DEVASTATION TO RESTORATION

So rend your heart, and not your garments; RETURN to the LORD your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness; and He relents from doing harm – Joel 2:13 (NKJV)

The prophecy of Joel illustrates God’s ability and purpose to turn Devastation into Restoration. Joel was a contemporary of Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos, whose message dealt with economic calamity and its aftermath. The monetary devastation in Joel’s day was caused by locusts, which could break a nation’s economic backbone overnight. The people were dependent on their crops for personal well-being and national economic stability. Then the locusts would invade, devastate, and devour everything in sight! The fields would end up looking as if they had never been planted. Even today, some lives are like that!

When the swarm of locusts descended, they darkened the sky, sounded like a fleet of airplanes, fell like hail on the standing grains of the fields, and consumed every plant in their path. They appeared overnight and disappeared the next day, obliterating potential harvests and living devastation behind. Locusts represented a sign of God’s judgement on sin; in this case the sin of His people Israel and Judah. They were also a signpost of the future judgment that’ll come on all unbelieving mankind in the Day of the Lord.

To depict divine judgement, Joel used the event of a terrible locust plague that was devastating the crops in Israel, creating an agricultural disaster of major proportions. He compared it to a massive military invasion. He projected it onto a prophetic screen and used it to focus the reality of God in the lives of His people. God makes and matures us by doing whatever it takes to correct and restore us when we go astray! The question to each hearer then is: What do I do with this exposition? Do I dig deeper, seek further, and return to God who has caught my attention? Or do I continue to ignore the hand of God in my life and persist with a business-as-usual attitude?

In these days of looming global political and economic apocalypse, it’s important to be reminded of Joel’s message. All that God demands is that we REPENT; that we RETURN: “Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to God, your God. And here’s why: God is kind and faithful. He takes a deep breath, and puts up with a lot. This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe” (vs.13, The Message). Even the message of judgement had within it the seeds of hope, mercy, and restoration. God is always ready to cancel catastrophe! Your destiny is divorced from devastation!