1 Thessalonians SeriesPart 6

Last time we explored Paul’s command, per the Holy Spirit, that we as God’s children would walk in purity. Now this time we’re going to direct our attention toward temperamental things:

“And that you study to be quiet” (4:11a).

We all know people who are what we would call “temperamental”—with the emphasis on temper! They are hard to live with and difficult to get along with. Temperamental people are touchy, stubborn, rude, opinionated, pushy, or get angry easily. The Lord was never like that and, Paul says, neither should we be.

So we are to “study” to be quiet. The word for “study” is a word meaning “to earnestly endeavor to accomplish a goal. It means “to be ambitious.” So then, our ambition is to be quiet. The same word is used in Luke 14:4 to describe the cessation of activity by the women who were busy about the burial of Christ: “And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments and rested the Sabbath day according to the commandment.”

Think about success and ambition a moment. The Holy Spirit calls for something in this passage that is the opposite of the spirit of the world. In the world, people are ambitious to make money, achieve business success, and ascend the social ladder. We urge our children to “succeed.”

In the Bible, however, the only reference to “success” has to do with the kind of life that results from meditation on the Scriptures (Josh.1:8). “Study to be quiet,” says Paul. “Make it your ambition to stay out of the limelight.”

What did he mean “to be quiet?” Clark’s Commentary says, “Though in general the Church at Thessalonica was pure and exemplary, yet there seem to have been some idle, tattling people among them, who disturbed the peace of others; persons who, under the pretense of religion, gadded about from house to house; did not work, but were burdensome to others; and were continually meddling with other people's business, making parties, and procuring their bread by religious gossiping. To these the apostle gives those directions which the whole Church of God should enforce wherever such troublesome and dangerous people are found;”

Paul now shifts from temperamental things to temporal things:

4:11-12 “…to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you, 12 that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.”

Here the Lord deals with our work, our walk, and our wealth—all temporal issues. First, God has something to say about our work: “Do your own business,” He says, “work with your own hands.” The gospel knows nothing of a welfare system that provides for those who are fully able to work.

Idleness is against the Word of God. Scripture says in another place, “If any man does not work, he should not eat” (2 Thes. 3:10). God created man with a job, even before the Fall. “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work the ground and care for it” (Gen.2:15).

It has always been the way of God with humankind to call us to work in order for our needs to be met. A welfare state that provides money to people able but unwilling to work destroys families, ambition, talent, and will eventually collapse under its own weight.

It may be that the expectation of the Lord’s return caused some of the Thessalonians to become idle. This has happened through the centuries. One man set the date of the Lord’s return at A.D. 500. Half a century later, another date was set in anticipation of the new millennium. Multitudes of people sold their possessions and went to Palestine to await A.D. 1000.

Another group set a date for the return of the Lord in 1835, 1838, and 1866. A man named William Miller, the most famous of all American date setters, preached to great crowds (equipped with large charts to show how his hypotheses were determined) that Christ would return in 1843. When that didn’t happen he moved it to 1844. Can anyone say “Harold Camping” whose last date, October 21, just passed?

Mother Shipton, a self-proclaimed psychic, chose 1881 as the date. Warren G. Harding’s brother chose 1923 as the magic date. The Adventists later changed the year to 1996. On and on the list goes. The bottom line is this—“No one knows the day or the hour” (Mark 13:32).

The great evangelist D.L.Moody was asked, “What would you do today if you knew Jesus Christ was coming tomorrow?” His answer came, “I would plant a tree.” So work, says Paul, and provide for your own needs.”

In light of Paul’s advice to “walk properly toward those who are outside” (the lost), Moody also gave the great advice, “Take care of your character, and your reputation will take care of you.”

Now we come to the main theme of 1 Thessalonians—the pre-tribulation Rapture of the church. This topic is so important in scripture that it is mentioned some 318 times in the 260 chapters of the New Testament. That comes to an average of one reference every 25 verses!

With Paul’s absence, doubts and questions had begun to arise in the Thessalonians’ minds about this great event—especially about those who had died since Paul had left. What would happen to them? Had these loved ones missed the Rapture? They needed a lengthier explanation from Paul on these things.

What, then, does happen to those who put their faith in Christ but who die before the Lord returns? First, our feelings are reviewed:

4:13 “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope.”

We have all attended funerals. There is nothing more final than gazing into the casket at the calm face of a corpse. Nothing confronts with the terrible reality of death more strongly than this. For those outside of Christ, death is final, cold, uncaring, menacing, and inescapable. Paul calls death, “the last enemy.”

But for the believer there is a consolation—the promises of God in Christ Jesus! Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. In My Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so I would tell you. I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, you may be also” (John 14:1-2).

Paul writes, “We don’t sorrow as those who have no hope.” Then he describes death as sleep. The soul does not sleep, but the body does. The soul is made of the same stuff as eternity. It never gets tired, never gets old, never gets ill, and never sleeps. But the body sleeps, awaiting the Rapture of the church where the body shall be resurrected.

Next, our faith is reviewed: 4:14 “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.”

The “if” here is not the “if” of doubt. It actually means “since.” Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again…” is the rendering. There is no greater fact in all of history than this one—Jesus died and rose again.

It might shock some to know that there is more evidence for the resurrection of Christ than for the conquest of Britain by Julius Caesar! “Jesus’ resurrection was not done in a corner,” Paul declared to Festus and King Agrippa (Acts 26:26). The facts of Jesus’ resurrection were public knowledge. It is the one thing that no unbeliever has ever been able to assail.

Having drawn the parallel between Christ’s resurrection, now past, and our resurrection, still pending, Paul points us to “them also which sleep in Jesus.”

4:15 “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.”

What Paul is now sharing was new. It came by personal revelation of the Lord Himself to Paul and had not been described by any other Bible writer. He calls it “the word of the Lord.” Here we have a guarantee backed by God’s own Word—“the dead in Christ shall rise.” Who will arise?

4:16 “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.”

There are many different kinds of shouts—The shout of victory at a sports event. The shout of fear. The shout of dismay. The shout of war. But THE SHOUT that shall come from the mouth of the Lord Jesus on that great day shall be the greatest shout to ever split the silence in the history of the world. It will summon the saints to glory!

What a mighty shout that will be! There will follow a wholesale exodus from the tomb. This mighty shout will ring out across the five continents and the seven seas. Commentator John Phillips writes, “Its vibrant echoes will comb the mountain peaks, the arctic poles, the desert wastes, the ocean caves, the vast prairies, the crowded urban graveyards, and the world’s great battlefields.” And the dead in Christ will rise!

Martyrs of the faith will rise. Missionary pioneers will rise. Apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, the rank and file of the church will rise. Both those who were victorious in their lives and those who were weak in their faith will rise.

Up they will come, a countless host, ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands. Men, women, boys and girls, all washed in the blood of the Lamb!

Paul next says there will be another voice—the voice of the Archangel. This shall be the ruin of the world. The Rapture means that amnesty is over, that God has broken off diplomatic relations with the world that murdered His Son.

The voice of the Archangel will herald the sudden outbreak of angelic activity described all throughout the Book of Revelation. Angels are shown sounding the 7 trumpets, pouring out the 7 vials, and issuing warnings and proclamations. At the voice of the Archangel the terrible predictions of the Revelation of John commence. Next,

4:17 “Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

The words “caught up” are from the Greek word harpazo. It means literally, “to snatch away.” The same word is used to describe Philip’s sudden disappearance after he baptized the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:39).

“Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.”

The same word is used to describe a soul winner “pulling lost people out of the fire (Jude 23).

We shall be “caught up together” with the resurrected saints. At the same moment we shall receive the resurrected bodies so beautifully described in 1 Cor. 15. John says, “We shall be like Him” (1 John 3:2). And “so shall we ever be with the Lord!”

Finally, Paul brings us to our present rest: “Wherefore, comfort one another with these words” (4:18).