God's Word. Then the Lord became jealous for His land and had pity on His people. The Lord answered and said to his people, behold, I'm sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you will be satisfied, and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. I will remove the northerner far from you and drive him into a parched and desolate land, his vanguard into the eastern sea, and his rearguard into the western sea. The stench and foul smell of him will rise, for he has done great things. Fear not, O land, be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things. Fear not, you beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green. The tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield. Be glad, O children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for he has given the early rain for your vindication. He has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the latter rain as before. The threshing floor shall be full of grain. The vats shall overflow with wine and oil. Read that far from God's word. We've reached the halfway point in concept in the book of Joel. From chapter 1-1 till chapter 2, verse 17, there was distress. Distress caused by the plague of locusts, the large swarm of locusts that ate everything green and literally threatened the lives of the residents. Now from chapter 2 verse 18 to the end of the book, there are good reasons to hope based on the promises of God to then restore his people and their land. So this second half of the book that we launch into now is comforting. It's assuring and reassuring founded on God's covenant love and his faithfulness to bless his people despite their sin and his power to restore what had been lost. Whenever we study the prophets of the Bible, we know they can be understood to apply to an event during the lifetime of the prophet. They can also refer to a future event beyond the lifetime of the prophet, and they can do both. In fact, they can have multiple fulfillments, and we'll see that today. We find that to be so in our study here of the book of Joel. One example. from the first half of the book, another example from the second half of the book. So from the first half of the book, the example is that locust outbreak that did heavy damage. It happened in a lifetime, but it acts as a precursor to the final future judgment of the day of the Lord, that common phrase, the day of the Lord. The example from the second half of the book is that the merciful blessings of God to restore the agriculture that was lost to the locusts also looks ahead to a future blessing from God to restore his people after great losses to sin. Specifically, that God's spirit will bring blessing where there was wilderness. You might recognize the verses just beyond our passage are quoted in the New Testament. We'll get to those later. Brings us to our main point of using the bulletin outline. You'll see the main point in bold print across the top. Since the Spirit is in us, we have good reasons to hope. And we'll unpack this in three points. We have hope because of the Lord's compassion for us, verse 18. Second point, we have hope because the Lord turns barrenness into fruitfulness, 19 and 20. And third point, we have hope because the Lord turns grief into joy, verses 21 to 24. Just a quick review, in chapter one, we saw how Joel described the recent locust outbreak, then in chapter two, verses one to 11, we studied how Joel wrote of an even greater threat, the Lord God leading his own army attacking in great wrath. Building on that, in chapter two, verses 12 to 17, we observe that Joel instructed the people with two trumpet calls, remember? The first trumpet call to repent and the second trumpet call to worship. And now in our study passage today, verses 18 to 24, the prophet Joel motivated the people for both that repenting and that worshiping by instilling hope. that the Lord will respond favorably to sinners who repent and worship. Our hope is that God will respond favorably to us. How can we have good reasons to hope? That's the title of our message and the whole point of today's study, good reasons to hope. Well, we hope in the God of creation who's also the God of redemption. That's the answer that we'll be unpacking together. Let me start with the closest we perhaps can come to the experience of a locust invasion. It's those ugly insects we have called cicadas. Remember them? Perhaps you've had some fear in your heart as you look across a yard and see them taking over. but it's never quite as bad as what they experienced. But again, it's maybe the closest we've all experienced. Maybe you know some of these things, but I'll review quickly the cicadas. Every 13 to 17 years, this remarkable event happens. Cicadas emerge from more than a decade underground. How do they keep track of time? A biologist at the University of Connecticut named John Cooley said this is one of the seven biological wonders of the world. An insect ecologist, George Washington University, named John Lill, said 17 years is just an inordinately long time to keep track of anything. How an insect does it is pretty remarkable. And during their long stint underground, the cicadas sip at xylem sap, the nutrient-poor but water-rich liquid that moves from a tree's root tips up to its canopy. Each year, as a tree buds and blossoms, its xylem sap is briefly rich in amino acids. Cicadas seem to drink from that, and they count 17 drinks. one per year. And another researcher added, we know that's what they count. Where they're putting their little chalk marks on the wall, we don't know. We really don't understand how they're keeping track of it. And what does every believer in Christ Jesus respond to that? Of course, we know. The answer is the Lord, our creator, God. And I'm calling upon you to realize that the good reason for hope is our same trust in the same creator God, who's also our covenant Lord and our redeemer God. We call on this God. We put our hope in the same God who keeps the sun and the moon in rhythm, and the same God who keeps the cicadas in their 13 to 17 year rhythm. It's the very same God who sent the locusts to this ancient city where Joel is speaking, and the same God who then provided restoration after the damage of Pholokas. That God would respond favorably, that God would respond graciously to sinners when we approach him, we can have good reason to hope that because of the book of Joel and our study here. First point then, we have hope because of the Lord's compassion for us. Verse 18, we continue our study. Then the Lord became jealous or zealous for his land and had pity. or compassion on his people. In Joel chapter 2, we'll see more of this next time, that the sin of the people, the basic sin confronted was the sin of idolatry. That is the sin of breaking the first commandment. That is, they have no other God besides the Lord our God. And if they were to repent of turning from the one true and living God to other gods, If they repented of that, the first trumpet call, right, and then if they responded to worship Him properly, the second trumpet call, then God would guide them in all the areas of their life, not just in their repentance, the correction of the first commandment, and to worship Him, but all their unrighteousness could be replaced with righteousness by God's continuous grace. The New Testament puts it this way. The apostle John wrote, 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, 1 John 1.9. So that's what we look at when we look at verse 18. The ancient prophet Joel wrote it this way in our passage. The Lord had pity on his people. He became zealous or jealous for his land and he also had pity on his people. His land, his people. So his people were sinning idolaters. They were turned away from God and worshiping something else, focused on something else, directed by something else. And now they're being destroyed by locusts. It's God's way of getting their attention. And yet God now has compassion on his people. That brings us to our first point. We have hope because of the Lord's compassion. We're intended to assume as we study verse 18 that Joel's preaching prior to this had been successful. That the people responded to do what Joel asked them back in verse 17, to gather as a nation for fasting, for lamenting, for repenting, and entering into then again joyful worship. The priest offered prayers on behalf of the repentant community. Remember it? Verse 17, between the vestibule and the altar, let the priests and the ministers of the Lord weep and say, spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, where is their God? And then between verse 17 and verse 18, there's a lag in time. That's why I call this the second half of the book. In that time, the lag in time between verse 17 and verse 18, between when they were called to repent and lament, and when verse 18 happens, the Lord has pity on them, we're to understand that the people took Joel's preaching seriously. They turned from their sins and they repented. And the people had gathered for a holy fast and a holy worship service, and they had no grain. for the sacrifice and worship that was required. They had no oil for the sacrifice and worship that was required. The only thing they had was hope in this God that he might receive them despite their lack of righteousness, their lack of proper worship. They were repenting and they were coming to him in worship with only hope in their hearts. Now, the people could not congratulate themselves that they were so sincere in their repentance and their worship, and that's the basis upon which God would or should bless them. No, no, no, it's not about them. Rather, the emphasis at the start of verse 18 is the same as the emphasis on the start of verse 19. The Lord, the Lord is the great agent of salvation, that He's a faithful God. He's faithful to His own covenant, and therefore He's faithful to His people, and He's not deaf to their repentance. He's not deaf to their requests for mercy. It is his land, he reminds us in verse 18. These are his people, he reminds us in verse 18. And God was intervening to restore his land from the destruction caused by the locusts. He was intervening to restore his people after the destruction caused by their sins. And it was God who was disposed to send the locusts in the first place, and now it was the very same God who's disposed to send a fresh opportunity of restoration and an opportunity to go and sin no more. And when either God's land or God's people suffered, it aroused the living covenant God to loving action. So in verse 17, please remember and note that the ministers of the Lord were leading the people to approach God in repentance and worship. And right there, between the vestibule and the altar, we were told in verse 17, the ministers were weeping and the ministers were praying. And what were the weeping ministers praying? Spare your people, O Lord, in verse 17. The answer is given in our text in verse 18, the remarkable answer from the Lord God that he did spare his people. He did take pity on them. He did have compassion for them. It was a direct and specific answer in verse 18 to the request of verse 17, the serious, broken, weeping request to plead with God to spare them. And he showed compassion. This is a good reason for us to hope, you see. This is our first point, that what God offered way back in verse 12 proved to be true. In verse 12, God himself spoke up through the pen of Joel and said, yet even now, return to me with all your heart. I know I've destroyed all your crops with the locusts. Yet even now, return to me with all your heart, God had said. He said that in order to draw people to him in salvation and restoration because he explained in verse 13 He is gracious and merciful to his core. Look how this is stated in verse 13. Return to the Lord your God for or because he is gracious and merciful. Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, he relents over a disaster. Sure enough, the people through their ministers had prayed, spare your people, O Lord, and then the Lord responded by sparing his people in his grace and his mercy. See, what Joel had dared to hope in verse 14 came true in verse 18. Verse 14, he said, who knows whether God will turn and relent and leave a blessing behind him. A blessing? The land is devastated. There's not a green thing left. The locust ate it all. What blessing could God give? Ah, how powerful is God? And verse 18 tells us he became jealous or zealous for his land and he had compassion or pity on his people. Hope is already further strengthened. God did turn, God did relent, God did bless. And one good reason to hope is that the Lord our God is a God of compassion. Paul writes it this way in 2 Corinthians 1. The Lord our God is called the Father of mercies, the God of all comfort. We move to our second point now. We have hope because the Lord turns barrenness into fruitfulness. In order to compare verse 17 now with verse 19, let's first go back to 17 once more. Lord, do not make your inheritance an object of scorn among the nations. Do not make your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they, the nations, among the peoples, say, where is their God? So verse 19 answers that. Now look at verse 19. The Lord answered and said to his people, behold, I'm sending to you grain, wine, and oil, and you'll be satisfied, and I will no more make you a reproach among the nations. God gives material blessings that the locusts had taken away, grain, wine, and oil. And wherever we come in troubles or seasons of barrenness, we remember these reasons for hope, such as God's name being upon us, the Lord God, his covenant name being placed upon us, the name of Christ upon us, Christians. Watch for this, that the Lord our God is the sort of God who turns barrenness into fruitfulness for people who bear his name. This is not a promise of wealth, don't misunderstand. This is a promise of provision, that we will have enough. We will have the grain and wine and oil that's needed. Their lives were destroyed by the locusts, but God supplies what's missing. He restores what the locusts had eaten. In addition, God gave them security as a blessing. Verse 20, I will remove the northerner. Who's the northerner? We glean from Jeremiah and Ezekiel how this northerner can refer poetically and prophetically to multiple things. First, the locusts. It seems like they swarmed in from the north. Secondly, it can refer to the physical army from a hostile nation, such as through history of God's people, the Babylonians and Assyrians. But thirdly, it can refer to that eschatological future army of the Lord with whatever death angels will be sent in judgment. It's, of course, ultimately pointing to that, God's final judgment. And whatever the threat, at all three levels, the locusts or the army or the army of God, God gave them security. I will remove the northerner far from you and drive him into a parched and desolate land. Whatever the threat, God gave them security by promising to bless them by removing the threats and the enemies, that God would protect his people, both the locusts Enemy nations represent the deeper enemy of our own sin. How will we stand before the living God? That's the ultimate thing to consider. Every prophet and every pastor is called on God's people to consider how it will be when you face the living God. That's ultimately the underlying lesson here. Sin itself is limited by our God. So that sin may not be permitted to do permanent damage to us. We are protected. How does that happen? It brings us back to the cross, that the Lord Jesus Christ had all of our sins placed upon him, and he died in our place to cleanse us of our sin. He rose again to secure our victory, so God removed the northerner, if you will. He removed the biggest threat from us, that he sent his son to bear our sins on the cross, and that scene, The scene at Calvary is the ultimate barrenness, but then it's turned into fruitfulness for he died, was buried, rose again, ascended to heaven and poured out his spirit and all the fruitfulness of his spirit and his kingdom. The cross becomes the great source of reversal. The cross becomes our source of rescue. The cross becomes our hope because the Lord turns barrenness into fruitfulness. God's Word through the prophet Joel brought conviction of sin by the work of the Spirit of God, asked them to fast, to lament, and to repent, and to worship, and they fasted, lamented, and worshiped, and repented. And God's Word and Spirit brings forgiveness. brings news of cleansing, brings news of healing, brings news of new obedience and new fruitfulness, restoration. We have hope that we share in this rescue all the way. So that's our second point, we have hope because the Lord turns barrenness into fruitfulness. And our last point, number three, verses 21 to 24, we have hope because the Lord turns grief into joy. No matter how strong the enemies of God's people seem, God protects his people. Verse 20, he says that the locusts, has done great things, yeah, it was amazing. Or the enemy army has done great things, yeah, it was thorough. Or the future army of God would do great things, yes. But then he responds, you gotta notice that at the end of verse 20 and the end of verse 21, has done great things. First one refers to either the locusts or the army or the army of God, but the second one refers to the Lord our God in actions of restoration. And as astounding as the locust destruction was, God's work of restoration would be even more astounding. As astounding was the enemy armies for the exile, even more astounding is God's restoration of bringing his people back home to rebuild. Verse 21, he begins to speak to this. Fear not, O land. He speaks to the land as personified. Be glad and rejoice, O land, for the Lord has done great things. They're expected to utilize hope in order to transcend the dismal present by praising God for the guaranteed future. Hope causes a deliberate reversal of previous bad news. We don't focus on the bad of the past. We don't focus on the bad of the present. We focus on the good news of the guaranteed future. That's hope. Yes, the locust arrived. Yes, the locust ate everything. Yes, it looked really, really bad. However, verse 21 says, fear not, O land. You need not fear, you must not fear. And in fact, they're called to rejoice. As you continue to read in verse 21, be glad and rejoice as you look across the locust-eaten land. In verse 21, the land itself is personified. He calls on the land to be glad and to rejoice, for he had in the past conquered greater problems. than whatever the locusts caused in this land. Verse 22, he continues. Fear not, O beasts of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green. The tree bears its fruit. The fig tree and the vine give their full yield. After Joel called on the land to rejoice, now in verse 22, he expanded from there and he calls upon the beasts of the field not to fear. Oh, it's poetic, he's not actually talking to the beasts. He's talking to the people who own the beasts. He's talking to the farmers and all the people. He's saying that even though locusts did a lot of damage, don't worry about your land, your animals, and your trees. The land will be green, the animals will survive, and the trees will yield fruit. And then verse 23, he makes that more clear by now directly speaking, instead of to the land or the beasts, he speaks to the people. Verse 23, be glad, O children of Zion. The land is to be glad and the beasts are to be glad, but it's really you, the children of Zion, who are to be glad and to learn to rejoice in the Lord your God. Why? For he's given the early rains for your vindication, verse 23. He has poured down for you abundant rain in the latter and later rain, early and later rain as before. Here Joel turned to speak directly to the people, coaching them to place their hope in God. For what? For the rains. After the locusts sweep through, it causes a drought next. They're double-cursed, but what they need to turn it all around is rain. Who can send rain? Only God. In the drought-dry countryside, rain was dreamed about. Oh, they needed rain. When rain would bring new growth, the brown and barren pastures were to be green once more, was the promise. What about the word vindication, verse 23? The phrase, for your vindication. He's given the early rains for your vindication. It signifies a right relationship to God being restored. The previous curse of the locust plague, followed by drought, to give away to blessing. God's action to transform their hearts, to bring them in response to Joel's preaching to come in lamenting and repenting and worship is responded to by God's action to also affect restored spiritual harmony and even match it with agricultural transformation. Whatever was hit hard by the plague was now to expect a yield of a bumper crop. The rain yielding a harvest is not merely a physical benefit, but symbolic verification that God had returned to his people. He'd call his people to return to him. The only correct response for them, verse 23, change your mood. Change your mood from fear and despair to joy and hope. And the language here evokes the well-known demonstrations of God's mighty acts of old. He's conjuring up big things, like when God parted the Red Sea and brought his people safely through. Joel is sensing that God's about to make history again with another one of those great, big, wonderful acts of grace that everybody in the world can see. foreign nations will see, and there'll be a reproach no longer. Oh, you serve this God, some God he must be, lets all your stuff be eaten by locusts. God restores and vindicates them. He said, these are my people. And he restores them. The benefits that Joel's expecting call for a changed mood. Great was the danger of the locusts, but securing the restorative power of the Lord is greater still. As they contemplate the greatness of their God, their fear starts to evaporate and hope and joy takes its place. And the people are learning. They're learning as they look across their fields, eaten dry. Learn to trust the Lord for their source of hope and joy, their only source of hope and joy. In our last verse, verse 24, the threshing floors shall be full of grain. The vat shall overflow with wine and oil. Consider the words full and overflow in this verse. Only someone with hope could envision fullness and overflowing when their eyeballs see barrenness Where was all this fullness and overflowing supposed to come from exactly, Joel? Our mighty God, says Joel. Blessings will replace this damage. Joy will replace this heartache. Excitement will replace your sick stomachs. Turn to the Lord your God in repenting, in lamenting, in worship. The Lord our God is the type of God who turns such grief into joy. He turns spiritual grieving into spiritual rejoicing through his hope. What have we seen? We hope because the Lord's compassion, we hope because the Lord turns barrenness to fruitfulness, and we hope because he turns grief into joy. A good reason to hope is the Spirit of God. Let me draw a conclusion here. The passage in Joel that we've looked at It looks ahead with rejoicing to the future time in which both the physical needs and the spiritual needs of God's people will be fully met. And God has promised, and God has fulfilled His promise. He's a covenant God who's consistent and faithful and to be trusted. We have good reason to hope for our God is who he is. See, Christ Jesus has fulfilled the promises. When he came, he died, he rose again in order to meet the needs of God's people. Our sins have been cleansed, which was our chief need. We've been secured as the children of God. We're children of Zion. And God's spirit has been made available to young and old, male and female, slave and free. We'll get into that in the remainder of chapter two. Are we people whose lives have been damaged by sin? akin to the way that the locust damaged ancient Jerusalem and its farm fields? Has sin come in and stripped away every last green leaf that our lives seem like a spiritual desert when we look at them with our eyeballs? If so, we need to return to passages such as this to increase our hope to place our hope solely in the one who alone can make life sprout up to fruitfulness again. Only our God can restore blessings that sin has taken away. Here's how Paul wrote it in Romans 8, 31. If God is for us, who can be against us? Well, that's really good reasoning, as long as we can actually be ensured that God is indeed for us. Well, Paul went on to Cover that in the very next verse to assure us in Romans 8.32, he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Can we be assured that God is indeed for us? Yes, it's the cross that assures that God the Father is for us, and God the Son is for us. That's the good reasons we have to hope, have true hope in God, because God the Father spared not His Son. God the Father gave up His Son for us all. God the Father would do that for us, then there's good reasoning to deduce that God the Father would also give us any other gift, and He has the might and power to do so. Now, brothers and sisters, we don't need wealth to have true hope. We would like to have supper each day, but we don't crave wealth and expect God to provide wealth. We need hope in Christ to give us whatever it is that we need, and what we need is contentment with what we already have. That's the kind of victory that only Christ gives us to replace discontentment with contentment, a fruit of his spirit. We don't need an easy life to have true hope. Now we would like to have only as much difficulty as we can bear, and that we need, and that Christ provides. The promise that he circumscribes our difficulties and gives us only what we can bear. We need Christ to stand with us no matter how difficult our lives become, and that he gives us, but we don't need an easy life to have hope, and we don't need a Norman Rockwell family to have true hope. Perhaps we're all disappointed in our families and our situation. Hope changes everything. Hope is powerful. One young man was so torn up about his family situation, he developed a motto for himself. It's so dark, I hesitate to say it, but it expresses well despair, and you might have thought this yourself. He said this as his motto. Imagine the worst thing that can happen, and then expect something still worse to actually happen in my family. You know what that motto is? Despair, devastation, and destruction. It's like a locust eating everything. And you know what hope in God does? It changes the motto for ourselves, and instead we say something that's filled with hope, and it sounds like this. Imagine the best thing that the Lord God could do, and then expect God to do something better than that. Paul expressed this for us as Christians in Ephesians 3.20. God is able to do far abundantly more than all we could ask or think, Ephesians 3.20. Past sins and previous losses do not warrant us to sink into despair. We are Christians whose Lord is on the throne of the universe. We don't assume that complete restoration is too good to be true. We hope in it and we rejoice wholeheartedly over the Lord's capacity and ability to produce it and to restore full peace and fruitfulness. We do not need a pain-free life in order to have true hope. We do not even pray for a pain-free life. We pray for a reduction of pain. We pray for only as much pain as we can handle. What we truly need and what we pray for is the grace to endure what we are experiencing in our walk through a broken world. We need grace that never leaves us. We need grace that never forsakes us. We need grace that never fails us. We need a savior who's always with us. And these are the things he covenantally provides. That's exactly what we have in Christ. And so we have every reason, every good reason to hope I end with this, Romans 5-2, through Christ we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, since you've given us your Son, and since he died for us and rose