Postby pastorables » December 4th, 2011, 7:38 pm
Gerald,
Here is a good example using your words "at hand".
Joel 2:1-2
1 Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;
2 A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
If you study the entire second chapter of Joel, one quickly begins to realize that this is prophesying of a future event. Joel even adds emphasis in verse 2 by stating that this kind of time has never happened before and will never happen again.
If you go further into precept upon precept, line upon line study of this chapter, you begin to see that it rightly divides with the coming day of the Lord spoken of in other scriptures throughout the Old and New Testament:
Joel 2:31-32
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.
32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.
Matthew 24:29-31
29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken:
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Acts 2:19-21
19 And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke:
20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:
21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Revelation 6:12-17
12 And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood;
13 And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
14 And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
15 And the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man, hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains;
16 And said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:
17 For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?
From my limited understanding of scripture, all of these writers are referencing the same event --- the day of the Lord. It is no coincidence that the scriptures speak of deliverance and wrath within the same frame of time. The Lord's coming will be a time of deliverance for his people and a time of wrath and destruction for those who have rejected him.
I have just offered you precept upon precept, line upon line concerning just one thought from the Bible. The precepts must be able to lie upon one another and connect one another while reflecting the same truths.
"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose."
Jim Elliot - Missionary Martyr 