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Zephaniah, Prophet of Divine Protection, Part 4, The day of the Lord

Zephaniah 1:14-16 gives us a comprehensive view of the day of the Lord,

¹⁴ Near is the great day of the Lord, near and coming very quickly; listen, the day of the Lord! In it the warrior cries out bitterly. ¹⁵ A day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, ¹⁶ a day of trumpet [shofar] and battle cry against the fortified cities and the high corner towers.

The prophet tells us that the day of the Lord is imminent, “near” and “coming very quickly.” Certainly, Babylon was soon to come to capture and ultimately to destroy the city. Yet we know that the destruction in 586 B.C. did not completely fulfill the prophecy. It was merely a pattern of a greater destruction yet to come, because many centuries later, Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:2, 3,

² For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. ³ While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then destruction will come upon them suddenly like labor pains upon a woman with child, and they will not escape.

Again, he writes in 2 Thessalonians 2:3,

³ Let no one in any way deceive you, for it [the day of the Lord] will not come unless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed [“unveiled, exposed”], the son of destruction.

There are some who believe that the day of the Lord was the day of Christ’s crucifixion. Paul effectively refutes this in his letters to the Thessalonian church.

Paul and the other apostles no doubt were looking ahead to Jerusalem’s destruction at the hand of the Romans in 70 A.D., and yet this too was a pattern of even greater things to come at the end of the age. In the first century the apostles thought that Christ would return in their lifetime, and when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem, many thought that this was the ultimate fulfillment of the day of the Lord.

The Preterist view today teaches that all prophecy was fulfilled by 70 A.D. It teaches that Christ returned in 70 A.D. and that we have been in the Kingdom since then. Their proofs focus upon the prophecies of the day of the Lord and the destruction of Jerusalem. However, they fail to take into account Jeremiah 19:10, 11, which prophesies that the city would be destroyed and never again repaired (or rebuilt). Jerusalem was rebuilt after 70 A.D., which means that the final fulfillment of his prophecy has yet to be fulfilled.

Many years ago, I spoke at a Bible conference along with a prominent Preterist. I was able to ask him specifically to comment on Jeremiah 19:10, 11 to see if Preterism had taken this prophecy into account. He knew nothing about it. I asked him also if he understood how the feast days prophesied of the two comings of Christ. I discovered that he knew very little about the feasts.

A third question I asked him was what he understood about the Sonship message. He said that he did not know much about it at all. Obviously, the sons of God were not manifested in 70 A.D., so Preterism attempts to establish the Kingdom during the rule of “Saul,” thinking that this is all that there is.

Paul also taught that Hagar allegorically represented the earthly Jerusalem and must therefore be “cast out” (Galatians 4:30). Hagar herself left Abraham’s household twice (Genesis 16:6; 21:14). When she left the first time, due to Sarah’s harsh treatment, she was met by an angel who told her to return (Genesis 16:9). It appears that her harsh treatment represented the Roman siege in 70 A.D. The second time, however, God Himself told Abraham to send her away, and this time she was cast out permanently. This prophetic pattern will be fulfilled in our time, coinciding with the day of the Lord.

Therefore, when Zephaniah says that this day is “near and coming very quickly,” we must understand that this is from the perspective of immortality. From our mortal perspective, “very quickly” means during our lifetime. I learned many years ago that when God said “soon” or “quickly,” it could mean thousands of years, as we see from Revelation 22:12,

¹² “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.”

Again, Revelation 22:20 promises, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” These promises were written in 96 A.D., when John was in exile on the island of Patmos (Revelation 1:9).

Destruction and Disaster

Zephaniah’s language echoes earlier prophets. Amos 5:18-20 reads,

¹⁸ Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? ¹⁹ As when a man flees from a lion and a bear meets him, or goes home, leans his hand against the wall and a snake bites him. ²⁰ Will not the day of the Lord be darkness instead of light, even gloom with no brightness in it?

In other words, there is no escape for the unrepentant ones. If they escape one thing, they will be struck by another. Why would anyone long for the day of the Lord, unless they believe that they will be able to escape its effects? The prophet appears to be addressing believers, because unbelievers would not know anything about the day of the Lord, nor would they believe such prophecies even if they heard them. Perhaps this foreshadowed the belief in the pretribulation rapture, where believers claim that they will escape to heaven prior to this tribulation. Yet Jesus told His disciples in Matthew 24:29,

²⁹ But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ³⁰ And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

I have shown in other studies that the tribulation was much longer than a mere seven years. It actually began in 604 B.C. when Babylon took Jerusalem. The great tribulation was to extend for “seven times,” which, in long-term prophecy, is 7 x 360 years. It covers the entire captivity under the dominion of Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, and the “little horn” extension of Rome.

It is true, however, that there is a final seven-year period at the end of this tribulation wherein we see an increased time of trouble. This is the day of the Lord. Its purpose is to overthrow these empires in order to establish His Kingdom. As we will see from Zephaniah’s prophecy, the wrath of God is directed at the oppressive systems of ungodly government and that God will protect His people in the midst of that judgment.

The Trumpet

Zephaniah 1:16 says that the day of the Lord is “a day of trumpet and battle cry.” The trumpet in this case is a shofar, rather than the bell-shaped metal trumpet that Moses invented in Numbers 10:1-4. The silver trumpet represents the feast of trumpets, Rosh Hoshana. The shofar represents the Day of Atonement (or Jubilee). The day of the Lord, then, seems to focus upon the day of Atonement, wherein men were called to fast and mourn. The day commemorates the day that the people refused to enter the Kingdom when ten of the twelve spies gave an evil report (Numbers 14:1).

Joel 2:1, 2 also associates the shofar with the day of the Lord, saying,

¹ Blow a trumpet [shofar] in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; surely it is near, ² a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness….

The day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) has a dual purpose. For those who lack the faith to face the giants and enter the Kingdom, it is a day of fasting and repentance. For the overcomers it is the Jubilee, a day of rejoicing and jubilation. The day of the Lord, then, is designed not only as a time of destruction but a time of repentance for the unbelievers—including Christians who had justifying faith (Passover) sufficient to leave “Egypt” but who lack glorification faith necessary to fulfill the feast of Tabernacles.

Until that day comes, there is still time for all people to repent and to obtain an increase in faith to the required level to become an overcomer.