Blow a trumpet in Zion And sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; Surely it is near, A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn is spread over the mountains, So there is a great and mighty people; There has never been anything like it, Nor will there be any again after it To the years of many generations. A fire consumes before them, And behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, But a desolate wilderness behind them, And nothing at all escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; And like war horses, so they run. With a noise as of chariots They leap on the tops of mountains, Like the crackling of a flame of fire consuming the stubble, Like a mighty people arranged for battle. Before them the peoples are in anguish; All faces turn pale. They run like mighty men; They climb the wall like soldiers; And they each march in line, Nor do they deviate from their paths. They do not crowd each other; They march every one in his path. When they burst through the defenses, They do not break ranks. They rush on the city, They run on the wall; They climb into the houses, They enter through the windows like a thief. Before them the earth quakes, The heavens tremble, The sun and the moon grow dark, And the stars lose their brightness. And the Lord utters His voice before His army; Surely His camp is very great, For strong is He who carries out His word. The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome, And who can endure it? “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “Return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping, and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments.” Now return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, And relenting of evil. Who knows whether He will not turn and relent, And leave a blessing behind Him, Even a grain offering and libation For the Lord your God? Blow a trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly. Joel 2:1–15.
The second chapter of Joel prophesies of the army of the Lord coming forth. The army spoken of is the Remnant of the Lord. “The Lord utters His voice before His army, and His camp is very great”—a word comes, directed by the Lord Himself, and makes havoc of Israel itself. Would God work against Himself in that manner? Yes, indeed! Judgment begins in that manner at every dispensational time.
It is hard for us to believe that God will raise up a people and give them a word that will shake churches, but what did He do in the New Testament? Read the book of Acts. God had people in those synagogues who had been reading His Word and were looking for the Lord to come, so He sent Paul to dispute with them for a few weeks—until some of them were so angry they tried to kill him. He tore up the whole religious system. That might sound like a terrible thing to do, but they were not ready to move on with God.
When God sees a people that has become stereotyped and dead, He sends His word, and it begins to shake them! He sent John the Baptist with a word that cut; it tore them to pieces. John called them a generation of vipers and said, “You boast Abraham as your father, but God can take this pile of rocks and make better seed of Abraham than you are!” (Luke 3:7–8) They had trusted so much in their racial purity as his descendants, yet Jesus informed them, “You are not of Abraham … you are of your father, the devil, and his works you will do” (John 8:39, 44). What was He trying to do? He was shaking them up. It was the time for them to walk on with God or they would be in that mob, crying, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”
The Lord is not going to permit this generation to be passive. People will rise up to persecute the Remnant or they will be plowed under until they start repenting and seeking God. No one will be indifferent to this Walk. The day is coming when we will want peace and quiet, but we will become a spectacle. The focus will be on us because of the very word that we are laboring now to print and to record. There will be concentrated, united action to try to stop this word. But the more they try to stop it, the more it will spread! It will be like trying to put out an oil fire! It will go over the country.
God will deal with Babylon! He is going to bring it down and loose His people, by the thousands and ten thousands, into a walk with the Lord. Let people accept it or let them reject it; still it is a word from God. It is a cross they will die on, or it will be a sword that will pierce their spirit and drive them to their knees. This word is subtle. It seems to be so gentle, so uplifting, but it does something—it reaches into the depths of hearts and creates a people who will fulfill God’s destiny in the end time, that Remnant who will do His will!
You may feel that you do not have any ministry. If you are in this Walk, that is a ministry in itself. In some other church you could be uninvolved—but not here! Many people slip in to church, sit toward the back, slip out after the benediction, and feel they have done their duty. You can’t do that here. You are involved. If you do not do anything else, you are in spiritual warfare; you are in the battle. Sometimes you would like to run from it and get out of the whole thing. That is natural, but it is by God’s divine favor and choice that you are in this Walk. You are in it because of the revelation to your own heart of the word of God.
Before we are finished, principalities and powers will come down, Babylon’s walls will be cracked and there will be an exodus of God’s people out of Babylon. To be a part of it, to pray and watch it happen, to believe God with a voice of faith and a heart of worship is worth everything in the world. It is important what you do! On this day of trumpets, if you can, prophesy; but if you can’t, then be a trumpet and worship God. Whatever you can do, do! Open your heart, because this is the day of victory. It is the day of liberty—and it is a day of judgment.
Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, Assemble the elders, Gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room And the bride out of her bridal chamber. (What do you think of that? Interrupt the honeymoon! It is time to fast and pray!) Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers, Weep between the porch and the altar, And let them say, “Spare Thy people, O Lord, And do not make Thine inheritance a reproach, A byword among the nations. Why should they among the people say, ‘Where is their God?’ ”
Then the Lord will be zealous for His land And will have pity on His people. And the Lord will answer and say to His people, “Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine, and oil, And you will be satisfied in full with them; and I will never again make you a reproach among the nations. And I will remove the northern army (army is not in the original) far from you, And I will drive it into a parched and desolate land, and its vanguard into the eastern sea, and its rear guard into the western sea. And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up, For it has done great things.” Joel 2:16–20.
The army mentioned in verse 20 is not the same army mentioned earlier in this second chapter of Joel. He does not say anything about God’s army coming from the north. The word “army” was not used in the original text with “northern” in verse 20. Joel does not mean northern army, he means the whole northern part of that hemisphere—and that is Soviet Russia.
It was never planned for Russia to be a world-wide empire—not according to the prophecies and the images of Daniel. Not only will the church of Jesus Christ be dealt with, but this army which does not break rank and knows how to move when the Lord utters His voice before it, will be the only answer to the communist combination of nations. It will be the prophesying that will bring them down. We are set for the rise and fall of churches and for the rise and fall of nations—the rise and fall of systems. We will stand and proclaim it, and the word of the Lord will bring them down!
Do not fear, O land, rejoice and be glad, For the Lord has done great things. Do not fear, beasts of the field, For the pastures of the wilderness have turned green, For the tree has borne its fruit, The fig tree and the vine have yielded in full. So rejoice, O sons of Zion, And be glad in the Lord your God; For He has given you the early rain for your vindication. And He has poured down for you the rain, The early and the latter rain as before. And the threshing floors will be full of grain, And the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil. “Then I will make up to you for the years That the swarming locust has eaten, The creeping locust, the stripping locusts, and the gnawing locusts, My great army which I sent among you. And you shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied, And praise the name of the Lord your God, Who has dealt wonderously with you: Then My people will never be put to shame. Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, And that I am the Lord your God And there is no other; And My people will never be put to shame.
And it will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. And even on the male and female servants I pour out My Spirit in those days. And I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire, And columns of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be delivered; For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem There will be those who escape, As the Lord had said, Even among the survivors (or remnant) whom the Lord calls. Joel 2:21–32.
The world will not be without a great revival, but it will be different from any revival seen yet. It will be a moving in after God has humbled people by His mighty judgments. The word of God is living and powerful—and the Remnant of the Lord will not go out to bless the Christian church in a meek-and-mild manner. The word we have has a disturbing quality to it. It can be desolate. Ministers are wise when they will not open their churches to our young brothers to preach, for they will make havoc with their church!
This moving of God’s Spirit and this end-time message cannot be brought into denominational churches because it will break them up. But that is what God raised us up to do. God is going to have a moving of His Spirit. The greatest thing that could ever happen in many churches is for someone to give a word from God that tears it up and brings the people to decide whether they will walk with the Lord or not. The day of the Lord is not dawning a happy, nice sweet day. It is the day of darkness and gloom, of clouds and thick darkness.
As the dawn is spread over the mountain, so there is a great and mighty people; there has never been anything like it… They do not break ranks; they climb the walls; they burst through defenses. Before them The sun and the moon grow dark, (those are tribulation signs) And the stars lose their brightness. And the Lord utters His voice before His army. This is difficult to understand, but God is raising a people to be the occasion and the instrument of tribulation and judgment upon the earth. That desolation and judgment will begin in the house of the Lord. God will not try to bring cooperation from the churches, because they would only be cooperating with the thing that would disrupt Babylon’s system within their walls. Joel says that everything looks just fine before them, but behind them it’s like a desolate wilderness. Nothing escapes them. And God begins to speak to His people, “Blow the trumpet in Zion. I want you to repent; I want all of you to start fasting and seeking the Lord.”
When he says, “Blow the trumpet in Zion,” what happens? It turns loose this moving of God. We’ll glorify the Lord and speak the word that the Lord gives us—and the old is incompatible with the new. It’s a new day, a new word, a new message; and as we go along, don’t think for an instant that we shall be well-thought of, or well-spoken of. The living word is coming in the end time as a sword to divide asunder soul and spirit. It will destroy the religiousity of men who have paraded before God—and bring them to their knees.