Apr. 02, 2025

Dear Friends,

I hope you can attend our Bible study tonight! We will be studying 1 Thessalonians 5:1-11. Notes are attached.

LIVING THE CHRISTLIFE 

WAYNE BARRETT 

HILLTOP LAKES CHAPEL 

APRIL 2, 2025 

1 Thessalonians 5:1-11 

Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 

2 For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3 While 

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. 4 But you are not in darkness, brothers, for 

that day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of 

the night or of the darkness. 6 So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 

7 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8 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. 9 For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 

10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11 Therefore 

encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. 

______________________ 

v 1 – “Now concerning the times and the seasons …” 

chronos and kairos 

“you have no need…” 

Paul may have been being tactful and gracious. There apparently was some need, or he would 

not have reminded them about these things. Also, there were false teachings circulating and 

he wanted to set the record straight. 

v 2 – “the day of the Lord…” 

This was a major topic and sure expectation of the early church 

The “day of the Lord” is the Second Coming of Christ, which includes the final Judgment of the 

world. (See the attached sheet for further references.) 

Early Christians, in large part, were expecting the Lord’s return during their lifetimes. 

In this regard, some people said that he already had returned and others, perhaps, were claiming 

to know the exact time when it would occur (e.g. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-2) 

Both of these false teachings are corrected in the NT 

As a part of these corrections, things would be pointed out that were requisite to the Day of the 

Lord which, clearly, had not occurred—this to help people not to be deceived and upset. (e.g. 

2 Thessalonians 2:3-12, “Let no one deceive you in any way …”) 

We also recognize that prophetic words in Scripture often have intermediate, partial fulfillments 

which align with that word prior to the final fulfillment of the prophesy. 

The Second Coming of Christ has not yet occurred, but there times when the Lord does come 

upon a person or a church or a nation in judgment.  

“Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at 

first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you 

repent.”—Revelation 2:5 

In addition, while a person’s death is not the same as Christ’s Second Coming, a death is another 

way that the time for judgment—unto life or punishment—comes to a person, and this 

happens to everyone during their lifetimes, often at unexpected times. 

1 

vv 2-3 – “like a thief in the night…” 

“For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days 

before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the 

day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them 

all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”—Matthew 24:37-39 

“Remember, then, what you received and heard. Keep it, and repent. If you will not wake up, I 

will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come against you.”—

 Revelation 3:3 

(Review 2 Peter 3:10, and see Revelation 16:15) 

The day of the Lord will be sudden and unexpected—although not for Christians if they have 

paid attention to Scripture and remain vigilant. 

It is also often sudden and unexpected when the Lord comes in other ways in judgment 

“While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security…’” 

more lit. “For when they might say ‘peace and security’ then suddenly ruination comes upon 

them!” 

ruination – olethros, ruin, doom, destruction, death (Strong’s) 

“as labor pains”—without warning, and they cannot be prevented or stopped, an example 

everyone could understand and was memorable 

A demonstration of the delusion under which a godless world lives—which is not always an 

“uncomfortable” would. Far from it. 

cf. areas in Germany that had been shielded during much of the first part of WWII. It was 

somewhat comfortable for a while. Life went on fairly normally. But then … 

vv 4-5 – “But you are not in darkness brothers …” 

more lit. “But you, brothers, are not in darkness, that the day might overtake you like a thief.” 

Here “darkness” meaning more than just ignorance, but the darkness of living apart from God 

and under the delusions of the world 

more lit. “For you are all sons of light and sons of day.” 

We cannot do justice to this phrase within time constraints; books are written on “light” in the 

Scriptures. 

“Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, 

but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be 

darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly 

bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”—Luke 11:34-36 

“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we 

walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in 

the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us 

from all sin.”—1 John 1:5-7 

“Light” means more than photons! It references God’s holiness, truth, and in some higher sense, 

his very nature. It certainly means the absence of sin and having an “enlightened” 

understanding. 

more lit. “We are not of night nor [sic] darkness.” 

Double negative for emphasis 

Paul contrasts our state with that of the world—he is also about to extend the metaphor (to the 

extent that this is a metaphor) 

2 

v 6 – “So then, let us not sleep…” 

Since we are not of the darkness—and those who are asleep (even though they don’t necessarily 

know it). They are not paying attention to God or to what is going on. 

more lit. “But we should watch and we should be sober” 

We are often enjoined in Scripture to be both 

cf. Ephesians 5:11-21 

vv 7-8 – “For those who sleep…” 

Continuing this analogy… 

v 8 is in parallel with Ephesians 6:10-18, the armor of God 

This all relates to being sons of light and being sober-minded 

vv 9-10 –“For God has not destined us for wrath…” 

This is a continuation of “and the helmet the hope of salvation;” 

[and what is that hope?] 

“that God has not appointed us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus 

Christ, the One having died for us…” 

“so that whether we might watch or we might sleep, we might live together with him.” 

Paul gives his metaphor a twist for ending the teaching—here he means a godly watching 

and a godly sleep 

Our hope in Christ is assured by God—our salvation is something he is doing. 

The inescapable corollary is, though, that the sinful world is indeed under the wrath of 

God. It is from this that we are saved by and in Christ. 

v 11 “Therefor encourage one another…” 

This should be our goal in Christian community: to encourage one another and to build one 

another up. 

This teaching has its main application in what we do when we are not “at the church”—which is 

the vast majority of all of our hours each week 

3 

The Day of the Lord 

Selected References in the New Testament 

“…the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the 

great and magnificent day.”—Acts 2:20 [From Peter’s sermon at Pentecost; he is quoting Joel] 

“…who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.”—1 Corinthians 1:8 

“…you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in 

the day of the Lord.”—1 Corinthians 5:5 

“For we are not writing to you anything other than what you read and understand and I hope you will 

fully understand— just as you did partially understand us—that on the day of our Lord Jesus you will 

boast of us as we will boast of you.”— 1 Corinthians 1:13-14 

“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask 

you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter 

seeming to be from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come.”—2 Thessalonians 2:1-2 

“Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will 

award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”—2 Timothy 

4:8 

“…then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under 

punishment until the day of judgment.”—2 Peter 2:9 

“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.”—2 Peter 3:10 

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does 

the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not 

prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 

23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”—

 Matthew 7:21-23 

“But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, 

and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they 

will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. And then he will send out the 

angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven.”—

 Mark 13:24-27