Calling on the Lord in the Day of Crisis - Part II

Joel Series - Part 4

“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.  19 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.” 

- Joel 1:13-20

Calling on the Lord in the Day of Crisis - Part I

Joel Series - Part 3

“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.  19 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.” 

- Joel 1:13-20

The Work of God When Life is Stripped Bare

Joel Series - Part 2

“The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:  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.  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.”

- Joel 1:1-12

The Word of God When Life is Stripped Bare

Joel Series - Part 1

“The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:  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.  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.”

- Joel 1:1-12

Loving Your Neighbor in the Last Days

Love in the Last Days - Part 4

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.  14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."  15 But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.  16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.  17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.  18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law."

- Galatians 5:13-18   

Loving God in the Last Days

Love in the Last Days - Part 3

“But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together.  35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.  36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"  37 And he said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  38 This is the great and first commandment.  39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets."

- Matthew 22:34-40

"But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.  37 As were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.  38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark,  39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”

- Matthew 24:36-39

They Will Know Us By Our Love - Part II

Love in the Last Days - Part 2

“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”

- Matthew 24:12

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
- John 13:34-35   

They Will Know Us By Our Love

Love in the Last Days - Part 1

“And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.”

- Matthew 24:12

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
- John 13:34-35