Good morning. Let's pray together. Our merciful Heavenly Father, how hopeful we are that you will compel us to approach your throne of grace, that you will create in us a new heart and cause us, Lord, to to find in Christ all our hope and all of our salvation. Enable us, Lord, to worship Thee. Lord, bless Your Word. Open the bread of life and teach us and remind us and convict us. Lord, enable us. Enable us to fellowship in the Spirit Lord, reveal to us the glory of thy dear son. For it's in his name we pray, amen. Let's open our Bibles to the book of Joel. Joel, that's the third of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. Toward the end of your Old Testament, Joel. I've titled this message, Rend Your Hearts. Rend Your Hearts. And we find that beginning in verse 12 of chapter 2 in the book of Joel. Therefore also now saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your heart and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knoweth if he will return and repent and leave a blessing behind him, even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God." Now, Joel, like many of the prophets of the Old Testament, declare a very stern and sober warning to Israel of the impending judgment that will come against them as a result of their disobedience. It begins in chapter one, if you'll look there with me, the word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Bethuel, hear this ye old men and give ear all ye inhabitants of the land Hath this been in your days or even in the days of your fathers? The judgment that I'm about to describe to you has never been known before. You have never experienced how bad it's going to be. Tell ye your children of it and let your children tell their children and their children another generation. For that which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten, and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten, and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. Awake, ye drunkards!" So, Joel is calling upon the children of Israel to turn from their sin. And then in chapter 2, after the details of this wrath that's going to come against Israel. It begins in chapter two with these words, blow ye the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord cometh for it is nigh at hand. a day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains a great people and a strong, there hath been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations." When the Babylonians come, and they did soon after Joel announced these warnings, The people of Israel were pillaged and taken captive. Many, many of them were killed in battle. That was the immediate fulfillment of Joel's prophecy. This prophecy again was fulfilled in 70 A.D. When the Romans came in, and not one stone was left upon another. They completely destroyed all of Israel and scattered the people all over the four corners of the world. The remnant of the Jews that escaped the Romans hid out on Masada and in the end they were either starved out or committed suicide and they were all destroyed. And this came in fulfillment of the prophecy that Joel is making. This prophecy will be fulfilled in the Day of Judgment, when the fire of God's wrath consumes this world for their unbelief and for their sin and disobedience. All of that having been said, the warnings and threats of judgment have never been successful in changing the heart. They can have and often do have an effect on man's outward behavior, like when Jonah went to Nineveh They rent their garments, the scripture says. But the message that Jonah preached to the Ninevites was, in 40 days, God's going to destroy this place. That was the extent of his message. There was no real gospel in that message. It was just a warning of judgment. And the Ninevites heard the warning. they repented of the way they were living and the Lord spared them. The Lord even said that had the works that he had done in Chorazin been done in Sodom and Gomorrah, they would have repented and remained until this day. So when men change the pattern of their living, there is a preservation of life in that. And oftentimes, men will hear the threats and the warnings, and a reformation, a moral reformation will occur, and people will straighten their lives out. They'll turn over a new leaf. They'll clean up things. And as a result, we'll be spared. However, the real fulfillment of this prophecy, the terrible day of the Lord, the day when the world knew the wrath of God more extreme than in all the other experiences that have happened in the past and that will happen in the future, as horrible as those were. There was never the horror of God's fiery wrath and justice like took place at Calvary's cross. And we know that that's what Joel is ultimately referring to because later on in chapter two, let's turn over just a page or so. Look at verse 28. He repeats the judgment that's going to come. And then in verse 28, and it shall come to pass afterwards that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your old men shall dream dreams and you young men shall see visions and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. Now you're familiar with these verses because these are the verses that Peter quoted On the day of Pentecost, after the crucifixion, on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after Passover was Pentecost. And this was the fulfillment. And Peter stood because they thought that because these apostles were preaching in various languages and everybody was hearing them in their own tongue, Those who couldn't understand what they were hearing thought they were drunk. And Peter stood and said, no, these men are not drunk, as you presume, for it's but the third hour. It was in the middle of the afternoon. But this is the fulfillment of the prophet Joel. And then he quotes those verses we just read. Here's the point, brethren. the threat and reality of temporal judgments, eternal judgments for that matter, the fear of God's wrath will never successfully result in the rending of the heart. All it will result in is the rending of the garment. Let's look at that verse again, verse 13. And rend your hearts and not your garments. The warnings of judgment, as sure as they are, and as certain as they have been fulfilled and will be fulfilled against this world, will never change a man's heart. What is it that changes our hearts? Well, turn forward just a few prophets to Zechariah. Zechariah, chapter 12, verse 9. and it shall come to pass in that day, the great and terrible day of the Lord." Historically refers to many of the judgments that took place. Ultimately, it does refer to the destruction of this world. But spiritually, prophetically, It refers to the full fury of God's wrath that was poured out on our sin bearer, on our substitute, the one who alone bore the full justice of God in order to satisfy God's law and in order to put away our sin. And only through eyes of faith in looking to what Christ did and what he suffered, will the heart be rend. Everything else is just rendering the garment. And when men rend their garment, like we saw last Sunday when we compared a moral reformation to a spiritual revival. Moral reformations are good and moral reformations will abate the judgment of God on a man, on an individual, on a city, on a country, on a world, but it doesn't change the heart. And the Lord is saying through Joel here, rend your heart. Now look at verse nine of Zechariah chapter 12, And it shall come to pass in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Israel. I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication. You see the threatening of judgment is just the law. And though the law does restrain men's behavior much like If you're speeding in your vehicle and you see a police car behind you, the first thing you're going to do is take your foot off the pedal and get within, you know, the law, you know, it conforms behavior. But it doesn't change the heart. Matter of fact, as long as that cop is behind you, your heart is resenting more and more until he's out of there so you can get back about your business. The law doesn't change the heart. It just changes, it rends the garment, but it doesn't rend the heart. And if the garments rent, in the example I just gave, you may spare yourself a ticket, which is a good thing. But God's speaking of the heart. In our hearts, Tom, we don't need a bypass. We don't need a pacemaker. We need a transplant. We need a new heart. When the spirit of grace and supplication is poured out on the church, That's the city, that's the house of David, that's the city of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. They shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. And in that day, There shall be a great morning in Jerusalem, as in the morning of Hadrimon in the Valley of Megiddon. The Valley of Megiddon is spoken of in the scripture as the final judgment. But the fear of that judgment of God does never change men's hearts. It'll make men religious. It'll make men moral. It'll conform. men's behavior in hopes of abating or in hopes of escaping the judgment, but it won't change the heart. The only time in the history of mankind where the full fury of God's holy justice was poured out was not by the Babylonians, not by the Romans. It was by God Almighty. It was the Father that rained the full fury of His wrath down on His darling Son. The rocks rent. The graves were open. The earth was blackened from the sun. for three hours in the middle of the afternoon. That's the great and terrible day of the Lord. And that's the day that changes the heart. Nothing else will result in a new heart. The threat of wrath and judgment won't change the heart, but the fulfillment of God's judgment on Christ Well, never been a big fan of hellfire and brimstone preaching, because though hellfire and brimstone preaching might straighten men's lives out for a little while, and it has, and it will today, scare people into changing the way they live. But Paul said, we determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We preach Christ crucified because that's the message that God uses to change the heart. Nothing else. Everything else will only result in rending our garments. Left to ourselves, without the changing of the heart, we will choose the praise of men over the praise of God. And because man is only capable of looking at outward appearances, we will go about establishing our own righteousness. We will go about cleaning up the outside of the cup. Ignorant of the fact that the inward part of the cup is full of corruption, we will go about whitewashing the tomb, ignorant of the fact that the inside of the tomb is full of dead man's bones. You see, the gospel is a matter of the heart. A new heart will I give them. A new spirit will I put within them. When Joel pronounces these judgments and then concludes his judgments with this, Therefore, in light of what God's gonna do, rend your hearts and not your garments. Left to ourselves, we will look at our sin as nothing more than a behavioral problem, and we will go to the law in order to correct that problem. We will steep ourselves in the outward appearances of religion. And like the Pharisees of old, we will engage in flowering prayers in public. We will lengthen our phylacteries as they did. We will go about trying to establish our own righteousness, ignorant of the righteousness of God. Proudly displaying the respectable role of self-righteousness. And we will go about knowing nothing of the filthy rags of our own righteousness as they are before God. This rending of the heart is a work of grace that God does when he causes us to see what the real problem is. What the real problem is. We will, like Adam, sew together fig leaves. You ever thought about the contrast between sewed together fig leaves and a fleece of wool that God put on Adam after he slew the animal? What a contrast. How long would sewed together fig leaves last? They'd dry up pretty quick. And yet here we are, how many thousands of years later, and we still haven't come up with anything better than wool to make an outer garment. No, that's just our nature. Why? Because we think that God is like us. That's what we do by nature. You thought that I was altogether such a one as yourself, and since man only looks at the outward appearances, then we will dress ourselves up to impress other men, not knowing that God's looking at the heart. There's where the problem is. There's where the problem is. Rend your heart, not your garments. Say, well, how do I do that? Well, you come to God. Not with a rent heart, but for a rent heart. What God requires, God must provide. And God only accepts that which he provides. So this isn't a matter of us figuring out a way to change our hearts. David in Psalm 51 said, Lord, create in me a new heart. a new heart. And yet, what God provides, he at the same time commands. And the means by which he provides is the command. Not only does God command us to rend our hearts, impossible for us to rend our hearts, He commands us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It's impossible for us to believe. He commands us to repent. He commands us to come. The Lord Jesus said, follow me. He commanded Lazarus to come forth. A dead man, been dead four days and his body was stinking from decay. And Jesus said, Lazarus, come forth. What God commands, God must provide, but he uses his command to awaken us. And the heart that is awakened to seek God's grace will certainly be met with God's mercy. But when God says, rend the heart, as is with God says every other thing, he commands the lame to walk. He commands the blind to see. He commands us to cry. The cry of the Lord must be awakened by grace. And if it is, it will surely be met by mercy. You see, just like with faith and everything else that God commands, rending the heart is the evidence of God's grace. It's the evidence of God's grace. The Lord only saves those with a rent heart. We hear men say, I gave my heart to Jesus, or I made him Lord of my life, or I gave my life to Jesus. Your heart and your life is not the asset that you bring to the table of God's salvation. No. to put our, to rend our hearts, that's a broken heart, a broken and a contrite heart. He will not despise, why? Because he made it. A broken heart's a heart that's, you see, coming to God with a rent heart is not offering him something to manipulate his response or to earn his favor. It is the admission that, Lord, the only thing I have to give you is broken. It don't work. You barter with somebody for something and you bring to the bartering table something that doesn't work, something that's broken, something that can't be fixed. And the rent, the broken heart cannot be fixed. It has to be replaced. You know, we live in a replacement culture. Very few things anymore can be fixed. You just got to throw them away and get a new one. And that's the way it is with the heart. We don't come to God with a broken heart, expecting him to fix it. We come to God with a heart that's broken beyond repair, asking him for a new one. So the heart that we're laying on the table is not It's not our offering. It's not our saying, well, I gave Jesus my heart like he wanted it for something. What's he going to do with it? Psalm 34 verse 18 says, the Lord is nigh unto them who are of a broken heart and saveth such as that are of a contrite heart. A rent heart is a whole life. You see, we're not just confessing that our hearts doesn't work, but the heart is what rules everything. Lord, the evidence of my heart being broken is that everything that my heart has ever led me to do is broken. Proverbs, it says that it's a fool that trusts his own heart. How many times have you, well, he's got a good heart. Well, trust your heart. If you do, you're a fool. Trust God. Your heart's broken. It don't work. It can't discern. right from wrong. It can't discern truth and it will lead you astray every time, every time. That's what it is to rend your heart. Say, Lord, I'm coming to you with a heart that I will make a new covenant with my people, not like the covenant of old, which their fathers did break. Jeremiah chapter 31 is repeated in the book of Hebrews twice. But I will write my laws upon their hearts, and I will impress it upon their minds. No longer will it be necessary for a man to say to his brother, you need to know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them, even unto the greatest. This is the work of grace that God does when he births us into the kingdom of God, when he makes us a part of Jerusalem, of the house of David. When the spirit of grace and supplication is poured out, as we read in Zechariah, they will mourn after him whom they have pierced. There's the full fury of God's wrath. The full heat, the full justice of God poured out. That was the cup that the Lord didn't want to drink from. Lord, if there be any other way. No, there's no other way. No other way for my wrath to be satisfied. No other way for justice to be served. You still have your Bibles open to Joel chapter two. Therefore also now sayeth the Lord, turn ye even to me, verse 12, with all your heart, with all your heart. When God rends the heart, when God causes us to see how broken we are, and how all of our righteousness is filthy rags, and that we have nothing to offer God, then we're completely dependent upon what God did when Christ became our sacrifice for sin. We're completely dependent upon Him. When that happens, everything changes. Everything, the whole heart. Well, Lord, I'm gonna give you this or give you that, but I'm gonna, no, no, the whole, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away, yea, all things become new. Does that mean that we become perfect, our hearts are all we know? No, we're still burying this old flesh, but this new heart Turn with me to that verse of scripture, 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians 5. Look at verse, we'll begin reading in verse 14, 2 Corinthians 5. Verse 14, for the love of Christ constraineth us. Where does a man and a woman love from? They love from their heart. If our heart's not in love, then we're not in love. We may make an arrangement or have a relation, but the heart is where love is. For the love of Christ constraineth us, notice that the scripture says the love of Christ, not my love for Christ. I will love him. We love him because he first loved us, but hearing his love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and gave his sons appreciation for our sins. We look at our love for him as the motivation for everything we're going to find ourselves but we look to Christ and His love for us, our love for Him will grow. We'll grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ. It is the love of Christ that constraineth us, because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we're all dead, and that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again. The hearts change, the whole heart. Wherefore, henceforth know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. When he walked the face of the earth, we saw him in the likeness of sinful flesh, but now the Spirit of God has caused the heart to be rent. Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new and all things are of God. All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ and hath given us, given to us the ministry of reconciliation, to wit that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's head, be you reconciled to God. You see here again, all the commands, all the commands of God. I can remember before I knew Christ and had the Holy Spirit, we would argue and we came to the conclusion that man must have a free will because how could it be fair that God would command things for us that we're not capable of doing? But now I know that everything God commands of us we're not capable of doing. So that even in our ability to do it he has provided that and he gets all the glory. He gets all the glory. We can't say, well, I did that. God gave the children of Israel the law at Mount Sinai and Moses brought the law down. What did the children of Israel say? We're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. We're gonna do exactly what God said in that law. What Moses said, you can't keep God's law. And he made a sacrifice. He made a sacrifice pointing to the one who himself is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believeth. We're in the heart, not the garment. Lord created me a new heart. Put a right spirit within me. A rent heart is a heart that looks to Christ for grace and mercy. Let's go back to our text and just read these last verses quickly. Verse 13, and rend your heart and not your garments and turn unto the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful. Undeserving. You're not gonna, here's the motivation for having the heart rent. We have a God who's gracious, a God who delights in showing mercy. Slow to anger. Oh, how patient he is. How slow to anger he is. And of great kindness. And repenteth him of the evil, the judgment. Perhaps these things won't happen to us. What things? The judgment and wrath of God. If the heart is rent, then we have the hope that what God did to Christ on Calvary's cross put the fire out. It put the fire out. That Christ Jesus is our propitiation. God has been made propitious. His wrath has been put away. But even that, we don't claim presumptuously. Look at the next verse. Who knoweth? Who knoweth? You see, in every stage of faith and repentance, we're dependent upon the Lord. Maybe the Lord will be gracious to us. Maybe he'll leave a blessing behind. Maybe he'll leave a meat offering and a drink offering. That's Christ. Maybe he'll be pleased. To save me, what's the point? Asking the Lord to save you is just that, it's asking, it's asking. It's not demanding. We don't have anything to offer God that we could demand from him anything. Always for mercy, always for grace. Rend the heart. Rend the heart. That's where life is. It's in the heart. Left to ourselves, we'll rend our garments and we'll go about trying to impress men and trying to establish our own righteousness. We may have moral reforms, may clean things up, stop doing things and start doing other things. People have done that for the history of mankind. Cain did that. Cain brought the fruits of his labor, did he not? His heart wasn't rent, what Abe will bring, a blood sacrifice. Lord, my sin goes farther than what I've done with my hands, with my body. My sin is a matter of my heart. It's got to be washed in the blood of the Lamb. Only hope I have. We're in the heart, not the garment. Why? The Lord is gracious. He's full of mercy. He's slow to anger. He's patient. He delights in showing mercy. And who knows? Who knows? Perhaps he will leave behind a meat offering and a drink offering and we'll be saved. All right, let's take a break.