Will you please turn to the book of Joel? Do you know where it is? It is in the Old Testament, one of the minor prophets—after Hosea, if you know where Hosea is, and before Daniel.
The word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel.
Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land.
Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation.
That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten;
and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten;
and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten,
the canker-worm, and the caterpillar, and the palmer-worm,
My great army which I sent among you.
And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied,
and shall praise the name of the Lord your God,
that hath dealt wondrously with you;
and My people shall never be ashamed.And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that I am the Lord your God, and there is none else;
and My people shall never be ashamed.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,
your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions:
and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids
in those days will I pour out My Spirit.And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth:
blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood,
before the great and terrible day of the Lord cometh.
And it shall come to pass,
that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered:
for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those that escape,
as the Lord hath said,
and among the remnant those whom the Lord doth call.
Let us pray.
Dear Heavenly Father, how we do praise and thank Thee that through Thy beloved Son we are now in Thy presence. We do desire that the light of Thy countenance will shine upon Thy Word and upon our hearts.
We do pray that Thy Word will really be like living seed that falls into good ground, that it may bear fruit to the praise of Thy name. We ask in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The word of the Lord came to Joel, the son of Pethuel. Now, Joel means, “The Lord is God,” or, “Whose God is the Lord.” Pethuel means “openness of God,” or “the persuasion of God.”
We are not given the time or the place in which the prophet Joel prophesied. We are only told that the word of the Lord came to him. And, you know, when the word of the Lord came to a person, that made him a prophet. So Joel is one of the prophets whom God raised up to His people.
By comparing him with the other minor prophets, and by looking into his prophecies, we come to the conclusion that most likely Joel is the earliest of the twelve minor prophets.
The first reason is that we find Joel being quoted by other prophets. For instance, the prophet Amos—the next book—quoted him at the beginning of his prophecy as well as at the conclusion of his prophecy.
In Amos 1:2, he said:
The Lord will roar from Zion,
and utter His voice from Jerusalem.
That is a quotation from Joel 3:16:
And the Lord will roar from Zion,
and utter His voice from Jerusalem.
Then, if you turn to Amos 9:13, you find toward the end that he said:
The mountains shall drop sweet wine,
and all the hills shall melt.
That is a quotation from Joel 3:18:
And it shall come to pass in that day,
that the mountains shall drop down sweet wine,
and the hills shall flow with milk.
So Amos quoted Joel in his prophecies. Even the prophet Isaiah, when he prophesied concerning the coming judgment day—the day of the Lord—certainly had Joel in his mind.
If you turn to Isaiah 13:6, it says:
Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand;
it shall come as destruction from the Almighty.
That is a quotation from Joel 1:15:
Alas for the day!
for the day of the Lord is at hand,
and as destruction from the Almighty shall it come.
This shows us that Joel prophesied before the time of Amos and before the time of Isaiah.
Secondly, in the prophecies of Joel, he did not mention the sins that the prophet Hosea and the prophet Amos condemned on the part of Judah. Nor did he mention the idol worship that prevailed during the time of King Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah.
Instead, you find that he mentioned the worship of the Lord—the worship that was restored during the time of King Joash, under the great priest Jehoiada. The worship of the Lord was still in existence at that time.
This shows that Joel must have prophesied during the time of King Joash of Judah, perhaps in the first thirty years of his reign—probably in the middle of the ninth century before Christ.
Thirdly, the prophet Joel did not mention the invasion of Syria upon Judah and Jerusalem. We know that this happened at the end of the reign of King Joash. You can find that in 2 Chronicles 24.
There you find the invasion of Syria upon Judah. It cost not only the treasures of the temple and the palace, but eventually even the life of King Joash. So this shows again that the prophecy must have been during the first thirty years of King Joash.
Fourthly, we find that the prophet Joel mentioned what Tyre, Sidon, and the districts of Philistia did to the children of Israel: how they took away their treasure, even the treasure of the temple, and how they sold their children as slaves.
Then he predicted that they would be punished because of their sins. If you turn to Amos 1, you find that Amos prophesied that judgment came upon those places. So that shows again that Joel prophesied before Amos.
Fifthly, Joel mentioned the Valley of Jehoshaphat. If you turn to 2 Chronicles 20, you find that King Jehoshaphat won a great victory over Moab and Ammon. So this incident was still fresh in the mind of Joel: the Valley of Jehoshaphat.
Finally, people observe that of all the prophets who flourished in the time of Uzziah and King Jeroboam II, Joel seemed to be their model—especially in this matter of the great and terrible day of the Lord, and how it could be avoided only through repentance.
So they all seemed to take note from Joel, and that puts Joel before all the other minor prophets. We come to the conclusion that Joel is the earliest of the twelve minor prophets, and that he prophesied in Jerusalem concerning the destiny of Judah.
Another thing is very interesting: there is a great similarity between Joel and the prophet Elijah. We know that the very name Joel means, “The Lord is God.” That is the work of the prophet Elijah.
If you turn to 1 Kings 18, you find that Elijah challenged the people of the northern nation of Israel. He said:
How long go ye limping between the two sides?
If the Lord be God, follow Him.
You remember the sacrifice on Mount Carmel. The result was that the people bowed down and said:
The Lord, He is God;
the Lord, He is God.
The mission of Elijah was to challenge the people and bring them back to the Lord. In other words, the lordship of the Lord was the burden of Elijah, and that was the same burden as the prophet Joel.
Elijah maintained the lordship of the Lord by acts, and Joel sustained the lordship of the Lord by words, by prophecy. Elijah prophesied among the northern nation of Israel, and Joel prophesied in the southern nation of Judah.
Now, the northern kingdom of Israel went into apostasy. That is, they turned away from the Lord, became a nation of idol worshipers, and committed abominations unto the Lord.
The southern nation of Judah, under the reign of King Joash, had the worship of the Lord restored. If you turn to 2 Chronicles 23 and 24, you find how Jehoiada hid that little child, Joash, from being slaughtered by Athaliah.
When Joash was seven years old, Jehoiada began to restore the kingdom to him. Under the advice of this good high priest, Joash repaired the temple, the house of God. So, during that period, the southern nation of Judah was not in apostasy.
But even though they worshipped the Lord as their God, God was not happy with them. Why? Because they served the Lord outwardly, but inwardly their heart was not with Him.
In other words, they were rather careless in the worship of God. They were not single-minded or devoted in their heart toward the Lord. What God desires is the heart, not outward correctness.
This can be easily seen. Even when King Joash gave orders to the Levites to collect the contributions from the people in order to repair the house of God, the Levites were very lazy. They did not hasten to collect the contributions.
The result was that the temple remained in disrepair until finally King Joash gave orders. They put a box in the temple, the people began to put their contributions in it, and eventually the house was repaired.
So you find that even during the repair of the house of God, the heart was not really in it. The Levites seemed to be occupied with something else instead of being occupied with the service of the house of God.
Another indication is this: immediately after the high priest Jehoiada died, King Joash listened to the princes, forsook the house of God, and began to worship idols.
You may say that under King Joash the house of God was restored. He gave orders to have the house repaired. How is it that so quickly, just after the death of that old man—that good old man—he immediately forsook the house of God?
His faith in God was rather traditional, or dependent upon somebody else. He did not have a real, living relationship with God. That was the reason why he turned away so quickly.
Through these things, we can see that even though outwardly they were serving the Lord their God, actually their heart was not perfect before God. Their heart was away from God, and for this reason the Lord was not satisfied. So He sent the prophet Joel to them.
As a matter of fact, a plague of locusts came upon that nation. The plague was so severe. As you find described here:
That which the palmer-worm hath left hath the locust eaten;
and that which the locust hath left hath the canker-worm eaten;
and that which the canker-worm hath left hath the caterpillar eaten.
These may have been different stages in the growth of the locust, or perhaps different species of locusts. We do not know for sure. But, anyway, wave after wave of locusts came upon the land, and they ate up all the green things.
Even the trees were stripped bare. All the fruit trees were gone. More than that, a drought followed. Because of the drought, the fields were devastated. There was no harvest, and there was no vintage.
Such things happened to the nation of Judah. But, in a sense, they took these things as natural disasters. You know, in one sense they were natural disasters, because they were disasters in nature.
But they did not realize that these natural disasters came upon them as a warning from God. How often God uses natural disasters to awaken our conscience and bring us back to Him.
Evidently, these people were under one terrible natural disaster after another, and yet they were not awakened to the fact that God was disciplining them. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens.
These people were people whom He loved. Because He loved them, He disciplined them. He allowed these disasters and these plagues to come upon that nation in order to awaken their conscience, that they might repent and turn their hearts to God. But evidently they did not do it.
They complained of the lack of wine. They complained of the lack of food. Yet their heart did not turn to God. So the prophet was sent to remind them that these were not merely natural disasters. These were sent by God to bring them to repentance.
What they needed was what the prophet said:
Gird yourselves, and lament, ye priests;
howl, ye ministers of the altar;
come, lie all night in sackcloth, ye ministers of my God:
for the meal-offering and the drink-offering are withholden from the house of your God.
Sanctify ye a fast, call a solemn assembly,
gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land
unto the house of the Lord your God,
and cry unto the Lord.
Now, brothers and sisters, people in this world, when they encounter disasters—whether individually, nationally, or even internationally—our natural reasoning says, “Well, these are natural. What can we do? We can only try to live as best as we can.”
Instead of seeing that every time there is a famine, a drought, a hurricane, an earthquake, a war, or any disaster that comes upon the land and the people, brothers and sisters, it is time to remind us to return to God.
If we can take these disasters as God’s warning to us and humble ourselves before God, we will be greatly benefited. Otherwise, we suffer in vain.
The prophet prophesied and said, “These are the things that have already happened, but more terrible things will come.” The day of the Lord will come. It is a day of gloom, a day of darkness, a day of clouds, and a day of gross darkness. It is a great and terrible day.
If people do not repent, then God, because of His love for His people, has to lay His hand upon them more heavily and more heavily.
In Joel 2, he prophesied concerning this great and terrible day of the Lord. Of course, this great and terrible day, as he prophesied, was partially fulfilled later by the invasion of Babylon.
Babylon came, invaded Judah, destroyed the nation, and took the people captive to Babylon. That happened two hundred and some years later. But that was only a partial fulfillment.
The great and terrible day of the Lord is something yet to come in the future. It is something that has never happened upon this earth. Nothing can be compared with what will happen when the day of the Lord shall come.
But the prophet said that there is a way to escape from the day of the Lord.
In Joel 2:12, we read:
Yet even now, saith the Lord,
turn ye unto Me with all your heart,
and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
and rend your heart, and not your garments,
and turn unto the Lord your God;
for He is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and plenteous in lovingkindness,
and repenteth Him of the evil.
Who knoweth whether He will not turn and repent,
and leave a blessing behind Him,
even a meal-offering and a drink-offering
unto the Lord your God?
Dear brothers and sisters, on the one hand, the day of the Lord was prophesied. Whether it referred partially to the invasion of the Babylonian Empire, or whether it refers to the days to come, when there will be the great and terrible day of the Lord, God has always provided a way of escape.
“Yet even now.” How patient is our God! “Yet even now,” says the Lord, “turn unto Me with all your heart.” In spite of the prophecy of destruction, God always opens a way of escape if only God’s people will listen, rend their heart—not merely their garments—and turn to the Lord.
Why? Because the Lord is merciful and gracious. He is full of lovingkindness, slow to anger, and quick to forgive.
But unfortunately, they did not repent and return. They did not rend their heart. Eventually, the children of Israel—that is, the whole southern kingdom—were destroyed, and they were taken into Babylonian captivity.
If they had returned, the Lord said He would restore to them the years that the locusts had eaten. He promised that He would fill them with such plenty that they would completely forget the famine. Yet they did not return.
Here you find, in the prophecy of Joel, an insertion. God, in His great mercy, was prophesying both destruction and future restoration. In between, He inserted a wonderful prophecy.
In 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,
your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions:
and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids
in those days will I pour out My Spirit.And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth:
blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
and the moon into blood,
before the great and terrible day of the Lord cometh.
And it shall come to pass,
that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.
Now, this is a wonderful prophecy. “It shall come to pass afterward.” We are told that the word afterward is the same as the expression the last days used by the later prophets.
In the Old Testament, there is the term “the latter days” or “the last days.” You find that in Isaiah: “in the latter days.” This is the word afterward.
What is the meaning of the last days? The last days is a Hebrew expression. It means the end of the period of the law. It means that the Messiah was to be introduced. In other words, the last days are actually the days of the Messiah.
But in Old Testament times, they had no revelation of the two comings of the Messiah. The days of Messiah were prophesied, but sometimes He was prophesied as One who suffered, and at other times as One in glory.
The Old Testament people—even the Old Testament prophets—did not know how to reconcile these two opposite descriptions of the Messiah. How could the Messiah come as a suffering One and yet at the same time as a glorious One?
It was a puzzle to the Old Testament prophets, and of course to the chosen people of God at that time, because they had no knowledge that the days of Messiah began with His first coming and will end with His second coming.
Before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come upon the whole earth, God said that the days of Messiah would come first.
When He should come, God said, “I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, and upon your sons and your daughters,” and so forth. We find that certainly this prophecy was fulfilled initially on the day of Pentecost.
You remember, on the day of Pentecost, the one hundred and twenty believers were gathered in that upper room, praying and waiting for ten days. Then, on the day of Pentecost, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit came upon them. They were baptized in the Holy Spirit.
That was the beginning of the days of the Messiah. That was the beginning of the last age. It is an age that has continued throughout approximately twenty centuries.
This period is the church age. It is the age of grace. God, because of His mercy and grace, has extended this period of time before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come. What a blessing it is!
Brothers and sisters, from the day of Pentecost up to the second coming of the Lord, the Holy Spirit is continually being poured upon His people. During this period, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Thank God, we have called upon the name of the Lord, and we are saved. Thank God, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord during this period shall be saved and shall receive the promised Holy Spirit.
Before the great and terrible day of the Lord shall come, we will see signs in heaven: blood, fire, pillars of smoke, and darkness. All these things can be found in the book of Revelation. So thank God for His mercy and for His grace.
But even such a day will pass.
In Joel 3, you find that the prophet returns to describe for us the great and terrible day of the Lord. It is a day in which God will deliver His chosen people, but at the same time it is the day of judgment for the nations of this world.
He will gather all the nations of the world to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The Valley of Jehoshaphat is the valley of decision. In other words, there God will sit and judge all the nations.
Dear brothers and sisters, one day all the nations of the world will be gathered in that Valley of Jehoshaphat. Do not think that it is impossible. Even in this little incident in the Middle East today, you find that within a very short period many nations and their armies have gathered around that place.
The Lord said that one day He will gather all the nations to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There will be the last war, the war of Armageddon. There He will judge the nations, and He will restore His kingdom upon this earth.
Brothers and sisters, it is coming.
But if you believe, if you are prepared, if you turn your heart to Him, if you are devoted to Him and faithful to Him, before that day shall come, you will be gone. In the New Testament, we are promised that He will take us to Himself.
So, brothers and sisters, how important it is that we be prepared.
This is the history of Joel’s prophecy. Now we would like to apply this to ourselves.
You know, the southern kingdom of Judah, spiritually speaking, does not represent the church in apostasy. The history of the children of Israel is real history, but it is also a type. God used the earthly kingdom of Israel to show us the heavenly kingdom.
In other words, we who believe in the Lord Jesus today are His heavenly nation. What we find in the history of the children of Israel in the Bible is put there for our edification.
Whatever happened to them is for our lessons. This is why we do not study the Bible merely as history, however interesting it may be. We study the Bible for our own edification.
The northern kingdom of Israel represents the church in apostasy. The southern kingdom of Judah represents the church that has not gone into apostasy yet, but has become careless.
How quickly you find that the church may still maintain everything that is supposed to be maintained, yet something is missing in the heart. The southern kingdom of Judah represents such a church.
Or, to put it another way, it represents what we find in Revelation 2: the church in Ephesus. The church in Ephesus had a glorious beginning.
We remember how the apostle Paul spent three years in Ephesus, until all Asia heard the good tidings of the Lord. The church in Ephesus had such a glorious beginning.
The work of God was so real that those who used to practice magic and spiritism, after they were converted, were so utterly given to the Lord that they gathered their magic books and burned them. Those books were worth quite a lot.
The church in Ephesus represents the church of first love. How they loved God! How they loved the Lord! Because they loved the Lord so much, God was able to open His heart to them and reveal to them the mystery of God and the mystery of Christ, as you find in the letter to the Ephesians.
Look at the Corinthians. God was not able to reveal His heart or His mystery to them because they did not understand. But to the Ephesian believers, because of their love, He could reveal His heart.
You know, brothers and sisters, it is not your brain; it is your heart. It is not your knowledge; it is your heart. Sometimes we think that if we are clever and bright, then we will be able to know all the things about God.
Brothers and sisters, the will of God is revealed to babes and hidden from the wise and prudent. If you think you are clever and wise, you will not be able to know the heart of God, the mind of God, or the purpose of God.
But if you have a heart—a pure heart—“Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” There you find that God will reveal all that is in His heart.
Read the book of Ephesians, and you will find that because of their love toward the Lord, the Lord was able to pour out His heart to them and reveal to them all the secrets that are in God, all the depth that is in God.
So Ephesus actually represents first love.
But after Paul was gone, the apostle John came to help these people. They really received much help. Yet even before the apostle John was gone—when he was exiled to the island of Patmos—what happened in the church at Ephesus?
Everything went on as usual. They had works. They had labor. They had knowledge. They had discernment. They hated the Nicolaitans. They had every good thing. Everything went on as usual.
But the Lord said, “I have this against thee.” “I am not happy with you. I am angry with you.” Why? Because you have left your first love.
The inner spring was gone. All the outward forms continued. Brothers and sisters, habits continue. Routine goes on. Tradition continues. But these things do not satisfy God. What He desires is our heart—first love.
That first love was gone. Because Judah had lost her first love toward God, the disciplinary hand of God was upon them: first the locusts, then the drought. If they did not repent, there would be the terrible day of the Lord upon them.
The people were reduced to poverty. They lacked food, and they lacked drink. Nothing satisfied them. There was no joy.
Not only did they suffer because of their spiritual poverty; even God suffered, because there was no meal-offering and drink-offering offered to God in His house.
That was their situation. Yet even then, they were not conscious of it. They thought everything was rosy because the worship of the Lord continued. What a pity! Eventually, the nation was destroyed.
Now, brothers and sisters, how about us? Look at the church today. Part of the church has already gone into apostasy.
The other part of the church—although God’s people still assemble together, and services and Christian activities still go on, and people are still reading the Bible and praying—may have only a few at the prayer meeting here and there.
That is a Chinese proverb, by the way. It means there are just a few.
Even though outwardly things are going on as usual, in the beginning there was heart. There was love. Because of love, there was labor. Because of faith, there was work. Because of hope, there was endurance.
But now the hope is not there, the faith is not there, and the love is not there—yet the work continues, the labor continues, and the endurance continues.
We may be satisfied, but God is not satisfied. But are we really satisfied? We are under the discipline of God. Being under the discipline of God, how can we be satisfied?
Brothers and sisters, we labor much, but we get little. Do we have spiritual food? We are supposed to be in abundance, but how poor we are spiritually!
When we come together, there is very little that we can offer to God because we have little or nothing. Are we joyful? We are not joyful. We are sad. There is no drink-offering. There is no drink. The wine is gone.
Brothers and sisters, we have been reduced to such spiritual poverty under the discipline of God, and yet we do not realize it. We are so blinded by the outward appearance and so obsessed in our mind that we do not repent and return.
Dear brothers and sisters, it is time for us to rend our heart. It is time to gather the elders and gather all the people. It is time to gather even those who suck at their mothers’ breasts. It is time to gather all the children.
It is time that we should weep before the Lord and cry unto Him, that He who is merciful and gracious would be merciful and gracious to us.
Who knows whether He will restore all the years that have been eaten by the locusts and the palmer-worms?
Brothers and sisters, if we look into our own lives as individuals, do we see how many years we have misspent?
All the years we lived for ourselves—we did not live for God. We were occupied with the things of this world. We were not occupied with the things of God. Our minds were on things below, not on things above.
Many years have been eaten by locusts and caterpillars. If the Lord should come and count our days, I do not know how many days would be numbered or accepted by God.
Look at ourselves together. We ought to grow. We ought to be able to offer God abundant meal-offerings and drink-offerings. But because of our spiritual poverty, how little are we able to offer!
Many years have been eaten by the locusts. But thank God, He promises us that if we repent and return, He will restore the years that have been eaten by the locusts.
Is it possible? We say that time comes and goes and never returns. That is true.
Yet, on the other hand, you find that the Lord is able to make one day as a thousand years. Yes, time has gone. We have wasted these years. But, dear brothers and sisters, the Lord is able to restore all that has been lost during those years.
By the working of His Holy Spirit, He is able to produce so much in so little time that everything will be restored to the place of fullness. Only God can do that.
He has promised us that He will do it if we allow Him.
So, brothers and sisters, do not look back. There is nothing to see. Look forward. The important thing is to return to Him with all our hearts and give ourselves to Him unreservedly.
He is able to restore all the years that have been lost. Thank God for that. I believe this is the message that God has for us today.
Shall we pray?
Dear Heavenly Father, we do want to thank Thee for sending Thy prophet Joel to Thy chosen people to call them back to Thyself, because Thy desire is to bless and to restore unto fullness.
Our Father, we do thank Thee for giving this book of Joel to us, that we may learn the lesson. Lord, do have mercy upon us, that we may not go on as usual, as if nothing matters and nothing happens.
But, Lord, do open our eyes to see that we are under Thy disciplinary hand. Oh, that we will rend our heart and turn to Thee, that Thou mayest be able to leave a blessing—not only to us, but unto Thyself—because Thou art the blessed God.
We bless Thee, O Lord, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.