Dennis Tuuri

# Joel Chapter 3 Sermon

Please be seated. Sermon scripture is Joel chapter 3.

For behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people, and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land.

And they have cast lots for my people, and have given a boy for a harlot, and sold a girl for wine that they might drink. Yay. And what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? Will you render me a recompense? And if you recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompense upon your own head. Because you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried it into your temples by goodly, pleasant things.

The children also of Judah, and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that you might remove them far from their border. Behold, I will raise them out of the place whether you have sold them, and will return your recompense upon your own head, and I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off, for the Lord hath spoken it.

Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles. Prepare war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about. Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. Let the heathen be awakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, for there will I sit to judge all the heathen roundabout.

Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, get you down, for the press is full, the fats overflow, for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision, for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake.

But the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her anymore. And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountain shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with water, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim.

Egypt shall be a desolation and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness for the violence against the children of Judah because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall dwell forever and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed. For the Lord dwelleth in Zion. This time the younger children may be dismissed to go down to their Sabbath schools. Their parents desire that.

I would mention to the Sunday school teachers that the sermon this morning will be much shorter than normal.

In the three chapters that comprise the book of Joel that we’ve looked at over the last few weeks, we see sketched out the three great themes that the historic church has celebrated during the Christmas season during the celebration of the advent of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those three themes can be seen related to three specific attributes of God: God’s holiness, God’s grace and mercy, and then God’s power or authority or dominion.

Chapter one of Joel, if you remember, spoke to the need for repentance and contrition because the coming of Yahweh brings judgment to people. The coming of Yahweh is the coming of the one who is totally holy, and that holiness reminds us of our need for repentance of our sins before God in contrition and lamentation for one’s sins.

The historic church has made wide use of the prophet—or excuse me, rather John the Baptist—in the weeks of Advent leading up to the celebration of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and the celebration of his birth. John the Baptist came that he might prepare a people for the Lord who was to come. And so in our carols at Christmas time, we sing, “Let every heart prepare him room.” And so we have used Joel 1 here at Reformation Covenant Church to prepare the people of Reformation Covenant Church to receive the coming of Jesus Christ through lives of systematic repentance of the sins that so easily beset and entangle us.

The scriptures tell us that if any man says he sins not, he is a liar and the truth is not in him. Therefore, Advent must be a season stressing the need for biblical repentance from sins. And I would just mention here that repentance, I’ve often said, is really three-fold. There’s a godly sorrow for our sins that is certainly spoken of. But then there’s a cessation of doing what’s wrong and a positive turning and doing what’s right.

You could add a fourth step at the very beginning of that, of course, which is confession—which is agreeing with God that what we’ve done is sinful. And many of us stumble at that very point. And so, Advent is a time when we should agree with God in terms of the sins of pride and envy and covetousness and other sins that beset us, agree with God, lament over those sins and sorrow before him, turn from them, and then positively demonstrate the characteristics that the Spirit of God so clearly points out for us in the New Testament.

Advent is a time of contemplation of our Lord’s holiness, his righteousness, and the overwhelming brilliance of his purity that shows us to be but men—and sinful men at that. But Advent is also a time of commemoration and rejoicing and contemplation of God’s mercy and grace. And so Joel 2, after heightening the judgment announced and intensifying the call to repentance and lamentation, moved on. And we talked of this last week to give us a picture of Yahweh coming in gracious forgiveness to a people who had been broken and been brought to conviction of their sin and so lamented to God over those sins.

Surely Christmas is a celebration of the forgiveness that Christ’s incarnation was to effect. Christ took upon himself human flesh. He did that so that he might suffer and die in that flesh and so pay the price for humankind’s sin. He also then affected salvation from sin by his coming as well as driving us to repentance. We talked about Hebrews 2. I’ll read it again this week. Hebrews 2:14-17. Such an important truth and remember and celebrate the incarnation of our Lord.

We read, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise partook of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.”

And this Christmas is a joyous celebration of the reconciliation that has been made through our covenant mediator Jesus Christ. And so we sing in our Christmas carols, “Tidings of comfort and joy, indeed. God rest you, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay. Remember Christ our savior was born on Christmas day to save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray.” We sing of God and sinners reconciled. And we sing of Emmanuel, God with us, providing covenant peace through his act of obedience during his life and through his suffering in our nature.

We read of that suffering again in the book of Isaiah. We read, “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon him. And with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. And the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

“And who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death. Because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

“He shall see the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many, for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”

This passage from Isaiah points out that salvation for sin is certainly celebrated at Christmas time in Jesus’s work. But the results of that work was far more than simple salvation from sin. It was victory. Isaiah points out it moves from the satisfaction that Messiah would make for sin to his triumph over the nations in that last verse we read. And so Joel 3 goes on to amplify and describe the great salvation brought about by the coming of the teacher of righteousness that we talked about last week and was described in chapter 2.

In the same way as chapter 2 magnified and intensified the message of Joel 1, so Joel 3 gives us specific expectations as it draws out in fuller terms the salvation brought by Yahweh to his repentant people described in chapter 2. We read in chapter 2:18-20 that God’s salvation for his people consisted of two things: provision and protection. He would send new grain, oil, wine, et cetera, and he would also drive their enemies into the sea. The same two-fold picture of the coming of the Lord in salvation for his people is amplified further in chapter 3.

First, then in chapter 3, we read of the judgment upon the nations that would oppress Yahweh’s people, and by way of application, those that would oppress the Church of Jesus Christ. The ungodly nations in Joel 3 are summoned by God to their judgment. The text tells us that this judgment is to occur and to be meted out in a valley first called the valley of Jehoshaphat and then later in the text in chapter 3, the valley of decision.

Now Jehoshaphat literally translated means Yahweh judges. It comes from Jehoshaphat. Jehovah and safat, the Hebrew term for judge. So literally it means Yahweh judges. These names are not given then to give us a specific geographic location but rather to manifest clearly to the reader that the judgment belongs to Yahweh, or to God. As Joel, the name of the prophet itself means Yahweh is God. So Jehoshaphat means Yahweh judges, repeating the theocentric theme of the book that we have talked about for the last few weeks.

In addition, the reference to Jehoshaphat using the literal name of a past king of Israel, or rather Judah, is intended to bring to mind a specific incident from biblical history. In 2 Chronicles 20, we read of a great victory that God gave King Jehoshaphat against a great enemy that had come up against the people of God. Jehoshaphat had prayed and instructed the people to pray and cry out to God for deliverance. And then Jehoshaphat did a very strange thing. He put in front of the army that was to go into battle in this valley out there, in which the warfare was going to occur where the enemies had gathered, in the front of the army he sent out people praising God and singing to him at the head of his army. And God then delivered that army supernaturally and miraculously into the hands of Israel.

Because of the great victory given the army supernaturally by God, then the valley in which that battle was held was named in the text and throughout the rest of scripture was referred to as the valley of Berakah, or the valley of blessing, because God had indeed blessed them with deliverance. The name Jehoshaphat then, where the nations are accumulated to judgment in Joel 3, is given to show the people of God that his favor rests upon them as did rest upon King Jehoshaphat and his people, and also to remind them of God previously undertaking to deliver a small army from a great multitude of enemies.

A multitude of nations in the valley of decision are summoned by God with a reversal of language from the great messianic prophecies of Isaiah and Micah. You should probably remember from those prophets that the time of Messiah would eventually lead in a time when men would beat their arms and their guns into agricultural implements, their swords beaten into plowshares and pruning hooks. So we see here from Joel however that the time of peace described in Micah and Isaiah—and this beating of army implements into agricultural implements—will be preceded by a time in which the nations are called to turn their plowshares into weapons in reverse order.

There’s no peace for the wicked, and bloody and rebellious hands will not stay long on agricultural implements of peace. Godless nations are soon warring nations. God being the force behind the scenes that turns their peace into war, often with one another in God’s fulfillment of retribution against ungodly nations. God, as he summons the nations in Joel 3, finds the nations of the earth to be guilty.

Guilty of theft, for they have oppressed his people, which are his property, and stolen his land. Guilty of sacrilege, they took the gold and silver utensils of worship, and then guilty of idolatry, as they used those utensils in their own religious idolatrous temples. For these crimes, the nations are found guilty in God’s sight, and his judgments are poured out upon them.

Now, we’ve spoken at Christmas time frequently in this church of Mary’s Magnificat, her hymn of praise for the incarnation, the coming of Jesus Christ, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas. That Magnificat pictured a reversal. And there are correlations between what Mary wrote and her Magnificat, or sang, and what we’ve talked about from the book of Joel.

In Luke 1, we read that Mary proclaimed, “He hath shown strength with his arm. He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.” Remember last week he drove the locusts into the sea because they had done in their own mind great things. They were filled with hubris, or pride. They were proud in the imagination of their hearts, and God scatters them. Mary went on to say, “He hath put down the mighty from their seats and exalted them of low degree.” And that’s what’s occurring here. He summons the leaders of the nations to come together and he is going to put them down and exalt his people, those who are of low degree and oppressed.

“He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.” And the text ends with the great blessings of the people of Israel with the land flowing with milk and honey and the great blessings poured out upon them. And certainly their theft is spelled out in no uncertain terms by God that he will steal what they have. He will take their sons and daughters, their best possessions, and give them to his people.

Like the Magnificat, the parallels and the prophecies of Joel predict not just a single point in time, but rather have reference to a continuing process in history once the Savior has come. Kuyper and Leither in their commentary on Joel 2 and 3 says that the day described in these two chapters, quote, came as history teaches upon the Jewish nation that had rejected its savior on the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and also upon the gentile world powers in the destruction of the Roman Empire. And from that time forward breaks in constant succession upon one gentile nation after another until all the ungodly powers of this world shall be overthrown.

That’s the Magnificat. It talked about political deliverance, and that’s what Joel 3 is describing as God summons the nations. So the coming of Yahweh and the coming of Christ means judgments for the nations. But the purpose for this reversal here described, and correlating to Mary’s Magnificat, the purpose for this is the well-being and blessing of his people. Mary’s Magnificat concluded its summary statement was that he hath holpen his servant Israel and he has shown grace and mercy to the seed of Abraham. And so Joel says as well that God’s judgments are poured out upon the nations so that his people might prosper in like fashion.

Then Joel paints a wondrous picture of blessings to ensue upon the repentant people that have called upon the name of the Lord. The mountains, as we said, drip wine and fattness. Land of milk and honey is renewed. The driest areas of the land are said to flow with water, and that water comes from the house of the Lord, indicating that blessing comes forth as a result of God’s presence with his people.

Now, we long for such a day. It sounds like wonderful stuff to us. But I want us now to turn to really our third part of our outline: at what time all this is said to occur.

Joel 3 starts with the first verse and gives us a time reference for these great blessings to happen. It says, “For behold, in those days and in that time when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem.” Joel 3 starts with the time reference that takes us back to days that he has already told us about at the end of chapter 2 in verses 28-32.

Remember those are the portion of Joel 2 where we read of the outpouring of God’s spirit upon all flesh—all flesh being of his people irrespective of age or sex—when people call upon the name of the Lord. That’s what’s described in Joel 2:28 through 32. And that phrase, by the way, “people who call upon the name of the Lord” is picked up by the New Testament writers and is used almost as a synonym for Christians, those who call upon the name of the Lord, picked up from Joel 2:28-32 and the outpouring of the spirit.

Now, we know that outpouring of the spirit, those verses were fulfilled at the time of the day of Pentecost in the early church. We know that because we have the inspired sermon of Peter on the day of Pentecost telling us that was fulfilled on that day. Now, sometimes I’ve read of that quotation from Joel 2 in the Book of Acts, the second chapter, and people deal with it in a funny sort of a manner. Just to help you get it corrected when you read New Testament quotations of Old Testament prophecies, I want to mention just briefly a book by a man named C.H. Dodd.

He wrote a book in 1952 entitled “According to the Scriptures.” He stressed in that book that New Testament exegesis majored in the selection of certain large sections and wholes, and particular verses or sentences were quoted from them rather as pointers to the whole context of the Old Testament than as constituting testimonies in and for themselves. In the fundamental passages, it is the total context that is in view and is the basis of the argument.

So what Dodd is saying is that when you read a quotation from the Old Testament in the New Testament, it is not the point of the author, normally, when you do the study of the text to simply quote that little part of the prophecy. Rather, that part of the prophecy is quoted as a pointer back to the entire scheme of that prophetic book, or that prophetic section in which that verse is quoted from.

And so in this case, a portion of Joel 2 is quoted by Peter in his sermon on the day of Pentecost—not simply as if that’s the only verse we want to look at, but pointing back to the whole context. And in fact, it’s interesting that Dodd in his work and in his book used Joel 2 and 3, both those two chapters together, and did an extensive survey of all the New Testament references to correlative passages and truths in the New Testament from Joel 2 and 3—a vast number of them.

He contends that Joel 2 and 3 are one of the major sections of the Old Testament that played a significant part in molding the language with which the early church set forth its conviction about what Christ had done and would yet do. Now, as we mentioned last week, the evidence from Acts 2 itself helps reinforce our understanding of this text. Just so as Dodd repeats here, Joel 2, for instance, is cited by Peter in Acts 2.

Obviously, we know that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh. And earlier in Acts 2, in verse 4, we read that the gift of the spirit filled the men who represented the nucleus of the early church as the condition for the filling of the spirit was cited in Joel—whosoever calls on the name of the Lord, that is those who repented. So Peter also says that the hearers of his sermon should repent and be baptized.

Baptism corresponding to the tearing of one’s robes, to lamenting one’s sins and of being washed from those sins. And Peter says that if you do that, you also will receive this same spirit. Explicitly he says that as Joel 2 said that the sons and the daughters would prophesy, so Peter in Acts 2:39 says that the promise is unto you and to your children. As Joel made reference to calling on the name of the Lord, so Peter tells them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

And by the way, that’s one of the strongest proofs for those people who deny Christ’s divinity to look at—the name of the Lord, the name of Yahweh in the Old Testament quoted in the New Testament specifically with reference to Jesus Christ. As in Joel also verse 27 said that God would be in the midst of Israel, so Peter says in verse 22 of Acts 2 that the wonders have been performed by God through Christ in your midst. Again, correlating back to Joel 2, and on and on and on.

Make no mistake about it. Peter is telling us that the day mentioned in Joel 2 and 3 is now come upon the hearers of his sermon. That day will bring signs and wonders. It’ll bring salvation and the fullness of spirit for all who repent and believe, and great judgment for all that continue to be part of a crooked generation. And he warned them of that judgment in his sermon.

The explicit witness of Holy Scripture is that Joel 2 was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. And the explicit witness of Joel 3 is that the judgments described in Joel 3 will occur in the immediate context of the outpouring of the spirit and salvation from sin promised in Joel 2. Thus, the victory of Joel 3 is an integral part of the Christmas message of the New Testament.

All who now call upon the name of the Lord are among those who are saved and secure in Zion and who are delivered from the wrath that is now being worked out against all the enemies of Christ who reject the Christmas message.

But who are all those who call upon the name of the Lord? Our Savior told us quite explicitly that not everyone who says Lord, Lord shall enter into his kingdom, but those that do the will of the father in heaven. That will being explained to us in his holy law. Indeed, the day of Pentecost, which brought the fulfillment of Joel 2 and the ushering in of the warfare of Joel 3, was seen by the historic Jewish church as the commemoration of the giving of the law through Moses on Mount Sinai.

Now, according to God’s holy word, Pentecost was a celebration of joy after the harvest. But it was a harvest that anticipated men working responsibly under God in obedience to his law that yielded forth its blessings then that they were to rejoice in. As R.J. Rushdoony writes, quote, “It was a festival which stressed the responsibility and accomplishment of work and joy of life in terms of God’s law.”

End quote. It was such responsible godly men and women who had called on the name of the Lord who were now given the prophetic gift. And it is the same gift that all believers in Jesus Christ have been given. The gift is not given on the basis of someone’s asking or praying for it or some sort of manifestation that they make. The gift of the Holy Spirit is given on the basis of the ascended Christ. And when Christ ascended to the right hand of the father was enthroned, that’s when the spirit was given to the early church. It is our gifting as well as the early church.

That calling, the manifestation of the prophetic gift given to all of God’s people irrespective of age or sex, is that calling to speak God’s mind as declared in his word to men and nations as the prophets of old did. As the prophets of old did, we are to remind the powers that be of the sureness of God’s judgments and the sureness of his blessings and his cursings attached to his law.

It is, as it was with the prophets, our responsibility to summon rulers and people to faith and obedience and to announce to them that the shaking that God promised in Joel 3 and talks of the New Testament is now upon the world. Joel 3 tells us the result of Joel 2 is the shaking of the world powers, the sun and the moon, and the establishment of God’s people on the earth. The book of Joel then is a recall to repentance and obedience, but it is a call to victory as well.

We are told in verse 17 of this passage and verse 27 of chapter 2 that the ultimate goal of Yahweh’s deeds in the world is that his people should acknowledge him as God of the covenant. Accordingly, then the book of Joel is a call to confess our faith in the God of deliverance and victory through joy. This is not however a joy of escapism. It is not a Neoplatonic denial of the physical world and a transcendence of all blessings to the sweet by and by.

Joel uses physical and spiritual terminology together to describe the blessings of the Lord’s victory that we participate in. We were doing an Advent celebration this morning in our home, and the fourth candle in the Advent wreath is called hope, and the little booklet we used assigned all hope to the state of glory in heaven. However, 1 Timothy 4:8 reminds us that godliness holds promise not only for the life to come, but for the life present as well.

Peter cites Joel 2 and hence calls us to the battle that will ultimately result in the defeat of all of Christ’s enemies on earth. For he—Jesus—is the true Israel. The very next incident in the book of Acts recorded for us records the first battle in that war and victory as Peter and John being delivered from imprisonment immediately cite Psalm 2: “Why do the heathen rage?” I told my wife this morning that Handel and his Messiah understood these truths. And that’s why he made reference to Psalm 2 in that great piece of music.

Peter and John cite Psalm 2 as they’re delivered because they know the battle has been engaged. The battle is on. The shaking is happening, and they were delivered from prison because of it. They understood the victorious Lord whose coming meant victory, and they obeyed him triumphing through faith. What Peter understood from the prophecies of Joel and then experienced with John in the early days of the church is as real today as it was then.

The book of Joel interpreted a crisis, a locust plague theologically, and then used the theological analysis of those grim times in the life of the people to kindle fresh hope for the future. It’s very much like the book of Revelation written to people who were suffering or persecuted. The book of Revelation was a book of hope—hope not just in the by and by, but hope now in realizing that the book of history is being worked out as God’s judgments against the heathen who reject Christ.

And so the book of Joel is the same thing. Today we look around us and we should also interpret events theologically speaking. It’s interesting that the text in Joel 3 tells us that God’s judgments are poured out upon Egypt. A historical entity, and this may not be common knowledge to most people, but two of the most fertile areas in the whole world are the San Joaquin Valley of California and the Nile Delta in Egypt. The valley there, both equally fertile, are not both equally productive.

Egypt, in spite of fertility from the river that they once worshiped, suffers God’s judgment and curse upon the people because they fail to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. As long as the San Joaquin Valley is farmed by farmers who acknowledge the Lord of the harvest, then God will bless them. But should the San Joaquin Valley be populated by people who move away from God, then the blessings that we see upon Egypt will result in the San Joaquin Valley as well.

Contemporary history reveals all this. This past week, two more tyrants and haters of Christ and Christian liberty and his government met their own personal valley of Jehoshaphat, their valley of decision. Christmas is a time to remember that such events do not happen by chance, nor ultimately by the conspiracies of men, but rather under the divine hand of our loving father who is, according to Joel 3, judging nations so that the church might survive, prosper, and prevail.

Calvin wrote, “God will move dreadful tumults through the whole world, and he will do this for the sake of his church.” Again, Calvin wrote, “It is as though God had said when God will redeem his people, it will not be a short or momentary benefit, but he will continue his favor until he shall visit with punishment all the enemies of his church.” In a word, the prophet here shows that God will not be a half redeemer, but will continue to work until he completes everything necessary for the happy state of the church and makes it in every respect perfect. This is the import of the whole of the passage Calvin wrote.

You, dear ones, are the apple of God’s eye. His judgments come upon the world. They come upon us first to purify us, increase our obedience to the one whose coming we prepare for. But secondly, those judgments come upon the world, meaning victory for his church and deliverance from our foes. And that is a great reason to celebrate.

One commentator writing of the need to praise God contained in Joel 2 and 3 says that he who eats in abundance must also know how to praise abundantly. Yahweh must be given thanks for the great victory that we celebrate at Christmas time, political deliverance.

Isaiah 54:1-3 reads, “Sing, O barren, thou that did not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, thou that did not travail with child. For more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitation. Spare not. Lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left, and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate cities to be inhabited.”

Those who are small in number historically have carried the future with them. Today there is apostasy of the faith in America. There’s apostasy of faith in the world. But God’s judgments are upon the world. Again, things are not happening by chance or by conspiracy. They happen by the hand of God. The hand of God moves to deliver his people, to establish them in victory. That’s the message of Christmas. Let’s thank God for that message.

Almighty God, we thank you that your judgments are in the world, that even now your shakings are shaking governments and nations, people and individuals. We pray, Lord God, for the church in Panama and the church in Romania. We thank you for the deliverance from these tyrants. And we pray that the gospel would now spread and flourish in those lands. We thank you for the shakings going on in Eastern Europe. And we pray for those churches that they would make use of the great opportunity you’ve given them now to spread the faith, knowing, Lord God, that if they fail to do this, their judgments will be even greater in the future.

Father, help the church in America to recognize the liberty she now has to preach the gospel of the Savior whose coming delivers from sin and also victory. Help us, Lord God, to recognize that every man, woman, and child of this church who is regenerate is filled with the spirit of prophecy to proclaim the truths of the victory available in Jesus Christ and the sureness of the defeat of the enemies of Christ now and in the earth and in the future as well.

Father, we thank you for the great victory you’ve given us in Jesus our Savior. We thank you for his incarnation, for the repentance he calls us to, for the assurance of salvation Jesus gives and the assurance of victory over all our enemies in Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.