THE DANGER OF MONETIZING THE MESSAGE
Locusts are one of the most devastating apocalyptic motifs in Scripture; beginning with the Exodus and ending with the Day of the LORD, the devouring reach of locust swarms has and will devastate national economies in a very literal sense. Locusts do not cause a dip in the market or a tight cost of living—they take what you have now, and were supposed to have next year. They cause a kind of devastation from which you cannot recover. Whole generations have been affected by these swarms. Consider how the prophet Joel described their totality:
What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten;
What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten;
And what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten.[1]
When you see the reach of this devastating plague in Scripture, the Everlasting Covenant is always in the center of the storm. In the Exodus, God was ending four centuries of slavery and birthing a nation just like He promised Abraham that He would.[2] When the nations of the earth face locusts in the fifth trumpet,[3] they come by the hand of the Lord as He settles the “controversy of Zion.”[4]
So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten,
The crawling locust,
The consuming locust,
And the chewing locust,
My great army which I sent among you.
You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied,
And praise the name of the Lord your God,
Who has dealt wondrously with you;
And My people shall never be put to shame.
Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel:
I am the Lord your God
And there is no other.
My people shall never be put to shame.
And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh….And it shall come to pass
That whoever calls on the name of the Lord
Shall be saved.
For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance,
As the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.[5]
We cannot understate the thematic centrality of the Day of the LORD in the Scriptures. It is the focal point of the meta narrative, and the most consequential event in prophetic warnings. This message unequivocally broke the back of every prophet entrusted to bear its weight—for example, the burden of the severity coming in “Jacob’s trouble”[6] is what gave birth to our colloquial understanding of a “Daniel fast.”[7]
In any event, one particular messenger broke the narrative regarding locusts; rather than being devoured by them, he himself devoured them. It’s as strange a phrase to read and write as it would’ve been to live it, but one of the few things we know about John the baptizer—and probably his most famous quality—is that he lived out in the desert, surviving on “locusts and honey.”[8] Why? Was this every meal? We might understand if a guy took a dumb dare and hereafter became known as “the guy who ate a locust,” but John’s habit was part of his lifestyle. I understand maybe eating locusts out of necessity, but John was in the heart of the Middle East—why not falafel?
Because in John’s pursuit of fidelity to the message of the covenant, the Day of the LORD, and the way the purposes of God bore down on his generation, he decided, willingly, to live in the kind of loss and poverty locusts cause to begin with. Rather than a plague, he as a person was a sign and a wonder to his nation—and they flocked to hear his voice.[9]
The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the Prophets:
“Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,
Who will prepare Your way before You.”
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.’”
John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Then all the land of Judea, and those from Jerusalem, went out to him and were all baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.
Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying, “There comes One after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”[10]
What we might refer to as “the fasted lifestyle” is of multifaceted value. To begin with, fasting is “Discipleship 101,” per the Sermon on the Mount and other conversations with Jesus in the Gospels.[11] But for John (and even Daniel), it served to guard him from being ensnared by the culture around him. He set his own temperature for his life; nothing else had access to the “thermostat of his soul,” if you will. Therefore he could “speak as he ought to speak”[12] because he was not beholden to religious or cultural systems that would influence who he was meant to be, what he was meant to do, or how he was meant to engage his nation. No one owned John the Baptist, save his Lord. No one owned him. Jesus had this to say about John’s value system, about his backbone and integrity:
Jesus began to say to the multitudes concerning John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Indeed, those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ houses. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to you, and more than a prophet. For this is he of whom it is written:
‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,
Who will prepare Your way before You.’
“Assuredly, I say to you, among those born of women there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist; but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear![13]
“Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”[14] In an ironic—or poetic?—twist, John’s embrace of locusts, his lifestyle of fasting, kept him from going the way of false prophets and political puppets. He took measured, deliberate steps to pull away from cultural infrastructure entrenched in status quo opinions that scratch itching ears[15] and therefore was in a position to speak honestly to a crown-laden head that needed a rebuke.[16] But if he chose instead to adorn himself in “soft garments” or lounge in castles, he would have indeed been a “reed shaken by the wind.” He would’ve been a man with an interesting prophetic history whose potential was blunted and dulled by a love for this world and all its shiniest allure. By forfeiting the feasts and choosing the locusts instead, John built a shield around his soul. In the end, the locusts guarded him rather than devoured him.
John’s decisions and commitments have long provoked us, and we believe the Body at large has an incredible opportunity in this era to leverage the internet and all our modern tech toys in the same way Martin Luther leveraged Gutenberg’s printing press to produce excellent messaging content and distribute it as widely as possible as efficiently as possible. To that end, we fund all our media projects independently (from donors for each project, or privately amongst ourselves) in order to serve our International Recruitment & Advocacy mandate, to bolster our Regional Training & Mobilization mandate and put exponential momentum behind Local Evangelism & Discipleship. And then we give everything away for free—because if John tells us anything, it’s that we cannot underestimate the safety and surety of choosing to devour locusts before they can turn around and devour you. No one wants to be a reed shaken by the wind. We all want fortitude. We all want to be faithful witnesses to the Gospel of the Kingdom and the incredible beauty and worth of Jesus in all nations.
We are in our eleventh year as an organization and spiritual family, and are in the process of releasing our eleventh film, Days of Noah. All our media and messaging ecosystem is available in the FAI App, on YouTube, and in various internet alleyways because the Lord has been faithful to provide for all He’s ordained, and you’ve been like-minded partners in the word who have funded and shared these resources for the exaltation of Jesus among those who have the Gospel, as we labor to reach those who do not have the Gospel.
Stephanie Quick (@quicklikesand) is a writer/producer serving with FAI. She lives in the Golan Heights and cohosts The Better Beautiful podcast with Jeff Henderson. Browse her free music, films, and books in the FAI App and at stephaniequick.org.
[1] Joel 1:4
[2] Genesis 15:12-16
[3] Revelation 9:1-11
[4] Isaiah 34:8
[5] Joel 2:25-28a, 32
[6] Jeremiah 30:7
[7] Daniel 9:1-4; 10:13-21
[8] Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6
[9] Mark 1:1-15; John 1:6-36
[10] Mark 1:1-6
[11] See Matthew 5-7 and Mark 2:18-20
[12] Ephesians 6:20
[13] Matthew 11:7-15
[14] Matthew 6:21
[15] 2 Timothy 4:3
[16] Matthew 14:1-12
