Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/Sermons/zz20020602.htm

1 THESSALONIANS: STRENGTHENING CHRISTIANS
Part VI: Settled Living In View Of The Future Great Tribulation
(1 Thessalonians 5:1-11)

Introduction: (To show the need . . . )

(1) Not long after September 11's events, in the back of our Church a very worried Christian asked me about end time events. She was aware that she was going to go to heaven when she died, and that there would be a great time of blessing for her once she arrived there.

However, she was anxious in thinking we might already have entered the time of the "the end of the world" due to the apocalyptic pictures of the past months! She wondered if Osama Bin Ladin was the antichrist, and so worried what would happen to her in the years ahead!

(2) The future concerns the unsaved world: earlier this week, I saw a tabloid in a grocery mart predicting Christ was going to return to earth in just a few weeks, and that the sign of His appearing had been seen by hundreds in the sky above the Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem!

Yes, it is "just" a tabloid, but it sells to a public that WANTS information on such things because the public is CONCERNED about the apocalyptic kinds of events in Jerusalem these days!

(3) This week, in light of charges against the Federal Bureau of Investigation that it failed to act upon clear warnings from some of its agents about the potential for terrorist attacks by way of pirated airline flights, sweeping changes were announced in the bureau: The FBI Chief and Attorney General of the United States announced many agents are now being switched from focusing on drug and general criminal problems to handle the threat of terrorism in America! People in this country are concerned about the FUTURE!



Well, THOUGH Nepaug Church holds that the RAPTURE of the Church when Christ takes His Church out of the world is to occur BEFORE the Great Tribulation era to COME, how SURE are we OF this teaching, and HOW can we LIVE SETTLED lives in view of current events and the future?



(We turn to the sermon "Need" section . . . )



Need: "I KNOW Nepaug Church teaches God will take the Church to heaven BEFORE antichrist's awful reign, but since September 11, I have been nervous about the end time! Is there a Bible passage that CLEARLY shows I WILL be raptured BEFORE that trauma?"
  1. After settling his readers with the insight that deceased Christians would be "raptured" to heaven with living ones, Paul turned his attention to the Great Tribulation, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:3:
    1. As we learned last message, Paul taught deceased Christians will be taken to heaven when God takes living Christians, 1 Thess. 4:13-18.
    2. Paul then turned his attention to the subject of "the times and the seasons" KJV, or what the NIV reads is the "times and dates," 5:1.
    3. This subject is also titled "the day of the Lord" in 1 Thess. 5:2a, an era when people will be surprised in having their peaceful lives suddenly interrupted by hopeless destruction, 1 Thessalonians 5:2b-3.
    4. This "day of the Lord" appears in Old Testament passages that Paul's readers who were from Judaism would know was introduced by the Great Tribulation, Bib. Know. Com., N. T., p. 705 with Acts 17:1-4.
  2. Paul's INTENT in SPEAKING of this GREAT TRIBULATION is to COMFORT and EDIFY his readers ABOUT it, 1 Thess. 5:11.
  3. We then view 1 Thessalonians 5 to see HOW we are to be EDIFIED and COMFORTED by Paul's words ABOUT the TRIBULATION:
    1. On the one hand, Paul pictured the world as evil and vulnerable to the sudden, devastating hoplessness of the coming Great Tribulation:
      1. Paul depicted the unsaved world as "they" who spiritually were insensitive to the truth and were vulnerable to future harm, 5:7.
      2. Upon this lost world, the Great Tribulation which ushers in the "day of the Lord" [Ibid., B.K.C., N.T.] will suddenly arrive to interrupt the world's sense of peace and safety with hopelessly overwhelming destruction, 1 Thessalonians 5:3.
    2. By way of contrast, Paul described Christians as all unconditionally destined for the PREtribulation rapture to escape the Tribulation:
      1. In introducing his topic of the Great Tribulation, Paul told his readers they had no need for him even to tell them about it, 5:1.
      2. Since we before learned from Acts 17:1-10, 1 Thess. 3:1-8 and 1 Thess. 4:13-18 that Paul wrote to new Christians who were uncertain about prophetic events, he must have meant these believers would NOT experience the coming Great Tribulation!
      3. Indeed, Paul clarified they would NOT experience that time as God arranged for Christians to ESCAPE the Great Tribulation:
        1. In contrast to the world of "night" and "darkness," Paul wrote his readers were of God's "day" as "children of light," 5:5 KJV.
        2. Hence, the Great Tribulation would NOT overtake THEM as it would the unsaved world, 1 Thessalonians 5:4.
        3. Paul explained this was due to God's appointing believers in Christ NOT to experience His wrath in the Great Tribulation, but to "obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Thess. 5:9.
      4. This salvation must thus come before the Tribulation, meaning the rapture of 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 "saves" Christians from the Tribulation because it is expressly PREtribulational!
      5. In fact, this Pretribulation rapture was for every Christian believer irrespective EVEN of his spiritual quality of life:
        1. As the Christian is of the "day," Paul admonished his readers not to live in sin as did the godless world, 1 Thess. 5:6-7.
        2. Yet, even if they failed to be "awake" and not "sleep," the same Greek N.T. words used in 5:6 to contrast a godly and sinful life (Ibid.), they would live together with Christ, 1 Thess. 5:10 NIV.
        3. That means EVERY believer is (a) unconditionally eternally justified and (b) will experience the Pretribulation rapture!
    3. Accordingly, Paul called his readers to comfort and edify one another with these words as he did about the rapture, 1 Thess. 5:11 with 4:18!
Lesson Application: (1) If we have not yet done so, in light of the coming Great Tribulation, we MUST trust in Christ as Savior from sin to be transferred from Satan's DOOMED kingdom to Christ's BLESSED one, Col. 1:12-13! (2) Then we (a) face the future SETTLED by relying upon God's UNCONDITIONAL SALVATION SECURITY provision and UNCONDITIONAL PRETRIBULATION rapture pledge that causes us to ESCAPE the Great Tribulation. (b) We thus should live GODLY lives as FITS our DESTINY with our wonderful, gracious Savior!

Lesson: Believers in Christ are promised that SINCE they have trusted in Christ as Savior from sin, they are UNCONDITIONALLY, FOREVER JUSTIFIED, and are thus ASSURED God WILL RAPTURE them to heaven BEFORE the Great Tribulation BEGINS, and that gives them COMFORT and a sense of obligation unto God to live RIGHTEOUSLY! >

Conclusion: (To illustrate the sermon lesson . . . )

 In our sermon introduction, you will recall we noted how a Christian talked with me with much anxiety about the future, for she thought the end of the world had come upon her with the terrorist events of September 11.

I didn't know what would help her, and thus began to "walk" her through the events of the end time as we believe them, using the "timeline" I have used so often before: the front of the Church.

I told her from the amplifier on her left, representing eternity past, to the amplifier on her right, representing eternity future, is a supposed timeline. Then, moving from left to right on that timeline we came to the pulpit enclave with the American flag on the left of that enclave picturing the start of the Great Tribulation and the Christian flag on the right representing the end of that Tribulation. The organ on her right was the Second Coming of Christ, and the Rapture of the Church on her left just to the left of the pulpit enclave was the rapture.

Immediately she became excited -- no one had ever told her that the rapture at the piano came BEFORE the pulpit enclave representing the Great Tribulation! She then realized she would miss the Tribulation because the rapture came first, that it was PREtribulational! I assured her God had revealed this in His Word, and went to lengths to encourage her on it from Scripture.

Then she wondered why she had not been told about this in her former Church, and expressed how she had suffered so much anxiety because of this ignorance!