CRITICAL NOTES.]
Joel 1:19.] Beasts cry to God, but man hears not; the prophet is touched and cries for the impenitent. To thee] beasts even lift their heads in dumb appeal, and to thee I cry, for thou art the only hope (Isaiah 15:5; Jeremiah 23:9), amid the insensibility of man, the distress of nations, and the judgments of providence.
HOMILETICS
STUPIDITY IN NATIONAL CALAMITIES REPROVED BY BRUTES AND GOOD MEN.—Joel 1:19-20
The fact that irrational creatures suffer with man should make him cautious in his conduct. If the people neglect the warnings of the prophet, they should heed the cries of the brute creation. Both the animal and vegetable world are included in man’s destiny for good or for evil. Should we be silent when beasts implore help?
I. Some men are insensible to sin in great national calamities. The drought had consumed the pastures of the field, burned the trees of the forest, and dried up the waterbrooks, but Israel did not see the hand of God in this. Man is a creature of emotion, and is bound to acquaint himself with all the phenomena calculated to move him; to estimate them according to their design, and to carry out the emotions which they produce into final acts. Every object is adapted to produce a certain state of mind. The hand of God in history, the judgments of God in nations, should be read and observed by us. If we discern not the presence of God, if through selfishness and hardness of heart we despise the chastisements of God, we aggravate our sin and unbelief. God has placed us in certain relations to himself and his works as sentient and intelligent beings. We have capacities higher than brutes, can see and hear God in his dispensations, and live habitually under a sense of duty. But the complaint is often made, “Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.” “For God speaketh once, yea, twice, yet man perceiveth it not.”
II. This insensibility to sin in great national calamities is censurable. Men ought to feel in distress. If they do not they violate their own nature and disregard the voice of God.
1. Brutes reprove insensible men. “The beasts of the field cry also unto thee.” They depend upon God, and he gives them their meat in due season (Psalms 145:15). When young lions lack and suffer hunger, they “seek their meat from God” (Psalms 104:21). They enjoy the gifts of nature with sensitive pleasure and apparent gratitude. But men are heedless of their groans, stupid in their folly, and turn not to God in their trouble. “The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of God.”
2. God’s people reprove insensible men. The prophet stirs them up by his own example. If no one else will call upon God, “O Lord, to thee will I cry.” When others are unmoved God’s people are touched with national calamities. They set others an example, and seek to provoke them to repentance and return to God.
1. An example of penitence. The heart of the prophet was deeply moved for innocent creatures and for ungodly men. We hear his sighs, see his tears, and dwell upon his words. He comes before us, an embodiment of the spiritual and personal duty he teaches. He is the prophet of repentance, and sees in the judgments of God motives to repentance. National sins brought national affliction, and should cause national humiliation.
2. An example of patriotism. God’s people are as keenly alive to the interests and dangers of the nations as others. The Hebrew prophets were patriots and statesmen, to whom nothing that affected the national welfare was alien or indifferent. “May Heaven save my country,” cried a British legislator. So good men see God in everything; point out the real causes of suffering; the operation of moral under physical law; and lament the state of the country and the condition of the people. “For the mountains will I take up a weeping and wailing, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that none can pass through them; neither can men hear the voice of the cattle.”
3. An example of prayer. The prophet turned to God, our only hope in distress. In public calamity men write pamphlets, make speeches, and enact laws to meet and overcome it. But the man of God goes to the root of evil, and points out its only cure. He holds the principles of Divine life in his soul, believes that individual circumstances and national events are controlled by God’s will, and sees in present visitations the future results to the wicked and the righteous. God was working out his mysterious purposes, and he prays that the visitations of anger may be turned into corrective discipline. As Abraham prayed for the cities of the plain and Moses for the tribes of Israel, so Joel betakes himself to Jehovah. “O Lord, to thee I will cry: for the fire hath devoured the pastures of the wilderness.”
Lord, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in thy presence will prevail to make,
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take;
What parched grounds refresht as with a shower?
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all—the distant and the near—
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear—[Trench].
HOMILETIC HINTS AND OUTLINES
There is an order in these distresses. First he points out the insensate things wasted; then those afflicted, which have sense only; then those endowed with reason; so that to the order of calamity there may be consorted an order of pity, sparing first the creature, then the things sentient, then things rational [Pusey].
Beasts cry. I. The dependence of all creatures upon God. II. The compassion of God to all creatures—
1. In removing their sufferings.
2. In supplying their wants. An argument against cruelty to animals and a motive to prayer. If God hears the cries of dumb animals will he not hear our prayers?
The double purpose of Divine judgments upon a nation—
1. Restoration of land.
2. Improvement of men.
1. A suffering world in sympathy with suffering man. What a mystery man’s sin, desolating the land, blighting the trees, and adding to the groans of the brute creation! The whole creation, animate and inanimate, touched by the fall of man! What evidences of sin! What motives to repentance!
2. A beneficent world in sympathy with restored man. A cheering thought that true penitence and restoration to God will give pasture to flocks, beauty to flowers, and freshness to the landscape. “New heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.”
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 1
Joel 1:19-20. Animal sensibility forms a perpetual appeal to human sensibility, and is an important means of its improvement. The progressiveness of creation is made subservient to the moral education and advancement of the human race. A single alteration throws the whole into disorder. What a picture, then, for man to be ungrateful, insensible, and rebellious in the sufferings of nature for his conduct!