If you'd open up your copy of God's Word now to the prophet Joel, we'll continue our study there tonight in Chapter 2. I believe you'll find that on page 906 of your Pew Bibles. Tonight we'll be at the end of Chapter 2, as Joel has described the day of the Lord He's called the people to repent. The Lord has stated that he will have mercy. And now we come to this passage, verse 28. Let's give attention now to the wholly inspired and infallible word of God. And it shall come to pass afterward 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. 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 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. Thus far in the reading of God's word, amen. Please be seated. Would you pray with me? Our Father and our God, we'd ask now that you'd quiet our hearts We have read your word. We ask, Lord God, that you would add your blessing to it. We pray, Father, that the Holy Spirit would work powerfully in us tonight, that you'd guide us not only in understanding, that you'd convict us of the truth of your word, and that you would, Father, encourage us. Encourage us with these truths tonight. Guide our hearts. Teach us, Lord. Help us. Draw us ever closer to Christ. I pray this in His name. Amen. What are you doing about the coming day of the Lord? Joel's been preaching much about the coming day of the Lord. There's a sense that as Nicodemus went to Jesus on that night and told him, we know that you're a teacher come from God for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him, that Nicodemus was anticipating the day of the Lord. We don't know that. He doesn't mention that. But he wants to know who this is who has come. He wants to know how these signs can be accomplished. And he goes to Jesus. And there's a sense in which Jesus tells him what you should be focused on is how you can be saved. Because Jesus answers and tells him I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And as Nicodemus is scratching his head and wondering how is it possible for one to be born again, Jesus explains even more so. Truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. You must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes, so it is with everyone who's born of spirit. That's a good reminder for us tonight as we get to this passage in Joel. Obviously written many, many years before Jesus met with Nicodemus. Joel has been focusing the hearts of the Israelites on the coming day of wrath, the day of the Lord. He did it as he referred to the locust invasion that had decimated their crops, their vineyards, everything gone, unable to truly worship the Lord because they didn't have the grain offerings or the drink offerings. They'd been separated from God in that sense, in that way. And then he tells them that there's coming this day when they will be eternally separated from their Maker if they don't turn. It seems to be the overall theme of Joel's prophecy. And then we get to our passage tonight. Even as the Lord has indicated that he will have mercy, the question is how? How will that be? How will it be that the Lord will have mercy upon sinners so great as these Israelites who had neglected their God to the point that he would decimate their grain fields and their vineyards? and remind them that there will be a day of an accounting, a day of judgment, a day of the pouring out of the eternal wrath of God. As we come to this last portion of chapter 2 of Joel's prophecy, I'd like us to see very simply that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Tonight we're going to ask three questions about that statement. How will you return? Secondly, how will you know about the day of the Lord? And finally, how will you escape? And so as we go through this passage a familiar passage. I want us to be asking ourselves, what am I doing about the coming day of the Lord? Well, first, how will you return? There's that call to return. Joel has issued it Indeed, this text that we have tonight is given to the people on the heels of that proclamation of the coming wrath of God, the Day of Judgment, the Day of the Lord. And the Day of the Lord is clearly and plainly set forth for the Israelites to read about. It's described as this devastating army which will completely and utterly destroy sinners. It relates back to the coming locusts, or the locusts which had already destroyed their grain fields and their vineyards. And now he makes that parallel in saying the day of the Lord will be that plus. But then Joel provides this glimmer of hope. And that glimmer is a call to return to the Lord. We've heard it actually twice, first in chapter one as he describes the locust invasion. Consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God and cry out to the Lord. That is a call to repent, to fast, to recognize and confess your sin and go before the Lord and cry out to him for mercy. And then, after he describes that analogy, setting it forth as the coming day of the Lord, of the army that's on its way, in verse 12 of chapter 2, Joel cries out, yet even now declares the Lord return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning. Rend your hearts, not your garments. The call to repent. to return to the living God, to stop seeking after false gods or idols and come back to the true God. They had strayed from the Lord. That's the underlying truth. That's the underlying truth of this passage, of this entire prophecy. The people have strayed from the Lord. And that's why judgment is set forth so powerfully. They've strayed and he's calling them back with the coming judgment in the background, actually brought to the foreground, the eternal, the final, the complete judgment. And Joel is saying, in order to be saved from this coming judgment, the coming wrath of God, in order to survive, in order to live, you must return to the Lord. And so he calls upon the people to gather and cry out and plead with the Lord for mercy to save them. And the only question is how? How would this be and how could this be? The foundational answer to that question was laid earlier in the same chapter. Look at verse 13 of chapter 2. return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. And then in verse 18 we read, Then the Lord became jealous for His land and had pity on His people. You see The Lord describes himself through the voice, through the pen of Joel, and then he acts. He has mercy. He acts in accordance with his nature. That's the foundational answer to the question of how could this be? How could these sinners, such great sinners, be saved? It's founded in the grace of God, isn't it? It's found in His mercy. It's found in His love. It's found in His jealousy for the land and His pity for the people. And from that passage, we read of the Lord's mercy and grace, don't we? Behold, I'm sending to you grain, wine, and oil. Verse 20, I will remove the northerner, meaning the army, far from you. Verse 23, be glad, O children of Zion. Rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the early rain for your vindication. and the latter reign as before. Verse 25, I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. That's the basis for their salvation. But the question remains is how would these then be saved from the coming judgment for their sins? How can you be saved? Is it by sackcloth? Is it by assembling and crying out to the Lord? We read that in verse 13, put on sackcloth, lament, priests, wail, ministers of the altar, go, pass the night in sackcloth. Was that it? Is it by fasting? Verse 14 of chapter one, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders, cry out to the Lord. Was that it? Was it by blowing a trumpet? Verse 1 of chapter 2, blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm. Verse 15, blow a trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people. You see, if any of these were sufficient, if any of these brought salvation, If any of these accomplished the saving of true souls, then Joel would have stopped. Or maybe repeated, but he doesn't do that. Indeed, all of those are works of men, aren't they? Yes, he's calling them to it, and there's nothing wrong. In fact, these are good things. But they're all works of men. And so Joel now provides the answer. Salvation will be by the pouring out of the Spirit of God. Look at verse 28. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. That's the answer. Consider that this passage actually follows on or a continuation of, then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. It's a continuation of all that the Lord will do in the midst and in the context of the coming day of the Lord. It's part and parcel of him giving grain, of him removing the northerner, of the abundant plenty, of their satisfaction. It's all caught up in the pouring out of the Spirit. Interesting that Joel uses that word as the Lord spoke it, and it shall come to pass afterward. There's a sense in which Joel was telling those that had experienced the locust swarms that there would be this restoration, and that after that restoration, the Lord would, at some point in time, pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Apostle John records Jesus's words. In the seventh chapter of his gospel, on the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And John writes, as he's inspired by the Spirit now, this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. According to John, the giving of the Spirit, the pouring out of the Spirit, is directly connected to the glorification of the Son. And the Son was not glorified until He went to the cross at Calvary, until He shed His blood, satisfying the eternal wrath of God, and broke the bonds of death and sin in the tomb, and ascends to sit at God's right hand. That's the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's when the Spirit was to be sent. Afterward. And it shall come to pass, afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. We might be thinking now, what is this work of the spirit? Why is the spirit so critical and important to salvation? And that's exactly what Joel writes. He writes that it is critical. I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons, your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. Is he saying that he's going to turn, the spirit is going to turn everyone into prophets? That they will all be inspired and become revealers of the word, the very will of God? No. Consider what Paul writes to those at Corinth in his first letter in chapter 12. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. There are varieties of activities, but it's the same God who empowers them all. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given through the spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge According to the same spirit to another faith by the same spirit to another gifts of healing And so on and on Paul accounts or recounts the gifts that are given by the spirit now some of these gifts We would say are no longer given today but the point is that all these are empowered by one and the same spirit who apportions to each one individually as he wills. Not all are prophets. And so Joel is not saying that all will become prophets as we understand prophets in the Old Testament. But he uses these words, prophecy and dreams and visions. It seems that Jesus actually explains this for us, again recorded by the Apostle John. And we read it tonight. The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all I've said to you. The Holy Spirit is a teacher. And in that sense, your sons and daughters shall prophesy. They'll be taught. They'll know the word of God. But when the Helper comes, in verse 15 of chapter John, whom I will send from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. They'll be able to know who Jesus is. In a sense, seeing Him, He will bear witness about me. And John continued, when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. Isn't that the idea of dreaming dreams, of seeing visions, of prophesying? They'll know Christ Jesus to their salvation. Indeed, Paul explains, we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God. That's the idea. Dreams, visions, prophecy, secret and hidden wisdom of God becomes known through the work of the Spirit. What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him. That seems to be exactly what the prophet Joel speaks of. As the Spirit is poured out, your daughters, your sons shall prophesy, your old men dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, they'll understand the wisdom of God through Christ Jesus. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. sons, daughters, old men, young men, servants, everyone. That's the idea. We'll talk about that in a moment. But what I really want us to see tonight is what is this work of the Spirit with regard to salvation? If this is the how or the way of salvation, why doesn't Joel mention Jesus? You might be thinking, look, I thought you said that salvation was through Jesus Christ. I thought the Bible teaches that Jesus Christ is the Savior, that He accomplishes salvation through His righteousness and through His suffering and death on the cross at Calvary. I thought that He shared His blood. He shed His blood in my place. I thought that he suffered the eternal wrath of God for me, the sinless one for the sinner at the hand of evil and wicked men. I thought that the nails driven through his hands and feet were the nails which he suffered for me. I thought that it was Jesus that saves me." So what is Joel saying about the Spirit? How does the Spirit fit in? Joel's proclamation here is simple and clear. God the Father will send His Spirit, otherwise known as the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost, otherwise known as the third person of the Trinity, and He will not only be sent by the Father, but He will also be sent by the Son, the second person of the Trinity, And you see, it is correct and a right understanding that Jesus does accomplish salvation. The God-man who's sent by the Father, the first person of the Trinity, to accomplish salvation. In other words, to do the work of salvation. God the Father chose his only eternally begotten Son to perform completely and perfectly the work that no one else, no other person, could perform. God the Father sent the Son, who we know is the Lord Jesus Christ, to His death. And it is His death and His resurrection and His ascension that accomplishes salvation. It is His death and resurrection which redeems lost sinners from Satan's house and thus from hell and damnation. It is the Savior of the world who breaks open the prison doors and who unlocks and crushes your chains to sin. It's the Son who rescues you from the dominion of darkness and brings you into glorious light. Yes, it's the pure and perfect work of the second person of the Trinity, the Lord Jesus, that accomplishes salvation, that satisfies the eternal wrath of God. His pure and perfect judgment upon you because of your sins. Now, that is the work of Jesus, isn't it? So how does the work of the Spirit fit in? Why is it that Joel points to the work of the Spirit? I'll pour out my Spirit on all flesh. The question is how does Jesus' work get applied to sinners such as you, such as the Israelites? How does it get applied to the children of God? It's a bit like the emergency room at a hospital. It's ready. It's well-staffed, skilled doctors and nurses, all kinds of medical equipment ready for any and all health emergencies. But the emergency room does you no good unless you get there, unless you've been prepared to enter by the EMTs. That's the work of the Spirit, isn't it? He's the one who prepares you and then takes you to Christ. He's the one who applies the work that's been accomplished by Christ to you. And that's why He must be poured out upon you, so He can apply that which Jesus Christ has accomplished to your very heart. So think of Nicodemus again. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. You see, Jesus needs to give a new heart. And it's only by and through the work of the Spirit that he does so. Consider the wayward hearts of the Israelites, straying so far from God that he needed to get their attention by and through the locus. He could never truly get their hearts to return without a supernatural change. You see, no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit. See, that is what you need to enter into glory, to be saved from the coming day of the Lord. You need the Spirit. Has the Spirit been poured out into your heart? You might be thinking, well, how do I know? We know by the fruit, don't we? As Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount, He tells us that every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. How do you know? Are you producing this kind of fruit? That's how we know. The Spirit is abiding, that He's been poured out, that you're actually producing the fruit that only He can give. That brings us to our second point, how will you know? How will you know the day of the Lord? Look at verse 30. It's interesting, Joel has already described the day of the Lord. He did it in a sense, as he spoke about it, as he wrote about the locust swarms, and in chapter two, he does it very clearly in terms of this coming army, which is just a picture of the day of the Lord, and now, now he gets into the end of chapter two, and he's once again talking about the day of the Lord, describing it in a slightly different way. Why? Why here? Why now? There seems to be the sense that Joel is saying, remember what's coming. Remember what you can be saved from. Remember the wrath of God. Remember that you will not be able to survive on your own. But this is what you can do to be saved from it. Don't forget that it's coming. You see, we're a forgetful people. That is certainly part of our corruption in Adam, isn't it? We forget or maybe just ignore the commands of God. We forget God's sovereignty and His rule and reign over all things through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and we seek to go our own way. We forget His covenant and His covenant promises. Moses writes in Deuteronomy, take care lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which he made with you, and make a carved image, the form of anything that the Lord your God has forbidden you. He wouldn't have written that unless he knew by the Spirit's work in his heart that we would forget that we're a forgetful people. We forget God's goodness to us. We forget how He's blessed us time and time again in the past, and especially when we're in the midst of trials and troubles, we end up wondering where God is or why He's not answered our prayers, all because we forget. The Israelites had forgotten God. Deuteronomy chapter 8, and if you forget the Lord your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I so solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Moses knew that the Israelites would forget and that they would stray after other gods. Joel knows this. He knew that we were forgetful. He knew that the Israelites indeed had forgotten God and that's the reason for all of this all the suffering that they were experiencing. He knew that they were a forgetful people. The Spirit knows that we are a forgetful people, and so we're given this reminder once again. It's coming. Are you ready? It's coming, the day of the Lord. Will you know the signs? Will you be able to identify, to hear Christ as He returns? We're also minimizers. We're forgetful and we are minimizers. We tend to minimize our sin, the extent of it. We tend to minimize the number of times we engage in it. And we certainly tend to minimize the wretchedness of it. We tend to think that our sin is just not that bad. Indeed, I've referenced it before. I'll reference it again. A whole book has been written about our respectable sins. And the whole idea behind calling sins respectable is the idea that they're minimal. They're really not that bad. We're minimizers. The book is all about our minimization of sins, and as we minimize our sins, we at the same time minimize the coming judgment. You see, we can't really understand the force of the coming judgment, the wrath of God, unless we understand the depravity, the wretchedness, the abomination of our sins. So Joel's keeping the terribleness of the day before the Israelites and before us. He's keeping the severity of the day of the Lord before our eyes. And so he repeats it again and again. That might even cause us to think amongst ourselves, why don't we evangelize more than we do. Why don't we tell more people about salvation in Jesus Christ? If you're believing upon Jesus Christ tonight, that's a question that you should be asking yourselves. Why don't I tell more people about salvation in Jesus? Why don't I call more people to repentance and to believe upon Him? Maybe, maybe it's because we don't remember. the coming judgment often enough. Maybe it's because we minimize the wrath of God and the day of the Lord. Maybe it's because we minimize our own sin. Friends, brothers and sisters, take heed tonight This is the third time that I can count in this very short prophetic book that Joel has referred to the coming day of the Lord. The Spirit knows our condition. The Spirit knows our hearts. We're called to be lights. And the only way that we can be true lights of the Lord Jesus Christ, if we keep the day of the Lord before us, if we keep the coming judgment of God front and center, so that we will seek to woo others to Jesus Christ. Let's pray that the Spirit would move in us. to do just that. That brings us to our third point, how will you escape? That's in a sense what Joel has been writing in these five or six verses tonight, how will you escape? Consider what he states here, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. You read that earlier And he further opens it up by speaking of sons and daughters, old men and young men, male and female servants. But does that mean that all will be saved? Does that mean that all will experience the filling of the Spirit, the conversion from darkness to light, the conversion from no faith to faith, the conversion from being unsaved to being saved? Is that what this means? Does it mean that every single person, all flesh, will avoid the wrath of God as it's poured out on the Day of the Lord? It can't mean that. Otherwise there would be no reason for the Day of the Lord. This is certainly not a proof text for universal salvation. In fact, I would venture to say that there is absolutely no proof text in the Bible for universal salvation or that every single person will be saved. Indeed, we don't even need to look very far to see that all flesh is limited. Look at verse 32. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. He continues, for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape. And as the Lord has said, among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. So Joel says there will be survivors. Joel says very clearly there will be those who escape the coming wrath of God. And Joel plainly states that those who escape, those who survive, will be limited to those who call on the name of the Lord and whom the Lord calls. See, those two things go together, actually. They're not two groups. You may be thinking, well, I'm in the group that call on the name of the Lord. You may be in the group that the Lord calls on. But there's only one group. These two descriptors are descriptors of one and the same group. Only those who have been called by the Lord will indeed call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. The Apostle John brings that truth to the fore. All that the Father gives me will come to me, that's Jesus speaking. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. That is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father. You see, it's the Father that chooses. It's the Father who calls. It's the Father who selects. It's the Father who elects. And all that the Father chooses will be given to the Son. And all that are given to the Son will call upon His name. You see, there's only one way of escape. There's only one way of escaping the wrath, the coming wrath, the coming day of the Lord. You must believe. That's what Joel says. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. See, the idea here is if you don't believe, you're not going to call on the name of the Lord. If you don't trust in God, if you don't trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not call upon his name. So once again, Joel is the perfect and complete evangelist. Not only does he call the people to gather and repent, to turn away from their sin, not only does he tell them that the Spirit is required to bring them back to enable them to truly repent, now he calls them to believe. You see, Joel is saying that salvation is first and foremost the gracious work of the triune God. It requires a supernatural change in the hearts and minds of people. The father must call. The spirit must give a new heart so that you can trust in the one who's actually accomplished salvation. With this new heart, this supernaturally changed heart, this circumcised heart, you're enabled to believe. Believe upon the one who's died for you. Believe upon the one who's broken your chains, who has defeated death and sin in the tomb, who's risen from the dead and ascended and sits at God's right hand to return again to judge the world. To call upon the name of the Lord is to call upon him for salvation from your sins. And trust, solely and completely, and the Lord Jesus Christ. It caused me to remember that during our latest food pantry, a Muslim man came, and one of our volunteers was engaged with him, and the Muslim man said, we all believe in the same God. We just have different paths to get to him. It's like two points on a map in Washington, D.C. The same starting point and the same ending point, but many different routes, many different roads to get from point A to point B. He was wrong about believing in the same God. And he was also wrong about there being multiple ways to get to the one true and living God. Friends, there is a singular way to be saved from your sin, and that is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and are justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. For by grace you've been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is a gift of God, not the result of work so that no one can boast. When the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior. There's only one way to escape the day of the Lord, and it's by trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Nicodemus, on that night, couldn't call upon the name of the Lord. The Spirit had not been poured out upon him yet. But as he is, as he's poured out, he will enable you to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to your salvation. Praise be to God. Amen. Our Father and our God, We thank you for this passage. We thank you for these truths. We thank you, Holy Spirit, for your work. We thank you, Jesus Christ, for accomplishing salvation. And Holy Spirit, we thank you for applying it. And now we ask, help us. Help us to be those who remember the coming day. Work in our hearts that as we know what you've done to us, that we might be those who take this out and call others to faith in Christ. Help us to keep the day of the Lord in the forefront of our minds. Help us to know of your gracious work and proclaim that on the rooftops. Oh, Holy Spirit, work powerfully in our hearts. We ask all this in Jesus' name.