Sunday, August 14, 2022 AM

Come on in, have a seat. We are ready to start worship. Start with a few announcements this morning. Our evening service tonight at 5 .30, come back for that. Looking ahead to this Wednesday, again, we did this last week and we'll do it for a few more Wednesdays, but we're taking a break from Wednesday meals for the rest of August.

So there will not be a meal this Wednesday, but please come for prayer at 6 .30 and also be in prayer for the leaders of TAG. They're kind of taking a little bit of time off and pray for them as they kind of sort through and plan and ask the Lord's direction on how they can do TAG for the kids this fall.

Looking ahead, a couple Sundays in the future, communion in the morning service on August 28th and then that same day after the evening service, truth group for the kids. I was reminded we have, still have two openings.

If you would like to sign up to help with a meal for truth group for the months of August and September, don't worry about cost. The church will reimburse you whatever the cost is for those meals for those kids.

But again, they'll eat about anything. Just if you wanna help out with those, you can see Kristen Barnett or Patty Hines and plan that out for them. And then looking ahead to Sunday, September 4th, Sunday school promotion.

So if you have kids that are looking to move up to another Sunday school class, just be in contact with their Sunday school teachers and let them know what you intend to do. All right, also on Sunday, August 28th, we're gonna be having a wedding shower.

Yay!

Wedding shower for Joel and Nicole. Joel DeForest and Nicole Swords. That's gonna be the 28th, 12 .30 p .m. to 2 .30 p .m. here in the fellowship hall. Their registry information is there in the bulletin and you can RSVP for that shower to Brittany Goulet if you wouldn't mind.

All right, oh, one other announcement. The church is about to pull the permit for the demolition of the big mission house. So this is your last call. If you wanna look through that mission house and get anything out of it, please see Hannah Hamilton as soon as possible.

All right, any other announcements before we start worship this morning? Our fighter verse for this week. Again, we're in Psalm 91. We're looking at verses 11 through 13. Speaking of Christ. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.

On their hands they will bear you up lest you strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot. We're gonna have a time of prayer asking the Lord to bless our time this morning.

And then after that, we will have Randy open us in prayer.

Father, just thank you so much for the opportunity to meet again and to worship you. And I pray that you might calm our hearts and just free us from thinking of anything of the events of this week. I just pray that you would just help us to focus on you and you alone.

Thank you so much for Jesus. And thank you that Jesus is our high priest and that we can come to him with anything. And we thank you for the love that you have shown us. And I pray that you would help us to be an instrument to show what true love is to others.

I pray that we would speak the love in truth. Father, pray for Michael as he comes and preaches your word to us today. I pray that our hearts will be receptive and that we will hear and obey your word.

I pray for the songs that we sing this morning, that we might truly worship you in our hearts. I just thank you for your goodness to us. Encourage us this week to share Christ with others and to be the first of our hope in him.

And we ask it in Jesus' name, amen.

You stand with me for our call to worship. Starting chapter 79 this morning. Good, turn to Psalm 79. We'll be reading verses one through four. That's also in your bulletin. There you go. Read with me together.

Oh God, the nations have come into your inheritance. They have defiled your holy temple. They have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food.

The flesh of your faithful to the beast of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem. And there was no one to bury them. We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.

Our first song this morning is in your Psalms for Worship hymnal, page 79A. We'll sing all four verses. Oh God, to your inheritance.

For hymnal, we'll sing on page 64,.

All creatures of our God and King.

Would please open your Bibles with me to Isaiah 30. We will be reading verses 27 through the end of the chapter. I'll be reading out of the ESV. The name of the Lord comes from afar. Burning with his anger and in thick rising smoke, his lips are full of fury and his tongue is like a devouring fire.

His breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray. You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept and gladness of heart as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the rock of Israel.

And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen and furious anger and a flame of devouring fire with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones. The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord when he strikes with his rod and every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres.

Battling with the brandished arm, he will fight with them for a burning place has long been prepared. Indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide with fire and wood and abundance.

The breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it. Would you please pray with me? Father, we are in awe of your word and your righteousness. Your holiness, we praise and bless. We thank you, Father, that we have Jesus Christ to call upon to petition at the throne that we may have our hearts cleansed, we may have our eyes averted from distractions and brought back to you and your word.

We know you make it clear to us. And by your spirit, Father, this morning, make it clear to our hearts what you have to say and what you have us to see. We praise you and we thank you. In Christ's name, amen.

You may be seated.

Our next song is in our regular hymn book, page 350, "'Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.".

Tis precious Jesus, dear trust

Hold me fast. There was a handout in the back. I hope you were able to get that.

Missing, sad and

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day. Thank you for gathering us together in this place. We thank you for the grace that you have shown to us by your spirit and in your son.

We thank you for the salvation that we have in Christ and pray that you would help us today to rejoice in your truth. And I pray that you would accomplish your will in us, that we would, in our love of Christ and our following Christ, that we would be light in this world.

Salt in this earth. And that you would receive the glory for the advance of your kingdom. And we pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. Invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter two.

We'll be reading verses 14 through 21 this morning. Acts chapter two, verses 14 through 21. As we continue our look at the very important day of Pentecost that is recorded here in this chapter. A day which Jesus told his disciples to be patient and to wait for as their task to make disciples of all the nations.

Their task of being his witnesses of the good news of the kingdom in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth. That task should not begin until they had received the promise from the Father.

The promise which Jesus also gave to them, none other than the person of the Holy Spirit who would come and bless them, fill them, empower them, equip them for this monumental, most important task of declaring the glory of God in Christ Jesus, his person and work, until the knowledge of the glory of God would cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.

This was their great task, but they could not do it on their own. It is not of their power, not of their might, not of their will, not of their abilities, but all of God, his power, his glory, his grace.

And there are many promises in the Old Testament given the bleak situation of Old Testament Israel, given the bleak situation of idolatrous, unjust, immoral, covenant-breaking Israel, the promises from the prophets were twofold.

One, that God would judge these breakers of the Old Covenant, but that God would bring about something better, that God would not fail to keep his promises. But in fact, he would keep his promises through the New Covenant, and they were to anticipate this good news arriving in later generations, but to be made manifest there in their land, there in their city, there upon their holy mountain, they would discover the true realities of the New Covenant.

And now we have come to that moment in time, when the New Covenant has arrived. And even as the Old Testament said, even as the prophets of old said, the premier sign of the New Covenant would be the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit would come upon all the people in the New Covenant, not just a remnant. The Holy Spirit would bless and empower and equip all the members of the New Covenant, not merely kings or priests or prophets, but all flesh in the New Covenant would be so blessed.

And so it is on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit arrives in that special way, and there is the sound of the roar of wind, and it is the sight of the tongues of fire coming upon the heads of the apostles.

And the apostles begin in their awful Galilean accent, begin to preach and proclaim the riches of God, the manifest gospel of God in the languages that they had never learned. People began to wonder in amazement, and scratch their heads, and some began to scoff and to scorn, and begin to say, oh, they're just drunk.

But then Peter will not let this mockery of this most important work to stand, he will respond. And this is the response that he gives. He begins to preach here in Acts chapter two. If you will please stand with me, and we're going to read verses 14 through 21.

This is the word of our Lord Christ through his spirit by his servant Luke. But Peter, standing up with the 11, raised his voice and said to them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words.

For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day, but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of my spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And all my men servants and all my maid servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.

I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.

And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. Peter does not want his audience. He does not want his fellow Jews gathered there from all quarters of the empire for this feast of first fruits, this harvest feast that they called Pentecost.

He does not want his fellow Jews to miss out on the meaning of Pentecost, what has just occurred through irreverent speculation. This is speculation that at nine o 'clock in the morning, the best explanation for these Galileans preaching the magnificent works of God in languages that they had never learned, in the heart languages of these Jews who had been gathered there from the four quarters of the empire, they think the best explanation of that is that they're drunk on new wine at nine o 'clock in the morning.

You ever notice that the speculations of man trying to explain away the works of God are always this foolish? But it doesn't need to make sense for rebels against God to believe it. They just need to say something and hold to it.

And so Peter will not allow this irreverent speculation to remain unchallenged. And he says, this makes no sense. I'll tell you what is actually going on. These men are not drunk as you suppose. It's just the third hour of the day.

No, notice what he says. This is what was spoken of by Joel the prophet. Here's a far better explanation for what is going on in front of you. The manifest evidence of the arrival of the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you what this is.

This is God keeping his promises. This is the most rational, the best explanation for what's going on. It's God keeping his promises. It's God at work. You're beholding the acts of the risen Lord Jesus Christ in the sending forth of the Holy Spirit to be at work amongst his people.

And so what Peter is saying is this evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work amongst the likes of us, and you have a hard time explaining it. Well, you don't have to explain it. God has already said what it is.

This is what Joel said it would be. Welcome to the last days. For the arrival of the new covenant signals the end of the old. With the new covenant, with the substance, with Christ being high priest, Christ himself calling his own person and work superior to all of the old covenant for as the substance is better than the shadow, so when the substance arrives, why cling to the shadows?

Because the new has come, old things are now passing away. The old is obsolete and ready to pass away. And so Peter is saying, welcome to the last days of the old covenant. That's what's going on here.

And we looked at those expressions last week. And Peter says, this is, he quotes Joel in verses 17 and 18, and we see a prophecy about, prophecy about the Holy Spirit coming upon not just a few, not just a select one or two, but upon sons and daughters and young men and old men and maidservants and menservants.

All the members of the new covenant empowered and equipped by the Holy Spirit to do what it is that they're called to do. The last days of the old covenant are triggered by the effusion of the spirit, which is the sign of the new.

And then we have an oracle of judgment in verses 19 through 20. As Joel is being quoted here, Joel chapter two, verses 30 through 31. I advised you this morning to keep your bookmark in Acts two and Joel two.

We'll be flipping back and forth because this is very, very important. It is incredibly significant for our understanding of the scriptures that we pay attention to how the apostles of Jesus Christ, the writers of the New Testament, those to whom Jesus revealed the meaning of the Old Testament from Moses and the writings and the prophets, how they all testified of Him, how He opened their minds to understand the scriptures, removed the veil from Moses that they may see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

They would read the scriptures with an unveiled heart and see the glory of Christ. It is important that we see how the New Testament interprets the old in light of Jesus, that we may understand what it is all about.

So it's important that we see what is said in Joel two and how Peter preaches it in Acts two. We are helpfully instructed in this way. So when we look at Joel chapter two, look at verses 30 and 31, you'll notice the similarity of verses 28 and 29 to Acts two, verses 17 and 18.

Continuing on with Peter's quotation, verses 30 and 31. Sounds exactly like Acts chapter two, verses 19 and 20. 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 coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. The great and awesome day of the Lord. Wonders, wonders before the coming. This word before is not an expression of time, but of location.

It is the expression which means in the presence of, before the very face of. So in the presence of the day of the Lord, in the light of this great and awesome day of the Lord, where he is judging and setting things straight, he is going to do wonders and signs.

Look at the terminology of judgment here. We have wonders and signs, Peter says in Acts two. Wonders here in verse 30 of Joel chapter two. What are these wonders and signs? These are miracles with meaning.

These are miracles with meaning. This is not some kind of accident in history. This isn't some sort of random event. These are miracles with meaning. We see blood and fire and smoke. We see references to the sun and moon.

Things are happening, but this is the terminology of judgment. So just after this proclamation about the new covenant, about the good of the new covenant, about the effusion of the Holy Spirit, the ministry of the Holy Spirit amongst all the flesh of the new covenant, we then have an expression of judgment.

And I think the most important aspect of this terminology is the fact that God is the one in charge. God is the one who is acting. Notice in verse 30 of Joel two, and I will show wonders. I will show wonders.

Even as he says in verse 29, I will pour out my spirit. He also says, I will show wonders. God is the actor. He is the one who is doing this. Also back in Acts chapter two, the very same thing is said in verse 19.

I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath. It's interesting to me that the Hebrew word for show, translated as show here is Nathan. We get the word named Nathan.

It means give.

And in the Greek it's doso, which also means give. God is not saying, I'm a tour guide. These things happened in accidents of history and I'm going to give you a little tour and tell you my point of view on their significance.

No, he is actually giving. He is the one who was providing these signs and these wonders. He is the one who is issuing them. It is God who is rendering judgment. It is God who is recompensing evil. It is God who is revealing the truth.

These are miracles with meaning. They are his works and they mean what he means them to mean. They come and in context of, before the face of the great and awesome day of the Lord. This is a powerful day.

This is a day that is, well, the Greek word for awesome is, we get our word epiphany from, meaning I'm going to light it up. That means two things. One, it's going to be very destructive and very informative.

So the day of the Lord is great and it is awesome. It is full of meaning. It is God's action and he is bringing it to pass. Now look at the terminology for judgment being used. The terms for judgment.

There are three terms for war, blood, fire, and vapor of smoke. We read in Acts 2 verse 19, the same language we find in Joel. Blood, fire, and smoke. That's what happens when nations go to war. That's what's happening right now in the Ukraine.

It's blood and it's fire and it's smoke. The awful devastation of war. And this is what is promised concerning the day of the Lord. War is coming as part of what God is doing in his great and awesome day.

Also, we read about the moon being turned into blood and the sun being turned into darkness. This is also terminology for warfare. These are the metaphors for defeat, for the end of government and authority.

Then you flip in your Bibles over to Isaiah 13. We'll take a look at a couple of passages there. In the original six days of creation, when God created the world, he created everything in six days. And after he created light and divided the light from the darkness and called the light day and the darkness he called night.

Sometime after that, a few days later, he makes the sun and the moon and the stars. And he says, this greater light shall govern the day. The lesser light will govern the night. And these stars that he put up into the heavens will be for times and seasons and years to govern the time in which we live.

So we will know what time it is based upon the beautiful and precise calendar that God has placed into the sky. Nobody has ever exceeded the craftsmanship and the gears and the precision finery of what God has made in the heavens.

But these were said to govern. And after that, we find in the scriptures the sun, moon and stars being used as a metaphor for governing authorities. Governing authorities that exist for a era of time.

And so we read about situations where the sun and the moon and the stars fail. The governing authorities fail. Their era of time is over. There's a power failure. For example, let's go to Isaiah 13. Isaiah 13 in verse six begins this way.

Wail for the day of the Lord is at hand, which means it's about to take place. Verse nine begins this way. Behold, the day of the Lord comes. It's like you can see it on the horizon. Verse 10, for the stars of heaven and their constellations will not give their light.

The sun will be darkened in its going forth and the moon will not cause its light to shine. Sounds like there's gonna be a power outage, right? That which God had placed in the heavens as a governing authority, governing authorities over time suddenly will fail to do their job.

What does this mean? Verse 13 begins this way. Therefore, I will shake the heavens and the earth will move out of her place in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of his fierce anger. Here in Isaiah 13, we're hearing about the day of the Lord.

Whoa, whoa, the day of the Lord is at hand. Behold, the day of the Lord. You can see it, it comes. And what will happen on the day of the Lord? The stars and the sun and the moon will fail to do what they're supposed to do.

Yeah, it kinda sounds like the end of the world, doesn't it? What is this chapter about? Verse one, the burden, another word, another translation, oracle, the burden against Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.

So this chapter talking about the day of the Lord and the failure of sun, moon, and stars is about Babylon. Which Babylon? You know, the one that got taken down by the Medes and the Persians. Verse 17, behold, I will stir up the Medes against them who will not regard silver as for gold.

They will not delight in it. So Babylon went down many, many centuries ago, millennia ago. Babylon was destroyed in what is called the day of the Lord. See, there's more than one day of the Lord. There was a day of the Lord for Edom, a day of the Lord for Babylon, a day of the Lord for Egypt, a day of the Lord for Sodom and Gomorrah, and a day of the Lord here for Babylon.

And when the day of the Lord comes, guess what happens to the governing authorities who had presided over day and night, times and seasons and years in the empire of Babylon? What happened to those governing authorities?

Were they still in charge after the day of the Lord was done? They were not still in charge. They were done. They were done with. They were moved aside. They had totally failed. And so you see, this is a metaphor for defeat, a metaphor for the end of a governing era.

These authorities are no longer in charge. This expression is used in many other locations, including the book of Joel, including in the New Testament, the book of Matthew, and also here in the book of Acts.

What we find here are terms for judgment, a not only divine intervention that God is the one who is doing it, but a devastating interruption. There is a war that is going to happen in the context of the day of the Lord, and it's going to result in the overthrow of all manner of governing authorities.

That's what's being said. Now, we've moved from Peter explaining the wonderful good news of the new covenant. Hey, the Holy Spirit has arrived, and this is good news, and there's a big judgment coming.

Well, why is he saying that? Because he's simply quoting Joel, chapter two. So let's consider the timing of this judgment. I don't know the last time you read through the book of Joel. But when you read through the book of Joel, you need to pay attention, because in the same chapter, we're going to hear about more than one day of the Lord.

So we begin in chapter two, in verse one. Blow the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand.

And then this day of the Lord, Joel is prophesying to his people who are breaking the covenant of God. They are not doing right. And Joel is saying, God is going to bring a day of judgment against you because of your covenant unfaithfulness.

And what will come about in that day? Verses 10 and 11 of chapter two. After describing all of the enemies that God is going to use to destroy and to conquer his people, verses 10 and 11, concerning this army, the earth quakes before them.

The heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before his army, for his camp is very great, for strong is the one who executes his word, for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible.

Who can endure it? God used the armies of Babylon to bring his day against his covenant-breaking people, and they, well, there's a power outage. Sun, moon, and stars go down. And that was the destruction of Jerusalem, and the people who lived there were exiled and taken all throughout the Babylonian empire.

Following that, there is, after this exile is commenced, there is then a promise of restoration. As we find throughout the Old Testament, after the prophets declare that there is judgment against the people of God for their breaking the covenant, he also promises that they will be regathered and their God would manifest the new covenant, and that there would be a restoration of the kingdom to Israel, wherein the people of God, once again, will live in the place of God, under the rule of God, under God's holy anointed one.

The son of David is usually how he is described. And we see these new covenant promises here in Joel. After considering how devastating this judgment is, after calling the people and saying, after God's judgment, you need to repent, you need to return to the Lord with all your heart.

It's more important that you return to the Lord in your hearts than to return to the land. But after you return to the Lord and repent, there is going to be this promise. Verse 18, Joel 2. Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and pity his people.

The Lord will answer and say to his people, behold, I will send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations. This is new covenant promise, new wine promise.

You ever notice how new wine keeps showing up with Jesus? His first public miracle, where he's going to declare the kingdom of God and how things are different in the new covenant, he goes to a wedding in Cana.

You remember what happened at Cana? They ran out, oh no, they ran out of wine. And Jesus' mother says, they ran out of wine. He says, what am I supposed to do about it? Here's what he does about it. He goes outside where there are these massive clay pots full of water, not any old water.

This is the water that everybody would use as they went inside the house to ceremonially cleanse their hands and their lips following Levitical custom. And Jesus says, enough of that, let's make it new wine.

Ever notice that? Later on, as he's explaining why people are not gonna necessarily flock, why the Jews may not necessarily flock to his message, he says, it's very simple. They're drunk on the old wine of the old covenant and they don't desire the new wine of the new covenant.

What's the mockery here in Acts 2? Oh, they're drunk, they're full of new wine. Peter says, that reminds me of a passage. How about Joel 2, where the promise is that after the exile, after the judgment of God upon his people for breaking covenant with him, that he would gather them back together, he would bless them and restore them with new wine.

There it is again in verse 24 of Joel 2. The threshing floor shall be full of wheat and the vat shall overflow with new wine and oil. Then we have this passage. Don't take this passage out of context, please.

Verse 25. So I'll restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust. This is all from Joel 1. My great army, which I sent among you, the metaphor of the Babylonian armies, and you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God who has dealt wondrously with you.

Now, look at this promise and I want you to lay hold of it and don't let go. And my people shall never be put to shame. Do you see it? Never put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel.

I am the Lord your God and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame. Do you see it? What does God promise his people after their Babylonian exile, that when they repent, that he will restore them, he will restore to them the years that the locust has eaten, he's going to bless them and he's going to love them.

And what is his promise? That never again would his people be put to shame. And we need to believe the Lord when he says that. I want you to take that at face value in the plain meaning of that text. God says, my people will never be put to shame.

That becomes an all-important consideration, especially as we move into the New Testament and consider just who this promise is for. Just following this promise in verses 26 and 27, we have what we have already seen, the promise of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as the sign of the new covenant.

And then we have after that, after the arrival of the new covenant, then there's another day of the Lord. After the arrival of the Holy Spirit, look, there's another day of the Lord. After he said, I will never let my people be put to shame, he says, there's another day of the Lord.

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 coming and awesome day of the Lord. This is described a little bit later on, verses one through three of Joel 3.

For behold, in those days and at that time, when I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, the way of talking about the valley of judgment.

And I will enter into judgment with them there on account of my people, my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations. They have also divided up my land. They have cast lots for my people, have given a boy's payment for a harlot and sold a girl for wine that they may drink.

A little bit farther ahead, verses 14 through 17. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. Look, the sun and moon will grow dark and the stars will diminish their brightness.

The Lord also will roar from Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem. The heavens and earth will shake, but the Lord will be a shelter for his people and the strength of the children of Israel. So you shall know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain.

Then Jerusalem, then Jerusalem shall be holy and no aliens shall ever pass through her again. Now, let's go back over to Acts chapter two, verse 16. Peter says, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.

Now, is Peter taking Joel chapter two out of context? Is he just playing around and messing around with the book of Joel? Is he taking a little portion out of Joel and saying,.

Oh, I like that, I'm going to use that.

For my present purposes. Is he ignoring the rest of the meaning of the book of Joel? Is he taking up the promises of God and saying, these are being fulfilled before your very eyes? But is he doing that in a way that contradicts the rest of the book of Joel?

Is the Holy Spirit inspiring Peter in preaching and Luke in recording this inerrant word? Is the Holy Spirit messing around with Scripture and interpreting it wrongly? We have to say no. Thus, as a people of faith, we have to believe what it is that we read.

This is what was the prophet Joel spoke of. Welcome to the last days. The last days of what? The last days of the old covenant. Why does it come to an end? Because there's going to be a judgment. The judgment's going to bring it to an end.

And distinctive in the book of Joel is a contrast. There's a mountain of deliverance that is revealed wherein God is saying, come to the Mount Zion. Come to Jerusalem. There'll be deliverance there, but there's a valley of decision in which all manner of nations are going to be judged and destroyed.

So what's the timing of the judgment? Well, there was a day of the Lord where the people went into exile. There's the arrival of the new covenant where they're being gathered back into the Lord's mountain.

And then there's another day of the Lord where an all manner of judgment occurs. This makes a lot of sense when you read Matthew 21 through 24, where the arrival of the new covenant signals the last days of the old.

As Jesus comes and parades into Jerusalem and declares the kingdom of heaven, and he begins to preach and tell parables about how the old is going to be judged, but then there's something new. The old stewards are gone, but there'll be new.