Restoration
Joel 2:18–27
I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten. Joel 2:25
A blessing that God says will follow genuine heart repentance is restoration of the lost years. This is a special blessing. Many of us have run from God and have wasted many years. It is only by returning to God that the loss of those years can be made up.
When we disregard God and run away from him, we enter upon a downhill course. We do not think this will happen when we start out. But it does happen, because God has established this as one of the laws governing spiritual disobedience, and he is faithful to his laws. When we disregard God, life inevitably goes downhill. We miss our opportunities. We fail in small and then in greater things. We become hardened by sin. We increasingly live for ourselves and disregard others. We lose friends. Eventually we are all alone and are totally miserable in our loneliness. God can change all that. We cannot undo what is done. Sin is sin, and the effects of sin often continue for long periods. But God can restore what the locusts have eaten. Opportunities may have been lost, but God can give new and even better opportunities. Friends may have been alienated and driven away, but God can give new friends and even restore many of the former ones. God can break the power of sin and restore a personal holiness and joy that would not have been dreamed possible in the rebellion.
Are you one whose life has been destroyed by the locusts of sin? Has sin stripped your life of every green thing, so that it seems a spiritual desert? If so, you need to return to the one who alone can make life grow fruitful again. Only God can restore the years that have been eaten away.
Do you ask where you can find him? There is only one place. That is in the Bible, where he has made himself known. If you do not know the Bible, then you are not worshiping the one true God who is found there, but rather a God of your own making or imagination, whatever you may call him. You must ask: Do I really know the Bible? Am I worshiping God on the basis of the truths I find there? Those truths are centered in Jesus Christ, who is the theme of the Bible. In him the invisible God is made visible. In him the immaterial God is revealed in space and time. It is said of some that “although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him” (Rom. 1:21). Let us determine that this shall not be said of us. We see God in Jesus. Let us know him as God, love him as God, serve him as God, worship him as God.
Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865
Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.