🏳️‍🌈✝️ The warning has gone out to the church. God has said, "Get ready! Prepare for the worst.

Written by John W. Ritenbaugh

November 30, 2017

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JOEL 2:13-15

Rip your heart to pieces [in sorrow and contrition] and not your garments.”
Now return [in repentance] to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness [faithful to His covenant with His people]; And He relents [His sentence of] evil [when His people genuinely repent].

Who knows whether He will relent [and revoke your sentence], And leave a blessing behind Him, Even a grain offering and a drink offering [from the bounty He provides you] For the Lord your God?

Blow a trumpet in Zion [warning of impending judgment],
Dedicate a fast [as a day of restraint and humility], call a solemn assembly.

Joel 2:1-2

Blow the trumpet in Zion [warning of impending judgment],
Sound an alarm on My holy mountain [Zion]!
Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble and shudder in fear,
For the [judgment] day of the Lord is coming;
It is close at hand,

A day of darkness and gloom,
A day of clouds and of thick [dark] mist,
Like the dawn spread over the mountains;
There is a [pagan, hostile] people numerous and mighty,
The like of which has never been before
Nor will be again afterward
Even for years of many generations.

Joel 2:12-16

“Even now,” says the Lord,
“Turn and come to Me with all your heart [in genuine repentance],
With fasting and weeping and mourning [until every barrier is removed and the broken fellowship is restored];

Rip your heart to pieces [in sorrow and contrition] and not your garments.”
Now return [in repentance] to the Lord your God, For He is gracious and compassionate, Slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness [faithful to His covenant with His people]; And He relents [His sentence of] evil [when His people genuinely repent].

Who knows whether He will relent [and revoke your sentence],
And leave a blessing behind Him,
Even a grain offering and a drink offering [from the bounty He provides you]
For the Lord your God?

Blow a trumpet in Zion [warning of impending judgment],
Dedicate a fast [as a day of restraint and humility], call a solemn assembly.

Gather the people, sanctify the congregation,
Assemble the elders, Gather the children and the nursing infants.
Let the bridegroom come out of his room And the bride out of her bridal chamber. [No one is excused from the assembly.]

The warning has gone out to the church. God has said, "Get ready! Prepare for the worst." We are right on the threshold of the greatest period of testing and trial ever to come on mankind, and we must have something to sustain us if we are to endure it.

Jesus said to His disciples that love will wax cold (Matthew 24:12). But "he that endures to the end, the same shall be saved" (verse 13). He hints that some of His brethren will go through that terrible time. If God permits us to escape it, then great. This is why Joel 2:14 says, "Who knows? Maybe He will leave a blessing behind." We do not know for sure if that will be the case with us.

In the past, many in the church of God played an incredible game of being prudent agnostics, of believing but not being truly committed, as shown by their conduct. They were acquainted with God, but not really seeking to know Him. They were just hanging loose, hedging their bets, floating around, ready to go in any direction that offered the most comfortable, non-sacrificial solution. In that circumstance, the church often merely became nothing more than a fraternal organization.

But this is reality: Jesus Christ is our Lord and Master. He owns us. He redeemed us, bought us with a price, and He can do whatever He wants to do with us—and we committed ourselves to Him. Wholehearted commitment is part of the deal. We do not want to be like the Israelites who prostituted themselves in faithlessness, forsaking their covenant with the government of Almighty God.

We in the church are not without warning. God expects us to use the warning to be both comforted and prepared.

— John W. Ritenbaugh

To learn more, see:
Trumpets Is a Day of Hope

Related Topics:
Commitment
Endurance
Enduring Hardship
Enduring Privation
Enduring to the End
Faithlessness
Preparedness
Prudent Agnostics
Warning

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