This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing 
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s 
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

The book of Joel is a prophetic poem.

While it’s difficult to know 
precisely when Joel wrote his book,  

we do know it was written in response 
to a devastating plague of locusts.

In increasingly vivid metaphors, much of Joel is
spent describing this natural disaster and its aftermath.

The locusts are like lions dismembering grapevines, and
horse-drawn chariots leaping from mountain to mountain.

The devastation is so thorough that temple sacrifices
are forced to stop because there is no grain left to offer.

The drunks can’t even find a way to ferment 
their own booze and quench their addiction.

Following the locusts, drought
and fire shrivel and burn the land.

But Joel isn’t just describing a natural disaster, 

he’s using the plague of locusts to point towards
an even more terrifying event — “the day of the Lord”.

Often in the Prophets, “the day of the Lord” is when God rescues
Israel from her enemies, normally in some sort of decisive battle.

But Joel subverts the assumption of rescue and warns Israel that
the locusts are just the first wave of God’s attack against Israel.

God will swarm Israel with an enemy army, and it will blot
out the sun, moon, and stars like the insects darken the sky.

The day of the Lord will be the day of
Israel’s national destruction.

So twice Joel calls on
Israel to repent and to lament.

A lament is a prayer that describes 
one’s pain and begs for mercy.

And repentance is a wholehearted 
return to God and his laws.

Joel tells Israel they need to rend 
their hearts, and not just their clothes.

It’s Joel’s way of saying God won’t
respond to half-hearted ritual or hypocrites,  

but he will respond in compassion 
and grace to authentic repentance.

And the locust-haunted Israel listens to Joel.

They all gather in the temple and, in genuine 
repentance, ask God to spare them from the  

coming day of the Lord so that the world might 
know the love, grace, and power of their God.

[music]

Natural disasters should 
make us repent of hypocrisy.

Plagues of locusts (and even pandemics) should 
cause us to lament, not only for the lives lost,  

but for the pride, hypocrisy, 
and fake religiosity they expose.

The book of Joel invites us to pause at events like tsunamis,
forest fires, and tornados and realize they are pictures of
how God will ultimately judge our religious hypocrisy.

Jesus said himself that earthquakes, famines, and war
are simply birth pains to a day of judgment yet to come.

The book of Joel is a wake-up call. 

In moments of natural disaster, the hypocritical
should lament over the devastation they see.

They should repent because 
they have a clear picture  

of how their so-called religious 
performance will be judged by God.

Joel didn’t know if God would respond 
to Israel’s repentance, but we do.

When hypocrites repent and lament there is
always forgiveness and mercy in Jesus.

In Jesus we have nothing to fear 
from the coming day of the Lord  

because the day Jesus died was the
day of the Lord that Joel tells us to fear.

Every natural disaster 
points to the day Jesus died.

Under the hypocrisy of the
Pharisees, and just like Joel predicted,  

the skies went dark, and the earth 
quaked when Jesus breathed his last.

On the cross, Jesus experienced 
the judgment hypocrites deserve.

Even the worst and most half-hearted can know
there is no judgment left for those
who lament and repent to Jesus.

And now because of Jesus, natural disasters 
no longer need to remind us of the judgment  

we will face, but of the judgment 
that’s been exhausted in Jesus.

Eternal mercy is now ours forever.

May the Holy Spirit open your eyes 
to see God’s coming day of the Lord.

And may you see Jesus as the one who died on the
day of the Lord so we will never experience judgment.