8.15.09
Ready for Rain 2
Between porch and altar
Joel 1
1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
The Land Laid Waste
2 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?
3 Tell your children about it,
Let your children tell their children,
And their children another generation.
God wants it to be remembered; to be passed on to succeeding generations What is it that is so important that He wants it to never be forgotten?
Judgment #1 on God’s people:
(plague of locusts/Babylon to conquer)
4 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.
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.
God is bringing His people into judgment because of their idol worship, their refusing to obey Him, for their consuming of alcoholic beverages, which numb the brain and make it a lot more difficult for them to discern between right and wrong, and for their engaging in commerce on the sacred Sabbath, and seeking their own pleasure on God's holy day.
Those who linger long at the wine,
Those who go in search of mixed wine.
31 Do not look on the wine when it is red,
When it sparkles in the cup,
When it swirls around smoothly;
32 At the last it bites like a serpent,
And stings like a viper. Proverbs 23:30-32
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 Corinthians 6:19, 20
So God is working through
6 For a 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. [
7 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.
8 Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth
For the husband of her youth.
9 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.
Here we see that the regular sanctuary services have been ceased. Normal, ongoing worship of Yahweh has come to a complete stop, because the people of
They have stopped worshipping the Creator God, they have forgotten Him, and He is letting them go…
He tells His people to LAMENT. He is calling His people to repentance. Ezekiel tells us that he saw the glory of the Lord departing gradually from the sanctuary, because of the unrepentant sinfulness of His people.
Judgment #2 on God’s people:
(severe drought/complete loss of connection with God)
10 The field is wasted,
The land mourns;
For the grain is ruined,
The new wine is dried up,
The oil fails.
You will remember that in our last study in Deuteronomy we found that the grain represents the body of Christ, the wine represents the shed blood of Christ for our sins, and the oil represents the Holy Spirit of God.
The people of
God has withdrawn His rain. God has withdrawn His Holy Spirit, because His people are not obeying Him. There is no Holy Spirit without obedience. If someone tells you they are filled with the Holy Spirit, and they are not practicing the truth they know, you can be sure that the spirit making them all happy and such is not the Holy Spirit, but rather a demon having an awfully good time.
11 Be ashamed, you farmers,
Wail, you vinedressers, [again, a call to repentance]
For the wheat and the barley;
Because the harvest of the field has perished.
When there is no fruitage, there can be no harvest. This is true for brand new Christians. You know you are experiencing the new birth—you know you are experiencing true conversion when you are humble before God, when your heart breaks because your sins have crucified the Son of God, and you start loving and longing for love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, sobriety, purity, temperance, and self-control. Pastors are supposed to look for this fruitage when they are preparing a person for baptism. But pastors have gotten away from that these days.
No fruitage, no harvest. God Himself will accomplish His great harvest of souls at the end of time, when He sees the fruits of repentance in His people all over the world.
12 The vine has dried up,
And the fig tree has withered;
The pomegranate tree,
The palm tree also,
And the apple tree—
All the trees of the field are withered;
Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men.
The vine is
20 “For of old I have broken your yoke and burst your bonds;
And you said, ‘I will not transgress,’
When on every high hill and under every green tree
You lay down, playing the harlot.
21 Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality.
How then have you turned before Me
Into the degenerate plant of an alien vine?
22 For though you wash yourself with lye, and use much soap, [self-righteousness]
Yet your iniquity is marked before Me,” says the Lord GOD. Jeremiah 2:20-22
God says His people, who used to be a noble vine, have turned to other gods—other things that capture their attention, and they have become an alien vine! He doesn’t even recognize them anymore!
Jesus said that when He would come the second time in power and great glory, He would not recognize some of us because we are ALIEN to Him!
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Matthew 7:20-24
It’s not enough to believe in God. You must do what He says as well, or else He doesn’t even recognize you. James tells us that even the demons believe in God, and tremble!
Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. 19 You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! James 2:18, 19
Mourning for the Land
13 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.
The priesthood is largely responsible it seems, so they must take the lead in repentance. Sackcloth is synonymous with repentance and mourning.
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.
15 Alas for the day!
For the day of the LORD is at hand;
It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.
16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes,
Joy and gladness from the house of our God?
17 The seed shrivels under the clods,
Storehouses are in shambles;
Barns are broken down,
For the grain has withered.
18 How the animals groan!
Romans 8 tells us that all creation affected by sin/rebellion; it groans and labors in pain, waiting for redemption.
The herds of cattle are restless,
Because they have no pasture;
Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment.
19 O LORD, to You I cry out;
For fire has devoured the open pastures,
And a flame has burned all the trees of the field.
20 The beasts of the field also cry out to You,
For the water brooks are dried up,
And fire has devoured the open pastures.
Joel 2
The Day of the LORD
1 Blow the trumpet in
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:
2 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 for many successive generations.
3 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.
4 Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;
And like swift steeds, so they run.
5 With a noise like chariots
Over mountaintops they leap,
Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble,
Like a strong people set in battle array.
6 Before them the people writhe in pain;
All faces are drained of color.
7 They run like mighty men,
They climb the wall like men of war;
Every one marches in formation,
And they do not break ranks.
8 They do not push one another;
Every one marches in his own column.
Though they lunge between the weapons,
They are not cut down.
9 They run to and fro in the city,
They run on the wall;
They climb into the houses,
They enter at the windows like a thief.
Babylon is a thief, Jesus is the Shepherd; distinction: Satan steals/compels; while Jesus guides/protects. The sinful indulgences that you love will prove to be your ruin. They will steal your joy, your health, your salvation.
The ways of the devil are deception, mixing truth with error, love of pleasure, love of power, love of money, love of ease. The ways of the Lord are TRUTH, SIMPLE OBEDIENCE TO THE TRUTH, PEACE, TRUE CONTENTMENT, DEEP SATISFACTION AND SECURITY.
10 The earth quakes before them,
The heavens tremble;
The sun and moon grow dark, [1780 or yet future?]
And the stars diminish their brightness.
These are natural occurrences that will happen just before spiritual
We also know that the largest, most celebrated meteor shower took place in 1833! It could be seen even as far as
11 The LORD gives voice before His army, [God’s response]
For His camp is very great;
For strong is the One who executes His word. [That would be Jesus]
For the day of the LORD is great and very terrible;
Who can endure it?
Here we have a prophecy about the Day of the Lord, and Jesus Christ, who will lead the angelic host when He comes to destroy spiritual
My friends, destruction is coming on this world! Do you believe that? The Day of the Lord approaches, and are you ready? You do not want to still be in your sins when Jesus comes. Let your sins go beforehand into judgment now, and be not only washed away but blotted out forever in the great judgment that is taking place right now!
There is NO TIME to lose! DO NOT THINK THAT YOU CAN SAFELY PUT GOD OFF FOR ANOTHER DAY, AND LIVE AS YOU PLEASE! TOMORROW MAY NEVER COME FOR YOU. I have told you the truth. Now it’s up to you to surrender to the One who created you and bled for you.
Listen to this call to repentance that the Lord gives us, starting with verse 12:
A Call to Repentance
12 “ Now, therefore,” says the LORD,
“ Turn to Me with all your heart,
With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” [i.e. true repentance/conversion]
13 So rend your heart, and not your garments; [heart conversion, not outward motions/conformity; give Jesus your HEART]
Return to the LORD your God,
For He is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and of great kindness;
And He relents from doing harm.
14 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?
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion,
Consecrate a fast,
Call a sacred assembly;
16 Gather the people,
Sanctify the congregation, [a call to holiness—a call to sanctification and the indwelling of the Spirit of God]
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children and nursing babes;
Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber,
And the bride from her dressing room.
WOW! Look at what is happening here! The Bridegroom, Jesus, steps out of His chamber (the
He did this in 1844, at the end of the longest time prophecy in the Bible, marking the beginning of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary (see Daniel 8:14). And just what is being cleansed or removed from the heavenly sanctuary during this judgment? The record of our sins. Our sins—every thing we’ve ever done—is being stored in heaven. If when He comes to our lives, our names, we have by faith repented of our sins, let Jesus have them, forsaken our sins, those sins on the record books of heaven will be BLOTTED OUT FOREVER.
If, however, we have not forsaken our sins, but have continued to roll around in them; if we haven’t allowed Jesus to cleanse us of our sins, then they will remain in those books, and we will face them one day, and they will condemn us.
Make no mistake about it, the Lord Jesus Christ came into this world to seek and to save the lost! He came to condemn sin in the flesh—in His own body! (Romans 8:3). If you give Jesus your heart—if you ask Him to take control of your life, He will begin to remove sin from your life, because sin destroys, and sin is an enemy. The only sins that will be blotted out in this great judgment taking place right now in heaven, are sins that we have repented of, forsaken, and placed on Jesus. He can only ETERNALLY BLOT OUT SINS THAT HAVE BEEN SURRENDERED TO HIM.
This judgment that the Bridegroom is doing right now only involves people who have claimed to be His people. It’s only for believers. The purpose of it is to distinguish between those who are weeping over their sins and forsaking them, and those who are still playing with sin, and are not truly converted. The judgment reveals who His disciples truly are.
Now, if you haven’t even accepted the Lord Jesus as Savior and Lord, your sins will just remain on the record books, and your name won’t even come up in this pre-Advent judgment. You will be among those who are resurrected after the thousand-year millennium, and you will have to face the Lamb at the Great White Throne judgment. You didn’t allow the Savior to forgive you and to cleanse you. So you will have to die for your own sins.
The same is true for those who have claimed to be followers of God, but who haven’t really been born of the Spirit. You will one day face the Lamb whom you ignored for so many years. The second death awaits both of those classes of people.
Notice here that it says that when the Bridegroom, Jesus, steps out of His chamber, the Bride (church) steps out of her dressing room. This is talking about God’s people in the last days. And what did the Bride do in that dressing room? She took off her filthy garments, and put on the spotless, wedding garment of purity and righteousness.
What I want you to see is that while Jesus is officiating in the
We are to be putting on the garments of Christ’s righteousness right now. Revelation refers to this, in chapter 7:
Then one of the elders answered, saying to me, “Who are these arrayed in white robes, and where did they come from?”
14 And I said to him, “Sir, you know.”
So he said to me, “These are the ones who come out of the great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Revelation 7:13, 14
What does it mean to wash our robes, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb? It means to surrender our sins, and allow our characters to be made white in the righteousness of Jesus. His blood that was shed for us on the cross, purifies and cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:9).
We need new garments! We need white robes! Today, my friend, the prophet Joel screams out to us saying, “This is a time of repentance! Turn from your sins, and live for Jesus! He will give you strength to be an overcomer. Come—meet the Bridegroom—put on your wedding garment!”
Continuing with verse 17:
17 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.
Why should they say among the peoples,
‘ Where is their God?’”
Solomon’s temple, which was the temple of Joel’s time, was supposed to be the dwellingplace of Almighty God. It was sacred. But the priesthood of
So He brought me into the inner court of the LORD’s house; and there, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of the LORD and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east.
17 And He said to me, “Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of
Imagine that! The priests of God engaged in sun worship, between the porch and the altar of God’s holy temple! Right before this passage in Ezekiel there is an account of the women of Israel actually weeping for Tammuz, a false god.
Is it any wonder that God tells the priests to go to this same location at the temple-between the porch and the altar—and WEEP over the sins of their people, and their own sins. The priests are to be repentant before God, and ask for deliverance from approaching
Correspondingly, we should be weeping, sighing and crying over our condition before God. We should just now be pleading for forgiveness, for cleansing from sin, for deliverance from the enemy of sin in our lives. It is time for the people of God to ask the Lord for the refreshing showers of the Holy Spirit, to wash us, to cleanse us, to wake us up, to help us to truly see our deplorable condition.
And look what happens when God’s people repent, pour out their hearts to Him, and throw open their lives to His leading: God responds to His people’s repentance:
> Acceptance/defense of God’s people follows repentance
The Land Refreshed
18 Then the LORD will be zealous for His land,
And pity His people.
19 The LORD will answer and say to His people,
“ Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, [restoration of connection with God: body, blood, Holy Spirit]
And you will be satisfied by them;
I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations.
20 “ But I will remove far from you the northern army,[judgment on Babylon]
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.”
21 Fear not, O land;
Be glad and rejoice,
For the LORD has done marvelous things!
22 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 their strength.
23 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. [Nisan, first month of the harvest]
24 The threshing floors shall be full of wheat,
And the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil.
> Early and latter rains bring about fruitage & harvest
The Holy Spirit is given to bring the grapes, olives & wheat to maturity—i.e. fruitage, so that the harvest can occur!!
25 “ 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. [God’s using of Babylon]
26 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.
Indeed, the Lord Jesus tells the church at
Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— 18 I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Revelation 3:17-19
27 Then you shall know that I am in the midst of
I am the LORD your God
And there is no other.
My people shall never be put to shame.
Jesus—the Shekinah glory of the Father--returned to His temple, when He walked about here on this earth. But His people actually rejected Him, and turned Him over to the Romans to be nailed to a cruel cross. So, even though
Jesus gave the gift of His Holy Spirit to those who were ready for the Spirit, at Pentecost, in Acts 2, which we will look at later in this series.
> Early and latter rains happen as result of deep repentance/weeping between the porch and altar
God’s Spirit Poured Out
28 “ 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,
Your young men shall see visions.
29 And also on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
30 “ And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth:
Blood and fire and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, [heavenly signs in the latter days, indicating that this outpouring of the Holy Spirit is for US as well]
And the moon into blood,
Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.
32 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.
> Outpouring of Holy Spirit manifests in prophesying, dreams, visions
Notice first of all that God does not play favorites in whom He decides is a good vessel for His Holy Spirit. He gives His Spirit to all flesh—to all people who comply with the conditions of being filled with the Spirit.
We will talk more about those conditions as we move along in this series, but today we can already see that REPENTANCE and turning from sin is a major
deciding factor in whether or not we receive the Holy Spirit in latter rain power.
My friends, there is a harvest before us! And the harvest must begin with us! We are to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance, and come before the Father through Jesus Christ His Son, in a time when He still may be found.
John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord, told the people:
Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance. Matthew 3:8
And in light of what we have studied these two Sabbaths thus far, listen to what else John tells us:
And even now the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 11 I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather His wheat into the barn; but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matthew 3:10-12
Notice that the axe is already at the root of the trees. God is seriously looking for true repentance in His people. Notice also that if we do not cooperate with Him in His pruning and cultivation, and allow Him to remove our sinful ways, we will ultimately be thrown into the lake of fire right along with our sin that we love so dearly.
Notice also that John says that repentance PRECEDES the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and that we cannot expect to receive the Holy Spirit if we are not surrendering our sins to God.
Notice as well that there are two kinds of fire talked about. There is a destructive fire that the devil and all who serve sin will be thrown into someday. And there is the CLEANSING FIRE of the Holy Spirit, whom God will give to each of us, if we are willing to be cleansed.
Notice that Jesus Himself is the One who baptizes us with the fire of His Holy Spirit.
Notice that this repentance and this baptism of the Holy Spirit leads us to a great harvest one day, when the Great Harvester of Souls will return, with His harvesting fan in His hand, and the sheep will be separated from the goats, and the wheat will be separated from the chaff.
OH, WHAT A MIGHTY HARVEST AWAITS US, MY FRIENDS!! OH, THAT WE WOULD HEED THE COUNSEL THAT THE PROPHET JOEL GIVES
OF OUR SINS, THAT THEY MIGHT GO BEFOREHAND TO JUDGMENT, AND BE BLOTTED OUT!
OH, THAT WE MIGHT CHOOSE RIGHT NOW TO SURRENDER OUR LIVES TO THE GREAT KEEPER AND HARVESTER OF OUR SOULS—THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!
OH, YOUNG MAN, YOUNG WOMAN, OLDER MAN, OLDER WOMAN, THAT YOU MIGHT NOT TUNE GOD OUT THIS DAY, BUT RATHER EMBRACE THE GUIDANCE THAT HE IS GIVING YOU.
OH, THAT YOU MIGHT NOT PUT OFF THE GOD OF THE UNIVERSE ANY LONGER, BUT TURN TO HIM IN FAITH, KNOWING THAT HE LOVES YOU, AND WANTS TO HEAL YOUR LIFE, AND FILL YOU WITH HIS SPIRIT AND PURPOSE.