'The blow torch is on its way'

You got to love this verse in Joel 1: “That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.”

In another words, there’s complete, total devastation overtaking the land. The passage goes on: “Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.
[6] For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.
[7] He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white.”

Jordan explains, “If you want to kill a fig tree just strip the bark off of it. You go on down through the chapter and it’s talking about the captivity.

“He’s saying, ‘You’ve seen all these judgments take place—the palmerworm, the locust, the canker worm—Look around you what’s happened!’

“Leviticus 26, that fourth judgment--the pestilence that that fourth cycle of chastisement’s going to bring on Israel--it’s there! You’ve already experienced it! Now the fifth is coming. And Joel focuses on what that fifth course coming--Israel’s going to be destroyed but it won’t be left forever.

“Joel 3:9-10 says, 9] Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up:
[10] Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong.

“That quote’s on the wall across the street from the United Nations. It comes out of Isaiah 2 when He describes the kingdom. Where did they get the swords and the spears to start with? Before they got swords and spears to beat into plowshares and pruninghooks, they had taken their plowshares and beaten them into swords! They did that in order to face Armageddon.

“He goes on down to describe the kingdom and the blessing that are going to come. Verse 21 says, ‘For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the LORD dwelleth in Zion.’ Again, they start with the beginning of the fourth course over here and they end with the end of it. And it’s that phase one and phase five of that thing stuck together in these Minor Prophets. They do that consistently.

*****

“Amos is in the northern kingdom like Hosea, but he’s also ministering during the time that Isaiah and Hosea are ministering. So these guys are contemporaries and again, what that’s telling you is, what they’re focusing on is the things that are going to cause Israel to go into captivity, the fact that Israel has a remedy for it, and the fact God’s going to avenge the Gentile nations (that’s what Joel is about—He’s going to take the yoke of the Gentile nations off of them) and they have the opportunity to have Him work on their behalf.

“Amos 1:2 says, ‘And he said, The LORD will roar from Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the habitations of the shepherds shall mourn, and the top of Carmel shall wither.’ He told you that back in Joel 3:16.

“That passage is talking about the Second Advent when He shakes the heavens—when, as Isaiah says, ‘The earth reels to and fro in the heavens like a drunken man.’ It’s when Jesus talks about peoples’ ‘heart failing them for fear and for the roaring of the oceans.’ How do you make the oceans roar like that? Well, you take a glass of water and you jiggle it around . . . it’s when He shakes the earth.

*****

“Today they talk about global warming covering up islands and so forth. That’s a hoax, of course. The planet can take care of itself . . . The thing is if you get man out of there, you know what happens? The planet grows back and goes back to like it wanted to be to start with before man got in there.

“Amos verse 2: ‘The Lord will roar from Zion.’ Jeremiah 25 uses that terminology to describe the coming of Nebuchadnezzar. Joel just used it to describe the coming of Christ at the end. That’s why ‘the day of the Lord’ begins with Nebuchadnezzar (the beginning of the captivity) but isn’t executed in its fullness until the end under the Antichrist. Then Christ comes back and destroys him.

“The first four courses have come, now the fifth one has come. It says, ‘Prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.’ Every preacher I ever met preached at least one or two evangelistic meetings off of that. What that’s talking about is the fifth course is coming: ‘You didn’t pay attention. I’m coming and when I come, I’m coming to carry you away into captivity.’

*****

“When you get to the vision of Obadiah, you notice it’s just one chapter, 21 verses and 669 words. It’s the second shortest book in the Bible; only the Book of John is shorter. There it is stuck up in the prophets and you say, ‘What in the world is Obadiah for?’

“Obadiah, Jonah, Nahum are three Minor Prophets who deal with specific Gentile nations. This whole prophecy is a prophecy about Edom and God’s going to deal with the transgression of Edom against His people. The descendants of Esau became the Edomites and they fought against the Israelites and there was bad blood between them all along. So there’s going to be a special dealing by God against the Edomites.

“Psalm 83 is about the Edomites wanting to ‘make them no more a nation in the earth.’ Nineveh (from the Book of Jonah) was another source of persecution which in the last days will be part of the headquarters of the Antichrist. In fact, he’ll have a special retreat there in Nineveh during the 70^th week of Daniel.

“The Book of Nahum is about the wrath upon the territory and the people associated with the Antichrist. The Ninevites, the captivity, the Assyrians and so forth, but now you’re looking not at Israel and just the captivity; you look at Nahum 1:5 says, ‘The mountains quake at him, and the hills melt, and the earth is burned at his presence, yea, the world, and all that dwell therein.’

“People read that and say, ‘Well, that didn’t happen back in the captivity. Therefore it just must be figurative.’ But what that is is he says this about what’s over here; you know when you begin to study the prophets and the Second Advent you find out that’s literally going to happen and it’s going to happen in the territory where these people are.

“Now, I’ve talked to you about the fact there are openings in that part of the world over there that go down into the center of the earth into the underworld and there are pathways, hallways, shafts that go down into the earth that have locks and doors and keys and bars on them where these spirit creatures are put down in prison and held in the bottomless pit and Tartarus and all those kind of things.

“Those things are real. When Christ comes back, He’s literally going to melt out the earth. Just burn it out and they’ll be a big hole that goes down into there. And Nahum’s talking about that stuff becoming a reality in front of them.

*****

“After Nahum comes Habakkuk.  Habakkuk is the only one of the prophets that you got absolutely no idea who he is. He doesn’t tell you. He doesn’t tell you WHEN he is, doesn’t tell you what he’s about. But the burden which Habakkuk the prophet did see: ‘Oh how long shall I cry?’ He sees the fifth course, he sees the enemy coming and he cries out, ‘Lord, they’re wicked! We’re your people! Why you doin’ this?!’

“And this is the great passage starting in verse 13: ‘Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?’

“It’s saying, ‘Well, you’re nailing us, but don’t you see what they are?!’ And God answers Habakkuk by telling him, ‘You know what, I’m gonna fix the whole thing.’

“Chapter 3 of Habakkuk is one of the great passages in the Scripture on the route, the flight path of the Second Advent. The same path that was taken by the Assyrian when he came into Israel. The same path that was taken in the captivity over here in Judah is going to be the path the Antichrist follows when he comes down against Israel in the last days, and the way the Lord defends against it will be exactly the same.

*****

“Zephaniah is the last one of the pre-exile prophets. ‘I will utterly consume all from off the land.’ Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Nahum—those books are literally, absolute, utter, destructive calamity and judgment. Notice how short they are? What’s happened is you’ve come to the place where he’s not telling them, ‘Here’s why it’s coming and you can get right!’

“Now He’s just saying, ‘Back up, boys, the blow torch is on its way!’ "