Running To Win

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Let us run with endurance, the race that is set before us. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. The Christian knows that this world is not his home. He's just passing through.

In First Thessalonians, we learn of the glorious return of Jesus to set right all that is wrong and to take his followers to be with him. As we wait, the church is called to be watchful.

From The Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line.

Dave: Pastor Lutzer, we're told that we'll not know the day or the hour of the return of Christ. But can't we sense if we are in the times and seasons of his coming?

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, I think we can, but we have to be very careful. I've said this many times before that when it comes to prophecy, it is best to say much too little than a little too much.

Because there have been those who have predicted even the date or the era in which Christ is going to come, and they were wrong. But here's the point. Whether Christ comes in the next few days or weeks or years, or if he comes 50 years from now, it matters not.

We will stand at the judgment seat of Jesus Christ, will be welcomed into his presence, but at the same time evaluated by whether or not we were faithful in what he gave us. Let me ask you a question. Do you have regrets in your life? I think all of us do.

Would you like to see those regrets turned into a time of restoration and fellowship with Christ? And that those regrets no longer have to hinder you in your spiritual walk?

At the end of this message, I'm going to mention to you a book I've written entitled Managing Your Emotions, and that happens to be one of the chapters. It has to do with regret to restoration. And I'll be giving you some contact info.

But for now, let us listen and remind ourselves that Jesus Christ is going to come. We don't know when, but we do know this. It's one day closer than it was yesterday.

When God comes to church, we become witnesses for our Lord. You say, "Well, God is always coming to church." Yes, most assuredly, but the work of the Holy Spirit oftentimes is not distributed evenly.

There are times when God comes mightily in power and marriages that were thought to be hopeless suddenly are put back together through repentance and forgiveness and addictions that have been long standing are suddenly their power is broken when God comes.

I've been wanting to tell you the story of what God did in Chicago here in 1858 and I thought that I would do it this message, but I've changed my mind. It is such an important story. I'd like to add a sermon to this series, and so there'll be another message on when God comes to church.

And we'll pick up the last verses of First Thessalonians chapter 5, but also, I need more time to tell you about the prayer meetings that were held and the transformations that took place here in Chicago, which according to one secular historian was called the event of the century. So that will be next time in this series.

Today, we're emphasizing how God came to Thessalonica nearly 2,000 years ago. The Apostle Paul was there for three weeks and shared in the synagogues and there were two categories of people that came to saving faith. One were the Jews who had Moses and the other were the Greeks who were schooled in Aristotle and Plato.

Plato and Aristotle, despite their brilliance, were unable to lead people to ultimate truth, especially their relationship with God. And Moses gave the law, but the means of the Gospel and the coming of Jesus Christ was predicted, but now that Christ had come, these Jews needed to understand that he was the Messiah. And it was these two groups that formed the church.

You can imagine their divisions, you can imagine their different cultures, their different outlooks, but the Gospel brought them together. And then when Timothy went to Thessalonica to find out how the people were doing, he came back and told Paul, "They are doing very well," but he said, "They have some questions and one of the questions that they had was, "What about those who are dying among us?" When the Lord Jesus Christ returns from heaven, what's going to happen to them?"

And if you have your Bibles and you turn to First Thessalonians chapter 4, you'll notice that the Apostle Paul answered and a couple of months ago I spoke specifically on this text, so I shall only refer to it. That's First Thessalonians chapter 4. He says, "Those of us who are living when Jesus returns, we will not precede, go ahead of, those who are dead."

In fact, Paul says, "I am showing you this by the word of the Lord, that the Lord shall descend from heaven with the shout of command and the dead in Christ shall rise first." If you have a friend or relative or a husband or a child who is a believer, they will rise if the Lord should come this week or today. They will rise first and then we shall all be transformed and given brand new bodies. And Paul says, "We shall meet the Lord together in the air."

And so shall we ever be with the Lord. So take heart. Those of you who mourn today, those of you who are lonely, those of you who are wondering whether or not you can continue to put up with all the trouble that is in this world. Eternity is coming and you as a believer will be in the presence of Jesus.

Now, having said that, in chapter 5, and that's actually our text today of First Thessalonians chapter 5, Paul now goes on and tells what's going to happen after the rapture. Remember the sequence, the rapture of the church takes place here, the church goes to heaven, and then there is a period of tribulation, and after that, Jesus comes in glory, and every eye will see him, and when he comes in glory, he will establish his kingdom, but also his second coming, the second aspect of his coming, is going to have connected with it judgment and all manner of different kind of events.

Now, as you know, there are some people who believe that there is only one phase to the second coming. And they try to collapse all of the scriptures into that one phase. I think it is much better to see the coming of Jesus Christ in two phases. First of all, the rapture of the church, then you have the period of tribulation and what we'll be talking about today, the glorious return of Jesus and how we should live in the midst of that, and then the establishment of the kingdom. That's the sequence I think Paul has here.

First Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 1. Now, concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. I, I'm just astounded at that. Paul was in Thessalonica only for three weeks and he taught them so thoroughly about the return of Jesus that he said, "Really, I don't have to go over this, but we will for the sake of review because you already know about the future."

And that shows you the emphasis that Paul put on the return of Jesus. He says, "You know the times," that is, chronos is the Greek word from which we get chronology. "You know the chronology and the seasons," those special epochs in which God works mightily, and you know what it's all going to be about. How many of us know what it's all going to be about?

Then he said, "The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." Whoa, pause here, think, what is the day of the Lord? The day of the Lord is mentioned 19 times in the Old Testament. It is always a time of judgment. It is a time when God works specifically with the nation Israel, when he picks up the timetable of Israel's history, because you know that the final scenario takes place in and around Jerusalem. And all of the passages in the Old Testament regarding the day of the Lord are basically passages of judgment.

Now, if you're here today and you are used to hearing only positive messages, only messages about the love of God and not the judgment and justice of God. This may come to you as a jolt. But let me read the book of Isaiah just a couple of verses to get you climatized as to what the Old Testament says about this day of the Lord.

Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heaven and their constellations will not give their light, the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless. That's the day of the Lord in the Old Testament. Taken from Isaiah chapter 13.

The Bible says it'll come like a thief in the night. A thief coming in the night is never good news. This is not the good news of the rapture, this is the good news of the return of Jesus in glory and in judgment. Not when he comes for his saints, but when he comes with his saints. And so Paul says, "This is the way it's going to be."

Now let me tell you where we're going today so that you can follow me all the way to the station, as it were. What Paul does now in the rest of the verses is, he says that there are basically two classes of people. And as you look over this congregation, you notice all of our differences. Differences because of our location, because of our skin color, because of our backgrounds, whether from wealth or poverty, there are many, many differences, but at the end of the day, there are only two categories of people.

And Paul is going to use this idea of light and darkness. He's going to talk about day people and night people. Now this has nothing to do with being a morning person or an evening person. Have you ever noticed how God often in his infinite sovereignty in marriage seems to put a day person with a night person? And then he's up in heaven smiling and saying, "Work it out, folks, just work it out." That's what God does.

This is a different kind of day person and night person. The Bible says that when you were saved, you're translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Paul says that he was asked by Jesus to preach the Gospel, he says, to turn the Gentiles from darkness into light, that they might experience God's forgiveness and grace. So that's the motif. It's a light and darkness motif.

Now as we go through this passage, I want you to answer this question. Are you a night person or are you a day person? And this will help us to understand where we are in the picture. And for those of you who are investigating Christianity and you're considered to be a seeker, go through this exercise with us to help you to answer the question whether you're a night person or a day person.

And I'd like to give you four contrasts between night people and day people that arise out of this text. That's where we're going. Now, notice, first of all, the first contrast is knowledge versus ignorance. You'll notice it says, "For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, while people are saying, 'There is peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape."

By the way, do you notice how Paul in this passage uses "we-they" terminology? It's the light versus darkness terminology. It's the day people versus the night people. First of all, he says, "The day will not overtake you like a thief." Because the people, the night people are going to be deluded when people say peace and safety. Now let's get the chronology here.

You have the rapture of the church and then you have a period of time in which the nations prepare themselves as according to the scriptural pattern. And during that time of preparation, you have a man by the name of Antichrist who arises. The Antichrist is going to be charismatic, he is going to be persuasive, he is going to be brilliant, and he is going to be satanically evil.

He will guarantee Israel's security and the world will believe him and everybody's going to say peace and safety. Everybody's going to say, "At last we have, we have it." And it's during that period of time when there is this false sense of security that judgment will come. Now, even today, we can tell whether we are night people or day people by what we believe and how gullible we are.

Night people believe in the big lie. The big lie mentioned in Second Thessalonians is basically the deity of man. Night people believe that man is God. Night people fall for new age teaching that tells us that we are essentially gods. It's the lie of Eden. You shall be like God. That we, we run our own lives according to our own schedules, we find our own truth, we find our own reality, and there is no God out there to whom we must answer and we're totally on our own. If you believe that, I can assure you that from the standpoint of the Bible, you're a night person. You're not a day person.

Because day people, day people have a different way of viewing the world. And I've thought about this, why is it that we as Christians view the world differently? A lot of it has to do with our perception of ourselves and others. Night people think of themselves always as better than they are. Night people think to themselves, "Why should God ever judge me? What have I done that's so bad?" Especially when they compare themselves with somebody else.

So night people are always thinking about the innate goodness of man. And there is some goodness, we're actually a mixture of goodness and badness. But night people have a very naive view regarding human nature. They believe treaties. They they don't understand the subtleties of human nature. We understand that we are desperate sinners. And we have stopped self-justification. If you're a light person, if you're a day person, you've stopped self-justification because you know we stand in the presence of God and only Jesus is able to save us. That's what makes you a day person as opposed to a night person.

Let's go on to our second contrast. The other contrast is surprise versus expectancy. You'll notice that Paul says in verse 4, "But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief because you are all children of light." You see, what the world says, when they think of the second coming of Jesus, they don't believe it, they don't look forward to it, and they don't think it's going to happen.

Because they believe in uniformitarianism. I haven't used that word in a long time and I thought it would fit right here. Uniformitarianism is, "As everything has been from the beginning, so it will continue to be forever and ever and ever." "Where is the promise of his coming?" they ask. For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue on as they are.

If you don't believe that Jesus is going to return to earth, I can assure you, you are a night person. Christians not only believe that Jesus is coming so that they won't be caught by surprise because they're expecting it, but they love his appearing. The Apostle Paul says that there is a special crown in fact, symbolically speaking, given to those who who love the appearing of Jesus.

If you're here today and you don't really look forward to seeing Jesus and you really fundamentally do not look forward to his return and you just assume that he not come back, you're a night person. Day people have a love for Jesus that has been implanted in their hearts at their conversion, which makes them view all of these things differently. So that's the second contrast, surprise versus expectancy.

The next is soberness versus drunkenness. Notice it says, "For you are all the children of the light and children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness." Verse 6, "So then let us not sleep as do others, but let us keep awake and be sober." For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, we put on the breastplate of love and faith and hope. So there you have it, you have, you have drunkenness. Now he's not talking about literal drunkenness.

Though that happens too, especially if you're a night person. But he's talking about a spiritual drunkenness that is totally, completely indifferent.

And you know, my dear friend, God has an answer for our deepest longing and our greatest need. If I were to ask you today, what emotion seems to be controlling you? Is it a negative emotion? Is it a positive emotion? I've written a book entitled Managing Your Emotions. The subtitle is God's Good Gifts Gone Wrong.

It is indeed tragic when we discover that instead of being in the passenger seat, the emotions that we have are in the driver's seat. Now this is one of the last days we're making this book available for you, and I encourage you to make sure that you order your copy today. I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because I'm going to be giving you that contact info.

And in advance, I want to thank you so much for your prayers and for your support. But here's what you can do right now. You can go to RTWoffer.com. That's RTWoffer.com. Or call us at 1-888-218-9337. May I emphasize again that this is one of the last days we're making this resource available for you. So right now, go to RTWoffer. Of course, RTWoffer is all one word. Go to RTWoffer.com or pick up the phone and call us at 1-888-218-9337. My desire is whatever negative emotion you have, whether it's disappointment, fear, or anger, that it be set aside so that you and I can run the race of life and do so together successfully.

Guest (Male): It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question you may have about the Bible or the Christian life.