Millennia Fever
"What Shall be the Sign of Thy Coming?
And of the end of the world?" (Matthew 24:3)
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 The Locust Army



The first chapter of the prophetic book of Joel opens with the announcement of judgment in the form of a coming plague of locusts. God had used locusts to judge the nation of Egypt when he delivered captive Israel. The locusts were really just the beginning because the destruction of the crops would bring famine, but more importantly, the locusts were only a foreshadowing and prefiguring of the coming invading army that would destroy Judah. The locusts are characterized by a steady persistence and overwhelming numbers. As a symbol of invading armies, the locust are well fit, because in the wake of war is often famine, as the last century in Africa can testify.

The duel disaster of drought and locusts that followed God's word by his prophet Joel, was expressly intended to awaken Israel's drunkeness. The vines of Judah had apparently grown fat and as a result the fermented spirits flowed like water from a mountain spring. God's chosen people had also turned (in great numbers) to spiritual drunkeness in the adoration of pagen idols and drunken revelries. God's people had taken to thanking the gods of the canaanites for the productivity of their fields and vineyards. It is directly to this situation that God would send a drought and an army of locusts to destroy the fields and vineyards. The result would be to cut them off from the offerings they made to the idols and perhaps some of the backsliders would awaken from slumber and drunkeness and return to the worship of the LORD. The Judah of Joel's day was full ripe and ready for the crushing of the winepress. The sweet savor of a concord grape juice can not be had without first the treading of the grapes, and so it was to be with Judah. The tough skins and hard seeds of idolatry would need to be filtered out.

The winepress of judgment can even work today in the lives of Christians, as we are able to backslide and lose the course of God's will for us. It is ever important to seek the will of our great vinedresser, the Lord Jesus Christ, as we tend to planting the seeds and watering his garden, in his name and not our own, in his paths and not vain wandering.