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1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11
The Day of The Lord (Part 2)
Brothers and Sisters,Tell me if you’ve ever had this experience. Maybe you’ve beenwatching television or you’re sitting at a movie theatre and then allof a sudden the screen turns green with this message:“The following preview has been approved for all audiences.”And then the next thirty seconds are filled with pictures flying pastyou at a billion miles an hour. Sound just crushing your ear drums.Packed into half a minute is this amazing display of high speedawesomeness that leaves you feeling like you just have to see thatmovie.I mean, I’m not a big advertisement guy. I tend to flip channels toavoid commercials and usually when I hear movie guy – you knowthat deep, deep voice on TV that can make anything sound like acrisis – “It’s nine-thirty on a Tuesday night – and only one man canchange that diaper?”When I hear him I’m off to the remote control races.But every once in a while there’s a trailer that you can’t ignore. Ithink the one that got me was for Star Wars episode 2 – I mean ithad all the music and the ships and it was loud and then right at theend there was little green Yoda flashing a light saber and I juststared at the screen and said “wow”. Now the reason I ask you whether or not you’ve experienced this is because we’re almost finished with the Belgic Confession andwe’re dealing with a few texts that are giving us pictures the lastday – we’re talking about Eschatology which is a huge word thatmeans study of the end times.
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And one way that is useful to look at texts like these is to see themlike movie trailers because…
I. In a sense that’s what Scriptures give us when it talks about“The Day of the Lord.”
 Now, of course, it’s a bit of a crude analogy – to compare the HolyScriptures to advertisements for Hollywood films is like comparingRembrandt to my daughter’s finger painting but there are someuseful things for us to take from such an exercise.i. First – Pictures of the end times are bold and loud and filled withimages that catch our attention. Remember that the wordapocalypse literally means a tearing back of the curtain so that wecan see what’s hidden behind.When we find examples of apocalyptic literature like we find inEzekiel, or Revelation, or here in 1 Thessalonians it’s there for thateffect. It’s meant to overload the senses so that we take notice.ii. Second – end time literature is the attempt to convey an eternalreality into a temporal framework. There is a lot of data that is being compressed into a very short time frame. What is eternal lifewith God going to look like? It’s probably going to be varied anddiverse and amazing.God is infinite in power and perspective and creativity and we’redelving into things that haven’t even happened yet. Who knowswhat it’s going to look like. These pictures aren’t about conveyingfuture reality but conveying meaningful ideas about that futurereality and even then they can look strange at times.iii. Finally – these parts of Scripture are all about accomplishing agoal. A movie trailer is there to convince you to go watch the film.The Scriptures have nobler ambitions but they do have purpose.
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There is a reason that they are there. To teach an important point.To change the behavior of God’s people. Even to send a messagefrom one church to another under the threat of persecution.And so when we see reference to the last day in the Scriptures weshould pay attention to those conventions – that we’re supposed to pay attention, that there’s going to be a lot that we can’t understandeasily, and that there’s a reason it’s here.For example – think about what we heard last week – we talkedabout judgment in the book of Ezekiel and we had this incredibly bleak and disturbing description of what God’s punishment for thewicked was going to be like. Now when we read through the Belgic Confession in Article 37and it talks about judgment it tells us a few things that we believeabout that judgment: 
It tells us that on the day of the Lord everyone is going to beraised from the dead who was dead.
It tells us that the wicked are going to be judged for their sinsand that judgment is going to be a “dreadful and horriblethought” for evil and wicked people.
“The evil ones will be convicted by the witness of their ownconcsciences and shall be made immortal—but only to betormented in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil andhis angels.”What we have here is a picture of a terrible judgment for sin – anda punishment that lasts for eternity. It doesn’t stop.So what the Scriptures are doing is letting us know in the course of  just a few moments of thought the reality of eternal judgment. Thatwas the reason God passed this vision through Ezekiel…so that
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