The Coming of the Lord — Part Two

Our view of the end of the world is going to be inevitably directly related to our view of the beginning of the world. It is impossible to have a view of how it will conclude that is not directly related to our view of how it’s begun. And so, to address the issue of the end of the age and the return of Jesus Christ is to recognize that the convictions with which the Christian affirms these truths are directly related to our understanding of the whole of history and, indeed, the origin of history itself. And in this respect, the Christian stands apart from so much that is contemporary thinking in relationship to why we’re here, where we’re going, and whether it matters at all.

The ancient world tended to view the events of human life from the perspective of kind of astral phenomenon or cosmic significance. In other words, they looked up into the heavens, and they sought to see in the movement of the planets and the stars the explanation for what was actually happening to them at a particular moment in time. And interestingly, now at the end of the twentieth century, there are many of our contemporaries who are doing the very same thing—who are seeking to explain contemporary existence in light of cosmic and astral factors. For example, the one-woman play featuring Lily Tomlin, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, has Lily Tomlin as the “bag lady,” Trudy, in some of the opening scenes expressing her concern and worries about life. And at one point she says, “I worry about my place in the Cosmic Scheme of things.” And then she says, “I worry that there is no Cosmic Scheme of things.”[1]

And many people ended last evening here in Cleveland and have awakened to a new day with a sort of sense of futility that settles over their minds which they cannot fully explain. And it is directly related to their view of history—the way in which they view time’s origins and the way in which they view its conclusions. For some, they see history simply in terms of repetitive cycles, significant only within a specific culture or within a specific civilization, if there’s any significance to it at all. And again, the sneaking suspicion is, in the minds of many, that there is no significance to it at all—that we’re born by chance, we eke out an existence in a sort of purposeless fashion, and then we die and go to who knows where, and probably to nowhere at all.

The Greeks determined that probably the best way to view history was largely to ignore it altogether. They saw nothing of perpetual and abiding significance in really very much at all. And indeed, they were the masters of mythology, having let go of history. You say, “Well, that’s a long way removed from today.” No, not really. They were full of not only the Stoic people, who distanced themselves from any sense of feeling, but they were also populated largely by people with an Epicurean approach to life—which seems like a large phrase and somewhat removed, until we reduce it to the words of Kris Kristofferson:

Yesterday is dead and gone,
And [tomorrow is] out of sight. …
Help me make it through the night.[2]

“I don’t care about yesterday. I don’t care about tomorrow. I only care about right now. Because yesterday has no significance. Tomorrow has no significance. The only thing that has significance is right in this very moment.”

Now, it is left, then, up to the Hebrew prophets in the Old Testament and the apostles in the New Testament to address the issue of history from a radically different perspective. The Jewish mind understood perfectly that the creator God is in charge of history—that he decisively works in all the events of human history, that he is responsible for its origin, and he will in turn be responsible for its conclusion.

Carl Henry, one of the best and brightest theologians of the twentieth century, puts it in this way in one of his books:

The Bible throughout insists that God the Creator holds mankind eternally accountable for every thought, word and deed, and that each successive generation moves toward[s] a final future in which the God not only of creation but also of redemption and judgment will consummate human history in the light of his divine offer of salvation.[3]

Which, being summarized, goes like this: everything I ever said, every place I ever went, every deed I ever did is going to be eternally reckoned with in relationship to the God who made me.

Now, it is not too difficult to understand why it then is that contemporary men and women, with all of our bad deeds, poor words, and dirty thoughts, would rather not have a view of history that was moving towards that kind of encounter but instead would choose to believe that history is cyclical and go on a peculiar search for our own particular karma rather than to believe what the Bible says: that it is linear and that we’re moving towards a destination.

Now, you see, it is this issue which is forcibly brought to us in the return of Jesus Christ. Because the Christian recognizes that the God who acted in history and still acts in history is going to draw matters to a close as he intended. And that’s why, here in chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians, Paul once again addresses the issue of the return of Jesus Christ. This is very, very important for those of you who are students of history, either in high school or in college—whatever it might be.

The secretary for education in this past week I saw on television, arguing the merits and demerits of the contemporary approach to the teaching of history in public schools. And at issue was the matter that some are complaining that we are dragging up the bad parts of American history, focusing on them, and not highlighting the glory days of the last two hundred years or so. And while that may be a genuine concern, I haven’t really considered it very much. The greater concern is this: that young people are being taught history within a framework of total godlessness, so that their explanation of and interpretation of events has to do with the immediacy of the moment, not the legitimacy of a right decision and the illegitimacy of a wrong decision. Because absent a creator God who has established a moral law, there is no right or wrong decision. There is only pragmatism. And so I dialogue with my children as they come home from school, and it becomes increasingly apparent to me that without a view of God who began it, God who sustains it, and God who concludes it, history is pretty well a futile exercise, certainly at the graduate level of study. Because it started no place, it is no place, and it’s going no place! So you understand why people say history teaches us that history teaches us nothing.

But when we read our Bibles, we discover the reverse to be the case. Now, I say to you again that our view of the return of Jesus Christ—how the end will be—is directly related to our view of the beginning. And the return of Jesus Christ is at the very forefront of emphasis in the New Testament. One in twenty-five verses in the New Testament deals with the issue of the return of Jesus Christ. Of the 260 chapters, 318 mentions are found to the return of Jesus Christ.

A fellow by the name of Olson puts it very succinctly when he writes, “Ever since the first days of the Christian church, Evangelicals have been ‘looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.’ They may,” he said, “have disagreed as to its timing and to the events on the eschatological calendar. … However, all are agreed that the final solution to the problems of this world is in the hands of the King of kings who will someday make the kingdoms of this world His very own.”[4] That’s the issue. “All are agreed that the final solution to the problems of this world is in the hands of the King of kings” —not in the hands of the United Nations, not in the hands of Washington, DC, not in the hands of Peking, but in the hands of the King of Kings. “The Lord God omnipotent reign[s].”[5] It doesn’t always seem so. But, says Scripture, it is so.

“Now,” says Paul, “let me pick up this issue of the way things are going to wrap up, and let me address you on three lines.” And I have three points: number one, the curiosity to be avoided; number two, the identity to be affirmed; and number three, the strategy to be adopted. I’ll come back to them in turn. You needn’t have worried about them.

You notice the way he ends chapter 4. He has given instruction concerning “the dead in Christ”: how those “who are still alive” will not precede them at the return of Jesus Christ.[6] And he ends up chapter [4] by saying, “In light of all that I’ve just said to you, encourage one another with these words.”[7] And you could just imagine that in the course of dialogue, there would be those who would respond to Paul and say, “Well, yeah, we understand that, and that’s all very well and good. But Paul, come on now. Let’s get down to the heart of the matter. Let’s get to the details of the matter. Let’s get our diaries out, let’s get our calendars out, and let’s talk times, and let’s talk dates. Because if there is anything of significance in terms of the return of Jesus Christ, then surely it is related to times and dates. We need, Paul, to have an accurate chronology.”

And what Paul is about to say, and what I’m about to show you, is that Paul’s answer is: “You don’t need an accurate chronology. You need a biblical theology.” For a preoccupation with chronology minus theology will give you nothing else than a mythology. And it is mythology which has filled the minds of people over the last two hundred years and more in relationship to the issues of the end of the age and the coming of the Lord Jesus. And I’ll show you something of that in a moment or two.

A preoccupation with chronology minus theology will give you nothing else than a mythology.

Paul declares in this section, if I can summarize it, that the Thessalonians needed to hear—and we need, and every age needs, it reiterated for us—that the real issue is not knowing the date. The real issue is staying alert. The real issue is staying alert.

The Curiosity to Be Avoided

Now, let’s address this matter of curiosity, beginning in verse 1: “Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you.” “You really don’t need written instruction on this matter,” says Paul. Why not? Well, because he had already addressed it with them. He had already spoken to them. He had already preached and founded the church in Thessalonica, and in the course of his instruction, there is no possibility that he would have left out the vitally important information concerning the return of Jesus Christ. And in doing so, he would have made clear what he makes much of, once again—verse 2: “For you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” Nobody knew the date. Nobody could know the date. Therefore, it was idle for them to spend their time focusing on the date.

And yet, if you think of the first five books that come to your mind in relationship to the return of Jesus Christ, I can guarantee you that four out of the five all have something to do with the time or the date. And indeed, you will find in the next four years to the year 2000, there will just be a great flood of books that will tickle your ears and boggle your mind in relationship to all kinds of mathematical fancies in relationship to times and seasons. And I say to you, “Look, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you.”

Now, let me reinforce this by turning you to a number of portions in the New Testament. Matthew 24, first of all, and verse 44: “You [must also] be ready”—this is Jesus speaking— “because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” Murray M’Cheyne, who died at twenty-nine as the Presbyterian minister of, I think, St. Peter’s in Dundee—it goes from my mind for a moment—used to, in his Bible study on a Wednesday night, take the group that was in front of them and go around them and ask them the question, “Do you think Jesus Christ will come today?” And the answers would be various, but most of the time the answer was “No, I don’t think he’ll come today.” And then he would quote Matthew 24:44: “You also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” So the fact that you expect him doesn’t make it any sooner, and the fact that you don’t expect him doesn’t push it any further back.

Mark and chapter 13. One Gospel up: Matthew, Mark 13:32: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Okay? Now, you don’t need anything more than a sixth-grade education to understand that verse: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

“Hey, tell us about times and dates.” I’m going to tell you about times and dates: forget times and dates! But you’re wasting your time on that and other stuff. The reason being, it’s not the issue. If it were the issue, you would have a different verse 2, different verse 3, and a different verse 4. “Now, about the times and dates,” Paul would have said, “let me give it to you real clear. Let me give it to you ABC and 1-2-3.” Instead, he says, “Now, about times and dates, there is a curiosity to be avoided. Because Jesus said, ‘No one knows—not the angels, not me, only my Father.’” Therefore, to spend our time gazing in crystal balls in relationship to this is a dumb idea.

Acts chapter 1—the disciples at the time of the ascension. Acts 1:6: “So when they met together, they asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’” “Lord, are we going to wrap it up now? After all, you were dead, buried, raised. You’re back. Is it all going to come together?” Look at the reply: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses.” You notice something? Their preoccupation is “Now, are you going to set up the kingdom? Is it all going to end now? Is it all going to be fine and wonderful and put together?” Jesus said, “No! It’s not for you to know the times or the dates, but it is for you to evangelize the world.” You see that? He says, “You don’t go sitting on a hill and get your calculators out and start working this stuff out. Get off the hill, get into the streets, the valleys, the shops, the thoroughfares, the restaurants, the laboratories, and tell everyone the good news that Jesus Christ has come. That’s the issue! Don’t allow your curiosity to sideline you.”

Now, back in 1 Thessalonians 5, having said this in verse 1, he gives an illustration in verse 2, which is not an unfamiliar illustration: “for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” “Like a thief in the night.” Jesus uses the exact same illustration in Matthew 24.[8] Peter picks it up and uses it in 2 Peter 3. [9] The thief in the night comes secretly.

And there are actually three words I want to give to you that will help you to avoid the curiosity factor. And the first word is that word secret. Secret. The thing about a burglar—and you’ll know this if your home has been burgled (and ours has, not here but in somewhere else)—burglars don’t tell you when they’re coming, by and large. They do not make advance announcement of their arrival. You don’t go to your mailbox and pick up a postcard that says, “Dear Sir and Madam, just to let you know, the Tuesday after next, we will be burgling your house sometime around 2:00 a.m. Thought you’d like to know.” No, that would be a dumb burglar who did that. (If you ask me afterwards, I’ll tell you about a very skillful burglar who did send a note to somebody, but it’s an aside—an unnecessary aside. But it’s an interesting and funny story.) But the burglar, as a burglar, does not give advance notice. And that’s why Jesus says, Matthew 24:36, “Of that day and hour knoweth no man.”[10] “And in the same way as a burglar comes, secretly, so I will come.”

And Paul says, “You know this very well. Now, despite the fact that you know it very well,” he says, “you’re still all tied up in times and dates and seasons.” Every generation has decided to become preoccupied with the issues that Jesus said not to get preoccupied about. For example, in the eighteenth century—or, actually, the late seventeenth century—in Scotland, there was a gentleman by the name of John Napier, a mathematician. Some of you will know his name. He’s the guy who invented logarithms. And he used his logarithmic formula to project the date of the return of Jesus Christ, which he set, mathematically, at 1700. Now, between 1688 and 1700, his book went through twenty-three editions. Tremendous interest in it! Since 1700, it has not been selling particularly well.

I was brought up in the ʼ60s, with The Late Great Planet Earth—explained the whole of the 1960s to me, explained the emergence of the common market, explained how locusts were helicopters and goodness knows was what else. It was the biggest selling book in airport bookstores in America. And most of it is totally fatuous as of today. What was the problem? The problem was not to up the ante on the truth of the return of Jesus. That is fabulous. The problem was to try and disprove the Bible. When Paul said, “You don’t need this stuff about times and dates,” he was saying it because of what Jesus had said. The classic from history, again from the eighteenth century, is a Roman Catholic theologian who set the date of the return of Jesus Christ at 1784. And the book which contained the information was not published until 1785. It was a bit of a letdown. Everybody’s still around, not reading it.

It’s secret. Secondly, it’s sudden. It’s sudden. That’s verse 3: “While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’ destruction will come on them suddenly.” “Suddenly.” The suddenness of it all is made much of in the Gospel records too. Again, back in Matthew 24, to which we would turn frequently—Matthew 24:26, and we quoted this last week: “So, if anyone tells you, ‘There he is out in the desert,’ do[n’t] go out; or ‘Here he is, in the inner rooms,’ do[n’t] believe it.”

Now, again, that’s real straightforward. I like that. It’s so helpful. It closes down a lot of stuff, a lot of tommyrot that I just flat-out don’t want to pay attention to. ʼCause the book is telling me, “He’s out here. He’s over there.” I say, “No. I don’t believe that.” Why not? Because of verse 27: “For as [the] lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.” In other words, it is going to come with dramatic suddenness.

Now, you’ll notice the juxtaposition here between these two pictures. The thief comes suddenly and unexpectedly. That’s the strategy of the burglar. But for a lady, labor pains are not unexpected. They’re expected! And that is the great fun, at least for the man, of the first child, you know: “Is this… Are they happening yet?” You know, “What are those things?” you know.

I can remember sitting around in the middle of the night, and then the next day going in a shoe shop in Glasgow, and Sue said, “Oh, I think it’s…” I said, “What? It’s what?” She said, “No, no. I don’t think it is.” And then a little later: “Yeah, I think it is. No, I don’t think it is.” For crying out loud! What is this thing? Branston Pickles, Branston Hicks, or whatever you call these things? What are they? I don’t know! But I know now, after three of them: they are unavoidable. You get yourself in that condition, they’re coming!

Now, that’s his point. In relationship to the burglar, his return is sudden and unexpected. In relationship to the pregnant woman, the birth pangs are sudden and unavoidable. So we know two things, then. We know that it is secret. We know that it is sudden and unexpected but also, at the same time, unavoidable.

And thirdly, we know that it will bring about separation. You say, “Where’d you get that? In 1 Thessalonians 5?” It’s not in 1 Thessalonians 5, but it is back in Matthew 24. We always want to interpret Scripture with Scripture. Matthew 24:37: “No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels” and so on. “As it was [in the beginning,] in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.”[11] Verse 40: “Two men will be in the field; one will be taken … the other [will be] left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left.”

Now, you say to me, “That’s not the totality of everything we need to know about the return of Jesus Christ.” And to that I say a hearty amen. But I want to tell you this: if you know this much, you know enough to do what the Bible calls you to do. If you know that curiosity is to be avoided because the day is secret, the day is sudden, and the day will bring separation, then you’ve got a pretty good head start on what God wants you to do. And indeed, if what you want to do is sit around and delve into the intricacies and curiosities, you’re not going to have enough time to do what the Bible calls you to do, because you’ll be so busy doing what it calls you not to do. But isn’t that the story of our lives?

The Identity to Be Affirmed

The curiosity that is to be avoided, and then he goes on to the identity that is to be affirmed. He introduces the contrast with two words at the beginning of verse 4: “But you, brothers…” Again, this term of endearment. Generically used, he might equally have said, “But you, brothers and sisters…” Say, “You’re not like this. You’re not like the rest of men. You don’t live in the darkness,” he says. “You’re not in the darkness so that the day should surprise you like a thief. When the Lord himself comes down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God,[12] you’re not going to be surprised—not in the way that the unbeliever is going to be surprised.” ʼCause when all of that cuts loose, unbelievers are going to be saying, “What in the world’s this?” And the believer’s going to say, “It’s Jesus!” That’s 1 Thessalonians 4. That’s what you’re going to say: “That’s what it was!” Voice, trumpet blast, loud command. It’s Jesus!

Now, why do we know that? Because of the radical transformation that has taken place in our lives: “You are not in the darkness. Your identity has been changed. The day won’t surprise you like a thief, because after all,” he says, picking up on this metaphor of light and darkness, “you’re all sons of the light and sons of the day. We don’t belong to the night or to the darkness.” “[We] were once darkness, but now [we’re] light in the Lord.”[13] That’s Ephesians 5. First Peter 2:9: We were once not a people; now we are the people of God. We once lived in darkness, but now we’ve been brought out of darkness and into his marvelous light. We are different. First Thessalonians 4:13: We are not “like the rest of men,” because they “have no hope.” We are different because—1 Thessalonians 1:9—we have “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead.”

So, we are not like the rest of men on a Monday morning, who go back to their days and say, “I don’t know where the world’s going. I don’t know what’s going on in this newspaper. I can’t stand watching the news. I haven’t got a concept of how it will end. This is driving me absolutely insane!”

Answer: “Let me explain to you how it’s going to end.”

“Well, how would you know how it’s going to end?”

“Because I know how it began.”

“Well, how did it begin?”

“Well, God: ‘Let light shine out of darkness.’[14] He ‘said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.’”[15]

“Oh, you don’t tell me you believe that!”

“Absolutely. And he made man, and he made woman, and he walked with them in the garden in the cool of the day.”[16]

“Oh, you don’t believe that, do you?”

“Yes, I do. Absolutely! And men and women turned their back on the living God, and suddenly the world that we know today is not the world the way God made it but the world the way man has spoiled it. Sin has entered into the world. We live in a fallen world. We can’t put ourselves in a right situation with God. That’s why God came in the person of Jesus Christ and died upon the cross—not to show us how much he loved us but to pay the penalty for our sin, which did show us how much he loved us. And those who believe into Christ become new creations—become identified with light and love and peace and hope and joy and reality.”

The world that we know today is not the world the way God made it but the world the way man has spoiled it.

People say, “Well, you know what? I can’t process that much that fast, but maybe we could talk about it again.”

Answer: “I’d love to talk about it again. I’d love to talk about it every coffee break from now until the day when the truth dawns on your mind and you say, ‘You know what? I understand it now.’”

And listen, folks: until we have a new identity in the Lord Jesus Christ, which is the whole point of the gospel—that Jesus comes and lives in us… I’ve given you the illustration before: Show me a Shakespeare play and tell me to write one just like that, I can’t do it. Show me a painting by Van Gogh and ask me to paint a painting like that, and I can’t do it. Show me a life like the life of Jesus and ask me to live a life like that, and I can’t do it. But if the genius of Van Gogh could come and live in me, I could paint that kind of picture. If the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write that kind of play. And if the reality of Jesus can come and live in me, then I can live that kind of life. That’s the gospel, you see.

And everything else is a call to externalism: “Well, come on now, have a good week. Try and be a kind person this week. Do your best this week. Shape up. Stop swearing in your car. Stop getting aggravated at other drivers. Try and be nicer to you wife. Give yourself a shake. Pull your socks up. Spend more time with your kids. Da-da-da-da-da.” The guy’s going, “You know what? I don’t even know if I want to. And even if I wanted to, I don’t even know if I can.” That’s not Christianity! That’s moralism. That’s externalism.

Christianity is: You’re in deep trouble. Jesus died to get you out of the deep trouble. But unless you admit you’re in deep trouble, you ain’t never getting out of it. So first you’ve got to admit it.

“But I want good news.”

“Sorry, there ain’t no good news without bad news first.”

“Well, I don’t want to listen to it.”

“Fine. See you around.”

Next: “There’s bad news, then there’s good news. You ready for the bad news?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, here it is.”

“Oh, I understand!”

And what’s happening in pulpits all across this city this morning, on Rally Day, and come-to-church day, and this next day, is that people are being called to a lifestyle without any life. And it is the worst possible thing I can imagine—to do Christian stuff without knowing why or how, to be involved in externalism, moralism, and just doing stuff. I have no interest in doing stuff. All the stuff I want to do by nature is bad stuff. Believe me! And unless someone came and changed the mechanism inside of me, I’d be doing all that bad stuff—and as it is, I still do some of it.

So the identity is key to the activity. To be called to activity without an identity is to live in externalism, which is bogus and worthless and facile and empty and trivial and irrelevant. And the world looks on and says, “I want none of it,” and frankly, I couldn’t agree more. But when life comes into the life, into the tree, then leaves appear on the branches—not by an act of Congress but as a result of the intake of that resource. And when Jesus comes to live within a life, then there’s lifestyle.

“And so,” says Paul, “there’s the deal. You’re sons of the light. You’re not in the darkness.” Proverbs, Solomon says, “The way of the wicked is … deep darkness.”[17] Paul says to the Ephesians in Ephesians 5, “Once you were darkness; now you are light in the Lord.”[18] To be a son of something, in the Semitic idiom, was to be characterized by that thing. So when he says “You’re sons of the light” or “You’re daughters of the light,” he says, “One of the things that marks you out is light.”

You know, it’s really quite simple. If Christians would just go out and shine a wee bit, we’d make a devastating impact. I mean, some of our faces could not exactly be called shining faces. Some of us have got miserable faces. You know, don’t you go back in your bank as a teller and start sticking up dirty, big signs that say “Repent, the End of the World Draweth Nigh” and be going in the coffee room criticizing the manager and everybody else in the place. Tear down your sign and shine! And once you shine, then you can have a sign. In fact, once you shine, you won’t need a sign! I just made that up now: if you shine, no need of sign. That’s it! And that’s what he’s saying to them: “Listen, guys. Listen! You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We don’t belong to the night or to the darkness. We’re not like that. We’ve been made new.”

The prologue of John’s Gospel says, “The light shines in the darkness, [and] the darkness has not understood it.”[19] Of course it hasn’t understood it! It didn’t understand Jesus. And you can’t argue somebody into it either. John chapter 3, the progression is very clear:

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.[20]

I mean, once again, you don’t have to be a genius to understand this.

I was driving down 71 during the week—way down 71—and in the distance, I saw this huge, big pole, and it had a neon sign wrapped around one word, and the word said “Adult.” I said to myself, “What a remarkable thing to put on the end of a freeway—a big pole, to be seen for miles around, that just says ‘Adult.’” Attractive sign, at the base of which pole you will find total darkness. In the mercy of God, I haven’t been in those rooms. But I’ve noticed from the outside: they don’t have windows. They’re all boarded up. They’re all blacked out. They are all darkness. And as unbelievers, we live in darkness. We are born into darkness. We’re on the road that’s full of darkness. And our eyes are dark; therefore, our whole body is dark, unless we hear the words of Jesus saying, “I am the light of the world. [He who] follows me will [not] walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”[21] And suddenly he turns the light on, and we go.

The Strategy to Be Adopted

Where do we go? We go to do his bidding. What is his bidding? That’s the last point. There is a strategy to be adopted. Verse 6 introduces us to it. Two words: “So then…” “So then…” So what? That’s what we always need to be asking. Is there a point to this? There is a curiosity to be avoided. It’s secret, sudden, and separation. There is an identity to be affirmed. We are no longer what we once were. We have been radically changed. So what? Here it is: “So then, don’t be like the others.”

Now, that’s got to tell you something. In other words, “Don’t be ‘a walking contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction.’[22] Don’t be saying one thing and living another thing. You are light in the Lord. Therefore, live as light in the Lord. These people are drunk. They’re asleep. They live in the darkness. We belong to the day. Therefore, our strategy is clear: say no to moral carelessness and say yes to alertness.” And the word there is watchful: “So then, let us not be like the others, who are asleep, but let us be alert,” or watchful. Grēgoreō is the Greek word, from which we get our English boy’s name Gregory, and it means “vigilance” or “watchfulness” or “alertness.” “Let’s all be Gregorys,” he says. The proper attitude of the Christian is not sleepiness, dreamy cluelessness, moral indifference, but it is alertness. The next verb is nēphō, which means to “be sober”[23] in the Authorized Version, self-controlled. It has to do, again, with discipline and moral alertness.

The proper attitude of the Christian is not sleepiness, dreamy cluelessness, moral indifference, but it is alertness.

And that’s the whole contrast between verse 7 and verse 8. Those who sleep, sleep at night. Those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But we belong to the day. I mean, unless you’re working the night shift, why would you ever want to be out at one o’clock in the morning? You should be in your bed, shouldn’t you? “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” I tell my kids, “There’s no reason to be driving around in the middle of the night, unless you’re delivering the Plain Dealer. And since I know you’re not, let’s go to bed.” That’s what you do at night—unless you’re of the darkness.

We’ll come back to this next week, but there are two immediate, telling points of impact in relationship to the return of Jesus Christ, and they’re these: the strategy which is to be adopted is the strategy, number one, for moral purity. One John 3:3: “Everyone who has this hope [with]in him purifies himself, [even] as he is pure.” The real question of whether I favor and long for the return of Jesus Christ is not going to be answered by looking at the books on my shelf. It’s not going to be answered by articulating my view of eschatology. It’s going to be answered by you coming in my house, walking in my shoes, as it were, driving in my car, listening to my music, watching my videos, and reading my books—and me the same for you. Moral purity is one of the key indicators that a man or a woman is saying no to curiosity, saying yes to their identity, and is impacting the strategy. We’ll come back to this.

And the second one is the issue of zealous evangelism. Zealous evangelism. When I understand that the day is sudden, it’s secret, and it brings separation, what excuse does that give me for sitting around having a happy little class for myself? John 9:4: “As long as it is [the] day,” says Jesus, “we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” “And when I am not in the world, when I am not incarnated, when I am not walking the Jerusalem streets, you’re the light of the world.”

“Hey, Paul, tell us all that good stuff about the times and the dates. We want to get it down. Get the crystal ball, Paul. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the return of Jesus Christ.” Somebody gave me two books since last Sunday. I’m not reading them. Okay? I told the guy that already, so it’s no surprise to him. I’m flat-out not reading them. I don’t have the time to read them. And if I read them, it would drive me nuts. And since you know that I’m already kind of nuts, you don’t want to run that risk. So quit giving me these books, would you? I’m having a bad enough time reading this book and understanding this. Take your curiosity and sit on it, take your identity and live it, and take this strategy and implement it. And you’ll be amazed what’s going happen.

Let’s pray:

Father, forgive us for always wanting to take the parts that are peripheral and make them central and taking the central parts and inevitably making them peripheral. We are so much like these early disciples: “Lord, is this the time? Are you going to do this now? What will happen next?” And we need to hear you saying to us again today, as you said to them on that day before you were caught up into heaven, “Listen: it’s not for you to know the times and the dates, but it is for you to go into all the world and fulfill my commission, understand my mission, and live in such a way that unbelieving people might become committed followers of Jesus Christ.”

Lord, help us. Help me. We need you to clarify our thinking, to purify our hearts, and to set us on the pathway of your appointing. And we pray in the name of your Son, the Lord Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Jane Wagner, The Search for Intelligent Life in the Universe (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), 26. Paraphrased.

[2] Kris Kristofferson, “Help Me Make It through the Night” (1970).

[3] Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority, vol. 2, God Who Speaks and Shows: Fifteen Theses, Part One (Waco: Word, 1976), 312.

[4] Arnold T. Olson, “The Second Coming of Christ,” in Prophecy in the Making: Messages Prepared for Jerusalem Conference on Biblical Prophecy, ed. Carl F. H. Henry (Carol Stream, IL: Creation House, 1971), 115.

[5] Revelation 19:6 (KJV).

[6] 1 Thessalonians 4:15–17 (NIV 1984).

[7] 1 Thessalonians 4:18 (paraphrased).

[8] See Matthew 24:43.

[9] See 2 Peter 3:10.

[10] Matthew 24:36 (KJV).

[11] Matthew 24:36–37 (NIV 1984).

[12] See 1 Thessalonians 4:16.

[13] Ephesians 5:8 (NIV 1984).

[14] 2 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV 1984).

[15] Genesis 1:3 (NIV 1984).

[16] See Genesis 2:22; 3:8.

[17] Proverbs 4:19 (NIV 1984).

[18] Ephesians 5:8 (paraphrased).

[19] John 1:5 (NIV 1984).

[20] John 3:19–21 (NIV 1984).

[21] John 8:12 (NIV 1984).

[22] Kris Kristofferson, “The Pilgrim, Chapter 33” (1971).

[23] 1 Thessalonians 5:6 (KJV).