The Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord

Well, we're gathered together here on a Monday morning in the world's eyes. It's September 30th, but in God's calendar it's the first day of the seventh month. And we are exactly where God wants us to be this day. So let's begin back at Leviticus 23. And, of course, Leviticus 23 is where all of God's commanded holy days are to be kept. And in Leviticus 23 and verse 24, Moses, under inspiration of God, speaks to the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial, a blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.

So we're here today on this annual festival, a holy convocation all of us gathered here. And it's been a while. It's been a while since the day of Pentecost that we celebrated four months ago. And during that time, if we think back to what the holy days, what we've pictured so far with Jesus Christ's sacrifice, our, as God calls us, our putting sin out of our lives, and then the feast of firstfruits and Pentecost, those who God is working with this day who will be Pentecost, ever since that time in the scope of history, God, there's a period of time between the first time the firstfruits are called and the return of Jesus Christ that this day pictures.

During that time, they're letting God make them ready. They're learning to let God purify their hearts and purify their minds. During that time, the world is continuing in the way of the world. And the seals that you read about in Matthew and in Revelation are occurring. The wars and rumors of wars, the famine, the pestilences. And as the time of the return of Jesus Christ nears, those things intensify. And on this day, we keep this feast of trumpets, a one-day festival at the beginning of the seventh month.

And then we have four holy days that come very quickly. Within the next two weeks, we'll all be at the Feast of Tabernacles, wherever we're going, on the fifteenth of the month. And two weeks from last night, when you look up in the sky, you'll see a full moon. And you'll know that you're exactly where you should be and exactly when you should be. And all these things occur quickly in the seventh month. Seven, of course, being the number of God's completion. And this month, we picture the time of God's completion of the plan for mankind.

The first of those holy days is this Feast of Trumpets that we are on today, that we're observing today. It has great meaning. But God says very little about that holy day. He just says it's a memorial, a blowing of trumpets. In order to understand what that holy day means, we've got to go to the Bible and see where are trumpets mentioned. What does God teach us about trumpets?

Because trumpets are prominent in the Bible in the Old Testament and New Testament. And when you see where the trumpets are, you begin to understand what the meaning of this holy day is. So let's go to Numbers. Numbers first. And in Numbers 10, when God called his people, ancient Israel, out of the land of Egypt, he commanded them to fashion some trumpets.

And he told them the reason they were going to have the trumpets. I know as Mr. Permar began the service here today, it was, you know, nice to hear that so far. It gets your attention, doesn't it? Everyone immediately stopped. Everyone went to their seat. And everyone, we got started right on time. That's great. God designed that for that reason.

Let's look at Numbers 10. Verse 1, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Make two silver trumpets for yourself. Make them of hammered work. Use them for calling the congregation and for directing the movement of the camps.

This is what these trumpets are going to be used for. And in this chapter here, in the first 10 verses, he tells us three reasons that those trumpets would sound.

Sound them when you want to move the camps. When they blow both of them, I won't read three and four. And let's go down to verse 7. When the assembly is to be gathered together, blow the trumpet, but don't sound the advance. So, just like you heard the trumpet or the shofar at the beginning to gather us together and get us seated, God said, When you're at the Holy Days, when you need the congregation to come together, you know, you didn't have email in those days that you can send out announcements like, Sound that trumpet and people will come together.

They know when they hear that trumpet, they're supposed to come together for me. And on the Holy Days and on the New Moons and the things in the New Testament, people listened and they assembled at that time when the trumpet was blown. Verse 8, he says, The sons of Aaron, it'll be the priests that sound the trumpet, and these shall be to you as an ordinance forever throughout your generations. Listen to the trumpets. Listen for the trumpets and obey them. When he says in verse 9, he says, When you go to war in your land against the enemy, who opposes you, you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the eternal your God, and you will be saved from your enemies.

Blow that trumpet. Sound the alarm. And when God hears you doing that, he remembers you're doing exactly what he has you to do. And then in verse 10, he says, Also in the days of your gladness, in your appointed feasts, at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, they will be a memorial for you before your God, I am the Lord your God.

Blow those trumpets. Gather the people together. Sound an alarm. And in your days of gladness, sound those trumpets. They have meaning. They have significance. And God, throughout the Bible, uses the trumpets to signify great things. We remember back to Exodus when the people of Israel were gathered together at Mount Sinai, they heard that sound of a trumpet, and they were stunned. They were in awe. The sound of the trumpet. God got their attention, and they were paralyzed almost with fear in reverence of him and his greatness.

We can read forward through a few chapters later when Israel was going into the Promised Land. The very fortified city of Jericho. Who could defeat Jericho would be the common phrase or refrain of the day. And yet God brought that city low, simply by Israel blowing the trumpets and marching around that city without word for seven days. And when they sounded as trumpets, the city fell. Well, throughout the prophets, minor and major, trumpets are there in the Old Testament as well.

Let's look at a few of them here. Let's go to Isaiah 58 and see how God uses the trumpets as a symbol for us to be awake, to do his will, to come together, to signify the days of gladness. Isaiah 58 and verse 1.

He writes, Cry aloud, cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet and tell my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins. Sound a warning to them. Let them know when they're departing from God. Let them know when they're getting lax. Make sure you're telling them, lift up your voice like a trumpet and warn them. Jeremiah 6. Jeremiah 6. And we'll begin in verse 10. Jeremiah 6 and verse 10. Jeremiah writes, under inspiration of God, to whom shall I speak and give warning that they may hear? Indeed, their ear is uncircumcised. They cannot give heed. They've become dull of hearing. They're not listening to the trumpet. They're no longer in tune with me. Indeed, their ear is uncircumcised. And they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Lord is a reproach to them. They have no delight in it. They may follow it. They may observe it. But it's not really the thing that motivates them. They go through the motions. But it isn't the thing that they have delight in. Therefore, I am full of the fury of the eternal. I am weary of holding it in. I will pour it out on the children outside and on the assembly of young men together. For even the husband shall be taken with the wife, the aged, with him who is full of days. And he goes on. And he talks about more things. And in verse 13, he says, Because from the least of them, even to the greatest of them, everyone is given the covetousness.

Their minds are elsewhere. Their minds aren't on the things of God. Their eyes are more interested in the things of the earth and what they can have and what they want to do. From the least of them, even to the greatest of them, everyone is given into covetousness. And from the prophet, even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. Truth has disappeared. It's come watered down. It's not the pure truth that we live by. They have also healed the hurt of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there's no peace.

They're not crying aloud, sparing not with the trumpet. They're saying, It's okay. It's okay. There's peace. There's peace, and everything's okay. God says, they're saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they weren't at all ashamed. They didn't know how to blush anymore. Therefore, they shall fall among those who fall at the time I punish them. They shall be cast down, says the Eternal. Thus says the Eternal, verse 16, Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where the good of way is.

Now, we'll see that theme again in a later verse. We look for the old ways, not the new way of doing things. John talked about the same thing in his third epistle and third John. Remember what you were taught from the beginning.

Do those things that way. In Revelation, the message of the first church is, Remember from where you have fallen, and seek that way. Repent and do the first works. Otherwise, he says, I will come and remove the candle stand from you. Lord says, Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where the good way is, and walk in it.

Then you will find rest for your souls. But their attitude was, we're not going to do that. We don't have to do that. We're good enough the way we are. Also, he says in verse 17, I sent watchmen over you, saying, Listen to the sound of the trumpet.

Listen to what is being said. But they said, we won't listen. We're just going to kind of let it go, and keep living the way that we've been living. Well, Isaiah talked about trumpets. Jeremiah talks about the trumpets. Let's go to Ezekiel. Another major prophet. He talks about trumpets as well. Ezekiel 33. Ezekiel 33. Verse 3. Let's pick it up at the beginning of the sentence in verse 2.

Son of man, speak to the children of your people, and say to them, When I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory, and make him their watchman, when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of that trumpet, and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood is on his own head.

You've heard the warning. You've heard the trumpet. If you don't heed, then the blood is on your own head, whatever happens to you. He goes on to say to the watchman, the ones who are to be sounding the trumpet, well, verse 5, finishing his song, he said, heard the sound of the trumpet, but he didn't take warning. His blood will be upon himself, but he who takes warning will save his life. But if the watchman sees the sword coming and doesn't blow the trumpet, if he doesn't speak up, if he doesn't cry aloud and say, you know, and show the direction and the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any person from among them, he's taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.

Trumpets. Trumpets of warning. Trumpets that come from voices. Trumpets that show us the direction. Trumpets that get our attention. But we have to be paying attention. We have to have our ears in tune to where it is, to where we need to be. That comes as we allow and use God's Holy Spirit in our days, in our days and in our lives. And so we could go through, you know, we know in every trumpets we go through, you know, Matthew 24, and probably later today you'll go through Matthew 24, and certainly Christ talks about the trumpet.

We had a Bible study a week ago, 1 Corinthians 15, talks about a trumpet that blows and the dead are raised. We go through Revelation. Trumpets are prominent in Revelation. So we see trumpets throughout the Bible, and when God says this is a memorial of the blowing of trumpets, it's a wide-varied array of what the trumpet means. There's alarm. There's war.

They sound throughout time, leading up to this day, this feast of trumpets, the culmination and the end of this age where Jesus Christ finally returns and puts this age to rest and ushers in the time of his domain. But a lot happens on this day of trumpets. It pictures an awfully lot of things that are going on right now that will continue to escalate, that will continue to multiply. The trumpets will get louder and louder both on the outside and on the inside as well as we work with God and as we listen to him and as he gets us ready for what he wants us to be.

We could go through all those and we could go through Matthew and Revelation and again maybe later today you will, but this morning I want to look at another prophet, a minor prophet, and his book, just a few chapters, talks about this day of trumpets and what it pictures.

So let's go over to the book of Joel. The book of Joel and we can see what Joel has to say. It's instructive and it gives us quite a picture of what is going on, what will go on, and what the end result of this day of trumpets, this feast of trumpets is. Joel 1 verse 1. The word of the eternal that came to Joel, the son of Pethewell.

Verse 2, hear this, hear this, you elders, and give ear all you inhabitants of the land. God is saying, listen, has anything like this happened in your days or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children and their children and other generations. What I'm going to tell you here, it has never happened before. Jesus Christ said the same word. There's a time coming that is unlike any other time that has ever been on earth. Revelation says the same thing. A time unlike any other on earth. Daniel says the same thing.

A time unlike any other time on earth. Remember it. Practice it. Tell your children about it. Let them tell their children, be forewarned, be advised, know that God is at work. Verse 4, what the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten. And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.

Now it's interesting, in the margin of my Bible, when it talks about locusts, got a little asterisk there and it says the exact identity of these locusts is unknown.

You know something about locusts. You know, I don't see many locusts in Florida, but they're, I'm sure they're around and well. But God is showing something that is happening in the process of time here. To his people, what locusts do is what they do is consume. You can have locusts in your yard and they're going to eat leaves. They're going to eat grass. You could have a number of them and they're going to eat, they're going to eat a lot. That's just what they do.

With the chewing locusts left, the swarming locust has eaten. They destroy a little.

A little happens, but when the swarming locusts come, they eat even more. Now we know something about swarming locusts, right? God sent a plague on Egypt. They were swarming locusts. They stripped bare every tree. They stripped bare the fields. And when swarming locusts come, they lay the land bare. They consume everything. You can look up in the encyclopedia and it says when you have locusts and they're kind of independent, they're not touching each other, they eat and there can be a lot of them, but something happens in their psyche. When they combine together and they start touching one another and they become a swarm and they're like totally different personality. They just consume and when they come in, they just devour the landscape. That's what happened in Egypt. When God sent that swarms of locusts on them and what God is saying to his people, some of your resources are being chewed up. What that didn't chew up, there's going to be a swarm of locusts come and it's going to eat the rest. And what that doesn't do, the chewing locust is going to come and it's going to do the rest of it. Little by little, your resources, when you depart from God, are going to be taken away from you. In agriculture, the people who read this, they know exactly what those locusts are. If we were all farmers, we would be praying to God, keep the swarms of locusts away because our livelihood is on that, is in that field. But we have to look at the world today. Look what's going on in our world today. Where are the resources of a nation that God has so richly blessed? Where are they being consumed? Well, Christ talks about wars and rumors of wars. How much of our resources is consumed by wars and rumors of wars? Trillions and trillions of dollars are being chewed up by locusts that are wars and rumors of wars. Christ talks about pestilences, famines, earthquakes, bad weather. Look how much of our resources in this land are being chewed up by bad weather, by the things that we do, by the things that happen to us. And all these resources keep being used up and used up and used up and used up. And little by little, we see it happening before us. You know what's going on, what the chewing locust didn't devour. The swarms of locusts will finish. The crawling locust will finish that off until there's literally nothing left. Well, God uses the locust here as a symbol. He's not talking. I mean, perhaps there will be swarms of locusts that happen on the land, physical locusts, but He uses things as a symbol. And we don't have to guess ourselves what it is because the Bible interprets itself. Let's go over to Joel 2. Joel 2 and verse 25. Right here in the book of Joel, he kind of says what those locusts are. Verse 25, I will restore to you, he says, at the end of the trumpets that are blowing and the things that we'll talk about, I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust. I'll give those years back to you.

So, comma, after and the chewing locust, and he defines what that locust is. My great army, which I sent among you.

So, when he talks about locusts in this chapter, he's talking about a time of alarm. He's talking about a time of war, a time coming, where drove after drove may come in and finish off the land that departs from God, a land that he has richly blessed. You know, even I'm not going to turn to Revelation. You can mark down Revelation 9 verses 1 and 7. He talks about locusts in that chapter of the trumpets as well. That those armies were like locusts on the earth because the prophets didn't have any idea what it was. They were writing down what they saw, and the nature of these locusts were the nature of men in that time. Well, let's continue here in Joel 1. God has set the thing in motion. He says what's going to be happening in a nation that departs from him. And then in verse 5, and I'm going to read through several verses without a whole lot of comment here, but I want to remind you of one of the things we talked about on Sabbath. As he begins verse 5, he says, Awake you drunkards and weep, and wail all you drinkers of wine.

Drinkers of wine, being drunkards, you are wasting your time. You are giving away the time that God says to redeem, right? And back in those days, drinking wine was a pastime that wasn't going to produce any good value. We may not have the wine problems today. We may not have those problems. We probably all have some thing that we're drunk in, whether it's Facebook, whether it's TV, whether it's being on the phone endlessly, whether it's being video games, whatever it is, whether it's shopping, whatever it is that we have going on with us, you can replace drunkards with whatever it is that consumes your time and most of your time. Awake you drunkards, he says, and weep. Wail all you drinkers of wine because of the new wine, for it has been cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up against my land, strong and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a fierce lion. He has laid waste my vine and ruined my fig tree. He has stripped it bare and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. Verse 8, lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the eternal. The priests mourn, who minister to God. The field is wasted. The land mourns, for the grain is ruined. The new wine is dried up. The oil fails. It all comes to a culmination. Everything is a disaster. It's been building. It's been coming. The warnings have been going out. The time has come that the thing comes home. Everything comes home to roost. Verse 11, Be ashamed, you farmers. Wail, you vine dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up. The fig tree has withered. The pomegranate tree. The palm tree also. And the apple tree. All the trees of the field are withered. Surely joy has withered away from the sons of men. Sometimes we don't realize the beauty of the earth and the necessity of the earth until it's not there anymore. And in those days, when all those things are dried up and all the things that we have taken for granted, all the blessings of God that He has granted, when they're no longer there, oh, there will be lamenting. There will be weeping. And some, some in the nation, or the modern day nations of Israel, will lament of what they've done, how they've turned from God and brought this upon themselves by the actions, the choices, the attitudes, and the morality that they brought upon themselves. Verse 13, Gird yourselves and lament, you priests. That would be all of us who God has in training for that. Gird yourselves and lament, you priests. Wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, you who minister to my God, for the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. There won't be any hope in those days. We won't have a government to look to. We won't be able to look to the reserves, whatever those reserves are that America has or someone else. There will be nowhere to look, only one place to look for salvation from that day, because everything we have ever trusted in, everything the world has come up with, it will simply be gone, consumed. Consecrate it fast. Call a sacred assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to him.

Cry out to him. It's only him who can deliver people from a day such as that, and from a time such as that. They didn't heed the warnings. They didn't pay attention to what was going on. They just kept getting further and further away from God and devising things in their hearts that boggle the imagination. And the fruit of their labors and the fruit of their thoughts come back to roost. Verse 15, it lasts for the day, for the day of the Lord is at hand. The day of the Lord. All these things happen before the day of the Lord. The great and dreadful day of the Lord. You know, the day of the Lord is prominent in prophecy. It's there for us to be realized, and it's some part of what this day pictures, the day of the Lord, the time before the return of Jesus Christ. It's a terrible time. It represents the vengeance of God on this earth. Keep your finger there in Joel 1, one chapter over in verse 30 of Joel 2.

Joel 2, verse 30, God says, I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. All those things happen before that time. The great and awesome day of the Lord. Look what the world goes through. Look what the people of God, modern day physical people, go through. All these things are going to come to pass. Throughout the Bible we read it. It's here in Joel. It's there in Matthew. It's there in Revelation. It's there in Daniel. Throughout the Bible, New and Old Testaments, it's there. God repeats the warning. This is what's happening.

And as you go back through Revelation and read through the trumpets and the seals there, you see the very same thing He says in the New Testament. All before the day of the Lord.

Keep your finger there in Joel. One book forward is the book of Amos. Amos talks about the day of the Lord as well. We find the things throughout the minor prophets as well as the major prophets. Amos 5. Amos 5, 18. Woe to you! Woe to you, he says in Amos 5, 18. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness and not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion and a bear met him, or as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Isn't the day of the Lord darkness and not light? Isn't it very dark with no brightness in it? And He's telling the people who say, Oh, we want the coming, we want Jesus Christ to return, we want Him to come, we want Him to come, we want the kingdom set up on earth. And He's saying, but look at how you live in the in the ensuing verses there. Look how you're keeping my feast days. Look what you're doing. You're not doing the things. You're not heeding the warning. You don't want the day of the Lord to come. It's terrible, and you're going to be part of it if you don't heed the warning, if you don't do what God said, if you don't go back to the old ways and do the things that He asked us to do. Let's look. I think probably maybe the only time I'll turn to Revelation, let's do turn to Revelation 6.

Just so you can see these things in Revelation as well, Revelation 6.

And let's pick it up in verse 12.

I looked when he, speaking of Christ, opened the sixth seal, and behold there was a great earthquake. And the sun became black as saith cloth of hair, and the moon became like blood, exactly the same words we read in Joel. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. The sky receded as a scroll when it's rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave, and every free man hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us. Hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of his wrath has come, and who is able to stand? Those things happen leading up to the day of the Lord. Isaiah 34.8, I won't turn there, it talks about the day of the Lord being the year of recompense, a year of vengeance of God for the sins of mankind and how they've turned to him. The last year before the return of Jesus Christ, and in chapter 7, as you read through it, you see what the seventh trumpet has to warn of the nations and proclaim God's vengeance until he returns. Let's go back to Joel and continue what Joel writes about that time, this day of trumpets, everything that it represents as we are sitting here today, picturing the time leading up to the return of Jesus Christ and the millennial reign that will bring joy and gladness on the earth.

Let's pick it up in verse 15 where we left off. Joel writes, It lasts for the day. The day of the Lord is at hand. It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Isn't the food cut off from before our eyes? Joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seed shrivels under the clods. Storehouses are in shambles. Barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. How the animals groan. The herds of cattle are restless, because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. All that time leading up to the return of Christ. Remember those trumpets? They burn up the grass of the earth. They burn up the trees. They poison the waters. No pasture. Even the animals suffer because of the choices that mankind has made as they departed from God. Even the animals are groaning and suffering from the choices that we've made. Verse 19, O Lord, to you I cry out, the fire has devoured the open pastures. A flame has burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field also cry out to you, for the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the open pastures. Look at everything that has happened.

All part of the picture of this day, between now and the return of Jesus Christ, that this day also pictures what God says will come on a world and a nation and a people that depart from him, discount him, and take him lightly. In chapter 2, he begins, Blow the trumpet in Zion. Sound that warning. Get the people's attention. Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It's at hand. It's right here. When all those trumpets begin to sound in Revelation, the day of the Lord and the coming of Jesus Christ is eminent. And 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And then he returns.

Not a pleasant time on earth. Not a pleasant time at all. It's a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them even for many successive generations. Look at that. Here we go again. A marmy unlike any the world has seen before and won't see again for many generations. Of course, at the end of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ, when Satan is loosed, there are some things that go on of the earth. A great army. In Revelation, when you read through the trumpets, there's a 200 million man army that's mentioned before the coming of the day of the Lord. In Zachariah 14 verses, well, the first 14 verses there, it's pretty graphic about what's going to happen when that army assembles to fight against God. In Revelation, it talks about what the blood of those people assembled against him will be, and that the blood that is shed that day rise up to the bridles of the horses. The great and awesome, the great and terrible day of the Lord. A people come, great and strong. A people come, the likes of which there has never been. Verse 3, God is pretty graphic in what it is going to be like when that time comes on the earth. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them. It's a rich land. It's a great land. It's productive. It's the cream of the crop in the world. When this army comes in, they leave behind them a desolate wilderness. Surely nothing shall escape them.

Ominous words. Ominous words. You know, I think back to when ISIS was first forming, and I remember reading the articles about them as they were beginning their march against around or through Iraq, and how they would be. And they were just absolutely cruel people. So much so that it's so when the villages saw ISIS coming, they ran. They ran. They didn't want, who can stand against them? We don't want what happens that we're hearing is happening to the people they confort to have for us. They just ran. And I remember reading that and thinking, that's exactly what Joel 2 is talking about. Surely nothing shall escape them. And when they went into the land, they devoured it all. They took it all over. They didn't spare. They had no mercy. They were a people, the cruelty of which in our lifetimes we haven't seen before. And you can remember back to the days when we heard about the beheadings and the way they were being just astonished that in this day and age that could happen. Oh, it'll happen. And it'll happen more. It's a cruel people that God will bring against his people, the people of the world and this vengeance. The fire devourers before them, the land is like the Garden of Eden. They leave nothing behind. Nothing shall escape them. Verse 4, their appearance is like the appearance of horses. You can compare this in Revelation when you read there as well. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses. Like swift steeds, so they run. With the noise like chariots over mountain tops, they leap. Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble. Like a strong people sit in battle array. Before them, the people writhe in pain. Awful thoughts of what's going to happen. Before them, the people writhe in pain. All faces are drained of color. They're scared to death of what's coming on them. They never expected that. They didn't understand that some could be so cruel.

Before them, the people writhe in pain. All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like men of war. And look at the discipline that they have. Everyone marches in formation. And they don't break ranks. They don't push one another. Everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run true and fro in the city. They run onto the wall. They climb into the houses. They enter at the windows like a thief.

Well, I don't know. We don't see that so much in America. But you know when you see a march, when you see an army marching, and you see the discipline that they have, and you watch to know that they have practices over and over, and they are so disciplined that every single step is in unison, it inspires awe. When you see enemy march enemies marching in that way, and I remember at the time when North Korea, when they were doing their test missiles, you would see the North Korean army being paraded out, and there would be the scenes on TV. They were just marching in perfect unison. And I remember thinking how fearful that was to see that army and to see them marching in discipline, and knowing that their intent was to destroy whatever came their way. But I marveled at the discipline that every single movement was in sync. No one was out of order. No one was out of line. They were perfectly focused on what they were going to do. And the American army that we don't see parade much anymore is always that same way, too. It's inspirational to see the discipline that's there. When this army comes, they're exactly that way. They are so disciplined. They are so focused on what they are there to do, and they're there because God wants them there. Verse 10, The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before His army, for His camp is very great. God's army?

What does it mean when it says that is God's army that's coming and is going to reap the destruction on this land the way He prophesies it will? Well, we know from the Bible—let's go back to Isaiah 10. You can keep your finger there, Joel—that God uses other nations to punish, to get our attention and to punish His people. In Isaiah 10, verse 5, it says, Woe to Assyria. Now, we know where ancient Assyria was, right? It's over there in the vicinity of Iraq and Iran and that Middle Eastern area. We know that Assyria, who conquered the ancient kingdom of Israel, is cruel—cruel and devastating army. The encyclopedias, when they talk about the history of Assyria, just unimaginable things that they would do to the people they conquered. Accrual and a vicious people, woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger, and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. Israel didn't heed God. Israel never listened to ancient Israel to the warnings. Israel never heeded, and God sent them into captivity. I will send him against an ungodly nation and against the people of my wrath. I will give him charge to seize the spoil, to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Verse 7, last part, It's in his heart to destroy, and cut off not a few nations.

God says here in Joel, This people that are coming, they're his army. He will send them.

Prophecies will be fulfilled. It'll be exactly the way that God said it would be.

Let's go back to Joel. Joel 2.

The Lord gives bite. The Lord gives voice before his army. Verse 11, For his camp is very great. For strong is the one who executes his word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible. Who can endure it? The same question that we read in Revelation. Who can stand in that day?

Same thing that Jesus Christ said in Matthew 24. If I didn't return, Christ said, no flesh would be saved alive. Who can endure that time? No one. No one without God. Let's go over to chapter 3 and read a little bit more about this army that God has prepared, that he calls his army. Chapter 3 of Joel, verse 9.

It says, Proclaim this among the nations. Prepare for war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords. The reverse of what we sang into him earlier, the reverse of Isaiah 2, where in the millennium they'll beat their swords into plowshares. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I'm strong. Assemble and come, all you nations, and gather together all around. Cause your mighty ones to go down there, O eternal. Let the nations be wakened and come to the valley of Jehoshaphat. For there, God says, I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down, for the Rhinecrest is full. The bats overflow. Their wickedness is great. Well, let's go back to Revelation one more time so you can see the parallels here in both Old and New Testament. Revelation 14. Revelation 14, beginning in verse 15. Another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him who sat on the cloud. Thrust in your sickle and reap. Revelation 14, verse 15. Thrust in your sickle and reap, for the time has come for you, Christ, to reap. For the harvest of the earth is ripe. So he who sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. Another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven. He also had a sharp sickle, and another angel came out from the altar who had power over fire. And he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust in your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her gripes are fully ripe. So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth, gathered the vine of the earth, and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out, as I mentioned before, of the winepress up to the horses' bridles, for 1,600 furlongs. The things that movies are made of, right? But it's a reality coming on the earth. That's mentioned over and over in the prophets. Let's go back to Joel 3. Verse 14.

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. Where's the valley of decision? Oh, that's the place where the armies gather. That huge army at Armageddon. The valley of decision. When Jesus Christ will return to earth and he will defeat the armies of this earth.

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near, in the valley of decision. The sun and moon will grow dark. The stars will diminish their brightness. The Lord will roar from Zion and utter his voice from Jerusalem. The heavens and earth will shake.

But notice in verse 16, the Lord will be a shelter for his people.

His people who are heeding his word, being led by his spirit, following him the way he expects that we will follow him. And he'll be the strength of the children of Israel, the physical nations that are going to take a brunt of a lot of this great tribulation that comes upon the earth. The great and dreadful day of the Lord, the armies that gather, the decisions that get made at that time as the world comes to occur, this age, comes to a conclusion. Now let's go back to Joel. Continue what Joel has to say here. Go back to chapter 2 where we were.

Great and terrible things that are going to happen, and God elucidates them all to us. He's pretty graphic in the detail, and he tells us in Isaiah 45 what he says is going to happen. It will happen. Take it to the bank. It sure is. You and I are sitting here. It will happen exactly the way he said. In the face of all this, as the world faces these cataclysmic events that come upon the earth, we picture on this day of trumpets and leading up to the return of Jesus Christ, the trumpets that are sounding, the alarms that are being sounded, the wars that are going on, the things that we should be paying attention to. We see a world falling around us, and there is nowhere to look. There is no Washington, D.C., no president, no Wall Street market, no military greatness that's going to deliver mankind from what God brings upon the earth, where it allows to happen. So beginning in verse 12 of chapter 2, God says, what we and what the people must do, what he has wanted all along. They wouldn't listen. They wouldn't do it on their own.

So the events of the time he will bring upon them and punish them for what they have done until they do what he always wanted mankind to do that will usher in days of gladness. Chapter 2 of Joel, verse 12. Now therefore says the eternal, turn to me with all your heart. Turn to me with all your heart. Quit looking at the things that you've created. Quit looking at the world around you. Quit looking at your own devices and your ideas. Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Turn to me. I'm the only hope. So rend your heart and not your garments. In the Old Testament times, they ripped their clothes apart. They wore sackcloth. God says, that's great. I want your hearts in repentance. I want your hearts rendered before me. That's what I've always wanted. Turn to me with all your heart, mind, and soul. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful. He doesn't want to do this. He has to do that. He has to do it in order for people to come to him, and that his will, that people will repent, and he can give all eternal life can happen. And even then, you know, you read through in Revelation, one of the things that's stunning, with all the things they go through, it says people harden their hearts. They just simply will not yield to God. He is gracious and merciful. Slow to anger. And we know he's slow to anger because look what the world, look what we've done individually to him. And he hasn't taken his vengeance out on us. He's been patient with us as we grow and as we learn his way and we allow him to develop him. Look at what he's allowed the nation that he's so richly blessed to go through. He hasn't exacted his vengeance yet. He hopes.

I'm sure his will is that we would all turn back, but we know that further and further, with each passing day and month, the nation turns farther and further away from God and the morality is such and the rhetoric is such and the news clips you hear are such that, you know, they will never turn back to God in the state that we're in now. Slow to anger and of great kindness. And he relents from doing harm. Who knows if he'll turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him like he did for the people of Nineveh when they turned to him with their heart and mind. A grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. Verse 15, we heard one trumpet, the trumpet of alarm. Blow this trumpet. Blow the trumpet in Zion. Gather the people together. Get my people back where they need to be. The people that will listen. Blow the trumpet in Zion. Consecrate a fast. Humble yourselves before God. Realize and come before him with humility and recognize he is your salvation. He is your deliverance. He's the one who provides and only him. Our power, our might, the ideas that we have are nothing compared to him. And until we yield to him totally and completely, the lot that we will experience is the lot that we deserve. Consecrate a fast. Call a sacred assembly. Get my people back where they belong. In Hebrews it tells us, don't forsake the assembly of God when he sounds the trumpet on his holy days, when he sounds his trumpet on the Sabbath days, be there. Don't ignore it. Don't have excuses for it. Be where he says, because in this time people will listen, I hope. Blow the trumpet. Call a sacred assembly. Gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders. Gather the children and nursing babes. Let the bridegroom go out from his chamber and the bride from her dressing room. No more excuses, God says. As we read in Luke 14 the other day, no more excuses. Get back where I want you to be if you're my people and if you are doing and believe what I say and desire the kingdom that I've called you to. No more excuses.

Do it. Let the priests who minister to the Lord weep between the porch and the altar. Let them say, Spare your people, O Lord, and don't give your heritage to reproach that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the nations or among the peoples, where is their God? And of course, we talked about a few months back the future of America and what physical Israel is. And the physical Israel will turn to God during that time. They will recognize what they've done, and God will open their minds and hearts and earn all this punishment. They will realize we have blown it in a way that we couldn't even imagine. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The eternal God, our Father, His Son, Jesus Christ, who came to earth and died for us, those who were who we should have followed all along. We brought this upon ourselves and thank God and thank Jesus Christ that they will deliver it from us and Jesus Christ will return to save the world from total annihilation. Thank God they love mankind that much. Thank God that they love us that much, that they have mercy and kindness on all the people who have ever lived. Verse 18, when you do this, when you turn to me with all your heart, when you do the things that I say, I will be zealous for the land. Well, let's go back to Malachi for a moment here. Malachi kind of talks about this time as well.

Malachi 3 verse 1.

Behold, Malachi writes, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me. Malachi 4 verse 5, it says that God will send Elijah before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. I'll send my messenger, he'll prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. Suddenly come to his temple. The world won't be expecting it. Those of us who aren't close to God, we won't be expecting it. It'll take us by surprise. The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can endure it, as we talked about a few minutes ago, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner's fire. He is like launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi, and he will purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord in offering in righteousness. What has God called us to? We've read it so many times in 1 John 3. Anyone who has this oath in him purifies himself. As Jesus Christ is pure. That's the job that we have. That's the goal that we have. That's the mission that we have here on earth. And God says, his people will be purified. Then, when that happens, when they come before me as a pure people, as the virgins of Revelation 14, then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord. Then I'll look at what you're doing, and I'm going to say, I'm very pleased with what you do. The attitudes with which you come before me. The attitudes with which you pray and approach me. The way you assemble yourselves together.

Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the Lord. Notice, as in the days of old, as in former years. The way you learned. Not the way you watered it down over the years. Not the way you made excuses for yourselves. Not the way you gave allowances to yourselves, thinking it's okay. The way you were taught. The way the Bible says.

Then your offering will be pleasant to the Lord, as in the days of old, as in former years.

I'll come near you for judgment. I'll be a swift witness against sorcerers, dulcerers, perjurers, against those who exploit wagearners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien because they don't fear me. They don't believe what I say. They think I'm an easy God. They think that I'm not a demanding God. They think of God that I kind of give this out, but I'm okay to accept 90% or 70%. I'm a God who says, do what I say. Do it the way I say, and let the Holy Spirit be there, and choose me first, because they don't fear me, says the Lord of Hosts.

I think it's clear what God is saying as we hear the trumpets. As we read the trumpets and what our job is in this day and age when the trumpets are beginning to blow louder and will continue to escalate in pitch and volume around the world. If we're listening, if we're paying attention, then, and if we're hearing them, we should be doing what God said to do as He makes it so clear in His Bible. Verse 18 of Joel 2, Then the Lord will be zealous for his land and pity his people. The Lord will answer and say to his people, Behold, I'll send you grain and new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations, but I will remove far away from you the northern army that will drive him away into a barren and desolate land. Verse 21, Fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done marvelous things. Don't be afraid, beasts of the field, for the open pastures are springing up, and the tree bears its fruit. The fig tree and the vine yield their strength. When Jesus Christ returns and He ushers in the days of gladness, the time of the millennium, be glad, verse 23, you children of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month. The threshing floors will be full of wheat. The vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. Verse 26, You will eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has felt wondrously with you. And my people shall never be put to shame. Then you will know that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God, and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame. And then He says, Jesus Christ returns, something that's happened for us, the first fruits already, but it will happen when Jesus Christ returns. I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Remember what prophesy means, right? Prophesy means you'll be able to interpret the Bible and understand the Bible. You'll talk about the Bible, not necessarily foretell the future, which we sometimes confuse, but you'll be living by the Bible. You'll be understanding the Bible. You'll talk about the Bible. You can explain it to your children, to your family, to those around you. Those of us who have God's Holy Spirit today as first fruits will be teaching the Bible. How do we teach it if we're not living it today? How do we tell of God's greatness and goodness? How do we tell of God's joy that comes in our lives despite the trials that we may endure as God strengthens us? How do we explain that to them if we haven't been doing it? How would we ask them to keep God's law exactly the way it's written, if we didn't do it in our own lives? If we made excuse after excuse, allowance after allowance, if we forgot that the reason we're here is for God to develop us in the way He wants us to, in the body that He placed us in. I don't know how we teach it if we haven't lived it.

I will at that and when He returns, I'll pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy your old men will dream dreams and your young men will see visions.

God, Jesus Christ, will return to the earth. And on that seventh, on that Trump, that seventh Trump that it talks about in Revelation, that glorious Trump when the heavens are singing and the heavens are praising God, now the time has come, now the time for Jesus Christ to return. And what we've been waiting for all these ages for His return and mankind can finally live the life that God has called him to. Jesus Christ or or yeah in the millennium. In Matthew 24, Christ speaks of that time. Matthew 24. Verse 30. The sign of the Son of Man. After all these things happen, after all these trumpets have blared, after mankind has been there, after the dreadful great and dreadful day of the Lord has passed and Jesus Christ has conquered the armies assembled together to battle against Him and when He claims the nations of this earth or the kingdoms of this earth as His, then the sign of man will appear in heaven, all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and He will send His angels with the great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. The days of gladness are coming. He'll gather His people from the four ends of the earth. 1 Thessalonians 4. Pick it up in verse 16. 1 Thessalonians 4.16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Look at everything that happens, pictured by this day of trumpets. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we will always be with the Lord. 2 He concludes it, therefore comfort one another with these words. We can also say, encourage one another with these words. Exhort one another with these words.

Keep each other focused on these words and what we're here for. Christ is returning. Christ will come with the sound of a trumpet. He will claim the nations of this earth for His own, and His kingdom will be established, a time of gladness, the likes of which the world has never seen, as Satan is bound, and as his laws are taught throughout the earth. It all is pictured in this day, this feast of trumpets, which is really the gateway to eternity.