Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Joel 1 | Date: April 15, 2018 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

If you will, turn in God’s word with me this morning again to Joel, the prophecy of Joel. It’s in the Old Testament. I know minor prophets, Old Testament—I’m going to have to give you five minutes to find it. You shouldn’t have much trouble finding Isaiah and moving forward a little. He is among the major prophets after Daniel. You just got a little ways to go.

All right, last time we began looking at the subject of the Day of the Lord. And we looked at the book of the prophecy of Joel, first of all. I’d like to return there this morning. Last time we looked primarily at chapter 1 through the first half of chapter 2. You’ll recall early in the prophecy, chapters 1 and 2, the prophet is declaring the coming of the Day of the Lord as a day of great disaster, a day of locusts, a day of mourning and weeping, a time of awful disaster falling on the people.

And then we come to chapter 2, late in the chapter, and verse 12, the tone changes where he calls to the people for repentance. And then you’ll notice as we read through, another tone of restoration he takes up as well. So let’s begin with chapter 2, verse 12:

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?'” Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. The Lord answered and said to his people, “Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied. And I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations. I will remove the northerner far from you, and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his vanguard into the Eastern Sea, and his rear guard into the Western Sea; the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things.” Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and the vine give their full yield. Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame. And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem…

And then let’s pick up with chapter 3, verse 17:

So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it. And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Shittim. Egypt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations. I will avenge their blood, blood I have not avenged, for the Lord dwells in Zion.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, as we come again to survey these awesome passages that describe for us, ultimately, the climax of history, we ask that Your Spirit would guide us, that He would open our minds and our hearts to understand them, to grasp them well. Help us to see the great significance and importance of it for us, and help us in it to see again and afresh the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and what He has done for us. We ask in His name, amen.

A Day Of Judgment And Wrath

Last time, you’ll remember, we began looking at the Day of the Lord. We read a number of passages that describe the awesomeness of that day when God comes in judgment. We saw that the first significance of the Day of the Lord was just that: it will be a day of judgment when God comes in wrath and in vengeance against all that is sinful and against all of His enemies. It’s described for us in just awful kinds of terms—a day of upheaval, a day of a great conflagration.

Imagery is used, we saw, of God as a judge, where He deliberates between the peoples and between the nations, between those who are His and those who are His enemies. It pictures God as a warrior coming in to do battle against those who have opposed Him. It’s described as a day of darkness, a day when the sun will refuse to shine. It’s referred to as a day when the earth itself will quake and convulse with the awesomeness of God’s coming as He pours out—another image that’s used—as He pours out His cup of wrath upon the earth in judgment against sin.

It portrays for us, as we saw, the coming of God, the coming of God’s kingdom, and God coming in wrath to destroy His enemies. It is, after all, His day, no longer the world’s day. This will be His day. And He, as I said, will not just show up on the scene, but He will totally dominate the stage and bring to culmination His purposes in world history. And the first purpose that we saw, then, was this purpose of judgment and wrath and vengeance against sin.

A Day Of Salvation And Rescue

Happily, there’s another side to the Day of the Lord: that it is a day of judgment and a day of wrath, but it is also a day of salvation, a day of rescue, a day of conversion. We’ve seen some of that here in Joel’s prophecy in chapters 2 and 3. Halfway through chapter 2, he, having finished up this long and sobering description of this day of judgment that will come—describing it as a day of darkness and the sun not shining and all of that, and God coming in wrath with the locusts and the drought—describing it in all of these terms, he turns now in verse 12 of chapter 2 to call Israel to repentance: to mourn, to weep, to wail, to cry out to God because perhaps He will relent and spare you in judgment.

And then verses 18 through really the end of the prophecy, he describes then this day of blessing that will come if they repent. God, after all, is jealous for His people. He’s jealous for His land. He is compassionate to answer their cry and their repentance, and so He brings in verses 20 and following relief from judgment. In chapter 2, verses 28 and following, we have him describing this day as a day of the outpouring of His Spirit upon all flesh, a great work of the Spirit of God universally bringing men and women to Himself, and so on.

We could trace this further. In fact, we might take a moment just to glance, if you’ll turn a page, to the prophecy of Amos. You might remember last time we saw these prophecies of judgment that Amos predicts against Damascus, against Gaza, against Tyre and Edom, and the Ammonites, against Moab, and then finally against Judah and Israel. “For three transgressions of Damascus and for four, I will not revoke punishment.” And on he goes to each of these nations around Israel and finally to the nation of Judah itself, predicting this day of judgment that will come when God judges against sin.

That is carried somewhat through the book, dealing with Israel’s sin and guilt and its coming punishment. We find it in chapter 9, even at the very end. The first half of chapter 9 describes for us the destruction of Israel, the judgments that will come. But then you will notice chapter 9, verse 11, the tone changes again:

“In that day I will raise up the booth of David that has fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it as in the days of old, that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” declares the Lord who does this. “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when the plowman shall overtake the reaper and the treader of grapes him who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it. I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. I will plant them on their land, and they shall never again be uprooted out of the land that I have given them,” says the Lord.

We’ll find the same thing if you turn the page in the prophecy of Obadiah, a very brief prophecy. It is given over almost entirely to this matter of judgment. But notice beginning with verse 17 how it is a bit different:

But in Mount Zion there shall be those who escape, and it shall be holy, and the house of Jacob shall possess their own possessions. The house of Jacob shall be a fire, the house of Joseph a flame, the house of Esau stubble. They shall burn them and consume them, and there shall be no survivor for the house of Esau, for the Lord has spoken. Those in the Negev shall possess Mount Esau, and those of the Shephelah shall possess the land of the Philistines. They shall possess the land of Ephraim and the land of Samaria, and Benjamin shall possess Gilead. The exiles of this host of the people of Israel shall possess the land of Canaanites as far as Zarephath, and the exiles of Jerusalem who are in Sepharad shall possess the cities of the Negev. Survivors shall go up to Mount Zion to rule Esau, and the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.

We find this over and again through the prophets where there is not only, as we saw last time, this dominating note of divine judgment that comes, but with that this note of divine judgment against God’s enemies and thus the restoration of God’s people. And God makes this day of slaughter a day of blessing as well.

One more sample I’ll give you from the prophecy of Isaiah. I won’t take time to read through it, but if you’d like to mark down the first half of that chapter, Isaiah chapter 19 again is this depiction of judgment that will come. And then verses 16 through 25 describe it as a day of blessing. It’s a time when in Egypt people will be speaking the language of Zion—whole cities in Egypt speaking the language of Zion, an altar of the Lord built in the midst of Egypt, a pillar to the Lord built on the border of Egypt. And when they are threatened in Egypt, Egypt will call on the name of the Lord and the Lord will hear their cry and they will be blessed. The Lord will make Himself known to the Egyptians, and the Egyptians will know the Lord in that day and worship with sacrifice and offering, and they will make vows to the Lord and perform them. And the Lord will strike Egypt, striking and healing, and they will return to the Lord, and He will listen to their pleas for mercy and heal them.

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt and to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance.” Staggering kind of language, surprising language to describe nations like Egypt and Assyria, the great enemies of Israel, described in these terms as God’s people and the work of His hands.

Another famous prophecy of this is in Ezekiel chapter 37, which in a graphic kind of way depicts it as a day of resurrection. You remember the prophet in his vision is looking out over this valley full of skeletons, full of dry bones. And God asks, “Can these bones live?” And the prophet says, “You know, Lord.” And God says, “Prophesy to the four winds.” And he prophesies to the four winds and the Spirit of God comes. And you remember the bones are brought together and flesh comes upon them and they are raised to life. And all of this, evidently, is a picture of the restoration of God’s people, Israel, in their great conversion.

A Day Of Repentance And Conversion

Well, because this is a day of restoration, a day of salvation as well, it is also a day of repentance. You might—well, you will remember that, I’m sure, in Joel chapter 2 that we read, verses 12 and following, where the people are called to mourn and to wail and to weep and to cry out to God in repentance, for perhaps He will hear and relent His judgment and come and save.

We find a graphic statement of this in Zechariah chapter 12 and verse 10: “They will look on me whom they have pierced and mourn for him as one mourns for an only child.” Jesus picks up on that evidently in Matthew chapter 23. Remember where He looks out in judgment over Israel for their rejecting of Him, and then He finally says at the end of it in Matthew chapter 23, “You will not see me again until that day when you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'” A day of repentance, a day of conversion.

And so it is pictured then as a day when the oppressed people of God will experience deliverance. There will at last be a reversal of God’s judgment. There will be victory in battle for God against the enemies of His people. It is pictured in terms of a regathering to the land; it’s pictured in terms of agricultural prosperity, rebuilding of their houses, rejoicing, a day of celebration. Jeremiah and Ezekiel have a characteristic phrase that crops up again and again: in this time, not only will the King be there, but it’ll be a time when Israel dwells safely. At last, safe in the presence of her Messiah.

Along with all of that, not only is it a day of deliverance, a day of conversion, a day of repentance, a day of salvation, we are told in several places it will be a day of resurrection as well. Isaiah chapter 25, verses 6 to 8:

On this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

And again in Isaiah chapter 26, verse 19: “Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.” And of course the most famous prophecy of the resurrection is in Daniel chapter 12: those that are in the dust of the earth will be raised to life, these to everlasting life and those to everlasting contempt.

Because it is a day of salvation, a day of repentance and conversion and blessing and even resurrection, we find some passages describing the Day of the Lord even in greater terms as ultimate paradise. In Isaiah chapter 35, verses 1 to 10, we have described for us a reversal of the curse:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus; it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God… Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water; in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes. And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

A reversal of the curse. We come to Isaiah chapters 65 and 66. It’s described in terms of a return to Edenic conditions:

I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not fill out his days, for the young man shall die a hundred years old, and the sinner a hundred years old shall be accursed… The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent’s food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, says the Lord.

This will be a day of resurrection, of salvation, a day when it is a return to paradise and the curse is gone, and a return to Edenic conditions. We saw some of that in the prophecy of Joel here in chapter 2 in the latter half of the chapter, with an outpouring of God’s Spirit upon all people, and then described in terms of abundant harvest, God’s protective presence with His people, the mountains dripping with new wine, and so on.

Well, this is characteristic in the prophets. We find it often, even if the dominating note—particularly in the minor prophets—the dominating note in the prophets about the Day of the Lord is that it is a day of judgment and wrath and the earth quaking and the earth reeling and the sun darkened and all of that, and God coming in wrath and judgment. There is with that, consistently, this other note of it being a day of salvation. This is the arrival of the kingdom of God, and with the arrival of the kingdom of God, not only will His enemies be defeated, not only will sin finally be put down, but God will bless His people. God promised to David that a King from his line would reign on God’s throne forever. And finally it will come; it will be a day of judgment for the ungodly, but it will be also a day of repentance and conversion, and so a day of blessing.

This, by the way, is why John the Baptist, when he came preaching the kingdom of God, came with the message of repentance: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” God will come and He will come against sin, He will come against His enemies in judgment, and if you are to be spared from that, you must relent and you must repent of your sins to avoid it. The problem with Israel very often was it would focus exclusively on these passages that deal with the Day of the Lord as a time of blessing: “Israel will be blessed. Israel will be blessed. Israel will be blessed. We’re good. We’re safe.” And Amos the prophet had to come to them and say, “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why would you long for the day of the Lord? It is a day of darkness, not light.”

But yet the same prophet would describe the Day of the Lord as a day of conversion when He will rebuild the tabernacle of David that had fallen. And so it will be a day of blessing, but not for Israel only. It will be a day of blessing and salvation for the nations as well. Zephaniah chapter 2, verse 11: “The Lord will be awesome against them; for he will famish all the gods of the earth, and to him shall bow down, each in its place, all the lands of the nations.” Zephaniah chapter 3: “For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering. On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me; for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain.”

We have passages like Zechariah chapter 14 that picture the various nations who are enemies of Israel at that time coming to worship in Jerusalem, and all the various nations making their annual pilgrimage up to Jerusalem to offer worship to Israel’s God, portraying a time of universal blessing to the nations—salvation gone global. We find it in Isaiah chapter 11 and verse 9, famously described in just marvelous-sounding terms: “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Well, we have those throughout the prophets: these kinds of notes that God will come in judgment, but He will also come not only in judgment—He will also come through judgment to salvation as well. And not for Israel only, but the world over in answer to the promise to Abraham: all of the families of the world will be blessed.

When Is The Day Of The Lord?

Well, that is just a thumbnail sketch of the Day of the Lord, both now in its judgment aspect and its aspect of salvation as well. For the details of it, we will have to wait for another time. But let’s take a look at all of this and try to understand it then a bit further. This is a huge theme in the Old Testament. When you put together the expression “the Day of the Lord,” or “the day,” or “that day,” or “the last day,” and then you put with it all the passages that deal with related expressions—whether the Day of the Lord is mentioned or not, but that pick up themes associated with the Day of the Lord—pretty soon this becomes a theme that really does encompass all of the Bible: a day when God’s purposes for mankind will be fulfilled in judgment and in salvation.

Well, we have the Lord’s Supper coming. I’m going to skip through some of this, but let’s ask the question first, then: When is this Day of the Lord? What is the timing of this Day of the Lord?

Well, the first answer to that—and there are several—but the first answer to that regarding the timing of the Day of the Lord is that it’s future. It’s consistently associated with the climactic day at the culmination of history when God comes in a climactic way to bring judgment and to bring salvation finally, and to culminate and bring to culmination His purposes for humanity. The prophets speak of this coming Day of the Lord, God as a coming judge; they speak of it in terms of a climactic upheaval—the shaking of the earth, the sun going dark, God pouring out His wrath in a universal way, bringing salvation in a universal way as well.

And then we come to the New Testament where the expression “the Day of the Lord” becomes “the Day of Christ,” “the Day of Jesus Christ,” “the Day of God,” and all of them associated tightly with the second coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus picks it up in all of that discourse, of course, in Matthew chapter 24. Immediately following the tribulation of those days—describing the tribulation period—you’ll see the sign of the coming of the Son of Man and begin to describe these same matters of the stars falling and the sun darkened and so on. The Day of the Lord is the Day of Christ. It is the day of our Lord’s return when He comes to completely renovate the world order and bring to accomplishment God’s purpose for humanity and His purpose for history. So it’s a future day; that’s easy.

What becomes a little more involved is to find that many times the prophets describe this day as a day that is impending, a day that will come immediately. And so throughout the prophets, the Day of the Lord is near; it’s coming. Those are familiar notes throughout the prophets. It was proclaimed to Israel’s pagan neighbors that the day was coming and it was coming soon, that God would come in judgment against them. And in fact, here’s another answer to the question, “When is the Day of the Lord?”: It has come. It came against Babylon. It came against Edom. It came against Damascus and so on. And the prophets predicted it comes. We can read through the prophets; we can read of the fulfillment of those prophecies. And even for Judah itself, the Day of the Lord came in its exile, and it came in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and so on.

So the Day of the Lord is future. It is impending and immediate. And it is also something that has come. And so we come with this to what we have come with so many times in these themes: there is a “now” and a “not yet” aspect of the prophecy. This is standard issue in biblical prophecy. Once in a while, you will find a prophecy from the Old Testament that is fulfilled right here, and that’s it: “The Messiah will be born in Bethlehem.” He was born in Bethlehem. Got it. But most often the prophecies are fulfilled, and fulfilled, and fulfilled, and fulfilled, and fulfilled, and then fulfilled in a climactic way in the end times.

And we find that with this as well. The day is coming. But that great Day of the Lord just may show itself here and here and here again. And all of these contemporary judgments are viewed by the prophets as an anticipation of the big one that will come. And so we have, in a sense, a generic kind of prophecy that is fulfilled finally in a climactic way at the end of history. The prophets generally are not concerned to give us careful chronological outlines of when these things will happen. Very often they speak in this broad way, looking to the end when it will happen in a climactic way, but then also showing that that will show itself in local manifestations of judgment throughout history.

And so the final answer to the question, “When is the Day of the Lord?”: Answer—unknown and imminent. It’s coming. It’s coming. It came. And it’s coming. And it’s coming. The Apostle Paul picks up the language from Joel: it will come like a thief in the night, when it is unexpected and it will be sudden. And it will come in a climactic day of judgment and salvation.

Well, this is the Christian’s great hope, and this is where history is going. Whatever differences we may have on the particulars of end times prophecy, this is where history is going. Evil will not finally win. God will. And He’ll see to it Himself. He will be victorious and all unrighteousness will be punished. And not only will unrighteousness be punished, but righteousness will be established the world over. The Apostle Paul speaks of it in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1 in terms of God coming to trouble those who trouble you—a day of reversal of the way things are now. Revelation, of course, pictures it in grand terms of Christ’s second coming—coming in judgment, yes, but also coming in salvation for His people.

And finally, there will be no more curse and no more tears and no more crying. In fact, it says, “no more sea”—no more of the turbulence that characterizes this age—but paradise will be regained. It will be a day of resurrection: the dead come to life, the righteous restored into fellowship with God, and there’ll be such an outpouring of God’s Spirit that not only will He raise them to life, but He will so transform their hearts that they will walk always in compliance, happily, with His commandments. It will be, in short, a day in which justice triumphs, and it will be a day in which mercy triumphs as well.

The Cross And Resurrection Of Jesus

Well, that in broad sketch, then, is the Day of the Lord. But we have seen with these various themes that we’ve been tracking, that they portray for us not just a big theme, the beginning and the end. But consistently with these themes, on its way to the end, the theme works its way through the cross and resurrection of Jesus. And as I’ve tried to emphasize throughout this series, the Bible is not just a story, and it in fact is not just a story about Jesus. It is a gospel-shaped story about Jesus, and we find the same thing here with this theme of the Day of the Lord.

Recall the imagery, some of the imagery of the Day of the Lord in the Old Testament. It is a time when God will pour out His cup of wrath against sin. Recall some of the accompanying signs of the Day of the Lord: it will be a day of darkness, a day in which the sun won’t shine. It’ll be a day marked by earthquake, and it’ll be a day that is marked by the resurrection of the dead.

Well, you don’t have to read through the passion accounts very carefully at all before you begin to see some of that cropping up with reference to the cross. Jesus on His way to the cross, praying in agony and anticipation of what lay ahead of Him: “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” In the sixth hour, Matthew tells us, while Jesus was on the cross, the sun stopped. Darkness was over the land—a detail, by the way, that shows up even in the pagan Roman records as well. You remember Matthew chapter 27, verse 51: the earth shook, the rocks split. All of this linking the death of Jesus to this Day of the Lord theme. In fact, when the centurion saw all of that, he acknowledged, “Surely this must be the Son of God.”

And all of this—the cup of wrath, the darkness, the earthquake—all of this is to link Jesus’ death with this Day of the Lord theme, and that to define for us again the meaning of the death of Jesus. Why did He die? He died to bear the wrath and the judgment of God against sin. He went to the cross in the place of sinners, bearing the punishment of that Day of the Lord against us and in our place, taking God’s wrath.

This, by the way, is the imagery that we sing about often. We find it in the scriptures as well, this imagery of hiding in Christ, fleeing to Christ for refuge. God is our rock in whom we hide. All of that is taken from this judgment imagery that we find in the scriptures. When we sing, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in Thee,” that’s the imagery here. I need a place to hide from divine judgment. What rock could possibly hide me? Answer: Jesus, who took the wrath of God in our place on the cross. When we sing, “He to rescue me from danger interposed His precious blood,” it is picturing us as standing before the wrath and the judgment of God and Christ coming in the way and shedding His blood in our place. It is John chapter 10, where Jesus, unlike the hireling who has no care for the sheep, comes and puts Himself not only in harm’s way, and bears the judgment of God and of the wolf coming—but He not only puts Himself in harm’s way, but He gives His life for the sheep. The Day of the Lord comes crashing together in all of its themes at the cross of Christ.

And this, by the way, helps to answer a question that many of you were discussing in Sunday school this morning: the question of the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, often depicted as these two different gods—the God of the Old Testament a God of wrath, and the God of the New Testament a God of love. And every time I hear that, I guess I want to give two answers. One, first answer: Have you never read your Bible? The God of the Old Testament a God of wrath? Have you ever read the prophecy of Hosea? Have you ever read the Psalms where the psalmist revels in the loving-kindness of God?

But the other answer I want to give to it is that the truth of the matter is it is not the love of God that is ratcheted up in the New Testament only. It is both the wrath of God and the judgment of God—the wrath of God and the love of God—that is ratcheted up in the New Testament. You come to the New Testament, and we find Jesus talking all the time about judgment and wrath. You get to the book of Revelation, and you find depictions of judgment like you find nowhere else: God coming in wrath against sin and sinners and trampling them out, and the blood flowing to disgusting heights, and then finally casting them all into hell and the smoke of their torment going up forever and ever. And you think just the Old Testament talks about wrath?

But it’s not just the wrath of God being ratcheted up in the New Testament; it’s the love of God ratcheted up in the New Testament as well. And the truth of the matter is we have both of these themes running through the Old Testament. The wrath of God and the love and the mercy of God running through the Old Testament and building and building until they crash at the cross, where the wrath of God is poured out, and it is so unrelenting that God will not relent even if it means bringing His punishment against His own Son. And that because of His love for sinners.

And so this Day of the Lord theme culminates in a way in the cross of Christ. We find it also in Jesus’ resurrection—not only on Friday in His cross, but also on Sunday in His resurrection. The Day of the Lord is the day of resurrection. And Jesus’ resurrection is the inauguration of that day. His resurrection is, as we’ve seen, a resurrection in which we will participate—now spiritually, then fully. And to signal exactly that, Matthew again tells us, Matthew 28 in verse 2, there was that great earthquake when the angel rolled back the stone. But not only at the resurrection; at the cross itself, Matthew 27: the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

So we have the Day of the Lord theme coming at the cross. We have it coming in the resurrection of Jesus. It crops up again in the Day of Pentecost. Of course, Joel tells us that that Day of the Lord will be the day of the outpouring of God’s Spirit. Peter in Acts chapter 2 makes an explicit link to Joel chapter 2: “This is that! Here it is!” And if Joel says in that day salvation will go wild and whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, Peter picks up the same language again. This is that day. This is the day of salvation. The Day of the Lord is now. The Day of the Lord has come.

And yet—and yet—it is just the first fruits, just the partial, just the inauguration of that day, because throughout the New Testament we are told that we wait for that day. That day is not yet. We are “waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God,” Peter tells us, in the return of Christ. And it will come in culmination when He returns, not only in judgment, but also in salvation, in resurrection, and a reversal of the curse. And there in broad picture, then, again is the Bible’s story of salvation. Humanity has rebelled against God. God has appointed a day of judgment. Christ came and bore that judgment. And we are safe from that judgment only in Him. And in Him, the blessings of the Day of the Lord have come in an inaugurated way, and they will come in full when He comes again in judgment and in salvation.

Hope And Encouragement

Well, our time is gone. I would love to take time looking at a number of other verses to see how both the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament writers take this theme of the Day of the Lord and use it for exhortation to the saints. I’ll give you just a few in a running survey way.

It is a message of hope and encouragement. And so James will tell us, “Be patient… Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand.” Peter will encourage us to have hope in the great salvation that accompanies the Day of the Lord. Paul encourages us, telling us that “he who began a good work in you will complete it” all the way until the Day of the Lord. It is a message of hope and encouragement.

It’s also a message of comfort. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, Paul tells us that day will come like a thief. But he encourages believers: that day will not overtake you like a thief because you are not children of the night; you’re children of the day. You are children of the light. Be patient, he says, for that day when God will come and trouble those who trouble you. Paul looks forward to the day in 2 Timothy chapter 4, telling us that “there’s laid up for me a crown of righteousness” that will be given me in that day, and not to me only, but to all those who love His appearing. A message of hope and encouragement. It’s a message of comfort.

It’s also used by the biblical writers as an incentive to faithfulness. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25: encourage one another as you see that day approaching. One of the famous words of the Apostle Peter: “Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn?”

In just a fascinating way, the Apostle John pictures the believer as having confidence in that day. That we will not be ashamed at His appearing? We will not shrink back at His appearing? You imagine that? Christ coming in all of His glory and coming in judgment—the believer is able to stand there in joy and rejoicing and in confidence: “This is my King.”

And so, of course, the biblical writers consistently speak of the Day of the Lord with an incentive to repentance. As John the Baptist himself: “Repent, for… the kingdom of God is at hand.” That day is coming. And there is no way out but through Jesus, who took the punishment of the Day of the Lord Himself. And now the day of salvation is open. Terms of peace are given. Come to Him and be saved. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Father, we thank You for this glimpse You have given us of the grand scheme of things. How encouraging it is for us to see that You are and You will remain forever the God who is God over all, that You will accomplish Your purpose. Help us, Lord, to be encouraged in that, to be strengthened in it. Teach us by it to be faithful. May we live each day in anticipation of that day. We pray in Christ’s name, amen.

I have to now ask the deacons to join me, if they will, please.