The theme of Joel is, “The Day of the Lord.” The phrase occurs 12 times total throughout the books of the minor prophets and five times in the book of Joel alone. Joel’s message is this: the day of the Lord is coming, so we must warn people and call them to repentance and faith before it is too late! He uses a past incident of judgment and a locust infestation to cast a vision for future judgment. He issues a call to hear the word of the Lord and to tell the next generation.

So open your Bibles to the book of Joel, and we'll survey this book. The theme of the book of Joel is simple, the day of the Lord. And Joel uses the example of a gigantic calamity that took place in his day to speak of the day of the Lord. The calamity that he experienced himself was an inescapable, devastating infestation of locusts as a picture of the coming judgment. Locusts can be a terrifying presence as they multiply.

Locusts multiply so quickly it's almost mind-boggling. A locust can go from one insect to 19 million in the space of, you know, June to October. So they multiply so rapidly. Joel is reporting a historical moment where a locust infestation was absolutely devastating. You know, just last week we had, just south of us in South Carolina, what the meteorologists are calling a 1, 000 year flood, a flood that happens every 1, 000 years happened in places in South Carolina, 24 inches of rain in some places, absolutely remarkable, unforgettable.

You know, people in South Carolina will live and die and live and die and live and die and live and die and live and die for hundreds of years before this happens again. And that's the kind of situation that we find here in the book of Joel. And so because of this devastation, Joel issues a call to hear the Word of the Lord and to tell the next generation about the Day of the Lord. The phrase, the Day of the Lord, occurs 12 times in the Minor Prophets. Five of them are right here in this book, in just these three chapters.

Of course, the author is Joel. The audience is Judah. It's not specifically named, but we believe he's speaking to Judah because Joel mentions Jerusalem and Zion several times indicating that he was speaking to the southern kingdom of Judah. These people who'd lived in an astonishing time in history, They were awestruck by the devastation that were taking place. The audience consists of priests, farmers, drunks, pleasure seekers, locusts, and the beasts.

We'll get to the beasts later. Interesting twist on what's happening with the beasts. It's fascinating to see how God uses animals to declare his glory, and we see that here in this book. He's also speaking of conditions of believers in the New Testament era. That's absolutely clear in the book of Acts because the Apostle Peter, in one of his messages in the books of Acts, says this, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is that which Joel has prophesied.

So it's a book that speaks of times from the time of Joel himself, really all the way to the end of the age, to the final judgment. The time of writing is really unknown in any level of perfection. I would suggest it happened in the 9th century, the mid 9th century BC, maybe around 835 BC, but the prophet doesn't distinguish a time frame in the prophecy. Joel's message is this, the day of the Lord is coming. Warn your brothers and sisters.

Call them to repentance and faith before it's too late. He is at the same time as he's speaking of a day of calamity, he's also prophesying of the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the new converts of the early church, and so the Day of the Lord is something that's not exclusively related to divine judgment. It also relates to salvation in this context. But all of this is used to a call for repentance, and what Joel is doing is he's using a past incident of judgment, i.e. A locust infestation, to cast a vision for various other future judgments.

And he's really helping us to understand how the people of God should think, how should they react in a time when their resources are completely devastated. Here, this locust infestation caused the absolute desolation of the land. Everything was consumed. It was scorched earth. And the question that Joel is raising here is, who do you trust?

The other thing that you see here is, it is a judgment upon God's people. And the whole idea boils down to this. The apostate have had their day. God will have his day. When you see the prosperity of the wicked, don't worry.

God will have his day. Now, when we think about the day of the Lord, it's very important that we understand how this term is used. A day of the Lord in Scripture is any day when God intervenes with his judgment or his salvation. The term is used across many different contexts, and that means that there are many days of the Lord in the history of your life, and of course there are various days that are identified here. There is one great day of the Lord, and that is the final judgment.

But there are other days that point to it. In Isaiah chapter 34, we learn that the day of the Lord is going to come down upon Edom and Egypt. In Obadiah, we learn that the day of the Lord comes down upon all the nations. So the Day of the Lord can happen in many, many different kinds of time frames. In Zephaniah 1, verses 14 through 18, the Day of the Lord is the judgment of Judah.

If you go to Isaiah chapter 2 verse 12, the day of the Lord comes in order to judge the proud. And you find that in verse 12 of chapter 2. I'll read it in Isaiah. For the day of the Lord of hosts shall come upon everything proud and lofty, upon everything lifted up, and it shall be brought low. And if you skip down into verse 16, the pride of man will be humbled.

The idols will completely vanish. The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low. The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, but the idols He shall utterly abolish." And then in verse 19 is some of the most dramatic and I think helpful language to help us realize the stupidity and foolishness of our idolatry. He says, they shall go down into the holes of the rocks and into the caves of the earth from the terror of the Lord and the glory of His majesty. When He arises to shake the earth mightily, He says that they'll go into the crags and into the rugged rocks in order to escape the glory of His majesty.

And we also know that it's fulfilled in Acts chapter 1 verse 8. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth." Peter makes it very clear that that day was the day of the Lord as well. It was a day of salvation, a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We know that the day of the Lord applies to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as well. In Malachi chapter 4, verses 5 and 6, we read these words, Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the earth with a curse." So here, the day of the Lord is seen as the time when the Lord Jesus Christ comes, and as a result of the conversion of the saints in the New Testament era, the hearts of the fathers turn toward their children, and the children turn toward their parents.

And this happens in this time frame. So God ordains many days which point to the great day of the Lord. And in the book of Joel, there are three events that are called the Day of the Lord. First of all, this locust invasion in chapter 1. In chapter 2, a military invasion.

And then thirdly, the ultimate final judgment. The day of the Lord relates to all of these, and so there's not one single calamity or army or natural disaster that God has not orchestrated in order to declare his glory on a day, the day of the Lord. And so God has orchestrated these days to warn all mankind of his plan, that he brings these small judgments in order to bear witness to the greater judgments that are to come. And as a result of the previous judgments and devastations, natural calamities, armies, all kinds of things like that, we look at those And those should remind us of the coming judgment of God. This is one of the blessings of having these small, low-grade difficulties in this life, because they teach us that something greater is out there.

Therefore, turn to the Lord. So Joel is prophesying calamity, there are locusts, there are clouds of locusts, and it's simply a foretaste of the devastation that God has in store for his enemies. And God gives us this picture of the devastation of locusts to give us some sense of what the final judgment looks like. Scorched earth, all life gone, nothing to eat, nowhere to go, totally exposed. And it's this picture of just being completely out of ability to change anything because of the massive impossible to overcome infestation of locusts.

And So he is using this as a prefiguring of judgment. In Amos 5, verses 18 through 27, the day of the Lord was the Babylonian captivity, I'm pretty sure. In Revelation 6, verses 15 to 17, we learn of the inescapability of those who find themselves in the day of the Lord. In verse 15 in Revelation 6 we read this, And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, The commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and the rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of his wrath has come.

Who is able to stand?" So the wrath of God falls. Why? Because of covenant unfaithfulness. And you have in your outline a number of references to the day of the Lord. I think I've given you at least a dozen of them for further study if you'd like to look at them.

And your outline are listed some key verses that help us to form our understanding of the whole message. Let's talk about the Lord Jesus Christ in Joel. First of all, the Lord Jesus Christ is prefigured in Joel as the agent of the day of the Lord, who is the holy, ultimate judge of the world. And it speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ sitting upon his throne, judging the nations. So let's look at the basic outline here.

I've divided it into two parts. You could probably divide it into three since you have three chapters, but we have a recognition of the past, the day of the Lord, in chapter 1, locusts and drought. You find the description of the locust attack in verses 1-12 in chapter 1, and then you have the drought in verses 13-20 in chapter 1, and then finally the day of the Lord that is coming in the future is spoken of in chapters 2 and chapter 3. So let's go into it. Let's jump into the text.

In verse 1 we read the subscription, The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel, the land laid waste. So we don't really know who Joel was. Most scholars think that he was probably the son of a prophet or a priest because of the language that he uses, but we're not sure. We don't know if he was a young man or an old man who was bent over, gray hair. We just don't know much about him.

But he lived at a time when the land was laid waste. We know that from verse 1. Then in verse 2, there's a call for the elders and the people to hear. Listen to this language. Hear this you elders and give ear all you inhabitants of the land.

Has anything like this happened in your days or even in the days of your fathers?" So a couple of things I'd like to extract from verse 2. First of all, he is addressing really everyone, elders and all the inhabitants of the land. This is a message to everyone. And then secondly, He recognizes that what has just happened with these locusts has not happened in the memory of anyone. It's kind of like that thousand-year flood.

You're not going to see it again for a very, very, very long time. He says, has anything like this happened in your days or even in the days of your fathers? And the answer is no. Something so astounding has taken place that you've never seen it before. Things like this happen From time to time in a person's lifetime, I think today we see things happening that we have not seen in our lifetimes or our Father's lifetimes in terms of the moral trajectory of our nation.

We are seeing things now that at least our nation has never seen. And so it's appropriate for us to look at history and ask, what is unusual about these times? Is there anything astonishing that's happening today? Well, Joel was looking at what had happened and it was absolutely astonishing. We too should do the same thing and say, what is happening today that has not happened in our lifetime or our Father's lifetimes?

And we should consider, we should contemplate what has happened and ask, is there anything that we ought to do? Shall we respond to this in a particular way? Well, that's verses 1 and 2. Then in verse 3, there's an appeal to tell the rising generation. Look at that with me.

Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children and their children another generation. And with this terminology we've encountered again the whole Hebrew view of the family, that the family was a place where history was taught. History has been exported from the family into a classroom, and it needs to find its residence back in the family again. But here you have actually a direct command from a prophet of God to parents to teach their children these matters of history, and that their children should teach their children and their children their children.

This means that you should teach your children when you finally have families, you should teach your children to be teachers. They should be able to articulate things. They should be able to explain things. Because here in this passage, the command is for children to tell their children and their children another generation. This is the way that God has designed the family to operate.

This is very much like Psalm 78, where Asaph tells the fathers to be good historians and to tell the rising generation of the mighty acts of God. And here it's another evidence of God's command to parents to have a mentality that goes beyond their own lives, not selfishly just living for themselves in their own generation, but to think about the rising generation and to teach history. And then in verse 4, we begin to learn about the crisis. Verse 1 gave a short summary of it. Now we get some of the details.

What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten. And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten." Now, in the Hebrew language, there are nine nouns that describe locusts. So there are different kinds of locusts. So there seems to have been waves of devastation here.

Stages. One kind of locust came in and ate one thing and another kind came in and ate another and another kind it just did not stop. Kind of like that rain down in South Carolina. It just didn't stop. In normal conditions it would have stopped and been over.

Well, in the conditions that Joel was experiencing, it just did not stop. Then we also notice a number of imperatives, commands, in chapter 1. The first one is in verse 5. Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth. So now he turns his attention, he speaks directly to the drunkards, and he's saying, it's over.

You're not going to get any more. So sorry. And they are addicted to it. They want it, but they're not going to get it. And then in verse 6 there's this disclosure of the attack from a foreign nation.

For a foreign nation has come up against my land, strong and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a fierce lion. He has laid waste my vine and ruined my fig tree. He has stripped it bare and thrown it away. Its branches are made white." Now this nation, I believe he's speaking still about the locusts, this nation of locusts, various kinds of locusts, one wave after another.

The chewing locust comes in with their weapons, the swarming locust comes in with their weapons, the crawling locusts and so forth have come in. I believe he's using this as figurative language to describe the locust army. In chapter 2, he's going to talk about a real army. There's another imperative in verse 8, lament. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth.

The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn who minister to the Lord. The field is wasted, the land mourns, the grain is ruined, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails. Be ashamed you farmers, wail you vine dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished." So here he's likening the deprivation to a virgin who has lost the husband of her youth. And she's despondent, she's devastated, and he's likening this situation to deprivation of a marriage.

And then perhaps the saddest lines in the prophecy are this, surely joy has withered away from the sons of men. Verse 12, mourning for the land. So the land has been turned into a land of mourning. The disappointments, the downcast souls, are filling the land. And then after dealing with this matter of the devastation of the locust, then he turns in verse 13 to a drought.

And he covers this from verse 13 to verse 20 in chapter 1. And he begins with a command in verse 13. This is another imperative. Gird yourselves and lament you priests. Wail, you who minister before the altar.

Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you who minister to my God. For the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God." So here you have this command to the priest to lament. It's just reflective of the hardship that has been imposed upon the land. And then verse 14, there's a call for repentance in the form of a sacred assembly. In other words, to gather the people together and to have a sacred assembly, a time of coming before the Lord and repenting.

And this is what men and women should do when the judgment of God is upon their land. They should come together and repent. They should call a sacred assembly for repentance. Verse 14, Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God and cry out to the Lord." This is what we should do when the judgment of God is upon a land. We should gather together.

We should enter into fasting. We should gather the elders and go into the house of God and cry out. It's one of the most important things that a people under judgment can do. And in verse 15, we learn that the day of the Lord is at hand. He says, alas, for the day of the Lord is at hand.

It shall come as destruction from the Almighty. Is not the food cut off before our eyes? Joy and gladness from the house of our God." So this problem with the crops and all the supplies of the land did not happen because of mismanagement or poor farming. They happen because of God. He was the one that caused the land to fail.

And the barns are broken down, the storehouses are in shambles, the grain is withered, And the animals groan in verse 18. The herds of the cattle are restless because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. Oh Lord, to you I cry out, For fire has devoured the open pastures and a flame has burned all the trees of the field and then in verse 20 we come to Something that has happened to the beasts And I think this is very interesting. The beasts of the field also cry out to you, for the water brooks are dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures.

I don't know how far you can take this, but he says that the beasts are crying out. Is there some consciousness of God Almighty in the beasts? It's possible that this implies that there is at least some consciousness of God. We do know that God does direct all the animals of the world. We do know that God does speak to the fish.

He spoke to a very large fish that swallowed Jonah. He told a fish to go swallow Jonah. Now how did that happen? I don't know. Does God speak fish language?

Whatever it is, there's some kind of relationship here that I don't know how to describe. But here, the beasts of the field are crying out to God. I just think that's interesting. Then we get to chapter two, and we read of the imminency of the day of the Lord in the form of an army coming to devastate. And in verse 1 there's an announcement of the coming judgment.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, that's the announcement, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming for it is at hand. A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness like the morning clouds spread over the mountains, a people come great and strong the like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them, even after many successive generations." This is a big deal. Something really big is going to happen with this army. Was it the army of Nebuchadnezzar?

Was it the army of the Romans in 70 AD? I don't know. Does it speak of the end of the age and another great army that comes, that we might read about later in the Valley of Decision, I'm not sure about the timing of it. But we know that it is such a remarkable event that nothing like this will be seen for successive generations. Verse three, it says, A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns.

The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. Surely nothing shall escape them." It sounds a little bit like the final judgment and the Eden of God being presented to his people on one side and hell on the other. I'm not sure, but whatever it is, there are horses, there's a noise like chariots in verse 5, and there's all this calamity going on, all this remarkable activity. The people are in pain, verse 6. Before them the people writhe in pain.

All faces are drained of color. And then the mighty men are frantic, Verse 7. They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like men of war. Everyone marches in formation.

They do not break ranks. They do not push one another. Everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the houses, they enter the windows like a thief.

So there's a great calamity taking place at the hands of this army. And then verse 10 gives us some phenomena in the sky. And it's very important that you understand how the prophetic writers use things that are going on in the heavens. And here we find the earthquakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. Now is that literal or figurative?

It seems to be figurative, but just recognize when you read this kind of language, and you'll read this kind of language in Matthew 24, is it figurative of just an absolutely defining calamity? I rather think it is. Just recognize, you'll encounter this language in the New Testament. And we find in verse 11, the Lord is directing the army. The Lord gives voice before his army.

In other words, God is in control of all the armies of the world and all the judgments and devastations that happen as a result, even though they are great and very terrible, as it says at the end of verse 11. And in verse 12, there's a call to repentance. I love this part here. There's such encouragement and tenderness in this. Verse 12, now therefore says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.

So rend your heart and not your garments." He's speaking to a people who've been rending their garments. They've been doing all the religious stuff. They'd been doing the things they were sort of supposed to do and the sacrifices and in the ordinances of Israel. But something was missing. They were rending their garments, but they weren't rending their hearts.

It's in the same vein of the Lord Jesus Christ when he said, this people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And this is the heart of true Christianity, to rend your heart. Not simply to go through the motions, not to be involved in man-pleasing and doing what you do to try to make other people think that you're just so spiritual. But it happens in the heart. Turn to me with all your heart, so rend your heart and not your garments.

You know, people can put on spirituality in a lot of different ways. Through their prayers, Matthew chapter 6 speaks of how this happens, how people pray in order to be seen by men because they want glory for men. You know, you can lift up your hands. I think what God would say, You know, lift up your heart. If you're going to lift your hands, lift your heart.

If you're going to rend your garments, rend your heart. And then you see God's kindness toward the repentant. Of course, He says, Return to the Lord your God. Why? For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and He relents from doing harm.

Who knows if He will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. In other words, God is merciful to the repentant. You can rend your garments and act all spiritual all you want, But when your heart turns, God shows kindness. He's slow to anger. He actually allows you to do it, maybe for many years.

And He's so slow to anger that it gives opportunity for you to realize that you've not really rent your heart. You've only been renting your garments. And then he says he'll do something, and this part is very touching. God says He'll leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering. In other words, He feeds those who have been starved.

You know, the unfaithful of the land get food, they get a drink offering and a grain offering. They get bread and wine. This is what God does to those who repent. He's very kind, and He leaves behind Bread and wine for them to drink as they go about their way. It's so wonderful.

Then we have this whole idea of a sacred assembly again in verse 15. Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, Call a sacred assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing babes, let the bridegroom go out of his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room. Let the priests who minister to the Lord weep between the porch and the altar. Let them say, Spare your people, O Lord, and do not give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them." And then there's this question. Why should they say among the peoples, where is their God?

And then in verse 18, we find how God refreshes His people. Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and pity his people. The Lord will answer and say to his people, Behold I will send you grain and new wine and oil and you will be satisfied by them. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations, but I will remove far from you the northern army and will drive him away into a barren and desolate land with his face toward the eastern sea and his back toward the western sea his stench will come up and his foul odor will rise because he has done monstrous things fear not O land be glad and rejoice for the Lord has done marvelous things." And then look at verse 22, we're back to the beasts again. Do not be afraid, you beasts of the field, for the open pastures are springing up and the tree bears its fruit the fig tree and the vine yield its strength be glad then you children of Zion and rejoice in the Lord your God for he has given you the former rain faithfully and he will cause the rain to come down for you, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month." The latter rain.

When is that? That could be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the time of the day of Pentecost. And then verse 24, there's abundance, there's fruitfulness. The threshing floors will be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. And so I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust, my great army which I sent among you.

You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied. And praise the name of the Lord your God who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never be put to shame." The Apostle Peter says something very similar about being put to shame. And then the result is this, then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God and there is no other.

My people shall never be put to shame. That concludes this time of declaration of his glory. Then there's a prophecy of the Spirit being poured out in verse 28, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. And also on my men servants and my maid servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.

And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls." So this is a prophecy of the coming of Christ, the fruitfulness that takes place as a result of the outpouring of the Spirit. Some of it has to do with what happens in your heart, where God pours His Spirit out upon you and what happens to you. He gives you fruit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. He gives you an abundance in your heart.

You change, and then I think it also implies the expansion of the gospel, the spreading of the gospel to all the nations, the hundreds and hundreds of millions who have come to Christ. And then chapter 3 is a disclosure of the final judgment, the ultimate day of the Lord, the final judgment of the nations. And in verses 1 through 15, there's the judgment of the nations, and he says in verse 2, I will gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, and I will enter into judgment with them there on account of my people, my heritage Israel." I rather think this is the final judgment where God brings all who've ever been born, He brings all the people from all the nations together, and he separates the sheep from the goats in the valley of decision. He does it because of his people, Israel, who've been scattered. You know, he speaks in this section of just how harmful the society has become because of its idolatry.

Look at verse 3. This is prophetic to our times. They have cast lots for my people, have given a boy as a payment for a harlot. What does that mean? That means that the lust, the desire for immorality was so great that you would find people giving their boys in payment for some immediate sexual gratification.

They'll give up anything, even their children. Again, we come to the realization that the children are always the big losers in idolatry, always. They paid the biggest price. And then, And then he says even more of this, and sold a girl for wine that they may drink. So you have a daughter and you're drunk and you are so affected by your wine and you want it so badly, you don't really care about your daughter.

You would rather give up your daughter than be deprived of wine. This is what happens to people who become obsessed with their idols. You know, you see it in a lot of different ways today. You know, I've known of crack addicts who would just as soon as kill their grandmother just so that they could get another hit. That's the condition that you find here.

The children are the great losers in sin. Indeed, what have you to do with me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the cos of Philistia? Will you retaliate against me? But if you retaliate against me, swiftly and speedily I will return your retaliation upon your own head, because you have taken my silver and my gold and have carried into your temples my prized possessions." So God is saying he's going to deal with this. God is going to bring everything to judgment.

He'll bring all the injustice done to these children to justice. In fact, He says in verse 7 that because they've sold their children, he's going to sell them. He says, Behold, I will raise them out of the place to which you have sold them and will return your retaliation on your own head. I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to the people far off." So God is going to return the favors in that sense. In verse 14 you have this picture of multitudes in the valley of decision, in the day of the Lord.

For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will grow dark and the stars will diminish their brightness." When is this? Nebuchadnezzar 586 BC, 70 AD, the end of the age, I don't know. I do know this, whenever you find the day of the Lord, it always points to the final day of the Lord. So I don't know if you have to know exactly when this happens, but you do know that whatever judgment of God is upon the world, it points to the final judgment.

And then in verses 16 through 21 in Chapter 3, you see the blessing of God's people. The Lord will roar from Zion, verse 16, and utter his voice from Jerusalem. The heavens and the earth will shake, but the Lord will be a shelter for his people and the strength of the children of Israel. So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy." And then you see how God blesses His people at the end of verse 17.

And then verse 18, And it will come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drip with new wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water. A fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord and water by the valley of Acacius." This is just Language that shows you how good God is to His people. He gives in milk and wine and water. And then the abusers of God's people will be destroyed in verse 19. Egypt shall be a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness because of violence against the people of Judah, for they have shed innocent blood in their land." God is going to destroy the mockers of his people, And so you never have to worry about that.

You might have to endure mocking. But always remember that their days are numbered. You can run kind of coolly through the hail of mocking speech and even when innocent blood is shed in the land." And then you find God's preservation of His people in verse 20. But Judah shall abide forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will acquit them of the guilt of bloodshed whom I had not acquitted.

For the Lord dwells in Zion." So, here Joel brings everything to a final conclusion, where Judah is abiding in the presence of God forever, from generation to generation, for all eternity. They've been acquitted of their bloodshed, and the Lord will dwell with them. The Lord will be their light and their salvation. The Lord will care for them for all eternity. And so he finally brings the message of salvation at the end of the prophecy.

So here's some applications. I think we should remember that much of this has been fulfilled in every believer who receives the Holy Spirit. The milk, the wine, the abundance, the bread, these are the things that God leaves behind for His people that they would eat and drink. He leaves the finest of wheat, the sweetest wine, the very best bread. And He says, Take, eat.

This is My body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me." And he pours the Spirit out on his people. And in doing so, he helps them. He helps them deal with their infirmities. He turns their mourning into dancing.

He gives them love instead of hate. He changes their hearts. This is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. What should we do? Well, we should recognize that all these things have been given to us to warn us of the coming judgment, and we should tell the next generation of the judgment of God that the day of the Lord is coming and to repent before it's too late.

And maybe There are times when we should call a solemn assembly to fast and pray and to cry out to God that He would come and heal our land because God is going to come and judge all the nations. And what God has done with history is He's given time so that people would repent. And so He gives us prophets like Joel, who will tell us of the various days of the Lord, so that whenever we experience one, it should always remind us to declare the day of the Lord to our generation. I think that's the essence of the book of Joel for our own purposes in our own time.