It's a debated issue but I don't think that we can pin the prophet Joel with any certainty to the time period that he lived. Calvin and others commented that this was not important. Joel speaks to all of us in every age. The message....first of all....is that judgment from God comes first to the church. The Day of the LORD is near. Quibble if you want over the word 'near' but I see it in the sense of...'get ready.' The second message is one of 'restoration.'
In only the first 'Day of the LORD' that Joel writes of....the people had moved far from their God....and judgment was upon them through the locust that destroyed their food supplies. About a month ago there were news reports about a serious locust plague coming upon certain nations in the Middle East....and then a few days ago I saw more reports of the same.....and wondered how they could be the same thing. Well they were not the same thing. The farmers thought that they were over the locust threat only to have more swarms of....as some reports have it....twenty times as large.
There are many commentaries on the book of Joel....as on all the books of God's Word....but I personally have found O. Palmer Robertson....in all of his writings and his sermons....to be not only reliable but....as in the case of his book The Flow Of The Psalms....more perceptive than most scholarship. These words of his in his book Prophet of The Coming Day Of The LORD caught my eye...."So long as you perceive your calamity as coming simply from nature, you will expect the plague to stop 'on its own' just as you assumed it started 'on its own'.....this chastening judgment of God's people progresses from one object to another. It falls on the fields, then on the beasts and finally on man." That is what we are seeing today in America and in the church. The key word in Joel was 'repent'.....and that is precisely what we have not done as we see this virus as merely the latest locust to be overcome. The author writes these words that also caught my attention...."Who today would think that Christianity has as one of its basic goals the bringing of a whole congregation to the point of weeping repentance?" O Palmer Robertson wrote this book in 1995. I think that you would be blessed by reading it or listening to any of his YouTube sermons.
The author writes of another Day of the LORD....from Joel....in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ...in that "the Messiah has been established on His throne"....and of Peter's referencing Joel's words on the day of Pentecost....but there is yet another Day of the LORD...."great and terrible"....and that is still ahead of us.
We have more 'locust plagues' coming. Judgment has come to the church in the person of Donald Trump where all discernment was thrown to the wind....'tell us more of these great wonders ahead of us.' The best that could happen from a political perspective would be for President Trump to be forced to drop his quest for a second term. Not only is he a great delusion but a great obstruction as he dominates the lives on both sides this turmoil. We need to get by this so that we might look at what has happened to us.....and free of Donald Trump....humble ourselves before God....so that the last....Day of the LORD....is not only once again in our minds....but that we might act accordingly....and use these current locust plagues to awaken us....and lead us to prepare.
In only the first 'Day of the LORD' that Joel writes of....the people had moved far from their God....and judgment was upon them through the locust that destroyed their food supplies. About a month ago there were news reports about a serious locust plague coming upon certain nations in the Middle East....and then a few days ago I saw more reports of the same.....and wondered how they could be the same thing. Well they were not the same thing. The farmers thought that they were over the locust threat only to have more swarms of....as some reports have it....twenty times as large.
There are many commentaries on the book of Joel....as on all the books of God's Word....but I personally have found O. Palmer Robertson....in all of his writings and his sermons....to be not only reliable but....as in the case of his book The Flow Of The Psalms....more perceptive than most scholarship. These words of his in his book Prophet of The Coming Day Of The LORD caught my eye...."So long as you perceive your calamity as coming simply from nature, you will expect the plague to stop 'on its own' just as you assumed it started 'on its own'.....this chastening judgment of God's people progresses from one object to another. It falls on the fields, then on the beasts and finally on man." That is what we are seeing today in America and in the church. The key word in Joel was 'repent'.....and that is precisely what we have not done as we see this virus as merely the latest locust to be overcome. The author writes these words that also caught my attention...."Who today would think that Christianity has as one of its basic goals the bringing of a whole congregation to the point of weeping repentance?" O Palmer Robertson wrote this book in 1995. I think that you would be blessed by reading it or listening to any of his YouTube sermons.
The author writes of another Day of the LORD....from Joel....in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ...in that "the Messiah has been established on His throne"....and of Peter's referencing Joel's words on the day of Pentecost....but there is yet another Day of the LORD...."great and terrible"....and that is still ahead of us.
We have more 'locust plagues' coming. Judgment has come to the church in the person of Donald Trump where all discernment was thrown to the wind....'tell us more of these great wonders ahead of us.' The best that could happen from a political perspective would be for President Trump to be forced to drop his quest for a second term. Not only is he a great delusion but a great obstruction as he dominates the lives on both sides this turmoil. We need to get by this so that we might look at what has happened to us.....and free of Donald Trump....humble ourselves before God....so that the last....Day of the LORD....is not only once again in our minds....but that we might act accordingly....and use these current locust plagues to awaken us....and lead us to prepare.
