Jesus is coming back and he's not all together about happy. Let's talk about it on Key Life. Hello, this is my killer. And that was Steve Brown. Life is in the dress rehearsal. And that's why this program Key Life is around. Honest, practical, and sweet, smart Bible teaching for the business of living. Thanks Mike. If you have your Bible open into the book of Joel, as we continue with our Old Testament survey, we're up to the book of Joel now. And I've suggested, as we close the broadcast, we don't know much about Joel. We know his name, and I'll tell you what his name means in a minute. And that's kind of nice to think that you don't have to have a biography written of a man of God for his message or for a woman of God for her message to make a difference. We're sort of a celebrity culture. I mean, we want to know everything about everybody who's famous. And, you know, we have millions of books that do that, and God doesn't do that. He's saying, kind of, by not giving us a lot of information about Joel, Joel is my man and I loving. But this isn't about Joel. This is about me, and it's about my message. Does that offend you? Well, I shouldn't because that's what the world's about. We were created to glorify him and not ourselves. And so Joel kind of violates that celebrity culture we have. We know that Joel was concerned with institutional religion in the temple because he talks about it. He may be because of that could have been a priest, but that's by no means certain. We certainly know he was a prophet because he's in the Bible as a prophet. Some scholars have gone so far to suggest that he had a special office called the temple prophet or the cult prophet. Now, cult is not used in this sense as you would the cults. It's used in a sociological sense. And you say, say what? Never mind. That was recognized in the time of Joel. He knows something about agriculture. Some have assumed that Joel may have been a farmer like Amos. However, that isn't certain. In an agrarian culture where everybody did farming, almost everybody, even this huge salesman knew something about farming. But Joel's name is significant. It means Yahweh is God. But beyond that, we don't know hardly anything about this obscure preacher. Now, if you're looking for an outline, and this is a little book, it only has three chapters. You can read it in 15 minutes. Let me give you one outline or the four chapters in the Hebrew text in the English Bible, four chapters. Chapters 1, 1 through 227 are prophetic history. Chapter 228 through 321 is the future at scotology. G. Campbell Morgan outlines the book in an interesting way. He says Joel 1 is level 1. Locust invasion and its implications. Joel 2 through the 27th verse is level 2. The greater judgment of God in the coming day of the Lord. Joel 2 28 through the 3rd chapter is level 3. The afterward, the encouragement, the distant day of the Lord. Now, let me give you some general points. And then we'll get into the text maybe tomorrow or the next day. You'll find, as you read the book of Joel, an interesting reference. Throughout the book, there is a reference to the day of the Lord. Now, let me show you something about that phrase. The phrase, the day of the Lord, is really interesting. It's almost always concerning the future or it's escatological, a big word meaning the future. You can trace its development through the Bible. At first, it was the day when the Lord was going to wipe out the enemies of God and raise the people of God, Israel and Judah, to their proper places as the leaders and the rulers. Now, in that sense, it may mean a number of different kinds of days. However, as you watch this development through the Bible, for instance in Daniel, you see that the day of the Lord has cosmic universal implications. It was the final day when God was going to close these three books. When you get to the book of Amos, and we're going to see that when we study Amos, you see the day of the Lord was not something you ought to be looking forward to necessarily. Even by the people of God, because Amos said the day of the Lord will be a time of judgment for everyone. And God's people are going to get it just like everybody else. Now, we'll encounter that phase in Joel, and we'll talk about it a little bit more. And I wanted you to be aware of it. But in the New Testament, this revelation just blossoms, and we're able to see for certain what the Bible is talking about. Let me give you a couple of texts, and you're not going to find it before I read it unless you're a Baptist. If you're a Presbyterian, these are in the New Testament. Second, don't send me letters, it's a joke. Second, Corinthians 1, 13 through 14. For we write you nothing but what can be read and understood. I hope you will understand fully, as you have understood in part, that you can be proud of us as we can be proud of you on the day of the Lord Jesus. That's the day of the Lord. First, that's the only in five two. For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. And so when we get into the New Testament, all of the teaching on the day of the Lord in the older Testament, and it's all true, all of it comes together, and we began to see that this is when Jesus, the Messiah, will return. Ruth Graham who writes some of the most magnificent and moving poems I've ever heard. I think I've told you before I was in Switzerland one time in depressed, and somebody gave me a copy of by her laughing fire. And I remember sitting in this lodge and reading. I read almost all night that book, and it meant so much. And when I finished, I sort of felt like, you know, that's all right. Jesus is here, and I'm going to get through this. But she has a point, and I think it's in that book where she talks about an old rabbi or an old Jewish man. And I don't remember exactly all of the point. But the final lines, Mrs. Graham has this old Jewish man saying, when Messiah comes, I will ask him, is this the first time, or is this the second time? Well, the second time is the real day of the Lord. And if you're a New Testament believer, you know that. At any rate, Joel refers to the day of the Lord. Errol and Zell, my friend, the late Errol and Zell, had an interesting bit of imagery here in his study Bible. He said that when we look at these different meanings of the day of the Lord, it's like standing in a mountain range where you can see the tops of the mountains in the distance. But you don't really see all of their power and their magnificence. When I'm a Pittsburgh managing editor, Senator reporter, to cover a mind disaster near Coatville. And when the young reporter got on the scene, he filed the following story. Coatville, Pennsylvania, number 300. God sits tonight on the hills around Coatville. And the editor wrote back, son, stop right there. Forget about the mind disaster. Interview God, get pictures. Oh, there is a sense in which God sits on the mountains, but you can only see in the distance, the peaks. And as we move into the New Testament, we begin to see some of the details and sometimes they really do blow you away. But in Joel, the day of the Lord is not going to be a pleasant time. And it's not for a lot of people. Let me tell you something. If you're a pagan and you're flipping across the dial and you heard this boggorn voice, and you said, well, he sounds reasonably intelligent, but he's saying some really dumb things. Let me tell you something, just so you know, so you can never again say, nobody told me so. Someday you're going to bow your knee to Jesus of Nazareth. Someday you're going to bow your knee and you're going to proclaim his name as Lord. Now some of us have done that already. Everybody's going to do it eventually, and some people are going to do it the hard way. Well, enough. Let me give you another preliminary sort of observation. I want you to note, as we go through this book of Joel, that he's quite exclusive and quite narrow. In the Old Testament, there are a number of great universal passages that refer to the entire world. Isaiah 2 to it shall come to pass in the latter days. That the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established at the highest of the mountains. And shall be raised up above the hills and all the nations shall flow into it. Isaiah 49, 5 through 6. Now the Lord says, who formed me from the womb to be a servant, to bring Jacob back to him. That Israel might be gathered to him, for I am honored in the eyes of the Lord and my God has become my strength. He says, is it too light a thing that you should be my servant and raise up the drives of Jacob to restore the preserved of Israel? I will give you as a light to whom? To the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Isaiah 42, 6. I am the Lord. I have called you in righteousness. I have taken you by the hand and kept you. I have given you a covenant to the people, a light to the nations. Jeremiah 42, and if you swear as the Lord lives in truth and justice and in uprightness, the nations shall bless themselves in Him and in Him they shall glory. You are not going to find any of that kind of thing in Joel. Maybe that is one of the reasons that a lot of people don't like Joel because he is pretty exclusive. He talks about God's people pretty much exclusively. He talks about the Jews and you want to say, yeah, but what about us, the goyum? What about those who are Gentiles? What about the nations? What about the prophecy concerning them? But you will find as you go through Joel that he is concerned with God's people. I do that here on key life. I am not an evangelist, though I participate in the evangelistic task. If you are pagan and you are warned by the fire of this teaching, I am glad for that. And I hope you turn to Jesus as eternal significance. I am not a politician, but I have great political views. I would like to press some of those buttons among God's people. As a God's call me to teach God's people about God. And then he teaches me in, I study the Bible, I do that for you. And in that sense, I am sort of like Joel. And you need guys like us? You think about that? I mean, listen, if you don't have the second of our pamphlets on the Old Testament survey, I would like to send it to you. As long as supplies last, this one that just came out is from Job to Jeremiah. And it is some of the teaching I have been giving in this survey. And you can use them as commentaries when you are reading the Old Testament. And if you didn't get the first one, if you will ask me if we have some of them downstairs, I will send that one to you too. This one is from Job to Jeremiah, and it is part two. And if you will give us a call, drop us a note, we will send it to you for you. 1-800 key life. Do that 24 hours a day or you can write key life. Post office box 5,000, maintenance Florida 3-7-9-4, or key life Canada. Post office box 3-2-1-5-0, Cambridge Ontario in 3-H5-3, or you can email us at steveckeylife.org with your regular mailing address. Ask for the Old Testament survey part two. Hey, can we talk? I sure would appreciate it if you could simplify it. And I realize most of you can't only a small percentage of those are administered to by key life, or able to help us with any point. This is very interesting. If you could help us, I sure would appreciate it. You can charge our Master Guard Visa Discover Guard, include a gift in your envelope, and you'll be a champion for so many others. 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