Joel chapter 2 is our scripture reading today if you have your pew bible it's page 761 Pastor asked me to read Joel chapter 2 and I read it and I'm like man if you're a visitor here today And you've been here for Roseo, or Joel, or Lisa. It's very strange to open up the service with 32 verses of something that sounds like it should be read by a Viking. Do a trumpet in silence. Sound an alarm on my holy mountain. I mean, like, you can hear it, right? I'm not going to read like that. That's frightening to some of you. I thought about doing it like a bugs life. Who are the bugs? I'm probably not going to do that either. But if you're a visitor, we're going through the Minor Prophets, and so don't be frightened by the reading of the Book of Joel. Pastor will make it happen for you. I promise that if he doesn't, we'll fire him. Let's read it together. Joel 2, verse 1. Blow a trumpet and sound the alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the Lord tremble, and the day of the Lord is coming. It is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Like blackness, they are spread upon the mountains with great and powerful people. Their light has never before nor will be again after them through all the years of all generations. Fire devours before them and behind them the flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness and nothing escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses. Like war horses, they run. As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap upon the top of the mountains like a crackling flame of fire, devouring the stubble like a powerful army drawn up for battle. Before them, peoples are in anguish. All faces grow pale. Like warriors, they charge. Like soldiers, they scale the wall. They march each on its way. They do not swerve from their path. They do not jostle one another. Each marches in his path. They burst through the weapons, and they are not halted. They leap upon the city. They run upon the walls. They climb up into the houses. They enter through the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The Lord utters His voice before His army, for His hand 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. Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning, and rend your hearts, 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. Who knows whether he will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him. a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. Blow the trumpet, Zion. Consecrate it fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the people. Consecrate the congregation. Assemble the elders. Gather the children, even the nursing infants. Let the bright, firm leafage groan in the bright earth chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priest and the ministers of the Lord weep and say, spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage or approach a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, where is their God? Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on him. The Lord answered and said to his people, behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied. And I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. I will remove the northerner far from you. and I will drive him into a heart and desolate land, his vanguard into the eastern sea, his rear guard into the western sea. The stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. Fear not, O land. Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things. Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green. Its tree bears fruit. and the fig tree and the vine give their full yield. Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice for 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. The threshing floor shall be full of grain, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will store to you the gears that the swarming lotus has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army which I sent among you. 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 be again put to shame. 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. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth. Blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon 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. Amen. Thank you, Dean. Appreciate that. Yes, lots of verses, and next week we will be wrapping up Lord Willing, the Book of Joel. I'm hoping that as we work through this, you get the idea that we take the Word of God seriously. We're not skipping parts. Our heart's desire is to work through what is called the whole counsel of God, to preach all of it and to do that. And so it's a summer in the minors, and so thus the, the baseball jersey and this leads me right into a baseball story back about 40 years ago. 40 years ago last month actually, July 24th, 1983. the Yankees are playing the Royals there at Yankee Stadium and this is an event that happened and I just want you to see what went on as Something that actually became very famous. So take a look at this scene here. It's a little little while Oh So George Brett has just hit a home run. Top of the ninth inning. And they have now taken the lead. I'm not sure, they might have a legitimate right And if the Empire is going to get together, George Frederickson will run and we'll know what's going on, and if the Empire is going to get together, we'll talk about this thing. But I'll tell you what, I'm glad I'm not acting on the floor, right? You are not allowed to have a substance of any kind. I'm about to trademark you, and I can't come from here because everybody knows around the back. I cannot tell from here if it's up too far, and other folks are out there digging, seeing as if there's some sticky stuff around there. This is going to be an emergency call. I'm not sure what your threat is. Now, the Empire is going to walk away and talk about this and go over the rules and he's standing in the back. See where the signs are still labeled? The trademark is off. See the brown stuff in the center? It's not a trademark. It looks like it is. Now, you are not allowed to have that banner card up that far from the back. Billy Martin walking around waiting for the, what might be a formal decision. First time in a long, long time I've seen an umpire struggle this long and have a beating over it. Well, let's see what's going to happen here. Now that I've seen another umpire, this is a problem that I haven't faced yet. I don't know. They might be going to call for a crowd, but at the end they're going to be loud. They're going to be loud, and they're going to be mad. They're going to be loud, and they're going to be mad. I want you to take a look at what the blizzard was spreading from this wildfire to the other one. as the Yankees have won the ballgame 5-3. With a trial runoff, we're here today as a legal match, along with the illegal subterfuge on the bench. Our contestants have taken it to the floor, right? And, uh, Dave Trasoura just took the time away from the whole point of fire to come. He's going to take the mic. We're going to take the mic. Here I'm going to take it and embarrass myself a little. Uh, shortly, thanks to this man, See, they know what they're doing. Gaylord Perry actually gave the bat to the bat boy and he's running away with it because they don't want him to really look at it. So a standard was set. A rule was set, a call is made. And George Brett doesn't like it. I read his lips. They said, excuse me, sir. I just want to make sure because some of you didn't weren't able to see it. I respectively disagree with your call and kindly ask that you reconsider. So that for those of you that can't read lips, that's what that's what he was saying. But I want you to think for a moment of how we have a standard put before us. We have a rule. put before us, rules that we are given. And sometimes we can act like everything's okay until the final call is made. Ultimately, this was turned, by the way, this game was played out, I think some 20 some days later, and the Royals ended up winning. And so I guess George is happy now, all right. But there are times where you and I are gonna have stuff put before us, calls put before us, And the question is, what are you going to do with it? How are we gonna respond? There's many ways to respond. We can, his life is being played out in front of all of us. But in those quiet times where a standard was crossed, something was done that, and we didn't like it. And this is a perfect ump. a perfect judge that puts it before us. And so we have to come to grips with, is God sovereign or not? Is he really in control of things or not? It's scary sometimes because there's times where our lives, it just seems out of control. It just doesn't seem right what's happened. And that's what's happening with Israel at this point. So let's pray and then get into this passage of scripture together. Father, thank you for what Dean has already read to us, the truth of your word. That's the most important aspect of this morning, your word. These songs that we've been singing that are just packed with theological truth, So we're learning truth and we're in a culture, we're in a society that will push lies. There'll be things that even in our own hearts, because we're born prone to wander, our hearts, Just, we have that bent, and I'm asking you, Father, that you would help us today. As this book is written to the people of God, Israel, that we can make the transition, we can apply it, in such a way that when we walk away with what you've given us, that Father, we heard from you and we desire to be obedient. Even when things don't go our way, you know what's best. And so we thank you for that and look to you and trust you and Lord help us. And it's in Jesus name we pray, amen. We're going to be hearing as we continue this week and next with this phrase, day of the Lord. It's mentioned actually 26 times altogether in the Bible, five times in this book. And this prophet is like a watchman on the tower. I like how Dean read that at the beginning there. There's this distinctive feature of the prophets that they constantly are calling for repentance and for faith. And so point number one is we're, We're working through this together. There are problems. There are problems. Look at verse one. 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. In Numbers 10, we see trumpets and that's the shofar of Israel. That's the ram's horn that they would blow. And they'd be used either to gather the people of Israel or to instruct them in battle. There were certain calls that they would make. And so it's like this prophet is on a watchtower and he's keeping an eye on things. And so he's saying, you need to be alarmed. It's the equivalent to our modern air raid. If you've ever heard that, now those seem to have turned from air raids, because I remember in the 60s when I was in school, that every Tuesday at 10, we knew that that was going to be the going off, is to test that that air raid warning was going on. And now that has become for many of us a tornado warning. So the idea of an air raid isn't the same, but it's the same noise. And these sirens are going off and there's these loud city whistles that announced that we should take cover. And so that's how important this message is. That's how important he wants us to realize, I'm not messing around. This is not a test. Israel, you need to listen and you need to obey. And then we hear about a trumpet and we sang about a trumpet this morning, but we hear about a trumpet in 1 Thessalonians 4.16. for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, with the sound of the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. And so he's gonna call us with that voice like a trumpet. And then Revelation talks about trumpet judgments against the rebellious people who have rejected God's son instead of responding to his goodness. as we have men, as men in our Bible study on Thursday mornings, and we'll be starting that up again in September. We're working through the book of Revelation. You'll hear about the trumpet judgments and it's rough stuff. It is difficult stuff. Understand that the same person that wrote about Jesus as the, he was the beloved apostle, 21 chapters of just love and talking about how Christ came the first time and he's offering salvation to his people. That same author gives us 22 chapters in the book of Revelation that talk about the judgment of God. And God says there's a special blessing to those that read that book. And it's hard reading. It's hard reading because he's saying, I came to you the first time I offered freedom. I offered forgiveness of sin, but there's an acknowledgement that I am Lord, Jesus says. come to revelation and there are people that didn't listen the first time and so he has to come in judgment. Well, let's keep going. Verse two, 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 there like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. And so this day of the locusts, if you remember last week, we started talking about this. The day of locusts is a dark day indeed. Those who had experienced that kind of invasion of locusts tell us that the sun cannot even be seen until the locusts are killed. or they fly to another destination, or they're blown away by the wind. This darkness also speaks to us because sometimes that's the way our lives feel. You ever felt that? You just felt a darkness, an unsteadiness of life, and it just seems to just go that way, and it's gloomy, and it's dark to the point where you don't even wanna face a new day. And if you aren't feeling that, amen, but there are people around us that struggle with that, and we need to be sensitive to that and understand that that's the case. Look at verse three. Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them. So you see these locusts, they're looking, it's so lush, the Garden of Eden is before me. It's feast time. But behind them, after they've gone through is a desolate wilderness and nothing escapes them. And then it says this, it says, their appearance is like the appearance of horses. I don't know if you knew this, but under a microscope, the face of a locust can look a lot like a horse. In fact, one of the ancient Greek words used for locusts is little horse. Let's keep going, verse four there. And like war horses, they run. As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire, devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle. These locusts, they descend upon an area and they make this sound of a loud roar. I've never seen this, but I don't know about you. If you just have a few cicada in your yard, what that's like. So you can't imagine what a sound of locusts and a mass of them moving through. And these are locusts that were sent by God to bring these people to repentance. He told them that was the case. But let's keep going. Second part, or as we continue to work, that before them, verse six, before them, Peoples are in anguish, all faces grow pale, like warriors they charge, like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way, they do not swerve from their paths. And we see a mystery about the locusts mentioned in Proverbs 30, verse 27. The locusts have no king, yet all of them march in rank. But take a look at this, Revelation 9. I want you to see how the word of God is so intertwined, okay? We've got Old Testament prophecy that we're working through right now. This is New Testament prophecy. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth, and they were given power like the power of scorpions of the earth. They were told not to harm the grass, the earth, or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have of God on their foreheads. They were allowed to torment them for five months, but not to kill them. And their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it stings someone. And in those days, people will seek death and will not find it. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. In appearance, the locusts were like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold. Their faces were like human faces. Their hair like women's hair and their teeth like lion's teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle. They had tails and stings like scorpions and their power to hurt people is for five months, is in their tails. This is the description of the day of the Lord. This is what the Bible talks about when it talks about the tribulation coming. Horrible days for those that would not bow the knee to the Savior. This is what God promises. This is why we're so adamant about sharing the good news of the gospel. People do not have to live in this. People do not have to fall under that judgment. Whosoever will is in the Bible. And God is constantly calling people to himself because he knows what's best. Let's keep going here, verse eight. They do not jostle one another. Each marches in his path. They burst through the weapons and are not halted. They leap upon the city. They run upon the walls. They climb up into the houses. They enter through the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining. 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?" So why is Joel saying this? Well, through him, God is speaking lovingly, but honestly, he's telling him this is what will happen. This is why there's constant warnings being given throughout scripture. I want to spare you this. God is a parent that will spank. God is a parent that doesn't play games. He's very gracious. He's slow to anger. He's abounding in love. We see that. But terrible times are coming and you don't need to be there. Isn't that good news? You don't need to be there. you can escape by turning to me. He says, who can endure it? And this is a valid question that points to the impossibility of enduring God's wrath as it will be displayed on that day. I want to stop here because I want to share with you the gospel because you may be here today and you've never heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. Gospel means it's not just a genre of music, okay? Gospel means good news. And so what happened was, in the person of Jesus Christ, who took on flesh, God incarnate, lived the perfect life, lived up to the law. And then he took our place on the cross. And he took the wrath of God. He took it completely. And here's the deal. By faith, I can ask, Father, forgive me. I wanna repent of my sin. I want you to forgive me and I want you to come into my life. And I'm gonna give you my sin. I'm gonna give you all of my junk. So don't think you can come to clean yourself up and then you come to God. It doesn't work that way. He sees it all. And you give him your stuff and he gives you his stuff. And that's why you're righteous. That's why we can be righteous. It's not because we're so smart and we're so good. It's because he made us good. And so that's the wrath of God being placed on him. When the wrath of God isn't placed on him, it's gotta be placed somewhere. And so that's what's happening here. He's saying, let him take the wrath. You received the gift. What a beautiful exchange. So that's why he's saying, who can endure it? Nobody can endure it. And so it's offered to you today as a gift. and would you be willing to receive it? Let's keep going. Point number two there is penitence. Penitence. Look at verse 12. I love this. Don't you love this? It's constantly, you'll see this in the prophets. Hammer, hammer, hammer, and then hold it back. Okay, so he says, beautiful word. Yet, even now, declares the Lord. return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. And by the way, this word here is specifically to the people of God. It's not just an evangelistic thing here, it's to you as the people of God. Israel, you know better, and I'm coming to you. And I'm saying, come back to me. That's what God's saying, come back to me. If you've wandered off, stop, stop. and turn around and come back. And look at that, verse 13. And rend your hearts and not your garments. It's because some people can make a show. Yeah, I'm serious about God. But in their heart, that hasn't been rent. opened up to God and allow him to walk. And that's why he's saying, I don't care about your outward stuff. Jesus was dealing with that constantly with the Pharisees. I want your heart. Because God knows this, if he's got your heart, he's got you. You know, in Old Testament days, people would tear their clothes as a sign of deep sorrow. But the Lord is saying an outward show doesn't change the inward reality. Don't go through the outward motions of even church and spirituality. He's saying, come before me with brokenness. That's what he's looking for. That's God's heart. Look at verse 13, the second part. It says, return to the Lord, verse 13. Return to the Lord your God, for He is, look what we hear about Him, because sometimes the Old Testament God is, it's almost like you got two different gods. You got the Old Testament God, He's really mean, He's kind of upset, angry. And you got the New Testament God, that's really nice. This is Old Testament. Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful. By the way, there's only one God, all right? In case you walk out here and go, there's two gods? There's only one. for he's gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And he relents over disaster. He doesn't want that. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering. He's saying, you'll have grain. When I get done with you, you'll have grain, it'll grow again. And then you can give me an offering for that. Oh yeah, you'll have wine so that you can have a drink offering. I promise you, you go with God, it's a good thing. I've never met somebody that said, man, I went with God, I kind of regret it. I've heard a ton of the other. So one of Satan's greatest achievements is to convince the world that God is just waiting to judge people. He loves tribulation more than he loves salvation. It's like eating a popcorn, so good. He doesn't want that. He's in fact looking for any way possible not to judge people, showing patience and mercy to generations. Have you seen that in your own life? If I stop and think, wow, he's been patient with me. He's so gracious. Verse 15, doesn't stop with the trumpet thing. Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, 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. This is so important. that I want you to realize, this is so important, I want you here. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, the ones that should know better, that aren't doing it, weep and say, spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, where is their God? He's saying, just come back, come back to me. Devastation that had been caused by locusts rendered this burnt offering impossible. So the people, the priests were to gather the people before them, the altar and offer a sacrifice of tears. And that would be acceptable to God. Don't feel that you've got to do this magical thing. Here's what God wants. He wants you. He wants us. How much do you want? Don't worry about that. I want you. Point number three, there is promise. There is promise. Look at verse 18 and 19. Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people, the Lord answered and said to his people, behold, I'm sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. And so there's this decisive transition that's made here. The rest of the book, it's now dedicated to restoration. That's what God's about. Look at verse 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. Let me read this to you. Well-documented instances of locusts coming from the North support the fact that this speaks of an insect plague driven into the East, which would be the Dead Sea, or the West would have been the Mediterranean Sea and the dead locusts would emit a powerful stench. I don't know if you've ever smelled dead bugs. You got these Japanese beetles and you set out this bag and it's got like some sort of aphrodisiac so they all think they're going to a party and they all head toward this bag and they all get suffocated in there. They all die in there. The smell from that bag. just to get it away. So you could imagine what that, that's just a little bag of bugs. This is a plague of locusts that have devoured land, just crops and everything, and piles of them, because they got no more to eat, piles of them, piling up and they're dead. It stinks. God says, this is the ramifications of sin. One of my prayers is for myself, and I pray it for you too, that sin would become stinky to you. It would become gross to you. That every time you start heading to where you remember, that's like horrible, it stinks, I hate it. Isn't it interesting how we forget? We've done something really, really dumb. I'm never gonna do that again. and give me a day, buy a ticket to stupid land and go over there again. We're so easily deceived that God would give us such a pallet for him, taste and see that the Lord is good. And that's God's heart for us. He knows that these things aren't good. It's the smell of death. It's the taste of death. And he's trying to spare us of that. Let's keep going. Verse 22. Fear not, you beasts of the field. I love that even the care for animals that God has. Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green. The tree bears its fruit. The fig tree and the vine tree give their full yield. 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 the abundant rain, the early and the latter rain as before. The threshing floor shall be full of grain. The vats shall overflow with wine and oil. And these former and latter rains speak of October rains and April rains. In other words, God would once again water the land. He would bless his people agriculturally and economically. God can devastate a nation and it doesn't take long. He can do it agriculturally. He can do it economically. Sometimes you just think everything's great. and it could turn on a dime. I'm trying to get us to understand that God is sovereign and we got to trust in him because our tendency is to trust in so many of these other things. Politics and money and military, all those things are blessings of God. They can be blessings of God. We've got to rest in him and him alone. Verse 25, first part. I will restore, and this is a beautiful verse. This is one of those verses, I'm telling you, it may be one of those verses that you wanna write on an index card and put a magnet on your fridge or in your visor of your car or on your bathroom mirror. Look at this verse, it's a beautiful verse. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. Amen? God can do this. You think, cause it's like, I failed so much. How could I, I'll never get this back. He doesn't say he has to do that, but he can. He can. Absolutely. Incredible. Doesn't owe it to us, but he can make up for it. Boy, praise him for that. The second part of verse 25. And then he starts listing. He goes through those lists of different kinds of locusts again. The hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. So I sent it, God's saying. It wasn't Satan. You know, sometimes people got this idea that anything bad that happens, that Satan sent it, and God's like, I can't believe this happened. I gotta do something about this. He allows Satan, but God's in charge of it all. And that can be a hard word to hear. But if he's not in charge of it all, then he's not in charge. So I gotta rest in him and he knows best. And I don't get it sometimes, but I gotta rest in that. Look at verse 26. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praised in the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. He says, he sent it. I'm going to trust him. And he can bring back even what the locust has taken away. Verse 27, you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the Lord your God and there's none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame. And then he says this verse here that Sounds familiar. We're gonna look at it in a second here. Verse 28, and it shall come to pass afterwards 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 even on the male and female servants. And those days I will pour out my spirit and I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. If you haven't heard this verse before, maybe you didn't read the book of Acts. Remember after Jesus came, lived his life, died, buried, rose again, then he ascends into heaven and then the disciples are waiting for the spirit to come. Remember Peter gets up and preaches, look at this in Acts chapter two, beginning of verse 16. You don't have it? I'm sorry. Maybe I didn't give it to you. Take your Bible, because this is important stuff. Apologize for that. That was my bad. Acts chapter two. So that's Old Testament, and he's in the middle of a message here. Verse 16. He says, this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. So that's what Joel said. And in the last days, it shall be, God declares, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and the female servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so you see that passage of scripture there. And some people will say, and that's what's happening now. And it's used by some denominations to say when the spirit fell, that all of these things would start to happen, but he is not saying that. Here's what he's saying, that he's talking specifically to the people of Israel. Peter is saying, this looks a lot like what Joel said. Some say that was, let me read this to you. Some say everything Joel said is fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, but Peter, who is the preacher in this passage, refers to this years later in 2 Peter 3, 10 through 13, and says this day of the Lord is still futuristic. Some say it was not really fulfilled at all because Peter did not say that this is which is written, but that which was spoken. Actually, one could translate the Greek in Acts 2.16, the character and quality of this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. In other words, this is a kind of like, but is not really that. Some say that Peter meant that what happened at Pentecost continues throughout the entire church age. In other words, this was the beginning of the fulfillment of Joel's prophecy. And there's several problems with that interpretation. First, God's spirit has not been poured out on all flesh. You see that, it's obvious. It's not on everybody. Second, this must interpret the day of the Lord as the church age. Paul said the church would not experience the day of the Lord. And thirdly, Israel is not presently known worldwide as the primary communicator of God's word. And so as we look at this past description, we understand that he was talking to the people of Israel. You'll see that in the message. He'll say, men of Israel, men of Israel. And it's like a one more chance. God, men, if you follow this, if you go with Jesus on this, and still they reject him. Israel as a whole rejects him. And then you see the Gentiles coming in. All of this is fulfilling prophecy. Verse 32, and this is what we wrap up with here. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so that's also a passage of scripture that is used in Romans and it's put before you today. I love that he uses that word there of everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, whosoever will. I'm glad it didn't say, and mark if he calls on that. So we come to the idea back again. We started off with a call that George Brett didn't like. We start off with a situation where it was put before him. And there's two types of calling that are mentioned in these verses. The first is that of a calling upon the name of the Lord, and that results in salvation. But the second is the Lord's calling on those who have escaped his coming disaster. And such a calling of God, by God, always brings his purpose to fulfillment. You here today have been given a calling, each and every one of you. God's calling out. Look at this in Romans chapter 11, beginning of verse 29. For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you were at one time disobedient to God, but now receive mercy because of their disobedience. Talking about Israel. So they too have now been disobedient in order that by the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy. of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mighty Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. God's calling. He asked you, and it's not just, I put that out to you as those that don't know the Lord, but those of you that do know the Lord, he's calling you back. You could be in church. You've heard my story before. I'm at Bible college. I'm studying to be in the ministry and I'm far from the Lord. And he called me back and I'm so grateful he did. I'm so glad I bowed the knee and acknowledged, you're the best to be with. and I don't wanna wander off anymore. And he's there and he's constantly waiting. What are you gonna do with that? Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your gracious, patient, loving goodness to us. Ask you Lord. where each and every person is here today, that today could be the day of salvation. Today could be the start of a relationship with you because of the finished work of your son. We give that to you, trusting you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.