Joel : The Day of the Lord
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We are going through the Minor Prophets,
Each had thier own message and their own way of telling it
Jonah ran from sharing God’s message, and was punished for it, but learned about how repntence brings about God’s forgiveness
Hosea’s life became a living metephor of God’s love for isreal, even though they kept rejecting Him, and he promised to restore Israel even after utterly destroying them
Amos saw that many of the nations had pushed God’s patience too far, and he was obligated to bring judgment, but none had done so much as Israel, who’s special relationship with God meant they were held to a higher standard, and he gave warnings of what to watch for.
TOday we discuss Joel.
The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. 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.
Joel begins prophecying shortly after a massive plague of locusts has devestated the land,
Amos, if you go back and red Amos actually foretold about this very swarm of locusts,
Joel sees it as just the beginning
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. 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. 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. Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord. The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes. Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine dries up; the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man.
Joel continues to tell of the devestation, but noticve he describes the swarm of locusts as an army from another nation.
He is saying “if you think the locusts were bad wait until an invading army comes and does the exact same thing but only worse.
And Look at just everything that has come to a halt becaus ethe locusts ate everything.
there are no grapes, and therefor no wine, there is no grain, so even the offerings in the temple have been disrupted, theres no olive for olive oil, all the fruit trees are barren.
In a primarially agricultural economy, this has destroyed almost all your sources of food.
and Joel is saying it could get worse
So what does he suggest
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. Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?
Joel tells the people to repent. to mourn and call for a fast
Just like what Nineveh did when Jonah preched to them about their comming destruction,
BEcause if God relented from punishing Ninevah, surely he will relent at the repenteance of his own people
Joel calls the coming destruction the Day of the Lord
we could read it as Judgement day.
Now I know we tend to think that judgment day will come at the very end of time - that’s when God will finally judge everyon and everything
But Scripture is clear that sometimes things get so bad in parets of the World, that God dives them a taste of his judgement - in order to bring about repentance.
And this is what is about to happen to Israel and Judah unless they repent
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, 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. Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run. As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle. Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale. Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted. They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 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?
An Army is coming bringing fire and darkness and war, and death and earthquakes.
Church I hope we never have to see the Day of the Lord, or at least not being one the recieving end of it.
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 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. 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?
Joel says to the people if you repent, God may relent from his punishment, and the day of the Lord might be replaced with something far better, not punishment but a blessing.
And now look what happens in Zion - that is Jerusalem, the people hear Joels warning:
Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. 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. “I will remove the northerner far from you, and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his vanguard into the eastern sea, and his rear guard into the western sea; the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and vine give their full yield. “Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before. “The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. 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. “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. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
The People holds a fast and repent in JErusalem, the capital of Judah,
And God promises a blessing
Replacing the grain the Wine and the Oil,
Banishing the northerner - the armys that come to attack Israel and Judah Mostly come from the north
God promises to send rain so that what was destroyed by the locusts would be remade
and then God promises that his people would never again be pur to shame.
And then God promises something amazing
“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. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit.
God promises to pour out his spirit on all people.
Church at this point in time the only people who expeirenced God’s spirit, the Holy Spirit, were the Prophets, and thpse that God chose, for special purposes
Now hes saying that he will make his spirit avaliable to all, even to the lowest servants.
Church this pouriong out of God’s spirit happened roughly 2000 years ago on this day,
When the Holy SPirit was poured on on the Church at the day of Pentecost
When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Today is Pentecost Sunday - seven weeks after passover and Easter.
PEntecost was originally the celebration of first fruits, the time when the first of the crops were readyto be harvested
Then it took on the meaning of the Day when God gave the People of Israel the 10 commandments and made a covenant with them
ROughly 50 days after the exodus from Egypt
and then After Jesus’s death and ressurection it was the establishing of the NEW COVENANT - not just with Israel but with everyone who call upon the name of the Lord.
and the Holy spirit came upon everyone who believed, and the Church was born.
But look at the End of peter’s staement here.
And After that, THe Day of the Lord will still come.
“And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls. “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land,
THe day of the Lord, Judgement day, cannot be avoided, it can only be delayed.
But Notice, those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved from it, and instead of just Punishing Israel God will turn and punish the nations that oppressed Israel or those that oppessed each other.
Church I told you I hope that none of you have to go through the Day of the Lord,
I mean that,
Because if you call upon Jesus, If you accept him as your savior, and the Holy Spirit comes upon you and starts turning your life around, and doing miracles in your life
then you won’t be part of those facing God’s wrath on Judgment day.
The Day of the Lord is Still coming, and on that day things will be as bad as they could be,
But we who have called upon the name of Jesus are saved from it.
Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
