Are You Ready for That Day? — Robert B. Thompson

The Day of the Lord and Our Readiness

Why do you long for the day of the Lord? Well, we long for the day of the Lord because we figure that's when our troubles will be over. But the Old Testament and the New do not portray the coming of the Lord in the way we have been taught.

And all I'm going to say this morning is simple, is that we may not be, and when I say we, I'm speaking particularly to us who are Americans, we may not be prepared for the day of Christ. We may have a mistaken idea of what it's going to be like.

And I say Americans because we have been greatly favored as a nation. We have been favored not only materially, but we have been favored spiritually with teaching. Someone told me one time, I think it was the president of Foursquare, a former president, he said, America not only has the most money, the most material things, but we have way more of the gifts of the Spirit than any other country.

And of course, he was in a position to know. I remember one time hearing someone tell how they were with some Russians out in the woods. They were hiding at that time. It was in the days of the Iron Curtain.

And they were teaching the people to raise their hands when they praised God. They'd never heard of such a thing. Never heard of it. Much less abundance of tongues and prophecy and discernment and understanding and all that.

Their understanding is practically the same as it was 200 years ago. Very little understanding of the Word of God. And God has favored us in America with many teachers, many religious books, many religious tapes.

We have all the Bibles we want. We're greatly favored people. And you know, it came to me when the Filipinos were here last Sunday, there's always a special touch of God when Edgar and the group are here.

There's a special touch. And I can sense that. And as he was talking, and as he talked to us privately, and he was certainly not bragging and he wasn't pushing anything, but I had a sense in my spirit that the Filipino people will receive what God is saying today.

And American people, we may not receive it nearly as readily. Then someone called me the other day and they were telling me about a Spanish-speaking pastor in Texas. And God was revealing to him exactly what we teach here.

And he had no idea that anybody else, he would imagine he was wondering what in the world. And he was evidently preaching what God was giving him. And his congregation drops like something from 80 to 5.

And he said, I can't go back on what God is showing me. And then someone gave him one of my tapes and he said, well, this is exactly what God is showing me. And he's all excited now. And this person that he asked, that gave him the tape, now is putting the discipleship study, I think it is, on tape.

So that these people can hear it when they're riding in their cars. And maybe this Spanish pastor will also put it on tape in Spanish. I don't know. But he said, is this all right? I said, sure, it's all right.

Sure, it's all right. Just don't put anything on the outside of the tape except your own name. And inside, just put our copyright thing to copyright the text. But encourage people on the tape to duplicate them.

We're trying to get the word out. We're trying to protect it. And so we expect that's going on. But he was saying to me, you know, I think the Spanish speaking people will be much quicker to receive the word of God today because they're more humble.

And I said, I noticed that among the Filipino people. You can feel, some of the things you can just feel, and I'm sure you all can, when you get around Spanish speaking people or people from the Philippines who speak Tagalog or whatever, there's something that's entered our culture that is arrogant.

It's arrogant. And that makes it, and then we approach the word of God and we figure, well, we've got it all, and in the meanwhile, how's the stock market? And that's a real problem. We're too distracted.

Material Prosperity and Spiritual Distraction

And what Stan was saying this morning is exactly true. That's exactly what God is saying to us. He's saying that we need, we're apt to be like those people that wouldn't come. And when you analyze their motive, why they wouldn't come, why they had to test their oxen, why they had to go to a wedding or whatever, when you examine that motive, see, it's a great honor to be invited by a king.

It's a great honor. It's not only a free lunch. It's a great honor. And why would they despise this honor in that way? Say, well, what they're saying is these oxen are more important than you, O king.

And that's why he got angry. Well, we got the king on the one hand says, I'm inviting you. We got this other around his oxen and they're smelly. I mean, cows are smelly. They're nothing to really get romantic about.

And, and the king, kings are usually tend to be bright. And he saw, he said, they're comparing me with those oxen. They became angry. Sent out his soldiers and had them all killed. But you see, the reason they were like that, and the reason he said to his messengers, go on and bring in the people that don't have anything.

Is because they, they, they can't say, well, I've got oxen because they're pro. They can't say I'm doing this or the other because they have nothing. And so he says, bring them in. Somebody's going to be in here.

The cook's got all this stuff and we spent all this money and everything. Get somebody in here to eat this stuff. And that is our problem. We've got too many alternatives. And I think what Stan was saying is that what God is saying to us today, even though we're Americans, even though we are cursed with this affluence and this distraction of education and technology and corporate life in general, the colorful, provocative elements of our society, we're apt to say, well, yeah, we know the word of the Lord is important, but it'll be there when I get to it.

And in the meanwhile, a lot of stuff going here. And we don't realize it, but we're weighing it against God. And we can't help it because we're here in America. So we didn't choose that, most of us. We're here.

We don't have money enough to go anywhere if we wanted to or get a visa, a permanent visa and go live in Denmark or somewhere else. We're here. And so what we have to do is recognize the problem. As Jesus said, the rich have a terrible time entering the kingdom.

And why is it? Because they have alternatives. Money is power. There's a lot of things that are power. Emerson said knowledge is power. Well, Perry Mason says truth is the most powerful thing. Well, there's all kinds of power.

But the Antichrist form of power is money. And when you have enough of it, you can do things that the average person cannot do. You can control things and people with money. You can do a lot with money.

The other person, I mean, if you don't like what's going on, you can sue somebody. They don't even have the money to get a lawyer to fight back. I mean, you just win because you got money. You stand to spend $50 ,000 on a lawyer and the other guy doesn't have a dime.

What's he going to do? Take his life savings and try to hire a lawyer. But on the other guy, it doesn't matter to him if he loses $50 ,000. He's got another $50 ,000 where it's coming from. So having money enables you to do things.

And I think, and I may be wrong in this, you can correct me, but I think it gives people a false sense of security that the poor don't have. The poor are wondering where their next meal is coming from.

We don't wonder, most of us, where our next meal is coming from. But the poor have this problem. And I can remember, like, I can remember going to Bible school. I shuddered whenever anything went wrong with a car because I knew I had no money to fix it.

In fact, one time in downtown San Diego, I got a flat or ran out of gas or something, pulled over to the curb and walked all the way down to South Boundary Street. There was no money to do anything. Stamps were three cents in those days, first class stamps.

And there were times when I couldn't mail a letter. See, now a rich person doesn't, he doesn't even know what this is like. He doesn't worry about something goes wrong with his car, he takes it to fix it.

But the poor guy, that to him, he figures, where am I going to get the money to fix this thing? I don't have any car, I don't have any money to fix it. I'm trying to borrow it somewhere, get an advance on my payroll.

So it makes a big difference. Money makes a big difference in the life of people. And I think for that reason, the third world countries, and of course the two that have come to my attention, are the Spanish-speaking people, and not all of them are poor by any means, or the Filipinos are the same as true.

But nonetheless, they don't have this money that causes this arrogance, this independence. And so they have to say, yeah, I really ought to be seeking the Lord more. I'm not sure everything's up to date here, but man, I've got this to do and I've got that to do when I retire, I'm going to do it.

Boy, that's dangerous, because you may not live to retire. And you form habits too, which can't be broken. Not only that, but you miss opportunities to serve the Lord, things for which you would have been rewarded in the day of the Lord will never be.

It will never be. We're not used to that. We say to our children, you know, if you're bad, you won't get any Christmas presents. Well, we know better than that. We're in that kind of a society, things don't go right.

We figure, well, it can always be fixed, especially if you've got enough money, it can always be fixed. But you know, there are things in life that can't be fixed. When somebody dies, you can't fix it.

And when your opportunity for serving the Lord is over, you can't fix it, you can't recall it. And so there are things when, yeah, there are no Christmas presents, and there isn't a blessed thing you can do.

You can't sue anybody. You can't make amends or nothing. There comes a time when the door is shut. And as I say, when we have money and the prospects are good, we figure, well, yeah, he's probably true.

But if you only knew there's this thing, and it's broke, I've got to take it back. Money, this has got to go back and get fixed. And there's this thing, and that isn't working, and this is coming up. And you don't realize it, but the days go by.

None of us in here are as young as we used to be. The days go by. And I think the Lord is talking to us today that for many of us Americans, and I'm keeping it out there so you won't feel rebuked as a church.

I'm sure that many of you are doing the very best you can, given your circumstances. But I'm speaking just generally to us as Americans who have had, along with many other nations, a very heavy dose of the rapture.

And see, the rapture is always presented as being good. It's a good thing. See, it doesn't fit Amos at all. Because the rapture teaching is unscriptural, that's why it doesn't fit Amos. And so we're in the condition of Israel.

We're saying, we're longing for the day of the Lord. Oh, when that comes, and I won't have to worry about income tax anymore. I won't have to worry about my bills anymore. I won't have to worry about sickness or dread or anything.

And he said, for you, how does he put it? He says, it's as though, he says, the day will be darkness. He said, the coming of the Lord will be darkness? Yes. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear.

Well, is that true for everybody? No. It's not. It's not true for those who are really living it. Who are really in Christ. For them, it will be a blessing. But for all the other Christians in the rest of the world, it will be the worst thing that ever happened to them.

Those who are not carrying the cross. Those who are not presenting their body a living sacrifice. It will be the worst. The coming of Christ will be the worst thing that ever happened to them. Now we need to see in the scripture, does this passage in Amos, chapter 5, verses 18 through 24, is this talking about the coming of Christ?

The Rapture and the Day of the Lord

The next coming of Christ. Well, it's called the day of the Lord. And there's only one day of the Lord. You'll never see days of the Lord. It's always the day. Now, we'll turn over to 1 Thessalonians, the fourth chapter, to our favorite rapture passage.

And I'm not up here this morning to blast the rapture. I don't have time for that. What I'm talking about this morning is that we have, in America, by and large, we have a false vision of the day of the Lord.

So the first thing we have to establish is, is there going to be a rapture before this great and terrible day? We know this is a great and terrible day. The last, one of the last verses in the Old Testament says, I'm going to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, before the great and terrible day of the Lord.

Something to this effect. So there's a day coming. And in our teaching in America, we have separated, we have postulated a fun rapture seven years before the day of the great and terrible day of the Lord.

And I want to show you clearly from the scripture that this is unscriptural. It's a false hope. And it's the reason that American people, by and large, are not preparing himself to stand in the day of evil.

As it says in Ephesians, the sixth chapter, well, prepare yourself to stand in the day of evil, because we've been told there is no day of evil coming. So obviously that's a false, unscriptural, destructive attitude.

All right, so we're in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. And I want you to notice, verse 17. After that, and this is talking about the rapture, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them, that is, with the saints that Christ has brought with him who have been just raised from the dead, to meet the Lord in the air.

And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore, encourage each other with these words. Now, remember, the Apostle Paul did not write in chapters. Imagine someone who took one of your letters to somebody and divided it into chapters.

They might get the chapter heading in the wrong place. And, of course, the person would figure, oh, now they've changed the subject. Well, you didn't change the subject at all. You were writing a letter.

And someone, for ease of reference, divided it into chapters. But as you can see, it can confuse interpretation. So wipe out the five there. Paul didn't write five. He's talking about one thing, which is very obvious.

He said, now, brothers, about times and dates. Well, what times and dates is he talking about? What he just got through speaking of in the fourth chapter. We do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord...

So the prior verses are talking about the day of the Lord. The day of Amos. Make sense? Thank you. Will come like a thief in the night. The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. It's not talking about the Lord is coming to steal something.

It's talking about that people are not prepared. The idea is not on stealing something. The idea is you're not prepared for a thief. While people are saying, peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly.

Now, what that means is when the ascension takes place, when the Lord removes, when the saints are caught up to meet the commander-in-chief in the air, sudden destruction will fall on the world. So you want to be in those that are caught up.

Right? And another place he says, the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, fire came out and destroyed them all. Now, notice carefully, as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape, what you brothers speaking to the Thessalonians, to whom he has been speaking all the time, hasn't jumped around.

He's speaking to the church at Thessalonica in Greece. You brothers are not in darkness, so this day should surprise you like a thief. So the day of the Lord is not coming as a thief to those who are walking in the light of God's presence and will.

They will know and they will not be caught off guard. Now, notice. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. So then, we do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.

Now, stop and think. If he was, if there were to be a rapture, a fun thing that would happen, a kind of a Sunday school picnic in the air that would happen before the day of the Lord, he would have said so right here.

He would have said, but you brothers have no need to worry because you won't be here. Now, are you following me intellectually? Do you see what he's saying here? You are not in darkness so that this day, what day? Should surprise you like a thief.

Now, if we weren't going to be here, this would not make sense. It would read differently. He would say, but brothers, you are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief because you will be in heaven with the Lord.

He wouldn't say it won't surprise you because you're walking in the light. He would say it won't surprise you because you won't be here. So, this teaching that there's going to be a fun thing happen before the day of Amos 5, before the great and terrible day of the Lord, and that everyone who has made a profession of belief in Christ has no need to fear it because they will be caught up so that they do not suffer is a complete, it may be one of the most destructive heresies ever to enter Christian thinking.

It is totally unscriptural. As you can see, we go to other places, but this is enough. This is what you call prima facie evidence. In other words, it's on the face of it. You can see that the teaching of a fun trip before the great and terrible day of the Lord is not scriptural.

We've said that the other week, the same thing you can prove the same thing from the first chapter of 2 Thessalonians. But right here, if you will follow this intellectually, in your mind, using your reasoning power, you can see that Paul was continuing his address to these people.

It is a funeral passage. He was speaking to them who were grieving about Christians who had died. That has nothing to do with escaping suffering. Whatever, there's not an inkling in there that this passage has to do with escaping suffering.

Not an inkling. But then the text is any reasonable scholar who was pursuing an analysis of the text, trying to get the thought. When you're interpreting the Bible, you always try to get the thought, particularly in the New Testament.

The Old Testament has things that ramble as the oracle of God spoke mysteries. But this is not the oracle of God speaking mysteries. This is a human being writing to a church to edify it. A church in Greece writing to it to edify it in the Lord.

He's not speaking here any symbolic message. This is something that any scholar, Christian or not, can examine what the man is saying. And if someone were to come along and say, but oh, in here there's a fun trip seven years before the day of the Lord.

He'd say, well, where do you derive that? The context seems to indicate that this is not the case at all. So I hope the young people are following the logic here because of this destructive idea of a fun trip called a rapture so that Amos doesn't apply to us.

So you think, well, that doesn't apply to us because we Gentiles are going to be caught up before the great and terrible day of the Lord. But you see, when you nail it down, it doesn't follow the Bible at all.

Paul says the day will not surprise us like a thief. Why? Not because we're not here, but because we are not of the night or of the darkness. We're walking in the will of God. And so we know these things.

We're not caught off guard. It's not that we're removed. It's because we are living so close to God. It isn't one of removal because we're Gentiles. It's because we are living so close to God that we're not caught by surprise.

Does that seem to you to be what it's saying? As I say, I don't have a big cause against it, only as it impacts on what God is saying to you and to me today. Because if we have this suspicion in the back of our mind, well, anyway, it'll all come out in the wash.

Uh, we're not going to do anything serious about it. But if we really believe there is no such thing, and what we're facing is what the prophets have spoken of from the beginning, and it has not changed one whit as we read in the book of Revelation.

And we realize that we're Americans and most of us are lukewarm. And then we begin to say to ourselves, well, I'm going to face this kind of thing. Am I ready? You and I should be asking ourselves today, am I ready for this?

And not blowing it off because we've got a notion maybe people that are teaching the rapture are correct. We've got to get that out of our system. It's the most destructive thing one can imagine because it takes all of the cutting edge out of everything that the prophets and the apostles spoke to us.

It just takes it right out of us. And we say, oh, well, hidey-hide, it'll all happen. It won't happen. We have the angel. I think God is speaking today to the angel of the evangelical church. He's speaking today to the angel of the evangelical church.

And he's saying, you're asleep. You're asleep in the lap of Delilah. You're asleep in the world. And destruction is coming like a train on the edge of town. Well, what's our response? Oh, Lord, you need to get a report card.

You need to get a report card and say, I can see from the scripture that there's no fun trip that's going to deliver me from this day of darkness that is coming. What a terrible day. Day of God's wrath.

The disarray, the Catholics call it, the disarray. The day of God's wrath is coming. And the only ones that will be spared are those who are walking in the light. And that means much more than what passes today for Christianity in America.

It means much more. It's back to you. You're going back now to what Jesus said. You have to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him. You have to present your body a living sacrifice. You have to put to death the carnal nature.

You have to follow Paul in the things he said. He said, if you're thus minded, be thus minded. Lay aside everything and count it as garbage. See, this is the standard of the New Testament. We're not talking about churchgoers.

We're talking about disciples. People that know Jesus. And so, I felt this morning, and I got so, I felt so strong about it. Of course, Stan confirmed it all. Now, I couldn't even go any further with my notes.

Joel and the Coming Day of the Lord

I felt the Holy Spirit's going to lead us this morning. And so, I feel to go to Joel, the second chapter. I haven't talked on it in quite a while. Those of you that have been with us for a while know, are very familiar with this.

But I just felt this morning, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Joel 2. I said, okay, Lord, have your way. I'm not going to push it. If this is what you want, this is what you're going to get. How many think it's a good idea when God gets what he wants?

Is that a good idea? Never mind how we feel about it. God gets his, everything else is going to be okay. Trumpet in the world, particularly in Washington, D .C., where all them sinners are doing all their thing.

We're looking for the government to repent. God isn't asking the government to repent. He's talking to his people. Oh boy, there's more things afoot to straighten out the government. And we're the ones that are not even ready for the Lord.

Blow the trumpet in Zion. Why? Because this chapter has to do with the day of the Lord. If we go down to verse 11 of this chapter, we see it. The day of the Lord is great. Joel 2 .11. What are you talking about?

I'm talking about Christ's coming. I'm not talking about something that's going to happen after we have fun in heaven, eating all the ice cream we want and not getting fat. I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about the coming of Christ. There is no rapture as it's currently taught. There's a catching up to meet the commander-in-chief, yes. There's no rapture as it's taught. It doesn't matter if it's before or after the tribulation.

There's no such thing as being caught up to heaven. It isn't in the Bible. The B-I-B-L-E. That's the book for me. How about you? Is that the book for you? Blow the trumpet in Zion. The problem is in the church.

That's why he says in Amos, you've got all this stuff going and music to beat the band. And then you've got the burnt offering talking about Calvary. And you've got the grain offering talking about Pentecost.

You had all this stuff going. And he says, I can't stand it because you're not righteous. Get righteous and then I'll listen to it. All right, sound the alarm on my holy hill. Well, what are we doing here this morning?

Sound the alarm on his holy hill. I'm not railing about Gore or Bush. I'm talking about God's church. And they say, sound the alarm on Gore and Bush. Well, I have to say that because we get sucked into these things.

C .S. Lewis said, save your breath to cool your porridge. Let all who live in the land tremble. He's talking about Israel. God's elect. Talking about the heathen. For the day of the Lord is coming. This morning, the way of the Lord.

But America's not ready. Oh, knocked by a long shot. Let all who live in the land tremble. It is close at hand. Well, if it was close at hand at 800 B .C., what in the world is it now? 2 ,800 years ago.

It's a good thing that God is patient. Of course, time to God is nothing. A thousand years, what's that? To us, it's kind of hard to live. We have a hard time getting from the age of 31. Seems like it takes forever.

Is that right, Joe? Yo, boy, is that right? All right. It is close at hand. A day of fun and frolic. Y 'all come. Meetin' all day and all get to stay. We don't have a good time in the morning. We'll have one at night, sure enough.

A day of darkness and gloom. That's the coming of Christ. It is. Yes. Isn't he gonna come and bow down and ask us how he can serve us? Probably not. A day of clouds and darkness, blackness. Like dawns spreading across the mountains.

Still dark, but the day is at hand. Oh, hallelujah. I wonder how close we are to the dawn. The dawn of the day of the Lord. Stan says trouble's coming. I didn't say it, Stan said it. Like dawns spreading across the mountains.

A large and mighty army comes. I want you to fasten on that. You can put your highlighter on it. You can do anything you want to. But the vision of the coming of Christ predominantly. See, we have a vision today of being caught up in the air.

That's not a vision of the coming of Christ. Paul was talking about the comfort of the saints with deceased loved ones. That's not the vision. You won't find that in the Old Testament. That's not the vision.

The vision, and it's repeated in numerous passages in the Old and a few in the New, is of a great and mighty army. And we see the conclusion of it in Revelation 19 where Christ comes like this at the head of an army.

Now that is the vision of the day of the Lord. And for you and me as individuals, we are either going to be in that army or on the receiving end of it. And these are God's untouchables. They cannot be moved with anything.

They've been through it. They've been forced into death about everything they thought was important. They are dead, living people. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I'm alive. But it's not I who am living.

It is Christ who is living in me. You know, that's more than a doctrine in Galatians 2 .20 that you mentioned. That you memorized. That's an experience. And it is not exactly pleasant at all times. But it's worth it.

This army is untouchable. It cannot be moved. It has learned in life to move by the will of God, like Abraham going up to Mount Moriah with his son and slave to burn. Oh, Brother Thompson, preach the rapture to me.

Let me hear about the rapture. I don't want to hear anything like that. Why not? Because we're rich. You say somebody that has nothing, which probably true of half the people in the world, that's not such bad news to them.

They say, oh, I've got nothing to lose in this thing. Let's die and get over with. I'd like to live. But to us, we're going to lose this, I'm going to lose that. What am I going to lose next? He's plucking feathers out of me.

I'm not even dead yet. What's our problem? We're rich. And it's hard for us to enter the kingdom because the kingdom requires that you die on the cross with Christ. Because that's the worst thing. This is good news.

I hope I never hear the bad. It's good news if you love God. To think that we can get rid of this filthy Adamic nature of ours, which has caused us nothing but trouble from the time we are five days old.

You ought to be glad to get rid of it. You know what we ought to have? We ought to have a funeral service in here for the Adamic nature. And have everyone bring up his Adamic nature and we'll put it to death once and for all and bury the thing and be done with it.

Yeah, it's another name for water baptism. We have water baptism. We ought to have some funeraries in here. Some pictures of you. Have some weeping. Oh, they're dying. Stan's getting ready to drown them up there.

It was nice knowing you. Our dear old Adamic nature may fire be on it forever. It's caused me more trouble in life, I tell you, than just about anything else. Yes, it's good news, but it's not good news to your sinful nature.

It's good news to your spiritual nature that's been born again. Good news to your body someday will be raised and glorified so you can take it any way you want to. A large and mighty army. That's the vision.

This is going to be a large army and it's going to be strong, powerful people that have served God throughout the history of the world. People that have, many of them have been tortured, but there's many of them that have gone through things worse than torture.

They've lived a life of denial of all their fervent desires. Patiently waiting on Christ there before him like precious jewels. And when God gets ready to return, this army will be at his back. And the church people will be looking for love, love, love.

These people have a love that the carnal nature knows nothing about. God's love. Sent his son to the cross. God's love. Not human empathy or sympathy or nostalgia. All these things are largely self-pity.

When you think about them, there's no self-pity in God's love. But it'll never come out of our Adamic nature, never. It comes as Christ is formed in us. It's the love of Christ that passes knowledge.

These people are filled with the love of Christ. It reminds me of the psalm. It goes on and on and on. It tells about, and he overthrew. He killed the king of Bashan. He killed this king and he killed that.

After every one of them it says, for his mercy endures forever. Maybe our idea of mercy and God's ideas of mercy is two different things. He killed Sion, king of the Amorites. For his mercy endures forever.

I don't know how Sion read that. A large and mighty army. Look for it. That's what's coming. That's what's coming. And that's what it says in 1 Thessalonians 4. The Lord is coming. His saints are coming with him down to the ground.

And then he will raise them up. The whole army of God will be standing on its feet. Shining, shining, shining from the east to the west. The whole army of God. That's what 1 Thessalonians 4 is talking about with a shout.