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Foretold / Prophets of the Bible | Part 6 · Rewind

Rock Point Church

64 min

Pastor Pat McCalla · Oct 27, 2019 · 4 min read · 64 min listen

The big idea

Jesus is the Lord of the past, present, and future — the warrior King who wins — so we can turn back to Him and rest.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 7The Shema and the Jezreel Valley frame the whole message
Point 2 of 7Joel looks back at the locust plague to call Israel to grief over sin

Point 3 of 7The day of the Lord has a history — from Exodus deliverance to coming judgment
Point 4 of 7God wants hearts, not outward show, and He is eager to forgive
Point 5 of 7Joel's forevers point ahead to God dwelling with His people
Point 6 of 7Revelation 19 reveals Jesus not as a baby but as the warrior King who wins
Point 7 of 7Many know Jesus as Savior but not as King
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

Deuteronomy 6:4
Joel 1:8
Joel 1:15
Joel 2:13
Joel 3:2
Joel 3:17

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Pat McCalla · Oct 27, 2019 · 64 min watch · 2 min read

Foretold / Prophets of the Bible | Part 6

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Deuteronomy 6:4
Joel 1:8
Joel 1:15
Joel 2:13
Joel 3:2
Joel 3:17

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Jesus is the Lord of the past, present, and future — the warrior King who wins — so we can turn back to Him and rest.

The book of Joel points back to what God has done and forward to what He will do to show one truth: the Lord is one — before all things, above all things, the only God. Jesus is not just our Savior but our King, the great finisher who has already won, so we can return to Him and rest.

Key points

1
1The Shema and the Jezreel Valley frame the whole message
Pastor Pat opens with a picture of the young Jesus (Yeshua) overlooking the Jezreel Valley near Nazareth, a valley that would one day be called Armageddon. He connects this to the Shema, Deuteronomy 6:4, the daily Jewish declaration that the Lord is one — before all things, above all things, and the only God — a truth he says the whole book of Joel is built on.
2
2Joel looks back at the locust plague to call Israel to grief over sin
Using grasshopper trivia to help the room grasp the scale of a locust plague, Pastor Pat walks through Joel chapter 1, where wave after wave of locusts devastated the land. Joel tells the people to wake up, wail, and weep like a bride dressed in black mourning her husband, because 'the day of the Lord is near' (Joel 1:15).
3
3The day of the Lord has a history — from Exodus deliverance to coming judgment
He traces the phrase 'the day of the Lord' back to Israel's exodus from Egypt, when they first celebrated the day God brought them justice and freedom, then to the prophet Amos warning that the day would later fall in judgment on Israel itself, and finally to its ultimate future fulfillment when Jesus returns.
4
4God wants hearts, not outward show, and He is eager to forgive
In Joel 2:13, God tells the people not to tear their clothes in grief but to tear their hearts instead and return to Him, because He is merciful, compassionate, slow to anger, and filled with unfailing love. Pastor Pat says this shows God is more willing to forgive than we are to confess, and He wants something for us more than He wants something from us.
5
5Joel's forevers point ahead to God dwelling with His people
Moving into Joel 3, Pastor Pat highlights the gathering of the nations into the Valley of Jehoshaphat for judgment, then the repeated 'forever' promises — Jerusalem holy forever, Judah filled with people forever — climaxing in God's promise to make His home with His people, language that Revelation later echoes.
6
6Revelation 19 reveals Jesus not as a baby but as the warrior King who wins
Pastor Pat retells John's exile on Patmos and the vision God gave him that despite appearances, Jesus wins. He walks through Revelation 19:11-16 — the rider on the white horse, eyes like flames of fire, many crowns, a robe dipped in His own blood, the title King of all kings and Lord of all lords — arguing this is the Jesus who is coming back, not the cute baby in the manger.
7
7Many know Jesus as Savior but not as King
Quoting his son-in-law Brandon, Pastor Pat says many believers know God as their Savior but not as their King, and argues this is the truth Joel was trying to instill three thousand years ago. He describes different pictures of Jesus we need at different times — the laughing Jesus, the suffering servant Jesus, and the warrior King Jesus — and says knowing Him as King is what lets us truly rest.

Application

If Jesus is the Lord of the past, present, and future, then relax — He's got this.

Put your faith and trust in Jesus now
If you don't yet know Jesus, don't walk out the doors without trusting Him as Savior and Lord; every knee will bow eventually, so do it now rather than when it's too late.
Turn back to God with your heart, not appearances
Following Joel 2:13, stop offering outward show and instead return to God with a torn heart, trusting that He is merciful, compassionate, and eager to forgive.
Walk out with renewed hope, knowing your King
Believers should leave with a spring in their step, letting go of anxieties and unknowns about the future because the One they serve is the warrior King who has already won.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“The Jewish people would call Deuteronomy chapter six four the Shema because the first word in Hebrew is Shema. It became such an important verse to the Jewish people that the rabbis hundreds of years before Jesus”
Read the whole chapter →
From the transcript
“look at verse eight where Joel is actually gonna use an illustration of a bride dressed in black. In verse eight, he says, weep like a bride dressed in black, mourning the death of her husband”
From the transcript
“Joel chapter one verse 15. The, the next four words. You should circle these in your bible, you should highlight them, you should put a little star next to them. The day of the Lord is near”
From the transcript
“skip down to verse 13 chapter two. We're gonna jump over a bunch of verses, but this is where we get to the hinge verse. Oh, this is what Remember Joel is standing there and he's linking the past with the future”
From the transcript
“So look at Joel chapter three verse two. He says, I will gather, remember this is the future, I will gather the armies of the world into the Valley Of Jehoshaphat”
From the transcript
“Now jump down to verse 17 and look at some of these forever's. This oh, this is where the the such good news if you're a Jesus follower. He goes, then you will know that I the Lord your God live in Zion my holy mountain”
From the transcript
“right next to this verse here in chapter three verse 17, if you like to write in your bible, you should write chapter two verse 27 in the margin right there. Write two twenty seven because if you went back”
From the transcript
“Jump down some more verses to verse 20 and we read some more forevers. He says, but Judah would be filled with people for how long? Forever. Forever. And Jerusalem will endure through all generations”
From the transcript
“And then look how he wraps up this book. Look at verse 21. I will pardon my people's crimes which I have not yet pardoned and I the Lord. Now this next phrase is gonna be familiar to some of you”
From the transcript
“fact flip over there, Revelation chapter chapter 19. Revelation chapter 19. Revelation chapter 19. Flip over there while you're flipping there. Let let me let me just set this up. I'm gonna tie it back to Joel in a second but”
From the transcript
“Revelation chapter 19 verse 11, then I saw heaven opened and a white horse was standing there. Its rider was named faithful and true for he judges fairly and wages a righteous war”
From the transcript
“Keep reading. Verse 12, his eyes were like flames of fire and on his head were many crowns. A name was written on him that no one understood except himself”
From the transcript
“Paul wrote it in Romans chapter 11. He says, who can know the mind of Christ? Who can advise God on something”
From the transcript
“Look at verse 13. He wore a robe dipped in blood and his title was the word of God. Jesus wins because of who he is”
From the transcript
“Keep reading. Look at this next verse, verse 14. The armies of heaven dressed in the finest of pure white linen followed him on white horses”
From the transcript
“Look at verse 15. From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations. Does this sound like cute baby Jesus? He will rule them with an iron rod”
From the transcript
“Look at verse 16 then. Oh, I love this verse. On his robe at his thigh was written this title, king of all kings and lord of all lords”
From the transcript
“your enemy who John ten ten says he wants to steal, kill, and destroy and you're laying there and there's nothing and he's about to kill you, he's about to end you, this is the Jesus you need”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

There is something almost disorienting about starting a devotional on Joel by going back even further — to Moses, to the Shema, to the oldest confession of faith Israel carried. But that is exactly where Pastor Pat began, and it matters. Before Joel calls the people to repentance, before the locusts arrive, before the Valley of Jehoshaphat — there is this bedrock truth: the Lord is God, and there is no other. Everything that follows in Joel's message hangs on that single, unshakeable fact. If God is truly Lord of all — before all things, above all things — then the chaos of Joel's day (and our own) does not get the last word. It never did. This is not a small doctrinal footnote. It is the load-bearing wall. When life feels genuinely unstable — when the news cycle is relentless, when your own future feels uncertain — the Shema calls you back to a reality older and larger than your circumstances. There is one God. He has not vacated. He has not been outmaneuvered. He is still Lord. Starting here, at the foundation, is not avoiding the hard parts of the week ahead. It is building the courage to face them honestly, rooted in the One who was before any of it.

For reflection

When life feels uncertain, what tends to occupy the place of authority in your heart — and how does returning to the truth that God alone is Lord begin to shift that?

Pray

Pray for a fresh, settled confidence that God's lordship over all things is not just a doctrine but a lived reality for you today.

Day 2

Joel opens with crisis. The land has been devastated — crops stripped, joy dried up, and the people left staring at the wreckage. His word for it is stark: the day of the Lord is near. For modern readers, that phrase can feel distant, even abstract. But Pastor Pat was careful to press on it. The day of the Lord is not merely a Sunday-school concept. It is a recurring biblical theme about God showing up in history with justice, judgment, and ultimately, freedom. Joel's first readers felt it in their bones. The locust plague was not just an agricultural disaster; it was a signpost pointing toward something larger. What is striking about Joel's posture here is that he does not minimize the devastation or rush past it. He names it. He lets it be real. And then he points through it — to a God who is still Lord of every day, including the hard ones. The same is true for you. Whatever losses or uncertainties mark this season of your life, God does not ask you to pretend they are small. He asks you to see them in light of who He is — the Lord who governs every day, including this one.

For reflection

Is there an area of your life right now where you have been minimizing a genuine loss or difficulty rather than bringing it honestly before God?

Pray

Pray for the courage to name what is hard in your life honestly before God, trusting that He is Lord even of that.

Day 3

If Day 1 is about who God is and Day 2 is about the weight of what we face, Day 3 is about what God wants us to do with the gap between those two realities. Joel's call is not, 'Clean up your act so God will be impressed.' It is far more personal than that. Tear your heart, not your garments. The outward gesture, the religious performance, the visible act of piety — none of it substitutes for the inward turn. God is after something deeper. And here is what makes that invitation bearable: Joel immediately grounds it in God's own character. He is merciful. He is compassionate. He is slow to anger and filled with unfailing love. The invitation to return is not issued by a God who is waiting to condemn; it is issued by a God who, as Pastor Pat put it, wants more for you than He wants from you. That changes everything about how repentance feels. It is not a courtroom confession; it is coming home. If there is a place in your life where you have been keeping God at arm's length — out of shame, habit, or just busyness — this verse is the door, and the One on the other side is already moving toward you.

For reflection

What would it look like today to turn toward God in a way that is genuine and heart-deep rather than just outwardly dutiful?

Pray

Pray for a soft and honest heart — one that is willing to return to God not out of obligation, but out of trust in His character.

Day 4

After the call to return, after the promise of restoration, Joel arrives at something worth pausing on: 'Then you will know that I am among my people Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other.' This is the Shema echoed in the middle of the story — not just as a theological starting point but as a destination. God is not only interested in being acknowledged as Lord in the abstract. He wants to be known as Lord in the particular — present with His people, active in their story, tangible in their experience. That is a different kind of knowing. Pastor Pat's observation that Joel was not written directly to us, but applies fully to us, opens something here. What God was doing in and for Israel — restoring, renewing, making Himself known — reflects the same heart He has toward you. This is not a God who stays behind glass. He is among His people. He wants to be known, not merely believed in. That kind of knowing does not come all at once, but it does come — through the Word, through community, through the small and large moments when you realize He was there all along.

For reflection

How have you experienced God making Himself known to you — not just as a general truth, but as a present reality in your actual life?

Pray

Pray that your knowledge of God would deepen from information into genuine experience — that you would know He is with you, not just believe it.

Day 5

Joel's vision moves toward a final gathering — all the nations, the Valley of Jehoshaphat, a reckoning that encompasses all of history. It is a sweeping, even overwhelming image. But Pastor Pat was careful to trace the line from Joel's language directly to Revelation, showing that this is not an isolated Old Testament curiosity. It is part of one continuous story. The God who judged and restored in Joel's day is the same God who will bring all things to their appointed end. Justice, in the biblical vision, is not canceled — it is completed. And here is where this point carries pastoral weight: if you have ever looked at the world and felt a deep grief that wrongs go unaddressed, that the powerful escape accountability, that suffering seems random and unfair — Joel's vision says no, not ultimately. The One who is Lord of the past, present, and future does not lose the thread. History is not spinning out of control. It is moving toward an end that God holds. That is not a reason for passivity. It is a reason for a particular kind of peace — the kind that lets you engage the injustice you see without being crushed by it.

For reflection

Where do you most deeply feel the weight of injustice or unresolved wrong — and how does the truth of God's ultimate justice speak to that grief?

Pray

Pray for peace in areas where justice feels absent, and for trust in the God who sees and holds all things — including the things you cannot fix.

Day 6

This is the passage that Pastor Pat called the culmination of everything Joel was pointing toward. The rider on the white horse — faithful, true, eyes like blazing fire, crowned with many crowns, robed in a garment dipped in His own blood. This is Jesus. Not the gentle figure of the manger, not the suffering servant of the cross alone — though He is all of those things — but the triumphant King returning in power. 'King of kings and Lord of lords.' Pastor Pat was direct: Jesus wins. Full stop. That is not triumphalism for its own sake. It is the anchor of Christian hope. The cross said 'It is finished,' and the return will say it again in a register the whole creation hears. John 10:10 sits nearby here — the One who came to give life abundantly is the same One returning to reign completely. Many of us know Jesus as Savior. Fewer of us have really let the truth of His kingship settle into how we live day to day. But if He truly is King — Lord of the past, present, and future — then the anxieties and unknowns you are carrying today are held by Someone who has already seen how this ends.

For reflection

In what specific area of your life do you most need to surrender control to Jesus as King — not just as the One who saves you, but as the One who reigns?

Pray

Pray for the grace to trust Jesus not only as your Savior but as your reigning King — especially in the places where you are most tempted to hold on tightly.

Day 7

Related passageJoel 1:15-3:21

Looking back over this week, the arc of Joel's message is striking in its wholeness. It begins with devastation and the nearness of judgment, moves through an urgent call to return to a God whose character makes return possible, and ends with a vision of restoration so complete that the mountains drip with sweet wine and the valleys overflow. Joel was standing at the crossroads of history — looking back at what God had done, looking forward at what He would do — and calling his people to let both realities shape the present moment. Pastor Pat gave us the same invitation. Because Jesus is Lord of the past, present, and future, we do not have to live under the weight of what we cannot control. We can walk out the door with, as he put it, a renewed spring in our step. Not because life is easy or uncertainty has dissolved, but because the warrior King who said 'It is finished' on the cross is coming back. That hope is not wishful thinking. It is grounded in the character of a God who is merciful, compassionate, slow to anger, and who has never once lost the thread of His own story — or of yours.

For reflection

As you carry this week's themes forward, what is one concrete way you want to live differently because Jesus is both Savior and reigning King?

Pray

Pray for the courage and the joy to live this week with genuine hope — not a hope that ignores hard realities, but one that holds them inside the larger truth of who Jesus is.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Joel was written thousands of years ago to a specific people in a specific crisis — yet Pastor Pat McCalla made the case that it speaks with striking clarity to where we stand right now, pointing us toward a God who holds the past, present, and future.

Discussion questions

1
In Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shema declares that God is before all things and above all things. Pastor Pat used that as the anchor for everything Joel says. Why do you think that foundation matters so much — what falls apart if it isn't there?
2
Joel 2:13 calls people to return to God with their whole hearts, and describes Him as 'merciful, compassionate, slow to anger, and filled with unfailing love.' What picture of God does that language paint, and how does it shape the kind of return God is actually inviting?
3
The 'day of the Lord' shows up throughout Joel as a day of justice, judgment, and ultimately freedom. What do you think it means for that theme to find its fulfillment in the return of Jesus rather than just a general sense of God setting things right?
4
Revelation 19:11–16 describes Jesus returning as a warrior King — faithful, true, robed in His own blood, and crowned with many crowns. How does that image of Jesus sit alongside the image of Jesus most of us grew up with, and what might we be missing if we only hold one of those pictures?
5
Pastor Pat drew a distinction between knowing Jesus as Savior and knowing Him as King. In your experience, how do you think that difference tends to show up in the way people actually live day to day?
6
Pastor Pat closed by saying that because Jesus is Lord of the past, present, and future, His people can relax — He has got this. How might a community that genuinely believed that look different from one that is just trying to manage its fears?

Pray together

Thanking Jesus — the merciful, compassionate God who calls us back — that He is not only Savior but reigning King, and asking for the kind of hope and rest that comes from trusting Him with everything we cannot control

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Go deeper

Continue the series

Foretold / Prophets of the Bible

Week 6 · 6 messages

Where these passages are preached

Deuteronomy 6 Joel 1 Joel 2 Joel 3

Explore related topics

Hope in Christ's Return Jesus as King Living Without Fear Repentance The Day of the Lord

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