In this episode, we turn to Joel 2:28–32. In this passage, the prophet spoke about the Messianic outpouring of God’s Spirit. During the end times, the Spirit will come on all people and everyone who calls on the Lord will be saved. Our guest, Randall, helps us better understand this passage and shares how the words of the prophet are being fulfilled in Israel today.

Welcome to Our Hope,

a production of Chosen People Ministries.

On this podcast you will hear inspiring

testimonies, learn about Messianic apologetics

and discover God's plan for Israel and you.

Wherever you're listening, we hope you lean in,

listen closely and be blessed.

In John 15:26, Jesus said,

“When the Helper comes, whom

I will send to you from the Father,

that is the Spirit of truth

who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.”

Jesus often spoke of the Spirit,

which He would send after returning to the Father.

The unprecedented outpouring of God’s Spirit on the early

church is a prominent theme in the New Testament.

Through the Spirit, the believers

boldly spread the gospel, bravely faced opposition,

and even performed miracles such as healing diseases

and raising the dead.

So, what exactly is the relationship

between the Messiah and the Spirit?

The book of Joel offers us a clue.

The prophet

Joel speaks of a day when God’s

Spirit will come upon the whole world.

This amazing event is connected to the end times,

when the sun will darken and the moon will turn to blood

when God will deliver those who call on Him.

On today’s episode, our guest Randall, who serves God’s chose

people in Israel, will help us understand

what Joel says about the messianic

outpouring of the Spirit—and how it relates to Israel today.

I now introduce the host of Our Hope Podcast, Abe Vazquez!

Welcome back, everyone.

This is Abe Vazquez again.

I'm so excited to be with you all.

I'm really excited to jump into this topic,

the Messianic outpouring of the spirit

and we have someone from Israel who is going to talk with us.

And it's the first time we've brought him on this episode.

So Randall, thank you so much for joining us.

We're excited to have you. Randall: Hey, thanks Abe.

Great to be with you.

So, Randall,

since this is your first time, you know,

we always ask this question for a first time guest.

It's a pretty critical question.

So what is your absolute favorite food?

My favorite food?

Well, let me think about that.

Well, I like Chinese food.

And since we're involved in Jewish stuff,

you know, they always joke about Chinese food

that doesn't really work in Israel. So,

I like spicy food.

Yeah.

You know, I was actually born in Texas,

so I grew up with jalapeno peppers, you know?

Yeah. So spicy food all the way.

That's kind of general, but maybe that gets your question.

Yeah, I love some spicy food.

That is awesome.

Well, there's this, there's this dish from Yemen

called schug, schug.

And schug.

You can actually make it at home. It's hot.

Green bell peppers and cardamom and some other cool stuff.

And it's just great.

It's like a it's like an addition to your food.

It's like the ketchup of Israel.

So there you go.

The last time I went to Israel, I had some Yemeni food.

Yeah, I had some Yemeni food.

It was absolutely delicious.

Oh, cool, cool.

It's a melting pot, so you get

you get stuff from everywhere here.

Yeah, yeah.

So speaking of Israel, what is your favorite place in Israel?

Well, you know, we're tour guides, my wife and I, so

we kind of had to learn places and go and hang out in places.

So in like kind of serious site,

but a very special site in the

around the Sea of Galilee.

And it's in Magdala, that's where Mary Magdalene

was from, and it's a cool old ruined city

And they found there a synagogue that no doubt Jesus taught in.

So here's this like synagogue there.

I don't know if you've been.

Yeah, I have. It's it's awesome.

Well, they have this carved stone,

this like heavy carved stone that they found there

in the synagogue, in the middle that they would prop a

scroll on.

It's like tilted and somebody carved

that stone with symbols from the temple that saw it.

There was somebody that saw the temple,

they were eyewitnesses,

so they carved the menorah and some other stuff.

And to me, that's pretty cool.

Yeah.

Speaking of Israel, we've been keeping an eye

on the headlines coming out of Israel.

For any listeners who want to hear some news from Israel,

you can sign up for our Inside

Israel newsletter at chosenpeople.com/insideisrael.

Just a plug there.

But we know that during COVID, Israel

has had some ups and downs.

I think now things are slowly moving back to normal.

So what are some ways you are ministering in Israel

as the Delta variant calms down?

Well, you

know that we, Chosen People Beth Sar Shalom has two centers

one in Jerusalem, one in Ramat Gan, the business center.

And activities, things are still going on.

Israel really has not been as chaotic

as some of our North American friends have experienced.

So life goes on in many ways.

And for instance, my wife and I went on Saturday,

as we often do to a day center where

several of the Messianic

congregations pass out food and hang out with people

that are drug addicts and prostitutes.

And that's really cool because, you know,

when people are kind of down

and out, a lot of times they're more more apt to listen

Have a great conversation.

Another thing we like to do is going to the shoot.

The Souk is the Jewish open market in Jerusalem.

And when you come, you have to go there.

It's all these shops and, you know, bright colors, people

with vegetables and fruit, and we just start conversations

So we got a little bored

with kind of trying to wait and see, well, maybe we can tur

the conversation, talk about eternal things.

So we ordered, our know, carrots or whatever

and then we say, "Hey, by the way, we're Messianic,"

which here means we believe in Jesus,

and we even say, "Hey, that means we believe in Jesus.

And you know, it's amazing the conversations you get.

It's not like you might expect, maybe

where you are, your experience.

It's just very special here.

And people's, "Yeah, I know a Messianic guy

I served with in the army." Or, "Oh,

you're like these other people and I know them."

We've had some great talks, great talks.

That's awesome.

So, Randall,

before we dive into the main scripture passage,

give us a little bit of a backdrop.

What can you tell us about this, this section of the Bible

that we're going to talk about?

Joel Chapter 2 verses 28 through 32.

But but

let's kind of see the big picture.

What's the context of this book and the prophet Joel?

When did he live?

What was his focus?

What other details should we know

before we really dive in?

Yeah, sure.

Good question.

And Joel is is a kind of mysterious figure.

Now the name Joel, Yoel in Hebrew, it just means like twic

God, there's El and then there is Yoe,

which is short for Yahweh or Jehovah.

We don't know when he lived.

We don't know where he was prophesying.

And we don't know

really his audience other than it was the people of Israel.

So a couple of theories there there are two pre-exilic

theories, the exile of the Jewish

people from Israel was 586 B.C., so there is a theory of

very early before that, then just before that,

and then there's a theory that

that may have been after the

exile Now the temple was around that's mentioned.

So if it was after the exile.

It would have been after the rebuilding

of the temple in like 516 B.C., and his father's

name, Pethuel, only time mentioned in the Bible.

So there we go.

That's kind of a quick background.

Well, before we dive into the prophecy,

it's important that we read it first.

So I'm just going to read real quick

these verses Joel 2:28 through 32.

"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

even on the male and female servants

I will pour out My Spirit in those days.

I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth,

blood, fire and columns of smoke.

The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into bloo

before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.

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." Abe: Randall,

just for context, this season we've been practicing listening

to scripture.

You know, a lot of times we make reference to the scripture

but those who are listening may not have,

you know, time to open their Bible

or they're on the road or something.

And so we're just practicing this, this act of listening

to the word of God and I absolutely love it.

I would love some of our viewers

or listeners to let us know how they are enjoying it.

But Randall, I'm just curious,

what is your initial reaction after just hearing this text?

I think I think the first thing I think about is,

when is this, what's

what's it talking about, you know, anticipates

I know, I know the answer because we're moving to Acts 2,

you know, we'll be talking about that.

I think you have to think, well, what comes before this?

And the prophet Joel, there's there's this judgment.

There's the, you know, the Jewish

people suffered a locust plague and then there was

some kind of army that was marching.

So some bad times.

But then a time of repentance and a famous verse

a lot of people know "I will restore to you the year

the locusts have eaten." So it's a time where God's

also being really faithful and gracious to Jewish people.

And then right after those verses that

that we're, you know, we've listened to,

you have

this multitudes in the Valley of Decision, the Day of the Lor

and destruction on some local enemies as well.

So these were like, it's very emotive, it's very powerful.

It's kind of gripping celestial signs, you know?

Right.

And if we want to really understand this verse

we could definitely look at the face value of the text.

But we can go even deeper by looking at the Hebrew,

the original Hebrew of this verse.

So the Hebrew word in Joel 2:28 that most translations put as

"spirit" is "ruach", which can mean spirit, breath or wind.

Randall, how do we know if this passage

is referring to the Holy Spirit

as we understand it as believers,

or if it's referring to something else?

Randall: Well, it's a good question.

And people talk a lot about spirit and wind,

and it's important to know breath.

If you look at the context of the whole Hebrew Bible,

the Old Testament, if you look at the Hebrew Bible

you see the story and you can go all the way back to Genesis.

So Genesis 12, God promises I'm going to bless the world.

He says, I'm going to make you a nation, but

all the families on Earth will be blessed.

And then Ezekiel, you look at the prophets.

Ezekiel 39,

"I won't hide My face anymore from them.

Pour out My Spirit on the House of Israel." Zachariah 12, God's

going to pour His Spirit on the Jewish people in a way

that they're going to be like, "Oh man, what has happened?

What have we done?" And they're going to

look at the one they have pierced.

Very vivid, Isaiah 44, "Pour out water on the thirsty land,

streams on the dry ground." And then you come to Joel

now moving right on to the New Testament.

You've got John

where Jesus says the helper,

the Holy Spirit and the Father will send in My name.

I mean that is so vivid.

He is going to teach you

all things because Jesus would be leaving them.

Then John 20, Jesus breathes on the disciples and says,

"Receive the Holy Spirit." While there

is some kind of experience, even before Pentecost, where

and then you have you have Acts itself.

So and then we have a whole set of Jewish interpretations, too.

So, I don't think you can come to a word like "ruach".

And in the Hebrew Bible, oh that's

the wind of God, or that's the force of God.

It's something much stronger than that.

I think, I think we might be talking later, too

about Messiah and Spirit, but that's just

special.

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And now, back to our program.

One thing I love about these verses

in Joel,

is that they remind me of Romans 2:11,

which says that there is no partiality with God

These verses in Joel emphasized that everyone,

no matter what their age, their gender

or their role in society, young, old, men, women,

everybody receives God's spirit.

Why is the universal aspect of this prophecy so crucial?

Well, I think that's something really special

about Judaism and Christianity or Messianic faith,

New Testament New Testament belief

is that universal, now when it says, "I'll pour out

My Spirit on all flesh," I think what I think, what

those words mean, it's not just like, hey,

everyone's just going to do a certain thing,

it means that this outpouring is available for everyone.

Now, that's very special.

For instance, in the Roman world, a third

or fourth of all people were slaves.

Can you imagine?

I mean, you didn't have, you would just have really

limited rights, where you could go, who you were,

and there included.

Then you have the whole, you have an agenda,

where men and women are equal at the foot of the cross

when we come to Jesus we're co-heirs.

And that was that's that's a real trendsetter.

You know, the the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, there

are these four

ladies in the genealogy of the Messiah

You know, I mean, these are

really unusual things for that time.

And then you have, of course,

no age gap or young person or an old person.

This outpouring that God promises is available for all.

You know, I'm I'm married to a lovely Jewish person, and

we were watching something about Ruth today.

You know, Ruth, she was from Moab, this enemy state.

And you know, I as a non-Jew,

I wasn't an

enemy of the Jewish people, but I got included in this thin

because if you look at the prophecies and in

and in the Tanakh, in the Hebrew

Bible, it's really for Israel, but

God has extended these promises to reach the world.

That's really cool. Nicole: Amen.

We get to be grafted into the Kingdom of God.

Randall,

as I listen

to Nicole reading the scripture, you know, you can't help

but see that one of the main themes

and really in the whole book of Joel is the Day of the Lord.

The term appears specifically in verse 31, "The

sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood

before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes."

What exactly is the Day of the Lord?

It's a little intimidating because it's like, sure,

if all this is going to happen,

do we really want this to be the Day of the Lord?

But I think I know it speaks into something

hopeful, so talk to us about that.

Yeah, sure.

Well, the Day of the Lord is prefigured

in a couple of really terrible things that happened.

So you had like the

Babylonian exile of the Jewish people 586 B.C.

that was a day of the Lord destruction of Babylon.

Later of Egypt,

these are, you know, so you have this prefiguring now.

What we're looking at is with celestial signs.

You know, when the sun and moon

are changing, you know, that's not just like,

that's like the Day of the Lord.

We were talking about the end of time.

My end of things as as they exist today.

Now there are tough things coming

and you know, one of the things that will happen

is that Israel will go through

trauma and the world will go through trauma.

So we're expecting future events or great tribulation.

But out of that for Israel, come these 144,000 witnesses.

I think like a literal fulfillme

And then

Jesus says, you know, there's this discussion,

really He's speaking in Matthew 24,

and He says, wow, there's going to be wars, famines

and earthquakes, and people are going to betray each other.

It's just like.

I mean, it sounds terrible.

And then the middle of this in Matthew,

24:13, "But the one who endures to the end,

he will be saved." So this is His word to us.

Hey, all this is coming, but what He's been saying

all along to us as believers is, let's be ready.

Let's stay on the alert.

Let's be like, I don't know we're to say Code Orange,

you know,

let's not just be sitting around

and just, you know, hanging out.

But if you stick it out

and stay with Me and walk with Me. Then

you'll you

will ultimately be with Him in paradise.

Yeah.

And I think faith in the Messiah is really what will sustain us

when the time comes for the Day of the Lord.

Now, Randall, we we mentioned earlier

that this season is about Messianic prophecy.

And as we read this passage from Joel, some of our listener

may notice that the word Messiah

does not appear in these verses.

So how could you say that this passage is Messianic?

What does it tell us about the Messiah?

Well, you know how we talked earlier about the Spirit

and the Spirit, here

you start with Abraham and then you go to Ezekiel.

So it's same kind of thing when you come

to the work of the Spirit in the Tanakh, in the Hebrew Bible,

you really see this

connection all the time with the Messiah.

Now, the most vivid connection is probably Isaiah 11.

Now Isaiah 11,

it starts out, "This root will come out

from the stump of Jesse," and it's the Messiah,

and He's going to be led by the Holy Spirit,

and He's going to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And He Himself will move in the Spirit.

By the way, that's the three persons of the trinity there,

where you have God, the Father, the Lord,

and then you have the Messiah, and then you have the Spirit,

so Isaiah 11.

And then another sense of Messiah and the Spirit is

how how when something happens

to Israel that Israel doesn't deserve OK.

Same as us.

Like, have you ever felt as a believer, wow, I just

I just didn't deserve that, you know?

But God still did it.

So when something happens, on what basis can God do that?

Because Israel hasn't been faithful, like

the restoration of Jewish people to the land of Israel today?

Well, how can you justify that with the socialists

that came back and started a government and everything?

And really, it's based on the work

of the Lord Jesus as kind of the substitute Israel.

Israel doesn't obey.

We don't obey the Lord, but He obeyed

He in in His complete service,

He fulfilled that.

So He's like the super Israel.

The servant Isaiah 53.

So,

when we read this scripture in Joel

and you kind of alluded to this before,

you can't help but think about Acts 2.

And Peter references this chapter in Acts 2.

You know,

when the early believers received the Holy Spirit

and they were able to speak languages

they had not learned, right?

Everyone thought they were drunk and

it was nine in the morning.

And and so does that mean that

this specific prophecy has already been fulfilled?

Well,

I think the beginning of Acts chapter two was something

or the fulfillment in Pentecost that we read

about in Acts chapter two is something very special.

It's described there as an outpouring

which is Darrell Bock has this commentary,

and he said he liked the Greek definition:

A torrential downpour on a parched earth.

Hmm.

Randall: I don't really picture guys

in suits standing up and just kind of like each one

in a state position,

kind of like preaching, but they're in a different language

I picture something super

like tactile, something totally experiential.

These people were unified, they were in this big group.

They're meeting together.

They're probably fasting

and they're they're they're intensively praying.

And then

there's this visual thing

where the Holy Spirit comes as tongues of fire.

And then, you know, when when outsiders are startin

to see this and experience and hear what's going on,

they say, hey, these these guys are drunk.

This is really experiential.

Now, I think that's important for us when you talk about

has this fulfilled?

I think this was a fulfillment in the sense that God opened

the kingdom and the whole thing is available now.

Remember how we talked about different groups

and it doesn't matter what your background is,

it's just like, hey, this is there.

And there's more.

When I look at my life, I say, I need.

I need more of that.

You know, you need experience in your life.

When I was a kid, I was a kid in college

had come from this Christian

background kind of religious Christian background.

Selfish kid.

I got to college and it was really the

experiencing God through the Holy Spirit

that changed me and made me want to live for Hi

and do more for Him and get involved with Israel.

That was all a result of

of getting in. So.

Speaking of Israel,

I know that we see in Acts 2,

like the beginnings of the early Church in Israel

and because of the way Israel is today,

a lot of Christians may think or

believers in general may think that God has somehow

forgotten Israel or that Israel is done with.

But we know that

there is definitely more in store for this land

and for this people.

So what does this passage in Joel tell us

about the future of Israel and the rest of the world?

Well, we we we kind of touched on it.

That's a great question.

Israel is an amazing nation.

Nobody can deny that.

You watch Israel in the news.

They say that is the most talked about place.

You know, the biggest media groups are here and in

and like Washington and Moscow.

It's a tiny country and all this technology

and the Iron Dome and all these cool things.

How did all that happen?

Well, God has a plan for Israel.

The plan is, is is great.

He's going to bring Jewish people back from all the nation

and He's had a wonderful start on that.

We had

one million Russian-speaking immigrants

in the last 20 years or so, 25 years, maybe.

And but there are wonderful

promises and scripture that God is going to have.

There is going to be another outpouring

where Jewish people come to the Lord, but in mass.

And that's going to be some kind of like

awful pressure and prophecy

speaks about a remnant, the remnant will be

saved and Paul speaks about that, Romans 9.

So, might be after some terrible war,

but we know that these promises will be fulfilled

for Jewish people.

But there's also going to be great distress and

a tribulation time,

and the ones that

turn to the Lord will be saved

just like Jesus promised.

I think another thing also,

when you look at the fig tree, Jesus talks about the fig tree.

The fig tree is the last tree to come out.

You have all these trees

and Jesus says to you, see this fig tree and all the trees

that you know that summer is near.

I believe He was talking about Israel.

Israel is a sign of the end.

How do we know?

Well, yeah, we had people said Napoleon was the Antichrist.

We've had bad wars.

But how do you really know?

We know that we're near the end because Israel is back

in her place and all those processes that ar

spoken in the Old Testament and Jesus' own words

about the restoration of Jewish people's

salvation of the Jewish people,

those are soon going to come to pass too.

And Randall, you live in Israel,

you live there with your family as you walk around.

Those places you mentioned at the beginning of the podcast

your favorite places to kind of reach people

as you walk around and you have interactions

and as you meet other or as you meet

Israelis who have come to faith,

how you

know, when you think about this, this passage,

how does this passage

give us hope for Israel today and how does it,

what hope do you have when you meet these people?

What hope do you have as you have these conversations

and bring us into that?

What hope can we have for Israel today?

Well,

I really I really want to thank you, because people

that listen to this are going to pray for Israel

and they're going to pray for the Jewish people

and they're going to pray the Jewish people will be protected

You know, if the nation is wiped off the face of the map, like

some of our enemies would do right away if they could,

then how do you have these things fulfilled? So

as you go around today, what's awesome

what's really awesome

is to start a conversation with someone, a cab driver,

a person in a restaurant, coffee shop

or a vendor in the souk,

the Jewish open market, and they're just like into it.

They're like, "Yeah, this is interesting for me.

I'm glad we're talking about this."

It shows there's

an outpouring of the Spirit that we're on the edge

of something.

And it's it's not just Jewish people, it's also

it's also Arabs

and non-Jews that we need and like the street outreach

or if we're meeting non-Jews, people

from Africa and other backgrounds.

We've had awesome talks with Muslims

about the Lord, and then you have people receiving Jesus

So, saying I want to go on with God and and follow the Lord.

So these these are great times.

We're living

Israel at strategic times and I think where you are too,

where our listeners are today, it's a strategic time.

This is an awesome time to be living

and a wonderful time to be walking with God

and be a part of His end time outpouring.

Randall, thank you so much.

Appreciate your time. Nicole: Thanks, Randall.

Yeah, it's awesome being with you.

Thank you all so much.

The Book of Joel

might not be your first choice for a Bible study,

but as we discussed today, the prophet Joel said

some amazing things about how God will pour out His Spiri

through Jesus the Messiah.

The book of

Joel is short, but it's powerful.

So we encourage you to read through it sometime

this week and discover its full message of hope.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Our Hope.

This episode featured Chosen People Ministry staff

member Randall.

It was produced by Nicole Vacca and Grace Swee,

written by Rachael Larson, and edited by Grace Swee.

This episode was also made thanks to Dr.

Mitch Glaser, Kieran Bautista and Dr.

Michael Rydelnick.

I'm Abe Vazquez.

Until next time.

Thanks for listening to Our Hope.

If you like our show and want to know more, check ou

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