Last week we began to consider the prophecy of Joel. Tonight we continue that consideration, reading again Joel chapter 1. If you recall that last week we considered together the first three verses of that chapter, and tonight we consider the balance of that chapter, verses 4 through 20, reading together once again the entire chapter. Hear now the Word of God. The Word of the Lord that came to Joel, son of Petual. Hear this, you elders. Listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers? Tell it to your children and let your children tell it to their children and their children to the next generation. 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. Wake up, you drunkards, and weep. Wail, all you drinkers of wine. Wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips. A nation has invaded my land, powerful and without number. It has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white. Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth. Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord. The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up, the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails. Despair, you farmers. Wail, you vine growers. Grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed. The vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered. The pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree, all the trees of the field are dried up. Surely the joy of mankind is withered away. Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn. Wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God. For the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. Declare a holy fast. Call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God and cry out to the Lord. Alas, for that day, for the day of the Lord is near, it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes? Joy and gladness from the house of our God? The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. The storehouses are in ruins. The granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up. How the cattle moan. The herds mill about because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering. To you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the open pastures and flames have burned up all the trees of the field. Even the wild animals pant for you. The streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured. the open pastures. I encourage you to leave your Bibles open as we will refer quite a bit to this passage throughout the sermon. Dear people of God, this past Tuesday evening at our council meeting, the council members were blessed by a devotion prepared by one of our office bearers. Incidentally, a very good devotion and worth reading. And I trust that if you would like a copy, He would not get mad at me if I provided it to you. It was that good. And in that devotion, he talked about a book entitled, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. And he took a few moments to discuss the misconceptions of that title, the error of that title. First of all, just to briefly summarize, there are no good people, at least not apart from the Lord. There is no one who is good who deserves to be set free from any sort of so-called bad things. And secondly, who says bad things shouldn't happen? Also, these so-called bad things that happen, which indeed may be painful, they might be inconvenient, are they really bad? Are they really bad for us? Well, we all know that all things are a part of God's sovereign plan, even these so-called bad things. And therefore, the believer can confidently confess, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Even these bad things work for the good of God's people. Yet the truth is, even as believers, when we face difficulties and trials, we often wonder why. We even ask, Why? And sometimes we even think that somehow we don't deserve these kinds of things. But instead, we ought to wonder, what is God's purpose in all of this? What is God trying to teach me through this? No doubt, in some sense, the Israelites of the kingdom of Judah were wondering about why such a bad thing as a devastating locust invasion could happen to such good people like themselves. After all, they were God's chosen people. They were His covenant people. Those who had His promise of covenant blessings. His protected people. However, they had forgotten about the stipulations of the covenant. That is, the promise of blessing for what? Obedience. But there was also a flip side, wasn't there? The promise, the guarantee or warning, if you will, of curses or punishment for disobedience. Joel found the people at this time to be in great need of the call to prepare for the coming day of the Lord. As these, the covenant people, experience the prelude of destruction. And as we consider that prelude of destruction tonight, notice the prelude's description. Secondly, the prelude's demand. And finally, the prelude's declaration. Now, boys and girls, very simply, a prelude is something that comes before something else and introduces that something else. You know that before our worship services begin, as the people are gathering together and sitting down, the organist or the pianist plays what we call the prelude, the music before the worship service. And when you leave after the close of the service, they play what is called the postlude. Post means after. Joel 1 verse 4 talks about a locust invasion, which he makes clear, was a prelude to the coming day of the Lord. It introduced. It came before. It introduced and pointed to that day. Now notice the prelude's description. It's all throughout chapter 1, but beginning at verse 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. to give us a foretaste of what he's about to say. Now, another translation calls these four references to locusts the gnawing locust, the swarming locust, the creeping locust, and the stripping locust. Now, it's only fair to say that there are a couple of debates among Bible scholars and commentators about this locust invasion. And the first debate is this. Was this, was Joel talking about an actual locust invasion, or is it figurative, really talking about a foreign enemy that had attacked the kingdom of Judah, or was about to attack the kingdom? And indeed, in Scripture, we find references to invasions by foreign armies in which the damage that they did, that they left behind, is compared to the damage locusts can do, and they are even compared to locusts, the armies themselves. However, I believe that because of the evidence found in Joel's prophecy later on, as well as the detailed damage described, as I'll point out further in a moment, the damage described in chapter 1, that Joel is describing an actual locust invasion. But the main point deals with the damage done. And now the second debate is this. Do the four different references to locusts refer to different stages in the development of the locust? So that it's the same group of locusts throughout, but in different stages of their life cycle? Or does it refer to four different species and then also four different attacks of these locusts, one right after another? Now here again, both sides seem to have strong support for their views. Even Reformed scholars don't agree. And after reading the debates, the arguments for both sides, I myself lean toward the second opinion that Joel describes, four invasions by four different species. But here again, we don't know. And therefore, either way you go, the message is the same. What all agree about is the devastation, the destruction. Now, boys and girls, there are many different kinds or varieties or species of locusts. In the Hebrew language, there are, I believe, nine, maybe ten Hebrew words that are translated as some kind of locust. But to give you an idea, locusts are similar in appearance to a grasshopper, but they do much more damage. And the best way to describe the devastation is to simply say that it was total devastation. Again, notice what Joel says. We read verse 4, but the second half of verse 5 through 7 says, Wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips. A nation has invaded my land, powerful and without number. It has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white. Then verses 9 and 10. Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests are in mourning those who minister before the Lord. the fields are ruined, the ground is dried up, the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails. Then the last part of verse 11, because the harvest of the field is destroyed, verse 12, the vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered, the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree, all the trees of the field are dried up, surely the joy of mankind is withered away. Then finally, verse 16, has not the food been cut off before our very eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God. Total devastation. Now we really cannot imagine this, can we? Because we live in a day of pesticides with crop dusters and planned aerial sprays. I remember as we lived in the L.A. area, I would drive to work and I would enter a medfly quarantine area. And every now and then they would spray for medfly. So cover your car or whatever you don't want the spray to get on but you see there are reports even from over the last 100 years which talk about the effects of locust invasions that have taken place really recently as 100 years ago the zondervan pictorial encyclopedia of the bible reports regarding locusts that the numbers can be astronomical it goes on a desert locust swarm that crossed the red sea in 1889 was estimated to cover 2,000 square miles. Boys and girls, that's an area 20 miles wide by 100 miles long or 40 miles by 50 miles. And the article goes on, such swarms are like dark clouds and contain countless millions. I also read that it is estimated that in a swarm of locusts, there are approximately 120 million insects per square mile. The late James Boyce in his work on the Minor Prophets recalls a 1915 article in the National Geographic that describes the destruction caused by a locust invasion around that time. And what the writer of the article says fits to a T with what Joel says. All of the green foliage of a tree, for example, the fruit, the leaves, is eaten. The bark is eaten away, leaving white branches. Remember verse 7, the second half? it has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white. Also, there is a picture in that same encyclopedia, actually two pictures of a fig tree. One picture is the fig tree. The same tree, thick with lush and lush with green leaves. But then the second picture, apparently it says, was taken only 15 minutes later after a locust invasion and it is nothing but a skeleton of a tree. And you can clearly see the once bark-covered white branches. And even Laura Ingalls Wilder of Little House fame describes a locust plague in one of her books that her family had to endure. And she describes in detail how absolutely everything green was eaten. Of how when a swarm flies in, it is so thick that it hides the sun and day becomes like night. of how as the locusts walk along the ground, and sometimes I'd read it can be up to four inches thick with locusts, and they're side by side, shoulder to shoulder, it looks like the ground is moving like waves along the ground. And she described of how the crunching sound of locusts eat everything in sight, that sound just echoes throughout your head. An invading swarm has been described as snow falling to the ground. And I also read that a target area, an area that will be the target for an invasion, can be like the Garden of Eden before them, but behind them is a desolate wilderness. Now all of that just to give you an idea in your mind of what a locust invasion could be like, how devastating it could be, how many insects there could be. Even it is reported that if they get into your house, they chew everything up that is made of wood. Beloved Joel speaks of the vine and the fig tree. And these two things especially represented the richness of the land. What it once was. And verse 10 says, The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up, the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fails. Now grain, new wine, and oil were staple crops. Three staple crops used for lamps, for hygiene, for medicine as well as food. And these things were viewed as God's blessing either to be given or to be withheld. Moses says in Deuteronomy 7, verse 13, He will love you and bless you. Of course, this is for obedience. He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land, your grain, new wine and oil, the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that He swore to your forefathers to give. And then a few chapters over in Deuteronomy 11, verse 14. Moses again, verse 13 says, So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain new wine and oil. But not only is it clear that the land's sustenance was cut off, but also as Joel says at the beginning of verse 9, grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. Worship was cut off. These were the offerings of consecration or surrender to God that accompanied the sin offerings and also pointed to fellowship with God. Ezekiel 29, verses 41 and 42 tell us, And the other lamb you shall offer at twilight. The first one was in the morning. And you shall offer with it the grain offering and the drink offering as in the morning for a sweet aroma and offering made by fire to the Lord. This shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord where I will meet you to speak with you. In the house of our God. That's where joy and fellowship could be found. But in verse 16, he says, joy and gladness are cut off from the house of our God. You see, all of this was anguishing to be sure, but the most anguishing part of all this was that fellowship with God had been broken off. This locust plague was God's judgment upon His covenant people. And Joel is calling their attention to all of this devastation in such a way as to remind Him that there is indeed a reason for all of this. This was the land flowing with milk and honey, the covenant land, but that milk and honey had dried up. And verses 19 and 20 also point to a drought on top of all of the locust devastation. It speaks of the fire and flames which most believe to be a reference then to the heat of the sun and the destruction of the sun. And verse 20 speaks of dried up streams. Clearly, God was working to get their attention in order to remind the covenant people of what Moses had said in Deuteronomy 28. I ask you to turn there with me. Deuteronomy chapter 28. It's interesting that Joel's description here in many ways is a repeat of some of what Moses gives to us In Deuteronomy 28, especially dealing there with curses for disobedience. The chapter begins, blessings for obedience. We'll read a few of those first, not the entire section, but select verses. Verse 1 of chapter 28 sets the stage for blessings for obedience. If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all His commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. And then moving to verse 4. The fruit of your womb will be blessed and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock, the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Then verse 8. The Lord will send a blessing on your barns and on everything you put your hand to. The Lord your God will bless you in the land He is giving you. Verses 11 and 12. The Lord will grant you abundant prosperity in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your ground in the land He swore to your forefathers to give you. The Lord will open the heavens, the storehouses of His bounty, to send rain on your land in season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but will borrow from none. Blessings for obedience. But then notice, beginning in verse 15, that verse sets the stage for the opposite side. However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all His commands and decrees, I am giving you today all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Verse 18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed and the crops of your land and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Verses 23 and 24 The sky over your head will be bronze the ground beneath you iron the Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed and then specifically verses 38 to 42. You will sow much seed in the field, but you will harvest little, because locusts will devour it. You will plant vineyards and cultivate them, but you will not drink the wine or gather the grapes, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout your country, but you will not use the oil, because the olives will drop off. You will have sons and daughters, but you will not keep them, because they will go into captivity. Swarms of locusts will take over all your trees and the crops of your land. Congregation, the Word of God can be taken seriously and indeed is to be taken seriously as the people in Joel's day now had found out. This prelude of destruction, the locust invasion, describes exactly what God had warned through Moses many, many years earlier. This devastation is also a picture of sin. Sin takes and takes and takes until there is nothing left to take. An unchecked sin will leave a life in nothing but ruins and devastation. Nothing but a spiritual wasteland. And beloved, there's only one way of escape. There is to be only one response to sin. And Joel explains that in the preludes, demand. We find again that demand spread throughout the chapter. Verse 5 begins, Wake up, you drunkards, and weep. Wail, all you drinkers of wine. Then verse 8, Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth. Verse 11, Despair, you farmers. Wail, you vine growers. Grieve for the wheat and the barley because the harvest of the field is destroyed. And then verses 13 and 14, Put on sackcloth, O priests, and mourn. Wail, you who minister before the altar. Come, spend the night in sackcloth, you who minister before my God, for the grain offerings and drink offerings are withheld from the house of your God. Declare a holy fast. Call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God and cry out to the Lord. Now, beloved, we get the idea here that Joel is preaching to an ignorant people. Those who really didn't understand what was going on, why it was going on. Those who were possibly walking around saying, why are all of these bad things happening to us? We're such good people. We're supposed to be under God's special protection. It seems clear that they were ignorant of the fact that God had broken fellowship with them because they had really broken fellowship with Him. No doubt. As long as they could, as long as they were able to, they offered their routine sacrifices to God, but even though they called upon God with their lips, their hearts were far from Him. Joel says in verse 20, even the wild animals pant for you, as if to say, the animals of which the psalmist says in Psalm 104, verse 27, look to you to give them their food at the proper time, that even these animals had more sense than these covenant people. These people had to be held by the hand, led by the hand. They had to be told why this was happening. They had to be reminded of God's covenant promises and warnings for disobedience. They had to be told how to respond to sin. Now, Joel uses four examples which clearly teach us that sin against the Holy God is to bring us to tears in humility, in shame, in sorrow, and in hurt. First, He speaks to the drunkards. They are to wake up out of their drunken stupor. Drunkenness, we know, brings drowsiness. It makes one off his guard to let his guard down. Wake up, Joel says, and see your desperate situation. When one is drunk, their senses are so dull and they have a manufactured happiness and joy that might make them giggle. It might make them seem jolly. But Joel calls the drunkards to weep and wail. Something a drunkard is not likely to do because a drunkard feels no hurt or no pain. But Joel is calling the drunkards to wake up and feel the hurt and the pain of this devastation and to weep and wail because that which they depended on for their drunken condition was gone. Taken from their very lips. The grapes used to make the wine had been devoured by the locusts. Joel calls them back to reality. Often in times of disaster, many go to the bottle. It's interesting. We all know that the reports in the news is that our economic situation in America is kind of poor, especially since the September 11 attacks were in a difficult situation. But a couple of weeks ago on the radio, I heard that there's one part of the economy that is booming better than ever. You may have guessed it. Liquor sales. Often in times of disaster, many go to the bottle. But in Joel's day, there was no bottle to go to. But also the people were called upon to mourn like a virgin in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth. Understanding the custom of that day when a woman was betrothed or engaged to a man, that was, in essence, the wedding. it was not the marriage feast yet but it was considered the wedding they were considered married but they had not yet consummated the marriage so she was still a virgin but if her husband died if he was taken after the engagement but before he took her into his home at a time when her anticipation and joy and eagerness couldn't be greater it was at an all time high that caused and it still causes unmatchable frustration, disappointment, sadness, and anguish. The priests also mourn, we're told, because there are no crops to bring the grain and the drink offering. That's the third example. More than even the people whom they represented before God, they were to recognize that this situation pointed to broken fellowship with God, who alone could sustain their necessary milk and honey. And the fourth example that Joel puts before us is the farmers and the vine growers who watch their hard work, their crops, and their profit literally get eaten up. These four different examples hit every aspect of life, even worship, and these four point to the fact that life was cut off. Beloved, sin cuts life off. And sin is to drive us to sorrow, to cry out for God. We are to remember that the end of sin is hell where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. We must also understand that it's not our sorrow and our mourning that removes affliction, but that is to lead us to repentance. Joel says, put on sackcloth. Sackcloth, a sign of sorrow and penitence. And in verse 14 he says, declare a holy fast, call a sacred assembly, summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God and cry out to the Lord. Fasting also for times of difficulty, for sorrow, for penitence, and so forth. And they were to set aside a day, set aside a time to come together. Do not let anything outside interrupt this necessary time that you need as a covenant people with your God. But Joel was also showing them here that fasting and sackcloth are empty without crying out to the Lord. In a special way, he says, cry out to the Lord. And David says in Psalm 51, verse 17, the sacrifices of God are a broken and a contrite heart. That is what God will not despise. Beloved, sacrifice and offering are empty without obedience. And Joel calls for repentance because only God can turn our mourning into dancing. Not only is God the source of judgment, but He is also the only hope of deliverance. Only He could restore the land. Only He could restore His people. And He indeed restores His people through the bread of life, Jesus Christ. Sin takes and takes and takes, but only salvation through Jesus Christ is indeed the gift that keeps on giving. Jesus says, Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. And beloved, when we are weary and burdened, whether because of our sin or because of some situation of this life, there is only one place to turn. And that is to cry out to God. Joel's message here, once again, as we considered last week, is urgent because of the prelude's declaration. Verse 15 says, Alas, for that day, for the day of the Lord is near, it will come like destruction from the Almighty. The locust invasion was God's judgment, His curse, His punishment of His covenant upon those who rejected Him. but it pointed to something even greater in magnitude. It declared. It gave declaration of the day of the Lord. Again, that day is the great day of God's judgment upon all ungodly powers when He, as the Almighty Ruler of the world, brings down and destroys everything that has set itself up against Him. Amos, in chapter 5 of his prophecy, shows us that the people had the wrong idea, The covenant people had the wrong idea about the day of the Lord. Again, he was ministering possibly to the same people Joel was ministering to, but to a people caught in the midst of apostasy. They were looking forward to the day of the Lord when they had no reason to do so. And that's because they had this mistaken idea that they could sin and live sinfully and get by with it just because they were Israelites. But Amos issues this warning, Amos 5, verses 18-20. Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear, as though he entered his house and rested his hand on the wall only to have a snake bite him. Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light? Pitch dark without a ray of brightness. Amos is describing what that day will be like for those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ. And Joel also explains the hopelessness of that day for those who are not right with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. He does so in such a small way, it's easy to miss. He says not only has our food been cut off and not only has joy and gladness been cut off from the house of our God. But in verse 17, he says, the seeds are shriveled beneath the clods. You say, so what? What's the big deal about that? Well, beloved, that means that not only is this year's crop gone, but so is next year's crop. The seeds hidden in the soil, supposedly safe from the locusts, were destroyed. They weren't safe from the drought. The people depended upon a crop in order to get next year's seeds. But the germinating power of the seed was gone. Beloved, the day of the Lord will be a day of utter hopelessness where there will be absolutely no second chances for those who would not heed the call. Joel called the people to mourn, to repent, to cry out to God. And in verse 19, he practiced what he preached, leading the people and calling on God. God's covenant people had experienced the prelude of the coming day of the Lord through this destruction. But you know what? Notice it was still the day of God's mercy and grace. It was still the day of His long-suffering, His forbearance. And today we are still reminded that that day is coming. Every natural disaster, every terrorist attack, Every war, every disease, and every other effect of sin is a call to seek the Lord while He may be found, to call upon Him while He is near. But every day that we wake up still in this life is a day of God's mercy and grace. It is still a day of God's grace, a day of salvation for those who call upon Him. You see, beloved, that day, when it dawns, when that day finally arrives, it will no longer be a day of correction, a day of call, like the preludes pointing to that day, but it will be a day of destruction for the unrepentant. On that day, all calls to repentance and faith will have passed away. They will be silent. On that day, the clock of this life will have stopped ticking. And for those who fail to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, it will simply be too late. And they will suffer the hopelessness of hell forever and ever. But those who turn from their wicked ways by grace through faith, they will enjoy the abundant forgiveness, the free pardon of God. Those who wait upon the Lord, as Isaiah says, will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. they will enjoy never-ending peace and spiritual nourishment in God's house which will never be cut off. It will never end. We are called to walk in the light of the coming day of the Lord. That is, we are called to walk understanding that that day is coming. On that day, the light of Christ's righteousness will shine brightly, exposing all that is false, all that is untrue, all that is in error. And in preparation for that day, we are to be led by that same light, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and obedience to that Gospel, so that our steps through the power of the Spirit are ordered according to that righteousness. Only those who wait upon the Lord will have the confidence of standing firm in the judgment like the righteous man again of Psalm 1, planted firm like a tree by the riverside. Beloved, it's not why do bad things happen to good people. But it's praise God. The gospel happens to God's people as that devotion said. The day of the Lord is coming, ready or not. That's good news for God's people. Indeed, it's a day of light for God's people. But a warning of bad news for those who refuse to believe on Him. What will that day be for you? Amen. Shall we pray? Father, again in Jesus' name we bow before You. And we thank You for Your instruction. And our prayer, O Lord, is that You would make us ready. That You would continue to work in the hearts and lives of those in whom You have begun that good work. Indeed, we have the confidence that You will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. You will make us ready for that day. And if there are those here tonight, even one, who does not yet have that confidence, who does not yet know the joy of salvation through Jesus Christ, we pray that You would work in their heart powerfully and effectively bring them to repentance and faith to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to begin that good work in them as well that they too might be prepared for that day. Father, we pray that all that we say and do would be pleasing in Your sight, that You would be glorified, that Your people would be edified, that sinners would be converted. Hear our prayer for Jesus' sake and in His name, Amen. Thank you.