Is the famous Joel prophecy ‘back-to-front’?

January 20th, 2025 This weekend just past found me at a relatively low ebb, with physical and mental tiredness and strong spiritual attacks. But – just to prove the old wise saying, that “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity” – the input of God’s Word and Spirit on me and even more so on Ingria was extraordinarily powerful.

In my Sunday morning devotions, employing my usual sequential reading through Old and New Testaments, Proverbs 17:19 ‘jumped out’ for me – one of those occasions when the Scripture leaps out with terminology which relates to a particular issue we are wrestling with (what some would refer to as a “rhema word”) without offending against the teaching of its original context. Then this morning I walked into my local town to get a newspaper, taking different routes out and back, during which the Lord re-impressed upon me the prospect of a rather desirable house and garden that could – dependant on how God might work in a particular person’s (whom I do not know) heart and mind for the purpose of a possible Centre for Christian Healing ministry.

In between time, Ingria had been yesterday morning and afternoon experiencing a high level of prophetic words coupled with scriptures (something in which she has grown rapidly since her baptism and testimony), at the end of which the appearance of a beautiful collared dove atop a fence and looking at her through the kitchen window, seemed to affirm the Spirit’s confirmation of the scripture messages that had inspired her.

Nearing my home at the end of my walk on a more Spring-like day following the deep-freezes of recent weeks, the Lord reminded me of the final statement in my ‘testimony’ book “My Late Harvest (An old man dreams)”, with it’s summing-up reference to Joel 2:28-29. And what was impressed upon me was how prophecies would be associated with young people, and dreams with old people; and for the first time I was puzzled as to whether Joel had got his thinking muddled. Surely dreams are the prerogative of the young with their whole lives spread out in front of them, while the old might envision their imminent heavenly reward or the bare bones of the dreams of the young. But I have learned not to twist scripture to fit my logic. God has promised this old man through the Word and Spirit that my senior years will be characterized by dreams. And if He is super-gracious, I may live to see some of them come to fruition. But I will be satisfied with the knowledge that the younger generation will witness them with their vision activated.