1 Thessalonians (Program #16) – Cooperation with the Divine Operation (2)

1 Thessalonians chapter 4 is a chapter presenting the promise of the Lord’s return and the rapture of all the believers at the end of this age. And to the young believers in Thessalonica these word were encouraging and fill them with hope.

But in Chapter 5, Paul begins with the word “but”, implying that though it’s good to be encouraged by the hope of the Lord’s second coming, before He does come, we need to be watchful and sober, and most of all prepared and ready for His coming.  It’s in this light that we come to the last half of the final chapter of the short book to the new believers in the Church in Thessalonica.

Chapter 5:12 begins this way, “Furthermore we ask you, brothers, to acknowledge those who labor among you and take the lead among you in the Lord and admonish you, And to regard them most highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves.“

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Song of Songs (Program #6) – Living in Ascension by Discerning the Spirit from the Soul

The theme of the book in the Bible with the title “Song of Songs” is satisfaction of satisfactions. This book portrays the four stages in the experience of the lover of Christ and can be summarized by the following four sections:
1) A lover of Christ should be one who is attracted by His love and drawn by Him in His sweetness to pursue after Him for full satisfaction.
2) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him to be delivered from the self through his oneness with the cross of Christ.
3) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him to live in ascension as the new creation of God in the resurrection of Christ.
4) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him more strongly to live within the veil through His cross after the lover’s experience of His resurrection.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #15) – Cooperation with the Divine Operation (1)

As we are caring for new believers, we likely often follow the pattern of the apostle Paul as he cared for the young Church in Thessalonica by giving them encouraging and hopeful passages from the Bible.

In the Thessalonians, it was Paul’s word concerning the coming rapture of the believers at the end of the age and the Lord Jesus promise return from the heavens to the earth that fill them with hope. But if we are fully faithful  to the pattern of the apostle will also bring them to the words of warning and sobriety that Paul concluded the book of 1 Thesssalonians with Chapter 5. Listen to this lengthy passage at the beginning of Chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians 1-11:

“But concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need for anything to be written to you; For you yourselves know perfectly well that like a thief in the night, so the day of the Lord comes. When they say, Peace and security, then sudden destruction comes upon them, just as birth pangs to a woman with child; and they shall by no means escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness that the day should overtake you like a thief; For you are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. So then let us not asleep, as the rest do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep during the night, and those who get drunk are drunk during the night; But since we are of the day, let us be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love and a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath but to the obtaining of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us in order that whether we watch or sleep, we may live together with Him. Therefore comfort one another, and build up each one the other, even as you also do.“

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Song of Songs (Program #5) – Called to Live in Ascension as the New Creation in Resurrection

In the second stage of the Song of Songs, the lover of Christ learns three basic lessons: the power of resurrection, the riches of resurrection, and, the life of the cross. Today in our program, we will go on to the third stage of the lover of Christ in the lover’s experience of pursuing Christ which is the call to live in ascension as the new creation in resurrection. This covers Song of Songs chapters 3:6 – 5:1.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #14) – Watchfulness and Soberness

When Paul wrote words to the Church in Thessalonica to encourage them, he stressed that the life of the believers is a life full of hope. And even at the endurance needed to live the Christian life is linked to that hope and flows out of that hope. But just as what is the hope that he is referring to? Well, is not the hope that one day we will all die and go to be with the Lord in heaven.

Our hope and the hope of all believers is that one day the Lord Jesus will come again and we all will be caught up or rapture to meet Him. The rapture of the believers and the second coming of Christ are topics of immense interest to Christians and even to many unbelievers. But do the popular and common notions about these important matters really hold up in the light of an honest and thoughtful examination of Scripture?

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Song of Songs (Program #4) – Called to be Delivered from the Self Through the Oneness with the Cross

Hebrews 12:2 tells us, “Looking away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down on the right hand of the throne of God.”

The Song of Songs is a picture of a lover of the Lord Jesus Christ in the pursuit of Him and there are four stages of that pursuit. The theme of Song of Songs is satisfaction of satisfactions. This book portrays the four stages in the experience of the lover of Christ and can be summarized by the following four sentences:
1) A lover of Christ should be one who is attracted by His love and drawn by Him in His sweetness to pursue after Him for full satisfaction.
2) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him to be delivered from the self through his oneness with the cross of Christ.
3) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him to live in ascension as the new creation of God in the resurrection of Christ.
4) A lover of Christ should be one who is called by Him more strongly to live within the veil through His cross after the lover’s experience of His resurrection.

When we’re loving the Lord, we need to learn how to look away unto Jesus, look away from ourselves.

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1 Thessalonians (Program #13) – The Hope of the Christian Life

In the apostle Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians he vividly describes how desperate mankind is apart from God. Listen to Chapter 2:12
“That you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

But in his letter to the new believers in Thessalonica he repeatedly points them to the great hope of all the believers and that is the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and the promise of our rapture at the end of the age.

Rapture is a big topic in the New Testament but in the few selected verses in 1 Thessalonians we have a marvelous overview that will fill all believers with the genuine hope. Promised in God’s word and secured in the shed blood of Christ. He is coming again and all those who believe will join Him at that coming.

“But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who are sleeping, that you would not grieve even as also the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and arose, so also those who have fallen asleep through Jesus, God will bring with Him. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are living, who are left remaining unto the coming of the Lord, shall by no means precede those who have fallen asleep; Because the Lord Himself, with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are living, who are left remaining, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and thus we will be always with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

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Song of Songs (Program #3) – Drawn to Pursue Christ for Satisfaction (2)

The Song of Songs contains a great picture of a seeking Christian’s pursuit of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the opening chapter, there is a description of this pursuit in verses four through eight:

“Draw me; we will run after you- The king has brought me into his chambers- We will be glad and rejoice in you; We will extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you. I am black but lovely, O daughters of Jerusalem, Like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not look at me, because I am black, Because the sun has scorched me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; They made me keeper of the vineyards, But my own vineyard I have not kept. Tell me you whom my soul loves. Where do you pasture your flock? Where do you make it lie down at noon? For why should I be like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions? If you yourself do not know, You fairest among women, Go forth on the footsteps of the flock, And pasture your young goats by the shepherds’ tents.” (Song of Songs 1:4-8)

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1 Thessalonians (Program #12) – An Exhortation Concerning a Holy Life for the Church Life

Every parent can learn a lot about how to properly care for and raise your children by observing how the apostle Paul care for his spiritual children in 1 & 2 Thessalonians. By the time he comes to Chapter 4 he has a strong and sober warning related to the danger and damage of fornication and immorality. But he does so only after having first nurtured, encouraged and nourished these precious young believers fostering them in the growth of the divine life.  Then as a faithful and exhorting father he brings to them these critical points in these chapters.

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Song of Songs (Program #2) – Drawn to Pursue Christ for Satisfaction (1)

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth!
For your love is better than wine.” (Song of Songs 1:2)

This intimate and tender language might be thought to be from a great love sonnet from Shakespeare or Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Yet it’s actually from the opening lines of the book Song of Songs in the Old Testament. Why is a love poem given precious space in the pages of the Bible? There seems to be no way to understand such a book by studying in a doctrinal or theological perspective. It is purely a book of experience and to understand it properly we must learn to interpret the types and figures.

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