Joel 1-2

1:31And I pray that you would help us understand. Help us remember that when we come to you, we also can find forgiveness and be spared. In Jesus' name, amen. So tonight, you're turning to Deuteronomy 28, but tonight we're starting a new book of the Bible, Joel, chapter 1. We've just been studying Malachi, thank you. And we studied for a long time in that era. So we did Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi all around that same time, about 500 B.C. So if you have some fuzzy dates in your head, you can remember maybe 2000-ish B.C. is Abraham.

2:311500-ish B.C. is Moses. 1000-ish B.C. is who? David, right? And then 500 is what we just were studying: Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Okay? And then, of course, around 0-ish is who? Jesus, right? So can you remember that? That's pretty good for fuzzy dates, right? 2,000 Abraham, 1,500 Moses, 1,000, David. 500, what we've just been studying, Ezra Nehemiah, and zero, Jesus. Well, in Deuteronomy 28, which part of that are we? The 1500s, right? This is Moses speaking. And God has just told them the law, and now they're about to enter into the land, and God is telling them some more things. He's repeating some things in the law, he's telling them some new things. And in chapter 28, one of the most foundational chapters in the whole Bible, God gives them the blessings if they obey the law and the curses if they disobey the law. And so look at Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse 36. This is after he's been saying some curses for disobedience for a while. They've already maybe received some curses, and now the Lord is continuing to discipline them. In Deuteronomy 28, verse 36, the Lord will bring you and your king, whom you set over you, to a nation that neither you nor your fathers have known. And there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone. And you shall become a whore, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the Lord will lead you away.

4:19You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it. You shall play Vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worm shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with oil, for your olives shall drop off. You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours, for they shall go into captivity. The cricket shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground. The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and he shall come, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. So, one of the curses, as Israel is sinning, if they are not following the law, if they follow the law, they get the blessings that are at the beginning of chapter 28. If they are not following the law, there are going to be some disciplines that the Lord puts on them. One of those is the bugs and the things that attack the crops. So, the locusts, that's what we're going to be talking about tonight, they're going to attack the grain, the seed. And then, if the people plant grapes for wine, the worm is going to eat them. The olive trees, they're not going to be able to anoint each other with oil because all the olives fell off the tree, because these bugs. And so, all of this calamity is coming on the people. They don't have grain, they don't have wine, they don't have oil. Three essentials that we'll see in our text as well. And then, after that, he goes on in Deuteronomy 28. For the rest of the chapter, to talk about how they're even going to be taken into captivity. And it's going to be horrendously awful. And even back in the land, they're going to be so starved that they're going to resort to cannibalism and things like that, which you might remember comes true. In the time of Jeremiah, the book of Lamentations remembers, looks at that. He's just seen these things take place. They destroyed the temple, they destroyed the city, and even mothers resorted towards cannibalism just as God said it would. Well, in Deuteronomy 30, you don't need to flip over there, but God will say, But even then, even when all of that happens, actually, you can turn there. Deuteronomy 30.

6:48Verse 1. And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and you return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice and all that I command you today with all your heart and all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you. He will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you, and the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess. Possess it, and he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. Okay, so God says there's blessings for obeying the law, there's curses for disobeying the law. One of those curses is locusts and other things that are eating the crops. And then if they keep still disobeying, they're even going to be taken captive into a foreign nation, and terrible things are going to happen to them. But even then, if they still return to the Lord, no matter where they are, if they are scattered to the uttermost parts of the earth, still the Lord will have mercy and bring them back to the land, no matter where they've been scattered to.

8:09Next, I want you to turn to 2 Chronicles chapter 7. This is King Solomon. God has a message for King Solomon. After he builds the temple, after the glory of the Lord fills the temple, God comes to him in the night in response to his prayer. And God gives Solomon a message. Now, if we're back in our fuzzy dates, what are we around now? About a thousand, right? 950 B.C., 960 B.C. So, Abraham, 2,000, Moses, that's a text we just read, 1,500. Now we're in just after 1,000 B.C.

8:592 Chronicles 7,000. 7, verse 11. Thus Solomon finished the house of the Lord and the king's house. All that Solomon had planned to do in the house of the Lord and in his own house, he successfully accomplished. Then the Lord appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him, I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a house of sacrifice. Verse 13. When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people. So what are the three things he says there? What are the three bad things?

9:38Drought, locusts, and pestilence, right, disease. Verse 14, when these bad things happen, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house that my name may be there forever. My eyes and my heart will be there for all time. Stop there for just a minute. So again, in this pivotal time, we just saw that right before they're about to enter the land of Israel, God said, here's the blessings, here's the curses. One of them is going to be locusts and then exile. But even in exile, at any point, you can return, and I'll bring you back from wherever you're scattered. Now, at another pivotal time, after they finished the temple, God has the same message. He says, if I bring drought upon the land, if I bring locusts upon the land, or if I bring disease upon the land, tell my people to repent, and I will have mercy. But look down at verse 19. But if you turn aside and forsake my statutes and my commandments that I have set before you, and go and serve other gods and worship them, then I will pluck you up from the land that I have given you, and this house that I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight, and I will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. And at this house, which was exalted, everyone passing by will be astonished and say, What has the Lord done? Or why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house? Then they will say, because they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt and laid hold on other gods and worshiped them and served them. Therefore, he has brought all of this disaster upon them. Okay, so we have the same pattern again. God says, I'll send this drought and locusts. When you see those, repent. But if you don't, captivity is coming. I'm going to send a nation, and all the nations are going to look at you, and you're going to be a proverb and a byword. Everyone's going to. Be talking about you because your God forsook you. And they're going to say, why is their God doing this? Why has God allowed his people to be taken out of the land? And everyone's going to know it's because they turned to idolatry and wicked practices. Okay, now let's turn to Joel chapter 1. Joel chapter 1.

12:27The end of our Old Testament ends with the book of the 12, the 12 minor prophets, from Hosea to Malachi. We've just studied Haggai and Zechariah and Malachi, and since we're on a roll, I thought we'd just go back and do some more of them, starting with Joel. So Joel is about 100 years after Solomon. So if you're thinking timing, Abraham's 2,000, Moses is 1,500. So they already got the warning whenever they came into the land, and they've seen it play out a few times. Then in 1,000, shortly after that, you have Solomon dedicating the temple, and the Lord has a message for him, the same message. There are certain warnings, there are certain curses, and if they repent, I'll relent. But if they don't, captivity is coming. Bad things are coming. Well, now, about 100 years after that, so maybe. While it's still ringing in their ears, they have been wicked. Joel 1, verse 1, the word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. Hear this, you elders. Give ear, all inhabitants of the land. Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers? Tell your children of it. Let your children tell their children and their children to another generation. Okay, so the prophet Joel, we don't really know a lot about who he is. We're not even sure on the exact timing, but we think it's around that time, about 100 years after Solomon. And he starts out by saying that something has just happened in their generation that they've never seen before. He even asks the elders, hear this, you elders. So the elders, they've been around a long time, right? They're the old people. And he's saying, you elders, give ear, all inhabitants of the land. Has such a thing happened in your days or in the days of your fathers? So even the old people's parents have never seen something like this. And it was so devastating and so amazing that they need to tell their children and their children's children. So for generations, this thing that we're about to read about, nothing has happened like it. Verse 4.

14:56What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust. Has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten. What the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. So, what is the plague? Locusts, right? Locusts have come and they have completely destroyed all their crops. And some people think those are maybe different species of locusts or something, or some people think that they're different growth stages of the locusts, like the younger locusts, they get what the other locusts leave behind, something like that. But the picture is clear in the verse, right? That there's like nothing left. A bunch of locusts came through, and if there was anything left, the other locust ate it. Okay, so these locusts have come, and nothing has happened like this in generations for them.

15:52A few weeks ago, this is in the February 1st newspaper that came to our house, there is an article about this very thing: a desert locust plague. Have you guys seen this in the news? And on the continent of Africa, a desert locust plague threatens millions. So this still happens today. Locusts are still around, and they still can cripple economies and hurt whole countries. Listen to this. The time-tested method of repelling locusts from crops in East Africa is to bang on a metal bucket and win. Loudly.

16:32When swarms afflict five countries and swell to the size of Moscow, more drastic measures are needed. These are five countries in Eastern Africa that have had these terrible, terrible swarms of locusts for coming almost on a month now. These swarms of locusts are still there. Swarms potentially containing hundreds of millions of insects, each can travel over 90 miles in a day. A swarm the size of Manhattan can consume as much food in a day as the population of the New York tri-state area.

17:13Some 8.4 million people in Ethiopia alone, that's just one of the countries, 8.4 million people might need food aid because of the crop losses from the locusts. And then it's going to talk about how we're combating them. Hopefully, this isn't boring to you. This is kind of exciting, right? How do we fight the locusts today? They're not being very successful right now. Humans aren't. The locusts are being very successful. The humans are, it says this: aerial spraying is the only effective method to reduce locust numbers, according to the UN, which said it needed more than 70 million from donors to address the crisis. It's a lot of money, right? So locusts are still very serious. Even in today's world, they can really. Hurt economies, cripple the crop supplies.

18:04A major locust outbreak between 2003 and 2005 cost nearly $600 million to control. Okay, so that was about a month ago that that article came through. That was in five countries in Africa. But this week, I checked the headlines again, and it was a little harder to find. But the swarms, they're still there. And besides just being there, they've left Africa and have expanded now all the way over to China. Locust plague. This is from a journal in the UK. Locust plague reaches coronavirus hit China after wreaking havoc across Africa. Billions of insects.

18:52The Communist Party of China has tried to downplay the severity of the swarms reaching the country. They claim that their modern technology will prevent any widespread damage. But experts disagree. They think that it's going to hurt China, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam. So all of these countries, it's already wiped out the whole eastern side of Africa. Now it's all the way going over to China. They don't know what to do. I looked up a headline. I looked it up again last night just to get the latest. And I saw an article that said, China has dispatched. An army of 100,000 ducks to fight the locusts. That's a true headline. So I guess that's part of their modern technology that they're using to fight the locusts. But this is a global thing. This swarm of locusts, they can't stop them. They're flying airplanes, they're dropping pesticides over the swarms, and they can't stop it. They're unleashing the ducks to fight against them as well. But these swarms are all over Africa, all the way to China. And it's a scary thing. And so imagine being in little tiny Israel during the time in Joel's day, and a locust invasion like that comes across the country and eats all of your crops.

20:20Not just the ones you need to survive, the grain, but also the ones that are for enjoyment, the grapes and the wine, the oil. They're going to start lamenting. And as we go through Joel 1, you'll see different groups of people that Joel is speaking to to say, awake, pay attention. This is really bad. Lament. Verse 5 of Joel 1: Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number. Its teeth are lion's teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it down. Their branches are made white. So it's not just the fruit of these plants. Even the tree's bark has been split off because these locusts are so devastating. They're eating everything. Verse 8: Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. So that's the first call to lament. Joel is saying, picture how sad a wife would be if her newlywed husband just died. And he's saying, be sad like that. This is serious. These locusts have come. This is a warning to us about our sin. Verse 9, the grain offering and the drink offering are cut off. If the locusts ate all the grain and they ate all the grapes, then you're not going to have the grain and the drink offering to give to the Lord. They're cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn and the ministers of the Lord. The fields are destroyed. The ground mourns because the grain is destroyed. The wine dries up. The oil languishes. Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil. Wail, O vine dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because of the harvest of the field has perished. The vine dries up, the fig tree languishes, pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up. Gladness dries up from the children of men. So, all of these different kinds of plants, everything they enjoy, totally gone, and with it, the gladness of men is dried up as well. Verse 13: Put on sackcloth and lament, O priests, wail, O ministers of the altar. Go in, pass the night in sackcloth, O ministers of my God, because a grain offering and the drink offering are withheld from the house of your God. Consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly. Let's stop right there for just a second. So, he's saying, You need to take this seriously, lament, pay attention. These locusts have come, and we know from Deuteronomy 28, from 2 Chronicles 7, we know that when locusts come, that is a curse for disobedience from the Lord. That's part of Israel's covenant with the Lord. I think Joel, the word of the Lord through Joel, is recognizing that fact and saying, pay attention. This is a very bad thing, and it's showing that the people are under a curse from the Lord. It's not just a coincidence. We need to repent. And so, he says, Consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly. Get everybody together. Let's all, the whole nation, let's pay attention to this and take it seriously. Gather the elders and all. The inhabitants of the land, that's everybody, to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. Alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.

24:17Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? So, do you see what he's saying there? These locusts have come, they've invaded, and he's paying attention. Verse 15, and he says, Alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the almighty it comes. Is not the food cut off before our eyes, joy and gladness from the house of our God? He's saying, Aren't you paying attention? We've got to get this message. The day of the Lord is next. It's about to get a lot worse if we don't repent. So call the solemn assembly. Pay attention.

25:00Verse 17. The seed shrivels under the clods. The storehouses are desolate. The granaries are torn down because the grain has dried up. How the beasts groan. The herds of cattle are perplexed because there's no pasture for them. Even the flocks of sheep suffer. To you, O Lord, I call. This is Joel's prayer to the Lord. To you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all. All the trees of the field, even the beasts of the field, pant for you, because the water brooks are dried up, the fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. So you get this bleak picture. And Joel's call is for the people to respond immediately. Just like God told Solomon: when these locusts come, when it's a drought, or locust, or disease, have the people repent, and I will restore them. I think Joel sees these locusts come, and it's one, an invasion like even the old people's parents had never seen. And they're supposed to tell their children and their children's children. This is a big deal. And Joel sees it and says, we must be being disobedient. This must be a curse from the Lord. Get an assembly together. Chapter 2, blow a trumpet in Zion. Sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. It is near. Okay, so do you see how this is working in Joel's mind or in the word of the Lord through Joel? Do you see what God is warning his people about? Is that these locusts have come, therefore, the day of the Lord is near. We need to repent or it's about to get a lot worse. Chapter 2. I mean, verse 2 of chapter 2.

27:00Of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Like blackness, there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people. Their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. Okay, so in chapter two, we start to get into a little bit of confusion. And if you've read different authors on the book of Joel, or if you've read a couple different study Bibles on the book of Joel, some might take chapter two to be talking about an army army, like a human army that's coming and swarming upon the land, or it might be a future locust invasion. Those are kind of our two big options. It's a little confusing because in chapter one, he's talked about these locusts and said that they are like an army. And I think that's what he's doing in chapter two as well. I think he's comparing, he said, these locusts that have come have been terrible. We've never seen anything like it. But if we don't repent, it's about to get way worse. Because in the day of the Lord, in the day of destruction, there's going to be a locust invasion that surpasses anything we could even imagine. A day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Like blackness, there spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people. Their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. Fire does. Devours before them, behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness, and nothing escapes them. So, this army of locusts marching forward, even when everything is the Garden of Eden in front of them, perfectly fertile and beautiful, after they pass through, it looks like a desolate wilderness. Nothing escapes them. Verse 4. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like war horses they run. As with the rumbling of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire, devouring the stubble, like a powerful army drawn up for battle.

29:08Before them, the peoples are in anguish. All faces grow pale. Like warriors, they charge. Like soldiers, they scale the wall. They march each on his way. They do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another. Do you remember that proverb? There's a proverb about locusts that they're one of the exceedingly wise creatures. And it's because they march in rank without a commander. And you get that same idea here. Before them, peoples are in anguish. All faces grow pale. Like warriors, they charge. Like soldiers, they scale the wall. They march each on his way. They do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another. Each marches in his path. They burst through the weapons and are not halted. They leap upon the city. They run upon the walls. They climb up into the houses. They enter through the windows. Like a thief. The earth quakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great. He who executes his word is powerful, for the day of the Lord is great and very awesome. Who can endure it? Okay, so the prophet Doel has seen these locusts, and he's telling everybody, you pay attention and wake up. This is from the Lord. And if we don't repent, it's about to get a lot worse.

30:36When the day of the Lord comes, it's going to be beyond what we can imagine. He's going to talk about it more in chapter 3. But when the day of the Lord comes, it's going to be even more devastating. So let's repent now so that that day of the Lord doesn't come on us. Verse 12. Yet, even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments.

31:14Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave behind, leave a blessed. Behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. Joel is calling the people. This says, declares the Lord. God is calling his people and saying, even now. Yes, this destruction has begun, but just like I told to Solomon, repent now, and you'll be blessed, and the destruction will stop. Return to me. Joel is kind of unique because we don't really know all the sins. You know, the young adults are studying Ezekiel right now, and usually in Ezekiel, he gives like eight specific sins, the reason why these judgments are coming. In Joel, we don't really get that kind of thing. All we hear about in Joel is that these locusts have come, and it must mean they're doing something wrong. The prophet is crying out for them to repent immediately, get serious about it, and return to the Lord. We don't really know all that they were doing, but he's saying, even now, return to me. Even though this destruction has begun, return to me now. Verse 13, rend your hearts and not your garments. Remember in mourning, they used to rip their garments as a way of showing mourning. And Joel, the Lord, is saying, don't just do that to your garments. Do that to your hearts. Rip open your hearts.

32:57Return to the Lord, for he is great. Gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love, and he relents over disaster. Remember, most of that is from that name, the name of the Lord, that he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love. In Exodus, we read that. But then he also says, and he relents over disaster. This is who he is. When we return, he forgives. He is merciful. He's told us that's who he is. And he'll relent over this disaster. That's what he does. If you repent now, yes, the locusts were bad, but it's about to get a lot worse if you don't repent. The day of the Lord is near. So repent now. Verse 14, who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God. I think he's saying, repent now so that there's at least a little bit of crops left, so that he'll call off these locusts and we won't be totally wiped out. He'll leave a blessing behind him. Verse 15, blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly. He's telling them again, get together. And in case you didn't think it was everybody, look at who he tells to invite. Gather the people. Consecrate the congregation. Assemble the elders. So the elderly, it's not just the young and healthy that need to come to this meeting. The elders. Need to come. Everybody needs to come. The children need to come. Even nursing infants need to come. This is everybody, the whole nation. And unless you thought you had a good excuse, let the bridegroom leave his room in the bride her chamber. Okay, so even the person that just got married, he thinks he has an excuse not to come and join the assembly to come and repent as a people. He's saying, no, everybody, the old, the infants, even the bridegroom and the bride, leave the chamber and come. Verse 17, between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say, among the peoples, where is their God? Do you remember in the warnings that they were receiving from the Lord, the blessings for obedience and the curses for disobedience, he said that this pestilence and these locusts will come. Then he said that they will be taken into captivity and that the nations will see and they'll point at them and ask questions about why their God isn't saving them. And the answer will be it's because they forsook their God and they worshiped idols. And here it seems like he's saying, Pray now, pray in the middle of verse 17, spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, where is their God?

36:15So that's what's next. They are going to be this proverb, this byword, like those other passages talked about. And so he's saying, get everyone together, pray now, and pray to God to spare us so that we won't be that proverb and that by word. Let the locusts be enough. Verse 18. Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people. The Lord answered and said to his people, Behold, I am sending to you grain and wine and oil, and you will be satisfied. And I will no more make you a reproach among the nations.

37:06I will remove the northerner far from you and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his vanguard into the eastern sea, and his rearguard into the western sea. The stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. Fear not, O land. Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things. So let's pause for a moment. Just a second, back in verse 20. That could either still be talking about the locusts, and God is saying, Now that you've repented, I'm going to remove the locusts. He's already implied that by saying, I'm going to bring all your crops back and bless you. You did the right thing to come and repent immediately. God has heard, and he has relented, and he has had mercy, and he's going to bring their crops back. In verse 20, I think he's talking about the locusts. He's saying, I'm going to take them away. Other people think he's talking about maybe a northern army, an actual army, that maybe was coming to attack them. And God's saying, I'm not going to let them take you captive, which would have been the next step. Okay?

38:13But I think at the end of verse 20, the stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. I think that's the locusts, they're going to be smelly, but they're going to be gone. And they've done a lot. They've done great things. Verse 21: Fear not, O land, and be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things. Fear not, you beast of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green. The tree bears its fruit. The fig tree and the vine give their full yield. Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication. He has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain, as before.

38:58So apparently, it had also stopped raining. There was also drought, and he's saying, once the locusts leave, after they've prayed, he gets rid of the locust, but he's also bringing back the rains, as it was before. Verse 24, the threshing floor shall be full of grain, its vats shall overflow with wine and oil. I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you, and my people shall never be put to shame. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and there is none else, and my people shall never be put to shame.

39:50We read that last part quickly because we're running out of time, and maybe we can revisit it next week. But the Lord has responded to their prayer. They've seen once in a lifetime locust invasion, and they get the message right away. The prophet Joel calls out to them and says, We need to repent. It was only a hundred years ago that Solomon said this kind of thing could happen, that the Lord told Solomon and told him to repent, and God will relent. So now it's happening, and it's happening right before their eyes, and they do repent implied. Because the Lord says, I have heard that repentance, and I will relent. And I'm going to restore to you everything that the locust has taken, and I'm going to give it back.

40:43That is in verse 27. That's where chapter 2 ends in Hebrew. And so we're going to stop there. But by way of application, one thing that I wanted us to see tonight, number one, is just the reliance that we can have on God's Word. That God said in Deuteronomy 28 and in 2 Chronicles 7, I know I've said that a million times tonight, but God said in those places, when you see these things, repent, pray to me, and I'll answer.

41:18And of course, you never really see that in action until it has to happen, right? And in this generation, they had a chance to put that into action. And God called them to repent, and they trusted that he would relent. And he did. They prayed, he did relent, and they didn't go into captivity. That wouldn't be for another 400 years, three or four hundred years. And so we can rely on God's Word. When He says we can come to Him and find mercy and find forgiveness, we can rely on His Word. Another application. It's just that attitude in chapter 2, verse 12 and 13. Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. And he relents over disaster. Now, God had not set up this covenant with us in college station that, you know, if Emmanuel Baptist Church isn't doing the right thing, he's going to send locusts to our property so that we have a warning and we know we need to repent before he does something else. It's not how it works with us, right? He hasn't given us that covenant. But he had to Israel. And this was a sign that they needed to repent. And God is calling them to repentance. So even though we don't have that same exact covenant, we do still have sin, right? Some of you I know, even this week, have committed sins that you are very ashamed of.

43:13And you think to yourself, will God ever relent towards me? Why would God ever even put up with me? I've committed this sin again and again and again, and it's disgusting. I've done these wrong things that I know are wrong before. Him. How could he ever forgive me? And I think that the Lord's answer is that he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love. That's who he is. And so even you who are struggling with those sins, return to the Lord even today. Rend your hearts.

43:57Be broken over your sin and return to him. Ask for forgiveness. And just like he did in Joel's day, he kept his promise to forgive them. He immediately relented and restored them. And though we don't have that same covenant, we do have promises ourselves for forgiveness, like the one John read today, right? That if we come and confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us. So let's rely on that promise, just like they were relying on the promise. Let's come to the Lord and rend our hearts.

44:37Let's repent and ask for forgiveness, and he will be faithful. For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love. Let's pray. Father, locusts. Seem like something that's far away in time and far away in the globe. It seems like it has nothing to do with us. But it was a sign that you told your people beforehand that it was a curse for their disobedience and that they needed to repent. And in this passage today, we see them put that into action.

45:32That they come to you and repent, and immediately you kept your word to them and forgave them and restored them. And so, Father, I pray that we also would rely on your word, trust you when you make your promises to us in your word, that we also can come to you and find forgiveness. And I pray, Lord, for any of those in this room that are fed up with their sin, that are convicted recently about their sin.

46:15I pray that any that feel unforgivable because of their sin, I pray, Lord, that you would cause them to realize that they can come to you. you and rend their hearts, repent and find favor and mercy and grace because that's your character. Thank you, Father, for the book of Joel. Thank you for always keeping your promises to us. And thank you for being so merciful and gracious and kind toward us. In Jesus' name, amen.