Be God's Family
S3 E36. Zephaniah: It’s Not Gonna End Well
This is the Begoth Light Podcast with Ben Greenbaum and Mark Alsasser and here in 2024 we've been looking at the Old Testament for the entire year and we're kind of coming to the end of the prophets Zephaniah near the end of the Old Testament because we're going to take a look at today. It's been a pretty good run, Ben. I think we've been doing all right and hanging in there some of these more minor obscure prophets. I have to admit, I had to do a lot of refresher work for these discussions, so you probably got them right on the tip of your tongue, is that? Oh, yeah, that works for you. Since I have the entirety of Scripture fully memorized. What language? Oh, in the Hebrew and Greek and then I learned the Aramaic to complement the Greek in the New Testament, of course, and so, you know, no. Yeah, I'm good with you. Is that what they call South Louisiana Aramaic? Yeah, yeah. We were talking about actually this morning in a meeting which you were there. There was a side conversation that went on about me narrating something and the need that we'll have to put captions on it. So, for my which subtitles and what I'm saying, yeah. Fair enough. Well, Zephaniah, he was speaking the language, but nobody was listening to him either, which is typical of these prophets. Maybe they needed subtitles. Maybe they needed captions, like closed captioned prophet. Yeah, it wouldn't have helped. It wouldn't have helped. My kids understand fully what I'm trying to communicate to them for the most part. It doesn't mean they're always listening. They listen faithfully, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Just as I have Scripture fully memorized, my kids hang on my every word. I wonder if Zephaniah had daughters. You know, I have several. You have a few daughters. Yeah. Yeah. We know what it is to be girl dads. We do. Yeah. I grew up with all boys and watched everything Clint East would ever did. And then for the next 25 years, it was every princess movie ever made. So, yeah, if there was ever like a jeopardy, specifically geared toward Disney princess movies, I could dominate. Good to go. Yeah. I wonder if Clint East would've ever been in a princess movie. I can't recall one. That's curious. Doug's over here thinking. He's like, how long is this podcast going to be? You guys haven't even looked at the scripture yet. Maybe because I know nothing about Zephaniah. Why do you think that is? Well, we do a little bit. Zephaniah was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah. We'll remember that the nation split in half and north was Israel. It's now gone. It's been wiped out by Assyria. And the south is known as Judah. Zephaniah prophesied during the first 20 years of King Josiah. And Josiah was a good king, but the son of an evil king. So, and then followed by another evil king. So, there's some back and forth stuff going on in Judah, which is where Jerusalem is. And when he started his prophetic ministry in 640 BC, most people think, the nation then was in great disarray. They were just trying to figure out who they were. And there was lots of idolatry and falseness that was going on. He ministered at a time that when he, at the time he finished, it had been 100 years since the northern kingdom of Israel had been wiped out by Assyria. So, things seemed to be maybe okay, but they were being threatened. However, only 35 years later Babylon would come and destroy the southern kingdom of Judah. So, there were still lots of tension. And that may set a bit of context for what we're going to talk about today. I want to begin, not with Zephaniah, but in 2 Chronicles chapter 34, just a snippet to give some of the background that's going on as Zephaniah is getting his ministry started. In 2 Chronicles chapter 34, it says that Josiah took over and he was 8 years old. Now, we've talked about 25-year-olds getting this start in ministry in 12-year-olds. I'm not in ministry in kingship. And then a 12-year-old took the throne. Now, we got an 8-year-old that's jumping in and taking over as the king of Judah. Maybe I have to wonder like, no wonder it. They had troubles. They kept giving the throne to somebody too young to even get his homework done. But nonetheless, he was the king and I'm sure he had people running the kingdom for him until he got of age. But it does say this in verse 3 of 2 Chronicles 34. In the eighth year of his reign, so he's a ripe old 16, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father, David. Remember, his father had done evil. In his 12th year or more years, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of high places, ashrapoles, and idols. Under his discretion, the altars of the bales were torn down. He cut to pieces, the incense altars that were above them and smashed to ashrapoles and idols. These, he broke to pieces and scattered over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them. He burned the bones of the priests on their altars and so he purged Judah and Jerusalem. There's more that's written there about that some of the things he did. But so when he was 20 years old, he began to look around and say, "We got to do something." Now remember that Zephaniah prophesied during his first 20 years. So for those first 20 years up until that purging took place, Zephaniah was speaking out and nobody was really paying attention. At the end of his time, there were some reforms made. So I have to wonder how much impact Zephaniah had on Josiah. I don't know if any particular scripture that says that they interacted with one another or that because of Zephaniah's words, Josiah made some changes. I just don't know. But the timing is interesting, at least, that at the end of Zephaniah's time is when King Josiah begins to say, "Let's clean this pipe. Let's place up." And so Zephaniah's got this ministry going at a time when the nations worried, they're worried that Assyria is going to come and conquer them. Babylon is beginning to heat up and very soon they're going to conquer Assyria and then turn around and conquer Judah. So they got pressure from those two directions. And then also Egypt is always a menace. There's a lot going on in and around Jerusalem during the time of Zephaniah. Describe what you think's happening in the lives of the kings, the priests, the prophets, the people in Judah during this time period. We have the perspective then of looking backwards and we say, "Oh, didn't they know in 35 years they'd be conquered?" Well, of course not. It was in their future. And so what do you sense is happening in the nation during this period of time? Yeah, I think there's a multitude of things and probably depending upon who you were talking to, you might get a different opinion or view if you were interviewing the people in Jerusalem in particular at that time. Because obviously, they had the prophets that were going to the people warning them of what was coming if they did not repent of their idolatry. You had people within the context of Jerusalem, especially among a lot of the leadership, false prophets and kings alike and other leaders that understanding the threat that Assyria posed. And then of course, the coming threat that Babylon would pose, trying to discern a plan for their own self-protection, which meant for many of them the need to reach out to the Egyptians. And so that's where I think there's this real tension. There's a recognition among many that something bad is potentially going to happen. Of course, there were those within the context of Jerusalem at this time, as well. There were false prophets at this time telling people that everything's going to be okay because they had this sense that they were God's chosen people. And therefore, I think they lived with this perception that God existed for their own sake, that God existed for them rather than them existing for God's glory. And so in some ways that God, you know, owed it to them in some ways to keep them safe. And so probably depending upon who you talk to, who you engaged with, who was advising the people, you might get a different perspective on that. Yeah, that could be, that could be the thing. So Zephaniah, he sends out his message. It's a short book of the Old Testament, hence called one of the minor prophets. And he talks to all the nations surrounding him. That's Zephaniah chapter two. But I think for today, let's focus in on what our topic is. And that is Jerusalem and the nation of Judah that Jerusalem is part of. So Zephaniah chapter one, I'm kind of calling these sections. Today, Jerusalem is judged, Jerusalem is invited to repent, Jerusalem is unrepentant, and then Jerusalem is restored. I sense that this is maybe a trajectory of how God works in our lives all the time. So that if you want to look at more than message to the nations, it's in Zephaniah too. But let's just pick it up in Zephaniah chapter one with this, this judgment toward the behavior of Jerusalem and the nation of Judah. And I'll just pick it up in verse four. God says, I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem. I will, and this is what King Josiah does, later, 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 Moloch, those who turn back from following the Lord, and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him. Verse seven, 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. So through the prophet Zephaniah, God lays it on the line. And so here's the problem. You're trying to worship the Lord Yahweh. And at the same time, Baal and Ashra and Moloch, who by the way is the God that people sacrifice their children to. I mean, in the fire. And God says, no, this is a judgment I have against you. We've been looking at this week after week after week then. And this problem of syncretism, this problem of saying we want to both ways, we want to still worship our God, but do our own thing. I don't know if we can say anything new because of so many of the prophetic messages, it seemed the same a lot to me. Why is it so hard for them to listen? I mean, they had to look to the north. Of course, it was a hundred years earlier by the end of this. So now it was a distant story. But they had to know that God does not want them to worship these false gods and to make idols and wooden statues and sacrifice their children in fire and like all these horrendous things. So God makes it clear again. Is that I mean, is that how God still works? Maybe in your life, you know, what Zephaniah faced in his day in many ways, we still face in our day. And the crazy part is, is if you had asked the people in Jerusalem and in Judah, are you worshiping the God of the Hebrews? Are you worshiping the once your God? You know, I'm sure the vast majority of them would have said, yeah, of course. I'm in temple on Saturday. I'm making my prescribed sacrifices. I'm doing the things that God has asked me to do, the things that God has called me to do. And so that's the the wild part is that in the midst of their syncretism, they're they're clear. Just the ever-present syncretism that's existent. And we look at it and we think, man, how how did they not get it? Even as God sends these prophets to them to rebuke them, to call them to repentance. How did they not get it? And I think about in our own day, there's so much syncretism that exists within the context of the church. And when I say church, I mean, big see, speaking specifically of our own context within the western world, within the American church in particular, but the level of syncretism that exists, and it doesn't seem like no matter where you align theologically, the need to be on guard against it, the need to, and I think the desire to allow the word, God's self revelation to us, to uncover the syncretism that's existent in our own hearts and our own lives. And so whether you think about the blending of biblical theology and political ideology, that we see all over the place within the American church, or you think about how culture and cultural ideologies have infected the church as well, to where I think oftentimes there's an aspect of where kind of like sociology infects theology, and you see it in a multitude of different ways. I could talk about this from a standpoint of the medical field as well with my wife being a nurse. You see how culture can affect things that it should not affect. Like medical science should stand outside of cultural ethics, but instead what ends up happening a lot of times is there are aspects of medical science that live under the standard, under cultural ethics, where they probably violate their own oath in some ways. I think about not to stir up a hornet's nest here, but I think about gender affirming care for like young children. That's a problem. The rest of the world sees that that is an issue somehow or another within the American medical world. While there's light being shed on it, it's still a struggle. And I think about within the standpoint of the church, how oftentimes we allow sociology or political ideology or cultural ethics or whatever to infect our theology to mold our theology when it should be our theology that molds who we are. Let me bring it to a personal level, because you've taken sort of a 30,000 foot view maybe of some of that, which spot on. But on a personal level last night, I started reading a novel that someone had given to me. It had been written a long time ago, I don't know, in the 70s or 80s, I'm not sure, 890s. But it's been around a long time. You could tell the book was old despite the look of it. And inside of the first chapter, as I was reading it, it's like, this is not helpful for my spiritual walk. This, the language being conveyed, the imagery being kind of depicted by what was happening, it was not good for me. Nobody would have known, right? Because my wife's out of town right now, and I'm home alone, and I didn't want to sit and watch TV all night. And so I thought, hey, I'm just going to read it. I threw it away. And I'm not saying that just to say, wow, look at me. What I am saying is that we have a choice when we belly up to the bar, so to speak, what we're going to drink. We have a choice in our lives of what we're going to allow to come in and be interwoven with our Christian faith. And there are times when we just have to say, I'm not going to do it. Because there was a first moment for the Israelites when they went into the Promised Land and began to say, hey, there's these gods around us and their statues, and they involve maybe a temple prostitute, or they involve child sacrifice, or they involve the occult, or they like all these things. And there was a moment when they could have said, no, that's not who we are. But they cracked open the door and let it in. And there's plenty of ways that listen, that I've done that in my life. It's a challenge. And it's it's agile. Since you kicked a nest, I guess I'll do the same thing. I don't want to get into in times theology here too much. But there are some who say the world's getting better and better when the world gets good enough and Jesus will come back. Other who say the world's getting worse and worse and when it gets bad enough, Jesus will come back. And there's a there's a few views, at least out there on that. And I have a hard time with either one of those views. I don't see humans as necessarily better today than they were 50 years ago or 2000 years ago or 3000 years ago. I don't see humans necessarily worse. I just think it's the same things over and over and over. So we have our own bales, our own ashramoles. And I think that's where again, there's a tendency sometimes where we ourselves, myself personally, I can become blinded to the idols that are existent within my own life. You know, the proverbial bales in my own life, because it's easier sometimes to see the proverbial bales in the lives of others. And I think that's the other aspect of this is allowing for the God's objective truth, his word that stands outside of us to shine a light upon the darkness of our own hearts. And again, I think sometimes we can look at the world and we can see the evil that exists in the world that that's existed since the fall. And we can utilize that as a means to ignore the stuff that we ourselves personally are struggling with, our own church is struggling with. And that's where again, we have to exercise humility in our relationship with God. And I think that's one of the real issues within Jerusalem at this time, within Judah at this time, there's just an absolute lack of humility. Because in their own mind, they're like checking the boxes, they're checking the spiritual boxes and saying we're good. Everything is good here. We are who we are. We are God's chosen people. And the weird part to me sometimes, and again, I'm sure there's ways that I emulate this myself, but our image this myself. But the weird part to me, when you look at Judah, you would have, you would have thought that what happened to Israel a hundred years prior to the Babylonians coming in to Judah would have been a warning sign to them. Like our own brothers, our sister nation, who they had issues with, but our sister nation, they were conquered and they were all exiled. I mean, the Assyrians came in and wiped them all out. And the prophets had gone and spoken a word to them and calling them to repent. You would think that that would have been somewhat of a light to them, you know, that the light might have come on to say, maybe we don't need to follow suit. Maybe we need to repent. Maybe we need to listen to the prophetic word that is coming to where they're not even learning from what's happened to Israel. The people of Judah haven't learned anything from what's happened to the people of Israel. And you would have thought that the American church would have looked at Europe and said, "We should learn something." Nearly every denomination, this American denomination had its roots in Europe. And here we are, we watch what has happened there, and we haven't learned, right? We're doing the same things. So, well, these two topics you talked about being humble and then being self-confident are picked up in the next two topics that I want to talk about real briefly. Judah is invited to repent and then Judah is unrepentant. In Zephaniah chapter 2 verse 3, it says, "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. That's an invitation to repentance right there. But look at Zephaniah 3 when in verse 7, and it's kind of a quotation of how the people are thinking, in verse 7, of Jerusalem, I thought, "Surely you will fear me and accept correction." This is God speaking. Down at the... Let me just keep reading. "Then her place of refuge would not be destroyed, nor all the punishments come upon her, but they were still eager to act corruptly in all they did." There's a bunch more there that we could cover, but those two things kind of held in juxtaposition against one another. It's supposed to be humble and come back to God, and God will relieve you from this, and them just saying, "No, we're good. We live in the holy city. We're good. We'll do whatever we want to do." Even eager to act corruptly. And it's the human story, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the resistance to repentance, and again, I think not exercising humility. And that's the thing. I think sometimes we spend so much time arguing against our perceived enemies in this world and defining our perceived enemies as those who are evil, that it's one of those things that does, that has a tendency to where that blinds us to the evil that's existent within us. And that's where, again, there's like this desperate need among the people of God. There's this desperate need among the church in the 21st century to exercise humility, to take seriously God's command, to be holy as He is holy, to hunger and thirst after righteousness, which demands humility at the core of it, it demands humility, and it demands an understanding that God is the one who has redeemed us to Himself. We were bought with, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians, we were bought at a price. Our lives are not our own. And if we would live in relationship to God with that humble disposition, now my life is not my own, but it is His, the one who has loved me, the one who has pursued me, the one who has purchased my redemption, then we're going to live out our life in Christ with a level of humility because the deepest desire of our heart then will be for Christ Himself and to be identified with Him. God calls them to humility through Zephaniah and they answer with arrogance. You would think that's it, right? Like God says, I'm done. And indeed, Babylon comes and conquers them, but He's not done with His people. And there's a hint of that then in Zephaniah chapter three in this last section that I want to talk about, I call it Jerusalem is restored. It's the remnant that will return. And in verse nine, the Bible says, God speaking, then I will 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. From beyond the rivers of Kush, that's southern Egypt, my worshipers, my scattered people will bring me offerings. On that day, you Jerusalem will not be put to shame for all the wrongs you have done to me because I will remove from you your arrogant boasters. Never again will you be hottie on my holy hill. But I will leave within you the meek and humble. The remnant of Israel will trust in the name of the Lord. So there's like this hopeful feel at the end of it that God is speaking and saying, even though I'm being honest with you and saying that I don't want you to have these false gods and I'm offering you to repent and come back to me and you're saying, no, I'm still going to restore you. There will be a remnant. I will not abandon my people. That's the nature of God. It is. It's a part of his refining work, not only upon like an individual per se, but the collective. And so like I look at verse 18 there and it says, you know, I will remove from you all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals, which is a burden and a reproach for you. And so God is telling the people, you know, those who are living in unrepentant rebellion, God is going to siphon them out. He's going to bring this righteous remnant into exile. He's going to preserve them. And then he promises redemption. He promises to restore them. And so what we see is we see God's constant activity in the lives of his people to redeem them, to bring them back to himself, to draw them into intimate relationship with himself, remembering that in the context of the people of Judah, I mean, God has patiently, patiently been pursuing them, calling them to repentance for hundreds of years before the exile comes to pass. And then even in that, God is promising to restore his people. It's a beautiful picture of the nature of God. And I'm so grateful that God pursued me. And I know that those who are listening feel the same way. We don't do anything to deserve the grace of a mighty and a perfect God. But that's grace. He gives it to us, so. Well, that's all I know about Zephaniah. There's more, of course, that he does when he speaks to the nations around him. But I just thought it was super interesting in the message clearly spoken there to the people of Judah and that the king, Josiah, the boy king who, by the time he comes of age, sorta, he's 20 years old. So his was the brain slow to form back then and boys like it, like it is today. Yeah, I would have used all my kingly cash to go buy transformers at eight. So that wouldn't be leading anybody anywhere, not that he was at eight. But but still, yeah, that's what I would have. Yeah, I would have commandeered all my money and like, he might have gone down to Walmart to buy my transformers. Yeah, I don't know what the ancient equivalent to that was, but I wonder if they had like trading cards for Egyptian kings or something like that. So nonetheless, I mean, this, you know, he's a young man, he's 20 years old, and he he's been listening to the first 20 years by then he's 28, and he's been listening to the message of Zephaniah and somewhere in that time period, those latter years, he begins to make reform and maybe, maybe Zephaniah had a little bit to do with it. Well, next, we're going to switch gears. We're going to look at the prophet Jeremiah, and we're going to spend three weeks actually because it's a longer book of the Bible. And Jeremiah ministered to Judah, same nation, for the last 40 years, the 40 years right up into their conquest by the Babylonian Empire. So that'll be a good discussion to jump in on folks. If you want to listen more to these, you can listen to our podcast. You can find them on picturesumc.org or wherever you get your podcasts. 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Mark Ellcessor and Ben Greenbaum discuss the prophet Zephaniah who brings hard news to the people of all nations.