The Day of the LORD
sound an alarm on my holy mountain!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble,
for the day of the LORD is coming; it is near,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness!
Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains
a great and powerful people;
their like has never been before,
nor will be again after them
through the years of all generations.
The “Day of the Lord” is the heading for this section and probably all of the book of Job. Those that put the ESV Bible together, stated this as the introduction to the book of Joel:
(ESV) The day of the Lord was a time greatly anticipated by the Israelites because they believed that God would then judge the nations and restore Israel to her former glory. Yet, said Joel, God would punish not only the nations but unfaithful Israel as well.
The book of Joel is full of disaster and God’s wrath. We don’t always look at God through the lens of His wrath. Our modern, contemporary church would prefer to talk mostly about God’s love, grace, mercy and care. That is not wrong, as God is full of love, grace, mercy and care. However, God is also a God of wrath and vengeance and justice and anger toward sin and those who reject His love, grace, mercy and care. In the book of Hebrews we have many warnings to not give up on our faith. In the last warning of the book we read about how Moses himself trembled at the presence of God:
For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.”
We can be assured that if Moses “trembled with fear” that the average Israelite would have been terrified. God is a God of love and we can never diminish that thought. But, we can not and should not diminish that God is a vengeful God who will destroy His adversaries. God is the God of Peace, as well. He reaches out to mankind to make peace through Christ. Once we put our faith in Christ we have peace with God (Romans 5:1) and no longer have the condemnation of God (Romans 8:1). That is what we rejoice over! That is what we praise God for! We don’t fear God any longer because God has quenched His own wrath with His own Son!
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