Deeper Reflection
THE LORD WILL RETURN “LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT” (V.2) – suddenly but unexpectedly, just as we don’t normally expect burglary. And that day will come “as labour pains come upon a pregnant woman” (v.3). It will be sudden and expected, just as a pregnant woman expects labour pains to come. We are to wait and watch expectantly daily for the Lord’s return, while we do not know when it will be.Jesus tells us that “wars and rumours of wars” and “famines and earthquakes” mark “the beginning of birth pangs” that leads to His Second Coming (Mk 13:7-8). But in spite of these troubles and turmoil, humans live their lives as “There is peace and security” (v.3). It is “as those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage” in Noah’s time (Matt 24:38). But for these people, “sudden destruction will come upon them” at the Lord’s return (v.3), just as the people in Noah’s days “did not understand until the flood came and took them all away” (Matt 24:39).But we can have “peace and security” in the Lord. Jesus tells us: “In the world you will have tribulation” (Jn 16:33). But as we anchor in the Word of God – “These things that I have spoken to you” – we can “have peace in Me”. The “in Me” means that in whatever “tribulation” we may go through, we continue to follow the Lord faithfully, clinging to Him steadfastly. And Jesus “has overcome the world” of “tribulation” and so in Him we can “take courage”.