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Joel 3:10 - Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into
spears.
Isaiah 2:4 - They will beat their swords into plowshares and their
spears into pruning hooks.
Micah 4:3 - They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears
into pruning hooks.
Read Joel 3:117, Isaiah 2:14, Micah 4:18 and
Matthew 25:3146.
Has the verse above from the book of Joel been misquoted? At first glance you might
think so because the verses from the prophets Isaiah and Micah are more familiar to us.
But Joel 3:10 has not been misquoted. The prophet Joel, in contrast to Isaiah and Micah,
predicted that the tools and implements of peacetime would be converted into weapons of
war. Plowshares and pruning hooks, symbols of tranquility, would be exchanged for swords
and spears, symbols of war.
The fact that Joel's prophecy is the reverse of the Isaiah and Micah
prophecies does not mean there is a contradiction in the Bible or that one prophet
misquoted another prophet. The truth is that Joel is looking ahead to a different phase of
the last days. Joel foresees a time of great warfare among the nations in the future.
Isaiah and Micah foresee a time of great peace among the nations in the future. Plowshares
and pruning hooks will be hammered into swords and spears, but swords and spears will also
be hammered into plowshares and pruning hooks. Both prophecies are true and they are not
in conflict. Both prophecies will be fulfilled at the proper time in line with God's
purpose for the nations.
When will these prophecies of warfare and peace be fulfilled? It is
clear that the prophecy of peace among the nations can not and will not be brought to
fulfillment by mere man. Isaiah and Micah emphatically indicate that it is only when the
Lord Himself returns to "judge between the nations" and "settle disputes
for many peoples" that worldwide peace will come about. Although the United Nations
has the prophecy of Isaiah and Micah inscribed in stone near the entrance to its
headquarters in New York City, this human organization will never be able to bring about
world peace. While we support every good intention and effort that is made by the
United Nations or any other organization for peace among the nations, we must recognize
that international peace will only come to this earth when Christ returns.
World peace has certainly not been attained as yet. It is true that individuals
from any nation around the world who respond to the gospel of Jesus Christ and accept Him
as their personal Savior immediately receive the peace of God and the peace of mind
and soul that only Christ can give. But there is a tremendous difference between the
international peace among the nations predicted by Micah and Isaiah and the peace with God
we experience as individuals through Jesus Christ. They predicted that "Nation will
not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4
and Micah 4:3). When this prophecy of peace is fulfilled, the West Points and Annapolises
and all the other places in the world which "train for war" will close their
doors!
Isaiah and Micah prophesied during the same general historical time
period in Judah, and probably heard one another preach. It is possible that the Lord
instructed Micah to take the words of Isaiah, the royal court preacher, and preach them to
the common people. This should not be considered plagiarism, but rather the way the Spirit
of God reinforced the prophetic ministry of both men. The process of inspiration does not
mean that one prophet cannot write something that was already the spoken or written
message of another prophet. In fact, such cases emphasize the unity of the message of the
prophets. Both Isaiah and Micah state explicitly that their prophecies will be fulfilled
in the "last days" (Isaiah 2:2 and Micah 4:1). The emphasis on the "last
days" by both prophets should convince us that the peace they predicted will not come
about until the second advent of Christ to this earth. It is true that the last days of
human history began with the first coming of Christ, according to Hebrews 1:2. Thus in one
sense we are now living in the last days. However, the literal international peace
predicted by Isaiah and Micah awaits the time when Christ will personally return to this
earth to reign over the nations. Let's not postulate dates for these last days, but they
may be soon.
Before we look more closely at Joel's end time prophecy of warfare among
the nations, let us pause to appreciate the great future ahead for this earth. In this
world of turmoil it is a wonderful encouragement for the growing Christian to know that
all the present fighting among the nations and all the global stockpiling of weapons will
come to an end before mankind annihilates himself. The fact that Christ will return and
successfully teach the Washingtons and Moscows and Beijings how to live in total internal
and international peace is almost too good to believe. To know that the Lord will render
decisions that will finally bring about the long-sought "impossible" peace
between the Israelis and the Palestinians is beyond our wildest dreams. To realize that
all over the world tanks will be made over into tractors and missiles will be recycled
into farm machinery should excite us to the point of exultation in the Prince of Peace!
What about Joel's prophecy of warfare? After such exalted thoughts about
the peace of the last days, it is not so pleasant to have to think about the
ugliness of war. But Joel prophesied that plowshares would be hammered into swords and
pruning hooks into spears. When will this be? From Joel's time until the present, nations
have been converting peacetime tools into weapons of war. However, all indications from
the text are that Joel's prophecy is primarily referring to the end time. While the
predictions of immediate judgment in verses 4 through 8 of Joel 3 were fulfilled in
intertestamental times, the rest of the prophecy in Joel 3 has not yet been fulfilled. We
read that it will come about in a time when all the nations are gathered together in one
location for judgment (v2 and v12). Such a time has never yet occurred in history. Even
the extensive alliances and confrontations of the world wars have not fulfilled this
prophecy.
The exact time in the future of Joel's warfare prophecy appears to be
given in the phrase, "Bring down, O Lord, Thy mighty ones" of verse 11. This
would strongly imply that the time of warfare in Joel's prophecy immediately precedes the
return of the Lord with His holy angels. The end of Joel's prophecy seems to further
indicate that the gathering of nations for judgment comes right before the peace of the
last days that is referred to by Isaiah and Micah. In fact, verse 17 shows that the peace
comes about as the result of the Lord's return to judge the nations which have gathered
together for war.
While we rejoice in the fact that someday there will be perfect peace
among the nations, we are awestruck and subdued by the magnitude of the judgment that will
precede the peace. All nations will be brought before Christ, the Judge. According to Joel
3:14, multitudes upon multitudes will be judged in the Valley of Decision. The judgment
seems to extend beyond the armies to the individuals of all nations. No one will be able
to escape "the sickle and the wine press" (v13). The Valley of Decision is so
named, not because individuals will have an opportunity to decide about Christ, but
because Christ will decide about them. In view of such an awesome judgment to come, how
important it is to make sure that you have decided to follow Jesus now.
Joel's scenario of the nations poised for an all-out world war, who then
find themselves all gathered together for judgment by the Lord Himself at His
return, is right in line with our Lord's statements in the Gospels about the future. In
His Olivet Discourse, Jesus said, "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all
the angels with Him, He will sit on His throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be
gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd
separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on
His left. Then the king will say to those on His right, `Come, you who are blessed by My
Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the
world.'"
The subject of the Lord's Olivet Discourse was His second coming and the
end times. (See Matthew 24:3.) Notice how the sequence of events in the verses quoted
above is the same as what we've seen in Joel, Isaiah and Micah. The Lord returns in glory
to this earth with His holy angels (25:31). All the nations which had come together for
war are brought before Him in judgment (25:32). The righteous individuals among the
nations are separated and set apart from the unrighteous by the Lord Himself, just as a
shepherd of the Middle East separates sheep from goats (25:3233). The righteous are
invited to enter and possess the Kingdom of Christ here on earth and the peace of the last
days begins (25:34).
It's great to see how the Old and New Testament prophetic Scriptures fit
together. The war and peace of the last days is bound to take place in the way and order
that the prophets of Scripture predicted. How thankful we can be that with the return of
Christ in the last of the last days here on earth, the plowshares and pruning hooks that
were once forged into the swords and spears of war will be rehammered into the plowshares
and pruning hooks of peace.
David R. Reid
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