90 Days Thru the Bible by Chris Tiegreen

Author:Chris Tiegreen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / Spiritual Growth, RELIGION / Christian Life / Devotional
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2012-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

Questions for Reflection

Why is unfaithfulness to God considered adultery? Why do you think the people of Israel kept turning their hearts to lesser gods? In what ways do we do that today?

Day 46

Joel

Joel prophesies about a plague of locusts. Or about an invading army. Or about both. No one is quite sure, and no one knows exactly when the prophecy was (or will be) fulfilled. What is clear, however, is that a “day of the LORD” is coming, which in prophetic books always seems to imply judgment. It is a day when God will no longer wait for people to respond; He will act based on how they have already responded. And that day is always spoken of in terms of awe and trembling.

Most likely, Joel, a prophet of the southern kingdom of Judah, uses a recent and devastating plague of locusts as a prophetic picture of another judgment to come, this time by an army that will devour the land more thoroughly than swarming locusts. Though God wants this nation to resemble His Kingdom—and His Garden from the beginning pages of Scripture—the coming warriors will rake over the land and remove any vestige of Eden. This coming judgment can be averted if the nation calls a solemn assembly and repents, sincerely and deeply, individually and corporately. After all, God has made a covenant to dwell among and within His people. He wants to restore them and to live in their midst. But there are conditions for hosting the presence of God in a nation or a group of people or even an individual life; the environment has to reflect His character and His purposes. If it doesn’t, He must reshape it—usually a traumatic process—to be able to handle the weight of His glory.

God will restore the people and live in their midst eventually, of course, even if they don’t have a change of heart now—which, as we know from history, they didn’t. Somehow, God’s calls to repentance are rarely recognized as being His voice until after the chastisement comes. Then it’s clear that the voice was true. That’s human nature; we don’t want to heed a warning if the warning isn’t legitimate, and in a world full of exaggerations and scare tactics, many warnings aren’t. But some are, and it’s up to us to discern the difference.

As with other prophets, Joel’s words point both to immediate situations in Judah’s current history and big-picture events in the ultimate future. They are simultaneously here-and-now and there-and-then. Peter picks up on Joel’s prophecy that God will pour out His Spirit on all people. Sons and daughters will prophesy, old men will dream dreams, and young men will see visions. On men and women everywhere, the Spirit will flow. The sun will turn to darkness and the moon to blood through the smoke of God’s wonders and judgment (Joel 2:28-32; Acts 2:17-21). Peter discerned the true flavor of these words, even though no one dreamed dreams or saw visions on the Day of Pentecost and the sun and moon stayed pretty much the same.

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