A Promised Outpouring

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There is a forest on an island in the southern part of Sweden that is kind of unusual because it was planted on purpose nearly 200 years ago when the Swedish government realized they were kind of falling behind in naval technology. They were doing battle with countries like Russia and Denmark and Great Britain and realized they needed more ships. And so they realized that long-term, they needed to have more of the right kind of wood available to build more ships.

So they planted a forest specifically so that they could grow the thickest, strongest, straightest, tallest oak trees that they could grow, and to grow as many of them as possible. And they let that forest grow, and then, I don’t remember exactly when, because I wasn’t there when it happened, but sometime, I want to say the 70s or 80s, the 1970s or 1980s, the Swedish defense ministry got a message that, hey, your trees are ready. Of course, by then, they don’t really use trees to build warships anymore.

They use metal. But that was kind of a rare instance of people in authority, people in government authority, saying, you know what, we’re going to make some long-term plans to try to take care of a problem. We’re going to make some long-term plans to find a solution to this issue instead of just flying by the seat of our pants, which honestly is what it feels like happens with government a lot. We’re just flying by the seat of our pants as we go.

But they said, we’re going to grow these trees. We’re going to make a plan that in order to take care of our country, in order to take care of our people, we’re going to grow these trees. And the trees have not been completely wasted.

I think they have a nature preserve there. I’ve read articles where they’ve talked about how Sweden has these architectural historical sites, ancient churches built by the Vikings, that they needed certain kind of timber if they have to restore them. and now they’ve got it.

I read one article that said when they rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris after the fire, they may be able to use some of the timber from this. So it’s not going to waste. And even though that didn’t work out as well as the Swedish government planned, it’s kind of nice to see for once somebody making plans long-term.

That’s one of the things I love about my wife. She makes plans long-term. You know, I operate a lot of times five minutes to five minutes, and she’ll ask me, so tomorrow, you know, you’re taking the kids wherever tomorrow.

What time are you going to leave after breakfast? I mean, she’ll plan it out. We’re leaving the house at 8.

06 in the morning, and we’ll get loaded up by 8. 08, and we’ll be out the driveway. We’ll be there by 8.

46, you know, she’s not quite that bad. But I just say, when we finish breakfast, when the sun is in, I just don’t think that way. I’m thankful that there are people who make long-term plans.

This morning, we are going to look at a place where God discusses some of His long-term plans. We’re going to be in Joel chapter 2, where we left off last week. We’re continuing our study through the book of Joel.

And if you were here with us last week, hopefully you remember that we finally got to a place in the book of Joel where there’s some good news. The first chapter and a half of the book of Joel is God saying, you have messed up, and here’s what it’s going to cost you. And it’s incredibly, incredibly negative.

It’s going to be an incredibly unpleasant experience for Israel that he’s talking to. We get to the midpoint of chapter 2, and he says, but after you’ve learned your lesson and after you’ve repented, I’m going to restore you. I’m going to fix things.

I’m going to make them not only back to where they were before, but I’m going to make them even better. In the portion that we’re going to look at today, God makes it clear that his plans for Israel are not just what we’re doing next, but I have plans for you long term. I have plans that just don’t just extend to fixing the situation you’re currently the end.

But I have plans to be with you, and I have plans to use you from here on out. And to a country that has gotten itself into such a predicament, they have nothing to eat, their country is overrun by locusts, they’re just devastated. For a country that’s in that shape, to know that not only is God going to fix it, but God is going to go with us from here, had to have been great comfort to them.

So I want us to look at what God says about His long-term plans, which are far more effective and far more useful than the Swedish Navy trees, okay? So we’re going to be in Joel chapter 2, and we’re going to start at verse 28. Once you turn there with me, if you’d stand as we read together from God’s Word, if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Joel chapter 2, it’ll be on the screen for you here where you can follow along, but we’re going to be in Joel chapter 2 and look at these last five verses of the chapter.

Here’s what God says through the prophet Joel. He says, it will come about after this that I will pour out my spirit on all mankind and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants, I will pour out of my spirit in those days.

I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, blood, fire, and columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered.

For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, there will be those who escape, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls. And you may be seated. Now, even if you have never looked at the book of Joel before this series, and even if you have not read ahead from week to week what we’re going to be looking at next, you may be familiar with what we just read.

And it’s because part of what we just read is used extensively in the book of Acts. Another part of it is quoted in the book of Acts and in the book of Romans. And we’ll talk about that a little bit today as well, what the apostles said about this passage.

But the first time these words were written, the first time these words were spoken, they were being directed to Israel as they are in the middle of, or just about to enter into the middle of, this great time of tragedy where God says, because you have wandered so far from me, because you have turned your backs on me, and I’ve not been able to get your attention any other way, and because you are headed for an even greater disaster, I have sent this plague of locusts to get your attention and draw you back. But once you’ve learned your lesson, once you’ve, all you have to do is repent. All you have to do is turn your hearts back to me, and I’m going to fix it like it was before, and even better.

But he says, I’ve got greater plans. And one of the things that we see sometimes in Old Testament prophecy is that it’s like that saying that says history echoes, or I’ve heard somebody say history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. We will see places where God gives a prophecy in the Old Testament, and there’s a fulfillment that’s coming for these people in just a matter of weeks or months.

Then there may be part of it that’s fulfilled a generation or more later. And then there may be part of it that we still await the fulfillment of because he’s talking about something that’s going to happen when Christ returns. And there are these echoes of these prophecies being fulfilled down through history.

And I think that’s what we’re looking at here. What he’s describing is not just a one-time thing, all of it, but how God is going to work through Israel in various circumstances at the coming of Christ, at the second coming of Christ, all throughout history, this is going to be how God works in the nation of Israel. But as He’s written it to them, Joel’s prophecy assured Israel that God was not finished with them.

And I think I talked with you about that a little bit last week. Sometimes when you’re in the midst of a difficult situation, when you’re in the midst of one of those moments when it feels like everything in life is falling apart, it is very easy to be confused by your feelings into thinking that God doesn’t care or that God doesn’t notice. Or if God was with me, this wouldn’t be happening.

I’m here to tell you Jesus Christ went through far worse than you and I will ever experience. And yet it didn’t mean that God didn’t notice. It didn’t mean God didn’t care.

He does express separation from the Father when He was on the cross. That’s talking about spiritual separation, not that God had. .

. not that the Father had quit caring about Him. As a matter of fact, He suffered precisely because He was in the middle of the Father’s will.

So we can’t look at our troubles and our struggles and our painful circumstances and say, well, God doesn’t care about me. God went so far as to send His Son for us. He wouldn’t do that just to abandon us.

Israel needed a word of reassurance from God. as they’re going through this locust situation, that God had not abandoned them, God had not forgotten them, God had not just completely turned them over to the locusts. And these verses we just read are part of that reassurance.

Hey, God’s still here. God still has a plan. God has not just written you off.

I think one of the most important words we can pull out of this is right toward the beginning of verse 28. He says it will come about after this. They needed to know that there was an after.

Sometimes we get in locust situations in life and we need to know that there’s an after. And God was telling them there’s an after. God was elaborating on the restoration He’d already promised.

We’re not going to go back over those 10 or so verses we looked at last week where He goes over all of the things that He said were going to be destroyed and then lists them again and how they were going to be restored. Now God’s talking about even after the restoration. There’s still a plan.

There’s still a relationship. There’s still Him and Israel walking together. In the midst of a time of suffering, even a time of discipline, like I said, it’s easy to think that God’s forgotten.

Even if we know that the circumstances we go through are not always because of something we’ve done. We just live in a fallen world and sometimes terrible things happen that we didn’t directly cause. But there are some times that we suffer because of things that we’ve done.

We make choices that lead to bad consequences. And they were in the midst of a time of discipline. I know I have at least one child, one little child, who if we get on to, you don’t love me anymore.

No, I love you. That’s why I discipline you. If I didn’t love you, I wouldn’t care how you acted, as long as you didn’t bother me.

But I do love you, so I discipline you. We can do the same thing with God. If we’re in a time of discipline, if God loved me, He wouldn’t be disciplining me.

The Bible says the Lord disciplines those whom He loves. So even when we’re in the midst of a time that we know we’ve brought this on ourselves, or if we’re at a time that we know we didn’t bring it on ourselves, it’s easy to think God’s forgotten about us or given up on us, but God promised here restoration to kind of shoot that idea down. And this passage shows it wasn’t just a one-time event.

That’s why he tells them in verse 29, he’s talking about those days, talking about in the future, not just here when the locusts are here, not even just when he fixes anything, but further on he talks about those days in verse 29 in verse 31 he draws their attention to the great and awesome day of the Lord which is one of those things that had a partial fulfillment in their day had a partial fulfillment in in the coming of Christ had part will have its final fulfillment when he comes again but he’s letting them know there’s a plan God has plans for his people and he promises to work among them not just tomorrow not just next week but throughout eternity for as long as we’re here on this earth, God has a plan for His people, and He will not abandon us.

And so He’s talking about what comes after this material restoration, this, hey, you’re going to get all this stuff back, life is going to be good in Israel again. But as important as it was, it was only the beginning, because He told them that His presence would be evident among all kinds of people. We see that in verses 28 and 29.

God’s presence would be evident among all kinds of people. He talks about this outpouring of the Spirit. In verse 28, he says, all mankind.

Now, literally, that word there means all flesh. There were all kinds of people. This is important because he’s letting them know that not only does the restoration not stop once everything’s fixed, it goes on, but it doesn’t just stop with Israel.

God’s plans to restore go to all flesh. They go to all kinds of people throughout mankind. He’s describing Jews and Gentiles alike.

That the salvation God was sending to Israel, God’s restoration toward Israel wasn’t just going to be for Israel, but it was going to be open to the Gentiles as well. Now, if you’re new to church, that word may not mean a lot to you. Gentiles is everybody that’s not Jewish.

so if your ancestors come from europe you’re a gentile they come from africa you’re a gentile they come from Asia if they’re not Jewish that’s you and up until then well really up until the coming of jesus they missed signs because he talks about it here he talks about it in isaiah but really up until jesus died and was resurrected and the holy spirit began to be poured out people missed this, that God was sending salvation to Israel, but the salvation was going to be big enough it was going to spill over into the Gentiles, that the whole world would have hope because God was sending grace, God was sending forgiveness to Israel, God’s presence would be there. And you don’t get the outpouring of the Spirit. You don’t have the Spirit if you’re not saved.

And so by him saying the Spirit is going to be poured out on all these people, he’s saying there’s salvation for all kinds of people. It didn’t matter about your background. The Jews and the Gentiles were going to experience salvation.

He says, your sons and your daughters, the men and the women, in their culture, men were considered superior to women. He said, the salvation and the Spirit, they’re for everybody. He said, for young and old.

I remember, I don’t even, I remember one time at kids camp when I was a kid, I guess somebody had been teaching in a class I wasn’t in on this passage, and they were making jokes to the sponsors about, yeah, well, you dream dreams, calling them old. He said, the old men will dream dreams, the young men will see visions. Young and old, the Spirit of God was going to fall on everybody.

He said, even the servants in verse 29, your male and female servants, even the servants, even the people that were considered lesser, God’s Spirit was going to be available to them because salvation was going to be available to them. We see God’s presence being evident in Israel, and not just for the special people, but for everybody. God’s power would be displayed throughout the natural world.

He talks about these signs. He said, I’ll display wonders in the sky and on the earth. He’s showing signs, demonstrating who He is and His power.

Blood and fire and columns of smoke. I don’t know where the blood is going to be in the sky, how that works. I don’t know what the fire, the columns of smokeÉ It sounds impressive.

I don’t know that I want to see and experience it. We talked Sunday night aboutÉ Last Sunday night, I’m tired of living in exciting times. I’m tired of living in things that are going to be written about in the history books.

I just like that peaceable, quiet life that Paul talks about. But if we get to see it, it’s going to be impressive, because God’s saying, I’m showing signs that I’m here. I’m showing signs that I’m powerful.

He says, the sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood. There’s all this talk, all these articles and sermons and books written about blood moons and things. I think when he says he’s going to turn the moon to blood, I don’t think we’re going to have to speculate about, is that what he’s talking about?

I think it’s going to be so evident we’re going to know that’s what he was talking about before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. He says, I’m going to display my power. Israel’s going to see it.

Israel’s enemies are going to see it. All of God’s people are going to see it, and they’re going to know that I am who I say I am, and that I can do what I say I can do. And then he says in verse 32, that it will come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered.

And delivered here is a synonym for saved. God’s salvation, he promises God’s salvation would be available to all who accept it. What does it mean to call out to the Lord?

or call upon the name of the Lord. It doesn’t just mean crying out, Oh God, help me. It doesn’t just mean, Oh God, I believe in You.

What it means is acknowledging Him, confessing Him as our salvation. They would have understood it in Joel’s time as looking to God as the only one who could bring them salvation. We have the benefit of hindsight and a little more detail given to us that we’re on this side of Jesus’ first coming, where we can look and say what it means fully is to look to Jesus as our Messiah.

To confess not just that He is the one that God sent, but He is my Savior. God’s salvation is available to all who look to Him for it. Salvation is not a result of us trying harder and doing better and keeping all the rules and performing all of these religious rituals.

Salvation is a matter of recognizing that we need salvation. We need to be saved from something. And just like in Joel’s day, for us, it’s the consequences of our sin we need saving from.

And believing that he’s the only one who can save us. We look at the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for our sins. Told us that’s what he was going to do.

Told us he would rise again and he rose again from the dead to prove all of it. And all that’s necessary for us to do is to trust in Him as our one and only Savior, to recognize I can’t earn God’s forgiveness. I can’t make myself right with God.

God has done it all for me. Jesus Christ paid the price. And if we confess that, if we believe that, then we have this salvation He’s given us.

And I’ve kind of gotten ahead of my notes here, but we need to understand that what God promised through Joel is fulfilled through Jesus. He promised salvation that I just talked about. Jesus made the payment for our sins so that everyone who calls on Him, everyone who confesses Him as their Messiah, who believes that He died for their sins and rose again and puts their faith, their trust in Him.

I was looking to see if that chair was still up here. It’s not. But the best illustration I’ve ever heard of this, of what faith is, I can say all day, I believe that chair will hold me up if I go to sit in it.

Because intellectually, I know that’s what the chair was built for. I know it was designed by somebody presumably who knows what they were doing. I believe that chair will hold me, but going and putting my weight in it is a different story.

And when we’re talking about believing, when we’re talking about faith, that’s what we’re talking about. Not just, it’s one thing to know up here that Jesus died to pay for our sins. It’s another thing to say, I’m trusting just in that.

I’m not trusting in anything I can do or anything I can earn or anything I can deserve. I don’t have a plan be. I don’t have a parachute.

I don’t have any kind of backup. Jesus is it. And Peter, Peter quoted this verse, verse 32 in Acts 21, as he was making the case to the people of Israel that Jesus is the Messiah and Lord.

He’s like, this is what Joel was talking about when he said, whoever would call upon the name of the Lord would be saved. He’s talking about trusting Jesus as their Messiah, as the one God sent and as Lord. Paul quoted the same verse in Romans 10, 13, and he’s making the case that salvation is available.

If we trust Jesus, it’s available to both the Jews and the Gentiles. It’s available to anybody who will call on Jesus as their Savior, anybody who will trust Him in that way. And folks, when they talk about the Jews and Gentiles, it’s not just ethnic backgrounds.

Like, My family’s been doing this ancestry DNA stuff. And, oh, you’re Swedish. Oh, you’re Norwegian.

Oh, you’re a lot British. You’re this, you’re that. And, oh, it’s kind of interesting.

We’re not talking about that, that they’re just, oh, you’re Jewish, you’re not. Isn’t that interesting? It’s if you were a Gentile, you were considered so low and so dirty and so filthy that God could never care about you.

And they’re making the case that because Jesus came to fulfill Joel’s prophecy, that whoever called upon the name of the Lord should be saved, even the Gentiles, even the people that came from that ungodly background could have salvation. If you’re sitting there this morning thinking, I could never be right with God, God could never love me, God could never forgive me, because look at what I’ve done, look at the background I’ve been coming from, or that I’ve come from. Folks, it’s in the New Testament and it’s in the Old, that salvation is available to you because of what Jesus did.

That whoever, Jew, Gentile, old, young, man, woman, it doesn’t matter. Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. God promised salvation in Joel’s day and fulfilled it through Jesus.

God promised the Spirit in Joel’s day. And Jesus said in John 14, actually twice in John 14 and again in John 15, that when He came, He was going to send the Spirit, or when He left, He was going to send the Spirit, excuse me. God promised back in the book of Joel, there’s going to be an outpouring of the Spirit.

Jesus said, I’m going to make that happen. And so He ascends to heaven, and what happens? Within just a little while, He sends the Spirit to be poured out on them at the day of Pentecost. This incredible moment in the history of the church where people began to get up and proclaim the gospel in languages that they didn’t speak that other people understood so that people coming to Jerusalem from far off countries walked in and heard the message of Jesus Christ, Him crucified and buried and risen from the dead and offering salvation.

They heard this message in languages they understood, in languages they could relate to, that these men had no way of knowing how to speak, and it was because the Holy Spirit fell on them and empowered them in that way. and Jesus said yeah I’m sending you that spirit as soon as I go out of here I’m sending you that spirit Jesus once again fulfilled what what God promised in Joel’s day and there in Acts chapter two as it was unfolding Peter said this is the kind of thing Joel was talking about that his spirit would be poured out. Some people have said, well, Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, it’s the fulfillment of everything Joel promised.

I don’t see that it’s all fulfilled. I don’t recall descriptions of blood and fire and smoke at Pentecost. What we can say is that it is at least the beginning of God fulfilling that promise. God is still pouring out his spirit on his people today.

now I’ve never gotten up and spoken in tongues but God’s spirit is still evident among his people God’s spirit sometimes is evident in the fact in the way I keep my mouth shut the Holy Spirit works there too that God’s spirit is still being poured out on his people and what God promised through Joel is being fulfilled through Jesus and then there are the signs that He promised in verses 30 through 31. And Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21, Revelation 6, all of these tie those signs that are described in verses 30 and 31 to the second coming, when Jesus returns to establish His perfect reign over Israel. And even though we haven’t seen the total fulfillment of that, it’s once again what God’s promising through Joel and saying, I have a plan for you.

It’s Jesus coming and fulfilling. God has plans for his people. For as long as we’re here on earth, God has plans for his people, and Jesus is at the center of those plans.

And I want to leave you with this this morning, that the grace that God showed to Israel, this is why it’s so important for us to know, the grace that God showed to Israel benefits all of us. The grace that God showed to Israel benefits all of us. You and I can be saved because God looked at Israel and said, I could write you off, but I’m not done with you.

I’m going to get you out of this jam. I’m going to walk with you. I’m going to send you a Savior and a Messiah who’s going to deal with all your sin problem once and for all.

And He’s going to be enough of a Savior that He’s dealing with the sins of the whole world while He’s at it. You and I benefit beyond what we could ever imagine from the fact that God showed grace to Israel and sent His Son to be their Messiah and our Savior. This offer of grace to the undeserving people of Israel extended to the undeserving nations of the world.

We look at these things in the Old Testament and we realize, well, they were written to a specific group of people. They were written to Israel. But folks, the implications go far beyond Israel.

And what God did was for more than just them. It was for us too. Because none of us could be right today.

with God if it were not for the fact that God had plans to restore Israel. If not for the fact that God made this covenant with his people and said, I will love you, I will be your God, you will walk with me and be my people. And God, folks, God’s plans are incredible.

God’s plans are incredible. I could spend another 15 minutes just talking about this, but I won’t. But you look back at Genesis chapter 3, the first chapter that talks about sin, and God is already making plans to deal with that sin.

God is already making plans that the seed of the woman, Jesus, is going to come and crush the head of the serpent, Satan, and the sin that he tempted us with. Not only that, when Adam and Eve sinned, God made a covering of animal skins. Those animals had to die for mankind to be covered.

It’s the first time in Scripture that we see the innocent dying to cover the sins of the guilty. Jesus was already the plan. And the New Testament says He was slain before the foundation of the world.

It was God’s plan before He ever made us. That Jesus was going to come and be the Savior for all of us. God’s long-term plans are so good and to you today he offers salvation if you recognize that you’ve sinned against God if you recognize that you need a savior that you can’t be right with God if you’ve ever felt like I’m distant from God it’s because you are if you’ve never trusted Christ as your savior you are separated from God but God made a way for that separation to be brought back together for us to be right with the father Jesus paid for our sins in full when he died on the cross when he shed his blood there and he died three days later he rose again to prove it he fulfilled all these promises that God made through Joel and he offers that salvation to you and me if you’ll simply believe if you have questions if you’d like to talk with somebody I’m I would love to talk with you.

When we stand and sing in just a moment, I’d love to talk with you if you want to come forward. If walking down in front of all these people makes you nervous, I’d be glad to talk with you in the Welcome Center when we’re done. It’s just to your right.

I’d love to try to answer any questions you might have, but also right where you are. If you understand what I’ve shared with you, you can trust Christ as your Savior. This morning, you can talk to the Lord.

You can ask for forgiveness for those sins you’ve committed. You can put your trust in the fact that Jesus died for you and rose again, and you can have that salvation that He offers.

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