Joel 2:12-14 English Standard Version

Return to the Lord

12 “Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
13  and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.
14  Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God?

Here is a memory I believe many of us share. A parent tells us to do something and we do not move fast enough and the next thing we hear is “NOW!”

There is that fearful moment when we know what will happen if we don’t obey immediately. We don’t need an additional warning, we already know what will happen.

Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

2 Timothy 3:2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

1 Corinthians 14:21 In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.”

Has the Lord changed His mind?

Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

What I hear the Father say to me is “Now!”

So I preach the gospel of truth, even if many will not listen.

This is for the few that do.