Pastors....Wake Up...."Consecrate A Fast....Call A Sacred Assembly....Gather The Elders!"

               The essence of the message in the book of the prophet Joel is....The Day of the LORD. Joel begins by asking if the people had ever seen anything like it before....for the locusts had eaten everything.  So he is telling them to call an assembly and deal with all of what is happening....but the core message is in the Day of the LORD...and the final wrath that will come upon the world.
                Five verses into this short book.....Joel writes...."Awake, you drunkards....and weep; And wail....all of you drinkers of wine....because of the new wine....for it has been cut off from your mouth."
                 Now the accepted interpretation of this is that the people must have liked their wine....especially the sweet wine fresh off the vine....and what with the devastation from the locusts there would be no more enjoyment of that...."new" wine. Some translations actually say....."sweet wine."
                 When I read Joel 5:1....I don't immediately or automatically focus on wine....but rather on what "new wine" is often interpreted as....the new covenant. Now I can switch back to fermented grape juice but that is not what I see when I open that book.
                 Joel goes on and on with end days....wrath of God....terminology....but there is great hope at the end of the book....and interestingly Joel uses that two-word phrase again....this in chapter 2 verse 18 & 19...."Then the LORD will be zealous for His land....and pity His people....the LORD will answer and say to His people....'Behold....I will send you grain and new wine and oil'."
                 Anyway....the message that comes to me in this book....to us....is the same. Try reading this short book about a dozen times today. Yeah....a dozen times....awake you drunkards and weep and wail! What I see is.....this obviously very late in the great tribulation....with.....blood and fire and pillars of smoke in the heavens....is the Jewish people no longer having the gospel around them to at least take in....(this because all of the redeemed of the Lord are gone)....and then later....having that new wine and....oil....(often associated with the Holy Spirit)....given to them again....where they will finally partake....and be saved...."So you shall know that I am the LORD your God."
                  Overall.....to us today....the message is....'look around at America....with one group of locusts after another....from Obama to Trump to Biden to Trump again....from liberalism to progressivism to today's Ayn Rand Trump version of capitalism....and call an assembly....for the wrath of the Lord is near!'