The Army of the Lord:

The lesson today had to do with the army of the Lord, the army that shall descend with the Lord Jesus and establish the Kingdom of God on the earth. The Day of the Lord and the descent of the army of the Lord from Heaven is one of the most important topics of the Bible. Until we understand this doctrine we have a false vision of the coming of Christ. A false vision of the Day of the Lord will have a negative effect on our discipleship.

(4/2/2006) Good morning. We spoke today of the Day of the Lord, the return of the Lord Jesus Christ with His saints to establish the Kingdom of God on the earth.

Another important burden the Lord gave me for today has to do with the seriousness of the Gospel of the Kingdom. We American Christians are far too silly, frivolous, careless. We have been lulled to sleep by the American materialistic culture. We think we are ready for the return of Christ. We are not. We are not working out our salvation with fear and trembling but with the thought that God is overlooking our lack of cross-carrying obedience. We are neglecting the daily, lifelong demands of the Gospel of the Kingdom.

But back to the army of the Lord. I like to employ the second chapter of the Book of Joel to teach this subject. Some today are insisting Joel is speaking only of locusts. As in so many cases in the Prophets, there is an obvious, immediate fulfillment; but hidden in the text there is a fulfillment in the Messianic Kingdom, the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

After all, in the first Christian sermon Peter said: "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." It seems to me this gives the Book of Joel a special importance as far as Christians are concerned.

But for those who feel strongly that Joel is referring only to locusts, let me list some of the other passages that deal with the same topic: Psalms 149:6-9; Isaiah 13:9-13; Habakkuk 3:3-19; Micah 5:7-9; Malachi 4:3; Romans 16:20; Jude 14,15. You may notice in the reference in Joel 2-11 the mention of the signs in the heavens. This is true also of the passage in Isaiah, and the twenty-fourth chapter of the Book of Matthew.

The vision of the coming of the Lord held today by so many Christian people is that of a joyous event. The truth is, the return of Jesus Christ to the earth will be the most terrible event of all history. The only people to whom it will bring joy are those who are living in daily cross-carrying obedience. The remainder of the believers, those who are trusting in grace to save them from the Divine wrath, will be dealt with severely.

Do you remember that Jude spoke of those in the churches who turned the grace of God into a license for immorality?

For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. (Jude 4—NIV)

This precisely is what is occurring throughout the churches of our day. Divine grace has become a license for sin. Also, the Lordship of Christ is not mentioned, only His forgiveness. How many believers of today have made Jesus the Lord of their life so they give every decision to Him?

But then notice what will happen to these among us who are using grace as a license for sin:

Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: "See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones To judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him." (Jude 14,15)

Who are "these men"? They are the "believers" who use grace as an excuse for their sinning, and who refuse to make Christ the Lord of their life.

What shall happen to "these men"? They shall be judged and convicted when the Lord Jesus returns with His true saints.

We are blowing the trumpet in Zion, not in the world. We are saying to God’s people that there is coming a great and mighty army of dead-living people who will judge them for their neglect of their salvation. The soldiers of the army of the Lord are dead because they have been crucified with Christ. They are living because Christ is living in them.

These saints can fall on the sword of God and not be harmed because they already have been judged by the two-edged sword of the Spirit. They are without compromise. No lie is found in their mouth. They cannot be frightened, persuaded, or moved in any other manner from strict obedience to their Lord, Jesus Christ.

This is a true vision of the return of Jesus Christ. The purpose of His return is not to carry the carnal church members to Heaven. There is not a passage in the Bible to support such This soulish, contemporary doctrine.

The Day of the Lord will include the outpouring of God’s wrath. The demons pleaded with Jesus that He not torment them before the time allotted for their torment.

There is a Day of Judgment on the horizon. The Christian churches have lost their vision of the Day of Wrath. They are expecting a fun-filled "rapture," but no such event is portrayed in the Scriptures, except as a person filled with the spirit of error is willing to cut and paste verses out of their context.

The whole Bible speaks of the coming of the Day of Judgment. Satan in the university professors is persuading people that human beings evolved from lower forms of life, and that there is no intelligent God. Satan’s purpose in emphasizing evolution is to turn people away from the prospect of being judged for their behavior. The consequence of such belief is a tremendous increase in immorality so Satan and his demons can feed on human flesh.

This same consequence occurs as Christians are taught they need have no fear of the Judgment Seat of Christ. This is why so many pastors, evangelists, and church-attenders spend hours slobbering over the naked flesh portrayed on the Internet.

We can see readily that our vision of the Day of the Lord, the coming of Christ to the earth, will determine the quality of our discipleship. If it is true that when the Lord returns He will carry the present immature believer gaily to Paradise, then we will keep going as we are, business as usual, neglecting to strive to attain to the resurrection which is from the dead—in other words, not being careful to emulate the Apostle Paul.

If however our vision is that of the Day of Wrath, in which all but the most diligent of the disciples will be rebuked for their lack of cross-carrying obedience to Jesus Christ, then we are going to cry out to the Lord that He will grant us the grace to live a godly life—wire-tight as I like to say.

Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand— A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come. (Joel 2:1,2)

At night the teaching was much the same, stressing the need to be serious, working out our salvation with fear and trembling rather than with an unscriptural overconfidence. We must work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We have to do certain things to make our calling and election sure, according to the Book of Second Peter.

God is a Person but not a human being. He does not forgive our sins until an atonement has been made and we have acknowledged and turned away from our sin. God does not just overlook sin, until proper steps have been taken!

We are picturing God as some "good ol’ guy." We have been deceived by the softness of our culture. We would have a clearer picture of God if we were living in the southern part of Sudan.