Zephaniah 3
McGeeCHAPTER 3THEME: Judgment of the earth and of all nations; all judgments removed and the Kingdom establishedThe first eight verses of this chapter conclude this section, which deals with the judgment of the earth and of all nations. By now you may be tired of listening to Zephaniah talk about the harsh, the extreme, the unmitigating judgment of God upon His people. This is probably the strongest language you will find in the Scriptures until you come to the language which the Lord Jesus used in Matthew 23. If you will read that passage in connection with this chapter, you will see that the Lord Jesus topped even Zephaniah in the extreme language of judgment, which He used. It is bloodcurdling, if you please. We saw in chapter 2 that the judgment of God is worldwide, it is global in its extent, and it includes every nation on the topside of the earth. In verses Zep_3:1-5 of this chapter, God returns to the judgment that is coming upon His people, and He is very specific. He reveals that the light which a person has will determine the extent of the judgmentin other words, privilege creates responsibility. Your responsibility is measured by the privilege that you have. I like to express it like this: I would rather be a Hottentot in the darkest part of Africa than to be sitting in a Bible-believing church today, hearing the gospel but doing nothing about it. I won’t argue about the judgment of the Hottentots in Africa, as that is not what we are talking about here, but I do know what God will do with a person of privilege, one who has had the opportunity of hearing the Word of God and has turned his back upon it. This is very extreme language that is used to express the judgment on Jerusalem, a judgment that is in ratio to her privilege
Zephaniah 3:1
Jerusalem was the city in which the temple was located. The priests were there, and the scribes had the Word of God. When wise men came from the east, seeking the King of the Jews, the scribes had no problem in telling them where the Messiah was to be born, but they simply did not manifest any interest in checking to see if the wise men had any valid information about the Messiah. The scribes knew the letter of the Law, but that is all they knew. They did not know the Author of the Book, and they were far from Him. God’s condemnation of Jerusalem is on the basis of all the light they had. “Woe to her that is filthy and polluted.” This matter of pollution is not something that is new today, but the pollution spoken of here is not physical pollution. This pollution is not on the outside of man; it is on the inside of man. The thing that is causing the pollution on the outside today is that man is polluted and filthy on the insidethat is, before God he is not right. When a man gets right with God, he is not going to dump his garbage on another man’s property, and he is not going to fill a lovely, babbling brook with filth. The ones who are polluting this earth are the godless folk. For example, in one of the beach towns here in Southern California several years ago, there was a meeting of some hippies, a godless crowd. They met in a pasture to hold a protest meeting against pollution. They were decrying the pollution caused by the large factories with their smokestacks which pour out all the dregs and waste materials resulting from industrial production. Very candidly, I agree with them that that’s a terrible thing to have taking place.
But the interesting thing is that after they held their protest meeting, the city had to spend two thousand dollars to clean up the pasture which those who were protesting pollution had polluted! May I say to you, pollution is on the inside, and when you are godless and wrong with God, you are certainly going to pollute this earth. Man today is actually wrecking this earth that we are living on, and God’s condemnation of Jerusalem is that it is a polluted city, although it was a privileged city, a city that had glorious and wonderful opportunities. This is the picture of that city, but it is also a picture of mankind in general. Notice Paul’s verdict in Rom_3:16, “Destruction and misery are in their ways.” What a picture of mankind! Man has always left a pile of tin cans and rubbish wherever he has gone on the earth. Why did God single out the city of Jerusalem? It was a privileged city. This city had the temple of God. It had the Word of God. Therefore, its judgment will be harsher than that of any other city. God calls Jerusalem not only filthy and polluted, but He also calls it “the oppressing city.” It is the oppressing city because of the fact that she did not regard the rights of her people, especially of the poor. She did not consider them; she oppressed the poor. This is something that I think is so hypocritical in my own government. I am not talking politics now, nor am I speaking of any one party because this is true of the whole structure that we have in Washington, D.C., today. Constantly our congressmen are coming up with programs to help the poor. It is interesting that it is always some rich senator who comes up with such a program. To begin with, he does not know how poor folk feel. He does not know their hardships.
Such men have never experienced poverty, and their programs never help the poor; they help some bureaucrats but not the poor. I do not think the poor will ever be helped by any of the plans that men devise. Part of the problem is that the middle-class people are taxed to finance any such program. The middle class are the ones making it possible for the upper class to take our money to help the poor or the lower class. I personally would like to move into one of the other bracketsit would be more comfortable there today. God said that He would judge the city of Jerusalem for their oppression of the poor; so we know how He feels about our oppression. God is not through with His judgment; He goes on to spell out their sin
Zephaniah 3:2
“She obeyed not the voice.” She was disobedient to God. This city had heard the voice of God but had been disobedient to Him. “She received not correction.” God had sent judgment. One hundred eighty-five thousand Assyrians outside the walls of Jerusalem scared the living daylights out of these peoplethey were frightened beyond measure (see 2 Kings 18-19). They had been partially judged, but God had let the judgment pass over. You would think that they would have learned their lesson and would have turned to God, but they didn’t. Likewise, there are many Christians today who suffer but never learn why God permits it. He never lets anything happen to His own unless there is a purpose back of it. This city, like many of us, “received not correction.” She did not learn the lesson. “She trusted not in the LORD.” The city had no trust in Him at all but looked to something else. When the modern nation of Israel celebrated her twentieth anniversary, they displayed this motto: “Science will bring peace to this land.” My friend, the Bible says that the Messiah is the Prince of Peace, and He is the only One who can bring peace. But they don’t trust Himthey trust science. After that twentieth anniversary, believe me, Israel got into hot water. Science did not bring peace to that land, and my nation has not brought peace to them either. “She drew not near to her God.” Today men are not running to God; they are running from Him as fast as they possibly can. What a picture this is of the city of Jerusalem!
Zephaniah 3:3
“Her princes within her are roaring lions.” God is now talking about the leadership of the nation; and, when you speak of judgment, you must talk about the leadership of any nation or city. In my country, when men are running for office, they are always telling us that they are going to think about us, they are going to help us, and they are going to do something for us. So far, as best I can tell, nobody has ever done anything, either from the city level, the state level, or the national level. Why? Because “her princes within her are roaring lions"they make a big noise. “Her judges are evening wolves.” We have a second meaning for wolf today, and I’m not sure but that the Lord included that thought here also. “Her judges are evening wolves"in other words, they are willing to work day and nightnot for the people but for themselves. “They gnaw not the bones till the morrow.” These men are willing to get all they can. Dr. Charles L. Feinberg comments: “The judges of the people were filled with insatiable greed, devouring all at once in their ravenous hunger. They left nothing till the morning” (Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, and Malachi, p. 64). Many of the men who go into office in our country, promising to help us, have not helped us, but they have done well themselves. By the time they retire from office, many of these men have become well-to-do. This is the thing that God judges. Judah was a nation like ours that had the Word of God. That which is said of Jerusalem could apply to us also. If God spoke out of heaven today, He would have to say these same things concerning us.
Zephaniah 3:4
“Her prophets are light.” This does not mean that they give light! It means that they do not really give the Word of God, but they give a little smattering of psychology with a few Scripture verses put over it like a sugarcoated pill. That’s the sort of thing that is being dished out today. They do not talk about judgment or the need for sinners to come to Christ. “Her prophets are …treacherous persons.” That is, they are racketeers, religious racketeers. Again, let me suggest that you read Matthew 23 to see if God has changed. You will find there the Lord Jesus’ denouncement of religious rulers. “Her priests have polluted the sanctuary.” This is a terrible thing. How have they polluted the sanctuary? They have caused the world outside to lose respect for that which was sacred. By their lives, they brought disrespect upon the temple, upon the sanctuary. The same thing took place in Samuel’s day when old Eli was priest. Men no longer had respect for religion. And today men decry the fact that the church has lost its influence. I decry it also, but, very frankly, I do not think that the church deserves the respect of the outside world when we cannot and do not present to them a church that is holy and that is living for God. “They have done violence to the law.” In other words, they did not interpret it accurately. In fact, they did violence to it by omitting the teaching of the Word of God. “The law” here means the total Word of God.
Zephaniah 3:5
“The just LORD is in the midst thereof; he will not do iniquity.” God is not going to do evil. The minute that His people do evil while God does nothing, it looks as if God approves that sort of thing. However, God says that He intends to move in judgmentGod will not do iniquity. “Every morning doth he bring his judgment to light, he faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame.” The unjust simply continue on in sin with no shame at all that is public knowledge. We have now in verses Zep_3:6-8 the picture of the Great Tribulation period that is coming in the future, the great Day of the Lord which Zephaniah has talked about. Zephaniah moves from speaking of the city of Jerusalem to talking about the nations of the world in the last days. This is Armageddon, which ends with the return of Christ to earth.
Zephaniah 3:6
It has been my privilege to walk through the ruins of great civilizations of the past. Recently, I walked through the ruins of Ostia, the playground of the Romans. It is just fifteen miles from Rome, but not very well known. It will become well known later, as Rome is developing it, and it will become a tourist attraction. Ostia was where Rome lived it up. It was the Las Vegas of the Roman Empire.
As you stand in the ruins of that city and see the stones of the Roman road which were worn by chariot wheels, it is difficult to think that those streets were once crowded and that that city was a great city in its heyday. God says here, “I’m going to make them desolate.” It’s very difficult to believe that Los Angeles could become that desolate, but it could. It is difficult to believe that New York City could become desolate, but it could.
Zephaniah 3:7
The warnings of judgment and the little judgment that did come had no effect upon them. Eventually that will bring down finally the great Day of the Lord, the final time of judgment, which is coming upon this earth.
Zephaniah 3:8
This earth which you and I are living on is moving toward a judgment. Although folk don’t believe it, they are moving to judgment. It is this judgment which will be initiated when the Lord Jesus Christ returns to this earth for His church. It begins then with the Great Tribulation period and ends when He comes to establish His Kingdom on this earth.
Zephaniah 3:9
ALL JUDGMENTS REMOVED AND THE KINGDOM ESTABLISHEDWe are now going to pass from the darkness to the day and to see the blessings which are in store. The storm is over as far as the little Book of Zephaniah is concerned. The book opens with dark forebodings and with ominous rumblings of judgment. The first part of this chapter, which deals with the judgment of the city of Jerusalem, is almost frightening to read. It is frightening when you come to that picture of the Great Tribulation period when God will judge all nations when they are brought up against Jerusalem in that last day (see Zec_14:1-3). We have seen two kinds of judgment in the Book of Zephaniah.
There is God’s judgment of His own people, which is always chastisement. “For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth …” (Heb_12:6)in other words, He child-trains, or disciplines, them. Then God must judge the unbelieving world also. This is the picture of judgment that is before us in this little book. The Book of Zephaniah is like a Florida hurricane, a Texas tornado, a Mississippi River flood, a Minnesota snowstorm, and a California earthquake all rolled into one. As you read this book you might think that God hates His people and that He hates mankind in general; you might think that He is vindictive, cruel, and brutal, that He is unfeeling and unmoved. However, the little story that I told in the Introduction is the story that illustrates the message of Zephaniah. It is the story of the man who took a little child into the darkness of the night and rushed her away from home. It looked as if he were kidnapping the child. It was frightful when he turned her over to another man who plunged a knife into her abdomen. But when you know the whole story, you find that the man was the father of that little girl.
His own precious little girl had been having attacks of appendicitis, and that night he picked her up and rushed her to the hospital to put her into the hands of the family physician. Everything was done in tenderness. We find today that our Great Physician takes His own, the ones He loves, and puts them on the operating table. Even in judgment, God is love. When He is judging the unsaved or when He is judging those who are His own, God is love. Someday the final curtain is coming down on this world in which we live. Man’s little day will be over, and judgment will come for lost mankind. But God will restore His children, and we will find out that what we endured down here was actually a blessing in disguise. Let me tell you another little story, one that actually happened. It is the story of a boy who was away from home in school, and things got rough for him there. The lessons were difficult, and he was homesick.
He wrote home and said, “Dad, it’s hard here. The assignments are too heavy, and the dormitory rules are too strict. I’m homesick and I want to come home.” The father wrote back a stern and severe letter in which he said, “You stay on there and study hard. Apply yourself to your work.” When the boy got that letter, he thought, I don’t think my dad loves me anymore. My dad couldn’t love me, or he wouldn’t want me to go through this torture that I’m going through here. We have a heavenly Father who tells us, “You stay down there in the college of life.
I’m preparing a place for you, and I am also preparing you for that place.” With this in mind, let us turn to this final passage of Zephaniah. God has this far-off purposeit is called the teleological purpose of God. We will find it all through this section because now we are in the light. We are no longer in the darkness of the judgment, no longer in the Day of the Lord which begins at night. The sun has now arisen, and light has broken upon mankind. “For then will I turn to the people a pure language.” He does not mean that everybody is going to speak Hebrew, although a great many people think that that is the meaning. Nor is He going to turn them to some other, perhaps unknown, language which everybody will speak. Nor is the “pure language” English spoken with a Texas accent! Many people find my Texas accent rather distasteful. I thought for awhile that you were going to have to get accustomed to it because it was what everybody would be speaking in heavenbut this doesn’t mean that at all. “Pure language” means exactly what it says: the language will be pure. There will be no blasphemy heard. There will be no vileness nor vulgarity. There will be nothing repulsive. The language will be pure. At one time we had a neighbor who was a very big-hearted woman in many ways, but she was unsaved. She not only had a mean tongue, but she also had the vilest tongue that I have ever heard. It was offensive to people whenever she would lose her temper, for you could hear her throughout the entire neighborhood. It was very distasteful, so much so that some wanted to report her. In heaven, my friend, there will be nobody to report because there is going to be a pure language. Heaven will be pure in thought, word, and deed. “That they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.” There will be no rebellion against God in that day. Heaven is going to be a really nice nieghborhood to live in. In fact, it is going to be a glorious place, and you are going to have some good neighbors there.
Zephaniah 3:10
This verse of Scripture has been variously translated, and all sorts of interpretations have been presented for it. One interpretation is that the ark of the covenant is down in Ethiopia and that it will be brought up to Jerusalem as an offering at this time. I do not think that that is the thing Zephaniah has in mind here at all. Others call attention to a tribe in Ethiopia or Abyssinia known as the Falashas, which comes from the same root as the word Philistine, meaning migrant. They claim that they can trace their origin back to Israel, that they are Israelites. It is argued that these are the “suppliants” referred to here.
Many feel that this verse speaks of those converted from the nations of the world who will bring dispersed Israelites back to their land as an offering to the Lord. My position is that this verse means that Ethiopia will enter the millennial Kingdomthat is what is important for us to see. The offering that they will bring is the sacrifice of Christ Himself; in other words, they will come, having accepted His redemption.
Zephaniah 3:11
God is talking to His own here. We have seen that one of the things for which God was judging them was that there was no shame in their vile acts and gross immoralitythey were not ashamed of it. But, my friend, God’s people will never reach the place where they can be satisfied in sin. If you can live in sin and be happyyou can be sure of one thingyou are not a child of God. The prodigal son was never happy in the pigpen, and since he was the son of the father, he had to say, “I’m going home to my father.” That revealed that he wasn’t a pig. Pigs love pigpens, but sons don’t love pigpens.
A son wants to go to the father’s house because he has the nature of the father. God makes this very clear here: “In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast transgressed against me.” “For then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride, and thou shalt no more be haughty because of my holy mountain.” This speaks of the day when the meek shall inherit the earth. The other crowd has it now, and they are not doing very well with it.
Zephaniah 3:12
When the Babylonians took Judah into captivity, there were three deportations of slaves taken, but they never took all of the people. The poor, the afflicted, and the crippled were not taken to Babylon. You can imagine how they felt. It was terrible to go into Babylonian captivity to become a slave, but it was actually worse to be left behind. God says here, “I intend to take care of the afflicted and the poor.” You will notice that all the way through Scripture, the Lord often mentions the fact that He intends someday to see that the poor get an honest deal and that they are treated right. The only one in the world today who has a helpful program for the poor is the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are poor and needy, He is the one to go to. He can help you, and He is the only one who can help.
Zephaniah 3:13
“The remnant of Israel shalt not do iniquity.” God has always had a remnant, and there will be this very large remnant in the Millennium. “Nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth.” That the day is coming when they will not do these things would seem to indicate that they once did them. Even God’s people indulged in sinbut not permanently. They cannot continue to live in sin. They may get their feet dirty, they may get down in the pigpen, but they simply will not stay in the pigpen. “For they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid.” All of this has reference to the day when God will put His people back in their land and give them the land. Therefore, are you prepared to say that what has happened and is happening in that land today is a fulfillment of prophecy? Is it true that “none shall make them afraid”? My friend, Israel has not had a moment, since they’ve been in that land, that they have not been frightened. We come now to a description of the day when the King is going to set up His Kingdom on the earth.
Zephaniah 3:14
The Lord Jesus will come to the earth, evil will be put down, and “… the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa_11:9).
Zephaniah 3:16
“In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not.” Jerusalem has reason to be afraid now, but she will have nothing to fear in that day. “And to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.” In other words, “Be busy for the Lord.” Verse Zep_3:17 is a marvelous verse
Zephaniah 3:17
My friend, God has a purpose. He goes through the night of judgment in order to bring us into the light of a new day. He does all of this that the day might come when He can rest in His love. God loves you and me today. I don’t know about you, but I doubt very seriously whether He can rest in His love for Vernon McGee. He could say of me, “He’s not perfected yet. He seems so immature. He is so filled with faults. He is apt to digress, apt to detour, at any moment.” God cannot rest in His love today. But the day is coming when we will be in His likenessafter He has put us on the “operating table”. Then He is going to bring us to Himself. What a wonderful and glorious picture this is!
Zephaniah 3:18
Oh, this is the day of light that will come. It will be glorious for the nation Israel, and it will be glorious for the church also. God is putting many of us through the furnace, and He is putting us through trials. The glorious thing about heaven will not be the golden streets, it will not be the gates of pearl, and it will not be the fact that He is going to wipe away all tears. The glorious thing in heaven will be that we are going to thank Him for every trial we had and for every burden that He put on us in this life. I conclude with this wonderful little poem, “In the Crucible” Out from the mine and the darkness, Out from the damp and the mold, Out from the fiery furnace, Cometh each grain of gold. Crushed into atoms and leveled Down to the humblest dust With never a heart to pity, With never a hand to trust. Molten and hammered and beaten, Seemeth it ne’er to be done. Oh! for such fiery trial, What hath the poor gold done? Oh! ’twere a mercy to leave it Down in the damp and the mold. If this is the glory of living, Then better to be dross than gold. Under the press and the roller, Into the jaws of the mint, Stamped with the emblem of freedom With never a flaw or a dint. Oh! what a joy the refining Out of the damp and the mold! And stamped with the glorious image, Oh, beautiful coin of gold! Someday, when you and I are in the presence of our Savior, we will thank Him for every burden, every trial, every heartache. We will thank Him for dealing with us as a wise father deals with his children, and we will thank Him for the dark side of His love.