“The Day of the Lord” – FBC Morning Light (9/20/2024)

A good Friday morning to you. I trust you're looking forward to a good weekend and gathering with God's people on the

Lord's Day this week. And today in our Bible reading we're reading in Joel chapters 1 through 3, the whole book of Joel, frankly, and that's it.

So I trust that that book and the reading of it will be a blessing to you. I want to focus on, you know, some of the first chapter and then a couple verses in the second chapter of this brief little book.

You know, this really addresses, this book addresses one of the typical longings of the average human heart.

You don't have to be religious to have this longing, and that is a longing for utopia. You remember, maybe you do, if you're an old guy like me, you can think back several years ago now, 56, almost 60 years ago probably, with the

Beatles and John Lennon, and he wrote this song that was entitled

Imagine, and it was a song that imagined a utopian society.

There's no heaven, there's no hell, there's no religion, there's no desire for anything that anybody else has, everybody lives in peace and harmony, and the whole world will live as one, one big happy family, peace, tranquility, and all the rest of that.

I think everybody, pagan or Christian, would long for that kind of a utopian society, a utopian world, and that's, in fact, the very thing that God has promised eventually.

He says, you get the book of Revelation, the end of the book, and what do you have? You have a new heavens and a new earth, and there is peace, there is harmony, there is no curse, it's just all utopian.

Well, in ancient Israel, the people of God had this sense that the day of the

Lord, when the day of the Lord comes, then with that day of the Lord will come utopia, come a great deal of peace and prosperity, and so on.

But there's an aspect of the day of the Lord that they did not anticipate, or they were not looking forward to, or expecting it.

They didn't think it was for them, and it's a day of the Lord that first comes, as we read in chapter 1, verse 15, as destruction from the

Almighty. That's not a popular theme, is it? Go stand on the street corner and say, hey, listen, the day of the

Lord is coming, and as a destruction from the Almighty, it is going to come. Well, whether or not it's popular is irrelevant, isn't it?

The question is, is this the word of the Lord? And this was the word of the

Lord from the prophet Joel for the people of God. And verses 4 to 13 of chapter 1 is a very picturesque, graphic way of describing the way that destruction will come, through pestilence and famine and all the rest of that kind of thing.

In chapter 2, verses 1 through 11, we're not going to read all of that, but just notice some of the qualities or characteristics of that day.

The end of verse 1, it says, The day of the Lord is coming, for it is at hand a day of darkness and gloominess, of clouds and thick darkness.

And what's coming is a people, great and strong, the like have never been before, nor will ever be.

Verse 3, a fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. Verse 5, with a noise like chariots over mountain tops, they leap.

And verse 6, before them the people writhe in pain, all faces are drained of color.

They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like men of war, everyone marches in formation, and they do not break ranks, they do not push one another, everyone marches in his own column, they are not cut down, they run to and fro in the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the houses, they enter in at the windows like a thief.

The day of the Lord, the end of verse 11, summarizing it all, the day of the Lord is great and terrible.

Who can endure it? Okay, so there's another side of the day of the

Lord. Will the day of the Lord usher in a global utopia?

Yes, but before that, before that, there is a day of darkness and gloominess that the

Prophet speaks of. Now this was all very practically, very practically came about in the destruction of the land of Israel and the

Babylonian captivity eventually, and so forth. But here's the thing I want us to see.

Why these pronouncements of gloom and darkness and destruction, etc.?

It wasn't just to make the people afraid, it wasn't just to, it wasn't just like, you know,

God is declaring this and the prophets are, you know, all giddy and gleeful about what's coming.

No, no, no, no, no, no. That's a total misunderstanding of God's purpose in proclaiming these prophecies.

What is the purpose? Well, you see it in verse 12 of chapter 2. The Lord says,

Now therefore turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning, so rend your heart and not your garments, return to the

Lord your God. It's a call to repentance. And why? Because the

Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness, and he relents from doing harm.

While you have time, while you have the opportunity, before the day of the

Lord of darkness and gloominess comes, be aware that it's coming, and now, now, the prophet says, turn to the

Lord with all of your heart. Repent, because the Lord is gracious and he is merciful.

He's slow to anger and of great kindness. So when you hear these prophecies of doom and gloom, if you will, please remember why they exist.

They do not exist just to make a bunch of morose, depressed, despondent people. Not at all.

They exist to call a people back to the Lord and turn to him in full repentance. May we understand that and heed that challenge today.

And so our Father and our God, we do thank you for your grace and kindness, even in warning and calling people back to yourself.

And I pray, Father, that there would be a heart that is quick to repent rather than one that is hostile and hard to the proclaiming of your word.

And this we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, listen, have a good weekend.

I trust the Lord will bless you in it, and gather with God's people on the Lord's day to worship him.