1 Thessalonians 5:1-11. "How Should Christians Prepare For the End?"

Is there going to be a rapture? What is judgement day? Everyone knows that our time on Earth is limited therefore, how do we as Christians prepare for the end? Do we gather something in particular or do we just gather our faith? In 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 1 -11, we find the answer plain and simple. This episode goes into depth to bring out that: Christians prepare for the end by gathering together and encouraging one another to live alert and self-controlled lives marked by faith, hope, and love. That’s all we need, because that is the entirety of life lived in Christ, who is our readiness.

This Sunday sermon, based on 1 Thessalonians 5 verses 1 -11,was preached at Grace of God Lutheran on November 12, 2023. Scripture selections come from the New International Version. 

Our services are at 9:30am every Sunday morning, at our campus in Dix Hills on Long Island. Visit our website for more information, at www.graceofgod.church

Transcript

How Should Christians Prepare for the End?

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

Peace to you in the name of Jesus, friends. Amen.

I have a book here with me today. I want to tell you a little bit about the author. Johann Gerhard, born in 1582, was one of Lutheranism’s greatest theological writers. His books of “systematic theology” (topically structured Bible teaching) are still reckoned as intellectual triumphs. But Gerhard was not an egghead. He was a pastor. His systematic theology writing was always directed toward serving people with God’s clear Word. So while he’s particularly remembered for systematics, his devotional writing - such as this book - is treasured as well.

Gerhard lived through a great deal of tragedy. Most people did in those times, much more so than we do today. Death was far more present in the average person’s life, historically speaking, than it is for you and me as modern Westerners. By age twenty-one, Gerhard himself had a few years into their marriage, after having their first child. He and his second wife, who would survive him in death, had ten more children, four of whom died in childhood. Additionally, Gerhard lived during the Thirty Years’ War.

We Americans don’t hear enough about the Thirty Years’ War in school. The Thirty Years’ War was the most destructive conflict to occur in Europe before the Industrial Revolution. Probably five to six million people died during three decades of fighting. Gerhard lived in Germany, where some regions saw population declines of over fifty percent. An Avengers-level tragedy.

Gerhard ministered during that war. He himself was captured, assaulted, and had his home pillaged during that war. And this book which he wrote - the Handbook of Consolations - was written to comfort people surrounded by death and destruction. The structure is simple. Gerhard has two anonymous speakers conversing with one another, the Tempted One and the Comforter. The Tempted One starts each of the book’s forty-six exchanges by sharing his struggles with fear and doubt. A couple of examples: “I fear that by sinning, I have invalidated my baptism.” “I am afraid that my faith is not genuine.” The Comforter, in all forty-six exchanges, brings biblical promises to bear on these fears.

In the very last exchange, some of our second reading is used. The Tempted One confesses, “I fear the severity and terror of Judgment Day. I fear the face of God, my severe judge.” The Tempted One doesn’t exactly say, “I am afraid of going to hell.” He specifically fears the Day of Judgment, the Last Reckoning, and the stern face of the God his sin has offended. Gerhard’s Comforter brings him these thoughts. From John chapter five, verse twenty-four, he promises, “Whoever has heard the word of Jesus and believes will not be judged.” That particular promise of Jesus is worded this way: “Whoever hears my word and believes has eternal life and will not be judged.” Gerhard then takes the Tempted One to the parable we heard earlier, reminding the Tempted One that Judgment Day is the arrival of the bridegroom! The bride has no need to fear that day; instead, Christ tells his church that we can lift up our heads and rejoice! And finally, closing out the book, Gerhard reminds us with First Thessalonians five that “God has not appointed us for wrath.”

The wrath which your sin and mine provokes in God was satisfied, in a historical event, at the cross of Jesus. Because he exercised his wrath over your sin on his own Son, God promises, you are not appointed for wrath. You will not see a stern and angry judge glowering over you in the judgment. Your Father will, instead, welcome you home.

The Thessalonian Christians needed to hear that message from their pastor Paul, just as the Germans suffering the ravages of war needed to hear that message from their pastor Johann Gerhard, just as Christians today - you - need to hear it from your pastor. As wars and rumors of wars, disasters in creation and in the affairs of mankind, erupt around us, we recognize that Christ could return like a “thief in the night” at any moment. He could wait centuries longer; he could be back before I finish this message. All that’s necessary has been fulfilled. And naturally, we fear such a thought! But Christians, you need not fear the end. You have passed over from death to life through the Word which brought faith to life in your hearts. So rather than fearing the end, by God’s grace, let us consider how we can prepare for the end.

Some people think that “preparing for the end” means stockpiling food and guns in a bunker. That’s not a Christian concern. As Christ says in his Sermon on the Mount, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, where thieves break in and steal.” Material things will not bring you security. Instead, he says, “Look at the birds; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? So do not worry about tomorrow, tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Jesus’ point is very clear. Don’t be afraid of tomorrow. Either God will keep his promises to provide for you and protect you, or he won’t. Those are the only two options. Yet, as I said in last week’s message, it may seem at times like he isn’t keeping that promise. Where is God’s care for you, for example, when you lose your job?

God is here in those moments. He is here, where he has gathered his children to comfort and encourage one another. Fundamentally, the reason for local churches - congregations - to exist is for Christians to grow together in love for God and for one another. If God wanted church to be a place where you hear inspiring and powerful words from someone with charisma, he would have created YouTube. He didn’t do that.

American Christians often lose sight of this purpose of church. Church gets viewed as a place for me to find a spiritual TED Talk. To acquire some knowledge; to get pumped up for the life I, an individual, lead. And that certainly happens when Christians gather, as we consider God’s Word and think about how it speaks into our lives. We all, individually, have the Holy Spirit go to work on our hearts through the Word to reprove and enlighten. But the reason the local church exists is for those God gathers there to support one another.

We don’t need individual bunkers up on remote mountains to prepare for the end. God promises, he provides for his people. He protects his people. He is ever with us.

So how do Christians prepare for the end? This was a particular concern for the Thessalonian Christians. They were one of the apostle Paul’s church plants, established around the year 50. Paul was only able to be with them a few weeks, however, before opposition to his message forced him to flee town by night. Shortly after leaving, however, Paul got word from them that they were faring well enough. This was heartening for him! But they also sent along a number of questions they wanted him to answer. Paul had started taking them through the teachings of Christianity. A number of them were Jewish, so they had the Old Testament background to understand Jesus as the Messiah, the concepts of sin and grace. So what Paul seems to have focused on teaching them was eschatology: Theology around the end of the world and the end of life.

Christian - biblical - eschatology teaches that we can expect Jesus to return at any moment. Before then, we are told to expect opposition, both personal and organized, to the Gospel. Personal opposition means, when we share the Gospel with people, they may reject it and us. Organized opposition means times when groups - nations, governments - oppose Christianity as a whole, whether the execution of thousands of Russian Orthodox believers by the Soviet Union or the early Christians thrown to lions in Roman arenas. The Thessalonians themselves experienced persecution. The Jews among them were turned out of the synagogue of Thessalonica. Their Gentiles were accused of opposing Rome, a charge which could have had disastrous consequences for them.

Before Paul left town, he had told them to expect persecution before Jesus returned. And so they wondered two things. Did the persecution they were facing mean that Jesus was about to come back? And then they had another interesting question. What would happen to believers who died before Jesus’ return? They may have been asking about people who died at the hands of persecutors, or simply about those who died natural deaths. Either way, what would happen to them?

Paul answers the “dead believers” question first, in chapter four of the letter. He tells them, “When Jesus returns, he will raise all the dead, believers and unbelievers. Then believers who preceded us in death will be reunited with us.” Again, something we Christians in 2023 still need to hear. Mothers and fathers, siblings, friends; all who have died in the Lord before you will be reunited with you.

And then Paul, in what we read, addresses that other question. Is Jesus coming back right now? Paul tells them what we heard earlier. “Brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do

not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night”. It will be unexpected, Paul says. “While people are saying, ‘Peace and safety,’” - in other words, while people think everything is going just as it always has and always will - “destruction will come on them suddenly. But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that this day should surprise you like a thief.” Paul does not answer the question they asked by giving them a date. No one will ever be able to do that. Jesus himself told the apostles while still on earth, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” This is hard for us humans to deal with. How would we ever be ready for anything without dates and times? If I’m invited to a wedding, and even told the location, but not given a date, should I be expected to show up every day at the venue in wedding clothes, just to check and see if it’s the right day? No!

But Paul goes on, and clarifies what readiness for the end looks like. It’s not predicated on us showing up in the right place, at the right time. Rather, we are called, as the virgin bridesmaids in the Gospel reading, to wait for him to come and get us. People - Christians - who get all caught up in trying to set dates and times fail to understand this. Because fundamentally, their misconception is that we’ve got to get ourselves on the right side of things; the Jesus side of things. We’ve got to figure out what God is doing in history; where we are in the timeline of the end-times; what that means about what we should do.

There’s one thing, only one thing, that God explicitly tells us he’s going to do in history before Jesus comes back. He’ll save people through the Gospel message. He’ll bring life to conquer death, light to banish darkness, through the message of the forgiveness of sins.

We will not and cannot figure out the end of history with the information God has graciously provided. No one should try. It’s a waste of time. The only way we will know some war to be the last one is if we see Jesus coming on the clouds. Figuring out timelines doesn’t prepare us.

What does? In Jesus’ parable, the bridesmaids who brought extra oil were ready. In Paul’s letter, he pictures the “ready-for-the-end Christian” wearing armor; a breastplate of faith and love, a helmet of hope. Both depictions of a state of readiness. How does one achieve that readiness?

Two aspects. One, it’s achieved by recognizing that we do need to be ready. Recognizing that neither this world nor our lives in it are permanent. That recognition plays out differently in different stages of life. Those who are older sometimes need to be reminded specifically that this world is not permanent. The institutions and things of this world change and decay. Buildings get knocked down; new ones go up. Neighborhoods change. Churches close. Sometimes this becomes an existential anfechtung, as Luther would say, for those who are older. A soul-trial. It can be easier to reckon with your own mortality, as you’re older, but harder in some ways to see things you built, participated in, maintained, falling apart. But the truth is, when Jesus returns all such things will pass away regardless. Why worry about them?

Those who are younger, generally, need to be reminded that we are not permanent in this world. We are fragile! Our Lord could call us home at any moment, even in the prime of life. An ancient Christian devotional theme is what’s called memento mori, “remembering death.” There’s no set method for practicing this; simply put, to practice memento mori is to have something - a regular prayer, a regular Scripture reading - which daily reminds you that one day you will die. And to therefore view the decisions you make through that lens. When I die, would I rather have made this or that choice? How would I rather have spent that day? How would I rather have conducted myself in that relationship?

This is the first aspect of readiness for the end. Recognizing that the end will come. The
preparation for either is the same. Have your oil ready.

What is the oil? Some people have proposed that the oil is good deeds. Poppycock, I say. The clear teaching of Scripture is that our deeds are not what we need for entrance into heaven. Nor can you “buy” good deeds. Jesus’ point in the parable shouldn’t be expanded beyond this simple thought: Those five bridesmaids didn’t have what they needed. There’s the second aspect of readiness. First was, remember the end will come. Second is, have what you need. What you - I - we - need for the end are simply faith, love, and hope. Faith - confidence in God’s promises. Love - God’s love, to be clear. The love that Christians have cannot, ever, be separated from the love of God. Our love is produced by him, as he dwells in our hearts. It’s his love as much as it is ours. And lastly - hope. The certain expectation of a future circumstance.

Christians prepare for the end by gathering together and encouraging one another to live alert and self-controlled lives marked by faith, hope, and love. That’s all we need, because that is the entirety of life lived in Christ, who is our readiness. Amen.