June 24, 2022

Passage Read: Amos 3-6
Meditation Verses: 5:18-20

Thought

The day of the Lord is a day of contradictions. For the believer it means salvation is at hand. For the unbeliever, it is a day of doom. And for those who think they are safe but yet hate the Lord and His ways, it again is a day of doom, but they don't recognize it. They're in for a terrible surprise. Yet even for the believer, it will be a day of unparalleled distress. Judgment begins with the house of God, and if it goes hard for God's people, how much worse it will be for the unbeliever. It is a day that God Himself would delay forever if He could, but then He would betray His own character and nature and righteousness. And that He cannot do. There is no joy in the coming day of the Lord, there is only woe and grief, for the unbeliever and the judgment coming upon him, and for the believer, for the tribulation we must endure and for the end of any possible hope for those who have not believed.

Application

God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but would rather they repent. He will take no pleasure in pouring out His wrath on the nations. The Day of the Lord is not a day to look forward to, not if I have any measure of compassion on anyone, believer or unbeliever. It is a day that must come and will come, but it is not a day to take joy in. Hence the urgency to preach the Gospel, that all possible people might be saved, that none should be unwarned. And yet, that too is the very thing that speeds the day. Such tortuous contradictions!