Joel 2:1-27 - The Day of the LORD, Part 1

We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and we have extra copies.

If you didn't bring one with you and you'd like one to follow along, it's a great day to have the text in front of you.

So raise your hand up if you need a copy and uh somebody will drop one off at your row or your aisle.

Today's scripture will be uh Joel 2, 1 through 27.

Sermon notes and quotes are available through the QR code up on the screen if you would like that.

And uh let me pray for uh offer a prayer for illumination as we begin our study this morning.

Gracious Redeemer, you have bestowed on us beauty for ashes and the oil of gladness to heal our mournful souls.

Jesus, remind us today of your generous grace and matchless mercy.

Open our sin-sludged ears to hear your beckoning call, inviting us to return home to you.

Give us a clear view of the gospel, so artfully displayed throughout your word.

Teach our wandering hearts that in you alone we find true joy.

And stir within each of us this morning an increasing desire to point others to King Jesus, our life, our light, our all-in-all.

And all of God's people said, Amen, amen.

So be part one of two parts uh that we'll study.

And we're gonna focus in on the phrase, uh, the day of the Lord.

When did Joel live and when was the book of Joel written?

I think uh Pastor Tommy walked you through a little bit of an introduction last week if you happen to miss that.

Um the text gives us very few clues about um when Joel was when he lived, uh, when the book was written, and the only thing we do know is that he's the son of a guy named Pethwell.

And actually, we know less about Pethwell than we do about Joel, because Petwell didn't leave us any kind of writings.

Joel's name means Yahweh is God.

Um, and that's important for us to know because there's so many other things we could say instead of Yahweh is God.

We could say career is God, we could say family is God, we could say a whole lot I am God, we could say, you know, myself is the self is God.

We could say so many things you could put in there.

And as we just read from the New City Catechism, there is this thing called idolatry that the Bible identifies, and it says, uh the Bible tells us this is one of our proclivities, one of our tendencies is that we will drift into idol worship.

We can create idols out of all kinds of things.

Some of them aren't necessarily bad things in and of themselves, they're actually good things.

They just were never meant to be the center.

They were never meant to be God.

So Joel mentions here in the book of Joel the temple in Jerusalem, but contains no mention of any of the kings of either the southern kingdom, Judah, or the northern kingdom, Israel.

And so some scholars see that as an indication that Joel may have been written concurrent with the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, perhaps mid to late fifth century, as the Jewish people are returning and beginning to rebuild, and in the process of that, uh, Joel can see the temple, can see that the or that the Jerusalem and the temple are being restored, and so he speaks about such things.

He does make reference to other Old Testament writings, and I think that does also help us uh when we try to uh place this book in terms of history.

I mean, he goes all the way back to Exodus with references, uh, he also references Isaiah, Amos, Zephaniah, Naeam, uh, Obadiah, Ezekiel, Malachi, and all of this probably suggests a later date of authorship, but when it was written is not nearly as important as what is said here.

And I think what is said here is really important.

And to me, the theme of the book, since he mentions this five times, is the day of the Lord.

Let me read chapter two for us, and we're gonna go, like I say, 27 verses deep.

And then you a lot of you will be familiar with uh verses 28 and following.

We're gonna save that for next week, um, and you'll see why as we go along.

Begins like this, chapter two.

Blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm on my holy mountain.

So this is a summons, it's a warning.

Um, back then, this was like, you know, we will hear the tornado alarms here in the Nashville area.

Uh sometimes you'll hear um all kinds of different warning sounds coming from different civic uh authorities.

But for them, it was about the trumpet.

And it was about this Ramshorn, the the shofar.

Some of you are familiar with that, uh, who have heard those before, or maybe you even own one and have blown it before.

The amateur is it's it's all about amateur is all about what you do with your lips and your mouth.

It's not a it's not a thing where you push keys and it changes the pitch.

I mean, the people that play these things have amazing skills.

You know, to go and then to go and then to go.

It's just amazing what they can do with these things.

I'm not very good at it, but uh yeah, thank, thank you.

Okay.

Hey, I don't want your pity.

I've been on vacation, I'm rested up, it's okay.

Um so he says there's a warning to be given, verse 1.

And what's that about?

Well, let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.

Surely it is near.

They've just gone through this locust plague.

And yeah, Tommy showed you guys some pictures of swarming locusts, it's amazing.

Uh I mean, they just can overwhelm uh any space that they occupy, as we kind of get a hint of from the uh cicada thing every 13 years here in Nashville.

But this was a warning much greater than what we experienced here.

And what he's saying is that was just sort of an hors d'oeuvre about this warning that you need to heed because the day of the Lord is coming.

In other words, it it hadn't already happened in its fullness yet, but it is coming and it's near, so it's imminent.

A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the dawn is spread over the mountains, so there's a great and mighty people.

There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it, to the years of many generations.

So now he kind of shifts the metaphor from locust to an army of people coming after Judah, uh, the southern kingdom, where we're pretty sure where Joel was prophesying.

He says, a fire consumes before them, and behind them a flame burns.

In other words, not only are they just gonna devastate the place by eating everything inside and then and then you know, just leaving the place economically devastated and for food and all that, but as well, there's gonna be this fire that's like he's going all scorched earth here, is what he's doing.

And that's exactly what's happening.

Fire consumes before them, a flame burns.

The land is like the Garden of Eden before them.

In other words, to the approaching army, or locusts, this is like for them, oh wow, this is like lunch.

You know, this is awesome.

Let's go, let's get it.

And they just can't um say no.

And so it becomes a desolate wilderness behind them.

Nothing at all escapes them.

Their appearance is like the appearance of horses.

So again, he's poetic in his language.

He's using all kinds of metaphors and analogies.

And if you didn't get the locust thing, if you if bugs don't bother you, which raise your hand if bugs don't bother you, but I'm I shouldn't be anybody raising their hand right here.

We hate bugs.

I mean, it's like one spider inside of your car, and there's gonna be an accident.

Um or a bee inside of your shirt or something like that.

We were outside.

And and and Jeremy, when the locusts was warming, Jeremy, our silly's guy, got one of those locusts, those cicedys down his shirt, and went smacking it on his back like that.

And it's just terrible.

We hate that sort of thing, don't we?

But this is gonna be a desolation.

Nothing escapes them.

Their appearance is like horses.

Now he shifts again, like war horses, so they run with a noise as of chariots.

They leap on the tops of the mountains like the crackling of a flame of fire, consuming the stubble, like a mighty people arranged for battle.

Notice the amount of simile here.

A comparison of two things, using the word like or as.

It's just, he's very he's master at doing this.

And he's the word like, if you circled it each time he uses that in your Bible, I mean you just see he's really working hard to make sure you get it.

This is an overwhelming assault.

And um, the crackling of a flame of fire, consuming the stubble like a mighty people arranged for battle.

Before them, the people are in anguish.

All faces turn pale.

Verse six, verse seven.

They run like mighty men, they climb the wall.

This is the enemy that's approaching, like soldiers, and they each march in line, nor do they deviate from their paths, they do not crowd each other, they march every one in his path, they burst through the defenses, they do not break ranks, they rush on the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief.

Before them the earth quakes, the heavens tremble.

Now it's cosmic.

Now, it's it's not just here, it's not just in the city right here that I'm living in.

This is cosmic now.

The earth itself quakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark, the stars lose their brightness, and the Lord utters his voice before, notice this, his army.

What do you mean, his army?

Is this his army that's attacking?

Yeah, it is.

That's pretty clear.

That's pretty clear throughout the book of Joel.

And we need to sober up and take the warning seriously.

Surely his camp is great, for strong is he who carries out his word.

The day of the Lord, that's the third time of five times in this book.

The first one was uh verse 15, chapter 1.

Now you've had two, verse uh uh verse one, and now here in verse uh 11.

The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome.

And who can endure it?

That's a rhetorical question, and we should know the answer.

Who can endure it?

No one.

No one can endure it.

Yet, even now, declares the Lord, and what a change.

This is so beautiful, that this would come on the heels of that harsh, stern warning.

Here's this.

Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, and mourning, and rend your heart, and not your garments.

In other words, just like Jesus in the New Testament in the Sermon on the Mount, he draws a sharp distinction between externalism, this kind of religiosity, that we go through the motions and we rend our garments, we tear in two, acting as if we're sorry for our sin.

We we are pretending that we're religious, so we just go to church, but our hearts are not in it.

We we sing the songs, but we don't really connect with God.

We don't mean it at all.

Maybe we even put money in the fan, but we it's our hearts aren't in it.

And the Lord is looking toward the heart, just as Jesus in the New Testament keeps talking about how that woman who gave that widow's might gave with all her heart, and she gave more than anyone else, and the Lord is well pleased because her heart was engaged.

And I have to ask myself that question every time I walk through the door, especially when you do something routine.

Is my heart engaged with God here?

Is your heart engaged with God?

It doesn't take long for drift to lead to some kind of apathy and some kind of uh justification of all kinds of sin and all that sort of thing.

It doesn't take long.

Drift does us no good at all.

When you come in, when you gather with God's people to worship, be intentional, Joel says, and reminds us to do that.

Rend your hearts, not just your garments, really, really important.

And return to him, that's so important.

Verse 13, return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate.

Ever you ever wonder if I return to the Lord, will he receive me back?

If I repent from my sin, will he forgive me or not?

The Bible is unequivocal about this, it's clear, and I'm so, so thrilled as a Bible teacher at this church to be able to stand up and remind you over and over and over again that your repenting should be with joy because you know what the response of God is gonna be.

The Bible tells me so.

Jesus loves me.

And Jesus loves you.

And it doesn't matter what you've done, it doesn't matter how far you've drifted.

It's about right now, this moment, the day of the Lord for you right now.

Will you return to him?

Will you turn to him with your whole heart to him?

Because he's gracious.

How will he receive me?

He's gracious, he's compassionate, he's slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness.

This is a doxology of the divine attributes.

He's Joel is just singing.

Look at it, how wonderful, how marvelous is the Savior who calls you to himself.

No matter what you've done, no matter how far you've drifted, no matter how many things, how many years the locusts have eaten away, no matter how much fear you have, no matter how much you're drawn to that addiction over and over, and you've fallen to over and over.

What's important is right now.

This moment, this day of the Lord for you, right now is what's important.

He's slow to anger, he's abounding in loving kindness, and he's relenting of evil.

Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, even a grain offering and a libation for the Lord your God.

In other words, even though even though there had been sin in the camp, even though the worship had dried up, we saw that in the first chapter, right?

Now, if you repent and return to the Lord, he will not only does he restore your heart and receive you and forgive you, but he goes beyond that and he even equips and empowers you to worship him again.

I don't feel like doing that.

I don't feel like he'd received me, and I just don't feel like it.

Then ask him to give you the feel like it.

I I often will fall to my knees and say, Lord, I don't feel like praying right now, so I'm gonna use this crutch right here that you gave us.

And it's a good crutch.

Sometimes you need a crutch.

Somebody say amen.

Sometimes I do, and that's a great crutch right there.

I don't know what to say, God.

I'm flabbergasted at the way the world has gone mad.

And I'm angry now.

What do I say?

I say this our Father who art in heaven.

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come.

No matter what's going on in this world, thy will be done.

On earth as it is in heaven and on earth is in my heart as well.

Then 15, he says it a second time.

Blow a trumpet in Zion.

This is a summons, you know.

The first one was to gather, verse one, gather the people.

Verse 15 is, let's repent.

Let's do this.

Consecrate a fast, proclaim a solemn assembly, gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and the nursing infants.

Let the bridegroom come out of his room and the bride out of her bridal chamber.

In other words, I don't care if a wedding ceremony is in this right now, is going on.

Everybody stop what you're doing, let's give back to the Lord.

I mean, that's how urgent this is.

Joel speaking with an eschatological urgency, but pointing us to the eschatological king, Jesus, ultimately, who gives us eschatological promises about what, in other words, God will have the last word in the end of time.

It's all about God being the kind of God he talked about up there in verse 13.

Gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving kindness, relenting of evil.

And so he challenges them now with urgency to gather the people.

Let the priest, verse 17, the Lord's ministers, weep between the porch and the altar.

Let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and do not make thine inheritance a reproach and a barword among the nations.

Why should they, uh, why should they among the people say, Where is their God?

So now it's about God's name, you see.

And our repentance ought to keep that in mind as well.

I so often forget.

I just think it's about me trying to avoid or dodge the consequences of my sin and hoping that God won't punish me or allow me to be suffer some kind of consequence for my sin.

Instead, I ought to be thinking about what have I done to the name?

What are we doing with the name?

It's entrusted to us.

We're his ambassadors.

That's the greater offense than what you might do with your body or something.

It's the name.

It's amazing.

Where is their God?

Why should they say that?

We don't want that to happen.

And verse 18 begins a whole new section.

It's going to talk about deliverance promised.

And so this turns into a very hopeful message here, right?

Then circle that.

That's worth circling.

Okay.

Then, when, then, when you return and repent and return and repent, repeat, repeat, repeat.

It's a way of life for God's people.

Repentance is not one and done.

Repentance is the way we run.

It is life for us, we believers.

We do not have this all figured out.

There are no experts in this room.

There are no experts watching online.

We continue to place ourselves before God so that He can pour His glory into our lives.

Restore us.

Restore our rejoicing in spite of our suffering, etc.

The Lord then will be zealous for his land, will have pity on his people.

The Lord will answer and say to his people, Behold, I'm going to send you grain, new wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied and full with them, and I will never again make you a reproach among the nations.

I will remove the northern army from you, far from you.

That's that the metaphor he's been using, which may indeed include a reference to the locust plague that had happened, as well as some things that are about to happen, as well as some things that might happen further down the line in history.

You'll see in a little bit how we tie all of that together.

I will drive it, the northern army, into a parched and desolate land, its vanguard into the eastern sea.

That would be the Dead Sea down in the southern portion of Israel.

Its rearguard into the western sea.

That's certainly a reference to the Mediterranean.

And its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up.

Some of you know that some of those bugs, when they I mean, there was a downspout right outside here at the church, down at the pavilion.

I don't know if anybody saw that.

There's like 400 dead carcai.

Is it is that the plural of carcass?

Somebody help me out.

Who's a carcai.

There's a pile of them.

And I walked by them.

I'm not kidding.

It smelled really bad.

It was horrific.

But imagine the swarm, millions, maybe a billion locusts, you know.

And it, yeah, they'd smell bad.

For um uh that army had done great things, but do not fear a land, rejoice and be glad, for the Lord has done great things.

Look at Verse 20 and then verse 21.

They both have the phrase great things in them.

Guess who's greater?

Guess who can restore the years the locusts have eaten?

Yeah.

Do not fear beasts of the field.

Because the animals were afraid.

Where am I going to get something to eat?

The locusts ate it all.

Don't fear beasts of the field.

This is amazing.

For the pastures of the wilderness have turned green.

The tree has borne its fruit.

The fig tree and the vine have yielded in full.

So he's looking forward to what God can do, how God can restore all of that.

Rejoice, O sons of Zion.

Be glad in the Lord your God.

Not just be glad in the fact that the circumstances themselves have changed, but be glad in the Lord your God.

Where's your joy to be found?

In the Lord your God.

Where's your delight in all of life?

Should be in the Lord.

Turn to him.

Delight in Him.

He is most glorified in us when we are most delighted in Him.

He has given you the early rain for your vindication.

He's poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before.

Some of you will have marginal notes that suggest an alternate translation that he's given you the teacher for righteousness.

That may indeed be true.

That may indeed be what he intends to say here, and that indeed could be a reference to Messiah, the teacher for righteousness.

But even if it's not, even I'm speculating a little, and I am no Hebrew scholar.

I just know enough to read the books and the commentaries and use the dictionaries.

It's not 100% crystal clear that that's it, but it might be that.

Verse 24.

The threshing floors will be full of grain.

Now that's the opposite of what chapter one was all about.

The threshing floors were empty of grain because all the locust had eaten it.

The vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

And again, the opposite.

This is the great reversal that the gospel can bring about in our lives.

This is a picture of it in the physical realm.

Then, there's another then for you to circle.

I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust and the stripping locust and the gnawing locust.

Those four different kinds or varieties of locusts.

Are they, uh some have suggested that they are the development of the embryo locust into a mature adult locust?

Okay, so four stages of growth.

Okay, maybe that's it.

Or they're like four different kinds of bugs.

Okay, that could be it as well.

The point is, he's trying to overwhelm us with the fact that that enemy has is going to be vanquished by God.

My great army, which I sent among you, and God's the one that sent them, but he's the one that can take them away.

26.

You'll have plenty to eat and be satisfied.

Praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you.

Then, it's fun to circle the then's, too.

My people will never be put to shame.

Thus, you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord.

All capital letters in most English Bibles meaning it's Yahweh.

I am Yahweh, your God, and there is no other.

This is not multiple deities.

This is this is there is one God.

Um, we are Trinitarian in our view of God.

The Bible teaches that it is very explicit.

There's a Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit revealed throughout Scripture.

We see those images used.

And so, can we explain the Trinity?

No, I can't fully explain it.

Um, we have some analogies that we can use, but they they all fail at some point.

It's a mystery, it's a beautiful mystery, though.

And then you will know that I'm the midst of Israel, I'm the Lord your God, there is no other.

My people will never be put to shame.

How he identifies with you, how he identifies with me to call us his people.

And because we are his people, we will never be put to shame.

Have you lost sight of the fact that you are one of his people?

Because when I do that, when I drift that way, all of a sudden shame creeps in on me.

I forget the day of the Lord has come in my life that the good news of God's overwhelming, amazing grace has saved me and set me free.

And I forget that so quickly, and maybe you do too.

A few years back, uh, Kim and I were in London.

Uh, we stepped out of the Gentleman Baristas Coffee Shop, and nobody's ever been there, haven't they?

It's on Piccadilly Road.

You gotta go there sometime.

The coffee is awesome.

Uh, one of those red double-decker buses with seating on the open top pulled away from the corner and plastered all along the side was a banner that read this There's probably no God, period.

So, um stop worrying and enjoy your life.

The entire campaign was capitalizing on the emergence of the so-called new atheist movement led by people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and uh Sam uh Harris and uh Daniel Dennett.

A movement which I think has largely started to fade, to be honest.

But not long after that movement began to gain some momentum, some Christian folks in Oxford, England invited the philosopher, uh, the Christian apologist, uh William Lane Craig, and uh, and then they also invited Richard Dawkins, the Oxford University professor and well-known atheist, to a public debate at a local venue on October 25th of that year.

Uh Dawkins declined, it was made public that he would not show up.

The host organization then proceeded to rent some buses of their own.

And they put a big banner that read in the same typeface There's probably no Dawkins.

Now stop worrying and enjoy your October 25.

Oh man, that was awesome.

We human beings love to ask questions, don't we?

Um why is there a locust?

Why these people had to be why is this happening?

Where's God when all of this happens?

We ask similar questions in our own day and time, some of them not just under crisis, but just thinking through life critically.

Why is there something rather than nothing is probably the oldest philosophical question and the most fundamental question.

Why is there something rather than nothing?

How is that possible?

How can we explain immaterial things like love, beauty, wonder, courage, honor, dignity?

Those things aren't found under a microscope.

Where do they come from?

Is this life all there is?

Does God exist?

What does it mean to be a human being?

It's really important right now.

How is it that we human beings even have the capacity to ask foundational questions like these, and so many others like them?

What makes us think our questions or our answers have any correlation whatsoever to reality?

Good questions.

Love these questions.

Here at TVC we hold to a biblical world view.

This means that for us, the ancient scriptures, known as the Bible, serve as our standard for belief and behavior.

And so when we wrestle with questions like that, which some of us do, and most of us will wrestle at least with one or two of them, we're gonna turn to the scriptures for our answers instead of just turning to the internet or just trying to figure it out on our own.

I I can't handle the burden of explaining why the locust came.

I can't handle the burden of even the question, why are there, how do you explain consciousness or other minds that are different than mine?

Just to explain that blows my mind, and I can't handle that burden.

And so I go to this book and encourage you to do the same.

That's why we study through books of the Bible.

That's why we often say about the Word of God, this is God's word, unique in its source, timeless in its truth, broad in its reach, and transforming in its power.

Last week you studied chapter one.

You may have noticed that Joel chapter one, turn back there real quick.

It began with one of his own questions, I think uh chapter, or rather, verse two.

Look at that.

Listen, all inhabitants of the land, has anything like this happened in your days?

Or in your father's days?

You know, and and our slice of history is the only one we got to work with.

So if we're trying to understand theirs, we can probably appreciate some urgency in that and some depth, and we can understand the devastation, all that a little bit academically.

But in our own day and time, our slice of history, right now, I'm dealing with, and you're dealing with, some very real existential threats.

And some of them, some of those threats are against you, some of those threats are against people you love, some of those threats are against our culture at large.

Um, our children are at stake.

What are we doing about it?

Um that threat, what do we do with it, how do we handle it?

Where do we turn for help in all of it?

We turn to the scriptures.

Because in the scriptures we find a God who can make up for the years the locusts have eaten, and he can bring life out of death.

And listen, as regards my sin and your sin, while a single locust may not have been much of a threat on its own, the grotesque, voracious swarms of locusts threaten total loss in every category of life, including the worship of God for these people.

And it the same thing is true for us.

One locust, uh, you might think to yourself, yeah, that's nothing.

But you know that one single locust can lay their eggs in June, and there can be 18 million descendants just from that one locust by October.

One little yes that should have been a no, one little no that should have been a yes.

It's important for us to understand.

Um was this locust plague, which by the way, echoes, doesn't it?

The eighth plague in Egypt of the locust, right?

And we even have some sort of inferences, some veiled sort of references to darkness here as well, the sun and the moon going out, all that, right?

The ninth plague was darkness in Egypt.

Death is here as well.

And the tenth plague in Egypt was death.

So Joel knows his Old Testament well, and he's referring back to all of this.

What is the point with pain?

Lewis says pain insists upon being attended to.

God whispers to us in our pleasures, God speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.

Blow the trumpet! He shouts.

It's his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

And that's one of the reasons, of course, you all remember, most of you do anyway, why the churches were full for about two months after 9-11.

But we have a short memory.

We don't recognize on an ongoing basis that we really need God.

We really need God all the time, not just when we're jumping into a foxhole.

Alas, for the day of the Lord is at hand, Joel shouts.

And as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come.

That's uh chapter 1, verse 15.

And that's interesting.

There's a little play on words there in the Hebrew.

One Bible commentator says it should be.

And as a shattering from Shaddai, Shaddai, El Shaddai is the word that's translated there, Almighty, most of your English Bibles.

It's the Lord who is shattering.

He's blowing the trumpet.

He's trying to get my attention and your attention as well.

Um, what is this day of the Lord and why does it matter?

I think that's a fair question.

Um here's something that is mentioned a couple dozen times throughout the Bible.

Look at the books that refer to the day of the Lord.

And perhaps over lunch, if you want to, you can read all of these passages.

I don't have time, sadly, in this particular setting to be able to read all of this, all of these passages for you.

But if you uh read this on your own, you'll find some repeating themes whenever the phrase the day of the Lord shows up in your Bible.

These passages often describe the nature, scope, and timing of the day of the Lord, and may broadly refer to any of God's actions in three contexts: historic, imminent, or ultimate.

Historic, God reminds us of all of God's acts in redemption history.

We do well to reflect on these.

I think Joel is looking back into Exodus, and he's reminding by referring to those to plague number eight, nine, and ten.

I think the Jews would have known that, the ancient Jews would have known that.

They would have seen the parallel and they would have gone, oh my goodness, look what God does when he's trying to get the attention.

Even if the Egyptians, and by the way, in the book of Exodus, it constantly says that the Lord does this so that Pharaoh and his people will know that Yahweh is the Lord.

Really important that we know what God is up to, at least in the big picture, if we can't explain what he's up to in the with in more detail.

But we do well to reflect on the past actions of God in the days of the Lord that have happened in history behind us.

And imminent calls us with urgency to repentance and faith in light of God's impending judgment and faithful offer of salvation.

We have we we have so much better perspective because we're we're after the first arrival, the first appearing of Jesus.

We can point to the cross, we can point to the God who actually knows what it's like to face death and defeat it as we point to the resurrection.

Um, and so we want to be aware of what God's done in the past, what he may be about to do.

And considering the day of the Lord in the imminent or the near future for us is really good because it assures us of the joyful freedom of walking in God's promises of grace and mercy through faith in Christ, regardless of what circumstances or what outcomes may happen.

Even in November.

See?

No matter.

Are we a people marked by a steady, rock solid confidence in the Lord our God?

Or are we gonna run around with our hair on fire, our cowering in fear, despondent and despairing, like the people in Joel, I think, had gotten to that place.

There was nothing left for them.

Because all their hope was in their new wine and in their crops and in the whatever was gonna happen, you know, their kind of wealth and their whatever they could manufacture.

And that can happen to us as well.

And then, of course, we have to talk about the day of the Lord when it comes to ultimate, distant future.

The eschatological hope we have, referring to how God intends to wrap up human history and set the world to rights.

Yes, he is our hope in life and in death.

Why?

Because we know the day of the Lord means he will have the final say.

And he's good.

We can trust him, no matter what the circumstances, present circumstances may look like, no matter what our past may be riddled, what kind of fears, what kind of abuse, what kind of, what kind of things have gone wrong.

It doesn't matter.

If we keep our eyes fixed on our hope, who is Jesus Himself.

So if I were going to summarize the day of the Lord, I'd say it this way: Day of the Lord is a biblical phrase that signifies God's special interventions in human history, wherein God acts with righteous judgment against sin and evil, or wherein by his sovereign grace God acts to offer deliverance and salvation to his people.

We see this in chapter 2, beginning in verse 18 and following, there is this promise of deliverance.

And it runs all the way into the New Testament.

That promise is fulfilled in the person and work of Jesus.

And if you and if I, if we will turn and fix our eyes on Jesus, he is the author and perfecter of our faith.

He's the one that writes it, he originates it, he's the source of our faith, he's also the perfecter of our faith.

He's the one that will walk with us through everything, any trial, any tribulation, and he will never leave us or forsake us.

He said that himself.

And that's for you, that's for me, no matter what we face this week, next week, or the week to follow.

In rapid form, what does the day of the Lord mean for us?

The God of the Bible is not an indifferent or disinterested deity when it comes to humanity.

Do you get that from this passage?

I hope you do.

He actually is interested in us.

And he was interested in ancient Israel, his people.

What does the day of the Lord mean for us?

The God of the Bible is personal, powerful, and has plans and purposes he will intend to fulfill.

I rest in that.

The sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which you can lay your head at night, as Spurgeon said.

The God of the Bible is sovereign over his creation, over all human history, over every nation, over all people.

So you may need to turn off your news feed or your news feeds.

Because they're trying to tell you something else.

Um you may need to take a break from social media or whatever.

If you're getting programmed opposite what you see up on the screen there, it might be good for you to have a little, you know, fast from all of that nonsense that people are trying to get you afraid and irritated about.

Um, what does the day of the Lord mean for us?

And God's righteous judgment.

By the way, his judgment is righteous, so I trust him to be the judge.

He intends to eradicate all evil and its effects idolatry, injustice, abuse, greed, poverty, racism, despair, disease, death.

Take it away, Lord.

We see this in the book of Revelation.

I mean, just go read the whole book of Revelation.

Just see what God intends to do.

It's remarkable.

We we studied it all through Revelation during COVID.

All of those uh Bible studies are up online.

Would make a great personal Bible study for you if you'd like to study Revelation.

I encourage you to go and take those Bible studies and revisit those.

And finally, God's gracious offer of salvation by grace through faith in Christ means that all sinners who repent and believe will be forgiven and saved.

We see this promise right here in Joel, too.

We see it right there as well.

Return to the Lord.

Repent.

Okay?

So important for us to do that as a way of life.

So what's waiting for you?

Forgiveness for the past, joy for the present, and even in spite of suffering.

Even in spite of the outcomes not going the way you wanted them to go, that you thought with your limited knowledge, you thought this should go that way, and it didn't.

And now is your joy, is joy just sucked out of your life, or is your joy rooted in some someone else?

Something else.

Um, hope for the future.

Is your hope rooted in Jesus?

He indeed is our hope in life and death.

What are you waiting for?

It's time for us to repent, to rend our hearts and return to the Lord.

One Bible teacher said he, in his in his manuscript, where his notes, he put it, I guess it got spell checked, from rend to rent.

He says, but I think that's true also.

Because he said, I'm constantly renting my heart out, and I need to stop doing that.

I need to give it holy to Jesus.

Um, so we need to render into our hearts, just lay them open before the Lord and trust and hope in him.

All right, uh, let's wrap this up with a couple quotes.

Crying to God is not the same as returning to God.

The Lord is looking for people who will not only cry to him, but who will return to him with all their heart.

There's a lot of people that cry to the Lord when the consequences aren't good or the circumstances aren't good.

Um, they've been foolish, it's their fault.

They don't see that, but they still kind of just cry to the Lord, why are you letting this happen?

I don't understand what's going on with you.

Listen, I I I I I I'm just old enough, been on the planet long enough.

I I don't understand why God allows this thing to keep spinning.

I gotta be honest with you.

I am such a rebel.

I'm such a fool.

I'm so consistently inconsistent.

That's the only thing consistent about me is that I'm inconsistent.

And

Yet he calls to me.

Return.

Come back home.

I'm your hope.

I'm eager to forgive.

I'm gracious.

I'm compassionate.

What would keep you from turning to a God like that?

In the Africa, the African Bible commentary from one of the pastors who wrote on the book of Joel, God's people can take comfort in the fact that they will be vindicated on the day of the Lord.

God will never abandon his promise, and repentance brings forgiveness.

It's so simple, so straight ahead.

Repentance brings forgiveness.

Do you need forgiveness?

Do you need redemption?

Repentance brings forgiveness.

That's very clear there.

Joel's message to us is that there is still time to call on the Lord's name and be forgiven and saved.

Those who turn to God will receive his pardon and enjoy the blessings described in Joel's prophecy, including the enjoyment of God's presence forever.

But those who refuse face punishment and destruction.

That's it.

That's clear, straightforward.

I so appreciate this pastor.

I won't even attempt to pronounce his name, but it's there on the slides for you.

And it's a brilliant commentary on the book of Joel.

And then Dane Ortland from a book we quote often around here at the village chapel, gentle and lowly, talking about the Lord Jesus.

Returning to God in fresh contrition, however ashamed and disgusted with ourselves, he will not tepidly pardon.

He will abundantly pardon.

He does not merely accept us, he sweeps us up in his arms again.

Do you get that?

The prodigal son's father.

You know, the prodigal son face down in the mud, maybe if I return, my father will just allow me to become one of the household servants.

The prodigal son had no idea how generous his father was going to be to him.

He didn't get restored to just become a servant.

He got a ring, a robe, some sandals, and had a party.

That's how eager the God of the Bible is to receive you if you will repent and return to him.

Do you need to hear that this morning?

Do you need to do that this morning?

How will you respond, church?

For all of us, let's hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering.

That he who promised is faithful.

And let's consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds.

One of the good deeds is repenting, by the way.

Not forsaking our own assembling together.

Oh, that means I need you.

That means you need me.

As is the habit of some.

But encouraging one another.

That's pouring courage into one another.

Courage to believe and trust God.

And all the more as you see the day drawing near.

Let's pray.

Lord, thank you that you didn't just drop kick the earth over the back fence of the universe and tell us to figure it out by ourselves.

Thank you that you didn't just step back and fold your arms and look at us and shake your head, roll your eyes, and get frustrated with us.

But rather than that, in one of the mighty acts of God in human history, you came.

And the day of the Lord when you were born here, the day of the Lord when you died on the cross for me, the day of the Lord when you rose again, and the day of the Lord that you promised, that ultimate day of the Lord, when you promise to come and set things right.

We're looking forward to that.

So let us, your people, return to you, repent of our sins, and rejoice in the hope we have in Christ Jesus, in whose name we pray.

Amen and amen.