Joel 2
McGeeCHAPTER 2THEME: Looking to the Day of the Lord; God’s plea; promise of deliverance; promise of the Holy SpiritThis chapter continues the prelude which was begun in Joe_1:15, and, of course, continues the theme.
Joel 2:1
LOOKING TO THE DAY OF THE LORDYou recall that God had promised David a kingdom, and that wonderful future kingdom became the theme song of all the prophets after David. The great message is that the millennial Kingdom is coming upon this earth. As we read the prophets, it sounds like a stuck record as one after another looks forward to it. Now Joel, the first of the writing prophets, makes it clear that the Day of the Lordwhich includes the millennial Kingdomwill not be all peaches and cream. Before the millennial Kingdom (when the Lord Jesus will be ruling on this earth), there will be a time which the Lord Jesus defined as the Great Tribulation period. Chapter 2 will make this clear to us. “The day of the LORD cometh.” Let me remind you that Joel is the first of the writing prophets, and he looks way down through the centuries and sees the Day of the Lord. It begins with darkness, that is, with judgment. Then Christ comes to the earth and establishes His Kingdom. Malachi speaks of Him as the “…Sun of righteousness [who will] arise with healing in his wings …” (Mal_4:2). “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain.” “Zion” and “my holy mountain” refer to Jerusalem. He says they should blow the trumpet and sound an alarm. It is important for us to understand the significance of the trumpet. One needs to have a full-orbed view of the Bible so that on any given subject we are able to put our thinking down on all four corners and make an induction. Understanding the background will enable us to appreciate what the writer is saying. What is the significance of the blowing of the trumpet? Back in the Book of Numbers we learn that when the children of Israel started through the wilderness, God commanded them to make two silver trumpets. He gave the instructions to Moses: “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps” (Num_10:1-2). When Israel was in the wilderness, God used the trumpets to move them on the wilderness march. The first blowing of the trumpet was a signal that everybody should get ready to march. When the pillar of cloud would lift and move out, they would take down the tabernacle.
Then immediately the trumpet would sound again, and Moses and Aaron would move up front ahead of the tribe of Judah, and the ark would go out ahead with them. You will remember that Israel was encamped around the tabernacle on all four sides, three tribes on each side. Now each section would move out in turn, signaled by the blowing of the trumpets. Actually, to get the whole camp on the march, the trumpets were blown seven different times. Now when we come to Revelation, the final book of the Bible, we find the blowing of the trumpets again. Although some expositors feel that this is in relation to the church, there is no blowing of the trumpet for the church. The sound of the trumpet at the time of the Rapture (1Th_4:16) will be the shout of Christ Himself: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God …“His voice will be like a trumpet. The seven trumpets in Revelation have nothing to do with the church. The church will have been completed and will have been taken out of the world. The seven trumpets are identified with the nation Israel, just as there were the seven trumpet calls in the wilderness march. If we turn back to the Book of Numbers, we will see that the different trumpet calls meant certain definite things. They were a way of giving instructions to Israel: “And when they shall blow with them, all the assembly shall assemble themselves to thee at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And if they blow but with one trumpet, then the princes, which are heads of the thousands of Israel, shall gather themselves unto thee. When ye blow an alarm, then the camps that lie on the east parts shall go forward. When ye blow an alarm the second time, then the camps that lie on the south side shall take their journey: they shall blow an alarm for their journeys. But when the congregation is to be gathered together, ye shall blow, but ye shall not sound an alarm” (Num_10:3-7).
Then he gives instructions for the time they will be in the Promised Land: “And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the LORD your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies” (Num_10:9). During the time of war the trumpet would call the men of war to defend their country when an enemy was coming. Now here in Joel’s prophecy he says, “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain.” Why? “Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh [near] at hand.” You see, after the Lord has called His church out of the world, He will turn again to the nation of Israel, which becomes the object of worldwide anti-Semitism. This is the beginning of the Day of the Lord. Now in this second chapter, Joel is going to give a blending of the plague of locusts together with the threat of the Assyrian army and then look down the avenue of time into the future and the Day of the Lord. Of course the liberal theologian would say this refers simply to the locust plague and the local situation. He would like to dismiss a great deal of meaning from the Word of God. The other extreme view is to say this refers only to the Great Tribulation period. I think we need to see that in Joel there is a marvelous blending. He moves right out of the locust plague to the Day of the Lord which is way out yonder in the future. You recall that was the practice of the prophets to speak into a local situation and then move out into the future Day of the Lordwhich includes the Tribulation period and the Millennium. The local situation was the plague of locusts, and in the near future the Assyrian army was coming down: “But I will remove far off from you the northern army” (v. Joe_2:20). I think it would be rather ridiculous to call a plague of locusts the northern army, but the plague of locusts was a picture of the Assyrian army that would be coming out of the north, and the Assyrian army becomes the picture of the enemy which will be coming out of the north in the last days. As we see in chapters 38 and 39 of Ezekiel, the northern army refers to present-day Russia which will invade Israel. In fact, Russia’s coming will usher in the last half of the Great Tribulation period. Let me remind you that the Day of the Lord is not a twenty-four hour day, but a period of time. The apostle Paul used it in that sense when he said, “…now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2Co_6:2, italics mine), speaking of the age of grace. Let me repeat that the Day of the Lord is different from the Lord’s Day, which refers to the first day of the week. Although the two words are the same, their arrangement makes all the difference. The difference is as great as between a chestnut horse and a horse chestnut! Now Joel will put down God’s definition that will condition and limit the prophets who will speak in the future. After this, all of them will speak into this period. It is interesting to find that none of them contradict each other, even though some of the prophets didn’t know what the others were prophesying.
Joel 2:2
This is the same period about which the Lord Jesus said, “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Mat_24:21). The Great Tribulation opens the Day of the Lord because that is the way the Hebrew day opens; it begins in the evening at the time of darkness. I have a notion that when the plague of locusts came over the land, they would actually darken the sky because there would be so many of them. And the Day of the Lord will begin with darkness.
Joel 2:3
Before the plague of locusts came, the earth looked like the Garden of Eden. Everything was green with rich, luxurious foliage. The land was beautiful. After the locusts left, there was not a bit of green to be seen. It looked as if a fire had swept over the land. The Day of the Lord will be the same in that it will be a time of destruction. When the four horsemen of the Apocalypse ride through this world, there will be war and famine and death. In one fell swoop, one fourth of the population will be wiped out, and at another time, one third of the population will be destroyed.
Joel 2:4
As I indicated before, the head of the locust resembles a horse’s head, and the Italian word for locust means “little horse”; the German word means “hay horse.” As the horse eats hay, the locusts would eat up everything green. Joel is describing the locust plague and is beginning to make application of it to the Day of the Lord.
Joel 2:5
“All faces shall gather blackness"that is, they will be scorched.
Joel 2:7
In the Book of Proverbs it says this: “The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands” (Pro_30:27). They don’t need a king or a leadereach one knows his place. They come in bands. When Joel describes four different groups of locusts here, I believe he is describing the movement of a great armyan army of locusts. In the last days, there will come against that land another enemy, and it will come like a locust plague. This is a preparation for the Book of Revelation in which the apostle John writes of a locust plague that will take place on the earth during the first woe which follows the blowing of the fifth trumpet: “And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit.
And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads” (Rev_9:1-4). This is an unusual locust that will not attack anything greenthat is all the normal locust would attack. They did not attack human beings. But these locusts will attack “only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads.” It will be such a terrifying time that men will seek death and will not be able to find it; that is, they will not be able to commit suicide: “And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when he striketh a man. And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them” (Rev_9:5-6). Now notice this description of the locusts: “And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions” (Rev_9:7-8). My friend, that is an unusual type of locust! This plague will take place during the Great Tribulation. You can see that Joel, way back here at the beginning of the writing prophets, prepares the ground for the apostle John to come later and give the detailed description of the locusts as they will appear in the Day of the Lord. May I just say that this is the reason I think it is tragic today to find so many people who have just been converted who think they are qualified to start a Bible class. What books do they like to start to teach? Usually you will find they choose either the Gospel of John or the Book of Revelation. In my judgment, that is not the place to begin with new believers. I believe Matthew is the key book to the Bible. Until you understand Matthew, I don’t think you will quite get the message of the Gospel of John and I know you will miss the message of the Book of Revelation. And this little prophet Joel, who has been by and large ignored, sheds a great deal of light on the last days which he calls the Day of the Lord. When Joel writes: “They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war,” he is beginning to move from the local locust plague into the future which he has labeled the Day of the Lord. In the next verse we will see that he is talking about the Day of the Lord.
Joel 2:8
Obviously this is more than a local locust plague or else Joel is exaggerating; the prophets spoke God’s Word as He gave it to themthey didn’t exaggerate. This is the same picture that John gives us in the Book of Revelation.
Joel 2:11
This is the third time Joel has mentioned the Day of the Lord. “Who can abide it?” This is very much the same as Jesus said, “Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved” (Mat_24:22). And Joel asks, “Who can abide it?” Well, John gives the answer in Revelation. In chapter 7 he says that God will shut down the forces of nature, withholding the winds from blowing (which are judgments of God upon the earth) until the two great companies of the redeemed are sealed and made secure. If God’s people are going to make it through the terrible time of tribulation, they will have to be sealed. When Joel asks, “Who can abide it?” the “it” is the Day of the Lord, which begins in darkness, the night of the Great Tribulation.
Joel 2:12
GOD’S PLEANow the question is: What can a sinner do in a period like this? Well, Joel gives the answer for that: “Turn ye even to me with all your heart.” The word turn means “repent.” God says to His people whose hearts are turned from Him, “Repent.” Repent means primarily to change your mind. You indicate a change of mind by turning around. It is true there may be some shedding of tears along with the repentance, but that is only a by-product of repentance. Repentance really means to change your mind. When I first entered the ministry, I went to my home church in Nashville as a pastor. I had some of the most wonderful people in that churchthey had to be wonderful to put up with me! It was my first pastorate, and I was as green as grass. I could be very serious but also rather frivolous. I was not married yet; so I would take off to go to Atlanta, Georgia, or to Memphis, Tennessee, because I knew some girls in both places. The man who was humanly responsible for my entering the ministry was in that church. He had arranged a loan for me because I was a poor boy with no money. Also he had helped me get a job. He was like a father to me, and I loved him as a father. One day I went to the bank to tell him something that I had in mind. He let me know immediately that my idea was not a very good idea, as many of mine have not been. He let me know in no uncertain terms. That angered me, so I turned and started out the door. When I got to the street, I thought, “This is not right. I owe this man a great deal.” So I turned around and went back.
Do you know why I turned around? Because it came into my mind and into my heart that I ought to do it. When I got back to his office I saw tears coming from his eyes. By the way, when my wife and I were in Nashville on our honeymoon, he said to her, “I don’t know much about you, whether or not you get angry quickly, but Vernon has a very high temper, and don’t both of you get angry at the same time!” Well, one of things that made my wife so attractive to me was her mild, even temper, and she has put up with a whole lot from this poor preacher! But the day I returned to his office I repented of the thing I had done, and I manifested it in turning and going back to him. Now when God says, “Turn ye even to me with all your heart,” He means to repent, and the by-product of it will be fasting, weeping, and mourning. Unfortunately, a great many people think that if they go down to an altar and shed enough tears, they are converted. Well, I went through that process as a boy and found it to be absolutely meaningless.
Joel 2:13
You see, this was to be a heart experience, not some outward gesture. Actually, the Mosaic Law forbade the priest from tearing his garments. Repentance was not to be shown by being a fanatic. The tear was to be in the heart. “And turn unto the LORD your God” is repentance. Now he gives the reason for turning to the Lord: “For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.” In the Books of Exodus and Jonah, I deal more thoroughly with the question of what it means when God repents. When Israel was in Egypt, it looked as if God changed His mind. He sent plague after plague to Egypt to give Pharaoh the opportunity to repent and turn to Him, but he didn’t. Also in Jonah’s day, God sent Jonah to preach to the Ninevites that He would destroy the city. However, Ninevah repented and turned to God; so God did not destroy the city. It looked as if God had changed His mind after He said that He would destroy the city, but He did not change His mind.
God is immutable. He is always gracious; He is always merciful, and He is always slow to anger. My friend, you can always depend upon God. He never changes, He is immutable; but when a sinner repents and turns to Him, God says in effect, “You were under My judgment, and I was going to judge you, but now that you have turned to Me, I will not judge you.” God is always gracious and ready to forgive.
Joel 2:14
In other words, “The Lord will bless you again in the field and in the vineyard, and you will have a drink offering and you’ll have a meat offering to bring to Him.” Incidentally, the drink offering is mentioned here; yet there is no instruction in Leviticus for a drink offering. The drink offering was poured on the other offerings and became a part of them. When it was poured on the sacrifice, it went up in steam on the hot coals. The apostle Paul, you recall, said that he wanted his life to be like thatjust a drink offering on the sacrifice of Christ.
Joel 2:15
At the beginning of this chapter we saw that the blowing of the trumpet was used to call an assembly and also to sound an alarm. In verse Joe_2:1 it was to sound an alarm. Now here at verse Joe_2:15 it is to call an assembly. The people were to be brought together to hear God’s message so that they might have the opportunity to turn to God. He is gracious and good, and He is willing to accept them. “Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly.” As we have seen, in the Mosaic system God gave His people only feast days. They were to come before Him with rejoicing. But now that they are in sin and rebellion against Him and have turned from Him, they are to fast and come before Him in a solemn assembly. My friend, the only way we can come to Him is to come as sinners wanting to turn from our sins. If you have been turning from God and now will turn to God, all you have to do is call upon Him and He will save you. “…Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved …” (Act_16:31). You don’t need to do anything but that. You don’t need to join a church, go through a ceremony, or promise Him something. You simply turn as a sinner to Christ for His mercy. It is interesting that the word for preaching or evangelizing or heralding the gospel is a word that means trumpet. The trumpet call of the New Testament is the gospel message that we are to get out to the world. “Blow the trumpet in Zion.” This is to call a solemn assembly. When people respond to an altar call and come down to the front of the church, it is a solemn moment. They are testifying that they are turning to God from sin. That is serious business and should not be done lightly. However, I emphasize again that it is not merely going to the altar of a church that constitutes real repentance. A lovely young couple in Memphis responded to an altar call and came down to the front of the church after a message I had given. I went down to talk to them and asked them, “Is this the first time you have responded to a call?” “No, we come down every Sunday.” “Then why do you come down to the altar?” “Because we want all that God has for us.” “Do you think you will get that by just coming down here?” “We hope so.” “Let me ask you another question. Do you think you have it now?” “No, we don’t.” “Then I would get a little discouraged if I were you. Maybe this isn’t the way it is to be done. Maybe you are trying man’s way, and God has another way. God wants to be good and gracious to you, and He wants to save you, but you must come to Him His way. No man comes to the Father but by the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only door to heaven.” Jesus Himself said, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (Joh_10:9).
Joel 2:16
“Gather the children, and those that suck the breasts” sounds as if the little children were to be taken care of in the nursery so their mothers could give this assembly their full attention. Notice that even the bridegroom is to go to the assembly. When a man was married in Israel, he was excused from going to war for one year. In fact, he was excused from a lot of duties so he could get acquainted with his bride. I guess that was an advantage of getting married! However, God is saying here that everybody is to be gathered togethereven the bridegroom and the bride if they are on their honeymoon.
Joel 2:17
The priests and the ministers of the Lord are to weep. Joel is in Jerusalem, you see; he is a prophet of the southern kingdom. They were to pray, “Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen [nations] should rule over them.” Israel has been scattered throughout the world to this day. Although they have a nation and a government and a flag, they are still pretty well subject to the nations of the world. As I write this, they are caught in the oil slick which is causing them a great deal of trouble, and it will continue to cause trouble because they are not back in the land today in fulfillment of prophecy. When God puts them back into the land, there will be no problem relative to the oil situation. Golda Meir made a statement which inferred that Moses had made a mistake. She said something like this: “Imagine! Moses led all of our people around through the wilderness for forty years and brought them to the only place in this area that has no oil!” Well, if she believed the Old Testament, she would know that they were led by a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day, and that God had a definite purpose for keeping them from settling on land that was rich with oil. They would never have gotten their land backthat’s for sure! Actually what Israel needs is not oil but water. They don’t have enough water because the judgment of God is upon them. Moses made no mistake because he was following the orders of God, and certainly God makes no mistakes. “Wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?” They were wondering what was happening to them. And today that is still their question. In Israel I talked with a sharp young Jewish fellow at the King David Hotel. He said, “If it is as you say that we are God’s chosen people, why doesn’t He intervene for us today?” I told him very candidly, “Because right now, you are not with God. Until you come back in repentance to Him, He is not dealing with you as His chosen people. Today God is doing a new thing: He is calling out from among your people and my peopleJews and Gentilesa people to His name.
You are just not up to date with God. You are going way back to the Mosaic system which is outmoded. The latest thing, the newest model, is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.” You see, God is inviting “whosoever will” to trust Christ and become a part of the new organism which He calls the church.
Joel 2:18
PROMISE OF DELIVERANCENow he is definitely moving into the future. Notice the time-word “Then.” It will appear several times in this chapter. In the Olivet Discourse (see Matt. 24-25), the Lord Jesus used the word then to advance in time the happenings that will take place in the Great Tribulation period. At the end of the Great Tribulation period, just before the Lord returns to this earth, then will He be jealous for His land and pity His people.
Joel 2:19
At that time the Lord will give them corn and wine and oil; they will be satisfied, and no longer will they be a reproach among the heathen. Even the most radical radical today would not say that this is being fulfilled now. The largest population of Israel is not in the land. There are more Jews in New York City than there are in Israel. And there is a great company of them even in Russia. This is not being fulfilled at this time. This still looks forward to the future. It is definitely the period known as the Day of the Lord, which will begin with darkness and move on into the dawn of the Millennium, past man’s rebellion that breaks out on the earth, and on to the beginning of the eternal Kingdom. From here on we are bottled into that particular period.
Joel 2:20
“I will remove far off from you the northern army” certainly is not talking about locusts but an army coming down from the north. This was partially fulfilled when Assyria came down and took the northern kingdom, but God miraculously delivered the southern kingdom from them. It was another hundred years before the southern kingdom went into captivityand then it was to the Babylonians, not the Assyrians. However, there is still a future fulfillment of the removal of the northern army. This is given in more detail in Ezekiel 38-39. In the Great Tribulation period Russia will come down from the north, but God will deliver Israel. The description given here fits the description of the Battle of Armageddon. “And will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.” The Sea of Galilee is on one side and the Mediterranean Sea is on the other side of the Valley of Esdraelon where Armageddon will take place. God will intervene as we have seen in Ezekiel. He will destroy this enemy that comes from the north, and He does it to glorify His name. God is glorified when He judges sin just as much as He is when He saves a sinner. That is hard for us to believe; it is a bitter pill for man to swallow. God is holy, and a holy, righteous God is going to judge. Every one of the prophets says that. The Word of God has a lot to say about the judgment of God. But He doesn’t like to judge. We have already seen that He is gracious and merciful and slow to anger. Judgment is a strange work for God. That is why He holds out His hands all the day long and asks us to come to Him. When people refuse to turn to Him, He must judge them in His righteousness and in His holiness. This is true even for the children of God. When we do wrong, if we do not judge ourselves, God must judge us. He chastens us to bring us back to Himself. To be honest with you, I have had some chastening from the Lord. I want to stick very close to my Heavenly Father because, I can tell you, I don’t enjoy the chastening of the Lord.
Joel 2:21
The Tribulation period will lead to the coming of Christ to earth to establish His Kingdom. Today that land is still under a curse. They need water. The land is far from being a Garden of Eden. Anyone who has driven from Jerusalem to Jericho will have to admit it is just as desolate as the desert in Arizona and California. You will notice that the church is not in this picture. Neither do we find the church in the Olivet Discourse nor in the Book of Revelation after chapter 4. The believers have been raptured, and there is no longer a church on earth. And when the church gets to heaven it will no longer be called the church (ekklesia, meaning “called out”), but the figure changes and the believers will be called the bride of Christ.
Joel 2:22
This day has not come yet.
Joel 2:23
Who are the “children of Zion”? Of course they are the people of the southern kingdomthat is where Zion is located. You and I may sing lustily, “We’re marching to Zion,” but we are not marching to the Zion here upon this earth. When he speaks of the “rain,” he is talking about literal rain. In verse Joe_2:28 Joel will make application of it in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit, but he is referring to literal rain in this verse. The former rain came in October, and the latter rain came in April. There are other passages in the Bible that speak of the former and the latter rains which were quite literal rains in the land of Israel (see Lev_26:3-4; Deu_11:14-17; 1Ki_8:35-36; Jer_3:3; Hos_6:3). Before I went over to Israel, I heard that the latter rain was returning to that land. Well, I have been over there in April, and it rained a little. But, gracious, I don’t think people would call that the kind of rain which the Lord is talking about. In former days they really had rain. All those rugged hills of that land were covered with trees. The enemies came in and denuded the land, and today they are trying to set out trees, but they are having trouble making those trees grow because there is not enough of the latter rain. Joel is talking about these literal rainsH2Owhich God has promised in the future.
Joel 2:24
“I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” There have been a great many sermons preached on this, spiritualizing this passage. And it certainly can be used as an application since it states a great principle. We find the same thought in the Book of Revelation where God says, “…Behold, I make all things new …” (Rev_21:5). He is speaking of the New Jerusalem in this chapter. Those of the church, the sinners who have trusted Christ, are going to be there. He tells us how wonderful it will be and about the fact that He will wipe away all tears from our eyes. What a change that will be! There are a lot of tears in this old world. I rejoice that He will make all things new. I don’t know about you, but I can say that I am not satisfied with my life down here. I have never preached the sermon I have wanted to preachI wish I could do it. I have had it in my heart and in my mind, but somehow I have never been able to preach as well as I have wanted to. I have never been the husband that I have really wanted to be. I wish that I could have been a much better husband to my wife. When I was sick, she and I went back over the days when we met and how we courted, and all that sort of thing.
As I told her, I wish I could change many things which would make it lots more wonderful than it was. Neither have I been the father that I wanted to be. I have never really been the man that I have wanted to be. That is why I love Rev_21:5: “…Behold, I make all things new….” My Lord will say, “Vernon McGee, you didn’t quite make it down there on the earth. You never really accomplished your goals. You were frustrated.
You were limited. You were down there with that old sinful nature. Now I am going to make all things new. I’m going to give you a new scratch pad and a new pencil without an eraser. You can write it all out now. You can accomplish what you wanted to accomplish.” My friend, that will really make heaven heaven for a lot of us. We will be able to do the things and be the person that we have wanted to be down here. Oh, to be free from the hindrances of circumstances, of sin, of the environment, and even of heredity. What a glorious experience to be free of all this and to be in the presence of Christ! He will make all things new. He will restore the years that the locusts have eaten.
Joel 2:26
This will take place when he is “in the midst of Israel”; that is, when Christ has come to the earth and has established His Kingdom. At that time there will be a fulfillment of all the physical blessings which God has promised to the nation Israel. And the blessings in the Old Testament were largely physical blessings. God promised to bless the land so that they would have bumper crops and their cattle would thrive and multiply. Actually the spiritual blessings seem almost secondary. In contrast to this, the blessings God has promised the church are spiritual blessingsonly. We have all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. Even though the primary blessings to Israel were physical blessings, we come now to a passage which speaks of spiritual blessing to Israel. This is a very controversial passage of Scripture.
Joel 2:28
PROMISE OF THE HOLY SPIRITAs we come to this section, it is important to keep in mind that we are in the prophecy of Joel that began with the record of a frightful locust plague which he compared to that which is coming in the future, which he calls the Day of the Lord. We have seen that the Day of the Lord will begin with the Tribulation period, after which Christ will come and establish His Kingdom on the earth. In verse Joe_2:27 we have just read that the Lord at this time will be in the midst of them. Now let’s see what He is going to do. There are many wonderful things that we could say about this passage of Scripture. Dr. Charles L. Feinberg, a Jewish Christian, and an outstanding Hebrew scholar, has written a fine series of books on the Minor Prophets which have been very helpful to me. In Joel, Amos, and Obadiah, pp. 26-27, he calls attention to something that I had not known before: “Verses Joe_2:28 through Joe_2:32 form chapter 3 in the Hebrew text; and chapter 3 in the English translations is chapter 4 in the original. No one will be inclined to doubt that the disclosure of truth in Joe_2:28-32 is of sufficient importance to warrant its appearing in a separate chapter.” I certainly agree that these five verses are important enough to make them a separate chapter. In understanding this prophecy, it is of utmost importance to note the time of fulfillment indicated in this passage: “And it shall come to pass (afterward).” Joel has been telling us about the coming Day of the Lord. As the first of the writing prophets, he introduced it, and he tells what is going to take place during that period. He has emphasized the fact that it will begin with the darkness of the Great Tribulation period (our Lord Jesus gave it that name). We noted the importance of the time sequence in Hosea. In chapter 3, verse Joe_3:5 of that prophecy it is written: “Afterward shall the children of Israel return, and seek the LORD their God, and David their king; and shall fear the LORD and his goodness in the latter days.” We identified the “latter days” as that time of the Great Tribulation period which ushers in the Kingdom by the coming of Christ to the earth, which is the beginning of the Millennium. This leads us to conclude that Joel is now speaking of a very definite period of time, that this prophecy is to be fulfilled during the Day of the Lord, after the night of the Great Tribulation period. Then God will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. Although Joel is the first of the writing prophets, he is not the only one to mention the pouring out of the Spirit. In Isaiah we read: “Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest” (Isa_32:15). He is speaking of the Kingdom which is coming on the earth, and the pouring out of the Spirit has reference to the Millennium. Of course none of the prophets spoke of the church age; all of them spoke of the last days in reference to the nation Israel. Eze_36:27 says this: “And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Then he continues, “And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God” (Eze_36:28). Now he is talking to a particular people and a particular landIsrael. It is also a particular period of time when God will pour out His Spirit. Also Ezekiel says: “And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD” (Eze_37:14). That’s not all: “Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out my spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD” (Eze_39:29). Zechariah is one of the last of the writing prophets. He says, “And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn” (Zec_12:10). Joel also makes it clear in the passage we are discussing"And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance"that he refers to a certain spot on the map. The question arises: What did Peter mean when he referred to this passage of Scripture on the Day of Pentecost? Did he mean that the prophecy of Joel was fulfilled? No, he didn’t say that. He never claimed that this prophecy was fulfilled. On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples they began to speak to Jews who had come to Jerusalem from all over the Roman Empire. Every man heard the message in his own tongue. These were not unknown tongues in which the disciples were speaking the message. Each tongue was the native tongue of one or more of the men who were gathered there from all over the Roman Empire and even beyond the empire. Well, many believed, but others began to mock and say that the disciples were drunkfilled with new wine. So Simon Peter is the one who gets up to answer them. He acted as the spokesman for the group, and he gave an answer to the accusation that they were drunk. “…Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day” (Act_2:14-15). Peter says you wouldn’t find people drunk in the morning. (It’s a little different in modern Americasome people start drinking pretty early in the day.) Peter continues, “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Act_2:16). You will notice that Peter does not say that this is in fulfillment of what the prophet Joel said. All the Gospel writers and the apostle Paul are very clear when they say that something is the fulfillment of a prophecy. I couldn’t begin to mention all of the passages. For examples, turn to Mat_2:17-18: “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not” (italics mine). That was a fulfillment of prophecy that had to do with incidents associated with the birth of Christ.
Drop down to verse Mat_2:23: “And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene” (italics mine). Or turn to Acts 13 to the sermon of Paul at Antioch in Pisidia. He speaks of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and says, “And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee” (Act_13:32-33, italics mine). The Bible is very definite about fulfillment of prophecy. What does Peter say in Act_2:16? “…this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel” (italics mine). He does not say it was a fulfillment of what Joel had predicted. Rather, he said, “This is that"this is like that or similar to that. If you will go back in your mind to the Day of Pentecost, you will realize that Peter was not talking to Gentiles; he was speaking to Jews who were schooled in the Old Testament. They knew the Old Testament. They were Jews from all over the empire who had come to Jerusalem for the feast; they had traveled long distances because they were keeping what was required of them according to the Mosaic Law.
Peter says to them in effect, “Don’t mock, don’t ridicule this thing which you see happening. This is like that which is going to take place in the Day of the Lord as it is told to us by the prophet Joel.” He quotes Joel’s prophecy. “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh …” (Act_2:17, italics mine). This is to occur in the last days. Then the Spirit of God will be poured out upon all flesh. Was that fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost? Hardly. It was experienced by those enumerated in the previous chapter. And three thousand were saved. Even if it had been three hundred thousand who were saved, it still would not have been a pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh. It would still not have been a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. In effect, Peter is saying to them, “Don’t mock at what you see happening. You ought to recognize from your own Word of God that Joel says the day is coming when God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh. If it is poured out on a few people today, you ought not to be surprised at that.” Then Peter went on to quote the rest of Joel’s prophecy regarding what would take place: “I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come” (vv. Joe_2:30-31). Was that fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost? Of course not. There were no earthquakes, no changes in the sun and moon. These will occur on “that great and notable day of the Lord.” Joel calls it, “the great and terrible day of the LORD.” The Day of Pentecost was a great day, but it was not a terrible day. It was a wonderful day! My friend, if we understand the Book of Joel, we will never come to the conclusion that Peter was saying that the prophecy of Joel was being fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. Simon Peter was merely using Joel’s prophecy as an introduction to answer those who were mocking. Now the question arises: What was the subject of Simon Peter’s message? On the Day of Pentecost the subject of Simon Peter’s sermon was the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when he comes to his text, he uses Psa_16:8-10, which prophesied the resurrection of Christ. Notice how he applies it to Christ: “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear (Act_2:32-33). The conclusion both in Joel and in Peter’s address is, “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered [Peter says, Shall be saved].” This is one of the many passages that causes me to make the statement that I think the greatest time of salvation is yet in the future. I believe God will save more of the human race than will be lost. I agree with Spurgeon who said that he believed God would win more to Himself than would be lost. When Christ comes to the earth to establish His Kingdom, there is going to be the greatest time of individuals turning to God that the world has ever seen. Also during the Tribulation period there will be a great turning to the Lordmuch greater than there has been during the church age. The resurrection of Jesus Christ whom God has made both Lord and Christ is the whole point of Peter’s sermon.
He is not emphasizing the phenomenon they had witnessed. The important issue is coming to know Jesus Christ. Oh, my friend, don’t be so occupied with having an experience that you miss coming to know Christ. What place does He occupy in your thinking, in your life, in your ministry? This section of Joel’s prophecy is all-important, but it is yet to be fulfilled.