The Mechanics of the Day of the Lord
Joel 2:1 “Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble; For the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand.” Italics and bold added as emphasis. Words in Italics added by me for further explanation; this applies to all scriptures in this book.

What is the Day of the Lord? According to Revelation 11:18 it is the Day of God’s wrath! When God will judge both the living and the dead, and God will reward the prophets and the saints.

Revelation 11:18 “The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth (with the spiritual corruption of their lying wonders and all forms of delusion).”

Isaiah 34:8 “For it is the day of the Lord’s vengeance, the year of recompense (wrath) for the cause of Zion.”
It is my belief that the Day of the Lord will begin as a response to the nation of Israel being invaded by a confederacy of nations whose leader originates from the north of Israel. God will not be reacting to the actions of these nations, but rather will induce these nations to act on His behalf for Him to judge them on His Holy Land at God’s appointed time.

Ezekiel 38:1-6 “Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, set your face against Gog, of the land of Magog, the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal, and prophesy against him, and say, thus says the Lord God: Behold I am against you, O Gog the prince of Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal. I will turn you around, put hooks into your jaws, and lead you out, with all your army, horses, and horsemen, all splendidly clothed, a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords. Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; Gomer and all its troops; the house of Togarmah from the far north and all its troops—many people are with you.”

A comprehensive list is given of all the participants in the above verses who will be compelled to participate in this invasion of the nation of Israel.
Why is God initiating this?

Ezekiel 38:16 “You will come up against My people Israel like a cloud, to cover the land. It will be in the latter days that I will bring you against My land, so that the nations may know Me, when I am hallowed in you, O Gog, before their eyes.”

The God of Israel is going to manifest Himself to the entire world as the All Mighty God when He annihilates in an instant all these nations that set themselves against the nation of Israel.

Ezekiel 39:6-8 “And I will send fire on Magog and on those who live in security in the coastlands. Then they shall know that I am the Lord. So I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel, and I will not let them profane My holy name anymore. Then the nations shall know that I am the Lord, the Holy One in Israel. Surely it is coming, and it shall be done, says the Lord God. This is the day (of God’s Wrath) of which I have spoken.”

I believe that the day that the Lord reveals Himself to the entire world will also be the time when the resurrection of the dead will take place, followed immediately by the rapture of the church.
Revelation 6:14-17 “Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. 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! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’”

As we read in Ezekiel’s prophecy: This is the day (of God’s Wrath) of which I have spoken. Let us read the context in which the sixth seal is opened.

Revelation 6:12-13 “I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth (the devil and his angels are thrown out of heaven to the earth) as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind.”

Through the prophet Joel a great deal of revelation was given about the Day of the Lord and its occurrence. It was through the prophet Joel that the prophecy that pointed to the beginning and to the end of the church age was given as well. Peter read Joel’s prophecy about the birth and end of the church age out loud on the day of Pentecost.

Acts 2:17-18 “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy.”

The first part of Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost, when the church was empowered to go unto all the nations of the world and bring to them the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So that the nations could repent before God’s Day of Wrath came upon them. The second part of Joel’s prophecy foretold how the end of the church age would come about!

Acts 2:19-21 “I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

The Scripture evidence that these signs and wonders in the heavens and in the earth will precede the immediate beginning of the Day of the Lord is overwhelming. And if we are looking for these signs and welcoming them we are assured that our removal will precede the judgment part; for the church will not be here for the Wrath of God, since God has not appointed us unto wrath. We can be better witness to those around us who do not know the mechanics of God’s Day of Judgment. It will be up to those in the church to declare that the end is near!

2 Peter 3:10-11 “But the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness.”

For two thousand years the faithful witnesses of the church have been proclaiming to the world the great news of God’s salvation through the blood and grace of Jesus Christ for all the lost.

But as we look at the conditions of the nations of the world today, they are in full revolt against God and the morality of His commandments. And even His chosen nation, Israel, is in disarray, and there is even compromise in some, if not many of His churches. There is no fear of God in the land anymore and no respect for the commandments that He gave us.

But the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night on all who do not love His appearing and are not eagerly expecting His soon return. We are commanded to be sober and to be vigilant, searching the Scriptures diligently for in them we find the comfort of His peace in our salvation.

Mark 4:11-12 “And He said to them, To you it has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to those who are outside, all things come in parables, so that Seeing they may see and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand; lest they should turn, and their sins be forgiven them.”

If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you have the Holy Spirit within you and are qualified to understand the teaching of the manner in which He is coming to deliver all of us from the Day of His Wrath, which will be poured out upon those who have rejected the Gospel of Jesus Christ that could have saved them.

Next, we are going to teach what happens to those who are left behind after the rapture of the church takes place, and the Day of God’s Wrath falls upon the nations of the world. But first let us examine the mystery related to this seven year period of what I call: the cycles of time.

Daniel 9:24 “Seventy weeks (70 x 7 = 490 years) are determined for your people (Israel) and for your holy city (Jerusalem), to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.”

When Daniel was a young boy the city of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple in it were destroyed by the Babylonian army, and Daniel was taken captive as a slave. Upon learning from the writings of Jeremiah the prophet that after seventy years of captivity the exiles of Israel were allowed to go back to their own land. Daniel realized that the nation of Israel owed the land a cycle of seventy years of rest, for there are seventy Sabbaths years in a 490 year period, hence why God drove the Israelites out allowing the land of Israel to have its seventy years of rest they owed. Daniel concluded that a new 490-year period had started for Israel when the decree was given for the Jews to go back to their land. Daniel was very eager to know what this new era of 490-year duration would bring upon the people that he loved and the city of his dreams.