Joel 1:13-20

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This morning we're going to finish up Joel chapter one, find out what the prophet has for us today. I just looked at my cup and I'm all out of coffee. I don't have time to go make another cup, so that's okay.
You and I, let's pray. We'll get into God's word and we'll find out what Joel has to say to us, continuing on these themes of God's judgment. Let's pray. God, we thank you so much for this day. We thank you for your word. We thank you that it has come down to us and has been translated by people who have sought to be faithful in bringing it from the original Hebrew into the New Testament, sorry, into the modern English, and we pray that we would be able to understand it. Be able to not just understand it in our minds, but that Your Holy Spirit would bury it in our hearts and teach us how to live it in our lives. Lord, we pray these things in dependence upon Your Spirit, in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Here we go. Joel, chapter 1, beginning at verse 13. Gird yourselves and lament, you priests. Wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you who minister to my God. For the grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. Alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is at hand. It shall come as destruction from the Almighty. Is not the food cut off before our eyes? Joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seed shrivels under the clods. Storehouses are in shambles, barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. How the animals groan! The herds of cattle are restless because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. O Lord, to you I cry out, for fire has devoured the open pastures, and a flame has burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field also cry out to you, for the water brooks are dried up, and the fire has devoured the open pastures.
Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do?
So A, what's this about? Well, this continues on about what he was saying in chapter one, verse four. What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten. And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten. And so what is this talking about? This is talking about how there's this Famine that's hit the land. There's it seems like there's probably a drought He says the beasts of the field are also crying out the water brooks are dried up and the fire has devoured open Pastures right everything is dry and and there's wildfires and there's no there's the streams aren't there and and even the animals are crying out or you can imagine the the cows and the oxen Bellowing out because they don't have anything to eat. There's not even anything to drink the barns are torn down and and there's the grain has all failed
and And this is why he says, right, you better call the priests, you better call the elders together, right? Because there's not even sacrifice, there's not even grain offerings happening because God is bringing this judgment on Jerusalem. So this is a hard passage, trying to wake people up. Hey, this is happening. It's happening because the Lord is judging. Israelites, the Lord has brought these things. So it's hard. This is really Joel painting a picture of how bad things have gotten in Israel. So they ought to consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly, cry out to the Lord.
I guess I'm going to just say, right, I think verse 4 is what I would encourage us. There used to be a time in American history, I live in America so that's my context, I know some of you are listening from other countries, but in our American context, there used to be a time when there were famines, or there were droughts, or there were natural disasters and calamities happening, that people would actually take that seriously, and they would call for days of fasting. They would say, we should go to the Lord and we should look at our own lives and we should take stock honestly of ourselves. Is this happening because of my sin?
These were New Testament Christians, right? These are people who are, but they're looking here and they're saying, hold on. Sometimes God does bring hardship in our lives because of sin. Not always, right? We can't just beat ourselves up always assuming that God is doing it for that reason, but we ought to. We ought to be able to take a step back and at least take inventory. Are we searching after the Lord? Are we devoted to Him? Are we seeking His kingdom or are we doing whatever we want? What's the purposes and motivations of our hearts and of our lives?
We should take stock. Right now, for those who are God's children, He may bring these things, these hardships on us because He's chastising us as a father, right? Caring for us and loving us and even bringing hardship to us because He wants what's ultimately best and good for us. And so we ought to be fasting and praying for those reasons. Not because if we're Christians we're doubting His love for us and things like that, but we ought to be serious about sin in our lives.
And how does that call us to live or point us to Jesus Christ? Do we trust in the Lord? Do we look to Christ? Do we know when we sin there is an advocate with the Father? and that our sins are covered in the blood of Christ, that God wants us to repent of our sins, and that we don't have this slavish fear of destruction, but that we could trust the Lord, that he sent us his own son, and if he has not even spared his own son, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? And so we trust him. We trust that all things work together for the good of those who have been called according to his purposes.
And we say, God, this is happening in my life for a reason. And I know these hardships are producing character and character perseverance and perseverance hope and hope is not going to disappoint. So God, please turn me away from sin and mold me into the type of child that you want me to be. And so we have hope and we trust in him.
Let's pray. God, we pray that when hardships and trials and difficulties come in our lives, and maybe some of us are in those hardships and trials now, Father, we pray that we would call a sacred assembly, even of our own hearts, that we would fast, that we would take stock of our lives and deal soberly with where we are, that we would know and seek your face. Lord, we pray that you would please let us even in the depths of despair, that we would not run away from You, but You as a Father would beckon us, call us to Yourself, and that we would trust and hope in You.
Lord, thank You for this day. Please help us to take comfort in Your Son, Jesus. In His name we pray. Amen.
Well, may God bless you. May you be holy as the Lord is holy. May you walk in the ways of His Son, Jesus Christ. And I'll see you next time. Bye.