Flight JAO01 - Part A

During the tribulation period, there are locust-like creatures that come to the earth and torment men upon the earth for five months. The Scripture says, and the shape of the locust was like horses prepared for battle.

Every farmer knows the danger of an infestation, but infestations don't just come in physical form. And today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Pastor Skip examines the prophet Joel's words about the infestations that plagued God's people in Israel. Right now, we want to share about a special resource that will help you understand God's design for fatherhood. America is reaping the whirlwind of bad fruit from a generation of young men who lack the influence of a father. We desperately need to educate men of all ages and stages of life to begin to turn this destructive social trend.

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Request the Dads Make a Difference package online at connectwithskip.com or by calling 1-800-922-1888. Okay, let's turn now to Joel as we join Pastor Skip for today's lesson. This is the Bible from 30,000 feet. If you're new to it, we're just flying over these books, noticing the landmarks, the great themes of the book, how it ties and fits in with the rest of the Bible and then we move on. We just want to get people to understand and have a familiarity with the theme of each book of scripture and I'm guessing that not a lot of you have spent a lot of time in books like Amos and Obadiah and not a lot of people do but there are some great messages in every one of these books so we're going to be in those three Joel, Amos and Obadiah. We call these the minor prophets not because they're less significant than Isaiah or Jeremiah or Daniel or Ezekiel. We call them minor prophets not based on inferiority or superiority but simply brevity. The minor prophets say a lot with fewer words and because they use less words, less literary real estate, we call them minor prophets. That's how the term came about.

They have good, powerful, significant things to say and they are quoted in the New Testament with one exception and that is the book of Obadiah is not quoted in the New Testament but the other books we look at tonight are but think of it this way. Do you remember when the first cell phones came out? Remember how big they were? They were like the size of a small child. They were just so large.

You know we just thought they were so cool to see somebody with that thing. Look at that thing and then now think what you can do with that little device. You can get on the internet. You can download apps. You can get bible studies. You can search anything and you can use it as a phone and they're so tiny.

They're like little tiny little things that you hold up and you can just do so much compared to what the major prophet phone was several years ago. Well let me give you the themes of these three books before we jump in. They all begin with the letter D. The theme of Joel is the day of the Lord.

I'll explain what that little phrase means. It comes up quite frequently in the scriptures 26 times all together. The day of the Lord is where the phrase the day of the Lord comes up. That is the theme of the book of Joel. The day of the Lord. The theme of the book of Amos is denunciation of the nations. Nations that are gathered around Israel and Judah and even Israel and Judah itself.

It's a short book packed with denunciatory proclamations. So the day of the Lord Joel. Denunciation of the nations in Amos and then finally the last one Obadiah. The doom of Edom. Edom one single country that was next to Israel. We start with Joel and that takes us back to the 9th century BC and we're dealing with the northern kingdom.

I think by now you know that history. I don't have to rehash it but for those of you who might be new the kingdom of Israel historically after Solomon was split into north and south. 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel was called the northern kingdom or simply Israel. Sometimes referred to by its largest tribe the tribe of Ephraim. God will address them as Ephraim but he means all the 10 tribes of Israel in the north and then two tribes down south Judah and Benjamin referred to as the nation of Judah. The prophet Joel is addressing Israel that northern set of 10 tribes dealing with the day of the Lord.

Now a little bit of a hint and it's not really unique to Joel. We've already noted and I'm glad we have been thus far that you know how this works by now. You know how that there's sometimes a prophecy or a vision or a prediction made and it finds its fulfillment in the near future and in the far future. Near and far fulfillment and so there's a little bit of lag on that. I just thought well my students aren't measuring up but I know you know that.

Maybe it's just you had a hard day some of you. I don't know but Joel looks through the lens of an immediate judgment to be able to view something else that the Bible will speak of and amplify in that phrase the day of the Lord as an ultimate judgment. So I'm wearing glasses tonight and I love these glasses because they are what the doctors call progressive lenses. Used to be you know bifocals and trifocals but now they've done glass where they can just kind of do it so nice and easily that you don't even notice the transition.

So I can read up close with the bottom part of the lens. I can read the computer right in the middle and then the top part is for far away and so the lenses of the prophets were often like this and then like this. You could see up close but then there was also something where that becomes a template for something in the future.

What is the judgment? What is at hand in the book of Joel? It seems as if there was a national disaster in terms of a swarm of locusts that infiltrated the land. Not uncommon in that part of the world but it was an invasion of locusts that becomes that event becomes a harbinger of a future event. In this case a future couple of events.

The invasion of locusts to the northern 10 tribes was an unusual swarm and I'll tell you why in a minute but it becomes predictive. It becomes anticipatory of a swarm of Assyrian soldiers who will pounce on the northern kingdom and destroy it taking captive hundreds of thousands of them and that will happen in 722 BC. So Joel chapter 1 verse 1. The word of the Lord came to Joel. Yoel. What a great name. Two words in that one name. Yo or Yah which is Yahweh. It's the beginning part of Yahweh. The covenant name of God.

That tetragrammaton. The I am that I am. Yahweh. Yah or Yo and then El which is God. So it simply means Yahweh is the Lord or Yahweh is God.

That's his name. The word of the Lord that came to Yoel the son of Pethuel. Hear this you elders and give ear all you inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this happened in your days or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children and their children another generation. It's a great verse because that is the principle of how truth gets passed along. I hope you train your children in the truths of God. Many of you have a testimony of your grandparents or your parents reading you Bible stories praying with you and you had that legacy. Even if you didn't start now pass that on to the next generation and to the next generation. It's been said that Christianity is always one generation away from extinction.

We don't want to slacken our input into that next generation so you tell them what the Lord has done good or bad. Verse four what the chewing locust left the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left the crawling locust has eaten. And what the crawling locust left the consuming locust has eaten. Now we have in that verse four it would seem different varieties of locusts.

That's one way to look at it or we see four stages of a locust development and the activity that they aspire to when they're in that stage of development. Go down to verse six. Notice the segue for a nation has come up against my land. The locust came in millions of them a locust nation swarming through the land strong and without number.

His teeth are the teeth of a lion and he has the fangs of a fierce lion. He has laid waste my vine and ruined my fig tree. Now you know from your reading of the book of your reading of the book of Isaiah that a vine or a vineyard is emblematic of the nation of Israel. God called Israel his vine. I planted a choice vine on a very fruitful hill Isaiah chapter 5. I dug a wine press. I put a wall around it. I built a watchtower. So using that same imagery of a vine and a fig tree he laid waste my vine and ruined my fig tree.

He has stripped it bare and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. This plague of locusts was an unusual plague for a couple of reasons. The plague seems to have come in from the north which caught the prophet's attention. Most of the plagues in that part of the world of locusts blow in from the south from Egypt. But this one came in from the north and it got Joel's attention.

Moreover as you read through the details of the book we don't have time to look at all the verses. These locusts respond to instructions and yet it says in the book of Proverbs that locusts have no king. They just act in in sort of like swarm instinct. So it's unusual.

It gets the prophet's attention and he uses that as a lens to speak of something that is going to happen. Locusts of this sort breed in the desert. They're about two inches long.

Their wingspan is out four to five inches long and they travel in in large groups of like a column of a hundred feet and they can be up to 10 or 20 miles long. When they come in during midday they can almost, they do, it's like an eclipse of the sun. It can be so dark they bring darkness with them.

They block the sun and when they leave they the bark of the trees is gone, the green grass is gone, the foliage is gone. It's like the earth has been scorched by fire and they can be significant. I don't know if you caught this several weeks ago, a couple months ago, this swarm of locusts that hit Las Vegas, Nevada and it showed up on radar a massive green cloud like a weather system coming in and it just hit Las Vegas, the environs downtown and it happened before but this was a significant thing that measured even on the radar.

Now with that in mind let me suggest that Joel and this imagery becomes a bridge between two different elements that are sort of tied. One is a literal infestation, you know, he speaks about a literal one here that's figurative of another. There was in Israel's history a plague of locusts when they were in the land of Egypt. It was the eighth plague and it was a plague of locusts that decimated the land.

That was exodus. If you fast forward to the book of Revelation, during the tribulation period there are lots of locusts that decimated. There are locust-like creatures that come to the earth and torment men upon the earth for five months. The scripture says, and the shape of the locust was like horses prepared for battle. You may remember that from your studies in Revelation 9. Now with that fresh on the walls now read Joel chapter 2 verse 4. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses like swift steeds so they run with the noise like chariots over the mountaintops they leap like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble like a strong people set in battle array before them the people writhe in pain all faces are drained of color. So what we may actually have here in fitting all of these scriptures together is not one not two but three events. A natural disaster that became a harbinger of a invasion of the Assyrian empire which then became predictive of what will happen in Revelation chapter 9 with this infestation on the earth of these kind of locusts. Now I want you to notice a theme that's in this book.

I mentioned it at the beginning. It's the theme the day of the Lord. 26 times the Bible mentions it. Five of those times are in the book of Joel. More than any other prophet he speaks about the day of the Lord. So look at chapter 1 verse 15. Alas for the day for the day of the Lord is at hand it shall come as destruction from the almighty.

Now I'm emphasizing that because I'm going to get back to that. It's destruction from the almighty. The day of the Lord Yom Yahweh. That's the Hebrew Yom.

You've heard that term before. It's the Hebrew word for day Yom Kippur Yom Yahweh the covenant name of God. This is God's day the day of the Lord. Chapter 2 verse 1 blow the trumpet the Hebrew word shofar the ram's horn blow the ram's horn in Zion. Sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord is coming for it is at hand.

Now pause there for a moment. The ancient Israelites did use the term the day of the Lord but they interpreted the idea of the day of the Lord they said is coming is the day when all of the enemies around them will be punished and of course they'll skate scot-free because they're the chosen people. So they looked at the day of the Lord as something good. With that in mind look at verse 2 it's a day of darkness and gloominess a day of clouds and thick darkness like the morning clouds spread over the mountains a people come great and strong the like of whom has never been nor will there ever be any such after them even for many successive generations. Go down to verse 10 of chapter 2 the earth quakes before them the heavens tremble the sun and the moon grow dark the stars diminish their brightness you're familiar with some of this imagery Jesus used it in Matthew 24 to speak of the great tribulation period. The Lord gives voice before his army for his camp is very great for strong is the one who executes his word for the day of the Lord is great and very terrible who can endure it.

It seems that what would be local and immediate for the northern kingdom of Israel would also be global and ultimate for the rest of the world. That there was a day coming a period coming a period of judgment for the northern kingdom but that's simply a lens like the locust was a lens for the Assyrian invasion the Assyrian invasion is a template a lens for something far greater in the future. The term the day of the Lord does not refer to a 24-hour day a 24-hour period it refers to a process of time by which God interrupts world history with his own agenda in terms of judgment. God intercepts world history with his own agenda in terms of judgment he interjects a special period of divine judgment into the history of the world that's the day of the Lord.

Today is not the day of the Lord this is the day of mankind this is man's day this is our day we're having our heyday we're making our choices we're setting our agenda we're doing our thing we're exercising our will and God is very patient and that will continue till he sees fit to stop it. At some point in the future an event will eclipse the day of mankind called the day of called the day of Christ. The day of Christ is mentioned four times and it refers to the second coming of Jesus Christ for his people or with his people to the earth that will then usher in this process of time called the day of the Lord. The day of Christ I believe begins with the rapture of the church Christ comes Jesus said if I go John chapter 14 I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am there you may be also. After the day of Christ there will be a period of events on the earth described by Joel as the worst period in human history Jesus said the same thing I'll quote it in a minute that will be the day of the Lord. Jesus put it this way for then there will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time no nor ever shall be. So Joel and Jesus are looking to the future going amen what he said they're both agreeing with each other there's coming a period that the holocaust world war two all the bad things that have ever happened all the famines all the decimation our child's play in comparison and if you wonder really is that possible things are pretty bad now things have been pretty bad in the past could it really get any worse what's the answer to that bible students a whole lot worse all you have to do is sit down if you have a strong stomach and enough time and read slowly revelation chapter 6 through 19 you get the detail blown out vision version of the day of the Lord and what's going to happen on planet earth that concludes today's look at the book of joel from pastor skip's series the bible from 30 000 feet find the full message as well as books booklets and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com right now let's go in the studio with Skip and lenya with news about a trip to israel you can take well if you've ever dreamed about visiting israel let's make that happen lenya and i are leading a tour group to israel next summer in 2024. we'll start up north visiting nazareth the sea of galley and the jordan river we'll spend several days in jerusalem see the temple moat the garden of gethsemane the upper room and more now visiting the places where the scriptures unfolded where jesus lived out his earthly ministry it never gets old that's why i keep going back join Skip and i and our friend jeremy camp next summer in israel see the itinerary and book this once in a lifetime israel tour with pastor Skip heitzig at inspirationcruises.com slash c-a-b-q that's inspirationcruises.com slash c-a-b-q come back next time as pastor Skip shares a message about world peace and how it'll only really come when christ returns and at the foot of the crossing cast all burdens on his word make a connection connect with Skip heitner is a presentation of connection communications connecting you to god's never changing truth in ever-changing times