August 24, Joel 1
Alas for the day! For the day of the LORD is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. - Joel 1:15
We know much more about Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and Hosea than we know about Joel. I mean the prophet himself, not the book that bears his name. His author's biography page is almost blank. We know his name, his father's name and that he received this word from the LORD. And that is all we know.
We can't connect him to any other Joel named in the Bible. We can't clearly define the time frame in which Joel lived and prophesied. Some internal clues may narrow it down to sometime between the ninth and sixth centuries before Christ came. But no one knows for sure. He reminds me of Paul, when he wrote, "For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord." Or as John the Baptist put it as he spoke about Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease." In the same way, Joel does not tell us very much about himself, but he does tell us a great deal about the Lord. (That in itself is a good lesson for self-righteous churches and boastful preachers.)
Yes, Joel wrote much about God himself. The words of the faithful prophet reach far beyond the circumstances and time in which he wrote them to remind us that our unchanging God is still the same. Joel gives us details that should heighten our sense of awe and deepen our love for our great and gracious God.
Chapter 1 describes a locust plague that devastated the land where God's people lived. The locust infestation and the accompanying drought wrecked their environment and brought famine. The abundance of locusts and the absence or rain were not natural, ordinary phenomena, but destruction from the Almighty himself. In Hebrew, the words for “destruction” and “Almighty” sound very much alike. There was no mistake: the terrible conditions of the land and people in Joel's day came from the hand of God. Joel called it "the day of the Lord." This is an example of how the prophets sometimes used that phrase to point to a specific judgment event in time that prefigured the future and final judgment.
The first chapter of this brief prophecy is dark. It describes a ruined landscape and desperate shortages of food and water, attributes the destruction to God, and calls the people to repent. In the other two chapters, Joel will strike a balance and describe the Lord's pity for his suffering people and tell of the encouraging promises God made to Israelites who would listen and turn to him.
Let's focus on three takeaways from this chapter that teach us important principles about godly living here and now in our time.
This locust plague reminds us that God is in complete control of nature and all the circumstances of our lives. He sent the locusts, and in the next chapter he promised to send them away and restore what they had destroyed. He withheld and would send life-sustaining rain. All Creation is under God's control.
Through Joel, the Lord told his people to teach their children about God and his powerful works. Then each succeeding generation should teach their own children and perpetuate knowledge and faith in God among God's people. We live in a different time and place than Joel and his audience. But God still commands us as parents to teach our own children about the Lord, and teach them to pass on what they learned from us.
This chapter reminds us that we should grieve over sin in our lives and be ashamed when the consequences of our sin overtake us. Those concepts may be foreign to the prevailing culture around us, but we should still have a strong sense of right and wrong. We should be humble and heartbroken when we sin against our God.
And that phrase "the day of the LORD" reminds us that God has appointed a day when we each and all will be judged. It is foolish to live as if we are not accountable to God. As unpleasant as it may be to see and admit wrongdoing, it will be far more unpleasant to face God in judgment for those sins. Jesus died on the cross to take our sins upon himself so they would not be on our record that day. How tragic to neglect or refuse that great salvation available, and miss the benefit of it!
Which of these messages impact your heart and life most today? God bless us as we learn and apply sober truth about ourselves from the words God spoke through Joel!
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—August 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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