Return to the Lord. Joel 2:12-17
Judah’s Judgment and Exaltation
1.THE INFLICTION OF JUDGMENT, Joe_1:1-20; Joe_2:1-17
5. The Hope of Forgiveness, Joe_2:12-17
RETURN TO THE LORD
“Even now,” says the LORD, “Turn and come to Me with all your heart [in genuine repentance], With fasting and weeping and mourning [until every barrier is removed and the broken fellowship is restored];
Rip your heart to pieces [in sorrow and contrition] and not your garments.” Now return [in repentance] to the LORD your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness [faithful to His covenant with His people]; And He relents [His sentence of] evil [when His people genuinely repent].
Who knows whether He will relent [and revoke your sentence], And leave a blessing behind Him, Even a grain offering and a drink offering [from the bounty He provides you] For the LORD your God?
Blow a trumpet in Zion [warning of impending judgment], Dedicate a fast [as a day of restraint and humility], call a solemn assembly.
Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, Assemble the elders, Gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room And the bride out of her bridal chamber. [No one is excused from the assembly.]
Let the priests, the ministers of the LORD, Weep between the porch and the altar, And let them say, “Have compassion and spare Your people, O LORD, And do not make Your inheritance (Israel) an object of ridicule, Or a [humiliating] byword among the [Gentile] nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?'”
THE AVERTING OF JUDGMENT
To rend the garment is easy, but a broken and contrite heart can be imparted only by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The love of God should bring us to repentance. He takes no pleasure in our miseries and if men repent and turn from their sin they find an immediate and loving welcome to the Father’s heart and home. Joel had called for the trumpet to announce war; he now directs the trumpet blast to summon the people, from the highest to the lowest, to plead for help. Prayer and true repentance and faith bring an immediate answer. As the husband yearns over his erring but repentant wife, and is indignant with those who have maltreated her, so will Jehovah remove from us, when we turn to Him, those who have cruelly oppressed us.
The great things Jehovah did against Egypt and Babylon are an earnest of what He will do again. The earth, Joe_2:21; the lower animals, Joe_2:22; and, above all, the children of Zion, literal and spiritual, Joe_2:23, have good reason to rejoice in what awaits them. God promises not only to forgive sin, but to make us happy and well provided as if the locust and cankerworm had never settled upon our lives.
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