Joel 1:2-12 “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. 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. He has laid waste My vine, and ruined My fig tree; He has stripped it bare and thrown it away; Its branches are made white. Lament like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the Lord; the priests mourn, who minister to the Lord. The field is wasted, the land mourns; For the grain is ruined, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails. Be ashamed, you farmers, wail, you vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley; because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up, and the fig tree has withered; the pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree—All the trees of the field are withered; surely joy has withered away from the sons of men.”
Last Sunday, Psstor Kyle preached a short sermon on the book of Joel. Even in the aftermath of a devastating event, God warns the people of Judea that something even bigger is coming. They had seen a bad situation, but God was warning them that they hadn’t seen anything yet. Joel 1:1 says, “The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.” Joel’s name means (Jo = Jehovah & El = God) or Yahweh is God. One of the hallmarks of someone who loves God is an unwavering spirit in the face of tragedy. All of us face times when we have to pick up the pieces after something devasting happens. It is about finding God before, in the midst of, and after a crisis … and everywhere in between.
The people in Joel’s time had just experienced a devastating locust attack that destroyed all their crops. Some have connected Joel’s description to another in Revelation 9:1-10, when the fifth trumpet is blown in the end times. We may or may not be living in the last days, but we are surely one day closer than we were before. The Joel locust caused a famine that affected everyone. Joel tells the people what to do in the aftermath of this crisis.
Joel 1:13-14 “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.”
Joel called them to assemble for a massive fasting and worship service to cry out to the Lord for mercy. But, thing were about to get much worse.
Joel 1:15-20 “Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is at hand; It shall come as destruction from the Almighty. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seed shrivels under the clods, storehouses are in shambles; barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. How the animals groan! The herds of cattle are restless, because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. O Lord, to You I cry out; for fire has devoured the open pastures, and a flame has burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field also cry out to You, for the water brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the open pastures.”
It seem s that a devastating fire followed the locust attack and burnt up most, if not all of the remaining resources and structures. But, that was not the end of the crisis.
Let's continue PAstor Kyle's message on finding God in the crisis in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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