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                    God Will Restore Your Wasted Years!

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By David Wilkerson
March 26, 1990
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          "And I will restore to you the years that the locust
          hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpillar, and
          the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you"
          (Joel 2:25).

          How many years did you waste before you repented and
          surrendered all to Jesus? How many years of your past
          life were eaten up by the cankerworm of sin and
          rebellion?

          You know you are forgiven and your past forgotten
          because it is under the Blood of Jesus. But wouldn't
          you love to get back those years and live them for the
          glory of the Lord?

          How often have you thought, "I could have been so much
          further in Christ! I could have brought so much joy to
          His heart! I could have saved myself and my family so
          much pain and suffering. How blind and stupid I was:
          how enslaved by the devil! How close I came to losing
          my soul and my sanity. I can never make up for all
          those wasted years."

          In his final days Paul looked back over his life and
          testified, "I have fought a good fight. I have kept the
          faith. Now a crown of righteousness is awaiting me."

          For weeks recently Paul's testimony had absolutely
          pierced my soul. Something I couldn't shake nagged at
          my heart. In prayer I confessed, "Lord, I don't think I
          can say that with Paul! Perhaps I could about the first
          15 years of my ministry and the last 10 years.

          But there is a gap in those middle years in which I
          sense the waste of months - even years." That period
          was not a time of some deep dark sin - but still it was
          one of drifting, and I was not at my best for Jesus.

          In my marriage, too, I look back with some shame
          because I wasted so many precious hours. I have been
          happily married to the same woman for almost 38 years
          now, and we are more in love than when we first
          married. Yet in recent years I've asked Gwen to forgive
          me for the times in mid-life that I was arrogant and
          unkind - not at all the gentle, loving man of God I
          should have been.

          I know that, like me, many of you can look back with
          regret at wasted years that have been eaten away by the
          worms of hell! I think of a businessman in our church
          who threw away years by drinking and drug-using. He was
          an adulterer who left his wife for weeks at a time, a
          wild man driven by lust and greed. Today he is on fire
          for God, growing in Christ and trying to make up the
          time to his wife. Yet he still feels the shame of those
          years the cankerworm destroyed!

          The fact is, the closer you get to the heart of Jesus,
          the more those wasted years grieve you. The more you
          fall in love with Christ, the more you cry out to Him
          within, "Dear Lord, how could I have hurt You so? How
          could I have been so deceived? I took years that
          belonged to You and threw them away!

          "Oh God, Your Word is so precious to me now, and I am
          so thrilled to be growing in the knowledge of You! How
          much growth in Christ I squandered! How much revelation
          I lost! How much blessing and anointing I forfeited!"

          I don't care if you have been saved 30 years or 30 days
          - God can and will restore all your wasted years! This
          one prophecy of Joel was directed to three groups: the
          nation of Israel, the church and individuals in
          Christ's body. I want to focus this prophecy on the
          third group, applying it to us as individual believers.

                      -------------------------------

                     Joel Described Perfectly What Life
                       Was Like Before You Repented.

                      -------------------------------

          You were once being devoured by an army of evil spirits
          who moved in on you to consume everything you had! Joel
          likened these spirits of destruction to locusts,
          palmerworms, caterpillars, and cankerworms. These
          insects are known destroyers, devouring everything good
          or decent.

          Joel 2:11 speaks of a great army of God, "strong that
          executeth His Word." This entire chapter has been
          grossly misinterpreted as being a godly army of
          soldiers going forth to fight the Lord's battle. When
          we sing about the "army of the Lord," it is not this
          army in Joel 2. No, this is a devouring army of locusts
          that leaves nothing but desolation and destruction. It
          is the Lord's army - but only because He calls it forth
          as His rod to execute His wrath! Joel said of this
          demonic army, "Sound the alarm in Zion! Warn them! Warn
          God's people that this army is coming to bring darkness
          and destruction!" (Joel 2:1).

          Here is a picture of an unrepentatant people upon whom
          the enemy has come like a flood. They are without
          defense! Evil spirits rage like flames and burn
          everything in sight. Unrepentant sinners cringe, their
          faces full of sorrow. The evil locusts are the men of
          war, climbing over every human wall of resistance,
          entering through every window of the mind and heart.
          Nothing can destroy them. The sinner has no sword that
          is effective against them!

          These destructive evil spirits are well governed and
          march on without breaking rank. And no matter how many
          times the sinner tries to resist, this army keeps
          coming!

          Anyone who once was bound by a satanic habit knows
          this. Your home - once like a garden, full of peace and
          love - soon was devoured and left a desert! You tried
          to stop the attack but, like powerful horsemen, they
          leaped on you and were too strong for you to resist!

          One satanic worm after another devoured your life:
          "That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust
          eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the
          cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath
          left hath the caterpillar eaten" (Joel 1:4). Every
          crack vial, coke bag, and heroin needle was a locust, a
          cankerworm.

          Isn't that what happened? Satan had his teeth clamped
          on you," whose teeth are the teeth of a lion" (Joel
          1:6). He caused waste, ruin, mourning. "The field is
          wasted, the land mourneth; for the corn is wasted: the
          new wine is dried up." Everything in your life withered
          away! "The vine is dried up and the fig tree
          languisheth... even all the trees of the field are
          withered... joy is withered away" (Joel 1:10, 12).

          Joel is describing the terrible scene after the
          devouring army had done its evil work. And it is a
          picture of nothing but desolation, waste, withering and
          loss of joy. When you look in the face of a dying AIDS
          victim, what do you see? You see this same terrible
          destruction.

          Think back to your own time of deliverance. You were
          dying both physically and spiritually, totally
          helpless, as the hordes of hell completely overpowered
          you.

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             Joel Prophesies the Full Restoration of Those Who
                                  Repent.

              -----------------------------------------------

          I will restore to you the years that the locust hath
          eaten" (Joel 2:25). The New American Standard says, "I
          will make up to you for the years... eaten."

          This promise is incredible! All along I had wanted to
          make up those years to God, to make amends and repay
          Him! But He says, "Wrong! I will make it all up to you
          - all those years of being wasted, stripped, harassed
          by the devil. You can't repay Me for a single wasted
          hour. Walk before Me in righteousness, and turn from
          your sins - and I will make up all the losses, whether
          they were yours, your family's, or Mine!"

          To repentant sinners the Lord declares, "Fear not... be
          glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things"
          (Joel 2:21). You need not be ashamed of your wasted
          years. God is going to remove from you the evil army,
          and you will eat and be satisfied. You will never again
          be ashamed! (Joel 2:19-20, 26-27).

          You were born for His eternal purposes. He planned for
          you a life of satisfaction, joy and usefulness in His
          kingdom. But then sin entered, and God's plan for your
          life was interrupted. The devourer moved in, and
          suddenly years were wasted, lost.

          But now, in Christ, all is new - even the calendar! The
          Lord goes back to the day the locust came, and He
          removes all those wasted years and starts counting
          again from the moment you repented! All those blessings
          you missed were stored up! All the joy, the peace, the
          revelations, the usefulness that you thought were dead
          and gone forever were actually kept by the Lord!

          In hell, the damned may be haunted with a vision of
          what their lives could have been. Some may see what
          they lost. But this is not so for the repentant. All
          will be restored! They need never again say, "Oh, what
          I missed! what I could have been? Oh, how much God had
          for me, but I blew it!" No! God can restore all the
          wasted blessings!

          God commanded a sabbath year - every seventh - in
          Israel (Leviticus 25:3-4). The people were to allow the
          land to rest in that seventh year. But they wondered
          what they would eat: "And if ye shall say, what shall
          we eat the seventh year? Behold, we shall not sow, nor
          gather in our increase... then I will command my
          blessing upon you in the sixth year, and it shall bring
          forth fruit for three years" (Leviticus 25:20-21).

          The Lord of the harvest had only to speak, and the need
          was abundantly met. Beloved the same is true for every
          believer today. God need only speak the word, and the
          lost years can be restored to you!

          This is how God restores our wasted years. He brings
          forth in us supernatural joy, revelation, peace and
          victory - far beyond our human abilities! He can
          accomplish more in us, for us and through us now than
          we ever thought possible.

          We can stand upright today, as if we had never sinned,
          as if we had lost no time, as if we were right where we
          would have been had the devourer never come! God puts
          us right back on His divine schedule. His eternal
          purpose and plan are right where He planned them to be.
          Nothing Is lost!

          The Lord God desires to pour out on us all the
          blessings and joys in Him that we missed earlier! Yet
          He doesn't make it all up with outpourings alone! These
          outpourings become overflowings! "And the floors shall
          be full of wheat, and the vats shall overflow with wine
          and oil" (Joel 2:24).

          There is such power in repentance. It brings back to us
          all that the cankerworm destroyed. God resurrects it
          all!

                         -------------------------

                          It's Time To Press On.

                         -------------------------

          Paul says, "Forgetting those things which are behind,
          and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
          I press toward the mark for the prize of the high
          calling of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:13-14).
          In other words, "Forget your past and press on in
          Jesus!"

          Satan's favorite harassment is to bring up your past by
          pulling old skeletons out of the closet to scare you!
          He will try to persuade you that an old addiction or
          lust is going to rise up again and bring back the
          devourer! You could go back to the old temptations. Or
          you could succumb to pride, thinking you cannot fall -
          but then you would be targeted by the enemy for
          certain. However, if you do what is right. "Who is he
          that can harm you?"

          You might feel the pangs of remorse for your waste as
          long as you live. And yes. the memories will keep you
          humble. But in God's eyes, your past is a dead issue.
          As far as condemnation and guilt are concerned, God
          says, "Forget the past. Press on to what I promised
          you!"

                      -------------------------------

                          Is America Too Far Gone?
                     Cannot God Restore America Also?

                      -------------------------------

          Is the situation hopeless? Can the Lord not cure our
          nations wounds? He did so for Israel!

          To America and all nations, God still says. "Yea, I
          have loved thee with an everlasting love: Therefore
          with lovingkindness have I drawn thee" (Jeremiah 31:3).
          To wicked Israel the Lord said, "Will I not make a full
          end of thee; but I will correct thee in measure, and
          will not leave thee altogether unpunished" (Jeremiah
          30:11).

          Israel suffered an incurable wound of sin! But there
          remained a people in Israel who engaged their heart to
          approach the Lord. To these people He said, "I will
          cause them to draw near" Jeremiah 30:21).

          God healed Israel's incurable wound and saved a nation
          already under judgment! He restored it and built the
          city on its own heap! He multiplied and blessed them,
          and "their children also shall be as aforetime"
          (Jeremiah 30:20).

          I have been saying over and over about America what the
          Word says about Israel: The wound is incurable.

          But God could restore America the same way He did
          Israel! He could heal the wasted years if He had a
          people engaged in seeking Him! He could wipe out all
          the years of wickedness and restore and rebuild!
          Scripture says God "ransomed him [Israel] from the hand
          of him that was stronger than he" (Jeremiah 31:11). And
          He can do the same thing for America! Yes, there is
          still hope. But time is running out. Pray that God will
          draw us to Himself and spare the nation until a
          multitude can be saved.

          Are you being devoured even now, the worms of the devil
          eating away at your life? You can start all over again,
          and your time-wasting can end now! His law of
          restoration can begin making everything new in this
          very hour. Your past can be wiped clean - and this can
          be the first day of a new life!

          We see a picture of such restoration in the New
          Testament, when Jesus healed a man with a withered
          hand, "Saith He to the man, stretch forth thine hand.
          And he stretched it forth: and it was restored whole,
          like as the other" (Matthew 12:13). You see when Jesus
          restores you, the old wounds can't even be found!

          Beloved, take those old wounds - the worries and
          heart-naggings about your wasted years - and let God
          restore to you the very years that were taken away.
          Then press on toward the prize of your high calling in
          Him!

          ---
          Used with permission granted by World Challenge, P. O.
          Box 260, Lindale, TX 75771 USA.

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