Years The Locust Has Eaten
The prophet Joel stood among a people who had watched their fields stripped bare. A nation of locusts came up upon the land, strong and without number, with teeth like the teeth of a lion. They left the vine waste and the fig tree barked. The field was laid waste, the ground mourned, the corn perished, the new wine dried up, and the oil languished.
Joel called the drunkards to wake and weep, and he called the husbandmen to howl. The meat offering and the drink offering were cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests mourned. The seed rotted under the clods. The garners lay desolate. The barns were broken down, for the corn was withered. The beasts of the field cried unto the Lord, and the rivers of water dried up.
The Lord spoke through Joel to a people who had lost years they could count.
“And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed.” (Joel 2:25-26 KJV)
The locusts came first. The cankerworm came next. The caterpillar and the palmerworm followed, four waves of stripping, one after another, until the land lay bare and the people stood among the stubble.
Joel recorded the promise in the middle of the ruin. The Lord said He would restore the years. The years were gone, measured in harvests missed, in feasts unfunded, in barns left empty. The Lord said those years would be given back.
Joseph stood before Pharaoh and interpreted the dream of seven fat kine and seven lean. The seven years of great plenty came first, and Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, until he left numbering, for it was without number. Then came the seven years of famine, and the famine was over all the face of the earth. Egypt survived because the plenty was stored during the years of abundance.
The years the locust ate in Egypt were the years of famine, and the Lord had prepared a man to carry the nation through them. The restoration came from the storehouses.
Naomi left Bethlehem in a famine and returned after ten years with a daughter-in-law and no husband and no sons. She told the women of the city to call her Mara, for the Almighty had dealt bitterly with her. She went out full, and she came home empty.
Boaz saw Ruth gleaning in his field. The near kinsman refused the redemption, and Boaz took Ruth to wife. She bare a son, and the women of Bethlehem said to Naomi, Blessed be the Lord, which hath left thee this day with a kinsman, that his name may be famous in Israel.
The child was Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David. The years Naomi counted as lost became the line through which the throne of Israel came. The restoration exceeded the loss.
Job lost oxen, asses, sheep, camels, servants, sons, and daughters in a single day. His body broke out in boils from the sole of his foot to his crown, and he sat among the ashes with a potsherd to scrape himself. His wife told him to curse God and die. His friends spoke accusations that filled chapters.
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind. The Lord turned the captivity of Job, and gave him twice as much as he had before. Fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, a thousand she asses, and sons and daughters again, and the name of the Lord was magnified in the land of Uz.
Joel spoke of the locust, and the locust speaks of years. Years of sickness, years of fruitless labour, years of watching the field stand bare. The Lord who spoke through Joel stands over the years that came and went, and He speaks the same word He spoke then.
The Lord said, “I will restore to you the years.” The promise stands in the present tense of His mouth. The locust ate, and the Lord restores. The cankerworm stripped, and the Lord restores. The caterpillar and the palmerworm took what remained, and the Lord restores.
The restoration comes from the Lord of the field. He said, “Ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you.”
The years are His to give back.
LET US PRAY
Lord, restore the years today.
In Jesus’ name, Amen!
