A Spiritual Checklist For The Last Days | 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 | 10-14-26 | Wednesday

Andrew Montoro (0:00)

So, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 Tonight, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5

We actually went through the book of 1 Thessalonians, we went through the book of 1 Thessalonians about four years ago, back in 2022, we went 1 Thessalonians into 2 Thessalonians, and it took us about four sermons to cover the text we're going to try to deal with tonight. So buckle your seatbelts, we may be here till m—no.

We're going to try to take a broad sweep, and if we need to, we'll break it up into a couple sermons, but I pray that the Lord would speak to us tonight. Here at the end of the chapter 5, verse number 16 of 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, is where we're going to read down through verse number 24 If you have trouble memorizing verses, these are some good verses to start with, alright? Paul is writing to the church there at Thessalonica. The Thessalonians there, he says, rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything, give things, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Quench not the spirit, despise not prophesying, prove all things, hold fast that which is good, abstain from all appearance of evil, and the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. And I pray, God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved, blameless, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so tonight, here's our title, A Spiritual Checklist for the Last Days. A Spiritual Checklist for the Last Days. Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, we do come before you tonight. Lord, I thank you for your word, how it speaks to us. I pray, Lord, just for your help in clearly communicating the message of your word, only what you are saying. I pray that you would help me to say all that needs to be said. And Lord, I pray that you would speak to our hearts, help this time to be profitable for your work. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

On October 30th, 1935, the future of the US Army Air Corps lay smoldering on the ground. This is a quote from the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. This is a quote from their website. On October 30th, 1935, the future of the US Army Air Corps lay smoldering on the ground. That day, the promising prototype for a four-engine long-range bomber had crashed shortly after takeoff at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. An inquiry discovered no problem with the sophisticated aircraft's design. Rather, human error was at fault. The pilot, Major Piler Peter Hill, had forgotten to release the safety lock, and it basically forced the plane into a climb until it stalled, and then the plane crashed. What happened next would change aviation forever. I'm reading again. The Army Air Corps implemented the pre-flight checklist, a revolutionary new protocol that became standard for the entire aviation industry. This major innovation in flight preparation has saved countless lives and averted untold crashes by circumventing mistakes. And the pre-flight checklist enabled the advancement of aviation technology by ensuring that, with proper protocols in place, the pilots could safely fly the increasingly complex aircraft that sprang from the minds of engineers.

That aircraft, that prototype that crashed, we know today as the B-17. How many of you have heard of the B-17, the Flying Fortress? What they used on the missions? The Army, 8th Army, that flew the missions over Germany.

And the B-17 was one of the first four-engine aircrafts. And it's going from pilots who are used to flying one engine, maybe two engines, and there's only so much all of a sudden. Now there's four engines that you have to keep everything in touch with. Everything is bigger, and everything is more complicated, and more sophisticated. And it was too much for the pilot and the co-pilot to just wing it, right? Up to that time, it had been okay for them to fly by the seat of their pants. Hey, if they're an experienced pilot, they know to hit this, and they know to hit this button. But there was only so many buttons, but with the B-17, the buttons increased four-fold. And if you didn't put the right buttons in the right order, maybe button switches, whatever it happened to be, if you didn't put them in order, the plane was going to crash. And so I actually looked up this afternoon or this morning in the study, I looked up, and there you have pictures all over the internet of the original pre-flight, in-flight, before landing checklist. They had a before walk around the aircraft, engine start, before takeoff, after takeoff, before landing approach. They had a checklist that the co-pilot and the pilot would each have to do, and they'd have to say, check, read through this, visual on the landing gear, visual on this, all of this that had to go. And because they instituted this checklist, while there were many casualties and there were many things that did happen with the B-17s, there was countless mistakes and countless accidents that were avoided, that were, lives were saved, because they went through a checklist.