In the book of Joel, there's
Daniel, Hosea, and Joel. Joel, chapter 2. I've entitled this message, Rend
Your Heart and Not Your Garments. You'll see why I entitled that
after we read this passage of Scripture. Beginning in verse
12 of Joel, chapter 2, 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. Rend your heart and not your garments. And throughout
the scriptures when people were greatly upset or troubled or
afflicted Or even when they would receive bad news, they'd tear
their clothing. Remember Job? When the Lord brought
all those things upon him and people gave him the news, he
tore his mantle. He tore his clothing. When the
men saw him, they all tore their clothing when they saw what a
strait he was in. Now, the Lord says in this passage
of scripture, remember, this was the custom. When you receive
bad news, when bad things are happening, rip your garments,
rip your rip your clothes and just show your sorrow. And the
Lord says, rend your heart. Rip your heart. And not your
garments, the rending of the garments is something that is
done on the outside. But the heart may remain the
same. So he says, you make sure you
were in your heart. And not your garments and verse
12 of Joel, chapter two. Therefore, also now. Now. Sayeth the Lord, turn ye even
to me with all your heart. Now, if you read this passage
of scripture. He talks about all these horrible things that
were going to take place because of their sins. And he names five
or six different things. I mean, it's a judgment. Just read up to this passage. Scripture is scary. All the judgments,
he says, are going to come on this people. But then he says,
right now, right now, turn to me. I know I've said all these
things and I know I've pronounced all these judgments, but right
now, turn to me. Now, let me tell you something.
The day of salvation is always now. The time to believe is right
now. Not when you get better, not
when you learn more, not when you understand more. The time
to believe is right now. Don't wait. Don't wait. Now, he says, turn ye to me. And do it with all your heart. Turn ye, turn ye, O house of
Israel, why will you die? I think of the way the Lord says
that to these people. There's a beseeching going on
when he says, turn ye to me. Why will you die? Why will you
go in this direction? Turn ye to me and you do it with
all your heart. Turn to me Look unto me and be
ye saved. Don't turn to the law. Don't
turn over a new leaf. Turn to me. I am the only one
that can do you any good. Can you believe that? Turn unto me. And he says to
do so with all your heart. Look at it again in verse 12.
Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me. with all your heart, with fasting,
with weeping, and with mourning. Don't be half-hearted. Don't
be insincere. Don't be hypocritical. Turn to
me with all your heart. Now, there are so many examples
in the Scripture of half-heartedness, and I don't want to be half-hearted. Do you? Saul had a half-hearted obedience.
Half-hearted. And he ended up proving to be
nothing more than a hypocrite. God said, destroy everything.
He destroyed the refuse. He destroyed that which didn't
cost him anything. And he kept what he wanted. He
was half-hearted. I think of Balaam. Remember when
God said, don't you curse me? Don't you curse Israel? I blessed
him. You can't curse him. So Balaam comes up to Balaam
and says, curse him. He says, I can't. God said, I
blessed him. I can't curse him. However, I'll
come with you. After Balaam said, I'll give
you a bunch of money. I'll make this worth your while.
He said, well, I'll come and see if the Lord has anything
else to say. He was half hearted. God had already told him, but
he was half hearted. He opened the door for something
else. What about Ananias and Sapphira? They kept back part
of the promise. They were half-hearted. What does the Bible mean by the
heart? Please, listen carefully. I talked about that, or read
that passage of Scripture, keep your heart with all diligence,
for out of it are the issues of life. What does the Bible
mean by the heart? And by the heart, the Bible means
the whole man. Means the understanding. Means
the affections. And it means the will or the
desire. I think maybe this is a better
way to look at this thing of will, the desire. What you desire
is what you really are. That's what your will is, what
you desire. Now, I realize we can't make our will come to pass,
but we sure enough have a will. We have a desire. And he says,
turn to me with all your heart. Now, man's religion never addresses
the whole heart. I think if you take what is called
Christianity, you can pretty much summarize it by three different
groups. First, there's reformed. Then
there's free will, Arminian. And then there is the Pentecostals
or the Charismatics. I mean, everybody kind of gets
into one of those three groups. Reformed addresses the intellect. The Pentecostals address the
emotions and the affections. The free willers address the
will. But God addresses the heart,
the whole man. Like I said, false religion will
always only address one of those things. But when in the gospel,
God addresses the whole heart. And I think of what was said,
what Philip said to the Ethiopian eunuch when he said, see, here's
water. What hinders me from being baptized? I want to know if for
some reason why I shouldn't be baptized. And he said, if you
believe with all your heart, you may. Now, I used to question,
what does that mean? How do you go about believing
with all your heart? It's some kind of vague, nebulous thing,
or what's it mean to believe with all your heart? Now, you
know what that Ethiopian Unitarian answered? I remember he said,
what hinders me from being baptized? He said, if you believe with
all your heart, you may. He said, I believe that Jesus
Christ is the son of God. And I believe that with all my
heart. Now, what's that mean? Well,
first of all, I have some understanding that he's God. I believe that.
I have some understanding that he's the one who created the
universe. I have some understanding that He's the one who controls
everything. I have some understanding that He's God, that salvation's
in His hands, it's in His sovereign hands. I understand that. Not
only do I understand that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, I love Him being the Son of God.
I love Him being God. I love Him being in control.
I love Him being the Savior. And not only do I understand
this, not only do I love this, that's my affections, this is
my desire. It's my desire. And if God, if
you cut into my heart, you could see that I desire that Jesus
Christ is God. That's glorious to me. With the heart, man believeth
unto righteousness. Not just with the intellect,
not just with the affections, not just with the will, but with
the heart, with the whole man. I, with my heart, understand
that Jesus Christ is my righteousness before God. I understand that.
I understand His righteousness is the only righteousness there
is. But not only do I understand that, I love that. And not only do I love that,
This is my desire, that his righteousness is the only righteousness. Now,
it's with the heart. He said, turn to me with all
your heart. And I fear insincerity. I fear only being partial in
my turning to the Lord. Now, when I turn with all my
heart, I had no plan B. I had no contingency plan, no
holding back. All my bridges are burned, and
I commit to this. If who he is and what he did
isn't enough to save me, I'll be damned. I'm letting go of
everything else. He is my salvation. And I don't have any other hopes. I don't have any other plans.
I don't have a plan B. This is it. I've committed the salvation
of my soul to him, and anything short of that is half-hearted. Now, look at what he says in
verse 12. Therefore also now saith the Lord, turn ye even
to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping,
and with mourning." Fasting, this is more important to me
than food. That's how important this is. It's more important
to me than my necessary food. With weeping, genuine sorrow
over your sin and what's taken place to bring you to this place.
And then with mourning. So what's the difference between
weeping and mourning? There is a difference. We mourn when someone's dead. At that point, there's nothing
we can do to bring them back. We mourn. And I mourn over my
sin when I see that there's nothing I can do about it. And I'm mourning. I'm fasting, I'm weeping, and
I'm Now he says that's the way to turn to the Lord. Turn to
the Lord with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and
with mourning. And look what he says in verse
13. And rend, tear, rip apart your heart and not your garments. Now what is this sinner's biggest
problem? Well, let me turn it around.
What's your biggest problem? Your heart. Your heart. An evil heart. You know, very few people have
any awareness of this. If a mother's son is a serial
killer, he still had a good heart. I mean, that's the way people
go. He's got a good heart. No, he
doesn't. No, he doesn't. He's got an evil heart. The scripture
says the heart is desperately wicked, deceitful above all things. Who can know it? We do not have good hearts. Remember what the heart is? It's
the understanding, it's the affections, and it's the will. You know,
by nature, I can't understand the things of God. Oh, I can
understand a logical system and so on, but as far as truly understanding
the things of God, it's beyond me. I can't understand grace. My understanding is no good.
God's got to give me a new understanding or I can't understand. It's impossible
to understand the gospel. It can't come by me studying
it out and figuring it out. No, it's got to come by revelation
because my understanding is no good. But not only is my understanding
deficient, and I can't, listen to me, if God leaves you alone,
you'll never understand the gospel and you'll go to hell. Now, do
you understand that? Understanding is no good. God's
got to intervene. But not only is my understanding
no good, my affections are no good. I love what I ought to
hate, and I hate what I ought to love. My affections are no
good. And not only are my affections
no good, my will is chained to sin. That's why I don't believe
in a second for free will, in free will. The belief that you
can freely choose to be good or you can freely choose to do
the right thing. Well, we're free in the sense
that we do what we want to do. When you sin, you did what you
wanted to do. God didn't cause you to do it.
God didn't make you do it. When you sinned against God,
when I sinned against God, we're doing what we want to do. Everybody
does exactly what they want to do. But my will is controlled
by an evil nature. There's no such thing as free
will and that sins. We have evil natures that control
our desire. Remember, our will is our desire.
Our desire. Look at the corrupt desires you
have. That's what your will is. What can you do about that? Can
you change it? Can you get it to stop? No, my
problem is my heart. a messed-up understanding, a
messed-up affections, and a messed-up will. I need a new heart. My heart is beyond repair. It's no good. And what I need
is a new heart. Now, the only way you can come
with all your heart is if you come with a rent heart. Anything
else is a lie. Let me show you that in Scripture.
Turn with me to Psalm 51. Psalm 51. I love this psalm. This is David's psalm of repentance,
and it's so honest. Let's read this psalm together. And this is after Nathan has
confronted David with his sins. You remember the story about
the man who was very wealthy and had a lot of flocks, and
another man who had a sheep. He treated that sheep as if it
was his only child, and it actually ate at his table. And a visitor
came through, and that wealthy man didn't want to use one of
his sheep, so he went and got that other fellow's sheep, and
killed it, and fed it to the visitor. And David said, Find
that man and kill him. As the Lord lives, I'm going
to put him to death. And Nathan said, Thou art the
man. And then David writes this song.
He says in verse 1, Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness,
according to the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out
my transgressions, wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse
me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. against thee, thee only have
I sinned." Now, wait a minute, David. What about Bathsheba?
You sinned against her. What about Uriah? When you murdered
him, you sure enough sinned against him. What is this thing about
against thee and thee only have I sinned? My dear friend, I've
not learned what sin is until I find out it's against God.
That's the problem. You remember when that Look at chapter 15, the prodigal. He says, I've sinned against
heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called
thy son. David understood his sin was
against God. Now, that's not saying it didn't
have anything to do with Bathsheba or Uriah, but that's not the
problem. It's against God. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.
Behold, this man's a man with a rent heart. Behold, I was shaken
in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou
desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part
thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop. And somebody
says, what's this if it's the branch that was used to dip the
blood and put it over the door during the Passover? When I see
the blood, I'll pass over you. Purge me with the blood of the
paschal lamb. Cause your blood to wash away
my sin. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy
face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in
me a clean heart, O God. My heart's filthy, and I can't
come up with anything else, so create in me a new one, a clean
heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit
from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and uphold
me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors
thy ways. And sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver
me from bloodguiltiness, sins that deserve damnation, O God,
thou God of my salvation. And my tongue shall sing aloud
of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips, and
my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not
sacrifice, else would I give it thou delightest not in a burnt
offering." The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and a contrite heart,
O God, thou wilt not despise. A broken heart, a broken spirit,
crushed, contrite, collapsed, shattered, We do it with a broken glass.
Try to put it back together? No, you throw it away. It's useless. It's no good. That's what we
do with broken things. We throw them away. They're no
good. But this broken, rent, contrite
heart, God will not despise. He will not disdain. He will
not disesteem it. As a matter of fact, this is
the work of His grace in you, if you've got this. And He delights
in it. The only thing I know of that
is its best state when it's broken is the heart. A broken heart,
O God, thou will not despise. Now, when is a heart truly broken? You know, I've seen a lot of
partially broken hearts, but somehow they recover. They recover. And they never really bow the
knee to Christ. Now, when is a heart truly broken? And this is the heart that God
won't despise. First of all, when every part of it is broken. There's not one part that works. It's no good. It's all bad. And it's broken beyond repair. It's not something that can be
mended. It's not something that can be
made better. It must be replaced with a new
heart. Now, that's a broken heart. It's
shattered beyond repair. It's no good. It can't do what
it's supposed to do. It's in a complete state of inability.
My heart is broken when all my sin is all my fault. I can't blame somebody else.
I can't blame Adam. I can't consider myself a victim
of the sovereignty of God. I can't blame society. All my
sin is all my fault. I'm no victim. All my sin is
all my fault. Now only when my heart is like
this can I sue for mercy. You don't ask for mercy until
you're brought right here. It's impossible to ask for mercy
until you're brought right here. Only when my heart is like this
will I see my need of his grace. And only when my heart is like
this will God look to me in mercy. Turn to Isaiah 66. It's a blessed
thing to have a broken heart, a broken and a contrite heart,
O God, thou wilt not despise. Isaiah chapter 66, verse 1. Thus saith the Lord, the heaven
is my And the earth is my footstool. Where is the house that you'll
build unto me, and where is the place of my rest? For all those
things have mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith
the Lord. But to this man will I look, even to him that is poor. He has nothing, and of a contrite,
a crushed spirit and trembles at my word." Now, when the heart
is torn, all these ideas of self-importance and self-righteousness have been
torn out. Now, this broken heart, the Scripture
speaks of, really, when it comes right down to it, it's honesty
before God. Anything else is funniness. It's
true and genuine honesty before God. You know, when something's
broken, it's broken, it's shattered. You can see what's in it, can't
you? You can see what's there. And God sees what's in this broken
heart. And this is the heart. You see,
this heart that's broken, it's no good. It can't do anything.
It's easy for that heart. It's very easy for that heart
to believe in grace, isn't it? It's very easy for that heart
to believe that the righteousness of Christ is the only righteousness
there is. It's very easy for that heart
to see the necessity of divine election. If he doesn't choose
me, I know enough about myself to know that I'd never choose
him. It's easy for that heart to understand the necessity of
an effectual, successful atonement by the Lord Jesus Christ. I've
got no other hope except that he died for me. I don't have
anywhere else to look. It's easy for that heart to understand
the necessity of irresistible, invincible, sovereign, saving
grace. Now, a broken heart can see these
things. An unbroken heart can't, but oh, for a broken heart. There's no true turning to God
without this. Now, let's turn back to the book
of Joel. He says in verse 13, And rend
your heart and not your garments. This is not about show. This
is what God sees. You come to God with a torn heart
and turn unto the Lord your God. There's no turning without this.
Turn to the Lord your God. Isn't that glorious how he says
turn to? He doesn't say the Lord, the
God. He says the Lord your God. Anybody
that has this torn heart, turning to the Lord. The Lord is their
God, their Savior. Now let's go on reading. Rend
your heart, not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God,
for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and
of great kindness, and repented Him of the evil. Now he's gracious. That's his nature. Grace is his
unmerited, unsought, unasked for favor. He delights in being
gracious. Everybody that comes with his
torn heart finds grace. He's gracious. He's merciful. He delights in mercy. He's moved
to pity of that torn heart that comes in. You come to him like
that. He's moved to pity. That's what mercy is. Mercy is
his response to your misery. That's the way our God is. He
delights in mercy. He's slow to anger. The fact
that you're not in hell right now, the fact that I'm not in
hell right now tells us he's slow to anger. He's slow to anger. and of great kindness. And look what it says in this
last verse, or this verse 13, this last phrase, and repented
him of the evil. Now you read this book of Joel,
and he talked about all these things he was going to do in
judgment. And yet here it says that person who turns and comes
to him with this rent heart, he repents of the evil that he
intended to do. God is immutable. He never changes His mind. He never changes His person,
His purposes. His decrees are never changed. Whatever His purpose, that's
what's going to happen. You know that so. You know that
so. That's what the Scripture teaches. God is absolutely sovereign. He never changes his mind. And you know, I'm thankful it's
that way. God is immutable. Now, if that
leads us to fatalism, we've not understood. If that leads us to despair, what's
the use? He's already purposed everything.
we've not understood, we are always encouraged, me and you,
to turn to the Lord. The fact that he's decreed everything,
and that he controls everything, and that everything is already
mapped out, mapped out is not the right word, it's going to
happen, it came to pass because he decreed it, everything that
he Causes to come to pass, comes to pass. Now that's so, but you
turn to the Lord and you will find mercy. Somebody says, well,
such belief in sovereignty, that'll paralyze men and make them think
it's pointless to seek the Lord. No, it doesn't. It opens the
door of hope. He's gracious. Now, you take
election, limited atonement, Christ Invincible, irresistible
grace. That doesn't discourage me from
seeking Him. It really doesn't. It makes me
know there's salvation for people. Why not me? Why not me? What if I'm not? What if you
are? What if you are? This should never discourage
seeking the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and
with all your strength. Look what it says in verse 14.
Who knoweth? If he will return and repent
and leave a blessing behind, not a curse, but a blessing. Who knows if he'll return and
turn toward us. Turn to me. I know I will not
turn unless you turn to me and repent. Change his mind regarding
this judgment. I thought you said God never
repents. He doesn't. But here it says he repents. Well, try
to explain that. I don't feel he need to. Don't
feel he need to. God's not a man that he should
repent. And it's also true that if you turn to him, he'll turn
things around for you. That's the promise of the scripture.
He said, I'll turn and leave a blessing and not a curse. Now, if I turn to the Lord with
all my heart. That is a blessing of grace. If I ring my heart,
not my garments, it's a blessing of grace. And God is gracious.
God is merciful. God delights in showing mercy. You turn, you'll be received. Now I want to close by looking
at Psalm 103. This is what came to my mind
when I was thinking about this. He says, turn to me, O would
to God that I turn to him, not anywhere else but to him. Look
here in Psalm 103. David says, Bless the Lord, O
my soul, and all that's within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and
forget not all his benefits. And he starts to name them, who
forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases,
who redeemeth thy life from destruction, who crowneth thee with loving
kindness and tender mercies, who satisfieth thy mouth with
good things, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
The Lord executeth righteousness and judgment. for all that are
oppressed. He made known his ways unto Moses,
his acts unto the children of Israel. And we've already heard
this from Joel. The Lord is merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. He will not always
chide, neither will he keep his anger forever. He has not dealt
with us after our sins. nor rewarded us according to
our iniquities. Aren't you thankful for that?
For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy
toward them that fear him, as far as the east is from the west. So far hath he removed our transgressions
from us. Like as a father pitieth his
children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him, for he knoweth our frame. He
remembereth that we are dust. As for man, his days are as grass,
as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind
passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know
it no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting
to everlasting upon them that fear him. And his righteousness
unto children's children, to such as keep His covenant, and
to those that remember His commandments to do them. The Lord hath prepared
His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom ruleth over all.
Bless the Lord, ye His angels that excel in strength, that
do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of His word. Bless
ye the Lord, all ye His hosts, ye ministers of His, that do
His pleasure. Bless the Lord, all His works,
in all places of His dominion, Bless the Lord, O my soul. He leaves a blessing. How do I turn to the Lord? What in the world does it mean
to turn to the Lord? I can tell you exactly what it means. It
means right now, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Trust Him as all you need to
make you perfect before God. If you do that, you've turned
to the Lord. And until you do that, you've
never turned to the Lord. Look unto Me, and be ye saved,
all the ends of the earth. For I am God, and beside Me is
none else. Rend your hearts. and a few garments. Let's pray together.