My wife has been bringing something up a lot to me lately. I think we've all experienced it. She might read....(she reads all the time!).....a word that she never saw before....and lo-and-behold the next day there is the very same word in a crossword or and article or a book. She has become super-perceptive now of that word. So I recommend something similar to you. As you read through the New Testament....this is hopefully almost every day....try to pay attention to verses that in any way point to the time of last of the last days....and to the Second Coming. I think that just as with that word that we think we hear for the first time in our life....and then we hear it again....you will be amazed at how many times Jesus and Paul and Peter and John and James were talking of the last days!
It appears that Paul's letter to the Galatians....and his letters to the Thessalonians....were written close in time to each other....and that they were early letters....roughly seventeen or eighteen years before his last letter....2 Timothy. In the one letter....Galatians....Paul dwells on doctrinal concerns....and in the other letters....1 & 2 Thessalonians....the emphasis is on persecution and trials and the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. What are we to make of this?
Well....there was a problem with the Galatians. They were turning back to the law! "Oh foolish Galatians....who has bewitched you." We have that letter to us today. Spurgeon had to preach on it with vigor from time to time....as did Martyn Lloyd-Jones....as did both R. C. Sproul and John MacArthur. There was a very distinctive purpose for it. Galatians was necessary...."To the churches of Galatia"....but it would be necessary anytime that that sickness entered the church.
The Thessalonians were in need of Paul's letters of encouragement and guidance to them. As you read through 1 and 2 Thessalonians you will see reference after reference to the Second Coming. Take a different color highlighter than you usually use....that is if you are interested....and highlight every verse that points to the Second Coming. Paul was still pointing to the Second Coming in his letters to Timothy.
It's been pointed out that Paul wrote letters to seven churches by name....Rome and Corinth and the churches of Galatia and Ephesus and Philippi and Colosse and Thessalonica....while John's seven letters to the seven churches were to Ephesus and Smyrna and Pergamum and Thyatira and Sardis and Philadelphia and Laodicea. Each of these letters addressed different truths...and they were not only for those churches. We all know that....what we don't realize is that there is a time for this and a time for that....and right now is a time for preparing ourselves for the turmoil ahead. Right now is a time for Thessalonians and the seven letters to the seven churches....and the Olivet Discourses....and....well if you do that highlighter thing on the whole New Testament then you will see that the last days and the tribulation and the Second Coming are all through the New Testament.
Note: Aphasia is an odd word. Maybe you have never heard it before....I never did.....or noticed it anyway....my wife just explained it to me. This is from the Internet...."In a 2022 survey, 67.8% people reported hearing the term "Aphasia", increasing significantly since 2020....when the figure was just 13.8%." See if you might read it or hear it in the near future.
