IT MAY BE YOU MAY BE HIDDEN (Zephaniah Part 5)

 

    "The great day of the LORD is near; It is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the LORD is bitter; There the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, A day of trouble and distress, A day of devastation and desolation, A day of darkness and gloominess, A day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of trumpet and alarm Against the fortified cities And against the high towers. 'I will bring distress upon men, And they shall walk like blind men, Because they have sinned against the LORD; Their blood shall be poured out like dust, And their flesh like refuse.' Neither their silver nor their gold Shall be able to deliver them In the day of the LORD's wrath; But the whole land shall be devoured By the fire of His jealousy, For He will make speedy riddance Of all those who dwell in the land.  

    "Gather yourselves together, yes, gather together, O undesirable nation, Before the decree is issued, Or the day passes like chaff, Before the LORD's fierce anger comes upon you, Before the day of the LORD's anger comes upon you! Seek the LORD, all you meek of the earth, Who have upheld His justice. Seek righteousness, seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden In the day of the LORD's anger."

Zephaniah 1:14-2:3, NKJV

 This is a long section, but allow me to deal with two issues.

First, judgment is coming. The term "Day of the LORD" deals with judgment, and often corresponds to the seven year Tribulation period. At times, it also includes the millennial kingdom, but in this case it deals with wrath.

We need to remember God judges sin. Each sin is against God (Ps. 51:4). Jesus died for our sins, and that's proof that sin is not a trivial matter. In 1 John 3 and 5, sin is equated with lawlessness. In other words, you can call sin treason against God.

The other issue is God will forgive if we turn from our sin. The first three verses of Zephaniah 2 is a call to repentance. That theme is throughout the Bible. Isaiah 55:7 states that if a wicked man turns from his ways and an unrighteous man from his thoughts, God will pardon. 2 Peter 3:9 says that He is not willing that any should perish but that all come to repentance. Ezekiel 18:32 informs us that God does not delight in the death of man, and so calls us to turn and live.

The final promise is precious. It may be that God will hide us in the day of His wrath. This is why some believe in a rapture. And note - in Scripture it doesn't mean we will be free from tribulation and/or persecution - John 16:33 and 2 Timothy 3:12 informs us otherwise. But we will be saved from eternal wrath (John 3:16; Romans 6:23), and it may be that we're saved from God's wrath on the wicked world as well.

SETTLED IN COMPLACENCY? (Zephaniah Part 4)

 

        "And it shall come to pass at that time That I will search Jerusalem with lamps, And punish the men Who are settled in complacency, Who say in their heart, 'The LORD will not do good, Nor will He do evil.' Therefore their goods shall become booty, And their houses a desolation; They shall build houses, but not inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards, but not drink their wine."  Zephaniah 1:12-13, NKJV

For those who have been following this series, you may noticed I jumped from verse 6 of the first chapter of Zephaniah to the twelvth. The reason is I want to focus on verse twelve. But allow me to catch you up, especially since its been two weeks since I posted in this series.

You may recall that Zephaniah was a descendant of King Hezekiah, and prophesied during the days of Hezekiah's great grandson, Josiah. The first words of the message was that God will utterly consume everything from the land. Why? The first point he made was that there were idolatrous priests who worshiped the heavens, swore by gods in addition to the true God, and have turned from following God nor have sought Him.

Verse seven reads, "Be silent in the presence of the Lord GOD; For the day of the LORD is at hand, For the LORD has prepared a sacrifice; He has invited His guests." The Day of the LORD, which will be dealt with later in the chapter, is a day of judgment, and normally connected to what is known as the Seven year Tribulation.

Verses eight through thirteen look at judgments on four groups of people. Let me introduce the first three groups:

1. The princes and king's children who are clothed in foreign (KJV reads "strange") clothing;
2. Those who leap over the threshold and fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit; and 
3. Merchants and moneyhandlers.

Some of these groups are not clearly identified, and I doubt most of my blog readers fall into any of them. In our country and especially in the church, the fourth group is the biggest problem.

Who is that fourth group? Those settled in complacency. The notes in my Bible say it's litterally the dregs in the wine barrel. I'm not familiar with wine dregs, but I'm very familiar with the dregs at the bottom of a cup of hot chocolate. And if you leave them for a while, they can be tougher to clean.

Verse twelve gives a concise definition of what complacency is like - it is saying that God won't do good and that He won't do evil. He won't bless us, and He won't judge us. In other words, we're on our own. It is like the mindset of Deism, that God wound this world up and then sat back and watched what would happen. Or as the classic song "From A Distance" says, God watches us from a distance. He's not nearby, He's not actively involved.

Both extremes are evident today. On the one hand, there are those who quote that verse from 3rd Hezekiah or The Acts Of The Apostates or another non-existent Biblical book that says "God helps those who help themselves." For example, they claim that our Presidents aren't raised up or appointed by God (Dan. 2:20-22; Rom. 13:1), but are elected by the people. Or they prescribe activism because that has more results than prayer.

On the other side, we have a God who one professor I heard said has love more like a grandfather than a father. This God is a god of love, not of wrath. This God's definition of evil is pretty consistent with our society. If we have no problem with a behavior that is described as sin, then God's not concerned about it and we've probably misinterpreted the Bible.

We need to realize God will bless the righteous and punish the wicked. Sometimes, it seems the reality is the opposite, but that's because we're looking at the temporary things which we can see rather than the eternal things that aren't seen (2 Cor. 4:18). 

One can look at Zephaniah 1:7-13 and say it was more for the people of the prophet's day, and the coming judgment was accomplished by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. But there is an application for us today. Plus, God has promised there will be in the future a resurrection of all - some to eternal life, and some to eternal contempt (Dan. 12:2; John 5:28-29).

In your life, do your actions reflect that you expect God to do good when you're obedient? Do they show you expect His chastisement when you sin or judgment when a society or God's people reject Him? Or are you settled in the complacent mindset?

 

 

ARE THERE IDOLATROUS PRIESTS IN OUR CHURCH? (Zephaniah Part 3)

 

"I will consume man and beast; I will consume the birds of the heavens, The fish of the sea, And the stumbling blocks along with the wicked. I will cut off man from the face of the land," Says the Lord. "I will stretch out My hand against Judah, And against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off every trace of Baal from this place, The names of the idolatrous priests with the pagan priests-- Those who worship the host of heaven on the housetops; Those who worship and swear oaths by the Lord, But who also swear by Milcom; Those who have turned back from following the Lord, And have not sought the Lord, nor inquired of Him." Zephaniah 1:3-6, NKJV  

 

 

Looking at this following section, we see the scope of God's judgment on Judah and Jerusalem. (If I forgot to mention, Zephaniah was a contemporary of Jeremiah.) But notice who he narrows in on?

 

In Zephaniah 1:4, God states He'll cut off the names of the idolatrous priests with the pagan priests. But aren't the two the same? Not necessarily. The pagan priests are the official priests of pagan deities. The idolatrous priests are those who are supposed to be serving the Lord but are actually worshiping other gods as well as the True God.

 

One thing that is helpful in looking at the Minor prophets is to realize if they're speaking to the Northern Kingdom as Hosea and Amos focused on or to the Southern Kingdom as Zephaniah is when they're discussing priests. When the Kingdoms divided, Jeroboam of the northern kingdom allowed anybody who wanted to be priest become one, while the Southern Kingdom maintained the Levitical priesthood. 

 

Let me give you an example to distinguish pagan priests from idolatrous priests. If a secular politician is promoting secular humanism or a New Ager is propagating New Age teaching, they are the equivalent of a pagan priest. If a Christian minister stands up behind the pulpit and teaches the same secular humanism or New Age beliefs, he's an idolatrous priest.

 

Verses five and six list three specific steps taken, starting from the most pagan to the least, but all refer to an idolatrous heart.

 

First are those who worship the host of heaven on their rooftops. The Law forbade such a practice. Here is complete and blatant disobedience.

 

Second are those who worship and swear by the Lord. They, unlike the first group, are saying they serve God. But that's not enough. They also swear by Milcolm (aka Molech). They are worshiping God, but not only the true God. But is this truly worshiping God?

 

Finally, there are those who have turned back from following the Lord and do not seek Him. They are not trying to balance serving false gods with the true God, but they've stopped following the true God. In other words, they are trusting in the Lord with none of their heart but leaning on their own understanding.

 

We may not serve Baal, but do we worship Ball, as in FootBall, BaseBall, BasketBall? We may not have a golden calf carved out, but is there a golden donkey or elephant or porcupine in our hearts? We may not be trying to serve both God and Milcolm, but are we trying to blend Christianity with Freudian psychology or scientific theory?

 

Is there any secret idols in our heart? And if Judah didn't escape, should we expect to?

 

 

 

IS GOD REALLY GOING TO JUDGE THE EARTH? (Zephaniah Part 2)

 

 "The Great Day Of His Wrath" by English painter John Martin, 1851-1853.

Last week I looked at the first verse of Zephaniah last week, which merely introduced Zephaniah. As far as geneology, it was the most detailed of any prophet, but not much more than that. So what is Zephaniah's message?

 "'I will utterly consume everything From the face of the land,' says the LORD." Zephaniah 1:2, NKJV.

First question is what this is referring to. Is it talking about the near event of Babylon conquering Jerusalem? Or is it describing God's ultimate judgment on the nations in the last times before He returns as King? I believe the answer is yes.

Psalm 24:1 states the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof. In both Testaments, it deals with God punishing the nations as well as His chosen people. God is capable of bringing catastrophic judgments on the earth.

But most people fall into two groups. One are those who believe a God of love cannot cast the lost into hell or send physical judgment on the earth. Others believe God will punish the wicked (meaning our enemies) but not His people (that's us).

Peter tells the believers to "conduct yourselves throughout your stay here in fear (1 Pet. 1:17). Paul wrote that we should "cleanse ourselves of all filthiness of the body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor. 7:1).

Whenever we hear about fear from most preachers and teachers, it is to tell us to fear not, quoting "God has not given us a spirit of fear" (2 Tim. 1:7) and "Perfect love casts out all fear" (1 John 4:18). It is true through the Scripture we're to trust God to protect us and that is to not fear.

But then we read repeatedly we're to fear God, and so we take the encouraging message to not fear and apply it to those texts to say it doesn't mean what it seems to say but is really telling us to be reverent and honor Him. So we end up letting our conceptions dictate the meaning of Scripture.

The reality is that we sometimes have no fear for God in the literal sense, which may result in not having fear in the sense of reverence either. Many who oppose eternal security/"once saved always saved" claim the adherents of that view are saying we can do anything we want and still be saved (and unfortunately some of those adherents have that mindset). 

We don't expect chastisement (Heb. 12:5-11) and don't seem to tremble at the Judgment Seat of Christ (Rom. 14:10-12; 1 Cor. 3:10-17; 2 Cor. 5:9-11). As an eternal security advocate, I don't fear losing my salvation, because this is a judgement of works, not sin like the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11-15). But believe me, my knees are knocking at giving an account of my life before my Lord and Savior.

I do believe that while there are applications of Zephaniah 1:2 and following having taken place when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the complete fulfillment will take place in the future. Both believers and unbelievers will face the consequences of their answers.

So if we believe that God will someday judge the world, how will that affect the way we live? What effect will it have on how we relate to others?

 

IF YOU'RE FAMILIAR WITH ZEPHANIAH, RAISE YOUR HANDS! (Zephaniah, part 1)

 If you're like me, you probably never heard a sermon preached on Zephaniah, and probably have never covered it in a Bible study or Sunday School class. I taught on it in Sunday School almost 20 years ago because I wasn't familiar with it, and memorized several passages, and learned to love this book! So I'm sharing this on Sundays over various weeks.

I'm sure that a prophet often feels like this addax from the Louisville Zoo - all alone in the open, vulnerable to attack on any front. (Okay, in reality this antelope does have some off-camera companions, and in the zoo there's no predators to worry about, but let's go with this analogy.)

One thing about the prophets (in this blog, I'm considering Elijah, Elisha, John the Baptist, and the 16 writing prophets) is we don't know much about the prophets. 

With some, we're not sure if we know them by their name or just by a description - for example, "Malachi" means "messenger."

Occupations? We know Ezekiel was a priest and suspect Jeremiah and Zechariah were as well. Daniel was one of Babylon's wisemen, and Amos was a shepherd and fig picker. Otherwise, we're not sure.

Marital status? Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea were; Jeremiah and Daniel weren't. The other fourteen? Some are assumed to be unmarried but there's no definite record.

Finally, how about geneology? Looking at the nineteen considered prophets, we know Zechariah's grandfather's name. We know the father of nine others, and nothing about eight more. 

This brings us to Zephaniah. No, we don't know if he was married or what he did for a living. Zephaniah was definitely his name (and that of others in Scripture), but we're not absolutely certain of its meaning - it can be translated "Yahweh has concealed, "Whom Yahweh has hidden," or "Yahweh lies in wait" (which fits Zephaniah 3:8). But we do know his geneology, which goes back five generations.

The word of the LORD which came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah. -  Zephaniah 1:1, NKJV

 Zephaniah has the longest lineage of any of the prophets. It also lets us know that he's of royal lineage: his great great grandfather was King Hezekiah. True, it doesn't say for sure, but to me its logical that considering it's the last name given and that it's a recognized name, as well as the time span - reigning king Josiah was Hezekiah's great grandson - it seems likely.

I mentioned the reigning king. Josiah was a good king who led in a reform. However, most consider those reforms to be superficial. Josiah had three sons (and a grandson) become king after him, and none followed his example, and the people didn't seem to be bothered.

I did make a comment of prophets feeling isolated like the addax pictured above. Zephaniah may have felt that way in his ministry, but he did prophesy in the same time as Jeremiah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Urijah whose short and tragic ministry is described in Jeremiah 26:20-23).

So what was the message God gave through Zephaniah. You can wait until next week for Part 2. (Or you can read the book of Zephaniah - it will take 15-20 minutes to read the whole book.)