As I mentioned, we are in the book of Joel today, and as was already read by Gary, we are introduced to this book of the locust, a locust plague that had come upon the people of God. And it's in the midst of this that Joel, as he ministers and as he speaks to the people of God, he calls them to rend their hearts. and not their garments. We see this in chapter 2 verse 13. Rend your hearts and not your garments and return to the Lord your God. For he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and he is abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disasters. We want to look at this book, and that's one of the key verses of this book. Last week, I didn't get to it. We did it on Sunday night, but a key verse in the book of Hosea, and I think these are worth underlining, if you underline in your Bible, is in Hosea 6-6, where the Lord says that, I desire a steadfast love rather than sacrifice, and the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. This is what the Lord is looking for in his people, that they have a heart that loves God, a steadfast love toward God, that they know him. And here are these prophets calling the people of God to such a love and a devotion to God as we see in both of these prophets. So we want to begin this morning, first of all, looking at the prophet Joel himself. We read in verse 1, the word of the Lord that came to Joel the son of Pethuel. And this is really about all that we know about Joel. His father, his name is given. This is the only place where this name is found in the Bible. So we don't know a lot about this man. We gather something maybe about his family life. The man himself, his name is Joel. And the word means the Lord is God. Yahweh is God. And I'm guessing that his parents were Deuteronomy 6 kind of parents who were instructing their children about the fact that God, there is only one God, it is Yahweh. and they are to worship him alone and as believing parents maybe they instructed him and they gave him this name. The Lord is God. There is only one God and it is Yahweh. And so maybe he came from a believing family and he bears this wonderful name. Then we see his times. We notice that unlike Hosea and many of the other minor prophets, it doesn't give us the context of the time in which he wrote. In Hosea, we saw that he wrote in the days of Jeroboam, the days of Uzziah and other kings, but that is not given to us here. And so it's hard for us to know exactly when Joel was writing and the time during the divided kingdom in which he was ministering. There have been a lot of suggestions about dates just drawing out from the text, getting some ideas of the time when it might have been. Some have said as early as 850 B.C. Some say even after the exile and the return of the children of Israel in the second building of the temple under Zerubbabel. So it's quite a span of time there. But quite evidently, I guess the Lord doesn't want us to know that for sure. And it's not important for us to be able to understand that. I do kind of think it's before the fall of the Southern Kingdom in 586. But these are the times in which he is ministering. It is after the fall or it is during the time of the divided kingdom that we looked at last week in 933 and sometime after that. Who is his audience? Well, I think as we read through the book of Joel, we'll find him speaking a lot about the temple. He'll talk about the children of Zion. He'll talk about blowing a trumpet in Zion. He talks about priests and sacrifices. So, I think it's pretty safe to say that his ministry was to the southern kingdom, to Judah. And you remember there was a division and there was a rift between the north and the south, and there were the ten tribes in the north, the two in the south, and he is a prophet, I believe, to the southern kingdom. And even though we don't know much about Joel, about his own personality, that's kind of shrouded in obscurity, I think one thing we do learn about him as we read his book is that he was a man who had a passion for God, and he had a passion for God's people, and he is calling them back to the Lord. And I hope we sense that as we go through this book. He's pleading for the people to take stock of what's gone on around them and to return to the Lord. to rend your hearts and not your garments. So that's kind of a theme in the book of Jewel, to rend your hearts, tear your hearts. We want to first, secondly, look at the message of Joel. Front and center, as already was read, is the locusts. And we find them described here in great detail as he is speaking about this devastation that has come upon the people of Judah as a result of an invasion of locusts. Again, interpreters are divided. Some see this as being not historical but rather figurative and symbolic that Joel is using language of something that would have been common to them. Others, as I myself and most, I think, take it as literal, that this was historical. that there was a time here in the history of Judah in which Joel had been ministering that there was this devastating plague of locusts that came upon the land. And this is not uncommon in the Middle East. There are nine different Hebrew words that are used to speak about locusts and the various kinds of them. And he mentions some of these in verse four. But they were experienced and had experienced this great plague of locusts that was a significant event that brought great devastation. verse two he says hear this you elders give ear all inhabitants of the land has such a thing happened in your days or in the days of your fathers so this is a significant events kinda like 9-11 or Katrina those words remind us of great times of disaster and devastation well here is this great locust plague that came upon Judah and we see that Joel has a message in light of this. And so there is a lesson that he wants to get across from the locust revealing the need for repentance. There's a message here. So Joel is going to give a very poetical description of this locust plague. And some have stated that Joel's description of an invasion of locusts is unparalleled in ancient writing. And he very poetically here describes this horrendous event of the coming of these locusts and uses this very strong language to depict what had happened to Israel or Judah in the south. Notice verse 6. For a nation has come up against my land, this nation of locusts, powerful and beyond number. Its teeth are lion's teeth, and its fangs, it has fangs as 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. What a depiction is given here of the devastation that comes and particularly think of an agricultural community dependent upon the land and the trees are stripped bare. Verse 8, lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth and for a bridegroom of her youth the grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord. They can't even offer offerings in the in the temple the priests mourn the ministers of the lord the fields are destroyed the ground mourns because the grain is destroyed the wine dries up the oil languishes verse 11 the vine dressers for the wheat and the barley be there to mourn because the harvest of the field has perished the vine dries up the fig tree languishes, pomegranate, palm, and apple, all the trees of the field, they are dried up, and gladness dries up with the children of man. This is a hard time. Everything that you depend upon for life is being affected, and the joy is sucked out of the people of God. Very difficult time. These are not like the cicadas that we had, what was it, last year or the year before. They're annoying, but this is devastating for the people of Judah. Exodus 10 tells us that such a plague was sent to Egypt in the days of Moses. It was the eighth of the 10 plagues. And when it is described in Exodus 10, it says that all of these locusts, the swarm of locusts, they covered the earth. And it says this, that they covered the face of the whole land so that the land was darkened. And they ate all the plants in the land and all the fruit of the trees. Again, a devastating plague. I was reading this week about, back in 1874, here in our own nation, there were one, the article was entitled, in one year, 12 trillion locusts devastated the Great Plains. And it says they ate everything except the mortgage, which I thought that was kind of humorous. The insects descended by the trillions on the Great Plains, spreading over a vast portion of land from Montana across to Minnesota and down to Texas. Ravaging farmland and locusts devoured not only crops, but gnawed on nearly any organic material, including sawdust, leather, and the very clothes on people's backs. swarming in numbers perhaps unseen in history. They brought staggering economic ruin to rural communities and, in extreme cases, even death. Beginning in late June of 1874, the wide blue skies all over the American prairie suddenly went dark. Some likened it to a snowstorm, others to the coming of night. The pinky finger sized insects ate a panoply of crops including wheat, corn, melons, tobacco, barley, strawberries, potatoes, beans, and fruit trees. The weight of all the bugs in the swarm was estimated to be in excess of 27 million tons. Hard to comprehend but this is, again, it's not something that is uncommon in our world and it was particularly something that would have been reflected and well-known even in that day. And I did some studying about the locusts, how they develop and the different kinds of locusts, and I'm not going to bother with all the details about that, but one thing I did learn was interesting. It said that the male was by far the prettier of the two. That just kind of stuck out to me. And that may be the only species where that is true. I don't know. So anyway, we see secondly that Joel's connecting of the dots relative to the locust plague. He says basically to the people, you need to learn something here. This isn't just a happen chance event that has happened. You know, above the annoying chirping and the destruction, these locusts have a lesson to teach us. God is speaking to us through the locus. And I want us to go back, if you will, to Deuteronomy, chapters 27 through 28. And we learn something here concerning what has happened in the day of Joel. This is when Israel is about ready to go into the promised land. You remember that first generation had God had them to die in the wilderness because of their rebellion and unbelief. And now here is the next generation that is ready to go into the promised land. Moses is an old man. He's going to die. He's not going to enter into the land. Here is now a renewing of the covenant. And they are reminding themselves of the vows that the nation has taken with their God. He's entered in the covenant with them. And now there are these warnings that are going to be sounded, and also the promise of blessing. If you obey me, I will bless you. If you disobey me, I will bring curses upon you. And so they're gathered, they're together at Mount Gerizim and Mount Ebal, and they're to pronounce these curses and these blessings. And so the priest will utter a warning about curses that will come, and the people will say, amen. We don't want to do that. We want to obey the Lord. And so they're renewing, as it were, their vows to the Lord to be a faithful people to him. And in chapter 28, we have the promise of blessing, verse 1. If you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations. And then it goes on to pronounce these blessings that he will give to them. Verse four, blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle and the increase of your herds and the young of your flock. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. Verse 11 and 12. And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity and the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your livestock and in the fruit of your ground within the land that the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens to give you the rain in your land and its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall not lend to nations, but you shall lend to nations, but not borrow. So here are some of those blessings that God will pour out for them. But we get to verse 15. But if you will not obey. All right, Israel, if you obey, I'm going to bless you. I'll bless your crops, I'll bless your kitchens, I'll bless your womb, I'll bless you. But if you do not obey, There are curses that are pronounced here upon them. Drop down to verse 38. You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little. Notice this, for the locusts shall consume it. You shall plant vineyards and dress them, but you shall neither drink of the wine nor gather the grapes, for the worms shall eat them. You shall have olive trees throughout all your territory, but you shall not anoint yourself with the oil, for your olives shall drop off. You shall father sons and daughters, but they shall not be yours for they shall go into captivity. The cricket shall possess all your trees and the fruit of your ground. So here is this very severe warning. If you disobey me, if you turn and go after other gods, I am going to bring curses upon the land. I will bring curses upon you. These are pretty ominous chapters here in the book of Deuteronomy. This is what God says that he will do. He's also going to even frustrate them. Look at verse 20. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do. He will bring frustration. He will bring this difficulty upon you. That's what sin does, doesn't it? Sin brings confusion. It brings chaos. This is what God says He is going to do. He will bring these curses upon them. Sin weaves an ugly web. But then in chapter 30, there's this promise that even after He has taken them into exile, that there will be a day that he will bring them out. He will come and their hearts will be changed and they will call these things to mind and they will return to the Lord and he will restore their fortunes to them and he will give them a circumcised heart. Now, I think what Joel is doing as he writes this book, he has this in mind and he's saying to them, this is exactly what God said to your forefathers. when they were entering into the promised land. I will bring these curses upon you when you turn your hearts away from me and you go after other gods." So he's connecting the dots for them. Look at your fields. Look at what has happened. Look at your barns. Look at the devastation. And again, this is more than just a random natural disaster. This is exactly what God had said to you in the book of Deuteronomy. You have broken covenant with God. You have broken this covenant. And this devastation has come. It's like Gomer in the book of Hosea. She has been unfaithful to her husband and we have been unfaithful to our God. Another way in which he connects some of these dots is in we see that he connects us with the day of the Lord. Notice back in Joel in chapter 1 verse 15. Alas for the days for the day of the Lord is near and as destruction from the Almighty it comes. This phrase that the day of the Lord is often used in the Old Testament over 300 times. Joel uses the day of the Lord six times in his and many of the other prophets we find it often and it kind of has a twofold aspect. Sometimes the Day of the Lord is a reference to a coming devastation or a judgment from God. When God comes in in time and history and he brings about a judgment. But often that judgment is associated often even with the salvation of his people, deliverance from his people, such as it was in Egypt. It was a great day of judgment for Egypt, but it was a day of salvation for Israel. They were redeemed out of Egypt. And so often we'll see those parallel thoughts. But what is interesting here that Most of the people of Judah would think of the Day of the Lord. That's used with regard to the enemies of God's people. That's used for people like Egypt and Edom and other surrounding nations. But what Joel says, this is the Day of the Lord against you, Judah. The Day of the Lord is coming upon you. God's judgment is coming upon you. And he will speak about this in other places here in the book of Joel. And so it is applied to them as well. That plague that fell upon Egypt, the locust, is now the plague that is falling upon this people. You have become just like Egypt, like the people of Egypt. And there is this judgment that is to come. But I think as we look at this, there may be the hint that there's more than just the locust when we get to chapter 2. There seems to be a relationship, a threat of even further devastation. He goes on and waxes again eloquently about the locust. We read in verse 2, chapter 2, verse 1, on my holy mountain, let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near, it's a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds, thick darkness, like blackness there is spread upon the mountains, a great and a powerful people there, there like as never has been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations." And he goes through this chapter and speaks about depicting the locust and their invasion and they're everywhere, you can't get away from them. But many believe, and I think it's probably the case, that he's also describing possibly what's going to happen with another nation. They're going to be like these locusts. They're going to come. They're going to wreak havoc upon the land. They're going to plunder the land. They're going to take your goods. They're going to take you away into captivity. We read in verse 11, the Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great. Notice this is his army. This is Yahweh's army that is coming against them. For the camp is exceedingly great. He who executes his word is powerful. Here it is again, for the day of the Lord is great and very awesome, and who can endure it? Many, I think, think this may be a reference to the coming judgment that would come lest the people of God repent that the judgment of God is going to come as it did in 586. Now in light of all this we see Joel's impassioned pleas for repentance, a call to repent and to return to the Lord. He does this with zealousness as he calls all of the people, all the inhabitants of the land. He calls them, he says, sound the trumpet. Chapter two, verse one, blow the trumpet in Zion. Again, in verse 15, blow the trumpet in Zion, consecrate a fast, call a solemn assembly. Blow the trumpet, it is a sound of alarm. You know, you got those smoke detectors in your house. When those are going off, it's an alarm, isn't it? And I don't know why, but mine, when the battery is dying and it does that annoying chirping sound, it never happens in the afternoon. It is always at three o'clock in the morning and it starts chirping and it doesn't stop until you replace the battery. But here it is, blow the trumpet, get up on the wall and announce that judgment is coming. This is a warning, we're being attacked as it were. Take notice, Judah. blow the trumpet, sound the trumpet. And then we see that there is a wake-up call, chapter one, verse 15. Alas, the day, for the day of the Lord is near, and his destruction from the Almighty comes. Got the wrong verse there. Wake up, verse 5. Awake, you drunkards, and weep and wail, all you drinkers of wine, because the sweet wine, for it is cut off from your mouth. No more vineyards. Wake up. You drunkards, and it may be not just literally drunk, maybe some of them were, but you are like in a drunken stupor. You don't really understand what's going on. You need to wake up, Judah, calling them and calling attention to them for this situation that they are in. Wake up. Humble yourselves. mourn. There needs to be fasting. There needs to be a solemn assembly together of God's people, as we find often in the Old Testament, come together. This is a critical time. And so he calls them to repent. We see this in verse 13. Rend your hearts and not your garments. It appears that they were renting their garments. They're aware of what's going on. This is a devastating and a hard time, but they've only rent the garments on the outside, which is a sign in those days when you would rent your clothes, tear your clothes. It was an emotional response of something that was happening that was very devastating, chaotic, mourning. And one of the ways you would show this is by tearing your clothes. However, that could become something that was only done externally. And it's kind of like what Jesus said of the Pharisees of his day, you worship God with your lips, but your hearts are far from him. And that's what Joel's saying. You really don't understand the depths of what's gone on. You don't understand the need of a deeper repentance, a change of heart. You've just done some external things. You've kind of been hypocritical here. You've just rent your clothes. But you need to rent your hearts. You need to do serious heart surgery, examining your hearts. because your hearts are far from the Lord. This devastation has come upon you. It is God's word to you of his judgment because you have gone after other gods. You have idols of your hearts and you need to rend your hearts. You need to be broken and mourning because of your sin. How often we can be like Israel of old, We can go through the motions, we can rent clothes as it were, we can do all the religious things, but our hearts are far from God. We go through the normal things, we go to church and we even read our Bibles and we say our prayers and our hearts can be far, far, far from the Lord. or just going through the routines. And all the while in our hearts, we have idols. We don't really love God and we're not really serving him. We are preoccupied with other things, the pleasures of this world, whatever it may be, our hearts are consumed with those things rather than with the Lord. And so here is this call to us as well, to rend our hearts, to examine our hearts that may be far from God. God uses hard things to help us. When he frustrates our plans, maybe we need to look at our hearts like Israel needed to do and see where maybe we have fallen short. We see secondly, or thirdly here, secondly, the grace of God that is poured out to a repentant Judah. Proverbs 28, 13 says, he who conceals his sin will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes his sin will find compassion. Aren't you thankful for that? As God exposes the ugliness of our hearts, our sins, if you conceal that, you're not going to prosper. It was true for Judah. But as you repent and turn from it, you will find compassion. Notice back in 2.13, rend your hearts and not your garments, return to the Lord your God. Notice this, for he is gracious and merciful, and he is slow to anger, and he is abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind, a grain offering, a drink offering for the Lord, your God. Here is reason, here is motivation to return to the Lord, no matter how bad the sin. Return to him and know this, this is taken from Exodus with Moses. After the children of Israel had built their golden calf, Here, as the Lord appeared to Moses, he uttered these words to Moses as he wanted to see the glory of his God. Here's what he said to Moses, and it's recorded for us here. He is gracious. He is merciful. He is slow to anger. And he is abounding. Instead, fast love. What a glorious invitation to return back to their God. What a glorious invitation to us as well. God is merciful and gracious. He is long-suffering. Come, return to Him, and what you will find as you confess and forsake your sin, He is merciful, He is gracious, and He will Forgive your sin. And this is the message that is given by the prophet Joel. It is a message that is good for us as well in our own day. I already realized that I've got a lot more to say here and I knew I wasn't gonna get all of this in one sermon. So we either do this tonight or we'll do this next week. As we go on to see that the Lord promises to a repentant people that he will bless them. He will bless their crops. He will restore the land. And it looks forward to a new day in which God will bring blessing and bring in a new heavens and a new earth. So we're going to pick that up later. But I think it's important for us, as we close this morning, we recognize that God calls us in our own day to be a people who are humble and contrite before him, that this would characterize our hearts, that our lives would be those who rend the heart, not just outward signs of that, that we would tear our hearts, that we would know our hearts, and that we would confess our sins, that we would mourn over them, that we would not take them lightly. God, in his grace, make us to be such a people as that, that deal with our sin, realizing it is an offense against our holy God. And maybe if you're here today without Christ, the call of the gospel is this, there is coming a day, the great day of the Lord, a day of judgment. And who can stand in that day? Who can stand before God? No one can of themselves. And there is only one escape from the day of God's judgment, It is found in Jesus Christ, the Savior and the friend of sinners, who says, come unto me and I will give you rest. I will be your refuge. I will be your protection in the day of wrath. Flee to Christ and live in him. As we close this morning, I invite you to turn in your bulletin.