The Day Of The Lord (Joel) Series

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).