1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11

[Jim Watt]

“*TWO ARE BETTER THAN ONE” MINISTRIES*

*Jim & Marie Watt*

*Tel: 253-517-9195 - Email: jmbetter at gmail.com*

*Web: www.2rbetter.org*

March 26, 2013


 *OCT 4 - 1 THESSALONIANS 4:13-5:11 - A LIFE OF COMFORT AND CHALLENGE*


 *1. 4:13-14, (NNT) THE DEAD IN CHRIST: THEIR STATUS. “But we would not
have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep; that you
sorrow not, even as the rest, who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that
Jesus died and rose, even so them also that are fallen asleep will God
:through Jesus bring with him.” *Your Kingdom Father, is one of certainty,
comfort and enjoyment. It is a joy both inward and outward in the Holy
Spirit. *Hallowed be your :name!*


 *2. 4:15-16 (4:15-18) THE COMING OF THE LORD. “For this we say to you by
the Lord’s word, that we that are alive, that are left unto the presence of
the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep. 16 For the
Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with an archangel’s
voice, and with God’s trump: and the dead in Christ shall rise first;”*

Father, we bless You for Your promise to the righteous dead. *Your :kingdom
come.*


 *3. 5:1-2 (5:1-3) TIMES AND SEASONS. **“But concerning the times and the
season, brethren, you have no need that **anything** be written you. **2 **For
yourselves know perfectly that **the** Lord’s day comes as a thief in the
night.” *Father, make us like spiritual Issachars (1 Chronicles 12:32). May
we know clearly *Your* times and seasons. May we walk carefully in *Your*ways!
*Your :will be done, As in heaven, **so** on earth!*


 *4. 5:4-5 (5:4-7) SONS OF LIGHT: WHAT CHARACTERIZES THEM! **“**But you,
brethren, are not in darkness, that the day should overtake you as thieves *
*5 **for you are all sons of light, and sons of day: we are not of night,
nor of darkness.” *Forgive us Father, that we do not grow into the maturity
of Sonship, and as *young men* become strong, the word of God abiding in
us, and overcoming the evil one (1 John 1:14). Bring us into the tenth city
gate of Naphtali (GEN 49, REV 21), the gate of wrestling overcomers! *Our
:daily :bread Give us this day.*


 *5. 5:8. SONS OF THE DAY: THEIR ARMOR. **“But let us, since we are of the
day, be sober, putting on a breastplate of faith and love; and for a
helmet, salvation’s hope.” *Father, we receive Your exhortation through
Your apostle Paul. We thank You for the wisdom, safety and comfort of it. *And
forgive us our :debts, As we also have forgiven our :debtors.*


 *6. 5:9-10. SALVATION VERSUS WRATH: OUR DESTINY. **“For :God appointed us
not unto wrath, but unto **the** obtaining of salvation through our :Lord
Jesus Christ, **10 **who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we
should live together with him.” *Father, we see how You cause us to
overcome in Christ, and how to be victorious over Satan. It is all through
the “finished atoning work” of Calvary! *And bring us not into temptation!*


 *7. 5:11. THIS TRUTH: A SOURCE OF COMFORT. **“**Wherefore exhort one
another, and build each other up, even as also you do.” *We reason together
from Your word Father, and sense the same encouragement from these truths
as did the Thessalonians. Yes, Your Word is true. Yes, we stand upon its
promises. Yes, You back Your Word! *But deliver us from the evil **one!*


 *NOTE**: 4:17-18 (4:15-18) THE CONCLUSION OF THE MATTER! **“Then we that
are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in clouds,
to meet the Lord into **the** air. and so shall we ever be with **the**Lord.
**18 **Wherefore comfort one another with these :words.” *Our dead in You
Father, are as safe and secure as we are! One day we with them look forward
to a glad reunion!


 *C.H. Spurgeon Quotes: “False Profession” - *Let them get home to their
knees and pray God to give them manliness enough at least to be damned
honestly, and not go down to perdition wearing the name of Christian when
Christians they are not.


 *Our Psalm for the Day: 94:1-2 (94, ESV) THE LORD WILL NOT FORSAKE HIS
PEOPLE. “O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! 2 Rise
up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve! *Jehovah
Father, You are the One Who righteously punishes the wicked and chastises
Your sons. There is no respect of persons with You. Righteous are You in *
all* Your ways! *Hallowed be your :name!*


 *Subject*: The writer sees evil-doers in power and smarts under their
oppression. His sense of the divine sovereignty, of which he had been
singing in the previous Psalm, leads him to appeal to God as the great
Judge of the earth; this he does with much vehemence and importunity,
evidently tingling under the lash of the oppressor. Confident in God’s
existence, and assured of His personal observation of the doings of men,
the Psalmist rebukes his atheistic adversaries and proclaims his triumph in
his God: he also interprets the severe dispensation of Providence to be in
very deed most instructive chastisements, and so he counts those happy who
endure them. The Psalm is another pathetic form of the old enigma:
“Wherefore do the wicked prosper?” It is another instance of a good man
perplexed by the prosperity of the ungodly, cheering his heart by
remembering that there is, after all, a King in heaven, by Whom all things
are overruled for good.


 94:1. *O Lord God, to Whom vengeance belongs; O God, to Whom vengeance
belongs, show Yourself**: *or, God of retributions, Jehovah, God of
retributions, shine forth! A very natural prayer when innocence is trampled
down and wickedness exalted on high. If the execution of justice be a right
thing - and who can deny the fact? - then it must be a very proper thing to
desire it; not out of private revenge, in which case a man would hardly
dare to appeal to God, but out of sympathy with right, and pity for those
who are made wrongfully to suffer.


 94:4. *How long shall they utter and speak hard things? *The ungodly are
not content with deeds of injustice, but they add hard speeches, boasting,
threatening, and insulting over the saints. Will the Lord forever endure
this? Will He leave His own children much longer to be the prey of their
enemies? Will not the insolent speeches of His adversaries and theirs at
last provoke His justice to interfere? Words often wound more than swords;
they are as hard to the heart as stones to the flesh; and these are poured
forth by the ungodly in redundance, for such is the force of the word
translated *utter*; and they use them so commonly that they become their
common speech (they utter and speak them) - will this always be endured?


 94:8. *Understand, you brutish among the people. *When a man has done with
God, he has done with his manhood, and has fallen to the level of the ox
and the ass, yes, beneath them, for “the ox knows his owner, and the ass
his master’s crib.” Instead of being humbled in the presence of scientific
infidels, we ought to pity them; they affect to look down upon us, but we
have far more cause to look down upon them.


 94:9. *He that planted the ear, shall He not hear? *He fashioned that
marvelous organ and fixed it in the most convenient place near to the
brain, and is He deaf Himself? Is He capable of such design and invention,
and yet can He not discern what is done in the world which He made? He made
you hear; can He not Himself hear? Unanswerable question! It overwhelms the
skeptic and covers his confusion.


 94:10. *He that teaches man knowledge, *and then it comes to a pause,
which the translators have supplied with the words, *“shall not He know?” *but
no such words are in the original, where the sentence comes to an abrupt
end, as if the inference were too natural to need to be stated and the
writer had lost patience with the brutish men which whom he had argued. The
earnest believer often feels as if he could say, “Go to, you are not worth
arguing with! If you were reasonable men, these things would be too obvious
to need to be stated in your hearing. I forbear.” Man’s knowledge comes
from God. Science in its first principles was taught to our progenitor
Adam, and all after advances have been due to divine aid; does not the
Author and Revealer of all knowledge Himself know?


 94:12. *Blessed is the man whom You chasten, O Lord. *The Psalmist’s mind
is growing quiet. He no longer complains to God or argues with men but
tunes his harp to softer melodies, for his faith perceives that with the
most afflicted believer all is well.


 94:16. *Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand
up for me against the workers of iniquity? ** *Where are the Luthers and
our Calvins? A false charity has enfeebled the most of the valiant men of
Israel. Our John Knox would be worth a mint at this hour, but where is he?
Our grand consolation is that the God of Knox and Luther is yet with us and
in due time will call out His chosen champions.


 94:21. *And condemn the innocent blood. *They are great at slander and
false accusation, nor do they stick at murder; no crime is too great for
them, if only they can trample on the servants of the Lord. This
description is historically true in reference to persecuting times; it has
been fulfilled in England, and may be again if popery is to advance in
future time at the same rate as in the past few years. *(From “The Treasury
of David” by C.H. Spurgeon, abridged by D.O. Fuller)*



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