The Last Days: When God Pours Out His Spirit

11 min read

Introduction

"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh." The apostle Peter speaks these words on the day of Pentecost, before the crowd gathered in Jerusalem. He is not making anything up: he is quoting the prophet Joel. And he announces that what the prophet had seen from afar is now being fulfilled before their eyes.

That evening, Pastor Maréchal continues what his church had begun to see the previous Tuesday concerning Pentecost. He opens Acts 2, he opens Joel 2, and he takes you all the way back to Ezekiel to show you one thing: the glory of God once left Jerusalem; it came back; it will come back again. And in the meantime, it is poured out on you.

This sermon was given on June 11, 2020, right as lockdown was ending. The context is vivid: churches are reopening, some people are afraid to come back, others are wondering how to remember everything they have just lived through. The pastor does not try to minimize the ordeal. He reads it in light of the "last days" that God announced, to remind you that your place is within this outpouring of the Spirit.

Article outline

1. Peter at Pentecost: Joel is fulfilled before our eyes

2. The glory of God departs and returns: from Ezekiel to the Mount of Olives

3. "In the last days": the church inaugurates this time

4. What the crisis lays bare: drought, outcry, revival

5. "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved"

1. Peter at Pentecost: Joel is fulfilled before our eyes

Open Acts 2:14-21. Peter stands up with the eleven and raises his voice. Before him, the crowd is stunned, amazed, perplexed, and some are mocking. He begins by setting the record straight: "These people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day." Then he quotes Joel: "In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams."

Take a good look at the man who is speaking. Before Pentecost, this is the Peter we know: hesitant, quick to deny. After Pentecost, he is a completely different man. Pastor Maréchal insists: it is the same person, but the Spirit has transformed him. He knows exactly who he is addressing, Jews, and he says so in verse 14, verse 22, and verse 29, and he announces plainly what has just happened.

Notice one more detail: in verse 39, Peter says "the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." At that moment, he still thinks that "those who are far off" refers to other Jews. It will take the vision of the sheet later, in Acts 10, for him to understand that God also wants to reach the Gentiles. God opens up our horizon at the same time that he pours out his Spirit.

2. The glory of God departs and returns: from Ezekiel to the Mount of Olives

Pastor Maréchal takes you on a long detour, but a necessary one. Open Ezekiel 11:22-23: "Then the cherubim lifted up their wings, with the wheels beside them, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them. And the glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city and stood on the mountain that is on the east side of the city." The mountain to the east of Jerusalem is the Mount of Olives. On that day, the glory of God leaves Jerusalem and rests on this mountain before departing.

But now read the conclusion of the book in Ezekiel 43, and the very last verse of the book: "And the name of the city from that time on shall be, The Lord Is There." The glory comes back. There is nothing to add to that sentence. The Lord is there.

And make the connection with Luke 24:50 and Acts 1:12: it is from the Mount of Olives that Jesus ascends into heaven. The very place where the glory had once rested on its way out of Jerusalem is the place from which the Son goes back up to the Father. Two men dressed in white then say to the disciples: "Why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus will come in the same way as you saw him go." The glory departed, the glory came back, the glory will go up, and one day the glory will come back again.

For you, today, this means one simple thing: in a difficult season, you are not praying to a God who has left for good. You are praying to a God whose Word shows you, chapter after chapter, that he always comes back.

3. "In the last days": the church inaugurates this time

Here is the central pastoral point. The apostle Peter says that the church inaugurates the last days. "In the last days, God says..." is how he opens his message in verse 17. And the writer of the letter to the Hebrews confirms the same perspective in Hebrews 1:1-2: "In these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son."

So as a Christian, you are living in the last days. This is not a threat; it is an identity. The last days are the time of the baptism of the Spirit, the time when God pours out his Spirit on all flesh, on sons and daughters, on young men and old men, on male and female servants. The Father has spoken through the Son, and the Son has sent the Spirit. This is the time of the church.

Pastor Maréchal also recalls that Joel 2 announces "the early rain and the latter rain." There is an early rain (the Pentecost in Jerusalem), and a latter rain. We are already far along in time, and we would love for that latter rain not to be delayed, but sometimes it must be delayed. What matters is to search the Word. With the help of the Spirit, with the biblical knowledge you can gain, with the help of the different ministries within the church, always ground your understanding in the Word of God.

4. What the crisis lays bare: drought, outcry, revival

Now open Joel 1. "The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children... What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; what the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten." Then: "Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth."

The pastor explains: God addresses the elders and asks them, in your lifetime, has this ever been seen before? No. And he brings everyone back to reality. There is no more wine, no more harvest, the land is devastated by waves of locusts. In other words, there is nothing left, no more human hope.

This is where the pastor draws the connection to what the church has just been through: "In forty or fifty years, people will tell the children who are here tonight about what we lived through." He also recalls the Asian flu he lived through as a young man: back then, people carried on as if nothing was happening, even though there were many deaths. Today, people will remember what we have just been through. He does not minimize the hardship. He simply says: God uses these moments when "there is nothing left" to bring hearts back to himself.

And he reminds you of a point of history: when you look back over the history of the church, there were long centuries of spiritual drought. Monasteries were partly born from this: faced with religious decline, men and women withdrew to seek God, fast, and pray. This was "the dark night of the age." And it was at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth that the great outpouring of the Spirit, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, took place, an international movement, in every corner of the world. The pastor recalls the memory of Le Havre: people would come to the meetings two hours early, they would wait on the sidewalk, they would sing the glory of God. Lives were changed, drunkenness and excess were set aside. It was the breath of God.

Today, he says, that breath continues. This very evening, there are hundreds and hundreds of millions of men and women interceding at the throne of grace, all over the world. What God has done has not stopped.

5. "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved"

Bring the panorama to a close. Peter finishes his quotation of Joel with these words (Acts 2:20-21): "The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Pastor Maréchal makes an important observation: in the Old Testament, every time the "great day of the Lord" is mentioned, it is a fearsome day, a terrible day. But here, this fearsome day comes with a promise: "whoever calls" (not the best, not the strongest, not the least frightened), "whoever" shall be saved. That is the addition that changes everything: in the midst of chaos, the door of salvation stays wide open, and all it takes is to call.

The pastor concludes simply: the crisis we have just been through has shaken the way we live. But if the universe one day becomes chaos again, as prophecy announces, we are not used to that; may God grant us clarity. In the meantime, let us believe in the working of the Spirit of God, and may his name be glorified.

Key takeaways

  1. What Joel had announced, Pentecost set in motion: God pours out his Spirit on all flesh, and the church inaugurates the "last days."
  2. The glory of God left Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives (Ezekiel 11); it came back (Ezekiel 43); Jesus ascended from that same mount, and he will return in the same way.
  3. You are living in the last days. This is your time, the time of the Spirit. It is not a threat but an identity.
  4. God uses the seasons when "there is nothing left" (locusts, drought, crises) to bring hearts back to himself and then to give "the latter rain."
  5. The door of salvation stays wide open right in the middle of chaos: "whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

Personal application

  1. After the crisis you just went through, what have you learned about God's place in your life that you never want to forget again?
  2. Have you come back to the assembly? If fear is still holding you back, who can you talk to about it this week in your church?
  3. What does it concretely mean for you to "live in the last days," in how you pray, how you serve, and how you speak about Jesus to those around you?
  4. Where have you seen, in recent months, the Spirit of God being poured out, on you, on young people, on the elderly, on the "servants" and "handmaids" around you?
  5. Today, in what area do you need to simply call on the name of the Lord?

Verses cited

FAQ

What does "the last days" that Peter speaks of in Acts 2:17 mean?

Peter draws on Joel's prophecy to describe the time God inaugurates at Pentecost: the time of the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh. The letter to the Hebrews confirms the same perspective ("in these last days, God has spoken to us by his Son"). These "last days" are not a countdown of a few years; they are the age of the church, between Pentecost and the return of Jesus.

Why does the pastor place so much emphasis on the Mount of Olives?

Because this place holds three moments together: the glory of God rested there as it left Jerusalem (Ezekiel 11), Jesus ascended to heaven from there (Acts 1), and two men in white announced there that he would return "in the same way." The Mount of Olives reminds us that with God, the glory never leaves without coming back.

How can I concretely live out "the last days" today?

By letting the Spirit poured out at Pentecost work in your life: searching the Word, praying, belonging to a local church, serving with the gifts you have received, and speaking about Jesus to those around you. The pastor says it plainly: what began at the start of the twentieth century with the baptism of the Holy Spirit has not stopped. Even today, hundreds of millions of believers are interceding all over the world. Your place is in this living story.

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