Joel chapter 2. I'll begin our reading this evening at 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 hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, 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. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, 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? Joel has been prophesying against Judah. Judah has turned from focusing upon Him and listening to His commands. They have been seduced by the world. They have pursued their neighbors. And for these things they have felt the disciplining hand of the Lord. And yet, the Lord doesn't leave them. And the Lord's intent is clearly seen in the passage in which we are looking at this evening, that His discipline is aimed at bringing them to repentance, to abandon their sin, to return to that One who is faithful, that God who they know, that One who has already delivered them time and again, And so this evening as we look at this passage, we're going to look at three things. First, that God calls us to himself. That he also calls upon us to value God above all else. Then we are called to be contented in his vineyard. That the delight of our heart is found only when we are with Him, that One who has delivered us, that One who has made us, that One who has forgiven us, our Almighty God. So let's look here at this first portion, looking at verses 12 to 14. After God has already sent these vast armies of locusts upon Judah, after the land has been decimated, after the people have felt the pressure exerted upon them after right worship of God has been arrested because those sacrifices He demands, those of grain and wine, could not be offered. So great was the devastation wrought by His disciplining hand that we find here God giving His people instruction turn to the Lord. We live in a day and age where a lot of individuals are willing to ask for forgiveness, are willing to acknowledge their sin, and they do so with the hope that whomever it is that they have offended will stop asking about it, but they also overlook an important ingredient that accompanies true repentance. True repentance is not a mere uttering of words. It's not an I'm sorry. But true repentance means a turning away from sin, a forsaking of sin. You see, oftentimes in the day and age in which we live, Men and women will acknowledge those areas in which they fail or they are weak or in which they struggle, but they think upon those things and those sins in their life as something that is like their DNA, something that is just a part of who they are, and that those who are around them need to grow accustomed to it. Sometimes, husbands, we have this same thought as we deal with our own frailties and failures as husbands with our wives. But rather than seeking to address those areas of weakness or failures or sin, we anticipate that our wife will just get used to them and understand them to be a part of who we are. And when we grow content in our sin, when we grow comfortable in it, We see it as a part of our identity. We fail to realize that we are not looking for nor expecting the work of Christ, that work of Christ which is intent on transforming us into His image, to move us from a position of lawlessness and being lawbreakers to increasingly being those who abide by and embrace and love the law of God. And so here at the outset of our passage, after these things have befallen Judah, we find that yet there is still hope put forth by God. Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart. In this life we contend often with our enemy who sits perched upon our shoulder, whispering into our ear that those sins that are present within our life make us unacceptable to God, make it impossible for us to turn away. And yet here is the Almighty, here is the giver of salvation Himself, reminding His beloved people, even now. Turn to me, return to me with all your heart. This act of repenting is not something that is done in half measure. It is not something that is done partly. But we see that it is to be a condition, an expression of a heart whose focus has changed. This is as if we are discarding those things that our heart once wanted to cling to, those things of the world, those things we spoke of this morning that were represented by that prostitute in the wilderness. Those things of the world that are absent and unfulfilling and mere illusions, fleeting and soon to be destroyed. He says, you need to return to me with all your heart. We sang this morning from Psalm 51, a psalm that is known as the Psalm of the Penitent, a psalm written by David after his egregious season of sin, a season in which he was guilty of adultery and of murder, where he went months God's face, where he had grown comfortable and untouched by his sin until that time that God aroused within him, awakened him to the grave nature and the danger in which he found himself due to his sin. And the response of David when the prophet Nathan confronted him was to repent. And it was a full-hearted repent. It was a seeking God, understanding that the offenses that I have carried out may have injured Bathsheba, may have yielded the death of another man, may have dishonored and been a terrible example unto the people of God in Israel. And a far heavier weakness is that David understood his sin to be an affront to a holy God. And so his heart was broken. And he cried out to God for repentance. And the miraculous thing about that account of David and the sins that he committed, sins which had no corresponding sacrifice in the ceremonial system, is that it gives us a glimpse of the capabilities of our God to forgive our sins. There's only one sin noted within scripture. And yet our enemy sits upon our shoulder and would tell us each and every sin that we commit is itself a far, is a thing that separates us from God. And sin does separate us. But if we understand the ministry and the work of Christ, if we understand what He came and what He accomplished in His ministry among us, then we know that through Him, Those sins which we commit we can bring before the throne of grace and there we can receive forgiveness. That He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, what a great blessing this is to us. This was an important word given to Judah in the midst of calamity to be reminded that it was not too late. It's an important reminder for you and I this evening as we gather before God to worship him, that if there are sins that have gone unrepented in your hearts, it is not too late. Tonight is the night to call upon him, to acknowledge your sin, to ask him for his forgiveness, that you might not carry that guilt, but that you might that hope renewed and that you might experience His blessing in place of that disciplining hand. He says, return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and merciful. These are important reminders to us lest our fears, lest the cunning words of the enemy cause us to be hesitant to approach God and to admit our sin to Him, here is God reminding us of who He is, of His nature, that He is gracious and merciful. As we are men and women of the Book, as we spend time in the Word, we see repeated over and over and over again the demonstration of God's grace and mercy upon a people that again and again fall into sin. You go to the book of Judges and we are reminded of that pattern where God sends to them a judge and he rescues them from their sin, he establishes them once again and they walk for a time with him and then they fall back into sin. And God sends another judge and God sends another judge. all of these things attesting to the reality, the factual nature of what is here before us, of God's grace and mercy. Oh, how many are the times that the sins of God's people were deserving of His wrath, of His condemnation, and of our utter destruction, and yet the God whom we love and worship is a God Think in terms of that, those many years spent by God's people in the midst of the exodus and their wanderings in the wilderness. How often they showed themselves to be stiff-necked, disobedient, rebellious people, complainers. Is that something you've ever struggled with, complaining? Complaining that things don't come when you think they should? that you don't get the acknowledgments you think you deserve, that you didn't get the raise or the promotion that you think you deserved. Oh, there are so many things that cause us to complain. And we see the ridiculous nature of our complaining in this land that is known for its speediness. When we lose our cool and lay on the horn, when our McDonald's cheeseburger takes more than three minutes. We're quick to complain, aren't we? We sometimes have a tendency to think that after all of these thousands of years since those wanderings in the wilderness, we've grown so much, we're so much wiser than they were, and yet we see how the sins of our forefathers are no different in us today. We still stumble in the same ways. We're still guilty in the same manner as they were guilty. And that's what makes even this prophecy of Joel so important to you and I today, as these are important reminders of the God whom we love and whom we serve, that we would be reminded of our need to flee to him. Slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, He relents over disaster. What important words given here by Joel under inspiration of the Spirit to a people that has become accustomed to disaster, a people that has felt the disciplining hand of God, that he relents. Jonah saw this, didn't he? God's relenting. both in his own attempt to flee and God saving him in the midst of that tumultuous sea, in the belly of that fish, but he also saw the relenting spirit of God expressed in that city, a city that was renowned for its sin, a city and people which Jonah didn't want to go and proclaim the message God had given him. Rather, he would have preferred to see them suffer as they had been the cause of many others to suffer. And yet God's word went forth, and it brought about an amazing transformation in the residents and even in the rulers of that great city. He goes on and he gives instruction to the people of God at the next point that we are to value our God above all else and what is the avenue by which he would have us repent. Well first we see here the use again of the trumpet. The trumpet was that instrument used in the Old Testament for several different things. One, it was used by the watchmen. to alert the city when danger was approaching. It was used to gather the troops together to lead them, but it was also used to gather God's people together for times of worship. And so we see it here, blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call the solemn assembly, gather the people, and consecrate the congregation. God's people are encouraged to gather together as they have come to understand their sin and they are to publicly and corporately seek the Lord. You don't have to watch the news very long to see the number of ways that sin is manifesting itself throughout our land. To see the way that men are chasing after the foolish ideas of men rather than the ways of God. To see the attacks that are being waged against the church, against the crown rights of Christ. These should motivate us as the people of God. Not to merely accept them as the time and place in which we live. but that we would come together and, as a people, we would lift our voices in prayer to God, that He would equip us, that He would loose our tongues, that He would give us the words to speak, that we might be His instruments in our communities to speak of Christ, that we may see the foolishness and sin that is so brazen around us replaced. turned from, repented of, and to see our communities transformed for Christ. Brothers and sisters, we all ought to be praying that God would bring about a new Reformation, that He would awaken His Church, that He would cause His Bride to go forth ready to speak of who would listen, that He would awaken His bride to walk in such a way that the world would look and see something radically different in all those who make up the Church of Jesus Christ. For they bear a fruit which the world does not know nor can produce. They possess a hope and they have a security and peace that is absolutely foreign to the world. We see this should be a priority in our lives. This should be something of importance to us. We see that picture if you look on down to the latter part of verse 16. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride, her chamber, Give up the plans that you've made for yourself, for this far supersedes the plans of men. If you think back, those of you who have been married to that glorious day when you went and stood before that assembled crowd and pledged your love before God and before those witnesses for your spouse, there were few things that could have delayed you, that could have kept you from that appointed hour. And yet here is God speaking to his beloved people of the need of this hour to repent, this need of the hour to seek his face. And so we are reminded ourselves to examine those priorities in our lives, to ensure that Christ is truly at the top of our list of priorities, that he truly is our first love, and that we rightly recognize all those other things that try to vie for our attention and try to keep us from focusing upon that one in whom we have our life. And then he calls us to be contented. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests and 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? Just as David understood his sins were affronts before God first and foremost. Here we see the heart of those who repent rightly, those whose hearts have been broken, recognizing their sin, are here not concerned with their own good, not concerned with their own reputation and how the world views them, But here we see that the people of God's first concern is that the reputation of their loving Heavenly Father would be rightly known and understood around the world. This is another expression of Judah recognizing her sin, recognizing how their sin had been a disgrace to the name of God, how it had brought ridicule from the nations, as they looked upon the nation of Judah, a nation that had been decimated by the disciplining hand of God, and those nations were tempted to say, where is their God? And so our concern and our care is not for our glory and our reputation, but for the glory of the God who has shown us grace, the glory of the God who has been merciful to us, his glory, the one who grants to his people who call upon his name forgiveness for sin. And may we grow in our ability to run to him. May that typify our response to sin as we uncover it in our lives. as an expression of his wonderful work within us. All to the glory of his name.