[Read Joel 2:11b-14]
`Even now,` declares the LORD, `return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.` 13Rend 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. 14Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing - grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God.
There are TWO underlining themes that run through all the books of the Minor Prophets – the need for REPENTANCE and the hope of RESTORATION.
• God wants to restore to His people the blessed life that He has planned for them under His rule. They’ve lost that through their rebellion and idolatry.
• But the key to experiencing that is repentance – the realisation of their foolish deviation from God’s will and a return back to God’s ways.
You have this picture of a REALISATION (or revelation), a turn around (REPENTANCE), and a RESTORATION (a returning to God).
• Before restoration can take place, the people must repent. Restoration comes through repentance.
• Repentance is the key that unlocks the blessings of God in their lives.
But the people need to know where they are. They will turn around only when they understand the need to turn around.
• No amount of punishment will serve any good if the people do not know what’s wrong. Without this realisation, nothing can be achieved with punishment. You induce pain but no change. It brings you suffering but no repentance.
• This explains why the Lord took so long a time before He disciplines. This explains the need for the messages of the prophets. They are wake-up calls to the people.
(1) REALISATION – Seek a Fresh Revelation of God
This realisation can only come through the fresh revelation of God’s will.
• Unless and until the people realised this, they will not turn around. There is no reason to do so.
This is the wisdom of God’s discipline. With every discipline, parents, stress on what is the right thing, the acceptable behaviour. Punishment itself serves little good if the child is left to guess “so what’s the right thing to do”.
I heard over the radio a week ago this good advice – we tend to tell our kids, don’t do this or that – don’t shout, don’t run… but then we didn’t tell them what they should do. Don’t run means to stand still or walk slowly? Don’t shout means to keep quiet or talk softly? God has to belabour His points through the prophets!
Pray for a fresh revelation of God when you find yourselves drifting away and losing the zeal to stay pure.
Let me share with you these TWO testimonies from the Bible:
(1) ISAIAH - Isaiah 6:1-5
1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
(2) PETER - Luke 5:6-8
6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, "Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!"
The Israelites will never, ever, experience again, the true blessings of God, for their lives, until they realised their mistake and turn around.
• The Lord stirs up their senses through a graphic description of the invasion of locusts. [Read Joel 1:1-7]
God uses the invasion of swarms of locusts (which the people understand) to picture the devastation that would come when He punishes them - through the real army of the Babylonians. The damage they caused is unbelievable. There’s nothing left!
1:5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
1:8 Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the husband of her youth.
1:11 Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers.
God FORETELLS of His coming wrath. He always WARNS. 2:13 “He relents from sending calamities…”
• His goal is repentance, not destruction. That’s why God is relentless in proclaiming the same message over and over again, through His prophets.
• This tragedy is no accident. When it happens, the people will know it is from the Lord.
• God will act decisively against sin; but not before He gives ample warnings.
(2) REPENTANCE – See the Purpose of God’s Heart
We see the INTENT of God’s judgement. God desires our repentance.
• 2:13 “Rend your heart, not your garments, and return to the Lord your God…” That’s REPENTANCE!
• Ps 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
The word repentance in the Greek is beautiful – “a change of mind”.
• Repentance is a changing of your mind – a decision. It is more than just the feeling of remorse or being sorry or asking forgiveness, but the decision to surrender to Christ.
• It is about God’s will over my will; about God’s way over my way.
A boy was walking home one day and along the route he saw some nice apples on a tree, inside someone’s yard. He quietly climbed up the tree and stole 5 apples.
When he returned home, he felt guilty. He wanted to confess, so he went to his father. The father wrote a verse on a piece of paper and said, "Alright, go and recite this scripture verse 5 times for each of the apple you stole."
"Is that all? Just recite this verse?" the boy replied, then added, "Dad, can I do it 10 times instead? There are 5 more apples on that tree."
It really doesn’t matter what you do, if there is no change of heart, there is no repentance.
• How do I truly repent? Joel 2:12-13 says – TWICE – return to me, the Lord says, “with all your heart”. Again v.13 “Return to the Lord your God…”
• This is enlightening - it is more than running FROM sin; it is running TO God!
• In fact, I realised that TURNING TO GOD is the only assurance we have, that our TURNING FROM SIN can be successful.
(3) RESTORATION – Seek to RETURN to the Lord
Isaiah and Peter experienced close encounters with God, and changed their lives.
• True repentance takes place because there is a TURNING TO GOD – a revelation of God’s glory, His holiness.
• Repentance is a shifting of our weight from self to God. This has to happen all the time – a constant encountering of God in our lives. Moses met God and he shines!
You see, repentance is nothing new to us. We have been doing it. We did wrong, confessed our sin and repented. We know God forgave us.
• The problem is: We have been doing this hundreds of times, at the very least. I’ve been doing it too, almost on a daily basis – wrong thoughts and attitudes.
• I’m better now than before. What makes the difference? The constant TURNING to God. God’s desire is our RETURN.
• That’s why daily time with God is important. Our worship of God is crucial. Close encounters with God brings repentance.
In Isaiah 57:15 the Lord says, “I live in a high and holy place, but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”
• He is the strength we need. The more we turn TO God, the harder it is for us to turn FROM Him.
• Question of Joel: Do we need God to strip us of everything before we repent and return to God?
