If you get to heaven before I do...

The Word for today:
Revelation 10

mark this: Revelation 10:6-7
"There will be no more delay! But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets."



When we were kids at Camp Kenan, we used to have a lot of fun singing a song that went like this:

If you get to heaven
Before I do,
Just drill a little hole
And pull me through.

Kind of a cute song. But even more fun was when we belted out the verse that followed:

If I get to heaven
Before you do,
I'll drill a little hole
And spit on you!

We sang that second verse with great gusto and a perverse glee, as you can imagine!

I still smile over that song, whenever it rolls across my mind. But lately the song hasn't been altogether funny or silly, because our number could actually come up soon.

There are certain segments of time that are marked out in the Bible. Right now, we are in "the church age," so called because the hand of God is moving through the church (the body of Christ) and not--for the time being--through the nation Israel, as was the case in the Old Testament.

At the same time, we are also in "man's day," spoken of by Jesus as "the times of the Gentiles." (Luke 21:24)

But there will come the day when a page of God's calendar will turn, and "man's day" will give way to the Day of the Lord (1).  Having been granted his little say, man's little day will be done.

The Day of the LORD opens with the Great Tribulation Period (see Stand in the Rain from January 8) and includes the Millennial period, when Christ returns to put down rebellion and establish his reign on earth. Nobody, spelled n-o-b-o-d-y, knows exactly when "that day" will arrive (2).

But there is no biblical reason why the Day of the Lord might not be here tomorrow. There are no prerequisite prophecies which must be fulfilled before that day can arrive. To be sure, that day could be thousands of years away, as well. But the point is that there are no unfulfilled scriptural pre-conditions which stand between today and that "tomorrow."

So keep your drill handy.  And you'll want to make sure it's the cordless kind.

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(1) Joel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Zephaniah, and Zechariah all refer to the day of the Lord, calling it "that day." The New Testament refers to the day of the LORD in 2 Thessalonians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 5:5; 1 Thessalonians 5:2; 2 Peter 3:10;
(2) Mark 13:32