The day of the Lord is an important thing you hear about in
the Scriptures in many different places. At its most basic meaning, the day of
the Lord is the day when the Lord intervenes and acts. He has held his peace
until that day. Now waiting is over. Now he is going to do something. So let’s
consider a couple examples of God intervening and altering the normal course of
events.
First, think of God’s redemption of Israel from Egypt. God
had been tolerant of the enslavement of his people. Their cries of lament
finally moved him to put a stop to it. God gave Pharaoh the opportunity to
repent, but soon God hardened his heart in judgment. Although Pharaoh was asked
to change his mind, God made it so that Pharaoh couldn’t. God was going to make
an example out of Pharaoh’s hard head. He slammed his hammer upon this anvil
and the news of it flew like sparks into all the surrounding countries. People
learned of the mighty deeds that God did to the most powerful nation on earth
at that time.
We won’t go into the details of all of God’s actions against
Pharaoh and Egypt. You are familiar with the ten plagues, the redemption of
Passover, the rescuing of the people of Israel when God held back the walls of
water. These were good days for the Israelites. That’s an understatement. This is the high
point of Israel’s history. What more could they ask for than that they should
dwell together with God, seeing his glory at Mt. Sinai, or Mt. Horeb, and
knowing that all was well. God loved them and would fight for them. The day of
the Lord is always a good thing for God’s people. It is when they see him act
with power and glory.
But note that this same day is not good for those who are
not God’s people. The plagues tortured the Egyptians until they were finally
glad to see the Israelites go. The waters of the Red Sea did not harm the
Israelites, but those same waters crushed and killed Pharaoh and all his
soldiers. God is good to his people and takes vengeance upon his enemies.
With this first example of a day of the Lord, a day of God’s
acting, we see God saving all the descendants of Israel because he loved them
and had made a covenant with their ancestor Abraham. With my second example of
the day of the Lord we will see that the matter wasn’t so black and white.
After God’s people entered the Promised Land they grew fat
and rich. For their standing before God they relied upon the fact that they
were blood-descendants of Abraham. Although they honored God with their lips,
their hearts were far from him. They did not fear love and trust in the Lord
their God. They did not call upon him in every trouble, pray, praise and give
thanks. They did not gladly hear and learn preaching and his Word. Instead they
lived like all their neighbors. Their hearts went after other sources for blessing
and success.
God was patient with these shenanigans for a long time. But
finally he had had enough. He destroyed the northern kingdom and largely took
away his Word from them. He also destroyed the southern Kingdom. Jerusalem with
her temple was razed to the ground. But God did not entirely take away his Word
from the survivors. The Jewish leaders would eventually come back from Babylon
and do the tremendously hard work of rebuilding what had been torn down.
With this second example of the day of the Lord, the day of
God’s action, you see that he even discarded those who had once been his people.
They lost their faith even though they went to Church every week. God is not a
respecter of persons. He would have liked to have gathered them under his wings
like a hen does with her chicks, but they would not. Therefore he said those
awful words: “Depart from me you workers of lawlessness. I do not know you.”
With this second example of the day of the Lord things
aren’t as black and white as they were in the first example. God takes
vengeance upon his enemies, and the people of God can’t rejoice with all their
heart, because these enemies of God were their own countrymen. God saved those
whom he chose—just as he saved these people’s ancestors at the Red Sea—but they
are severely chastised. They are saved as of by fire.
Those whom God had saved were led off to Babylon as captive
slaves. They must have had heavy hearts as they trudged along that road.
Jerusalem was destroyed together with the temple. Many of the people whom they
loved had been killed. This was God’s doing—a fearful thing. And yet they also lifted
up their eyes to the hills from whence cometh their help. This ultimately
served for their good. They quit relying upon the idols. They turned to the Lord.
Without the discipline that the Lord laid upon them, they would have only gone
further and further astray.
With my first example of God triumphing over the Egyptians
the good guys and the bad guys are clear. The good guys are the Israelites. The
bad guys are the Egyptians. It’s no skin off my back if all the Egyptians drown
in the sea. I never liked them anyway. It’s quite different with the second
example. The bad guys and the good guys are all the same people. It’s like the
wheat and the weeds are all in the same field and you can’t hardly tell the
difference. The difference is entirely internal—who has faith? Who trusts in
God enough to ask for mercy from him, even while he is slashing and burning
everything to the ground?
We are given the opportunity today to consider the day of
the Lord that will impact each one of us. That day is burning like a furnace,
Malachi says. That day will come upon the whole earth suddenly, like a trap,
Jesus says. If it would have been impressive to watch the sea swallow up an
entire army, what is that compared to the sun, moon, and stars going wobbly,
the sea roaring—the whole earth coming apart at the seams? You will see greater
things than any of the Israelites ever saw.
And how do you feel about it? I don’t think we can help
ourselves. There is at least some part of us that does not want to hear these
things. What about kids or grandkids that have quit believing? What about my
friends and my neighbors? Perhaps most important to each of us: what about
myself? Will I live through that day? Will it be as of by fire? The one who
decides who is a good guy and who is a bad guy is God and he is not a respecter
of persons. He judges justly and impartially.
It’s okay to feel this way from time to time, so long as you
do not remain in it. It is far better to be afraid than to feel as though God has
to save everyone because that’s what the philosophers say, or that he has to
save you because of your lineage or church affiliation. Jesus brings this up
with a note of fear. He says “Watch yourselves or else your hearts will be
weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the worries of this life. … Stay
alert all the time, praying that you may be able to escape all these things
that are going to happen and that you may be able to stand before the Son of
Man.” If Jesus did not want us to reflect on our lives and turn away from
evil, then he wouldn’t speak this way. He is not playing mind games with us.
The danger is real. Therefore, also, the warning is real.
So will we greet that day with fear and trepidation? I don’t
think that we will so long as we remain Christians. Fear and trepidation is for
this life. The reason why we have fear and trepidation is because we can’t help
but have divided loyalties. If we could enter into God’s will with our whole
heart, soul and mind, then we would already look to that day with happy hearts
regardless of who might be damned—even if that included ourselves. But we are
not capable of saying, “Thy will be done” with undivided hearts. We
don’t mind if God’s will is done so long as it doesn’t contradict my will. What
is my will? I want those people whom I love who have apostatized to be saved
from hell even though they don’t believe in Jesus. I want to continue being
weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and the worries of this life. I only
want to think about tomorrow. I don’t want to think about whether I am able to
stand before the Son of Man.
Here we see confirmed what we say in corporate confession
and absolution: “But when we examine our hearts and consciences, we find
nothing in us but sin and death, from which we are incapable of delivering
ourselves.” If I look at my will, I see hostility towards God and indulgence
toward myself. That is why it is so important to carefully hear what God’s will
is, which we pray for when we say, “Thy will be done.”
God’s will is that all should be saved and come to a
knowledge of the truth. For this reason he has not waited to act until Judgment
Day—otherwise all would be damned. It is not just that final day of the Lord
when the Lord acts. The day of the Lord also is Good Friday. Judgment, terrible
judgment was rendered on that day justly and impartially. He who knew no sin
became sin for us. God’s beloved Son cried out in agony, “My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?” The God-forsakenness of Jesus is the God-forsakenness
of all the people of the whole world. The way that everybody would feel when
being judged by God, put all together, was put on Jesus’s shoulders. And it
crushed him. It killed him. For what? So that, having been atoned for, we could
stand before the Son of Man without fear. We should believe in Jesus, receive
the Holy Spirit, and live a new life in him. As St. Paul says, “It is no
longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.” This is God’s will. It
is his good and gracious will.
Those who believe enter into this will of God for
themselves, even if it be with great weakness. Those who believe say, “Thank
you, God, for saving me by the blood of your Son from the hell that I deserve.”
To enter into this will is to want to glorify God in the way that he has saved the
whole world in Jesus. It is not right, then, for us to want to hold onto all
kinds of other hopes beside him. It is terrible that Jesus should be scorned by
anyone—even if it is our own flesh and blood. Our will pulls in many different
directions—whichever way we think will benefit ourselves most. It should be
pulling in God’s direction, following his will.
Thy will—not my will—be done. It is vital that we set before
our eyes God’s will and be strengthened in the faith that God has accomplished
our salvation without any cooperation on our part. Jesus’s redemption for our
salvation was complete. It is not in need of supplement by anyone. God gives
this to us as a gift. That is his will. When we are strengthened in that will,
then we take his side against all nay-sayers—including the nay-sayer that is
even in our own heart.
Because we have not yet finished the race, because we have
not yet safely made it home, we can’t help but have fear and trepidation at the
coming day of the Lord. But our strength as Christians is not in fear. The
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, and peace. When we take this will of God
towards us in hand we can lift up our heads when our world is coming apart at
the seams. The world coming apart at the seams is nothing other than seeing all
the old gods failing. They were never worthy of our trust. They can never last.
When you see all the old Gods failing then you know that the true God is on his
way. He’s coming for you to take you home—your real home.
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