Zephaniah

Can I just say that I never thought I would have the opportunity to give a lecture on Zephaniah? Not that I ever thought I would be giving religious lectures in the first place, but if I were to do so, Zephaniah would NOT have been one that I would have expected to do. But God does that. Just like when I read the Bible over a loud-speaker in front of Leesburg Town Hall, I didn't expect to read the harsh words of Jeremiah. Maybe the passers-by thought they were harsh, but even words of God's judgment were beautiful to me on that rainy day.

For the lecture tomorrow, I will start out by reading two paragraphs from a Children's Bible Story book that my friend and co-hort Tina has lent me. Then I go into this. I hope it's ok.

Lecture:

I think we will have studied nine books of the minor prophets during this Divided Kingdom study, and for the most part, they all had the same theme: sin will bring judgment. If something is in the Bible, then it is important. If something is repeated in the Bible, then it is very important. So that tells me that so much emphasis on this topic of sin and judgment means that it is extremely important to God.

When I read Zephaniah, I will admit that I thought, “Oh, another book about how bad Israel and Judah are and how God will judge them. We get it already!” Isn’t that a horrible attitude? I’m embarrassed and ashamed that I had such a thought about God’s Word. Then I thought, “Do we really get it? The Israelites didn’t get it and they had real, live prophets telling them to their faces in language that was easy for them to understand.” Then I thought about how much more we have. We have the entire Bible and the Holy Spirit to help us be obedient to God. Yet, so often it is easy to forget.

The Israelites who believed in God would have heard the prophets and known that judgment, of some kind, was coming, but they didn’t know when. We are like that, too. We know the Day of the Lord is coming and we are told to be ready. What does that mean to be ready? We are to live as if Jesus were coming back TODAY! We need to read our Bibles, pray, and obey God. The Israelites who remained faithful to God were called the Remnant. When we accept Jesus into our hearts, we are part of that Remnant, too. Zephaniah 3:17 says

“The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."

You can all take that verse and take comfort in knowing that if Jesus Christ is your Savior, that verse is for you and that God delights in you.