It's important for us to understand the time and era in which Zephaniah lived for us to get a full picture of what's really going. So I'd like to give just a brief background and talk a little about the history of what's going on at this time.
As we see in Zephaniah 1:1, the current king of Judah is a guy by the name of Josiah.
"The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah."
Zephaniah 1:1 (ESV)
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KING JOSIAH
Let's talk a little about Josiah - because there's some interesting stuff going on here. Josiah became the king of Judah (the southern kingdom) when he was just 8 years old. His dad, king Amon had been assassinated, and in those days the son succeeded the father, so - king of a nation.
A 3rd grader.
King.
Of a nation.
The most powerful nation on the planet at the time.
I can tell you that, for me, at 8 years old and in 3rd grade, my primary concern in life were things like TV, video games, riding my bike with my friends.
If I were a king when I was 8, that would've probably meant unlimited TV.
My royal counsel, "King Austin - don't you think it's probably time for bed?"
"I think it's probably time for you to bring me some more pizza."
Who's going to tell an 8 year old king their own schedule?
In fact, I think one of the most terrifying things might just be an 8 year old who has complete and total control of their own schedule.
8 years old and a king. Man that would be awesome. Bed time is whenever you want it to be.
Dinner is whatever you want it to be. Feel like using heavy cream for the milk in your cereal and watching TV til the sun comes up?
No one to stand in your way.
What a life.
But in all seriousness, and this is the amazing thing:
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THE LAST GOOD KING
The Bible tells us that Josiah was actually one of the few good kings in all of the history of Judah. If you remember, we've talked about it in this series before, that in the nation of Israel there was a civil war, and so we had kings to the north in the nation of Israel, and kings in the south in the nation of Judah.
In Scripture, there's not one good king recorded in the north in this time. Not one. Ever.
In the south there's just a couple and Josiah is one of them.
In 2 Chronicles we find Josiah's story, and specifically chapter 34 in the first part of verse 3 in fact tells us that:
"For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father,"
2 Chronicles 34:3a (ESV)
So as a teenager at just age 16, Josiah begins to seek the Lord, to press into God. That's already amazing, but let's continue reading that verse.
"For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and the metal images."
2 Chronicles 34:3 (ESV)
So if we're making a timeline:
At 16, he seeks the Lord
At 20, he removes idols and idolatry from the land of Judah.
When I was 20 years old, I was deciding on if I wanted to add an Art History minor to my degree. Priorities, right?
Let's continue:
"Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had cleansed the land and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz, the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God."
2 Chronicles 34:8 (ESV)
So now at 26, he opens the Word of God and begins to renovate the temple.
This is huge because the temple had been closed. People were worshiping the God's of other nations, which meant that no one was worshiping God, making sacrifices, you name it. For years.
The nation of Israel under his grandfather Manasseh, a wicked guy, didn't worship God.
Amon, his father, yet another wicked guy. That's why he was assassinated.
Josiah comes from a lineage of of wicked men who weren't worshiping God.
And here comes Josiah, saying "I'm opening the temple."
And what do they find when they open it?
God's Word. The Law.
No one had been reading it. For years.
When Josiah read it, he responded, saying:
"Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us."
2 Kings 22:13 (ESV)
I don't want us to miss this, these three parts of Josiah's life:
At 16, he sought the Lord.
At 20, he removes idolatry from Judah.
At 26, he reopens the temple, and then opens the Word of God.
Those are the ingredients to the foundation of a strong relationship with God.
A a result of him opening God's Word, he led the nation in a huge spiritual revival as they began to obey the law.
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GOD INTRODUCES ZEPHANIAH
I think it's important to share at this time, that Josiah's name means in the original language, "The LORD supports." And it's at this point in the story when we see God introduce Zephaniah. He's brought by God to rebuke the people of Judah for their sin, and to also help usher in the reform, or the revival, that Josiah is bringing to the people.
So, Zephaniah addresses two primary sins among the people of Judah.
Idolatry (Zeph. 1:4-6)
Complacency (Zeph. 1:12)
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THE TWO SINS: IDOLATRY
Let's start by looking at Judah's problem with idolatry:
"I will stretch out my hand against Judah
and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem;
and I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal
and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests,
those who bow down on the roofs
to the host of the heavens,
those who bow down and swear to the Lord
and yet swear by Milcom,
those who have turned back from following the Lord,
who do not seek the Lord or inquire of him."
Zephaniah 1:4-6 (ESV)
So almost immediately, we're just 4 verses in, and Zephaniah is pointing out idolatry. He points out the God's that Judah is worshipping - the first being Baal. If you remember, Baal was the God of the Canaanites. And the Canaanites were the people who previously occupied the land that God had given to the Jewish people.
So Zephaniah is saying that the nation had adopted the God's of their neighbors.
Quite literally, Judah had adopted false god's from their neighbors and were worshiping false god's.
And it wasn't just Baal, was it?
Zephaniah also mentions Milcom - or more commonly known as Moloch. The god (false god) of the Ammonites.
The worship of Milcom, or Moloch, by the way, involved some pretty horrific things - like child sacrifice.
So I want to be as clear as possible with what I'm saying:
The people of Judah were sacrificing their children to Moloch.
This isn't just a passage that we read quickly and think, "Oh - well, silly Judah. Idols are for dummies! Oh, there they are again, worshiping these things that don't exist." Or, "Man, they sure do keep on slipping back into worshiping these idols."
Idolatry was a plague. For hundreds of years. Centuries.
Over and over they stopped worshiping the true God. The living God, Yahweh. They would turn to idols. And you know, if we just think about it from a zoomed out perspective: the problem with praying to an inanimate object that you prop up in the corner of your home from earrings you melted down, is that it doesn't hear you. It's never going to hear you. And not because it's deaf. Because it's not alive. And it never was. Never will be. It's carved from a chunk of metal. That you carved. Not alive.
And here they are: loving these things and bowing down to them.
"Help me!" "Save me from...x, y, & z."
Really?
How foolish, right?
We'd never do anything like that would we?
Gary Hamrick at Cornerstone Chapel in Virginia puts it like this, and I love this:
"[Idols] simply illustrate the innate need that every human being has to worship someone or something greater than himself."
Gary Hamrick
We're going to worship someone or something. Joshua 24:15, "choose this day whom you will serve."
Is it the god of comfort?
Is it the god of power?
Is it the god of approval?
Is it the god of control?
Is it the god of money?
Is it the god of whatever else that person has, that you wish you had?
Is it the god of technology? The god of your phone? With the logo of an apple with a bite taken out of it? Weird.
Is it a person in your life? A celebrity? A band?
Just because it's not a golden calf made from melted earrings, or something that was carved and placed in your home that you pray to doesn't mean it's less offensive to God.
Don't seek from creation what only the Creator can give.
Paul talks about this in Colossians 3:5, saying:
"Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry."
Colossians 3:5
Do you see that? "Covetousness, which is idolatry." When we're looking at what we don't have, that someone else does, be it something materialistic, their success, family, happiness, you name it, it robs us of our contentment in Christ. It's idolatry. That’s why Paul mentions it in 1 Corinthians and then it is mentioned again in 1 John:
"Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry."
1 Corinthians 10:14 (ESV)
"Little children, keep yourselves from idols."
1 John 5:21 (ESV)
Like we've seen: it was an issue for those in the Old Testament, and it was an issue for those in the New Testament.
It's an issue for us today. It's all throughout the Bible because it's all throughout humanity.
So seek Christ, turn to Him, turn to the true, to the living, God. Because nothing else will ever fulfill.
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THE TWO SINS: COMPLACENCY
Now let's look at the second: complacency.
"At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps,
and I will punish the men
who are complacent,
those who say in their hearts,
'The Lord will not do good,
nor will he do ill.'"
Zephaniah 1:12 (ESV)
What Zephaniah is doing here is calling out this blasé, lazy, detached, disengaged, unconcerned and indifferent attitude toward God among His people.
Have you ever heard someone say, "well, God's not going to do anything about it, why should I?"
The people were basically justifying their own complacency in their faith by projecting that same trait onto God's character. That was their justification.
"God's not doing anything about anything, so why should we? Why should we care about communing with God? Why should we care about honoring Him? Why should we care about worshiping Him? Why live for Him?"
And again, this is something that's easy for us to sit here and almost judge them, right? Who actually thinks this?
Well, the thing about complacency is that it's so easy to find ourselves in without even realizing it.
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KIERKEGAARD'S DUCK
I'll describe it this way: there was a Danish philosopher named Kierkegaard whose writings are pretty weighty and can be tough to read. He was a deep thinker, but among his hard to read writings he told a simple parable that wonderfully illustrates how truly easy it is for us to slide into complacency.
He talked about how one spring, a duck was flying north with his flock. In the Danish countryside this duck spotted a barnyard down below on their path and it could see these ducks sitting inside. He dropped down, and discovered that the ducks were tame - but what's more is that they had all this wonderful corn to eat. So he stayed for about an hour eating some corn. Well, the hour turned into a day. And the day turned into a week. And the week into a month. Because the free corn was great, and the barnyard was safe - he just stayed the whole summer right on that farm.
As the fall approached, he heard a sound. Ducks quacking as they flew overhead. All of a sudden he was stirred with a strange sense of joy and delight. And then, with all his might he began flapping his wings and rose into the air, planning to join them for the trip south.
But all that corn throughout the summer had made the duck soft and heavy - he could even make it all the way up to the roof. So he dropped back into the barn and said to himself, "Well, you know what - my life here is safe, and at least the food is good!"
Then when the spring would come, or the next fall, that duck would hear the wild ducks honking as they flew overhead - and for a minute he'd get a sparkle in his eyes. His wings would flap almost without him even realizing.
Eventually though, a day came when those ducks flew overhead, quacking as they did, and the duck didn't even notice.
Rarely is complacency something we actively decide to do. It's almost like a disease that so easily sneaks up on us. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.
It happens when life presses in on us. We get busy, we get tired. We get fatigued. Then we get preoccupied with just - everything. And what happens? We just resort to kind of putting God here, on a shelf. Then we bring Him down when we need Him.
Here's what I mean: how often do we store God on a shelf until a crisis comes along and we bring Him down? "Now, I need you."
Zephaniah was sent 25 years before distress came to God's people to warn them.
"God's judgment is coming."
"God's judgment is coming."
"God's judgment is coming."
"The great day of the Lord is near,
near and hastening fast;
the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter;
the mighty man cries aloud there.
A day of wrath is that day,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness,
a day of trumpet blast and battle cry
against the fortified cities
and against the lofty battlements.
I will bring distress on mankind,
so that they shall walk like the blind,
because they have sinned against the Lord;
their blood shall be poured out like dust,
and their flesh like dung.
Neither their silver nor their gold
shall be able to deliver them
on the day of the wrath of the Lord.
In the fire of his jealousy,
all the earth shall be consumed;
for a full and sudden end
he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth."
Zephaniah 1:14-18 (ESV)
Well that's pleasant.
I'll paraphrase what Zephaniah has said so far like this:
"God's saying, "Your idolatry and complacency are going to destroy you. So, He's bring a crisis to jolt you out of your idolatry and complacency."
This message is true for us today as well. We need to be right with God before His judgment comes.
This book of Zephaniah has a lot of wrath. It has a lot of destruction. And it has those things because of idolatry and complacency.
And I just want to thank God that's not where the book ends. How depressing.
"Because of your idolatry and complacency - wrath and destruction. The end. Worship team come on up. Y'all have a great lunch."
But that's not where it ends, and I love this book because of the hope that remained for God's people and the hope that remains for us today.
Redemption and Rejoicing
"Gather together, yes, gather,
O shameless nation,
before the decree takes effect
—before the day passes away like chaff—
before there comes upon you
the burning anger of the Lord,
before there comes upon you
the day of the anger of the Lord.
Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
who do his just commands;
seek righteousness; seek humility;
perhaps you may be hidden
on the day of the anger of the Lord."
Zephaniah 2:1-3 (ESV)
In the first two verses, the word before is mentioned 4 times.
God sent Zephaniah 25 years before the Babylonians show up to warn them.
It's easy to read that and almost think, "Good grief, that's pretty intense!"
It's like a parent saying to their child, "Clean your room, I'm going to check to make sure you did it. Make sure you clean your room. Is your room clean? I'm coming to check, make sure your room is clean."
Then they check, and the child wonders why their parent got upset.
That's not a personal story, by the way.
God gives ample warning to His people. "Before the decree takes effect..." "Before the day passes away like chaff..." "Before there comes upon you the burning anger of the Lord..." "Before there comes upon you the day of the anger of the Lord..."
Then in verse 3, if they did what God was telling them, it may be that they "may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord."
I just love this part of the passage, because, if you remember near the beginning of the sermon today, I told you what Josiah's name meant in Hebrew, "The LORD Supports."
Now with this message in chapter 2, I want to share what Zephaniah's name means in Hebrew. "The LORD hides."
"If you get right with God before the day of His judgment, you will be hidden in Him."
"You will be sheltered from the coming wrath."
"You will avoid God's judgment if you get right with Him before His judgment comes."
Does that sound familiar to Scripture?
Sodom and Gamorrah. Lot and his family was rescued before the wrath of God showed up.
Noah and his family. Rescued before the wrath of God showed up.
For us today: It's true for every single one of us who have trusted in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior - we are hidden in Christ and kept from the wrath of God. Why? Because Jesus willingly took on the wrath of God that was intended for us, though He was without sin, He died on a cross and took the punishment in our place. That's exactly why Paul wrote:
"For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God."
Colossians 3:3 (ESV)
Amen for that.
God's desire for us isn't destruction. His desire for those in the day of Zephaniah wasn't destruction. He gave them fair warning, He's given us fair warning as well.
God's provided redemption.
In in our redemption, God rejoices.
There's no greater need in the human heart than that of divine love. Above every other need we could experience is the need to be loved by the One who knows us better than we know ourselves.
"Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion;
shout, O Israel!
Rejoice and exult with all your heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away the judgments against you;
he has cleared away your enemies.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
you shall never again fear evil.
On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
"Fear not, O Zion;
let not your hands grow weak.
The Lord your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing."
Zephaniah 3:14-17 (ESV)
God singing.
Have you ever thought of that?
Normally we think of us singing in heaven, us worshiping, angels singing - but God, singing?
When you approach God with humility, broken, and submit your life to Jesus Christ, He rejoices over you with gladness; He quiets you with His love; He rejoices over you with loud singing.
And I'll say this. There's some out there that argue, "Oh, that's just figurative." I don't think this is. Here's why:
The original language reads like this, "He rejoices over you with a shout of joy."
Second, God's singing parallels the singing of His people in Jerusalem. "Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion!" This section in Zephaniah of poetry begins with the people of Jerusalem singing praise to God and ends with God singing over His redeemed.
And I want to stress this, He's not singing because of what we've done or accomplished. He's singing because of what Jesus Christ has done in giving His life for us, that in Him we might once again be in God's presence, as it was intended, and this is why God sings.
While our God is a just God, a jealous, and a righteous God. While God has wrath, and we see it in Scripture - He's also a God of mercy, a God of grace, a God of love.
Don't let the enemy tell you that God could never love you. Don't let him tell you that "this is the time you've messed up too much. You could never come back from that." Don't let him tell you that "Because of all these things you've done, God's never going to forgive you," "You're broken. You're just trash."
There's a popular phrase out there I want you to remember, "God recycles." He transforms lives. He restores. He rejoices for the redeemed lives by the blood of Jesus Christ.
