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“Yea, the LORD will answer and say unto his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen:

“But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things.”

“Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the LORD will do great things”

Joel 2:19,21

Now, at last, Joel begins to tell the people of the fruits of repentance. God is not a God who delights in punishment and hates to do good. Rather he delights to give abundant blessings to his people. He is slow to anger but abounding in steadfast mercy.

We read in Leviticus that the burnt offerings given for the atonement of sin where a “pleasing fragrance” to the Lord, but it becomes clear that the pleasing fragrance does not come from the burning meat but from the repentance of the people.

When someone repents then God at once forgives them all their sins, and they become washed and cleansed of the stinking mire of sin. They are clean and a “pleasing fragrance” to our God.

God is able to forgive us our sins because of the One Perfect Sacrifice of Jesus Christ who bore the just punishment of those sins. We no longer need live under the condemnation of our sin. We are offered new pure garments washed in the blood of Christ. When there has been true repentance then we know we are clean before our Lord.

But why is repentance so important before God can pour out his blessing upon his people? Simply because if we are unrepentant and unregenerate then the blessings of God would neither be just, nor glorifying to him.

But now you say: “Surely we can never reach God’s perfect standard, and to try to do so denies our justification which is by faith.”

But Joel is not talking to a people that are not yet God’s people, and neither am I. I am indeed justified by faith, and so is the whole of God’s church (for that is the very definition of the church – the elect of God). We bear the name “Christian” already, but there is still the mire of sin upon us, and it is only as this is cleansed through repentance and God’s gift of grace, that we become a people who glorify God.

When God is glorified, and it is within his sovereign plan to do so, then he will pour out abundant blessings upon us, his people, and our Lord *will* do great things.

The church today may be short of commitment, short of money, short of members, short of morality. When God does great things among us there will no longer be any lack. Our God will supply our every need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Once again I urge you to read of past revivals. Read of times when God has sent his Spirit amongs his people. See the abundance of his blessing, and then we may learn to pray more earnestly, to seek more diligently, to love more fully and to minister more humbly.

“Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O LORD, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God?”

“Then will the LORD be jealous for his land, and pity his people.”

Joel 2:17,18

When the congregations were shedding tears of repentance and fasting in solemn assembly, and the ministers mourned for the people, then Joel said the LORD would be jealous for his land, and pity his people.

The ministers had to realize that only God could save his people from reproach. Only God could prevent the heathen from ruling over his people. If God was for them then who could stand against them? But if God was not for them (because they were not for God) then what could feeble man do against the mighty army that the Lord had raised up against them?

But our God is a loving and merciful God. He was longing to forgive his people of their sins. He was patiently awaiting the time when his people would turn back to him and he could demonstrate his pity for his people in works of power.

Our sovereign God is jealous for his people, his church. He longs to forgive us of our sins. He is patiently awaiting the time when we, his people, will bend the knee to him, our Lord.

When even the ministers of the Lord repent of their attempts to build churches to their own glory; when they realize that God was left out of the equation many years ago; when they turn their backs on the Christian culture which idolizes certain people; when there is a weeping before our God, our Creator, our Provider. Then God will be jealous for his land and he will pity his people.

I do not suggest that it is only the clergy who need to repent before God. We are all ministers to some degree, and to some degree we all have used our position to manipulate for our own glory, to satiate our own pride.

I speak here from experience. How easy it is for me to write an article, even an article such as this one, knowing all the time that people may in some manner look up to me for what I write. The writing of such things then becomes a boost to my own ego, and a pandering to my pride.

Such a spirit of pride is an abomination to God. How dare I steal any of the glory which so justly belongs only to God?

What is the chief end of man? asks the Westminster Catechism, and the answer is given:

To glorify God.

Let us repent of the proud spirit which gives the other answer to this question: “To glorify self”. Let us weep before God as we realize that so much of our own ministry has been an attempt to build ourselves up in the sight of others. Let us cry out to our God as we realize that it is only when we get out of His way that He will show His pity which He has for His people.

Our God longs to forgive us of these things, so let us but ask that he will, and then rest in His wonderful provision, secure in the fact that He loves us more then anyone could ever know. We are sons of the living God. What is the praise of man against the love of God?

“Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet.”

Joel 2:15,16

Joel calls the people to pray and fast before their God. He has called them to repentance, and now he stresses the urgency of the situation. Everyone is called to this great assembly, even the children and babies, and the point is reinforced when we hear that even bride and groom are called to attend.

This situation was urgent. There could be no tarrying, and no one could be left out. The whole nation was called to an assembly before God. The congregation was called together to become once again a consecrated people before their God.

Now then, surely God calls us to do the same. Surely the onus is upon us to gather together in solemn assembly. Each member of each church must surely assemble together and pray and fast and plead before the Lord that he may heal his land.

God says: “If my people who bear my name [and CHRISTians bear His name] will humble themselves and pray… then I will heal their land.”

O Lord, I pray for my land which suffers under the dual yokes of a dry and dead formalism within its churches and a moral depravity beyond the churches which suffocates the believers and blinds the unbelievers.

The church, it seems, is a dry branch. All the cells that make up the branch are there, but there is no life therein, because the sap has dried up and has not been replenished.

Lord, remake us. Revive us. Send the fountains of living water, the water of your Spirit. Send the water that the branch might once again be green and living.

But why is the water not flowing? Has God withdrawn his Spirit for no reason? Of course not!

If I break a branch from the trunk of a tree then of course it will die. It is not because there is no more water, but because the branch is no longer connected to the source of its supply of water.

“For my people have committed two sins. They have turned away from me, the fountain of living water and they have hewn out cisterns for themselves. Broken cisterns that can hold no water.”

So said God to Jeremiah, and so he says now.

Let us turn back to the fountain of living water. Let us all turn back. Each and every one of us. The time to turn back is now and we all are called to turn to him. Call a solemn assembly. Sanctify the congregation. Declare a fast.

“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God…”

“Who knows if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the LORD your God?”

Joel 2:13,14

I recently heard of a group that was teaching that God’s blessing upon the western nations in revival was imminent. The teaching is not new, I have heard similar “prophecies” many times over years.

I certainly hope and pray that these words are true, and that God will pour forth his blessing upon his weak and feeble church, for she so desperately needs to know the Spirit of God once again in Pentecostal power. However, there is a condition which has not yet been fulfilled, and that is the condition of repentance.

“Rend your heart…for who knows if God will return…and leave a blessing behind him.”

The teaching is there, in black and white – if God’s church is barren and empty (and it is), and it needs to see his blessing (which it does), then we must rend our hearts. We must turn to God and repent and then maybe he will move amongst us.

Of course, I cannot promise God will do that. Anyone who says that revival comes when man has met all the conditions is in error. If we had to meet all of God’s conditions upon us we would never see revival, just as we would never be saved if we had to meet God’s Holy standard of perfection in our lives.

However, the one condition of repentance is essential. Let us repent and turn to the Lord our maker. Let us throw ourselves at his feet and cry out to him for his mercy, and then maybe he will return to his people.

Let us also learn once again the meaning of the old phrase “to plead the promises”. We do not name a promise and then claim it, but we acknowledge the sovereignty of our God, and we humbly come before him and plead that he might see fit to pour out a blessing upon us.

Our Lord is gracious, abounding in steadfast love and great mercy. Let us humbly come and confess our sins before Almighty God.

“Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:

“And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”

–Joel 2:12,13

When Joel had described the great and terrible judgement of God, the picture of His wrath and the impending doom, then he also gave us these few lines which speak volumes about what is needed to turn back to God.

Firstly we must turn to God with all our heart. We must repent of our selfishness, which is idolatry. We have so often put our own enjoyment before God’s word. We have glorified ourselves when we should have been glorifying God. We have been wrapping ourselves up in hundreds of activities at the expense of quality time with God in prayer.

We must turn to God in fasting, weeping and mourning. There should be anguish at our sin, and at the lack of God’s power within the church. There should be mourning over those who do not have God within their lives and there should be weeping over the church which causes people to turn away from Christianity forever.

Paul says that when there is true prophecy in the church and an unbeliever enters then he is convicted by all, the secrets of his heart being laid bare. He falls to his knees and turns to God. Why is it then that so often unbelievers can walk into our churches, see the “secrets” of the hearts of the believers – their shallowness and lack of love and respect for our Lord – and thus turn away from God completely.

How can we be content with such a situation?

In my church we saw eight new converts in the last few weeks. People in the church say “praise the Lord”, but I have to say that their happiness at these conversions comes not because the people have been saved, but because it is the first church growth we have seen in six months.

I do not despise this small working of God. I am grateful that He is still drawing people to Himself by the power of His Spirit, but I have to say that this addition to church numbers is nothing when you look at the ever multiplying numbers of people who are dying without any knowledge of the love of Christ, our Saviour and Lord.

I want to see a much greater working of God. I want to see the church shaken by revival which will revive the spiritual lives of the church members, will bring more holiness and justice, and which will spill over into the world beyond our church walls so that people might be literally running from our towns and cities to escape God, and even then they would be arrested by the awesome power of His Holy Spirit, poured out upon us without measure.

So how will we see this great outpouring of God’s Spirit? Well, if we rend our hearts and not our garments, then God is gracious and merciful, and he may yet pour forth his Spirit.

A show of repentance is not enough. We must rend our hearts. Our repentance must not be skin deep. We cannot turn to God on the surface but face away from him in our hearts. We must turn our will, our preference and our goal to God.

What is our goal in life? To be happy? To merit eternal life and happiness? To be rich?

If our goals are any of these, or any other selfish goal then when if we have “turned to God”, our repentance is an outward thing. We have rent our garments, but not our hearts.

If our goal is to see God glorified then we have rent our hearts.

Let us seek the glory of God.

“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;

“A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. … “The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining: And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?”

–Joel 2:1-11

Commentators are divided about whether Joel is here referring back to the plague of locusts, or whether he is looking forward to some future battle. I take the view that the latter is more likely (as Joel is comparing the coming of the great people, this great army, with the coming of the Lord, using the future tense).

This being so, we can see why Joel paints such an appalling picture. He is saying that even as the plague of locusts was a great and mighty judgement, so there is more yet to come. The Lord is raising up an army of people whose might has never been seen before, nor will it ever be seen again. There will be a devastating battle when justice will be done.

It is like the Day of the Lord, for in that day the Lord will pour out his wrath, and seek justice. For the unrepentant it will be a woeful time, for the wrath of God will be upon them. Other prophets looked forward to the Day of the Lord with longing, for they knew that on that day the Lord would vindicate his name. He would minister wrath to his enemies, but comfort to His people.

On that Day, do we expect wrath or comfort? Are we against God or for Him?

There is a battle to be fought now. An army has assaulted the church and we must fight that army or else die trying. If we do not fight then we can expect nothing but total annihilation.

What is that army? it is sin.

Sin has entered the church. It has broken down the walls and left us battered and helpless. We need to blow the trumpet, to sound the alarm. The enemy has broken in and we are called to fight Him.

Let us stand up to this enemy. Let us stand up and do battle. Let us purge the church of the sin that has torn it apart, and replace it with love for God, and for one another. Let us awake and turn to God in prayer. Let us not be found sleeping on the walls, but rather let us be found standing in the gap like a faithful watch.

If we do not start fighting for our churches then we will be destroyed completely. Satan’s army will overrun us and there will be nothing left.

A minister hammered a notice on his church door:

“This church will have revival or a funeral.”

Through prayer and a process of consecration of the people of that church, God graciously visited them with revival. But the minister was right. If there had been no revival then at some point there would have been a funeral.

God destroyed Sodom when there was no longer a remnant to intercede for it. Will he do any less to the churches of our countries, or even our whole nations when there is no remnant to be found there either?

The church in our nation will have revival or a funeral.

Which will it be?

“Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. … 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.”

–Joel 1:15-19

Do we fear the Day of the Lord?

The day of the Lord will be a great and terrible day, when justice is poured forth and God will vindicate his name amongst the nations.

He will also draw his elect unto himself, and we shall know his love and his great mercy.

For this reason, you would expect all Christians to long for the day of his coming. Nevertheless, more often then not (when we are honest with ourselves) the Day fills us with great fear. We fear for relatives who do not know God. We fear the great distress of the last days, but most of all we fear that God will find us unprepared.

Jesus tells the story of the returning bridegroom, recorded in Luke. We are told that those who are prepared for his return when he comes will be blessed, but those who are not prepared will be cursed. Often this parable is used to stir us up to excessive guilt, leading us to be unsure of whether we really have merited salvation, but that was not Christ’s intent. We are all saved by grace and not by deeds done by ourselves in righteousness. However, Jesus did tell this story with a serious point in view.

We are called to do deeds worthy of repentance. We are called to bear fruit within our lives. Those Christians who fall short will still be saved, but as through the flames. How sad it will be for those people when they stand before the Lord, and he says “what did you do with the resources that I gave you.” And they turn to him and say “Lord, I knew your way was difficult, so I hid the resources and rested in my salvation, knowing that you would take me anyway”.

What will be their reward for their service I wonder?

I don’t know what rewards there will be in heaven, but I know that I would not want to be in that position before my Creator, Saviour and Judge on that day. I would rather follow his commandments as I find them in his word. I would rather seek his kingdom on earth, and know what it is to take up my cross and follow him.

When revival comes, it too will be a time when we cannot rest easy in our churches, comfortable in our salvation. We will be stirred up in such a way that we will have to either follow Christ, or else turn from him.

Revival times are not easy times. Revival times are times when Christians are required to live their beliefs. They are required to follow Christ in every way. They are also times when we will know God’s presence amongst us, and that one factor should make us hope for those times more then anything else. If we do not covet the presence of God amongst us then we need him all the more.

What then, shall we still fear the Day of the Lord? If so then you will probably fear revival too. If you are afraid that you would be unready on that Day then you are probably also afraid of the commitment to Christ that is required in times of revival.

Shall we not pray for revival then? If it is such a great and terrible day then why seek it?

Tell me, if you were in the Garden with Adam and Eve, would you still be hiding from God?

Through Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross we have the privelege to walk once more with God. Shall we allow the fear of personal holiness keep us from Him? Shall we hide in the bushes of complacency, or shall we seek God where he may be found?

“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.”

–Joel 1:14

Joel has declared the judgement of the Lord is upon the people. He has called the people to repent of their sins. Now, as a part of that call to repentance he gives practical advice explaining how they must seek the Lord once more.

He has four points here. Firstly he declares, “Sanctify a fast”. Fasting has never been a popular subject. It is one of those areas of our spiritual life that we would like to declare an “optional extra”. We may have fasted once or twice when the church called a specific day of fasting for an outreach meeting, but for the most part we neglect this important area.

Jesus ranked fasting as equally important as prayer. We can also see from church history that all the great men and women of God had grasped this truth. In today’s church we see few people willing to fast, and few great people of God. I wonder sometimes if there might be a connection there.

Of course, the fast in Joel was in response to the aspect of repentance. The people found themselves far from God and thus they needed to repent, and they needed to fast. When Christ was with his disciples we read (in Matthew 9) that Jesus said to those who asked why his disciples were not fasting “Can the children of the bride- chamber mourn when the bridegroom is with them?”

But the bridegroom is not amongst us. Nor is His Spirit present in His Church in power. If He were then we would not need to fast, but we must fast because everywhere there is the travesty of the lifeless church on the one hand and the soul-less church on the other.

Joel’s second point was the need to call a solemn assembly. This, I think, would translate to a prayer meeting today. Not a happy-clappy and exuberant praise “party”, but a solemn assembly calling God in His infinite grace to have mercy upon His people. Praise, of course, is never absent from prayer. What I am trying to say is that we can often get lost in an exuberant excitement which obscures our real purpose which is to wrestle with God over the state of the church, and to ask Him in His mercy to send forth His Spirit once more.

But is prayer alone enough? This brings us to Joel’s third point: “gather … all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD”.

You see, the people of Judah had neglected their attendance at the temple, and in so doing they had neither prayed, nor had they heard the word of God. Because they had not heard the word of God they knew not the law, and thus they sinned.

God has given us the Bible that we might know the right way to go. He has given us a light to our path. Shall we do less then follow it?

One man was asked why he constantly read his Bible. “To know all God’s commandments to me, that I may follow them.” He replied.

Christ set us free from the bondage of the law, but the royal law of scripture is still there for all of us to follow, only out of love for our Lord, and not in order to earn our salvation. Scripture tells us how God wants us to live our lives.

Before Joshua and the people of Israel could cross the Jordan they had to consecrate themselves. When they were consecrated, and they had made real effort to change and to conform to God’s will for them, then they were able to cross into the promised land.

Lastly Joel calls us to weep. I sincerely believe that weeping should be an integral part of our prayer lives. We should weep over the injustice in the church. We should cry over the lack of God’s presence amongst us and we should mourn for those people who are lost and dying without Christ.

Our Christianity needs to get beyond our heads and our lips and touch our hearts. Our souls should be zealous for God and our hearts should be broken over the fact that we know so little of Him.

“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; for 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 pomegranate 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: howl, 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.”

–Joel 1:7-13

The plague of locusts would surely be the signal for a time of great mourning. God’s people had been at ease, being rich and content with their vats of wine and their abundant crops. When God sent the locusts all this was taken away from them and they were left with nothing.

The people had everything but they left God out. Maybe they did not realize they had done it but God had been ignored until the day of his wrath. When God sent the locusts the people were stripped of all their possesions and forced to realize their spiritual poverty as well as their material poverty.

When they realized how far they were from God, and how great was his wrath then obviously there came a time of mourning. The people looked at their depravity and were ashamed. They looked at the possesions they thought they owned, but which were taken from them, and they wept.

Again, Joel’s message is timeless, for we live in a time that knows so little of God’s riches in glory. We live in a time which is not blessed. We live in a world divorced from God and a church that is like a spoiled child, always seeking to claim its inheritance, but never willing to give its love in the form of allegiance.

This is not a time for celebration. When we have a Holy Spirit led revival, that will be a time for celebration, but now we live rather in a time of mourning. We should be mourning for the lifeless church, so in need of God’s regenerating power. We should mourn for the millions of souls who are heading for a lost eternity without God because the church is too impotent to be able to affect their lives. We should mourn at our own prayerlessness and our own lack of holiness which is acting as such a blockage to the movement of the power of God.

When we emerge from prayer – true intercessory prayer – our eyes should be red-rimmed from tears for the moral depravity in the world and the open fraud, as well as the lifelessnes, within our churches. We should be shedding tears for the lost. Our souls should be heavy within us, weighed down with grief for those who do not know Christ. If the thought of people suffering an eternity in hell when they could spend eternity with our blessed and loving Saviour – and all because of our failure as the body of Christ – does not move us to tears then we should pray first for tears.

“Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.”

Joel 1:5

Many plentiful harvests had caused the people of Judah to become content. They had become drinkers of wine, and were used to having plenty of it. Thus, when the wine was cut off from them by the devastation of the locusts, they would have been forced to wake up to the cold reality that they had hidden from in their alcoholic haze – that they had departed far from God.

Are we in a haze within the church? Not an alcoholic one but an emotional one. Are we encouraged to seek emotional experiences of God? Are we told that as Christians we should be happy? Are we told that Christ will pour out material blessings on those who follow him?

How much of our church life is trying to capture this subjective emotional experience? How much more is trying to get God to bless us?

The truth of the matter is that we have lost our sense of awe at the majesty of God. We have substituted God’s image with a poor reflection of what we want Him to be. We have turned away from the living God and put in his place such a feeble and paltry image as to be totally unworthy of any man’s worship.

There is a teaching that I have heard which suggests that when we do things which please God then he will bless us in various ways. An example is tithing. We are encouraged to tithe, because if we do then God will repay all that we give him and more. Scripture is used to support this (such as “he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully”), but such a gospel (commonly called the prosperity gospel) is completely contrary to the gospel of Christ.

We are encouraged to believe that our good fortune is God’s divine seal of approval. We forget that some of the greatest men of God had no money whatsoever.

God does reward the faithful, but not necessarily in material things. He does promise to supply our every need, but not our every whim and want.

And what of the emotional excess of the charismatic movement? Why is it that there is so little depth in the movement? Is it because we are encouraged to run after experience rather then God?

Are we encouraged to seek the gifts whilst ignoring the giver?

I wonder.

Where are God’s giants? Where are the prophets of God who would denounce this heresy? Where are the preachers who will preach the gospel of Christ? The gospel that Paul would have recognized as true?

Where are the men who can say “Be a follower of me, as I am of Christ?”

There are a few such men, but it is a pitiful few, and they are largely ignored whilst the manipulators who preach their gospel of wealth, ease and glorious emotional experience continue to see the gullible masses following them like a flock of sheep on the road to hell.

I was glad to hear of a television program exposing the fraud of so many of these false preachers, and I was encouraged to hear calls for the church to denounce such men, but the calls are not yet loud enough.

Away with these evildoers, men of wealth and greed, false miraclers and false prophets. Let us have more men of God who will stand against such heresy.

I can agree with Leonard Ravenhill when he says:

Do you wonder that I am embarrassed to be part of the present church which I am sure is an embarrassment to God?

“There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof, like a roaring lion ravening the prey; they have devoured souls; they have taken the treasure and precious things; they have made her many widows in the midst thereof.”Ezekiel 22:25