Rend Your Hearts

0:16Thank you for listening to the Sermon Audible Podcast for Crossroads Bible Church in Rockdale, Texas. Crossroads Bible Church is a Reformed Confessional Baptist Church that meets every Lord's Day at 10 a.m. for Bible study and 11 a.m. for corporate worship. For more information about our church and for directions, you can find us online at www.crbcrockdale.org. Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Turn with me to uh Joel chapter 2. Yes, we are taking a break from the book of Ephesians, and we are going to be in Joel chapter 2. I wanted to take a break from Ephesians for a few weeks. To press into this season of Lent. I'm not letting some of these major themes of Lent just pass us by without stopping to consider them. Now, these themes that we're talking about over the next few weeks are themes and ideas that we should be thinking about and talking about and preaching on all year. But we should give them special emphasis over the next week. Establish that healthy biblical pattern for our lives. For all of us, as we have seen through when we walk through the book of Ecclesiastes some year plus ago now, maybe that was two years ago, there is a season. And there is a time for every matter under the sun. And the season of Lent then is a time to mourn. It's a time to weep over our sins. And the sins of the worlds, so that come Easter morning, Lord willing, we embrace with thanksgiving that time. A laugh and dance. God's people are in great mourning. They are under great judgment. A locust plague has just befallen them. Coupled with a drought and at least one wildfire, all of these have desolated Judah. The physical needs and trials would have been great. Excuse me, but it is telling for us this morning that the text focuses more on the fact that because of the plagues and because of the scarcity, they had to stop their temple worship. Their access to God was cut off. Says in chapter one, verse nine of Joel that the grain offering and the drink offering were cut off. There are no crops for wine, there are no grain for the grain offering, there is no fruit, there is no increase, there is no excess, there is no prospering with which to offer anything to God. So, because of their disobedience, because of their sin, they have been cut off from worship. They sit under the judgment of God, alienated from his blessing, restricted in their access to him, helpless and in despair. Don't always like to give away the end here at the beginning. But this is so clearly as we will see a type of humanity at large, in a state of despair and sin apart from Christ. We will see this in the fulfillment of much of Joel in the book of Acts, and we'll get there. But while it's true for us all this morning, who we are in Christ, we are no longer under the condemnation of judgment. We are not. But these themes are good for us to remember that, so that we don't forget how far the Lord has brought us, how much he has blessed us. Also good to feel the weight of these verses as a means of confession, as a means of lamenting, as a means of turning from that indwelling sin that still remains in all of us. That sin that has separated you from your God. That sin is still seeking to kill, to divide not only you, but in large part those who don't know Christ. And that sin is just as destructive now as it was in Judah in the days of this book, some 3,000 years ago. So let us then in a spirit of humility, a spirit of confession, we will consider this text that by the grace of God and the power of the Spirit, we would this morning render our hearts anew.

6:10And turn to the Lord. Slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

6:29We're gonna cover much of the book, the chapter two of Joel, but we're just gonna read verses 10 through 17. The earthquakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great. He who executes his word is powerful, for the day of the Lord is great and very awesome who can endure it. Yet, even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious, he's merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. And he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering, a drink offering for the Lord your God. Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people, consecrate the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, even nursing infants, let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say, Among the peoples, where is their God? This is the word of the Lord. We thank you for this word. We pray and ask that our hearts be open, Lord, in humility to this word, Lord. May you reveal to us those sins that still need to be confessed, Lord. And may we rend our hearts to you today. I ask all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. I don't speak Italian. I won't try the accent for you this morning. But the phrase is all arme. I kind of did an Italian accent there. Alarme, which means two arms. It's a warning call to soldiers and the people of impending danger. It was a call to pick up your arms and be ready to fight. Alarme. It is from that Italian phrase where we get our English word alarm. Alarm for us today means something much different than the origins where today we use it more frequently, or most frequently, perhaps in that idiom, sound the alarm. Have you said this? Which really just means that we are drawing attention to or calling out some danger or some injustice. Sound the alarm. A bit of a deviation from its original battle cry. From a biblical standpoint, then more specifically in Joel, the Hebrew word that we translate to alarm in English means much more what the 14th century Italians meant. To arms. Verse 1 of chapter 2, we did not read it, but look at it in the text. Verse 1 of chapter 2, blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm on my holy mountain. The battle cry. The day of the Lord, the day of judgment is coming. Awake, you drunkards, verse five of chapter one says. And weep and wail, all you drinkers of wine. That is to say, wake up, you sluggers. Shake the dust from your feet. Get the cobwebs out of your hair.

11:27Put down your phone. Stretch out your scrolling finger. The judgment of the holy God is coming.

11:41Imagine these people of God living in disobedience and idolatry, looking up one day, and as fast as a thief in the night, they don't even recognize where they are anymore. Because all has been reduced to desolation. This is what we see in the text. The plague of locusts sweeps through the land. Fires have devoured the land. Water has dried up everything and everywhere. And when they look back behind them, it is a desolate wilderness. Nothing escapes them. Remember wilderness from Isaiah 35, leading up to Christmas. We talked about that wilderness is the Hebrew word Arabah. It's a dry, desolate wasteland. It's the exact opposite of Eden and of paradise. This judgment is real.

12:50Must be taken seriously.

12:55Acts 17, verse 30. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead. Ignorance to sin is not an excuse. Complacency of sin has no place in God's kingdom.

13:28Look at verse two of chapter two.

13:44That's the first half of the end of chap verse one. For the day of the Lord is coming near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like blackness there is spread upon the mountains. This day of judgment. There is lamenting, there is destruction, there is enemies encircling, there is anguish, there is burning, there is dryness, and there is darkness. This is a terrible day, isn't it? You don't have to turn there, but Matthew 27, verse 45, during the final moments of Jesus' life on earth, we read this. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There was darkness over all the land. Apart from the clear and obvious fulfillment of Joel's prophecy that the sun and the moon will be darkened on this dreadful day of the Lord. Jesus quoted there from Psalm 22 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I don't have time to go through all of Psalm 22 this morning, but I do challenge you to read that, and you will see all the connections and all the similarities between Joel's prophecy fulfilled in Christ.

15:39Most specifically those prophecies that culminate the cross.

15:56That is to say that all of the terror foreshadowed from Psalm 22, Isaiah, all of the destruction and desolation, dryness that Joel speaks of, and all other foreshadowed judgment, all of that darkness, that wilderness, all of that lament, all of that anguish, all of that pain, all of that mourning, all of that depression, this all fell on our Lord on the cross. In this unexplainable and paradoxical way, the cross became the instrument and the fulfillment of God's terrible judgment. The hideousness and cruelty of sin was made visible.

17:10At the same time, though, such a curse was also the turn. The instrument of mercy and grace. It was the means of salvation and forgiveness for us. How can this be?

17:44Praise and thanks be to God that somehow He redeems even the cross. Only God can reverse a curse. Only God can redeem it for beauty and glory, such that for some the cross is still a vile instrument of death and punishment.

18:09But for those who know Jesus Christ, the cross is life. So we sound the alarm.

18:27We blow the trumpet in Zion. We call the solemn assembly, wake up, church.

18:46For those not in Christ, then the question is, do you stand alone in judgment?

18:52Or do you trust in the one who has already been for you? If you stand alone, the wrath that was poured out on Christ, all of that desolation is coming for you.

19:12Repent. Plead for the mercy. For those in Christ. Perhaps you need to be reminded of what your sin cost. Maybe you have forgotten. Maybe you've grown complacent.

19:40Maybe you've fallen asleep to the reality of what Christ bore for you. Maybe you've grown lazy. Maybe you've drifted into idolatry. Sound the alarm.

19:57Take up your arms. Fight against forgetfulness. Against complacency. Turn again to the true God of mercy. Remembering what we have done. In either case, there the call is clear. We are to rend our hearts.

20:51Yet even now, this is the but God of Joel chapter 2. Maybe we all sit here in this season and we have made a mess of our fate, of our lives. Maybe we haven't even considered once the price that Christ paid for us on the cross. Maybe we have believed our whole lives in a God that wasn't real, wasn't the true God. Maybe we've believed in a God that couldn't save us. Didn't really save us. Maybe we still love our sin too much to give it up. Maybe we know we need Christ.

21:36We know that we should be in Christ. Return to me with all your heart.

21:53This is the way, church. This is the call to rend our hearts. And not our garments. The rending or the tearing of garments was the external sign of grief. Such external signs of grief and obedience are useless in themselves. So often that's what we do, though, isn't it? We stray a bit. We become lazy in faith or disobedient in life, and we rend our garments. Maybe we pull out our Bibles and we thumb through it a little more. Maybe we come to church a little more often. Maybe we talk a little better. We clean up our language. We say, God bless you to people at work. Insert any number of performance-based things there. Things that we do to make us feel better about ourselves or to signal to others that we are more holy or more obedient than we actually are. We rend our garments. God despises the stench of fraudulent sacrifices.

23:09He does not accept performance. Because he knows your heart.

23:17The call is to stop pretending and to return to him with all your heart. Let it be with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, the text says. That is not performative, but actually embodying the realities of a changed heart. Sorrow over sin. Sorrow over disobedience, a turning back to God in your heart. Not a change in behavior, but a change in affection.

23:54Who do you love? Is the question.

23:58What do you love? And the beauty here is that it is grounded in the attributes of God that we all love to love. As terrible as his judgment is, and it is terrible. The call to turn our hearts back to him is not return to the Lord, or he will smote you and burn you in everlasting fire.

24:29In the beauty of God's grace, he says, return to the Lord. For he is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

24:48That is to say, don't turn back to him out of fear of punishment. We talk about punishment so that you know the depths of our sin and the price of the cross, but we turn to him. We turn back to him because he is gracious. He welcomes us back. As far as you have fallen, and even farther still, if you would turn your heart to him, you will relent over disaster.

25:19He will show to you the depths of his steadfast love. Church, won't you turn to him again today? Won't you rend your heart and fly again to the cross of Christ? Where Christ bore the burden of your sin, that you may have forgiveness in everlasting.

25:47This is verses 15 and 16. Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people, consecrate the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, even the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room and the bride her chamber. It is a beautiful reality that we are not alone. But by the grace of God, have a whole body of fellowship to grow with. This means that the call to rend your heart is not just an individual one, though it is, but a corporate one. We don't run to repentance and stomp on everyone to get there. Church, this is a call for us, everyone in this room together to rend our hearts and turn back to Christ. If one is struggling, let us help them bring them to repentance.

26:48We don't leave anyone out at any stage of life.

26:54We call all to come to the Lord, turn to Christ, trusting in the God of all mercy. What is so wonderful about our God is that his response to the rendering, that is the repentance, is almost unbelievable restoration. Joel 2, verse 18. Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. The Lord answered and said to his people, Behold, I am sending you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied, and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed to his friend, and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. This restoration, though, is not just about physical restoration, either here or in the life after, but this restoration is a spiritual one. The grain that it mentions, the wine that it mentions, and the oil, these were elements of worship and access to God. This is a better restoration than what was before. The one that comes through faith and repentance is not of grain, but the bread of life himself. Not of wine, but of his blood shed for us and offered to us for the forgiveness of our sins, not of oil, but the anointing of the Holy Spirit given to lead, to empower, to seal, and to keep us. This is the great promise of restoration. Access back directly to God, to worship and to communion with bread that does not go stale, wine that never bitters, oil that never runs dry.

29:24It gets even better.

29:28Verse 25 of Joel chapter 2. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locusts has eaten. Surely this is too much. Who among us has not looked back at the past and lamented the years that their mistakes took from them or set them back? We've done this. Our good and gracious God will restore all those lost years with an eternity more. Nothing is lost. No deed that will not be redeemed, no sin that will not be forgiven, no loss that will not be restored, no day that will ever be truly lost. We will get every second back in glory. Redeemed according to his plan and his purpose for his glory. This is the promise of the one who rends their hearts by faith and turns to them. The final piece then is the fulfillment. Not just theoretical fulfillment. This is not just conceptual fulfillment, but in reality, this happened in our time and our space. Joel chapter 2, verse 28. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. That may sound familiar, doesn't it? And it should, because that happened in history, exactly as Joel prophesied. And Peter tells us. So, Acts chapter 2, verse 14. These are the words of Peter. But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judah, all you do dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words, for these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be, God declares that I will pour out my spirit, and so on. He goes on to recount exactly what is said in Joel. This is Peter in no uncertain terms saying that what Joel prophesied was happening now. What you see is the fulfillment of God's promised restoration. It's happening now, Peter says. Acts 2, verse 36, let all those of the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. What should such a testimony of God's fulfillment and faithfulness produce? What should that produce? It should produce exactly what it did for those in the day of Peter after he showed them that prophecy, fulfillment. Acts 2, verse 37. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent, be baptized, every one of you.

33:43In the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

34:03This is again the invitation, but it's really the command for us all. Call upon the name of the Lord and be saved.

34:14We sounded the alarm.

34:19Sin is real. Judgment is no joke. The wilderness is no place to be. So take up your arms and fight the sin. Turn to Christ and receive the power of the Spirit. We receive the call to rend our hearts and not our garments. That is, stop trying to act repentant. Stop trying to act holy and plead that by his spirit your heart and your affections would be turned to him. May the warmth of his love draw you to rend your heart to him. May we repent and turn to him corporately today. May we all turn to him, church, leaving none out. Let us all grow in love and grace and faith in him. We saw the promise of restoration, that we will be spiritually restored, we will have access back to the Father through Christ, even all those years our sin took from us. These will be given back to us and infinitely more. So do not despair. We saw the fulfillment. These things are actually happening. And they happened. These are not empty promises, but one that we have seen fulfilled. We can trust in them. We can lean on them. Our God will keep his word because he always has. If we call upon him, we will be saved, and we will receive these promises. I'll conclude then where we begin. What is the call when the locusts are plaguing? If you turn back and see desolation and despair, what are you to do? Do not despair. Even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your hearts. That is the answer. You can't undo what has been done. But to the praise of him who is far more gracious than we ever deserve.

36:48It is at the name of Christ alone that every heart is healed, every sin is covered, every desert made an oasis. Every year restored. May our God have mercy on us. Thank you for this word, Lord. As always. May we consider the cost of the cross. May we consider the terrible nature of your judgment, Lord.

37:47But we may we even more know that you are a God who is gracious. Who is abounding in steadfast love.

38:07Would we believe? Please help our unbelief. By your spirit alone, Lord, turn our hearts to you.

38:20We love you, Lord. Ask all these things on images.