Minor Prophets – Joel Pt2

Minor Prophets – Joel Pt 2

The Solution: Joel 2:28  “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,  your old men shall dream dreams,  and your young men shall see visions.

• Pour out – Locusts hate storms, 

  • Rain changes their behavior from gregarious and swarming to becoming docile. 

  • Wind blows their swarms out of the land and apart

The Growing Problem: Joel 1:4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. 

1. Palmerworm: 

2. Locust: 

3. Cankerworm: 

4. Caterpillar: 

The Promise: Joel 2:25And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you.

It says not what the locusts have eaten but the years.

• Nothing grows for years because everything is destroyed and eaten beyond the seed level.

• The entire food chain collapses, and it takes years for anything to begin to grow, and then more years for more complex life to be able to eat it.

• God does not say he will undo the past – you can’t unscramble eggs!

God is saying that he will heal your present enough to seed and grow a future

God is a God of restoration!  

• God promises to restore the land to be able to produce again – a picture of our spiritual lives.  

The Lord was using a past swarm historical event as an illustrated sermon to Judah that was returning from captivity to show how idolatry progressively destroys the people, like the four stages of locusts destroy the land. 

Background Judah had just returned from a 70-year time of captivity. This equated to 1 year for every Shavat year that they were supposed to give the land, as it belonged to the Lord. Over 490 years, Israel had robbed God of 70 Sabbath years.

Giving the Land rest allowed for moisture to remain in the soil and kept the land free from droughts. The 70-year Babylonian captivity of the Israelites was interpreted as a punishment for neglecting the Sabbath years (Leviticus 25:2-7). The text says the land enjoyed its Sabbath rests during the exile, making up for 70 years of missed Sabbath years. 

The droughts cause the locusts in the area to go from:

Solitary and gregarious behavior: This is what makes locusts swarm.

• It is this enforced mingling that triggers the physical change from solitary to gregarious, 

• Shortage of food turns grasshoppers into military locusts by forcing them to come close together,

Drought and a dry Season are always symbols of the absence of people seeking the Spirit.

• The Psalmist says, “He shall come down like rain … as showers that water the earth” (Psalm 72:6).

• The prophet states, “Come and let us return to the Lord: … he will … revive us … he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth” (Hosea 6:1-3). 

• Another prophet affirms, “Ask ye of the Lord rain in the time of the latter rain; so the Lord shall make bright clouds, and give them showers of rain” (Zech. 10:1).

On average, fruits contain between 80% and 95% water. 

• Fruit is Fruit is a Supernatural connection that is naturally produced in your life by walking in the Spirit. 

• 95% or more of the change that will produce Godliness in your life is rained down from heaven into your life 

• The other 5% is receiving it and coming into agreement with the Spirit by Faith. 

“WALKING” in the A.N.E. was a demonstration of AGREEMENT.

In Galatians 5, Paul gives a side-by-side comparison of the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit 

1. Flesh is called works

2. Spirit is a walk

• In the Garden, God’s relationship with man was called a “Walk,” not “Work”! 

• When Adam and Eve sinned, God returned to restore the Walk by God doing the Works of Atonement. 

Galatians 5:16 Your walk in the Spirit causes you “not to fulfill the lusts of the desires of the flesh. “

How do you walk in the Spirit? 

Ever walk with someone? 

1. You talk to them, right? 

2. You listen when they talk…

3. You adjust your pace with them, right? 

4. You don’t fall behind or walk ahead of them, you remain in step with them. Throughout your day, all day, every day, 

5. You live connected in concert with them and walk together. 

Just like in my marriage. When I was single, I thought and lived differently. 

1. I am conscious throughout the day of my partner. 

2. I don’t eat without her, sleep without her, if I do life through a relationship with her.

3. The Holy Spirit is the same way. 

4. You no longer think alone, choose alone, live alone, or do life alone. Every waking moment is spent with the Spirit speaking, and you are always conscious of Him. 

• Walking in the Spirit allows the Holy Spirit to do the work of producing the fruit of the Spirit in your life.

Spiritual Message of Joel: If the enemy cannot destroy you, he will first attempt to destroy the fruit of the Spirit in your life. 

Ephesians 4:27: Give no place to the devil. 

People fly solo for a minute and do their own thing. 

• That leaves the door open for the devil to have access to your life and come in. 

• When he does, he comes in slowly – he doesn’t slam the door of the chicken coupe! 

Satan infests your life with sin over a long period. It grows and develops, slowly consumes, and does not undergo immediate destruction. We don’t recognize it until the end, and it’s a swarm.

• Sin not only destroys your life, it eats it up, feeds on it, and grows from it.

• Paul likens it to yeast – yeast cells are a fungus that feeds on its host until its host is changed.   

There are four distinct stages of consumption from sin. See Joel telling Judah about it in our text:

1. Palmerworm: Hebrew, Gazam – Gnawing locust,  Nibbling locust – targets fruit. 

• Gnaw means to wear away by persistent nibbling 

• He attacks the fruit – the result of all your sowing and planting

• You plant for fruit 

• You work for a reward

• You plant apple trees for apples, NOT SHADE

The purpose of the apple tree isn’t to shade, its purpose is fruit! The Palmerworm cleans out the fruit, leaving the rest of the tree intact.

A couple of ways to look at this:

• As Christians, we have a mandate to submit to the Holy Spirit’s work of producing the fruit of the Spirit: Galatians 5:22-23

  • You will not be rewarded in Heaven nor hear “well done” for your knowledge.” 

  • Or your time spent coming to church, hearing sermons, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube preachers, listening to Christian radio, reading Christian books, etc. 

  • Many of us are educated far beyond our level of obedience! 

• Even your level of self-righteousness is filthy rags before the Lord

  • You will be rewarded for allowing the Holy Spirit to work through your life and produce fruit through your life.

• He does the work, you do the WALKING WITH HIM and IN HIM. 

Fruit is the work of the Holy Spirit:

1. Fruit FEEDS!

2. FEEDING IS FOR OTHERS!

Satan is a master at gnawing away at the fruit the Holy Spirit wants to produce in you!  He doesn’t come all at once! 

• He will begin gnawing away at your joy. 

• Can you see how your joy ministers to and blesses others? FRUIT FEEDS. 

  • Nibbling at your peace, HOW CAN YOU PEACE FEED OTHERS? 

  • Chewing on your love, your patience

  • Consuming your source of love and faithfulness 

He attacks to eat the fruit from the inside out – But leaves the rest of the tree intact.

• Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof – 2 Timothy 3:5

  • You will be changed into a hypocrite – Appearance of life but no fruit!

  • There is a tree, there is life, but up close, the fruit is being consumed from the inside out. 

The price of secret sin, self-righteousness– Palmerworm eats the fruit of the Spirit from the inside out. 

Satan’s Cheap Knock-Off and Imitation: Religion

• Religion is a Fruitless tree – Is an apple tree an apple tree without any fruit?

• That is an apple tree! Not without any apples on it!

  • Is a Christian a Christian without any fruit? 

Satan will eat the fruit and then leave the tree: 

• I am an oak for Jesus! 

  • But there is no fruit!  – Where is your Joy, peace, love, etc…..

    • No one feeds from the Spirit working in you! 

The thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy – not all at once but in increments

• He  doesn’t want to just kill you, he wants you to suffer – to gnaw you to death

• He doesn’t want to take it away from you all at once

He wants to gnaw – HE IS A PEST!

• Like a PESTILENCE! He will take it little by little = Sick, Poor, Miserable!

You scratch your head and say, “Why doesn’t God do something about this?”

• God is saying, “Why don’t you do something about this?”

• You got worms! 

• That’s why you have no fruit!

• Repent and then spray spiritual pesticide – God’s word over every thought and every decision, and every word you speak.

James 4: Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 

• Fallen world, sin, enemy that you need to resist in the spirit’s strength.

  • Mat 21- Jesus cursed a fig tree

  • For no fruit 

  • Peter was shocked 

• Fig leaves were the covering that Adam and Eve chose

  • Religion is a covering of sin that is fruitless work!

  • Did Adam and Eve ask for a covering?

    • How much work does it take to be healed, no more than it takes to be saved! 

    • Fruitless work is self-righteousness 

Don’t let the enemy take your joy, your peace, spray him out of there!

• Jesus promised more than life! 

• Abundant Life was his mission. 

  • You do not have Abundant Life unless the Spirit is producing Fruit that Feeds!

    • That’s what Abundance is FOR! 

      • Few experience it!

We should see abundance, not just life. 

• Many times we work and minister and sow and see little return, if any at all.

• Where is the abundant living? 

  • You are alive – the tree

    • But there is no abundant life – no fruit on it

      • Multiplied seeds of blessing!

Secret sin, self-righteousness, and religion – They are the Palmerworm that will leave you with some life, but consume the abundant life from you. 

What are you doing about your WORMS? 

• Well, I am working on it! – That’s your problem! 

  • The Bible never says that it works that way! 

    • Works are God’s part through you 

    • THE SPIRIT OF SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS is the greatest sin! 

    • I WILL WORK AT IT! 

      • It’s a Walk, not a WORK! 

      • Sin enters your heart, and we begin trying to work ourselves free – this is a trap becuase sin is a WEB SPUN by a BUG! 

Galatians 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. …19 Now the works of the flesh

• Works are flesh and produce sin regardless of intention – the path to hell is paved with good intentions. 

• The walk is of the Spirit – Relationship is a Walk – 

Illustration: The wedding ceremony symbolizes this!

• How can two walk together, lest they agree? Amos 3:3

  • All of the Fruit of the Spirit is a relational walk of agreement!