Thanks to daylight savings time, the sun doesn’t set until late in the evening. Parents who try to keep a schedule for their children who are still in school have probably heard them say, “We can’t go to bed yet. It’s not dark!” They associate darkness with sleep. The Apostle Paul does that in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, but in a different context.

Based on Acts 17:2, Paul was only with the Thessalonian people for three weeks. Since Paul had to leave them rather quickly, perhaps feeling he needed to address something he may not have had sufficient time for while in Thessalonica, he placed great emphasis on the return of the Lord in his letters to them. In 1 Thessalonians 5:2, he called it “the day of the Lord.” He immediately followed that by saying it will be “like a thief in the night.” In other words, it will happen on God’s time, not man’s.

People who don’t know Jesus as their Savior are living in darkness. They are unaware of, or choose to ignore, the return of the Lord. They sleep through the warning signs, somehow not seeing that the closeness of His return is like a woman in the last stages of labor. The event Paul describes in Thessalonians is different than the one in Matthew chapter 24. Here, Paul is speaking about a time when men are lulled to sleep with thoughts of peace and safety. In Matthew, it is a time of catastrophic events.

Charles Spurgeon preached on this text and used this illustration. “A prisoner in his cell is about ready to be led to execution; his heart is terrified at the thought of hanging from his neck, terrified of death, and of what awaits him after death. All the while, a man with a letter of pardon for the condemned man sits in another room, and sleeps.” He had the words that would have set free a condemned man, but chose instead to sleep.

Paul tells the Thessalonian Christians in verse 6 that they must not allow the darkness to lull them to sleep. Sound the warning. Stay awake, stay vigilant, watch for the Lord’s return. In verses 16 through 18, he tells them to “rejoice, to pray always, and to give thanks in all things, for this is the will of God.” In so doing, they will be sons and daughters of the light, not the night. It’s time to wake up!