Minor No.9 Zephaniah

Father, we commit this study to you and ask again for a sense of your presence and pray that you will speak to us as we look into your holy and inspired word and bring us again to that great conviction that though there's so much chaos in our world today and in our own country sometimes we think we've gone mad, help us to appreciate afresh that splendid truth written almost across every page of scripture that God is still on the throne working out his purposes, history, his story, the Lord Jesus Christ supreme throughout the whole era of mankind. Now bless us and help us to understand your word and grant me insight and correction where my own conclusions are wrong. For Jesus' sake, amen.

If I were to ask you what king in the Bible you associate with infanticide, the death of infants, who would you suggest? Herod, and of course you would be right, you go back to the infancy accounts of the birth of our Lord Jesus and you discover this depraved, jealous man giving one of the most ugly decrees in history, the death commanded of all the male children under two in the area of Bethlehem. But there was another man, perhaps not so well known because his story is locked up in the pages of the Old Testament, who was also guilty of infanticide, and his name was Manasseh, one of the cruellest, most infamous kings that Judah ever knew. And the reason why I take you back to the thought of Manasseh for our starting point in looking into the prophecy of Zephaniah is simply this.

Probably the word Zephaniah means God hides, the one who is hidden. And during the time of Manasseh's reign, there was such blood spilt in Jerusalem, there was such horror experienced by people that possibly, certainly speculation has it, that Zephaniah was hidden in Jerusalem as a little boy in order to be safe when Manasseh was at the peak of his cruelty. You might recall in Hebrews 11, references made to great men of faith, and towards the end of Hebrews 11, I think it's the 31st or the 32nd verse, you get a comment about some who were sawn asunder.

And according to Jewish tradition, the prophet Isaiah was literally sawn asunder during the reign of Manasseh. Well, Zephaniah was just a little boy in the time of Zephaniah's reign, and ultimately when he matured, if you can call being a teenager maturing, there's a new king on the throne. No longer Manasseh, no longer Hezekiah, a young lad by the name of Josiah.

He takes the throne at a ridiculous age, and he endeavors to undo something of the ravages caused by Manasseh during the 60 years of his long reign. And he has two people to help him in particular. One is Zephaniah, the baby who was probably hidden in Jerusalem during the time of Manasseh's reign, and the other Jeremiah.

It's rather interesting that when Judah really needed strong leadership, God picks three men who probably were no more than teenagers, each of them. Josiah, a young king, Zephaniah, a young prophet, and Jeremiah, a young prophet. And together they tried to do something about the circumstances in Judah and bring about reformation.

And so we're looking into the story of Zephaniah this evening. I say into the story, but actually there's not much story to it. And one of the things that makes Zephaniah a somewhat unattractive book is because there's no narrative.

Very little do we know about Zephaniah, and even what I've just shared is speculation with some justification attached to it. It's the sort of book that, well, perhaps you don't read too often in your quiet time in the morning. I once heard David Pawson say it's the sort of book where you would never find any text plucked from it and put in one of those old-fashioned promise boxes.

You know, some of you older people, those promise boxes. Actually, I would disagree with Mr. Pawson, because I think there's one very glorious text that certainly sets my heart racing, the 17th verse of the last chapter. The Lord your God is with you.

He's mighty to save. He will take great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love.

He will rejoice over you with singing. And as far as I'm aware, that's the only verse in the whole of the Old Testament, indeed in the whole of the Bible, which refers to God's singing. I think that's rather a lovely concept.

So with that exception, we might agree with our friend that there aren't that many verses that really would send us on our way rejoicing at the beginning of the day if we suddenly dipped into the prophecy and took whatever scripture we found and applied it to ourselves. Now, I haven't put up much in the way of an outline on this sheet. In fact, I'm going to give you the outline and then shut the light off.

I do that deliberately because you've got an outline in any case in front of you in my notes, and I'm going to stick reasonably close to the structure, to the skeleton, though not cover everything that I mention in those notes. But here, if you like, is something of an outline of the contents. I would suggest that when you look into the first chapter, you see the way that the Jews have been guilty of deviation, straying from the purposes of God.

We'll attend to that in a moment. You will see that because of that, the prophet Zephaniah feels that he has to condemn them. He engages in a word, if you like homiletics, if you like words that rhyme, he engages in denunciation.

There are several things that he says that would scare the living daylights out of someone who was spiritually sensitive. And then towards the end of the first chapter and on into the next chapter, he talks about the day of the Lord, the consummation of all things, as God brings history to a full stop in his eternal purposes. And then, if you like, from the eighth verse of the second chapter to the fifteenth verse, the prophet engages in some speculation.

He, if you like, indicates through what God is about to do to other nations that the Jewish people can be convinced that what Zephaniah predicts about them will likewise come to pass. Now, that's a complicated way of summing up what's in chapter two. To put it more easily, because we live after the event, here is the fulfillment of prophecy as we look into the fate of some of the contemporary nations surrounding Judah at the time of Zephaniah's prophecy.

And we might well say today that if what Zephaniah predicted came true in part, then we have reasonable right to believe that what he predicts in full concerning the destiny of mankind will also come true. And finally, in the third chapter, I think there is a mixture of prophecy that concerns the Jewish people as ethnic people and also the Church of God, spiritual Jews, the new Israel of God, which our Lord Jesus Christ brought into being through his saving death and his mighty resurrection. Well, I'll switch the overhead projector off now and then you'll not be put off by the words there as I'm not going to have any further reference to them.

Let's think, first of all, of deviation. Do you know what the Dark Ages were? Generally, the Dark Ages is an expression that's used by historians to cover centuries, shall we say, before the birth and the ministry of John Calvin and Martin Luther. Century after century preceding the birth of these great men is described historically as the Dark Ages and dark they were in Europe.

Superstition was rife. Anarchy wasn't far away. You got one nation rising up and being put down by another nation.

There was little in the way of education for ordinary people. There was little in the way of medical help. In fact, it really didn't exist at all.

And when secular historians look back upon those centuries of history, they describe them as the Dark Ages. Now, they should never have been Dark Ages. And though secular historians wouldn't agree to this, I would argue as an evangelical Christian that the reason why they were so dark is because the light of the gospel had gone out, almost extinguished completely in Europe.

Occasionally, there was a little lamp that shone for a while in North Italy and I believe to some degree in the south of France. But by and large, the whole of that period is well described as the Dark Ages. And we ask ourselves, why were those centuries so dark? And the answer is simply this.

The word of God was kept from the people. And when the word of God is kept from the people, the word that brings illumination, then darkness is bound to fall. Now, if you please, there was an equivalent to the Dark Ages.

In fact, perhaps there have been several equivalents, but for our purposes this evening, there was an equivalent to the Dark Ages in Jewish history. It covered the period of Manasseh and Hezekiah and indeed kings preceding the reign of Manasseh. And the reason why things were so dark and why things got so bad in Judah as well as in the northern country of Israel was simply this.

Literally, they lost the Old Testament. Obviously, they didn't have the Old Testament scriptures in their entirety as we have them today. But that which was very important to them, which was given to the Jewish people centuries before the birth of Zephaniah and Josiah was lost.

I refer to the book of Deuteronomy. And you read a remarkable scripture in 2 Kings 22 and verse 8, where hunting around the temple on one occasion, the Old Testament book of law is found again. It's during the period of Josiah.

And he, when he reads this book, he's very concerned because so many things that Moses in the name of God has predicted, has taught, is not being practiced in Jerusalem. And so Josiah institutes a reformation as indeed had Hezekiah, his predecessor. And this reformation is taken up by Zephaniah and also by Jeremiah, and they become corrective in their ministries.

But back to the dark ages for a moment. If there is ever a city that should glow with light, it's the city of Jerusalem, the most remarkable city in the world in many, many ways. Its history goes back to the infancy, to the beginning of time.

I'm tempted to give you a 10-minute lecture about Jerusalem before it became Jerusalem, but then I wouldn't get through this prophecy. Of Zephaniah. But Jerusalem should have been a lighthouse that shone out its light.

Instead, during the time of Zephaniah, it was plunged into darkness. And some of the deviations that were abroad in Judah at that time, as a result of there being a literal famine of God's word, are listed for us from the fourth verse through to the end of chapter 1. Summarizing them, there was terrific immorality, promiscuity. You say, you don't see that.

Well, you will if you look deeply into the fourth verse. I will cut off from this place every remnant of Baal. Baal religion was what had swept over northern Israel and was really the reason for its political and economic collapse.

And also it was invading Judah, the southern Jews. You might think that promiscuity and permissiveness and pornography are children of the 20th century. You couldn't be far wrong.

I remember being horrified, literally so, walking around the streets of Kathmandu on the first occasion I was visiting Nepal. If you look up to the frescoes, to the frieze work of the Hindu temples, you see there some of the most grievous pornography and perversion depicted in figure form that you're ever likely to come across. Hugh Hefner and Playboy and that sort of cult that comes across, alas, from the States and now has many permutations in this country, the high priests of pornography, they're not new.

They've been present with man, alas, almost from the beginning, ever since he fell. And Jerusalem is sodden with permissiveness and promiscuity. It's all done in the name of the religion that's come in from Philistia, the Baal religion from Phoenicia.

And it has to do with sexuality and orgies and so on and so forth. That's happening in Jerusalem and it's wrong, part of the dark ages. Do you know what the most ancient, the oldest religion is that competes with Judaism in the world today? Well, it's not Hinduism and it's not Muslim, it's not Islam, that's a relatively recent religion.

The oldest competitor over against revealed religion, Judo-Christian religion, is astrology. Go right back to the beginning of Genesis, you'll read about the Tower of Babel. And the Tower of Babel is full of astrological significance and overtones.

Again, I'm tempted to show you how astrology is woven throughout the pages of the Old Testament. And by woven, I mean the denunciations of the prophets against astrology, the temptation to worship the sun, the moon, the stars, and so on and so forth, and to be under the control of the zodiac. Well, that was there in Jerusalem.

Of all places, Ezekiel tells us that it was even practiced in the temple itself. And so there's a denunciation of those who bow down, verse 5, on the housetops to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord, and who also swear by Moloch, one of the gods that seemingly has his throne on one of the planets. Superstition, yes, whenever the dark ages sweep over a society, superstition is rife.

It's part of the wear of astrology. In verse 9, you get an example of it. How many of you, when you got married, carried your beloved over the threshold? I won't embarrass you by asking or daring you to do the same thing again 20 years, 30 years later.

It may be that she was a growing investment and you would find it rather difficult today. I don't know. But that little practice of carrying your bride over the threshold has its origin in paganism, carrying it over the power of the demons of the threshold.

Reference made, verse 9, on that day I will punish all those who avoid stepping on the threshold, who fill the temple of their gods with violence and deceit. As for materialism, well, that's rife in Jerusalem. Characteristic, it would seem, of some of the Jewish people, an ability to make money.

And money can become a god. It can to the Jews, it can to the British, it can to anyone. And so in the 18th verse, we're told that when God pours out judgment against the inhabitants of Jerusalem, verse 18, their silver nor their gold will be able to save them.

So put the whole thing together, and I've only given you a sample, immorality, astrology, superstition, materialism, and isn't it interesting that not only do you get a description of a dark age in the 7th, 8th century BC, but you begin to get a picture that corresponds a great deal with what is emerging in Great Britain, the revival of astrology. You heard me preach on this some while ago. It's incredible, the superstitious practices to which people are returning.

And as for pornography and promiscuity, I've no need to make any comment. So you see, Zephaniah is not old hat, alas. He's very much up to date.

Because there are some of us who would argue that despite the educational facilities that we have today, we have entered into what Dr. Francis Schaefer calls a post-Christian culture, living after the benefits of the gospel, where the ethics of Christianity are now being questioned. At one stage, it was just the historicity that was in the early part of this century, questioning the credibility of the gospel, the credibility of the Bible, but holding on to the ethic. Now we've gone one stage further.

No longer the historicity of the Bible is given any credibility at all in many of our institutions today. But more importantly than that, the very ethical standard of the Bible is being rejected by and large. I don't think I exaggerate.

And as a result, we move forward into another dark age. And therefore you would expect the analysis of the prophet in the 8th century BC to fit in with the dark ages in Europe in the period to which I referred, and also to have correspondence today, as indeed I would argue it has. Now what happens then when the prophet Zephaniah, a sensitive man like his young colleague Jeremiah, what happens when they square up despite their youthfulness to the situation in Jerusalem? Well they get annoyed, they get incensed.

You know, these are not evangelists who are going to ingratiate themselves amongst the people by making their message easy. They come and they speak in the name of God, and in the name of a God who will act. One of the misconceptions of the 20th century is that God does not act anymore.

Time magazine last year had some article, why is it that 2,000 years have elapsed since God last spoke to the world? And the answer to that is that God has been speaking, but the ears of editors are as deaf as the ears of ordinary people. And God does not just speak, he acts. And sometimes he acts fearfully and terribly.

The people have said in verse 12, the latter part, the Lord will do nothing, either good or evil, he's impassive. He's non-effective, live as you want to live. This God doesn't really deal out punishment if you break his law.

So Zephaniah rears like some horse up against that absurd notion and speaking in the first person singular with infallibility as well as inspiration. The two are not identical. He says, I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth.

Verse three, I will sweep away both men and animals. I will sweep away the birds of the air. Verse four, I will stretch out my hand and so forth.

Far from God being passive, Zephaniah says, God is going to act. He's going to act in history. He's going to act amongst the Jews.

He's going to act amongst the surrounding nations. This God is awake, and he's taking in what is happening, and he reacts against the immorality and the bestiality of men and women. John the Baptist hadn't read Dale Carnegie when he started to preach.

Do you remember what he said about God? The axe is about to be laid. No, it's already laid at the root of the tree. John the Baptist realized that the Jews in his day were going wrong, and they will be judged by God.

And so John says, God will act. And the preaching of the evangelists in the first century and every man of God down the centuries, when confronted with evil and apostasy, is that God will move against it. And those who believe that his seeming inactivity indicates that he is unable to deal with the situation will have a very rude reminder that this God indeed will act.

Jesus said, I will come again. Jesus said, I will be with you always. The Lord Jesus makes it apparent to his church in embryo in the first century, and by extension to his church in the 20th century, that he is the God who acts.

And all the nations of the world, says Zephaniah, should recognize this. Look at verse 7 of the first chapter. Be silent before the sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near.

Deviation there has been. And the deviation demands what? It demands denunciation. God is going to write the balances and judge those who have been living in an immoral way.

And so time and time again from the first chapter, you come across into the second, you come across the expression, the day of the Lord. Look at verse 7. Verse 8, the day of the Lord. Verse 9, the day of the Lord.

Verse 10, on that day. Look at verse 14 or 15 if you like. There's so many references there in 15.

That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress, a day of trouble, a day of darkness, a day of clouds and blackness, and so on. You could go through Zephaniah underlining the reference to the day of the Lord. And when you do, remember this.

He has in mind the day when he will judge, the day of consummation. In a sense, every day is God's day. As Christian people, we recognize this.

I'm not too sure about the case of Sabbatarianism, the first day of the week being the Lord's day exactly. I think that that is perhaps a misunderstanding and too narrow an interpretation of what John had to say on the Isle of Patmos when he speaks of being in the Spirit on the Lord's day, the only day, the only time that that phrase is used in the whole of the New Testament. It seems to me that the Apostle Paul argues when he's writing to the Colossians that every day is the Lord's day.

Every day for the believer belongs to the Lord. But within that compass of understanding of the Lord's day, there are certain days which are epoch days, certain days which will ever be remembered. The sixth day of creation when everything is complete and God says it is good and he rests on the seventh.

The day when the rain came down as Noah had prophesied but the people didn't believe him. The day when the flood stopped and the waters were abated and Noah went out onto the dry ground. The day when the sun stood still.

The day when the Lord Jesus was born. The day when the Lord Jesus died. The day when the Lord Jesus was raised again.

These are amazing days within the whole sweep of God's day that you move always in scripture to the final point of the human story. The last day. The day of consummation.

The day when God moves into time and space finally to assert his authority, to make clear his justice, and to inaugurate something that is so phenomenal that it beggars even the description of an artist with words like the Apostle Paul. The day will come when time shall be no more. We may not sing of it theologically but we sing of it accurately and sentimentally in that Sankey hymn when the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more.

That day is coming and this is what Zephaniah has to say. Perhaps immediately he has in mind Jerusalem being surrounded by the Babylonians for that will happen just a few years after the cessation of his ministry. Jerusalem will fall to the Babylonian hordes and in the most precise fashion what Zephaniah predicted came true.

Verse 12 at that time of chapter 1, I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent. And according to some records those who were so-called religious leaders when the Babylonians ransacked Jerusalem took refuge in the temple and in the caves under the temple area and lights were lit, candles were lit, and the Babylonians searched out the culprits with lamps, with lights, as the Word of God had indicated. But when the New Testament latches onto the day, the day of the Lord, when our Lord Jesus speaks of it he does so in terms of his return and the great judgment that there is to be.

Do you know why it's good to be regular in attending church? Well there are many reasons but I speak with a certain degree of bias. But listen to Hebrews in chapter 10 when we are told in the 25th verse, let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25, let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.

As you see the day of the Lord approaching it should stimulate you to want Christian fellowship and the ministrations of the local assembly. When the apostle Peter writes to Jewish Christians scattered around the Roman world he's concerned that they may be losing out in terms of their hope of the return of the Lord Jesus. So many things have happened since the Lord Jesus was taken and he's not come back and the possibility was that that faith was waxing somewhat dim.

But Peter says you ought to live holy and godly lives, this is second Peter chapter three, you ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it's coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth.

You see how what theologians refers to as the eschatology of the Old Testament, that is terms that describe the end, are taken up by New Testament writers. Sometimes they pour in additional meaning to give us greater clarity but the principle remains the same wherever you look in the Old Testament and the New Testament God has got the whole thing in control and ultimately he has the last word. And the language of eschatology, the language of the end, is now being trumpeted out in the most remarkable circumstances.

For instance I made a note of a speech by the Secretary General of the United Nations a speech that he made just a few months ago and he was speaking about the terrible obscenity of the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and the fact that no nation was taking seriously the potential that they have to destroy one another. What he says, what have the governments of the world done to respond to the fervent demands of the peoples of this world that this insane arms race be stopped? He gave his own reply. You and I know that answer but I want to state it for the world to hear.

Nothing. Nothing. The possibility is of total eclipse of the whole of mankind.

I'm not exaggerating. One of the best sellers last year in America was a book called The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schnell, not writing as an evangelical, as far as I know, not writing as a Christian, and he was predicting the terrible catastrophe that is in front. The language, the speculation of the prophets, of the New Testament writers seems to take upon itself a hideous reality in terms of imminent fulfillment in the 20th century to those who are thinking people.

How do we know? How do we know that this concept of all the nations, Jews and Gentiles being brought before the Lord and judged is not idle speculation on the part of Zephaniah? Well, because of the speculation of Zephaniah coming true in the second chapter. You see, we have this advantage over the 8th century Jew. We can look back upon what some of these men were saying as they prophesied in that era.

Take, for instance, what Zephaniah had to say about Philistia. Now, the Philistines, they lived on the borders or rather on the coast of Palestine, of Israel, as it was then known, Israel and Judah. They had five cities.

You know the Philistines, don't you? The nation that had this overgrown soldier that challenged much to his physical discomfiture, challenged the shepherd boy David. There were five towns, garrison cities on the coast, fortified, strong, impregnable. But Philistia was a bastion of evil and bestiality.

And God said, Philistia, you'll be brought down to the ground and you will no longer exist as a nation. You will be absorbed by the very Jewish people in the south of Palestine. And that's precisely what happened.

Verse seven, it will belong to the remnant of the house of Judah. There they will find pasture. You don't come across Philistines today, do you? The nearest word that you'll get on the map to Philistia is Palestine.

In fact, in one sense, Palestine, etymologically speaking, that's the term that we give to the history of words. Palestine is a derivative. It comes from Philistia.

And the Philistines were absorbed by the Jewish community in centuries which were yet ahead. And Philistia as a nation no longer exists. Incredibly so, look down at verse eight, what the prophet had to say with regard to Moab and the Ammonites came true also.

Look at the ninth verse and the last part of the ninth verse, or rather the middle of the ninth verse, surely Moab will become like Sodom, the Ammonites like Gomorrah. Where is Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, we can speculate, but we can't be absolutely certain. Their citizens were wiped off the face of the earth.

Speculation is that the remains of those twin cities are under the Dead Sea. Well, whether or not that is so, it's really unprovable. But what is demonstrative for our point here is that Sodom and Gomorrah were a eclipse, were a Moab today.

And Ammon, they no longer exist as nations where they used to be, a place of weeds and salt pits, a wasteland forever. That apparently is what's happened to the area where they used to live. The survivors of my nation will inherit their land as came true when the Jews returned from Babylonia.

Let's drop down, just take one other instance as time is really now pressing. Let's go to the 13th verse of Syria. Can you imagine the Soviet Union ever being toppled today? Can you imagine anyone going into Parliament, the houses of Parliament, and saying that Moscow ultimately will fall or the New York or Peking? They would laugh at such a declaration.

And yet Zephaniah said of Nineveh, which was the equivalent of those three cities that I've mentioned in his day, Nineveh, it will fall. And one of the most staggering things that ever happened in ancient history was when Nineveh collapsed, its walls so wide they used to have chariot races around them. Nineveh, one of the wonders of the ancient world, and yet in ways that I haven't time to go into, she was brought to the ground, her walls were destroyed, her houses were demolished, and the very owls and animals that used to hoot and roam over that area before Nineveh was built took up occupation again.

Verse 14. Incidentally, why did Nineveh collapse? Well, because Nineveh arrogated to herself that she had all power. She'd go on forever.

The Third Reich mentality again. You remember that Austrian painter, Hitler, strutting around Europe, mesmerizing people as though he was divine, as though he had got a secret that would give the Germanic races power and authority for a millennium, and he was humbled? So Nineveh, this is the carefree city that lived in safety. She said to herself, I am.

She took to herself the name of Jehovah, and you can't do that and live. And Nineveh was destroyed. And where is the Assyrian nation today? It's nowhere.

It's absorbed into modern nations, not identifiable as a unit of people today. Now, this is my point, my friends. In the first chapter, and particularly the third chapter, the Prophet strains into the future.

He's thinking in terms of what's going to happen. Very often in Old Testament prophecy, it's difficult to unravel immediate fulfilment or relatively immediate fulfilment and long-term fulfilment. It's not too easy, and those who are dogmatic are really qualified as fools.

It's not too easy always to disentangle when the Prophets are speaking about ethnic Israel, that's literal Jewish people, and when they're speaking about spiritual Israel. Because very often when New Testament writers go into Old Testament, they bring out scriptures that apply, or so it would seem in Old Testament passages, just to the Jew, and they apply it all the way down the line to Christian people, as well as believing Jews. That's why the Apostle Peter, when he was writing specifically to Jewish people, takes some of the literal prophecies of the Old Testament, and he gives them a full-blooded spiritual meaning, as he thinks in terms of the great day of the Lord.

And not necessarily the inauguration of the state of Israel as such, but rather the bringing in of God's eternal purposes in a new heaven and a new earth. Dogmatism is unwarranted in prophetical interpretation, but the principles that are there enable us to realize this, that the whole destiny of mankind is within the control of God. And in the third chapter, we get Zephaniah speaking of Jewish people living in Jerusalem, and possibly also speaking in terms of those who ultimately will be redeemed, Jew and Gentile, being brought to worship the Lord.

You will discover in those verses references that hint at what Paul has to say in Romans 10, 13, as you look at verse 9 and verse 12 of this particular chapter, the idea of confessing the Lord, trusting the Lord for salvation, as the Apostle Paul says, So, as you move into that third chapter, you get Zephaniah with a great deal of pessimism that he's left in the first two chapters, now thinking in terms of ultimately what will happen. God will make provision for his people, verse 14, sing, O daughter of Zion, shout aloud, O Israel, be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem, the Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy. And you think of Romans chapter 9, 10 and 11, when Paul leads off with that question, Hath God rejected his ancient people? And it would surely indicate from what he's been saying before, or hinting at, that the answer might be an affirmative, but paradoxically, it's in a negative.

And Paul makes it clear that what was cut off can be grafted in. Those who lost promises and blessings can be brought back into the same blessings as Gentiles who've confessed the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour shall appreciate. And it seems to me that Zephaniah, intermingling both groups of people, applying blessings to both groups of people, speaks in terms of what God has yet to do in our world as that great day dawns, and he brings about ultimately judgment and rejuvenation of the heavens and the earth.

Now, I've got one minute and I'm through. Isn't it interesting that this little prophecy of Jeremiah, which perhaps some of you have never even read before, contains so much that's of benefit for us in the modern world in which we live? Sin is always contemporary because it's always present. The analysis of sin is therefore accurate throughout the whole of the centuries.

The way Paul, the way Zephaniah describes the fashion in which the Jews were behaving is very, very much approximating to the way that we behave. The way that he indicates God has fulfilled his purposes in times gone by can be illustrated not only from Zephaniah's prophecy, but what we know about the fulfillment of prophecy in the modern age, particularly the advance of knowledge and the inability of man to control the knowledge he has. Intellectually, man is a giant.

Ethically, he's a pygmy. He just can't cope with the knowledge that he's got as Daniel predicted. What does this all mean? Well, Zephaniah brings in the conclusion it doesn't mean that you've got to be afraid, neither does it mean you've got to cop out of your responsibilities.

It means that when there's utter confusion, when all these things are happening, when the world is in turmoil, recognize this, that the God of the Old Testament prophets who worked out his purpose yesteryear is working out his purpose today. Jesus shall reign where'er the sun doth its successive journeys run, his kingdom stretch from shore to shore, and so the hymn goes on. The world does not belong to the devil.

The devil has squatter's rights and he creates havoc during the interval as his power is allowed to permeate every aspect of the 20th century, but the landlord is returning and the squatter shall be evicted, judgment shall be meted out, the heavens and the earth shall be reformed, heaven shall kiss earth and the new era will dawn. That is not speculation, it's declaration. That's not what might happen, it's what will happen.

Not because I say so, but because God says so. And you get excited when you look into Zephaniah and you realize what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do. Amen.