A Famine Of The Word Causes Famines In Leadership & Other Needs (Including Food)

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘<The Lord said to Joel,> (15) Alas for that day! For the ‘Day of the Lord’ is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. (16) Has not the food been cut off before our very eyes— joy and gladness from the house of our God? (17) The seeds are shriveled beneath the clods.  The storehouses are in ruins, the granaries have been broken down, for the grain has dried up.  (18) How the cattle moan! The herds mill about because they have no pasture; even the flocks of sheep are suffering.’ (Joel 1:15-18); ‘“The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.”’ (Amos 8:11)

Many believe that famine is only food deprivation – and it is – but what of the famine of the Lord’s Word (Amos 8:11), or the loss of personal interaction (as we had for a time during the height of COVID in early-mid 2020), or the loss of Godly, objective leadership in our governments?  Joel 1:15-18 has both; verses 15, 17 and 18 discuss the loss of food (both livestock and crop), while verse 16 and Amos 8:11 talks of the joy being taken away from the Church due to famine, perhaps in part due to the inability to meet together. 

Famine has been prophesized several times in Scripture, and some of the events have happened (the famine of Joseph, the famine of Jeremiah) while some are prophesized to come, such as the ‘Four Horseman of the Apocalypse’ of Zechariah 6 and Revelation 6, where the ‘Black Horse’, which carries scales to weigh the grain, declares a ‘day’s wages’ for 2 pounds of wheat or 6 pounds of barley.  In my uncalibrated look at this, if 2 pounds of wheat makes 12 loaves of bread, and a day’s wages is $120 (average $15 an hour for 8 hours), then a loaf of bread will cost $10 per loaf.  With a loaf of bread now between $1 and $2, that is an increase between 500% and 1,000%. 

Take those percentages across the entire grocery store, and a weekly shopping trip that is now $100 today may be between $500 to $1,000, each trip.  (In comparison, if one is making the estimated average wage of $15 an hour, your weekly pay is $600 ($120 x 5 days), before taxes.)  Add in that there already are shortages of several staples.  Even with that amount of money in your pocket to obtain the necessities, you may not be able to buy all that you need for a full week’s worth of meals as the shortages would prevent you to do so.

Today, as it often was in the days of the Old Testament, famine is often a result of poor planning due to poor leadership.  Egypt, with Godly leadership in Joseph, prepared and had food stored in excess of what they needed and were able to help neighboring nations (like Israel).  Joel 1:17 describes the opposite; a lack of preparedness due to a lack of planning maintenance on the storehouses – a famine from poor leadership!

Today, the Los Angeles fires in California cannot be readily fought due to a ‘famine’ of available water resources, for example.  Despite the knowledge that wildfires in California are a potential occurrence each year, there were no actions taken to ensure an adequate water supply to fight these fires, leading to many neighborhoods burning to complete destruction.  The inability to stop these fires, and the inability to prevent or at least mitigate them, is directly a result of the famine of Godly, objective leadership based on the facts, instead relying on secular, subjective leadership based on feelings.

For the Christian, this should not be taking us by surprise.  ‘The Day of the Lord’ has also been prophesized in both the Old and New Testaments, and it often refers to that day when the Lord will come back to deliver His judgement, and also to deliver His Church into God’s presence for all Eternity.  I also interpret the Day of the Lord as it is written in Joel 3:14 (‘Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision! For the ‘Day of the Lord’ is near in the valley of decision!’), where each person has their personal ‘Day of the Lord’, to make that decision to either follow Jesus or follow someone else. 

The famine is coming, both in the food that we eat and perhaps in the ability to meet together and share the Word with others.  In many places across the globe, the famine of effective leadership is already here.  It may come soon or it may come after we are all gone but it will come; BE PREPARED, BE AWARE, PLAN ACCORDINGLY, and share the Gospel today with those who you meet, as their Day of the Lord may just be today, and tomorrow the famine of the Word may strike and missing that opportunity and someone falling into eternal spiritual separation is far worse than temporary mortal starvation.