[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: Chapter 34, verses 6 and 7, where God introduces himself to Moses and he describes himself in the introduction as being compassionate, gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin does not leave the guilty unpunished. So we've been going through and looking at verses in the Old Testament that go along with this introduction that God made to himself. So tonight we're going to be in Joel chapter two, and we're going to be reading verses one through 18.
Before we get started, though, hard would it be for you to switch a college football team?
So when I moved up here, I was kind of a Florida State fan, only because when you living on the Mississippi Gulf coast, all the kids in the youth group that I that I worked with, they were all Florida State fans. And so I just kind of got to be a Florida State fan. So when I came up here, Amy and Amy and I got married, she went to North Carolina, so she's unc, but she's like, we need to have, we need to change and have more of a family team. And I was okay with that because I didn't really have a team that much ties to Florida State. But let's say that same person wants you to switch political parties and go from the party you're in to the other party, or that they'll cut off that relationship. I think that's a little bit more difficult than just switching a college football team, probably. Right? Or if they want to have you switch religions. The point is, is anything, anytime there is change, oftentimes change winds up being very difficult, very hard. Why is it or why do you think that change is hard?
What are some reasons why you feel that change is hard?
[00:02:37] Speaker C: Creatures of habit.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah, we are creatures of habit and we don't like that habit to necessarily change. I mean, I get up at 5:15 to 5:30 and at 6:00, I feed the dog.
Well, if I'm still in bed at 6 o'clock, the dog is standing over top of me. It's time, you know. So what happens is now I can never sleep late because the dog always wakes me up at 6:00 because we got into that habit. What are some other reasons maybe why change is hard?
Fear of the unknown. That's a good one. I'm going to come back to that one in a minute, you know, depending.
[00:03:20] Speaker C: On what the subject is. But I think people invest in things during their lives.
I think you just want. It's like college football teams.
Like, I've lived in several places. I'm originally from Texas, so I still root for Texas.
But there's other things in our lives that are more, a lot more important than football that we invest in. And we may become close to somebody with his friends or even as husband and wife, and they want us to change something else.
And that can be very hard if that's something that's really deep down in your soul and who you are and how you identify yourself.
[00:04:10] Speaker B: That's an excellent point. I'm going to come back to this Fear of the Unknown, because that was on my list, right? So I can't believe I'm going to say this, especially being recorded, but, you know, my kids grew up pre Frozen, so I never learned any of the Frozen songs. I learned, you know, Mulan and Hercules. Well, if you didn't know, I have a granddaughter.
So we watch a lot of Frozen and Frozen two. So there's a great song that's like into the Unknown, right? So. And in the, in the movie, they make it seem like into the Unknown is something that's exciting and they're all excited about. But in reality, don't we kind of fear that unknown? We kind of fear what happens if we make that change. Some of the other ones I put up is that oftentimes when we go to change, we're really afraid we're going to lose something, right? That something that we think about is going to be a loss.
It really requires an effort, right, to make a change. It's oftentimes not very comfortable to make. You know, I can't believe I'm going to say this too, on livestream. So my wife Amy, she's on a diet. So you know what that means. We're all on diets at the house, right? And so sometimes there's some of that discomfort.
Sometimes there's a fear of judgment, right? Of what goes on. And oftentimes we're impatient. We may make a change, but it may take a while for us to see the results and we're not willing to wait and we may change back.
And then, as it was mentioned, oftentimes we have our own routines that we don't like. So what we're going to talk about is the Book of Joel. And in Joel, in that book, the prophet is telling the Israelites that they have to make a change.
When we think of a time where maybe, maybe it was before we were Christians, but maybe there was a time in your life where sin, you were enslaved to sin, or you were doing something that you knew you shouldn't have been doing. And oftentimes it's very difficult to change that. And when we talk to each other, when we mentor each other, and someone confesses that they're struggling with this, and if we haven't got any experience in that, oftentimes our response is, well, you just change, right? All you gotta do is quit doing that. You just fill that. You take that out of your life and you fill up with good. Oftentimes we're a little bit maybe flippant in that. We just say, well, you just change. Like that. Change is easy.
And so Joel's telling the Israelites they need change. And so the whole book of Joel is going through where Joel warns God's people of an impending doom. And God, through the prophet Joel, is asking them to change.
He knew I'd have a map in the class. At some point a map would show up. So if we go back and we look at the time of Joel, we had the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom. Now historians debate whether.
And then the Syrians captured the northern kingdom in 722 BC and the southern kingdom in 587 BC. Right. Remember, when we're in BC, we count down to zero and then it goes back up, Right? So the northern kingdom was captured and carried off first. We don't know whether Joel. Historians argue whether Joel was talking to the Northern kingdom or whether the northern kingdom had already fallen and he was talking to the Southern kingdom. We're not really sure that time frame of his prophecy, but we do know that he was telling the Israelites that if they did not change their ways, then there would be doom to them. We're going to start off in Joel 1, then we'll move to our main talk. But in Joel 1, the Prophet describes this soon to be invading army, right? Look at verse four, where he calls them swarming locusts, right? You guys all remember, you've probably seen pictures, maybe in the Midwest, where the locusts come and they just devour all the crops. Then in verse six, notice he says that they're powerful and beyond number. This is from the English standard version, verse 6. Also say they have. Their teeth are lion's teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
So it's this image of this army that's coming that's very powerful as well as very destructive. Notice that in verse eight and nine, the people, even the priests, are already in mourning. The fields and crops are ruined.
And then the biggest question that we ask or think about in Joel 1 is, Can God's people avoid that fate that's coming to them? And Joel seems to think so. And he instructs them, right, in verses 13, 14, instructs them to put on sackcloth fast and to cry out unto the Lord.
And then that's where we'll pick up in Joel, chapter two, beginning with verse one.
Blow a trumpet in Zion. Sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, and it is near.
A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people. Their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations.
Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run as with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble like a powerful army drawn up for battle. Before them, peoples are in anguish. All faces grow pale like warriors. They charge like soldiers. They scale the wall. They march each on his own way. They do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another. Each marches in his path. They burst through the weapons and are not halted. They leap upon the city. They run upon the walls. They climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great. He who executes his words powerful. For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome. And who can Endure it. So we see this prophecy that Joel makes, and there's a lot of things that are very interesting. So he begins in verse one, describing the day of the Lord.
Now, does anybody want to maybe guess or think about what the day of the Lord meant to the Israelites for us today? What does it mean when I say, if you think about the day of the Lord, what comes to your mind?
Yeah. Right. For us, it's the judgment. For the Israelites, it was that day that God would come and make everything right. He would bring justice. Right? They would be the wicked who oppose the Israelites would be taken care of, and the Israelites would be triumphant. But what does Joel say this day of the Lord is going to be like?
It's going to be their judgment, and they are found to be unworthy. And so Joel is telling them they need to change.
Joel's imagining that day makes things right.
And that's what that day of the Lord means. Notice what it says, how it describes it, the day filled with darkness and gloom. When the Bible talks about Judgment Day, what's the one thing that it always talks about happening during the judgment? Sun darkened and there's going to be a trumpet, right? Greek is actually a shofar, which is a ram's horn that told everyone to gather, right? But it's presented that it's going to be here. You see darkness, gloom, clouds, and blackness. And then notice what it says in verse two. This army that's coming is bigger than any army that has been or will be in any of the coming generations. Notice, it says the land that it invades or hasn't touched is like the Garden of Eden, but the land they've already touched is like a desert waste.
For those of you who are American history buffs or Civil War buffs, what did Sherman do?
Right? He burned all through Georgia, from here all the way through Atlanta to the sea. And so that's what we wind up seeing here, right, is there's a fire that goes before them, and behind them, everything burns. Right?
But notice what it says in verse seven and eight, that they're very disciplined. They all march without swerving, they don't jostle against each other, and they plunge through those defenses without even breaking ranks. So the picture that Joel's painting is this army is one that could not be necessarily defeated. And then notice it's not the people that fear the army, but it says, the earth shakes and the heavens tremble. The great lights, the sun, the moon and stars will go dark.
But let's go back and look at verse 11.
Who is leading this great foreign army?
What does verse 11 say?
The Lord, right? Verse 11 says, the Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great. He who executes his word is powerful.
How do you think the Israelites feel when Joel makes this prophecy or says this, that this army is coming in and God is at the head? How do you think that makes the Israelites feel?
[00:16:03] Speaker C: You scared me for the last seven or eight verses, so it's like, I don't know what to feel.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah, but you're like, what? He is our God. He is with our armies. Why would he be with this invading army? Imagine, you know, you see them, or it talks about that the people tear their clothes and mourn and rend their clothes. It's because they see, or Joel's talking about that it's going to be God who's leading this army.
If we go back, if we go back to Exodus 34, 6, 7, where God is describing himself, what attribute do we see? What attribute do we see in that introduction to Moses from Exodus chapter 34? Do we see the love? Do we see the forgiveness of sin and rebellion? What do we see? We see the God who judges, right? We see the God who, even though he's slow to anger, he's reached that point where now he's judging.
Do you think Joel, at this point that we read, do you think Joel is speaking of this day as a certainty or as a possibility?
Just looking at verses 1 through 11, does it seem like it's going to be a certainty or a possibility?
Right now, if we just read verses 1 through 11, it seems to be pretty much a certainty, right? That God is going to be that God who punishes. So let's go and pick up in verse 12.
Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning, and rend your heart and not your garments. 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 will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion, Consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, Gather the people, consecrate the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, Even nursing infants, like the bridegroom leaves his room and the bride her chamber between the vestibule and the altar. Let the priests, the ministers of The Lord weep and say, spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples? Where is their God? So what we see is, even now, right, even when this army's coming, being led by God, Joel calls the people to repent. Even now it is not too late.
Notice it says that God causes people to return to him. But what's the condition? He doesn't want the outward show of tearing your clothes and fasting. He wants them to rend their hearts. Right.
They want him. Or he wants the people to have that internal change. So what's the.
So let's talk about this for a minute.
And this kind of hit me as I was driving this morning. And we talk about Galatians. What was the problem? We're studying Galatians on the same night. What's the problem going on with the church in Galatia?
Yeah. So they were having teachers who were trying to get the Christians in Galatia to follow the old Jewish law.
When we talk about the Jewish law, we often talk about it being an outward show, right. You think about the Pharisees, right. The Pharisees tried to have that outward show of being very pious, being very religious. And then God says, what? The outside of the cup is clean, but the inside is dirty. And so sometimes we give the Old Testament law kind of this bad rap to say God was really interested in this outward showing of all these laws. But I think what Joel says is exactly right. The God, our God, he cares about the heart.
Whether we're talking about the Old Testament or we're talking about the New Testament, that those outward, those laws were made to affect the heart, not just simply to be that outward show that the Pharisees had kind of construed or had them be. But even the Old Testament, God was interested in the hearts.
So why does Joel believe that the people should return to God or turn to God? Why does he believe that?
Look at verse 13.
What do we see in verse 13?
Yeah. Right.
He tells them they should turn to God. And going back to the description God gave himself, that he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, don't you think it's kind of interesting that in all the stories, you know, we talk about where Moses represented the people and basically came back to God with the very description that God gave him? And then we had the Psalms, and here we have Joel reminding the people of the introduction and of the character of God, right? That he's gracious and he's merciful, he's slow to anger and he abounds in steadfast love.
So notice one of the things, as I was reading this, notice where it says at the end, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster.
That word relent in the Hebrew word also means repent.
So when is it used? Does God need to repent? Because it's the same word. Notice it says, who knows in verse 14. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent? So let's talk about this for just a minute. This is the Greek word I'm sorry, the Hebrew word. And it means to be sorry, to console oneself, to repent, to regret, to comfort and be comforted. So let's talk about this whole idea of God and repentance, or relentless. Relentless.
So Joel tells him that. But let's think about that. Does God. What's the difference?
We do know in, in the Old Testament, when it is taught, when this Hebrew word is talking about people, it's translated repent. When it's talking about God, it's translated relent. So what's the difference between the two, do you think?
[00:24:02] Speaker C: Repent seems to be something you've done, and relent seems like something you could do.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So when we repent, it's because we've done something wrong and we're repenting for that. Right. So does God, Does God have anything to repent for?
No. Relent is when he changes that course of action. Right. We talked about how he told Moses, I'm going to destroy all the Israelite people. But for those leaders who remain faithful, the promise of Abraham is going to come through them. Right. But in this case, relent means he's changed that course of action or he's responded to the people who have repented. Right. So you'll see that quite a bit. So look at.
Let's go and look at verse 18, which kind of wraps us all up.
Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. Now let's go ahead and read verse 19.
Even in the 20, the Lord answered and said to his people, behold, I am sending to you grain, wine and oil, and you will be satisfied, and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. I will remove the northerner far from you and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his vanguard into the eastern sea, and his red rear guard into the western sea. And the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things.
So what we see is evidently the people listened to Joel.
They repented, God relented and didn't have the Assyrians conquer them at that time.
And if we keep reading, right, we talked about that. The food and the crops had been destroyed. Evidently, God even sent grain when wine and oil to take care of his people.
And then we see them driving away. So here's a couple of thoughts.
Was this fair?
Did the Israelites deserve being conquered and taken away for what they had done?
Was what they did so wicked or so bad that they should have been carried off?
Absolutely. I mean, do we need to review some of the actions of the kings? Right. Child sacrifices, things like that. So was this fair?
It really wasn't fair. Right.
God granted them mercy. Right. Well, if the fairness would be that they would get what they had deserved or what their actions had done.
All right, I want to jump to this question. Hopefully we'll wind up getting a few.
When we look at Exodus and we think about God's character, Right. When we think about that character and you see Joel repeated, do you think that Joel felt like or believed that God would relent?
And based upon what we know, does it surprise us that God relented?
I think it's in his character. Right. How can you necessarily have your character be forgiveness for thousands and slow to anger and do something to people who repented? And evidently from their heart. Right. In internal repentance.
We've kind of talked about this. Right. In what way would God's relenting be similar to us repenting? So let's talk about how it would be different.
Let's go back to where we talked about. Change is hard.
How do we know, or how does someone know that you are repentant for whatever action or whatever thing you were doing by your actions? Right. I can say sorry and ask for forgiveness, but that should bring about some change. Right? Repentance should bring about some change. So when the Israelites tore not just their clothes, but they also rent or tore their hearts, evidently that was such a way where it was true repentance. Right.
Is there any phrase that you notice that Joel adds to that description? Let's look for he is gracious and merciful. Are those in Exodus. Yep. Slow to anger. Yep. Abounding in steadfast love. Yep. And he relents over disaster. We don't see that in. We don't see that in Exodus. Right. So Joel kind of adds that phrase to that description and what he's saying. But if you know the past history of what happened, God often relented, right? Moses interceding for the people, other people interceding for the people.
He relents from sinning, that calamity.
All right, so what do we see?
I think we see a God who's not eager to punish.
And is that the God we often associate with the Old Testament?
I listened to. I was driving to Gallatin, Tennessee on Monday to see family and I was listening to Wes McAdams podcast.
And there was the person that he was with actually grew up Jewish and attended Jewish schools, university, and then became a Christian.
And his view of the Old Testament is so different from our view because in his view, he sees Christ. He sees the Messiah. He sees how the Old Testament were to lead and be a pattern for the New Testament. And so we can't say that the God of the Old Testament is a different God than the God the New Testament. That the old God, the God in the Old Testament was a vengeful or God or who was eager to punish because time and time again it seemed like he's not either eager to punish. I think the other thing, the other good lesson for us is Joel reminds us even at those times where we think we are beyond reach.
I have done so much in my life, there's no way I can get forgiveness. Whenever we think we were at a point in our lives where we couldn't possibly be forgiven or we feel like we couldn't change, that things are such that I just, I can't change. It's too ingrained in me. What the story tells us, that even now, even when beyond reach, we can return to God and we can be accepted.
Right.
It is never too late to return.
I think that's one of the big messages that Joel gives us for today.
All right, this is my big question. If you look at this passage and you had to rank God from one being a real softy, right. To 10 or the other extreme being very hard nosed, where would you rank God?
1 being a real softy, 10 being a really hard nose. Based upon this, where would you put God?
Would you put him closer to being a softy or would you put him closer to being a hard nose?
Yeah, just right. Right.
Yeah. Walks off the carabig stick still leading.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: The army on the other side, he's ready to strike to some degree and without significant effort, significant change of heart, that would still have taken place.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Yeah, right.
To me, his character puts him almost right in the middle. Right?
That's his character. He will do what he said to do, if they hadn't repented, the army would have still gone in and carried them away. To me, being a real softy is as a parent, when we threaten punishment or we threaten punishment, we threaten punishment and the child does it and the child does it anyway. And we don't punish right here God said, joel says, you have a chance, but you got to change. And they changed. And so he relented. Right.
All right.
[00:34:06] Speaker C: D.
There's a similar passage in Jonah when he preaches to the Ninevites and. And the word gets to the king. The king sends out a message to the people to repent. And he says, perhaps God will relent if we repent. And they did. And God.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: So here's the thing I want you to think about this week.
Do you think at times.
Do you think at times we hope that God's going to be a softie? He's going to be extra merciful when it comes to us.
But that person over there, man, I hope God's really a hard nose, right? I hope that God's going to put them in their place for the wrongdoing that they are doing.
Do you ever think sometimes we feel that way, that we want the mercy, we want the softy, but that person over there doing that, he gets the hard nose. God, right? I think we've got to always remember God's character. We have to be thankful for God's character. And it's never too late for us to return back to God's character. All right, we'll skip those because I want to get to the homework.
All right, here we go. So here's your homework.
I want you to do a community reading of Jonah 4:1 11. Thank you for ruining next week's class.
What is a community reading? A community reading is when you read that passage with someone else or a few others. And why is that important? So here's my example. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods at the pit that the pigs ate. And no one gave him anything. Where's this from?
It's prodigal son. Why was the son wanting to eat? The pods of the pigs ate. Okay.
He lost everything.
There's a famine. And there's one more zebus in. Oh, good church answer. But that's not look very last. No one gave him anything.
The point I'm making is that oftentimes when we read scriptures, we read scriptures with a bias here. All my life, all my life growing up at the church, why was he eating with the pigs? Because he spent everything he had.
So for us in the US Right, we have a very individualist mindset. So he was eating with the pigs because he spent all the money in. Right. He didn't have any money to buy anything more. True.
If someone from Africa reads this, the thing they're going to notice is there's famine. Right. When there's a famine in the land, you will eat anything that you can find. Okay? Another community or another country where people share and keep up, help one another, they may notice. No one gave him anything.
So he was poor, he was destitute. There was a famine, and no one cared for him, no one helped him. And so all these reasons, he turned to looking at what he was feeding those pigs, and that's what he was desired to eat. Right? And so when we read. Right. When we read scripture, we have to act like or try to be like. We're reading that scripture for the very first time. And sometimes when you read that with someone else, they'll point out things about that scripture that you may have missed. We all go to scripture with bias. And so our goal when we read is to remove that bias. So find someone to read that scripture with or find a couple people to read that scripture, the scripture with, which is Jonah 4, 111 for next week.
All right, let's close with a prayer, and then we'll be dismissed.
Our heavenly Father, we thank you so much for this time. We have to come and study together from your word. Father, we read these descriptions of you. We read about your character. And we are so blessed that you are a loving, merciful and forgiving God. Father, we're so thankful for your Word. For your word gives us so many examples. It gives us so much that we can learn from. Father, we ask that we emerge ourselves in your Word and that we try to study from your Word each day. Father, be with us through the rest of this week. And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.
