Joe 1:2 | KingComments | STEP | With the calls “hear this” and “and listen” Joel draws attention to his message. The “elders” are the most responsible ones. They are the leaders of the people, men who have become wise through a long life experience. Their memory also goes furthest back. They must understand that the disaster that has struck them is not an accidental coincidence. Nor may they give any scientific explanations for it, as if a combination of physical factors has caused the large number of locusts to settle in Judah at precisely this moment in time. It is precisely these old, wise men who must realize that this disaster is a warning from God. But also the ‘ordinary’ people are told that in what has happened they have to acknowledge the actions of God. If they go back in memory and even further in history, they will have to admit that never before has anything like this happened in their country. The plague that now afflicts them is greater than any previous plague that has afflicted them. Why? Because they are even greater sinners than their fathers. Every natural disaster or other kind of disaster, for example sickness or war, is a happening through which God wants to speak to people’s conscience. If men do not obey His Word, He will speak by more powerful means. The well-known writer C.S. Lewis remarked somewhere: ‘God whispers through His Word, He roars through disaster.’ After an address entitled ‘God is there and He speaks’, a woman came to me and said: ‘I am thankful that God has roared against me because I did not listen to His Word.’ Even today God still speaks to a people and to the individual through events. The goal is to listen to Him. The same was true for the man who told his little son who believed in God that God should just tap him on his shoulder if He existed. Some time later he toppled over with his car. He was miraculously preserved. Only his shoulder was damaged. His son then said: ‘Daddy, wasn’t that the tapping of God on your shoulder?’ The man saw that God had spoken to him. He converted to God and came to faith in the Lord Jesus.

‏ Joel 1:2

Back in the Past

With the calls “hear this” and “and listen” Joel draws attention to his message. The “elders” are the most responsible ones. They are the leaders of the people, men who have become wise through a long life experience. Their memory also goes furthest back. They must understand that the disaster that has struck them is not an accidental coincidence. Nor may they give any scientific explanations for it, as if a combination of physical factors has caused the large number of locusts to settle in Judah at precisely this moment in time. It is precisely these old, wise men who must realize that this disaster is a warning from God.

But also the ‘ordinary’ people are told that in what has happened they have to acknowledge the actions of God. If they go back in memory and even further in history, they will have to admit that never before has anything like this happened in their country. The plague that now afflicts them is greater than any previous plague that has afflicted them. Why? Because they are even greater sinners than their fathers.

Every natural disaster or other kind of disaster, for example sickness or war, is a happening through which God wants to speak to people’s conscience. If men do not obey His Word, He will speak by more powerful means. The well-known writer C.S. Lewis remarked somewhere: ‘God whispers through His Word, He roars through disaster.’ After an address entitled ‘God is there and He speaks’, a woman came to me and said: ‘I am thankful that God has roared against me because I did not listen to His Word.’

Even today God still speaks to a people and to the individual through events. The goal is to listen to Him. The same was true for the man who told his little son who believed in God that God should just tap him on his shoulder if He existed. Some time later he toppled over with his car. He was miraculously preserved. Only his shoulder was damaged. His son then said: ‘Daddy, wasn’t that the tapping of God on your shoulder?’ The man saw that God had spoken to him. He converted to God and came to faith in the Lord Jesus.