“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. 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.”
Joel 1:4-5
The book of Joel is a dramatic call to repentance. A severe locust plague served as a preview and warning for an impending military invasion.
“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. It has laid waste my vine and splintered my fig tree.”
Joel 1:6-7
The locusts and the invading army together served as a preview and warning for the impending Day of the Lord.
“Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord. Alas for the day! For the day of the Lord is near, and as destruction from the Almighty it comes.”
Joel 1:14-15
Israel had always assumed the Day of the Lord would bring judgment on their enemies, but in a shocking twist the judgment of the Lord is now coming against Israel! Israel had become like Babylon and was in danger of suffering the same fate as Babylon, pictured as darkness and gloom (Joel 2:2), devouring fire (2:3), leaping war horses (2:4-5), earthquakes and heavenly signs (2:10-11).
And all this is a national call to repentance.
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.Joel 2:12-13
Then the gloom and doom suddenly turns to hope based on the mercy and kindness off the Lord!
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes.”
Joel 2:28-31
So when the fifth trumpet is blown in Revelation 9 and demon-locusts spew from the pit of hell, it is a vivid reference back to Joel 1-2.
“In appearance the locusts were like horses prepared for battle: on their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair, and their teeth like lions’ teeth, they had breastplates like breastplates of iron, and the noise of their wings was like the noise of many chariots with horses rushing into battle.”
Revelation 9:7-9
A Jewish reader would make this connection quickly and sense an urgent call to repentance. As these divine woes fall upon the earth, does it produce global repentance?
“The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts.”
Revelation 9:20-21
While the seven trumpets most likely do refer to real judgments that will fall on the earth, they also serve as a lens to help us see ourselves and our world today. There is little hope of revival and repentance during the great tribulation. But now is the time of salvation!
“For he says, ‘In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.’ Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.”
2 Corinthians 6:2
The Day of the Lord is coming – the day of vengeance of our God. But now is the time that God’s grace is available to all who will come to Jesus in humble faith!
“And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.”
Joel 2:32