BULLSEYE!

ACCURATE BIBLE KNOWLEDGE!

QUESTION: “WHAT MODERN DAY EVENTS DID JOEL SEE?”

                                                 Part 2 of 2

ANSWER: He sees …
1. (THE) GREAT TRIBULATION Joel 2:28-32
2. THE POURING OUT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT ON ISRAEL IN THE 7 YEAR  TRIBULATION Joel 2:28-32
3. THE REMOVAL RUSSIA & ARAB NATIONS IN 1^ST HALF OF THE SEVEN YEAR  TRIBULATION Joel 2:20
4. ARMAGEDDON Joel 3:1-17
5. MILLENNIUM Joel 3:18-21

Right from the “Get-Go” … around 830 BC, in the Book of Joel, the ‘first’ of Israel’s 16 prophets … there being 4 major ones and 12 minor ones, God declares his future plans for Israel and all the nations of the world.

EXPLANATION:
Following are the scriptures for numbers 4 and 5

 4. ARMAGEDDON Joel 3:1-17
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.
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.

5. MILLENNIUM Joel 3:18-21

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.

Along with invading armies, leprosy and locusts were the cause of absolute terror to the Jew, with leprosy bringing personal physical destruction in the form of an ‘incurable’ disease, while locusts brought a national starvation calamity; and Joel opens his account, with the devastations brought about by locust eggs, pupae, caterpillars and adults, each signifying the successive stages of the destruction of crops, that is, symbolic of the successive stages of the destruction of Israel.

Since the creation of the two kingdoms, Northern and Southern in 930 BC, there had been a rapid decline in the moral condition of Judah (the Southern tribes), which had culminated in their almost complete eradication, thanks to the Northern “locust queen” called Athaliah, inter-marrying into the Southern line. Like the locust in the natural, she had ‘eaten’ and ‘consumed’ with murder, all the kings, and their families, of the South, except for a little boy called Joash, the future king, who was kept hidden in the temple for six years.
So it is with the analogy of the locust, that Joel, the first of the prophets, calls Judah to attention just after Athaliah was killed around 830 BC.
One cannot imagine a blacker description of hopelessness and devastation than Joel with his fire, virgins mourning, beasts groaning, no food or drink, corrupt priests, invading armies, rivers dried up, no pastures, thick darkness, withered corn, rotten seed, drunkenness, chariots, dark moon, desolate wilderness, the coming day of the Lord, withered trees, the flame of fire and stubble, pain, the sword and so on.

The solution? A solemn assembly of mourning and fasting.
Joel’s account is divided into several parts, with the first from Joel 1:1 – Joel 2:17, the second from Joel 2:18 – Joel 2:27, the third Joel 2:28-30, the fourth Joel 3:1 -Joel 3:15, the fifth Joel 3:16-21 .
His account covers about 3,000 years from 930BC to the seven year tribulation and Armageddon.

 In summary:

 JOEL 830BC
The 1^st of Judah’s 11 prophets.

 GOD WILL RESCUE ISRAEL. THE COMING DAY OF GOD. 
The locust plagues herald the up-coming day of the Lord.

 He sees:
1. (The) Great Tribulation Joel 2:28-32
2. Pouring out of Holy Spirit on Israel in the 7 year tribulation Joel 2:28-32
3. Removal Russia & Arab nations in 1^st half of the tribulation Joel 2:20
4. Armageddon Joel 3:1-17
5. Millennium Joel 3:18-21

Harley Hitchcock

See Part 1 of 2

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BULLSEYE!

ACCURATE BIBLE KNOWLEDGE!

QUESTION: “WHAT DID THE PROPHETS SEE?”