Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 11, 2015 | Route 66 - Joel

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October 11, 2015 | Route 66 - Joel · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Hold it down over here.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you folks over a cab, it just gets loud and noisy over here, sort of like the royals uh right after a wind.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: So pick it up over there across the street, okay?
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Uh we're in Rue 66.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: That is a uh we're doing a sermon series in case this is your first Sunday or you're visiting.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: 66 weeks through the 66 books of the Bible, and we've arrived at wow, 22, 23, 24, 25.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Uh, somewhere between 22 and 30.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: It's about 27.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: Book of Joel this morning, which I'm entitled, The Locusts Are Coming.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Say it to the person next to you.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Say it, turn to the person next to you.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: This is a new deal.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Go, the locusts are fine, the locusts are coming, the locusts.
0:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, I'm really loose this morning.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, Joel's all about the judgment day.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: Judgment day.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: It is judgment day if you're in school, by the way.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: You know that.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: If you're in school, you have kids in school, report card time is coming like next week, right?
1:02
SPEAKER_00: That's judgment day.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: When my son Craig was in second grade, he came home, sat beside me on the bed, pulled out.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: It's not a card.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: Why do they call it a report card?
1:11
SPEAKER_00: It's a piece of paper.
1:13
SPEAKER_00: But everything else is the same.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: It's still Judgment Day.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: I look at it, I go, wow, Craig, we got to do something about this.
1:21
SPEAKER_00: We can't, Dad.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: He said they're they're ink.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: So at least that's my memory of it.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: Feel for the guy, the father who knew his son had been lack, lacking, you know, slaggered, and so he's ready in the living room and set it all up.
1:40
SPEAKER_00: Judgment time, son comes in.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: Dad, here's my report card.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Here's another one.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: This is of yours.
1:47
SPEAKER_00: I found up in the attic.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Or the uh son who came to his dad, you know, handed him a sheet of paper.
1:57
SPEAKER_00: Dad was horrified.
1:59
SPEAKER_00: Four Fs, one C.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: What is the explanation for this?
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Son said, I could be spending too much time on one subject.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Judgment Day.
2:15
SPEAKER_00: Um Judgment Day is a scary time.
2:20
SPEAKER_00: Judgment Day in the Bible is uh is a time when, you know, the report cards come, when God judges mankind, all mankind for sin, when God's wrath falls upon the earth, when God sets things straight.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: It's also called in the Bible the day of the Lord.
2:38
SPEAKER_00: It's as though uh it's as though, you know, today, the day of man, right?
2:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, we pretty much do what we want.
2:47
SPEAKER_00: It's like, then comes not man's day any longer, the day of the Lord.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: And if you're like me, you sort of have mixed feelings about that.
2:55
SPEAKER_00: On one hand, you dread the day of the Lord.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Even if you believe kind of like, you know, like I do, that if you're a child of God, you won't have to go through that day, but maybe you will.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, still it's gonna be a day of blood and darkness and wrath and death, and it's horrible, right?
3:13
SPEAKER_00: So I dread the coming of that day, the judgment day.
3:17
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, you know, there's something inside all of us that I think that wants things to be set right?
3:22
SPEAKER_00: You know that once justice on earth, I mean, you get really, I get really tired.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Don't you get really tired of injustice and the awfulness and the backwardness of stuff?
3:33
SPEAKER_00: And so you long to some extent for the judgment day or day of the Lord to come because you know that then, at least, things will be set straight.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: Right will be, you know, rewarded, wrong will immediately be punished.
3:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how can you not feel that way this last Wednesday when you get the news that the Islamic State again has in Syria crucified on crosses, not just adults, dads and moms, but like a 12-year-old boy, you know, I mean, these Christians, Christian families, and they're crucifying.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: They would do all kinds of horrible things to them.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: And you know, when I see something like that, there's something in me that goes, oh, I long for a day when that gets stopped, and when people who do stuff like that get punished or judged.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: Or take yesterday morning, the greatest terrorist explosion ever in the land of Turkey in capital city Ankara.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: You are looking at a photograph taken yesterday.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Thousands upon thousands of young people marching for peace between the Kurds and the Islamists.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: And you see the moment here, they're dancing, they're singing, this is the front line of all of them, and so forth.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: And you see the moment, you see the explosion, the first bomb going off behind them.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, all you see are flying body parts.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: But this is the very moment when they're hearing it, just before some of them get killed and some of them are running for their lives.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: 95 at least killed, 250 injured, and you know, one of the worst parts about it is the government over there put up barricades immediately, wouldn't let ambulances in because they got an election coming up in a couple of weeks, and they don't want anybody taking photographs of something so terrible because then they might lose their lose their spots in government.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: And so relatives have to stand outside the barricades and hear and and hear crying in agony as injured people are dying because the government's more concerned about politics.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: And when you hear stuff like that, you go, I want justice to come on the earth.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: That's the way we all felt, what, uh, twelve days ago or so, when the gunman goes off in Roseberg and kills nine, asking them if they're Christians and then shooting them in the head.
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Couple more shootings this week, though they're not mass shootings.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: One, you know, Arizona and Texas.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: That's just stuff's gotta stop.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: For me, I've I've got to confess something that's you know come out this summer that was on the on the front of New Yorker magazine where about 50 women come out and and and you listen to them and you realize that the one of our most favorite comedians in the last 30 years should have been in jail for horrific crimes against women during that time, and you go, this is just wrong.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: I I can't I can't believe it.
6:22
SPEAKER_00: And the statute of limitations is is passed, so nothing can be done.
6:27
SPEAKER_00: And you just I mean, don't you sometimes just cry out in your heart for justice on earth, for things to be right?
6:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, Joel is the prophet who's more concerned about justice and day of judgment than anyone else and the day of the Lord.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: And he's sort of like that guy, you know, that stands by the side of the road holding up a sign saying the end is near.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: That's Joel standing by the side of Route 66 holding up the sign.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And the reason he holds up the sign is not like the guy who did it outside San Francisco after the earthquake.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: He does it because they had this incredible catastrophe in Israel called a locust plague.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: And you read about it in the first four verses of this little book.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have the book open, you might want to try to find it.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: It might take you the rest of the morning.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: It's only, you know, like three pages long, three chapters.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: We don't even know anything about this prophet, Joel.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Got a popular name today.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: We use this name, it means the Lord is God.
7:22
SPEAKER_00: We don't know when he lived, maybe 800 BC, maybe 600.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: We don't know where.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: All we know is his dad's name was Pethuel.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
7:32
SPEAKER_00: But he tells us what had just happened in his country, and that is one of the worst catastrophes that had ever happened that was gonna that was ruining Israel's economy and gonna kill people.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: Listen, all you inhabitants of the land, he says, has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?
7:52
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is no.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: No.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: It was a locust plague.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: And locusts have always been a problem.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, locusts are one of the great plagues of the world.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: In fact, stop or just a second.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you a little video clip uh off of, I don't know, Discovery or Fox or something like this about locust plagues.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: So you can just picture how bad they can be.
8:26
SPEAKER_02: Since ancient days, locusts have plagued mankind, and even today they create disasters of vast proportions.
8:34
SPEAKER_02: These are the deadliest swarms of all, for locusts can ravage entire countries, destroying the lives and livelihoods of millions.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: Generally, you'll see a locust swarm from a distance, and it looks like a cloud of smoke lying low over the horizon.
8:54
SPEAKER_01: As it gets closer, the swarm actually rolls as it's moving along.
8:58
SPEAKER_01: Locusts near the front of the swarm will land, and locusts at the rear of the swarm will be jumping up and joining the ones in the air.
9:06
SPEAKER_01: So as many locusts as you see in the air, there will be an equal number probably in the grass underneath that swarm.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: A swarm can contain as many as 40 billion individuals, and it can stretch for up to 20 miles.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: But it's not just the numbers of locusts that creates the problem, it's the size of their appetites.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: Their powerful jaws cut through vegetation at an incredible rate.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: In one day, a single swarm can consume a hundred thousand tons of food.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: Enough to feed a million people for nearly a year.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Hey, especially since they're just grasshoppers.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Go home and say hi to a locust today.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: But uh, they're big, they're big grasshoppers, two to three inches.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: And did anybody ever read Little House on the Prairie Books?
10:02
SPEAKER_00: You know, into the first one on the banks of Plum Creek when they're up in Minnesota, and she's seven years old, Laura Engels Wilder is, you know, and the locust, she's out in the wheat fields, the locusts suddenly come, and all of a sudden, you know, by the time she's run all the way back to the house, her bare feet are squishing locusts, they're all over her, and she gets in the house, and then it sounds like a what we'd call today a freight train sound, you know, the sound and the buzz, you know, the uh the buzz sound as they're chopping things down and she's crying and screaming, you know, into her mother's dress.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's there used to be a lot of locust plagues in America.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: In fact, America was one of the worst countries in the world a hundred years ago.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the largest locust plague of all time was the one during the time of Laura Ingels Wilder that was that was 1,800 miles long here in the Midwest in America.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: 1800 miles long, like from top of America to the bottom, and 110 miles wide.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: But through pesticides and so forth, we controlled them better.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, still, 20 years ago, a locust plague destroyed the citrus crop in Florida, more recently destroyed the you know, the grain crop in Minnesota, and just two years ago destroyed the entire economy of Madagascar and Africa.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: So, so they're really awful.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: And they but one of the worst happened in Israel, you know, just right before Joel writes.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: And and he and he writes and he says, what the devouring locust is.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: He mentions four different locusts.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Israel had about a dozen names for locusts.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: They apparently knew them really well.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: And he mentions four different kinds, and maybe they're all the same, but but it seems to me, as I have studied these Hebrew words, that that the that they're four different ages.
11:46
SPEAKER_00: That the first one he mentions are the high school locusts, the devouring ones, you know how much they can eat.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: And then then come the adult locusts, because they grew up and they're the swarming.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so the and he says, what the devouring locusts have left, those are the sort of the high school age, the first ones that can fly.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: He says the the swarming locust has eaten.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: Those are those big grasshoppers that they're crawling along the ground.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: And then before they die, they dig down amazingly in the hard ground four inches and lay hundreds of eggs, and then the hundred eggs, hundreds of eggs they, you know, they they hatch, and then comes the young locusts.
12:23
SPEAKER_00: The young locust can't fly yet, but I mean they're hungry and they just eat everything else, and then you've got the worst locusts of all.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Get ready.
12:30
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows these are the workers of locusts, the junior high locusts, yeah.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: The destroying locusts, and they just really eat the whole thing, okay?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: And so he says this is just this is horrible.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, people are gonna die in Israel now.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: And he says the fields are destroyed, the land greaves, the grain's destroyed, new wine, olive oil, grapevine, fig tree, pomegranate, date palm, apple.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Everything's withered.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, I love this line: human joy has dried up.
12:59
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on the animals are groaning, the herds of cattle, the wandering confusion with no pasture.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm calling out to you, Lord, even the wild animals cry, riverbeds dried up, and fires consume.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: It's just this horrible, awful thing that happened.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: And then one line I've never noticed before is I've read Joel, I noticed this week.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: You need, he calls on his feet and said, grieve like a virgin for her young bridegroom.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: I thought, what is that about?
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And then I suddenly realized, you know what that's about.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: That's about a story like that happened in Raleigh, North Carolina not long ago.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: Her name is Karen, and she's in a first-grade school teacher.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: This happened a couple years ago.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: She still teaches first grade, by the way, in that town.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: And his name, you know, Andrew, as I recall, he's an athlete and he's a funny guy, and he's a construction worker, and everybody loves him, and people coming from all over the country for the uh 11 a.m.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: wedding there in the church, and it's 8:30 in the morning, and she's up already with her bridesmaids, and and they're putting on their dresses, and he's heading out to breakfast with the groomsman at 8:30, and then a car, you know, goes through a stop sign and broadsides him and kills him.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: And she gets the word they're in her hotel room.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: And at 11 a.m., people from all over the country walk up to the church instead of getting a wedding, a wedding bulletin, they get a hastily printed memorial service.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Some of the guests nearly faint.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: And Karen to her credit comes to what was to be her wedding.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: Stands up and shares about his life and collapses, goes back to the hotel.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Grieves, says Joel, for your country, for all the people who are gonna die, for the leaders, even for the drunkards, he says, who now have nothing to drink.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: Grieve like a virgin for her young bridegroom.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: So uh it's because of the awfulness of that that he he's able to flip as he thinks about the locusts coming.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: He's able to flip and think about a locust army of humans that one day will come.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: At the end of time, perhaps, he says, woe, because of that day, for the day of the Lord is near and will come.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: Something worse is gonna happen.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: I love this name for the Almighty God, El Shaddai.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard that name?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then if you translate this sort of literally from the Hebrew, it'd be it's gonna come as a shattering from Shaddai.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: It's just gonna be an awful thing that's gonna happen.
15:49
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be like another locust plague.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: Interesting thing is you is you go to the British Museum or something, and you read what the Assyrians said about their army, the Babylonians.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: They compared their armies to locust armies that couldn't be stopped.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: And so Joel says, you know what?
16:07
SPEAKER_00: The locusts are coming one day in the future as well.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: And he says in chapter 2, this is what that day is gonna be like.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: Blow the horn in Zion.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: Sound the alarm in my holy mountain, let all the residents of the land tremble.
16:20
SPEAKER_00: The day of the Lord is coming.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it is near.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and dense overcasts, like the dawn spreading over the mountains of great and strong people, appear such as never existed in ages past and never will again in all the generations to come.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: Their appearance is like that of horses.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: You notice when you look at Grasshopper in the face, it kind of looks like a horse.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Nations writhe in horror before them, all faces turn pale.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: They storm the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the house.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: Now he compares the future army of humans to locusts, speaks in that kind of language, just as in the first chapter, he spoke of the locust plague as if they were kind of human.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: They enter through the windows like thieves, the earthquakes before them, the sky shakes, sun and moon grow dark, stars cease their shining, Lord raises his voice in the presence of whoa, whoa, hold it.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: His army?
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Kind of uncomfortable with that, aren't you?
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Did you know you start reading the Bible and you find that God takes credit, takes responsibility for even locust plagues for the future army?
17:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he is God after all.
17:37
SPEAKER_00: But one day, this great army is gonna be his army.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, Joel says the day of the Lord's terrible and dreadful.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Who can endure it?
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Answer?
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Nobody.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: So what do you do?
17:54
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he said, the day of the Lord is coming upon you, Israel.
17:57
SPEAKER_00: You think the locust plague was bad, the really bad locusts are still coming.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: What hope is there?
18:01
SPEAKER_00: And then in the middle of the book, 2, 12 through 14, great verses, some of the greatest verses about repentance in the Bible, he says this.
18:09
SPEAKER_00: Even now, this is the Lord's declaration, turn to me with all your heart.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: You can hear God's heart here.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: With fasting, weeping, and mourning, tear your hearts, not just your clothes, and return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: Notice the five characteristics of God here that you can hang on to.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Number one, God is gracious.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: That means he's gonna treat you better than you deserve.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: Number two, he's compassionate.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: It means he has pity.
18:35
SPEAKER_00: He knows that you're you know weak.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Number three, slow to anger.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: Takes him a lot of time, you know.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna, you know, he's not like some of us who fly off the handle.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: Number four, rich and faithful loved.
18:48
SPEAKER_00: Remember Hosea last week?
18:50
SPEAKER_00: Love story of Hosea?
18:51
SPEAKER_00: That's that's God.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: And finally, he relents from sending disaster.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: That means he hates to do it.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's coming.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: But God will look for any excuse to turn back and not send it, not send judgment.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: And so, says Joel to his people, turn to God.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: Which, which, by the way, I think is great application here.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: You may be God's child.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Are you listening to me?
19:18
SPEAKER_00: You may have trusted Christ as your personal savior, you may be a son or a daughter of God, but locusts will come upon you because God sends them on his people.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Unless what?
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Unless what?
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Number one, unless return you return to him immediately.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: No hesitation.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: You're wandering far from the Lord even now.
19:39
SPEAKER_00: That means now, that means immediately.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: No hesitation.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Come back to him.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Number two, return completely.
19:48
SPEAKER_00: He says, Turn to me with all your heart.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Don't hold back a closet here or bedroom there.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Give it all to him.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: No reservations.
19:57
SPEAKER_00: Number three, return internally in your heart.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: Don't play games on the outside, you know, the church games we play.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Make it a heart thing.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: That's what God cares about.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Return to him immediately, return to him completely, return to him internally in your heart.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: That's what you and I need to do as God's children, so locusts don't come upon us.
20:17
SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing is apparently Israel did it because suddenly we then read, then the Lord became jealous for his land and spared his people.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And the whole book turns and suddenly becomes positive.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord answered his people.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, answered?
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, they must have spoken to him and they must have said, Lord, we return to you.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: So he answered them and said, Guess what?
20:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna send you some grain, new wine, olive oil.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: Gonna bless you financially, we could say, or materially.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be satiated with them, and I'll no longer make you a disgrace.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: Here comes the social blessing.
20:50
SPEAKER_00: I'll no longer make you a disgrace among the nations.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: I will drive the northerner far from you.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: So after a physical blessing and a social blessing, now we now we've sort of got protection that God's gonna drive your enemies far from you and banish them to a dry and desolate land.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: And I'll restore to you, we love this verse, the years that the locust has eaten.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: You'll 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.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: Joel chapter 2.
21:25
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
21:26
SPEAKER_00: I mean, what God did now, but see, this book then sort of seems to look in the future a little bit, because then it moves to afterward, I'm gonna pour out my spirit on all people.
21:39
SPEAKER_00: Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions, even on my servants, both men and women.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pour out my spirit in those days.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: This is a good charismatic passage.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: When I was at Dallas First Assembly of God, this was one of our favorite passages.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: So this is the pouring out of God's spirit that's gonna Afterward, right someday, but then all of a sudden he turns and he says, Uh I'm gonna display wonders in the heavens.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Get ready, by the way, for the blood moon verse.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna display wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: The sooner will we turn to darkness and say it with me, the moon to blood before the great and all-inspiring day of the Lord comes, and you go, hmm, sun hasn't turned to darkness.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Columns of smoke.
22:29
SPEAKER_00: Listen, for what it's worth, you ought to set your household in order.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: If you've been reading the Blood Moon stuff, if you buy into that, this Thursday.
22:38
SPEAKER_00: You've got till Thursday.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Because that's honest, October 15th.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: That's the end, because you've had the four blood moon.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: Blood moons, for those of you who don't know anything, look it up online.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: Blood Moon is simply another sort of a folk, sort of a name for a lunar eclipse, of which, as you know, there are a number of them each year.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes the moon turns, you know, orange.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: And so some people have said, oh, that must be the moon turning blood.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: But you have to ignore all the other stuff.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh, this Thursday, I'll be on a plane to Brazil this Thursday, and so if the Lord wants to, you know, take us all the glory, that'd be just fine with me.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: So um, then everyone who calls on the name of Yahweh will be saved.
23:19
SPEAKER_00: And then the next verse is there's gonna be judgment coming on your enemies, Israel.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: At that time, chapter 3, verse 1, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I'll gather all the nations and take them to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: Don't know where that is.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows where it is.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Tradition says it's outside the walls of Jerusalem in what we call the Valley of Kidron.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Just as easily it could be the Valley of Megiddo, about 50 miles north.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: You've heard of the Valley of Armageddon.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: So probably one of those.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: So God's, probably he picked Jehoshaphat because the name means the Lord judges, okay?
23:57
SPEAKER_00: So he's gonna, I'm gonna gather all the nations and I will enter into judgment with them right there because of my people, my inheritance, Israel.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: The nations have, by the way, if you're this is the valley just to the east of Jerusalem, in between the Mount of Olives and City of Jerusalem.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: If you want to go see that with me, next May 25 to June 8th, come and see me.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm taking a tour again.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's a little more than half full.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: That's an advertisement.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: That's just what it is.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: It's just a rank advertisement.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: But anyway.
24:30
SPEAKER_00: So love to have you go.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: You ought to see it sometime.
24:33
SPEAKER_00: So there's this deep valley in between those two things.
24:37
SPEAKER_00: And the nations have scattered, says God, the Israelites in foreign countries.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Have they?
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they have.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And divided up my land.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: Have they?
24:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they have.
24:46
SPEAKER_00: They cast lots for my people.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: They bartered a boy for a prostitute.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: They sold a girl for wine to drink.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And God says, Let all those nations be roused and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit down to judge all the surrounding nations.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
25:02
SPEAKER_00: So we're talking day of judgment here.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, notice that line in chapter 3, verse 12.
25:07
SPEAKER_00: Come to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit down to judge all of the what?
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Surrounding nations.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: If I lived in one of the 22 Islamic nations immediately surrounding Israel today, all of which are sworn to destroy her, I'd be a little nervous.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: 22 Islamic nations, 640 times her size, 60 times in population, but God is the God of Jerusalem and of Israel.
25:35
SPEAKER_00: And he says, one day I'm going to judge the surrounding nations.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And then he says in chapter 3, verse 14, multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard that verse before?
25:49
SPEAKER_00: Sort of a theme verse it was for Billy Graham.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Talked about the hour of decision.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: You will notice, got no problem with him using that, with the fact he used that, but you'll notice that Billy Graham was using it for like the end of the rally in the crusade, and then we all have it, we're all in the valley, we need to make a decision, right?
26:08
SPEAKER_00: To trust Christ or not.
26:11
SPEAKER_00: Anyone's talking about here.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you get to the Valley of Jehoshaphat, it's way too late, baby, to make a decision.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: This decision is God's decision, okay?
26:20
SPEAKER_00: God's the judge, and this is the time of the judge, and it's his decision.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: This is way too late for you.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: So the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision, but that's God's decision.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: So you need to make your decision like now, not wait.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: And then immediately after, 3:15 and 16, the sun and the moon will grow dark.
26:42
SPEAKER_00: Notice the moon turning into blood is probably most scholars say like just turning dark.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: And the stars will cease their shining.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: The Lord will roar from Zion.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: Lord, like Aslan the lion, will roar from Zion and raise his voice from Jerusalem.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: Heaven and earth will shake, but the Lord will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the Israelites.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: And then, oh, I love these verses.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: And then he concludes, you'll know that I am Yahweh your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain.
27:10
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem will be holy, and foreigners will never overrun it again.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: And in that day, the mountains will drip with sweet wine.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Oh, baby, that'll be nice.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: And the hills will flow with milk.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: That'll be pretty good too.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: And all the streams of Judah will flow with water, and a spring will issue from the Lord's house.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah?
27:29
SPEAKER_00: Does that sound like anything you know?
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Like the kingdom of God being on earth?
27:34
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be awesome.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: But the question is, listen, let's just circle back again to try to finish this message by being clear.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: When is this stuff gonna happen?
27:46
SPEAKER_00: Past?
27:47
SPEAKER_00: Has it happened already, or is it still future?
27:49
SPEAKER_00: Take, for instance, when's the day of the Lord, the locust judgment, the future of the big locust judgment?
27:54
SPEAKER_00: We think it's still future.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, part of it, you could say, is in the past, that the armies of Babylon, you know, came over the hills like locusts and completely flattened and ruined the land of Israel.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, it's definitely still future.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: We read in Revelation 9: this angel blows his trumpet and opens up the shaft of the abyss, and smoke came up out of the shaft like smoke from a furnace, sun and air darkened by the smoke from the shaft.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Locust, what came out of the smoke?
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Say it with me, baby.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Locust came out of the smoke onto the earth.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: And power was given to them in the appearance of the locusts.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: He's quoting Joel repeatedly here, was like horses, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with so many horses rushing into battle.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: So this day is still coming.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: This day of judgment.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Well, how about the blessing side?
28:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, the spiritual blessing, the charismatic blessing, the material blessing, and so forth.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, you gotta stay part of it.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
28:52
SPEAKER_00: Prophecy Old Testament is something like skipping a stone across a pond.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: You know, hits down, you know, the first time, that's like immediate fulfillment, and then it jumps in the air, and then it hits down again during the time of Christ, and then it jumps again and hits down in 2020, AD, or whenever the end is gonna come.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: So, so it's like it's partially fulfilled, it bounces and keeps going.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And in Acts chapter 2, you gotta say, definitely, Joel chapter 2 was partly fulfilled.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: Suddenly there comes from heaven, remember on the day of Pentecost?
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Hello, are you with me?
29:27
SPEAKER_00: Mighty rushing wind filled the entire house.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: Tongues of fire appeared and rested on them, and they're filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, and everybody gathers around and says, Wow, you guys are drunk.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: And Peter says, Nope.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: This is what was uttered through the prophet, our guy, through the prophet Joel.
29:52
SPEAKER_00: And then he quotes Joel to apply to this.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: I'll pour out my spirit on all people, prophesy, dreams, vision, spirit.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: So far, so good.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Uh, then Peter kind of blows it.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: You're going, Peter, stop right there, stop right there, stop right there.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: But he doesn't stop, he keeps going, and he goes, I will display wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood, fire, and columns of smoke.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: Peter, that ain't happening.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great non-expiring day of the Lord comes, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord should be saved.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: How do you explain that?
30:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, real quickly, since time's up, I I think Peter probably expected that this could happen.
30:29
SPEAKER_00: If the people of Israel, people of Jerusalem fell down and repented, then the end of the time, end of time could have come, maybe.
30:34
SPEAKER_00: And maybe these all these manifestations would have happened in the sky with stars and the sun and the moon and so forth.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: But let's be honest, they didn't happen.
30:46
SPEAKER_00: So are they still future?
30:49
SPEAKER_00: They sure are.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: Revelation 6.
30:53
SPEAKER_00: Sixth seal is open.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: There's a great earthquake.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: The sun turns black as sackcloth, the moon will become like blood, the stars of heaven will fall to the earth.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Dear friends, the day of the Lord is still coming.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: The locusts are coming.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: The locusts are coming, the locusts are coming, the locusts of the day of the Lord, of the great judgment day of God, are still coming.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's circle back and remember what we've said.
31:24
SPEAKER_00: You may be God's child, but locusts will come upon you even now, unless you return immediately.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: Even now, no hesitation, unless you return completely with all your heart, no reservations, unless you return with your heart internally, no rationalization.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing listen carefully.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: That day of the Lord future is different than the day of the Lord in Joel's day, the locust coming upon the land of Israel.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: The day of the Lord future is coming on the whole world.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: What hope does the world have with the day of judgment coming?
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're gonna have to look at Revelation to find that out, and Revelation is clear.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit and the bride that is the church say, Come.
32:18
SPEAKER_00: Let everyone here say, Come, not just come to church, but come to God.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And let everyone who thirsts spiritually has a thirst, seeks.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Let him come.
32:31
SPEAKER_00: And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: This is the same author who said famously in John 3.16 whoever believes in Jesus, in him, will not perish, but will have everlasting life.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: The theme of our church is leading people to life in Christ.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Because that's the only hope as the day of the Lord approaches.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Even now, if you are not absolutely sure that you will escape God's wrath, then please look back in time, 2,000 years to the time when Jesus hung on the cross and the sun and the moon turned dark.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: Remember that, and God poured out his judgment on one person in your place and in mine.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: And you and I need to fling ourselves with a reckless abandon into him who took our sin and trust him as our Savior.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Believe on him so we will not perish, but have everlasting life before the day of the Lord.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: College professor had after three, three and a half years, developed a couple of good friends among the students.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: And so he took them with him on a weekend canoe trip.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: They started out in the evening and they were taking their canoe down a new river to all of them.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Looked up in the sky, and the professor trying to get them to name constellations.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: He said, Don't you know your stars?
34:08
SPEAKER_00: And the guys go, nope.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh, are you kidding me?
34:11
SPEAKER_00: He said, You've missed out on a third of life.
34:16
SPEAKER_00: They camp out along the river next morning and start off again, and they go underneath some trees and he plucks a leaf and he says, What tree is this?
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Don't know.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: Oh, come on.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: Look at look at look at the way it's arranged here, you know, with the veins and so forth.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: He said, I don't know.
34:33
SPEAKER_00: Just a second, you don't know your trees?
34:35
SPEAKER_00: Plants, flowers?
34:37
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: They said, Oh my, he said, You missed out on uh another third of life.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: Water gets shallower, and so he reaches down and he idly picks up some uh stones of different kinds, he holds them up.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: What's the difference between these stones?
34:53
SPEAKER_00: Don't know.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: You don't know anything about stones?
34:57
SPEAKER_00: No.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: Wow, he says, you know nothing about stars, you know nothing about trees, you know nothing about stones.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: You've missed out on a third of life.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: A sound in the distance, a strange sound, sort of a roaring sound.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: The boys stand up in the canoe, strip off their shirts, say to him, uh, do you know how to swim?
35:22
SPEAKER_00: No, he said, I've never learned how.
35:37
SPEAKER_00: You know what?
35:38
SPEAKER_00: There's a cataclysm coming.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: There's a waterfall coming.
35:40
SPEAKER_00: It's around the corner.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: I think I can hear the sound of it.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Not sure.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: But if you listen carefully, you can almost hear the sound of it.
35:51
SPEAKER_00: It's a great cataclysm of the judgment of God called the day of the Lord.
35:55
SPEAKER_00: And what really matters as we approach that is not how much you know.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: It's not your position, it's not your possession.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: The question is, where's your heart?
36:06
SPEAKER_00: Sir Walter Raleigh, about to be executed, climbs up.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: Executioner says, You like to lay your head on the right?
36:14
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Raleigh says, it doesn't matter how you lay your head, it just matters if your heart is right.
36:23
SPEAKER_00: And as you approach death with the day of the Lord, that is all that matters.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: Whether your heart is right, whether you've trusted Jesus as your Savior.
36:33
SPEAKER_00: Will you do that?
36:34
SPEAKER_00: If you have any question at all, bow your head with me right now, Heavenly Father.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: We dread the day of the Lord, we dread the day of the judgment of judgment, but on the at the same time, our hearts cry out for justice.
36:48
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for judging Jesus Christ in our place.
36:53
SPEAKER_00: I pray for all who in this moment put their faith in Jesus as their substitute, as their savior, to give them the assurance of eternal life.
37:05
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: Amen.