Just as the former and late rains produced the harvests of grain and fruit, so also did the Teacher of Righteousness (Joel 2:23) bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Nature is a metaphor for spiritual principles, because the laws of nature are based on the laws of the Spirit.

The laws of God have two applications, physical and spiritual, each in their own realms. Joel blends the two, using the double meaning of Hebrew words to present both applications of rain and harvest.

Joel 2:24 says,

²⁴ The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil.

On a physical level, the blessing of God manifests in terms of good harvests of wine and olive oil. On a spiritual level, we ourselves bear fruit, manifesting the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23).

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentle-ness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

James 5:7 indicates that God is a farmer who patiently awaits the fruit of the ground to grow and mature. We are made of the dust of the ground, and we are ultimately the “land” that bears fruit that God may enjoy.

Because of Adam’s sin, this growth season has taken thousands of years but He will be rewarded when we are changed into His image, given immortality, and made incorruptible.

Restoration

Joel 2:25 continues,

²⁵ Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust and the gnawing locust, My great army which I sent among you.

This refers back to Joel 1:4, where locusts are a metaphor for divine judgment—the result of Israel’s violation of the covenant by which they had vowed obedience to God. God takes credit for sending these “locusts” into their midst, calling them “My great army.” God sent them, and God also removes them.

Their disobedience was a spiritual problem manifested by injustice against their neighbors on earth. By their sin (violation of the law—1 John 3:4), they incurred the judgment of God, which was the natural result of their refusal to bear fruit in their personal lives. Joel, however, prophesies of the day when this will be reversed through the New Covenant, for this is the promise of God.

The promise to Abraham was that he would be a blessing to all families of the earth (Gen. 12:3). In Acts 3:25, 26 Peter interprets the word “bless” in terms of turning everyone from their wicked ways. In other words, God’s promise to Abraham was that all nations, all families of the earth, will be turned from their wicked ways.

This is a promise, not only to the few who are actually turned during their lifetime, but also to the vast majority of humanity when they are summoned to the great White Throne for judgment. There “every knee will bow” and “every tongue will confess (or profess) that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10, 11).

Only when all have submitted to the rule of Jesus Christ will God’s harvest be completed. 1 Cor. 15:28 says,

²⁸ When all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.

This is the “restoration of all things” (Acts 3:21).

The Time of Abundance

Joel 2:26 says,

²⁶ You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; then My people will never be put to shame.

When the Kingdom is established, and righteous laws govern the people, the effect will be seen on both levels. The people will adhere to the New Covenant and will believe and see the promise of God fulfilled. The people will then bear the fruit of the Spirit, and the land itself will produce fruit as well.

Joel 2:27 concludes,

²⁷ Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other; and My people will never be put to shame.

God’s presence was with Israel in the form of the pillar of fire when they left Egypt under Moses. His glorious presence was lost in the days of Eli and was later returned to fill Solomon’s temple. A few centuries later, the glory of God again was removed from Jerusalem (Ezekiel 11:23).

The glory of God came again in the Person of Christ, but He was rejected by the temple priests. So the glory was given to the disciples on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:1, 2. The overcomers have carried that glory in each generation to the present time, but the greater glory of Tabernacles awaits us at the end of the age. The scope of glory will expand increasingly in the days ahead until ultimately all have been subjected to the rule of Christ and all manifest His glory in the earth.

The Promise of the Spirit

Joel 2:28, 29 says,

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.

Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost cites this prophecy as being fulfilled at that time (Acts 2:17, 18). Yet it was only a beginning, for obviously, not “all mankind” received the Spirit at that time. It was, however, a starting point in a new era, which I call the Pentecostal Age.

The day referred back to the original Pentecost (then called the Feast of Weeks), when the glory of God came down on Mount Horeb and the people all heard the voice of God speaking out of the fire (Deut. 4:36). So also, the 120 disciples saw the glory of God descend upon their foreheads as “tongues as of fire” (Acts 2:3).

When they went out into the street, those who had traveled to Jerusalem to attend the feast then heard the voice of God speaking through the disciples, each in his own language (Acts 2:6). We are not told the message that they heard, but possibly it was again the Ten Commandments, as it happened under Moses.

The main difference is that the Israelites under Moses were unable to hear without fear, and so they refused to follow Moses up the Mount to hear the rest of the law (Exodus 20:21), while the 120 disciples gathered in the upper room to hear His law (Acts 1:13).

The result was that the Israelites under Moses had to receive the law on tablets of stone (external), whereas Jesus’ disciples received the law written on their hearts, as prophesied in Jeremiah 31:33. The Israelites, being unable to hear God directly, could hear only Moses telling them what God said. Jesus’ disciples received the ability to be taught directly by God through the Spirit. This is one of the main differences between the Old and New Covenant.

Another comparison is in the coronation of King Saul, who was crowned on the day of wheat harvest (1 Sam. 12:17), that is, the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost). Saul had also received the Holy Spirit as a sign that he was truly called to be Israel’s king. 1 Sam. 10:6 says,

⁶ Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man.

This occurred shortly afterward, and so Saul became a prophetic type of the Church in the Pentecostal Age. More specifically, Saul set the pattern for Church leadership during the Pentecostal Age. He had a genuine calling, but he was not from the tribe of Judah. Hence, he later rebelled against the word of the Lord and was disqualified.

This set the pattern for Church leadership as well. Saul was replaced by David, the overcomer, who was crowned on the 59^th Jubilee from Adam. The Jubilee set the basic framework of David’s calling, even as Pentecost had set the framework for Saul’s calling.

We are now poised to see the second coming of Christ and the rule of the overcomers with Him in the Tabernacles Age to come.

One final thought about Joel’s prophecy of the Spirit is that the Spirit would be poured out upon “the male and female servants.” This glory was not reserved for the few nor for the ruling class. In fact, the rulers of the people were not even mentioned here.

Likewise, Joel essentially declares a certain equality between male and female, reminiscent of Gal. 3:28,

²⁸ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is the common denominator of all types of people. He does not discriminate.

Signs in the Heavens

Joel 2:30-32 says,

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 upon 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.

Peter quoted this without explanation or commentary in his Pentecostal sermon in Acts 2:19-21. He understood that this passage was attached to the Pentecostal prophecy in Joel 2. The question is HOW? There were no such signs recorded on Pentecost.

When Jesus was crucified, more than seven weeks earlier, there was blood—His blood—at the scene, but where was the fire? Where were the columns of smoke? Perhaps the blood was a reference to turning “the moon into blood,” which is actually a lunar eclipse, where the moon turns blood red.

We know from history and astronomy that there was a lunar eclipse visible from Jerusalem, beginning at 5:10 p.m. on April 3, 33 A.D. We also know that at noon on the day of His crucifixion the sun was darkened for three hours (Luke 23:44). This had to be a supernatural event, because it is not possible from a natural point of view to have both a solar and a lunar eclipse on the same day.

Yet with the absence of fire and smoke, it appears that not all the signs prophesied by Joel actually came to pass at the Passover prior to the outpouring of the Spirit that year. This compels us toward the view that the remaining signs will occur at a later time “before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”

Some have claimed that the day of Pentecost was this “day of the Lord” and that the signs occurred seven weeks “before” the day of the Lord. If so, then this would be a positive fulfillment of the day of the Lord, in contrast to the more negative arrival of the locusts. Verse 32 speaks of deliverance, or salvation, to all who call upon the name of the Lord. The “survivors” who “escape” might be viewed as the believers escaping the judgment upon Jerusalem.

There is a problem, though, in trying to pack all of these events into the feasts of Passover and Pentecost in 33 A.D. If the “fire” was to come prior to the day of the Lord, it could hardly be said that it was fulfilled on Pentecost in the tongues of fire. If the fire was indeed a reference to the tongues of fire, then this was a precursor to the day of the Lord, and we ought to look for a later fulfillment for the day of the Lord—perhaps at the end of the age.

Nonetheless, the total absence of the “columns of smoke” at Passover and Pentecost alike seems to point to a later fulfillment at the end of the Pentecostal Age.

Destruction in the Day of the Lord

Most of the Old Testament prophets give a negative outcome for the day of the Lord. We already noted from Joel 1:15 that “it will come as destruction from the Almighty.” Isaiah 13:6, 9 agrees, saying,

⁶ Wait, for the day of the Lord is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty… ⁹ Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, cruel, with fury and burning anger, to make the land a desolation; and He will exterminate its sinners from it.

This is part of a prophecy against Babylon. But when Babylon fell to the Persians, it was captured intact. There were no signs in the heavens, nor was the land made desolate. In fact, most of the Babylonians were “sinners,” but they were not exterminated. They became citizens of the Persian empire.

But there are two Babylons: the original city (empire) and later the secret government of Mystery Babylon that is described in the book of Revelation. Mystery Babylon is primarily a financial empire pictured in Revelation 13 as a beast rising from the earth. The destruction of the financial and banking system will (I believe) be similar to the fall of the original Babylon. It will be a change of management.

This destruction appears to correlate with the utter destruction of Jerusalem prophesied in Jer. 19:10, 11 and in Isaiah 29:1-6. If so, this would imply that Mystery Babylon is a world government centered in Jerusalem.

Past or Present?

2 Thess. 2:1-3 says,

¹ Now we request you, brethren, with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, ² that you not be quickly shaken from your composure or be disturbed either by a spirit or a message or a letter as if from us, to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. ³ Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not come unless the apostasy come first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed [or “exposed”], the son of destruction [“perdition”].

Paul clearly understood that the day of the Lord was yet future when he wrote this epistle. This was long after the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. Those who insist that the day of the Lord took place the day Christ died on the cross or seven weeks after His resurrection on Pentecost are clearly wrong.

We must conclude, then, that the signs preceding the day of the Lord are probably future as well. It is hard to know how to interpret the sun being darkened. We saw a series of four blood moons in 2014-2015, which may qualify as the signs in question. The fire and columns of smoke, however, are probably a description of the destruction of Jerusalem in the near future.

Calling on the Name of the Lord

Joel tells us that when this destruction comes, survival will be a matter of calling on the name of the Lord. From a Christian perspective, of course, this means calling upon the name of Jesus Christ.

This deliverance was foreshadowed in 68 or 69 A.D. when the Christians saw the impending disaster coming upon Jerusalem. They escaped by moving to the east side of the Jordan River to the city of Pella. The war had already started in 66 A.D., but the Roman emperor Nero died in June of 68, and the war was put on pause until April of 70 A.D.

It was during that pause that the Christians, remembering Jesus’ warnings in Matthew 24 and also hearing prophecies from the church prophets, packed their belongings and moved out of Jerusalem. The fourth-century Christian historian, Eusebius, who later became the bishop of Caesarea, wrote about this:

“Furthermore, the members of the Jerusalem church, by means of an oracle given by revelation to acceptable persons there, were ordered to leave the City before the war began and settle in a town in Perea called Pella. To Pella, those who believed in Christ migrated from Jerusalem.” [Eccl. Hist., III, 5]

The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. partially fulfilled the prophecies, but not all of them. We know this because the city was later rebuilt. Therefore, the prophecy in Jeremiah 19:10, 11 of the broken jar still has a future fulfillment that satisfies the judgment of God:

¹⁰ Then you are to break the jar in the sight of the men who accompany you, ¹¹ and say to them, “Just so will I break this people and this city, even as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot again be repaired, and they will bury in Topheth [“burning”] because there is no other place for burial.

Jerusalem has been destroyed many times, but it has always been “repaired” or rebuilt afterward. In order for this prophecy to be fulfilled, it must be destroyed so completely that rebuilding it will be impossible.

Mere demolition is normally reversible, but if there is a nuclear event, then the radioactive fallout (“fire”) would make it impossible to rebuild. This, I believe, is why the dead will be buried in Topheth. Topheth was a place where the people sacrificed their children to Molech in the valley of Ben-hinnom (Greek: Gehenna) next to Jerusalem. Hence, its name means “burning.”

This was the primary cause for Jeremiah’s prophecy against Jerusalem (Jer. 19:5). This practice ceased when the people were exiled to Babylon, and so God allowed the city to be rebuilt and to flourish for another season. But in the end, the sin of Jerusalem would have to catch up with them, because the city’s cup of iniquity had become full, and the final judgment had been rendered.

The only mercy factor is the deliverance of those who call upon the name of the Lord. Individuals will certainly be delivered, but not the city or its people as a whole.

The sacrificed children, being burnt in the fire, received no proper burial. The judgment will fit the crime, therefore, and, as Jeremiah tells us, “they will bury in Topheth [“burning”] because there is no other place for burial.” It appears that a nuclear “fire” will prevent normal burials but the bodies will be “buried” by the burning fire itself.

In a related prophecy, we read of Jerusalem’s destruction under the poetic name “Ariel” (Isaiah 29:1-6). Here God speaks directly to the city, vowing to destroy it to the ground. Ariel has a double meaning in Hebrew. It was supposed to be the “lion of God,” (from aryah, “lion”), but God was to turn it into a “fireplace” or hearth

I have heard that there are Jewish Christian groups in Jerusalem today who stand ready to leave the city when God instructs them. I thank God that at least a few will be delivered in the day of the Lord.