Joel 1 & 2 | Awaken | Phil Hopper
Going Deeper Conversation
Read Joel 2:12-13
When you read this passage, do you get a sense of hope/fear/both? Explain.Pastor Phil Hopper’s message references Matthew 5:13 and how we as Christians are the “salt” of the earth. If seasonings such as salt bring out the best flavors, how has God “seasoned” you to be your best to bring Him glory? How can we help?
God wants to be our first love. What has God allowed to happen in your life to bring about a spiritual awakening? What do you need to give up to put Jesus first in your life? How can we help? Repent and Return
Teaching Notes
Joel 1:4-5, “What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; and what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten. Awake, you drunkards, and weep; and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth.”
Historically, God has brought cataclysm on nations when they need to spiritually awaken! Historically when His people needed to spiritually awaken, God uses natural cataclysm, famine, economic depression and even their enemies to bring about their destruction.
We must awaken because our nation is facing a new kind of famine – a moral and spiritual famine. While Joel’s nation was facing physical famine, we are in a moral and spiritual famine. It’s time for God’s people to awaken!
The Church must awaken because as the Church goes, so goes the nation! Jesus said that we are the “salt” of the earth and the “light” of the world! But the Church is no longer salty and it’s not shining!
We will live to see national REVIVAL or national RUIN! We must AWAKEN!
Prayer and repentance are the pathway to revival!
Joel 2:12-13, “Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm.
If we repent and return, God promises to revive us and awaken us!
Revelation 2:5, “Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works…”
Joel 2:28-29, 32, “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days…And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
In those days immediately preceding Christ’s second coming, there will be worldwide revival! Peter quoted from this very passage in Joel 2 on the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2. He was teaching that what was happening as God poured His Spirit out on the 120 giving birth to the Church was a partial fulfillment of Joel’s prophesy. But there is still a yet future and final fulfillment that will happen shortly before Christ returns!
Today God will bring revival and pour out His Spirit on anyone who will “call on the name of the Lord.”
Joel 2:32 “And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”