Worst

“Did you ever see anything like that?”

That usually comes from people my age – not from youngsters. We’ve seen, experienced or read of multiple 100-year floods, death-dealing tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, and devastating hurricanes within our lifetime. We think we’ve seen – or heard – all the worst. We’re even faced with global warming, destroying the earth as we know it.

The Preacher tells us: The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9 KJV)

Yet we say “Did you ever see anything like that?” and we mean it. We think it’s new or vastly different, from anything before.

So did Joel.

Hear this, ye old men, and give ear, all ye inhabitants of the land. Hath this been in your days, or even in the days of your fathers? (Joel 1:2 KJV)

So, even our question isn’t new, is it? Over twenty-five hundred years of saying “This is the worst ever,” to the extent that we must tell future generations:

Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. (Joel 1:3 KJV)

As we work our way through the Bible, Joel brings some differences from previous prophecies – we don’t read of who or when. We do read that he’s the son of Pethuel, but the Bible does not mention that name anywhere else. There is no king mentioned, nor is there an invading army. Egypt is mentioned but once, not as a conqueror. Same with Edom.

Minor or not, there are prophecies here. Isaiah was the first book where we read of the Day of the Lord. Jeremiah, Lamentation, Ezekiel – and now Joel. But, he’s not the last. References will continue into the New Testament, ending with:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. (2 Peter 3:10 KJV)

How about this verse:

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. (Joel 3:10 KJV)

No, that’s not the one you are thinking of – take a look at Isaiah 2:4 or Micah 4:3, then think of the United Nations. Joel tells us the opposite, while telling us of the time unlike any other.

Go ahead, Tell ye your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children another generation. (Joel 1:3 KJV)