The Lutheran Hour: Sunday, November 19, 2023

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Episode Transcript

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The Lutheran Hour bringing Christ to thenations. The Day of the Lord is
the day Christ will return as hepromised, but no one knows when.
Until then we live in certain uncertainty. Being prepared isn't about looking for signs

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or decoding mysterious prophecies. It's aboutliving our lives today expecting Jesus will return
tomorrow. It's about embodying the valuesof the Kingdom here and now, so
that we are ready whenever the daycomes, be it tomorrow or decades from
now, or even millennia. Guestspeaker, Doctor Tony Cook, today on

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the Lutheran Hour. Hi, thisis Mark Eischer with you once again.
The Reverend doctor Tony Cook is ourchief Missions officer here at Lutheran our Ministries.
He's also served as a parish pastor, seminary professor, and a consultant
on curriculum design and distance learning.Now, with a message titled until that

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Day, Here is doctor Tony Cook. You are in a bustling port city,
alive with trade, Your senses overwhelmedwith vibrant colors, stimulating sounds and
unfamiliar sense. This is Thessalonika,cosmopolitan busy, the crossroads of diverse cultures
and ancient philosophies. And against thisexotic backdrop enter our missionaries, Paul and

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Silas. They're on a mission fromGod, a mission to spread a message
of hope about a crucified yet risensavior, Jesus Christ, and unknown to
the fishermen, philosophers and the shopkeeps, this message was about to turn their
beloved Thessalonikkek, as well as theworld itself upside down. Their visit to

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Thessalonaik is recorded in the Book ofActs, where in chapter seventeen we learned
that for three Sabbaths after arriving,Paul engaged in discussions at the local synagogue.
He clearly presented the message that hehad been given this Jesus, whom
I proclaimed to you is the Christ. His powerful teaching and reasoning were compelling,

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so compelling, in fact, thata significant number of Jewish listeners,
God fearing Greeks and leading women inthe community heard the Gospel for the very
first time and believed. For ourmissionaries Paul and Silas, it was a
powerful sign that God was at work. But not everyone in Thesalonika was thrilled,

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including a segment of the Jewish community, who were envious of the attention
God's powerful message was garnering, sothey took matters into their own hands,
sending Paul and Silas a not sowelcoming welcome committee, as recorded in Acts
Chapter seventeen, verses five through nine. But the Jews were jealous, and
taking some men of the rabble,they formed a mob, set the city

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in an uproar, and attacked thehouse of Jason, seeking to bring Paul
and Silas out into the crowd,And when they could not find them,
they dragged Jason and some of hisbrothers before the city authority, shouting,
these men who have turned the worldupside down have come here also, and
Jason has received them, and theyare all acting against the decrees of Caesar,

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saying that there is another King,Jesus. And the people and the
city authorities were disturbed when they heardthese things, and when they had taken
money as security from Jason and therest, they let them go now as
Jason's legal problems were unfolding. Butbefore the mob could pounce, Paul and

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Silas were warned by these new believersto flee the city by the cover of
night and continue their evangelistic mission onscathed in Berea, and that is exactly
what they did now. In lessthan a month's time, Paul and Silas
had proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, planted a church, and fled for
their lives. And even though helonged to be with the new believers in

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Thessalonika, Paul was prevented from returning, and so he did the next best
thing. He sent his brother andco worker in the Gospel, Timothy,
to strengthen and support them in theirfaith. And upon Timothy's return, he
reported to Paul that the church inThesalonika had remained, but as expected,

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had suffered as well. So toencourage them in their faith, Paul wrote
them two letters to remind them thattheir persecution wouldn't last forever and that one
day, the Day of the Lordwould finally arrive. Now, for many,
the day of the Lord can bea scary thought, but Paul wrote

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to the Thessalonians about the Day ofthe Lord not to scare them into submission,
but to invigorate their faith to imbuetheir earthly struggles with heavenly purpose.
And the same holds true for ustoday. So with that in mind,
we turn our focus to First Thessalonians, Chapter five, verses one through eleven.
This is a short passage from ashort letter written by Paul to his

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beloved church in Thessalonaika, a letterwhich speaks about the need for vigilance,
living as children of the Light andencouraging one another until the day of the
Lord arrives. Through Paul's inspiring words, we find wisdom and encouragement as relevant
for us today as for the ThessalonianChurch nearly two millennia ago. So what

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does Paul teach about the day ofthe Lord and what can we learn from
this ancient letter. The first andmost obvious insight is that there will be
a day of the Lord. Inthe verses preceding our text for today,
Paul describes in great clarity what thefuture return of Jesus will be like,
and how the certainty of his returnrevolutionizes our understanding of both life and death.

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But we do not want you tobe uninformed, brothers, about those
who are asleep, that you maynot grieve as others do who have no
hope, for since we believe thatJesus died and rose again. Even so,
through Jesus God will bring with himthose who have fallen asleep. For
this we declare to you by theword from the Lord, that we who

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are alive, who are left untilthe coming of the Lord, will not
precede those who have fallen asleep,For the Lord himself will descend from heaven
with a cry of command, withthe voice of an archangel, with the
sound of the trumpet of God.While there are many good things that could
be said at the grave side ofa loved one, this one is a

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must. Even though our loved onesdie, even though we mourn, our
mourning is different. It is unlikeothers, because even though we grieve,
our grief is wrapped in hope.This really is the endgame of the Christian
faith. It's not about our healthand wealth in the world today. It's

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not about doing enough good to balancethe cosmic scale. It's about Jesus' victory
over death. It's about our reconciliationwith God. It's about our place in
the new Heaven and the new Earth, paid for by Jesus and being prepared
for you today. And when thepreparation is complete, the day will arrive,

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Jesus will appear, the dead willbe raised the Saints will be gathered,
the doors to the New Edens swungopen wide for all who believe.
So, don't lose hope, regardlessof whether your trials are in Thessalonaika are
somewhere closer to home, for Jesuswill again. The second insight is the

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need for vigilance and preparedness as weawait Christ's return. Given the unpredictable timing
of the day of the Lord,Paul instructs believers to always be ready for
the day of the Lord to arrive. Like the Thessalonians, we are encouraged
by Paul to trim our spiritual wicksand to keep our lamps burning as we

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await the Bridegroom's return. This isexactly what Jesus himself taught his disciples on
the Mount of Olives in Matthew twentyfive, verses one through thirteen. Then
the kingdom of Heaven will be liketen virgins who took their lamps and went
to meet the bridegroom. Five ofthem were foolish and five were wise.
For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them,

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but the wise took flasks of oil. With their lamps, so the bridegroom
was delayed. They all became drowsyand slept. But at midnight there was
a cry, here is the bridegroom. Come out to meet him. Then
all those virgins rose and trim theirlamps. And the foolish said to the
wise, give us some of youroil, for our lamps are going out.

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But the wise answered, saying,since there will not be enough for
us and for you, go ratherto the dealers and buy for yourselves.
And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who
were ready went in with him tothe marriage feast, and the door was
shut. Afterward, the other virginscame, also, saying, Lord Lord,

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open to us. But he answered, truly, I say to you,
I do not know. You watchtherefore, for you know neither the
day nor the hour. We livein certain uncertainty. We are certain Jesus
will return, but his eta isunknown. So we wait, not passively,

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twiddling our thumbs and looking skyward.No. Paul's call to wait is
a call to action. To liveout our faith in a manner. Are
worthy of God's calling to be awake, sober, and shielded by the very
armor of God. Listen to hiswords from first Thessalonians five verses one through
eight. Now concerning the times andseasons, brothers, you have no need

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to have anything written to you,for you yourselves are fully aware that the
day of the Lord will come likea 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 pregnantwoman, and they will not escape.
But you are not in darkness,brothers, for that day to surprise you

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like a thief. For you areall children of light, children of the
day. We are not of thenight or of darkness. So then let
us not sleep as others do,but let us keep awake and be sober.
For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk are
drunk at night. But since webelong to the day, let us be

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sober, having put on the breastplateof faith and love and for a helmet
the hope of salvation. Being preparedisn't about looking for signs or decoding mysterious
prophecies. It's about living our livestoday expecting Jesus will return tomorrow. That's
the heartbeat of the Christian life.It's about embodying the values of the Kingdom

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here and now, values like faith, hope, and love, so that
we are ready whenever the day comes, be it tomorrow or decades from now,
or even millennia. And what doesvigilance look like in our day to
day lives. It looks like extendinggrace to those who least deserve it,

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as Jesus did for us. Itlooks like keeping our integrity intact even when
no one's watching. It looks likestanding firm and our faith, especially when
the trials of life hit us likea freight train. Whether we're in Thessalonaika
facing religious persecution or here dealing withthe struggles of modern life, the principle

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remains the same. Vigilance is aboutmaking sure our eyes are affixed to the
horizon, expectantly watching for our kingto return, For we know that regardless
of what we face, one day, the heavens will open, Jesus will
descend, and every care and concernwill melt away in the brilliant light of

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His presence. And as we waitin vigilance and expected hope, we are
reminded of our final insight for today. And it is this. As we
wait, we are not alone.For each of us are called to find
strength in the Body of Christ,within a supportive community of faith, a

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community of faith and encouragement, justas described by Paul in the conclusion of
our text. For God has notdestined us for wrath, but to obtain
salvation through Jesus Christ, who diedfor us, that whether we are awake
or asleep, we might live withHim. Therefore, encourage one another and

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build one another up, just asyou are doing first Thessalonians Chapter five,
verses nine through eleven. You see, the Thessalonian Church is not just a
collection of individuals, but it isa body that must work together, work
together as they face persecution and awaitthe day of the Lord. So two,

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we are called to encourage one anotherand build each other up, living
into the type of communities spoken aboutthroughout all of Paul's letters. And while
we are separated by time, weare part of the same body of Christ
that began in thessalon Nikol all thoseyears ago. Their waiting is our waiting.

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In fact, we carry their proverbiallamps, pass down from one generation
of waiting Christian communities to the next. I assume that many believed, or
at least hoped, that the preparationswould be complete and that the Day of
the Lord would arrive in their lifetime. But instead they have joined the heavenly
side of the Lord's coming parade.So here we are. The call to

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encourage and build up is now ours. We still struggle with death, just
as our spiritual forefathers, we stillhopefully mourn. We still encounter those who
ridicule and even persecute us for ourfaith. Not much has changed, and
rightly so, for the day ofthe Lord is still coming. The need

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for vigilance remains. The call toencourage and build up is still needed,
perhaps even more than ever. Butjust as our call has remained, so
has God's promise. Because of Jesus, you have been set free through his
death, you have received life,and just as he was raised from the

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dead, so to you will oneday stand before him, forever alive.
For while the day has yet toarrive, it has already dawned in your
heart. You have been translated fromthe kingdom of Man to the Kingdom of
God. You have been reborn throughthe waters of baptism, and your new

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life has already begun. This iswhy we are called to watch and wait,
not so that we might receive somethingthat we do not have, but
so that we might joyfully be reunitedwith what is already ours. How can
we be overcome by what Christ hasalready conquered. Yes, death is real,

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it is painful. It breaks myheart to be separated from those whom
I love, to miss their embrace, their voice, their smile. But
even in their absence I we arenot alone. We have each other.
We have the community of faith.We have the body of our Lord.

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We have his voice in his word, his body and blood in the bread
and wine, his spirit in thewaters of baptism, and in this great
now. And not yet, justas we are certain that His promise has
yet to be fulfilled, we arecertain that one day it will be.
And even amid the chaos and cacophonyof life, the quiet call can still

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be heard. Have patience, bevigilant, for He will return. It
might be today, tomorrow, orafter we close our eyes in death,
but it will come, perhaps likea thief in the night, but nonetheless
it will and I will be there, and you will be there, and
all of those who have gone beforeus, including the Thessalonians from our text

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for today, and even Paul himself. And Paul's fears regarding Jesus Church will
be wiped away along with all tears, suffering, and pain. So let
us be sober, putting on faithand love as our breastplate, and the
hope of salvation as our helmet,Encouraging one another and building each other up

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as together we faithfully wait, expectantly, wait, joyfully wait for Jesus in
Jesus name, I'm in. Christmasis often a time of reflection on this
Lutheranauer special presentation. Empty boxes reflectwith us. This car's so old,

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the radio doesn't really work. It'sokay, I know it's cold, just
give it a minute that he don'tget going. When a young man contemplates
the empty things of life, hediscovers a truth bill ponder for years to
come. The moment comes not ina classroom, but in a car,
just after midnight, his Christmas Eveturns to Christmas Day, just a few

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miles down the road from somewhere fromanywhere. When a young man realized that
the world is not what it seems, he was aware of the emptiness inside,
even from that young age. Heworked hard that Christmas to fake surprise
and of fake happiness, but lookingat the toy, he suddenly realized it
was just a toy. For therest of his life he would hear various

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theories for why. He would say, Yes, it's because you're the firstborn,
you're a people pleaser, you're tryingto earn favor with God. You're
really just searching for affirmation and validation. In the end, they were all
just empty boxes. He wasn't surehow he discovered the box was empty.
It was probably a lot of things, but he had known for years.

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Life since then had only confirmed it. The box was empty, and life
going forward only served to emphasize thattime and again, an empty box may
not be what it seems, becausethe world is not what it appears to
be, because God has moved inwith us. Don't miss this special Christmas

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presentation, Empty Boxes, brought toyou by the Lutheran Hour. For more
information, go to LHM dot org. You're listening to the Lutheranower and joining
us Now here's Lutheranower speaker doctor MichaelZiggler. Hello Mark. In our church
services over these next few weeks,I think we'll be rehearsing that sequence of

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events that doctor Cook was talking aboutin today's message. With all that's going
on in the world nowadays, wemight be hearing these messages with a heightened
level of attention. Well, weare living in a period of social upheaval,
sure, and whenever people feel unsettled, they often turn to the Bible,

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and especially to Bible prophecies, hopingto find answers to their questions.
This is especially true of United StatesAmericans, and people are talking about the
end times, things like the rapture. What do we make of all that?
What is that? And where doyou find it? In the Bible?
Doctor Cook quoted it in his sermontoday. It's from Paul's First Letter

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to the Thessalonians, chapter four,verse seventeen. English translations render it usually
as caught up, but in theLatin version of the Bible, the word
used was raptus like where we getthe word raptor like a bird that grabs
things with its talents, And inthe context of First Thessalonians, it refers

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to the second coming of Jesus,to the day of the Lord, the
final judgment, not to some daybefore that, but to that very day.
So apparently some of the followers ofJesus in Thesalonaika were afraid that fellow
believers who had died before the returnof Jesus were going to miss out on
his kingdom. So Paul writes thispart of the letter encouraging them. He

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says that actually, those who havedied in Christ they will rise first,
and then those who are still alivewill be raptured up together to meet Jesus
in the air as he descends forfinal judgment. And when he says that
they will meet the Lord, he'sactually using a technical term that the Thessalonians
would have understood from their Greco Romanculture. Paul's comparing the rapture to the

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cultural practice of going out to meetthe king or the emperor when he came
to your town for a visit.So, let's say the Roman emperor was
going to come for a visit.All the elders and leaders of your town
would go out to him on theroad and meet him and then escort him
back into your town. So Paulis using this as a word picture to
describe how the second coming of Jesusis going to happen. He says that

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all of his followers living in deadwill be raised from death, raptured up
together to meet him, and willescort him back to Earth for the final
judgment. So it's the same event, just seen from different angles, the
Day of the Lord event. Now, when I think about this Day of
the Lord in Christ's second Coming,I've always wondered how it is that all

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people will know it and see itall at once. Yeah, right,
you know, on what sort ofstage will this play out? Will we
have an announcement on social media availableall over the world, or does this
take place in a spiritual dimension differentfrom what we have right now. Yeah.
Whenever we try to picture these thingsin our mind and imagine how they

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will play out exactly, we runinto difficulties because God's promised future, the
coming kingdom, the resurrection of thebody, the renewed creation, it all
exceeds our present experience. So itwould be like trying to explain the outside
world to an unborn child. Ifyou could, you could imagine such a

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conversation with a child in her mother'swomb, it would be difficult to explain
it to her because there is solittle in her present in utero experience that
can compare to life on the outsideworld. So also for us in the
life to come. But because Godwants us to look forward to this life,
to hope for this life, hetalks to us in baby talk,

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so to speak. He gives ushis profits to give us comparisons drawn from
our current experience to point us tothis new birth in the life to come.
So the problem with books like HalLindsay's Late Great Planet Earth is that
they're trying to use Bible prophecy toanswer questions about politics, current events,

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timelines within the womb of this presentage. So for example, they'll read
a passage from Ezekiel thirty eight theprophecy about Gog and Magog and say,
oh, oh, oh, that'stalking about modern day Russia. Or they'll
read about the rebuilding of the Templein Ezekiel forty and say, oh,

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oh, that's going to be fulfilledwhen the modern nation state of Israel rebuilds
the physical temple in Jerusalem. Now, the problem with those connections is that
they're swimming up stream from the directionthat Bible prophecy is going. See,
the Bible isn't a playbook for twentyfirst century politics. It's a unified account
of how God's involvement in all ofhistory ultimately leads to Jesus, to God's

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son being born in our experience tolive and die and rise again so that
we could be reborn as God's children. So the most important event for Bible
prophecy, the hinge point of allhistory isn't in the future. It's in
the past. It's in the middleof history, not the end of history.
Because everything hinges on Jesus the Messiah. His resurrection from the dead fulfills

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the prophecies of Ezekiel. Jesus isthe new Temple. Jesus is Israel,
not the modern day Israeli nation state. And to follow the Messiah Jesus,
to be part of his body thechurch by faith, to wait for his
return. That's how we become membersof the true Israel. How would you
summarize all of this for us today? Keep going back to the Bible and

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meeting Jesus there in his official biographiesMatthew, Mark, Luke, and John
because Jesus is always the key tounderstanding Biblical prophecy, and there's two attitudes
that he warns against in those biographies, specifically in Matthew chapter twenty four.
First, he says, don't getso worked up in a fevered frenzy looking

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for signs so that you're distracted fromyour actual task of making disciples of all
nations that he'll give in Matthew twentyeight. The second attitude he warns against
is in Matthew five or verse fortyeight, which is, don't get lazy.
Don't pretend like there is no urgencyand that his return for judgment is
his far off or is going tobe delayed indefinitely. Jesus says to avoid

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both of those attitudes. Thank youfor your prayers and financial gifts during our
fall giving campaign. The Lutheranower ismade possible by donations from listeners like you,

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and this fall God has blessed uswith a matching grant that can double
your donation. The match is onlyavailable for a limited time, so please
consider taking advantage of this opportunity.You can donate online at Lutheranower dot org,
slash give, or call us Mondaythrough Friday at eight hundred eight seven
six nine eight eight zero. Ifyou've already given, Thank you and please

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keep praying for us now. DoctorCook leads us in praying the Lord's prayer,
Our Father, who art in heaven, hollow, would be thy name,
Thy Kingdom, Come, Thy willbe done on earth as it is
in Heaven. Give us this dayour daily bread, and forgive us our
trespasses, as we forgive those whotrespass against us. And lead us not

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into temptation, but deliver us fromevil. For Thine is the Kingdom and
the Power and the Glory forever andever. Amen, the Lord, Bless
thee and keep thee. The Lord, make his face shine upon THEE,
and be gracious unto thee. TheLord lift up his countenance upon thee,
and give thee peace. Amen.The Lutheran Hour is brought to you each

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week through the support of our faithfullisteners. We rely on your prayers and
gifts. To learn how you cansupport and extend the worldwide outreach of the
Lutheran Hour, go to Lutheranour dotorg. This has been a presentation of
Lutheran Our ministries and you a