Messages of Hope and Faith

Text — ‘And will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” Foel 2:25.

THE FRUITS OF WASTED YEARS. — RECOVERED BY LARGER GRACE — I. THE LOCUST-EATEN YEARS. — WHAT KIND OF YEARS THEY ARE. — DEAD YEARS OF SIN. — OF UNPROFITABLE LABOR. — OF DISAPPOINTMENT. — OF FRUITLESSNESS. — OF DOUBT AND DE-PRESSION. — OF A LOW STATE OF GRACE. — OF BACKSLIDING. — II. LOCUST-EATEN YEARS RESTORED. — REPENTANCE THE FIRST CONDITION. — MARY MAGDALENE’S YEARS. — SORROW BRINGING FRUIT IN POWER TO COMFORT. — III. WHAT IS TO COME OF IT. — SATISFACTION. — COMMUNION. — ANOINTING. — THE LOCUSTS BLOWN AWAY. —

Lost years can never be restored literally. Time once passed is gone forever. Let no man make any mistake about this, or trifle with the present moment under any notion that the flying hour will ever wing

its way back to him. As well recall the north wind,

or fill again the emptied rain-cloud, or put back into their quiver the arrows of the lord of day. As well bid the river which has hastened onward to the sea, bring back its rolling floods, as imagine that the years that have once gone can ever be restored to us. It will strike you at once that the locusts did not eat the years: the locusts ate the fruits of the years’ labor,

the harvests of the fields; so that the meaning of the

restoration op ce: ates must be He! restora “those fruits and of those harvests which the

filers is a auishoa and Se Be way in sfnicly God ae can give back to you the wasted blessings, the un- — by; ripened fruits of years over which you mourned. FRUITS OF WASTED YEARS ms: “may yet be yours. It isa pity that they should have been locust-eaten by your folly and negligence; but if they have been so, be not hopeless concerning a: them. “All things are possible to him that believeth.” There is a power which is beyond all things, and can. work great marvels. Who can make the all-devour- ing locust restore his prey? No man, by wisdom or — power, can recover what has been utterly destroyed. God alone can do for you what seems impossible; and here is the promise: “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.” ’ By giving to His repentant people larger harvests: than the land could naturally yield, God could give back to them, as it were, all they would have had if —; the locusts had never come; and God, by giving you larger grace in the present and in the future, can wake the life which has hitherto been blighted, and

eaten up with the locusts, and the caterpillar, and the fe palmer-worm of sin and self and Satan, yet to bea Be complete and blessed and useful life, to His praise

and glory. It is a great wonder; but Jehovah isa God of wonders, and in the kingdom of His grace a miracles are common things. mar We shall go into this subject, which I think must be

wasted years to mourn over, since they have hitherto

done nothing for God, nor even for themselves. The locust hath eaten everything. The prospect of recovering the wreckage of a life must be of interest to

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them.
I. I shall first speak upon,
LOCUST-EATEN YEARS,

Years which the locust hath eaten: what sort of years am are these? Well, first and darkest of all, there are -

the dead years of sin, of unregeneracy, impenitence, and unbelief. Without God, and without Christ, without life as to spiritual things! What a condition to be in! Oh, how many, many years have some passed in this horrible state! We all of us — those of us with whom God has dealt very graciously — always feel sorry that even our most early days should have been spent in sin. I was brought to know the Lord

when I was fifteen years of age, and I have often

said that I could wish I had known Him fifteen years

before. Oh that one could from the very earliest

ovenings of one’s eyes have seen the light of the Eternal! But yet I fear me there are very many to whom the idea of conversion in boyhood and youth seems almost too good a thing to be true, for they have now reached thirty, forty, fifty years of age, and are still unreconciled, unrenewed. I could weep over you! We frequently meet with people older still,

whose many years have all been graceless, locust-eaten years. Ah me! how sad to be old and unsaved, feeble with age, and yet without strength unto God!

e res u eatiaeh s 5. s Diane pik tap very full of interest to those here present who have

”

LABOR LOST.

Now, remember that eating of the locust — that

devouring of everything by the caterpillars — meant a laborious year, because that year the people ploughed and sowed, and watched their crops; although the labor was all in vain. So, he that does nothing for God, and has no spiritual blessing, yet has to work and to labor. None toil harder then those who are the slaves of lust, pleasure, self, and Satan. These people often labor as in the very fire. The way of transgressors is hard. They have to toil and slave, and tug and strive; for the yoke of the world is not easy, and its burden is not light. But nothing comes of it; and this is the gall of the bitterness. One does not mind working when there is good reward for it; but to plough and sow, and then to reap nothing, because the locust hath eaten it — this is misery! The locust year was particularly A YEAR OF DISAPPOINTMENT.

They looked for a harvest; in fact, they seemed to.

see it spring up, and then it was devoured before their eyes. Even so the ungodly man, the man who. has no faith in Christ, is often charmed with the prospect of a happiness which he never reaches. A little ‘more, and he will be content. He gets a little more; and this increases his thirst for yet another draught from the golden cup. Run as we may, when the heart shoots with its far-reaching bow, still the arrows. are beyond us. The student must know a little more; the ambitious must climb a little higher upon the ladder of honor, and then he will be at ease. He learns, — eres

ee he reaches the honor; but the ease is still as distant

as ever — perhaps it is even further off.

And, alas! they are fruitless years, O sirs, what

have some of you ever done in this world yet? I heard of one who had made a half a million of money,

and he died, and a Christian man said, “Now, I call

that man’s life
A DEAD FAILURE,

What has the man done? He has accumulated what he could not enjoy. He has scraped it together,

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