You're listening to Mountain View Church Audio, Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City, Whitehorse UConn. Here's this week's message. Blessed be your name, in the land that is plentiful, where streams of abundance flow. Blessed be your name, blessed be your name, when I'm found in the desert place, though I walk through the wilderness. Blessed be your name, every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise.
When the darkness closes in, Lord, still I will say, Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name. Blessed be your name. When sun's shining down on me. When the world's all as it should be. Blessed be your name. Blessed be your name.
Every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say, Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name. Give and take away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your name. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Blessed be your glorious name. We live in a throwaway culture, don't we? When something's broken, we toss it in the trash and replace it. And it makes sense, given how cheap everything is in comparison to the work it takes to restore those items. But what if that throwaway mentality isn't just about our stuff? What if that's crept into the way we see people and our commitments? Just think about it in comparison to our grandparents' generation.
We're so quick to walk away from strained relationships, give up on marriages, change careers at the first setback, or even abandon hobbies when they get hard. It creeps into our faith as well. We're constantly striving for the next devotional plan to help us go deeper, or we'll change churches at the moment something doesn't go our way. And yet, our grandparents just read the same physical Bible they've read every day as they always have. And they've committed decades to the same church through all of the highs and lows of congregational life. It's become easy to treat people, and sometimes our faith, the way we treat broken things. We want to throw them away and try something new.
Thankfully, God doesn't look at us the same way. He'll allow the consequences of our sin to break us down, but He's always waiting for us to return. He's always ready to restore us and renew our relationship with Him. My name's Jeremy. Welcome to Mountain View Church. If you're new to our faith community, we'd love to get to know you. Visit mountainview.church slash connect either right now or following this message. Today we're launching a new series titled Return, Restore, Renew, centered on the Old Testament writings of Joel.
Our starting point is a harsh warning from the Lord, given specifically to older generations to remember and return to him and to call their children and their children's children to do the same. Through the prophet Joel, we'll hear God's call for his people to repent of their sin and return to him before it's too late. Hi, my name is Leona Watson. I'll be reading Joel chapter one. The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethul. Hear this, you elders. Give ear all inhabitants of the land. Has such a thing happened in your days or in the days of your fathers?
Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten. And what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. Awake, you drunkards, and weep and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number. Its teeth are lion's teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness.
It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it down. Their branches are made white. Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn the ministers of the Lord. The fields are destroyed. The ground mourns because the grain is destroyed. The wine dries up. The oil languishes.
Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil, wail, O vine dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine dries up, the fig tree languishes, pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up. The gladness dries up from the children of man. We're all prone to letting important lessons fade. We'd rather not think about those difficult moments in our family history or the struggles we've had to journey through, especially when the hardship came from poor decisions, neglect, or an injustice by those in charge.
But these stories really matter. They remind us how easily pride and selfish choices can shift history. And they can serve as a warning for the next generation. By acknowledging the poor decisions of our past, we can help our children and grandchildren make wiser choices. It takes honesty and vulnerability, but it's worth it. Sometimes our confessions can point them to repentance from their sin in their own lives. They can learn from us. When they see us return to God, it can strengthen their relationship with God. And this concept is foundational within Joel's opening statement, a call to the elders of the community. Joel opens with urgency.
Hear this, you elders, give ears, all inhabitants of the land. Has such a thing happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it and let your children tell their children and their children to another generation. One small contextual note, some have read this word elders as referring to the spiritual leaders of the community. But the Hebrew term used here in the greater context point to a message for parents and grandparents, to the older generations. And more specifically, those parents and grandparents who remember what happened the last time God's people turned away from them. And so God's warning right here, given through the prophet Joel, is to be passed on to their children. So those children can pass it on to the next generation and the next and the next and the next. Because spiritual lessons, just like life lessons, they can vanish in a single generation if they're not intentionally taught to the next.
When Joel asks the elder generation, has such a thing happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? He's telling them to pause and to think back to the time before. He's kind of saying, do any of you remember the last time God's people faced this kind of devastation? What were they doing right before it happened? How did they get out of it? Why did God save them? And what did you learn or they learn from those moments of crisis and chaos? You see, Joel's opening statement points back to the last time God's people had wandered away, chasing false idols and embracing sinful desires. When God's people...
made those poor decisions and embraced sinful behaviors, God allowed harsh consequences. And in those times in the past, God removed his protection and provision. And this is what's happening to God's people in this moment where Joel is called to warn them that it's going to get worse. And so here we have Joel proclaiming, prophesying about God's judgment and that they can't forget it and they can't let their children forget it. This is generational accountability. Joel's warnings from God to the people of Judah are signposts for future generations. If they ignore them, their kids will repeat the same sins and face the same destruction and devastation. And so at this point, I totally get that history buffs out there likely have a few questions on who Joel is exactly and who he's speaking to and what he's talking about. I can't assume that all of you are great Bible scholars or have been raised in the church, so I get that. If you're new to this whole thing of biblical prophecy...
and Old Testament minor prophets, we're going to pause. And I'm going to give you a brief history lesson. Now, for those of you that are well in the know on Joel's prophecy, feel free to skip ahead if you want to, or if you're not interested. So, Joel was called to prophesy to Judah sometime between the 9th and 5th centuries BC. Most scholars placed Joel's setting around 500 to 400 BC during a crisis after Judah's return from exile in Babylon. Judah was the southern kingdom of Israel, including the city of Jerusalem. For context, after the division of Israel, the tribes of Judah and Benjamin became the southern kingdom.
known as Judah, while the other 10 tribes formed the northern kingdom, maintaining the name Israel. Now, we've already highlighted some of the why that God called Joel to write this prophecy. These writings explain the devastation that Judah was experiencing, both as a judgment for past sin, but also as a warning of greater judgment that would be to come if they didn't change their ways. And so Joel's mission was to call God's people to repentance so that they could avoid this worst destruction. Keeping in mind that history lesson of the context, let's unpack some of Joel's graphic and shocking imagery in verses 4 through 6. We read about the current situation of Judah. He uses metaphors like waves of locusts devouring everything. An invading nation described as powerful and beyond number. The nation has teeth like lions and fangs of a lioness.
Full disclosure, there is some scholarly debate on whether this description of locusts is literal or figurative because of verse 6 referencing a nation invading the land. Now, some theologians believe Joel was describing wave after wave of literal locusts until nothing remained, and that the nation of invaders is a metaphor for the locust. Other scholars argue that Joel is using a locust metaphor to describe how an invading army or nation consumed everything in its path, leaving Judah with nothing. What do you think? Were the army of locusts like an invading army or was the invading army like locusts?
Lots of scholarly debate. Maybe we can start some debate right now. Place your interpretation in the comments. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to talk about it. Either way, the end result was total devastation. Whether it was wave after wave of locusts or wave after wave of invading army, it doesn't matter. According to Joel, this is God's judgment. He withheld his protection and provision, and something devastating wiped them out. And if we move on to verse 5, all of a sudden, we see that he calls Judah drunkards? It says, Awake, you drunkards, and weep and wail, all you drinkers of wine.
Once again, we have a literal and figurative rebuke, very common in prophetic writings in the Bible. The people of Judah had given themselves over to sinful desires, which likely included drunkenness. Following the invasion and devastation, the wine... It's gone. And so are all the vineyards. Everything's wiped out. They are literally living through the demise of their choices. But now that they've sobered up, they should weep and wail in repentance. But this also works on a figurative level. In a warning, Judah needs to wake up from their clouded stupor of sin and pay attention to what led them to these consequences. They should weep and wail in repentance because now the wine has been completely cut off.
There's no wine in the cellars. There's no vineyards to make wine. There is nothing. And so, in a way, this is a powerful, literal and symbolic rebuke they should take note of, or maybe we should take note of, that both sinful indulgence and spiritual dullness of the mind, they all lead to ruin. But now, let's jump ahead to verses 9 and 10. We see that the grain and oil have also been completely consumed. The devastation of Judah's wine, grain, and oil has both tangible and spiritual repercussions.
You see, tangibly, wine, grain, and oil were essential consumable commodities for ancient culture. But it also impacted their ability to worship, according to Joel's description. He writes, the grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord. The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns because the grain is destroyed. The wine dries up, the oil languishes. According to Mosaic law, look what happens without these commodities. Grain offerings showed thankfulness and dependence on God from Leviticus 2. Wine and drink offerings symbolized covenant fellowship with God, Exodus 29. Oil was used for the anointing and consecration of priests and sacred objects from Exodus 30.
Without these commodities, there was no worship or consecration. The larger symbolism here is that Judah's sinful behavior had led them to a broken covenant and unsure on how they're going to get it back. This is why in verse 11, Joel says the farmers and vinedressers should be ashamed and should wail again, calling for remorse and repentance. But what should this repentance look like? Jump to verse 8. Joel tells Judah to lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. The remorse that Judah should be feeling is a gut-wrenching grief. Just like...
as if an engaged woman had lost her fiance, which in the ancient world would have been a personal and social catastrophe with emotional and tangible sorrow attached to it. You see, this level of repentant mourning that God is requesting through Joel, they need to feel it and experience it so that they remember and pass it on to other generations so that it won't happen again. And with all of this in mind, let's go back up to the top of the passage. Remember, Joel addressed the elders, the older generation of Judah. Why? Because they've had more life experience, but also because they've been given the responsibility to teach the next generation. Part of their role is to pass on the past failings and offenses of past generations to serve as warnings for their children and their children's children. God's warnings are signposts to future generations. They're meant to help us return to him before it's too late. And this is why thousands of years later, we're still reading and studying prophetic texts like this one from the book of Joel.
These accounts of people turning away and facing the consequences reveal God's desire for us to have a right relationship with him. His willingness to let us walk down self-destructive paths also gives us a picture of his role as our Heavenly Father. There's always a chance to come back. When we see Joel's prophecy within the greater narrative of Scripture, we understand that his call for repentance and returning... That call to come back to the Lord, it's not just for that generation. It echoes throughout history, pointing to our deepest need, a savior who would deal with our sin once and for all. These Old Testament prophecies prepare us to understand why God has sent his son, Jesus, to take our place. If we were left to our own devices, we would continue as Judah did, repeating the same sins and facing the same judgment. Thankfully, God didn't just warn us through the law and the prophets. He offered us a way back. God sent Jesus to take our sins and to bear the devastation we deserved.
Jesus endured God's judgment and wrath so that we wouldn't have to. This is how the Old Testament prophecy point us to the gospel. When we repent and return to God, we don't find wrath waiting for us. We find grace and forgiveness and restoration. God's ultimate warning is also his ultimate act of love. We need to return to him before it's too late. We need to accept Jesus Christ as the payment for our sin. We need to repent and place our trust in him. When we humbly accept the gift of grace that God has given us, he doesn't shame us or push us away. He welcomes us home with open arms because of Jesus.
Practically, in day-to-day life, how can we take Joel's warning seriously in this generation and help future generations? How can we make sure God's signposts aren't ignored by us or by our children or our grandchildren? Well, let's unpack it as it relates to three groups of people that are listening to this message right now. I'm sure you fall into one of these three categories. Starting with the elders for the grandparents. Remember and tell stories of success and failure. Joel's message began with the older generations who had lived through God's judgment and grace.
If you're a grandparent or an older mentor, you have stories that your grandkids need to hear. Don't keep silent about what God has done. Share both the good choices and the poor decisions. The blessings that flowed from obedience and the consequences from wandering away. Your stories aren't just family history. They're spiritual life lessons. When you talk about God's faithfulness and discipline, you give the next generation signposts to follow. Don't let these lessons vanish. Be intentional. Your words can help your grandchildren see God's love and grace, but also the dangers of ignoring them in this fallen world.
Next, for parents out there, it's time to teach and model repentance and restoration. Joel called parents to pass these warnings to their children so they wouldn't repeat the same consequences. Don't assume your kids know the gospel or understand the seriousness of sin. Tell them, show them, and embrace the hard conversations that are going to follow. And remember, you can't just teach it. You'll need to live it out.
The good, the bad, and the ugly, let them see you repent when you mess up. Model humility. Show them that returning to God isn't about shame, but about understanding and receiving His grace. Help your children see that God's warnings are loving signposts meant to guide them back before it's too late. Let them see it through your life. And lastly, for any teens or young adults out there, listen and learn with charity and humility.
Joel's message was for the whole community. If you're younger, this warning is for you as well. Don't roll your eyes at the stories your grandparents or parents share. Listen to them. Ask questions. Be humble and teachable. And be charitable in how you see the world when you see it through their eyes. Learn from their experiences, both the good and the bad, and apply the life lessons found in each story.
Consider the mistakes of your parents and grandparents and make the necessary changes in your own life. Recognize the consequences of ignoring God's voice and acknowledge the hope found in returning to Him. Remember that God's warnings aren't meant to crush you. They're meant to save you, ultimately guiding you into a relationship with His Son, Jesus, and then restoring your relationship with your Heavenly Father. God's message through Joel is both sobering, but it's hopeful. It's a warning given in love, like a signpost for us and for those who come after us. God's calling us to remember, to repent, and to return to Him before it's too late.
With that in mind, would you pray with me? Dear Father, thank you for your prophetic warnings that guide us back to you. Help us remember your faithfulness. Help us repent when we've turned away and return to you with humble hearts. Give us the courage to pass these truths to the next generation. Help us point our children and grandchildren to your gift of grace found in your son Jesus, who makes our return to you possible. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Thank you so much for watching or listening to this message. We'd love for you to stay connected with our church by visiting mountainview.church slash connect or following us on social media at Mountain View Whitehorse. Also, please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel and our podcast and turn on notifications so that each week's message appears in your feed. Now, before we sign off, here's our weekly updates. Good morning, Mountain View. It's Katie Baldwin with Senior Youth Group. I just wanted to touch base and let everyone know we are looking for parents to sign up for the summer season for Senior Youth Group. So if you are a parent of a senior youth and you're looking to serve, we are looking to connect with you, so please reach out. On another note, we have a Fusion meeting happening this Sunday at 4 p.m. at the church. We're going to discuss Fusion, health insurance for travel, passports, all that good stuff. Please attend. It's going to be at the church at 4 p.m. We would love to see you there. This is for chaperones, students, or parents, pretty much anybody involved in Fusion or the process. So thanks so much, and hopefully we will see you there.
Hello, man at Mountain View. It's Aaron. We're resuming Bible study again on Tuesday, July the 8th at 530 at my house. Text the number below and I will send you my address. I hope to see some new faces there and I'll have some food on hand. We'll have a cooking fire and a barbecue, but feel free to bring some of your own food as well. Hope to see you there.
Reminder for parents that our Basecamp Children's Program runs every Sunday with a downloadable Bible lesson and activities available right now at mountainview.church slash basecamp. And if you have teenagers, they're welcome to join us every Sunday evening between 6 and 8 p.m. You can visit mountainview.church slash youth for more info on which grades or on which weeks. Now, let's dig into some discussion and prayer to close out our time together. After all, building connection and community is better than just consuming this content. This week's discussion question, where in your own life do you sense God warning you to turn back to Him? Where in your own life do you sense God warning you to turn back to Him?
put a comment in the field below or talk about it as a group, whoever you're watching or listening with, and then spend some time in prayer. Pray for the humility to hear God's warnings and the courage to return to Him. Pray for the humility to hear God's warnings and the courage to return to them. Now, next week, we'll continue our series in the book of Joel. We'll be looking at Joel 1, verses 13 to 20, where the prophet calls the entire community of Judah to repent together through fasting and prayer. We'll discuss what it means to return to God seeking mercy in word and action. If you've ever wondered what true heartfelt repentance looks like or how to respond to God's call for renewal, be sure to join us next Sunday. We'll see you then.
If you prayed to receive Jesus today or would like to connect with our church community, visit mountainview.church and click the connect link. If this podcast and radio ministry has been a blessing to you, please consider partnering with us or making a tax-deductible donation at mountainview.church. Thanks for listening to Mountain View Church Audio. Join us next week for more Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City of Whitehorse Econ.