Jesus Shall Reign…

Joel 2:25-32
September 25, 2005
Rev. Curtis J. Young

Joel 2:25-32

 25 "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— 
  the great locust and the young locust, 
  the other locusts and the locust swarm—
  my great army that I sent among you. 
 26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, 
  and you will praise the name of the LORD your God, 
  who has worked wonders for you; 
  never again will my people be shamed. 
 27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, 
  that I am the LORD your God, 
  and that there is no other; 
  never again will my people be shamed. 
 28 "And afterward, 
  I will pour out my Spirit on all people. 
  Your sons and daughters will prophesy, 
  your old men will dream dreams, 
  your young men will see visions. 
 29 Even on my servants, both men and women, 
  I will pour out my Spirit in those days. 
 30 I will show wonders in the heavens 
  and on the earth, 
  blood and fire and billows of smoke. 
 31 The sun will be turned to darkness 
  and the moon to blood 
  before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. 
 32 And everyone who calls 
  on the name of the LORD will be saved; 
  for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem 
  there will be deliverance, 
  as the LORD has said, 
  among the survivors 
  whom the LORD calls.”

If it were not extremely important for us to know what the Lord has in store for the future, He would not have gone to extreme lengths to reveal it to us.

But He has, inspiring men to write it down again and again in prophecies that build on one another…And all this to shape our heart, mind, and will, our life commitments in whatever age we live.

This morning we consider what the Lord has in store for the future, and why it is so important for us to know.
I read from Joel. There is no doubt, based on the way his prophecy was cited in the New Testament, that you and I are in the future that the prophets wrote about.

The future they considered so significant in God’s plan is our present, a period they called the last days.

In Jerusalem, at Pentecost, as Jews were gathered from around the world, 120 of Jesus’ disciples proclaimed God’s great salvation in Christ in the languages of the nations. Peter took his stand and declared its meaning.

“No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 'In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.’” Acts 2: 16-18
In Isaiah 49:8, the Lord described this same period of the Messiah’s coming and worldwide influence as “the time of my favor”, and as “the day of salvation.” 
With enormous joy, Paul cited Isaiah 49 as he wrote the Corinthians (II C. 6:2), “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”
To the prophets these are the last days, the period just preceding what Malachi (4:6) and Joel (2:31) both called the great and dreadful Day of the Lord, the day when the Lord is revealed in all His glory to judge the world in righteousness.
The latter days are promised to be a period of unprecedented salvation for the Gentiles and restoration for the Jews. To these great ends, Jesus came and made atonement for our sins, rose from the dead, and sent what He called “the promise of the Father.” 

The prophets could not have been more emphatic, or more vivid in declaring the spiritual restoration of Israel. 

When, in the midst of giving these great promises, the godly remnant expressed doubt because the present judgments against the nation were so severe, God reassured them time and again.
In Isaiah 49:14-16, 22, we read: “But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.’ ‘Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands: your walls are ever before me.’ This is what the Sovereign Lord says: ‘See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughter on their shoulders.’”
Again, in Isaiah 62: 1-2, we read, “For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet till her righteousness shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. The nations will see your righteousness, and all kings your glory.” 
For this great work of restoration, the Lord calls for the most conscientious intercession, comparing the role of the intercessor to that of a watchman on Jerusalem’s wall. 
We read further in Isaiah 62, “I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.”
When Jesus was born, to whom was He first presented? To those, like Anna and Simeon, who were waiting for “the consolation of Israel” (Luke 2:25), because He is the consolation of Israel! 
Luke tells us about them: “the Holy Spirit was upon” them. This morning I say to you that the Lord hasn’t revealed His promise of the outpoured Holy Spirit in the latter days, except that we receive it ourselves, that we pray down the promise and taste it ourselves, that we see it manifest in our own generation.
I realize some of you may doubt when I speak of a great turning to Christ among the Jews in these latter days. Yet this is not even the half of the promise God has revealed.
Consider Paul’s confidence in Romans 11 when he wrote, “Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in.” 
He then quoted Isaiah 59:20-21, one of the great restoration passages: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins." (Romans 11:26-27)

 Paul then concluded: “As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs…Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you. (Romans 11:28-32)

Earlier in Romans 11 he had written, “Again I ask: Did they stumble so as to fall beyond recovery? Not at all! Rather, because of their transgression, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make Israel envious. But if their transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for the Gentiles, how much greater riches will their fullness bring!...For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? 

How could Paul have such confidence in the spiritual restoration of the Jews when he was being murderously pursued by Israel’s leaders? Because he knew the prophecies of the last days, and he knew he was in the last days. He was confident in the Holy Spirit, and he knew the promise of Jesus, that Jerusalem would not see Him again until they said, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” 
This brings us to the second great certainty of the latter days, the turning of the nations to Christ. In Malachi, 1:11, as the Lord rebuked Israel for dishonoring Him, He proclaimed: 
"‘For from the rising of the sun even to its setting, My name will be great among the nations, and in every place incense is going to be offered to My name, and a grain offering that is pure; for My name will be great among the nations,’ says the LORD of hosts.” 
Isaiah had earlier given the same assurance as he wrote of God conversing with His Messiah: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

Psalm 72 is the great coronation Psalm, celebrating the reign of the Son of David fulfilling God’s great promise:

It begins, “Endow the king with your justice, O God, the royal son with your righteousness. He will judge your people in righteousness, your afflicted ones with justice.” 
It continues: “He will endure as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations. He will be like rain falling on a mown field, like showers watering the earth. In his days the righteous will flourish; prosperity will abound till the moon is no more. He will rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth...All kings will bow down to him and all nations will serve him….May his name endure forever; may it continue as long as the sun. All nations will be blessed through him, and they will call him blessed.”
This promise will be unmistakably fulfilled in Christ. As Paul put it, “He must reign until He puts all enemies under His feet.” (I Cor. 15:25) God has exalted Him to the highest place that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Some of you may be wondering, am I speaking of the global triumph of the Gospel throughout the world? Yes. Am I saying that the day is coming when there will no longer be the Islamic world, the Hindu world, the Buddhist world, and the secular West, because the Spirit has so transformed the entire world that the truth of Christ will be dominant? Yes! How can the prophets be interpreted otherwise?

Ah, so the preacher has flip-flopped! He is no longer a pre-millennialist or a-millennialist, but a post-millennialst. No, I am none of the above. I am an ill-millennialist. I am sick and tired of efforts to assign biblical prophecies to one of three formulas that claim to explain all of prophesy. Away with the filters! Let the Scriptures speak to us directly. 

Here is an illustration to show why this is so important. The darkest spiritual days for England occurred after 1662, when 2,000 evangelical pastors were ejected from the Church of England and countless Christian congregations were destroyed. In what was to be dubbed “the killing time”, as many as 20,000 believers were imprisoned, tortured or murdered for their faith. 

A son was born to one of the persecuted. He was named after his father, Isaac. As the boy grew up, England sank further and further into social and moral chaos. 

He became a pastor. While his preaching was well received, his hymn writing has proved to be far more enduring. In 1719 he published a hymnbook called “Psalms of David”, in which he replaced the language of type and shadow in the Psalms for the language expressing their fulfillment in Christ.

So when he came to Psalm 72, Pastor Isaac Watts penned, “Jesus shall reign wher’er the sun does its successive journeys run; His kingdom spread from shore to shore, till moons shall wax and wane no more.”

Looking around at the prevailing conditions in both English society and the church, he had no reason to believe it. It looked that the very opposite course was to define history. But Watts would not let what he saw dictate the scope of his faith or knowledge of what God was doing in the world.

Twenty years later, the evangelical awakening erupted in England, and the Great Awakening in the colonies known as New England. In the aftermath of the Spirit’s outpouring, slavery would be outlawed, orphans taken in, women taught to read, prisons reformed, and in the most significant development of all, the worldwide missionary movement would be launched for the first time since the apostolic era.

In all of this, Isaac Watts proved to be the forerunner and inspiration for others to believe and pray the truth, even as he had taught them to sing it. 

He lived to see the awakening, to taste this goodness from God. Like old Simeon in Gospel of Luke, he was not disappointed in his extravagant hope, because his extravagant hope was thoroughly biblical! 

Christ is calling us to open our hearts to embrace the promise of God’s outpoured Spirit in our times, to not despise the day of small things, but to pray and look for what is surely ahead.
“You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest…” Let the Spirit who inspired the prophets enlarge your hope, increase your faith, focus your prayer, inspire your dreams and add substance to your visions.