Amos 5
18 How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the Lord! What good will that day do you? For you it will be a day of darkness and not of light. 19 It will be like someone who runs from a lion and meets a bear! Or like someone who comes home and puts his hand on the wall—only to be bitten by a snake! 20 The day of the Lord will bring darkness and not light; it will be a day of gloom, without any brightness.
Psalm 118:24 This is the day of the Lord's victory; let us be happy, let us celebrate!
Isaiah 13:6 Howl in pain! The day of the Lord is near, the day when the Almighty brings destruction.
Isaiah 13:9 The day of the Lord is coming—that cruel day of his fierce anger and fury. The earth will be made a wilderness, and every sinner will be destroyed.
Ezekiel 13:5 They don't guard the places where the walls have crumbled, nor do they rebuild the walls, and so Israel cannot be defended when war comes on the day of the Lord.
Joel 1:15 The day of the Lord is near, the day when the Almighty brings destruction. What terror that day will bring!
Joel 2:1 [ The Locusts as a Warning of the day of the Lord ] Blow the trumpet; sound the alarm on Zion, God's sacred hill. Tremble, people of Judah! The day of the Lord is coming soon.
Joel 2:11 The Lord thunders commands to his army. The troops that obey him are many and mighty. How terrible is the day of the Lord! Who will survive it?
Joel 2:28 [ The day of the Lord ] “Afterward I will pour out my Spirit on everyone: your sons and daughters will proclaim my message; your old people will have dreams, and your young people will see visions.
Joel 2:31 The sun will be darkened, and the moon will turn red as blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.
Joel 3:14 Thousands and thousands are in the Valley of Judgment. It is there that the day of the Lord will soon come.
Amos 5:18 How terrible it will be for you who long for the day of the Lord! What good will that day do you? For you it will be a day of darkness and not of light.
Amos 5:20 The day of the Lord will bring darkness and not light; it will be a day of gloom, without any brightness.
Zephaniah 1:2 [ The day of the Lord's Judgment ] The Lord said, “I am going to destroy everything on earth,
Zephaniah 1:14 The great day of the Lord is near—very near and coming fast! That day will be bitter, for even the bravest soldiers will cry out in despair!
Malachi 4:1 [ The day of the Lord Is Coming ] The Lord Almighty says, “The day is coming when all proud and evil people will burn like straw. On that day they will burn up, and there will be nothing left of them.
Malachi 4:5 “But before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes, I will send you the prophet Elijah.
Acts 2:20 the sun will be darkened, and the moon will turn red as blood, before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.
1 Corinthians 5:5 you are to hand this man over to Satan for his body to be destroyed, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 5:2 For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come as a thief comes at night.
2 Thessalonians 2:2 not to be so easily confused in your thinking or upset by the claim that the day of the Lord has come. Perhaps it is thought that we said this while prophesying or preaching, or that we wrote it in a letter.
Hebrews 10:25 Let us not give up the habit of meeting together, as some are doing. Instead, let us encourage one another all the more, since you see that the day of the Lord is coming nearer.
James 5:8 You also must be patient. Keep your hopes high, for the day of the Lord's coming is near.
2 Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. On that Day the heavens will disappear with a shrill noise, the heavenly bodies will burn up and be destroyed, and the earth with everything in it will vanish.
There have been Several "Day of the Lord" events In Israel's History.
Here's A Biblical comparison:
In order to understand the nature of the “Day of the Lord”, one must first understand the nature of the various “Day of the Lord” events that Scripture testifies as already having come to pass.
Jehovah's comings were always described as personal and visible (see: Isa 19:1-2; Isa 31 all; Deut 33:2, Zech 9:13; etc.)
The desolation of Jerusalem by the Babylonians was a past "Day of the Lord." After it happened, the prophet Jeremiah tells us:
Lamentations 1:12
behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me
in the day of his fierce anger.
Lamentations 2:1
How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in
the day of his anger.
Lamentations 2:21
The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the
day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied.
Lamentations 2:22
Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in
the day of the LORD'S anger none escaped nor remained
Note also that it was God who did the killing! Did anyone
SEE Jehovah kill people? Was the prophet lying? Of course not. This is how the prophets spoke.
Furthermore, Ezekiel had foretold of this same Day of the Lord against Jerusalem which took place in the 500s BC, saying:
Ezekiel 7:19
They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in
the day of the wrath of Jehovah: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.
And again, Ezekiel says of this same past Day of the Lord...
Ezekiel 13:2-5
Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD; Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing! O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle
in the day of Jehovah.
The prophet Zephaniah also calls the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians "the Day of the Lord."
Zephaniah 1:1 - 1:7
The word of Yahweh which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah. I will utterly sweep away everything off of the surface of the earth, says Yahweh. I will sweep away man and animal. I will sweep away the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea, and the heaps of rubble with the wicked. I will cut off man from the surface of the earth, says Yahweh. I will stretch out my hand against Judah, and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place: the name of the idolatrous and pagan priests, those who worship the host of the sky on the housetops, those who worship and swear by Yahweh and also swear by Malcam, those who have turned back from following Yahweh, and those who haven't sought Yahweh nor inquired after him. Be silent at the presence of the Lord Yahweh, for
the day of Yahweh is at hand. For Yahweh has prepared a sacrifice. He has consecrated his guests.
Folks, there we have the classic "Day of the Lord" in scripture. The prophets speak of Jehovah who comes down and does a whole host of "physical" things. Yet did anyone
SEE Yahweh do these things? Was Zephaniah lying? This scripture goes on all the way to the end of Zephaniah chapter two, and be sure to note that the judgments that ensue upon the other surrounding nations are also a
past Day of Yahweh event (1:14; 2:2-3).
So, the destruction of Jerusalem in the 500s BC is just one example of
MANY past day of the LORD events.
The N.T. teaches that Christ's return in Judgement upon 1st century Israel was to be a "Day of Yahweh" event. This perfectly coincides with AD 67-70, which was the greatest Day of the Lord in history.
Just as Jehovah did with various nations in Old Testament times, Jesus wielded Rome's powers as Jehovah had wielded the powers and kings of Babylon and Persia as his own anointed servants (Jer 25:9; Isa 44:28-45:13).
That's how the Day of the Lord judgments work. Rome continued so that the Church would overtake it as the stone of
Daniel 2 that became a giant mountain over the whole earth. The pagan Roman Empire was destroyed.
John's own interpretation of Rev 1:7's cloud-coming is found in Rev 14:14-20! No one can deny that the Rev 14:14-20 passage shows a coming in the
heavenly realms which brings disasters upon earth--it is not an incarnational event. Rather, this perfectly depicts the way the Father came in O.T. times--in power and great glory. As Jesus promised, he was to come "in the glory of the Father." Furthermore, Jesus said that when his future kingdom came, no one would be able to point to it and say "look here it is, or look there it is" (
Luke 17:20-21). Since "the kingdom does not come in an observable fashion" (
Luke 17:20-21), and since Christ was to come "in his kingdom" (Mt 16:27-28 ), it follows by logical necessity that Christ's coming was not observable.
Rather, it was a "Day of the Lord event (i.e., in the heavenly realms with great disasters and wrath poured out upon nations and people).
The coming of Christ on the clouds that every eye would see (Rev 1:7) is actually shown us in
Revelation 14:14-20. There can be no doubt that the Rev 14:14-20 passage makes clear that it is a coming in the heavenlies like unto the many O.T. Jehovah comings (cf. Isa 19:1-2; Deut 33:2; 2 Sam 22:7-16; Zech 9:13-16; Zeph 1:2-5;
Isaiah 31, Neh 9:13-15; Hab 3:3-16; etc.). Jehovah came often in O.T. times, yet his presence, which always performed the desolations, was potent and invisible. Jesus had promised that he was to come "in the glory of the Father.
That great and terrible Day of the Lord struck at the headquarters of opposition. Apostate Jerusalem, a.k.a. the great city Mystery Babylon (Rev 14:8/11:8 ), was responsible for the persecution of Christ and the apostles and prophets. They used the power of Rome to persecute the Church worldwide after killing Christ himself. For that, all of the blood shed on the earth from Able unto the time of Christ was to be avenged upon their generation according to Matt 23:31-36. All torah-observant, Christ-rejecting Jews in the Roman Empire were destroyed in Jerusalem in that great wrath of AD 67-70. The judgment came at that time (
1 Peter 4:17; cf Jn 12:31), for the end of all things was then at hand (
1 Peter 4:7; 2 Tim 4:1)--the end of the age had come.
Furthermore, the vengeance of God in those last days (Heb 1:1-2;
James 5:3; Acts 2:15-17) had worldwide impact. A last-days famine hit the whole empire (Acts 11:28 ), God was striking down kings (Acts 12:20-23) as well as the emperor-gods (Nero, Galba, etc), Rome burned, and the world Temple of Jupiter was destroyed in AD 69. That Day of the Lord, the greatest of all those before it, did come upon the whole world as prophesied. Christ's Church emerged victorious and has become the greatest empire known to mankind.
Let me say that if one understands what the Day of the Lord was, and if one is very familiar with the many historic Day-of-the-Lord judgments that transpired in Old Testament times, then one quickly understands that the 66-70 AD coming of Christ in Judgement upon Jerusalem was, by nature, to be a Day of the Lord event just like those in O.T. times.