the only sounds were downstairs. I called the police. Then, Bill grabbed a vacuum metal pipe and made all this racket on the stairway as he went down, while he called to the nonexistent boys to come:

“Hey, Chuck, Joe, Paul, come down!,” in his low voice. Meanwhile, I jumped up and down at the head of the stairs, trying to sound like a bunch of guys coming down the stairs from the third floor. Suddenly, downstairs we heard the kitchen back door burst open. The thief had been packing all our musical equipment into a bag, but left it all behind as he kicked over the back door and leaped over our back fence. He was way gone when the police finally arrived 45 minutes later from the nearby station.

Jesus tells his disciples: in Matthew 24:42-44: “Keep awake, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  But understand this: if the owner of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into. Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

We had not figured out that the thief was coming back in one week and we did not prepare, but in our case, we were awakened (I think God sent us that little mosquito!) and prevented the thief from taking all our musical equipment: record player and receiver! He dropped a calculator he had picked up as he dashed out!

In a similar way, at Jesus’s return, the day of the Lord is unexpected, and sudden, and can’t be avoided.

The Lord’s day is also like labor pains.

Illus. When I was expecting Steve, the medical staff told me to pack my overnight suitcase and keep it in our closet ready because we could not know exactly when I would go into labor.

One night, my water broke, and we had to go quickly to the hospital. We could not escape going. I was sure glad that I had that suitcase all set to go!

What does it mean to be caught by surprise?

We will not know the day the Lord will return. Jesus told his disciples that they would not know the day just before he ascended to heaven:

It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” (Acts 1:7)

Jesus repeated many times at many different occasions that his return will be unexpected, for example,

Matthew 25:13: at the end of the parable of the 10 bridesmaids, who took their lamps, some brought oil and some did not, Jesus warned: Keep awake, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.

In Mark 13:34-37 Jesus further explained: It is like a person going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Therefore, keep awake, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.”[3]

We also have Luke 12:35-38: Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes;

 truly I tell you, he will fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them. If he comes during the middle of the night or near dawn and finds them so, blessed are those slaves.”

And to the angel of the church in Sardis the Spirit told John to write in Rev. 3:3: These are the words of him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works; you have a name of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up and strengthen what remains and is on the point of death, for I have not found your works perfect in the sight of my God. Remember, then, what you received and heard; obey it and repent. If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you.”

Even in the last book of the Bible, In Rev. 16:15, Jesus reminds John:

See, I am coming like a thief! Blessed is the one who stays awake and is clothed, not going about naked and exposed to shame.”

That’s a lot of references to Jesus’s unexpected return.

In the meantime, we’re supposed to be alert and self-controlled, according to 1 Thess 4:6.

            “Alive” and “awake” and “alert” are different ways to translate the same Greek word: grēgoreō, to be roused from sleep and be now awake.[4] The Thessalonians who are alive were worried about those who were sleeping, or dead, but Paul’s question is—were they themselves literally alive but not metaphorically alive or awake and alert, clothed and ready for the daylight?

How do we stay awake?

We stay awake by the way we live. We are to live like children of the light and children of the day, not children of the night nor of the darkness. Paul writes about 2 kinds of “sleep”:

1.A temporary death—that’s good and can’t be avoided;

2.living like we are “dead”- Doing actions that you try to hide from God and from others at night in the darkness.

For example, when you’re drunk, you lose self-control and are not filled with the Holy Spirit, according to 1 Thessalonians 5:7. That’s also the message in Ephesians 5:18: Do not get yourself drunk or intoxicated, in which is wild living, but be filled with the Spirit.”

Earlier in 1 Thessalonians 4:8 we read that God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us have self-control in order that we can live holy lives.

Paul writes a mini version in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 of what he will develop in Ephesians 6:10-18: Put on or wear protection, defense against assault, a breastplate and a helmet, which are faith and love and hope of salvation (5:8).

What is our hope?

God does not want you to perish but wants you to be saved through Jesus Christ our Lord. “Our” means we’re not alone (5:9). We have a community to help us and stand with us. Christ died so that you can be holy before God (5:8), but we need to make that holiness an actuality. Paul summarizes in 1 Thessalonians 5:10: whether you are alive or you are dead when Christ returns, “together with Jesus we will live.”

What can we do now? I would like to suggest 3 options:

1.   Continue to share this good news about the Lord’s return to others, especially to other Christians, to encourage them;

2.   Ask the Lord if you are doing anything now that is not pleasing to God, “hidden,” and seek help to stop this behavior of darkness. Of course, if it is more than 1 behavior, pick one thing to work on at a time.

3.   Ask God that your faith in Jesus, love for Jesus and others, and hope may increase this coming week.

Colossians 4:2 is good advice: “Devote yourself to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving” and also 1 Peter 5:8: “Be self-controlled, alert.” Why? Our adversary the devil is looking for someone to devour.

Illus. When Bill’s mom, Helen, came up to Hamilton, at first she stayed at the senior housing downtown. We figured she was safe. We brought her to Pilgrim church with us and she participated in all the church activities. But one day when we were in her apartment, the phone rang, and we discovered that a group that did not believe Jesus was God had been calling her and asking her if she wanted a Bible study in her apartment. With her mind unclear, she was almost ready to do so, but we told them that she was not interested! After a lifetime of devotion to Christ, we sure did not want her to end up not believing in the true Jesus, incarnate God! You can never feel secure about yourself or your loved ones, but we must always be vigilant.

So in summary,

BE ALIVE AND ALERT.

BE CLOTHED WITH FAITH AND LOVE AND HOPE.

And LIVE IN THE DAYLIGHT! Amen!

 

May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify all of you wholly and completely.

may he guard your spirit and soul and body [so that you may be] without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one calling you is faithful, who also will act! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you (1 Thess 5:23-24, 28).[5]

 

Aída



[1] All Scripture is from the NRSV updated, unless otherwise indicated. this blog is an adaption of a sermon given June 9, 2024 for Pilgrim church, MA. 

[3] This version uses some of the NIV version.

[4] Thayer’s Lexicon.

[5] This is author’s translation.