Listen to this, old people, and hear with your ears all earthly inhabitants! Has this happened in your days, or in the days of your fathers?
Joel 1:2
Jesus says a very similar thing many times when teaching on earth. Listen with your ears. It is meant to alert everyone to the importance and urgency of the message.
In the second part of the verse, Joel is asking his readers to search their memory, and their past, for anything similar to what he was about to describe.