The Day of the Lord, Part 3 B

The day of the Lord really begins with the what? The birth pangs. That's the anticipation of the horrible day which unfolds at the sixth seal. But everything preliminary is part of the birth pangs leading up to that moment.

Sudden, recurring, increasing pain until finally it hits. Do you remember what New Orleans was like after Hurricane Katrina ripped through the city in 2005? Neighborhoods disappeared under water. Thousands took shelter in the Superdome. People signaled for help from their roofs.

You'd have to imagine that most, if not all of those helpless people would have evacuated or at least prepared much differently if they had known just how devastating the storm would be. Well, to a much greater degree, this planet is barreling toward a scene of destruction and misery, but you don't have to go through it. God's Word tells you exactly how to prepare for that terrifying future event. You'll see that today on Grace To You as John MacArthur continues his series, The Rapture and the Day of the Lord.

And now here's John with today's lesson. First Thessalonians 5 verse 1, Now as to the times and the epochs, brethren, you have no need of anything to be written to you. For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. While they are saying, Peace and safety, then destruction will come upon them suddenly like birth pangs upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. Those people who are living in the time period between the rapture and the day of the Lord are going to have ample warning, ample warning.

But look at verse 3. What are they going to say? Are they going to be running around saying, It's coming, it's coming, it's coming, it's coming. What are they going to be saying?

Peace and safety? How can they say that? It's inconceivable, and yet it's true. Non-Christians in that dark and deceitful satanic kingdom of Antichrist will not be expecting the day of the Lord in spite of all the signs. And it's amazing to think about that because there'll be so many indications that this is coming.

Let me take you a little bit more deeply into those indications. Now get your Bible and turn to Matthew chapter 24, and I want you to jump around between Matthew 24 and Revelation with me for a few moments, and I want to show you how much is going to be happening to give them the sign that the day of the Lord is on its way. And even though they don't know the specific day or hour, they should know the general time. In Matthew 24, please notice verse 3, Jesus is privately meeting with His disciples on the Mount of Olives after an incredible conflict with the false leaders in the temple, and they say to Him what people have always been asking, tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the age?

They want to know the time. When is it going to happen? When are You going to come and take the kingdom? When are You going to come and judge the ungodly?

When are You going to return? That's the question. And Jesus gives them the answer. The answer doesn't come until verse 29 and 30. They want to know what's the sign. He says, when the sun goes dark and the moon doesn't give its light and the stars fall from the sky and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, then the sign, the Son of Man appears in heaven and He's ready to move in judgment. But there are some things even before that, even before that. That's sort of the last major sign.

But look at all they're going to be able to see who live in that time. Go down to verse 8. All these things, this discusses the whole section around verse 8, are the beginning of birth pains.

Now what does He mean by that? Birth pains, listen very carefully, is a very graphic analogy. Birth pains come suddenly, suddenly upon a woman.

They come repeatedly and they come progressively more intense. And that's the idea. The world is going to be hit with a pain followed by another pain, followed by another pain, another pain, and it's going to be intensified, intensified, intensified until finally the event takes place. But these people aren't going to see it because they're going to be some false prophets running around saying, peace and safety, peace and safety. Notice Jesus' answer, how He points this out. First thing He says in verse 4, the first thing He says in answer to their question, He said to them, see to it that no one...what? Mislead you. There it is. Satan will always want to mislead about the truth of final judgment because it's going to include Him.

Don't let anybody mislead you about this. Here is written warning to the generation alive at the time of the day of the Lord. And then He goes into the birth pains. What's the first birth pain? Verse 5, first birth pain. Many will come in My name saying, I am the Christ and will mislead many. The first birth pain is widespread deception by a proliferation of false religions, false prophets, false teachers, false leaders, false Christs, and out of them will rise one false Christ and say, I am Christ, the Antichrist.

You see, they have to be in place when it starts so they can explain it all away. The number of deceivers and deceived will grow and grow and grow as people start coming to them for answers to the coming of these tremendous calamities. The epitome of these false Christs will be the Antichrist, the beast of Revelation 13, the little horn of Daniel, the willful king of Daniel, the man of sin of 2 Thessalonians, he's called by all of those names, the final world ruler who makes a pact with Israel. Compare that with Revelation chapter 6 where you have the seals. There is a scroll in the hand of Christ here.

This scroll is the title deed to the earth. It is time for the Lord to take back the earth. It is time for Him to bring judgment. It is time for Him to unfold His wrath and His judgment. And before the great and terrible day of the Lord breaks out at the sixth seal, there are five preliminary seals that begin to unfold God's wrath in a natural way. Then at the sixth and seventh it comes in a supernatural holocaust. But it starts to unfold from the first seal. Now in ancient times when you had a title deed or a will or a testament to leave a legacy to someone, the Roman government required that it was sealed seven times so that you couldn't break the seal.

It was to be sealed seven times for security. And here the Lord takes the title deed to the earth that is sealed seven times in proper legal fashion and He breaks one seal at a time and each time a seal is broken, the scroll unrolls a little bit and it unrolls at the first seal and what does it reveal? Verse 2, a white horse, someone on it with a bow which means power. The white horse was the conqueror's horse.

He comes with a crown. He is a ruler and a sovereign. He conquers. You'll notice there's no war here.

He has a bow but no arrows. It is a conquest of political nature probably, of ideological, philosophical. It is a cold war conquering.

It is a conquering by treaty, by manipulation or intimidation. And here is the Antichrist who comes and conquers with a false peace, without war, the ultimate false prophet and this parallels the first birth pain. Go back to Matthew chapter 24. The second birth pain is in verse 6. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you're not frightened for those things must take place but that is not yet the end for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. The second birth pain is war. The false peace doesn't last very long.

It isn't long until war begins to break out. The details of that conflict are recorded for us in Daniel chapter 11 if you read them there and also in the book of Revelation. The second birth pain parallels the second seal.

Go back to Revelation again. In the second seal it says in verse 3, the second living creature says, come and another a red horse this time. And to him who sat on it was granted to take peace from the earth. And here is war riding a horse and people kill each other and a great sword is given just like the wars and rumors of wars and nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

In the second birth pain, the second seal is the same thing. War begins to hit the earth. And this war escalates and moves more intensely through the time period of the Tribulation. So war begins and escalates all the way to Armageddon. The next birth pain, you notice in Matthew 24 verse 7 and 8, it says, in various places there will be famines and earthquakes. And he says, all these things are just the beginning of birth pains. So the third birth pain, famine and earthquake, we'll call that natural disaster.

Natural disaster. John saw the same thing. Go to Revelation 6 in the third seal, just like the third birth pain.

There's the black horse and he has a pair of scales. And you notice in verse 6, a quart of wheat for a denarius, three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and the wine. Those are famine prices when food is so expensive that no one can afford to buy it because it's so scarce. And so John in the Revelation sees in the third seal the same thing that Jesus spoke of in the third birth pain, that is famine conditions around the world, natural disasters. Go back to Matthew 24. The fourth pain comes in verse 9, then they will deliver you to tribulation, kill you.

You'll be hated by all nations on account of My name. Persecution, that's going to come too. There will be some believers in that time who have responded to the preaching of the gospel by the two witnesses of Revelation 11, perhaps have responded to the preaching of the gospel by the angel, the everlasting angel who flies through heaven preaching the gospel, perhaps are listening to the forerunner announcing the day of the Lord and there will be some who will believe. Certainly Israel will be redeemed and there will be a great host of Gentiles that no man can number listed in Revelation chapter 7. And so there will be those saved and then the world will turn on them and hate them and persecute them. We find a parallel to this also in Revelation 6.

Would you please look there? In the fourth seal, he discussed more of the natural disasters, fourth of the people dying from sword and famine and pestilence and wild beasts. But then the fifth seal parallels the fourth birth pain, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the Word of God and because of the testimony which they had maintained.

And there you have those martyred saints. And then you notice Matthew 24, verse 14, there is a final pain in these beginning of birth pains. The gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a witness to all nations and then the end shall come. There's going to be a worldwide preaching of the gospel, worldwide declaration of the truth, as I said by the two witnesses, by the 144,000 Jews of Revelation 7 who are sealed and protected from anti-Christ persecution so they can proclaim the truth, by the everlasting angel of Revelation 14, 6 and 7 who preaches the gospel supernaturally. And it's after that the end comes.

You're really moving to the end. And then in verse 15, the abomination of desolation which Daniel predicted where the anti-Christ shows his true colors, moves into the temple, throws out the Jewish worship that is going on there. He desecrates the Jewish temple, sets himself up as God. That's the abomination of desolation.

And then he says, if you're there then, you better run because you don't have much time. It's all going to come. Verse 21, then there will be great tribulation. For the second three and a half years there is great tribulation. The apostasy starts to run rampant. Anti-Christ starts his massacring of those who believe. And there is tremendous intensification of judgment. You move from those first five seals to the trumpet judgments which are tremendously intense.

And ultimately to the seven bowl judgments which are more devastating as those birth pains get closer and closer and closer, more intense, more intense, more painful, more painful. You say, well now wait a minute. With all of that, don't they see it coming? The answer is what? No. No. They don't see it coming.

Why? Verse 25, because of false Christs who mislead them. Verse 11, because of false prophets who mislead many. Verse 12, because lawlessness is increased, sin is running wild.

And they're loving it and they're into it. And they're believing the lies of the false prophets who are saying peace and safety, peace and safety. Verse 24, false Christs, false prophets will arise.

And how do they do this? How do they mislead? They show great signs and wonders so as to mislead, if it were possible, even the elect. They're satanic signs, chicanery, they're fakes, phonies, maybe some of what they do is demonic, some of it is just fake, false.

And listen, people believe that stuff when you can show signs and wonders. But listen to Revelation for a moment. Chapter 13, verse 8, and all who dwell on the earth will worship Him, meaning the beast, the Antichrist. They're all going to worship Him. And down in verse 11, I saw another beast coming up out of the earth and he had two horns like a lamb and he spoke as a dragon. This is the false prophet who is sort of second in command. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence. He's vice beast. Verse 12, he makes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast.

They're going to just believe the Antichrist and all his false prophets, including this one. How does he do it? Verse 13, he performs what?

Great signs. He even makes fire come down out of heaven on the earth in the presence of men. And he deceives those who dwell on the earth because of the signs which it was given him to perform in the presence of the beast.

They believe because of what he can do. But there's another component. That's right, another component, 2 Thessalonians chapter 2, verse 11. And for this reason, because they refuse the truth and salvation, God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false.

Is that amazing? That seals their damnation. In order that they all may be judged.

Why? Because they didn't believe the truth, the opposite of which is to take pleasure in wickedness. So all the birth pains and all they say, peace and safety, peace and safety.

Shocking, isn't it? So, the birth pains, the scroll unfolds, those things which indicate the judgment is coming. Now, very briefly, look at 1 Thessalonians 5, its character.

Very simple. Verse 3, its character. It will bring, it says in verse 3, destruction, destruction. Then, alethras, disaster, ruin, using the Septuagint to speak of eschatological destruction.

It does not mean annihilation. It means destruction from the face of the Lord. Utter, hopeless ruin. The loss of everything. Not the destruction of being, but the destruction of well-being. Not the end of existence, but the ruination of the purpose for existence.

God's going to ruin them, destroy them physically and cast them into hell. Destruction. It is so graphically described at the end of chapter 6 that I need to just read it. The sun becomes as black as sackcloth. There's a great earthquake. The whole moon becomes like blood. The stars of the sky fall to the earth as a fig tree casts its unripe figs when shaken by a great wind. The sky is split apart like a scroll. Every mountain and island is moved out of its place.

That's incredible. That's all supernatural. The kings of the earth, the great men, the commanders, the rich, the strong, every slave and every free man, that means everybody, hid themselves in the caves and the rocks of the mountains, said to the mountains and to the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come. And who is able to stand? And when the seventh seal is broken, chapter 8, verse 1, there was silence.

Silence. Notice would you please, verse 3, one more note on this second point. It's going to come and it's going to come suddenly and look at this. It's going to come like what? Birth pangs upon a woman with child. And we heard about birth pangs before. The day of the Lord really begins with the what? The birth pangs. That's the anticipation of the great and horrible, terrible day which unfolds at the sixth seal. But everything preliminary is part of the birth pangs leading up to that moment. Sudden, recurring, increasing pain, until finally it hits.

It's coming. It's character. Thirdly and briefly, it's completeness.

How comprehensive is the judgment? Well, I told you, it's going to ultimately destroy the whole universe. Nobody will survive. And it says at the end of verse 3, they shall not what?

Escape. Who's they? The same they that believe Antichrist and all his false prophets lies about peace and safety. The same they that are the them upon whom the destruction comes.

Nobody will ek-fugo, the word from which we get fugitive with ek added to it. They'll not be able to run out, to escape completely, to get away. They can't escape. When the day of the Lord hits, no one will escape. No one.

None. Boy, what an important message that is to remind people about. In Matthew 13, 41, Jesus said, the Son of Man will send His angels and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness and cast them into the furnace of fire and they'll be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Verse 49, it'll be that way at the end of the age. The angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous and cast them into the furnace of fire. Nobody escapes.

Nobody. Remember the pensive statement of the writer of Hebrews, how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation and all the kings and commanders and rulers and free men and slaves and everybody will cry for the rocks and the mountains to fall on them. But none will escape.

None. In conclusion, a word of comfort, verse 4, but you, brethren, are not in darkness that the day should overtake you like a thief for you are all sons of light and sons of day. You're not of night nor of darkness.

Isn't that wonderful? We're not going to be there for the darkness. We're not going to be there for the day to overtake us. We belong in the light. And verse 9 says it, for God has not destined us for what? For wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's bow together in prayer. Father, as we think about this, it is an awesome reality and must have implications for what we do with our life. Since this is true, I don't want to spend my life doing anything other than what I'm doing to warn as many as possible of this coming judgment. There are those who hear my voice who will not experience the catching away of God's beloved church, those in Christ because they have not believed the truth and turned from their sin and wickedness. And so they will experience your judgment either in the day of the Lord if they live that long or eternal hell if they die first. But Father, we pray that that would not be the case, that no one hearing this message would turn his or her back on the salvation that is in Christ. Thank you for the Lord Jesus who came into this world to pay the penalty for our sin and to offer us eternal life through His resurrection. May we preach, Lord, faithfully the saving gospel to doomed men and women. And may they know that if they will turn from their sin, receive the gift of salvation that the Lord Jesus offers and follow Him, they will pass from the kingdom of darkness into His kingdom and from death to life. Amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. Along with teaching each day on this radio station, John serves as chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current series on prophecy that could be fulfilled in your lifetime is titled The Rapture and the Day of the Lord. Well, I think people tend to assume that when the Bible talks about the rapture, the tribulation, the day of the Lord, it does that primarily as a warning to non-believers, urging them to flee the coming wrath. But John, what Scripture says about the end times is aimed at believers as well, though it does prompt a different response from us. When we as believers think about the second coming of Christ, there is a healthy sense of accountability. There's a sensible kind of fear that enters our hearts. When we know that the Lord could come at any moment and gather us to Himself and reward us for a faithfulness, we want to be found faithful when He comes.

But I think it's more than that. I think a preoccupation, a healthy, sensible, biblical preoccupation within times is driven more by what God has prepared for them that love Him, what the Lord is planning for us. You know, when you read the book of Revelation, you start out in the church age and then you go into the time of the tribulation and massive global judgments that devastate the planet, and finally the total destruction of the coming judgment of Christ. But Revelation culminates with the kingdom, the glorious thousand-year millennial reign of Christ with His redeemed people in the world in a completely restored, recreated world, and then that transitions into a new heaven and a new earth where we dwell in righteousness in the new Jerusalem with the saints and the angels and with our God forever and ever. And I think that the real attraction of eschatology is not the judgment and the pieces that begin to unfold the end, but the end, the kingdom and the coming of Christ. That all is laid out in the book of Revelation, and if you don't understand that, let me give you a great little tool. It's a booklet. We'll send it to you free, called A Jet Tour Through Revelation. I promise you, read this, you'll understand the full flow and chronology of the book of Revelation. You get that in your mind, you can go back and poke around in the details and find out even more. For a limited time, we'll send a free copy of The Jet Tour Through Revelation. All you have to do is ask. Do it today.

Right. If you're wondering about the fate of this planet or what Revelation says about your eternal destiny, don't miss this free offer. To get your copy of John's booklet, A Jet Tour Through Revelation, contact us today.

You can call us at 800-55-GRACE or make your request at our website, gty.org. This booklet will help you understand both the glories and the judgment foretold in Revelation, giving you hope for the future and motivating you to tell others how they can escape what's to come. To get A Jet Tour Through Revelation – again, it's free – just call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. And remember, at gty.org you'll find thousands of free Bible study resources. If there's a passage in the New Testament that has always confused you or that you simply want to know more about, John has a sermon on it. Or you can spend some time reading our blog. You'll find series on compelling topics like Glorifying God in the Gray Areas of Life, or Serving the Church, or Purity, or many others.

Our website one more time, gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for starting your week off with Grace to You. And make sure you're here tomorrow when John shows you how to walk in the light of Christ and how that leads to salvation assurance. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.