to the book of Joel. I want to pick up our reading at the start of chapter 2, Joel chapter 2, and continue from where Pastor Rick left off. Our focus will be on chapter 2, verse 25. Joel chapter 2, verse 1, hear the word of God. blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming. Surely it is near, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. As the dawn is spread over the mountains, so there is a great and mighty people. There has never been anything like it, nor will there be again after it, to the years of many generations. A fire consumes before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but a desolate wilderness behind them, and nothing at all escapes them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, and like warhorses, so they run. With a noise as of chariots, they leap on the tops of the mountains, like the crackling of a flame of fire consuming the stubble. like a mighty people arranged for battle. Before them the people are in anguish, all faces turn pale. They run like mighty men, they climb the wall like soldiers, and they each march in line. Nor do they deviate from their paths, they do not crowd each other, they march everyone in his path. When they burst through the defences, they do not break ranks. They rush on the city, they run on the wall, they climb into the houses, they enter through the windows like a thief. Before them the earth quakes, the heavens tremble, the sun and the moon grow dark and the stars lose their brightness. The Lord utters his voice before his army. Surely his camp is very great. For strong is he who carries out his word. The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome, and who can endure it? Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping, and mourning, and rend your heart and not your garments. Now return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in loving-kindness, and relenting of evil. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him, even a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Blow a trumpet in Zion. Consecrate a fast. Proclaim a solemn assembly. Gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders. Gather the children and the nursing infants. Let the bridegroom come out of his room and the bride out of her bridal chamber. Let the priests, the Lord's ministers, weep between the porch and the altar, and let them say, Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your inheritance a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they among the people say, Where is their God? Then the Lord will be zealous for his land, and will have pity on his people. The Lord will answer and say to his people, Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied in full with them. And I will never again make you a reproach among the nations, but I will remove the northern army far from you, and I will drive it into a parched and desolate land. and its vanguard into the Eastern Sea and its rearguard into the Western Sea, and its stench will arise and its foul smell will come up, for it has done great things. Do not fear, O land, rejoice and be glad, for the Lord has done great things. Do not fear beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness have turned green, for the tree has borne its fruit. The fig tree and the vine have yielded in full. So rejoice, O sons of Zion, and be glad in the Lord your God, for he has given you the early rain for your vindication, and he has poured down for you the rain, the early and latter rain as before. the threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with new wine and oil. Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, and the stripping locust, and the gnawing locust, my great army which I sent among you. You will have plenty to eat and be satisfied. And praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. Then my people will never be put to shame. Thus you will know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other, and my people will never be put to shame. Let's pray. Almighty God, as we come to consider your word now, would you speak to us? Would you wrench open our hearts? Would you change us and challenge us and mould us into the likeness of your Son and be glorified by all that we consider now? In Jesus' name, Amen. I want to focus our thoughts this morning on Joel chapter 2 verse 25. With God's help, and this is what it says, then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust, and the gnawing locust, my great army, which I sent among you. This is a tremendously important passage, a wonderfully comforting prophecy. What we have here is both a warning to avoid, to stay away from danger, but we also have a signpost out of trouble, if you're in it already. It's here for the purpose of damage prevention, absolutely. But it's also a passage of Scripture that tells us about damage restoration. Scripture is crystal clear. that once you are truly a Christian, you can never be lost. Let's get that foundational truth in place. But there are still dangers, grave dangers that we must be aware of so that we can stay away from that danger, be safe. But not only that, but to flourish in your faith, to grow in your faith, to prosper in your faith. So we are told in Scripture that there are multiple reasons why your spiritual life can be damaged, your health can be poor. There are multiple reasons. Maybe you've witnessed that in others. Maybe you've experienced it yourself. And so this morning, what I want to do is to plant more signs in the ground before the drop-off for those who, in God's grace, are pressing on in the faith in order to encourage you to maintain, to improve your spiritual fitness and healthiness. But there's another intention as well. I want you to check your pulse. to examine your vital signs, to diagnose any issues, so that if restoration is needed, that we read of in this verse, then it can happen, that the necessary treatment can be applied. A treatment that's not in its testing phase. It's a treatment that has a 100% success rate. The spiritual health of the individual and corporately the church does have an impact in the providence of God on your usefulness in the advance of his kingdom. In the preface to the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession, written in 1677, it says, one of the intentions of writing that document This statement or summary of faith was because of the state of Christianity in the 17th century. It says this, in this backsliding day, we might not spend our breath in fruitless complaints of the evils of others, but may everyone begin at home. begin at home to reform in the first place our own hearts and ways, and then to quicken all that we may have influence upon to the same work, that if the will of God were so, none might deceive themselves by resting in and trusting to, here's some important words, a form of godliness without the power of it. a form of godliness without the power of it and inward experience of the efficacy of those truths that are professed by them. But nothing's going on inside. Our forefathers recognized that there was backsliding in the church and in individual lives. They recognized that it was all too common for believers just like us To believe truths, the right truths, and to rest and trust in a form of godliness without the power of it. Fruitless. They're saying, and I'm saying with the weight of Scripture behind me, that in their language, that we need to reform in the first place our own hearts and ways. And then influence others. out of our health, out of our abundance, then impact the world. Turn the world upside down. And the situation God's people find themselves here in these verses is destitute. And as I explained this morning, what I hope to do then is to look at avoiding this situation completely. Don't go anywhere near this in your life, in your church. Preventative measures. But if you're there, how can you recover from it? Let's look at some background to this chapter and Bible book. It's a fairly straightforward and simple passage of Scripture. I don't think I'm going to stretch your brains, use many long theological words today. The cookies are all on the lower shelves, but you still need to eat them, and digest them, and get the nutrients out of them. In one sense, it's not difficult at all to understand what this means, but to put it into practice, there are a few things more difficult than this. The prophet Joel, I would estimate, is not overly familiar to us. He's one of the minor prophets, not minor in value or in any derogatory sense, but just smaller than the other larger prophetical books. It's only three chapters long. His name means Yahweh is God. We can't find really any clue in the book when it's written. We don't know much about him, other than his father's name. In chapter 1 verse 2, we can see that it's addressed to the inhabitants of the land, and he's talking to them about the sins of the people. But we're not told what that specific sin is. Only that they need to repent of it. In chapter 2, and I want you to remember these verses, verses 12 and 13, I'll refer back to them, where he says, "...yet even now declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping, and mourning, and rend your hearts, not your garments." Not interested in mere outward expressions of repentance. Now return to the Lord your God, for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, and relenting of evil." And so the theme is judgment and restoration. Restoration of the people, of the land. It's a good news, bad news message. We find references to this prophecy and this illustration in a number of places in the New Testament using the same imagery. There are references in Mark 13 and Luke 21 and various places in the book of Revelation. Even Peter at Pentecost in Acts 2 quotes from this chapter, speaking of the day of the Lord is coming. using the same illustrations. And so the message of this short book transcends just this time in history. There are truths here that have a macro application to the people of God in every generation. We learn about God here. We learn about ourselves here. We learn about our tendency to mask sin and not repent when we should repent. So now we've looked at the context. Let's look at our verse. Verse 25. And look with me at our first of three points this morning. And here it is. The illustration. The illustration. It's a picture. Presented to us by Joel of complete devastation. That's why I had your pastor read chapter 1 to us. These two chapters described it for us so graphically. As we heard, chapter 1 describes this swarm of locusts coming on the land like they'd never witnessed before. And it brought ruin. You can glance back at chapter 1 verses 11 and 12. Trade is badly affected. They couldn't even bring offerings to the temple in verse 13. And Joel is telling them that this is judgment from God, but it's potentially a foretaste of worse to come. The devastation is a foreshadowing. It's a vivid warning passage. And God's people, not those outside, God's people, then and now, need to be reminded of our need for God. Let's focus in on our verse and the illustration we find in chapter 2, verse 25. And we see it there, that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust, and the gnawing locust, my great army, which I sent among you. So it's an illustration of an ecological calamity. We're not unfamiliar with this picture. It's about a year and a half ago now, it was in the news, where a swarm of locusts went from Pakistan, northern India, down to the horn of Africa, into Yemen, and Somalia, and Ethiopia, and Kenya. It's the worst they'd seen for many years. And it was still spreading, and spreading, and growing, and growing. But how does it happen? Well, I tried to read up on it a little bit from a biological and ecological point of view. There are desert locusts that don't really associate with other locusts. And then their behavior changes, and they begin to grow as a group. Maybe because of lack of food, they're forced together, and it makes these changes happen, and they want to eat and reproduce and eat and reproduce. And these are big insects. One source said that some groups can have 10 billion locusts together, but stretched over hundreds of miles. They can cover 120 miles a day, migrating, eating more, and all the maize and the cotton and the beans and on and on. One square kilometer of locusts eats the same amount each day as 35,000 people. Chapter 2 verse 3 describes it. A fire consumes before them, and a flame, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, but a desolate wilderness behind them, and nothing at all escapes them. National emergencies are declared. In the 1960s, it was in lands like Iran, Syria and Kuwait, the sky went dark. During the middle of the day, flights have to divert around these swarms. Described as clouds coming and the talk of the noise that they hear. It was mentioned in our reading too. This is a destructive species. That's the illustration. Imagine it just in Michigan, if they tore through here in just a matter of minutes, all the corn, all the apples gone. All the foliage on the trees as well, damaging it for next year. They eat their own body weight in food every day. I've not experienced this in particular, but I remember in the UK when foot and mouth disease tore through the country and all the farms were affected and I could drive up the freeway and I could see fires on both sides, cattle burning. My brother-in-law left his job to help get rid of all the infected animals. It's horrible, but do you know what? Those farms are back now. Beef became a bit more expensive for a while. But we had fish and bacon and all sorts of other options that we could use instead. So maybe we can't quite grasp this problem in a world where we have Walmart and Dunkin Donuts. Or even food pantries for people who need them. You look at what verse 25 says these locusts do. They swarm, they eat, they creep, they strip, they gnaw. Or back in chapter 1, they're the cutting locust. They're a great army. A military invasion. They have the potential to plague the land and the people for a significant period of time. And even when they've gone, the problem isn't over. Look at that verse again. Here's a fact you don't read in textbooks about locusts. They're sent by a sovereign God. Even the movement of insects is controlled by God. God is in control of nature. Do you know what? In Revelation chapter 9, there's an example where the locusts are told not to eat the vegetation by God, and they obey. What's also important to see is that in Deuteronomy 28, Verse 38, locusts are specifically mentioned as a punishment for breaking the covenant. It's not random. This is not just unfortunate, wrong place, wrong time. But rather, sent by God for a purpose, in response to something. I read that Joel actually used four different Hebrew words for locust throughout the passage, and commentators tell us that's to emphasize how catastrophic this is. And we see locusts in other parts of Scripture, of course we do. The ten plagues in Egypt, again, showing God's control over them. So many that you won't be able to see the ground, and they consume the vegetation. But there are other places as well. Proverbs 30 verse 27. The locusts have no king, yet all of them go out in ranks. Using that same war soldier imagery. 2 Chronicles 7 verse 13 talks of them again devouring the land. These people are aware of this problem, this threat. But you see, it's not just the food of the people that is impacted, but the food of the animals. We read about the beasts there, didn't we? This has that domino effect, and you can imagine the individual farmer, or the family with a smallholding, or visiting the local market, and there's nothing for sale. Or the nation as a whole. If crops fail, this is life and death. There was some of that in the days of the pioneers here in North America, but now we live in that time of globalization where we can reduce risk and transport things around the world. One of my friends in England is a man who spent years and years in a boat transporting bananas around the world. That was his career. I know another man in a Reformed Baptist church in New Zealand who is the one who is looking after all the different ingredients from all over the world coming to New Zealand to make chocolate. Very important job. But it can all be done today. We can coordinate these kind of things. We saw it not so long ago, where one part of the country here was struggling when it was dry. So what did all the other farmers do? They filled their trucks with water and drove there and helped out. But you see, you can't do that here. A bad year of crops is devastating. It reminds us of Joseph and his brothers. That's the illustration. That's the first point in verse 25, that the devastation is caused by this. But what is this illustration from the Prophet Joel pointing us to? What truths? What applications to the people back then and to us today? So secondly, consider with me the reality. The reality. Verse 25 again, Then I will make up to you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the creeping locust, the stripping locust, and the gnawing locust, my great army, which I sent among you." See, Joel was addressing the people of God and giving them this shocking illustration to make the point. What was this picture of devastation? Well, some commentators say, well, this could apply to actual invading armies, threats from outside. You see, prophecies can work on different levels, of course, too. And there are broader lessons and applications here. But I want to focus on something different. I think the main application, which is fairly obvious. And what I want you to see first is where have these locusts come from? And it tells us that this is God's army. God's army. He's the one that has sent them among you. And that might seem perplexing. But sometimes God uses divine providences. Sometimes God uses even our own sin to bring us low. God uses a natural catastrophe, an ecological crisis to shake the people out of their apathy and to remind them of their dependence on Him. You remember the locusts leave nothing. And these locusts are gods in response to his people's lack of obedience. Now, we don't want to push this at the illustration too far. We know that he's addressing the people of God. But I think the clearest picture that we have, and the one that we find most often in the commentaries, and I think the one that's obvious in the text, is that these locusts are our sin, or our neglect. Some say the locusts come as a result of our sin, as discipline, to bring us back to our right minds. But the applications are mostly the same. And one writer points to the pattern or order here, or the intention in God sending these locusts. It's a pattern in four words. Destruction, Lamentation, Repentance, Restoration. That's an important order. Destruction. Lamentation. Repentance. Restoration. But what he's missing is the reason for this destruction. The people. Or today. Us. Our sin. Our unfaithfulness. Perhaps our drifting away from God. Our breaking of the covenant. And it's sent often as a wake-up call with that intention, that after the destruction comes the lamentation of the individual or the church, and then the repentance, and then the restoration. And it might not be locusts today. God may use different things, different types of locusts with the motivation of love. to get us on our spiritual or physical knees before Him, so that we come back to Him, so that we are restored if we follow those instructions we just read in verses 12 and 13. So we must be aware of why this happens, what the process is, why God does this. But also remember how to avoid it all in the first place. And so we need to apply this picture language to our lives, this illustration to your life today. And it's here that Charles Spurgeon is really helpful. He does something in a sermon that he preached entitled Spiritual Restorations, and he preached it sometime between January and June 1855. And he's preaching on this passage, this verse, in Spurgeon's own unique way. And he answers the questions about what the locusts destroy. And he puts it into three categories, and I want to do the same. This is what he does. He uses firstly the wide-angled lens. And he looks at the church generally, the church everywhere. And then he zooms in to a particular church. And then thirdly and finally, he zooms right in and points at the individual. So I want to use that pattern. So consider with me the reality of the church generally. Under our second point, the reality. And what we see here is a picture of the people of Israel in our passage. But we can cut and paste it and look at the ups and downs of the church throughout all of church history. We've witnessed over the centuries, haven't we, the ebbs and flows of the New Testament era, the down of the medieval period, the up of the Reformation, and the Puritans, and the persecutions, and the theological drifts, and the heresies that keep coming up in different ways, the once orthodox seminaries and denominations that slipped into error. We can study different denominations, and we can point to those that have left the faith, sometimes imperceptibly, over time, some in just a short time, have left orthodoxy, or turned to liberalism, or perhaps left the sufficiency of Scripture, or tweaked what it means to define the gospel, how to be saved. Paul Washer has an interesting message in a related book, giving ten indictments against the modern church. And it includes a practical denial of the sufficiency of Scripture, an ignorance of God, a failure to address man's malady, his root problem, an ignorance of the gospel, an unbiblical gospel invitation. Those all happen in multiple churches all over this nation and all over this world. The locusts have visited and have eaten. And then we can zoom into a particular church. You can probably point to examples of once orthodox churches and wonder, what on earth happened there? We could name names where wonderful preachers once uplifted the truth. Struck me recently when a tour of New England was hosted by Puritan Seminary and they visited churches that were part of that time shortly after the pilgrims came across and then the Great Awakenings and Whitfield and Edwards and Brainerd and Elliot and we could go on and they stood in those pulpits and they declared the authentic and life-giving gospel and God worked in people's lives and hearts. And now? Nothing. There's nothing there. It's a shell. People might gather there on a Sunday, but they're not hearing the truth. There's evidence the locusts have consumed everything. And then we go to the lowest level, focusing right in as Spurgeon does on the individual. This is where it gets uncomfortable and challenging. Are you healthy? Are you in a spiritual malaise? Do you have good habits? Do you have a closeness with God? Or have you settled for mediocrity, apathy, lethargic, lukewarm? Due to a gradual drift? Or maybe you have been, or are still in, unrepentant and grievous sin. Maybe only you and God know it. There's a stark warning here for the complacent. I wonder if you're fully committed. Are you following Christ? Or is there evidence that the locusts have paid you a visit? What have they destroyed? Are you falling backwards? Are you backsliding in your faith? And J.C. Ryle wisely points out that men and women fall in private long before they fall in public. What are the warning signs you should look for? Well, let me point you to those much wiser than I. Ryle again says, backsliding generally first begins with neglect of private prayer. A.W. Tozer says, you can blame circumstances, but backsliding always begins in the heart. Thomas Guthrie says, if you find yourself loving any pleasure more than your prayers, any book better than the Bible, any house better than the house of God, any table better than the Lord's table, any persons better than Christ, any indulgence better than the hope of heaven, be alarmed. Horatius Bonner points out four signs. First, a losing of our first love. He says, when iniquity abounds, the love of many waxes cold and our affections get blunted or dull. Second, losing the edge of our conscience. That's another sign. When the conscience ceases to be sensitive and tender, it doesn't shrink back from sin like it used to do. Third, callousness as to truth. We get so familiar with it, it doesn't impact you anymore when you hear it. Loses power. And then fourth, insensibility to sin. Our own evils are not felt as they used to be. Sin itself is not so hated and shunned as formerly. And Thomas Menton finally says, if you yield to Satan in the least, he will carry you further and further, till he has left you under a stupefied or terrified conscience, stupefied, till thou hast lost all thy tenderness. A stone at the top of a hill, when it begins to roll down, ceases not till it comes to the bottom. Thou thinkest it is but yielding a little, and so by degrees are carried on. till thou hast sinned away all thy profession and all principles of conscience by the secret witchery of his temptations. We also see in our verse the potential duration. It's not talking about minutes or hours or days. This is years of sin and neglect and devastation. This swarm, this eating and stripping and gnawing by this vast army may have gone on for a huge period of time. And so we've seen firstly the illustration, secondly the reality, and that's the question, is it your reality right now? Listen, it's easy to hide your true spiritual state even in oversight meetings with pastors. We can all learn the right answers that they want to hear. Are you prepared to admit the problem and therefore address it? because thankfully we're not left here. So our final point is this, the hope. The hope. And as we read the verses before, verse 25, talk of the people again rejoicing, and the rain and the latter rains coming, resulting in verse 24 where there's an abundance of grain and wine and oil, and that's when Joel says in verse 25, then I will make up to you For the years the locusts have taken, have destroyed, you see. God will make up for the years that have been eaten and stripped and gnawed. It can be translated, I will give you back. It's like payment for losses incurred. Compensation. This great disaster will be reversed. There will be abundant blessings. All that the locusts did can be reversed and repaid, and restoring all that devastation is possible. There's hope for these farmers, for the nation. This is recoverable. Verse 20 tells us that these locusts can be and will be removed. There's rejoicing in the land because of that restoration. The rain, the vegetation, what they can eat, all mentioned in these few verses. But also, interestingly, potentially even greater fertility. It was terrible, but there's hope. There is blessing available, satisfaction, gladness. Verse 26, the result of this restoration is praise to God. This is such a comfort. And we can see multiple examples in Scripture of sinning and backsliding believers who need and then received restoration through this pattern. Think of David, think of Peter. We see an example in Isaiah 40 verses 1 and 2 where it says, And it's a message again of restoration after discipline. How does this restoration happen? God is the one that does it. It's God. Spurgeon asks, Who can make the all-devouring locust restore his prey? No one by wisdom or power can recover what has been utterly destroyed. God alone can do for you what seems impossible. And here is the promise of his grace I will repay for you, you for the years that the swarming locust ate. By giving to his repentant people larger harvests than the land could naturally yield, God could give back to them, as it were, all they would have had if the locusts had never came. And God can restore our lives that have up to now been blighted and eaten up with the locust and sin by giving us a divine grace in the present and in the future. He can make it complete and blessed and useful to His praise and glory. It is a great wonder. But Jehovah is a God of wonders, and in the kingdom of His grace, miracles are common. Taking Spurgeon's pattern again, of the church broadly, and then the specific church, and then the individual. And in each case, we approach these with humility and love. There but for the grace of God go I. We don't look down on these. But we pray, and we pray that the life-giving Word of God will revive and restore. But looking at the church generally, that wide-angled lens, we can see the work of God in revival, Movements like that where there was a rediscovery of truth and we could point to different nations like Korea or Wales or revivals in the Northeast. We can think of the monumental event of the Reformation in the 17th century and continuing flames of faithfulness. We know that God can and does use faithful Christians that may be left in difficult places, less than ideal circumstances. We know that there will always be a continuing witness to the truth. We know that God is always building his church. We see restoration after apostasy. It can happen. And then a particular church. Well, we mentioned the sad and the drifting churches, but we can also see individual churches being revived. People coming to the authentic gospel, if they follow that pattern of destruction, lamentation, repentance, restoration. What about the individual? Zooming right in on your heart. How do you avoid this? How do you recover from this? Well, there's lots of application here. In some senses, we need to understand this simple fact. There is a way out of sin. You don't have to stay there. With God's help, you can be restored as many have been in the past. Speaking of believers and their sin, Luther famously said, So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this, I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know one who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where he is, there I shall be also. Now that's never an excuse for sin. That's a different message. But it's a reality for many of us that Satan can often hold your past over your head. And he can stunt you today. But if you have been through that process all the way to restoration, you can just put your hand up and stop Satan and walk away. Forgiveness is true. Forgiveness is authentic. It's offered by God and has been received by many. And Satan can shut his mouth. Puritan Richard Baxter speaks to pastors, and he said, As the case of backsliders is very sad, so our diligence must be very great for their recovery. It is sad to them to lose so much of their life and peace and serviceableness to God, and to become so serviceable to Satan and his cause. It is sad to us to see that all our labor has come to this and that, when we have taken so much pains with them, and have had so much hopes of them, all should be so far frustrated. It is saddest of all to think that God should be so dishonored by those whom he has so loved, and for whom he has done so much, and that Christ should be so wounded in the house of his friends. Besides, partial backsliding has a natural tendency to total apostasy, and would affect it if special grace did not prevent it. Our 1689 Confession has a section in there on the perseverance of the saints. Talking about believers, you see. It's in chapter 17, verse 3, and it says this, And though they may through the temptation of Satan and of the world, the prevalency of corruption remaining in them, and the neglect of the means of their preservation, fall into grievous sins, they may sin, and for a time continue therein, whereby they incur God's displeasure and grieve his Holy Spirit, come to have their graces and comforts impaired, have their hearts hardened, and their consciences wounded, hurt and scandalize others, and bring temporal judgments upon themselves." Thank God it doesn't stop there. This is an important three-letter word. Yet. Yet. "...shall they renew their repentance, and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end." Once saved, always saved. But we don't rely on that. We start with that bedrock knowledge that we can't lose our salvation. And we looked at the desperate position of the backslider a moment ago. So many questions are raised, and as time goes by, on and on, and we don't see evidence of faith, then at some point we have to come to the conclusion that this individual was never a believer. But it's not up to me to decide that. We can't give a conclusion unequivocally, but it's certainly a dangerous place to be if you're comfortable living with sin. Spurgeon said, remember that if you are a child of God, you will never be happy in sin. You are spoiled for the world, the flesh and the devil. When you were regenerated, there was put into you a vital principle, which can never be content to dwell in the dead world. You will have to come back if indeed you belong to the family. John Owen said, there is only one way to be revived and healed from our backslidings so that we may become fruitful even in old age. We must take a steady look at the glory of Christ in his special character, in his grace and work as shown to us in the scripture. That's the way to be revived and healed. Look at Christ. That's why we have loving and restorative church discipline for church members who grievously fall. Two important words I said there. Loving, that's the attitude. And restorative, that's the intention. It doesn't mean it's easy for the person going through it or the pastor. But you see, the goal is clear. Proving your salvation, giving glory to God. Once you grasp the value of your eternal soul, surely you will do everything you can to prove that you are a follower of Christ. To prove that you have authentic eternal life. And pastors are charged with that high and daunting responsibility to care for your soul. Watch over you, protect you, to bring back the wanderers. So I wonder, are you wondering? Speak to somebody about it. Sometimes even church discipline is necessary. It's not fun for anyone. But you see, it's motivated by the desire to see restoration. It's concern for your soul. Before the craziness of the last couple of years, I would often go into Kent County Jail, and we'd run a substance abuse program there, a six-week program showing people that the root of the problem, the heart of the problem, is the problem of the heart, and that there is a way out of this. And part of the message that we bring to them is that you need to plug into a gospel-preaching church that will give you reality, that will tell you those hard truths, Because that's the most important thing, and it's the same for believers and unbelievers. If you're serious about your relationship with God, you need to join a community of sinners redeemed by grace, who understand that there may be restrictions on the prisoner coming out of there into the church. You need to earn our trust as we get to know you. But those kinds of things are such minor inconveniences and inconsequential if your heart's desire is to be sure that you are forgiven and you are saved by the Almighty God of the universe. See, having people like that coming in might be unsettling for you as a church. Might come with issues that have to be dealt with. But any other attitude from us than one of being accepting and loving of the greatest of sinners is entirely hypocritical. Stands against everything we believe. God has the power, God has the will, God has the track record. You can be made right again. But we must not forget that there may be lingering consequences from those locusts. That's another message too. You can't ever get that time back. You can be restored, not through self-effort. And we see the heart of God disposed to wanting to restore you. He wants you to come to Him in that manner. And we have brothers and sisters that can testify. to the comparison between what they lost and what has been gained since they were restored. You see, this is a passage that doesn't brush our problems under the carpet. The reality is presented to us that devastation has been caused by sin. There's a reality of loss, of sorrow, of potentially ongoing difficulty, and yet the picture is still of restoration being possible in this life. but also an ultimate or eschatological dimension to this too. As believers, praise God that we have the hope of heaven ahead where everything will be made right. Even unresolved things in this world, all those unfair events, all those unsatisfactory endings, it'll be dealt with. So part of this message is restoration, part is preservation. And it takes intentional effort with God's help. Spurgeon famously said, the Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up. Nay, you have to cut every step with an ice axe. Only with incessant labor in cutting and chipping can you make any progress. If you want to know how to backslide, leave off going forward. Cease going upward and you will go downward of necessity. You cannot stand still. So you've got to stop this drift. You've got to start good habits. You've got to use the prescribed means of grace. And so let me give you an example. How is your church attendance? I read a shocking statement from Francis Ridley Havergill the other day. And they said this, an avoidable absence from church is an infallible evidence of spiritual decay. An avoidable absence from church is an infallible evidence of spiritual decay. My friends, we need to rekindle that love for and devotion to Christ. You need to understand that there is still opportunity for growth and usefulness and fruitfulness. There's still opportunity for killing sin, for sanctification, for obedience to your Father. The gospel still applies. He will forgive. As far as the East is from the West. But you have to come in this manner. It must impact your heart. not just your outward things, as our verses said. And so we've seen in this very simple verse the illustration, the reality, and thank God, the hope. This passage was and is addressed to the people of God, Israel in the Old Testament, Christians today. Talking of sin and backsliding and wasting your gifts, wasting your time and life when you could and should be. Seeking to please us and serve your Lord and Savior. The locusts cause significant damage. Perhaps they have in your life. And it's time to face the issue and deal with it. Because today you've been offered restoration and revitalization. It's available. This problem, this sin, does not have to be the last chapter in your life. It's time to get up. It's time to press on. It's time to fight sin. And we praise God that he accepts us in our brokenness, in our mess. We serve a God of second chances, a patient God of 10th chances, of 70 times 7 chances. But as we conclude, I'm naturally drawn to the ultimate waste of a life. The non-Christian, the unbeliever. Because right now you have nothing redeemable. Nothing to restore. And we read in Scripture the reality for you that you are dead in your trespasses and sins. You're a pile of dead bones that a CPR machine can't do anything for. And my prayer for you, my plea to you, is that you'll not waste any time before you humble yourself and come to God. Maybe you young people need to hear this, that you need to repent of your sins and follow Jesus today. Do it before you leave your chair. We'll wait for you. I'm sure there are some here today who God did not save when they were young. I know some in my own church in Grand Rapids and they have regrets, they have hurtful situations from before they became Christians that are still impacting them today, consequences. Even though by God's grace they have been wonderfully saved and they are so thankful and so blessed, there's still those ongoing regrets because of the time that they lived without God. There are some here in that category, I'm going to guess, that without asking them, my strong suspicion is that they would plead with you not to wait. I'm sure they would compel you and everyone of every age, delay no longer. Because the day of the Lord is coming. It's mentioned in verse 31. But you see, the day of the Lord for the believer is a comfort. It's a day when every tear will be wiped away for one group. But Joel is also warning another group and he's pointing to a greater judgment ahead. Don't waste your life. Don't lose your life. We have examples of people who wasted their lives. Think of the thief on the cross. You see, there's even hope there. But don't wait that long. My friend, no matter what you have done in this life, as long as you have a pulse, there is always hope. Ultimate renewal, death-to-life renewal is available. But Christ is coming. Let me put it this way. Every breath without Christ as your Lord and Savior is a complete waste of oxygen. Pusey says this, in itself deadly sin. is an irreparable evil. It deprives the soul of grace of its hope of glory. It forfeits heaven. It merits hell. God, through Christ, restores the sinner, blots out sin, and does away with its eternal consequences. What a picture of a gracious God who sometimes has to use locusts to drive us back to himself. Repentance will result in forgiveness and restoration. We conclude with a reminder of the answer to all of this. To prevent it in the first place, and to recover from it, or to be restored from it if it does happen. Listen to J.C. Ryle. He says, Are you tempted? Look unto Jesus. Are you afflicted? Look unto Jesus. Do all speak evil of you? Look unto Jesus. Do you feel cold, dull and backsliding? Look unto Jesus. My friend, the answer for the unbeliever is Jesus. Nothing and no one else. The way for the healthy believer to stay healthy is Jesus. Nothing and no one else. The way for the devastated church or the fallen believer is Jesus, nothing and no one else. Look to Him. Let's pray.