Over the last few weeks, we've
looked at what the Scriptures taught us here about the coming
of the Lord, the second coming of Jesus Christ, the day of judgment. We've seen that the text does
not give us explicit details about these things like times
or places, but rather, to the contrary, it teaches us that
we are to be ready whenever. and that the judgment of Jesus
Christ and the second coming of the Lord is going to come
unexpectedly, that we're not going to be able to say, oh,
here it is. It's almost here. Here we go. That has been the
words of every saint since the days of Christ. We ought to be,
and dwell with that much anticipation to be able to see the world and
the ways of its evil, to see how bad men go from bad to worse,
and to see how God's grace continually gives salvation to more and more
and more to those who are in darkness. And something that I didn't really
harp on last week that I will give in passing as we get started
is that there are many times and many places in our day, I
know just in my lifetime, I have met three people who have given
utterance of prophecy about when the Lord would return. and about
how we should look at the last days, and how we should worry
about the rapture and the apocalypse, and the word apocalypse means
revealed things. And friends, those people who
put times and dates and seasons on the coming of the Lord Jesus
are violating Scripture. They're violating Scripture because
they are putting their words and their intellect over the
wisdom of God and His Word. They're violating Scripture because
they are adding to that which is given to us through the Scripture.
And they're violating God's Word because they are stirring up
fear amongst the brethren. Frustration, animosity, and fourthly,
They're violating the Scripture because they're doing it for
filthy lucre. There's never been a man, woman, child, beast, rat,
snake, ant, fly that has decided to discern the end of times and
the second coming of the Lord who has not had their best interests
at heart. Why? Because when you're a nobody
in a nothing land with nothing to say and no voice to be heard
and you say, I know something you don't, everybody listens. That's what the devil did in
the Garden of Eden when he took Eve and Adam there at the trees
in the center of the garden and he tempted them. Number one,
he tempted Eve that the fruit was good for food. She thought,
well, maybe it is. But what really hooked her is
that when the devil said, I know something that you don't. And
God knows something that you don't. You want to know what
it is? I mean, there's not a human being in existence. This very
day, this very place, that if I turned around, if I went to
the back room and I came out, and my hands cupped, and I said,
guess what I've got in my hands? You're about to die to figure out what
it is. I started to do that. It used to be a distraction for
my children when they were real young. Something going on, they
wouldn't listen. I'd say, what's Daddy got in his hands? I don't
know, what is it? Now Abigail's at the age, she'll go, nothing.
Because we have to know. When it comes to prophetic word,
when we feel like there's somebody out there that's a little smarter
than us, a little more spiritual than us, a little more in tune
than us with spiritual things. That's why the world of mediums.
What are mediums? People who intercede and act
between dead spirits and live spirits. That's what a medium
is. It's witchcraft. It's evil. It's satanic. There's
no such thing as a dead spirit. That's oxymoronic. All spirits
are alive, they've been alive, and they will forever be alive.
The difference is the location, the presence of those spirits.
If there are spirits that interact with the world, they're either
the spirits of God or the spirits of Satan. There's no human being
who has an ability for their spirit to be in this world if
they're not in this body. And so this type of thing happens
constantly. What does the Bible tell us to
think of the people who make prophecies? to dismiss them in
their entirety. The Brexit vote, I said to Robin
Friday, you know what that is? Great Britain voted to remove
themselves from the European Union. The first thing that came
to my mind is, uh-oh, the dispensation is going to have to rewrite all
their bills. Why? Because since the early 80s,
All the prophets of all of our age all over the world have written
that the European Union is going to be the means through which
the Antichrist has come and that the Euro is going to be the world
power to destroy all economy. Where is that in the Bible? It's
nowhere to be found. It's Babylonian baloney. Want to learn more about it?
August we start a reading of Revelation, we'll see what the
Bible actually teaches us, and we'll learn to understand how
to interpret Scripture in light of Scripture, not in light of
news articles. But yeah, I mean, I don't know
what they're going to do now with all these millions of books
and articles and videos that are now obsolete. Much like in
the 1960s and the Cold War, And even J. Vernon McGee, I'll say
to you, you know, that guy loved his commentary. I mean, he just
enjoyed listening to it. But he had a really strong bend
toward Magog and Gog being the Russian Cold War, nuclear fallout
that's going to destroy the world. The Antichrist was going to come
from Eastern Europe. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that
wall. By the Lord's grace, Dr. McGee was already with him. And
he wasn't in this world to go, oh, I got it wrong. You know
why we get it wrong? Because any decision we make
in prophetic utterance, any date that's ever set, any person that
ever says, now is the season of Christ, will be wrong. Will
be wrong. Today is the day of salvation.
This is the day of the Lord. Why am I beating that? Because
this is the context in which Paul is writing now in chapter
5. We've learned that we should not be putting dates and times
on the seasons. You have no need to have anything
written to you. Look at verse 1 of chapter 5.
For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord
will come like a thief in the night. That tells us that it's unexpected
and cannot be determined. Cannot be determined. While people are saying there's
peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them
as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.
Now, this is what's interesting. 9-11 and other places like that,
even this insidious massacre that happened in Orlando a few
weeks ago, and all over the world you see crime and horror and
economic downfall. And, oh, it's the judgment of
God. It's not the judgment of God. It's the grace of God. It's
the grace of God. That God secures the majority
of life. That God establishes a covenant
with Christ Jesus that there are people of these cultures,
of these nations, of these tongues, of this sinful, wicked era who
will come to faith in Jesus Christ. It's not God's judgment. God's
judgment is the day when Christ returns and all those who are
unbelievers will be set into eternal damnation. That's judgment. Now, it is in some sense a shadow
of judgment, but it's not God passing judgment. It's God allowing
grace. Because when we see the judgment
of God in the Old Testament, it was complete. It was complete. He pulled his one or six out
and then annihilated the rest. That's judgment. Nobody escapes
judgment. So when we see this text and
we look, it was true for Paul's day. These Thessalonians, it
was true for them. It was true for them and it worked
for them and it was absolutely part of what they were dealing
with in their culture. It was relative to the essence of their
lives that people were saying, oh, it's all at peace, everything's
good, we're loving each other, we're good. And it says sudden
destruction is going to come upon them. It's also true for
us today. This word has never rung so true
than it does this very moment. Except every season, every generation,
every nation of every time since the days of Christ, every moment
is a moment for us to see and say, yes, I see it. It's here. This isn't prophetic about specifics. This is prophetic in a general,
in a general sense. All, just like Paul tells Timothy,
there will be a day when people will no longer, what, endure
sound doctrine. It was there. It was then. It
is now. And until the Lord returns, it's
going to be that day. It's every day that there is
more and more people who continually desire not the truth, but the
truth of their own making. The God of their own invention.
The scripture of their own interpretation. And believe me, brothers and
sisters, that there is a super maniacal evil wickedness at work
behind it all. And it's the principalities and
the powers of darkness. And this darkness will not overcome
the light. But the light has overcome the
darkness. This is the mindset we need to be in as we continue
in this. The coming of the Lord is imminent.
It cannot be known. It is not something that we should
fear. Look. But you, verse 4, are not in
darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief.
You're not going to be asleep. You're not going to be laying
in your bed unaware. You're going to be ready. Now, is Paul talking about
going to bed and being in the dark and being asleep in your
house? No. It's a metaphor. It's a metaphor. Just like a
thief. Jesus isn't going to sneak in and burst the window of the
cosmos and sneak in. It's about the suddenness of
being unprepared to see feverly. That it's going to come upon
us quickly. Like labor pains. When's your
due date? Right there. There it is. The doctor said
it. We measured it. That's your due date. We've had one child
come on our due date. And if it was up to me, she wouldn't
have come that day. It was a big day. Grand opening for our new
building. I just had my horn redone. We
were going to have a good worship session the next morning. And
on the way to the birthing center that night, about, what, one
in the morning, I said, this better be real. And there was
a lot of circumstances. I was ultra mean that time because
of sin and wickedness. My flesh was in bad shape. I
was hurt. And Robin says, well, if this
isn't labor, put me out of the car and back over me right now
because I can't handle it. The doctor told her that was
the date. We didn't think it was the date. Her and her mom
were up playing Trivial Pursuit, and I was in the bed, knocked
out on painkillers, because I was hurting. And then I get to drive
a pregnant woman, yelling all the way to wherever it was we
had that child, whatever hole or hotel we went to. I can't
even remember what it was called. Burden Center. There we go. You don't know. All the others,
Jacob, two weeks later. I don't know, how many times
was she almost born? Like three times over a two week period. What do you do? You don't know,
it's just coming. It's going to come when it comes
and the time is in the Lord's hand. The same thing is true
with the coming of the Lord, with the judgment of God. But
we as the church have no fear of the judgment of God, for there's
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are
sanctified by the righteousness of God in Christ. We who believe
have no fear of being condemned. None. None. You're not in darkness for that
day to surprise you like a thief. Verse 5, for you are all, and
this is where we're going to be today, follow with me in verse
5 of chapter 5, for you are all children of light, children of
the day. We are not of the night or of
the darkness. So then, let us not sleep as
others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep,
sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night.
But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on
the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope
of salvation. Verse 9, For God has not destined
us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord,
who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we might
live with Him. Therefore, encourage one another
and build one another up just as you were doing. I'm not going
to get into verse 9, 10, and 11 this morning, because that
in itself is an hour. But it is in the context of this,
so I will point to it as we close. So in this now verbiage that
Paul has chosen to use, it's not new, it's very Hebraic, it's
very Semitic, Hebrewish, It's something that the Hebrew people
would always understand, just as John, when he wrote, in the
beginning, people who read that who were of Jewish descent would
recognize it instantly. Well, this is alluding to the
writing of Moses. In the beginning, God said. in the beginning. Just as John's
epistle, first epistle, that which was from the beginning,
that which we have seen. So we see the same type of language. You could not erase the fact
that Paul was Jewish by birth from the tribe of Benjamin. And
so this light and dark metaphor is something that the Hebrew
people were very familiar with from the beginning of days. And
the light was always speaking of holiness, righteousness,
visibility, awakeness, attentiveness, things that are good, things
that are holy. As we just sang, holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God Almighty. Full of light, full of day. Jesus says, I am the light of
the world. Jesus says, you are the light of the world. Jesus
says that the light has come, but the darkness does not come
to the light because its works are evil. And on and on we see
this comparison, this contrast between darkness and light. Light
is always referring to righteousness. Light is always referring to
visibility and knowability. things that are able to be seen
and understood. If you hear something go bump
in the night and there's nothing, there's no light at all, the
power's out, you can't even what? Get around your house. You might
know the general layout, but did you put your boots by the
bed or are they by the dresser? Is there a Lego someplace loose? Because you're talking about
Galatia. You step on a Lego, you will
speak in tongues. I promise. And if they're on a staircase,
you will fall down too. So you'll be slain in the spirit and speak
in tongues all in one step. I shouldn't have said that. But
you know what I'm saying? But if it's dark, that's where
I was. If it's dark, you don't know what's in the floor. You
have to light a light. You have to light a match, a
candle, a flashlight, something so that you might carefully see
where you're going. The same thing is true for this
metaphor of light and darkness. And on the contrary, we see the
reality of darkness in every culture throughout all of written
history. We see darkness as a metaphor of evil. Darkness as a metaphor
of sickness. Darkness as a metaphor of depression.
Darkness is one of these things that everybody in every culture
has always feared. Darkness is the place where monsters
live. Darkness is the place where death
comes, from which death comes. Darkness is the imagery that
Jesus chose to use when He talked about Sheol or Gehenna. It will be a place of eternal darkness
where there is no light, where the fire is never quenched. You
know, fire in the middle of darkness brings light. It doesn't matter,
it's dark. That's why. The language of literature
has to be understood. Jesus isn't going to be setting
fires in the lake of fire. It is fire. What kind of fire? I have no idea. It's going to
be some cool kind of fire. I think it's going to be the
holiness of God, just like the holiness of God consumed the
bush, but did not burn it. Maybe it will be the holiness
of God in reflection of his judgment who will continually burn the
bodies of the reprobate, but they will not be consumed. I
don't know. What does the Bible tell us? Nothing. So what should
we know? Just that. Why? Because it doesn't matter.
Scaring people into salvation is not eternal life. If people
come to believe in Christ because of their fear of judgment, they
have not come to faith in Christ. Because believing in Christ is
an affection, is a glorious reality of knowing the love of God, not
fearing the judgment of God. But yet the judgment of God and
the fear of the judgment of God does get our attention. But friends, there is no man,
woman, or child who has rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ and
does not fear the judgment of God. What they do, according
to Paul in Romans chapter 1, is that they suppress the truth
by acts of unrighteousness, that they continually do sinful things
that it may sear their conscience. One of the worst things we do
when we're depressed or down and out is to sit and think about
it. Isn't that right? One of the worst things the unbeliever
does is to sit and contemplate the judgment of God. What do
they do? They do what they enjoy doing. Acts of wickedness. It's like the child who knows
they shouldn't do something and they look over to see if you're
noticing and they do it. that you're in the middle of
the shopping mall, or you're in the middle of the grocery store, you're
in the middle of the church service, and you're not just going to
whack your kid all up and down places, or shake them real good, or give
them a stern talking to, you're just sort of going to look, and
you're going to have that look, and you're going to think, okay, well, oh, wow,
I got away with it that time. I'll do it again tomorrow. I'll
do it again tomorrow. I'll do it again tomorrow. I'll
do it again tomorrow. That's what we do when we are up, when
we are reprobate. That's what we do when we're
lost. We continue to sin against the Lord and just see, and we
don't understand that we're stacking judgment. It's like my children
sometimes and the older ones who are extremely helpful. And
they want to keep order in the home. They've got this parental
mindset as they get to a certain age. You'll notice that as teenagers
grow up, they start trying to take care of things, which is
awesome. But they want immediate, immediate judgment on every issue
that goes on in the house. Dad! You know. No matter how
old they are. So and so looked at me. Well, close your eyes. So-and-so
said this, so-and-so did that, so-and-so hit me, so-and-so,
so-and-so, so-and-so, and if you respond to that as parents,
you just need a whip in both hands. You know, you need a laser whip
or something. So what do you do? You just say,
okay, take note, just relax. You teach one to learn to forbear,
and the other one learns that judgment stacks up. And so that
a week or two later when you go in there with the hickory
and you say, okay, here it is, they're like, what's this for?
This, this, this, this, this, and this. We forbeared all that. We let
all that go. And now it's just going to come
full force. Two swings or one? Which one do you pick? It's just
the way the world works. It's the way the flesh works.
We don't want to see the light. We hate the light according to
the scripture. And this light and darkness is is a place in
all humanity that we understand. Even people who have never heard
the gospel of Jesus or have never heard any scripture whatsoever,
they understand the difference and the metaphor between darkness
and light. Have you ever heard of people
just, I don't know, doing great crimes in the middle of the day?
You don't hear it. I mean, some cities, it doesn't
matter what time it is, it's just so crime-ridden. Well, it's
nine o'clock in the morning, I think I'm going to go, I don't
know, burn something down. Happened two Sundays ago, somebody
burned something down. But typically, you hear about
that kind of junk at night. You hear about this kind of stuff
going on in the evening. Like I've always been taught,
as long as I can remember, nothing good ever happens after what?
Midnight, yeah. And from history, especially
in our country, what is called the bewitching hour or something
like that. They felt like even in their superstition, they felt
like that after midnight, that spirits would come out and cause
people to do bad things. No, after midnight, everybody,
all the good people who will keep you in check are in the
bed and you're just free to do what you want to do in your flesh. Everything's closed, can't buy
gas, can't buy food. Most places. But what do they
call, other than Sin City, what do they call Las Vegas, Nevada?
The city that never sleeps. It's always night there. At six
o'clock in the morning when the sun's coming up, if you're inside
a hotel that happens to have a casino, you can't tell what
time it is. You can't look outside. There's
no windows. There's no nothing. It's always
ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, light, light, light, light, light, light, food,
food, food, food, food. And it's just everywhere you go. It's food for free, drinks
for free, food so that you can just keep playing. Well, man,
you know, because when you look outside and the sun's going down,
you think, I need to get dinner. I need to get ready for bed.
But if you can't tell, you don't know it's a perpetual darkness.
This is the imagery that Paul wants us to have in mind as we
get started today. We're related to the coming of the judgment
of Jesus Christ. For you are all children of the
light. You don't have to fear the judgment of God. Verse 4.
Verse 5, 4. The reason you don't have to
fear is because you are, we are, all children of the light. Children
of day. We are not of the night or of
the darkness. Verse 5. What's that mean? And I think I gave a rant last
week about the light of Christ. Let me review that in a little
more organized fashion. You are the children of the light,
the children of the day. You are not, look what he says in
the second part, we are not of the night or of the darkness.
What comes to your mind when you hear this language? If you
read the New Testament, 1 John chapter 1 and 2 ought to come
to mind. If you have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship
is with the Father and the Son, if you have fellowship with Him,
if you say you're in light, but yet you walk in darkness, you're
a liar. Well, what does it mean to walk in darkness? To walk
in darkness is to walk in the flesh. To walk in darkness is
to walk in unrepentant sin. To walk in darkness is to not
do and be that which God has created you to be. Well, how
did God create me? That's another day. God created you for His glory.
God created you so that you might believe and trust and know Him. And if you are indeed in Christ,
then God created you for salvation. And if you are not in Christ,
woe be unto you lest you believe you will perish in your sin and
God will have created you for judgment. But you are the children of the
light. We are light. We walk in light for Christ is
the light of the world. Then Christ, as the light of
the world, looks to the church and says, you are a light of
the world. A light like a city on a hill that's not hidden.
Like a light that's not hidden under a bishop but shines. Let
your light so shine before men that they see your good what?
Good deeds. And give glory to whom? You?
No, your Father who is in heaven. That's what it means to be a
light walker. We walk as Christ walked because Christ is alive
within us. It's not our doing, church. It's
not our willpower. It's not our determination. It's
not our discipline. There are a lot of lost dark
walkers who walk in a seeming moral light. There are a lot
of good philanthropists and benevolent people in this world who are
moral and ethical and sanctified in the context of their behavior
and their affections, but it does not make them righteous. But there are a lot of professing
Christians who walk in darkness which disproves their profession. Because though we can fake it,
friends, if we are in Christ, we don't have to fake it. You
hear that? We don't have to fake it. Because
the righteousness of God is at work in us. Jesus Christ is at
work in us. And these are some of the sermons
people don't like to hear. Because if we don't preach it correctly,
we put the onus on us without the power of God. And friends,
we will never walk righteously without the power of God. If
it's not Christ in us, then it's not righteous. Prophets of old
would say that the righteous works of men are like what? Filthy
rags. They have no merit before God.
They're God's work. Faith was accredited righteousness
to Abraham as righteousness. He believed in God. And then
what? Sin and sin and sin and sin. Moses didn't even get to go to
the promised land. The promised land wasn't even
the point. It was just a temporary dwelling just for a few years.
That's all God wanted it for. It wasn't about a kingdom. It
wasn't about a government. It was about a shadow of the
redemption that came in Christ Jesus. That we are thou the kingdom
of Christ. We've been transferred from the
darkness into the light. Transferred out of the kingdom
of darkness into the kingdom of Christ. So Jesus is the light
of the world. We are the light of the world.
We have been given the light in order to see the light. We
are part of the light. We are the body of the one who
shines. We are the body of the righteous
one of God. We are a part of Him. Therefore,
our lives reflect the nature of who He is. Because He is the
head, therefore everywhere the body goes and everything the
body does, He commands. Everything that we love, He has
given that affection. Everything we believe, it is
from Him. I can have the best conditioned
hands in the world and can be strong and meticulous. I can
take a brain and fix it as a surgeon, chop off my head and it's worthless. We are part of the light. He who knew no sin became sin
that we might be the righteousness of God. Not only are we part of the light,
and as we shine as the light, we can see. We're no longer blind. The mystery of the gospel is
not hidden to us any longer. The God of this world, though
He hid this from our eyes, God said, let light shine out of
darkness. And God has shown in our hearts
to give us the light, listen to these words, the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is 2 Corinthians 4. in response
to the reality that people are in darkness because they love
it, and they stay in darkness because it's their judgment,
and they stay in darkness because God allows the devil to blind
their eyes. The only way someone comes to the light of Christ,
to the knowledge of Christ, to faith through Jesus Christ, is
that God in His mercy shines the light of truth in our hearts
that we might believe. And if He shines it, we will
believe. That's not an inference. That's
not an interpretation. That's an exact expression of
the exact text. We're not blind anymore. We're not walking around stumbling.
You hear all these things that I'm saying? Does Scripture come
to your mind? Stumbling around in darkness.
Blind. Not knowing where we're going.
The apostles' words. Jesus' words. Because you say
you can see, said to the Pharisees, you're guilty, your guilt remains.
What is he talking about? That you can see, you say that
you know righteousness, that you know God, that you know truth,
and you say you can see me for who I am and yet you reject me.
Your guilt remains. But if you were blind, I'd give
you eyes to see. Jesus said, I came to heal the
sick, not the well. I did not come for the righteous,
but the lost. Jesus came to seek and save the lost, not the righteous.
Anyone who thinks they're righteous, Christ can't help them. Anyone who thinks that they are
okay with God because of their ways and their actions and their
faith, there is no sacrifice for your sin. The Word is given to us. The
light illustrates the reality that the Word of God is given
to us. It's not hidden from us. We had a question Tuesday night
and we're talking about the Holy Spirit. I'm going to start this
Tuesday, do three weeks on lessons about the Holy Spirit, God, the
Holy Spirit. And one of the questions was
about the parable of the seeds and the sower. And how we relate
that parable to our present situation. Who
are those people? Well, there are four people and
then three of them are lost, one of them is saved. The one
that is saved is the one where the seed lands in the good soil
that has been prepared by the master, prepared by the farmer,
who is God. to receive the Word. All the
others, even two, who receive the Word and it springs up, it
gets taken away. Because God sends the devil to
take it from some, and the cares of this world take it from others,
and the sun scorches and takes and burns up the rest. They are
unbelievers, not believers who've fallen away. That's impossible.
But unbelievers who cannot see. The disciples asked Jesus, why
is it that you speak like this in parables? He said, to you
it has been given the ability to understand these things. To
you it has been given understanding, but to them, they will not understand. And in this, Isaiah chapter 6
is fulfilled. Go preach, Isaiah, that I will
not let them hear, lest they understand. I will not let them
see, lest they repent. And I healed them. I will not
allow them to see. I've sealed the eyes. How does
God seal the eyes of unbelievers? He sends the devil to hide the
light. Because we want to talk about
free will? That's free will. We have the will to believe as
much as we want to. And when we do believe in our
own free will, then God sends the devil to take it away. I don't know if Jonathan Edwards
would agree with that, but he's dead. He can ask Jesus. He's alive. So this light, we
no longer are blind. We can see the word is not hidden. It is given to us. And most importantly,
part of this being in the light is that sin is no longer Lord
over us. The darkness no longer has us
by the throat. We are no longer bound by the
flesh. We are free in Christ. We are
free from sin and death. We are free and we no longer
have to fear judgment. And I think this is one of the
primary things that Paul wanted his readers to have in mind.
You're free from sin. You're free from judgment. These
things are written, beloved, John would say, that you may
not sin, but if you sin, you have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous, who is our propitiation, our
satisfaction. God's judgment is satisfied in
Christ. Therefore, there is no other
point to which God is angry with us. There is nothing else that
God owes us in judgment. His justice is set. It's settled. The fine has been paid. The debt
has been paid. The life has been taken. And
it is all good. Propitiated. So we have no fear
of judgment. We have no slavery to sin because
we are children of the day. Paul says this in Ephesians 5,
For at one time you were in darkness, but now you are the light of
the world. Walk therefore as children of
light. We are children of the day. We
shine as lights in the day. The visible, the pure, and the
good. Now what's next here? Because we are not of the night,
because we are of the light, therefore, so, verse 6, then
let us not sleep, as others do. So the children of the light
do not sleep. Others who are what? Unbelievers sleep. And
see, while we don't read that literally, this is not talking
about going to bed. Go to bed. Well, it says not to, but it
says rise as you, you know, Jesus rose early in the morning so
that he could go pray. So what did he do? Home all night? I don't know. Let's get to the
context. I'm saying that in a silly way,
but sometimes we have people and we'll come across people
who read into things so wouldn't they that they don't understand
the context. We do not sleep. The lost of the world do sleep
because those are the others. There's only two peoples in the
world. Those who are in Christ and those who are not. Those
who are in the kingdom of light and those who are in the kingdom
of darkness. Those who are saved by grace and those who are judged
by holiness. Of which we all once were. So
God snatches it. Here's all of humanity in this
group of reprobation. Damnation. Condemnation. Because we earned it. We deserve
it. And God in His mercy says, you
out! You out! How can a good, loyal,
honest, just, holy, righteous judge take guilty people out
of prison, guilty people out of the electric chair, guilty
people out of the gallows and bring them over here and say,
you're right, you're holy. Because he took the guilt of these and
he put them on Jesus and he smashed them. Let us not sleep as others do.
What is the sleep here? Sleep means to be blind. Sleep
means to be unaware. Sleep means to be unprepared. I mean, do you sleep with your
shoes on? Do you sleep with your wallet
and your keys? Your cell phone on? No! We do not. So we're unprepared. Tornado,
fire, we're unprepared. Something catches us off guard,
we're unprepared. Military, fire, police, they
always have their uniforms like, their pants sitting there on
the ground like that, their boots right in the pants, and they
get up in like less than 90 seconds, they're completely suited and
driving away. How long would it take you to find your keys? They're not there, they're not
there, pocketbook three hours later. Not these pants. Not these pants. Not these pants.
Where are they? Oh, Abigail had the keys. Oh,
no. Not in this toy box. Not in this toy box. There they
are in the fourth drawer. Well, you're dead. I mean, you
know. How y'all laughing? Y'all know what I'm talking about.
Yeah. And there's that half-eaten Pop-Tart we couldn't find in
the pocket book. That's why men don't carry bags,
because they'll be full of junk. So sleeping means to be blinded. When we're asleep, we can't see.
If we're in certain states of our sleep cycle, we can't even
hear noises. We're not aware of them. This
is the imagery that Paul wants his readers to understand. This
is what the Word of God wants us to see. We are not like them. We are not unaware. We are not
blind. We are not sitting around, resting,
relaxed, with no understanding that the judgment of God is coming.
We are not unprepared because we are finding ourselves in Christ
and in His righteousness. So we are prepared. We are spiritually
prepared. We are morally prepared. We are
ethically prepared. We don't have a lackadaisical
attitude about life. We don't just say, oh well, eat,
drink, for tomorrow we die. We don't say like these people
up here who sleep, who say, oh, peace and joy and happiness. Our life's good. Let's just eat,
drink and be merry. Nothing's coming. Nothing to
worry about. We're not worried, but we're
not asleep. We know the truth. We know the
truth of judgment. We know the truth of grace. We
know the truth of the possession of every human being alive, except
that the grace of God reached them through the preaching of
the gospel. And so therefore, we do not sleep. We are not blinded
to that reality. We know all well what is truth. The thief comes and surprises
those who are asleep. Jesus Christ comes for His bride
and we have no fear. What is this really talking about?
Let me propose something. In Ephesians 5, I've already
been there in chapter 5 verse 8, but in chapter 5 verse 14
it says this, For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore,
it says, Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ
will shine upon them. So the idea, there's two ideas
about the use of the word sleep in this text in chapter 4 and
5. One is, it's used for those who have died in the flesh. And
they have no fear, and we should have no fear because they will
be raised to life and they're alive with Christ right now.
But in their flesh, they will be raised to life. And secondly,
there are those who sleep who are still living. Who were dead
in their sin. Yet they have life in their bodies.
They're dead men walking. They're night walkers. They're
dead. Zombies, I guess. If I were a megachurch back in
the year, I'd have showed a clip from The Walking Dead or something
right here. than anything that is visible
as light. Awake or asleep or arisen or dead. We've been raised
to life through the Gospel. We've been given life in Jesus
Christ. It is not I who live, Paul says, but Christ who lives
within me. So we are not those who are asleep. I believe that this is talking
about how we see the world. Our view of the world. The world
in which we live. Our worldview. I was having a
conversation last night with one of my daughters about worldviews. And she's disenfranchised right
now. with the reality of how things are. Everything that she
thought would be the world, everybody who cared. Oh wow, these people
aren't really like that at all. It's heartbreaking when you come
to that reality. So then the question comes, as human beings,
when we see this, we go, well, then what are we supposed to
believe? Well, we've got to find that absolute truth. We've got
to decide, do we believe the Bible as the platform for all
knowledge? Do we believe that the Word of
God is, at its core, absolute? Not relative. not diverse in
interpretation, but absolute. And if so, then we filter everything
we see, everything we think, everything that we believe, everything
that we encounter through that, and therefore our worldview is
framed by truth rather than experience. Our life speaks to us, our mind
speaks to us in this life based on what the Bible says is true
versus on what we see is true. Paul tells the Romans that same
thing, to be what? Renewed in the mind, not conformed
to the world. Paul tells the Ephesians, you
have learned Christ, have you not? This way, learn Christ. We see Titus and other places
where it talks about the knowledge of God. We see Paul telling the
Corinthians that how do we deal with, and even the Philippians,
how do we deal with the stresses of this world, with what we see
as true in this world that conflicts with that which the Scripture
teaches. We don't put our eyes on that which is temporal. We
put our eyes and our hearts and our minds on that which is eternal,
so we're not looking at all this wasted, already dead world. We're
not asleep anymore. We're not in the matrix. We're
not stuck in this fantasy land. We're not Alice in the Hole.
We're not in Wonderland. We're awake and we're present
and we know what is true. And when our loved ones die,
we don't weep as those who have no hope, because the world says
it's over, but the Word says it's just beginning. When we
get that bad report, you have no more time to live than this,
we don't sit down in horror. Though we may grieve, we do not
grieve hopelessly. We grieve joyously. Because our body and our mind
says it's over, it's terrible, but Jesus says in your sufferings
you're made like me. You're being sanctified. This is for your good and my
glory. Your joy will be full here in this suffering. You see this world view? Oh,
horror, horror, horror. People are dying. People are
being massacred. People are being killed. It's horrible. It's wicked.
It's evil. But we're not moved by that to
a corner. We stand firm. We're not asleep. We're aware
that though all this takes place, there's a God in heaven who rules
it sovereignly with His eternal decrees. And that before there
was ever light to be seen, before there was ever water to be heard,
before there was ever life on this planet and in this universe,
God decreed all of it. We have nothing to fear. We are
awake. Naudously. Be awake. Pay attention,
Paul is saying. Pay attention to the reality
of the coming judgment. Pay attention to the truth of
the grace of the gospel. Pay attention to the certainty
of His coming to receive us. Pay attention to the holiness
that is ours in Christ Jesus. Pay attention to temptation as
it comes. Fight it with truth. Guard against
error. Keep your lamps lit and then
full of oil. Keep your loins girded and be
ready for action. Jesus tells the church in Genesis,
in Revelation 3, wake up and strengthen what remains
and is about to die. For I have not found your works
complete in the sight of my God. Wake up! Do not sleep. Be awake. What does it mean? I'm still confused. Pray. You
know why we pray? Because we're mindful of the
truth of what the Word of God teaches. Well, I don't have time
to pray. Let me tell you something, friends.
I want you to go and I want you to write down everything you
think about for the next two days. Constantly. Everything
on your mind. Every thought that comes to mind.
Peas or rice? Write it down. Black shoes, blue
shoes. 75, 73, 81. Sweat or lose my money. I mean,
whatever you think about, I want you to write it down and see
just how much you get done. You'll do nothing all day but
write. We think, we talk to ourselves, we contemplate, we have conversations
in our mind. We go to bed, we're considering. We've got time to pray. We can
talk to ourselves. We can talk to our Creator. Pray without
ceasing. If we're awake, prayer comes
because we're mindful. If I'm asleep, you can sneak
in the room and color on my face. Not as easily as some because
I'm a light sleeper. But every now and then, I get knocked out.
I'm just fatigued. Some people, you can drive a
truck in there, blow the horn, set the house on fire, They wake
up to ashes and thought, what happened? That's the imagery. Christians are not asleep. We
don't miss out. We're not convoluted in our thinking.
We're not misunderstanding the reality of the world in which
we live. We are awake and we are strengthened. And so therefore
we pray. We praise. We have thanksgiving
in our hearts. We fight the good fight of faith.
We're not thinking that every little thing is just normal and
then we have our spiritual things over here. Everything in our
lives as the body of Christ has a spiritual element. So, what shoes to wear? Listen,
don't get absurd, but you know what I mean. But if you can't
be thankful for the shoes that are on your feet, oh well. That seems just over the top.
It isn't over the top when we're thinking about Christ. Even our children thank us every
time they get food. Here you go, honey. I folded your clothes. Thank
you. We're not mindful of Christ. We're not going to thank Him.
Everything comes from Him. All that we have, not just the
spiritual, but all the physical too. We fight the fight of faith.
We are careful to guard the truth. We correct error, kindly, gently,
spiritually. We protect the flock of Christ.
We wake up spiritually. 1 Corinthians 16, 13 and 14 says,
Be watchful. Stand fast in the faith. Acquit
yourselves like men. Be strong. Let all that you do
be done in love. It says not only be awake, but
be sober. Now this imagery here, some people have used it as,
oh yeah, we're talking about alcohol. We're not talking about
alcohol, we're talking about the essence of what alcohol is
and what it does as it relates to being awake and alert. Be
awake and be sober. See, the sober man lives in deep
thought. The sober man lives and exists
awake in great awareness. The drunk man sometimes is aloof,
sometimes is fitted with his own emotions because he can't
discern if he's drunk or not. The sober person lives with joyful
expectation and satisfaction of the soul. The drunk man isn't
satisfied at all. There you go, he drinks. He is a concern with the fleeting
pleasure of the flesh, the sober man. He is a concern with satisfying
his hungers, satisfying his thirst. He's satisfied in the bread of
life and the living water. Why? Because the Spirit of God
in him is giving him earnestness. The sober man has passion for
the gospel. The sober man has a drive to
do all things for the glory and the work of Christ. He is engaged
in his mind about holiness and holy things and eternal things.
which is why John so passionately departs his first epistle with,
keep yourself from idols, beloved little children. Please, keep
yourself from idols. Why? Because idols, like alcohol,
are all in the same. They take our mind off being
joyful and ready for action and dealing with those feelings and
the realities of our world and the lies of the devil and the
temptations and the error and the sick thinking and all of
these things. We are able as sober-minded people to be watchful. and to be ready, prepared, satisfied. We never succumb to pleasing
the flesh, but always find pleasure in the Lord. The sober man is
ready to do the will of the Lord joyfully, for it is not a burden
to him. He doesn't escape the duties
of life with the laxity of drinking. He is mindful, humble, ready,
calm, hopeful, joyful, and thankful. Where'd you get all that? Well,
1 Peter 1.13 comes to mind. Therefore, preparing your hearts
for what? Action. Your minds for action. What does
he say? And being sober minded in this
way, preparing your heart for action, preparing your mind for
action, and sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace
that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's who we are, beloved. Because
those who are asleep, they sleep. Those who get drunk, they're
drunk. And they do it in the darkness. Hidden from the light. Blinded
by the flesh. Ruining their witness. Ruining
their relationships. Ruining their intimacy. Ruining. Ruining. Ruining. Ruining. Ruining. Stacking up judgment. You see
the imagery there? We're either mindful and ready
and prepared and satisfied. And friends, we're not just going
to wake up. Que sera, sera, Jesus is with me. It's like, Jesus
is with me and I need a sword. Jesus is with me and I need a
tank. Lord have mercy, you better get
your hydrogen bomb out. Because I'm at war. It's a war. But even in the battle, we're
not weary of the fight because we are not fighting. Christ is
fighting. Ephesians 6, it tells us all
about that. The armor of God. Paul refers to it here, doesn't
he? But since we belong to the day, let us be sober. We who
are sober, who are watchful, ready, and prepared. Let us be
fitted with the weapons of righteousness, the weapons of the Lord, and
the armor of God. So, therefore, you see that verb,
having. We have already put on in our
war, and we get so wrong on it, Christ has equipped us this day
with the breastplate of faith and love. The breastplate covers
the whole torso, folks. Don't listen to those archaeologists
who try to tell you that there's no back to it. I don't care if
you're running in it or from it. The faith of God has you. Just a side note. The breastplate
covers the torso. And the shoulders. And all that. That imagery that Paul is talking
about helps us to see that we're prepared. The Bible talks about
Goliath as he was fitted in armor and his breastplate was impenetrable. Couldn't stab it, couldn't slice
it. And his helmet covered his head
and the back of his neck and the sides of his face and all
down these things. His shield was huge. His sword
was massive. His boots. all of his armor, he was just
undefeated. And God poked him right in the
forehead with a small little rock and brought this man down. Friends, we are vulnerable if
we are not living by faith. Having put on the breastplate
of faith and love and the helmet of hope of salvation, Oh, it's
another sermon. This is another sermon. Faith
is defensive because it is offensive. What's most offensive? What's
most defensive? Standing and waiting or going
in and taking out the enemy before he comes for you? The latter. Faith is active. Faith is living. Faith is an offensive defense. An aggressive exercise of moving
and trusting in the Lord by His power, by His Word, and standing
firm knowing that Christ has defeated sin and death. We are
not just sitting around here saying, I'm going to live for
Jesus. I'm standing up. I'm standing up. Here I come.
No. Christ stands for me. Christ
stands for me before God the Father, and He advocates for
me when the enemy accuses me. And the enemy tells the truth
of me. You see, the Bible says that
the devil is the accuser of the brethren. But he does lie. But he doesn't lie when he tells
the Lord that I'm a liar, and a thief, and a murderer, and
an adulterer. He doesn't lie. Before the Father is the Advocate,
Jesus Christ the Righteous, who said, No, Father, I became the
liar. I became the murderer. I became
the adulterer. I became the thief. And you crushed
me. And you satisfied your judgment
for those sins. Christ defends us. Christ's righteousness lives
within us. Christ's mind is our mind. Have this mind among you, which
is yours in Christ Jesus. Philippians. Though he was equal
with God, became nothing, a slave. Have this mind. You know, one
of the reasons we so easily fall into the temptation of sin and
pity and anger, because we believe we deserve better, We believe we are more worthy
of praise and more worthy of rightness in this life than Jesus
was. And He is. And He gave of Himself,
became a slave on the cross so that we could become righteous. We are prepared with faith, believing
fully, actively, always in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Faith unto salvation is a supernatural work of God that seals us perfectly
in the presence of God for all of eternity. And though we are
not with Him in our flesh this day, we are with Him in spirit
right now. God indwells us right now. Therefore, we can. We can stand
in the offensive against the world. Faith gives birth to the
fruit of the Spirit of God. Action, sobriety, righteousness,
affection. And the affection that we have
given to us by the love of God, where we love God and we love
Christ, yields the treasure of righteousness. Where the heart
is, reveals the treasure. Where the treasure is, there
is the heart. The hope of salvation in the
mind guards us from the seduction of the temple. The hope of salvation
looking to the eternal guards us from the lies of the enemy.
Guards us from the satisfaction of this world because we walk
in light and we walk by faith and not by sight. Beloved, my
prayer for you is that you would see through the light of the
gospel and that you would believe on
Christ Jesus alone. And that every moment of your
life, as a believer, Why would Paul write this to the Christians
of that day? As a strong warning. There are many of you, and then
out of you, there are some of you who walk in darkness. You
can walk in light, so do so. But there are many who walk in
darkness and who are always in darkness because they are the
darkness. They're the children of darkness. Did Paul say to
condemn them? Did Paul say to walk away from
them? No. Paul teaches us, Jesus teaches
us to preach to them. I'll talk a little bit about
this more next week, but friends, we're in a day and age where
it's wrong and hateful to speak truth. Now, if we are hateful
in our speech, no matter if what it says is true, we're hateful. But the love of God within us
compels us to speak truth. How you live is wrong. What you
believe is wrong. What you're doing is wrong. What
you love is wrong. It's wrong because it defies
the beauty of God and all that He created. It defies the nature
of God Himself. It defies the nature of Jesus
Christ and His good news. And unless you believe on Christ,
not only will you be condemned for all of these things that
you can see, but you will be condemned for all those things
which you cannot see. Look at verse 9. We can be sober and walk in the
light because we belong to the day because we've been given
faith and love and the hope of salvation because, verse 9, 4,
God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through
Jesus Christ our Lord. And that's where I'll leave you. Let's pray. Oh, how sweet is Your gospel,
Father. How sweet is Your mercy. How sweet is Your Word. Father, please do the work that
You intended to do this day in the hearts of all of us who are
burdened and heavy and sometimes unable to really get a handle
on life, help us to see that this is the journey that You've
set before us, that our life is not to be a life of leisure
and simplicity in the context of easygoingness, but Father,
our life is to be a life of joyful war, resting in the sufficiency
of the simplicity of Your love toward us in the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. Though we pray these things this
day, we do not undermine the complexity of the gospel in your
working. But Father, you've not revealed
all of that to us, for what you have revealed to us is simple,
that Jesus Christ is God and He came to suffer and pay for
our sin. And you've raised Him to life. And you've promised your people
by faith that they will live. in Christ. So, Father, bring
us to the place of working. Bring us to the place of trusting.
Bring us to the place of awakenings. Lord, shine the light into the
eyes of those that are asleep this day that they may see and
they may behold the beauty of Your grace. In Jesus' name we
pray. Amen.