Good evening. We will be in the book of Joel today, so if you'd like to turn there. The book of Joel, we are continuing in our series in the prophet. But before we begin, let's start with a word of prayer. Lord, we thank you for your graciousness and your mercy towards us and that you allow us to gather together basically Every Sunday every Lord's Day, we pray that we would use this opportunity to glorify you and that you would teach us From the book of Joel we pray that you would use this to Edify us and to help us grow in the knowledge of you. It's in Christ's name we pray Amen So I was A couple months ago I was back in North Dakota with Leslie and we were visiting some family with a little guy and I was trying to, like I had already been assigned Joel and I was trying to figure out a good way to describe how the book is basically organized, like a good illustration of what it could be. I went over and got my tire fixed, and my dad and I were walking to a diner, and it kind of hit me of a great analogy for what this book is all about. This book is all about the day of the Lord, first and foremost, but some of you may remember Eli West. He was the resident a couple before I was, and he made reference to this thing that I had just never heard of until I had moved to Omaha, or maybe I did, and it just hadn't resonated. But he kept bringing up the idea of his birthday month. It was not his birthday. It wasn't his birthday week. It was the whole month was his birthday month. And I think that when we have that picture as contrasted with the day of the Lord here, you see the similarities and it kind of makes sense. When he began his birthday month, it was kind of a, he's not actually his new age yet, but the beginning of the month to his day is prefiguring him turning this new age, then on his birthday he turns this new age, it's a big event, something big has happened, and then from there to the end is kind of the culmination or the conclusion, and he's like officially his new birthday, or his new birth age, his age, yeah. So that same idea is kind of seen here in the book of Joel when we look at chapters 1, 2, and 3. We will see, as we go through, first the day of the Lord prefigured through, and then we see the day of the Lord inaugurated, and then we see the day of the Lord concluded. Not that it ever finishes, ultimately, but the day of the Lord concluded. But before we go to that, because we are doing a general overview of the books in the prophets, here is some general information about the book of Joel. First, the author. We know that the author is Joel. We know three things about him for the most part. We know his name is Joel. We know his dad's name is Bethuel. And we know that he's a prophet because the word of the Lord came to him. And that's about it. It's not likely that he is any of the other Joels mentioned in scripture. He's just a prophet that we know next to nothing about. Well, then we can look at the original context, or the date maybe. Maybe the date will shine some light as to what's happening here. And nobody knows any idea when the date is either. We don't know when this book was written. We don't know the time that it takes place. Some have posed in the 700s BC. I've seen the 500s BC. People are all over the place when it comes to the dating of it. But ultimately, I agree with Calvin when he says, but as there is no certainty about the date, it is better to leave the time in which he taught undecided. And as we shall see, this is of no great importance. So ultimately, this is almost the most timeless book in the Bible. There is no original audience that we can for sure pin down 100%. We know that it's Israel, obviously, but we don't know what exactly they're going through. Probably idolatry, since Israel's always dealing with idolatry. we really don't know what the specific thing is, what's happening. But that helps us because then we see that and we read it in a way that is more edifying towards us as opposed to just grinding out through the original context the whole time. But with that then, we'll move into our overview of the book. So if you are in your book, we'll start in chapter one. And it starts off, and I should give credit to Sinclair Ferguson as well, he has this general outline for the book of Joel. He starts with the first day, which is the day of locusts, or the day of the Lord prefigured. And basically the event that you see is here in chapter one, verses two through four. Joel says to the people, hear this you elders, give ear all inhabitants of the land, Has such a thing happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it and let your children tell their children and their children to another generation. What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust have eaten. And what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. So we see the issue here. that Joel is really focusing on, at least in this first part, is that there's been an invasion of locusts. There are locusts everywhere, and they have destroyed a lot of stuff. That verse four there is a full range of things are just getting eaten by the locusts. And this isn't just some random big locust storm. Because, again, in verse 3, he says here, tell your children of it and let your children tell their children and their children to another generation. Basically, this has never happened before. This is crazy. There's so much locust. We don't know what to do about it. They're eating everything. But Joel, ultimately, he's warning the people to wake up to this locust that's going on. But then he makes a point in verse six here of what the bigger event actually is. So the locusts are a big event, they're important. But then he goes to verse six and he says, for a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number. Its teeth are lion's teeth and it has the fangs of a lioness. And then he continues into verse seven. So the bigger event that Joel is really pushing for the people to awake to is the fact that there is an army. There's a nation that's coming up against the land. And the locusts, they're nothing compared to this army that is about to come up and just wipe them out. Now, I should mention that there are a couple ways of interpreting this. Basically, it's either literal or it's metaphorical. The first way that we can understand this is these locusts here in verses two through four are literally locusts. They're actual bugs that are flying around eating everything. And if that's the case, then when we look at this passage, we see that the locusts have come in and they have destroyed a bunch of stuff. And Joel's running around going, hey, wake up everybody. He says, awake you drunkards and weep, wail. Things are being cut off, lament like a virgin, mourn, be ashamed, things like that. He's saying, yo, all this stuff that's happening right now, it's pointing to what's about to happen with an army that has come up against the land. This is a view of most modern scholars believe this. Calvin thought this was the case. Or the other way that we can look at this is that this is actually an allegory in a sense. It's a metaphor where these locusts here in verses two through four are actually the army that has already come up and wiped out the land a bunch. This would change how we see the scope of what's happening, because the army, I doubt they're actually eating everything, but it's more of a destructive, destroying all things. But then, if that's the case, Joel is basically going, Everybody, wake up. Don't you see what's going on here? We're under judgment. There's an army here. We need to awake, weep, wail, be ashamed, and repent. That is the view held by the church fathers, for the most part, and some of the Puritans as well. But either way, however we take this, Joel is warning the people that, hey, there is something going on here. There is a judgment happening. But ultimately, this is not the big judgment that he's concerned about, because then, after a call to repentance here, he transitions into chapter two, which is the second day, the day of the Lord. So he moves into chapter two, the day of the Lord. This is the big event that he's actually the most concerned about. It's not necessarily locusts that he's worried about, or a nation that's coming up against him. there is a bigger danger here. We see in chapter 2 then, basically the day of the Lord inaugurated in chapter 2. Starts off with him saying, So he's warning the people about the day of the Lord that's coming up. And he describes it basically as there's a massive army, and there's a huge army, and it's off in the distance. They're on the mountains, he says. They're like darkness on the mountains, blackness spread upon the mountains, excuse me. Fire is behind them. They completely waste everything behind them. In front of them is like the Garden of Eden. But then as they come up to it, they just destroy it. They crush everything, and then ultimately, we see in verse 11 that this is the Lord's army. So this section here, this is not a literal army. What he's actually talking about, the Lord's army, though it can be, we see in the Bible pictures of Christ, or God, using armies to judge Israel, this is God's judgment, his ultimate judgment, his spiritual judgment, passing through and destroying everyone in its path, everyone who sinned against him. This is the classic view of Calvin, the Puritans, church fathers, all those guys. They take this as this is the spiritual army of the Lord. This is his judgment passing through and destroying everything. You see in verses 10 through 11 kind of a culmination of how he describes it. 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 this army is Big. They're dangerous. They're inevitable. You can't stop them. The way that they're described through this whole thing is basically they're like the perfect army. They just come through and destroy everything. But then he transitions into another section. He just finishes talking about how the army is going to just rip them to shreds. But then he jumps into a call to repentance. And this comes from the Lord. He says in verse 12, Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your heart and not your garments. And then we see there in this passage that The Lord and Joel, who the Lord is speaking through, is giving this call to repentance, but then also a bit of a summary about who God is, where he says that he is gracious and merciful. He's slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. So he goes through, he describes the army, he describes a time of repentance through verse 17, but then he also has a description of who God is, what is God like. But then he follows that up with what ends up happening when he says, then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. And he goes into a description of restoration for his people. God comes in and he says he's going to give them grain, wine, oil. He's going to remove the northerner far from them. Trees are going to bear fruit. The threshing floors are going to be full of grain. Vats are going to overflow with wine and oil, all that sort of stuff. He's going to give them rain, early rain for their vindication. He's poured down for them abundant rain. We'll come back to that particular part about rain in a second. But he restores things to them physically. Including rain, but then he also restores to them spiritually which is found in verses 28 through 32 When he says and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour my spirit on all flesh Your sons and your daughter shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams young men shall see visions Excuse me so we see in chapter 2 of the day of the Lord and armies coming and But he calls the people to repent and turn to him and when they do that god is going to give them a blessing including his spirit But then we go to the third day the day of decision or the day of the lord culminated if you will Excuse me, um the day of decision This is the end of all things basically it's the end of God's enemies, it's the end of God's friends. And they have very different outcomes there. He starts off talking about his enemies, and basically God calls them to war. He goes, proclaim this among the nations, consecrate for war, stir up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near, let them come up. Then he has them turning farming tools into weapons, because they just got to come up and fight. And basically it ends with, as you would expect, God just wiping them out and judging them right there and right then. It says, put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe, go in tread for the wine press is full, the vats overflow, their evil is great. That symbolism that you see in the gospels, you see it in Revelation. This is judgment. This is God judging the people. Then he goes, multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. So God's enemies ultimately get judged, destroyed, wiped out. But then he also has, to finish out the book, what happens to his friends, what happens to God's people. And basically, from chapter three, verse 17 through 21, It's this nice section about what's going to happen to us, his people. And people will know that he is the Lord our God. Jerusalem shall be holy. Strangers shall never again pass through it. Mountains are going to drip sweet wine. The hills are going to flow with milk. The steam beds of Judah shall flow with water. And the fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the valley of Shittim. Egypt and Edom, enemies of God, are going to be desolations and desolate wildernesses. That's an overview of the book of Joel. That's basically what's happening. You have some physical thing is happening, which Joel points to the day of the Lord when God's judgment will come, which then culminates in the end times when God eventually fulfills all things. But then we move now because we can't just do an overview. What can we gain from reading this book? So I'd like to just go through a few theological implications for us. What are some things we can learn specifically about God? We go to Chapter one, that's probably the best place. So when what we see in the book of Joel is a picture of who God is, what is his character like, specifically when it comes to sin and sinners. Because in chapter one through 2.11, he basically just, Joel is like pleading to the people to repent of the sin that they're doing because God's judgment is coming for the sins. That tells us how God feels about sin. He's not happy with sin. He doesn't tolerate sin, and he judges sin. Ultimately, he judges anyone who has sinned. This is seen, again, in the locusts, in the army that's going to come up, in the Lord's army, which is spiritual judgment. There's no escaping it. God hates sin, and he's going to judge everyone who does and has sinned. It's this whole section, basically, about his holiness, his justice, his wrath. But then we also get, when we go into chapter two, again verses 12 through 14, essentially, this would be any lesser preacher besides Joel and God through Joel would probably read those first two parts See, yet even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is holy and wrathful and righteous and just. But that's not what he says here. What God in this particular instance, he is all those things, but what he says here particularly is return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful. He's slow to anger. He's abounding in steadfast love, and he relents. over disaster. We have the tendency to think of God, I feel, especially in myself, in the camp that I'm in, that, you know, focus, holiness, righteousness, wrath. Yes, he is those things, but the way that he's revealing himself here, immediately after a section about how his judgment is going to come and wipe everyone out, is turn to me because I love you, basically. Turn to me, I'm gracious, I'm merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. I think we would be well to see God as he is and how he has declared himself in the scripture, especially when we read this. It reminds us of the gentleness of God. He's basically gentle and holy, if you will. He's gentle and holy. But then we move on as we continue in chapter two. We can see what are the blessings to God's people, especially in verses 18 through 27 in particular to start off with. You have God giving all these blessings to the people. He's blessing them in all these different ways. Grain, wine, oil, the northerner's gone, the threshing floor is full of grain. But ultimately, I think that All these blessings ultimately find themselves in, to an extent, verse 23 of chapter two, where he says, be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication. He has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before. This word for rain here can mean teacher, which means that God is giving the people a teacher for as a blessing. We have, there's a quote from Matthew Poole in his commentary on this section. He said of these words, so the words will be a promise of the Messiah and lead these children of Zion to the Messiah as the fountain of all the blessings they receive of God in temporals as well as spirituals. So ultimately, the rain here, this blessing from God that comes in rain, this water of life, if you will, comes in the form of a teacher that is to come, ultimately, the Messiah. It's Christ. This section is about Christ. Blessing comes through Christ. But then it's not just that, because then we go down Verses 28 through 32 in which the spirit of Christ is poured out among the people We know that the day of the Lord takes place then in Acts 2 at Pentecost Peter takes this section and he quotes it as being fulfilled then with the spirit being poured out on the people so The day of the Lord is now, it has already happened, or it's already been inaugurated, if you will. And the teacher has given us the spirit of Christ. He left and the spirit of Christ has come and it's descended on his people. And the spirit of Christ has come and has led people to, as he says in verse 32 here, it's led people to call on the name of the Lord so that they shall be saved. Not only call on the name of the Lord in general, it's call on the name of Jesus. In Romans 10, if you would turn to Romans 10, we might as well look and read a section of it. In Romans 10, we'll just go verses 9 through 13. There's more above, but this is really the main section here that we're looking at. Paul says, Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame, for there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. He's quoting from Joel there. So it's not just the Lord in some abstract term. It's Christ, it's Jesus. Anyone who calls on the name of Jesus shall be saved. Those are just a few, there's so much in this book, I could never hope to touch on any of it, or on all of it, and it's only three chapters long. I feel for the pastors who had the, whatever, 17 chapter books, but we'll have to move on for time to our own improvement or application. There are a few things of application here, again, so much more that I could touch on, but we will have to go with these. First, the day of the Lord we know has happened. It's been inaugurated. The spirit is being poured out on God's people. We see that in Acts. So we should remember this in that we now have the spirit within us that should spur us on in a way to live. We should As we live in our daily lives, we should remember that we have the power of God inside of us who is helping us in our sanctification and our daily lives and growing. He's guiding us through our lives and conforming us to be more and more in the image of Christ. So as we live, we should keep that in mind and help to spur us on in that way. But then, not only just living our lives in a general way, but also he's given us the spirit which also helps us to give the gospel to other people. In the section here, it says he's going to pour out his spirit on all flesh, but then one of the things that is accompanied with that is that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. So it's when he pours out his spirit, he's giving the ability for people to call on the name of the Lord and be saved. We're in the day of the Lord. Today is the day of salvation, as Paul says. And with that, the spirit helps us to declare that to people all around. But then we also move on to a personal thought for ourselves. Joel helps us to think about how we view our sin. What do we think of our sin? When we sin, do we sometimes act the same way that Israel is here when they go acting around like drunkards, basically? Drinkers of wine. Joel's main point here is when he sees these people, he's telling them like, awake, you have sinned against God and judgment is coming. When we sin, do we think to ourselves, you know, you know, tweak to it like, oh, we're awake, we see, we have sinned against God, we should weep, wail, lament, be ashamed, all these things, or do we just kind of, you know, pack it off into the back like, oh, whatever, doesn't really matter that much. It matters that much. God does not relent his judgment if you do not repent of your sin. Joel is just pleading with the people basically to awake to our sins, which is what we also should do when we sin. We should see it and be spurred to it, but then we don't want to just stay there, and we don't want to stay in this space of like, oh we're alert to our sin, and then we just have no idea what to do with it. Because then he has a bunch of instructions here for repentance. So we don't want to just awake to our sin, but then we want to turn in repentance. And not just outward repentance. There's a lot of outward stuff here as well. Fasting, weeping with mourning, but what the Lord says is to rend our hearts and not our garments. We want our hearts to change. We want a changed heart. Instead of just outward appearances, we want our hearts to be turning away from sin and then instead turning towards the Lord. But then, not only that, we also want to remember to trust in Christ, especially, as he is the one who's referenced here. But we want to turn from being awakened to our sin, to rending our hearts, to putting all of our trust in Christ for our salvation from the judgment of God for our sins. And that's not just a single time event either. That's throughout our lives. He's constantly interceding for us. It's not just a singular, we're saved once. That is the case. We are just saved once, but He is constantly interceding for us, so we turn to Him whenever we sin and ask for forgiveness. Then also, another application point, I wanted to add this in as well. I got this from Pastor Ron. I want to give him the credit where it is due. In chapter two, verse 25, the Lord says, I will restore to you the years that the swarming locusts have eaten the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. Have you ever felt perhaps that before you were saved you just squandered it all? You wasted so much of your life in your sinful days. You were not serving the Lord and there are so many years that you have lost because of it. God here says that he is going to restore the years that the storm and locusts have eaten. doesn't necessarily mean some sort of physical blessing like if you were a gambling addict before you were saved and you lost thousands and thousands of dollars. It's not necessarily saying he's just going to give you back the thousands and thousands of dollars, but instead your years are going to be restored as we saw in verse 23 through and in Christ. So even though all those years that you have squandered in your sin through Christ, you are then blessed and you receive blessing even more bountiful than however much you squandered in the past. And then for a conclusion, our final two application points is ultimately the fate of everybody. Are you God's enemy or are you God's friend? If you're God's enemy, you're going to be destroyed. There's no getting around it. Verses 1 through 16 of chapter 3 have that in very grim detail. The sickle harvesting, the winepress being tread, that's overflowing. Verse 15 really stuck out to me with, the sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. There's no more light for God's enemies. when this all happens and they will be judged for eternity, but even they still, we notice that the Lord's army has not quite passed through yet and destroyed everything. The army is stayed for now, so now is the time for God's enemies to call on the name of Christ for salvation and trust in his perfect life, his perfect death, his perfect resurrection for salvation. But then also for God's people, his friends, we can trust in him in knowing that ultimately, in the future, what we have to look forward to is that in the day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the steam beds of Judah shall flow with water, and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord, and water the valley of Shittim, the Lord is going to be with us forever and we will be blessed forever, especially through Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word and we thank you for the prophet Joel who you used to Bring us this specific book in your word. We pray that we would use it to strike to our hearts. Help us to continue to trust in you for salvation. Continue to turn to you when we are sinful. Help us to awaken to our sins. And then help us, as always, to, through this, love Christ more. Help us to see more of him in his sweetness and beauty. It's in his name we pray, amen.