SERIES: Major Profit from Minor Prophets
The Day of the Lord: Tragedy and Triumph
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Note: This series, done in the summer of 1999, involved one sermon each on the Twelve Minor Prophets. Obviously, since these books are of varying lengths, from one chapter to fourteen chapters, these sermons are focused on the key message of each prophet, rather than a detailed examination of their words.
Introduction: Can you imagine a preacher in Oklahoma City ignoring the bombing of the Murra Building the Sunday after that awful tragedy? Can you imagine a pastor in Littleton, CO saying nothing about the Columbine High School massacre the week after that sickening event? Of course, not. Nor could a prophet in Judah ignore one of the worst natural disasters to hit his country in generations. The prophet I have in mind is Joel, one of the prophets whose writings are found at the end of the Old Testament. There were twelve in all, called “Minor” Prophets, not because their messages were unimportant but because their messages were relatively short. In Joel’s day an unprecedented locust plague was threatening to destroy his country. People everywhere were asking “why?” and “what now?”
You know, in times of crisis people are always searching for answers. Sometimes they are looking for someone or something to blame for what, in their limited worldview, is inexplicable. After all, if one has no doctrine of the Fall or of human depravity, and if one believes that human beings are essentially good, then an event like Columbine demands a scapegoat. That, in my opinion, is why we have seen politicians fall all over one another to enact new gun control legislation over the past two months. For a few this is a sincere effort to lessen the risk to young people, and frankly, some of their proposals make good sense. For many others, I fear, it is a cynical attempt to gain political advantage and to deflect attention from the holes in the moral ozone which they themselves have created.
Some of you have read the testimony of Darrell Scott, whose daughter Rachel Joy was one of the victims, as he spoke before the Subcommittee on Crime of the House Judiciary Committee in Washington. Listen to a few paragraphs from his testimony:
“Since the dawn of creation there has been both good and evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence.
The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher and the other 11 children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.
The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used…. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain’s heart.
In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA–because I don’t believe they are responsible for my daughter’s death. Therefore, I do not believe they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel’s murder, I would be their strongest opponent.
I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy–it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of that blame lies here in this room (He was speaking in the Rayburn Senate Building). Much of that blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves.
I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best. This was written way before I knew I would be speaking here today:
Your laws ignore our deepest needs
Your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage,
You’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question “Why?”
You regulate restrictive laws
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand
That God is what we need!”
Darrell Scott sounds to me a lot like the Old Testament prophet Joel. Joel looked at an unspeakable tragedy in his day and tried to get to the bottom of it. He knew that the hearts of many are unusually open to hearing a word from the Lord when they are in shock. They may not accept His answer, but at least they are more willing to listen. And Joel had answers; in fact, he got his answers directly from the Lord.
The book of Joel differs significantly in its introduction from the two prophets we have already examined. Hosea and Amos each identified himself in some detail, and each also identified the time period when he prophesied, by mentioning the Kings of Israel and Judah who were reigning at the time. But Joel tells us only one thing about himself–that he was the son of Pethuel. Since we know nothing else of Pethuel, we remain somewhat ignorant regarding both Joel and his times. Hundreds of pages have been written by scholars trying to find clues in the book itself as to when he lived and which locust plague he was talking about, but the results yield guesses that range all the way from the ninth century B.C. to the fifth century B.C. or later. When faced with such confusion, I conclude that God wants us to focus on the theme itself rather than the specific historical context.
The theme of Joel is clearly “the Day of the Lord.” That is a term frequently used in the Bible (it’s found in 8 different OT books and 6 different NT books), but it is also frequently misunderstood. Christians probably most readily connect the Day of the Lord with the Second Coming, and they think of it as a glorious event. But, as you may know, while the Second Coming means salvation for those who believe, it means judgment for those who do not. And when one studies every instance of the phrase, “the Day of the Lord,” in the Bible, one discovers that the judgment emphasis is stronger than the salvation emphasis.
Amos didn’t have time to mention it last Sunday, but in chapter 4, verse 18 of his prophecy, he rebuked the people of Israel with these words: “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear….” His point was that some people who are always saying, “I can’t wait until the Lord comes,” had better reconsider, for the Lord’s coming could mean bad news rather than good news if their walk doesn’t match their talk.
Furthermore, one also discovers that the phrase, “the day of the Lord,” can refer to any major event in which God intervenes in human history for judgment and/or salvation. The Great Flood in Noah’s day could be called “the day of the Lord.” So could Israel’s escape from Egypt, the Assyrian invasion of Israel, and the Babylonian invasion of Judah. But each of these is “the day of the Lord” with a small “d.” Each prefigures and points toward the final and ultimate D Day–“the Day of the Lord” with a capital “D.” That Day is referred to as “great and dreadful” in Joel and Malachi, and as “great and glorious” in Acts 2.
Joel, who uses the term “the day of the Lord” more than any other biblical author, first speaks of it in 1:15, where he warns, “Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.” In both the preceding and following verses, it is clear Joel is speaking of a locust plague that struck Judah during his lifetime. This plague is unprecedented in its severity, and the very survival of the nation is at stake.
Now to us locusts don’t sound like a very serious threat. Little boys like to play with them–dead or alive. They’re ugly, but they seem relatively harmless because they generally don’t bite, cause itching, or carry disease. However, in ancient Israel the locust was a fierce and dreaded enemy–worse than the lion, the wolf, and the bear combined. They could strip the land absolutely bare with incredible speed.
Today we have powerful pesticides that can be applied by truck or plane to control the spread of locusts, but just a century ago these were unavailable. A swarm across the Red Sea in 1889 was estimated to cover 2,000 square miles. At an estimated 120 million insects per square mile, the total number would have been nearly a quarter of a trillion in that one swarm. Even in our day locusts can quickly get out of hand. In 1988 the civil war in Chad prevented international cooperation in spraying against hatching grasshoppers, and a destructive swarm spread throughout North Africa devastating some of the poorest nations and threatening Europe as well.[i]
Imagine how terrible a locust plague could be in ancient times when there was no means to combat them. And that, friends, is what the people of Judah were facing in the day of Joel. The prophet does not minimize the danger as he speaks first to the elders:
(Joel 1:2‑4) “Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers? {3} Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. {4} What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten.”
Then he tells the drunks to wake up. When you stop and think about it, what worse tragedy could a drunkard face than to have the vineyards all consumed by grasshoppers! In fact, all drinkers of wine are called upon to wail due to the terrible destructiveness of the plague. Then he tells the farmers to despair, for nothing is left–no crops, no vines, no fig trees, no pomegranates, no trees of any kind. And finally, he offers a word to the priests: “Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn.” Why? Because the offerings and sacrifices are withheld from the house of God. If the people have no income, they have no tithe. If they have no tithe, they do not give. If they do not give, the priests do not eat.
But the priests are challenged to do something more than mourn–they are told to call the people to fasting and prayer. Look at verse 14: “Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.” A sacred assembly or a solemn assembly, mentioned 17 times in the OT, is something many believers today have never experienced, though I have known a few churches to conduct them at times of crisis. They are events whereby the whole family of God is called together to ask God to grant them favor in the face of insurmountable difficulties. Clearly the locust plague of Joel’s day qualified–it was an unprecedented natural disaster.
We must be careful, however, when we talk about “natural disasters.” In a universe created and governed by God, the very laws of nature were put in place by Him, so nothing is completely “natural.” But what believers normally mean when they speak of a “natural” disaster or an “accident” is that there don’t seem to be any clear divine fingerprints on the event. Evil happens in a fallen world. It doesn’t happen without God’s permission, but it may happen without His specific direction. Christians call this “providence”–God working through secondary causes, whether the actions of people or the so-called laws of nature.
But some disasters are not only permitted by God; they are engineered by Him. Last week Amos shared with us the fact that God sometimes withheld rain (in fact, on occasion He even sent rain on one person’s field while withholding it from his neighbor’s), He struck gardens and vineyards with blight and mildew, and He sent plagues and forest fires. Yet His people refused to return to Him. In other words, God sometimes directly causes tragedies–either for discipline, for judgment, or for reasons known only to Him. The difficulty we have is in determining when a disaster is “natural” (in the right sense) and when it is clearly “divine discipline.”
I am not one to look for an esoteric, spiritual meaning behind every event. If I run into the back of another car on a slippery road, I am not inclined to ask, “Why did God do this to me?” or even, “What is God trying to say to me through this event?” I am more likely to say to myself, “Self, you should drive more carefully on a wet road.” But the more traumatic an event is, and the less control I have over it, the more reason there is to at least ask the question, “Is God speaking through this?” Joel clearly believed God was speaking through the locust plague, and He was calling His people to repent.
In the Bible I preach from, the NIV, the heading near the beginning of chapter 1 reads, “An Invasion of Locusts,” and the heading at the beginning of chapter 2 reads, “An Army of Locusts.” The editors have apparently decided that Joel is simply expanding in chapter 2 on the tragedy of chapter 1, and I understand why they made such a decision, for there are many similarities between the two chapters. For example, in chapter 2, verse 3 we read, “Before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them a desert waste–nothing escapes them.” That sure sounds like the result of a locust attack. The next phrase tells us the soldiers of this army have the “appearance of horses.” Think about a locust or a grasshopper. It looks somewhat like a miniature horse, doesn’t it? In fact, in German and in Italian, I am told the word for locust literally means “hay-horse” and “little horse” respectively. Other phrases in verses 5-10 draw upon the imagery of a locust swarm:
“They leap over the mountaintops, like a crackling fire consuming stubble.”
“They scale walls like soldiers.”
“They climb into the houses; like thieves they enter through the windows.”
But why the repetition? Why would Joel give so much attention to a single plague of locusts? Frankly, I don’t think he is. I think the NIV is wrong. Chapter 2 is not about an army of locusts, but about a real army which Joel predicts will soon bring upon Judah the same total destruction that the present locust plague is producing. The immediate disaster of the locust plague is terrible, but it is just a harbinger of …
The impending disaster (and deliverance): an invading army (2:1-27)
I think the tense of the verbs in the first verse of chapter 2 is a key piece of evidence: “Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is close at hand….” In the first chapter the locust plague is already upon them. They are living through it. It’s terrible. But something worse lies ahead! A mighty, fierce army of enemy soldiers will overwhelm the nation and lay it waste. It is called “God’s army” in verse 11, not because its soldiers are godly but because God is using this army of pagans to chastise His own disobedient people. It is so serious that it can be called “the day of the Lord” (small d).
At this point the description of terrible judgment is interrupted with a call to repentance. Just as in the case of the plague of locusts, the priests are told to issue a call to repentance:
(Joel 2:12‑14) “‘Even now,’ declares the LORD, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.’ {13} Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. {14} Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God.”
Notice both the manner and the motive for this repentance. It must be a thorough and heartfelt repentance. In ancient times people would exhibit repentance by tearing their clothes, but sometimes a person would tear his clothes because he wanted to appear repentant, not because he was repentant. That’s why God says, “Rend your heart and not your garment.” The motive for the people to return to God is His nature as a gracious and compassionate God. If He were a vindictive God, there would be no hope of returning. But He is gracious and forgiving, so there is hope. Even at that, however, His people have no right to presume upon His mercy. Notice how the prophet puts it: “Who knows? He may turn and have pity….” God is never obligated to be gracious; if He is, it is because He chooses to be.
Again, God calls upon the priests to declare a holy fast and call a sacred assembly. Everyone is to come–elders and children, newborns, even newlyweds, who were normally given a time of privacy before having to become involved in public life. The priests are to weep and call upon the Lord to spare His people. And how will God answer their pleas? Joel 2:18‑19 says,
“Then the LORD will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people. The LORD will reply to them: ‘I am sending you grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.”
I especially love verse 25:
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten–the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm–my great army that I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed. Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.”
Whether the discipline of the Lord comes in the form of a real locust plague or a foreign army that destroys the land like a locust plague, or by means of some other trial or tragedy, God is open to the cries of His people. And when they sincerely repent, He will go beyond stopping the plague or the army. He will do more than restore their prosperity. He will even repay them for the years the locusts have eaten. Charles Spurgeon wrote,
“You cannot have back your time, but there is a strange and wonderful way in which God can give back to you the wasted blessings, the unripened fruits of years over which you mourned…. It is a pity that they should have been locust-eaten by your folly and negligence; but if they have been so, be not hopeless concerning them.”[ii]
Are you one whose life has been destroyed by the locusts of sin? Has sin stripped your life of every green thing, so that it seems like a spiritual desert? If so, you need to return to the One who alone can make life grow fruitful again. Some of you can testify that He has done this for you. I know people in this congregation who were once involved in terribly destructive behavior, those who were workaholics, those who were in or near divorce court, and those with all kinds of broken relationships. But you turned to God and you have seen God do exactly what He promises here. He has rebuilt your life and restored the years the locusts have eaten.
Others may still be wasting years of your life in sinful and selfish running away from God. Why are you doing that? Don’t you believe God can do the same for you?
So far, we have looked at the immediate disaster in Joel’s day, an invading locust plague. We have seen how the prophet uses that tragedy to warn of an impending disaster, an invading army in the near future–an even greater tragedy, but one from which God promises deliverance if His people will return to Him. But there is a third disaster in view in Joel’s prophecy.
The ultimate disaster (and deliverance): The Day of the Lord (capital “D”) (2:28-3:21)
“And afterward….”, the prophet says. After what? I assume he means after the people of God suffer the destruction from the invading army of chapter 2, turn to God, and experience His restoration–after all that, “I will pour out my Spirit on all people.” We aren’t told how long afterward, but at some point, this would happen. This outpouring would clearly be a unique event. In the OT the Spirit of God came upon certain people for certain tasks–predominantly men and predominantly prophets. But, says Joel, that will all change. The Spirit of God will be poured out on all people, i.e. on all of God’speople.
“Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD. And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.” (Joel 2:28-32)
I can’t help but think there’s a connection here with the fascinating story of Moses and the prophets in Numbers 11. God had told Moses that he would feed the grumbling people meat for a whole month–so much meat that it would come out their nostrils and they would loathe it. But Moses was stunned. Where was he to get enough meat for 2 million people for a whole month? And the Lord answered Moses, “is the Lord’s arm too short? You will now see whether or not what I say will come true for you.” The story continues in Numbers 11:24-29:
“So Moses went out and told the people what the LORD had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the Tent. {25} Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again.
{26} However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the Tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. {27} A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
{28} Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses’ aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!”
{29} But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!””
Joel 2 is predicting the fulfillment of Moses’ prayer. But when would this happen? Turn to Acts 2 in the NT. On the Day of Pentecost the Christian Church was born and the Holy Spirit began to indwell all believers. The evidence was tongues of fire that came and rested on each one. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues–real human languages–as the Holy Spirit enabled them. Those observing this phenomenon were amazed, and some concluded the believers were drunk. Then Peter stood up and addressed the crowd, denying there had been any drinking; instead, he said in verse 16, “This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel…,” and he went on to quote the passage we just read.
On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit began to indwell all believers. On the day of Pentecost, the priesthood of all believers was inaugurated. In the Old Testament a priest had to be of the tribe of Levi; now every believer would be a priest.
There is no question but that Joel 2:28ff was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost. The only question is whether it was entirely fulfilled at that time. To my knowledge there is no evidence of any unusual wonders in the heavens or on the earth on the Day of Pentecost, or of the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood. But that will happen, says Joel in 2:31, “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
I am often asked by people what I think of the modern charismatic movement as a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, for this passage is a favorite of Jimmy Swaggart, Kenneth Hagin, and most Pentecostal/Charismatic preachers. They want us to think that ecstatic tongues, being slain in the spirit, holy laughter, holy barking, dancing in the spirit, etc., are all manifestations of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as predicted by Joel. While he only mentions prophesy, dreams, and visions, they ask, “Who is to limit the Spirit of God?”
Well, on the one hand, I never want to put God in a box, for a God in a box is no different from an idol. Further, I am zaaware that God is able to do surprising things that I may not personally be comfortable with. He did so in the OT, He did so in the NT, and He will probably do again our day. On the other hand, it is incumbent upon the church to test the spirits and to practice discernment. When something happens that has no precedent in either the OT or the NT, and it has very little discernible spiritual value–like being slain in the Spirit, holy laughter, or holy howling—then I am very skeptical about its source. I also think we should examine the lives and ministries that lie behind these sorts of activities. Is there a track record of godly character, financial integrity, emotional stability, and sound doctrine? If not, why should I assume that the Holy Spirit is manifesting Himself in new and exciting ways through such people?
(This and the next paragraph were omitted from the spoken sermon due to time). I don’t have the gift of tongues, nor am I seeking it. I’m kept plenty busy using the gifts God has already given me. But I have said in the past, and I reiterate today, “If the Holy Spirit sovereignly gave me the gift of tongues, I hope I would say, ‘Thank you,’ and I hope you would allow me to use the gift, so long as I used it in accordance with Scripture.” But if I start practicing holy howling, I would prefer that you send me for therapy.
Let me add this. I do believe we may see greater manifestations of the Holy Spirit as we near the end of the age, just as we will see greater manifestations of Satan’s power. I believe prophesy and dreams and visions will become more common than they have been during most of the church age. Perhaps the gift of tongues will even become more common, though Joel doesn’t mention that gift. But at the same time, I do not know how near the coming of the Lord may be. Nor does anyone else. In the meantime, we must be wise, discerning, and yet willing to be surprised by the Spirit.
We have seen that before that day, God’s Spirit will be poured out. Second,
During that day, God’s judgment will be poured out.
Chapter 3 of Joel describes the judgment of the nations. There will be a terrible battle in the Valley of Jehoshaphat (v. 12), known in Israel as Har Meggido, which in English is “Armageddon.” Joel also calls it “the Valley of Decision” in verse 14. The nations will be judged based on how they treated God’s chosen people, Israel.
The book of Revelation indicates that armies will gather in that valley such as the world has never seen. They will attack Israel and the city of Jerusalem, concluding a time of tribulation for the whole world such as it has never seen. The bloodshed from war and the accompanying natural disasters will threaten the very survival of humanity. But then thirdly, we see, thankfully, that …
After that day, God’s blessing will be poured out.
At the height of that battle Jesus Christ Himself will return to this earth, defeat His enemies, and rescue His people–both believing Jews and Gentiles. Look at 3:16-18:
“The LORD will roar from Zion and thunder from Jerusalem; the earth and the sky will tremble. But the LORD will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel. {17} ‘Then you will know that I, the LORD your God, dwell in Zion, my holy hill. Jerusalem will be holy; never again will foreigners invade her. {18} ‘In that day the mountains will drip new wine, and the hills will flow with milk; all the ravines of Judah will run with water. A fountain will flow out of the Lord’s house and will water the valley of acacias.”
Allow me to summarize what we have studied this morning. An immediate disaster in Joel’s day was used by God’s prophet to get the attention of the people. He warned them of an impending disaster–the coming of an enemy army that would do even more damage than the locusts had done. So terrible would be the destruction that it could be called “the day of the Lord” (small d). The people must repent before it is too late. But that impending disaster would itself only be a picture of the ultimate disaster, “the Day of the Lord” (capital D) that is still in the future.
What would God have us take home from the Book of Joel this morning? There are many things that come to mind, but I feel God would have me focus on the matter of repentance. Of what does it consist? How do we recognize true repentance when we see it? One thing that must be present is the confession of specific sins. It does little good to acknowledge some general lack of perfection in one’s life or even a general depravity. Until we confess sins specifically, we are not really repenting.
A second element in true repentance is genuine sorrow for sin. The Bible says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17) Sorrow, it is important to note, is not the same as regret. One can regret something he has done but still not have sorrow over it. Judas regretted his sin of betraying Jesus to such an extent that he returned the blood money and committed suicide, but he did not repent of it.
The third element in true repentance is conversion. Joel uses the term “return,” but its root is exactly the same as our word “convert.” It means to turn around, to do an “about face.” The problem with most people is that their hope and confidence lie in their character and their good works. But God asks us to turn our backs on such things and to turn toward His Son, Jesus, as our only hope. He died for us, He paid the penalty for our sins, He offers us forgiveness and the free gift of salvation. He is our only hope in times of immediate disaster, impending disaster, or ultimate disaster.
DATE: June 20, 1999
Tags:
Day of the Lord
Natural disasters
Charismatic phenomena
Judgment
Blessing
[i] Raymond Dillard, Joel, 255.
[ii] Charles Spurgeon, cited by Warren Wiersbe, Be Amazed, 57.