Characteristics of the Day of the Lord

[00:00:00] Now, I believe we're led back further this evening to the Book of Joel and to drawing a few lessons from this book. [00:00:12] Now, we can't obviously go into all the questions of authorship and background and everything else. We'll have to rely upon your memory. [00:00:24] Those of you who are here, I would just say these one or two things about the Book of Joel. In a general way. It's the second of the twelve minor prophets, and although Joel is a small prophet in size, the book is a small one. Its influence is out of all proportion to its size. This is one of the amazing facts you only discover when you begin to plow more deeply in God's word. The little Book of Joel, you would think, with its three chapters, is not much of a book. And at a superficial reading you would almost think, well, dear old Joel, he was evidently one of the backbenchers in God's parliament. But not so, for when you begin to dig more deeply into the word of God, you discover that the prophet Joel had an influence which is greater than many of the other, more major, we call them prophets. For instance, his message, Joel's message underlies all within hebrew prophecy. There is nothing in the whole range of prophecy that is not founded and based within the very simple ministry and message of the prophet Joel. He of course, preceded all the other prophets in time. He is, we believe, the first of the great line of prophets that we know as the prophets. Joel preceded Isaiah, he preceded all the others in his ministry, and many of his. [00:02:13] The things that he first began to say and to mention are taken up by the other prophets and are enlarged and developed. [00:02:24] Some prophets seem to take one phrase of Joel's ministry and their whole, their whole ministry is based and developed out of one little phrase in Joel's ministry. That's another remarkable thing. There are, of course, other much more important things than that. Even he is the one who first starts to talk about, for instance, as an illustration, the fountain out of the Lord's house that will flow out to all lands. Oh, that's a very common theme in prophetical literature. But Joel was the first one to ever mention it. Joel was the first one to see this as something and to mention it from it. It becomes a great theme in prophetic ministry. Again, this great thought of the Holy Spirit coming within us and writing God's word and God's law and work in our hearts. [00:03:31] Where does it all begin? Well, it all begins with the prophet Joel, of course. Later on, Ezekiel and other prophets, they take it up and make a lot of it. Say, much more than ever, Joel said. But Joel was the first to see it and to mention it. And then again, Joel's imagery, he's a very imaginative prophet. [00:03:50] He's filled with interesting figures of speech and imagery in his ministry. And these things that he uses, these illustrations become common parlance in prophetic ministry later on. Locusts, for instance. Well, all the prophets take up the question of locusts and the harvest and the winepress and so on. All these different things are figures that the other prophets take up. [00:04:26] I think that that's really all that we need say. [00:04:34] I think one other point we should underline is that if we are going to understand the book of Revelation and much else in the sphere of prophecy, we must understand these little books. They may seem small to us, but they are foundational and elementary. And scripture has a very simple law that everything is built on that which precedes it. You cannot cut any one part of scripture away and try to interpret it from all that precedes. For instance, if you're going to understand the book of Revelation, that's why we draw back from it so much at present, because we want to go through these books. You've got to understand the root and the trunk that carries the branches. When you finally come to the end, it is the completion and consummation of everything which has gone before. Even more important in an understanding, for instance, of a book like the Book of Revelation, is it to understand the phraseology of the Old Testament prophets and what exactly it was they understood and saw? [00:05:55] That is all very important. [00:05:58] Of course, Joel's essential ministry is all bound up with what he called the day of the Lord. [00:06:10] The day of the Lord. This comes, I think, about five times it's mentioned or more in this little prophecy of three chapters. And everything, everything in his message is linked and connected with what he calls the day of the Lord. Now, when we studied this little book some months ago, it was from that angle that we looked at it this evening. We are going to move further on, break a little bit of new ground while still only underlining what we said, in essence anyway, some months ago. But it is the day of the Lord which is the core and the heart of the prophet Joel's ministry. [00:07:00] All that is related to the day of the Lord, the outpouring of the spirit, the in gathering of the people to the Lord, the judgment of the nations, the salvation of a remnant, and so on. All these things are found within the message of the prophet Joel. [00:07:26] Well, now, just one other thing about the prophet Joel. What occasioned his ministry. This I always find one of the most fascinating aspects in the study of these books. What was it really that occasioned the beginning of this prophet's ministry? At least what we have of it. [00:07:50] Well, it all began with an unparalleled plague of locusts. [00:07:59] It wasn't an unknown thing in the promised land to suffer from locusts, but this particular plague was unparalleled in living memory, and consequently, everyone felt it was the worst plague that ever happened. [00:08:18] They swarmed over the land. They developed. You have the four stages mentioned here within the prophecy of their development. And finally, they literally stripped the land bare of every living thing, which we here can never quite appreciate and fully understand what it meant in the precarious economy of a land bordered by desert and depending so much upon the little greenery, that it's got to be completely devastated by a plague of locusts. [00:08:57] But that was followed by a very long and scorching drought, which in turn brought great fires, which literally burnt up what remained of the land. And of course, the result was famine and death and disease. So all has a logical sequence. All could be termed great catastrophes, but each catastrophe grows out of the preceding one. This is very interesting, for it was this disaster or catastrophe that occasioned the ministry of the prophet Joel. And moreover, it is very interesting that later on, other prophets see within this a kind of spiritual method. [00:09:52] For instance, the book of revelation is built on what we call woes or trumpets or bowls, and each thing comes in logical sequence. Out of the preceding catastrophe there is one disaster, and out of it emerges another disaster, and out of that emerges another disaster. And so there is a chain of reaction. [00:10:13] Very interesting. It was this particular chain of reaction life of the prophet Joel that occasioned his understanding the way of the Lord and the purpose of the Lord and the mind of the Lord in such a way that he went out to proclaim what the Lord had shown him. Well, so much for a little bit of the background of this book. [00:10:45] Now, what about the lessons that we can draw from it? [00:10:51] The first lesson that I want to underline is the characteristics of the day of the Lord. [00:11:00] In this little prophecy, we have emphasized and underlined very simply, lucidly and in a condensed form, the characteristics of the day of the Lord. [00:11:18] I can't this evening take time to explain what is the day of the Lord. I have to trust that most of you know this scriptural phrase and what it means. [00:11:28] If you don't, I can let you look at the notes, or you can come up and talk with me afterwards. We have, I'm afraid, studied that fully in some months ago, and we must take it for granted that you understand the phrase the day of the Lord and what it means. What are the characteristics of that day? [00:11:50] Well, one characteristic which comes out throughout the prophet Joel, and I'm again taking it for granted that, you know, what's contained within this prophecy is that terrible disasters in every sphere will usher in that day. [00:12:10] Joel saw what happened in his own day. [00:12:13] He was led to prophesy what was shortly going to come to pass in the promised land, and then from that he was led to look right off down the ages of time to the day of the Lord that would finally come, the great and terrible day of the Lord. You see, scripture admits that there are days of the Lord whenever the Lord visits a nation in judgment. It can be called a day of the Lord whenever the Lord vindicates his authority in the eyes of man by perhaps, on one hand, judgment, but on the other hand, grace, on the one hand, destroying what exists, and on the other hand, gathering out all those who will be saved. To be saved. That can be called a day of the Lord. But all is finally gathered up into what will be the final and ultimate day of the Lord. That day is going to be ushered in with the most terrible disasters. You get, of course, in scripture, in Matthew and in Luke and in the book of revelation. Some little inkling of the disasters that will be the harbingers of that day of the Lord. That is one thing, and we want to underline this, that in God's grace, he will make it peculiarly clear to the nations of this world that that day is approaching, there will of course, be scoffers. There will of course be people who will say, oh, this has always happened. But for all who would be saved, all who are in any way sensitive whatsoever, in however small a degree to God, they will see in the things that God will give as signs or portents that that day is coming. There could be no clearer theme in scripture than this. I know some people don't like it. They feel it's sort of a little bit sort of emotional and high powered and so on. But you see, the Lord Jesus again and again stressed this in his ministry. He, for instance, said this, ye hypocrites, you can tell what kind of weather it's going to be by the color of the skyd, but you say you don't know. You have no understanding what the times will be in another place. He says, you look to the west and you see what manner of day it's going to be. [00:15:00] In other words, the Lord Jesus said, there will be. For those who want to see and understand clear portents or signs of that day of the Lord, according to the prophet Joel, there will be, it will be a time of unparalleled visitations, whatever, however you like to interpret that phrase, visitations, whether it is in national catastrophes or international catastrophes, whether it is things linked with man or things linked with the natural creation, all in every sphere, there will be unrest, disturbance, breakup, disorder, disharmony. That's the thing that's going, according to the scripture, is going to usher in the day of the Lord. It is an interesting thing that every time the Lord has ever moved in the history of his dealings as recorded in scripture, it has always been after such a period, disturbance, you go right back in scripture and you will discover again and again that whatever the Lord is going to do, something is a period of disturbance. The classic example is the exodus. There was no exodus without a very real and firm and long, drawn out period of disturbance and silence, each sting following on the other in a sequence. [00:16:40] So I would like to just make that clear that we learn from the prophet Joel. The day of the Lord will be characterized by unparalleled disasters in every sphere, whether national, international or natural human, whether it is religious or whether it is political or social, economic. On every scale, there will be disasters that will produce an unsettledness and restlessness in humanity. [00:17:17] It will be a time that will be characterized by unrestrained evil of every kind. Now, here I want to turn to quite a number of scriptures. If you will turn with me, first, let us read Matthew 24. For the sake of those who don't understand English quite so well, I will read in the new English Bible, Matthew 24 nine. [00:17:54] I'm just taking out certain phrases from these passages. [00:17:59] Matthew 24 nine. You will? Then perhaps I ought to just read the last part of it. [00:18:08] Nation will make war upon nation, kingdom upon kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many places. With all these things, the birth pangs of the new age begin. Very good. [00:18:22] You will then be handed over for punishment and execution. And men of all nations will hate you for your allegiance to me. Many will lose their faith. They will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many. And as lawlessness spreads, men's love for one another will grow cold. But the man who holds out to the end will be saved, and this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the earth. As a testimony to all nations. And then the end will come. [00:18:59] Then in Luke 21. [00:19:05] Luke 21 ten again, it's the record of what he said at that time. Nation will make war upon nation, kingdom upon kingdom. There will be great earthquakes and famines and plagues in many places in the sky, terrors and great portents. [00:19:29] And then verse 25. [00:19:33] Portents will appear in sun, moon, and stars. On earth, nations will stand helpless. This is a very good translation of this particular passage. On earth, nations will stand helpless, not knowing which way to turn from the roar and the surge of the sea. Men will faint with terror at the thought of all that is coming upon the world, for the celestial powers will be shaken, and then they will see the son of man coming on a cloud with great power and glory. [00:20:06] When all this begins to happen, stand upright and hold your heads high because your liberation is near. [00:20:17] Then two Thessalonians, two Thessalonians, chapter two, verse three. [00:20:40] Two thessalonians two three. You will see the last phrase about the day of the Lord. [00:20:46] This is a little explanation of what will usher in the day of the Lord by Paul let no one deceive you in any way whatever. That day cannot come before the final rebellion against God, when wickedness will be revealed in human form. [00:21:10] The man, the man doomed to perdition. He is the enemy. He rises in his pride against every God, so called, every object of men's worship, and even takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming to be a God himself. [00:21:28] You cannot but remember that I told you this while I was still with you. You must now be aware of the restraining hand which ensures that he shall be revealed only at the proper time. [00:21:42] For already the secret power of wickedness is at work, secret only for the present, until the restrainer disappears from the scene. And then he will be revealed, that wicked man whom the Lord Jesus will destroy with the breath of his mouth and annihilate by the radiance of his coming. But the coming of that wicked man is the work of Satan. It will be attended by all the powerful signs and miracles of the lie and all the deception that sinfulness can impose on those doomed to destruction. Destroyed they shall be, because they did not open their minds to love of the truth so as to find salvation. [00:22:30] Therefore, God puts them under a delusion which works upon them to believe the lie so that they may all be brought to judgment. All who do not believe the truth make sinfulness dead of the choice. [00:22:46] And then again in one Timothy, make a note of these scriptures and go away and reflect on them as to whether this is so. [00:22:59] One Timothy, four. [00:23:02] One. [00:23:04] These two letters of Timothy, as you know, are written expressly for the end of the age. [00:23:14] The spirit says expressly that in after times some will desert from the faith and give their minds to subversive doctrines inspired by devils. Through the specious falsehoods of men whose own conscience is branded with the devil's sign. They forbid marriage and inculcate abstinence from certain foods, though God created them to be enjoyed with thanksgiving by believers who have inward knowledge of the truth. For everything that God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected when it is taken with thanksgiving, since it is hallowed by God's own word and by prayer. And then in two Timothy, chapter three. [00:24:06] Two Timothy, chapter three. [00:24:10] You must face the fact. I like that many christians remember. You must face the fact. The final age of this world is to be a time of troubles. [00:24:21] Men will love nothing. Listen, this is very good. Men will love nothing but money and self perfect description of today. [00:24:30] They will be arrogant, boastful and abusive. No respect for parents, no gratitude, no piety, no natural affection. They will be implacable in their hatreds, scandal mongers, intemperate and fierce strangers to all goodness, traitors, adventurers swollen with self importance. They will be men who put pleasure in the place of God, men who preserve the outward form of religion, but are a standing denial of its reality. Keep clear of men like these. They are the sort that insinuate themselves into private houses, and there get miserable women into their clutches. Women burdened with a sinful past and led on by all kinds of desires, who are always wanting to be taught but are incapable of reaching a knowledge of the truth. A very fitting commentary on some heresies. [00:25:33] And then two, Peter three. [00:25:43] Two, Peter three, verse three. [00:25:48] I really wish we took notice the phraseology of scripture more, because in a new version like this, it hits you, I suppose. [00:26:00] Two, Peter, three, three. Listen, note this first, the thing most of us forget. [00:26:07] In the last days. There will come men who scoff at religion and live self indulgent lives, and they will say, where now is the promise of his coming? Our fathers have been laid to their rest, but still everything continues exactly as it has always been since the world began. [00:26:28] Then if you will add to that, I am not going to read it. But if you will add to that revelation, chapter 13 and read that yourself. If you have got the new version, read it. In the new version. It will shake you. [00:26:40] The description of the last great world system that will arise at the very end with its huge economic power its authority over the economy of so many nations of the world and its power to withhold food and means of livelihood and everything of all who do not agree with it. You want to read that in the light of many things today. It will interest you very greatly. Now, these are all characteristics of the day of the Lord. You will see straight away that disasters have been mentioned. You will see that the Lord has said that he will give signs so that every person who fears him could come to a knowledge of his salvation. It will be a time that is characterized by absolute, unrestrained evil of every kind of the most lawless and unnatural and abnormal kind. [00:27:48] There will be terrible inroads according to what we have read upon the church of God. [00:27:54] The church itself, the true church of God will find that the whole lawlessness of the age will make tremendous inroads into it so that it loses its testimony. It loses the testimony of Jesus. [00:28:14] We still continue to be christians but the dynamic force in us, and thus is missing. This comes out only too clearly in Moffat's translation of Joel, verse 17 when he talks of the ministers weeping aloud crying, o eternal one, spare thy people. Leave not thy heritage to be taunted to be a byword among the pagans. [00:28:47] Why should the nation sneer wherever is thy God? That's exactly what's happened today. The church is just like that. We, God's people, are a byword amongst the pagans. They sneer at our campaigns, they laugh at our things. [00:29:05] To them, we're powerless. They don't mind us having our meetings and everything else because we are so powerless, we're so ineffective and everything else. [00:29:14] We've got the organization. We can get the people together but the world can go on uninfluenced, bad or just sneer at us. It's all make believe. It's hallucination. It's something that they're deceiving themselves into believing. And the rest of it, you see, that's what happens when the testimony is not there. When the testimony of Jesus there. There is an authority which is supernatural. There is a quality that cannot be explained which makes the men and women of this world fear. They may hate it, they may fight it, they may seek to destroy it but they can't be indifferent to it. When you just get the distant, indifferent, somewhat apathetic sneering of the world there's something wrong. [00:29:59] So these are all characteristics of the end time of the day of the Lord. Superficiality amongst God's people spiritual poverty and powerlessness division and error. These things we have read in the scriptures that we have gone through. At the same time, there is another side. The gospel will be preached to the very ends of the earth, and in every nation there will be a setting forth of the testimony. On the one hand, a church that in many ways is powerless. On the other side, tremendous missionary drive and endeavor. Then on top of that, you have many being saved. [00:30:49] You want to look for authority for these. Well, Matthew 20 414 expressly tells us that before the end comes, this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world, but a testimony unto all the nations. Then shall the end come. [00:31:10] Then another thing that strangely characterizes the day of the Lord is many being saved by simply calling upon the name of the Lord, many being saved, we shall never know till one day, when we are all in the glory, how many will in fact be gathered in, in the last throes of world history. Because undoubtedly many people, when everything drops about them and collapses and breaks up, will call upon the name of the Lord. And it's one of those singular evidences of the grace of God that he has put within his word that in that time when men will be so conscious of their sinfulness and unworthiness as to say to the rocks, fall on us and hide us from God, there he has declared that they have but to call upon the name of the Lord and they will be saved. I believe that's one of the singular evidences of God's mercy and grace. [00:32:14] So you have all these things, and in the midst of it all you have the Lord recovering, if only in a remnant, what has been lost and thus causing the end to correspond to the beginning. You remember the end of the Old Testament. [00:32:32] The house of God in the day of Malachi corresponds to its beginning with Solomon. There had been a great, terrible fall in between, but there was a return only on the part of a remnant and the rebuilding of that house. And the prophecy of Malachi tells us that suddenly the Lord shall appear in his temple, and he speaks of Elijah being sent. Of course, that has had its first fulfillment in the ministry of John the Baptist and the Lord being found within the actual temple at Jerusalem. But you remember, the Lord Jesus himself gave us the clue to the secondary fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi when he said that this John, this John the Baptist, is indeed Elijah. But I say unto you that Elijah will come before that great and notable day of the Lord. So you see, it has had a first fulfillment in John the Baptist, who came in the spirit and the power of Elijah. But it has yet another fulfillment before the great day of the Lord. In the same way, we believe that the house of God spiritually, which has gone into its eclipse through the ages, is being recovered step by step. As you read church history, there has been a recovery. And before the Lord comes back, there are some more steps to be taken, if it's in keeping with church history before that last great day. And spiritually, the Lord can suddenly appear in his temple. That, you see, is our ground for believing that the end will correspond to the beginning, that whereas you have Pentecost standing as the inception of the church, you will have a corresponding counterpart, as it were, to it at the end. [00:34:29] I will explain that a little more in a moment. [00:34:32] The actual day of the Lord. We have been talking about that which ushers in the day of the Lord. The actual day of the Lord will be one of final judgment and destruction for the unsaved world, but it will be the day of final salvation and deliverance for God's own. That is why the accent of scripture is always on our redemption or our liberation, upon the blessedness of the coming of the Lord for the saved, for those who know the Lord, and any who at that moment call upon the Lord in saving faith, it will be for them a liberation and an exodus. [00:35:16] But for all who reject it is a day of unbelievable terror and of judgment. [00:35:26] Well, that is the first lesson I wanted to draw. The characteristics of the day of the Lord, unpalatable to some, but nevertheless, you cannot, like Nelson, turn a blind eye to certain things you don't want to see. Many christians wear permanent spiritual eye patches. [00:35:46] There are certain things they will not see. I am convinced of it. Whether it's temperamental or what it is in me, I don't know. But I'm convinced that there are some people here who, if at the apostle Paul came and interpreted the prophet Jonah, would still not accept the message of the book of Jonah. They have good spiritual eye patches of the thickest material and are refusing at all costs whatever to see what is the import of that little book. In the same way you have the book of Joel, and here you have the day of the Lord. It's there for us. Some people may feel that the day of the Lord may be hundreds of years away. Yes, may be. But all the same, it may well be that we shall have a day of the Lord in our day. And that has not been unknown. It has happened again and again, even in european history. And therefore, we have to be ready and prepared and understand the principles and the characteristics of that day. They're here for us in scripture. We must not turn a blind eye to them. These are the characteristics of that day, the things by which we shall be able to tell whether we are approaching such a time. Some people say, well, now, just wait. In Luther's day, they felt just like that, and everyone wouldn't, they wouldn't even go in for much missionary endeavor in Luther's days. Those of you who know anything of church history will remember, because they were so convinced that the return of the Lord was near. [00:37:16] One of the great elements in Luther's and the reformers preaching was the coming of the Lord, the day of the Lord being so near. Of course, people say, well, you see, it never happened. But the whole point, you see, is this, that they saw trends and characteristics which marked a time of great upheaval for them. [00:37:36] And those very characteristics will only be in a much more highly developed form at the end. In other words, every time there has been a period when the Lord has vindicated himself in the eyes of men, you have a reappearance of these characteristics. They all prefigure the end. [00:37:58] I cannot explain it in any other way than that. [00:38:01] You will have it again and again. In scripture, for instance, take the Antichrist. People have with great, with great feeling, identified Antichrist, at least in my own lifetime, as Mussolini, and then later as Hitler and last year, Stalin, all of whom, dear men, are now in their graves to face the future that they have chosen. They were not Antichrist. But the folk who so feeling fully identified them as Antichrist were not wrong. They were wrong in identifying them as the Antichrist, but they were not wrong in seeing in them characteristics of the Antichrist. For every great dictator, or whatever you like, anti christian leader in history has had something of the same stamp about him, going right back to Nero and beyond Nero to Nebuchadnezzar before he was actually converted, all have got something of the same stamp. [00:39:08] And therefore you've got these characteristics reappearing. You see, it is the work of Satan. And finally, when the Antichrist appears, that he will be there in the most highly developed form of anti God, antichrist, dictatorship and leadership that the world in its long and awful history has ever known. [00:39:35] It is a feature of the end that it takes up within it all the preceding features of world history. That's the characteristics of the day of the Lord. It has a bright side, too. There will be multitudes in the valley of decision, says Joel. Multitudes. Multitudes in the valley of decision. As the day of judgment dawns, so multitudes of people, having had everything knocked away from them, will turn to the Lord. It will be a day when the gospel will be preached to the ends of the earth. And furthermore, we believe, if only in a remnant, oh, please, God, do it in all. [00:40:11] It will be a day when he will recover the meaning of his testimony within his people. [00:40:21] The second lesson I would like just to draw, or note, I would like to underline, is the dual nature of Joel's prophecy. In Joel chapter two and verse 28 to 32. [00:40:35] I say dual nature. I mean by that for those of you who don't understand the word dual, two sided, the two sided nature, the double nature of this prophecy in Joel chapter two from verse 28 to 32, the famous part of Joel, and it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. [00:41:05] Joel's prophecy was remarkable, absolutely remarkable, because he was the first to prophesy that the Lord would give his holy spirit the very spirit of God. [00:41:23] He would give the Holy Spirit as the power, the ability, the energy, dynamic force and the character of the new covenant. [00:41:37] That's a tremendous point. Of course, all of you, well, you're dulled into just boredom almost over the thought of anything to do with the Holy Spirit, because you're also known to you and everything else. But for the prophet Joel, it was the most unbelievable discovery akin to finding the atom. [00:41:57] It was a tremendous thing for him to think that the spirit of God, something that all God fearing jews could hardly mention without trembling, was going to actually be given to dwell inside God's children. There was going to come a day when the Holy Spirit would come inside and would be the meaning, the energy and the meaning and the power and the character of the kingdom that God was going to bring in. Now, if you get that, you've got the heart of Joel's message. His message was virtually this. The kingdom of God is within the Holy Spirit. [00:42:35] The new covenant of God is wholly bound up with the Holy Spirit. [00:42:41] If you have the Holy Spirit, then you have the kingdom of God. The Holy Spirit is the one who will bring the kingship of God into our lives. He will be the agent by whom the people of God will be transformed, who will write the law of God not just on the conscience, but inside their very being. You see, in other words, Joel is most remarkably New Testament, almost Pauline in his outlook. For Paul's whole emphasis was Christ in you, Christ in you. Paul's. If I may sum it up, Paul's interpretation of the christian life was Christ in you. His interpretation of the church was Christ in us. That's all so simple as that. Christ in you, that's the christian life. Christ in us is the church as simple as that. And Joel in his own way recorded that when he said, the Lord said, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. That is it. Christ by the Holy Spirit coming inside us and Christ amongst us as the Zion of God. [00:44:00] You have their whole point. But you see, this was all certainly fulfilled in a Pentecost. If you look at acts chapter two, acts chapter two, and verse 17, we'll discover that Peter said, verse 16. This is that which has been spoken through the prophet Joel. So what Joel prophesied about the Holy Spirit has in fact been fulfilled at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. But it also seems, and this is the thing I want to underline this evening, it also seems as clear that it has a second fulfillment. For if you look at Joel, chapter two and verse, and from verse 30 to 32, it says, and I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Now, the interesting thing is this, that when Peter quotes Pentecost as the fulfillment of this prophecy, he doesn't break off before then. [00:45:29] You would have thought he would have quoted it. This is that which the prophet Joel said, and the Lord will pour out his spirit on all flesh, and then just go on to where it says, even upon your men, servants and maidservants in those days will I pour out my spirit. You would think Peter would end there because no great portents appeared in the sky that as are spoken of here at that time at Pentecost. [00:45:59] So why did he go on and quote the whole lot? [00:46:04] Because it is quite clear that Peter felt by the Holy Spirit that that prophecy had a first fulfillment in its entirety at Pentecost and wants to have a further fulfillment. It was to characterize the whole age that was being initiated at Pentecost and would, above everything else, particularly characterize the consummation of that particular age. Joel most obviously speaks of it when he speaks of it as the great before the great and notable day of the Lord. [00:46:44] That is looking right on to the very end. [00:46:47] So you have here the dual nature of Joel's prophecy, and that makes it all the more important that we should really study this little book of Joel. [00:47:04] You see, it seems quite clear that this prophecy of Joel describes the inception, the character, and the completion of the New Testament age. In other words, the little phrase, I will pour out my spirit, if I may be as irreverent, to say so, is the motto of the new testament, I will pour out my spirit, that characterizes the inception, the character and progress, and the completion of the age in which all of us are in. So when the prophet Joel prophesied, he included us all in his prophecy. This little book, therefore, speaks to us. It was written for us. [00:47:57] That's a very important point. [00:47:59] So I want to draw out the next lesson, which is that Pentecost is the key to this. [00:48:04] It is the actual key to this age. Just think of the sheer impossibility of everything after Calvary, it was just impossible there. The Lord had given them a sermon on the Mount. He had taken them in those last few hours and poured out the most priceless treasures into their hearts. But it was all impossible. They had been absolutely disillusioned. Now, the lord was raised from the dead, and they were all gathered together, but it was still an impossibility. Temperamentally, they were still just their old selves, impulsive, impetuous. Peter, broken by his denial, but still the same old Peter. John, with his thunderiness, was still the old thundery John, even though he had denied and was a little bit quieter. The others were the same. All were the same themselves, temperamentally. It's a very interesting thing, and I go at one of the points of which there's been so much speculation, was it right for them to cast lots? You remember, when left of themselves, in spite of all that the lord had said, when it came to choosing the 12th apostle, they cast lots. And many people say it was all wrong. Paul should have been the 12th, and they chose the wrong one. Well, that's just speculation. We don't know. But it's very, very interesting, you see, that they went back. Listen, even though the Lord was raised, even though they'd seen him, they went back to the old Testament. They were, in fact, in the New Testament age in one sense, because Calvary was a completed fact. But they would go back and, you know, the whole point is this. If there'd been no Pentecost, the whole course of this would have been entirely different than what we know. In fact, it may well be truly question as to whether there would have been a thing today called Christianity at all. [00:50:02] It was Pentecost. That was the miracle. It was as great a miracle as exodus, as the exodus. It was the most unbelievable thing that had happened in the history of God's people. [00:50:15] Apart from Calvert. [00:50:19] At that point, Calvary became a living, vital force within people. When the Holy Spirit came, he divided and came on each one, several. [00:50:33] And immediately something happened. These people became units instead of units, became members of one body. They became parts of each other. They somehow flowed together. So far did it go that they had everything in common. They began to settle everything and all lived together. Temperamentally they were the same, but they were under the control now of one great dominating force and energy. Do you understand? [00:50:59] Calvary had come into their lives. The resurrection, which had been viewed in a detached way, had now come within them by the Holy Spirit. The teaching of Jesus, which they had listened to and known after the flesh now came onto the inside. Do you understand? And now they began to find they couldn't do certain things and they could do other things which they'd never known before. Now they began to have interpreted inside of them what the Lord had said. Now it was as if they began to say to this is that, this is that. It wasn't just the prophet Joel that they found had said something about the time they were living in. No, I expect again and again they looked at the tabernacle and someone said, why this is that? [00:51:45] And they looked at something else and someone else said, why, this is that? You see, the thing had come on the inside. The Holy Spirit was now leading them. He was opening the scriptures to them. It was an absolute revolution. I don't know if I can explain it to you. The revolution that it was, it wasn't just in the scriptures, it was in every way. Take them as a community. They were no longer just disciples of a sect called, headed by one called Jesus of Nazareth, the Nazarene. No, now they became the called out ones of God. [00:52:25] They felt that they were, well, Paul described as the body of, of the Lord himself. [00:52:31] They could find no more adequate term, no description that could adequately define what had happened to them at Pentecost, than that somehow they had become the body of their beloved lord. He was their head, but they were the body. That's the only way they could describe it. Now that's Pentecost. [00:52:52] Pentecost is the key to this age. The Book of Acts traces the triumphant story of those 1st 2040 years. [00:53:03] It's an amazing story, isn't it? Why you've got a little weak band of disciples. What are they? A bunch of fishermen for the most part. What can they do with a few peasant women in the background? What are they? What can they do? But look at them, you look through the Book of acts, and you find that this man Paul, breathing out fire and slaughter, hounding them to death. Well, the Lord just takes hold of him and just turns him upside down and flings him back into the church, and he becomes the great apostle to the gentiles. And then the whole thing begins to turn upside down. The more they're persecuted, the more they grow. So that finally, the very power of Rome is broken on this thing called Christianity. [00:53:52] Rome thought it could destroy Christianity, but it destroyed itself in trying to destroy Christianity. The more it pulverized it, the more it broke its own power. It broke its own back. So what had happened? Pentecost is the key to it. Why? Look at us today. [00:54:11] All our organizations, our numerical strength, our preaching, our money, our wealth, our knowledge, and we are not there today. [00:54:21] Why, within a few years, a few fishermen could turn the whole world upside down because of Pentecost. Pentecost was the key to it. It was not them. It was the indwelling force and power and authority of the Holy Spirit, dividing through them and literally driving out a world empire before it, turning the world upside down, snatching from the emperor's household people, and taking from the humblest form in the human system, the slaves, them as well, giving them all new hope and new life, making their members of one body. [00:55:04] Pentecost is the key to it. [00:55:07] You see, acts depicts the weaknesses as well as the blessings. That's the glory of the book of acts. It tells you, well, here's the collapse. Why, many of you, if you were there in those days, you would say to me, Ananias is the Father. [00:55:26] How can the Holy Spirit do anything? I don't know. Oh, no, no. You can't do anything. But doesn't stop the Holy Spirit. He just deals with Ananias and Sparrow, and on it goes. You get all other kinds. Stephen's stone to death, James is beheaded. But it doesn't stop the Holy Spirit. On he goes, you see? Oh, you get error within the church. You get deception within the church. You get all kinds of immorality inside the church, but it doesn't stop the Holy Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit is the key, not man. [00:55:55] You can have all the nobility and good works of Mandev in the name of Christ and the things, powerless and static. You can get the Holy Spirit with all the weaknesses of men and the things. A living dynamo. You cannot stop it. [00:56:12] The key to it is Pentecost. [00:56:15] Without the miracle of Pentecost, it could never have happened. Never have happened. The thing would never have gone off to such a, a flying start, if you like. [00:56:27] It couldn't have happened. The Holy Spirit, therefore, is the character of this age. Oh, and this is, in a few words, an explanation of church history. [00:56:38] The Holy Spirit is the character of this age. On the personal level, everything depends on our apprehension of the Holy Spirit. Do you know that? Have you got peace? If you haven't got peace, it's because you're not. You don't know. You haven't discovered the Holy Spirit yet. Have you got love? Well, if you haven't got love, it's because you've not discovered the Holy Spirit yet. Have you really got any real life, living, a living vitality, spiritually? But if you haven't, it's because you haven't discovered the Holy Spirit. The christian life is holy and completely bound up with the Holy Spirit. There is no christian life apart from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the christian life. He brings Christ into us and then works Christ out in us. [00:57:27] You understand? On the personal level, therefore, the Holy Spirit is the key to this age. Even the Old Testament saints, with all God's dealings with them, hadn't got the glory of the indwelling Holy Spirit. [00:57:42] What a responsible. [00:57:44] Some of us, we look at the failure of God's people under the old covenant and we are a little censorious when we forget that we who fail so miserably, miserably under the new, have in fact a far greater responsibility. We have the Holy Spirit of God within us as born again believers. [00:58:03] But on the corporate level, the Holy Spirit is the key to this age. He's the character of this age. The church is born by the Holy Spirit, the church is formed by the Holy Spirit. The church is developed by the Holy Spirit, it is sustained by the Holy Spirit. It is led by the Holy Spirit and it is perfected by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the key to the church. If you divorce the Holy Spirit from the church, you haven't got the church. [00:58:37] Many things we call churches are not churches if they are divorced from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the very meaning of the word church. [00:58:48] Spiritually, he is the one who brings the church in, makes the church real. [00:58:55] He produces the church. Pentecost is the birth of the church. And every time you get the church covered, it's a work of the Holy Spirit. Every time a church comes into being, it's planted, it's born of the Holy Spirit, it's begotten of the Holy Spirit and its whole development and sustenance and leadership and perfection is in the hands of the Holy Spirit. [00:59:19] Everything in church history can be determined by the measure of the Holy Spirit. Sovereignty. Now do listen to that. If you forget everything else I say this evening, everything in church history can be measured by the Holy Spirit sovereignty. [00:59:39] If the Holy Spirit is quenched. [00:59:43] When the Holy Spirit is quenched, it's always the cause of departure, of collapse, spiritual collapse. When the Holy Spirit is enthroned, it is always the cause of recovery. So every single new move in church history, whether it be the Puritans, whether it be the Quakers, whether it be the Methodists, whether it be the Moravians, whether it be the reformers, whatever it is, whether it be the brethren, every single move in church history has begun with the Holy Spirit being enthroned. [01:00:19] As soon as the Holy Spirit was enthroned, suddenly the life of God floods out and millions of people literally are swept into the kingdom. When you look back in retrospect, every time it is the same. And as soon as man takes the place of the Holy Spirit and edges out the Holy Spirit, then the thing becomes a denomination and an organization and an institution. Church history is cluttered, as you well know, with spiritual whites of lot turned to pillars of salt, monuments that now remain of something that once was a dynamic force for God, which long since has departed, has become just a monument in stone. [01:01:08] The world is like a graveyard christendom, with just the great stone tombstone here died so and so, born such and such a time, died such and such. When were they born? When they enthroned the Holy Spirit. When did it die? When it disenthroned the Holy Spirit. All church history you look is the same. You understand what I'm getting at? My whole point is that the character of this New Testament age is the Holy Spirit. He is the key to everything, to every move that there has been in church history. The Holy Spirit is the key discovery of a personal, intimate, direct life in God through the Holy Spirit. When Luther suddenly saw justification by faith, it was as if the Holy Spirit got inside of him. That's all. From that point the reformation began. So you can go back to all other points at which God has done something and you'll always find the same. And if all this is true of the beginning and progress of this age, how much more should it be true of its end? [01:02:18] You understand, if the Holy Spirit is the key and the character, the beginning and the progress, how much more of the end? [01:02:28] And do you not think that the end will require at least as deep if not an even deeper discovery of the Holy Spirit in his sovereignty, authority and power? [01:02:44] That's my point this evening, point in which we're breaking a little new ground. Do you not think so? [01:02:52] Is it not true of God that if world conditions will worsen and worsen and worsen, things come out in their most full and final form of wickedness and strength? Do you not also think that the Lord will give grace sufficient to the time of need? Do you not think that there would be, therefore, a giving and a release of the Holy Spirit and authority and ability that will match Pentecost for the end? [01:03:26] That's the point I'm trying to get at. And therefore, can we not look for a further and final fulfillment of Joel's great prophecy? I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. I am not saying that Pentecost can be repeated. No, I am saying that in church history, again and again in periods of crisis, you have had a pouring out of the Holy Spirit Spirit and nothing else and nothing more has been the simple key to the rise and dynamic development of the different moves of God's Holy Spirit. Of course, if you don't agree with me, well, I can only point you to the house of Cornelius and tell you that there was a little Pentecost after Pentecost, and a little later, there was another little Pentecost somewhere else. Of course, we're not saying that Pentecost can ever be reproduce in exactly the same way. That was the inception of the church. [01:04:27] That was the inception of the church. But the Holy Spirit is the key. [01:04:33] And when we are divorced from the Holy Spirit through traditional, through other things, through coldness of heart, well, when suddenly a group of people begin to seek the Lord and ask, oh, that the Holy Spirit shall have his way in a new way, there can be a pouring out of the Holy Spirit sufficient to the need, and the results are always dynamic. [01:04:55] So to sum up everything, I think we can sum it up like there is a vital necessity of an outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the end of this age. [01:05:11] That is the thing, I believe that both Joel saw and Peter saw when he refused to stop quoting when it obviously referred to the very end. [01:05:22] The Holy Spirit is the alpha and the omega of the New Testament age. [01:05:30] He is the Alphabet of the New Testament age. If, as we've suggested, the end is to correspond to the beginning, we need a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. If anyone thinks it can just be by our own energy or something else, I must say to you, in all love that I think you are very much mistaken. [01:05:49] We have proved it in the 20th century with all our, I was going to say dynamic organization and numerical strength and everything else. We are nowhere near the New Testament, nowhere near it. We've got it all. We've got the. The strength, we've got the preaching, we've got the money. [01:06:10] Truly we're Laodicea. But we have not got the authority and power in a dynamic way of the Holy Spirit. [01:06:20] That is the point. [01:06:22] I can't see that anything else could possibly open our blind eyes, transform our narrow prejudices, break out of our temperamental dispositions. [01:06:35] I'm not only talking about this little company here, but of God's people generally, and lift us into a new level of spiritual life in which all denominational barriers and divisions and everything else take a secondary place. It has always happened when there's been an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. [01:06:51] I know people will question what I'm saying this evening. If you're listening to what I'm saying, not asleep, it should raise some questions. The forces against us are so strong and insidious that there is no alternative left open to us than an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. [01:07:09] No, no alternative. [01:07:13] Church history bears this out. In the successive outpourings of the Holy Spirit that there have been. And in every single outpouring there has been always a recovery of something, whether it was with Luther, justification by faith, which may have been taken to excess, but it was recovered later. The Quakers discovered another wonderful truth. What was the truth? The Quakers discovered the inward communion with the Lord. We owe it to the Quakers. What was it after them, with their inward communion with the Lord and with one another. What was it after them? Well, you can go if you wish to later to the Methodists, with their great emphasis on entire sanctification. [01:07:55] Most of us forget that Wesley's great emphasis was entire sanctification. It wasn't just being saved, it was an entire sanctification. You go to the brethren. They've recovered something else of church life and particularly of the coming again of the Lord. You go to the Moravians, they have recovered for us what real service is. Their great feature was service, sacrificial service. There were always two thirds as many of their folk out in the most godless and hardest places of the world as compared with those at home. One third a home compared with two thirds out. They died like flies wherever they went. Rows of tombstones mark the place where they went to, chose the hardest places, the first people to enter Tibet, the first people to enter the Arctic, the first people to get down to the Antarctic, all Moravians. [01:08:49] So you see all these successive recoveries, where did they all begin? They began with an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. [01:08:56] You read church history? Some of us suffer from a lack of reading. I'm afraid we don't read things as we should. Do you read church history? We read some good books on church history and you'll begin to have your ideas turned upside down by church history. Because, you see, the key to it all has been the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Now then, just mark one thing. We ought to note and learn not only the glories of those outpourings but the failures. [01:09:26] Because you see, most people always say this about revival. Oh well, revival is very superficial. You know, when you have an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. When there's a revival everyone goes up there and then within a few years and all down there again. Yes, that's exactly what happened with Pentecost. [01:09:41] The Holy Spirit came in a dynamic force. Within 2030 years the whole thing was breaking up. Paul had to write about things going wrong everywhere. It was beginning to become institutional and organizational by what we call the sub apostolic period. The whole thing had come into a set rigid system, systematic, systematic form of God. [01:10:05] A change from the organic to the organized. Within the matter of a generation the thing had taken place. This has happened every time. You take the great wesleyan revival or I won't call it Wesley, we'll call it the methodist revival of the mid 18th century. Look at it, look what it did. It reflected every single strata of God's people. It doesn't matter whether they were Anglican, Methodists, Calvinists, Moravian, whatever they were, were all affected by that tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But within a matter of ten years Wesley Whitefield, Moravian split up into three branches. It was the failure of the outpouring of the spirit. Go back earlier and take the puritan tremendous moving of the Holy Spirit in the Puritanyah. Then what going to happen? Why go upstairs and look in the library, take out some of the old first editions that there are up there and look in the fly leaf and the title page and you will find at the bottom minister of the Gospel and the church of God at so and so. [01:11:07] Preacher of the gospel at the chin, the church of God at so and so. These were Anglicans, so called. It seems rather strange to us as we view it. This is New Testament language and it was New Testament practice. Then came the act of conformity. Out were ejected 2000 godly men from their places of worship. And what happened? Instead of the thing going on in a united stream, the whole thing broke up into independents, congregationalists, Presbyterians, and so on. [01:11:41] And in space of just the one people of God division, you've got the same with the great brethren move of the Holy Spirit for 20 years, the brethren move the move of the Holy Spirit, and what we now call the open brethren, or the brethren, spread over the whole english speaking world into scandinavia, out into Switzerland, France, Germany, and right out in all the english speaking colonies of the world. [01:12:10] 20 years of unparalleled movement, so that people spoke sneeringly of finding brethren everywhere. [01:12:21] And then what happened? Darby Groves, muller broke. [01:12:30] And from that point, gradually, the great division took place everywhere. [01:12:37] It's begun to subside and die. You see, we have the glories of the outpourings of the Holy Spirit. We have the failures. [01:12:46] It was there in the beginning with Pentecost, and it's been there ever since. So I would like, therefore, just to finally say this last word on the top of all this, the vital necessity of an outpouring pouring of the Holy Spirit. In the end, at the end of this age, you see, we have not only the evidence and authority of Pentecost, but we have the evidence and authority of church history behind us if we are to really take the final step or steps that are necessary before the Lord can come back, whether it is actually at this point in time or whether it is another hundred years or not, we will need a supernatural, heaven sent release of the Holy Spirit, comparable in some ways to Pentecost, which will carry us out of our ruts above our divisions into a new experience of the Lord, and on into the realization of God's purpose. [01:13:59] We apologize to the listener, but the original recording of Lance run out at this point, and the last about four minutes of the recording is missing.