Chapter 5
1Thess 5:3
For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.
So what is with these birthing women?
It’s not really about the woman, it is about using the metaphor of child birth and the pain and work that persists for a time until delivery.
One might call it “travail”:
1. To labor with pain; to toil.
2. To suffer the pangs of childbirth; to be in labor.
Remember Paul said he experienced this toil: “For ye remember, brethren, our labour and travail: for labouring night and day, because we would not be chargeable unto any of you, we preached unto you the gospel of God.” (1Thess 2:9).
But this “travail” he is talking about in Chapter 5 is a bit different, measured on a different scale I believe.
And these people to whom it shall come “shall not escape.” Something bad is going to be coming upon them…“sudden destruction”. The man of sin, the son of perdition, i.e. the antichrist, i.e the beast, will betray them and subject them to persecution and great tribulation; then the day of the Lord will come down from heaven to the earth and more destruction will follow. It will not be pretty; it will not be a good time.
What was said in Jeremiah, in this same vein?
Jer 30:5-7
For thus saith the LORD; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace.
Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness?
Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it.
As a woman in travail….the time of Jacob’s trouble… and who is Jacob? Jacob is Israel and Judah. And a “time of” …“trouble”…Who is this written for?
Jer 30:4
And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah.
You will run across these references throughout the Bible about travail as a woman with child and there like, and a lot of these passages are in reference to this time that is coming upon the nation and the remnant of Israel.
And not the “church, the body of Christ”, the “church his body” was a mystery not revealed until Paul.
Judgment will come on the world, and all the nations that will deal horribly with Israel at that time…
Isa 13:6-13
Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:
And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
The next verse in Thessalonians…
1Thess 5:4
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Back to the “ye” and “you” and away from the “they” and “them”.
Paul had no need to write to them about this; they were going to be ok; this is not applying to them (the Thessalonians).
1Thess 5:5
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
“Ye” and then Paul includes himself with them with a “we”.
The Ye, You, We are brethren; Ye, You, We brethren are not in darkness, nor of darkness, not of the night; however Ye, You, We brethren are children of light, children of the day.
Now this darkness/light and day/night seem to be a positional thing. And Paul is making the case that our position is somewhere else where it is light; not “night” but “day”.
I will pause here for now. Please push back on anything.
You will run across these references throughout the Bible about travail as a woman with child and there like, and a lot of these passages are in reference to this time that is coming upon the nation and the remnant of Israel.
And not the “church, the body of Christ”, the “church his body” was a mystery not revealed until Paul.
Judgment will come on the world, and all the nations that will deal horribly with Israel at that time…
Isa 13:6-13
Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.
Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:
And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.
Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.
I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.
Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
The next verse in Thessalonians…
1Thess 5:4
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.
Back to the “ye” and “you” and away from the “they” and “them”.
Paul had no need to write to them about this; they were going to be ok; this is not applying to them (the Thessalonians).
1Thess 5:5
Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
“Ye” and then Paul includes himself with them with a “we”.
The Ye, You, We are brethren; Ye, You, We brethren are not in darkness, nor of darkness, not of the night; however Ye, You, We brethren are children of light, children of the day.
Now this darkness/light and day/night seem to be a positional thing. And Paul is making the case that our position is somewhere else where it is light; not “night” but “day”.
I will pause here for now. Please push back on anything.
Grace and Peace James.
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