We are witnessing what may be the unfolding, in our lifetime, of events similar to those set out by Jesus in Matthew 24 and even evocative of the series of signs in the Book of Revelation. Our daily news is so filled with the coronavirus pandemic that many are failing to notice another event of great significance on the horizon, that may be of even more importance than Covid-19. It is a plague of locusts of biblical proportions that is developing at an alarming rate.
This plague is already covering a huge swathe of territory across the Middle East and the Horn of Africa, and even spreading eastward to Pakistan and beyond.1 It threatens to bring starvation and impoverishment to millions of people if it is not controlled within the next few weeks. It has the potential of causing worldwide famine.
Heavy rains fell across the whole of East Africa and the Middle East (including Israel) last month and April is the time of year when the young locusts generate. The forecast is bleak, as millions of hoppers with their voracious appetites are devastating areas where they have already settled.2 Soon the locusts will be flying in immense swarms, hundreds of miles wide.
The plague of locusts has already done immense damage in Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, devastating desperately needed crops following years of poor harvests and famine. The rains have blessed the land with fertility, producing what should be bumper harvests, but a second wave of locusts is expected this month.
Our daily news is so filled with the coronavirus pandemic that many are failing to notice another event of great significance on the horizon.
Greatest Locust Plague Ever?
What could become the greatest locust plague ever seen began in a desert area around the Gulf of Oman in 2018, when exceptional storms swept the area, generating a voracious breed of desert locusts that swarmed on both sides of the Gulf, with Iran on one side and Oman, Yemen and Saudi Arabia on the other side.
The work of controlling the spread of the locusts through insecticides and aerial spraying has been hampered during the past month because of lockdowns caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The two plagues are now jointly affecting vast areas of Africa and the Middle East.
Even a small swarm of a third of a square mile can eat as much food in a single day as would be consumed by 35,000 people.3 Existing swarms are already laying eggs that will hatch to generate the next invasion, expected in the summer.
Extraordinary Times
It is an extraordinary time for a plague of locusts, with the attendant possibility of worldwide famine, to hit the world - just when the coronavirus pandemic is hitting all nations!
In the Bible God uses plagues and famines to send strong messages to people. He used plagues to send messages to Egypt to let the people of Israel go from slavery, and there are many more examples. Jeremiah says that the sword, famine and plagues are God’s instruments of sending warnings of judgment and they are usually accompanied by calls for repentance. So how are we to interpret what is happening today, where we have got not just one plague but two, simultaneously hitting the nations?
Surely God must have some extraordinary purpose in allowing TWO plagues to hit the world at the same time.
In the Bible God uses plagues and famines to send strong messages to people.
Calling for Repentance
The Prophet Joel has more to say about locusts than any other prophet in the Bible. He describes an invasion of locusts which sounds like an eyewitness account:
What the locust swarm has left the great locusts have eaten; what the great locusts have left, the young locusts have eaten; what the young locusts have left, other locusts have eaten. (Joel 1:4)
Joel uses this to warn of an invasion by enemies of Israel who will devastate the land; “before them the land is like the garden of Eden, behind them, a desert waste – nothing escapes them” (Joel 2:3). He uses this threat of invasion to call for repentance:
Rend your heart, and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. (Joel 2:13)
But Joel also foresees a time coming when God will judge all nations – particularly for what they have done to his covenant people, Israel. This will be the benchmark by which the nations are judged, according to Joel. He says:
In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will enter into judgment against them concerning my inheritance, my people Israel, for they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land. (Joel 3:1-2)
Benchmark for Judgment
If you look at the map where the plague of locusts is centred (see below), it is almost exclusively hitting nations that are hostile to Israel, led by Iran whose leaders have sworn to destroy Israel and are said to be near the point of developing nuclear weapons that could wipe out Israel at a moment’s notice.
I believe God is calling for repentance in all nations where the sins of humanity have reached the tipping-point that is incurring inevitable judgment. God hates the shedding of innocent blood through the millions of babies that are being aborted. And he hates the greed, violence and injustice that is driving the world economy, whereby millions go to bed hungry every night while others live in luxury. The message I am hearing is that it is only repentance and turning that can stop the plagues from devastating the nations.
But the supreme measure by which God judges the nations is the way they treat Israel, God’s covenant people, because that is a measure of their attitude towards God himself.
But the supreme measure by which God judges the nations is the way they treat Israel, God’s covenant people, because that is a measure of their attitude towards God himself. They hate Israel because they hate God: and Israel and Jerusalem symbolise God in the minds of millions of people. Just as the Nazis blamed the Jews for all their misfortunes, people in many other nations today still do the same. The nations persecute Jews because the nations are in rebellion against God.
But many of these nations not only hate Jews, they also hate Christians and many Christians are suffering intensely, even to martyrdom, at their hands. It may be that God is now calling time upon these purveyors of hate and violence who show no mercy to those who love Jesus as Lord and Saviour.
Urgent Warning
No, I am not prophesying that we are coming to the great final judgment of the nations. No-one knows God’s timetable and it is utterly wrong to speculate upon the times that only the Father has in his control.
But I do believe that God is sending a very urgent warning to humanity that our sinfulness – the sin of all nations – has reached such a point that judgment is coming – and only repentance and turning can save us from destruction.
Will the leaders of the nations take heed of the warning signs?
The #DesertLocust situation remains extremely serious in the #HornofAfrica, where a new generation of swarms are starting to lay eggs, which coincides with the current planting season.
— FAO Locust (@FAOLocust) May 14, 2020
Latest Locust Watch situation update ? https://t.co/p0qAyCZxRo pic.twitter.com/BnO9GCw6wj
References
1 Read more at the National Geographic.
2 Read more at the Financial Times.
3 The Guardian, 13 April 2020.
