Meeting God, Again - Part 1 - Joel Focus: Joel 2:12-13

Melissa Dougherty Story

Melissa’s story of coming to Jesus was one that took her to the lowest point in her life. But then God used a friend who spoke the truth of the gospel into her life, and it dramatically changed her! She believed in Jesus, but as she learned more about God and who He was, her New Age beliefs began to unravel.

So, throughout this sermon series, Joey and I are going to look at God’s characteristics. What makes God, God? And we’re going to go through the last 12 books of the Old Testament - I highly encourage you to read them as we go through this series. They’re called the Minor Prophets or The Book of the 12, because at some point in history all twelve books were bound together on one scroll for Rabbi’s to read.

All of these books take place between the 8th and 5th centuries BCE. That means that they all were written somewhere between 400 and 800 years before Jesus was born. But what’s really amazing is that most - if not all of them - point to a coming Messiah… someone who would come and be the Savior of the world!

Let’s pray

Today we’re going to start with the prophet Joel. His name, Joel, means Yahweh is God. That’s fitting because Joel is a short little 3 chapter book that contains some amazing truths of God. In fact, go ahead and turn there in your bibles or bible apps.

Scholars can’t be sure when Joel was written, but our best guess is that it was written somewhere in the 6th Century BCE. So, we’re talking about 500 to 600 years before Jesus.

Joel was a prophet of God who probably worked in the Temple at Jerusalem in the nation of Judah. But what did a prophet of God do? 2

We might think of a prophet as someone who predicts the future - someone like a fortune teller. That’s what being a prophet means in many cultures, but that’s not how the biblical authors used the word ‘prophet.’

Biblical prophets would sometimes talk about the future, but they’re so much more than fortune tellers! These were Israelites who had a radical encounter with God and were commissioned to go and speak on God’s behalf to His people. They were kind of like a representative…

So, Joel 1:1 says that the Word of the LORD came to him. This isn’t some sort of poetry. Joel literally heard from God and His job was to relay the LORD’s message to His people.

Side Note: You might be wondering if we can hear an audible voice from God today? I’m not sure that I ever have, but I can tell you that prophets like Joel do not exist today. God isn’t ushering people into His presence anymore and commanding them to be His representatives to give His people a new message that they’ve never heard before. That time ended when Jesus came.

So, what does God tell Joel?

Well, there was a problem. The entire nation of Judah was invaded by swarms of locusts that were eating all of their crops!

It was kind of like the spotted lantern flies of today - only much worse! Is anyone dealing with spotted lantern flies on their property??? We’re currently dealing with an invasion… There’s so many of them, they’re like an army without number! The reason it’s a problem is because they’re killing our plants and trees.

Well, again, this locust invasion was much worse. The locusts were destroying their food sources. And if their food sources were gone, the nation of Judah wouldn’t survive.

But that’s exactly what happened. Their food sources were devastated. Joel says that, “It has laid waste [the army of locusts] my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white … The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails … Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed.” (portions of Joel 1:7-11)

They’re now in fear for their survival! And not only are they short on food, but they can’t even give grain and drink offerings to the LORD (1:9). What are they going to do???

Joel suggests that the priests should spend the night in a sackcloth. Sounds strange, but this was their usual custom of mourning after the death of someone. No one died yet, but their fear was that they would die!

Then they had an idea… maybe if they declared a holy fast. Maybe if they would summon all the elders who lived in the land and they would all cry out to the LORD, just maybe He would hear them and save them from this disaster.

Joel then turns the tables on us… He begins to describe this future day of the LORD… this judgment day of the LORD (FAQ series). We’ll hear about this a lot throughout the minor prophets. This future judgment day that hasn’t happened yet. It’s a day when the sun and moon are darkened and the stars no longer shine. It’s a day that involves a great battle, one in which the LORD is at the head of His army. Joel says that no one will be able to endure this day.

But thankfully we’re not there yet - and if you listen to our FAQ series on judgment day, you’ll learn that followers of Jesus have nothing to be afraid of when it comes to this day.

So, Joel uses this future day of Judgment as an illustration to describe the situation they’re in now. And the idea here is that the LORD’s people need to come back to Him. They’ve strayed far away from the LORD, and unfortunately 4 it took a nationwide disaster for them to wake up and realize that they cannot live without the LORD. It really doesn’t matter what you think about COVID-19… the fact is that it has impacted our entire planet. All of us have been impacted in different ways these past several months. But forget our differences of opinion… just lay that aside for now…

Ask yourself… How has this ‘national disaster’ impacted my relationship with Jesus? Would you say you’ve grown farther or closer to Him during these past few months? For some of us, those weeks of isolation were dreadful. If someone is going through serious depression, one of the worst things is to force them into isolation.

For others, maybe the weeks of isolation were freeing! Maybe your fast paced life was forced to a crawl, and you were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief!

No matter how tough or freeing those isolation weeks were, I believe they were a real opportunity for spiritual growth. But unfortunately a third of Christians nationwide took this as an opportunity to do nothing.

There was a recent Barna Research Group study (linked in your notes) that showed about a third of regular church-going Christians in America just stopped doing anything church related. They stopped going to church, because they couldn’t. But they didn’t even participate with their church online. They didn’t support their church. And they didn’t even crack open their Bibles.

It’s sad. But honestly all of us could easily fall into that category. But the good news is that all of us can come back out of it. This is what Joel was doing for the LORD’s people in Judah. He was calling them … he was warning them… even urging them to come back to the LORD! But it’s not just Joel’s words… Joel was giving them a message that came directly from Yahweh Himself! Here it is...

“Even now,” declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and 5 compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and He relents from sending calamity.” (Joel 2:12-13)

● “Return to me with all your heart” ○ Yahweh calls on His people to return and give Him undivided devotion even in the face of impending doom ■ Repentance involves our whole self ■ Speaks to the loyalty God wants from His people

● “Rend your heart and not your garments” ○ Rend means to separate abruptly - Terry Crews ripping shirts in AGT ○ Internal spiritual brokenness is more important than our rituals - the outward act of tearing your clothes [which was a sign of mourning] - Jesus doesn’t want empty worship - He doesn’t want us to just show up and go through the motions - He wants all of us! He wants complete devotion out of a heart that loves Him because He first loved us! ○ So open your hearts! Return to the LORD!

WHY?

Because God is gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in love, and relents from sending calamity

○ Gracious - He gives us undeserved favor… but there’s the key, we don’t deserve that favor! But that’s grace - it’s a gift from God.. it’s His undeserved kindness

○ Compassionate - He cares about our sufferings - and by the way, He was willing to go through the ultimate suffering to pay the price for our sins!

○ Slow to anger - God is not this ‘angry’ God. He is just! But He is patient, and gives us every opportunity to turn to Him. He is 6

“long nosed”

○ Abounding in love - He has a love that’s unlike any other. If you remember last week’s sermon, we noted that God has a hesed for His people… hesed is the Hebrew word for love in this verse. It means that God has a loyal kind of love for His people. He doesn’t abandon His people or His promise! That’s why the writers of Scripture constantly urge us to reciprocate that kind of loyal-love to God. We’re to remain faithfully loyal to Jesus and only Jesus - who by the way is Yahweh God [see our Trinity FAQ].

○ Relents from sending calamity - Relenting is about turning from a particular activity [in this case, God’s judgment] out of grace [they deserved His punishment - God withholding His wrath is an undeserved gift]

So the priests of Judah did get together. They cried out to the LORD, and here’s what happened…

Joel 3:18-19 - “Then the LORD was jealous for his land and took pity on his people. The LORD replied to them: “I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.”

The LORD restored their crops! He replaced what the locusts had eaten!

The LORD did this because He knew a nationwide disaster was what it would take for His people to turn back to Him. And that’s what it’s all about! We need to turn to Jesus!

Interestingly, this was the message of the first sermon by Peter in Acts chapter 2! I’m bringing this up because Peter’s sermon is the only place in the entire Bible where the prophet Joel is quoted.

You might remember that we talked about this passage right before Easter. It’s the passage that talks about when the Holy Spirit came down on people and they 7 started speaking in different languages. Some thought that maybe they were drunk, but Peter stood up and explained to them what was really going on.

Peter said that this outpouring of the Spirit was the fulfillment of the prophecy from Joel! He said that this was evidence that Jesus was indeed the Messiah that they had been waiting for!

He then implored everyone listening to repent - In other words, Peter wanted them to turn from their evil ways and to put their faith and trust in Jesus.

So again, what will we do? We’ve just been through something significant and are still going through it. The question is, have we turned toward or away from Jesus?

Has Jesus become this distant friend that we once knew? Look, if that’s the case, today is the day to change that. Maybe for you it’s time to meet God, again. It’s time to reunite with Jesus.

It’s time to experience His grace… His compassion… His loyal-love that says “You know what, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, I will forgive you. Just trust in Me.”

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to God the Father, except through Him. If you want to be forgiven of your sins and made right with God, all it takes is a believing loyalty in Jesus.

So, rend your heart to Jesus. Seek Him with everything you have! And again, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done, your sins are forgiven when you choose Jesus as your King of kings and LORD of Lords.

That’s what brought Melissa Daugherty to a saving knowledge of Jesus. And maybe you resonated with her story. Maybe you’ve got questions that haven’t been answered and they’re keeping you from a deeper faith in Jesus. I want you to know that Refton Church is a safe place to ask questions.

Personally, I love when people write me with questions - because it shows me that they want to take their faith seriously! And I get excited because I know that when we work through these questions, our faith will be strengthened.

Let’s Pray

Next Week - Jonah (Joey), encourage them to be reading Joel and Jonah

5 Minute Intermission ● Worship Team ● Discussion Questions are on the screen ● It’s okay if you need to exit