A Call To The Remnant

Blow the trumpet in Zion, sound the alarm. God’s judgment is unfolding. The sense of sacredness, the manifest presence of God is so elusive today. In part it is because the locusts of Joel have eaten everything, so to speak. And in their wake there is a devastating famine. I would argue that the locusts have done their work. And here we stand starving to death. Add a drought to the famine and its a double calamity. Most of Christendom cannot repent because they are still blind to what ails them, this also is part of the judgment. For water one must now dig down very deep. And for food one must wander far from the reservation so to speak. Famine scatters people much like persecution.

The darkness Joel is talking about is spiritual and it is literal. There was actually locusts devouring everything. How terrifying to stand and watch everything you have, everything that you need to survive, being devoured before your very eyes. The clouds of locusts blackened out the sun in the midday. In our own day, the days are darkened by the smoke from wildfires. Year after year the fires continue, they grow larger and they darken the land and pollute the air. The sun is turned to darkness and the moon to blood as we watch on helplessly.

Go into your average church this coming Sunday. Where is the sacredness in their midst? Where is their sense of His holiness that causes the people to only speak in whispers, even if they dare to do that? Are holy trembling hands raised to heaven in the glory? Are our heads bowed low by the weight of His presence? Has the locusts devoured everything and left us with nothing? I am afraid that is the truth. We cannot hold a solemn assembly to ward of the disaster, the disaster has already befallen us. All that is left for us to do now is to rend our hearts and not our garments. We must return to the Lord our God with weeping and with fasting and mourning.

This word, of course is to His remnant. The great falling away has completed its task. This thing called Christendom, with all of its garments, its buildings and its programs and its careers now stand barren in the strange noonday darkness. They stand emaciated under a blood red moon. The darkness only grows darker and the hearts are destined to grow more faint until the people will writhe in pain and all the color drains away from their faces. Yet for those who will rend their hearts and seek the Lord their God with all of their hearts, they will find Him, for His own namesake.

The locusts may have devoured the spiritual land but like a refiners fire it has done its work and will do its work. It identifies and marks out those who seek Him with their whole hearts. Whether from the early morning or from late in the day, no matter, the Lord’s hand is open and He is well able to heal that which He has wounded. He will rain down the latter rains of His Spirit upon them. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord with their whole hearts He will hear from heaven. He will pour out His Spirit upon them in a dry and thirsty land. “There shall be a deliverance as the Lord has said among the remnant whom the Lord calls.”