#DailyDevotion The LORD Gathers The Nations Against His Church & Christ
Joel 3 9Announce this among the nations: Sanctify yourselves for war. Rouse the soldiers; let all the warriors advance for the attack. 10Hammer your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Even the weakling should say, “I’m a warrior.” 11Hurry and come all you nations from every direction, and gather there. LORD, have Your soldiers come down.
Reading Revelation chapters 9 and 19 would be helpful here probably, but I limit my devotions to a 8.5×11”, single space with a space between paragraphs, so I’m leaving it to you to read those for yourselves. You may have already read them from yesterday’s devotion.
Like in chapters 1 and 2 where the invading locusts and army that devastate Israel and Judah are the LORD’s armies, they are only acting with the permission of the Almighty, so too here, these nations are gathering at the command of the LORD of Hosts. Mind you, the LORD is using the evil in their hearts for His good purposes. He is not making them do anything they do not already have in their hearts already. He’s just removing the barrier from them acting. While they are acting under their own sinful disposition, they are still under the control of the LORD. It is hard for the mind to comprehend this.
So the LORD calls the nations for war. However, this war is not against one another. He is calling them to war against His Christ and His Church. The agents moving the people as we see in Rev. 16 are three demons which are pictured as frogs. These people and their evil hearts are already owned by darkness so it doesn’t take much to move them into action for the wicked one, who thinks he is in control. This won’t look like the movies where everyone looks like zombies under the control of some sorcerer. They will look more like the Nazis in Germany and those who cooperated with them. It will perhaps be a bit like the hordes in Lord of the Rings being gathered for battle.
Here we have the opposite of Isa.2:4 and Micah 2:4 which occurs after this end time battle of God versus evil. In those passages the LORD calls upon us to turn our swords into plowshares and our spears into shears. Here, He commands the nations to do the opposite. The murderous intention of their hearts is let loose by the Holy Spirit no longer containing their wicked intentions. It will not be a good time for God’s people. His good purpose toward us is being accomplished by it. Our faith will be strengthened and purified and those whoare as dross on the Church will be removed. Even those who are weak in the world are stirred up into thinking they can defeat God’s people and His Christ. We shall see the true intent towards God and His people by those who reject our God. Perhaps we can see this already in the world. We should not fear it or these people. They can only do what God commands. It’s a tough saying to accept. We, like the tree that is being pruned, have to trust our Father in heaven knows what He is doing.
So the LORD calls the nations for battle in this last ditch effort by Satan and all his minions to defeat our God. How they think they can win I have no idea. The world thinks it can win because it regularly persecutes His Church and He appears to do nothing about it. We know the truth. They are standing on a slippery slope. Their battlements are built on sand. On this day, they will see the glory of our God and His Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. They will get what they deserve and we will be gathered into His eternal kingdom.
Heavenly Father, keep us steadfast in the faith as You wreck havoc upon the earth through Your agents, so we may enter into Your eternal kingdom. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.