Joel 2:1

Joel 2:1 says, Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand;  Joel was giving them a very clear warning from God. They were called on by God to sound the alarm very loudly.  We today as God's people need to sound the alarm.  The day of the Lord is coming, and for those who are not His through faith in Christ, it will be a day to tremble.  For the people of Judah, their judgment was nigh at hand.  For the world today, whether it be tomorrow or ten thousand years from now, God's judgment is nigh at hand.  We look to the second coming of Christ and think that it is near, and it may well be, though we cannot declare it so.  What we can declare is that every day that passes we personally are closer to going to be with God.  Even if we live to be over a hundred, in the prospective of eternity, then our end here on this earth is nigh at hand.  Verse two adds, A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.  When the day of destruction came, there would be nothing but gloom and darkness.  God's people had forgotten that He alone could bring the light of hope into their world.  Even if everything appeared to be going well for them, it was but an illusion that would soon be replaced by the darkness of despair. There was a strong army of locusts and caterpillars like none ever seen before coming to destroy them.  Though we may personally and as a nation may feel that things are going well, if we are outside God's will, then darkness and destruction await us.  God will not be mocked, and if we attribute success to our own abilities as followers of Christ, then we are mocking God.  Verse three continues, A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.  The country before them may have looked like the garden of Eden, but after the coming destruction, it would be a desolate wilderness.  The defeat and destruction were going to be total.  Those things that we think of as beautiful and prosperous, if they are obtained outside the will of God will ultimately be reduced to nothing.