Joel 2

Joel 2:1-32

JOEL—OR A PROPHET’S CALL TO Joe 1:1 to Joe 3:21IN taking up the study of the Book of Joel, we want to express the hope that many of you will read and reread this volume. Its brevity makes its reading the task of only a single sitting, and its clear forceful style is sufficiently attractive to invite a second perusal; while a third and fourth review would aid materially in making evident the plan of the Book, and the purposes of the Prophet.In discussing Hosea, we called attention to the fact that the order of these volumes, as they appear in our Bible, was not necessarily the order of their origin. The date of the Book of Joel is difficult to determine. Hosea told us the king under whom he prophesied, made mention also of the four kings of Judah who reigned in his time; and so definitely fixed for us the period of his prophecy. But the Book of Joel provides no such guide-posts. We know nothing of his personal history, and although the name of his father is given, that name appears nowhere else in sacred story.

So we are left without information regarding his family. The result is that students of the Word have parted company when they came to discuss Joel’s place in history, the majority putting him back as far as 810 to 758 B.C. while others, with some array of arguments, bring him down as late as 500 B.

C. We need not stop to enter into this discussion, since what Joel has to say is of equal weight and authority whether uttered at the one time or the other. He was Judah’s Prophet, just as Hosea and Amos were Prophets of Israel.His purpose in writing this prophecy seems to have been twofold, to reveal God’s judgment against sin, and the Day of the Lord, when men should turn from their iniquity to “worship * * in spirit and in truth”, and the golden Age would be on. In the Hebrew text this Book is divided into four chapters; in your English version, into three chapters; in fact, into no chapters at all. Its form is more like that of a sermon than a book. And while certain parts of it are given to the discussion of certain phases of his subject, the prophecy is worthy to stand as a single discourse, only passing from one subject to another as the preacher makes progress from point to point.We have elected, therefore, to discuss this volume under terms that will cover the entire Book, following, largely, its own arrangement of thought. AND It is not difficult to see that the first chapter opens with a description of a dire affliction which has fallen on the land: an affliction such as had not been in the days of the oldest inhabitants, nor even in the days of their fathers; an affliction which made such an impression upon the generation of Joel that he expected them to tell their children, and their children to repeat it to their grandchildren, and the grandchildren to give it to the generations to come.The unfaithfulness of Judah was assumed, not described. The Prophet’s appeal to the people to “turn unto the Lord” is proof positive that they had turned from the Lord. But he says nothing as to the nature of that turning, and nothing as to the extent of it. It would seem altogether probable that the arrangement of Joel in the Scripture Canon is due to this fact. Hosea had so vividly portrayed the apostasy of Israel and Judah that those who gathered these prophecies into one Book might say “Joel fits after Hosea”. Hosea tells the condition of the people, and Joel describes the judgments that had come in consequence.

If there is any one thought abundantly illustrated in the Old Testament, and often emphasized by the Great Teacher Himself, it is the dire fate of those who are unfaithful to the Lord God. It is found in the writings of practically every Prophet of the Old Testament, and it burns with new meaning when God’s Beloved Son speaks to that subject.

In Matthew 24:48, we have Jesus’ description of the faithless servant, and also His severe judgment against him. Joel is not out of date, therefore; he has a message for this generation. It is the message which the Apostle Paul repeated when he said, “He that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption”.The affliction, here, is expressed by the processes of natural law. The scourge which Judah saw is brought about by the locust, or grasshopper. George Adam Smith calls our attention to the fact that though the palmerworm, the locust, the cankerworm and the caterpillar are all mentioned here, they are simply four separate terms for the same devouring insect—the locust, and might be translated properly in these words, “That which the shearer left the swarmer hath eaten; that which the swarmer hath left the lapper hath eaten; and that which the lapper hath left the devourer hath eaten.”No man, who has ever looked upon Kansas or Nebraska, in locust years, would charge the Prophet Joel with extravagance in the language which he here employs; and possibly Palestine and vicinity have seen more dreadful scourges. Dr.

Doughty, in his volume entitled “Arabia Deserta” speaks of having seen in this very country “clouds of locusts which devoured everything before them:” While a traveler to South Africa tells of the space of ‘ten miles on each side of the Sea-cow river, and eighty or ninety miles in length, the whole surface of which was literally covered with these pests; Another was reported, from Syria, concerning a season when the whole face of the mountain was black with them: when the effort to stop their onward march by trenches and fires proved utterly useless; when it required days for their armies to pass a single point, and when the noise of them, as they marched and foraged, was like that of a heavy shower falling on a distant forest.’ Driver declares that when in an erect position the appearance of these insects, at a little distance, is like that of well-armed horsemen. Ail these testimonies, and more, that might be easily given, corroborate the realism of Joel’s words in picturing what had occurred to Judah’s possessions.We call your attention to the fact that these insects, which may hatch at any season, in innumerable companies, and march forth to consume the very land itself, were regarded by the Prophet as judgments against Judah’s sin.

It is so that a great many of those wide-spread calamities that visit neighborhoods, and touch even nations, whether inaugurated of God or no, are yet taken possession of by Him, and employed to teach the afflicted the effects of unfaithfulness. To illustrate—the ground often cleaves asunder and earthquakes have shattered its parts, but when one opened at the very feet of Korah and followers and swallowed them up and all that appertained to them, Moses felt it was a Divine judgment against their conspiracy. For a long time people have read Bulwer Lytton’s volume “The Last Days of Pompeii” to see the evident connection between the awful sins of that people, which, like those of Sodom, called to Heaven for judgment, and that fateful hour when the silent mountain, whose solitary flickering light had already sent a word of warning, poured forth a torrent of death, and smote men and women, by the hundreds and thousands, leaving them in the very acts of their iniquity so that when the day of exhuming should come, the Judge would be justified or having overthrown the city.It is only a short time since, that Martinique, with twenty-five thousand inhabitants, had poured upon it a flood of lava which left but one living man in all its limits. He was preserved not because he was righteous, but because he was so vile that they buried him in the lowest cell of one of their prison houses, and even then his flesh was roasted until he has walked the earth bearing the marks of a judgment like the mark of Cain. Let no man misunderstand me! Jesus Himself once distinctly taught that God was not sending these calamities upon certain individuals because they were sinners beyond the rest.“There were present at that season some that told Him, of the Galilean whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. “And Jesus answering said unto them, Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. “Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? “I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:1-5). If Joel saw in this devastation of the land by the locusts an occasion of repentance, it was not for the farmers or gardeners whose fruits and vegetables were most utterly destroyed, but for the whole people to learn the lesson, search themselves and see if there were any wicked way in them! And today Jesus seems to be saying to us what God said to this ancient people, and what His Son said to those who reported the Galilsean blood shed by Pilate, “Repent”!God, therefore, is confessedly over all. We doubt if Joel meant to suggest that God had, by any miracle, made ready this myriad of locusts, but he did mean to say that ‘all power in Heaven and in earth’ is with Him, and whatever comes to pass must be by His permission. Even the offensive things—His hand is upon them. Few subjects enjoy a greater agreement on the part of the Old Testament Prophets than this touching the Divine presence. Joel’s name is significant.

The very word means “The Lord is God.” And who can sound the depths of that word, or explore the heights of that thought? Joseph Parker has justly said, “The ease or difficulty with which a man can surrender God depends, if I may say, upon the use to which he has become accustomed to put the mysterious term.

If God has been but a nebulous and speechless dream—a veneration without a corresponding morality—the act of surrender will be as indefinite as itself. But in our case, as Christian believers and Christian teachers, God is in every part of our life; He has manifested Himself to us; He has taken up His abode with us; the Spirit of His Son is in our hearts, crying, Abba-Father! He searches us and tries us; He acts directly and judicially upon every motive; He guides us with His eye; He besets us behind and before, and lays His hand upon us; to Him our hearts aspire in instinctive as well as in reasoned prayer; the spontaneous outstretching of our hands is towards His holy Temple, if haply we may touch His strength, and feel secure because He is almighty. When we do wrong, our eyes are darkened as with a cloud, and when we do well our hearts feel upon them the light of a smile. That is our case now; in such circumstances surrender would be destruction. We have, if I may so put it, gone too far in our use of God to turn away from Him and yet retain our identity intact.” “We live and move and have our being in God.” We have passed the merely argumentative stage. “God dwelleth in us, and His love is perfected in us”. “Our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ”. This was the old Jewish conception; this is also the Christian conception; and this is the true conception. “God * * over all, God blessed for ever“Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the House of the Lord your God, and cry unto the Lord. “Alas for the day! for the day of the Lord is at hand, and as a destruction from the Almighty shall it come?” (Joe 1:14-15). This Prophet saw God in the storm just as surely as in the sunshine that was to follow. God was present there in the time of their sorrow and witnessed their suffering just as surely as He would be present when the sorrow had passed, and all sighing had fled. With the great Apostle of the New Testament he believed that “in Him we live, and move, and have our being”. AND At the end of the eleventh verse of the second chapter he has finished his word-picture of devastation, and has reminded his auditors that the Infinite Father, the Lord of Heaven and earth, is in command of this terrible army, and hence his appeal,“Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: “And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil. “Who knoweth if He will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him; even a meat-offering and a drink-offering unto the Lord your God”? (Joe 2:12-14). In their affliction He would have His people hear the Father’s voice. It is a blessed suggestion. Our hours of suffering, our seasons of sorrow can be converted into Divine speech, if our hearts turn to Him. As you know by repeated assertions, we do not belong to the company who lay every calamity to the charge of God. Our afflictions we do not count a certain evidence of the Divine disfavor. We have an adversary who is pleased to lay his oppressive hands upon us, but we know that “all things work together for good to them that love God”, and like Job of old, Satan’s attack may, under God, become our season of blessing. Or, like the Son of Man, his temptations and trials may afford a positive triumph through the Divine grace.“I asked of my spirit within me A question that troubled me quite— A querulous question of nature, Because I was short in my right: I asked it to search out the reason Why trouble should light upon earth, And tears should be mingled with blessing, And moans with the ringing of mirth.

“But a voice, like the voice of an angel, Said, ‘Turn thee, and question again; God never afflicts for His pleasure, Nor troubles the children of men. His hand is the hand of a Father, His chastening is good in disguise, Though the clouds which are resting upon you May darken this truth from your eyes.

“ ‘And then,’ said the voice growing softer, ‘Some things which you counted God’s wrath, Are only His wonderful blessing, Revealing themselves in your path; And that which you counted evil, Was happily an angel of light, God’s beautiful angel of sorrow, Who winged his way through the night.’ ” Repentance was the Prophet Joel’s appeal. He was like Jonah in his opinion of the character of God when he repeated the words of the Lord,“Turn ye even to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: “And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil” (Joe 2:12-13). He knew, with the Psalmist, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psalms 51:17). You remember Jonah’s words when he complained that God had saved Nineveh, “I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest Thee of the evil”. And Joel entertains the same opinion of Him. It is a strange thing that any man knowing his own past, studying the Divine treatment accorded his fellows, or looking into the Scripture to hear what God would say, can reach another conclusion.Joel believes that this repentance should begin with the leaders of religious opinion,“Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God”? (Joe 2:17). Hosea has already said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge”—a charge against the priests, and reminds them “Like people, like priest?” Pentecosts will never come to the Church until God’s Prophets, the men who stand in the pulpit, and through whom the congregations voice their prayers, have made themselves right before the Lord. Long since I have ceased to complain of the pew. I confess to you that I believe profoundly that the pew is what the pulpit makes it. The opinions prevailing among the people are the direct product of the speech of the sacred desk.When John Wycliff was attempting to recover true religion he declared that it was the business of the preacher to “preach the Word” and argued that out of false preaching comes the spiritual deadness of the people; that the friars of his time had affected the depravity of the Church, and he announced, then, a truth which ought now to be sung in the ears of every seminary professor, and become the conviction of every theological graduate, namely, “It is God’s Word that should be preached. God’s Word is the bread of the soul—the indispensable, wholesome bread. Therefore, to feed the flock in the spiritual sense without Bible truth, is the same thing as if one were to prepare for another a bodily meal without bread.

God’s Word is a live seed which begets regeneracy and a spiritual life. Now the chief business of the preacher is to beget and to nourish up members of the church.

Therefore it is God’s Word he must preach. Then only will he succeed.” I confess I cannot help asking myself sometimes whether I am a worthy successor of my fathers in the Protestant faith.It has been claimed that every new era has been created by a preacher. Guizot is the authority for the opinion that Paul did more for liberty and free institutions than any other man of two millenniums, Froude only voices what is universally accepted when he affirms that Luther created the Reformation. It was certainly Savonarola who redeemed Florence more effectively than any grand jury of modern times has been able to cleanse Augean stables of municipal life. Dwight Hillis thinks that Caedmon, Bede, Bunyan and the translators of the King James version of the Bible opened up for us the springs of English literature. Cromwell wrote that “the Puritan preacher destroyed the Divine right of kings.” If the religious leaders are all right, God’s people may behave foolishly, as they did under Moses, but, after all, their leadership will insure their progress through the Wilderness, and their eventual possession of the Promised Land.But this call to repentance was associated with the promise of restoration.

The Prophet Joel knew this to be within the Father’s will and power. He said, “God * * is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth Him of the evil. “Who knoweth if He will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind Him; even a meat-offering and a drink-offering unto the Lord your God”? (Joe 2:13-14). No man will either doubt that willingness or question that power when once, like the Prophet, he has seen God. Oh, to know the heart of God.Love so deep, so high, so broad,Help me, Lord, to fully prove,All it means that God is Love!This Book also gives us THE IN OUTLINE Joel, the Prophet, had a vision of the end of the age centuries before John, the Apostle, put foot on Patmos. He saw the Pentecost to come. “It shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: “And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My Spirit” (Joe 2:28-29). On the day of Pentecost Peter interpreted and applied these words. When the mockers said, “These men are full of new wine * * “Peter, standing up with the Eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them * *” (Acts 2:13-14). “This is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel; “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: “And on My servants and on My handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2:16-18). There are those who profess to have no interest in prophetic studies, who speak of it with scorn as if such studies were mere speculations; but the truth is, until a man works himself into the meaning of prophecy there is for him no plan for the ages, and a great majority of God’s promises are without practical application. To get into the spirit of prophecy is to discover the key of Scripture study. Many of you remember Dr. John Robertson, of Glasgow, Scotland, who, a few years ago in this pulpit, broke unto us the Bread of Life. One day in my study I asked him the question how he came to be a pre-millennialist? He answered, “The World’s Fair compelled me to assume that position in Scriptural study.

At the request of Mr. Moody, I came over from Scotland to join with the famous evangelists from the ends of the earth, in a Chicago campaign in the Name of Christ.

Day after day I was face to face with defeat. I saw quickly that for every convert to the Gospel that we were making, the Adversary, and his emissaries, were winning a score to such conduct as meant their destruction, and I became despondent over the situation. All the while such men as Moody, Torrey, Chapman, Dixon, Wharton, Pierson, and Gordon not only kept their courage, but seemed positively confident of eventual victory. I was unable to understand their spirit, and when I asked them why they were not discouraged, they answered by pointing to the promises of the prophecies. Though prejudiced against the pre-millennial theory, I made up my mind to see what the Scripture had to say upon the subject, and lo, to my amazement, when once I began to work upon the subject in honest spirit, the meaning of prophecy was made clear, and the Coming of my Master burst forth from the Sacred page, and became to me also the “Blessed Hope”.Ah, beloved, if Abraham, living when he did, was privileged of God a look down the ages that revealed to him the day of the Son of Man, and thereby gladdened his heart, who will say that God does not intend us to do what Joel did—foresee the conquests to come?He also saw the special privilege of the Age of the Spirit. He knew that in that day it should “come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall he delivered” (Joe 2:32).Evangelism was in his perspective.

He saw the Jew and the Gentile alike, brought under the Divine benediction. Even Peter did not fully understand the sweep of His promise.“I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh” Jew and Gentile alike.

Nor the depths of it— “Your sons and your daughters * * and your young men, * * and your old men * * and on My servants and on My handmaidens”.That this was to be the portion of men irrespective of station or nationality, Joel made perfectly evident.“Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong. “Assemble yourselves * * together round about: thither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord. “Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about” (Joe 3:9-12). Then he proceeds to show that all this opposition will be in vain. “Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great” (Joe 3:13).Such has been the history of many of His movements in this age of the Spirit. No human opposition or hellish device has been able to retard the progress of our God who is marching on.Dr. A. B. Simpson tells us that there is an old frontispiece in Wyclif’s first Bible representing the cause of truth and the Holy Scriptures by a bright flame, while all around it are the enemies of the truth, with the devil at their head trying to blow it out. The bishops, the priests, the cardinals, and the Pope, with the devil himself leading them, blowing and blowing until it seems as if they would burst.

But instead of blowing it out, they only blow it in, and it blazes and blazes until they are scattered before its consuming breath. This is ever true of the cause of Christ.

Opposition, persecution, and misrepresentation only strengthen it, as we have all had such good reason often to prove. Nobody can hurt us but ourselves and “when the enemy shall come in like a flood” let us quietly ask the Spirit of the Lord to “lift up a standard against him”, and we shall hear a voice proclaiming, “Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of Hosts”.Finally, this apocalyptic vision represents alike, millennial glory and terrible judgment. Judgment is repeatedly expressed in this volume. It will be attended by the darkening of the sun and the moon, and the cessation of the shining stars; by the shaking of heaven and earth; by the revelation of the power of God, and His righteous wrath against sin. I shall not attempt to depict the scenes of that judgment, beyond what the Prophet has said. I agree with Henry Van Dyke that there is much concerning this judgment which we ought not to try to peer into, and explain with our little limits of reason.

It is not ours to pronounce judgment upon our fellow creatures; the one thing of which we are certain is that God will never do injustice to a single soul; but in every nation, “whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be delivered”. The rest we may leave in silence with God, and fear when He speaks against sin.Of that millennial glory we are enamoured.“It shall come to pass in that day * * the hills shall flow with milk, and all the rivers of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the House of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim * * “But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. “For I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed: for the Lord dwelleth in Zion” (Joe 3:18; Joe 3:20-21). It is in harmony, beloved, with the twentieth and twenty-first chapters of the Book of Revelation. It is the picture of the consummation of the Ages when the Adversary shall go down into the eternal depths; after which“The Tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. “And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful” (Revelation 21:3-3).

Joel 2:15-32

DAY IN THE YEAR OF —1932 Joe 2:15-32IT will be remembered that a year ago certain atheists of our land sent a communication to President Hoover, and at the same time broadcasted the same through the land, opposing the appointment of Thanksgiving Day. They called attention to certain states that had suffered from drought; they emphasized the unemployment situation; they pictured the financial crisis that held the country in its grip; they described the debacle in agricultural returns; they emphasized the world’s unrest, the spectacle of wars and rumors of wars, and concluded that there was no occasion for gratitude to any God, and that such a proclamation as that involved in the Thanksgiving Day was meaningless and farcical; the attempt to keep up the ceremonials of religion in an age when atheism was the rising philosophy.Our President silently ignored this petition, doubtless holding its superficiality in contempt. He knew that the whole argument was fallacious and that every complaint voiced in the same was attributable to man’s failure rather than to God’s fault, and that never, in human history, had this land, at least, enjoyed truer occasion of Thanksgiving than now.The fact of God’s favor and man’s fault will be increasingly evident as together we study the text selected for this Thanksgiving Day consideration.It involves A Solemn Appeal, a Sacred Promise, and a Pledge of the Outpoured Spirit.A SOLEMN APPEAL “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly: “Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts: let the bridegroom go forth from his chamber, and the bride out of her closet” (Joe 2:15-16). This is God’s call for a solemn assembly. The urgency for such assembly is found in the sentence, “Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly.” God has always wrought through assemblies. He may have, in fact He has had, His secret trysts with individuals; but His greater communications have been given to crowds. It was so when the Law was given; the throngs of Israel heard and saw; it was so when the Gospel trumpet was first sounded in the streets of Jerusalem. “For the multitude [heard], and were confounded”.There are important communications that can best be delivered to assemblies. For some years now I have made it a habit, when discussing great doctrinal questions or popular current philosophies, to follow with a sort of an open forum, permitting questions and making replies. Again and again individuals who were silent while the forum lasted have waited for me at the foot of the pulpit stairs and in an undertone have said, “I have a very important question that I wish you would answer for me.” To which I have often and always justly replied, “Pardon me, but if it is very important you should have given me the advantage of a public answer, for important questions and answers are never those in which only a single individual is interested, and I would advise that you write the same out and send it up to me tomorrow night, and when I shall have answered it for you, I may also have given aid to hundreds of others.”Human interests are so nearly identical that the assembly provides a broadcasting opportunity.

That is why the church comes together. It would be impossible for the pastor, or even fifty pastors, to go to the individual members of such a church as this and sit down with each and preach to him a personal Gospel and answer for him individual questions, seeking to solve individual difficulties.The Old Testament Prophets, when they received a revelation from the Lord, carried it either to the streets where throngs were passing, or to the synagogue where the crowds had assembled to speak what God had given.That is the real reason for calling “assemblies”, and that is an adequate reason for Paul’s plea with Christian believers that they should not forsake the assembling of themselves together as the manner of some is.I have noted a fact, and so have you, that that member of this church who attends it on Christmas Day and on Easter Sunday morning, and is seldom or never seen in the long weeks intervening, is practically a worthless member, and not only valueless to the church, but spiritually destitute.I think dear old Isaac Watts must have had such church members in mind when he penned his fourth verse in the immortal hymn “Come Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove” for that verse runs after this manner:— “Dear Lord, and shall we ever live At this poor dying rate, Our love so faint, so cold to Thee, And Thine to us so great?” “The Watchman Examiner” some time ago carried an article that told of a certain pastor who had dropped into the “Examiner’s” office, and who wearily said, “I feel that my people are not giving me a fair and square deal. They come out in good numbers on Sunday morning; they congratulate me on my sermon, and then on Sunday evening they desert me and leave the church so empty that the strangers who visit it are chilled by the vacant seats, and I, myself, have little heart in preaching to the empty benches.”Roy L. Smith in “The Christian Advocate” suggests a comparison of one’s loyalty to Christ and his loyalty at other points. He says, “You will take time off for the Game when your favorite team is playing; you take time off for the lodge on its meeting nights: you defend your secular profession when it is attacked. Then why not devote yourself with equal ardor to the cause of the church, and stand ready to defend Christianity under any and all circumstances?”But, the text proceeds to another and most logical step, namely—The need of a new sanctification. “Sanctify the congregation”. The word “sanctify” means “set apart to sacred uses,” and there is no church member who is going to be faithful to the solemn assembly except this sanctification takes place; except there be a surrender to serve.John H. Hutton quotes one of the most influential journalists of the times as having said, “We have seen Christ, and we are all uneasy.”When you find people whose names are on the church book, and whose attendance upon the church assemblies is intermittent, and who remain indifferent to that circumstance, you can but wonder if they have seen Christ. A cold placidity of mind is poor evidence of vital Christian experience.Francis J. Hall graduated from Johns Hopkins medical School in Baltimore with high honors. Shortly thereafter he set out to China where, as a medical missionary, he won for himself a large place in Christian work. In 1913 he was called to see a Chinaman who had Typhus Fever.

His friends warned him against going, saying that many physicians had taken it and perished with it. He only answered, “As the Lord’s servant, I must go.” Two weeks later he was stricken, and in a few days he was dying.

In his delirium, at the end, he exclaimed over and over again, “I hear them calling; I must go! I hear them calling; I must go! I hear them calling; I must go!”Who doubts that the sentences of his delirium were the direct products of his deep spiritual experience? And who doubts that his death was a triumphant translation into the presence and rewards of Him whose willing servant he was? His was a sanctified life; a life set apart to the sacred uses of Christian service, and his was also a sample life, fit to be imitated and emulated by every saint on earth.But, neither constancy in the assembly, nor sanctification for service are likely, apart from the third point mentioned in this text, namely,The experience of penitent prayer,“Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God”? (Joe 2:17) There are times when any faithful interpretation of a text compels the minister to preach to himself, and to take to heart what he is saying. I confess with shame this morning, that I believe that if your minister, the man who fulfils the priestly office of intercessor for this people, were more often and more agonizingly in prayer, the work of Grace wrought through this church would be infinitely greater. I have been strangely moved of late by the reports that have come to me of prayer circles being formed in the church,—little groups of people getting together in their homes to pray that God would manifest His power in the salvation of sinners and the sanctification of saints. To me it is an evidence that God is moving by His Spirit in our midst, and I suggest that in all such meetings you shall not forget the minister; and I declare to you my honest and deep desire to be the prayerful leader that God wants me to be and that His people need to have; for I know the history of the great revivals that have come to America. Uniformly some one has been God’s priest, the minister of the Lord, to pray down a blessing upon the people.Do you remember the story that is told of Moody’s first visit to London? He was unknown in that city and scarce heard of in that land.

He had not been invited over by anybody, but after arriving was asked to preach for a certain church, which he did. The church seemed cold and the service almost meaningless, but he announced that he would preach again at night.

When he returned in the evening the whole atmosphere was changed; the crowd was greatly increased. At the close of the service he gave an invitation to those who wanted to be saved to stand, and a veritable crowd responded.He left the next day for Dublin, Ireland, but shortly was called to return to the same church, and the call was attended by the statement that the whole community was aroused. He went back to see a work of Grace in which hundreds sought and found the Lord, and to learn the secret of the same. An invalid woman who could not even get to the church had been praying for weeks for the outpouring of the Spirit. Yes, for months she had assiduously sought the Throne of Grace. One day in reading a paper she saw an account of Moody’s meetings in America.

She began to plead with God to send that man to her church, but did not know that God had answered the prayer until her sister returned from the service and announced that Moody had been the preacher. Then she sought the Lord as never before, pleading with Him, (now that He had sent the man in answer to her prayer), that He would pour out His Spirit upon the people, and that night the great revival began.I know not who may have the joy and honor of bringing a special visitation of Grace to this church, but I do know from the text, and from my own experience, that the priest, the minister of the Lord, should be the special pleader, saying, “Spare Thy people, O Lord, and give not Thine heritage to reproach”, and that he, himself, should be so deeply and unselfishly concerned as to secure the ear of the Lord and the answer of Grace.Down in Southern Illinois, years since, Dr.

Peter Akers, speaker at one of the Methodist Camp Meetings, went through three days of the same, but saw no signs of the Spirit’s presence. At the close of that time he found himself sleepless at night, and sometime after 11 o’clock got up and dressed and went over to the tabernacle. Kneeling before the chancel there he commenced to pour out his soul in prayer. All unconsciously his voice rose to higher and higher notes. The next thing he knew, people began to come into the tabernacle and silently bowing their heads to join him in the petition. On and on he prayed in apparent agony. Before the break of the day the crowd had filled the place and scores were saved.If the meetings that we have planned for the pre-Christmas season bring many men and women to God, somebody must pray.But, we pass toTHE SACRED PROMISE The Lord will respond in grace. “Then will the Lord be jealous for His land, and pity His people. “Yea, the Lord will answer and say unto His people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil, and ye shall be satisfied therewith: and I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen” (Joe 2:18-19). How like the Lord that! When did He refuse response in grace if approached in genuine repentance and by way of prayer?You may turn back into the pages of the Old Testament history, and you will find that God never failed in grace when His people penitently sought His favor.It will be remembered that when Moses went into the Mount to receive the Law that Israel turned in unbelief to vile behavior,“And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now therefore let Me alone, that My wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them: and I will make of thee a great nation”. But in answer to Moses’ prayer, “the Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people” (Exodus 32:9-10; Exodus 32:14).It will be remembered that when Achan so grievously sinned, and the Children of Israel could not stand before their enemies because they were accursed, when the evil was put away, “the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger” (Joshua 7:26).It will be remembered that when the Lord pronounced a judgment upon Nineveh, and the Ninevites repented their sins and pled for grace that “God * * repenteth Him of the evil” that He would do unto them, and “He did it not.”The way, then, back to Divine favor is an open way, and it should be known at least to those of His children who have given study to His course with men.Roger Babson has been America’s financial adviser for some years past. From month to month, business men have read his reports, and to no small degree have based their transactions upon his advice, and with good occasion. Sometime since, Mr. Babson returned from Europe, and this is what he said,“Europe is on fire—on fire with Bolshevism, radicalism, and kindred perils; and unless these fires are put out they will burn up the world.” A newspaper reporter said to him, “What is the matter with America?” and Mr. Babson said, “Moral sickness.” “How can America be saved?”“You can write this for your front pages—America cannot be saved until men and women of this generation get down on their knees and pray like their mothers prayed, and until business men put the ten commandments back into business; until then America is lost.”Many of us need to cry out with John Taylor, “God of mercy, God of grace, Hear our sad, repentant songs; O restore Thy suppliant race, Thou, to whom our praise belongs.

“Deep regret for follies past, Talents wasted, time misspent; Hearts debased by worldly cares, Thankless for the blessings lent;—

“Foolish fears and fond desires, Vain regrets for things as vain; Lips too seldom taught to praise, Oft to murmur and complain;—

“These, and every secret fault, Filled with grief and shame, we own; Humbled at Thy feet we lie, Seeking pardon from Thy throne.” The Lord will fight the battles of His own.“But I will remove far off from you the northern army, and will drive him into a land barren and desolate, with his face toward the east sea, and his hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his stink shall come up, and his ill savour shall come up, because he hath done great things. “Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things” (Joe 2:20-21). There are people who imagine that wars indicate that God is not in the world, and perhaps, as the atheist argues, proves that He does not exist at all. On the contrary, nothing will so profoundly impress the thoughtful student in God’s favor as do the fortunes of war. Somehow or other He signally manifests His power when wars .take place.Joan of Arc was keenly conscious of this fact. She undertook the impossible, and by the help of God, accomplished it; and when she had finished it all, and consequently stood before the world as the worker of wonders, she knelt at the feet of her anointed sovereign and said, “Gracious king; now is fulfilled the prophecy of God,” and as she spoke, she wept. John Lord, speaking of this, said, “Not by power had she done this, but by the Spirit of the Lord.” God had fought for her, and had fought with her. “If God be with us, who can be against us”?It is the habit of nations when they are about to go to war to make every conceivable provision for both defense and offence; but alas, too often they forget to regard God, and to inquire whether their cause is one He can favor or whether they will also have Him to fight against. Woe to that nation that enters into a battle against God! How often has it happened that the ill savor of such comes up, and their stench is in the nostrils of men!It is true still as in Joel’s day,The Lord is always exceeding all expectations.“He will cause to come down for you the ram, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month. “And the floors shall he full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. “And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmer-worm * * (Joe 2:23-25), and for His own He shall provide in plenty, and they shall be satisfied. Praise His Name that hath dealt wondrously with Him! His “people shall never be ashamed”. “Oh voice of God we hear Thee, Above the shock of time; Thine echoes roll around us And the message is sublime.

“No power of man shall thwart us, No stronghold shall dismay, When God commands obedience, And love has led the way.” THE OUT-POURING OF HIS SPIRIT “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: “And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out My Spirit” (Joe 2:28-29). Peter saw the beginnings of this promise fulfilled at Pentecost, but Peter had no notion that the fullness of the promise was exhausted in that first Jerusalem revival; in fact some days afterward when he, himself, was the subject of violent hands and imprisonment. It is written, “Howbeit many of them which heard the Word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand” (Acts 4:4).There are those who seem to think the out-pouring of the Spirit is evidenced in strange tongues, or is demonstrated by physical contortions. In my study of the New Testament I have not found it so.The immediate product of these occasions was liberal gifts and multiplied converts (Acts 2:41-47), and we are profoundly convinced that the ways of the Spirit have not changed, and that today the Spirit-filled man, the Spirit-endued woman, is the man, the woman whose purse is opened, and who goes about the personal work or public ministry of winning men to Jesus Christ.If I were asked today who seemed to me to be the Spirit-filled people of this church, I would be compelled to disappoint and even surprise many with my answer. I should not name those who claim most, but I should name some whose generosity never fails, and whose personal work accounts for a new soul, saved every few days.“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance”: but the objective of His gift is that “Ye may be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth”. And it is at that point that the Church of God is failing today. We live with people in the same house; we work with them in the same shop; we pass and greet them in the streets; we mingle with them at the club; we meet them in the social circle, and we say not a word to them about their souls!

We do not so much as invite them to the house of God where they may hear the Word and live! Our lips are sealed; our testimony is wanting, and our failure is the evidence of the fact that we have not waited upon God until the Person of the Spirit who is His “power” in testimony has come upon us.Against this failure God utters His adequate warning. “And I will shew wonders m the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. “The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come” (Joe 2:30-31). There are people who think that God should never behave after this manner; that He should not deal in blood; that He should not use fire; that He should not send up pillars of smoke; that He should not frighten or fill men with consternation. The same people, however, have no objection whatever to the siren whistle when a fire breaks out. That is alarming also; that disturbs the sleep of men; that calls them from their couches of ease; but where the danger is evident the warning is properly appraised. However, when the danger is not evident, but is certain, the warning is all the more necessary.That messenger who warned the white settlers of the stealthy approach of the Indians who had planned a murderous attack, was counted a friend. That man who rode down the Conemaugh Valley in 1889, shouting from horseback to every man, woman and child seen, “To the hills, to the hills! The dam has broken; the flood is coming!” was a friend.Shall we not appreciate God’s signals of danger; God’s signs of coming distress?

The days are dark; for some the nights are moon-less and star-less in the financial world and even in the moral world at this moment. Lights are going out! The darkness of despair creeps upon the land. Shall we not learn?Finally, there is a sure deliverance for all sincere seekers.“It shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall he delivered” (Joe 2:32). It is our judgment that that promise is universal, provided, of course, its conditions of sincerity are met.Theodore Cuyler once said, “None of God’s promises are unconditional. We have no such assets to our credit that we have a right to draw out checks and demand that God shall pay them. God loves to give to them who love to let Him have His way.”But God does condition,—they shall call. In other words, He determines the conditions and it is ours to meet them if we are to be saved.Campbell Morgan, in one of his little volumes, tells the story of conducting a mission in England where a man sat in the back of the chapel. In the aftermeeting, as Mr. Morgan was moving around and speaking to several people, he came to this man and found him under conviction.

He said, “I do not want to go into that Inquiry Room. Can’t I be saved without going in there?” “No, I don’t think you can,” was Mr.

Morgan’s answer. “Why?” said he, “is salvation in the Inquiry Room?” “No; it is in God, but just as long as you sit here and want to dictate to God, you are proving that you have not got to the end of self, and there is no salvation for you.”Then said he, “If I cannot be saved without going into that Inquiry Room, I will go to hell.” “Well, my brother,” Mr. Morgan answered, “that is not God’s choice for you, but if you have chosen it for yourself He cannot help it.”Night after night the man kept coming. Mr. Morgan had warned the personal workers to let him alone. The last night of the mission w&s on;—before Mr. Morgan had got to the invitation, that man arose and climbed over the backs of the seats and straight into the Inquiry Room he went.

Mr. Morgan followed him and said, “I thought you would rather go to hell than come in here?” “Yes, I thought so too; but I have been in hell all week and I cannot endure it any longer!”It is not ours to dictate terms, but it is ours to meet conditions, and when we meet them, God will keep His Word, and the word is, “Whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be delivered”.