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Out With The Old

by Lance Ponder⁽⁸⁴⁾
http://fkiprofessor.xanga.com

Scope of Destruction

Zeph 3:6 “I have cut off nations; their battlements are in ruins; I have laid waste their streets so that no one walks in them; their cities have been made desolate, without a man, without an inhabitant. This phase was intended to serve as a sober reminder of what God has already done. Let there be no misunderstanding – God has punished other nations with utter destruction and He is perfectly capable of doing so to any present nation that stands against Him. While this verse is not actually a prophecy of destruction to come, it looms ominously over those other passages of Zephaniah that do.

How to Avoid Wrath

Zeph 3:7 I said, ‘Surely you will fear me; you will accept correction. Then your dwelling would not be cut off according to all that I have appointed against you.’ But all the more they were eager to make all their deeds corrupt. It is all too common for contemporary Christians to look briefly at the Old Testament and get the impression that God before Christ had a very different character. Too often they see only an angry, jealous, destructive, rigid and wrathful God. Even in reading through this chapter of Zephaniah we could easily be fooled into thinking this way if we were not careful. Certainly God is big enough to be all these things, but these only begin to scratch the proverbial surface. God is creator. He is light and He is love. We sometimes think He is simply ignoring evil, but He waits patiently for the wicked to repent. God is jealous and admits it in the second Commandment (Ex 20:5). What many people fail to comprehend is that jealousy is protective toward what is His. Many of us confuse jealousy with envy which is the desire for something which is not ours. Instead of fretting over God’s jealousy we should be profoundly grateful for His jealousy and we should take great comfort in the knowledge He is jealous for us when we love and obey Him. We can also trust that while God is longsuffering, He will execute justice in the due course of time. Indictment, judgment and wrath are the biblical model upon which we construct our own legal system. God wants us to seek him and to forsake our own lusts. This is called repentance. This is when we choose to accept correction as part of the process of being purified from that sin which was our previous master. When we face our indictment we move to judgment and wrath if we refuse to repent. We can be assured of God’s faithfulness to forgive because the mercy seat is positioned above the Law. Faithful is He who calls you, for He will do it (1 Th 5:24). Even the Apostle Paul acknowledged the perfection of the Law (Ro 7:12). This is not because the Law perfects or forgives or grants life. It does none of those things. The Law reveals the perfect holy character of a righteous and holy God. When we finally learn the goodness of exchanging our way with God’s way, to seek Him earnestly and place our faith in Him with love for Him and by His love to love others, that is when we discover what it means to have our path lit by His word (Ps 119:105).

Gathering Wrath

Zeph 3:8 “Therefore wait for me,” declares the Lord, “for the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. God told Zephaniah’s listeners to wait for the day when He would rise up. In our modern terms this might read, “you just wait and see…” It is a taunt of sorts, but also a call to have faith in God’s justice. When He does take action it will take the form of a gathering of His enemies to face His anger. In the near term, if you read “all the earth” as “all the land,” then assume the context remains focussed on the Jews, the logical conclusion is that God has determined to gather the Jews and pour out wrath on them. Gathering nations, in this context, could include all the nations that underwent devastation in that tumultuous period. Assyria was wiped out, Judea fell, Edom was destroyed, and within a century Babylon itself would implode. It is difficult to read this passage without also seeing a clear apocalyptic angle sticking out. Jesus spoke of a gathering of “weeds” for fiery destruction in the parable of the wheat and tares (Mt 13:24-30, 36-43). Through that parable Jesus explained that evil and those who are evil would be exposed and removed at the close of the age. Rev 19:11-21 describes Jesus carrying out the wrath of God the Almighty against armies gathered against him. Whether Zeph 3:8 is a reference to the same events described by Jesus through the gospels and Revelation, there can be no doubt that God is faithful to execute justice.

to be continued with "In With the New"...

Article submitted Tuesday, September 20, 2011 & read 121 times.

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