1 Thessalonians 5:1-11

You're listening to the Through the Bible Studio series with Pastor Nate Holdrich. Join us as we continue our study through the New Testament book of First Thessalonians. Here's Nate. The gospel of Jesus Christ radically impacts the way that you and I view the scope and the course of human history. You know, some people would of course view the outlay of human history as something that is cyclical. In other words, it goes from bad to good and bad to good and runs itself in a cyclical manner. And some people would view human history as more linear, whether they view it as going from bad to worse to worser or whether they view it as something that is going from bad to better and evolving into something greater. It is oftentimes seen as a linear thing. You know, perhaps with hiccups along the way, not always smooth, but the course of human history heading in a particular direction. And I think for the Christian because of the gospel, because of what Jesus has done through the blood of Christ, we view human history in a very redemptive kind of sense. Back in Genesis chapter 3, we saw the curse that was pronounced upon mankind. But immediately as the curse is pronounced upon mankind, in fact, even before the curse is pronounced upon mankind, God in Genesis 3 verse 15 begins to promise that a day is coming where the seed of the woman would crush the head of Satan, a picture of Jesus, the hope of the Messiah, the redeemer, the one who would change the course of this world. And so our view of the world is a redemptive view of the world. And in that view, there is this moment in time that the Bible refers to, called the day of the Lord. And we'll look into some Old Testament passages today. But here in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 1 through 11, Paul gives us a clear glimpse into this coming day of the Lord. You have to understand here, Paul has just taught them about this moment in time where the Christians who are alive at the coming of the Lord will be caught up together to meet the Lord in the clouds with the dead in Christ. And Timothy had been in Thessalonica previous to this. And here's Paul in Corinth now writing this letter to the Thessalonians answering some of their questions. And they probably wanted to know, what will it be like? When will it come? And so perhaps Timothy brings these questions to Paul and Paul begins to answer. And so last session, we looked at Paul telling them of the second coming and the rapture of the church, the rapture, the catching up of those who are first dead in Christ, but then those who are alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air chapter 4, verse 17. But now in verse 1 of chapter 5, he says, "Now concerning the times and the seasons, that word times is the Greek word chronos and seasons, the Greek word chyros, times meaning the time on the clock, the time on the calendar and seasons or chyros being the events, the eras, the seasons that were in, much like the times of the Gentiles in Luke 21, verse 24." And so he says, "Now concerning the times and the seasons, they wanted to know when would this happen." He says, "You have no need to have anything written to you." And so he says, first of all, concerning these times, concerning the chronology, concerning the season, wanting to know when this would happen. You have no need to know exactly when this would happen. This is not something that is for you to know or for you to understand the day and the hour, no one knows. But when Paul answers this question, he actually is going to deal with not a specific time in chronology and not a specific time as far as a season in human history, but he is going to deal with a moral timing and an atmosphere that will be present when this day of the Lord occurs. And we'll see that in a moment. He says, in verse 2, he says, "For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come, like a thief in the night. It will be an unexpected moment." You know yourself that the day of the Lord will come, like a thief in the night. And before we move on in the text, I think that there would be the question at this point of, "What in the world is the day of the Lord?" Some of us might have some kind of preconceived idea of what the day of the Lord is. Perhaps to us, it sounds like a glorious, giddy kind of time. The day of the Lord, how exciting, and what a blessing. In the Old Testament, though, this day of the Lord was mentioned at least 19 specific times. And I wanted to read to you a handful of those times. Isaiah chapter 2, verse 12, "For the Lord of hosts has a day against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low." So it's a day to humble that which is lifted up in pride. Isaiah 13, verse 9 through 11, "Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners from it. For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light, the sun will be dark at its rising, the moon will not shed its light. I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their iniquity. I will put an end to the pomp of the arrogant and lay low the pompous pride of the ruthless." And so the day of the Lord, a day of judgment of all that is evil. Ezekiel 30, verse 3, "For the day is near, the day of the Lord is near. It will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations. Obedire, verse 15, "For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you. Your deeds shall return on your head." Those were only four from the Old Testament. Here's one from the New Testament. Second Peter, chapter 3, verse 10, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed." And so really, when you read these different passages and many more from the Old Testament and from the New Testament, you discover some common themes about this coming day of the Lord. Number one, it's a day of wrath. And God is going to pour out His wrath upon a wicked and evil world. Number two, all of the nations of the world are involved in this process, perhaps and particularly in a worldwide rebellion against God. And number three, Israel is specifically involved in a special sense in this day of the Lord. God is going to turn His attention once again to the nation of Israel. Now, those are just some general marks of the day of the Lord, a day of wrath, all the nations involved, Israel specifically involved. But here are some specific marks of the day of the Lord, just a few of them. We learned from Malachi, chapter 4, verse 5, that before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes, God would send to us Elijah the prophet. So Elijah was in ancient history at the time that Malachi was prophesying. And so there's a future day where Elijah, in some sense, will return before the great and awesome day of the Lord. Now, this can be slightly confusing because Elijah did come on the Mount of Transfiguration to speak with Jesus, along with Moses. And beyond that, John the Baptist came in the spirit and the power of Elijah. And Jesus said things like, "If you're willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come." But then John would say stuff like, "No, I'm not Elijah who is to come." Personally, I believe that before the great and awesome day of the Lord, Elijah will still come again. He will be a part of things. And I personally believe he will be one of the witnesses in the book of Revelation who prophesies for a period of time. Also, 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 3, "Let no one deceive you in any way for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first." It seems that before the great and awesome day of the Lord, there will also be a worldwide rebellion against God. It seems to fit the idea of the nations coming together against the Lord, a worldwide apostasy and rebellion. Also, in 2 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse 3, right after that, he says, "And the man of lawlessness is revealed the son of of destruction who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called government. and/or object of worship so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. I think as well that before this great and terrible day of the Lord, there will be not only Elijah, a Elijah-like forerunner or a worldwide rebellion, but also this character that Christian sometimes refer to as the Antichrist. Here in 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 3, he is revealed as the Son of Destruction, the man of sin, the son of perdition. And so he'll go into the temple to demand to be worshiped at some point as God. And as I've said before, I believe that this moment will occur in the middle of what is called the 70th week of Daniel, the time of Jacob's trouble, at the three and a half year mark of that seven year period, this man of sin, this worldwide ruler and leader, will go into the temple and demand to be exalted, extolled worshiped as God himself. Also, it does seem that there is a constant theme of dramatic signs in the heavens that will occur as a result of the day of the Lord. There are many passages that hint at this kind of thing, but Joel chapter 2, verse 30 and 31 says, "I will show wonders in the heavens, and on the earth blood and fire and columns of smoke and the sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes." So a very visible thing in the heavens, a very visible thing, the moon to blood, the sun turned to darkness. And Jesus said in Matthew 24, verse 29, he said, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken." This sounds absolutely cataclysmic, earth shifting and earth changing. And so the day of the Lord, it's a day of wrath, it's a day of judgment. One scholar put it this way when they said, "The day of the Lord is a future period of time, in which God will be at work in world affairs more directly and dramatically than he has been since the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ, a direct involvement from God." So there's your primer on the day of the Lord from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 2. He says, "You and yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." There's this future, and I believe there's this future moment coming called the day of the Lord, where God will radically deal with severely the nations of the world and rebellion against him and pour out his wrath and judgment in a sense. And so a powerful, powerful word. And so the question then is, when will this day of the Lord come? When will the times of this be? When will the seasons of this be? We've already learned from Paul that, verse 1, you don't need to know about the times or the seasons, the chronology or the eras. You don't need to know that, you can't know that. Number 2, you know that it will come abruptly, like a thief in the night. So we do know some things about the timing specifically. But as I already told you, Paul would then, in verse 3, move on to the moral timing. Just the way things will be when the day of the Lord occurs. He says in verse 3, he says, "Well, people are saying there is peace and security, then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape." And so the way things will be, first of all, people will be declaring peace and safety. Peace and safety. I think there will be a general belief that there is no God at all. And you know, it's interesting, people love to ridicule the idea of God at times. And almost refer to him like a fairy tale or a little fictional character. And so I think that there will be a strong belief that there is no God. Or that God is so loving and so patient and so kind that there is no such thing as holiness inside of God. And so people will be declaring there is peace and there is safety. It's interesting, because when the second coming occurs, and Jesus actually returns to earth, I don't think anybody is going to be saying, "It's a time of peace and it's a time of safety." Now the day of the Lord will have been so painful that people will then, when they see him coming in the clouds, they will know that they've just been in a time of great travail and great pain. But when the rapture of the church occurs, it does appear that we will be dwelling in a time of peace and safety in one sense. People will be able to make that proclamation when the Lord calls us home to be with him. Number two, we also see that it will be as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman. And when you read Revelation 6 through 19, you discover a regular, more and more intense and regular pain that increases throughout that seven-year window of time. And number three, it says, "And they will not escape." This is a time of serious judgment. The God will pour out upon the earth. If this isn't the kind of theme that I would choose to make up, this isn't the kind of theme that I would create in my own heart or in my own mind. But this is God. He's saying that a day is coming when the people that he will judge, they'll not escape. He says, verse four, "But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief." So there's this contrast now. He's been talking about the day of the Lord. He's been talking about this moment of severe judgment. But now he says of the Thessalonians. He says, "But you are not a people who are in darkness." In other words, for you, that day is not going to surprise you like a thief. You know, you're in the light. He's going to tell them. You're not in darkness. You are in the light. And so you won't be surprised by this day. And I think in the context, what Paul is saying is that we won't be surprised because we'll be ready. We'll be surprised by the suddenness of the rapture, but we will be ready for the coming of the Lord. We are just children that walk in the day. Amos said it this way in Amos chapter 5 or 18 through 20. He said, "Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness and not light." As if a man fled from a lion and a bear met him or went into the house and leaned his hand against the wall and a serpent bit him. It is not the day of the Lord darkness and not light and gloom with no brightness in it. So embedded in the idea of the day of the Lord is this concept of light and darkness. And Paul tells the Thessalonians. He says, "Listen, you are children of the light. You are people of the day. You are not of the darkness and you are not of the night." That's what he says in verse 5. He says, "For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness." Therefore, in response to this, he says, "So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober." At this point, I think I just need to pause and simply exhort concerning an absolute sobriety in your approach and relationship with God in direct relationship to this concept of this truth of the future and the coming day of the Lord. Peter said it like this in 2 Peter 3, verse 11-13. He said, "Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?" In other words, if all of this is going to burn, if all of this is going to be dissolved, if this day of the Lord is coming, what kind of person should you be with holiness and godliness waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord? Because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolve Peter writes, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn. But according to his promise, we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. So in light all of that, Peter asks the question, "What kind of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?" And in light of all of this, Paul is looking at the Thessalonians and he's saying, "Listen, this day of the Lord is coming, and it is not to overtake you like a thief." And this particular day of the Lord is going to be a day of wrath, it's going to be painful, it is going to hurt those who experience it. But you're a person of the day, you're a person of the light, you're not in the dark, you're not in the night. And so for you, you ought to have an attitude of what does he say, sobriety, let us be sober. The unfortunate thing in all of this is that it's incredibly sad to me that there are some within Christianity who simply deliberately choose to disobey the word of God. I've seen quite a bit of this as a pastor, just a deliberate choice to walk away from God, a deliberate choice to engage in some kind of immorality or sin. And I know this not just from pastoral experience but from my own experience and my own life. When I was 16 years old there was a switch that turned on inside of my heart where I made a conscious decision to rebel against God for a season of time. I didn't know how long that season would be. I didn't know if it would last forever. I was just simply enjoying sin. For me that season lasted for about two years. Two years of bondage, two years of pain and two years that I will never get back. But those two years were years that I was not sober and I was walking in darkness and I was walking in the night. And so I need to be clear here at this point because as we look at this teaching concerning the day of the Lord and as Paul is using it as a motivation for sanctification in the life of a Christian. I need to be clear because there would be some whose hearts would be so tender about a thing like the day of the Lord. So so soft concerning a day like this that they would then pause and say I sinned earlier today. I did this or I did that. Oh, I want to walk with the Lord. I want to love the Lord and in general they are. But of course they have their struggles because they are human and they are being sanctified. And to you I would say you are walking in the light and you are walking in the day. I'm not talking to people like that. But I'm talking about people who are willfully rebelling against God. You're in some kind of relationship that is completely off limits. You're giving yourself to fornication or to drug use or to theft or to drunkenness. And you're just putting yourself in the path of sin. You're sitting in the seat of the scornful. And I would say to you in light of Paul's teaching on the day of the Lord and what it will be like and what it will look like. You are not in a safe place, my friend. And so I encourage you be awake and be sober. You belong to Christ. Act like it. He says in verse 7 he says for those who sleep sleep at night and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day let us be sober. Having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation. And so a great exhortation here from Paul is saying to us basically we're at war. You've got to put on the breastplate of faith and love and you've got to put on the helmet of the hope of salvation. And the breastplate of faith and love is the part of our armor that protects the internal organs and the insides of us are protected here with faith trust in God and love for God. And then he talks about the helmet of the hope of salvation. In other words a confidence of the coming salvation that will be ours in Christ and in God. That's the hope that we are to have. And it's important for us to recognize as believers that we are in a war and that we are in a war time atmosphere. We're up against the world and the devil and the flesh and because we're up against these things it takes a strong sobriety inside of our hearts to be able to endure in this kind of atmosphere. Then Paul goes on concerning this day of the Lord and he says in verse nine he says for God has not destined us for wrath. God has not destined us for wrath. Now some people will ask me from time to time do I believe that a Christian could go through what we would refer to as the great tribulation. The first part of my answer is very simple I believe that Christians will go through tribulation. In other words we're going to go through trials. We're going to be corrected by the Lord, chastened by the Lord. We're going to go through difficulties because of our sin and we'll go through simple trials that are a result of living in a fallen world. I think we all recognize that. I reject wholeheartedly the idea that just because I'm a Christian my life is supposed to be you know lollipops and gum drops that my life is supposed to be just entire peace at all times. I don't believe that. I think that the Lord is our model. There will be great difficulty. There will be great tribulation that we endure and that we go through but when the question is put that way do I believe that a Christian can go through the great tribulation. What I believe is that the great tribulation is the day of the Lord and is the pouring out of the wrath of God upon a a Christ rejecting world and so that what we're experiencing in the great tribulation is not chastening or discipline from God and it is also not trial or difficulty as a consequence of our own sin or trial or difficulty as a consequence of sin in the world in general the fall. What I'm saying in the great tribulation is that this is a time where God himself is pouring out his specific wrath upon the world and what Paul says here is that God has not destined us to wrath and so my answer is I do not believe that we will ever endure the wrath of God as his children and the question of course then is why and I think the answer is found in verse 9 and 10 he says but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Why am I not going to experience the wrath of God? I'm not going to experience the wrath of God because Jesus experienced the wrath of God for me. I believe that during those three hours of darkness on the cross Jesus was atoning for the sin of the world and he was experiencing the wrath of God for you and for me. He experienced it in his life. He experienced it in his death as he bore the wrath of God for us. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 21 he said for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God. It says in Isaiah 53 verse 10 that it was the will of the Lord to crush him and I believe with humility that Jesus Christ experienced the wrath of God for his children and so Paul says but you are not destined for wrath. Therefore verse 11 he says encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. He ends it in the same way as he ended the section on the rapture. The day of the Lord we are to encourage one another. This is not a day for God's children. We are of the day. We are of the light. Walk with him. Be sober. Be at war but be confident. This day is not for you. God bless you and Amen. Thank you for listening. For additional resources and teachings or to contact us please visit us at naitholdridge.com