A Study in the Minor Prophets - Joel

And you can be seated in the name of the Lord. Um my uh assignment is the book of Joel. Um, and only three short chapters, not a whole lot. Uh, really when you when you read it, you can read it in probably an hour, less than an hour. I think I read it six or seven times through, uh, in studying for this lesson. But, uh, we're going to we're going to dive right in. I I had a clever title. I was going to title it, what bugs Joel.

Canker worms, Palmer worms, locusts, and caterpillars. They all bug Joel. And so, um, we want to dive in from Joel the first chapter, verse one. The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pthuuel. Hear this, ye old men, and give ear all ye inhabitants of the land. had this been in your days or even in the days of your fathers. Now, what he just said was, "You've never seen anything like this before. This has never happened. You've never seen anything like this.

Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation." This story, according to Joel, this is going to live on for generations. So, um it is an unusual occurrence. Verse four says, "That which the palmer worm hath left hath the locust eaten, and that which the locust hath left, hath the cankerworm eaten, and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten." And so we are introduced to this prophet by the name of Joel. The prophets of God were very unique in that they were not professionals for the most part.

Amos was a herdman of Takcoa and they were just they were just uh everyday people. And what what uh amazes me many times is the fact that they were once and done. Just I got a message for you and then I'm going back to the house. I I got to I got to tell you what God said and and I'm getting back home. I got to I got farming to do. I got I got stuff to take care of and I'm going back home. They went back to everyday life.

Imagine the minefield if the a prophet was your neighbor. Imagine the minefield of choosing the correct words to uh to initiate a conversation with this man who had just said, "Thus sayaeth the word of the Lord." and he gave this message and and now he comes back and he's just your neighbor over there. I mean, imagine, hey, Hosea, how's the wife and kids? Oh, wait. I haven't seen them for a while. Something going on there? Yeah. Hey, Jonah, we're going fishing. He just glares back and you don't understand why.

And you never ask a prophet, "What's the good word?" They just stare at you because normally they don't have good words. They got words that are going to be upsetting when they begin to speak them. And never ask Joel what's bugging you because he just told us what was bugging him. And uh they these prophets were enforcers of the covenant. They were men that when they showed up, it was time for a course correction. You were you were already at a a low point. You knew that when a prophet came on the scene that you were in too deep to get out.

Something was about to happen when a prophet showed up. Panel one. I I used to have a little placard that I put on my desk. If we can go to that that panel. This would be my message to the prophets normally. Well, aren't you a little ray of pitch black because they had nothing good normally to say and uh and prophecies often came without any explanation. They just they unfiltered prophecy. They they said what they had to say and many times they just turn around and walk away and they didn't explain what they were saying because many times they didn't understand it themselves.

They didn't know. They were just given this word of God and and they they gave these prophecies without explanation saturated with all kinds of images and symbols. You ever read Ezekiel? all things weird and wonderful. I mean, he saw all kinds of stuff. You would have thought, "What are you smoking, man?" With the stuff that he was looking at and it comes without explanation, these images and these symbols that that the prophets got and revelations that were mysteries to the recipients until time would unfold and bring the understanding and then they would go, "Aha, now I know what you were talking about.

Now, I know what that prophet meant. Joel's prophecies took place. And this is kind of an obscure um and and mysterious book because they they really can't pinpoint much about Joel's and when he lived and and when his prophetic uh ministry took place, but they assume that it was sometime around 8:35 to 800 BC. So, about 800 years before Jesus came on the scene and Joash was the king. This was a time uh of the the divided kingdoms. Israel was the northern kingdom. The southern kingdom was Judah.

And Joash was a king in Judah. This was another story, another little squirrel we could chase if we wanted to do that. Joash, he was saved from his grandmother Athliah. She she killed all the royal seed that had descended from David. And uh except for this one, he was he was saved. this this boy called Joash. He was preserved in the temple and and this was that king and he began to reign when he was seven years old. Anybody got any seven year olds in here?

Can you imagine having your child sitting on a throne commanding? Oh, so this was the situation when when Joel uh he he stepped into his prophetic ministry and Joash, of course, he had grown up by this time. And uh when he grew up, he was heavily dependent upon a priest by the name of Jehoeda. As long as Jehoeda the priest, it says this in 2 Kings 12:2, and Jehoash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, all his days wherein Jehoeda the priest instructed him as long as he had the authority of Jehoeda over him, he did okay.

But when Jehoeda died, the wheels came off the bus. I mean, everything started to go south at that point. And uh and they left the house of the L. This is what Chronicles said. They left the house of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and serve groves and idols, and the wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this trespass. And yet he sends prophets to them. And Joel was one of those prophets that was sent to bring them again unto the Lord. and they testified against them, but they would not give ear.

Joash, this child king, was consenting to the death of Zachchariah, which was mentioned in the New Testament, who was Jehoeda's very son. And in 2 Chronicles 24, thus Joath the king remembered not the kindness which Jehoeda his father had done unto him, but slew his son. And when he died, he said, "The Lord look upon it and require it." So the context of of Joel's prophecy is not really specified. The dating, the timing, uh it there was no big event that we can point to and say this is why God sent this prophet to prophesy against Judah.

We're not given that context. But apparently this is in Israel's history. This is their uh their their modus operandi. They this is what they do was they they started chasing other gods. They started following after other gods. And apparently this happened in under Joash's reign. And Israel had once again misinterpreted the very first commandment that says, "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me." They continually disregarded the first commandment.

They set it aside. And and when they read this commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me, they did what many of us do. They took it quite literally. Okay, I can have other gods as long as they're not before him. And this is what they did. They they they didn't forget Jehovah. They didn't abandon Jehovah. He was just among the other gods that they served. He was just one of the gods among gods. Instead of being the very first place, he was just among the god.

It wasn't a complete abandonment of Jehovah, but it was diversity, equity, and inclusion. I'm being politically correct right now. They wanted to they wanted to accommodate everybody including Jehovah. And from the time of the conquests of Canaan, the influence of others constantly pulled at Israel and pulled them away from the very first command of Jehovah God. And that was simply you are not to have any god before me. And it didn't mean literally. It meant you are not to have any god. They loved god. But along with asher and the groves and the idols that they served, he was just another god.

And it seemed to be the besetting sin of the nation. Instead of keeping the first commandment pure, reserving worship exclusively for Jehovah, he was simply taking a place among other gods. And so Judah, Joel comes and he prophesies to this kingdom of Judah. Judah was undergoing a correction, a chastening. Now, God uses natural disasters to get our attention. Sometimes he gives us these natural disasters. And I think I I I've referred to this in prayer meeting the other day, the prophecy that Daniel Scott gave in December before the COVID epidemic that said, "This is what I'm going to do." which we obviously didn't hear about until after the COVID ep epidemic had begun.

And uh but but God uses things like that to get our attention. And it's for a purpose. It's for a time of self-examination, a time of repentance if that's necessary. And so when Joel begins to present his message to the kingdom of Judah, he speaks for the for the God that they have literally placed among other gods. And when God speaks through Joel, he says he refers to the all of these locusts, this plague. Obviously, they had endured a plague of locusts at some point. and they knew what he was talking about.

But God referred to these these plague of locusts as my great army. This was his great army that he sent. It wasn't just another thing. So the imagery of Joel, we read it in your hearing. The palmer worm, it means the nar, the locust, the multiplier, the cankerworm, the liquor, and uh the caterpillar, which is the devourer. All of these are stages in the development of the locust. And it speaks of utterly cleaning your plate. God says, "I'm going to send these among you and they are going to utterly and completely devastate everything that you hold dear, everything.

Your economy." Listen, uh there there's a panel I want to show you about locusts. They they are grasshopper like insects. They are vegetarians. And the next panel shows a locust swarm. Now, this is a small one. So, the when when God speaks of a plague of locusts, it the metaphor of devouring insects and describing them as an army. largest swarms of locust that I could find as I researched this in the modern era that were recorded. In 1874 in the United States and Canada, there was a swarm of locust that devoured and swept over 2 million square miles, over 12 and a half billion locusts.

They estimate it said that they were so thick that for 6 hours they blotted out the very sunlight when they swarmed. In 1954 in the Sahara region of Africa there there was a another locust swarm they estimate to be about 12 billion locusts that stretched for 772 square miles. just covered everything for 772 square miles traveling at a speed of 93 m per day and estimated at 12 billion. Can you imagine the destruction that these insects would do to an agrarian society, to a society that is dependent upon not only their their grains that they grow, but the grains that are going to feed their livestock.

And so when the grain is gone, things begin to fall and and the domino uh effect begins to take place. And so for Joel to be speaking these words, they knew exactly what he was talking about. He was talking to people who were farmers and they were herdsmen and they took care of flocks and and so uh what these agrarian reference references were were for them very very graphic. Wheat and barley harvests were going to be lost. Dried vines so no grapes. Fig trees are sick.

He said the flocks and the herds are being punished and rivers have actually dried up. It wasn't only uh uh a swarm of locust, but now you've got drought conditions on top of all of that. And while all of these losses would have affected their physical lives, it had a devastating effect upon their religious life. When the grain's gone, no sacrifice. When the animals start to die, no sacrifice. When when these this plague came, it didn't just affect them physically. It affected their relationship with God.

It cut them off at the altar. the atonement offering, that one that was reserved for national sins on the great day of atonement, that would be unaffected. Listen, the sacrifice for sin is unaffected by anything that goes on in the world. It will remain. That sacrifice would be unaffected. But the flocks and the herds and the grain offerings and and and the drink offerings, their approach to God was being stripped away from them. And God was bringing them down to their lowest level, missing where he said, "The vineyards are going to dry up on you.

They're going to be eaten away from you." and and so the fig trees and the oil from the olive trees all of that dries up. Uh these locusts are going to devour everything in their path. So when when they approach God, they no longer have the grain offerings. They were thanksgiving offerings. They were peace offerings. They were they were vow offerings, offerings of consecration. So the flocks and the herds, everything was being stripped away from them and God was bringing them down for their national sin.

Everything. The things that I just spoke to you about represented joy. The wine and the oil represented the joy of the Lord that was among them that they I wish I had time, but I I'm just going to tell you I'll preach about this someday. The drink offering was joy. It was wine being poured over that the flesh of that sacrifice. Uh and and he said, "On every sacrifice that you make, I want you to pour what represents joy." You can rejoice over every sacrifice. It all dries up though when the locust swarm comes in.

The re the joy, the rejoicing, the oil that represents blessing, all Judah had left. Listen to me. When the blessing of the Lord is gone, the only thing we have left is a lurggical ritualistic form of religion. You can go through all the motions, but you're missing the element of the sacrifice. And this is what he was trying to bring to Judah's attention. In verse eight of chapter one, he says, "Lament like a virgin for the death of the husband of her youth. Cry and weep like a young widow because you have you are missing something.

You've lost something very important. I want you to lament like a virgin for the husband of you. grain and drink offerings were no longer offered according to verse 9 because the field he said in verse 10 is wasted, ravaged, and spoiled. Oh, hear the word of the Lord. And they're by this time they're they're saying, "I wish he would just shut up and go home." Amen. And so he he says it this way and they knew exactly what he was talking about in 115 of Joel.

He said, "Alas for the day for the day of the Lord is at hand. And as a destruction from the Almighty, it shall come." They were undergoing. They knew that the day of the Lord represented the wrath of God. And they were under the hand of God. And this day of the Lord is described in the beginning of chapter 2 says, "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand.

A day of darkness, listen to this. A day of darkness and glooiness. Uh, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the morning spread upon the mountains, and a great people, and a strong, there hath never ever been the like. Neither shall be anymore after it, even to the years of many generations. Oh, I would have hated to live in that day when I was hearing the words of this prophecy, that the day of the Lord is upon you. But I'm going to tell you that Joel takes a quantum leap forward and he crosses the centuries of time and says, "There's yet another day of the Lord that is going to come upon this world." The symbolism of the alarm trumpets being sounded was a wakeup call.

You don't need to be very astute to recognize what's going on in our world today. Wake up. Listen to the trumpet sounds because they are sounding an alarm that we are so close to the coming of Jesus Christ. We are in the last of the last days and the day of the Lord is going to come and it's going to descend like blackness and thick darkness upon this world. Wake up. We need to sound the alarm among the people of God. It's no time to get slack.

It's no time to relax. If we've got things that we have brought alongside God, it's time to push them out of the way and get back in relationship that God wants to have with us. Amen. It was a wakeup call. But the mercies of God, they're new every morning. The beauty of life. If you're sitting here tonight, I'm not even going to ask a stupid question like if you need the Holy Ghost. You need the Holy Ghost. That's not even a question. It's do you want the Holy Ghost?

That's the question. But we need to understand that the mercies of God are new every morning. Today can be a new beginning for anybody. The beauty of life is you can start right now and the mercies of God will be extended. And so amid all the the doom and gloom that Joel was prophesying about the mercies of God are going to be interjected into all of that. And one of the little things that I pulled, I asked God for for stuff, you know. I I need stuff.

I need something that will that will stick with me. I don't get it from AI. I told our prayer meeting group the other day, you know that Israel got defeated at AI because they thought they could handle it without God. They got defeated there. So, as Rex Johnson used to say, I go to the getting place. I went to God. I said, I I need you to give me something about this. And he said, he said, "Look at the order. Look at the order of those things.

Palmer worm, locust, cankerworm, caterpillar, caterpillar. Whoa. Caterpillar." The the the particular emphasis on caterpillar is that is that a caterpillar is another laral stage. But a caterpillar always represents a new creation, something new emerging from the devastation of the old. a caterpillar. In every case, whether it's lepodoptric, a butterfly, or like these locusts or cicatas, the the caterpillar is the last stage before something new emerges. So God says, even though you've endured all this, wait for the caterpillar because something when the caterpillar comes along, something's fixing to change.

There's going to be a new beginning. What emerges from the caterpillar is a new beginning. And while it sounds bad, the caterpillar represents the end of one thing and the beginning of something else. It represents the hope, the dissolution of the last of the destructive elements of God. It's that point where judgment turns to mercy and mercy turns ultimately to redemption. Ah, you're not hearing me. And the crowd goes mild. I wish you'd hear me tonight. He sends the caterpillar along last because something new is about to take place.

He said, "I got I got something new that I'm going to do." And he does in chapter 2 verse 25 of this same book. He says after all of this, "And I will restore to you." Woo! I will You're going through it right now. You're enduring the judgment. You're going through a rough time. But listen, THE MERCIES OF GOD are inexhaustible. You can't exhaust and frustrate the mercies of God. He said, "I will ultimately restore. I'll restore to you." Now, watch this. I'll restore to you the years.

Wait a minute. This locust plague didn't last for years. He said, "I'll restore to you the years that the locust has eaten, the cankerworm, the caterpillar, and pworm, my great army, which I sent among you." So, what's that mean? He said, "I'll restore to you the years." Now Joel takes a quantum leap again forward in time and he leaps across centuries because no no locust swarm lasted for years. They hadn't devoured for years. But the Lord says there's going to be years of this. And he's talking and using the imagery of something else because there is more years of devastation that they're facing.

There's going to be the Syrian invasion. There's going to be the Assyrians from the northwest that come in and capture and capture Israel. And then there's going to be the Babylonian. I'm talking about his mighty army. God sent these judgments to Israel. He's not just talking about locusts. Now, he's talking about years that you're going to spend in devastation because the empires of the world are going to trod on you. Syria, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, they're all going to trod you underfoot. But there's coming a time when I will restore everything that you've lost over the years.

There are different times appointed for, as we phrase it, when the worm turns. Butterflies can take a year to develop. Locust takes about four to six weeks to develop for the worm to turn into something else. Cicas can last from two to 17 years in development. So God's time is always perfect. You know that, right? So no matter no matter the time element involved, they were thinking now, but Joel is prophesying way ahead of them. He's talking about a time when you're going to be overrun and there's going to be years.

You're going to have to endure years. You're going to have to stay with it for years. But just keep on and hang on to the promise of Oh, I could preach this right now. Just hang on to the promise of God because no matter how long it takes God is true to his word and he will restore ultimately he's going to bring about what he said that he would do. Redemption always starts at the lowest level. Revival is always rooted in desperation. Always. The reason we don't see revival anymore than we do, we're not desperate enough.

Hello. I think the crowd went mild again. Redemption takes place at the lowest level of humanity and revival is always rooted in desperation. When we get desperate enough, he said, "If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray, seek my face, turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, then when they get desperate enough." And so it always begins with sorrow and weeping. There are two New Testament words, metamelomi and metaninoia, which is a more common word for repentance.

But metamelomi, we have kind of denigrated that word a little bit because it was used of Judah. But the fact is repentance begins with sorrow. Godly sorrow workketh repentance not to be repented of. Godly sorrow, metamelomi, remorse. We live in a society that they didn't even know they're sinners. They they have no clue that what they're doing is sin because most of the 8 billion people who populate this planet don't even think one time in a day about God. They have no concept of sin. And without a concept of sin, there can be no concept of salvation.

Remorse. I'm talking about people being sorry, having remorse for having offended the God of glory. This is what Joel is is calling for. And then it's followed by repentance, which means you have a change of heart. You have a change of mind. You stop doing what you're doing. Stop walking down this path that you're walking down and start walking a new path. But it begins with sorrow. And he said this in chapter 2 17 and 18. Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep, let them weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, "Spare thy people, O Lord, and give not thy inheritage to reproach that the heathen should rule over them.

Wherefore should they say uh among the people, where is their God?" Then will the Lord be jealous for his land and pity his people. He goes on to say, "Don't te don't tear your garments. Rende your hearts, not your garments. Don't put on an outward show that you're doing something. It's got to be an inward change. It's got to take place in the heart." Then Joel's prophecies turned toward an even more d distant horizon as he began to prophesy to generations extending into the last days all the way to the end of the age.

I love this verse. Joel 2:28. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Sound familiar? Your old men shall dream dreams. That's me. So if you see me sleeping, I'm just pursuing my dreams. Hallelujah. Your young men shall see visions. I want you to note carefully these these words. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. And and give me panel four up there. At Pentecost, at Pentecost, Peter announced when they said, "These men are drunk." He said, "They're not drunk like you suppose." Peter said this at Pentecost.

He said, he said, "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." And he quoted somewhat this verse. He said, "And on my servants and on my handmaidaidens will I pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy." Peter didn't have a clue what he was saying. He was stuck in a Jewish mindset that only saw the nation of Israel being saved. Am I telling the truth? That didn't change for nearly 10 years when he was up on a rooftop, right? When he was on that rooftop and and and the Lord spoke to him and he's arguing with God, God says, "You eat this." And he said, "No, I'm not going to.

I don't touch anything unclean. I'm a Jew." And so when he quoted Joel, he said, "On my servants and on my handmaidadens." thinking because the Jews were the servants and handmaidadens of God. Say with me, this is one of those aha moments that God gave me. Joel's prophecy give me the next panel said watch and also upon see the nuances of this that's not what what Peter said he said upon my servants that's not what Joel said Joel said also upon the servants and upon the handmmaids in those days.

You say, "Brother Cardinal, make some sense here. I'm I'm I'm trying." Okay, I'm trying. Joel stated something that was simply amazing that Simon Peter glossed over and didn't get. Joel was looking far beyond the Jewish nation here because because bonds slaves were never Jews. You could not among the Jewish people. You you didn't have any permanent Jewish slaves. Didn't happen. Bonds slaves and bondmaids shall be of the heathen that are round about you. And of them shall you buy bondmen and bond. You follow me? This wasn't about the Jews.

He's already talked to the Jews. He said, "Your young men are going to see visions. Your old men, your old men are going to see, but I'm going to extend this to a people who are totally not Jewish and they're totally undeserving." This prophecy pertained to the Gentiles and yet Peter tried to apply it to the Jews. This was amazing to me in itself that this was the farreaching promise of God. And that's why Peter has to postcript it's unto them who are a far off even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

He was still looking so narrowly at the Jewish nation. BUT WHAT GOD intended was, I'm looking into the faces of people that you are not the seed of Abraham by nature. You are not a naturalb born Jew for the most part. We're not. But we were Gentiles. We were the ones that were subject to bondage. We were the ones who were enslaved. And yet the promise of God as according to Joel came to us and it said upon the servants and the handmmaids I'm going to pour out my spirit.

I'll wrap it up. Looking further into the future, Joel talked about again the day of the Lord. He saw a time when national Israel would experience redemption and exaltation. God's not finished with Israel yet. And I know it it's it's not a godly people. I can tell you that. But one of the things that that Joel when he prophesied about this, he said God's going to execute judgment upon everybody that's come against Israel. You can read it in chapter three. God's going to bring all of those nations to the valley of Jehoshaphat.

And he said, "I'm going to judge all the heathen, everybody that's come against this nation." I I hear people jawing on the Jews, you know, getting down on and and practically every nation now has turned against the the nation of Israel. Can I tell you something? And don't don't you're going to have to study on this. Do some homework. It's not about the people. It's about the promise. And the promise was the land. The Lord said, "The land is mine." Generations come and generations go, but that land belongs to God, no matter who is inhabiting it at any given time.

That's why the rule in Israel was uh you do not sell this land at any price. If it's in your family, it stays in your family because it does not belong to you. This represents the promise of God. And in him are the promises of God. Yay. And in him they are amen. They are settled. God is going to bring the nations. He says he's going to put a hook in their jaw and he's going to draw them down into Israel and he's going to judge them in the valley of Jehoshaphat.

So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall be no strangers pass through her anymore. But Judah shall dwell forever and Jerusalem. Oh, hallelujah. God is going to do it, folks. Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will cleanse their blood that I have not. Don't Don't be jawing on the Jewish people. In in Paul's day, they made that mistake. He said, "Don't think that God's cast them off and he's going to forget them." Somewhere he's going to find 144,000 parthanoi, the virgins, and he's going to raise up a people, but he's going to judge the nations.

Let's stand together. He said, "I'm going to cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed, for the Lord dwelleth in Zion." Hallelujah. Let's just thank him because we we read these promises. We read these prophecies and we really should read them as promises of God because every word is true and will come to pass just like he said. Thank you Lord for the blessing of your word. I thank you for anointing and blessing it, breaking it and feeding us, oh God, and reassuring us that the promises that you have made, you will perform.

It will come to pass regardless of what political party is in power, regardless of what empire reigns, your word is true and you will bring to pass every single promise that you have ever made. And we thank you Lord. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen.