Episode 18
Divine Judgment and Resurrection: A Closer Look at the Day of the Lord
Delving into the complexities of the 'day of the Lord,' this episode offers a nuanced exploration of its biblical significance, particularly as it relates to themes of resurrection and judgment. The discussion begins by examining the multifaceted portrayal of this day throughout the New Testament, where it emerges as a moment of divine reckoning. We highlight how this day is intricately linked to the resurrection, presenting a dual narrative of reward for the righteous and judgment for the wicked, drawing from a rich tapestry of scripture including John the Baptist’s teachings and the prophetic insights from Joel. The light-hearted banter interspersed throughout makes these weighty topics more digestible, allowing listeners to engage with challenging concepts without feeling overwhelmed.
As we journey through this profound subject, we also investigate how historical contexts—specifically the destruction of Jerusalem—serve as a backdrop to the biblical prophecies concerning the day of the Lord. This not only emphasizes the seriousness of the divine judgment but also highlights the promise of resurrection for those who have remained faithful.
Takeaways:
- The phrase 'day of the Lord' connects deeply with themes of resurrection and judgment, ensuring that both the righteous and the wicked face their respective outcomes.
- New Testament passages indicate that the day of the Lord serves as a pivotal moment for separating the righteous from the unrighteous.
- The outpouring of the Holy Spirit is intricately linked to the 'great and terrible day of the Lord,' marking a significant spiritual event that precedes judgment.
- Judgment and reward are not only intertwined but also reflect a divine promise of vindication for the faithful, echoing the longing of martyred souls for justice.
- The last day is not merely a 24-hour period but a significant era where the resurrection occurs, offering eternal life to believers while condemning those who reject Christ.
- Celestial signs will accompany this day, as foretold by prophets, emphasizing the grandeur and urgency of the events that will unfold during this crucial time.
Transcript
Today we want to study the phrase day of the Lord and of course, in connection with it, the resurrection.
Speaker A:The New Testament speaks of the day of the Lord in several different respects or several different passages, and links that day to a time of judgment, a judgment for the wicked and a resurrection as a reward for the righteous.
Speaker A:These go hand in hand.
Speaker A:As far as time goes.
Speaker A:There's always the separation of the wheat and chaff as John the Baptist preaches it, or the separation of the goats from the sheep.
Speaker A:There is obviously the same reward for the righteous on the same events or same period, as well as a judgment for the wicked.
Speaker A:And according to Joel, the timing of the Spirit's work is described as preceding the great and terrible day of the Lord.
Speaker A:The day of the Lord.
Speaker A:It was a time of judgment and reward for the righteous.
Speaker A:As we come to the fulfillment of this prediction in the New Testament, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that began in Jerusalem in chapter two, it occurred, according to Joel, two before the great and terrible day of the Lord come.
Speaker A:Peter.
Speaker A:When he preaches, he does mention to those who had accepted the Word and were baptized.
Speaker A:He said, save yourselves from this perverse generation.
Speaker A:That day would be associated also with the vindication of martyred souls who were anxious for the day to come.
Speaker A:They wanted vindication.
Speaker A:The righteous blood from Abel to Zechariah would be vindicated upon that generation who replaced the Messiah for their own law and rejected him as their leader, as their ruler.
Speaker A:Matthew, chapter 23.
Speaker A:Beginning in verses 34 and following, we find the heaviest of judgment that Jesus gives the Jews for their rejection.
Speaker A:The Holy Spirit, who spoke through the apostles and prophets after Christ's ascension, prophesied that this day would come.
Speaker A:They would be resurrected, and the unrighteous dead ones would be then punished.
Speaker A:But you know Daniel, as long ago as his prophecy was prophesied of these last days, he wrote, at that time.
Speaker A:This is in chapter 12, Daniel 12:1, beginning.
Speaker A:Listen carefully.
Speaker A:At that time shall arise Michael the great prince, who has charge of your people.
Speaker A:And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since was a nation till that time.
Speaker A:But at that time your people shall be delivered, every one whose name shall be found written in the book.
Speaker A:And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Speaker A:And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above.
Speaker A:And those who turn away, or turn many to righteousness, like the stars, forever and ever.
Speaker A:And among those who are alive at his coming.
Speaker A:This is a statement that we find several times, including First Corinthians 15, that there would be those who would not sleep, that they would be alive at his coming.
Speaker A:I think probably that is what is referenced in John's accounting of Jesus talking to Peter, who asked, lord, what shall this man do?
Speaker A:And he said, if I will, that he tarry till I come, what is that to you?
Speaker A:Follow me.
Speaker A:Believe that very likely John was still was among those who were alive at his coming, and those Christ would separate as a shepherd divides the sheep from the goats.
Speaker A:Jesus said in Matthew 25, beginning in verse 31 when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations he shall separate them from one another.
Speaker A:As shepherd divides his sheep from the goats, he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
Speaker A:Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come you, blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Speaker A:For I was hungry and you gave me meat I was thirsty, and you gave me drink.
Speaker A:I was a stranger, and you took me in naked, and you clothed me.
Speaker A:I was sick, and you visited me I was in prison, and you came unto me.
Speaker A:And so this day is described as a separation.
Speaker A:It is also described as a day of harvest.
Speaker A:Not only do we find this with John's teaching, but Jesus explains it in Matthew 13 that he will send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness Also Daniel wrote of this in Daniel 7 Daniel records or prophesies a fiery stream issued and came forth from before him.
Speaker A:Thousands ministered unto him, and times 10,000 stood before him.
Speaker A:The judgment was set, and the books were opened.
Speaker A:Now the order of events places the wicked being called out before the righteous are rewarded.
Speaker A:The sequence appears to start with the judgment of the wicked among professed believers, including old Jerusalem, the physical Israel, the house of God, as Peter references it in 1st Peter 4, verse 17 Old Jerusalem, Old Israel, the physical Israel, the Israel as a nation.
Speaker A:It was finally sacked and burned in 70 A.D. while the merchants wept as they viewed her smoke from afar.
Speaker A:John sees in a vision and during this harvest some were taken, others were left, just as Jesus tells us in Matthew 24 would happen, or as is given also in Luke's accounting of it in chapter 17 and 21, the assumption that those taken were raptured fits the premillennial rapture theory that removes them from the earthly scene before the great tribulation.
Speaker A:But the text lends more support to the idea that we would not have wanted to be among those taken if we lived during that time.
Speaker A:According to chapter 21 of Luke, we.
Speaker A:We find in verse 23 and 4 a reference to those who were left as those who were slain by the sword.
Speaker A:Now, he doesn't say that they were left, but those who were left or who were slain by the sword were left.
Speaker A:When it was asked, the question was asked, where, Lord?
Speaker A:And he said, speaks about where the body is.
Speaker A:There the vultures or the eagles would gather.
Speaker A:And so those that were left were those who were slain with the sword and.
Speaker A:And the vultures gathered round their dead bodies.
Speaker A:Then of course, those who were taken would be those who would be taken into captivity.
Speaker A:So look at that passage, please.
Speaker A:This is in chapter 21 of Luke, verse 23 and 4.
Speaker A:I believe you'll find that the reference to being taken and left is a reference to what happens when Rome, or any emperor or any nation would come in and devastate an area that has been under revolt.
Speaker A:There would be those taken, killed, slain, and those taken into captivity.
Speaker A:I don't believe you'd want to be either one of those, actually.
Speaker A:But the text lends support to that idea, not to the idea of being raptured in the presence of the Lord.
Speaker A:Of course, after that the dead were raised.
Speaker A:The wicked dead were sentenced to eternal separation, and the dead in Christ were raised with glorified bodies to reign with him.
Speaker A:Then the righteous who remained would be changed.
Speaker A:This is what is told to us in 1 Corinthians 15.
Speaker A:They would not all sleep, but they will all be changed, right?
Speaker A:The righteous who remained would be changed to join them where they reign and live with him for a thousand years.
Speaker A:Revelation 20.
Speaker A:The thousand years is contrasted, I think, with the season that describes the length of time that Satan would be loosed this short time versus the long time he had been bound.
Speaker A:He was bound for a thousand years, but then he'll be loosed for a season.
Speaker A:Again, this is not intended to refer to some literal 90 days or literal thousand years or anything of the kind.
Speaker A:But one is just a long period of time, while the other is a comparatively short period of time.
Speaker A:This day, this day of the Lord is also associated with the blast of a trumpet.
Speaker A:It signals that the day has arrived and that the culminating events of that age are upon them.
Speaker A:I want you to just read a few passages connecting the trumpet to the end of the age.
Speaker A:And then I think it would be helpful to look at the phrase, the uses of the phrase the last day and the day of the lord in Matthew 24.
Speaker A:Now verse three, tell us when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?
Speaker A:And he answered them, saying, and he look at verse 31 and he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other.
Speaker A:So at the end of the age the elect were gathered.
Speaker A: Corinthians: Speaker A:Verse 52 says that in a flash and the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
Speaker A:And so at the last trumpet the dead were raised in 1 Thessalonians 4, 16 for the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
Speaker A:And then it speaks of those who are alive that will be caught up together with them at the trumpet.
Speaker A:Then the Lord descends, and the dead in Christ were raised first, that is, before the living saints.
Speaker A:Revelation chapter 10 in verse 7 the text reads as but in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets.
Speaker A:So this mystery is about to be accomplished is accompanied by the seventh trumpet in Ephesians 3, beginning in verse 3.
Speaker A:That is the mystery made known to me by revelation, as I have already written briefly in reading this, then you will be able to understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men in other ages, as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets.
Speaker A:This mystery is that through the Gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promised in Christ Jesus.
Speaker A:So the mystery is that the Gentiles are also to be included in the kingdom of God and salvation.
Speaker A:And finally, just to end this note about the trumpet, if you'll go to Revelation 11, where the seventh angel sounded his trumpet, verse 15 says, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.
Speaker A:So the Seventh trumpeter is the last trumpet mentioned in the series of seven in the section of Revelation.
Speaker A:It is an announcement of the day of the Lord.
Speaker A:I'd like to now direct your attention to some scriptures as I read them to you in your hearing.
Speaker A:And if you'd like to take note of them, write them down and read them for yourself.
Speaker A:That would be probably more helpful.
Speaker A:In Matthew 7:22, Jesus said, Many will say to me on that day.
Speaker A:That day is the day of judgment, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles that day?
Speaker A:Chapter 639 of John.
Speaker A:And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of them that was given me, but raise them up at the last day.
Speaker A:So the last day not only is a day of judgment, but the resurrection occurs on the last day.
Speaker A:In John 6:40, Jesus says, For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.
Speaker A:And I will raise him up at the last day.
Speaker A:The resurrection occurs again on that day.
Speaker A:Then in the same chapter, look at verse 44.
Speaker A:No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up the last day.
Speaker A:The resurrection is on that last day.
Speaker A:And he's not talking about 24 hour period.
Speaker A:He's talking about an age, a period of time.
Speaker A:And it's confirmed by the use of aion as we find it several times in the New Testament.
Speaker A:That's the era, the day, the age in which the completion of that redemptive plan will be, will be seen now in verse 54.
Speaker A:Now this is the same chapter, John 6.
Speaker A:Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
Speaker A:So in three verses of Scripture, in John chapter six, Jesus promises that he will raise them up on the last day day.
Speaker A:Well, actually, that's not true.
Speaker A:There's four times he mentions it.
Speaker A:Verse 39, verse 40, verse 44, and verse 54.
Speaker A:So four times he uses the statement, I will raise him up at the last day.
Speaker A:Well, again, Martha recognized this.
Speaker A:She obviously had been taught this by the Lord on more than one occasion.
Speaker A: In John: Speaker A: In John: Speaker A:The very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day.
Speaker A:So again we return to the idea that judgment will also occur on the last day, as Jesus confirms in Matthew 7:22.
Speaker A:Also in Acts 2:20, this is a continuation of the quote from Joel.
Speaker A:He says in verse 20 the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon to blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord, and so that day will be accompanied by celestial signs.
Speaker A:Jesus tells us about this in Matthew 24, doesn't he?
Speaker A:As well as Luke 17 and Mark's accounting also in 1 Corinthians 1:8 he will keep you strong to the end so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker A:This implies a time of reckoning on that day so that they would be blameless.
Speaker A:1 Corinthians 5:5 hand this man over to Satan so that his sin might be destroyed and and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord.
Speaker A:2 Corinthians 1:14 as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully as you can boast of us, just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord.
Speaker A:And so the day of the Lord will be a time of boasting in Jesus, a time of testimony.
Speaker A:He's not really advocating that we glory or boast in our own selves, but if any man glory, let him glory in the Lord.
Speaker A:But the point being is that as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus, it's in connection with his work and his reward.
Speaker A:In 1st Thessalonians 5, 2, Paul writes, and you know very well that the day of the LORD will come like a thief in the night.
Speaker A:2nd Timothy chapter 1:18 May the Lord grant that you will find mercy from the Lord on that day.
Speaker A:You know very well in how many ways he helped Me in Ephesus, 2nd Timothy 4:8 now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but also to those who longed for his appearing.
Speaker A:And then finally, second Peter 3, verse 10 the day of the Lord will come like a thief.
Speaker A:The heavens will disappear with a roar, the elements will be destroyed by fire and the earth, and everything in it will be laid bare again.
Speaker A:According to our text that we've been reading, we've noted that there will be a separation of good and the bad.
Speaker A:There's a resurrection and judgment, or a condemnation to those who have rejected Jesus Christ.
Speaker A:And so at the end of the age the elect would be gathered, that is, they would be approved and gathered, being separated from those who are offensive, who cause offenses and they would be gathered into his barn, as John would describe it in his metaphors.
Speaker A:It would appear to be the time when saints are caught up.
Speaker A:They are described in Matthew 24 in just that way he will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heaven to the other.
Speaker A:And this isn't the same description as one taking the other left.
Speaker A:And then finally in First Corinthians 15, he says that we will be changed at that last day.
Speaker A:So it appears that the last day was a day of reward for those righteous, as well as a day of condemnation or judgment to those who were the wicked.
Speaker A:It is difficult, I think there's not as much given to us about the wicked.
Speaker A:But as we look at what the Bible says, the wicked, unrighteous souls, just like the righteous, appear to be in a disembodied state.
Speaker A:They were spirits after their death, just like they're spirits now, except that they're in this life.
Speaker A:They're cloned with mortality.
Speaker A:They were never promised resurrection to life.
Speaker A:That is, the wicked were not, nor were they ever promised a glorified body.
Speaker A:They were separated from the face of God.
Speaker A:And while there is evidence that they will be resurrected with what body is not so clear to me.
Speaker A:And if they are given some body, as are the righteous, they are only conducive to their environment and would not in any way be comparative to the glorified body that God's people are promised.
Speaker A:It is possible that those resurrected to damnation will not receive anything from the lord.
Speaker A:In John 5:28 29, you have a reference to those that resurrection to life or to damnation.
Speaker A:So if it's reasonable to think that they will not receive anything from the Lord, then that may also include a body.
Speaker A:After all, receiving a body may give the appearance of a reward for disembodied spirits.
Speaker A:When you think about disembodied spirit or the spirit world, the one thing that they longed for, we see this with the demons in the first century, is they longed for some expression, some body, some form that they could indwell, even if it was just swine.
Speaker A:You will remember that occasion.
Speaker A:And of course Jesus allowed it, and they entered the swine, and they all perished in the sea anyway.
Speaker A:But the point being is that spirits don't dwell or long for a body.
Speaker A:Even Paul would Describe this in 2 Corinthians 5.
Speaker A:When he longs to be clothed upon, not that he would be found naked, but that death may be swallowed up in victory.
Speaker A:The sense of it is that he didn't want to not have a body.
Speaker A:He didn't want to be naked, he wanted to be clothed upon.
Speaker A:That is, I think, the desire of every spirit who is disembodied.
Speaker A:Now, I have not experienced that yet, neither have you.
Speaker A:But those who are spirits who receive their damnation or receive their judgment because they've rejected the Christ, whether they receive a body or not may be uncertain.
Speaker A:It just seems to me that they probably will not even receive that, because we're talking about a spirit world, not a literal hellfire.
Speaker A:But as we see these things for our benefit, we see descriptions of both hell and heaven that will help us and aid us in our understanding of the glories of heaven, while we have also descriptions that give us some sense of the pain and the agony of separation from God.
Speaker A:But a body could be prepared for that purpose if God chose to do so.
Speaker A:It could be.
Speaker A:If we view that condition to be an eternal infliction of pain upon their bodies, then you can think that, I suppose.
Speaker A:But otherwise we see no real purpose for being given a body.
Speaker A:According to Jesus, some of the dead would come forth unto the resurrection of damnation.
Speaker A:John 5:28 29 teaches this.
Speaker A:And this would accord with the promise of John the immerser.
Speaker A:He had promised, you'll remember that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Speaker A:First, the Holy Spirit, second, with fire.
Speaker A:The fire does not refer to the Holy Spirit's coming on the day of Pentecost in which they saw cloven tongues like as of fire.
Speaker A:But the baptism of fire is not a welcomed event for those experiencing is simply a resurrection of damnation.
Speaker A:The same thing as described in John 5.
Speaker A:The rich man of Luke 16 lifted up his eyes and in torment.
Speaker A:Well, he experienced a resurrection after his death.
Speaker A:There was life, there was consciousness.
Speaker A:And he confessed that he was in anguish in these flames.
Speaker A:Now this is where all chaff is cast.
Speaker A:This is that which is cast off.
Speaker A:Another mystery regards the nature of resurrected bodies that will be given.
Speaker A:That's a deep and difficult topic to even begin to imagine or discuss.
Speaker A:But God has given all manner of bodies, whether they be heavenly or earthly.
Speaker A:But the bodies that inhabit planet earth are best suited to the environment in which they were designed to live.
Speaker A:And that's earth.
Speaker A:They were earthy, they are of this world, they are carnal.
Speaker A:But in the resurrection of the righteous, the saints are promised in Philippians 3:21, a glorified body like unto our Lord.
Speaker A:However, now that he has bound Satan the strong man in the parable and taken from him the keys of death.
Speaker A:Satan could no longer keep those consigned souls from being raised at his coming.
Speaker A:And so, as a side note to this marvelous message of hope, it is not so remarkable that Peter refers to Jesus as preaching to the spirits in prison, because that's where he went after his death.
Speaker A:This, you'll remember, is what Peter writes in 1st Peter 3.
Speaker A:He said in verse 18 beginning, For Christ also died for sins once for all the just, for the unjust, that he might bring us to God having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison who were once disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah.
Speaker A:So to imagine that the spirits who once lived in Noah's day were given a second chance so as to repent from the preaching of Jesus is a really far fetched and difficult view to grasp.
Speaker A:There's no other supporting scripture that exists that provides a second chance after death.
Speaker A:The Hebrew writer says it is appointed a man once to die the then comes the judgment.
Speaker A:The translators of the New American Standard have added the word now to the spirits in prison to give the sense of Jesus preaching to these people who are now spirits in Hades during their lifetime on earth in Noah's day.
Speaker A:In other words, Christ came in the spirit through Noah, a preacher of righteousness to those who were living on the earth in his day to warn and convince them to repent.
Speaker A:Well, I don't share that view.
Speaker A:It doesn't flow from the grammar of the text of that day.
Speaker A:Peter describes it as the first Heavens and Earth, 2 Peter 3 in the sense of being the first world order or the first age.
Speaker A:It was, as he describes it, the ancient world, the Jewish world was about to end at the time of Peter's writing.
Speaker A:He describes it as the age of the heavens that now the first refers to Noah's time.
Speaker A:It is described as the ancient world.
Speaker A:And the end of that age was marked by time of warning and preaching, just like Peter's day.
Speaker A:You see, Peter is making connection between the first two ages.
Speaker A:During the first age of the Jewish age at the time of Peter's writing, all who were in the graves from Abel to the time of Christ's coming were going to come forth.
Speaker A:The grave had held all the dead in prison.
Speaker A:Christ had come to deliver us from that.
Speaker A:Second Hebrews chapter 2, verse 14 says the threshing floor was going to be purged clean since Jesus went there after his death.
Speaker A:I think it is reasonable that Christ would communicate to the spirits in prison at the time of his death.
Speaker A:But what proclamation could be possible?
Speaker A:And what proclamation or preaching could he possibly give the dead of that era?
Speaker A:Well, it may be that they were told that they would soon be freed from death's bondage at his return.
Speaker A:This proclamation is not necessarily good news for the ungodly, but it sure would be good news for the righteous.
Speaker A:He might not expect anyone in Noah's day, except the eight that were in the ark, to be raised unto the resurrection of life.
Speaker A:And yet there were many generations prior to the flood that would have had some righteous souls for them.
Speaker A:The resurrection was wonderful news too.
Speaker A:The proclamation of God's righteous judgment, that is unto life or the condemnation either way corresponds to everyone's acceptance or rejection of the truth since the very first era.
Speaker A: Corinthians: Speaker A:Not the end of time, but the completion of that age.
Speaker A:At the time of the writing of the New Testament letters and epistles, the end was near but not completed.
Speaker A:They would possess the gifts until Christ appeared.
Speaker A:At that time, that is at his appearing, it is a time of completion.
Speaker A:The Holy Spirit will no longer be present to work the wonders.
Speaker A:The end and the purpose for his coming would have been accomplished and the new era, the New Kingdom era, would have commenced.
Speaker A:I thank you for your kind attention to these things.
Speaker A:We will pick up this thought and talk about the reward of the faithful our next time.
