Current Challenge & Future Blessings

Notes
Transcript
The Prophet Joel – Current Challenges & Future Blessings
Scenes in Passage:
Scene 1. The plague a time of great calamity to be told of for generations. 1-4
Scene 2. Drinking and partying will cease as the innumerable army has stripped the land. 5-7
Scene 3. The national will mourn at the scale of destruction just as a bride widowed on her wedding day is without comfort. 8-12
Scene 4. The nation is called to meet in holy assembly and cry out to God in repentance in order to avoid the judgement to come. 13-15
Scene 5. All joy and hope is gone, except for hope in God. 16-20
Main theme of passage:
A great plague of judgement has come upon the land and the prophet Joel calls the people to gather in repentance.
Main preaching theme:
Both calamity and prosperity are the lot of humanity – will you have an attitude of humility and repentance in all times, or will you miss the warning?
Main preaching intention:
I believe that 5 people will be challenged to look upon times of suffering as an opportunity to grow closer to God.
Scenes in Sermon:
Scene 1. (Include historical setting) A locust plague, is an unimaginable calamity. v 1-4
Scene 2. A calamity which causes great suffering. v 5-12
Scene 3. What attitude will you have towards the unexpected calamities of life?
Scene 4. Can you follow the example of Joel and call out to the Lord, even when you are not able to see the future blessings that the Lord has in store? v 16-20
Scene 5. For our approach to God in good times and bad is the key to future blessings. v 13-16
Scene 1. A locust plague, of biblical proportions is an unimaginable calamity. v 1-4
Now I have never seen a locust plague, but they still happen and the Australian plague locust can be found in western Queensland, New South Wales, and Victoria.
In Africa and the Middle East plagues of Biblical proportions still occur, in fact the only continent where locust plagues no longer occur is North America.
Farming practices led to the extinction of the Rocky mountain plague locust early last century.
If you happen to be in western Queensland, NSW or Victoria sometime in the next few months, you could see something like this.
Rains bringing an end to drought can trigger the hatching of dormant locust eggs and stimulate existing locusts to breed.
The origin of these swarms is not fully understood even today.
Some factors that may induce normally solitary locusts to swarm are high temperatures, low humidity, and population crowding.
Adult locusts, with serrated jaws rasping from side to side, can consume daily their body weight in food.
Yet they are able to live for four days without feeding, surviving on stored fat.
A locust swarm can have between 40 and 80 million insects per square kilometer, with 50 million insects capable of devastating 100 tons of vegetation a day.
Locust swarms have been known to blanket 1200 square kilometers, stripping vegetation, fouling the air with excrement, and triggering epidemics as they die and rot.
It has been estimated that a single swarm of locusts could eat in one day what 40,000 people eat in one year.[1]
A locust plague can be a great calamity for an agricultural society, especially in ancient times.
Sometime after 835 BC early in the reign of the boy king Josiah such a calamity swept across the land of Judah.
Swarms of locusts came in such numbers that they were like a vast innumerable army.
Scene 2. This was a calamity which caused great suffering. v 5-12
Take a look at verses 5 to 12.
Here we see this incredible call of mourning.
Four representative groups are seen as being in utter despair as their livelihood and dreams are destroyed by this sweeping infestation. [2]
Firstly those who drink are going to have their wine taken away.
The vineyards will be laid bare and even the fig trees will have their bark stripped so that their branches appear white.
No vineyards means no grapes, no grapes means no wine.
Secondly in verse 8 we read this incredibly distressing image of a bride, betrothed to be married.
Her wedding day is planned; in fact it may even be her wedding day.
And her husband to be has died.
Now I have friends in military chaplaincy who have had to break the news to a young bride that her husband is not coming home.
With great distress in their voice they speak of a young women without comfort.
Some time ago I was helping a young woman whose fiancée died in a motor vehicle accident.
Her grief had a lostness to it that I have never encountered before.
This passage and these experiences speak of dreams shattered and hopes for the future erased.
It is a sign to the nation that as a widowed bride on her wedding day is without comfort so the people should mourn the loss that has befallen the nation.
In verse 9 we read that the temple itself has closed down.
There is nothing left with which to make the offerings.
The very centre of the nations purpose has stopped, no worship can happen.
And then in verse 11 we see that there is nothing left in the fields.
The grain crops, the orchards, even the palm trees.
Everything is gone!
The farmers looked forward joyfully to the harvest and it has disappeared before their eyes.
It is a picture of great distress; not very encouraging at all.
In fact it sort of makes you want to go into a corner and hide.
But Joel doesn’t give the leaders of the people that option.
Listen to verses 13 and 14
13 Dress yourselves in burlap and weep, you priests! Wail, you who serve before the altar! Come, spend the night in burlap, you ministers of my God. For there is no grain or wine to offer at the Temple of your God. 14 Announce a time of fasting; call the people together for a solemn meeting. Bring the leaders and all the people of the land into the Temple of the Lord your God, and cry out to him there.
Scene 3. So as we begin this year, let’s do so with an attitude check.
What attitude will you have towards the unexpected calamities of life?
Just a small example from my own experience.
A few years ago I was doing some financial work for a couple of minutes and made a big mistake, losing six months worth of transactions.
I didn’t respond well and found myself really aggravated by the situation.
A minor frustration, which was fixable after about 3 hours, but it affected my whole afternoon.
I wonder what would have happened if a year’s income was lost because of a plague and next years income was going to be minimal as basic neccessities would be in very short supply.
How do you respond to the calamities of life?
Now I am not saying that things shouldn’t upset you.
Nor am I saying that significant events shouldn’t cause you enormous concern and anguish.
What I am asking is what is our attitude when such things come along; because they will?
Both calamity and prosperity are the lot of humanity.
If we want prosperity, we have to accept that sometimes there will be calamity as well.
And the reality is that in this country we are blessed to have less calamity than most.
I think how we respond, depends on where our focus is.
Do we think we have to fix it?
Do we think others have to fix it for us?
Or .....
Scene 4. Can you follow the example of Joel and call out to the Lord, even when you are not able to see the future blessings that the Lord has in store?
Have a look at verses 15 – 20.
In verse 15 Joel sees a coming day of judgement.
The locust plague is bad enough but there is more to come.
In fact Joel sees it as a precursor to the day of the Lord.
The day when God will judge.
These Old Testament prophets often proclaimed messages of doom.
But they also looked forward to the day when the Lord would reign in victory, the people would be restored to the land and the land itself would be restored.
They couldn’t see it; all that was before them was doom and destruction.
But they called out to the Lord anyway, sure that he had future blessings in store for those who were faithful to him.
They had this amazing attitude.
An attitude which basically said, “Well Lord we almost certainly are going to all die, but I will praise you anyway because if I don’t see your victory in this life I know I will see it in the next!”
Verse 16, there is no food or worship in God’s house.
Verse 17 the seeds have died in the ground, the store houses are in ruins and the granaries are in ruins.
Verse 18 the cattle and sheep are starving.
Yet in verse 19 it is to the Lord that Joel cries out.
Even as the pastures burst into flames around him.
Scene 5. Our approach to God in good times and bad is the key to future blessings.
Have a look at verses 13 and 14.
Here Joel reminds his readers, as he reminds us of the truth of 2 Chronicles 7:14
14 Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.
Very simply, if we want the Lord to look upon our situation with favour, then our attitude and approach to him is the key.
It is not a guarantee that we will get what we want.
But if there is no humility and repentance, then there will be no blessing.
There is a very simple warning in this passage of scripture.
We can see suffering as an opportunity to grow closer to God.
To put things right with him.
Or we can miss the warning and miss all the future blessing that God has for us, possibly in this life but certainly in the next.
Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1999). Nelson's new illustrated Bible commentary (Joe 1:6). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.
Walvoord, J. F., Zuck, R. B., & Dallas Theological Seminary. (1983-). The Bible knowledge commentary : An exposition of the scriptures(Joe 1:4). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.