Title: Spirit and Salvation
spirit and salvation
(Joel 2:23-32), October 24, 22nd Sunday after Pentecost
early rain and late rain
The book of Joel is set in the historical context of the terrible plagues of the ancients. These include insect swarms and drought-induced famine. Joel 1:4 describes an attack by a swarm of insects: “What the locusts left behind, the locusts ate, what the locusts left, the locusts ate, and what the locusts left behind, the locusts ate.” Insects ate up all the grain that humans were supposed to eat. In this situation, they would have been stunned. Joel 1:20 reads: “The beasts of the field also pant toward you, for the brook has dried up, and the grass of the field is burned with fire.” Even in the age of advanced science like now, it is difficult to endure a severe drought, but the people 2,400 years ago when the book of Joel was written must have been miserable. The fear and horror they must have suffered in front of the fact that they might die of starvation is beyond our imagination now.
Now we live in a somewhat prosperous age, so we do not realize this fear of the ancients. It's actually close to a miracle that humans survived on Earth after going through these millions of years. There have been many crises of extinction of mankind. Of the many animals that lived on Earth, many have disappeared. Dinosaurs also ruled the earth for a long time, but eventually became extinct. Scholars say the cause is a comet collision. The greatest crisis experienced by the great apes Homo sapiens, or Homo erectus, is the Earth's Ice Age. The great apes who survived the Ice Age are now the ancestors of our human race. If all the great apes died during the Ice Age, we wouldn't be where we are today. I can only imagine the horrors the apes must have had as they went through the Ice Age. It is similar to the condition of an elderly person who feels dementia is coming or a terminal cancer patient who feels that death is approaching. The fear that the ancient people of Israel had to endure due to the insect attack and drought could not be more than this.
However, the prophet Joel exhorts the Israelites to “rejoice and rejoice in the LORD your God” in verse 23 and below. Because God will send the ‘early rain and the latter rain’. The courts will be full of wheat, and the docks will be overflowing with new wine and oil. Eat abundantly and praise the name of the LORD. Early and late rains are essential for farming and herding. With it, people's survival is guaranteed. Survival guarantees are proof that Jehovah God is alive. It means that Jehovah God is the only one who guarantees our survival.
Listen to the word survival. It is difficult to understand Joel's words that the yard is full of wheat and the pots overflow with new wine and oil as the meaning of being rich. Although the Bible says Canaan is a place overflowing with milk and honey, it is in a relative sense. Compared to the poor life in the wilderness, it is an affluent place, but in reality it is a barren place to live. From our point of view today, it is a completely different dimension from being affluent. Think of it this way. If you can only eat one meal a day because you have nothing to eat, and you can find and eat both meals, you can say that you are overflowing with milk and honey. If we could go further and eat three meals, we could say that the yard is full of wheat, and the docks are overflowing with new wine and oil. Abundance in Israel refers to the guaranteed minimum conditions for survival. It is Jehovah God who is in charge of it. With this guarantee of survival, they experienced the grace of God. There they found a reason to praise Jehovah God.
Some people find this belief trivial. If you are satisfied with just being desperate for survival, when will you receive revival and blessings? Some say that the reason America is prosperous is because they believed in God well, and the reason Southeast Asians are not prosperous is because they do not believe in God. Of course, there are also great rich people in the Bible. There are also those who have come out. It is an instinct for a person to have more, be healthier, and live more abundantly. Possessiveness itself cannot be ignored, just as we cannot ignore appetite, which is an essential instinct for human survival. The problem is that people are not satisfied with it. Just think about it. No matter how rich you are, you cannot eat more than three meals a day. It would be foolish to invest life's energy in piling up the inedible. If you fail to focus on the fact that the minimum condition for survival is the abundance of what the Bible says, and that it is God's grace, you are not believing in God but in an idol.
endowment of spirit
Joel knew that Jehovah God would send the early and the latter rains, so that the yard would be full of wheat and the pots would overflow with new wine and oil, but this could not last forever. No matter how hard you try, no matter how lucky you are, insects and droughts come again. Wheat, wine, and oil run out. The crisis of survival repeats itself. This is common sense, as well. Personally, we will have moments when wheat, wine, and oil are useless. They grow old quickly and die soon. From the Earth's perspective, the Earth will eventually one day be a world without early and late rains. Wheat, wine, and oil from the early and latter rains do not guarantee our true life. Joel knows exactly that it needs something more fundamental than that. What is it?
It is the endowment of the Spirit. Verse 28 says: “Afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your children will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.” Verses 30 and 31 explain what happens when the Spirit comes upon everyone. Pillars of blood, fire and smoke appear. The sun loses its light and the moon turns blood-red. This is a sign of the coming of ‘the great and dreadful day of the Lord’. It represents the disintegration of the universe It is truly surprising that the ancient Israelites, who knew nothing of the secrets of the universe, foresaw the dissolution of the universe. This statement is turning out to be true in modern physics. One day the sun will disappear too. Before the sun disappears, the planets of the solar system, such as Mercury, Venus, and Earth, also disappear first. All living things lose their lives. Human civilization and technology are doomed to the same fate as a house on the sand built on a tsunami seashore. The day the universe will disintegrate is a ‘great and dreadful day’.
Do you ever feel that the word disintegration of the universe is too far-fetched? Even if it is true, do you think it has nothing to do with our daily life? It can be. The problem of living and eating now is urgent. You have to get married, have children, and run a business. You may not have time to think about the dissolution of the universe. Thinking about such things may lead to nihilism. Still, we can't help but be interested in it. Because the God we believe in is the Lord of creation and of the end. More fundamentally, the following is important. The dissolution of the universe doesn't seem to have any effect on my daily life right now, but it does do it decisively. Because the end of the world determines all the history that precedes it. It's like we're alive now, but we have to live with the awareness of death. It is said that the ancients and people of the Middle Ages lived with memento mori (remember death!) in their hearts.
Just above I asked what the dissolution of the spirit and the universe had to do with it. Joel said that when the Holy Spirit comes, people see things, dreams, and visions in the future. What do you mean? It is an intense desire for a whole new world. The world and the universe are new to those who have received the Holy Spirit. New every day. In order for this world to be new, the old must be dismantled. Pillars of blood and fire and smoke rise, the sun darkens, and the moon turns bloody. Although we have received the Holy Spirit now, there are those who think that the dissolution of the universe has not yet occurred. no. That's a bad idea. It has already happened. The disintegration of the universe is happening just because we only live in such a short time that we don't notice it. Those who have seen it a long time ago are apocalyptic thinkers, and more fundamentally all those who have lived according to the teachings of the Bible.
Jehovah's name
What are these people going to do? No, what can you do? What must we do in the face of the dissolution of the universe and the advent of a new world? Joel is right. It is to ‘call on the name of the Lord’ (Joel 2:32a). It is not that simple to call on the name of the Lord. That's not very attractive either. Because it presupposes that the sun and moon lose their light. Who wants the things that people passionately cling to now lose their light? Such people cannot call on the name of Jehovah. You can pretend to call your name on the surface, but you can't actually call it. Even if it is actually called, it does not contain the soul. Calling on the name of Jehovah is possible only to those who have been endowed with holy spirit.
Joel says that those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. That's an accurate point. Don't take this as a clich . What salvation is, we cannot yet articulate. You shouldn't even try to explain it that way. This is because salvation is an exclusive event of God that fundamentally transcends our language and thought. Calling on the name of Jehovah means waiting like a watchman waiting for the morning for the new world God will bring. A person who possesses such a soul thoroughly relativizes everything about himself. Lay down all your achievements and possessions on the ground. He puts down his life design, his will, and even his personality. Ultimately, even the assurance of salvation is laid down. Only at the moment God will act, we focus our spiritual tentacles on that event. Only there can you call on the name of Jehovah. Without the Holy Spirit, this kind of life is not possible. Joel's oracle that the way of salvation is opened to such people is correct.
Joel is not talking about catching the clouds now. He clearly had a firm footing in Israel's history. He saw what was the force that drives history. I knew where the source of true salvation was. The source of salvation is Jehovah God. Beyond the level of survival, only hope and waiting for the new world that God will raise makes us call on the name of Jehovah God, the source of our salvation. Only here can we break through this wretched and impoverished history. Dear saints, do you not want to enter such a world of faith? There is only one way for us. It is unity with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will cause you to call on the name of Jehovah. Amen.