A SYNOPTIC OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK OF JOEL

The Book of Joel provides a great deal of prophetic insight into both the time of Jesus Christ’s First Coming and His future His Second Coming. Chapter 1 through 2:17 is the threat of judgment and call to repentance to the Nation of Israel. This theme being nothing new, save now God calls and commands  “…all men everywhere to repent”. [Read Acts 17:29-31 and comprehend the application of the prophecies.] Joel also speaks of the promised outpouring of the Spirit of God and wonders in the heavens and the earth. [Joel 2:23-31 (the accused “drunkeness” of Acts)] But the involvement of supernatural Beings is new and extremely different, as is the threat of Creatures from the Bottomless Pit. [See Joel 2:1-11]  

The dominant time frame in view for the prophet’s words are for two specific corresponding periods of time set apart by 2000 or so years. The 1st being that time frame just after the First Coming of Jesus the Christ. It came with the initial moderate outpouring of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, which could only follow the Atonement Sacrifice of Jesus. [John 7:37-39, 14:17] It manifested 50 days later where Peter said, “…this is that…” [Acts 2:16] Peter directs the skeptic and the student back to Joel chapter 2 as to an explanation for what was accused to be drunkeness. This was the first period of time where Joel’s words took on a greater application, on that initial outpouring on the Day of Pentecost. 

And then the 2nd time frame being the yet future and more fuller period of time for the application of the prophetic words. That being where the whole Book of Joel in its fullness manifests, which is just before and after Jesus’ Second Coming. It’s referred to “…the great and the terrible day of the Lord….” And is mentioned several times by Joel.  This will be the time of the “latter rain”. It is the same time and events of the great Tribulation of Matthew 24. Of this time and events Joel exhorts with a promise from God specifically for these last days’ Jews. “I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your  daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke.” [Joel 2:28-31] 

Afterward the prophet tells the Jews that God will remove the evil from the people and the Land. He will do “great things.” So it is, the marvels and great things God will do are associated with the judgments on Israel and the nations of the earth leading up to the Great and terrible day of the Lord. Afterward being also after this terrible Tribulation. He will do great things for the Jewish people and Land in the Millennial Day of the Lord, following Christ’s glorious but awful return. [Joel 2:18-3:21; also see the covenant of marvels in Exodus 34:10] 

So the prophetic message of Joel today is in the first place an end time call to repentance to Israel and the Jew. Especially as God pours out His judgments on an out–of–wedlock Israel and His enemies, the nations of the earth, and the destroyers of the earth. (Both men and spirit-beings.) Joel’s references to the latter rain, in part, is a reference to the Holy Spirit’s sealing of His Jewish people, “…the remnant whom the Lord shall call.” [Joel 2:32] A sealing peculiar to Jews in the end time; that being of Revelation 7:1-8, a protection afforded them right before the unleashing of the supernatural beings from the underworld. They are “…a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it.…” which come from the center of the earth.  

Joel records the frightening Great and marvelous woes [Revelation 8:13] of Jacob’s Trouble. [Jeremiah 30:7] “Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them. The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. Before their face the people shall be much pained: all faces shall gather blackness. They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks: Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded. They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?” [Joel 2:1-11]  

John owns Moses words as he ties the God of Old Covenant’s last days’ works of Justice to the last days’ New Covenant works of Mercy.[Deuteronomy 32:29 with Revelation 15:3]  The Book of Revelation gives us the time and further description of the supernatural events that Joel writes of clearly. See Joel Chapter 2 with Revelation Chapter 9 starting in verse 1. “And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key (to the well) of the bottomless pit.”  

This Trumpet is the 5th, the star is satan (Revelation 12:9-12, Luke10:18), and the woe is the first (verse12). 

The middle of the Tribulation period/Jacob’s Trouble has nearly arrived. The events of that which corresponds with Joel Chapter 2 begin with satan having been given, that is by grant, (Revelation 1:18) the key; that of death, that is to say the Bottomless Pit. [Revelation 20:1-3] There the angel takes the key and shuts in the evil hosts while Jesus reigns. (Note that Jesus, the Great victorious King, retains the key to Hades, from where He will release His faithful hosts just preceding His 2nd Coming.) The devil opens the kingdom of the Wild Beasts, possibly in Judea. [Deuteronomy 29:23, Jeremiah 4:23-29] And from that well proceeds the great perpetrators of the remainder of the Tribulation. The earth quakes, it opens up, smoke comes billowing out of the Great Abyss, and great darkness follows on the surface of the earth. (Will it be an eruption considered by men to be a natural event? Or maybe a nuclear blast?) In any case, satan releases his supernatural hosts of torture upon all unsealed human beings. [Luke 10:18-21] The Anti-Christ, (most likely made over them as their king) also comes forth. [Revelation 11:7, 17:8] A “star” precedes the (re)birth of the under world king of the nations of the earth…just as a star preceded the birth of the King of the Jews. One is the Destroyer king, (Jeremiah 4, Daniel 8:24,25 9:26 11:44) and the other is the Restorer King.  

The 5th and then shortly the 6th Trumpet plagues are ordered. The supernatural Creatures are here described in great detail, and correspond with those of Joel’s little understood prophecies.  The underworld prison now fully manifests itself upon the living of the earth. And for 5 months, humans experience immortal bodies, death flees them, that they may experience the afterlife of lost souls while still alive. (For example, see Isaiah 66:24.) Yet Scripture portrays little if any repentance.  

Thus then the 6th Angel sounds and the 200,000 “horsemen” (wild beasts) are loosed from the confounds of the great river Euphrates. And unlike the locust/scorpion tormenting hoards of the 5th Trumpet plague, who were limited to torturing, these torture and kill The casualties being 1/3 of mankind.  

The 5th and 6th Trumpet woes will come and go, and yet the  “….rest of men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works of there hands, that they should not worship devils…” It will be a most confusing and deceiving time. The Two Witnesses of God will be manifesting judgments upon the earth, angering mankind as the 11th chapter reveals. And that being before the third woe (vs14). And in the spiritual unseen realm, the devil will have been cast down to earth angry, and will go unlock the underworld to torment men. (Also literal Creatures, but possibly unheard and unseen? Or seen and heard but with scientific explanation?)  

The Anti-Christ from the Bottomless Pit, who may secretly control the wild Creatures of the underworld, having been made their king, may appear to be mankind’s savior as he dispenses of both the forces of the underworld with a command and the Two Witnesses by killing them. On earth, men without the knowledge of God’s Word will not know who’s doing what? The World then refuses to acknowledge God and repent.