To You

Scripture Reading: Joel 1:19-20

To You, O LORD, I call. For the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. Even the beasts of the field pant for you because the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Joel wastes no time getting to the point in his brief book. He begins by alternating between vivid descriptions of the catastrophic calamities destroying the land and calls for repentance, starting with the elders of the nation and the priests. The political and religious leaders were the problem.

Joel ends the first chapter telling us what he was doing – calling on the LORD. In doing so, he points out the tragic error of our present ways. We see the devouring of our land, the demonic obsession with sexual perversion and child sacrifice, and wickedness among so-called religious leaders and respond, not by calling on the Lord, but on men – politicians and power brokers – thinking that mere mortals can deliver us from evil.

We should know better.

When Jesus taught us to pray, “Deliver us from evil,” He wasn’t trying to give us a pleasant-sounding liturgical tool to use in religious services. He was telling us that this is the way, the only way, to be delivered from evil. The Lord must do it and we must ask Him to do it.

The Lord’s Prayer finishes with these words:

“For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.”

This is the reason why we must with Joel call on the Lord and not men. The Kingdom, power, and glory belong to Him not them.