AN INVASION OF LOCUSTS

INTRODUCTION TO JOEL

Judah’s Judgment and Exaltation

1.THE INFLICTION OF JUDGMENT,   Joe_1:1-20; Joe_2:1-17

1. An Unparalleled Brought and Locust Plague, Joe_1:1-7

2. A Call to Lamentation, Joe_1:8-13

AN INVASION OF LOCUSTS

Joel 1:1-13

The word of the LORD that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel.

Hear this, O elders, Listen closely, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing as this occurred in your days, Or even in the days of your fathers?

Tell your children about it, And let your children tell their children, And their children the next generation.

What the gnawing locust has left, the swarming locust has eaten; And what the swarming locust has left, the creeping locust has eaten; And what the creeping locust has left, the stripping locust has eaten [in judgment of Judah].

Awake [from your intoxication], you drunkards, and weep; Wail, all you drinkers of wine, Because of the [fresh] sweet wine That is cut off from your mouth.

For a [pagan and hostile] nation has invaded My land [like locusts], Mighty and without number; Its teeth are the teeth of a lion, And it has the fangs of a lioness. [Rev_9:7-8]

It has made My vine (My people) a waste and object of horror, And splintered and broken My fig tree. It has stripped them completely bare and thrown them away; Their branches have become white. [Isa_5:5-6]

Wail like a virgin [bride] clothed with sackcloth For the bridegroom of her youth [who has died].

The [daily] grain offering and the drink offering are cut off From the house of the LORD; The priests mourn Who minister to the LORD.

The field is ruined, The ground mourns; For the grain is ruined, The new wine is dried up, The fresh oil fails.

Joe 1:11  Be ashamed, O farmers; Wail, O vinedressers, For the wheat and for the barley, Because the harvest of the field has perished.

The vine dries up And the fig tree fails; The pomegranate, the palm also, and the apple tree, All the trees of the field dry up, Indeed, joy dries up and withdraws From the sons of men.

Clothe yourselves with sackcloth And lament (cry out in grief), O priests; Wail, O ministers of the altar! Come, spend the night in sackcloth [and pray without ceasing], O ministers of my God, For the grain offering and the drink offering Are withheld from the house of your God.

F. B.Meyer
on
Joel 1:1-13

We know nothing of Joel beyond this book. He was content to be God’s mouthpiece and remain unknown. His message was one of unparalleled woe. The memory of God’s loving kindness ought to have kept His people faithful and loyal, but since grace and love had failed to affect them awful judgments were announced. A small insect, the locust, was to prostrate man’s boasted power. The four kinds of locusts here described and which doubtless devastated the country, were also symbols of the four world-empires, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, and Rome, which were to lay waste the Holy Land. Such judgments call for acts of repentance, such as fasting, humiliation, and intercession. There are days in national experience when it becomes us to gird ourselves and lament. The ministers and elders of the Church should lead the way. Where there has been infidelity to the great Lover of souls, when the visible Church or the individual member has turned from Christ to the wanton world, then joy withers away, Joe_1:12, spiritual worship ceases, Joe_1:9, and there can be neither peace nor safety until there has been repentance and return.

By Philippus Schutte

New Covenant Israelite! "And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree;  Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee."  Rom 11:17 -18

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