Locusts and lost years. Joel 1 – 2:27 WBC 9/5/4am (testimonies?)
CONTEXT
At 9.40am on 1 Nov 1755 one of the greatest earthquakes of all time hit Lisbon, Portugal. The epicentre was only 7 miles out into the Atlantic. The earthquake only lasted 6 minutes- but in that time all public buildings and 12,000 private dwellings were razed. Then the 60 ft tidal wave came. (in fact- when the wave got out to Martinique, 3,740 miles away, 10 hours later it was still 10 ft high. 60,000 people died and the area burnt for 6 days.
But the context in which it came made it even harder for people to deal with. It was a time relative peace and prosperity in Europe, and philosophic optimism. Actually- the optimism was partly the legacy of a philosopher called Gottfried Liebniz, who (though he had been dead 40 years) still influenced people with his well meant thoughts of this place down here being ‘the best of all possible worlds’. He argued that evil was really ‘imperfection’ and so this ‘best of all worlds’ proved God’s existence.
But now they were confronted with the reality of evil and horror. Worse- it stuck on All Saints Day- and many had been in churches when they died.
Idiotic English protestants said the event was judgement on Catholic Lisbon. Equally narrow Catholic Lisbon said it was because they’d tolerated some protestants among themselves that it happened. Francoise Voltaire ridiculed the whole thing completely, and Christians trying to make sense of it. He wrote a novel called Candide in which a philosopher ‘Pangloss’ kept saying “this is the best of all worlds. All this is for the best”. (basically mimicking Leibnitz).
Pangloss lit means ‘gloss over it all’. Not a bad reflection on those who don’t take such events seriously, or who gloss over evil.
Mind you- Voltaire is the one who said Christianity & the Bible would be dead within 100 (50?) years- and his house is now used by the Bible society- so what did he know!
The context of Joel is not dissimilar.
- We don’t really know when Joel was written and people make great arguments for dates of 800BC, 600BC (just before the fall of Jerusalem) or about 500BC, after the exile
o truth is we don’t know, and it’s all a bit irrelevant anyway. It wouldn’t be to understanding Hosea- but it is to Joel
o (I favour about 500BC as there’s this sense of ‘never again’ 2:26- but that’s merely a prejudiced guess on my behalf)
- But we do know it’s written in the context of a national disaster
o Of similar impact to the Lisbon event
Nobody had never known anything like it (1:2)
An army of locusts had decimated the land
Now- you may think: “ah, little grasshoppers. Not much problem there, then”
History records a similar event. Let me read to you: In 1915 a plague of locusts covered Palestine and Syria from the border of Egypt to the Taurus mountains. The first swarms appeared in March. These were adult locusts that came from the northeast and moved toward the southwest in clouds so thick they obscured the sun. The females were 2.5 to 3 inches long, and they immediately began to lay eggs by digging holes in the soil about four inches deep and depositing about 100 eggs in each. The eggs were neatly arranged in a cylindrical mass about one inch long and about thick as a pencil. These holes were everywhere. Witnesses estimated that as many as 65,000-75,000 eggs were concentrated in a single square meter of soil, and patches like this covered the entire land from north to south. Having laid their eggs the locusts flew away.
Within a few weeks the young locusts hatched. These resembled large ants. They had no wings, and within a few days they began moving forward by hopping along the ground like fleas. They would cover four to six hundred feet a day, devouring any vegetation before them. By the end of May they had moulted. In this stage they had wings, but they still did not fly. Instead they moved forward by walking, jumping only when they were frightened. They were bright yellow. Finally the locusts moulted again, this time becoming the fully developed adults that had invaded the land initially.
According to a description of this plague by John D. Whiting in the December 1915 issue of National Geographic Magazine, the earlier stages of these insects attacked the vineyards. " Once entering a vineyard the sprawling vines would in the shortest time be nothing but bare bark. When the daintier morsels were gone, the bark was eaten off the young topmost branches, which, after exposure to the sun, were bleached snow-white. Then seemingly out of malice, they would gnaw off small limbs, perhaps to get at the pith within." Whiting describes how the locusts of the last stage completed the destruction begun by the earlier form." They attacked the olive trees, whose tough, bitter leaves had been passed over by the creeping locusts. They stripped every leaf, berry, and even the tender bark." They ate away "layer after layer" of the cactus plants, "giving the leaves the effect of having been jackplaned. Even on the scare and prized palms they had no pity, gnawing off the tenderer ends of the sword like branches and, diving deep into the heart, they tunnelled after the juicy pith."
From "The minor prophets" Vol 1 by James Montgomery Boice, "Joel"
The whole land was wiped out. It’s possible event the different stages of the locus swarm are seen in 1 v 4
JOEL 1:4 What the locust swarm has left
the great locusts have eaten;
what the great locusts have left
the young locusts have eaten;
what the young locusts have left
other locusts have eaten.
The context is similar to the Lisbon disaster- but the reaction is completely different to a ‘Pangloss’ one- gloss over everything and say ‘this is the best of all worlds’.
Joel engages fully with the horror of it. “Grieve you people!” “Grieve you drunkards- you’ll be the first to feel the pinch!” No wine. “Grieve the rest of you”- no food. “Grieve you priests.”
- and we are to be the same. The horror of the world should horrify us- and we should remember that though God created it all, IS in heaven- he is not the author of evil
o but gloss over it and ‘call evil good’ we should never do
- Joel (Yahweh is God) is quick to acknowledge the true nature of God
JOEL 2:13 Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
o
And the question isn’t “oh, why has this happened to us!?”
- (don’t find that in there at all. It’s notable by its absence)
… the perspective quickly pulls broader to the whole world and (I’d add, using Jesus’ words not Joel:
"Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.")
COMING JUDGEMENT
Joel engages with the suffering so much that it becomes to him (and the voice of the Lord) a springboard to look at the ‘end days’.
- it becomes a sonar echo of the ‘end days’ (ch 2). A ‘birth pang’
And I think that’s how it should be for ALL of us. In one sense- can’t help but have that happen. “Oh, the situation in the middle east… Israel/Palestine! It’s the end”
- in one sense it is! All these things are reminders, birth pains, pre-shocks (not after-shocks) of:
o what will be the end
o the fact that the world is not cyclical but moving towards a climax. Ending
o the fact that God will bring to an end all the evil of the world… this world itself… and all that offends Him
Each terrible global event is a reminder that it WON’T go on forever!
And so, in ch 2- Joel moves on to a future time- but still using the language/imagery of the current invasion
JOEL 2:1 Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy hill.
Let all who live in the land tremble,
for the day of the LORD is coming.
It is close at hand--
JOEL 2:2 a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness.
Like dawn spreading across the mountains
a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was of old
nor ever will be in ages to come.
…..
JOEL 2:11 The LORD thunders
at the head of his army;
his forces are beyond number,
and mighty are those who obey his command.
The day of the LORD is great;
it is dreadful.
Who can endure it?
Joel had an understanding of a day when God would come and set the record straight…judge the world… balance the scales… set up His rule
- and so Jesus came and INAUGURATED the rule/Kingdom of God on earth. Initiated the ‘’last days’
- but we wait for the end days, kingdom, to be CONSUMMATED when He returns again (how or when I know not!)
Some see in here a mighty end-time army of Christians- a huge, massive bride that has made herself ready for his return. Ready to march with Him. An end-time revival that ushers in Jesus’ return
- Maybe. How prophecies are fulfilled is hard to see until they are!
- Look how wrong we got His first coming!
Probably it’s just using the language of locusts to describe that fact that such events won’t go on forever. But the Lord will bring them to an end
So- there’s lots in Joel about the future. Actually- it’s a marvellous book of present problems, disaster and darkness- but out of it and through it shines God’s light of hope and promises for the future
- never, in God’s economy, is there pain without His precious future promises
But there’s present promises and hope, too
REPENTANCE
2:12- if the people return to God, rend their hearts and not their garments…
… truly repent and are contrite….
Then the locusts are not the end of the story! NOW
Note: it’s not remorse. It’s repentance and contrition.
- Illustr: a little girl in Sunday school said ‘repentance is being sorry for what you’ve done wrong’, a boy added ‘yeah- but it’s being sorry enough to quit’
JOEL 2:12 "Even now," declares the LORD,
"return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning."
JOEL 2:13 Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the LORD your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
Return and repent and the locusts are not the end of the story
- no disaster is!
- No disaster you have created… and no disaster this fallen world has sent, or Satan has schemed
Nothing you’ve done wrong… or has been done wrong to you has the final say when you return to God
- Illustr: Perry, Rob L, Lizzie- mum died when little girl, issues with Father. Worse- father dying of cancer- but got an email this week ‘it’s miraculous’ Hours weeping together. Father asked forgiveness. Such restoration
RESTORATION
And here is how THIS bit of Joel ends (up to 2:27): with restoration
The promise of God, in returning to him, that he will restore their:
- agriculture (2;18 “I am sending you grain, new wine and oil, enough to satisfy you fully”)
- esteem 2;19 ‘never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations’
- spirits – maybe this is what 2:13 also means- Him sending rain
o talks of autumn & spring rains. One rain to start the crop growing. The other rain to really boost the harvest
Jesus can restore your soul. Often it starts small- with a shower that enables the ground to bud again. So- be patient!!
- Then, later- His rain comes, again, and the fruit really appears
The message of Jesus is a message about clean slates, fresh starts and restored ground. Listen to 2:25ff
OEL 2:25 "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten--
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm--
my great army that I sent among you.
JOEL 2:26 You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the LORD your God,
who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
JOEL 2:27 Then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the LORD your God,
and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.
TESTIMONY? TESTIMONIES?
My lips shall praise you
Blessed be your name
Restore, O Lord
