Joel introduction

 Joel 1:1-4

The author of Joel is God’s Holy Spirit as it is in all the books of the Bible, but he used a man named Joel  his name meant (“Yahweh is God”), and the only biographical information we have is that he is the son of Pethuel.  So what do we know from history about Pethuel, he is the father of Joel the prophet.  It is also one of the shortest Books in the Old Testament.  It begins with a terrible locust plaque and is followed by a plea for confession of sins.

My mother was born on March 12,1909, and left her earthsuit in 2002.  Mom grew up during the great depression and lived with her family of 8 brothers and sisters on a farm in Young 

County at the crossroads of 209 and 578, and it was called Murray, Texas.  Now you may be a little confused where one can find Murray, it is fourteen miles southwest of Graham and was founded in 1874 by Thomas Price and J.J. Murray soon followed.  In 1880 the post office was established and named for Murray.  Murray was a fast growing town, and in 1886 it was a community of twenty-seven, and in 1980 the post office was closed, and the population was an incredible twenty-nine people.  Why did I tell you all of that?  Because I wanted to, but it has little to do with mother’s story of the locust plague that hit the farm.  She told us the sky would turn dark when the locusts came in thick flying clouds, and the crops and even the trees were stripped.

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The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Pethuel: Hear this, you elders; give ear, all inhabitants of the land!  Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?  Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.”   We find this person Joel and we address him as a minor prophet and yet he is God’s spokesman for this time and place.  He is addressing both the elders and the inhabitants of the land, and he is asking a question; “Has such a thing happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?  Tell your children of it, and let your children tell their children, and their children to another generation.”  A plaque of locust had attacked the land, and they had never seen anything like it!  This is Joel’s account: “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.” 

I have read that  Joel " was so unusual that it served as a warning of two future events: a coming war and the Day of the Lord.” (Taken from page 1483 of the HCSB)

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice