A Restored Land seen from Joel 3:18-19

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/14/2015 9:58 PM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  A Restored Land

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Joel 3:18-19

            Message of the verses:  “18 And in that day The mountains will drip with sweet wine, And the hills will flow with milk, And all the brooks of Judah will flow with water; And a spring will go out from the house of the LORD To water the valley of Shittim. 19 Egypt will become a waste, And Edom will become a desolate wilderness, Because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, In whose land they have shed innocent blood.”

            As we have taken a look at what has happened to the “Holy Land” over the centuries from the study of the Old Testament and also a look into recent history we can see that the land has been through much from famines, to droughts, to many, many wars, and for sure it has gone through much.  I read somewhere that the reason that the hills around Jerusalem are now barren, without trees is because all of the trees were used as siege ramps to destroy Jerusalem.  However there will come a day when this will all be changed, and we looked at this a bit in our Revelation study this morning as John MacArthur commented that with the last few bowl judgments, and especially the seventh one which included a great earthquake like has never happened on planet earth before or will happen that the world will begin being prepared for what the Lord will do for it after the Tribulation period is over as it is prepared for the Millennial kingdom.  The earthquake will help prepare the earth for that as it levels certain parts of the earth.  With this said we can be sure that the “Holy Land” will be beautiful, similar to what it must have looked like after the Lord created the earth.  Isaiah writes “Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion; He will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, And her desert like the garden of the LORD; Joy and gladness will be found in her, Thanksgiving and sound of a melody (Isa. 51:3).”

            There is quite a contrast between what Joel writes in the first chapter of his book where people are wailing because they have no food and then in the third chapter we see that there will be plenty of food for Joel writes that the land will have milk and honey, a description that is given to it to the people of Israel when they were coming out of Egypt as this is how the Promised Land was described. 

            Dr. Wiersbe writes:  “Jerusalem is the only city of antiquity that wasn’t built near a great river.  Rome had the Tiber; Nineveh had built near the Tigris and Babylon on the Euphrates; and the great Egyptia cites were built near the Nile.  But in the kingdom, Jerusalem will have a river that proceeds from the temple of God.  ‘On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea [the Dead Sea] and half to the western sea [the Mediterranean], in summer and in winter’ (Zech. 14:8 NIV).  You find this river and its special blessings described in Ezekiel 47.”

            Joel contrasts the other nations that have given constant trouble to Israel with what will happen with Israel and they will not have what Israel has for sure.  Egypt and Edom will be desolate as a punishment for the way they treated Israel, and this means that both will have to depend on Israel for the basic things of life, things like food and water.

8/14/2015 10:16 PM