Joel 2:18-20 - Homiletics

These verses prove

The efficacy of prayer.

No one who believes in a personal God, no one who believes in a God who rules and governs all, and no one especially who believes in the Bible as the Word of God, can doubt or deny the efficacy of prayer.

I. HERE FOLLOWS IN A SERIES GOD 'S REGARD TO HIS PEOPLE AND RESPONSE TO THEIR PRAYERS . He regards their impoverished condition, be repairs their losses, he removes their reproach, and he repels the immediate cause of their desolation.

1 . The restoration of amicable relations is promised. The first promise here is of a general nature, and includes God's acceptance of and affection for penitents. He graciously acknowledges his covenant relation to them and special interest in them. Both their persons and their property are owned by him. The people are his people; their land is his land. The land of promise was his in a peculiar sense; but God has respect to the possessions of his people, wherever situated; their concerns and enjoyments are precious in his esteem. The consequence is, the implied avowal of a twofold relationship, marital and paternal. "Thou shalt be called Hephzi-bah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married;" these words of the Prophet Isaiah distinctly express the former of the two relations referred to, while the feeling of jealousy springs therefrom. Thus, as a husband is jealous of the honour of his wife and of himself, and ready to resent any insult or injury offered to his partner, so the Lord promises to be jealous for his land—that land to which he admits by implication such an endearing and delicate relation. And "as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Like a tender, compassionate parent, he pities his people in any season or circumstances of distress, and pledges his love and power for their relief.

2 . A rich supply of temporal blessings is guaranteed. This would naturally suggest itself as a practical and particular result of the general statement of the dual relationship already avouched.

3 . The rolling away of their reproach is an additional blessing. The heathen had exulted over them in the day of their calamity; their reputation had suffered by the visible marks of the Divine displeasure upon them, from which the inference had been either that they had forsaken God, or that he had forgotten them; and that there had been unfaithfulness on his side or on theirs, or on both. Now, however, they have returned to him in penitence, and he has received them in mercy; and thus their reproach is rolled away, and their reputation retrieved.

4 . The removal of all cause of fear. The promise of plenty is backed by the assurance that the power which plagued them is doomed to destruction. The invading army that had destroyed so much is now in turn to be dispersed and defeated.