Joel 3:18-21 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk… And it shall come to pass in that day, etc. This passage begins with a splendid representation of the glorious prosperity which shall attend the people of God after the destruction of all their enemies. Whatever their application to the Jews at any period of their history, they certainly bear an application to that period foretold by prophets and sung by poets, - the millennial period. Giving it this application, observe - I. IT WILL BE AN ERA OF PLENTIFUL PROVISION. "And it shall come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim." Fertilizing streams will irrigate the land. The vineyards on the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the well-fed cattle shall yield abundance of milk. The idea is, in that age there will be a profusion of all that is necessary to supply the needs and gratify the desires of men. The time, I verily believe, will come when pauperism will be banished from the earth, when indigence, squalor, and want will be evils existing only in the history of the past. Even now it does not require the earth to he more fruitful than it is, to yield mankind ample supplies. What is wanted is men less avaricious, indolent, extravagant, intemperate, and wasteful. II. IT WILL BE AN ERA OF COMPLETE CONQUEST. "Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against the children of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land." Egypt and Edom, the old and inveterate enemies of the Jews, are here represented as crushed into utter desolation. Error and sin are the Egypt and Edom of the world. These will be crushed one day. The great moral Deliverer will bruise Satan under our feet, will put down all rule and authority, will make mankind more than conquerors. There is a period of moral conquest and moral kingship that will dawn upon souls before the history of the world is over. III. IT IS AN ERA OF ABIDING PROSPERITY. "Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation." So long as the earth endures the righteous shall continue. They will endure throughout all generations, and happiness will attend them. The kingdom of truth, purity, love, and peace, which Christ is now building up, and which one day he will make commensurate with the world, will continue from generation to generation; it will have no end. IV. IT IS AN ERA OF MORAL PURITY. "For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed." That is, I will radically cleanse them. Their very blood, which has been a current of moral pollution, I will make pure in every particle. I will cleanse, not merely their skin, or their external parts, but the whole current of their life. Such is the era which the passage anyhow suggests; such is the era that awaits the earth. Would that it had dawned! Haste, ye circling seasons, and bring it on - or rather haste, ye servants of Christ, to disseminate those principles of the gospel over the earth in whose mature development consists the blessed era! "The time shall come when every evil thing From being and remembrance both shall die; The world one solid temple of pure gold." (Festus.') D.T. Parallel Verses KJV: And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the LORD, and shall water the valley of Shittim. |
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