This week we have been looking at a
letter that is recorded for us in the Old Testament of the Bible called the
book of Joel. Joel called
the Jewish people to a time of mourning as a result of experiencing a locust plague
that was an instrument of God’s judgment on the Jewish people as a
result of their selfishness and rebellion against Him.
Joel, proclaimed to
the Jewish people "Yet even now," declares the LORD, "Return to
Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning; And rend your
heart and not your garments." You see, the Lord desired that the Jewish
people change the trajectory of their life that was moving away from God back
toward God. And in order to return to the Lord, the Lord wanted the Jewish
people to tear their heart, not their garments. In other words, the Lord
desired that the Jewish people have broken hearts over their rebellion, not
just external actions that covered a heart that was not broken over their
rebellion.
The Lord called the
Jewish people to gather together for a special time of national confession and
repentance. No one was to be excluded. Regardless of age or stage of life;
regardless of relational status; regardless of whatever special plans that they
had made; the Jewish people were to stop everything in their life to
demonstrate their grief and remorse and their desire to turn from their
rebellion and turn back to the Lord.
And if the Jewish
people responded to the Lord by changing the trajectory of their life that was
moving away from the Lord back to the Lord: If the Jewish people had broken
hearts over their rebellion, not just external actions that covered a heart
that was not broken over their rebellion, the Lord would respond by removing
the army of locusts and by restoring and making up for what the locusts had
destroyed. And as Joel continued proclaiming the Lord’s message to the Jewish
people, we see Joel shift from the short-term circumstances of the Jewish
people to describe a long term, and far more significant event, beginning in
verse 28:
28 "It will come about after this That I will pour out My
Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men
will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. 29 "Even on
the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. 30 ¶
"I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire and
columns of smoke. 31 "The sun will be turned into darkness And
the moon into blood Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 32
"And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD Will be
delivered; For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem There will be those who escape,
As the LORD has said, Even among the survivors whom the LORD calls. 3:1 ¶ "For behold, in those
days and at that time, When I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, 2
I will gather all the nations And bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat.
Then I will enter into judgment with them there On behalf of My people and My
inheritance, Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; And they have
divided up My land. 3 "They have also cast lots for My people,
Traded a boy for a harlot And sold a girl for wine that they may drink.
Joel proclaimed to the
Jewish people of his day that there would be a day in the future where the Lord
would do the extraordinary. There would be a day in the future where the Lord
would pour out His Spirit on all mankind. Regardless of race or ethnicity, all
humanity would have the opportunity for the Spirit of God to dwell within them.
There would be a day in the future where God would not dwell in the Temple at
Jerusalem. Instead God would make everyone of His followers a Temple where He
would dwell within them. And in that day, there would be signs that would be
proclaimed by mankind and by the creation that would reveal that this promise
had been fulfilled. And in that day, whoever called upon the Lord would be
rescued from God’s right and just response to selfishness and rebellion that
would occur on that day when the Lord would come to exercise His right and just
response to selfishness and rebellion.
And some 700 years
after Joel proclaimed God’s message to the Jewish people, in a letter that is
recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible, called the book of Acts, we
see the beginning of the fulfillment of this promise. In Acts 2, we see the God
give
His followers His Spirit so that they would declare God’s message of rescue
through the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. You see, just seven
weeks earlier, on the
Good Friday when Jesus was crucified, the sun was darkened, and there occurred
an earthquake in the city of Jerusalem.
The “Day of the Lord”
began with Jesus entering into humanity to live the life that we were created
to live but refused to live and to die the death that we deserved to die. And
the “Day of the Lord” will conclude when Jesus returns to earth to exercise
God’s right and just response to selfishness and rebellion. God was doing something
new in the world; Just as God did something entirely new by sending His Son
Jesus into the world in order to reveal Himself and to provide the opportunity
to rescue the world
from selfishness and rebellion,
God was now sending
His Spirit in order that followers of Jesus would be united together by His Spirit
as a part of a new community called the church. And this new community called
the church would be the vehicle that He used to reveal Himself and His message
of rescue through the gospel to the world. And everyone who responded to the
message of the gospel would be rescued from selfishness and rebellion and
experience the relationship with God that they were created for. Thus, in a
very real sense, we are living in the “Day of the Lord” right now.
Now a natural question
that could arise at this point is “Well Dave, if what Joel proclaimed in Joel
2:28-29 has occurred and we are living in those times, how are we supposed to
understand what Joel says in Joel 2:30-31? Because obviously we haven’t
experienced the fullness of a worldwide judgment from God. So was Peter wrong in
Acts 2 when he proclaimed that what Joel predicated and proclaimed had been
fulfilled in his time?”
If that question is
running through your mind, here would be my response: You see, in Joel chapter 1 and 2, the Lord provided
the Jewish people with a “near” event of the locust plague in order that they
might better understand a far more significant event in the future, which would
be the arrival of the Messiah. However, in Peter’s day, the Jewish people, as a whole, did not turn
back to the Messiah.
And because of that
reality, those who have responded to Jesus by believing, trusting, and
following Jesus as Lord and Leader are living in what is referred to in church
mumbo jumbo talk as “the church age”. During this time in history, as part of
God’s story, the church is presently enjoying the spiritual blessings of the
kingdom of God in advance of what God
is going to do at the end of His story with the Jewish people.
However, at the end of
God’s story, the spiritual and the
earthly blessing of the kingdom will yet be fulfilled for the Jewish people as
well, which is referred to in church mumbo jumbo talk as the Millennial
Kingdom. We see Joel give us a glimpse of this reality just a few verses later
in 3:9:
9 Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare a war; rouse the
mighty men! Let all the soldiers draw near, let them come up! 10
Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the
weak say, "I am a mighty man." 11 Hasten and come, all you
surrounding nations, And gather yourselves there. Bring down, O LORD, Your
mighty ones. 12 Let the nations be aroused And come up to the valley
of Jehoshaphat, For there I will sit to judge All the surrounding nations. 13
Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, tread, for the wine press is
full; The vats overflow, for their wickedness is great. 14
Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is
near in the valley of decision. 15 The sun and moon grow dark And
the stars lose their brightness. 16 The LORD roars from Zion And
utters His voice from Jerusalem, And the heavens and the earth tremble. But the
LORD is a refuge for His people And a stronghold to the sons of Israel.
Here we see Joel
proclaim that, at the end of God’s story here on earth, God will express His right and just response to
the selfishness and rebellion of humanity. God’s perfect justice will be expressed in a
rightful response to the wrongdoing and injustice of others. In addition, the
“Day of the Lord” will be
the doorway of refuge by which those who are in right relationship with God as
a result of responding to all that God has done to rescue them from their
selfishness and rebellion through Jesus life, death, and resurrection, by
believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and Leader will enter into the
Kingdom of Heaven. We see this reality in verse 17:
17 Then you will know that I am the
LORD your God, Dwelling in Zion, My holy mountain. So Jerusalem will be holy,
And strangers will pass through it no more. 18 And in that day The
mountains will drip with sweet wine, And the hills will flow with milk, And all
the brooks of Judah will flow with water; And a spring will go out from the
house of the LORD To water the valley of Shittim. 19 Egypt will
become a waste, And Edom will become a desolate wilderness, Because of the
violence done to the sons of Judah, In whose land they have shed innocent
blood. 20 But Judah will be inhabited forever And Jerusalem for all
generations. 21 And I will avenge their blood which I have not
avenged, For the LORD dwells in Zion.
During the time of the
Millennial Kingdom, the Lord will dwell with the Jewish people who placed their
confident trust in Jesus, and who will experience the fulfillment of the
promises that the Lord made to the Jewish people earlier in Joel 2. And, it is here, when God speaks, that
we discover a timeless truth about the nature and character of God and God’s
activity in history. And that timeless truth is this: There is a day coming
when the Lord will execute justice upon the wrongdoing and injustice of those
who rebel against Him as He establishes justice for those who trust in Him.
You see, the point of the book of Joel is
that the Lord is just and will execute justice upon the wrongdoing and
injustice of those who rebel and reject Him. Just like the Jewish people, all of humanity has done things that hurt and
wronged God and others as a result of our rebellion and rejection of God. And
just like the Jewish people, at the end of God’s story here on earth, Jesus will return to
earth to defeat selfishness, sin, and death, and to exercise God’s right and
just response to the wrongdoing and injustice of humanity against God and
others that flows from their selfishness and rebellion against God and others.
Yet in the midst of
the wrongdoing and injustice of those who rebel against Him, the Lord
faithfully pursues His people in an attempt to persuade them to return to Him. In
the midst of our wrongdoing and injustice, the Lord desires that we have broken hearts over our
rebellion, not just external actions that covered a heart that was not broken
over our rebellion.
In the midst of our
wrongdoing and injustice, the Lord promised that whoever called upon the Lord by responding to
the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel by believing, trusting, and
following Jesus as Lord and Leader would be rescued from God’s right and just
response to selfishness and rebellion that would occur on that day when the
Lord would come to exercise His right and just response to selfishness and
rebellion. And, in that day, the Lord will establish justice in its fullest
sense for everyone who placed their confident trust in Jesus in the face of
their wrongdoing and injustice against others and in the face of the wrongdoing
and injustice that was done to them.
So here is a question to consider:
How will you respond to the reality that there is a day coming when the Lord will execute justice upon the
wrongdoing and injustice of those who rebel against Him? How
will you respond to the reality that there is a day coming when the Lord will establish justice for those who
trust in Him?
When you stand before
the Lord at the end of your life, will the Lord execute justice upon you as a
result of the wrongdoing and injustice that you committed against Him and
others because you chose to live in rebellion against Him? When you stand
before the Lord at the end of your life, will the Lord establish justice for
you as a result of your confident trust in Him?
Because there is a day coming when the Lord will
execute justice upon the wrongdoing and injustice of those who rebel against
Him as He establishes justice for those who trust in Him…
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