Joel 3:1-21 The Valley of Judgement
This chapter is about that final day, the judgment day of the Lord, that all people are going to face. It is coming:
“I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance . . .” Joel 3:2
This is not just a theoretical doctrine, it is a certainty, and is therefore meant to make a radical difference to the way we live.
The chapter naturally divides into two halves. Verses 1 to 12 describe the future judgement of the nations whilst the second part (v. 13-21) is about the salvation God’s people will experience. The two are always linked in Scripture, people are either on the Lord’s side or they are opposed to him. We are either wheat or tares, sheep or goats, in the light or in the dark. In the Old Testament the fate of the nations is dependant on their attitude to God’s chosen people. In the same way Jesus described how the sheep and goats are distinguished by the way that they care for their brothers and sisters in need, for those who share the same inheritance (Matthew 25:31-46). This is supported by what Jesus said earlier:
“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.” Matthew 10:40-42
The Lord has always closely associated himself with his own people.
God’s Judgement of the Nations v. 1-12
This section is a sandwich in which verses 1-3 and 9-12 describe God’s final judgement against those peoples who oppose him. This judgment will take place in ‘the valley of Jehoshaphat’. In between, at the centre of the sandwich, is a specific condemnation of the Philistines in Tyre and Sidon.
Joel seems to be using a play on words to emphasise the climax of what he is saying. ‘Jehoshaphat’ is Hebrew for ‘the Lord judges’. ‘Judgment’ and ‘the valley of the Lord’s judgment’ are placed together twice:
“. . . and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial . .” Joel 1:3
“Let the nations be roused; let them advance into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, for there I will sit to judge all the nations . . .’ Joel 3:12
It is rather tortuous to try and link this with the valley of Beracah (blessing) where King Jehoshaphat miraculously defeated the massed armies of Ammon and Moab (2 Chronicles 20:22-26). In this valley of Jehoshaphat the Lord decides on the eternal fate of the nations, this is why it is also called ‘the valley of decision’
"Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.” Joel 3:14
The charges against the nations are clear:
“There I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land. They cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes; they sold girls for wine to drink.” Joel 2:2
“You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, that you might send them far from their homeland.” Joel 2:6
The doctrines of scattering and gathering keep recurring in Scripture. Scattering is a sign of God’s judgment and gathering is a sign of his rescuing or blessing. Thus Adam and his family were expelled from Eden as a punishment for disobeying the Lord. At Babel (Genesis 11) people made a tower, or ziggurat, to make a name for themselves and they were punished by being scattered and speaking different languages. In contrast, in Acts 2 the Lord gathers together people from many nations; they are united by the preaching about Jesus the Son of God. This Bible overview theme has been well described by Christopher Ash in his book ‘Remaking a Broken World’.
It is an awful thing to work against God’s purposes yet these nations have ‘scattered my people’ and ‘divided up my land’. This land was meant to be a place of safety for ever, a place of purity and one of heavenly rest. Furthermore they have trafficked people, made money from this and dehumanised them. People trafficking is still widespread. It has been said that one person is trafficked across a country border in the world every minute. Yet here it was worse – these were God’s chosen people who had been trafficked.
The people of Tyre and Sidon were especially guilty and are picked out as being particularly guilty:
“Now what have you against me, Tyre and Sidon and all you regions of Philistia? Are you repaying me for something I have done? If you are paying me back, I will swiftly and speedily return on your own heads what you have done. For you took my silver and my gold and carried off my finest treasures to your temples. You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks, that you might send them far from their homeland.” Joel 3:4-6
The Lord takes all that the nations have done against him and his people very seriously indeed. He sees this as being a personal rejection of the one true God who created the world. Jesus similarly aligned himself with his people:
“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40
By opposing God’s people and God’s standards the people were opposing him. These verses are meant to shock us, God always sees sin as a personal offence against him:
“They cast lots for my people . . .” Joel 3:3
“For you took my silver and my gold and carried off my finest treasures to your temples. You sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks . . .” Joel 3:5-6
God’s judgment v. 4-15
The Lord’s verdict is retribution for the way the world has treated him:
“If you are paying me back, I will swiftly and speedily return on your own heads what you have done.” Joel 3:4b
“See, I am going to rouse them out of the places to which you sold them, and I will return on your own heads what you have done.” Joel 3:7
The punishment fits the crime. In Ezekiel 18 the Jews in exile in Babylon had complained that they were being punished for the crimes of their ancestors but the Lord replied that his punishment always fits the crime. They too were sinners:
“The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them. But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die.” Ezekiel 18:20-21
There is an instinct in children that life should be fair! ‘Its not fair’ is on nearly every child’s lips. Whenever people say ‘It’s not fair’, we are thinking that unfairness is not right, we are longing for the justice that God promises. In heaven there is an abundance of praise because God is fair. Fairness will be re-established – it is in his nature. In the book of Revelation the martyrs in heaven, those ‘who have been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained’ call out’:
“How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood.” Revelation 6:10
The judgment in the Valley of Jehoshaphat is fair. God is our judge so everything we do matters greatly. This is what Joel 3 is reminding us, God will treat everyone fairly -‘Quid pro quo’.
We know this judgment is coming because:
“The LORD has spoken.” Joel 3:8
The power of the word of God must never be underestimated. He created the universe and everything in it by his word. His word teaches that we will all face him in judgment. Joel now pictures the nations being summoned to rise against God – what a ludicrous challenge! All people from the rich leaders to the common farmers are to prepare for this battle – how little do they realise how hopeless their challenge to God will be.
“Proclaim this among the nations: Prepare for war! Rouse the warriors! Let all the fighting men draw near and attack. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, “I am strong!” Come quickly, all you nations from every side, and assemble there.” Joel 3:9-11
This Armageddon will divide people into just two sides. The farmers and even the weaklings, the nurds, will all be involved. We are used to the opposite vision when, in heaven, it will be the other way round. There will be no weapons there. Micah repeats what Isaiah 2:4 says:
“He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.” Micah 4:3
These verses describe a future time of peace under God’s reign, where instruments of war are transformed into tools for farming and prosperity. Before the reign of God in heaven, people will remain violently opposed to his rule. They will all appear at the place when God will judge them, the Valley of Jehoshaphat. God is about to announce his decision and it will be a terrifying judgment:
“Swing the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, trample the grapes, for the winepress is full and the vats overflow - so great is their wickedness!” Joel 2:13
This image of God’s opponents being cut down and squashed like grapes is horrendous. It is taken up in the last book of the Bible:
“Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, “Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.” So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested. Revelation 14:15
All will be gathered into the winepress of God’s wrath. This teaching is so strong. This is a terrifying, disgusting, image. It is a fate we must avoid. Joel puts it this way:
“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will be darkened, and the stars no longer shine. The Lord will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the heavens will tremble.” Joel 3:14-15
The fearful picture is one of the whole cosmos shaking. Again in Revelation we read of this terrifying scene:
“’Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains’. Revelation 6:15
This verse describes a cataclysmic judgment that causes people to try and pathetically hide from God’s judgment in caves and among rocks. Joel has described the plague of locusts as being devastating but he is saying that God’s judgment will be unimaginably worse. Hell really will be awful.
It was estimated that some 26 billion people watched the last World Cup soccer final. This cataclysmic judgment will involve many more. There are now approximately 70 billion people living on earth, then add to this the numbers living in previous generations and this is the picture Joel is giving us. Such an army has no chance when the Lord God comes to the valley of decision.
Surely we have been repeatedly warned about this judgment to motivate us to live now in the light of it. If the mountains and rocks can’t keep us safe, where can we turn? This is how Joel finishes – there is a sure and certain hope available.
God’s solution - heaven
The wonderful news is that a rescue is available. This is the ‘gospel’ or ‘good news’
“But the Lord will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel. “Then you will know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her. In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house and will water the valley of acacias.” Joel 3:16-18
Israel represents all God’s chosen people, those who live for him in obedience to his wishes. They have discovered that the only safe place on the day of God’s wrath is in God himself - running from him is hopeless. People must be told that running to the rocks or mountains will be fatal, only in God himself is there salvation. On the day when ‘the Lord will roar’, the only people who will be secure are those who have come back to the new life that the creator has prepared for his people. God has promised that the people who make him their refuge, those he has saved, will then be secure and receive real prosperity.
The mixed metaphor of having thirst satisfied, mountains dripping with new wine, and hills flowing with milk, ravines with water and a fountain flowing from the Lord’s house all point to an abundance of life. This picture will be especially relevant to those living in arid lands. The water flows from the Lord’s house and significantly it doesn’t just flow to his people but also from us. The House of the Lord is made up of his people. A similar picture is given right at the beginning of the Bible where a river flowed from the Garden of Eden to water the whole world.
Joel wants us to imagine God’s sustenance flowing out from both the Lord and his people to bring the water of life that satisfies. Heaven will have more than enough to satisfy everyone there. It is a picture of prosperity, ample enough and yet still overflowing – bliss. There will be complete satisfaction there, the beauty of the valley of acacia flowers will make the memory of the Valley of Jehoshaphat disappear. There will be no sadness, that is God’s promise, he will wipe away all our tears:
“He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:4
“He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 25:8
These passages describe the eternal comfort and restoration that God will bring in His kingdom, where suffering, death, and sorrow will be no more.
God’s warning
In Joel’s time God’s people were oppressed not only by plagues of locusts but by surrounding nations that hated them. These nations are described as being the enemies of God, yet as his enemies their fate is certain:
“But Egypt will be desolate, Edom a desert waste, because of violence done to the people of Judah, in whose land they shed innocent blood. Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem through all generations. Shall I leave their innocent blood unavenged? No, I will not. The Lord dwells in Zion!” Joel 3:19-21
The people of Tyre, Sidon and Philistia, the Egyptians, and the Edomites all characterise the opponents of God and his people. They were the oppressors and bullies, they carried God’s people into slavery but it is the future that matters and theirs will be without God! Desolation will be their lot. They will get what they deserve whereas God’s people will have security for ever. This is the promise of God who lives with his people, ‘the Lord dwells in Zion.”
For Christians who feel insecure in this world for whatever reason, whether family, financial, health or other problems, this is an essential lesson to understand. Security is ours in God and his home. He has promised us this. No-one there will say ‘It’s not fair’. We will be there with our Lord and Saviour who will satisfy our every need.
Why has God arranged it to be like this? Is it easy to miss the point of verse 17:
“Then you will know that I, the Lord your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her.” Joel 3:17
All of our existence is for God. Life is for his sake. Everyone must come to realise that we are either on the side of God and his Son or we oppose him. When natural disasters strike or we face real hardship God is telling us to look ahead to that day. Then, as Joel has already taught us:
“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.” Joel 2:32
Peter quotes this in his Pentecost sermon
“And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Acts 2:21
Similarly Paul wants everyone to know:
“For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Romans 10:13
This is the message of the whole Bible. All of us must have a change in mind, we must repent, and like the Prodigal son, eat humble pie and return to the security of our heavenly Father’s home. The Lord himself gives us hope, it is up to us to turn and accept him. He has promised:
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
BVP
