Episode 126: Joel 2-3 - The Day of the Lord - Deliverance & Judgment - PART 2

JOEL 2 GENERATION PODCAST

**JOEL 2:1-2, 11 – Judgment Announced

1 - Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, (LXX – “for the day of the Lord is PRESENT”) 2 - a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.
11 - The LORD utters his voice before His army, for His camp is exceedingly great; he who executes His word is powerful. For the day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can endure it?
* Past - 587/6BC – Babylonians = “His army” (Joel 2:1-11) – Judgment
* Future - anti-Christ Army at the end of the age against Israel
**JOEL 2:12-14 – Remnant Response

12 - “Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 - and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and He relents over disaster.
14 - Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, and leave behind His blessing, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?
**JOEL 2:15-17 – Remnant Response (cont.)
15 - Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly;

16 - gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber.

17 - Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, for the nations to rule them, in order that they not say among the nations, ‘Where is their God?’”
**JOEL 2:18-27 – God’s Response to Remnant 18 - Then the Lord became jealous for His land and had pity on His people.
19 - The Lord answered and said to His people “Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.
20 - “I will remove the northerner far from you, and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his vanguard into the eastern sea, and his rear guard into the western sea; the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things.
21 - “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things!
22 - Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and vine give their full yield.
23 - “Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given the early rain for your vindication; He has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.
24 - “The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
25 - I will restore (LXX – repay) to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.
26 – “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
27 – You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame. (LXX – disgraced)
**JOEL 2:28-32 (Acts 2:17-21) – God’s Response to Remnant (cont.)
28 - “And it will be after these things, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.
Acts 2:17 – ‘And in the last days it will be, God says, - The phrase in the last days is not quoted from Joel, but represents Peter’s interpretive explanation of the current events as falling “in the last days.”
29 - Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out My Spirit. Acts 2:18 adds – “…and they wil prophesy”
30 - “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.
31 - The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome Day of the Lord comes.
32 - And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.
**Joel 2:28-32 – location?

• Peter quotes the LXX in Acts 2

• Earlier Hebrew Bible / Early Church – Septuagint/LXX – Joel 2

• Hebrew Bible/Masoretic Text (Rabbis) – Joel 3

• Prophetic Significance??

**Joel 3:1-3, 14 – Deliverance of Remnant & Punishment of Enemies 1 - “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, (LXX – when I turned around the captives…)
2 - I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage (LXX – inheritance) Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, 3 - and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it. (Justice for human trafficking!!)
14 - Sounds have sounded forth in the valley of justice (LXX), because the Day of the Lord is near in the valley of justice. (Masoretic – valley of decision)

**God’s Judgment
• Mike Bickle – “At the heart of God’s judgment is Jesus, intervening to deliver the oppressed and to stop oppressors. Think of the implications of a God who would not intervene to stop oppressors. What would you think of a father who would not intervene to prevent a man kidnapping his children? God’s judgments are an expression of His love for His children. Furthermore, in the midst of those very judgments, God offers mercy to the oppressors if

they will only repent and receive it.”
**Joel 3:16-21 - Deliverance of Remnant & Punishment of Enemies (cont.)
16 - The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earthquake. But the Lord is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel.
17 - “So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, My holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it.
18 - “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Shittim.
19 - “Egypt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, for the violence (LXX – injustices) done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land.
20 - But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations.
21 - I will avenge their blood, blood I have not avenged, for the Lord dwells in Zion.”
**Final thoughts

• NOT the End – not the “perilous times” (2 Tim 3), greater works?

• Remnant Rising – PREPARED, over-prepared?, pre-Trib rapture?

• Judgment

• Deliverance – “shall be saved”

• Vindication

• Believing the prophets, “Will the Son of Man find faith…”

• If it is the end? If Jesus is about to Return?