Join the Bible Bus as we traverse the warnings and prophecies articulated by Zephaniah. As we dissect the impending judgment on Jerusalem and Judah, Dr. McGee illuminates the patterns of idolatry and moral decline that have too often led great nations astray. Journey with us through the historical context and spiritual insights that hold relevance not only for Israel but for contemporary believers grappling with spiritual complacency. Experience the clarity that comes when God calls His people back from idolatry to true worship and obedience.
The foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.
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Idolatry is where every great nation has gone off the track. It has been when it has departed from the living and true God or when it has given up and gone into an idolatry that’s led to gross immorality.
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That’s the warning our teacher Dr. J. Vernon McGee shares with us in this study of Through the Bible. I’m Steve Schwetz, excited to continue our study in the Old Testament book of Zephaniah. Now while I hold the doors of the Bible bus open and you find your seat, here’s a bit more from Dr. McGee’s important discussion on the covenants of the Bible.
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Now today I want to return back to the messages I’ve been bringing on the different covenants that God made with his people. And we come today to the Mosaic covenant. We’ve seen the covenant God made with Abraham, an unconditional covenant. And then we’ve seen the Palestinian covenant, which reinforced Abraham’s great covenant. and it is a covenant that guaranteed that land to the children of Israel as an eternal possession. And then we come now to the covenant given through Moses. We have yet to look at the covenant made with David, and then the new covenant that is to be made in the future. Now, the Mosaic covenant is introduced, actually, the dispensation of law into Israel. And John put it like this in his gospel, John 1, 17, for the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Now, after the children of Israel became a nation and they were in the land of Egypt, God led them out. And at Mount Sinai, God there made this covenant with them. He gave them options, however. Moses went to the top of the mountain, and we’re told in Exodus 19, verse 3, And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel, Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. So far they’ve traveled on eagles’ wings. It’s all been by grace. They have been a complaining group, even wanting to return back to Egypt, and Moses has had his problems. But God has brought them on eagle’s wings, the eagle’s wings of grace, by the way. Now he gives them an option. He says, Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people, for all the earth is mine. And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. In other words, now God says, do you want the law, or would you rather continue on eagle’s wings? You’ll take the law, and if you’ll obey it. Now, this is a conditional covenant, the only conditional covenant God made with him. It says, if you will obey, and it rested upon that, then there would be a kingdom of priests. They never did that. obey, and therefore they were not made a kingdom of priests. God had to pick one tribe out of their midst to be a priesthood for them. And he says, “…ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests.” And Moses came and called for the elders of the people and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together and said, “…all that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.” Now imagine these people here, not even knowing yet what the law is, but how audacious they are. They said, bring it on, we’ll keep it, and there are a great many people today feel the same way as Israel did at that time. We can keep the law, we can please God, we are able to do it in our own strength, we think well of ourselves, therefore We’re able to please God. My friend, you and I cannot please God. They could not either. And they took the law, what we call today the Mosaic Law. And we’ll have just a word to say about that next time. This introduced the covenant now of law, and we’re going to see that it was a temporary measure. It was never meant to be permanent at all, and that Israel miserably failed under it, just as today a great many people who are trying to get to heaven by keeping some rule and some by keeping the Mosaic law. You can’t make it that way, my friend. Only Christ is the Savior.
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Yes, it always comes back to Jesus. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for this small book that carries a mighty message. We humble our hearts now and ask you to draw us close to you and make your truth understandable to us. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. It’s time to study Zephaniah 1 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Verna McGee.
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Now, Zephaniah, as we left off last time, had given the strong prophecy that God was going to judge his people, and Jerusalem and Judah in particular. They had come through the reign of some of the worst kings they had ever had, Manasseh and Ammon. Then he lived during the time of Josiah, and a revival did begin in that period. But it didn’t last very long, and it was the last one that came to the nation. Now, God had said, I’m going to consume all things from off the land. And I think he’s speaking in particular of that land. But this is to be a worldwide judgment because he’s going to introduce us shortly to the great day of the Lord. But he goes on to say that the reason for the judgment was because of idolatry. And actually three kinds of idolatry are mentioned to us here. And the idolatry, that is, as we indicated last time, it’s where every great nation has gone off the track. It has been when it has departed from the living and true God, or when it has given up, if it has had great moral principles that’s been based on religion and departed from them and gone into an idolatry that’s led to gross immorality. Now, he mentions here first, as we saw in verse 4, worship of Baal, actually a worship that was introduced into the northern kingdom by Jezebel because her father was the high priest of the worship up among the Sidonians. Now, God says here in verse 4, “…I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah, and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the name of Shemaron with the priests.” God says He’s going to remove the worship of Baal. Now, that had been introduced… into the southern kingdom largely by Manasseh. Now, I’m not going to take time to turn back to the historical book. in which all of this occurs. That’s the reason that I said when we were in the historical books, it would be wonderful to take the prophetic books that fit in at particular periods. And this is the reason why. You need the background here of the reign of Manasseh. And no king ever departed from God as far as this man did and introduced the worship of Baal. Now, it actually was a very immoral form of worship because along with Baal, there was Ashtoreth. And when the female principle is introduced in deity, you have gross immorality. And that, of course, came in during this period. And when Josiah became king, and he was a good king, that was the first thing that he did was to try to remove the worship of Baal. Now, it was a form, therefore, of nature worship. Very crude to tell the truth. Very crude indeed. And these shimmering… Actually, it means black priests, which means they wore black. Have you noticed that today the worship of Satan… These that are engaging in it, that they don a black garment. It’s quite interesting. It’s not original with them. It comes all the way down. And these idolatrous priests wore black robes. And this is what he’s talking about here. And they are to be judged. Now, in verse 5, he mentions another form of idolatry that became prevalent in that land. And it was more subtle and more dangerous. It says, and those who worship the host of heaven upon the housetop. Now, the thing that is happening here, you see, is something actually that’s very dangerous indeed. The housetops back there are flat. That’s even true today. And it is the place where the family gathers in the evening. In fact, God gave a law about putting a banister, a railing around the roof so no one would fall off because that’s where the family would gather. Well, this became a place of worship. And you can see now what it’s doing. It’s moving into the homes. And it actually meant that every home was a little heathen temple where idolatry was practiced. And believe me, friends, this was really reaching in. And it was a worship that they worshiped the creature rather than the creator. They worshiped all the hosts of heaven, the sun, the moon, the stars. They’re worshiping that which has been made rather than worship the Creator. And this was the second form that they adopted. Now, the worst and the most sophisticated and the most subtle of all is the one that’s mentioned here in verse 6. And those who are turned back from the Lord, and those who have not sought the Lord, nor inquired for him. Now, the suggestion was made in verse 5, actually. And those who swear by the Lord, and who swear by Malcolm. And Malcolm is the name for Moloch, the worship of the god of the Ammonite. And it was a worship in which they actually had living sacrifices. But it was very subtle indeed. Now, the subtlety of it was this, that at the same time, they professed to worship the living and true God. They went to the temple. They said they knew the Lord, that they believed in God, and that they would go to the temple. But they also worshiped Moloch, and they were doing both. This is the subtle thing that is taking place today. There are many so-called churches that, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, could never be called a Christian church. You see, the church is built around a person, and that person is Jesus Christ. And the church met together to worship and adore him and to come to know him and to have fellowship. And everything they did pointed to Jesus Christ. Now, how many churches today do you know where Christ is not even mentioned? And if he is mentioned, he’s mentioned actually in a derogatory manner. In other words, they deny his deity. They deny that his God, they do not worship him. They give a lip service. They talk about the teachings of Jesus and what a wonderful man he was and all that sort of thing. They even call him a superstar. But they deny everything that has been given to us as Christian. You see, it’s a castrated Christianity that is abroad today. Now, that was the kind of subtle worship that was coming up in that land in that day. People were still going to the temple. They were going through the ritual. They were there, I guess, Sunday morning. I don’t think they came any other time. They were there then. But they actually were worshiping Moloch. And Moloch is the god of the flesh. It is a fleshly worship. Again, gross immorality. And so today, there are those that go to church. They have a churchianity, but not a Christianity. And they deny the great facts of the Christian faith. And they practice immorality. Or they practice things that are contrary to the Word of God. Now, friends, this is the picture that’s given here. And that’s the subtlety of the hour. A great many people think today that if a building’s got a steeple on it, And it’s got a bell in that steeple. And they’ve got an organ in the church and a big center aisle for weddings. And that they have a pulpit down front and a choir loft that that’s a church. Well, my friend, that may be one of the worst spots in the town. It may be worse than any bar room in the town. It may be worse than any gambling establishment in the town. It actually could be worse than any brothel in town. That is the thing today that is so deceptive. It was the thing that undermined this nation. It was the fact that they pretended that they were serving the living and true God, but they were giving themselves over into this form of idolatry. Now, will you listen to what God has to say to them? He says, “…hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God.” And the word is, “…hush, hush, don’t talk out.” Don’t speak out. No protesting. You’re in the presence of the living God. Again, may I say that there is a lack of reverence for God. This notion that Jesus is sort of a buddy and that God is the man upstairs and that we can be very flippant as we speak of him today. May I say to you, our God is a holy God, a God that, my friend, if you and I came in a billion miles of him, we would fall down on our faces before him because of who he is. He is the great God, the creator of the universe, and we are merely a little creature. Hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God. Why? For the day of the Lord is at hand. Now, this is the first mention of the day of the Lord in this book. For the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice, he hath bidden his guests. Now, the day of the Lord is at hand. Now, again, the day of the Lord is presented here primarily as the time of judgment. And if you want to fit it into God’s program, it’s the great tribulation period. This is the time that it begins. You and I are living in the day of Christ, the day of grace. Now, the day of the Lord will begin when the church leaves this earth. Then God begins to move and begins to move in judgment. Now, ahead of that day, which is still in the future, there have been times… when it’s been likened unto the day of the Lord. Now, when Nebuchadnezzar finally came and destroyed Jerusalem, burned it to the ground, and plowed it under, if you please, And also that land, he left it denuded. You go to that land today, there are no trees. Oh, I know Israel’s planted out millions of trees, but they just haven’t made even a dent in that land, those barren hills that you see everywhere. Well, at one time, they were all covered with trees and with vineyards. It was a land of milk and honey, but it’s not that today, friends. Because you have left over that which the enemy did. The Babylonians came, and then later on, Alexander the Great, as well as the media Persians ahead of him. And then after them, the Romans came. And enemy after enemy have come into that land. And as a result, there’s been very few trees that have been left there. And the land is almost completely denuded today. A friend and I were riding across the Negev several years ago down by the Dead Sea. And we came by Beersheba and on up to Ashdod. And he said, I don’t see how in the world that this land could ever have been called a land of milking honey. Well, I said, it sure is hard to understand, isn’t it? It’s just barren as it can be. It’s like a bald-headed man. Why? God makes it very clear that that’s what he’s going to do. Back here, and he did it, friends, and the evidence is there today. And that was, for those people, the day of the Lord. But that does not satisfy the prophecies, as this man makes it very clear that the day of the Lord It’s that day that’s yet in the future. And it will be consummated when Christ comes and establishes his kingdom here upon this earth. Now, with almost biting sarcasm here, he says the Lord has prepared a sacrifice. He’s bidden his guests. And the guests are going to be the sacrifice, by the way. And the sacrifice is the judgment upon this nation. Now, will you notice what he says? And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice that I’ll punish the princes and the king’s children and all such as are clothed with foreign apparel. The thought here is that the rulers had turned away from God. And all you have to do is go back and refer to the time that Zedekiah reigned. He was the last one of the kings. And this man saw actually his own children killed right before his eyes. And then his own eyes were put out. You say that’s harsh judgment. It surely is. But they had had the warning from God, you see. And this to them was like the day of the Lord. Now, will you notice what he says in verse 9? In the same day also will I punish all those who leap on the threshold, who fill their master’s houses with violence and deceit. Now, when he says they leap on the threshold, Actually, it’s a picture of when they would take over the land and the homes of the poor. And that was the thing that was happening in that day. In other words, the great middle class. had disappeared, and you had the extreme rich and the extreme poor. And that’s the thing, of course, that’s happening, I think, in our land today. We’re having certainly the extreme rich, and we have the extreme poor, the two great extremes. And that’s what God says, I’m going to judge you for. Now, will you notice verse 10, “…and it shall come to pass in that day.” Now, that clearly is a reference to the day of the Lord. saith the Lord, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate. Now, the fish gate is what is known today as the Damascus gate. It was the gate that they brought the fish down from the Sea of Galilee in the Jordan River. And that’s the gate that’s referred to here. It’s on the north side. And it says, “…and a wailing from the second quarter, and a great crashing from the hills.” Now, the Damascus Gate today is down in a rather low place. All the way, there’ll be a wailing from the Damascus Gate back up to the hills. And if you’re acquainted with Jerusalem, you know it’s surrounded by hills. So any direction you want to move, there would be this wailing of the people when the time of judgment has come upon them. And God says in verse 11 here, “…wail, ye inhabitants of Maktesh.” Now, Maktesh actually means mortar. And it was supposed to have been a depression in Jerusalem where the marketplace was situated. And I’m not sure, but what it was, maybe the cheesemaker’s valley. It was a valley that went beside Jerusalem. The temple, it’s where the Wailing Wall is today, and that was a good place for it. God says, “‘Wail, ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down, all they that bear silver cut off.'” You see, it was the marketplace there, and it was down in that cheesemaker’s valley, and that’s where the Wailing Wall is today. certainly in an appropriate place. Now, God says it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps. “…and punish the men that are settled on their leaves.” In other words, those that were in comfort, enjoying luxury. It was an affluent society there at that time. They never believed they would be judged any more than people today believe that we are to be judged as a nation. “…and punish the men that are settled on their leaves, that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.” What they’re saying is this. Well, God’s doing nothing. God’s not going to do anything about it. Well, you remember, that happened to be the question of Habakkuk. Why don’t you do something, Lord? God says, I am doing something. And when Habakkuk was given the vision and saw what God was really doing, he cried out to God for mercy for the people. And today, a great many people think, well, God’s doing nothing. Must not be a God. God is dead. It has been a theology of this day. And only our society could ever have produced that kind of a theology. Because people in an affluent society, we don’t need God at all. And as a result, he doesn’t do good and he doesn’t do evil. He doesn’t do anything. but they’re greatly mistaken. And that is the thing that he’s going to make very clear to them. Now we have to leave off today at verse 12, and we’ll pick up at verse 13 of the first chapter of Zephaniah next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
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If you need help finding it. And when you’re in touch, be sure to sign up for our monthly ministry newsletter. Each issue really complements our current study with information to help us apply what we’re learning. More teaching from Dr. McGee is there as well, and inspiring information about how people all around the world are going through the Bible with us. Again, sign up by calling 1-800-65-BIBLE or visiting ttb.org. I’m Steve Schwetz. Thanks for your company on the Bible Bus. It’s always a pleasure to travel along the highways of God’s Word with you.
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Jesus gave it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.
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Well, ride the Bible bus for five years and you’ll be amazed at what God teaches you from his word about what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. It’s a blessing that keeps on going. That’s what we believe at Through the Bible.
