God: The Only True Source of Joy and Happiness!

1:1 The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel:
An Invasion of Locusts
2 Hear this, you elders;give ear, all inhabitants of the land! Has such a thing happened in your days,or in the days of your fathers?3 Tell your children of it,and let your children tell their children,and their children to another generation. 4 What the cutting locust left,the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left,the hopping locust has eaten,and what the hopping locust left,the destroying locust has eaten. 5 Awake, you drunkards, and weep,and wail, all you drinkers of wine,because of the sweet wine,for it is cut off from your mouth.6 For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number;its teeth are lions' teeth,and it has the fangs of a lioness.7 It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree;it has stripped off their bark and thrown it down;their branches are made white. 8 Lament like a virgin wearing sackcloth for the bridegroom of her youth.9 The grain offering and the drink offering are cut off from the house of the Lord.The priests mourn,the ministers of the Lord.10 The fields are destroyed,the ground mourns,because the grain is destroyed,the wine dries up,the oil languishes. 11 Be ashamed, O tillers of the soil;wail, O vine dressers,for the wheat and the barley,because the harvest of the field has perished.12 The vine dries up;the fig tree languishes.Pomegranate, palm, and apple,all the trees of the field are dried up,and gladness dries up from the children of man.

This first part of Joel in chapter 1 introduces the Lord's judgment by way of a locust infestation, drought, and the coming of a great army. These "plagues" on the “day of the Lord” are then followed by a call for repentance the in verses in tomorrows section.

"The most aged could not remember such calamities as were about to take place. Armies of insects were coming upon the land to eat the fruits of it. It is expressed so as to apply also to the destruction of the country by a foreign enemy, and seems to refer to the devastations of the Chaldeans. God is Lord of hosts, has every creature at his command, and, when he pleases, can humble and mortify a proud, rebellious people, by the weakest and most contemptible creatures. It is just with God to take away the comforts which are abused to luxury and excess; and the more men place their happiness in the gratifications of sense, the more severe temporal afflictions are upon them. The more earthly delights we make needful to satisfy us, the more we expose ourselves to trouble." - Matthew Henry

The last line of Henry's quote is very true..."The more earthly delights we make needful to satisfy us, the more we expose ourselves to trouble..." This is what Israel had done. They had forgotten how great and powerful their God was. And what He had done for them in that past. They began to enjoy their blessings more than the one who gave them those blessings. As the generations went on, they did not recount of pass on the great things the Lord had done. They became very self-centered and selfish. What a wonderful example of how NOTHING in this world satisfies. How sad it is when we turn to other things or trust other things to bring us joy and happiness. The question is what and who will we delight in? Hopefully it will not take plagues to wake us up and focus and on God our provider and strength. Henry continues this thought:

All who labour only for the meat that perishes, will, sooner or later, be ashamed of their labour. Those that place their happiness in the delights of sense, when deprived of them, or disturbed in the enjoyment, lose their joy; whereas spiritual joy then flourishes more than ever. See what perishing, uncertain things our creature-comforts are. See how we need to live in continual dependence upon God and his providence. See what ruinous work sin makes. As far as poverty occasions the decay of piety, and starves the cause of religion among a people, it is a very sore judgment. But how blessed are the awakening judgments of God, in rousing his people and calling home the heart to Christ, and his salvation! - Matthew Henry

How exciting that when our happiness and trust is in God the rock of our salvation that our spiritual joy flourishes! Happiness and hope placed in anything else is meaningless and will crash and burn. We would be blind to this and would not even realize it had God not called us and saved us through Christ. We would be wondering around in utter misery, continually seeking worthless things to bring us fleeting and temporal happiness. What great loving mercy! Just as God used these events in the lives of the Israelites to remind them where their hope and security was, so he also uses trials and sufferings in our own lives. Because of Christ we can repent and put our focus back where it needs to be. How Great Is Our God!!!