The Day of the LORD is great; it is dreadful. Who can endure it?

I'm still catching up on my blogging from the past month or so really... so here I wanted to talk about the third one to one I did in Joel with Lucy at church a couple of weeks ago.

We looked at Joel 2:1-11, the NIV title was "An army of locusts" although to be fair, I don't think that the passage actually mentions anything about locusts... hmm.

So anyway, it's a really scary and amazing passage where Joel tells the people about the judgement that is coming if they don't repent and the imagery he uses is amazing:

"Let all who live in the land tremble, for the day of the LORD is coming. It is close at hand- a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness. Like dawn spreading across the mountains a large and mighty army comes, such as never was of old nor ever will be in ages to come. "

We talked about how we got images from Lord of the rings in our heads from it. This huge huge huuuuuuuge army coming to wipe out the people. It's like.... as if the judgement thats already happened in the previous chapter wasn't terrible enough, now there's this on the way. Joel is warning them that there is worse to come!

(vs 6) "At the sight of them, nations are in anguish;
every face turns pale."

The language and imagery is just so vivid! It scares me to think about, knowing that whilst commentators think that this was probably a specific judgement that would have come had the people not repented in Joel's time, that the actual day of the Lord at the end of time is going to like this, (vs 11)

" The LORD thunders
at the head of his army;
his forces are beyond number,
and mighty are those who obey his command.
The day of the LORD is great;
it is dreadful.
Who can endure it?"

We talked a bit about whether or not God changes his mind because like here and in Jonah for example, God says he will send destruction, but then he relents when the people relent. We looked at a couple of verses elsewhere in the Bible to check this out because obviously God is the same yesterday, today and forever. 'Changing his mind' as it were, doesn't seem to fit that...

"God is not a man, that he should lie,
nor a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?"
(Numbers 23:19)

"He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a man, that he should change his mind."
(1 Samuel 15:29)


So that was encouraging, after one of my Christianity, Science and History lectures last year where the lecturer seemed to be implying that God does change his mind, and that didn't sit quite right with me. God is consistent in that he is always merciful and compassionate (as we see in the next one to one), and whenever people repent, He always relents from sending calamity on them. Because he does love his people!

So that's that, read the whole passage yourself to feel the full force of what the Day of the Lord will be like, who can endure it? No one save those who are bought by Christ.