“For the Day of the Lord is at hand and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come!” (Joel 1:15).
Joel is indeed the prophet of the Day of the Lord. He deals with that Day in five E separate passages in his short prophecy of three chapters. The Day of the Lord, prophesied by Joel and other Old Testament prophets and also predicted in the New Testament, is a major theme in the Bible. It deals with the earth, the Great Tribulation, Israel, the nations, and with judgment.
In the New Testament we are introduced to another day, the Day of Christ (Phil 1:6). It deals, by contrast, with Heaven, with triumph, with the Church, and with joy. The Day of the Lord includes the Great Tribulation and the Revelation of the Lord from Heaven as seen in Revelation 19:11-21, Matthew 24:29-30, and 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10. The Day of Christ, by contrast, deals with the coming of the Lord to the air for the Church and therefore with the Rapture. We read of it in I Thessalonians 4:13-18.
The believer of the Church Age will never see the Day of the Lord for he will be taken out of the world at the Rapture, which the Bible teaches as being pre-tribulational and therefore pre-millennial. It is interesting to read I Thessalonians 5:1-3 concerning the Day of the Lord and 5:9-10 concerning the Day of Christ. The salvation referred to in 5:9 is the deliverance from the judgments of the Day of the Lord. This deliverance is the rapture. At the coming of the Lord for the church, the believers will be “delivered from the wrath” that is coming upon the world in the Day of the Lord! (I Thes 1:10). Compare this with Jude 21 where the believer is “looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus unto eternal life.” It is interesting also to study Revelation 3:10, where the church in Philadelphia is promised, “I will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon the whole world.”
If you have come to the Lord Jesus for salvation, then you can look for the Day of Christ. You will thereby escape the wrath that is coming in the Day of the Lord.
Accept Him and then anticipate His Coming!
