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The Imperiled World
When people look around the world, they see an imperiled world. They see a world that is threatened by climate change, war, terrorism, income inequality, racism, materialism, or tyranny. When the prophets looked at the world, they also saw an imperiled world. However, they saw the world imperiled in a different way. Behind all the challenges the world faces, they saw the wrath of God coming against the world.
This is how the book of Zephaniah begins: “‘I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth,’” declares the Lord” (Zeph. 1:2). What Zephaniah sees coming is the great day of the Lord. “The great day of the Lord is near—near and coming quickly. . . . That day will be a day of wrath—a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and blackness” (Zeph. 1:14–15).
Notice that Zephaniah calls this event “the day of the Lord.” The day of the Lord has a lot of different meanings in the Bible. It can refer to any time God comes in judgment on a nation or an individual. It can refer to His acts of wrath and of deliverance. All of these point, however, to a final day when God will come and judge the world. In Zeph. 3, God declares what this will be like. “I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them—all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger” (Zeph. 3:8). This is the great day of the Lord.
So, the question in the prophets is this, how does the world survive the wrath of God? How does history have any hope? When the prophets consider man’s sin and God’s holiness, all they can see is judgment and wrath.
Now, this is very different from what many people think today. They think that God is a God of love who has no wrath or anger against sin. I have been driving for Uber this summer, and it has given me the opportunity to meet a lot of people. One guy I talked to had a similar question. His girlfriend had told him to take the wrong things he had done seriously. The problem, he told me, was that he didn’t feel that bad for all the things that he had done wrong. He even knew in his head that, for example, sleeping around was not right, but he didn’t feel that guilty about it.
That’s the problem. We often estimate God’s feelings about things on the basis of our feelings, but this is a really flimsy foundation. Sometimes our emotions line up with reality, but oftentimes they do not. As a side note, a real important lesson is to learn that just because you feel something doesn’t mean that there’s a reality behind it. Our emotions are loud and not always true to fact. At any rate, we need to measure guilt by reality and not our own feelings.
There were people who said God didn’t care in Zephaniah’s day. God had a word for them. “At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its dregs, who think, ‘The Lord will do nothing, either good or bad’” (Zeph. 1:12). In other words, they were thinking, I don’t care; therefore, God doesn’t either. Not a good assumption.
What the prophets tell us is that God is much more concerned about wrongdoing than we tend to think. He is intensely concerned about injustice. He cares how we treat each other. He cares what we do with our time. He cares how we relate to Him. It’s a big deal not a little one.
As a result, the prophets tell us that we need to think about changing our hearts and minds on these points. We need to repent. When we really think about what we’ve done and what God calls us to do, then we should humble ourselves. “Be silent before the Sovereign Lord, for the day of the Lord is near” (Zeph. 1:7). He tells them, “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility; perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the Lord’s anger” (Zeph. 2:3). For Zephaniah, he sees a small glimpse of hope, but it involves taking the wrongs and injustices we have done seriously.
Imperiled Israel
Now, if there was one nation that should have listened to this message, it was the nation of Israel. At this point in the history of Israel, the northern kingdom, which is called (making this a bit more confusing) “Israel,” had been swept away. Now, only the southern kingdom, Judah, remained. This message was directed toward them. The main threat was no longer Assyria. It is Babylon.
Israel was the one nation that should have listened and repented. They had the law, the covenants, the prophets, the temple, and on and on. They had seen God’s work. “Of Jerusalem I thought, ‘Surely you will fear me and accept correction!’ Then her place of refuge would not be destroyed, nor all my punishments come upon her. But they were still eager to act corruptly in all they did” (Zeph. 3:7). They would not listen when God corrected them. So, this is how God viewed them, “Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled! She obeys no one! She accepts no correction. She does not trust in the Lord, she does not draw near to her God” (Zeph. 3:1–2).
You can read the end of the books of 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles to see what this was like. One example is that they enslaved their fellow Israelites. God told them to let them go, and they obeyed. Then, they panicked and put them back into slavery. In addition, they would seek all sorts of other gods. They set up idols everywhere and would not submit to what God told them to do.
So, the question was, how is Israel going to survive? The prophets wondered how the world could survive, but they also wondered specifically, how could Israel survive? How are they going to continue as a nation? And, if Israel perishes, what of the world? This was the one nation that was going to be the people of God! What hope is there for an imperiled world?
Hope for Israel
A lot of hope. In essence, God says, I’m going to clear the land. I am going to send Israel into exile, but I will bring them back:
“At that time I will deal with all who oppressed you. I will rescue the lame; I will gather the exiles. I will give them praise and honor in every land where they have suffered shame. At that time I will gather you; at that time I will bring you home. I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes,” says the Lord (Zeph. 3:19–20).
There will be an exile, but there will also be a return.
This is exactly what God prophesied long ago through Moses. He said that the people would sin against Him, but He would bring them back. “The Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back” (Dt. 30:3–4). God was going to bring the people back. God knew they would not listen, but one day they would because of God’s transforming grace, because of His gift of a new spirit within them.
This is what Jeremiah called a “new covenant.” It was one where God would give them a new heart so that they would walk in His ways. Zephaniah speaks of the same thing. “Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder” (Zeph. 3:9). God would remove the wicked, and He would give His people a whole new attitude and spirit.
God would have an entirely different attitude toward them in the future than He did now. “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). Isn’t that a beautiful picture of God rejoicing over His people?
So, there was a lot of hope for an imperiled Israel. God would bring them back. He would restore them. And that’s just what He did. After 70 years in exile, He brought them back to the land. This was not just a physical return. It was a spiritual awakening. Read the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, and Zechariah. We will see what God did as we consider these prophets. He gave them a new spirit. He brought them back from the ends of the earth.
Hope for the World
So, what does this have to do with the rest of us? How is there hope for a world imperiled by the wrath of God against sin? Though this passage refers to the return from exile to Babylon, there is something much bigger in view here. It refers to the return from exile in Babylon, but it is about a restoration of the whole world.
We have to step back and see that there is a much bigger exile and punishment in view in this book and so there is a much bigger return from exile in view as well. How does the world survive the wrath of God? The answer is that God Himself comes down and experiences that wrath for us. That’s what the cross of Jesus is all about. He dies in our place. He experiences the awful wrath of God. He is swept from the earth. He experiences the fire of God’s jealousy. He goes into exile. That is the final answer to how there is hope for the world. Jesus is a substitute for a world of sinners. Jesus goes into the exile of death and is the first to return in His resurrection. His people follow afterward.
The result is that the whole world is saved. Notice that Zephaniah does not speak just of Israel. “Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder” (Zeph. 3:9). The whole world is going to be restored. The return of the exiles from Babylon is a picture of when anyone returns to the Lord. It is a picture of what God does in the heart of every human being who is restored to Him.
That’s how the Apostles saw these prophecies. When they heard about this great day of restoration in the prophets and saw all the Gentiles turning to the God of Israel as revealed in Jesus Christ, they said, “What they prophesied is happening now.” They would have said the same thing about what is prophesied here in Zephaniah.
My friends when someone turns to the true God, there is a fulfillment of this prophecy. And we are seeing it all over the world: Dominicans, Chinese, Peruvians, South Africans, Egyptians, and on and on. The exiles are returning. When they do, we can say to them, “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). You are making God sing with joy! What an amazing thing.
This is exactly what Jesus said about the return of the exiles. “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7). God loves to see the exiles come home.
Conclusion
So, how does this affect us practically? First, we should take injustice, sin, and wrongdoing much more seriously than we do. The cross should tell us how intensely concerned God is about these things. Each one of us should humble ourselves before God and repent.
Second, we should rejoice. God has not let the world be swept away. He dealt with sin in the cross so that we can be forgiven and restored. We should not let our own sins drive us to despair. There is power in the blood of Christ on the cross to bringing healing to each one of us.
Third, we should not look at the world with so much gloom. This is the day of restoration. The exiles are coming home. When we look around us, we should see each person around us as one who has either returned home or can by God’s grace.
Finally, God has called us to be part of this restoration. We should not be so afraid to tell people about Jesus. This is the day of restoration. God is bringing the captives home. Let’s join with God in what He is doing and rejoice in singing over the returned exiles like our Father, the Mighty Warrior does. Amen.
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Photo by Michael Held on Unsplash