Daily devotion – a new week, and another day closer to our Lord’s return.
The prophet Joel is one amazing character. When he came on the scene, he preached a message of repentance. It’s a message that never dates. John the Baptist preached it and then Jesus preached it as well.
“Sound the alarm…!”
“For the day of the Lord is coming.” – Joel 2:1
What had happened is that massive swarms of locusts had come and left the land desolate, but the prophet predicted that much worse was actually to come. Many people today say, “There is no reason at all to dead the ‘day of the Lord”, but they had better look again!
The day of the Lord is an awesome, terrible thing…verse 11, because this is the Day of Judgment. Yet God gives us a loving invitation for God’s people to repent in time.
Joel 2:12 – “Turn to me now, while there is time. Give me your hearts. Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning.
13 Don’t tear your clothing in your grief, but tear your hearts instead.” Return to the LORD your God, for he is merciful and compassionate,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He is eager to relent and not punish.”
God promised to restore the years the locusts had destroyed through this remarkable invitation:
Joel 2: 32 “Whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be saved,”
‘Whoever’, is an amazingly wonderful word – it speaks of the grace of God and His invitation that extends to all people. The Apostle Paul quoted from this passage in his letter to the Church in Rome – Rom 10:12 “Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him.”
Christianity is centred on the Gospel that brings comfort, the assurance that God will forgive sin. But an unbelieving world sees all this as a Gospel of crisis because it boldly proclaims that the world’s days are numbered. But the fact of the matter is that every cemetery testifies this. The Bible teaches us that life is but a vapour that appears for a time and then vanishes. – James 4:14
This is why God is calling out the nations of the world now to get right with Him.
History will someday come to an end as we know it. The world’s evil system will cease and come to close as a total failure. Wickedness in every form will cease: hatred, greed, war and death.
But this ‘Day of the Lord’, will be glorious, when Jesus comes to bring peace to the “whosoever’s”.
Today God still calls each of us to repent, and to praise the name of the Lord your God….and my people shall never be put to shame.” – Joel 2:26
It’s closer than you think!