The Gospel Makes the World Wet: Yahweh Dwells in Zion Text: Joel 3:18-21
Introduction: The End of the Story
We live in an age of manufactured despair. Our cultural elites, our talking heads, our academics, they are all peddlers of pessimism. They want you to believe that history is a meaningless lurch from one crisis to another, a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing. They want you to think that the best we can hope for is to manage our decline, to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic with a certain amount of winsome irony. And far too many Christians have bought this bill of goods. They have adopted an eschatology of defeat, a theology of retreat. They look at the world and see only the encroaching darkness, and so they huddle together, waiting for the Rapture bus to airlift them out of the mess.
But the prophets of God did not speak this way. The prophets, inspired by the Holy Spirit, saw the end from the beginning. And the end of the story, the grand finale that God is writing, is not one of defeat, but of overwhelming, globe-covering, culture-transforming victory. The prophet Joel, after describing the terrors of locust plagues and invading armies, after speaking of the great and awesome Day of the Lord, does not end with a whimper. He ends with a roar. He ends with a vision of a world made new, a world saturated with the blessings of God, a world where God dwells with His people in triumph.
This passage at the end of Joel is not a description of some ethereal, disembodied heaven that we float away to after the world burns up. It is a portrait of the earth, this earth, renewed and revitalized by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a picture of the Kingdom of God advancing in history, just as the Lord taught us to pray: "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." This is postmillennial prophecy. It is a vision of what happens when the knowledge of the glory of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea. This is not about escaping the world; it is about God remaking the world through the power of His Son and by His Spirit.
What Joel describes here is the ultimate consequence of the gospel. When God pours out His Spirit, as He promised in Joel 2 and as Peter announced at Pentecost, the result is not just individual salvation, but cosmic restoration. The world gets wet. The gospel is not a fire escape; it is a flood.
The Text
And it will be in that day, That the mountains will drip with sweet wine, And the hills will flow with milk, And all the brooks of Judah will flow with water; And a spring will go out from the house of Yahweh To water the valley of Shittim. Egypt will become a desolation, And Edom will become a desolate wilderness, Because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, In whose land they have shed innocent blood. But Judah will be inhabited forever And Jerusalem from generation to generation. And I will avenge their blood which I have not avenged, Indeed, Yahweh dwells in Zion.
(Joel 3:18-21 LSB)
Superabundant Life (v. 18)
We begin with the glorious picture of supernatural abundance in verse 18.
"And it will be in that day, That the mountains will drip with sweet wine, And the hills will flow with milk, And all the brooks of Judah will flow with water; And a spring will go out from the house of Yahweh To water the valley of Shittim." (Joel 3:18)
Joel says this will happen "in that day." What day? This is the day of the new covenant, the age of the Messiah, the era inaugurated by the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. This is the gospel age. And what characterizes this age? It is an age of ludicrous, over-the-top, glorious fertility. This is not the language of scarcity; it is the language of divine largesse.
The mountains dripping with sweet wine and the hills flowing with milk is poetic language, to be sure, but it is poetry about something real. It speaks of a world where the curse is being rolled back. Where there was once toil and thorns, there is now effortless abundance. This is the effect of the gospel on creation itself. When men are reconciled to God, the ground they walk on begins to be reconciled as well. This is a picture of Christian civilization, where the blessings of God overflow into every area of life, culture, agriculture, and economics.
But the source of this blessing is not found in better farming techniques. The source is explicitly theological. "A spring will go out from the house of Yahweh." The house of Yahweh, the Temple, is the place where God meets with man. In the new covenant, we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), and the church is the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15). This is a direct parallel to Ezekiel's vision where a river flows from the threshold of the temple, getting deeper and wider as it goes, bringing life wherever it flows (Ezekiel 47). Jesus identifies this river of life for us. He stood up and cried out, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, 'Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' Now this he said about the Spirit" (John 7:37-39).
This spring is the Holy Spirit, flowing from the glorified Christ, through His people, the church, and out into the world. It waters the "valley of Shittim," which was a dry, arid place on the edge of the promised land, a place associated with Israel's idolatry and sin (Numbers 25). The gospel river flows to the driest, most barren, most sinful places and makes them green. It brings life from death. This is the mission of the church. We are not a reservoir, hoarding the water of life for ourselves. We are a river, and our job is to make the world wet with the knowledge of God.
The Tale of Two Cities (v. 19-20)
Next, Joel presents a stark contrast between the fate of God's enemies and the future of His people.
"Egypt will become a desolation, And Edom will become a desolate wilderness, Because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, In whose land they have shed innocent blood. But Judah will be inhabited forever And Jerusalem from generation to generation." (Joel 3:19-20 LSB)
History is not neutral. God is a judge, and He governs the nations. Throughout the Old Testament, Egypt represents the arrogant, pagan world power that enslaves God's people. Edom, descended from Esau, represents the false brother, the one with a perpetual, bitter hatred for the people of the covenant. These are not just two ancient near-eastern tribes; they are archetypes of all nations and peoples who set themselves against Christ and His Church.
Their end is desolation. Why? "Because of the violence done to the sons of Judah, in whose land they have shed innocent blood." God takes the persecution of His people personally. When Saul was persecuting the church, Jesus knocked him flat on the road to Damascus and asked, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?" (Acts 9:4). To attack the church is to attack Christ. And in the great cosmic courtroom of history, God promises that He will render a just verdict. The empires built on violence, slavery, and the blood of the saints will all come to nothing. They will become desolate wildernesses, historical footnotes, cautionary tales.
But in contrast, "Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem from generation to generation." Judah and Jerusalem here are not references to a geopolitical strip of land in the Middle East. In the new covenant, Judah is the people of the Messiah, who is the Lion of the tribe of Judah. Jerusalem is the heavenly Jerusalem, the mother of us all, the Church of the living God (Gal. 4:26; Heb. 12:22). While the persecuting empires rise and fall, the Church of Jesus Christ endures. The gates of Hell cannot prevail against it. The promise is one of permanence, growth, and generational faithfulness. We are not building something that is going to be wiped out. We are citizens of a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
The Divine Resident (v. 21)
The prophecy concludes with the ultimate reason for this great reversal, the foundation of all this hope.
"And I will avenge their blood which I have not avenged, Indeed, Yahweh dwells in Zion." (Joel 3:21 LSB)
God here makes a solemn promise: "I will avenge their blood." The King James says, "I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed." Both ideas are present. God will finally and fully vindicate His people. The blood of the martyrs, from Abel to the last saint who dies for the faith, cries out from the ground. God hears that cry. History is not a series of unfortunate events; it is a moral drama, and it is moving toward a final judgment where all accounts will be settled. This is not a call for personal vengeance. This is a promise that God, the just judge, will set all things right. He will pardon the bloodguilt of His repentant people, and He will execute justice on those who shed the blood of the innocent.
And what is the ultimate ground of this security, this abundance, this final victory? It is the last, glorious phrase of the book: "Indeed, Yahweh dwells in Zion."
This is the heart of everything. The great hope of the Bible is not that we go to dwell with God, but that God has come to dwell with us. This is the meaning of the incarnation: Emmanuel, God with us. This is the meaning of Pentecost: the Spirit poured out to dwell in us. This is the meaning of the Church: the place where God has put His name. Zion is the city of God, the assembly of the saints. And the central, stupendous fact of our age is that Yahweh, the covenant God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the great I AM, has taken up residence in our midst.
Because God dwells in Zion, the church is invincible. Because God dwells in Zion, the river of life flows out from her. Because God dwells in Zion, her enemies will be brought to nothing. Because God dwells in Zion, her future is one of endless, generational glory. The presence of God is the engine of history.
Conclusion: Drink Up
So what does this mean for us, here and now? It means we must utterly repudiate the pinched, fearful, pessimistic eschatology that has hamstrung the church for over a century. We are not losers. We are not on the losing side of history. We are the body of a victorious, ascended, and reigning King. Jesus Christ is Lord now. He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet (1 Cor. 15:25).
The vision Joel gives us is the blueprint for that victory. It is happening now. The river is flowing. Every time the gospel is preached and a sinner is converted, that river gets a little wider. Every time a Christian family raises their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord, that river gets a little deeper. Every time Christians build schools, businesses, and institutions that honor Christ, the valley of Shittim gets a little greener.
The mountains are dripping with sweet wine. This is the joy of salvation, the gladness of sins forgiven. The hills are flowing with milk. This is the pure spiritual nourishment of the Word of God. The brooks are flowing with water. This is the life of the Spirit. Our job is to drink up, and then to be conduits of that life to a dry and thirsty world.
Do not be intimidated by the Edoms and Egypts of our day. They make a lot of noise. They seem powerful. But their foundations are sand, and their end is desolation. They are fighting against the one who dwells in Zion, and that is a fight they cannot possibly win. Our task is to be faithful, to be joyful, to be about the business of our King, knowing that the future belongs to Him. The world will be catechized, one way or another. Either it will learn righteousness from the church, or it will learn judgment from the hand of God. Our calling is to be part of the great river of life, to see the deserts bloom, and to live as though we believe the final words of this prophet: Yahweh dwells in Zion.