God Is The Ultimate Cause of Natural Disaster - Part 1

Okay, Joel. Joel is the second of the minor prophets, right behind Hosea. Now, it's amazing that Hosea is 14 chapters. I wondered, hmm, can I do it in one sermon? Well, I did it in one sermon. Joel's three. I thought, certainly I can do that in one. But you know what? I think it's at least two. So, Joel. What does the Old Testament minor prophet of Joel have to say? I mean, look, God preserved it. God preserved it for Christians today. Why has God preserved Joel, these three chapters? Now, if I were to guess, you can correct me if I'm wrong. If I were to guess, not a single person here has ever heard a message on Joel unless you knew that I was going to preach on it and you listened to one, right? Well, I'm saying if I were to guess, and somebody can say wrong, but I suspect that the vast majority that's right. You've never heard a message on Joel. Maybe Para has. And then, I suspect that you probably, if you're honest, before you heard I was going to speak through the minor prophets, if somebody would have just simply stopped you on the streets and said, tell me everything you know about Joel, you probably would have said, what do we all know about Joel? Or you should know. What is the most famous thing about Joel? Acts 2. That's right. It's the only place where the prophet Joel is quoted in the New Testament. And it is on the day of Pentecost. And it is precisely when Peter says, you remember they said these guys, they're drunk with new wine. And Peter said, no, these men are not drunk as you suppose. He said, this is nothing other than what Joel said would happen. So, and what did Joel say? Well, in the last days, it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. So, it's this promise of the sending of the spirit of God. That is what Joel is most well known for. Obviously, it makes sense that it would be. It's quite an extensive. I mean, if you think about how much scripture is quoted in the New Testament, well, it's often quoted. But if you really think about, I haven't looked at this, but I have a feeling this is probably the longest or close to the longest quote from the Old Testament found in the New Testament. And so, and then of all things, it's this promise of the coming of the spirit. This is why I have to do two messages because I can't really, I don't have time to deal with that, which is what the letter is really known for. And I have all sorts of questions in my own mind about this quote that Peter quotes from Joel and applies it obviously to his time in Acts 2. The real question that I think we need to answer is how much does it apply to our time in this day? And anyway, Lord willing, that's next week. You may be surprised to find out that the book of Joel, even if you know about it being quoted in the book of Acts, you may think, well, you know, that's probably what Joel's all about. Actually, Joel starts out primarily about a swarm of locusts. Did you know that? Now that's what we want to think about. What is a locust? Besides being the favorite fruit of John the Baptist, what is a locust? I mean, what comes to your mind? Yeah, grasshopper. I mean, look, the reality is that a locust does not equal grasshopper, but a locust is a grasshopper, but all grasshoppers are not locusts. It's a type. It's a type of what they call short-horned. Now, you know, when I was a kid, we had lots of grasshoppers in Michigan, and I'd catch these things and I'd study them. Yes, I'd rip their legs off so that they couldn't jump away. And, you know, I don't know if you have those in England, but we had them all over. And in Texas, it's awful dry, and so it's not as common, but in Michigan, oh, they were everywhere in all sorts of different kinds. And some of them could jump a little ways and some could jump really far. The thing about the locust is it actually, God has equipped it with wings where it can fly a long way like a bird. And they are also a form of grasshopper that is given to multiply at certain seasons when all the conditions are just right. They multiply in absolute abundance, and they stay together. They don't all separate. They swarm. It's the only kind of grasshopper that actually is social like that and stays in a swarm. And so that's a locust. The thing about locusts is they can chew the bark off a tree. They can chew off small limbs. These things are ferocious in appetite. They literally can wipe out everything that's green across the face of the land. They can virtually devour all the crops, all the leaves on the trees, all the fruit, everything in the vineyard. I mean, they're destruction. And if a plague of locusts, we're talking about billions. We're talking about they have clouds of locusts that darken the sun. And these things can ravage a land and annihilate everything. And I want you to get a feel for it. I want you to get a feel for the completeness of the destruction. Now, here's the thing you need to recognize about Joel. The plague of locusts has already happened. It is not a book that is foreseeing this calamity. It actually is a book that's been written about a recent calamity that's passed. And it looks forward to an even greater calamity in the future. That's what's happening here. But I want you to get a feel for the magnitude of what happened. Verse four, Joel 1:4. Now, I recognize if you have a King James version, you may get some words like palmer worm or canker worm in here. But listen, those are words that the King James guys came up with that they didn't really know what they were dealing with. And even today, we're not precisely certain what the term... I mean, there's bug names given to us here that people are not really certain about what they mean. What they're speculating is this, that what you have in verse four are different stages of the locust. Because this is something interesting about the locust. They go through numerous stages. And that is what is thought is being expressed here. But anyway, aside from the technicalities, you get the feel. What the cutting locust left. So in other words, you get one wave. And what was left over? Well, what did it leave? Well, it ate the most edible things. You can be sure the first wave or the first stage of these locusts, what do they probably eat? The tenderest things, the easiest to eat things. But whatever they left, the next wave, the swarming locust, they ate. What that wave of locust left, the hopping locust has eaten. What the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten. What was left by one stage got ravished by the next. Notice verses six and seven of chapter one. For a nation, now this language, what God is going to do here is he's going to liken the locust to a nation. He's going to liken these locusts to several things. And you're going to see this. A nation has come up against my land, powerful beyond number, its teeth are lion's teeth. It has the fangs of 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. And all you need to ask is what sort of nation, what sort of enemy attacks the crops and eats the trees? I mean, that's basically what you have here. Look at verse 10. The fields are destroyed. The ground mourns because the grain is destroyed. All the food is destroyed. The things in the field are destroyed. This is not an enemy that comes in and attacks people directly. This is an enemy that comes in and it directly attacks the grain. It attacks the food sources. It is destroying the fields. And God likens these things to fire. Because the reality is when you have a wildfire go across, basically the devastation left is the same as having locusts go across. It's like fire. He keeps likening them to fire here. Notice, notice verse 5. Pick up partway there. You see where it says, like the crackling of a flame. Like, that's a likeness. You basically have similes here. There's a likeness. The crackling of a flame, a fire devouring the stubble. Like a powerful army. So you see these locusts are like the flame. They're like this army. Why are they like fire? Well, such is the destructive tendency of these things. Why are they like an army? Because they can't be resisted. I mean, this thing is, this can, notice this. Look at verse, or chapter, oh, when I said verse 5 there, I meant chapter 2. You probably wondered where I was. Where was he reading like a crackling flame of devouring stubble? It's chapter 2 verse 5. You want to look at that. Because you just want to get a feel for this, the likeness. So often in these Old Testament prophets, you have things described one way, but it, it, you know, there's a lot of figurative. There's a lot of analogy taking place here. Like the crackling of a flame. Like a powerful army. That's Joel 2 5. So now if you go to 2 3, fire devours before them and behind them a flame burns. And I don't think you want to take that literally. I mean, it's just basically that it's like verse 5. It's like a crackling flame of fire. It devours the stubble. That's, that's the issue here. Notice verse 3. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, but behind them a desolate wilderness. Nothing escapes them. Now you think today, if you had this happen here, well, for one, you get so much rain, things grow back fairly quickly. When you're somewhere like in the Middle East, where you depend on the rainy season, and you're not in the rainy season, because the rainy season's already come, and it watered the ground to get the crops going, and now they come in and destroy, and now everything is dry, and you don't have a Tesco down at the corner, and you don't have ships coming from afar that are docking in the harbors, bringing food from all over the world. You basically recognize if you had something like locusts go through and wipe out all your food, all the vineyards, all the fig trees, everything, you're in trouble. Like there's going to be famine. You basically have whatever you have in reserve. And you know how it is with poor people? They live hand to mouth. And you can imagine what's happening. Look at Joel 2 verse 7. Like warriors they charge. Again, see the likeness here. He's likening them to all these things. Like warriors they charge. Like soldiers they scale the wall. They march, each on his way. They do not swerve from their paths. They do not jostle one another. Each marches in his path. They burst through the weapons and are not halted. Can you imagine if you've got all your actual soldiers out there in front of your city, and they've got bow and arrow, and they've got their shields, and they've got their swords? And not stopping these guys, they just burst right through. They burst through the weapons. They're not halted. You can't slow them. I mean, what are you going to do? And even if you grab one out of the air, there's billions of others. They're just right past you. They're not halted. Notice what it says, verse 9. They leap upon the city. They run upon the walls. They climb up into the houses. They enter through the windows like a thief. I mean, you get the picture. These things are coming in in swarms. You can't stop them with human weapons. They're all over the city. They're running on the walls. They're running on the houses. They're getting in the windows. They're getting in your house. That's the picture here, folks. I think you see it. This is no small thing. And you know what happens? You know what happens when this takes place? There's going to be famine. And you know what comes with famine? I mean, your crop gets decimated, the trees, the vineyards. And what happens? There's starvation. And once people start to starve and once there's famine, then people, their immune systems are down. Disease sets in. The weak, typically children and the elderly, begin to die first. People are starving. That's what happens. And you know what happens? What we see, like when famine gets really bad, like when somebody throws siege, they start eating their babies. I mean, all sorts of... God said that these kinds of things would happen. People do crazy... You know what happens? People get selfish. People begin to hoard their things. You know how that is? It's not like everybody says, okay, let's band together. We're going to endure this all together. No. Selfishness. And you know what it says here? It says that there's no more grain offering. One of the things that happens in Israel when there's this kind of famine, is there's no grain. So there's nothing... People are not bringing their offerings. And now there's no grain being offered on God's altar. That's one of the things that's said here in Joel. So, okay. The question is obviously this. Okay, we see it. Now what does that have to do with us? I mean, how does this affect us? Well, I would say this. Apparently, quite a lot can be learned from this. Or God wouldn't have preserved it. Notice chapter 1 verse 3. I mean, this really jumps out at me. I find this to be, tell your children of it. Let your children tell their children. And their children to another generation. In other words, this is something that is worth repeating to people. This is something you want to tell folks about. This is something you don't want to just tell your kids about. You want to tell your grandkids. You want your grandkids to tell their kids and beyond. And so you know what? This is something to get passed down. This is something worth passing down for how many ever thousands of years. Because we're that generation to come. Now why do we need to know about this? That's the question on the table. What does a plague of locusts thousands of years ago have to say to you and me here in this place at this time? And believe me, it really does have... There's a message here for us. First few times I read Joel, it was when Sam was here. And I said, Sam, I don't have any idea what I want to say about Joel. I can't read it, read it. It's like, but then it's like all sorts of things began to jump out at me. Listen, this is three chapters. The first chapter is basically this. It's a lamentation over the plague of locusts. Notice verse 5. Chapter 1 verse 5. It says, weep. It says, wail. It's a lamentation. Go down to verse 8. Lament like a virgin. That's lamentation. It means mourn. It means be sorrowful. So chapter 1 is basically that. It's this lamentation. It's this mourning. It's this weeping and wailing. In fact, you know what is interesting? Look at verse 7. Chapter 1 verse 7. It almost sounds like God himself is a victim. Notice how he says this. This is another thing that really jumped out at me. Whose vine and fig tree got destroyed in this? Anybody looking at the text? His. Who's his? God. God's. You know what God's saying? My vine got destroyed in this. My fig tree got eaten in this. You know what I mean? He almost makes it sound like he's a victim. This nation of locusts has laid waste my vine. My fig tree. But here's the thing. As we go deeper into this book, something begins to happen. Now think with me. The locust plague is already passed. Look at chapter 2 verse 19. And I only have you look here just to see the past tense nature of this. To you, O Lord. This is actually Joel. This is one of the few places where you see Joel in his entire three chapters. Mostly it's God speaking to us. Here is Joel. To you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness. Flame has burned all the trees of the field. You see, past tense. So this thing is over. All the way through here, the indication that you have is that the nine of the locusts has already left things like they've been scorched by fire. Yet, notice chapter 1 verse 15. Alas for the day. For the day of the Lord is near. Now see, you can almost just read through. You know, if you have a Bible reading plan or schedule, you read Joel once a year. You could read through it. Yeah, you heard these references in there to the day of the Lord. You could think, well, maybe the day of the Lord speaks of that day when they have the locust. But you know, if you really stop and you pay attention, the locust thing is past. The day of the Lord is future. And it keeps happening in this letter that way. Notice again, Joel 2 verse 1. Blow a trumpet in Zion. Sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble. For the day of the Lord is coming. It is near. Now, it's right here that we need to just stop and think. Okay, locust, that's already happened. But you know what God is doing? Okay, I'm looking back. I'm looking at the locust and God is taking my head and he's spinning it around. And he's saying, but what you really need to see is what's coming ahead of you. That's what keeps happening in Joel. Something is coming. Something, it's... Folks, what he wants us to see is this day of the Lord. But we need to ask this. Okay, what's the day of the Lord? I mean, you come across this in the New Testament. You come across this in the Old. What does that mean? Look at chapter 2 verse 28. This is important. Chapter 2 verse 28 is where Peter quotes from in Acts 2. And why is this so important? Just for this reason. We know when this happens. When? In Peter's day. Giving of the Spirit. Acts chapter 2. That's when this is fulfilled. Now notice this. 2 28. It shall come to pass afterward. Peter says in the last days that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. I will show wonders. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth. Blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood. Get this. All of that happens before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. Now that's key. Because when he says it's near, it's ahead and it's near. He sees it as being past the time when the Spirit is poured out upon the church. What happens before this day comes? Well, we will live in the day of the poured out Spirit. And then the day of the Lord comes. That's key. So what is it? Joel chapter 3 is where it tells us about what's coming. And I would just have you drop down and look at verse 12. Let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Now that word Jehoshaphat gets used here more than once. Jehoshaphat means Yahweh judges. Notice, let the nations stir themselves up and come up to the valley of Yahweh judges. For there I will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle. This imagery here ought to remind you of Revelation. No question. Put in the sickle for the harvest is ripe. Go and tread for the wine press is full. The vats overflow for their evil is great. Multitudes, multitudes. There you have the nations. All the multitudes in the valley of decision. You know what? Again, you might just read across this and say, Oh, valley of decision. That's like, you know, people are making decisions either for God or no, no. We're at the day of the Lord. You've heard of a court making a decision, a judicial decision. A judge makes a decision. That's what's happening. This is not an evangelistic decision, folks. This is the decision of the divine court. That's what's happening here. The day of the Lord is the day when God is going to judge all these nations. Look at verse 14, chapter three. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision for the day of the Lord is near. Just like it was said before. There it is again in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are dark and the stars withdraw. They're shining. The Lord roars from Zion and others, his voice from Jerusalem. The heavens and the earth quake, but the Lord is a refuge to his people. A stronghold to the people of Israel. Wow. That day, there are some people that are going to find refuge. But it is a day of darkness. Israel is going to have her ultimate glory. So here's the question. Why keep reinforcing this day of the Lord when the locusts come? I mean, what's the connection? Okay, you're living in a day and a calamity happens. What's the connection with the day of the Lord out there at the end? What's one reason? One reason. There's a verse that captures this. Look at Joel chapter two, verse 11. Brethren, you really need to see this and you need to feel this. This is a very pivotal verse in this book. The Lord utters his voice before his army. Now, if you're in 2.11, I mean, you look right before that. He's talking about in verse 9, they leap on the city, they run upon the walls, they climb up into the houses, they enter through the windows. He's talking about the locusts here. And he's basically saying the Lord utters his voice before his army. They're his locusts. That's his army. Remember, they were eating his vines, his fig tree. You kind of get a picture here. Yeah, they're eating my vines, but I'm not a victim here. That army is mine. I sent them to eat my vine. By the way, all that we have is his. The fullness of the world is his, folks. He owns it all. That is the idea here. He lets us use it. He's letting them use those vines and those fig trees to provide food for their families and for themselves. And when he decides that he's going to send his army to take away those vines and those fig trees from those people, he can do it. He could do it in a second. And that's exactly what has happened. His army. This is the locust army. God sends that locust army to destroy his own vines, his own fig trees. Is the day of the Lord future here? Look at this text. The Lord utters his voice before his army, for his camp is exceedingly great. That's the camp of these locusts. He who executes his word is powerful. You got to know what that's saying. It means God gives, God executes his word. God says to those locusts, to his army, go and do that. And it's powerful, folks. It happens. And then it says this, for the day of the Lord. Now, if it was going to be just like all the other times, it would say it's near. It just says the day of the Lord is great and very awesome. Who can endure it? So is the day of the Lord future here? Or does it actually refer to the time of the locusts? It's hard to tell. But I'll tell you what's happening. God is saying when devastation sweeps abroad, it's my day. That's the Lord's day. There are no plagues of locusts sweeping over the country, but they march at God's command. Be certain of that. That day of the Lord, if indeed what God is doing there is calling the locusts the day of the Lord, that day is a foretaste of that day. That is a foreshadowing of another day. And that's the idea. Folks, the main thing is this. God does not hesitate to take full responsibility for this disaster and for all the suffering that results from it. Now think with me. You imagine a mother. She doesn't have any food. And so what happens? Her milk dries up and the baby dies. Brethren, that's what's going to happen. Famine has come upon the land. People are going to die. And you know what? God says, I did that. I'm responsible for this. To many people, a plague of locusts, a tsunami. You know what happens? What happens today? Well, we get this atheistic crowd out there that basically says, well, you know, everything started with the Big Bang. We don't need God to explain that. Everything that's alive has come forth through evolution. We don't need God to explain that. And so they don't really need God to explain when a plague of locusts come, or a tsunami, or an earthquake, or I don't even know. Around here, you might be able to relate with the potato famine that happened back in the 1850s. I don't know what great devastations you've had over here on this island. But these things happen. And you know what? You know what people are very quick to do? It's their view just simply is a natural disaster. That's how people see it. That's how the news sees it. This anti-God media. That's how they view everything. It's just natural disaster. It's a chance occurrence. God has nothing to do with this. I mean, have you noticed how men view disaster through these little humanistic lenses that they have? And so in the U.S., we get tornadoes. We can get hurricanes. We can get wildfires. There's any number of things that happen. The West Coast is prone to earthquakes. We get drought. We've had COVID across the world. People get cancer. Many cry, well, it's arbitrary, random chance. There's no plan. There's no purpose to it all. Things just happen. You know what Joel steps in and says? He says, you better rethink that. And then, but we also get people that they're all hung up on secondary causes. I mean, you find that. People look at something and, oh, it must be global warming. By secondary causes, I just mean what God uses. You know, people just get all hung up. Well, where did the locusts come from? It's the weather. It's the farmers. They didn't use the right insecticide. It's the manufacturers. Their factories are polluting the rivers, and this has messed up the whole food chain and everything. You know, people want to, it's the politicians. If they weren't so greedy, they would have fixed this. That's what happens today. People are always looking for answers in all these different things and, you know, earthquakes. Well, you know, it's tectonic plates moving. You know what Joel tells us? That's God moving. God did that. God caused those. God is in control of those plates, and he's in control of global warming, and he's in control of all these things. And Joel steps in and says, yeah, we better slide away those secondary causes and look at the ultimate cause. God is in control of this. That's what Joel is all about. The Lord utters his voice before his army of locusts. His camp is exceedingly great. He who executes his word is powerful. Now listen, listen to me. This is key. This is a key for unlocking these things. Jesus comes along in the New Testament, and you probably have an idea. He says, he talks this way, like in what I think Matthew 24, Mark 13. But I'll tell you, I'll quote just what he says from Luke, Luke's account 21. He says, there will be great earthquakes and in various places famines and pestilences. What's locust? A pestilence. That's what it is. Do you know what he calls those things? Terrors and great signs from heaven. Now that is worth just thinking about. A pestilence is a great sign from heaven. Now look, the children know signs. They sit there with their face against the window as you're driving down the road, and they're looking at the signs that go by. You have signs that say, we don't have these signs in the US. Signs that say a roundabout is coming with all the legs off of it, and a bazillion little letters telling you where they all go that nobody can read. And the time that, you know, the driving instructor is telling you, go to this place and you're... And signs tell you something about where you're going. Listen, Jesus says pestilences are a sign from heaven. That means they're telling us something. That's what signs do. They tell you what the speed limit is ahead. They tell you what city lies ahead. That's what they are valuable for. They give you information. Here's a swarm of locusts or tsunami. Remember the tsunami that hit Japan? Remember the one that hit Indonesia? The one that hit Indonesia, wiped out? They figured like 300,000 people died from that. That's a sign from heaven. It's meant to communicate something like a sign along the motorway. Don't miss this. It's a sign from heaven. That means it's God telling you something. Now, listen, when those kinds of things happen, a lot of people die. But do you know they're meant to tell the people that didn't die something? You want to think about that? Because what they're supposed to tell us is the big thing. Folks, God sends these. That's the point. Get off the secondary causes. Folks, it doesn't matter what our thinking is about, you know, why these different things happen. You can always clear aside all that. All that the headlines say, all the theories, all the science supposedly. You know what God says in Scripture? I make well-being. I create calamity. I am the Lord who does all these things. You know, Scripture says whatever the Lord pleases, he does in the heaven and the earth, seas and all the deeps. And then you have other people that say, have you ever heard the preacher that gets up and says, God wasn't responsible for that. You know, some big storm comes, all sorts of people die. And you got some preacher somewhere, God wasn't responsible. God wept with all the rest of us. And so you got the people that are just basically making God out to be impotent, harmless, disconnected, like the deist idea. I mean, they want us to believe that these things catch him by surprise, just like they catch us by surprise. I'll tell you what popped into my mind is Job. I mean, when God comes along, God has a lot to say about nature. He has a lot to say about things like locusts and things about storms and all that. He comes along and he says this, the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. So for one thing, he obviously controls the whirlwinds. And if you've seen a good whirlwind tornado, some of these, they're terrifying storms. Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? Just for action like a man, I will question you. You make it known to me, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Now you get a point right there. God laid the foundations of all of this. Job, who prescribes the limits to the ocean? Do you do that? Listen, you know what happens when a tsunami comes? It breaks out of the limits of the ocean. God says, I do that. I set the limits of those waves, Job. Were you there when I did that? Job, do you know where the hail comes from? Do you know where the frost comes from? Do you know where the rain comes from? Do you know where the source of the wind is? I know that, Job. I made those... Do you know that? Do you know how all these animals... He goes through lions and ostriches and the wild donkeys. And he's going through all these things. He said, Job, do you give the strength to the horse? Job, I made behemoth just like I made you. This is the God of Scripture, folks. This is the God. And in the end, Job is just saying, I repent in dust and ashes. If we were to ask Job, Job, where do you think the locusts come from? I imagine he'd have a good answer for us. Who makes them by the billions? Who designed their mandibles to be able to even eat away the bark, to leave the trees white? God made them like that. Who decrees that a whole country be decimated? God did that. God did that in Joel's day. Not a single one of those locusts would have hatched or stretched forth its wings in flight, except by the order of God Almighty. It is God. Repeatedly, I have hit this. It is His army. They are His vines. They are His fig trees. And don't be so foolish as to suppose it's random or primarily because of some second cause. God specifically said this to Israel. If you remember this, He said in Deuteronomy, if you will not obey my voice, I'm going to tell you what I am going to do. God takes full responsibility for this, folks. He says, I will send on you curses, confusion, frustration. The Lord will make the pestilence. The Lord will strike you. You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little for the locusts shall consume it. You know what? The book of Joel is that promise put in action. That's what it is. And God says, I do that. Israel, I'm warning you up front. You don't obey my voice. I'm doing that. And you know what happens in the book of Revelation? We have this. They cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. You know, have you ever seen video footage when a tsunami is hitting or there's an earthquake? There's any kind of calamity. You know what the people do? Oh, my. Ever hear them say that? Comes off their lips just like water out of a faucet, folks. Jesus Christ is what comes out. And they're not saying it in any kind of worshipful fashion. They blaspheme his name. They curse his name. They use it in vain. Anytime you watch any kind of calamity happen and they will misuse and drag God's holy name through the dirt. Watch it happen all the time without fail. That's how men respond to these types of things. Is God responsible? In Joel, God says, it's my army. I am. I am the God who raised them up. I am on my throne. That's the message. There are no plagues of locusts sweeping across the land, except they're there by my order, by my decree. They take flight. Everything they eat, it's by my command. Okay, now remember this. These pestilences are a sign of what? Clearly, they are a sign that God's judgment, as shown right there, is going to actually come to a fuller expression out there. That this is but a foreshadowing, a foretaste of something out there. That's key. Folks, there's a future catastrophic event coming. It is a day in which Yahweh will break his silence. I mean, things seem silent, but when a catastrophe happens in the world, it is God saying, you better wake up. You better realize this is only a foretaste. You can turn the news. I don't want to hear about that. Calamity happening in Asia, or this thing happening, or that tsunami, I know it's far away, but God's communicating. And he says, I'm going to break into human history at some point to judge the nations. Just listen to this. Amos, these are where we're headed in the Minor Prophets. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord. Why would you have the day of the Lord? It is darkness, not light. Brethren, all I know is this. When the day of judgment is primarily described in Scripture as a time when the nations mourn, you know what it's a picture of. The true Israel, the Christians, they're a relatively small group compared to the masses of nations that find themselves in this place. Listen, it's darkness and not light. As if a man fled from a lion, and a bear met him. That's what this day is going to be like. You see one terror coming in one direction. You try to get away. Mountains fall on me, and you're just going to find the terror on the other side. You can't get away. It's not the day of the Lord. Darkness and not light. Gloom with no brightness in it. Zephaniah says it this way. The great day of the Lord is near. That sounds familiar. Hastening fast. The sound of the day of the Lord is bitter. The mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day. A day of distress and anguish. A day of ruin and devastation. A day of darkness and gloom. A day of clouds and thick darkness. A day of trumpet blasts and battle cry against the fortified cities, against the lofty battlements. I will bring distress on mankind so that they shall walk like the blind. Because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Folks, if this is a sign of anything, it is that our God is holy, and He does not wink at sin, and there's a judgment coming, and He is not going to hesitate. He's not going to play favorites. He is going to deal with men according to what they have done in their body. And it is a fearsome day. But folks, what else does it say? It says something else. And this, it speaks of mercy. We dare not miss the most important message God sends in this sign. Notice Joel 2:11. The Lord utters His voice before His army. I've already read this to you, probably this is the fourth or fifth time. For His camp is exceedingly great. He who executes His word is powerful. For the day of the Lord is great and very awesome. Who can endure it? And I circled these next three words. Folks, you need to recognize right off, you cannot flee from God. Because if you try to flee from Him, it's like fleeing from the lion. You're just going to meet a bear on the other side. The only way is to flee to Him. Yet even now, I love those words. It's like things have gotten bad for you, Israel. Because you know when He's talking to them? He's talking to them when their land has been decimated. But He says this, it's still not too late. If you're alive and you have breath, even though that calamity has come, yet even now, look what He says. Return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning. Rend your hearts. I'm not interested in your outward displays. At the heart level, return to the Lord your God. For He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. And He relents over disaster. Most men blaspheme. Most men, when calamity come, they want to curse. Rather than remembering the other 364 days out of the year when they didn't face that calamity, and give God praise, they want to curse, they want to blaspheme His name. Can you imagine hell-deserving sinners? You see, this is the thing. We get so appalled. Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. What? How could God possibly hate Esau? That's not the amazing thing about that passage. That's not the amazing thing about that passage when we're all hell-deserving sinners. That's the reality. The fact is that God is always just. You know what Jesus said? Here's a calamity. Tower of Siloam fell. Killed 18 people on the spot. And Jesus said they perished. He said, you guys are likewise going to perish if you don't repent. You see what He's saying? He's saying, yes, God killed those people. They perished. And God dealt with them justly. But for those of us watching, it's a sign. What does it say? It says, you need to be ready. You need to stay ready. You need to be ready. You need to get ready. That's the idea. You see, men are always asking the wrong question. They ask, why did that disaster come? Who's responsible for this? Why did that storm kill so many people? Why did that tower fall upon those 18 people? Why shouldn't God strike such innocent people? That's the idea. That's how men think. But what they really ought to ask is, wow, what does that say? What's the sign? What Jesus is saying is the sign is this. If that tower had fallen on you, you would have gone to hell just like them. Unless you repent. You need to rethink all this. And the Lord is saying this, look, I am gracious. I will deal with, you can't expect a just God to not deal with people in a righteous fashion. But He says this, in all my righteousness, I have provided a way for me to remain just and yet justify you. But you've got to come to me. You've got to surrender to my Son. My Son is Lord. My Son is King. Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart. Even now, even as darkest things may seem for Israel or whatever's happening in your life, the question we really should ask is, why hasn't the tower ever fell on me before now? Why haven't I gotten a car wreck and died? Back when I was lost and I drove my motorcycle at 140 mile an hour, with all this sin in my life, why didn't God kill me right there? That's the question we ought to ask rather. Our problem is if we've forgotten who and what we are. We forget. And you know what God says by these disasters? You know what a lot of people think? Both God is in control. I mean, that's the first, God can't be in control. There is no God. It's just the secondary causes. God had nothing to do with this. If God did have something to do with this, God's a monster. I mean, all of those children that died. God says, no, I'm not a monster. I am going to deal with mankind according to their sins. But in my, in my compassion, in my graciousness, in my mercifulness, even after the things you've done, even after that, he says, yet even now, even now that I've brought judgment upon you, I've brought a curse upon your land because of the things you've done. Even now, if you'll come to me, he says, I'll relent. Verse 13, I'll relent. God wants you to consider whether you're ready. That's why these disasters. He's saying, you need to be ready. You need to get ready. Return to me with all your heart. Tsunamis, locusts, terrible accidents. These ought to put the fear of God in us. They ought to cause, you know what these things are signs of? That there is a holy God in heaven. These are signs from heaven. This is a wake up call. And I recognize, you know, to have done this message right after some major event in the world to really get all of our attention. But the truth is it speaks to every one of us, even though this locust invasion is thousands of years back. The fact is these are a sign that vengeance belongs to the Lord and he will repay. But to those of us who witnessed these traumatic events, he says, I spared you this time and I'm giving you another opportunity to be ready. Now, I don't doubt that there are many people in this room that are ready. Some of you are not. This is a God who will meet you like a lion and meet you like a bear. You don't want to think that this God is safe if you're outside of Christ. This God is a terror to anyone who approaches him outside of Christ. That is what he's saying to us. I spared you this time, but you need to consider where you're at. You need to consider your own end. It will be like their end unless you come to me. Listen, he calls to us, come unto me, look unto me. That's his constant appeal in Scripture. Come, come. Brethren, listen to this time and again. Listen to the note rung in Scripture. Amos, I sent among you pestilence. I killed your young men with the sword. See, he says, I did it. Don't attribute to any second causes like that army, the Babylonians or the Assyrians or whoever. I did it. And he says this, I carried away your horses. I made the stench of your camp go up into your nostrils. Yet you did not return unto me. See, that's what Jesus is saying. The tower fell on them, but God is calling you to repent. Change your mind about this whole thing, the way you're going. Don't go on like you are. You need to rethink this. Daniel, all this calamity has come upon us, yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. See, Amos, Daniel, they both have revelation. They cursed. The text I was telling you about, were they cursed? They cursed the name of God who had power over these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory. You see, that's always the issue. God brings these things and he says, look, they all tell you there's a coming day of judgment. Your death may come way before that. He's saying, return to me. Return. Listen, he's saying to his enemies, people that he will destroy and deserve to be destroyed. He's saying, but if you come to me, you'll find me gracious to you. You'll find that I show you mercy. Calamity, speak to us. What they're saying to us is, trust my Son. I put him on that cross and he suffered my vengeance. He suffered my wrath. He calls you to abandon your unbelief. Abandon going your own way. Stop being a fool and realize and wake up that a day of judgment is coming and it's near. This smaller judgment is a reminder of this greater judgment. And God is not ashamed. He doesn't hesitate to admit that he kills the young men. He kills those babies. Yes, he killed all those baby Indonesians. And those, they wiped out entire communities. And God says, I did that. Yes, Job. I did that. And he says, fear me. Come to me, repent. Brethren, these things are merciful warnings. Think about it. This isn't God just saying to us, this is going to happen to you. You have no hope. So you ought to just sit down there in despair. God is saying, look, this is a merciful warning. And it's a severe warning because people have to die and those people perish. But he says to those who don't perish, wake up and flee to me at once. He's calling you to cast yourself on the mercies of this God who offers you Christ. Listen, God is neither weak. He's not impotent. He's not pathetic. He's not a monster. You know what he is? You can see it. He's an almighty God for sure. He's merciful. And he's sending messages of mercy through these things. That's what it says. But listen, God's day of mercy is short. And it's usually shorter than we know. Eternity hastens. Scripture says the marriage feast is ready. You're invited. The locusts, they're a warning. Come quickly. You don't want to tarry. That's what they say. The wrath of God is coming. Brethren, throughout all the years, I've known a verse in Joel that has been precious to me. Joel 2:25, and I'm going to leave you with this. Joel 2:25, God says this to those who do flee to him, who return to him. He says, I will restore to you the years the swarming locust has eaten. The hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter. My great army. There it is again. It's my army. But he says this, I'll restore. You come to me no matter what devastation. This is such, you know, folks, you can be 45 years old and say, look all I've wasted. Look all I've wasted. The locusts of sin have eaten up all my best years. God says, I can restore all that to you. We can't get the time back. But you know what? You can be 45 years old. You can come to God now. God can make you as sanctified at 46 that you might have been if you were saved at 18 and you're now 46. You see, that's what he's saying. I can restore it all to you. I am God. I am in charge of all these things. And look, if you, you know what? This is a picture. I think of this all the time. When I'm counseling people, this often comes to my mind. That no matter how wrecked somebody's marriage is or how awful this is or that is or another thing, we serve a God who can restore all the years of the locust. That is really good news. I mean, in a strange and wonderful way, God can just heap upon us what's been wasted, what's been gnawed away. You know what this tells us? We need not be hopeless. God can give back all that we would have if the locusts had never come. Folks, this is good news. I know this is a heavy duty message, but in the end of all of it, you can see the merciful heart of God. Wow, what a message. It's soaking this in for the last two weeks. And I want to put a healthy fear of God in all of us. Father, I pray that it would indeed do that. We want to be a church that fears the ever-living God. Lord, I just pray there wouldn't be a soul in this place that would not seek refuge in your arms. We know that we can never be safe running from you, only safe running to you. Thank you for the words of Joel. Christ's name we thank you, amen. You're dismissed.