Listen up, little ones
Listen for the words sound and day.
Reading
Joel 2:1-11—Sound the Alarm!
Keys for kids
- Joel told of the coming Day of the Lord.
- This day would be a day of God’s judgment.
- When facing terrible and dreadful things, pray.
Questions
- What did God use to bring judgment?
- What did Joel call on his readers to do?
- Might God bring this kind of judgment today?
Notes
(See Saturday for authors)
Maybe you have been in a building when the fire alarm goes off. There is a sense of panic—of what is happening, of let’s get out of here! The prophet Joel is sounding an alarm. He wants to get the attention of his readers.
But who is Joel? And who are his readers? We don’t know much. Joel means man of God. His father was Pethuel. That’s all we know other than the book itself. This chapter, as Calvin points out, contains serious exhortations, mixed with threatenings; but the Prophet threatens for the purpose of correcting the indifference of the people, whom we have seen to have been very tardy to consider God’s judgments. Like a fire alarm that warns of danger, so Joel warns of the danger of God’s holy and just anger poured out on his people.
Joel warns that the day of the LORD is coming and will be terrible and dreadful. This judgment is a plague of locusts (see chapter 1 also) that comes to destroy the land. Robertson states that God the Creator uses the creatures of his own making as his chosen instruments of judgment.
Does God bring such judgments today? We can’t know for certain, but often in times of so-called natural disasters (drought, storms, swarms, epidemics, etc) there has been a call to prayer—a call to seek God’s favor and his mercy. Good idea. Sound the alarm! And pray.
Swedish Method questions
Praise
Psalm 119o, 134b
Prayer
- Ask God to judge justly those who do evil.
- Pray for the preparation for preaching God’s word this Sunday.
- Pray for a member of our church, for your family, and for a non-Christian friend/family member.