CHECK THE SKY. He promised it would happen – He is coming! Not a stranger or an accomplice – He is coming! We will know without a doubt who it is – He is coming! No one is going to stop the process – He is coming! The voice of the archangel will make the announcement – He is coming! The sound of the trumpet will arouse all who are waiting – He is coming!
There is no doubt that the coming of the Lord for the church was on the apostle Paul’s mind when he wrote this epistle. Teaching about the Lord's coming had been given, but in the sense of His promise to return. In this book, he begins with salvation and the Lord’s coming. We have been rescued from impending judgment. Serving God in light of His coming will motivate us to keep pushing forward with the Gospel. The sanctification of believers in view of the Lord's coming encourages believers to live holy lives in purity before God and the world. Sorrow was lifted from God's people when they understood how the Lord's coming would occur. Now, in light of the Lord's coming, the epistle concludes with an effort to inspire God's people first in themselves and then in their calling and relationship with others.
The apostle Paul assured the believers at Thessalonica that both those who had died and those who were alive when the Lord came would all go together into the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. This will happen before the Lord appears in His glory to reign over the entire world in the last part of “The Coming of the Lord.” The first part of this chapter describes the impact of the revelation of Christ on the world.
In view of the coming of the Lord, believers should conduct themselves in a manner that reflects our Master, who has left us here to represent Him. The “times and seasons” are not our concern, so we don't need to speculate about them. Many people have set dates and pointed to events claiming that is when the Lord will return. Others even assign numbers to the names of famous individuals to suggest that person is the antichrist, and all such foolish speculation only leads to confusion and mockery of so-called Christians. These vain attempts to scare people into salvation fail because they lack biblical support. All we need to know is that He is coming because He said so, and He always keeps His promises.
The Day of the Lord will come unexpectedly and suddenly; that is all we need to know. Every generation of Christians believed the Lord could come at any moment and were motivated to live in a way that would ensure they were “not ashamed before Him at His coming.” In God’s eternal existence, there is no concept of time as we understand it, so dates on a calendar or numbers on a clock don’t apply to Him. God’s “time periods” include divine events like a “time of visitation,” a “time of ignorance,” a “time of promise,” a “time of tribulation,” and a “time of the end.”