Good Morning Friends,
“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. It is close at hand -- a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and
blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come. --- The day of the
LORD is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it? ‘Even now,’ declares the
LORD, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and
mourning.’ 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.” (Joel 2:1-2; 11-13)
The day of the Lord is a day of judgment. God
will not always withhold His judgment. His patience will run out. It did on
Israel -- and the Assyrians destroyed that nation -- it has never returned.
And the day of the Lord will come upon the
entire earth one day. There will come a day when God will call an end to this
season of history and usher in eternity.
It will be a day of judgment for those who
have rejected God, for those who do not know Him. It will be a dreadful day. It
will be a day that cannot be endured. It will be a day of devastation and
destruction such as has never been seen before. And it is coming. Just as
certain as there is a God, His judgment will come.
But it is not God’s desire to judge. It is
not His desire to destroy.
It is God’s desire to forgive. He longs for
men to repent. He longs for men to return to Him with sincere hearts. “Rend
your heart and not your garments.’ It is not ceremony God seeks – it is sincere
hearts that He seeks.
The people around us are in deep trouble. For
the most part, they have rejected God. They have turned their backs toward Him.
The day of the Lord will come upon them. It’s only a matter of time. Time we
have to urge them to repent, to turn back to Him.
His, by Grace,
Steve
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