3:10 hour of temptation. This “hour of temptation” was yet to “come upon all the world,” so this statement could not have referred to any events of the first century. Its purpose will be “to try them that dwell upon the earth.” It is a time of judgment on unbelievers, not on believers. This testing will be “the great day of His wrath” (Revelation 6:17), the seven-year period of tribulation at the end of the age (Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15-21). God has promised to deliver all true believers from this “hour of temptation (or ‘testing’),” for “God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thessalonians 5:9). This passage clearly teaches that the resurrection and rapture of true Christian believers (I Thessalonians 4:16-17; see also the note on II Thessalonians 2:3) must take place before the hour of temptation begins.