Joel Chapter 1 – part 6 of 10

Joel paints a sorry picture of drunkards aroused from sleep to find the old wine gone and the new wine cut off from their mouths. But we should note that these people are called “ye drinkers of wine.” They were the people of the living God. Moses was not only a law-giver, Moses was a prophet. Joshua could command the sun to stand still, and what Gentile every equalled that Spirit-filled warrior? Elijah could command the heavens to send neither dew nor rain – can we do that? Scripture only records the greats of God – how many lesser men were there to heal the sick, raise the dead, or fight the battles of the Lord? Even in our Lord’s day their children could cast out demons, something we believe that only the greats of our day can do. Simeon in the temple could live on and on till the Lamb of God was laid in his arms, and Simeon could prophesy to Mary, for he was led by the Spirit into the temple, as we know. The high priest in Jesus’ time is on record as having prophesied of the death of Christ – did Isaiah do more? They were “drinkers of wine,” you see. Prophets were as common among them as prophets are uncommon among us today. Any child could cast out a demon. Their very herb-gardens were tithed for the Lord. Our ‘greats’ were their fishermen. They were the true olive-tree, needing no grafting because they were rooted in the inheritance, their tap-root in the river of living water of the Spirit of God Himself, their branches still bearing fruit when Jesus was born among them. They rejected Christ on the grounds of blasphemy, their misguided zeal for Jehovah allowing no alternative. And they rejected Paul’s gospel on the grounds that it ill accorded with their holiest traditions. Pentecost shows us other “drinkers of wine,” new wine, the onlookers testifying to their drunkenness. They were filled with the Spirit, we are told. Nay, they were all filled with the Spirit. Those of us who have never drunk deeply know little of the sheer intoxication of it, the exhilaration, the happy state of Spirit-drunkenness. Those who have so drunk know that the cares of life lose their meaning, the realities dim as new vistas open up, the pains depart in the euphoria of bliss. They never desire to be ’sober’ again. They return again and again for the new wine, and live half their lives in another – and better – world.