If everyone could please turn to 1 Thessalonians 5, I will start reading from verse 1. 1 Thessalonians 5:1-9:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,
I will stop there.
1 Thessalonians 5 is another one of those passages that people go to to prove—they think—that no man will be able to know the time of Christ’s return or the end of the world. There are several verses in the Bible that God has placed there for a particular reason. There can be several reasons, but one of them is to discourage people from looking into the Bible’s information concerning the end of the world, especially the timing of the end of the world. The Bible says here and maybe a place or two elsewhere:
…the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
A thief does not call ahead of time and inform the house owner, “I will be by about 3:00 A.M. to break into your house.” A thief does not do this; and so people say, “Well, you see, Christ is coming as a thief and this means that you cannot know. You just cannot know when the time will be that Jesus returns.”
Pretty much everywhere and in all of the denominations in all of the churches, the church acknowledges that there will be an end, that the Bible does say that this world will have a conclusion, that time one day will stop, that everything going on in this world will come to an end.
This is because we cannot deny this. The Bible shows us in many places that since the fall into sin the world itself has been under the judgment of God and the wrath of God and is subject to destruction, just like mankind who has rebelled against God is subject to an eternal destruction.
So people cannot deny this. They cannot deny this and yet they do not want to think that the end is going to come now in our generation and during our lifetime. After all, the world has been going on almost 2,000 years since Christ went to the cross, so why now? The world has existed for thousands of years, so why now at this time would God want to destroy the world?
I think that the Bible shows that underneath much of the criticism of date setting or putting forth a time when Jesus will return is the idea that many in the churches do not really want the world to end. Many professing Christians are not looking forward to Christ’s return. They are not happy or excited about it or comforted by it.
Look back in 1 Thessalonians 4, the previous chapter. I am going to read a few verses here. Notice how the return of Christ and the rapture and judgment day is looked at by God Himself and how God is stating these things. He is doing so not to bring fear to people but to actually encourage them. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, we read:
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent [or precede] them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
It does not say, “Make them fear” or “Cause people to be anxious and troubled of mind and distressed,” but “Comfort one another.” This is because this is a comfort to the child of God. It is a great comfort to think, “May 21 in 2011 is it. That is it!”
This is because the child of God may have been struggling, even though the believer is joyous and content. He does delight in the Word of God and there are many blessings for God’s people here in this world at this time, but the Bible speaks of this only being a part of our salvation. We have “the earnest of the Spirit” or a down payment on what is to come.
This is like when you put a down payment on a house. It is guaranteed because you have bought it. You left that money on it and so it is going to be your house, but you just cannot wait until you get the whole house and you do not owe a dime. Is this not how it is?
This is what God is saying. This down payment is our inheritance. This is what He has given to the heirs of Christ, which is salvation, an eternal life in a new heaven and a new earth without all the sins and troubles that sin brings along with it. It is a “great reward” that God gives each and every one of His elect people. So, of course, the child of God is excited. They just cannot wait for God to fulfill His Word and His promises and to see this all come to pass.
Along with this, there is sorrow and some sadness for our families, for our neighbors, our friends, our co-workers, and even the person whom we do not know, the stranger on the street. This is because we understand that for these things to come to pass, the Lord is going to have to destroy this world and all of the unsaved people of the world along with it.
However, overall and for the most part, the believer looks excitedly towards this and is thinking, “Wow! Finally! Finally! No more affliction. No more sin and all of the trouble that comes with it,” and on and on and on.
This is a great comfort, but maybe not for every professing Christian. Actually, this is definitely not, because many who profess to be Christians are not really Christians.
However, this is a great comfort to the wife who is in a home with a brute of a husband who is not saved and who gets drunk and beats her and speaks badly of her. Yet God has saved her, and so she keeps seeking refuge again and again in the Bible and going to her prayer closet and praying, “Oh Lord, help me to get through this day. Strengthen me. Help me to love my husband even though he does these things to me.” This is very comforting to her. It is very comforting to know that 18 or so months and then this is all over.
This is also a comfort for the prisoner who is deservedly in prison who has a 20-year sentence or a life sentence, which is such a weight and a burden on him. He realizes these things because he heard the Gospel while he was in prison and God saved him. He realizes that he is getting his just desserts, “This is the punishment for the crime that I did,” but he is now living with that righteous soul that God has given him and it is being vexed day-by-day. We can just imagine what goes on in prison with all of the other prisoners who do not care anything about the Gospel or the Bible. To him or to her, to this person, their response would be, “Wow! This is it! This is it! I cannot wait! How much easier this makes the time from now until then to serve my sentence!” This is a great comfort, a tremendous comfort.
We could think of a thousand different circumstances. For example, the Muslim who hears the Gospel and God converts him into a child of God. However, he is in a Muslim land and in a Muslim home where there is tremendous persecution. On and on and on, this is a great comfort for God’s people.
This is what God means because one of the purposes in revealing this information is to bring comfort to those who are in great tribulation, to those who are at the very end of the world; and yet through His Word, God has opened up this information.
This is as comforting as when Joseph went to his brothers and revealed himself. He told them, “The famine has been two years and it is going to be five more years. In the meantime, I am going to feed and nourish you.”
Do you see how God has established things for His people? It is nothing but a blessing that we specifically know the time when the great tribulation ends and God’s judgment begins. This is a blessing for everyone else, too, even if people do not want to see this as a blessing. It is a blessing to be forewarned, to be given advance notice, even if someone is not a child of God.
Look at Hebrews 11:20:
By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau who were twin brothers. One was God’s elect and the other was not; so God said, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” But Isaac is an earthly father and he loves both of his children. Even though God made a choice and a distinction and He saved one and not the other, Isaac was still hoping and praying for his son Esau; and so he gives them both all of the information that he knows, information that God has given to him “concerning things to come.” And it says that he blessed them with this information, even though one was unsaved.
We do not know who the sheep are or who the goats are, except we do know that those who are remaining in the churches are giving evidence that they may not be the wheat. They are instead giving an appearance of being a tare. They are not obeying God or the Bible. They are staying put in a place where God has commanded them to come out of.
We know this, but still there is hope. This is because it is still the day of salvation. May 21 has not gotten here yet; therefore, it is possible that anyone in a church, from the Pope to a Bishop to a minister to an elder or a deacon or a congregational member sitting in a pew, any one of them potentially could be saved if it were God’s will to draw them out of the church.
We do not know who is going to be saved or not saved and so we share with everyone, “Here is the news. This is what we have learned from the Bible.” For some people, this is the worst news possible, “My life is going to be interrupted. My life! I have not even done hardly any of the things that I wanted to do.”
Well, to tell you the truth, in all probability you could go through your whole life and not accomplish many of the things that you actually wanted to accomplish or do the things that you actually wanted to do. This is the experience of most people.
You see, God is not going to prolong this earth and keep this world operating for any individual or group of individuals so that they can accomplish their desires for an education or a career or a family or for the opportunity to possess things. God is not going to continue this world for one moment in order for someone to satisfy what in all probability is more of a lust than a desire or a legitimate want in many cases. It is just things that man wants as he has entered into rebellion against God, and God is not going to continue it. The only reason that this world has continued and why the Lord has been longsuffering is because of salvation.
2 Peter 3:15 tells us this. It says:
And account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation…
He is longsuffering because He is waiting for “the early and latter rain” in order to bring forth “the precious fruit.” “And account” means that this is how we can understand the longsuffering of our God. It is for one purpose only, which is salvation. When He finishes His salvation plan, there will be no more longsuffering. “Immediately he putteth in the sickle” once the fruit is ready, and then we have judgment day.
We know that this day is coming. What this means is that this great multitude whom God intends to save will have been saved by May 21 in 2011. There is then no purpose any longer for allowing the world to continue on.
This will interrupt everything, all the plans of man. Vacations for the summer? This is going to be in May in 2011. It will be in the spring. Do not make arrangements for Ocean City. Do not bother to make any kind of arrangements for Florida during that summer. Those are short-term plans and people also have long-term plans like retirement, retiring at 62 or 65 or 70 and putting everything away for a day that they are never even going to get close to coming to.
It would be much wiser to take a look at your life and your plans and factor in that you have seen the Great Physician. Just like a doctor tells a patient that they have so long to live, God the Great Physician has given us the truth that we have from now until then to live out our lives and to continue to live in this world. Every day is very important because we know that our days are numbered and are fast elapsing. Just like sand in an hourglass, it is running out. There are a few grains left and then that is it. There will be no more time. As it says in Revelation, “there should be time no longer.” There is no more time.
Of course for the believer, we are aware of this. This really is leading us to pray that the Lord would help us to redeem the time, to use our resources and our time and our lives more for what God would have us to do.
I wanted to read 1 Thessalonians 4 because we see that leading into chapter 5, it is a discussion on the rapture and of the resurrection of God’s people. Then in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-2, we read:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
This speaks of “the times and the seasons.” Again, God is establishing the same context from the previous chapter.
I wanted to point this out because some people say that in the later verses where it is speaking of people who are in the dark, this is referring to Christ coming as a thief for them. For the people who are in the light, they say that Christ is not coming as a thief for them. Some people are trying to say that this is only concerning salvation. If you are saved, then you are in the light; if you are not saved, then you are in the dark—and that is it.
They are trying to indicate that this has nothing to do with knowing the time or the day of judgment, which goes contrary to the whole context set in the previous chapter of the rapture and the resurrection and what is established in the first couple of verses of 1 Thessalonians 5, which refers to “the times and the seasons” and that “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief.”
Of course this has to do with understanding “time and judgment,” understanding when it will take place, and God’s people will understand this. They are in the light and they can see. Failing to understand or to recognize that God has appointed a day in which to judge the world and that He has made this day known means that certain people are in darkness. It is those whom the thief comes for, for those who are in darkness.
We can carry this further to mean, of course, that those who are in the light are those who are saved and that those who are in darkness are those who are not saved, but this is not the main point that God is trying to make. He is saying that His people will understand.
Let us go to Acts 1 and look at a couple of verses dealing with the question of times and seasons. It says in Acts 1:7:
And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons…
So people say, “See? You keep bringing up this date! It is not for you to know!”
This is just like what we read in Matthew 24:36, which says:
But of that day and hour knoweth no man…
So they say, “Why are you so stubborn?” We are stubborn because we have to read the whole Bible. We have to read everything that God says about times and seasons and about knowing or not being able to know when He is coming.
In Acts 1:7, it is important to know that the word “you” is in the genitive case and it means “of you.” Again, Acts 1:7:
And he said unto them, It is not [of] you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
God knows, right? Does not God know when He is going to destroy the world? Definitely! He knows. He knows. It is in His power. It is under His authority and control, and He did not reveal this. For centuries, He did not disclose this even to His people. This is because He tells us in Daniel, “seal the book, even to the time of the end.” It was not for His people to know during the church age when this time would come. It was in the Father’s power and under His control. If He were pleased to do so, He could have revealed this information to His people.
This is just as we read in 1 Corinthians 2:11:
For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.
You and I do not know a thing about the Bible, about spiritual things, the things of God. We do not have any idea. If left to ourselves, if man is left to his natural mind when he looks at the Word of God, what will he do? Well, he will have a gospel, but it will be a false gospel. He will have doctrines, but they will be false doctrines.
This is exactly what we see in the churches today because they are left to themselves. It is the natural mind that is coming to the Bible and trying to understand an infinite mind who gave us this Word, the Bible. Therefore, they do not know the things of God.
But look at 1 Corinthians 2:12:
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
The Lord gives us His Spirit and we begin to understand Scripture. We begin to see and to know what the Bible is teaching on this point or on that point. It was in God’s control and then He imparted this knowledge. He gave us eyes to see and ears to hear. He shed the light on His Word, which enabled His people to finally understand it. Anyone who does not receive God’s Spirit cannot understand. This is an impossibility, because they are still in the dark.
Have you ever picked up a book at midnight when there were no lights on at all? Maybe if you had really good eyesight and you stared and you stared, you would be able to make out a couple of words, but try reading a lot at that time. Most people would not be able to see very well in the dark. They would not be able to read 1 Thessalonians in the dark at midnight and be able to tell someone what it meant. Read Matthew or Luke or Revelation or Ezekiel or Daniel in the dark. What will you be able to tell me about those books? You will not be able to tell me very much because you needed to have the light on in order to see what God had written.
This is just physically a good analogy of how things are spiritually. Christ is the light of the world. If He enters into us, then we have light and He guides us. The Holy Spirit leads us step-by-step along the path of life, the narrow way. He will lead us into a proper understanding of the Word of God. However, if we do not have the Holy Spirit, then we are in darkness.
This is the whole idea in Matthew 25 with the ten virgins who have lamps that are without oil. God’s people, the wise virgins, have oil in their lamps, and so they can light their lamps and see. The foolish virgins do not have any oil, they cannot light their lamps, and they cannot see. This led to them being locked out when the bridegroom came. They could not enter in. They were not part of the Bride of Christ.
I want to look at one more thing in Acts. Acts 1:7 says:
…the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
Then Acts 1:8 says:
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you…
Again, this is the same idea. It is a different Greek word for “power,” but it is giving us the same idea. It is in God’s hands when a person becomes saved. They will have some understanding during the church age; but now at the end, God is opening up all things that He wants His people to know concerning “time and judgment” and other things. This is just simply a matter of Jesus opening up the understanding of a person.
Back to 1 Thessalonians 5:1, we read:
But of the times and the seasons, brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you.
If you look at 1 Thessalonians 4:9, this is a similar verse:
But as touching brotherly love ye need not that I write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.
So this has the same idea. 1 Thessalonians 5:1 says:
…ye have no need that I write unto you.
And 1 Thessalonians 4:9 said:
…touching [or concerning] brotherly love…
This is because it is obvious that the Bible teaches that we are to love one another. We are to have “brotherly love.” The Apostle Paul who is writing under the inspiration of God is saying that there is no need for him to make this statement because it is obvious elsewhere in the Bible, many places in the Bible, that we are to love one another.
This is the same idea concerning “time and judgment.” It is telling us that this is already in the Bible. It is in the Bible. He is saying, “I do not really need to address this because the information concerning times and seasons is contained in the Word of God, the Bible.”
And this is where we found this information. No one received a dream. Someone may have received a dream, but no true believer received a dream with May 21, 2011 circled in red on a calendar indicating that this is why this date is so important and that this is why it is judgment day.
No, that was not why or how we came to this date. It was through the Bible. It was through studying the Bible. That is how all of this information was derived and we can now present this to people and tell them that this verse compared with that verse was how we were able to come to learn this and to know this.
This is one big reason why people should at least give this a fair hearing. They should at least say, “Okay, I am going to get the book We Are Almost There! or Time Has an End, or I am going to listen to the ‘Open Forum’ and the Bible studies. I am going to check this out to see if this is so.”
This is the bare minimum that a person ought to do because this is coming from the right source. This is not coming from additional revelation. This is not based on a tongue or a dream or a voice from Heaven. This is all from the Bible, which is the Word of God.
Of course God possesses the knowledge of when the end will be. It is not beyond Him to put this information in the Bible where it could lie dormant for a period of time and then open it up at the proper time according to His overall plan. Yet people make it sound like this is way beyond God.
The infinite God who inhabits eternity, who spoke and brought this world and universe into being, I think can handle giving His prophets of old information that they themselves did not understand, and then store it up like grain, just as Joseph did until the right time, and then open up the storehouse to give it to His people.
Is this beyond God? Someone has a low opinion of the power of God and His ability if they think that He could not do something like this, especially when He tells us in the Bible that this is what He did. In the book of Daniel, He said, “O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end.”
Of course, God was just using Daniel. Daniel did not have the power to seal up the Bible, but God did. He wrapped it in seven seals, spiritually speaking, and those seals would not come off until the time of the end, until our time, this day. And we were not the ones who could take them off even then. God had to take them off. He unsealed the Book. He is the One who is giving us this information that is so exact to where we know the year, the month, and the day of the end of the world, just like Noah knew the year, the month, and the day of the flood. This is all in God’s hands and He has worked this out according to His perfect will.
Then 1 Thessalonians 5:2 says:
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
So many Christians insist that Christ is coming as a thief. They say, “I do not want to read your tract. I do not want to check it out. I read the Bible and the Bible says that He is coming as a thief and that no man can know—period!” This is what they have to say and then they just cut if off right there.
The tragic thing is that He is coming as a thief. If that person who makes this kind of statement continues with this mindset, Christ will come as a thief for that person. He will come at a time unexpected, at an hour unaware, and he will catch them by surprise, suddenly. At that point, they will realize the truth. They will realize that they heard this and that they dismissed it.
How does a thief come? We mentioned that he comes late at night, in the dark. But does a thief come to give gifts? Does a thief come to give good things to people? Does a thief come to bless in any way?
This is the mindset that people have, “Christ is coming as a thief and then He is going to give me my eternal reward. When He comes as a thief, He is going to lift me up into Heaven and I will have eternal life forevermore.”
But is this what a thief does? What does a thief do when he comes? A thief kills and destroys.
Let us go to John 10. The Bible tells us that Jesus is coming as a thief. This is a fact. But in John 10, the Lord gives us a little bit better understanding of what a thief does when he comes. In John 10:9, we read:
I am the door…
This is Christ and this door is shut on May 21, 2011.
…by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy:
Then Jesus goes on to speak about His first coming:
…I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
But a thief comes to do terrible things. A thief comes “to kill, and to destroy,” suddenly.
This is what 1 Thessalonians 5:3 is saying:
For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
This is the day of the Lord and this is when He comes as a thief in the night. However, the thief is bringing “sudden destruction” and “they shall not escape.”
Where is the idea that the thief is coming to take His people into Heaven to give them such great eternal blessings and rewards?
We read in 1 Thessalonians 5:4:
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
God’s people are not going to be caught off-guard like a thief. Jesus will not come “as a thief” for them because they have been watching in the Bible. They have been keeping watch in the Scriptures. They have been studying the Word of God.
God’s people have done this throughout the generations. But now, following the same mandate that Jesus gave in the first century A.D., God’s people read the Bible and they now understand and see when the thief is coming. We know that Christ is coming for judgment on May 21.
Therefore, since we have this information, the Lord says in 1 Thessalonians 5:4-5:
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
We can see why some people are in big trouble with God, huge trouble. It is because they are being ignorant of what God is doing. They are not only being ignorant but they are even being hostile towards it and personally insisting, “You cannot know; no man can know; Christ is coming as a thief,” when God says, “Yes, but only for those who are in darkness. For those, I come to destroy and I come to kill. For those, I am coming as a thief, but not for My people.”
Here is where all of the other verses in the Bible come in. For example, it says in Amos 3:7:
Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
He is going to tell them.
We are hearing a great deal about the book of Ecclesiastes today. In Ecclesiastes 8:5, we read:
Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.
The wise virgins have the oil in their lamps. They can see. They can discern. They can understand. The wise will know.
We read in Daniel 12:9:
And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
Verse 10 is speaking of the end. Daniel 12:10:
Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand.
Light/darkness, oil/no oil: the wise understand but the wicked do not understand. They cannot because they are trying to read a Book, the most complicated Book in all of the world, in the dark!
Try reading a medical journal in the dark or a law book in the dark. The Bible is far more complicated than anything like that because this is the mind of God, and yet people are trying to look at it while they are still in darkness. This is why they are going to come up with a great many wrong ideas and thoughts.
Proverbs 28:5 says:
Evil [or wicked] men understand not judgment: but they that seek JEHOVAH understand all.
Again we see a contrast, one against the other. God takes care of His people. He reveals these things to His people. Not so for evil men. Who is evil? Terrorists are evil and murderers are evil, but so is every human being. The moment that we break the Law of God, that is evil and we become evil.
So this is referring to evil men who are still in their sins because they have not found a Saviour. God has not saved them and so they “understand not judgment.” They do not have this ability to discern “time and judgment” as God’s people do.
Regarding false teachers or the unsaved in the churches, it says in 2 Peter 2:12:
But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not…
Here is the explanation for all of the mockers and the revilers and all of those who are so quick to put down the idea that anyone can know the end of the world. They do not understand because they are in spiritual darkness. Because they do not understand, they “speak evil of the things that they understand not.”
This is what God tells us. He is the One who knows what is going on in the hearts of men and He can see things very clearly that we cannot see. This explains all of the mockery and the easy things that people like to say.
It is amazing how people are able to put down information that they have not checked out themselves. They have not looked at this, and yet this same person can be very respectful of a doctor because the doctor knows medicine. The doctor knows the subject of medicine. He went to college and he went to medical school and he is respected because of all of his learning, and there are many other occupations and professions that people have where they have had to do a great deal of study and learning.
However, we have a person like Mr. Camping who has studied for fifty plus years in the Bible and only the Bible, just the Bible and nothing else. Then we have someone who goes to church after a couple of Sundays and hears his pastor say, “No man knows the day or hour,” and he does not even bother to check this out himself. This man will say, “You cannot know.”
Well, how much study have they put into the Bible? How much diligence have they put into studying the Scriptures and checking the Greek and the Hebrew and making sure that all of their conclusions harmonize? How many years? Even pastors, how many years have they done this? Rather than comparing Scripture with Scripture, pastors compare Calvin with Luther.
I remember having a pastor who was a very well-respected pastor in the Philadelphia area. He was really lifted up as a knowledgeable man of the Word of God. Yet without fail, for every sermon on whatever verse that he was on, he would spend 10-15 minutes presenting the position of a saint of old, someone from the past who in all likelihood was saved, someone who presented himself to be a faithful child of God. Then he would give a contrary position for another 10-15 minutes. Then he would conclude by saying, “Now here is what I think.” This would be the essence of his study. This was to be the Gospel, the Word of God that was being taught to the people.
How much study do pastors actually and honestly put into the Bible itself without going to commentaries and other theological books? I think that it is very little, very little. Yet they are quick to say, “No man knows.”
Of course, anyone can say this because this is a superficial understanding of what the verse is saying. They are not checking out this statement against everything else in the Bible.
Going back to 1 Thessalonians 5, I was hoping to get into a lot of these words. Once again, we read in 1 Thessalonians 5:2:
For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.
Let us look at one last verse concerning this in Revelation 3:3, which says:
Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee.
This is conditional. He comes as a thief if you do not watch, but Jesus said, “Watch!” We do not watch on our roof. That is not where we look for the return of Christ. We do not look there. That is not where we watch. We watch in the Bible. We are told to “watch therefore.”
So you keep studying, you keep checking it out, because God says that if you do not do this, if you fail to do this, if you accept the conclusion that the Reformers gave 400 years ago that you are not to understand “time and judgment,” that God has forbidden this and that you just cannot look into these things, if you have done this, then you are not watching. You are not doing what Christ would have you to do. Or if you are listening to your denomination, your church, your pastor, etc., you are not watching, because it is only in the Bible that you are to watch.
Again, Revelation 3:3 says:
…If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief…
The implication is what happens if you do watch? The implication is that if you do watch, then He will not come on you as a thief.
Because the Lord has given us so much precise information at this time, I do not think it but I know that He has forewarned His people of things that He is about to do. However, many are going to be caught unaware on that day.
How can they be caught unaware when they heard, when they knew that this was being proclaimed for so many years? How can the Bible say that it will be a “sudden destruction”? How can God say this?
Go back to Proverbs 29. I just want to look at one verse there. We read in Proverbs 29:1:
He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
Do you see what I see in this verse? What is the problem with this verse?
Concerning being suddenly destroyed, we read about this in 1 Thessalonians 5. Those who are not watching are saying that Christ is coming as a thief and they are going to be facing “sudden destruction.” Proverbs 29 is telling us the same thing, using the same words against those who are “often reproved.”
So instead of taking reproof and correction, they continue on in their sin. They continue on doing what God is displeased with. As a result, they will be suddenly destroyed.
But if you are “often reproved,” how can it be “sudden destruction”? Did God not warn and warn and warn? Is this not what He is telling us when He is saying that we are “often reproved”?
2 Timothy 3:16 says:
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction…
The Word of God itself is the reproof that reproves us individually. We know when we are involved with sin because the Bible convicts us, does it not? It reproves us. We know that it is wrong. Yet, as John was saying earlier, some people have a very difficult time and they continue on in the same sin, and the same Word of God that reproved us the first time that we did it is reproving us the 100th time or the 1000th time, and we are oft reproved.
The Bible is very serious when it tells us to repent and to turn from our sins. Yet God is gracious, God is longsuffering, and He is patient. He asks us in one place, “Knoweth not the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” This is one of the things that the Word is accomplishing in the lives of the elect, but not in everyone else.
But, you see, God keeps on reproving. Do we know this? Yes. Yes, we know this. We can understand what He is doing. But there comes a time in an individual’s life when on a particular morning they did that same sin, whatever it was, and then that night they died. The Lord came and took away their soul.
They had been “often reproved,” again and again and again, and yet they remained in sin until death, which ended it. There is no more mercy, no more days of salvation for any person who dies, no more sending forth the Gospel into that individual’s life. It is done.
God has judged people in this way all throughout history. He has also said the same thing about Israel in 2 Kings 17. In 2 Kings 17, I wanted to read this whole passage, but I do not think that I will have the time. We read in 2 Kings 17:13-14:
Yet JEHOVAH testified against Israel, and against Judah, by all the prophets, and by all the seers, saying, Turn ye from your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my statutes, according to all the law which I commanded your fathers, and which I sent to you by my servants the prophets. Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks…
This statement is also in Proverbs 29:1:
He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed…
Here, God is addressing the nation of Israel in the north. They rejected His statutes, as we read in 2 Kings 17:14-15:
Notwithstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks, like to the neck of their fathers, that did not believe in JEHOVAH their God. And they rejected his statutes…
This is referring to the Bible.
…and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and his testimonies which he testified against them; and they followed vanity, and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them…
Then we read in 2 Kings 17:16:
And they left all the commandments of JEHOVAH their God, and made them molten images, even two calves, and made a grove, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served Baal.
Then 2 Kings 17:18 is where we read of the result:
Therefore JEHOVAH was very angry with Israel, and removed them out of his sight: there was none left but the tribe of Judah only.
He sent His prophets repeatedly to warn them again and again with the Word of God. Then finally God judged them. He took them away.
We just read of Israel. 2 Chronicles 36 tells us about Judah. We read in 2 Chronicles 36:14-16:
Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of JEHOVAH which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And JEHOVAH God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place: But they mocked the messengers of God…
This would be representative of the believer bringing the Gospel into the world.
But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of JEHOVAH arose against his people, till there was no remedy.
This is also in Proverbs 29:1:
He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
There is no remedy. The word “remedy” means “healing” or “curing.” It has to do with what it sounds like, with medicine, medicine that is able to help heal a person. Jesus, the Great Physician, has that balm of Gilead that He can apply to the sin-sick soul to heal, to save, and to wash away all the sins of that individual.
But there comes a point when there is no more remedy, as we read, “Is there no balm in Gilead?” No, there is no more balm in the churches and congregations. There is no balm in Israel of old or in Judah of old.
God saw their sin and put up with their sin for a long time really, as far as we are concerned and from our perspective. Then He suddenly destroyed them and they were caught off-guard.
How could Israel have been suddenly destroyed? How could Judah have been suddenly destroyed? Jeremiah kept telling them again and again and again what God was about to do in bringing the Babylonians against them, and yet they were suddenly destroyed.
One last passage that I would like to look at is in Matthew 24. Matthew 24 is the account that gives us some information about the flood. I will begin reading in Matthew 24:36:
But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.
This is as Acts 1:7 told us. This is in the Father’s power.
Then we read in Matthew 24:37-39:
But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Those poor people must not have been warned. They must not have heard that a flood was coming. They must not have known that God had told Noah that it would be 120 years and then He would bring the flood. They must not have heard when God went to Noah and said, “Yet seven days and this will be the year, the month, and the date of the flood.” They must not have known.
Is this true of the people of Noah’s day? Were they not warned? Noah was “a preacher of righteousness” and he was building an ark somewhere, probably in his backyard. He was building this huge craft and he would have told anyone who would have wanted to listen. He would have told people that did not even want to listen, “Here is what God has warned me about and here is what is going to happen,” and yet they did not believe it.
You see, when it says that they “knew not,” it is not that they did not hear this. It is that they did not understand this as truth. They did not believe it. They did not act upon it—until the flood came.
When the waters of heaven opened, as well as the waters from beneath, and this torrent came upon the world of that day, they could then see that the amount of water that was coming upon the earth was just incredible, “We have never seen anything like this! Noah warned about this on this very day.”
You see, once they could feel the rain and once they could touch it and see it and hear it and all of their senses could gather that this was happening, then they knew. Then they knew, and yet God did forewarn them through Noah.
Then He tells us in Matthew 24:39:
…so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
As this message of May 21, 2011 goes into all of the world, people are not going to act upon it, except for those whom God draws. The unsaved are going to continue on—just like the people of Noah’s day—until the ground begins to shake and until the graves begin to open and until they see God’s people ascending up into Heaven to be with the Lord. They will continue on—until it is shown to be fact.
It is then that they will say, “I can see it. I can hear the screams. My senses perceive that this is true, this is happening. This is occurring and this means that the Bible was true. God’s people were true as they were warning me about this and sharing this information with me.” It is then that they will know. They will know the month, the day, the year, and the hour. They will have all of it figured out. It is then when there will be the cries of “Lord, Lord!” from all of these people trying to get into Heaven.
In Luke 13:24, it says:
Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.
There is another verse in Matthew that speaks of the narrow way that few find and the broad way that many are going in thereat to destruction. That is a different verse than this. This verse is saying that many are going to seek to go in “at the strait gate.” This is not what it says in the Gospel of Matthew. It says there that many are quite happy (I am adding this part) to go down the road to destruction, that wide way that is open to all of the religions of the world and all the false gospels of Christianity. They are content there.
It is only when the door is shut, as Luke 13 goes on to describe in the next verse, that many will then desire to go through that straight gate, the true Gospel way, the one that God has been revealing in these last days. This is because they will then see it.
Well, Jesus told Thomas, “You believe because you can see Me and because you can feel Me, and yet blessed are those who believe who have not seen.” And as we read about Noah, this is what faith is, is it not?
In Hebrews 11:7, we read:
By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet…
Being warned of things not seen, Noah built the ark. He trusted God and He believed God, like the Ninevites who only heard one sentence, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
Man’s mind can come up with a thousand reasons as to why he does not have to listen to this warning, but faith, the faith that God gives to His people, can hear this. Faith sees this. Faith understands that this is so and that this is going to happen. This is because God has opened up the eyes of His people and He is leading them in the light towards this day.
Let us have a word of prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we do thank You for Your Word and for forewarning us. This is troubling information for this world. It is very difficult to let go of this world, and yet we know that Your people are given a hope for a new heaven and a new earth, a new world. Therefore, we are not troubled by losing another 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 years of life in this world, especially since life in this world is full of trouble and evil. It is full of things that are contrary to You and Your Word. Father, we know that it is much easier for a child of God to agree with You on this in Your Word and to understand it and to even be comforted by it. On the other hand, we also know that if anyone is not saved, this world is all that they know; this is all that they can really perceive and understand, and we realize that they do not want to give this up. Father, we do thank You that this is not a matter of our will and our wants and our desires, but You will make Your people willing in the day of Your power and draw them to Yourself, even against their will. So we do pray that You would open up the eyes of our children that they might see the day that they are living in and understand the time, that it is very short. May You guide them step-by-step into that narrow way. Father, we pray that You would have mercy on anyone here who may not yet be a child of God. We ask that You would bless Your Word to their hearts and minds and that You would give them life. Father, we pray for wisdom today. In everything that we do, please give us wisdom towards every person in every situation. May You open up a door that no man can shut and shut the door on the enemy that none can open. Father, we thank You once again for Your Word. We pray these things in Christ’s Name. Amen.
(There was no question/answer session pertaining to this study.)