A Desolate Land
3/10/26 Bible Thought (Joel 1)
Main Idea: Sometimes God will bring hardships to wake His people up.
A Brief Backdrop:
The prophet Joel showed up on the scene of history at a time when Judah was suffering at the hands of a locust plague.
Outside of this and other literary clues, Joel’s ministry is incredibly hard to date. Scholars postulate anywhere between the eighth century to fifth century.[1] Unlike Hosea, Amos, and other prophets, Joel doesn’t link his ministry to any particular king in Israel or Judah. However, despite fuzzy details as regards the setting of the book, its teaching is nevertheless abundantly clear.
A Look at the Text:
Locusts overwhelmed the land, leaving it utterly desolate (Joel 1:4). The cutting locust. The swarming locust. The hopping locust. The destroying locust.
Whether these are to be understood as four different kinds of locust or four developmental stages, the results were the same—each took their turn and wrought destruction upon the people’s crops until there was no more.
In fact, things got so bad that the priests weren’t able to offer the regular grain and drink offerings in the temple, for there was nothing left to offer (Joel 1:9). The ground mourned (Joel 1:10). Gladness had dried up in the land (Joel 1:12). Even the beasts groaned and were perplexed (Joel 1:18).
To this, there was a call for the drunkard to awaken (Joel 1:5) and for the people to lament (Joel 1:8). The priests were to don sackcloth and call for a fast, a solemn assembly (Joel 1:13-14).
It was clear to the prophet that God had brought the locusts as judgment.
In fact, locusts were part of the covenantal curse in Deuteronomy if God’s people strayed from Him (Deut. 28:38). As such, their only hope was the mercy of God. It was to Him they called (Joel 1:14,19). He alone could reverse their fortunes. He alone could heal their land, for it was ultimately His hand that was against them.
Bringing it Home:
The Scripture is incredibly clear that God is the world’s true Sovereign, who rules and reigns and does as He pleases. Everything in the created order is subject to His will, even something as small as the locust. When God’s people strayed, God sent insects as His messengers to wake His people from their spiritual stupor.
Oftentimes, when life is going well, it can be easy to forget God. In the day of prosperity, people can treat church attendance more casually. They miss days or weeks of Bible reading, and their prayer-life is reduced to grace before meals at best.
To the spiritually sleepy, sometimes God will bring problems to awaken them and to draw them back to Himself. He will bring about hardship as a loving father disciplines their children (see Heb. 12:5-6).
This does not guarantee that every person facing problems has found themselves as the object of God’s displeasure. Certainly not. However, it shouldn’t be discounted if we have strayed from Him.
Let us then awaken. Let us mourn. Let us return to Him.
He is right where we left Him.
Challenge:
How faithful am I to God during the good times of life?
[1] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016).
During those good times it can certainly be easy to get complacent and forget about the urgency of obeying Him and sharing His Word. May we be consistent in all times of life!
Great message!!! I enjoyed the conciseness and clarity of the message. Thank you for writing this.✨