Thank you, Mark, for leading us. And thank you so much for filling in last week. I appreciate that. Mark's faithful to preach the word. And that message and Hosea fit in well with what we've been studying in Joel. Thank you all for coming out in the snow this morning. A little bit slippery traveling this morning. We appreciate you coming out to hear the word of God.

We're in the book of Joel, and we've come to our third message in this book. What I want to do this morning is kind of go back and grab a large section in chapters 1 and 2 and establish where we're going in chapter 3. That's centering around this expression, the day of the Lord. The day of the Lord is a significant phrase in the scriptures. It's not used very often, hardly used at all in the New Testament—once in Thessalonians, I believe, and in 2 Peter—speaking of the time of the end and the coming of Christ and the judgment on this earth. But it's used four times in this little book of Joel in just these three chapters, so it's sort of a theme of this book.

We spent a great deal of time the last two messages laying the groundwork, the historical context, and the events in Israel and Judah that led up to the present situation in Joel. We talked a lot about the kings, Ahab and Jezebel and Athalia. On the back of your outline, I put a little chart there. If you want that for reference, just try to keep your mind where we are contextually in history in the nation of Israel. I would urge you, if you haven't heard the last couple of messages, to go back on our website and listen to them so you might have a fuller understanding of this prophet and what God is doing in this time.

This morning, we're going to take a large section of text and, by God's grace, try to further understand what was going on in Judah and in the redemptive plan of God. Because we spent so much time on the introduction and all of the related historical and contextual considerations, I want to take chapter 1 and a good portion of chapter 2 because I believe they relate in the same way to the basic structure of the prophets and God's dealings with the nation of Israel.

We have seen that the pattern established in the prophets is guided by the old covenant economy described in places like Deuteronomy 28, including God's purpose and plan for Israel among the nations. We learned in Deuteronomy 28 the basic distinctions of the old covenant time and how God related to His people. The basis of this was that it was a conditional covenant: if you obey, then I will bless. If you disobey, I will curse. We saw that the blessings were physical. They were carnal in nature: rain, fruit, crops, livestock, babies, protection from enemies, safety, health, and wealth in general. The cursings related to the same material issues: drought, pestilence, invasion, oppression, starvation, as well as sickness, disease, and death.

One of the specific cursings that God mentions twice in Deuteronomy 28 is locusts—devouring, destroying locusts who come in and wipe out all the crops, the grass, and the foliage. The economy of the old covenant time, from Exodus through the Gospels, is established by God: material physical blessings for obedience and physical material curses for disobedience.

We noted in our introductory messages that the time of Joel was at the end of a long period of unrighteousness in Israel and Judah, with evil, wicked rulers such as Ahab and Jezebel, Jehoram, and Athaliah. They had set up temples to Baal, and there were hundreds of priests for the worship of Baal, as we see in the story of Elijah. This reign of unrighteousness led us to God's working behind the scenes with Jehu and the high priest in Judah to cleanse the rot from Israel and Judah, to kill all the wicked rulers, and end that false worship.

At the same time, God sent a prophet to the people along with a judgment—a plague of locusts. The people had gone astray, and their hearts had gone after other gods. God had not only needed to get rid of the wicked rulers and install Jehu and Joash to rule in righteousness, but He also needed to call the people back to repentance through the curse of the locusts and the words of the prophet. This is where we find ourselves in Joel chapter 1. 

I'm just going to read those first 15 verses: 

"The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: 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? Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 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. 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. 

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. He has laid waste my vine and ruined my fig tree, has stripped it bare and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn who minister to the Lord. The field is wasted. The land mourns, for the grain is ruined. The new wine is dried up. The oil fails. 

Be ashamed, you farmers. Wail, you vine dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has withered. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree, and the apple tree, all the trees of the field are withered. Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men. 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 drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. 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. Alas, for the day, for the day of the Lord is at hand. It shall come as destruction from the Almighty."

I've given you four points on your outline. First, a word from the Lord. Second, judgment and warning from the Lord. Third, a call to repentance. And fourth, a promise of restoration.

First, we see in our text that this book of Joel is a word from the Lord. In verse 1, the word of the Lord that came to Joel. He says, "Hear this, you elders. Give ear, all you inhabitants of the land." The words that Joel spoke to the people were words from the Lord. It is God who sent the locusts. It is God who has sent Joel to explain the plague, to call the people to repentance, and give a promise of blessing. 

In Deuteronomy 28:38, it says, “You shall carry much seed out to the field, but gather little in, for the locusts shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with oil, for your olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity. Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land.” If you disobey, if you do not keep my laws and statutes and do them, if you go after other gods, and this is precisely what Judah had done, then God would send a curse, a plague of locusts, drought, and all these things that we read.

The language here paints a picture of utter destruction. I don't know if you're aware of this, but we experienced one of the worst locust plagues in history in 2020 in a large portion of our world—in Africa, in India, in the Middle East. This one plague of locusts caused $8.1 billion in damages. Locust swarms can black out the sun for days. A large swarm of locusts can eat up to 1.8 million metric tons of green vegetation in one day—enough food to feed 81 million people. Locusts breed very fast, and a single female locust can lay egg pods containing anywhere from 80 to 150 eggs. There are four stages of development, from egg to the flying adult. This may be represented in verse 4 of our text with the gnawing locust, the chewing, so forth. But as they transform to each successive stage, they consume more completely every green thing on the earth. This means no vines, no grass, no vegetables or herbs, no leaves—utter and total devastation.

The drunkards would wail because there is no fruit, no grapes on the vine. Even the vines are stripped white of their tender bark. Thus, the new wine is no more. The priests would mourn because they had nothing to give for their offerings. The worship couldn't continue. They couldn't give sacrifices. Verse 6 of chapter 1 speaks of the devastation, the destruction: “For a nation has come up against my land, strong and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion. He has the fangs of a fierce lion. He has laid waste my vine and ruined my fig tree. He has stripped it bare and thrown it away. Its branches are made white.” 

If you look at chapter 2, verse 25, we see God liken these locusts to a nation, an army, there as well. He says, “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.” The locusts were like an invading army, destroying the land. The point is invasion—it's destruction. It's total and utter devastation brought on by God to chasten His people in order to turn them back to Him. This is a judgment against Judah, and we see this clearly in verses 1-12 in chapter 1. Joel calls it the day of the Lord. This speaks of judgment, catastrophe, and devastation.

We see this warning of judgment in chapter 2 as well. Look at chapter 2, verse 1. He says, “Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand. A day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people great and strong, the like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. 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. 

Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like swift steeds, so they run. 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. They come in and consume everything, and then there's drought and dryness, and then we have the stubble burning. Everything is destroyed. Before them, the people writhe in pain. All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like men of war. Everyone marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They do not push one another. Everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city. They run on the wall. They climb into the houses. They enter at the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them. The heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before his army, for his camp is very great, for strong is the one who executes his word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible. Who can endure it?

The day of the Lord means judgment. Now, I want to talk to you a little bit about the pattern in the Bible. We see what I believe to be a literal invasion of locusts in chapter 1, and we see perhaps still the locusts or warning of an army, perhaps the Assyrian army coming—a further warning. But I want to talk to you a little bit about pattern. We see this over and over, and I think it helps us particularly here in the prophets. In the nation of Israel, in the old covenant, we see a pattern established, and it's consistent throughout the prophets. The pattern is warning or judgment, followed by a call to repentance, and finally, a promise of blessing or deliverance. 

Israel, as a pattern, is disobedient. There were times of faithfulness to God, repentance, and consistent worship, followed by tremendous blessing, but they always went astray in their hearts. We see this again and again and again. Under the economy of the old covenant, this disobedience, this turning from God, always resulted in judgment, as we see here in the first two chapters of Joel. This happened again and again in a temporal sense throughout the history of Israel, as documented throughout the Old Testament. 

For example, in the time of Joel, as we've been studying, God sent a plague of locusts in judgment, as well as a drought. He sent a prophet, Joel, to explain the judgment, to warn the people, and to call them to repentance. It appears that the people did repent. God was faithful to remove the evil leaders of Israel and Judah and give righteous kings to rule. We see in this time—in the time the book was written—that Joel lived in Judah, Israel heeded the warning, received the discipline, and repented and turned back to God, and God restored the physical blessings to them. The nation prospered under righteous rule.

In chapter 2, verses 11 to 17, we see the call to repentance. Then in verses 18 to 27, we see the blessing. Look at verse 18. It says, “Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and pity his people.” Can you imagine being in this circumstance? We have an agrarian culture. There's no Walmart, right? There's no Amazon. They're growing their food, and everything is completely destroyed. They're brought to a point of utter devastation and starvation and sickness—death—no hope, nowhere to turn but to God. He calls on them in 11 to 17 to turn back to Him, to rend their hearts. 

If they would repent, the Lord would pity his people. “The Lord will answer and say to his people, ‘Behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations. But I will remove far from you the northern army. I 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, his foul odor will rise because he has done monstrous things. Fear not, O land. Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done marvelous things.’”

Do not be afraid, you beasts of the field. The land is mourning. The beasts are mourning and wailing because they're dying of starvation, of thirst. He speaks to the land; He speaks to the beast. He says, “The open pastures are springing up; the trees bear fruit, the fig tree and the vine yield their strength.” Be glad then, you children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the former rain faithfully, and he will cause the rain to come down for you—the former rain and the latter rain in the first month. The threshing floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with new wine and oil, and we can have the sacrifices again.

“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust—my great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God who has dealt wondrously with you, and my people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God, and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame.”

Notice the blessings—physical in nature: rain, threshing floors full of wheat, vats overflowing with new wine and oil, restoration of all the things they lost in the judgment of the locust. What I want you to really understand is that this pattern is a very important pattern established in the old covenant system with God and the nation of Israel. 

It's very instructive for us because we see illusions and patterns established here and in all the prophets—the judgments, the call to repentance, the promise of restoration throughout the Old Testament and the history. We also see this in the future of Israel. This well-established and repeated pattern greatly helps us understand what is yet to come when God turns back to the nation of Israel in the final day of the Lord and prepares the nation for her Messiah and salvation and fulfillment of the new covenant promises and the kingdom.

For example, we see Joel describe these locusts as having many characteristics of other animals, of beasts, and the point, again, is their total destructive force. Back in chapter one, verse six, he talks about them coming up and he says, “Their teeth are like the teeth of a lion,” the fangs of a fierce lion. They've laid waste to everything. “A fire devours before them.” Their appearance is like the appearance of horses. They run like swift steeds. 

So we see all these things attributed to the locusts. In Proverbs 30, verse 27, it says, “The locusts have no king, yet they all advance in ranks.” I'd like for you to turn to Revelation 9 with me, please. Revelation chapter 9. Here we find ourselves in the midst of the day of the Lord in the future, where God is dealing with the nation of Israel. It says, “Then the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fallen from heaven to the earth. To him was given the key to the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air were darkened because of the smoke of the pit. Then out of the smoke, locusts came upon the earth, and to them was given power as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, so normally locusts would eat all of the grass and the green things. Here, in this instance, in the final day of the Lord and the judgment on the earth, they're not to harm the grass or the green or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads. 

They were not given authority to kill them but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In those days, men will seek death and will not find it. They will desire to die, and death will flee from them. The shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle. On their heads were crowns of something like gold, and their faces were like the faces of men. They had hair like women's hair, and their teeth were like lion's teeth. They had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the sound of their wings was like the sound of chariots with many horses running into battle. 

That's what we've just read in Joel chapter two—all of these things. They had tails like scorpions, and their stings were in their tails. Their power was to hurt men for five months. So we see the same kind of language here in the final day of the Lord when the Lord judges the men of the earth and pours out His wrath on those who do not believe. This pattern is a pattern of judgment in the day of the Lord. 

So we see that the plague of locusts in Joel's time was a judgment on Judah in order to bring them to repentance, to turn them back to God so that He might bless them and keep His promises to them. Yet we also see in these words a glimpse of that which is to come—language that reminds us of the day of the Lord when God will bring full and final salvation to Israel and usher in the kingdom where Jesus will rule on the throne of David. 

Back in Joel 2:10, it says, "The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble; the sun and moon grow dark, the stars diminish their brightness." That kind of language reminds us of the final day of the Lord. The Lord gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great, for strong is the one who executes His word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible. Who can endure it? The same kind of language we see in the other prophets.

Joel goes on to describe the last days down in verse 28. What I want you to see is in this expression, the day of the Lord, there were temporal days of the Lord throughout the history of the nation of Israel where God came and judged them. There's also a future prophetic day of the Lord—the day of the Lord. We're going to get into that next week, beginning in Joel 2:28, and it runs through the end of the chapter 3. So we're sort of moving towards that and preparing for that as well.

Look at Joel 2:28: "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. And also on my men’s servants and on my maid's servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days." So afterward—in those days—you get down to chapter 3, it says, "In those days and at that time." We're talking about a future time now. 

He said, "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire, pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. It shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." That's talking about Israel. He's talking about a blessing to Israel and what He's going to do in the last days. "For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls."

There’s often a near fulfillment of these prophecies in Israel during the time of the prophets, such as we see in Joel 1 and 2. Judgment came in the form of locusts; there was wailing and pain and suffering and death—destruction. In chapter one, Joel instructs them to weep as a virgin who has lost her betrothed. Anguish, pain, the farmers suffer, there's no grain, the animals suffer, starving, dying. This is judgment, and we see the call to repentance, the words of the prophet, the word of the Lord. "Gird yourselves and lament, wail," right? "Rend your hearts, turn back to the Lord." The animals are groaning; the beasts of the field are crying out.

In Joel 2:12, it says, "Now therefore," says the Lord, "turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning; rend your heart, and not your garments," right? "Don't let it be an outward show; come back to me with your heart. Be broken before me; turn to me. Turn away from Baal and your idols." We see a call to repentance and relief of the judgment, the suffering, a promise of restoration, as we've seen in chapter two, verse 18. 

So there was a near fulfillment in the time of Joel in the coming of King Joash and Jehu in the north. God restored all the physical blessings temporarily in that time for about 40 years until Israel turned again from Him. We see the same pattern again and again. It won't be long after the time of Joel that the Assyrian army will come against Israel in 722 BC and wipe out Israel—the 10 tribes—destroy that northern kingdom, scatter the people among the nations, and draw the people of Israel into idolatry and intermarriage and worship of false gods. Not too much longer after that, in 586 BC, we will see the utter destruction of Jerusalem and the southern kingdom of Judah by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldeans, as the temple is destroyed and the nation torn apart, carried into Babylon, such as we see with Daniel and his friends.

There's a pattern of disobedience, of judgment, of a call to repentance, and a promise of restoration in Israel. That pattern will be repeated in the final fulfillment in the final day of the Lord, which is yet to come, where we see many things—many events and a great deal of time come to pass. As we think about our study next week and moving into this future day of the Lord and the salvation of Israel promised in 2:28 through the end of Joel, I want to just speak broadly about the final day of the Lord yet to come.

The pattern we see is judgment. Now, God uses most often what to judge Israel in the Old Testament? A nation, a man, a king, right? He brings a nation against them to invade them. So He uses most often a man or a king or a nation. He did this with Assyria. He did it with Babylon, with Medo-Persia, with Greece, with Rome. It's interesting to note, if you follow that through, that God judges the nation—the tool of His judgment—as He brings about the deliverance for Israel. You follow me? 

So He'll bring up a man, a nation, judge Israel in order to bring them to repentance, bring them back to Him, and then He'll judge that tool of devastation—that nation. We see this pattern again and again in the Old Testament fulfillments of the day of the Lord, but we see it most clearly in the future day of the Lord. God will turn back to His nation, Israel, to chasten them in the seven-year time of tribulation—in the time of Jacob's trouble. In that time, He will raise up a man to rule over this world, to persecute and chasten Israel—the beast of Revelation—given power by the dragon, that serpent of old. 

We will see a time of trouble, Jesus said, such as has never been—a time when God will deal fully and finally with Israel, and He will bring her to Himself and bring salvation to Israel. We see this promise throughout the Old Testament, such as in Joel 3. We will see God fulfill His intent with Israel to bring to pass the promises of old. The Antichrist will chasten Israel in the day of the Lord. God will bring His wrath on this world system, on the beast and the false prophet, punishing His agent of chastening. 

In a grand and glorious way, we will see God deliver Israel fully and finally when Paul says the deliverer will come out of Zion and all Israel will be saved. Then God will bring His kingdom promise to His people with His holy king sitting on David's throne, ruling with a rod of iron. Israel will be God's people, and they will worship Him, and they will draw all nations to Him, as God always intended. This is the pattern fulfilled in the future day of the Lord. 

This is what we should expect to see. The day of the Lord involves Israel for chastening and bringing to salvation and deliverance. It does not involve the church. There is no judgment. We don't see this expression—the day of the Lord—in the New Testament concerning the church because we don't experience judgment or blessing based on our obedience to God's law. We have been blessed. We are blessed. We stand in grace. We have peace with God. 

We are, in the church—believers in Jesus Christ—who have the Holy Spirit, who have experienced regeneration, who have the promises. All the promises in Him are yes. God says, "What now compels me? Am I compelled to keep an external law so that I'll have enough wheat to make some bread? Is that what drives my Christian life?" No! The love of Christ compels me. He died for me, and it is now my desire to live for the one who died for me. He has killed the old man. He has crucified the old man. I've died to sin. He's done such a great work internally in me in regeneration, and that is the basis for me.

By holy living now—not some external law. We're going to see that this day of the Lord, as we see all through the Scriptures, relates to Israel. This time of judgment relates to Israel, and we're going to tie all these loose ends together next week, Lord willing. The day of the Lord involves the wrath of God on evil men and rulers in the system of this world as well. We saw it in temporal fulfillments in the nation of Israel in the Old Testament; we'll see it in a final glorious fullness in the coming future day of the Lord. 

There will be darkness, and there will be light. There will be judgment, and there will be deliverance in the coming day of the Lord. I want to emphasize the two-fold nature of the day of the Lord. We can characterize it in a couple of ways. It certainly will include darkness, gloominess, judgment, a time of trouble like we've never seen. But it will also include light, promise, and deliverance. 

It will be darkness and light. In the 70th week of Daniel, we see persecution, we see tribulation, we see judgment and wrath, but beyond the second coming, we see salvation. We see deliverance—the rule and reign of God on this earth, the millennial kingdom, even the new heavens and the new earth. You say, “Well, is that all in the day of the Lord?” No, I didn't say that, Peter did. Turn to 2 Peter 3:7. 

Peter says, "But the heavens and the earth, which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." 

Verse 10: "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night." I want you to look at those next two words: "The day of the Lord"—he's speaking of the future day of the Lord, the coming of Christ—the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night. And then he says, "in which"—in which, in the course of the day of the Lord, all of these things are going to happen—"in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, the elements will melt with fervent heat, both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up."

Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, the elements will melt with fervent heat. 

Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. When we think about the day of the Lord yet to come, there is a narrow scope to that day. There is a day. Zechariah tells us there's a day when Jesus will set His feet on the Mount of Olives; He will come back to this earth, and He will judge the nations. We're going to read about that in Joel 3. 

But there's also a broad scope to that day of the Lord. Peter says it not only includes the time of tribulation and judgment and the second coming of Christ and the kingdom, but it even includes the destruction of the old heavens and earth and the creation of the new heavens and earth. You see, the day of the Lord is the day when God takes back what is rightfully His. We're going to look at this next week in Revelation 5, but the process of the book of Revelation is Jesus Christ taking the title deed to the earth, opening those seals, and that process that's laid out is God taking back rule. 

The day of the Lord sits in contrast to the day of men, and God is going to take back and exercise His sovereign rule over what is rightfully His, and that's what all those spectacular, mysterious events are about—Him taking that back and then creating a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. So the day of the Lord, in one sense, is very broad—from, I would contend, and we'll go through this in detail next week, after the rapture of the church all the way to the new heavens and new earth, including the broad scope of the day of the Lord, at least according to Peter.

Well, unfortunately, we're out of time here this morning, and we're going to have to cut it off and pick it up next week. I agree that I told Mark—generally I study and study, and then I'll kind of study myself full and then write myself empty, and in the meantime, milk some cows and feed some pigs and ponder things. But Saturday morning, I finished early this message—yesterday morning early I finished it up and put the finishing touches on it. I went out to do chores and came back in, and I had so much on my mind, I just sat down and wrote next week's message. 

I'm going to warn you now, 6,700 words in next week's message because I had so much in my head that I wanted to say and connect all the dots and pull all the loose ends together and hopefully, Lord willing, make sense of it all. So please make an effort to be here next week if you can, and we will look into the day of the Lord—Joel chapter 3—and what's yet to come for Israel and for us. 

All right, let's close in prayer. Father, we thank you. We thank you for the gospel, for Jesus. We thank you for the simplicity that is in Christ and the life that we now experience in this time and this age and what you've done for us and how you've empowered us to live for you, how we can abide in you, depend on you, trust you one day at a time, be filled with your word, and see your power working in us—the very power that raised Jesus from the dead to accomplish your will. Thank you for that. Thank you that we need to come back to that simplicity—to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. 

But thank you also for the mysteries. Thank you also for the depth of your word—that we can never exhaust it, that we can keep coming back and learn and grow and be encouraged and see how marvelous and wonderful you are. We pray that you would guide us in this—that you would teach us, that you would help us, keep us from error and wrong thinking and guide us into all truth, that we might rightly understand your word and give you glory in all things, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Okay, if you have any questions, we can talk a little bit. Just take a little time to discuss anything on your mind and maybe what we've been working through. So, when we look at the Old Covenant economy with Israel, again, the vital thing—and this is why I think there's so much confusion—the vital thing is understanding the distinctions between the Old and New Covenant, but also the distinctions between Israel and the church. 

We, in our minds, tend to make everything see everything through our eyes, right? In our time, and we tend to make everything about 21st century America Christian Church. What we need to understand is that under the Old Covenant system, God chose out the nation of Israel, and He chose them, it says in Deuteronomy 28 as well, that they might draw the nations to Him—that they would know that He is God, that He is the Lord—that's the prevailing idea. 

This nation you entered through birth—and even the Old Covenant, you entered through a ritual, circumcision. So what you had in Israel was probably a vast majority of unbelievers. They weren't even personally justified through faith—some were, but many weren't. They set up an Old Covenant priesthood and a sacrificial system in order to allow a holy God to be approached by sinful men. A lot of people offering sacrifices brought them to the temple and so forth, and a lot of those were unbelievers. 

You start reading through the Old Testament, a lot of those were unbelievers. They gave those sacrifices for the purpose of not being taken out by God, basically. That's what John Whitcomb calls theocratic harmony. So in the theocracy of Israel, if God just started in His holiness wiping out all the sinful men, there wouldn't be anybody left, and we see several discussions like that where Moses has with God and so forth. 

We have a completely different system in the Old Covenant than we do in the church, okay? Because in the church, everyone's a believer. We have regeneration, we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So the way I understand this, and the way I like to explain it, is that our goal either way—and God's goal—is to have us live a holy life, right? To have us glorify Him in all that we do, to have us be witnesses. 

His goal for Israel was to be a witness, to bring the nations. When we come into the New Covenant, we're no longer under this theocratic situation on earth; we're no longer a nation, we're no longer a city on a hill, none of that is true of the church. We don't enter the church by birth; it's not a lineage issue. We don't enter the church through ritual; baptism doesn't get you to be part of the church, right? You enter the church by faith. 

But when you believe, you experience this New Covenant blessing of regeneration, whereby God deals with the sin that dwells in you, and He gives you a new heart and a new spirit, and He causes His Spirit to dwell in you, and Jesus Christ lives in us. So now we have a much more efficient and powerful way to live a holy life in God's progression of His salvation plan. 

So my focus then is not to be—this is why, I mean, there's a multitude of scriptures on this in the New Testament, 2 Corinthians 3. Paul's very clear when he calls the law a ministration of death, right? The law engraved on stones; that's pretty particular what he's talking about, and he says we're no longer ministers of the Old Covenant; we're ministers of the New Covenant. Our sufficiency is not from ourselves; our sufficiency is from God. 

He calls it a ministry of death, a ministry of condemnation. He says we no longer live by the law—Romans 7, 1 to 6 is all about our death to the law, that we're no longer under the bondage to the law. He says we no longer live by the letter, but by the spirit. What law is he talking about? Verse 7: "Thou shalt not covet," that's one of the ten, right? The point being, we now, in this time, don't live in this law-regulated, external-regulated situation whereby if we obey, we are directly blessed with specific blessings. 

That doesn't mean that if we live according to what God says and abide in Him and trust in Him—let the word of Christ dwell in us richly and so forth—that there isn't a natural consequence of blessing, right? But we don't have anything that says if you keep these laws and statutes, you will have plenty of food and clothes and water, and your enemies won't bother you. As a matter of fact, in the New Testament, what do we have? A promise of suffering if we're faithful—a promise of persecution if we're faithful. 

Anyone who desires to live godly, live godly, be faithful in this ungodly age, what? Will suffer persecution. That's the opposite of the Old Covenant economy. Does that answer your question? 

Well, that's okay. Anything else? 

Right. In the New Testament? So the question—and I'm going to remember to ask the question—so let's see how good I am. The question was, do we see the temporal days of the Lord in this church-age time, or in these last days? The proper term would be the last days since Jesus' first coming. And no, we don't. The day of the Lord speaks of judgment. 

When we think about the temporal days of the Lord through the Old Testament, that's God directly sending judgment on the nation of Israel for the express purpose of bringing them back to Him. So we don't see that with the church because in the church, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We don't experience judgment. 

Right. When you think about Romans 5:1, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have what? Peace. We have peace with God. Jesus, He Himself, is our peace. And Romans 5 goes on to say, we stand in grace. We glory in tribulation. This is a whole different economy by which God relates to us than He did to Israel.

Anything else? Now, just a quick thought: Why does this all matter, right? Why does this all matter? It matters because we're trying to rightly divide the Word of God. 

I would just as soon not get into why there are animal sacrifices in the Millennial Temple because I don't understand a lot of that. We're going to get there, by the way. We're going to answer that question next week or maybe the week after. But it matters because—as we've talked about before—I don't want to go to Joel and not understand all these things, and just, in one hand, miss everything that's going on in Joel and what God's teaching me there, and what I learned about the character and nature of God, and what went on with Joel and what went on with Judah and his people, and all that stuff that is there. 

I don't want to miss that in the first place. On the other hand, I don't want to make it all about me and make a bunch of applications that aren't there, and then cause confusion and disillusionment, like we talked about in Matthew 10 or Matthew 6, and this whole idea of, you know, "If I would just seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness first, then I would have all the material blessings that I need in this life." 

Well, I better determine if that promise is for me or not because if I then don't have enough food or I don't have enough clothes or I’m persecuted, then what does that mean? It can't be God's fault, right? Then I didn't seek hard enough. I didn’t pray through, right? Because I've messed that up. Well, like we talked about last time in Mark 16, I end up handling snakes. I watched a documentary on this, so it's on my mind, but these guys down in West Virginia in these Pentecostal churches handle snakes. 

The pastor they had on there—his dad and his grandpa both died from snake bites in the service. I'm thinking, drinking poison because no poison can hurt you. I better decide what Scriptures are for me and what they do mean so I get the true meaning. I don't want to miss that, learn what God has for me there, but not make an errant application. That's why it matters. 

Don. I'm just curious, shouldn't we really look at that and bring it to—as Christians, we shall suffer persecution? Or I would rather—whatever persecution God has in store for me down the line, whatever—I would definitely not want to go back to trying to keep the law and that kind of punishment. I don't want to go to a place where they swallow me or take my life. So really, it's a really nice trade-off. 

Well, it is a great blessing and a privilege—that would indicate personal responsibility, Don. It's a great privilege as well to live in this time, no question about it. It's hard just to read Leviticus, let alone live it. But that's all part of God's unfolding of His redemptive plan, and it's instructional for us, and we see the progression of that. We're thankful, right? That's what the Christian life is—thank you. Because Jesus has paid it all—all to Him I owe, right? 

Okay. All right, next week we'll forge ahead into the day of the Lord and the future and the book of Revelation and some of those things. Thank you for coming.