Today, May 27 2012, is the Day of Pentecost, the day which Christians commemorate as the day upon which God first gave the Holy Spirit to his people after Jesus rose from the dead. When Peter explained this strange occurrence in Acts 2 he quoted from the book of Joel, chapter 2, verses 28-32a. Peter did not quote the second half of verse 32 which reads, “for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.” He omitted this because it was not then time for this aspect of the prophecy to be fulfilled. It is time now.

The book of Joel mainly prophesies about these days we live in right now. Chapter one begins with four groups of locusts which come upon God’s land to destroy it. That which the first group of locusts does not destroy, the second group eats. Anything left by the second invading army is eaten by the third, and everything left by the third is consumed by the fourth. The result is this:

He hath laid my vine waste, and barked my fig tree: he hath made it clean bare, and cast it away; the branches thereof are made white. (Joel 1:7, KJV)

Now remember that Jesus cursed the fig tree, causing it to die, just before his crucifixion. He cursed the tree, which represented the Jewish nation, because it bore no fruit. Thus it is today. The fig tree still represents Israel, God’s people who today comprise the Church. But the Church, like Israel of old, has failed. She bears no fruit. She refuses to leave her love of the world’s ways; she refuses to “come out of Babylon.” Through her fornication with the world she has become one with Babylon, which is a mystery, and rides the beast of satanic world governments. See Revelation 17-18.

One fulfillment of the four groups of locusts in Joel 1 is that they represent the four generations of Christians beginning in the early 1900’s which presided over America’s fall from a Christian nation to the most evil people ever known to the world. Today’s news, for example, reports of a naked “zombie” eating the face of a living man. Can we get more disgusting than this? Well, unfortunately the answer is yes. Satan has some plans in store for all who refuse to obey their Creator which even exceeds this in horror. Yes, in four generations America fell from a relatively faithful form of Christianity to become the haunt of every type of demonic activity. Four generations of locusts destroyed our entire culture.

But that is not all that the locusts represent. If you compare Joel 1:4-7 with Revelation 9:1-12 you will see that their final prophetic fulfillment comes with the demonic locusts released from the abyss in the fifth trumpet judgment. There are four keys for understanding that these two chapters describe the same locusts: 1 ) both passages deal with the time period just before or at the “Day of the LORD,” 2) both passages deal with locusts, 3) the locusts have teeth “like lions’ teeth,” and 4) the locusts damage certain types of plants, which Revelation 9:4 clearly shows represent people. Revelation 9:4 specifically commands the locusts “not to harm the grass of the earth or any green plant or any tree, but only those people who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” These three types of people represent the three types of fruitful Christians Jesus described in Matthew 13:23. All fruitful Christians will be sealed by God before he gives the key to the abyss to Satan. All of them will be fully protected by God from demonic assault when they are released.

On the other hand, the fig tree of Joel 1:7 represents all Christians who hold the truth in unrighteousness and have, therefore, become unfruitful and unproductive in their walk with Jesus. Joel says that these trees become splintered, stripped, thrown down, and made white (naked). They did not seek God to become clothed in his righteousness; they accepted the world’s definitions of righteousness and his way they do not know. They chose not to walk the narrow path which Jesus warned we all must take. But, note that God restrains the locusts (demons) from killing them in Revelation 9:5. For “five months” they will be severely tortured and will want to die, but death will elude them. What does all this represent?

Joel 1 and the fifth trumpet blast of Revelation 9 depict God’s judgment upon his church, for judgment begins with the House of God according to God’s word. This explains why Joel addresses his prophesy to the “elders,” the leaders of God’s people and also why he calls those leaders to repent in 1:8-20. God commands the locusts not to kill these lukewarm, unbelieving Christians because he graciously grants them one last time to repent, one last time to believe the prophets who have spoken and spoken and spoken.

The end does not come as these Christians were taught. They will not be miraculously whisked away to their pie in the sky heaven prior to all hell breaking loose upon earth. They will learn that they walked in deception, that they called evil good and good evil and that they accepted the demonic for the divine in their church services and gatherings. Many, I believe, will repent, but these will be difficult, trying times for multitudes who called themselves by the name of Christ and yet walked in the dens of Satan.