07 - Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord
The Great and Dreadful Day of The Lord.
184. We must now say a few words respecting the final crisis of this Dispensation, which is so vividly described in Isaiah 24:1-23. and Revelation 19:1-21. Malachi calls it the day "that shall burn as an oven"; and it will, probably, be a literal day, so that all its events will take place within twenty-four hours. The greatest of them will be the return of the once despised and crucified Jesus. He will not, however, return in humiliation, but in power and great glory, followed by the Armies of Heaven, and with the Day of Vengeance in His heart; for the year of His redeemed will have come. The Kings of the Earth, deceived by the foul spirits from the mouths of the Dragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet (Revelation 16:13-14), will have set themselves, and the rulers have taken counsel together, against Jehovah and against His Anointed, or His Christ (Acts 4:25-26). "Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us!" will be their cry (Psalms 2:2-3). For, in their maddened pride, they will have dared to think of measuring their strength even against God, and of making war upon the Lamb.
185. They will have seen and been deceived by the miracles of the False Prophet: they will have witnessed his superhuman power, the calling down of fire from heaven, the causing of the image of the Beast to speak, and many other mighty works, more striking, it may be, than even those which are recorded of the Lord at His First Advent. They will have been further fascinated with the flatteries, the brilliant intellect, and the reckless blasphemies of the Beast, and will have been induced to believe the lie.
186. And, as the result of all this, they will be gathered together in vast armies, fully equipped with the most effective weapons, and tinder the leadership of the Beast and the False Prophet, for the war of the Great Day of God, the Almighty, and to the battlefield of Armageddon. "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them; for He is Lord of lords and King of kings" (Revelation 17:14). "The Lord shall have them in derision" (Psalms 2:4). He will look down upon their madness, and command the flesh-eating birds of heaven to gather themselves together, that they may feast upon the flesh of these wicked men. Then the heavens will cleave asunder, and there will appear One sitting on a white horse, with many diadems upon His head, clothed in a vesture stained with blood, Whose Name is The Word of God, Whose titles are Lord of lords and King of kings, and out of Whose mouth proceeds the sword of, death, with which He will smite the rebel nations; for He it is That will tread the winepress of the wrath and anger of God, the Almighty. His saints will be with Him; but they will merely stand by and see the vengeance and the salvation of their God; for He will tread the winepress Alone (Isaiah 63:3), and the slain of the Lord shall be many (Isaiah 66:16).
187. It is not easy to realize that which may not happen for several years; let us, therefore, for a moment suppose, that, by God’s decree, the whole series of events which we have just narrated were fixed to occur within the next three months. How bewildering would be the hurry and din of preparation in every country of Europe! How bitter and malignant would be the exasperation and ridicule of unbelievers at the very thought, that Jesus the Nazarene, Whose Name has been so well known for centuries, and Who has been so despised and neglected by the world at large, is, after all these long years of apparent inaction, about to assert Himself, and to prove, that He is not merely alive for ever more, but, also, that He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and that all power is given unto Him both in heaven and upon earth.
188. We may imagine how absolutely secure the nations would he feeling in the midst of the rumours with which the world would be full, owing to the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom that is, the good news of the Lord’s immediate return to reign - by His people upon earth (Matthew 24:14). We can picture to ourselves the bitterness of their contempt for any who should hint at danger. Have we not, they will say, the great Emperor who returned from the dead - for they will not call him the Antichrist - as our general? And who is like unto him? Who is able to make war with him? What being so powerful and so Divine has ever before visited our earth? Have we not, also, on our side the great Prophet, who has shown himself to be the possessor of a power, never known before, over both matter and spirit, over material things as well as spiritual? And, yet again, is there not with us the great spiritual Prince of this World, whom we were once falsely taught to call Satan, the Adversary, and the origin of all evil; but have now discovered to be the true God, the giver of all good, who brought our mighty Emperor from the dead, to rule over us, and to be the true Christ of the world; and who gave us the all-wise and all-powerful Prophet to be our guiding Spirit? Thus will they believe the lie, and, strong in their horrid faith, be eager to carry out the total extirpation of the Israel of God, although they will have been warned, that, should they make the reckless attempt, the Son of God would descend from heaven to destroy them.
189. Now, let us suppose, that the preparations have been completed, and the armies despatched; and that, throughout Europe, the morning, noon, and evening newspapers are being eagerly searched for telegrams; for the minutest particulars are being ceaselessly wired to every part of the world by zealous reporters. Then, suddenly, just after the junction of the allied armies has been effected, and all arrangements have now been made, so that nothing remains but to commence the attack, the whole world is startled by portentous signs in the atmosphere, which no scientist can explain. But for the aid of their clocks, men could scarcely tell whether it is night or day; for it is not dark, neither is it light (Zechariah 14:7). The sun appears to be honeycombed with spots, and is rather black than white. The moon has changed her colour to a blood-red hue, dark and threatening. The stars are dimmed, and terrifying showers of countless meteors are hissing and exploding in the air. The ground quivers continuously beneath the feet of the horror stricken fugitives, and at intervals is violently shaken; while storms, frightful with thunder, lightning, rain, hail, and roaring wind, such as have never been seen or heard before, are everywhere prevalent.
Something is wrong with the universe: all nature is out of course: a fearful and final catastrophe is momentarily expected. The lightning-flashes reveal pale faces and shaking forms. What can be about to happen? In Palestine, where the armies are assembled and fill the land, everything is satisfactory so far as the condition and organization of the troops are concerned; but the leaders are bewildered and cowed by the confusion of the elements. And even the great Emperor and his superhuman Prophet are quite unable to control the feelings and terror of the vast forces under their command.
190. The appalling portents grow worse instead of better: all things seem ripening for some fearful, collapse. And suddenly a light, brighter than the sun in his strength, strikes through the gloom, and the Lord roars out of Zion, and utters His voice from Jerusalem (Joel 3:16); and, according to His word, shakes, not the earth only, but also the heavens. There is a terrific earthquake, such as has never been previously experienced since men were upon the earth, and it is followed by an awful crashing of hail-stones, accompanied by the loudest thunderings and most destructive lightnings; while, amid the confusion, the rocks and mountains are rent asunder, and the waves of the sea are terribly agitated; so that men’s hearts are dead with fear.
191. But it is too late for repentance! The lightnings are carrying death in all directions: the great armies are being dissolved and rapidly reduced to ashes, to be trodden beneath the feet of delivered Israel: the King’s arrows are sharp in the hearts of His enemies (Psalms 45:5): the proud rebels are being slain by the sword of Him That sitteth upon the horse (Revelation 19:21). At the same time, He sends a fire among them that dwell carelessly in the isles, that is, in the countries bordering upon the Mediterranean (Ezekiel 39:6). "For the indignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and His fury upon their armies: He hath utterly destroyed them; He hath delivered them to the slaughter" (Isaiah 34:2).
192. The great leaders of the rebellion, the Beast and the False Prophet, are seized; and, since they have been taken red-handed in the fight against their Creator, there is no need of judgment: they are cast alive into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. For, being both of them the spirits of deceased men who have returned from the dead, they cannot be a second time confined in Hades, the place of the First Death; but must now be hurled into the Second Death, which is the Fiery Lake (Revelation 20:14), from whence there is no return, and which has been specially prepared and lighted to receive them (Isaiah 30:33).
193. Thus will be fulfilled the prophecy of the Stone cut without hands That fell upon the feet of the Image, and brought the huge Colossus in shattered fragments to the ground. And, when this last and harrowing scene is over, and the Day of Vengeance has come to its close, then the violent agitation of the elements will cease, and the gloom be dispersed, for, at the eventide of that day, the natural light will at length return (Zechariah 14:7). The Lord has shown forth His power, and all His enemies are ashes beneath the feet of His people. After the mighty tempest comes the peaceful calm; and now will those words be fulfilled:- "Come, behold the works of the Lord, What desolations He bath made in the earth!
He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder;
He burneth the chariots in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations;
I will be exalted in the earth." And so, the present Dispensation will have passed away amid the terrors of His coming; and the long-expected Millennium, the reign of the Righteous King, the time of peace and joy and reward, and the rest that is reserved for the people of God, will have come.
194. It must not, however, be imagined that only the armies which are gathered together in the Land of Israel will suffer. The wrath of the Lord will, doubtless, be centred there, because there all the blasphemous leaders of the rebellion will be found. But, as we have already hinted, death and terror will spread to every quarter of the broad earth.
195. Jerusalem will suffer; for "the Mount of Olives will cleave in the midst thereof," Mount Zion will be thrown up into an exceeding high Mountain, and, to the south of it, all the land from Geba to Rimmon will be levelled into a plain. In the fearful convulsion which will bring about these changes, it is probable that all the surviving Jews who still remain proud and stubborn of heart will miserably perish, and the winnowing of the people be completed.
196. As to the Gentiles, it is said in the description of the earthquake, "And the cities of the nations fell" (Revelation 16:19). Now, in the Greek original, there is a definite article before "cities"; the prediction may, therefore, mean, that all the cities of the Roman world will be either consumed, swallowed down, or shattered to the ground, by the terrific convulsion. In this case, the loss of life would be prodigious, but not more than Isaiah leads us to expect, when he says, that, at the end of the judgments, the inhabitants of earth will be found to have been burnt up, so that but few men will be left (Isaiah 24:6). The mention of death by burning evidently points to the bursting out of fire or boiling water from the fissures caused by the earthquake. This kind of destruction may be included in the words, "For by fire and by His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many" (Isaiah 66:16). But, of course, the red lightnings that will proceed directly from Himself will effect no inconsiderable part of the slaughter.