SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/2/2016
10:13 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 Day of
the Lord and the Jews
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Zephaniah 1:4-13
Message of
the verses: “4 “So I will stretch out My hand against
Judah And against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will cut off the
remnant of Baal from this place, And the names of the idolatrous priests along
with the priests. 5 “And those who bow down on the housetops to the host of
heaven, And those who bow down and swear to the LORD and yet swear by Milcom, 6
And those who have turned back from following the LORD, And those who have not
sought the LORD or inquired of Him.’”
I want to make a comment on why it was so hard for
me to figure out some of the things that I wrote about in our last SD on the
book of Zephaniah concerning the idol worship that went on in the country of
Judah and that is because I was not looking at all of the correct verses, and
those verses are 4-6 and so that really clears up the mystery for me.
Now we will begin looking at the second picture
which is a heading from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on the book of Zephaniah and
he entitles it “A Great Sacrifice” and it covers verses 7-13: “7 Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near,
For the LORD has prepared a sacrifice, He has consecrated His guests. 8 “Then
it will come about on the day of the LORD’S sacrifice That I will punish the princes, the king’s
sons And all who clothe themselves with foreign garments. 9 “And I will punish
on that day all who leap on the temple threshold, Who fill the house of their
lord with violence and deceit. 10 “On that day," declares the LORD,
"There will be the sound of a cry from the Fish Gate, A wail from the
Second Quarter, And a loud crash from the hills. 11 “Wail, O inhabitants of the
Mortar, For all the people of Canaan will be silenced; All who weigh out silver
will be cut off. 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 LORD will not
do good or evil!’ 13 “Moreover, their wealth will become plunder And their
houses desolate; Yes, they will build houses but not inhabit them, And plant
vineyards but not drink their wine."”
We will first of all see that this sacrifice that
Zephaniah is writing about is not the normal sacrifice that the Jewish people
were use to, for they were used to attending communal sacrifices that are
described in the book of 1 Samuel chapter nine, and verses eleven and following,
however this sacrifice that is being spoken of here is a sacrifice where God’s
guests will be the Babylonians and the ones being offered up are the people of
Judah. Verse seven begins “Be silent
before the Lord God,” and it is no wonder that Zephaniah is asking for silence
before the Lord.
We see that the ones being sacrificed are described
in verses 8-9 and they are none other than the royal family and the religious
leaders of Judah. We know from history
that the reigning king of Judah tried to escape while the siege of Jerusalem
was going on and was found out and his children were killed before him which
was the last thing that he saw as the Babylonians gouged out his eyes and then
took him to Babylon where he lived out the rest of his days blind.
There were a number of reason why God allowed all of
this, and first it had to do with the idolatry that was going on in Judah, next
it had to do with Judah not trusting the Lord to defeat their enemies, but
going to Egypt for help. There is
another reason which is found at the end of the book of 2 Chronicles
36:20-21: “20 Those who had escaped from
the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him and to his
sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the
land had enjoyed its sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath
until seventy years were complete.”
In verses 10-13 we see a good description of the
city of Jerusalem leading us to believe that Zephaniah must have live in the
city or visited it often to understand the layout of it. Dr. Wiersbe writes “When the Babylonians, God’s
guests, would come to the sacrificial feast, they would enter the city, plunder
it, and then destroy it. The Fish Gate
was where the fisherman had their markets; the ‘second quarter’ was where the
rich people lived in their fashionable houses, built from the wages owed to
poor laborers. ‘Maktesh’ was the market
and business district of the city where the merchants and bankers were located.”
All of this would eventually be destroyed by the
Babylonians, but they would thoroughly search the city and find even people who
were hiding, as I am sure that there were many hiding places in Jerusalem.
Dr. Wiersbe concludes “The tragedy is that the
invasion could have been avoided if the people had not been so complacent and
indifferent toward what God was saying through His prophets. Judah was certain that the Lord was on their
side because they were God’s covenant people.
They were like wine that sits undisturbed of a long time (Jer. 48:11;
Amos 6:1) and congeals because it isn’t poured from vessel to vessel to get rid
of the bitter dregs. The worship of
false gods had polluted the nation and the pure wine had become bitter.”
3/2/2016 10:48 PM
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