Sincere repentance is from the spirit and soul, so who knows if the Lord will be willing to forgive.

Joel 2:12-17

Click for a description of the mark of the beast.
Click for a description of the image of the beast.

• God wants us to return to Him with true remorse and humility to make Jesus Christ our Lord.
• Genuine repentance is within the heart, spirit, and soul not outward appearances.
• Who knows if the Lord will be forgiving?
• Gather and sanctify the people and let the Lord Jesus Christ come.
• Let the ministers of the Gospel of Christ plea for mercy, grace, and Salvation for His people.

Through the Holy Spirit, Joel prophesies in chapter 2 that the global culture of the beast is unlike anything ever seen in human history.. Click here to read the post in Joel 2:1-11 and also in the post on Joel 1:1-3. Joel conveys the message of the Holy Spirit in the following verses, calling us to turn away from our sins and return to God through Jesus Christ.

God wants us to return to Him with true remorse and humility to make Jesus Christ our Lord. “Now, therefore,” says the Lord, “Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” Joel 2:12

When someone embraces Jesus Christ as their Lord, they turn away from the entity in this world that gives them what to feel, think, say, and do. That entity replaces the human conscience and enables the image of the beast to live and speak through people. This leads to widespread signs of psychopathy in the world.

To turn to God, we must humble ourselves before Him as the Lord of our life and renounce the self-centered attitudes that make us put our own will above the authority of God, the Creator. To turn to God, we must confess that we are sinners who need Jesus Christ and reject the attitudes that show no remorse, guilt, or need for the forgiveness of sin. To turn to God, we must live by the Spirit, “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” Romans 8:2

We must resist the indifference, anarchy, and hostility that pervade this world. Many people across the globe have forsaken God and embraced the ungodly global culture, as quoted, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him…” Revelation 13:8 The word “him” refers to the beast that is associated with the image and the mark of the beast. The global culture is groomed to accept the mark of the beast through their words and actions.

Fasting means giving up anything that distracts us from God, makes us deny Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, and keeps us away from the Holy Spirit. We should dedicate our lives to God every day through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.

When we weep and mourn before God, we show our humanity, our compassion for others, and our sorrow for our sins. These feelings draw us to accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and to welcome the Holy Spirit into our hearts. Through this, we reflect God’s mercy, grace, salvation, and eternal life in Jesus Christ. “And I will give to them one heart, and a new spirit I will give in their inner parts. And I will remove their heart of stone from their body, and I will give to them a heart of flesh…” Ezekiel 11:19

Traits of psychopathy surface from the rejection of Jesus Christ and the suppression of the human conscience, and makes people have a heart of stone. Those infected do not care about the feelings and thoughts of others, because they are under the influence of the thing giving them what to feel and think.

Genuine repentance is within the heart, spirit, and soul not outward appearances. “So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.” Joel 2:13

The Holy Spirit, through Joel, teaches that the true expression of repentance is not in the external signs of grief, such as tearing clothes, wearing sackcloth, or covering oneself in ashes. Rather, it is in the inner sorrow and contrition of the spirit and soul. “So rend your heart, and not your garments…”

To rend our heart and not our clothes means that our service to God should come from our innermost being, not from superficial outward displays.. “For God does not see what man sees, for a man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 By forgiving our sins, Jesus Christ opened the way for anyone to connect with God through the Spirit. He loves us and wants us to have life, so He sent His Son Jesus to give us life. “For in this way God loved the world, so that He gave His one and only Son, in order that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but will have eternal life.” John 3:16 God shows grace, mercy, patience, and kindness through Jesus Christ, and holds back from judging.

Jesus Christ emphasized the importance of serving God in the Spirit rather than by outward appearances in Matthew 23:1-36. Many people in this world claim to know how to live for God, but they lack a genuine spiritual connection with Jesus Christ. They focus on the carnal rather than the spiritual, and they burden their followers with heavy rules. They value what people see and hear more than what God sees and hears through Jesus Christ. They neglect humility and meekness, and they seek worldly praise, and recognition. They exalt their own will above God’s authority. We who live in the Spirit recognize God as our supreme authority and surrender to Jesus Christ as our Lord.

Those who rely only on what they see and hear, and ignore the Spirit, heart, and soul, shut themselves off from reaching God through Jesus Christ. We need to be born again by God’s Spirit through Jesus Christ. God does not listen to the words of the flesh, but He listens to the prayers in the hidden places of the spirit and soul. The Spirit is above words. Teaching people to live by worldly standards based on the thing giving them what to feel, think, say, and do makes them children of hell. They do not recognize God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit and are blind leaders of the blind.

People who follow worldly standards instead of the Spirit teach others to despise the human body as the home of the Holy Spirit. They view the human body as the home of the thing giving them their feelings, thoughts, actions, and words. It animates the image of the beast to live and speak through them. They are groomed to the mark of the beast by their deeds and words. As a result, the global culture becomes egocentric and self-centered in their defiance of God. They do not feel any regret, guilt, remorse, nor any need for the remission of sin through Jesus Christ. They treat the Holy Spirit as an enemy, one to be manipulated, domineered, and extorted.

The mercy, grace, salvation, and eternal life of God are given through Jesus Christ. Those who care only about outward looks and ignore the Spirit miss these gifts. This is what Jesus clearly teaches, “For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence…first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.” They resemble washed and cleaned gravestones adorned with flowers, but despite their outward appearance, they hide the bones and dirt of the dead. As our Lord Jesus says, “Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

“So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.” Joel 2:13

Who knows if the Lord will forgive us? “Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him—A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?” Joel 2:14

The current world system is doomed to be destroyed by God’s wrath, unless He decides to show mercy. Who knows if He will be forgiving? However, He has given us a promise: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place. I have chosen and consecrated this temple so that my Name may remain there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.” 2 Chronicles 7:14-16

Many people in today’s world do not treat their bodies as sacred temples of the Holy Spirit. Rather, they worship the thing that has corrupted God’s dwelling place, their bodies, and gives them their feelings, thoughts, actions, and words. It acts as if it is God in God’s house, our bodies., “…who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:4 Click here for a post on the “man of sin”. Despite the events of the first six trumpets, “… the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.” Revelation 9:20-21

Some people may appear to be sorry within the troubles they face, but they only care about themselves and do not feel any regret or shame for their offenses against God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist encountered such people and said, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance…” Matthew 3:7-8

People should not only feel sorry for the harm that befalls them and their cherished global culture, but also demonstrate the fruits of repentance in their spirit and soul. These fruits include recognizing God the Creator as the authority in our life, admitting that we are sinners who need forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ, accepting the Holy Spirit and a life of Holiness, and living for the Gospel of Jesus. The fruits of repentance should radiate from our spirit to reveal the mercy, grace, salvation, and eternal life of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Jesus Christ echoes the words of John the Baptist from the previous paragraph, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’” Matthew 7:21-23 That also describes the first of the seven churches in Revelation 2:1-7. The church has abandoned Christ’s Gospel, yet persist in performing charitable acts, as though they were serving Jesus Christ.

A clear statement from Jesus Christ is that there is no forgiveness for blaspheming the Holy Spirit. “Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.” Matthew 12:31-32

Before his conversion, the Apostle Paul committed many sins and blasphemies against Jesus Christ, such as killing and imprisoning Christians. However, he remained open to the Holy Spirit when he encountered the bright light on the road to Damascus. Blaspheming the Holy Spirit means rejecting God and Jesus Christ completely and irreversibly. If Paul had blasphemed the Holy Spirit, he would have spurned the light that he saw, he would have cursed God, and he would have persisted in persecuting Christians.

We live in a time when the Holy Spirit is being removed from this world and people blaspheme against the Holy Spirit as part of the ritual of the global culture. The Holy Spirit is the one who holds back lawlessness and antisocial behavior, as it is written, “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” 2 Thessalonians 2:7-10 Click here for a post on the “lawless one”.

The global culture is influenced by the thing that shapes their feelings and thoughts, which override and replace the human conscience. This allows the image of the beast to live and speak through the masses of the global culture who constantly blaspheme the Holy Spirit. The absence of the human conscience enables the traits of psychopathy to spread globally. People have become self-centered as they reject the authority of God the Creator and elevate their own authority. They do not feel any regret, guilt, or need to acknowledge that they are sinners who need forgiveness through Jesus Christ. They view the Holy Spirit as an enemy to resist, exploit, manipulate, and dominate.

Gather and sanctify the people and let the Lord Jesus Christ come. “Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes; Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room.” Joel 2:15-16

Mount Zion refers to the heavenly realm where God’s throne resides, as the following quote shows: “Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father’s name written on their foreheads.” Revelation 14:1 Zion is the heavenly home of those who follow Jesus Christ. It is also where the Seventh Trumpet sounds to announce the Day of the Lord and the second coming of Jesus Christ. An angel from Heaven blows the Seventh Trumpet in Zion. “Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” Revelation 11:15

At the sound of the Seventh Trumpet and the return of Jesus Christ, all Believers will join our Lord Jesus and live with Him forever. Those who died as Christians will rise first, followed by those who are still living when He comes back. They will all meet Him in the air in a split second. The resurrection, the “rapture”, and the return of Jesus are essentially one event. “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18

We prepare for the return of Jesus Christ by fasting, or refraining from, activities or behaviors that alienate us from God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. We are sanctified as we live for God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, apart from the worldly culture. We consecrate our body as the temple of the Holy Spirit by recognizing God’s authority over us. We receive the forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ as we admit our need for Him as our Lord and Savior. The Holy Spirit empowers us to walk in Holiness as Jesus Christ lives in us. “consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes;”

The New Jerusalem, our eternal home in the new heaven and earth, is the bride of Jesus Christ, the Bridegroom. All believers are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb, “Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room.” “Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” Revelation 21:2 The husband, or Bridegroom, is our Lord Jesus Christ. “Then he said to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!’ ” And he said to me, “These are the true sayings of God.” Revelation 19:9

Let the ministers of the Gospel of Christ plea for mercy, grace, and Salvation for His people. “Let the priests, who minister to the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar; Let them say, “Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach, that the nations should speak a proverb against them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” Joel 2:17

The porch and the altar are two places that come before the entrance to the temple of God. The porch connects to the temple of God, and the altar is located outside the temple, just beyond the porch. Nowadays, our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and the altar is a place in our spirit and soul where we surrender our life to Jesus Christ, as Lord and Savior. We can only enter the temple of the Holy Spirit after we give our life to God through Jesus Christ. On the altar, there is remission of sin by the blood that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, shed on the Cross. After we dedicate our life to God through Jesus, we enter the temple of the Holy Spirit.

In these times when the global culture of the beast pervades every city in the world, there is opposition to enter the temple of God as the temple of the Holy Spirit. The entity forming what people feel, think, say, and do wants to sit in the temple of our body as if it is God. We cry out for God’s mercy, grace, salvation and eternal life between the porch and the altar as we pray. “Spare Your people, O Lord, and do not give Your heritage to reproach, that the nations should speak a proverb against them. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

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“….to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned Satan’s so-called deep secrets,“
‘I will not impose any other burden on you, except to hold on to what you have until I come.’
“I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”
Revelation 2:24-25, 3:1