Title: Go with him two miles
Roman law required one.
The Lord Jesus encouraged an additional mile.
The Jews had to walk a total of four miles coming back to the place of origin.
This is when the Jew refused to take even one step in the service of the oppressor.
Christianity requires sacrifice of the noblest nature. As an act of obedience in the Spirit, we divest ourselves of all self-interest in order to witness to the love of God which surpasses all understanding.
Title: He had compassion on them
The mark of a genuine leader is compassion, when compassion is defined as “to suffer with”.
The Lord Jesus didn’t estrange himself from the darkness and the ignorance and the hopelessness that had oppressed the people and the land.
He had nothing to gain, but all to give.
He was drawn to the people because of their illnesses, their spiritual blindness, their callous rebellion, their superficial worship, their helplessness against attacks by evil spirits, their heavy burdens, their transgressions; and he was more than willing to suffer with them and for them, in order to make them partakers of life and the resurrection they never deserved.
Title: Neither this man nor his parents sinned
Knowing who sinned is the prerogative of God.
Since God is eternally holy, he can identify sin in the temporal realm, in the deepest recesses of our being, even in our intentions and in our thoughts.
The Lord Jesus cannot be the Savior unless he knows who have sinned and the consequences of transgression, as he came as the only solution to lawlessness that salvation might be manifested as the work of God throughout all the generations from Adam until sin and death be swallowed up in victory and time fades into eternity.
Title: You are the Son of God
Who would be able to recognize the Deity and the Kingship of the Lord Jesus but the one in whom there is nothing false; and this would not escape God’s notice and testimony, while a lesser character would have failed to see the Son of God in a carpenter’s son.
Title: Give us this bread
Anyone who desires the bread that gives eternal life must also be aware of the need for others to come and believe in the Lord Jesus.
Salvation is a personal experience, but it is also a universal cause, so the Christian has to reach out to the world with the gospel, and plan his life to include God and the people whom his life might touch.
This is truly the good news, in the sense that it includes the whole world and not the self alone.
Title: To those who sold doves
Even in his righteous indignation the Lord Jesus didn’t want anyone to suffer loss. Had he released the doves, it would have been difficult to recover the birds.
The Lord is exceedingly gracious, but worship must never be a venue to advance any business interest or serve as a platform to market merchandise or a social cause.
Worship is a stage, and the whole congregation performs for the pleasure of God.
We don’t worship Sunday after Sunday to be blessed.
We worship because we have already been blessed.
Scripture explains Scripture.
This article, as part of a series, will try to shed light on the relationship between the two Thessalonian letters, which is the key to understanding (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), although other verses outside these two missives can prove helpful as well.
Let us first put on record the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Theory:
That the Lord Jesus would come in the clouds to fetch the Church in time for the beginning of the 7-year Tribulation Period, take all believers to heaven, where a Marriage Supper will take place, then return to earth with the saints seven years later; and while all this is happening, halfway into the Tribulation Period, the Anti-Christ would be revealed, to be destroyed at the 2nd phase of the Lord’s return.
Simply said, the Rapture Theory teaches two separate and distinct phases of the Lord’s return.
The problem in this interpretation is the failure of Rapture adherents to place 2nd Thessalonians in its proper perspective.
WHY THE SECOND LETTER TO THE THESSALONIANS?
One of the purposes of Paul in writing a second missive to the church in Thessalonica was to correct a misunderstanding concerning the Lord’s return (1 Thess. 4:13-18). It seems that a letter, supposed to have emanated from the Apostles, had been circulating among the believers claiming that the Lord had already returned, causing alarm in the church.
So it is clear that 2nd Thessalonians (2 Thess. 2:1-4) is an amplified explanation of (1 Thess. 4:13-18). The Apostle Paul is not providing a new set of signs for another event, but is merely giving a detailed clarification of the circumstances surrounding (1 Thess. 4:13-18), and the following facts could be gleaned from (2 Thess. 2:1-4):
1) That the coming (1 Thess. 4:13-18) would be a time of being gathered to the Lord
2) That the day would not come until the Apostasy occurs
3) That the Anti-Christ would be revealed first before that day (1 Thess. 4:13-18) comes
The Apostle Paul even puts himself as part of the event (2 Thess. 2:1) “that our being gathered to Him”, which unmistakably points back to (1 Thess. 4:13-18).
So (1 Thess. 4:13-18) will not happen until the Apostasy occurs and the Anti-Christ is revealed, and since the coming of the Lord Jesus as described in (1 Thess. 4:13-18) will result in the destruction of all who reject God (2 Thess. 1:5-10), and the day also when the Lord will be glorified in His holy people (2 Thess. 1:10), then it must necessarily occur at the end of the Tribulation Period.
Will the church go through the Tribulation Period?
Although this will be the subject of another article, let me give you a couple of verses to this effect.
(John 17:15,20)
15 I do not pray for You to take them out of the world, but for You to keep them from the evil.
20 And I do not pray for these alone, but for those also who shall believe on Me through their word,
(Isa 26:19-21)
19 But your dead will live;
their bodies will rise.
You who dwell in the dust,
wake up and shout for joy.
Your dew is like the dew of the morning;
the earth will give birth to her dead.
20 Go, my people, enter your rooms
and shut the doors behind you;
hide yourselves for a little while
until his wrath has passed by.
21 See, the LORD is coming out of his dwelling
to punish the people of the earth for their sins.
The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her;
she will conceal her slain no longer.