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Day of the Lord - Human Sorrow

Zeph 1:14 The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there.

Urgency. The day of the Lord is coming soon. In a very real sense the day of judgment on Jerusalem, carried out by Babylon, was relatively near to this prophecy. Within a few decades Jerusalem would fall to the sword. It would indeed be a bitter day for the Jews. The warriors of Zedekiah would not hold off the great armies of Nebuchadnezzar.

In the Messianic sense, there can be no doubt that many Old Testament references to Christ included a sense of intense urgency. For example, Joel 3:14 says “the day of the Lord is near” and context is clearly Messianic. Obadiah 15 also speaks of the day of the Lord being near. He wrote his prophecy after the fall of Jerusalem and context there also points to a Messianic fulfillment.

The phrase “day of the Lord” and references to that day appear in one form or another dozens of times in the Old Testament. In most cases this phrase is associated with some form of wrath, destruction, or some other form of judgment. Many such references can be shown to have some very specific fulfillment in or around the death of Jesus Christ. Peter quotes Joel 2:31-32 in his Pentecost sermon when he describes the day, less than two months earlier, when the sun went down mid-day and moon and the blood red eclipsed full moon was visible on the horizon in Jerusalem. Peter goes on to further quote Joel proclaiming the good news that whoever would call on the name of the Lord would be saved. Malachi predicted the return of Elijah prior to the day of the Lord (Mal 4:5) which Jesus explained was fulfilled in John the Baptist (Mt 11:14).

Some of these references along with many more suggest an ultimate fulfillment yet to come where the world ends in utter destruction. While Jewish and Christian scholars alike choose to view most of those references as limited in scope to a certain area or people group, plain reading of scripture makes it clear that there will eventually come a final utter oblivion of this planet. It seems all too soon to consider the end of life on earth happening after only a few thousand years of life. Can there be any wonder that God’s perception of time, even thousands of years, is like the blink of an eye compared with eternity?
 

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