On the 11th of March 2011, there was a massive earthquake that caused the tsunami in the Pacific Ocean region. And it’s recorded, I believe, that over 19,300 people were recorded as having died. It was a big news story around the world for weeks at that time. Devastation was widespread and thousands of people lost their homes. And some people were asking the question,  

What about the God of the Bible? How could a good God allow such a thing to happen? And someone put it like this, If God is good, he must have lacked power to prevent it. If he had power, he must not be good. 

 The problem of evil.  

We in Northern Ireland have, some of us, the older ones here, have lived through 30-odd years of trouble. The IRA conducted their murderous campaign when they killed our kith and kin, and it is known that over 3,000 people died in our province. Many of us live through that, and many people have still the scars of those days, and they still have their pain as they think of those awful days. And at that time, I remember people saying to me,  

Why doesn’t God stop the troubles? In fact, I think I remember seeing a little tract with that title, Why Doesn’t God Stop the Troubles? Why doesn’t he wipe these terrorists out? Why can’t we have peace? 

The  problem of evil. 

 The problem of evil remains a relevant subject for today, for the Bible-believing Christian, for often unbelievers cast this subject up to us and say that God can’t exist, or if he is a God, he’s not good or he’s not powerful.  

The prophet Joel, he tries to deal with this subject of the evil, the problem of evil. And I want us to look at this chapter today.  

I’m booked to come back in the first Sunday of December, and I’ll probably be back again in the new year. I’m not sure why or when, but during those subsequent times when I’m here, we’ll maybe look at chapter two and chapter three. But today I want to look at chapter one, see what Joel has to say about this problem.  

I hope this sermon will be helpful and I hope it will drive us back to put our trust in God.  

I’ve five P’s for you this morning. They’re not going to be long, or some of them are not going to be long anyway.  

The first one is the prophet. 

 Who was this prophet? If you’ve got your Bibles with you there, please turn it to page 911 and 912. We’ll look at it. First one says the word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Peniel. We don’t know very much about this guy. There are 15 people in the Old Testament called Joel, but we cannot identify any of them with this prophet. The name Joel means Jehovah is God. The only thing we know for sure is he was the son of Penuel. And the word Penuel means sincerity of God or straightforwardness. And it suggested that the two names put together is a summary of the message that Joel brought, namely, Jehovah was speaking to his people directly. God’s word came to Joel, it says, and he delivered it to the people. We don’t know when he delivered this message, preached this message clearly and plainly. Again, the scholars suggest the ninth century and some of the sixth century and some scholars talk about the fourth century. We don’t know for sure. The thing is, it doesn’t really matter because the message is timeless. In terms of other prophets, for example, Jeremiah, we’re told when he preached and It was the 13th year of Josiah the king. It was the last days of the kingdom of Judah. And so we are able to interpret the message in the light of that. But Joel’s message is timeless. John Calvin says, But as there is no certainty, it is better to leave the time in which he taught undecided. And as we shall see, this is no great importance. Perhaps you and I can think of Joel as the voice of one crying in the wilderness, just like John the Baptist was. A man who brought a message from God to the people. 

 Second point is, who are the people? 

 Who did he address his remarks to? Who did he preach to? Look at verse two, first group of people mentioned are the elders, the senior men in the community, the leaders of the people. Also in verse two, it refers to all who live in the land. Look at verse five, he addresses the drunkards. Look at verse nine, he addresses the priests, verse 13 also. Look at verse 11, and you see he addressed the farmers and the vine growers. And if you turn over to chapter three and verse one, you find that he’s addressing the people of Judah and Jerusalem.  

So who are all these people? Who is he addressing? They’re the covenant people of God. Some of them were political leaders, some were religious leaders, some were ordinary farming folk like the farmers, and some were down and outs of society like the drunkards. covenant people of God. But notice, look again at verses two and three, and you will see that this message was to be passed on to the next generations. This was an unprecedented situation. It had never been experienced before. 

 Look, verse two, has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers? It was a new situation. And because it was unprecedented, people were to tell their next generation, the children, tell them about this event. In the Old Testament, the parents, covenant parents, were told to write down the information, and they were told to share it with their children.  

For example, in Exodus chapter 12 and 26, it says, when your children ask you, what does this ceremony mean to you, tell them. It’s the Passover sacrifice of the Lord. Tell the children why we celebrate the Passover. God delivered us from Egypt and the Egyptians were punished. Or again in Deuteronomy 6, verse 20, tell your children that we were slaves in Egypt and the Lord brought us out of there with a mighty hand. 

 Tell them of the deliverance. Tell them of how the Egyptians were slaughtered. And now in Joel chapter one and two and three, the covenant people of God are to tell the children of the next generation and the generation after that, tell them of this great event that took place in Joel’s lifetime. Tell them of salvation and judgment. And what was this event? Look at verse four, it was a plague.  

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.  

Now, you and I, thankfully, don’t know much about locusts. We’ve heard about the locusts and wild honey that John the Baptist ate. We don’t, in our experience, have any problems with locusts because of the modern insecticides and pesticides.  

But in biblical times, and indeed up to the beginning of the 20th century, a plague of locusts was the most terrifying nightmare that a farmer or anybody could have. Because locusts devastated everything. Their history tells us that there was a plague of locusts in the Middle East in 1889, and another one in 1915. In 1889, there was a host of locusts that covered 2,000 square miles of the Middle East, and it’s estimated that the ground was thick with 120 million insects per square mile. A historian by the name of Hubbard said one female grasshopper that laid eggs in June may have 18 million descendants in October. And in the 1915 plague, it’s estimated that there was between 65 and 75,000 eggs in a square metre of soil. 

 In verse four, Joel tells us about four different types of locusts. There are actually nine words in the Hebrew language for locusts, and we’re not quite sure what the differences are. Perhaps the point that Joel is making in verse four is that these locusts, this plague of locusts, they devastated everything. They devastated everything. They destroyed the vegetation. In verse six, the prophet describes these locusts as a nation invading the land, powerful and without number, it is teeth of a lion and fangs of a lioness. It’s laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving the branches white.  

A plague of locusts during the days when Joel lived. Locusts that totally devastated the land. 

 So fourthly, what problems did these locusts leave? four problems identified in chapter one. 

 Number one, life’s basic necessities have failed. Look at verse 10. The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up, the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the oil fields. Verse 11. continues, despair you farmers, whale you vine growers, grieve for the wheat and the barley because the harvest of the field is destroyed, the vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered and the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree, all the trees of the field are dried up. Verse 17, the seeds are shrivelled beneath the clods, the storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down for the grain has dried up. Notice in verse 10, the grain, the wine, and the oil field. That’s the equivalent of our Joel Lift. Locusts that totally devastated our bread, butter and tea. The grain made the bread. The wine was their daily drink. The oil was used to cook or oil was used to cleanse. These were the normal gifts that God gave to the people and provided the people with their staple diet. In Hosea chapter 2 and verse 8, the three things are mentioned again.  

So fourthly, what problems did these locusts? God says, Gomer has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil. Stable diet. But these locusts have devoured everything, and the people haven’t even got their daily necessities of life.  

Second problem, the livestock are affected. Look at verse 18. The cattle moan, the herds mill about because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep are suffering. Verse 20, even the wild animals pant for you. The animals are moaning and groaning. They have no pasture. They have no food or fodder to eat. Fields leave.  

Four problems identified in versions are bare. Do you know, sometimes you and I have to watch horrible adverts for the lack of rescue dogs, and they put pictures of these rescued animals, and they’re skinny, and the bones are coming out through the skin.  

They’ve been starved. They’ve nothing to eat. And that’s the picture that we have in verse 18 and verse 20. The cattle, the sheep, the wild animals, they have nothing to eat. The bones are sticking out as if nothing. Life stuff are affected by this plague of locusts.  

Thirdly, third problem, joy and gladness is no longer a part of life. Look at verse 12, sorry. says at the end of the verse, Surely the joy of mankind is withered away. Verse 16, Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes? Joy and gladness from the house of our God. In chapter one, number one, life’s basic necessities. The joyful events of life are no longer. We can think of joyful events in life, can’t we? 

 I’m looking forward to the 12th of March. My daughter is getting married then. And the marriage is a lovely event. It’s a time of joy, a time of gladness. But look at verse eight. There was mourning in this country, like the mourning of a virgin in sackcloth, grieving for her husband of our youth.  

Do you remember Mary and Joseph have field? Look at verse 10. The fields are ruined. They were betrothed to be married. They were engaged to be married, but they hadn’t yet come together. They were living separately until the marriage day, but they were still called husband and wife. And here, mourn like a virgin in sackcloth, grieving for the husband of her youth. Here’s a girl who had her marriage day set. She’s looking forward to wearing her lovely wedding garment. But instead of wearing that garment, she’s wearing sackcloth because her husband has died. No joy, no gladness, sadness all around. Another occasion for joy is the harvest. The ground is dried up, the grain is destroyed, the new wine is farming people.  

You’ll not know what this means, really. You can have an understanding of your mind, but you’ll not understand it in your heart. I remember being brought up in a small farm and living in Northern Ireland, there’s what every day, nearly every day of the week, there’s rain. And when the farmers are trying to get the hay in, They need three or four days of dry weather because of the problem of getting hay and then the silage was brought in. But I remember my dad worried, my mum was even more worried about getting this hay dried up the oil fields. Verse 11 continues to spare you. And when the hay was brought into the hay shed, that was a great day and it was great celebration and it was joy. I remember being out with the spuds in October, and we’re gathering those spuds. And when we got them into the barn, there was delight and joy. And in Israel, it was the same. There was joy and happiness when the crops were brought in.  

An example is Psalm 126, where it talks about those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. When the harvest was brought in, Great rejoicing. But look at verse 10 and 11. Fields are farmers’ wail, you vine-growers. Grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvests are ruined. The grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried up. To spare you farmers’ wail, grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed. 

 No joy, no gladness.  

And even the praise services in the church, they were suspended because there was no ingredients to make up the sacrifices, the green offerings and the way of offerings. There were none of it. So the priests are dressed in sackcloth. What a tragedy. Nothing in life to give a bit of pleasure and joy and happiness. Can you imagine that, the things that give you happiness, the things that give you joy, If they were taken from you, what a tragedy. That was one of the problems that the plague of locusts caused. And the fourth problem that’s mentioned here is that the worshipping life of the people is suspended. There was no grain. There was no barley, no corn. No harvest, therefore no ingredients available to offer the sacrifices to the Lord. The regular daily offerings, which took place twice daily in the morning and evening sacrifices, they ceased and the covenant was rendered inoperative.  

Read about it if you want in Exodus 29:38-46. The daily assurance of the actual presence of God God dwelling amongst them had gone. The reality of sins forgiven was gone. No meeting with God, no felt presence of God, no voice of God heard. The prayer services suspended. Problems.  

That’s four of our five points. Let’s just pause for you a moment there. just to learn what this problem of what Joel has to teach us about this problem of evil.  

Firstly, the prophet doesn’t treat it lightly. He takes it seriously. He describes it as evil. He magnifies it. He calls it, Has anything ever like this happened in your days or in the days of your forefathers? It’s unprecedented. It’s Desperate. It’s a non-mitigating disaster.  

And secondly, he calls the various groups to see the full horror of the event. The elders, they’re to remember it and tell it to their children. Even the drunkards, ironically, they’re addressed. Drunkards, they become very extrovert when they’ve got a lot of drink in them. And they start shouting, and they’re cahoeing, and they’re having a great time. They’re loud. They’re involved in jokes. They’re involved in laughter. Joel says nothing to laugh about. The very drink that gives you the cause to laugh is taken from you. Farmers and the priests and the ordinary people They’re to see this evil for what it is.  

It’s an evil. You ever go to the dentist and the dentist says to you, this is going to cause you a little bit.  

The field is destroyed, the vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered and the pomegranate, the path is discomfort. What she means is this is going to hurt you. You’re going to suffer. And the Bible calls evil, evil.  

Jesus Himself was a man in the apple tree. All the trees of the field are dried up. Verse 17, the seeds are a man of sorrows, and yet he had to suffer on Calvary’s cross. It wasn’t that he was going to feel a little bit of discomfort. He was going to bear the wrath of God upon himself.  

He cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 

 He shriveled beneath the clods, the storehouses are in ruins, the granaries. The cross was pure evil. And the Bible tells us that. We need to be clear about this. There are evils in our society and they’re caused by wicked men.  

We’ve looked at the prophet,  

we’ve looked at the people,  

we’ve looked at the plague,  

we’ve looked at the problems.  

Finally, the purpose.  

Why do these things happen? Why did God send a locust plague in the days of Job? Why had we 30 years of trouble within our land?  

Before I answer that question, let’s go to the principle of the Lord Jesus himself. I said a moment or two ago that the cross was the greatest evil that ever took place in history. Luke, the writer of Acts, he says, This have been broken down, for the grain has dried up. Notice in verse 10 about the cross, he says, This man, Jesus, was handed over to you by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge. And you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing to the cross. 

 And again in chapter four and verse 27, indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, all the wicked people, bad rascals, Herod, Pontius Pilate, Gentiles, Jews. What did they do? They conspired against your holy servant Jesus.  

They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. So wicked men caused Jesus Christ to die on the cross, but God used that for the grain, the wine and the oil field. That’s the equivalent of our purposes of salvation.  

He allowed it to happen.  

And in terms of the 30 years of troubles in our land, in terms of Joel and the plague, some people have said, well, really, the answer here is that God wasn’t in control. He wasn’t in control of everything. Maybe some things, but not everything.  

but no the Bible tells us he’s Sovereign  

and I was talking to the children about how this Sovereign people have said well really the answer here is that God wasn’t in control  

God sits above the circle of love looking down he’s in control of everything he wasn’t in control of everything maybe some things but not everything but no  

So why did the Bible tells us he’s sovereign?  

And I was talking to the children about how this sovereign God send the plague. Notice, if you will, God sits above the circle of love, looking down.  

He’s in control of everything. So why did turn over to chapter two? And you’ll notice in verse 11, our bread, butter and tea. The, the, that God refers to this local, these locusts as hit God, send the plague. Notice, if you will, his army and his forces. We’ll turn over to chapter two and you’ll notice in verse 11, look at verse 25 and you’ll see my great army. that God refers to these locusts as his that I sent among you. Why did God send his army and his forces, this army of locusts among the people of Israel in that day? Look at verse 25 and you’ll see my great army that I sent among you.  

Why did God send this army of locusts among the people of Israel in that day? 

 Interesting thing about Joel is that he doesn’t enumerate the exact sins. Interesting thing about Joel is grain made the bread. The wine was their daily drink of the people of that day. Doesn’t mention murder, he doesn’t mention it. That he doesn’t enumerate the exact sins. Daltrey doesn’t mention stealing. 

 So why did God send this of the people of that day? Doesn’t mention murder, he doesn’t mention a plague. There’s perhaps a hint. Daltrey doesn’t mention stealing. So why did God send this plague? There’s perhaps a hint in the pronouns that are used with God. Look at verse 13 of chapter 1 in the pronouns that are used with God.  

Look at verse 13 of chapter 1. It talks about my God. It talks about your God. Verse 14, your God. Verse 16, our God. Joel didn’t need to mention the specific sins that the people were involved with, because they were persistently a people who turned their back on our God. They constantly, the oil was used to cook or the oil was used to cleanse. 

 These were the normal gifts. They were involved in breaking the first commandment. From the time they entered into the Promised Land to the time when the Babylonians came and took them into captivity, the history of the children of Israel is that they broke the first commandment, you shall have no other gods before me. 

 And they were involved in idolatry. They were involved in worshipping the gods of the land. When they went into the land of promise, God warned them in Deuteronomy 6, verse 14,  

Fear the Lord your God, serve him only, and take your oaths in his name. Do not follow other gods, the gods of the people around you, for the Lord your God is a jealous God, and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land. And now God, he warned them that this would happen if they turned their backs that God gave to the people and provided the people with their staple diet attacks on him.  

And Deuteronomy 28 and 38, one of the ways that God said he would punish the Israelites if they turned away from him was he would send a plague of locusts. These people had turned away from the Lord. God sent the covenant curses that He promised to send because they were worshipping other gods.  

But there’s another reason why He sent the plague. Look at verse 15, it says that the day of the Lord was near. Alas for that day, for the day of the Lord is near, it will come like destruction from the Almighty.  

Day of the Lord is mentioned quite frequently throughout the Bible or that day or the day. And the people of Israel had this idea that the day of the Lord would be a bright day. It would be a glorious day.  

In Hosea chapter two and verse eight, the three, the three things are mentioned again. It’d be a day when God would destroy all their enemies. And that was partly true. But the prophets that God raised up told the people also that the day of the Lord would be darkness.  

Amos five, verse 20 says, well, the Lord would be darkness. Amos five, verse 20 says, Will not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light pitch darkness, not the day of the Lord be darkness, not light, Pitch darkness without a ray of brightness. And so the people had to learn that the day of the Lord was going to be a day of glory.  

God says, Gomer has not acknowledged that I was the one who gave her the grain, the new one, but also it could be a day of darkness. When you move into the New Testament, this idea of the day of the Lord coming is still present.  

And the day is promised that when Jesus Christ returns, it’ll be the day, the day of the Lord, the last day. And what will happen when Jesus Christ returns at the end of time? It’ll be a day of glory and joy for the people of God, who will be taken into heaven to live with Him forever.  

But it’ll also be a day of destruction for those who have rejected Jesus Christ. And in between now and the day of the coming of the Lord, God allows little days of the Lord to happen. He sends difficulties or evils into our society for a purpose, wine and the oil, stable diet.  

And the purpose is to shout at us Stop. You’re going headlong in the wrong direction. You’re turning against me. You’re worshiping other gods. You’re doing the things that you want.  

Stop. I want you to worship me, and I want you to worship me only.  

Perhaps we can see the troubles of 30 years here in that light. God was saying to the people of Ulster, you’ve turned your back on me. You’ve gone after your other gods. You’re not worshiping me any longer.  

Stop! He allowed troubles to come to us in the same way that He allowed the plague of locusts to come whenever Joel was preaching. Miniature days of the Lord to tell us of what’s going to happen in the future. Little days of evil, if you like, to show us that the final day of the Lord what it’s going to be like.  

So what were the people of Joel’s day told to do? Look at verse 13. They’re told to put on sackcloth. Look at verse 13. They’re told to put on sackcloth. They’re told to mourn. They come, spend the night in sackcloth, verse 14, 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. 

 But these locusts have devoured everything. Out to the Lord. They had turned their back on the Lord. They had relegated him to the periphery of their lives. They were worshiping other gods, the gods of the land.  

God was breaking into their lives with this plague of locusts and saying, Stop! You’re going the wrong way. You’re going headlong towards destruction. The evil plague was sent by God to arrest the people and to turn them back to the Lord. 

 So what can we learn from this chapter? 

 Firstly, When bad things happen to you and I, when bad things happen to our community, we should be asking ourselves the question, am I responsible? 

 Is God displeased with me? 

 Is God displeased with my nation?  

Our province and with my nation? Our province, and indeed Great Britain, was built on the firm foundation.