![]() We ought to be working toward sanctification because if the gospel is true, it commands that of us. You can be sleeping when the thief breaks in, but you can still have a shotgun hidden under your bed, if you catch my meaning. However, like you say, and as Jesus relates in the parable of the Wedding feast, that does not mean that believers should be unprepared. ![]() You can't hear a thief breaking in as you're asleep, and we can't see Christ coming until he's already here (not even he himself knew the time ir date! Matt. I take the 'thief in the night' comparison to mean that, just like a thief breaking into your house while you're asleep, Christ will arrive on earth without prior warning. This is what Paul, along with the other apostles, were awaiting with eager expectation! The American church has largely forgotten Heaven, and the glory that awaits us on the other side! (I can't tell you the last time I heard a sermon/worship song on heaven). Yes, I totally agree that we should take thoughts pf the end times seriously. So let us pray, wait, look to heaven as our redemption draws near! It's nearer now than it was yesterday! And the more I read the Word, the more my heart longs for this day! It will be a day of sorrow if our lamps are not burning, but a day of rejoicing, and "leaping out of our stalls" as the Word describes it, for those who are looking for Him. Of course the unrest, disease, and godlessness in the world all around isn't anything "new." Is there anything new under the sun? But, we need to encourage one another, and spur one another on, to keep our lamps filled with oil and all the more as we see the day approaching. An urgent expectation is something that the apostles even had 2000 years ago. But reading the Word I sense a repeated stirring of the people to "watch" and "wait" and prepare our lamps and not be foolish (or as it says in Matthew 24:48 that this is "wicked") and say that our Lord has been long in coming. I understand that living in fear and worry about "end times" isn't what God wills for us. I consider Isaiah 59 where it speaks of how the people are "walking in shadows" and are "like the blind groping along a wall." But then contrasting this to Isaiah 60, which begins with the proclamation that boldly says, "Arise and shine for your light has come!" We are not supposed to be surprised if we are in the light. I think the word "BUT" is an important one in this context. 6So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. 5You are all children of the light and children of the day. But then as I was continuing to read on in 1 Thessalonians it says this:ĤBut you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. I think many just read this passage and even quote the part about how Christ will come "like a thief in the night" and then pair it with how we are told we wouldn't know the "day or the hour." The connection being that we don't need to concern ourselves with this. 3While people are saying, “Peace and safety,” destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. I was reading this passage in 1 Thessalonians 5 yesterday where it says this:ġNow, brothers and sisters, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, 2for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.
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