“When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief” (1 Thessalonians 5:3–4).
Right now, the world is in such turmoil that people are asking, “Are we seeing the winding up of history? Could we be headed toward a nuclear holocaust? Is the world spinning out of control?”
In Matthew 11, we find John the Baptist in prison. His powerful, anointed ministry to multitudes in Israel had been abruptly cut off by King Herod. Now the crowds who had followed John fervently were gone. The “voice of one crying in the wilderness” had been silenced.
I want to talk to you about the word unrelenting. It means undiminished in intensity or effort - unyielding, uncompromising, incapable of being changed or persuaded by arguments. To be unrelenting is to stick to a determined course.
"We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth" (2 Thessalonians 1:3).
What a great compliment Paul paid the Thessalonian Christians! Here's the full essence of what he was saying: "It's incredible to see how much you've grown, both in your faith in Christ and in your love for one another. Everywhere I go, I brag to others about your spiritual growth. How I thank God for you!"
I once heard a minister tell an audience, "The Old Testament isn't relevant to our times. There isn't any need to study it anymore."
How wrong he was! One reason I love reading the Old Testament is because it explains the New Testament in clear, simple terms. Its stories are full of types and shadows of eternal truths, played out in the practical lives of real people.
Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth" (Psalm 124:6-8).
In Psalm 124 we read of fowlers and their snares. You've heard of fowlers. They were professional bird-catchers in the days before firearms. They captured birds by spreading a net on the ground and attaching it to a springed trap or snare.
I could list for you a whole catalog of sins that believing Christians practice. But none of these sins would come near to the sin that I want to talk about. This sin is the mother of all sins — the one that gives birth to all others. It is the sin of unbelief!
"And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you" (Joel 2:25).
How many years did you waste before you repented and surrendered all to Jesus? How many years of your past life were eaten up by the cankerworm of sin and rebellion?
You know you are forgiven and your past forgotten because it is under the Blood of Jesus. But wouldn't you love to get back those years and live them for the glory of the Lord?
According to God's Word, Christians are to live every day as if "the end of all things is near." We are to be always looking for His coming. We are to be awake and diligent, as servants waiting for their master to return from a long journey. With Paul, we should rejoice that we will be leaving this earth to put on our new bodies. We ought always to long to be with the Lord.
"And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward" (Luke 16:1–2).
