Morning Light – November 1st, 2017 – Joel 3: The Final Adjudication of Mankind

Morning Light – Joel 3
Today: [Joel 3] The Final Adjudication of Mankind. After the outpouring of the Spirit of God described in chapter 2, Joel prophesies the ultimate adjudication of the nations of men by those that God has ordained to sit and judge the timeline of man at the conclusion of humanity. Eternity future lies just ahead at this point, when God sets up His rule for 1000 years after vanquishing every rebelling nation, that His saints might rule by an enforced peace for a 1000 years.
[Joe 3:1-21 KJV] 1 For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, 2 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. 3 And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. 4 Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly [and] speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head; 5 Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things: 6 The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. 7 Behold, I will raise them out of the place whither ye have sold them, and will return your recompence upon your own head: 8 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: for the LORD hath spoken [it]. 9 Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: 10 Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I [am] strong. 11 Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD.
This chapter speaks to the ultimate judgment of the nations at a future time when the captivity of God’s people is turned and the city of Jerusalem restored. The declaration is that the nations will be gathered to the valley of Jehosaphat where God will “plead with them there for My people and for my heritage Israel whom they have scattered among the nations…” At the time of this writing Israel (the northern kingdom) has yet to fade into Assyrian captivity and Judah, the southern kingdom has not yet hung their harps on the willows of the Euphrates. Therefore, we are reminded that Joel prophesies in the days of Elisha, before Isaiah, before Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel or Hosea – even though the book authored by him comes after the books of the prophets bearing these names that were written at a later time. From this fact we are reminded that the arrangement of the books of the canon of scripture is not linear, in fact many of the narratives within the books themselves are likewise not linear in form or continuance.
Regardless, the prophecy in this chapter predicts ahead of time the day that Israel and Judah will not only go into captivity but likewise eventually be scattered throughout the nations, and hounded by mistreatment, brutality and oppression until the day after the events of Joel 2 that God will gather the nations for a final reckoning. The location of this valley is a literal place, also referred to in Rabbinical literature as the “valley of decision” in verse 14. In the fourth century, St. Jerome, a major architect of our canon, and Eusibius, an early church historian, fixed this valley in what is now the Bordeaux region of France. More accurately however, it points to the Kidron Valley between Jerusalem and the mount of Olives.
This calling of the nations to this place of reckoning is where God Himself will bring about the recompense of fallen humanity for rejection of the Savior and the brutalization of the descendants of Abraham. Because they have taken the gold and the silver from the temple of Solomon and used them to adorn their own pagan altars – after so many centuries the promise of God is to raise His people out of the nations where they have been sold as though into sexual trafficking and in turn will sell the peoples of the earth into the hands of the children of Judah. This is interesting because in Joel’s day – the northern kingdom comprised of the 10 tribes was still a contiguous whole, but the singular mention of Judah in this scenario points to the fact that in just a short many decades the 10 tribes disappear from history having bred themselves out of existence in Assyrian and then Babylonian captivity. The mention of the children of Judah also foreshadows those who are birthed into the bloodline of the kings of David through accepting Jesus as savior, who will rule and reign over humanity for 1000 years of enforced peace upon the earth.
The proclamation in v. 9 is to challenge the Gentile nations to war with the most high. Remember that the word Gentile is best derived as a word picture of a person standing with his back to the temple. A Gentile is not someone who isn’t born of Jewish stock. A Gentile is one who Jew or Gentile has openly or functionally turned their back on God and His temple, which you are as a born again person. Therefore, it behooves us not to lightly disdain one another or turn from one another lest we fall under this descriptor and unwittingly set ourselves against God because we have set ourselves against His temple in the person of the individual for whom Christ died that we choose to disparage and/or persecute.
This entire scene is the description of the day of the Lord that is morning spread on the mountain for the people of God, but a time of the sickle being put in the vast swath of humanity to bring about the judgments of God whom verse 16 tells us shall roar out of Zion and utter His voice from Jerusalem. Now is this just natural Zion or natural Jerusalem? We must remember the words of Daniel that this is the time that the saints shall possess the kingdom and sit to judge and to rule in the earth. Thus we know that Jerusalem may be a city in the middle east but it is also the people of God corporately as the church, and the holy mountain is not just Zion, but the holy hill of the people of God – the heavenly Jerusalem, the army of God who will execute His sovereignty in the earth at the conclusion of the timeline of man.
Is the end result of all this just destruction or devastation? V. 18 confirms otherwise to us – that this is the plowing under of the whole influence and effect of the disobedience of Adam for the establishing of a kingdom whose mountains shall drip the new wine of the Spirit of God and whose hills shall flow forth the milk of the word of God, whence the fountains of Judah, the salvation brought about by Jesus shall be freely accepted and poured out upon all flesh that chooses to acknowledge and freely bend the knee to the rule of God and His Christ through His people the church.
At this time v. 19 says Egypt (the world system) will be completely desolated and Edom (the Esau usurper against God’s people) will become a wilderness. All rebellion, and anti-Christ sentiment and power will be put down and the influence of the beast – the flesh nature will be robbed of its power to influence men for 1000 years of sublimity and peace beyond anything we could comprehend on this side of the adjudication of the saints. But Judah (again a reference not to the natural tribe, for there is not one Jewish person who can vet his tribal identity or prove it by one shred of evidence) this speaks of the lineage of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah and those both Jew and Gentile who have accepted Him and savior and king and been cleanses (who have not been previously cleansed) by the Lord that dwells in Zion.
12 Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. 13 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. 14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD [is] near in the valley of decision. 15 The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. 16 The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD [will be] the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. 17 So shall ye know that I [am] the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. 18 And it shall come to pass in that day, [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 the LORD, and shall water the valley of Shittim. 19 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. 20 But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. 21 For I will cleanse their blood [that] I have not cleansed: for the LORD dwelleth in Zion.