Be Ready: 1 Thessalonians – Introduction

What this episode covers

Matthew 24:36-42 Outline with Blanks Completed Outline Final Song Scroll to 36:15 for sermon 1st Thessalonians Matthew chapter 24, these are the words of Jesus, and this is verses 36 through 41, and let’s read that this morning. Here’s what Jesus said, but about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father. As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. And they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. This is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. Two men will be in the field and one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding with a hand mill, one will be taken and the other one left. We’re going to dive into the second coming of Christ this morning. We finished the book of Philippians a couple weeks ago and we’re going to jump into another book study. I’m going to be doing some topical messages here in the days coming, graduation Sunday next week, Father’s Day the following week, but I’m most comfortable in a book of the Bible. And so, I’m going to give an introductory message this morning on the book of 1st Thessalonians. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dr. Warren Wiersbe. Dr. Warren Wiersbe was a wonderful pastor. He died about three or four years ago at the age of 89. He authored over 150 books and he was the voice of Back to the Bible Hour, a broadcast out of Lincoln, Nebraska. And part of Dr. Wiersbe’s prolific writing was that he wrote a commentary on every book in the Bible. And it’s called the B Series because every title is a two-word title of the books and it starts with the letter, the word B. And so, he wrote over 50 of these and some of the books he’s combined. I’ve got a number of them in my library just to kind of illustrate this. Here’s his commentary on Daniel, it’s called Be Resolute. His commentary on Joshua, it’s entitled Be Strong. First and Second Timothy and Titus, Be Faithful. But here’s his commentary on the book we’re going to look at, 1st Thessalonians, and he entitled it Be Ready. And what he’s telling us is that we need to be ready for what? The second coming of Christ. And that’s all through the book of 1st Thessalonians. Now Dr. Wiersbe had a prolific library. I read his biography and it said that later in life when they were moving, his wife Betty said they were looking for a library with a house attached to it. That’s how many books he had. When he passed away, he gave his library to my alma mater, Cedarville University and he had 13,000 books. Last time I was there I was going through one of their new buildings and there’s this whole little section and it’s the Warren Wiersbe Library and there he gave to Cedarville University his entire library to advance the studies of those that are on the campus. We’re going to think about this book and think about being ready for the second coming of Christ. So just an introductory message this morning, when I start a book, I like to ask five questions like a good investigative reporter. They all start with the letter W. Who wrote the book? When was it written? To whom is it written? Why did he write the book? Why is the letter written? And then what are some of the main themes that are in the book of 1st Thessalonians? So that’s what we’re going to just look at this morning in just an overview of 1st Thessalonians and then in a few weeks we’ll get into the text for sure. 1. who wrote the letter? The Apostle Paul wrote the letter So, who wrote the letter or who wrote the book? And the answer to that is in the very first words of 1st Thessalonians chapter 1. Now when we write letters, we put our name at the end. In the Bible they did it at the beginning. And so, here’s 1st Thessalonians 1:1 Paul, Silas and Timothy. So

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