Audio Download

The Book of Joel – Chapter 2:12-17, Part 2

“Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth.” – Rev 2:16

[Study Aired Aug 3 2024]

Return to the Lord

Joe 2:12  Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: 
Joe 2:13  And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. 
Joe 2:14  Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God? 
Joe 2:15  Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: 
Joe 2:16  Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. 
Joe 2:17  Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? 

Introduction

In our previous Study, Part 1 of Joel, Chapter 2, we clearly see that the dark and gloomy “Day of the Lord” dawns rapidly through Christ, our rising ‘sun’ in our spiritual understanding. So happy are we for that understanding and the beginning of the spiritual creation of the New Adam within, we gamble like calves released from the stall of Babylonian Christianity’s mouldy hay to be fed in Christ’s ‘stall’ of strong meat.

Heb 5:13  For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
Heb 5:14  But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Mal 4:2  But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings [a fine sunny dawn of Christ symbolised by an eagle-shaped-wing of high golden cirrus cloud in the east of former gloomy darkness]; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
Mal 4:3  And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the LORD of hosts.

By our Lord’s spirit, we now see that the great and dreadful Day of the Lord is an incredibly glorious death of our old man; it exceedingly emboldens us to endure the trials and tribulations given to chastise us and bless our Husband with our ravishing responses to him. We “turn” to worship our Lord with our Body, the very Body of his Bride who delights in his instant and eternal arousal for her devotedness to his righteousness, just as Hosea desired his wife, Gomer, even in weak corruptible flesh to return and honour him.

1Co 6:19  What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
1Co 6:20  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. 

Significations:

Return to the Lord

Joe 2:12  Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: 
Joe 2:13  And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. 

We studied the acceptable fast our Lord requires in Joel Part 1, Chapter 2, for your revision ~ so. What can we extrapolate from the opening verses of Joel Chapter 2?

The key term in this study is the word “turn,” which comes from the Hebrew 7725, representing 1. to return, turn back a. (Qal) 1. to turn back, return 1a. It is strongly associated with the term “again”, expressed 215 times, “turn away” 57 times and returning “back 62 times, and all are identified with going back negatively or positively. Hence, the active intent of Christ through Joel and the term, “turn”, is to repent.

In the study of Hosea, we initially saw that we were like Gomer, a whore to our Lord while in the wilderness of Babylon. Hosea would have loved his wife to turn to him with all of her heart had she been given to study the reasoning for her waywardness revealed by the fast our Lord ascribed to us in Isaiah 58. Upon Christ-given deep introspection, the Gomer that we have been has seen our humiliating condition of flirting with the churches of the world and, with tears, repents. God loves the sinner and more for his heartfelt repentance, even if she is an inveterate Oholah (representing greater Israel) or the younger sister representing the more treacherous of the two sisters of whoredoms, Oholibah (typifying Judah, the Priests, and particularly the Lord’s Elect).

Jer 3:6-15  The LORD said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding [H4878 – 1. turning away, turning back, apostasy, backsliding] Israel [Oholah] hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot.
Jer 3:7  And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not. And her treacherous sister Judah [Oholibah, the incipient Elect of God] saw it. 
Jer 3:8  And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah [Oholibah – the embryonic Bride of Christ] feared not, but went and played the harlot also. 
Jer 3:9  And it came to pass through the lightness [1. voice, sound, noise a. voice b. sound (of an instrument) 2. lightness, frivolity – colloquially; my body to do what I want with it] of her whoredom, that she defiled the land, and committed adultery with stones and with stocks.
Jer 3:10  And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah [Oholibah/Elect] hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the LORD.
Jer 3:11  And the LORD said unto me, The backsliding Israel hath justified [Conscience accusing and excusing through her pride] herself more than treacherous Judah.

See in verses 10 and 11 that Israel is “backsliding”; however, Judah representing the priesthood is worse since they held the oracles and testaments of God and didn’t diligently teach them and are thus “treacherous” and most humiliatingly, equal to the heathen Moabites, our flesh! (Eze 25:8  Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because that Moab and Seir do say, Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen)

Jer 3:12  Go and proclaim these words toward the north, and say, Return, thou backsliding Israel [Collectively inclusive of Judah], saith the LORD; and I will not cause mine anger to fall upon you: for I am merciful, saith the LORD, and I will not keep anger for ever.
Jer 3:13  Only acknowledge thine iniquity, that thou hast transgressed against the LORD thy God, and hast scattered thy ways to the strangers under every green tree, and ye have not obeyed my voice, saith the LORD. 
Jer 3:14  Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family [Rejoin Israel/Oholah with her sister, Judah/Oholibah], and I will bring you to Zion:
Jer 3:15  And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding. 

That “turning” to Christ is him reclothing us with his garments since we, in Joel 2:2, have deeply regretted our whoredoms with the fasting by ripping our ‘figleaf’ self-styled clothing revealing a naked heart before our Husband, Christ.

Jer 29:12  Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you.
Jer 29:13  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. 
Jer 29:14  And I will be found of you, saith the LORD: and I will turn away your captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I have driven you, saith the LORD; and I will bring you again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.

A carnal wife seeking a deeper emotional connection with her Husband typically wants him and his world to revolve around her, when ‘nature tells us’ that the moon whom she represents, captured by the earth’s gravitational force of humanity, both revolves around the sun, meaning, Christ and our Father. Upon being given to realize her accursed resistance by airily dismissing her physical husband’s desire for her, she now gloriously gives her husband ‘all her heart’ and symbolically, physically, and spiritually worships her husband, depicting the receipt of every good and unimaginable gift from Christ, her Husband.

Jas 1:17  Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Jas 1:18  Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we [The Elect in this age since the cross] should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Jer 29:13  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Scripture symbolically and infers literally that the Earth and our solar system came from our Sun, “the Father of [spiritual] lights”, representing God. Man is represented by the Earth, and he is made from its dust, and the Woman came out of the man (the Earth 1 Cor 11:8-12) and is represented as the Moon, inferring that it all came from God, symbolised by the Sun. (funny how the pagans were given some semicorrelating connections by worshipping the Sun] However, Eve’s curse keeps a wife at arm’s length (personifying the centrifugal force from the Earth) from having the unity she yearns for and vexingly can’t, unwittingly, without the holy spirit, attain. Interestingly, science has detected the Moon, ironically, steadily moving away from the Earth, her figuratively ‘fleshy husband’ as harlots do. Yet, possibly literally and guaranteed spiritually, heaven and Earth will melt with the fervent heat of God’s fiery word to be unified as the Sun.

Mat 13:41  The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity;
Mat 13:42  And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Mat 13:43  Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Dan 12:3  And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.

Mat 24:34  Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
Mat 24:35  Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.

That generation that will not pass away is only fulfilled in the Lord’s Elect given to “be wise” in the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. When all of Christ’s words are fulfilled in them, it is their heavens and earth of the Old Adam within that passes away as they are gradually transformed into Christ, as bright as the literal sun. Following them fully passing away at the First Resurrection, then comes those remaining in fleshy bodies in the One Thousand Year reign with the rod of iron will physically pass away.

Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Rev 20:8  And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
Rev 20:9  And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
Rev 20:10  And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

Joe 2:14  Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God? 

It is the Elect of God, the Lord’s Bride in this age since the cross who alone is given to know that they will “return and repent”. They leave behind them a mighty spiritual meat and drink legacy to follow in the Resurrection to Judgement, the Lake of Fire for their brothers, sisters, and Satan and his angels to be utterly consumed in that furnace and come forth purified as fine gold.

Joe 2:15  Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: 

It is “today” that the Bride only fully hears her Husband’s voice (Heb 3:15), the trumpet announcing his coming. She is the solemn assembly. She, like her Husband, is the Trumpet and has learned to fast in daily spiritual reflections of her tardily aroused ways to “turn” and revolve around him, draw in closer [as opposed to the literal Moon representing Babylonian Christianity, drawing away], and passionately receive her Husband’s “kisses” (Son 1:2), and he, hers.

Rev 1:9  I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. 
Rev 1:10  I was in the spirit on the Lord’s day [“Today” as we hear His voice], and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,
Rev 1:11  Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches [Spiritually one Church, the Bride of Christ] which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

1Jn 4:18  There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

The one Bride, comprising the seven churches of Asia and representing individual Elect out of every tribe and nation in Israel, is gathered and sanctified. She has been at the breast of her harlot mother and likewise walked the streets and broad ways in her lewd trade of worshipping many other Jesus [2 Cor 11:3]. She is being remade from a new lump of clay into a beautiful young Bride raised spiritually on her Lord’s wine, fat and best cuts of meat of her Husband’s word while righteously walking the streets of the New Heavenly Jerusalem within seeking her Lord.

Joe 2:16  Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. 

The Bride of Christ has come out of her closet since the cross. Even as her brothers and sisters in Babylon were likewise given to search diligently the scriptures to find Christ, it is only the Bride who found Him in her night visions. She is given powerful curiosity to desire and seek her Husband with her entire body and mind, her Lord’s spirit and excitedly ‘return to her Lord’.

Jer 3:14  Turn, O backsliding children, saith the LORD; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:

1Co 6:20  For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

Jer 29:13  And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

Son 3:1  By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
Son 3:2  I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
Son 3:3  The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
Son 3:4  It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother’s house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me. 
Son 3:5  I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

Joe 2:17  Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? 

Internally, with deep regret, the Bride ‘turned’ and remembered that she had wept for Tamuz, the like lusts Solomon never deprived himself while worshipping another Jesus under his altar! ( Tammuz = sprout of life). 1. a Sumerian deity of food or vegetation [shepherd] and every other young and powerful god-like man, as did Oholah and Oholibah (Eze 23)). Our heart of the figurative ‘Tammaus’ we were where we sought a deep emotional connection, unconsciously elevating ourselves as an Inanna-like goddess (Inanna – the same as pagan Ishtar, queen of heaven), the goddess of love and war, and accentuated sexuality. She is represented as the younger sister, Oholibah, who devoted her ‘whole body and mind’ to her lovers in the neighbouring tribes rather than to her Lord and Husband.

Astaroth H6252 = star n pr f deity 1. false Goddesses in the Canaanite religion, usually related to a fertility cult. ‘1. ewe, flock, increase, young’ representing our disappearing false flocks and doctrines of Babylonian Christianity.

Eze 8:12  Then said he unto me [Ezekiel], Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? [As opposed to the Bride’s God-given revelatory night visions] for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth [His people].
Eze 8:13  He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.
Eze 8:14  Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north [judgement comes from the north]; and, behold, there sat women [Israel] weeping for Tammuz. 

In contrast, it is now the Bride of Christ who is the Priest on the Temple porch within, where she weeps in repentance before her husband, Christ, her true spiritual ‘altar’. Her tears of regret for her former ways are turned into overjoyed gladness for him not sparing her chastisements since she is given to know that Christ is her inheritance and husband, immutably removing her reproach. In the meantime, her sisters remaining in Babylon staunchly believe that they are the Lord’s chosen bride ruling her husband in Zionist religions and governments of the world today.

Rev 18:7  How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. 
Rev 18:8  Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.

Unwittingly, Babylonian Christianity is in lockstep with their slave-master ‘Jews who are not Jews’ who, unconsciously to Christians, violently believe that Christ is an imposter who deserved the painful death of the cross and delight in mocking his resurrection and Lordship. Yet, those Christians, like silly doves (Hos 7:11) and ‘filthy dreamers’ (Jude 1:8-10), fawn on circumcision since they resolutely believe the physical Jews are God’s “chosen”.

Joh 4:22  Ye [Mainstream Babylonian Christianity] worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the [Spiritual Christ-led] Jews. 
Joh 4:23  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. 
Joh 4:24  God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Rev 17:16  And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire. 

Psa 115:2  Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now their God? [… we, unwittingly, the 10 horns just ‘fact-checked’ and destroyed this Jesus myth!]
Psa 115:3  But our God is in the heavens [within]: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
Psa 115:4  Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands.
Psa 115:5  They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not:
Psa 115:6  They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not:
Psa 115:7  They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat.
Psa 115:8  They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them.
Psa 115:9  O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.

Heb 10:37  For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Heb 10:38  Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back [a turning in the negative], my soul shall have no pleasure in him. 
Heb 10:39  But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

Since the cross, the Bride of Christ has been phenomenally brightened by her Husband’s revelations in understanding her treacherous nature in denying Him his espousal dues. And so, the act of repentance is critically central to ‘returning to the Lord’.

Subsequently, and next week (always Lord willing), we shall see that his Bride is his workmanship, having deliberately designed her slow belly desire for him. Temporarily in heartfelt pity, he weeps for her unavoidable condition even as he rejoices with the Wife of his youth as he pours out his spirit. Lord, bring on more powerfully that day!