On Mission In Anderson & Beyond
North Anderson Baptist
July 16th, 2023
Locations & Times
North Anderson Baptist Church
2308 N Main St, Anderson, SC 29621, USA
Sunday 9:01 AM
While we'll look at each of the verses in our passage this morning, we'll focus our attention upon a few words in verse 28 – "I will pour out My Spirit"
Writing approximately 835 BC, Joel predicted a day would come when God would pour out his Spirit on all people. This is one of the greatest statements in the Bible.
This is how God ignites kingdom life in his people. He pours out his Spirit on them and they are never the same again.
No man can do this on his own. I can preach for hours, but I cannot pour out God’s Spirit upon you. This is not the result of church membership or the organized aspects of local church life. This is God doing what only God can do.
I. This is a Promise for the Last Days
When Joel records the promise, he uses the phrase “and afterward” in verse 28 to indicate that the blessing of God’s Spirit comes after God’s judgment on the unbelieving people of Judah.
Eight hundred years later Peter quotes Joel 2 at the beginning of his magnificent sermon in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).
When the Holy Spirit came upon the early disciples, they began to speak with other tongues, declaring the Lord’s greatness in languages that they did not know. Some scoffing onlookers thought they were drunk, but Peter said that was impossible since it was only 9 AM — too early to be drunk!
What explanation did Simon Peter offer?
Acts 2:16 “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel”
What Joel predicted has now started to come true. On the Day of Pentecost, God began to pour out his Spirit on His people, just as he said he would.
When Peter quotes Joel, he changes one part of the quotation.
Where Joel said, “afterwards,” Peter says, “in the last days.”
In the New Testament the “last days” refers to the entire period of time starting with Pentecost and ending with Second Coming of Christ to the earth.
Pentecost inaugurates the last days. It marks the start of the final chapter of human history.
The second coming of Christ brings the last days to an end
It doesn’t matter that the “last days” have already lasted for 2000 years. God doesn’t count time the way we do. Think of it this way …
What Joel predicted in 830 BC - Peter says has come to fulfillment in AD 33. That fulfillment continues in the 2000 years since then, and will not be complete until Jesus returns to the earth.
We cannot understand Joel 2 and Acts 2 apart from God’s great purpose to empower his people with the Spirit so they will take the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Acts 1:8 says that very plainly: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
When God spoke through the Prophet Joel and said, “I will pour out My Spirit”, He was making a promise that in the last days before His return, He’d gift His people with the Holy Spirit to empower us for our Great Commission task.
II. This is a Promise for All People.
Notice that he promises to pour out his Spirit on all people.
Pentecost means that the Spirit is no longer given only to spiritual leaders in Israel; the Spirit now indwells everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. This is a massive change from what the people of Joels day understood about the work of the Spirit.
In Numbers 11 there’s a remarkable story from the days when the Israelites wandered in the wilderness.
As they traveled through the dessert, they continually complained to Moses, he became frustrated and told the Lord he couldn’t lead the people anymore.
God responded by telling Moses to call seventy of Israel’s elders to come to the Tent of Meeting where he (God) would take the Spirit that was upon Moses and put that same Spirit upon the seventy elders so they could help Moses lead the people. When the Spirit came upon those men, they began to prophesy before the Lord.
However, two of the elders, Eldad and Medad, remained in the camp with the people. Even though they stayed behind, the Spirit came upon them and they began prophesying in the midst of the camp among the people, which no doubt shook everyone up.
In response, a young man ran to tell Moses what was happening. Before he could say anything, Joshua spoke up and urged Moses to make Eldad and Medad stop prophesying. Joshua thought things were spinning a bit out of control.
Joshua was sure that if Moses didn’t put an end to this, they’d have ordinary people standing up and prophesying left and right.
Yet instead of telling the two men to stop, Moses said to Joshua:
Numbers 11:29 “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”
This is exactly what Joel was predicting in our passage. There was a day coming when all God’s people would experience the power of the Holy Spirit.
PLEASE don’t make the mistake of thinking that the Holy Spirit’s power is only for religious professionals.
Every believer is enabled by the Holy Spirit to speak boldly, publicly, loudly, words of praise and testimony of the power of the Gospel.
Joel 2:28-29 “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 menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days”
- He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sex: “your sons and daughters will prophesy.”
- He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of age: “your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”
- He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of social class: “even on my servants …I will pour out my Spirit.”
One final point and we’ll move on. These “dreams” and “visions” of Joel 2 and Acts 2 are not given by God simply for our personal enjoyment or in order to make us feel closer to God.
In the Bible, God gave dreams and visions at crucial moments in history in order to advance his cause on the earth. When Paul saw a vision of the man from Macedonia (Acts 16:9-10), it was a missionary call, “Come over and help us.”
The dreams and visions we need today are not about how to make more money, but how we can shake the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
III. This is a Promise of Coming Judgment.
Joel 2:30-31 “And I will show 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 coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord”
We might be tempted to skip these verses or to think they aren’t connected or somehow don’t apply to us. But that would be a mistake. These verses describe a series of cataclysmic events just before the Second Coming of Christ when he comes to judge the earth.
These verses were not fulfilled in Joel’s day.
They were not fulfilled on Pentecost.
They have not been fulfilled since then.
These verses will be literally fulfilled in the days just preceding the coming of Christ to the earth when the world will be wracked by war on a scale unprecedented in human history.
Here, Joel gives us a picture of the wrath of God that will cover the earth in judgment. It’s not easy or natural for us to think of God in these terms. Our world sometimes has a tendency to view God as different in the Old Testament than the New, seeing God as judge in the days of the prophets but letting sins pass by by the time we get to the Gospels. This is a grave mistake with eternal consequences. He is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. He will judge the earth.
IV. This is a Promise of Opportunity For Salvation.
Joel 2:32 “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”
This truth is so crucial that it appears in the Bible three times.
- Joel 2:32
- Acts 2:21
- Romans 10:13
Do you want to go to heaven? You can! Just call on the name of the Lord. And how do you do that?
If you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved. This is God’s promise to you!
Writing approximately 835 BC, Joel predicted a day would come when God would pour out his Spirit on all people. This is one of the greatest statements in the Bible.
This is how God ignites kingdom life in his people. He pours out his Spirit on them and they are never the same again.
No man can do this on his own. I can preach for hours, but I cannot pour out God’s Spirit upon you. This is not the result of church membership or the organized aspects of local church life. This is God doing what only God can do.
I. This is a Promise for the Last Days
When Joel records the promise, he uses the phrase “and afterward” in verse 28 to indicate that the blessing of God’s Spirit comes after God’s judgment on the unbelieving people of Judah.
Eight hundred years later Peter quotes Joel 2 at the beginning of his magnificent sermon in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2).
When the Holy Spirit came upon the early disciples, they began to speak with other tongues, declaring the Lord’s greatness in languages that they did not know. Some scoffing onlookers thought they were drunk, but Peter said that was impossible since it was only 9 AM — too early to be drunk!
What explanation did Simon Peter offer?
Acts 2:16 “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel”
What Joel predicted has now started to come true. On the Day of Pentecost, God began to pour out his Spirit on His people, just as he said he would.
When Peter quotes Joel, he changes one part of the quotation.
Where Joel said, “afterwards,” Peter says, “in the last days.”
In the New Testament the “last days” refers to the entire period of time starting with Pentecost and ending with Second Coming of Christ to the earth.
Pentecost inaugurates the last days. It marks the start of the final chapter of human history.
The second coming of Christ brings the last days to an end
It doesn’t matter that the “last days” have already lasted for 2000 years. God doesn’t count time the way we do. Think of it this way …
What Joel predicted in 830 BC - Peter says has come to fulfillment in AD 33. That fulfillment continues in the 2000 years since then, and will not be complete until Jesus returns to the earth.
We cannot understand Joel 2 and Acts 2 apart from God’s great purpose to empower his people with the Spirit so they will take the gospel to the ends of the earth.
Acts 1:8 says that very plainly: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
When God spoke through the Prophet Joel and said, “I will pour out My Spirit”, He was making a promise that in the last days before His return, He’d gift His people with the Holy Spirit to empower us for our Great Commission task.
II. This is a Promise for All People.
Notice that he promises to pour out his Spirit on all people.
Pentecost means that the Spirit is no longer given only to spiritual leaders in Israel; the Spirit now indwells everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. This is a massive change from what the people of Joels day understood about the work of the Spirit.
In Numbers 11 there’s a remarkable story from the days when the Israelites wandered in the wilderness.
As they traveled through the dessert, they continually complained to Moses, he became frustrated and told the Lord he couldn’t lead the people anymore.
God responded by telling Moses to call seventy of Israel’s elders to come to the Tent of Meeting where he (God) would take the Spirit that was upon Moses and put that same Spirit upon the seventy elders so they could help Moses lead the people. When the Spirit came upon those men, they began to prophesy before the Lord.
However, two of the elders, Eldad and Medad, remained in the camp with the people. Even though they stayed behind, the Spirit came upon them and they began prophesying in the midst of the camp among the people, which no doubt shook everyone up.
In response, a young man ran to tell Moses what was happening. Before he could say anything, Joshua spoke up and urged Moses to make Eldad and Medad stop prophesying. Joshua thought things were spinning a bit out of control.
Joshua was sure that if Moses didn’t put an end to this, they’d have ordinary people standing up and prophesying left and right.
Yet instead of telling the two men to stop, Moses said to Joshua:
Numbers 11:29 “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!”
This is exactly what Joel was predicting in our passage. There was a day coming when all God’s people would experience the power of the Holy Spirit.
PLEASE don’t make the mistake of thinking that the Holy Spirit’s power is only for religious professionals.
Every believer is enabled by the Holy Spirit to speak boldly, publicly, loudly, words of praise and testimony of the power of the Gospel.
Joel 2:28-29 “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 menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days”
- He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of sex: “your sons and daughters will prophesy.”
- He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of age: “your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”
- He doesn’t discriminate on the basis of social class: “even on my servants …I will pour out my Spirit.”
One final point and we’ll move on. These “dreams” and “visions” of Joel 2 and Acts 2 are not given by God simply for our personal enjoyment or in order to make us feel closer to God.
In the Bible, God gave dreams and visions at crucial moments in history in order to advance his cause on the earth. When Paul saw a vision of the man from Macedonia (Acts 16:9-10), it was a missionary call, “Come over and help us.”
The dreams and visions we need today are not about how to make more money, but how we can shake the world with the Good News of Jesus Christ.
III. This is a Promise of Coming Judgment.
Joel 2:30-31 “And I will show 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 coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord”
We might be tempted to skip these verses or to think they aren’t connected or somehow don’t apply to us. But that would be a mistake. These verses describe a series of cataclysmic events just before the Second Coming of Christ when he comes to judge the earth.
These verses were not fulfilled in Joel’s day.
They were not fulfilled on Pentecost.
They have not been fulfilled since then.
These verses will be literally fulfilled in the days just preceding the coming of Christ to the earth when the world will be wracked by war on a scale unprecedented in human history.
Here, Joel gives us a picture of the wrath of God that will cover the earth in judgment. It’s not easy or natural for us to think of God in these terms. Our world sometimes has a tendency to view God as different in the Old Testament than the New, seeing God as judge in the days of the prophets but letting sins pass by by the time we get to the Gospels. This is a grave mistake with eternal consequences. He is the same yesterday, today and forevermore. He will judge the earth.
IV. This is a Promise of Opportunity For Salvation.
Joel 2:32 “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved”
This truth is so crucial that it appears in the Bible three times.
- Joel 2:32
- Acts 2:21
- Romans 10:13
Do you want to go to heaven? You can! Just call on the name of the Lord. And how do you do that?
If you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved. This is God’s promise to you!