Sermon on Joel 2:18-27 "Making Up For Lost Years" by Pastor Colin Smith

well last week we began our series on Joel and it just happened to coincide with the launch of pray first which seemed very appropriate because we saw last week that in this book of Joel God is calling his people to pray and we have begun this new initiative of praying together as congregations in each campus of the orchard on the first week of each month either on Wednesday or Thursday Karen and I were at two of these events this last week and it has been a joy to receive feedback from staff and from board members who've been involved at the other campuses as well one of our elders our membership elder Pete Cullen wrote to me this week he said a very special pray first night at Itasca on Wednesday it was so encouraging to hear Itasca members pray specifically for the needs of Marengo as well as for Arlington and for Barrington and for the Wheaton Evangelical Free Church it is so good to know that our campuses are united as one in spirit and in prayer and I think that sense has been across the life of our church this week thank you to all of you who have already become part of this early adopters they were good times this week and they do contribute to raising spiritual temperature and Tom Olson shared at the Barrington prayer time I was also involved in that that there had been a need the Barrington campus for some volunteers so we made a video and 2,500 people saw the video and nobody volunteered and our staff team here said we have just got to ask God and the need was met and I think we're in a time when many of us are feeling challenged to grow in faith and to grow in prayer in a new way and so I'm encouraging you right now to be marking your Callan either for the first weten ste for arlington natashka and Marengo or the first Thursday at Barrington for us to gather in prayer market in for October market in for November and mark it in for December as your commitment to prayer in the body of Christ when I please open your Bible at Jewel and chapter 2 as we move forward in this marvelous book - I think perhaps the best-known verse in the whole of the book of jewell and a very wonderful one it is too full of encouragement today Joel chapter 2 and verse 25 where God says I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten and today we're going to gaze into the mystery of an amazing promise and I describe it as a mystery because restoring years is obviously impossible can it be done you lose money there are different ways in which money can be restored property can be restored you can restore an old car you can restore a painting you can restore an old house relationships can be restored forgiveness reconciliation wonderful but one thing that cannot ever be restored is time time flies and it does not return years pass and whatever stage of life you're at you never get these years back and so here we find as why I say we're staring into a mystery because God is promising the impossible I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten now the immediate meaning of this wonderful promise is very clear we saw last time that God's people had suffered the complete destruction of their entire harvest it had come through invasion of locusts great armies swarms of locusts that had kind of marched their way through the crops roll by roll field by field and had destroyed the entire harvest of the country not in one year but we saw most likely in four consecutive years and as these armies of insects are moving forward they're simply multiplying themselves week after week as they move and with four years of devastated harvests the people of the promised land God's people were brought to their knees in more ways than one and we read in chapter 2 in verse 18 that the Lord became jealous for his land and he had pity compassion mercy on his people and God said behold I am sending you grain what they hadn't had for four years and wine and oil and you will be satisfied and from verse nineteen onwards you see that the good that God is going to do to his people continues line after line in this wonderful promise verse 20 the enemy who has come from the north an enemy that has taken advantage of the weakness of God's people and has encroached across the borders that enemy is going to be pushed back going to be removed verse 22 the animals that were groaning we saw that last week without adequate sustenance they no longer have the grief that they have experienced because the pastures of the wilderness have now bit that where a wilderness have now become green and in verse 23 you see the children of Zion they also can be glad there's joy for these children because the rain has returned and though it is nourishing what four years has been very very parched and dry ground and all of this line after line of God's wonderful promise leads up to its climax in verse 25 that's our focus today where God says I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten and what this meant for these people of course was that God would give back harvests that had been destroyed the coming years God says he was going to give an abundance that would really make up everything that had been lost verse 20 for the threshing floor is going to be full of grain the vats are going to overflow with wine and with oil and verse 26 you shall eat not just adequately but you shall eat in plenty God says and you shall be satisfied so this is a wonderful promise and as it specifically applied to these people it means years of abundant harvests that will follow these four years of utter desolation because of the locust I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten but God has put this promise in the Bible for us everything that has been preserved in the Bible is not simply for people to whom it was first spoken long ago but if it's in the Bible God has put it in the Bible for us so the question that we have to ask as we come to this great promise is what do locust years look like for us and how can God restore years that the locusts have eaten for us let me suggest to you that locust years wasted years lost years years that you can't get back and that causes you grief they come in many varieties let me suggest some to you so that we tune our mind in to how wonderful this promise really is the years that the locust of are certainly fruitless years that would be a good place to begin think of these folks a lot of hard work went into cultivating the fields in the years that the locusts had eaten the farmers had planted seed the it cultivates they had raised up what looked like it would be a great harvest green shoots coming out of the ground they labor they work day after day and week after week and then as we're coming towards the harvest what happens the locusts arrive and they clean out a lot and that leaves the farmer then saying now all this work I've done I've been working at this whole season day after day back-breaking work I've put in and what did I get out of it absolutely nothing the lookers have taken the lot and some of you know what that is like in business a field venture a bad investment a misguided policy and all of the effort that you've been putting in day by day and week by week and month by month and perhaps year by year and you thought that it was going to lead to something very very marvelous and what it's led to has been massive disappointment and you say now they're years that the locusts have eaten what has come of all my effort and after all that work how did I end up with only this been there secondly Lucas years can be painful years sorrowful years years of suffering I'm thinking of folks who have lost a loved one and you had plans for the future you had it mapped out in your mind as to what these next year's we're going to be like you hope that these years would be full but now your whole life has changed and you find yourself feeling that they may be very empty and thinking of folks as I prayed around the congregation just in the process of preparing and whole range of different life situations come so quickly to mind people who experience a great illness severe condition that comes to the body or perhaps to the mind and you had always thought in terms of what you would like to do and what you would be able to do and so forth but then with this condition it has made your years different from what when you were young you had hoped or expected it could happen early in life you move into high school you move into college and perhaps the thing you're excited about is you're going to be on a team in some sport and then you have an injury and it keeps you out for the entire season and you find yourself saying well I will never have my junior year or whatever it is ever again it's gone I just I lost it it the the year that the locust has he it's gone and you have to find a way of living with that and it's a massive disappointment because you had so much that was stored up in your own mind and hoped for in in that regard locust years can be selfish years these are very different varieties but the look has come in different forms here's a story that's been repeated thousands of times we picture a person this is a composite picture I'm just going to take the name Jim and Jim has made a commitment to Christ but it's never really run that deep he is a faith in Jesus but his faith of Jesus is a kind of slice of the big pie of his life it's a busy life and it's full of all the stuff that Jim wants to pursue then one day God gets hold of Jim and Jim is spiritually awakened and he looks at his life over these past years and he says this whole thing has been about me and know that he's awake begins to see other people in the church and what they're doing and how they're serving and how they're sacrificing for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ and he says what in the world have I been doing I've been calling myself a Christian but there's been no depth there's been no reality there's been no grace substance to this in my life how could I have been so shallow for so long what has come of all these years then that the locusts have eaten comes to a new place in his life he says I really want to count for Jesus Christ I want to live as a person who is filled with the Holy Spirit I want to be someone who's now going to make a difference in the world but the locusts have eaten half the years of my life locust years can be fourthly loveless years a division comes to a family there's an alienation from a loved one years or lost children grow up and what might have been cannot now be some of you know what it is to endure a marriage in which love has been burning low for many many years you see a couple who really in love and you say oh how I would love to have that or you have not met the person that in your heart you had hoped you would meet and your own sense is that years are going by and life is moving on and that weighs in on you locust years can be a rebellious years perhaps you have been like the prodigal son the prodigal daughter you grew up with many blessings but in your heart you found us you Groo there was an instinct to rebel you didn't really fully understand this instinct to rebel but you give yourself to it and what you found as you threw yourself in increasingly to a life that was the opposite of what you knew was right you thought that it would bring you pleasure but increasingly as you got further down that road you find that it was bringing you pain and now you look back on years that you have spent and you you look back on them with regret and they are in your mind years that the locust has eaten for others among us followed a godly path but life just hasn't worked out as we hoped and we regret some of our decisions there weren't sinful decisions they were just choices about what to pursue and so forth locust years can be simply misdirected years you know the path you choose the career you ended up with after you chose a particular path perhaps it wasn't in college or whatever and what you found was that it took you into what increasingly you felt was a dead end you made a move you then found yourself in a place where you just didn't fit you look at your life and you say no how did I end up here and and oh if only I had made a different choice I could have been on a different path but it and too far down the line now and options seem to be so much less and you find yourself more and more saying oh if only if only if only when they had taken that opportunity if only I not made that move or had made that move but the moment has passed it's gone and you can't go back to it and you're left with a profound sense of having many locust years Christ --less years our locust years all Christ 'less years our locust years this is worth thinking about for anyone who has not yet made a wholehearted commitment to Jesus Christ if you ask anyone I guarantee you this ask anyone who became a Christian later in life they will tell you that they wished they had become a Christian sooner I guarantee it I have never met a person who wished that they became a Christian later it just doesn't happen how much foolishness I would have avoided if I'd come to Christ earlier how much more good might have been done if I if that had happened there are many many ways in which we come to a place of feeling that years have been lost that years are passing that life is moving on that opportunities have been missed and we can't get them back and when you tune yourself in to the fact that these things in different ways are the realities of life for different people all across our congregation you realize how amazing this promise is that God should say I will restore the years that the locust is eaten I want to gaze into the amazing mystery of that promise now two questions very simply here's the first to whom is this promise given who's it for it is given to particular people whoever they are I want to be among them because this is a great promise and the second question is how can this promise possibly be fulfilled kind of time again so in what way can God restore years that the locusts have eaten now the question to whom is this promise given is is answered back in verse 19 and before notice the verse 19 tells us that the Lord answered and that everything that follows verse 19 including the great promise that we're looking at is God's answer and it's God's answer to a particular prayer and the particular prayer is back in verse 70 so what did these people ask for that gave or led to this marvelous answer and there are two things that they that they asked for notice first that the promise of restored years is given to people who feel their need for God's mercy verse 17 these people who are given this marvelous promise they've been praying this spare your people all Lord and make not your heritage reproach spare your people oh lord have mercy pity here are these people and they're aware that they've been placed under the discipline of God and they felt their need of mercy spare your people friends you cannot pray that prayer as a Christian spare your people without your mind surely going to Romans chapter 8 and verse 32 where we are told that God did not spare his one and only son the mercy of God that came to them and comes to us comes to us for this reason we are spared because Christ was not spared and here's our confidence in asking for the mercy of God God promises all this goods to those who know and feel their need of his mercy and here's our confidence coming to him for mercy he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all well now how will he not also along with him with Christ give us all things you come in your need with a sense of your dependence upon God simply to survive what you're going through and you can have confidence here he did not spare his own son so I will spare you and you can pray this with confidence he gave him up for us all how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things the promise of restored years is given to people who feel their need of mercy and it is given to people who want verse 17 God's name to be honored notice what they're praying there they're bringing a reason to God they're bringing an argument to God if you like they're presenting a case to God and here's the case why should they say among the peoples where is their God it's a very powerful way to pray by the way the people to whom this promise is given our people who are concerned for God's name their concern for God's honor their concern for God's reputation in the world and they come and they pray and they say now God unbelieving people are watching and when they see trouble coming to a child of God they use it to speak against your name you see the point of this prayer Lord your name is at stake here your reputation is at stake here we're asking that you will spare us that you will look upon us with mercy and that you will do it for the sake of your name wonder how you end your prayers I use a number of different ways of always referring to Jesus at the end of of my prayers I say in Jesus name when I first prayed as a child I always used to say for Jesus sake amen maybe you end your prayers that way it's very good way to earn end prayers for Jesus sake now that's not just a way of closing a prayer that's actually presenting a case to God as a as an attorney might present a case before a judge in a court lord I am asking these things for the sake of your son he gave his blood to redeem a people and I am one of these people now hear my prayer not because of me but because of him and so here are these people and verse 17 they've they've heard the call to prayer and they have been on their knees and they've been coming before the Lord in humility and they have a very aware of their own need of God's mercy and they're very concerned for the honor of God's name and verse 19 says God answered them and when God answers he pours out this blessing that culminates in our verse 25 and he says to these people I will restore the years that the locust has eaten so I want to be someone then who is always aware of my need for God's mercy and always committed to the honor of God's name and I want to be someone who's praying into that and praying from that that's to whom the promise is given and then here's the other question I want just to answer it as simply and as briefly here as I can how then can God do this how can God do the thing that is humanly impossible and restore the years that the locust have eaten let me suggest this first that God can restore lost years by deepening your communion with Jesus Christ notice verse 27 the people who had known the loss of the locust years here's the special promise to them that they're going to experience the presence of the Lord in their midst in the midst of Israel you will know that I am the Lord your God and to these people who have endured so much this wonderful restorative promise is given that they are going to know a communion with the Lord that they have sought that is greater than anything that they have ever known in their religious lives before you remember the Gospels tell us a story about a woman who had lived of especially sinful life and she came to Jesus and she poured pointment over his feet Christ had delivered her from some terrible dark powers that had bound her and now her love for Christ was greater than any other love she had ever known in our life before and she comes into a home where Jesus is eating with a bunch of career professional people who are doing very well for themselves and she kneels at the feet of Jesus and she worships Christ had forgiven the sins of her locust years and because she knew that Christ had forgiven her much she loved much the extraordinary thing is that the folks in the house were embarrassed by the extravagance of her worship and of her devotion here's the irony they were enjoying fellowship with Christ around the meal table but this woman who is worshiping at his feet enjoys a far deeper communion than any of these Pharisees could have begun to imagine Christ can restore lost years by deepening your fellowship with him why shouldn't you ask him for this why not ask him for this when for whatever reason you have a sense of years are passing and and life opportunity slipping away and not what I thought I would be or or what I would have hoped to be in relation to the Lord why would you not ask him for that tell him Lord I have spent too many years at a distance from you or perhaps you'll say today Lord I've spent too many years without you now fill my heart with a new love and a new gratitude for Jesus Christ let the loss of these years make my love for Jesus Christ greater stronger brighter than it ever would have been otherwise restore to me the years that the locust of Eden there's another way in which God can restore lost years he can do it by multiplying your fruitfulness this is so wonderfully encouraging remember the harvest for these people they've been wiped out for four years all this work nothing much coming off it and and then when God restores the years that the locusts have eaten for these people what happens they have these bumper harvests I'm I'm meditating on this and I'm thinking oh a bumper harvest that made me think of Jesus parable of the sower and you remember that at the end of the parable of the sore that Jesus speaks about a harvest that could be thirty sixty or a hundredfold now folks was a huge difference between these three three years at a hundredfold is as much as ten years at thirty fold restoring the years now why should we not ask him for this Lord the locusts have eaten too many years of our lives you have called us as your disciples to bear fruit that will last too many fruitless years have passed now Lord we ask of you give to us some years now in which there will be more lasting fruit born than from all our years of small harvests why would we not ask that of God you know Spurgeon says God can do more in a year or in a day than all of us together can do in a lifetime I love that and encouraging preachers he says this one sermon preached and the power of the Holy Ghost will be worth 10,000 preached without him and then expanding his his reign she says this if you go into your Sunday School class he's talking to those who are teaching little children if you go into your Sunday School class with a divine anointing resting on you there will be more children brought to Christ by a little of your living loving teaching than would ever have been by whole years of your unspiritual talk thus God can by endowing us with greater power and firing us with fuller zeal he can restore to us the years that the locust has eaten that's wonderfully encouraging why should these next year's not be the most fruitful years of your life and of mine and of ours why should we not ask God of that for that I hope in your heart you are saying right now that's what I want and God can bring long-term gain from short-term loss Peter puts it this way he says your face going to be tested but God is going to prove it to be genuine and that means it's going to rebound to praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed the thing that will most glorify Christ for all eternity in your life will be the power by which he has sustained your faith through the hardest years and experiences of your life last thing I simply want to say is this thinking about the years that the locust has eaten years that have been taken my mind went to something that Isaiah said about Jesus remember that Isaiah says of Christ that he was cut off from the land of the living here is Jesus and he's in the prime of life three years into ministry 33 years old you would think that a man launching a new enterprise at the age of 33 is everything in front of him and Isaiah says no watch this he's cut off the reason he was cut off was that he came under the judgment of God not for his own sins because he had none but for the sins of others for my sins and for yours our sins our griefs our sorrows were laid on him our judgment fell on him our locusts swarmed over him on the cross and God's tender shoot coming out of the ground as the way Isaiah describes Jesus was cut off cut off and on the third day the Son of God rises from the dead in the power of an eternal life and he offers himself to you and he says to you today what no one else will ever be able to say to you I will restore the years that the locust has eaten father do your restoring work and make us the kind of people in which it is accomplished for your name's sake amen

Channel: Unlocking the Bible

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Id: 06lBZKHVsO4

Length: 35min 51sec (2151 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 09 2013