1 THESSALONIANS 5
CAC The first verse of this chapter is connected with verse 14 of the previous chapter; from verse 15 to the end of that chapter is a parenthesis. The Thessalonians were quite clear as to the fact that Jesus was coming back to introduce the day of the Lord, and this parenthesis comes in to explain how verse 14 can be fulfilled. “God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus”. When the Lord comes all the saints will come with Him because they will have been previously caught up to meet Him in the air.
Ques They will be brought back to share the glory of the kingdom in the day of the Lord?
CAC We find the oldest prophecy as to it in Jude: “The Lord has come amidst his holy myriads”. The most ancient of the prophets spoke of this, “ten thousands of his saints” (Jude 14, Authorised Version); they are all coming with the Lord, and it will be to execute judgment first. The world being full of what is contrary to God, judgment must take place before the kingdom is set up.
Certain things will take place between the rapture and the appearing; the judgment seat of Christ, “that each may receive the things done in the body”; it is a question of reward; and then the marriage supper of the Lamb.
Rem Saints are made ready; everything is put right before the Lord’s manifestation in glory.
CAC [p. 269] They make themselves ready; everything is cleared up, what a mercy! Everything will be adjusted.
Ques Would you say that the world will know anything about the rapture? They will be conscious of the day of the Lord.
CAC The day brings sudden destruction. The rapture is not a public event, but the world will take note of it because a good many people will have disappeared.
Rem It will not be the first time a good many have come out of their graves.
CAC Yes, there was a kind of little sample of it when the Lord arose. “If we believe that Jesus has died and has risen again”; everything hangs on that; if He died and rose, there is nothing to hinder the rising of the saints. So in Matthew 27 we are told that many bodies of the saints arose and went into the holy city. What an effect it must have had on those who saw them! We do not hear it talked about, and yet it is one of the most remarkable things that ever happened. It was not only that Jesus died and rose, but a number of dead people well-known in Jerusalem came out of the graves, and went about the holy city, and numbers of people saw them. The veil of the temple was rent from the top to the bottom, the rocks were rent and the graves were opened; every barrier between the glory of God and the dust of death was swept away, so that saints could come out of their graves and go to glory. I cannot think that those people died a second time; they went into the glory of God, and that was a witness to the vastness of the power of redemption. The grave was robbed of its power, and heaven filled. All saints are going there in glorified bodies, perhaps tonight!
It is a comfort, amidst all the upheaval in the world, to think of the kingdom coming. Men may talk of peace and safety; there never was so much talk of it as now; they say we are never to have war any more and that arrangements [p. 270] are to be made so that the nations may live in peace. It is all a perfect delusion; God’s judgments are about to fall on the world that has rejected His Son. His kingdom, all the light of it, has come already into the hearts of the saints, just as it did into the heart of the thief on the cross. He saw a Man dying by his side; no one ever looked so little like a king, but all the light of the kingdom entered into the heart of the thief.
The day of the Lord will come when least expected. It would be terrible if He came to the saints like a thief! He speaks to Sardis of it. It would be a dreadful thing for it to be a surprise. Perhaps God may allow things to transpire that will make saints thankful to think of His coming; He may make His people familiar with woe. We ought to want to see the Lord because we love Him, but there is another side —
‘O Jesus, precious Saviour,
O when wilt Thou return?
Our hearts, with woe familiar,
To Thee our Master turn’. (200:1)
The more familiar we are with woe, the more our hearts are turned to look for all that is bright and blessed with Jesus. All through the history of this world faith has been marked by the anticipation of God having His day.
Rem What a line of demarcation there is between the sons of light and those who are of darkness! It makes one think of the children of Israel in the land of Goshen; when the Egyptians were in thick darkness, they had light in all their dwellings.
CAC Yes, the connection is very interesting, for gross darkness covers the world now. The blessed light of grace is shining for all, but men close their eyes to it. All the principles that will mark the day of the Lord have begun to work in the souls of the saints; they “are sons of light and sons of day”. They have taken character from that coming [p. 271] day, and that makes them a suffering people at present. If people act on the principles of the kingdom, they are bound to suffer, to go to the wall. It is a remarkable title, “sons of light and sons of day”. The principle that rules in the world is self. Everything revolves round that centre; it is how one can get things and keep things. The world is built up on self-gratification. It may take refined forms, but self dominates every one in the world. The moment the will of God takes the place of self, we begin to be moved by a different motive — the good of others.
Ques What is the “armour of light”, Romans 13: 12?
CAC The light becomes a protection; there is something about a godly man that has a wonderfully protective power. Take a workshop where there are a lot of ungodly men and one christian; that christian affects them so that they do not like to talk as they would do when he is not there. If a man is walking in the fear of God, wicked men do not dare to tempt him as they would each other; he has on the armour of light, a sort of invisible protection. All the power of the kingdom is for the saints; we do not need to be afraid. As a matter of fact the saints are often asleep, they are not awake to their true dignity.
Ques Do you take up these pieces of armour practically?
CAC We take them up through exercise; we are only safe then. It does not do to say, ‘I am all right, I am a believer’. There must be the actual wearing of the breastplate of faith and love. We are protected by being in the positive good of faith and love, faith holding the soul in abiding relation with God, and love maintaining an active interest in the saints. We are not safe unless we have on the breastplate. Then there must be sobriety; Paul dwells much on that. “We being of the day, let us be sober”; that is, not carried away by influences around us in the world, but considering how things stand in relation to God, maintaining [p. 272] the right attitude of soul in relation to Him. Faith keeps God ever in the view of the soul, and love puts us right with our brethren. The enemy cannot do much with his fiery darts if we have on the breastplate. Then we have the hope of salvation; the saints are going to be set free from everything that is the fruit of the power of evil. “Obtaining salvation” is contrasted with wrath; the children of God never come under any infliction of wrath. God disciplines His people, but it is in love, never in wrath.
Rem There is a good deal about wrath in these epistles.
CAC It is not well to overlook the fact that there is wrath to come; people forget that. The world is ripening for the execution of judgment; it is like what was said, “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full”, Genesis 15: 16. The company of saints, the bride, is not yet complete, and all the wicked principles of the world are developing to a point when they will be ripe for judgment. Men have no thought of coming wrath or that God might have a day of reckoning; they shut it out of their thoughts, and deceive themselves, and believe that everything is going to work out right in their hands. Satan tries to ensnare even christians and get them occupied with schemes of world-improvement. It is losing sight of the real world situation, but men will have to realise it. In Revelation 6 men call on the mountains and rocks to hide them from “the great day of his wrath” — the wrath of the Lamb. The day had not really come, but things were so dreadful that they thought it had come. Someone said to me lately that they believed the great tribulation had come; that is because things are so dreadful in some parts of the world that people cannot believe it could be worse. But all that God permits at the present time is in view of men’s blessing; all the terrible things endured are allowed so that men may turn to God, and many in their extreme distress have turned to Him and found Him. God is rebuking [p. 273] the pride of nations and weakening their strength, but it is all in view of blessing, so that men may repent and turn to God. When the day of wrath comes there will be no thought of blessing, but God dealing in wrath with what is offensive to Himself.
Rem Men will not want to turn to God then. It is said, they “blasphemed the God of the heaven”.
CAC Yes, it is very terrible. If man’s heart is not softened by the gospel, it will not be by judgment. The gospel is God’s most powerful and tender appeal to man; God is using His most mighty instrument for the blessing of man; there is nothing so great as the gospel, it is the power of God.
Rem It is necessary to distinguish between the character of sleep in verses 6 and 10; the one is a careless state of soul, and the other “fallen asleep through Jesus”.
CAC We see in verse 11 that we are to go on encouraging and building up one another; it is a great thing to pursue that course. Whatever happens in the world we have to go on with our own business of encouraging and building up one another. It is very interesting to see that the time these epistles were written was a time of great movement in the world, and yet neither in these epistles nor in any of those written by Paul, Peter or John, is there any allusion made, or even a hint given, about any of the political events that were happening in the world at that time. The church goes on with its own activities amidst a fallen world. Whatever the state of things around we are to keep on at our own work of encouraging and building up.
Rem Luke alludes to the census to shew how God orders events for His own purposes. How extraordinary that one man could order the whole world to be taxed!
CAC Yes, most surprising but most comforting in relation to events in the world. This census was in order to [p. 274] bring about one thing. It was written in the prophets that Jesus was to be born in Bethlehem. Caesar did not know anything about it nor did his underlings, and yet the whole world was moved to bring it about. We only see the outside in the happenings of the political world, and yet there is a kernel. J.N.D. said, ‘God is behind the scenes yet He moves the scenes He is behind’.
Rem We do not know what God has in view with all the world under arms.
CAC God is working by altering all the conditions of men’s lives; there was no such upheaval ever before. We do not know what God is doing. He takes extraordinary means. One heard lately of a few christians reading Scripture together and the officer in command came in and desired to hear the word of God. That is only one instance of God attracting men by His word.
Rem Habits of social life used to put an impenetrable barrier round every class, but that has all disappeared now and God can spread the gospel by it.
CAC God made immense use of the victories of Rome. There were many christians among the legions, and they came to England. Christianity was brought here in the first place by Roman soldiers.
We are looking for a Person, and ought to be exercised as to the reality of it. We used to see in the saints’ homes when I was a boy, cards with the words, ‘Perhaps today’. We do not want that on our walls, but it would be well to have it in our hearts; it would have a wonderful effect on us.