Have you ever felt you had a leading of the LORD to give a message to someone and it was not fun at all? But a message of warning and impending disasters? Recently I had that. I delivered the message to some very influential people in a ministry and it was not fun.
Will they do anything with it? I don’t know. I did my part. I sent out the warning. I would much rather have given them a happy word of blessing but that was not the case.
So here was Zephaniah and he was prophesying during the time of Josiah. Josiah was actually a really good king. But his father? One of the more evil kings.
But it had gone on too long. Now the LORD was directing Zepheniah to pronounce a word of judgment. I can assure you it was a message he did not want to deliver and a message that would make him hated. People do not want to hear hard messages.
Zephaniah proclaims what the LORD says:
“I will sweep away everything
from the face of the earth,”
declares the Lord.
“I will sweep away both man and beast;
I will sweep away the birds in the sky
and the fish in the sea—
and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble.”
“When I destroy all mankind
on the face of the earth,”
declares the Lord
Whoa. That is a tough message. Now is this a prophetic message that the LORD will do this? I don’t think so. This is a poetic way of bring total judgment on the earth.
Why do I think this? Because it says in the very next verse
“I will stretch out my hand against Judah
and against all who live in Jerusalem.
This was about Judah and Jerusalem and God’s judgment he was going to bring to them through Babylon. And about the other nations? He lists those other nations in the rest of the book – Philistia, Moab and Ammon, Cush and Assyria.
Then the LORD lists those who he cuts off and we are find and understand for a couple of lines.
I will destroy every remnant of Baal worship in this place,
the very names of the idolatrous priests—
those who bow down on the roofs
to worship the starry host,
those who bow down and swear by the Lord
and who also swear by Molek,
those who turn back from following the Lord
and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him.”
Um…did you stop like I did? Everything is going on about judgment against idolatry, but then it says this: “those who bow down and swear by the Lord.”
Isn’t that a good thing? Those who bow down and swear by the LORD? That’s where we have to look at the second line that says “and who also swear by Moleck.”
Molech was one of the chief gods. He was a metal contraption and on the inside there was a blazing furnace. They would have big drum ceremonies and mothers would throw their children inside Molech as a sacrifice to bring “blessing” to the people. Child sacrifice.
Not much worse than this (not sure if it is real but not much different then babies in trash cans – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twWoM7BPu5g):
The problem in this text, beside the child sacrifice, is that they were attributing Molech with the Most High. That is the judgment. This was blasphemy.
And so we continue on in the text. And hit something else:
Be silent before the Sovereign Lord,
for the day of the Lord is near.
The Lord has prepared a sacrifice;
he has consecrated those he has invited.
The “day of the LORD” is used 5x in chapter 1 alone and it is not a happy word but rather a word of judgment. Who who are the “consecrated” that “he has invited”?
This word “consecrated” is about those he bid or set aside to do a job. In this case it was the Babylonians. They are being summoned to destroy Jerusalem and Judah. The imagery of “sacrifice” here is the judgment and slaughter that will come. “Sacrifice” and judgment against sins always went together.
The judgment would come. It would be terrible. Blood would flow. And no amount of money would save them.
Make no mistake. God HATES evil. He will not tolerate it. People will always and ever justify it. It’s not new in history. And people will do the same sins over and over. This, too, is not new in the history.
God will wait. He desires mercy, not sacrifice. But in time, he will deal with the nations that persist in evil. Including having to deal with covenant people.
If this was true for Israel. How much more true is it for the Gentile nations?
