Joel 1

Learn from a Locust Invasion

We often feel weak and helpless in the face of the awesome, uncontrollable power of natural disasters. Joel 1 contains a graphic lesson Joel taught by using a natural disaster—a plague of locusts—to teach the people about how helpless they will feel if they do not repent before the “day of the Lord” comes and the wicked are judged. He specifically compared the locust invasion to the invasion of an army that would come into the land and destroy a people that would not repent as part of God’s judgments. These kinds of judgments are also prophesied for the last days (see D&C 5:19; 45:31; 87). Joel suggested that the people gather to the house of the Lord in fasting and prayer for deliverance in their difficult time, just as the Lord commanded the Saints in the last days to “stand in holy places” (D&C 45:32).