Joel 2:10-13- The Day of the Lord
Notes
Transcript
Main Message: God has been so merciful enough to call us to Himself, though we are worthy of judgment and destruction. All He wants is our hearts.
Main Message: God has been so merciful enough to call us to Himself, though we are worthy of judgment and destruction. All He wants is our hearts.
Background/Intro
Background/Intro
Introduce yourself as usual- have them turn to Joel 2:10-13
Remember what’s going on with the locusts
They’ve come and destroyed all of Israel’s crops which the Lord used to discipline His people because they have wandered away from Him and worshipped other gods. We talked about this last week.
Joel’s message with this book is to rally God’s people to repent of their sins and turn back to Him before it’s too late and God has to judge His people.
the plague points towards a greater judgment where Babylon is going to come in and take over Israel, and that judgment is referred to as “The day of the Lord” which there is going to be an ultimate Day of the Lord where Jesus will return. In each of these circumstances, the same message remains true that all people need to turn to the Lord.
Read and pray
The earth quakes before them;
the heavens tremble.
The sun and the 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 word is powerful.
For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome;
who can endure it?
“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, and abounding in steadfast love;
and he relents over disaster.
The Lord’s Judgment is Coming and It’s Mighty...
The Lord’s Judgment is Coming and It’s Mighty...
when reading this text, it can be kind of scary and terrifying because you’re like the earth is going to shake and the sun, moon, and stars are going to turn black?
Before we wrap our minds around this, let’s talk about something real quick. I want to make sure that you guys understand that God is perfectly holy, and He is worthy to punish His creation.
I know that nowadays, morality (or what is right and wrong) is seen as different for everyone based on what you think, but in the eyes of God, He is the bar for perfect morality or holiness, and if you do not live up to that bar, then you are not destined for Heaven. When Adam and Eve sinned and brought the curse of sin into the world it created this uncrossable chasm between us and God
Many of you know that Jesus Christ, God in flesh, came to the earth and lived a perfect life and died as if He was a sinner taking the sins of the world upon Himself to create a bridge for those to cross that chasm if you believe in Him and make Him Lord of your life.
For those who follow Christ, you are sealed in the Holy Spirit as Ephesians 1 shares with us, so you don’t need to worry about God’s wrath because He has spared you
But for those who do not know Christ as their Lord and Savior, the scary descriptions of God’s wrath poured out on man should be worrisome.
I have never been the one to think that scaring people to come to know the Lord is the right way to preach the Word of God. I grew up in a setting where the preacher got up on stage in his suit and screamed from the pulpit for 30-45 minutes about how you were going to hell if you didn’t know Christ.
I think there is so much more beauty and freedom in the Gospel than screaming about hell for almost an hour every Sunday, but there comes a point where we have to face the facts.
The Facts: There is nothing but judgment and eternal torture awaiting the one who does not know Christ as their Lord and Savior. There is nothing but agony and destruction awaiting the one who does not place their trust in Christ Jesus
If you do not know Christ, you should be scared because the judgment you are headed for is more than you can bear
Verse 11 says, “For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?”
Transition: BUT… Here’s where the message shifts
...But God is Merciful
...But God is Merciful
I gave you the bad news, now here’s the good news, my friends. God is waiting for you to turn towards Him with open arms, all you need to do is run towards Him
Verses 12 and 13 of tonights text says, “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 and rend your hearts 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.
God may be a stern judge but He has a soft spot for His creation, and like Israel, if you would turn from your sins and live for Him, He will relent from His judgment on you.
He won’t just relent from punishment, He’ll declare you clean of all the sins you have EVER committed.
Illustration: Imagine that you forgot about a huge math test and you sit down with it in class, and there is nothing on that packet of paper that makes sense to you. For all you know it could be Mandarin. You’re solving problems as much as you can and you’re becoming increasingly worried that you’re not going to pass, but you’re giving it your ALL. Finally, you get to the end of that test and you turn it in, praying that the school will explode over night so you never have to come back. And for some reason, the teacher is on top of things so she goes ahead and grades your test in front of you because, you know, no homework for her later. I’m married to a teacher, teachers have homework too. But she goes ahead and grades it in front of you and she’s marking wrong after wrong. Just bad, bad, bad. Like she’s even leaving notes saying, “I expect better from you” and “did you even study?!” Finally, she gives it back and you see a big fat ZERO at the top of the page. And you’re overwhelmed with anger and frustration at the situation, but you know you deserve it because you forgot to study. You’re more upset with yourself because you made a grave mistake. But as you’re going to your seat to marinade in fear and anxiety because you know that when you get home and your parents see that grade their going to take everything away and you’re going to live like the Amish for then next 6 months, you hear a knock at the door. Then the door opens and it’s MR. BEAST!!!??? He walks over to the teacher and the two are going back and forth over whispers. All you hear is wisspisswisiss, and then the teacher stands up and declares, “You all get hundreds on your tests regardless of how bad you did if you will just give the MR. BEAST a high five and be best friends with him.”
To escape the wrath of your parents and pass the class, you’re going to give that dude the hardest high five you can muster and you’re gonna be the best of bros with him because he saved you from that test that you had every right to fail.
You might think why would Mr. Beast want to be my friend? Why is it that what gets me salvation from the flunking grade on the test?
For the sake of the illustration, I wanted to communicate with you guys that in all of God’s glory and power, He just wants your heart. There is not a thing in this world that you can do or give to God that will impress Him because He already owns it all. But what God does desire from us is a relationship with Him.
God is a merciful God. He is loving, and His love will never depart from you. He is slow to anger, if you will just humble yourself before Him.
That means if you’ll recognize before Him that you are a sinner and you are in need of forgiveness and you dedicate you life to be lived for Him, you will be pardoned from every wrong you have ever committed. You’ll even be forgiven of trying to make it without Him.
All the attempts you made at making it big on social media or being the team’s rockstar to fill that little hole in your life, they’re all laid behind you.
All the profanity you’ve spoken because you wanted to be funny so people will like you is forgiven
All the gossip you passed around to put someone down to make yourself look better in front of others is thrown as far as the east is from the west- if you don’t know how far that is, it’s far
Conclusion
Conclusion
Jesus just wants you heart.
If you have never accepted Christ as Lord of your life, today can be the day, if you would like to talk with myself or a leader, we would love to walk with you through taking that step, but it is a step that will change the course of the rest of your life.
Maybe that scares you to take that step but you feel a pull in your heart to do so. I would encourage you to pray just for a moment and ask the Lord for courage. Courage is not the absence of fear but the willingness to do what needs to be done regardless of the fear. That fear may never go away, so you just need to move.
