Joel: Responding to the Day of the Lord

Remembering 9/11

Do you remember where you were on 9/11/01? I remember driving to work and hearing about it on the radio. I thought it was strange and a fluke accident - and then the next plane hit and then the next and the next.

Do you remember the response? The schools went into a lock down mode for a few hours in order to assess what was happening. Later that day, as the dust cleared people began to respond personally. Some doomsday prophets were calling this judgment from God. There was a season when people were turning to God - they were repenting - or at least pleading for God’s protection. Signs of “God Bless America” were plastered everywhere.

In addition to that, there was a great deal of strife and suspicion - anyone from a Middle Eastern background was immediately assumed to be a terrorist.

There was fear, anger, a desire for vengeance and more.

What about Hurricane Katrina or Super Storm Sandy? - Those major natural disasters did not impact us here as much as they impacted other parts of the country. For some these storms were devastating and even deadly - resulting in months and even years of recovery and reconstruction.

As a result, some blamed the storms on global warming or climate change. Others saw them as the judgment of God. Still others thought it was just nature.

Our interpretation of major natural disasters and even acts of war will vary from person to person, religion to religion.

I bring that up because today, as we look at the book of Joel, we get to see first hand a prophet’s interpretation of a major natural disaster and a pending act of aggression from another country.

Before we get into the message of the book, let’s consider briefly a little...

Background

Very little is known about the prophet. There are roughly a dozen people named Joel referenced in the Bible, but none seem to match the timeline or context of the prophet’s book. So, who is Joel? - the son of Pethuel (Joel 1:1).

As far as the timeline of Joel’s ministry or when the events discussed in the book takes place, again - we don’t really know. Joel doesn’t reference any kings or any significant events that would give us a clue as to when he served. Some have assumed that because he is early in the order of minor prophets that his ministry may have been among the earliest. Others have mentioned that since he doesn’t reference any kings and does seem to refer to the community elders, priests and implies the presence of regular temple activities, that he may have served in the time after the people of Judah returned to the land - post-exile - maybe long after the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Again - the overall answer is - we don’t really know.

Some have suggested that the book was intentionally written without clear dating so that it could be used in worship in response to natural events - which do happen.

One of the good things about the lack of clear dating and references is that it makes the book very applicable for us today.

So let’s consider some of what the book of Joel says. First of all, Joel seems to communicate that...

Natural Disasters are Bad (1:2-12)

Joel seems to be communicating in light of a plague of locusts, a season when a swarm of locusts destroyed much of the land.

Joel 1:2–4 ESV

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.

These swarms would destroy the crops and make life extremely difficult. The people’s ability to eat and provide for themselves would be destroyed by this ravenous insect.

When life is centered on an agrarian economy - good crops, good weather, good conditions are necessary for sustenance.

In fact - for the people in that time, the devastation has been so deep that there was little to nothing to eat, and nothing with which to offer to the Lord.

Joel 1:8–10 ESV

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.

Part of why I think this book is so applicable for us today is that the the coronavirus has had a similar impact in our nation. While most of us have been able to keep working, that has not been the case for everyone. The lack of ability to go and do the things that we would have wanted to do or even thought we needed to do has been a challenge. There were discussions and predictions of depression era unemployment - thankfully that never fully manifested itself.

Store shelves were empty of the necessities - especially toilet paper and cleaning products. Our normal habits of buying more -than-enough food was cut to making creative alternatives because we may not have been able to purchase even simple packs of chicken.

In fact, right at the beginning of the shutdowns, I was doing some shopping for our family and made my way to Wegman’s. This is what I found in the meat section - a whole lot of nothing

(Meat section picture)

And that was right at the beginning of this - March 13!

Where the people of Judah were devastated and could barely eat and could not make offerings to the temple, that has not been our experience here as a church. Your ongoing generosity in giving to the Lord has been tremendous. Your faithfulness to give in response to how the Lord has provided for you has been a constant source of thankfulness and praise. Each month as the elders and deacons meet to consider matters of the church, we give thanks to God for His abundant provision.

So it’s easy to see that natural disasters can be bad, but the prophet Joel doesn’t just let the people of Judah wallow in the badness of the disaster, he calls them to respond. When disaster comes...

We should respond with lament (1:13-20)

Remember, a lament is not simply a complaint, but it’s a “prayer in pain that leads to trust.” (Vroegop) Joel calls the elders and the priests to call people together for a solemn assembly and a calls them to fast.

Joel 1:13–16 NLT

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. 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. The day of the Lord is near, the day when destruction comes from the Almighty. How terrible that day will be! Our food disappears before our very eyes. No joyful celebrations are held in the house of our God.

Joel calls them to cry out to the Lord. He calls them (it seems like he is speaking especially to the priests) to turn to him.

He then concludes this response with a prayer to the Lord.

Joel 1:19–20 ESV

To you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

He is laying out the facts before the Lord.

How do you and I respond to disasters? How have we responded during this season? Has it caused us to depend more on God or has it caused us to rely on our own creativity and initiative?

Beloved, I pray that even though this season seems to be nearing an end, I pray that we would be mindful and aware of the brevity of our lives. I pray that we would deepen our trust in God and learn to depend on Him more.

Where Joel seems to be responding to a natural disaster, as he continues in His book, he seems to be communicating that there is something bigger coming - a day of disaster, a day of judgment - a day called “the day of the Lord.”

It’s as though he is saying, if “you thought the locusts were bad...”

The Day of the Lord is Worse (2:1-11)

Joel tells them...

Joel 2:1–2 ESV

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.

He goes on to talk about this day like an army that rolls over to defeat a nation. It is a powerful day of destruction.

This is a day that should bring fear, a day that should cause people to tremble.

Joel concludes this section by saying...

Joel 2:11 ESV

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?

All of this talk of destruction and devastation sort of raises the questions, why does God need such a “day of the Lord?” Why does God seem to express his anger in this way?

Joel doesn’t really answer this question. He doesn’t tell us exactly why this is coming.

Mark Dever reflected on this day of the Lord and the salvation that we need from it by saying...

“We cannot begin to understand salvation until we understand what we must be saved from. It is not, fundamentally, all the difficult circumstances of this life. We must be saved from our sin and its consequences - the judgment of God. In a very real sense, then, we need to be saved from God himself and his righteous anger.”

“That means we need to be far less concerned about what has happened to us and far more concerned about what we have done against God.” (p. 706)

Think about it like this - if there were never any consequences for bad behavior - then there really wouldn’t be anything to be called bad. Would a lack of consequences cause us to be good?

For those of you who have a lead foot - like me - how do you respond when you see a police car on the side of the road? Do you pull back or do you plow ahead? If you slow down, why? - because you know there will be a judgment - there will be a penalty.

Or students - now I know that with online school lately, open note tests have been more common, but what happens when you cheat on a test or copy off of someone else’s work? Why do we try to hide it and keep it a secret? Because we know there are consequences.

We understand right and wrong, good and evil in the world, but when it comes to God, do we assume that he will only overlook our sin? Do we assume that he will only let things go?

You see the day of the Lord should be a day that we fear, a day that will cause us to seek to live in God’s holiness, a day that should cause us to live according to His righteousness.

Because of the coming day of the Lord...

We should respond with repentance (2:12-32)

Just as the disaster of the locusts demanded a response from the people of Judah, so too the promise of the day of the Lord demands a response.

Joel 2:12–13 ESV

“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.

Now wait a second Joel - is God really slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love? Why the threat of the day of the Lord? That doesn’t sound very loving.

I believe the day of the Lord should cause us pause and should cause us to evaluate who we are and how we are living. The prophet calls the people to return to God and ask that God would defend his holy honor.

Joel 2:17 NLT

Let the priests, who minister in the Lord’s presence, stand and weep between the entry room to the Temple and the altar. Let them pray, “Spare your people, Lord! Don’t let your special possession become an object of mockery. Don’t let them become a joke for unbelieving foreigners who say, ‘Has the God of Israel left them?’ ”

There are times when we can get so self-reliant, so self-sufficient, so self-righteous that we fail to remember God. We forget the One in whose image we are made. We forget the One who poured out his wrath on His son for us.

This call to repentance is a call to turn back, to return to God - not just in actions, but from deep within - as a matter of heart.

Joel then beautifully testifies that God demonstrates his steadfast love and mercy...

Joel 2:18–19 ESV

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.

For the people of Judah, God’s response to their repentance was renewed prosperity. God brought flourishing back to the land and their lives.

This became for the people of Judah a very tangible example of what we see in...

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

The prophet goes on to talk about how the Spirit of God will not be reserved only for God’s prophets and kings but on all flesh (2:28-29).

He then makes this beautiful and bold promise...

Joel 2:32 ESV

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.

Friend, if you’ve not yet called on the name of the Lord; if you’ve not yet repented of your sin and confessed how you have dishonored and offended God by your sin - then I pray that this would be a reason for hope. Call on the name of the Lord. Confess your sin to him and be saved. Rest in the promise of your salvation!

So Joel reflects on the disaster of Locusts and prophecies about a coming day of the Lord with the promise of God’s mercy. He concludes his little book with a a prophecy about a coming Judgment for God’s enemies.

The Valley of Decision is Judgment (3:1-16)

The nations that surrounded Israel and Judah had not only acted wickedly toward God’s people, but also toward God and the holy things that were consecrated to him.

Joel 3:1–8 ESV

“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, and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it. “What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily. For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border. Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head. I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away, for the Lord has spoken.”

This is the indictment against these nations. He has observed and seen just how they have treated God and his people and is preparing to prosecute them in a court known as the valley of decision. He even calls them to defend themselves.

Joel 3:9–10 ESV

Proclaim this among the nations: Consecrate for war; stir up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a warrior.”

The prophet Isaiah prophesied a time of peace when he told the people of Israel to beat their swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks (Isa. 2:4). Here, the prophecy is not about peace but about war. It’s a prophecy of judgment. They will have to defend themselves against a holy God.

But in reality, how will they defend themselves against a holy, all-powerful, all-knowing God? They can’t. The decision will be clear, the judgment will be sure.

I believe there are are have been multiple days of the Lord. These are days when God calls and end to his patience and makes a judgment. I think we see these in disasters and wars.

But I also believe there will be an ultimate day of the Lord. A final day of judgment. A final day when all people will come before the Lord and give an account of what they’ve done - how they’ve responded to God’s grace, how they’ve treated others, how they have lived.

Friend - how will you respond? Will you be able to defend yourself? The only real defense is to come in humility before the day of decision and trust in what Jesus Christ did on the cross for you. You see, his perfect, sinless life, his righteousness is transferred to those who believe and trust in him. That is the only reprieve from God’s wrath.

If you’ve not yet trusted in Him, call on the name of the Lord and be saved.

Joel 3:14–16 ESV

Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. 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.

While the day of decision will be a day of dread for God’s enemies...

God’s people will be protected (3:17-21)

God is a refuge for His people. He is a stronghold.

Consider the final words of the book:

Joel 3:17–21 ESV

“So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it. “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Shittim. “Egypt shall become a desolation and Edom a desolate wilderness, for the violence done to the people of Judah, because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall be inhabited forever, and Jerusalem to all generations. I will avenge their blood, blood I have not avenged, for the Lord dwells in Zion.”

What a hope and a source of confidence this would have been for the people of Judah. Sure, God had disciplined them, but he would also defend them. He would avenge them.

Beloved - I hope that this gives us an eternal perspective on the things of this life. God is allowing certain things now. He is allowing disasters and calamities. He is will bring a judgment one day. He will bring us into his presence for eternity.

Closing thoughts

In the movie Golden Eye, there is a character named Boris who acts as a villain and a source of comic relief. During the movie, on a few different occasions, he would survive a catastrophe and exclaims “I am invincible.” Right at the end of the movie, as with many movies like these, there was a big explosion and a lot of destruction. Just when he thought he had survived, Boris stands and shouts, “I am invincible” one final time, right before he dies as the building falls down on him.

As we’ve discussed - God allows natural disasters and even acts of war and violence as a sort of wake up call. Will we stand up on the other side of it and exclaim “I am invincible?” or will we respond by getting on our knees, repenting of our sin, and turning to trust in God more fully. The book of Joel helps us see that a humble and contrite response is the one that God desires and God honors.

References:

Craigie, Peter C., The Old Testament: It’s Background, Growth, and Content (Abington, Nashville, 1987)

Dever, Mark, The Message of the Old Testament: Promises Made, (Crossway, Wheaton, 2006)

Longman III, Tremper; Raymond B. Dillard; An Introduction to the Old Testament, 2nd Ed. (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 2006)

McConville, Gordon. Exploring the Old Testament: The Prophets. Vol. 4. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2002.