Today, I am reading and commenting on Joel 1-3.

Joel calls on the people of Judah to mourn, fast, and cry out to God in response to the famine brought about by a horde of locusts.  In today’s passage he does not mention what sins led to God bringing His day of judgement upon them.  Instead, he calls them to return to God with fasting, weeping, and mourning.  They are to rend their hearts for their sins and once more consecrate themselves to God.  If, in the wake of devastation, we follow the instructions which Joel gave here, God will show mercy upon us and upon the land.  He will do great things and give us cause to rejoice.  He will pour out His Spirit on all people so that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.  There is one more part of today’s passage, one which we don’t often seen touched on.

For this next part, I am going to write some things which may be a stretch of interpretation, but I need to write them down to see if there is any truth to them.  After telling us that God will pour out His Spirit on all people and that everyone who calls on His name will be saved Joel speaks about some of the nations around Judah, nations which were Judah’s enemies.  It seems to me that Joel is saying that, after God pours out His Spirit on all people, those who do not call in His name in response will be enemies of God’s people.  They will, or perhaps already have, attack God’s people.  In response God will attack them and bring destruction upon them.  So, my reading of this, and other parts of the Bible, is that everyone is faced with a choice.  They will either choose to call upon God’s name, or they will choose to oppose and attack those who do.  If they choose the latter, God will bring desolation upon them.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I have created a Patreon page for those who would like to support me in writing these blog posts every day: https://patreon.com/AttilaSoldus