Prophecy Triple Distilled - Joel

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and their stars shall withdraw their shining. Joel 3:15

Immeadiately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. Matt. 24:29

And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood. Rev. 6:12

In times long ago, I understand, when amphora were loaded with wine and sailed in ships, someone had the idea that some of the water could be removed and the concentrated wine could be shipped instead. This saved weight and space. Later, water was added to this concentrate and the wine was reconstituted. This reduction was achieved by distillation, which has long been understood.

Many of us have as much as one verse in the Bible which carries a great message in concentrated form. The little book of Joel does this for us. Joel is a short book, but packed with power. Peter quotes from Acts 2:20 in Joel to solve a controversy in the day of Pentecost. Of course the New Testament was not yet written, but the explanations of strange phenomena of that day were explained by quoting from the Old.

By carelessness or design, this portion of scripture has been referred to as the fulfillment of the prophecy in Joel. As if the day of the Lord began at that time. The passage refers to tongues, not to the Day of the Lord.

Partaking of this wonderful book can be--and is--used to confuse the unwary. Revelation, written much later, speaking of the darkening of the sun and moon, shows that Joel is yet to be fulfilled, even in our day. The concentrated Word, like the distilled wine, needs the addition of the water of the Word to be best understood.