Title: Faith in Repentance (Joel 2:12-18)
[Contents] [Return to me now, says the LORD, with fasting and weeping and mourning, and with all your heart. Come back to the LORD your God, not your clothes, but your hearts. He is gracious and merciful and slow to anger. And because of his great love, he changes his mind and does not bring calamity. Who knows if the Lord will change his heart and his will and then bless him so that he will offer grain offerings and drink offerings to the LORD your God? Priests who blow the trumpets and set holy days of fasts, pronounce solemn assemblies, gather the people, sanctify the assembly, gather elders, gather children and infants, bring the bridegroom out of their chambers, and bring the bride out of their closets, and the priests who minister to the Lord. Weeping between the chamber and the altar, saying, “Have mercy on your people, O LORD; let your inheritance be profaned, that the nations will not have dominion over them. Why should the Gentiles say, Where is their God?” Then the Lord said to him, “Where is their God?” His heart is fervent for the earth, and He will have mercy on his people
(Joel 2:12-18)
There are three main reasons why our prayers are not answered.
The first is not to pray.
In James 4:2 it says, “You do not have, because you do not ask.” If you don't ask, you won't get it.
The second is doubt.
“But ask in faith, and do not doubt at all. He who doubts is like a wave of the sea tossed and tossed by the wind. Do not expect such a person to obtain anything from the Lord.” James 1:6-7 says. Those who doubt do not even think of receiving it at all.
The third is not to forsake sin.
In John 9:31, it says [God does not listen to sinners...]. Our sins prevent our prayers from being answered. That's why Isaiah 1:15 says, "When you open your hands, I will cover your eyes and you will pray a lot, but I will not hear you, for your hands are full of blood."
Will God hear the prayer of a man who has done all the bad things and asks God for a blessing? Such a person means that no matter how much he prays, God does not hear him. Only when we repent from that sin and turn away from it, God will answer us.
Proverbs 1:23-30 says, “Hear my rebuke, and turn away. Behold, I will pour out my Spirit on you, and I will show you my words. When I called, you did not hear me; I stretched out my hand, but no one looked to me. I will laugh at your calamity, and I will ridicule you when your fear comes, and your fear will come like a storm, and your calamity will come upon you like a storm; Sorrow will come at that time, when you will call on me, but I will not answer you, and you will seek me diligently, but you will not find me. I thought it],” he said.
Micah 3:2-4 says the same thing.
[You hate the good, and you love the evil, and skin my people, and pluck their flesh from their bones, and eat their flesh, and skin them, and break their bones and mince them like meat to be put in a pot and in a pot. They cry out to the LORD, but he will not answer them; he will hide his face from them according to the wickedness of their deeds.
There is no point in harassing others and committing all kinds of evil and crying out to God.
Also in Isaiah 59:1-3,
[The LORD's hand is not short, that it cannot save, nor is his ear heavy, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you, so that your hands cannot hear blood. Yea, your fingers are unclean with iniquity, and your lips speak lies, and your tongue utters bitterness.
Gentlemen, it is not that God's ears are dull and cannot hear. It's not that God's hand is too short to save. God has the power to open and close. It is something that God should not open. God bless you. It is because God has absolute sovereignty, but only sin builds up a wall between God and us and blocks us.
This is where we realize how unhappy our sins are and how they hinder our prayers. Therefore, if our prayers are to come up before God, we must thoroughly repent of this sin that God hates and is a barrier between us and God.
According to Isaiah 58:6-9,
“Is not my fasting to loosen the bonds of wickedness, to untie the yokes, to set the oppressed free, and to break all yokes? Is it not that you clothe yourself when you see it, and hide yourself from your bones and flesh? Then your light will shine like the morning, and your healing will be swift, and your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will guard you behind you. When you call, I, the Lord, will answer. When you cry out, you will say, ‘Here I am.
It is a sin for us to harass and harm others, but it is also a sin not to care for the hungry and the naked, and not to care for relatives in need. According to this verse, it is good for us to fast and pray, but what we need to solve before fasting is to solve all the sins that God hates, repent of our sins of not doing what we ought to do, and remove all barriers between God and ourselves. .
That's why James 5:16 says, "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayers of the righteous have great power."
Everyone, do you know how to easily get rid of the enemy devil who came into us and built a house? Do you think that the devil who has been inside us for several decades and made us do evil things can easily escape? Please repent one by one of the things that really hurt God's heart and that you did not do before God. I believe that the Holy Spirit will work and it will be easily resolved.
Sin is like cancer and poison. The cause of all suffering and the cause of unhappiness. Jeremiah 5:25 says, “Your sins have hindered the good from coming to you.” God is always ready to give us good things, but our sins block the good things that come to us.
Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who hides his sins will not prosper.” People will be deceived if they hide their sins and deceive them with a brazen face as if they are innocent. But God cannot be deceived. As long as you have that sin, you will not prosper.
Let's look at Joel 1:4-12.
[The locusts ate what the locusts left behind, and the locusts ate what the locusts left behind. The locusts ate what the locusts left behind. Awake and weep, all drunkards, and weep, you who drink wine, for the sweet wine has run out of your mouth. For a tribe has come up to my land; they are strong and numerous, and their teeth are like the teeth of a lion, and their molars are like the molars of a lioness. They destroyed my vine, and scraped my fig tree, and blew it away, and all its branches became white. mourns, mourn with sackcloth for a woman to whom she was betrothed when she was young; let it be like mourning: grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the LORD, and the priests who minister to the LORD are mourned; the fields are desolate and the land is desolate. The new wine has dried up and the oil has run out. Shame you, farmers; weep, you who rule the vineyards, because of wheat and barley, for the field has lost all its produce. The vines wither, the figs wither, the pomegranates and the pomegranates. The date tree and the apple tree and all the trees of the field have withered; therefore the joy of man has dried up.
Because the people of Israel fell into sin so much, God sent a plague to turn the whole land into a wasteland. Therefore, it is said that human joy has dried up. So, in verses 13-14, “Priests, weep in sackcloth, and weep, you servants of the altar; come, you servants of my God, come, put on sackcloth, and lie down all night. to the house of your God; set a day of fasting and declare a solemn assembly, and gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD."
The only way for a sinner to live is through repentance, confession, and fasting. We must thoroughly repent of all the sins we have committed during the past year. This is the secret to receiving answers to prayers. Are you not embarrassed? If you attend the special morning prayer meeting for 20 days and return without receiving an answer, what could be more injustice than that?
Therefore, God speaks. “Even now, return to me with all your heart, fasting and weeping and mourning” (see the text), and “rend your heart and not your clothes, and return to the LORD your God”. Then it says, “He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, he turns from evil and does not bring disaster.” That is why he says [I will repay you according to the number of years you ate of the pods] (Joel 2:25).
When we did not forsake our sins, calamities continued, but as we repented of our sins, he promised to pay us back according to the number of years the disasters were inflicted. I believe that God will have a warm heart and will take pity on what we have lost because we have not lived properly in the past year.
There is no one without sin in this world. So in Luke 5:31, Jesus said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” And in Luke 15:7, he said, [There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance].
Sin brings curses, sin blocks blessings, and sin keeps you unanswered, but once you repent, you don't know how pleased God is. As long as you repent, God has mercy on you, has mercy on you, gives you answers, restores even what you lost due to sins in the past, and answers those that have not been answered for a long time.
Do you know what I always testify of, what I am thankful for? Even though I don't seem to be praying a lot, God is giving me everything I prayed and even thought about. So how grateful are you? The problem is the sin between God and us.
Guys, let's think about what we need to repent of. Let's think of all the sins, great and small, committed during the year and repent of them.
Repentant faith results in forgiveness of sins and salvation. Not only that, it pleases God and breaks down barriers with God. In addition, we receive the blessing of answering prayers and open the door of blessing that was closed wide.
This morning, take time to repent thoroughly and experience that every prayer you pray is answered every day.