The Day of the Lord - Sermon for January 25, 2009

THE DAY OF THE LORD
MATTHEW 24
JANUARY 25, 2009

Will Willimon tells this story. “Early in my ministry, I served a little church in rural Georgia. One Saturday we went to a funeral in a little church not of my denomination. I grew up in a big downtown church. I had never been to a funeral like this one. The casket was open, and the funeral consisted of a sermon by their pastor. The preacher pounded the pulpit and looked over at the casket. He said, “It’s too late for Joe. He might have wanted to get his life together. He might have wanted to spend more time with his family. He might have wanted to do that, but he’s dead now. It is too late for him, but it is not too late for you. Today is the day of decision. Then the preacher told how a Greyhound bus had run into a funeral procession once on the way to the cemetery, and that that could happen today. He said, “You should decide today. Today is the day to get your life together. Too late for old Joe, but it’s not too late for you.” I was so angry at that preacher. On the way home, I told my wife, “Have you ever seen anything as manipulative and insensitive to that poor family? I found it disgusting.” She said, “I’ve never heard anything like that. It was manipulative. It was disgusting. It was insensitive. Worst of all, it was also true.”

If you have hung around certain church denominations a little bit you have heard some sermons like that. Although I have to admit, I have never heard one like that at a funeral. But I have endured my fair share of ones like it on a typical Sunday visiting one of my friend’s churches growing up. I was Lutheran and he was fire and brimstone Pentecostal, talk about a cross-cultural experience. The preacher would get up and talk about how God as Judge knew exactly what was going on in our lives and that if we didn’t repent like right now, he might take us tonight, you know we wouldn’t see that car coming, or some other bad accident would occur, and it would be too late and we would spend eternity burning in hell. And then of course there would be an altar call where dozens of scared wide eyed people would head toward the altar seeking fire insurance. I was one of those people a couple of times. When you’re a teenage kid you always feel guilty and have plenty of sins to confess, especially when your Lutheran and then you add in the Pentecostal guilt factory, and there were a couple of times I just knew I wasn’t going to see that car coming or that something was going to happen to me later that night and God was going to mete out his punishment on me for all of eternity. I don’t know exactly how many times I prayed the sinner’s prayer during my later teen years, but I know it was more than a couple of times. And it was always based on the fear of hell; it had nothing to do with actual faith in Christ. And then of course the Lutherans always made me feel guilty telling me that good Lutherans don’t pray the sinner’s prayers. I couldn’t get a break.

But I very clearly remember the fear that the preacher put in me about the coming judgment, about that day. It was a day to be afraid of. I have watched through the years as certain portions of the Christian community have continued to spread that fear. Preachers on TV and on the Radio have spread it around the globe. Christian authors such as those who wrote the left behind series, have taught such a fearful convoluted heretical view of that day that most Americans think that is what the Bible actually teaches. The main result, fear. I have people in a pretty regular basis ask me questions about the last days and usually there is always some fear of it involved. So what about that day, that day of the Lord? Where did the teaching come from? And what is it all about? The Day of the Lord is an Old Testament prophecy that talks about the end of the world. It talks about its destruction and also the destruction of humanity, in particular God’s enemies. And throughout the Old Testament it is presented in very fearful terms. This is something that people needed to worry about. This was not going to be a pleasant event. And yet it was also a day of great prosperity for God’s people. So in most circumstances it is presented as a day that unbelievers need to be afraid of, they are going to get theirs. At the same time God’ people are not let off the hook either. If they do not repent they too will be punished. For instance in the book of Amos chapter 8 God says, “The time is ripe for my people Israel; I will spare them no longer. In that day, declares the Sovereign Lord, the songs in the temple will turn to wailing. Many, many bodies – flung everywhere! Silence! Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, “When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat? The Lord has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: I will never forget anything they have done.” Then he proceeds to tell them all the horrible, terrible things he is going to do to them if they don’t repent. In Chapter five of Amos he says this about the day of the Lord, “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness not light. It will be as though as man fled from a lion only to meet a bear.” Or there is Isaiah 13:9, “See the day of the Lord is coming – a cruel day with wrath and fierce anger – to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it.”

Pretty scary picture. Makes you want to come up and throw yourself across the altar and beg for mercy. Makes you wonder what is waiting for me after I leave here this morning. Maybe there is a bus with my name on it. But thankfully the day of the Lord is more than just a day of wrath and retribution. It is also a day of great promise. A day full of God’s glory, a day of full of God’s light. Zephaniah and Zechariah point out that God is preparing a sacrifice which will consecrate the people and remove their sin. There is a remedy for this wrath; there is a way to avoid God’s retribution. Zephaniah 1:7 we read, “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near. The Lord has prepared a sacrifice; he has consecrated those he has invited.” And in Zechariah 13:1, “On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.” Wait a minute the Lord has prepared a sacrifice? He has invited people? There will be cleansing from sin and impurity? Does this mean there is hope? Yes not only is there hope there is a promise of a sure and certain hope. God is not going to hold back his wrath to punish sin mind you but there just might be a way to avoid being the one taking it on the backside. The day of the Lord will be a fearful day for many, but for others it will be a day of great joy and blessing. It will be a day that was promised back in Genesis 3:15 that would come from the seed of the woman.

In Luke 4:18-21 we see this Seed of the woman, Jesus talking about what he has come to do for people on that day of the Lord. He visits the synagogue and gets up to read publically from the scroll. He reads to them, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Whoa! Now that is a strong claim of authority and fulfillment. He is quoted directly from Isaiah 61 which talks about the work of the Seed of the woman, of the Messiah, the Savior of the world and he ends by saying standing before you, is the fulfillment of this prophecy, I’m it. The one and only, simply the best, better than all the rest. A bold claim, but true. Jesus has come on a saving mission to get people ready for the great day of the Lord. He is not here to bring it to its end yet as he says in John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” And that is exactly what he would do.

After living the perfect life here on earth he would go to the cross for our sins and die in our place and as his blood flowed our sins were washed away forever. The wrath of God was carried out on Jesus on Good Friday. He suffered every pain we deserve to suffer. In the end he suffered our death for us. He was in the words of Zephaniah the sacrifice that God has prepared. He was in the words of Zechariah, that fountain that was opened to cleanse away our sin and impurity. He was the light in the midst of the darkness. The hope in the midst of despair. He was the answer to people’s fear of that coming day of the Lord. He was the good news in a world of bad news. That is why we call it the gospel. Deliverance had come. Which also meant that there was still something to be delivered from. The coming of the Messiah did not mean that the great day of the Lord was cancelled it just put it in a different light. But the day well it is still on its way.

In Matthew 24 and 2 Peter 3 we hear Jesus and Peter say things like this about it, first that it will come like a thief in the night, ‘Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house by broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” Or “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.” Jesus and others also warn about wars, famines, and natural disasters that will lead up to it. “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” Jesus also indicates that the gospel will be preached to the entire world, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”

Jesus also warns of much satanic evil, “So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand. For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.” At that time the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect form the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other.” And again in the words of Peter, “But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.”

Some very dire warnings there. But the warnings have more than just the purpose of scaring us or alarming us, although sometimes we need that, no they are there to point us back to Jesus and the fact that we need him in our lives to face all of this. That is because Jesus has already faced all of this for us. He has endured God’s wrath for us. He has endured God’s destruction for us. So all this scary stuff about the day of the Lord, we don’t need to be worried about. Yes it will happen on a perfectly normal ordinary day, yes he will come like a thief in the night, but through our faith in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are already prepared for that. And when he does come it will be not to punish us or make us suffer but to take us home to be with him forever in heaven. Jesus explains it this way in Luke 21, “Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” In other words while the unbelieving world is passing out in terror of what is happening as a believer you can without fear stand up and lift up your heads because its just the bus coming to take you home. There is nothing to be worried about if you have faith in Jesus Christ.

The day of the Lord is going to be a frightful day for those who do not believe in Jesus. But for those who do believe in Jesus it is going to be a glorious day full of wonder and excitement as we see heaven opened and Jesus returning in all his finery to take us to be with him. There is nothing to be worried about if we are prepared and the only way to be prepared is to have faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. If you have that you are ready to go. Let me end here with a story of another funeral which was totally unlike the funeral at the beginning. Tony Campolo tells this story about a funeral he went to when he was a kid. He says, “I went to my first black funeral when I was 16 years old. A friend of mine, Clarence, had died. The pastor was incredible. From the pulpit he talked about the resurrection in beautiful terms. He has us thrilled. He came down from the pulpit, went to the family, and comforted them from the fourteenth chapter of John. “Let not your heart be troubled,” he said, “You believe in God, believe also in me,’ said Jesus. Clarence has gone to heavenly mansions.” Then, for the last 20 minutes of the sermon, he actually preached to the open casket. Now, that’s drama! He yelled at the corpse: “Clarence! Clarence!” He said it with such authority. I would not have been surprised had there been an answer. He said, “Clarence, there were a lot of things we should have said to you that we never said to you. You got away too fast, Clarence. You got away too fast.” He went down this litany of beautiful things that Clarence had done for people. When he finished – here’s the dramatic part – he said, “That’s it, Clarence. There’s nothing more to say. When there’s nothing more to say, there’s only one thing to say. Good night. Good night, Clarence!” He grabbed the lid of the casket and slammed it shut. “Good night, Clarence!” Boom! Shock waves went through the congregation. As the preacher then lifted his head, you could see there was a smile on his face. He said, “Good night, Clarence. Good night, Clarence, because I know, I know that God is going to give you a good morning!” The choir stood and starting singing, “On that great morning, we shall rise, we shall rise.” We were dancing in the aisles and hugging each other. I know the joy of the Lord, a joy that in the face of death laughs and sings and dances, for there is no sting to death, on That Day!” Amen.