OK…Yes, I get frustrated with the continual saga of Israel’s lack of trust in God. Requirement…repent…turn back to me…cry out to me. Has compassion on you and canĮven restore your years devastated by sin and destruction. Restoration of wasted years, is the same God who loves you. This same God who looked upon the Israelites with love, compassion and pity and promises I realize that the central figure is not a wandering race but a Wonderful Redeemer! One who RESTORES. People but a story about a GOD A God who is patient and loving. What a promise to God’s people.Īs I find my frustration growing with this unruly nation, I realize that it is not a story about a Swarming locusts has eaten…I will restore the years that the swarming locusts has eaten. I will restore the years that the swarming locust has eaten…I will restore the years that the I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent among you. In fact, if they repent He would RESTORE all that was lost. Then the tone changes in chapter 2:18 God has pity on them He tells them not to fear. Leicester, England Downers Grove, IL:Inter-Varsity Press. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. Look to me! Cry out to me! Turn to me! Was the plea of God the Father.Īllen, L. God Himself, called out to HisĬhildren to “Wake up!” 1:5 “Lament!” 1:13 “Fast!” 1:14 “Pray, Repent and Assemble!” 2:12-ġ7. There was famine, drought, barrenness all around devastation. (Most of these facts are taken from World Vision, Dec. In a 1958 visitation Ethiopia lost 167,000 metric tons of grain, enough to feed more than a million people for a year”. A swarm can devour in one day what 40,000 people eat in one year. A single locust can travel 3,000 miles during its lifetime, stripping vegetation wherever it and its swarm land. Thousand newly hatched hopping locusts can occupy one square foot. What the swarming locust left, the hopping locust has eaten, and what the hopping locust left, the destroying locust has eaten.”ĭid you know that, “One swarm can contain up to ten billion individual locusts. “What the cutting locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. Tell us their exact sin but probably the sins of complacency and compromise.īecause of their sin, God sends devastation to their land in the form of “natural disaster”, The Old Testament, it seems that they are still in that place of disobedience. Even when you get to the book of Joel, nearing the end of Generation after generation, they didn’t seem to learn. Deliverance from slavery in Egypt via the Red Sea! Water from a rock! Food raining down from heaven (no need to grocery shop)! Personal guidance and protection from God Himself! “Come on People, what more do you need?!” “How dumb, (sorry kids) can you be?” I think to myself, “If I had all THAT…all the miracles and power and stuff…I would totally trust in the LORD!” Reading story after story of how God showed up and showed out in their lives.

Every now and then when I am reading about the Israelites in the Old Testament, I get a littleįrustrated with them.

A wasted life book