Meaning of DAY OF THE LORD

It cannot be separated from the day of the Messiah (see DAY, last paragraph). It is frequently characterized by judgment: "A day of darkness and darkness, a day of cloudiness and dense fog... great is the day of the Lord, and very terrible" (Joel 2:2, 11, 31; Mal. 4 :1)

«The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When they say, 'Peace and security,' then sudden destruction will come upon them" (1 Thes. 5:2, 3).

«But the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night; in which the heavens will disappear with a great noise, and the burning elements will be a waste, and the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Pet. 3:10). This scene is followed by THE DAY OF GOD in v. 12, which introduces the new heavens and the new earth.

It is important to see the contrast between the "day" and the rapture of the saints to meet the Lord in the air; There are many who have misapplied the term, and it has been constantly asserted that the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians was written to show believers that it was a mistake to be waiting for the coming of the Lord; in reality the fact is that the believers in Thessalonica thought that the day of the Lord had come (cp. the 1977 revision of 2 Thes. 2:2, "in the sense that the day of the Lord has come," versus the erroneous translation of previous reviews, "it's close").

There will be judgments before the millennium, and also after the millennium, so we can consider the Day of the Lord to extend through the Millennium: it will be the day "of the Lord" in contrast to the day "of man."