Immanuel Sermon Audio
Joel (29:66)
All right, grab a Bible, find the book of Joel, book of Joel, interesting little book. One of the minor prophets, he's the second minor prophet right after Hosea. So there's the minor prophets, and then last week I took that list, Hosea, Joel, Amos, he would die all the way through all 12 of them, and I color-coded them for you, and let me remind you of what we put up last week. The reason this is important, by the way, is not just history, is not just so you can now fax down in your brain about Hosea, or Joel, or Amos, but it's so that you can understand when they're speaking, who they're speaking to, and why they're speaking, because these guys preached over a long stretch of time in very, very different circumstances, and so the circumstances help you understand the message. So the guys in red, Hosea, Amos, Jonah, and Micah, these guys preached before Samaria fell. So you remember that Israel's divided into northern kingdom, southern kingdom, Samaria, in the north Jerusalem, in the south, before the northern kingdom fell, the guys in the red, that was their time. The guys in the orange, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. These guys are after Samaria has fallen, so Assyria holds the northern kingdom into exile, but the southern kingdom is still standing, right? Jerusalem has not been conquered by Babylon, they have not been carried off into exile in the southern kingdom, and so that's Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah. Then comes Joel and Obadiah, the guys in green, these guys write or preach, live right after Jerusalem falls, so now the southern kingdom is in exile, and then the guys in blue, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi are after the exile, after people have already come back, and so right along with that, here's the history of Israel, and we're going to go through some of these things pretty quick tonight, to cover everything in Joel. There's the conquest, the judges, the monarchy, there's the division of the kingdom, and then I left three blanks, and I left three blanks for a reason, and it's because there is scholarly debate about when Joel lived and when he wrote. I think it's during the exile, right after Judah, southern kingdom, Jerusalem gets conquered and sent into exile, I think Joel is right after that in the exile. Some people think it's before, and some people think it's after, and the reason that there's debate is that in the book of Joel, there are no kings mentioned, and so if you go back and you look at Hosea, Hosea says, right there in the very introduction, Hosea 11, I'm Hosea, this is a little bit about me, and I was during such-and-such king and such-and-such king, and he dates himself for you, so you know, okay this is when he is, and a lot of the minor prophets do that, the next one we'll look at next week, Amos, Hosea Joel Amos does the same thing, Amos 11, he tells us, this is who I am, this was the king when I was a prophet, Joel doesn't do any of that, and I take that as an indication to say there was no king, right, if it was during this period of the rebellion, he could have very easily said, I'm Joel, which he does in verse 1, and I was during the reign of so-and-so, but he doesn't do that like a lot of the other minor prophets, and when you get to chapter 3, you can look quickly at chapter 3, verse 1, 2, and 3, it sounds like the people have been taken into exile, look what it says, behold in those days at that time when I restore the fortunes of Judah in Jerusalem, in other words something is really bad has happened because their fortunes will need to be restored, I'll gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehosephat, and I'll enter into judgment with them there on behalf of my people, my heritage Israel, because they've scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, and they've cast lots for my people, traded a boy for a prostitute and sold a girl for wine and have drunk it, so it sounds like they've already been sinned to exile. What I'm telling you is I think Joel's right there in the period of the exile. Babylon, King Nebuchadnezzar, just marched against Jerusalem, destroyed the city, and hauled the people off into exile in Babylon, that's when Joel is writing this book and talking about these things. Who is he? Chapter 1, verse 1 says that he is the son of Patul, we know absolutely nothing about Patul or really about Joel. I think I did a search this week, there's about 12 guys in the Bible named Joel and different guys, not the same guy, and this is one of them, and that's about all we know. We know his dad's name, and we know what his name means, his name means, this is on your outline, the Lord is God, and it's a combination of the name of God, Jehovah, and the most common title for God, Elohim, did Jehovah, Elohim, mash him together, Joel is the name that Patul gave to a son, that's all we know about him. Here's the most important thing you need to know for the book of Joel, and this is on your outline, bottom of the front. Joel is a book about the day of the Lord, that's what the book is about, the day of the Lord, and so you say what is the day of the Lord, it's any time that God carries out a decisive action, that could be that God does something to save his people, salvation, or that could be something that God does to punish his people or to punish his enemies, that could be the day of the Lord, it could be in salvation or in judgment, or it could be both at the same time, so you could go backwards and you could look at the Exodus or the people from Egypt, right, salvation for God's people, judgment on God's enemies, and you could say that's the day of the Lord, it's a day when God took decisive action, it can be a past event, a current event, or a future event, in each of the four sections of Joel, you can break it down into four sections when we outline it, each of those four sections mentions the day of the Lord, 1, 2, 3, 4, they are all talking about the day of the Lord, and so throughout this book from beginning to end is a book about the day of the Lord, it's a book about you just got to get this in your brain, a day when God takes decisive action, to save people, to judge people, it could be coming soon or it could be way off in the distance, sometimes in say low church Protestantism, meaning Baptists, Pentecostals, Charismatics, we use the phrase the day of the Lord as if it's only an in-time thing, right, Jesus talks about the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and we think okay day of the Lord, that means when Jesus is coming back, or maybe some people think about the rapture, some people think about the in-time events, book of revelation type stuff, that's okay to think that, just understand the day of the Lord is not only that, it's any time God acts decisively to save people or to punish people, so it's not a long book, the book of Joel, you can read it on your own tonight, it'll take you about ten minutes to read it carefully and thoroughly, only three chapters, what we're going to do is talk about the outline and we'll just put it up on the screen and you can jot that down, I wanted to give you a lot more information about this outline, but I get, I have this one little piece of paper that I use on Wednesday nights and I couldn't cram it all in there, so I left you a little bit of space to jot some of this stuff down, first verse is the introduction and then there's four sections, okay, first section is about a locust plague and that's something that was in the past for Joel, when Joel writes the book and he writes about this locust plague and he says this was the day of the Lord, that's already happened, second section is about an army from the north and that's something in the future, the tints of the verbs change in this next section, then the third section is about God being merciful, that's something that's going to happen in the future and then the fourth section is about a final judgment, end time judgment, if you wanted to call it that and that's something that's in the future and so what we're going to do is talk about each of these sections and read some of the different things that Joel says in these sections and try to make sense of them and then come back around and wrap it all up, so let's talk about the locust plague, okay, section number one, chapter one verse two to twenty, so really it's all of chapter one except that first verse, it's the introduction, let me ask you this, when you think of a locust plague, what do you think about, grasshoppers, I know what Jamie thinks about, what do you think about, when we moved to Kentucky they had a, we moved there and they said congratulations the 12 year locust, I don't remember the number, some year locust, 12 year locust have just hatched and so while we were moving in it was like Egypt, the plagues of Egypt, locusts everywhere, flying all over, I mean it was just stick with them and this happens in the Ohio Valley and a couple years later we were living not in Louisville but Frankfurt and they said ah it's time for the seven year locust to hatch and out they came and just, I remember our tree in our backyard in Frankfurt, you couldn't see the trunk, it was just covered in locust shells, just unbelievable amount of locust, in Louisville for the 12 year locust they ran the street sweepers just to clean them up off the street, I mean it's just gross, it's just dirty, they smell bad, they're annoying and you're trying to move in, so your front door is open to your house and you're carrying stuff in and income the locust and they're just living with you, most of us if you, if I say think about a locust plague, maybe you think about Egypt, right, the plagues that Moses or God brought against Egypt through Moses, we think about something like that, I read an interesting story or read about an interesting story, I couldn't get a hold of the actual magazine but is in National Geographic, any of you subscribed to National Geographic back in 1915, anybody? No? Okay, if you did and it was still sitting on your shelf somewhere or your great grandma has a stack that you inherited, you go dig it out and I found it online and read some of it, okay, in 1915 there was a plague of locust in the holy lands, now again let me just tell you about this so that you understand when Joel says there was a plague of locust you have some idea of what he might be talking about, okay, this is in National Geographic, 1915, into the holy lands from the northern part of Egypt up to the northern part of Israel, okay, all up that little stretch of the holy lands, there come these locusts and they said that they're about two to three inches long and these locusts come in and they dig holes in the ground and they lay their eggs in these holes and National Geographic says each hole averaged 100 eggs, okay, so locust comes, digs a hole, lays the eggs 100 eggs in that hole, you say well how close were the holes, like there's a hole over by me and then there's a hole over by Jerry Darby, they're long, there's not very many, no, National Geographic says that in a square yard, okay, three feet by three feet by three feet, square yard, there are 75,000 eggs laid in the ground in a square yard, okay, 75,000 eggs and so they hatch, lay them in the ground and then they hatch and they come out initially looking like this is just how they describe it, I have no idea what this means, like a large ant with no wings, that's what it looks like when it comes out of the ground and then they said it molds and it molds into what kind of what we would think of as a grasshopper, like it has wings but it doesn't really fly, it just kind of hops and flutters along and then they molt again and they had wings and they flew and so that's the picture, if you don't believe me, you can look it up on Wikipedia, everything on Wikipedia is true, so I just proved it to you but locust plague 1915, holy lands, it's on Wikipedia, it's in National Geographic, I don't know what else you want, that's what they look like, two to three inches long, okay, these critters, they've destroyed everything, they just destroyed everything, look at these pictures, these are guys hurting them into a trap and I don't really understand the logic here or what's going on but it just looks like they're kind of shooing them towards some sort of makeshift thing they put in the ground and you can see they're just falling to their death there in the trap and then there's another picture of some guys burning them, right, with the torch trying to kill these things, trying to control them but it just, it was devastating and here's the interesting thing to me, because this was new to me, in Kentucky locust plague, they come out, they die, they're gone, we sweep them up with the street sweepers, but these guys, 1915, they come out as one thing, they sort of molt into another thing and then they sort of molt into another thing, look at Joel 1-4, 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 have eaten, if you read that and you don't know anything about locust like me, you say so were there four waves of locust that came through, probably not, probably it's something similar to what happened here in 1915, right, it's the same little critters and they're just tearing everything up and here's how bad it is, look at Joel 1-2, he says here 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 and what he's saying is we've never seen anything like this, this is catastrophic, do your parents remember anything like this, no, does your granddad remember anything like this, they've never seen anything like this, this is total devastation on the land, this plague of locust that cut through and what Joel is saying in chapter one, you can read it later, is that this happened because of the sin of the people, okay, and we'll talk more about this in a minute, we'll tie it with some other Old Testament passages but this happened, this locust plague happened because the people had rebelled against God and look at some of the people he addresses, verse two he addresses the elders, okay, the leaders of the community, verse five he talks to the drunkards, the drunks, your fault too, and look at verse 11 be ashamed tillers of the soil, farmers, you're guilty too, you're in on this, look at verse 13 put on sackcloth and lament you priests, ministers of the altar, he's just lumping everybody together, I don't care if you're clergy, if you're a farmer, I don't care if you're the drunkard laying in the street or you're the most respected person in the community, you need to repent and wail and mourn because your sin has brought this upon us, okay, so that's the day of the Lord that Joel is looking back to first, this locust plague that comes, okay, it's the worst thing that's ever happened to Israel, the second section, this northern army begins in chapter two, if you're just looking at the text, it goes from chapter two verse one to verse 17, two one to 17, and twice in this section Joel calls it the day of the Lord, there's some people who think as you read through this description, blow a trumpet, sound an alarm, let the inhabitants tremble, the day of the Lord is covet coming, it's near, darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like blackness spread on the mountains, great and powerful people, their life has never been before, nor will be again after them through all the years of generations, fire before them, a flame burning, the lands like the Garden of Eden, but behind them it's a desolate wilderness and nothing escapes them, appearances like horses with the rumbling of chariots, they're leaping on the mountains like flames devouring the stubble, a powerful army drawn up for battle, some scholars look at that and say he's still talking about the locus, now he's just describing them poetically as an army that comes to devour, but the key here is that in chapter one all these descriptions he gives are that this has happened, has anything like this ever happened past this is done, in chapter two he's saying it's coming, it's future and so I think the best view in chapter two is to say he's talking about a real army, an army's going to come from the north and he's talking to the people in Judah, okay so this is, I don't think you can take Joel to and say this is some sort of end times wacky prophecy, I bet you could, I bet you could go to the Christian bookstore now and find a book on the shelf that would say Joel to and then try to convince you that this is some end times thing and here comes Iran coming from the north, they give you some cockamamie theory trying to tell you the end times are just around there, Joel's not talking about that right here, he's talking to the people he's saying look you just got crushed by these locus, I know, but I got more bad news, the day of the Lord is coming again and this time it's not going to be locus, it's going to be an army from the north and it's going to be terrible, they're going to destroy everything, they're just going to flatten and destroy everything in their path and the point of this section is that it hasn't happened yet and Joel wants them to repent right, in chapter one he's saying this happened and you need to wail and you need to mourn and you need to lament and in chapter two he's saying now this is coming, God's telling you this is coming, repent, turn from your sin, look what he says in Joel two verse 12, even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning and rend your hearts and not your garments, word "rend" means to tear right, don't tear your garments, tear your heart, 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, who knows whether he'll not relent, he'll not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God, so he's saying trouble's coming and you need to repent and maybe just maybe if you genuinely repent God will relent of this disaster, if you want to know how to repent of sin today, there's not much, not many passages in the Bible better than Joel two, 12 to 14 in describing what you need to do, look what he says, return to me with all your heart, no half-hearted nonsense, be genuine in this, do it with fasting and weeping and with mourning, take it serious, this is not a joke, you don't have to have to be super emotional, not all of us are equally emotional but your emotions need to be involved in this, when you understand the depths of your sin and how offensive your sin is to God, emotion will be involved, rend your hearts not your garments, what he's saying is when God's people would repent in biblical times, ripping your clothes was a sign of distress, you see people doing this throughout the Old Testament, you see them doing it in the New Testament, these guys feigning outrage at Jesus at his trial, ripping their garments and what he's saying is look you're just putting on a show, you're just ripping your garment so everybody sees you, ripped your garment and then they think oh look how godly Kay Butler is, she repented, she ripped her blouse in half, well she's just the godliest woman, Kay don't rip your blouse in half and Joel's saying stop is not about putting on a show for other people so they think you're so religious or spiritual, tear your heart, be broken in your heart, not your clothing, return to the Lord your god, L-O-R-D all capital right, don't come back to some vague notion of god is this higher power supreme being, you come back to Yahweh the Lord and why do you do all of this, it's not because you're a good person, it's because Yahweh is gracious and merciful it's not because your sin is not that big of a deal, it's because Yahweh the Lord your god is slow to anger and abounding instead fast love and he relents over disaster, we'll talk about that idea when we get to Jonah but Joel is saying disaster is coming, the day of the Lord is coming, this is in the future, you need to repent and perhaps the Lord will turn from this, okay, section three God is merciful, God is merciful and Joel starts talking about a day when God's going to have mercy on his people, this is Joel 2 18 all the way to the end of chapter two and when you look at verse 27 it's kind of right in the middle, verse 27 is the, it identifies the real problem here, Joel 2 27 you will know that I am in the midst of Israel and that I am the Lord your god and there is none else and my people shall never again be put to shame and what he's saying is as God is going to have mercy he's going to change people's hearts and they're going to understand that there is only one god the Lord Yahweh and there is no one else and you can backpedal from that and say well the problem must be that they think there is someone else, that they think Baal and Molech and Kimosch and all these other gods the Asherith the Asher repuls, all these other gods and goddesses that the Canaanites worship are equally God in some sense and he's saying that's a problem and when God has mercy on you the light bulb is going to go off and you're going to know that he's in the midst, you're going to know that he's the Lord your god and that there is no one else and so Joel 2 18 to 32 it describes what's going to happen when God has mercy on his people and if you read when you read this for yourself verse 18 to 26 talk about the physical material blessings that God will pour out on his people and then verse 28 to the end of that chapter talk about the spiritual blessings that God is going to pour out on his people and just real quickly look at Joel 2 28 says it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit okay and you can keep reading and you can keep reading some interesting things that Joel says but if you want to really interpret Old Testament prophecy the first thing you always need to do is say did anyone in the New Testament tell me what this means before I just start spinning my wheels trying to make sense of it myself has anybody in the New Testament explained it for me and when you read that passage it's explained for you when they append a cost right when the spirit is poured out on God's people and when Peter preaches on that day God pours a spirit out on the church Peter preaches he quotes this passage in Joel and he says that just happened what God said he would do way back in Joel chapter two just happened and so he applies that to the spirit coming on the church last section also the day of the Lord a day of final judgment this is chapter three and this is in the future okay so the locust plague it's a disaster that's the day of the Lord and this army that's going to come down from the north and destroy everything that's the day of the Lord and the day when God has mercy on his people and the New Testament says that's at Pentecost where the spirit comes out that's the day of the Lord and then this last chapter a day of judgment is also the day of the Lord you look at this if you're if you're jotting stuff down and you want to read it later verse one to eight talk about judgment reckoning talks about God making a decision about people and then verse nine to twelve are really really interesting look what it says in Joel three nine to twelve proclaim this among the nations consecrate for war stir up the mighty men let all the men of war draw near let them come up beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears let the weak say I'm a warrior hasten and come all you surrounding nations and gather yourselves there bring down your warriors oh Lord let the nations stir themselves up and come to the valley of jahoshafat for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations those are really strange verses because it sounds like God is saying listen you take your whole and you turn it into a spear and you take your plows and you turn it into a sword and you put your armor on and you act like men and you come meet me in this place and we're going to have a showdown and it sounds like that's what God's saying because that's exactly what God's saying here's the timeline of how this last section this final judgment okay this is putting together Joel this is putting together the book of revelation this is how I think this is going to happen okay at the end Jesus is going to return okay we can debate about how that's going to happen when that's going to happen if there's a rapture if there's not a rapture let's just say for the purposes tonight Jesus is going to come back okay that will happen then the bible talks about a millennial kingdom and again we can argue is that a thousand literal years is that just a really long time what does that mean but there's going to be a reign of Jesus on the earth Jesus will be reigning on the earth jot these two scriptures down okay during this period of the millennial kingdom Isaiah 2 4 and Micah 4 3 and you read them later Isaiah 2 4 Micah 4 3 you fact check me here's what they say both of those prophecies Isaiah and Micah say take your weapons and turn them into farm tools what does Joel say take your farm tools and turn them into weapons so you can look at that and you can say obviously these guys are not on the same page they're not understanding how things are going to go down on the end somebody's right somebody's wrong or they're both wrong I don't think that's the case at all here's what the bible says during this millennial kingdom Jesus is reigning on the earth and the nations are subdued okay and during this millennial kingdom a lot of the promises that God gave to Israel are fulfilled in Jesus the true Israel and there's a time of peace and Jesus subdues the nations and this is when Isaiah and Micah say take your weapons and turn them into farm tools they do you no good right now this is a time of peace and then the book of revelation tells us plainly at the end of the book that at the end of this millennial kingdom there's going to be one more big fight it's just mind boggling to think how that could be true but the bible says that at the end of this millennial kingdom there's going to be one last giant battle and I think that's what Joel's talking about okay Isaiah and Micah say take your weapons turn them into farm tools millennial kingdom time for the final battle Joel says take those farm tools turn them into weapons and you come meet God face to face and you can read this in the book of revelation the last couple of chapters revelation 14 I think describes it revelation 20 I think describes it who wins that battle God does right he judges the nations and then there is a new creation a new heaven and a new earth and again Micah and Isaiah could speak up and say we're done with the weapons now but I think that's the timeline that he's talking about and here's why I mentioned that to you I mentioned that to you because I think it's interesting that Joel a minor prophet says the exact opposite of what Micah a minor prophet and Isaiah a major prophet say one says farm tools to weapons one says weapons to farm tools and I think that timeline maybe can help you understand it look at verse 13 talks about a sickle and a harvest treading the wine press the vats are overflowing why why is all of those things happening because their evil is great and it goes on to talk about this valley of decision the day of the Lord is near okay this is talking about I think the final judgment the last ultimate final judgment where God judges the nations and you can read Jesus talks about the final judgment as a harvest he talks about the angels of God going and swinging their sickle and harvesting the nations you can read in the book of revelation it talks about this idea of the wine press being squeezed out and every drop of God's wrath is being poured out on his enemies and so I think that's what Joel's talking about here this final judgment think about that okay there's a sickle and a harvest and the wine press is going to be tread and the vats the wrath of God is going to be overflowing because of the evil of human beings their evil is great and it'd be really easy for us to say ah he's talking about those wicked nations Assyria and Babylon but he's talking Joel not to Assyrian Babylon but to God's people who just got sinned exile why because of their sin your sin is a problem he's saying that's why you got sinned exile and on the day of judgment your evil is going to be a problem and if you're honest and I'm honest you look at that and you say that's a I'm not looking forward to that day there's one hope on that day and I think Joel talks about it keep reading verse 16 the Lord roars from Zion he utters his voice from Jerusalem the heavens and the earth quake but the Lord is a refuge to his people a stronghold to the people of Israel okay think about that the Lord is a refuge to his people read a story this week about a farmer his guy had a vineyard okay and he's trying to grow these grapes and these vines and is a very very dry year and on the back side of his property there's a train right the train tracks go by the back side of his property and one day he's sitting out sort of looking at things and it's just kind of in a miserable state everything's dry and somehow sparks come off of this train and they land in his field and his field gets lit on fire and it's dry and so this farmer knows my field what's left of it is about to be gone and so he does what a smart farmer would do or a capable farmer do and he goes out and he lights up basically a barrier fire right an intentional burn so that the fire will burn up to that point but then no further because the fuel has been spent in this barrier and so he does that and he stops it and he's got about half of his field left and so he's looking at this pitiful half of the field and he starts to walk through the burned half of the field and it's just it's all black everything is gone and he gets out on the back side of his field and he comes across a hen that was in the field at the time of the fire and he looks down at this hen and it is well done the hen is black charred the chicken is burned and he looks at that thing and he just thinks that is so pitiful that is so sad and he walks over and he kicks the hen with his boot and this crusty old burned up hen rolls over and outrun three chicks they took refuge under their mother that's your only hope on the day of judgment that you are able to take refuge in somebody else that somebody would be willing to cover you when the wrath of God this winepress is being tread and the bats are overflowing and the sickle is being swung that somebody would cover you and stand in your place sound like anybody you know okay your only hope is that Jesus would take this wrath for you we're going to come back to that as we think about the day of the Lord a day when God takes decisive action for salvation or for judgment or for both okay so you just keep that in your mind the last part of this chapter talks about the result of the judgment God's people will know him verse 18 is interesting the mountains will drip wine the hills will flow with milk water will flow in the stream beds a fountain will come from the house of the Lord interesting when you read that a fountain shall come forth from the house of the Lord book of Revelation talks about that book of Ezekiel talks about that in the new heavens in the new earth right basically what he's saying is the curse against creation will be lifted after this day of judgment everything will be as it was supposed to be in the beginning so that's the final judgment the day of the Lord now take a time out and take a breath you say okay we went through these four sections day of the Lord is a locus day of the Lord is this army day of the Lord is when God has mercy day of the Lord is the final judgment think about it as if you're reading it as one of the people that Joel actually wrote it to one of the people in his day and he's preaching to them he's speaking to them put yourselves in their shoes and I gave you some verses okay Joel in the context of God's people being in exile hoping to return to the promised land they've been kicked out they're hoping they get to go back and they're thinking about all these things that just happened okay Joel 1 4 talks about a locus plague we talked about that guess what Deuteronomy 28 warns of if you turn against God once he brings you into the land the land will be devoured God will bring this judgment on you it happened just like God said it would Joel 2 1 to 2 talks about this army coming and destroying the nation guess what Deuteronomy 28 warns about if you get in there and you turn your back on the Lord armies are going to come and kick your tail just like God said it would happen okay Joel 2 the third section 21 23 27 28 32 all verses about hope right we've been kicked out now we need some hope to come back that God would be merciful guess what second chronicle 6 36 to 40 is about hope it's Solomon dedicating the temple and you read it later and Solomon says look God he's praying and he says if your people rebel against you and if you kick them out of the land but if they repent please bring them back in and that's what Joel's talking about here in chapter 2 and then we read Joel 3 the the fourth section about the final judgment and you can look at the parallels in Revelation 14 and 20 so you can see how all of those fit together for the people who are hoping to come back to the land now here's the last thing we're going to talk about when you think about all that Joel just told us about the day of the Lord a day when God acts to take decisive action God is the actor on the day of the Lord he's in control and you think about some of the things he describes like locus plagues that are totally disastrous to the people armies coming in flattening cities and slaughtering people and you think about God being behind that most people get a little uncomfortable and most people begin to wrestle with something that philosophers call theodicy and basically what they're saying is how can I understand the problem of evil in the world how can I understand the book of Joel if there is a God and bad things are happening how can I fit those two things together in my brain right and you've heard people talk like this probably the the philosophical sort of reasoning goes like this if God is all powerful like you say he is and if God is good like you say he is then why do these bad things happen locus plagues that devastate a nation armies that come in and destroy lives and destroy things how can you square those things with what you're telling me about God on the front end I'll tell you that the logic in that is flawed and there are plenty of things that are not considered in that little cute formulation that tries to back a Christian into a corner and make them feel uncomfortable about what they believe about God but here's some of the explanations okay these are non non Christian explanations of how you can make sense of that bad things happening you say that God is good and all of this one way out of that conundrum is to say that God is not good he's malevolent he's evil there is a God he is behind these things but he's a bad dude and there's not a lot of people on the earth that take that view I'll be honest with you most people are pretty uncomfortable with that most people would rather take the second view there and say there is no God that's the problem in your logic everything you see is just chaos there's no explanation anything there is no God okay the other way out of that conundrum is to say well there is a God and he is good but he's just not as all powerful as we like to think he is he's somewhat limited and you may think well surely Christians don't argue for that third one clearly they wouldn't argue for the first one or the second one but probably not the third one either right wrong this is a not growing rapidly but a growing movement within christianism that says they wouldn't come out and say God is weak but here's what they say he doesn't really know the future perfectly and he's really not in complete control of it but don't be afraid because he's really smart doesn't know everything but he is way smarter than you and he's very resourceful and he's got a lot of tricks up his sleeve and so we can be pretty confident that in the end what happens is he's making the best of whatever hand he's dealt so i'm just telling you those are non-christian explanations you can't believe what the bible says about God and believe any of these explanations so here's some other ways that people wrestle with this problem of evil some people try to explain it away with just creation laws and what i mean there is gravity weather plate tectonics and so they say how how could god be behind a tsunami that killed what did the tsunami kill back a couple years ago 250,000 people how could god be behind something like that and so some people get nervous about that and they backpedal and they say well you know they sort of take a deistic approach and say there is a god he's up there but he's not really involved in stuff down here he just kind of made everything wound it up like a clock set all the rules and then turned it loose and sometimes things just go a little bit haywire and there's a tornado and more oklahoma or there's a tsunami in the philippines or there's somebody with crazy genes in their brain genetic connections and they go into a movie theater and shoot a bunch of people it's just sort of unavoidable and how things have been wound up to work that's one way that people try to explain it some people say it's all judgment and reward so this has kind of died down among christians but i remember maybe you remember hurricane Katrina when hurricane Katrina rolled in and blasted New Orleans there was a lot of christian preachers that i didn't respect beforehand and i still don't respect today who went on tv right after that and said this happened because New Orleans is a wicked city that's like jobe's buddies you're kind of talking about something you really don't know is that possible from what we know biblically i guess it's possible but unless god calls you up on your cell and says hey here's what happened and why it happened you better be pretty careful about just saying god did this to punish people jesus disciples asked him that question and i gave you that verse you can read that later did god do this to punish somebody other people say we kind of talked about this sunday you just blame satan and demons and uh the guys who say that god is weak or he doesn't know everything they piggyback on this and they say you know god is weak and satan is really strong and he's out there just trying to screw everything up and god's doing his best to hold everything together so there's another way to explain it or you can explain it by saying the day of the lord is something that god is in complete control of those are your options and when you say the fourth one which is what i would say you still leave room to say that there are natural laws and cold weather cold air does mix with warm air and sometimes make tornadoes we don't have to necessarily say that god is behind every one of those things sometimes we can we can go to that and sometimes you can say that yes god does bring judgment and he does bring blessing the bible talks about that we don't really have the authority to say when that happens or to speak for god in those instances but we can allow for that and we even like we talked about sunday need to have an allowance to say you know what there is a ruler of this world who wants to foul things up and he does have wicked spiritual forces on his side that want to make things miserable but if you're going to listen to the bible and jole is really clear about this the bottom line answer is that god's in control of it god sovereign over it and you can try to explain it away by saying well he didn't cause it but he let it happen look if he knew it was going to happen and he didn't stop it and he let it happen that's pretty darn close philosophically to saying he caused it to happen there's not a lot of difference between those two positions and so i gave you some verses and i'm going to let you look these up we're not going to read them tonight exit is four is a verse that talks about god making mute and death and blind dude around in me 32 is a verse that talks about god killing and making alive wounding and healing job 121 says that he gives and he takes away amis 36 says disaster doesn't come come upon a city unless god's behind it um luke 13 talks about all of us deserve calamity jesus kind of sets the record straight and says look the problem is not why do bad things happen to good people but why do not bad things happen to all bad people because we're all bad people he just reframes the question um john nine is this this passage i mentioned where the disciples say who sinned that this guy is born blind and jesus says that's really not the point that's not the purpose in it at all it's not to punish his parents or him or his kids or anybody it's so that god can be glorified in it somehow and then here's the two the two kickers okay we are going to look at these acts chapter two and acts chapter four and we're going to read these two because i think they bring together clearly not only this problem of the day of the lord and what does it mean god acting to save and to judge but also this idea that god is in control he's sovereign over these over these terrible things that happen look at acts two 23 peter is preaching and he says jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of god and you crucified him and killed him by the hands of lawless men peter says you guys murdered him you did it you're responsible his blood is on your hands and in the same breath he says all of that happened according to the definite plan and the foreknowledge of god that sounds to me like god was in control of it jesus being crucified the greatest tragedy the only true injustice that has ever taken place somebody who was truly innocent perfectly righteous being dealt a bad hand and god was in complete control of that and peter doesn't blush about that he says that that was god's definite plan couldn't have gone any other way and at the same time he says you're guilty you're responsible because you did it this was god's plan though look what he says in acts four okay the the church just got told to quit talking about jesus and they pray because they're a little bit uncertain acts four verse 27 in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant jesus whom you anointed both harid and ponchus pilot along with the gentiles and the peoples of israel these people gathered together against jesus verse 28 to do whatever your hand and plan predestined to take place they gathered and conspired and plotted and schemed and when it was all said and done they did exactly what your plan had predestined to take place what luke is describing in acts two in acts four is the ultimate example of god being in control on the day of the lord right where jesus provides salvation for his people and how does he do it he does it by taking the judgment that should have fallen on us on himself that's the day of the lord god acting decisively for salvation and for judgment in the exact same instance punishing sin in jesus and forgiving sinners through jesus and luke is telling us that god is in complete control of that and he doesn't blush about that and when you read that and you think god is in control of these things he's in control of locus plagues he's in control of armies he's in control of his grace and his mercy and his patience he's in control of the final judgment he's in control of blindness and and deafness and giving and taking away all the things that i gave you here in these passages he was even in control in the worst darkest blackest moment of human history and he was in control in that moment for my salvation that ought to give you hope and i know that it's hard when you're in the midst of the locus plague or the army invading to just lean back and say well god's in control it's all going to be good in the end no one tells you to do that in the bible but what they do tell you to do is to say god is in control and if it's happening it's part of his plan and we know he's going to be faithful to his promises and we know that because he's already acted to judge sin our sin through jesus christ and wicked men were involved in that but all that happened was according to his definite plan and he was in complete control and so joe is a book that wrestles with this and when you wrestle with that problem the ultimate answer to it biblically not philosophically but biblically is at the cross and understanding that god was behind that he was in that he was orchestrating that people were responsible for their decisions no doubt about it but god was in control on this day of the lord to act in judgment and to act in salvation at the same time so there you go that's the book of joel we will pray and then we will share some prayer requests father we trust you we do not understand your ways your ways are higher than our ways and we don't presume to be able to wrap our minds around you and there are things in this world that we wrestle with and we struggle with but we trust you and we trust you because of what you have done for us at the cross and we believe your word when it says that you were in control in these dark wicked black moments and that you were in control to act decisively for our salvation and that you did that by judging sin in jesus and so we rest in your grace in your mercy we rest in your justice we rest in your sovereignty and your power and your wisdom and father we find ourselves to be small and weak and sinful and we pray that you would forgive us when we when we lack faith when we lack trust when we worry when we're afraid about whether or not you're in control whether or not you're working for our good and father we remember because of what you've done at the cross that you are working for our good in in happy times and sad times in times of giving and in times of taking away in times of laughing and in times of mourning and so we pray for faith to trust you and to trust your son jesus and we pray in his name amen