Joel - A Prophet of Urgency and Hope - Part 1

Joel 1:1–3 NKJV

The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. Hear this, you elders, And give ear, all you inhabitants of the land! Has anything like this happened in your days, Or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it, Let your children tell their children, And their children another generation.

Joel § I. Subject of the Book

THE prophecy of Joel is concerned with a natural calamity which had befallen his country, and from which, as his text, he educes a call to repentance, seeing in it the harbinger of the great day of judgment. Upon their repentance the people are promised present safety and blessing, and a future outpouring of the Spirit, not confined to them only, accompanied with a judgment on heathen nations, after which shall ensue an era of holiness and peace. This is the subject-matter of the book, stated generally.

Introduction:

I will take this prophetic book in two distinct sections.

Part one today and part two next week.

For today’s part we will look at the locust plague, a real and literal disaster to come upon the land, and it’s significance as a segue to the future Day of the Lord.

I. A plague to get their attention.

Joel 1:4–6 NKJV

What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten; What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten; And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten. Awake, you drunkards, and weep; And wail, all you drinkers of wine, Because of the new wine, For it has been cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up against My land, Strong, and without number; His teeth are the teeth of a lion, And he has the fangs of a fierce lion.

Deuteronomy 28:38–42 NKJV

“You shall carry much seed out to the field but gather little in, for the locust shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and tend them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes; for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives shall drop off. You shall beget sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity. Locusts shall consume all your trees and the produce of your land.

This section from Deuteronomy is God’s promise to the Israelites that if they did not adhere to the law of God cursings would follow.

Verses thirty eight through forty two are a direct result of the curse.

Joel speaks about this curse in the past tense.

It has already come as Amos would reiterate in chapter four verse nine.

Most people today just assume when they read these verses in Joel, that it is an allegory for something else, and erroneously apply it to modern times.

Still, as the plague was literal and the locusts wiped out all the vegetation in the land, Joel uses it as an example of a far more real and present danger, foreigners swarming in upon them.

There is with the curse a blessing I think.

See that the plague wiped out the crops and the grapes that produced wine.

While they were busy drinking and carrying on, they could not see the error of their ways.

God’s plague of the locust was a wake up call.

Like many things God allows or brings upon nations, it is an opportunity to awaken out of slumber and repent and turn to Him.

Israel would be that example for all.

II. Mourning over the land.

Joel 1:13–15 NKJV

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. 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. Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty.

Joel now draws the attention of the priests, to the problem regarding the grain sacrifices.

Now that the locusts have devastated the land and wiped out the crops, there is no grain for the daily offerings.

God is laying the responsibility of the spiritual decline of the people upon the priests, whose job it was to preach and teach His word.

Although God Himself brought this devastation upon the land, it is still the result of the people themselves having not lived faithfully.

Again, the curse of Deuteronomy is a result of faithless living.

As people of faith today, we could apply much of this to our modern dilemma, but that would be a travesty of enormous proportions.

Again, we are not Israel and their is no curse prescribed for Christians.

Our salvation and the continuation of it is found in the all sufficiency of Christ Himself!

God does not send pestilence to us because we are acting faithless.

He encourages us to believe and uses situations to enhance our faith.

As we read Isaiah chapter forty two during Advent, Isaiah says that “a smoking flax He will not quench and a bruised reed He will not break.”

Is that not a future promise of how Messiah deals with His own body of Christ?

Let us not use these prophetic scriptures as a means to place ourselves back under the law.

We are free people!

We are children of the Most High God.

We are inheritors of the Kingdom of God.

III. The coming Day of the Lord.

Joel 2:1–11 NKJV

Blow 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 is coming, For it is at hand: A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness, Like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come, great and strong, The like of whom has never been; Nor will there ever be any such after them, Even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them, And behind them a flame burns; The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, And behind them a desolate wilderness; Surely nothing shall escape them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses; And like swift steeds, so they run. With a noise like chariots Over mountaintops they leap, Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, Like a strong people set in battle array. Before them the people writhe in pain; All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men, They climb the wall like men of war; Every one marches in formation, And they do not break ranks. They do not push one another; Every one marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, They are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city, They run on the wall; They climb into the houses, They enter at the windows like a thief. The earth quakes before them, The heavens tremble; The sun and moon grow dark, And the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before His army, For His camp is very great; For strong is the One who executes His word. For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible; Who can endure it?

The similarities to Revelation is beyond coincidence.

John, inspired by God, uses Joel’s words to show that they were still to be fulfilled, or, that what was going to come was similar in scope.

Many will see these verses as allegorical, especially the same ones used in Revelation.

Yet, Joel sets the stage for this time of judgment by using the natural disaster of the swarming locusts, and makes the argument that what is coming in the end times will be fully devastating to the entire land and habitation of mankind, and, a time that has never been nor ever will be Joel 2:2.

I suppose this is the most concerning aspect of Joel for the modern church.

So many concerned with what exactly this all means, while others more concerned about when, and still others content with using the same prophetic scriptures to tie in current events and people.

It is safe to say, that we are too preoccupied with things we need not concern ourselves with.

The Day of the Lord will come when God says it will.

We, do not need to fear because we are in Christ, and He is our sustenance.

I will just say this for the record, and please hear me!

It does not not matter whether your eschatology is pre-millennial, post-millennial, or a-millennial.

Many Christians embrace one of these views simply to avoid the Day of the Lord.

They believe that a particular eschatological position is what one needs to avoid being here when the Lord comes again in judgment.

This may seem dumb, but I do believe from over thirty years in ministry, speaking with people about these views, that I have personally known folks that chose an eschatological position, ignoring good counterpoints, and vilifying those that disagreed with them for this very reason.

Hear me now!

It will make no difference whether a believer is here in the Day of the Lord or not!

Because what ever happens now or any time in the future, has no bearing on our salvation, or our inheritance; and Christ is ours and we are His, whether in the storm or out of the storm.

Amen?