SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/3/2016
2:37 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 The Day of the Lord and the Jews
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Zephaniah
1:14-18
Message of
the verses: “14 Near is the great day of the LORD, Near and
coming very quickly; Listen, the day of the LORD! In it the warrior cries out
bitterly. 15 A day of wrath is that day, A day of trouble and distress, A day
of destruction and desolation, A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and
thick darkness, 16 A day of trumpet and battle cry Against the fortified cities
And the high corner towers. 17 I will bring distress on men So that they will
walk like the blind, Because
they have sinned against the LORD; And their blood will be poured out
like dust And their flesh like dung. 18 Neither their silver nor their gold
Will be able to deliver them On
the day of the LORD’S wrath; And all the earth will be devoured In the
fire of His jealousy, For
He will make a complete end, Indeed a terrifying one, Of all the
inhabitants of the earth.”
First thing I want to say that these are very
terrifying words, and they come from the Lord, so there is no doubt that they
are true and this will happen. We want
to look at the third picture in today’s Spiritual Diary, a picture that Dr.
Wiersbe calls “A great Battle,” and it covers these final verses in chapter one
of Zephaniah.
As we look at these verses it seems that we can hear
the cries of the captives and the shouts of the warriors, and can hear things
like thunder of judgments and flashes of lightning as the victim’s blood is
poured out in judgment against the Lord because they have sinned against the
Lord. We can see as Dr. Wiersbe writes “The
fire of God’s jealous zeal.” He then
writes in an endnote: “The Hebrew word translated
‘jealously’ (1:18; 3:8) means ‘to be hot, to be inflamed.’ God’s jealousy is not like human envy, for
what could God envy when He has everything?
He is jealous over His name and His glory, and His anger is aroused when
His people worship other gods (Ex. 34:14; Pss. 78:58; 79: 5). God is jealous over His people and wants
their wholehearted love and devotion.”
There is no one who can escape the not even those who have much riches
as they will not be able to buy their way out of the wrath of the Lord.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “What Zephaniah describes here is
but an illustration of what will happen in the end times when God’s judgment
falls on a wicked world, only that final Day of the Lord will be far more
terrible (See Rev. 6-19). There will be
cosmic disturbances that will affect the course of nature and cause people to
cry out for a place to hide (Amos 5:18; 8:9; Joel 2:1-2, 10, 30-32; Rev.
6:12-17). Unless you know Jesus Christ
as your own Savior, you will have no place to hide (Zeph. 2:3).”
We will conclude this section in our next SD, and it
is there that we will find the good news from chapter 2:1-3. 3/3/2016 3:01 PM
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