First Thessalonians Overview
1 Thessalonians; 2 Thessalonians · Roger Henderson · Jan 24, 2021
Thessalonians, No. 01
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926192134559

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

I got the opportunity to do the apportioning, as Bob tells me. Roger, you assign me these verses so I get to choose. So the chooser has some liberties here. So I've actually kind of made it smaller little pieces of scripture each session, two to three verses, sometimes four. So we're going to go along rather slowly, but I think it's good. It's a great book. So today is the overview.

So let's just look here at just some pictures at first here. So here's a picture of Paul's second missionary journey. He starts in Jerusalem. I think he actually started in Antioch. I have to go back and review. what it says in Acts. But anyway, his second missionary journey took him through Asia all the way to Macedonia. In the upper right-hand corner, if you can see it, maybe it's kind of hard, I underline Thessalonica. And it's between Philippi and Berea there.

So I have a more detailed map here in a second. So let's look at that one. This is kind of a cool map. You'll probably like this. You'll probably be able to see it better. Okay, this map is kind of a topological where you got the mountains and the whole work. So you see in the distance, kind of upper right, you see Philippi and then you kind of see the road kind of winding through the mountains there. And then eventually it winds up at Thessalonica. And you can see it's right on the GNC.

And it was a large town. In Paul's time, it was 200,000 people. And it actually has continuously been a city since Paul's time, which is amazing. So actually, there's 300,000 people that live there today. It's modern day Greece. So anyway, kind of interesting. So we're going to see that a lot of this is, you know, Paul's going to leave Philippi. If you remember, that's where he was in jail. Remember the Philippian jailer? That's kind of a really wonderful story there that we hear. And so, and then he travels on to Thessalonica.

So let's just go on to the next. So what I've done here, okay, so I'm, in doing the background, let me move this over here, in doing the background I, I made use of a lot of our helps that we have. I've used Macaulay and Constable and there's a gentleman that Vern liked which is unnamed so I have him in there. I haven't been able to discover who that is, maybe I will eventually. Anyway, so I utilize their statements about, and then I want to go through and we're going to spend the majority, the last part of the class just looking.

We're going to take Macaulay's outline and go through and look at some of the key verses in Thessalonians here. So let's just start out here. So first of all, it was a major city in Greece. I've kind of already said that. It was named, There are hot springs here apparently and just one second here. Let me just do one thing real quick here and see if I can do something here. There we go. All right. Okay, so it was, Therma was the name of the town, meaning hot springs.

Okay, so Cassandra, the Macedonian king, founded the modern city in 315 B.C. He named it for his wife, who was a half-sister of Alexander the Great. So it was the capital city of the Roman province of Macedonia. It was located on the Anatian Way, Ignatian. I'm not sure I pronounced that right. So it's on the main road. It's on the main path to the eastern provinces in the Roman Empire. It was self-governing and there was enough Jews in that town of 200,000 people.

They had at least one synagogue and that's where Paul is going to come and we see the description in Acts 17. And so the first 13 or 14 verses, Paul leaves Philippi. He comes to Thessalonica. And he, as his usual practice, goes to the synagogues. And he preaches there.

So like I said, it's one of the few cities that has maintained continuity since Paul's day. So to kind of continue on here. Okay, Paul's ministry. Paul's ministry is mostly described in Acts 17, as I mentioned. His first visit, his traveling companions were Silas and Timothy. He just left prison, braculously. And actually what's interesting, we're going to see Paul here. Some have said Thessalonians is a book of remembrance or Recollection there's a lot of dialogue about Remember this happened remember that happened remember how the Lord did this remember how the Lord did that?

It's like almost you're writing to a friend you say boy when we were in high school member, Mr.. So-and-so he was really bad. You know or What about that girl? She was really cute whatever happened to her. You know you know things like that. It's it has that flavor so Okay, so Paul as it says in the early part of Act 17 it says Paul I was there for three Sabbath days. And some have said, you know, that's every Saturday, I guess. Sabbath would be Saturday, right? Friday night to Saturday morning. So through Saturday. Some have said, Paul probably was there a lot. That's only three weeks.

And what happens is the Jews, as typically was in the book of Acts, we see Paul would go to places. He'd preach the gospel. Sometimes the Jews would get very upset. They'd get jealous. They would form mobs. It almost, I hate to say it, it sounds somewhat like today.

And actually, there's a lot of interesting parts in here. You think about, Paul says, we're suffering for the Lord. The Thessalonians are suffering. So it's interesting, just a lot of good encouragement in that area. So he preached for three Sabbath days, it says. either during those Sabbath days or adjacent during the time period. Other people there were suffering with them. There were Jews and then there were God-fearing proselytes. And they responded to the message. They responded to the message of the good news of Jesus Christ. And some of the leading women also believed. and many of the idol worshippers.

You know, I was listening to Macaulay, and he was, you know, I'm also working on Corinthians 2, which is a little bit farther down the road here, so to speak. But, you know, the pagan society was just massive. There were so many, you know, you hear about a few temples here and there, but there were just, Macaulay went through and he read a list of all the temples, like in Corinth. I mean it's a list, a long list of every possible God out there just you know just so these people were immersed in the pagan worship and that's what this Paul's just thanking the Lord for their turning from pagan idolatry to the true God. All right, so now let's go on to the next chart.

So the importance of Thessalonian letters, these are statements that came from a gentleman that unnamed that I couldn't find his name, but Vern referred to him in some of his notes. So I thought it was really good, so I'm going to go ahead and use it. So what this gentleman points out, The Thessalonian letter is basically a mix of doctrine, prophecy, and persecution. It has all three of those in there. We're going to see it has a lot of good doctrinal statements.

Paul talks about his persecution. And we have the wonderful statements about prophecy, about the Lord's return. And so all those three are in view in the letters here. and the effect of the gospel on the Jews and the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. Paul mentions himself that he was suffering for Christ's sake and so were the Thessalonians.

So much about suffering in the book. But during all that he gives a strong word of encouragement, some discipline, and spiritual insight. And then lastly, It's important because it illustrates how Christians should respond while living in a hostile spiritual environment.

That's what I like the last statement. It sounds like today. We certainly are in that and it looks like it's not going to improve and probably will get worse. So a very timely book. And if you have questions, you know, we'll give it a shot here, you know, speak up. Okay, so now, now I want to do is here as I promised.

So there's an outline that Jester McCauley put together. So it's like eight point outline. I'm going to go through the outline. I put in scripture verses that I thought were appropriate. So we're going to look at those scripture verses. And I have some of you guys read some of those. So let's start off.

So the first ten verses in chapter one have been labeled Turning to God from idols or serving the living and true God So Paul starts off as with all his letters with a greeting, and I didn't do too much in the that a greeting of Thanksgiving his greeting actually greeting is from himself and Silas and Timothy That's his greeting, and then we get down to the first Kind of the first you know meat of it meat of the passage here a meat of chapter 1 here So this is Paul's confidence. So Macaulay breaks it into four sections.

The first section is how God's word came to them. How do they come to the Thessalonians? So the verse says, for our gospel did not come to you in word only, but in power and the Holy Spirit with full conviction. So he points out, yes, it's important to get the gospel out, but God's power and the Holy Spirit working in the lives of people. I was just thinking, imagine if you came, you know, Paul lived a miraculous life, if you think about it. He comes to a place like Thessalonica, he preaches three Sundays, so to speak, and during those three Sundays, apparently, a significant number of people came to the Lord. You know, just pretty amazing. So God was at work there. So I thought that was pretty neat. All right. Let's just see here. All right. Okay. Second point. Go ahead, Bob. Go ahead.

I think, you know, in verses 5 through 10, what you see, too, is kind of a chronology of the church. In other words, people coming just be saved and how the spirit leads the spread of the church and then ultimately the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, it's kind of the three tenses. of salvation.

Good point. And so that's really incredibly interesting, I think. And unfortunately, I gave up that subject. I know. I love that section of 1 Thessalonians. Another thing about this maybe we should bring up is this is a fairly early epistle. Yeah. Well, actually, in the little study that I did. You said that I missed it. I'm sorry. No, I didn't say it. But I was just going to kind of agree with you. This book is possibly his first book, Paul's first writings, even before Galatians. That's why I didn't put a bullet up, but I saw that in reading through it. Not everybody said that, but a few of the commentators said that. So that's great. That's great. Well, thanks, Bob. That's great. So kind of carrying on.

So in verse six, it talks about how God's word was received. you also became imitators of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much tribulation and with joy of the Holy Spirit." So I was thinking, this kind of goes along here. Paul's commending them for receiving the Lord, but he says, don't forget, we were, you know, we weren't the most popular guys in town when we received the, you know, the Jews started rioting. They created a mob and caused a big scene. And I'm just thinking, boy, that sounds like something awful familiar. Bad things, you know, bad things happen when good things are going on.

So it's interesting, interesting. All right, so that's point two. Point three. I'm using the wheel and the mouse to advance these charts. So point three is, how was the word handled by the Thessalonians? For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, the Thessalonians, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that We have no need to say anything. So I think he's saying here, and it'll be interesting when we get in the more detailed study of this, that he's commending them for getting the word out. They believed, and they just didn't keep quiet. They got the word out to Macedonia and to Achaia. Pretty neat stuff. Then his fourth point here was that the word had an effect on them.

And verse 9 says for they themselves report About us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turn to? Turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God so another point about the culture you know that with the idol worship They they turn to God from idols. They you know that was it's a wonderful Statement and And also there's a dialogue that goes back and forth about the reception between Paul and Silas and Timothy they received. And later on we're going to see it looks like Paul's back home so to speak and he sends Timothy out back to Thessalonica and to minister to them. We see some dialogue about that. All right. That's one through chapter one, five through ten. So now we're going to go to the next point.

The gospel preached at Thessalonica or the message of truth. Could someone read just the first two verses in chapter two. For you yourselves know, brothers, our reception with you that was not in vain. But after we had already suffered and been mistreated in Philippi, just as you know, we had the courage in our God to speak to you the gospel of God amid much opposition. Yeah, so here we are again, just like this constant undercurrent of the, he goes back in the He focuses back on Philippi, but all of his ministry with a backdrop of suffering during his ministry. Okay, so I really just kind of focused here on starting in verse 3 through 6. So basically, there's about four statements here.

Paul's message was truth. The verse says, for our exhortation does not come from error or from impurity or by way of deceit. Just trying to validate what they're saying. Paul's message was a trust, verse 4, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, so we speak not as pleasing men, but God who examines our heart. So I was thinking You know, this is kind of a rhetorical question, but when we share the gospel, he talks about being entrusted with the gospel. Well, I think that's just not for missionaries, and we think, well, the missionaries have been entrusted with the gospel, they've got to get the gospel out. Well, the elders, they've got to get the gospel out. And that's all true, but then I think it's on a personal level. We personally, and we do this, I mean, Bob talks about his opportunity to share and we all, as we have opportunity, we share the gospel. So we've been entrusted with the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ.

And we're and it says we're not as pleasing man. We find that doesn't please men I think Margaret shared many times it people and we know it doesn't people don't want to hear that you know and many times you Don't open your mouth because you know it's just not going to go anywhere. They haven't asked you they haven't said well Roger or Margaret or Bonnie what what about this? If well, I find me if they don't ask you they probably Don't want to hear what you have to say they probably know already if you know them with you know kind of where you're coming from So anyway, that's so so we're all every believer.

I I believe is entrusted with the gospel Okay, the third point Paul's message was pure for we never came with flattering speech as you know, but with a but with Nor, I'm sorry, nor with a pretext of greed God is witness. And the fourth point, Paul's message was unencumbered.

Nor did we seek to glorify men, either from you or from our others, even though as an apostle of Christ we might have asserted our authority. So he, you know, this is sort of a, I know, I'm an apostle, but that wasn't the way I came to you. You ought to listen to what an apostle has to say. No, he came and presented the truth of who Jesus Christ is and what he's done. And that was the focus, not on his apostleship.

Any thoughts on this? We're going to move on to the, we're going to just kind of clunk through this thing. Hopefully this is, you know, I said, well, you know, I struggle with how do you do, you know, how far do you dive down? I thought I wanted to present some of the verses that are really key in the passage, so, in the book rather. Okay, so let's carry on here. Didn't do much with the demeanor. Okay. So focus, the B part of this, focus on the hearers.

So, and this is a cool verse. I mean, I think we've probably quoted this different time periods. And it's just a wonderful verse. For this, this is the word welcomed, for this reason we also constantly thank God that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God. which also performs its work in you who believe. So isn't this what we want? If they focus on us and say, well, Bob, you did a great job, or Roger, you did a great job. Yeah, I'm thankful for the, hey, right on, brother. That's good.

But what you really want them to say, wow, listen to what God has to say to them, to be excited because they've heard some truth from God, not necessarily from you. You were the instrument, but you don't want them to focus on you. You want them to focus on the Lord. Verso you know says so well And I didn't do much with the more the more persecution you know the more I look them there's just a lot of stuff about persecution that just kind of filters through the whole part here Paul comes back to it and Kind of over and over again Okay All right, so that's so let's go on to the third third major area Paul and New Believers, Paul's joy, hope. It's getting cut off here. And crown. All right. OK, here we go.

OK, the absence of Paul from the believers. So as I mentioned, it seems like Paul, he was there initially, but then he goes back to Antioch or to Jerusalem. He's absent from that body of believers. Affection of Paul for the believers. This is a beautiful verse too. For who is our hope, our joy, our crown of exaltation? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord at His coming? So now we're going to kind of see a little beginning of a little bit of talking about at His coming.

You know that word, the word coming in the original language is Parousia? Parousia? Parousia? Something like that. Anyway, it's the word for coming. So we're going to see all through this, you know, about talking about the Lord's return, His coming. So that kind of filters.

Who is our hope, our joy, our crown of exaltation? Is it not you, basically with us, in the presence of our Lord at His coming? And we're also going to see that Paul's going to try to put to rest a fear. There was a concern by many believers that, well, what happens if my family, you know, somebody I know who knows the Lord dies, and the Lord comes, well, do they miss out?

They don't and he's going to correct that that's coming in in chapter 4. He's going to correct that that that wrong thinking but they but this reference to the Lord's coming he's coming and He's he's excited about that. He's coming so this the Lord Jesus that is coming is a phrase that kind of filters through the Power of C or perusia or however you pronounce it I?

Kind of jammed in C and D points here, so this is a burden and plan of Paul for the new believers this is where he talks about sending Timothy and we sent Timothy our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions for you yourself know that we have been destined for this okay well you know that this is one of these one of these verses that I probably would not have benefited from as much as I did by being taught about this verse.

And I don't know whether you recognize this verse. Verse 3, our brother Hal would talk about this verse quite a bit. And if you look carefully at verse 3, you'll see that, well, let's just kind of back up to verse 2. So he says, we sent Timothy, our brother and fellow worker, in the gospel of Christ to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith.

So that is with a purpose that, no one would be disturbed by these afflictions. So the afflictions were disturbing them. And then the last part of verse three, the B part of verse three says, for you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. The word destined is the idea appointed.

I know our brother Hal taught this many, many times, you know. So out of this verse and other verses, afflictions come upon believers. But is that just, you know, the luck of the draw? I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I got that affliction. No, this is saying, so Paul's saying here that these afflictions, you were destined for these afflictions.

So God's involved in the believer's life and the afflictions that we have are in accordance with his will for us. So it's wonderful and this has helped me a lot in terms of just thinking about, well is it You know, the old saying is, problems come upon you, you think, well, why my family, Lord? Why my children? Why my husband? Why my wife? Why did that happen? Well, for the believer, you can be at rest.

You can say, well, Lord, I don't like this affliction or trial or suffering. I know that you do things from the counsel of your own will and I accept that this is from you and I go on. get upset over it. I'm not saying I'm not in that camp too sometimes. We get upset with the Lord sometimes. Things don't work out the way we had planned. We say, go ahead, buddy.

Even if you've caused it. And that's a toughie. Let's say that you've caused something. Well, if you steal something, Probably and you're caught by the police you probably Something let me pay a fine you may go to jail. I mean if you do something if you sin, right? So that's a toughie so sometimes in in situations in your life You are a family member or whatever they do something bad and so they wind up suffering the consequences and you suffer because they suffered and that's you know that's the way life is many times, but God is in control. And that doesn't mean God never sanctions sin. He never says, well, you can't claim that, well, my family member sinned, and that was God's will. No, I'm afraid not. You can't say that.

But you can rejoice in the fact that God knows all things, and He understands, and He will use it for His purpose. Any other thoughts on that? Yeah, Roger, it's just reflected back again on the first chapter in verse 6. because we became followers of the Lord Jesus Christ with afflictions by the joy of the Holy Spirit. That's good. And so if you think about that, then you think you identify that joy with the cross itself. Christ went to the cross, Hebrews 12, too, with the joy that was set before him, right?

I mean, so in the flesh we have no joy. But again, it's identification, it's positional truth that's translated into what our citizenship really represents. I say that kind of tongue-in-cheek because we all have, we have flesh, all of us. So unfortunately, it doesn't play out. But the joy of the Holy Spirit through affliction. Yeah, I know. And that's the thing.

You think, well, Lord, how can I be joyful when all these bad things are happening? But that's exactly what Paul's saying in this letter. He has a lot of it in there. You can be joyful. A lot of it is about the Lord's return. Focus on that. Well, the Lord's coming back. And we say that today. We're saying that even more and more. It seems like, boy, I can't wait for the Lord's return. Things have gotten... So we're no different than the people in Thessalonica. They're looking for the Lord's return, and we're looking for the Lord's return.

So anyway, that's great, Bob. That's an excellent point. And then just thinking about the return in verse 10, again, that first chapter is so great. In terms of looking for his return, it says, it reminds us of him being raised from the dead, who's going to deliver us from the wrath that's to come. I know. I mean, you know, that's pre-trib rapture, right? Right. And he'll get to that later. Yeah, we're going to cut that. So anyway, forgive me. No, no, no, that's good. I think that's excellent. There's a lot of good stuff here. No, there is. There actually is a lot of, it's interesting, there's a combination of things that you don't quite, this is kind of a unique book, because a lot of times you don't see quite this combination of things.

The Lord's imminent return, Some doctrinal points who you are in Christ, and then suffering they're all kind of mixed in there and Being talked about great, okay Okay, so let's see here. I Didn't do too much with three five okay. Let's go on to the fourth point Timothy Timothy's report are good news from Thessalonica, so like I said Timothy apparently went back to Thessalonica and then he came back to Paul and reported about what's going on Okay, so here's what Timothy had to say and They says report their faith love and attitude verse 6 Now that Timothy has come to us from you, so it's come to Paul and from the Thessalonians, I assume, and has brought us good news of your faith, love, and that you always think kindly of us, longing to see us just as we long to see you. Don't you see how personal this is? Just like I said, just like you're talking, you know, he came and told me this and that, it's really neat. Rejoicing, 7 through 10. Just one verse I want to quote here.

For this reason, brethren, in all our distresses and afflictions, we were comforted by you through your faith. And I was just thinking about being comforted by others. When you see a brother or sister exercising faith in the Lord and living their life, walking through their situation, And being faithful, that really encourages you. You say, wow, they're having a tough time. But they're remaining faithful. Not to say that we should put a guilt trip on somebody and say, well, you need to be more faithful. It can be flipped around. You can put a little guilt trip. Well, you got a trial there, but you could be doing better with that trial. You haven't walked in their shoes, so don't say that. It's funny, we talked to our kids, you know, about a story, different kind of crazy thing your kids say. My oldest son, Mark, he said, and actually even Ryan too, Dad, I'll never have a van. Vans are for Vans are for soccer moms. I might have a van. My son now has. He's had multiple vans.

So be careful about saying what I'll never do, especially in the area where you have a family. I would have done it differently. It's funny about my youngest son. We babysit a lot. And we try to give the kids what they like. So we give them what the kids like, not what we necessarily like.

This is what I think Ryan was telling us. Well, you ought to give them new taste and new this and that. I said, new taste? I want them to finish. We want them to eat their meal and be fulfilled. I'm not going to give them something they're not going to eat. So maybe it's more healthy. But for right now, I want them to fill themselves up and go to sleep, take a nap. So you're right. Be careful how you judge until you walked in their shoes, and that's what you know you You rejoice when you see people that you know are genuinely well You know and then people that don't you come alongside them and encourage them.

That's what that's what Paul is trying to do here Okay, so then that coming all right, so that's actually I The thing is, I started doing this, and I could have made this 20 more charts, and I said, no, I'm not going to do that. So I just, I had to pick the biggies. So I skipped through a bunch of stuff here.

Okay, so now we come to Christian conduct, or a worthy walk, or the worthy walk. Okay, chapter four. As you can see, we're just zipping right along here. Finally, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord, Jesus, that as you received him, from us, I'm not reading this very well, that as you receive from us instructions on how you ought to walk and please God, just as you actually do walk, that you excel more. So, you know, another encouraging verse, encourage them that you've been doing well, continue to do well. We encourage you to do well.

Then he talks about abstaining from sexual immorality. Then he says, in verse 9, Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another." So apparently they were loving one another. He's commending them upon that.

Okay, now I want to get to save some time here for social conduct. I kind of zoom past that. Now, ah, the parousia, the Lord's return. This is a beautiful passage. We're only going to have time to just We're going to spend at least two Sundays on this. So anyway, verse 13.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who have fallen asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. So remember in Scripture, the idea of sleep is You know, they're with the Lord. They're asleep with the Lord, which is kind of a neat thing. So he's telling them, we don't want you to grieve, that they may have a problem if they're asleep with the Lord. They're actually in a good place. So now I kind of compacted here Macaulay's outline, the basis, certainty, and realization of our hope.

So the first point is, for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus so right here he just says here's what here's what it is those who have died for if we believe so he says if Jesus is really true and it is Jesus died and rose again so the ones that have fallen asleep in Jesus they're gonna they're gonna return with him basically he explains that for this we say to you by the word of the Lord that those who are alive and remain until his coming of the Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep. So there's an order. The dead in Christ, and he's going to talk about that, are going to be first and we're going to follow them. And then he describes what's going to happen in 16 and 17. He says, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

So those are the ones that were asleep with him. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall always be with the Lord. So that caught up together is, that's where we get the idea of rapture, the caught up, the catching away. So just a beautiful passage. I'm not sure who's gonna, I haven't looked ahead to see who's gonna be teaching this, but it's just a wonderful passage.

And what's interesting is he starts with the Lord's return and then he moves right into the day of the Lord, right after that. So he tries to address the Lord's return at least in a couple of areas. So we don't have a tremendous amount of time left. All right, so let's just kind of carry on here. Okay, so that's the Lord's return. So a lot more to come when we get there.

Okay, so now, the day of the Lord are like a thief in the night. For you yourself know full well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. And we kind of cover this a little bit in the setting. While they are saying, peace and safety, then destruction will come upon them suddenly, like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape. And they talked about sons of light in the day of the Lord. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, that the day of the Lord would overtake you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober. So one thing I found out, I know we talked a lot, Bob taught this and did a great job. It's a challenging area.

But I found out, looking at reading Constable, on this passage, help me, he kind of points out that the Day of the Lord has two senses. It has a narrow sense and a broad sense. And the narrow sense is the Day of the Lord speaks of the second coming, the Lord's second coming. Not the rapture, but His second coming in power and glory. But in the broad sense, it talks about this period from the tribulation to the end of the Millennial Kingdom. And he had verses for each one, so when we get there, I'll be happy to share what, you know, you look at Constable 2, but he had, he divided up the narrow sense of the day of the Lord and the broad sense. And that actually, the problem is you look at different people and you say, which one are they talking about? And it gets very confusing.

I know we kind of went around, Bob taught it, and what about this, and you know, just a lot of, and it's not easy. So hopefully, And we've been through a little bit in Peter. We'll do a better, you know, come to a better understanding. But it's an important area to understand. So that's helped me, the broad sense and the narrow sense of the day of the Lord. So hopefully keep that in mind as we'll be doing that down the road here a bit. Okay, then, then actually I kind of just blitzed through the last part.

Eight and nine. It kind of brings the book to a close. Basically talking about the relationship with the church. He talks about our relationship with spiritual leaders, with believers, deficient believers he calls them, with the will of God. Then he has a conclusion. All right, so let's just, in the interest of time, I'm sorry, this is really...

Okay, so I had a quote from Hampton Keithley. He says, as we have seen in every chapter of this epistle, The coming of the Lord Jesus has been very prominent focus. He has a bunch of verses there that talk about the coming of the Lord. Further, it is the conviction of this author, Hampton Keefley, that this is an imminent coming and the blessed hope. I would agree with that. The sure coming of the Lord should encourage us to study the word, pray, faithfully assemble together for fellowship, worship, and preaching and teaching of the scriptures to love the brethren and many other biblical responsibilities. So we have a neat book here. We have a, you know, that really kind of focuses on our Savior's return, our living in a world of hostile world. So it should be fun.

This is the first six months. I have six months to go through this first book here. Any last thoughts or comments? I didn't actually get much opportunity. I apologize. Okay, well hopefully you'll stay with us. Or if you want to, you're allowed to go to Mike's class. If you want to go the dark side, you can do that. I'm joking. I'm joking.

Okay, so let's close in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for the blessings we have, Lord. We thank you just for Thessalonians, Father, just for the kind of the real focus on your return and also upon living in a hostile world. And we pray that we would learn the lessons from this book that would help us to glorify you and to get the gospel out to the world that needs it. In Christ's name, Amen.