Word of Salvation – October 2025

 

He’s Coming!

 

Sermon by Rev. Dr. Steven Voorwinde on 1Thessalonians 4:13 – 5:11

Scripture Readings: 1Thessalonians 4:13 – 5:11

 

Introduction

Recently my wife and I discovered a new TV show, which has fast become our favourite.  It’s called “Swiss Railway Journeys.”  She loves it because of the beautiful mountain scenery.  I enjoy hearing people speaking Swiss German, which is such a lilting and sing-songy dialect.

For the railway enthusiast the show holds other attractions. How did those Swiss engineers design railways that could get trains well up into the Alps?  How do you get trains to climb mountains?  When you think that Alpine rail started back in the 1850’s, it makes you wonder.  Well, this show has the answers.  With the savvy use of tunnels, viaducts, and bridges, these early engineers achieved the seemingly impossible.  Where the terrain was extra steep, they came up with the idea of cog railways.  This way they could get tourists to some of the highest ski fields in Switzerland.

Another way you could get trains to do remarkable feats, both uphill and down, was to equip them with two locomotives, one at the front and one at the back.  That gives the train extra power to handle heavier loads and to go up steeper gradients.  It also gives the train greater stability.  Going downhill, it gives the driver better control of the train.  It also enables the train to handle sharper curves.  So, you can see that these push-pull locomotives are ideal for mountain settings like the Swiss Alps.

That’s my illustration, but now I’d better come to the point it’s illustrating.  But before we come to that, I want to ask you some personal questions.

 

1. What drives your spiritual life?

What motivates your moral life?

What spurs us on in our communal life as a church?

In other words, what keeps each of us, what keeps all of us, going in the Christian life?

 

1. Is it your love for Jesus?

Is it your gratitude to God for all that he has done for you?

Is it because you know that the Lord will keep you to the end?

These are all good answers.  Love, gratitude, and assurance can genuinely motivate us to live our lives as Christians.  But the New Testament has far more comprehensive reasons for us to stay the course.  The answer comes if we ask an earlier question: What is our place in history according to Scripture?  Between what two major events in biblical history do we live today?  The answer is simple.  We live between the first coming and the second coming of Christ.  These two events should profoundly affect the way we live our lives from day to day.  They drive our spiritual lives.  They motivate our moral lives.  They transform our communal life.

Now to come back to our illustration, one of those locomotives is the first coming of Christ.  That includes especially his death and resurrection, and his ascension.  This is the locomotive that is behind us and that provides the push factor.  The other locomotive is the second coming of Christ, and that includes the resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and the arrival of the new heaven and the new earth.  This is the locomotive that is in front of us, and it provides the pull factor.  The Holy Spirit who was given at Pentecost is the power that keeps everything moving.

Now that, more than anything according to the New Testament, is what keeps the Christian life going.  The first coming of Christ pushes us.  The second coming of Christ pulls us.  And the Holy Spirit supplies the power that drives us.

 

1. Now, let me give you some examples.

 

1. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians devotes most of the first chapter and some of the second to the significance of Christ’s cross and the proclamation of Christ crucified.  Then, near the end of the letter, there is a majestic chapter (chapter 15) on the resurrection of the dead – both Jesus’ resurrection and the future resurrection of believers.  These chapters stand as the two great pylons on which the epistle rests.  Between these two there are all kinds of moral and spiritual instructions – about divisions in the church, about sexual immorality, about idolatry, about worship, about the use of spiritual gifts.  All these issues are worked out in terms of the first and second comings of Christ.

 

1. Or think of the two letters of Peter.  The focus of the first letter is mainly on the first coming of Christ. This informs his instruction to those of his readers who are badly treated and suffer unjustly.  This is what he says, “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps” (1Pet 2:21).  In Peter’s second letter the focus is on the second coming or the day of the Lord. It is then that “the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved” (2Pet 3:10).  This future event has implications for the way you and I live today.  In the very next verse Peter writes, “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness” (vs.11).

 

1. When we come to 1 & 2 Thessalonians the main doctrine that is expounded is that of the second coming of Christ.  In the first letter this comes to its clearest expression in the passage that was read earlier, chapter 4:13 to chapter 5:11.  There have been hints earlier, but here the doctrine comes to full bloom.  We can also be reasonably certain that this is the first time Paul dealt with the subject in any detail. 1Thessalonians is among his earliest epistles.  So, we can expect that here he gives us the basics.  In later letters he will give us further information, such as the future of Israel and the coming of the Antichrist.  For now he is laying the foundations for what is called eschatology, the doctrine of the last things.

We also need to be aware that Paul is doing more here than giving us a theology of the second coming.  His major emphasis is pastoral and practical.  He is addressing two main concerns in the church at Thessalonica:

• Their grief at the death of some of their members (4:13-18).
• How they can be ready for Christ’s return (5:1-11).

 

1. So, let’s first consider how he handles their grief.

 

1. This is how he introduces the topic in vs.13: “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who have fallen asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.”  “Those who have fallen asleep” are of course those who have died.  Sleep was a common metaphor for death in the ancient world.  Those who died had clearly been believers.  But how had these people died?  Whether it was from natural causes or through persecution, we don’t know.  Nor do we know how many people had died as a result.  What we do know is that these deaths had deeply affected the congregation.  Paul does not want their grief to become hopeless grief.

 

1. In the surrounding culture of the day there were plenty of examples of hopeless grief:

 

1. A lady by the name of Irene wrote this letter of comfort to two of her friends, a couple who are grieving the loss of a child:

Irene to Taonnophris and Philo, good comfort.  I am as sorry and weep over the departed one as I wept for Didymas.  And all things, whatever was fitting, I have done, and so has my family.  But, nevertheless, against such things one can do nothing.  Therefore comfort one another (Morris, p.138).

Irene comes to the same conclusion as Paul does at the end of chapter 4.  Both say, “therefore comfort one another,” but Irene’s comfort has no basis.  One writer calls it “a pathetic little conclusion to a letter which reveals all too clearly that she has no comfort to give.” (Morris, p.138).

 

2. Here’s part of another ancient letter of consolation, this time by a man called Demetrius:

Since I happened not to be present to comfort you, I decided to do so by letter.  Bear, then, what has happened to you as lightly as you can, and exhort yourself just as you would exhort someone else.  For you know that reason will make it easier for you to be relieved of your grief with the passage of time (Green, p.216).

Irene and Demetrius were typical of the comfort that the pagan world had to offer in Paul’s time.  Not very much.  There was no hope, just emptiness.

 

3. However, there were some who claimed to have an answer to grief. I am thinking here of the Stoics.  The Roman statesman Seneca lived at almost exactly the same time as Paul.  He had some very clear views about grief.  He taught that “grief is useless and accomplishes nothing whether for oneself or for the person for whom one mourns.  Moreover, since grief is inherently irrational, it is always beneath human dignity.”  In a letter to Marcia, a woman who had been mourning the loss of her son for three years without letting up and with no loss of intensity, he gave her this warning: “Misery feeds on its own bitterness and the pain becomes a kind of perverse pleasure” (1:7).

All of this is classic Stoicism.  Your life must be controlled by reason.  Grief is unreasonable, irrational.  It is caused by wrong thinking.  Think rationally about it and you will soon see that grief serves no purpose.  So, get rid of it!  Be done with it!  That was orthodox Stoicism. It had no room for grief.

 

4. But Paul is no Stoic. He doesn’t say, “Do not grieve.”  Rather, he says, “Do not grieve like those who have no hope.”  By all means grieve but never let it become a hopeless grief.  Don’t let your grief turn into despair.  Yet there was one point where Paul did agree with the Stoics.  Grief can be affected by wrong thinking.  He then proceeds to set their thinking straight, but in a way that would have blown the mind of any practicing Stoic.  You don’t grieve properly by being stoical, but by thinking correctly about the second coming of Christ!

 

1. In vss.14-17 that is exactly what Paul does.  He confronts the problem of hopeless grief by giving his readers a correct understanding of the return of Christ.  He does this in several ways:

 

1. He begins by reminding them of the church’s central confession in vs.14: “For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again. . .!” This was the very first gospel fact that he had taught when he arrived in their city – that Jesus died and rose again (Acts 17:3).  This truth has implications for the future: “Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.”  These major events in Christ’s first coming, his death and resurrection, imply and guarantee his second coming.  When Jesus comes down from heaven, he will come down with all the believers who have died.

 

2. So, Paul has begun by arguing from the church’s central confession. But, now as he continues his argument in vs.15, he bases it on a word from the Lord: “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep” (vs.15).  Paul assures his readers that he is not making this up.  As an apostle he has received this revelation directly from the Lord himself.

Here he announces the comforting truth that neither the Christian dead nor the Christian living will be left behind or excluded in any way.  Those believers who have died and who the Thessalonians were so worried about won’t be separated from Christ, because they will come with him.  Nor will they be separated from the Christian living, because they will be joined by them.  As John Stott says about this verse: “The apostle’s emphasis is on the unbreakable solidarity which the people of Christ enjoy with him and with each other, and which death is utterly unable to destroy” (p.98).

 

3. Then Paul gives more detail in vs.16: “For the Lord himself with descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.” What a marvellous verse this is!  In the clearest and loudest possible way, Jesus announces his arrival and commands the dead to rise.  Notice that “the dead in Christ will rise first.”  The people who the church at Thessalonica were so concerned about will actually have a place of privilege in the grand procession when Christ returns.  Paul slips in this little sentence loaded with comfort for his readers.

It reminds me of the time when God came down to his people in the Old Testament.  That was at Mount Sinai when he was about to give the children of Israel the Ten Commandments.  Everything here is majestic, awesome, and terrifying – Christ’s cry of command, the voice of an archangel, the sound of the trumpet of God.

 

4. We are told what will happen next in vs.17: “Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” What a wonderful reunion this will be!  I am sure all of us have relatives and friends, fellow believers who have gone on ahead of us.  We will be reunited with them in the clouds.  But, above all, we will finally see Jesus when we meet him in the air, and we will be with him forever.

 

1. No wonder Paul can end chapter 4 on such a positive note: “Therefore encourage (or comfort) each other with these words” (vs.18).  When there is a bereavement in the church, Paul calls on the congregation to comfort each other.  But why does he add “with these words”?  Because he doesn’t want us to grieve like those who have no hope, and in these last few verses he has given us the substance of our hope.  Hope is faith looking forward.  And what is our faith looking forward to?  The return of Christ! If that is what we believe, our grief will not be hopeless. It will not be bad grief.  It will be good grief!

But even if you are going through good grief, don’t expect it to be pleasant, and it will take time.  One author has spoken of “grief’s slow wisdom” (Joshua Liebman).  Others have tried to identify the stages of grief:

• One writer identifies three stages – shock, disorganisation, and reorganisation (Jay Adams).
• Others think these categories are too broad and have come up with five – denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance (Elizabeth Kübler-Ross).
• Still others have seen as many as ten stages of grief (Granger Westberg).

So, obviously these experts could not agree among themselves even on what the categories were.  They also had to admit that not everybody goes through the different stages in the same order.  Sometimes a stage might be repeated – perhaps even more than once.  Eventually we were told what we already knew – that grief is different for everyone.  We are all unique in the way we experience grief.  Different cultures will also experience grief differently.

In preparing for this sermon, I read A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis.  I found it a disturbing little book.  It is so raw and so honest, that Lewis first published it under a pen name.  It was only after his death that his name was attached to it.  You see, for most of his life Lewis had been a bachelor.  Then in his late fifties he married Helen Joy Davidman, a brilliant writer and poet, and a true soul mate.  The following year she was diagnosed with bone cancer and later she died.  Their marriage lasted only four years.  Lewis tried to cope as best he could.  So, he did what he did best.  He resorted to writing.  His thoughts.  His feelings.  His pain.  His doubts.  His struggle with God.  It’s all there in black and white in A Grief Observed.

What particularly strikes a Christian reader is his frank discussion of his struggle with God. He calls God “a very absent help in time of trouble” (p.9).  He even begins to wonder whether God might be some kind of Cosmic Sadist.  Otherwise, why at long last would he give Lewis the wonderful gift of marriage for which he had waited so long, only to take it away so soon?  As you read along, you’re tempted to think that Lewis’ faith won’t hold up under the burden of such a heavy bereavement.  Here’s perhaps the greatest Christian writer of the twentieth century, one of the ablest defenders of the faith in an age of scepticism, but is C. S. Lewis so overwhelmed by grief that he will lose his faith in the end?

Finally, Lewis comes around, as he gains fresh insight into the cross and the resurrection.  His unsettling experience reminds us that grief can be so different from person to person, and probably even for the same person in different situations.  So, when someone grieves, don’t expect them just to get over it.  Be patient.  Listen.  As believers, we are all different, but there is one thing we have in common in situations like this.  We all look forward to the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is our hope.

 

• This leads naturally to our next question. How do we prepare for his coming? How can we make sure we are ready when he comes?  This question prepares us for chapter 5.

There are three answers to this question.  There are two wrong answers, which are the concern of vss.1-3; and there is the right answer which is given in vss.4-10.

 

1. We begin, then, with a wrong answer. Paul reminds us:

1. “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.” In other words, no date setting.  Jesus will return suddenly and unexpectedly.  No one knows exactly when he’s going to come back.  Jesus could not have been more emphatic on this point.  Listen to what he told his disciples on the Mount of Olives not long before he died:

• “Concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Matt 24:36).
• Then he told his disciples again just before he ascended into heaven: “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority” (Acts 1:7).

Jesus could not have been clearer.  Then why, pray tell, are there always people who think they are wiser than Jesus?  Just recently, social media was running hot with predictions of Christ’s return.  A South African pastor by the name of Joshua Mhlakela had posted that Jesus would come back on 23 September 2025, the day of the year that coincides with the Old Testament feast of trumpets.  In an interview he was asked whether he was 100% sure.  He boldly declared that he was a billion% sure!

His post had gone viral, and the world’s media picked up the story.  One headline blared, “Panic Blazes through Social Media as Prophecies of Apocalypse Grip Millions.”  There were claims that many had quit their jobs and sold their possessions to prepare for this “final day on earth.”  But, of course, nothing happened!  Jesus himself had given fair warning.  Date setting is not the way to prepare for his return!

 

2. But there is another point to be made here. Not only does Jesus come like a thief, but when he returns there will also be people who won’t be ready.  Paul says that “sudden destruction will come upon them as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (vs.3).  But how can Christ’s coming be both like a thief in the night and like the labour pains of a pregnant woman?  John Stott has again given a wise answer to this question:

“Christ’s coming will be (1) sudden and unexpected (like a burglar in the night), and (2) sudden and unavoidable (like labour at the end of a pregnancy).  In the first case there will be no warning, and in the second no escape” (Stott, Thess, p.109).

There will be no escape.  Here we come to the most difficult part of this sermon.  It’s the part of our passage I am most tempted to soft-pedal or skim over.  There could be people in church this morning on whom sudden destruction will come and there will be no escape.  “There is peace and security,” they say. Let me translate that into everyday Australian: “She’ll be right, mate.  No worries!”  Even though the pundits have yet again got it wrong, and September 23 has come and gone, this is no time for complacency.  This is not the time to lull yourself into a false sense of security.  We may not know when, but Jesus is coming.  Make no mistake, he will return.

The question is: Are you ready?  Do you believe that he will return, and do you live accordingly?  This is a life-or-death question.  For unbelievers, for the unconverted, unless they repent, they will face sudden destruction and not escape.  I beg you, don’t be among their number.

 

1. But now Paul hastens to reassure his readers.  Date setting is no way to be ready for Christ’s coming nor is resorting to a false sense of security.  “But,” says Paul to the Thessalonian church, “you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief” (vs.4).  They have found the right way to be ready for Christ’s coming.  And what is that?

 

1. In this section (vss.4-10) there is just one command: “Let us keep awake and be sober” (vs.7b). And what might that mean?  You see it from the context.  In these verses you see a whole series of contrasts:

Light                      darkness

Day                        night

Awake                   asleep

Being sober           getting drunk

 

What side of the ledger are you on?  “For you are all children of light, children of the day” (probably meaning of the day of the Lord).  “We are not of the night or of the darkness.” (vs.5).  So, “let us keep awake and be sober” (vs.6).  Keeping awake and being sober therefore means living as children of light and as children of the day.  We want to be ready for Jesus when he comes.  We don’t get ready for Jesus by fixing dates or by saying, “whatever will be, will be.”  We get ready for Jesus by living in the light of the day of the Lord.

 

2. But we can ask the question: Why was Paul so confident of the Thessalonian believers? How could he be so sure?  Because they had “put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation” (vs.8).  Isn’t that a marvellous trio, faith, love, and hope!  But do you remember where we have met it before?  It was right at the beginning of this letter!  Remember how Paul thanked God for them, because of their “work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope” (1:3).  They were still a young church made up of new believers, and yet they already had a reputation for faith, love, and hope.  Does this church have the same reputation?  That would be a sure sign that you are awake and sober, and ready for the great day of the Lord.

 

3. But Paul’s confidence does not rest ultimately on the Thessalonians, but on God’s plan of salvation. Look at vss.9-10: “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep (in other words, whether we are alive or have already died before he returns), we might live with him.”

 

Notice how he refers here to “Jesus Christ who died for us.”  It’s an echo of what he said early in our passage, “We believe that Jesus died and rose again” (4:14).  Both are references back to Jesus’ first coming.  The whole passage has been a marvellous prophecy about Christ’s second coming, but there are also references to his first coming.  This is a train with two locomotives, but this train gets us much higher than the magnificent Swiss Alps.  It gets us to glory!

 

Conclusion

In closing this astounding part of the letter, Paul says, “Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing” (vs.11).  He had ended chapter 4 in much the same way (4:18).  So, in effect, he is saying, “Encourage one another, encourage one another.”  He says it twice, so it must be very important.  Then he says it again, but in different words, “and build one another up.”  Three commands, all amounting to much the same thing.  But then he softens them by qualifying them, “just as you are doing.”  You are doing well.  Don’t slacken off.  Keep up the good work.  This is what Jesus wants his church to be doing when he returns.

So, are you ready for the day of the Lord?