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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
A nation has invaded my land, a mighty army without number; it
has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of a lioness. It has laid waste my vines and
ruined my fig trees. It has stripped off their bark and thrown it away, leaving
their branches white.”
“Mourn like a virgin in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed
of her youth. Grain offerings and drink offerings are cut off from the house of
the Lord. The priests are in mourning, those who minister before the Lord.”
“The fields are ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is
destroyed, the new wine is dried up, the olive oil fails. Despair, you farmers,
wail, you vine growers; grieve for the wheat and the barley, because the
harvest of the field is destroyed. The vine is dried up and the fig tree is
withered; the pomegranate, the palm and the apple tree—all the trees of the
field—are dried up. Surely the people’s joy is withered away.”
Joel 1:6-12
This ends today’s
reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
In yesterday’s devotion, the first from the Book of Joel, we
looked at the coming of a swarm of locusts and how destruction followed. We
compared that locust swarm to the damaging nature of sin and the devastation of
God’s judgment that comes in response to sin.
Today, we continue to look at the negative impact that sin
can have on our lives as we continue to look at the ruin caused by the locust
invasion. Let’s refresh by looking again at our scripture passage:
A nation has invaded
my land, a mighty army without number; it has the teeth of a lion, the fangs of
a lioness. It has laid waste my vines and ruined my fig trees. It has stripped
off their bark and thrown it away, leaving their branches white.”
“Mourn like a virgin
in sackcloth grieving for the betrothed of her youth. Grain offerings and drink
offerings are cut off from the house of the Lord. The priests are in mourning, those
who minister before the Lord.”
“The fields are
ruined, the ground is dried up; the grain is destroyed, the new wine is dried
up, the olive oil fails. Despair, you farmers, wail, you vine growers; grieve
for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field is destroyed. The
vine is dried up and the fig tree is withered; the pomegranate, the palm and
the apple tree—all the trees of the field—are dried up. Surely the people’s joy
is withered away.” Joel 1:6-12
When the locusts came, they had one goal in mind and one
goal only. They came to completely devour everything crop in their path until
nothing was left. The vines of the vineyards which produced a bountiful supply
of wine were no match for the marauding insects. Ditto for the fig, palm, olive,
and apple trees, all the trees of the field, as well as the flowing fields of
wheat and barley. Nothing was left undevoured; everything was left in ruin.
This is what sin does to someone when it attacks. It eats
away at the very moral fibers of a person until whatever was good within them
is destroyed. What was once good and fruitful is left barren. A person who was
once productive for God is now useless.
Note how the people of Israel would respond to the
desolation and destruction of the locusts.
They would mourn like a person grieving in sackcloth, even
the priests who minister before the Lord.
They would lament losing important elements needed for
worshiping the Lord (the crops needed for the grain and drink offerings).
They would be left in despair over all they had lost, especially
the farmers who had worked the fields, vineyards, and the orchards so hard to
produce a crop harvest that was eaten away by the locusts.
All this would add up to the people seeing their joy wither
like the stripped trees, vines, and plants. The vast desolation created an air
of hopelessness and depression throughout the land.
Having ministered to a lot of people over my lifetime, I can
tell you with complete assurance that these very symptoms felt by the people of
God after the attack of the locusts are the same symptoms a person experiences
when they have allowed sin to enter in and destroy something within their
lives.
They mourn over the wrongs they committed like an Old
Testament Israelites grieving in sackcloth.
They lament allowing sin to take away elements within them
they once used to worship the Lord, elements like faithfulness and a desire for
righteousness and holiness.
They despair over whatever sin has taken from them, like a
relationship or job or freedom or any other negative outcome iniquity brings.
Finally, they discover their joy withered away and their
strength along with it. Sin led them to a place where they thought they were
happy but it was only a masquerade in the end. For after sin had destroyed what
it set out to do, accomplishing the desires of Satan the enemy, then the
deceptive veil of transgression is pulled back revealing the wicked depths to
which a person has fallen and just how far away from God they have traveled.
Typically, any false delights a person had through their sins are replaced by
shame and guilt and disgust.
Friends, if this sounds like you, if you are the one who has
been devoured by the “locusts” of sin, then today is the day to turn everything
around and it starts by rejecting the sins that you have allowed to enter into
your life and coming back to the Lord, repenting and seeking His forgiveness,
mercy, and grace.
When you do this, you can rest assured that He will receive
you back into His midst and put you back on the right path of life, a path that
leads to rejuvenation and restoration, a path that puts you back in a place
where you can be productive for Him and once again bear fruit in His kingdom, a
path that guides you to where your once withered joy springs back to life in a
big way. For when we are grounded in the Lord, the following truth from the
scriptures is affirmed:
“The joy of the Lord
is your strength.” Nehemiah 8:10
Amen
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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