The Day of the Lord

We’ve spent the last few weeks in the book of Joel, so let me begin with brief recap. The book revolves around a huge locust plague that lasted several years and utterly devastated Jerusalem. Even if you cannot imagine what that must have been like, Joel describes it to us vividly: literally everything that was needed to live was wiped out. Both this year’s harvest and the seeds for next years, every food source, disappeared. The whole nation, animals and people, were on the verge of being completely wiped out. Entire lives and livelihoods lost.

Joel stands with his people. He too endured the locusts, but as God’s prophet he knows God and so is able to speak God’s word into the situation. He pulls back the curtains and reveals that God is in control even in this terrible disaster. And Joel speaks, repeatedly, of the day of the Lord. That’s simple when God acts. And there are two key ways that God acts: First, in judgement and secondly, in salvation. Both are called ‘the day of the Lord’. And Joel reveals that God is at work in both ways in this situation. He acts in judgment, disciplining them for turning away from him. But he also acts in salvation, by calling his people back into relationship with himself.

So we learn that this disaster was a wake-up call for Israel - if only they would listen and act. Joel urges his hearers to return to the LORD, to fast, to repent, and to call upon the LORD to spare them. It’s often when we lose someone or something that we realise how peripheral God has become in our lives and how loveless our relationship with him is. It also reveals what has always been true: that we are not as in control as we thought. Well when God brings those things to our attention, however he chooses to do it, we need to turn away from those wrong ways of living and thinking and back to him. So we too need to learn the same lessons Joel’s original hearers needed to learn.

That’s all pretty heavy, but Joel is also a book of tremendous hope. The Lord God acts in judgment and in salvation. Joel describes how God acted graciously and generously to restore those who turn back to him. In this situation that meant bringing rain in place of drought and removing the plagues of locusts from among them. Joel 2.25-26:

I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, 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.

So God acted then in judgment and in salvation. He give them good gifts. But most precious of all, he also restored their relationship with him so they once again know him and had a role in making him know to others around them. Joel 2.27:

You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, [in others words, he is their God. He is with them, and for them] and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else. [Which shows that part of being restored is to once again play the role they were given by God of speaking of the one true and living God to a world that worships false Gods]…

So that is what comes before this week’s passage. Looking ahead, the second half of this book is all about how this locust plague foreshadows what is going to come in the future. This ‘Day of the Lord’ points forwards to THE ‘Day of the Lord’ when God will act, again both in judgement and in salvation. It’s a bit like the way mock exams point forward the real exams. The locust plague was a day of judgement and it was followed by the restoration of those who returned to the Lord. That points forward to the final day of judgement and the final and complete restoration of those who have before that day turned to the Lord. The disaster was to remind them that there is a final day coming, he calls it the ‘Day of the Lord’, when we will face God’s judgment, so that they needed to act now to avoid catastrophe then. So the future reality was to shape their present life. And so with us. That day is still ahead of us, it is when Jesus comes for the second time, and so that day is to shape our present. But more of that in Joel 3 and we’ll be looking at that over next few weeks.

This week’s passage describes for us another Day of the Lord. Have a look at Joel 2.28:

And it [that is, the Day of the Lord] shall come to pass afterwards

After what? After the restoration of God’s people that happened in Joel’s day and was described in Joel 2.18-27. A future day when God will act. So when exactly was that? Well, if you’ve been following our morning sermon series in Acts, then you may have spotted that the verses that we’re about to look at were quoted by Peter on the first day of Pentecost. He said what you see happening today is what Joel told us about back then. Jesus had died, been raised from the dead, ascended into heaven and now the holy spirit had been poured out on all the disciples. And Peter says that is what Joel was talking about back then, and then quotes these very verses. So let’s have a look at those verses (Joel 2.28-29):

And it shall come to pass afterwards, 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.

So Joel isn’t talking here about the plague of locusts or about Jesus’s second coming and the wrapping up of history as we know it. This great and awesome Day of the Lord is Jesus’s first coming. That of course was in the future for Joel and his original hearers, but is not in the future for us because it has already happened. Or rather is still happening because it describes the period between Jesus first and second comings. Back in Joel 2.23, we read that that after the locust plague God poured down for you abundant rain. That act of God in salvation pointed forward to a far greater pouring out: God pouring out his Holy Spirit on the people of God. So that is the image Joel’s hearers had in mind, it speaks of God’s giving a lavish and generous gift, God watering a land destroyed by locusts and devastated by drought. He gave abundant life where there was death. And through Joel, God is promising that he will act in a great and mighty way – a promise of a Day of the Lord when he will save his people on an unimaginable scale that would overshadow the plague event. And that day is our day! We didn’t live through their locust plague. But we do live in the days that this passage is talking about. Jesus has come and we have been saved! Ephesians 2.4-7:

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

I wonder if as Christians we are in danger of forgetting how incredible it is to be rescued from death in our sins to life as God’s children? Well this passage should help us to see that afresh. There are three aspects Joel speaks about:

1. A promise of a different quality of relationship with God

The promise God gives through Joel is that he (Joel 2.28) will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Now the Holy Spirit is very active in the Old Testament: he was present and active at creation and there are many examples where we see the Holy Spirit being given to chosen leaders for a period, to enable them to carry out various particular tasks for God. So for example, the craftsman who led the design and construction of the tabernacle, Bezalel, is said to have been ‘filled with the Spirit of God’ for the job (Exodus 35.31). Then there is King David: 1 Samuel 16.13 tells us that ‘the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon’ him from the day he was anointed as the future king.

These appearances of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament are for special people, chosen for special purposes. But the big difference between those references and the prophecy spoken by Joel is that Joel promises a future outpouring of the Spirit ‘on all flesh’, meaning on all of God’s people, not on every human being. Or as someone helpfully put it, the Holy Spirit would one day be given to “all believers without distinction, rather than on all people without exception”. That is a staggering promise of a future day where God’s people would enjoy a different quality of relationship with God. They no longer need to relate to God via an intermediate such as priest, or a prophet or a king. They relate directly to God, they know God as the Holy Spirit makes him known to them. What an amazing day that was when it finally arrived! Joel was probably written towards the end of the Old Testament period, and by the time when Jesus came there had been hundreds of years of effective silence. No prophets. No kings. Then Jesus came and the Spirit was poured on him at his baptism. He was God’s perfect revelation, his son with whom God was very pleased. He came to die and rise again for the forgiveness of our sins. And he ascended and poured out his Holy Spirit on all those who call on his name. It was a new day. And that day still goes on – this is the day in which we live now! What a blessing God’s Holy Spirit is to us.

2. Promise of a new scope

Joel 2.28 continues (Joel 2.28-29):

…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.

So the second aspect to the promise is that God’s Spirit would be poured upon all flesh, regardless of gender or age or social rank. So you have the different generations; the old men who led the household and the young men who would one day inherit it. You have both genders, male and female
And you have every social class, both bosses and servants. In other words, every one of God’s people would receive the Spirit and know God revealing himself to them. Relating to God is not for the specialists. All have divine access to God through the Spirit. In others words, all of God’s people will now, in a sense, be prophets. All will know God and speak for him. This is a game changer. God who created everyone in his image, also saves all sorts of people without exception. Young and old, men and women, rich and poor. That’s good news for all who believe themselves to be unqualified somehow, or too insignificant for God. The gospel message is that no one is excluded from the invitation to join the people of God. And how desperately our divided, racist ageist and sexist society needs to know that, the scope of God’s loving and saving work excludes no one. And so neither should we.

3. Promise of a role for all believers in speaking for him

Have a look at Joel 2.30-31:

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.

The cosmic imagery in these verses underline that the events surrounding Jesus’ first coming were a ‘Day of the Lord’, a day where he acted. These show that this is a day like no other, a great and awesome day. They are not necessarily literal happenings, this is poetic language. Although of course we do know that when Jesus died on the cross the Sun did, as it where, turn to darkness. This highlights that this period in history is a ‘Day of the Lord’ – a time when he is at work powerfully. This is the Day of Salvation and beginning with Jesus’s first coming, it will continue until the next ‘Day of the Lord’ – Jesus’s second coming and the final day of judgment. Joel 2.32 continues:

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.

One day Jesus will return to judge and to finally restore all that is damaged and broken in this world. Until that day, the invitation goes out to the whole world to calls on the name of the LORD to be saved. It is his name and his alone that people are to call on to be saved. And the Holy Spirit being poured out on God’s people means they not only know God, but they also speak for God. They have a prophetic ministry – they know God and they all speak about him so that others may come to know him and be saved while there is still time. This passage in Joel isn’t just quoted by Peter on the day of Pentecost. It’s also quoted by Paul in the book of Romans, as we heard earlier (Romans 10.12-15):

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 [and here’s the quote from Joel] “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” [Implication?] How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

How, the Apostle asks, will people hear without someone to proclaim the good news to them? The answer is in the preaching of the gospel by Holy Spirit filled believers. That doesn’t mean only those who preach from a pulpit. No. All of us are equipped by God Spirit to be tellers of the good news story of God’s love. We end communion services with ‘Go in peace to love and serve the lord’. Filled with the Spirit, as all believers now are, we know God and we seek to make him know as opportunities arise with friends, family, neighbours and colleagues.