Book of Zephaniah - Ch. 1, Vs. 14-18 (10/22/2023)

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Bro. Ben Mitchell

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That should be going now. Hello, hello.
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All right, that's working. Noah, can you hear me? Watch the chat, Matt. Well, sorry we're running late, guys.
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Five after? That's right.
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Poor Ash, she's the one that gets up at like six in the morning and we still have trouble getting out the door when we need to.
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Can they hear me okay, Matt? Yep. All right. It is recording.
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I think I spotlighted it. All righty.
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Y 'all can turn to Zephaniah. Kings, I believe the last time y 'all were here, we had just started this study.
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We're not very far into it, mainly because I haven't been doing the lessons. Dave, with the baby and everything, being out for paternity leave,
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Dave took over Sunday school for a good while, which was great because he was able to get through a really long psalm, so that was fun.
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Um, but I think we've only done maybe three, maybe four lessons so far, so we haven't gotten too far.
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We're technically gonna be starting in verse 14 officially, but I'm gonna read the whole, all the verses leading up to it to give us some context because we will need it today.
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I hope all my kids are okay out there. I mean, I know they are, but I feel bad for Ash. Matt, you may go see if she needs any help in a second.
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Oh, there she is. She's okay. There's the rest of the crew.
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Hey, buddy. I like your tennis ball. I can hold any kids
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I need to up here, just so you know. Okay, so this is the, in verse 14, it begins our next section here.
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We already did, we did an introduction, we did the first section, which was basically covered verses two through 13.
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So today we're gonna be beginning section two, which I call the nations and the remnant.
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And this will go well through chapter two. As we move into the next set of verses here in this book that complete the first chapter,
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I'm hoping we'll be able to finish chapter one today. And as we move into the second chapter of our study here, there's a few things we need to note.
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So I'm gonna cover those first before we get into any verses here, because it's gonna get a little bit interesting.
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The first thing I wanna say is that after Zephaniah is over, I promise we're gonna be taking a break from the minor prophets for a little while.
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And really any book that involves the end times, because we started, since I've started doing
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Sunday school, which has been absolutely wonderful, we did Obadiah, which ends with talking about the second coming of the
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Lord. Malachi covers the end times and the second coming quite a bit. Zephaniah, the whole theme is the day of the
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Lord. So it's pretty much the main thing we're gonna be talking about here. And of course,
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I love it. I could talk about it forever, but I realized that sometimes it can be a little bit meticulous.
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And again, after we finish this book up, if you guys will bear with me just a little bit longer, we'll move on to some other things for a while.
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Again, we can get really meticulous as we move through this particular topic in general, but certainly in the following passages of Zephaniah that we're gonna be covering.
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And I know it can be a little bit tough, even mentally tiring to some degree to cover such topics.
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Obviously they're very important and they can be very edifying, but it can be mentally tiring sometimes to just try to keep track of the chronologies.
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And we have these prophets that are talking about near prophecies and then they switch to far prophecies and then back.
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And so that's what we've been dealing with for a while. But again, if you guys will bear with me just a little bit longer as we hone in on not only the following verses that we're gonna be looking at today, but in really the rest of the book, but several of the following words in some of these verses,
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I do believe that we will be edified by it in having taken a bit of a deep dive into these scriptures that frankly don't get a whole lot of attention usually.
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Some of these minor prophets just don't. And I can say that because I myself did not give them the attention that they deserve most of my life.
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Now, beyond that though, I wanna also note that in a few cases that we as a class here at Park Meadows Church, we're gonna have to make some interpretive calls as we go throughout some of these verses.
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And even some translational calls as well. And you guys will see what I'm talking about as we move through it.
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When it comes to a few of these verses, we're gonna need to make some decisions together with of course the
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Holy Spirit leading us along the way. Now, if that makes you feel a little bit less than confident because I'll admit it's always easier and it's always nice to have a kind of a set consensus on what a passage means or what it might be referring to.
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And obviously I feel like the majority of the Bible is that way when interpreted and looked at through the proper interpretive framework.
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Dad talks about the 10 rules of Bible interpretation all the time, keeping things in context, all that good stuff.
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The majority of the Bible is certainly there's, when looked at through that framework has a kind of a set consensus about it.
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But just know this, in the few tougher passages, like some of the ones we're gonna be looking at, as long as we're consistent while we look at it, as long as we're consistent with our interpretation and allow the
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Bible to interpret the Bible, which is one of the rules of Bible interpretation, we'll always be moving closer and closer to the ultimate truth as we work through it.
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So keep that in mind. I also wanna say this, I wouldn't be getting into the following material and sharing it with you guys and sharing this particular interpretation that we'll take if I didn't have a solid conviction myself that what
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I'm gonna be sharing is the truth. In other words, I'm not just sharing some, coffee talk theory, so to speak, just cause
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I think they're cool to talk about. I wouldn't do that up here. And so as we move through it, we're gonna be holding this up against what other commentators say and what other interpretations are.
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But again, I wouldn't be sharing it if I didn't have a conviction about it. Does that mean
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I'm 100 % perfect and correct? No, it's just that as we grow and work through these scriptures together, again, the goal is to move closer and closer to that ultimate truth, right?
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And you do that by keeping the rules of Bible interpretation, staying consistent, making sure the Bible is interpreting itself and that the interpretation we take doesn't contradict anything else, that sort of thing.
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And so with those things in mind, I do feel that this is the correct way of viewing the passages we're gonna look at.
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So after weeks of reading these passages, perusing a lot of common commentaries, considering the hermeneutics that we use here at our local church body, because we do have, again, a certain framework that we use here just as a local church.
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We hold that up against scripture first and foremost, but we use those rules of Bible interpretation that dad talks about.
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And that's on our church website, by the way. I know for those listening online, we talk about it a lot. If you ever wanna look at those, they are there.
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But considering that as well, sure, it's probably smart. I had bad allergies and Ashton knows that.
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So she is providing me with some tissues. Thank you very much.
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So with all that in mind, the way that we talk about the end times ourself here, and of course, just praying about it a lot,
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I feel very confident in the direction we'll be going with what follows. So with that being said, let's get into Zephaniah here.
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And again, we're gonna be officially picking it up at verse 14. Let's go ahead and start at verse two though, and read all the way through the chapter.
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It says, Zephaniah 1, 2, I will utterly consume all things from off the land, sayeth the
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Lord. I will consume man and beast. I will consume the fowls of the heaven and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked, and I will cut off man from off the land, sayeth the
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Lord. I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
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And I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place in the name of the chimerims with the priests, in them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops, in them that worship and that swear by the
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Lord and that swear by Malcolm, in them that are turned back from the
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Lord and those that have not sought the Lord nor inquired for him. Hold thy peace at the presence of the
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Lord God for the day of the Lord is at hand, for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice. He hath bid his guests, and it shall come to pass in the day of the
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Lord's sacrifice that I will punish the princes and the king's children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.
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In the same day will I punish all those that leap on the threshing hold, I'm sorry, on the threshold, which fill their masters' houses with violence and deceit.
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And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate and a howling from the second and a great crashing from the hills.
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How ye inhabitants of MacTash, for all the merchant people are cut down. All they that bear silver are cut off.
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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 lees and say in their heart, the
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Lord will not do good, neither he do evil. Therefore, the goods shall become a booty and their houses a desolation.
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They shall also build houses, but not inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.
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Here's verse 14. The great day of the Lord is near. It is near and hasteth greatly, hasteth greatly even the voice of the day of the
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Lord. The mighty man shall cry there bitterly. The day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities and against the high towers.
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And I will bring distress upon men that they shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the
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Lord and their blood shall be poured out as dust and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of the
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Lord's wrath, but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
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So again, verses 14 through 18 are new verses that we haven't yet looked at.
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How do we view these verses? Well, there's a reason I read the whole chapter. I wanted you guys to have in mind kind of the flow the context, but just the flow of the dialogue here as Zephaniah is prophesying.
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And it's interesting because in verses two and three, he begins with global judgment.
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He's talking about the whole earth. He's talking about the anger of the Lord coming upon all the inhabitants of the earth.
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And then at verse four, he switches. And of course we talked about this already, but just a little bit of recap.
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At verse four, he switches and starts talking specifically about the people of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and rebukes a lot of what they have been, rebukes the false priests as well as the idol priests, as well as just the inhabitants that haven't been obeying the
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Lord. He rebukes them and he continues to do that and also give them warning about imminent judgment that's coming.
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And of course we know in hindsight, knowing history, that it was about 17, maybe 20 years after this prophecy, the
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Nebuchadnezzar came in and the Babylonians came in and invaded the territory, took them captive, killed a lot of them.
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And so we know again that that is coming. So there was imminent judgment coming and Zephaniah was talking about that.
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But then you get to verse 14. And from 14 through 18, in my opinion, a shift takes place.
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We have to keep in mind, Zephaniah is a short book. He's fitting in a lot of material, a lot of information, a lot of warnings in a very truncated timeframe.
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And we already established at the beginning of the study in our introduction that there would be times when we need to be watching out for a switch that takes place, that being from a near prophecy, such as imminent judgment from the
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Babylonians, to a far prophecy, perhaps stuff that happens even in our future.
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It hasn't happened in our linear time of human history just yet.
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So from verses 14 through 18, you notice the language is very drastic, very explicit.
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The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly even the voice of the day of the Lord. The mighty man shall cry there bitterly, that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, day of darkness, gloominess, clouds, thick darkness, and so on and so forth.
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So how do we view these verses, verses 14 through 18? Again, we don't wanna forget the preceding verses because we are not trying to force anything on the passage here.
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We don't want to ever take our preconceived notions of whether it be the end times or really anything else, any doctrine, and force it into a place where it's not really there.
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We gotta really hone in and make sure that what we are seeing is, again, consistent with other passages.
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So we gotta keep in mind from verses four through 13, the prophet is talking about Judah specifically, imminent judgment, the
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Babylonians coming to conquer them. So we gotta remember that. That was the preceding context leading up to verse 14.
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We, again, wanna make sure we're considering everything appropriately here. But we also need to consider the literary parallels that the
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Lord uses in future prophecies. In other words, the language that is used in verses 14 through 18 in this chapter of Zephaniah here, the language that's used, the way certain descriptors are used when speaking of the event that's in view is similar.
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It parallels other prophecies that speak of future events. Let's look at a couple of them together real quick.
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Let's go over to Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse. And of course, this is an unbelievable chapter, just packed full of all sorts of stuff.
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And even in this very chapter, Jesus uses the same method that the Old Testament prophets did.
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He answers multiple questions that the apostles ask him, and he answers them by giving them a near prophecy of imminent judgment, that being 70
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AD, or AD 70, when the temple was destroyed by the Romans. But he also gives them a far prophecy that is yet to happen even in our future.
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So he uses the same method of prophesying as all of his prophets of old did, which, of course, isn't surprising since he was the one speaking through those prophets at that time.
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Let's look at verse 27 of Matthew 24. We'll start there. And just listen to some parallels in what we just read, or listen for some parallels to what we just read in Zephaniah.
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He is talking about the return of himself in glory at the second coming.
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He says, for as lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even into the west, so shall also the coming of the
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Son of Man be. For where so ever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.
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Okay, so he starts by talking about his second coming, and he intentionally conflates that with the drastic language of the end times, like the big epic event of the final moments of human history as we know it, before the kingdom age is ushered in.
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He says in verse 29, immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven.
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That's like meteorites coming from space and hitting the earth. And the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and then shall appear the sign of the
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Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the
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Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and with great glory, and he shall send his angels with the great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from the end of heaven to the other.
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Verse 29 there is really the one to note. The way he's describing it will be the darkness, the sun and the moon not giving their light, the stars falling from heaven.
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Think about, in Zephaniah, I was talking about the gloominess and the darkness, the day of desolation and so forth.
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Let's look at one other one really quick, Revelation chapter six. And again,
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I just want y 'all to focus on some potential parallels here in the language being used in Zephaniah.
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We just read in Matthew, now we're gonna read in Revelation. This is Revelation chapter six.
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And starting in verse 12, it says, and I beheld, and when he had opened the sixth seal in lo, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig tree casting her untimely figs when she is shaken of a mighty wind.
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And the heaven departed as a scroll when it was rolled together, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places, and the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every free man hid themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountain and rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne from the wrath of the lamb, for the great day of his wrath is come, and shall also,
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I'm sorry, the great day of his wrath has come, who shall be able to stand?
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Okay? Okay? One more time, you can go back to Zephaniah here, I think that's the last time we'll be turning anywhere, so you can go back to Zephaniah, and let's read those last four or five verses one more time, starting verse 14.
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The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the
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Lord, the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. Listen to the similarities, or for the similarities.
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That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wastes and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and the alarm against the cities and against the high towers, and I will bring distress upon men that they shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the
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Lord, and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung, neither their silver nor their gold will be able to deliver them in the day of the
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Lord's wrath, but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.
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Notice the wrath is a common recurring theme there in those verses, which parallels, of course, what we just read in Revelation 6.
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Okay, so we read all these passages in what I believe to be parallel passages talking about the same event.
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Again, how do we view these verses? Well, a lot of commentators will take verses 14 through verses 18a, which is interesting.
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In other words, just the first portion of verse 18, they'll take verses 14 through verses 18a as a continual flow of dialogue describing the imminent judgment of Judah by the hand of the
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Babylonians, okay? Fascinating, or fascinating to me, is that these commentators that seem to agree that it's just that just continual theme of imminent judgment by the
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Babylonians, they are across all of the spectrum of end times views, premillennial, postmillennial, and so on and so forth, certainly amillennial.
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Interestingly, though, many of these same commentators, and again, this is where we're getting very meticulous, but I think it's important.
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They reintroduce global judgment in verse 18b and c.
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In other words, in verse 18, where it said, it's basically, if you wanna split it into three sections here, it says, "'Neither their silver nor their gold "'shall be able to deliver them "'in the day of the
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Lord's wrath.'" They believe that is talking about the Babylonians coming in like 20 years from this prophecy.
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But then, right here, where it says, "'But the whole land shall be devoured "'by the fire of his jealousy, "'for he shall make an even speedy riddance "'of all them that dwell in the land.'"
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They believe that that right there switches back to global judgment in the future, not talking about Judah specifically anymore.
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Why would they do this? Well, the main reason is somewhat curious because the
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Hebrew word for land, okay, where it says, "'The whole land shall be devoured by the fire, "'for he shall make a speedy riddance "'of all them that dwell in the land.'"
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That word right there, I'm good, I have some actually. Appreciate it though. It's the
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Hebrew word, eretz. And that word can mean land, as in like a territorial piece of land.
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However, and obviously that's what the KJV translated it as. It's land in the
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KJV here. But most translations of the Bible, like kind of the main modern versions, the
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NIV, the ESV, the New American Standard, the LSB, so on and so forth, they translate the word here as earth, not as land, rather than like how the
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KJV renders it, which is just land. So again, this Hebrew word, eretz, it can mean land, as in like Limestone County or Navarro County, a territorial piece of land or the state of Texas.
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It can mean that or the nation of Israel or Judah, or it can mean the entire earth.
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Again, most Bibles translate it as earth, not as land, even though our KJV says land here. Now, I think it goes without saying that the proper choice of word for the translation should come from the context of the passage, right?
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So if this Hebrew word could be translated one or the other, well, how do you decide which one is correct? You have to base it off of the context of the passage.
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So we've already read it several times, so I won't, but from verses 13 through 18, there's a lot going on there.
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I find it odd that more than likely, the majority of the translators of these
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Bible versions, the ones I listed a second ago, and really the majority of Bible commentators, as far as I can tell, would actually believe that the prophecy has already happened from verses 14 through 18.
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They believe it's already happened. In other words, specifically fulfilled in the people of Judah being invaded by the
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Babylonians. And yet, in the modern Bible translations, when they translate that Hebrew word in verse 18, they make the choice of earth rather than land, the more broad term.
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So again, that seems odd because you wonder why they would make that translation choice when they believe that the preceding context is all talking about stuff that already happened about a specific group of people in a specific territorial part of the earth, geographical part of the earth, that being the kingdom of Judah, and yet they translated earth.
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Well, while that may seem odd, in other words, why they made that particular choice given their interpretation of the passage,
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I also believe that they chose the correct word when they translate it as earth because I do believe that verses 14 through 18 are actually speaking about the entirety of the planet, not just a small piece of territorial land, being the kingdom of Judah at the time of Zephaniah.
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I think it is talking about the whole earth, and I believe it's talking about the whole earth in the time of the day of the
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Lord. Now, we know that phrase can be used for things like an invasion from a foreign country, but most of the time it's used in reference to the day of the
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Lord. In other words, the time of his second coming, time of the rapture, the time at the end of the great tribulation, all of these things.
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I think, I believe the verses 14 through 18 are talking about that. And when you think about that, then all of a sudden that translation of earth rather than land makes a lot more sense.
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Read verse 18 one more time, but insert the word earth. Neither their gold nor their silver shall be able to deliver them in the day of the
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Lord's wrath, but the whole earth shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy, for he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the earth.
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That's how most Bibles would translate that final verse. I believe that would be the appropriate translation there. But, oh, another thing is there is a natural shift between verses 13 and 14.
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Because again, when you consider, it's a very truncated book. It's all just smooshed together into three short chapters, but it's talking about a lot of different stuff.
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Let's read verses 13 and 14 together really quick. So verse 13, in my opinion, is where the prophecy of Judah ends.
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It says, therefore, their goods shall become a booty and their houses a desolation. They shall also build houses, but not inhabit them.
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And they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof, period. In my opinion, this is a pretty natural transition here.
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Verse 14, the great day of the Lord is near. It is near and hasteth greatly. Even the voice of the day of the
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Lord, the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. And that's when, in my opinion, the language seems to shift and start paralleling passages like Matthew 24 and like Revelation 16, and even to some degree,
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Revelation 16. Now, some might say that that phrase in verse 18,
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I know I'm going all over the place and I apologize. Again, like I said, it gets a little meticulous here, but that phrase at the end of verse 18, where it says, he shall make a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land, or in my opinion, earth.
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Some might say that it couldn't be referring to the final day of the Lord, because obviously there are gonna be survivors at that time, namely the believers that are still alive.
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So it says all the inhabitants at that time. So it can't be talking about then.
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However, that doesn't necessarily rule out the global interpretation here, because when the
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Babylonians entered the cities and they started the carnage that they imposed upon those of Judah, they didn't literally kill every person then either.
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So I believe it's just, in fact, that there were quite a few left back and there was like a governor appointed over them.
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And they're some of the more people of Judah at that time. A lot of them were killed and then some of their strongest men were taken captive.
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So it was kind of, there was a lot going on. It wasn't literally every single person being obliterated, just as when the second coming takes place and Armageddon is taking place and there is bloodshed left and right and such a huge portion of the earth will be in total demise.
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It doesn't literally mean that every person will be wiped out because for one, there will be believers that will be ushered into the millennial kingdom and perhaps even some after the battle of Armageddon that will be judged in some way.
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And so when it says that I will make a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land, I think that is intentionally dramatic language being used to just really put fear into the people that Zephaniah is prophesying to and to let them know you have to know this is coming.
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And it's because you've messed up. It's because you've been sinning against the Lord. But it's actually, in my opinion here, a far prophecy talking about the ultimate day of the
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Lord that is yet even in our future. In addition to that, I believe that the phrase in verse 18, neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the
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Lord's wrath. I think that that also helps us out here in regard to interpreting this passage as being in our future because obviously the people of Judah, upon seeing the
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Babylonians on their way to pillage their cities, to take them captive, to kill many of them, they weren't gonna be sitting there thinking, oh, well, maybe
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I'll be able to pay these guys off and then I'll be fine. I don't think that those of Judah would have been thinking, oh, well, maybe my gold and silver can help me out here as the army of Babylon is coming and Nebuchadnezzar is coming.
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They knew what was coming and they were there. They had their swords ready. Unfortunately, they lost the battle.
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Many of them were slaughtered. Many of them were taken captive. So that phrase, in my opinion, doesn't even fit the, it doesn't fit the idea of this talking about the
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Babylonian invasion as well as it would fit the end times view.
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Why is that? Because I believe we have some information here regarding what the chaotic nature of the final day of the
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Lord when the merchants are attempting commerce with anyone and everyone, perhaps even trying to use their amassed wealth to escape that day, but they won't be able to.
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We already know that there will be wailing at the destruction of mystery Babylon when it's going up in smoke.
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The merchants in the sea will be looking at it crying. This is in the future when the Antichrist is already here and all this stuff.
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And so we know that there will be merchants that are very upset and trying to figure out what's going on and it'll be very, very chaotic.
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And I believe that in verse 18, when it says their gold and silver is not gonna do anything for them in that day, I believe it makes more sense to be talking about the end times in that day because the whole earth will be scrambling, trying to figure out what can we do to get out of this.
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Eventually, they will have to, not compromise. Well, eventually they'll have to make the decision to just hide in the clefts of rocks in hope that boulders crush down on them and wipe them out so that they don't have to look upon the lamb and his wrath.
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But before that happens, before they get to that place, I think they'll be trying to use their money, these merchants, business people all around the earth will be figuring out how they can spend their money to get to safety.
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And yet here we are in Zephaniah in the Old Testament being told their gold and their silver, it's not gonna do anything for them at that time.
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And of course, gold and silver is just referencing that that could be just talking about money in general.
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It doesn't necessarily need to be talking about physical gold and silver because as we know, the prophets, as they are seeing these visions, as they're prophesying, or as the
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Lord is just simply speaking through them, he's doing so in the language of their time. And so could it be physical gold and silver?
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I'm sure there will be some people even in our future trying to use gold and silver to buy their way to safety when the great tribulation is taking place, but it could also be talking about contemporary money as we know it.
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Who knows? But again, I believe that that phrase helps us out. I believe it fits better in the context of the day of the
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Lord and our future, not the Babylonian invasion. Now, with all that said, and believe it or not, we're about to wrap it up here.
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With all that said, why would any of this be important? Why would we need to just go through the way we just did and kind of go through each verse multiple times and try to clear all this up and not just read through it and say, well, maybe it's the end times, maybe it's just the talking about the
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Babylonian imminent judgment, and then we move on. The reason why I wanted to take the time to really try to dive deep there and see if we could find some consistency in interpreting those final verses of chapter one the way that we did, which
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I believe is consistent and does fit other parallel passages and other descriptive passages about the end times.
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The reason I wanted to do that is because I believe this particular interpretation that we just took is also vitally important for how we understand what we're about to see in chapter two as we get to that in future lessons.
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Because there are some phrases, there are some verses in chapter two that, again, I have a strong conviction are talking about us, or if not us, our generations that follow, our kids, perhaps our grandkids, whoever is alive at the time of the great tribulation, who are believers and that are going through that awaiting the
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Lord's return. If the interpretation we just took is correct, and I believe it is, it helps us a lot in interpreting the following verses in chapter two in who it's talking about.
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And so we'll be getting to that next time. But for now, we'll go ahead and call it quits for today.
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Do you guys have any thoughts, any questions or anything of that sort? I know I just kind of barreled through that pretty quickly and that there was a lot there.
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Yes, sir. Yeah. Exactly.
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Right, right. And I believe it is. I think it's very clear.
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Again, there are some passages. Well, let's just look at this. Again, let's be totally fair and ensure that we're not forcing anything on the passages we're reading here.
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The first mention of the day of the Lord is verse seven of chapter one.
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It says, hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God for the day of the
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Lord is at hand for the Lord God hath prepared a sacrifice. He hath bid his guests. In verse seven there, we can be pretty confident that that is referring to the imminent judgment that's gonna be brought upon by the
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Babylonians. But yet it uses the phrase, the day of the Lord. I think in the few cases where that phrase is used for a past historical event, something that happened already,
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I think when it's used, it's very abundantly clear to us that that's what it's talking about.
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Likewise, I think it is abundantly clear when that phrase, I believe that the majority of the time is used talking about our future, that it is talking about our future.
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So to John's point, the definite article there and the emphasis that how emphatic it's used, that phrase is used when it is used,
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I believe we can glean some clarity when we see it in what it's talking about and that being the future event.
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And in verses 14 through 18, I would 100 % agree there, John, that the clarity is just in the language and what's being emphasized in the way things are being worded so that it doesn't have to be ambiguous to us.
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I don't know. I have some opinions as to why a lot of commentaries read the way that they do, including the super dispensational commentaries that, in fact, the ones
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I would call hyper -dispensationalist that would believe in the pre -trib rapture and a secret second coming and all this, they're splitting into all these dispensations, some of which
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I believe aren't actually there. There are some biblical dispensations. And then in my opinion, there are some that are invented to create certain views of the end times.
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Even those guys, even those commentators will just kind of just move through this passage with brief commentary and linking it all to the
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Babylonian invasion. But again, I think you can make a really good case, a really good argument consistently, not necessarily just forced upon.
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I mean, you can make the Bible say whatever you want it to if you're gonna be forcing it on the text out of context with no care for truth, but rather just whatever you believe.
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You can make it say whatever you want to say. The key is, can you, using the rules of Bible interpretation and keeping things in context and staying as consistent as possible, is there something here that perhaps is different from what a lot of commentators say, again, across the spectrum of end times views, whether that be dispensationalist, historical premill, or postmill, or amill.
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And of course, amillennialists, they believe the entire Bible, anything and everything that the Bible talks about has already happened, which is just crazy to me.
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I don't see how that is a possible conclusion to come to. And so I agree,
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John, I think it's emphatic in these last verses here. I think there's no, I don't think there's any question as to what it's talking about.
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The few times in the Bible that it is referencing a different event, such as the Babylonians and Ezekiel, it uses the phrase as well, talking about imminent judgment.
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It's few, and the context is clear so that the Lord, I believe, gives us that clarity so that it doesn't have to be so ambiguous.
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And so we can have some confidence in taking from these passages and using it as information as to how to approach that future day that's coming.
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If it doesn't happen in our lifetimes, then we can teach these things to our kids and prepare each and every generation for when the time eventually comes.
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So that was a great thought. Y 'all have anything else? We actually did pretty good on time, even starting a little bit late.
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I must've talked super fast because I was worried that we wouldn't even be able to finish that. Well, that was chapter one of Zephaniah.
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So we're really trucking along now. We'll begin chapter two, I suppose, next week.
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And I couldn't be more excited about it because in just the first, the opening verses of chapter two, we see a passage that I noticed during one of dad's sermons years ago that I'd never seen before.
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And it was so funny because it was in his sermon. He referenced it in the context of talking about the end times and stuff.
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And he just kind of breezed by it. And I was like, whoa, I've never seen that before. And the language used in that verse is so crystal clear that I was like, this is it.
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This is how we can not freak out and worry about the end times. This is how we can be excited about it and not be scared regardless of what's happening in the news and what we see in whether it's
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TV or newspapers or magazines or the news flashes on our phone or what's happening in Israel or what's happening in Russia and China.
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All of these things, even, and I believe everything is one more domino that falls leading to that ultimate day.
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Some people, in my opinion, take it a little bit too far and try to force the fulfillment of prophecies on certain events.
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I'm not sure about that, at least in every case. But regardless, we know that by definition, we are that much closer to Jesus coming back.
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And so the verses that we're gonna be looking at at the beginning of chapter two are so clear that it's where we can, in my opinion, take a lot of our confidence in that we will be protected, that the
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Lord will be with us, that we don't have to be scared regardless of anything that happens. It's beautiful. So that's what we have to look forward to next week as we start chapter two.
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Brother John, would you mind praying and dismissing us this morning? Amen. Amen.