The Day of the Lord
The Book of Revelation
Rick Joyner
We continue our study of Revelation 1:10
“I was in the
Spirit on the Lord's day….”
Understanding what it meant for John to be “in the Spirit on the Lord’s
Day” is the beginning of the revelation of an important theme of prophecy in
Scripture—“the Day of the Lord.”
The Apostle Peter indicated the
importance of this when he wrote, “But do not let
this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a
thousand years, and a thousand years like one day” (II Peter 3:8). In
biblical prophecy, a “day” often represents a one thousand year period.
As
we can compute from adding up the genealogies in Scripture, it has been about
six thousand years since the first Adam, or six prophetic days. The seventh
prophetic day is the Sabbath. When Jesus said that He was the “Lord of the
Sabbath,” He was talking about how He would rule over what is popularly called
“the Millennium.” This one thousand year period that is the seventh prophetic day
is also referred to as “the Day of the Lord,” which is what John was
prophetically taken to in this revelation.
This
concept of “the Day of the Lord” as the seventh prophetic day is corroborated
by the early church fathers in their writings, which I cover in more detail in
my new book, Army of the Dawn. We cannot get into as much detail here, but the
first-century apostles and early church fathers knew about this spiritual
concept. When they said that they were already “in the last days,” they were
referring to the last prophetic days of the prophetic week. The writings of the
early church fathers make this clear, as they reference them as the one
thousand year days.
For
our study here, we need to know that the events prophesied in John’s revelation
began to come to pass immediately. A main theme of this revelation is the Day
of the Lord, and how these events led to it. A major part of our study is to
understand what happened, what will happen, and what our part is in this
unfolding plan of God.
Continuing with Revelation 1:10, we read: “…and I heard behind me a loud voice like
the sound of a trumpet.” Trumpets are often symbolic of messages
that go forth in the earth. Trumpets blown in Israel were a message to the
people for such things as the beginning of a holy day, a feast, or mobilization
for war. Later in Revelation, we will see how the seven trumpets prophesied
seven great messages that would go out during the time leading up to the Day of
the Lord.
When
John turned to “see the voice” (see Revelation 1:12) that was speaking, He saw
the Lord. What the Lord said was:
“Write in a book
what you see, and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and
to Pergamum and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea”
(Revelation 1:11).
Thus began the Message of the Lord to His
Church throughout the unfolding time leading up to the coming of His kingdom.
As stated, we can see a parallel of how church history would unfold in His
message to these seven churches. We will study this because it is a revelation
of where the Church has been, where it is now, and where it is going to
complete its journey to prepare the way for the Lord and His coming kingdom.