The Great Day of the Lord

I just worked four hours on a blog entry about Gog-Magog from Ezekiel 38-39 and in re-reading the passages and praying and thinking, I have paused my thought on it, so I am going to study it some more before I say anything. I'm not posting it yet.

I had also come across this passage from Malachi, and it also weighs heavily on me. This is because someone I knew had performed a great and grievous blasphemy against Jesus. He was chastised and punished. I had hoped that the punishment and trauma of the discovery of his blasphemy and wickedness against Jesus which he had done in the name of Jesus purportedly on behalf of Jesus, no less, would chasten him unto repentance and shake his black and stony heart. I see tonight that it has not. Therefore I mourn for those who persist in their blindness because I know they are storing up great wrath for themselves.

Nevertheless, God is great, and he said to Ezekiel, "And whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they will know that a prophet has been among them." This is a comfort, because I know God has spoken in the situation. On the Day when we all stand before Him, the person will remember the chastening and the words and the fact that God had given opportunity to repent. If the completely ignorant are beneficiaries of general revelation of Himself so they are without excuse, (Romans 1:20), when an unsaved person inside the church who has heard the Gospel so often, and has been beneficiary of being immersed in special revelation, still rejects it, how much more are they truly and eternally without excuse?

So here is my thought for the night, short and sweet:

"For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze," says the LORD of hosts, "so that it will leave them neither root nor branch." "But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. "You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing," says the LORD of hosts.… (Malachi 4:1-3)

The just will have their day. Hang on to righteousness. Cling to Him and stand on the rock. We will escape the fire and skip on the high places

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet like the deer’s;

he makes me tread on my high places.

Habakkuk 3:18-19