Repent

15% live below the poverty level. That means 15% of the families in Boundary county earn a household income of less than $25,500 a year to support a family of four.

While house and rental prices continue to rise, boundary county residents’ income earning potential remains much lower (only 78%) versus the rest of Idaho. With rising housing costs, some are being pushed into homelessness. Some live in their vehicles. Others live in a motel. The vast majority double up and live in someone else’s home—couch surfing or sharing the home and rental expense. Over 150 of our high-school students are living in poverty, and some of them are homeless. The major problem with poverty and homelessness in our community is the lack of work, but 65 people reported that they worked full time in the last 12 months and they are still in poverty.

Statistics are just numbers, but the stories and the people they represent are the people God has placed at our doorstep and invited us to partner with Him to help.

I truly believe that Jesus is the Answer to the problems of our world.

Broken marriages contribute to the poverty and brokenness of our community. Jesus provides a solution for to the problems that destroy marriages.

Unhealthy lifestyles promote disease and financial ruin. Jesus provides a solution for our health.

Secular mental health care has limited resources to solve problems like anxiety, depression, social disorders, and mental illness. They only have part of the solution because Jesus must be in the picture in order help people with these maladies.

Not only does Jesus’ Gospel promise that your bread and water will be sure, and that God is our provider for our food and clothing and shelter, but it also provides the solution for the sin that continually shatters our lives and harms those around us.

Jesus is the answer. The only answer. The all-sufficient answer.

And yet...

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When surveyed in 2010 only 4,148 people in Boundary County claimed a church. That’s roughly 42% of the population. If we have the same rate of religious involvement today, then only 5,000 people in our community are participating with a church.

But that’s a misleading statistic. I know its misleading because in 2010 there were over 200 people who claimed the Seventh-day Adventist church as their religion, but we only had an average attendance of around 80 people at that time. Other churches have a similar distortion between adherents and participants. It is very possible that only 3,000 or 3,500 people in boundary county are actively involved with a church family.

Let’s assume that all of the 20 or so church families in our community are biblically grounded, Christ-centered, and emotionally healthy. In that case, don’t need to worry about the 3,500 who are in church already. We need to set our hearts on reaching the 8,500 people who don’t have a church family.

One study said that 27% of Boundary county residents do not claim any religion at all. They are agnostic or atheist. In other words, for every person in our county who walks through a church door more than once a month, there is a person in boundary county who rejects the idea that there could be God and rejects the value of a church family.

I think that God wants us to change our perspective.

We invest a lot of energy and time into what I would call internal discipleship—growing each other in the love of Jesus. That’s a good thing. We need to do it, and even double down and do more of it. I should put a plug in for small groups and our need for more leaders and more groups, but that’s not what this message is about.

While edifying the church is an important thing, God has given His children a responsibility—to GO into our world with the practical, life changing, ennobling, saving gospel. He’s asking us to intentionally pursue and love and call the 8,500 people who don’t have a church family. He’s calling us to be a witness to the 3,250 people who don’t see the value in religion.

I love the insight and passion of Ellen White when she wrote this in a book called Ministry of Healing:

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Ministry of Healing Medical Missionaries and Their Work

The world needs today what it needed nineteen hundred years ago—a revelation of Christ. A great work of reform is demanded, and it is only through the grace of Christ that the work of restoration, physical, mental, and spiritual, can be accomplished.

Christ’s method alone will give true success in reaching the people. The Saviour mingled with men as one who desired their good. He showed His sympathy for them, ministered to their needs, and won their confidence. Then He bade them, “Follow Me.”

There is need of coming close to the people by personal effort. If less time were given to sermonizing, and more time were spent in personal ministry, greater results would be seen. The poor are to be relieved, the sick cared for, the sorrowing and the bereaved comforted, the ignorant instructed, the inexperienced counseled. We are to weep with those that weep, and rejoice with those that rejoice. Accompanied by the power of persuasion, the power of prayer, the power of the love of God, this work will not, cannot, be without fruit.

Just for the fun of it, let’s say that we were to divide the 8,500 people in our community among the active participants in our own church family.

next — 100 each

That would be 100 people per person in this room—including the children. Do you have the knowledge, experience, skill, or even time to effectively reach 100 people with the gospel?

I’ll ask another question. Do you believe that Jesus is coming soon? Maybe in a year or two? Maybe in five or ten?

Can you effectively reach 100 people in the next year or two, or even five?

I hope you realize that this is an impossible task that God has given us. We CANNOT do what God has called us to do. …without His dramatic and powerful involvement.

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We’re beginning a three-part series on the book of Joel. Joel is a very small book—just 3 chapters in 73 verses. If we wanted to, we could read through the book in about 10 minutes, and I could preach a summary sermon in less than an hour. But there are at least three major ideas in Joel that I’d like us to explore, so we’re going to break this book into three parts.

In today’s sermon we’re going to come face-to-face with an overwhelming problem and learn that the solution requires humility and sacrifice.

In next week’s sermon Wayne Garrigan will explore the Day of the Lord theme of Joel, and uncover some neat end-time promises. I think that you’ll find that the Day of the Lord is something God wants us to be hopeful and excited about.

In the third sermon I’m going to peel back some layers from Joel’s description of God’s ultimate solution to the sin problem in a message that includes a healthy dose of justice and an equal helping of hope divided by a verse that observes how there are multitudes now in the valley of decision between those two options.

A mini day of the Lord — Plague of Locusts

Let’s start by opening up the book of Joel to the first verse.

As you turn there, I’ll share a little of the history behind the prophet Joel.

First of all, we don’t know much about Joel or the time he lived in. We know that his father was a man named Pethuel, or Bethuel, according to some manuscripts. We don’t know when Joel lived and wrote this book, and there are no other stories in the Bible to compare Joel with that suggest a plague of locusts like Joel describes in this first chapter. Scholars have suggested dates from the mid 800’s BC to the time of Nehemiah in the mid 400’s. My gut feeling is that Joel wrote his prophecies in the time of 2 Kings 14-15 when Azariah was king of Judah and Jeroboam ruled in Israel. But, again, the Bible doesn’t have any indication that there was a plague of locusts at this time, and the way that Joel writes, its as if Judah was suffering under the terrible aftermath of a national crisis.

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.

Verse 5 suggests that people can’t get drunk any more because there are no grapes to turn into wine.

Verse 6 compares the locusts to a mighty nation that has taken over the land.

Joel 1:6–7 ESV

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.

In verse 8 Joel asks Israel to see this problem for what it really is—a devastation. He says that they should weep as though they were a woman whose finance´ died just before the wedding.

In verse 9 Joel says that the priests are without food because the regular offerings are no more—the animals that would have been brought for sacrifice have died off due to the plague.

In verses 10-12 Joel says that the harvest of oil, of grapes, of wheat and barley are completely dried up.

“and gladness dries up from the children of man.” (Joel 1:12)

This is the problem that Joel invites Judah to face. A problem with deadly consequences. And a problem that they had no power to stop.

Skip forward a few verses to 16 and you’ll read how the food is cut off from the people, how the storehouses are empty and the granaries are so useless that they are being torn down and the stones reused for other purposes. Not only are the people suffering, but even the animals are groaning and dying because the grass is gone. Verses 19 and 20 suggest that along with the locusts, the weather is dry, and fires have broken out throughout the land, lapping up what the locusts left behind.

What a terrible situation for any people to find themselves in.

Keep reading in Chapter 2 verse 1 and 2 and this is how Joel describes this plague:

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 calls this locust plague, “the day of the Lord.” He’s not suggesting that the “day of the Lord” that they’re experiencing is the ultimate day of the Lord, but it is a day that God has allowed.

We don’t know the reason for this judgment because Joel doesn’t address any specific sins of the people. All we know is that Joel says that there is a purpose to these locusts.

He goes on in chapter two to compare the locusts to armies drawn up for battle. He says that before them the land was fertile—like the garden of eden—and after them the land is barren and desolate. In chapter 2 verse 9 he says that no wall was able to stop them as they marched forward to eat the crops and the grain people had in storage inside their houses.

Just to make it clear that God is involved, Joel says this in Joel 2:11:

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?

This is God’s army.

It may be difficult for us to think about God causing a plague of locusts that resulted in death and destruction.

This plague sounds a lot like the plagues that God brought to Egypt when they refused to let the enslaved Israelites go free. What had Israel done that was so wrong? Were they as bad as Egypt had been?

Since we don’t have a clear date to connect the book of Joel to, we’re left to speculate. But 2 Kings 14 and 15 and 2 Chronicles 25 and 26 provide some background. These chapters talk about several kings that ruled in Judah. Each one “did what was right” in the sight of God, but the cumulative result of evil leadership among the kings that ruled before them was that Judah was still worshiping the gods of Edom, and the worship of the God of Heaven was largely ignored. It is possible that God allowed a plague of locusts to overwhelm Judah so that in their spiritually drunken stupor they would wake up and recognize their need for God.

While happening in the Northern tribes of Israel, a comparative story to Joel’s locust plague was the famine that God allowed during the reign of king Ahab. Elijah came and said there would be no more rain until he said so. God used that experience to galvanize Israel and make them realize that the worship of Baal was useless. He wanted them to realize that HE was their creator. That HE was their provider. That without HIM they would have nothing. That experience made a big difference in Israel—many repented of their worship of Baal and turned to worship the God of Abraham.

So, it makes sense that, like Elijah, Joel would preach a message of repentance.

Repent

The call starts back in chapter 1 vers 13 and 14 when Joel says,

Joel 1:13–14 ESV

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.

Underline that phrase, “Consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly.”

Joel continues on in chapter 2:1

Joel 2:1 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,

And then in verses 12 and following:

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.

Joel 2:15–16 ESV

Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; 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.

This is such an important issue to Joel that he believes it is worth a national religious gathering. He’s calling everyone to assemble—even the people who have biblical reasons to stay home, like the bride and bridegroom who have just married. God gave a newly married man an exemption from going to war for the first year, but Joel says this is so much more critical to the collective wellbeing of the nation that even the newly married should come to the assembly.

In this assembly that Joel is calling for, he recommends they pray this prayer:

Joel 2:17 ESV

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?’ ”

Consecrate a fast

About 100 years before the book of Joel, a king named Jehoshaphat faced a huge army that had gathered to lay seige to Jerusalem. You can find the story in 2 Chronicles 20.

The Moabites, Ammonites and Meunites with a large force of soldiers and chariots gathered outside of Jerusalem.

The story goes that Jehoshaphat was afraid.

What do you do when you’re afraid?

I believe that every difficulty, every challenge we face, and every fear that we have is a call to prayer.

Apparently, Jehoshaphat believed that too because the Bible says that he “set his face to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. And Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord.” 2 Chron 2:3-4

That’s exactly what Joel was encouraging Isreal to do—assemble together and seek the Lord with humility and repentance.

Jehoshaphat’s prayer is worth reading.

2 Chronicles 20:6–9 ESV

and said, “O Lord, God of our fathers, are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you. Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend? And they have lived in it and have built for you in it a sanctuary for your name, saying, ‘If disaster comes upon us, the sword, judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before you—for your name is in this house—and cry out to you in our affliction, and you will hear and save.’

Listen to His confidence—are you not God in heaven? You rule over all the kingdoms. You have power and might. Didn’t you do amazing wonders in the past? Didn’t you make promises of salvation? I know that you will hear and save!

As you likely already know, God answered their prayers in an unconventional way. Up from the crowd in that praying congregation, a man popped up, Jahaziel, saying, “listen, all Judah… Thus says the Lord… ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed at this great army, for the battle is not yours but God’s… you will not need to fight in this battle. Stand firm, hold your position, and see the salvation of the Lord on your behalf.’”

To Jehoshaphat’s credit, he believed this ludicrous sounding prophecy. He bowed his head to the ground, worshiping the Lord, and then he said to his subjects, “Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed.” (2 Chron 20:20)

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Conclusion — Judgment is Coming

It would be easy for us to be satisfied with our present condition and ignore the horde of locusts that are at our doorstep—the need in our community that is beyond our capacity or skill to help. It would be easy for us to enjoy our country life, and our secluded church. It would be easy, unless you’re reading the word of God.

Jesus said,

Matthew 28:19–20 ESV

19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Jesus knows that the only solution for the problems in our community is the gospel, so he has given us the responsibility of discipling our community.

And if the call to disciple others is not difficult enough, Jesus has put a timetable on it in the first angel’s message:

Revelation 14:7 ESV

7 And he said with a loud voice, “Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come, and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the springs of water.”

The hour HAS COME. The armies are at our gate. The locust horde is already devastating our land. God’s final judgment is just around the corner.

What should we do?

Joel’s advice, and Jehoshaphat’s experience should be our go-to solution—get together, repent and pray for God’s power to come help us. Every Saturday evening at 6 pm we’re opening up the pathfinder room at the school for prayer. Please, come together and pray for a miraculous outpouring of God’s spirit in our community. Pray for our youth, for those in financial need, for our marriages, for salvation.

If you can’t make it to our Saturday evening prayer group, then call up a friend and pray with them over the phone. Pray for our Bible school students. Pray for our friends and relatives. Pray that God will prepare them and teach them and convert their hearts.

Assemble your small groups and pray. Take time at the beginning of your Sabbath school lesson to pray with each other and seek the Lord’s assistance.

We can’t do anything to impact our community without the power of God’s spirit.

I just looked on our Discover Bible School enrollment page and found that Brent and Claudia have sent 70 people the first Bible study in our correspondence series. Another twenty or so people have expressed interest in knowing more about the Bible from other events that we’ve done.

Like Jehoshaphat, we need to seek the Lord, but like Jehoshaphat, we need also need to step out in faith.

Jehoshaphat’s story ends with the king sending out the levite choir to sing praises to God—as though they had already won the battle. They never do the fighting, but they go out to the battle.

That is exactly what we need to do as well. We need to seek the Lord, and then confidently march out to mingle, and empathize, and minister to our community. We need to meet them in their homes, and invite them to our homes. All while praising God for the work that HE is doing in our community. Because, while we must step forward to help people, the real help that they need is the help of the Lord.

Starting April 30 we’re going to be hosting a multi-part series called “Discovering Revelation.” I’m going to be presenting a whole series of talks on the broad themes of biblical prophecy. We’ll consider present-day circumstances in light of the book of Revelation, and find out what the Bible means when it talks about the antichrist, the beast, and the false prophet. Through the lens of prophecy we’ll look at the character of God, the plan of redemption, God’s design to end evil, and many other topics.

I’m going to need your help. On the entry table you’ll find a list of volunteer positions that I need you to sign up for. It is essential that we step forward to do this work that is the equivalent to the Levites singing praises to God. It is just as essential that we recognize that no piece of literature, no sermon, no children’s program, and no persuasive argument will bring a soul to Jesus. Only God can convert the soul.

We can only see success in bringing the gospel to our community when we pray knowing that it all depends on God and go forward in faith to do the work of Jesus.

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We’re going to sing a song that most of you probably know, it’s called In Christ Alone. Thank you to those who have practiced to teach us this beautiful song.

As you sing, think of the desolation that the people of Judah were facing in Joel’s time, and Joel’s call to come to God for the solution—for salvation. And think of our moment in history with 8,500 people in boundary county that desperately need the Gospel applied to their lives before the Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord. And remember that it is only in Christ that anyone can find hope.

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