RAVISHED AND RAVAGED

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In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

“Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. What the locust swarm has left, the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left, the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left, other locusts have eaten.”

“Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips.”

Joel 1:1-5

This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

Sin is devastating to anyone who adopts it into the way they live. It literally ravishes a person from the inside out and facilitates the ravaging devastation that comes through God’s associated judgment in response to a person’s sins. This is a truth that has been validated over and over again ever since it entered into God’s creation during the Great Fall (Genesis 3) in the Garden of Eden.

Yes, sin eats away at a person’s spiritual fruits until there is nothing left to nourish, leaving behind a faith wasteland and leaving that person primed for God’s punishment, as if being spiritually desolate isn’t bad enough. It’s sort of like what happens when locusts invade and attack crops, bringing destruction wherever they go.  

The nation of Israel was very familiar with the concept of locusts and the severe damage they bring. They had been dealing with the destructive insects for as long as they figured out how to raise crops to support themselves. And then, there was of course that plague that God had sent on the Egyptians as He tried to get Pharaoh to let His people go. Many of the Israelites in Joel’s day had heard accounts of what their ancestors had witnessed and as we see in the opening verses of the Book of Joel, those Israelites were now experiencing their own issues with the crop-destroying bugs. Look again at these words:

The word of the Lord that came to Joel son of Pethuel.

“Hear this, you elders; listen, all who live in the land. Has anything like this ever happened in your days or in the days of your ancestors? Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation. What the locust swarm has left, the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left, the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left, other locusts have eaten.”

“Wake up, you drunkards, and weep! Wail, all you drinkers of wine; wail because of the new wine, for it has been snatched from your lips.”  Joel 1:1-5

First, we want to note that the words that came to Joel weren’t really from him but rather from the Lord. The prophet did not want to take credit for what he was about to say; rather, he wanted credit to go where credit was due.

Next, we get into the meat of what was happening as Joel shared the words of the Lord. For the land was under siege by swarms of locusts who were bent on nothing short of obliterating all the Israelites’ crops. It was an epic assault on the most basic food needs of God’s people and the locusts would not stop feeding until there was nothing left to eat. They had come to do one thing and one thing only. To ravish and ravage until they had wiped out every plant possible. Nothing would be left, including grapes to make the wine the drunkards valued so very much. The very fruits of the vine had been snatched from their lips by the marauding, devouring insects.

While the destruction caused by these locusts was very real, Joel was hinting at a future devastation that would be as bad and even worse, the coming day of the Lord’s judgment when there would be an even greater ravishing and ravaging of God’s people, a day where there would be mass destruction of those who had chosen sin over salvation. For those people who had chosen death over life, those who had allowed the locust swarm of transgressions to eat away at their very spiritual fibers until there was no life remaining, their dry and spiritually dead bodies and souls would end up easy tinder for the all consuming fire of God’s judgment.

It’s not a pretty sight but it’s one that is going to happen when Jesus returns to judge all creation. Those who put their trust in Him as Savior will go onto live forever. Those who didn’t will be consumed, ravished and ravaged to a point where they will never live again.

Friends, it’s going to be one way or the other for you when judgment day comes.

Which option have you chosen?

Amen

In Christ,

Mark
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