I am responding to Eric Douma’s sermon on April 3rd 2011, “The Day of The LORD: A Look at the Imminent Day of Salvation and Judgment.” We continue.
In this part, I will respond to Douma’s repeated error of equating the “thief” imagery with “imminence.” In part one I responded to this misunderstanding as it relates namely to Peter’s usage. Even though most of what I need to say is in part one, I want to briefly respond to Douma’s claim as it relates to Paul’s use of the thief imagery. The text reads:
“For you know quite well that the day of the Lord will come in the same way as a thief in the night.” (1 Thess 5:2 NET)
Douma equates this statement with an “imminent rapture” because he says since we do not know when a thief comes, it follows that there are no prophetical events that must occur before the day of the Lord.
Douma is making a category error by not reading Paul accurately.
The thief imagery is intended to teach spiritual watchfulness, not physical watchfulness as some newsflash on CNN. This is shown in the remaining passage where Paul’s thrust is exhorting believers to stay spiritually awake and not be spiritually caught off guard when Christ comes back.
Hence, the reason Paul says that Christ is not coming back as a thief to those spiritually prepared!
“But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the darkness for the day to overtake you like a thief would” (1 Thess 5:4).
Why Douma wants to teach his people that Christ is coming back as a thief to them is beyond me. As Christians, God wants us to be spiritually prepared so that he will not come back as a thief for us because we are “not in the darkness for the day to overtake you like a thief would.”
