A significant difference exists between believers in the early church and those in the present church.

A significant difference exists between believers in the early church and those in the present church. We in the present church are preoccupied with not going to hell while in the early church believers were preoccupied with not falling under the judgments that Christ was to deliver upon the earth for its refusal to believe in him. Believers in the early church were far more conscious of the return of Christ than many of us are today. They assumed that Christ would come and deliver them from the wrath to come.

For those who sleep do their sleeping at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we are of the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him (1 Thessalonians 5).

In this portion of Scripture being awake or being asleep referred to the quality of one’s life: are we living a life of spirituality meaning are we awake or a life of carnality meaning are we asleep? Paul told us that whether we are awake or asleep spiritually we will live together with Christ. We will be delivered from the wrath to come.