God's Promise to Israel

“So I will restore to you the years that the storming locust has eaten, The crawling locust, The consuming locust, And the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you” (Joel 2:25).
 
No where is the compassion of God for His people more obvious nor more dramatically declared than by the prophet Joel. While his extended prophecy begins with the devastation that has come upon Israel because of her sins, it turns here into an overwhelming promise that God will bless her again if she will repent.
 
In this verse, the different types of locusts represent the enemy nations that have troubled Israel; the great army refers to the fact that God has allowed these “locusts and caterpillars” to come among them and devastate them. As the Israelites have suffered at the hands of these nations, so will God repair the damage done, based on their truly repenting and turning to Him once again.
 
This lesson screams for us to learn: even though God does not work directly and miraculously with those in His kingdom today, His providential care is still a promise. Our spiritual success as individuals and as a church depends on our turning our lives over to God and placing ourselves under the direction of His word.
 
 - Joe Norton