The Gospel is the Antidote to Critical Race Theory

This section of Joel contains one of the most familiar, one of the most important predictions or prophecies about what would happen when the Messiah was revealed, and when he completed his mission on earth.

You remember the fulfillment of this prophecy occupies almost the entire second chapter of Acts, so it’s worth taking a few minutes today to look at Joel’s prophecy and how it was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost.

Joel says this is a prophecy that will be fulfilled after the prophecies he is giving right now about Israel and Babylon and Assyria and Greece. 2:18] It shall come to pass afterward, after the prophecies he is giving right now.

Joel delivered his prophecy sometime between 870 BC and 865 BC, during the time of a spiritual awakening that happened during the days of Joash, one of the few good kings in Judah’s history. Now the day of Pentecost didn’t happen until 33 AD, so we’re looking at a prophecy that was fulfilled about 903 years after it was given.

The point here is that when God makes a plan, it might take a lot longer to come to fruition than we hope, but he will get to it, and he will keep his promises. We get impatient and want God to fulfill every one of his promises right now. But God says, look, I have my own sense of timing about these things, and I’m not going to be rushed. I will keep every one of my promises to you when the time is right, not a minute before, and not a minute after. You will see that, if you just hang in there with me, when the time comes, my sense of timing is perfect, and you will be glad I waited. You’ll see that if I had done it on your timetable, it wouldn’t have worked. So this teaches us to be patient and wait for God’s timing.

You might not see this next subject the same way as I do. People have very passionate views about spiritual gifts and the word of the Spirit, and I want you to know that what I’m doing here is sharing with you the way I look at things, the way I see things, the way I interpret certain passages in the Bible. I wouldn’t share them with you unless I believed in what I was saying.

But I also want you to know that you are perfectly free to disagree with me, and that won’t bother me the least little bit. I have zero interest in getting into an argument with anyone over these things. If what I share helps you a little that’s great. If you think I’m off in some lunar orbit, you’re free to reject anything I say.

Joel says when this prophecy is fulfilled God 2:28] will pour out His Spirit on all flesh, that is on everybody, on all people. Prior to Pentecost God was pretty selective about who was indwelt by his Spirit. Kings were anointed with the Holy Spirit and prophets were anointed, but it wasn’t until Pentecost that the Spirit was available to anybody and everybody.

And when he came, when he arrived, according to Acts 2, he came in a hurry and his arrival was noisy. Remember there were about 120 followers of Christ in the upstairs room at John Mark’s house. There was a sound of a rushing wind, and the Holy Spirit manifested himself in the form of individual flames of fire that came to rest individually on everybody in the room. Everybody in the room saw that the Spirit, for the first time ever, was available to take up residence in every single person who had placed their faith in Christ.

And today, I believe, the gift of the Spirit is given to everyone the moment they believe in Christ. It doesn’t require a second work. Remember when Peter was preaching in Cornelius’ house, the Spirit didn’t even wait for the altar call, didn’t even wait for everybody to get baptized. The Spirit filled Cornelius’ house, and every brand new believer in the room started speaking in foreign languages, human languages, languages spoken somewhere on earth, that they had never learned.

That was the mark, that was the sign, that the Spirit had descended, when everybody suddenly started speaking fluently in a language they had never learned. That’s why, in my view, the gift of languages is not some kind of unintelligible heavenly language. It is a perfectly intelligible language spoken somewhere on earth. The word that’s translated “tongues” is just the ordinary Greek word for “languages.”

They even spoke, not just in their own native language, no matter where they were from, but also in their own regional dialect. That’s what blew them away. They said, we hear them speaking Acts 2:6] in our native language. The word there is dialectos, dialect. Acts 2:11] We hear them telling in our own languages the mighty works of God.

So, to these folks who were from more advanced cultures, this was a total mind-bender, hearing someone uneducated suddenly speaking fluently in Latin, or Greek, or Swahili. You knew these people had never been to college, they had never been to a Berlitz language school, and had never taken one of their online courses. So this was obviously a sign or an indication of something spectacularly supernatural. It was something that had the fingerprints of God all over it, something that could only be explained by the miraculous work of God. In my view, the gift of tongues, which is what most people call it, is really the gift of languages, which is what the Greek word means.

Now that doesn’t mean every time time he comes he makes as much noise as he did on Pentecost. Today it seems much more frequent that the Spirit comes quietly when he comes to dwell in believers. But in my view, He can make just as much noise as he wants. I’m going to be the last person on earth to tell God how He has to give His Spirit to someone. That’s up to Him. As far as I’m concerned, He can make as much noise as He wants to, and I’m not going to tell Him how to do it.

Now notice that Joel points out that the Spirit fell on everybody regardless of their gender. It fell on men and women alike. It fell on everyone regardless of their age. It fell on young people, on millennials, Acts 2:17] your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and it fell on senior citizens too, Acts 2:17] your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. It fell on people regardless of social class or social status. Joel said the Spirit would be poured on out, Joel 2:29] even on male and female servants.

Do you know what this tells us? It tells us that the gospel is the antidote to CRT, to Critical Race Theory. The gospel is the only thing that brings people together regardless of their race, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their nationality, regardless of their gender, regardless of their age. It’s like Paul says in Galatians 3:28] There is neither Jew nor Greek – that’s race – neither slave nor free, that’s class, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

What we need to do is get rid of every textbook on CRT, and get a Bible in the hands of students in America, just like we used to. That’s the path to unity rather than division, and there is no other solution.