Our Father, we are grateful for the lesson that you have for us. We ask, Father, that you would help us to have a teachable spirit. Open our eyes so that we can see and understand your truth. and help us, Father, to apply your truth to our lives so that we may be faithful servants to you. We pray that you would guard us from error and that your wonderful name would be exalted this evening. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. Our lesson tonight is from Joel chapter one. Joel chapter one. Joel was an Old Testament prophet of God sent to fix a problem among the children of Israel. This lesson can be summarized in two points. One, the Jews have a judgment problem that either they do not see or they do not care about. Two, The only solution to this judgment problem is repentance. Please turn in your Bibles to Joel 1, so that we may read the words of the prophet. Joel 1, beginning at verse 1. The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. Hear this, you elders, and give ear, all you inhabitants of the land, Has anything like this happened in your days or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children and their children another generation. 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. Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth. For nation has come up against my land, strong and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a fierce lion. He has laid waste my vine, ruined my fig tree. He has stripped it bare and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn who minister to the Lord. The field is wasted. The lands mourns, for the grain is ruined. The new wine has dried up, the old fails. Be ashamed, you farmers, wail, you vine dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has withered. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, all the trees of the field are withered. Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men. mourning for the land. Gird yourselves and lament, you priests. Wail, you ministers before the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you minister to my God, for the grain offering and the 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 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 seeds shrivel 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 devastated the open pastures, and a flame has burnt all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field also cry out to you, for the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the open pastures. I shall fill in the details of this lesson under four headings. 1. The Background. 2. The Problem. 3. The Solution. 4. A Conclusion. The Background. The Old Testament Book of Joel is located in a collection of books called the Minor Prophets. There are other Old Testament books called the Major Prophets. The Minor Prophets are definitely not minor because they are of minor importance. They are minor most likely in comparison to the Major Prophets in terms of their length. The first book of the major prophets in our English Bible is Isaiah, and it is divided into 66 chapters, whereas Joel and two other minor prophets are divided only into three chapters. Regardless of the length of the minor prophets, they all have big messages. Messages that are very important for us. Joel speaks for God about swarms of destructive locusts, about drought, about repentance, about the day of the Lord, and about the pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh. All of these subjects are of vital importance to us all. When we compare the prophet Joel to other biblical prophets, we really know very little about him. We do not know for sure when he lived or where he lived. We are not given the setting in which this prophet ministered. No historical events or ruling kings of either Israel or Judah are mentioned in his prophecy. Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that Joel lived after God's covenant people were divided into two kingdoms, approximately 930 BC, the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. The best estimate of when Joel lived is either around the Assyrian invasion of Israel, 722 B.C. or the Babylonian invasion of Judah 586-587 B.C. We do not know for sure if his ministry was limited to the northern kingdom only or to the southern kingdom or possibly he served in both. None of this is a big problem because God provides information on a need-to-know basis. In this case, we are given two need-to-know things about this prophet. One, the name of the prophet was Joel, the son of Pethuel. And two, the word of the Lord came to Joel. We have no biblical information about Pethuel, the father of Joel, from other places in the Bible. Possibly this is because people who lived at the time, everybody knew him. Or possibly it doesn't matter to the message of the prophet. Joel appears to be a common name among the Jews at this time, and probably means Yahweh is God. Throughout history, People in the church have tried to infer from Jewish writings and from other places more information about Joel's history and activities, and this has produced a lot of interesting discussion, but this discussion is pretty much speculation. And speculation is just that. I say if we needed more information about this man, God would have provided it to us, but he did not, so we don't need it. The word of the Lord that came to Joel. This is the foundation for Joel's ministry. He was chosen by God to speak for him. The message Joel delivered was not one of his own making. It was not something that other people passed on to him. God communicated to Joel a message that was to be delivered to the Hebrews and all those that read the Bible. Joel had the responsibility to precisely and accurately tell God, God's message to everyone, and he was to be very careful not to add to it or to take away from this message. The fact that the word of the Lord came to Joel is enough for us to listen to Joel because in listening to Joel, we are listening to God speak through him. The first chapter of Joel's prophecy centers around temporal judgments of God and how people should respond to them. Temporal judgment is part of God's personal involvement with mankind. The God of the Bible is actively involved in His creation. This is contrary to the view that some people have of God, namely, that once the world has been made, God no longer is involved in either the natural operations of the world or the affairs of man. But we know very clearly from the Bible that the living and true God not only sustains, directs, and watches over everything that He has spoken into existence out of nothingness, but He is actively involved in the affairs of mankind. The biblical God is personal to all His creatures. He gives them life, breath, and everything. Acts 17.25. He knows what they do, say, and think. Psalm 139 verses 1 through 9, he hears their prayers and answers them. He provides for them. He protects them. Matthew 6, Matthew 7. He also hears the curses of him by those who are in rebellion against him. It is impossible for anyone to hide from him. All of this may be summarized by saying that in Him we live, we move, and we have our being, Acts 17.28. In Him all things hold together. He has decreed everything that happens from the beginning to the very end. God is good and therefore cannot overlook or dismiss anything that is evil. Every person created in God's likeness is a moral being. This means that people are subject to moral evaluation. They are subject to praise and blame, reward and punishment. Moral evaluation of God's creatures is a determination of guilt or innocence based on their words, their thoughts, and actions. The Bible declares God to be judge of all the earth, and He will judge the earth in righteousness. Psalm 9.8. Because God has created all things, all things belong to Him. This includes all people. They are, so to speak, His property. Psalm 24.1, because God is created, because He sustains and provides for His creatures, God has a right to require of them whatsoever service pleases Him. Man, because he is God's creature, is duty-bound to obey whatever the Creator commands. This leads to the reality of temporal judgment. God's judgment is temporal when it occurs in time and before the end of the world. Temporal judgment on earth began at the Garden of Eden and will continue until the world ends. Temporal judgment is both individual and corporate. We find in the Bible that God judges individuals, He judges nations, and He judges local churches. Temporal judgment has four main functions. One, to bless those who, by His grace, love Him and obey Him. To give lost sinners a measure of what they deserve for their wickedness. To call sinners to repentance. And to warn of the final judgment to come. Both believers and unbelievers experience temporal judgment in this life. For believers, temporal judgment is part of their sanctification process. It is called in Hebrews 12 the chastening of the Lord and is used to conform the child of God more and more to the likeness of Jesus Christ. Temporal judgment upon the unrepentant sinner brings greater guilt. All temporal judgments glorify God in that they display something of His goodness, His mercy, and His justice. I must give a brief word of caution here with regard to temporal judgment. The reality of temporal judgment does not teach in any way salvation by works. The Bible is very plain. People are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. The Bible also teaches that temporal judgments are a means God uses to accomplish His purposes, which include saving His people from their sins. Temporal judgment is different from final judgment, which occurs at the end of the world. Matthew 25, Revelation 20 give us the most information about final judgment. In these passages we see that all people that have ever lived will be judged by God at the end of the world. And there will be at this final judgment no such thing as a no-show. We live in a time, we live in a period where we have appointments, And we cancel them left and right. The appointment, the final judgment that each and every one of us have is an appointment that we will attend on time, I will add. Final judgment will be on the basis of works and God's holy law. Please keep in mind that in the case of believers, their good works demonstrates their saving faith in Jesus Christ. Final judgment finishes what was started in temporal judgment. It completes divine justice. Final judgment also determines where everyone will spend eternity. Just like temporal judgment, final judgment displays to the entire moral universe the glorious character of God. If someone were to ask why God judges people, both before and at the end of the world, the short answer is because of who God is and because of who we are. Ongoing human judgment is based on God's character. Basically, it is because God cannot overlook good and evil that He judges His moral creatures. As long as God is holy, and that is forever, He will judge mankind. All evil done by people will be judged and punished, either in the individual person who commits the evil, or in the case of Christians, by Jesus Christ, their representative who bore their sins on the cross. The context for much of what the Old Testament prophets speak about in divine judgment is the book of Deuteronomy. Old Testament prophets often are sent to the people of Israel to call upon them to repent from specific sins. Old Testament prophets spoke of God's temporal judgment upon His covenant people because of their sins, their violations of God's holy law. These violations include, to name a few things, idolatry, ritual formalism, injustice, Sabbath-breaking, and pride. Some of these prophets provide a list of sins committed by the covenant people. The prophets then connect the sins with the covenant curses of Deuteronomy 28. We must remember that Deuteronomy 28 laid out the consequences of keeping or breaking covenant with God. It contains a list of blessings and curses for covenant keeping and covenant breaking. These blessings and curses would come in the form of temporal judgments. Remember, a temporal judgment is not always negative. It does at times include God's blessing on those who, by His grace, love Him and obey Him. The curses of Deuteronomy were designed to give a measure of just desserts and call all covenant breakers to repentance. Joel's message in chapter 1 is mostly about God's temporal judgment of His people and their need to repent. Joel does not, like other prophets, give a list of specific sins that God's covenant people are practicing. And we can certainly speculate about what that might be, but we are not given that list. So now we come to the problem. God is bringing covenant curses upon His people, the Jews, and they do not see it or they do not care. God is bringing covenant curses upon his people and either they do not see it or they blow it off. They don't care. Joel assumes that the people have a general awareness of their covenant responsibilities and the consequences of obedience and disobedience. The problem is that the people do not act as if they recognize God's hand of judgment upon them. They do not recognize that they are experiencing covenant curses or they don't care. Joel's prophecy is addressed to all the inhabitants of the land, verse two. Most people today believe this message was to the people of Jerusalem, which is in the southern kingdom of Judah. Why? Because of the mention of the house of the Lord. It's mentioned in verse nine, it's mentioned in verse 14, and that would be a reference to the temple, which is located in Jerusalem. Joel declares to the elders, verse 2, the drunkards, verse 5, the farmers, verse 11, and the priests, verse 13, that they are in fact experiencing God's wrath in temporal judgment. Joel wants all of the inhabitants to carefully consider the recent locust invasion, the fire, and the drought. The people have been acting as if the destruction caused by the swarms of locusts to the plant life is just a natural disaster, something that God has nothing to do with. Every indication is that they are foolishly thinking that this is just a matter of bad luck, and after all, everyone has bad luck now and then. The people must see that the problem before them is a problem of God's judgment. The people must see that the problem is a problem of disobedience to God before that problem can be fixed. Joel wants to open their eyes. Now, lest anyone think that a locust swarm is no big deal, consider what the locust plague did to Egypt. We read about it in Exodus chapter 10 at verse 5. And after the plague of hail, it essentially wiped out all the food supply, the entire supply of food for that area. Also, we can consider modern world examples of these insects, especially in Africa. and the unbelievable devastation that they caused to plant life. When hundreds of millions, yes, I say millions, of desert locusts, and today we identify four kinds of these grasshoppers, which are essentially about an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half tall, when they together land in fields and feast on the crops, they leave the fields as if they had never been planted before. People that witness the millions of these creatures flying in the air say that they can darken the sky. You can go on the computer, the internet, and there are photographs of these swarms of locusts in Africa, in New Zealand, and other places in the world. And you look at it, and at least when I did, I just said, oh my, unbelievable. The sight of these insects often strikes terror in the hearts of observers who know what they can do. In Joel, does not the destruction wrought by locusts clearly display the hand of God in judgment on Judah? Is not this an example of the wrath of God being revealed from heaven against ungodliness? How can the children of Israel detach God from the locusts that laid waste vine, splintered fig tree, and stripped trees of bark, as we read about in verse 7? How could the children of Israel accept a natural explanation of this locust plague, which is compared to by Joel as a nation has come up against my land strong and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a fierce lion." The answer is that they are not thinking biblically about this. These are people that know or have had plenty of opportunity to know the scriptures. The people of Judah are God's covenant people, and therefore they should have known the basic terms of the covenant as set forth in Deuteronomy 27-29. Why are these people not thinking biblically about the locus? Why is that? It is almost as if they are learning disabled. But how could this be? Some of the people Joel is dealing with here are priests, certainly people that know the scriptures. At root, this is a spiritual problem, a refusal to think the way God instructs them to think. Those who routinely violate God's law develop a distorted or a corrupt mind. We see this in Romans 1.28-32. The people Joel speaks to, they know, or they should know, Deuteronomy 28.38, which says, You shall carry much seed out to the field, but gather little in, for the locusts shall come and consume it. Verse 42, Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land. These are part of the curses that God has given for those who break His covenant as legally documented in the book of Deuteronomy. The people that Joel speaks to do not have eyes to see. Again, this is either because of their willful ignorance or the suppression of the truth that leads to self-deception. God in His kindness He sends his prophet Joel to testify to these people about the locust plague, about the drought, and about their sin. It is God's temporal judgment upon them, and it is the kindness of God that sends Joel to do everything that he can to open their eyes, to wake them up. We also see in verse 20 a drought upon the land. If the people are not able or willing to see the locust plague as God's judgment, then will they consider this drought God's temporal judgment? I don't think so. And they do not. But they should, because we read again in Deuteronomy 28 verse 24, the Lord says to those who break his covenant, the Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust. From the heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. Because of the locust plague and the drought, people and livestock are going to starve to death, verses 10 and 11. This famine also has an effect on the ability of the priest to provide the grain and drink offering at the house of the Lord, verse 9. Yet the people are unwilling or unable to put two and two together and come to the right conclusion that all of this is God's holy judgment upon them for their disobedience. Because of the kindness of God, Joel is sent to fix the problem. Joel is not unique in terms of someone God sends to fix a spiritual problem. We find this in other of the Old Testament prophets. God even sends his messengers to pagan nations, as in the case of Jonah, to fix the problem of national wickedness in Nineveh. And in the case of Nineveh, there was a national repentance, and God did not destroy the nation. Praise the mercy of God. the solution. How were the children of Israel to fix this problem? Very clearly laid out in verses 13 and 14. We read, verse 13, gird yourself and lament, you priests. Wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you who minister to my God. The grain offering and the 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. One word summarizes the solution. One word summarizes these verses. Repent. True repentance is the only solution to their problem. This solution is not complicated. There is nothing theoretically complex about it. In fact, it is rather simple. But this solution is not easy. In fact, it is impossible apart from the grace of God. For it is only the kindness of God that enables anyone individually or a group of people collectively to repent. This call to repentance begins with the religious leaders, the priests. The reason for this is their responsibility to lead the people in faithfulness to God. If the people are unfaithful to God normally, not always, not always, but normally, this is because the religious leaders themselves are not faithful. Oh yes, the priests may be performing the external rituals of their job according to the commands of God, but are they doing so with a polluted heart? The only service to God that is acceptable is service that comes from a heart that loves God and hates sin. How can religious leaders do their job of leading the people if their hearts are not right with God? In other words, apostasy often, not always, but apostasy often begins at the top. Next, Joel includes in the call to repentance the elders and all the inhabitants of the land. The elders probably here refers to those who have some kind of an office, a political government type of office, and then all the inhabitants are exactly that. The men, the children, the women, and everyone in between. This clearly indicates that all the people share in the guilt of unfaithfulness to God. Again, Joel does not provide the details of their unfaithfulness. He does not give a list of their sins. Joel assumes that they have a general awareness of their unfaithfulness to God in breaking His holy and righteous law. We know from the Bible that there are different kinds of repentance, which is basically sorrow for sin. A great example of the wrong kind of repentance for sin can be seen in the Pharaoh. In speaking for God, Joel calls upon the people to truly repent from the heart. This is a broken and contrite heart. They are to do things that are in keeping with genuine repentance. Beginning first with the religious leaders, they are to lament, wail, and put on sackcloth. Verse 13, there is to be a fast called for all the people. Verse 14, a solemn assembly of all the people is to be called. Verse 14, the elders and all the inhabitants are to go to the house of the Lord and cry out to God. Verse 14, This must be a cry for mercy and forgiveness. These outward acts of repentance would mean nothing if the prayer of these people in the temple was insincere. Notice that this response is to be a public corporate response. The response is not limited to each individual going into his or her own closet to lament, wail, cry out to God, and fast. The solution to the public sins of Jerusalem is public and therefore a public corporate repentance is necessary. Conclusion. Do we see in America today a people that are like the Jews that Joel witnessed to? Do we see Americans similar to the people that Joel witnessed to? Yes, I think we do. Many Americans are unable or unwilling to see the hand of God and righteous judgments upon our land. Even some people who see themselves as Christians will not even consider the possibility. that God is calling our nation to repentance. Through the temporal judgments of disease, economic collapse, natural disaster, and corrupt incompetent leaders, I believe today the church must do as Joel did some 2,600 years ago. It is the church that must work by the grace of God to open the eyes of our nation. The church must point out God's righteous judgment in terms of specific things that are happening right now. Not speak in terms of general evasive things, but rather detailed specific things that are going on right now. Things like runaway inflation, food and material shortages, Wicked laws, immoral, incompetent government leadership, increasing crime rates, this horrible pandemic, legal protections for biblical abominations. These things are certain evidence of God's anger against our country. But many of our nation have been blinded by their sin. Therefore, the church, I believe, must function as Joel and other Old Testament prophets function. How long will it take for the message to be delivered? I don't know. But I do know this. How will our nation repent if it does not see God's hand in judgment upon us? How will our nation repent if it is not called upon to repent? And as I indicated this morning, the God-ordained group of people or institution in society that has been given the job to call upon the nation to repent is the church. And who will call upon our nation to repent again if it is not the church? May God give His church the grace to do these things so that He might be honored and glorified, so that He might have mercy on our nation, so that we might truly repent in sackcloth and ashes from the heart. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father, we cry out to You for mercy upon our nation. We ask, Father, that You would, through Your Church, open the eyes of those who are blind Father, that you would reveal the glory of your righteous justice and holiness in those curses that you have brought upon our land, that you would touch people's hearts, that you would break that heart of stone open, and Father, that you would bring about a great revival in our land. We pray these things in the name of our wonderful Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.