day of the Lord

The Messiah’s glorious return in Psalm 110

For the scribes and rabbis of ancient Israel, Psalm 110 was a dense thicket of mysteries. The psalm was rightly perceived as Messianic, but the meaning of the visions in its verses was entirely opaque. Thus, this psalm received little commentary from Jewish scholars in the Talmud and the Midrash.

But since David penned this psalm a thousand years before Jesus, redemptive history has produced the Incarnation, and the crucifixion and resurrection of the Messiah, and divinely inspired prophecies in the completed text of Scripture now give us the end of the story. The net effect is that Psalm 110 can now be seen for what it is, a detailed prophecy of the coming of the Messiah as King and Judge at the end of the age. This post will demonstrate the parallels between Psalm 110 and other end-times prophecy in the Bible.

1 The LORD says to my Lord:
“Sit at My right hand
Until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.”

This scene takes place in heaven shortly after Christ’s ascension following His resurrection. The Son of God has accomplished the work of redemption which was given to Him by the Father in His Incarnation (John 17:4). His work was finished as He died His atoning death on the cross (John 19:30). He was raised from the dead on the third day and now Jesus has ascended back to heaven to sit at the Father’s right hand (Eph. 1:20-21; Rev. 5:13) to await the time when the Father will send Him back to earth to vanquish all His enemies (Matt. 24:36).

2 The LORD will stretch forth Your strong scepter from Zion, saying,
“Rule in the midst of Your enemies.”

Now the time has come! Now the Father has decided that it is time to end the age and to bring a just recompense on all His enemies. And so, the Father hands the royal scepter to the Son and sends Him forth to judge and to vanquish the earth. Then will appear “a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war” (Rev. 19:11). The Son is now coming to tread out the great wine press of the wrath of God (Rev. 14:19-20; 19:15).

3 Your people will volunteer freely in the day of Your power;
In holy array, from the womb of the dawn,
Your youth are to You as the dew.

On that day, the day of Christ’s power, the glorified saints (“Your people in holy array”) will return with the Lord (1 Thess. 3:13; Rev. 19:14), and they will “volunteer freely” and will deal out recompense along with their King (Psalm 149:5-9).

4 The LORD has sworn and will not change His mind,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”

The Lord Jesus has always been Priest and King and Prophet, but here we are allowed to attend the ordination ceremony that took place in eternity past when God the Father anointed God the Son to be a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

5 The Lord is at Your right hand;
He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath.

This is still on the Last Day when the Lord Jesus returns to judge the nations and to “shatter kings.” “A day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and battle cry. On the day of the LORD’s wrath, all the earth will be devoured in the fire of His jealousy, for He will make a complete end, indeed a terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the earth” (Zeph. 15-18). As David and Zephaniah tell of the day of the Lord’s wrath, so we read of that same day in Revelation 6:15-17:

15 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; 16 and they *said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

The point here in this verse is that, the day of wrath spoken about by David ca. 1000 BC is the same day of wrath spoken about by the prophet Zephaniah and by the apostle John. This is the day of the Lord.

6 He will judge among the nations,
He will fill them with corpses,
He will shatter the chief men over a broad country.              

On the day of the Lord, when Jesus returns, He will judge the nations (Matt. 25:31-32). When He comes in power and glory, Jesus will slaughter all the unrighteous (Rev. 19:21) and will destroy kings and commanders and mighty men (Rev. 19:18-19). Again, we see David’s vision of the day of the Lord repeated in John’s vision of the same event.

CONCLUSION

The Person of Jesus the Messiah removes the mysteries from Psalm 110. Jesus is God the Son who sits at the Father’s right hand. Jesus is the one who will rule in the midst of His enemies. Jesus is the one who will lead His glorified saints to victory on the Last Day. Jesus is the one who is a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. Jesus will shatter kings, judge the nations, slaughter the unrighteous, and shatter the chief men on the day of His wrath. “Therefore, He will lift up His head.”            

SDG                 RMB                10/19/2021                 #442

The end-times in four verses (Isaiah 26:19-27:1)

The prophet Isaiah lived about 700 years before the birth of Jesus, and yet the book of his prophecy contains some of the most remarkable predictions and foreshadows of the Messiah’s first and second advents found in the Old Testament. The accuracy of Isaiah’s prophecy about the events of Jesus’ Incarnation are well-known to most Christians, including predictions of Jesus’ virgin birth, His ministry in Galilee, and His work of atonement to take away sins by His death on the cross. What is not as well-known is that Isaiah also had a lot in his prophecy about Jesus’ Second Coming when He returns in power and glory at the end of the age. This article is about one of Isaiah’s end-times passages.

In one short section of four consecutive verses, Isaiah writes about four key events that will occur at the end of the age. In Isaiah 26:19-27:1, the prophet leaps over thousands of years of human history to tell us about the resurrection, the great tribulation, the return of the LORD, and the judgment of Satan, one major event per verse. And what Isaiah wrote in 700 BC agrees with what other biblical writers have penned since. The Holy Spirit inspired Isaiah to write of future events, and Ezekiel and Daniel and Zephaniah and Jesus Himself and John and Paul and others have confirmed the prophecies Isaiah wrote.

ISAIAH 26:19 – THE RESURRECTION

In this verse, Isaiah gives a crystal-clear prophecy of the general resurrection.

19 Your dead will live;
Their corpses will rise.
You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy,
For your dew is as the dew of the dawn,
And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.

   At the end of the age, the dead will live, and their corpses will rise out of the dust. The tomb will become a womb. This is the resurrection, when “those who are Christ’s at His coming (Parousia) (1 Cor. 15:23)” will be made alive. This is what Ezekiel described in the valley of dry bones, when bone came to its bone and sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin, and “breath came into them and they stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army (Ezek 37:7-10). Daniel prophesied that “many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life (Daniel 12:2).” Jesus talked about this event in John 5:28-29: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth.” In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul tells of the resurrection when he writes, “The last trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed (15:52).” In 1 Thess. 4:16-17, Paul gives the most complete description of the resurrection: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” So, Isaiah writes first of the resurrection.

            At the end of the age, the dead will live, and their corpses will rise out of the dust. The tomb will become a womb. This is the resurrection, when “those who are Christ’s at His coming (Parousia) (1 Cor. 15:23)” will be made alive. This is what Ezekiel described in the valley of dry bones, when bone came to its bone and sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin, and “breath came into them and they stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army (Ezek 37:7-10). Daniel prophesied that “many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life (Daniel 12:2).” Jesus talked about this event in John 5:28-29: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth.” In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul tells of the resurrection when he writes, “The last trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed (15:52).” In 1 Thess. 4:16-17, Paul gives the most complete description of the resurrection: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” So, Isaiah writes first of the resurrection.

           

ISAIAH 26:20 – THE TRIBULATION

Now Isaiah tells of a time of tribulation when the people of God are forced to hide until the conflict passes.

20 Come, my people, enter your rooms
And close your doors behind you;
Hide for a little while
Until indignation runs its course.

God’s people are urged to “enter your rooms and close the doors behind them.” Outside is some great “indignation” that is threatening them and, to avoid being annihilated, they must “hide for a little while.” This is describing the time of the great tribulation, which Jesus mentioned in Matthew 24:21-22, when the church is severely persecuted, and the best course of action is to retreat into hiding. This is also what John is describing in Revelation 12:6, when “the woman” (the faithful church) “fled into the wilderness where she had a place prepared by God to be nourished for 1,260 days.” The exact event is described again in Revelation 12:14 where “the woman could fly into the wilderness to her place where she was nourished for time and times and half a time, from the face of the serpent.” The church will hide in the wilderness until they are rescued by the returning Jesus Christ. So, we see that Isaiah also wrote about the great tribulation.

ISAIAH 26:21 – THE RETURN OF THE LORD

21 For behold, the Lord is about to come out from His place
To punish the inhabitants of the earth for their wrongdoing;
And the earth will reveal her bloodshed
And will no longer cover her slain.

Now Isaiah tells us about the terrifying day of the LORD when He will “punish the inhabitants of the earth for their wrongdoing.” This is a day of wrath and judgment, a day of thick darkness. The prophets and the Lord Jesus in His Incarnation and the church through her preachers and prophets have been warning of this day for thousands of years, but usually men refuse to hear and refuse to heed and refuse to repent. (See Revelation 9:20-21.) Now the day has come, and there is no room for repentance. The prophet Zephaniah warned of this day: “A day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and battle cry (Zephaniah 1:15-16).” Paul wrote of that day in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-8 “when the Lord Jesus will be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” Revelation 19:15 presents an awesome image of the returning Christ: “From His mouth comes a sharp sword so that He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.” And Isaiah wrote of this day 700 years before Christ.

ISAIAH 27:1 – THE JUDGMENT OF SATAN

21 On that day the LORD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
With His fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent;
And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.

Finally, Isaiah’s prophecy reaches all the way to the end of history at the end of the last day as Satan himself is being judged. “The LORD will punish Leviathan.” And who is Leviathan? He is “the fleeing serpent” and “the twisted serpent.” Does Scripture tell us of any serpents? There was a serpent in the Garden who tempted Eve. In Revelation we read that “the serpent of old, the dragon, who is the devil and Satan (20:2; also, in 12:9).” “The fleeing serpent” and “the twisted serpent” are none other than Satan. Isaiah also tells us of “the dragon who lives in the sea.” And who is the dragon? From the same verses in Revelation, we see that the great dragon is another alias for Satan. Satan is the serpent, he is the dragon, he is Leviathan. From Isaiah 27:1, “On that day, the LORD will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.” In Revelation 20:10, we read almost the same thing from the pen of the apostle John: “And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone to be tormented day and night forever and ever.” And so, just as Isaiah prophesied, so it will be on that day, the day of the LORD.

In this remarkable passage, in four verses the prophet Isaiah gives us sure prophecies of four events that will occur at the end of the days.

SDG                 rmb                 3/22/2021

End-Times Study of 2 Thess. 2: Introduction to the study

Because the unprecedented events of recent history have been happening very quickly and because things that seemed far-fetched only a short time ago are now matters of fact and reality, I felt the desire to write a series of blog posts on 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12, one of the clearest passages in the Bible on the events that will take place at the end of history. This section of Scripture presents key information about the events and personalities of the end-times, the time just before the return of Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 2 also provides connections to other eschatological passages in the Bible, which enables us to form a clearer and more cohesive picture of last things.

OVERVIEW OF THE STUDY

The study will be presented in a series of blog posts which cover the features Paul presents to his readers in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12. This blog will be an introduction to the study, including an overview of the entire passage and a consideration of the context of the letter of 2 Thessalonians. Subsequent posts will examine each of the major features (events, personalities, etc.) of this passage and attempt to clarify their place in the end-times mosaic. This examination of the major features of the passage will also show connections and similarities with other Scriptures, demonstrating that the Bible presents a consistent and discernable vision for last things. The purpose of the study is to help us be ready and be on the alert (Matthew 24:42, 43, 44; 25:10, 13) for Jesus’ return. The goal of the study is to show that, while we are aware that Jesus could return at any time, there are end-times events occurring almost every day that persuade me that Jesus could be very “near, right at the door (Matthew 24:33).” Recognizing the time should move us to greater urgency with our task of proclaiming the gospel and should remind us to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel.

OVERVIEW OF THE PASSAGE

The letter of 2 Thessalonians was written by the apostle Paul around AD 52. Paul wrote two letters to these new believers at Thessalonica to encourage them in the face of persecution and to remind them of the things that he (Paul) had taught them when he founded the church a few months before. Both 1 and 2 Thessalonians contain eschatological (end-times) passages. 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18 gives details about the resurrection of believers, both those who have already died (“fallen asleep”) when Jesus returns and those who are still alive when He comes. 2 Thessalonians gives a picture of the actual return of Christ in 1:6-10, as well as giving details of the events which lead up to Christ’s return in our subject passage in 2:3-12. The reason Paul is writing 2 Thessalonians 2 is that some people had been spreading the news that the day of the Lord (i.e., the day that Jesus returns) had already come (2:1-2). Paul says, “not so.” “Let no one in any way deceive you (2:3).”

Paul then goes on to explain in 2:3-12 the way future events will unfold to convince the believers in Thessalonica that they have definitely not missed the day of the Lord. First, there are two events that must take place before the day of the Lord can come: The “apostasy” and the revealing of the man of lawlessness (2:3). (I am going to refer to these as “gating events,” because, until they happen, they effectively prevent the day of the Lord from occurring.) When he is revealed, the man of lawlessness makes a huge show of himself and even displays himself as being God (2:4). But “now” the man of lawlessness is being restrained until his time has come (2:6-7). Then, when he is finally revealed, “the lawless one” will engage in the activity of Satan and will show off with signs and false wonders (2:9). With every “deception of wickedness,” the man of lawlessness will deceive the unrighteous because they did not believe the truth of the gospel (2:10). God then sends on the unrighteous “a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false (2:11).” The unrighteous will thus be condemned because they did not believe the truth (2:12), and the Lord will slay the man of lawlessness with the breath of His mouth at His coming (2:8).

These are the events that we want to unpack over this series of blogs to see what they reveal about the end-times.

EVENTS AND TOPICS TO BE COVERED IN THE STUDY

Here are some of the events and topics that will be covered in these blogs:

  • The apostasy (2:3) (“gating event”)
  • the man of lawlessness – his revealing (“gating event”), his activity, his source of power, his end. Many cross-references and similarities to other Scriptures and other figures.
  • The “restrainer” (2:6-7)
  • The “Parousia” (coming) of Jesus (2:8)
  • The “deception of wickedness” (2:10)
  • “A deluding influence” (from God) (2:11)

CONNECTIONS WITH OTHER SCRIPTURE

In this study, we will be looking at other eschatological passages in the Scriptures, particularly in Daniel and Revelation, and will see that, while a single passage may leave us confused about its meaning, a second or a third passage or verse as cross-reference or comparison can make the obscure clear. Hopefully by the end of this study, there will be a greater understanding of eschatological terms and concepts, and a clearer understanding of the overall flow of end-times in general. It is my opinion that, if we meet these goals, we will sense a greater urgency to live for Jesus and the gospel.      

SDG                 rmb                 1/21/2021