Good Morning All!
Joel
2:21; “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has
done great things!”
“Fear not!!” Does that sound familiar? That phrase gets used a lot in the
Bible. God tells his people repeatedly
that they do not need to fear; that He is with them and will protect them. He comes to them in peace; to offer them his
grace.
“Be afraid, be very, very afraid!!” We hear that a lot today. Men use fear to drive people in a direction
that the fear mongers want you to go. If
you listen to the Republicans, the day that a Democrat gets elected you will
see the hammer and sickle over the White House, UN troops on every corner and we
will all be communists. If you listen to
the Democrats, the day a Republican gets elected you will see the
re-establishment of the Jim Crow laws, we will go back to the Cold War, we will
do away with the Voter’s Rights Act and equality will go the way of the way of
the 8-track tape. Isn’t it funny how God
offers us hope and man only offers us fear?
The book of Joel is a short book, only
three chapters. We do not know much
about Joel, but he plays a big role later on.
When the fist Pentecost occurs, the disciples quote Joel about the
coming of the Spirit. The other is that
Joel uses the phrase “the day of the Lord” to refer to God’s final judgment of
man or the end of times. Peter, Paul,
and the other epistle writers use this phrase to describe Jesus’ return as in 2
Peter 3:10 “The day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night.”
Joel speaks of three instances of “the day
of the Lord”. The first is the immediate
plague of locust and a drought. The
second is the imminent threat of invasion and the third is the ultimate final
day of the Lord. You may or may not face
locust and drought; at times, this spring it felt like it. We usually do not fear too many invaders in
this country; the last one on the mainland of the United States was the British
Army during the War of 1812. The first
two references to “the day of the Lord”, we probably do not worry about too
much. However, eventually, we will face
the final judgment day; we will face the day when Jesus returns as judge and
king.
The good news is that we do not have to
worry about that one either. In fact, we
should look forward to that day! We
should look forward to the day when Christ returns and death, the final enemy,
is totally destroyed. We should look
forward to the day when we live in Jesus’ holy presence and see him face to
face. We don’t have to fear that day; we
should be glad and rejoice!” The Lord
truly has done great things. We are
covered by Christ’s righteousness; we have nothing to fear when Christ
returns. We will join Him in the sky as
He returns to claim us as His own.
The really amazing thing is that we can
look at our life and see three “day of the Lord” that are truly wonderful for
us. We have our birth, our re-birth
(Baptism) and the day when we go to live with Christ for eternity. All three days God blesses us and sustains
us, giving us life and a hope to cling to until the final day of the Lord. Oh, the great things He has done!!
Gracious Father, your
mercies are new every day for great things you do for us. Give us the courage to “fear not”, to live
our life with the certainty of our salvation and to go forth with the bold
confidence in the hope which you have given to us. Guard us and protect us until that day shall
come when we are united with you. In
Jesus’ precious name we pray. Amen.
God’s Peace,
Pastor Bret
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.