The Day of the Lord

Interesting how the Bible describes the Day of the Lord. Sometimes in Scripture it describes the overall judgement of the entire earth and its contents, and others are coming judgements for that area that prophets like Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Habbakuk all warned about coming.
One that I want to focus on is Zephaniah....

What do we know about the Day of the Lord?

Well we know that it it will come like a theif in the night-1 Thess. 5:2

It also says that a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day to God in regard to the Day of the Lord-meaning it can come at anytime like the theif reference--2 Peter 3

But let me not stray too far from what I want to talk about.....

IN Zephaniah, there is a great warning coming from God against Judah. He declares that He will sweep everything away (Zep. 1:2-3) and calls out Judah and Jerusalem in vs. 4.

This judgement from Zephaniah is not one of the Final Judgement but one for Judah and Jerusalem for the ignorance and disobedience for worshipping idols and living wickedly.

At the same time though the descriptions are going to be the same when the Final Judgement comes and I want to focus on these descriptions:

vs. 14-describes about how the great day is coming and fast...
vs. 15- that the day will be like a day of wrath
(wanna know what wrath means okay good----its main definition is "forceful anger, punishment, divine retribution for sin" a great synonym for this word would be displeasure)

God is not happy with the people of Judah. Looking back at vs. 4-5 it describes how the people had temples built still to Baal and along with that had names of pagans and idoloturous priests still teaching and preaching their filth. They would climb on their roofs and worship the stars, yet also worship the Lord at the same time (called syncretism) This is not acceptable in God's eyes and He alone is the only God to be worshiped (see the problem!)

vs. 15 continued.... now are descriptions of what the day will be like....

a day of distress and anguish
-distress means to cause stress or anxiety and or suffering
-anguish means agonizing physical and or mental pain or torment

a day of trouble and ruin
-trouble meaning to cause distress, disturbance, difficulty , inconvience
-ruin meaning total destruction

a day of darkness and gloom
-darkness can be synonyms here describing the dismal state that God will create

a day of clouds and blackness
clouds in the sense of no clarity (is repeated by the description in vs. 17 of how they will walk like blind men because of there sin)
Blackness--no light, but complete surrounding of darkenss, blackness and no light to guide them, God's judgement will cover all who defy Him.

a day of trumpet and battle cry

-I like this verse because it decribes the Lord coming like a battle cry for the judged Judah to fear. The Lord is coming not to provide peace nor a way out but to judge and the trumpet is used all over the Bible to describe the Lord coming for battle. (hint Revelation several times, Daniel also)
I end there because these descriptions put alot of things in perspective like who looks forward to these things? Well no one wants distress, anguish and blackness but people will endure it.

THE POINT:
The Final Judgement laid out in Revelations will be similar but much more intense with fire and sulfur for those who do not believe in Jesus being who He said He was. Sounds harsh, well Jesus endured harshness(Luke 22:63-65, Jn. 18:19-24) , darkness( Mark 15:33), distress, anguish(Luke 22:44), trouble and even abandonment(Mark 15:34) so that we wouldnt have to. Remember that....