It's good to be back. We appreciate your prayers. This morning, as we said, we were away with the family. Our, I guess, number six in line, at least. Julia was dedicated this morning down in Charlotte, and we were very happy to be there, and the rest of the family, too. So, appreciate your prayers. Appreciate Bobby Rowe filling in this morning. Bobby, next Monday starts. I'm feeling that more than he is right now. I promise you that. but we'll give them an assignment sheet on Monday and then some of the pressure goes that way. But anyways, glad to have you here tonight too, brother, and thank you for opening the Lord's Word. I don't know all the details, but we're hoping to have a few men come in. It hasn't happened a lot lately, but we're putting a little pressure on for at least some men to come the Lord's days, either prior to or subsequent to the week of prayer, which we're hosting this fall. So we were trying to get Logan, who's not a student anymore, but newly in the ministry, And I think he's probably, it looks like, at least going to be able to join us for the first Sunday. One of the services there, Logan Elder, who's now in Florida. So we tried to get him last year, had a couple of dates on the calendar, and they just both for different reasons fell through, but we were able to latch him at this point. So we look forward to that too. So do pray for that. There are a lot of things still to go, but I think a lot of the big pieces for the week of prayer falling in place. So we appreciate your prayers on that. It's not overly far. August is fleeting, September is short, and the week of prayer is early in October. So all those combined to, it's not long, but we look forward to that together. Turned with me, if you would, this evening to Joel's prophecy. One of the things I thought of while we were singing, I had to smile and I thought, well, we might need our brother to bring in a little 1 Corinthians 14 during the hymn requests and one to speak and one to interpret as to what the numbers and everything else are. So anyway, that's okay. I love to hear these young people desiring to sing. That's a very good sign. I want to read the first chapter of this prophecy. We have been looking or beginning to look at the minor prophets and took a couple of Lord's Day evenings in Hosea. I want to do the same, perhaps even a little more, maybe two or three messages here from Joel. But let's read together tonight the opening chapter, this brief prophecy of Joel. The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel, Hear this, ye old men, and give ear all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten, and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten, and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten. Awake, ye drunkards, and weep, and howl, ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come upon my land, strong and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and yet the cheek teeth of a great lion. He hath laid my vine waste and barked my fig tree. He hath made it clean bare and cast it away. The branches thereof are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests, the Lord's ministers, mourn. The field is wasted, the land mourneth, the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth. Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen. Howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished. The vine is dried up, and the fig tree languisheth. The palm granite tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered, because joy is withered away from the sons of men. Gird yourselves and lament, ye priests. How, ye ministers of the altar, come lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God, for the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God. Sanctify ye a fast. Call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord. Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Is not the meat cut off from before our eyes? Yea, joy and gladness from the house of our God. The seed is rotten under their clods. The garners are laid waste, the barns are broken down, for the corn is withered. How do the beasts groan? The herds of cattle are perplexed because they have no pasture, yea, the flocks of sheep are made desolate. O Lord, to Thee will I cry, for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field cry also unto thee, for the rivers of water are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness." Well, in reading, again trusting the Lord to add His blessing to the public reading of His Word. Let's do bow our heads and hearts together. Our Heavenly Father, tonight we again pause as we would come before You and consider Your Word Lord, this is a prophet. Lord, most of the words that we have read in this opening of these three brief chapters are words of devastation and warning. Lord, we're grateful to know that there are words of encouragement and promise in the chapters that follow. Days of blessing and some blessing that has spilled over to us even in this very place. But Lord, the lessons, the truths in these words are many. And we ask that as we would begin to consider something of them tonight, that You help us to have these words be lifted from the pages of just theoretical history. And that we might be mindful that a people just like ourselves, a people that name the name of God, who have truth revealed and Scriptures to possess, yet living in the midst of ungodly nations. Lord, how easy it is for us to be turned aside. And how foolish. Lord, minister to us from the words of a prophet from long ago. And we ask these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Well, tonight as we come to begin looking at the prophet Joel, let me just remind you as we suggested at the beginning of this survey of these we call the minor prophets. The length of the prophets or the length of the books has nothing to do with the value or lack thereof with regard to what these men said. They're not minor prophets with regard to the authority with which they wrote. They're just called the minor prophets because their prophecies are not as long as Jeremiah or Isaiah and so forth. And Joel is among the more brief of these words and also as we'll see in a moment among the earliest of these writing prophets. But what I want to do this evening, and I want to just put three statements before you, some summary statements tonight. And really, the opening statement that I'll make, I want to include underneath that some introduction with regard to the prophet himself. But Joel, Jehovah is God, is the name of this prophet. He's ministering to the Lord's people early on. And I just want to, as we begin to suggest something of his background and setting, put before you the first of three statements, three simple statements I want to make this evening. And the first statement I make, it is true with regard to Joel. It's true with regard to us. is that God is long-suffering. God is long-suffering. In some ways, perhaps in the greatest of ways, we utter that statement, we think of that characteristic of our God as a blessing. But can I submit to you, as we think something of these contexts, that there are dangers that accompany that reality about our God. God is long-suffering. The reason I opened with that statement this evening is because I suggested Joel is among the earliest of the writing prophets. Now, conservatives have disagreed a little bit with regard to the date of his prophecy. It's not a matter of unbelief and faith, one way or the other. But most would suggest, and I was persuaded by our Dr. Barrett's presentation and arguments to be sure, that we would date Joel's prophecy about 830 B.C. Now, what I want to do is have you step back and think with me again on the long picture. There's a context in what we read in chapter 1. There's a peculiar context to this particular prophecy. But here's a writing prophet in the 8th century B.C. Actually, sorry, the 9th century B.C. The 800s are, right, 9th century then. Think of your Hebrew history. The Exodus, big round numbers, 1500, 1440s B.C. King David about 1000. Here, 830, just two and a half centuries or so after David in that sad chronology or chronicling of the kings. And where do we find the latest writing prophet? Malachi. The post-exilic prophets. Malachi is writing probably about 435 or so BC. And if you look and consider then the span of time, the prophets came in. There were prophets before, but notably the office of prophet and God sending waves of prophets, if you will, to his people began really under Elijah and Elisha. And we have from them the school of the prophets. Joel is really in some ways on the heels of those two giant prophets. Not long at all after their ministry. One of the reasons that his book is dated as it is, not only is its context, but some things that it's missing. Joel along with Obadiah is a minor prophet that doesn't date his prophecy for us by listing the kings that reigned during the time that he preached. There's no king, no reign that's given. And the conservative scholars wrestling with that and other pieces of evidence suggest that this date fits in well because the time in which Joel prophesied is most likely during the reign of a wicked queen, Athaliah, who slew all the seed royal. I remember Dr. Barrett's memorable phrase to kind of etch that in your mind. Here's this lady that killed all her grandkids. Thinking of it in that perspective shows you something of the character and the evil ambition of this usurper of David's throne. One of the grandkids was hidden away, Jehoash. He was hidden from her view for six years, and probably about the age of seven or eight, came to the throne as the high priest Jehoiada, those that had cared for him, appear in the palace. She cries out, treason, as she sees that, and of course, she's the one that's treasonous. He reigns for a season, we might say a co-regency by this youthful king. and the high priest himself restoring order to the nation. It's very likely that the reason that Joel doesn't name the kings, the reigns during which he prophesied and wrote, is because it was during this season in Judah's history. And so he has a context He has circumstances that surround him where great evil certainly prevails in the highest courts of the land. But I say, in giving some introductory thoughts, God is long-suffering. If you think of the centuries during which these prophets, the major and minor prophets, were called to minister, God had promised in the books of Moses, He had explicitly laid out in the book of Deuteronomy that if Israel was disobedient to their God, if they went after false gods, if they pursued the gods and the morality or the immoralities of the nations that had been thrust out of the land, that God would thrust them out of the land. And we see God's remarkable providence as we've studied already. Nations that were not prone to this, not given to this, it was not known prior to this point in time. But when the Assyrians captured the northern tribes, they had begun a policy of deportation, of taking the captured populations back to their home. Hadn't been done before. But these Gentile empires are growing stronger. There are new things to consider, more territory to gain. Maybe this would be a good idea. Suddenly, just out of thin air as it were, ungodly emperors think up a thing that God has centuries before said He would have them do if His people were disobedient. Look to those dates, if you will. 722 for the northern tribes to be carried away by the Assyrians. 586 for the southern kingdom and the temple itself to be destroyed. When you think of David's reign, again, rough numbers, 1000 B.C. Jerusalem destroyed, rough numbers. 550-600 B.C. That's for us all the way back to Martin Luther. Reformation. We think of that as ancient history often. We read our Bibles and we turn the pages pretty quickly. This king did that and the other king did that and we're through the kings pretty quick. Centuries. were going by. Generations were going by. I mean, you look at the northern tribes. You think of years not too long before these, Ahab and Jezebel. Instead of him, it came to pass as if it were a light thing for him to continue in the apostasy of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. just having merely the idolatrous false worship of the one true God in Samaria. No, we need the pagan gods in here too. But the Assyrians didn't come during Ahab's reign. And we see season after season where God could justly have sent them into captivity. And he didn't. He was long-suffering. And for centuries, he sent his servants, the prophets. There were windows of blessing, windows of repentance, windows of revival. But then the backslidings always came back. And ultimately, the captivities came. I wonder how many in Israel and Judah looked at the evidence of the long suffering of God and concluded, well, our sins aren't that bad. Our sins must not really matter even though We have pretty much black and white page of scripture. Yeah, this is really bad. Because God hasn't done anything yet. God is long-suffering. But let us never use that as an excuse to continue in sin. I marvel, again, this is big picture stuff. I marvel at looking at the southern kingdom. The Assyrians that had destroyed the northern tribes and carried them away are parked at their door. Judah is, humanly speaking, powerless to do anything to resist them. They prayed. They humbled themselves. God did intervene and save them. You would think that humbling would have reached every corner of the land. And the generation that followed that would have been among the most godly of Judah's generations. But it wasn't. I've often thought of that. I know this is a stretched application. But I've often thought of that with regard to Western nations in the Second World War. an evil power that was strong indeed, was by the mercy of God turned back. There were many in our nation. I know there were plenty of unsaved and ungodly, and some of the ungodly were God-fearing American ungodly people. But you would think the generation after that would have been humbled. And yet it's the generation following that that brought us to 1960s. And the people that were young and wild in those days, well, they're not students anymore. They're presidents and leaders of the world. And how ungodliness prevails. God is long-suffering. But He isn't blind. and He doesn't forget His Word. So let us not take that which is a mercy and turn it into an excuse for sin. You know, that can apply in a personal level as well as the corporate, national level too. That's a lot of leeway just thinking of the dating of this among the earliest of the writing prophets. Joel written about, I say, 830 B.C., ministering to God's people in difficult days. God is long-suffering. But secondly, God intervenes. God intervenes. Joel and Amos, two early prophets, are prophets that bring to us in name. There are others, several as well. But they bring before us a truth, a doctrine, a manifestation that is called the day of the Lord. If we come and look in verse 15 of our first chapter, Alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is at hand. It's an idea, it's a truth that probably predates the writing prophets. They speak of it as a known thing. Amos, we'll find, rebukes the people for desiring the day of the Lord. He just needs to explain to them that for these hypocritical, professing believers, the day of the Lord was going to be a little different for them than they expected. It was going to be a judgment upon them. and not a blessing. The Day of the Lord, maybe we should get our seminary student to rise and speak of the paper that was assigned on that topic. Was it last year? We won't seek to exhaust it tonight. We'll touch more on it before we leave Joel and as we come to Amos. But the Day of the Lord is a description of divine intervention. entitled our second point, God Intervenes. If we study it out, and we won't take time to prove this, as it were, this evening, but there are many days of the Lord in Scripture and in history. Now I believe, and I think Scriptures clearly indicate, there is an ultimate day of the Lord that ends the present age. It ushers in the age to come. It's the last days. It's the return of Christ. But there are days of the Lord that are harbingers, if you will, of that day. And many believe it seems evident that what Joel describes in the first chapter that is put before them in this terminology of the day of the Lord is a locust plague. If you read that fourth verse, you got some interesting insects that are all lined up there, the locust, the palmer worm, the canker worm, and the caterpillar. Most believe these are various stages in the lifespan of one particular insect. I think it was Criswell. Some of you aren't old enough to remember the Criswell study Bible. It was kind of the thing between Schofield Well, what all the other stuff's out there now. But he had an interesting note in his Bible. There was a modern day locust plague. I forget the nation. I should have checked with Criswell again on this. I'm just going on memory. But there was a train that was caught in a swarm. And they stopped. And when things began to clear enough, I forget how deep they said it was on the tracks. But the train couldn't start again. Because all the crushed insects had so lubricated the tracks and the wheels the train was stranded. So a locust swarm and plague is not an unknown thing to that region of the world and yet here is a locust plague, a swarm that is of such a nature that Joel calls out to the old men and says, have you that have had these long lives ever seen this? Have any of your fathers ever seen this? This is going to be something you're going to tell your children, they're going to tell their children, and they're going to tell the generation that follows that generation. This was a locust plague. Pardon the pun, it was unintended, but it had teeth. It was a locust plague that was so unusual that you have to stop and take note. And if I could just suggest to you this evening, again, just under this key idea of the fact that God intervenes. We speak in our doctrine of the providence of God. I call on one of our young people to rise and give us the exact catechism definition. But it's God's superintendence of everything that comes to pass. So God's providence is at work throughout all of history. He's ordering all things after the counsel of His own will. But there is an ordinary operation of providence, if you will, where life goes on, the world continues to spin, and things are what we would call normal. but there are also times in which God providentially works. This isn't in contradiction to His providence, but it's showing there are seasons of what we might call special providence. Where God intervenes in the affairs of men in ways that are so unusual, circumstances that are so remarkable, that the only explanation for them is the intervention of God. It's something that's so unusual, so different, so powerful, it can't be ignored. It's like the magicians coming to Pharaoh and saying, this is the hand of God. Don't you know yet that Egypt is destroyed? Well, the Day of the Lord is a description God gives us in His Word of a time in which He intervenes in such a way that it can't be ignored. Now, in this case, it was a locust plague that was so remarkable, and if you see the description of You know, fig trees that not only the figs are gone, all the bark's gone. They look white instead of gray or brown because there's nothing left. And of course, that's just a piece of the description of that awful chapter that we've read together. Well, obviously, Joel's purpose in preaching is to take this to the people and say, look, don't you recognize in this plague what is at stake? God's done this. You old people, have you ever seen anything like this? Your parents ever seen anything like this? Now you're going to tell your children, they're going to tell their children, and they're going to tell the generation after that. This is remarkable. And it should get our attention. You read even some of the descriptions that should be coming forth from the people. Howling, not merely for hunger, and financial devastation, howling and searching of heart that God has so intervened to get our attention. The locust plague in Joel is a day of the Lord. But Joel uses that. God, through the prophet, takes him to speak not only of the trouble and the need of repentance in their own day, but to reach forward to, well, we'll have to look at Pentecost. Peter quotes from Joel with regard to what was happening there. But ultimately, what is future still for us? A day coming. And I thought of this this week. We've come to a point You meet somebody on the street, you talk to them, your workplace or wherever. Church covers so much territory now. There's so many variations. There's so much false teaching that credibility is, we'd have to say, at an all-time low. What impact has the church had on our nation, on our culture in a long time? We come to a point, it seems, that God may be the only one that can get anybody to listen anymore. I'm holding back on various commentaries on the church and its activities. Churches at times are prone to do a lot of things to try and get attention. The means of grace, preaching Christ, bearing witness of Christ in word and deed. Arminianism always wants another method to fix things. Sometimes we just have to stay put and call upon God to fix things. I'm not preaching inactivity. We Calvinists have to prod ourselves often with regard to that. But a day of the Lord is a time when God intervenes in an unmistakable way. And here, Joel is calling upon his generation to look at a disaster. An unparalleled disaster. Can you not see the hand of God in this? We need to seek our God. When we come, Lord willing, to chapter 2, we're going to see in that chapter really one of the most striking biblical examples and definitions of gospel repentance. What's involved in repenting and turning to God. I have to pause Share another thought. I wrestled a little bit with one more message from Hosea. A couple of giant texts there that we didn't include in our survey. But you think of the imagery of Hosea, and of course, it's found in the other prophets, but the emphasis is different. Repentance is a change of direction. You're going one way, you turn around and you go the other way. In both Testaments, the terminology takes us there. But a lot of the preaching of repentance is turning from the destruction, the judgment that's in front of you when you're walking away from God. You're walking in a sinful path, in a rebellious path. Hosea, and Joel actually hinted at this as we read, speaks of repentance from the other perspective. turning back to God. And you think of the whole analogy of the marriage that permeates that prophecy of this wandering woman and all of these destructive false lovers, the idols that Israel is pursuing. to turn to the true Husband. There's a happy, not that the other isn't, but turning from disaster to eternal bliss. What a wonderful example of repentance. And actually, that thought brings us to our third statement to put before you this evening. God is long-suffering, but let us be careful with that. God intervenes, let us be sobered to consider that. But thirdly and lastly tonight, repentance and restoration are possible. I want you to turn over to chapter 2 just for a moment and read a few verses with me here. from verse 21 in this chapter. Fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice, for the Lord will do great things. Be not afraid, ye beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness do spring, for the tree beareth her fruit. The fig tree and the vine do yield their strength. Be glad then, you children of Zion. Rejoice in the Lord your God, for He hath given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain and the latter rain, rain in the first month. And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten, the canker worm and the caterpillar and the palmer worm, my great army which I sent among you. And you shall eat in plenty and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord your God that has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never be ashamed." Words of incomparable blessing following national repentance. And I love that phrase. I hope it's not one that we overuse in prayer at times. But in verse 25, I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten. I think about that in regard to, well, here's Israel need and its sin and its repentance. We can look at the church, seasons of backsliding, seasons of apostasy, seasons of repentance and faith and revival, blessing, and think of it personally. What plagues? And again, this is where we need wisdom. Every sickness, every disease, every bad circumstance isn't necessarily a judgment of God. We have the clear example of our Lord's teaching with regard to the blind man there. But yet, things so remarkable, so unusual that they can't be denied should always cause us pause. But the word's here to stir up faith. That God is able to restore years the locusts have eaten. Souls that have been wavered can be restored. Those that are yet outside can be brought in. It's one of the things I think should stir us as Calvinists. You know, when you're an Arminian and you go to speak to people, you get worked up because, you know, I got to spin this conversation in just the right way to elicit the correct response and we can get all in a knot and just forget the calmness of, I've got a word they need. I get so worked up about our phraseology and methodology And we don't just stop to recognize when God opens a heart, it's a miracle. And it doesn't matter if it is somebody that was brought up in the most orthodox, conservative, reformed circle possible. It takes a miracle to breathe life into that dead sinner's heart. And the God that's able to do that is also able to take the worst person on the depths of any street in any city that's never heard the name of Christ and has pursued every vice that the world has to offer, God can breathe life just as instantaneously into that heart as He can the other. And believing that gives us courage to speak to such a hopeless case. Because God is able. You could take Israel itself. We've looked at the centuries and spoken roughly of them tonight. What are the centuries now? The 20 centuries since the day of Christ and Israel's ultimate rejection of Her promise. But God is in this age calling out graciously from among us Gentiles, a people for His name, and grafting us in to that olive tree. And there's a day coming in which Israel is going to be visited again. If it's been a blessing, if God sovereignly is turning the casting off of Israel into blessing now, How much more is there going to be blessing when He turns them again and brings again the captivity of His people? Repentance and restoration are possible. Repentance and restoration are coming. Don't ever be persuaded that we are pessimistic as Bible-believing Christians. even as some of us pre-millennial Bible-believing Christians who believe the greatest apostasy the world will ever see is yet in front of us. Because the greatest revival the world will ever see is subsequent to that apostasy. Repentance and restoration are possible. God is able. God has promised to restore the years that the locusts have eaten. Well, these are some general introductory thoughts drawn from the circumstantial preaching of Joel. God is long-suffering. God intervenes. Let us listen even to the lesser days of the Lord prior to the great day. And repentance and restoration are possible. Let's bow our heads together. Heavenly Father, tonight we come grateful as we read these words. Lord, we stagger at times when we read the books of Kings and Chronicles. of how far Israel and Judah went in their sins, how long-suffering you were, how real your chastenings are, and yet how equally real the promises of blessing to those who repent and believe the Gospel. Lord, stir us. Lord, give us wisdom in, again, our perplexing times. Lord, may the Gospel May the beauty of Christ guide us in such days. When we think of those words we sang tonight, how needy and yet precious they are. May His beauty rest upon me as I seek the lost to win. And may they forget the channel, seeing only Him. Lord, let that be true of us, but let us be channels. Prosperous Lord, as we come to the close of this Sabbath, we go to our homes and to our varied occupations. Give us grace. Lord, keep us true. Let us be lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. We pray these things in Jesus' precious name, Amen.