REMARKS ON THE PROPHECY OF JOEL.
By Uriah Smith
Verse 15. Blow the trumpet in Zion, sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly; 16; Gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children, and those that suck the breasts; let the bridegroom go forth of his chamber, and the bride out of her closet. 17. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thine heritage to reproach, that the heathen should rule over them: wherefore should they say among the people, Where is their God? The language of these verses is that of earnest impassioned exhortation. Hope is implied in it, that if this course is taken on the part of the people, the favor of God will be secured. The time and the occasion demand concerted action: gather the people. The congregation is to be sanctified, especially called to the work of seeking the Lord. The children are to be brought in, even the youngest. And the ministers of the Lord are to feel such a burden of soul that it will bring them to their knees with weeping before the Lord. Between the porch and the altar. Allusion is here made to the temple service. Between the altar of burnt offering and the porch of the temple there was a space of 15 or 20 cubits. And it was here that the priests prostrated themselves in times of distress and emergency, and here that sins were confessed upon the heads of the offerings. Not in that place nor literally in that way do we now make known to the Lord our distress and our desire for his help. But we are to do it no less earnestly and really. The reproach of the heathen. Wherefore should they say, Where is thy God? When the Jews were visited by the plague of locusts, as mentioned in the first chapter, their hearts made faint, and their strength consumed by famine, the heathen, ever watchful to take advantage of their misfortune and weakness, were ready to war against and bring them into subjection, so that there was a probability of its being literally true that they would rule over them. Or, if we adopt the marginal reading, they would use a by-word against them, in this case doubtless the taunt, “Where is their God,” that he should abandon his people to such calamity? There are heathen in a spiritual sense today all around us, watching for every unfavorable circumstance in the experience of the people of God, and ready with their gibes and jeers at every apparent failure. When the church is brought into straight places, as it has been in the past, and as it will be before the end, places from which nothing apparently, but the arm of the Lord can deliver them, and that help is seemingly delayed, then the wicked are ready to mock their hope, and laugh at what appears to be their inevitable calamity. But their triumphing is all too soon; for the people of God understand the lesson, humble themselves before God, zealously repent, and thereby so relate themselves to him that he can consistently bestow his favor; and true to his promise he appears to their deliverance and joy, and to the confusion and dismay of all their enemies. And when the day of distress for the wicked comes, how different the circumstances! They have not merely mortal men in array against them; but God himself laughs at their calamity and mocks when their fear cometh. Prov. 1:26. “Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him;” but “woe unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him.” Isa. 3:10, 11.