How to Survive a National Reckoning

How to survive a national reckoning: Joel 1:1-20  

Repentance or Reckoning? – God not slow. Patience for repentance.  

1. RECKONING – weary Ignored & Mocked  

I need the photo & verse on the lower third of the same slide (4 horsemen apocayl) 

1. https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/pale-horse-of-death-netizens-call-metal-horse-at-paris-opening-ceremony-ominous-101722066832084.html 

Revelation 6:8 I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. 

I need this photo and if anything is too risqué it can be covered, along w/a photo of Davinci’s Last Supper. Split screen 2 images 

2. https://nypost.com/2024/07/26/sports/drag-performers-seemingly-emulate-last-supper-at-olympic-opening-ceremony/ 

• Flood days Noah 
• Flaming road tar – Sodom Gomorrah  
• Locusts Israel (living in a cosmic time) 

3https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ar-BB1q67uH (MOOD)  

Start with the Word of God [lower third] 

Joel 1:1 The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: 

2 Ptr 1:20-21 …no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 

1. Human author (Joel know 0)                2. Divine Author (God  

=Before tech: Like dictation (letter or legal doc)  

1. I became XN read Bible. 2. God spoke preach Bible 3. I will open Bible 4. You open  

Faith is always one generation from extinction [lower third] 

Joel 1:2 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? 3 Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. 

Tell kids/grandkids 1. Bible 2. Testimony  

1. Older saints = CHOOSE ?traditions or children/grandchildren [FLEXIBLE] 

God is often behind a national reckoning [single slide] 

Joel 1:4 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. 5 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. 6 For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. 7 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. 8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. 9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off  from the house of the LORD. The priests mourn, the ministers of the LORD. 10 The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes. 11 Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. 12 The vine dries up; the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man. 

National reckoning. National crisis caused by lack of personal holiness.  

1. God deals not only with individuals, but also nations 
2. God is sovereign over economies (no firstfruits = no fruit)  
3. Sometimes tragedy is reap-sow judgment  
4. There are no political solutions for spiritual problems  
5. Natural disasters are sometimes supernatural disasters.  

-Mk 13:8 nation will rise against nation, & kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes…there will be famines. These are but the beginning of the birth pains. 

Locusts: Please get photos of single locusts and giant swarms 

-Consume weight daily.      – Swarms 400 sq mi. 1 sq mi could have 100 million locusts.  

-1 swarm eat 1 day 40k people eat 1 yr               -fill air excrement, trigger epidemics 

-Lay eggs for future.                                                -1 female could = 18 million 4 mo’s.  

Also metaphor in Bible & ancient world invading army  

We are under judgement just take out debt    

Please get the chart under “2” https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/02/14/facts-about-the-us-national-debt/ 

-Nat’l debt $35 trillion = interest payments $395.5 billion, 6.8% of all federal outlays… $100+ billion more -vets benefits & services, elementary & secondary educ, disaster relief, agriculture, science & space programs, foreign aid, & natural resources & environmental protection combined. 

• Nat’l debt = $100k per American. $250k per taxpayer  

• Americans have over $1 trillion in personal credit card debt  
• 44% non-parents 18-49 probably not having kids (Pew Research)  
• 42% of Americans are obese  

=WE ARE LOCUSTS! (consume everything today, leaving nothing tomorrow)  

THEME JOEL: “The Day of the Lord” (God behind national reckoning) 

1. Last days = between 1^st 2^nd Coming (times of judgment to warn us) 
2. “The Day of the Lord” – 2^nd Coming & RECKONING 
   
   “the Day”; “Last Days”; “Last time”; “Last Hours” “Tribulation” or ENDTIMES 
   
   War in Israel book QR Code 1. Abr = Sarah/Isaac vs Hagar/Ishmael  
   
   Iran Proxies  

1.Hamas “zeal”/“demonic violence” 2. Hezbollah “party of God” 3. Houthis “defenders of God” 

The Day of the Lord is Triggered by War in Israel [1 slide] 

-2000 BC God called Abraham to leave his family to receive the Promised Land of Israel 

-Roughly 30 AD Jesus Christ lives, dies, and rises in Israel  

-From 138 AD onward Israel did not exist as a nation and Jews were scattered 

-1933-1945 Hitler’s holocaust sought to eliminate the Jews 

-May 14, 1948 Israel became a nation for the first time in over 1800 years 

-1993 the Israel-Palestinian 2 state solution begins. Israel is roughly the same size and population of New Jersey. 

-2005 President Bush pressures Israel into to a “land for peace” deal in Gaza with Palestinians leading to Hamas terrorists ruling Gaza.  

-May 14, 2018 Jerusalem is recognized as Israel’s capital for the first time in 2500 years  

-September 2023 $ 6 billion is released to Iran in exchange for 5 American hostages. The money is used to fund Iranian terrorist proxies of Hezbollah in the north (Lebanon), Houthis by southern Red Sea (Yemen), and Hamas in the west (Gaza). 

I need the map of “Iran backed groups” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-hezbollah-israel-lebanon-border-hamas-war/ 

-October 7, 2023 Hamas invades Israel triggering the first Israeli war in 50 years  

-This week Israel killed the top commanders of Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran and Turkey are promising war against Israel.  

-The Day of the Lord will be preceded by the Gog and Magog War lead by Russia, Iran, and Turkey (Ezekiel 38-39) where the nations surrounding Israel will seek to destroy her, triggering Jesus Second Coming at the battle of Armageddon (Revelation 16:16).  

-Zechariah 14:1-4 Behold, a day is coming for the Lord [the Day of the Lord]…I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile…Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west [where Jesus ascended from]… 

IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS! 

Your response is your responsibility [1 slide] 

Joel 1:13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests; wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God! Because grain offering and drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. 14 Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. 15 Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. 16 Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? 17 The seed shrivels under the clods; the storehouses are desolate; the granaries are torn down because the grain has dried up. 18 How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are perplexed because there is no pasture for them; even the flocks of sheep suffer. To you, O LORD, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. 20 Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. 

1.    Sacred assembly/Church 

2.    Repent “sackcloth and lament” vs reckoning  

1. Non XN  
2. XN – Days darker = you must be more committed to PERSONAL HOLINESS 
   
   -Put sin to death  
   
   -Shorten distance between sin & repentance  
   
   =YOUR WITNESS!  

3.    Joel “To you, O LORD, I call…” 1. Prayer 2. Worship 

National Reckoning (Israel) vs Personal Rescuing (Joel)  

2 Ptr. 2 Noah. Lot. “…the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment…” = BE GODLY!!!!! 

Personal Testimony. Not destroyed but delivered. Today  

TUE AM – awakened & wrote down what I believed God saying for you: re repentance 

1.    Removes guilt, shame, condemnation 

2.    Keeps things from getting worse  

3.    Ends sneaking/hiding  

4.    Routine self-improvement  

5.    Heals human relationships (better version YOU)  

Band Up  

6.    Joel 2:28  “…I will pour out my Spirit (vs RECKONING)  

Pray to HS (teach us Word, give wisdom, help us pray, lift our burdens, return joy).