Alright, let me direct your attention
now to the first chapter of the book of the prophet Joel, right
after Hosea, the prophet Joel. Now, the title of the message
this evening is this, The Day of the Lord is at Hand. The Day of the Lord is at Hand. And I took that title from verse
15 of Joel chapter 1. Let's read verse 15. The prophet
speaking to the southern kingdom of Judah, Israel, the southern
kingdom known as Judah. And he says, Alas for the day,
for the day of the Lord is at hand. And that phrase, the day
of the Lord, is used I think five times in this short book
that's divided into three chapters. The day of the Lord. is at hand,
and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come." Now,
one thing is true is we cannot under or overemphasize, rather,
the significance of particular days in the Scripture, and especially
this that is spoken of here, the day of the Lord. We can talk
about the days of creation. God created the world in six
days. and on the seventh day he rested. We can talk about
the dark days of man. Man fell on a day. Adam fell,
brought the whole human race into condemnation and death and
sin. And we've felt the effects of
that day ever since, haven't we? We've suffered the consequences
of that day in some form or another, to some degree or another, ever
since. We can think of that great day
of proclamation when the Lord stood before Adam and Eve and
the serpent and Satan, and He declared that there is redemption
coming in the woman's seed, that He's coming. And on that day
that the Lord established the way of salvation before the eyes
of man in the sacrificial system. And we could go on and talk about
all kinds of days. But the day of the Lord, what
is that day of the Lord? Well, let's look back at the
prophet Joel here. It says in verse 1, and this
whole part of this chapter is going to state out the theme
of Joel, the theme of the book. And of course, the theme of the
book ultimately refers to Christ and what was accomplished in
him and what is continually being accomplished in him. and what
will ultimately be accomplished in and by him as that great day
of the Lord. But it says, the word of the
Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel, hear this ye old
men and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Now he speaks to
the old men as leaders of the nation. This was a patriarchal
society. And that's how he refers to them.
They're the leaders of the nation. He said, have this been in your
days or even in the days of your fathers? Now, he's speaking about
a particular period of time and a particular event here. And
what he's saying, you old men, have you ever seen anything like
what you're seeing now? That's what he's saying. He says,
well, verse 3, tell you your children of it and let your children
tell their children. and their children another generation. Keep this message alive. Keep
telling it through generations. Now, first of all, we see something
of the message of the prophet Joel just in his name, just like
we do all the prophets. For example, you remember Hosea
is just another form of Joshua or Yeshua, which means Savior.
Hosea, a type of Christ. His wife, Gomer, a type of sinners. unconditionally by God according
to the covenant and saved by the grace of God. Well, Joel's
name means this, it means Jehovah is God. Jehovah is God. Now the fact that Jehovah is
God, here's the point, the fact that Jehovah is God is the foundation
of all eternal life, of all salvation and all judgment. Jehovah is
God. Now understand that. And it doesn't
mean, you know, there's several names of God in the scripture.
We can talk about El, the name El, or Elohim. We can go on,
we can talk about El Shaddai, all those names, and they all
mean something because God is so vast and so infinite that
you can't just describe Him or identify Him with one name. But
the name Jehovah, which we transliterate into our language today as Jehovah,
some say Yahweh, And some say you can't even really find a
word to reflect it, maybe so. But here's what's significant
about that. And we've seen this in so many
ways in studying the Old Testament and in dealing with the New Testament
because we understand that Christ Himself is Jehovah. He is the
great I Am. all the compound names that we
speak of Him, Jehovah Sidcanu, Jehovah Shalom, Jehovah Rapha,
all of those names that describe the glorious person of our Savior,
Jehovah God. And what that means is this,
it means that Jehovah who is the covenant God, He is the God
not only of creation, He is the God not only of providence, And
He is the God not only of judgment, ultimate judgment, but He is
the God of our salvation. our redemption. He is the covenant-keeping
God. He is the God who revealed Himself
through the seed of woman who would come and put away the sins
of His people. He's the God who before the foundation
of the world chose a people and gave them to Christ in the Godhead. He is the God who keeps His promise,
who revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as the God of
salvation. And as long as Jehovah is God,
And He always has been God, He is God today, and He always will
be God. As long as Jehovah is God, all
who come to Christ for salvation are safe and secure eternally. Jehovah is God. Joel was a prophet
of Jehovah. He had the message of Jehovah,
the message of the covenant. We have the message of the covenant
too. Whenever we preach the gospel,
the good news of salvation by the grace and mercy of God in
Christ who accomplished redemption on Calvary, we're preaching the
message of the covenant. Joel pointed forward to a future
time when that one who was promised would come and fulfill all righteousness. We, today, as we preach that
message, we point back to the accomplishment of it in that
time. But Joel spoke of that day, and
we speak of that day too. It says here that Joel's father
was named Pethuel. His name means open-heartedness
or sincerity towards God. And some say you can take it
either way. It could either speak of God's
heart revealing His grace to His people, sinners, saved by
the grace of God, which means this, that God has opened His
heart to you when He revealed Christ to you. When you read
His Word and you see the glory of Christ and the mercy of God
from Genesis to Revelation, you're looking into, now listen to this,
you're looking into the very heart of God. And it's a sincere heart. And
it's a true heart. It's a holy heart. Somebody said,
we were talking this morning about the messages in Mark 13,
and next week I'm gonna deal with the great deception of false
Christianity. You see, men can deceive us. Our own hearts can deceive us,
but the word of God can never deceive us. He'll never deceive
us. But then also it could speak
of the saved sinner's heart toward God. The Bible speaks of that.
Ezekiel prophesied that in the day of the new covenant, in the
power of the Holy Spirit, that he would give us a new heart,
that he would take away the stony heart and give us a heart of
flesh, that is, a broken and a contrite heart, a heart towards
God, a heart of repentance, a heart of faith towards God. And the
book of Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 22 describes that regenerated
heart this way. It says it's a true heart in
full assurance of faith. A true heart meaning a sincere
heart. A true heart meaning an honest
heart made so by the power of the Spirit in regeneration and
conversion. and a heart in full assurance
of faith because it's a heart, meaning the mind, the affections
and the will, that looks to and rests in and focuses in on Christ
and Him crucified and risen again. It's a heart. that looks to him,
a heart that believes in him. It's like this, under you therefore
which believe, he is precious. Now let me tell you something
now. I'll just give you a little preview of next Sunday morning's
message about this great deception stuff. And you listen to me very
carefully. Now, if you want to walk in this
life deceived, you go ahead. I told somebody a while ago,
I said, you know, I said the funny thing, it's not really
funny, but the sad thing about deception is that people who
are deceived do not know they are deceived. That's obvious,
isn't it? But if I don't want to be deceived
and you don't want to be deceived, well, you fix your heart upon
Christ and you'll never be deceived. You'll walk through this world
of chaos as men see it. We know it's not chaos because
we know God's in control. As Joel says, Jehovah is God. And so no matter what goes on
here, no matter how many multitudes are deceived by false religion,
you keep your heart fixed upon Christ and His glory and you'll
never be deceived. Joel, as I said, he prophesied
in the southern kingdom of Juna, but we really cannot pinpoint
the time of his prophecy I sort of believe he was one of the
later prophets, if not one of the last prophets. One reason
I believe that is because there's no mention of any kings here.
You know, Isaiah and Hosea, they prophesied during the reigns
of particular kings, and that's marked there. Well, you know,
after they came out of the Babylonian captivity, There wasn't a king
set up in Judah. It was basically governed by
the priesthood, and Joel has a lot to say to the priest about
their leadership. So I sort of believe he was one
of the last of the prophets. I don't know if you could say
he was a contemporary with Malachi, who was the last of the Old Testament
prophets, but he probably was somewhere in there. But here's
the point. No matter what time that Joel
prophesied, his message is timeless. It's for all ages. And that's
proven in what he said. Tell your children of it. Oh,
tell your children of it. And let your children tell their
children. Don't let this message die. That's
what he's saying. This is a message for all ages.
He says, and their children, another generation. This is a
message that's eternal. It has eternal value. This message
has... Listen, those who reject this
message, to them it will have eternal consequences. So don't
let this message die. It's for all generations. And
this message basically can be summed up in the title of this
message and what we read in verse 15, the day of the Lord is at
hand. I believe in Joel's day that's
speaking of the present and the future. I believe we could say
that for our day too. Not really speaking of one specific
day or specific period of time, but all times. Jehovah is God
at all days, on all days. Not just Sunday. He's God every
day. And any day or time. Now here's
what the day of the Lord actually is. Now listen to this. Any day
or time or time period that the Lord Jehovah manifest or reveals
his glory in some way is the day of the Lord. That's what
it is. That's what Joel's talking about. And listen, he can manifest
his glory in his just wrath against sin. And Joel has a lot to say
about that, especially in this opening chapter and later on
too. The day of the Lord can be manifested
in manifesting His glory in His mercy towards His people in Jesus
Christ. His just wrath against sin ultimately
would be the final judgment of all the wicked on that great
day of the Lord called final judgment. That certainly would
be a day of the Lord, wouldn't it? Where He would manifest His
justice against sin. But that day of His mercy, ultimately,
will be manifested in the gathering together of His people. Let me
tell you what I believe. You know, when you think about
this, the day of the Lord being at hand, and I'll tell you what
I think about. I think about that great day
of the Lord when He sent His Son into the world to die for
our sins, that day called Calvary. where he was on that cross in
Calvary. That was the greatest manifestation
and revelation and working of the glorious character and nature
of God ever in the history of the world, was the day when Jesus
Christ died on the cross. Because in that one day, and
actually you could even take it down, it's not even a 24-hour
day, three hours. When He was on that cross, we see every attribute
of Almighty God, Jehovah, working consistently together, not only
in the just punishment of all the sins of His elect people,
His sheep, but also in their deliverance through the blood
of the crucified one. What a day it was. And then I
think about that great day when the Lord manifested His glory
to me and to you. That great day of our new birth. Now I'm not asking you or telling
you or trying to urge you to go back to the calendar and try
to figure out what day that was because I would venture to say
And I know in my case, but for most of us, we can't pinpoint
a day and say, as some would like to say, this is my spiritual
birthday. And I was born again on such
and such day, 19 whatever. Can't say that. But I know this,
I know today, I see the glory of Christ, my Savior, my Lord. Today, I see the glory of God
revealed in the face of Jesus Christ. Today, I see that I'm
a sinner and that if God were to judge me on this day, right
now, based upon my best efforts to serve Him and to obey, I would
be condemned forever. But I see today also that my
sins were put away on Calvary 2,000 years ago on some particular
day. And I know that Christ finished
the transgression, took my punishment, and on that day He drank my damnation
dry. and He brought forth an everlasting
righteousness on that day that God would be able to justify
an ungodly sinner like me. That was manifested in His glory
on that day that He arose from the dead and on that day that
He ascended unto His Father, went up into the heavens and
He told His disciples, He said, don't despair because there's
coming another day and I'll come back again in the same way that
I leave, and I will gather you together." What a day. All those
days are the days of the Lord. Joel himself, he spoke of a future
day of the Lord in the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the
day of Pentecost. And we'll get to that later,
but it's over. If you want to read ahead, it's over in Joel
chapter 2, verses 28 through 32. And on then to the end of
the chapter, he really speaks of a future restoration of Israel,
not national Israel, but spiritual Israel, which would include God's
people out of every tribe, kindred, tongue, and nation. We're living
in that day, and what a day it is. look back and say, oh, I
wished I was there when Moses parted the Red Sea. You know
what you'd have been doing if you were there when Moses parted
the Red Sea? Well, you'd have probably walked
across with the rest of them, but on the other side of that,
they put together a golden calf, and you'd have probably been
right with them. I know I would have. You say, oh, not me. Not me. Not me. Yes, you. Yes, me. That's human
nature, isn't it? Without Christ, without grace. Oh, no, we live in a great day.
Jehovah is God. Now, he was God on that day back
then, but the children of Israel didn't acknowledge him and didn't
realize it and rested in a golden calf. And how many times did
they rest in golden calves from then on? We read about it in
Hosea. how they kept making golden calves, and they tried to set
that golden calf along with God. It's like people today who make
their little icons. And I'm going to tell you something
now, and I'm not here to just step on people's toes. There
are pictures, and there are icons, and there are religious visual
aids. And let me tell you something
why that's wrong. It's because nothing that is corruptible can
represent Jehovah who is God. Now let me tell you, think about
that. You can't, listen, you say, well, I don't worship it,
but it's just an aid to what, you don't need, all you need
to worship, you need the Spirit of God and the Word of God. Now
that's what you need to worship. The Spirit of God and the Word
of God that leads you to Christ and Him alone. Not a picture,
not something you hang around your neck, not anything like
that, not a vision in the sky, just the bare Word of God. and
thank God for that day. Peter spoke of this in Acts chapter
2 and you can read that too, we'll get to that later, Acts
2.17 when he spoke of the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel on the
day of Pentecost when you saw the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And that's what it was. It's
not that the Holy Spirit was not in the world during Joel's
day or even during Abel's day. The Holy Spirit was always in
the world doing his great work in the new birth even in the
Old Testament days. But it was like a conduit. It
was like a conduit where he burst forth at Pentecost and the message
of God's grace in Christ began to spread out all over the world,
even into the Gentile nations. And God began to bring his people
in, in that day. This God, whose day is coming,
Jehovah, He is God every day. And that's no matter what happens.
We cannot deny that Jehovah is God. He's in control. Now, the
day of the Lord may be a day of wrath against sin, but Jehovah's
still God. And it may be a day of grace
in salvation, and Jehovah is still God. Either way, God is
God. He's in control. The day of the
Lord, here in Joel, and every day that He manifests Himself,
whether in wrath or mercy, is ultimately revealed to bring
sinners to repentance. To bring sinners to repentance.
And as you know, and I've said, the hinge upon which all history
turns is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's meant to bring
sinners to glory only in Christ and Him crucified. and risen
again. And you know that's the whole
purpose of every day. I want to show you that. Just
turn back to Isaiah chapter 46. I read this verse quite often
because, you know, I was preaching through Isaiah and I made this
statement, you know. When we look at human history,
we don't have much to brag about, do we? I mean, we can talk about
technological advances and medical advances in many ways. And listen,
I thank God for those medical advances and technological advances. I enjoy the comforts of our day. I do. But when it comes to eternal
matters and spiritual matters, when it comes to issues of love
and and charity and all that. There's
not much to brag about in human history. It's a very dark, very
bloody history. That's history from man's point
of view. And I quote, a reporter asked Henry Ford one time how
he thought his place in history, what place he thought he would
have in history. And he made this statement. And
I know I offend a lot of people when I say this. I don't know
why. I don't know why y'all's ears are so sensitive. I mean, I've
told you the Bible is not rated It's a pretty much PG and all
that. But Henry Ford said this. He
said, history, what's that? He said, it's just one damned
thing after another. And that's what it is from man's
point of view. Damned. It's what history is. Without God, without Christ,
think about it. But when we see history each
day from God's point of view, how should we look at it? Well,
look at Isaiah 46 and verse 9. And God says here through the
prophet Isaiah, he says, remember the former things of old. For
I'm God, there's none else. I'm God, there's none like me.
Declaring the end from the beginning every day. That's the determinate
God. That's the predestinating God
there. And from ancient times the things
that are not yet done say my counsel shall stand. I will do
all my pleasure calling a ravenous bird from the east, the man that
executes my counsel from a far country. I've spoken it, I will
also bring it to pass, I've purposed it, I will also do it. Now let
me give you a summary of what he just said. He said Jehovah
is God. Right there. That's Joel's name
right there. That's an expansion upon it.
Now look at what it's all for though. Look at verse 12. Harken
unto me, you stout-hearted that are far from righteousness, you
proud self-righteous." Who's he describing there? He's describing
me and you in our natural flesh, in our natural state, as born
in Adam. You stout-hearted and you that
are far from righteousness, as born into this world a fallen
sinner, dead in trespasses and sin, I am far from righteousness. And I've got to have righteousness
in order to meet Jehovah, in order to be accepted and blessed
and eternally glorified. But I'm far from it. And really
what's bad about it, here's where the pride and the stout-heartedness
really comes into, is by nature we don't really understand and
realize how far we are from it. Because the very moment that
we think that man in his religion or in his efforts or in his sincerity
can get even near to righteousness, let alone be righteous, that
just shows you how stout-hearted we are. But we're far from it. We don't have it. And the best
of us, if we could go back through every day in history and just
find the best fella that ever lived except Jesus Christ himself. The best mere human being that
ever lived. I'm gonna tell you this verse
12 describes that person too. You believe that? Well, if you
don't, you haven't seen the day of the Lord yet. But look at
verse 13. Here's the issue. Here's why
Jehovah is God. I bring near my righteousness. God's righteousness. It shall
not be far off. Now, what he means by that is
it's not something you always have to reach for and strive
for. You know, you just, oh, I think I finally made it. Oh,
I stepped back a couple, you know. It's like these people
who believe in what they call progressive holiness. You know,
you make a lot of progress and then you commit some sin and
you go back two steps and you got to start up again. No, no. No, that's not what God's history
is all about. He says, it shall not be far
off and my salvation shall not tarry. No, this is not something
you have to wait for until you're good enough. Because if you're
waiting for it until you're good enough, you'll never make it.
He says, and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory. What do you think he's talking
about there? He's talking about Christ. There's my righteousness. I don't have to reach for it.
I don't have to wait for it. He's right there for anybody
who wants Him and His righteousness. And that's what Joel's talking
about. Now with that in mind, let's read this. Here's the day
of the Lord's judgment against sin. The day of the Lord can
be a day of warning, of judgment. But it's not a legal warning
now. Because all the warnings that Jehovah gives of judgment
is to drive sinners to Christ for rest and peace, for righteousness
and salvation. And so he says in verse 4, look
at it. 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." This is Joel chapter 1, verse 4. Now, what he's talking
about, and there's a little controversy here, he's talking about a locust
attack. You've heard of them, probably
seen them on TV. I don't know if anybody here has ever been
through one. The Day of the Locust. And I believe he's actually talking
about a physical swarm of locusts that entered into this area and
devastated it, every bit of it. And I'll tell you, you know,
if you go to the Mideast now and go to what they used to call
the Fertile Crescent, I mean, it's just dried up. piece of
land. I mean, that's what it is. But
do you know what it was called? Do you know what God called it
when He promised it to the children of Israel? He called it the land
flowing with milk and honey. So fertile. But the deterioration
of the land is a reflection of the spiritual deterioration of
the nation and ultimately the judgment of God comes against
them and it had physical manifestations. This is a day of destruction
here. And he goes through here, these words, we don't really
use them today, the palmer worm and the canker worm and the caterpillar,
that's different stages of the locust. Like the palmer worm,
that would be the devouring worm. That's the one who eats up everything.
And then there's the swarming worm. And then there's the canker
worm. That's the worm in its young
and virile state having offspring. And then the caterpillar, which
is the final stage before it bursts forth. And what he's talking
about is, in every stage of this, it's a complete destruction.
That's what he's talking about. Now, you may read some commentators
that they'll say that these are symbols. It really wasn't an
actual swarm of locusts. And the reason they say that
is because of verse 6. It talks about a nation has come
up on my land. And they'll say that these four
stages of locusts represent the four great empires in the history
of man that came down upon Israel. You have the Babylonian Empire,
that would be the Palmer worm. And then you have the Medes and
the Persians, the Medo-Persian Empire, that was the canker worm,
or the swarming worm. And then you had the canker worm,
that represented the Greek Empire. And then finally the caterpillar,
which represented the Roman Empire. Well, those were four human empires
that came down on Israel. and ultimately the Roman Empire
was the complete destruction of Israel in A.D. 70. But I don't
see anything in the text here to tell us that. Usually when
you see those symbols like in Ezekiel and in Daniel, it'll
tell you right there basically that these are four great empires.
It doesn't say that here in Joel. But I'll put it to you this way.
Whether you think it's symbolic, talking about nations or an actual
locust swarm, whatever, here's what it is. It's God's judgment
against sin. And it's a complete judgment.
It's a complete judgment. It's not a partial judgment.
It's God's vengeance. His ultimate vengeance, the day
of the Lord in vengeance against sin is never partial. It's always
complete. And I want to tell you, look
back again at that great day of Christ on the cross. Did Christ
suffer partially for my sins? No. Did He put away part of my
sins? No. He suffered completely unto
death, and He put away all my sins. Did He establish and work out
a partial righteousness just to give me a jump start toward
God? As some preachers say, He did
His part, now you do yours. I love what one old preacher
said when a fellow asked him, he said, what part did you have
in salvation? And the preacher said, I'll tell
you my part. He said, I did all the sinning, he did all the saving. I did all the running, he did
all the catching. That's our part in salvation.
We did all the sinning. But Christ didn't bring back...
Listen, He didn't put away sin partially, He put away sin completely. As you hear me say quite a bit,
He drank damnation's well dry. He brought in a complete, eternal,
everlasting righteousness whereby God could justify the ungodly. And that's what He's saying here.
This is a complete destruction now, and that's why we need to
thank God every day. that Christ died in our place.
Look at verse 5, he says, awake ye drunkards and weep, and how
all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it is cut
off from your mouth. In other words, there's no grapes
anymore, the locusts have eaten them all, you can't even make
wine. Whether or not this is symbolic of their spiritual decline,
that's fine, it is. whether he's talking about literal
drunkenness and partying and all that. I mean we have that
today and people enjoy it and they go about their business
and they don't give God a second thought. He says they won't even
be able to do this, this eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow
you die. All he talks about here is death,
that'll be taken away. He says in verse 6, for a nation
has come upon my land, strong and without number, and that's
a nation of locusts, I believe, but now like I said, some people
say it's talking about men whose teeth are the teeth of a lion
and hath the cheek teeth of a great lion." They can break the bone. That's what he's talking about,
the cheek teeth. That's the jaw. And he's talking about they can
bite down, they can break the bone, they can destroy. That's
what he's talking about. He says in verse 7, "...he hath
laid my vine waste." Israel many times was referred to as a vine,
God's vineyard. And he said, He barked my fig.
He stripped the tree. The locusts stripped the trees.
They stripped the bark off the trees. And it says, He hath made
it clean bare and cast it away, and the branches thereof are
made white. That means dead. They're dead.
Verse 8. He says, Lament like a virgin
girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. Like a
young married woman who's already lost her husband, here's what
you should do. Judah lamented, you shouldn't
be happy, you shouldn't be proud, you ought to be in sorrow. That's
what he's saying, over your sins. Instead of reveling, instead
of crying peace and prosperity, you ought to realize that you're
in lack of anything that would recommend you unto God. Devastation. Look at verse 9. He talks about
the meat offering. That's the meal offering. Meat
in the Old Testament and the New Testament is the way of saying,
when they sat down at meat, they sat down at a meal. And he says,
the meal offering and the drink offering is cut off from the
house of the Lord. The priest, the Lord's ministers,
mourn. In other words, it was so bad,
the devastation that these locusts brought towards the land was
so bad that they could not even offer the thank offerings. You
see, remember the meal offering and the drink offering, they
were thank offerings. In other words, they were based
upon the atonement offering. And then these were just thank
offerings. They didn't make atonement. They symbolized our thankfulness
to God. But he says, you can't even do
that. You can't even thank God. The meal offering was made of
fine flour, but there's no grain to make the flour. The drink
offering was made of grapes turned into wine. And he said, but there's
no vines. So you won't even be able to
thank the Lord. And basically, why is that? Because there's
no sacrifice. There's no sacrifice. You can
thank God all day, but without Christ as a sacrifice, what does
it mean? It means nothing. Look at verse
10. He said, the field is wasted.
The land mourneth, for the corn is wasted. The new wine is dried
up. The oil languisheth. There's no oil. There's no joy.
Verse 11, Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen, you farmers. How,
O ye vine dressers, for the wheat and for the barley, because the
harvest of the field is perished, the vine is dried up, the fig
tree languisheth. The fig tree, you know, that
represents life, it's gone. The pomegranate tree, we've talked
about pomegranates before. Everybody's into pomegranate
juice now because it's so healthy. Well, you don't have any health,
he's saying here. It's gone. No spiritual health. He says
the palm tree also, you remember in Psalm 1 where it talks about
how the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree? Who are the
righteous? Sinners saved by the grace of
God in Christ. That's not here. He says the
apple tree, I think about that because God calls His church
the apple of His eye. Even all the trees of the field
are withered because joy is withered away from the sons of men. without
God, without Christ, without the truth, without grace. But
now he talks about a day of repentance. Now look here in verse 13. He
says, gird yourselves and lament. You priests, how? It's got to
begin with the priests. They're the leaders of the people.
You know, the priesthood of the Old Covenant were symbols and
types of Christ and His church. The high priest was a type of
Christ, and the attending priest were types of the church. That's
how, in Christ, we're made priests unto God. We have free access
into the holiest of all because of the blood of Christ, our great
high priest, our sin-bearer and offering, our altar. And so he
calls upon the priest to lead the people not by example and
by proclamation. And so he says, gird yourselves
and lament ye, priest, how ye ministers of the altar. That's
the sacrifice. That's where it all has to begin
now. When he talks about repentance and revival, it has to begin
at the altar, not here now, not down here. He's talking about
the altar, the brazen altar where the blood was shed. where the
fire of God came down upon the sacrifice, representing Christ
on the cross and God's wrath upon him. And he says, come,
lie all night in sackcloth. These are emblems of mourning
and repentance. You ministers of my God, for
the meal offering and the drink offering is withholding from
the house of your God. Now, you see, the day of the
Lord here is not only to condemn but also to bring God's people
to repent us. Look at verse 14. He says, "...sanctify
or set apart ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather everybody
together, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land
into the house of the Lord your God and cry unto the Lord." There's
the repent, cry unto Jehovah. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. That's the issue. This fasting
is a sign of genuine repentance and sorrow over sin and a recognition
that I am nothing without Jehovah. I'm nothing without Christ. Verse
15, he says, Alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is at
hand and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Is
not the meat cut off before our eyes? Yea, joy and gladness from
the house of our God." Verse 17 says, "...the seed is rotten
under their claws." You see this destruction, see? "...the garners
are laid desolate, the barns are broken down, for the corn
is withered." He says, "...how do the beasts groan? The herds
of cattle are perplexed, even the animals are confused at what's
happening." I thought about Isaiah, you know, he said, "...even the
ass knows his master's crib." And he says the animals can't
even figure this one out. It's almost like he's picturing
animals saying, why are you human beings acting the way you are?
He says, because they have no pasture. Yea, the flocks of sheep
are made desolate. O Lord, to thee will I cry. For
the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame
hath burned all the trees of the field. The beast of the field
cry alas unto thee. I thought about Paul, what he
wrote in Romans 8. The whole creation groaneth. And he says,
for the rivers of water are dried up, and the fire hath devoured
the pastures, of the wilderness. What's he talking about? Well,
there's no lasting life, no lasting joy or gladness, no lasting fruit
except in the Lord. Without Christ, it's all death,
all devastation, poverty, all fruit unto death. There's no
bread without Christ, the bread of life. There's no water without
Christ, the water of life. No green pastures to lie down
in without the shepherd. That's what he's saying. No water
of life. Come to repentance. Trust in
the Lord. He is our hope. That's the message. All right.