Joel 2:28-3:21
Notes
Transcript
Intro/Background
This morning we are going to finish our short series in the OT book of Joel
If you remember, Joel wrote his prophecy during a time of great devastation as a plague of locust had invaded the land of Judah and had laid waste to all of the crops and fruit trees
It was a time of tribulation for the people
But Joel used the current situation that was unfolding in Judah to give us all a picture of a yet future time of devastation known as the day of the Lord
We talked about that last week, but the day of the Lord refers to the events and timeline surrounding the yet future return of Jesus to set up His kingdom on earth in what’s known as the millennial or 1,000 year reign - show timeline
Joel is this multi-lensed book that needs to be studied with 3 different views in mind
Historically
Prophetically
Personally
There’s a lot to cover this morning, so let’s dive in and finish up this book
Lesson - Joel 2:28-3:21.
Verses 28-32
We are given 3 incredible promises here at the end of chapter 2 of Joel
First, the Lord, through Joel, gives us the promise of His Spirit
Second, God says He’ll give us evidence that the day of the Lord is coming
Third, we read of the incredible promise of salvation to anyone who cries out the the Lord
#1 - The promise of the Holy Spirit
When Jesus was in the upper room with His disciples at the last supper, He gave them some pretty earth shattering news
33 Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you.
After 3+ years with the disciples, He was leaving
This news came only a couple of days after the triumphant entry, where huge crowds of people lined the streets and worshipped Jesus as their king
The disciples thought that the kingdom of God was finally going to be set up on earth. They were going to get to rule and reign with Jesus
They didn’t understand the differences in the OT prophecies about the Messiah’s first and second comings to earth
So to receive news that their guy was leaving and none of them could follow, was really shaking them up
Peter asked, “where are You going?”
Thomas would say, “Lord, we don’t know where You’re going, how can we know the way?”
They were fearful that w/o Jesus by their sides, they wouldn’t know what to do
In that time of fear, Jesus gives a great promise
16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
He goes onto say in Chapter 16 of John
7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.
Jesus tells His followers that He was going to send His Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, to dwell with us in our hearts
Jesus couldn’t physically be everywhere at the same time, and He knew that His church was going to spread so far and wide that the only way to lead and guide His followers was to send His Spirit to live in their hearts
When we give our lives over to Jesus to be our Savior and Lord, God gives us His Holy Spirit as a down payment, as a Helper, and a Teacher, and as a source of power to overcome sin and walk by the Spirit, not by the flesh
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
Every single born again Christian has the Holy Spirit living in their hearts. He is there forever, you don’t have to worry that He’ll come and go based upon if you’re walking with the Lord or not. He is the down payment or deposit guaranteeing God’s promise of salvation according to what we read in Ephesians
That in and of itself is a huge blessing
In the OT, when Joel writes this, that’s not how the Holy Spirit worked
God would send His Spirit to come upon, or supernaturally empower someone for a time
But once that work was done, or if that person fell into sin, God’s Spirit would then leave that person
There wasn’t a permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit
So this promise to Joel is an amazing promise to us, that God will never leave us or forsake us, we have an ever present help in our time of need, a Helper to point us to Christ.
But there’s another part to this promise - an empowerment by the Holy Spirit
As believers, we all have the permanent indwelling of this Holy Spirit, He lives in our heart permanently, but He can also supernaturally empower us, where God is using you or giving you those tools that you don’t have naturally to do His will to reach others. We would say the Spirit is upon you or fills you at that time.
Picture the the indwelling of the Holy Spirit as God filling your cup up with water. That cup doesn’t ever run dry. The empowerment of the Holy Spirit would be God filling your cup past full to where it overflows from your life into the lives of others around you.
Joel says that here, yours sons & daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions - these supernatural gifts that the Holy Spirit gives
This work started in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost - you can read that on your own
But the disciples and first believers, a group of about 120 people, were all together meeting and praying, and God empowered them with His Spirit
They were already saved, we read in John 20 that Jesus gave them the Holy Spirit, but this was the Spirit coming upon them
Acts 2 tells us the result was that they spoke in tongues - they were able to speak in other languages
We know this because there was a huge crowd gathered for the feast of Pentecost in Jerusalem, a crowd from all over the known world who spoke different languages
They were amazed that the disciples were speaking in all of their native tongues, they couldn’t believe it, and it led to Peter getting up and giving a sermon in which 3,000 people got saved
In that sermon, Peter quotes Joel 2. The crowd wasn’t sure what was going on, they thought the disciples were drunk or something, but it was the Holy Spirit
The promise in Joel started on the day of Pentecost, but it wasn’t completely fulfilled on that day
Well what do you mean by that?
Some churches today will say that the gifts of the Spirit, or the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, was just for the early church in the book of Acts
The gifts of the Spirit aren’t for today they’d say
I disagree with that point
Paul is clear to the Corinthians in his first letter to them that they should desire spiritual gifts, that empowerment of the Holy Spirit
7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: 8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
Romans 12:6-8 and 1 Corinthians 12:28 give us the rest of the list of the gifts of the Spirit which includes teaching, serving, encouraging, giving, leadership, mercy, helps, and administration.
We should desire to live not just Spirit filled, by Spirit empowered lives
Balances
We need to have balance on this though. There are those in church that run too far down the road of the Holy Spirit. You’d consider them pentecostal or charismatic
The false healing teachers and those who call themselves prophets are examples of this
If you really could heal people, why aren’t you walking into hospitals and clearing out rooms?
Sometimes people will go down the path of just relying on the Holy Spirit and they’ll ignore scripture. The Holy Spirit is supposedly guiding them but they’ll go down a road that’s contrary to what the Bible says
God is not the author of confusion. He won’t contradict Himself. The leading and empowerment of the Holy Spirit will always follow what the Bible says
Paul would tell that to the Corinthians too
He’d say desire the best spiritual gifts, BUT, I have a more excellent way, a life filled with faith, hope, and especially love - obedience to the scripture.
Chapter 14 of 1st Corinthians lays out that there needs to be order in church meetings - we don’t go all pentecostal and start healing people and throwing Holy Spirit balls out into the crowd or go soul soaking
On the other side, we can be Christians that believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Bible, and we miss out on that empowering and overflowing of the Spirit.
We don’t listen for the still small voice to speak to us as we’re looking for God’s direction
We bank on our own skills or our own abilities or the logical thing to do b/c we don’t fully surrender our lives over to His guidance
We’re too afraid to talk to that person that you have this overwhelming feeling in your heart that you need to reach out to
We don’t think that we could ever serve the Lord b/c we don’t possess the right skills or abilities
God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called
So if you felt a tug at your heart the last few weeks when we’ve been asking for Sunday School teachers, but you don’t feel like you’re equipped
You don’t have an elementary ed degree, you don’t possess classroom management skills, you’ve never taught the Bible to anyone before
Guess what? Wisdom and teaching are gifts of the Spirit
Or you have a lot of voices in your life telling you what to do and you’re not sure what path you need to be walking down
Discernment is a gift
How would the church change if it were filled with more Spirit led and Spirit empowered men and women?
How would our families change?
How would our workplaces or our communities or our schools change?
God desires to do a work in and through us. A powerful work. A supernatural work.
His desire is so great that He gives us this promise almost 3,000 years ago in this book of Joel then reaffirms the promise through Peter, and later expands on it through NT authors like Paul
He doesn’t tell us that just the priests or the prophets would do these things, but your sons and daughters, the elders, the youth, the servants. This is an offer for all of us
He doesn’t want you to live a dull life, but one of overflowing
#2 - Evidence that He’s coming back soon
In Luke chapter 12, Jesus tells us that we need to understand the times in which we live
It goes along with the command we studied last week to be watchful servants, waiting for Christ’s return
In Joel here, we get signs of Jesus’ second coming
Granted, these are in the tribulation period, after the church has already been raptured out of here, but God tells us that although we don’t know the exact day or hour, we’ll know the signs, the evidence that it’s coming soon
You can read Matthew 24 or 2 Timothy 3 and see that the description of what the world will look like prior to Jesus’ return pretty accurately describes today
Or you understand the dry bones prophecy in Ezek 37 tells us that Israel must be gathered together again as a nation after not being a nation for nearly 1,900 years, and you look at a map and see Israel is there
These are signs. We’re told to look because it means our salvation or redemption draws near
#3 - Salvation
Back in Joel’s day, this was before the cross, before the NT, the people lived under the old covenant of the law
God gave His people over 600 laws to keep
And do you know what their history taught them? That it’s impossible to keep the law, they all failed miserably and broke it
But Joel tells them that, “It shall come to pass” (verse 32) - one day anyone who calls on or cries out to the Lord will be saved
I want to focus in on one word in particular that makes this such a wonderful promise, the word whoever
That word whoever is such a wonderful & encouraging word to me
The great preacher Charles Spurgeon in talking on this verse rejoiced that it didn’t say his specific name - “Charles Haddon Spurgeon shall be saved” - b/c even if it did he’d go look up how many other Charles Spurgeons were in the world and then worry if it was speaking of him or not
Whoever means all of us. Whoever means you and I
It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, how old you are, or what you’ve done.
If you’re broken. If you’ve failed. If you are tired or overwhelmed. If you’re sick.
Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall, will, it’s a promise, you will be saved
Chapter 3 now changes our lens, our focus, back to the future.
Joel deals mainly with the future prophecy of that day of the Lord, and specifically gets into what will happen to the nation of Israel
We’ll buzz through it and pick out the highlights, but I also think there’s so great stuff in there that we can apply to our own walks
Verses 1-2
“In those days and at that time,” Joel is speaking prophetically again about the future day of the Lord
He tells us that #1 - God is going to bring back the captives into Judah and Jerusalem
In 70 AD, Titus and the Roman army destroyed Jerusalem, destroyed the second temple, and caused what is known as the diaspora, the great dispersion of ethnic Jews from their homeland to other parts of the globe
The Romans renamed the area “Syria Palaestina” after two of Israel’s historic enemies (Syria and the Philistines) to rub it in their faces, and the land became known as Palestine
The Jews started to disperse and that’s how by the 1930s you had large Jewish populations living in Europe and Russia
After WWII and the atrocities of Hitler and the Nazis in the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews were murdered, the world decided to bring the people back into the land and on May 14, 1948, after a decree by David Ben-Gurion, the modern nation of Israel was born - fulfilling the promise given here in Joel 3 and in Ezekiel 37.
God also tells us in these verses that He is going, in the future, to gather all the nations of the world to the Valley of Jehoshaphat
We don’t know where the Valley of Jehoshaphat is - it’s not something that is ever spoken about elsewhere in the Bible and there are no ancient maps that note its locations
For that reason, most Bible scholars think its a symbolic name. The name Jehoshaphat means The Lord Judges showing us that this is a place of judgement rather than a specific location
Putting scripture together though, we have clues in other books as to where this place is - either the Jezreel Valley in Israel, also known as the Valley of Megiddo where the battle of Armageddon will be fought one day, or the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem
Revelation 16 tells us that the nations of the world will gather together in the Valley of Megiddo to go to war against Jerusalem - show picture of valley
Megiddo is this huge valley that has seen the Israelite army as far back as Gideon, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Crusaders, and Napoleon’s armies fight there, and even saw war in modern times including in WWI the the Arab-Israeli War of 1948.
Those armies are going to march towards Jerusalem, where Revelation 19 tells us that Jesus will come back to with the armies of heaven
Zechariah 14:4 says that He will descent on the Mt. of Olives which overlooks the temple mount - show picture of Mt of Olives
From the Mt of Olives, you go down to the Kidron Valley, then back up to the Temple Mount where the temple used to stand and will stand again somewhere up there in the future
The nations of the world will turn their weapons against Him and He will destroy them and cast the antichrist and false prophet into the lake of fire
As Jesus touches down on the Mt. of Olives, Zechariah says it will split in two and create large valley, and a stream will flow through that valley all the way to the Dead Sea to the east and heal the waters of the Dead Sea
If you’ve ever been to Israel and had the opportunity to go to the Dead Sea, you know that its named that for a reason
It is a barren desert wasteland there. There is nothing alive in that sea
What’s crazy about this is that scientists have discovered a fault line that runs west to east under the Mt of Olives.
That’s amazing b/c the Bible says the mountain will split north and south, exactly along that fault line
I heard a pastor say that setting is all ready, it just needs the right foot to touch down
Joel says that God will gather the nations of the earth into judgement at this time
The bible talks about 4 major judgements of God for humankind
#1) The judgement of the nations
That’s here is Joel 3 in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, where God will judge the nations for how they treated Israel, His chosen nation
It’s also known as the judgement of the sheep and the goats from what Jesus tells us in Matthew 25
#2) The Great White Throne Judgement
This is described in Revelation 20 and will take place after the 1,000 year reign of Christ on earth
It says that every person will stand before God and be judged according to their works
There’s a book there, the Book of Life Revelation says. Anyone whose name is not found in the Book of Life is cast into the lake of fire b/c their works won’t be good enough
That’s a scary thought! How do I make sure my name is in the book of life?
#3) God’s Judgement of Jesus
24 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life.
If God would judge us one day based on our works, we’d all be toast, the outcome would not be good.
But God poured out His judgement on His Son on the cross, and Jesus promises us that if we put our faith and trust in Him, we will not come into judgement, our names will be written down in the Book of Life
Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved from this future judgement
Not by works of righteousness which we have done but by His grace we are saved
#4) Bema Reward Seat
2 Corinthians 5 tells us that as Christians, b/c our names are written in the Book of Life and we’re saved from that Great White Throne judgement b/c of the blood that Jesus shed for us, we get to stand at a different judgement - the Bema Reward Seat
This isn’t a judgement for punishment, but its a judgement for rewards
Our works and the intent of our heart will be judged and those things that we do for the Lord will be rewarded
Those things we don’t do for the Lord aren’t held against us or punished, they just are burned away, leaving only what matters, our service and obedience to the Lord, for eternity
Verses 3-16
It can be easy as you go through the OT or the book of Revelation and start to get the wrong impression of God.
We can think of His judgement as His anger and wrath rather than a result of His justice
God looks at what the world has done to His people over history and it is terrible
From babies being murdered by the Egyptians, to conquests by the Assyrians and Babylonians, to the Seleucid empire’s attempt to get rid of worship in in the second century BC, to the Roman sacking of Jerusalem, to the Holocaust, the wars with the Arab nations around them, and even in the antisemitism today, we have seen a Satanic war against God’s people
God is a just God. He sees evil and it moves Him to act.
Since we’re created in His image, we feel that same since of justice too
You see evil, you see those less fortunate being taken advantage of. You read of all the human trafficking in the world. Or destruction that drugs are causing to our nation, it stirs something inside of you that wants to fix it or seek justice
That same heart is in the Lord and He says He’s going to do something about it one day
If God would judge the world just in His anger, all of us would be doomed
Jeremiah would pray
24 O Lord, correct me, but with justice; Not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing.
God will perform those 4 judgements we just discussed in His justice, and that’s why there’s an escape for you and I
But there still is justice for the evil that is not forgiven
One other thing that we’ll close on this morning is the other side of judgement, it’s redemption
We can read these verses and go, “Yikes, this is all bad stuff” and miss out on the hope that’s laid out in them
God promises that He is going to redeem His people. He will be a shelter to them, a strength
Verses 17-21
God is not just in the business of judgement, God is in the business of redemption
After all of the war and destruction the day of the Lord will bring, after all of the evil and suffering in this world, God will have the final victory, He will redeem the fallen earth
That redemption is also given to us at a personal level - God is in the business of redeeming people
In John 4, Jesus and His disciples are traveling and they stop in the area of Samaria.
Jesus sends His disciples into town to go get some food and He sits down by a well to take a break
It’s the middle of the day, I picture it sunny and hot, and all of a sudden this woman comes to the well to get some water
She’s all alone. There are no friends or family she is with.
She came at a time of day where normally there were no people. She was trying to avoid having to talk to anyone.
You see people in town whispered behind her back. They labeled her a certain type of person, loose, immoral, not the kind of person you should spend your time with.
Jesus asks her for some water and this surprises the woman
You see, the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other. Jews would walk miles out of their way during their travels to avoid Samaria b/c of that hatred
So the woman is surprised that Jesus, a Jew, would talk to her, a Samaritan. She asks, “Why are you talking with me?”
Jesus answers, “If you only knew who I am, you’d ask me for a drink and I’d give you living water”
This stuns the woman, what in the world is this dude talking about?!?
He was a traveler, a tourist, He didn’t know this area. He didn’t have a bucket to get any water out of the well. And what in the world is this living water stuff He’s talking about???
Jesus tells her, “If you drink the water out of this well, you’re going to be thirsty again. But if you drink the water that I have to offer, it will become a fountain of life springing out of you, and you’ll never be thirsty again.”
This intrigues the woman. She didn’t want to have to make that daily journey to the well to get water. It was hard work. It reminded her of how lonely she was.
If she could remove that chore that showed her her isolation and reminded her of her past, that would be amazing
But Jesus had something greater than a chore to remove, He wanted to redeem this woman.
She had had a difficult past. Multiple failed marriages. Isolation and loneliness. She was currently living in sin with another man.
But when Jesus looked at that woman, He didn’t see a mess or a failure. He saw His child, in need of redemption
He revealed to her who He really was, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, sent to redeem lost and broken souls back to God
In that meeting, face to face with her Creator, this woman is saved. She is redeemed
She runs back into town, a changed person, and tells everyone to come and meet this Jesus guy, the Messiah, the Savior of the world, her Savior.
If you’re here this morning and you feel like this woman. You’ve had a difficult past, you’ve made mistakes. You feel lonely and isolated. You’re without hope, trying to find satisfaction from relationships or some earthly thing like money or toys or your work.
Jesus wants to tell you today that He has something so much better to offer, streams of living water that will never run dry
He wants to redeem you from that mess, to bring you back into His family.
He doesn’t look at you as a mess or a failure, He sees you as His child.
And He is so in love with you that He came to sacrifice Himself to take the judgement we deserve for our actions, the justice of God, away from us
He offers us forgiveness, hope, redemption
If you have never turned to the Lord before, if you’ve never called upon the name of the Lord, do that today.
As Joel said, when you do that, you will be saved
You will have hope. You will be changed. You will be redeemed.
Close & Pray
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