Joel 2:4-11 - Homiletics

The way in which God executes his judgments.

In these verses we are taught many important and solemn lessons in connection with the Divine judgments and their execution.

I. THE AGENTS EMPLOYED .

1 . These may appear to us in themselves very insignificant; but when executing his commission and armed with his wrath they are truly terrible. To the eye and to the ear that terror made its appeal; the sight of them was awe-inspiring, the sound of them frightful. Both on the march and while feeding they caused sounds harsh and horrible.

2 . The natural effect of their approach was pain and fear. The people to whom they came were affrighted by their appearance, but still more were they alarmed for their property, which they well knew was exposed to havoc and utter destruction. How men should stand in awe of the judgments of God, and especially of sin as that which brings down those judgments! "Stand in awe, and sin not!"

II. THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THEIR MISSION .

1 . The ministers of the Divine vengeance do their work speedily. Never did mighty men do their work more speedily, and never did men of war, with all their training and organization, do it more thoroughly. They do their work systematically , each marching according to the appointed plan, while none leaves his proper path or quits his allotted rank. Without either struggling or jostling, they advance directly and determinedly to accomplish the work assigned them. They in consequence do their work surely. Resistance is in vain and escape impossible; it is thus with the agents and instrumentalities which God employs for the purposes of deserved wrath.

2 . Should not men, when sent as messengers of his mercy, observe like order and regularity, like system in arrangements and speed in execution? It is thus with the heavenly messengers; for God makes his angels swift as the winds and strong as the fiery flames in bearing God's messages and in ministering to God's saints.

III. THE ALARMS OF MINOR JUDGMENTS . Weak and mean as the instruments of his wrath were individually, God made them by their multitudinous masses a mighty engine for spreading desolation and terror. It needs but a slight touch of his finger to lay men's possessions, or comforts, or enjoyments in the dust.