The Lord's Day

by Wayne Blank

"I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. I was in the Spirit on The Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea." (Revelation 1:9-11 KJV)

The Lord's Day is The Day of The Lord

Until a few years ago, it was illegal here in Ontario for stores and most businesses to be operating on a Sunday because of an old Provincial law called "The Lord's Day Act" that outlawed them to be open on the "Sabbath." As millions of Christian people around the world already know, Sunday is not, nor has ever been, the Sabbath (see Sunday Is Not The Sabbath) but the legislators who wrote that law over a century ago called it that. Ontario of course was not unique in that way. Most Canadian Provinces and US States have, or have had, their Sunday "blue laws" in some form. Ours here ended when it was challenged in the Supreme Court of Canada and ruled unconstitutional. Now, people are free to either keep Sunday as they always have, or regard it as no different than any other day of the week. Ironically, many of the Sunday churchgoing people who claimed that "a wide-open Sunday would destroy religious and family life in this country" go to church on Sunday morning as they always have - and then spend their afternoons grocery shopping or in places like Wal-Mart, which they opposed to be allowed to be open on Sunday.

Signs In The Heavens I personally was not against the principle of "The Lord's Day Act." They had the right idea, they just had the wrong day. As a Christian who observes The Fourth Commandment, and always will regardless of what I know that Prophecy says is coming upon those who do, I absolutely believe that the Sabbath is a day that businesses, everything, should be closed - and that will be closed after Christ returns e.g. "from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me" (Isaiah 66:23 KJV)

The point of this study however is about what the apostle John meant by his statement "I was in the Spirit on The Lord's day" in the verses above. Many people simply assume that John meant that he "had a religious experience on a Sunday" because that's what "Lord's day" has come to mean to people now. But the apostle John (and every other Christian alive at that time) was a Sabbath-keeper. John never observed Sunday as the Sabbath. Never. Some Christian-professing people didn't start replacing the Roman "Sunday" for the Sabbath for at least another century after John lived - and even then John would not have been among them. Never.

John was given to write the Book of Revelation which describes the time when The Lord is going to rule the earth with absolute authority (see The Coming World Dictator). That "day of The Lord" was known and described by Prophets throughout the Bible who recorded many of the same events that John later did in the Book of Revelation. John was merely the last to be given to write about it as the Holy Spirit guided him. His "I was in the Spirit on The Lord's day" as translated from the Greek meant "the Holy Spirit showed me the Day of The Lord."

There is a world of peace coming, no more war ("they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more," Micah 4:3 KJV) but that peace will come as the result of The Lord conquering a world that for the most part refuses to repent. The "day of the Lord" is about that takeover that will begin with "shock and awe" such as the world has never before experienced. The Lord is coming with overwhelming force, not as a peace keeper, but as a peace maker.

So what does the Holy Bible say about "The Lord's day," or the "day of The Lord"? What did Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Zephaniah, Joel, Zechariah and Malachi all say about it - the same as John wrote about it in the apocalypse? (to understand what apocalypse means, see the Fact Finder question below).

"Behold, the day of The Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine [see Signs In The Heavens]. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible" (Isaiah 13:9-11 KJV)
"For this is the day of The Lord God of hosts [see also The Host Of Heaven], a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries" (Jeremiah 46:10 KJV)
"For the day is near, even the day of The Lord is near, a cloudy day [see also The Clouds of Heaven]; it shall be the time of the heathen" (Ezekiel 30:3 KJV)
"Blow ye the trumpet in Zion [see Who, What or Where Is 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; 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 [see Never Before, Never Again], even to the years of many generations." (Joel 2:1-2 KJV)
"Woe unto you that desire the day of The Lord! to what end is it for you? the day of The Lord is darkness, and not light. As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Shall not the day of The Lord be darkness, and not light? even very dark, and no brightness in it?" (Amos 5:18-20 KJV)
"The great day of The Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of The Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers" (Zephaniah 1:14-16 KJV)
"Behold, the day of The Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle [see Valley of Jehoshaphat]; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall The Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives [see The Return Of Jesus Christ], which is before Jerusalem on the east [see Why Did They Face East?], and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south." (Zechariah 14:1-4 KJV)
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet [see The Elijahs] before the coming of the great and dreadful day of The Lord" (Malachi 4:5 KJV)

Fact Finder: What does "apocalypse" mean in the Bible?
See What Does "Apocalypse" Really Mean?

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