Hear this, you elders;
Joel 1:2-3
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,
and let your children tell their children,
and their children to another generation.
Not much is known about the prophet Joel, but as you’ll discover as we move through this short book, there are many familiar verses in these three chapters.
Joel’s message is one of repentance and the coming Day of the Lord and he begins by drawing a parallel with an especially devastating locust invasion in the land.
What the cutting locust left,
Joel 1: 4
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.
We can’t imagine an invasion of locusts here, but most of us have seen (at least on a news report) the impact of a hurricane or tornado on a particular location and if you’ve experienced such an event, you remember. It’s the kind of impactful event you pass on to your children. I’m sure my kids have heard me speak of the ’74 tornadoes my family experienced and how God protected us during the storm more than once.
The events of our lives have meaning if we will pay attention. Think about this quote –
Life is not merely a cycle of eating and drinking and getting money to do so. For behind all the commonplace things of life there is the controlling hand of the Spirit of God. Man needs to wake up to the fact that God is talking to him, that God has something to say to him. God wants to bless man but man will not listen. That is the problem.
Ray Stedman
According to Joel, the people of Israel needed a wake up call. Is it possible we need the same?
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