Joel 3:6-11

Recompense upon the nations -- Joel 3:6-11: These nations kidnapped the young people of Jerusalem from their land and sold them as slaves to the Greeks. God promised that He would now grant freedom to His enslaved people. They would be allowed to come home. Judgment would be sent upon the nations that had mistreated God's people. What they had done to the Jews would now be done to them. Their sons and daughters would be taken away and sold as slaves to the Sabeans. These were people that lived far away.

As he did in chapter two the prophet Joel returned to the idea of a spiritual return to God during the gospel age. Even though the destruction to the nations was a physical one the only hope of the nations and of the Jews is the gospel of Christ. The nations were to prepare for a war against God that they were sure to loose. He told them to make swords out of their plows and spears out of garden tools. These nations would soon learn human weakness without God and His blessings to help. The nations are invited to come and partake of the blessing of the Lord through the gospel. They had to know that "the Lord shall bring down" the mighty.