Zephaniah 2

CHAPTER 2THEME: Judgment of the earth and of all nationsGod has not only judged His own people, but God also judges the nations; and that is the subject of this chapter and through verse Zep_3:8 of chapter 3. But God is gracious, long-suffering, and not willing that any should perish; therefore, He sends out a final call. Although you would think that He had reached the end of His patience, in the first three verses we find Zephaniah sending out God’s last call to the nation of Judah to repent and to come to Him.

Zephaniah 2:1

“Gather yourselves together.” They are to come together as a people, as Dr. Feinberg has stated it, “… to a religious assembly to entreat the favor of the Lord in order that by prayer He may turn away His judgment” (Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Malachi, p. 53). “Yea, gather together, O nation not desired.” Their sin, of course, has caused God to bring judgment upon them. But it is not that He does not desire them; it is not because He does not love them. Judgment came upon them because of their sin. They were repugnant, they were repulsive; yet they were insensible to the shame of their sinful condition. Their sin had reached a very low stage, and they were dead to shame; they had no sense of decency at all. They were shameless in their conduct. We would say that they had no sensitivity to sin whatsoever. They sinned with impudence. They would sin openly and actually boast of it. We have come to that same place as a nation today. Someone said to me not long ago, “Dr. McGee, you speak as if America is sinning more and is in a worse condition today than it ever was before.” I do not mean to imply that at all. However, I do not believe that there was just as much sin when I was growing up as there is today, but the sin was carried on behind the curtain or in the backyard or someplace else where it could not be seen. It was not flaunted before the world. It was not boasted of.

In other words, it was not shameless sin as it is at the present time. I heard a very beautiful young woman on a talk program on television boast of the fact that she is living with a man to whom she is not married. The others on the program congratulated her for her “courage” and “broad-mindedness.” Nobody called it shameless sin. Sin is right out in the open today. I don’t think there is more sinit is just out in the open where you can see it. They sinned in my day, that’s for sure, but it was done under cover.

It was done secretly, and there was a sense of sorrow for sin which we seem to have lost today. You and I do not know how repulsive our sin is to God. We spend very little time weeping over our sins.

Zephaniah 2:2

God says, “Come together for prayer. Come together for repentance. Come together and turn to Me.” There is a note of urgency here. Zephaniah is saying to the people, “Do this before God begins to move in judgment, because when you pass over the line and God begins to move in judgment, you will find out it’s too late.” One of the things that is needed today in my country is for someone whose voice is heard to call our nation to prayer and to repentance. My nation has almost reached the end of its rope. This is a great need, and that kind of prayer God will hear and answer.

Zephaniah 2:3

“Seek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment.” There has always been a remnant of those people who are true to God just as there is a remnant in the church today. I doubt that there are many churchesno matter how liberal they may bewho are without some members who are real believers. Now I don’t understand why they are there, and I don’t propose to sit in judgment on them, but there is a remnant within the liberal church today. God has always had a remnant in the world, and apparently He is speaking here to those who are the godly remnant in Judah. “Seek righteousness.” The remnant also should be very careful of the way they live their lives. “Seek meekness.” They are not to be lifted up by arrogance and pride and self-sufficiency, for that was one of the great sins of the nation. This is also a danger among believers today. Someone has said that there is “a pride of race, a pride of face, and a pride of grace.” Some people are even proud that they have been saved by grace! They feel that that is something for them to boast about. They feel that they are the peculiar and particular pets of almighty God because of their salvation! My friend, we have nothing to glory in.

The apostle Paul said that he had nothing to glory in, and believe me, if Paul didn’t have anything to glory in, I’m sure that none of us has. There is a danger of being proud of the fact that we are God’s children, but it ought rather to lead to meekness. He says here, “Seek righteousness, seek meekness.” “It may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD’s anger.” It is a glorious, wonderful thing to be hidden in the cleft of the rock and to be covered by His wings. God’s children need to recognize that, although they will not go through the Great Tribulation period, they may experience a great deal of judgment and a great deal of trouble just as these people did. Judah did not go through the Great Tribulation, the great Day of the Lord, but they certainly were going through, as I like to put it, “the little tribulation period.” All of us are going to have tribulation to a certain extent in this lifewe are going to have trouble. I heard the story years ago of a woman who was a maid and was complaining about her troubles. Apparently she had quite a few of them. When the lady of the house rather rebuked her for complaining, the woman replied, “When the good Lord sends me tribulation, I intend to tribulate.” I agree with her.

I believe we ought to tribulate. Paul says that we groan within these bodies, but that does not mean we are in the Great Tribulation nor that there is a chance of our going through it. We come now to a section, beginning with verse Zep_2:4 and going on down to verse Zep_3:8 of chapter 3, in which we see the judgment of the nations. This passage reveals that God judges all the nations of this earth. The God of the Bible is not a local deity. He is not one that you put on a shelf. He is not one that is local or national. It has been the great error of the white race when attempting to “Christianize” a people by bringing them the gospel, also to try to make them live as we live and to adopt our customs and our methods.

Well, there are a lot of different people on the topside of this earth, and they are all people for whom Christ died. Our business is to get them to hear the gospel, to get the Word of God to them, and then let them work their Christian life into their own customs and into their own patterns of life. I am told that my ancestors in Europe were pagan, eating raw meat, and living in caves, and when the gospel was brought to them, it did a great deal for them. The early missionaries who came to my ancestors didn’t try to make them like they were. Apparently, the missionaries let them develop their own civilization, and we should do the same thing with others. The God of the Bible is the God of this universe. He is the Creator of the universe and of mankind. Notice that He is going to judge these other nations, not just His own people. And He judges other nations for their sin. God has put up certain standards that have become worldwide. They have been written into the Ten Commandments, which God gave to Moses.

All nations have a sense of right and wrong, although they may vary on what is right and what is wrong. A missionary was telling me about a tribe he had worked with out in the South Seas. They were headhunters; they were cannibals. But he said that they had a high sense of honesty. He told me that you could take your pocketbook with your money in it and put it down in the center of where the tribe dwelt and leave it there for a week, and nobody would touch it. But, of course, they didn’t mind eating their mother-in-law for dinner. (You would never know exactly what they meant when they said they had their mother-in-law over for dinnerwhether she came over to eat with them or whether they ate her!) But they did have a high sense of honesty, which is something I don’t think we have in my country today.

A lady told me that she left her purse on the counter in a department store, and when she returned in less than a minute, the purse was gone with no trace of it anywhere. But, of course, that thief was not going to eat his mother-in-law for dinner that evening. Standards apparently vary, but God has given to the nations of the world certain standards. You find them in all the nations of the earth. No nation could be a civilized nation if it did not recognize some of these. But when a people depart from the living and true God, they go into the deepest kind of paganism and heathenism and reach a place where God gives them up. God now begins His judgment of the nations

Zephaniah 2:4

Mentioned here are four of the cities of the Philistines which are going to be judged. Somebody might ask, “Why didn’t He mention Gath? It was a prominent place.” Well, at this time Gath was pretty much under the control of the southern kingdom of Judah. These four cities are to be judgedGaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron. “For Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation.” It is interesting that Gaza is forsaken today, and Ashkelon is a desolation. There is a place called Ashkelon, but it is not over the ruins of the old city. The old one is right down by the sea. I have been there and have seen the ruins of the temple of Dagon that are there. “They shall drive out Ashdod at the noon day.” Ashdod was driven out, and it was done at noonday. In that land, the people always take time off at noontime; that is, they have what is called south of the border a siesta. In some places in South America, you cannot get into a store from around twelve to two o’clock in the afternoon. You are just wasting your time if you try to go shopping because nothing will be open. You can get into a store at nine o’clock at night, but they take time for a siesta in the heat of the day. At Ashdod it’s pretty warm.

Although it is by the sea, it gets very warm there in the summer. Zephaniah says that it will be destroyed and that they will be driven out at noonday. In other words, the enemy will take them off guard. Ashdod was completely obliterated. Israel possesses that territory today. They have built apartment building after apartment building, an oil refinery, and also a port there.

It is one of the principal ports now. But in that day it was absolutely cleaned off. There are no ruins there at all. “And Ekron shall be rooted up.” Ekron was rooted up; it was completely removed.

Zephaniah 2:5

“Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast.” All these places are along the seacoast. “The nation of the Cherethites!” The Cherethites were people who came from the island of Crete, and they evidently were the Philistines. The word Philistine comes from the Hebrew word for migration. They immigrated to that country. This, by the way, ought to answer the question that some people, especially the liberals, have raised: “What right did Israel have to drive the Philistines out of their native land?” It was not their native land. Actually, Israel was there long before the Philistines were there. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their offspring were in that land, and then they went down to the land of Egypt. In that interval, the Philistines came into that country. “The word of the LORD is against you; O Canaan, the land of the Philistines, I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant.” He says that they are to be judged. By the way, when was the last time you saw a Philistine? They have disappeared.

Zephaniah 2:6

This took place, and this condition existed for over a thousand yearsin fact, almost nineteen hundred years.

Zephaniah 2:7

This is God’s promise to His people that He will return them from their captivity to inhabit the land of Philistia, which was a part of the territory God had given to Abraham. I have pictures of Israelis lying on the beach at Ashkelon during a holiday. It is a beautiful, sandy beach on the Mediterranean Sea. This prophecy is a picture of a scene that can be demonstrated any day of the year, although it may change tomorrow. However, I do not consider what we see there today as a fulfillment of prophecy, because I believe that Israel will be driven from that land again before their final return under God. Now He moves over from the west to the east and to the nations which were contiguous to the land of Judah

Zephaniah 2:8

I have visited a few countries in my lifetime, and the poorest country that I have ever been in is the modern nation of the Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan. It occupies what was the land of the Moabites and the Ammonites. The modern capital there is Amman. You just do not find any more desolate country than that. All of this prophecy has been fulfilled in the past.

Zephaniah 2:10

They are judged for their pride, and as you know, pride is the way the devil sinned at the beginning.

Zephaniah 2:11

God is going to judge the nations of the world because they have ignored Him. They have not recognized Him. “… when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Rom_1:21-23). This is the reason God will judge them.

Zephaniah 2:12

Ethiopia is in Africa. You see, this is a worldwide judgment.

Zephaniah 2:13

“And he will stretch out his hand against the north, and destroy Assyria.” Ethiopia is in the south, but now we move to the north and find that Assyria also is to be judged. In Zephaniah’s day, Assyria was making quite a splash in the world. “And will make Nineveh a desolation, and dry like a wilderness.” That is the way Nineveh is today. The modern city of Mosul is across the Tigris River from the site of old Nineveh, and it is a miserable place, so I’m told. Nineveh and all of that area is still a desolation.

Zephaniah 2:14

In other words, their buildings are to be torn down.

Zephaniah 2:15

“Every one that passeth by her shall hiss.” People will hiss at Nineveh in the sense that it will be sort of an explosive expletive that comes from a person who is surprised: “Why, I thought that Assyria was a great nation and that Nineveh was a great city! Just look at it in desolation and ruin!” They hiss, and their breath is just blown out of them, as it were. “And wag his hand.” They will simply shake their hands back and forth, being absolutely stupefied to see what has taken place through God’s judgment of the nations. God has judged nations in the past, and God judges nations today. The Lord Jesus says that He will judge nations in the future. As we see in the Book of Habakkuk, God was moving in that day in a way that the prophet never suspected. And, my friend, God is moving in the nations of the world today. He has judged them in the past. He will judge them in the future.