As we endeavor to take a closer look into the difference between the tribulation and the wrath of God, we need to look closer into an event that is mentioned several times in both the Old and New Testament. The phrase “the Day of the Lord” is widely accepted by Bible theologians as God’s wrath that occurs at the end of the age. I agree with this as well, but there is a big difference between main stream theologians’ timing of the Day of the Lord and mine.
First, it should be noted that no one knows for sure the exact length of the Day of the Lord. We can look at the phrase and compare it to the phrase that describes a king’s rule. I am sure that you have heard the phrase, “In the year of king such in such”. This just referred to the reign of a specific king and did not mean a literal year. I believe that this is the same for the day of the Lord.
Most bible teachers today claim that the day of the Lord begins at the beginning of the tribulation. Of course as I mentioned in the previous post that most of these teachers believe that the tribulation and God’s wrath are one in the same. Now I can take two scriptures in the New Testament and prove that the day of the Lord happens after the tribulation. Acts 2:20 teaches us an important fact about the day of the Lord. It says that the sun and moon will turn to darkness BEFORE the great day of the Lord. This is very important because obviously the sun and moon are going to darkness only once in the future. Well we can compare this verse to Matthew 24:29 that states AFTER the tribulation the sun and moon will be darkened. So if we put these two verses together it is fair to come up with the conclusion that the day of the Lord happens after the tribulation and not before or during.
I read a book that was supposed to interpret every prophecy in the Bible. The author, who has since gone on to be with the Lord, was a well respected, intelligent person. He was chancellor for a very well known Bible seminary for many years. He stated in his book that the day of the Lord occurs at the beginning of the tribulation. I was amazed to find that he completed left out Acts 2:20 and Joel 2:31 in his book. One of my good pastor friends had a good saying about theologians like this. He would say that, “most Bible theologians don’t let the Bible get in the way of their beliefs”. Such a sad, but true statement.
