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As I have mentioned before, one serious problem with online evangelism which I have personally observed many times over the years, is that there are a lot of people who are still young in the Christian faith, and yet who endeavor to pass themselves off as experienced Bible teachers. While some of my readers will no doubt take offense, the simple truth of the matter is that such misguided people have absolutely no right to teach the Scriptures, because clearly, they don't know what they are talking about. As the Apostle Paul writes in his first Epistle to the brethren at Corinth:

"And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know."


Seriously, my friends, some of the claims that they make, and some of their interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, are quite outlandish. They are enough to make your jaw drop. Tragically, due to the very nature of the Internet, and the social networks in particular, regardless of whether they are right or wrong, the minute such people post something online, it can quickly spread like wildfire, and before you know it, another false doctrine has been born and henceforth is in circulation.

One particularly grave teaching error, which again, I have been exposing for many years now, is the practice of taking ancient, already-fulfilled Bible prophecies, and applying said prophecies to our modern day, as if they have not been fulfilled yet, when in fact they were fulfilled thousands of years ago. In this article, I want to address one particular phrase, because I have seen it being posted as a meme in recent days on the Facebook platform, along with a faulty interpretation of the same. The actual meme I have seen was based on the following set of verses which are found in the Book of the Prophet Zephaniah:

"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. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the LORD: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the LORD'S wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy: for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land."


Now, lest any Futurist-leaning Christians try to ignorantly or intentionally misinterpret these verses which are found in the Book of Zephaniah, let me point out very clearly that the previous verses have absolutely nothing to do with some future return of Jesus Christ sometime during our current century -- some say any day now -- as certain Futurists claim.

To give you a very brief background, the Prophet Zephaniah was a contemporary of Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel and some of the Minor Prophets. For those of you who may not be aware of it, within theological circles, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel are regarded as the Major Prophets, while all of the rest of the Prophets of the Old Testament are referred to as Minor Prophets. The sheer volume of the writings of the first four Prophets -- meaning Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel -- as compared to the others, easily reveals why this is so. It is certainly not to imply that the writings of the Minor Prophets were any less important. After all, it is all the inspired Word of God, and it is all very powerful.

To continue, just as Jeremiah began preaching as a young boy during the reign of King Josiah -- and continued to preach for forty years after that -- Zephaniah likewise began his preaching ministry during the reign of that same king. This fact can be easily confirmed by reading the opening verses of both Books, as we see here:

"The word of the LORD which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah."


"The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah, of the priests that were in Anathoth in the land of Benjamin: To whom the word of the LORD came in the days of Josiah the son of Amon king of Judah, in the thirteenth year of his reign. It came also in the days of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the end of the eleventh year of Zedekiah the son of Josiah king of Judah, unto the carrying away of Jerusalem captive in the fifth month."


To reiterate, the phrase "the great day of the LORD" which is mentioned in the previous group of verses in Zephaniah is NOT describing a future return of Jesus Christ to the Earth in our modern times, despite what certain well-meaning, but misguided, Futurist-leaning Christians say and teach. If you are not familiar with the various theological perspectives, I invite you to read my seven-part series entitled "Jesus Christ's Return: Have We Been Deceived?", a link for which you will find at the end of this same article.

Please understand that in the Holy Scriptures, this phrase, "the great day of the LORD", is sometimes used to describe a time of great and terrible judgment, chastisement and major destruction when the Lord used the enemies of Israel to mete out His judgments against a proud, stubborn and rebellious people. In other words, at the time that these events occur, God does not actually come to the Earth such as is believed with the Second Coming doctrine which is embraced by so many Christians today. God simply intervenes via the enemies of Israel to pour out His judgments.

In short, the Lord used normal human beings as His agents of judgment, chastisement and destruction. It doesn't matter at all that these special agents of destruction were heathens. All God cared about was that they performed His Will, which as I have already explained, was to chastise the Israelites for their sins. King Nebuchadnezzar was clearly a Babylonian pagan who worshipped false gods. Yet because he performed God's Will by invading Israel on three different occasions, the Lord called Nebuchadnezzar "my servant" three times in the Book of Jeremiah, as we see by this group of verses:

"Behold, I will send and take all the families of the north, saith the LORD, and Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof, and against all these nations round about, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, and an hissing, and perpetual desolations."


"And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his sons son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him."


"And say unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my servant, and will set his throne upon these stones that I have hid; and he shall spread his royal pavilion over them."


For those of you who may be interested, I discuss this same topic concerning the repeated invasions of Israel by her enemies in articles such as the series entitled "The Fruits of Disobedience". This reminds me of another Biblical phrase which is used in a very similar fashion. That is the phrase "I will visit". Let me provide you with several Scriptural examples so that you can clearly see what I am referring to:

"And the LORD said unto Moses, Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. Therefore now go, lead the people unto the place of which I have spoken unto thee: behold, mine Angel shall go before thee: nevertheless in the day when I visit I will visit their sin upon them. And the LORD plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made."


"Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD."


"For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed. For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the LORD. For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place."


"Flee ye, turn back, dwell deep, O inhabitants of Dedan; for I will bring the calamity of Esau upon him, the time that I will visit him."


"Behold, I am against thee, O thou most proud, saith the Lord GOD of hosts: for thy day is come, the time that I will visit thee. And the most proud shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up: and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all round about him."


"And now will I discover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and none shall deliver her out of mine hand. I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them. And I will visit upon her the days of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them, and she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and she went after her lovers, and forgat me, saith the LORD."


As you can plainly see, in all of the previous verses, the word "visit" is associated with judgment, chastisement and destruction, very similar to how the phrase "the day of the LORD" is likewise used. In the previous verses, the word "visit" is translated from the Hebrew word "paqad", which means to attend to, muster, number, reckon, visit, punish, appoint, look after, or care for, according to the Brown, Driver, Briggs, Gesenius Hebrew Aramaic English Lexicon. So we can say that the Lord is saying that He will attend to their judgment, chastisement and destruction. He will reckon with them. He will punish them.

Of course, we should not rule out entirely the possibility that the Lord actually did visit them in either a spiritual or even a physical form during those times of chastisement and destruction. As I point out in the article called "Sex, a Bowl of Soup and the Nature of Angels", there are certain circumstances where spiritual entities are in fact permitted to materialize within our physical world. One well-known example concerns Jesus Himself who was able to materialize and dematerialize following His resurrection from the dead. Consider the following two examples which are found in the Gospels of Luke and John:

"And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight . . . And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet."


"Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, WHEN THE DOORS WERE SHUT where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. And when he had so said, he shewed unto them his hands and his side. Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord."


One other amazing example which I would like to share with you which seems to support this understanding of spiritual entities materializing in the physical realm, concerns what happened during the decisive battle for Jericho as found in the Book of Joshua. Consider the following group of verses:

"And it came to pass, when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand: and Joshua went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us, or for our adversaries? And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and did worship, and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his servant? And the captain of the LORD'S host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the place whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so."


Now, whether that mysterious visitor was Archangel Michael, or Jesus Himself, or some other spiritual entity, I will leave for you to decide. Whoever he was, he was there in a very physical form, and could easily pass for a human being. This should not surprise us, for as the Apostle Paul writes:

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."


Returning to our primary discussion, thus, similar to the Prophet Jeremiah who warned of the coming invasion from the north for forty years, those verses in the Book of Zephaniah are in reality likewise describing the coming judgment and destruction of Judah and Jerusalem by the hand of the armies of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. That is what is meant by "The great day of the LORD", because He was going to visit judgment, chastisement and destruction upon the Israelites. We know this to be so without a shadow of a doubt because verse four of the first chapter states the following:

"I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of the Chemarims with the priests;"


As I point out in more detail in a number of my other Bill's Bible Basics articles, this terrible event being described by the Prophet Zephaniah actually occurred during the third and final Babylonian siege against Jerusalem around the year 587 BC. It resulted in the destruction of both Jerusalem and Solomon's temple, and in the enslavement of many thousands of Jews who were carried off to Babylon, where they remained for a period of seventy years. This was God's harsh judgment against the Jews due to their stubbornness, rebellion, their sacrificing of their own children to the false god Molech, and their defiant worship of other false gods, such as the so-called "queen of heaven". Consider this group of verses:

"The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger."


"But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men? . . . Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying; Ye and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and fulfilled with your hand, saying, We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her: ye will surely accomplish your vows, and surely perform your vows."


So concerning these verses in the Book of Zephaniah, if anyone tries to explain them to you differently -- such as by pushing their fulfillment far into the future to our current time -- in my view, they are deceived, and they do not know what they are talking about. As such, I strongly urge you to please just ignore them.

As I mentioned previously, the phrase "the day of the Lord" generally refers to a dark time of judgment, chastisement and destruction in the Scriptures. However, each time that it is used, it is NOT always referring to the same prophetic event. It depends in large part on WHO is doing the warning, WHEN they are issuing the prophetic warning, and to WHOM the warning is being given. As we have already discussed, in the case of Zephaniah, he was a contemporary of Jeremiah, and he was warning the Jews of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and the temple compound at the hand of the Babylonian armies around 587 BC. THAT was Zephaniah’s "the day of the Lord".

In the case of the Prophet Jeremiah, we find the phrase "the day of the Lord" being used only one time in his main book. Not only that, but rather than being directed towards the the disobedient Jews, the Lord has Jeremiah use the phrase as a stiff warning of judgment, chastisement and destruction against the armies of Egyptian king, Pharaoh Necho, who went up to do battle against the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar, at Carchemish on the Euphrates River in Syria. This war -- which the Egyptians lost -- occurred during the fourth‭ year‭ of the reign of King Jehoiakim,‭ who was the son‭ of King Josiah‭. We find the phrase "the day of the Lord" in the following group of verses:

"Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans, that handle the shield; and the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow. For this is the day of the Lord GOD of hosts, a day of vengeance, that he may avenge him of his adversaries: and the sword shall devour, and it shall be satiate and made drunk with their blood: for the Lord GOD of hosts hath a sacrifice in the north country by the river Euphrates."


Now concerning why the Lord sought this particular revenge against the Egyptians and their allies, my personal belief is that it is because Josiah -- the father of Jehoiakim -- foolishly went up to fight against Pharaoh Necho's armies, even though the Egyptian king had told Josiah that he had no quarrel with him. Nevertheless, Josiah insisted on fighting against him. The tragic result was that Josiah was mortally wounded and eventually died. So as I said, perhaps this is why the Lord sought revenge. Following is a Biblical account of this event. Please notice the presence of Jeremiah in these verses. As we learned earlier, it was during the reign of Josiah that Jeremiah first began preaching as a young boy:

"After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho king of Egypt came up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates: and Josiah went out against him. But he sent ambassadors to him, saying, What have I to do with thee, thou king of Judah? I come not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war: for God commanded me to make haste: forbear thee from meddling with God, who is with me, that he destroy thee not. Nevertheless Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself, that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. And the archers shot at king Josiah; and the king said to his servants, Have me away; for I am sore wounded. His servants therefore took him out of that chariot, and put him in the second chariot that he had; and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died, and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. And Jeremiah lamented for Josiah: and all the singing men and the singing women spake of Josiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Israel: and, behold, they are written in the lamentations."


Let me mention here that years later, during the reign of King Zedekiah -- who was the final king of Judah -- and just prior to the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, against the Prophet Jeremiah's sound advice, some of the rebellious Jews fled to Egypt, hoping to avoid the Lord's chastisement against them. However, if you read all of Jeremiah 46, you will see that the Lord pronounced judgment against both the Egyptians AND against the fleeing Jews who went there.

The phrase "the day of the Lord" is used in a slightly different way by Jeremiah in the Lamentations of Jeremiah. While he is writing about the same judgment, chastisement and destruction which was meted out by the Babylonians, in this case, Jeremiah does not use the phrase with regard to judgment against the Egyptians and the rebellious Jews who have fled to Egypt. Rather, the Prophet uses the phrase as he is pleading with the Lord concerning what has befallen the Jerusalemites. To give you some background, the invasion and destruction has already occurred by this time. Those who remain in Israel are greatly suffering. The peoples skin is turning black from starvation. Women are eating their very own babies. Death, suffering and destruction are everywhere. In the midst of all of that, Jeremiah -- who is known as the Weeping Prophet -- writes the following:

"Behold, O LORD, and consider to whom thou hast done this. Shall the women eat their fruit, and children of a span long? shall the priest and the prophet be slain in the sanctuary of the Lord? The young and the old lie on the ground in the streets: my virgins and my young men are fallen by the sword; thou hast slain them in the day of thine anger; thou hast killed, and not pitied. Thou hast called as in a solemn day my terrors round about, so that in the day of the LORDS anger none escaped nor remained: those that I have swaddled and brought up hath mine enemy consumed."


"Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick. They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children: they were their meat in the destruction of the daughter of my people."


"Our skin was black like an oven because of the terrible famine."


The main point which I again want to emphasize, and which I want you to recognize from these two accounts in the Book of Jeremiah, is that the phrase "the day of the Lord" does NOT refer to one specific event as is believed by some modern Christians. It is NOT talking about a twenty-first century return of Jesus Christ. You need to get that false idea out of your head. To the contrary, as we have now seen through several Scriptural examples, "the day of the Lord" is used in association with MULTIPLE prophetic events, all of which were fulfilled many centuries ago. A day of the Lord is a day of major judgment, chastisement and destruction. That is what the phrase means.

As I mentioned earlier, the Prophet Ezekiel was also counted among the Major Prophets of Israel. He was a contemporary of the Prophet Jeremiah. In the opening verses of his book, we learn that he was part of the captives who settled near the Chebar River in Babylon, as we see here:

"Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the river of Chebar, that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God. In the fifth day of the month, which was the fifth year of king Jehoiachin's captivity, The word of the LORD came expressly unto Ezekiel the priest, the son of Buzi, in the land of the Chaldeans by the river Chebar; and the hand of the LORD was there upon him."


Please note that Ezekiel was taken captive prior to the actual destruction of Jerusalem and the temple compound in 587 BC. As I explain in other articles, there were three Babylonian sieges against Jerusalem, and it was during the third and final siege that Jerusalem finally fell. Prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, King Nebuchadnezzar installed puppet kings in Jerusalem who were supposed to do his royal bidding. However, the last three kings were rebellious. The second to the last king was Jehoiachin, who only reigned for three months before he surrendered to Nebuchadnezzar and was taken captive to Babylon, where he was imprisoned for about thirty-seven years. Consider the following verses:

"Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and his abominations which he did, and that which was found in him, behold, they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead. Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD. And when the year was expired, king Nebuchadnezzar sent, and brought him to Babylon, with the goodly vessels of the house of the LORD, and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and Jerusalem."


Please notice that Ezekiel specifically says that he had his vision during the fifth year of Jehoiachin's captivity. Being as Jehoiachin's brother, Zedekiah, reigned in Jerusalem for a period of eleven years before Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians, this is how we know that Ezekiel began having his visions and prophesying about six years BEFORE Jerusalem actually fell. Please consider this group of verses:

"Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD his God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the LORD. And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God: but he stiffened his neck, and hardened his heart from turning unto the LORD God of Israel.


Please go to part two for the continuation of this series.

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