The Future is Light
Be in a Right relationship with God
The Future is Light
I Remember the Truth
Paul felt no need to go over such ground again. He refers his converts back to a prior revelation. He refers them, also, to a perfect revelation: “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night” (5:2). The Lord’s coming for His church is likened to the coming of a thief. A thief comes unexpectedly, when people are asleep, or when they are busy and occupied with other things.
The “day of the Lord,” to which Paul refers here, is the subject of extensive Old Testament revelation. There are seventeen references to it in the Old Testament (Isa. 2:12; 13:6, 9; Ezek. 13:5; 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:1, 11, 31; 3:14; Amos 5:18, 20; Obad. 15; Zeph. 1:7, 14; Zech. 14:1; Mal. 4:5). The “day of the Lord” is sometimes found combined with such words as wrath and vengeance. It is referred to four times in the New Testament (here and in 2 Thess. 2:2; 2 Peter 3:10; Rev. 1:10).
II Remain Awake
Paul now contrasts the essential differences between saints and sinners, between children “of the day” and those “of the night.”
Their condition is different: “But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief” (5:4). Twice in the original text the personal pronoun is emphatic. The Holy Spirit thus draws emphatic attention to the marked difference between the nature and destiny of Christians and the nature and doom of unbelievers. Paul is now talking to “brethren,” to the Lord’s people.