Message of the Week

The Little White Community Church

Scripture: Joel 2:28 -32 Sept. 3, 2023

Message: “I will pour out my Spirit”

by Pastor George Gnade

Intro: 1. As most of you know, we have been studying the Book of Joel, and today we are considering this important prophecy about the coming of the Holy Spirit.

2. On the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church, Peter quoted this passage from the Book of Joel and said it was being fulfilled before their very eyes.

a. The Holy Spirit came in the form of a mighty wind and the sound attracted everyone in the area to come and see what happened.

b. He came in the form of tongues of fire that split up and rested on each of them. Immediately they began to speek in other languages and people from other countries who came for the feast each heard them in their own language.

c. He came upon Peter who was given a mighty message to share and over 3,000 people repented of their sins and were saved. That is how the church had its amazing beginning.

3. This event was predicted hundreds of year earlier by the prophet Joel. God sent him to the land of Judah to call the people to repentance.

4. They were experiencing a crisis of locusts which came like a mighty army and were destroying everything they ate. Their only hope for deliverance was God Himself.

A. Consider how they responded to the crisis.

1. It could be compared to the people of Nineveh in the days of Jonah. Because the people fasted and repented, God spared them, but when the next generation went right back to their old sins, God punished them.

a. This seems to be what happened in Joel’s day. At first they repented, and God took the locusts away. But not many years later, they returned to their old sins.

b. This time, instead of sending locusts, God sent armies from the north including the Babylonians, the Medes and Persians, the Greeks, and finally the Romans.

2. Just as the four swarms of locusts were treated as if they were one great army from the north (Joel 2:2 & 20), so the four kingdoms that followed each other were in God’s eyes like one great northern army to Him. When the people of Judah returned to their old sins, He sent these four nations from the north, one after another, to take the place of the locusts.

3. In the days of the Romans, the Lord Jesus came.

a. In Joel 2:23, Joel had promised those who repented that God would send “a teacher of righteousness” followed by showers of blessing. Of course, Jesus was that teacher of righteousness who brought God’s blessing.

b. In Joel 2:28, Joel also predicted: “Afterwards in those days I will pour out my Spirit.” Of course, that is exactly what Jesus promised to do and did after His death, resurrection and ascension.

B. In light of this, let us now consider what Joel predicted would happen when the Holy Spirit was poured out.

1. Joel predicted in Joel 2: 28-29, that on“your sons and your daughters”, “your old men” and “your young men”, “even on your menservants and your maidservants, I will pour out my Spirit.”

a. No one was left out. As it says in vs. 32: “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

b. This matches what Paul wrote to the Galatians in Gal. 3: 26 - 28: “You are all children of God through faith in Jesus Christ…There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

2. Amazingly, “everyone” even included the Gentiles. Jesus spoke of this in John 10:14-16: “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me… and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.”

3. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit would cause many to prophesy, others to dream dreams and others to see visions. This happened in the early church and many believe it is still happening today.

a. Paul certainly saw visions and dreamed dreams, and in our day, many Moslems are seeing visions and dreaming dreams about Jesus and coming to know the Lord.

b. And the Holy Spirit continues to give each of us different gifts to use in our service for the Lord.

4. Also notice that the primary reason why God on Pentecost caused those who were saved to speak in tongues was to reveal this wonderful truth that people from every language or tongue could now be saved.

C. That brings up another question: “Why do people need to be saved? Saved from what?

1. Why was it so important that people repent of their sins? Why was Joel told to tell the people in Joel 2:13 to “rend their hearts and not just their garments” and to “return to the Lord their God?” Why did He send locusts and armies to punish them and get their attention?

a. In Joel 2:1, it says: “Blow the trumpet in Zion. Sound the alarm… Let all who live in the land tremble.for the Day of the Lord is coming. It is close at hand.”

b. And again, in Joel 2:11: “The Lord thunders at the head of His army, His forces are beyond number… the Day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?”

2. In Joel 2:30-31, after telling us about the coming of the Holy Spirit, he writes: “I will show wonders in the heavens and the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible Day of the Lord comes…” but “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved….There shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the survivors whom the Lord calls.”

a. Jesus is the deliverer. He came to offer us salvation. But many refuse to believe and are not ready for that “dreadful Day of the Lord.”

b. Notice that dreadful day is more than just the locusts. It is more than just the armies sent from the north. And in Jesus day, when many still refused to repent, it was more than the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans.

3. It is God’s “Day of judgment” at the end of history. That is why we are all called to repent and be saved while we can. That is “the dreadful day of the Lord” that God pleads with us to avoid by coming to Christ instead.

In Conclusion: 1. God wants us to be among “the sur-vivors.” He wants us to give our hearts to the Lord Jesus and enjoy His gift of salvation.

2. He wants to give us His Holy Spirit and to receive all the blessings that He enjoys showering upon us.

3. In Joel 2:32, He even “calls us” through the Holy Spirit to encourage us to “call on the name of the Lord and be saved.” In II Cor. 6: 1-2, it says: “Don’t receive God’s grace in vain… Now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.” In Rev. 3:20, it is described as a knock on the door of our hearts. May we listen when Jesus knocks.