Submitted by Lara Cook
The prophet Joel was selected by God to convey the message of woe and
the need of repentance to the people of Judah:
Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their
children, and their children to another generation. 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. 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. 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. 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. Joel 1:3-7
Wow,
until I read these verses recently I had no idea that there was more than one
kind of locusts. What a nightmare for
the Children of Israel! Joel was a
prophet who was commissioned by God to warn them about what would happen if
they did not stop living in sin. Swarm after swarm, each one devouring what the
previous swarm had left behind. By the
time the fourth wave of locusts had gone through, there was absolute
desecration. Nothing left. Swarms of locusts were one of God’s ordinary
punishments for sin at that time and in that country. This is what sin does in our lives too. When we don’t heed the voice of the Holy
Spirit and turn from our sin back to Him, we might as well brace ourselves for
the swarm that is coming. The further we
go in our sin, the harder it is to recover.
The
good news is that in the middle of judgment, God shows His mercy. He goes
beyond saving us from our sin; and forgets we ever wronged Him, allowing us to come
to Him, and pouring His Spirit into our renewed lives. Not only does he stop the swarm, He restores
what they took.
When
we turn from our sin and back to God, He can clean out all that was destroyed
by the locusts in our lives. In the
verse below, He promises that He will restore what the locusts have taken
away. He will restore us after we turn
back to Him. We will be made whole and
new, refreshed and better than before.
He redeems what was lost.
We
are weak in sin, but strong in Christ. God
works everything together to for the good of those who love Him to restore what
sin has cost us. It does not matter what the “locust” have done to destroy your
life or the life of a prodigal you know; the Lord, through His mercy and grace,
is ready to redeem.
Scripture to Claim:
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. Joel 2:5
