Joel 2:12-14 Therefore also now, said the LORD, turn you even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:… It is not always that the voice of the Church hits the mood of the world. Just now there is no thoughtful man, whatever his personal condition, whose spirit is altogether untouched by sadness. We are all breathing an atmosphere of uneasiness, humiliation, and perplexity; our hearts are heavy, and there is much to weigh them down. How can we use the resource which the text proclaims? It is by no lip-uttered penitence that we can so turn unto God. It is by no mere confession of faults which we think others have committed, and petitions that they may be repaired. We may individually feel a sense of impotence in the presence of movements and measures which we cannot control. But, remember, that the whole is made up of parts; several items construct the whole. Every one who honestly tries to see himself and his wishes in the light of the Lord of righteousness, aids in the solution of national and social problems, whatever they may be, whether they concern order, home distress, or troubles beyond the seas. The individual is the unit of humanity. A sense of general vexation must never blot out that of personal responsibility. As each sweeps before his own door, the street is clean. As each honestly turns to the Lord, the attitude of the whole is corrected. Our business is to see to the items of our own conduct, leaving the total to accumulate by inevitable law. How may we individually use the tide of national anxiety in obeying the summons of the Lenten season? We have a common fault, a hectoring tone towards supposed inferiors. If there is anything which should cultivate Christian society and Christian households, it is goodwill and kindliness. Let not the summons of the text demand a mere epoch of religious procedure, when we kneel in the congregation or in the chamber. Let it touch our lives. A turning to the Lord is a turning from self, from its lower passions, aims, and habits. It comes out in audible, visible, material results. It is seen in many a thing; it is perceived in the tone of the voice, and in the look of the eye; it is seen in the fair conduct of commonplace business; it is seen in our correspondence; in the office and the shop; in the amenities of home, and in the rectitude of public life; in the details of our personal conversation, and in the nature of our familiar habits. Pause at one point — "with fasting." This arrow hits a national and personal blot. Some people fast too much, through poverty. Some people eat too much, through self-indulgence. There are many who need to fast, who need to use such abstinence that the flesh may, as it should, obey the mind, obey the spirit, not on the lowest, but on the highest grounds, that they may be, physically and intellectually, in body and soul, such as God intends them to be. Treat the summons of the Lenten season as a wholesome, reasonable, godly, human call to consider our ways, as in the presence of the Lord in whom we live, and move, and have our being. (Harry Jones.) Parallel Verses KJV: Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning: |
    |