The day of the Lord

Good evening. We’ve come to part two of our new series on Joel: prophet to a prodigal people, which we’ve called ‘The God Who Restores’. Last week we looked with Ian at the devastating plague of locusts that’s described in Joel 1 – a plague that was used by God as a wake-up call to God’s disobedient and unfaithful people. This evening our focus is on the first part of Joel chapter 2 – Joel 2.1-11. And my title is ‘The Day of the Lord’, because that’s what Joel’s prophecy here is all about. Here’s how this section begins (Joel 2.1):

Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near.

We need God’s help, so let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you for your word that is living and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. We pray that you would speak to us this evening, and that by the power of your Spirit, your word would do its spiritual surgery on our hearts and minds. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

The devastation and disaster of this massive locust plague that has stripped the land bare is both an example of God intervening in righteous anger and also a pointer to coming judgement – ultimately the final Day of Judgement that the Bible teaches inescapably lies ahead for us all. So this section of Joel makes for uncomfortable hearing. Joel’s graphic language brings home to our hearts the reality of this coming judgement. When I was a young Christian in my teens I was taught a gospel outline, based on a number of key Bible verses. One of them was Romans 6.23:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The whole of Joel 2 is a kind of Old Testament, prophetic version of that verse. We can’t grasp the amazing grace of the second part if we haven’t taken to heart the reality and justice of the first part. Nor can we hear the first part without despair if we’re not aware of the promise of life in the second part. So that’s all the more reason to come back to hear the message of the second part of Joel 2, because there is great hope here but first we have to heed the warning. And Joel 2.1-11 is unrelenting in its insistence that the wages of sin is death. Now, I want to take a closer look at these verses by asking three questions about this passage. First, what does this say about God? Secondly, what does this say about judgement? And thirdly, what does this say about us? We’ll take them in turn. So:

1. What does this say about God?

For an answer to that, let me take you to the final verse of this section – Joel 1.11. This is what it says:

The Lord utters his voice before the army, for his camp is exceedingly great; he who executes his word is powerful. For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?

What does this say about God? Three things.

First, God speaks. Maybe we take that for granted, but we shouldn’t. The living God is personal and he communicates by his word. And the word he speaks here is a word of judgement. “The Lord utters his voice…” that’s a vivid phrase isn’t it – and it gives the impression of very deliberate speech, with every word weighed, thought-through and intended.

Secondly, God is powerful. That’s explicit here in Joel 1.11: “…he who executes his word is powerful.” The day of the Lord that his word brings on is a great and awesome event, almost beyond our imagining. With the locust hordes in mind, Joel speaks of the Lord addressing a vast army which is entirely at his disposal:

The Lord utters his voice before the army, for his camp is exceedingly great…

The living God, the God who speaks this word of judgement, is overwhelmingly and unchallengably powerful. No person and no power can stand against him.

Thirdly, God executes his word. When God says something, he makes what he says happen: “he who executes his word is powerful.” This is what the prophets learned. God put his word into their mouths. And it was a powerful word, because when God speaks, God acts accordingly. So God said through Isaiah (Isaiah 55.10-11):

[my word] shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

And Jeremiah said, using forceful imagery (Jeremiah 23.29):

Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

So God is powerful, and he executes what he says.

A while ago we saw a fascinating play based on the true events surrounding the launching of the D-Day invasion of Normandy, code-named Overlord. General Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. On the eve of D-Day, storms were threatening. James Stagg was Eisenhower’s weatherman, with the tricky task of predicting what the weather was going to do. But the Eisenhower had to make the decisions. Eisenhower was powerful. An army of 126,000 was ready to go, with 7,000 ships and troop carriers, and 10,000 vehicles. With a word, Eisenhower delayed the whole invasion. Stagg predicted a lull in the storms. And then, after a delay of one day, with a word Eisenhower set Overlord going. And what became a day of devastation was ultimately also a day of deliverance. But the power and effect of Eisenhower’s word was nothing in comparison to the power and the effect of the word of the living God. What does our passage tell us about God? He speaks. He is powerful. And he executes his word. So to our next question:

2. What does this say about judgement?

Answer: again, three things.

First, the day of the Lord is coming. Remember that the day of the Lord is the way the prophets referred to the Day of Judgement. And we need to be clear that it’s on its way. Joel 2.1:

Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming…

Just as surely as that horrifying plague of devouring locusts had swept irresistibly through Israel, so the day of the Lord would also arrive. Why should anyone doubt that? Because we all too readily doubt the word of God – such is our arrogance. And because in its final form it hasn’t happened yet. There was this day of judgement that came in the form of a destructive locust plague. There was the day when judgement fell, not on God’s disobedient and unfaithful people, but on their representative and substitute, Jesus, on whom the wrath of God against our sins was poured out – God himself, in the person of his Son, bearing the brunt of that day of the Lord so that we might escape as we put our trust in him. And there is the final day of judgement when the Lord Jesus returns. On that day God’s unrepentant enemies will be destroyed. And God’s repentant and trusting friends will be rescued for eternal life.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The day of the Lord is coming.

Secondly, the day of the Lord is near. (Joel 2.1):

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near.

When it will come, we do not and cannot know. But it is almost upon us. As we heard earlier from 2 Peter, in answer to the scoffing of the cynics (2 Peter 3.8-10):

…with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfil his promise…But the day of the Lord will come like a thief…

So the day of the Lord is coming. The day of Lord is near. And:

3. The day of the Lord is great and very awesome. (Joel 2.11):

For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?

We’re very slow and reluctant to take this warning on board – just as were the Israelites to whom Joel was speaking. That’s why he uses that locust plague to bring home the reality of it to our hearts and our imaginations. And Joel piles up graphic metaphor on graphic metaphor. The day of the Lord is like that locust plague. And that plague is like a forest fire, raging across the landscape ravaging everything in its wake. Joel 2.3:

Fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them.

And the day of the Lord is like the invasion of an army of unprecedented scale and ferocity sweeping through a land and operating a scorched-earth policy. And then Joel 2.4-6 those images of the fire and the army are combined (Joel 2.5):

As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire devouring the stubble…

And then Joel 2.7-9 conjure up the way that this vast army of locusts cannot be kept out of anywhere and are totally and terrifyingly unstoppable (Joel 2.8-9):

they burst through the weapons and are not halted. They leap upon the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief.

So overwhelming will it all be that creation itself will be shaken to the core. Joel 2.10:

The earth quakes before them; the heavens tremble. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.

So it’s all pretty frightening. To give a somewhat eccentric illustration, I think of my elderly mother who fell and broke her hip. She went under the surgeon’s knife. A rather frightening prospect. What was this surgeon going to do? He was going to remove my mum’s hip. If that’s all you knew, that would be devastating. And it was for the old hip. But of course, the destruction was for the ultimate purpose of reconstruction. And my mum came home a few days later with a new and pain-free hip. So we have to have an eye beyond the judgement. But the judgement is coming. It’s near. And it is great and very awesome. Which brings me to the last of my three questions.

3. What does this say about us?

Once more, three things.

First, we should sound an alarm. That’s Joel’s call to God’s people in Joel 2.1:

Blow a trumpet in Zion; sound an alarm on my holy mountain!

The alarm is really sounded by the word of God, of course – but our witness to the gospel of Christ has to include this warning of danger ahead.

The house I grew up in had quite a large garden. My siblings and I discovered that at the far end of it, half buried below ground and hidden beneath the undergrowth was a strange concrete structure with a little door. Our parents told us what it was – an old World War II air-raid shelter. When the sirens sounded, and wailed out the warning that the bomber were on the way, the general idea was not to ignore them, but to get yourself down the garden into the shelter and to safety. That’s the point of sounding the alarm about the coming day of the Lord. It’s to get as many as possible under the sheltering cover of the cross of Christ.

Secondly, we should tremble at God’s word. On to the next part of Joel 2.1:

Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming; it is near…

There is a right fear of judgement to come – and that’s not the kind of fear that causes us to flee from God, or to bury our heads in the sand and refuse to face up to what’s ahead. Right fear is the kind causes us to flee to God and throw ourselves on his mercy. And in the light of that:

Thirdly, we should face up to the question, who can endure the day of the Lord? (Joel 2.11):

For the day of Lord is great and very awesome; who can endure it?

And the point is, of course, that no-one can endure it. Only God can save us from it. And that’s what he’s done through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But if we’re going to be rescued, then we have to turn back to him, and keep on turning to him. Which is why next week we have an invitation service, and then the following week we return to Joel, and to these words from Joel 2.13:

Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful…

Let’s pray:

Heavenly Father, thank you that you are just and holy, gracious and merciful. Thank you for your patience towards us, “not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance”. Help us to face up to the reality of the coming day of judgement. Please work in our hearts by your Holy Spirit so that we tremble at your word. Teach us to rely on you alone for rescue. And help us to play our part in sounding the warning to a lost world in peril. We pray in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus. Amen.