Thank you, Joy. Good morning,
everyone. Let's begin this morning's service
with hymn number 273 from your hardback hymnal. Let's all stand
together. Number 273. Walk in the light, so shall thou
know that fellowship of love. His spirit only can bestow who
reigns in light above. Walk in the light and thou shalt
find thy heart made truly His, who dwells in cloudless light
and shrine in whom no darkness is. ? Walk in the light and thou shalt
own ? ? Thy darkness passed away ? ? Because that light ? ? Has
only shone in whom is perfect day ? ? Walk in the light and
even the two ? No fearful shade shall wear. Glory shall chase away its gloom,
for Christ hath conquered there. Walk in the light. Thy path shall be a path, though
thorny, bright. For God, by grace, shall dwell
in thee, and God himself is light. Please be seated. Thank you, Tom and Joy. That
was a great hymn. I love that hymn. Walk in the
light as he is in the light and you shall fellowship one with
another and the blood of Jesus Christ shall cleanse thee of
all thy sin. Walking in the light is walking
in faith, looking to Christ, resting in him and believing
upon him and following after him. May God give us the grace
this morning to walk in Christ who himself is our light. We're going to be continuing
our study in 1 Thessalonians if you'd like to turn with me
to chapter 5, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Our conference will be here before
we know it. It's a month away. So I want
to encourage you to pray for the men that are coming. Pray
for yourselves. Pray for the Lord to bring in
his lost sheep. Pray that we'll be able to worship
him in spirit and in truth. January 12th, 13th, and 14th.
And Todd Nybert and Caleb Hickman and David Edmondson will be here,
Lord willing, preaching for us. So I want us to pray for that
now. And also, if you would please
join us, our family in prayer. Jennifer has four infusions. for her cancer and she had one
two months ago and she has her second one this coming Wednesday. And we are praying that the Lord
will be pleased to use these to help her. So if you would
join us in asking the Lord to do that, we would be very thankful.
Let's pray together. Our heavenly Father, Thank you for shining the light
of the gospel of thy free grace in the face of the Lord Jesus
Christ in our hearts. Thank you for opening the windows
of heaven and causing that beam of light to shine and to cause
us, Lord, to believe. Lord, truly, we live in a dark
world. Surely there's enough darkness
of unbelief in our own hearts to remind us of our need for
Christ, our need for a Savior, our need for forgiveness, Thank
you that the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ cleanses us of all
sin. We pray, Lord, that you would
be pleased now to open your word, open our hearts, open the windows
of heaven, shine your light of truth and grace and hope and
peace and joy and forgiveness cause us Lord to leave this place
knowing that that we have walked in the light as thou art in the
light. Father, we pray for our meeting
in January. We ask Lord that you would prepare
our hearts for that. We pray that you would give us
opportunity to invite friends and family and pray for Lord
that you would speak. We pray that you would cause
us to worship. We pray Lord that you'd be pleased
to pour out your spirit and and call to Christ those lost sheep. Lord, we pray for the men that
will be here and ask that you would prepare their hearts with
messages that will glorify the and help us. Lord, we pray for
Jennifer, ask for your hand of mercy to be upon her, and we
ask, Lord, that you would use these treatments to help her
and to give her healing. We pray it in Christ's name,
amen. You have your Bibles open to
1 Thessalonians chapter 5, and as you well know, the chapter
divisions in the Bible were put there by translators much after
the scriptures were written just in order to give us a point of
reference so that we can find different passages. And I say
that because there's really no separation between what we looked
at last Sunday morning at the last part of chapter 4 and the
continuation of that very truth and thought is in chapter 5 and
it has to do with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. These believers were concerned. They were anticipating the coming
of Christ before anyone died physically and now that believers
were were dying in the flesh, they were concerned about what
this means in relationship to their eternal redemption. And
so the Lord answers that question in those latter verses of chapter
four and continues on in chapter five. I think it's interesting
If you remember in Acts chapter one, when the disciples were
standing there on the Mount of Olives with the Lord before he
ascended into glory, they asked him, Lord, is it time for you
to establish the kingdom for Israel? And the last words that
the Lord spoke audibly before leaving this world, and taking
back his rightful place at the right hand of the majesty on
high was it is not for you to know the times nor the seasons
that the Father has set. But you go back into Jerusalem
and the Holy Ghost will come upon you and you'll be my witnesses
both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost
parts of the world. And then the scripture says that
He ascended into the clouds and departed from them. And they're standing there gazing.
They didn't know what was going on. They were gazing up into
heaven. And I can just imagine that they must have thought,
well, he's going to do business with the Father and he'll be
right back. They just stood there waiting for him to return. And
two angels appeared to them. and said to them, men of Galilee,
why stand you here gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus,
which is taken up from you, will come in like manner. He's gonna come again. And from
that moment until today, every believer, every believer has
lived in anticipation of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Brethren, we have more reason, we have more reason now to hope
than any child of God has ever had in the past. And that is our hope. That is our life. I wish that
we could wake up every morning, the very first thought on our
minds and our hearts would be maybe this is the day. Maybe
this is the day that we could live in more anticipation and
joy of that glorious truth. Those who love the Lord Jesus
Christ love the thought, the truth of his appearing and and
seeing him in the fullness of his glory. We look through a
glass dimly now, darkly. We strain to peer into the windows
of heaven and see the Lord Jesus for who he is. And he cracks
those windows and as we prayed earlier, shafts of light flood
our souls. Just glimmers of light, we might
say. Enough to keep us hopeful. Enough to keep us anticipating
what the fullness of that light's really gonna be like. You know,
one of the things about heaven, and we dealt with this recently,
that heaven is described in the Bible by what's not there. And two of the things that are
not going to be in heaven is the sun and the moon. For the lamb, the scripture says,
shall be the light thereof. And there will be no shadows.
There'll be no shadows in heaven. Now, what a difference between
what we see here. We have day and night. We have
light that shines, but when that light shines, it always casts
a shadow. And in glory, there's going to
be perfect light. Perfect light. No sun, no moon,
no day, no darkness. The fullness of His glory is
going to be revealed. And that's the hope of every
believer. And so, Our Lord concludes the latter
part of chapter four with verse 18, comfort ye one another with
these words. And what a comfort it is to know
that the trump of God will sound and the dead in Christ will be
raised. And those of us which are alive will be caught up together
with them in the air. And so shall we ever be with
the Lord. That's the summary of chapter four. And now he begins
chapter five and concludes these words with verse 11. Wherefore,
comfort yourselves together. Are these words comforting to
you? Are they? In this dry and thirsty land,
this dark and sinful world, this body of flesh that you and I
must live with every day, is this not your hope? Is this not our anticipation? Comfort ye one another with these
words together and edify one another even as also you do. I'm so thankful when we have
fellowship together and we're able to comfort one another with
this glorious hope and this glorious truth. But of the times and the seasons,
brethren, you have no need that I write unto you. It's the very
last thing the Lord said before he sent it into heaven. When
the disciple says, Lord, is it time now for you to restore the
kingdom to Israel? It's not for you to know the
times and the seasons. I did a little research, quickly,
you can do it, just Google, tell me about men that have predicted
the second coming of Christ. And there's dozens of them over
the years. Dozens of them. And every one of them drew away
large numbers of people. They predicted when the coming
of Christ was. And they did some some gymnastics, I guess, with
these words, times and seasons. And they said, well, we don't
know the times and the seasons, but we know the day and the year.
And one thing that most of the men that have put a date on the
second coming of Christ, have done so since the teaching
of the rapture started in the mid-1800s. There were dozens
of them before that, but many, many more since then. And one thing that all these
men have in common is that they were wrong. Oh, don't even give a second
thought. Don't even give a glance. Just laugh at anyone who comes
on the scene and says, well, I figured out when Christ is
coming. Because they are going to be
in the same camp as all these other men. Some of them women. They're going to prove themselves
to be wrong. And when men say that this is
the coming of Christ, mark this down, that's the day he's not
coming. And that's clear in this passage
of scripture. Of the times and the seasons, brethren, you have
no need for me to tell you, you already know this. For the coming
of the Lord, look at verse two, for yourselves know perfectly
that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. Now the Lord dealt with that
in Matthew chapter 20. This is not an obscure theme in the Bible.
This is a glorious comforting hope that is given to us over
and over and over again. The coming of Christ. And even
to the very last words of scripture in Revelation chapter 22. Behold,
here's the next to the last words, next to the last verse in the
Bible. Behold, I come quickly. And then the church responds
to that with even so, Lord, and I don't like the translation
of even so. It's the word amen. It's not,
well, even so. Yeah, that even so doesn't come
across well in our modern vernacular, does it? Even so, come Lord Jesus. No, here's the real translation. Let it be so. Come Lord Jesus. Amen. What a glorious hope we
have. And all of scripture is knit
together with this glorious truth. You know, someone has said the
Old Testament The theme of the Old Testament is look who's coming.
Look who's coming. The theme of the Gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John is look who's here. And the theme of the rest
of the New Testament is look who's coming again. Look who's coming again. Oh,
and you know, I've said this before.
We anticipate his coming and I hope the Lord will increase
our anticipation for his coming and increase our hope by his
word and even by this simple message. And we don't know when
the Lord is gonna come. He's gonna come as a thief in
the night. Matthew chapter 24, scripture says, and if a man
knew that a thief was gonna break in, he'd be awake and you know,
He'd be, if they knew the strong man was coming, he'd be anticipating
that. But look at what this says in
verse three. For when they say peace and safety, then sudden
destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with
child and they shall not escape. So when someone steps up and
says, I've got it figured out, I've studied the Bible, I know
when, I would know when the Lord's coming. Peace and safety, here
he comes. That's the day he's not coming. Gonna come to the world just like that,
when they least expect it, least expect it. But you, brethren, but you, brethren,
are not in darkness. You're not living your life with
no thought of the end. You're not living your life with
no thought of the coming of Christ. You're not living your life with
no thought of him coming for you, even if he doesn't come
in your lifetime. for the whole church as he will. I can guarantee if you count
the last beat of your heart and the last breath you draw as part
of your life, I can guarantee you the Lord Jesus Christ is
coming in your lifetime. For you and for me. What hope? What hope? Oh, what else do we have? Solomon got it right when he
said, vanity of vanity, all is vanity. Compared to that, everything
in this life is empty. It has no meaning. It has no
purpose outside of that hope. Paul put it like this. He said,
if there be no resurrection, then we are of all men most miserable. If there's no life after death,
eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you shall die. You know,
I've heard religious people say, well, you know, if there was
no heaven and no life after death, I'd want to live my life for
God in this world. Not what the Bible
says. The Bible says that if there's
no life after death, eat, drink and be merry. Just indulge yourself in all
the comforts and pleasures of this world, because that's all
there is. That's all there is. But for the believer, we know
that's not all there is. We anticipate with great hope With great belief that God is
faithful to his word, we worship a God that cannot lie. And here's
our life, not in this world. But you, brethren, are not in
darkness. You're not living your life like
the rest of the world with no thought. and no anticipation
and no love and no hope and no joy in the reality of seeing
the Lord and being made like Him. Being delivered from your
body of death and being delivered from this world of vanity and
emptiness. We are not of the night, verse
5, nor of darkness. We just sang that hymn, taken
from 1 John 1, verse 7. If we walk in the light, as he
is in the light, we have fellowship, one with the other. We have fellowship
with those who are walking in the light, and we have fellowship
with God. And the blood of Jesus Christ.
And I'm thankful for the last part of this verse. And the blood
of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Some have thought, well, walking
in the light means that I've got to walk, you know, completely
above sin. Oh, brethren, we hate our sin
and we don't want, we love what God loves and hate what God hates
and we grieve over our sin and we want to forsake our sin. But if living above sin is what
it means to walk in the light, and any honest believer has to
say, I've never walked in the light. I've never walked in the
light. Or my sin is ever before me.
There's a sin and unbelief that In my heart, it affects here.
No, walking in the light, walking in faith, and the blood of walking
in faith, walking, looking in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ.
And if anything gives you the grace and the power and the desire
to resist the passions of the flesh and the desires of sin,
that will do it. It doesn't mean that we're without
sin. He that walks in the light as
he is in the light has fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus Christ cleanses us. There it is, walking in the light
is looking to Christ for all your righteousness. And all the hope of your forgiveness
of all that sin that you deal with every day is covered by
the blood of Christ. You're looking in hope. to the
shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the same place God's
looking. God said, when I see the blood,
I'll pass by you. And so faith looks to the same
place that God looks. It looks to the shed blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ for the covering of all your sin. There's
what it is to walk in the light. You're not of the night. nor
of darkness, you're walking in the light. Therefore, let us not sleep as
others do. Oh, how slumbering we can be. How cold of heart we can be.
How forgetful we can be. Which is why you and I are here
right now, isn't it? To be reminded again and be told
again what God says about these things. And what is the Lord
doing? Waking us up, waking us up spiritually,
prodding us and say, come on, don't sleep, don't slumber. Let us not sleep as others do,
but let us watch. Let us watch, let us be hopeful,
let us watch and be sober, sober. He's not talking about just not
being intoxicated, we ought not to be. He's talking about being
sober-minded. The things that intoxicate men
are not just alcohol. Men get intoxicated with all
sorts of things in this world, don't they? And we find ourselves
getting intoxicated with those things, and that's what the Lord's
saying. Be sober, sober-minded. Think clearly about the truth. Verse seven, for they that sleep,
sleep in the night. And they that be drunken are
drunken in the night. They're not walking in the light,
they're walking in darkness. There's the blind leading the
blind. And they're all going to fall
into the ditch. And here's our hope that God has given us sight. He's caused us to see ourselves
for what we are. He's caused us to see Himself
in the glory of His grace and in His sovereignty and in His
power. And He's caused us to see that
the only hope of our sins being put away and us being redeemed
and our sins being atoned for is the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's given us some sight. We're not walking in darkness. Verse 8, but let us who are of
the day be sober, sober-minded. Be caught up in the, oh God,
make, you know, Give us a... The world gets all
caught up in all sorts of things and we get caught up in those
things. Lord, make me to be sober-minded.
Make me to think clearly about things as they really are. Here's how it's gonna happen.
Putting on the breastplate of faith. Putting on the breastplate
of faith. believing on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, I know I've said this many times, but you don't know the
responses I get from people. And I need to say it again. Anytime I talk about believing
on Christ and putting on the breastplate of faith, somebody's
gonna write me and somebody's gonna say, well, you're making
faith work. Faith by its very definition,
is the absence of works. And the Bible is full of commands
to believe. Now what God requires, we know
that God must provide. Faith is not a work. Faith is
when you've been shut up to Christ and you've got no place else
to go. God has limited your options to one. If you only have one
option, it's not a choice, it's not a decision, it's not a work.
You are shut up by God's grace to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the means by which God shuts you up to Christ is
these commands to put on the breastplate of faith. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. And the self-righteous will make
a work out of that, no doubt about it. God's pleased to bless his word
by his spirit to his people. You'll know that by grace you were saved
through faith and that not of yourself. It was a gift of God,
not of your works lest any man should boast. You'll know that. So putting on the breastplate of
faith and love for a helmet The hope of salvation. Paul's referring
back to those spiritual armor things that he gives us in Ephesians,
isn't he? The helmet of salvation, the
shield of faith, the breastplate of righteousness. And all these
things are given to us by God. Just as David put on Saul's armor and it didn't fit.
And by the way, we looked at that recently and I thought about
it since. The scripture says that Saul
was head and shoulders above every other man in all of Israel. I mean, head and shoulders. Stood
out in the crowd and David was a boy. And when they tried to
put Saul's armor on David, can you just see it? I mean, this armor would have
just covered him up. David wouldn't have been able
to move in Saul's armor. Men try to fight the fight of
faith in the flesh and it's like trying to wear Saul's armor.
David said, no, I gotta have that which I've proved. What
had he proved? He had proved faith. That's all
he had proved, faith. Just as God delivered me from
the bear and the lion, God will deliver me from this uncircumcised
Philistine. I'm going to believe God. I'm
just going to believe God. Put on the breastplate of faith
and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation, for God hath
not appointed us to wrath. The full fury of God's wrath
fell on Calvary's cross. When God sheathed the sword of
his justice in the heart of his own son and shed his blood, the
scripture says it pleased God to bruise him. And God saw the
travail of his soul and God said, I'm satisfied. He bore in his
body all the sins of all of his people and put them away by the
sacrifice of himself once and for all. not to fear the wrath
of God. That fire has been quenched,
it's been put out. The Lord Jesus put it out with
his own blood. You're not appointed unto wrath.
You need not fear death, you need not fear the coming of Christ.
Not if you are in Christ, in faith, looking to him, resting
in him. To the contrary, this is not
our fear, this is our hope. It's our hope. For He has not appointed us to
wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. It's all in Christ. He's all and He's in all, isn't
He? We're looking at this is what
it is to walk in the light. and not be in darkness, and to
be sober-minded, and not be deceived like the world is deceived, just
living their lives for tomorrow. You know, men plan for everything.
We plan for vacations, we plan for our children's education,
we plan for our careers, we plan for retirement. Men live their
whole lives making plans. preparing for the next event
and give no thought, give no thought to the departing of this
world and the standing before God. That's walking in darkness. This is not you, brother. Verse
10, who died for us. Anytime there's an us in the
Bible, there's also a them. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
die for everybody. He died for his people. He bore in his body
all the sins of all of his elect, chosen in the covenant of grace
by the Father before time ever was. That's who he died for. You say, well, I don't know if that's
me. I don't know if I'm one of God's elect. How do I know if
I'm if I'm one for whom Christ died. Faith is the substance of things hoped
for. It is the evidence of things not seen. I believe on Christ. I'm resting
in Christ. I'm looking to Christ. I'm rejoicing
in Christ. I delight in the In the glorious
truth of him coming again and being with him in glory and seeing
the fullness of his glory. That is my delight. Faith. God gave me faith. You see. The Lord never, never
said, you know, you elect come. Those of you that Christ died
for, come. No, he called sinners to come,
didn't he? And there again, we have the last words of the Bible
right before the Lord Jesus says, and I come quickly. Amen, Lord
Jesus, come. And before that, the Spirit,
that's the Holy Spirit, and the bride, that's the church, say,
Come, come. The veil's been rent. The holies
of holies has been opened. The blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
has been put on the mercy seat. No longer do you have to fear
the wrath of God. The rent veil was the tearing
of his flesh on Calvary's cross, the shedding of his blood. In
the Old Testament, there were priests constantly stationed
in and around the temple and near the veil of the holies of
holies, protecting it and warning men, stay away, stay away, don't
come here. And now when the Lord bowed his mighty
head on Calvary's cross and he cried, it is finished, it's finished,
the veil was rent from the top to the bottom. God rent it, didn't
he? And here's what the Bible says,
not a few of the priests believed. Can you imagine those priests
in the temple? When they saw that veil being
torn from top to bottom, and then they heard the gospel of
God's free grace and the finished work of Christ, and not a few
of them believed. God has not appointed you to
wrath, but to obtain salvation. Verse 10, who died for us, that
whether we wake, whether we're physically alive or sleep, physically
dead, we should live together with
him. You see, the thought is still continuing from what the
Lord started in chapter four. They were worried about what
about those who have died? whether we are awake or sleep. We should live together with
Him. There's my hope, to live with
Him, to see Him in the fullness of His glory. Now I wanna close
with one passage. If you'll turn with me over a
few pages to 2 Peter, 2 Peter chapter three. 2nd Peter chapter three, because
on a message like this, there's always gonna be someone, an unbeliever,
not a believer. Believers don't believe what
they just heard. God said, but the unbelievers are gonna say
this. Look at 2nd Peter chapter three, verse four. Where is the
promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep,
all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. It's gonna put a lot, yeah. Y'all been talking about this
for 2000 years, it hadn't happened yet. It doesn't keep me from
anticipating the fulfillment of God's promise right now. Right now. And here's the Lord's
response to that. For this they willingly are ignorant
of. Now why would a man not be willingly
ignorant of the hope of the coming of Christ? Because he's walking in the dark.
Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness rather
than light because their deeds are evil. I can't live in anticipation
of Christ. I'm going to be willingly ignorant
of that because to confess that and to believe that would mean
that it's going to change my life now. I'm going to have to confess
if I'm a religious, self-righteous man. Well, you know what? A person doesn't have to be religious
to be self-righteous. All men are self-righteous. that the things that I'm looking
to that are gonna get me into heaven are evil. Light is coming to the world,
but men love darkness. They love the darkness of their
own self-righteousness rather than light because their deeds
are evil. And men won't come to Christ because, well, there's
a whole lot of things I'm doing right now that I can't do if
I'm gonna follow God. going to be in Christ, it's going
to change my whole life. I'm not going to have that and
so I'm just going to be willingly ignorant of that. That's what
God says, they're willingly ignorant of it. If a man's not saved, it's because
of his own will. If a man is saved, it's because
of God's will. Men who won't come to Christ
are willingly not coming to Christ. For this they are willingly ignorant
of, that by the word of God, the heavens were of old and the
earth standing out of water and in water, whereby the world and
that then was being overflowed with water perished. And what
are you talking about Noah's flood? Now what's Peter doing? He's identifying what the Lord
said when he said, as it was in the days of Noah, men were
eating and drinking and marrying and giving him marriage. They
were just living their lives. And as it was in the days of
Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the Son of Man. The world's
going to be willingly thoughtless of that, but not you. You're
not in the dark. You're in the light. But the heavens and the earth,
which are now by the same word are kept in store, not going
to be destroyed by water again. The Lord gave the bow in the
sky as a sign of his covenant saying, I'm not going to destroy
the world by water again. No, the second destruction of
the world is going to be by fire. kept in store reserved under
fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day
is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years is
a day. You know, we calculate time and we live our lives by
the clock and by the year. And God says, it's only been
two days since I ascended into heaven. What the Lord did 2,000 years
ago on Mount of Olives when he ascended, the angel said, the
same Jesus who was taken up to you is coming again in like manner.
That was two days ago on God's calendar. A thousand years, that's a day.
A day is a thousand years. The Lord hears the glorious truth,
brethren. Look at verse 9. The Lord is
not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness,
but is long-suffering to usward. That's a very important word
in this verse. He's long-suffering to usward. He's long-suffering
to his elect. He's patient, and aren't you
glad that the Lord's long-suffering? Not willing, and here men take
this one phrase out of the Bible and they say, well, God's not
willing that any should perish. He didn't say that. If God wasn't willing for any
man to perish, no man would perish because God's will is always
performed. Always. He's not willing that any of
us should perish and none of us will perish. But that all should come to repentance,
but the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night,
in which the heaven shall pass away with a great noise, and
the elements shall melt with fervent heat, and the earth also,
and the works that are therein shall be burned up. Seeing then,"
and here's the conclusion of this whole message, verse 11,
seeing then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner
of persons ought you to be? to be in all holy conversation
and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of
the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Is there any truth
that will dictate our thoughts and lives more than this. The know, the Lord's coming. Amen? All right, let's take a
break. Okay.