Sound the Alarm!
Joel 2:1-17
In the late 1990’s, our family lived in a split level apartment in Union Township… just north of Cincinnati, Oh. It was a great location in many ways…it was close to a major freeway, but not so close that we had to listen to its traffic, it was just 5 minutes from the downtown area with a mall and lots of restaurants, but really not on a busy street … and to top it off we lived across the street from the church we attended. But there was at least one thing that wasn’t pleasant about our location,… we lived right under some powerful air sirens. Frequently our conversation would be interrupted to test “Tornado Readiness.” Those horns produced sounds that were intrusive, belligerent and irritating.
One evening in 1999, Janine and I were awakened in the middle of the night by a phone call her sister, Sandy. “Did we know there was a tornado coming our way?” We shocked ourselves awake and turned on our small bedroom television set to witness a rather excited weatherman making marks on an area map indicating the path of said tornado. It was inching closer and closer to the little niche we liked to call home in the upper west corridor of the intersection of I275 and I75. We waited and waited… breathlessly. Nothing ever happened. We would find out the next morning that 20 miles from our apartment, the Tornado had ripped through the neighboring town of Blue Ash killing 4 people.
I didn’t think about it till later that day, but it suddenly dawned on me. The tornado alarm never went off. That grating, ear piercing, annoying shriek was silent when it was needed the most.
We come to the second chapter of Joel this morning and I want you to hear the alarm! Twice Joel says: “Blow the trumpet in Zion!” (verse 1 & 15). He actually says: “Blow the Shofar in Zion!” A Shofar was a ram’s or bull’s horn that sounded to warn or call together the people of Israel.
[play shofar sound]
Now Joel says twice to blow the shofar in this passage, but for two different but related reasons.
Sound the Alarm: Judgment is Coming!
Early in pastor Will Willimon’s ministry, he served a little church in rural Georgia. One Saturday he went to a funeral in a little country church not of my denomination. He grew up in a big downtown church and had never been to a funeral like this one. The casket was open, and the funeral consisted of a sermon by their preacher.
The preacher pounded on the pulpit and looked over at the casket. He said, "It’s too late for Joe. He might have wanted to get his life together. He might have wanted to spend more time with his family. He might have wanted to do that, but he’s dead now. It is too late for him, but it is not too late for you. There is still time for you. You still can decide. You are still alive. It is not too late for you. Today is the day of decision."
Then the preacher told how a Greyhound bus had run into a funeral procession once on the way to the cemetery, and that that could happen today. He said, "You should decide today. Today is the day to get your life together. Too late for old Joe, but it’s not too late for you."
Willimon writes: “I was so angry at that preacher. On the way home, I told my wife, "Have you ever seen anything as manipulative and insensitive to that poor family? I found it disgusting."
She said, "I’ve never heard anything like that. It was manipulative. It was disgusting. It was insensitive. Worst of all, it was true."
- Will Willimon, in his sermon "The Writing on the Wall," PreachingToday.com
Joel is an insensitive preacher at a funeral… He seems to be kicking a discouraged populace while they are down. Remember chapter one? A crop of locusts had swarmed in and devastated their crops. “Cry out to God,” Joel told the shell shocked inhabitants of the land. “This plague should serve as a wake up call for us!” And if that message wasn’t shrill enough, Joel follows it up with a prophetic horn blowing in chapter two.
1 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy hill.
Let all who live in the land tremble,
for the day of the LORD is coming.
It is close at hand-
2 a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness.
Like dawn spreading across the mountains
a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was of old
nor ever will be in ages to come.
Blow the Shofar! Another army is approaching… this one not of locust but men… who attack, very much like the locusts in chapter one, scaling walls and entering houses… and this too will be a “Day of the Lord.” But we must admit, an army of locusts is far less frightening than a vicious invading army. Verses 11 reveals that this army has as its commander and chief: the Lord Himself!”
Joel concludes: “the day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?”
Quick: What do you think of when I say the word: “Joy?”
Perhaps images of puppies, Ferris wheels and spring meadows come to mind.
How about when I say the word: “Judgment?”
Maybe a slap on the wrist, the sound of a gavel or the perhaps the slamming of a jail cell door. We humans like joy… but judgment? Not so much.
And so often Christians want to talk about the Joy and ignore the coming Judgment. We want to be known as loving. And that’s sweet… but that night in Cincinnati, the people of Blue Ash would not have thought it unloving for someone to sound the air horns to announce the coming of the whirlwind.
It is part of the responsibility of God’s church to warn that there are consequences to sin… one of which is a future judgment.
Timothy Keller in his marvelous book: “The Reason for God,” answers the skeptic’s question: “Because Christians think there are consequences to sin… including judgment… does that make them narrow minded?”
He uses this analogy: “Imagine two people arguing over the nature of a cookie. Jack thinks the cookie is poison, and Jill thinks it is not. Jack thinks Jill’s mistaken view of cookie will send her to the hospital or worse. Jill thinks Jack’s mistaken view of the cookie will keep him from having a fine dessert. Is Jack more narrow-minded than Jill just because he thinks the consequences are more dire? I don’t believe anyone would think so. Christians, therefore, aren’t more narrow because they think wrong thinking and behavior have eternal effects.
- Timothy Keller (The Reason For God, pp. 80-81.)
Sounding the alarm can be a very loving thing to do! “Don’t eat that cookie!” is a much better thing for us to exclaim than “Call an ambulance!”
So: Admonish the alcoholic that if he doesn’t get treatment he will destroy his family.
Warn your children about the effects of drugs and alcohol.
Tell your neighbor that an affair is not a harmless thing, but something he or she will regret for rest of his or her life.
Warn your friend about the consequences of sex outside of marriage.
Tell everyone, that we have all sinned and fall short of standard set by a holy God.
Sound the alarm! Judgment is coming!
"The worst industrial accident in history occurred on April 26, 1986, in the town of Chernobyl in north central Ukraine of the former Soviet Union. It was caused by two electrical engineers who were playing around with one of the nuclear reactors. They were conducting an unauthorized experiment trying to see how long a turbine would freewheel (or keep spinning) when the power was turned off. To do this, they had to manually override six separate computer-driven alarm systems. Each time the computer would warn, ’Stop! Dangerous! Go no further!’ Each time the warning was foolishly disregarded. The end result was a major explosion, thirty-one immediate deaths, untold eventual deaths, and the release of 100 million curies of radionuclides into the atmosphere that circulated worldwide. Only time will determine the full extent and destruction of the accident.
"Often, we — like those foolish engineers — fail to heed the warning given to us by the Holy Spirit: ’Stop! Dangerous! Go no further!’ As a result, there comes a point when our restlessness and refusal to listen to the Spirit’s warning leads us to cross the line from restlessness to rebellion." - Jerry Sutton (The Way Back Home (Broadman & Holman)
Christian – are you crossing that line? Hear the shofar sound its warning… hear the shofar call you to repent.
But there is another alarm sounded in this chapter.
Sound the Alarm: Gather to Repent
15 Blow the trumpet in Zion,
declare a holy fast,
call a sacred assembly.
16 Gather the people,
consecrate the assembly;
bring together the elders,
gather the children,
those nursing at the breast.
Let the bridegroom leave his room
and the bride her chamber.
17 Let the priests, who minister before the LORD,
weep between the temple porch and the altar.
Let them say, "Spare your people, O LORD.
Now this is not a cry of warning, but a call to repentance.
It is an appeal to a holy, yet compassionate God for mercy.
If we are going to be so bold as to sound the alarm that judgment is coming… we better sound the alarm that mercy is available. You know… words about judgment are not that popular in today’s world. People think religion is all about judgment and condemnation. People condemn themselves for the evil they know they’ve done in their own hearts.
But do the people in your world know that there is therefore now NO CONDEMNATION for those that are in Christ Jesus?
If we would faithfully sound the second shofar… we would find more listeners.
In my Scripture reading this week, I came across: Romans 15:13 - May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It confirmed to me again: We are called to be a people of hope. Now where is the hope in Joel 2?
Well God speaks for the first time in Joel in verse 12.
What He says there reveals His heart…
12 "Even now," declares the LORD,
"return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning."
God says “Even now” I will hold back judgment… even now, I will forgive sin… God is a God of the second and the third chances and 5,258th chance… If we will turn to Him… and we are genuine about it… God will hear us…
Christians are of no better stripe than anyone else… some come from shameful backgrounds. The difference isn’t found in their ability to refrain from sinning… but in their humility to let God forgive their sin addiction.
The country music artist, Randy Travis once said: "I went to church for a very short time as a kid, but, as they say in the South, it didn’t take. My dad wasn’t a person who went to church in those days. He was a wild man. And you can’t party, drink, get in fights in front of your kids and tell them not to do it. That don’t work. My mom and dad had six kids, and four of the six went the same road: drugs, alcohol, running completely wild. I had no knowledge about the word of God to draw on. Good thing there is forgiveness, ’cause I had a police record longer than I am tall. By man’s law, I have no right to be walking upright and feeling halfway decent."
- Randy Travis (Peter Cooper/The Tennessean)
Even now, God says, I will forgive.
Joel speaks after God does and says: “Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, and relenting of evil.”
Can you feel the hope Joel is adding to the message of Judgment? Nothing is ever a lost cause. No judgment is ever final as long as there is God… for it is His nature to forgive. And the pardon he offers is total and complete.
Several years ago Bob Sheffield of the Navigators told a moving story picturing the essence of what it means to receive God’s forgiveness. Before he became a Christian, Bob played professional hockey in Canada. He was tough, loved to fight and found himself in jail one night after a barroom brawl. Later, Bob and his wife became Christians through the Navigator’s outreach ministry. They grew in their newfound faith and accepted a temporary assignment with the Navigators in Christian ministry in the States.
Bob had to apply for landed immigrant status which would allow him and his wife to continue in ministry in the United States. But because he had a criminal record, his request was denied. Fortunately for the Sheffields, their daughter had been born in the U. S. and this worked in their favor. This loophole allowed them to receive the visa they needed to continue their work in the United States.
It was a troubling experience for the Sheffields. Bob realized that they would have this same problem every time the Navigators assigned them to a new ministry in another country. After much thought and prayer, they decided to apply in Canada for what is called the “Queen’s Pardon.” A thorough investigation was conducted. The pardon was granted. Bob Sheffield received the following notice in the mail:
Whereas we have since been implored on behalf of the said
Robert Jones Sheffield to extend a pardon to him in respect
To the convictions against him, and whereas the solicitor general here submitted a report to us, now know ye therefore, having taken these things into consideration, that we are willing to extend the royal clemency on him, the said Robert J. Sheffield, we have pardoned, remitted and released him of and from the said convictions, and of and from all and every penalty to which he was liable in pursuance thereof.
On any document from that time forward on which Bob was asked if he had a criminal record, he could honestly answer no. What the pardon meant was that he had been released from any possible punishment that could come from the crimes he had committed, and the record of the crimes themselves had been completely erased. When his fingerprints go to the Canadian Mounted Police and they run them through the computer, the printout comes back reading, “No record.”
Author Tom L. Eisenman wrote: “This is the kind of pardon we have in Jesus Christ. When we have received forgiveness, we are set free from any penalty or possible punishment that was due us according to our crimes against God. When Satan requests from the heavenly computer our list of sins punishable by eternal death, it will always print out, “No record. Pardoned by the blood of Christ.”
- Tom L. Eisenman (Temptations Men Face, pp. 21-22.)
People don’t like to hear about Judgment that is true… but people need to hear it… and against that back drop… introduce what they are passionately longing to hear… a word of Hope. That God loves them… that he wants to pardon them… that He longs to give them hope, compassion and a new tomorrow.
Unbeliever—sin has its consequences. Hear the shofar warn you of the ultimate consequence… an eternity separated from the greatest love of your life… God. Its not late… for the God of the second, third, millionth chance says this morning… EVEN NOW… I’ll take you in… and make you mine.
I had lunch with a young man named Jordan Johnson who teaches a Bible Study in a town 30 miles from here. We were discussing my upcoming sermon on Joel and it reminded him of a fella in his Bible Study group that said recently: “I like the NT God better than the OT God. The OT God is a jerk! The NT God is more loving.” Jordan told him, It is the same God in both testiments. The difference is between the two is that the wrath of God in the NT fell upon Jesus… his wrath was no less intense.
[“Everything”- Lifehouse Video]
Can you hear the Shofar blow this morning?
