Thank you for taking the time to listen to one of the recent sermons preached at Wilton Baptist Church. It is our desire as a church to strive together in building a faith, family, and future that honors and glorifies our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. If we can be a help to you in any way, please visit our website at wiltonbaptistchurch.com. Wonderful song today. Thank you for that. Joel chapter 3. Old Testament Joel chapter 3. The last several Sundays we've been looking at this verse by verse and chapter by chapter in a message we call the Valley of Decision. So we get to the verses today. that include the valley of decision. Now our theme this year as a church is hope in God. Hope in God. Can you say that with me? Hope in God. And that term hope in the Old Testament and the New Testament is the word which has to do with a confident expectation, usually associated with pleasure. That's the direct quote of the definition. And so we understand this to be a happy confidence, a happy confidence in God, not in us, and not even in the outcome necessarily, but a confidence in the Lord. He knows what is best and He can work it all out in our lives. And so we can have hope today. In Joel chapter three, In chapter one, rather, we had the locust invasion, and there were four waves of those locusts destroying things, and it was historical, illustrative, and also prophetic, because it actually did happen back in Joel's time. Joel chapter two, the locusts were personified and represented also the tribulation demon locusts. We look at those in Revelation. They are some mean characters that will be on this earth. And then the northern army is also mentioned in verse 20, and that's an army that will be at the Battle of Armageddon, which we'll be looking at in a greater way today. So as we look at this passage, we'll find a verse that has to do with hope. And my hope is that you already know Jesus Christ as your Savior, but if not, you can trust Him today. And then as a Christian, you can live a victorious life. I'm talking about daily, close to Christ, daily Christian living. And that's our hope for you today as well. My uncle who had cancer, he found out he had cancer just a couple days before Easter. He died yesterday. And about 10 o'clock yesterday. So I'm going to go to the funeral on Tuesday. So I'll be traveling Monday and coming back on Wednesday. But the first thing I told, I called him whenever I found out, it was on Easter Sunday. So right after we saw the centurion here, I gave him a call and I said, happy Easter. I already knew he had cancer. I said, happy Easter because Christ is alive. No matter what happens, we can live as well. And it may not just be physically on this earth, but he's in a better place now with his God in heaven. So I rejoice in that. and you can have the same confidence facing whatever you're facing in your life today. So let's look at this passage. We'll begin reading in verse 1. when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land. And they have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine that they might drink." By the way, that was the sin, and Joel is drunkenness and drinking, As mentioned specifically in chapter one, we talked about that for a moment. Verse four, yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre and Zidon, and all the coast of Palestine? Will ye render me a recompense? And if ye recompense me swiftly and speedily, will I return your recompense upon your own head? Because ye have taken my silver and my gold and have carried into your temples my goodly, pleasant things. the children also of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem, have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. Behold, I will raise them out of the place where ye have sold them, and will return your recompense on your own head." We'll come back to this idea of the people being carried away to other nations around the globe. Look at verse 14. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision." Here's a photo of the valley. Let's advance the slides here a little bit and see where we look at Bible prophecy. We'll go ahead and talk through this. Bible prophecy, when Joel is looking at this, he saw in his time frame, and a lot of things historically happened then in his time, and then there's a mountain range. Think of Bible prophecy as being a mountain range. You get close to one mountain, it's harder to see the one in between. It looks like one mountain from a distance, but there are three, and sometimes there's valleys in between. There'd be time periods of things and other events that take place, and so that's a good way to kind of understand how Bible prophecy works in Scripture. Let's look at the next one here. Here's where we're at. This is the church age, and the age of grace, the time in which we're living. Thank God for the local church. Thank the Lord for the grace of God. We are very thankful for that. We're waiting for one thing to happen before any of these other things could take place, and that is the rapture of the church. A trumpet will sound, and God says in Revelation 4, verse 1, come on up hither, and then there's the rapture. We come up off the ground, and we meet the Lord in the air. 1 Thessalonians teaches us that, and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Sometime after the rapture, we don't know the exact time, if it's the next day, a few weeks, or months, or whenever, but sometime after that, the tribulation takes place. Seven years of tribulation. And that's when God is judging a Jesus-rejecting world. In the book of Joel, this is known as the Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord. He's judging on the earth. So it's a sad time, it's a terrible time, a tribulation time. At the same time, in heaven is the Day of Christ. We're up in heaven, there's the Merry Supper of the Lamb, we're worshiping the Lord, there's incredible things going on there in heaven. That's called the Day of Christ. So the Day of the Lord, time of judgment. After seven years of tribulation, right around here is when Jesus returns. And there's what's called the Battle of Armageddon. And the Battle of Armageddon takes place in the valley of Megiddo. Megiddo. And that's the next picture. You can see the valley, what it looks like. We can advance that. Is it on there somewhere? There should be a photo. and we showed it last time, you fellas can find that out. Armageddon, people use that term sometimes. and may describe a terrible time. They may use it to describe their worst fears or something like that. And it's really the final battle on this earth at the end of the tribulation time. And the day of Christ, or the day of the Lord rather, it culminates with this battle on the earth. Armageddon means Mount of Megiddo. It's found here, Revelation 16, 16. And it refers to the Valley of Jezreel, the Valley of Estrelon, which lies in northern Israel. And I think we have another picture for you to see. Okay, our pictures aren't working for whatever reason. So, it's not Armageddon. It's not Armageddon. It's all right. But Armageddon, it will come. It will come. And the rapture happens before that. Now, Megiddo, this region in the earth, has experienced war after war for many years. From 4000 BC to 400 BC, there were wars after wars in this area, in this region, right there in the heart of Israel. excavations have uncovered 20 cities right there at Megiddo, and they build right on top of each other. So somebody comes in, knocks out everything, knocks everyone over, kills everyone, and then a city is rebuilt. That's happened at least 20 times in this very same location. Now, when Antichrist gets all of his people together, all the armies of the earth together, they are converging on Israel, And when they surround Jerusalem, that's when Christ shows up and He speaks. We're going to find this, and this is where the battle culminates in the battle of Armageddon. And when the world's army shows up, Jesus wins. When a world's army is all gathered together to destroy Israel, is what they're thinking, Antichrist is going to turn everybody he can to try to fight against God, but it's not really a battle, it's actually very lopsided, because they're trying to fight against Christ. In this galactic battle of good and evil, the war for the souls of men, ultimately here Jesus, wins. Let's make some observations from this passage. Number one, there's the scattering in Israel, the scattering in Israel. We read verses one through seven and also verse eight how These people were being sold and taken from Judah and Jerusalem and going to other places around the world. And this happened historically, the suffering there and the scattering of Israel. There's Tyre and Sidon are mentioned that we just read. And they are the Phoenicians, they were slave traders, they were fishermen, they were a seafaring people in the Mediterranean, sailors. And then Palestine is mentioned here as well. The Philistines, they were a lot of traveling people as well. Think about Palestine and Philistines, it's the same root word whenever you look at it. We could accurately say this, the battle between David and Goliath is still happening even today. And there's still this conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, the Philistines, that's still happening even today. So, historically, this scattering does take place. In their immediate time, when Joel received this message, here's that first mountaintop that was seen, Israel had already been carried away. The nation had been divided. It was in two kingdoms now. You had a northern kingdom with ten tribes, a southern kingdom with two tribes, You have Jerusalem, and these tribes here that comprise are called Judah, that's the nation, that's where Joel was prophesying. And God was telling Joel that you're also going to be carried away. And people here are going to be carried away just like what happened with the rest of Israel. Notice how the Grecians, or the Greeks, are mentioned as well. Now, Joel 3, verse 8, notice how the people are carried away. Here, I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabians, to a people far off, for the Lord hath spoken it. This was fulfilled in 354 BC. when Artaxerxes III sold the Sidonians into slavery. And then in 332 BC, Alexander the Great, you recall him from history, he did the same thing to the people of Tyre in Zidon, or the people who were living in that region we call Gaza today. And then the Sabians are mentioned as well. They lived in Arabia, and they also were a traveling, trading-type people, so they were partakers of all this as well. Now, prophetically, this was going to happen. When Joel was looking at it, prophetically, it was going to happen, and it happened in his time frame. From Joel's day forward, now, the term that's used in the Bible and by historians is the diaspora. The diaspora. Can you say that with me? The diaspora. Now that means the dispersion, the scattering. the dispersion of the people, and it all had to do with Israel and Judah, God's people, being scattered around the world. Like I mentioned, Israel had already been carried away, and Judah was about to be carried away as well. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians came in 605. Remember Daniel? Daniel was carried away. Jeremiah, he was carried off to Egypt in 586. Eventually, the Persians control the world and Cyrus of Persia, he sends the Jewish people to go back. He says, go ahead, rebuild. And they start to rebuild the walls. They try and they rebuild the temple and all those things take place. Not all the people wanted to go back. Keep that in mind, because that'll be important later. Not all the people wanted to go back, but most did. Now, when Jesus was born, what government or empire was in charge? The Roman Empire, all right? So in Daniel's visions, there's a sequence that's listed there, and that's exactly what took place in history as well. And so when Jesus was born, the Romans were in control. The central power of a Jewish king in Jerusalem, that was a thing of the past and had been for some time. Now when Paul started to travel the globe, and to plant churches and to be a missionary and tell people the gospel, nearly every city that he went to already had a Jewish synagogue. There was already a Jewish synagogue. You know what his manner of custom was? He'd go in, and he would speak to the Jewish people. That's where he would start to plant the seed of the gospel, and some of those people would be saved. And out of that, you'd have the Corinthian church, and the Galatian church, and the Philippian church. That's how it happened. Everywhere he was going, there was already Jewish people there. And the reason is, part of the Diaspora. God used this scattering of the people to then later on give Paul an easy entryway into some of these religious people to then introduce to them a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Isn't that amazing? God used even the tragedy of the Diaspora in this way. In John 7, verses 34 and 35, and ye shall seek me and not find me, and where I am, thither ye cannot come. Then said the Jews among themselves, whither will he go that we shall not find him? And will he go unto the dispersed among the Gentiles and teach the Gentiles? That word dispersed, that's the word diaspora, same word. Will he go among the diaspora, those who've been scattered, and preach to the Gentiles? And guess what, that's exactly what he did. And so here we are today, and we're thankful for how God used all of this. It happened again and again, this scattering of the people. Think about World War II for just a moment. Bring it closer into our era when we can remember some of this. Why were there so many German Jews? Why were there so many Russian Jews, Italian Jews? It was because of the Diaspora. They had been kicked out of their country. They'd been kicked out of their land that God had given to them. They had been scattered around the globe. Now, there's an end gathering that is taking place, and it began in 1949, when Israel became a nation again, it became a state again. And then in 1950, the Jewish people developed what's called the Law of Return. And they said, who is allowed to come into Israel and who's not? Who's allowed to be a citizen and who's not? And since then, they've amended that several times, and there's an end gathering. They went from being no nation for some time, being scattered all around the world, to where now they have their hometown, they have their homeland, and now there are people that are going back to Israel there in the Middle East. Now the population in Israel has grown to 8.5 million. That's a lot of people. Look at this chart for just a moment. The United States used to have more Jews than Israel. Did you know that? There used to be more Jews living in the United States of America than in Israel, but that's no longer the case. We have about 5.3 million here in Israel today. But it used to be that we had like 8.3 million here. They've been going back. There is a regathering that is taking place. And that's what Joel is speaking about here. as we continue on, they were going back, they were being scattered rather, and now they are coming back, and God is bringing them back. Why is that important? Because in a tribulation time, they're not gonna be scattered again. In a tribulation time, the Jewish people will be concentrated again. You think about World War II, concentration camps, things like that. the Antichrist is going to make a false peace treaty. False pretense, false premises. He's going to say, peace, peace, peace. And he's going to say, let's rebuild the temple. They're going to rebuild the temple there. And the Jewish people in Jerusalem are going to all gather in Israel. He's going to act like a friend to the Israelite people, to the Jewish people. And then he'll get them all together. And then at the battle of Armageddon, he'll try to gather all the people against Jerusalem. They invade Israel. The three and a half years in, into the tribulation is when he breaks the treaty. He says, no, I'm not going to have peace with the Jewish people anymore, and he starts to persecute them and to try to take their lives. Look at verse 9. Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles. Prepare war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares. into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about. Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord." Now, those mighty ones coming down, you may underline that. It's an amazing verse. That's us. That's people in heaven who are coming back with the Lord. I'll show you the verses in Revelation in just a moment. Let the heathen be wakened. and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I set to judge all the heathen round about." It's believed that the valley of Jehoshaphat is the valley just outside of Jerusalem there, and so the Lord says, I'm going to judge from there. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, get ye down, for the press is full. The fats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision." The valley of decision. Notice, we'll need to go to Revelation chapter 6. If you want to find that, Revelation chapter 6, we have several verses that we'll be looking at in Revelation. Last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 6. So, the scattering took place. Why is it that all these armies that we just read about, these people are making weapons and gathering upon Israel? It's because Satan hates Israel. It's because Antichrist hates Jewish people. Why is there such hatred? And historically, has there been such hatred for Jewish people? It's because of the promise that God made to Abraham back about 5,000 or so years ago. Out of thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed. And it's out of the seed line of Abraham that we have the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And Satan hates him. And Antichrist hates him. And people of all time, there's been a battle against the Jewish people because Satan hates that out of their seed line, out of their DNA, out of their nation, came the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, because of that, they'll gather for war. Notice the suffering of the war, like we read in verses 9 and 10, there's an armament that takes place. He says here to beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. So they're taking agricultural tools and implements that are used for productivity and for life and now taking those and making them into weapons that are used to take lives. Now we hear people talk about disarmament today. You hear that a lot in the news. Disarmament. Disarm the people of the earth. That's what's being told in verse 9. In a comparative way, if you would, why would they need to take these agricultural instruments and make weapons out of them, because they didn't have regular weapons. They were disarmed before that. Someone had taken away their weapons, and so now, whatever you can use, make it into a weapon so that we can go and fight and gather against Israel and destroy these Jewish people from off the face of the earth. That was part of the goal during the Tribulation time. So it's a common theme, disarmament. And I don't know that if any war today would be one with pistols and rifles like we would have available to us. Weapons today are so big. They're bigger than we can even really fathom. Some of you military guys know the size and scope of those things. But anytime someone talks about disarmament, disarmament, the issue isn't the weapon. It's who's in control. It's who's in control of the weapon. If it's the government, it's still another person. If it's me, it's still just me. If it's you, it's just you. The idea is, with any disarmament, who's in charge, who's in control. It's an authority problem. It's a who's in control of this type of thing. In the tribulation, Antichrist wants to be in control. In Revelation, He comes preaching peace. He comes saying, peace and safety, and let's get rid of our weapons, and let's lay down our arms, and let's get rid of all these different nations here, and get rid of our armies, and let's have some treaties all the world over. And people are saying, yes, that's like music to my ears. That sounds really good. Wouldn't it be great to have no war? I would say, yeah, that's pretty good. You could say it's all right. It's all right to have no war. We don't want to have war. Nobody wants to be in a fight. And he's saying something that speaks volumes to the people of the earth. Notice Revelation 6, verse 2. And I saw, behold, a white horse. And he that sat on him had a bow. But notice there's no arrow. There's no arrow. You need an arrow if you've got a bow. He's coming, preaching peace. He's from a position of power and authority. He's saying, let's have peace. But he's not using weapons to make that peace. He's using peace treaties. Really nice speeches. And he's using his words, and he's making arrangements between the nations to lay down their arms. And he says, I've got this bowl, but there's no arrows there. He's not using force and violence to create this one world order, and this one world government, and eventually this one world army. A crown was given unto him. So he was given authority. They voted for him. They said, yeah, let's put you in charge. The world says, yes, this is a good idea. Let's lay down our arms and follow through with this. And unto him, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. But notice how tragic the next two verses are. And he had opened the second seal. I heard the second beast say, come and see. And there went out another horse that was red. So the Antichrist in verse two was on a white horse symbolizing peace. Now he's on a red horse that symbolizes a picture of violence and bloodshed. And power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another. And there was given unto him a great sword. And so the armament. that takes place here. Now, Daniel tells us that there are 70 weeks in Bible prophecy and that there's one more week to take place. In Bible terms, the last seven years, then, are the last week. Daniel 9, verse 27, he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week. This is speaking about the Antichrist, and that's saying for seven years. And in the midst of the week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations, he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determent shall be poured upon the desolate. What that's talking about is, They were doing these sacrifices. They were going through these religious rituals that was set up at the New Temple, and then Antichrist goes in, he breaks the treaty, and he says, instead of what you're doing and what you're worshiping, I want you to worship me. He breaks the treaty. And in order to finally destroy Israel, the one world leader amasses an army, he re-arms the whole world then, and turns everything that he can into a weapon. Now, Belgium is called the cockpit of Europe because it's been the site of the most European battles in history. And if you wanted to get into a war years ago, it seems like that was the place. In Israel, the plain of Megiddo, this valley of Megiddo, it's the scene of many decisive battles in Israel. Gideon was there, Saul was there, Josiah was there. Others fought in this same plain, in this valley. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Celesiads, the Ptolemies, the Romans, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Turks. Napoleon called this area the world's greatest natural battlefield. And so, there's an armament that takes place, and then here's the armies. There's an earthly army. an earthly army that descends there upon Israel. They all gather around. The Jewish people start to escape, and they all go to Jerusalem, and they are kind of huddling together, it seems, because all of Israel is being overrun by all these tanks and armies and all these people coming in. And notice back in our passage then in Joel 3, verse 11, "...assemble yourselves and come, all ye heathen, gather yourselves together round about. And then, thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord." So, the earthly army, they're gathering. And then suddenly, it interjects this idea of there's another army that has to come down. This is amazing. Now, the earthly army is called heathen. the heathen, and it has to do with Gentiles, and this is used in the Bible as a figure of speech sometimes, the heathen for a troop of animals, or maybe a flight of locusts, kind of like what we looked at a couple chapters ago, where the locusts were called heathen as well. And these soldiers are full of wickedness and hate. according to verse 13. Notice verse 12, "...let the heathen be wakened, and come up into the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit and judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in a circle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, get you down, for the press is full, the wine, the fats overflow, for their wickedness is great." And so here they've come, they have all this wickedness, they're full of hatred, they're following Antichrist. And in Revelation, we're told the number of this army is 200 million. Now the largest battlefield scene I understand when one campaign was given back years ago Herodotus estimated that Xerxes in 481 had 2,641,000 fighting men in his army when he marched them across into the land. During World War II, America had, at the heights of the conflict, had 12 million people with weapons and in the military. fighting. But here in this battle of Armageddon, think about 200 million. That's just an amazing number for us to consider. Revelation 19, verse 14. So there's the earthly army. And then there's the heavenly army. Thy mighty ones to come down. Here we are. Revelation 19.14, the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses clothed in fine linen, white and clean. Let me ask you something. Which army will you be in? Will you be in the earthly army? It's possible. If you're not saved today, the rapture happens tomorrow. you could be in that earthly army. That earthly army gets obliterated. Or, if you trust Christ, when the rapture takes place, you'll go up to heaven, you'll get to ride a horse back to earth. You'll get to follow the Lord Jesus Christ. And you can be in the Lord's army today. I'm not talking about waging any conflict that we could wage on this earth. We're in a spiritual battle today. But you can be in God's army today. And then when the rapture happens, and when all these events take place that we've described, you can be in God's army then as well. True Christians, believers today, will be in God's army both today and tomorrow. But let's keep reading because now Armageddon unfolds in Revelation chapter 19, verse 15. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword. that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. And he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God, and he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God. While there was the marriage supper of the Lamb in heaven during the day of Christ, with this day of earth there's another supper, and it's these fowls eating the flesh of men." It's a devastating time. Look in verse 18. that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sat on them, the flesh of all men, both free and bond, small and great, anyone who could do anything when it comes to warfare was there. They had all gathered to try to fight in this battle. And I saw the beasts and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse and against his army. So they gather, probably under the pretense of, let's destroy all the Jewish people. That's what I've been trying to tell you. Let's get rid of all of them because Antichrist started his war against them three and a half years into the Tribulation. He's culminating these 200 million soldiers into Israel. They come in from a northern land route. They're traveling in. Chapter 2 speaks about the army from the north, and so they're coming on in, and as they're descending upon Israel, and then as they're invading the land, everyone is gathered around Jerusalem, and that's when the next few verses take place, that's when Jesus shows up. And the beast was taken after Jesus spoke here. he spoke, the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, and with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that had worshipped his image. Both these were cast alive into the lake of fire, burning with brimstone, and the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his mouth, and all the fowls were filled with their flesh." Now, friends, we come with Jesus. When Christ comes back to this earth, and he comes to this battle scene, and he speaks, all the enemies fall down dead. The blood runs the 200-mile length north and south of Israel, about a bridle's depth, all the way up and down. That's just unimaginable for us to consider, but Jesus just uses his word. Out of his mouth goes the sword. He just speaks. I don't know what he says. Drop dead, I don't know. All I know is that Jesus speaks and Jesus wins. And we're the ones who are riding back on these horses. We get to see it all from the sky. We're in the clouds on these horses. Now, I don't know if you like horseback riding or not, but I'm sure you could get some lessons when you get to heaven because you're going to be riding one when we follow the Lord Jesus Christ back to this earth. And this is just amazing, folks. It's 200 million. soldiers. It's the whole earth versus Jesus. You say, that sounds like he's outnumbered. He's outnumbered, but listen, he's not overpowered. The underdog is not Jesus. It's all the people on this earth. They are the underdog. We're not even backed up, folks. We're just there to watch it. We're not even backed up. We're not there for anything other than to see how great our God is. Now, Jerusalem shatters in Joel chapter three, verse 16. If you want to look at it again, we have several more verses. Notice verse 15, we'll just read through the end of the chapter. The sun, the moon shall be darkened and the stars shall withhold their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem. Remember the word of his mouth? That's the battle right there. He speaks and the heavens and the earth shall shake and the Lord will be the hope of his people and the strength of the children of Israel. So they've all gathered in Jerusalem. It's the last holdout, it's the last vestiges of the remnant of the Jewish people and we have nowhere else to go. No one on earth is going to help us. And then the clouds open, and Jesus Christ rides in, and He speaks, and He rescues His people. I can't say it any more dramatic than that. Just imagine how incredible. He shows up in the nick of time, and the only hope for the Jewish people wasn't the false prophet, it wasn't the Antichrist, it wasn't all the false treaties. It's no other man, but it's Jesus Christ Himself, the person they've been looking for all this time. and he shows up and he rescues them. Folks, it's true for us today, our only hope today is the same, it's Jesus. Your only hope for today is Jesus. Their only hope when the battle of Armageddon takes place, it will be the Messiah who many of them had rejected before that. And so Jerusalem shudders. This valley of decisions, full of blood, of all those in the valley of Megiddo, and Jesus wins. Now notice the millennium. in verses 18 through 21, because after the battle's over, Jesus sets up his earthly kingdom. It shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth out of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim, Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall dwell forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation, for I will cleanse their blood that have not cleansed, for the Lord dwelleth in Zion there's plenty in verse 18 earth is bringing forth food again and God's prospering Israel There's peace in verse 19. There's no more enemies around and there's a promise in verse 20 Yet Judah shall dwell forever and Jerusalem from generation to generation and there's the presence of God It's the most ultimate thing the presence of God and God himself is dwelling there God will be their God and he shall be the God of his people." Jesus will live and reign on the earth. And so, this is the message of Joel. There's other things in the end times that we could mention here at this point, but we'll just take time now to pause and consider. Which army? Are you going to be in Antichrist's army, the one that's against God? Or will you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and be enlisted in the army of Jesus today? You see the Valley of Decision? That decision had already been made. Jesus wins. We know it ahead of time. We know it ahead of time. Those people who gather against God, they're going to be defeated. The Valley of Decision has already been decided. And it's up to you today by the grace of God that you would place your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, that you would make your decision, your own decision. I can't make it for you. The neighbor next to you can't make it for you. Has there been a specific, a particular moment in your life where you called out to God and you confessed your sin You believe in Jesus Christ. You know and you express and confess to God that you believe in the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection. You repent of your sin and you're choosing for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself to be your Savior. Has there been a moment in your life where you decided You made a decisive decision. I am trusting Christ, not my religion, not works, not being a church member, not being baptized. I'm trusting in Christ alone and His finished work on the cross. And then Christian friend, what kind of soldier are you? What kind of soldier are you? Be faithful to the Lord. Sometimes, even in God's army today, sometimes Christians get disorderly or step out of rank. We're on the same team. If you're saved, we're on the same team. We are working together. The commander-in-chief is the Lord Jesus Christ. The captain of our souls is the Lord Jesus. And so we're to work together. We don't fight with each other. We don't cut each other down. We don't use arrogance or inflict pain and anger with each other. We love each other. We help each other. We serve one another. We're faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, and we want to serve Him together. We want to be active in God's army today. Not a physical battle, but we're in a spiritual one. So what kind of soldier are you today? And think about it. What kind of interaction, what kind of presence will you have in God's army today? Now, Jesus wins, and I'm thankful for it. This valley of decision, what an amazing study it's been. We know ahead of time. We know ahead of time. You don't have to go through the tribulation. You can be saved today. Your friends, they need to see and hear the gospel from you today, because if not, if they don't choose Christ, there'll be an anti-Christ army tomorrow. whenever after the rapture takes place. Let's bow together in prayer. Thank you for your good attention. Christian, be faithful. Don't give up. Keep reading the Bible. Keep praying. Live a vibrant Christian life with other church people here today. Let's be good soldiers for the Lord Jesus Christ in a spiritual battle. Maybe you would say, Pastor, God has challenged me about salvation. There has not been a moment where I know I prayed and received Christ, that I expressed faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, but I would like to know more about it. I would like to know more about salvation. Is there anyone like that today? Just raise your hand quickly, I wanna pray with you. I'd like to know more, I wanna be saved today. God bless you, I see that hand, is there someone else? All right, thank you. And then Christian, will you worship Jesus? He's the winner of all eternity. Our lives should revolve around Him. Let's worship Him. Let's yield to the Holy Spirit each day. Christian, will you advance His heavenly kingdom? Will you maintain rank or do your own thing? Will you do the work that God has called you to or go off and do your own work? You see, we mentioned this last week. We don't know when the rapture will take place. but we need to keep working with the daylight that He's given. We need to keep sharing the gospel and being usable vessels because there'll be a day when there's no more a day like it is today. We need to share the gospel today. We need to be the Christian that God has called for us to be today. However God's worked in your life, the piano will play. Would you please stand right where you're at? If you want to pray at the front, you can. If you want to kneel where you're at, as you're standing, the pianist is playing. However God's working, respond to God. Meet with the Lord.