A couple of years ago (September 2023), Connor Cato from Georgia was driving 90 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone. When police stopped him, he knew he knew he would have to pay a hefty fine, but the amount on the speeding ticket shocked him. It totaled a staggering $1.48 million dollars!
When Cato called the county courthouse to see if there was a typo, the clerk told him, “No sir, you either pay the amount on the ticket or you come to court on December 21 at 1:30 p.m.”
As it turned out, the actual fine for super speeders is subject to a cap of $1,000, along with additional state mandated costs. However, the e-citation software authorities use generates the largest number possible, because super speeder tickets require a mandatory court appearance (Tyler Nicole & Dajhea Jones, “Chatham County man receives $1.4M speeding ticket,” WSAV, 10-12-23; www.PreachingToday.com).
The Bible speaks of a coming day of judgment far worse than paying a million and a half dollar fine! However, there is no chance that God will reduce that fine unless you find a way to escape it altogether.
Do you want to escape the judgment to come? Then join me as we explore the book of Joel together. Now, Joel is one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament with a major message, a powerful message, telling his readers how to escape the judgment of the Day of the Lord. According to Joel, the Day of the Lord is “a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness!” (Joel 2:2).
Joel’s original audience looked forward to the Day of the Lord, because they saw it as a day when God would judge their enemies. But Joel warns his audience that God will judge them, as well, unless they forsake their selfish ways and turn back to Him. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to the Old Testament book of Joel, the book of Joel, chapter 1, where Joel uses a devastating locust plague to illustrate a far worse judgment to come.
Joel 1:1-7 The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree; it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down; their branches are made white (ESV).
Joel says the locusts are like an invading army, destroying everything in their path.
Joel 1:10-12 The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes. Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine dries up; the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man (ESV).
The locusts have destroyed all the crops and produce, the grapes that make wine, as well as the grain that feeds the people. Therefore, the nation should mourn and cry out to God.
Joel 1:13-16 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! Because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? (ESV)
Joel says replace your parry clothes with sackcloth and fast as a sign of your distress. Then cry out to the Lord!
Joel 1:19-20 To you, O LORD, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness (ESV).
The locusts have destroyed everything, bringing us to our knees before God. So…
REPENT!
Turn from your selfish ways back to the Lord. Express sorrow for your sin and come back to God for help.
Repent in light of your current trouble. Let your pain cause you to consider your ways and change them if you need to.
C. S. Lewis once said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
Please, if you have ignored God’s whispers in the past, listen now as He shouts to you in your pain—“Change your ways before things get worse!”
Now, that’s not to say that all suffering is the result of sin, but suffering does cause us to examine our lives and to ask God what lessons He wants to teach us through the suffering.
Two years ago (2023), Kyle Voltz was driving a stolen SUV when he crashed into a police cruiser and then sped out of a North Portland parking lot. Eventually, police spotted the suspect driving south in the northbound lanes of Interstate 405. He ended up crashing into another vehicle near an overpass.
Both the driver and a passenger in the stolen vehicle suffered serious injuries. Thankfully, the occupants of the other vehicle and the police cruiser were not injured seriously.
Voltz faced several charges, including first degree assault, felony hit-and-run, and reckless driving. He had previous convictions for identity theft and possession of heroin and methamphetamines (Staff, “on I-405, causing head-on crash,” Oregon Live, 3-30-23; www.PreachingToday.com).
When you’re going in the wrong direction, like Voltz, don’t stubbornly plow through the obstacles God puts in your way, creating more pain. Instead, repent, literally change your mind about the direction of your life before you crash and burn on the highway of life. Repent in light of your current trouble if you need to.
But not only that, repent in light of coming trouble, as well. Let the announcement of coming judgment cause you to consider your ways, as well.
In chapter 1, Joel says the locusts were like an invading army. In chapter 2, Joel says a future invading army will be like locusts. Take a look.
Joel 2:1-11 Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run. As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle. Before them peoples are in anguish; all faces grow pale. Like warriors they charge; like soldiers they scale the wall. They march each on his way; they do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another; each marches in his path; they burst through the weapons and are not halted. They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. 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? (ESV)
The Day of the Lord is a day of judgment when God will use an invading army, what He calls “His army,” to judge the world. Just like a horde of locusts blackens the sky, so on the Day of the Lord, the sun, the moon, and the stars will cease to shine. It will be a “great and very awesome day,” in the Hebrew, a “great and very fearful or terrible day.”
Paul describes that day in the books of 1st Thessalonians. There, he says “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, ‘There is peace and security,’ then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape” (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).
Then in 2nd Thessalonians, Paul further elaborates on the Day of the Lord. There, he says, “That day, [i.e., the Day of the Lord], will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2 Thessalonians 2:2-4).
That man of lawlessness is the Antichrist (1 John 2:18). He is the “prince who is to come” in Daniel 9, who will sign a 7-year peace treaty with Israel, break that treaty three and a half years later, desecrate the temple, and desolate the city of Jerusalem (Daniel 9:27).
The book of Revelation goes into great detail about this 7-year period, calling it “the Great Tribulation” (Revelation 7:14). During that time, Revelation describes God displaying His judgment with the opening of seven seals (Revelation 6), the blowing of seven trumpets (Revelation 8-11), and the pouring out of seven bowls of wrath (Revelation 15-16). All the while, the Antichrist is wreaking havoc on the whole world, conquering nations and killing billions of people.
That’s the Day of the Lord, my friends, and the prospect of its soon coming should cause us all to consider our ways and change them if we need to. That’s what Joel encourages his readers to do.
Joel 2:12-14 “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. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God? (ESV)
Return to the Lord that He might relent, or better, have compassion or give comfort to you. Be extremely sorry for your sin and turn back to your gracious and merciful Lord, who wants to bless you rather than judge you.
Some of my favorite movies are the Indiana Jones films, the first of which came out more than 40 years ago (1981). In one of the movies, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana is barely hanging on to someone’s hand on the edge of a chasm. With the other hand he is reaching out to a goblet that supposedly Jesus used at His Last Supper with His disciples. Take a look (show Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Let It Go scene).
As the tips of his hand just graze the edge of the goblet, he’s grunting, “I can just about reach it.” Above him is his father who reaches out pleading, “Junior, take my hand! Take my hand!” Finally, his father tells him to “Let it go,” and Indiana reaches up for his father to take his hand (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Lucasfilm, 1984, written by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, directed by Steven Spielberg; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s a picture of your Heavenly Father. He reaches down to offer rescue—that’s grace. When you let go of your pursuits, that’s repentance. When you reach back to take your Father’s hand, that’s faith. And when your Father lifts you up from the chasm, that’s salvation.
Please, in light of your current trouble and the trouble soon to come, let go of your selfish pursuits and take your Father’s hand. In a word—REPENT. Then…
REJOICE.
Be glad. Celebrate, because God will deliver those who repent from His wrath to come in the Day of the Lord.
1st, Rejoice because God will restore what you lost. Be glad because the Lord will give back that which He took away.
Joel 2:21-27 “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the LORD has done great things! Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit; the fig tree and vine give their full yield. “Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication; he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before. “The threshing floors shall be full of grain; the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. “You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the LORD your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame (ESV).
God will restore what the locusts took away, give you Himself, and keep you from shame.
A while ago, I did something wrong and crashed my computer. I had lost years of work; but thankfully, Microsoft has a “system restore” feature. All I had to do was click on “system restore” and specify the date to which I wanted to reset my computer. I picked the previous day and got all my work back!
In the same way, when you crash your life, God provides a “system restore” feature. It’s called “repentance.” All you have to do is change your attitude about the direction of your life and trust the Lord to lead you in a new direction. He may not erase all the consequences of your past sins, but He will restore your life. In fact, He will do better than that. He will turn your mess into a masterpiece.
So repent and rejoice, because God will restore what you lost.
2nd, repent and rejoice because God will reveal His Holy Spirit to you. Be glad because God will give you His Spirit and you will escape the Day of the Lord.
Joel 2:28-32 “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. “And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls (ESV).
For those who repent, God promises His Spirit and escape from the great and terrible Day of the Lord.
In Acts 2, after God pours out His Spirit on those first 120 believers in Jesus, the crowd asks, “What does this mean?” (Acts 2:12). That’s when Peter addressed that crowd of Jewish people gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost. He told them “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16). Then he quoted this passage that I just read to you (Acts 2:17-21).
Peter went on to tell them that they crucified their Messiah, but God raised Him from the dead, making Him both Lord and Christ, the very One they crucified (Acts 2:22-36). Then Acts 2 says, “They were cut to the heart” and said to Peter, “What shall we do?” (Acts 2:37).
Peter responded, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38) just like God promised here in Joel 2. Then Peter urges them, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40). That is, save yourselves from the great and terrible Day of the Lord coming on all those who refuse to repent.
In 1 Thessalonians 5, after Paul describes the sudden destruction coming in the Day of the Lord, he says of all believers, “God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10). Those who believe in Christ will be with Him rather than go through God’s wrath in the Day of the Lord. In fact, 1 Thessalonians 4 talks about God taking every believer out of this world before the Day of the Lord in 1 Thessalonians 5.
So, please, if you haven’t done it already, repent. That is, change your attitude about the direction you’re headed, and trust Christ with your life. Commit your life to Him who died on the cross for your sins and rose again. Then you too will receive God’s Holy Spirit and escape His wrath in the Day of the Lord.
Nathaniel Hawthorne once described happiness as a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you. That’s the way it is with the Holy Spirit. He is not seized. He is received (Ben Patterson, “A Faith Like Mary’s,” Preaching Today, Tape No. 87; www.PreachingToday.com).
When you rest in Christ, trusting Him with your life, the Holy Spirit comes and alights upon you.
However, don’t expect life to be easy after that. In fact, J. B. Phillips says, “Anyone who opens his personality to the living Spirit takes a risk of being considerably shaken” (J. B. Phillips, “For This Day,” Christianity Today, Vol. 38, no. 13; www.PreachingToday.com). Like Joel 2 says, you will “dream dreams” and “see visions” that will absolutely change your life.
In his book, Rescuing Ambition, Dave Harvey writes about a condition he had, which kept him from sleeping well—sleep apnea. He went to the doctor, who told him, “I'll remove your uvula. Then you won't snore, and you'll sleep better.”
After the surgery, Harvey says, “When I lost my uvula, I found my dreams. You see, because I never slept well, I never dreamed” or “I don't ever remember dreaming… Not once.”
He went on to say, “I didn't even know I'd lost my dreams until I found them—or, rather, they were returned to me. Actually, they were rescued, airlifted from some cold, lifeless crevice where dreams hibernate until the arrival of deep sleep. Or something like that.”
Then Harvey comments: “Lots of people live without dreams. They move from one day to the next without the refreshing effect of a memorable dream… But there are dreams we can lose that are much more significant than those I was losing. Not the REM kind of dreams, but the dreams that drive us when we're awake. The dreams that cause us to reach beyond ourselves, to see beyond the present and to live for something more” (Dave Harvey, Rescuing Ambition, Crossway, 2010, pp. 11-12; www.PreachingToday.com).
If you want to dream like that again, then repent and receive God’s Holy Spirit. He’ll lead you to places you never dreamed possible, and you’ll never have to fear the future again. Repent and rejoice, because 1st of all God will restore all you lost. 2nd, God will reveal His Holy Spirit to you.
And 3rd, God will ruin your enemies. There’s coming a day when God will eliminate all the evildoers. He will destroy all those who brought harm to God’s people.
Joel 3:1-3 “For behold, in those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgment with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel, because they have scattered them among the nations and have divided up my land, and have cast lots for my people, and have traded a boy for a prostitute, and have sold a girl for wine and have drunk it (ESV).
The enemies of God have done horrible things to God’s people. So God will judge them in “the valley of Jehoshaphat,” which literally means “the Lord Judges.” Skip down to verse 12.
Joel 3:12-16 Let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; for there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great. Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The LORD roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake. But the LORD is a refuge to his people, a stronghold to the people of Israel (ESV).
God will deliver His people, but destroy His enemies in that valley of Jehoshaphat, which He calls here “the valley of decision.” This is not a place where people get to decide their fate. No! It’s a place where God decides the fate of the nations who violated His people.
Revelation calls this place “Armageddon” (Revelation 16:12-16). When Jesus comes to this earth again, the armies of the world will gather in this valley to stop Him, but Jesus will strike them down and rule the nations with a rod of iron (Revelation 19:11-16) for a thousand years (Rev. 20:1-6). So rejoice, dear believing friend, because God will one day ruin those who tried to ruin you.
In a novel by the British mystery writer P.D. James, a detective shares a common sentiment, saying, “I don’t go for all this emphasis on sin, suffering, and judgment. If I had a God, I’d like him to be intelligent, cheerful, and amusing.”
In response, her Jewish colleague says, “I doubt whether you would find him much of a comfort when they herded you into the gas chambers. You might prefer a God of vengeance.”
Theologian J. Todd Billings comments on this quote:
A God without wrath is a God who whitewashes evil and is deaf to the cries of the powerless. A student of mine who grew up in a gang culture and had many whom he loved taken from him by violence told me with profound honesty that “If God will not avenge, I am tempted to avenge.” Precisely because God is a God of love, he is also a God of holy wrath (J. Todd Billings, The End of the Christian Life, Brazos Press, 2020, page 203; www.PreachingToday.com).
“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19).
That’s good news for those who have been hurt by God’s enemies. So repent and rejoice, because 2st, God will restore all you lost (and then some). 2nd, God will reveal His Holy Spirit to you. 3rd, God will ruin your enemies.
And 4th, God will reside with you. The Lord will live on this earth with His people. He will dwell in Zion, the holy mountain in Jerusalem itself.
Joel 3:17-18 “So you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who dwells in Zion, my holy mountain. And Jerusalem shall be holy, and strangers shall never again pass through it. “And in that day the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the streambeds of Judah shall flow with water; and a fountain shall come forth from the house of the LORD and water the Valley of Shittim (ESV).
Today, that valley runs through the arid wilderness to the Dead Sea. But when Jesus comes to rule and reign from David’s throne in Jerusalem, that dry valley will flow with sweet, refreshing water.
My dear friends, that’s something to look forward to! For the Bible says that we who know and love Jesus will also rule and reign with Him during that time (Matthew 25:14-23).
I find it interesting that many landowners in the city of Jerusalem today include a “Messiah Clause,” in their apartment contracts. The clause stipulates that, in the event of the coming of the Messiah, the lease “may be immediately terminated at the will of the landlord.” The owners, who are mostly religious Jews living abroad, are concerned that He will arrive, turn Israel into paradise, and they will be stuck waiting for their apartment tenants' contracts to run out before they can move back (Malka Fleischmann, “Weekend Essay: For the Ultimate in Preparedness, add a ‘Messiah Clause’,” New York Sun, 7-25-22; www.PreachingToday.com).
My dear friends, Jesus is coming soon! Please, get ready for His coming. Repent now, so you can rejoice at His coming. In other words, change your mind about the direction of your life and trust Christ with your life.
Then rejoice, because 1st, God will restore all you lost (and then some). 2nd, God will reveal His Holy Spirit to you. 3rd, God will ruin your enemies. And 4th God will reside with you. Amen. come Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:20)
