Sermon: "Joel"

First in the "Major Issues in Minor Prophets" series.
Delivered June 12, 2005 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Theme: God is in control of the world. So that means that sometimes the things that happen to us are meant to get our attention and call us back to God.

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For the next few weeks we are going to be looking at the Minor Prophets. Major issues in the Minor Prophets. Now when you hear the words 'minor prophet' I don't know what you are thinking. I think some of you figure Minor Prophets; prophets that aren't old enough yet to buy beer. That's not exactly what it is, nor does it mean that they are unimportant prophets. Minor prophets is a name that the church has used for a number of centuries for the last 12 books of the Bible, beginning with Hosea and ending with Malachi, and they are called minor prophets because they are all short books. The longest ones are around ten chapters or a little bit longer. Most of them are under ten chapters, and so it basically means the shorter written works of prophets. That is what it means by Minor Prophets.

And so we are going to be looking at those, and I have picked out five; all five of which are under four chapters long. So they are easy to read in one sitting, and I would encourage you to read these prophets before you come to worship across the next few weeks. This week we are doing Joel. Next week we are doing Jonah. Then Habakkuk, then Haggai and Malachi. Five prophets and I would encourage you to take a look at these prophets and take a look at the whole book and try to write down in your journal, what's the main message of this prophet. And maybe I will preach on that or maybe I will miss it and preach on something else that's important in the book and you will tell me that I missed the main message. And that's okay, but study it because that's the one nice thing about the shorter prophetic books is it's basically one prophecy, one teaching, and so you can kind of pick a theme out of that.

Well, I have just been on vacation for a few weeks and one of the fun things about vacation is you can put aside all the things that normally you are putting energy into and taking up your time and doing just fun things. One of the things that I like to do on vacations is to read, and one of the things that I was reading about lately is something called environmatics. Its proper name is environmental informatics, and what this seems to be from my reading about, it is that there are all kinds of sensors and electronic devices out there now that you can put out in to fields. You can take radar information and information about precipitation and things like that, soil type, get all this information funnel it into computers, put it out on the Internet , and then researchers can take that information, run computer simulations on it and then actually make suggestions to farmers who are living in different counties, and sometimes even to an individual field and can give suggestions on do you need a fungicide, do you need a new pesticide, should you water your crop and things like that. It's an amazing amount of information and amazing amount of control over helping our farmers produce more with their land.

Now, you are wondering why am I sharing this? Apart from the reason that I am a technology geek the point is, is that we are surrounded by a phenomenal amount of technological power. This is just one of many many areas where we have a growing control over what we do. If we have some kind of medical problem, what we want to do is we want to have better diagnostics, better medicines, better treatments. Any kind of problem we have we feel like there is some kind of technological solution. If we are threatened by an enemy we want better weaponry, something that's faster and more accurate, something that is more powerful, something that's unmanned. If we have a drought what we want is better irrigation or develop plants that need less water. If we have a problem with insects then we want better insecticides or maybe genetically manipulate the insect population so they won't reproduce as well. Hurricanes and tornadoes we have flood protection, early warning radar. These threats have become things that we try to control and that's good because that's a basic part of who we are as human beings. We have been given that capacity to have a phenomenal impact on the world around us, to influence our environment.

But at the same time, as we've gained this much control over things, we have lost something as well. In the last century or so we have lost the capacity to see God at work in creation, because in western culture we basically believe a number of things. The first is, that there is no creator. So, for so many of us out there who have decided there is no creator and so if there is no creator there is no one to depend upon so we depend only on ourselves; not only is there no one to depend on, there is no one to answer to. There is no one out there that has a right to tell us anything about the way we live. It's just a matter of what pragmatically works for us. So, that's the first thing, there is no creator.

The next one is, since there is no creator, we are in control. That's another basic mindset in western society, or if we are not in control then nobody is. It's a chaotic event. It's an event that's a threat, but it's random. There is no personality or wisdom behind it. So because we view the fact that we are in control there is a lot of energy we put in to controlling the world around us, and I have just talked about some of that about our technology. But we also try to control the people around us. This happens on national level, but it also happens on a personal level. We try to control other people. So since we are in control and since it all depends on us, then if it takes manipulation, if it takes lying, if it takes political action, if it takes some kind of power and coercion we will do it because there is no one to answer to. And then we should be trying to control ourselves, and yet I find that in western culture that's the one that gets the least effort. We would much rather put effort into controlling our environment then controlling our habits that affect our environment. So we want to have it all. We want to have whatever cars we have and drive whatever distances we want. We want to live wherever we want, but then we try to find a technological solution to deal with all the impact of that kind of lifestyle; never thinking seriously that maybe there is something we could do differently in lifestyle. And that's just a habit of the way we deal with our environment and we deal with other people.

Third thing is that we make the rules and if we make the rules, that means we live any way we want. We make a decision on what rules are important and what's fascinating about this is that we make the rules and then we feel a right to judge other people by the rules we consider are important. So you have one part of our society saying these rules are important and other people saying, "No, no that's not the important rules; these are the important rules" and they disagree with one another and there is all kinds of animosity over that and that's because there is not one set of rules, one set over and above us that we can agree about. So we live anyway we want.

Now by thinking this way we have lost our capacity to see God's presence in the world. When we see a problem we only think about how to solve it, and we never think about if there is some meaning in this crisis, is there some meaning in this event that God's trying to get something thru to us, to communicate to us, to reshape who we are. We can't ask that question, it's not part of our worldview. But the Old Testament prophets saw things very differently than that. The prophets believed that the world was created and sustained by God and so the first thing is, is that we are created people, creatures who are created to depend upon God. So "we depend on God" is a basic part of their worldview. We are not independent. We are not self-sufficient. By nature there is a part of us that is created to depend on God and God's goodwill towards us.

And the other part of this is that we answer to God, that God has a right to expect things from us. This goes back to the very start of the nation Israel and so prophets are often mining the very earliest part of the life of Israel for the way Israel is supposed to respond to life and so back in the Book of Exodus, the Ten Commandments, which is a long list of requirements over us begins with this phrase. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me." There is that assumption that there is a God who is at work and he has the right to then start telling us how to live life.

Another thing about the prophetic worldview is that they believe that God is in control and not us. That there are events happening in the world and God is behind that, and that can be a huge problem for us because again we expect our lives to have such an incredible impact upon the world around us. And a thought that there is actually so much out of our control and maybe it's not only out of our control, but it's in God's control and that is something that we struggle with. So I think of a mother of a friend of ours in Louisiana. She was a woman who ate properly; ate the healthy food and always watched her weight, did exercise, lived the most healthiest lifestyle of all of her immediate peers and yet she is the one that is dying early now from Parkinson's disease, while her husband who didn't exercise, didn't watch his weight is living on. And there is that frustration that we all feel that what we have done doesn't have control over everything, and then we doubly struggle with the fact that maybe God does and yet this has still happened. And yet this is part of the prophetic mind, is that God is in control of these things. Now it's good to do what we can; to do what's healthy and smart and handle our finances well and everything else, but in and all we have to realize that there is so much that is beyond our control, there are no guarantees in life.

God gives us responsibility for ourselves and that's the primary focus we find in scripture. God is in control. We are not, but we are given responsibility for how we respond to what's happening around us and that's where the primary focus of the Old and New Testament hits us; is who are we as individuals,who are we as nations, as we respond to a creation around us.

Now there is another thing. God makes the rules is the third part. God passionately desires, God requires that people obey him. That's part of the way they see the world, the part the way the whole Bible sees the world. To disobey God means that some things might get rough in life because of that disobedience. And so that means that some, not all, but some things in life, some danger in tragedy is God trying to get out attention in life. So we see some of that in a Book like Deuteronomy, again in the earliest part of the life of Israel where it says something like this. This is Deuteronomy 31, verses 16 and following. It's talking about Israel.

"They will forsake me and break the covenant I made with them. On that day I will become angry with them and forsake them; I will hide my face from them, and they will be destroyed. Many disasters and difficulties will come upon them, and on that day they will ask,' Have not these disasters come upon us because our God is not with us? And certainly I will hide my face on that day because of all their wickedness in turning to other gods."

So there's that assumption about life; that our relationship with God actually can affect the life we live, and the way creation itself impacts our lives. And that's because the prophets believed that we lived in a moral universe, that we live in a moral universe. It doesn't mean that life is fair, but what it means is that our relationship to God and our morality affects prosperity, it affects peace, it affects eternity, that the way we live really matters. And sometimes what happens to us is directly related to our relationship with God. Now, this is so much different than the way our society views life. By putting God out of the picture, we have lost any capacity to see our world as a moral world and so when you have a sickness or a crop failure, an earthquake or a war, these are only problems to be solved. You never asked the more fundamental question about what is God saying in it. Sure, we might ask the question "Oh God why me?" but we don't ask a deeper question, "God is there a reason why it's me?" And so when we go and look at the world this way there is this assumption that even if we believe there is a God, that God would never use world events to actually punish anybody or to shake somebody up and tell them that they have to change the way they are living. That's beneath God. He would never do that. That's the assumption we make, but Joel disagrees, because Joel looks at an event and says in this catastrophe I hear God speak to Israel.

Let's pray for a moment that we will be open to what Joel says. Lord, whatever it is in the words of Joel that we need to hear today, we pray that you make that clear and everything else Lord we just pray you push aside. For we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Joel sees a particular event and sees God's hand in it. And what's happening is, there is a plague of locusts that's hitting the nation of Israel. Now a locust swarm can be several hundred square miles in size and each square mile can have up to 100 million adult locusts in it. It can be so large, during a plague of locusts there can be such an impact that in one season up to 60 countries could be impacted by one plague of locusts. That's 20% of the world's land mass. It can affect the economies of 10% of the population in one event. And when the locusts come they come in swarming, devouring every green plant, leaving nothing. They climb into homes. They get into food, into your beds and leaves you in economic ruin. And so this is what Joel says when he sees the drought and the impact of the locust upon his own country. Going in to the first chapter, I am just going to read a few verses from Chapter 1, verses 16 to 18.

"Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes- joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. The storehouses are in ruins,the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up. How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering."

Then the second chapter around verse 9 and 10. They are talking about the locusts. I am going to go back to verse 7.

"They charge like warriors; they scale walls like soldiers." Then going to verse 9: "They rush upon the city; they run along the wall. They climb into the houses; like thieves they enter through the windows. Before them the earth shakes, the sky trembles, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars no longer shine. The Lord thunders at the head of his army; his forces are beyond number and mighty are those who obey his command. The day of the Lord is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?"

It's a catastrophe. It's devastating. The economy of the whole nation all at once in one event. And in it the important thing to see about what Joel sees, is that in that catastrophe God, Joel sees it in light of the fact that God controls all events, and Joel sees that catastrophe in light of the fact that Israel has a relationship to God, and something this bad can't happen to Israel without it having some meaning in terms of their relationship with God. You can't separate their relationship to God entirely from the event that's happening. And so Joel sees this event happening and he remembers some of the things that were said in the Old Testament and one of the things that is said in the Book of Deuteronomy, in the very earliest part of the life of Israel, is that if they disobey God and seek other gods, it says this literally in Deuteronomy 28, swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and your land. So Joel sees this, knows that God could have said no to this disaster, but doesn't, and so he starts to say through the power of the Holy Spirit, what is God saying to Israel in this? And so we get the core of the message in Chapter 2, verses 12 to 14.

"Even now," declares the Lord," return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning." Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing, grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God."

Israel has turned from God and disobeyed and needs to turn back to God for things to be set right again. And the good news that Joel gives to Israel is that repentance works. That if we turn back to God, God doesn't like to send calamity. God doesn't rejoice in that. He loves and is gentle and is slow to anger, and when we respond and draw back to him, he has the power to handle that calamity. Now we've got to be very careful if we try to think about the world like Joel does. Now, the first reason we have to be careful is because Jesus himself told us we can't look at tragedy in somebody else's life and think ah-ha we are better than them. They are being judged by God. We can't do that. Jesus told us in Luke, Chapter 13 that we can't do that. Another reason is, is not every calamity is a judgment. Charles B.'s mother, okay Charles is one of the teachers in our church. He teaches Sunday School here. His mother pointed out to him that when a tragic thing happens it could one of three things. It could be God judging, God getting your attention and the proper response at a time like that is to repent. That's what happening to Israel right now. That's what Joel is preaching about. But a tragic thing can also be an attack from Satan, and at times like that our response is not to repent, but to rebuke, to take a spiritual stance against what's happening and in the authority of Jesus Christ to oppose it. And there is a third option. Sometimes a tragic thing is a trial, and at times like that you can't rebuke it away, God isn't telling you that you have done something especially wrong. At times like that you have just got to endure it.

So another reason we have got to be careful if we try to look at the world the way Joel does is because it's complicated and there is only some times that it's a word of rebuke. And yet because of those dangers we can't then go to what our culture does and just look at Aids and Tsunami's and earthquakes, famine and hurricanes and the problems with the ozone layer and just view them as problems to fix with out technology. It's more than that. We live in a moral universe. It's broken. It's under enemy occupation. It's filled with evil, and yet God is there in our world. And sometimes things happen that are meant to get our attention, to show us our error and draw us back to God.

It's sobering to think of how many tragedies in this world are caused in part by human error and sin. Think about the size of the Aids epidemic in the world right now. It's crushing, and yet think of how it's tied in with promiscuity and drug abuse. Our misbehavior is part of the problem. Or the fact that we've got problems with our oceans, our bays, our forests, our air and how all these problems are tied in with our materialism and greed. The way politics has led to famines in the world and genocide. How the break down of our families have led to violence in our culture. Now, I don't have insight into everyone of those events and know exactly how to view them, and I certainly have no right to judge someone else that's suffering because of that, but these sorts of things in our world reminds me and should remind all of us that for all the power of our technology, we are still not in control. Our pride is misplaced. We don't make the rules. We will have to answer for the way we live. As it says in the New Testament, you will reap what you sow.

Now, the reason why I am talking about this today is that we have to believe that God is in control and that our response to God really matters, because over the next few weeks as we hear the Minor Prophets speak, again and again the message they bring is to draw near to God, come back to God, return to God. And if we don't believe that this matters, then none of the next few weeks are going to make any sense at all. The prophets call us back to a God centered life. Now maybe our lives right now aren't as centered on God as they should be, and maybe some of us have some major problems that we are struggling with; I am not saying, please hear me, I am not saying that these difficulties, these trials are God judging us. What I am saying though is that in these trials maybe God is trying to get our attention. Whether they are personal or whether they are national or international in scope, these problems are not just problems to be solved. In it there is something that we need to learn.

If God is involved in the circumstances around us, then there is something to learn as we face these difficulties. Maybe the thing we have to learn is that we are not in control and that God is there with us, and that God loves us and God will see us through. Maybe that's the only lesson, but there is a lesson. Maybe there is something in it that has to be released. Maybe in struggling with something we recognize that there is an attitude, a habit, a hurt that God is calling us to release as part of the healing, as part of the change. And maybe there is something new that we have to do. Maybe what God is saying in some of the things that we face is that we actually have to change the way we live and that our priorities have to reorder, that we need to do some things differently, that we have to return to God in our behavior, make a determined effort, a fresh effort to obey God. It could be any or all of these things, but the promise is in this that Joel gives us is that God will respond lovingly as we return to him. It says here "Rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity."

Now across the next few weeks as we go into the Minor Prophets, perhaps some of us can think about some of our personal issues and try to hear what God is saying in what we face. And then others of us ought to be looking at the newspapers and taking a look at what our nation is facing, taking a look at what other nations are facing in the world right now and think about all of these issues that hit our whole society. What does it mean? Where are we going? Because the prophets tell us, Joel tells us that God is in it all, and God is still speaking and maybe some things need to change.

Let's pray. Gracious God, we remember that we are a broken people, that we live in a broken world and so that means Lord that none of us can come before you right now and pretend that we have it all together, that we are doing it all right, and as we face difficulties Lord it's hard sometimes to know what you are saying in it. Is it something to shake us up and change it? Is it something that's an attack against us that we should resist? Is it something that we just have to endure? God give us open ears, give us clarity of sight, draw us closer to your side because we know that as we draw close to you, you will abundantly bless because you have declared your love for us.

Lord as we look at our nation we pray also for discernment for our leaders, Lord that more than human wisdom there would be a sense of humility, a sense of just how much is out of our control and a willingness to be moral, and just, and patient, and compassionate, as well as firm. Lord, that somehow in the morass of all the decisions that could be made, that we will make ones that honor you and pursue justice and yet show mercy. We pray for all of those who are in danger, for those who are suffering because of the ravages of things like Aids, because of hunger, because of natural disasters. God we pray for mercy upon these people and that they too might have room for repentance and might hear the good news for forgiveness. If there is anything at all in what happens to them, that should make them draw nearer to you. God we pray for our soldiers who are in harms way. Lord we pray for your protection over them and that you will be working in them and teaching them in the hardships that they face. And then we pray for the very city around us, that in this city of Baltimore too Lord, there might be churches all over this town that are willing to hear your voice, willing to respond to your leading, willing to live righteous lives in the communities that you have called us to. For we ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2005, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org