Because his vision from God is timeless. It is a story that can be told in any generation and have a powerful impact.
His lament over a horrendous locust attack in Israel is a metaphor for the coming judgment of Israel on the Day of the Lord, an event that points to the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit at the first Christian Pentecost in Acts Chapter 2. He nails it eight to nine hundred years before it happens!
We can compare this directly to the fear today over whether the eruption of Mount Kilauea in the Big Island of Hawaii could eventually spread all the way to California.
Joel awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit. We await the return of our Lord and Savior Jesus. So the Cycle illuminates what our response should be in times of great natural upheaval. Joel uses the metaphor of a giant locust attack, and that is symbolic of the natural disasters that seem more and more frequent in our day.
But Joel’s real point is to use the metaphor as a serious warning of God’s judgment on a nation that has become morally corrupt:
“For a nation has come up against my land, powerful and beyond number; its teeth are lions’ teeth, and it has the fangs of a lioness” (1:6, ESV).
Joel uses the locust attack to make a much more important point – is the natural disaster brought by God to lead us back to him? Joel’s response is repentance:
“Consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord” (1:14).
“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning; and rend your hearts, not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster” (2:12-13).
Joel goes on to double down on the need for drastic repentance, in our case for our nation and even more importantly for our disunified church of Jesus Christ.
Joel then illuminates other principles of the Cycle, which are conditional to repentance. First, the never-ending love of God is triggered:
“Then the Lord became jealous for his land and had pity on his people” (2:18).
Now take a moment and read 2:19 to 2:27 on the restoration that follows repentance and the triggering of God’s never-ending love.
And what follows warnings, judgment, repentance, God’s never-ending love, and restoration?
“And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions” (2:28).
Joel’s vision was for unity with God as he awaited the birth of the Messiah and the pouring out of the Spirit at Pentecost.
Our vision and behavior should be exactly the same as we await the return of our King to rule the world.
We should use the signs of the astonishing power of God shown to us in natural disasters, not to predict the time of Jesus’ return, not to tear our garments in ancient ritual, but to examine our hearts as the church seeking the perfect unity Jesus prayed for.