Joel - Valley of Decision

Disaster strikes in the prophet Joel’s day as swarms of locusts send the area into famine. Joel connects this local catastrophe with the coming ultimate Catastrophe: the Day of the Lord. Catastrophe strips away the routine and ordinary and exposes the moral and spiritual reality. We are in the Valley of Decision… let’s stay out of the Valley of Judgment.

Worship focus: Choosing God and the things of God, to Be like Him, to Follow Him. The Return of Jesus.

When Life Gives You Lemons

Growing up in California, we had a few lemon trees in our backyard. Two that looked like trees, two that looked like little shrubs. And , as they say, when life gives you lemons...

You should gather all those lemons up in buckets and tubs. Then get a couple friends together. Make teams. And go to war.

My team would construct a fort around the playset, throwing down lemons from on high.

Jono, my brother, and his team… well they dug a hole. Which really made it easy to throw the lemons at them.

The beauty of being hit with a lemon… they have decent heft, like a baseball… but they’re a bit softer when they hit. Except for the tips, those are tough, and might break skin a little.

Then the lemon itself explodes against the cut it just made, so you get that sweet sweet lemon juice in there…

You know you’ve been hit… and it really makes you think about life.

Maybe

Surgical Lung Biopsy

As you know, we have been praying for my Mom, she had a surgical lung biopsy last week. And we don’t know exactly what’s going on… but we know everything not’s right.

Praying for healing, praying for the best possible results and answers…

But here’s a thing that we know: Mom’s days are numbered. They always were...

But sometimes we are faced with the sudden reality of it. It’s one thing to know “in theory,” and another to face the truth. To feel the sting.

We don’t yet know the number of days or years… but we know they are numbered.

This is the book of Joel. The final book of the prophets, I believe the latest of the prophetic books to be written.

It’s a hard one to pin down. Some think that it was written super early. And if it was, then all the prophets are cribbing from Joel. I am persuaded by authors that put Joel writing around 350 BC., and he is quoting from the rich tradition of all the prophets who have gone before him. Applying the Word of God to the circumstances he lives in.

The catastrophic circumstances… that really make you think about life.

Eugene Peterson writes this in his intro to Jeol.

There is a sense in which catastrophe doesn’t introduce anything new into our lives. It simply exposes the moral or spiritual reality that already exists but was hidden beneath an overlay of routine, self-preoccupation, and business as usual. Then suddenly, there it is before us: a moral universe in which our accumulated decisions—on what we say and do, on how we treat others, on whether or not we will obey God’s commands—are set in the stark light of God’s judgment.

Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2005), Joe.a

Locusts

You know what locusts are? Basically grasshoppers. But grasshoppers are normally solitary. But when they get angry and get together with all their friends… they can do it in a lab by injecting grasshoppers with seratonin. They freak out and, in the words of Scientific American - they go Biblical.

And a swarm of these can devastate the land… because they just eat everything. And that leaves no food for the humans. And Joel is writing in a time when this has just happened to Israel, and the land and people are devastated by famine.

Joel 1:4–7 ESV

4 What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. 5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. 6 For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. 7 It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white.

And this has affected everything, down to their daily worship.

Joel 1:13 ESV

13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! Because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

What do you bring before God… if there is nothing to bring?

And then Joel brings some comfort. Hey guys, this is kind of like the end of all things! Great comfort.

It is a shadow of the end of all things. And Joel draws this connection.

He connects these locusts to be like an invading army on the Day of the Lord. A precursor...

Joel 2:1–2 ESV

1 Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near, 2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.

Joel 2:10–11 ESV

10 The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 11 The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?

What Does God Want?

Who can endure it? If God’s just out to get us, there’s no hope at all.

But what does God truly want??? What has God always wanted? Loving relationship with his people.

Joel 2:12–14 ESV

12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. 14 Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?

Who knows??? Thank God, we know. Joel gives the answer.

In this future, he sees people respond to the call for repentance and return to God.

Joel 2:15–17 ESV

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; 16 gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. 17 Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’ ”

They gather up, and they worship, and they pray...

The Lord desires total and complete restoration. At the first moment of the people of God’s return to Him, God eagerly responds: He is the Prodigal Father watching for the return of His child.

Joel 2:18–19 ESV

18 Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. 19 The Lord answered and said to his people, “Behold, I am sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied; and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.

and I love this:

Joel 2:25 ESV

25 I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you.

Joel 2:26 ESV

26 “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

And this intimate language the New Testament church picks up at Pentecost:

Joel 2:28–29 ESV

28 “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. 29 Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.

Decision Valley

The current catastrophe - the locusts, is a foretaste of the coming Catastrophe - the Day of the Lord. It is a call to God’s people to return in repentance and restoration… that’s what God truly wants. But the Day of the Lord has another name. Judgment Day.

And Chapter 3 is all about that coming judgment on all the nations, all the peoples.

Joel 3:12 ESV

Let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations.

This could be a literal valley, the Kismet valley between Jerusalem proper and the Mount of Olives. Maybe that’s where God is going to do it.

But “Jehoshaphat” also means “has judged” or “He has judged.” So literally this is “Judgment Valley”

And he has another name for it. I love this:

Joel 3:13–14 ESV

13 Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great. 14 Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.

Tragedy exposes that this is a world of consequence. Where choices matter. Where Spirit matters.

What you choose and what you do shape you. You think it doesn’t… until life breaks you out of the ordinary and you catch a glimpse, a heartbreaking, maybe terrifying, maybe beautiful glimpse of the Truth.

The Everyday Ordinary

There is a lie we tell ourselves “everyday.”

It is a lie that there is such thing as “everyday.” That there is an “ordinary.”

This health stuff, for me, it’s a wakeup call that the time I have with my Mom is precious and beautiful and sacred.

That doesn’t mean one big dramatic visit. It means that my moments with her, and the choices to make moments with her… those are sacred. I only get so many of those… they are precious and they matter.

That was always true. But catastrophe teaches us, reminds us. The sting of the lemon juice. It’s all real. It all matters.

All of this other stuff is temporary… but you and the souls around you… and above all the God who made you. That’s forever.

It Matters What You Do

It matters what you do, because that shapes who you are.

It matters what you choose, because day by day you are choosing who you are.

The far more important, it matters whose you are.

And every moment, it is the valley of decision, and we choose to be his. Choose to live as he leads, to live as he has commanded, to live life as he created life to be.

Not because your choice controls your destiny, his choice controls your destiny. And he has first chosen us. He has first chosen you.

The truth is there are no ordinary moments, no arbitrary choices, no random occurrences, no unimportant decisions. I get fooled often times. We do, what we choose to do, shapes the world around us, impacts the lives around us and shapes our souls.

We are confronted with that in the moments of catastrophe. We will be undeniably and forever faced with it on judgment day, in the valley of judgment, in the valley of decision.

So we don't have to wait for that, how foolish to wait for that, to lose even moment of life and life more abundant.

We are invited into life that matters. I don't know how to do that? Oh man, let's dig in and find out!

I don't know if I can do that? Good news: you have been miraculously redeemed, are being supernaturally sanctified, have already been holy Spirit empowered to live a life of power, of impact, of holiness, of righteousness.

Don't miss a moment of it.

You think you're missing out? God will repay a hundred fold, not just the years the locusts have stolen, but every sacrifice, or apparent sacrifice.

The day of the Lord is near. Live and live well.

As the worship team comes up, let’s close with the words of Joel. Words of caution. But ultimately, words of comfort… for our hope is in the Lord.

Joel 3:14–16 ESV

14 Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. 15 The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 16 The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the Lord is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel.