Today I want to speak to you for just a few moments, I want to try to be brief, because we have gone long this morning, but we want to speak to you for a few moments from Joel chapter 2. Joel chapter 2 Now, you'll sit there This isn't Matthew, this ain't Mark, Luke or John This ain't Genesis, Exodus Leviticus or Numbers This ain't Revelation This ain't Daniel No, this is Joel Now, hopefully you'll be able to find Joel If you can't find Joel Go to the beginning of the book And you'll find all the listings And you'll be able to find it that way But we're going to look at Joel chapter 2 starting in verse 21. We're going to try to do this in a brief way, but I want to share with you something today. And that is simply this. Satan has come to destroy. That has been his goal. He comes to be the destroyer. The Bible itself says he has come to steal, kill, and destroy. And through this whole pandemic, That is what he has been trying to do to the church of the living God. He's been trying to steal, kill, and destroy the church. But I am here to say that while we may come out of this maybe not the same that we were, we are going to come out of this better. The church is going to be stronger. The church is going to be better because God promised it. Why do I say God promised it? We're going to find it in Joel chapter 2 and verse 21. It says these words. I love this. Fear not. Church, that is our main point. Fear not. Don't fear what is upon us. Don't fear all the evil that is being put upon us. Don't fear. Realize God is near. He's here for us. I love this. Fear not, O man. Be glad and rejoice. I love that. For the Lord will do what? Great things. Hallelujah. God is about to do great things. He's about to do something spectacular. He's about to do something so amazing. He's going to do great things if we will put our trust in Him. But that's the major point. We've got to put our trust in Him. We've got to put our trust in Him. If we put our trust in God, we will never, never, never, never be let down. Because God always shows up. Always shows up. I love that. He will do great things. Verse 22 says, Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wild, of the wilderness, do spring. These are going to bring back life. Hallelujah. See, COVID has destroyed life. It has destroyed churches. It has destroyed families. It has destroyed things. But God is saying, if you put your trust in me, I'm about to bring back life. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And for the tree bears her fruit. And the fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. God's about to bring forth strength. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Verse 23 says, Be glad then, ye children of Zion. The term children of Zion literally meant Israel, but you have to understand that when Jesus came into the world and died on a cross, children of Zion now is all believers. It infiltrates everybody. It's anybody that believes in the Messiah, the shed blood of Jesus. We are the children of Zion. Hallelujah. I love that. And rejoice in the Lord your God. That's something we're missing in the church right now. We don't rejoice in the Lord. The Bible says rejoice in the Lord and again I say rejoice because that what we need to do We need to rejoice in the good things of God God is doing amazing things We seen miracles in our church We heard about miracles in other churches We have seen the amazing things that God is doing. And what do we do? Do we rejoice or do we just go, oh, oh, that's nice. We need to start rejoicing. We need to start praising the Lord. We need to start saying hallelujah. Thank you, Father. Clapping and giving praise to God. Because His blessings mean that we should rejoice in Him. He's worthy. He's so worthy of praise. Why do we keep our silence? We need to learn to rejoice in the Lord. I love that. I love that. He says, rejoice in the Lord. For he has given you the former rain moderately. Okay, this is about to make somebody run this morning. Hallelujah. Because I want to share something with you with this. Look at what it says here. For he has given the former rain moderately. In other words, the blessings of God, he's poured out a little bit on you. But what does he say? He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, the latter rain in the first month. In other words, he's going to pour it all out on you now. He's about to open up the floodgates. He's about to pour down on you a blessing so rich you're not able to contain it. He's about to pour so much down upon you that you're going to be about to be saying, Lord, hold off a little bit. I can't take too much more blessing. I don't know if we can actually ever get to that point, but that's about what it's saying. Hallelujah. I'm about to open the floodgates of heaven and pour down upon you blessing. You're about to see the blessing of God. It is going to be so much that you're going to be saying, okay, Lord, pour off just a little bit. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. This is beautiful. Are you ready for the blessing of God to flow? Are you ready to feel the floodgates open and the blessings begin to rain down upon you? Do you want to feel that today? Somebody say amen if you want me to. Oh, hallelujah, hallelujah. I love this. He says in verse 24, For the floors shall be full of wheat. The blessing is going to pour out. All that the enemy has taken away is about to be restored. Hallelujah, hallelujah. And the past will overflow with wine and oil. Now, God is about to pour in the blessing I love it What does it say in verse 25? Read it with me, it's so unbelievable It says, I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten And the kangaroo worm And the caterpillar And the palm of worm My great army Which I send among you The interesting thing is all of the evil has eaten away all of the blessing of the people of God? During all these difficult times, has the enemy eaten away the blessings in your life? Have you felt like, oh, I just don't know if I can handle too much more. Oh, I've got this going on, and this, and this, and this, and this. And I just don't know if I can take much more. God is about to restore that what was taken away. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I love what it says here. Verse 26. And ye shall eat in plenty and be what? Satisfied. This is gorgeous. This is beautiful. This is blessing. This is promise, people. And if God promised it, you can bank on it. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I love it When you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God who has dealt wonderfully or wondrously with you And then what does he say And my people shall never be what Ashamed This is a twofold thing The term ashamed here means two things It means number one, we should not be ashamed to share it with the world. But it also means number two, that when we share it with the world, we will not be put to shame because the proof will be in the pudding. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. See, that's the point. We so often keep our silence because we're fearful that somehow someone will look and say, Well, you say you're blessed, but I don't see the results of it. God is saying, you share it with somebody and you're not going to be put to shame because I'm going to prove it to the world. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. This is beautiful. I love this. Verse 27 says, and you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel or in this day and age, all God's believers. Hallelujah. He is in the midst of us. He is in the midst of us. Do you believe he is in the midst of you, in the midst of his people? Do you believe that today? Say amen if you believe it. Oh, I tell you. I tell you. He's in the midst of us. He's right here. He's right here. That beautiful song, He is here. Hallelujah. He is here. Bless His name. He is here. Holy, holy. I will bless His name again. See, that's the point. He deserves the praise. Because God is about to do something. God is about to restore. That is the key to today's message. Restore. I like doing the word of the day on my show Right on the radio And that's the word of the day today Restore God is about to restore to you What COVID and the evil of this world Has taken away from you He's about to restore it to you He's about to bring you back Where you were But even more so Because look at what happened to Job You want proof of this Look at Job Job had the blessings of God The pouring down of the rain of blessings was upon Job's life The enemy came in and kicked the legs out from underneath Job He took everything he owned He took all of his family And he took his wealth And put him up on the ash pile Sitting there taking a piece of broken pottery And scraping his boils You can't get much more lower than that Job was at the lowest of the lows And what happened? Because Job did not charge God foolishly You read it for yourself Job in all of this Never sinned with his lips Never charged God foolishly He said, you know what? The Lord gives and the Lord takes away Blessed be the name of the Lord How many of us in this day and age if we found ourselves completely wiped out, sitting on an ass pile, scraping our boils, we'll sit there and say that. Be honest. Most of us probably would not say, oh, the Lord gave, the Lord take us away, and blessed be the name of the Lord. We probably wouldn't do that. But Job did. Job did not charge God foolishly. And then what happens to Job when all the testing and trials end? What does it say about Job? The latter end, the latter rain, the latter blessings of Job poured out upon him was better than what he had before. Somebody give God praise in his house today. He is about to give you more than what you had before. Wow, hallelujah. Oh, he's about to give us more. He's about to restore that which was taken away and give you even more. Hallelujah. I tell you, I feel like praising the Lord in his house this morning. I tell you, that's the point. God's about to restore you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I love this. He says and you shall know that I am in the midst of you of Israel and in the midst of my people Why That I am the Lord your God and none else Hallelujah Hallelujah I am none else All these other gods of this world that we put up on pedestals, they ain't none like God. They can use the term God, but There is only one God, and that is the God Yahweh, Jehovah, Jehovah Jareh. That is the Lord God. There is only one. There is none other. There is but one, and that is the one that is going to restore. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I love this. Why? He says, and my people shall never be ashamed. my people shall never be ashamed God has allowed the things to happen God has stepped back he's allowed the locust he's allowed the cager worm he's allowed the caterpillar and the palmer worm and all the different things to come in to test the church why? to raise up ones that will be Job-like people. Because this has been a difficult time and there may be some more difficult times ahead. We don't know how long Job suffered. We don't know. It could have been four or five days. It could have been four or five years. We don't know how long Job suffered. But we know this, that the latter end of Job was better than the beginning. And God is going to bring down the latter rain of blessings upon his people and restore that which we have lost. If we would just put our trust in him. We don't know how long it's going to take, but we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God never, never, never, never fails. And that's the point. We just got to put our trust in him. We've seen so much, so much going on. I'm not trying to put my mom up here, but I want to share something about my mom. My mom struggled with her blood pressure for so many years. It was her heart. And we prayed over her. We pleaded with God over her. We said, please God, do something. Please God, do something. Her blood pressure was like 180s and 190s. And nobody could help her. And nobody could do anything. And we kept praying and kept pleading. God, please do something. God, please do something. God, please do something. and it seemed like it took 10 years but it seemed like it took 10 years but God restored to her that which she lost and this is the point that God is going to restore to us that which we lost through this whole thing God is going to restore to us a blessing God is going to restore to us our souls on fire if we will but just believe That's the point Restoration Are you ready to be restored? Are you ready to be blessed? Are you ready to see the blessings of God Pour down upon you? If you're ready for it, believe it, receive it Don't wait for it Say God, I want it I want to see it Bring it now, bring it soon Father God Sit on that spot and believe that God Is going to restore you God will restore you He will bring you up. He will restore you to blessings beyond measure if we but believe. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. What a blessing it is today. What a blessing it is today. Thank you.
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