Podcast

Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come Lord join us here today

It is easy to call you Lord
Easy to believe in your love
Your care
It is easy to trust you when
Things go well,
According to plan
Exceeding expectations
Satisfying aspirations
In days of abundance

It is another thing
When we loose
What we had
When hope drifts ways
Dreams fade
When people are unkind
Cruel
Heartless

Of course
It is no surprise
We all suffer
We suffer these losses
Suffer these heartbreaks
Suffer our hopes dashed
And it is then
We decide again
If we will call you Lord
Another day

So we choose
Today
This morning
Even if we also grieve
To say thank you
For all of it
The hard and the beautiful
Thank you for where we came from
Thank you for where you are taking us
Thank you for every step along the way.
Thank you
Yes
Thank you
Amen

Joel 4:9-21

Intro: Last week God gave Joel an announcement to deliver

The Lord had summoned the nations to appear in his court

• specifically, kingdoms that attacked and plundered Judah
• now, Joel’s prophecies close with the court proceedings
• does it ever feel satisfying to you when justice is served?

• there are certain crimes, so deceitful and cruel,
  ◦ that when criminals are caught, it triggers specific reactions
  ◦ relief, the restoration of balance, security, maybe joy
• for most of Israel’s history–especially after Babylonian exile
  ◦ they were a weak and defenseless nation
  ◦ neighboring kingdoms exploited this disadvantage
• through Joel, God promised his people a day of justice

God’s summons to the nations is a “call to arms”
V. 9 Proclaim this among the nations,
assemble for battle.
Raise the warriors,
let all the men of war
come forth, go up.
V. 10 Grind your plowshares into swords
and your pruning hooks into spears.
The weak shall say: I am a warrior.
V. 11 Hasten and come,
all nations round about, and gather.
There bring down, O LORD, your warriors. (Robert Alter’s translation)

God has already brought his case against Israel’s enemies

• now their sentence will be carried out on the battlefield

• this is fitting, because their oppression of Israel began with war
• I want to emphasize – not all the nations in whole world
  ◦ specific enemies who defeated & cruelly crushed Israel
  ◦ between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, Syria especially brutal
• there is a noteworthy twist on a striking image found in Isaiah, where weapons are turned into farm tools
  God “shall judge between the nations,
  and decide disputes for many peoples;
  and 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 any more” (Isa. 2:4)
• but here in this part of Joel we encounter the exact opposite
  ◦ farm tools will be turned into weapons

“Hasten and come” – the enemy troops are hurried forward

• rushing hurriedly is a normal response to a sudden crisis

• this was what we experienced this past week with the sudden firestorm
• when the armies assemble and converge on the battlefield,
  ◦ God would deploy his warriors

What will this final battle accomplish?
12 The nations shall be roused and come up
to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
For there will I sit to judge
all the nations round about.
13 Wield the sickle,
for the harvest is ripe.
Come, go down,
for the winepress is full.
The vats overflow,
for the winepress is full.
The vats overflow,
for their evil is great.
14 Crowds upon crowds
in the Valley of Doom,
for near is the day of the LORD
in the Valley of Doom.
15 Sun and moon go dark
and the stars withdraw their light.
16 And the LORD from Zion roars
and from Jerusalem sounds His voice,
and the heavens and the earth shudder.
But the LORD is a refuge to His people,
and a stronghold to the Israelites.

V. 12, We return again to the Valley of Jehoshaphat– “the Valley of Judgment” – the courtroom

• what happens there we would refer to as a “decisive battle”

• the tide is turned in favor of one side against the other
• the outcome of the conflict is settled – there will be an obvious winner
• V. 13, by now, we should be familiar with word pictures like this

• these expressions are not to be taken literally
  ◦ “the harvest is ripe” – signifies that the time has come
• tension had been building and now it’s reached a tipping point
  ◦ sometimes we wait for justice so long, we lose heart
  “And [Jesus] told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart” (Lk. 18:1–and this is a story about justice)
  ◦ the “vat” had been filling up, reached its limit, & overflows

V. 14, Again, we find ourselves in the “Valley,” only here it is given a different name

• “Valley of Doom” – a pronounced doom; the court has delivered a “decision”

• “Has the jury reached a verdict?”
• the verdict has been delivered, “guilty” and sentence is doom
• 15-16, The judgment is described with apocalyptic intensity

• the world grows dark – this is never a good sign!
• Yahweh roars and “the heavens and the earth shudder”
  ◦ a powerful image – sound waves vibrating through the cosmos
  ◦ we can “feel” sound vibrations in our sternum (especially pounding bass guitars)
• now we come to the conjunction, “but” – and it signals a turn
• we turn away from what is happening to the nations,
  ◦ and turn toward what God is to his people
  ◦ refuge and stronghold – protection and security

Following the defeat of their enemies, Judah is blessed
17 And you shall know that I am the LORD your God
Who dwells in Zion, My holy nation,
and Jerusalem shall be holy,
no more shall strangers pass through it.

V. 17, Zion is mentioned again – this time, where God dwells

• Zion means more than the name of a place

• Zion is a dream, a vision – God’s vision
  ◦ if Israel lived perfectly in God’s will,
  ◦ if his people loved him, and sought him, and worshiped him,
  then Jerusalem would be Zion,
  the fulfillment of God’s dream for his people
  and a permanent residence for himself
• I realize that the word “dwell” has a positive effect on me
  ◦ we could say God lives in Zion, or inhabits Zion
  ◦ but dwell is something more – he’s settled there, he can be found there
• people could visit city of Jerusalem w/out experiencing Zion

• unless we encounter God we haven’t been where he dwells
  ◦ Jesus invites us to dwell with him–find our dwelling in him
  “If anyone loves me, they will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them” (Jn. 14:23)
  “Abide in me, and I in you” (Jn. 15:4)
• Zion is “holy,” which means it belongs to God; it is set apart for him exclusively
  ◦ so there no invaders would be tramping through it as they had Jerusalem

God’s blessings for Israel is also described in apocalyptic terms
18 And it shall happen on that day:
the mountains shall drip fermented juice
and the hills run with milk
and all the channels of Judah
run with water.
And a spring shall issue from the house of the LORD
and water the Wadi of Acacias.
19 Egypt shall become a desolation
and Edom a desolate wilderness
for the outrage done to the Judahites
in whose land they shed the blood of the innocent.

V. 18, Like Southern California, Israel is also an arid climate

• having access to water was necessary for every town

• but what appears here is an abundance of water
  ◦ in fact, wine will drip from the mountains,
  ◦ milk run down from hills, and water will run in aqueducts
• and from the temple in the heart of Jerusalem, a spring will open
  ◦ its water will run into deserts and dry river beds (wadis)
• this is meant to evoke a sense of luxuriance

V. 19, In the meantime, nations that have harmed Israel will dry up

• Egypt will become “a desolation” and Edom a “desolate wilderness”

The closing statements of Joel
20 And Judah shall be settled forever
and Jerusalem for all generations.
21 Shall I acquit their blood? I will not acquit.
And the LORD dwells in Zion.

V. 20, At last, the land would fulfill its destiny: a permanent home for God’s people

V. 21, I’m surprised that we would return to the courtroom at this point in Joel

• who was asking for an acquittal? The guilty nations?
• no matter, God refuses
  Robert Alter, “The first clause here is then construed as a rhetorical question. God will certainly not acquit those who have shed the blood of His innocent people–Judah will dwell peacefully for all time, but those who once victimized them will remain an eternal desolation.”

The last line seems out of place,
separate from the immediate context
“And the LORD dwells in Zion”

• a reaffirmation of what was already promised

• but there is an important difference
• this sentence is in the present tense–not the future or the past
  ◦ but now, already, he is there among his people

I haven’t shared with you the intense response to all this

Tuesday I finished the Old Testament, and my meditation was on Malachi 3:18
“And you shall turn back and see
between the righteous and the wicked,
between him who serves God
and him who does not serve Him”

• in this past Wednesday night’s Lexio Divina, Jesus made the same point:
  “Who then is the faithful and wise servant” who cares for others and gives them what is due them at the proper time, as opposed to “the wicked servant” who mistreats others (Mt. 24:45-51)

• for several years, I knew about a scheme but chose to ignoredit
  ◦ when I finally spoke up, there was a strong backlash
  ◦ and that has resulted in a discovery of misdeeds more serious than I knew
• it’s the kind of thing, if I wake up at night, I have hard time falling back to sleep
  ◦ what has been remarkable, is the way God talks me down every morning
  ◦ speaking to me very specifically through the Scriptures
• the morning after reading the Malachi passage, I was reading in Revelation 6

• a mass of people who had suffered persecution cried out,
  “How long, O Master, holy and true, will you not judge and exact justice for our blood . . . .” (Rev. 6:10-11)
  ◦ they were told to “rest a little while longer”
• they were also given white robes–like an insignia or uniform,
  ◦ which I assume symbolizes their innocence
  ◦ God keeps telling me to trust him
  and that if he has my trust, he has me

Conclusion: In a letter to a friend, Abbot John Chapman wrote
“Every circumstance of our life is a means of getting to heaven, and a part of God’s providence so that at every moment we are in touch with God.”

If we can see this always, we can always be at peace