The Pilgrim Path---Joel 1: 14 

“Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD.”

TURN TO GOD (notes from Life Action Ministries)

Joel was speaking for God to God’s people. Without hesitation Joel proclaimed what was needed. The people must return to God and cry out to Him. Only He could stop the marauding herd of destruction (swarming locusts).

God is as great in His compassion as He is in His judgment. If they would cry out to Him and return to Him, He would relent and perhaps even “leave a blessing behind Him.”

But the needed response is one of national mourning and repentance. No mere outward show will make any difference to the LORD God Almighty.

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD,

“return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.”

Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God?

Joel 2: 12—14

We can ignore God in this moment, thinking (once again) that we are the masters of our destiny. We can believe that our Babel towers will ascend to the heights and save the day.

Or in humility, we can return to God. We can cry out to Him. We can trust Him again. And if we do, all human history reminds us that we will discover His great compassion and salvation.

Perhaps it is time to listen to Joel…and cry out.

REPENTANCE: “Sees sin’s sinfulness, and how contrary it is to the blessed God. God is light, sin is darkness; God is life, sin is death; God is heaven, sin is hell; God is beauty, and sin is deformity. True repentance understands the mischievousness of sin. It cast angels out of heaven, and Adam out of paradise. It laid the first cornerstone in hell, and brought in all the curses, crosses, and miseries that are in the world. It makes men godless, Christ-less, hopeless, and heaven-less. Repentance breaks the heart with sighs, sobs, and groans, in that a loving God and Father is offended by sin, a blessed Savior is crucified afresh, and the sweet Comforter, the Spirit, is grieved and vexed. O that you were wise to break off with your sins by timely repentance!” Thomas Brooks

“Whether God come to his children with a rod or a crown, if he come with himself with it, it is well. Welcome, welcome Jesus, what may soever thou come, if we can get a sight of thee; and sure I am; it is better to be sick, providing Christ come to the bedside and draw the curtains, and say, Courage, I am thy salvation, than to enjoy health, being lusty and strong and never need to be visited of God.” Samuel Rutherford

Holy God forgive us for ignoring You. Forgive us for paying more attention to the created than the Creator. Deliver us from merely humanistic solutions when You are standing at the door knocking. Sweep across our land, Lord, reminding us of our desperate need to return to You in full repentance and confession. Raise a worldwide, repentant cry, and then answer that prayer to show the world that You are a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering God. Remind us in unmistakable terms that You can do anything and that You control everything. Deliver us, O Lord, and glorify Your Name for the sake of Jesus your Holy Son. Amen.

Jesus Calls us from the worship of the vain world’s golden store,

From each idol that would keep us, saying, “Christian, love me more.”

Jesus calls us: by thy mercies, Savior, may we hear thy call,

Give our hearts to thine obedience, serve and love thee best of all.

Cecil Frances Alexander 1852; alt.

Grace and Peace in Jesus Christ Our LORD, Pastor Jason