All right, we're gonna look at
Joel chapter two. We're gonna begin in verse 21.
The title of the message is The Day of Christ is at Hand. And that's the main message of
the prophet Joel. That phrase, the day of the Lord
is at hand, appears five times in this short prophecy. And Joel,
he prophesied in the southern kingdom of Judah. His name means
Jehovah is God. And he pronounced, the time of
his prophecy, as I have in your lesson here, Judah, the southern
kingdom, was devastated by a vast horde of locust. The year of
the locust, you heard that. And it destroyed everything. and then it was followed by a
severe famine. And of course we know, as Joel
says in the first 11 verses of this chapter, that all of this
was God's judgment. In chapter one and chapter two
here, all of this was God's judgment against the nation for their
sins. And you know, whenever we see passages like that, we
need to look at them as a reflection of us in our natural state. Devastated, dry, headed to destruction,
spiritually dead and deprived. That's the way we need to look
at this because we're all sinners. The nation here is being punished
for their sins, for idolatry. And we need to understand that
we deserve no better. You know, I've often said that
in false Christianity, people go back and they look at the
Old Testament and they see the rebelliousness of Israel, which
was their biography as a nation, God showing them under that Old
Covenant law the impossibility of salvation conditioned on themselves,
but people in false Christianity who think salvation's conditioned
on themselves, They look at passages like that and they've got to
think, whether they state it this way or own up to it, they've
got to think, well, I'm gonna do better than those guys. And
God's gonna bless me based upon my doing better. And my friend,
we don't realize how self-righteous and evil and wicked that is,
that kind of thinking. And what I mean by that, there's
nothing wrong with us doing better. I mean, we need to do better
in all areas of life. We need to seek to do better
in obedience and our Christian walk, in our life in the spirit. We need to do that. But that
doesn't earn God's salvation for us. That doesn't earn God's
blessings for us, even though we are blessed in doing better.
It's not because we earn it, though. It's just because that's
God's means of blessing. It's just like coming to worship
service. When you got up and got ready
and got here to the worship service, you didn't earn God's favor.
But you're blessed for being here because you hear the word
of God. You feed upon the word of God. It's like sitting down
to a meal when you're hungry. And so when we look at these
passages where we see The sins, and God doesn't hold back on
revealing these things to us. And he doesn't hold back on revealing
ourselves to us. None righteous, none that doeth
good. All this is a testimony that
we're sinners and we cannot be saved by our works. And these Jews, this is part
of that number. I know you look in the biography
of Israel under the old covenant and you'll see all kinds of awful
things. You'll see religious apostasy,
you'll see moral apostasy, just like in our day today. Back then, I think, especially
in the book of Amos, which is the next book we come to, people
were sitting around talking about how much Worse it is in their
day than it was in the days before. And we all do that, don't we?
Oh, it's just so much worse today than it was before. Well, there
are a lot of areas that we could probably agree on that. But man has always done that.
Every generation. Oh, it was so much better back
then. Well, maybe in some ways, but not spiritually as far as
the gospel's concerned. Because men and women have always,
by nature, and they will always by nature, reject the truth,
and even hate the truth. So here's Joel the prophet, prophesying
to these people, calling them to repentance, urged from the
goodness of God, and As we go through their biography again
as a nation, we see there were times that there was what we
might call national repentance, national obedience. And what
I mean by that was that they had a king who led them in the
ways of the law, the ways of the Lord, not that he was saved
by the law, saved by grace back then just like we are today.
and the people obeyed, but in the Northern Kingdom, you didn't
have any of that. There was no what we call kings
who followed the ways of the Lord. But in the Southern Kingdom,
you had a few, but those times didn't last very long, and it
shows that no matter how hard we try, no matter how sincere
we are, no matter how serious we are about our religion, the
bottom line is this. We're in need of a righteousness
we cannot produce. And it's the righteousness that
God requires, and it's given to his people by his grace, and
it's found only in the glorious person and the finished work
of Christ. And that's what Joel's prophecy
is about. Look at verse 21. Now remember,
they're going through famine. severe famine, they'd been swarmed
by locusts that destroyed everything, and listen to Joel's prophecy.
He said the day of the Lord is at hand. And the day of the Lord
can be looked at in several ways. Sometimes it can be looked at
as one particular day. The day that Christ came into
the world. We're going to talk about in
Joel the day that the Holy Spirit descended in a special way to
inaugurate the new covenant. It can be the day of judgment,
it could be the day of his second coming. Either way, here's the
point, the day of the Lord, the day of Christ is going to be
a terrible day for those who stand before God and not washed
in the blood of Christ, not clothed in his righteousness, but it's
gonna be a day of glory for the people of God, who know and love
Christ by the grace of God. So look at verse 21. He says,
he says, fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice, for the Lord
will do great things. Now think about that. Here's
this nation. They're going through terrible
suffering. All the crops have been destroyed.
Everything's been destroyed and there's a famine in the land.
The main famine is what Amos talked about later when he's
talking to the northern kingdom. It's a famine of the Word of
God in the land. I think we've got that. We have,
thank God, we have God's witness still in each generation. But
on the whole, there's a famine of the Word of God. People are
reading their Bibles, and I was writing an article last night
about higher learning, and I had a fellow ask me, he said, did
you go to a seminary? And I said, yeah, I went to a
seminary. And he said, well, did you learn
anything there? And I said, well, here's what
I basically learned at seminary, is you can read the Bible, you
can study its languages, you can learn Hebrew, Aramaic, and
Greek, You can do word studies, you can read about its history,
you can memorize it, and still not know Christ. Now that's what
I learned at seminary. You can do all of that. You can
talk about it, you can discuss it. Remember what Christ said
to the Pharisees. You do search the scriptures,
for in them you think you have eternal life. They are they which
testify me. You can do all that and still
not know Christ, because if God doesn't reveal it to us, We're
not gonna know him. And thank God, at a point in
time, away from all that mess, he got me under a gospel preacher
and revealed it to me. Well, think about these people
in their condition, and the prophet says, don't be afraid, O land,
be glad and rejoice. Well, what have we got to be
glad about? What have we got to rejoice in? Well, he says
the Lord will do great things. Now, if you have a concordance,
it would read something like this. The Lord hath magnified
to do great things. He's magnified himself. The Lord
is great. The Lord is good. Now, he's just,
and he must punish sin where he finds it. We talk about the
doctrine of imputation so much. If I stand before God having
sin charged to my account, God's gonna bring justice, damnation
on me. And that's why the Bible says,
blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth righteousness without
worth, imputeth not iniquity. But he's magnified to do great
things. Now what Joe is doing in this
section, he's mainly pointing them away from themselves and
their circumstances and their condition and pointing them to
the promise that God made to send salvation through the promised
Messiah. And that's what he's doing. That's
the ultimate day of Christ. And so they, and the command
here, the urging here is don't, look, don't look to yourselves.
Don't look, listen, don't look to your idols. Don't look to
your works. Look to Christ because Christ
was just as much a savior back then as he is today. And he's
the only hope that any of us have. Whether we're in the lap
of luxury or where we're down in the dust. Christ is our only
hope of salvation. He's the only hope of righteousness. The Lord will do great things.
Well, what's the Lord gonna do? Well, you could say he's going
to prosper the southern kingdom some. I think this was written
about 700 years before Christ, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of
people say they don't know exactly when Joel prophesied. But it
says here that, it doesn't give us an exact date, but most scholars
say around 835 B.C. to 830. So that would be 800
years, rather, that he prophesied. That would be a little bit before
Isaiah, who was about 700 years. And we know that under King Uzziah
and under King Hezekiah, and a few other kings that the southern
kingdom did prosper a little bit. And again it didn't last
long because you know eventually they went into captivity too.
They were just as sinful and idolatrous as these here before
them. And so all of this is pointing
not to these temporary times of temporal prosperity, even
though you could say that's a blessing from God, I do. Our freedom in
this country is a blessing from God. But it's not gonna last. Listen, the world passes away. The only thing that's gonna remain
permanent is the word of the Lord. and that's salvation in
Christ. And so the day of the Lord would
be a great day of judgment on all the sins of God's people
as their sins had been imputed to Christ and his righteousness
imputed to them. So look to the future, Joe was
saying. What do you mean? Just be optimistic? Look to a brighter and better
future? Things have got to get better? No. Look to the great
day of the Lord when he will do great things and he will magnify
himself in doing those great things. What's that all about?
That's the glory of God and the salvation of his people by his
grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where salvation
is, and look at verse 22. Be not afraid, ye beast of the
field, for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the
tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their
strength. Now, at the time that Joel's
speaking these words, they're in a famine. None of this is
literally true as far as their circumstance in the world. They're in a famine. So what
are you telling us, prophet? Are you telling us that there's
coming a time when we're gonna have bright red apples on the
tree and figs and crops and the beast of the field that he speaks
of, the cows and the horses, everybody's gonna prosper? Well,
there was some windows of time where these things did get better,
but they didn't last. If that's your hope of eternal
salvation and eternal life, you're in trouble. So what's he talking
about? He's using these beasts of the
field and the wilderness and the tree bearing fruit as a metaphor
here. Of the prosperity that never
dies, that we find in Christ who is divine, and we're the
branches. And John Gill, you know I study
him quite a bit because I find that he is pretty spot on when
it comes to interpreting the scriptures. I don't always agree
with him. He's a man, he's not the word of God, but sometimes
it seems what he says makes sense to me and fits with the scripture.
And he makes a spiritual application to verse 22, showing how the
beast could bring to mind God's elect among the Gentiles. And
I like that. God has a people out of every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, and what he's saying is even
the Gentiles would prosper from this great day of the Lord, from
Christ, because God chose a people before the foundation of the
world, and there are people who exist all over this world, every
tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation, and Christ will come to redeem
them, and they will be brought to faith in Christ and repentance.
That's the Lord doing great things for his people. So it's a great
day in that sense. The fig tree and the vine. You
know, the fig tree often is a metaphor for Israel. God's elect among
the Jews, the remnant. And then the vine is Christ.
So all of it coming from him, all of it based upon him. Now
look at verse 23. He says, be glad then you children
of Zion. Zion, you know, that's that hill
right in Jerusalem where David built a home. And it's a metaphor
for the church, a metaphor for the people of God, heavenly Zion,
and rejoice in the Lord your God. All right, let's say you
do have a nice, healthy, flourishing crop in the field. That's a great
thing, isn't it? If you're a farmer, the rain
comes, and that's a great thing. Thank you, Lord, for that. But
don't rejoice in that as if to say, well, that means that I'm
right with God. And you know, that's the way
a lot of people think naturally. If they have an abundance of
material blessings, they say, well, I must be doing something
right. And then if they get sick or
something or lose, they say, well, what did you do wrong?
That's natural, isn't it? That's natural thinking. That's
not spiritual thinking. And so he says, here's what we
do, rejoice in the Lord. Look at verse 23, for he hath
given you the former reign moderately. Now, if you got a concordance
in your Bible, look over to it and it says, he hath given you
the former reign, a teacher of righteousness. And if you do
a word study of that, that word moderately, the very, very root
word of it, is the same root word that you find in the Hebrew
that means righteousness and justice. And the former reign,
it speaks of the word of God. The word of God is often referred
to as reign. But all of this is showing that,
and some translations say the early reign for your vindication,
where he's giving you a teacher of righteousness. Now we know
that the Lord certainly took care of Israel, or Judah especially,
the southern kingdom, even despite all of these troubles and even
despite of all their sins and idolatry. So he did prosper them
in some ways up until the time of Christ when the Old Covenant
was over. But this expression points to
the coming of Christ. He's the teacher, he's the worker
of righteousness by his obedience unto death for the sins of his
people, and he's the teacher of righteousness. Not man, you
see. He says, and he will cause to
come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain
in the first month. and that's the rain that comes
first and then last. So in other words, what Christ
will do as the worker of righteousness and the teacher of righteousness
is he will fill up all that God, all that we need to be saved
and to grow in grace and in knowledge with the word of God. Blessed
are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness. They'll
be filled. Matthew five, I think verse nine.
So Christ is the worker of righteousness by which God justifies his people,
and he's the water of life for them. And he's the one who will
return to vindicate himself and his people before the world.
Now look at the next three verses. This describes physical blessings,
but much more than that. It describes prosperity in spiritual
ways. the blessings that the teacher
of righteousness, the worker of righteousness would bring.
And beginning at verse 24 he says, and the floors shall be
full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. Now
this is metaphorical now. And I will restore you to the
years that the locust hath eaten. What the locust destroyed will
be restored. And isn't that the way with us
by the grace of God, what sin has destroyed, God gives us back
and more, the canker worm, the caterpillar, the palmer worm.
These were different ways of destruction of their crops. And
my great army which I sent among you. He calls these locusts and
these worms an army that he sent for judgment. In verse 26 he
says, and you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the
name of the Lord your God that hath dealt wondrously with you
and my people shall never be ashamed. Verse 27, and you shall
know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord
your God and none else, and my people shall never be ashamed.
Now, that didn't always hold true with the physical nation
Israel. And again, I keep emphasizing
this. There were times where they prospered,
and I think about the times under King David. and the time under
Solomon, you know, when they had such a great reputation.
But then later on, they had nothing to boast about, nothing to brag
about. All they had was shame. And in the end, that's what it
was. When Christ, when the very Messiah that Joel was speaking
of, the day of the Lord came, they didn't know him. He came
unto his own and his own received him not. And that's shame. the very reason for their existence
as a nation, the very reason for their continuing as a nation,
when God sent his son in the fullness of the time into the
world, they didn't know him. Well, guess what, folks? Neither
did we. Isn't that us, by nature? We
don't know him. Don't recognize him. In fact,
we concoct a false messiah in our minds. You did that. I did
too, and I know it's what we were taught. But what does the
Bible say? Can the leopard change his spots? Can the Ethiopian change his
skin? And how can you who are accustomed to doing evil, which
literally means taught to do evil, do anything good? So here
they are, but they're gonna prosper. And now in verse 28 comes that
prophecy of the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit in the inauguration
of the new covenant. And you can find these exact
same words repeated by the apostle Peter at Pentecost. And it's
in Acts chapter two, beginning around verse 14. I've got it
listed there, but let's read it in Joel. Joel 2, 28. It shall come to pass afterward,
that is after the teacher of righteousness comes, after the
day of the Lord, the day of his death, his burial, his resurrection,
ascension after that that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh
not just upon one people but a people out of every tribe kindred
tongue and nation remember what he told Abraham through you all
nations all families of the earth will be blessed And he says,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old
men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.
This is the way in the first days, first years of the new
covenant. This is the way that God communicated
his word to people. And there were dreams. Remember
he gave Peter a dream in Acts chapter 10? And that caused Peter
to go to preach to a Gentile centurion named Cornelius, things
like that. all of that but it was always
whatever God gave them in this special way and this was before
the Word of God came together and was finalized to which now
the book of Revelation tells us anybody who adds to or anybody
who takes away their names aren't written in the Lamb's Book of
Life And so all of these, all that they were given miraculously
in dreams and visions were consistent with the Old Testament prophecies
of the coming of the Messiah. They'd already been revealed.
And he says in verse 29, and also upon the servants and upon
the handmaids in those days, will I pour out my spirit? And
I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire
and pillars of smoke. This is a powerful thing, is
what he's saying. The sun shall be turned into
darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible
day of the Lord. And he says in verse 32, listen
to this. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call
upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered. For in Mount Zion
and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, and in
the remnant whom the Lord shall call. Now that's clear. And this is what Peter preached
at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit had always been at work in the
Old Testament. Any person, any Jew or Gentile,
it was mainly Jews, but any person, any man or woman, who was given
the gift of faith and repentance, who was a believer. It was by
the operation of Christ through the Holy Spirit in the new birth,
just like us. So what's the difference here?
What he's talking about here is a difference of scope, that
in the new covenant, the inauguration of the new covenant church, this
message would go out all over the world. And Paul spoke of
that in the book of Ephesians that we've been studying. How
great this is, this mystery that had been hidden from the ages,
the salvation of the Gentiles. God's got a people out of Jew
and Gentile. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believeth, the Jew first, the
Greek also, the Gentile also. And that's what this prophecy
is. And Peter got up in Acts chapter 2, and you know what
happened. When he began to preach, there
were different nationalities there. And people began to hear
the gospel in their own language. And it was a miraculous day.
And look at verse 14. The unbelievers were looking
around and they thought, these guys are drunk. They've had too
much wine. And Peter in verse 14, he says,
standing up with the 11, he lifted up his voice and said unto them,
you men of Judea and all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be this
known unto you and hearken to my words, for these are not drunken,
as you suppose, seeing it's but the third hour of the day. But
this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall
come to pass in the last days, with God, saith God, I will pour
out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, your old
men shall dream dreams, and on my servants and on my handmaidens,
I will pour out those days of my spirit, and they prophesy,
and I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth
beneath, Blood and fire and vapor and smoke. This is a powerful
thing, see? This is no light matter. It's
spiritual. The sun shall be turned into
darkness. Remember when Christ died, it got dark? And all of
that? Well, this is later now. Some
say that he's referring here specifically to the destruction
of Jerusalem in AD 70. And that could be included, I'm
sure it is. Some say it's referring to the second coming of Christ.
and the events that surround that, and that could be two.
But here's the point. The day of Christ is at hand.
And when it comes, whatever day that is, for me, for you, how
will we stand before God? That's the issue. Will I stand
before God justified, sanctified, Will I stand before him in Christ,
washed in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, or will
I stand on my own? And that day will be a terrible
day of judgment. Well, look unto the Lord. So that's what the prophet Joel
said. Okay, we'll stop there.