JOEL 1 AND 2 (NOTES OF A READING)
JOEL 1 AND [p. 415] 2 (NOTES OF A READING)
Joel 1:1-4; Joel 1:9,10; Joel 2:12-14; Joel 2:25 - 32
CAC Great principles are often developed in Scripture for the instruction of the people of God, and they are to be handed down, “Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation”, and they are particularly valuable in times of famine. It is pretty much the condition of christendom today; the oblation is cut off. “The oblation and the drink-offering are cut off from the house of Jehovah”.
Rem Joel was written at the time of the defection of Manasseh. There are many things today to distress. We see famine on all hands — great lack of what is spiritual.
Rem There is to be a line of faithful men carried on.
CAC That is just what is developed here. You find that persons you meet have not much sense of what it is to be in Christ Jesus. The christian profession is withered up. It is partly the judgment of God, because it has departed from Paul; the enemy has made inroads, and God has purposed he should. “The priests, Jehovah’s ministers, mourn. The field is laid waste, the land mourneth”.
Rem And the husbandmen too are addressed.
CAC Everybody is to come into these exercises. The oblation and the drink-offering being cut off is the worst of all. What about Christ having come in for the pleasure of God, where does that come in?
Ques Could you bring the Lord’s supper into it?
CAC I think there is a certain hint of it. God has restored the ministry of the Person of Christ, that new kind of humanity that required Him to come here to inaugurate it. The mass think everything is right; that is not exercise. What [p. 416] Joel has in view is the residue. Peter quotes Joel to bring out the present character of God’s working. Ye men of Judaea and the rest, he says (Acts 2: 14). It is the residue — that is what God is after. God is securing a residue now and the oblation and drink offering will be found there. So he says, “Turn unto Jehovah your God ... . Who knoweth? He might return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him, an oblation and a drink-offering for Jehovah your God” (chapter 2: 13,14).
Ques Would you say a word on the drink-offering?
CAC It was peculiar in this respect, that it was the only one of the offerings brought into the sanctuary. It was poured out in the sanctuary, so the cups and goblets of the drink-offering were identified with the offering in the sanctuary. The oblation was outside. It speaks of spiritual joy in spite of famine conditions. The public condition is that the vine is withered. If the conditions of 2 Timothy 2 are obeyed, God will draw near and leave behind Him an oblation and a drink-offering. I think God looks for us to feel these things. We shall hardly know much of sanctuary service, unless we know something of the conditions outside.
Before the day of Jehovah comes — which is imminent and will bring in unsparing judgment, which is the prospect before Christendom — something is secured in God’s grace in the character of a remnant. God would make His people supremely happy, so that He would restore the years that the locust hath eaten. He has given back to those that sought Him earnestly the ministry that was departed from when the church broke away from what was of God. It finds out real affection; that is, our hearts cherish the Person of Christ in all that He is for God’s delight, and we, as linked up with Him, become the new oblation — for that is the assembly. There should be something about us attractive that is not to be found elsewhere; that is, the cherishing of Christ as the Man of God’s delight. You value a bit of Christ anywhere, and that brings you to real church affections. It is found in Philadelphia, “Thou ... hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name”. It was holding on to what is so precious in Christ — “my word” and “my name”.
At the beginning of our dispensation, holy conditions were established before ever the Spirit came. All that has come in in Christ is intended to form us and not to be merely objective. How we appreciate Christ is the way we come out in His character. I cannot pretend to any more appreciation than that. I think God has taught us to shrink from what is outwardly great, and to appreciate all that is of value to Him. The great miss is the oblation and the drink-offering. The mark that He has come in is that we are furnished with them.
Rem In Malachi the sons of Levi were purified in order to offer the pure oblation.
CAC Yes, I think the present condition of Christendom is judicial, because it has turned away from what was committed to it. All is purposed to be done before the millennial position-it is before the day of Jehovah. God secures this residue, and the oblation and drink-offering, and the Spirit is poured out.
Rem The millennium will be a very great day.
CAC There will be no body of the ascended Man on the earth in the millennium, it belongs to the mystery hidden in God, which belongs to the present time, which is the greatest of all. The millennium will be in public display, and is spoken of by the prophets. Think of the assembly in God’s sight, as set up in the Man of His good pleasure, apart from death, apart from sin, apart from the world, and apart from failure, perfect. Doleful Christians are giving the lie to everything that God has bestowed upon them in Christ. Peter speaks of exulting with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Think of glorified joy! I feel I know little about it, but I should like to know something of it. We want to get rid of the shams and shadows, these are the realities. Nothing is real except what God has established in Christ. We want everything that is not Christ in us to disappear, do we not? and wish we had more practical power for it. So that there is a condition ready for the Spirit. It is poured out upon all flesh ([p. 418] not only for leading brothers), so that everyone participates in it. “Upon the bondmen and upon the handmaids”, it says; that is, those of least account. All participate in it.
After reading Hosea I felt we wanted something on the positive line. There we had the amazing character of the love of God that cannot be turned aside. In spite of the departure and unfaithfulness of the people it is unchangeable. Joel is more the positive side and what can be enjoyed. Hosea shows the thought of relationship; Joel takes you behind that to be in the joy that is in those relationships. There is an enjoyment that goes along with these things that makes them substantial. The Spirit is poured out; it is as if God would not leave us without the power for the enjoyment of all He proposes to give. The Lord’s great service here was to prepare a suitable vessel for the Spirit, and it was the prepared vessel on whom the Spirit was poured out. There is nothing we need to pray about more than the universal character of what we have entered into. So the speaking in tongues joins on with the pouring out of the Spirit; it showed God was moving on universal lines. So also we see in Corinthians. ‘Tongues’ today contradict the divine idea of tongues altogether.