OCTOBER 15, 2024
“Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God…” (Joel 2:13)
Rending the clothes was a common and ancient mode of expressing grief and concern, and as such is frequently mentioned in Scripture. The Jews practiced this, not as a command of God, but in keeping with the custom of the time.
People were ready enough to use the outward sign of mourning when, as in the present instance, locusts appeared to devour their crops, or when other judgments threatened them. They failed, however, in mourning as unto the Lord, and in rendering spiritual homage to His chastening rod. Thus, we see an outward show of grief for their loss, but any sorrow for the conditions that prompted the judgment was missing entirely. This explains the language of the text: “Rend your hearts, and not your garments.”
It would be good if Americans who freely express their grief for the sad state of our nation were equally sorrowful for the departure from God and His righteousness for which cause this judgment is upon us. Sadly, it is possible for folks to suffer and mourn under Divine judgment while failing to recognize that it is Divine judgment. We rend our garments for the loss of freedoms, for foreign invasions, for increased crime, and many other atrocities; but do we rend our hearts for the sins of our country? “Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.”
True religion is more inward than outward. David said, “Thou desireth truth in the inward parts.” The expression, “Rend your hearts, and not your garments,” casts an aspersion on mere outward aesthetical religion, which is all about ceremonies, forms, and outward performance. “For thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” The Pharisees were like “whited sepulchers,” outwardly beautiful but inwardly corrupt. “True religion and undefiled,” as the faith of Christ is described, concentrates not on mere outward morality, but inward holiness.
This is not to imply that outward morality is meaningless. The prophet is not forbidding absolutely therending of their garments, that is, the mourning of their losses. He is rather emplacing that their first expression of grief should be for their sin – sin for which God had sent plagues of palmerworms, locusts, and cankerworms to destroy their crops. The judgment was sent to produce godly sorrow for their sin, which in turn would work repentance. (II Cor. 7:9, 10)
This text bears also upon ordinances of God’s own ordaining if practiced without inward grace and relied upon as of themselves effectual. Among the good things that may become unprofitable, we might mention the regular frequenting of a place of worship. Sadly, many are regular as clockwork in church attendance who have no inward work of the Spirit, yet they trust that all is well because of their outward obedience. One may read the Scriptures daily and keep a private prayer schedule. Not a few are under the delusion that attendance upon the sacraments conveys grace to the soul. Church attendance, Scripture reading, prayer, and communion are all good things, and required of all who would be faithful followers of Christ, but they do not prove saint-ship. Sinners may practice them all after a fashion. The absence of inward grace makes them all vain.
Man is partial to externals chiefly because he is not spiritual, but carnal but nature. That being the case he finds the inward to be far more difficult than the outward. Man naturally loves his sin; he will rend his garments, as it were, because they are not part of himself. He cares not to submit himself to God, thus what he needs is a new heart. Only then will he rend his heart in sorrow over sin. How is it with you and with me? Though we may grieve over the ill effects of our sins, may we grieve the more for the sin itself, for such is godly sorrow which alone works repentance. What does the text say? “Rend your heart…and turn unto the LORD your God.”
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