When God Says, "You Don't Believe Me? Let Me Say It Another Way."

A WORD FOR TODAY:   

Let all who live in the land tremble; for the day of the Lord is coming.   

JOEL 2:1b

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 Joel 1:16-20: 

   

"The day of the Lord is near!" 

snicker ~ snicker ~snicker

ha ha ?

 False days for Christ's return.

 Doomsday Movies!

Street Preachers

Day of the Lord predictions pretty much

amuse us or role off our backs. 

Especially as Christians!

But lots of our non-Christian friends are curious, concerned, worried, even obsessed.  Ask them!

Then ask your self, "What do I know about the "days of the Lord" from scripture? as spoken about in scripture? What answers do I have to give to my friends?"

This is a serious question!

So, you may ask, "What good is this Joel passage? It just repeats what God has already said! I don't understand these agricultural references. Besides that was then. This is now." But there is a list of symptoms for our day. We name them off again and again in our conversations in the churches and in our homes. They are symptoms of economic failure and symptoms of moral deterioration in our nation, in our families, in our churches.

God is saying,  "You Don't Believe Me? Let Me Say It Again. Let me get you to repeat the symptoms of your day back to me again." We moan and bitch, we cry and complain to God about the terrible condition of things in our day. He calls us to fasting and repentance. He sends messengers again. He brings us to scriptures that sound his warning, that identify what He is doing, again. He calls us to fasting and repentance again. But we do not take him serious. We do not obey. We merely look for relief without listening. We listen with itching ears for the answers we want. It's all about us. Not about Him.


We laugh at his messengers - well maybe not - we ignore them. They irritate us. We're tired of the same old message again and again. We say to the messengers, "Tell us what to do!" But we don't do what they tell us. We say to God, "Tell us what to do! Send us someone else to tell us what to do." So he sends us the same explanation again. He calls us to communal fasting and repentance again.

He warns us again, "Your day of the Lord is right now coming upon you!"

Will we take heed in time? 
 

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DISCUSSION: 

1.    What signs do you see that the day of the Lord for our times is upon us, already beginning among us?

2.    Who are God's messengers calling us to communal fasting and prayer today? 

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THE MINOR PROPHETS SPEAK TO TODAY?? 

  JOEL

“These things happened to them as examples for us. 

They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.”  

1 Corinthians 10:11 NLT

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