"Then the Lord was jealous for His land and took pity on His people." (Joel 2:18) Some translations render the word "jealous" as "zealous" meaning "to be dedicated to, to be passionate about, to be possessive of". It may be that the word "zealous" was the author's intention, for it would certainly be correct to say that the Lord has been dedicated to the people of Judah and that He is passionate about their welfare and that He feels a special connection to them. But it would also be correct to say that He feels jealous for them. There's a difference between feeling jealous for someone and feeling jealous of someone. If we feel jealous of someone we are envying what they have and perhaps wishing we had it for ourselves. But when we feel jealous for someone we are ardently desiring the very best for them; we want to see good things happening for them. We might use the analogy of a parent who wants the best education and best career opportunities for his child. That parent is jealous for (deeply desirous to see) blessings poured out on his child.
"The Lord replied to them: 'I am sending you grain, new wine and olive oil, enough to satisfy you fully; never again will I make you an object of scorn to the nations. I will drive the northern horde far from you, pushing it into a parched and barren land; its eastern ranks will drown in the Dead Sea and its western ranks in the Mediterranean Sea. And its stench will go up; its smell will rise.'" (Joel 2:19-20a)
Is the Lord speaking of the plague of locusts or of a human army from the north? A case could be made for either theory. Swarms of locusts are referred to in the Bible as marching in ranks and, as we have seen earlier in our study of the book of Joel, the calamity with the crops appears more likely to have been the result of a plague of locusts than an invading enemy army. But the Assyrian Empire lies north of the kingdom of Judah and these verses could be a reference to the threat of that enemy nation, for Assyria will conquer the northern kingdom of Israel but will not conquer the southern kingdom of Judah in spite of attempts to do so. We learned in our study of the kings how the Lord miraculously spared the kingdom of Judah from falling to the Assyrian Empire and the reason He spared Judah is because the people were, by and large, being faithful to Him at that time, just as we find them turning from their sins and recommitting their hearts to Him in Joel's time.
They begin praising the Lord as soon as He tells them He is going to turn their situation around. "Surely He has done great things! Do not be afraid, land of Judah; be glad and rejoice. Surely the Lord has done great things! Do not be afraid, you wild animals, for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches." (Joel 2:20b-22)
I don't believe the meadows instantly turned green or that fruit immediately appeared on the trees and on the vines. The Lord is able to make these things happen in the blink of an eye but I believe these things happened in a natural and orderly way. The Lord most often operates within the rules of nature that He has created. So I think that the Lord sent the locust hordes away and then the grasses, plants, and trees began their recovery. It may have taken months for the entire process to come to fruition but it's important to note that the people began shouting the praises of God as soon as He gave His answer. When the Lord makes us a promise, it's as good as done. The promise may come true within five minutes, five years, or five decades. But we can go ahead and praise Him in full assurance that in the right time and in the right way He will bring it to pass.
Maybe the Lord has made you a promise and a lot of time has passed since you received His word on this matter. That doesn't mean the Lord's word has failed! The Lord has never broken a promise. The Lord never will break a promise. There are times when a promise comes true pretty much immediately and I've had that happen before. I've had Him answer prayers while I was still praying them. Other times I've had to wait a medium amount of time for all the circumstances to come together to bring about the promise. In those cases it took days or weeks or months. And then there were the longer waits. I can think of one situation in particular that took between three and four years to resolve. There were times I almost despaired of seeing the promise come true because in my human weakness I found it difficult to endure day after day in those circumstances but the Lord kept sending me the encouragement I needed in order to wait it out. Just before the promise came true, I probably wouldn't have given my situation more than a 10% chance of resolving, but I was holding onto that 10% chance because my hope was in the Lord. If I hadn't believed He could do what He said He could do, I would have given my situation a 0% chance of working out and I would have cut my losses and given up. I'm not saying that my faith was good in this example; I should have believed 100% that He was going to come through. But as the saying goes, "Little is much when God is in it," and He had mercy on the 10% of faith I did have (because He remembers that we are only dust!) and He solved the problem in a great and mighty way. He solved the problem in such a way that no human being could ever take credit for it. All the glory goes to Him alone forever!
No comments:
Post a Comment