Zephaniah 3

God has loved His people with an everlasting love. When He looks at us now, He sees us as His dearly loved children through Jesus Christ our Lord. The righteousness of Christ has been credited to us, and the death of Christ has taken away the tremendous debt that we owed to the Lord because of our sin. This does not change the fact that the Lord has always known the truth about His people. Here in this final chapter of Zephaniah we begin with God's forthright assessment of Jerusalem. They are called a rebellious, defiled, and oppressing city. They should have closely attended to the prophetic Word and to the Law of Moses, but amazingly, during the early years of good King Josiah, the written Word of God seemed to be completely unknown. It was actually discovered inside a wall by workers doing repairs in the temple. It had probably been hidden there for safe-keeping in an age when this precious Word was so deeply despised. The people did not trust God. They would not draw near to Him with the sincerity of true worship. Those in certain positions of judicial authority abused the people they should have been helping. Those who represented God in speech, and who represented the people in prayer and in sacrifice were treacherous and ungodly men.

That was the Lord's honest assessment of the nation. It was an amazing fact that God had at this late date provided such an excellent king as the young Josiah. Though the Lord's people were plainly very wicked, God was still said to be within the holy city of Jerusalem. Though the greatest reformers in history would have been supremely frustrated with the sad condition of God's stubborn people and with many of their leaders, the Lord Himself continued to be there with them, dispensing His justice in all kinds of situations. When the sun came up every morning He was still their righteous and holy God, though the people had become shameless in their strange acts of disobedience.

Through Zephaniah the Lord presents Himself as eagerly anticipating that His people will do the right thing, though God certainly knows what will happen. He speaks this way to make it clear to us that He did not want to see the day of disaster come against this city. If He disciplined them strongly it was to correct them and to lead them to true repentance. Instead of moving in the right direction, at the end of this book they seemed to be eagerly increasing in their evil ways.

Yes, the Lord would now have to discipline His people even more severely. This we know from many other prophetic books and from the events of history that are described in other biblical writings. But this is not the subject that fills the closing verses of Zephaniah. Instead the Lord speaks of a greater judgment as He did earlier in this book. His people are worthy of His righteous wrath, but He will one day judge all the nations, and the earth shall be consumed in the fire of His righteous jealousy. Nonetheless, the conclusion of this current age will not be the end of the story of God, of His people, or even of the earth. The current age will end with the renewal of the earth and the beginning of a great age of resurrection glory.

One of the features of our current age is the challenge of unrighteous speech. In the coming time of resurrection, the Lord will give all of His people pure speech and pure hearts, and they will serve Him in perfect harmony and joy. God speaks here of those who would have reason to be ashamed of their deeds, those who rebelled against Him. While proud enemies of the Lord will have been removed far from this place of blessing, other humble sinners will find refuge in the name of the Lord. This place of unity in the Lord Jesus Christ described here must ultimately be more that some period of relative gospel success or eminent holiness in this age. In that day there will be no injustice and no lies. There will be perfect provision and no fear. This is something wonderfully new.

In that day we will know the presence of Christ among us in a perfectly renewed and unified heaven and earth. There we will sing for joy. It will not seem extreme to anyone in that place to sing with the fullest heart of rejoicing, for the Lord Jesus Christ Himself will rejoice over us with singing. He will be with us in such a way that we could never fear any evil again. This future life of blessing for sinners could only have been accomplished through the grace of the cross. His atoning death has quieted the righteous wrath of the Almighty, and has also quieted our consciences which were overwhelmed with any honest consideration of our present sin and our coming death. This cross love of Christ, the greatest love ever known, will give us the most wonderful peace and quiet and the loudest and purest expressions of joy.

Until that new day dawns, we are being gathered through the proclamation of these extravagant promises. Our God knows how to restrain those who would oppress and destroy His people. He knows how to bring back His elect who are too weak to walk, and too ashamed to feel included. Our fortunes were reduced to nothing because of the sentence of doom that stood against us. Because of our Savior's death, our future hope has been more than fully restored, a fact made obvious in the resurrection of the One who has accomplished our salvation.