Joel 1

June 29, 2025

FBC Baxley

Title: “Wake Up and Weep: A Call to Return”

Text: Joel 1:1–20

1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:

2 Hear this, you elders;

give ear, all inhabitants of the land!

Has such a thing happened in your days,

or in the days of your fathers?

3 Tell your children of it,

and let your children tell their children,

and their children to another generation.

4 What the cutting locust left,

the swarming locust has eaten.

What the swarming locust left,

the hopping locust has eaten,

and what the hopping locust left,

the destroying locust has eaten.

5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep,

and wail, all you drinkers of wine,

because of the sweet wine,

for it is cut off from your mouth.

6 For a nation has come up against my land,

powerful and beyond number;

its teeth are lions' teeth,

and it has the fangs of a lioness.

7 It has laid waste my vine

and splintered my fig tree;

it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;

their branches are made white.

8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth

for the bridegroom of her youth.

9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off

from the house of the Lord.

The priests mourn,

the ministers of the Lord.

10 The fields are destroyed,

the ground mourns,

because the grain is destroyed,

the wine dries up,

the oil languishes.

11 Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil;

wail, O vinedressers,

for the wheat and the barley,

because the harvest of the field has perished.

12 The vine dries up;

the fig tree languishes.

Pomegranate, palm, and apple,

all the trees of the field are dried up,

and gladness dries up

from the children of man.

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,

and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

16 Is not the food cut off

before our eyes,

joy and gladness

from the house of our God?

17 The seed shrivels under the clods;

the storehouses are desolate;

the granaries are torn down

because the grain has dried up.

18 How the beasts groan!

The herds of cattle are perplexed

because there is no pasture for them;

even the flocks of sheep suffer.

19 To you, O Lord, I call.

For fire has devoured

the pastures of the wilderness,

and flame has burned

all the trees of the field.

20 Even the beasts of the field pant for you

because the water brooks are dried up,

and fire has devoured

the pastures of the wilderness.

-Pray

Theme: God uses crisis to call His people to repentance.

Main Idea: When devastation strikes, it’s often a divine invitation to return to the Lord in humility and hope.

Introduction: “The Day Everything Changed”

On the morning of May 18, 1980, the people living near Mount St. Helens in Washington State had no idea their world was about to explode—literally.

At 8:32 a.m., the mountain erupted with a force equivalent to 1,600 times the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

Entire forests were flattened. Rivers overflowed with ash.

Fifty-seven people died.

It was one of the most violent and costly natural disasters in U.S. history.

And what’s remarkable is that people had been warned.

The signs were clear. Volcanologists had issued alerts.

But many ignored the warnings.

Life seemed normal—until it wasn’t.

Church, I believe we’re living in a time like that today.

Not with mountains erupting, but with lives unraveling.

Families are breaking. Churches are declining.

People are numbing themselves with distraction.

And in the midst of it, God is sending a warning, just as He did in the days of Joel.

I. The Divine Voice in Devastation (Joel 1:1–4)

In verse 1 we read...

“The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.”

Now we don’t know much about Joel personally. He doesn’t tell us his credentials.

But he tells us what matters most: The word of the Lord came to him.

That’s the most important thing that can ever be said about a preacher—or a church.

God spoke, and Joel listened.

His name means “Yahweh is God,” and that theme will echo throughout the book.

This prophecy comes in the context of a national disaster—a locust plague of unimaginable scale.

Look at verse 2:

“Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?”

This was unprecedented devastation.

It’s as if Joel says, “Look around—have you ever seen anything like this?

This is no ordinary pest problem. This is divine judgment.”

Then verse 3:

“Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.”

God wanted this event remembered. Why? Because it was a wake-up call to every generation to come.

Verse 4:

“What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten. And what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.”

In Hebrew, we get four different words for locust:

Gazam – “the gnawer”

Arbeh – “the swarmer”

Yeleq – “the licker”

Chasil – “the devourer”

These aren’t just synonyms. This is a poetic picture of wave after wave of total destruction.

Everything green was gone. No crops. No vines. No fig trees.

The economy, the food supply, even worship was affected.

As James Montgomery Boice put it, “The locusts are not only a judgment but a picture of what happens when God removes His hand of blessing. Everything crumbles.”

This is not merely natural disaster—it is divine discipline.

II. A Call to Mourn and Repent (Joel 1:5–13)

Look now at verse 5.

“Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth.”

He’s not just addressing literal drunkards here.

He’s talking to a complacent, pleasure-saturated people—numbed by comfort, distracted by indulgence.

Joel says: “Wake up.” The comforts you relied on are gone. The things you used to numb your soul are no longer available. Now what?

Verse 8 gives us a vivid image:

“Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth.”

A young bride, excited for her wedding day, suddenly finds her groom has died.

That kind of grief is the picture Joel uses for spiritual lamentation.

Verses 9 and 10 bring this even closer to home.

“The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the LORD... the fields are destroyed... the wine dries up... the oil languishes.”

In other words, the daily offerings at the temple had stopped.

Why? Because there was nothing left to offer.

John MacArthur comments: “The cessation of offerings means more than economic loss; it represents a broken relationship with God.”

When worship dries up, it’s a sign that something has gone deeply wrong in the hearts of God’s people.

Then in verse 11:

“Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers…”

God calls not just the priests and people but even the farmers and business owners to repentance.

This was a national calamity with spiritual roots.

And verse 13 calls the leaders to lead in repentance:

“Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests… declare a fast, call a solemn assembly.”

The word “lament” in Hebrew—yalal—is a deep, guttural cry.

This is not surface-level emotion. This is soul-deep mourning over sin.

As David Guzik puts it: “Joel does not offer solutions apart from God. His hope is not in recovery but in repentance.”

And friends, that’s still the call today.

III. The Day of the Lord is Near (Joel 1:14–20)

Look at verse 14:

“Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly… cry out to the Lord.”

Joel says: This is not the time for parties. It’s the time for prayer.

Set everything else aside. Get serious about God.

And in verse 15 we encounter a key phrase:

“Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near…”

That phrase—“Day of the Lord”—appears five times in this short book.

It refers to a time when God personally intervenes in human history to bring judgment or salvation.

Right here, it means judgment.

Verses 16 and 17 show us what life looks like when God withdraws His hand:

“Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God?”

Not just crops were gone—joy was gone. Worship was gone. Hope was gone.

And finally, in verse 19, Joel gives us the right response:

“To You, O Lord, I cry…”

Here is the prophet’s prayer.

When devastation hits, don’t blame, don’t run—cry out to God.

Even creation joins the groaning in verse 20:

“Even the beasts of the field pant for You…”

It reminds us of Romans 8:22:

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together…”

The point is clear: everything is broken.

And God is using that brokenness to call His people back.

Conclusion: Life Application

So what do we do with this today?

How does Joel 1 speak into your life in 2025?

Let me give you three life applications:

1. Wake Up Spiritually

Joel 1:5 says: “Awake…” God uses disruption to wake us up from spiritual sleep.

Ask yourself: Am I alert and watchful in my walk with God? Or am I coasting?

2. Weep in Repentance

Joel 1:13 says: “Put on sackcloth... declare a fast...”

When was the last time you grieved over your sin—not just the consequences, but the offense against God?

3. Worship in Dependence

Joel 1:19 says: “To You, O LORD, I cry…”

In crisis, cry out to the Lord.

When all else fails, He remains. He is faithful. And He responds to humble hearts.

Final Challenge

Don’t waste the locust years. If your life has felt dry, if your joy has withered, if your worship has waned—God is calling you.

He may have allowed the shaking to bring you back. And that’s mercy.

He doesn’t want performance—He wants repentance.

He doesn’t want rituals—He wants relationship.

The worst tragedy is not the plague—it’s missing the message God is sending through it.

Wake up. Weep. Return.

-Pray