Return to Me with All Your Heart

 

Joel 1:1 – 2:17

Introduction

When disaster strikes, we usually respond in one of two ways. We either turn to God and enter a new, fuller relationship with him, or we turn away from God and blame him or others for our troubles. Some even deny God’s existence.

The people of ancient Israel experienced disaster and were faced with this same decision. Would they turn away from God in their time of trouble or turn to him and seek his blessings?

Setting

The book of Joel is the second book in the minor prophets. Joel mentioned about things of Jerusalem in the southern kingdom, hence he was a prophet in the southern kingdom Judah. Scholars generally do not come to agreement as to the time of Joel’s ministry. It could be before exile to Babylon or after returning from exile.

Joel prophesied to the people of Judah and Jerusalem in the midst of a catastrophe that threatened their very existence. A locust plague of unprecedented proportions had struck the land. Millions of voracious incest arrived in wave after wave to consume every green plant—vegetable gardens, grain crops, grapevines, fruit trees, and even the grass upon which their sheep and goats grazed.

In the face of such a disaster, all human and animal life was at risk. In the ancient world, there were no insecticides to kill the locusts, no stocks of non-perishable food for emergencies, and no relief agencies to bring in food supplies. Such a plague brought with it the spectre of death for thousands upon thousands, especially the very young and the very old.

During such a perilous time, it was only natural that the people of Judah and Jerusalem would ask hard questions about the justice and mercy of God. Is God truly in charge of heaven and earth? Is he sovereign? Is he good?

They also looked inward at their own sin and moral responsibility for the plague. Has God sent the locust plague to punish us for our failure to live in right relationship with him? Will God be merciful to us? Do we have a future?

In response to such questions, the prophet Joel delivered the word of the Lord to his people. There are three chapters in the book of Joel, and it can be divided in two large sections. We shall look at the first section 1:1 to 2:17.

God Spoke to His People through Circumstances

Joel means “the LORD is God.” He first describes the unique and devastating locust plague that afflicted Judah and Jerusalem.

“What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left other locusts have eaten.” （Joel 1:4）

All the four types mentioned here were locusts. They had devoured all the crops of the nation. The people in Joel’s time relied fully on agriculture for their survival, and they would lose their livelihood if all these crops were destroyed.

The plague of locusts was quite horrible, it invaded like a mighty army without number. It has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness. It had laid waste the vines and ruined the fig trees. It had stripped off their barks and thrown them away, leaving their branches white (1:6-7).

The vine and the fig tree were almost considered the most important produces in their days. However, all these were gone; The grain was destroyed, the new wine was dried up and the olive oil failed (1:10).

People were without joy, for they saw nothing but destruction. They were alarm and panic, and the future was something uncertain. All their possession was gone. Their storehouses were in ruins, and they lost all their flocks of sheep and cattle (1:17-18). They had nothing left to bring to the Temple as an offering to the LORD.

God sent Joel to tell His covenant people not to take all these happenings as something natural. God actually wanted to convey a message to His people through the disaster.

That’s why Joel started by saying these, “Hear this, you elder; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.” (1:2-3）

Those things that can be told and passed on from generation to generation must be something that was very important, and something that would affect their lives. The people had to learn the way of God through all these incidents.

God knew His people very well. They were slow and dull in responding to spiritual things and the things of God. They would not feel that it was God speaking to them through the plague of locusts. So, God sent the prophet Joel to tell them to observe what God was telling them through all these incidents.

Today, God is also speaking to us by letting us to go through calamities in lives. We must examine ourselves and listen attentively.

We are in the midst of Covid-19 Pandemic. This plague devours lives, just as the locusts which had laid waste all the fig trees and stripped off their barks, and thrown them away, leaving their branches white. This pandemic messes up our lives. Pains they bring are like teeth of the lions that bite us and swallow us up.

We must stop our complaints in the midst of calamities strike. We cannot afford to ignore God or to continue to resist Him. We instead, ought to seek God so that we can see it from God’s perspective:

What lesson does God intend for us to learn, individually or as a nation? Are we becoming conceited and self-centered? Are we turning a blind eye to poor and needy; to the injustice around us? Are we participating in the evil scheme of discriminating powerless people? And very importantly, how does God want us to cope with and overcome this plague?

Let’s humble ourselves before God and to listen attentively to what He has to say through our environment changes.

How Shall We Listen?

First, we must come to an awakening. “Wake up, you drunkards, and weep!” （1:5）If we keep on slumbering, and if we become unconscious towards our spiritual life, we cannot hear and be awakened by God with the words He speaks through our circumstances. We must wake up and weep over the days we have been slumbering.

Then, “Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.” (1:14)

The solemn assembly is a meeting with confession of sins and prayers. We must enter God’s temple to pray to Him after we are awakened spiritually.

If we were to seek God’s heart, and to understand His will for us in these circumstances, we need to enter the temple of God and pray and cry out to Him rather than just being awakened by Him. We must pray with our brothers and sisters.

Don’t expect to hear God speaking without any effort putting in. Don’t consider ourselves to be smart and experienced enough to know God’s will through the things happened without doing anything.

No! We must pray again! We must enter God’s house and pray earnestly and plead for mercy whenever something happens to us.

“To you, O LORD, I call, for fire has devoured the open pastures and flames have burned up all the trees of the field. Even the wild animals pant for you; the streams of water have dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures.” (1:19-20)

We must pray seriously and come before the Lord and tell Him everything about our real situations and encounters. We are not to take them lightly but to reflect upon them genuinely and eagerly, and weep before God as we tell Him our conditions. We will hear God’s voice when we do like this.

A Call to Repentance

Finally, in 2:12-17, Joel calls on the people to repent and throw themselves on the mercy of their compassionate God.

“Even now, “declares the LORD, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.” “Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for his is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents form sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing—grain offerings and drink offerings for the LORD your God.” (2:12-14)

Human sin has so negatively affected the natural world. Joel, unlike other prophets, never catalogues the sins committed by the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Perhaps they were so obvious that he did not feel the need to list them.

Joel’s emphasis was calling the Israelites to repent because he knows that God is merciful and compassionate. It is God’s nature to forgive those who repent rather than to judge them, to restore rather than to destroy.

If we keep on murmuring, throwing out our frustration and insisting our rights when calamities strike, we will then hear only our voices ultimately instead of hearing God’s voice.

Instead, let’s rend our hearts and not our garments, to seek God. In Hebrew, the heart is the center of thought, faith, and will. So, we are to go beyond external demonstrations of repentance to repent inwardly—to change their orientation, priorities, and attitudes. This could only happen if we would turn back to God.

When we repent with a contrite heart, and when we turn to God fully, God’s grace shall come upon us and He shall stop all these disasters, or He might cause us to go through these disasters peacefully and steadily, so that we will not be cut off.

Conclusion

God loves us forever, and He never forsakes us. If we have encountered any things that are extremely painful or disastrous, we have to remember the plague of locusts that was once encountered by the Israelites, and we shall do a self-reflection to hear what God has to say to us, what He has to remind us, and what He has to awake us, through all these major events in our lives.

Let’s be the believers who are sharp in discerning the work of God. Let us tell God in detail about all our encounters, and to pray before Him, to join prayer meetings and to pray together with all the saints of God. Let us pray earnestly to God that we can hear His voice through all the incidents that will happen around us.

Let’s rend our hearts, and come humbly before God, to desire and to look upon His beauty, and to turn back to Him. He is the only Lord in our lives. Let us hear the Word of God, confess our sins to Him, and submit to Him and do His will.

God will grant us peace that goes beyond our own understanding in pains and disasters. He will guide us onto the path of light. Pains and sufferings will be over soon, for God is a mighty judge, and He is compassionate, and He longs to bless those who choose to turn back to Him and trust in Him.