SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/12/2016 8:06 PM
My Worship Time
Focus: The Righteous God
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zephaniah 3:5-8
Message of the verses: “5 The LORD is righteous within her; He will
do no injustice. Every morning He brings His justice to light; He does not
fail. But the unjust knows no shame. 6 “I have cut off nations; Their corner
towers are in ruins. I have made their streets desolate, With no one passing
by; Their cities are laid waste, Without a man, without an inhabitant. 7 “I
said, ’Surely you will revere Me, Accept instruction.’ So her dwelling will not
be cut off According to all that I have appointed concerning her. But they were
eager to corrupt all their deeds. 8 "Therefore wait for Me," declares the LORD,
"For the day when I rise up as a witness. Indeed, My decision is to gather nations, To assemble
kingdoms, To pour out on them My indignation, All My burning anger; For all
the earth will be devoured By the fire of My zeal.”
5 The Lord in her is upright; he
will not do evil; every
morning he lets his righteousness be seen, he is unchanging; but the evil-doer has no sense of shame. 6 I have had the nations
cut off, their towers are broken down; I have made their streets a waste so
that no one goes through them: destruction has overtaken their towns, so that
there is no man living in them. 7 I
said, Certainly you will go in fear of me, and come under my training, so that
whatever I may send on her may not be cut off before her eyes: but they got up
early and made all their works evil. 8 For this reason, go on waiting for me,
says the Lord, till the day when I come up as a witness: for my purpose is to
send for the nations and to get the kingdoms together, so that I may let loose
on them my passion, even all my burning wrath: for all the earth will be burned
up in the fire of my bitter passion (BBE).”
We can see
from verse five that the Lord is righteous and the Lord will not, and may I
add, cannot do any evil, however as the evil people in Jerusalem meet at the
gate every morning they are planning evil things to do, people to take
advantage of, things like this, and yet they do not realize that the Lord is watching
their every move, and will soon judge them.
We read in 2 Samuel 713 along with 1 Kings 5:5, and Nehemiah 1:9 that
God’s name is identified with Jerusalem, and not it is a cesspool of iniquity,
something that must have broken the heart of God to see. God has waited patiently, but now we see that
He will act, and when He acts the people will know that He is the Lord.
There has
been a history of God judging the Gentile nations as we see in verse six, and
other places in the Word of God. In
Genesis 15 we see the covenant that the Lord made with Abraham, and thus with
Abraham’s descendants and a part of what we read in that chapter is God planning
to use the children of Israel to destroy the Gentile nations who were then in
the Promised Land, which is another section in the Word of God where God has
judged the Gentile nations. Since God
did this and since Judah had broken His conditional covenant found in
Deuteronomy 28 we know that He is perfectly able to judge Judah. Because God had judged the Gentile nations,
this should have been a sign that He was going to judge Judah, and therefore
they should have been repentant. We have
to remember that Peter tells us that judgment begins at the household of God,
that being that His people are held in higher responsibility than those who do
not believe.
Dr. Wiersbe
concludes “The Lord concludes this message to Jerusalem by describing a
courtroom scene in which He stands to testify against His people (v. 8). While the impending Babylonian Captivity is
involved here, there is also an end-times application in the Battle of
Armageddon, when the nations of the world converge against Jerusalem. God will pour out His wrath upon these
nations, deliver His people, and establish His kingdom (Zech. 14:1-9). His jealous anger will burn like fire against
all who resist His truth and disobey His Word.
The terrible Day of the Lord will dawn and there will be no escape (See
Zeph. 1:20ff.).”
3/12/2016 8:29 PM
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