Shalom, everyone. We are going to continue today in our study of the book of Yoel, and I'm going to read for you today in Joel, chapter 1, verses 8 to 14. So please take out your Bible and open them and let's turn to Joel, chapter 1. In Hebrew we call it Yoel, verses 8 to 14. And I'm reading: "Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests of the Lord's ministers mourn. The field is wasted. The land mourneth, for the corn is wasted. The new wine is dried up. The oil is languishes.

Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen, howl, O ye vine dressers, for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished. The wine is dried up, and the fig tree languishes. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree, even all the trees of the field are withered, because joy is withered away from the sons of men. Gird yourself, and lament, ye priests, howl ye ministers of the altar. Come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God. For the meat offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God. Sanctify ye a feast. Sanctify ye a feast.

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. And here I am stopping at the end of chapter 1, reading Joel 1 verses 8 to 14. Let me just remind you, some of you were not with us last week, and let me just quickly give you the points that we have had already last week. We are studying the prophet Joel. We have discovered last week by way of introduction that Joel was writing about 800-850 B.C. Joel was a prophet that was writing to the people of Judah. Joel, his name is Jehovah is God.

Joel's father's name was Petuel, and it means the openness of God, the enlargement of the heart of God. And it speaks very loud towards the heart of God, towards the nation of Israel. But Joel, when he was writing, something had happened. By the time Joel was writing his prophecy, something happened. You know what happened? There was a time where the locusts had invaded the land of Israel. Swarm after swarm, they came, and they went over the land, and they destroyed literally everything in the land of Israel. Can you imagine? Israel is an agricultural land. Israel is a country that depended so much upon the crop that will rise up from the ground.

But God has said to our people of all Israel, he says, Israel, if you are going to disobey me, I'm going to bring upon you judgment. And sure enough, beloved brothers and sisters and friends, judgment surely came. And it says then, in verse 3 and 4, if you remember that we read last time, tell it to your children. Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children and their children another generation. That which the palm wood have left has the locusts eaten. That which the locusts have left has the canker womb have eaten. And that which the canker womb have left has the caterpillar have eaten.

In other words, they came one after another. An invasion of locusts that destroyed the crop. And Israel were in a destitute situation. The people, of course, realized that something had happened and Yoel took the occasion and he wanted to lead them on to another day. And the days, of course, in the day that we discovered it earlier, is the day of the tribulation period, which is called, a few times here in the book of Yoel, the day of the Lord. Now, by the time we have arrived to verse 7, which we have covered already last week. In verses 5 to 7, there was the weeping, the crying over the destruction.

Even by the people who were drinking, the alcoholics, the people who were drunk. It says in verse 5, "Awake ye drunker." And why? Because they have no wine to drink anymore. No crop, no vineyards, no grapes, no wine, no drinking. And they would awake and they couldn't have their own pleasure. It says even the drunkards, the drunkards are to weep over the condition that existed there. And he moved on, we talked about verse 5, the lamentation, the weeping, the crying. And by now when we arrived to verse 8, where I began to read, now he's moving on from those who were drunkards. And he's moving on to the people, to the nation itself.

And notice what he says in verse 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. He gives us various groups among the people of Israel who would weep and cry over the condition that existed in the land. Look at it, first of all, verse 8. There is a call for the people of Israel to lament. He says in verse 8, "lament like a betula, like a virgin, girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth." You notice, oftentimes the word betula, it has to do with a young maiden or young woman that had been married. And her husband of her youth had somehow either left her or something had happened. And here, Yoel is saying to Israel, you know, you as a nation will have to cry and weep like a young maiden, like a betula, like a virgin that is lamenting for a husband that had departed.

Can you imagine when you think about a marriage union between a husband and a wife? And when the husband, after you get married, and if the husband had departed, when the wife had been depended upon her husband, and he had departed, he had gone astray, or something had happened. And you know how devastating this in a family setting, how painful it is to go through it. Here, Yoel says to Israel, "Israel, you lament, you weep, like a betula, like a virgin that is girded with sackcloth. She is in mourning for the husband of her youth. Her husband had departed. Israel, you will have to lament, like a husband that has left you." Why?

Because you haven't been faithful to your own husband. Israel haven't been faithful to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to the one who loved them and cared for them. He says, "You lament." In other words, Yoel is leading the nation to repent before God. In verse 9, he is now speaking to the priests. And he is saying to the leaders of Israel, the priests, those who are to represent the nation before God, they had nothing to bring now to God. He says in verse 9, "The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord." The priests, the Lord ministers or servants, mourn.

Do you know how sad it is? The job of the ministers, and here of course is the servant. When we use the word ministers, of course, we don't mean in quotation mark ministers. We mean servants. The priests were the servants of God. And their responsibility was to come to the temple and to present before the Lord all kind of presentation, offerings, before the Lord. And what happened? There is no crop to present before the Lord. The first food before the Lord, there was nothing to bring to the Lord. And you know how sad it was for the priests. The priests who should represent the nation before the Lord.

The priests who should have been presenting before the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the temple presentation of various offerings. He said to them, "You mourn because there is nothing for you to bring before the Lord." There is nothing to bring before the Lord because the locusts have destroyed everything. They have invaded, as we have said earlier. They have bite. They swarmed. They licked. And they devoured. And there is nothing left to present before the Lord. Now, moving on in verse 10, and now he is speaking to the land about the whole land. And notice in verse 10, he said, "The field is wasted. The land mourneth.

The land mourneth. For the corn is wasted. The new wine is dried up. The oil languishes." You notice what happened. You know, we don't realize that. Even the land itself cries out. Because there is no fruit to bring. Because, as it says here in verse 10, it says, "Because it's wasted. Completely wasted. The corn is wasted. The wine is dried up. There is nothing living in the land." Have you ever seen a field when one time the rain came there and brought so much fruit and trees and plants and flowers? And after a while, in a year when there is drought and there is no rain, and maybe a locust has passed by.

Have you ever seen? Can you imagine? Sometimes we watched on the television the condition that exists in Ethiopia or in Sudan, where people are starving. And you look at them walking in the land. And the only thing that is growing, if you will, the only thing that is existing there, is dry trees or plants that have no life in them. And you look at this and you look at the condition that prevailing, that nothing is growing. Nothing is there. No fruit. No life. Because something has happened. And we look and we are privileged to live in a country like you and I live in today.

We can go anywhere in a field, we can go anywhere in a farm, and we can get some fruit and vegetables that God had blessed us with. And Israel at that time, a country that depended upon the growth from the ground, find itself in such a sad state. And God is speaking through the prophet Yoel, "Lend, mourn, for the corn is wasted, the new wine is dried up, the oil languishes, there is nothing to grow there." And, of course, in verse 11, he is now speaking to the farmers, to the husbandmen. This is the farmer. "Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen, howl, O farmer, howl, O ye vine dressers, for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished." Anybody who is a farmer today will tell you that he is waiting to see when the rain is coming and there will be some fruit that he can go and pick up from the trees and take it to the market.

"But you know it's sad when you work the ground all the year long, and at the end of the season there is no fruit, there is no growth." "And so there has been men, howl," he said. "Vine dressers," he is speaking about, "the wheat, for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished." And so in verse 12, he gives us a conclusion here, and he tells us that everything, and he named to us tree after tree after tree, that bore no fruit in the field. Verse 12, "All the trees of the field are withered, the vine is dried up, the fig tree languishes, the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree." "Even all the trees of the field are withered, because joy is withered away from the sons of men." "Is there any surprise why joy is withered away from the sons of men, and in this case it's from the sons of men, the people of Israel, the people of Judah?

Is there any surprise?" "Because when you looked around, you look at the vine, it dried up. You look at the fig tree, it languishes. You look at the pomegranate tree, you look at the palm tree, it vanished. You look at the apple tree. Every tree of the field, every tree of the field did not bring any fruit whatsoever. And automatically, beloved, joy had departed." That's what Yoel is saying here. He wanted to lead the nation of Israel to repentance. He wanted to lead the people of Judah to come before God to the point where they are recognizing that they have departed from Him. And the reason that the locusts, a swarm of locusts came and destroyed everything is because they simply violated the will of God.

They disobeyed the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And let me just make here for a moment some spiritual application. I don't know about you, but you and I have to admit that sometimes, as believers, because we are not connected to the Lord and we are disobeying the Lord, sometimes we find that there is no fruit in our life for God. We wonder why we are dried spiritually. We wonder why we are dry. We have nothing to give. We wonder why there is no possibility to offer neither to the Lord nor to the people of God, and we wonder why. Well, we have to check ourselves and to ask ourselves this question: "Have I moved from my relationship with the Lord Jesus the Messiah?

Have I gone astray from Him? Have I gone away? Have I departed from His path that He called me to walk as a believer?" It is not possible to bring fruit for God away from the presence of the Lord. Let me remind you what Yeshua said in John 15. He says, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." He said in John 15, "Without me, you cannot do anything." We are the branches that are coming out of the vine, and as the branches stay close to the vine, there will be fruit for God, fruit for God in our lives. Well, there was no fruit in the land, the land of Israel, and there was nothing to offer for God because Israel at that time have departed from the will of the Lord.

But I want to show you a man that in spite of this have turned his heart to the Lord and worshiped the Lord even in those difficult days such as this. Let me turn to the prophet Habakkuk for a moment. Just quickly, in Habakkuk, just a couple of pages to your right. Habakkuk said at the last portion of his book, Habakkuk chapter 3, he said something that I think is very precious, something that really shows us that even in the midst of a dry, dry spiritual state of the people of God, there is a possibility to rejoice in the Lord and to have our hearts and our eyes focused on him.

And look what Habakkuk said in chapter 3. He says this, verse 17, Habakkuk 3:17 "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall the fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the field shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in the God of my salvation." Notice that? Habakkuk got a hold of the truth that joy is really connected and associated with God. And he says, listen, if God has to discipline us and to judge us, to punish us because we have departed from him, let it be so.

He's always right when he disciplines his people. But I'm going not to set my eyes upon the problem. I'm going to set my eyes upon the Lord. And that's why Habakkuk could say, even though the fig tree shall not blossom, there will not be fruit in the vine; the olives will fail and not going to bring any food; the fields shall yield no food. He says, I am yet going to rejoice in the Lord, and I will joy in the God of my salvation. Do you know, beloved brothers and sisters, it's very easy for me to read these verses right here for you and I.

Very easy. And perhaps you can read it to me also. But when the rubber meets the road, when a problem comes across our life, how oftentimes we have to admit that we do not rejoice in the Lord, but we are occupied with the problems. Instead of setting our eyes, and God wants us to set our eyes on him, on Yeshua the Messiah, who have gone before us. And yet, oftentimes we have to confess that we are not like Habakkuk, we are not rejoicing in the Lord. And I encourage you today, if you are going through some trials and difficult times, and I encourage myself as well, may our eyes be focused on the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, who loved us and gave himself for us.

And he can encourage us and give us the strength to move on and to be a testimony for him in this world. We'll go back now to Yoel in chapter 1. And notice now in connection with these verses, after he was in verse 5 and 6 and 7, speaking about the fact that the drunkards are to weep because of the condition that prevailed there. And then the people, the priests, the land, the farmers, and everyone else, even though this had existed now. Now he's moving on in verses 13 and 14, and he shows us now about the weeping of the priests and the leading of the nation to a national repentance.

You know, God wants his people to repent and to come before him and to confess that they have been wrong. Look what he says in verse 13. The priests are going to lament. Look, it says, "Gird yourselves. Lament ye priests," verse 13. "Howly servants of the altar, come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God, for the meal offering and the drink offering is withholden from the house of your God." You see, now he's going now to the priests, and he's speaking to the priests, and you notice he called them twice in this verse, "Ye ministers of the altar, ye ministers of my God." You see, the priests in Hebrew were "meshartei mizbeach," which is the servants of the altar.

And you know what? When those priests used to come to the altar, they used to bring all the offerings to the altar, and they used to present it before God. Don't ever forget that when we speak about the altar in the Bible, in the Old Testament, the Tanakh, it's always a picture of that which rise up to God and satisfy the holy and the righteous God. And every time those servants are coming to the altar, and they used to lay upon the altar, if it is an animal for a sacrifice, for a blood sacrifice, or also what it calls here the meal offering. It is the only offering, beloved, that is bloodless offering in the five offerings that God had given to Israel to offer.

You know, we have the burnt offering, we have the sin offering, we have the trespass offering, and we have the peace offering. And number five, it's actually not number five, it's the second one, is the meal offering. It's the only offering that has no blood in it. It speaks of the perfection of the Messiah in his life, in his life. Yeshua the Messiah had been the one that pleased God. From the moment that he was born to the moment that he died, his walk was a perfect walk. And the meal offering came from the ground. The flour that came out of the wheat from the ground that made the flour.

And the flour is the one that was, the even flour speaks of the evenness of the life of the Messiah. But they didn't have any meal offering to offer. And they used to come before the Lord and they used to offer those meal offering. And now they cannot offer the meat or the meal offering. In Hebrew, the word is mincha. When you see meat in the King James, it doesn't mean meat. As you and I would say meat basal, like meat of an animal. It's a meal offering. That has to do with the flour that represented before us the perfect life of the Messiah. Well, they couldn't offer that anymore because they didn't have any meal to offer.

And so he's saying to them in verse 13, lie all night in sackcloth, ye servants of my God. Why? Because meal offering and drink offering is withholden from the house of your God. You can't approach God in the house of God because it had been withholden from the house of God because of what the judgment that came because of the locusts who have completely destroyed all the crop in the land. And you know, beloved, again, what a beautiful type, what a beautiful picture is of the life of the Messiah with the meal offering. And you know, if you'll ever have an opportunity to study the five offerings and you will see that every offering that my people of old Israel have offered on the altar is a picture of the Messiah who have died and who have lived the perfect life and died a death, an atoning death for the sin of the nation of Israel, the sin of this world.

And now they could not offer these offering in the presence of God. And you know what? Why they are to weep? We don't even realize the importance of this sometime because to come into the presence of the Lord without to offer him something, something to offer him, to elevate him. You know, I often wonder if there is any reason for you and I to come to any Saturday meeting, or Thursday meeting, or Sunday meeting, or Monday meeting, if we come without something to bring to God. And I mean it. And I don't mean it. And I don't mean necessarily tangibly. I mean with your heart a desire to give something for the Lord.

There is no reason for us to be here if we come just to sit around without to have a desire to give something for God. The only way that is a worthwhile meeting is when we come with a desire to offer something to God, to worship him, to adore him, to exalt and extol the name of Yeshua, the Messiah. That is the reason why the believers are to gather together. If they are gathering together just to be a church, a churchianity, or congregation for the sake of meeting together like a club. There is no reason for us ever to be here whatsoever if we do not come with the motive and the desire to have an offering of worship to the Lord.

Well, here he is saying to them, you better mourn, he said, because you have nothing to offer to God. It has been withholden from the temple, from the house of God, because of the judgment that God has judged the land and the people because of disobedience. And you know what, beloved, this is so true today in the present day of the church age, very similar. Sometimes God will have to deal with us in discipline and in judgment in order to turn us about, to turn us around, so we can confess our failure and come back before him and afresh have a desire to live for him and to please him.

And you see how he lead them into repentance. Notice now in verse 14, he wants that the priest will call about for a national repentance of the whole nation. Look at verse 14, he says, 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. You see what he is saying? The responsibility of the priests was to call the nation, to call the people to come to the house of the Lord and to cry for repentance, to cry for forgiveness before Jehovah, before the Lord. And he is really describing, he says, you set apart a time of fasting and a solemn assembly.

Do you know, if we will realize how God takes the things of God, the things that belong to him serious, you and I will behave very much different in every word we say, in every action we take. If we took seriously, if we took seriously the things of God, it would have made a change in our lives. God demanded from the people at the time of Yoel to gather together in a serious way to confess their failure and their sin. And you know, surely when the people of God confessing their sins, they sure enough the forgiveness and the repentance will lead into a proper relationship with the God of Israel.

And so they were to call a feast. They were to call a solemn assembly. They were to gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord and to cry unto the Lord. To cry, to confess, to weep before him and to say, Lord, we have failed thee. And God will always forgive and restore when there is a true, genuine repentance that has been done by the people of God. Let me show you this in two ways. Done in one time in the Old Testament verses and another time in the New Testament verses. How God demanded a change in the life of his people.

Look at Isaiah. Go back to Isaiah for a moment in chapter one. The first chapter of Isaiah. Isaiah one. And I'm going to read from verse 16. Isaiah chapter one and verse 16 says this. Wash you. Make you clean. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment. Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Plead for the widow. Come now. Let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat of the good of the land.

But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. You see, God said in the time of Isaiah to the people of Israel. He says, listen, there got to be a change in your behavior. They cannot be just talking about it and without the change in your conduct. He says, wash you. He says, wash you. Make you clean. Put away your evil of your doing. Set it aside. Don't continue in that way. Cease to do evil, he says, and learn to do well. And he said to them, come, let us reason together. Can you imagine?

God is saying to the people, let us reason together. Let's talk about it. Let us reason. I want to challenge you. Do you think the way you behave? God is speaking, of course, to Israel and he behaves speaking to us. He says, do you think your conduct is honoring to me? Let's reason together. Though, he says, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow. You know this, beloved? He's speaking to his people Israel. He doesn't speak about the unbelieving world now in Isaiah chapter 1. How do we know that he's speaking about the people of Israel? You can read it right in the first few verses.

Hear, O heaven, verse 2. Give ear, O earth, the Lord has spoken. I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me. That's what God wants from us. He wants to speak to our hearts and to ask us, is it the right way, the way you behave? Is it the right way to walk such, you are my child, you are my son. I saved you Israel. I brought you to myself. Is that the way to behave? Come, he says. Let us reason together. In verse 19 of our chapter, he says, If you will be willing and obedient, ye shall eat of the good of the land.

Well, Joel showed us that they did not eat of the good of the land because they were not obedient. And beloved, spiritually for you and I, it is the same thing. We can eat of the goodness of the food, the spiritual food that the Lord Jesus, the Messiah, has for us. If we are seeking to obey him and seeking to live a life which is pleasing to him. Turn to Romans chapter 12. We talked about Israel as a nation. Now Paul is writing to the church of Rome. This is totally different company. Totally. Israel, the nation, the church, the body of Messiah. And he is speaking to them in the same way.

Notice what he is telling them in Romans chapter 12. They were saved. They were believers. And he is telling them, notice, in Romans chapter 12. He is saying this to these believers. He said that. In verse 9. Romans chapter 12 and verse 9. He says this. Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. Be kindly affectionate one towards another. With brotherly love. In honor preferring one another. Not slothful in business. Fervent in spirit. Serving the Lord. Rejoicing in hope. Patient in tribulation. Continuing instant in prayer. Distributing to the necessities of the saints. Given to hospitality. Bless them which persecute you. Bless and curse not.

Rejoice with them that do rejoice. And weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind. One towards another. Mind not high thing. But condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own consight. And recompense to no man. Evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible as much as is within you. Live peaceably with all men. You notice. He doesn't speak to unbelievers. He's speaking to the brethren at Rome. He's speaking to the Achim. To the brethren. To those who are believers. As we read already in Romans chapter 1. One. Where he said to them.

Paul. The servant of Jesus. The Messiah. Called to be an apostle. Separate unto the gospel of God. And then he's writing to them. And to whom he was writing. He's to all that be at Rome. Beloved of God. Called saints. He's speaking to the believers. And you know. Just like Israel of old. The church of Rome. Had its own problem. When people depart from the will of the Lord. The Lord bring about judgment. And discipline. Make no mistake about it. God will have to discipline. The people whom he loved so dearly. Whom he saved. Through the precious blood. Of Yeshua. The Messiah. And so beloved.

Now go quickly back. To the book. Yoel. And in those first 14 verses. In which we just covered right now. The topic is. The existence. Of invasion of the locusts. At a time when Yoel have lived. And what's happened here. Is Yoel taking this experience. That have happened. And he takes this situation. That have existed. And he's now going to speak. About future invasion. That is going to happen. In the tribulation period. He's taking. This particular case. Of the time of trouble. That have existed. Historically in his time. And he's moving forward. And he's speaking about the future day. When there will also be an invasion.

When there will also be judgment. When there will also be judgment. But judgment. That will be greater. Than the judgment. That have happened. At the time. When Yoel. The prophet. Was writing. And we're going to go through it. I'm not going to go through it. Today anymore. Because my time is up. But in the will of the Lord. The Lord. We're going to continue. To go into chapter two. And chapter three. The whole book. And you will see. That Yoel. Is speaking about latter days. When the day of the Lord. The tribulation period. Will come. Where judgment. Will fall. In a future day. And you and I.

Are to be so thankful. That we belong. To the Messiah. In this present age. The grace of God. That brought us. To be part of a family. That are redeemed. By the precious. Blood of the Messiah. Can we say amen today?