Growing up as a 80’s kid and a 90’s teenager, one of the best shows to come on TV was a court series called Matlock. My mama glued herself to the TV every Tuesday night at 8 pm to watch the star of the show, Andy Griffith, as Ben Matlock, defend his clients in a Fulton County Courthouse. Nine times out of ten, Matlock would win his cases. However, he had private investigators working for him in order to get the evidence he needed to win. If truth were told, many of us love our family members, our friends, and co-workers, but there are times where you would like to see evidence of that love. Evidence of that love including a phone call to see how you are doing, a card for Christmas, a call on the significant days like your birthday, anniversary, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc, and other things. Spiritually, we also look for evidence as well among our brothers and sisters. We often look at them and watch the words they say and the things they do to see if their life is evident of a God that loves them! I am encouraged today because today’s scripture provides us an example of what spiritual evidence looks like.
Today’s message is birthed from the book of Joel, one of the 12 Minor Prophets of the Old Testament. Within the Old Testament, you have Major Prophets and Minor Prophets and what differentiates them is the amount of information written within their respective books. Written between 835 and 800 B.C., Joel is set in Judah, where it has been destroyed by locusts. Scholars state that Joel uses this metaphor of locusts as an army to destroy Judah as punishment for their sins and disobedience to God. Within this particular chapter, Joel is describing the outpouring of the Spirit and through this outpouring is where we will gain the evidence of what the Spirit looks like and can do.
First part of the text tells us that “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people”. In other words, I here is our Heavenly Father. Since He is the I, He tells us that He is going to pour out His Spirit on all people (King James says all flesh). If you cut the grass short enough and get past the sins of people, there’s some Spirit of God that resides in them! There’s some Spirit of God that tells them what’s right and tells them what’s wrong! There’s some Spirit of God in there that tells them how to make it from day-to-day and other things. Just know that, within your family, friends, and even enemies, there’s a level of the Spirit of God within them!
Here’s the evidence of the Spirit: “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions”. As we live in this world today, how evident has this been within your life? How evident has this part of the scripture been within your family’s life? Though I have been around going on 31 years, I have heard the visions God has given His men for the development of a shopping area, for the development of a renewed church, for the development of a business, for the development of a multipurpose center and other things. I have seen sons and daughters of God minister to others and myself through prophecy to see the prophecy come to past. I have seen where old men have dreamed dreams and they have come to past. Is it just me or is the Spirit of God in play in this time and juncture? Irrefutably, yes it is! It’s in full effect and if you have not hung around the types who have prophesied into your life or other’s lives, old men dreaming dreams, and young men seeing visions, keep on living life because you will see it!
In closing, Ben Matlock was a great lawyer and he won the majority of the time because he had the proper evidence to support his case. As men and women of God, we often look for evidence of His Spirit within His people. On today, Joel painted the picture of what happens when God pours out His Spirit onto His people. Continue to be the man/woman God has called you to be and watch out for the evidence of the Spirit in your life!
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