Joel chapter 2 has a gigantic sweep!
And near its end God promises: “And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.” Joel 2:30-31
Yes, the Holy Spirit will have a specific and powerful Ministry during these days as well. (Yesterday’s Lesson, Joel 2:28-29 … “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.” Where “afterward” may be a key word!) Bear in mind: this “pouring out” of the Spirit is not just a historical event (Pentecost) but also a prophetic (future) event (including both Tribulation and Millennium)!
I say that because the sun being darkened and the moon appearing as blood … with accompanying fire and pillars of smoke on earth … are not past tense occurrences, but still up-coming!
In Isaiah 13:9-10 the Prophet may have been seeing the identical phenomena Joel beheld. “Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.”
And Jesus too, in Matthew 24:29. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken.” Verse 30 is even better … “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn (under conviction), and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” Both Mark and Luke similarly quote Jesus, too.
Then John on Patmos: “And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood; and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a mighty wind.” Wow, Revelation 6:12-13.
Natural upheaval!
The wages of sin!
Creation groaning!
And God, as always, knowing the end from the beginning!
Joel the Prophet is different, but amazing nonetheless.
I’d love to preach his 73 verses, all of them!
The Lord willing, more studying tomorrow. We still have (at least) one more Lesson in chapter 2, then of course, Joel’s final Sermon, chapter 3.
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
The Old Testament Prophets often “blur” Jesus’ First Coming and Second Coming. They did not clearly see the “Church Age” intervening between those two Epochal Events. Paul the Apostle even called the Church a “Mystery,” unseen by the older Prophets but specially revealed by God to himself, to Paul! Here’s Colossians 1:26-27, as an example. “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
Amen!