Joel 3:9-11 - Prepare for war!

3:9-11

Well these verses certainly don’t fit into our often wishy-washy version of Christianity! The Lord is calling on the nations to get ready for war, and to beat their ploughshares in swords. This latter part is, of course, the inverse of the more favoured swords into ploughshares (Is 2:4). This quote is part of a passage that speaks of a time when the Lord is judge, and the nations submit to that judgement. This passage is speaking of a time when the nations are in rebellion against God. When nations are in rebellion there is inevitably war between nations, when nations submit to God then there is peace. We should note the eschatological significance of all this. In the Olivet discourse Jesus speaks of there being wars and rumours of wars (Matt 24:6), and in Revelation 16:14-16 nations ar gathered for war. There it speaks of demonic spirits gathering the nations, here the Lord is drawing them. So which is it? The answer is both, or in fact all three. It is God’s ordained purpose, it involves the actions of demonic spirits, and it is the result of human rebelliousness against God, human responsibility. Human responsibility and God’s sovereign decree are in now way in conflict, one does not exclude the other.

We get upset by passages like this because it does not fit the picture we have of God. Instead of getting worried about this we do far better to accept the word of God as it presents itself and see where that leads us, instead of seeing where our western presuppositions lead us.