Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Joel 2:32

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Joel 2:32. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord — כל אשר יקרא בשם יהוה col asher yikra beshem Yehovah, "All who shall invoke in the name of Jehovah." That CHRIST is the Jehovah here mentioned appears plain from Romans 10:13-15, where the reader had better consult the notes. "This refers," says Bp. Newcome, "to the safety of the Christians during the Jewish and the Roman war." It may: but it has a much more extensive meaning, as the use of it by St. Paul, as above, evidently shows. Every man who invokes Jehovah for mercy and salvation by or in the name, JESUS-that very name given under heaven among men for this purpose-shall be saved. Nor is there salvation in any other; and those who reject him had better lay these things to heart before it be too late.

For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem — Our blessed Lord first began to preach the Gospel in Mount Zion, in the temple, and throughout Jerusalem. There he formed his Church, and thence he sent his apostles and evangelists to every part of the globe: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." Of the Jews there was but a remnant, a very small number, that received the doctrine of the Gospel, here termed the remnant that the Lord should call; קרא kore, whom he calleth. Many were called who would not obey: but those who obeyed the call were saved; and still he delivers those who call upon him; and he is still calling on men to come to him that they may be saved.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Promise of the Spirit (2:28-32)

People may readily turn to God in days of hardship, but many of them just as readily forget God and become self-satisfied as soon as prosperity returns. They will be more obedient to God when they have a better understanding of his will. They will be more genuine in their devotion to him when they realize that his blessings consist of more than grain, wine and oil. Joel looks forward to the day when God will give all his people this better understanding by putting his Spirit within each one, regardless of age, sex or social status. It will not be like former times, when God gave his Spirit only to certain people for special tasks on special occasions (28-29).
All this must happen before the final great day of the Lord dawns. The darkness and terror of the locust plague is only a faint picture of the horror of that last great judgment. On that day believers will be saved but sinners will perish (30-32).

In New Testament times Peter saw a fulfilment of Joel’s prophecy in the remarkable events of the Day of Pentecost. With the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, a new age had dawned. The Spirit was now given to all God’s people. Those who called on God’s name had the assurance of salvation, but those who persisted in their sin had the assurance of judgment and condemnation (Acts 2:14-21; cf. John 16:7-15).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

“And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call upon the name of Jehovah shall be delivered; for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape, as Jehovah hath said, and among the remnants those whom Jehovah doth call.

In the light of Peter’s use of this passage, the primary meaning of it is applicable to salvation from sin, with the attendant indication that just a few, a “remnant” will actually participate in this salvation. In the extended meaning of the prophecy, “mount Zion and Jerusalem” stand for the church or kingdom of Jesus Christ which began there. In the spiritual sense, it is still true that “the word of the Lord goeth forth from mount Zion and Jerusalem.”

This verse has been cited as “the clearest example in the whole book of one author quoting another”;R. A. Cole, op. cit., p. 723. but it should be particularly noted that Joel did not say, “Obadiah saith,” but that “Jehovah saith.” Joel says that he was giving God’s Word; and it is not necessary at all to make a portion of this passage a “quote” from Obadiah 1:17. As Cole freely admitted, “It is, however, possible that both Joel and Obadiah are quoting some earlier anonymous prophetic saying.”Ibid. Of course, such a thing is easily possible; but there is yet another possibility that should never be ruled out by one who actually believes that the prophets were writing what they said they were writing, i.e., the “word of Jehovah”; and that is the possibility that Jehovah himself gave identical words to different authors. Why should such a possibility as this be ruled out? Certainly, any adequate theory of “inspiration” must always include it!

One familiar with the Bible knows that the standard formula for one sacred author’s quoting another is that of giving the quoted prophet’s name, as Peter did when he quoted this passage. In the light of this, many so-called “quotes” cited by commentators are no such thing at all.

“This prophecy looks beyond the time of restoration and rehabilitation of Joel’s day, even beyond Pentecost which marked the inception of the new age, to a time of the final consummation of things visualized by the author of Revelation in his announcement of a new heaven and a new earth.”Jacob M. Myers, op. cit., p. 91.

The events of any prophetic fulfillment should be carefully studied for clues to possibilities in the ultimate fulfillment. Just as the Christians were warned prophetically of the destruction of Jerusalem, and all of them escaped it by retiring to Pella,Robert Jamieson, op. cit., p. 787. all who truly believe in Christ and obey him will escape the ultimate general destruction at the last day.

In view of the N.T. usage of this prophecy, it must be considered one of the most important sections of the O.T.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord - To call upon the name of the Lord, is to worship Him, as He is, depending “upon” Him. “The name of the Lord,” expresses His True Being, That which He is. Hence, so often in Holy Scripture, people are said to “call on the Name of the Lord,” to bless the Name of the Lord, to praise the Name of the Lord, to sing praises to His Name, to make mention of His Name, to tell of His Name, to know His Name” but it is very rarely said “I will praise the Name of God” (Psalms 69:31; Hebrew), for the Name rendered “the Lord,” expresses that He is, and that He Alone is, the Self-Same, the Unchangeable; the name rendered “God” is not the special Name of God. Hence, as soon as people were multiplied and the corrupt race of Cain increased, people “began,” after the birth of Enos, the son of Seth, “to call upon the Name of the Lord” Genesis 4:26, i. e., in public worship. Abraham’s worship, in the presence of the idolatries of Canaan, is spoken of, under the same words, “he called upon the Name of the Lord” Genesis 12:8; Genesis 13:4; Genesis 21:33; Genesis 26:25. Elijah says to the prophets of Baal, “call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the Name of the Lord” 1 Kings 18:24. Naaman the Pagan says of Elisha, “I thought that he would come out to me, and stand and call on the Name of the Lord his God” 2 Kings 5:11. Asaph and Jeremiah pray God; “Pour out Thy wrath upon the pagan that have not known Thee, and upon the kingdom (families Jerome) which have not called upon Thy Name” Psalms 79:6; Jeremiah 10:25; and Zephaniah fortells the conversion of the Pagan, “that they may all call upon the Name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent” Zephaniah 3:9.

To “call” then “upon the Name of the Lord” implies right faith to call upon Him as He is; right trust in Him, leaning upon Him; right devotion, calling upon Him as He has appointed; right life, ourselves who call upon Him being, or becoming by His Grace, what lie wills. They “call” not “upon the Lord,” but upon some idol of their own imagining, who call upon Him, as other than He has revealed Himself, or remaining themselves other than those whom He has declared that He will hear. For such deny the very primary attribute of God, His truth. “Their” God is not a God of truth. But whosoever shall in true faith and hope and charity have in this life worshiped God, “shall be delivered,” i. e., out of the midst of all the horrors of that Day, and the horrible damnation of the ungodly. The “deliverance” is by way of “escape” (for such is the meaning of the word , “he shall be made to escape, slip through” (as it were) perils as imminent as they shall be terrible. Our Lord uses the like word of the same Day, “Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man” Luke 21:36. Those who so call upon Him in truth shall be heard in that day, as He says, “Ask and it shall be given you; Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My Name, He will give it you” Matthew 7:7; John 16:23.

: “That calling on God whereon salvation depends, is not in words only, but in heart and in deed. For what the heart believeth, the mouth confesseth, the hand in deed fulfilleth, The Apostle saith, “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit” 1 Corinthians 12:3; yet this very “saying” must be weighed not by words, but by the afflictions. Whence, we read of Samuel, “And Samuel among those who call upon His Name,” and of Moses and Aaron, “These called upon the Lord, and He heard them” Psalms 99:6.

For in Mount Zion ... shall be deliverance - Repentance and remission of sins” were to “be preached in the Name” of Jesus, “in all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” Luke 24:47. “There” was, under the Old Testament, the center of the worship of God; there was the Church founded; thence it spread over the whole world. “The place,” “whither the tribes went up, the tribes of the Lord, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the Name of the Lord” Psalms 122:4, where God had set His Name, where alone sacrifice could lawfully be offered, stands, as elsewhere, for the whole Church. Of that Church, we are in Baptism all made members, when we are made members of Christ, children of God, and heirs of heaven. Of that Church all remain members, who do not, by viciousness of life, or rejecting the truth of God, cast themselves out of it. They then are members of the soul of the Church, who, not being members of the visible communion and society, know not, that in not becoming members of it, they are rejecting the command of Christ, to whom by faith and love and in obedience they cleave. And they, being members of the “body” or visible commumion of the Church, are not members of the “soul” of the Church, who, amid outward profession of the faith, do, in heart or deeds, deny Him whom in words they confess. The deliverance promised in that Day, is to those who, being in the body of the Church, shall by true faith in Christ and fervent love to Him belong to the soul of the Church also, or who, although not in the body of the Church shall not, through their own fault, have ceased to be in the body, and shall belong to its soul, in that through faith and love they cleave to Christ its Head.

As the Lord hath said - By the prophet Joel himself. This which he had said, is not man’s word, but God’s; and what God had said, shall certainly be. They then who have teared and loved God in this their day, shall not need to fear him in that Day, for He is the Unchangeable God; as our Blessed Saviour says; “heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away” Mark 13:31. God had said of both Jews and Gentiles, united in one; “Rejoice, O ye nations, with His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and will render vengeance to His adversaries, and will be merciful to His land and unto His people” Deuteronomy 32:43.

And in the remnant - While foretelling His mercies in Christ, God foretells also, that “few they be that find them” Matthew 7:14. It is evermore “a remnant, a residue, a body which escapes;” and so here, the mercies should be fulfilled, literally, “in the fugitives,” in those who flee from the wrath to come. All prophecy echoes the words of Joel; all history exemplifies them. Isaiah, Micah, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, all foretell with one voice, that a remnant, and a “remnant” only, shall be left. In those earlier dispensations of God, in the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; in His dealings with Israel himself at the entrance into the promised land, the return from the captivity, the first preaching of the Gospel, the destruction of Jerusalem, “a remnant” only was saved. It is said in tones of compassion and mercy, that “a remnant should be saved. The remnant should return, the remnant of Jacob, to the Mighty God” (Isaiah 10:20; add Isaiah 10:21-22; Isaiah 6:9-13, etc.). “The Lord of hosts shall be for a crown of glory to the residue of His people” Isaiah 28:5. “The Lord shall set His Hand to recover the remnant of His people which shall be left” (Isaiah 11:11, add 16). “I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries whither I have driven them” Jeremiah 23:3. “Publish ye, praise ye, and say, O Lord, save Thy people, the remnant of Israel” Jeremiah 31:7. “Yet I will leave a remnant, that ye may have some that escape the sword among the nations” Ezekiel 6:8. “Therein shall be left a remnant which shall be brought forth” Ezekiel 14:22. “I will surely gather the remnant of Israel” (Micah 2:12; add Micah 4:7 : Micah 5:3, Micah 5:7-8). “Who is a God like Thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?” Micah 7:18. “The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity” (Zephaniah 3:13; add Zephaniah 2:9). “The residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” Zechariah 14:2. It is then a summary of the declarations of the prophets, when Paul says, “Even so, at this present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of grace. Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded” Romans 11:5, Romans 11:7. And so the prophet says here;

Whom the Lord shall call - He had said before, “whosoever shall call upon the Name of the Lord shall be delivered.” Here he says, that they who should “so call on God,” shall themselves have been first “called by God.” So Paul, “to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord” 1 Corinthians 1:2. It is all of grace. God must first call by His grace; then we obey His call, and call upon Him; and He has said, “call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me” Psalms 50:15. God accounts our salvation His own glory.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

We said yesterday that the Prophet denounced future calamities, that he might thus stimulate men, distressed by many evils, to seek God: we indeed know how tardy we are by nature, except the Lord goads us continually. The subject, then, on which we discoursed yesterday tended to show, that as so many and so grievous calamities would press on the Jews, all would be miserable who fled not to God, and that this consolation only would remain to them in their extreme evils: but now the Prophet seasonably adds, Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered. Having then stimulated men to seek God, he now gives them firm assurance of being saved, provided they in sincerity and from the heart fled to God.

This is indeed a remarkable passage, for God declares that the invocation of his name in a despairing condition is a sure port of safety. What the Prophet had said was certainly dreadful, — that the whole order of nature would be so changed, that no spark of light would appear, and that all places would be filled with darkness. What, therefore, he says now is the same as though he declared, that if men called on the name of God, life would be found in the grave. They who seem to be even in despair, and from whom God seems to have taken away every hope of grace, provided they call on the name of God, will be saved, as the Prophet declares, though they be in so great a despair, and in so deep an abyss. This circumstance ought to be carefully noticed; for if any one takes this sentence of the Prophet by itself, though then it would not be frigid, it would not yet be so striking; but when these two things are joined together, — that God will be the judge of the world, who will not spare the wickedness of men, but will execute dreadful vengeance, — and that yet salvation will be given to all who will call on the name of the Lord, we see how efficacious the promise is; for God offers life to us in death, and light in the darkest grave.

There is, therefore, great importance in the expression, והיה ueie, ‘Then it shall be;’ for the copulative is to be regarded as an adverb of time, ‘Then whosoever shall invoke the name of the Lord,’ etc. And he uses the word “deliver;” for it was needful to show that the saved differ nothing from the lost. Had the Prophet used the word “preserve,” he would have spoken less distinctly; but now when he promises deliverance, he bids us to set up this shield against trials even the heaviest; for God possesses power sufficiently great to deliver us, provided only we call on him.

We now then understand what the Prophet had in view: He shows that God would have us to call on him not only in prosperity, but also in the extreme state of despair. It is the same as though God had called to himself the dead, and declared that it was in his power to restore life to them and bring them out of the grave. Since then God invites here the lost and the dead, there is no reason why even the heaviest distresses should preclude an access for us or for our prayers; for we ought to break through all these obstacles. The more grievous, then, our troubles are, the more confidence we ought to entertain; for God offers his grace, not only to the miserable, but also to those in utter despair. The Prophet did not threaten a common evil to the Jews, but declared that by the coming of Christ all things would be full of horror: after this denunciation he now subjoins, ‘Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.’

But as Paul cites this place in Romans 10:11, and extends it to the Gentiles, we must inquire in what sense he takes the testimony of the Prophet. Paul means to prove that adoption was common to the Gentiles, that it was lawful for them to flee to God, and familiarly to invoke him as a Father: ‘Whosoever,’ he says, ‘shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ He hence proves that the Gospel ought to have been preached even to the Gentiles, as invocation arises from faith: for except God shines on us by his word, we cannot come to him; faith, then, is ever the mother of prayer. Paul seems to lay stress on the universal particle, Whosoever; as though he said, that Joel did not speak of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles, that he testified that God would indiscriminately, and without exception, receive all who would seek him. But Paul appears to misapply the Prophet’s words; for Joel no doubt addresses here the people, to whom he was appointed as a teacher and prophet. What Paul then applies generally to all mankind seems not to have been so intended by the Prophet. But to this there is an easy answer; for the Prophets after having spoken of the kingdom of Christ, had no doubt this truth in view, that the blessing in the seed of Abraham had been promised to all nations; and when he afterwards described the miserable state in which the whole world would be, he certainly meant to rouse even the Gentiles, who had been aliens from the Church, to seek God in common with his elect people: the promise, then, which immediately follows, is also addressed to the Gentiles, otherwise there would be no consistency in the discourse of the Prophet. We therefore see that Paul most fitly accommodates this place to his subject: for the main thing to be held is this, that the blessing in Christ was promised not only to the children of Abraham but also to all the Gentiles. When, therefore, the Prophet describes the kingdom of Christ, it is no wonder that he addresses the Jews and Gentiles in common: and then, what he said of the state of the world, that it would be full of horrible darkness, undoubtedly refers, not to the Jews only, but also to the Gentiles. Why was this done, except to show that nothing else remains for them but to flee to God? We then see that an access is here opened to the Gentiles that they may with one consent call on God together with the Jews.

If there is promised salvation and deliverance to all who shall call on the name of the Lord, it follows as Paul reasons that the doctrine of the Gospel belongs to the Gentiles also; for their mouths must have otherwise been closed, yea, and the mouths of us all: had not God himself anticipated us by his word, and exhorted us to pray, we must have been dumb. It would have been a great presumption in us to present ourselves before God, except he had given us confidence and promised to hear us. If then the liberty of praying is common to all, it follows that the doctrine of salvation is common to all. We must now also add, that as deliverance is promised to all who shall call on the name of God, his own power is taken from God, when salvation is sought in any other but in him alone: and we know that this is an offering which he claims exclusively for himself. If, then, we desire to be delivered, the only remedy is, to call on the name of Jehovah.

He afterwards adds, For in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as Jehovah has promised. The Prophet here intimates, that though the people might seem apparently to have been destroyed, yet God would be mindful of his covenant so as to gather the remnant. Such, indeed, was the slaughter of the people, that no hope whatever, according to the flesh, remained; for they were scattered through various parts of the world; there was no social body, no distinct nation, no civil government, no worship of God. Who, then, could have thought that the Church of God would survive? Nay, the probability was, that after thirty or fifty years, the name of Abraham and of his seed would have become wholly extinct; for they had joined in one body with the Chaldees and the Assyrians. That scattering then was, as it were, the death of the whole nation. But God, by Joel, declares here, that there would yet be deliverance in mount Zion and in Jerusalem; that is, “Though I shall for a time exterminate this people, that the land may remain desolate, there shall yet be a restoration, and I will again gather a certain body, a Church, on mount Zion and in Jerusalem.” This is the substance.

We learn from this place, that however much God may afflict his Church, it will yet be perpetuated in the world; for it can no more be destroyed than the very truth of God, which is eternal and immutable. God indeed promises, not only that the state of the Church shall be perpetual, but that there will be, as long as the sun and moon shall shine in heaven, some people on earth to call on his name. Since it is so, it follows, that the Church cannot be utterly subverted or wholly perish, however severely and heavily the Lord may chastise it. However great then the scattering of the Church may be, the Lord will yet gather members, that there may be a people on earth to show, that he who is in heaven is true and faithful to his promises. And this truth deserves a careful attention; for when we see the Church scattered, immediately this doubt creeps into our minds, “Does God intend wholly to destroy all his people, — does he mean to exterminate all the seed of the faithful?” Then let this passage be remembered, “In mount Zion there will be deliverance,” after the Lord shall have punished the profane despisers of his name, who abused his patience, and falsely professed his name.

But he adds, As Jehovah has promised, which serves for confirmation; for the Prophet bids us here to regard God rather than our own state. When indeed we believe our eyes, we cannot but think sometimes that it is all over with the Church; for when God inflicts heavy punishment on his servants, there seems to us no remedy; and when we believe the diseases of the Church to be incurable, our hearts immediately fail us, except God’s promise comes to our minds. Hence the Prophet recalls our thoughts to God, as though he had said, “Judge not of the safety of the Church by sight, but stand and rely on the word of God: he has spoken, he has said, that the Church shall be perpetual.” Let us plant our foot on this promise, and never doubt but that the Lord will perform what he has declared.

But it is subjoined by the Prophet as a sort of correction, And in the remnant whom Jehovah shall call: and it was necessary to state this distinctly, lest hypocrites, as they usually do, abuse what had been said. They who occupy high stations in the Church, and pass in name for the children of God, swell, we know, with great confidences and boldly trifle with God; for they think that he is bound to them, when they make a show either of external badges or of profession, in which they glory before men: they think this display sufficient. We may indeed gather from many parts of Scripture, that the Jews were inflated with this false presumption of the flesh, that they imagined God to be bound to them. Hence the Prophet shows, that he did not address all the Jews indiscriminately, because many of them were spurious children of Abraham, and had become degenerated. If then under this pretense alone they wished to lay hold on the promise of salvation, the Prophet shows that they were excluded from the Church of God, since they were not legitimate children, after having departed from the faith and piety of their father Abraham. He therefore mentionsremnant: and by this word be means, in short, that the whole multitude could not be saved, but only a small number.

When therefore we speak of the salvation of the Church, we ought not to gather into one bundle all who profess themselves to be the children of God; for we see that hardly one in a hundred worship God in truth and without hypocrisy, for the greater part abuse his name. We see, at this day, how dishonest is the boasting of the Papists; for they think that the Church of God dwells among them, and they scorn us because we are few. When we say that the Church of God is to be known by the word and the pure administration of the sacraments, “Indeed,” they say, “could God have forsaken so many people among whom the gospel has been preached?” They think that after Christ has been once made known, his grace remains fixed, and cannot by any means be taken away whatever may be the impiety of men. Since then the Papists so shamefully lay claim to the name of Church, because they are many in number, it is no wonder that the Prophet, who had the same contest with the Jews and Israelites, had here expressly mentioned a remnant; as though he said, “In vain do the ungodly boast of God’s name, since he regards them not as his people.” The same truth we observe in Psalms 15:0, and in Psalms 24:0; where the citizens of the Church are described; they are not those who pride themselves on external symbols, but who worship God with a sincere heart, and deal honestly with their neighbors; such dwell on the mountain of God. It was not a difficult thing for hypocrites to thrust themselves into the sanctuary, and to present there their sacrifices to God; but the Prophet shows that none are owned by God, but those who have a sincere heart and pure hands. So also in this place Joel says, that this Church indeed would be saved, but not the vast multitude, — who then? the remnant only.

But the clause which follows must be noticed, Whom Jehovah shall call. We have already seen that the Church of God consists often of a very small number; for God counts not any his children, but those who devote themselves sincerely and from the heart to his service, as Paul says ‘Whosoever calls on the name of God, let him depart from iniquity;’ and many such are not found in the world.

But it is not enough to hold, that the Church of God is only in the remnant; it must be also added that the remnant abide in God’s Church for no other reason but that the Lord has called them. Whence then is it that there is a portion in the Church, which shall remain safe, while the whole world seems to be doomed to destruction? It is from the calling of God. And there is no doubt but that the Prophet means by the word, call, gratuitous election. The Lord is indeed often said to call men, when he invites them by the voice of his gospel; but there is what surpasses that, a hidden call, when God destines for himself those whom he purposes to save. There is then an inward call, which dwells in the secret counsel of God; and then follows the call, by which he makes us really the partakers of his adoption. Now the Prophet means, that those who will be the remnant shall not stand by their own power, but because they have been called from above, that is, elected. But that the election of God is not to be separated from the outward call, I allow; and yet this order ought to be maintained, that God, before he testifies his election to men, adopts them first to himself in his own secret counsel. The meaning is, that calling is here opposed to all human merits, and also to virtue and human efforts; as though he said, “Men attain not this for themselves, that they continue a remnant and are safe, when God visits the sins of the world; but they are preserved by his grace alone, because they have been chosen.” Paul also speaks of the remnant in Romans 11:0, and wisely considers that passage, ‘I have kept for myself seven thousand.’ [1 Kings 19:18.]

It is then God’s peculiar province to keep those who fail not: and hence Paul says that they are the remnant of grace; for if God’s mercy were taken away, there would be no remnant among the whole human race. All, we indeed know, are worthy of death, without any difference: it is therefore the election of God alone which makes the difference between some and others. Thus we see that the gratuitous goodness of God is extolled by the Prophet, when he says that a remnant shall be saved, who shall be called by the Lord: for it is not in the power of men to keep themselves unless they are elected; and the gratuitous goodness of God is the security as it were of their salvation. Now follows —

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 2

Now he uses this as the springboard and he begins to speak now of a yet future day of devastation that is coming from armies that are to invade the land. And in the second chapter, as he describes this invading army, it is interesting to notice the description that he gives, because it is not much of a stretch of the imagination for us to see that he is describing modern warfare. The things that he described were things that were totally unknown and unheard of in his day, but yet they are things that are common in modern warfare.

Now, if you were Joel the prophet and God gave you a vision of a battle that would be taking place with modern warfare, but all you knew was a battle with the armies with swords and spears and all, how do you think you could describe a modern battle with helicopter, gun ships and with the transporting of troops though planes with paratroopers and so forth? If you had a vision of this kind of a battlefield and tanks and the cannons and so forth, the fire and all, how would you describe it? Probably much like Joel did here in chapter... I think he did a tremendously commendable job in describing something he had never dreamed of, and yet the Lord gave him an insight into the battle of the future day.

Now, the nation of Israel needed to be established again in order that the prophecies of the last days be fulfilled, because in the prophecies of the last days there is that presupposition in all of the prophecies that Israel does exist as a nation again. In fact, not only existing as a nation, but their worship is to be re-instituted. Now as the nation Israel is to be reborn, according to the prophecy, one of the first of the real obstacles that they are going to face will be their immediate surrounding nations, according to the prophecies Zechariah, when Israel becomes a nation once more. And they did and have faced the opposition from their surrounding neighbors.

But then a greater test is going to come, and this will be when Russia invades the Middle East. And in this invasion God will show His hand strong on behalf of the people and their eyes will be opened unto God like never before. And then there is to be one final conflict, as the antichrist comes into the land with his armies of the federated nations of Western Europe, and at this time the Jews will once more be driven from the land and find refuge in the wilderness, the rock city of Petra, for three and half years, until God's wrath that He is going to pour out is completed.

It would seem that chapter 2 is describing the Russian invasion inasmuch the Lord refers to his removal far off from you the northern army. And in Ezekiel 38:0 it is mentioned that this army will be coming from the north. Interesting, in the descriptions of Ezekiel, "as a cloud to cover the land," and Joel also uses the pictures of the clouds and the darkness and so forth that will be created by this invading army.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, sound the alarm in my holy mountain: let all of the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD comes, it is near at hand ( Joel 2:1 );

Now the day of the Lord does encompass a period of time. The great judgment that God is going to bring upon the earth is known as the day of the Lord, the day of His fierce anger. The day that God establishes the new kingdom of righteousness through the reign of Jesus Christ is also known as the day of the Lord. The day that the Lord gathers the nations for judgment is known as the day of the Lord. So it encompasses the period of these last days. So the day of the Lord is near.

A day of darkness and of gloominess ( Joel 2:2 ),

So this is not the day of the triumphant reign of Christ. That will be following the day of darkness and gloom.

a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not ever been the like, neither shall there be any more after it, even to the years of many generations ( Joel 2:2 ).

A great army like as never been assembled in the history of man.

Russia today has some eighty thousand tanks ready for battle. Never in the history of man has so much armament been created; over eighty thousand tanks. And as he goes on to describe the invasion, surely tanks are involved.

A fire devours before them; behind them a flame burns: the land is like the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, nothing shall escape them ( Joel 2:3 ).

Now when the Jews came back to the land one of the marvelous things that they did was take this land that had been like a barren wilderness and they began to develop the land of Israel from an agricultural standpoint. Beautiful farmlands, beautiful orchards, beautiful avocado groves; mile after mile stretching out of beautiful land like the Garden of Eden. And the hillsides which were too rocky to cultivate, they planted with trees and millions upon millions of trees have been planted in the land. So the barren hillsides are now beautiful forests. And with the planting of all of these trees they've been able to effect a change of the weather patterns, and they've been able to increase the rainfall.

The annual rainfall in the land has been increased dramatically because of the extra humidity that has been put in the air through all of the trees that have been planted, the forests that have been planted. And their whole project of taking this land that was barren wilderness, planting it and developing it, is really a marvel to everyone who visits. They have developed marvelous new innovations in agriculture as far as irrigation and all: the drip system of irrigation and the sprinkling systems and all. They really have just proved to be fantastic farmers. They've transformed the land and you'll hear the statement quite often, "They have made the land like the Garden of Eden." And it is true.

And here the prophecy said, "The land before them is as the Garden of Eden." You could not have said that fifty years ago. For fifty years ago the land was still... the valley of Megiddo was still a swamp, the Hula Valley was all swamp, Beersheba was all barren desert and wilderness. The Sharon plains were just beginning, actually, at the turn of the century was when they started developing in the Sharon plains. They bought the swampland and then they began to create new ditches and all to drain the swampland and then planted eucalyptus trees because they drink so much water out of the ground. And then they began to plant the orange orchards and all, and now it's a veritable Garden of Eden through their careful planning and wise development of the land.

But the fact that he refers to the land before them like the Garden the Eden, that took the present day. That didn't happen until Israel became a nation and really began then to bring the Jordan water down to the wilderness areas for their irrigation and turning the land into a Garden of Eden.

But behind this invading army is like a desolate wilderness. War is such a horrible thing, the devastation that it brings. The Jews have taken a desolate wilderness and made it a Garden of Eden, but these invaders are coming to take the Garden of Eden and again turn it into a desolate wilderness.

nothing shall escape them ( Joel 2:3 ).

Now he describes the appearance of this invading army. And listen, this is, to me, quite interesting.

The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountain shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, as a strong people that are set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: and all faces will gather blackness. They will run like mighty men; they will climb the wall like men of war; they shall march every one in his way, and they shall not break rank: Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they will not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; and shall run upon the wall, they shall climb upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them: the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining ( Joel 2:4-10 ):

So he describes this awesome invading army that is coming to desolate the land. But, in verse Joel 2:11 there is another army.

And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executes his word: for the day of the LORD is great and very awesome; who can abide it? ( Joel 2:11 )

And so he speaks of the Lord's army in contrast. Now, the Lord is going to stop the Russians. In Ezekiel chapter 38 God declares that when Russia and her allied nations invade Israel that God's fury is going to arise in His face and He is going to turn them back. The Battle of Armageddon, which people are much more familiar with than this battle of Russia when it invades the Middle East, the Battle of Armageddon will pit the forces of the Western world against the forces of the Eastern world; primarily China and Russia pitted against the forces of the Western world in the Battle of Armageddon. But here, as this invading army has come, the Lord speaks of repelling it with His army, His mighty hosts. And, of course, the description of the destruction of the Russian army by the host of the Lord is given to you in Ezekiel chapter 38 and 39.

Now because of this great desolation, this great war that the people are going to face,

Therefore, [because of this,] saith the LORD, Turn ye even to me with all your heart ( Joel 2:12 ),

Now, one sad commentary that must be made against the modern nation of Israel is that the people really haven't turned to the Lord with all their hearts. The people are not really very religious. It is estimated that less than ten percent of the Jews that are in the land are really religious at all. And we have observed this while we were there. Now, they do observe religious observances; that is, the Sabbath day. But so many of the Jews that we have conversed with in Israel claim to be atheists. But though they claim to be atheists, they keep Sabbath and they keep kosher, as far as they will not eat dairy products with meat products, and they're almost insulted when people do. A lot of times, when we were over there, people unknowingly ask for a glass of milk when we've had a dinner with meat. And they are polite, but they let you know you can't have any milk when you've had meat. And they keep this kosher kind of law, yet they really don't know why. Many of them that we've talked to who said they were atheists, we said, "Well, why don't eat bacon? You know, why don't you eat a ham sandwich? Well you know, or ham and cheese?" Oh, oh, oh man.

So they are as those that were described in the New Testament, they have a form of godliness and yet they deny the power of God. They deny God in their lives. But God is calling for them to turn unto Him with their whole heart, with all of your heart. Problem with many people is that they turn to God in a half-hearted way and this you might say is true in Israel. People have turned to God in a half-hearted way.

Turn to me [God said,] with all your heart, with fasting, weeping, and mourning ( Joel 2:12 ):

That speaks of a real desperation before God. It is sad that many times God has to bring us into desperate straights before we really seek Him. There have been only a few times in my life when I was really desperate before God, but I will testify to you, each time I was really desperate before God, God met me in a very dramatic way.

When my mother was in our home and was dying, this one who had made such a positive input for good in my life, this person who had more influence on my life than perhaps anyone else, one who I love so deeply, appreciated so much, and yet I knew I was losing her. And as she was suffering, in pain almost constantly, one morning as I went into the room I just became so desperate before God, as I saw her in this condition, that I kneeled there at the foot of her bed and just cried out to God with my whole being. And God met me in such a dramatic way as the Lord came and stood right beside me and began to talk to me about myself and about my mother. And even in that same time He laid His hand upon her and touched her. It was a marvelous experience that I have been brought to the place of desperation.

Our youngest daughter who has been such a joy to our lives, such a blessing to us. I don't know, there's something about that you know you've had your family and then you have another one years later. There's something that's something sort of special. You're older, you're more mature, you're able to enjoy them more, you're not so nervous, and they just are such a sunshine and a light. And she was to us. Such a pretty little child, so vibrant, so full of life. As I held her in my arms all night long, her body racked with fever; she was so sick, so listless, my heart was so desperate before God. I cried out unto God with my whole heart. She went into a convulsion; I really thought this was it. But I had said, "Lord, You know that this little daughter is just the joy of life. She means so much to us. We love her so deeply, but Lord, if You want her and if it's Your purpose to take her, that's Your business. Lord, we give her to You. Her life is Yours."

She went in that convulsion and I thought, "Well, this is it." We called the doctor, we bundled her up, we started to rush up to the doctor, and on the way the Lord healed her. By the time we got to the doctor she was perfectly well. Her little bubbly bright cheerful self again. The doctor looked at her and said, "There's nothing wrong with her." He said, "Has she had a tetanus shot lately?" And he gave her a tetanus shot. He said, "You know you should get them renewed every once in a while." But it was that desperation of seeking God and God has never failed to come through when I really sought Him with all my heart, but it isn't often that I get in such a desperate straight.

God says,

Rend your heart, not your garments ( Joel 2:13 ),

We read many times in the scriptures where problems came and the people would tear their clothes to show how upset they were or how deeply emotional they were touched and so they ripped their clothes. And it was an outward demonstration of a deep emotional feeling. But like all outward demonstrations, people begin to abuse them. You can go through the outward motions but not really feel it within. It becomes sort of thing of a hypocrisy, where I look like I am going through it but it's just a display, just a show. And so it became a commonplace thing. "Oh, you can't go with me tonight? Oh, oh, oh," you know, you rip your clothes and you know... it didn't really show that deep, deep, deep grief, sorrow that the act originally intended to manifest. So God says, "Hey, look, I want to see your hearts ripped, not your clothes. I want to see your heart really torn before God. Rend your hearts, tear your hearts, not your garments." God doesn't want any sham when you come to Him. God wants you to come to Him with your whole heart. He doesn't want to play games with you. He wants you to be honest and sincere. He wants you to rend your heart, not your garments.

turn to the LORD your God ( Joel 2:13 ):

The second call to turn to God. And, of course, things are desperate; that's the time to turn to God. Of course, anytime's a good time to turn to God, but especially when things are desperate.

turn to God: for God is gracious and God is merciful ( Joel 2:13 ),

That's why we turn to Him, that we might receive His mercy, that we might receive His grace.

he is of great kindness, he is slow to anger ( Joel 2:13 ),

And God doesn't like to use judgment to get people's attention.

it repents him of the evil ( Joel 2:13 ).

That is, of the judgment that it was, that was necessary to get you to wake up, to get you to turn around, to get your attention. God doesn't like to use harsh means. He only does so because He loves you so much that He can't let you just destroy yourself. So when you are headstrong, going your own path of destruction, God will sometimes use very severe means to stop you and to get your attention. Maybe the death or the illness of someone that is very dear and close to you. God is seeking... God doesn't like to use those means, but unfortunately, many times we are so dull in our spiritual sensitiveness that God has to use stringent measures before we ever respond. It repents Him though. He doesn't like using these kind of measures.

Turn to God, for who knows just what God will do in helping you, blessing you. Who knows the blessings that God has in store for your life. Who knows what glorious things God has in mind for you? Surely I never dreamed in my wildest dreams all of the glorious blessed things God had for my life. Oh, how thankful I am I turned my life over to God. Oh, what a blessing has been mine because I turned my life over to God. Far more than I ever dreamed or thought. Who knows what God has in mind for you? As Dwight Moody was challenged by the statement, "The world has yet to see what God will do through a man who will totally surrender his life to God." Who knows what God wants to do in and through your life? You'll never know until you totally surrender yourself to Him. Turn to God with your whole heart, for who knows just what blessing God may have in mind for you.

Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly of the people: Gather the people, and sanctify the congregation, assemble together the elders, and gather the children, and those that are nursing: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. And let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathens should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? ( Joel 2:15-17 )

And so it is a time of national revival. Call the people together before God. And this day will come in Israel as they are threatened by this insurmountable foe from a natural standpoint. They'll be forced to cry out unto God. Of course, God calls upon the ministers to pray between the porch and the altar that God would spare His people from the devastation and the destruction of this enemy.

And as a result,

The LORD will be jealous for his land, and pity his people. Yes, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen: But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and I will drive him into a land that is barren and desolate, and with his face toward the east sea, and the hinder part towards the utmost sea, and his smell shall come up, and his ill savor shall come up, because he hath done great things. Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things ( Joel 2:18-20 ).

When we were over in Israel in 1973 and the Yom Kippur War broke out, we did not at that point know just how deeply Russia may become involved. Any one of those skirmishes have the potential of escalating into a full-scale invasion by Russia of the Middle East; 1973 almost did. The Russians were poised to send troops into the Middle East to bring a peace, what they called a peace, but what was really entailed was an invasion of Israel. They were planning that in 1973 when President Nixon called for a worldwide alert of all of our armed forces and Russia turned back. When we were there in Israel, I felt just as safe as a child in it's crib, because I knew that God was gonna protect the land; I didn't know about the United States. I sort of felt sorry for you at home. There may be some stray nuclear weapons sent this direction, but God is going to protect the people of the land when Russia invades. People say, "Oh, aren't you afraid to go over there with all the turmoil?" I feel safer there than I do walking the streets here. God's watching over that land. God's gonna take care of them.

[Be not afraid,] Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree bears her fruit, and the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month ( Joel 2:21-23 ).

Now the interesting thing is that one thing that has happened in Israel is the return of what they call the former and the latter rains. They begin to get their first rains some time in October, late October, November. And now they are beginning to get good heavy rains in the springtime, and it is causing the land to just produce so abundantly all of the rain that they are now getting. And God promised that He would restore again the former rain and the latter rain. Something that the land did not have for over two thousand years but now again is experiencing each year. Tell me that God's Word isn't true. Tell me that God doesn't know what He's talking about. The evidence is the nation of Israel; all of the evidence that anybody would ever need.

The floor shall be full of wheat, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the cankerworm, the caterpillar, the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you ( Joel 2:24-25 ).

God's promise of the restoration of the years that were destroyed when they were away from God. You know, this is what the prophet was saying, "God is gracious. God is merciful." It's tragic what we do with our lives. I think one of the saddest things in the world is wasted potential. I see young people with such tremendous potential; good minds, good personalities, talented, and I see them just wasting their lives doing such foolish things, doing things that for years they will suffer the consequences. And I think of the wasted potential and I think that that's one of the greatest tragedies of our day are the lives, the wasted potential of lives.

Today when we got home from church we looked out the window and in the schoolyard behind us we saw these young boys on their bicycles, little boys, ten... eleven years old. And my... they looked up and they saw my wife looking at them out the window and so they sort of ducked aside because they had just struck a match, and Kay said, "Those little kids are getting ready to smoke marijuana." And sure enough, in a moment the old smell, you know, came in the window. And so I went down and I said to the kids, you know, "Hey, don't appreciate that around here." And I looked at these little kids and I thought, "Oh, how sad, how tragic." And on a Sunday afternoon these little, tiny boys have nothing better to do than to get a joint and get loaded. What a waste of life. I've seen just too many people with altered personalities and diminished capacities as a result of smoking marijuana. To think that here they are starting so young in a pattern that can just diminish their entire future, the capacity for the future.

Don't tell me it isn't habit forming; I've met too many who can't quit. Don't tell me it doesn't alter the personality; I've met too many altered personalities. I've observed too many people who they are not aware that their personality is altered, but it's obvious to anyone standing apart and looking at them. They still think they're cool. They still think that they're handling things. They still think that everything is all right, but they have an altered personality; very observable to someone on the outside. And I think of wasted potential, wasted life. How tragic it is. But then the glorious gospel that we have: God restores to a person those wasted years. That's so beautiful. Therein is the grace of God.

I look at so many of the young men who are in the ministry today who began that path of wasted lives. I think of Mike MacIntosh down there in San Diego. When Mike first came, he was so spaced out. He had so destroyed his brain with acid and speed that I wondered if Mike would ever be normal. He went around for over six months in a paranoid state. He thought that someone was holding a forty-five and pulling the trigger and he heard the sound of the explosion of the gun for six months. So spacey, I wondered, will Mike ever recover? And I saw a handsome young man and I thought "Oh, what a wasted life," clever young man, personable young man, but destroyed himself. But then we saw the work of God and we saw God begin to restore those wasted years.

His wife had left him, figured that he was just down the path and no value, no good. And it was all over for Mike as far as she was concerned. And she was right. She took the little child and left him rather than trying to hang on any longer and couldn't stand to see him destroy himself, but God restored his wife. Gave him... now he's got five children I think. And God restored his sanity. God restored Mike in such a beautiful way. And now pastors that highly evangelical assembly of people there in San Diego reaching out to the world for Jesus Christ and that glorious work of God restoring to man the things that he destroyed by his own stupidity. So God says, "I will restore to you those years that have been devoured." Therein is the grace of God.

And you shall eat plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed. And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel ( Joel 2:26-27 ),

Now the Lord tells us in Ezekiel 38:0 when He destroys the invading Russian army that He will... His name will be sanctified before the nations of the earth and they will know that He is God; they will know that God will fight and does fight for His people Israel.

and that I am the LORD your God, and there is none else: and my people shall never be ashamed. And it shall come to pass afterward, [or in the last days] that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out of my Spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. And the sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem, shall be deliverance as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call ( Joel 2:27-32 ).

Now this prophecy of Joel really pertains to these last days. It has often been misunderstood because Peter went on the day of Pentecost and the Spirit was poured out upon the gathered church and there was the accompanying signs of the pillars of fire, the speaking in other languages and a noise like a mighty rushing wind. That when the people assembled and they heard these people speaking these various dialects from the nations from which they came, they marveled and wondered greatly at what was going on, as they heard them glorifying God in their various dialects. And they asked the question, "What does this mean?" And others who were standing around sort of mocked and said, "Man, they've gotten a hold of some new wine someplace. They're really drunk." And so Peter stood up addressing himself to the gathering multitude he said, "Men and brethren hearken unto me, listen to me, for these men are not drunken as ye suppose. It's only nine o'clock in the morning, it's too early to be drunk." But you remember what their question was, "What does this mean?" Peter said, "This is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel," and he quotes this prophecy.

Now, because Peter quoted it and declared that what they were seeing was what Joel had spoken about, people have assumed that it was the complete fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel. Not so, in fact, Peter didn't even say it was the fulfillment of the prophecy. You see, the fulfillment indicates a complete filling. It wasn't. It was just the beginning of the outpouring of God's Spirit. But the real prophecy of Joel does not pertain to the day of Pentecost, but the real prophecy of Joel pertains to the last days. It pertains to the nation of Israel when God restores to Israel His position of divine favor and blessing, and Israel will once be again the instrument of God to bring light into the world. "And it shall come to pass afterward," after Israel is restored, "none of them are ashamed, that God will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall se visions. And upon My servants and handmaids will I pour out of My Spirit. And I will show wonders." And, of course, the Bible speaks of these wonders that will happen in the Great Tribulation: the wonders in the heaven, the sun darkened, the moon turn to blood. These are referred to by Jesus as a part of the period of the Great Tribulation. And these things will all happen before the great and awesome of the LORD comes. That is, the day of the glorious return of Jesus Christ in power and glory.

And it shall come to pass, that even in that day [during the Great Tribulation] whosoever will call on the name of the LORD [will be saved,] will be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD has said, and in the remnant [God's faithful remnant] whom the LORD will call ( Joel 2:32 ).

So this is yet to be fulfilled. It is a prophecy that is yet future and its real fulfillment is yet to take place. "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

A. Israel’s spiritual renewal and deliverance 2:28-32

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

The promise continued that whoever would call on the name of Yahweh would be delivered. The day of the Lord described earlier in this chapter involved God judging the enemies of His people, and this eschatological day of the Lord also involves divine judgment. Therefore the deliverance in view must be from divine judgment (cf. Romans 11:26). Specifically, there will be people on Mt. Zion and in Jerusalem who escape, even among the survivors of previous distresses whom Yahweh has chosen for deliverance (cf. Isaiah 51:3; Zechariah 13:8).

The Apostle Paul quoted this verse and applied it to spiritual salvation (Romans 10:13). His usage does not fulfill what God promised here, namely, physical deliverance before the coming day of the Lord. Paul meant that just as God will deliver all who call on Him in that future day of the Lord, so He will deliver all who call on Him for salvation from sin. They will avoid the terrible day when all unbelievers will suffer condemnation by their Judge (Revelation 20:11-15).

The Apostle Peter also quoted this passage (Joel 2:28-32) in his Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:14-36). He said that what the people of Jerusalem were witnessing, which they mistook for drunkenness, was what Joel had spoken of (Acts 2:16-21; cf. Acts 10:45). Many interpreters believe that Peter meant that Joel’s prophecy was completely fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. [Note: E.g., Dillard, p. 295.] This can hardly be what he meant, however, because much of what Joel predicted in this passage did not occur on the day of Pentecost, specifically the celestial phenomena. The day of Pentecost was not the day of the Lord that Joel predicted.

Another interpretation of Peter’s meaning is that part of what Joel predicted was fulfilled on Pentecost, and the rest awaits fulfillment in the future day of the Lord. [Note: E.g., Kaiser, p. 189.] This double or partial fulfillment view makes most sense to me. God poured out His Spirit on the church on the day of Pentecost, but He will also pour out the Spirit on Israel in the eschatological future. The problem with this view is that the promises of the outpouring of the Spirit and the other miracles are so intertwined that separating them by thousands of years seems unnatural. Moreover, Peter quoted the whole passage in Joel, not just the promise of the Spirit’s outpouring. In contrast, Jesus only quoted part of Isaiah 61:1-3 when He said that that prophecy was fulfilled when He read it in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:18-21).

A third possible interpretation is that Peter meant that what happened on Pentecost was similar to what Joel had prophesied God would do in the future day of the Lord. He drew a comparison and pointed out an analogy, but he did not claim fulfillment. Similarly, Jesus said, "This is my body," in the Upper Room. Both expressions are metaphors, according to this view. This view sees the entire fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy in the eschatological future. The outpouring on the day of Pentecost was simply a foreview of what the Lord will do in the future (cf. Galatians 3:28). The day of Pentecost was not the day of the Lord that the prophets spoke of here and elsewhere.

There is not much practical difference between views two and three. View two sees the outpouring on Pentecost as a partial fulfillment, and view three sees it as a foreview of the fulfillment. [Note: For a fuller discussion of the views regarding Peter’s use of this prophecy, see my notes on Acts 2:16-21.]

"Peter quoted this passage in Acts 2 because (a) it related to the outpouring of God’s Spirit (Acts 2:4; Acts 2:15-16), (b) it stressed his theme of repentance (Acts 2:21; Acts 2:37-39), and (c) it fit with his understanding that the Jews were about to enter the Day of the Lord, leading up to the return of Israel’s Messiah, Jesus (Acts 1:6-8; Acts 2:36; Acts 3:19-21)." [Note: Dyer, p. 743. Cf. Wiersbe, p. 338.]

The day of the Lord that Joel predicted here begins with the Tribulation (cf. Daniel 9:24-27; Revelation 6-18), continues through the return of Christ and the Millennium (cf. Revelation 19-20), and culminates in the eternal state (cf. 2 Peter 3:10-13; Revelation 21-22). The signs in view picture what the Book of Revelation describes further as occurring in the Tribulation, and the pouring out of the Spirit will occur at the beginning of the Millennium. Then all believers will possess the Spirit and will have the ability to receive fresh revelations from the Lord. Forgiveness of sins and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit are two of four great blessings of the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:24-30).

"Joel envisioned the outpouring of the Spirit as being confined to Jews, but in the progress of revelation and history, we discover that Gentiles are included as well, for they too are incorporated into the new covenant community." [Note: Chisholm, Handbook on . . ., p. 374.]

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

And it shall come to pass, [that] whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered,.... Or "saved", as in Acts 2:21; from those miseries and calamities before described, from the impending ruin and destruction of the city; and so it was, that those that believed in Christ, that were in the city, had an intimation of it beforehand, and removed from thence to a place called Pella w, and so escaped being involved in the common calamity: though this also may be understood of a spiritual deliverance and salvation by Christ, from sin, Satan, and the world, and from the second death, and wrath to come, and out of the hands of every enemy; which such share in who call on the name of the Lord, pray to him for grace and mercy, life and salvation, through Christ; that have a spiritual knowledge of God in Christ, real and sincere desires after him, and trust and confidence in him, which this phrase supposes; and which also includes the whole worship of God, internal and external, performed in a spiritual and evangelical manner; see Romans 10:13;

for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said; either by this prophet, or some others before him; see

Psalms 14:7; this cannot be understood literally of Mount Zion and Jerusalem, unless it be of deliverance out of it; not in it, for Jerusalem was the seat of blood, confusion, and distress; but mystically of the church of Christ, often called Zion and Jerusalem,

Hebrews 12:22; hither the deliverer came, here he is, and to be seen; from hence the word of the Lord came, the Gospel of salvation, which proclaims deliverance to the captives; here it is to be heard, met with, and found, Isaiah 2:3;

and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call; not merely externally, by the outward ministry of the word; but internally, according to his purpose, and by his grace, powerfully and effectually, to the special blessings of grace here, and eternal glory hereafter: these are the remnant according to the election of grace; the little flock to whom God gives the kingdom; the few that enter in at the strait gate; the little city, and few men in it, delivered by the poor wise man; these share in the deliverance of Zion, and shall be certainly and completely saved, with an everlasting salvation. This may respect not only the remnant, or a small number of the Jews that believed in Christ, upon his first coming, and the preaching of the Gospel by his apostles, but the call and conversion of them in the latter day; which sense connects the words better with the following chapter.

w Euseb. Eccl. Hist. l. 3. c. 5. p. 75.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      28 And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:   29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.   30 And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.   31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come.   32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call.

      The promises of corn, and wine, and oil, in the Joel 2:12-27, would be very acceptable to a wasted country; but here we are taught that we must not rest in those things. God has reserved some better things for us, and these verses have reference to those better things, both the kingdom of grace and the kingdom of glory, with the happiness of true believers in both. We are here told,

      I. How the kingdom of grace shall be introduced by a plentiful effusion of the Spirit, (Joel 2:28; Joel 2:29). We are not at a loss about the meaning of this promise, nor in doubt what it refers to and wherein it had its accomplishment, for the apostle Peter has given us an infallible explication and application of it, assuring us that when the Spirit was poured out upon the apostles, on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1, c.), that was the very thing which was spoken of here by the prophet Joel,Joel 2:16; Joel 2:17. That was the gift of the Spirit, which, according to this prediction, was to come, and we are not to look for any other, any more than for another accomplishment of the promise of the Messiah. Now, 1. The blessing itself here promised is the pouring out of the Spirit of God, his gifts, graces, and comforts, which the blessed Spirit is the author of. We often read in the Old Testament of the Spirit of the Lord coming by drops, as it were, upon the judges and prophets whom God raised up for extraordinary services; but now the Spirit shall be poured out plentifully in a full stream, as was promised with an eye to gospel-times, Isaiah 44:3. I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed. 2. The time fixed for this is afterwards; after the fulfilling of the foregoing promises this shall be fulfilled. St. Peter expounds this of the last days, the days of the Messiah, by whom the world was to have its last revelation of the divine will and grace in the last days of the Jewish church, a little before its dissolution. 3. The extent of this blessing, in respect of the persons on whom it shall be bestowed. The Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh, not as hitherto upon Jews only, but upon Gentiles also; for in Christ there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, Romans 10:11; Romans 10:12. Hitherto divine revelation was confined to the seed of Abraham, none but those of the land of Israel had the Spirit of prophecy; but, in the last days, all flesh shall see the glory of God (Isaiah 40:5) and shall come to worship before him,Isaiah 66:23. The Jews understand it of all flesh in the land of Israel, and Peter himself did not fully understand it as speaking of the Gentiles till he saw it accomplished in the descent of the Holy Ghost upon Cornelius and his friends, who were Gentiles (Acts 10:44; Acts 10:45), which was but a continuation of the same gift which was bestowed on the day of Pentecost. The Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh, that is, upon all those whose hearts are made hearts of flesh, soft and tender, and so prepared to receive the impressions and influences of the Holy Ghost. Upon all flesh, that is, upon some of all sorts of men; the gifts of the Spirit shall not be so sparing, or so much confined, as they have been, but shall be more general and diffusive of themselves. (1.) The Spirit shall be poured out upon some of each sex. Not your sons only, but your daughters, shall prophesy; we read of four sisters in one family that were prophetesses, Acts 21:9. Not the parents only, but the children, shall be filled with the Spirit, which intimates the continuance of this gift for some ages successively in the church. (2.) Upon some of each age: "Your old men, who are past their vigour and whose spirits begin to decay, your young men, who have yet but little acquaintance with and experience of divine things, shall yet dream dreams and see visions;" God will reveal himself by dreams and visions both to the young and old. (3.) Upon those of the meanest rank and condition, even upon the servants and the handmaids. The Jewish doctors say, Prophecy does not reside on any but such as are wise, valiant, and rich, not upon the soul of a poor man, or a man in sorrow. But in Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free,Galatians 3:28. There were many that were called being servants (1 Corinthians 7:21), but that was no obstruction to their receiving the Holy Ghost. (4.) The effect of this blessing: They shall prophesy; they shall receive new discoveries of divine things, and that not for their own use only, but for the benefit of the church. They shall interpret scripture, and speak of things secret, distant, and future, which by the utmost sagacities of reason, and their natural powers, they could not have any insight into nor foresight of. By these extraordinary gifts the Christian church was first founded and set up, and the scriptures were written, and the ministry settled, by which, with the ordinary operations and influences of the Spirit, it was to be afterwards maintained and kept up.

      II. How the kingdom of glory shall be introduced by the universal change of nature, Joel 2:30; Joel 2:31. The pouring out of the Spirit will be very comfortable to the righteous; but let the unrighteous hear this, and tremble. There is a great and terrible day of the Lord coming, which shall be ushered in with wonders in heaven and earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke, the turning of the sun into darkness and the moon into blood. This is to have its full accomplishment (as the learned Dr. Pocock thinks) in the day of judgment, at the end of time, before which these signs will be performed in the letter of them, yet so that it was accomplished in part in the death of Christ (which is called the judgment of this world, when the earth quaked and the sun was darkened, and a great and terrible day it was), and more fully in the destruction of Jerusalem, which was a type and figure of the general judgment, and before which there were many amazing prodigies, besides the convulsions of states and kingdoms prophesied of under the figurative expressions of turning the sun into darkness and the moon into blood, and the wars and rumours of wars, and distress of nations, which our Saviour spoke of as the beginning of these sorrows,Matthew 24:6; Matthew 24:7. But before the last judgment there will be wonders indeed in heaven and earth, the dissolution of both, without a metaphor. The judgments of God upon a sinful world, and the frequent destruction of wicked kingdoms by fire and sword, are prefaces to and presages of the judgment of the world in the last day. Those on whom the Spirit is poured out shall foresee and foretel that great and terrible day of the Lord, and expound the wonders in heaven and earth that go before it; for, as to his first coming, so to his second, all the prophets did and do bear witness, Revelation 10:7.

      III. The safety and happiness of all true believers both in the first and second coming of Jesus Christ, Joel 2:32; Joel 2:32. This speaks of particular persons, for to them the New Testament has more respect, and less to kingdoms and nations, than the Old. Now observe here, 1. That there is a salvation wrought out. Though the day of the Lord will be great and terrible, yet in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance from the terror of it. It is the day of the Lord, the day of his judgment, who knows how to separate between the precious and the vile. In the everlasting gospel, which went from Zion, in the church of the first-born typified by Mount Zion, and which is the Jerusalem that is from above, there is deliverance; a way of escaping the wrath to come is found out and laid open. Christ is himself not only the Saviour, but the salvation; he is so to the ends of the earth. This deliverance, laid up for us in the covenant of grace, is in performance of the promises made to the fathers. There shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said. See Luke 1:72. Note, This is ground of comfort and hope to sinners, that, whatever danger there is in their case, there is also deliverance, deliverance for them, if it be not their own fault. And, if we would share in this deliverance, we must ourselves apply to the gospel--Zion, to God's Jerusalem. 2. That there is a remnant interested in this salvation, and for whom the deliverance is wrought. It is in that remnant (that is, among them) that the deliverance is, or in their souls and spirits; there are the earnests and evidences of it. Christ in you, the hope of glory. They are called a remnant, because they are but a few in comparison with the multitudes that are left to perish; a little remnant but a chosen one, a remnant according to the election of grace. And here we are told who they are that shall be delivered in the great day. (1.) Those that sincerely call upon God: Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, whether Jew or Gentile (for the apostle so expounds it, Romans 10:13, where he lays this down as the great rule of the gospel by which we must all be judged), shall be delivered. This calling on God supposes knowledge of him, faith in him, desire towards him, dependence on him, and, as an evidence of the sincerity of all this, a conscientious obedience to him; for, without that, crying Lord, Lord, will not stand us in any stead. Note, It is the praying remnant that shall be the saved remnant. And it will aggravate the ruin of those who perish that they might have been saved on such easy terms. (2.) Those that are effectually called to God. The deliverance is sure to the remnant whom the Lord shall call, not only with the common call of the gospel, with which many are called that are not chosen, but with a special call into the fellowship of Jesus Christ, whom the Lord predestinates, or prepares, so the Chaldee. St. Peter borrows this phrase, Acts 2:39. Note, Those only shall be delivered in the great day that are now effectually called from sin to God, from self to Christ, from things below to things above.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

A Free Grace Promise

October 11th, 1888 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." Joel 2:32 .

Vengeance was in full career. The armies of divine justice had been called forth for war: "They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war." They had invaded and devastated the land, and turned the land from being like the garden of Eden into a desolate wilderness. All faces gathered blackness: the people were "much pained" The sun itself was dim, the moon was dark, and the stars withdrew themselves: the earth quaked, and the heavens trembled. At such a dreadful time, when we might least have expected it, between the peals of thunder and the flashes of lightning, was heard this gentle word, "It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." Let us carefully read the passage: "And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." In the worst times that can ever happen, there is still salvation for men. When day turns to night, and life becomes death, and the staff of life is broken, and the hope of man has fled, there still remains in God, in the person of his dear Son, deliverance to all those who will call upon the name of the Lord. We do not know what is to happen: reading the roll of the future, we prophesy dark things; but still this light shall always shine between the rifts of the cloud-wrack: "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." This passage was selected by the apostle at Pentecost to be set in its place as a sort of morning star of gospel times. When the Spirit was poured out upon the servants and the handmaids, and sons and daughters began to prophesy, it was clear that the wondrous time had come, which had been foretold so long before. Then Peter, as he preached his memorable sermon, told the people, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved"; thus giving a fuller and yet more evangelical meaning to the word "delivered." "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered" from sin, death and hell shall, in fact, be so delivered as to be, in divine language, "saved" saved from the guilt, the penalty, the power of sin, saved from the wrath to come. These gospel times are still the happy days in which "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." In the Year of Grace we have reached a day and an hour in which "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." To you at this moment is this salvation sent. The dispensation of immediate acceptance proclaimed at Pentecost has never ceased: its fulness of blessing has grown rather than diminshed. The sacred promise stands in all its certainty, fulness, and freeness: it has lost none of all its breadth and length: "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." I have nothing to do to-night but to tell you over again the old, old story of infinite mercy come to meet infinite sin of free grace come to lead free will into a better line of things of God himself appearing to undo man's ruin wrought by man, and to lift him up by a great deliverance. May the Holy Spirit graciously aid me while I shall talk to you very simply, thus: I. First, THERE IS SOMETHING ALWAYS WANTED. That something is deliverance, or "salvation." It is always wanted. It is the requisite of man, wherever man is found. As long as there are men on the face of the earth, there will always be a need of salvation. I could wish that some of you had the instructive schooling which I received last Tuesday, when I was sitting to see enquirers. I had a very happy time in seeing a very large number of persons who had joyfully put their trust in Christ; but among them were some who could not trust poor hearts, conscious of sin, though they did not think they were. These seemed bound hand and foot, shut up in the prison of despair, and darkened in heart. I tell you, I felt dismayed as they baffled me: I felt a fool as they refused to be comforted. I could do nothing for them so far as argument and persuasion were concerned. I could pray with them: I could also set them praying, and they did pray: but they were cases in which, unless the arm of God were revealed, I was as powerless with them as when a man stands weeping over the body of his dead wife, and would restore her to life even at the cost of his own life, and yet he could produce neither hearing nor motion. Dear friends, while we mingle only with those who are saved, we forget how much need there is still of a divine salvation. If we could go through London, into its dens and slums, we should think very differently of human need from what we do when we simply come from our own quiet domestic circle, and step into our pew and hear a sermon. The world is still sick and dying. The world is still corrupting and rotting. The world is a ship in which the water is rising fast, and the vessel is going down into the deep of destruction. God's salvation is wanted as much to-day as when the spirit preached it in Noah's day to the spirits in prison. God must step in, and bring deliverance, or there remains no hope. Some want deliverance from present trouble. If you are in this need to-night through very sore distress, I invite you to take my text as your guide, and believe that "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." Depend upon it, in any form of distress, physical, mental, or whatever it may be, prayer is wonderfully available. "Call upon me," says God, "in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me." If you are so down at the heel that your foot is on the bare pavement; if you have come to this place in bodily sickness, and feel as if you should die on the seat in which you sit; if there be no physician to help you, and no friend to stretch out a generous hand, call upon God, I beseech you. You have come to the end of men; you are now at the beginning of God. See whether your Maker will forget you. See whether the great, generous heart of God does not still beat tenderly towards the sorrowful and the afflicted. If I saw you lying wounded on a battle-field, bleeding to death, I would say, "Call upon God." If I knew that you had not a house to go to, but must walk these streets all night, I would say, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." I will take the text in the broadest sense, and bid you, nay, command you, to test your good and gracious God in the day of your calamity. This is true whenever you come into a position of deep personal distress, even though it should not be of a physical kind. When you do not know how to act, but are bewildered and at your wits' end, when wave of trouble has followed wave of trouble till you are like the sailor in the storm who reels to and fro, and staggers like a drunken man; if now you cannot help yourself, because your spirit sinks and your mind fails, call upon God, call upon God, call upon God! Lost child in the wood, with the night fog thickening about you, ready to lie down and die, call upon your Father! Call upon God, thou distracted one; for "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." In the last great day when all secrets are known, it will seem ridiculous that ever persons took to writing tales and romances; for the real stories of what God has done for those who cry to him are infinitely more surprising. If men and women could but tell in simple, natural language how God has come to their rescue in the hour of imminent distress, they would set the harps of heaven a-ringing with new melodies, and the hearts of saints on earth a-glowing with new love to God for his wonderful kindness to the children of men. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness! Oh that we could abundantly utter the memory of his great goodness to ourselves in the night of our weeping! The text holds good concerning deliverance from future troubles. What is to happen in the amazing future we do not know. Some try to startle and alarm you with prophecies of what will soon happen; concerning whom I would warn you to be well upon your guard. Take small heed of what they say. Whatever is to happen according to the Word of God if the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood if God shall show great wonders in the heavens, and the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke, yet remember that though you will then assuredly want deliverance, deliverance will still be near at hand. The text seems put in a startling connection in order to advise us that when the worst and most terrible convulsions shall occur, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." The star Wormwood may fall, but we shall be saved if we call upon the name of the Lord. Plagues may be poured out, trumpets may sound, and judgments may follow one another as quickly as the plagues of Egypt, but "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." When the need of deliverance shall apparently increase, the abundance of salvation shall increase with it. Fear not the direst of all wars, the bitterest of all famines, the deadliest of all plagues; for still, if we call upon the Lord, he is pledged to deliver us. This word of promise meets the most terrible of possibilities with a sure salvation. Yes, and when you come to die, when to you the sun has turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, this text ensures deliverance in the last dread hour. Call upon the name of the Lord, and you shall be saved. Amid the pains of death, and the gloom of departure, you shall enjoy a glorious visitation, which shall turn darkness into light, and sorrow into joy. When you wake up amid the realities of the eternal future there will be nothing for you to dread in resurrection, or in judgment, or in the yawning mouth of hell. If you have called upon the name of the Lord, you shall still be delivered. Though the unpardoned are thrust down to the depth of woe, and the righteous scarcely are saved, yet you who have called upon the name of the Lord must be delivered. Stands the promise firm, whatever may be hidden in the great roll of the future; God cannot deny himself, he will deliver those who call upon his name. What is wanted, then, is salvation; and I do think, beloved brethren, that you and I who preach the Word, and long to save souls, must very often go over this grand old truth about salvation to the guilty, deliverance to all who call upon the name of the Lord. Sometimes we talk to friends about the higher life, about attaining to very high degrees of sanctity; and all this is very proper and very good; but still the great fundamental truth is, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." We urge our friends to be sound in doctrine, and to know what they do know, and to understand the revealed will of God; and very proper is this also; but still, first and foremost, this is the elementary, all-important truth "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." To this old foundation truth we come back for comfort. I sometimes rejoice in God, and joy in the God of my salvation, and spread my wings and mount up into communion with the heavenlies; but still there are other seasons when I hide my head in darkness, and then I am very glad of such a broad, gracious promise as this, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." I find that my sweetest, happiest, safest state, is just as a poor, guilty, helpless sinner, to call upon the name of the Lord, and take mercy at his hands as one who deserves nothing but his wrath, while I dare hang the weight of my soul on such a sure promise as this, "Whosoever shall can on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Get where you may, however high your experience; be what you may, however great your usefulness, you will always want to come back to the same ground upon which the poorest and weakest of hearts must stand, and claim to be saved by almighty grace, through simply calling upon the name of the Lord. Thus have I said enough upon what is always wanted this deliverance, this salvation. II. Now, secondly, let us attentively observe THE WAY IN WHICH THIS DELIVERANCE IS TO BE HAD. Help us, blessed Spirit, in this our meditation. It is to be had, according to the text, by calling upon the name of the Lord. Is not the most obvious sense of this language, prayer? Are we not brought to the Lord by a prayer which trusts in God by a prayer which asks God to give the deliverance that is needed, and expects to have it from the Lord, as a gift of grace ? It amounts to much the same thing as that other word, "Believe and live"; for how shall they call on him of whom they have not heard? And if they have heard, yet vain is their calling if they have not believed as well as heard. But to "call on the name of the Lord," is briefly to pray a believing prayer; to cry to God for his help, and to leave yourself in his hands. This is very simple, is it not? There is no cumbersome machinery here, nothing complex and mysterious. No priestly help is wanted, except the help of that great High Priest, who intercedes for us within the veil. A poor, broken heart pours its distress into the ear of God, and calls upon him to fullfil his promise of help in the time of need that is all. Thank God, nothing more is mentioned in our text. The promise is "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." What a suitable way of salvation it is to those who feel that they can do nothing! Ah, dear hearts! if we had to preach to them a very difficult and elaborate salvation, they would perish. They have not the mind, some of them, to follow our directions if they were at all intricate; and they have not enough hope to venture upon anything that looks at all difficult. But if it be true that "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved," this method is simple and available, and they catch at it. He can pray to God who can do nothing else. Thank God, he need not want to do anything else; for if he can call for help, he gets deliverance, and, in that deliverance, he gets all that he will ever want between this place and heaven. He has called upon the name of the Lord, and all that is deficient in him will be supplied for time and for eternity. He will be delivered, not only now, but throughout all the future of his life, until he sees the face of God in glory everlasting. The text, however, contains within it a measure of specific instruction: the prayer must be to the true God. "Whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be saved." There is something distinctive here; for one would call on Baal, another would call on Ashtaroth, and a fourth on Moloch; but these would not be saved. The promise is special: "Whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be saved." You know that triune name, "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost " call upon it. You know how the name of Jehovah is set forth most conspicuously in the person of the Lord Jesus call upon him. Call upon the true God. Call upon no idol, call on no Virgin Mary, no saint, dead or living. Call on no image. Call on no impression of your mind! Call upon the living God call upon him who reveals himself in the Bible call upon him who manifests himself in the person of his dear Son; for whosoever shall call upon this God shall be saved. You may call upon the idols, but these will not hear you: "Ears have they, but they hear not. Eyes have they, but they see not." You may not call upon men, for they are all sinners like yourselves. Priests cannot help their most zealous admirers; but, "Whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be saved." Mind, then, it is not the mere repetition of a prayer as a sort of charm, or a piece of religious witchcraft, but you must make a direct address to God, an appeal to the Most High to help you in your time of need. In presenting true prayer to the true God you shall be delivered. Moreover, the prayer should be intelligently presented. We read, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord." Now, by the word "name" we understand the person, the character of the Lord. The more, then, you know about the Lord, and the better you know his name, the more intelligently will you call upon that name. If you know his power, you will call upon that power to help you. If you know his mercy, you will call upon him in his grace to save you. If you know his wisdom, you feel that he knows your difficulties, and can help you through them. If you understand his immutability, you will call upon him, as the same God who has saved other sinners, to come and save you. It will be well, therefore, for you to study the Scriptures much, and to pray the Lord to manifest himself to you that you may know him; since, in proportion to your acquaintance with him, will you with greater confidence be able to call upon his name. But, little as you may know, call on him according to the little you do know. Cast yourself upon him, whether your trouble to-night be external or internal; but especially if it be internal, if it be the trouble of sin, if it be the burden of guilt, if it be a load of horror and fear because of wrath to come, call upon the name of the Lord, for you shall be delivered. There stands his promise. It is not, "He may be delivered," but he " shall be." Note well the everlasting "shall" of God irrevocable, unalterable, unquestionable, irresistible. His promise stands eternally the same. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." This way of salvation, by calling upon the name of the Lord, glorifies God. He asks nothing of you but that you ask everything of him. You are the beggar, and he is the benefactor. You are in the trouble, and he is the Deliverer. All you have to do is to trust him, and beg of him. This is easy enough. This puts the matter into the hands of the Lord, and takes it out of your hands. Do you not like the plan? Put it in practice immediately! It will prove itself gloriously effectual. Dear friends, I speak to some whom I know to be now present, who are under severe trial. You dare not look up. You seem to be given up; at any rate you have given yourself up; and yet, I pray you, call upon the name of the Lord. You cannot perish praying; no one has ever done so. If you could perish praying, you would be a new wonder in the universe. A praying soul in hell is an utter impossibility. A man calling on God and rejected of God! the supposition is not to be endured. "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." God himself must lie, he must quit his nature, forfeit his claim to mercy, destroy his character of love, if he were to let a poor sinner call upon his name, and yet refuse to hear him. There will come a day, but that is not now there will come a day in the next state when he will say, "I called, but ye refused" ; but it is not so now. While there is life there is hope. "To-day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your heart," but call upon God at once; for this warrant of grace runneth through all the regions of mortality, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." I recollect a time when, if I had heard a sermon on this subject, putting it plainly to me, I should have leaped into comfort and light in a single moment. Is it not such a time with you? I thought, I must do something, I must be something, I must in some way prepare myself for the mercy of God. I did not know that a calling upon God, a trusting myself in his hand, an invocation of his sacred name, would bring me to Christ, the Saviour. But so it stands, and happy, indeed, was I when I found it out. Heaven is given away. Salvation may be had for the asking. I hope that many a captive heart here will at once leap to loose his chains, and cry, "It is even so. If God has said it, it must be true. There it is in his own Word. I have called upon him, and I must be delivered." III. Now I come to notice, in the third place, THE PEOPLE TO WHOM THIS PROMISE AND THIS DELIVERANCE WILL BE GIVEN. "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered." According to the connection, the people had been greatly afflicted afflicted beyond all precedent, afflicted to the very brink of despair; but the Lord said, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Go down to the hospital. You may select, if you please, the hospital which deals with the effects of vice. In that house of misery you may stand at each bed and say, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." You may then hasten every door of every cell, yes, even at the grating of the condemned cell, if there lie men and women there given up to death, and you may with safety say to each one, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered." I know what the Pharisees will say "If you preach this, men will go on in sin." It has always been so, that the great mercy of God has been turned by some into a reason for continuing in sin; but God (and this is the wonder of it) has never restricted his mercy because of that. It must have been a terrible provocation of Almighty grace when men have perverted his mercy into an excuse for sin, but the Lord has never even taken the edges off from his mercy because men have misused it: he has still made it stand out bright and clear: "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Still he cries, "Turn and live." "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Undimmed is that brave sun that shineth on the foulest dunghills of vice. Trust Christ, and live. Call upon the name of the Lord, and you shall be pardoned; yea, you shall be rescued from the bondage of your sin, and be made a new creature, a child of God, a member of the family of his grace. The most afflicted, and the most afflicted by sin, are met with by this gracious promise, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Yes, but there were some, according to Joel, who had the Spirit of God poured out upon them. What about them? Were they saved by that ? Oh no! Those who had the Spirit of God so that they dreamed dreams and saw visions, yet had to come to the palace of mercy by this same gate of believing prayer "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Ah, poor souls! you say, to yourselves, "if we were deacons of churches, if we were pastors, oh, then we should be saved!" You do not know anything about it: church officers are no more saved by their office than you are by being without office. We owe nothing to our official position in this matter of salvation: in fact, we may owe our damnation to our official standing unless we look well to our ways. We have no preference over you plain folks. I do assure you, I am quite happy to take your hand, whoever you may be, and come to Christ on the same footing as yourself.

"Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to thy cross I cling."

Often, when I have been cheering up a poor sinner, and urging him to believe in Christ, I have thought, "Well, if he will not drink this cup of comfort, I will even drink it up myself." I assure you, I need it as much as those to whom I carry it. I have been as big a sinner as any of you, and therefore I take the promise to myself. The divine cordial shall not be lost: I will accept it. I came to Jesus as I was, weary, and worn, and faint, and sick, and full of sin, and I trusted him on my own account, and found peace peace on the same ground as my text sets before all of you. If I drink of this consolation, you may drink it too. The miracle of this cup is that fifty may drink, and yet it is just as full as ever. There is no restriction in the word "Whosoever." You maidens that have the Spirit of God upon you, and you old men that dream, it is neither the Spirit of God nor the dreaming that will save you; but your calling on the sacred name. It is, "whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Also, there were some upon whom the Spirit of God did not fall. They did not speak with tongues, nor prophesy the future, nor work miracles; but though they did none of these marvels, yet it stood true to them "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." What though no supernatural gift was bestowed, though they saw no vision and could not speak with tongues, they called upon the name of the Lord, and they were saved. There is the same way of salvation for the little as well as for the great, for the poorest and most obscure as well as for those that are strong in faith, and lead the hosts of God to the battle. But some were terribly afraid. I should think that a good many must have been sadly alarmed when there were in the earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke, the sun turned into darkness and the moon into blood: but, afraid as they were, if they called upon the name of the Lord, they were delivered. Now, Mrs. Much-afraid, what do you say to that? Mr. Ready-to-halt, did I hear your crutches sounding in the aisle just now, or was it an umbrella? Never mind, if you call upon the name of the Lord, you shall be saved. You that are so feeble in mind, so weak, so wounded that you hardly dare to trust, still it is written for your sakes also, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." "Ah!" says another, "but I am worse than that. I have no good feelings. I would give all that I have to own a broken heart. I wish I could even feel despair, but I am hard as a stone." I have been told that sorrowful story many times, and it almost always happens that those who most mourn their want of feeling are those who feel most acutely. Their hearts are like hell-hardened steel, so they say; but it is not true. But if it were true, "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Do you think that the Lord wants you to give yourself a new heart first, and that then he will save you? My dear soul, you are saved when you have a new heart, and you do not want him to save you then, since you are saved. "Oh, but I must get good feelings!" Must you? Where are you going for them? Are you to rake the dunghill of your depraved nature to find good feelings there? Come without any good feeling. Come just as you are. Come, you that are like a frozen iceberg, that have nothing about you whatever, but that which chills and repels; come and call upon the name of the Lord, and you shall be saved. "Wonders of grace to God belong." It is not a small gospel that he has sent us to preach to small sinners, but ours is a great gospel for great sinners. "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." "Ah, well!" says one, "I cannot think it is meant for me, for I am nobody. " Nobody, are you there? I have a great love for nobodies. I am worried with somebodies, and the worst somebody in the world is my own somebody. How I wish I could always turn my own somebody out, and keep company with none but nobodies! Then I should make Jesus everybody. Nobody, where are you? You are the very person that I am sent to look after. If there is nothing of you, there shall be all the more of Christ. If you are not only empty, but cracked and broken; if you are done for, destroyed, ruined, utterly crushed and broken, to you is this word of salvation sent: "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." I have set the gate wide open. If it were the wrong track, all the sheep would go through; but as it is the right road, I may set the gate open as long as I will, but yet the sheep will shun it, unless thou, Great Shepherd, shall go around the field to-night, and lead them in. Take up in thine own arms some sheep that thou hast purchased long ago with thy dear heart's blood take him upon thy gracious shoulders, rejoicing as thou doest it, and place him within the field where the good pasture grows. IV. I want you to dwell for a minute upon THE BLESSING ITSELF. "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." I need not say much about it because I have already expounded it. It is a very good rule, when a man makes you a promise, to understand it in the narrowest sense. It is fair to him that you should do so. Let him interpret it liberally, if he pleases; but he is actually bound to give you no more than the bare terms of his promise will imply. Now, it is a rule which all God's people may well practise, always to understand God's promises in the largest possible sense. If the words will bear a bigger construction than at the first sight they naturally suggest to you, you may put the larger construction upon them. "He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or even think." God never draws a line in his promise, that he may go barely up to it; but it is with the great God as it was with his dear Son, who, though he was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet spent the greater part of his time in Galilee, which was called, "Galilee of the Gentiles"; and went to the very verge of Canaan to find out a Canaanitish woman, that he might give her a blessing. Thou mayest put the biggest and most liberal sense, then, on such a text as this, for Peter did so. The New Testament is wont to give a broader sense to Old Testament words; and it does so most rightly, for God loves us to treat his words with the breadth of faith. Come, then, if you are the subject of the judgments of God; if you believe that God's hand has visited you on account of sin, call upon him, and he will deliver you both from the judgment, and from the guilt that brought the judgment from the sin, and from that which follows the sin. He will help you to escape. Try him now, I pray you. And if your case should be different: if you are a child of God and you are in trouble, and that trouble eats into your spirit, and causes you daily wear of spirit and tear of heart call upon the Lord. He can take away from you the fret and the trouble too. "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." You may have to bear the trouble, but it shall be so transformed as to be rather a blessing than an evil, and you shall fall in love with your cross, since the nature of it has been changed. If sin be the great cause of your present trouble, and that sin has brought you into bondage to evil habits, if you have been a drunkard and do not know how to learn sobriety, if you have been unchaste and have become entangled in vicious connections; call upon God, and he can break you away from the sin, and set you free from all its entanglements. He can cut you loose to-night with the great sword of his grace, and make you a free man. I tell you that, though you should be like a poor sheep between the jaws of a lion, ready to be devoured immediately by the monster, God can come and pluck you out from between the lion's jaws. The prey shall be taken from the mighty, and the lawful captive shall be delivered. Only call upon the name of the Lord! Call upon the name of the Lord, and you shall be delivered. Yes, and I repeat what I said just now. If you have come under the power of disease, if you are near to die, if already death has written his name legibly upon your body, and you are afraid of death and hell; yet call upon the name of the Lord, and you shall be delivered at this last moment. Even now, when the pit gapes wide for you, and like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, you are ready to go down alive into it, call upon the name of the Lord and you shall be delivered. If I were telling you what I had made up, or hammered out of my own brain, I could not expect you to believe me; but, as this Book is inspired, and as Joel spoke in the name of God, and as the apostles spoke in the name of Jehovah, this is the very truth of the God that made the heavens and the earth. "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." V. In conclusion, I must remind you of one mournful thought. Let me warn you OF THE SADLY COMMON NEGLECT OF THIS BLESSING. You would think that everybody would call upon the name of the Lord; but read the text, "For in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said." It shall be there as the Lord hath said. Will they not have it then? Notice! "And in the remnant whom the Lord shall call." It seems to shrivel me up altogether, that word "remnant." What! Will they not come ? Are they madmen? Will they not come? No, only a remnant; and even that remnant will not call upon the name of the Lord until first God calls them by his grace. This is almost as great a wonder as the love which so graciously invites them. Could even devils behave worse? If they were invited to call upon God, and be saved, would they refuse? Unhappy business! The way is plain, but "few there be that find it." After all the preaching, and all the invitation, and the illimitable breadth of the promise, yet all that are saved are contained "in the remnant whom the Lord shall call." Is not our text a generous invitation; the setting open of the door, yea, the lifting of the door from off its hinges, that it never might be shut? And yet "broad is the gate, and wide is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat." There they come, streams of them, hurrying impatiently, rushing down to death and hell yes, eagerly panting, hurrying, dashing against one another to descend to that awful gulf from which there is no return! No missionaries are wanted, no ministers are needed to plead with men to go to hell. No books of persuasion are wanted to urge them to rush onward to eternal ruin. They hurry to be lost: they are eager to be destroyed. As when the wild bisons of the prairie hasten onward in their madness, until they come to a great gulf, and then rush down headlong, a cataract of life leaping to death, so is it with the sons of men! They choose their own delusions, and covet their own damnations, and that without end. This is all that sovereign mercy rescues after all a remnant, and that remnant only because the arm of the Lord is revealed, and a miraculous power exerted upon their wills. This is the misery of it, that the guilty are not willing to be parted from their sins. They will not seek that which alone is their life, their joy, their salvation. They prefer hell to heaven, sin to holiness. Never spake the Master a word which observation more clearly proves than when he said, "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." You will attend your chapels, but you will not call on the Lord. Jesus cries, "Ye search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me; but ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." You will do anything rather than come to Jesus. You stop short of calling upon him. O my dear hearers, do not let it be so with you! Many of you are saved; I beseech you intercede for those who are not saved. Oh, that the unconverted among you may be moved to pray. Before you leave this place, breathe an earnest prayer to God, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner. Lord, I need to be saved. Save me. I call upon thy name." Join with me in prayer at this moment, I entreat you. Join with me while I put words into your mouths, and speak them on your behalf "Lord, I am guilty. I deserve thy wrath. Lord I cannot save myself. Lord, I would have a new heart and a right spirit, but what can I do? Lord, I can do nothing, come and work in me to will and to do of thy good pleasure.

"Thou alone hast power, I know, To save a wretch like me; To whom, or whither should I go If I should turn from thee?"

But I now do from my very soul call upon thy name. Trembling, yet believing, I cast myself wholly upon thee, O Lord. I trust the blood and righteousness of thy dear Son; I trust thy mercy, and thy love, and thy power, as they are revealed in him. I dare to lay hold upon this word of thine, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Lord, save me to-night, for Jesus' sake. Amen."

Kelly Commentary on Books of the Bible

Lectures on the Minor Prophets.

W. Kelly.

"The word of Jehovah that came to Joel the son of Pethuel." Like Hosea, Joel is one of the earliest prophets (being earlier even than Jonah), but differs essentially in this, that whereas the former looks at the whole people, the latter was led of God to restrict himself to that portion which outwardly clave to the house of David as well as the ordinances of the law. This gives us accordingly a much more contracted sphere, but for that very reason contributes to a greater definiteness in the objects noticed, which is also helped by a characteristic vividness of style. Indeed the contrast is striking between these two earlier prophets, Joel being as remarkable for smoothness of language, fulness of handling, and easy transitions, as Hosea for a certain rough negligence, pregnant brevity, and sudden turns, highly expressive but to Gentile minds somewhat obscure.

The grand subject of our prophet is the day of Jehovah, and this in all its extent, but with special application to the Jews, and above all to Jerusalem. At the same time Joel shares the habit of all the prophets, one may say, in taking some present fact, or that which was close at hand, as a groundwork for what was future. Thus the prophecy had an immediate bearing or a practical aim not far off, while along with it we see how far the Spirit of God is from confining Himself to what was either actually at work or of a transient nature. No prophecy of scripture is of its own solution; it is constructed so as not to be. To limit it to the past would be an oversight; to set aside the future would destroy the most momentous object God has in it. Thus if to deny the past be an error, to deny the future is a still greater one. The one would have cut off somewhat of interest and profit then; the other shuts out its permanent witness to God's glory. In both respects divine wisdom is most apparent. He provided that which was a warning or encouragement to His people when the prophet was in view of the circumstances which surrounded him; but He pointed onward to a time that was not yet arrived, when the just results of what was in His own mind will be made good and manifest. Now those results never can be till the kingdom of God come in power and glory. It is impossible that the Spirit of God could be satisfied with anything which either has been among men or is now. All that man has achieved, all that exists, although there be a witness in various ways of what God is toward man, affords alas! still larger and more constant evidence of the failure of man to use aright what God has given him. We shall find these general principles fully borne out, not only in Joel but in all the prophets; for they are invariable.

Among the readers of Joel there has been not only difficulty felt, but one may say misapprehension; yet this rather from their own want of perception of the subject than from any lack of point or of pure and direct language in the prophet. Some have regarded these locust inflictions as merely symbolic; others again deny anything beyond the literal swarms of insects which successively preyed on the products of Palestine. But God, because He is great, can take notice of what is little, while obviously He cannot be limited to it. Hence it is a mistake to suppose that God would in any way be demeaned by noticing the depredations of these various locusts. He takes the liveliest interest in His people for their joy and blessing. He concerns Himself about every sorrow which weighs them down, and deigns to use that which is afflicting for good. Consequently the Spirit of God does not think it beneath His notice to bring before the people of God that which God intended by these successive depredations. Chapter 1 brings them before us; but the connection which follows shows that they were only admonitory facts then. It is to be doubted that they represent the enemies who would surely fall on a people in due time if impenitent. They might well suggest such a result to the thoughtful mind. They were past; worse was coming and at hand.

In Joel 2:1-32 the literal locusts are left behind (save of course in the blessing, ver. 25, which reverses all), and the prophet goes forward to that which the locusts represented. Thus the first chapter gives us actual facts, nothing but the various creatures which committed depredations on all the vegetation of the land. It does not appear that in themselves any ulterior meaning is definitely meant to be gathered. The successive desolations caused by the insects are distinctly presented to us. From verse 15 God uses them as an introduction for the purpose of warning His people of a still greater and more momentous burden. The details of this begin to be brought out in chapter 2, with a promise of spiritual power couched in such terms that the New Testament could apply it to the great privilege and power which signalised the godly remnant of Jews who called on the name of the Lord in Jerusalem at Pentecost, but in its full and precious import awaiting its fulfilment when all the accessories of the prediction will be realised at the end of the age.

Joel 3:1-21 looks to the full issue in judgment and blessing, the characteristic features of the day of Jehovah. Here again may be seen that, instead of the prophecy consisting of uncertain prognostication and of exaggerated terms, such thoughts are only due to men who do not understand its scope. Would it not be more becoming for them to abstain from an opinion till they do? In my judgment nothing can be less reverent or more inconsistent with modesty than such off-hand and random statements about the word of God. The truth is that scripture is always perfect, but men are not competent to speak unless taught of God. Thus, humanly speaking, there are those who could appreciate the wonders of the heavens, but are dull to perceive the divine construction of a daisy; yet to any one that estimates aright, the perfect hand of God even in a daisy is just as clear and certain as in the solar system. It is only a question of the place which each creature of God occupies in His own immense scheme. His wisdom and power are displayed no less in the minute than in the grand and massive and sublime. Thus there is no doubt that, if the telescope opens many a wonder to man, the microscope is not less impressive. They are both important instruments in the hand of man, and they are both intended, doubtless in God's providence, to show man from the natural world a witness of divine power in what is above and also in that which is beneath. But in all things what ought to be gathered from it is not incense for man (without denying the great dignity of him who is the head or natural chief of creation), but the wonders of God in what He has wrought A similar principle applies to the word of God; for therein if God displays Himself in what is vast, quite as much does He appear in ways whose minuteness might easily escape observation. Everywhere perfection is claimed for God, whether in what He has made or, above all, in that which He has written, and in what He has written beyond that which He has wrought, because His mind and ways must transcend His outward works. For the word of God is claimed the very highest place as the expression of His wisdom His inner wisdom For that which is connected with matter must yield to what has to do with mind and the affections, and above all the display of the divine nature.

Now prophecy is a notable part of this expression of His mind, though it is far from being the highest. But I do not think that any sufficient reason appears to suppose a link of connection between the ravages caused by these marauding insects and the providential judgments previous to the day of Jehovah, which some assign to the earlier part of the cut off seventieth week after the church is taken to heaven. That both chapters must be understood in the same manner, either as alluding to locusts or to a hostile army invading Judah, is a rash and unfounded notion, with no other source than man's will added to a contracted mind. Closely connected they undoubtedly are, but there is much beauty in taking the past calamity as the occasion of warning the Jews of a far more awful infliction, and connecting it with the future day of Jehovah.

Nor do I see any solid reason for considering the four swarms respectively allegorical of Tiglath-pileser, Shalmaneser, Sennacherib, and Nebuchadnezzar on the one hand, nor on the other of the Assyro-Babylonian power, the Medo-Persian, the Macedonian or Syro-Macedonian, and the Roman, or of this last modified. These are speculations which found favour among certain early Christian writers as well as the Jews of their day. But the more we assert the value of the prophetic word, the more resolutely should we set our face against every scheme of interpretation which savours of fancy. We do well to dread speculation in the things of God. It is the rash guess-work of men not subject to His mind as revealed in scripture, and too hasty in coming to conclusions. If we are not sure, it is wise to wait on One who does not disappoint. The basis of scripture for such views it would be desirable to weigh if it can be produced. Hitherto none has been produced, save the analogy of the four with the four beasts and four carpenters, of which we read in the visions of Daniel and of Zechariah. Can any evidence be conceived more precarious? The prophet draws a warning lesson from actual events that had occurred and were before all eyes; and then proceeds to speak of incomparably grave events in grace and judgment, most of which yet remain to be fulfilled. But we must not confound with any part of Joel 1:1-20 the plague of locusts in Revelation 9:1-21 under the fifth trumpet. The ravages in the holy land furnished the occasion for a figurative description of a mighty foe in chapter 2; the literal locusts being but a passing visitation from God, certainly not to be slighted, but very different from the trouble described afterwards. There may be a connection between Joel 2:1-32 (not 1) and Revelation 9:1-21, but the latter introduces symbols of a far more complicated nature and pointing to deeper evil. Both refer to men under the symbol of locusts, and in the use of the locusts in chapter 1 I see little more than God's interest in His people. If He dealt a blow, He meant them to humble themselves and ask and learn of Him through the prophet why it was dealt. He was chastening the people He loved that they might be partakers of His holiness, and escape the heavier blows which would otherwise be their portion.

"Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?" Go back as might the oldest, and search as every inhabitant might, no such thing had been in the days of themselves or their fathers. What had occurred then was to be told from one to another of their descendants. Yet was it a scourge easily attributed to second causes, and all profit lost, because God was thus shut out. If He were heard, that which had just befallen the land would arouse to repentance; if despised, the prophet warns of greater ills.

It is familiar to most of us that prophecy always supposes a state of ruin. It comes where there is such unfaithfulness in the people of God as indicates approaching or actual ruin. Prophecy is then God's special and exceptional intervention, not so much because men have failed in doing their duty as when they have been guilty of general and fatal departure from their place, consequently it will be found to have a twofold character. It convicts of the state of ruin on one hand, specifying wherein men have sinned against God, and pronouncing His judgment; but, on the other hand, it bears witness of a better state of things in God's grace, which will displace what is now in ruins. This I believe to be true of all prophecy. It applies even to the garden of Eden. Prophecy always holds out a blessing by a divine judgment that is coming, and has thus a serious aspect towards conscience. God does not give the fulfilment of the hope of something better till present evils already morally discerned are actually judged. It would disparage what He had already given if He brought in a system to displace it otherwise. Judgment therefore must come not in word only, but in deed and in truth. And this judgment in the Old Testament is first temporal a palpable infliction of blows on the evil of this world, and especially of His own guilty people. Thus when things work out to still greater evil, a partial present judgment becomes an earnest of a much more severe rebuke, till God's final dealing come, with its full unsparing judgment on the world.

But we must remember that in these prophecies before our Lord came we do not read of the judgment before the great white throne. It is never the judgment of the soul and body in a risen state. I am not aware of any Old Testament prophecies which bring in the eternal judgment of man raised and consigned to the lake of fire as the second death. This is as characteristic of Christianity as the judgment of the world or living men on the earth (that is, of nations, tribes, and tongues) is the proper subject of Old Testament prophecy. The Revelation of John, which is as peculiar in its themes as in its style, embracing subjects from Old and New, and in Hebrew-Greek phraseology most appropriately sets both fully before us.

Herein we may see that traditional teaching is extremely defective and doubly misleading, because men try to bring in mere providential judgments into the New Testament state of things, as they would also graft eternal judgment upon the Old Testament predictions. The consequence is that a strain is put upon both Testaments, and confusion ensues; for the true way to understand the Bible is not to confound things that differ, but to accept divine revelation as discharging in each of its two distinct parts the function for which God inspired those raised up to communicate His mind. The Old and New Testaments are perfectly harmonious, and there is not a line or word of one that contradicts the other; but they are very far from being or saying the same thing. God takes particular pains to mark the difference, in fact writing each in a different tongue the one Hebrew, having its groundwork in the family of Abraham after the flesh the other Greek, used when God was sending the gospel to the Gentiles as such. Thus the Greek was just as much a representative of Gentile objects as the Hebrew found its fitting object in Israel. But for all that God shows His mind in both. Only the distinctive feature of the Old Testament is His government, while the distinctive truth of the New Testament is His grace. Government and grace are totally distinct; for government is always a dealing with man, whereas grace is the revelation of what God is and does. Consequently the one invariably supposes judgment, and the other is the full display of mercy and goodness; and both find their meeting-point in Christ. As He is the King, He consequently is the head of the government. As He is the Son of God, full of grace and truth, He consequently is the one channel for all the blessing peculiar to the New Testament. His glory, now that the mighty work of redemption is done, accounts for all our characteristic privileges.

But here, in our prophecy, it is evident there was something more defined and painfully different from past times. God had used in former days, no doubt, Midianites and Philistines and other enemies to chastise Israel when guilty especially of idolatry. But here He shows that His hand was stretched out to deal with it in a most humiliating way. Instead of blessings in the basket and the store because of fidelity to His government, they had on the contrary been most unfaithful, and now Jehovah would use even the very insect world, so to speak, to deal with His people. "That which the palmer-worm [or gnawing locust] hath left hath the [swarming] locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm [or licking locust] eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar [or consuming locust] eaten." All this I take in its plain literal import, as having actually occurred then.

"Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion." It is not to me doubtful that the locust depredation is alluded to; but the manner is peculiar, though Proverbs 30:25; Proverbs 30:27, might well prepare us for it. If the ants could be described as a "people," surely the locusts as a "nation." Besides the phraseology paves the way as a transition for something more, of which we shall hear more, preparatorily in verses 15-20, fully in Joel 2:1-32. That is, Joel uses the present visitation as a fact, but withal employs language which forms an easy passage to the prediction of a nation that would deal with the Jews in an unparalleled way. There need be no doubt that the nation in question is the Assyrian. Thus the first chapter starts with the repeated and frightful depredations of the locusts in the prophet's day, but looks on to the trouble of a terrible day. The second chapter directly notices no such havoc from insects, but mingles figures taken from them with the Assyrian who should surely come up. This appears to be the true bearing of the earlier half of the book.

Hence is shown, still in figurative language, how everything was dealt with the vine wasted, the fig-tree barked, the branches cast away and made white. The prophet calls on them accordingly to lament. Nor was it only that the country and men suffered the destruction of their natural resources as a chastening from God, but everything else was affected. The religious oblations felt the blight over the land the meat-offering and the drink-offering the one the witness of devotedness, and the other of joy before God. Both these were clean cut off from the house of Jehovah. "Lament as a virgin girded with sackcloth on account of the husband of her youth. The meat-offering and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah; the priests howl, the ministers of Jehovah. The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth." Every mark of fertility was now disappearing; and hence the very husbandmen are called to shame, and the vine-dressers to howl, on account of the wheat and the barley for that which constituted the staff or even the barest necessaries of life (verse 11). Assuredly fruit-bearing trees did not escape. "The vine is dried up, and the fig-tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men" (verse 12)

It is granted that to a Christian all this may seem somewhat outside his line, and for the obvious reason that our blessings are so entirely apart from nature. It should be remembered that the Jew enjoyed natural blessings from God, whilst the Christian's blessings are supernatural. He may of course have along with his privileges in Christ external mercies; but these are not the substance of his heritage at any time. God may give or withhold them, without any mark of approval whatever. But now for us proper blessings are of a spiritual sort. It was not so with Israel. Hence clearly there was an appropriateness and force in these visitations, which is lost for the Christian; and therefore he is accordingly tempted to explain away such prophecies as these whenever he applies them to himself, which he is apt to do. Maintain their proper fulfilment in the sphere of Israel and Palestine, and there ceases all need of doing violence to scripture. One can then take all such prophecies exactly as they are. Not that this means limiting them in a servile literalism. Be assured that mere alliteration is just as wrong as allegorizing without warrant. It is a false principle of interpretation. The letter, if there be only the letter, kills. The great point is not to divorce letter from spirit, but to hold them together. We must retain the exact meaning of every word of God. We must not tie it down only to what is on the surface; we must remember that while it is the word by man, it is essentially the word of God. It may come in part through Moses, but this is none the less the word of God. Prophets were employed, but it is His word, no matter by whom it may be given.

Hence therefore to say that we must only interpret scripture like any other book is a fallacy, yea, falsehood, on the face of it. That God is pleased to convey His mind in the language of man is perfectly true; but if it flows down to me it springs from God. Unless therefore its true source and character are always maintained in view, it is impossible to interpret the word of God justly. Those who forget it will assuredly be guilty of reducing scripture to its lowest meaning, under the delusion that the least part is the whole. It is evident that this would be unworthy even in dealing with a man. For if I have to do with a person of decidedly superior parts to my own, it were a folly to suppose that my mind must be the sufficient measure of what is in his. It is natural to suppose that his capacity might conceive deeper thoughts than I have yet received, and that words which I use on a lower level might suggest if not convey more to him. With how much stronger reason this applies to the mind of God! Therefore we would do well to bear this always in memory as to scripture; for after all the true principle of interpreting God's written word must be gathered from His own account of it.

Now we find in the New Testament that there may be a passing application included within the scope of a prophecy, but also an ultimate and therefore more complete fulfilment. They are of course both true. It is a mistake to deny the imminent and lesser application: it is still more grossly erroneous not to look for more. These views when severed divide men commonly into two opposing schools of interpretation; but it will prove the wisest course for us to eschew particular schools, and to hold the fulness of scripture, which contains in harmony what such parties set in opposition to each other. We should take the word of God in its largest import, bowing to it as known to be His, but always leaving room for more, because it is God and not man who has written that word. "Now we know in part." We cannot take in the whole at once. But if it be only possible for us to learn as disciples, the God who makes the application of His word precious and profitable may lead us into an enlarging apprehension of it as we can bear it. So far from thinking this a defect in the word of God, it is rather its distinguishing characteristic and its admirable and exclusive property. Being the word of God, it is capable of very large and various application. Any illustrations of man can indicate it but in a small measure. The truth is that scripture savours of what is infinite, being the expression of God's mind, although clothed in the words of men. It is therefore really unique; for though it may have on its surface what meets the passing need of the day, below this runs a deep and swelling stream, which flows onward to the full ocean of the accomplished purposes and glory of God.

Returning to our chapter, the call comes not merely to lament and sorrow, which was all right, and the intended effect of so grave a visitation of God, but more "Sanctify ye a fast." It is more than appointing one. Sanctification always supposes separation to God. Sanctified ourselves by grace, we are entitled so to deal even with the most ordinary matters by the word of God and prayer, as we are exhorted to do in 1 Timothy 4:1-16. It brings God in. Without this it cannot be. "Call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of Jehovah your God, and cry unto Jehovah."

Then follows for the first time a phrase of great moment: "Alas for the day! for the day of Jehovah is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come." Now, it is an especially important thing to get a clear view of the day of Jehovah. The prominent truth involved in that day is, it supposes the manifest judgment of the world by God. The choice of the expression "day" involves this. It is not a question of secret judgments or providential dealings. That might be during the night, and unseen. Indeed, the fullest proof and the most beautiful illustration of providence is when He makes use of ordinary matters to bring about the most surprising results, but results that play a distinct part in the maintaining, shielding, vindicating, justifying of God's own people, or in bringing condign punishment on their enemies.

Take for a plain instance the entire book of Esther. Perhaps there is no more remarkable development of the grand truth of divine providence in the Bible. As a striking concomitant of this, observe how the name of God does not appear throughout. This ignorant men have supposed to be a defect; whereas in truth, if the name were openly named in its course, the book would be materially spoiled. The prime object is to evince His hand secretly working where His name could not rightly be proclaimed. Far from being a fault, this is one of the most strengthening considerations when we remember that we have to do with a similar secret providence every day.

It is not meant assuredly that this is all; for now we know God has been revealed fully and personally in His Son. God's name not only has been proclaimed to us, but, so to speak, is named upon us. We are brought into living relationship with Him: "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." But besides that, what a comfort to know that while God Himself, as our Father, guides us by His Spirit, the secret providence of God controls circumstances and compels enemies where we could not be, and could do nothing if we were, yea where we ought to do nothing! But God fails not to work for us, and often works too by His worst adversaries. The devil himself is one of those who are obliged most of all to work out the fiats of God's providence. He, when least intending or expecting it, brings about, in spite of himself, what God means in goodness. Is not this then a truth full of comfort? If Satan is obliged when he most exalts himself to be only God's scavenger, it is very evident that we may trust our gracious Lord for everything; for the foot of pride after all cannot but do menial services for the purposes of God. It does not matter who it is or what it may be; the providence of God unseen invariably accomplishes His purposes.

Let it be repeated that this is not all. We have something infinitely nearer and more intimate; and I make this remark the more because those are not wanting who think that a Christian ought to be guided simply by God's providence; it is not too much to affirm that such guidance would be always wrong. It is never set forth as guidance. Providence does not guide saints, but controls circumstances and foes. The Holy Spirit deigns to guide Christians. Still we have to do with external things; and there the providence of God works. But we have to do with God as our God and Father; and here we are not left to the unseen processes of circumstances and what might seem to be the casualties of the world, though really accomplishing divine purposes or ends. We have to do with the direct guidance of the Holy Ghost, who is pleased to lead us by the written word. This puts everything in its place, at least to faith.

It is an oversight to suppose that to bind up the guidance of the Holy Spirit with the word of God is to take it out of the affairs of daily life in any case. There are no doubt instincts of spiritual life; but the word of God is large enough to take in everything. And this increase of spiritual apprehension serves but to enlarge the sphere of obedience only we do not always perceive the exceeding breadth of the word, and sometimes we may be guided insensibly where we might fail to allege a definite text. How comforting to find our conviction sustained and strengthened and carried further intelligently by direct scripture! The simple believer is thus guided, more than at first sight appears, by the word of God. You see a Christian at once taking exactly the right line. If you asked him why he did so or so, perhaps he might not be able to say with clearness. Hence, when it is affirmed that the Holy Spirit guides by the word, it is not meant that there is always the positive and distinct application of the divine word on the part of him who is guided. Doubtless in any measure of our scriptural knowledge one can intelligently point to example and principle, if not formal precept, in scripture for what is done according to God's will. One should always seek ability to gather from the range of His word the conduct to be pursued or to be pressed on others.

Thus, for instance, supposing a parent tells the Christian child to take care that the pot simmers properly, or any other duty of the simplest every-day sort, is it meant that one can bring a scripture for these? Certainly one can. The child who is set to watch that the milk should not boil over is called to act in obedience to her parents, and so please the Lord. If excluded from the province of scriptural principle, what mischief must result! On one ground the Christian child in such circumstances is amazingly strengthened by the feeling that it is not a question of the milk, or the pot, or the fire, or only of a parent's charge, but of doing the will of God. It is good to link all with Him. Therefore it seemed well to take the smallest matters that might be thought too low for the dignity of inspiration; but the truth is there is nothing more wonderful in scripture as in Christ than this very feature. They both He in deed, it in word show that there is nothing too great for man, and that there is nothing too little for God. Therefore "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; . . . and whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him."

Suppose now a more perplexing case. An evangelist has two or three stations before him at which to preach the gospel. Where is the scripture directing to one more than another? Am I to give up the word here? Certainly not. If I went to a place where another servant of Christ was preaching the gospel, I should not feel disposed to thrust myself in to do the work, knowing that self-assertion or slighting another would be alike contrary to the grace of the gospel. If the ground be open, well; if already occupied, one would wait till asked. We have to represent Christ as well as present the good news. Were one ever so great an evangelist, one ought not to think of interfering with one who was less; if he were a wise and gracious man, he would be too glad to receive help and fellowship in the work. An open door known to be here or there would be a loud call, even if there were many adversaries. Were others there at work in the field, surely the Master would have us confer as fellow-servants, that the good desired should not be ill spoken of or misjudged. Love would lead a workman to engage the co-operation of another to help in the work of the Lord a principle amply illustrated in the word of God. And thus one would find oneself directed with an exercised conscience before God, and not by the mere circumstances of providence; as the apostle says, "I commend you to God and to the word of his grace." Every case I am persuaded the wisdom of God has forestalled in scripture, if we have ears to hear, and pronounces upon each difficulty that can arise for the believer, though not apart from his state. Hence of course insensibility of conscience, or even want of intelligence, may hinder our perception, and therefore more or less expose us at least to uncertainty, and it may be to error and wrong; however truly in such cases the goodness of God interferes to hinder the full results for the simple who lack intelligence.

But it is our privilege, now that the Holy Ghost dwells in us, to bring everything within the scope of the written word. Thus, suppose you must go a shopping: there at once a question arises; and you will surely incline to one of two desires. In your purchase you will seek to please either yourself or Christ. Even in deciding where to go the same test is really applicable. If among a multitude of shops you wish to know which is the right one to visit, it remains before you still to please Christ. Can one not ask one's conscience, What is my motive for going here or there? He is faithful and knows how to decide by the Spirit's use of the word in judging the secrets of the heart. In the great majority of cases such self-judgment would cut short many a visit to this or that shop, as well as make no small difference in what is bought. Take the very common habit of gratifying one's taste. When one enters a shop, the temptation that occurs to the mind is to get what one likes as far as one can. Where is Christ in this?

We may then look for the distinct guidance of the Lord by His Spirit in the daily affairs of life, as well as the more spiritual occupations that engage our service; but the measure of our spirituality and knowledge of the word gauges our ability to use the word aright as our directory. And thus where we do not clearly see a duty to act, our duty is to wait rather than act. The waiting is a confession of ignorance, but at least of dependence. We desire to do His will and shall not wait in vain. "The meek will he guide in judgment; the meek will he teach his way." "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth," says the attitude of waiting, where restless self-will would prompt to this act or that. But God guides either by bringing clearly before one something that calls on love for action, or by keeping one waiting yet longer. Undoubtedly as there is reality in a believer's intercourse with God, so he can look for special guidance. But never let us forget that when we have not a distinct duty before us, we should forbear to act at all. I do not speak exactly of an impression, but of a plain call to duty, or the positive energy of unselfish love. Undoubtedly there is the guidance of the Holy Spirit often without the letter of a command, but not therefore without scripture. Both the active outgoing of love and the calls of duty fall within scripture, which shows us their fulness in Christ. For instance, a Christian does not know what to do, we will suppose, next Monday. But his mind is made up to serve the Lord; and he is not anxious about it. An individual comes while he is waiting on the Lord, and brings before him a claim to serve Him in a way not outside his measure. Is not the duty then plain enough? May that one be doubted in the slightest degree? Is it not the will of the Lord that one who loves Him should respond to a call of love?

If two come and represent similar things before you, have you scripture to tell you which to select? Will not perplexity ensue? So it might appear and may really be. But in fact such perplexities do not often arise, if indeed they ever do, without some distinct means afforded of the Lord for judging between them.

It thus resolves itself largely into a question of communion with God. The child of God that goes on in communion with Him will not be perplexed or know what it means, because he habitually walks with One who is light. Our Father takes the greatest delight in guiding a child whose object is only to meet His mind. Of course it is another thing if we have ends and purposes of our own; in such a case a Christian would not sincerely wait. But "the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him;" and though there might not be a positive precept, yet there is the hearing of God's mind in scripture in many real though less direct ways. If there is a perplexity, it is time to stop. One cannot act aright without the word; and this is often missed through lack of communion, which itself implies the guidance of the Holy Spirit; but we must not sever this from the scripture.

From this long digression we return to our prophet, and there find ourselves on ground not only of such moral judgment as the word of God always contains, but of solemn and public dealings. The day of Jehovah is not His secret control by secondary causes or circumstances. It is the display of His judgment of man on the earth. Consequently the full sense of the day of Jehovah is that grand dealing when God will "judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath raised from the dead," to quote a well-known scripture from the New Testament that bears on it. "Judging the world in righteousness" is altogether a different truth from judging the dead. It is the habitable world. It does not contemplate the resurrection of individuals who once composed its population. The habitable earth as such is the real meaning ofActs 17:1-34; Acts 17:1-34. So the day of Jehovah falls here. The chief difference is that the day of Jehovah in the Old Testament is put in direct connection with the special place of Israel their relationship to God, who had so revealed Himself to them. It is the age when man will be no longer allowed to thwart and hinder the purposes of God, and when He Himself will no more work merely in the ways of secret providence, nor even by the mission of the Holy Ghost as now in Christianity, forming and fashioning us by the word according to Christ, but when God will take the world under His direct government first, for putting down evil; next, for the maintenance and spread of that which is good. Such is the day of Jehovah. Consequently "that day" embraces the divine judgments which will be executed by Christ as the Jehovah God of Israel, when He appears in glory, as well as the whole millennial period. It is all called the day of Jehovah.

But connected with this it is of all importance clearly to understand the difference of that day from all before it; but particularly to discriminate between that day and the previous act of His coming to receive those who are waiting for Him, whether saints who have died or those who shall then be found alive on earth up to that moment. The "coming of the Lord" is a larger expression than the "day of the Lord" (or "Jehovah"). "The day" is a particular part of His coming, when at His call the dead saints rise, and the living saints are changed, and both are caught up together out of the earth to meet Him in the air. This great event the translation of those who are Christ's to heaven has nothing in itself to do with the display of Jehovah's government of the world; and therefore to confound the coming or presence of the Lord with His day is a gross error.* After the saints have been taken to heaven, the world will go on seemingly much the same, but really very much worse. In no actual sense is it judged by the Lord's grace in taking His own to the Father's house. But the day of the Lord invariably supposes the judgment of the world, though inchoatively including lesser judgments in the Old Testament; not so His presence or coming, which will manifest fulness of grace to those whom He loved to the end. At the same time, when the day of Jehovah comes, it will still be the coming of the Lord; for in this clearly the two coalesce.

*The distinction between these two, the παρουσία and the ἡμέρα of the Lord, is the key to 2 Thessalonians 2:1-17. The whole chapter, not to say the entire province of prophecy, is embroiled in confusion where this is not seen. For where would be the force or even sense of beseeching his Christian brethren by the presence or coming of the Lord not to be shaken by the rumour about His day, if the day and His coming be the same? Whereas it is thoroughly intelligible and pertinent to entreat them by a hope so full of good cheer as the presence of the Lord which is bound up with the gathering of the saints to meet Him above, not to be disquieted by the allegation, for which they falsely cited authoritative communications from the Spirit and a supposititious letter of the apostle himself, that His day that day of judgment of the quick on the earth was already present. One corrective of the error is the recall of the Christian to his proper hope of joining the Lord at His coming, so as to follow Him out of heaven for the day of His appearing The other is the making known certain awful developments of evil, the apostacy and the man of sin brought fully out, before that day can come.

Thus in short the day of the Lord is the public and governmental side of His coming; but the coming of the Lord embraces events of another character distinct from and previous to that day. This may serve as a plain and compendious way of stating what could easily be proved by many scriptures. Only we must bear in mind that the coming of the Lord to receive the saints to Himself is exclusively a New Testament truth. The Old Testament proclaims the day of Jehovah, the New Testament endorses this truth, maintaining and clearing it yet more. But the New Testament adds another truth distinct from it; namely, that Christ will come to receive us to Himself, and present us in the Father's house; after which He will bring in the day of Jehovah, when the saints come with Him in glory. Then will be the day of Jehovah, because this is the time when He will destroy all His foes, the beast and the false prophet, or Antichrist, with all their followers; and further, the king of the north, or Assyrian, the very power foreshadowed by the mighty nation who troubled Israel of old, and who comes before us much more fully in the second chapter of our prophecy.

Before saying a little more as to the Assyrian, let me point out the allusion to the trumpets here. It is a clear reference to the use prescribed in the Book of Numbers. The trumpet was to be blown by the priests on two main occasions. One of them was for the journeying of the camps, and the other was for the calling of the assembly to the door of the tabernacle. If they went to war, an alarm was to be blown with the trumpets, and Jehovah remembered and saved them from their enemies. We may perhaps say then that this last was on the people's part to bring in Jehovah; while the more ordinary sounding was on Jehovah's part to gather the people in view of their solemn feasts and sacrifices before their God. These were the principal uses of the silver trumpets, and they are both employed by Joel. "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm." It does not require much skill in interpretation to see the meaning of that trumpet, because the Spirit of God has so plainly defined its character and object. "Sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of Jehovah cometh, for it is nigh at hand."

This warned of what was tremendous to Israel. Jehovah's day was at hand, a day when not enemies only would be there, but Jehovah would remember Israel, not yet to save His people, but to use the foe as a scourge for them. This might well be a note of alarm; Jehovah would not be absent. It was not merely the day of the Assyrian, but of Jehovah. Is it thought that as the judgment that the Jews were warned against was so remote, they would be liable to say, "It will not come in our day or upon our children"? I answer that it did come in their day. The same Assyrian power, which came then close upon the time of Joel, will reappear in the latter day. This is the true key to all the difficulties men conjure up in the Old Testament. We must remember that those foreign nations are no more done with than the Jews are. Many of them have lost or changed their names, but they abide still. And when the time comes for the restoration of Israel through judgments at the end of the age, they too will reappear and be known as the Assyrian once more. Nations no more die than individual men never rise finally. As surely as a resurrection awaits men, there will be a revival of those Gentile foes of the Jews. It is remarkable too that their final acts will bear the same moral character as their initiatory course. This intimates clearly a divine principle of dealing at the close for the sins at the beginning, because they will repeat their old sins at the end. The same jealousy of Israel, the same determination to exterminate the Jew, the same unbelieving opposition to God's counsels which characterised them at their earliest epochs will also be found at their latest appearance. The circle of their historical unity is made apparent from a moral point of view the same character of guilt reproduced with God's judgment upon them because of it.

It is not then that I have any doubt that the miraculous check of the Assyrian in the day of Sennacherib is the type of the final overthrow in the day of Jehovah; or that the past event was a day of Jehovah, not in the full sense, but a real though preparatory application of the day of Jehovah, and an unfailing pledge of the final catastrophe. This, which is nothing but the simple fact, seems to me to invest scripture with the greatest possible interest; and, more than this, it demonstrates its living character. Instead of merely looking back to things long since dead and gone, we read in what has been of what is going to be on a still grander scale, and with far more solemn, though also more cheering issues. Hence we can understand how that day had even then a practical purpose; but it had none the less the further bearing already pointed out.

It is here that the rationalistic party are so fatally astray, because they treat the Bible alike prophetic and historical as a mere mummy, if not a scanty corrupted compilation of the old records of the Hebrews, with glances at other tribes that once existed but are now passed away and for ever.

But that day surely comes, "a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains." It is impossible to apply this to the Lord's coming to receive His saints caught up to meet Him. Can one want a clearer instance of the folly of identifying the day of Jehovah, with its terrors for the earth, with Christ's coming to translate His own on high? Will His presence which gathers us to Him above be in any wise "a day of gloominess and thick clouds?" The confusion is a palpable blunder. But more than this, His presence is never called His "day." I have no doubt that the reason is that which has been already indicated clearly the notion of His "day" always supposes manifestation. "That day" may have been of old in a simply providential sense, as for instance when Sennacherib was destroyed; but it is very evident that this was the hand of God displayed terribly on man, and this is what is meant by manifestation to the world; though by and by it will go much farther than anything past.

Christians, indeed, are said to be children of the day before the day comes, as contrasted with men generally who are "children of the night," as we may see in 1 Thessalonians 5:1-28. We are children of light and the day, because we have now the nature of Christ, and shall come along with Him when that day dawns. But it is a mistake to suppose that we must await the day before we are taken to our place in heaven; whereas it is certain from scripture that, when that day comes, we shall be previously in our own heavenly seats, and shall come with the Lord out of heaven. "When Christ our life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

Next we have a most graphic description of the Assyrian army. "A great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run." No doubt that in this remarkably nervous sketch, where an unparalleled army is supposed to come up against the land, the prophecy goes beyond what then assailed the Jews. That is, we must take in the whole prospect, the binary star (what is past now prominent, the future still graver behind it), in order to meet the full strength of the divine expressions. The Assyrian then was a most formidable array, yet after all their vain-glorious insolence destroyed so completely in a single night, that Sennacherib returned in disgrace, evidently, consciously, confessedly beaten. But the future day will behold a far more appalling host.

Let me say here that according to scripture there cannot be the slightest doubt that Russia is reserved to play a most important part in this great future crisis. For the policy of that vast modern empire affects the same objects as the Assyrian of the last day. Russia from its position in the north-east is known to seek the lead as suzerain over the eastern powers, acquiring influence politically, so as to be able to mould and guide those vast hordes of central Asia down to the south. It is my conviction that western influence will ere long be completely annihilated in the east, and that the dominion of our own country in India is destined to be short-lived. But this is merely by the way, which if true serves after all to show the importance of having a scriptural judgment on these matters, and how they prepare the mind for what, when it comes, will shake if not paralyze those who have not believed it; whereas, on the contrary, the development of facts, which prepare the way for the immense changes of the latter day, falls in with the faith of those who believe the word of God. They are not moved from their steadfastness by these things; they are prepared to expect them, instead of being surprised.

Again, in verse 5, "Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall; they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: and Jehovah shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for [he is] strong that executeth his word: for the day of Jehovah is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?" In this remarkable way the prophet mingles the name and day of Jehovah with the Assyrians employed then to do His work. The same enemy is called in Isaiah 10:1-34 "the rod of his anger," "the axe" that boasted itself over Him that hewed with it. Surely therefore the Lord Jehovah will turn against that axe and destroy it. He will employ it to accomplish His purposes upon a guilty people; but inasmuch as it destroyed them unmercifully and without the slightest fear of God, He will turn upon that which exalted itself, taking advantage of His displeasure to destroy His poor people if it could be.

Consequently after this we find the practical appeal to repent. "Therefore also now, saith Jehovah; turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto Jehovah your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat-offering and a drink-offering unto Jehovah your God" (verses 12-14).

Then comes the second blowing of the trumpets; but this is distinct. "Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly." It is not now, "Sound an alarm," but, "Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly." It is the gathering of the people to God, not merely their loud call on God to appear for them in their great alarm before the enemy. "Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. Let the priests, the ministers of Jehovah, weep between the porch and the altar." Thus there is the complete prostration of the people as a whole, even to-the very bridegroom and bride and sucking child; including the priests too as well as the people, but not in their own place; for they have to come out, and are with the people in humiliation, not apart in official dignity. It is the most admirable picture of a nation humbling itself before God; so that all classes of society in political, religious, and family life give way to the sense of their sin before God. There is no such leveller as sin, or that which is the consequence of sin death; but it is a blessed thing when the gracious call of God works repentance, which really means the heart taking the place of owning our own evil and accepting what God thereon has to say to us. There is nothing more admirable for a soul, unless it be the grace of God which produces it. But, morally considered, repentance is always wholesome for His people, conscious of having unworthily answered to the grace He had shown them. It cannot but lead to restored communion through self-judgment, and to a practical obedience according to it. So it will be with the Jew by and by. "And let them say, Spare thy people, O Jehovah, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where [is] their God?" The marginal alteration for "rule over" is "use a by-word against." But the text is confirmed by the ancient versions, as indeed the construction of the margin seems contrary to Hebrew idiom, the noun only (not the verb) admitting of the sense of derision.

But God hears. "Then will Jehovah be jealous for his land, and pity his people. Yea, Jehovah will answer" not for alarm merely, but because of their genuine repentance before Himself. Instead of insensibility or efforts to improve themselves, they will draw near to Jehovah in the sense of their sins. It is when they shall turn in contrition to His word, when they welcome in their heart Him that comes in the name of Jehovah, that He will appear in answer to their cry. And now comes in the full assurance of comfort. The Assyrian enemy is disposed of. "But I will remove far off from you the northern [army], and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill-savour shall come up, because he hath done great things." "The northern" confessedly does not mean any locust irruption, for they come from the south. It is the great foe of the latter day, who will not perish in the sea as those insects usually do, but be driven to a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east or Dead Sea, and his hinder part toward the hinder or Mediterranean Sea. Just judgment of pride! because he "magnified himself to do."

But it is God who will really do great things. "Fear not, O land" (remark this as definitely the hope of the Jewish nation); ``be glad and rejoice: for Jehovah will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field." They are called to undergo renovation, instead of drooping for want even of common sustenance. The millennial day of joy for the earth and all creation is before us here. Hence "the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig-tree and the vine do yield their strength." All is reversed. It is not Christianity with its spiritual blessings in heavenly places, and with scorn and suffering on earth for the faithful, but earthly blessing and reward, as well as divine and saving mercy, as we shall see. "Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in Jehovah your God for he hath given you the former rain moderately, and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the canker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm, my great army which I sent among you." Thus God will more than undo the mischief. He will restore what He took not away. He will efface by the fulness of His blessing all their past sorrows and shame. "And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of Jehovah your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed."

But could this satisfy? Could it suffice even for the renewed mind? Certainly it could not satisfy Him who must be God, not in righteous government only, whether of friends or of foes, but in His love for His people. Therefore we have an entirely distinct character of blessing introduced after this, where in the Hebrew begins the third chapter. It is matter of regret that, in this respect the Hebrew having a decided advantage over the Gentile arrangement, modern versions have not followed the former.

"And it shall come to pass afterward." It is here we find the distinct break. Perhaps it is not too much to say that the putting of these two sections together has tended to mar the force of this scripture. Verses 28 and 29 then are quite apart from what went before. It is blessing of a higher order, flowing from the love of God, but this evidently in a spiritual way. "And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my Spirit." It is the very scripture, as we know, which the apostle Peter quotes on the day of Pentecost to show that the immense blessing of that day was in accordance with the highest favour promised for the kingdom, not that human excitement or moral folly which mistaken or deluded men were quick to impute to those who surpassed others in spiritual power.

But, observe, the apostle did not affirm that this scripture was fulfilled. He says, "It is that thing which was spoken by the prophet Joel;" and so it is. What was promised was the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Without saying that the present fact was the fulfilment of the prophecy (which men have assumed, to the great misunderstanding of scripture and lowering of Christianity), he showed that it was of that nature, and such therefore as to be vindicated by the prophecy before their conscience; but the apostle's language is guarded, while commentators are not. They go too far. We do well always to hold fast to scripture.

As to the promise that the Spirit should be poured upon "all flesh," we must bear in mind that "all flesh" is in contrast with restriction to the Jew. This is another feature which made the Pentecostal gift so admirably illustrate the scripture. For the patent fact that God caused those who received the Holy Ghost to speak in the different tongues distributed over the Gentile world, not causing all the converts to speak the Jewish language (a poor thing if true, which it is not, but a mere dream of superficial paradox), but causing the Jews gathered from their dispersion among all nations to speak the tongues of the Gentiles was a magnificent witness of the grace that was going out to the Gentiles to meet them where they were. The judgment of God had inflicted these various tongues upon them, and completely broken up the ambitious project of joining together to establish an unity of their own through the tower of Babel. But the grace of God went out exactly where His judgment had placed them. If a crushing blow laid their pride in ever so many separate ditches, the grace of God went out to these ditches, and blessed them where they lay, raising them out of their fallen estate.

Such then is the first interruption, and really the beginning of a new strain, which is sufficiently plain from the way in which it is introduced. "It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit" makes therefore a break with what goes before, and thus again most admirably suits it to the use to which the apostle Peter applies it. But then we must remember that when the day comes for the Holy Spirit to be poured out afresh, not for the gathering out of a people for heaven, but for the earthly purposes of God's grace (for that is the difference), it will be manifest that the Holy Spirit will be given to men altogether apart from their being Jews. So on the day of Pentecost, when they were exclusively Jews, it was yet shown by the miracle of Gentile tongues that God did not mean to stop there, but to go out towards all the nations.

God will never give up that principle. He does not mean to be limited to the children of Israel again. He will bless the children of Israel once more, and will take up Judah also as such, and will accomplish every word He has promised to their united joy. There is no good that He has annexed to them in His word which He will not bestow; but He will never more restrict Himself to the Jew in the day that is coming. And therefore, when the Holy Ghost is poured out at that time, it will be strictly upon "all flesh," not meaning that every individual in the millennium will have the Holy Ghost; but that no race left after that great day will be excluded from the gift of the Spirit. No class of persons, no age, no sex will be forgotten in God's grace.

But it may be desirable to remark here that there is no thought of healing or improving the flesh, as the fathers and the theologians say. The light of the New Testament shows us the fallacy of such a view. The old nature is judged; our old man is crucified, not renovated. To our Adam state we have died, and enter a new position in Christ, and are called to walk accordingly as dead and risen with Christ.

The external signs here named will precede the day which is still unfulfilled. It is vain to apply verses 30, 31 to the first advent. "I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth" is evidently another character of things. "And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of Jehovah come." There will be a remarkable outward manifestation of divine power before the judgment is executed. God always sends a testimony before the thing itself. He does not strike before He warns. It is so in His dealings with us every day. What Christian has a chastening upon him before he is admonished of the Spirit of God? There is always a sense of wrong, and a lack of communion sensible to the spirit before the Lord inflicts the blow which tells of His watchful love over our careless ways. He gives the opportunity, if one may say so, of setting ourselves morally right; and if we do not heed the teaching, then comes the sorrow. And so it is here. These wonders cannot but attract the mind and attention of men, but they will not really be heeded. Infatuated and under judicial hardness, they will turn a deaf ear to all, and so the great and terrible day of Jehovah will overtake them like a thief. But God at least will not fail. He had foretold that so it should be, and His people will take heed. There will be a remnant enabled to see, and pre-eminently, as we know, from among the Jews, though by no means limited to them, as we learn from the second half of Revelation 7:1-17 and the end of Matthew 25:1-46. There will be still the witness of "all flesh" prepared for the glory of Jehovah about to be revealed.

"Whosoever will call upon the name of Jehovah shall be delivered" shows that the blessing is by faith, and hence by grace. "All flesh" does not necessarily mean every individual, but, as we know from other scriptures, blessing here goes forth largely toward all classes that is, toward all nations and even all divisions among nations. But all this is of great importance, because the Jewish system naturally tended to limit God as well as to make classes within the Jews. Only the family of Aaron could go into the sanctuary; only Levites could touch the holy vessels with impunity; whereas this greatest blessing of God will go out with the most indiscriminate character of grace. "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as Jehovah hath said, and in the remnant whom Jehovah shall call." Hence it is plain that, although it is blessing for Israel, still our prophet Joel keeps true to his purpose. The city of Jerusalem abides the great and royal centre; mount Zion reappears, the sign of grace for the kingdom which Jehovah will establish in that day.

In what follows we have the final events only, which go right into the millennium. "For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem." This prophecy does not even speak about all Israel, although of course their redemption is certain. The captivity of Judah and Jerusalem is no real difficulty; for the Jews have in a certain sense never yet been brought back to the land, as the prophets warrant them to expect it. They are suffering the consequence of having been led captive over and over again: and in that sense they may be regarded as captives, just as in Genesis 15:1-21 the affliction that Abraham's seed was suffering in a strange land is counted from a long time before they actually arrived there. It would seem that in this way the moral truth of the captivity remains. God counts the time of the captivity from the time that they were carried away from Palestine and dispersed in all lands by Babylonians and then by Romans. They may better themselves in the lands of the Gentiles, and appear to become as great as Joseph did in the land of Egypt; but even he was the rejected Joseph as regards Israel, at the same time that he was the exalted Joseph in the land of Egypt. The reversal of their captivity awaits their restoration by divine power and mercy as yet unfulfilled.

"I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. And they have cast lots." But the nations, all nations, are to be judged as such in this world in that day. Hence the various indignities which they had done to Israel are described, and Jehovah declares that He will return their recompence. He holds to righteous retribution. What they caused Israel to suffer, they must suffer themselves. It is righteous in the eyes of God that the nations which wronged and insulted Israel, not only during the law, but up to the last, after Christianity should receive as they had given to the Jews. "And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off." Hence it is to be proclaimed among the Gentiles that they may muster all their forces and avert their fate if they can. "Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up."

Thus, instead of peace being brought about before the day of Jehovah comes, such a wide-spread gathering for war is to be as the world will have never yet seen. The desire to do great things, impatience of obligations, lust of conquest and military glory, will bring on men such a taste for war ere long that no restraints will suffice to keep them within bounds, especially as jealousy of each other will have led to the accumulation of vast stores for military purposes. So the closing scenes of this age will be found to be described in scripture. I repeat, if one's conclusion were drawn from the thoughts of men, much might be said for the contrary. Some might think the age had gained better sense, that they had too deep a conviction of their forefathers' sin and folly in this respect, and that henceforth remonstrance and arbitration would gradually supersede the more savage diplomacy of "blood and iron." But in vain is it hoped thus to control the passions and will of man. The time of peace is not yet. Men may think that they are going to succeed, but it will be with the Gentiles as of old with Israel. The Jews will try to get back into their land, and the political power of some nations will be used to establish them in peace. But when it is thought that all is going well, the work is arrested, and the Jews become once more an object of jealousy to the Gentiles. Before the harvest, as it is said in Isaiah 18:1-7, the fair promise of fruit is nipped in the bud and comes to nothing. Instead of having Christ to reign over them in that state, they but prepare a throne for antichrist. Such will be the speedy result of it, with unspeakable dishonour to God and unexampled ruin to all concerned. The fact is, that God means to bring His people Himself into His land. We see all through the Old Testament the people's blessing in the land He gave them. All attempts to anticipate the time, or change the methods of God for human means, are not only vain, but will involve ruin as the direct consequence of such presumption.

The proper task of Christians now should be in no way to restore Jews, but to point solely to Christ in order that they may be saved. There never can be blessing for the world as a whole till God restores Israel. Christ accepted by and reigning over that nation is the essential condition of universal peace and blessing. The Christian is called out of the world and even now associated with heaven. We know Christ risen from the dead and glorified, and are therefore waiting to be taken to heaven when He comes for us. Even God Himself does not yet undertake the work of regeneration for the earth as such, nor will He till that day. He is gathering out the joint-heirs meanwhile who will then reign with Christ.

Hence, before that day comes, the utter failure of philanthropic and other schemes of improving the world will be clearly proved. It will be seen that all such efforts of men, or even of Christians, in ignorance of His mind and false hopes, must come to worse than nought. At best they are but nostrums that serve in no way the purpose intended, but keep up the delusion for a little while. They must soon answer the prophet's ironical call: "Hallow war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up." Full time it is for the mighty men to awake, and for all the men of war to draw near and come up. "Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble [or 'haste'] yourselves, and come, all ye heathen [or 'nations'], and gather yourselves together [from] round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Jehovah." Doubtless those legions of angels are in the mind of the Spirit', which the Lord Jesus declined for Himself. "Thither cause thy mighty ones" to meet the world in its might. For in that day there will be, so to speak, a pitched battle between the powers of God and those of evil, the result of which cannot be doubted. "Let the heathen be wakened and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge."

In this passage I do not think that the repeated call to "awake" has any reference to actual resurrection, which is incompatible with a national or time condition for this world. Jehovah pursues the style of His challenge, and warns the nations that they will need all their watchfulness as well as every resource. He invites them to that valley of Jehoshaphat where the quick are destined to meet a never-to-be-forgotten judgment. The "valley of Jehoshaphat" is a literal place in the land of Israel; and this again disproves the notion of a resurrection scene, which is set forth by the solemnities of the great white throne; not by figures taken from the sickle or wine-vat, which really belong exclusively to the Son of Man's dealing with nations. In quite another way the harvest is used for the ingathering of the wheat into the heavenly granary and the subsequent burning of the tares. In this place shall the gathered Gentiles find their graves. There is not a single object on which man prides himself which will not come into the dust of death. The favour which the world now affects toward the Jew will turn into hatred before its day is over. False appearances and fair glosses will then fade and leave man in the naked deformity of sin for God to judge.

It is well known that some far-seeing philosophers of the day have come to very grave conclusions on other grounds than scripture can give to those who believe it. Every one acquainted with the men of this age knows that the author of Latter-day pamphlets is no believer, but a man of the world; nevertheless none, except the foolish, can doubt that he is a person of bold if not profound thought in his own peculiar way and style. But he too issues his latter-day pamphlets no less than such as believe the prophetic word. He has got a strong sense that things cannot go on as now; that there will shortly be a crisis and complete rupture of all existing institutions, and that influences powerfully at work now are destined to bring about that end. And what then? He knows nothing; nor can any save so far as he believes the word of God.

I was reading only a few days ago the words of a late philosophic poet and man of letters in general, whom I need not name, a daring personage who once troubled the German government so much that he was obliged to leave his country, and spend not a little of his life in Paris. This man wrote freely enough there of course, and gave his opinion that the French Revolution was only child's play compared with what is coming. Frenchmen he thought incapable of deep feelings. They do little more than mock at things sacred or political, all their feelings being of a light order, which disposes them to fight by jokes and persiflage; but as for Germans, their love and hate are serious, their very thoughts having not only wings but hands. When the Germans have their revolution, it will be grave for all mankind, coldly calm in conception, passionate in execution. They struggle not for the human rights of nations, but for the divine rights of humanity! They think that men owe to matter great expiatory sacrifices, that the old offences against her may be pardoned. For Christianity, incapable of destroying her, has on every occasion outraged her; discountenanced the noblest enjoyments; reduced the senses to hypocrisy; and one heard everywhere of nothing but sins! Christianity therefore they are determined to destroy. The sentiment of his own divinity will excite man to erect himself, and it is from that moment that true greatness and true heroism will appear to glorify this earth.

Such are the audacious sentiments of modern Pantheism. Can any strides bring us closer to antichrist? Thus the only God is man, who ought to live and must live according to the laws of his nature! Away with morality! "We desire to found a democracy of terrestrial gods, all equals in happiness and in holiness. You [French revolutionists!] ask simple raiment, austere manners, cheap pleasures; we on the contrary wish for nectar and ambrosia, mantles of purple, the voluptuousness of the best wines, the dancing of nymphs, music, and comedies." Away with judgment! We destroy not priests only, but the religion that restrains and warns, the faith of Him who suffered on the cross! We shall enjoy to our heart's content, when our day comes to call the world and religion to a reckoning for the chains they have put so long on the human race. Such is the general strain of his work on Germany.

It is awful to think how truly the yearnings of this Hegelian spirit coalesce with the picture prophecy furnishes of the apostacy and man of sin. I believe that amidst such revolutionary dreams sounds a witness deep from the heart of one who knows what is working in the infidel men of progress, and who was more than usually frank in uttering their hopes and desires, as being one of them. He was no doubt an outspoken person, a little before the time; and consequently he suffered the penalty; nevertheless he expresses and lets us hear what men wish. Lawlessness will be the predominant sign of the change which is coming the rejection of all restraint.* Little did the German cited think that he was unconsciously anticipating the anti-Christian state of Christendom. Men will appear to succeed, but the effect of the success will be to bring the Lord forth to consume with the breath of His mouth, and to destroy the lawless one with the shining forth of His appearing. He knows well that the bulwarks of society will prove a mere house of cards, and that the will of man will not long bear the feeble resistance. Men are determined to have their way, and they will to their own perdition, to which consummation the wits and thinkers, the doctrinaires of this day, are pushing them on. The upper classes are listening largely, and will yet more, as the lower classes have been led away long ago. They will have their suited leader, who will at length make war with the Lamb; but the Lamb shall overcome; for He is Lord of lords and King of kings.

*"The philosophy of Germany is an important affair which concerns the whole human race; and our great grand-children alone will be in a position to decide whether we should have praise or blame for having worked out our philosophy in the first place our revolution in the second. I think the order we have adopted was worthy of a methodical people. Heads which philosophy has employed in meditation might have been mowed down at pleasure by revolution; but philosophy could have made no use of heads thus dealt with by revolution. But nevertheless, my dear countrymen, be in no distress: the German revolution will neither be the more gay nor the more mild that it was preceded by the Critik of Kant, the transcendental Idealism of Fichte, and the Philosophy of Nature. These doctrines have developed revolutionary forges which now only await the moment to explode and fill the world with terror and admiration. Then will appear the Kantists, who will hear no more of reverence in the world of deeds than in the world of ideas, and who will turn up without pity, with axe and sword, the soil of our European life in order to extirpate the last roots of the past. On the same scene will come the Fichteans, whose fanaticism of will can be mastered neither by fear nor by interest; for they live in spirit and despise matter. But the most fearful of all will be the philosophers of Nature when they take an active part in a German revolution, and identify themselves in the work of destruction; for if the hand of the Kantist strikes firmly and surely, because his heart is inaccessible to any traditional respect; if the Fichtean despises all dangers, because they have for him no real existence; the philosopher of Nature will be terrible indeed when he places himself in communication with the original powers of the earth, conjures up the hidden resources of tradition, evokes the whole force of the antique German Pantheism, and re-awakens that ardour of battle which the old Germans displayed an ardour which had not for its object destruction nor even victory, but merely the pleasure of the combat itself Christianity has softened to a certain extent that brutal rage of battle, but it has not been able to extinguish it; and soon as the Cross, the restraining talisman, is broken, you shall see let loose again all the ferocity and frenzied exaltation of the Berserkers, sung by the poets of the north. The old warlike divinities will rouse themselves from their fabulous tombs, and wipe the dust of ages from their eyelids; Thor will be stirring again with his gigantic hammer, and woe to the cathedrals! There will be performed a drama, compared to which the French Revolution was but an innocent idyll. The nations will group themselves around Germany as on the ascending benches of an amphitheatre, and great and terrible are the games which await their eyes."

Doubtless, if the word of God did not warn us plainly of such a future, I should not attach the smallest importance to any man's prognostications, but rather consider so awful an issue the ravings of a fanatic. But the believer who searches the word of God is enabled to say beforehand what God has said and written there, and he sees the principles at work in these so-called Christian lands. The word of God springing from the highest source (namely, His own perfect knowledge of what is coming) is equally worthy of trust, whether He speak to us of things present, past, or future.

In that day then it is a question not so much of the heavens as of the earth. Jehovah intends to take the earth under His care. "Multitudes, multitudes in the day of decision: for the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. Jehovah shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem."

Jehovah will appear, and demolish first the western powers, with their religious head in Jerusalem. For we know from Daniel and the Revelation of John that the Roman Empire will be established again. I do not understand the Pope by this, but the imperial power. The Italians are certainly rather tired of the papacy. But the old Roman Empire will be resuscitated once more. It will re-appear, repeat its old sins in new forms, and be judged for what it did from the beginning to the end. The empire of Rome was that which had the responsibility of the crucifixion of the Son of God, and God has not forgotten this, but means to judge them for it. Thus the Latin Empire revived will be the western political power, which utterly rejects Christianity as a fable. The religious power, or what is now Christendom, amalgamating with renegade Judaism, will be apostate too. Both will make the apostacy complete. It is very evident that the beast will have his seat at Rome; and the false prophet at Jerusalem. The religious or second beast will be where Christ was crucified; and there the beast or imperial civil power with its supporters will find themselves before the Lord appear. I have no doubt that for this things are preparing, and that the stripping of his temporal dominion from the Pope and giving Rome to Italy are steps on the way to the restored Roman Empire, as well as to a new form of religious chief in the Holy Land.

But the Assyrian survives that power, and this it is which is described here, not Babylon, nor Rome, but the king of the north, who also will appear in the last days, taking up his old pretensions and opposition to Israel. Such then is the Assyrian of Joel; it is the northern [army], the head of the northern and eastern powers of the world, who will by and by, as of old, come into collision with the Jew. He musters the great assemblage of the nations spoken of here. The western powers will comprise the flower of Europe, helping on and propping up the false prophet who will then reign at Jerusalem. Men have seen a certain quarrel which rose about the holy places, where the western powers came into a serious collision with the north-east. This will be carried on still more keenly and extensively when the beast and his ten horns sustain antichrist there. The man that will set up to have the highest spiritual power will reign in Jerusalem, and be the final personal antichrist, with the western powers for his supporters.

It is not to be doubted that many Jews will be gathered back to their land before that crisis comes: for the second beast rules over them. But they will of course return in unbelief. It will be the fruit of man's doing then. The Gentiles will work to this end. This failing, God will afterwards gather the Israelites in from every side. The Assyrian will then show himself their adversary, and appear to succeed at first, so as to enhance his destruction in its time; especially as the western empire (the beast), with the religious ally and chief in Palestine, will have been judged previously by divine power. This the Assyrian will regard as wrought in their own favour. They will infer that they are going to have things all their own way then, and will simply come therefore to receive their judgment after the western powers have been blotted out by the Lord.

England, like the rest of western Europe, will be under the apostate influence of Rome and the antichrist; for there is no power faithfully protesting against this iniquity. For similar reasons, if I might venture to give an opinion (and I never think of giving one's own thought as more than that), it is that the United States of America will be swamped into a political marsh; and as they have been hitherto a mere omnium gatherum or conglomerate from the rest of the world, especially from Europe, comprising no doubt a vast deal of skill, industry, and enterprise, but also not a little of the scum and refuse of all nations; so I believe they will break up into factions of noisy primitive elements; and, after going off in boastful vapouring, will at length burst as a bubble.

Population does not in itself make a nation strong. Some of the nations greatest in masses of men have been politically weak before a small energetic kingdom. Look at Darius's power, as opposed to Alexander and his Macedonians. The last appeared contemptible. Did it not seem the greatest folly for these few adventurers to invade Asia, and face the enormous armaments of Persia? Yet the he-goat with his horn was too much for the myriads of the great king, and the second empire collapsed.

So as to America, I conceive that the young giant power which has grown so fast will sink still faster, probably through intestine quarrel, but assuredly somehow before that day comes. They will break up into different fragments. Their prime object is to maintain political unity. This is their great ambition, and though it may appear to stand and advance, as everything ambitious is apt to prosper for a time, it will be all blown down before long. For it is a remarkable fact that there is no place in prophecy for a vast influential power, such as the American United States would naturally be, if it so long retained its cohesion. Is it conceivable that there should be such a power existing at that day without any mention of it? Can the omission be accounted for save by its dissolution? However, I particularly wish every one to understand that this is merely drawn from the general principles of the word of God.

India I presume will be part of the north-eastern system spoken of here and elsewhere. The British will lose possession of India, as nationalities wake up to yearn after their own distinct position. And such is even now the tendency, which prophecy distinctly recognises as characterising the end of this age. The Russian empire, as being itself north-eastern, is destined to be the suzerain power there. They may not be aware of the role divine prophecy attributes to them, of their immense success, and of their total destruction under the hand of Jehovah. But scripture is clear. (Compare Ezekiel 38:1-23; Ezekiel 39:1-29) Divine judgment will not slumber.

That it is the quick only, the wicked nations of the earth, who are here judged by an outpouring of divine judgment, when they think of no more than a campaign or politics, will be plain from what follows: a rising from the dead to be judged according to their works it is not. "Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of Jehovah is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining." Nevertheless it is not "the end" of 1 Corinthians 15:24, but the consummation of the age, of this present evil age, which will be followed by the glorious world-kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Revelation 11:1-19), and the fulfilment of the great mass of the prophecies in the earth's blessedness under His reign. Verses 16 and 17 make this equally plain and sure. "Jehovah also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but Jehovah will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am Jehovah your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more." At the judgment of the dead Jehovah will not roar as here out of Zion, neither will He dwell there, making Jerusalem holiness. For earth and heaven will have fled away. (Revelation 20:11) The absolutely new creation follows for eternity in Revelation 21:1-5.

But here the picture is so different as necessarily to suppose a time wholly distinct. It is the earthly Jerusalem, not the heavenly; it is not the Lord's shout calling His own to meet Him in the air, but His lion-like roar against His enemies on earth. It is His dwelling in Zion, His holy mountain, so as to make the holiness of Jerusalem no longer a mockery but a blessed reality. It is not yet the hour when the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth and the works that are therein being burned up. For it shall come to pass in the time here spoken of, "that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of Jehovah, and shall water the valley of Shittim. Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for Jehovah dwelleth in Zion." It is the time of the restitution of all things according to the full stream of the prophetic testimony, yet in no wise the last hour of that day when all must be destroyed in order to the eternal judgment and the new heavens and new earth, not in an inchoative but in the complete and absolute sense of the words.

The confusion of pious, able, and learned men on this subject is incredible to those who have not examined them carefully with a competent knowledge of scriptural truth to judge them by. It is not correct to say, for instance, that the imagery describes the fulness of spiritual blessings which God at all times diffuses in and through the church; nor is it well founded to assume that on earth (and the text speaks of the earth) the church has a lease of such blessings for ever, unless one speaks only of such individuals as have eternal life; nor again can we lightly speak of the church's enemies being cut off for ever, unless we limit our thoughts to the powers of darkness (Ephesians 6:12), which are surely not what is intended here by the desolations of Egypt and Edom.

The objections to taking the prophecy in its strict and natural import are of no such weight as to call for a mystical sense. Thus it is said that "the promise cannot relate to exuberance of temporal blessings, even as tokens of God's favour. For he says 'a fountain shall come forth of the house of Jehovah, and shall water the valley of Shittim.' But the valley of Shittim is on the other side Jordan, beyond the Dead Sea, so that by nature the waters could not flow thither." But here lies the mistake; for the reign of the Lord over the earth (which St. John declares shall last for a thousand years) differs essentially from all previous ages, as well as from the eternal state which succeeds. And the fuller light of the New Testament makes it plain that its distinctive feature is the heading up of all things in heaven and of all things on earth in Christ, the glorious Head of the universe now enjoying the promised blessing for which the groaning lower creation still yearns. Hence there will be a perfect condition for those on high (including the church then glorified), a blessed but not absolutely perfect state for those below, among whom Israel, converted and planted in their own land under Messiah and the new covenant, will have the highest place.

Thus it is easy to see that it will be the time for removing the effects of curse and shedding both spiritual and natural blessing. In witness of this shall go forth the vivifying fountain from the house of Jehovah, the waters of which take their course even to the valley of Shittim beyond the Dead Sea. The very point is a blessing power beyond nature going directly through a sea so dismal. Ezekiel 47:1-23 gives full particulars, and states an exception to the healing, which is important as negativing the idea of heaven or eternity. Zechariah 14:8; Zechariah 14:8 lets us know that, of the living waters issuing from Jerusalem in that day, half should go west to the Mediterranean, and half east to the Salt Sea, unaffected by the vicissitudes of the year. Undoubtedly along with this will be vouchsafed spiritual good abundantly; but there is no solid ground to question the real physical fact and its consequences in that day so glorious to Jehovah-Messiah. We must leave room in the future for the divine vindication of Himself in the lower creation, remembering the reconciliation to God of all things as well as of believers (Colossians 1:20-21), and that Christ is head over all things to the church which is His body. It is admitted that the vision of Ezekiel belongs to this life; as alsoRevelation 21:24-26; Revelation 21:24-26; Revelation 22:1-2. But in none is the connection with the present evil age, but with the good age to come.

It will be seen that I contend for no pseudo-literalism, and acknowledge freely the strong figures employed; as for example the mountains dropping new wine, and the hills flowing with milk; but surely the force is the supernatural spontaneousness with which God will then cause the earth to yield its choicest stores of the animate as well as inanimate creation. The day of toil and sorrow is past; and this through the Second man's grace, not the first man's skill any more than his deserts. Jehovah alone shall be exalted in that day. But it is not a description of our spiritual blessings in heavenly places. Undoubtedly it is earthly Judah and Jerusalem; but mercy and truth have wrought in the people, and divine power in the land and city of the great King. Their blessing shall abide for ever, as long as the earth endures; yea, Judah's surely in a new form throughout all eternity. "And I will avenge [or pronounce free from guilt] their blood [that] I had not avenged; and Jehovah dwelleth in Zion." It its not the church either militant or triumphant, but the permanent vindication and blessing of His earthly people, when He makes good His pledge of the hill He chose of old as His rest for ever.