In Part One, we learned that the phrase "sacred assembly," specific to the Last Day of Unleavened Bread and the Eighth Day (Deuteronomy 16:8; Leviticus 23:36), translates the Hebrew word atzeret (Strong's #6116; plural atzerote). Atsar, its root, connotes "closing," "stopping," "restraining," and "retaining," from which we can infer the purpose of the sacred assemblies: They are holy days on which we refrain from engaging in commonplace activities and learn spiritual principles that God wants us to remember.

Part Two took us through prophecies in Amos and Isaiah, where atzeret is used in negative contexts. God was not pleased with Israel's sacred assemblies because they failed to observe them as He desired. Israel's history of moral downfall leading to destruction demonstrates that its citizens may have kept the feasts but did not learn their lessons, much less retain them for use in their daily lives.

The book of Joel highlights an atzeret that would decide the fate of the nation. The opening scene of Joel is a plague of locusts that decimates the land. The onslaught of locusts foreshadows the Babylonian invasion as well as the future Day of the Lord. The locusts eat everything in sight, and a noteworthy result is found in Joel 1:9, 13:

The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the LORD; the priests mourn, who minister to the LORD. . . . Gird yourselves and lament, you priests; wail, you who minister before the altar; come, lie all night in sackcloth, you who minister to my God; for the grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God.

Because the locusts destroyed all agriculture, the priests had nothing from which to make the grain and drink offerings. The nation's spiritual state was so low that God allowed even the essentials for worship to be destroyed. Just as the locusts foreshadowed an invading army, so also the loss of the offerings foreshadowed the later destruction of the Temple, such that no one in Zion remembered the feasts and the Sabbaths (Lamentations 2:6).

The situation is so grim that Joel contains a double call for an atzeret:

Consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the LORD your God, and cry out to the LORD. . . . Blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a sacred assembly; gather the people, sanctify the congregation, assemble the elders, gather the children and nursing babes; let the bridegroom go out from his chamber, and the bride from her dressing room. (Joel 1:14; 2:15-16; emphasis ours throughout)

So dire is the circumstance that every person in the land must be a part of this atzeret, including the elderly, babies, and newlyweds, who were generally exempted from some things for their first year. But God exempted nobody this time, not even for a wedding, because the nation teetered on the edge of a cliff. Its only hope was this sacred assembly, called to encourage every individual to turn wholeheartedly to God.

Centuries before, during the dedication of the Temple, Solomon had beseeched God to hear and act if the people would gather and pray, and he even mentioned locusts and famine:

When there is famine in the land, pestilence or blight or mildew, locusts or grasshoppers; . . . whatever plague or whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer, whatever supplication is made by anyone, or by all Your people Israel, when each one knows the plague of his own heart, and spreads out his hands toward this temple: then hear in heaven Your dwelling place, and forgive, and act . . .. (I Kings 8:37-39)

The people needed such a sacred assembly to spread out their hands to God in repentance.

Note that Joel 2:15 contains the sequence of the fall holy days. It mentions a trumpet, then a fast, and finally a sacred assembly, such as the one held to close the Feast of Tabernacles. The word translated "call" is the same word rendered "proclaim" in Leviticus 23, where it says to proclaim the feasts and the holy convocations. Thus, the fall holy days could be in view here.

Alternatively, Joel may refer to an emergency assembly because the situation was so severe that the people could not afford to wait for the holy days. Regardless, the time had come for the people to gather and make supplications to God.

What is instructive is how God says He might respond:

"Now, therefore," says the LORD, "turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning." So rend your heart, and not your garments; return to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm. Who knows if He will turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind Him—a grain offering and a drink offering for the LORD your God? (Joel 2:12-14)

Think about this. The livelihood and sustenance of the people had been demolished. They and their animals were facing starvation, and God says that if they genuinely repent, He may relent and leave a blessing. However, His blessing was not what a destitute, starving people would expect: The nation could start making offerings again! The priests could serve in the Temple again!

God mentions crops for food later. Notice, though, how God prioritizes: If the people repent, He might restore their ability to serve through these offerings. That was God's blessing. That came first, and then the nation could eat.

Joel 2:14 reveals that even the ability to worship God as He intends depends on what He provides. Moreover, it also teaches that our obligation to Him comes before providing for ourselves. In fact, if we are faithful to Him, we do not have to worry about whether we will be provided for—Jesus is very clear on that (Matthew 6:25-34).

Judah's unfaithfulness led to the plague of locusts and then the famine, which removed the privilege of making the offerings and serving. The nation needed to make its offerings to God, but that restoration would come through a sacred assembly and all that it implied so the people could be reoriented. The people needed to close the feasts with a seriousness of mind that would imprint on them what they had learned. They needed to retain what appearing before God had produced in them, which would help to arrest the ever-present pulls from the way of living God had given to them.

In I Corinthians 10:11, Paul says what happened to Israel was written for our admonition. We can learn from their stories to avoid ending up in similar circumstances. So, the next time we come to a sacred assembly that closes a longer feast, we should not consider it to be just another holy day. We should not allow the feast it closes to be just another feast, like numerous ones before it. We cannot let the feasts and holy days this year—or any other year—from Passover to the Eighth Day, slip through our fingers.

Instead, we need to grasp with both hands what God has poured out. Our goal should be to retain what we have gleaned from appearing before God, seeking Him, and being taught by Him through His servants, our fellowship, and our experiences. We must allow His outpouring to reorient us and transform us, so that our appearing before Him bears fruit that will glorify Him.