Judgment will end with our repentance. This devotion looks at how God restores us after our time of judgment.
Nuggets
- The Plan of Salvation and judgment are both about restoring our relationships with God.
- God’s promises are satisfying.
- God promises to never leave us.
Devotions in The Days According to Joel series
God doesn’t drop us after we have been judged. The whole purpose of the judgment is for restoration.
Let's Put It into Context
Here is a running list of nuggets for the series.
God of Restoration
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you” (Jl. 2: 25 ESV)
The Plan of Salvation and judgment are both about restoring our relationships with God.
Locusts can do a lot of damage. In some cases, it takes years for the earth to come back from the devastation.
Only God can restore the earth from the devastation the locust caused.
I see you jumping up and down over there saying, “But God is the one Who caused the devastation because He is the One Who passed the judgment. It is His fault.”
Yes, God passed the judgment on us. We are the ones who brought it upon ourselves.
We are the ones who disobeyed God and sinned, making us in need of judgement.
Cornaby made a great observation. He wrote, “Deny God, and the locusts are victorious for ever; the desolation is final and complete.”
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Judgment is dispensed to correct wrong behavior. If that judgment does not make the needed changes, it has failed.
Judgment is to get us to repent. If we do not repent, Satan has won.
Look at it this way. The time the locusts are causing the devastation is lost. The time we are committing the sins and being judged is lost.
We aren’t going to get those back.
What is most important is the time after conversion. This is the time we are on the Sanctification Road, striving to be more like God.
This is the time that God restores us. He is in the business of restoration.
Salvation is restoring our relationships to Him. Judgment does that, too.
After conversion is the only time we can be fruitful. (Remember, that is what the locusts devoured — the fruit of the vineyards, trees, and crops.)
Spurgeon noted that, once time is gone, it is gone. However, he felt God will give us back wasted blessings. He wrote, “By giving to His repentant people larger harvests than the land could naturally yield, God could give back to them, as it were, all they would have had if the locusts had never come; and God, by giving you larger grace in the present and in the future, can make the life which has hitherto been blighted, and eaten up with the locust, the caterpillar and the palmer-worm of sin, and self, and Satan, yet to be a complete, a blessed, and useful life to His praise and glory.”
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Something keeps running through my mind. Think about Job. “And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job, when he had prayed for his friends. And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before” (Job 42: 10 ESV).
We tend to think Job lost 10 kids, God gave him 20 back. Sometimes, that may happen. Sometimes, maybe not.
What if it is just God is going to double the blessings? True, we may not know what that means because we don’t know what blessings God had planned to give us.
It may not be as noticeable to us that God is giving us double blessings. But that doesn’t mean God isn’t blessing us.
The blessings make up for the suffering during the judgment.
God of Promises
“You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame” (Jl. 2: 26 ESV)
God’s promises are satisfying.
Personally, I don’t think God necessarily focuses on our eating arrangements. That would put the focus on the physical. He does, however, provide for us.
Yes, I know there are many hungry people in the world. Tom may have plenty to eat. Sally, not so much.
I know God has promised to provide mankind with food. Sin, however, created hunger. To me, that is why it appears Sally is not getting to reap the benefit of God’s promise.
It doesn’t mean God isn’t fulfilling His promise. It means mankind has to reap the results of sin — and sometimes that mankind means you and/or me.
I think God focuses more on how satisfied we are. Are we content with our lives?
Can we praise God regardless of the situation?
I like what Shanks said. He wrote, “The blessing is in satisfaction.”
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To me, that is just an offshoot of there is blessings in the obedience. If we are submitting ourselves to the will of God as it is presented to us and living our lives accordingly — and are content with that — we will be blessed.
Shanks reminded us that we have a duty to God to acknowledge His goodness. This provision of satisfaction in our lives should prompt us to rejoice in Him. It fosters our desire to serve Him.
Because God provides, we should humble ourselves before Him. Because God provides, we must give Him glory and honor.
We have to remember, here, that God is restoring plenty to them. Henry said their reputation, joy, and faith were being restored.
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I know. Some people trip over the middle part of the verse. They argue that God is not dealing wondrously with us.
They would be wrong.
God, as our Creator and Sovereign God, could punish us right now in whatever way He deems appropriate when we are disobedient. They are His laws and commandments. He gets to set the judgment.
Instead, God shows us mercy. God’s mercy is an act of sovereign will that produces an unexpected and undeserved response from God as He responds in love to our needs.
Don’t read over that — unexpected and undeserved response from God. We deserve punishment — even death.
God gives us life and a chance for eternal life.
We just have to accept God’s gift of salvation— His way.
Look what Stone said. He wrote, “They that fear the Lord rest upon the strong arm of Omnipotence; therefore they are not afraid.”
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No, this isn’t living in terror of God. The fear of the Lord means awe, reverence and love, not terror. In the New Testament, it means living godly lives.
Let’s look at the last part of the verse. “… And my people shall never again be put to shame” (Jl. 2: 26 ESV).
Shame eats at our peace, doesn’t it? It brings dread and doubt.
But God is the God of peace. “Finally, brothers, rejoice. Aim for restoration, comfort one another, agree with one another, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you” (II Cor. 13: 11 ESV).
Peace doesn’t come from this world. Restoration brings peace because God is peace.
I like what Melvill had to say. He said that self-evaluation should cause us shame — unless there is sin to be found.
But I have to process something else Melvill said. He wrote, “If a man ‘have respect unto all God’s commandments,’ conscience may produce the catalogue of his sins, and yet not put him to shame. If a man have not sinned deliberately, and if he have repented sincerely, there is nothing of which he needs to be ashamed.”
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If we are trying to live godly lives and respecting God’s commandments, there is nothing of which to fear nor be ashamed. Yes, we will have our sins identified so that God can cut them out of us.
Shame is tied with sin. Joy is tied with regeneration and sanctification.
- When we are praying in God’s Will, we shouldn’t be ashamed.
- When we are asking for God’s strength and guidance to withstand temptation, we shouldn’t be ashamed.
- When we are doing the work to which God has called us, we shouldn’t be ashamed.
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We should never be ashamed of the hope that we have in God.
God Who Is Present
“You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is none else. And my people shall never again be put to shame” (Jl. 2: 27 ESV)
God promises to never leave us.
Have you seen how Joel’s done a 180o turn? He went from total destruction in the day of the Lord to peace, joy, and confidence in repentance.
We get this when we become one of “My people.” This is a benefit of being God’s children.
As God’s children, we should not be ashamed of God’s laws and commandments, we need to follow God’s doctrine.
Remember, this is after the locust attack. Even with all the devastation, the Israelites were told not to be ashamed.
Making the Connections
We don’t have to think about restoration any more than we have to think about regeneration. There is nothing that we could do to earn restoration, just as we cannot earn salvation.
Vincent reminded us one thing that I think we often forget. He wrote, “[God’s] concern is with the present and the future, not with the past. … His work now is not to make good the past, but to give himself to the development of his new life as a new creature in Christ Jesus.
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Don’t take that to mean we don’t need to repent. But it also doesn’t mean we have to let the repented past rule our present or future.
We move on after we repent of our sins and concentrate on sanctification. Our focus should be on becoming a new creation.
Glossary
How Do We Apply This?
- Worship and communicate with God.
- Repent.
- Navigate the Sanctification Road to me a new creation.
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Father God. As much as it hurts, we know that Your judgments are for our good. You have told us that all things work together for good (Rom. 8: 28). That good will restore us to our relationship with You. This is where we want to be. Amen.
What do you think?
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