10/27/24 Joel 2:12-13, 23-32 “Did You Bring an Umbrella?”

20 Oct 10/27/24 Joel 2:12-13, 23-32 “Did You Bring an Umbrella?”

10/27/24     Joel 2:12-13, 23-32       “Did You Bring an Umbrella?”

I’m not sure if you know this or not but being in formal ministry can have many pitfalls.  And because there are times when I engage my mouth before my brain, I have made my share of mistakes.  Some have been serious and others rather funny.  I remember several years ago; I was preaching on Noah and the flood.  I thought I had done a pretty fair job and then moved on to the next week.  Usually what happens to me is that I will pretty much forget about the sermon I just finished because I have next week’s sermon in my head.  I have to confess; my head isn’t big enough for two sermons.  Anyway, I am ready now to preach the week after the Noah sermon.  Someone took me aside that next Sunday and told me that maybe I shouldn’t preach about the great flood anymore because it had rained all week and all the farmers were wallowing in excess water.  I know that my preaching had nothing to do with the rain but I haven’t preached about the flood again.  Today, we are going to be talking about drought and rain so there should be a balance.  God is talking through Joel with the promise of plenty if we can just do what He tells us to do.

This is the time of year when we celebrate our harvest.  This has been going on for centuries, centuries before the time of Jesus.  I would like us to think of some of the things that we might eat at a harvest festival, some of the great foods.  My question about some of these fine things to eat is this; why didn’t God just make a plant that grew loaves of bread instead of the wheat plant?  Why didn’t He make our potatoes already mashed?  Or better yet, why didn’t He just make a pumpkin pie plant so we wouldn’t have to go through all the trouble of digging the pumpkin out of the pumpkin fruit?  Have you ever thought about that?  I think the answer lies in the love that God has for us.  He could have done any of these things and more but instead He wants us to learn to use these things in different ways.  He wants us to enjoy what He has provided for us by discovering new ways to prepare foods and other things.  He wants us to team up with Him as we enjoy His fruits which become our fruits in a way.  In order for these plants to grow, there has to be a delicate balance of water, sunshine and nutrients.  If any of these are out of whack, there is a chance of crop failure.  The same can be said of us.  We too need water, sunshine, and nutrients plus we need God.  Without these things we could have life failure.

This is what was happening as Joel is writing.  Sharon told me once that she had never heard a sermon on Joel before so I guess we had better hang on to our hats.  Not much is known about Joel.  Experts know he wrote around 800 BCE and other experts know it was closer to 400 BCE; so much for experts.  To me it seems that Israel has been conquered but the Temple is still standing so Judah must still be intact.  But that really isn’t important.  What is important is that the country is suffering from a severe drought.

In 2013 we suffered from a little drought.  However, it was nothing compared to the summer before where the whole Midwest was dry.  I remember when I went to Kansas City thinking of the terrible burden there would be on many farmers and others who relied on the land for their livelihood.  And still this was nothing compared to the great dry spell on the 1930’s.  I remember my dad talking about how you could almost step across the Red River up north where it is quite a bit larger than down here.  Times were tough in the 30’s.

I think things were a lot tougher in the times of Joel.  There was not only a severe drought but there were also locusts.  I have never seen locusts like those described in the first part of Joel.  I have never seen them where they block the sun because they are so thick.  I understand that it has happened in this country but not in recent history.  Anyway, when locusts come in these huge swarms, they eat every plant in sight.  There is nothing left when they move on to the next place.  It is absolutely devastating.  The people of these areas would discover what desperation is all about.

But I don’t think Joel is really referring to a drought or locusts as he writes this.  He is talking about the condition of the country.  They as a country were going farther and farther away from God.  Even the religious leaders were not on the same page as God any more.  They were caught up in sacrifices and rituals that really didn’t interest God at all.  This was not unlike the time of Jesus which lay hundreds of years in the future.  They were trying to follow the rules for the sake of following the rules.

I’m going to go out on a limb a little here and say that I think that we are also having a spiritual drought.  How often have you heard that God really didn’t mean what He says in the Bible?  Or the times are different now and we have to change the Bible to reflect the times.  These types of thoughts used to be considered heresy.  Today these thoughts and others are the backbone of many so-called churches.  You all know what I’m talking about.

And it is worse if you are a pastor or priest.  When I was still in full time ministry, the conference would have liked nothing better than to have me be on several conference committees.  There are churches in the area who want their pastor to run everything in the church.  This means being on all committees, running all programs plus just doing all the nuts and bolts it takes to run a church.  Satan was pulling at me in a hundred different ways to keep me from doing ministry.  I’m not alone in this as all pastors have this pull.  Unfortunately, many succumb to this and the results are anything but good.

As I stated earlier, we are really in the midst of a spiritual drought.  We can go way back into the Old Testament to see the cycle we are in.  As a people we have had times when we are close to God which is followed by times when we turn from God.  You might have even experienced this in your personal walk with Jesus.  The key to recovery from these times of spiritual neglect on our part is to not give up on God.  Just think about this thought for a minute.

God is telling these wayward people that they are to rend their hearts and not their garments.  God isn’t interested in sacrifices.  He isn’t interested in our rituals.  He doesn’t care if we don’t pray in a certain way or have our baptisms a certain way or our communion.  He is interested in our heart.  Jesus wants to have your heart.  He wants to live there and guide you in all that you do.  He wants us to fast, weep and mourn our loss which is our relationship with Jesus.

For those of you who feel that you have moved away from Jesus and you want to get back into the wonderful, warm friendship you’ve had with Him, this is for you.  There is something about fasting that brings us closer to Jesus.  This works if that is the reason you are fasting.  If you are fasting for weight loss or self-image, then you will be no closer to Jesus than before.  But if you truly fast for Jesus, then things will happen!  So, if you want to improve your life, try fasting for Jesus.  Don’t give up on Jesus but try something a little different to make your heart right.

Now if you’re hearing this and it doesn’t make much sense to you, then I have a different suggestion for you.  This is for you people have not completed your transformation to Jesus or maybe you have never really known how to be friends with the greatest, most powerful person in the universe, plus He is kind and gentle as a lamb.  All you have to do is confess all your sins to Him.  You don’t even have to name them.  Just ask Jesus to take all your sins away from you.  Then ask Him to live in your heart as your Lord and personal Savior.  That is all it takes.  You can ask me for help or you can do it yourself.  Either way Jesus is waiting to hear from you.

Now you may be asking yourself ‘why would I do something like this if I’m doing just fine by myself?’  My question is this, “Are you doing that well?  Is there something missing in your life?”  Maybe you aren’t doing as well as you thought.  Come to Jesus and live.  For the first time in your life, really live.  In the second part of our reading we see a kind, just God.  We see the God that we all know and love.  He is a God of justice and still a God of very tender love.  He wants you to have this tender love.

These people have been disobedient, neglecting God, but God wants them to come back.  When they come back with their hearts and not their false sacrifices, this is what God will do.  God promises that they will have grain, new wine and oil.  They will not be scorned.  Their enemies will be driven from them.  This is from the part we didn’t read.  God is telling them the Gospel story hundreds of years before Jesus.  For those of you who think that the New Testament is the only part of the Bible to read, here is the story once again in the Old Testament.

You see, these were God’s people.  If they are obedient, God will provide them with just the right rain.  He will send the locusts away.  He will repay the damage they have done.  He will work wonders for His people so that they know that He is their Lord and they are His people.  They have been disobedient again for a long period of time, but if they come back, God will treat them as royalty.  Everything will be theirs.  They will be the prodigal son.

You know what is so fantastic about this whole thing?  God will do the same thing for you today.  We live in a world where there are so many pressures to do this and not do that.  We had better be politically correct or someone will get you.  I could go on and on about bad family situations, money problems, employment difficulties and bad things in our schools.  I could be like the secular world and tell you that you need to see these people or those people who are professionals in an area and they will help.

Well, they might help and they might be able to do good things. However, you need to stop and talk to Jesus first.  If you are neglecting Jesus, go to Him.  Don’t give up on Him.  You need to get into prayer and see what He has to say about your situation.  Remember that all He wants to do for you is help and help and help.  That is because of the love that He has for you.  It is a love that I don’t understand but I have the faith that it is there.  He has helped me out of many a bad situation and He will help you also.  He might even tell you to see one of these experts that I just mentioned.  They will help but they will help much more if Jesus sends you to them.

The last part of this passage is what we read for Pentecost and it also tells of the last days.  God tells us that He will pour out His Spirit on all people.  His sons and daughters will be transformed.  They will prophesize, dream and have visions.  This will be equal for men and women.  Wow!  Here in black and white in the Old Testament we have equality for women.  This is great stuff.  The downside of this is that even though He pours out His Spirit for all, only His people will receive.  All others will be doomed.

The Old Testament is pretty tough stuff, isn’t it?  But it isn’t really tough.  It is full of love and justice.  We don’t like the justice because it might send us or a family member or a friend to the wrong place.  But remember, that is their choice; that is your choice.  When you choose Jesus over all other things, then you are choosing life.  It is all your choice.  The Good News here is that no matter how bad a sinner you are, you can always come back to Jesus or come to Him for the first time.  Even in the Old Testament, God is full of grace, love and forgiveness.

Anyone and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  You can spend your life following Jesus and receiving all the wonderful blessings that come from this and you will be saved.  You can come to Jesus in the last moments of your life and you will be saved.  Or you can come to Him at any time, at any place and you will be saved.  Sounds like one of His parables, doesn’t it?  There is nothing that you have to do, no work involved to be saved.  Jesus did all the work when He went to the cross and died for you.  That is right; He suffered agonizing pain and died in a most horrendous way so that you are worthy to come to God.  He did this all for you.  I’m just glad we have someone who loves us this much.  Most of the time, this is too much for me to comprehend.

There is an old story of a community like ours that was suffering from severe drought.  Finally, a congregation decided that they should gather together and pray for rain.  The pastor was very proud of these people for doing this.  He was thinking about the great thing they were trying to do here as he walked to the front of the church.  But he was even prouder when he got to the front and looked down at a little girl in the front row.  She had brought an umbrella.

If you are suffering from drought, if there are locusts eating up your life, then turn you full attention to Jesus.  He will give you just the right amount of rain if you just come to Him.  That is His promise in the Old Testament.  That is His promise in the New Testament.  That is His promise forever.  This isn’t really a sermon about rain and drought.  It is a sermon about you and how you can have the best life possible, a life that will last forever with Jesus Christ.  I just praise the Lord that He loves each and every one of us this much.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us.  Let’s pray.