169. The Day of the Lord

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 169,

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The Day of the Lord. Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf.

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You're gonna notice immediately, especially if you're one who watches the podcast, that we are doing audio only this week, and there's a reason for that.

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Because my daughter, who is my videographer, also my son, he helps out a lot as well, they're both sick, they're both under the weather, and because I felt like this episode was so important that I needed to bring it this week,

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I decided to go ahead and do audio only. So there you have it. It's just audio today, but the content is gonna be fantastical, which is not a real word.

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Anyway, two weeks ago, we opened up the book of Revelation. We asked a really important question, what are visions?

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And along with that question, why does God speak in symbols? Why does he communicate with his people from these strange kind of otherworldly apocalyptic images that both jostle us and require so much energy and effort for us to understand?

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And what we discovered last week is that biblical visions, far from being obtuse and esoteric kaleidoscopes of end times mayhem, are instead very clear forms of communication from God to a people on the verge of salvation or disaster.

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You see, when God gives a vision in the Bible, he is not just writing the ancient version of the

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Handmaid's Tale, he is instead convening a cosmic courtroom.

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He has the host of heaven assembled. He, as the judge, is bringing forth the visionary evidence so that the courtroom can adjudicate the matter.

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He is summoning the old covenant witnesses to testify by quoting the law, by quoting the prophets, and by quoting them against a people who have broken their covenant with God.

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And the vision in that way acts as a kind of precursor to the judgment.

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It's a visionary enactment of what is about to be unleashed in the physical world.

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And in that way, Revelation is not an apocalyptic version of Mr.

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Potato Head, where you can assemble the parts any old way that you like and end up with any old kind of system you want.

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It's not a hermeneutical DeLorean where you can punch in whatever aberrant view that you have about Russia and Israel and the

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Mark of the Beast, and then make the book travel perfectly into the world of the 21st century so that you can go back to the future.

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No, it's a first century book with a first century covenantal context that's played out in the visionary courtroom of Yahweh's wrath against his old covenant people.

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And why? Because they violated the terms of the covenant. And now, they are primed to receive the curses of that covenant.

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Revelation, in that way, begins like a courtroom where the gavel is getting ready to fall, where the judge is seated and ready to deliver the verdict.

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That is what we've seen so far in the first chapter of this most amazing book.

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And now that we've seen all of that, we're finally ready to understand how the entire architecture of the book of Revelation unfolds like a divine courtroom drama.

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In chapter one, the majestic judge who is robed in glory and splendor enters the heavenly courtroom to begin his proceedings.

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In chapters two and three, the court is called to order. The plaintiffs, the aggrieved party, the victims in the crime are summoned into the courtroom.

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And who are these plaintiffs? Well, we haven't talked about them yet, but they're the seven churches of Turkey in Asia Minor, all called to account for their fidelity in the most horrific circumstances that they've ever faced.

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They are brought into the courtroom as the aggrieved parties, the ones who've been abused by the

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Jews. But as we see in chapters two through three, they're also cross -examined a little bit in areas where they've fallen short and where they're in need of repentance.

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Now, after the victims take their stand and they sit down in the courtroom, the courtroom then transitions to the defendant.

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In chapters four through 20, the prosecution begins in earnest against the ones who have been accused of covenant crimes.

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Instead of merely just listing out their sins, listing out their iniquities, listing out how they've broken the covenant and trying them to see whether or not they're guilty, the courtroom drama proceeds immediately to the sentencing.

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The indictments are laid bare. The rebellious parties, Jerusalem and her corrupt priesthood, are unmasked as the lawbreakers and they're exposed as the traitors of the covenant with God.

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Now, I think the reason for this is very simple. Jesus came and he actually convicted them.

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So they don't need to be convicted a second time. They've already been convicted. From the year 30 AD to the year 70

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AD, they were convicted in the same way that a criminal will be convicted, but they're awaiting sentencing.

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So in AD 30, Jesus convicted them. When they said, we have no king but Caesar, Jesus pronounced the conviction guilty.

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But in AD 70, what we're seeing is the sentencing.

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We're seeing how the Jews are now gonna be brought to account for their covenant crimes.

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And that's in the book of Revelation. It begins immediately in chapter four when we see the trumpets beginning to sound, which is a symbol of God bringing his judgment.

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And then we see that seals are broken, which is a signal and a symbol of God's covenantal curses that have been sealed up for generations, but now being poured out on the people that they belong to.

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And then, and then, the court proceeds with solemn deliberation.

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And the judge renders his righteous verdict in full, culminating in the actual execution of the apostate

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Jews. So the book goes from the sentencing in chapters four through sort of 18 and 19, all the way to the actual execution of the apostate

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Jews, which is poured out in visionary form in chapters 19 and 20.

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That is the lethal injection. That's the public hanging. That's the firing squad moment in the book of Revelation.

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That's the electric chair when the apostate Jewish body stops writhing and the smell of death finally fills the air.

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Chapter 20 is where it happens. Now, those two chapters, chapters 19 and 20, are the visionary telling of the death of the nation that turned its back on almighty

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God. But this trial doesn't end with destruction. The book of Revelation doesn't end with the electric chair after the execution is enacted.

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God, the righteous judge, turns to the church. The same one he had been addressing in Revelation two through three, except this time, not just in Asia Minor, but on a cosmic global scale.

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And he brings them into his covenant blessings. In chapter 21 through 22 of Revelation, the judge grants restitution to the faithful.

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And he inaugurates a new covenantal order, a new Jerusalem where he is promising to preside and reside with them permanently, forever with his redeemed people, for them to live in his presence forever, where no appeal is ever needed again, because no injustice remains.

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All of their sins have been poured out on Jesus, and their enemies, the apostate

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Jewish people, have been sentenced and executed for their crimes against humanity and against their

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God. And it is there in Revelation 21 through 22 in the presence of God, where the church will live forever and ever.

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Now, all of this reveals the true setting of John's vision.

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His vision is not a sci -fi preview of a nuclear holocaust. It's actually not a tale of Christians vanishing before the wee -wee bad stuff happens.

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It's a first century courtroom drama where God announces the imminent disaster that's gonna befall the covenant -breaking

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Jews. And it's the declaration that repentance is offered in Christ alone.

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No longer in a temple, no longer in a sacrificial system, no longer in the Mosaic Hall, but the Jews and the Gentiles, male and female, slave and free, all will be made whole through Jesus Christ.

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And that group of people will not be a minority on the surface of the earth forever.

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No, they will actually be made into a worldwide people where all of the nations will stream through the gates of Christendom and will be blessed by the church, be fed by the church, be watered and nourished by the church, because it's the church in the city of God, the new

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Jerusalem. Read this in Revelation 21. It says that John was shown the bride, the city of Jerusalem.

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The church is the bride. Therefore, the church is the new Jerusalem. And in Revelation 21, inside that new

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Jerusalem, inside the church is the tree of life, which has 12 kinds of fruit, because why?

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There's 12 months in the year. And the water of the river of life, which is

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Jesus, flows through her streets because why? Because the only place on earth that a man and a woman and a child can come to know the living

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God is through the church of Jesus Christ, who has the keys to the kingdom and who delivers to the world the gospel of almighty

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God. That's why in Revelation 21, it says, now the people of God live in his presence forever.

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Now the nations are streaming into this city, the church, so that they may know the living

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God. If this were heaven, if this were the eternal state, which is what many people say

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Revelation 21 and 22 are about, then why do the nations come in and then go out?

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Why do people come for healing? If this were heaven, wouldn't they already be healed?

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The reason is simple. Revelation 21 and Revelation 22 are not talking about the eternal state.

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They're talking about the church. They're talking about after the apostate

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Jews have been punished and sentenced and executed for their crimes, then what's left?

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The church, the bride of Christ, the new Jerusalem, the city where the world will come, that city on a hill who has the light of Christ, who has the tree of life and who has the water of life in the gospel of God that is declared every week from faithful pulpits all over this world, that, my friends, is the hope of the world.

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And that, my friends, is what we've seen so far in this book by looking at John's vision.

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Now, this week, we're gonna continue looking at the first vision in the book of Revelation, which is, it begins in verse 10.

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And today, we're gonna take a different angle because last week, we looked at it from a more macro perspective.

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We looked at what is the entirety of the vision all about? What is the entire book about?

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And we broke that up in those three parts, Revelation 1 through 3, addressing the church,

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Revelation 4 through 20, addressing those who are going to be sentenced for their crimes, and Revelation 21 through 22, the church that wins the world.

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This week, we're gonna break it apart brick by brick, and we're gonna look at only one concept.

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But if you're gonna look at a concept that has massive importance to understanding the book of Revelation, if you're gonna look at a concept that will guarantee you that this book is not about a future rapture and microchips and Apache helicopters and all of that malarkey, if you want a verse, if you want a topic that guarantees that this book must have been poured out upon the first century

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Jews, and that's what primarily the book is about, is about the punishment upon the

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Jews, if you want a verse that proves that, if you want a concept that proves that this episode is for you, because today we're gonna be looking at what

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John means when he says in Revelation 110, I was in the spirit on the

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Lord's day. And that, my friends, leads us to part one, introducing the

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Lord's day. Now, to modern ears, that phrase, the

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Lord's day, probably engenders tons of thoughts. Waking up on Sunday morning and grabbing a cup of coffee, tying your tie, helping little

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Johnny with his outfit or whatever else, riding with the family to church, fellowship meals afterwards, and so on and so forth we could go, but John is almost assuredly not talking about the

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Lord's day as the Christian Sabbath. When he tells us that he was in the spirit on the

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Lord's day, he's not talking about church day. And while it's possible that he could have received this vision on the day that we call

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Sunday, while he was alone and by himself on the island of Patmos, when

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John uses that phrase, his point is much more specific and it's altogether frightening when you realize what he means.

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When John says that he was in the spirit on the Lord's day, he's referring to a very peculiar phrase in Greek, te kuriake hamera.

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Now, that phrase appears nowhere else in the entire New Testament. It appears nowhere else.

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And it's not really the phrase that you would use for the Sabbath day or the day when people go to church and worship

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God. Let me say it this way. If John wanted to tell us that he had received the vision on the

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Sabbath, well, he would have had a totally different Greek word and Greek phrase which he could have used to do that.

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Instead, by using this particular Greek phrase, te kuriake hamera, which literally means the

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Lord's day or the day that belongs to the Lord. What John is actually saying is instead of the

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Lord's day, he's saying the day of the Lord. He's saying that I received the spirit of God on the day of the

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Lord, which is a phrase that is loaded with all kinds of biblical meaning, especially if you have read the prophets.

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Te kuriake hamera shows that it's the day that belongs to the Lord. It's the day of the

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Lord, not the Lord's day. And that's really important because when we, as English readers, read our

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Bibles and we say, ah, John received the spirit on the Lord's day, we think Sunday. That's not what's going on here.

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John received the vision on the day that belongs to the Lord, the day of the Lord, which has massive theological implications, which we're gonna get into shortly.

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But for a moment, suffice it to say that the phrase the Lord's day and the day of the

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Lord in English represent massively different realities. When we talk about the Lord's day, we're thinking about worship and feasting with Christ and when we hear the phrase the day of the

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Lord, we should be thinking about excruciating wrath, covenantal punishment, nations falling, blood running ankle deep in the streets, people shrieking in terror.

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These two terms could not be more mentally and more diametrically opposed to one another.

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John was telling us that the spirit was revealing to him the imminent absolute disaster, the fury that is commensurate with the day of the

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Lord, which was about to fall upon Judah. And to be frank,

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John was not even the first one to talk about this concept in the New Testament, at least.

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Look at what James says about it in the fifth chapter of his book. You probably have read this a bunch of times before, but right now as I read this, if you haven't thought through what

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James means, you're gonna have a little bit of an epiphany here. You're gonna have a moment where scales fall off of your eyes and you're gonna be like, that's been in my

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Bible the whole time? Look at what James says. He says this in chapter five, verses one through 10.

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He says, come now you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you.

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Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth eaten.

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Your gold and your silver have rusted and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire.

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It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure.

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Behold, the pay of the labors who mowed your fields and which has been withheld by you cries out against you.

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And the outcry of those who did the harvesting has reached the ears of the

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Lord of the Sabbath. You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure.

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You have fattened your hearts in the day of salvation.

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You have slaughtered, you have condemned and put to death the righteous man. He does not resist you.

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Therefore, be patient brethren, until the coming of the

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Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil being patient about it until it gets the early and late rains.

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You too be patient, strengthen your hearts for the coming of the

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Lord is near. Do not complain brethren against one another so that you yourselves may not be judged.

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Behold, the judge is standing right at the door as an example brethren of suffering and patience.

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Take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord as your example, James 5, one through 10.

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Now, when James wrote to Christians, he was writing to Christians who were suffering under the persecution of their

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Jewish contemporaries. And he told them to wait patiently. He told them, he told first century

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Christians to wait patiently. Why? Because he says, you need to wait because the coming of the

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Lord is near. The coming of the Lord is near.

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Near to who? Not near to me. Not near to you. Near to the first century

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Christians who were being persecuted by the Jews who were making themselves fat on their wealth.

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Their gold and their silver, James says, is going to be rusted and it will become a witness against them.

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It will consume their flesh like fire. And he says that these things are going to happen in the last days.

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The last days of what? The world? No. The last days of the old covenant era where the

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Jews were going to weep and howl because their miseries were going to come upon them in this thing called the day of the

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Lord. He told them that the Lord's coming, this day of the Lord, would be so devastating that the fattened, sinful, covenant -breaking men and women of Judah would be slaughtered like an animal in a ritualistic sacrifice where their blood would run like rubies down the street.

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And he said that it was near. Not 2 ,000 years later, not even 100 years later, near.

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And why? Why, James was comforting real people, promising them that their vindication was coming, that the punishment was gonna be executed by this great and holy judge who's standing in the book.

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He's standing. The judge is not back in his chambers deliberating the case. He has arisen.

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He knows the verdict. He's gotten up out of his deliberation chair. He's walked down the back hallways of the courtroom.

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His hand is on the doorknob. He is getting ready to open the door and announce the verdict.

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James writes this early in the New Testament, in the 40s. So when you get to John, who is writing roughly 20 years later, the intensity has ratcheted up.

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James, by the way, was murdered by the very Jews that he said were going to weep and how, and that their miseries were gonna be poured out on their own heads.

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He was killed by them. He was murdered by them. And John is talking about James and every other faithful martyr's vindication because this day of the

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Lord is coming and it is near. And by the time we get to John, it's just a few years away.

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And that leads us to part two, the day of the Lord and the prophets.

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Now, as we just mentioned, the day of the Lord, well, it's no bueno.

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It's God's declaration of war against a people who are neck deep in the covenant tar pit.

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It's not the day that God had a Zeusian temper tantrum, but it's the culmination of centuries of covenant criminality, finally poured out as a people -destroying curse, as a nation -obliterating judgment, just as the law itself demanded, read

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Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28. It's the final stage in the covenant lawsuit from which there is no coming back.

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And speaking of lawsuits, this is the consistent message from Moses to Malachi.

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The entire prophetic corpus has been pointing to the day of the Lord, the very day that John said was coming in Revelation 1 .10.

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And the reason for this is simple. God gave the Jews the law and he expected them to obey it.

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And he said, if you obey it, there'll be blessings. And if you disobey it, there'll be curses. At Mount Sinai, Israel didn't just receive some kind of divine fortune cookie.

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They entered into a legally binding covenant with Yahweh God, Exodus 19 through 24.

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And blessings were promised for their obedience and curses were threatened for their rebellion.

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Again, Deuteronomy 28. When they broke the covenant, they were supposed to be punished, but God did not immediately annihilate them as justice deserved.

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He prosecuted them. First, he raised up judges, but the people ignored them.

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And then he gave them kings. And those kings were supposed to carry with them a copy of the law of God. And they were supposed to lead the people and help the people in righteousness.

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But guess what? The kings actually became corrupt. And from Solomon onward, you have the kings plunging themselves with a few exceptions into rank apostasy and idolatry.

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So the judges, the people didn't listen to. The kings themselves participated in the idolatry.

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And finally, when all human leadership failed, he raised up the prophets.

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And these prophets were not poets or fortune tellers. They were covenant lawyers.

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They were divinely appointed litigators who were sent to confront the nation, but in reference to its violation of the law of God.

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Their ministry, the prophets' ministry was not just to go and stand on the street corner and opine away about judgment.

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And that was part of it. But when you think about the prophets, and I'm talking about Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Malachi, Zephaniah, Zechariah, all of them.

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When you think about the prophets, I want you to, from this day forward, not just think about them as preachers.

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Yeah, that was part of their job. But the overarching purpose for the prophets was that they were covenant lawyers.

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They existed to bring a case against the people of God. They came to say, you have broken the law of God.

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And they were to point to the law and they were to show on this point, and on this point, and on this point, you have broken covenant with God.

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This is why so many of the prophets begin with courtroom language, like hear all heavens and give ear all earth,

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Isaiah 1, 2, which is a direct appeal to the courtroom, to the covenant witnesses that are listed in Deuteronomy 30, verse 19.

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It's why Hosea charges Israel with no faithfulness or kindness or knowledge of God in the land,

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Hosea 4, 1. It's why Micah calls the mountains and the hills to hear Yahweh's indictment against him,

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Micah 6, 1 -2. In fact, throughout the prophetic literature, we see a consistent covenantal lawsuit structure that God as the judge and Israel as the defendant is in a process of being persecuted for their crimes.

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The law is the legal charter and the prophets are the prosecuting attorney in the case.

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And as theologian Meredith Klein noted, the prophetic books follow the form of a covenant lawsuit.

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They prosecute Israel for violating the stipulations of the Sinaitic covenant and they warn of the judgment that will come if the curses are not averted by repentance.

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What Meredith Klein is saying, what he is telling us is that God sent one lawyer after another, after another, after another, begging the people to repent, telling them if you don't, the day of the

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Lord is coming, the day when God's furious wrath and indignation are poured out upon you, repent or be killed.

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That's why when John the Apostle says, I was in the spirit of the

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Lord in the Lord's day, he is not describing a quiet moment of personal worship at the local

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Patmosian Presbyterian church. He is stepping into the courtroom where the judge is seated, the witnesses are watching and the final verdict against this people is being read out loud.

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The gavel has slammed down. The sentence is about to be enacted and the city of Jerusalem is in the crosshairs of God's covenant fury.

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She is the spiritual Pompeii lounging in sin beneath a volcano of covenant wrath that is about to set her on fire.

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But unlike Pompeii, Jerusalem had centuries of warning.

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Prophet after prophet stood at her gates like watchmen, blowing the trumpet, announcing the terms, pleading for her repentance and yet she yawned all the way to her death.

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Now, for a moment in this section on the prophets,

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I want us to briefly consider a few of those prophetic warnings which culminated in Judah's destruction.

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And while I wish that this could be exhaustive, I am only gonna have time to give you a brief survey of what the prophets said was going to happen to the

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Jews if they did not repent. And it all centers on this concept called the day of the

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Lord. Let's begin with Isaiah. Isaiah opens the lawsuit with a sweeping condemnation of Judah's hollowed out worship.

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Now remember, this is an indictment 700 years before the destruction of the city of Jerusalem, which goes to show the long suffering patience of God.

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This is what Isaiah says. What are your multiplied sacrifices to me?

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Speaking on behalf of a furious God, Isaiah quotes the Lord as even saying, I have had enough,

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Isaiah 1 .11. Which means that at the very beginning of the book of Isaiah who is the very first covenant lawyer in God's high profile team of covenant lawyers, he's the first one out of 16 that are gonna stand, the four major prophets, the 12 minor prophets, he's the very first one.

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And this shows us that God already at the beginning of the case, when only the first attorney has stood up and made his presentation,

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God's already finished with them. The case against them was already certain.

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But Isaiah continues, 66 chapters in fact. For instance, in chapter two,

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Isaiah announces that the coming reckoning of God, this is what he says, the Lord of hosts will have a day of reckoning, the day of the

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Lord, against everyone who is proud and lofty, Isaiah 2 .12.

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This day of reckoning is a synonym for the day of the Lord that John references in Revelation 1 .10.

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And trust me, it is no holiday at the sea. Then in chapter 13, again, we're just broad strokes here.

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The legal prophetic language comes to a cosmic crescendo. Isaiah says, well, for the day of the

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Lord is near. It will come as destruction from the Almighty, verse six.

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Now, Isaiah is telling him that the stars are gonna refuse to shine when the day of the

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Lord happens, that the heavens were gonna rightly tremble when the day of the Lord happens, the sun is gonna be dark and black as soot when the day of the

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Lord happens. And before any of my disbefriends object and say, see,

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Isaiah said soon, but he clearly was not talking about events that were going to happen near term.

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He was talking about events that are gonna happen hundreds, if not thousands of years to come. Clearly, that means that the word near can be spiritualized, right?

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Well, to you, I would say, easy, little fella. Don't get yourself too worked up over what

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I'm saying just yet, because when Isaiah said, well, for the day of the

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Lord is near, he was not spiritualizing the word near. You see, the events actually did happen.

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These covenant judgments that were directed at the Jews in Isaiah 13 actually were poured out, and they weren't poured out in AD 70, because this prophecy is about what is going to happen when

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Babylon, led by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC, came to J -town and burned it to the ground.

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The reason that I'm citing this passage, because it doesn't have to do with AD 70.

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It doesn't have to do with the Romans. It doesn't have to do with the final day of the Lord. The reason that I'm citing it is because when the day of the

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Lord language is being used here, it's being used as judgment. It's communicating with a kind of heavenly language, and the effects are being played out by physical armies burning physical cities to the ground.

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This is exactly the same pattern that we see when God brought the final day of the Lord, the ultimate day of the

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Lord, the second time that the day of the Lord came to Judah, except with one crucial difference. The first time

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God uses the day of the Lord language is when Babylon destroyed them, but it was not the final day of the

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Lord, because they got a second chance. They got to come back to the nation and rebuild their temple again in the book of Ezra.

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They got to rebuild their city walls and rebuild the city of Jerusalem in the book of Nehemiah. God gave them one final chance.

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He gave them a day of the Lord where they got to taste the devastating destruction that their covenant crimes warranted, and the reason that he gave that to them is so that they would never, ever break covenant with him again, and yet they did.

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Because by the time we get to the book of Malachi, which we'll talk about in a moment, the people were already completely apathetic to God.

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400 years later, it wasn't Babylon who came knocking on Jerusalem's door.

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It was Rome, and there would be no more second chances given by God when

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Rome came to town. There would be no more rebuilding the temple.

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Jerusalem, Judah, and the old covenant would be over on the final day of the

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Lord. The day of the Lord would bring an end to all of these things.

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So I bring up Revelation 13, because Revelation 13 is a day of the

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Lord, but it's not the day of the Lord. It is like the earthquake tremors that are warning you, get out of town because the bigger earthquake is coming.

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It's the smoke that was coming out of the top of Mount Vesuvius that told you, hey, it might be a good idea if we get out of town.

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But instead of repentance, 586 BC, when Babylon destroyed

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Jerusalem, only inflamed the

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Jews' sin nature to where they not only spat in the face of God, they spat in the face of Jesus Christ, his only son.

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And maybe you're like, all of this can be a coincidence, right? I mean, just because God used the day of the

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Lord language in Isaiah immediately before destroying Jerusalem via Babylon, and just because God uses the exact same language with John on the island of Patmos, just before Jerusalem is destroyed by the

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Romans, that doesn't really mean anything right. I mean, clearly this could be some kind of remote coincidence, right?

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Same word, same thing, same times. I mean, maybe you could claim that.

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And if you did, I would love for you to tell me what next week's lottery numbers are gonna be because the likelihood of you randomly choosing those numbers would actually be higher than my argument being a coincidence.

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But just in case you're not convinced yet, that when John drops the phrase, the day of the

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Lord in Revelation 1, that it absolutely guarantees a first century fulfillment, then

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I would appeal to your Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And why would I do that? Because he quotes

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Isaiah 13 when he's talking about the downfall of Jerusalem.

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There are a few verses, just a few verses after claiming that the temple was gonna be torn apart brick by brick,

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Matthew 24, one through two. And just a few verses before saying that all of these things, all of these signs, all of these wonders, all of these devastations were gonna happen within a single 40 year generation,

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Matthew 24, 34, he quotes Isaiah 13 to show how the sun, the moon, the stars, and the heavens have been assembled in the courtroom against them.

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And they have seen the iniquity of the Jews. Jesus is telling them in Matthew 24 that the sun has seen your treachery, that the moon has saw your spiritual whoring, that the skies were witness to your covenant breaking behavior.

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And now they have turned their back on you. The sun has refused to give light because it's turned its back on you.

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The moon has turned dark because it's turned its back on you. The stars have ran away because they've turned their back on you.

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Jesus quotes the day of the Lord passage in Isaiah 13, which absolutely applied to the

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Babylonians destroying Jerusalem. He quotes it to show the first century

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Jews that the same thing is gonna happen to them. The same thing.

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The sun, the moon, the stars are all emblematic of judgment that's coming.

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Jesus quotes a prophecy that was 500. Oh, no, sorry.

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Jesus quotes a prophecy that was 600 years in the past to say the same thing is gonna happen to you,

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Jerusalem. Again, it's already happened to you once when Isaiah prophesied to you and you didn't repent then and you haven't repented now.

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And now there's no more second chances. The very people that were standing right in front of Jesus in Matthew 23, when he called down covenant curses upon the city are the same people that would see the

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Roman armies assembling just like the Babylonians did before for the same event, the day of the

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Lord, except this time, the day of the Lord would be permanent.

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The day of the Lord would be total. The fullness and totality of the covenant curses would be poured out on Jerusalem, Matthew 23.

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The city itself would be set on fire, Matthew 22, one through 14. And the city that thought their foundations would exist forever would be ripped up and thrown into the sea,

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Matthew 21. What we are seeing, brothers and sisters, is that the day of the

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Lord prophesied in Isaiah is the same day of the Lord. Jesus warns the

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Jews about in AD 30. And it's the same day of the Lord that John is talking about in AD 66 when the events were right about to happen.

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This fact alone proves that John was talking about imminent events, not events thousands of years in the future.

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When he says the day of the Lord and he uses the same word that Isaiah used, the same word that means imminent judgment, the same word that means a pagan army is coming, marching, they're gonna set your city on fire.

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When he uses that word, the word that God has always used to talk about imminent covenant wrath being poured out upon a people who broke covenant with God, when he uses that word, dispensationalism should bow down and say,

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I repent, because it can't mean thousands of years, because the day of the

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Lord is not like that. When Isaiah says the day of the Lord is going to happen, and it happens soon when

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Nebuchadnezzar destroys the city, and when John says the same word, when Jesus says the same word, they're not mistaken on what it means.

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They're saying it's coming. We can make our case just with this, just with Isaiah.

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But I wanna show you how this is. It's not just Isaiah. It also goes into the prophet

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Jeremiah. Jeremiah wasn't just a prophet.

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He was a courtroom attorney on the legal team of God. He stood with one foot in the temple and the other foot in the grave.

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He didn't write theology textbooks or he didn't preach revival sermons. He filed charges against God's people.

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He issued subpoenas. He bore witness to a covenant that had been trampled, desecrated, and bled dry.

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And above all, he lifted his voice up in a rebellious city to announce that the day of the

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Lord, that awful and dreadful day was drawing near.

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In Jeremiah 4, he sees it first, not as a distant theory, but as a living nightmare.

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And the vision that he paints is horrific. The sky itself begins to writhe under divine pressure.

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Jeremiah writes this in Jeremiah 4, 23. I looked on the earth and behold, it was formless and void and to the heavens and they had no light.

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This is an allegory. This is Genesis in reverse. This is the days of creation being undone where instead of the earth being formless and then made into something with form, it's going back into chaos again.

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This is de -creation language. The day of the Lord, according to Jeremiah, arrived like darkness.

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And all of creation is being unraveled by the weight of Judah's sin, just like all of creation was unraveled under the weight of Adam's sin.

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The same God who once said, amid the darkness, let there be light, is now bringing darkness back upon the world in judgment.

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And it's not just poetry. It's a cosmic subpoena. The stars go dim as heaven's courtroom lights flicker and the verdict begins to fall on those sixth century

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Jews. The prophets all use this language when Yahweh is preparing to destroy covenant people.

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But Jeremiah 4 is especially terrifying because he watches the whole event in slow motion.

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He watches it. He watches the city being emptied. He watches the hills trembling, the land being laid to waste, and not a single man being left alive.

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The earth itself recoils from the stench of broken promises and adulterous priests.

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And Jeremiah saw it all. He was an eyewitness to it. But the announcement that sealed the case against the

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Jews back in the days of the sixth century is

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Jeremiah 46 .10, one of the most explicit and fearsome declarations of divine litigation ever uttered by the prophets.

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This is what he says. For that day belongs to the

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Lord God of hosts, a day of vengeance, as to avenge himself on his foes, and the sword will devour and be satiated,

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Jeremiah 46 .10. Did you catch that? The day that belongs to the Lord. That's the exact same phrase that we've been talking about in Revelation 1.

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That's the courtroom language. That's te kuriake hamera. That's the day that belongs to the

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Lord. The day of the Lord is not generic judgment.

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It's the day where God takes personal ownership of the verdict and of the sentencing and of the execution of his covenant -breaking people.

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It's the day when vengeance is not delegated but executed by the

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Lord himself. It is the day when God stops sending prophets and starts hurling wrath.

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It's the day when God avenges God and no one can stop it.

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And yeah, Jeremiah 46 is initially aimed at Egypt, but God is showing

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Judah a preview that if Egypt is gonna drink the cup of wrath, then how much more will the covenant people who pierced his heart with rebellion, in fact, earlier in Jeremiah 25, the

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Lord says, take this cup of the wine of wrath from my hand and cause all the nations to whom

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I send you to drink it and it will be if they refuse to take the cup.

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Then you shall say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, you shall surely drink, Jeremiah 25, 15 through 28.

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And who drinks it first? Not Babylon, not Egypt. Not Edom, it was

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Jerusalem. The day of the Lord in the book of Jeremiah does not begin in the foreign lands, it begins in God's house.

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Judgment begins not at the edges of the empire, but at the altar of the temple where the blood of bulls and goats flowed like water, but the hearts of the priest remained dry as dust.

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And so the gavel drops. In Jeremiah 7, the Lord announces that the temple has become a den of robbers and then he has something actually to say that kind of freezes the blood in your veins.

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In Jeremiah 7, 11, he says, behold, I myself have seen it. The judge has entered the courtroom and he's not reading secondhand reports, he's inspecting the evidence of what he's seen as an eyewitness.

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He's seen the injustice. He's not hiding behind his holy garments, he's seen the blood spilled between the porch and the altar.

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He's seen the people who offer sacrifices by day, but serve their sexual demonic gods like Baal and Asherah and Moloch by night.

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And now the one who witnessed the murder is sitting on the judge's seat ready to pronounce condemnation for the crime.

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With fire, with siege, with famine, with the armies of Babylon.

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In Jeremiah 27, six, God identifies Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar of all people, this wicked pagan king,

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God says that he is my servant. Can you imagine that the prophet who is speaking to a people who think that they are the ones who are the servants of God are now being told that a pagan king will be

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God's servant? That this pagan king will serve

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Yahweh in some capacity? And what capacity is that? God will raise up Nebuchadnezzar and God will use

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Nebuchadnezzar as a sword in his hand to pierce them through for their crimes.

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Nebuchadnezzar will become the legal executor of the divine sentence.

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The day of the Lord will be executed by a human's hand and that hand will swing his sword and he will command his armies until the walls of Jerusalem come crashing down, until the smoke rises up out of it like a fire pit and the temple, the

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Solomonic temple lies in ruins. And this isn't just past history.

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Yeah, Jeremiah predicted it for a people who lived in 586 BC who would see it, but it's kind of like when a judge rules on a matter in a courtroom today, it becomes a legal precedent moving forward.

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Well, this became a legal precedent. When God raised up a human king and a pagan army as the executor of his wrath, of the actual bullet in the gun called the day of the

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Lord, it became a legal precedent moving forward so that when Jesus enters

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Jerusalem in the Gospels, he reopens Jeremiah's case file and he quotes

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Jeremiah seven as legal precedent in the temple courtyard.

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And he says to the people, you have made the temple a den of robbers.

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He's quoting Jeremiah seven. Jesus is weeping over the city, the city that kills the prophets and he's quoting

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Jeremiah seven saying, guess what, a new Nebuchadnezzar is being raised up and he is going to annihilate you.

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And who was that new Nebuchadnezzar? It was a man named

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Vespasian, a Roman general and his son Titus who would preside over the execution of the old covenant

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Jews. That's why in Revelation 110, when

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John says, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, we can know that he's not having a private moment of worship.

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He's being swept up into the same courtroom scene that Jeremiah stood in.

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But now the day of the Lord has returned and it's worse.

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The stars are trembling again. The scrolls are open again. The cup of God's wrath is full to the brim again.

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And this time there's not gonna be an exile. They're not gonna rebuild.

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There's not gonna be a third temple. The day of the Lord, the final day of the

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Lord has come. The sentence on Judah is final. And John is standing behind the firing squad just before they pull the trigger.

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It's not just Jeremiah. It's not just Isaiah and Jeremiah. It's all over the prophets.

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Let's look at Ezekiel. Ezekiel was not just a street preacher.

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He was the third legal witness of God in God's 14, no, sorry, in God's 16 deep legal entourage of covenant lawyers who at least the ones that wrote books.

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He was a legal witness who was stationed in the middle of the exile. He was an embedded reporter for the divine tribunal while Jerusalem carried on with her rituals, pretending like everything was well.

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Ezekiel saw what the priest could not. He saw that it was just a veneer of religiosity.

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And what Ezekiel saw was that the courtroom was already convened.

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The charges against Judah had already been filed. And the glory of Yahweh, like a judge who had reached the end of his mercy was already rising from the bench.

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Ezekiel's entire prophetic ministry is wrapped up in one job and that's covenant litigation.

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He doesn't simply predict destruction. He shows us why it's coming, how it's coming, and who's gonna be the one who's bringing it.

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And at the center of all of this covenant judgment, is the day of the Lord.

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It's not a day of mystery, but of manifest vengeance.

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For instance, in Ezekiel 30 verse three, the prophet declares it plainly, for the day is near, even the day of the

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Lord is near. It will be a day of clouds, a time of doom for the nations.

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This is not an ordinary weather report. This is the language of the tribunal of God. The clouds are not just a visionary backdrop.

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They are the smoke of the courtroom. The word doom is not poetry here.

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It is the legal outcome of a covenant trial. And he says that the day of the Lord is near. He says it twice, because it's imminent.

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The day of the Lord is approaching like a black robed judge whose patience has expired.

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And in Ezekiel's vision, he's not alone. In chapter nine, we're introduced to six different executioners that God is gonna send, angelic officers of judgment.

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And they are sent to the city with weapons in their hands. But before the sword falls, one man is appointed to go through Jerusalem and mark every single forehead of those who sigh and groan over Jerusalem's abominations.

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This is a moment not of just random mercy. It's a moment of legal distinction where the righteous are sealed on their forehead and the guilty are exposed.

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And then comes the order from heaven's throne after the man, which

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I would argue is an Old Testament allusion to Jesus. After this man in Ezekiel chapter nine goes through the entire city and marks out every single one of the righteous in the city, then the city burns.

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In chapter 10, the glory cloud of the Lord, his royal presence rises from the temple.

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Why does it rise from the temple? It's abandoning it. The smoke of God's holy presence that presided in the holy of holies is gone.

01:00:02

It moves deliberately, visibly away from the most holy place of the temple.

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It moves out of the Eastern gate. Then it moves out to the Mount of Olives. And what

01:00:21

Ezekiel is seeing here in visionary form is a pronouncement of God's judgment that he is abandoning them.

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He is leaving them. And the city is going to stand undefended.

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And why? Because Jerusalem is not just guilty of sin.

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God forgives sinners, even in the Old Testament. She's guilty of covenant whoring and covenant prostitution with every idol on every hilltop.

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In Ezekiel 16 and 23, Yahweh describes her as a harlot. He doesn't say that she stumbles into sin.

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He says that she runs after it. She decks herself out in Ezekiel 16 and 23 with ornaments, with sexually promiscuous clothing.

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She lays down with foreign lovers. She murdered her children and she spread her legs open for Egypt, for Assyria and for Babylon.

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And now her covenant husband has had enough.

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He's no longer grieving because of her harlotry. He's no longer grieving because of her sexual infidelity, which is obviously a metaphor for her spiritual treachery.

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He's no longer grieving anymore. Now he's grabbed the gun and now she must die.

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That's what it's talking about. That's why Ezekiel 16, 35 through 38 says, therefore, oh harlot, hear the word of the

01:02:14

Lord. I will judge you as women who commit adultery and shed blood are judged.

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And I will bring on you the blood of wrath and jealousy, Ezekiel 16, 35 through 38.

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In the law of God, if a woman committed adultery just once, she was executed in the city square.

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Adultery under the Mosaic covenant was not treated as a private sin.

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It was treated as a capital crime. For both the male and the female, the judge would not look at it and say, well, they have irreconcilable differences, no fault divorce.

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Give the woman who just whored her body after lovers and destroyed and blew up her marriage, give her half the money and let's call it a day.

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No, that's not the way the Old Testament law worked. And the Old Testament law was much more righteous than ours. The people of Israel were told by God that adultery is the kind of sin that ruins a nation.

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It's so spiritually significant that you must at all costs snuff it out because if you don't, it will lead to your downfall.

01:03:47

So God is saying in Ezekiel 16, 35 through 38, I'm finally going to enact my law against you.

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You've whored with Egypt. You've whored with Assyria. You've whored with Babylon.

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And now I will execute you publicly in the street just like the law requires.

01:04:13

And on the day of the Lord is when the sentence will be executed.

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And yet in that particular execution, which happened, again, we've said it in 586

01:04:27

BC when Babylon destroyed Jerusalem, in that judgment, there was a flicker of firelight that glowed out of the smoldering embers of the ashes of Jerusalem because Ezekiel saw a resurrection for the people of Judah.

01:04:49

In chapter 37, he's brought to a valley full of dry bones. They're dry, they're dusty. They're scattered like court records after a trial all over the floor of the courtroom.

01:05:00

And Ezekiel is told to prophesy. He's told to speak life over these dead bones. And he does.

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And the bones rattle and new sinews begin to form and the spirit breathes again.

01:05:14

And Israel, though it had been slaughtered, is not erased. She's reborn, not in the fleshly system of temples and priests and bloody altars, but in a spirit -filled people who are now marked by the law of God being written on their hearts.

01:05:35

This resurrection that Ezekiel is looking forward to happens after AD 70 because God is gonna do the exact same thing he did with Babylon.

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He's gonna use the Romans. He's gonna destroy the city of Jerusalem. But the most important part of it is not the

01:05:53

Jews. The most important part of it is not the people who get destroyed. It's the covenant. It's the temple that's destroyed.

01:06:00

It's the sacrificial system that's destroyed. It's the priesthood that's destroyed. Why? Because God is gonna raise up a new kind of man, a new creation, a man who doesn't have to travel to the temple anymore because he is a brick in the very temple of God.

01:06:14

A man who doesn't have to hand his offering off to a priest anymore because we have a true, we have a better high priest who became himself the offering that justifies us before our living

01:06:24

God. What Ezekiel is prophesying about is the total and final restoration of Israel after she is burned, after her bones are scattered across the landscape, which happened in AD 70.

01:06:39

Now there's gonna be a resurrection that happens. And what is that resurrection? The resurrection that the spirit of God is gonna come in to the hearts of God's people.

01:06:51

No longer is the spirit gonna be stuck in the back room of the temple. Ezekiel 10 says that the spirit is left, no longer gonna dwell in that old temple ever again.

01:07:03

When God resurrects this people, his spirit is gonna come in to the people of God.

01:07:12

He's going to inhabit the people of God and never will they need to worship in a temple again because they will be the temple of God.

01:07:23

And never will they have to sacrifice bulls and goats again because Jesus is the perfect sacrifice.

01:07:30

My friends, listen to what I'm saying here. The Jews will never have a temple again because a temple spits in the face of Jesus Christ who destroyed that temple and said that he is the temple and that when we're in union with him, he's the cornerstone, we become living stones of that end time temple.

01:07:59

If the Jews built a temple, it would be a blasphemy to Jesus Christ. If the

01:08:05

Jews set up a sacrificial system, what they would be saying is that Jesus's sacrifice was not enough.

01:08:14

I'm not in the business of prophesying but I will tell you this, the Jews will never have a temple again.

01:08:21

The Jews will never initiate the sacrificial system again. The Jews will never install a new high priesthood again because it spits in the face of Jesus Christ and Christ is king.

01:08:38

And honestly, this is why we're going through this with as much detail as we are because I want you to see that these prophets, what they're saying has absolute relevance to what

01:08:49

John is seeing in Revelation 1 through 21. Let me give you a quick example before we end our time in Ezekiel.

01:08:58

Ezekiel saw the same things that John saw. For instance, in Revelation 7, the saints are marked by God just like in Ezekiel 9.

01:09:05

In Revelation 18, the harlot city is burned with fire just like Ezekiel 16.

01:09:12

In Revelation 21, a new temple descends from heaven, not made with hands but built by living stones filled with the spirit of God just like Ezekiel 40 through 48.

01:09:22

Brothers and sisters, see this. Ezekiel's courtroom vision isn't just a vision.

01:09:30

It's fulfilled. At first in 586

01:09:35

BC, but ultimately when the glory of God permanently and totally left the temple, when the harlot was totally and fully exposed, when the executioners, the

01:09:49

Romans, totally and fully went forth and the day of the

01:09:54

Lord, the final day of the Lord came. And John, the apostle, is standing in the same courtroom that Ezekiel saw, looking at the same

01:10:08

Lord with fire in his eyes and the scroll in his hand, watching the bones of the old covenant world collapse so that the sinews of a new covenant bride could be formed from their dust.

01:10:23

That's what the book of Ezekiel is really getting after. He's the third attorney that shows up.

01:10:29

Now, we could continue going through each of the prophets one by one, but I do wanna just cover a couple in particular and I wanna start with Joel.

01:10:45

If Ezekiel saw the courtroom emptying and the temple collapsing, well, Joel saw the sky set on fire.

01:10:52

He's not the long -winded prophet. He doesn't come and offer 66 books or 50, sorry, 66 chapters or 50 books.

01:11:00

He offers just a few words, but those words are an all -out alarm bell, the final blast before the judgment comes.

01:11:09

And Joel is interesting because there's many scholars who believe that Joel is actually one of the last prophets in the

01:11:15

Old Testament canon. If you look at when he wrote, it's really unclear the dating for the book of Joel, but there's a good argument that Joel came just before Malachi and he's speaking not about the second temple being, or sorry, the

01:11:32

Solomonic temple being destroyed. No, he's looking forward to the Jerusalem temple of AD 70.

01:11:38

And he's seeing the courtroom already being seated. He's seeing the witnesses being summoned. Joel is more likely than not talking about AD 70 and the day of the

01:11:51

Lord that he's referencing is not 586 BC with the Babylonians. The day of the

01:11:56

Lord that Joel is talking about is when the Romans come issued by God as God's sword in God's hand to destroy

01:12:05

Jerusalem. This is what Joel says in Joel chapter two, verse one. "'Blow a trumpet in Zion "'and sound an alarm on my holy mountain.

01:12:14

"'Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, "'for the day of the Lord is coming. "'Surely it is near,

01:12:21

Joel 2 .1.'" That's how Joel begins. Not any introductions, no small talk, no appeals, just the rattling sound of heaven's gavel being raised as he presents his defense.

01:12:34

The day of the Lord for Joel is not hypothetical. It is a thundering announcement that rattles through the streets and it brings more than doom.

01:12:44

It brings God's divine presence, which for God's people is a grace, but for God's enemies is a punishment.

01:12:52

And throughout the book of Joel, we see all of this different day of the Lord language blazing like a judicial brand upon the flesh of the old covenant people.

01:13:03

Joel 1 .15, "'Alas for the day, "'for the day of the Lord is near "'and it will come as destruction from the

01:13:09

Almighty.'" It's Joel 1 .15. Joel 2 .11, "'The day of the Lord is indeed great "'and very awesome and who can endure it?'

01:13:17

Joel 2 .31, "'The sun will be turned to darkness "'and the moon to blood "'before the great and awesome day of the

01:13:24

Lord comes.'" Joel 3 .14, "'Multitudes, multitudes "'in the valley of decision, "'for the day of the

01:13:31

Lord is near "'in the valley of decision.'" These aren't generic cries from a prophet.

01:13:39

This is legal language saturated with covenantal consequences. The phrase, the valley of decision in Joel chapter three is not about personal salvation or an evangelistic call with every eye closed, raise your hand and let's see who is coming into heaven today.

01:13:54

No, the Hebrew word for decision here, karutz, refers to a judicial verdict.

01:14:04

Yahweh is not asking for input. He's delivering a sentence.

01:14:11

And what does that day look like? Joel 2 .2 says this, "'It is a day of darkness and gloom.

01:14:17

"'It is a day of clouds and thick darkness. "'As the dawn is spread over the mountains, "'so there is a great and mighty people.'"

01:14:27

This is a war march. This is God's army, which is not composed of metaphors or mist, but of fire and steel.

01:14:38

The locusts of chapter one are symbolic of God's devouring judgment, giving way to the armies of divine reckoning in chapter two.

01:14:46

The land burns before them and smolders behind them. The sun fades, the moon bleeds. Every covenant protection is stripped away in the book of Joel.

01:14:54

Joel 2 .10 says, "'Before them, the earth quakes, the heavens trembles, "'the sun and the moon grow dark "'and the stars lose their brightness.'"

01:15:02

Joel 2 .10, and maybe you would say, well, that hasn't happened yet.

01:15:12

But would you be surprised if I told you that Jesus quotes Joel 2 .10

01:15:18

in Matthew 24, when he describes the horrors that are coming on that very generation?

01:15:29

Jesus is not talking about a future period of time when the sky will malfunction or glitch like the matrix.

01:15:39

Jesus quoting Joel 2 .10 is telling us the same thing that Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel have been telling us, that the stars are not just ornaments, that they're not just physical gaseous bodies in the sky.

01:15:56

They are witnesses of covenant crimes. They are on the jury that has been summoned by Yahweh to stand against the people who broke their oath who broke their covenant, and who have been seen by the heavens.

01:16:15

Right in the center of all of this darkness is the day of the

01:16:21

Lord, a day of fury, a day of darkness, a day of gloom. But also coming out of the center of this is a promise that erupts out of the book of Joel, Joel 2 .28,

01:16:35

and it will come about after this, after this, that I will pour out my spirit on all mankind.

01:16:41

And you say to yourself, okay, well, Joel is talking about all of these celestial symbols. He's talking about the sun and the moon and the stars, and that clearly hasn't happened yet, and that must be in the future.

01:16:52

And in the very same chapter, he says that after this, he's gonna pour out his spirit on all mankind. Did you know that Peter actually quotes this passage in Acts chapter two, when he says that the spirit of God coming upon believers is a fulfillment of Joel?

01:17:10

So Joel is saying that I'm gonna pour out my covenant wrath, this is God talking,

01:17:16

I'm gonna pour out my covenant wrath upon my enemies, and after I do that, after I pronounce them guilty, then

01:17:25

I'm gonna pour out my spirit on all flesh. Listen, I know it takes just a second here to put all this together, and I want you to put it together.

01:17:37

Joel says that God is gonna pronounce this people guilty.

01:17:44

After he pronounces them guilty, and he's gonna call witnesses, the sun, the moon, the stars, all of them are gonna be witnesses.

01:17:51

After that happens, the spirit of God is gonna be poured out on the flesh of God's people.

01:18:01

Peter says that happened in the first century. Therefore, the guilty verdict that Joel too is prophesying also happened in the first century.

01:18:13

The Jews of the first century were pronounced guilty by Jesus Christ himself.

01:18:21

They killed him, they crucified him, and he resurrected from the dead, signifying and signing their death warrant.

01:18:31

When he ascended into heaven, after he found them guilty, he poured out his spirit on all flesh.

01:18:40

Joel chapter two prophesied it all, and it connected all of it to the day of the

01:18:47

Lord. So that when you fast forward to Revelation 1 .10, when John says that he was in the spirit on the

01:18:53

Lord's day, he's not in quiet Sunday worship. He's in the same storm cloud that Joel was describing.

01:19:02

He's hearing the trumpet of chapter one echoing. He's hearing the alarm of Joel chapter two sounding.

01:19:09

He's seeing that the sun has already been darkened. The moon has already been bleeding. The skies have already been ripping.

01:19:16

He's seeing that the people who were pronounced guilty in AD 30 are now getting ready to be executed in AD 70.

01:19:26

In Revelation, the clock strikes zero. That's the book of Joel.

01:19:33

And again, we could talk about Joel for hours, but that's just a very brief survey. Let's talk about Amos for a second.

01:19:44

The voice of Amos begins with a growl. It's fascinating what

01:19:49

Joel, sorry, how Amos begins. The Lord roars from Zion and from Jerusalem, he utters his voice,

01:19:55

Amos 1 .2. That's the beginning of the book. At the very beginning of Amos, God's covenant lawyer, he says that God is growling like a lion at Jerusalem.

01:20:12

He's letting everyone know that the judge is speaking from his bench and his voice is no longer patient, but a furious roar.

01:20:20

Remember, one covenant lawyer has stood up after another and after another and after another, and now we're down to Amos.

01:20:29

We're in the back half of God's prophetic attorneys, which means that the sands in the hourglass are running low.

01:20:37

I mean, look at how Amos very cleverly, I can't explain this in great detail. You'll have to do some of this on your own, but he describes

01:20:45

Jerusalem as the very center of a bullseye. He begins talking about judgment that's gonna fall on Damascus and Gaza and Tyre and Edom.

01:20:54

And if you plot those points on a map, then you will see that Jerusalem and Judah is right in the center, so that God is punishing the nations around her because the next arrow to fly will be right at her and she will be in the covenant crosshairs, kind of like a game of battleship where there's only one peg left and you know that your opponent knows exactly where you are.

01:21:19

That is what God is saying about Judah in the book of Amos. Thus says the

01:21:26

Lord, I will not revoke my punishment. He repeats over and over in the first chapter. And just in case

01:21:31

Judah and Israel are unclear on what God means, he says to them in chapter five, verse 18 through 19, alas, you who are longing for the day of the

01:21:41

Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light.

01:21:49

As a man who flees from a lion and a bear meets him or goes home and leans his hand against the wall and a snake bites him.

01:21:58

The Jews at the time of Amos thought the day of the Lord was gonna be a great thing. They thought it was gonna be the day where they were delivered from their oppression.

01:22:07

They thought that they were gonna be lifted up as the highest nation on all the tops of all the hills and that all of their enemies were gonna be trampled under God's foot and he was gonna put them up as the highest place upon the nations.

01:22:18

All the nations were gonna stream to Jerusalem or they were gonna stream to the Jews and they were gonna bow down and worship them because they're so great and they're so mighty.

01:22:26

And what actually happens is

01:22:32

God says, no, that's not what it means. The day of the Lord is not good news for you.

01:22:41

Amos reveals the terrifying truth that they are not the plaintiffs and the victims in the case.

01:22:50

They're the defendants. That's why the Lord declares in the very next verses,

01:22:56

I hate, I reject your festivals. Nor do

01:23:02

I delight in your solemn assemblies. Take away from me the noise of your songs.

01:23:07

I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. Amos 5, 21 through 23.

01:23:15

God's blessings are not for those who just so happen to have a temple with Yahweh's name on it.

01:23:24

God's blessings is for those who have a heart after God.

01:23:29

God's blessings is not for genetics and bloodlines, but for those who keep covenant with Yahweh.

01:23:37

Unlike Israel and Judah, who had broken in again and again and again, God was bringing about a people who would obey his law because his law would be written on their hearts and not on their

01:23:53

DNA. That is why we reject the lie that God has a special status for the secular, godless nation state that is atheistic and despicable in their

01:24:11

Talmudic religion. We reject the lie that God has a special covenant status with the genetic, biological

01:24:19

Jews. He doesn't. Because now the covenant is not written on your ancestry and your

01:24:28

DNA. The covenant is not passed down through lineages and genealogies.

01:24:36

The covenant, the promises, salvation is written upon the heart so that there is therefore no more

01:24:48

Jew or Gentile. Those categories don't even matter anymore. Let the people in Israel and Tel Aviv call themselves

01:24:55

Jews. Great, call yourself whatever you want. You have no special status with God.

01:25:03

The only way is the way and the truth and the life.

01:25:10

The only way you're gonna know the father is by bowing down and worshiping the son. Amos is telling them that their time of covenantal supremacy because of their genetics and bloodline is over.

01:25:30

From that moment forward, from the day that Christ Jesus came and was crucified for the sins of his people, bloodlines don't matter.

01:25:43

Ever again. That is why the book of Amos ends by saying, then

01:25:50

I will turn your festivals into mourning and all your songs into lamentation and I will bring sackcloth on everyone's loins.

01:26:04

Amos 8, 10. Centuries later, when John the apostle wrote in Revelation 1, 10, that I was in the spirit of the

01:26:14

Lord on the Lord's day, he is not participating in covenant renewal worship.

01:26:22

He's about to behold the day that Amos said was coming.

01:26:30

Now, to close out this very long section on the prophets and what they say about the day of the

01:26:36

Lord, and again, this could be longer, but I'm trying to be quick and I'm trying to be summative.

01:26:42

To close out, let's deal with the final remaining prophets. We're not gonna talk about them all, but we are gonna talk about a few of them because there's a few.

01:26:51

For instance, Obadiah. Obadiah is the shortest of all the prophets, but he doesn't waste his words. His case is narrow, but his logic is deadly.

01:26:58

He speaks not to Israel's pagan enemies, but to her brother Edom, a nation that was descended from Jacob's brother

01:27:06

Esau, a nation that was raised beside of Jacob, sharing bloodline, sharing border.

01:27:12

And yet when Jerusalem fell, Edom rejoiced and even looted the city.

01:27:18

They captured the fugitives. They mocked their own kinfolk when the flames rose high.

01:27:24

And God says this through the prophet Obadiah to the people of Edom. The day of the

01:27:30

Lord draws near on all the nations. As you have done, it will be done to you.

01:27:35

Obadiah 115. This is the lex talionis of the prophets, the law of divine reciprocity.

01:27:45

What Edom did to Israel, God was going to do to Edom, but even more than that. The judgment doesn't stop with Esau's house.

01:27:53

It expands and it spreads like fire and it rolls down like thunder. The day of the

01:27:58

Lord draws near on all the nations. And that includes Jerusalem, whose guilt becomes ever greater as she goes along.

01:28:07

And it includes all the nations who do not bow the knee to Jesus Christ.

01:28:13

Through Jesus's kingdom, all of the nations will be brought under one of two covenant realities.

01:28:21

They will either be brought into the salvation that is wrought by Christ and Christ alone, or they will be brought into judgment placed swiftly under the feet of Jesus who crushes their head.

01:28:37

The day of the Lord will bring those two outcomes. It will either be a blessing to the people of God or it'll be a curse upon God's enemies.

01:28:45

Zephaniah opens up his scroll like a bailiff announcing judgment, not in prose, but in a full -throated proclamation.

01:28:53

This is what he says in chapter one, verses 14 through 15. Near is the great day of the Lord. Near and coming very quickly.

01:29:01

Listen, the day of the Lord. In it, the warrior cries out bitterly.

01:29:07

The day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation,

01:29:15

Zephaniah 1, 14 through 15. This is the most compact and violent catalog of the day of the

01:29:24

Lord and what it means in all of scripture. It is wrath, it is trouble, it is destruction, it is darkness, it is distress.

01:29:31

This is not Zephaniah having some kind of poetic feather in his cap.

01:29:36

This is courtroom vocabulary. This is Yahweh's summoning of his final judgment.

01:29:43

And this is what the bailiff reads to the court. He says, guilty. Zephaniah 1, 4 even says this,

01:29:51

I will stretch out my hand against Judah. And against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

01:29:57

This is one of the final prophets. God is saying that I am going to stretch out my hand against Judah and against Jerusalem.

01:30:07

The day of the Lord that at times has applied to Egypt, at times has applied to Edom, at times has applied to the

01:30:15

Old Testament Jews. Now it's gonna apply to the New Testament Jews. Zephaniah is warning the

01:30:22

Jews to repent before it is too late. That's why he says in Zephaniah 2, 3, seek the

01:30:31

Lord all you humble of the earth. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the

01:30:38

Lord's anger. Those two categories show up again here. There's two kinds of people when it comes to the day of the

01:30:46

Lord. Those who escape the judgment and enter into salvation. And those who are consumed by the wrath of almighty

01:30:55

God and are destroyed. Zephaniah is pointing to AD 70 and those two categories of people are there.

01:31:05

The apostate Jews who hated Christ and hated his bride, they did not escape.

01:31:12

The Jews who repented and turned to Jesus, the Gentiles who repented and turned to Jesus, the only death that they could ever face is physical death because Christ Jesus bought them, paid for them.

01:31:31

And the second death, the eternal fire, has no power over them.

01:31:39

Zephaniah is warning the Jews hundreds of years before it happens to repent.

01:31:45

To repent before it's too late. What about Zechariah? Zechariah sees beyond the fire.

01:31:51

His scroll opens during the rebuilding of the temple. Zechariah is writing when the

01:31:56

Jews have returned from their exile and they're rebuilding the temple after their chains, after their misery.

01:32:03

They come back, Ezra is leading the effort. Zechariah is watching them rebuilding the temple but he knows that a more powerful judgment is ahead of them.

01:32:14

He knows that this is the final chapter for the

01:32:20

Jews. The final chapter for the old covenant, the final chapter for Jerusalem.

01:32:27

That's why he writes in chapter 14, verses one through four, behold, a day is coming for the

01:32:35

Lord and the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations.

01:32:41

And on that day, his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle.

01:32:50

This apocalyptic litigation happened where the skies darkened and the waters flow and the cosmic language wasn't about tectonic plates shifting, but it was about a covenant transfer.

01:33:06

It was about the day when Jerusalem fell. It was about the day when the armies of Rome literally assembled on the

01:33:14

Mount of Olives like Zechariah is prophesying. When they literally split every single tree on that hilltop in two, burned it and made their catapults and they organized their siege works and they attacked the city of Jerusalem and destroyed it.

01:33:34

What Zechariah is saying is that on the very mountain where the

01:33:39

Romans staged their siege, that God was going to bring an end to the covenant

01:33:46

Jews forever. And sure you'll say they're Jews that are still alive today. Yes, of course, yes, of course, but they're not in covenant with God and they'll never be again, not as Jews.

01:34:03

Jews as Jews will never be in covenant with God again. They must become

01:34:10

Christians. They must bow the knee to Jesus Christ. There is no covenant future otherwise.

01:34:19

That's what the book of Zechariah is getting after. What about the book of Malachi, the final prophet, the final

01:34:27

Old Testament prophet? What does he say? What does he say as he looks across the 400 year chasm where God no longer speaks from Malachi to Matthew?

01:34:39

There's 400 years of biblical authorial silence where there are no books of the

01:34:44

Bible. What does he say? As the last of the 16 Old Testament prophets, the

01:34:50

Old Testament attorneys on God's legal team, what does he say? He says in Malachi chapter four, verse one, for behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace.

01:35:07

And all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff. And that day that is coming will set them ablaze, says the

01:35:17

Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

01:35:25

That final part's really important because this isn't talking about the nations.

01:35:31

The nation, and there's only one, that was known as having both root and branch was

01:35:40

Israel, his own covenant people. Malachi is saying that the day of the

01:35:49

Lord is not a rumor. It's not some kind of dramatic play that you go to and you laugh at and you go home like everything's fine.

01:36:03

Malachi throughout his book is telling us that the land had been corrupted by apathy and idolatry and it was gonna be scorched.

01:36:13

The temple that they profaned was gonna fall in ash if they didn't repent.

01:36:21

They were gonna be wounded and they were gonna be wiped away. And yet even here, as the heat is rising and the courtroom lights are dimming, a shaft of glory pierces through the smoke

01:36:39

Malachi says in the very next verse, but for you who fear my name, the son of righteousness will rise with healing in his wings and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall.

01:36:52

Do you see what this is saying? That the day of the Lord is coming, Malachi says, and it's gonna be darkness and gloom and fire for those who oppose almighty

01:37:02

God, but it's gonna be light and joy for those who bow the knee to the son of righteousness.

01:37:12

To the son of righteousness, to the one who has healing in his wings, that's talking about Jesus. The day of the

01:37:19

Lord is not gonna destroy everyone. Yes, it's gonna divide. It's gonna divide people into two categories. One category is the wicked who are gonna be set apart for incineration.

01:37:29

The other category is the righteous who are gonna be set apart for resurrection. The same fire that burns the dead roots of the apostate

01:37:36

Jewish system is the same light that shines with brightness for the

01:37:41

Israel of God. The day is a death sentence for one people and yet it is a coronation and resurrection for another.

01:37:55

And Malachi promises the group that's saved. He says, you will tread down the wicked for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which

01:38:06

I am preparing, says the Lord of hosts. Malachi 4 .3. And then he tells us, he gives us actual evidence on when this day is coming.

01:38:15

He tells us, he doesn't tell us just to believe in faith that it's gonna happen at some point in the indeterminate future. He tells us when it's gonna happen.

01:38:21

When is the day of the Lord gonna happen? Malachi, please tell us, when is it gonna happen? Is it gonna happen in the 21st century in America?

01:38:31

Malachi tells us in the next verse, when the day of the Lord is gonna happen, when the

01:38:36

Jews are gonna be judged, when the church is gonna be given freedom in life, he says, behold,

01:38:44

I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the

01:38:53

Lord. And he will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children so that I will be the one who will not come and smite the land with a curse.

01:39:02

Malachi 4 .5 -6. This is the final breath from the final old covenant lawyer before the

01:39:11

Old Testament comes to a close. It's a warning to the Jews to repent, but it's a promise that if they would look and if they would watch and if they would pay attention and if they would look with their eyes and gaze with their heart, that God is going to give them a sign before it happens.

01:39:35

And the sign is that he is going to send to them Elijah. And who is this

01:39:43

Elijah? Jesus tells us plainly in Matthew 11 .14.

01:39:51

And he says this to the Jews, if you are willing to accept it, John himself is the

01:39:58

Elijah who was to come. Brothers and sisters,

01:40:06

God promised that before the day of the Lord happens, he would send the Elijah. Jesus says

01:40:11

John the Baptist was the Elijah. So therefore, John the Baptist was the final prophet before the day of the

01:40:20

Lord comes, before God sets his covenant law -breaking scoundrel of a people who abandoned covenant and who abandoned faith, before he sets them on fire,

01:40:35

God is gonna send the Elijah. Jesus says that's John the Baptist. And what did they do with this

01:40:40

John the Baptist? They mocked him, they ignored him, they imprisoned him and they beheaded him.

01:40:51

And then what happened? The very son of God, the one who the Elijah figure was there to actually usher, he's the voice that's crying in the wilderness to make straight the path of the

01:41:02

Lord, why? Because the Lord is coming. Why is the Lord coming? To bring the day of the Lord. What do they do to the son?

01:41:12

What do they do to this God as Malachi says in chapter three, who will suddenly show up at the temple, at his temple?

01:41:20

He shows up, what do they do to him? They mock him, they arrest him, they murder him.

01:41:28

What do they do to his people? The people who bow down to him, this son of righteousness who has healing in his wings, what do they do to them?

01:41:35

They murder them, they arrest them, they mock them. So that their judgment is secured.

01:41:50

You see, brothers and sisters, God told them 400 years before it happened. He was gonna send the final prophet.

01:41:59

And if they didn't repent, their doom was inevitable. And he even says,

01:42:08

I told them parables so that they wouldn't hear. I told them things so that they wouldn't believe.

01:42:16

Where I'm going, they cannot come. And when they looked at Christ and they said, we have no king but Caesar, his blood be on us.

01:42:29

And our children, they signed their death certificate in his blood so that all the curses fell.

01:42:39

All the blood shed from Abel to Zechariah, the son of Barakiah fell on that generation,

01:42:47

Matthew 23, 43. The curses of Isaiah fell, the curses of Jeremiah fell, of Ezekiel, of Daniel, of Amos, of Obadiah, of Zechariah and Malachi all fell on that first century people.

01:43:04

Malachi warned them that the Elijah was coming and after him, the day of unrelenting disaster.

01:43:09

And if they didn't repent, they were going to be consumed by it. And instead of listening, they spat in the face of God.

01:43:18

They killed the prophet, they killed the son, they murdered his bride. And after a single generation of slipping into madness, which

01:43:28

Jesus himself prophesied in Matthew 24, where he said that the love of God would run cold, and it did, ice cold.

01:43:38

After a single generation, their corpses were left smoldering on the

01:43:45

Jerusalem hillside as the vultures surrounded the city and Rome got in their ships and sailed back to Italy with every precious item that that city had to offer.

01:44:01

And it was all prophesied. When John the apostle says that he was in the spirit on the

01:44:09

Lord's day, Revelation 110, he was not saying something minor.

01:44:16

He was saying that the criminal who had been sentenced centuries before had now arrived at their execution day.

01:44:28

The last meal was served, the prison cell was opened, the death row inmate was a dead man walking.

01:44:40

And in 8070, the execution was complete.

01:44:47

And that leads us to part three, the day of the Lord as covenant judgment.

01:44:54

Now, part two was really long and I understand that, so part three is not gonna be that long, but we have to tie up one loose covenant end, and that is that we have to think about these things judicially.

01:45:09

We have to think about these things through the lens of covenant. The day of the Lord is not a holiday, it is a courtroom scene.

01:45:16

It is not a calm devotional moment, but it is a bomb that has been detonated.

01:45:23

It is a fire that fell in 8070 that was not an emotional outburst by God, and it certainly was not chaos, it was a courtroom procedure that had been deliberated over centuries.

01:45:37

It was the faithful enforcement of the divine contract that Israel had broken beyond repair.

01:45:46

In this, I want you to see that God doesn't rule like a dictator who punishes people on a whim.

01:45:55

He governs like a holy and a righteous judge. Who upholds the law to the letter, yes and amen.

01:46:02

Who operates by covenant, binding oaths, legal structure, sworn stipulations, and enforceable sanctions, yes and amen, and in that way, the day of the

01:46:12

Lord is not just about wrath, it is about justice rendered according to a broken contract.

01:46:23

It's not vengeance for vengeance sake, it's judgment driven by a broken agreement.

01:46:32

And the nation of Israel who once stood in covenant with Yahweh had become the defendant in the highest court of heaven because of their crimes against this covenant.

01:46:47

I want you to think about it like this. If a police officer pulled you over and gave you a speeding ticket, even though you were driving under the speed limit, you would rightly say that that was unjust.

01:47:00

Or if a judge sentenced you to the death penalty for a crime that you didn't commit, you would protest with every fiber of your being that such a verdict was unjust.

01:47:11

Why? Because justice is not arbitrary. It's not a random wielding of power by an angry person with a powdered wig.

01:47:21

Justice requires that actions be weighed against the black and white letters of a law, that evidence be matched to real standards and that the punishment would actually fit the offense.

01:47:37

You cannot be condemned in a righteous court unless you violated something real.

01:47:47

And that is the very logic that God employs when he judges his people.

01:47:54

He doesn't condemn them arbitrarily. He holds them accountable to the very terms that they themselves agreed to.

01:48:06

They agreed that if they break the law, the curses would be poured out on them.

01:48:15

After God redeemed Israel out of slavery in Egypt, he brought them to a mountain called

01:48:21

Sinai, not to give them a kind of vague list of Confucius style fortune cookie like spiritual encouragements.

01:48:33

He brought them out, he rescued them out of mercy for them.

01:48:39

And he brought them out to bind them to himself in a formal national covenant.

01:48:48

Exodus 19 through 24 records this event in precise legal terminology.

01:48:57

Before the law was spoken, the people consented. Blood was sprinkled to ratify the contract.

01:49:05

They signed it. Moses declared, behold, the blood of the covenant which the

01:49:10

Lord has made with you, Exodus 24, eight, which means that they signed it. They said, yes, we agree to the terms.

01:49:18

Yes, we will be held accountable to it. This was not a motivational seminar where the people were chanting because they got out of Egypt early.

01:49:31

No, God brought them out and put a covenant down on the table in front of them, a legal contract, a binding agreement that had real blessings for faithfulness, unbelievable blessings for faithfulness and real curses for rebellion.

01:49:55

The only part of the covenant that you could possibly object to when it comes to the curses is not why did

01:50:07

God pour out his curses so severely in AD 70. You can't say that.

01:50:15

The question you must ask yourself is why on earth did God take so long?

01:50:22

Why on earth did he show so much grace? Why on earth did he overlook so much sin?

01:50:29

And the only answer to that is because he knew that those sins were gonna be poured out on Jesus Christ.

01:50:40

God was gracious, not wanting for any to perish, being abundantly long -suffering, waiting for centuries and centuries and centuries before he finally poured out the curses of the covenant that they agreed to.

01:50:56

And he did it so that every single one of his elect people would be saved.

01:51:04

He put up with covenant breaking after covenant breaking after covenant breaking because he's gracious and because he was waiting for the full total of his

01:51:20

Old Testament people to come to faith. There were people, there were

01:51:27

Jews in the first century who repented. There were priests who yelled out, crucify him, crucify him, who ended up bowing the knee to Jesus Christ.

01:51:42

There were people like Nicodemus, like Joseph of Arimathea, like Paul of Tarsus, who went from hating

01:51:56

Jesus and hating his people, even presiding over their death like Saul, to people who would bow the knee to Jesus Christ and be saved.

01:52:10

God put up with 1 ,000 years of rebellion in order to save his people.

01:52:23

And when that 1 ,000 years was over, he brought the old covenant system to an end.

01:52:29

Now, God gave them a second chance because it would be through this rebellious, apostate, idolatry -loving people that he would bring his one and only son, who would save many

01:52:43

Jews in the first century, and for 2 ,000 years would be saving the nations and bringing them unto himself.

01:52:52

The thing that I want you to realize about all of this, the day of the Lord, is that the day of the

01:52:59

Lord, yes, it's fearsome. Yes, it's terrifying. Yes, it's awful, and it's judgment, and it's doom, and it's dark clouds, and it's all of that.

01:53:11

But it's also grace. Because for 1 ,000 years, the

01:53:17

Jews provoked God to wrath. Rehoboam did it, and every king after him did it.

01:53:26

And God patiently dealt with them, punishing them, even exiling them, never allowing them to regain their national sovereignty after the exile.

01:53:40

They were under the rule of the Babylonians, and then the Persians, and then the

01:53:46

Greeks, and then the Seleucids, and then the Edomites, and then the Romans. But in that time period,

01:53:57

God was protecting them for a purpose, not just their judgment.

01:54:03

He was protecting them because Jesus Christ would come, and he would save many of them from their sins.

01:54:11

And that way, the day of the

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Lord is a day of judgment, but it's also a day of salvation.

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And this is where the book of Revelation fits into the overall case for the day of the

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Lord that the Bible has been building. The book of Revelation is the final act in the legal drama.

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It's the final act in the courtroom where the judge has finally risen, where the scroll of the indictment has been opened, where the harlot city has been fully exposed for her treacheries and whorings, and where the sentence and the execution is carried out.

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The book of Revelation is the courtroom that the entire

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Bible has been pointing to. And it's the courtroom where two people, two kinds of people are decided.

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The people who oppose Jesus and who will face judgment and death, and the people who bow their knee to Jesus and who will enter into life.

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That is what the book of Revelation is all about. And that leads us to, brothers and sisters, our conclusion.

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Conclusion. So now after going through all of that,

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I hope that you see why all of this matters. Why should a first century courtroom scene, a covenant lawsuit, and a city set on fire shake you from your seat in the year of our

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Lord 2025? Because you're living in the world that rose up out of the ashes of that very judgment scene.

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The world you're living in today is a new world that came out of the ashes of AD 70.

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You're not waiting for the kingdom of God that has long been promised from the very beginning.

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You are living in it, standing in it, sleeping in it, dreaming in it, and building in it.

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The cross was not a pause button on history. It was the resurrection.

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The fires of AD 70 was not the end of God's story. It was the end of the old story so that a new story could begin.

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When Jesus rode into Jerusalem and he wept over the city, he wasn't pitying the city.

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He was pronouncing its verdict. When he died outside of its gates, he was sealing its sentence.

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And when he rose from the dead and ascended on the clouds and opened up the scroll and broke the seals and blew the trumpets and unleashed the judgment, he didn't do that to finish out history.

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That's not what the book's about. He did all of that to begin his reign.

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When a wise builder buys an old dilapidated building, the first thing that he does is he levels it to the ground.

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And he brings out the construction equipment and he lifts up with all of those different big caterpillar equipments and bulldozers and dump trucks.

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He gets all of the rubble out of the way. And then he digs out the foundation and he relays it.

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And then he starts building one layer at a time until the entire building is finished.

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That is exactly what the book of Revelation is about. Jesus Christ destroyed the old covenant building.

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For 40 years, he was putting the charges in the joists.

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And in AD 70, it blew up. And for 2000 years, the

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Lord has been, has been clearing out the construction site, re -digging the foundation.

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And for 2000 years, the Lord has been building a brand new structure.

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With him as the cornerstone. With the first century apostolic church as the first level on top of his foundation.

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And then the second century and the third and the fourth and the fifth. And now we are living in a 21 story building that God is building himself for his own glory.

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That the nations will come into and stream into and be saved.

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2000 years ago, the courtroom was closed, but the coronation had just began.

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The reason why this matters is because you are living in that kingdom today.

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So wake up, stop acting like the devil owns the world.

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Stop retreating like the book of Revelation is a horror movie and your job is to hide underneath some rock somewhere until the credits roll.

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No, the judge has risen from the grave. He's now vanquished the power of death.

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The verdict has been served. The harlot has fallen and the bride is now on the move. And for 2000 years, this bride has been building.

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You were not saved, brothers and sisters, to simply survive, you were saved to reign.

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So brothers and sisters, preach that gospel. Preach it like it's fire in your bones.

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Parent little future generals. Worship like you're a victor instead of a victim.

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Evangelize like the kingdom of God is at stake because it is. Don't get distracted by the things of the world.

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Look at your goal and your goal is all of Christ for all of life and do that.

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The day of the Lord in Revelation 110 proves that Christ is not a future or potential king.

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He's a reigning king. His enemies are losing. They are being made a footstool unto his feet and you, the ones who bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, are the ones who are winning.

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You're not the ones who are waiting for some collapse. You're the ones who are carrying the kingdom forward.

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So do it. Lift up your head, church. The day of the

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Lord is not just a reckoning. It's a resurrection and it's a 2 ,000 -year -old revolution.

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So work, so build, so pray, so read, so go and do what

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Christ has said until every knee bows, until every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is

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Lord, until the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters covers the sea.

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And until then, you and I, we will not back down. We will not shut up.

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We will not lose because Christ has already won and he's building his church and he's using men and women like you and I to do it.

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And until next time, God richly bless you. And we'll see you again next time on the broadcast.