Return to the Lord

 

 

Joel 2:12-17

 

July 28, 2024

 

Return to the Lord

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.”  Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and 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 and 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?’”

You may be wondering why God's wrath was on them, Jeremiah 3:10-11, gives this insight;  ^“Yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah did not return to me with her whole heart, but in pretense, declares the Lord.”  And the Lord said to me, “Faithless Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.”

Ponder on this, yes, give great thought to where this thought is coming from.  It is the Lord calling His people back to fellowship, to act like people who are loved by the Most High God.  They had chased after the little gods, that could not see or hear, and had brought judgment on themselves.  Big on pretense, but not on trust and faith.

 

God is making it clear it is a heart problem, not a religious act that will bring them back into fellowship with the Lord.  As I read this my thoughts when to my nation, it has moved from “In God we Trust” to in the money, wealth, health, government, in stuff, we trust. 

 

I believe God saved President Trump's life; I also believe what is in yellow above is God calling the United States to return to Him.  We are not His chosen, but the Church, those few who by faith have asked Jesus to forgive them, to be the only authority in their lives, and to seek fellowship with Him. They are His children!

 

May I share a big problem the Church has they want a God like a granddad who overlooks their sins and just shows them mercy and grace, but that is not the God of the Bible.  My prayer is that the True Church wakes up rends their hearts, and seeks His face, not His hand.

 

From the Back Porch,

 

Bob Rice

 

Note: If you have been putting your hope in anyone but God, you are going in the wrong direction.  We have been invaded by young men from nations that hate us by the thousands, they are all of military age.  They are not here for good, the jails of many nations have sent their murderers and criminals by the hundreds, and we are experiencing rape and murders.  Many of you have been alarmed, but have you talked to the Lord, and asked Him to expose them to the Truth, Jesus is the only Truth, all men are liars.

 

It all hinges on will you the Church repent, for the wrath of God is at our doorstep.  A Word to the Wise is Sufficiency.  

 

I will end this paper with a word from Blaise Pascal, “There are only two kinds of men: the righteous who think they are sinners and the sinners who think they are righteous.”  And this; “In faith, there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't.”