Joel： Outpouring of the Spirit For Today？ - Part 2

Just to come up to speed here, let's follow the flow of Joel. You can go to Joel 1, very quickly, verse 4. What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten. What the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. And we just have locusts and more locusts. Anyway, plague of locusts. We see these, chapter 2, verse 11. The Lord utters His voice before His army. So these locusts are God's army. He brought this. His camp is exceedingly great. He who executes His word is powerful. And then we see this. There's a call to repentance, verse 12. Yet even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart. And then you see the Lord has pity. Go to 2.18. Then the Lord became jealous for His land and had pity on His people. The Lord answered and said to His people, behold, I'm sending you grain, wine, oil. You will be satisfied. If you go to 2.24, the threshing floors shall be full of grain. The vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I'll restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, the cutter, my great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty. You'll be satisfied. Praise the name of the Lord, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again. This is the way the ESV puts it. My people shall never again be put to shame. It's just in the original, it's the idea of they will never be put to shame forever. And it says it twice here. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else and my people shall never again be put to shame. And then this seems to be all of this was for Joel's day. There was a restoration that God poured out his blessing upon them but then in 28 something happens here. It's right here that Joel gives us a look into the future. Verse 28, And it shall come to pass afterward. And Peter says last days. It shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit. And this is interesting. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on earth blood and fire and columns of smoke. Now you might almost think, Okay, he just told us something that sounds very positive. The spirit of God is going to be poured out. And yet verse 30 sounds like it sounds typical of the prophets when they're speaking about some kind of judgment. I will show wonders in the heavens and on earth blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so you kind of look at verses 30 and 31. Okay, what is all that? The heavens, the earth, wonders, blood and fire, columns of smoke, sun shall be turned to darkness, moon to blood. I mean, is that basically all sorts of judgments and God's fury being shown forth right before the great and awesome day of the Lord? It actually seems like it may be indicating something that actually happens at the time when the spirit is poured out, even in this age, in this gospel age. Brethren, the thing is that that is apocryphal language about just some type of great movements. And some think that this is just the awful violence of the church age. And that may very well seem or be right. You know, the thing is, Peter quotes this as being fulfilled. Even those verses right there, he doesn't leave them out. And he even captures the first part of 32. It shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. But here's the thing that I want you to see. Notice the timeline. There's two words here. Notice afterward in verse 28. You see that there. And then the word before in verse 31. Afterward. After what? Well, after all the things that are before this in Joel. So in Joel's day. Basically, it shall come to pass after that. So sometime in the future, beyond Joel's day, after that, God's going to pour out His Spirit. And that's all going to happen before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. So you see the timeline. You know what we see here? Is we see that God is going to actually postpone the final judgment until what? Until He first brings a dispensation of the Spirit. And so the prophet sees this intervening period. Because throughout the book, he's been looking ahead at the day of God's judgment. The day of the Lord. He's been mentioning it through here. But then right here, He says, you know what? Before that comes, He sees an age of the Spirit. He sees this season. There's going to be an extraordinary work of the Spirit before the great day. When God's decision or God's verdict is handed down at the end of time. When this world finds its culmination. So, when exactly is that going to happen? When exactly is it going to happen that God's going to pour out His Spirit on all flesh? Well, in Joel, it doesn't specifically tell us. But the reality is Peter does tell us. Peter tells us exactly when that happened. And he tells us in Acts chapter 2. And he says that this is that. This is what Joel said. Now, I want you to go over here. Because look, I mean, when I'm reading this, I'm saying, okay, what does this have to do with us? And I think a lot. Go to Acts. I want you to see in the book of Acts where Peter quotes this. And I want you to get the feel. And so, we're going to read the first 21 verses of Acts chapter 2. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. So, Pentecost, Pent, that idea is 50 days. It's 50 days after Passover. Passover. The day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. Suddenly, there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. It filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered. Because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that we hear each one of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, parts of Libya, belonging to Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans, Arabians. We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, what does this mean? But others mocking said, they're filled with new wine. But Peter standing with the eleven lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words. These people are not drunk as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. So we know that from Joel's day he saw that before the day of the Lord would come, sometime after Joel's time, but before the day of the Lord, this would happen. And Peter says, this is the day that that has happened. That's what's happening here. Verse 16, this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below. Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood. Before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And so there you have it. Now, no one in this room who believes their Bible that it is the word of God. Not a one of you is going to argue about whether Joel chapter 2 verses 28 through 32a was finding fulfillment on that day there in Pentecost 2,000 years ago when Peter stood up and he was preaching there. Nobody's going to argue that. That's not the question. Acts 2:16 right here ends that question. This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. I mean we see it. The question is this. What does Joel's prophecy have to do with me and you? Does it have anything to do with me and you? Listen, if God's going to pour out his spirit, I think what we need to ask is this. Was God only promising to pour out his spirit right there on Peter and his cohorts? Or does the promise stretch to us? In fact, does the promise stretch all the way until the day of the Lord? But what I'm most concerned is, does it stretch to us? Because we're here now. We're the ones alive. This has to... Whatever happens in the future happens there. But listen, you know what this has to do with? It has to do with God's promises. I hope that you do not have the ability to look at a promise in Scripture and not take it seriously. If God gives us promises, he means to fulfill the promise. And I would just say this. If God has promised to pour out his spirit, then you know what? We should not let go of God until we see the very fruit of what he has promised. Now, if you can convince me from Scripture that it was only for Peter and for his day, well then, you know, we don't really have anything to argue. The promise doesn't pertain to us. So that's the question. Does the promise pertain to us or was it just for them? There's no question it's being fulfilled then. But is there a question... Listen, this has to do with us. Because what was happening? They were bringing this word to all these people of these different languages concerning the mighty works of God. And you know what? The Spirit of God moved in that place. And things happened. And if we're going to try to take the gospel to say Poland or other places or to the city center, then this is not just a moot point. What does Joel's prophecy have to do with you and me and the church today? That is a significant question. Did Joel's words get fulfilled in Peter's day and that's it? And now it's all over. Or do they apply to us? You see, the question is this. Are Joel's words for one day? I mean, what are they for? Are they for one day? Are they for what? The days while the apostles lived? Is that what it's for? Or are they for the church all the way to the day of the Lord? The question is this. How is Joel's prophecy fulfilled? We have to ask that. Was that on the day of Pentecost just the beginning of blessing? A blessing we should expect to extend all the way to our day. Should we believe this prophecy is far from complete? So, and that question produces this one. How many of our old men dream dreams? How many? How many of our young men see spirit-given visions? Where are the sons and daughters prophesying? I mean, what are we supposed to make of this? By simple observation, do we just conclude, well, we're not seeing that. I mean, I don't know anybody here that's necessarily had a vision or a dream lately. So we could just automatically conclude, well, this is not for today. Those things happened back then, but not today. And to be quite honest, oftentimes the people that do come forth and say they had a vision, the people that do come forth and say that they got some word from God, the vast majority of the time, a lot of times they're not altogether there. A lot of times it's not the people that you consider to be the most godly and holy people in the church. A lot of times that's not the case at all. So perhaps Joel's prophecy was filled back then. It's complete. We can just close it up and we can go home. Now listen, I'll tell you this. Everything in me wants this for today. Everything in me wants this for today. The British church needs something that comes from the outpouring of the Spirit of God. The British church needs, I mean, doesn't it seem in need of the very thing that Joel promises? Which is what? We can get so bored and apathetic with the very unamazing results of the church in our day. You know what? A lot of Christianity lives on a heritage of the people from the past. They live on a heritage of Martin Lloyd-Jones or Spurgeon or Carey or, I mean, you'd fill it in, McShane, the champions from the past. We can live on that. But the fact is, where is the Spirit of God now? Where is that? Is it not true that vast numbers of little personal problems and petty issues in the church could just absolutely be swallowed up if we were to experience some kind of new and fresh effusions and refreshing outpourings like you talked about here of the Spirit of God in our time? Listen, I want Joel's prophecy to be for today. I desire it with all my heart. But listen, I don't want my desire for it to jade my views on it, to find something in Scripture that I probably really shouldn't find. So does this premise apply to us? And I just want to make some observations here that I think may be helpful to all of us. Because, listen, brethren, if we've got promises in Scripture, you don't want to let go of the promises in Scripture. Listen, if you can claim this promise, then you should have an expectation of outpouring of the Spirit in ways above and beyond what you have known before. And that ought to encourage you. Now listen, I would say this. Joel's prophecy. Let's just stay here in the book of Acts. We don't need to go back to Joel. We'll see Joel's words here. But I would say this. Be careful what you emphasize. Now notice this. Notice the prophecy again. Verse 17, Acts 2. In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants in those days, I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy. Now, I think it best that we don't get obsessed with the prophesying part of this, the dreaming part of this, and the visions part of this as being the primary thing that Joel is emphasizing. I don't think that this is the primary aspect of his prophecy. And here's why I think that. Think with me. When Peter says, this is what Joel said, was anybody having dreams? Was anybody having visions? Was anybody prophesying in the sense that they were foretelling the future? Were any of those three things happening? It was tongues. It wasn't anything that Joel said. So, anyways. No one was dreaming. No one was having a vision. No one was predicting the future. Acts 2:4, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, I think that's key. Look at Acts 2:4. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They, who? All. Now, that's what you want to emphasize. Now, 2.4 is not part of Joel's prophecy, but that is the issue. They all, all who? All who? Well, it was the 120 that were in the upper room. And you remember, there were men and women up there. And this, this is the issue. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, that you want to catch. All of them were filled with the Spirit and the Spirit gave utterance. Now, just tuck that away. How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language, verse 8? And 10 says, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. What we want to stress is the diversity and totality of the outpouring of the Spirit. You see, Joel says, it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit on all floors. And I'm not talking about the flesh. Sons, daughters, old men, young men, male and female servants. In those days, I will pour out my Spirit. Now, here's the thing. When you go through the Old Testament, if you were to think right off, where's the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament? Do you know the primary thing you find about the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament? Two things. One, you find the Holy Spirit is being prophesied about. His work in the New Testament is being predicted. Like it is in Joel. It is in Isaiah. You see promises of the new covenant. But, you know what? The Spirit primarily shows up in the Old Testament as coming upon certain individuals. Can anybody here tell me, somebody in the Old Testament that the Spirit of God came upon? Who? Saul. What happened to Saul when the Spirit came upon him? He prophesied. Well, now isn't that interesting? You see, prophesying... And listen, I don't think you want to take prophesying in the strict sense that it's got to do with predicting the future. Prophesying can be taken in the sense... I'm not saying Saul wasn't doing that. But I'm just saying prophesying can basically include setting forth, say, the mighty works of God. Saul was a king. Anybody else take a shot at who the Spirit came upon? Who? Samson. He was a judge. Who else? Let me give you a running... Pharaoh said to his servants, can we find a man like Joseph in whom is the Spirit of God? Exodus. Bezalel. God says, I filled him with the Spirit of God. Who was he? He was the guy that designed the Ark of the Covenant and all that. He basically created that. Numbers 11. The Lord came down in a cloud and spoke to Moses and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it in the 70 elders. As soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. Very interesting. Now, two of the men remained in the camp. One named Eldad, the other named Medad. And the Spirit rested on them. They were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent. So they prophesied in the camp. And the young man ran and told Moses, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, from his youth said, My Lord Moses, stop them. And Moses said to him, Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets. And the Lord would put His Spirit on them. Now listen, when you go through the Old Testament, you know what you'll find? In different places, when the Spirit of God came upon people, they prophesied. And what you will find is that almost exclusively, the Spirit of God came upon the leaders in Moses' day, the judges, the kings, certain prophets and certain priests. And that's it in the Old Testament. And so the point is this, what Joel is saying is that this is for men and women. Basically, we are going to come into a dispensation where the Spirit of God is going to be poured upon all flesh, Jew and Gentile, man and woman, old and young. That's key. All flesh. All. God is going to make Himself known and felt in a powerful way to all. Now you think of pouring. He says He's going to pour the Spirit. Think of the imagery there. It's being soaked, poured, saturated, swept along by the Spirit of God. And this is not just any longer for the prophet, for the priest and the king. It's for our sisters just as well as for the brothers. It is for the young. It is for the old. It is for the Jew. It is for the Gentile. You know what Joel is saying to each of us? Don't think that this is beyond your reach. This is an experience that you don't want to put in that category of, well, maybe Spurgeon had it, I can't have it. Maybe some other men and women have demonstrated throughout time. Don't think that such an experience of God is for the spiritual elite, for certain pastors, for certain missionaries. Well, yeah, if I was Martyn Lloyd-Jones, perhaps I could have. The point of Joel's prophecy is this. The Spirit will be poured on all flesh. Man, woman, young, old, servant, master, the promise is for you. That's the idea here. Do we not in the New Testament believe in the priesthood of all believers? That's basically the idea. Moses said to Joshua, would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit on them. It sounds like that's precisely what Moses wanted to see happen back then, but didn't happen back then. It's precisely what Joel promised would happen in this time of the new covenant. Now, is this also for today as much as in Peter's day? That's the question. Now, listen. If you say no because you're uncomfortable with visions and dreams, well, listen, just simply because you perhaps haven't experienced that doesn't mean that certain men and women may have. I mean, don't rule that out based on your own experience. And I would just say this, prophesying in the broadest sense is the idea of proclaiming the excellencies of God. Just this, I said, tuck this away. Remember, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. Now, you want to think about what the Spirit does when He comes upon these people. What is it that was happening then? What does the outpouring produce? Now, listen. Listen to this. John 7:38, don't turn there, but listen to it. Jesus said this, whoever believes in me. Now, you do want to capture those words because He says that about some pretty amazing things. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now, this He said about the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified. And you see, He's talking about exactly the same thing. He's talking about the Spirit that would be given, how they would be clothed with power from on high after He went to His Father. And He keeps saying that, when I go to my Father, it's more advantageous for you that I go to my Father than staying here. Why? Because if I don't go to my Father, I don't send the Holy Spirit. And He says this, whoever believes in me, so all believers, Jew, Gentile, young, old, man, woman, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. And it says, He said that about the Spirit whom those who believed in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given. But now it has been given. And it got given on that day Peter said, this is what Joel said was going to happen. Now listen, if you're a true believer here, do you believe this? Do you grasp this? Do you live in the reality of this? That out of your heart will flow rivers of living water. I mean, what is that? Well, it's like the Spirit is poured out and doesn't just drench us. It actually is poured in and flows out. It's like the Spirit so fills us. And you think about the imagery. I mean, what does that mean? Out of His heart will flow rivers of living water. Does anybody feel like you're that? Does anybody feel that? Folks, the heart, out of the heart will flow rivers of living water. The heart is the seat of emotion. Something flows out away from the believer that is life-giving. Rivers of living water. The ones who come along and turn the world upside down are people who have something going on in the heart and something flowing out of them. Folks, what was flowing out when they said this? They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak as the Spirit gave them utterance. We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. What does this have to do with? It has to do with what comes out of us. We have the words of life. We're the witnesses of what Christ did. Listen, we have a message. You recognize, we have a message to preach to people that's fuller and more complete than Christ Himself preached. Because Christ only could preach certain things as being future. They hadn't come to pass yet. We now preach looking back on a complete salvation that has been worked out. Folks, you need to recognize this. This is no small thing. To be a child of God in this world means that you, being endowed with the Spirit, when you speak, you know, we can feel awkward. We can feel insufficient. But I want you to know when you're speaking these things, look at this. Whoever believes in me, and it's... Listen, the ones who come along and turn the world upside down they've got a heart that's giving, a heart from which rivers of living water are coming. It means that something's got to flow out of you. Something has to come out there. And obviously, it's with the heart. It's coming from... It doesn't say from the mouth. It's from the heart. It tells me something about the passion of these people. They're passionate about the message. Passionate about the souls. The ones who come along and turn the world upside down, you recognize they're not ones who are indifferent. The Spirit of God has a real tendency to make people care, to make people love, to make people concerned, to make people want to give themselves and sacrifice for the sake of reaching people. It's not the indifferent people. That's not what the Spirit of God does. It's not the disinterested. It's not the sort of, you know, neutral, cool, spiritual individual that usually makes a difference in this world. Rivers of living water. And Jesus said, whoever believes in me, I'll tell you this, if you're in this room right now and you're a genuine believer, there should be an expectation. Lord, I have an expectation that something akin to rivers of living water are going to flow from me. And if all we do all day long is speak the word and nobody lives from it, it's not life-giving, then what is that promise? What is it? From the heart. It's the passionate people who tend to exchange safety, comfort. I mean, the Spirit-inspired life and progress and course of the church, that's not always the safe place. Folks, listen to this. You know this is true. You can usually tell whether a person's been drenched with the Spirit by whether his mouth is giving to declaring the excellencies of God. When God Almighty pours Himself into an individual, a river of life tends to flow out. And I just want you to consider the book of Acts. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit. What happens? He begins to preach to the rulers of the people and the elders. This is in Acts 4. Or how about this? Just listen to this. Acts 4:31, When they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And so what did they do when they were all filled with the Holy Spirit? Sit around and have a drink. Have a Holy Spirit high. Laugh hysterically at each other. Feel good. Go home. Back to their safety and security. Is that what they did? That's not what happens. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the Word of God with boldness. Acts 6:10, They could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which Philip was speaking. The spirit. He was speaking. Acts 13:9, Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit. What did he do? He looked intently at him and said, You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness. Anyways, he went to speaking. Acts 19:6, When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying. I'm reminded by what the Old Testament Scripture... What does the Old Testament Scripture say is going to happen when the Spirit of God comes upon Christ? It says this, The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. Do you get that? He sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, proclaim liberty to the captives, opening the prison to those who are bound. You see the proclamation of that. The fact is that the Spirit of the Lord God is upon Christ because the Lord has anointed Christ to bring good news to the poor. Listen, we need this. We need an outpouring of the Spirit to be able to proclaim with boldness and with power. And I could just jump in right here and say, How do we tap the Spirit? I'll tell you this. Study Christ, speak of Christ. As you behold Him, you're transformed by the Spirit into that same image. But the Spirit came to glorify Christ. So speak of Christ. Speak often of Christ. Don't let your tongue... We are the people who are to proclaim, a people for His own possession, a people for proclaiming the excellencies of Him. That's what we're called to do. Listen, I believe you grieve the Spirit when you don't do that. I believe you grieve the Spirit. And you know what grieving the Spirit is called? Over in 1 Thessalonians, it's called quenching the Spirit. You see, we're talking about fire. We're talking about energy, spiritual energy, spiritual power. Don't grieve the Spirit through worldliness. Don't grieve the Spirit through bitterness and disunity among ourselves. These are ways that these things can happen. Brethren, we need to be taking opportunity. I mean, one of the things that's going to happen is, you're going to find that the Spirit of God is going to tend to help as we set ourselves. And you know what? It may not be that you're going to pack up and go down to Nigeria and speak the gospel. You may not go with us and preach the gospel in Poland. You may not do that. But you know what? You can be deliberate. You can meet with your neighbor. You can talk. You can meet with a family member and you can talk. A fellow worker. Just opportunities as they arise throughout the day. Now look, in Acts 2:17, Peter said, in the last days it shall be. This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. What was uttered? In the last days it shall be. That's pretty important. In the last days it shall be. We're in the last days. So from that aspect, it applies. Now listen, I could tell you some stories about people that you highly respect, who would say that they have had visions or dreams. People you respect. I know that Mack Tomlinson has been studying very carefully all the miraculous that happened among the Scottish Covenanters. I could tell you some things, the Spurgeon experience. I don't want to get into all that right now. And like I said before, I don't even believe that that is the thing to emphasize. The thing to emphasize is that this is for everybody. This, don't be thinking this is for everybody. This is for some spiritually elite person. Don't think that this is just, well, yeah, the pastor or this, you know, Sonny goes down there and preaches, or any of these other guys that go down. Well, it's for them. No, that's, and you know what? You just think about the numerous passages that seem to support the fact that we live in the age of the Spirit, that we're in a Pentecostal age, in which the ascended Christ is yet pouring out His Spirit. Now listen, John the Baptist came, and he said very specifically, I, look, I baptize you with water, but there's one who's coming, who's going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Is there any reason to believe that that was limited to that day at Pentecost? There doesn't seem to be any indication. Christ is called He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. And you know what? That's what John's Gospel says. He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. That is one of the titles for Christ. He who baptizes with the Spirit. I'll tell you this, He who baptizes with the Spirit is at the right hand of the Father. And He's very much concerned with what we're doing. And He told us, lo, I'm with you to the end of the age, He who baptizes with the Spirit. And so He said, therefore go. And it may be going across the street to your neighbor, it may be going across the country, it may be going further away than that. Or how about this? You know that I love this verse and I keep saying it. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me, there's that again that we saw over in John 7, whoever believes in me, not just the apostles, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater works than these He will do because I'm going to the Father. That's whoever believes. We have that today. How are we going to do greater works than Christ did? I'll tell you this, you'll never do that without the Spirit of God. You can define that however you want, but I guarantee you this, you'll never do it without the Spirit. That's why Jesus said what He said, nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send Him to you. And He said this, when the Helper comes, whom I send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me. That's key. Because how does He bear witness? He bears witness through this book. He bears witness through the reality of the truths of this book. He bears witness in a way that we become emboldened to be these from the heart rivers of living water flow forth. Listen to this, Jesus said to them, Thus it is written that Christ should suffer, and on the third day rise from the dead. Repentance for the forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all nations. Well, we know that's going on today. We know we're still about our Lord's work. It began in Jerusalem, but it went out from there. And He said this, You're witnesses of these things, and behold, I'm sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high. Why did they need to be clothed with power from on high? Well, to be witnesses. That's the reality. Now listen, folks, which ones are going to say that the promise given to us, that if we then being evil know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask? Now listen, He is telling this to His disciples, not to lost people. He says, Your Heavenly Father, He's talking to Christians. If you don't have the Spirit, you don't belong to Christ. Obviously, He's speaking to people who have the Spirit. When He says you pray for the Spirit, He's not telling people to pray for the Spirit because they don't have the Spirit. Undoubtedly, He's telling them to pray for the Spirit in the sense that's being talked about here. Greater, greater, more, more, more. And even think about what Peter said. See, I think this is very interesting. If you've got Acts chapter 2 right there, isn't it interesting? Where does the Spirit show up? Now watch this, just watch this. Acts 2, where does the Spirit show up? I'll show you where the Spirit is. Verse 4, They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. So you see the Spirit there. And then as we keep moving along, you can go down and you can go to verse 17. In the last days it shall be God declares, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. What are they going to do? Prophesy. And they're going to proclaim, they're going to speak. Verse 18, In those days I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy. So you see the Spirit there. And then if we keep dropping down here, you'll see that Peter gives this promise. In verse 38, Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all. You see that again? All. In context, how would they have taken that? If Peter just said to the people, this is what Joel said the Spirit of God would do. What do you think when he says, Repent and be baptized and you'll receive the gift of the Spirit? Do you think they would have automatically concluded, well, he just means sanctification. The Spirit will sanctify me. Folks, in context, they would have heard, oh, in the same way the Spirit of God did this to them. He's basically saying, we'll get that Spirit. The Spirit who rivers of living water flowing from the heart. Folks, this truth is just, it's tied together in all these verses, that everyone who believes in me, rivers of living water. He spoke about the Spirit. Everyone who believes in me, the works that I do, greater works, the works that I do, he will do and greater works. Folks, this is, and he said, because I'm going to the Father. You need to recognize this. We have this same Spirit. I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid that, I'm afraid lest we grieve the Spirit by not actually putting ourselves in the place where we need the Spirit to do this. This is why I will encourage us as much as possible to evangelize in every capacity we possibly can. To speak the truth of Christ in every capacity that we possibly can. We need to be people who proclaim the excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ. Our mouths need to be instruments. And I'll tell you, it's as we do this, that I really believe that we should have an expectation of seeing the Spirit outpoured. And what Jesus says is we can pray for this. We can ask this. We don't want to give God any rest. It's like Father, to whatever degree you are willing, I think Scripture is very plain. The promise of Joel in the sense of the Spirit giving utterance, the necessity of that. Folks, are sinners any different than they were in the day of Peter? Do we not need the same power of God? The river of living water to flow from our hearts as they need it? Do we not need the same Spirit and pray for the same Spirit? You can wrestle with all the visions and the dreams and everything. But I'll tell you this, we need the Spirit of God outpoured. And you know what? If He gives us to prophesying and it makes you uncomfortable or He gives us some... I know this, that at the end of this prophecy, He says this, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. And that's very interesting. Why? Well, because what it tends to tell me is this, the scope, the scope, the duration of this prophetic element seems to be the same duration that somebody can call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. And everyone who calls upon the... I mean, it's right there in the prophecy. In those days, I will pour out my Spirit. In those days. And He says, and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I mean, it seems to indicate that the outpouring of the Spirit will occupy the same time in which it's possible for somebody to call upon the name of the Lord and be saved. Folks, I conclude the prophecy of Joel 2:28-32 does apply to us. Precisely to us who claim, just like that says, to pin our hope, calling on the Lord, our hope right there for salvation in Christ, to us who call upon His name. I mean, you think about what that means. Call upon the Lord. To call upon the name of the Lord. What's that? Is that not what it means to cry to God for help? Trust yourselves into His hands. It's very simple, isn't it? You call upon the name of the Lord and you'll be saved. Does anybody despise the simplicity of that? A poor broken soul seeks to get the ear of God. To speak into His ear. Everyone who calls the Lord, that's Yahweh. Everyone who calls upon the name of Yahweh shall be saved. Yahweh, that's the God of Scripture. No idol, no Allah, no Mary, no saint, no image, no impression of your own mind. If you would be saved, you've got to call upon the living Lord. Call, that's prayer. Lord, help me. You call upon the God who reveals Himself in the Word of God. Call upon this God who manifests Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. Listen, don't trust what you can do, what you have done, what you may do. Calling on the Lord is for the helpless. That's the bottom line. Lord, here's the prayer of the destitute. I already mentioned that today. That comes from Psalm 102. And we don't want to bother with any sort of mechanical prayers or repetitious prayers. Nothing but a piece of religious witchcraft. Folks, we can be real. We can take our needs to Him. You've got to make a call upon the Lord. You're going straight to Him. You're not going through any mediator. You're going to Him. Directly to Him. A direct appeal to God. You ask Him. You plead with Him. I know Christ is our mediator. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about you don't go to a priest. You don't go to confession. None of that. And the thing is, you think, call upon the name of the Lord and you'll be saved. He doesn't expect anything from you. He doesn't expect you to... Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. That's the idea. We plead with Him to help me in my time of need. Presenting true prayer to the true God. He doesn't expect us to bring anything. We come as beggars. He's the giver. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. And I'll tell you this. If you called upon the name of the Lord and He doesn't save you, it's because you don't want to be saved. You don't want to be saved the way He saves. You don't want to be saved from what He saves from. And that's just the reality. Everyone is what it says. Everyone. This is easy enough. I mean, is anybody appalled at the plan? That if you call, then call on Him. Call on Him at once. But you know what? People think, well, they've got to do something. Think you've got to prepare yourself somehow to be saved. Or God's got to prepare you somehow to be saved. But God's made it simpler than that. It says, and it shall come to pass. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Then I would say this. Listen, as we take that message, call upon the name of the Lord and you'll be saved. We need the Spirit. We need this prophecy of Joel. And I just, I ask you this. Are you going to be content not to have that? Now look, if you somehow argue a way that I really don't think it applies to me. Okay, okay. I would say this. Don't infect others with your unbelief. I would take this and say, Lord, I know this. I know that God may not do certain things at certain times. I know that there may be things from the book of Acts that are unrepeatable. But there are also other aspects that we better be certain need to be repeated. Listen, folks, we cannot do the evangelistic endeavor and we cannot do the missionary endeavor unless the Spirit of Him who went to that cross is upon us and energizes us and causes us to have the boldness and the power that the early church had. There is no substitute for this. None whatsoever. We need to give God no rest. I don't know how much of Joel's prophecy. I don't know exactly what it might look like if God poured out His Spirit upon the church today. I don't know. But I want everything and to the uttermost what God is willing to give. It always bothers me to think that at this time in church history, there might be other Christians in other churches, whether they're here in this country or in other places in the world, who are experiencing these things far more than we are. I don't like that. My prayer is I plead with the Lord. Don't let us come behind in these things. More, more, more. Listen, Christ calls us to go forth and tell. He said to go out there and be my witnesses. Go and take this message. Go and make disciples. We need the Spirit of God. I can remember talking about the fact that he went out and he said as a college athlete, he was an All-American wide receiver, and Billy Graham was coming to town. And they typically would ask student athletes to give a testimony. And they asked, he had just been saved about six months. I was over in China. It was interesting to hear talk about this. They weren't married at the time. They knew each other. She said, oh, all the Christians at LSU were terrified. Because they knew that he was no public speaker. And you hear him tell it. He said he was nigh unto a gorilla. He said he had no communication skills. He walked out there on that platform, and he said it was like God rammed a steel rod down his back. Paul Washer says he literally believed Austin was going to be on fire because he saw fire come down from above. Men have had the Spirit of God come upon them. I could tell you stories. Listen, Lloyd-Jones said he could tell stories, but he didn't want people to make a big deal out of it. The truth is there is something more to be had. There is something that... Folks, if we are called to feed the hungry, and I mean hungry of soul, if we're called to take this gospel just like... Listen, if Christ needs the Spirit to preach the gospel to the poor, are we going to come along and say, well, we can pretty much get by without it? And what are we going to say? Are we going to say that the Spirit of God wasn't there? Wasn't involved in Jesus' life at all before it descended on Jesus? There at his baptism? You see, that Spirit came upon him at the time of his baptism to specifically empower him to preach the gospel to the poor. Remember, he was a man just like us, and he needed the Spirit of God to work the works of God just like we do. He came and he worked in the power of the Spirit. Just like we do. And he needed the Spirit. How much more do we? Brethren, we're called to feed the hungry. Not the full. We're called to go out there to the lost. Not to the fat. Not to the content. I mean, look, God didn't call us to simply build our church buildings and build nice comfortable places and refine our doctrine for now and forever. We have a responsibility. Our responsibility is to carry out the Great Commission. That is the responsibility of the church. We equip one another for the work of the ministry. And I recognize this is a body. And the body has members. And the body works together. And we're going to have members that are involved in all sorts of things. But oh, folks, we desperately, desperately, desperately need this Spirit of God to come upon us. We can just, you know, build our soft meeting places where we rock professing Christian to sleep by means of some cold, sterile prayers and dry academic doctrine. And we get theologically correct, but just wretchedly dead sermons, wretchedly dead taking the Lord's Supper. Nothing miraculous ever happens. Nothing marvelous. Nothing extraordinary ever happens. I mean, when's the last time we saw a good red-blooded sinner really radically converted right before us? You know what? We get people half-saved, not well-saved. We kind of get our hopes up. We, you know, a certain person might look like they're saved. And then where are they? I mean, where is the work of the Spirit of God where there's 3,000 and the 3,000 are still there a week later, a month later, a year later? And if we're called to equip God's sons and daughters to be an almighty army of God, is that not it? We're told in Scripture the gates of hell are not going to prevail against us. We're told to capture people from the fire, from the very jaws of death, from the jaws of hell, right out of the snatch of the devil. We're supposed to capture them. This is what Scripture says. The strong man, he binds them. Christ is the one stronger, but how does he do it? Well, it's the church that he said is going to crush his head shortly. It's the church that it's said that the gates of hell will not prevail against. This can only be accomplished, all of this, by a fiery, unconventional, sacrificial, risk-taking. I'll tell you, when the Spirit of God blows upon a people, it makes it very difficult just to go home, watch TV, kick your feet up on the counter and eat Twinkies. That is not what makes for a good, healthy church. It's the Spirit of God coming upon us and making us do crazy things, sometimes what seems actually irrational things. You know what? Spirit-inspired passion. That's what's going to sustain the light of the church. Then nothing else, nothing. We need people filled with the Spirit, because what will happen? Well, they'll give themselves some kind of reckless sacrifice and heroism out there on the lead trenches. Spirit-breed passion is what sustains evangelistic activity. It is what sustains the missionary endeavor. There's no substitutes. And where that goes out the window, you know what? You can have all the money in the world. You can have large crowds. You can have your proper sermon. You can have all that. You can have the academics, right? But if the Spirit of God goes out the window, what are we? We're dead in the water. You can have all the right intentions, all the right analyzed little good. Oh, God, give us people soaked in the Spirit. We can be simple, we can be poor, we can be insignificant, male or female, lowly, despised, foolish, weak. I'll tell you this, if we're burning with a Spirit-given fire, listen to Duncan Campbell. Without it, that's what he's talking about, the Spirit-given fire. Without it, we shall at our best appear to a mad world as a crowd of common people in a common market babbling about commonwares. And I'll tell you, many churches, many professing Christians, they don't like Spirit-fired people in their churches. Why? Because people like that tend to make others feel uncomfortable. Why? Because people like this are unconventional, they're unpredictable, they're dangerous, they don't follow proper etiquette all the time. Other Christians are usually the first in line to want to put a wet blanket on such people. You know, shackle that guy down, hold that guy back. Far too often we have this mistaken notion that we just, if we have the right doctrine, it guarantees our success and our blessing. We need the right doctrine, but we need more than that. It's got to be right doctrine coupled with fire, clothed with power from on high. We need people in the church that say, I want the truth, but that's not enough. We need people that say, I am not satisfied with powerless Christianity. We need that. And there's something in what Joel says that ought to make us say, hey, if we live in that age now, that Pentecostal age, that age of the Spirit, well then God help us. God help us to be experiencing the effusions of the Spirit. I want to experience that. I want to be swallowed up in His fire. Look, we need the Spirit to kindle our cold hearts. How do you, I mean, we need to ask Him. That's what Scripture says. We need to, I just saw a quote from Ian Murray the other day. He believes that one of the greatest things that sucks the life out of the church is worldliness. Undoubtedly, that's grieving the Spirit. You know what, we need to plead Joel. But as has already really begun, we need to strategize some crazy things that almost seem impossible. I think it's as we set to launch out in some endeavors that we'll almost certainly fail at unless God helps us. I trust those days are ahead. We'll see what the Spirit of God does. But I'll tell you this, if Joel's prophecy is for today, then do not be content. Do not be content unless you taste to some degree of what God promised. If, if Christ said, everyone who believes in me out of his heart will flow rivers of living water, and that has to do with the Spirit of God. If He has said, everyone that believes in me, the works that I do, He will do, and greater works, you should not be satisfied. You should not be satisfied unless that's happening. Something of that is happening. And you can be sure that promise right there has everything to do with the Spirit of God, giving us the ability to proclaim the Word far and beyond where Christ proclaimed it. Listen, I hope you're ready. I hope you're gearing up. We can't navel gaze. We can't be a church that we just get all hung up on what goes on inside the church. We need to be involved in that, but we also need to be strategizing outward. How to reach this lost world? Because when the Spirit of God was poured out every single time in the book of Acts, people filled with the Spirit. Spirit of God came upon. What happened? They communicated the truth boldly. We need it. We need it. Father, I pray, make this, Father, I would say make this a reality. Father, I hold you to your promise. You spoke through Joel. That's the Word of God. We live in the last days. You said in the last days, you would pour out the Spirit on all flesh. I pray that we would know something of the reality of that. I pray this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.