The outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the first century marked a pivotal moment, signifying the advent of the last days and the impending fulfillment of God's redemptive plan. This event heralded the end of the Jewish age, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, which had been the focal point of divine presence. Such destruction was not merely a historical occurrence but rather a harbinger of the terrible day of the Lord, a day characterized by divine judgment upon those who rejected God's grace. As we explore the profound implications of this transformative period, we recognize that the dawn of a new age is ushered in, wherein righteousness prevails, and the promises of restoration and unity, as foretold by the prophets, begin to take shape. This episode delves deep into the significance of these events, drawing connections between prophecy and fulfillment, and emphasizing the gravity of the times in which we find ourselves.

Takeaways:

• The outpouring of the Holy Spirit signifies the commencement of the last days, heralding the fulfillment of God's redemptive plan.
• The great and terrible day of the Lord serves as a warning of impending judgment for those who reject Christ.
• The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple marks the conclusion of the Jewish age, ushering in a new era characterized by righteousness.
• Biblical prophecies illustrate that the signs preceding the day of the Lord serve as indicators of imminent divine judgment and transformation.
• The transition from the old covenant to the new covenant is profoundly illustrated through the events surrounding the Holy Spirit's outpouring.
• The fulfillment of prophecies regarding the outpouring of the Spirit emphasizes the significance of Christ's reign and the establishment of a new age.

Good morning and welcome to our study.

We are still in Joel 2 as Joel speaks of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

But today we want to talk about the statement that he makes in the same text that this outpouring would be before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes.

And so the events of those days, that is the last days, would not only include the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon all flesh, but that dreadful day of the Lord.

The phrase day of Yahweh is used as a description of national judgment.

We find it throughout the prophets, and no doubt that's the meaning here.

And the time of the outpouring would signal that they were in the last days and that in that time they would experience or see the day of the Lord.

So the connection between the last days and the day of the Lord points to the end of an age and a day of reckoning or a day of judgment.

There's a lot of different passages that we could use to compare this and I don't know, Amos 5:18 says, the day of the Lord is darkness and not light.

We find that the day of Babylon's destruction is called by Isaiah simply as it is the day of the Lord.

And Jeremiah also speaks of the day of destruction of Pharaoh's army when they fought at Euphrates.

It was the day of the Lord.

Joel designates the day of Jerusalem's destruction of Nebuchadnezzar as the day of the Lord.

So it's not an unusual expression to refer to judgment.

It is before the great and notable day of the Lord.

And that's the day of final destruction and the desolation of Jerusalem.

But in addition to this judgment being the major event of the last days, it would be preceded by wonders in heaven and in earth.

Those things mark the nearness of the day of the Lord.

They were a phenomenon of nature.

And so the student of the Bible we find several different examples of similar events.

We find this very similar language in Revelation, in the Revelation of Jesus Christ or the 24th chapter of Matthew.

Signs that would precede the destruction of Jerusalem.

The second chapter, 2 Thessalonians shows signs before the man of sin or the son of perdition is revealed.

There is some doubt whether these signs are to be understood literally.

However, to say that and in favor of its literalness, it would hardly be a sign for which they were asking if it wasn't something that was observable.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it was literal.

In other words, and it has to be some Physical display in order for it to be a sign.

But in the description of that which is seen, that may be in fact more of a figure of language or metaphor.

I think it's problematic for us to see literal blood and fire and vapor of smoke, but still, whether these are symbolic of judgment or whether they were physical effects of warfare, there are signs of impending judgment.

Many figurative terms can be descriptive of physical observances, but they're still signs.

In other words, we may not see the moon turning into blood.

Literally, we can see what the figure portrays, which may be red blood, death, darkness.

The fact that we are reading figures of speech does not preclude the absence of physical observances.

And so this may explain the relationship between symbolic and physical things.

In fact, I think that's a problem in interpreting many scriptures.

Some commentaries, if you'll do some research, will divide these great signs that precede the day of the Lord as being wonders of the earth and wonders in heaven.

I don't know if it's clear that that's the meaning.

Again, they may be just figures at speech that talk about blood red, fiery or lured appearances in the sky or the atmosphere.

Or again, they may.

They may be accompaniments of war.

You've got carnage and the firing of towns and the smoke, the columns of smoke that rise from that destruction.

I think that we.

Josephus uses it that way.

The historian, when he talks about the Roman or Tacitus does too.

Both of them claim that these signs were witnessed by the besiegers and by the besieged.

In 70 AD they saw the city burning with fire and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Then was before the great and terrible day of the Lord.

There's a interesting passage in the New Testament where Peter talks about the phrase, or uses the phrase heaven and earth.

Well, he says that the elements will melt with fervent heat and the earth and the works that are therein will be burned up.

Now, that's using the King James rendering of that passage.

And we quickly think of the atomic, physical elements of the earth and that Peter is talking about the universe literally melting away.

But I want to suggest something to you in your study and you'll have to keep an open mind because I didn't always see this.

I grew up with the King James version and took it to be a literal description of the earth being completely melting or being destroyed with fire.

The word that's translated elements here in this passage is from the Greek word that.

Well, it's used many other places.

In fact, the best way to understand any New Testament word is to see how it's used.

You can look at lexicographers and there's value in that, don't get me wrong.

But the greater value is to look at see how the word was used in other texts.

I want to give you four of those usages.

In Hebrews 5:12 the Hebrew writer refers to the rudiments or the elementary principles of the law, and he uses this same word translated in Peter's statement in 2 Peter 3, where he talks about the elements shall melt.

The Hebrew writer talks about the elementary principles of the law.

In Galatians 4.

3 it stands for the rudiments of the world or the rudimentary principles.

In Galatians 4.

9 it refers to the weak in beggarly rudiments as and he gives examples of that, such as days and months and seasons and years.

These were things that characterize the Mosaic law.

In Colossians 2, verse 20, he refers to the rudiments of the world, and in connection with that it's associated with the law that says do not handle, do not taste, do not touch.

Not one time does the word describe the atomic elements of the physical earth being melting away.

The elements simply refer to the rudimentary principles of the old law that was swept away, that was dissolved, or that was melted away.

The original word translated dissolved here means to just tear up or break down, and thus to just simply destroy.

In Ephesians 2:14, Paul describes Christ's work of uniting Jew and Gentile into one body.

And then notice how that's done.

He says, having broken down or destroyed the middle wall of partition, so breaking down the old world order that is the law of Moses that created a division between Jew and Gentile, and Jesus took that out of the way.

It was accomplished by Christ when a new will was executed upon his death.

You'll also see the use of the word to describe the Lord's purpose of being manifested.

1st John 3:8 to destroy uses this word that's translated dissolve.

In 2nd Peter 3 same word, and it's translated destroy in 1st John 3.

8 as Jesus purpose was to destroy the works of the devil.

So when Peter said the earth that then was, and the works that are therein would be burned up, he spoke of the same refining of Israel that John the Immerser had announced in Matthew 3 when he spoke of the burning up of the chaff.

Malachi also foretold this refining process in his prophecy Malachi 3 and in chapter 4 also with regard to 2 Peter 3, the word translated earth in the text could also be translated as land.

It is used for the land of Israel, same word.

The language in this text then fits the language of judgment upon the house of Israel in those last days.

Now Peter wrote that the heavens being on fire, would be dissolved.

These were the heavens that now are according to Peter.

So the old heavens and earth that were before the flood, that world in Noah's day, God destroyed it by water.

We can read of it starting in Genesis 6.

There was indeed a physical destruction and the world experiences significant change.

Change in living conditions change.

The world itself changed.

But the world was not destroyed in the sense of ceasing to exist.

It marked the end of one world order, one age, and the beginning of a new age.

Similarly, the new heavens and the new earth is not a reference to, or need not be.

Let me just say that I don't believe it is, nor does the language in the text make it so.

I don't believe it's a reference to some new planetary system, but a new world order or new age.

The New Jerusalem as a rejoicing and her people as a joy.

Notice the new Jerusalem is parallel to her people in that text.

Peter also told of Christians of his day to look for this new order, not implying here that Jesus had not yet begun to rule, but that his rule had not yet been completed until the destruction of the old order.

In Isaiah 51:6 the nation of Israel would fall.

In Joel 3:16 Joel tells us that the fall of Jerusalem after the Messiah was foretold in a very similar way.

And so when we look at Peter's language and compare it with the prophecies of Joel, Joel 2 and Haggai uses the same language in Haggai 2, 6 that's quoted in Hebrews 12.

And he's talking, I believe friends, about the imminent destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the Jewish era that took place in that age and then starts or begins a new age.

Jesus uses this same language in Matthew 4 and in Luke 21.

I believe in Daniel 7.

Under the persecution in the Roman Empire, Christians possessed the kingdom.

Then they possessed the kingdom before the enemy was destroyed.

But still when the enemy was finally destroyed, then they fully possessed a vindicated kingdom.

It was only prophesied by Daniel that the kingdom was unshakeable, but that it would have no end also.

So you have the beginning, I guess, a transition period where you have the beginning of a new king, a new kingdom and a new era, but was not fully realized until that old was taken out of the way.

The everyday use of these.

And by the way, in case you think that was accomplished at his death, consider the statement made by the Hebrew writer in chapter 12 when he tells us that the tabernacle or the temple was a sign of the age, of that present age.

He uses that expression, present age.

Well, if it was a sign of that present age, as long as the temple was still standing, it was still symbolic and, and a sign of that age being still present.

It was that present age.

But when that temple was taken down, it was furthermore a sign of its end.

And the end of that age brought in a new age, of a new Jerusalem, a new Israel, and so forth.

The everyday use of this expression or these expressions, all of these that we're looking at in Joel 2, we can see it throughout, you know, all history.

We can talk about God's wrath and the heavens and the sun being darkened and the moon taking on a red, blood red appearance.

These signs have their type in the Egyptian plague of darkness.

Down in Exodus 10.

The darkening and the extinction of the lights of heaven are often mentioned in connection with these things.

So they are either harbingers of approaching judgment or signs of the breaking of the day of judgment or God's the day of the Lord.

It's not really clear to me whether these are descriptions of that present destruction or if they were signs, I take it to be that they were signs of the final ending of that age.

So Moving past Joel 2, we find Peter quoting the text as having been fulfilled on the day of Pentecost.

And since this judgment language is connected with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the last days, it is difficult to interpret the outpouring as still being fulfilled throughout this present, this age, you know, both were fulfilled at the end of that age, and they signify the new era of Christ's reign and rule.

So, you know, the wonders in heaven and on earth.

Fire, pillars of smoke, a darkened sun, a blood red moon.

These are all mentioned and in, and in connection with the day of the Lord, which as we've already seen, is the great theme of Joel's vision.

Furthermore, as we continue to look in Joel's prophecy, as you see the third Chapter or look into the third chapter.

It shows the judgment of the enemies of the people of Israel.

It's interesting to me that God would use a nation to punish his people and then turn around and punish that nation.

And we see that same kind of pattern or that same paradigm here in Joel 2 and 3.

So the Roman fleet in 79 AD was devastated by the blast of Vesuvius.

The time is within the approximate years of a generation.

If you look at Psalm 90, that speaks of 70 years.

If by reason of strength, 80 years, the time is within that time frame of a generation.

In fact, if you want to define a generation by David's time in Psalm 90, it would be 70 to 80 years old.

Well, if that's the case, then you have the first century.

That takes us to 70 A.D.

that's a generation of time.

And then 10 years later, Vesuvius is decimated, the Roman fleet in the bays are destroyed, along with some of the most important people in the Roman world.

The time is within that generation.

And it followed the destruction of Jerusalem by about 10 years.

John's description of it in Revelation 8, I think is very well talking about that, where he describes a mountain burning with fire.

Now, if you were to explain or describe that text, you would have a shaft, a mountain, it's burning with fire, and a shaft with an opening that takes it down into a lake of fire.

If you just drew a real rough draft of what we have described here, you would be drawing a volcano.

And the effect of a volcano and the explosion is described in those verses.

So being the fall of any nation, pride was no exception.

For Rome, God brought them down after the had accomplished his own purposes, God brought them down.

And even though the nation did not cease to exist at that present moment, as if to suggest that God destroyed or wiped the whole Roman nation off the face of the earth, it was such a devastating blow, they never fully recovered from it and then began their demise and their weakness.

But what is relevant for our purpose is to note that the context of time in Joel 2, in the promise of the Holy Spirit is the same time and generation of the terrible day of the Lord.

So whatever can be said about the description of judgment here, it will follow the promise of the Spirit, which is our focus in this study.

But we've stopped to pause to emphasize that these two things would take place in that age.

Now, since we don't have time to continue our study of the Holy Spirit, I would like to just pull up some other passages and notice some parallels.

Beginning upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers, yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city, because the palaces shall be forsaken, the multitude of the city shall be left, the forts and the towers shall be dens forever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks, until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high, and the wilderness becomes a fertile field, and the fertile field is considered as a forest.

Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness will abide in the fertile field, and the work of righteousness will be peace, and the service of righteousness, quietness, and confidence forever.

Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation, and in secure dwellings and undisturbed resting places.

So this is a prediction of judgment which was to come, and has come upon the land of Isaiah's people, and upon that joyous city, which would no doubt be Jerusalem.

And so it corresponds to the condition of the land and the people.

However, this is not the entire prophecy.

God never stops with judgment when revealing his dealings with his people.

The very next verse is a prophecy like the one before us here in the second chapter of Joel in verse 15.

Notice it until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, so the condition of the people, the land, and the city will remain under judgment until the Spirit is poured out upon them as a nation.

This outpouring of the Spirit predicted here can't be the outpouring on the day of Pentecost, because after this event, then the greatest dispersion of the people and the devastation of their land took place.

So the outpouring of which Isaiah is speaking is future, and is identical to that of Joel.

The word pour in this passage has a special significance.

Just as we see it in Joel 2.

It also is used in Isaiah 53, where it means to empty out, to empty out, and altogether to empty.

And so in like manner the Spirit will be completely, altogether poured out, in a measure that has never been yet seen.

All the results of the outpouring of the Spirit are mentioned by Isaiah, Isaiah 44, Isaiah 59.

He starts in Isaiah 44, beginning in verse three.

I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry land.

I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thy offspring.

He says, they will fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun for he will come like a rushing stream which the wind of Jehovah drives A Redeemer will come to Zion and and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, declares the lord, as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the lord.

My Spirit which is upon you, and my words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says the Lord, from now and forever.

And so there's a time predicted in the time of the end when the enemy comes in like a flood, while the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him, and the Redeemer will come.

No doubt that refers to his second coming.

The promise of Revelation 21 concerning the Spirit is the same as we've already looked at.

And you'll notice that there's a reference to your offspring and your offspring's offspring very similar to Acts 2, where Peter promises the Spirit that this is to you and to your children, to all that are far off.

So to accomplish these things will require God's Spirit, the Spirit of God.

Human beings would never achieve unity and peace between Jews and Gentiles, but through the work of the Holy Spirit it would be accomplished, and unity would be experienced or had.

This is very similar to Hebrews 8:10, another verse 14 of Ezekiel 37 I will put my spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land, and you will know that I the Lord have spoken and done it, declares the Lord.

We've got another in Ezekiel 39 beginning in verse 28, where he said, I will put my spirit within you, and you will come to life, and I will place you in your own land, and you will know that I the Lord have spoken and done it.

Malachi also prophesies of these things, but all these passages harmonize with Joel 2 according to the new Testament Scriptures, the outpouring of the Spirit was a first century phenomenon.

You know, you find in the description of salvation from God's wrath that ends the prediction of events in those days.

But he says, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Malachi's prophecy of John In Malachi chapter three and also chapter four, he speaks of the work of John the Immerser as the one who prepares the way of the Messiah's work.

And behold, he's coming, says the Lord of hosts.

And Jesus quotes Malachi 3 there in Matthew 11, where he introduces John to be more than a prophet.

He's God's messenger to go before him, to prepare his entrance.

And then Jesus says he is the Elijah who was to come.

And that was a prophecy that's found in the chapter later, just after that in Malachi 4.

This messenger is the prophet Elijah.

And Jesus identifies him here as John the Immerser or John the Baptist.

Malachi prophesies, behold, I am going to send to you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord.

There's another similar phraseology, similar sentence as we find in Joel 2.

He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and and the hearts of their children to the fathers, so they will not come, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.

Now, that doesn't mean that John the Immerser was Elijah reincarnated, but that he was to come in the spirit and power of Elijah.

And in fact, if you look at Luke chapter one in verse 17, that's exactly the language we find in that text.

Elijah appears with Moses at the transfiguration after John's death.

And if they were the same person, it's difficult to imagine why he would come back as Elijah and not as John.

Another reason he's not Elijah reincarnated is that Herod distinguishes the two men in Mark 6.

And yet the most significant proof that he was not Elijah reincarnated is that he denies explicitly that he was Elijah there in John 1, instead that he was not Elijah, rather in John 1:19 rather he is the voice of the one crying in the wilderness.

And so he came to prepare for the king's arrival.

Not only was the Holy Spirit promised to come in the last days, but when those days came for the Messiah's arrival, Jesus of Nazareth would fulfill the prophetic expectation.

He received his power and then promised the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and the early disciples.

And there was some difference on how and when the disciples received that power.

But we are interested in looking for next week in stating the facts at this point of our study regarding the Holy Spirit's arrival.

And that will be our focus for next week.

Thank you so much.

Have a great day and a pleasant week ahead.