The Day of Reckoning
Good evening. Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father, thank you that in the past you spoke, by your Spirit, through the prophets. And thank you that we hear your voice through them today. So please help us, to do that now. Speak to us, we pray, and open our ears to hear, and our hearts that we might be changed. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
‘The Day of Reckoning’ is my title this evening, and in our series on the prophet Joel, we’ve come to the last but one section – 3.1-16, which we heard earlier. If you have a Bible with you, please have that open in front of you.
Imagine a situation in which public shaming and punishment had been inflicted, either on you or on members of your family, or close friends, because of your Christian faith. More than that, some of you have been imprisoned, and others have had their homes and possessions confiscated by the state. You haven’t been executed (not yet, at least) but the threat is there, and hangs over you. All because you won’t renounce your faith that Jesus is Saviour and Lord. How would we feel about all that? And what would we think God should do about it? Those are real examples from New Testament times – all there in Hebrews 10. Maybe you have been on the receiving end of a serious injustice. Or maybe you’ve had some kind of encounter with real evil up close and personal. If so, then perhaps you’re better prepared than many to hear what God is saying to us in this part of Joel. But let’s all of us open our ears to this because if we haven’t suffered for our faith yet, then in one way or another the time will come, and we need to be ready for it. So here’s a bit of preparatory training from God the Holy Spirit, who equips us for whatever lies ahead.
Last week we heard from Ramzi about how the devastating locust plague which Joel describes was a wake-up call to the people of God to turn back to him, and about how that plague foreshadowed what is to come for all of us – the Day of the Lord, as Joel calls it. We live in the Last Days between the First Coming of Jesus and the outpouring of his Spirit on all his people, and the final Second Coming of Jesus. Last week Ramzi’s focus was on that First Coming. This evening we move on to the final Day, of judgement and salvation.
What, then, does this prophetic word from God through Joel teach us today? I want to draw our attention to five lessons – and each one builds on what’s come before.
1. In the end there will be a day of reckoning
Here are Joel 3.1-2:
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 judgement with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel…
And it’s immediately striking to see that this coming day of judgement will be on behalf of my people. If we’re trusting in Jesus, we should be seeing the Day of Judgement as a promised blessing from God, rather than something to dread. It is the day when the fortunes of God’s people are restored. We’ll see more of why that is, as we go through. The Valley of Jehoshaphat is a graphic way of talking about That Day, because Jehoshaphat literally means ‘The Lord has judged’. ‘Verdict Valley’, you might say. And we need to see that there’s no escaping from That Day. All the nations will be gathered into the Valley of Jehoshaphat, brought before God on the Day of Judgement. No individual and no culture will be exempt. The fact that a nation’s culture is not Christian doesn’t mean that Jesus isn’t Lord over it. He is. When he comes again to judge, all nations will be brought before him to give account. Then Joel 3.15 says:
The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.
That picks up the powerful language of Joel 2.30-31 that we saw last week:
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.
As someone has commented, this is an indication of the ‘staggering intensity and cosmic scope of the divine activity’ on That Day. And intensity is piled on intensity. Joel 3.16:
The Lord roars from Zion, and utters his voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth quake.
Such is the power of the word of God – it thunders from one end of the universe to the other, and shakes it to the core, like a great cosmic earthquake.
So we need to take to heart the fact that there will be a day of reckoning. Life matters. School students tend to dread exams, but the last couple of lockdown years have shown that the only thing worse than exams is no exams. And not just our studies, but our lives do matter. We will give account to God.
2. There will be justice for God’s persecuted people
The nations will be gathered for judgement, as we’ve already seen from Joel 3.2. Let me remind you of that. It says:
I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgement with them there, on behalf of my people and my heritage Israel…
And here’s Joel 3.10-12 as well:
Beat your ploughshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weak say, “I am a warrior.” Hasten and come, all you surrounding nations, and gather yourselves there. Bring down your warriors, O Lord. 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.
The unjust persecution of God’s people was a reality then and it is a reality now. One of the resources I try to use is the Barnabas Fund prayer diary. Here’s part of an entry from last month:
Today is the 18th birthday of Leah Sharibu, who has been held captive by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria since she was kidnapped at the age of 14. Many other girls at her school in Dapchi were seized in the same raid but have been released. It is believed Leah’s ordeal continues because she refuses to convert to Islam.
Let’s be praying for Leah and others like her – not least that she’ll know that her Lord has not forgotten her, and that there will be a day of reckoning for those who are causing her to suffer. The Anglican Mainstream website is one that I highly recommend for keeping up to speed with what’s going in the church and the wider culture. It has a piece this week about Eritrea. It is described as:
…one of the worst countries in the world for Christian persecution, where conditions are so harsh for believers that it is described by some as Africa’s North Korea…As a result of this persecution tens of thousands of Christians have fled Eritrea…Christians are considered illegals…but there is no crime being done apart from believing in God.
But, says the Lord through Joel, there will be justice for God’s persecuted people.
3. There will be pay-back time for the sins of the nations
Listen to Joel 3.2-8, and you’ll hear that there is a catalogue of serious sin spelled out here, for which pay-back time is coming:
I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. And I will enter into judgement 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.“What are you to me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the regions of Philistia? Are you paying me back for something? If you are paying me back, I will return your payment on your own head swiftly and speedily. For you have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried my rich treasures into your temples. You have sold the people of Judah and Jerusalem to the Greeks in order to remove them far from their own border. Behold, I will stir them up from the place to which you have sold them, and I will return your payment on your own head. I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the people of Judah, and they will sell them to the Sabeans, to a nation far away, for the Lord has spoken.”
Of what, then, are the nations guilty in God’s sight? They have scattered God’s people; taken their land; treated them with contempt, enriched themselves through slave trading; engaged in gross sexual immorality; debauched themselves with the proceeds of their slave trading – treating people like property for a moment of pleasure. They have stolen God’s treasures; and defiled God’s name with their idolatry. God is Lord of all the earth, and although he is slow to anger, he is a holy God who justly hates unrighteousness and injustice and he won’t let it go on for ever. Joel 3.13:
Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Go in, tread, for the wine press is full. The vats overflow, for their evil is great.
Apparently one of the TV lockdown hits is The Repair Shop. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. I love it. Smashed up old things of all sorts are restored in front of our eyes by expert craftsmen and women. There are always three stages. One: identify what’s wrong and needs to be put right. Two: remove all of that, once and for all, and bin it. Three: restore. So it is with God, and his world. There will be payback time for the sins of the nations.
4. Right up to the end there is an invitation to decide to turn back to God
Joel 3.14:
Multitudes, multitudes, in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.
And that takes us back to Joel 2.32, quoted in the New Testament by the apostle Paul, about which Ramzi spoke last week:
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.
I have a print of an old photograph of the evangelist Billy Graham in the 1950s preaching to a great crowd in Trafalgar Square in the heart of our capital city. Joel 3.14 was one of the key verses that he kept coming back to. He used to talk to multitudes about the valley of decision. My father was one of those who heard him, and he decided to turn back and give his life to Christ. How glad I am that he did, because the sins of the nations are not just out there, of course, they’re in here too. They’re in our own hearts and lives. We all need to be restored. So what about you? Have you yet turned away from your own sin and turned back to God? If not, the invitation is for you too. And there is no better time than now. None of us knows when the end will come. God is calling you back to himself. Now is the time to hear and respond. And if you want to know more about how to go about it, or to look more closely into the claims of the Christian faith, then a good place to start is our website whyjesus.org.uk. Right up to the end there is an invitation to decide to turn back to God, but please, don’t delay. Don’t leave it too late. Then finally:
5. God will make his people safe
This has been a sombre, not to say frightening prophecy this evening. But take a look at the wonderful way our section ends. Joel 3.16:
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.
That’s really like a trailer and a transition into the final, glorious and joyful section of this rather shattering short prophetic book. Matt’s going to take us through that next week, so whatever you do, don’t miss that. It’s what all of this has been driving towards. But what’s immediately clear from this little trailer is that God will make his people safe from all danger.
Vivienne and I are really enjoying watching our two small grandchildren, Ezra and Phoebe, as they learn to navigate this world they find themselves in. One thing is clear. Wherever they are, even if they’re in totally unfamiliar surroundings, if they’re with their mum and dad then they feel safe and secure. So it is with all of us, young or old. In the face of all the ravages of sin, Satan and death, if we are with our heavenly Father, restored to his side through faith in the crucified and risen Christ, then we too are safe. He is our refuge. He is our stronghold. And not just for now. But for all eternity. Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father, we live in a world that is in the Valley of Decision, facing the Valley of Jehoshaphat. Thank for speaking to us about the day of reckoning that is coming, and not leaving us in the dark about it. Thank you that Jesus is the hope of the world. Through him, comfort our brothers and sisters around the world who are suffering for their faith. Teach the nations, and teach us, to turn back to you through faith in him – so that we can find our refuge in you. In Jesus name we ask it. Amen.