Joel 1:1-13,
The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. 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. Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion. He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests, the LORD’s ministers, mourn. The field is wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field, are withered: because joy is withered away from the sons of men. Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests: howl, ye ministers of the altar: come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God: for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God.
A few years ago, in the year 2000, I started a study in the book of Joel, and I got as far as six verses. At that time I thought I knew what it was talking about—God’s judgment on the churches. And I was right about that. But actually the book of Joel has much more to say than just God’s judgment on the churches.
It is very negative again and again. For instance verse 4 speaks of the locusts and the cankerworm and the caterpillar and the palmerworm devouring the crop. In verse 7 the vine is waste and barked my fig tree and made it clean bare. In verse 10 the field is wasted and the land mourneth. Verse 11 comes right out and says the harvest of the field is perished. It is gone. It is completely devastated.
And we know from other places in the Bible, because God has instructed us on how to read the Bible, how to understand the Bible, that when God is talking about fruit, when He is talking about crops, when He is describing harvest; it has to do with souls, it has to do with those who are becoming saved, with those that are experiencing the salvation of God. We are not going to prove that from the Bible, because we have said it before, and it is very clear.
Actually the only way to come to the Bible is by God’s method of comparing Scripture with Scripture and looking for the deeper spiritual meaning. So if you do not do that you are going to get into big trouble and you are going to fail to give God glory and you are going to end up far away from God. So with all this language here of the crops and the fields and the harvest, the Lord would expect us to find these references in other parts of the Bible, to study them, and as He gives us wisdom, to understand them and see that they have to do with the Gospel and they have to do with His salvation plan.
It is actually more correct to say “Joe-el”. The name Joel is made up of two Hebrew words that mean “Jehovah God”, and so it is a very fitting name for this writer that God used to give us these Scriptures in the book of Joel, because this is the word of God. As it says in Joel 1:1,
The word of the Lord Jehovah that came to Joel (Jehovah God) the son of Pethuel.
So it is almost a reinforcing of the truth that what we are reading here is not just anyone’s writing from any man, but it is coming forth from God Himself.
The mindset of the true believers, of those who were studying the Bible at that time, was that the Great Tribulation will be a time where Satan is loosed and he is overcoming the churches, and he is just getting bigger and stronger and the church is being destroyed more and more. The light of the Gospel is getting dimmer and dimmer and is on its way to being put out. And that is what I believed. But still you had to be faithful; still you had to teach the truth, even though expectations were very low, very low. You did not expect hardly anybody to be saved, because God had loosed Satan. And now he was able to confound those that were in the churches. And so we were really thinking that there would be less and less people being saved leading up until the Final Day.
That was my mindset; that was the mindset of others who were teaching from the Bible about the Great Tribulation. We thought we had it in hand, we thought we understood what the Bible was saying. And if you read Joel chapter 1 it confirms it: The “harvest of the field is perished” and it is really extremely negative. You go into chapter 2 of the book of Joel and it just picks up with even more negative statements. In verse 1,
Blow ye 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 cometh, for it is nigh at hand; A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.
You see the language; it does not seem to leave any room for an idea of a great plan, a great work of God, of saving a great multitude as we have come to learn. When we read Joel 1 and Joel 2, there are many other verses in the Bible that you could use to support that, things just look very dark and dreary and yet several years ago we just thought we would be faithful and just keep teaching. It is so much nicer today, it is so much more enjoyable to bring the Gospel with the expectation that God is going to save not just a few, not save a good number, not save thousands, not save hundreds of thousands, but with the expectation God is going to save a great multitude which no man can number. We will not do the math, but if you just figure, it is still a tiny percentage out of the whole of mankind upon the face of the Earth. Where there are over 7 or nearly 7 billion and your neighborhood is 7 billion people, if God saves just a couple of percent or one percent of that, what is it? Hundreds of millions. Or if God saved two hundred million or three hundred million people? He is still leaving a vast majority, 6 billion 700 million, unsaved to suffer the wrath of God and that is terrible. But still, 200 or 300 million? Who knows the number? But it is a huge number. It really is a great multitude which is a far cry from the light of the Gospel is getting dimmer and dimmer and dimmer and dimmer, until the very last day and then Christ returns to rescue us because there is no more hope in the world.
No, God’s plan was not what we had thought. God’s plan is actually to end it with a bang, to end it with a great work of salvation, like Samson in slaying more in his death than he did in his life. Or like Job at his later end having restored his children and even more than he had previously. God’s plan is a tremendous end time work of saving that the world has never known. And it is right here in the book of Joel, it is not in chapter one, but it is in the book. When we get into chapter two, as we begin to study that, things begin to change, the language begins to change.
If you look over in Joel 2:21,
Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field: for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit, the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God: for he hath given you the former rain moderately,…
(Righteously),
…and he will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first…
(Which is better understood or translated as “as the first”).
…And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil.
Where did that harvest come from? The harvest is perished Joel chapter one said. And here it is language describing an overabundant harvest. It is language of great blessing. And again what does that mean that the floors are full of wheat? Well, the wheat and the tares. What is the wheat? The wheat represents the elect; they represent those that are truly saved. Those that will experience eternal life. They will be given the gift of God’s saving grace. And so God is saying, “Well hold it, hold it. It is true that the harvest is perished, but it is also true that I have a great harvest.” The problem is putting them together and trying to understand how that works out. We have seen recently how that can work out.
Lord willing we are going to try to go through the book of Joel, a verse at a time and try to understand these things. We have already begun to understand the more difficult things, for instance, the sun, moon, and stars that we have been talking about here for several years. We now have a right understanding of that, we are very sure what the Bible teaches regarding that, that it is a spiritual interpretation that we have to follow. We are also going to talk about the fact, that we discussed just a few weeks ago, that following the outpouring of the early rain and the latter rain your sons and daughters will prophesy, and we related that to both the time following Pentecost and what is going on in our days during this time of Great Tribulation.
In looking at the book of Joel, I think we have a pretty good feel for it. There are still some things I do not think we are going to understand, and we may have to say, “we will visit that another time.” We might as well do that right now in verse 1, “The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.” Pethuel is a name, and many of the names, if not all of the names in the Bible have meaning. “El” we can see represents God. Pethuel. If you look up this word and what it is derived from, it is a word that comes from 6602 that is derived from 6601 in the Strong’s Concordance which (6601) is a word often translated as “deceived” or a couple of other words similar to that. And so it makes it difficult to understand what God is trying to get across there. “Joel is Jehovah God the son of deceived of God” is one possibility. That word is also translated once as enlarged, and I do not know how to understand it. There is a spiritual meaning there; there is something God would have us to learn. But those two English words are pretty different, and the word enlarged is only found once, so I am not exactly sure. So what we do is, we leave it, we do not try to make a guess, we do not try to say, “Well, this is what I think.” Because what I think is not worth anything, and Scripture tells us the Bible is of no private interpretation. Maybe, even if I was thoroughly well educated and had many degrees it would not matter what I thought because it is still coming from a man’s mind, so we will just have to leave that.
In verse 2,
Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
This is information, news, that is very exciting. It is dramatic. It is incredible. What do you do? Tell your children, and their children, and their children, and another generation. You share it. God actually pointed this out when Israel came out of Egypt, it was similar type language when He would speak to the Jews and He would instruct them, “Tell your children and their children of this great deliverance.”
What does God have in view here in Joel? What is it that we are to inform our children and so forth? It is something that has never been before. It is something so tremendous and an event of such great scale that the world has never seen anything like it. It is the Great Tribulation.
As we read in Matthew 24:21,
for then shall be Great Tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
That is news, that is tremendously exciting information, and most of it, or a lot of it, is not very pleasant. It is information dealing with God’s judgment on the church, that Judgment has begun at the house of God, but also it is going to be information that deals with God’s salvation plan, that we are coming to the end, we are coming down to the wire, it is coming to the finish.
I was talking to someone on the phone last night, and he just made a reference to 2011 as the possible end of the world. He quoted me the number of days left; I think it was between 1,400 and 1,500. It just kind of hit me. The last time I heard someone quote the number of days it was over 2,000, the last time that I got in that kind of discussion. And now he was talking about between 14 to15 hundred days before a likely return of the Lord’s coming and at that point the end of the world. So it hit me that this is information that desperately needs to be shared and we need to tell our children definitely, we need to inform our children, that they may not have a future. They may not have a college, they may not enter into the job force they may not have families and have an opportunity to raise their children, and they may not have what many generations past have had. And that is because God’s plan for this world is all wrapped up in His Salvation Plan—it has to do with the saving of His elect, it is the only purpose the world continues. The world does not continue for the benefit of man. The world does not continue so people can enjoy themselves and have a nice comfortable retirement and enjoy the fruits of their labor. The world goes on exclusively because of God’s salvation plan. God puts up with the sins of the world only so that He can continue to send the Gospel, which will save His people. And when the last person saved does become saved, immediately He putteth in the sickle that is the language of the Bible, immediately, no delay. There is not going to be another era or stage of history, right away the sickle is put in and it is time to reap, it is the end of the world. This is something the world has never known. We are right up against the very end of days and so it is information that has to be shared with all and with everyone that we can.
Verse 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.
And we are not getting the information of what they are eating. We are not told in this verse. It is just language that is talking about these insects, these creatures that are very destructive creatures. They are eating. We do not have to wonder what they are eating. If we go over the Joel 2:25,
And 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. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God.
So it has to do with food, it has to do with the crops. It has to do with the fruit on the trees and the corn in the fields. It has to do with the food that men grow from the ground and as we mentioned earlier the fruit, the food that grows from the ground, the harvest of the land, points to salvation. Here God is sending four critters, four creatures, to attack, and Joel chapter 2 said that they are God’s great army; He is the one that is doing it. Now, how that works out spiritually is that it is actually a picture of Satan and his emissaries that are coming against the churches, but God is the one who loosed Satan, God is the one who ultimately is taking responsibility for the judgment upon the church.
If we go back to verse 4, “The palmerworm hath left” the palmerworm is found three times in the Bible. In this verse, in Joel 2:25 we just looked at, and a third time in Amos chapter 4:6-10,
And I also have given you cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. And also I have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon, and the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water; but they were not satisfied: yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have smitten you with blasting and mildew: when your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive trees increased, the palmerworm devoured them:…
(there is that palmerworm),
…yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. I have sent among you the pestilence after the manner of Egypt
You see how the palmerworm has come against, in Amos, it came against the fig trees, and the olive trees, and devoured them, and that is what that creature does it attacks the crops. Of course one would not do any harm but normally these types of creatures come in swarms. The Bible describes that kind of swarm in the book of Exodus. Let us look at the locust as it says, “that which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten”. Now first, we are given these four creatures and one of them comes and devours, yet it does not completely devour, and then the second one comes and picks up where the previous one had been and devours some more, and then the third one comes and so forth. What this is really related to, what it is picturing is, for instance, how is God judging the church? How is the church being destroyed today? Well the tongues gospel comes and it wreaks havoc, total devastation wherever it goes, all across the land, all throughout the churches. No church is safe because it is Presbyterian or because it is Episcopalian. You can find churches like that that have fallen into that kind of gospel, and so it is just like the palmer worm. It comes across your crops and it devours a good amount of the fruit of the land. But it does not completely devour. So you have some churches, they remain faithful they say, and they will not fall into that kind of trap or snare of the tongues gospel. They are left, they are spared by that plague, and they are not affected by that plague. But on the heels of that comes the locusts, the locusts come and start going to this crop and that field and they are devouring and devouring. So it is another wrong doctrine or wrong gospel that comes against the church like falling over backwards or all the charismatic signs and wonders that are out there and so some churches, they get involved in that, and more churches are falling away. And there is less and less of the good land left. And so then here comes another false teaching and a false doctrine, and a false gospel that comes and maybe this one has been around for awhile, but it is packaged differently and it has to do with adding work to salvation and this is again wreaking havoc over the landscape of the churches and of the congregations so that I do not think there is one that is spared by that, but the teaching is ruining the institution of the church. It is like one is unleashed following another, and what are you left with when you finally take a look at the whole corporate body of the church: A wasteland. A complete, desolate wasteland. There is nothing green, there is nothing alive, there is nothing bearing fruit. The church is dead, the institution of the church is dead, the Church Age has come to an end. God has destroyed the church.
And that is why there are four creatures mentioned because the number four points to the four points on the compass. The complete universality of God’s judgment upon the church: The Catholic Church, the Protestant Church, the individual church, the congregational church, the storefront church, the person who just takes it upon himself to start a church in their own house and they have a house church—all a wasteland, all totally devastated because God’s judgment is upon the institution of the church in all of its forms wherever it may be located—In the USA, in Africa, China, India, in Mexico City, in Guatemala, in Bolivia, anywhere and everywhere in the world. It is a universal judgment of all churches everywhere. This is the picture God uses, a palmerworm comes and leaves a little fruit, leaves a little leaves, and a little grass and a few herbs and then comes the locust.
I really enjoyed checking up on “locusts”. I did a study on the internet, I just typed in “locust” and information about them. They had videos and everything. A swarm of locust is not ancient; it is not something that just happens in the Bible. They have them today; they had a plague of locusts come upon the Canary Islands in 2004. It was estimated 100 million locusts that landed on the islands. They had a video—here are all these locusts flying around and I am waiting to see the sky being blackened because there are one hundred million of them and it did not seem like there were that many. There was a man standing there watching them, he did not have a shirt on, they were not afflicting him, they were not going after him, they were going after the crops. And yet, you could see some on the ground. But, there were still some spaces where you could not see them, and you saw some flying but you could still see like in between them, you could see sky. And the language of the Bible when God brought the locusts upon Egypt there was blackness and it covered the face of the ground, the face of the Earth the Bible says.
We can estimate that the number, God says they were without number, you could not really count them. I was on BBC (British Broadcasting Channel) on the internet and they had some text stories. They estimated that a plague of locusts could estimate up to 40 billion. You could have as many as 40 billion locusts. The reason you can have that many is because a female locust can lay 60 to 100 eggs at one time and then spawn again in one week. So then you have another 60-100 so they can greatly multiply and they can be without number. There are nations that have been troubled by them. Lebanon is one nation that recently was troubled again after about 100 years, they afflict Africa, parts of Africa, and they afflict Australia. In Australia they call them “Plague Locusts” that is the name of the locusts there. In many of these accounts they would refer to Exodus and the plague described in the book of Exodus.
I grew up in Philadelphia, what do I know about plaques of locusts? I always consult my friend Tom, a farmer, to give me information about these kinds of things, because I do not know anything about them. That is probably good in a way because I can understand other people do not know anything about them and maybe share some things. For instance in Nigeria they eat locusts, it is a delicacy, they enjoy eating locusts and they refer to them as “desert shrimp”. So they probably have an appearance or taste similar to shrimp. And we know the Bible tells us John the Baptist would have a diet of locust and wild honey. They are a clean animal, the Bible tells us, you can eat (locust) if you read in Leviticus 11, they are one of the insects that God said could be eaten. And yet, here the locust is a ravager, it will consume, and so they lay their eggs, and they eat, and they will live for about 30 days, and hundreds and hundreds of millions of them landing on a crop and you just forget your harvest. The harvest of the field is perished, to use the language of Joel chapter 1 it is gone, you had better think about next year. In the meantime you had better do something to get rid of the eggs because they will be trying to hatch in accordance with next year’s crop.
Let us go back to Exodus 10:1-4
And the LORD said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him: And that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son’s son,…
(Does that sound familiar?)
…what things I have wrought in Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know how that I am the LORD (Jehovah). And Moses and Aaron came in unto Pharaoh, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD God of the Hebrews, How long wilt thou refuse to humble thyself before me? Let my people go, that they may serve me. Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast.
Now it is very interesting with the plaques that came on Egypt. We can see a similarity between that and what is happening today with the judgments on the church, because you had a captive people, you had a people who were in bondage in Egypt. You had God sending Moses and brining His word, by Moses and Aaron to Pharaoh. And the command of God was, “Let my people go” and if you do not let them go then I am going to send plagues. And plague after plague would come upon Egypt and after each plague was, “Let my people go.” And we have looked at this awhile back and it actually does relate to the command to “come out of her my people” in Revelation 18. It relates of course to the plagues in the book of Revelation , we read about locusts in the book of Revelation, as God is speaking of the judgments coming on the church and it all ties in it all fits together. Because one of the pictures that God painted was pointing to our present time of Great Tribulation.
For instance they were to let the people go, this is what God commanded, “Let my people go”. Where were they to go? Well, if we go back to Exodus 3:11,12:
And Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token unto thee, that I have sent thee: When thou hast brought forth the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain.
They were to go to the mountain. In Matthew 24, remember what it says, when you shall see the Abomination of Desolation flee to the mountain. And we know that is a parallel verse to Revelation 18; come out of her my people, let my people go that they may go to the mountain. Also, in Exodus 10 in verse 4-7:
Else, if thou refuse to let my people go, behold, tomorrow will I bring the locusts into thy coast: and they shall cover the face of the earth, that one cannot be able to see the earth:…
(that is a lot of locusts),
…and they shall eat the residue of that which is escaped, which remaineth unto you from the hail, and shall eat every tree which groweth for you out of the field: And they shall fill thy houses, and the houses of all thy servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians; which neither thy fathers, nor thy fathers’ fathers have seen…
(Great Tribulation: “world has never known”),
…since the day that they were upon the earth unto this day. And he turned himself, and went out from Pharaoh. And Pharaoh’s servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the LORD their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed?
We have to wonder when we talk to people in the church and they have some understanding of the gospel, “Yeah, I know I cannot find a faithful church, yeah I know the tongues is everywhere, I know that this is wrong and that is wrong.” You almost feel like asking them, “Know ye not yet that Egypt is destroyed? Do you not know that the Church Age is over, that the judgment is complete?” Even Pharaoh’s servants were saying to Pharaoh, “How can you be so blind? Look at the devastation all around as a result of these plagues that God has sent upon Egypt.”
Then in verse 8, 9:
And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the LORD your God: but who are they that shall go? And Moses said, We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the LORD.
A feast, that is interesting, what feast? They never really say what feast. We have to go hold a feast. Of course when they came out it would be the Passover Feast. But also, in another sense, another feast is in view—the Feast of Tabernacles. Why would I say the Feast of Tabernacles is in view? Well, what was the Feast of Tabernacles? What did it commemorate? What was it a feast to remember? The coming out of Egypt.
Leviticus 23:34:
Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.
Verse 41-43:
And ye shall keep it a feast unto the LORD seven days in the year. It shall be a statute for ever in your generations: ye shall celebrate it in the seventh month. Ye shall dwell in booths seven days; all that are Israelites born shall dwell in booths: That your generations may know that I made the children of Israel to dwell in booths, when I brought them out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.
The Feast of Tabernacles has everything to do with the coming out of Egypt. They dwelt in booths at that time, it really relates to spiritually when believers come out of the church, when we leave the congregation during this time of the Latter Rain, of the Great Tribulation, then spiritually in a sense we are observing the Feast of Tabernacles. We are keeping the feast. In other words, you cannot keep the feast if you remain in Egypt. If you stay in Egypt you cannot keep the Feast of Tabernacles. In order to keep the feast, to go to the mountain, in order to do it properly and the way that God has decreed then you would have to come out of Egypt. You would have to be one of those Jews and strangers who came out of the land of Egypt.
This helps us understand Zechariah 14:16, 17:
And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be, that whoso will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.
And that refers to the Latter Rain, in order to experience the latter rain you have to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. If you remain in Egypt you cannot keep the Feast of Tabernacles, if you stay in the church you will not experience the Latter Rain. That is why the harvest of the church is going to perish. The harvest of the church is not going to get the necessary rain; they are not going to have that latter rain falling upon them because it falls outside of the churches in the world.
Verse 18-19:
And if the family of Egypt go not up, and come not, that have no rain; there shall be the plague, wherewith the LORD will smite the heathen that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles. This shall be the punishment of Egypt, and the punishment of all nations that come not up to keep the feast of tabernacles.
If you do not come out of the church then you have the plague of locusts. You have no rain, but you have the plague. You have the plague of the palmerworm, and the locusts, and the cankerworm, and the caterpillar. You have the plague of God; you have the judgment of God upon you. And God is really laying it out that this is the situation. We should not be confused when God speaks of the family of Egypt because Revelation 11 tells us. Revelation 11:8:
And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified.
Was Christ crucified in Egypt? No, he was crucified outside of Jerusalem. So Egypt spiritually is akin to, just like Jerusalem representing the church, it is pointing to the churches and congregations. So if the family of Egypt, all those in the church world, go not up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles, and to keep the Feast you have to come out of Egypt, there will be no rain. There will be the plague, the plague will remain and will devour, continue to devour and consume. And destroy, there will be no harvest of souls, there will be no salvation of any kind, there is only destruction. This is God’s word as we read in Joel 1, this is the word of the Lord, there is destruction for anyone and everyone who remains in the church. Coming out of the church may not save somebody, they may not be one of God’s elect, but there is at least the possibility they can experience salvation because God is saving a great multitude. But without question anyone who remains is subject to the wrath of God.
Chapter 1 of Joel is very dark. We just have to keep in mind that this is speaking about what is happening in the church and then God is going to open up things a little later. Just like it was when we were experiencing the first part of the Great Tribulation, we were in darkness and we did not understand many things of God’s plan because the Scriptures were sealed—but then He opens them up. So there is encouraging information to come.