The Day of Christ and the Day of the Lord

Mr. Walker talked about joy on the Feast of Trumpets. Now, that's not something we normally think about. Joy on the Feast of Trumpets. Now, usually I bring a shofar and blow it, and today I'm driving here, and I'm driving down the road, and I looked over at my wife and said, I forgot the shofar. And she looked at me and said, well, I was going to remind you, but I figured you wouldn't forget it. So part of me says I want to shift blame and make it her fault, but I can't. Okay? It'd be nice if I could, but it wasn't. I just left it there. And I usually blow it on this day, but we do know the shofar is an important part of this day, this blowing of a trumpet. And the blowing of a shofar, and I'm going to cover some old material here, but I want to, towards the end of the sermon, go into some things we usually don't cover in detail.

On the piece of trumpets that's actually part of this day. That's an important part of this day. The shofar, of course, was used for a lot of things. It was used to announce the new moons. And of course, the piece of trumpets is a new moon. It was used on holy days. It has an onomatous sound. You know, I thought I could have Mr. Fushi come up here and blow the trumpet, but you know what? You can't make that trumpet, you know, send shivers up and down your spine the way you can with a shofar. I mean, you can make a bad noise on that thing. I used to play the trumpet. I made a lot of bad noises, but you can't make it sound like a shofar. You can't make it just, I mean, just grabs your attention. So here we are on the day of the Lord. This has a prophetic meaning. And we know in the scripture that on the day of the Lord, it says, blow the trumpet. The shofar was to be blown on this day, and prophetically, it's to be blown. In other words, the sound is supposed to be made that gets everyone's attention. The blowing on the shofar on the Feast of Trumpets, in literally during the time of the seven trumpets, is not a pleasant sound. Now we also have in the New Testament, we have a few places that talk about the day of the Lord, not as many as the Old Testament, but we also have a phrase called the day of Christ. Now it's interesting that many churches say the day of the Lord and the day of Christ are different things. They're actually two different time periods. But are they? But they do have, if they are the same time period, we have to recognize that there's two different emphasis between what is called the day of the Lord and the day of Christ. So we're going to look today at the day of the Lord and the day of Christ. Let's start with Leviticus 23, where we have in verses 23 through 25, the basic instructions about the Feast of Trumpets. But I'm going to read this from the Jewish Publication Society translation, which is more of a literal translation from the Hebrew. Here's what it says in Leviticus 23. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the Israelite people, thus, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts. Actually, it's not literally the Feast of Trumpets. It's the Feast of Loud Blast. Well, they knew what that meant, and they blew the shofars. But notice the emphasis that there's the be a loud... It doesn't say beautiful trumpet music. So the Feast of Trumpets, although it's nice to have... I always appreciate when we have a trumpet playing. I really like when we do this... What is the Battle Hymn of the Republic? We have the trumpets playing and the choir singing. I like that, you know. I really like trumpets on this day. But if you go back to the original meaning, and it's good to have trumpets on this day, it meant loud blasts. It meant that shofar sound. You know, it wasn't a melody. Now, they would have played melodies, too, and I'll tell you why in a minute. But the whole point was the loud blast. We do know that that would have been very meaningful to people because that loud blast also meant war. It was a warning that there is danger, that there's war coming. And that, of course, is what we zero in on, and we will a little bit today, when we talk about the Day of the Lord and the Feast of Trumpets. But you know there was also other trumpets blown on this day? Not just the shofar. There were other trumpets blown. Let's go to Numbers, Chapter 10. Numbers, Chapter 10.

Verse 1.

And they were to be blown in some ways the same as the shofar. They were to be blown when they did sacrifices. They were to be blown on the holy days. They were to be blown on the new moons. But they were to be blown, by the way, in case of warning of war, too. But they had a different sound than the shofar. You know, probably these were more like a bugle. They were very long. But if they had a mouthpiece, you could do different things on it. That's the problem with a shofar. There's only so much you can do with that thing. If they had a mouthpiece on it, they could have taken that trumpet and made all different kinds of ranges of sounds that you couldn't on the shofar. So these trumpets were also blown. And they are blown. Now, there's a whole lot of reasons they're blown. But the primary reason is to assemble the people of God. To assemble the people of God for the worship of God, or if God had said something to say to them. I mean, when they were to come to the tabernacle, sometimes it's because Moses said, God has said something to me, and I'm to speak to you. Remember, when they would have first done this, when those trumpets blew and they came to the tabernacle, they could see the presence of God in that tabernacle. Because the cloud of smoke and the pillar of fire was there for 40 years. So when they first blew these trumpets and gathered everybody together, they came into the presence of God on earth. So we have the silver trumpets. The shofar is the main instrument that is blown on this day, but there were two other trumpets that were also blown. Now, during this time, we always go to Revelation, and we talk about the seven trumpets. You have seven seals that... It's a scroll in this image that John sees, this vision that he sees. There's a scroll and it has seven seals on it. And as each seal is broken, the scroll unrolls some, and there are prophecies about end-time events. The seventh seal is opened and there are seven trumpets. And of course, this is the Feast of Trumpets. And so we zero in on the seventh trumpet, which we understand and we know from the Book of Revelation is the return of Jesus Christ. It's the last trumpet when Christ returns. And so we talk a lot about Christ's return on this day. We understand for the New Testament Church, there is a prophetic meaning for this day. It's not just shadows of things in the past. It's shadows of things to come, and that's why we still keep it. Now, what I want to do is go to... I'm not going to go to the seven seals. I'm going to go to the sixth seal because we need to look at a few passages so that we understand that the Day of the Lord, which in the Old Testament always has to do with God pouring out wrath and judgment. The Day of the Lord is always about wrath and judgment of God on rebellious people. Well, let's go to Revelation 6. Revelation 6. And verse 12. So John is seeing this vision and this scroll has been opened piece by piece as each seal is broken. And he says, I looked when he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake. Now, he's going to describe something that's horrifying.

And the sun became black, a sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood, and the stars of the heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and every island was moved out of its place. Do you realize what's happening here? Not too long ago, I watched a program on Krakatoa in the 1800s. It's over in Indonesia where a literal island exploded. Just exploded because it was a volcano, and there was earthquakes, and there was tidal wave tsunamis that wiped out people. It killed over 30,000 people.

And what's happened is Krakatoa has rebuilt itself. It blew itself up. The island blew itself up. And the magma has now built... There's a huge volcano there. You know, less than 120 years later, the island's back with an active boiling volcano. And they're looking at it and saying, this thing's going to blow up again.

And when it does, there's now 2 million people in its path. Watching that and realizing what it was like for those people, and then I was reading this and I thought, wow, these are events like that. Not just happening in one place, but happening all over the world. Because verse 15 shows you people's response. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave, and every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, Jesus Christ.

They will see Jesus Christ coming and they will say, save us from the wrath of Christ of Jesus. For the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand? When Jesus comes back, he comes back in this day of wrath, in this day where God is pouring out his punishment on the entire earth. And the major reason why is the armies of the earth have come together.

They have come together to fight against him in total rejection of him, total rejection of the God of the God of the Bible. They are gathered together under the power of the beast power and under the power of Satan himself.

So in Jesus, the day of Christ is not the opposite of the day of the Lord. They're actually the same thing, but the term day of Christ actually teaches us something else about the day of the Lord that we need to zero in on. You know, when we talk about the day of the Lord, remember there are numerous days of the Lord in the Bible. I've talked about that many times. Israel went through its day of the Lord. Judah went through its day of the Lord. There's actually a day of the Lord that's coming in the future.

It's called the like of fire and it's called the day of the Lord. You know, Peter calls it that. But this is sort of the great day of the Lord. So many of the prophecies about the day of the Lord in the Old Testament always have two fulfillments. They'll talk about the day of the Lord to Israel or the day of the Lord to Judah. Then it'll talk about the day of the Lord on all nations.

You know, move out into something in the future. And whenever you read about the day of the Lord to all nations, it always has to do with the Messiah. And Christ is the Messiah. So according to the Old Testament, you know, the Lord, God, but the Messiah carries out this punishment on the earth.

That's why when we come together this day, you know, many times I've given sermons or I just went through all seven. If you remember, all seven of the trumpets, all seven of the seals and seven of the trumpets. Because that's part of what this is. But it is only part. So when we look at the Old Testament, and there's all these scriptures, you know, I've been going through the minor prophets in the Wednesday night Bible studies.

And my wife said to me the other day, she said, you know, almost every one of the Bible studies ends up sort of in the same cycle. Repent, repent, repent because of this, this, this, this, and this. And some of the prophets bring out different problems they had, but it's all, you know, everything from greed to idolatry, from sexual sins to oppression of the poor.

Okay, you had all these things and it keep piling up and piling up. And then everyone says, if you don't repent, I'm going to punish you. The day of the Lord is going to come upon you. And then almost in every case, there's a point where the prophet says, too late, too late, it's happening.

It's going to happen. And then there's always at the end, and there will come a time when I will gather my people out of wherever I have scattered them. And there'll be a great day of the Lord on all nations. She said, it's the same pattern. I said, yeah. They kept saying the same thing and nobody listened.

For hundreds of years, nobody listened. And I just find that the mighty prophet is so fascinating because there is a pattern. Now, the next studies we're going to do are post-exile. They're after the Jews came out of exile. So it's going to be a little different story, although some of the same message. And we're still going to find passages about the great day of the Lord in the future. And sort of the classic one that we'll just read one of all these Old Testament scriptures.

This is Zechariah 14. So let's go to Zechariah 14. So, so far, all we've looked at is what we will find mentioned. And almost every Feast of Trumpets you've come to in a sermon or part of the sermon, as these things are brought out. Verse 1, Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst.

And I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem, and the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished, and half of the city shall go into captivity. But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as he fights in the day of battle. And then it goes on and talks about how he's going to stand on the Mount of Olives. Now we know from the New Testament that it is Jesus Christ who's going to come stand on the Mount of Olives.

So we put this together. It is Jesus Christ that's carrying out this day of the Lord. So the day of the Lord and the day of Christ are not two different events. But the phrases are used purposely to explain two different aspects of this event. Now let me ask you something. We talk about the day of the Lord. I know I've actually had people tell me I hate sermons about those events because they just, I mean, they're frightening. And yes, they are. I understand that. I get uncomfortable while I'm giving them sometimes because they are frightening.

So we talk about the day of the Lord. What is your reaction? Sometimes people say that they don't want to hear about the day of the Lord because they have a comfortable life and they don't want to mess it up. I mean, all the problems we're going through right now with the political problems in this country and the COVID-19 and the violence and everything.

Oh, there'll come a time when these will be the good old days. I've said that over and over again because we have to have perspective. I mean, I'm not saying these things are good. I'm saying this is a terrible time because this is at the end of the tribulation. When man has just destroyed everything, when God says, I'm going to get your attention now and God is coming and pouring out His wrath through Jesus Christ.

So how do we look at that? I don't want that to happen. You know, all my life I've wanted this to happen. And every once in a while I think, you know, it wouldn't be bad to die before this. But that's not... How are we to approach this? Are you filled with fear? And I've talked to people who feel this way. Because they just feel like I'm never good enough. God's not going to accept me.

I'm not good enough. So I have to do this and I have to do that and I have to do the other. And we all should be growing. That's not the point. But this fear that I'm not good, I can't measure up. So I dread Christ's coming because I may be punished because it is a time of punishment. Or maybe you just seldom think about it. You know, oh, I hate prophecy, sermons. I seldom think about these things. It's not that important to me.

Someday it's going to be important to somebody, I can guarantee you, because somebody's going to be alive when this happens. Or maybe you're just one of the ones saying, no, I feel secure. You know, I keep the Sabbath. I keep the holy days. I've got all this knowledge. You know, this really won't apply to me. Well, how should we approach this? How should we approach this? Well, to answer that, let's look at some places in the Scripture where New Testament now, where it talks about the day of Christ.

I mean, we've seen, and there's other places where I can connect them together, but the day of the Lord, the day of Christ are two different things. What happens in evangelical churches a lot of times, is the day of Christ is the rapture, and the day of Lord is God's wrath on humanity. But I'm sorry, they all happened at the same time. Sorry, I mean, the bottom line is they all happened at the same time. The day of the Lord, the day of Christ are the same thing, but they're two different emphases. Let's go to 2nd Thessalonians, because this is going to have, should have an enormous impact on how we see the difficulties in the world around us, and should actually bring us during this time when we're, you know, celebrating, if you will, we're observing a future event when God's wrath is poured out on this earth.

This should give us peace, and this should bring confidence into our lives. 2nd Thessalonians 2. Now, this is a prophecy that I read here not too long ago, and I went through the, no, not in 2nd Thessalonians, where we went through the beast. And I'm not going to go through all this prophecy.

I just want to bring up, show in these first two verses, the point that Paul is making. Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ has come.

Now, what he does, he tells us what the day of Christ is. It's when Christ gathers together His people. Think of those two silver trumpets, calling a gathering of the congregation. Well, this is the day of the gathering of the congregation of God, not just those who are alive, but it's the gathering of the congregation of all those who have ever lived, who received God's Spirit and were prepared for this day. God's pouring out His wrath, but God looks at this time as in a very positive way because there's something else happening.

In fact, in Paul's first letter that we have, so the Thessalonians, he describes this in great detail. So let's go to 1 Thessalonians 4. Now, we read this a lot at funerals, but it's important in understanding that he's describing the day of the Lord. He's describing the gathering.

Remember, he said the day of Christ is the gathering of everyone together. So what happens at that? Verse 13. But I do not want you to be ignorant, brother, in concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. We know both Jesus and Paul, in fact, the entire Old Testament, talks about death as sleep. So we understand what that is. All those who are dead are awaiting a resurrection. They don't know what's happened.

You die, you're resurrected. That's all it is in their experience. There is no passage of time. There's nothing. You die, you wake up. That's it. That's their experience. Now, in reality, there's a time frame in between there, but they don't know that. I think being resurrected is going to be a shocking experience. Because what just happened to me? Because your last thought is going to be here, and your next thought is here.

So he says, don't be, you know, there's a comfort that comes in realizing what death is, but the answer to death is a future event of gathering. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, verse 14, 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.

Now, this is really important, because if you truly believe in the rapture, you have a problem here. Okay, I can't precede those who have fallen asleep. That means they must already be there. But that's not what this is talking about. This is talking about a gathering and a resurrection. Well, that means that I can't be changed until they're resurrected, but that they're already there, but they have to come back to be resurrected. There's a whole problem with the rapture concept, and we see it here. The simple idea that death is sleep, there's a resurrection and a change of those who are alive.

Why? Because the people being resurrected and those who are being changed are being gathered together. This is God's focus on this day. That's why all the places of the Old Testament where it talks about the day of the Lord, you will always find, but God is going to fix this, because in the great day of the Lord, and then you'll find all these messianic prophecies and prophecies about God's kingdom on this earth. God's focus of this is not, I'm sending Christ back to hurt people, to punish people. That's not his focus. Now, that's what has to happen. It's unfortunate. His focus is, I get to, you get to meet me.

God's met us. He knows us. His focus is, we get to meet him. That's his focus. That's his focus. I get to sit down with my kids. They get to see me face to face. It's a totally different focus. He says, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of an archangel, and of course with the trumpet of God, of course, the seven trumpet will sound, and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Well, I don't know why they have to rise if they're already in heaven, but the idea is they have to come back and get a body, because having a spiritual body is a good thing. That means everybody in heaven doesn't have a spirit body, which means they must be miserable.

So you go to heaven and wait for a better thing. Explain that. You die in good heaven, you wait for something better, because I need my body. So you're floating around like a ghost waiting to get a spiritual body. That's the explanation. No, it's a simple explanation.

And the dead in Christ will rise first. The dead come up, and those who are alive at the time see it. Oh, good. We go now. Everybody now goes. And they shall be caught up together, the gathering, the blowing of the trumpets, the gathering of the congregation.

They shall brought up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, to meet Him, not to pray, not to come here and worship God and Jesus Christ, not here to come here and talk about Him with this sort of... We do have a connection with Him, but it's not like this. To meet Him for the first time we meet Him. For the first time we understand all the questions you have. They don't even matter anymore. We get to meet Him.

And thus we shall always be with the Lord, therefore comfort one another with these words. You see, there's two parts to this judgment. There's the judgment of the wrath of God poured out on a rebellious humanity. And there's the judgment of God on those who are His children, those who have repented, those who have received God's Spirit, those who have submitted to the work of God.

And so you and I, looking at the day of the Lord and the wrath God's going to put on the world, that's one aspect of this. The aspect that applies to us is the day of Christ. When He comes back and does that, there's a blowing of the trumpets to gather His people, His congregation, so we can meet Him. See, we keep talking about... Because, you know, the older I get, I really want to spear a body, man alive, who thought that taking a nap can make you hurt, right?

So I want that. And then, you know, more and more, it's not like that's not the focus. I want to meet Him. I literally, I want to meet Him. I want to worship Him there. I want to meet my Father. That's Christ's viewpoint of this day.

Unfortunately, I have to fight the rebellious children. But you know what's happening? I get to gather together my congregation, and we get to meet each other, and wait till you meet the Father. It's very interesting. I was working on this sermon. I got a call from an elder in another church area, and he said, I was just reading Hebrews 928.

He said, I'd like your explanation of that, because he said, I've never really studied this one verse. So he gave me his explanation. I said, well, that's how I see it. And he said, wow. And I thought, yeah, wow. Sometimes we take these verses and we read them and read them to the point where we're not wow anymore. Hebrews 9, verse 28. And the context here, so it's in the middle of the sentence, but the context here is how Jesus Christ was sacrificed for the sins of all who accept Him as the sacrifice. And of course, we know that when you accept Christ's sacrifice, it's more than just a belief.

You now are reconciled back to God, and as you are reconciled to God, we must repent and receive God's Spirit. All these concepts are in all this, not in detail, but they're all here. Christ's death for us is so that our sins are erased. And we now receive the power from God to change. Just to be forgiven and not to change would be incredibly meaningless. I'm going to forgive you, but you go ahead. You stay a thief, a murderer, a liar, a cheat.

You stay all those things, but I forgave you. What does that mean? It's meaningless. We are given the power to change. Now, it takes a long time, doesn't it? We're all works in progress here. We're all works in progress. But it says in verse 28, So Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many, and to those who eagerly wait for him, he will appear a second time apart from sin, but for salvation.

Now, when he pours out his wrath on those armies gathered against him, it's because what? They're sinning. So what does he mean by apart from sin for salvation? That's the congregation. He's coming back to save us.

We've lost that. We've lost that. We're trapped in the quagmire of the inconsequential details of life. You've been called to be saved. You're in a work right now. You are a work of God to be saved. And he comes back the second time because your sins don't matter. They've been forgiven, and you've been changed, and you will be changed to give an eternal life. Why? Because that's why he called us. Do we not understand it? He called us to save us. But we're still locked in our past sins. He said, I've already forgave you of that. We're still trapped in our present sins. And he says, well, I'll give you the power to overcome that. I don't believe in the future. I just everything's bad. Everything's negative. He said, but I just want to meet you. Those who eagerly wait, are we eagerly waiting? Because that's what this day is about. It's about us eagerly waiting. We don't have to live in the dread of God's wrath on this day, as long as we are submitting to him. The problem is, half the time, we're trying to work out our own salvation. Apart from God, won't work. You and I can't save ourselves. Only through the power of God can we be saved, and we have to submit to that. That's where our part is, and that's why we can lose salvation. But you know, it's amazing how there are so few verses to talk about losing salvation. Most of the verses are about, look what I can do. This is what God says us. Look what I can do. And you know what our answer is? No, you can't know with me. Oh yeah, look what I can do. He's coming apart from sin. He's not talking about the beast power, right? Who's he talking about? The congregation is gathered together. He says, I'm coming for salvation. I'm coming to finish the work that we started in you a long time ago. God started this work in us a long time ago. Even if you're young, some of you here, He started working with you when you were born.

And so what we do is we get caught up in the minutiae. We got caught up in the nothingness of life. And we miss this. We miss this. But we have to, that means we must eagerly look towards this. And why would we eagerly look towards this? Because it's like, because we understand we're a work in progress and we get finished. And you and I don't get finished because of our effort. Now our effort's required, but our effort can't finish us. It can't make us righteous. It can't give us an eternal body. It can't give us a clean mind forever and ever. Only God can do that. Let's look what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians 1. Hebrews 9.28. I was thinking about this verse, and I get a call from another minister and says, I've been thinking about this verse, and we talk for an hour. 1 Corinthians 1.

I knew 1 Corinthians was in here this morning. Let's start in verse 4. I thank my God always, Paul writes to the Corinthians, concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus. You and I can't save ourselves. We have to give everything we have to this, but what are we submitting to the work of God? We're submitting to His Spirit in us. We're submitting to the guidance of Jesus Christ.

We're submitting to God as our Father. We're submitting to what God is doing. We're not doing it ourselves. You can keep the Ten Commandments perfect for your whole life and not obtain salvation if you don't accept Jesus Christ. It's that simple. Now, should we keep the Ten Commandments? Yes. Could you lose your salvation for giving up the Ten Commandments? Yes. But that's, you know, we zero in on the negatives sometimes. We forget. God says, oh no, I can do this.

God wants to keep reminding us, no, no, no, I can do this. This is, I can do this. Just settle down. Just let me do it. This favor from God. We can't do it ourselves. That you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you. He says, you received all the words and all the knowledge you need. He told that in Corinth, and it's still here today. You are receiving all the words and all the knowledge you're going to receive.

Now, as time goes on, you grow, you'll receive more and more. But we're receiving exactly what we need for God to do His work in us so that the testimony of Jesus Christ is confirmed in us. It doesn't say confirmed so that everybody believes it or confirmed to the world who Jesus Christ is in this work and this forgiveness and this change and the coming to be gathered is in us.

If it's external, we won't get it. Oh, we can go through the motions, but we won't get it. It's got to be in us. It's confirmed. That means it's established. It's made solid inside of us. Not external, inside. He says, God's grace has allowed this to happen to you. What is God holding back from you so that He won't give you salvation? What is it? You know, if we say, well, yeah, but I just think of my past.

Well, what is God holding back from you? According to what Paul says, nothing. He says, so that you come short in no gift, whatever God gives us as gifts, and they're gifts. He says, you'll have every gift you need. Every gift you need when Christ comes back apart from sin for salvation will be given to you if you'll grab hold of it, if you want it. I says, don't you understand what I can do? He goes on, He says, eagerly waiting.

We're back to eagerly waiting. We are eagerly waiting for what? For the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will also confirm you to the end, who make you stable to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. He said, He's doing this. He's going to make you stable. If we're unstable, it's because we've left Him. There's nothing unstable about Jesus Christ. If we're with Him, we have stability. If we move away from Him, we have no stability. It's that simple. And then we get into minutia and things that are important and our lives are moving away from God.

Now look at the next verse. God is faithful. When we say, God can't work with me, when we give up, when we become the other extreme, just self-righteous and mean-spirited, when we become that way, what we're saying is, God, you can't do this. I have to do it myself. Or I can't make it because I can't do it myself. And God says, well, you never could do it yourself. He is faithful. He will do what He promises as long as we believe the promise. For God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Fellowship. See, God is all about relationships. And you are God's looking forward for this day.

God's not looking forward to, oh, I get to kill all those people. God's looking forward to us. I'm sorry they're that way, but you know what? I get to gather my children together. I get to fellowship with them in a way that they can't even imagine. That's how God sees this day. I get to fellowship. Christ says, I get to see them. You know what? I imagine He's just really looking forward to talking to Abraham and Sarah. Hey, told you I could do it. Peter, you don't think Jesus wants to see His mother Mary?

Of course He does. She's asleep. He wants to see her again. But you know what? He wants to see you. Understand, He wants to see you. That's the day of Christ. It is not the day of wrath. It's the day of gathering for us. It's the day of wrath for the world. I can guarantee you that. That's why you don't want to be back out in that world. This is how God sees this. Let's go to Philippians 1.6.

One of my favorite verses in Philippians. Philippians 1 verse 6. Breaking into the middle of a sentence again, but the important part is this phrase. Being confident. You can have confidence. Where does your confidence come from? Where does it come from? Being confident of this very thing. That He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until what? The day of Jesus Christ. It gets completed then.

We have to have confidence that God's going to work with us. That God's going to complete us. Because He said, I am faithful to complete you. If He doesn't complete us, it's because we won't let Him. This is never a question about God's ability to convert you. He can do it. That's never been the question. It's never been the question if He's going to do it. He says, I'll do it.

That's never been a question. Because the problem is, do we believe it? Do we believe it? Because He says that the day of Christ, you'll be done. You'll be done then. Then we really get to learn things. We really get to learn things then. One last passage quickly here. Back to 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians again, because Paul talks about the day of Christ more in 1 Thessalonians than any other of his letters.

And this he talks directly about the day of the Lord. He's talked about the day of Christ. We've already looked at two places where he talks about the day of Christ. He talks about the day of the Lord. Verse 1, he says, But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

So he goes on and describes how the world is going to be surprised when the day of the Lord happens. They have no idea that God's going to punish them. They have no idea that their rebellion is why their world has fallen apart. They have no idea. And they're going to fight against Jesus Christ. And he says, it's going to be as a thief in the night to them. Verse 4 says, But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day should not overtake you as a thief. He says, you should know better.

You should see the way the world is going. And you should be submitting to God's work. Submitting to God's work. And it is against our human nature, by the way, to submit to God's work. God has to really work with us. It's just not normal for us to submit to love your neighbor. It's normal for us to be stubborn. It's normal for us to be rebellious. It's normal for us to be angry.

This is normal for us. It's normal for us not to love our neighbor. That's what's normal for us. Now, let's go down to verse 9. Here's what you need to remember. For God did not appoint us to wrath. He said, you haven't been called to be part of the outpouring of God's wrath. That's not why you've been called. God hasn't appointed you for that.

God hasn't called you for that. God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we awake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Now, notice the few point again. Notice the focal point. The day of the Lord's happening, that's not when it happens, and that wrath comes out on the world.

That's not us. We are being prepared for the gathering, right? The gathering at that resurrection and that change, whether we're awake or asleep, dead or alive, it won't matter, we'll be alive, and we will be gathered, what? That we should live together with Him. Sometimes we like our lives so much, we like this better than the idea of living with God.

What this day should zero us in on is that humanity and our lives will never be eternally full of joy and love and long suffering and gentleness and mercy and faith and peace. We get little bits and pieces of it, even with God's Spirit. That all those things happen when we're completed and we live with God. Understand that.

God is creating you for something absolutely beyond our comprehension. It is so good for us, and we like this life more. I know there's times I do. I'm not concentrating on God. I'm concentrating on something else. No, it's not wrong. You have fun. It's not wrong. I mean, I'm not saying that. But you know what I mean? Our lives get—the whole center of life moves over. And when your center of life moves over, we're not looking forward to this. We're not looking forward to this. Remember, the shofar blows, and that's a terrible sound. And the two silver trumpets blow and say, Gather my people. Gather my people.

God has called you to eagerly wait for the seventh trumpet. Oh, no, I don't want to. No, don't talk about that. He has called you to eagerly wait for it. Waiting's not easy, especially when you realize all the bad things have to happen. But you're supposed to be eager about this. I'm supposed to be eager about this. Sometimes I'm thinking, oh, I don't want to. Oh, no. Please let the tribulation be long in the future. When I was younger, it was like, let it happen now. Yeah. Now it's like, maybe next year sometime. How's that? Two years and I—that'd be good. Yeah, you know what bad times happen two years from now.

Now we're supposed to eagerly wait. We can't become complacent in this. Why are we eagerly waiting? Because God is working on us to give us something beyond we can imagine.

You see, what we have to recognize is that God, our Father, and Jesus Christ, our Lord, when you read the scriptures, are eagerly waiting for us.

We discount that. We discount our God, and we discount our Lord Jesus Christ.

They're waiting for us, and we have all kinds of reasons, all kinds of condemnations of each other, all types of sin, all kinds of things that keep us from eagerly waiting for them.

Think about this. The Almighty God and Christ are eagerly waiting for, and I want all of you in your mind to say, I don't mean me. I don't mean me. I mean you. He is eagerly waiting for, okay? That's what He's doing.

Because as the children of God, which is how He looks on us, He wants us to be able to meet Him face to face. That's what the day of the Lord and the day of Christ are all about.