Sequence of eventsThe Day of the Lord is the climax of all Bible Prophecy. It is the day Christ is manifest in all His glory, and puts an end to Antichrist and his followers. This article deals with the sequence of events that will occur on that day, to the best of my understanding. This sequence is based on harmonizing many passages of Scripture. I could be mistaken about the exact order of some of these events. But, I am convinced that it is generally correct.
1. Before the Day of the Lord, the armies of the nations mass around Jerusalem for the battle of Armageddon [Joel 3:9-14, Rev. 16:13-16]
2. The sun turns black and the moon turns dark red "immediately after the tribulation" [Matt. 24:29, Mark 13:24], perhaps hours or moments before the "Day of the Lord" [Joel 2:31, Acts 2:20].
3. Jesus sitting on a white horse, the Father coming on His Throne [Ezek. 43:1-7 (cf. Ezek. 1:4- 28), Dan. 7:21,22, Mark 14:62, Rev. 6:16,17], the angels, and saints who have died, descend from heaven, circle the earth from east to west for all to see [Matt. 24:27, Rev. 1:7], and hover above the Mount of Olives in a thick cloud cover [Zech. 14:4,5b, Joel 2:2, Zeph. 1:15].
4. Jesus sounds the trumpet, the dead believers are raised and the living changed [1 Cor. 15:50- 54], His angels are dispatched over the whole earth to gather together His elect in the clouds above the Mount of Olives [Matthew 24:29-31, Mark 13:24-27, 1 Thess. 4:13-17].
5. Meteors fall from the sky [Isa. 34:4, Matt. 24:29, Rev. 6:13, Rev. 16:21].
6. The cloud cover over the Mount of Olives rolls back, revealing Christ, the Father, saints and angels [Isa. 34:4, Rev. 6:14], the people gathered for battle run for cover among the rocks [Isa. 2:10,19, Rev. 6:15-17].
7. The Jewish remnant, preserved by God throughout the tribulation [Isa. 26:20,21, Rev. 12:6,14], recognize Jesus as the Messiah, repent and believe, and are saved and sealed [Isa. 10:20,21, Isa. 66:8, Joel 2:32, 3:21, Zech. 12:9,10, 13:1,8,9, Mal. 3:1-3, 4:16-5:3, Rom. 11:26,27, Rev. 7:3-8].
8. Christ descends to the Mount of Olives [Zech. 14:4, Acts 1:11,12], the world's largest earthquake occurs [Isa. 2:19,21, Isa. 13:13, Isa. 24:18-23, Ezek. 38:19,20, Joel 3:16, Hag. 2:6,7,21, Nahum 1:5,6, Heb. 12:26,27, Rev. 6:14, Rev. 16:18], the Mount of Olives splits in two from east to west, and the faithful Jewish remnant flees toward Christ, through the valley created by the splitting of the mountain [Zech. 14:4,5].
9. The battle ensues, Christ throws the Antichrist and False prophet into the lake of fire and destroys the remaining kings [Rev. 19:11-21].
10. The angelic army takes care of the rest of the armies of the nations with fire [Isa. 13:3-11, Isa. 66:15,16, Joel 2:1-11 (cf. 2 Kings 6:17), Zech. 14:12, 2 Thess. 1:7-10].
11. The Lord destroys the remaining Jews who have worshipped the image of the Beast [Amos 5:15-20, Zeph. 1:all, Zech. 13:7-9]
12. The earth is purged by fire and the curse removed [Isa. 10:17-23, Nahum 1:2-6, Mal. 4:1-3, Romans 8:19-23, 2 Peter 3:10-12 (cf. Isa. 65:17-25)]