Eld Goh Kee Tai

The day of the LORD – A Biblical Overview

The expression ‘The day of the LORD’, used by the prophets of old, refers to both near and future divine judgment and salvation of God’s people. While God’s judgments against Israel and her heathen enemies had   already occurred in history, a final future climactic judgment of the wicked and deliverance of the righteous shall take place in that ‘Day of the Lord’, the second coming of Christ in power and great glory to establish His glorious millennial kingdom on earth. The day of the LORD is an appointed divine visitation within history as well as a final visitation that climaxes history.

Historical

The God of Israel actively intervened in the affairs of His chosen nation. He promised blessings to the nation if the people were to obey His commandments and to keep the covenantal relationship with Him in strict conformity to the law: ‘And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth’ (Deu 28:1). God also warned them of curses if they were to disobey Him: ‘But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee’ (Deu 28:15). Divine visitations would include pestilence, famine, invasion and destruction of the land and cities, dispersion and captivity of the people by heathen nations (Deu 28:16-68).

During the dark turbulent 450-year period of the Judges (Act 13:20), ‘every man did that which was right in his own eyes’ (Jud 17:6; 21:25). The people wilfully disobeyed God  in their syncretistic worship of the Lord and Baal and other Canaanite gods accompanied by immoral ceremonies. The covenant-keeping God was longsuffering and merciful in forgiving His people when they cried out to Him and repented of their sins. He raised up and empowered spiritual and military leaders to deliver them from foreign oppression and subjugation (Jud 2:18).This cycle of apostasy, repentance and deliverance was  a recurring feature in that era marked by idolatry and unfaithfulness with Samuel as the last judge and first prophet who called the people to repentance and a revival of true worship of God (1 Sam 7:3-6).

During the kingdom period under the reign of David, the Lord richly blessed and prospered the nation of Israel with Jerusalem as the political and religious centre. Her borders were secured and there was peace in the land ( 2 Sam 8:1-15).At the height of her power, Solomon ruled over almost all the territories promised by God to Abraham (1 Ki 4:21; Gen 15:18-21).

Unfortunately, despite God’s warning (1 Ki 9:4-7), Solomon ‘did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father’ (1 Ki 11:6). He sinned by allowing his multitudes of foreign wives and concubines to worship their own gods, an abominable heathen practice which ultimately ruined  him. This brought his spiritual downfall and his kingdom was divided after his death (1 Ki 11:1-40).

From the very beginning of the northern kingdom of divided Israel, Jeroboam, the first king led the people into sin (1 Ki 12:28). There was material prosperity, but spiritual darkness, idolatry, corruption and social evils. The people forsook the law of God by worshipping Canaanite idols and all the hosts of heaven, indulging in human sacrifices, divination and enchantment (2 Ki 17:7-23; Hosea 4:13;8:11). God repeatedly warned them through His prophets of divine judgment (Hosea 5:9; 8:1; Amos 3:11,12;5:1-17 ): ‘Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD!   to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light’(Amos 5:18). The people hardened their hearts, forsook God’s commandments and statutes and slew the prophets (1 Ki 19:10). They provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger. For their depravity, apostasy, multitude of transgressions and grievous sins, Samaria, the capital, fell to the Assyrians in 722 BC and the people were deported (2 Ki 17:5,6;Is 5:8-25) after a succession of 19 treacherous, idolatrous apostate kings over a period of 210 years.

Like the northern kingdom, the first king of Judah, Rehoboam also forsook the law of the Lord by practising Canaanite idolatry and did evil in the sight of God (1 Ki 14:22-24). God sent His prophets to warn the wayward people of imminent divine judgment, to call for personal and national repentance  and to prepare for revival (Is 2:12; Joel 1:13,14; Zeph 2:1-3): ‘Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come’(Joel 1:15).

The day of the LORD was described as ‘a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress among men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they had sinned against the LORD: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land’ (Zeph 1:15-18).

Attempts were made to promote spiritual revival by eight of the 20 kings who took heed of the repeated warnings of God’s prophets. Hezekiah led the people to repentance and promoted religious reform (2 Ki 18:3-7). He put his complete trust in the Lord rather than forming alliances with foreign powers. God miraculously delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrians while the northern kingdom was being taken into captivity (2Ki 19:34-35). Josiah recovered the laws, renewed the covenant and reformed the nation (2 Ki 22:13; 23:3-24), and served the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul and with all his  might, according to the law of Moses, and there was no king like him before and after him (2 Ki 23:25).

However, after reformation by Josiah, the last four kings and the people reverted to their evil deeds and continued to rebel against God. Judah did not learn from the divine judgment for the sin of apostasy of the northern kingdom (Jer 3:6-10). Jerusalem was spiritually filthy and utterly degraded (Jer 5:1-8; 19:4,5; 23:14; 32:35).Encouraged by the false prophets, they thought that Jerusalem was invincible as it was the site of the Temple (Jer 7:4). But the priesthood and the people  severely transgressed after all  the abomination and gross wickedness of the heathens, and desecrated the Temple with sorcery, idol worship, spirit worship and sun worship (2 Chron 36:14; Ezek 8:1-17; Jer 19:13). The glory of God departed from the Temple (Ezek 11:22-23). For rekindling divine wrath by forsaking the Lord and His holy law, Jerusalem and the Temple  were destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC, and the people taken into captivity (2 Chron 36:17-20). All the sons of the last king, Zedekiah, were killed (2 Ki 25:7). But the Davidic dynasty shall be reinstated in the promised Messiah, the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (Ps 89:30-37; Amos 9:11; Lk 1:31-33).

The Lord is good and long-suffering,‘gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness’ to His people (Joel 2:13). Despite God’s judgments for their unfaithfulness and repeated rebellions in different periods of the history of Israel (Ezek 20:1-32), the Lord still demonstrated His steadfast love by  preserving and delivering them for His name sake (Joel 2:18-27;Ezek 37:15-28). Though in exile, they were not forsaken by God. After 70 years captivity (Jer 25:11), the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, the new superpower, to allow the Jews to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple (2 Chron 36:22,23). By the sovereign providence of God, a treacherous plot to exterminate every living Jew in the Persian empire during the time of Queen Esther was thwarted (Est 9:1-3). Ezra, a scribe, brought spiritual revival to the returnees in Jerusalem (Ezra 10:1-17). The prodigal nation was purified, but sins of spiritual depression and  declension such as  marrying foreigners returned (Neh 10:30;13:23). The priests and the people continued to backslide and was mechanical in the observance of the Mosaic law. The Lord sent his prophets to rebuke the people for neglecting true worship and called them to repentance (Mal 1:6;3:7).

At the first coming of Jesus Christ, the religious leaders, the Pharisees and scribes, were characterised by pride, self-righteousness and hypocrisy and they shut up the way to salvation for themselves and their followers: ‘ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in’(Mt 23:13) . They rejected and crucified Jesus of Nazareth, the incarnate Son of God and the Son of David, as the Promised Messiah, and His proclamation of the kingdom of God, authenticated by signs and wonders and diverse miracles. For their impenitent hearts, Christ warned them of imminent destruction of the Temple (Lk 19: 43,44; 21:20-24). This was fulfilled in 70 AD when the Romans under General Titus destroyed the Temple and the city; one million Jews were killed and those who escaped death were dispersed all over the Roman empire.

God’s judgments on the nation of Israel were recorded as a warning and spiritual enlightening for subsequent generations (Joel 1:3).

God also judged individual heathen nations for their brutalities against Israel and Judah such as Assyria (Isa 14:24-27;Zeph 2:13-15),  Babylon (Is 13:6,9), Egypt (Jere 46:10; Ezek 30:3,4), Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Ethiopia and others (Zeph 2:5-12 ;Joel 3:4-8,14). Edom was judged for her arrogance and rejoicing over the fall of Jerusalem: ‘For the day of the LORD is near upon all the heathen: as thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee: thy reward shall return upon thine own head’ (Ob 15).

The historical account represents a partial fulfilment of the terrible desolation and destruction in the great tribulation period in that eschatological Day of the Lord to come. All the historical interventions of God in the affairs of men will come to a climax in this Day of the Lord.

Eschatological

The prophets  of old looked forward to the final divine visitation to judge the wicked, to redeem the righteous and to remove the world of all evils: ‘The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemies: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more’ (Zeph 3:15). This ultimate eschatological event shall be a day of universal judgment when salvation and hope will come to Israel.

The eschatological Day of the Lord will begin with the second coming of Christ. It  is also termed ‘the day of our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor 1:8; ), ‘the day of Jesus Christ’ (Phil 1:6), ‘the day of Lord Jesus’ (1 Cor 5:5;2 Cor 1:14), ‘the day of Christ’(Phil 1:10;2:16; 2 Thes 2:2 ), and ‘the day of the Lord’ (1Th 5:2). He shall come in the clouds in great glory and power to take all truly born-again believers with their glorified resurrection bodies to be with Him for ever and ever (rapture of the dead followed by the living) (1 Th 4:16,17). This will be followed by the revelation of the Antichrist during the great tribulation period, the coming of Christ on earth with His saints and angels to defeat the Antichrist and the armies of the world at the battle of Armageddon and the establishment of the millennium kingdom (Rev 19:11-21).  

The great tribulation period

The Antichrist, a brilliant but diabolical world dictator, will be revealed (2 Th 2:8) after the church has raptured. During his seven-year reign of terror, persecutions will be extremely intense and fierce, ‘ for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?’ (Joel 2:11). Jesus warned that it shall be ‘ such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be’ (Mt 24:21). The Antichrist is energised by Satan who works through him with power to perform miraculous signs to captivate and deceive men. He will use false religion to claim global worship of him, and political and economic sanctions to compel submission to his authority. At the mid-point of his rule, he will demonstrate his open defiance against God in desecrating the rebuilt Temple by placing an image of himself and forcing all the inhabitants of the world to worship him through his right-hand man, the false prophet (Mt 24:15; Rev 13:1-18; 2 Th 2:4; Dn 9:27).

Divine wrath against the Antichrist and his worshippers will be manifested by a series of progressively more severe plagues and natural catastrophes coming in quick succession with staggering geological and ecological impacts (Rev 14:9-11; 16:2; 8:7), virtually decimating all life on earth (Rev 6:8; 9:15,18;16:3,4). But the worshippers of Satan and the Antichrist remain unrepentant and continue to blaspheme God (Rev 9:20,21;16:11,21). God will seal His people and protect them from total annihilation by the Antichrist  (Rev 7:1-8), even though they suffer merciless persecution with unprecedented sufferings and martyrdom.

For the sake of the elect, the Lord will intervene to end  this reign of atrocity (Mt 24:22). Jesus will come personally and visibly at the mount of Olives as King of kings and Lord of lords, accompanied by His mighty angels and saints (Zech 14:4; 2 Th 1:7; Jude 14). There will be extraordinary cosmic disturbances (Is 13:10;Joel 2:10;Rev 6:12-14;8:12). He will utterly defeat the Antichrist and his allies at the  battle of Armageddon, where multitudes of the enemies of Israel will be killed by the Lord’s armies. The Antichrist and the false prophets will be captured and cast alive into the Lake of Fire (2 Th 2:8;Rev 19:17-21).

The eschatological Babylon which represents the false religious system of the revived Roman empire, and the world’s political and economic powers controlled by the Antichrist will be completely destroyed (Rev 17:5;18:1-19).

The millennial kingdom

Before Christ begins His millennial rule on earth, He will confine Satan in the ‘bottomless pit’ to remove demonic deception from the world (Rev 20:2,3). He will restore the irreparable destruction of the earth which resulted from divine judgment on the Antichrist and his worshippers. His elect, the Jews, will then recognise and acknowledge Christ as their long-awaited Messiah who will blot out their sins and transgressions and  regather them from all parts of the world to Palestine (Zech 12:10;13:9; Zeph 3:20;Rm 11:26,27;Mt 24:31). Both Jews and the Gentiles who survive the great tribulation period and the battle of Armageddon will have to stand before our Lord in judgment. Only the faithful ones will enter the millennium kingdom (Ez 20:37,38; Mt 25:34).

The final redemption of God’s people is the everlasting reign of Jesus Christ, sitting on the throne of David at Jerusalem ruling with justice, equity and perfect wisdom (Isa 9:7;11:4). With all Israel’s enemies destroyed and ultimate victory over evil, there will be universal peace, tranquillity and harmony of the whole creation in the glorious kingdom (Rm 8:18-22; Is 11:6-9; 32:18; 65:21-23): ‘they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more’ (Mic 4:3). Israel will be exalted above all the Gentile nations (Gen 12:2) and will occupy the territory which God had promised Abraham (Gen 15:18). Worship of   the Lord in the spacious, splendid Temple, filled with God’s glory, will be the chief activity of all nations (Ez 40-47; Zech 8:22).

By the unsearchable wise counsel and sovereign decree of God, Satan will be released from the ‘bottomless pit’ at the end of the millennium. He will make one final endeavour to overthrow Jesus Christ by deceiving all nations and gathering them to a final battle, but all the armies will be utterly destroyed by divine supernatural intervention and Satan will be cast alive into the lake of fire (Rev 20:7-10). The present creation will be dissolved by fire and the elements shall melt with fervent heat (2 Pet 3:7,10,12). A new heaven and a new earth where there is everlasting righteousness will be created, and all glorified saints will dwell in the heavenly city, the new Jerusalem, for all eternity with God (Rev 21:1,2;Isa 65:17).

Conclusion

We are living in the last of the ‘last day’ which refers to the ecclesiastical witness extending from the first to the second coming of Christ. Satan’s activities to deceive the world and to persecute believers will intensify. The universal conflict, the spiritual war between God and Satan continues (Dn 10:20;Rev 12:1-12; Eph 6:12). But all whom God have delivered from the power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son will be victorious (Col 1:13). Do not conform to and be under the dominion of this world, ‘but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God’ (Rm 12:2).

The Day of the Lord, the second coming of Christ, is fast approaching as the signs revealed by Him are rapidly unfolding and being fulfilled before our eyes. His coming is unexpected, a day of surprise, ‘for the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night’ (2 Pet 3:10). Let us take heed, be prayerful and vigilant, live soberly and be found faithful, blameless and harmless and shine as lights to a crooked and perverse generation (1Peter 4:7; Mt 25:13).Beware of false teachers and false Christs in these perilous days of great falling away (Mt 24:24; 2 Th 2:3).

God has appointed a day of universal judgment: ‘it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment’ (Heb 9:27). It will be based on works and faith in Christ. All truly repentant believers will be saved (Joel 2:32), but those who remain impenitent and whose names are not written in the Book of Life will be resurrected from the dead to appear before the great white throne judgment of Christ and then cast into the lake of fire (2 Pet 2:9; Rev 20:11-15).

The incarnation of Christ, His ministry, death and resurrection in His first coming as a Suffering Servant is the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecies of the hope of God’s redemptive work for the people of Israel, and His second coming the consummation of that blessed hope for all, Jews and the Gentiles, redeemed by His precious blood. May we look forward to that blessed hope of the glory which God will manifest when we shall have the resurrected glorified body as Christ! Amen.