“A fire devours before them, and behind them, a flame burns. The land is as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them, a desolate wilderness. Yes, and no one has escaped them.”

Fire is the most destructive element, for it changes the substance of things irrevocably. It destroys completely with no hope of renewal. These locusts will destroy like the fire. They will consume everything before them and leave nothing but charred remains of embers behind them. The land is bountiful for it is the land God gave to his people, and is a veritable garden of Eden with plenty for all, but it will be reduced to wasteland – a desolate wilderness of no use to human or animal. 

These creatures devour. This is their goal and reason for existence. They must grow and live and so they eat all before them to nourish their own lives at the expense of everything else. They are like fire that totally devours and cannot be stopped. They are a curse, for they take and never give. 

This is the outcome for all who forget God and refuse His many offers of mercy. Lives will be devoured by the wastefulness of the locust and destroyed by the deceitfulness of sin. The prophet continues to warn the people, but so far it has fallen on deaf ears. They want sound-bites of comfort and love and not the searching power of the Holy Spirit. They want the temporal blessings of this life and not the reality of the spiritual blessings in their Lord.

Beloved, may this not be true of us, but may we seek the Lord with all our hearts and keep our pathway pure, that we might escape His searching trials that will find us unable to stand up under them. 

“To You, O Lord, I Lift Up My Soul. My God, I have trusted in you. Don’t let me be shamed. Don’t let my enemies triumph over me. Yes, no one who waits for you shall be shamed. They shall be shamed who deal treacherously without cause. Show me your ways, O Lord, Teach me your paths.”

Psalm 25:1-4