Westerners are wealthy. Look around, and what do you see? Well-maintained roads, grocery carts overflowing with food, college degrees, a full coffee shop on every corner. Even the poorer among us are, compared with much of the world, rich beyond measure. This is a straightforward fact. We don’t need to apologize for what has been given. But we do need to keep our eyes wide open to the reality of our abundance — otherwise, our Lord may send a locust plague.
No, that is not a non sequitur.
What do you think when you hear the word locust? For many who have grown up in the West, the only association may be to the eighth plague (Exodus 10:1–20). But I grew up in West Africa — and I remember the day the locusts came. They didn’t come all at once. At first, we noticed just a few of the big, yellow, ugly creatures. They stuck out because we didn’t typically see locusts like these, and certainly not en masse. The swarm didn’t quite reach biblical proportions, covering the land so thick that it was darkened (Exodus 10:15). But they did form an army, invading our city for a few short days.
Why would our Lord send an army of locusts on our West African city? Why would he send an army of locusts — or another destructive force — anywhere at all?
The prophet Joel provides a good answer, one that comes with a stark warning for those who live amid an abundance of wealth: Our Lord sends plagues of locusts on people because he wants our whole hearts.
For those who have never and may never see a locust, how might this principle apply to us today? To answer that, we turn to Joel 1.
The Lord’s Army
The Lord’s brief word to Judah through the prophet Joel begins with a stark reality: Locusts had come; the land was in ruins. Disaster of this scale was unprecedented (Joel 1:2). Waves of determined and devouring insects had washed over Judah, stripping both bark from fruit-bearing trees (verse 7) and gladness from the people (verse 12). The army was unstoppable, the destruction complete — and yet the hearts of the people were still hard.
Joel was not sent to a humble people who were on their knees in sackcloth and ashes before the Lord of hosts. The hearts of God’s people were recalcitrant, their eyes blind. While they could see that their crops and vineyards were devoured by a swarm of hungry insects, they did not understand why. Though “severely smitten by God, [they] did not feel their evils,” John Calvin writes.
God had to send his word by a prophet to wake the people from their stupor. Like Pharaoh’s officials (Exodus 10:7), Joel had to ask, likely with incredulity, “Can you not see that Judah is ruined?” Joel had to teach them the grammar of repentance: Wake up and weep, lament, be ashamed, wear sackcloth, and fast and “cry out to the Lord” (Joel 1:5–14). And he had to warn them of worse danger looming on the horizon.
The stark destruction brought about by the locusts was a harbinger. From the north, another, greater threat drew near:
Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains
a great and powerful people;
their like has never been before,
nor will be again after them
through the years of all generations. (Joel 2:2)
The judgment brought by the locust plague anticipated a future judgment, a coming “day of the Lord” that would fall on the people with far greater consequences than the lost produce of a single crop cycle. The prophet charges the people to repent before that day, casting themselves before the Lord and returning to him who is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and [who] relents over disaster” (Joel 2:13).
Folly in Plenty
But repent of what? Unlike some of the other prophets, Joel does not present a litany of indictments against the people of God. The means of chastisement, however, provides a significant clue. The Lord struck down the abundance he gave his people. Their grain had perished. The rich fruit trees — figs, pomegranates, dates, apples — were now bare. The vines, from which had once come sweet wine, had dried up. And along with their material losses, the joy of the people had withered (Joel 1:11–12).
Before they entered the promised land, the Lord warned his people of such folly. “Take care,” he said, “lest, when you have eaten and are full . . . your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:11–14). Beware that your plenty does not lead you to trust in the overflow instead of the Fountain. Beware lest your gladness grow from the produce in your barns and not the Lord of the harvest.
The people of God had fallen into folly. Weighed down by the abundance of rich and varied harvests, their hearts grew fat, their eyes and ears dull. And so the locusts came.
Aching for More
For the majority of those reading this article, locusts probably do not pose a tangible threat (though they do still bring devastation to many parts of the world today). In fact, you may never have encountered the creatures. But you likely face the danger that brought destruction upon Judah: a full pantry.
Many of our lives are remarkably well provided for. And for that we may rightly give thanks. As our God told his people before they entered the promised land, the bounty that would be theirs was a gift from his hand (Deuteronomy 8:7–10). No less so is the wealth we Westerners enjoy. But wealth poses a threat, for abundance has the tendency to shrink a doorway down to a needle’s eye (Matthew 19:23–24).
Wealth — whether in the form of a full barn, secure income, or picture-perfect family — can lead us to fall in love with the present world, drawing us away from the living God. We live in Vanity Fair, in which “all year long . . . houses, lands, trades, places, honors, preferments, titles, countries, kingdoms, lusts, pleasures; and delights of all sorts” are presented to us as worthy of our dogged pursuit and as the true source of our gladness (The Pilgrim’s Progress, 71–72.) We are catechized daily to order our lives around a plentiful harvest — around that which could be devoured by locusts (or moths).
Every minor ache of our hearts for more, every covetous glance, every inclination to turn off the path and settle down for a little while reveals the fruit of that catechesis. Do you feel this evil?
Glad in the Giver
Oh, Christian, be not blind to the danger abundance poses! Let not your gladness reside in good harvests, your joy in full barns. Pray against a divided heart that needs sudden loss to awaken you to your dependence on God for all things. Be not like Judah. Receive good gifts from God with gratitude and gladness, remembering that they are gifts given as an expression of his fatherly care. But do not let them turn your heart so that you revel in what you’ve received. Rather, bow humbly before him to whom all this world belongs.
And if he sends “locusts” upon you to dwindle your stores, turn not a blind eye to his providence. Receive the invaders as an opportunity to test your heart. Perhaps he has taken what he gave to test and strengthen your faith. If so, rejoice as he propels you forward toward perfection (James 1:2–4).
But perhaps you have followed the path of your forebears, and you store your confidence in earthly barns. If so, rejoice in his discipline. Revel in his mercy. Repent of folly and seek forgiveness, lest greater wrath be stored up for you. For the Lord of the locusts is the Lord of love. And he created you to be glad in him.
Desiring God