MATTHEW 24
AFTER THOSE DAYS

The Antichrist was introduced in verse 15, and the Tribulation begins immediately afterwards. God interrupts the Tribulation of the Antichrist in verse 29 by turning the lights out on him—both to stop the wars, persecutions and bloodshed and to let everyone know that time is up. It is the sign the whole world will recognize because the whole gospel has been preached to all the world, including the good news of Jesus’ triumphant return in the clouds to deliver His people. In verse 30, Jesus finally arrives in the clouds. Every eye will see Him—those who pierced Him, those who beat Him, those who mock His name, those who hate His righteous believers, those who cast His words to the ground and trample over them and, of course, those who love His appearing.

Titus 2:13

LOOKING FOR that blessed hope, and the glorious APPEARING of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

Jesus, who is frequently referred to as the Son of man in the Scriptures, appears in the heavens as He approaches in the clouds. Jesus Himself is called a sign in verse 30 because He is the final and unmistakable sign that the end of the world has arrived. It will be a sign of joy for believers who are about to be transported into the presence of God, but it will also be the sign of troubles to come for those who will have nothing to look forward to but vengeance. God’s mercy may allow for a road-to-Damascus-type conversion when He appears. In Acts 9, Jesus confronted Paul as he was on his way to Damascus to persecute and kill Christians. Paul, knowing the predicament he was in, immediately submitted himself to Jesus, calling Him Lord. Paul went on to live a miraculous life of service to the Lord as opposed to being judged and condemned by God because of his fervent actions against the Church. The Holy Spirit had been attempting to convict Paul’s heart of the sins he was committing, but Paul was unable to repent because of the rigorous religious training he had received. He repented quickly after Jesus confronted him and entered into a strong relationship with Him.

There may possibly be many death-bed-type conversions at the appearing of Jesus Christ in the clouds as the world is denied the luxury of denying His lordship any longer. Those who have been struggling in their own hearts between the anointing of the gospel they have heard and the other things they have been taught all their lives may get one last chance. However, because the Resurrection takes place at the sounding of the same last trump that announces the coming of Jesus and lasts for only one blink of an eye, this theory about last-minute conversions at the appearing of Jesus may not be anything more than just a theory. Anyone who decides to wait and see whether He really does appear in the sky is waiting too long.

Matthew 24:30 And then shall APPEAR THE SIGN of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and THEY SHALL SEE the Son of man COMING IN THE CLOUDS of heaven with power and great glory.

In Acts 1:9-11, the angels said to those who had just witnessed Jesus being taken up into a cloud that He would return “in like manner”—in a cloud. It may be the same cloud He left in, but this time it is bringing Him back, and we will be the ones gathered into the cloud. Revelation 1:7 tells us point blank that when He does return in the clouds “every eye shall see him, and they who pierced him.” The Rapture will not be a mysterious disappearance of millions, leaving behind only shoes, ties, jackets and Bibles, but it will be openly witnessed by the whole world— sinner and saint alike—and everyone will understand what’s going down, or in this case, who is going up and who is not.

Revelation 1:7

Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall SEE Him, and those also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.

A shout, a trump and clouds again. In the following verses concerning the one and only Rapture, we see the heavens shaken, the final trumpet sounding and Jesus coming in the clouds to gather His own to Himself. First Thessalonians clearly illustrates that when He returns in the clouds, it is solely for the purpose of gathering His elect, both those who have already died and those who are still alive at His return. The word “we,” which appears twice in verse 17, is referring to us. Regardless of whether we are passed away or still alive, we are the ones who will be caught up to the Lord in the air when He appears in the clouds for all to see. The word “we” is not referring to some other poor souls who just weren’t quite good enough to make the first Rapture, so they were left behind after the really good Christians disappeared before the Tribulation started. That just doesn’t happen.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.

15 For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

16 For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then WE which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them IN THE CLOUDS, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall WE ever be with the Lord.

18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

One problem with the pre-Tribulation Rapture theory is that if Jesus did take Christians out of the world before the Tribulation, they would not be a part of the gathering of God’s people together at the final trump. Jesus comes for all of those who have passed away and are buried in the ground, and He comes for all of those who are still alive on the earth. If there were disappearing saints before the Tribulation began, they would not belong to either of these groups. They would be in scriptural limbo somewhere because the Bible never even suggests that there is a third group of believers that take part in the catching away, and it never implies that anyone is secretly snatched away.

The sound of the final trumpet. This trumpet is shown in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 and Matthew 24:31 and 1 Corinthians 15:52. This trumpet is different from the seventh and final trumpet in Revelation 11:15, which signals the final events of God’s wrath. There are seven different trumpets in Revelation, chapters 8-11, that are used to signal various aspects of the judgment of God. They don’t begin to sound until all of God’s people are removed from the earth. The last of these seven trumpets is never called the “last trump” or “the trump of God.” In fact, all that is said of it is “the seventh angel sounded,” and then it goes on to point out that the time of wrath is coming to an end and the time for Jesus to take back control of the earth has come. On the contrary, what we are seeing here is God rapturing His elect at the end of the Great Tribulation and delivering them from that wrath which is ready to come bursting forth on the scene. This trumpet signals the end of the Gospel Age and God’s final calling of His redeemed to Himself. If this were the final trumpet of God’s wrath from Revelation 11:15, it would mean that the saints will have to go through the entire Wrath of God to get to that last of seven trumpets before being raptured. What would be the point then? Go through the Wrath of God, which God has promised to deliver us from, to get to the Rapture? It’s not going to happen! No Christians will go into or come out of the Wrath of God.

In verse 31,we are told that Jesus sends out His angels to gather His elect. In the Old Testament, the word “elect” was used only four times in Isaiah. In each context, it referred to either Israel or those who would be saved through Israel. In the New Testament the Greek word translated as “elect” was translated as “elect” sixteen times and as “chosen” the remaining seven times. Oddly enough, the word means elect and chosen. It is used to refer to angels, individuals and the Church as a whole. The following three verses spell out just exactly what God is conveying to us when He mentions the New Testament elect.

Romans 8:33

Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

1 Peter 1:2

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.

1 Peter 2:9

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light:

When Jesus sends for His New Testament elect, He is sending for those who are chosen, justified, sanctified, blood bought and obedient. He is not sending for a special group of 144,000 Jews. He is not sending for the elect half of His body and leaving the unelect half of His body behind. He is sending for His whole body of believers—the Church, the resurrected saints, the living and the dead. Any attempt to turn the elect into anything other than the whole and complete Church is wrong.

Matthew 24:31

And He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.

Whenever we read about the Rapture, we read about being caught up or gathered together unto Christ in the clouds in full view of the whole world. We don’t read about instantly disappearing, never to be seen again. First Corinthians 15 states that we will be changed instantly. That doesn’t mean we will just suddenly disappear but, rather, that our mortal bodies will be changed instantly to immortal or eternal. After that, we are lifted up from the earth in the same manner Jesus was in Acts 1 as He was taken up into a cloud in full sight of all who were present to be delivered unto the Father. Our corruptible flesh cannot partake in the Rapture of the glorious Church of the Lord Jesus Christ; therefore, it must go through a transformation before it is able to be transported into heaven. At the final trump of this age (not to be confused with the final trump of the Wrath of God), the dead in Christ are raised up out of the ground with new bodies which are immortal, incorruptible, and spiritual. At the same time, those saints who are alive when Jesus returns are changed instantly to that same immortal, incorruptible and spiritual type of human being. Then we are all caught up together in full sight of the whole world into the clouds where Jesus awaits to escort us into the presence of the Father for the greatest family reunion of all eternity.

First Thessalonians 4:16, which we just read, says that the dead in Christ will rise first. The dead saints do not rise into the skies before those who are still alive; they are raised up from out of the earth first in the Resurrection, and then we are all raised up off of the face of the earth together to meet the Lord in the air. In other words, the Resurrection takes place moments before the Rapture so that we have the right equipment for traveling through space and living in heaven. That equipment is our resurrected bodies. The whole fifteenth chapter of 1 Corinthians is about resurrection. It begins with Paul speaking of the Resurrection of Jesus. As he continues his monologue, he speaks of the resurrection of our bodies. In verse 13, he makes a hapless observation about the sad state we would find ourselves in if there were no such thing as the resurrection of the dead. If that were the case, then Christ died like the rest of us and He is still in His grave. In verse 20, he declares that Christ is indeed risen from the dead, and that He is only the first of many who will come out of the graves. In verse 23, Paul makes it as plain as day that the Resurrection takes place at the same time Jesus arrives to take His Church away. Christ was risen from the dead first, and then many years afterward all of those who belong to Him will be supernaturally pulled out of their graves at His appearing.

In verses 24 through 26, Paul makes several statements of fact upon which all end-times theology rests. The first statement is quite simple—“then cometh the end.”After making that statement, he elaborates a bit on what the end entails. Jesus will reign from heaven until He has put down all rule, authority and power, other than that which was granted to Him by God. The last power He will conquer is death. When He returns for His Church, He will have the power to free our bodies from the dust of the earth and set us on our feet again in new and revised bodies, bodies that will never again have to taste of death. He already possesses that power, but He does not yet have the go ahead from God to accomplish it. Our resurrection is His victory over death once and forever. Before that happens, Satan will be cast out of heaven as a first step towards bringing an end to all opposing authority. Satan and the Antichrist will both be forcing their authority in the earth right up to the end when Jesus delivers His people, and then Jesus will exercise full authority over the earth by releasing wrath on those who deserve it.After He lands a knockout blow to death and gets us out of here, He will show the disobedient rebels who refused His pleas of compassion that He really is boss. Every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

1 Corinthians 15:13-26

13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that He raised up Christ: whom He raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.

18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.

21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.

22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's AT HIS COMING.

24 THEN COMETH THE END, WHEN He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; WHEN He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

25 For He must reign, till He hath put all enemies under His feet.

26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

In verse 24, another prerequisite for the end is that Jesus must deliver up the kingdom to God. Because the kingdom of God is more of a spiritual kingdom at this time made up of spiritual people who have made themselves subject to the dictates of God’s Word, Jesus needs only to rapture His people and escort them into the presence of God to deliver up the kingdom. Eventually, the kingdom of God will literally fill and control the earth, but only after God has punished those who reject Him. After the wicked are punished, Jesus will bring the saints back to the earth to rule with Him. This happens when He returns to the earth a second time with the saints of God at His side for the Battle of Armageddon after the seventh trumpet of wrath sounds.His second return is on a white horse and not in the clouds. It will be years after the Tribulation and not “immediately after the tribulation of those days” like when He comes to collect the saints. When the end does come, it is a process that is called the Wrath of God, and it takes several years for that wrath to complete. Jesus has full control over the earth, the Antichrist and even death during the outpouring of God’s wrath, but He does not physically step in to defeat the armies of the earth and reign over the nations who sent those armies until He is good and ready, and that is after the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, and after the sounding of the seventh trumpet of wrath.

The next two verses from 1 Corinthians 15 inform us that we will be changed at the last trump of the age of grace. This is the same trump from Matthew 24:31 that announces the coming of the Lord in the clouds. The change we go through is the conversion from mortal to immortal. It is the same change the dead go through when they are “raised” up out of their graves. The word “raised” is used twenty times in 1 Corinthians 15, and it carries the same meaning as the word “resurrection” which is used just four times. It is used exclusively in describing the raising of the dead from the ground. The word “raised” is not used in describing the Rapture in 1 Corinthians 15 at all, but we can see that it takes place before the Rapture can take place. There will not be any mortal bodies going into heaven; they wouldn’t be able to stand the trip. These verses are not telling us that the Rapture will occur in the twinkling of an eye; it is the changing of our bodies which will take place that fast, and then we are caught up to the Lord in the clouds as those clouds approach our current location on the earth wherever we may be. In verse 52, the dead are not being raised off the earth, they are raised out of the earth and then go through the Resurrection transformation before they can become airborne, along with those who are alive and remain. Verse 26 above declares that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Verse 54 below informs us that death will be swallowed up in victory during the Resurrection. “Then cometh the end” of this world when He shall subdue all things unto Himself, including death at the Resurrection, when He returns in the clouds to remove His people from a condemned world.

1 Corinthians 15:51-54

51 Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

In John 6:39,40,44 and 54, and again in John 11:24, we learn from Jesus’ conversations with Martha that the day of the Resurrection is the “last day.” Between verses 23 and 52 above, we learn that the Resurrection and the Rapture occur at the last trump, and all three of these things alert us to the fact that the last day has arrived. As mentioned, this is the same trumpet that sounds in verse 31 of Matthew 24 to discharge the angels of God into the earth to gather Christ’s elect. The last trump of the Gospel Age calls the dead saints out of the ground and sends the angels to gather the whole body of Christ. This all happens as Jesus swoops in low on the clouds to rescue His fan club. In John 12:48 Jesus declares that His word will judge those who reject it when the last day arrives. That statement is much broader in that those who reject His word will be severed from those who have received it when the last trump sounds, and they will be left behind to suffer God’s wrath. The same word will judge them a thousand years later as they stand before the Lord at the White Throne Judgment.

The next two verses communicate once more that the Rapture is something that will be seen. Verse 20 reminds us to look for Him to return from the heavens.We have nothing to look for if His return is to be in an invisible stealth fashion. Verse 21 confirms that the Resurrection takes place at the same time as the Rapture and that it is a part of the end when He will subdue all things unto Himself.

Philippians 3:20-21

20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:

21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

God is not the great game show host of the sky giving us a choice between Rapture number one, Rapture number two or Rapture number three. We do not get a choice between disappearing before the Tribulation or being caught up after the Tribulation. There is not one Resurrection for “pre-Trib” saints and another for “post-Trib” saints. There is not one Rapture for Gentile Christians and something different for Jewish Christians.We are all of the same body. God does not deliver the good guys before the Tribulation and leave the not-sogood guys to suffer in the Tribulation and Wrath until they finally get it right and become worthy of some kind of secondary Rapture. There is only one Rapture and one Resurrection—not two, not many—just one of each, and they both follow the Tribulation and precede the Wrath. After the Tribulation, Jesus will appear in the sky just as the Resurrection is taking place. He will have His angels pick the saints up off of the earth, one by one, and carry them up into the clouds to ever be with Him.

Jesus will appear in the skies a second time approximately seven years later on a white horse at the Battle of Armageddon to bring a conclusion to the time of God’s wrath and to bring in everlasting righteousness and peace by taking control of the earth. When He arrives from heaven on His white horse, the same saints that He is rapturing right here in Matthew 24 after the Tribulation will be returning with Him and His angels after enjoying the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. There will not be any new saints to rapture after the Wrath of God. We will take on the armies of the earth and prevail against them, and everyone else who is left on the earth will come under the immediate and absolute rule of Christ and His saints for the thousand-year reign. The Bible never tells us that these people aresaved but, rather, that they are hardened and unrepentant.

Matthew 24:32

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:

At several places in the Scriptures, the fig tree represents Israel, but that is not necessarily the case here. If it is the case, then we have only fifty or so years left before all these things must be completed. However, the same account in Luke 21:29 says “the fig tree and all the trees.” Jesus is just making the point that from the beginning of these events to their conclusion, the time will be short, and when we begin to see them come to pass, it won’t be long until the end. The same thought is continued in the next four verses. In verse 34, the generation that shall not pass away until all these things happen is the last days generation and should not be mistaken for the generation Jesus was conversing with at the time, as some people believe. Verse 33 explains that we will see all of these things come to pass before the return of Christ and the end of the world. The Church has to be here if we are going to see all these things come to pass. If we disappear right after the gospel has been preached in all the world, we will not be here to see any of it.We won’t see the Antichrist, we won’t see the Tribulation, and we won’t see the sign of the heavens going dark just before Jesus appears to catch us all away. In other words, if we disappear too soon, we are going to miss the Rapture.

Matthew 24:33-36

33 So likewise ye, when ye shall SEE all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

35 Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.

36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but My Father only.

Just because Jesus said that no man knows the day or the hour of His return and the end of the world, it doesn’t mean we are supposed to ignore every sign He has given us and play ignorant when these things begin to come to pass. In verse 33, He explains that when we see these things begin to happen around us we will know that it is right upon us. In fact, He emphasized that we would “see all these things” before the day of His arrival. When He said that no man knows the hour,He was simply saying that God had not revealed it to anyone, not even to His Son. That statement was made in the past, but it is still very true today. God has still not revealed the day or the hour to anyone yet, but that does not preclude us from knowing that approximately—in fact, nearly to the day—seven full years after Israel makes a peace accord with a ten-nation alliance led by one who is immediately revealed to us as the Antichrist by the peace accord, He will return to catch His people away.

We can see that great progress is being made in preaching the gospel around the world, but only God can determine when the job is done. After He has determined that the job is completed to His liking; then He will cast Satan out of heaven and allow him to test those who have just received the Word of God. After that testing begins, we can believe all the signs written in the Bible concerning the endtimes, and we will know when the day of His return is almost upon us.We don’t know the day or the hour of His return, but we will be able to predict within a few days or weeks after these things begin. The Bible tells us that the Tribulation begins in the middle of the seven-year peace accord and will last for the entire second half of it. Jesus just told us that He will return immediately after the Tribulation. There’s not much math to do here. All we have to do is make it to the end of that three-and-one-half years, and then wait.

The Church seems to have adopted a philosophy that any interpretation of the end-times prophecies that allows the Church any awareness of Christ’s imminent return must be false, because if we see any of the signs of His return, then we will be able to know with reasonable certainty the day that He will appear in the clouds. After all, no man knows the hour of His return.However, nothing could be further from the truth. Jesus has made it clear, as do the rest of the Scriptures, that He will return for His elect after the Tribulation. The elect Jesus will return for is all the elect of God who are justified by God. He is not returning for just a part of the Church. He is not returning for Jews only. He is not returning for just 144,000 Jews. He is returning for all those who have died in faith, and all those who are still living by faith when it is time for His return.

Even if there was a pre-Tribulation Rapture, we have to be honest enough to admit that with the gospel being preached to all of the world, and with many formerly enlightened but yet totally uncommitted Christians not included in that Rapture, all of this information will have already been disseminated to those who are left behind. They would be able to immediately recognize from the peace covenant, the desecration of the temple or any of the other signs how much more time they have. There will not be a pre-Trib Rapture, but if there was, it does not mean that the minds of all of those left behind are suddenly drained of intelligence. They would be able to figure it out, which means that the denial the Church has been in has only robbed us of the truth. Jesus was simply saying that God is not going to post the date ahead of time because He does not want the Church sitting around on their duffs waiting for that day, and living it up along the way. There would be even less commited Christians if the date was posted ahead of time. As the signs begin to unfold before our eyes, we will be able to use that as evidence and a wake-up call to people around us to get them saved. That is, if we are awake and abiding in the light ourselves.

Paul insists in 1 Thessalonians that those who are awake and sober and watchful are not going to be caught by surprise when Jesus returns.Why? Because all the signs to watch for were given to us by Jesus.Verse 9 below has been a comfort through the ages. Paul asserts that those of us who are following Jesus with a committed heart are not appointed to—will not see, experience or go through—the Wrath of God. As we differentiate between the Wrath and the Tribulation, we can see that going through the Tribulation—which is simply the worst time of turmoil caused by Satan that the world has ever known—is not the same as going through the Wrath of God, which is His punishment for all the turmoil caused by sin and sinners. Despite the massive degradation of world stability through an increase of violent and sinful behavior—most notably that initiated by the Antichrist—we can still go through the Tribulation with the assurance that God has not forsaken His people, and that His deliverer is only three-and-one-half years away from the start of the Tribulation; then the Wrath of God will come.

1 Thessalonians 5:4-9

4 But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief.

5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.

6 Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.

7 For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.

8 But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,

The Day of the Lord is mentioned quite frequently in the Bible. It is called by different names in different places, but it is always the same thing—the day God’s wrath begins to fall on the wicked. The reason we want to look at the Day of the Lord at this point is because it begins with the same sign Jesus gave His disciples of His coming and of the end of the world. In Acts 2:20, Peter condensed the words of Joel 3:15 and 16 to say, “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come.” This is exactly what Jesus is telling us in Matthew 24 and the other Gospels. The word “come” was added after the Day of the Lord to express in one word what Joel was saying when he informed us that the Lord would roar out of Zion and be the hope of His people. The deliverance of God’s people is tied together with the judgment of the heathen.Multitudes are in the valley of decision, and on day one of the Day of the Lord, God will divide between those who choose righteousness and those who choose death.

Jesus did not make things up as He was going along; He received insight from the Old Testament by the Holy Spirit and passed it on to His disciples.When He told them that the heavens would be shaken and the sun and moon and stars would cease to shine before His return,He was repeating what He had read in Joel and elsewhere. The first two verses speak about the Battle of Armageddon, which will take place as a part of God’s vengeance, but it actually takes place at the very end of several years of different kinds of punishment from God.When we get into the Revelation, we will see all of the different aspects of God’s wrath and how it all unfolds.

Joel 3:9-16

9 Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:

10 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

11 Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: there cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD.

12 Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.

13 Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.

14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

15 The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.

16 The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of His people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

The Day of the Lord is called “the day of vengeance” in several places.When Jesus proclaims in Luke 4:18 that the Spirit of the Lord is upon Him, He is paraphrasing Isaiah 61:2 which announces to us that He will come “to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn.” A part of the purpose of the anointing of the Holy Spirit is to preach, teach and proclaim the coming day of wrath from God Almighty, along with providing the power and guidance needed to avoid that wrath through faith. In Isaiah 63:4, God lumps the final redemption of His people and the day of His vengeance together when He declares, “For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.”The reason He mentions them in the same breath is because they both take place at the same time, even though the deliverance of His people takes only a single day, while God’s vengeance and wrath begin on that same day, after the Church is gone, and lasts for several years.When we get into the Book of Revelation, we are going to see just how long the Wrath of God really takes. In Jeremiah 46:10, the day of vengeance is also called the day of the Lord God of hosts. Even though it is a day of punishment for so many multitudes, God still looks forward to it with a sense of great pleasure and anticipation because it is the same day He will finally deliver His people forever from the miseries that are continually inflicted upon them by those who hate them.

In Philippians 1:10 and 2:16 and 2 Thessalonians 2:2, the day is called the day of Christ. The first two references simply mention the day of Christ in passing. They do not give any details or enlightenment concerning what the day of Christ is all about. However, 2 Thessalonians 2:2 is different.We read it earlier in this chapter where Paul gives warning to the Church that the day of Christ will not come until there is a falling away and the man of sin is revealed. That statement is in full agreement with Jesus’ statement about appearing in the clouds for His elect “after the tribulation of the final days.”

Isaiah 13 gives us a very clear explanation of what the Day of the Lord will be like for the heathen who reject God.We can see from this passage that the Day of the Lord is a day marked by destruction from God upon sinners. The only good thing that comes out of it is found in verse 12. God is going to make a man more precious than a wedge of gold. He does this by giving His righteous saints victory over death, removing them from the earth and destroying those who have been selling them out for a few dollars profit.We see once again that this destruction from the Almighty begins on that day when the heavens are shaken and the heavenly lights cease to shine.

Isaiah 13:6-13

6 Howl ye; for the Day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

7 Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt:

8 And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

9 Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

10 For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in His going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

11 And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

12 I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.

13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of His fierce anger.

The description of the Day of the Lord varies depending on the context in which you read it. In the Old Testament the emphasis is usually on those who are going to be punished, with brief mention of those who are going to be rescued from that punishment. In the New Testament, the rescue aspect is mentioned a lot since those who are going to be rescued are the ones receiving the message.And then there’s The Revelation, which gives the most extensive description of both the rescue and the punishment of the end-times, and repeats it several times over. In Matthew 24 that rescue takes place in verses 29-31 after the Tribulation is abruptly brought to a close as the skies turn to blackness. In the remainder ofMatthew 24,we see that those who remain on the earth, after Jesus takes His people away, will be the ones who will suffer loss. The Wrath of God is no less than a declaration of war against sinners at the end of the world.When a country declares war against another country, they immediately begin to pull their diplomats out of the enemy’s territory for their own safety. This is what God does when He sends Jesus to pull His diplomats out of the earth. After the Church is gone, the war can begin.

Think about it!

­Does Matthew 24:29-31 describe the Rapture­the catching away of believers, the blessed hope, the appearing of Jesus­or does it describe some other event?

­When did Jesus say that He would gather His New Testament elect?

­Does the Bible ever say that Jesus will make an invisible visit to the earth or that Christians will disappear suddenly without notice?

­Did Jesus say that He would come again for believers, or that He would come often for Believers?

~Selah~Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR, we shall be like him; FOR WE SHALL SEE HIM AS HE IS. 1 John 3:2