WHEN GOD RESTORES WHAT THE LOCUSTS HAVE EATEN
Luke 5: 27-32
Joel 2: 12-27

           The devastation was all around. The destruction was evident. There was despair everywhere. Throughout the land, the cries of the people could be heard. There is any number of events that could fit this description: the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina, the nation of Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, the flooding occurring in Pakistan, the list could go on and on.

           This also describes Israel c. 845 BC. It was during this time that Joel was prophesying. Joel addressed for Israel similar themes as the other prophets, many of which we have already looked at throughout our series on the Minor Prophets: themes such as spiritual complacency, the insensitivity toward their own spiritual life, and the treatment of others. From a spiritual standpoint, Israel was spiraling downward at a rapid rate. In the midst of this downward spiral, though, a crisis occurred that brought everything to a screeching halt: a plague of locusts invested the land. I’m not talking about little bitty bugs; I’m talking about GIANT locusts. They swarmed the land and were EVERYWHERE! Crops were destroyed, livestock was attacked and those that weren’t killed were left with no food or water, it was dangerous for any person to even go outside the locusts were so thick. Everything was utterly destroyed, and all Israel could do was cry out to God.

           Has anything like this happened to us? Have we had a time when we felt the world was closing in around us, where everything seemed devastated, and all we could do was cry out? I’m going to guess (I have a bad habit of making assumptions!) the answer is YES; for some of us, the answer might be, “more than my fair share”. All of us have had times when we felt as our world was collapsing: maybe it was the loss of a job or retirement, maybe it was the death of a family member or close friend, maybe it was a relationship that became fractured. The list could go on forever. For Israel, the world was collapsing all around them. Yet in the midst of this devastation and despair, Joel had a message of hope for Israel. It is a message of hope for us, as we experience times of despair and feel as if our world is being destroyed.

           I invite you to look with me at Joel 2:25. In this verse, we have a promise from God that was the basis of Joel’s message. It reads, “I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten”. Some translations say, “I will restore to you” or “I will make up to you”. This is a promise from God! God is promising to restore to Israel all that had been taken away from them because of the locusts. I wonder how Israel would have heard this. I wonder what their reaction would have been. I’m guessing some would have reacted with hope, trusting that God would follow through with this promise. Some might have reacted with skepticism toward God—an “I’ll believe it when I see it” attitude. Still some might have completely disregarded this promise—choosing instead to believe that if God really cared about them, the locusts wouldn’t have come in the first place.

           I wonder, again, how do you hear this promise? What is your reaction to these words from God? Is it similar to the possible reactions of Israel? Are you hopeful? Are you skeptical? Is it hard to believe God? Remember this is a promise from God! There are over 1200 promises from God contained within the stories of Scripture. 1200!! Some are for particular people at particular occasions, some are more general. I challenge anybody to show me a promise in the Bible that God has not kept!! God is faithful to God’s promises, and if God will keep God’s other promises, there’s a pretty good chance God will keep this promise as well! For Israel, it was a promise to restore to them their land and way of life. For us, it is a promise to restore our relationships, our fortunes (not monetary, but our hopes), and restore our souls; it is God’s promise to restore to us all the joy that has been robbed from us!

           HOWEVER, this promise comes with a couple of caveats, a couple of disclaimers and conditions. The first disclaimer is that restoration may not necessarily mean things go back to exactly the way they were. Think of cleaning up after a few kids; do things always get put back exactly the way they were? I read a story a few years ago about a church in Kansas that was dying. They had prayed for years that they would have a young, energetic pastor who would lead them in reviving their congregation. Long story short, it never happened. Eventually the church made the difficult decision to close. That’s not the end of the story though. This church had been blessed with numerous sizable bequests; they had a large number of assets. In deliberating on how to divest themselves of these assets, they gave a large chunk to be “seed money” to a new church starting outside Kansas City, lead by the young, energetic pastor they never had. That pastor was Adam Hamilton; that church became the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. This weekend, CoR will present the gospel of Jesus to over 15,000 people! God restored the ministry of this dying church through their giving to this new church! It wasn’t what they had in mind, but it was God working through them that got this new church off the ground. Restoration doesn’t always happen the way we think it should or put things back to the way they were.

           Disclaimer #2 is that restoration doesn’t happen automatically. There isn’t a magic point to which we must fall before God begins the restoration process. I invite you to take a look at Joel 2:12. God instructs Israel to “return to me with all your heart”. In short, God required REPENTANCE before Israel would be restored. There had to be some acknowledgement by Israel that they were not going down the track God intended before restoration happened. The whole reason for Jesus’ incarnation as a human was the restoration of the relationship between God and human beings. He even says that he came to heal those who knew they were spiritually sick, not those who thought they were already good enough.

           There are times when it seems as if the devastation of our world is so great that not even God can bring healing and restoration. However, we have the promise that God will heal us and restore us. God can and will be the restorer of what the locusts have eaten. As we have been restored, or as we cling to the hope and promise of restoration, let us give glory and praise to God. AMEN.

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