All Is Not Lost! God Restores!

All Is Not Lost! God Restores!

Deacon John Low - 25 September 2021

All Is Not Lost! God Restores!

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<Joel 1>

1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

2 Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors?

3 Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.

4 What the locust swarm has left, the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left, the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left, other locusts have eaten.

  • 5 Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!
  •  
  • Do we see that we are actually experiencing spiritual drought in our lives? Do we see locusts eating up our lives over time?
  • Beyond the glamour and prosperity of this world, do we see our land or even the churches being wasted and withered?
  • We are unconsciously living in a state of hopelessness.
  • The Lord had brought about divine interventions for Israel, for Us.
  • God is not asking us to pay back for our sins, but to bring us back to Him.
  • We can never be woken up by our own mental capacity, or by our many life experiences we had gone through, if God had not intervened in our lives divinely because of His love and mercy.

 

What is wrong?

Only one thing wrong

  • We sinners have departed away from God

Fear replaced faith, sin replaced sanity, greed replaced God and hatred replaced holiness.

Rather have our ears tickled than our hearts pricked and searched by the word of God.

The devastating power of sin will also gradually destroy us, taking away all our hopes & joy.

“Sin is like cancer, it never stops growing and we live forever.” -CS Lewis

 

<Joel 1>

1:13 Put on sackcloth, you priests, and mourn; wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God; for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God.

14 Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

15 Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.

 

<Joel 2>

2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming.

 

12 “Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.”

13 Rend your heart 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.

14 Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing—grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.

15 Blow the trumpet in Zion, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly.

16 Gather the people, consecrate the assembly; bring together the elders, gather the children, those nursing at the breast. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber.

17 Let the priests, who minister before the Lord, weep between the portico and the altar. Let them say, “Spare your people, Lord. Do not make your inheritance an object of scorn, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’”

 

What does God want from us? >>> OUR GENUINE REPENTANCE.

“Even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart…

  • It is never too late for us to return to God.
  • “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” Rend your heart and not your garments.
  • God wants all of our heart, not a divided heart.
  • A repentance that comes from a broken heart.
  • Brokenness of our hearts must come from our love for God.
  • The reason why we cannot come into full repentance is not because of anything else, but because we do not really love God.
  • <1Jn 4:19> “We love, because he first loves us.”
  • We cannot really love God, because we have not realized how much He really loved us.
  • Only by immersing ourselves in the free and gracious love of God, we can then learn how to truly repent before Him.
  • Repent because of love rather than fear.
  • Why repent? We repent not because we are bad, but because God is good!

 

13 Rend your heart 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.

(a) gracious and compassionate (merciful)

Gracious >>> God pouring out his goodness on us that we do not deserve.

Merciful >>> God withholding from us the wrath that we do deserve.

 

(b) slow to anger and abounding in love.

 

(c) relents from sending calamity.

God does not rejoice in seeing anyone suffer.

  • When we truly repent because we see that God is good, our genuine repentance will surely turn our tears to joy, and our shame & guilt to praise & glory.

 

 

<Joel 2>

19 The Lord replied to them: “I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.

20 “I will drive the northern horde far from you, pushing it into a parched and barren land; its eastern ranks will drown in the Dead Sea and its western ranks in the Mediterranean Sea. And its stench will go up; its smell will rise.” Surely, he has done great things!

21 Do not be afraid, land of Judah; be glad and rejoice. Surely the Lord has done great things!

22 Do not be afraid, you wild animals, for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.

23 Be glad, people of Zion, rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given you the autumn rains because he is faithful. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before.

24 The threshing floors will be filled with grain; the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.

25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you.

26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be shamed.

27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.

 

God Restores!

(a) New blessings

v19a send us grain, new wine and olive oil.

v23-24, send us abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains and the threshing floors will be filled with grain, overflow with new wine and oil.

v19b enough to satisfy you fully

Our hearts being satisfied and contented in God, is actually more valuable than anything this world can give us.

 

(b) Victory

v20 “I will drive the northern horde far from you, pushing it into a parched and barren land; its eastern ranks will drown in the Dead Sea and its western ranks in the Mediterranean Sea. And its stench will go up; its smell will rise.”

God alone will give us victory, not our intellect to problem-solve, not our life experience to make the right decisions, and definitely not our determination or will to make things right.

 

(c) Joy

v21, Do not be afraid, land of Judah; be glad and rejoice. Surely the Lord has done great things!

 

(d) Lost years

v25 “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm— my great army that I sent among you.

God promises us that he will restore the years how sins had destroyed us relationally, financially and emotionally.

 

(e) Our dignity & worth

v19, never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations.

v26, never again will my people be shamed.

 

  • v27 Then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and that there is no other.
  • <Romans 8:28> “in all things God works for the good of those who love him.”
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Deacon John Low
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John is an ordained Deacon, who has been serving The Blessed Run Church. He is married to sister Rachel and they have two lovely sons, Noah and Jonah.

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