“Every time
you read a commentary about the Book of Joel, they look at this insect
infestation as a historical event but nobody knows when that took place," says Jordan.
"There’s no record of it in Scripture outside of this passage.
“You can
believe anything you want about it, but my own personal, private, subject,
individual impression is that he’s not talking about an infestation in the past
because he’s not talking about the past here; he’s talking about the future.
“It’s an
infestation in the future that’s going to wind up with the destruction of the
land and, in chapter 2, it’s going to be immediately followed by the battle of
Armageddon. That takes place in the last half of the 70th week and
at the end of it in the ‘day of the Lord.’
"So verse 15 says,
‘Alas for the day! for the day of the LORD is at hand, and as a destruction
from the Almighty shall it come.’
“Really,
what he’s describing here is a prophetic picture. If you want to say, as the commentaries
all do, that it’s historically rooted in the past and Joel’s doing what Hosea
said, using a similitude—‘Here’s a historic event and an illustration out of it’--I
think you lose something if that’s all you get out of it.
*****
“You see how
he says in verse 3, ‘Here’s what the old men are to do’: ‘Tell ye your children
of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another
generation.’
“Here’s
something you need to pass on to your kids and make sure they understand it so
they can pass it to their kids and let everybody remember this.
“Whenever
you have someone in Israel telling them to remind their children about things,
over and over again the context of what they’re reminding them about is going
to be the restoration of Israel at the end of the time of Jacob’s trouble.
“How often
have we looked at how many events in Israel’s past are really dress rehearsals
for things coming in their future.
“Come with
me to Psalm 78. You see how it says a ‘Maschil of Asaph.’ That word Maschil is a
Hebrew title for a psalm designed to teach doctrine. This is not a devotional
psalm; this is an instruction psalm designed to produce edification in its
hearers. It’s by Asaph, David’s choir director, so to speak.
“But he was
more than that. Matthew 13: 34-35 says, ‘All these
things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables; and without a parable spake
he not unto them: 35] That it might be fulfilled which
was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will
utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.’
“If you’ve
got a Scofield Bible, it tells you where it’s a quote from. It’s from Psalm
78:2. Notice what Matthew calls the writer of Psalm 78. He doesn’t call him the
psalmist, or the writer, or the devotional expositor. He calls him the prophet.
“So what do
you expect to read in Psalm 78? Prophecy. Why? Because Matthew 13:35 said a
prophet wrote it.
“I know I
get way out on a limb some time and people think, ‘Brother Rick’s just nuts,’
but when you read these things, and you believe what you read and put them
together, you begin to say, ‘Wow, this stuff is kind of fascinating!’
*****
“Here’s what
the prophet says to them in Psalm 78: ‘1] Give ear, O my people, to my
law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.[2] I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:
[3] Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
[4] We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.
[5] For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:
[6] That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:
[7] That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:
“That’s
saying, ‘I’m going to tell you history like you learned our history, but our
history is really a parable. Our history is a dress rehearsal about things
taking place in the future.' It’s not just, 'I wonder what happened today; let’s
turn on the news.’
“If you go
on down through the chapter, and there’s 72 verses to it, he starts with the Exodus
and goes all the way down to I Samuel 8 with David and goes through Israel’s
history. He’ll do it in Psalm 105 and 106. The psalms do this over and over
again.
“Each psalm
has a particular doctrinal emphasis to it and they’ll pick out the history of
Israel and lay it out and the psalmist will say, ‘You see what God did back
there? He’s going to do the same thing over there.’
"Look at
verses 43-45: 43] How he had wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders
in the field of Zoan:[44] And had turned their rivers into blood; and their floods, that they could not drink.
[45] He sent divers sorts of flies among them, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.
*****
“In fact,
after the one in Exodus 10 about the locusts, Pharaoh’s men come in and say, ‘Pharaoh,
would you just get rid of this guy because we’re beat; he’s already beaten us.’
“Verse 46
says, ‘He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, and their labour unto
the locust.’ Verse 49 says, ‘He cast
upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble, by
sending evil angels among them.’
“So what
happened back in Egypt is a prophecy against what God’s going to do against the
world. By the way, Isaiah calls the pharaoh that held Israel captive the
Assyrian.
"The Antichrist who’s going to hold Israel captive in the tribulation is called the Assyrian. So the spiritual force behind the captivity of Israel in Exodus is the same satanic policy holding them captive in the tribulation.
“If you go
to Joel 1:4, he actually has four categories for the plague of the locust
(Exodus 10). Commentaries usually say those are four different stages of the
life of a locust. I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it’s fascinating to
me that one bug can only eat so much so when he leaves, the next bug eats more
and by the time you get to the end, there ain’t nothing left."The Antichrist who’s going to hold Israel captive in the tribulation is called the Assyrian. So the spiritual force behind the captivity of Israel in Exodus is the same satanic policy holding them captive in the tribulation.
*****
“There’s a destruction coming in the land that Joel is prophesying about and, as we read the rest of the chapter, he’s going to describe how thorough the destruction is.
“There’s
people who say that’s four different Gentile nations and they try to interpret
it and so forth, but my own view is it’s a literal destruction of the land,
only it’s looking to the future and that’s why he tells them to remember it.
“Joel 1: 19-20
says, 19] O LORD, to thee will I cry: for the fire hath devoured the
pastures of the wilderness, and the flame hath burned all the trees of the
field.[20] The beasts of the field cry also unto thee: for the rivers of waters are dried up, and the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.
“Fire,
flame, devouring--that’s not what locusts do. There’s something more than just
bugs infesting, so when you keep reading in Joel 1 you begin to say, ‘Hmm.’
“Verses 5-6
say, ‘Awake, ye drunkards, and weep; and howl, all ye drinkers of wine, because
of the new wine; for it is cut off from your mouth.[6] For a nation is come up upon my land, strong, and without number, whose teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he hath the cheek teeth of a great lion.’
“Now, wait a
minute, the locusts turn out to be a nation that’s come up upon the land, strong
and without number, and they’ve got teeth like a great lion and they devour.
“Lions
aren’t going to eat the grass. You go on down through here and you see they eat
the grass, the trees, the apple trees, the pomegranate trees, the vine tree.*****
“In essence,
what Joel is doing is announcing the judgment of that Fifth Course on Israel.
The day of the Lord’s wrath is what that Fifth Course of captivity is and what
Joel is saying is, ‘That Fifth Course is coming!’
“In all the
other courses, He’ll destroy the land and let the Gentiles come in and take
them, but God doesn’t clean wipe them out. But when you get down to that Fifth
Course, you’re going to be down to the place where you’re so starved and your
resources are so gone you’re going to start eating each other.
“Now, if you
go back into Kings, you’ll see that historically. I know you and I, all fat and
sassy, have never been that hungry. It’s easy for you to say what you wouldn’t
do, but if you’re put in the exact same circumstances they’re in, then tell me
you wouldn’t do it. That’s how desperate they’re going to be.
*****
“Deuteronomy
28, where it’s describing the outworking of these five courses of judgment,
verse 38 says, ‘Thou shalt carry much seed out into the field, and shalt gather
but little in; for the locust shall consume it.’
“One of the
judgments of God against Israel is the harvest of their land being consumed by
pestilence; by plagues of insects, specifically locusts.
“Verses 40-43
says, [40] Thou shalt have olive trees throughout all thy coasts, but
thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil; for thine olive shall cast his
fruit.
[41] Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.
[42] All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.
“God’s going
to stop the natural production of the fruit of the trees. In verse 49 (‘The
LORD shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as
swift as the eagle flieth; a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand’) is
the nation in Joel 1:6.[41] Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them; for they shall go into captivity.
[42] All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.
*****
“It’s a
nation of locusts. Proverbs 30:27 says, ‘The locusts have no king, yet go they
forth all of them by bands.’
“If a locust
has no king, would you properly describe him as a nation? Doesn’t a nation need
a head? So it would be odd to call a band of locusts a nation if they didn’t
have a king, but what if you had locusts who had a king?
“In Revelation
9 are some locusts. Where’d they come from? The bottomless pit. Well, obviously
they weren’t insects. They are some kind of spirit creatures. They would be
some of those evil angels like over in psalms.
“Revelation
9:3 says, ‘And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth: and unto
them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power.’
“Along with
the insect infestation that’s physically destroying the land, eating it down so
it produces absolutely nothing of consumable value, now there’s a group of
demonic in the spirit world coming.
“Verse 4
says, ‘And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the
earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only those men which have
not the seal of God in their foreheads.’
“So this
locust is going to attack people who are lost. Revelation 9:5 says, ‘And to
them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be
tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when
he striketh a man. ‘
“They don’t
kill you, they just torment you. It says they’ll want to die and they can’t.
Verse 6 says, ‘And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it;
and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.’
“The passage goes on, ‘7] And the
shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared unto battle; and on their
heads were as it were crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of
men.[8] And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions.
[9] And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses running to battle.
[10] And they had tails like unto scorpions, and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months.
[11] And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon.
[12] One woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter.
“If that’s
the first woe, think how bad the next two are going to be! And that first woe
is what Joel is seeing. Not only is there just going to be the physical
destruction of the land, the picture in Joel is that in the tribulation,
there’s going to be this swarm of locusts.
“Revelation
11:3 says, ‘And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall
prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.’
“Those two
witnesses are Moses and Elijah and they’re going to do something. Remember
verse 6? Would that be a little bit difficult? You read in Joel about the
rivers drying up and everything being parched.
“One of the
plagues Moses smote Egypt with was locusts. In that second half of that 70th
week in the tribulation, literally the land’s going to be smitten with swarms
of locusts that just take the form of the plagues out of Egypt.
“They cover
the land, go in the houses and just infest everything, eat everything, decimate
the land. Then you’re going to have on top of that these demonic locusts from
Revelation 9 that come on the land as a nation whose teeth are like lions. All
of that is going to be followed in chapter 2 of Joel with the battle of Armageddon.”
(Editor’s
note: Another new article tomorrow)
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