DailyDevotion Ask The LORD For Repentance To Avoid His Wrath
Joel 5Awake, you drunkards, and weep. Wail, all you who drink wine, because there’s no new wine for you to drink. 6A “people” invaded my country, strong and impossible to count. They have the teeth of a lion; and the fangs of a mature lion. 7They have ruined my vines, broken down my fig trees, stripped off what they could eat, discarded the rest, leaving their branches white.
In the previous section there was the command to hear. Here we have the command to awake. Here the drunkards are called to awake and weep. They are called to wail because there is no new wine to drink. God’s judgment has come upon them. Drunkenness is in opposition to God’s will. God made wine to make men’s hearts glad. We are to give thanks for it. But when it takes the place of God in our lives, which is what happens in drunkenness, God’s wrath is stirred up from jealousy.
Why is there no new wine here? Because the locusts of the previous section have eaten everything up. They are the “people” who invaded the Promised Land who were impossible to count. Swarms of locusts in the area have been reported at times to be so thick, they block out the sun. These locusts are like a lion with its teeth and fangs. Of course this is just imagery. As a lion devours its prey, so too these locusts are devouring everything in sight. They have attacked the vines, the fig trees, eating the very bark off the trees leaving them white. It is interesting here the prophet, speaking for the LORD, says “my.” The vines and the fig trees belong to the LORD. They are on His land. But His people have polluted His land with their sins and called down upon themselves the curse they themselves pronounced when they entered the land in Dt. 28, 38“You will sow much seed in your fields and harvest little because the grasshopper will eat it.”
How have we sinned that brings God’s wrath down upon our land? How has our nation sinned that God’s curse and anger rest upon it? In what ways has the visible Church sinned against her LORD that He would visit her with His discipline? When we as Christians see natural disasters among us we should not dismiss them as just being natural disasters but as God’s discipline and wrath upon the people to call them to repentance. It is a good time to examine ourselves and where we have fallen short. Then confess our sins, our nation’s sins and repent on behalf of ourselves and our neighbors pleading for God’s forgiveness and righteousness for the sake of Christ Jesus. But it is easier to dismiss such things than to look at our sins. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 10, “11These things happened to them to make them a lesson to others and were written down to warn us who are living when the world is coming to an end. 12So if you think you stand, be careful that you don’t fall.” Before we dismiss them we should remember the word in Revelation 9 “20But the rest of the people, whom these plagues hadn’t killed, didn’t repent by turning from what their hands had made. They did not give up worshiping demons and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood, that can’t see or hear or walk. 21And they did not repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual vice, and their stealing.” It is repeated in ch. 16, “ 9When they were badly burned, they blasphemed the name of God, Who controlled these plagues, and they did not repent to give Him glory. . .People gnawed their tongues in anguish, 11cursed the God of heaven for their pains and their sores but did not repent of what they had done.” Let us not be like these people.
Heavenly Father, we confess we have sinned against you, we and our nation. Forgive us our sins and do not give us what we deserve. Grant us and our people the gift of repentance so we may turn from our sins and turn to You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.