Joel 1:4 says, “That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.”
“Commentaries about the Book of Joel always look at this insect infestation as a historical event but nobody knows when it took place. There’s no record of it in Scripture outside of this passage.
“My individual impression is he’s not talking about the past here; he’s talking about the future," says Richard Jordan.“It’s an infestation in the future that’s going to wind up with the destruction of the land, to be immediately followed by the battle of Armageddon. It 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.’“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’ . . . well, I think you lose something if that’s all you get out of it.
“You see how he says in Joel 1:2-3: [2] Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers?
[3] Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation."That's saying, '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 that'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, ‘That'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 out 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 caterpillar, 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.'
"Of course, 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's nothing left."Of course, 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: [5] 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.”
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