SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/29/2016
9:37 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 The Day of the Lord and the Jews
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Zephaniah
1:1-3
Message of
the verses: “1 The word of the LORD which came to Zephaniah son
of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of
Josiah son of Amon, king of Judah: 2
"I will completely remove all things From the face of the
earth," declares the LORD. 3 “I will remove man and beast; I will remove
the birds of the sky And the fish of the sea, And the ruins along with the
wicked; And I will cut off man from the face of the earth," declares the
LORD.”
We will mostly look at verses 2-3 in this SD,
because we have already mentioned what Zephaniah writes in verse one which is a
verse of his genealogy, although it short, and also mention the time period
that he ministered in as he names King Josiah son of Amon who was king in Judah
when he ministered. John MacArthur
writes that Josiah reigned from 640-609 BC, and then he goes on to write: “The moral and spiritual conditions detailed
in the book (cf. 1:4-6; 3:1-7) seem to place the prophecy prior to Josiah’s
reforms, when Judah was still languishing in idolatry and wickedness. It was in 628 BC that Josiah tore down all the
altars to Baal, burned the bones of false prophets, and broke the carved idols
(2 Chronicles 34:3-7); and in 622 BC the Book of the Law was found (2
Chronicles 34:8-35:19). Consequently,
Zephaniah most likely prophesied from 635-625 BC, and was contemporary of
Jeremiah.”
Zephaniah was the fourth generation from the godly
King Hezekiah and so one may think that he would have been hanging around the
palace doing things to make his life easier, but when the call of God came he
followed it and became a prophet, and in those days godly prophets had a very
dangerous job as we have seen when we studied Jeremiah and found him thrown
into a cistern, and would have been killed if not being rescued by the
prompting of God to those who got him out.
“6 Then they took Jeremiah and cast him into the cistern of Malchijah
the king’s son, which was in the court of the guardhouse; and they let Jeremiah
down with ropes. Now in the cistern there was no water but only mud, and
Jeremiah sank into the mud. 7 But Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, a eunuch, while he
was in the king’s palace, heard that they had put Jeremiah into the cistern.
Now the king was sitting in the Gate of Benjamin; 8 and Ebed-melech went out
from the king’s palace and spoke to the king, saying, 9 “My lord the king,
these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the
prophet whom they have cast into the cistern; and he will die right where he is
because of the famine, for there is no more bread in the city." 10 Then
the king commanded Ebed-melech the Ethiopian, saying, "Take thirty men
from here under your authority and bring up Jeremiah the prophet from the
cistern before he dies’ (Jer. 38:6-11).”
In his introduction to this rather long section from
Zephaniah (1:1-2:4) Dr. Wiersbe writes the following at the end of his
introductory comments: “Zephaniah opened
his book by presenting three graphic
pictures of the Day of the Lord.” We will just look at the first picture
which he calls “a devastating universal flood (Zeph. 1:2-3).
Zephaniah writes “I will completely remove all
things From the face of the earth.” Dr.
Wiersbe adds “The Hebrew word translated ‘consume’ in the KJV means ‘to sweep
away completely,’ The picture is that of total devastation of all that God
created and is probably a reference to Noah’s flood. (You find similar wording in Gen. 6:7; 7:4;
9:8-10.) God gave man dominion over the
fish, fowls, and the beasts (1:28; Ps. 8:7-8), but man lost that dominion when
Adam disobeyed God. However, through
Jesus Christ, man’s lost dominion will one day be restored (Heb. 2:5-9).”
Now one of the big reason that God will do as He
says He will do in these verses is because of idolatry, and as we have studied
the prophets we have seen that both Israel’s and Judah’s down fall came because
the broke the first of the Ten Commandments.
One of the problems was that those who worshiped idols were probably
claiming that they were actually worshiping God, but that was surely a great
lie. Zephaniah 1:6 explains this as he writes “And those who have turned back
from following the LORD, And those who have not sought the LORD or inquired of
Him.’” Dr. Wiersbe writes “They were
guilty of sins of commission (worshiping idols) and omission (ignoring the
Lord).”
One thing we have learned is that once Israel was in
captivity they stopped their worshiping of idols, as this punishment from the
Lord made them learn a harsh lesson.
I want at this time to quote from John MacArthur’s
study Bible on what he wrote on verses two and three as I did not totally
understand the things that I learned from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary.
“1:2, 3 The prophet began by noting the far
fulfillment of the Day of the Lord, when even animals and physical creation
will be affected by His judgment on the earth (cf. Gen. 3:17-19; Ex. 12:29;
Jos. 7:24-25; Rom. 8:22).
“1:2 face of the earth. Generally translated ‘ground,’ the term is
used in reference to the whole earth (1:18).
The phraseology is reminiscent of the Noahic Flood (Gen. 6:7, 17;
7:21-22).
“1:3 Comparisons with the Genesis Flood continue
with ‘man and beast’ and ‘birds of the sky’ (Gen. 6:7; 7:2 3). The prophet also alluded to the creation,
pairing man and beast (sixth day of creation) and birds with fish (fifth day of
creation). Ruins. An alternate translation is ‘stumbling
blocks.’ Whatever alienates man from God
will be removed.”
When we studied the book of Revelation we learned
that the “Day of the Lord” took place at the end of the Tribulation Period when
all of the armies of the world were in Israel and the battle of Armageddon was
taking place as nations were fighting each other and then when the Lord Jesus
Christ comes from heaven with His saints the armies begin to fight against Him
with His saints and are quickly stopped.
My point is that not all of the people that are on earth will be destroyed,
as Jesus did say in Matthew 24 that if He did not return then all people would
be destroyed, so perhaps there is a bit of hyperbole in what Zephaniah is
talking about here, or perhaps he does go back to speak of the Genesis Flood to
compare how things will happen during the real Day of the Lord.
2/29/2016 10:56 PM
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