The Church Context from Joel 2:28-32

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/9/2015 11:02 PM

My Worship Time                                                                              Focus:  The Church Context

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Joel 2:28-32

            Message of the verses:  “28 "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. 29 “Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. 30 “I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire and columns of smoke. 31 “The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. 32  "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.”

            This is the third time that we have looked at these very important verses from the second chapter of the book of Joel.  I want to mention that in the Jewish Bible that these four verses make up the third chapter and so the third chapter in our English Bibles is actually the fourth chapter in the Hebrew or Jewish Bibles, which is how much importance they put upon these verses.

            Now we are looking at these five verses in the context of the church in our Spiritual Diary for today, as we looked at them in the context of the Jewish position in our last SD.

            On the first day of Pentecost after the Lord Jesus Christ rose from the dead the church began when the Holy Spirit came upon those people who were in the “upper room” as the Bible describes it, and then Peter being full of the Holy Spirit preached the first sermon in the history of the Church age and in that sermon he quotes these, or at least a part of these verses in that sermon.  The same Holy Spirit that Joel wrote of is the one that filled the believers in that upper room, and eventually those who would accept Christ as a result of Peter’s sermon.  The Holy Spirits power that came upon those first disciples of Jesus Christ during this period was rather unique, in that He allowed them to speak in different languages to those who were in Jerusalem during this feast of Pentecost.   Now as I stated not all of what Joel prophesized in this passage came to pass during that beginning of the church age, as some of it will come to pass during the Tribulation period.  There are some who would call the ability of the disciples to speak in different languages “tongues” as we see from that second chapter in Acts:  “3  And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance (Acts 2:3-4).”  I believe that there was a difference in what Paul calls the gift of tongues when he wrote to the Corinthians than what is going on here, although it is the same Holy Spirit that gives both of these gifts.  It is also my belief that this was what scholars call “sign gifts” that is gifts that God gave to the early church to authentic what He was doing in the infant church, after a while this gift along with other sign gifts would disappear such as the ability to heal people like we read about in the early chapters of the book of Acts.

            Next we notice that Joel’s prophecy speaks of a much wider audience than those of Peter who only spoke to Jews and proselytes, that is Gentiles who became involved in the Jewish faith.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “Peter used Joel’s prophecy to declare that the promised Spirit had come and this was why the believers, men and women (1:14), were praising God in such an ecstatic manner.  Peter was answering the accusation that the believers were drunk (2:13-16) and backing up his defense from the Scriptures.”  Now the following quote is from an endnote written by Warren Wiersbe on this subject:  “In Scripture, you sometimes find ‘near’ and ‘distant’ fulfillments of God’ promises.  The ‘near’ fulfillment is partial, while the ‘distant’ fulfillment is complete.  In 2 Samuel 7, God promised to build David a house.  The near fulfillment was the Davidic dynasty that ruled until Judah was exiled to Babylon.  The distant fulfillment is found in Jesus Christ, the Son of David, whose reign shall never end (Luke 1:32-33).”

            We will conclude with another quote from Dr. Wiersbe as he concludes his commentary on this subject with these words:  “Certainly the church today needs a new filling of the Spirit of God.  Apart from the ministry of the Spirit, believers can’t witness with power (Acts 1:8), understand the Scriptures (John 16:13), glorify Christ (v. 14), pray in the will of god (Rom. 8:26-27), or develop Christian character (Gal. 5:22-23).  We need to be praying for revival, a deeper working of the Spirit in His people, leading to confession of sin, repentance, forgiveness and unity.”

8/9/2015 11:30 PM