It was God who separated light from darkness..”And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.” (Gen 1:3-5) Notice first of all that when He created Light, though the light was good, it was mixed with the darkness and only God could tell the difference and divide the one from the other. Then he divided the two, and the light became brighter as it separated from darkness, while the darkness returned to total blackness. And God clearly identified each of them for what they are. As in the natural creation, so in the spiritual…God’s new creation. . Let us look now to…
That Day Approaching
“And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is: but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see THE DAY APPROACHING;” (Heb 10:24-25). What day? What day is he writing about here, 30 years after the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ? It was certain and sure, they could see it approaching, and it must have been terribly important in their lives since they were told to assemble themselves together and exhort one another because of this day. Since that day is still approaching, and is even now at hand, I want us to take a good Bible look at that day. . the Great Day of the Lord, known as…
The Evil Day
In Ephesians chapter 6, the apostle is warning us about the wiles of the devil, of wrestling with principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world. “Wherefore”, he says in verse 13, “take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand IN THE EVIL DAY, and having done all, to stand.” This great exhortation on standing in that evil day takes us to the 13th chapter of Ezekiel where the prophet of God was telling the people how they would have to STAND IN THE BATTLE IN THE DAY OF THE LORD!
Verse 1: “And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying” . . . Oh Glory to God! When you are walking with God as Ezekiel was, and your heart is pure and hungry for the Truth..the Word of the Lord WILL COME TO YOU! It is seeking a lodging place in the hearts and minds of men who are not afraid to know the Truth! They may be in the minority, as Ezekiel was, and they may be scorned and mocked as false..but when the Word of the Lord comes to them, they can never be the same again! Look at verse 2: “Say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord.” Yes, there are those who preach that which sounds good, which they would like to see come to pass, “out of their own hearts”, but when the Word of the Lord comes, it will not be liked by the natural man. Verse 3 says that these foolish prophets follow their own spirit and have seen nothing! What is this that these men have been telling God’s people, what is it they have not seen? Ezekiel goes on to say that these false prophets who were so accepted by Israel had been seducing the people, preaching “Peace”, when there was no peace. For God had determined JUDGMENT upon the land, but these men had not seen the true Word of the Lord, and they kept telling the people that God would not let judgment come to His own chosen people, the apple of His eye…now would He? How much this sounds like the preachers of our day who have seduced the vast majority of God’s people into believing that before Judgment, or the Great Tribulation, or The Day of the Lord comes…that God would let them all fly away to some other place in the physical universe and escape those days that are coming upon the earth! But Ezekiel faithfully warns them, as Paul did, that they would have to…
Stand in the Battle
“Oh Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts. Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.” Hebrews says that we “see the Day approaching.” Paul told the Ephesians they would have to stand “in the Evil Day.” And Ezekiel has the Word of Lord that God’s people are going to STAND…”in the Day of the Lord”. The prophet goes on in that 13th chapter to tell what God will do to those prophets who fail to warn God’s people that they will be here in the Day of the Lord, and to prepare to stand. gut let’s turn to the New Testament again to see what it Says about this day…
The Day of the Lord
I Thessalonians chapter 4 tells of the glorious hope of the Church, how that Jesus will descend from heaven into this earth realm, how that first the dead in Christ shall rise, and then later we are “caught up” to meet the Lord (not “caught away” to some distant planet). This same wonderful topic is continued in chapter 5 as Paul speaks of the times and seasons when this will take place. “For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” Praise God! Here is that “Day” that is approaching or coming..And as the false prophets in Ezekiel 13, some are saying “peace and safety”…but sudden destruction comes upon them “as travail upon A WOMAN WITH CHILD!” yes, there is a woman who at this time is in travail, and out of this travail is born a manchild who is to rule all nations with a rod of iron. The “catching up” of the saints (or Rapture, as it is called), the birth of the Manchild and the Day of the Lord (or Tribulation) are all linked together here. But notice, dear ones, in verse 4: “But ye, brethren, are not in the darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. You are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness..For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night..For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Children of Light
There are two kinds of people spoken of here…Children of the day and light..and children of the night and darkness. The children of darkness do not know that this “Day of the Lord” is coming upon them in all its fury and destruction. They continue to blithely play their religious games while the tornadic winds of God’s judgments are sweeping in upon us. This Day of the Lord will be a terrible time of tribulation to them, a time of darkness and terror as the world has never known! But what about the children of Light, the children of the Day? Are they to be here to suffer the wrath of God in the Great Tribulation? Or will they be swept up into the wild blue yonder, away from the earth and its terror? NEITHER! Someone asks, “Will the Elect of God, the Overcomer, be here for the Great Tribulation?” The answer is NO! They will not be here for the Tribulation! They will be here on earth during this time, all right, but they will be here for the Day of God’s Glory, the day of His Power manifested in human flesh..the Manifestation of the Sons of God! For right here on this same ball of clay, while some are entering into the darkness of the Night of Tribulation, those who know Him in Truth will be entering into the great and glorious promises of the Bible in the brightness of God’s New Day!
Day and Night at the Same Time
This physical natural world is made up so that right now while the sun is setting upon millions of people, bringing on the blackness of the midnight hour..upon millions more it is just rising with the promise of a new day! As in the natural, so in the spiritual. God is separating the light from darkness, and He is clearly identifying each. The Light is getting brighter, new truths are being seen by the light of God’s divine revelation, new realms in God are being seen and attained to. While at the same time those who at one time seemed to have a measure of truth are denying the Light and going into ever increasing darkness of the Night. Children of the Night!
The Sun Shall Go Down
Micah 3:5-6..”Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, PEACE: and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him. Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, AND THE DAY SHALL BE DARK OVER THEM!”
When the great Day of the Lord appears, the day that will usher in the greatest display of God’s glory that the world has ever seen, it will only be a time of darkness and terror to these false prophets who have caused God’s people to err, crying Peace, when God was calling for us to put on the whole armour of God that we might stand in the battle in that Day. Preachers are still fervently preaching, and people are still desperately and hopelessly clinging to the theory of a “Rapture” that will carry us all off this earth that we might escape The Day of the Lord. People, hear me today…God’s plan is far better! Who wants to escape the glorious Day of release from every bondage? Who would run away from the greatest outpouring of the Spirit ever known, until God’s elect is filled with the Spirit “without measure”? Yes, let me make this clear…we shall be here DURING the Tribulation, but we shall not be here FOR the Tribulation, but while those who are unprepared to stand are being swept away as in the days of Noah by the floods of Judgment, we shall be entering into the Day of God’s Glory, the unveiling of His power and majesty in the human flesh of His Body, the Church.
The Sun Shall Arise
Hear ye the Word of the Lord …. Malachi 4:1,2,5 “For behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven.” “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the GREAT and DREADFUL day of the Lord.”
Glory to God! This is a GREAT day. . . a day of His power, when all our enemies are put under our feet..”ashes under the soles of your feet”. But at the same time it is a DREADFUL day to someone..not to the children of the Day, but to the children of the Night who had not put on the whole armour of God because they were expecting to “fly away” and did not think they would have to “stand” in that day. Oh, preacher friend, it is time that we
Blow the Trumpet in Zion
Joel 2:1-11: “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain:” (You see, friends, it is God’s people who need to be alerted in this hour, they who are sleeping need to be awakened)..”Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the DAY OF THE LORD COMETH, for it is nigh at hand..A day of DARKNESS AND GLOOMINESS, a day of CLOUDS and of THICK DARKNESS, AS THE MORNING SPREAD UPON THE MOUNTAINS: A GREAT PEOPLE AND A STRONG!”
At the very same time that darkness and gloominess spreads over the land during this Day of the Lord, to those who are children of the Day there is a great and glorious SUNRISE. Isa 28:2 says “The Lord hath a MIGHTY AND A STRONG ONE” . . and we find this to be His body in the earth. Daniel said that “they that do know their God shall be STRONG and do exploits.” And here Joel sees them coming forth at the dawn of the Day of the Lord, a day of darkness and terror for the godless and unbelieving people of this world. Joel 2:11 says “the Day of the Lord is GREAT and VERY TERRIBLE: and who can abide it?” Great for the children of the Day, and very terrible for the children of the Night. Verse 31 says that the sun “shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the GREAT and the TERRIBLE Day of the Lord come.” Preachers, let us stop telling God’s people that they can just sit down in their rocking chairs and wait for a “Rapture” to carry them off to a far-away land of fantasy where they will eat their “pie-in-the-sky” while the two billions of people on earth suffer under the heel of the devil and anti-christ. Let’s tell them the truth that they have been saved and called for the purpose of putting all the forces of anti-christ and all the hordes of hell under their feet and delivering the masses of earth from the power of Satan and the fear of death! This is our inheritance, and this is our destiny!
Let Us Arise and Shine!
Isaiah 60:1-2: “Arise, shine; for THY LIGHT IS COME, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For behold, the DARKNESS SHALL COVER THE EARTH, and GROSS DARKNESS the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and HIS GLORY shall be seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”
Who is this that is going to rise and shine as lights in the midst of darkness, in a time of gross darkness that covers the entire earth? It is none other than the glorious Body of Christ, His Elect, the Overcomer..those Children of the Day and Children of Light who have girded themselves for this hour.
Paul teaches the Church how to walk, in order “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the Word of Life; that I may rejoice in THE DAY OF CHRIST, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. (Phil 2:15-16)
Friends, let us believe what the Bible says and quit trying to make it mean what we want to hear. You are not going anywhere during the Day of the Lord. Read Matthew chapter 24. The Elect of God will be right here on this earth..not to be deceived, nor to suffer the wrath of God..but to be anointed with the Spirit without measure, to be the “battle-ax and weapons of war” (Jer 51:20) with which God will “break in pieces the nations..and destroy kingdoms.” It is here on earth that the battle has been fought, and it is here the victory will be won! Glory be to our God! This is the High Calling of God in Christ Jesus! Praise God for it!
Yes, darkness faces Babylon, and confusion is her portion. Even now (Job 5:14) “They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night.” And as the light increases for those in Christ, so shall darkness blanket those who dwell in the shadow of the Harlot and her daughters. Flee from her my people, lest ye be partakers of her plagues. Ye have revelled in her delicacies, but her hour is come.
Very Dark and No Brightness
Amos 5:18,20: “Woe unto you that desire the day of the Lord! To what end is it for you? The day of the Lord is darkness, and not light. . Shall not the day of the Lord be darkness, and not light? Even very dark, and no brightness in it?”
Then in verse 21 the prophet goes on to say that the Lord hates their religious activity, their ceremonies, for their worship is from the lips only, and not from the heart. These are religious people He is talking to, religious people who have rejected His Word. And in Amos 8:9 He says, “And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.” Yes, in the day of clarity, in the bright noon day of God’s glory, they will not see, they will not understand because to them it is a day of darkness with no light. Zephaniah 1:14-15 tells us:
“The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly…That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness.”
The Light Shall Rise
Glory to Jesus, out of the midst of this dark picture there will arise a people who not only will HAVE light, they will BE the light to bring this dark world out of confusion and death. Of them Isaiah spoke when he said (58:10), “then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness shall be as the noon day.” Prov 4:18 “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” What can we do NOW? Eph 5:8 says, “Walk as children of Light.” Rom 13:12 – “Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armour of Light.”
There is no darkness in those who are called into the divine purposes of God. The Truth of God is opening up to them in ever increasing clarity and understanding. They are knowing one another by the Spirit, and not by the recommendations of men. They are seeing the heresy and the danger of the harlot system of ecclesiastical orders. They are sounding the trumpet and sending forth the alarm to God’s people to “Come out of her, my people”, lest they are destroyed with her. For her false doctrines teach men to be divided from their brethren, to hate one another, and to hope for some fantasy that will never happen. But these Children of Light bring reality, and truth and love. They are brought forth and raised up at this hour that they might set the entire creation free from the bondage of corruption and death. What a destiny! What a glorious privilege to be a part of this Company of Saints. Don’t settle for anything less, beloved. Press ever forward into God’s best and highest. It is for you. You can have it! Believe it, and praise God for it!