Joel 1:11-12 Be you ashamed, O you farmers; howl, O you vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley… A harvest may be called bad as compared with expectation or as compared with crops of former years; or as compared with the harvests of other lands. Under God's benign providence a bad harvest is an instrument for good to men. Like all chastisement, it becomes a blessing to such as are "exercised thereby." I. IT RECALLS US TO A SENSE OF OUR DEPENDENCE UPON GOD. In these days law is everything. There is a tendency to exclude God from nature. What is law but His will? Adversity helps to cure this sore evil. Do what men will, they cannot make sure of results. There are causes beyond their ken. There are influences at work which they cannot control. II. IT AWAKENS US TO A DEEPER PEELING OF THE EVIL OF SIN. Calamity witnesses for God against sin. Things are out of course. Every pain, every sorrow, every disaster is a call to repentance. Calamity that affects a whole people is as the ringing of the great bell of providence, summoning a whole nation to repent; III. IT SERVES AS A TIME OF DISCIPLINE FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF CHARACTER AND THE PROMOTION OF THE GENERAL GOOD. Calamity is fitted to humble us. It teaches patience. It stimulates thrift and economy. It quickens the inventive faculties. It moves the heart to a truer sympathy with the struggling and the poor. It develops trade and commerce and civilisation. And commerce becomes a pioneer of the Gospel. IV. IT IMPRESSES THE SOUL WITH A SENSE OF ITS HIGHER NEEDS AND DUTIES. This great lesson is always needful, and never more than in this grossly material age. V. IT INVITES US TO DRAW NEARER TO GOD, AND TO REGARD HIM AS THE ONLY TRUE AND SUPREME GOD. If we believe on Christ we should be brave and hopeful. Let the worst come to the worst, our highest interests are safe. In the most desperate straits we may rejoice in God. (William Forsyth, M.A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Be ye ashamed, O ye husbandmen; howl, O ye vinedressers, for the wheat and for the barley; because the harvest of the field is perished. |
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