The great British evangelist George Whitefield used to
tell his congregations that I got this sermon
while many of you were still in bed.
Well, I'm no George Whitefield, but I got
the following message between the hours of three
and four this morning.
We will be in the book of Joel.
You can turn in your Bibles there now,
friends.
Joel is prophesying against the southern kingdom of
Judah.
We find in Joel a people who have
forgotten God.
They have forgotten what God has done for
them in former times, and they have forgotten
that all their blessings and prosperity have come
from his hand.
The Jews in Judah in the days of
Joel are self-reliant people, hell-bent on
self-indulgence and self-rule.
God has been pushed into the background to
where only religious formalism exists without any reality
of him in the daily life.
And God has a bone of contention with
the backslidden Jews, and he sends his prophet
Joel to deliver a stinging series of messages
to them, and he sends a locust invasion
to destroy their crops to get their attention.
We saw recently the locust plague on East
Africa just this last year, where the desert
locusts multiplied 20-fold in a period of
three months to reach densities of 80 million
per square kilometer, where they ravaged entire communities
in Kenya and Ethiopia, consuming a food equivalent
that is mind-boggling.
They consumed a food equivalent to that eaten
by 35,000 people a day.
This kind of devastating locust swarm is what
occurred to the Jews in the days of
Joel.
Crops were ruined, families were bankrupted in a
financial collapse, and this is the scene where
we pick up our story as we look
at the passage in Joel in chapter 2,
beginning in verse 12, where the prophet calls
the nation to a time of repentance and
to a return unto the Lord God.
Therefore, also now, saith the Lord, turn ye
even to me with all your heart, and
with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning,
and rend your heart, and not your garments,
and turn unto the Lord your God.
For he is gracious, and merciful, slow to
anger, and of great kindness.
And repenteth him of the evil, who knoweth
if he will return, and repent, and leave
a blessing behind him, even a meal offering,
and a drink offering, unto the Lord your
God.
I will pause here, friends, to say that
this call to repentance falls squarely upon the
shoulders of the religious leaders of Judah.
They are the ones who have been derelict
in their duty of calling awayward people back
to God.
So God sends a plague and a prophet
to them in the hopes of national repentance
and a return to God.
It's a desperate situation, where the crops have
been wiped out by these desert locusts, and
all have felt the pain of this financial
collapse.
And here, Joel instructs the religious leaders to
call a solemn assembly, to call the people
back to God.
We pick it up in verse 15.
Look at this striking imagery as we see
this national call for alarm.
Blow the trumpet in Zion.
Sanctify fast.
Call a solemn assembly.
Gather the people.
Sanctify the congregation.
Assemble the elders.
Gather the children and those that suck the
breast.
Let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber,
and the bride out of her closet.
Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord,
weep between the porch and the altar, and
let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord,
and give not thine heritage to reproach, that
the heathen should rule over them.
Wherefore should they say among the people, O
where is their God?
Then will the Lord be jealous for his
land, and pity his people.
I will stop there.
In this striking passage of scripture, we see
a repentant people and a merciful God.
When God sees the repentance is genuine, then
he's moved to action in two dramatic ways.
He's jealous for his land, and he will
heal it, and he will pity his people
and restore fellowship with them.
We live in a day of remedial judgment
from God on the nation and the withdrawn
presence of God in the church.
We too, like the people of Judah, are
in desperate times.
The national tragedy that occurred in our nation's
capital and the devastation of the pandemic should
be wake-up calls to our religious leaders,
to call solemn assemblies, to seek the face
of Almighty God, and to lead a nation
in repentance back to the living God of
the Bible.
But sadly, since the church lies in the
very grip of apostasy, I don't see any
hope from our religious leaders who are too
asleep and too afraid of men to take
any firm stand for God.
It's up to the average Jane and Joe
in the pew to fall on their faces
and cry out to God over the sins
of the land.
It's up to them to let their tears
fall between the altar and the sanctuary, and
wet the carpet of the sanctuary with their
broken-hearted cries and desperate petitions to Almighty
God.
God will hear the desperate cry of His
remnant and turn and be jealous for His
land once again.
The land belongs to Him after all.
England belongs to Him.
America belongs to Him.
Everything may look desolate, but He owns it.
He is ownership over His land and over
His people.
But if the people of God turn back
to God in sincerity of heart, He will
hear their cry.
He will come and heal the land.