This summer we’re in a series on the Minor Prophets. The Minor Prophets are a set of books most people skip right over in the Bible. They’re not called minor because they are unimportant but because they are short books. Joel’s book is second in the Minor Prophets and one of the earliest recorded prophets. Joel lived and prophesied early in Israel’s history. Joel was written during a time when there were a lot of things going wrong with their nation. Despite all the problems they’re experiencing, Joel writes to help God’s people understand their real problem.
We can often feel like so many things are going wrong, when it’s only one thing that’s wrong. God often uses disruption to awaken spiritually indifferent people, and that’s exactly what is happening here in the book of Joel.
Joel 1:1-13 (ESV)
“The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: 2 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? 3 Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation. 4 What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. 5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep, and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because of the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. 6 For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. 7 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. 8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth. 9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourn, the ministers of the Lord. 10 The fields are destroyed, the ground mourns, because the grain is destroyed, the wine dries up, the oil languishes. 11 Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil; wail, O vinedressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. 12 The vine dries up; the fig tree languishes. Pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field are dried up, and gladness dries up from the children of man.”
God has brought divine judgment on His people because of the nation's spiritual apathy and sin. The book begins with a plague of locusts. This locust plague had devastated everything so much that God’s judgment was impossible to ignore.
1. God’s Judgment Is Impossible to Ignore. (1:2-4, 6-7)
Judgment is impossible to ignore. Because of their complacency in following God and their apathy toward their sin, they brought this judgment on themselves. The plague completely devastated the nation's agriculture, resulting in economic ruin that even had an immediate spiritual consequence: the people could no longer offer grain and drink offerings at the Temple.
Verse 4 helps us picture the devastation: “What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.” The devastation was so great that God calls multiple generations to remember it. (vv. 2-3) God’s judgment is impossible to ignore, and God uses this plague to expose their apathy and sin.
The plague is both symbolic and practical in nature. It’s symbolic, in that it functions as an illustration of their sin. It’s also practical, in that it functions as a warning of God’s future judgment on sin. Like the locust plague, the power of sin in our lives is totally devastating.
No matter how big or small we think a sin is, it gradually destroys everything in its path, starting subtly and progressing to totally visible devastation when unchecked. However, the laws God gave us bring life. His rule in our life as we follow His commandments leads us to flourishing. (cf. Jn 10:10) As we live life in the Spirit, we experience a deeper relationship with God that brings joy and peace throughout all of life’s circumstances.
Sin, on the other hand, destroys and brings chaos. The temporary thrill and satisfaction that sin falsely gives as substance quickly vanishes and leaves us devastated. This locust plague in the book of Joel is a picture of what sin does in our lives. We also see the practical warning it brings from God about His coming judgments. Joel says that if God’s people don’t wake up, God is sending a devastating army into Israel like a horde of locusts.
Joel talks about them in verses 6-7: “. . . a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions' teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness. 7 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.” Chapter 2 says that everything in front of them is like the Garden of Eden, but behind them is a desolate wilderness. (cf. 2:3) If they don’t repent and turn back to God, there will be another physical execution of God’s immediate judgment they can’t ignore. It’s a practical warning in that sense.
There’s another judgment that’s coming: the Day of the Lord. On that day, all those who have trusted and followed Jesus will be separated from those who did not. There are no second chances once we die; that decision needs to be made before we pass away or before the Lord returns. On that day, those who have not trusted Jesus will be separated from God into Hell.
A lot of so-called Christians today want to say that Hell is not real. It doesn’t feel good to say that people will suffer for eternity in the reality of Hell. Reality isn’t based on our feelings. Reality is determined by God’s Word. The reality of an eternal reward necessitates the reality of an eternal non-reward. Because of the reality of Hell, we should be motivated to share the gospel with those we encounter every day.
Jesus himself describes Hell throughout His time walking the earth. He talked about the “worm that does not die, and the fire [that] is not quenched”. (cf. Mk 9:48) This warns of the decay and anguish of sin that persists without end in Hell. He spoke of “outer darkness”. (cf. Mt 8:12; 22:13; 25:30) This represents the total absence of God’s presence, love, and light. His references to “Gnashing of teeth” (cf. Mt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30) represent the anguish of final judgment and the self-condemnation and self-loathing that results from that. God’s judgment is always fair and just.
Like the locust plague — Hell is self-inflicted. God doesn’t send anyone to Hell. Hell is the result of us telling God to get out of our lives. C.S. Lewis said it this way in his book The Great Divorce: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done." All those who find themselves in Hell will have chosen it for themselves.
God doesn’t destroy; sin destroys. As we begin to understand that truth, we begin to understand our earthly experiences of God’s judgment as expressions of God’s grace and mercy. God is letting us see where our sin is taking us before it’s too late.
Maybe it seems the “locusts” are eating away at every part of your life. You’re struggling financially and trying to save money, but God keeps allowing things to break down. Your marriage is struggling, and you’re working on things, but each day brings another area of conflict between you and your spouse. You keep trying new strategies to get happy, but it always feels fleeting and short-lived. If you must spend money to find happiness, that means nothing is solid on the inside. If you’re constantly having to escape from real life to be happy, that means something is rotten on the inside. God is trying to get your attention! There’s nothing we can come up with to fix things because the root issue is in our heart.
God will bring you to the end of yourself to bring you to your senses. God refines us through the fire. Not in a way of burning us but burning away what isn’t us. When God makes us a new creation in Him through Christ, He tears away the old self. We shouldn’t be surprised when the world we have built for ourselves crumbles. God doesn’t just want us to polish up the old; He wants to make you a new person. We must live and rest in Him. The mercy of judgment we experience in that process is something we can’t ignore. God has more for us than we have for ourselves. That’s why He allows the locusts to get our attention in ways we can’t ignore.
2. Our Personal Sin Affects Everyone. (vv. 1:5, 9, 11)
One of the greatest lies we can believe is that our sin only affects us. Joel reminds God’s people that sin is never private. While forgiveness is personal, the consequences of sin often spread far beyond the individual.
Notice how Joel addresses different groups of people. He doesn't speak only to leaders or priests. He calls out nearly every segment of society because everyone is experiencing the consequences of the nation's spiritual condition.
First, he calls the drunkards and drinkers of wine, talking to those whose source of pleasure has disappeared because the vineyards have been destroyed (v. 5). Next, he speaks to the farmers because their livelihoods have collapsed. (vv. 11-12) Then Joel turns to those trying to worship God because temple worship has been interrupted without grain or drink offerings to present before the Lord. (vv. 9, 13) Everyone has been affected by everyone’s sin.
National sin produces widespread consequences. God was using this crisis to reveal that the nation had wandered from Him. Throughout the Old Testament, God repeatedly warned His people that covenant disobedience would eventually affect the land itself. The circumstances were evidence that God's covenant discipline had come upon His people. When a nation rejects God, the effects ripple through every layer of society. No one escapes untouched because sin and spiritual decline are never isolated.
Sin never stays confined. A father's spiritual apathy affects his children. A mother's compromise influences her family. An unfaithful church leader damages the testimony of an entire congregation. One believer living in rebellion can discourage others and weaken the church's witness. Paul reminds us of this in 1 Corinthians that 'a little leaven leavens the whole lump.' (cf. 1 Cor 5:6) Sin, along with its consequences and influence, spreads. However, the opposite is also true. Faithfulness, repentance, and Godly leadership spread. Holiness has influence just as compromise has influence.
Families feel the effects of spiritual apathy when prayer and Scripture are neglected and disappear from the home. Our entire family suffers, from the children to our spouse. Future generations often inherit what the present generation tolerates. We set ourselves on a bad trajectory when we tolerate any sin, no matter how big or small.
Churches feel the effects of spiritual apathy when believers stop pursuing holiness and worship becomes routine. When sin is excused instead of confessed, the entire body becomes weaker. Every member contributes either to the health or the sickness of the church. Our personal sin affects the entire church.
Our communities feel the effects. A society that abandons God's truth should not be surprised when confusion, brokenness, injustice, and despair increase. Joel reminds us that spiritual decline eventually becomes visible in every area of life.
We must examine our own hearts. Not because we think every hardship is direct punishment for a specific sin, but because we understand that how we live our life affects others. Persistent compromise never remains private. As believers, we pursue holiness not just for our own benefit but because we belong to one another as the body of Christ. That is why our vision statement includes connecting people to Christ’s followers. It is so important for us to live in fellowship with one another and welcome admonishment from our brothers and sisters in Christ. Often, we are blind to our sin, and mutual accountability helps us recognize what we need to get right with God. Our families, our church, and our communities benefit when we walk with God and pursue holiness. We must repent of our sin and work to do the next right thing in following God with each new step.
3. God Desires Repentance, Not Ruin. (2:12-13)
Joel 2:12-13 (ESV)…
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 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.”
The kind of repentance God is calling for grows out of His love for us. He says, “. . . return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; 13 and rend (or tear) your hearts and not your garments.” This is repentance that comes from a heart that is broken over what our sin did to God and not an ‘I’m sorry I got caught’ attitude. It’s only repentance when we are broken over our sin and not just feeling bad that we messed up. True brokenness and repentance result in action of doing the next right thing in following God.
Usually what bothers us about our sin is that it caused some uncomfortable circumstances or made us feel guilty. It’s then that our resolution to move forward is short-lived. When our hearts are broken, though, over how we have hurt God and driven His presence from our lives, our repentance changes us and our actions. The reason some of us don’t truly repent is that we don’t really love and follow God. Truly loving God is what drives the fasting, weeping, and mourning God calls for.
Christians fasting is not an attempt to earn God’s favor, but an expression of longing for the God who has given us His favor through Jesus. It’s an expression that we long for God’s presence in our life. In fasting we say, “God, I need Your power in my life, and I am heartbroken that I don’t have it.” We want more than anything to see God working in us and through us. God’s presence and power flow through a repentance that grows out of love for Him.
In the book of Hosea we also see who God is and how He loves us despite our undeserving selves. He comes to us faithfully again and again! Joel says it himself in here in verse 13 of Joel 2: “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.” Return to the Lord because of who He is. When we begin to rightly grasp the love He has for us, we begin to love God more. As we love Him more, we begin to repent and follow Him as we should. Everything in the believer’s life grows out of our knowledge and understanding of God and His love. You can only learn to repent of your sin the more you immerse yourself in the free and gracious love of God.
The reason God sent the plague was not to destroy the nation, but to drive them to sincere repentance. God explicitly tells the people through Joel: "Rend your heart and not your garments." Once the people and the priests fasted, wept, and genuinely turned back to God, the plague served its purpose. God immediately promised to restore the land, drive away the army, and multiply their harvests to make up for the years the locusts had eaten.
This is a warning to us. Where is God trying to get your attention? Is there something in your life you can’t ignore? Something you have been asking God to take away that maybe He is instead trying to send a warning through? Crisis often reveals where trust has been placed. We must put our full trust in God. And He may be working to get your attention. Don’t try to ignore it, because our sin affects everyone, and God wants us to return to Him through repentance.
