The Book of Joel – Chapter 3:4-6

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The Book of Joel – Chapter 3:4-6

[Study Aired October 5th 24]

The previous three verses of Joel Chapter 3 repeated our Lord’s seemingly endless plea and biblical theme for his wife, Old Israel and spiritually his incipient Bride, today, to reflect upon the dry bones scattered at their feet in the Valley of Jehoshaphat. That valley’s name is the same site named Armageddon, a name that strikes fear and mystery in the hearts of all Babylonian Christians. It is a place where all unbelievers are slaughtered because of Viles containing The Seven Plagues and The Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath, as seen in Rev 15 and 16. The last verse of Rev 16:16 is the only place in the Bible where that inscrutable and terrifying name, Armageddon, appears,

And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

The unnerving scriptural imagery of the result of the Vials containing the Seven Last Plagues and Seven Bowls of God’s Wrath is too chilling for the “fearful” to dwell upon.

1Jn 4:17  Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is [understanding all the mysteries of God], so are we in this world. 
1Jn 4:18  There is no fear in love [understanding Christ’s truth and living by it]; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

The Valley of Megiddo is a measly 380 square km that equally incomprehensibly contains the billions of humanities not found in the Book of Life in the First Resurrection. Consequently, it is relatively easy to imagine their blood running to the depth of a horse’s bridle. Historically, with the major battles fought in that valley, no wonder the soil is fertile today—it is highly symbolic of them being food to enrich us.

Num 14:9  Only rebel not ye against the LORD, neither fear ye the people of the land; for they are bread for us: their defence is departed from them, and the LORD is with us: fear them not.

Psa 106:24  Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word:

The Bride of Christ is losing her fear of Armageddon because she alone is given the understanding of the mysteries and is given to use the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven (Mat 16:19). Her “fear” is converted into the most profound honour and respect in walking in her Husband’s every commandment in honour and glory and worship for the headship in and of the Father. She, today, is experiencing the vials of God’s wrath in personalised plagues as she fills up behind the afflictions of Christ. Her startling realisation is that the Seven Last Plagues are for her alone. She, the Elect of God, is pouring out the seven last plagues upon herself, in the same way, the Elect “show [are showing] the things to the Elect“. As seen here in Rev 17:1,

AND there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

The Elect of God come out of the sea, the “many waters” of humanity represented as Babylon the Great, the Great Whore and mother of harlots. After the Elect shows these things to herself, the Body of Christ, this is what we all do:

Rev 19:10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy [Babylon, the Great Whore that we are becoming less, once didn’t have the testimony of Jesus and worshipped another Jesus].

Rev 22:6 And he said unto me, These sayings are faithful and true: and the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done.
Rev 22:7 Behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book.
Rev 22:8 And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which shewed me these things.
Rev 22:9 Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book [Rev 1:3]: worship God.

And so, instead of rolling our eyes at being told that we have been a whore represented as Tyre, Zidon, Egypt, Sodom and Old Jerusalem, our wide eyes eagerly see that these dry bones in the Valley of Jehoshaphat are ourselves dying (a process) to our sins at the hands of our brothers and sisters, the Elect of God.

Overview:

Joe 3:4  Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head; 
Joe 3:5  Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things: 
Joe 3:6  The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. 

Significations:

The key to this episode in the study of Joel, beginning in verse 3, is our Lord’s three opening questions,

Yea, and [1] what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? [2] will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily[3] will I return your recompence upon your own head

The two cities of Tyre and Sidon were delegated to the tribe of Asher to conquer when Israel settled in the promised land. The tribe of Asher, however, disobeyed God when they found Tyre and Sidon well “fortified” (Joshua 19:29) and submitted to their perceived greater strength than the Lord’s. Subsequently, Tyre and Sidon, both unconquered pagan cities, were thorns in the side of Israel who became intrigued by their gods:

Jdg 10:6  And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim, and Ashtaroth, and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon [Sidon = hunting 1. ancient Phoenician city, on Mediterranean coast north of Tyre], and the gods of Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines, and forsook the LORD, and served not him.

Since Israel didn’t dispatch Tyre, Zidon and the coasts of Palestine and entirely cast out all the giants of her inheritance as the Lord requested, he acidulously mocks them with that first question, “What have you to do with me?” ~ effectively saying that ‘you have humiliatingly rejected my kisses for you, my harlot wife, and demonstrated that you don’t care one jot for my word, so, what do I owe you? Since you are profoundly sure of your (self) righteousness, you must be confident in giving me a swift answer to null my ignorance of your Queen Vashti-like beauty and rulership, and what to me might that glorious benefit be?’ Well, and for the much later Bride of Christ’s glorious hindsight, Old Israel was replaced by her since the Bride was given to enthusiastically receive her Lord’s kisses of spiritual understanding, knowing that her enchantment of him would further unite her.

Job 38:1  Then the LORD answered Job [Israel – you and I] out of the whirlwind, and said,
Job 38:2  Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge
Job 38:3  Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me

Mat 11:20  Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: 
Mat 11:21  Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
Mat 11:22  But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. 
Mat 11:23  And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 
Mat 11:24  But I say unto you, That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.

Mat 10:14  And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
Mat 10:15  Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment, than for that city.

What the Lord is saying in Joel 3:4 is that had the people of pagan Tyre, Zidon, Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum been given the Lord’s commandments, their immense passion for seeking nation-building knowledge, wisdom and illusive moral standing was a greater passion than what Israel had for their Lord’s Commandments! Israel rejected her husband’s wisdom and laws that would ultimately lead to eternal life, the very thing the Sodomites and cities of the plain equally sort with like intensity! Hence, ‘It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city, Israel’.

Exo 32:9  And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people:
Exo 32:10  Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation.

Act 7:51  Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

A “recompense” H1576 means a ‘dealing’ or a ‘benefit’ to ‘requite God’s wrath. We, having insisted upon eating our own doctrinally kneaded bread, find more palatable than his “light bread” he now demands we give an acknowledgement of our sins, and his tone is one venting from eyes like flames of fire (Rev 19:11-12).

Subsequently, the answer to the Lord’s third question in Joel 3:4 is acidly rhetorical. “… will I return your recompense upon your own head?” ~ A resounding ‘YES’, he will return what Israel has sown to herself upon her own head! Because Israel didn’t route all the pagans out of her land, she is now reaping a harvest of pain and suffering that will ‘requite God’s wrath’ as it does with his chastisements upon our like disobedience for his goodness towards us and our subsequent acknowledgement and repentance!

Gal 6:7  Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Gal 6:8  For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting.

Israel, like the Athenians, Greeks and Sodomites, intrinsically lusts for God-like wisdom by their standards to toss intellectualised debate back and forth for self-elevation and status among their peers. People love to be the first to discover an outstanding new insight by which they can academically debate and win an argument against the nobility. It is precisely what Christianity does today with its 40,000-plus disputing doctrines and more ‘acidly’ pointing at the Bride herself for any lingering spiritual disjointedness; worse, that sniping at a fellow Saint should ensue.

Act 17:16-23  Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.
Act 17:17  Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
Act 17:18  Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, [colloquially speaking, people who love to grandstand ( G4770 – “a portico”) a debate and brawl a concept and be puffed up and bowed to as wise], encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
Act 17:19  And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is? 
Act 17:20  For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
Act 17:21  (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
Act 17:22  Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. 
Act 17:23  For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

Eph 2:18  For through him we both have access by one spirit unto the Father.

Joe 3:5  Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things: 
Joe 3:6  The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. 

A “Grecian” (H3125 1. Grecian, Ionian) is a person from Greece, a Greek and its associated Mediterranean Islands. Classically, they are known in the H1121 equivalence as “mire” and “wine” (from H3196) and representative of being a “grandson member of a group”, suggesting the intrinsic habit of sitting around being drunk in the mire of their academic doctrinal disputes and never coming to the truth of God! Melbourne, Australia, where I live, has up to 400,000 Australians with Greek ancestry. Thus, it has the largest Greek population outside of Greece, and I notice the Epicurian habit of “old” (“grandsons”) Greek men sitting around at shopping centres, drinking short black coffee deep in debate, much as I suspect they did for ‘eternity’ (… and ogling the women with equal Epicurian leers).

Thus, and as demonstrated in 2 Tim 3:7, the Grecians represent the world’s, Israel’s and particularly our former propensity for,

Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

1Co 1:20  Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 
1Co 1:21  For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
1Co 1:22  For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
1Co 1:23  But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 
1Co 1:24  But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
1Co 1:25  Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

Isa 56:9  All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest.
Isa 56:10  His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber. 
Isa 56:11  Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.
Isa 56:12  Come ye, say they, I will fetch wine, and we will fill ourselves with strong drink; and tomorrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.

Our traditional Babylonian Christian focus is to point at the evil of others and thus unconsciously cloud our understanding that the primary point of a matter should lie at our feet. Subsequently, the exploits of the men of Sodom are almost always overly represented as homosexual. However, that confusing act against the order of God’s headship has a more profound spiritual connection.

Gen 19:5  And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

For us, knowing that ‘first comes the natural (in this case ironically unnatural) and then the spiritual’, the Sodomite’s lust to “know” the Angels of the Lord tremendously amplified their Grecian/Epicurean-like enthusiasm to get first-hand knowledge from the very gods themselves! What an incredible opportunity! Hence, the Sodomites, sitting at the known world’s crossroads of commerce and Epicurean-like knowledge and wisdom, had an incredible thirst to “know” (H3045) the Angels in the natural academically, as a heterosexual man righteously ‘knows’ (H3045) his wife, as did Adam with Eve. While ‘knowing’ another man sexually is in accordance with the meaning of H3045, is an abomination to the Lord and ‘his Christs’; the primary point of “knowing” another person is to represent Christ’s Bride “knowing” Him spiritually.

In the opening verses of The Song of Solomon, the Shulamite, representing the Bride of Christ, utterly turns on its head the world’s insatiable worship of women, where she, the Bride, worships Christ, her husband. (That act of a wife in a physical marriage symbolically worshipping her husband in all that she does, rather than having her husband fawn on her every need, would solve almost all bitter marital disputes and 100% of accursed marital difficulties if both parties are Christs).

Son 1:2  Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
Son 1:3  Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins [Joints in the Bride of Christ] love thee.
Son 1:4  Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.

Of course, Lot did the degenerate act of presenting his daughters to the Sodomites. However, the Sodomites already knew every detail about a woman’s sensuality, effectively stating (and particularly to our former selves) that the world’s churches (“another Jesus” 2 Cor 11:4) bored them, whereas these new and exciting ideologies these ‘gods’ opportunistically dumped into their laps were too good to reject! Thus the Sodomite’s lecherous desires had to be satiated with this new philosophy, and our Lord designed their debauched ways to represent our lust for any new and more sensual doctrinal ideology that we likewise lustily have to “know!

Lev 18:22  Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.
Lev 18:23  Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion.
Lev 18:24  Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:
Lev 18:25  And the land [we are] is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.
Lev 18:26  Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you:
Lev 18:27  (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;)
Lev 18:28  That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.
Lev 18:29  For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from among their people.
Lev 18:30  Therefore shall ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves therein: I am the LORD your God.

Hence, and as seen in Joel 3:3, Israel sneered at her Lord’s word and sorted the more sensual Aholah and Aholibah-Epicurean lusts, thus disastrously casting lots for (gambling) the truth,

And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. 

Such was and is the world without Christ’s commandments. Abominable confusion results in the forms of “knowing” all and any sexual intimacy with any living man or beast of any interchangeable gender, Angels included, the very gods themselves having come to Sodom, delivering the imagined holy grail of knowledge and wisdom!

Since Israel, like Sodom, insisted upon “knowing’ every other ideology, especially ones of ‘unknown gods’, the Lord vexatiously demanded of Israel in Joel 3:4,

Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head [?];

Thus, the spiritual mirroring of “knowing” someone sexually is to be intimately acquainted with every detail of their mind and body, just as Solomon at Christ’s hand penned the creation of the Shulamite in “The Song of Solomon, which is Solomon’s”, meaning, Christ’s song of anticipation for the spiritual pattern of the heavenly, his Bride, “knowing” every detail about him. But, no, and by the act of “knowing”, mankind would rather worship women who broadly represent every other deviation from Christ’s truth by us falsely “knowing” them as we would righteously “know” one’s wife. How?

Eph 5:25  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
Eph 5:26  That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 
Eph 5:27  That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Eph 5:28  So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

Hence, the act of a physical husband ‘knowing‘ his wife, his OWN FLESH’s every jot and title detail, and she in equal enthusiasm his, in righteous spiritual inspection, she is worshipping Christ, her husband by that Shulamite-like eagerness and so, too is her carnal husband in order of headship. It all represents the Church, the wife worshipping her husband, Christ..

Eze 33:13 When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.

Pro 9:9  Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach [H3045 – “know”] a just man, and he will increase in learning

Ecc 8:16  When I applied mine heart to know [H3045] wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes:)

Mar 12:30  And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

Joe 3:5  Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things:

Since, formally, we have magically twisted our Lord’s silver and gold, representing his righteous word, hammered into an image to increase our physical and unrighteous spiritual wealth, how do we answer our Lord for the “recompense” he demands?

God owns all the silver and gold; they represent his righteousness.

Hag 2:8  The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the LORD of hosts. 
Hag 2:9  The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the LORD of hosts: and in this place will I give peace, saith the LORD of hosts.

Eze 7:19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold [Their false doctrines] shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity. 

Gentile Christian’s false doctrines representing their imagined silver and gold, which were our very same doctrines, are a stumbling block and an iniquity. In fact, anything different to God’s word is iniquity and a stumbling block since, at that point, it blocks the truth of correlating scriptures, and the entire ‘lump’ of the Bible becomes corrupty leavened (Gal 5:9. 1 Cor 5:6).

Eze 14:3 Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be enquired of at all by them? 

… is the same as the Lord in Joel 3:4 asking, “… what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine?”

An “idol in the heart” is a false doctrine, a stumbling block of iniquity, which the Lord will not tolerate. 

Isa 42:8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images [false doctrines].

God will not give his glory to a Gentile Christian who was all of us when we, the symbolic treacherous Judah, the priests of God, were in far worse error.

Mat 22:12  And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
Mat 22:13  Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Mat 22:14  For many are called, but few are chosen.

The Lord answers his own question, “… what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine?” in Joel 3:4 with Joel 3:6, he says,

The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border. 

The act of Israel selling her unconquered self in the form of Tyre and Zidon, who in the time of Joshua’s wars should have utterly destroyed those heathen nations, she has now sold her Lord’s righteousness for the fascinating academic philosophies of the Greeks! Such is Israel’s and our former hatred for Christ’s Commandments. And, now, today, approaching 2025, the Gentile Christian nations seem to be in the final stages of selling their imagined remaining spiritual sight of God’s word (Rom 11:25) to the very same people as did Israel, with the perceived Sodomite-like intelligence whose governance is fast enslaving the world! Subsequently, and today, the Christian world has sold all the remains of their alleged spiritual wealth to Tyre, increasing the wealth of modern greater Babylon, the world. It won’t be long before the Bible will be assigned to misinformation and disinformation so that all of Christ’s truth will be ‘removed far from our borders’.

Rom 11:25  For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
Rom 11:26  And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion [“a parched place” of God’s word] the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
Rom 11:27  For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
Rom 11:28  As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes.
Rom 11:29  For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
Rom 11:30  For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
Rom 11:31  Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. 
Rom 11:32  For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. 

Rev 6:5  And when he had opened the third seal, I heard the third beast say, Come and see. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand.
Rev 6:6  And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.
Rev 6:7  And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
Rev 6:8  And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

In these apparent ‘latter days’ before the outward return of Christ, and by all news accounts, personal experience and observations, it appears that our physical food will become scarce. Its spiritual meaning is that God’s word will be very difficult to acquire since the world’s hatred of Christ will make it an offence to speak his name without being hauled off to stand before judges and kings of authority. However, the Lord’s “little flock” retain the “oil and wine” of spiritual understanding hidden in their hearts where no man can rob, or moths devour.

Rev 2:9  I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. 
Rev 2:10  Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. 

Although inwardly, we are in and out of prison all the time in a struggle to keep Christ’s commandments, there is every likelihood that it will happen physically for some of the Elect to stand before a glowering magistrate as witnesses against this world and possibly be thrown in prison among the vilest of people.

Rom 7:23  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

Zec 9:11  As for thee also, by the blood of thy covenant I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water. 

And so, the narration of Israel in the Book of Joel, is mirroring us and our insatiable acts of seeking every spiritual Epicurean sensuality imaginable beyond the borders of our former coastline’s estate in Christ for the ‘water’ and ‘bread’ of another Jesus. And next week, Lord willing, we will see what Christ’s answer is to his questions, “… will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head [?]

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