Rend your Heart

September 11

Today is September 11. A date that is etched in all our memories.

If you ask, where were you when you found out about the events of September 11, you don’t even need to say the year.

It is now 21 years ago. It wasn’t just the size of the final death toll - which was massive -but the sheer audacity of the plot.

What had seemed so impenetrable, was brought down in such a colossal way.

America had seemed so powerful. Two towers stood. The pride of America. Maybe even the pride of the western world. They represented western capitalism at its finest. Nothing could bring them down. Expect, something did.

Two hijacked planes flew straight into them.

There was disbelief.

For hours - these building stood there, with a massive scar on the side. Smoke pouring out. Panic set in.

We watched. Tiny dots falling. Let’s not think what that could be.

Then it fell. First one building. Later the next.

A cloud of dust and smoke filled the air. It became dark.

Was this the apocalypse? It felt more like a movie. But this was real life.

I’m sure you all have your own memory.

But what happened as a result?

There were early predictions by some that this would be an awakening of the American church. People would turn back to God. In a world of chaos - God was the only one we could trust.

For a while, it seemed this might just be the case. American churches were recording more people at church. There is evidence that people were turning to prayer.

But what about when we look at this event with the hindsight of two decades?

Well, reliable research suggests that on a whole, there is no statistically significant shift in the trajectory of Christianity as a result of September 11. I can point you to a Christianity Today article from this time last year which describes some of this research if you’re interested.

Unfortunately, as quickly as people turned to God, they also turned their back on him.

God is calling out to the world and to us. How are you responding?

That’s essentially the question I want to explore this morning as we turn to the book of Joel.

God and big events

But before I do, I’ve just made a big connection which perhaps needs some exploration. I’ve perhaps implied that September 11 was some sort of wake up call that God was giving us. Is this a fair assessment?

Well, this is a big discussion, and I’m only going to give a few brief remarks.

Firstly, what happened on September 11 was an act of evil, and God is not responsible for it. God is sovereign, and he allows evil to happen, but it he doesn’t make it happen.

But yet God can use acts of evil for his purposes.

But let me make just one other quick comment at this point. We should not see this event, or any other significant disaster, whether man made or natural, as God punishing people for a specific sin. It is true that this sort of suffering happens because there is sin in the world, but we should leave it at a general statement like that, rather than making it more specific.

I’m happy to discuss these ideas further if you want to ask me afterwards.

Joel

But let me now take you into the world of Joel the prophet.

So I guess we could start with the question of who is Joel and when did he prophesy?

The answer to which is, I’m not really sure, and I don’t know.

We’re told that Joel is the son of Pethuel, but we don’t know anything about Pethuel, and all we really know about Joel is that he was a prophet who got his writings included in the Bible.

Last week I put up this timeline, and we were able to place Hosea there with some certainty, because Hosea told us who was king during the time of his prophecy.

We get no such markers with Joel. The book itself describes an event of a massive plague of locusts, but unfortunately, outside of this book, we have no other reference of this event for us to cross reference.

If you read various commentaries, you’ll see a whole bunch of different arguments for where to date Joel’s prophecy. The reality being you can almost place him anywhere on this time line and you’ll find someone giving you arguments to support that time. I’m going to tentatively place him towards the end, but in some ways the timing doesn’t matter too much.

The Locust Plague

So, what does Joel have to say.

Well, he starts by describing a recent natural event - one which was absolutely devastating. A locust plague.

I wonder how many of you have experienced a locust plague?

We actually discussed this at our men’s coffee last Thursday, and Peter told us of the time he rode a motor bike through a locust plague out west. Apparently his beard had a real yummy gouy-ness to it afterwards - did I get that right Peter?

I learnt on a David Attenborough special that apparently eggs remain dormant under the ground, sometimes up to a few decades - but when conditions are right, they all hatch, and take off with the wind, devouring everything edible in sight.

If you’re a farmer, the results can be devastating.

Interestingly, as Joel describes the utter devastation from his day, there is actually no mention of why it occurs. Most (if not all) the other prophets explain why the judgement occurs, but in Joel, it is almost as if its assumed why.

You see, while Joel might not make it clear, if you go back to the time of Moses, we find Israel in a time when they’re reflecting on how they were brought out of Egypt. One of the plagues God sent on Egypt was locusts.

Well, in Deuteronomy, Moses describes for Israel what will happen if they don’t obey God, and basically we start to see that the plagues that were given to Egypt - well, they will be inflicted on Israel - and included among them will be a locust plague.

While Joel might not spell this out quite as explicitly as I just did, but it seems clear enough - this locust plague is a result of Israel’s unfaithfulness.

Wake up drunkards

But Joel’s emphasis is not on the reason - his emphasis is on the wake up call that this gives us.

In verse 2 of chapter 1, he’s addressing the elders first, and then all who live in the land.

But in verse 5 - he addresses the drunkards. Wake up, he tells them.

Perhaps the concerns of the drunkard is that the vines for new wine are now gone. That would be serious enough for the wine lovers. So there is a very literal sense in which the drunkards need to wake up - but there’s also a sense in which the drunkards can be thought of in a more general sense.

Those drunk on the many sins that humanity has found themselves in.

Wake up… and weep.

In verse 13, it gets more descriptive. Put on sackcloth and mourn. This time directed at the priests.

Declare a holy fast. Call a sacred assembly.

Joel is telling us - God has given you a wake up call, you now have a chance to repent.

It’s not too late. But don’t wait too long. Because this judgement is a sign of what is to come.

An army is coming

In fact, as we move to chapter 2, Joel points his hearers to something to come.

In a very real way, it reads very similar to what we’ve just read, only it doesn’t take long to realise that we’re not talking about locusts now.

Joel has done this very subtle shift of gears, and almost without us realising, we’re now talking about a horrific army.

Verse 3 we have fire before and fire behind.

In verse 4, it starts with ‘they’ - are we talking of the locusts or the army? These ones have an appearance of horses. Just like the locusts they are leaping over the mountaintops.

You thought that locust plague was scary. These ones are ready for battle.

These ones don’t just completely devastate the plants. These one climb in the houses.

The city is ransacked!

But Joel still has another gear to shift into with this prophecy. In verse 10 we enter the cosmic dimension. The earth shakes the heavens tremble.

What is this new devastation that Joel is talking about?

In verse 11 we have the Lord thundering at the head of it all.

What we’re seeing is a horrifying trajectory. Joel started with something that sounded horrible. But this can be ramped up.

Rend your heart

Joel had already invited us to repent.

And after this further ramping, he again gives another invitation. Only this time, it feels even stronger.

Verse 12 starts with “even now”. Almost as if there’s a desperation in the voice.

God wants you to return. “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning”.

Verse 13 then gets to the heart of the message - it’s the heart of what I want you to take from this message this morning.

It says: Joel 2:13

Joel 2:13 NIV 2011

Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.

What God wants in all of this is your heart. This is all he has always wanted.

He’s not interesting in all the fancy shmancy stuff like your fancy clothes. He just wants your heart.

There’s no little trick in this. There’s not a few words you can say, or a few actions for you to display. It just in honestly being able to say, ‘God, I belong to you and I want you to rule my life’.

You see, here’s the thing. We can often think that God is always trying to push us down, but the truth is, what’s pushing us down is our sin - God is the one that says that you just need to turn back to him and “Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing”

Just rend your heart to God!

A blessing

It is this blessing that we come to when we get to chapter 2 verse 18.

God actually doesn’t take delight in the devastation. In fact he hates it. He hates it because he hates sin.

Instead, he loves to bless.

That horde that came and caused devastation, they will be driven far away.

But was broken will be restored.

When will this happen?

Well, in some ways, as Joel kept doing this subtle shift in the escalation of the devastation, I think we can see a subtle shift in the escalation of God’s blessing.

After each calamity, God sends blessing. And his blessing grows.

The Spirit poured out

When we get to verse 28, we find the words “And afterwards...”

You might ask, after what exactly? Well this is the great delight in trying to study these things. You see, it’s after some great blessing. From just Joel itself, me might still be guessing some what. But we’ve got the hindsight of our New Testament.

And many of you might recognise these words because they get quoted from Peter on the day of Pentecost.

You see, Joel here is propeshying the pouring out of the Spirit on all people. Where sons and daughter prophesy, old men dream dreams and young men see visions.

Even on servants, yes that right, even the lowly people… they even get to have the Spirit poured out.

This is the blessing.

And guess what? This is our situation today.

We’re part of this blessing now.

But yet, as Joel reminds us in verse 32 there is a call for everyone to call on the name of the Lord.

The final picture

As we get to chapter 3, it’s like we get the final projection of the whole picture.

Remember, we started with a local picture of devastation that these people experienced. It then moved to preempt an even bigger picture of devastation. Each one however followed by a call to repentance and a blessing to follow.

In chapter 3 however, you start to get the very real sense that we’re talking about the end of all this.

There seems to be a final restoration, but also a final judgement on the enemy.

And here’s the thing. While earlier there was a call to repentance, now that call is missing. Why?

Well, if we’re talking about the final judgement, then the reality is the time to repent has passed. You had been given so many opportunities and yet they had been Applic.

And this is the very real prospect for many. Right now you have an opportunity to repent.

But some day, that opportunity will pass. Either you’ll pass away, or Jesus will return - either way, time is up.

Verse 14 talks about it as being in the valley of decision. It’s a profound image. Being a valley you’ve got no point of advantage. But the decision is made. And multitudes, multitudes are in that valley of decision.

But where will you stand. Will you be part of that judgement, or will you be with the Lord, the stronghold for his people?

Just look at the final blessing described from verse 17 of chapter 3. The Holy city of Zion dwelling forever with no foreigners invading her. If you know the history of Israel, that can seem such a far away idea.

But here it is… pictured as a mountain dripping with new wine, hills flowing with milk and the ravines running with water.

Application

So what do we make of all of this?

You see, this devastation that Joel describes continue even in our day.

For those of you familiar with the book of Revelation, you may recognise that much of the imagery used in this book is used in John’s apocalypse. If you want to get particular, you can look at Revelation 9 which describes the fifth trumpet being sounded, and described as the first woe.

We could explore the function of what the book of Revelation is trying to do here, but I want to suggest that in a real way, Revelation is telling us that this idea we find in Joel continues.

But if you look at the end of chapter 9 in Revelation, we read words that should cause alarm. Revelation 9:20 says: “The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands”.

You see, when we experience various devastations that seem to happen at alarming regularity, we should be constantly reminded that there is a God who wants us to return to him, because when we do, we can experience the most amazing blessing. In fact here’s the thing. We’ll still experience the devastating effects of this world, but we’ll do so with the Holy Spirit guiding and protecting us - and knowing that whatever happens, we still have an even greater blessing to look forward to.

Because even if we face death - it’s actually life that we get!

I started with a reminder that this is September 11 - a day when we were reminded with such graphic force that devastation is what this world will see. It’s the devastation that results from a world where sin rules.

That event did turn people to God. But people are fickle. We are fickle.

God doesn’t want just empty platitudes. He doesn’t want us to just turn up to church after a bit of a scare and say a few good words. He wants our heart to be rended towards him. He wants us to fall on our knees and to seek after him.

I can offer some ideas to help you in this. Ideas like having a regular quiet time, and regular bible reading. But at the end of the day, this is not about following any sort of how to guide. It’s about giving your heart to God in a genuine way. Saying to God - ‘take it - it’s yours - transform me… make me new… mould me into your image’.

Conclusion

Joel could come across as a bit of a scary book. But I want to suggest that it shouldn’t.

It should only really be scary if you want to persist and say that I want to do things my own way. If that’s the case, then, well… yes, it is a bit of a scary book.

But if you hear the call, and you repent, then this book is one of great promise. Because in it, we find the great hope we have. The hope that a time is coming when all things will be made new. When we can experience peace - true peace, the shalom that God has always been pointing us to.

If you’ve never taken that step to genuinely turn towards God, may this be the day you do that. If you have already done that, then may this be a constant reminder that God wants us to be constantly turning our heart towards him. To repent when we realise that we have strayed.

There is hope - and the book of Joel is a reminder of that.

We might still be seeing the sufferings of this world - but if you turn to God, you will experience the most amazing blessing.

SO let me pray...