Zephaniah 1

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How's it going? This is Truth and Love Ministries, Truth and Love Network. Thank you for joining Dan and I.

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However you want to communicate with us, we would love to communicate with you. So we are going to continue in the

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Old Testament. We're going to look at the book of Zephaniah, Zephaniah chapter one.

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So in relationship to Daniel, I should have looked this up, but it's a thought that crossed my mind.

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We just finished the book of Daniel. So Dan, in relation to Daniel, where is

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Zephaniah? Zephaniah comes before Daniel. Zephaniah comes before Daniel. Yeah.

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Yeah. If you look at the first verse, it kind of tells you that the word of the

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Lord came to Zephaniah, son of Cushing, son of Gadalia, son of Amoriah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah.

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Josiah reigned somewhere around 642 BC, which would be after Israel had gone off, taken off by the

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Assyrians, but before the Babylonian exile. So you're sitting kind of in the middle of that, more towards the

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Babylonian exile, but not quite there yet. Right. And that makes sense because when we were in Daniel, we were looking at, right before he talked about the 70 weeks, he told us, he was informing his folks that this 70 year exile that you were told about, it's coming to an end.

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And that was the 70 year exile in Babylon. So Daniel was in that exile in Babylon, getting ready to complete it.

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And Zephaniah, they haven't made it there yet. Right.

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So that gives us kind of a timeline of where we are. Yeah. In fact, Zephaniah, can't really tell exactly where in Josiah's reign this was, but he's roughly about the time that Jeremiah gave that prophecy of 70 years.

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Probably not exact, but they would have been alive at the same time. Right. Put it that way.

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So Jeremiah was a contemporary of Zephaniah. I think there was a couple others maybe that were contemporary prophets.

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I'm sure there was. Okay. You've got Isaiah. He was around the same time, maybe a little bit earlier.

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And they compare Zephaniah and Isaiah to some of the commentators because of the kind of apocalyptic language or similar language that they use.

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Yeah. Well, him, Joel, even Joel has some of the same language. A lot of that has to do with the way that Hebrew poetry works.

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It's not necessarily because of the prophecies, but I mean, some of it is. Right. Yeah.

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Well, that's cool. So he's in the time of King Josiah, and we can just start working through the verse.

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What was I going to say? Oh, where he's located. He's in the

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Southern Kingdom, which is, of course, Judah. Right. Judah and Northern Kingdom is

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Israel. So Zephaniah is in the Southern Kingdom in Judah. Right. The Northern Kingdom at that point wasn't really there anymore.

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I mean, some of the folks were, but most of the, a lot, a good portion of the, excuse me, 10

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Northern tribes had been taken off to Assyria at that point. They were off in, was that Nineveh or close by?

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Right. Gotcha. So I was jotting down some notes, and I think as we walk through chapter one,

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I saw three questions that I think we can answer that I think we're going to try to answer as we look through chapter one, the who, when and what.

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What he's talking about is what we'll discover as, I think, as we walk through the chapter verse by verse, but the who, we want to answer the who, who is he talking to, which is very important.

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And I think we're going to get to it very quickly, the who, but then we also want to answer the question when.

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Yeah, verse two. But we want to answer the question when. When are these things that he's talking about going to happen?

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And there's a wide variety of interpretations on that. And I think whenever we get to the part where he talks about the day of the

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Lord, is that a good time to talk about the when? It is. Okay.

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Okay. Well, I'm going to pull up the verse here, or the verses, and we'll just look at, we'll look at verse one.

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Where's my cursor? There we go. All right.

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Verse one, you've already read. The word of the Lord, which came to Zephaniah, son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, and son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, son of Ammon, king of Judah.

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From some of the things that I've read, they want to, they want to throw

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Cushi as maybe an African Egyptian person?

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Well, it could be because the land of Cush was

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Ethiopia, basically. But you don't have to.

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Right. It's not that big a deal. But what is pretty cool is that, from my understanding, it was pretty consistent with what

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I was reading, that being a son of Hezekiah, which is

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Zephaniah's great, great grandfather, maybe, was a king in Israel, or a king of Judah.

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Yeah, sure. And so that would make Josiah and Zephaniah cousins.

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Well, at least somehow related. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was pretty cool. And I guess that would give, maybe gives him some clout coming from royalty, maybe.

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Perhaps. There's, folks will try to read into these lists of names a lot of things.

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I've heard them say, okay, because you have Zephaniah there, then obviously it's a list of prophets that comes behind him.

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So all of these must have had the prophetic gift, they just didn't get written down. But that's not necessarily true.

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There's nothing there to say that it's true. It's just conjecture. So I think it's important, this section is important to pinpoint the time period, even to see why would a king listen to Zephaniah?

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Well, number one, the Lord sent him, that's why he should listen to him. But it's easier when it's a cousin or something.

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Aaron was a half -brother or a cousin or something of Moses. So it was easier, it's like, well,

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I'm going to give you Aaron to speak for you. He's like, oh, okay, I know that guy, that guy will be all right. Yeah.

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All right, verse two. And here's where you were talking about, we can get to the who.

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And that brings forth some controversy too, just based on how you read the text and how well you read the text,

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I think we can say, or I could say. I will completely remove all things from the face of the earth, declares the

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Lord. Now this is the New American Standard Bible, 1995, and it uses the word earth. And I don't know if you're watching this, if you can see this,

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I've put this cursor over the note there, and it says literally ground.

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And I think that's similar to what your version that you have in front of you reads. I have the New King James in front of me.

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I don't know why I don't generally use this one, but it was what was here. It says,

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I will utterly consume everything from the face of the land. The land. And you were telling me that the

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Hebrew word actually literally means earth, ground. Yeah, well, it's the word

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Adama, which anybody who's seen Battlestar Galactica now knows where Admiral Adama got his name.

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They were trying to make connections between the origins of humanity and spaceships and stuff.

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That's neither here nor there. I'll geek out on my own time. The word there,

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Adama, is the same word God formed Adam from the dust of the ground, from the

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Adama. He breathed into him the breath of life. So it's dirt, it's ground, it's land.

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There's another Hebrew word, eretz, which has to do with land as well. And they overlap in their meaning a good bit.

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So you don't necessarily have to put it down as earth. Land works great the face of the dirt.

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If you think of people walking on the dirt, I think it doesn't really matter too much which word you use if you take into consideration the context from the rest of the chapter.

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Because it says earth here in verse two, it says earth down in verse three at the end of verse three, where he says, again,

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I will cut off from the face of the earth, cut off men from the face of the earth, declares the

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Lord. And then there's that transition word. So I'm going to do this.

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I'm going to remove this. I'm going to remove that. I'm going to tear this up. This is going down. This is destruction. So in other words, he's explaining what he's about to do.

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I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the heavens of Jerusalem.

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So he's kind of, he's narrowing it down. It's not all dirt. It's not all land.

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It's not everywhere that has grass or rocks or sand, wherever you live, clay, red clay down there in North Carolina.

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It's not just anywhere that has some sort of something to walk on. It is, here is a land.

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Here is a piece of dirt. Here is a place where these people live and wherever they tread their feet, wherever they walk, wherever it's called theirs, where they call home.

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That's where I'm going to remove man and beast. That's where I'm going to remove the birds of the sky. It's going to be a desolation.

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He's talking like end of the world type stuff just to show how incredibly intense and serious he is about this judgment that's going to come.

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Right. So, and people want to interpret it as the entire earth and, you know, dirt does, you know, cover the whole earth.

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I mean, you find dirt everywhere. So it could mean that, but like you were saying, we want to look and read the context and understand the context.

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Okay. First, well, and that, that tells us the who, that begins to help us understand the who, who is

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Zephaniah talking to. And you have, you know, one side, the who could be everybody on the entire globe.

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The who could be people thousands and thousands of years from the time of Zephaniah.

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People want to pull from first Peter. People want to pull from revelation and say, those people, whoever those books are talking about in the future, that's who

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Zephaniah is talking about. So we've got a wide range of interpretations of who, and then some people say that Zephaniah is speaking to a both and, the people there at that time and a far off people.

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Yeah. Some people say a lot of stuff. All right. Verse three,

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I will remove man and beast. I will remove the birds of the sky, the fish of the sea and the ruins along the with, and the ruins along with the wicked.

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I will cut off man from the face of the earth declares the Lord. So I will stretch out my hand verse four against Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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And I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place and the names of the idolatrous priest along with the priest.

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Yeah. I think it's important to back up to even verse two, verse two, verse three.

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It's in verse four. Uh, not seeing it in verse five, but, uh, the word I, the word

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I is saying, you know, who's going to do this. So what, what Zephaniah is saying is Zephaniah is not speaking his own words.

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He's quoting God. Yahweh has told him this to tell to them. So the who, you know, at least from the speaker point of view is going to be

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God. This is Yahweh. And if you look down there where it says Lord in all caps in verse three, that's a way in the

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English Bible of saying that the word that undergirds, um, Lord in the Hebrew is the word

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Yahweh. It's the word for, for the name of God. It's the, it's the tetragrammaton, the Yod Hay Vav Hay.

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Um, and don't hate on me for the way I say my letters. That's how I learned from my professor.

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I know some folks say it different, but that's the way I'm going to say it. Um, so it's, it's him talking, uh, to, to the people there.

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So, uh, it's specifically in verse four, the people who need to listen and heed the warning is, uh,

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Judah and the people who live in Jerusalem. Now, I think that's, and I forget which one it's called.

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Uh, there's, there's two of them. One of them is you say something small to indicate something bigger.

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Uh, like, um, you would say he blew the doors off of that car. Well, did he blow the doors off of that car?

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Did he beat the entire car? No, he, he won the race. What you're trying to say. Uh, so here where it says the inhabitants of Jerusalem, is it just the people within the walls of Jerusalem?

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I don't think so. I think he's saying the Capitol to encompass the whole nation.

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That's why he says against Judah, against the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And then he goes even further.

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Um, it's not just those people. Here's why he's ticked off. And I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place.

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Why? Because the place is receiving judgment because the place has taken

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Baal worship to itself. It's polluted itself with Baal worship and the names of the idolatrous priests along with the priests.

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So not just Baal is going to get wiped out, but the people who brought Baal in, those folks are in trouble too.

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They need to watch their back. I mean, they really don't need to watch your back. They need to repent. You can't watch your back when, when, when

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God knows and sees all things, he's going to accomplish what he sets out to do. I think it was great that you pointed out the fact that Zephaniah is telling us who's doing these things.

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Yep. And we need to, we need to be aware of that when we're reading all the scripture. Um, because, and we're going to get to that when we do another one of our pastors panel, uh, podcast.

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Um, then the next one, I think it's going to be on the sovereignty of God and to understand what sovereignty means, uh, biblically, you know, we begin to look at all these places, um, and we see that God is in control.

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Um, and, and God does not just, not just in the broad sense of being in control, but God is,

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God is doing these things. He's doing these things here, bringing, bringing forth wrath, bringing forth judgment, and he brings forth salvation and redemption.

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So he's, he's doing all these things and, and he's, um, using things to perform his, his means and get to a certain goal.

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Like we're going to see here, he uses, um, armies to, to bring forth judgment.

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And he, he does that other places. He does that in, um, in eschatology, when we're looking at the destruction of, you know,

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Jerusalem again in 70 AD, kind of a repeat. He uses armies then when you see armies or Jerusalem or Judea surrounded by armies, um, flee, flee to the mountains.

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So, uh, yeah, I think it's so important. And, um, well, while you say that,

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I think it's kind of important since, uh, people who have been listening to us for any length of time will know that, uh, we, we do come from a perspective where we, a lot of the prophecies that we've dealt with, um, we have pointed to 70

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AD and the destruction of Jerusalem as their fulfillment. Um, so what do we do when we come to this passage?

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Um, I think it's, I think it's important that we point out that you can't just, I mean, as much as bad as we'd like to bolster our case, we'd like to throw everything at 70

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AD, but I don't think we can here, uh, because just because of the time period in which, in which it's, uh, it's put, you know, it's before the exile.

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He's talking about exiling a certain people for their, for certain sins. Um, in fact, this prophecy of Zephaniah can, can be, can be said to be somewhat, um, effective, uh, you know, in, in, uh, when was it?

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Uh, uh, I want to say 624. I could be wrong on that.

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Uh, there was a time of reformation, um, among Judah where they, they found, um, scrolls and they were reading and they're trying to get, trying to get stuff, right.

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Um, but, but ultimately, um, the, the warning was that they were, they were going to have be cut off, uh, for a period of time because of their sins.

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And the, and they were, uh, we don't need to look into the future and say, well, this couldn't have of this, this didn't mean the exile in, you know, 605 or 597 or 586, you know, whichever wave you want to look at as being the exile.

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Um, we, we don't need to, to go any further than that because that is what the context of the time period of when this was written, the things that it's speaking about, you know, which will bend present problems in the day of Josiah, the

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King and Zephaniah, the prophet. Uh, when you see the judgment that comes on them, the judgment that comes on them, we don't need to push it off into the future.

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It took place when the nation of Judah went off into exile. Yeah. I think that's an excellent distinction and an excellent point that, that we should make for, for ourselves and people who, who come across those and watch us, uh, because they're, like we said, there's people who want to take these passages and put it off into a tribulation and eschatology that happens, you know, way into the future.

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And then you have folks who, who may be partial predators like us, who want to, you know, let, put this onto the, the 78, 70

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AD era. But we, what we want to, um, influence you to do is, well, this is who we are.

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And I, and I think, I think Dan would agree with this. And I think it's, you know, basically what he was, was, was saying too, is that we, you know, our main, main objective, our main purpose is to glorify

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God and enjoy Him forever. And to glorify God, we got to interpret

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His word correctly, according to how He wrote it, how He wants us to understand it. And so when you come across a book like this, uh, passages like this, uh, just because we, we've been harping on, um, eschatology for a while, and, and we hold to a certain aspect of that eschatology, certain interpretation, like Dan said, we can't, we can't put our views or, or what we want it to say into a text.

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We have to read the Bible for what it says and let us tell it what it says. Let it tell us what it says and go with that.

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Yeah. Proper Bible interpretation is more important than what group or, or camp you can put yourself in.

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If I end up ticking off everybody in the RPCNA because I look at the Bible and interpret it correctly, then

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I'm just going to have to have a whole bunch of covenanters mad at me. No, I'll have my elders come to me and talk it out.

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We'll, we'll talk it out, but I'm going to go to the Bible, uh, with, uh, I'm going to go to the Bible with them and we're going to look at that.

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And we're going to look at it consistently, as consistently as we can, and we're going to interpret it fairly.

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That's what's most important. It's, I mean, if we have to stop calling ourselves this or that, who cares?

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Let's, let's be accurate and treat God's word right. Let's handle the word of God with some reverence and respect and do the best we can with it.

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You know, ask questions all you want and trust what the Lord says. I think the result of that type of attitude, um, and I hope it's, it's taken place in me as a humble spirit, because you can have a prideful spirit, an arrogant spirit.

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Um, if you're one who holds to a certain theology doctrine so tightly that you, you want to push it into every verse and everybody else is wrong, or you can, you can be someone who, who wants the

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Bible to speak for what it says and not try to, because we don't want to be guilty of what we accuse other people of doing, putting their doctrines or what they think is correct into passages when it's just not there.

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We don't want to be guilty of that. So we want to, we want to let the Bible speak for itself. And that's truly a humbling position to be in.

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Um, but it was a good point that you uh, brought out that this is, uh,

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Zephaniah speaking for God, uh, speaking on behalf of God and he's telling us that God is doing these things.

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But, uh, what you were telling us is that Zephaniah is writing in a poetic style and it's good to understand, uh, what you're, what you're teaching us, um, some of the poetic, um, styles of, of the

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Jews, which... To, to illustrate that, uh, if you just want to look at verse four real quick,

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I can actually show you, it's fairly straightforward right there. You have sort of a, an

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A -B type of thing in, uh, in Hebrew poetry.

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Some people call it parallelism or, um, it's sort of the

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Hebrew poetic style. So what you have is you have them say something, we'll call that A, and then they say something else, we'll call that B.

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Now there's a relationship between the two and people have argued about, you know, how do we say this? How do we go about, is it comparison?

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Is it contrast? Is it, you know, adding to it? And the answer is yes, it could be all of those.

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Um, so what you do is you, you look at it and my Hebrew professor put it this way. He says, probably the best way to think about it is

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A and what's more B. No, what's more just means this is a comparison or what's more in contrast

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B or what's more, here's more. So what you have here, you have them pinpointing the place where this judgment's going to take place.

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I will stretch out my hand against Judah. Okay. A, he's going to stretch out against Jerusalem.

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What's more in comparison, what's further going to, he's going to say the same thing again in a different way and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

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Cool. He said it once, he said it again. And so then he's going to move on to another thought and I will cut off remnant of Baal from this place.

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So what's the next thought? I'm going to cut off the remnants of Baal. What's more, the idolatrous priests are going with them and the names of the idolatrous priests along with the priest, gone.

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So there you see, there's two thoughts with four lines. You've got him saying something, repeating it with a little either comparison, contrast or further explanation.

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He moves on and says the same thing again. Now look in verse five.

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This is really cool because you see the same pattern go again. And those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven.

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Where? Those who bow down on housetops. They're also going to have their arms stretched out against them.

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And what? And those who bow down and swear to the Lord, yet swear by, uh,

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Malcolm. So you're going to, so you have furthermore going on further down.

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Um, he's going to take out Judah. Oh no, back up. My bad.

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Uh, verse five, four, four, I need four and five on the screen. There we go. Uh, he's stretching out his hand against Judah, stretching out his hand against Jerusalem.

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He's stretching out his hand against those who bow down on the housetops. Go down to the second, the second thought, and he will cut off the remnant of Baal.

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He will cut off the idolatrous priests with them. And not only that, but all those who worship a false

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God, in this case, Malcolm. That's kind of an example. Now, sometimes you can actually follow this all the way through a poetic section.

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It'll just repeat itself all the way through. Sometimes I'll throw in another thing. Sometimes it'll be, you know,

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A, A, B, B, A, A, you know, it'll go, but the important part is that, that, that, uh, dual thing.

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There'll be something said, there'll be something repeated. It'll either be repeated as a comparison, a contrast or explaining it further.

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That's, that's the important part of Hebrew poetry. And it's a lot easier than it sounds because it sounds confusing when you, if you're hearing all this for the first time, but it can also get kind of difficult.

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So practice, ask questions, read people who know more than you ask

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Robert. He knows everything and we'll just move on with it. Wow. You must be, I want to know his last name because I know it's not mine.

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Well, I think you explained it in simple terms. And I think it was wonderful to do that because we need to know the style of which he's writing.

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You know, why is he writing this way? And, and once we understand the style, then we begin to understand, like, like you're talking about, this goes with this and this goes with this.

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And it helps us to understand, interpret, interpret Zephaniah and what he wants us to know.

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If we know the context, know the Old Testament, we know Jewish culture, you know, understanding all those things helps us to understand

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God and who he is and what he wants us to know. Yeah. Now, one thing you do want to be careful with is sometimes he will, a poet will change direction and you don't want to follow, force a pattern into a new section that isn't really there.

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So say verse six, for instance, those who have turned back from following the

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Lord, that's not talking about a place anymore. It's talking about a people. So what you, you have to start over or think of the people that are going on there.

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So you had a place, place, people, people, place, people, and you got people, people.

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Now, I don't know how they relate and how it goes on with the next of it, but you don't want to take, you don't want to take, just like poetry in English, like the rules are there, but they're kind of meant to be broken in poetry.

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You can do whatever you want to. It's the same in Hebrew. There are certain patterns and certain things you can pick up on, but don't force any hard iron, like rigid grid rules over a text and expect it to just pop out.

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You can go all sorts of funky doing it, like trying to force it into a box in the mold.

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It's not meant to be in. Right. In other words, here, here are the patterns here.

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You can't see my hand. I'm talking with my hands that you can't see. Here are the patterns of Jewish poetry, which one fits here?

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No. Here are his patterns and pull out his pattern of Jewish poetry.

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Understand the gist of how they work and how they think, but then this is his style.

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Right. It's best to recognize the patterns in the text rather than try to force them to be there.

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Right, right. And I said that we would talk about the what as we went through, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but as we look at verse five, this is just some things that I come across as I was reading about the text.

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He's prophesying during the reign of Josiah, and we know that Josiah, he began to rule when he was eight, and then it was eight years into his reign when they uncovered the book of the law.

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And that's when real reform began to happen, or Josiah pushed reform, getting rid of the bad and pushing to be following God's law again.

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But from my understanding that Josiah was even doing some of this even before that they found the law.

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And what I was reading is that this may have been a case of that circumstance where Josiah, this was before maybe that they had uncovered the law and Josiah was trying to purify the land in some way, and where they would, where he was getting rid of some of these, this out of worship, they were still holding on to it.

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Therefore they were doing it on their housetops. It's one of the things that I read. Does that sound?

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It's possible. Okay. And then the, the Milcom that they worshiped,

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I was reading that that was probably what's his name?

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Well, why does his name just leave me? One of the false gods that they worshiped. Malcolm?

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Malcolm was, or Milcom was a, it was an Ammonite god. Okay. So from the people of, who was that?

34:08

Lot? From way, way back in the day? Mm -hmm. They referred to him as, and it's,

34:16

I should have written it down. I try to remember this stuff and then it, it leaves my mind, but it's one of the famous false gods that we read about all the time.

34:27

Molech? Molech. Molech. Molech was the, the one where they, they heated his hands up and you put your, you put an infant in the hands of Molech to burn him up.

34:42

They called it making your son or daughter pass through the fire. It was something very, very, it was completely detested by God.

34:50

He hated the, the killing, the human sacrifice of the young. Right. So do you, do you think that they referred to Molech here?

34:58

I don't know. The M sound makes me want to say yes, but I haven't looked into it enough to, to say yes or no.

35:08

Well, the reason it hit me so hard, which, you know, it's something that, you know, it's, it's neither here nor there.

35:16

It's just trying to understand the context of the territory. But when I saw the, that some folks interpreted this to mean

35:23

Molech, I knew that he was, he was the God where they sacrifice children, like you were talking about.

35:29

And, and that hit home to where, to this scenario that in our day and time where we, you know, abortion is rampant, it's killing so many children and, you know, we're, we're sacrificing to, to our own idols.

35:46

We're sacrificing our children to our own idols. And it just, it just hits home is when

35:52

I, when I see the name Molech. Well, one of the, one of the, it's something that people don't, they don't want to hear it.

36:00

But Molech, the only reason that you would sacrifice to him was to receive his blessing, to somehow your life would go better if you were to take your son or daughter and make them pass through the fire, you'd burn them alive.

36:16

That they would, you know, infanticide for personal enrichment.

36:24

And what do you see from a lot of folks who, who go to the abortion clinic?

36:31

Well, I need to do this. If I don't, I won't be able to go to college. If I don't do,

36:36

I don't know how I'll be able to pay for this child or the people who say, I'm glad that I had an abortion because I would never have been able to make all the money that I did.

36:46

That you have sacrificed your child for a, a chance at being blessed, of being, having something positive come your way.

37:01

And while, while they're in the old, in the ancient times, they would sacrifice to Molech, a false

37:07

God. These children today are being sacrificed to another false

37:12

God, which is your, yourself. It's, it's actually more pagan than the pagans.

37:18

To place yourself as, as God, it's it's very, very wicked.

37:24

Absolutely. And I don't know, I was just, I was just drawn to bring that up because of the fight that I'm, I'm trying to be a part of.

37:36

I'm trying to stop and end abortion. Check out my website, sign the petition, watch the videos, become informed and join us in that, in that fight.

37:46

And what's, what's that website, Robert? Link in the description. I will put a link in the description.

37:55

Shamelessly plug that thing. You don't have to ever apologize for shamelessly plugging, you know, ending abortion.

38:02

Well, the, the website is a free WordPress website, so it has a bunch of numbers on it.

38:08

And I guess I need to break down and just purchase a URL. So let me try to look it up here and I'll, I'll copy it.

38:21

Here we go. Copy over here, paste in the comments.

38:32

There we go. That's a whole bunch of mess. Sure is. So, so if, if you go to the website and click on the menu, there's, there's a page called ending abortion and.

38:48

They do. Absolutely. Roger says a lot of women that have abortions end up extreme remorse and guilt.

38:54

Absolutely. And there's a reason for that. In Romans one, it talks about how we all see

39:03

God, know his righteousness, and yet we suppress that truth with our own unrighteousness. At certain times in our lives, we will come across things, even as unbelievers, where we feel extremely guilty.

39:16

We feel guilty because it's like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. You hold a beach ball underwater, you can do it for a while.

39:24

You can suppress that truth with your unrighteousness, but at some point, your hand slips, the beach ball pops up and whacks you in the face.

39:32

At certain points in time, a lot of, you know, like you said, a lot of women who have abortions end up with extreme guilt because it's, it's that beach ball popping up and hitting them in the face.

39:44

They, they know exactly what they've done and they feel terrible about it.

39:50

I mean, because they, they should, but that is a point where the, the, the, the law of God, even in just natural form, the law that's in the universe that because of the way

40:05

God made things has already convicted them. And that's the point where you give them the hope and love of Jesus.

40:15

Yeah, you have done wrong. I understand that you have a lot of guilt and I can't make anything.

40:23

I can't undo anything that you've done, but I can show you forgiveness and love. I can show you one who saw the heinousness of your sin and decided to die in your place anyway, to make sure that you had eternal life.

40:40

Yeah. Go to the website, click on the page that says ending abortion, watch the videos and become informed.

40:48

I would love for people to become informed on personhood and also the addition of the abolitionist video that I've got on there.

40:59

Understand what it means to be an abolitionist and go to the website, abolishabortionnc .com.

41:04

But on my page, go and sign the petition so that we can, we can be doing our part to help end abortion.

41:12

Thank you, Dan, for letting me do a plug there. Let's go to another one if you want, go ahead.

41:20

Let's go to verse, I think we're on verse six and those who have turned back from following the

41:26

Lord and those who have not saw the Lord inquired of him. This is, this,

41:36

I don't, I don't know if a lot of people recognize this. When the

41:42

Bible talks about them turning away from the Lord and following other gods, it wasn't necessarily that the people, the people of Israel would turn away from Yahweh completely.

41:55

They still had his temple. They would still show up and sacrifice things. It was part of their religious ceremony.

42:01

That's what they would do. But they also worshipped other gods.

42:07

Now there was a time, maybe even around this time before Josiah's reform, where they, they didn't, they lost the law.

42:16

They lost their, their documents that they should never have lost. And so they, they may have had a time where, where this wasn't necessarily the case, but there was still, you know, the worship of the true

42:28

God going on. And so when he talks about them going after other gods and Baal and Hashtoreth and Molech and Milcom and all of them, a lot of times they would just take those gods and incorporate them into their, their number of gods that they would do, they would worship.

42:50

So they would know what, what the Sabbath day is for Yahweh. We're going to go, you know,

42:57

Baal worships on Thursday. They've got the best steaks. We'll go over there. We're going to go over here to Hashtoreth.

43:03

I like, you know, dancing around the pole or whatever. That'd be, it'd be a good time. And so they would, they would incorporate it in their, into their worship, forgetting the first commandment that was given to them.

43:18

You know, you shall have no other gods before me. Even worse, he explains to them in the, in the preamble before that,

43:25

I am the Lord, you God who led you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, therefore have no other gods before me.

43:33

You know, I've been a person of good covenant, keeping God with you. So don't put any other gods in front of my face.

43:40

Now, when he says don't have any other ones before me, like don't, it doesn't say don't have one that you worship more than me.

43:47

It's like, don't have them in front of me. Like I'm everywhere. Don't put them before me. Don't put them in front of my face, put them elsewhere, away in a hole, burnt somewhere.

43:57

We don't want them. So they would, they would do, it's called syncretism.

44:03

They would worship God and then have other forms of worship.

44:09

That's why in, sorry, I'm rambling, but in Deuteronomy 12, verse 32, it says you shall not worship any other gods, or you shouldn't seek after those pagan people, see how they worship their gods, and then come back and worship your

44:32

God the same way. That's where the Reformed folks have generally understood the regulative principle of worship.

44:42

We don't go anywhere else other than the Word of God to how do we worship God, or what do we do for worship?

44:50

What their problem was, is that they would incorporate the worship of these other gods. We see the same thing today.

44:57

People will get crystals, you know, think that these crystals have power.

45:03

They'll look at their horoscopes. All of these things are part of the new age, or really it's old sorcery, witchcraft.

45:14

You see people unknowingly worshiping Hindu deities, doing

45:20

Hindu worship that they think is just stretches. It's called yoga. They think that they're doing stretches, and some of the stretches are beneficial.

45:28

Some of them apparently hurt. I don't know why you do them, but all of them were designed after lots of meditation to worship certain

45:40

Hindu deities. Get into this position, and you'll do this, and they'll go through certain stretches, and things, and you'll open up different chakras, and you'll end up getting more...

45:56

You can unwind the... What is it called? The kundalini spirit, the serpent that wraps itself around the base of your spine, if you do enough of them.

46:10

People think that they're just stretching. They're worshiping another god. They just don't know about it.

46:18

It's something that's been... It's not just them. How could people who have known

46:23

God so much, how could they go about and worship some other god?

46:30

They didn't. It wasn't that simple. It looked a lot like what we do today, which is scary because we saw what happened to them.

46:39

They had exile. Oh, yeah, yeah. If people want to argue that, they want to say, well, it's just stretching.

46:47

And I was listening to a different radio program, and they interviewed a

46:52

Hindu priest, and they said that you cannot use these yoga positions as just stretching.

47:04

They are forms of worship. I mean, that would be like saying for taking the

47:13

Lord's Supper is an aerobics class that we're going to take at the YMCA.

47:19

Yeah. What are you doing? I'm going to snack time. It's not snack time. That's the Lord's Supper. You cannot not worship during that.

47:28

That's why it says it's dangerous not to do it if you're doing it unworthily. That's right. Yep. And the things that you brought out just now to me are so important because it speaks of got to throw in eschatology, but we talk about the abomination of desolation.

47:45

This is something that Israel continued to do, bring in other gods, bring in other gods and worship coincide their worship with the

47:58

Lord and bring them in the temple or, you know, worshiping God in the temple, worshiping on the rooftop.

48:04

They had other high places that they worship, but they were just worshiping the

48:10

Lord and worshiping other gods, and it's no wonder the Lord called an abomination.

48:16

But then it also speaks of the patience of God. That he continued to bring them back, to continue to bring them back.

48:30

Um, verse, verse seven, be silent before the

48:36

Lord God for the day of the Lord is near, for the Lord is prepared to sacrifice. He has consecrated his, his guest.

48:46

So now we're getting into some meat. We're getting into the wind. Be silent before the

48:55

Lord. I was reading that that was, you could, you could read and learn more about that.

49:01

That was maybe come from another foreign religion, uh, worship practice.

49:10

Um, but, but here are the next few verses or the next few statements for the day of the Lord is near, uh, the day of the

49:17

Lord is, um, reference to, to his judgment. And then he gives the timetable here is near, which, you know, when we were looking at that in, in eschatology, um, we, we wanted to make sure that we understood that, um, we can't take, we can't take the

49:38

Bible out of context and say, this is, this is a situation, the circumstance that's going to happen, you know, later on the future.

49:44

We don't know when, but it's going to happen later on the future. But that's not what the

49:49

Bible is telling us. The Bible is telling us that it's going to happen. Um, soon as it's, it's near it's at hand and here, just like you were talking about before, that's why we have to let

49:59

Zephaniah tell us what he's talking about. He's saying that this day of the

50:05

Lord, this time of judgment is near it's close at hand for these folks.

50:11

And then from my understanding, when he says, uh, for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice, that's

50:20

Judea and he has consecrated his guests. His guests are this nation that is going to come and Overtake them.

50:31

Is that your understanding? I, I don't know.

50:40

Um, I'm still, the jury's still out on that one. Okay. I, I can see that.

50:49

Okay. Um, I almost want to say that, that the, the, the sacrifice may actually be pointing to Christ.

51:00

Okay. Um, and here's why, here's why I say that. Uh, it says, uh, be silent or be quiet and hush up.

51:09

The day of the Lord is here. You don't want to try to fight back with the Lord right now. You want to be quiet and he's doing this.

51:16

Don't make it any worse on yourself than it's got to be. Um, for the day of the

51:21

Lord is near his judgment is coming. A sacrifice is coming. It's not near in 700 years from then, or 620, 40, whatever years from then it's coming in, in the next little bit.

51:33

For the Lord has prepared a sacrifice and he's consecrated his guests. I think he's, he's saying that there is the, the judgment coming presently.

51:42

It's coming now. And he has prepared his sacrifice. It's coming. It's basically, it's kickstarting a timetable.

51:50

It's the timetable that we see in Daniel. Um, the day of the Lord is near. When is judgment coming?

51:56

Judgment is coming when Babylon comes and wrecks Judah. Pulls her people away into captivity.

52:05

And there's a, you then have Jeremiah's prophecy of the 70 years. Uh, Daniel prophesying of the 70 weeks.

52:13

Um, at the end where it, those dates, uh, those prophecies end at the time of Christ and end up with his sacrifice for the sins of men.

52:25

So I almost think it's, it's all kind of one event that takes place over a longer period of time.

52:36

So the day of the Lord is near happening soon. The Lord has prepared his sacrifice.

52:44

This is all set, ready to go. He's consecrated his guests. He's marked out those who are his, those who will eat with him at the supper.

52:52

Um, then it will come about on the day of the Lord's sacrifice that I will punish the princes, the

52:58

King's sons, and all who clothe themselves with foreign garments. Um, that's where I say the jury's still out.

53:06

I may be wrong about that because this does look more near than far, but then again, it may be all the same event still, uh, because he's going to punish the, the, the princes, the

53:19

King's sons, all those who clothe themselves in foreign garments. They look to other gods. I will punish on that day, all who leap on the temple threshold or, or leap over the threshold as some versions say, um, basically saying that they could keep the temple pure by not touching the threshold on the way in.

53:39

They wouldn't bring in any evil spirits or sin or tainting with them. Um, yeah, superstition, uh, who will fill their, their

53:50

Lord with violence and deceit. Um, you go, he goes on from there and talks about several other things.

53:58

Um, so I don't know if the sacrifice, it seems like sacrifice would be a weird choice of word if it wasn't a sacrifice for sin, it would just be a,

54:18

I don't know. Uh, if you think, think about the, uh, the, the day of, of atonement, um, there were several different types of sins that the, that the nation of Israel could, uh, could involve themselves with.

54:34

Uh, they can involve themselves, uh, with, with the type of sin that would, uh, pollute themselves or type of, uh, sin that was against their brother, a type of sin that was against God alone.

54:44

Then there was a type of sin that would pollute the, the earth, the ground, the land that they lived on.

54:50

Um, I don't know. I had a thought there.

54:56

I don't know where it went, but I had one there. Um, I think there are several different directions that we could go and possibilities that we could have here.

55:10

I mean, you, you think about the context that, um, go ahead, go ahead.

55:15

It says the Lord has prepared a sacrifice. Yeah. Um, what, what are the sacrifices on the, the, the, uh, day of atonement?

55:24

One of the goats was, had sin passed off onto it and it ran away. The other one was actually slaughtered.

55:31

And what it did was it, it cleansed the land and the temple and everything so that they were clean for another year.

55:38

Well, until they started sinning again, which is like almost instantly. But so that was the, that was the point in which all those sins that had accumulated upon the land were done away with.

55:47

So is it, is it a sort of, was it a, there, there's almost no instance of a sacrifice, at least from a biblical

55:56

God, um, commanded sacrifice that doesn't have to do somehow with the atonement of sin or the cleansing of sin in some way, or even ritual uncleanness.

56:10

No, like the turtle doves or whatever for the, uh, the woman who had a baby.

56:15

Um, she'd have to give two turtle doves for part of her sacrifice, uh, and then wash herself to be clean.

56:26

Um, so I, I don't know, I have to look into that a lot more.

56:33

Made me think. Well, I mean, that makes sense. That makes sense that, you know, he uses the word sacrifice for a reason and what are sacrifices and what are, what are they for?

56:46

Um, you know, he, he's not going to use the word that he's, he's just not going to throw a word in there, you know, nonchalant that, you know, has no purpose or meaning.

56:55

So, you know, I think it's, it's wise to do what you're talking about and understand what sacrifice is and how it's used in the rest of the scripture and what it's used for.

57:06

The more I look at it, um, it, it makes sense.

57:15

Oh, the, when John the Baptist came, John the Baptist came preaching the kingdom of God. He said, repent for the kingdom of God as a hand, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins.

57:24

Um, so you go to him, you would, you'd repent of your sins. I don't want it anymore. I'm turning away from it.

57:29

And then you would, you would be baptized and you'd go off to not sin anymore. Um, be silent before the

57:37

Lord God for the day of the Lord is near the sacrifice. I mean, the judgment is coming and coming soon.

57:45

So if the judgment is coming soon, uh, the sin is about to, or the thing that's causing this and the one that's sitting, the sinner is being dealt with, wiped out, but then you still have the taintedness of what remains with sin.

58:01

So it almost looks like not only will those who sin be destroyed, but I have a way of cleansing what they have adulterated basically, what they've defiled.

58:15

That's a good word. But then again, I might have to look into that moment too, and I may change my mind.

58:23

Yeah. Cause it definitely does move on and talk about, um, crushing those who sin.

58:33

Yeah. Well, you brought up, um, verse nine and I will punish on that day who, who, who leap on the temple threshold.

58:42

Um, there again, and I, I might be reading the wrong commentaries, but I was, you know, looking through some commentaries, reading, reading up on it.

58:51

And, um, from my understanding, a lot of, a lot of commentators point back to first Samuel five, five, and, and this jumping over a threshold being in a

59:02

Philistine type religious action where, uh, something about their

59:09

God drag on, um, it had fell on the, the threshold or fell on the door.

59:18

That happened when the Ark of the covenant was there. Yeah. So they, that said to this day, they don't step on the threshold, uh, because Dagon, uh, had fallen over in basically in worship of God through the

59:33

Ark of the covenant. Um, and he fell down on the threshold and broke his, was his head and his hands off.

59:41

Um, so what they would do is they would jump over the threshold cause they blamed the threshold and not

59:48

Yahweh. And then they would, they would fill the house of their

59:56

Lord with, with violence and deceit, I guess, because of that. Yeah.

01:00:02

So really, uh, actually I mentioned this tonight, uh, in, in my sermon, um, you would, you, you hear throughout the old

01:00:10

Testament, oh, that dirty uncircumcised Philistine. Yeah. And yet here you are, you know, you're leaping over the threshold, like one of those dirty uncircumcised

01:00:18

Philistines. Yeah, no, you're no better than, well, it's like, like we were talking about before, you know, not want to be, uh, not wanting to use the practices of those who would criticize and be hypocritical, uh, with, with a wrong biblical hermeneutics and interpretation method.

01:00:40

Um, and that's why they were going, like you were talking about, you know, cutting down or making, not making fun of, but, but cutting on the

01:00:52

Philistines or their, um, idolatry within them practicing the same. Yeah.

01:00:57

They, they thought that they would jump over the threshold because, um, you know, well, they, they, the

01:01:03

Philistines must've brought in something evil or wicked to make Dagon fall over. We're not going to bring that into our temple.

01:01:11

No, we're not. We'll jump over the threshold too. Yeah. We can't have Yahweh falling over.

01:01:17

It's like, well, Yahweh is not in the Ark of the Covenant. He's your God and he lives in the heavens and does whatever he pleases. And that's why

01:01:26

I don't, um, I don't believe in superstitions today. Um, people, this is way off target.

01:01:37

Um, and I think I proposed this question to our, our group chat, but, uh, the, the issue of saying bless you when, when somebody sneezes and I'm given a hard time because I don't,

01:01:50

I don't say bless you. Um, people see that as good manners, but the, the tradition behind it is that your soul leaves your body and you're, you're giving an incantation so that your, your body can come back to you or remain, your, your soul can remain in your body because your heart stopped, your, your soul leaves your body and it's, it's all superstition.

01:02:18

And, uh, you know, you know, Christians say, I don't,

01:02:23

Christians don't believe, believe in luck and, um, other things like that, or rabbit splits or, or walking under a ladder, cats, a black cat crossing your path.

01:02:33

Um, that's one of the things that I don't know, for me, for me anyway, falls into that category.

01:02:39

But, you know, I think that's what Israel was doing. Just, you know, living in superstition.

01:02:45

So I'm going to have to now stop saying bless you. And I'm going to have to start telling people, bless your heart.

01:02:52

Bless your heart. That's right. It's a good, good Southern term. That's going back to your roots. So verse 10, on that day, declares the

01:03:02

Lord, there will be the sound of cry from the fish gate, a well from the second quarter and a loud crash from the hills.

01:03:16

From my understanding, that's, that's at the Northern part of the city, right? Um, where the, the traders and the merchants would, would, uh, bring in the goods and do their trading.

01:03:27

Maybe the, it's the commerce section, commerce section, maybe the weakest point. Yeah. Even, uh, well, there had to be a lot of traffic going through there.

01:03:36

So it makes sense. It was one of the weaker points, uh, verse 11, pretty much, uh, says, uh, um, not about weakness, but that it was, it was there for commerce.

01:03:47

Well, all in heaven. And so the mortar for all the people of Canaan will be silenced all through way out.

01:03:53

Silver will be cut off. And they're, they're trading by the ceiling will be cut off.

01:03:59

Right. Yep. Yep. Which is, uh, that's a huge part of a lot of deity worship, you know, outside of, of God, that's one of the reasons why

01:04:08

Jesus cleansed the temple. He's like, Whoa, guys, not only are you turning my house into a den of thieves, like you're stealing and robbing from each other, but you're worshiping like Pagans.

01:04:20

Please stop. Please stop. I mean, he took out a whip and he said, please stop with a whip.

01:04:29

I remember whenever somebody says, what would Jesus do? Making a weapon, beating people is fully on the table.

01:04:37

Oh, verse 12. It will come about at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps and I will punish the men who are stagnant in spirit, who say in their hearts, the

01:04:49

Lord will not do good or evil. Um, some versions say candle instead of lamps.

01:04:57

And from my understanding, this, um, that's kind of like a detailed search. He's going to do a detailed search.

01:05:04

Is that right? Yep. They would do the same thing around the time of Passover. They would go in with a, uh, with a lamp or a candle and they would take a feather after they'd swept the house and they would get all the little nooks and crannies, make sure they had all the yeast out, all the leaven out of their house.

01:05:21

And then that, that last part, when it says the Lord will not do good or evil, um, what was in their hearts was a justification, uh, to themselves, they would say

01:05:35

God is basically neutral. Yeah. Well, uh, the, the new King James actually says that, uh, who are settled in complacency, not stagnant spirit, settled in complacency, uh, who say in their hearts, the

01:05:48

Lord will not do good, uh, nor will he do evil. Basically they, basically they said, who cares what

01:05:56

God thinks? He's not going to do anything. Yeah. He's not going to reward me. He's not going to punish me.

01:06:02

I'm on my own. Right. It can be whatever I want to do. And guess what?

01:06:09

We have the same spirit today. The hundred percent, even in the church sometimes.

01:06:14

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Verse 13. Moreover, their wealth will become plunder and their house houses desolate.

01:06:22

Yes, they will build houses, but not inhabit them and plant vineyards, but not drink their wine.

01:06:31

In other words, they say, Hey, God's not going to do anything. They go ahead with their evil plans.

01:06:38

They become successful, but then God does something and they don't get to reap the benefits the way that they thought they were going to.

01:06:45

Right. I read something about that last part that was very interesting and made this kind of jump out.

01:06:53

You know, like you just said, what they say in their hearts, the Lord's not going to do anything. I can do whatever I want to do.

01:07:00

Part of the law for the Jewish people was, if you, if you planted a vineyard, you couldn't go off to war until you ate of the first fruits, until it was starting to produce, you got to take care of your vineyard.

01:07:11

Or you couldn't, if you got married for the first year, you couldn't go off to war.

01:07:17

And so what, what Zephaniah is saying here is that you're not going to be afforded that luxury.

01:07:23

Right. You don't think the Lord is going to do anything. The Lord's coming. You're not going to be afforded that luxury.

01:07:30

You're going to have to deal with it. It's coming. Right. You don't get your year off. You're going to have to take it now.

01:07:36

Yep, exactly. Yep. Verse 14, near is the great day of the

01:07:42

Lord, near and coming very quickly. Listen, the day of the Lord in it, the warrior cries out bitterly.

01:07:51

And I don't think that he could be more clear. Yeah, it's near now.

01:07:57

I have a question about verse 15. Is this day of the Lord going to be a rough day or is it just going to be a little bit bad or is it going to be good?

01:08:09

Well, when I think of wrath, trouble, destruction, darkness and clouds and thick darkness, gloom and gloom and gloom and desolation and distress.

01:08:23

I'm not thinking it's not going to be a good day. Yeah, this is one of those times where you don't have to know

01:08:28

Hebrew poetry and parallelism to pick up on what he's saying. Right. It just kind of jumps out at you.

01:08:35

Yeah. Verse 14 and verse 15. I think he's wanting them to get the message.

01:08:41

Yep. Yep. 16 is the same thing. It's probably part of a section 14, 15 and 16.

01:08:49

A day of trumpet and battle cry against the forfeited cities and the high corner towers.

01:08:56

Fortified. Fortified towers. Yeah. So you think you're strong, you're not.

01:09:02

Right. Verse 17, I will bring distress on men so that they will walk like blind, walk like the blind because they have sinned against the

01:09:14

Lord and their blood will be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. Now, this is interesting.

01:09:22

Have you ever seen situations or read history and like, why would they do that?

01:09:29

Why in the name of anything going on in the world would

01:09:34

Hitler take himself and go to Russia during winter time to try to fight the

01:09:40

Russians on their home turf when they don't have winter clothes? Why would he do that?

01:09:47

He looks like he's walking around blind. Oh, man. So they will walk around like the blind.

01:09:55

It's that sort of situation. There's going to be stuff that happens in the history, the short future history right here for Judah and Jerusalem where their folks, their rulers and leaders are going to make some dumb, boneheaded decisions.

01:10:11

And why is that? Because God's going to take away wisdom and guidance and they're going to make those decisions.

01:10:19

And why? Because they have sinned against the Lord and their blood is going to be required of them.

01:10:24

So when they had the wisdom of the Lord, they didn't want anything to do with it. They did whatever else they wanted to do.

01:10:33

But now that judgment has come, wisdom is taken away and they're going to do those boneheaded things.

01:10:40

They're going to cause lots of trouble for people. People who look back on and say, why were they so foolish?

01:10:46

Well, that wasn't even the most foolish thing. The most foolish thing was that they turned away from God. And that last part of verse 17 is really scary.

01:10:56

And we need to let these things sink in. You know, we're separate from Zephaniah by thousands of years, but we need to let this sink in because of the character and nature of God.

01:11:10

Because of their sin, God does this. And he says, their blood will be poured out like dust.

01:11:18

Well, what happens when you pour out dust? And the wind catches it, blows it away.

01:11:25

And then it's like their flesh is like dung. What do you do with dung? You toss it out, you get rid of it.

01:11:33

You bury it or whatever. And that's what God's going to do with their flesh. I mean, this is scary language.

01:11:42

Yep. Like you were saying before, you know, it's not a good day.

01:11:47

It's a, you need to pay attention to the words that I'm saying, that are words that are coming out of his mouth kind of day, kind of language.

01:11:57

Neither, verse 18, neither their silver nor gold, nor their gold will be able to deliver them, which is what they relied on.

01:12:04

On the day of the Lord's wrath and all the earth will be devoured in the fire of his jealousy, where he will make complete end, indeed, a terrifying one of all the inherents of the earth.

01:12:18

And there's that word, is that dirt ground again for earth?

01:12:29

Probably. I did not check that one. Let's see if I can look it up.

01:12:44

Nope. That's the other one. Eretz. Okay. Yeah. But that, that would make sense.

01:12:55

Uh, in the land, it's talking about the land that they owned in the evidence of their land, their country, the land that they'd been given by God, the one that had been marked out and told to them back in, uh, you know,

01:13:10

Exodus and Deuteronomy. Gotcha. Any last words on these, these verses?

01:13:17

Uh, no, but verses one through three of the next chapter, very relevant. Do you want to look at those real quick?

01:13:24

I do because we've been talking about a lot of destruction. A lot of stuff would be good to end in the beginning of the next chapter.

01:13:33

Okay. Yeah. It says, gather yourselves together. You guys gather our nation without shame.

01:13:40

And he says, you guys got to get past yourselves. You got to come here and you got to get together, coming to one place.

01:13:47

Now, normally you think you're going to be destroyed. You don't want to give the enemy an easy target, but God's not their enemy here.

01:13:53

God is, is, is a judge. He's, uh, pronouncing judgment for justice sake.

01:13:59

So it says, gather yourselves together. Don't be ashamed. We all know that you're dirty, rotten centers come here.

01:14:05

But when, before the decree takes effect, come before you see the judgment, the wrath of God, the day passes like the shaft.

01:14:15

Um, if you throw weed up in the air, or I just started, uh, roasting coffee, um, if you, uh, you got this little, uh, feathery looking dust jacket on the outside of it.

01:14:30

Dust jacket is a terrible word for it. A little shell, a little, uh, like, uh, the skin of a peanut.

01:14:38

Go like this, moving around. It just kind of floats away. The days are going like that. They're falling away.

01:14:43

They're getting blown away before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the Lord's anger comes upon you.

01:14:49

He says, gather yourselves together. And then verse three, seek the Lord. All you humble of the earth, of the land, you people who live there, who about to face this judgment, who have carried out his ordinances, seek righteousness, seek humility.

01:15:07

Perhaps you'll be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. What do you do if you find yourself in a land where the people are acting like the people in Zephaniah 1?

01:15:21

What do you do if you're one of the people acting like the people in Zephaniah 1? He says, get yourself together before it's too late.

01:15:31

Turn from your sin, trust in God, and perhaps you'll find salvation in him.

01:15:38

Now, we know from the New Testament that it's not just about nations losing their land, but we have a real need to look for a humanity losing its earth, a soul losing its existence in a place in reality that's pleasant, or at least neutral, comparatively speaking.

01:16:09

And here's what I mean by that. We have a much bigger problem than we might lose a country due to sin.

01:16:20

There's a large portion of humanity that may lose the eternal resting place of their soul, who may end up being the subjects of God's wrath for all of eternity because of their sin.

01:16:34

And here is a call to a nation to turn and find forgiveness in God.

01:16:40

And through Christ, we have also been given that same message where John the

01:16:46

Baptist and Jesus both, all the apostles, all called out and said, repent of your sin and believe in Jesus for the kingdom of God is at hand.

01:16:57

And then Jesus took sins of men upon himself, was nailed to the cross, died in our place, facing the wrath of the father that was meant for us, laid in the grave for three days, conquering it so death can't even hold us down any longer, then rose up and sits at the right hand of the father.

01:17:17

So for every single person who comes across this and hears this, I want you to know that it doesn't matter where you think of yourself or where you find yourself.

01:17:31

We all have sinned. We have all, from some point or another, looked like these people in Zephaniah 1.

01:17:38

And yet, Zephaniah 2, 1 through 3 tells us to turn from our sin and turn to God.

01:17:45

And if we do that, if we turn from our sin, say, I don't want this anymore, we'll still struggle, but say,

01:17:51

I don't want this anymore. I want my God and I want forgiveness of this sin. I don't want this sin anymore.

01:17:58

Put it away from me. Every single person that seeks God with a sincere heart will find him to be a perfect savior.

01:18:07

Everyone who comes to God through Jesus Christ will find their sins to be forgiven through him. And I think, and that's why

01:18:15

I wanted to go through verse 3 in chapter 2, because chapter 1 is wretched and horrible.

01:18:24

It's something that we should not want anyone to face. And verses 1 through 3 of the next chapter show us that there is a hope.

01:18:34

That if we find ourselves saying, I'm wretched, I'm wicked, I'm horrid,

01:18:40

I stink. God has every right to throw away my flesh like dung.

01:18:50

But here he has sent his own son to die in my place. So that way the wrath that was meant for me has already been paid for.

01:18:59

I'm glad you did take us to verses 1 and 3. Yeah, absolutely.

01:19:04

And it took us straight to the gospel. And that's what we wanted to do. The Bible, the

01:19:12

Old Testament, New Testament, Christ is central. It's put into Christ from every nook and cranny.

01:19:18

And this portion, I encourage you, Dan and I both encourage you to hear what

01:19:24

Dan just said and respond to God's good news,

01:19:29

God's gospel message. That we can be forgiven, that you can be forgiven if you repent of your sins, put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

01:19:36

And if you are found in him, that there's no maybe, there's no hopefully, there is a surety that you will be found safe in him when the

01:19:52

Lord comes to pass judgment on the world. And I look at this and it's,

01:19:59

I see a two -fold salvation. We look at the last part of chapter 1, we look at the first part of chapter 2.

01:20:07

And as we've discussed, the immediate context, of course, is

01:20:15

Zephaniah warning the nation of Judah about this impending day of judgment.

01:20:23

And it's the Babylonian exile is what's in their near future.

01:20:29

And so we believe that's the immediate, that's the near context. But if you're familiar with the

01:20:35

Old Testament at all, you'll know that this was a repeating occurrence with the nation of Israel, that they would, they were in trouble, so they would turn to God.

01:20:44

But then they would, when things were, when God would forgive them, give them their land back, or just give them peace again, they would turn back to their idols.

01:20:58

And it was just back and forth, back and forth. And they could not accomplish or fulfill the law.

01:21:06

They cannot fulfill their covenant with God to fill the world with the kingdom of God, fill the nation, you know, reproduce and fill the earth with God's law, with God's word.

01:21:24

They couldn't do it. They would always turn back to idols. And then also they couldn't, they had to have sacrifices.

01:21:32

They couldn't save their self. They needed a savior. And Jesus fulfills both of those things.

01:21:41

He is our savior. He's our redeemer. And he is the king who is going to fill the earth and have an unadulterated kingdom.

01:21:53

His kingdom is going to be one where there is no idolatry, where it's all going to be pure and focused on the father.

01:22:04

And we want you to be a part of that kingdom that's going to fill the earth. And to do that is to hear what

01:22:10

Dan said and repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. So Dan, I appreciate you sharing the gospel.

01:22:16

Thank you for helping us understand Zephaniah. Join us, not next weekend, but the next.

01:22:23

As we look at Zephaniah chapter two, continue looking through the book and seeing Christ in this book and what

01:22:29

Zephaniah has to tell us. But thank you for watching. Thank you, Dan, for sharing with us tonight. Remember that Jesus is king.

01:22:37

Go live in the authority of Christ. Speak with the authority of Christ and continue to go out together with us and share the gospel of Christ.