Journey Through Minor Prophets, Part 2Намуна

Joel & Josiah: In Front of the Text

It’s always easy to criticize characters in the Bible for their lack of faith. But the Bible actually holds up Hezekiah and Josiah as kings with remarkable faith. Yet, both compromised at the end of their lives by making an informal arrangement with Babylon, a superpower on the rise. Consider the ways we make similar decisions in our own lives with the questions offered below.

Your Greatest Fear

The locust was the Israelite farmer’s greatest fear. Joel’s reference to this creature would have recalled the passage we looked at earlier from the Pentateuch:

The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me …. The cricket shall possess all your trees and the produce of your ground.

Deuteronomy 28:20, 42-43 (NASB)

The invasion of locusts (or “crickets”) was evidence of God’s judgment, and this judgment was evidence that Israel was committing “evil deeds” and forsaking YHWH. God used the fear of Israel’s ancient agricultural economy to get their attention, to get the people’s focus back on him and their failure of his covenant.

What’s your greatest fear? Consider especially those forces that threaten our security and success.

When you sense fear coming on, could it be that God is using it to get your attention? What might God be doing in your life with the things you fear? In what ways might he be trying to get your focus back on him?

Josiah led a great revival, but his life ended prematurely when he took matters into his own hands—presumably out of fear. Are there any episodes in your life where you have tried to protect yourself from what you fear, only to make yourself more vulnerable to risk?

Wrap-up

Nicole wraps up this lesson about trusting God in the midst of crisis.