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Joel 2:25 - The Locusts; Then Restoration.Joel 2:25 (NKJV) "So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you.Joel 2:25 (NLT) The Lord says, "I will give you back what you lost to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts, the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts. It was I who sent this great destroying army against you. INTRODUCTION The promise of restoring the years that the "locust has eaten" means that the years and energy consumed in vain (when backslidden or in sin) God will more than make up (in His grace) by the joys and security of His full restoration of His people to their land. Then God's people soon will forget the years of heartache in the abundance of His favors. [Believer's SB] The same God who brings judgment is pleased to restore blessing to those who repent. This does not mean that sin leaves no scar, but that God can restore people to usefulness in spite of past disobedience. [Nelson SB] COMMENTARY PEARL Redemption Is His Calling Card Christ died, and in three days He rose again from the dead - conquering evil forevermore. The Son of God is an overcomer, and He offers you that same resurrection power in your life today. God can restore and bring about something beautiful from the chaos, and He can rewrite the legacy of devastation in your past. He can and will bring the change that displays His power and love as He leads you forward into life and fullness of joy. This is not some fairy-tale promise or some wishful mumbo jumbo. It's bedrock truth anchored in history at the cross of Jesus. The prophet Joel proclaimed this. Even if people have hurt you, or circumstances have stolen good and fruitful things from you, even if loss has left your heart like a devastated mountainside, clear-cut of everything beautiful and fruitful and promising - it's not the end of your story. Even if a firestorm of destruction has left your life bare, God is in the business of giving beauty for ashes - of repaying what the locusts have eaten - and that's what He wants to do for you. Dear God, You are the Great Restorer. Take my chaos and bring about a beautiful display of Your holy renewal in my life. [Grace and Glory by Louie Giglio] COMMENTARY Unity in Community I will never forget the horror of flying through a swarm of locust and watching utter devastation as the hungry eaters crept along at ground level. The first image formed when, as a child, I was in the cockpit of an old DC-3 flying over Ethiopia. Ahead in the distance we could see a huge brown cloud looming before us as an ever-changing amorphous mass. The pilot steered well off course to avoid the cloud, but we still took enough loud hits on the airplane for it to be frightening and enough splatters on the windshield to make it difficult to see out. It sounded like a very hard hailstorm. The second image I have is of a brown cloud of locusts touching down and morphing into an ever-moving carpet of insects inexorably advancing across the ground and devouring everything green. They covered every tree, every bush, and every little green plant. I remember the local fanners out with burlap bags and sticks, flailing the air and beating the ground to kill as many as they could. Locust droppings fell like rain. Fighting this army was futile. In the text above, Solomon described four things that are small but wise. One are locusts who have no king but work together as if they had a plan. Because they are so devastating, many scientists have worked hard on understanding locusts in an attempt to control them better. Originally thought to be a different species, locusts are actually short-horned grasshoppers that have gotten too crowded and go into reproductive overdrive. When conditions are right, they reproduce explosively and travel great distances, consuming the vegetation as they go. Scientists have learned much about their olfactory, visual, and locomotor neurophysiology. No doubt the insects have much more to teach us. I have learned two important lessons from locusts. First, it is truly amazing how much a group can accomplish when it works cooperatively together on a task. The locusts are small, but they get a lot done. Second, God is unbelievably gracious and forgiving. When we really blow it, we can equate the consequences to the devastation of locusts moving through. What has overwhelmed and devastated you? What sickens your heart? What an amazing promise to me, Lord, that You will restore or repay the years that the locust has eaten (Joel 2:25). Help me to believe this promise. I have wasted so much of the time that You have given me. Lord, I rededicate my heart to You and Your mission for Your church. [God of Wonders by David Steen] ILLUSTRATIONS The Years the Locusts Have Eaten For months she cried every night. Lying alone, her tears soaking the pillow, she sobbed out her "why?" They'd been married for eight years, and she was three months pregnant with their daughter, when her husband just left. He couldn't stand being tied down anymore, he told her. And so he left her, with a two-and-a-half-year-old son and pregnant. It was so hard, trying to deal with her loneliness, her doubts, her questions of, "What did I do?" and most terrible of all, "What will happen to me now?" She had to live with these questions not for days, or weeks, or even months, but for years. Joel's warning to Judah of the coming Day of the Lord challenged God's people to repent and turn to God for healing. The chapter presupposes a people who have turned away from God, and who need to "return to Me with all your heart" (v. 12). There had been years of devastation. But Joel promised even God's rebellious people that the Lord has good in mind for them. Despite years of devastation, it is within the power of a loving God to "repay you for the years the locusts have eaten." Today the young woman who cried herself to sleep so many nights is married again, to a husband who loves her. She loves her job teaching, and delights in the times she shares with her daughter, who is now nine. Life is good, and she's proven that God's promise to "repay you for the years the locusts have eaten" can be claimed even by those who never departed from Him, and whose suffering was something other than punishment for sin. [The 365-Day Devotional Commentary] Rescued From The Locusts For twenty years I lived a Ms. Jekyll/Monster Hyde life. By day I was a semisuccessful businesswoman; by night I morphed into a monster controlled by insatiable bulimia. If it happened to be an evening I was invited out, I morphed into a wasted party girl. I felt anger, shame, and extreme guilt for wasting valuable years on these locusts called addiction--years I could have been participating in life-nurturing experiences. I obsessed about how my life could have been so different--if only. Like so many other women, I wanted the American Dream: to be married at twenty-something to a successful doctor or lawyer and living in the suburbs with our perfect children, just like on Leave It to Beaver and The Cosby Show. I loathed what the locusts had done to me. The Lord wants us to give him all our guilt, shame, and anger, and finally, I did. Tears gushed when I read Joel 2:25. That promise was for me! Faithfully, God has repaid me for the lost years the locusts had eaten. Today I'm a healthy, vibrant fifty-year-old woman who has dedicated her life to her Healer and is helping other women regain the years they have lost. Kimberly J. Davidson--minister, inspirational speaker, teacher, and writer--is the founder and director of Olive Branch Outreach, a ministry whose goal is to glorify Jesus Christ by reaching out to people with eating disorders. [The One Year Bible Live Verse Devotional] CLOSING THOUGHT Future rewards will amply compensate for all earth's sorrows and trials. [SDA Bible Commentary] LINKS FOR FURTHER STUDY Joel 2:25 - The Locusts; Then Restoration. https://www.abible.com/devotions/2010/20101209-1643.html Isaiah 61:3 - Beauty for Ashes. https://www.abible.com/devotions/2022/20221226-1017.html Acts 14:22b - Tribulation for Entrance to the Kingdom. https://www.abible.com/devotions/2021/20210810-1026.html LINKS WORTH CHECKING OUT https://abible.com/links/ |