Book of Zephaniah - Ch. 3, Vs. 1-7 (11/05/2023)

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You guys handle it very well. Very professionally.

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Yes. I bring Ada up here. Will you sit in my lap? Will you sit in my lap so mommy can sit in here too?

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Well they're in there with Winston. In a minute

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I bet she'll get down and start walking over there. She's too curious right now as to why daddy has her up here.

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It's okay because I have a feeling she's going to want to go through that door here in just a minute. Alrighty well.

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Okay you can't turn it up a little bit because I can't hear myself. It's just weird. I'm used to. Do what?

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Okay. Yeah. No it's I mean you can just turn it up a little bit and then just watch the chat on the back computer make sure everyone online can hear.

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Alrighty well now that we're a couple minutes after y 'all can turn to the book of Zephaniah chapter three and Daniel we do appreciate you making the early hour.

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Daniel visiting us from Washington state. So we're very blessed to have you with us this morning and looking forward to you getting to meet more of our church family as the day moves forward and we get closer to our worship hour.

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We've been doing a verse by verse study in Zephaniah and today we begin our third and final chapter.

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We may not go through it quite as quickly as we did chapter two last week. There's quite a few things to cover here.

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Today the main focus will be the first seven verses but before we get into that let's go ahead and read the whole chapter together and just get some of the broad context in our minds and as we read through it

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I want you guys to just see if you can pinpoint approximately three

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I would say three main shifts that the prophet makes in his prophecy here just in the third chapter alone.

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Obviously we have covered a lot of ground just in the first couple but it's quite the culmination here.

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So let's read the third chapter together and then we'll get started. It says, Woe to her that is filthy and polluted to the oppressing city.

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She obeyed not the voice. She received not correction. She trusted not in the

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Lord. She drew not near to her God. Her princes within her are roaring lions.

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Her judges are evening wolves. They gnaw not the bones till the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons.

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Her priests have polluted the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law. The just Lord is in the midst thereof.

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He will not do iniquity. Every morning doth he bring his judgment to light. He faileth not. But the unjust knoweth no shame.

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I have cut off the nations. Their towers are desolate. I made their streets waste that none passeth by.

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Their cities are destroyed so that there is no man, that there is none inhabitant. I said surely thou wilt fear me, thou wilt receive instruction.

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So their dwelling should not be cut off howsoever I punish them. But they rose early and corrupted all their doings.

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Therefore, wait ye upon me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey.

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For my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms to pour upon them my indignation, even all my fierce anger.

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For all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the

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Lord to serve him with one consent. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering.

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In that day, thou shalt not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me.

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For then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain.

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I will also leave in the midst of thee an inflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the

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Lord. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies.

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Neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth, for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.

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Sing, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Be glad and rejoice with all the heart,

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O daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord hath taken away thy judgments. He hath cast out thine enemy, the king of Israel.

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Even the Lord is in the midst of thee. Thou shalt not see evil anymore.

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In that day, it shall be said to Jerusalem, fear thou not, and to Zion, let not thy hands be slack.

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The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save. He will rejoice over thee with joy.

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He will rest in his love. He will joy over thee with singing. I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly who are of thee to whom the reproach of it was a burden.

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Behold, at that time, I will undo all that afflict thee, and I will save her that halteth and gather her that was driven out.

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And I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.

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At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you, for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth.

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When I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord." So obviously, there are two abundantly clear shifts that take place.

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It begins with a pretty harsh rebuke and further, you know, descriptions of judgment that's coming, not only for Jerusalem, but also for the rest of the world.

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But then it ends with just this amazing climax of a return to the Lord. And all of the sudden, the same city that was under judgment at the beginning of this chapter finds itself with judgments no more.

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Now, there was another shift that took place around verse 8 where the prophet changes from talking about Jerusalem specifically to talking about the nations of the world once again.

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So that's kind of the flow of the chapter. It again starts with a focus on Jerusalem, it moves to the rest of the world in judgment, and then it ends with the restoration of Jerusalem.

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And if you guys recall, those of you who were here way back when we began this study, going back a couple of months at this point, in the introduction we talked about how the structure of the book is somewhat interesting.

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It has kind of an interesting pattern throughout where it began in the earliest verses of chapter 1 with judgment on the entire earth.

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It eventually moved into judgment on Judah in Jerusalem specifically in chapters 1 through the early verses of chapter 2.

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Then it talked about judgment on the surrounding nations, and that was a big part of last week's discussion as we read through chapter 2.

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Then it moves back to judgment on Jerusalem, and then again back to judgment on the whole earth.

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So it makes this... Zephaniah here, the prophet Zephaniah, actually kind of comes full circle, so to speak, in regard to where he began, and that's going to be a little bit of what we're going to be getting into in this chapter.

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So again, we're going to focus more primarily on the first seven verses here, the focus that's on Jerusalem, and we'll see how far into it we get for today.

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Of course, this is the third and final chapter of our study, and it's a marvelous chapter. It's prophetic in just about every way possible.

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We've discussed many times at this point the fact that we receive near prophecies in this very small book as well as far prophecies.

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So in this chapter alone, we have prophecy in the near sense regarding Jerusalem's judgment from the

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Babylonians, which again we've discussed previously, but it is revisited here, and that will be the majority of what we talk about today.

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It is prophetic in the far sense in regard to the final judgment on the whole earth, something that is yet to happen even in our future.

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But it's also prophetic in a very contemporary sense as well, just in regard to the patterns of cause and effect that we're going to be seeing just in these opening verses of the final chapter.

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What do I mean by that? We're going to see kind of, again, just this pattern of initial degradation that leads to essentially full -out apostasy, just to put it in those terms.

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And again, that cause and effect pattern is not so different than what we see around us today quite a bit in regard to the contemporary church around the world and some of the directions it's gone.

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So we're going to, I feel like, see a lot of contemporary parallels in some of what we see in these opening verses really throughout the chapter in a lot of what's happening around us today.

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The moral decay of a society and what that leads to is obviously a time -tested law of the fallen universe.

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It's something that's going to happen because of our innate depravity and just the pull that our flesh has in wanting to rebel against our

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Creator. It's just a fact of our fallen state. Of course, we have an answer for it.

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And in fact, we are given countless, and we're going to see this in this chapter today in some of our verses today, the

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Lord gives countless opportunities, for lack of a better term, for us to return to Him for His people of Jerusalem at this time historically, but also in present -day

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Christianity all around the world, His people have an open door to return to Him, to repent, to believe, and that has been a constant theme throughout the entirety of the

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Bible. Even in the differences in certain dispensations we may look at, God Himself doesn't change and what

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He wants is obedience, and we're going to see that here as well. But, it's just a fact, again, of our fallen state that we are going to have moral decay, and when we see moral decay in a society at large, it's going to lead to some things.

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It's going to lead to a rebellious and unrepentant society, and when that happens, that society inevitably will fall.

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Again, the key word there is unrepentant. So, yes, there are times where we saw, let's just use

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Israel as the example throughout the Old Testament, where we saw collective repentance, and when that happened, the

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Lord would remove His hand of wrath, and there would be blessings for a significant period of time in some cases.

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But we saw even more examples where they remained in an unrepentant state and judgment would come, and unfortunately, this is the state of Jerusalem at the time of Zephaniah prophesying here.

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They were a rebellious and unrepentant society. It's going to fall. That reality is no different to us in present day, you name it,

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United States, United Kingdom, any of the countries in Europe, any of the countries around the world.

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If they remain in an unrepentant, rebellious state, by rebellious, I'm talking about rebelling specifically against the ordinances, the commands given to us by God Himself.

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It's interesting because as believers sometimes, well, I want to word this carefully.

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We emphasize grace a lot as believers, and rightfully so. We were freed from the bondage of the law when we were placed in Christ.

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But what's interesting about it is in Galatians, Paul tells us that the law prior to that time was our schoolmaster.

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It's what kept us in check, just for putting it in the simplest terms as possible, until the time came where we were regenerated and the justification process began and our lives began to change.

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So think about that in the sense of a collective, like at scale, societal, well, a societal scale.

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Obviously, not every single individual at every moment is going to be regenerated by the

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Holy Spirit. There's a spiritual birthday that takes place. In some cases, that happens to people later on in life.

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And so it begs the question, is there a place for God's law in modern society?

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And the answer is absolutely yes, because it is meant to be the schoolmaster for those who are not yet there, for those who have not yet called upon the name of the

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Lord and whereby the justification process then begins. And so what do we have around us today?

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We have countries around us that degrade the law of God, that talk about it as some ancient, archaic, religious text at best.

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Of course, they can mock it in many ways as well. But it's just some archaic religious text.

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It's nothing to actually base the moral standards of society on, certainly not the laws that we pass and all of those types of things.

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And so what you end up with is a society that is rebellious, a society that is accepting and inclusive of things that are in direct opposition to God's word throughout the entirety of the

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Bible, not just his law, not just the holiness code found in Leviticus, but throughout all of the

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New Testament as well. You have rebellion, you have unrepentance, and that leads to a fall of that society at some point.

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It's inevitable. It's happened all throughout human history, and it's nothing that's going to change just because we find ourselves in modern times with modern comforts and things of that sort.

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And so that's where Jerusalem found itself in. It was a rebellious and unrepentant society. It did fall, and it was going to fall.

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And it was going to fall by its own doing, contra God's explicit warnings against those doings time and time again.

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We talk a lot about the long -suffering spirit of God. It's not like they didn't have plenty of opportunity.

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Every human being, because of that fall of nature I was talking about a second ago, we're not perfect, we're going to fall into sin, and it's not like we're going to get zapped at that moment in judgment because of it, because the

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Lord is a gracious and merciful God, and just as much so to,

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I believe, the whole world as He is with even His own kids, kind of a general grace kind of thing, because, and the reason

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I can say that, I believe confidently, is because what would be fair and what would be just because of His holiness is to snuff out the wickedness that we see around us.

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The absolute degradation of society around us. The fact that He can endure that, even in His holy state, because He is with us,

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He is present with us, His Spirit lives within us, His Spirit is present, Jesus is on His throne in heaven as we speak right now, ruling and reigning, and He knows what's happening, and He knows what's going on around His children, believers in His word, and He sees the persecution, and yet He's long -suffering still because He is a merciful and gracious God to all of mankind.

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Again, I believe there could be an argument made for kind of a general grace in that sense versus the effectual, salvific grace that believers receive when they call upon the name of the

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Lord, because that's the pinnacle of undeserved favor, salvation.

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And so, despite all the explicit warnings though that God gives time and time again, they continued.

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Jerusalem continued to be rebellious. They continued to be unrepentant. But the reason it's marvelous, the reason

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I mentioned a minute ago, this chapter is a marvelous chapter. The reason that's the case is because from the depravity of man comes a number of amazing things, and we saw it in that reading we did just a minute ago.

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First comes the promise of redemption, the promise of redemption from that fallen state.

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Then, after that promise comes hope. That's something that we can have ourselves as we sit here in this room, as we live our lives throughout the weeks that go by, and as we see the crazy things that are happening around us, we can rest in that hope of the promise that was given for that redemption.

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But finally, though, is the realization of that promise, and that is even spoken of here at the end of this final chapter of Zephaniah.

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We won't necessarily be able to dig into all the verses today, but it's there. These marvelous things that come even after the severity of rebuke and of judgment.

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At the beginning of the chapter. And despite all the judgment, again, that's talked about in this little book, because certainly it's not limited to the opening verses of chapter 3, it began with judgment.

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Judgment was all throughout chapters 1 and 2. It's a great theme. The day of the Lord is the theme of this book.

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Despite all that, though, that's how it ends. It ends with the future fulfillment of the remnant's complete redemption.

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That's what we need to remain in a state of joyfulness.

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It's what makes that state of joyfulness that Paul talks about in Philippians possible. How else could we remain joyful?

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Rejoice always in the Lord. And again, I say rejoice. How is that even possible with what's going on around us? Well, it's possible because of the promise of the complete redemption that we have.

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We get to experience some of that redemption now. But when

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I say the fullness of that redemption, I'm talking about the return of the Lord. I'm talking about the glorification of our bodies and getting to live with Him in eternal bliss as He rules and reigns forever and ever.

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That's what I'm referring to. And it's that hope that gets us through everything that goes on around us.

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Now, before coming full circle, just to get back to the immediate context we're going to be in today in the opening verses of chapter 3, before coming full circle and picking up basically where he started in regard to global judgment, the prophet

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Zephaniah once again turns his attention to God's chosen nation. Now, this time, though, he hones in even more minutely because what he's going to do is he's examining the city of David, not

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Judah as a whole, not Israel as a whole, but specifically Jerusalem. The place that had the temple, the place that had the priests,

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God's chosen spiritual leaders of the day, the place that had the scribes that were in charge of the transmission of God's Word, the copying of it and ensuring that it was preserved.

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You had all of these things in this city, and yet this is the city that was pinpointed for rebuke and for judgment at the beginning of this chapter.

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The condemnation of this city comes due to the fact that it had a light like no other city on earth at that time, and yet they were far from him even still, regardless of the fact that that was where the presence of the

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Lord Himself was for many decades, living within the temple, and yet they were far from Him.

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Now, I want you guys to consider that as a possible, possible, I don't want to ever, you know, read too much into things, but I do think that we can find application even in these minor prophets to our present -day situations, but consider that as a possible parallel to our own nation today.

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If there were any nation on planet that had a greater potential for such a great light, it would be us, and yet we are far from Him.

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And, of course, I feel like there have been times in our history where we did manifest a great light, perhaps beyond any other on the planet, much like Judah did, but specifically coming out of the city of Jerusalem, and yet they were far from Him.

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You know, where do we find ourselves today? I would say at large we find ourselves far from Him, and at large, collectively, we are due chastisement for that at some point.

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But again, the Lord is long -suffering, so we just have to be prayerful and continue to worship

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Him ourselves in the meantime. So, let's pick it up back at verse 1,

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Zephaniah chapter 3, and walk through a few of these verses together. It says, "...woe

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to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city."

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So, Zephaniah here, he's basically making just a general statement about Jerusalem's wickedness, but consider for a moment the fact that this wickedness that he is describing really doesn't sound that different at all from the very wickedness of the heathen nations, which is really a staggering thought if you think about it.

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The book of Habakkuk talks a lot about this as well. Listen to this and tell me again, what group of people does it sound like it's talking about here?

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It says, "...O Lord, how long shall I cry? And thou will not hear even cry out unto thee of violence, and that will not save.

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Why dost thou show me iniquity, and cause me to behold grievance? For spoiling and violence are before me, and there are that raise up strife and contention.

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Therefore the law is slack, and judgment doth never go forth. For the wicked doth compass about the righteous, therefore wrong judgment proceedeth."

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You would think Habakkuk here was talking about any other heathen nation that put just about everything above the

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Creator and certainly above His law, and yet he's talking about God's people in this context as well as in the context of our opening verse of Zephaniah chapter 3.

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Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, and he's talking about Jerusalem, the city of light, the city that was the dwelling place of the temple, which was supposed to be the dwelling place of God Himself.

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And then it finishes by saying the oppressing city. These descriptions in both of those passages, both that little

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Habakkuk, the opening verses of Habakkuk, as well as the first verse of Zephaniah chapter 3 here, they don't sound like God's people at all.

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And that is just another example of the spiritual state in which they found themselves here. The woe at the beginning of verse 1 there, it's a proclamation of an indictment of the city that God is charging them with, of course through His prophet

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Zephaniah. But what's interesting is we'll find as we move through these verses is this indictment is threefold.

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Number one, we find out in verse 2 that they are a very rebellious people. We discussed that reality just a second ago.

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But in verse 1 and verse 3, we also find out they were an oppressive people, which is a very odd charge against God's people because these are the

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Jews, these are the Israelites, the oppressed of the oppressed in times past, the ones that were delivered by the strong arm of the

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Lord from ultimate oppression under the hands of the

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Egyptians. And then, of course, they found themselves under the oppression of others throughout their history because of their sin.

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And here they are, ironically enough, oppressing people right before just a matter of maybe a decade, maybe a little bit more than a decade before the

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Babylonians were to come in and take them captive. And so there's a lot of irony there. And it's,

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I think, a big testament to God's justice because one of the things that they are...one

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of the means of their sin was the fact that they were an oppressive people.

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We learn that not only at the end of verse 1, but we'll see that again in verse 3 when we get to it. And then thirdly, as far as this kind of threefold indictment, if you want to look at it that way, is the fact that they were defiled.

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Now, this was a common theme in the book of Malachi as well, our previous study. They are defiled religiously, and we find that in verse 4.

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And we'll dig into that more when we get there. So this woe at the very beginning of the chapter, this is like, you guys have it coming.

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Get ready. And, of course, Zephaniah is about to just point for point start listing it out as to why

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Jerusalem is about to face what they will face. Now, before we move on to verse 2 here in just a second,

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I want you guys to consider the matter of pollution for a moment. Remember, it says, thou art filthy and polluted.

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I want to read you guys a quote from Brother Otis' verse -by -verse study of Zephaniah that he did back many years ago, about 21 years ago, based on our archive.

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This is a verbatim quote from Brother Otis' study of Zephaniah. He says, this matter of pollution, and he's commenting on verse 2, this matter of pollution is not something that's new today.

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We see it all around us. The news makes us aware of it. People are aware of it more than ever before.

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The pollution, and this is 2002. I'm so thankful all the time that my grandparents, that Brother Otis, that Miss B, aren't having to see the things that we're seeing today, the direction that our culture took.

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But in 2002, Brother Otis was saying people are aware of it more than ever. I continue the quote here, the pollution spoken here, he's talking about in verse 2, is not a physical pollution.

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It's a spiritual pollution. It's on the inside of man. The funny thing about pollution is we see the pollution.

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What does that tell us about the people? If the inside of man is polluted, it'll show up on the outside every time.

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It was showing up on the outside of Jerusalem, so it was polluted man on the inside.

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Of course, what he's saying is if it's in fact a spiritual pollution, isn't it odd that we can visually see the results of that pollution within people, the spiritual pollution that's happening within?

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And his point is the reason we can see it is because when that happens, especially over time, more and more as time progresses, that spiritual pollution will manifest itself and begin to degrade the outward person.

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And we see it. And so when we see that the collective city of Jerusalem here is polluted,

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Brother Otis' point was it began first with that inward spiritual pollution of the men within the city.

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Verse 2 says, The repetition here in the way that Zephaniah phrased all of this, of course, is pretty emphatic.

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Again, if there was any proof that we needed for the poor spiritual state that God's people found themselves in at this time, this could be it, just this standalone verse.

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They had utterly failed in every sense of the term. But notably here in verse 2, they had failed to heed any of the correction

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God had given them by God Himself. Any correction that came directly from Him, they totally failed to heed the warnings, to heed the correction.

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Now that correction, it could come in a number of ways. It could come in the form of the law of Moses. They certainly had that.

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It could come in the form of the very prophets that are speaking to them in real time, as well as the prophets that came before.

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It could come, correction could come by means of a godly king that God gave them.

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In our introduction, Daniel, we actually started by going to 2

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Kings 23 and looking at Josiah's revival, the reformation that King Josiah initiated as king.

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Of course, he did an enormous amount of great things as king, breaking down the groves, stopping the sodomy that was taking place around God's temple.

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We went into a lot of detail. The passage is very explicit as to everything that he did, and yet this whole prophecy of Zephaniah was written after that revival took place.

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What that tells us is that as good of a job as Josiah could have done, the people were that spiritually defiled at this time that it made no difference.

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And so God could bring them a godly king like Josiah to correct them, and they didn't heed the correction.

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So they had the law, they had the prophets, including the very prophet Zephaniah here speaking to them, the word of God.

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They had a godly king in Josiah who was still reigning, by the way, in the context of what we're reading.

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They had a three -pronged approach, if you will, from God saying, this is how you need to be living.

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Return to me, obey my voice, lest I come and judge you. And they didn't heed any of the warnings. And so therefore, and it says here in verse 2, it says, she received not correction.

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So they weren't having it. They weren't going to heed any of the correction coming from God.

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And because of that, the rebellion was a failure to trust in the Lord and to be near him in fellowship and worship.

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So look at the domino effect here. They didn't obey, so he sends correction. They didn't heed the correction, so then what happens?

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They didn't trust in the Lord, and then they didn't draw near him. There was zero relationship. It's a devastating, devastating domino effect.

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And yet, I might ask one more time, can you sense any parallels in the modern day church?

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When I say church, I'm talking in the most broad sense. Anyone that proclaims to be a follower of Jesus. Now, I know

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Jesus himself tells us there will be many saying, Lord, Lord, did I not do this in your name?

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Did I not do that? And his response will be, I never knew you, you worker of iniquity. However, that's not our prerogative.

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We, as followers of Jesus, are supposed to be discipling anyone and everyone that comes to us proclaiming to be a follower of him.

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Okay, great. Let's dig into the word, and let's start growing together. Can there be wolves in cheap clothing?

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Yes. Can there be false professions of faith? Yes. But Jesus knows hearts, and we don't. And so we have to, when we have people around us that are professing to be

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Christians, professing the name of the Lord, we need to do what we can to share certain things with them so that they start living like that, so that they actually have a good testimony and don't defile the name of the

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Lord and living just as badly as anyone else, or even defiling the testimony of their local body if they're even going to church.

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Again, there are so many parallels in the church broadly today in what the people of God were experiencing, the chosen nation of God were experiencing at this time.

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They weren't heeding his correction. It led to rebellion. It led to a failure of trust.

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It led to no fellowship, no worship. Verse 3 says, "...her princes within her are roaring lions.

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Her judges are evening wolves. They gnaw not the bones till the morrow. Her prophets are light and treacherous persons.

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Her priests have polluted the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law."

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Really, really crazy stuff here. What's happening now is

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God is now indicating that the spiritual leaders—well, not just the spiritual leaders, as we'll see a little bit later—even the civil leaders within Jerusalem, he's indicating that they are held to a higher standard.

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And I mean, I guess that goes without saying, but he makes it abundantly clear time and time again. Here, God begins to indict the leaders within Jerusalem.

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And, of course, that being the religious leaders, which begin in verses 4.

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We'll see that continued in verse 5 in just a second. But as well as the civil leaders as well. And we'll see that fleshed out even more in later verses of this chapter.

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But what's interesting here, so verses 3 and 4, these leaders are compared to essentially untamed wild beasts.

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And these are supposed to be the people leading the city of God, the city of David. They were like roaring lions.

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They were like insatiable wolves who completely devoured their evening prey by morning. A parallel passage here that we're running low on time, but I feel like it's worth taking a look at.

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If you turn to Micah, let's see here,

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I believe that is right after Jonah. So go back a little bit from Zephaniah. Go to the book of Micah chapter 3 and listen to just the opening verses here and tell me if you see some similarities to the analogy that's being used in our

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Zephaniah passage. It says, And I said, Here I pray you, O heads of Jacob and ye princes of the house of Israel.

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The heads of Jacob, that would be the religious leaders. The princes of Israel would be the civil leaders.

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Is it not for you to know judgment, who hate the good and love the evil?

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Again, these are the very leaders of the city from which God is supposed to be dwelling within his temple, who pluck off their skin from off of them and their flesh from off their bones, who also eat the flesh of my people, inflate their skin from off them, and they break their bones and chop them in pieces as for the pot and as flesh within the cauldron.

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The imagery that we're given here in both of these prophets is just the fact that these leaders in every sense of the term are putting themselves above everyone else to the point where, figuratively speaking, they are chopping his people to pieces.

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They're flaying the skin off their bones. They are putting them in the cauldron and doing anything and everything that is needed in order to fill their own stomachs, in order to fill their own money bags or whatever, and for their own personal gain.

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And when we see in Zephaniah, when it says, they are roaring lions, they are like evening wolves, they gnaw not the bones till the morrow.

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This is kind of the same imagery we're getting in Zephaniah as was received in Micah as well, although I'll say that Micah passage was pretty explicit there.

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Again, Judah's leaders, they were robbing the people in order to satisfy their own lust for both power and money.

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If you go down a little bit further in that same Micah chapter, I hope you all are still there. If not, you can flip back if you'd like, but just get down a little bit further in chapter 3 of Micah and pick it up at verse 9 and it continues this theme of talking about the state of these leaders, these so -called leaders.

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Verse 9 says, hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob and princes of the house of Israel, got your religious leaders, you got your civil leaders, that abhor judgment and pervert all equity.

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So parallel that with our quote unquote religious leaders today, and boy, we could name a few great examples that would fit this framework, as well as our civil leaders, which are a joke at large.

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Even those that, again, proclaim to be followers of Jesus, but even when it comes to their legislation, it's so funny because they will proclaim the name of Jesus, I believe, in many cases for the sake of their constituency, and yet even their legislation record will not be anything like what their constituents would want, vote for when it comes to morality in many cases.

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Abortion is one example. A lot of the things that are being taught in public school systems and a lot of things that come back to just general morality, again, it's a great parallel,

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I believe. They pervert all equity. They abhor judgment. Verse 10 says, they build up Zion with blood and Jerusalem with iniquity.

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The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money.

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So that's all they cared about was their own personal gain in power and in money. Yet, will they lean upon the

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Lord and say, is not the Lord among us? None evil can come upon us.

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They're hypocrites. It's just like, again, it's the modern day parallel. You know, we're fine, we're serving the

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Lord. Is the Lord not among us? They'll get some great pep rallies going. General Michael Flynn, whatever his name is, is a great example of this.

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Listen to some of his talks, some of his pep rallies using the word of the Lord to get people going, and yet the thing he was going for was basically earthly gain.

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I'm having a trouble time articulating exactly how I would want to describe it. Essentially, the progression of their motives, the progression of what they want to accomplish, they will preach the necessity of it.

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They will use the word of God to kind of get that pep rally going, to kind of put some emotion into it, to put some oomph, because they know that there is power in the word, and yet their end game is not, at least what

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I would deem, and maybe this is subjective, maybe this is personal opinion, what I would deem to be biblical goals that a nation should have.

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And if you want to know what I'm talking about, just go YouTube some of his speeches, and I think you'll see what

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I'm seeing. He is what I would consider the worst form of a Christian nationalist, if you even want to call it that.

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It's interesting stuff, and yet I feel like I see a parallel right here. They say, despite the fact that the

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Lord knows their hearts, and it's all about the money, it's all about the power, they say, is the Lord not among us? They say, is the

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Lord not among us? None evil can come upon us. Verse 12 says, therefore shall Zion, for your sake, be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps in the mountain of the house of the high places of the forest.

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It doesn't go unnoticed by the Lord, and the repercussions will eventually manifest themselves, no doubt.

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Let me find my way back over to Zephaniah here. Okay, now, we read a little bit talking about the civil leaders of Judah there in Jerusalem, but the religious leaders were equally as implacable, because what they were doing is they were actually willing to twist

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God's word, the law at that time, in the name of religion in order to fill their own money bags.

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So it wasn't just the civil leaders, and oftentimes we equate improper motives, maybe using the

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Lord and the word of God as a way to satisfy constituents to get whatever political gain they're after.

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We attribute that to political leaders often, and yet, perhaps even equally so, we could attribute that to many so -called religious or spiritual leaders around the country, around the world.

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That was certainly the case at the time of Zephaniah. Again, the Lord knows their hearts.

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I'm not saying that we need to go around accusing any pastor that we see that they may be involved with that.

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Far from it. But we can assume based on human nature and based on the way that just the test of time that that is happening probably at a large scale around the world, and it's a little bit of a frightening thing when you think about it.

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And, of course, we see the results of it right here in Zephaniah, but I would say the results wouldn't be that different today given it's the exact same thing.

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They were twisting the word of God in order for their own personal gain. In addition to that, though, we already know that the priests were also profaning the sanctuary of God, as it said in verse 4, by their idolatry, by their astrology.

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These are some things we learned and picked up from in chapter 1 of Zephaniah. They were into all kinds of weird false religions, idolatry, astrology, agnosticism, you name it.

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And they were, of course, offering blemished animal sacrifices as well, which was also the case at the time of Malachi.

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Again, we did Malachi right before this study, and Malachi is later down the road from the times

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Zephaniah was written. So some time passes, and yet by the time you get to Malachi, you still have the priests profaning the temple, profaning the sanctuary, offering blemished sacrifices.

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So they did not heed the warnings. They did not heed the correction. Verse 5, we'll wrap it up pretty soon here.

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Verse 5 says, we're back in Zephaniah chapter 3, the just Lord is in the midst thereof.

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The just Lord is in the midst thereof. You could also say the righteous Lord is in the midst thereof.

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He will not do iniquity. Every morning doth he bring judgment to light. He faileth not.

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But the unjust or the unrighteous knoweth no shame. So he's going to bring justice to light.

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He doesn't fail in doing that. He's not going to fail in his own righteousness. And yet the unjust remain in a state of having no shame because of the

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Lord's righteousness here, which, of course, is in stark contrast with the aforementioned civil leaders and religious leaders that we just talked about.

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He, on the other hand, would uphold the oppressed and he would punish the wicked.

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The nation that he's dealing with here, on the other hand, the city specifically, the city of Jerusalem, on the other hand, showed its level of total debauchery by the fact that they had no conscience toward their wrongdoings at all.

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They had no shame whatsoever. Man, we saw a great example just this last week of a quote -unquote pastor out of Alabama.

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Y 'all may have heard about it on the news that was caught in every kind of egregious, gross, sexual sin that you can imagine, living a totally different...

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His public life and his private life could not have been further from each other.

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He had a family. He had a wife. He had three kids. He was the pastor of the largest Baptist church in this particular city in Alabama.

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He was the mayor of the city. It was a nice conservative city that was growing and conservative families and all this stuff.

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And he was caught in, again, just terrible, terrible sin.

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And he got up to the pulpit the following Sunday after all this came to light, which it was like the next day or something.

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And he said, I apologize for any embarrassment you may be experiencing, but I am not ashamed.

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And he said, this will not change the way I serve my church. This will not change the way I serve my family or my community.

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And my family is still my number one above all priority, above all else, which to me is a red flag right off the bat.

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He committed suicide two days later. So obviously he was lying when he said that he put his family above all else.

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No shame. That is what happens. That is what no shame looks like and what it leads to.

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And it doesn't change. It doesn't matter if you're talking about ancient Jerusalem and the religious leaders therein or modern day

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United States, Southern Baptist, whatever, any Methodist, Presbyterian, independent

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Baptist. I don't care what the denomination is. If you are living a life of debauchery, but, you know, want to do it in some weird quasi in the name of Jesus kind of way, like so many do, you get to a point where you have no shame of your sin at all.

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And that opens up the door for acute spiritual warfare to the point where you can be led to commit suicide even when you have kids and you have a wife and you have people that rely on you.

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It's devastating. We need to be praying for his family, by the way, as devastating as that was. And you know what?

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If he had a true saving faith in the Lord, which just based on fruit,

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I'm not sure if it was there. And let me, this is what I'm getting at. If he had that, he would have known that he could have been forgiven even for the things that were described in the reports that came out.

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He was unrepentant. He was unwilling to repent to the point of saying, I am not ashamed at the pulpit in front of his congregation that knew of all the details at that point because it had all been released.

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He knew no shame. He was unrepentant. He was rebellious. Had he known the

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Lord, and of course, if he had, if the spirits, the evil spirits at work that took his life by his own hand, had that not happened, perhaps there could have been some around him to bring the true gospel to him and to let him know that he could have been forgiven.

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Even from that, perhaps he wouldn't have been a qualified minister ever again because the apostle

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Paul lays out some pretty strict guidelines there, but it could have been forgiven. It's not like that he was, that he couldn't have repented is what

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I'm getting at there. But he knew no shame. And the whole point in bringing that into it is that there is a great dark power in getting to that state of not having shame.

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And that's where, that was the state of the people living in Jerusalem at this time.

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The Hebrew word for unjust in verse five is really strong. It's of all, and it just means the perverse one.

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So it's talking about perverse people, total evil within their hearts, totally morally wicked and unrighteous.

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I am right at the finish line here with one minute over, but I just now see people coming in.

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So let's finish these last two verses of this section. By the way, the seven verses were within a kind of the third and natural section of this whole book.

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I didn't even mention that at the top. The moral crisis of Jerusalem is what I called this particular section of verses.

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And I think we can finish it today. In verse six, it says, I have cut off the nations, their towers are desolate.

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I made their streets waste that none passeth by their cities are destroyed so that there is no man that there is none inhabitant.

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I said, listen to this for a second. The point we made just a minute ago, the Lord always provides a way.

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Listen to verse seven. I said, surely that will fear me that will receive instruction.

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So their dwellings should not be cut off. Howsoever, I punish them. But what's the result? But they rose early and corrupted all their doings.

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The culmination of the imminent judgment of Jerusalem here is basically in verse six,

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God's rehearsal of everything he's done throughout history to the foreign nations. He's saying, I'm going to do the same thing to you.

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I have cut off all the nations. And then he goes in to describe exactly how he's done that. He's saying this is coming for you.

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Oh, Jerusalem as well. But then he explains in verse seven that the reason for his destroying the heathen nations will be for the same reason he destroys

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Jerusalem. They corrupted all their doings. But there is an interesting conjunction there prior to that sentence, because you see in seven, it starts by saying,

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I said, surely that will fear me that will receive instruction. So their dwelling should not be cut off.

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However, I punish them. What comes right after that? It's the word but. You see,

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God was there. He gave them a way out. He was all as he always does.

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I mean, this is a continual theme throughout the entirety of the Bible. He is totally long suffering, as we talked about previously.

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And yet, how does the verse end? They rose early and corrupted all they're doing.

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So instead of responding to the Lord's never ending mercies in that long suffering spirit, the people of Judah consciously and intentionally repudiated their

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God and were even eager to continue in their corrupt ways. As we gather from the phrase, they rose early.

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They were eager to jump into the corruption that they had. Now, in chapter one, verse 12, we see a complacent people.

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It says, and it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with candles and punish the men that are settled on their lease that say in their heart, the

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Lord will not do good nor evil. We read that or cover that in detail in chapter one, of course. So you have a complacent people.

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But then you get to chapter three in the first verse, and we see a rebellious people that were oppressing the city.

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Fast forward to our final verse here in this section, chapter three, verse seven, and you have an enthusiasm for corruption.

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It began with complacency. It eventually progressed to rebellion, and it finished with an enthusiasm for corruption beyond every ordinance, every law, every statute put forth by the very creator of the universe.

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That is human history defined at scale. And God has an answer for it.

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And of course, the answer for that is going to be what we cover in our next session or section, rather, which we'll get into next week.

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It begins in verse eight. So with as heavy as all that was, and Daniel, I do apologize that unfortunately, we don't have time to get to the like really good stuff, the redemption that is discussed at the end of this chapter, because, you know, it obviously that is that is a marvelous aspect of it.

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You can't skip what we just read because these warnings are just as applicable to us today as they were to the very people of Jerusalem at the time of Zephaniah.

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Again, there is redemption. There is a promise for redemption. There is the hope for redemption. There's the eventual fulfillment and realization of that redemption, which is at the end of the book.

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Maybe we'll get to that next week. But before that, we see the severe, the severity behind the complacency, the rebellion, the enthusiasm for corruption.

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And like I said, in our next session, we'll see what God's answer to those things is and how he deals with it.

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So I really apologize. We went over time. I didn't really leave a lot of time for discussion or anything like that.

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I will need to go ahead and dismiss just for the sake of time. But I appreciate you guys for joining us this morning. And Noah, would you mind dismissing us in prayer this morning?