I am constantly deeply impressed with the way in which God’s Word written 2000 years ago (New Testament) is so amazingly applicable to our lives today. As we approach the end of the church year, we also consider the end when Christ will come again in glory, the end of the world, and our own end. But these themes are not intended for us to get lost in fanaticism, but rather they are intended to lead us to God’s way of keeping perspective and living well…in fact, living excellently.

God’s way is anything but trying to predict the future, instead it is what some might construe as not very glamorous or exciting. It is an approach, however, packed with wisdom. It (the approach to living in the end times) is so ordinary and yet when properly understood, we see wisdom in it and immense fulfillment while we do good.

So “let us not grow weary of doing good (2nd Thessalonians 3:6-13)!” What is this way of living? What is this God-given counter to anxiety and carrying on about the end times? Come to God’s house tomorrow and find out.

For now, I’ll give you a clue: the way God calls us to live is in imitation of the ants and the bees…yes, I wrote the ants and the bees…again, come to God’s house and be fed and nourished and come and be affirmed in God’s way of living in the end times.

Also, come and receive God’s great gift of Christ’s very body and blood. Come and receive this gift for the forgiveness of all your sins…not some of them, not many of them, not most of them…ALL of them.

Here is an excerpt from tomorrow’s sermon:

“Do Not Grow Weary In Doing Good”

(2^nd Thessalonians 3:6-13)

26^th Sunday after Pentecost, November 17^th, 2013

Pastor Espinosa

            Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. As we have now come to the second-to-last Sunday in the Church Year we are especially cognizant of the end times. Let us be clear about what the Lord teaches in His Word: you are living in the end times. You are — right now — living in the last days. That’s a fact. It is also a fact that Scripture teaches – clearly – that no one knows when Christ will come again (Acts 1:7) and it is also a fact that these last days may come to an end today or tomorrow, or long after you and I have died. We just don’t know when the end will occur and God makes it clear that it is not for us to know anyway.  In spite of this clarity on the matter, however, it is simply incredible to observe the unceasing fanaticism regarding the end that we see all around us.

 

Many of you are aware that this area of eschatology (end time teaching) and apocalyptic (the kind of genre represented by Revelation and Ezekiel) — esp. as it is employed in popular American theology — is my favorite area in sacred theology. My concern for this grew out of a childhood experience: my big brother Robert (a good reader his entire life) had a fascinating collection of books in our room. One of those books was Hal Lindsey’s Late Great Planet Earth. That book was the #1 best-seller of all books, of all genres and types in the decade of the 1970’s in the United States of America, selling about 30 million copies. The theology represented by that book which fully claims to accurately represent the teaching of God’s Word is both wrong and scary. All of the 21 plagues described in the book of Revelation — which we understand as representing what sin has already brought into the world and already remedied by Jesus — are said to be coming in our future (keep in mind that this is a gross mishandling of the book of Revelation). In Lindsey’s book The 1980s: Countdown to Armageddon Christians were to consider the likelihood that the decade of the 1980’s would be the last of history as we know it, and in a later Lindsey book Planet Earth – 2000 A.D. Christians received a revised and updated prediction that by the year 2000 they should not anticipate being on earth.

 

But predictions of the end are nothing new. Like Harold Camping who predicted that the end of the world would occur on May 21^st, 2011, and then adjusted his prediction to October 21^st, 2011, William Miller before him first predicted March 21^st, 1843 and then revised his prediction to March 21^st, 1844 (Rowe, God’s Strange Work, 176). When Jesus did not come as predicted, this led to what historians refer to as “The Great Disappointment.” “There is no doubt that many Millerites, as reported, gave away or sold their possessions, stopped working, paid off debts, and settled old quarrels (ibid, 190).” But when the prediction failed, do you think that was going to stop predictions of the end? Not even close!

 

Hal Lindsey belongs to this tradition (as did the late Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel and of course as my favorite example Tim LaHaye of Left Behind fame does). These Christian teachers believe that when Jesus in Matthew 24:34 and Luke 21:32 referred to “this generation,” that that generation is the generation that is connected to the modern state of Israel coming into existence in 1948. Now if a “generation” is about 40 years, one can see why someone like Hal Lindsey would like 1988: 1948 + 40 years in a generation = 1988. One of the in-house debates of those who think this way is to try to establish what is meant by “a generation.” Is it 40, 60, or 80 years or more? Or should the counting begin not with 1948, but 1967 when Israel took Jerusalem during the Six Day War? Tim LaHaye has given himself more wiggle room and has warned us that the rapture – as they understand it – will occur before the beginning of 2025 (Are We Living in the End Times, 61). Once again, the predictions just keep coming. It seems inevitable for example that just as December 21^st, 2012 received immense press, that when 2029/2030 and 2032/2033 roll around in relation to the crucifixion of our Savior, we will see all of the excitement all over again…but I’d better be careful now, because now I’m making predictions!

All of this dear Christians is precisely the trouble that Saint Paul was dealing with when he wrote the letters to the Thessalonians. We have end-time mania now, we had it in the 1900’s, in the 1800’s (and throughout history), and it was very much alive and well in the first-century A.D. when Saint Paul wrote the first verse of our epistle this morning (2^nd Thessalonians 3:6):

 

Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us.

 

What does it mean to “walk in idleness” and to do so “not in accord with the tradition [that is apostolic teaching]?” The spectacular and extremely practical teaching coming out of our epistle is on how our work, our labor, our vocations, our jobs, our careers — what God has given us to live on, by which and through which we are able to take care of ourselves — these are the God-given gifts that occupy our time in God’s service in the world and in society. Your labor, your work, your living keeps you – as the saying goes – “out of trouble,” it keeps you “busy” in the best sense of the word so that you are productive in using the gifts, the skills, and abilities that God has given you in order to help people around you. That is, the best way to avoid worrying about the end of the world and avoiding a religious fanaticism about predictions and such is to work, to labor, and to provide for yourself…this honors God, it serves people, and it provides clarity for living.

 

Religious and spiritual fanaticism, however, was taking over the hearts and minds of some of the members of the church in Thessalonica. “In view of the nearness of the [second coming of Christ] (as they thought) they were refraining from doing any work. They would find such conduct all the easier in view of the Greek idea that labor was degrading (Morris, Leon, The New International Commentary On The New Testament: The First and Second Epistles To The Thessalonians, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmanns Publishing Co., 1959:251).”

In Your Service and To Christ’s Glory,

Pastor