Early Warning Signs

 Joel 1:13 Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests;
    wail, O ministers of the altar.
Go in, pass the night in sackcloth,
    O ministers of my God!
Because grain offering and drink offering
    are withheld from the house of your God.
14 Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly.
Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land
to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.
15 Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near...

One of today's great inventions are safety warnings on cars when you get too close to other objects.  They warn you, slow you down, and help you avoid a collision.  But they are adjustable.  When we become more confident in our own abilities to foresee danger, we adjust them down to shorter and shorter distances, often to our own demise.  Joel's warnings about the "Day of the Lord" were over 200 years before the exile of Israel.  There were brief times of revival and "slowing down" the run from the Lord, but they people took the warnings less and less seriously.  The same was true in the New Testament and today.  The Day of the Lord is coming... we just ignore the warning system.