Joel 2:1-27

Discussion Questions

1. How does the ultimate “Day of the Lord” affect your thinking? How can we be reminded that this world is not ultimate?
2. We must be intentional in our worship of God—constantly returning to the Lord. Do you anticipate Sunday worship with prayer and thoughtfulness in your own preparation? Consider reading the sermon passage before arriving to Worship, pray for your heart to be open before arriving to Worship, and be on your guard for distractions before and during Worship.
3. Have you lost sight that you are one of God’s people if you are trusting in Jesus Christ? Go to your Bible and ask God to reveal Himself to you afresh.
4. Spurgeon said, “The sovereignty of God is the pillow where we lay our head”. What in your life today needs a clear reminder that God is for you, that He will never leave you, and that He is in control of every aspect of your life?

Transcript

We study through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel and we have extra copies. If you didn’t bring one with you, and you’d like one to follow along, it’s a great day to have the text in front of you, so raise your hand up if you need a copy and somebody will drop one off at your row or your aisle. Today’s scripture will be Joel 2:1-27. The sermon notes and quotes are available through the QR code up on the screen if you would like that. Let me offer a prayer for illumination as we begin our study this morning:

Gracious Redeemer, You have bestowed on us beauty for ashes and the oil of gladness to heal our mournful souls. Jesus, remind us today of Your generous grace and matchless mercy. Open our sin-sludged ears to hear Your beckoning call, inviting us to return home to You. Give us a clear view of the Gospel so artfully displayed throughout Your Word. Teach our wandering hearts that in You alone we find true joy and stir within each of us this morning an increasing desire to point others to King Jesus, our life, our light, our all in all. And all of God’s people said…Amen.

Amen. Amen. So, this is part one of two parts that we’ll study, and we’re going to focus in on the phrase “the day of the Lord.” When did Joel live and when was the book of Joel written? I think Pastor Tommy walked you through a little bit of an introduction last week, if you happen to miss that. The text gives us very few clues about when Joel lived, when the book was written. And the only thing we do know is that he’s the son of a guy named Pethuel. And actually, we know less about Pethuel than we do about Joel because Pethuel didn’t leave us any kind of writings.

Joel’s name means “Yahweh is God.” And that’s important for us to know because there are so many other things we could say instead of Yahweh is God. We could say career is God. We could say family is God. We could say “I am God.” We could say “The self is God.” So many things you could put in there. And as we just read from the New City Catechism, there is this thing called idolatry that the Bible identifies, and the Bible tells us this is one of our proclivities, one of our tendencies is that we will drift into idol worship. We can create idols out of all kinds of things. Some of them aren’t necessarily bad things in and of themselves. They’re actually good things. They just were never meant to be the center. They were never meant to be God.

So, Joel mentions here in the book of Joel, the temple in Jerusalem, but contains no mention of any of the kings of either the Southern Kingdom, Judah, or the Northern Kingdom, Israel. And so, some scholars see that as an indication that Joel may have been written concurrent with the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, perhaps mid-to-late 5th century as the Jewish people are returning and beginning to rebuild. And in the process of that, Joel can see the temple, can see that Jerusalem and the temple are being restored. And so, he speaks about such things.

He does make reference to other Old Testament writings, and I think that also helps us when we try to place this book in terms of history. I mean he goes all the way back to Exodus with references. He also references Isaiah, Amos, Zephaniah, Nahum, Obadiah, Ezekiel. And all of this probably suggests a later date of authorship, but when it was written, is not nearly as important as what is said here. And I think what is said here is really important. And to me the theme of the book, since he mentions this five times, is the Day of the Lord.

Let me read Chapter 2 for us, and we’re going to go 27 verses deep. And then a lot of you will be familiar with verses 28 and following. We’re going to save that for next week, and you’ll see why as we go along. It begins like this. Chapter 2: “Blow a trumpet in Zion, And sound an alarm on My holy mountain!”

So, this is a summons, it’s a warning. Back then this was like when we hear the tornado alarms here in the Nashville area. Sometimes you’ll hear all kinds of different warning sounds coming from different civic authorities, but for them it was about the trumpet, and it was about this ram’s horn, the shofar. Some of you are familiar with that, those who have heard it before or maybe you even own one and have blown it before. The embouchure is all about what you do with your lips and your mouth. It’s not a thing where you push keys, and it changes the pitch. I mean the people that play these things have amazing skills to go like this, and then they go like that and then they go high. It’s just amazing what they can do with these things. I’m not very good at it, but hey, I don’t want your pity. I’ve been on vacation. I’m rested up. It’s okay. So, Joel says there’s a warning to be given, verse 1, and what’s that about? “Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, For the day of the Lord is coming; Surely it is near.”

They’ve just gone through this locust plague, and Tommy showed you guys some pictures of swarming locus. It’s amazing. I mean they just can overwhelm any space that they occupy, as we got a hint of from the cicada thing every 13 years here in Nashville. But this was a warning of an event much greater than what we experienced here. And what he’s saying is that was just sort of an hors d’oeuvre about this warning that you need to heed because the day of the Lord is coming. In other words, it hadn’t already happened in its fullness yet, but it is coming and it’s near, so it’s imminent.

“A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and thick darkness.
As the dawn is spread over the mountains,
So there is a great and mighty people;
There has never been anything like it,
Nor will there be again after it
To the years of many generations.”

So now he kind of shifts the metaphor from locust to an army of people coming after Judah, the Southern Kingdom, where we’re pretty sure Joel was prophesying. He says, “A fire consumes before them, And behind them a flame burns.”

In other words, not only are they just going to devastate the place by eating everything in sight and then just leaving the place economically devastated for food and all that, but as well there’s going to be this fire that’s like he’s going all scorched earth here is what he’s doing. And that’s exactly what’s happening.

“A fire consumes before them, And behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them.”

In other words, to the approaching army or locust, this is like for them, “Oh wow, this is lunch. This is awesome. Let’s go, let’s get it.” And they just can’t say no, and so it becomes a desolate wilderness behind them. Nothing at all escapes them. “Their appearance is like the appearance of horses.” So again, he’s poetic in his language. He’s using all kinds of metaphors and analogies. And if you didn’t get the locust thing, if bugs don’t bother you, –raise your hand if bugs don’t bother you, but I shouldn’t see anybody raising your hand right here. We hate bugs. I mean it’s like one spider inside of your car and there’s going to be an accident. Or a bee inside of your shirt or something like that.

We were outside when the locusts were swarming, and Jeremy, our facilities guy, got one of those locusts, those cicadas, down his shirt, and I went smacking it on his back like that, and it was just terrible. We hate that sort of thing, don’t we? But this is going to be a desolation. Nothing escapes them. Their appearance is like horses. Now he shifts again,

“And like war horses, so they run. With a noise as of chariots They leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire consuming the stubble, like a mighty people arranged for battle.

Notice the amount of simile here, a comparison of two things using the word like or as. He’s master at doing this. And the word like, if you circled it each time he uses that in your Bible, I mean, you just see he’s really working hard to make sure you get it. This is an overwhelming assault.

“Like the crackling of a flame of fire consuming the stubble, like a mighty people arranged for battle. Before them the people are in anguish; All faces turn pale.” Verse 6.

Verse 7:
“They run like mighty men;
they climb the wall like soldiers; [This is the enemy that’s approaching]
And they each march in line,
Nor do they deviate from their paths.
They do not crowd each other;
They march every one in his path.
When they burst through the defenses,
They do not break ranks.
They rush on the city,
They run on the wall;
They climb into the houses,
They enter through the windows like a thief.
Before them, the earth quakes,
The heavens tremble.”

Now it’s cosmic. It’s not just here, it’s not just in the city right here that I’m living in. This is cosmic now. The earth itself quakes.

“The heavens tremble, The sun and the moon grow dark, The stars lose their brightness. And the Lord utters His voice before [notice this] His army.”

What do you mean His army? Is this His army that’s attacking? Yeah, it is. That’s pretty clear. That’s pretty clear throughout the book of Joel, and we need to sober up and take the warning seriously.

“Surely His camp is very great, For strong is He who carries out His word. The day of the Lord…”

That’s the third time of five times in this book, the first one was verse 15, Chapter 1. Now you’ve had two, verse 1, and now here in verse 11, “The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome. And who can endure it?” That’s a rhetorical question and we should know the answer. Who can endure it? No one. No one can endure. “’Yet even now,’ declares the Lord.” And what a change. This is so beautiful that this would come on the heels of that harsh stern warning. Here’s this. “…even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘Return to me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning; And rend your heart and not your garments.”

Wow. In other words, just like Jesus in the New Testament in the Sermon on the Mount, he draws a sharp distinction between externalism, this kind of religiosity that we go through the motions, and we rend our garments. We tear into acting as if we’re sorry for our sin or pretending that we’re religious, so we just go to church, but our hearts are not in it. We sing the songs, but we don’t really connect with God. We don’t mean it at all. Maybe we even put money in the offering, but our hearts aren’t in it, and the Lord is looking toward the heart. Just as Jesus in the New Testament keeps talking about how that woman who gave that widow’s mite gave with all her heart, and she gave more than anyone else, and the Lord is well-pleased because her heart was engaged.

I have to ask myself that question every time I walk through the door, especially when you do something routine. Is my heart engaged with God here? Is your heart engaged with God? It doesn’t take long for drift to lead to some kind of apathy and some kind of justification of all kinds of sin and all that sort of thing. Doesn’t take long. Drift does us no good at all. When you come in, when you gather with God’s people to worship, be intentional, Joel says, and reminds us to do that.

Rend your hearts, not just your garments. Really, really important. And return to Him, that’s so important. Verse 13: “Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate.” You ever wonder if I return to the Lord, will He receive me back? If I repent from my sin, will He forgive me or not? The Bible is unequivocal about this. It’s clear and I’m so, so thrilled as a Bible teacher at this church to be able to stand up and remind you over and over and over again that your repenting should be with joy because you know what the response of God is going to be. The Bible tells me so, Jesus loves me, and Jesus loves you. And it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter how far you’ve drifted. It’s about right now, this moment, the day of the Lord for you right now. Will you return to Him? Will you turn to Him with your whole heart to Him because He’s gracious?

How will He receive me? “He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness.” This is a doxology of the divine attributes. Joel is just singing. Look at it, how wonderful, how marvelous is the Savior who calls you to Himself no matter what you’ve done, no matter how far you’ve drifted, no matter how many years the locusts have eaten away, no matter how much fear you have, no matter how much you’re drawn to that addiction over and over and you’ve fallen to over and over. And what’s important is right now, this moment. This day of the Lord for you right now is what’s important.

“He is slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, and relenting of evil. Who knows whether He will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind Him, even a grain offering and a libation for the Lord your God?” In other words, even though there had been sin in the camp, even though the worship had dried up, we saw that in the first chapter, but now, if you repent and return to the Lord, not only does He restore your heart and receive you and forgive you, but He goes beyond that and He even equips and empowers you to worship Him again.

“I don’t feel like doing that. I don’t feel like He’d receive me, and I just don’t feel like it.” Then ask Him to give you the “feel like it.” I often will fall to my knees and say, “Lord, I don’t feel like praying right now, so I’m going to use this crutch right here that You gave us.” And it’s a good crutch. Sometimes you need a crutch. Somebody say amen.

Amen. Sometimes I do, and that’s a great crutch right there. “I don’t know what to say, God. I’m flabbergasted at the way the world has gone mad and I’m angry now.” What do I say? I say this, “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come [no matter what’s going on in this world] thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven [and on Earth is in my heart as well].”

Then 15, he says it a second time, “Blow a trumpet in Zion.” This is a summons. The first one was to gather, verse 1, gather the people. Verse 15 is let’s repent. Let’s do this.

“Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly,
Gather the people, sanctify the congregation,
Assemble the elders,
Gather the children and the nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom come out of his room
And the bride out of her bridal chamber.”

In other words, “I don’t care if a wedding ceremony is going on right now. Everybody stop what you’re doing. Let’s get back to the Lord.” I mean that’s how urgent this is. Joel’s speaking with an eschatological urgency, but pointing us to the eschatological king, Jesus, ultimately who gives us eschatological promises about what?

In other words, God will have the last word in the end of time. It’s all about God being the kind of God he talked about up there in verse 13, “Gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, relenting of evil.” So, he challenges them now with urgency to gather the people in verse 17.

“Let the priests, the Lord’s ministers
Weep between the porch and the altar.
Let them say ‘Spare thy people, O Lord,
And do not make thine inheritance a reproach,
A byword among the nations.
Why should they among the peoples say,
“Where is their God?”’

So now it’s about God’s name, you see. And our repentance ought to keep that in mind as well. I so often forget; I just think it’s about me trying to avoid or dodge the consequences of my sin and hoping that God won’t punish me or allow me to suffer some kind of consequence for my sin. Instead, I ought to be thinking about what have I done to the name? What are we doing with the name that’s entrusted to us? We are his ambassadors. That’s the greater offense than what you might do with your body or something. It’s the name. If you look back and go running back into Exodus, the Ten Commandments, what do they begin with? The name of God is right on the front end of all of that. It’s amazing. Where is their God? Why should they say that? We don’t want that to happen.

Verse 18 begins a whole new section. It’s going to talk about deliverance promised, and so this turns into a very hopeful message here, right? “Then,” circle that. That’s worth circling, okay? “Then…” When? “Then…” When? You return and repent and return and repent. Repeat, repeat, repeat. It’s a way of life for God’s people. Repentance is not one and done. Repentance is the way we run. It is life for us, we believers. We do not have this all figured out. There are no experts in this room. There are no experts watching online. We continue to place ourselves before God so that He can pour His glory into our lives, restore us, restore our rejoicing in spite of our suffering, et cetera.

“The Lord then will be zealous for His land,
And will have pity on His people.
And the Lord will answer and say to His people,
‘Behold, I’m going to send you grain, new wine and oil
And you’ll be satisfied and full with them;
And I will never again make you a reproach among the nations.
I will remove the northern army far from you.'”

That’s the metaphor he’s been using, which may indeed include a reference to the locust plague that had happened as well as some things that are about to happen as well as some things that might happen further down the line in history.

You’ll see in a little bit how we tie all of that together.
“’I will drive it [the northern army] into a parched and desolate land, its vanguard into the eastern sea.” That would be the Dead Sea down in the southern portion of Israel. “Its rearguard into the western sea.” That’s certainly a reference to the Mediterranean. “And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up.” Some of you know that some of those bugs when they… I mean there was a downspout right outside here at the church, down at the pavilion. I don’t know if anybody saw that. It was like 400 dead carcasses. Is that the plural of carcass? Somebody help me out. Who said… Carcass. There was a pile of them.

And I walked by, I’m not kidding you. It smelled really bad. It was horrific, but imagine the swarm, millions, maybe a billion locusts. And yeah, they’d smell bad. “For that army had done great things. But do not fear, O land. Rejoice and be glad, for the Lord has done great things.” Look at verse 20 and then verse 21. They both have the phrase “great things” in them. Guess who’s greater. Guess who can restore the years the locusts have eaten. Yeah. “Do not fear, beasts of the field” because animals were afraid. “Where am I going to get something to eat? The locusts ate it all.”

“Do not fear, beasts of the field,
For the pastures of the wilderness have turned green,
The tree has borne its fruit.
The fig tree and the vine have yielded in full.”

He’s looking forward to what God can do, how God can restore all of that. “So rejoice, O sons of Zion, and be glad in the Lord your God.” Not just be glad in the fact that the circumstances themselves have changed but be glad in the Lord your God. Where’s your joy to be found? In the Lord your God. Where’s your delight in all of life? It should be in the Lord. Turn to Him. Delight in Him. He is most glorified in us when we are most delighted in Him.

“He has given you the early rain for your vindication. And He’s poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before.” Some of you will have marginal notes that suggest an alternate translation that He’s given you the teacher for righteousness. That may indeed be true. That may indeed be what he intends to say here and that indeed could be a reference to Messiah, the teacher for righteousness. But even if it’s not or I’m speculating a little and I am no Hebrew scholar, I just know enough to read the books and the commentaries and use the dictionaries, it’s not one hundred percent crystal clear that that’s it, but it might be that.

Verse 24, “The threshing floors will be full of grain.” Now that’s the opposite of what Chapter 1 was all about. The threshing floors were empty of grain because all the locusts had eaten it. “The vats will overflow with new wine and oil.” And again, the opposite. This is the great reversal that the Gospel can bring about in our lives. This is a picture of it in the physical realm.

“Then,” there’s another then for you to circle, “I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten the creeping locust and the stripping locust and the gnawing locust.” Those four different kinds of varieties of locust are there. Some have suggested that they are the development of the embryo locust into a mature adult locust. Okay, so four stages of growth. Okay, maybe that’s it. Or they’re like four different kinds of bugs. Okay, that could be it as well. The point is he’s trying to overwhelm us with the fact that that enemy is going to be vanquished by God. “My great army, which I send among you,” and God’s the one that sent them, but He’s the one that can take them away.

Verse 26:
“You shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied.
And praise the name of the LORD your God
Who has dealt wondrously with you;
Then [fun to circle the “thens”] My people will never be put to shame.
Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel
And that I am the LORD.”

All capital letters in most English Bibles meaning it’s Yahweh. “I am Yahweh your God and there is no other.” This is not multiple deities. There is one God. We are Trinitarian in our view of God. The Bible is very explicit. There’s a Father, Son and the Holy Spirit revealed throughout Scripture. We see those images used. Can we explain the Trinity? No, I can’t fully explain it. We have some analogies that we can use, but they all fail at some point. It’s a mystery. It’s a beautiful mystery though.

“And then you will know that I’m in the midst of Israel. I’m the Lord your God. There is no other. My people will never be put to shame.” How He identifies with you, how He identifies with me to call us His people! And because we are His people, we will never be put to shame. Have you lost sight of the fact that you are one of His people? Because when I do that, when I drift that way, all of a sudden shame creeps in on me. I forget the day of the Lord has come in my life that the good news of God’s overwhelming, amazing grace has saved me and set me free. And I forget that so quickly, and maybe you do too.

A few years back, Kim and I were in London. We stepped out of the Gentleman Barista’s coffee shop. Nobody’s ever been there. It’s on Piccadilly Road. You got to go there sometime. The coffee is awesome. One of those red double-decker buses with seating on the open-top pulled away from the corner and plastered all along the side was a banner that read this: “There’s probably no God. So, stop worrying and enjoy your life.” The entire campaign was capitalizing on the emergence of the so-called New Atheist movement led by people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett, a movement which I think has largely started to fade to be honest.

But not long after that movement began to gain some momentum, some Christian folks in Oxford England invited philosopher, the Christian apologist, William Lane Craig, and then they also invited Richard Dawkins, the Oxford University professor and well-known atheist to a public debate at a local venue on October 25th of that year. Dawkins declined. It was made public that he would not show up. The host organization then proceeded to rent some buses of their own, and they put up a big banner that read, in the same typeface: “There’s probably no Dawkins. Now stop worrying and enjoy your October 25.” Oh man, that was awesome.

We human beings love to ask questions, don’t we? Why are there locusts? Why these people? Why is this happening? Where’s God? When all of this happens, we ask similar questions in our own day and time. Some of them not just under crisis, but just thinking through life critically. “Why is there something rather than nothing?” is probably the oldest philosophical question and the most fundamental question. Why is there something rather than nothing? How is that possible?

How can we explain immaterial things like love, beauty, wonder, courage, honor, dignity? Those things aren’t found under a microscope. Where do they come from? Is this life all there is? Does God exist? What does it mean to be a human being? It’s really important right now. How is it that we human beings even have the capacity to ask foundational questions like these and so many others like them? What makes us think our questions or our answers have any correlation whatsoever to reality? Good questions. Love these questions.

Here at TVC we hold to a biblical worldview. This means that for us, the ancient Scriptures known as the Bible, serve as our standard for belief and behavior. And so, when we wrestle with questions like that, which some of us do, and most of us will wrestle at least with one or two of them, we’re going to turn to the Scriptures for our answers instead of just turning to the Internet or just trying to figure it out on our own.

I can’t handle the burden of explaining why the locust came. I can’t handle the burden of even the question, “How do you explain consciousness or other minds that are different than mine?” Just to explain that blows my mind, and I can’t handle that burden, and so I go to this book and encourage you to do the same. That’s why we study through books of the Bible. That’s why we often say about the Word of God, this is God’s word. Unique in its source, timeless in its truth, broad in its reach and transforming in its power.

Last week you studied Chapter 1. You may have noticed that Joel, Chapter 1, turn back there real quick, it began with one of his own questions. I think verse 2, look at that: “Listen, all inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this happened in your days or in your fathers’ days?” And our slice of history is the only one we have to work with, so if we’re trying to understand theirs, we can probably appreciate some urgency in that and some depth. We can understand the devastation and all that a little bit academically. But in our own day and time, our slice of history, right now I’m dealing with, and you are dealing with, some very real existential threats. Some of those threats are against you. Some of those threats are against people you love. Some of those threats are against our culture at large. Our children are at stake. What are we doing about it?

And that threat, what do we do with it? How do we handle it? Where do we turn for help in all of it? We turn to the Scriptures because in the Scriptures we find a God who can make up for the years the locusts have eaten, and He can bring life out of death. And listen, as regards my sin and your sin, while a single locust may not have been much of a threat on its own, the grotesque voracious swarms of locusts threaten total loss in every category of life, including the worship of God for these people. And the same thing is true for us. One locust, you might think to yourself, “That’s nothing.” But do you know that one single locust can lay their eggs in June and there can be 18 million descendants just from that one locust by October? One little “yes” that should have been a “no.” One little “no” that should have been a “yes.” It’s important for us to understand.

Was this a locust plague? Which by the way, echoes, doesn’t it, the eighth plague in Egypt of the locust, right? And we even have some sort of inferences, some veiled references to darkness here as well. The sun and the moon going out, all that, right? The ninth plague was darkness in Egypt. Death is here as well. And the 10th plague in Egypt was death. So, Joel knows his Old Testament well, and he’s referring back to all of this. What is the point with pain? Lewis says, “Pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, God speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains.”

“Blow the trumpet!” he shouts. It’s his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. And that’s one of the reasons, of course, you all remember, most of you do anyway, why the churches were full for about two months after 9/11. But we have a short memory, we don’t recognize on an ongoing basis that we really need God. We really need God all the time, not just when we’re jumping into a foxhole. “Alas for the day of the Lord is at hand,” Joel shouts. “And as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.” That’s Chapter 1, verse 15, and that’s interesting. There’s a little play on words there in the Hebrew. One Bible commentator says it should be “And as a shattering from Shaddai.” Shaddai, El Shaddai is the word that’s translated there Almighty for most of your English Bibles, it’s the Lord who is shattering. He’s blowing the trumpet. He’s trying to get my attention and your attention as well.

What is this day of the Lord and why does it matter? I think that’s a fair question. Here’s something that is mentioned a couple dozen times throughout the Bible. Look at the books that refer to the day of the Lord. And perhaps over lunch if you want to, you can read all of these passages. I don’t have time, sadly, in this particular setting to be able to read all of these passages for you. But if you read this on your own, you’ll find some repeating themes whenever the phrase “the day of the Lord” shows up in your Bible. These passages often describe the nature, scope and timing of the day of the Lord and may broadly refer to any of God’s actions in three contexts: historic, imminent or ultimate.

Historic. God reminds us of all of God’s acts in redemption history. We do well to reflect on these. I think Joel is looking back into Exodus and he’s reminding by referring to those to plague number 8, 9, and 10; I think the Jews would’ve known that. The ancient Jews would’ve known that. They would’ve seen the parallel and they would’ve been, “Oh my goodness, look what God does when he’s trying to get their attention, even of the Egyptians.” And by the way, in the Book of Exodus, it constantly says that the Lord does this so that Pharaoh and his people will know that Yahweh is the Lord. Really important that we know what God is up to at least in the big picture if we can’t explain what He’s up to in more detail.

But we do well to reflect on the past actions of God in the days of the Lord that have happened in history behind us. And “imminent” calls us with urgency to repentance and faith in light of God’s impending judgment and faithful offer of salvation. We have so much better perspective because we’re after the first arrival, the first appearing of Jesus. We can point to the cross, we can point to the God who actually knows what it’s like to face death and defeat it as we point to the resurrection. And so, we want to be aware of what God’s done in the past, what He may be about to do. And considering the day of the Lord in the imminent, or the near future, for us is really good because it assures us of the joyful freedom of walking in God’s promises of grace and mercy through faith in Christ regardless of what circumstances or what outcomes may happen – even in November.

See, no matter. Are we a people marked by a steady rock-solid confidence in the Lord our God? Or are we going to run around with our hair on fire, or cowering in fear, despondent and despairing? Like the people in Joel I think had gotten to that place, there was nothing left for them because all their hope was in their new wine and in their crops and in whatever was going to happen. Their kind of wealth and whatever they could manufacture. And that can happen to us as well.

And then of course we have to talk about the day of the Lord when it comes to ultimate distant future, the eschatological hope we have referring to how God intends to wrap up human history and set the world to rights. Yes, He is our hope in life and in death. Why? Because we know the day of the Lord means He will have the final say. And He’s good. We can trust Him no matter what the present circumstances may look like, no matter what our past may be riddled with. What kind of fears, what kind of abuse, what kind of things have gone wrong? It doesn’t matter if we keep our eyes fixed on our hope, who is Jesus Himself.

So if I were going to summarize the day of the Lord, I’d say it this way, “The Day of the LORD” is a biblical phrase that signifies God’s special interventions in human history wherein God acts with righteous judgment against sin and evil, or wherein by his sovereign grace, God acts to offer deliverance and salvation to his people.”

We see this in Chapter 2 beginning in verse 18 and following; there is this promise of deliverance, and it runs all the way into the New Testament. That promise is fulfilled in the personal work of Jesus. And if you, if we, will turn and fix our eyes on Jesus, He is the author and perfecter of our faith. He’s the one that writes it. He originates it. He’s the source of our faith. He’s also the perfecter of our faith. He’s the one that will walk with us through everything, any trial, any tribulation, and He will never leave us or forsake us. He said that Himself. And that’s for you, that’s for me, no matter what we face this week, next week or the week to follow.

In rapid form, what does the day of the Lord mean for us? The God of the Bible is not an indifferent or disinterested deity when it comes to humanity. Do you get that from this passage? I hope you do. He actually is interested in us. And He was interested in ancient Israel, His people. What does the day of the Lord mean for us? The God of the Bible is personal, powerful and has plans and purposes He will intend to fulfill.

I rest in that. The sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you can lay your head at night, as Spurgeon said. “The God of the Bible is sovereign over His creation, over all human history, over every nation, over all people.” So, you may need to turn off your news feed or your news feeds because they’re trying to tell you something else. You may need to take a break from social media or whatever. If you’re getting programmed opposite what you see up on the screen there, it might be good for you to have a little fast from all of that nonsense that people are trying to get you afraid and irritated about.

What does the day of the Lord mean for us? “In God’s righteous judgment…” By the way, His judgment is righteous, so I trust Him to be the judge. “He intends to eradicate all evil and its effects, idolatry, injustice, abuse, greed, poverty, racism, despair, disease, death.” Take it away, Lord. We see this in the book of Revelation. I mean, just go read the whole book of Revelation. Just see what God intends to do. It’s remarkable. We studied all through Revelation during Covid. All of those Bible studies are up online. It would make a great personal Bible study for you if you’d like to study Revelation, I encourage you to go and take those Bible studies and revisit those.

And finally, God’s gracious offer of salvation by grace through faith in Christ means that all sinners who repent and believe will be forgiven and saved. We see this promise right here in Joel too. We see it right there as well. Return to the Lord. Repent. Okay? So important for us to do that as a way of life. So, what’s waiting for you? Forgiveness for the past and joy for the present. And even in spite of suffering, even in spite of the outcomes not going the way you wanted them to go, that you thought with your limited knowledge, you thought this should go that way and it didn’t. And now is joy just sucked out of your life or is your joy rooted in someone else? Something else. Hope for the future.

Is your hope rooted in Jesus? He indeed is our hope in life and death. What are you waiting for? It’s time for us to repent, to rend our hearts and return to the Lord. One Bible teacher said in his manuscript where his notes, he put it… I guess he got spell-checked from rend to rent. He says, “But I think that’s true also” because he said, “I’m constantly renting my heart out and I need to stop doing that. I need to give it wholly to Jesus.” So, we need to rend, tear into our hearts, just lay them open before the Lord and trust and hope in Him.

All right, let’s wrap this up with a couple quotes. “Crying to God is not the same as returning to God. The Lord is looking for a people who will not only cry to Him, but who will return to Him with all their heart.” There’s a lot of people that cry to the Lord when the consequences aren’t good or the circumstances aren’t good. They’ve been foolish. It’s their fault. They don’t see that, but they still kind of just cry to the Lord. “Why are You letting this happen? I don’t understand what’s going on with You.”

Listen, I am just old enough, been on the planet long enough, I don’t understand why God allows this thing to keep spinning. I have got to be honest with you. I am such a rebel. I’m such a fool. I’m so consistently inconsistent. The only thing consistent about me is that I’m inconsistent, and yet He calls to me. “Return. Come back home. I’m your hope. I’m eager to forgive. I’m gracious. I’m compassionate.” What would keep you from turning to a God like that?

In the African Bible Commentary from one of the pastors who wrote on the book of Joel, “God’s people can take comfort in the fact that they will be vindicated on the day of the Lord. God will never abandon His promise that repentance brings forgiveness.” It’s so simple, so straight ahead. Repentance brings forgiveness. Do you need forgiveness? Do you need redemption? Repentance brings forgiveness. It’s very clear there.

“Joel’s message to us is that there is still time to call on the Lord’s name and be forgiven and saved. Those who turn to God will receive His pardon and enjoy the blessings described in Joel’s prophecy, including the enjoyment of God’s presence forever, but those who refuse face punishment and destruction.” That’s it. That’s clear, straightforward. I so appreciate this pastor. I won’t even attempt to pronounce his name, but it’s there on the slides for you. It’s a brilliant commentary on the Book of Joel.

And then Dane Ortlund from a book we quote often around here at The Village Chapel, Gentle and Lowly, talking about the Lord Jesus: “Returning to God in fresh contrition, however ashamed and disgusted with ourselves, He will not tepidly pardon. He will abundantly pardon. He does not merely accept us. He sweeps us up in His arms again.” Do you get that? The prodigal son’s father, you know the prodigal son’s face down in the mud: “Maybe if I return, my father will just allow me to become one of the household servants.” The prodigal son had no idea how generous his father was going to be to him. He didn’t get restored to just become a servant. He got a ring, a robe, some sandals and had a party. That’s how eager the God of the Bible is to receive you if you will repent and return to him.

Do you need to hear that this morning? Do you need to do that this morning? How will you respond? Church, for all of us, “Let’s hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let’s consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.” One of the good deeds is repenting, by the way. “Not forsaking our own assembling together,” oh, that means I need you. That means you need me. “…as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” That’s pouring courage into one another. Courage to believe and trust God. “And all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

Let’s pray: Lord, thank You that You didn’t just drop-kick the Earth over the back fence of the universe and tell us to figure it out by ourselves. Thank You that You didn’t just step back and fold Your arms, and look at us and shake Your head, roll Your eyes and get frustrated with us. But rather than that, in one of the mighty acts of God in human history, You came. And the day of the Lord when You were born here, the day of the Lord when You died on the cross for me, the day of the Lord when You rose again, and the day of the Lord that You promise, that ultimate day of the Lord, when You promise to come and set things right; we are looking forward to that. So let us, Your people, return to You, repent of our sins, and rejoice in the hope we have in Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray. Amen and amen.