joel

God’s Battles, Victories and Decisions, Joel 3 and Isaiah 2

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“Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!…”

“… the Lord will be a shelter for His people, And the strength of the children of Israel.”

“But Judah shall abide forever, And Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will acquit them of the guilt of bloodshed, whom I had not acquitted; For the Lord dwells in Zion.”

The battles of the Lord are His to fight and He will win and cause judgement – whoa for us to be judged, but we will be and with judgement comes correction. The Lord will judge the nations and the peoples, He also had and has plans to heal them, allowing His people to prosper. It’s quite the battle first however. Scriptures of Joel and Isaiah remind us to BE HIS. His time of judgement will come.

Swords And Spears into or from plowshares and pruning hooks – Joel 3 speaks of awakening nations to get ready for battle, and Isaiah 2 speaks of turning battles into peace by letting God do the fighting and the judging. There will be both. God’s people will be protected and a roar of battle will be intense. God’s roar against false idols to prevail, just as He will prevail against the distractions and the evil today. There are SO MANY reminders to pay attention to the Lord  – He has prevailed and He will prevail for His People. We MUST be focused upon Him.

Amen and Amen 

Lord Jesus come quickly.  

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The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, But the idols He shall utterly abolish. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

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“He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people…”

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“Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.”

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“For the day of the Lord of hosts Shall come upon everything proud and lofty, Upon everything lifted up – And it shall be brought low…”

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Amen and Amen 

Lord Jesus come quickly.   

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Joel 2

God Judges the Nations

“For behold, in those days and at that time, When I bring back the captives of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, And bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgment with them there On account of My people, My heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; They have also divided up My land. They have cast lots for My people, Have given a boy as payment for a harlot, And sold a girl for wine, that they may drink.

“Indeed, what have you to do with Me, O Tyre and Sidon, and all the coasts of Philistia? Will you retaliate against Me? But if you retaliate against Me, Swiftly and speedily I will return your retaliation upon your own head; Because you have taken My silver and My gold, And have carried into your temples My prized possessions. Also the people of Judah and the people of Jerusalem You have sold to the Greeks, That you may remove them far from their borders.

“Behold, I will raise them Out of the place to which you have sold them, And will return your retaliation upon your own head. I will sell your sons and your daughters Into the hand of the people of Judah, And they will sell them to the Sabeans, To a people far off; For the Lord has spoken.”

Proclaim this among the nations: “Prepare for war! Wake up the mighty men, Let all the men of war draw near, Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords And your pruning hooks into spears; Let the weak say, ‘I am strong.’ ” Assemble and come, all you nations, And gather together all around. Cause Your mighty ones to go down there, O Lord.

“Let the nations be wakened, and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat; For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down; For the winepress is full, The vats overflow – For their wickedness is great.”

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will grow dark,

And the stars will diminish their brightness. The Lord also will roar from Zion, And utter His voice from Jerusalem; The heavens and earth will shake; But the Lord will be a shelter for His people, And the strength of the children of Israel.

“So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, Dwelling in Zion My holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy, And no aliens shall ever pass through her again.”

God Blesses His People

And it will come to pass in that day That the mountains shall drip with new wine, The hills shall flow with milk, And all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water; A fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord And water the Valley of Acacias.

“Egypt shall be a desolation, And Edom a desolate wilderness, Because of violence against the people of Judah, For they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall abide forever, And Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will acquit them of the guilt of bloodshed, whom I had not acquitted; For the Lord dwells in Zion.”

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Isaiah 2

The Future House of God

The word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.

Now it shall come to pass in the latter days That the mountain of the Lord’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore.

The Day of the Lord

O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the Lord. For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, Because they are filled with eastern ways; They are soothsayers like the Philistines, And they are pleased with the children of foreigners. Their land is also full of silver and gold, And there is no end to their treasures; Their land is also full of horses, And there is no end to their chariots. Their land is also full of idols; They worship the work of their own hands, That which their own fingers have made. People bow down, And each man humbles himself; Therefore do not forgive them.

Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty. The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

For the day of the Lord of hosts Shall come upon everything proud and lofty, Upon everything lifted up – And it shall be brought low – Upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, And upon all the oaks of Bashan; Upon all the high mountains, And upon all the hills that are lifted up; Upon every high tower, And upon every fortified wall; Upon all the ships of Tarshish, And upon all the beautiful sloops. The loftiness of man shall be bowed down, And the haughtiness of men shall be brought low; The Lord alone will be exalted in that day, But the idols He shall utterly abolish.

They shall go into the holes of the rocks, And into the caves of the earth, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty, When He arises to shake the earth mightily. In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver And his idols of gold, Which they made, each for himself to worship, To the moles and bats, To go into the clefts of the rocks, And into the crags of the rugged rocks, From the terror of the Lord And the glory of His majesty, When He arises to shake the earth mightily. Sever yourselves from such a man, Whose breath is in his nostrils; For of what account is he? 

Faith Fiercer than Locusts, Joel 1-2

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Rend your hearts not your garments. 

It wasn’t just the bite of the cat when she thought I was ignoring her and running away this morning, I really wasn’t, I also actually DREAMED about her nip on my elbow, waking me up, and knew the reminder to get back to Joel the prophet, and my reading and writing. I am now in the last slim sections of the old testament, prophets abound with advanced advice. It is given with an wrap up punch. Lots of history. But compared to forever, a small slice of situational severity.

Yeah, there’s something to be said completing the reading of the Bible, I’m ALMOST there, filling my knowledge gap in these 10 years into my awakening. It wasn’t about a Bible rapidness, devotions devoured,  but devotion newly discovered. My journey and likely yours too, has been page by page prodding by the Lord to absorb knowledge of Him and how He expresses His love to us. I bet the timing to finish these chapters is no accident. It’s a decade of devotion writing. I am reminded that the Lord has been devoted to us from before He began the universe. Jesus already set to save. The harvest now holding on for collection. 

No wonder with this much devotion from the Lord, He had and has lessons to teach, waywards to warn and regroup. The old testament plights are for those to beg to not go back there in waywardness.

I heard that Joel the prophet’s writing could be applied for many stages of the plight of the wayward Israelites and Judah-ites who weren’t devoted as they could be, then devoured by exile to Babylon, escape to Egypt, and all generations in wandering plight in the punishment of their wayward ways. There were constant reminders to follow God in prescribed sacrifice and devotion, the promise of prosperity, but their worship of false idols prevailed and distracted them. 

We all need to focus on the gifts over the gripes.

Halloween 31OCT is today, there is surely more fun than fright. They have parades not plight. But pockets of false idols and evil creep in, like excessive sugar pouncing unsuspecting souls. There are moments we fail to pay attention to each other, an evil of self-indulgence. There are idol-worship times of “keeping up with the neighbors” getting bigger and bigger yard displays, Halloween AND Christmas. It is SO GOOD to have Thanksgiving with simple thankfulness in the middle. 

So we know there are ignorant times where we forget to count our blessings, not remembering that the Lord does want us to FOCUS on the future WITH HIM, step by step now, one day, one moment at a time, and not get bogged down by today’s pressures. We forget about our fortunes and surely our forgiveness in the Lord and start to fight each other where we should be forging ahead for the sake of others yet to hear.

We need to be teaching preaching reaching at a faster pace than the locust can devour a crop of people behind us. The scripture reminder is of the losses, the scripture prophecy is for and of the day of the Lord coming back too. Rend your hearts, see His sacrifice, know His Salvation.

Therefore let us stoke up the Holy Spirit fire of faith and keep going… Look for the Lord to lead the Way. Keep walking faster than those locusts. 

Amen

“Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.“

Amen

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Joel 1, Joel 2:1-13

The Locust Plague in Judah

The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.

The Land Laid Waste

Hear this, you elders,

And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land!

Has anything like this happened in your days,

Or even in the days of your fathers?

Tell your children about it,

Let your children tell their children,

And their children another generation.

What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten;

What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten;

And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.

Awake, you drunkards, and weep;

And wail, all you drinkers of wine,

Because of the new wine,

For it has been cut off from your mouth.

For a nation has come up against My land,

Strong, and without number;

His teeth are the teeth of a lion,

And he has the fangs of a fierce lion.

He has laid waste My vine,

And ruined My fig tree;

He has stripped it bare and thrown it away;

Its branches are made white.

Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth

For the husband of her youth.

The grain offering and the drink offering

Have been cut off from the house of the Lord;

The priests mourn, who minister to the Lord.

The field is wasted,

The land mourns;

For the grain is ruined,

The new wine is dried up,

The oil fails.

Be ashamed, you farmers,

Wail, you vinedressers,

For the wheat and the barley;

Because the harvest of the field has perished.

The vine has dried up,

And the fig tree has withered;

The pomegranate tree,

The palm tree also,

And the apple tree—

All the trees of the field are withered;

Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men.

Mourning for the Land

Gird yourselves and lament, you priests;

Wail, you who minister before the altar;

Come, lie all night in sackcloth,

You who minister to my God;

For the grain offering and the drink offering

Are withheld from the house of your God.

Consecrate a fast,

Call a sacred assembly;

Gather the elders

And all the inhabitants of the land

Into the house of the Lord your God,

And cry out to the Lord.

Alas for the day!

For the day of the Lord is at hand;

It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.

Is not the food cut off before our eyes,

Joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The seed shrivels under the clods,

Storehouses are in shambles;

Barns are broken down,

For the grain has withered.

How the animals groan!

The herds of cattle are restless,

Because they have no pasture;

Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment.

O Lord, to You I cry out;

For fire has devoured the open pastures,

And a flame has burned all the trees of the field.

The beasts of the field also cry out to You,

For the water brooks are dried up,

And fire has devoured the open pastures.

The Day of the Lord

Chapter 2

Blow 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 is coming,

For it is at hand:

A day of darkness and gloominess,

A day of clouds and thick darkness,

Like the morning clouds spread over the mountains.

A people come, great and strong,

The like of whom has never been;

Nor will there ever be any such after them,

Even for many successive generations.

A fire devours before them,

And behind them a flame burns;

The land is like the Garden of Eden before them,

And behind them a desolate wilderness;

Surely nothing shall escape them.

Their appearance is like the appearance of horses;

And like swift steeds, so they run.

With a noise like chariots

Over mountaintops they leap,

Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble,

Like a strong people set in battle array.

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;

Every one marches in formation,

And they do not break ranks.

They do not push one another;

Every one marches in his own column.

Though they lunge between the weapons,

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 at the windows like a thief.

The earth quakes before them,

The heavens tremble;

The sun and moon grow dark,

And the stars diminish their brightness.

The Lord gives voice before His army,

For His camp is very great;

For strong is the One who executes His word.

For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible;

Who can endure it? 

A Call to Repentance

“Now, therefore,” says the Lord,

“Turn to Me with all your heart, With fasting, with weeping, and with mourning.” So rend your heart, and not your garments; Return to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and merciful, Slow to anger, and of great kindness; And He relents from doing harm.