Look and tremble. A terrible and vast army is coming and it will bring total destruction. It will be unstoppable. That was the warning. The conquering army would look lustily on the land of Israel and utterly devour it. The army of the LORD? A hoard of locusts.
For the vast majority of the world who has never lived through an epic locust swarm, we have no idea. We have no idea what it is to realize that your food supply is no more, the land is devastated, and the only thing left is a barren desert. For us, it’s no worries. We just import our food. But if there were no food imports and the food supply was finished, it would be a horror upon horror. This was to be the judgment of Israel if they did not repent.
The LORD tells them to call a sacred assembly and come before the LORD in fasting and mourning. Perhaps he would relent from sending calamity.
He suggests the bride and the bridegroom leave their honeymoon and come before the LORD in sorrow. He tells the priests to stop his priestly duties and do the same. He calls on all people to repent.
If they repent the LORD may hear them. And His restoration would be great. He would drive away Assyria who threatens to wipe out their very existence. He would restore the land which the locusts have eaten and make their abundance even greater than before. Much greater.
And the LORD would bring them great joy. The joy of restored and blessed lives. IF they would repent.
Whether the army of locusts was literal or figurative is uncertain. What we do know though is that the conquerors did come. The Babylonians did come and destroy Judah and Jerusalem. And they were as thick as locusts in destroying the land and the people.
It seems that Israel did not repent. That they received exactly what the LORD had told them. Or perhaps they did repent and the LORD relented for a time, but then they slipped back into their old ways. Because for both northern and southern Israel there was a judgment and they were conquered.
Once again though a prophetic hope seems to appear whenever there is judgment. The LORD speaks of the day when he will pour out His spirit on all peoples, young and old, men and women, slave and free. We see this fulfilled in Acts 2.
It says that when this day comes, “all who call on the name of the LORD will be saved.”
It could have happened for the northern kingdom of Israel. They could have been saved. They could have received the blessing of God. They could have had their land and their lives restored in such blessing that the devastation of the locusts would be totally redeemed.
The significant of this is that God is saying the same thing even today. That there will be a judgment for sin and it would be horrific. But those who call on the name of the LORD will be saved. Therefore come to him in repentance, and find mercy for your souls.
But there’s a problem. And it’s a big problem. It’s the great renaming and the great changing.
Sin now is labeled as righteousness and it brings confusion. We now have phrases and words that redefine sin:
“Love is love.”
It’s “polyamory”
It’s being “born in the wrong body”
They’re “dreamers”
It’s a “woman’s choice”
They are “minor attracted persons”
Redefining sin is deadly. It leads to confusion as to what is sin and what is not sin, and man makes that choice, not God. A whole generation then is confused.
It gets worse as when words are redefined from reality, then not only do they no longer become sin, but then it becomes a social and eventually a political crime not to recognize such sins as being considered “righteous.”
It is already happening. If you don’t call someone by their pronouns that they want to be called by, right now it’s socially unacceptable. But people even this week are starting to call on the government to make it illegal to call someone different than the pronoun of their choice.
If what is sinful is seen as righteous, labeled as righteous, and even legalized as supposedly righteous, then there is not repentance. There is not turning. It’s the getting of God without repentance.
But it doesn’t work that way.
Repentance has always preceded coming to the LORD. And it is He who defines sin.
It’s why so far in Joel, in chapter 1 and chapter 2, God has suggested to them that they call a sacred assembly. That they come to God in repentance, and perhaps God will relent from judgment.
It’s why almost every New Testament preacher began his message with repentance – Jesus, John the Baptist, Peter, Paul, the disciples…
Returning to God begins with repentance. We cannot have a gospel that does not include repentance from sin that God calls sin.
It’s a precursor of calling on the LORD to be saved.
That’s why it’s important that we do not give in to this. That we speak. That we do not go along with this social trend. The fruit is confusion and a refusal to repent before God.
The good news is that some people are seeing. They are standing. And they are speaking.
Perhaps one day we will all come again to our senses. Repent before God. And find His mercy.
