But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and
addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be
known to you, and give ear to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you
suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day; but this is what was
spoken by the prophet Joel: 'And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters
shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall
dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in those days I
will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in
the heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of
smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before
the day of the Lord comes, the great and manifest day. And it shall be that
whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'"
Let me begin with two questions for you
to answer in your own mind.
1. First,
what would you say if someone were to ask if you think we are living in the
last days?
2. Second,
if war broke out tomorrow in the Middle East with terrible bloodshed and
earthshaking ferocity, and began to draw the whole world into conflict, would
that be a sign that God's purpose for our day is not a great spiritual
awakening but only a bleak downward spiral of calamity and moral collapse till
the end?
Are
We Living in the Last Days?
Now let me answer the
first question by quoting several biblical passages. Hebrews 1:1–2,
"In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets;
but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son." 1 Peter 1:20,
"Christ was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made
manifest at the last of the times for your sake." 1 Corinthians 10:11,
"These things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for
our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come." In all these
texts the "last days" or the last times or end of the ages came when
Jesus came. The coming of the Messiah was the beginning of the end—the
beginning of the "last days."
This is what our text
says as well. In Acts 2:15–17
Peter says that the commotion caused by 120 people praising God (2:11) in many
different languages is not owing to drunkenness but to the fulfillment of
prophecy in Joel 2: "These men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is
only the third hour of the day; but this is what was spoken by the prophet
Joel: 'And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my
Spirit upon all flesh.'" Peter's answer to our first question would have
been, "Yes, I am now living in the last days." This was Paul's answer
and the answer of Hebrews and John's answer (1 John 2:18,
"Children it is the last hour"). And so it should be our answer too.
Yes, we are living in
the last days, because the last days began with the first coming of Jesus, and
will reach their climax at the second coming of Jesus. The "mystery of the
kingdom" (Mark 4:11) is that the end of this age came and the kingdom of
God arrived, but, to everyone's surprise, this age didn't completely end and
the kingdom didn't completely come. And so we live between the beginning of the
end of the age and the end of the end of the age. We live between the beginning
of the kingdom of God and the consummation of the kingdom.
In a sense the
question we have been trying to answer all year is, What is it like to live as
Christians in a time when the power of the kingdom has already arrived but not
in its fullness, and a time when the end of this fallen age is already over,
but not yet fully over? "The form of this world is passing away" (1 Corinthians 7:31;
cf. 2:6).
What
Should We Expect Before Jesus Returns?
So let's ask our second question: If
war broke out tomorrow in the Middle East with terrible bloodshed and
earthshaking ferocity, and began to draw the whole world into conflict, would
that be a sign that God's purpose for our day is not a great spiritual
awakening but only a bleak downward spiral of calamity and moral collapse till
the end? In other words, does the Bible teach that as the end of the last days
draws near, spiritual conditions will only get worse and worse?
2 Timothy 3:3 says,
"Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress.
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive,
disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman," etc. 2 Peter 3:3 says,
"Scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own
passions and saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming?'"
Jesus said in Luke 21:9–11,
"When you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified; for this must
first take place, but the end will not be at once . . . Nation will rise
against nation, and kingdom will rise against kingdom; there will be great
earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences; and there will be
terrors and great signs from heaven."
So there is no doubt that the end of
the end—the last of the last days—will be bleak in many ways—morally bleak,
socially bleak, with great upheavals in nature itself. But is that the whole
story? Is that all we can expect before Jesus comes?
Matthew
24:9–14
I don't think so. Let
me show you why, beginning with Matthew 24:9–14 and
then turning to our text in Acts 2. Jesus says,
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to
death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. And then many
will fall away, and betray one another, and hate one another. And many false
prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied,
most men's love will grow cold. But he who endures to the end will be saved.
And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, as
a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.
The Love of Many Will
Grow Cold, but Not All
Notice something remarkable here.
Because wickedness, or lawlessness, is multiplied, the love of many will grow
cold. But not everyone. In fact there is an implicit claim here that alongside
this coldness of love, there is another group of people whose passion for Jesus
is red hot and unshakeable. This is implicit in verse 14, "This gospel of
the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all
nations"—the very nations that, according to verse 9, will hate the
disciples. Who is going to preach this kingdom to every nation before the end?
Who is going to be committed enough and strong enough, in the face of violent
persecution, to finish the Great Commission?
You know the answer.
We have been talking about these people for weeks. They are described in Acts 1:5 and 1:8 and 2:17ff. First,
in 1:5, Jesus says, "You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
Then, in 1:8, he defines the aim of that baptism more fully: "You will
receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my
witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the
earth." Then, when Jesus baptizes them in the Holy Spirit, and they
receive that extraordinary power for worldwide witness, Peter says it is what
Joel had prophesied for the last days. Acts 2:17:
"In the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my
Spirit upon all flesh."
God's Purpose to
Empower His People in the Last Days
So the point is this: in the last
days—the days that began with the coming of Jesus—God's purpose is to empower
his people again and again with extraordinary outpourings of the Spirit until
the witness to his name has reached all the peoples—to the end of the earth.
Yes, the love of many will grow cold.
Yes, there will be apostasy on a large scale. Yes, people will simply forsake
the faith when the world turns up the heat. But in the midst of all that
unbelief and coldness and treachery, Jesus says that the gospel will be
preached through the whole world as a testimony to all the nations. In the face
of all that persecution and in the midst of all that deadness, the true church
of God is going to have extraordinary power, extraordinary zeal, extraordinary
passion and love for Jesus.
The end of the last days will not be
totally bleak and will not be totally glorious. In the midst of great stress
and global trauma and bloody persecution, the Holy Spirit is going to be poured
out again and again on the faithful, confessing church of Christ, and she will
burn with passion and shine with truth until every people and tribe and tongue
has seen the light of the gospel.
Joel's
Prophecy in Acts 2:17–21
Joel's prophecy, that
Peter quotes in Acts 2:17–21,
makes clear that the last days will be mixed days—days of powerful witness (vv.
17–18) and days of terrible calamity (vv. 19–20). When Joel looked into the
future, God didn't tell him how many years would separate the different parts
of the last days that he was describing. He saw the last days as all one piece.
Some of what he saw was nearer to the beginning of the last days, and some was
nearer to the end of the last days.
The Bright Part of
Joel's Prophecy
So when you read his prophecy, it has
two parts—a bright part and a dark part. The bright part is verses 17–18,
I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your
old men shall dream dreams; yea, and on my menservants and my maidservants in
those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
In other words Joel says that one
feature of the last days will be the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on people of
every kind—men and women, young and old, high and low. God's people will be
clothed with power; they will receive power. And the main effect of this power
seems to be bold, prophetic speech. Believers of all kinds are going to be so
gripped by the Spirit of God that they see the greatness of Jesus and the
purpose of Jesus with extraordinary clarity and speak it with extraordinary
boldness. That's the bright part of Joel's prophecy.
The Dark Part of
Joel's Prophecy
The dark part is in verses 19–20,
And I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the
earth beneath, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; and the sun shall be turned
into darkness and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the
great and manifest day.
In other words there will be natural
catastrophes; there will be war and bloodshed; there will be conflagration and
devastation.
The
Answer to the Second Question
So, what is the answer to our question?
If war broke out tomorrow in the Middle East with terrible bloodshed and
earthshaking ferocity, and began to draw the whole world into conflict, would
that be a sign that God's purpose for our day is not a great spiritual
awakening but only a bleak downward spiral of calamity and moral collapse till
the end?
No. On the contrary, there is a promise
that in the last days the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh—all the
nations will be reached. The true church of Christ will be awakened and revived
and sent with extraordinary passion and zeal and prophetic power, and—right in
the midst of terrorism and war and persecution and natural disasters—the
flaming end-time church of Christ will finish the Great Commission, and welcome
the King.
O, my dear Bethlehem friends, I want us
to be a part of that bright, bold, prophetic, Christ-exalting, risk-taking,
end-time band of disciples—taking the clear and glorious message of verse 21
everywhere, no matter what: "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall
be saved."
Comments
Post a Comment