The Day of the Lord

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Joel 2:1 “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand.”

The verse above told us about the “Day of the Lord.” Many will tremble at it because it is a judgment day. But we must remember that according to Genesis 1:5, a day starts with the evening and then the morning. In other words, it starts with darkness and ends in light. So shall it be with the day of the Lord. The prophets declared the darkness that would start the day of the Lord but they also spoke of the ‘light’ and ‘blessing’ that would come afterwards ‘in that day’. Renald Showers in his book ‘Maranatha: Our Lord, Come’ put it this way:

“The future Day of the Lord will have at least a twofold nature. First, it will be characterized by darkness and a tremendous outpouring of divine wrath upon the world (Joel 2:1-2; Amos 5:18-20; Zeph 1:14-15; 1Thes 5:1-11). Amos 5:18-20 emphasizes that this will be the total nature of the Day of the Lord for God’s enemies. It will bring no divine light or blessing to them. This will be the nature of the Day of the Lord during the 70th week of Daniel. Second, the Day of the Lord will also be characterized by light, an outpouring of divine blessing, and the administration of God’s rule. The Prophet Joel, after talking about the darkening of the sun, moon, and stars and God’s Day of the Lord judgment of the armies of the nations gathered in Israel (Joel 3:9-16), foretold great divine blessing ‘in that day’ (Joel 3:17-21). In addition, the Prophet Zechariah, after discussing the future Day of the Lord, when all nations will war against Jerusalem and the Messiah will come to the earth to fight against the nations (Zech 14:1-5), indicated that although the earlier part of ‘that day’ will be characterized by darkness, the latter part will be characterized by light (Zech 14:6-7), great blessing (Zech 14:8), and God’s rule over the earth (Zech 14:9). this will be the nature of the Day of the Lord in the Millennium. . . . Just as each day of creation and the Jewish day consisted of two phases – a time of darkness (‘evening’) followed by a time of light (‘day’) [Gen 1:4-6] – so the future Day of the Lord will consist of two phases, a period of darkness (judgment) followed by a period of light (divine rule and blessing). . . . First, during the 70th week of Daniel it will be characterized by darkness and a tremendous outpouring of divine wrath upon the world. Second, during the Millennium it will be characterized by light, an outpouring of divine blessing, and the administration of God’s rule over the whole world.”