It is a mistake to limit “the day of the Lord” to a single event. Some would limit the Old Testament references to the fall of Jerusalem (586 B.C.) and the New Testament ones to the singular events of A.D. 70. These specific judgments are certainly examples of “the day of the Lord,” but the meaning is broader and should not be limited to a single historical event but rather to every time God frustrates the progress of evil and reinvigorates His Kingdom. It is every time God destroys man’s pretentions so that His Providence might move forward. “The day of the Lord” is God hitting a “reset” button and saying, “This stops now!”
We err in looking at eschatology as a single end of all history because God forces many endings on man. If you had lived in the generations of Noah’s Flood, Babel, Pharaoh’s army, the Canaanites in the time of Joshua, or the fall of Jerusalem in either 586 B.C. or in A.D. 70, you would have seen it as an ending forced by God so that man’s plans would be frustrated and His advanced. “The day of our Lord” is a recurring fact of history.
“The day of the Lord” is destructive of that which opposes God but restorative of God’s salvation. We may suffer with the ungodly during judgment, but our hope is that God will Judge sin and reset history to His glory. We have hope for the future because Christ is on His throne and “of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end (Is. 9:7a).
“The day of the Lord” is a frightening concept, but the alternative is worse. Our hope for the future is that God will yet once again say, “This stops now!”
“The Day of the Lord”
By Mark R. Rushdoony
I would suggest that the last actual Day of the Lord was the fall of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pack, in 1991.
All we have gotten since then are synthetic Days of the Lord – in 9/11 and with COVID-19. Essentially, great big media events to generate public panic, and thus get unthinking public obedience to sacrifice more formal and informal power to the REAL Lord of Society, the State.
“Master, Master, accept these sacrifices!
Accept these chains around our necks, mouths, and hands!
Accept more money!
Accept these sacrifices, and SAVE US NOW!”
What’s the difference?
The reaction to the unexpected disasters *suspicious look* of 9/11 and COVID-19 were designed to glorify the functional god of our society, the State. Above-the-law military and surveillance power was unleashed with the Patriotic Act and various futile wars in the Middle East, and Above-the-Law civilian dictatorial powers were unleashed with COVID-19.
Note: the MidEast wars have died down, but the Above-the-Law powers against the civilian population of the United States – and, to a lesser extent, the West – remains on the books.
A.k.a. Bush putting into law regulations planned under Clinton.
And after 20 years, you still can’t carry a bottle of water on a plane, and the American population has grown used with the humiliating Homeland Security body searches that Obama ordered.
Note that Trump didn’t even lift a finger to end any of this: his base simply did not care enough to do anything about it. They were far more interested in a wall that never appeared, a lot of shouting over nothing.
The American people are comfortable with their chains.
Stepping back, the last actual Day of the Lord overthrew the dominant idol of the East… and the idol of a fair chunk of the Western intellectual class.
The next actual Day of the Lord will also overthrow the dominant idol of the governing class.
Which ruling idol is toppled — Central Banking, the EU, the US deep state, the Chinese Communist Party, Progressivism itself, the Welfare-Warfare state, the Authority of Certified Experts — is unknown to me.
It could even be a minor, bush league idol, like Putin or the Kim Dynasty (Trump is already gone). I don’t know if overthrowing a minor fake god counts as an actual Day of the Lord — “but for me it was Tuesday” — but it’s worthy of note for us mortals, anyways.
I myself can see two major idols that are as dead now as Communism was in the 1970s: the Welfare State, and the never-ending Sexual Revolution (still ongoing of course, as the transsexuals would demonstrate).
Both of these successful Establishment projects will fail due to a declining and increasingly ignorant/uncurious/uncreative/pessimistic population, and thus a declining economy.
(See Unwin’s Sex and Culture – discussed by North in Teenage Sexual Promiscuity vs. Economic Progress, as well as in other articles – on how creativity and production are linked to keeping sexuality within marriage).
Both point to a sharp decentralization of government power, as budgets are slashed, and then eliminated.
In my eyes, that is THE Day of the Lord for this century, barring a nuclear war.
This is where Christians are expected to step up. Just as during the fall of Rome.
Acrosss the Stars 