Monday, September 25, 2017

Joel 3 : 1-5 (Daily Bread of 23/9/2017)


I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT ON THEM


Key verse 3 : 2

When the priest prays whilst standing between the door and the altar and once his heart is sincerely broken because of his sins, God will get ready to work. Many try to do a lot of things save one : pray. Before the match the boxers take off their clothes. If one does not repent and confess his sins to get rid of his large burden of sin, he cannot hope to win the victory. God has already give Israel its fruits but there is still a blessing to be had.

1. I will put my Spirit on them (1-3)

Therefore after this, the repentance of the people and their prayer under the priest’s guidance, God will give them a spiritual blessing. They first received a material blessing but God will give them a spiritual one whose value is incommensurate to the material one. Thus, God says that He will pour out His Spirit on everyone. The human body is ephemeral (1P 1:24) but when God’s Spirit touches it, it will no longer undergo decomposition but it will be by a living hope in God’s kingdom (1P1 :3,4). When the Spirit come miracles come with it. Young people have visions and prophetise whilst old people have dreams. It is impossible to imagine a servant (enslaved) have a vision or a dream given that their only hope is to have three meals per day. However, God says that they too will receive the Holy Spirit and visions. Nowadays there are many who have dreams of living like the bourgeois. However, when the Holy Spirit falls upon them their eyes widely open and they try big things. This vision of life is similar to that of William Carey who was an English missionnary in India. When the Holy Spirit falls upon us we can have a great vision of the evangelisation of France far beyond the unsurmontable reality. God will do so many miracles of conversion that we will be unable to count them.

2. The Lord's Day, a most frightening reality (4-5)

When the Holy Spirit is poured on God's people, one needs to realise that the end is near. For this reason God sends calamities that hail the coming of His judgement so that the hearts of men will be ready. The Sun and the Moon shall become darkened and the Earth void of light. God's judgement is only for the unbelievers as the believers will not be judged as they have already gone from death to life (Jn 5 :24). God's will is to save His people from judgement and to save them (5). After Jesus' ascension into heaven, the disciples came together in the upper chamber and prayed. They therefore denied their inner fear. Thus the Holy Spirit fell upon them. In the same way Joel previously said « reunite the people to form a holy assembly » The Holy Spirit therefore fell upon them. If we look carefully at verse 5 we will notice that God's call is the basis on which we are saved. Whosoever calls upon God's name superstitiously without having received His call will not survive His jugement.

No comments:

Post a Comment