Joel 1:2, 3

1. Paraphrase verse 2; notice that the “anything like” in the NASB is supplied. The Hebrew reads, “Has this been in your days, or (and) even in days of your fathers?”
2. What are they to tell about, and to whom?

Joel 1:4-12

1. Make a brief list of the results referred to in verses 8-12 resulting from the activities described in verses 4-7.

Joel 1:13-14

1. How had God’s people responded to the events of 1:4-7 and their results described in verses 8-12? See verse 13c.
2. Were God’s leaders commanded in verses 13a, 13b, and 14 to respond to the events of 1:4-12, or to the acts of the people in verse 13c?
3. Was the great tragedy in this chapter described in verses 4-12 and 16-20, or in verse 13c?

Joel 1:15

1. Are the events of verses 4-12 the description of the day of the Lord?
2. Are the events of verses 4-12 the cause of the day of the Lord?
3. Are the responses of the people recorded in 1:13c to the events of 1:4-12, in the context of Joel 1, the cause of the day of the Lord warning found in 1:15?

Joel 1:16-20

1. What causes joy and gladness to be cut off from the house of God in verse 16 b – the events of verse 13c or the events of 1:4-12 and 16-20?
2. What do the beasts of 1:20 have in common with Joel? See verse 19a.

Joel 1:1-20

1. Summarize briefly the story of chapter 1.
2. What is the relationship between the events described in chapter one and the day of the Lord?
3. What is the message of chapter 1?

 

 

 

 

Lesson 1

Joel – The Historical Message

Assignment Answers

Chapter 1

Joel 1:1

1. The source of Joel’s book is the word of the Lord that came to him.
2. The book appears to this writer to be one united message flowing from the “word of the Lord” recorded in verse 1.

Joel 1:2, 3

1. Verse 2 can be paraphrased by the American idiom, “you’ve never heard of anything like this before.”
2. They are to tell about the message which follows, which came to Joel in the word of the Lord of verse 1; they are to tell it to everyone and from generation to generation.

Joel 1:4-12

1. The people are to mourn.
   The house of the Lord is short of offerings, and the priests mourn.
   The fields are ruined.
   The fruit trees don’t produce.
   The people cease to be happy.

Joel 1:13-14

1. The people responded to their loss of “stuff” by withholding from God their offerings of service.
2. The intercession the priests were commanded to make, and the calling of the people together to seek God, was not because of their material loss but because of their withholding of their service to God as their response to their material losses.
3. Verse 13c.

Joel 1:15

1. No.
2. No.
3. Yes.

Joel 1:16-20

1. The events of 1:13c.
2. In their distress they longed for the Lord.

Joel 1:1-20

1. The Lord’s people, when great economic and agricultural loses came to them, turned from serving the Lord. Their spiritual leaders were commanded to intercede for them and then call them together to cry to the Lord, for the day of the Lord was very near.
2. Here the day of the Lord is distinguished from the rest of the events described in chapter one, for the day of the Lord is still future (1:15).
3. The message of these verses may be that when great tribulations come on God’s people the day of His coming in judgment is very near. Here trials and difficulties are God’s agents for communication and correction.

Note the following:

“In the days of Zephaniah, when the children of Israel had brought upon themselves humiliation and distress by their departure from God in disregarding his law, they sometimes felt that God had forgotten them. The Lord showed his rebellious people that they were dependent upon him for prosperity and safety, yet his eye was upon them.” Ellen G. White in Present Truth and Review and Herald Articles, vol. 1, p. 405 (March 18, 1884).

 

Lesson 1

Joel – The Spirit of Prophecy Application

Section I

Assignment

List the eschatological events Mrs. White presents as being the subject or subjects of Joel’s chapter 1 in the material quoted below. Note: Listing of subjects dealt with in material not listed in this booklet, but relevant to the Biblical material being studied, is proper and encouraged!

 

Section II

Spirit of Prophecy Quotations

Introduction

We have just looked at the historical setting of the message of Joel chapter 1, and we are now able to observe that no application of the prophetic message is presented. Therefore, we are confronted with the fascinated question, “What function is the message of Joel 1 to perform in the history of God’s people?”

To find an answer to this question we will turn our study of Joel chapter 1 from a study of its historical message to a study of the Spirit of Prophecy applications of Joel’s chapter 1 material. However, certain thoughts may be helpful if they are borne in mind regarding the kind of transposition we are doing here.

As R. V. G. Tasker reminds us in his little book The Old Testament in the New Testament, it is often difficult to tell from a prophecy itself exactly how it will be fulfilled. Often a Biblical prophecy would receive a partial fulfillment in the immediate future – some times a future so close the prophet himself saw it, but even in such cases involving a primary application of a particular prophecy, history later revealed a fuller message to also be included.

This means to us that it is almost impossible to tell exactly how any prophecy will be ultimately fulfilled until the final fulfillment comes. Ellen White has noted regarding some of the messages in Daniel and Revelation that some of the predictions will only be fully understood after they are fulfilled.

We believe this to be true of the Biblical prophecies in general, including the messages of Joel which we are studying. But in the case of Joel’s materials we have what might be called an “interim help”, a clue to Joel’s messages that comes between the time of the giving of Joel’s book and the time of that book’s final fulfillment: Peter’s statement in Acts 2, and the prophetic applications of Joel we find in Ellen White’s materials.

This ‘interim help’ is not only of value to an academic struggling to unravel the message and function of Joel, but with very little superficial reading is found to be of great interest to all people because of its relevance as a guide to future events, and because of the exciting instructional revelations contained therein for those who live when the events of Joel cease to be prophecy and become reality – a transition which may occur in our times – and if so, hopefully will also occur in our lives.

We will turn now to a survey of the various messages coming to us by means of Joel’s prophecies and terminology and their exciting amplifications found in scripture in Acts 2, and in the Spirit of Prophecy.

Our methodology for this portion of our study will be to list texts from the Biblical material and then quote without commenting from Mrs. White. The quotations will not be exhaustive, but will rather vary in length according to what we feel will accurately portray to the reader the general significance of the concept being studied, as Mrs. White sets it forth, and according to the space limitations of this study.

 

Section II

Spirit of Prophecy Quotations

Joel 1:15-18, 12

“The present is a time of overwhelming interest to all living. Rulers and statesmen, men who occupy positions of trust and authority, thinking men and women of all classes have their attention fixed upon the events taking place about us. They are watching the strained, restless relations that exist among the nations. They observe the intensity that is taking possession of every earthly element, and they recognize that something great and decisive is about to take place. . . .

“Angels are now restraining the winds of strife, that they may not blow until the world shall be warned of its coming doom; but a storm is gathering, ready to burst upon the earth; and when God shall bid His angels loose the winds, there will be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture.

“The Bible, and the Bible only, gives a correct view of these things. Here are revealed the great, final scenes in the history of our world, . . .

“Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. . . .” (Joel 1:15-18, 12 is quoted) Education, pp. 179, 180.

Joel 1:10-12, 17-20

“When Christ ceases His intercession in the sanctuary, the unmingled wrath threatened against those who worship the beast and his image and receive this mark. . . will be poured out. The plagues upon Egypt when God was about to deliver Israel were similar in character to those more terrible and extensive judgments which are to fall upon the world just before the final deliverance of God’s people. . . .

“In the plague that follows, power is given to the sun ‘to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat.’ (Rev. 16, verses 8, 9). The prophets thus describe the condition of the earth at this fearful time: ‘The land mourneth; . . . because the harvest of the field is perished. . . All the trees of the field are withered; because joy is withered away from the sons of men.’ ‘The seed is rotten under their clods, the garners are laid desolate. . . How do the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed, because they have no pasture. . . . The rivers of water are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.’ . . Joel 1:10-12, 17-20; . . .” The Great Controversy, pp. 627, 628.

 

Section III

(List the eschatological subjects with which Mrs. White surrounds her quotations from Joel.)

Assignment Answers

Joel 1:10-12, 17-20

The Great Controversy,, pp. 627, 628.

1. The close of probation
2. The plagues

Joel 1:15-18, 12

Prophets and Kings, pp. 537, 538 (Ed. p. 180)

“Here are revealed the great final scenes in the history of our world.”

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