Joel 1:5-8 - Homiletics

The lessons taught by this calamity.

The lessons which God intended to teach his people by the calamitous events here recorded are solemn as salutary. Among them may be reckoned the ends for which they were sent, the alarming extent of them, and the effects produced.

I. THE ENDS OF THE CRUSHING CALAMITY THEN PRESSING ON THE PEOPLE OF JUDAH .

1 . It was designed to rouse them out of their sinful slumber. Previous intimations of Divine displeasure had failed. Now God speaks to them in a way which they could no longer mistake or withstand.

2 . He had spoken to them by the word of his prophets, now he speaks to them by the rod of his wrath.

3 . The nature of their sufferings remind them of the nature of their sins, filling them with remorse, not so much, if at all, because of their sins, but because they are debarred the indulgence of those sins. Their regretfulness arises from their besetting sins becoming impossible to them.

II. THE EXTENT OF THE CALAMITY .

III. THE EFFECTS ARE PARTICULARIZED . The effects as here detailed prove the extremity of the distress. Every green thing perished before this terrible locust army of invasion; every succulent herb was devoured by them; then the trees were attacked—their fruitage, their sheltering leafage, their branches, their bark. No wonder they are again called on, both in their individual and national capacity, to mourn, and lamentation behoved to be of the most sincere and sorrowful kind. When God's judgments are abroad in the earth men learn righteousness.