Warning: Love God or Love Locusts

INTRO: Warning signs are vital. They help keep us focused and out of trouble. Some signs are less important. They are less important simply because the warning is obvious.[***Warning sign visual illustration***]

I should’t have to warn you to listen to God. However, men are foolish and we often ignore the obvious. So, God lovingly provides warnings that we should’t need --- but we do!

History: Uzziah was King of Judah in 750 BC

-There was great prosperity in Judah and the people had taken it for granted.

-The people had become “self-sufficient” (see church of Laodicea in Rev 3; they think they are, “rich and need nothing...)

-They had moved “from faith to formality” (their faith was no longer a vibrant, real, expression of who they were, but an empty ceremonial cultural tradition)

-The morality of the culture was in sharp decline

-God was warning of judgment upon Judah for their lack of devotion to him and their casual care for their religion.

-Their religion had become wooden dead, and lifeless that was more out of heritage than personal fervor for God

Joel uses a national catastrophe of a plague of locusts (1-4) to issue a series of warnings before the further judgment of God comes on the people; and then shows the appropriate response.