Acceptable Year of the Lord and the Day of Vengeance

I would like to begin this morning. This is going to get me today. So used to say an afternoon. This morning I'd like to begin in Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. verses. Well, let's start here in verse 16. Luke chapter 4. I want to we'll pick this up beginning in verse 16. So, he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up.

And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. And he was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

This is when Christ begins his ministry. If you think about the context here, he goes back to Nazareth. Both Luke and John and Mark all, excuse me, and Matthew all describe the reaction of those who were listening. Isn't this Joseph's son, a carpenter? What does he know? Where did he get his education? He has no idea what he's talking about.

How does he speak with such authority? And yet Christ stands there before them and boldly proclaims, quoting Isaiah, that this has been fulfilled in their hearing. Notice verse 20 and 21. He closed the book. He gave it back to the attendant and he sat down. The eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." 

We see words like fulfilled. It's easy for us because it's an English word to think of filled up or complete. Was this complete in Christ's ministry? Did he do all of that? It says the acceptable year of the Lord. You know, we hear year, maybe you're like me in this regard. You hear the word year.

You hear Christ speaking about that and and I connect it for some reason. I tend to connect it to the day of the Lord. Just an automatic response that I have without thinking through carefully what it means and if there's a distinction. And it's also it's a lazy mental habit God gives to us to try to make our brains more efficient in how we process and retain information.

We see two statements that look alike. Let's just go ahead and say they're alike. We move on. And yet they're not alike. They're saying different things. Why did Christ start here? And what does this have to do with the day of trumpets? That's what I want to walk through today. Let's turn back where Christ was quoting from. Isaiah chapter 61 Isaiah chapter 61.

And it begins the chapter. Isaiah 61 begins, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

" Christ stopped right there. Why do you think that is? What comes next? And the day of vengeance of our God. Why didn't Christ quote that? Well, the most obvious answer must be that they don't mean the same thing. He said that whatever what he had quoted, he did not say this. He said what he had quoted had been fulfilled in their hearing.

He only quoted the first part and included the acceptable year of the Lord as having been fulfilled in their hearing. Well, what's Isaiah talking about then? What is this that Christ was thinking of that was fulfilled in their hearing? Well, the language for those of Isaiah's time would have been clear because it pointed to and pulled directly from something they were already familiar with.

A year of relief every 50. Turn back to Leviticus chapter 25. Leviticus chapter 25 verses 8-10. I want you to note how similar the language is that Isaiah adopted. He says here beginning in verse 8 of Leviticus 25, "And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years. and the time of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be to you 49 years.

Then you shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the 10th day of the seventh month. On the day of atonement, you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land. And you shall consecrate the 50th year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family.

So God tells Israel, ancient Israel, who was to be the only nation on the planet that would have God as their God. That as he governs the people, that he wanted their land inheritances to be theirs, their family inheritances to be theirs. And if whatever circumstance had led you to be departed from your property that on the 50th year you would be restored.

What you had lost would be restored to you. The year of Jubilee. The language is of freedom, of restoration, of healing. It is the very language Isaiah chose to use in Isaiah 61. healing, restoration, freedom. This is the acceptable year of the Lord. Isaiah wasn't quoting so that we would look at a clock and measure 50 years again today.

Isaiah wanted us to see something different. The benefit of the Jubilee, not the timing. Christ didn't quote the timing. He quoted the benefit. And that benefit began with his return. This is what the acceptable year of the Lord is about. Verse 13, let's keep reading. Verse 13 here again of Leviticus 25 says, "In this year of Jubilee, each of you shall return to his possession.

" So you get back something concrete. Your possessions, your land returned to you. A man who had lost his family's inheritance gets to return to it. An Israelite who had entered servitude could once again live as a free person. This 50th year represented restorations of things that had been lost. Now that physical pattern gave Isaiah language that he could later use and he did.

So it creates for us an image then of something yet to come in the future. Christ quotes that and says it's been fulfilled in your hearing. Well, did it all get fulfilled in their hearing? No. It began to be fulfilled. The Messiah has arrived. This is the beginning of the acceptable year of the Lord that he quoted. Isaiah uses the same Hebrew word for liberty found here in Leviticus chapter 25 and verse 10. Same word der O R.

The meaning is a flowing freeun liberty. The repeated word links Isaiah's prophecy directly with the Jubilee law. And of course, his listeners would understand this connection. Christ clearly understood because he inspired its recording. So, as I said, Isaiah uses this physical release of the Jubilee year to explain the benefits that Christ would bring on his first coming.

But he would only begin all of these things on his first coming. They could not be fulfilled because he did not bring all of that healing to the whole world. He didn't even bring it to the whole of the Roman Empire. Some few got a taste of the Jubilee for themselves. Christ began here to show us exactly that.

Let's turn back now to an example of what of what this meant. What I'd like you to see here, I'll I'll give it to you early here. I'd like you to see a difference here between the acceptable year of the Lord, which is about healing and restoration. Christ bringing those things as a beginning with his first ministry. Yet, he didn't complete that work.

There is yet a final fulfillment of that that is yet to come. And before that can come, the day of the Lord. The world isn't ready for it yet. The world has to be made ready. Now you see the connection between the acceptable year of the Lord, the day of the Lord, and the feast of trumpets. Over in John chapter nine, I want to give you example here of exactly the kind of healing that is promised because the acceptable year of the Lord is what God wants to do for his creation.

That's what it's about. It's what he wants to do for his creation. The day of the Lord is what he must do first to bring that blessing to the whole world. John chapter 9 helps us to see what it is he would like to do for all mankind and that what he will do. John chapter 9. Okay, I'll I'll pick this up here in verse one.

John chapter 9 vers1 Now as Jesus passed by he saw a man who was blind from birth and his disciples asked him saying rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind. Okay. So Christ basically goes on to say it it wasn't about that. There's an opportunity that God wants.

Let's pick this up in verse six. When he had said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva. And he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay. And he said to him, "Go wash in the pool of Silom," which is translated sense. So he went and washed and came back seeing. This is one of those cases where you read a story, there's so little detail given and yet so much given in what is delivered to us.

I I remembered a story years ago. I couldn't put my finger on it, so I had to do some research to find out. Neurologist Oliver Saxs, I forgot even his name, described a man in his in a study that he conducted. He called the man Virgil who regained useful sight after decades of uh genital compli blindness.

What is that word? Congenital blindness. Okay. So he'd never seen before since he was a a baby. So he describes his research. When Virgil's bandages were removed, he could detect light, movement, and color. Yet at first, he could not make sense of the surgeon's face. until he spoke. Saxs recorded that visual input initially appeared to Virgil as chaos that required interpretation.

And yet he had no way to process that. Imagine his world was defined by what he could touch and feel. How every object would be how he felt that object was. And in his mind, he processed the the object would in his mind look a certain way based on how it felt to him. Imagine trying to connect what you see with what you've been feeling.

And you've never seen what these things look like before. I think we can take for granted what we see because most of us have had sight since we were born. But I think probably we don't understand what it takes to get where we are and our ability to process the world through our vision. When you've never had vision, what Christ did not do, we saw the man came back seeing.

You know what Christ didn't do? He didn't just give him sight. It takes weeks and months of training to be able to interpret the world through sight when you've never had it. Maybe years to be able to process the world through those new eyes. He came back immediately seeing processing his world. What kind of miracle is that? that not only do you get your sight back, but you get everything that a baby gets over the over a lifetime of learning to process sight that every adult naturally appreciates.

He gets this gifted to him. Would you call this a jubilee for this man? His whole life blind. He's gifted freedom of sight for the first time. a true jubilee for him. This is what God wants to bring to the world, to mankind. Healing, real, complete healing. Not just a token of healing. This isn't a fake idea of God's to give us something that might look like he's done something for us.

This is a testimony for us to understand that it was a complete healing. That is a jubilee event. total restoration. But notice that Christ did not heal every blind person in Judea. Not every blind person in the Roman Empire. Certainly not every blind person on earth. Here's one person who got a jubilee. But this tells us is this is what God wants for his creation.

This is what Isaiah was hinting at. This is why he was inspired to write it. And this is why Christ quoted it. This is what the acceptable year of the Lord is about. Restoration and healing. Christ clearly did not accomplish that in total during his first ministry. So he has a work that remains undone to fulfill the acceptable year of the Lord.

Why did Christ not quote the day of vengeance? We can infer very rapidly that he quoted everything that was fulfilled at his first coming. He did not quote those things which were not fulfilled at his coming. The day of vengeance was not fulfilled at his coming. The day of vengeance, as we read through Revelation, begins with a scroll with seven seals on it.

That scroll is not opened until Jesus Christ is sacrificed, put to death, and resurrected to take his seat at the right hand of God. Then the first four seals are opened. And they stay open because when a seal is removed, it stays removed. Whatever goes with that seal, whenever that seal is removed, exists until Christ's return.

So obviously the day of the Lord did not happen when Christ walked the earth nor at his death. But the same Messiah who came to heal the human those whom he did heal to show what it was that God meant by the acceptable year of the Lord which was both beginning to be happening and then would ultimately be fulfilled with his second coming.

That is the same being who's coming to rule this earth. There is an event that must take place before the fulfillment of the acceptable year of the Lord can be completed. Jesus Christ has to put down all the governments of this earth which would stand in God's way. It is not possible for the acceptable year of the Lord to be delivered and completed until the day of the Lord puts Christ on this earth as the King of Kings and every government bows its knee to the King.

There will be no competition. Worldwide restoration can only happen when that happens first. This is why Christ did not quote that. It had not been completed by his coming. It won't be completed until he returns. This is what this day pictures that return and all of the cataclysmic events that must take place first.

We read in Isaiah 34:8 what that day is. Isaiah 34:8 It simply says, "For it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion." The United Church of God has long understood that this suggests that the day of the Lord is a period that lasts approximately one year, and it would be the final year of the three and a half year tribulation.

The tribulation is never described more than the vengeance of Satan. It is his wrath. The day of the Lord is the wrath of God. Judgment executed on this earth. So we have typically understood that the prophetic day for a year principle applies right here. That this would most likely and of course if you think about it, it's hard to imagine all of the events that happen even with the seventh seal.

All of that happening within one day doesn't seem plausible in any realistic way. Too much happening for that to be believable. So we believe that this refers to that period of time which would be approximately one year, the final year of the three and a half year tribulation. That would be called what we call the day of the Lord.

that places the trumpet judgments inside the final stage of God's intervention before Christ takes open rule of the nations of this earth. So therefore we have two uses of year in the same in the same passage in Isaiah 61 and they don't mean the same thing. One is a reference to blessings that will come began to come through Jesus Christ and will be fulfilled once all of the governments of men have been put down.

The second refers to that year called the day of the Lord in which all those governments will finally be put down. God's judgment over this world will be exacted. So this is what the connection is then to the day or the feast of trumpets. God commanded Israel to observe the first day of the seventh month on a special memorial trumpet blowing.

Trumpets were used at other appointed times. I I really want to make sure you understand this point because again we are trying to make sure that we have a very firm understanding of what the holy days mean. The day of trumpets is or the feast of trumpets is not about loud shouting by itself.

It's not about loud noises by itself. It's about a trumpet associated directly with the day itself. Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23. Let's go to verse 24. Verse 24. Leviticus 23 says, "Speak to the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, that's today, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.

" Well, that's what we're doing. We had Mr. Ro thankfully play the French horn for us to give us a sense of a trumpet or a a horn sounding for us signaling this day and what it means. The day isn't launched. It isn't associated with shouting and yelling and screaming and loud noises. It is identified by trumpets.

That is very important for us to retain in our understanding. Some would argue that end time events don't relate to trumpets necessarily. You have to want to believe that for a certain point of view. You cannot deny that this day is actually emphatically tied directly to and signaled by trumpets. The blowing of trumpets.

Are trumpets blown during any of the other holy days? Yes, a part of worship or a part of sacrifices, but they aren't identified by the blowing of trumpets. This day is that is significant. Now a trumpet carries meanings of alarm, assembly, war, royal announcements, divine intervention. These are the uses of trumpets and these uses are associated with this feast day.

Numbers describes the same day as a day of blowing the trumpets. Numbers chapter 29. Numbers chapter 29 verse 1. And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work. for you. It is a day of blowing the trumpets. The Hebrew expression here, Yam Terua, it carries the idea of a loud blast, an alarm or a shout.

There are those who want us to believe that somehow Pentecost carries that meaning and that in other words that this doesn't have to mean trumpet blast. And yet we have the very clear description of blowing of these trumpets. That's a unique way, by the way, of making the instrument sound. You don't play the trumpet with your hands.

You blow into it. You shout with your mouth and hot air comes out, but you're not blowing the hot air out. So, we have to see that there is meaning in these words. And application is by context. It's not difficult to see it or understand it. It's very plain if you want to. So you have to want to believe it means something else in order to argue that it means something different than what it actually means.

Scripture repeatedly connects Terua with actual trumpet or chauffear blasts. Both use the wind of the mouth blown. You can ask Mr. Row how he does that. He's It's not a mild exhale either. I will just tell you. I played trumpet when I was a young man. And uh I remember blowing on that thing robustly and getting in trouble in the basement because it was too loud in the neighborhood.

That's why they give you this thing called a mute. You're supposed to use that except that a mute sounds like you're on the other end of a tin can with connected to another tin can by a string. Nobody likes playing with a mute. All right, it's not anyway. Just sidebar. You know what I'm talking about if you're a horn player. Now, this day therefore announces an alarm rather than providing quiet background music for a festival.

It's an alarm being sounded. Notice Joel chapter 2. I don't want to steal from Mr. Portugus. I'll just read this one. Joel chapter 2. Joel chapter 2 verse one says, "Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord is coming for it is at hand.

" This isn't a shout. This event includes shouting. We read through revelation and we will see shouting, yelling, an announcement and the blowing of trumpets. So when we have a very clear meaning, we don't have to substitute the meaning for something else for a desired outcome or a desired understanding.

This is very plain language. Throughout scripture, trumpets frequently signal a warning of war, a call to arms, an alarm an alarm of danger, or a signal for divine intervention in battle. Those final seven trumpets announce escalating judgments during the day of the Lord. That is the final or seventh seal that is removed unfolding through seven trumpets.

You know when you have a series, you have a first in the series and you know what else? You have a last in the series. Can you think of anywhere else in the Bible where we have a series of trumpets that are blown in this way with this meaning? I can't. Doesn't mean it's not there. Somebody may go, "Oh, it's right here.

You can find one just like it." I couldn't find something like it. This is pretty clear. That seventh seal with seven trumpets, you have a first, you have a second, a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and that seventh one is the final one. It is the last trumpet. Notice this seventh trumpet over in Revelation 11.

This final trumpet, notice what it does. Revelations 11 and verse 15. Then the seventh angel sounded, the final angel, and there were loud voices in heaven. So we have the loud voices separate from the sounding and these loud voices are saying the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign forever and ever.

That's a royal announcement, a decree. Christ has now taken possession of the kingdoms of the world at that seventh trumpet, that final, that last trumpet. So this seventh trumpet marks the transfer of government from the rulership of men to the rulership of Jesus Christ. Now obviously that's not instant. He has to descend to take his place which he will.

But that trumpet blast heralds the change. It announces the change has taken place in heaven. The authority has been changed. Now the kingdoms of this earth are going to continue under their current rulers until Christ does his completion when he lands on Mount Olives and takes over destroys the final army that comes against him to become the ruler of this world.

At the seventh trumpet, Christ takes authority over all the kingdoms of men. Human rule reaches its limit because the rightful king takes possession of his throne. Revelation immediately connects that transfer of authority with judgment. The nations are angry because God's wrath has come.

But notice something here. We're still in Revelation uh 11. Revelation 11 verse 18 says, "The nations were angry and your wrath has come and the time of the dead that they should be judged and that you should reward your servants, the prophets and the saints, and those who fear your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth.

" So, Revelation here places the return of Christ, the resurrection of the saints, and the establishment of God's kingdom together at this seventh and final or last trumpet. So you'll note then the language that we clearly understand of the resurrections over in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 51.

Paul says, "Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." When? At the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound. That isn't a loud voice we're waiting for. That is a trumpet we are waiting to hear. That trumpet, that last trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed.

The dead are going to rise up out of their graves, as it were, to meet Christ in the air as he descends. And those who are alive and remain will be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, it says here in verse 52, at the last trumpet, because it's going to sound and the resurrection is going to occur.

So Christ is going to return at that seventh trumpet and a resurrection is going to happen at that seventh trumpet. If we go over to first Thessalonians chapter 4, Paul gives us this same sequence with different details or similar details. 1 Thessalonians 4. Let's pick this up in verse 13. He says, "I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep.

" We understand that that is those who have died. lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who sleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep.

For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout. Yes, there's a shout. But what else? With the voice of an archangel making the announcement. What else? And with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air that is in the oxygen.

atmosphere. We don't ascend to the third heaven where Christ is. He's coming down. You see the direction's all one way. Christ is coming down. He's not coming part way and going back. Okay? He's coming down. What's his destination? The Mount of Olives. Where do we go when we're resurrected? We don't go to the third heaven.

Says we rise to meet him in the air. Those who are dead rise to meet him in the air and we are changed to be with them if we are alive. So Christ's return and the resurrection occurred together in Paul's account. That's very clearly laid out. And what do I ask all the time for us to think through? What do we know? This is what we know.

This is what we know. Anything else has to be filtered through what we know. We don't change what we know because something sounds weird or sounds off or sounds different or even sounds interesting. If it conflicts with what we know, then we have to review why. And it isn't because what we know is wrong. There are those who want us to understand or believe that the Pentecost somehow is associated with the resurrection because Pentecost focuses on first fruits.

The answer to that is yes, it does focus on first fruits, but it has a different place in God's plan. It is the calling of those first fruits. It is the setting aside of those first fruit. It is the sanctification of those first fruits. But the prize is not delivered until Christ returns.

That's a separate event called the feast of trumpets. None of that happens until the seventh trumpet sounds. So we don't need to be confused about the application of the holy days. Pentecost has a very clear and distinct and important meaning. And it isn't the meaning of trumpets. The harvesting of the first fruits has been taking place generationally throughout or through the conversion and death of God's saints.

You know, Hebrews 11 meticulously walks us through biblical examples of what is called the saints. By faith Noah, by faith Abraham, by faith Sarah, by faith Moses, by faith all the examples of people who lived their belief in God, they're in the grave today. They're awaiting something. The sound of the seventh and last trumpet announcing Christ's return and their resurrection.

And notice at the end of Hebrews 11, we are told their fate. Verse 39 and 40 of Hebrews 11. And all these having obtained a good testimony through faith. Earlier it says without faith it is impossible to please God. They received a good testimony through faith but they did not receive the promise. Mr.

Row earlier read us the promise you will live. They have not received that promise. Verse 40 says God having provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us. They will be made perfect with us. We will be made perfect with them. This is our destiny. This is what the feast of trumpets is about. Christ began his ministry by announcing good news, healing, liberty, release.

He declared after he read from Isaiah 61 that this passage including the acceptable year of the Lord was fulfilled in their hearing. This is when it began to be fulfilled. Christ brought a jubilee to the lives of some few people to show what God has in his mind. what he wants to do for mankind, his creation, what he will do for his creation once Christ returns and takes his possession of the throne over all this earth.

Then Christ will fulfill the commission given to him by God to heal, to restore, to bless, to rebuild. A jubilee is coming for the whole world when Jesus Christ returns. But before that can happen, the day of the Lord must first happen. It unfolds with seven blasts of a trumpet concluding with the seventh and final trumpet.

The last trumpet when Jesus Christ will return to this earth descending from the third heaven. We will be resurrected. We will rise to meet him in the air. He will exercise God's judgment over the kingdoms of this earth. And he will become the king of kings and take his rightful place, establishing the government of God during the millennial period which follows that true jubilee which is to come.