Thessalonians: Hope for a Hopeless World

I must say that 1987 was one of the most depressing years that I have lived through. Looking back, it seems the headlines continually spoke of disasters, murders and scandals. As I reflected upon the year, I wondered if there was not some way to eliminate, or at least cut back, all this evil. I thought of one thing which would certainly reduce crime, bring an end to the divorce scandal, eliminate teenage pregnancies, reduce the prison population, stop the sale of pornography, and decrease poverty. If we could come up with a drug that would remove pleasure from the act of sex, because that is why everybody indulges in sexual misbehavior, we could change the whole moral climate of our country. But I realized we also would lose much color from life. We would forfeit the companionship and fellowship which the sexes have in one another. Life would become very drab and dreary indeed. Since we obviously cannot make that drastic change, the only thing left to us is to learn how to handle our sexuality properly.

We come to a passage now where we must confront the question of whether the church will go through the great tribulation. Does the Lord come for his church before the great time of trouble that is coming; does he come in the middle of it; or does the church in fact go through the tribulation and Jesus comes at the end. That is a much debated and controversial question. The Scriptures are at times hard to understand concerning these issues; that is why there are differences of opinion among believers regarding them. All evangelicals agree, however, that only these three possibilities exist: a pre, mid, or post tribulational coming.

As a boy, growing up in the State of Montana, I loved to read stories of the Wild West. These tales convinced me that those days were perilous times. There were hostile Indian bands roaming around, seeking someone to torture and scalp; lawless gunmen waited in saloons, ready to shoot down anyone who caused them displeasure; and entire towns could be wiped out overnight by terrible plagues. The 19th century, it seemed to me, was a time when life seemed cheap and fraught with great danger.

Our final study in Paul's letters to the Thessalonians deals with the value of work. It is a rather strange subject for Sunday worship, but one that we should find profitable.