In this episode, we delve into the profound teachings of the Old Testament book of Zephaniah, exploring how God calls His people to repentance and righteousness. Dr. J. Vernon McGee guides us through the intricate prophecy, unveiling its relevance to modern-day believers. This study touches on the importance of meekness and the dangers of pride, urging listeners to examine their relationship with sin and redemption.
Maybe you’ve seen some variation of it on a bumper sticker or heard someone say it. It goes something like this. It really doesn’t matter which religion you follow. We’re all worshiping the same God. How should a Christian respond to that? Well, in this study on Through the Bible, we’ll explore what God himself has said in his word about how to worship him. Our teacher is Dr. J. Vernon McGee, and we’re in the Old Testament book of Zephaniah at chapter 2. Now, Dr. McGee received a very unusual letter many years ago, and it’s a good one. So let’s hear him read it again now.
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It begins, I thank God often for your ministry. I pray your broadcast might continue to be carried. at that station and in that city. He says, I am an ordained Episcopal priest, and I went through seminary without really knowing God and committing myself to Him as my Lord. Since I’ve come to know Jesus by His grace and mercy, I have learned to treasure and appreciate His written Word. Where in the past I would study Time magazine, the New York Times, or the latest Broadway play for sermon material, I now speak first and last from the Bible. And I have so benefited from your program and for your Bible study method of looking at each book. each chapter, each verse, and each word carefully and prayerfully, deliberately, trusting God to reveal Himself. Therefore, here at my church, I’ve decided to take up Ephesians and preach through it from chapter 1, verse 1, to chapter 6, verse 24, going where it takes us. I’m not sure where we will go or how long it will take us, But we have embarked on a journey with God and his word. I’m excited. And friends, you want to know I’m excited too. I feel like throwing my hat in the air if I had one. God is working today in hearts and lives. And I hope that you recognize that.
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Isn’t that great? Now here’s a more recent letter. It’s from James in Georgia, and he says this. It’s a blessing to listen every day. First, I want to ask for some Bible bus passes. I listen every day on my way to and from work. I’ve been on the Bible bus for two to three years and have gotten others on also. I’m grateful for all I’ve learned from Dr. McGee. His knowledge is great, and I’ve learned a lot on the Bible bus. I’ll continue to ride till the Lord returns. I lost my daughter. She was very young, and I’m raising my grandson. At age six, he knows Dr. McGee’s voice as well as anyone because he hears it every time we get in my truck. May the Lord continue to bless the ministry. Well, thanks, James, and I sure hope that you’ve gotten those Bible bus passes by now. And may God bless and guide you and all those raising the next generation to know and love Jesus Christ. Has God used our studies together to draw you closer to Him? Are you passing it along to others? Well, you know we’d love to hear about it and celebrate that with you. So drop us an email, biblebus at ttb.org, the address, or write to us at Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109, or in Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. Or call and leave a message at 1-800-65-BIBLE. Let’s pray and get to our study. Father, thank you for every life impacted by your word going out. Give us eyes to see and hearts to understand what you want us to learn. In Jesus’ name, amen. Here’s Dr. J. Vernon McGee with our study of Zephaniah 2 on Through the Bible.
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Now, friends, last time, we just got our foot in the door of the second chapter of Zephaniah. And in the first three verses here, We have Zephaniah sending out God’s last call to the nation to repent and to come to him. And he begins, and we went over this rather hurriedly last time, gather yourselves together. And it’s, I think, just simply there to come together as a group of worshipers to plead with God to deliver them. and that they might also forsake their sins. And he says, gather yourselves together, yea, gather together, all nation, not desired. Now, their sin, of course, had caused God to bring judgment upon them. But it wasn’t that he did not desire them. Actually, their sin had reached a very low stage, and they were actually dead to shame, or they had no sense of decency at all. They were shameless in their conduct. And I think that we would say today they had no sensitivity to sin whatsoever. They sinned with impunity. They would sin openly and actually boast of that. And we today as a nation have come that far. Someone said to me not long ago, they said, Dr. McGee, you talk as if America is sinning more today and is in a worse condition than it ever was before. Well, I don’t mean to infer that at all. I mean to say this, however, that I believe that when I was growing up as a boy, There was just as much sin as there is today. But the sin was carried on back of the curtain or in the backyard or where it couldn’t be seen. It was not flounted before the world. It was not boasted of as it is today. In other words, it was not shameless sin. as it is at the present time, as we have said before. This very beautiful little girl on one of the talk programs on television, she boasted of the fact that she was living with a man and she was not married to him. And others on the program congratulated her for her courage and her broad-mindedness. Well, may I say to you, nobody congratulated her for her shameless sins. Because today, sin is right out in the open. I don’t think there’s more sin. It’s just out in the open today where you can see it. They sinned in my day, that’s for sure. But it was done undercover. It was done secretly. And there was a sense of sorrow for sin. But we seem to have lost that today. Now, that was the problem with this nation here. Now, he says in verse 2, “…before the decree bring forth, before the day pass like the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord’s anger come upon you.” And it has a note of urgency here. Do this before God begins to move in judgment, because when you pass over the line and God begins to move in judgment, you will find out it’s too late. Now, verse 3, he says, “…seek the Lord, all ye meek of the earth, who have kept his ordinances. Seek righteousness, seek meekness, it may be ye shall be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger.” Now, there’s always been a remnant of those people that were true to God, just as today there’s a remnant in the church. I doubt whether there are very few churches. I don’t care how liberal they are, but what they’re not some believers that are members of them. Now, I don’t understand why they’re there, and I don’t propose to sit in judgment on them, but there is a remnant. God’s always had a remnant in the world. And apparently here he’s speaking to these that are the remnant, that they should also be very careful of their lives, seek righteousness and seek meekness. Don’t be lifted up by arrogance and by pride and self-sufficiency. For that was one of the great sins of the nation. And that’s a danger, actually, among believers today. There is, as someone has put it, a pride of race. A pride of faith and pride of grace. Some people are proud that they’ve been saved by grace. They feel like that that’s something for them to boast of, that they are the peculiar and particular pet of Almighty God because of that. My friend, we have nothing to glory in. Paul said that he had nothing to glory in. And believe me, if Paul didn’t have anything to glory in, I’m sure none of us have. And there is a danger of being proud of the fact that we are God’s child. And it ought to lead to meekness, by the way. And he says, here, seek meekness. It may be ye shall be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger. That is the glorious, wonderful thing to be hidden in the cleft of the rock and to be covered by his wings. And that God’s children need to recognize, though they’re not going through the great tribulation period, they may experience a great deal of judgment, a great deal of trouble, just as these people did. They didn’t go through the great tribulation, the great day of the Lord, but they certainly were going through, as I like to put it, the little tribulation. You talk about the great tribulation. How about the little tribulation? All of us are going to have tribulation to a certain extent in this life. We’re going to have trouble. I heard the story years ago of this woman who was a maid, and she was complaining about her troubles. And she apparently had quite a few of them. And the lady of the house rebuked her for complaining. And she says, when the good Lord sends me tribulation, I intend to tribulate. Well, I want to say to you, I agree with her. I believe that we ought to tribulate. And Paul says we’ve grown within these bodies of ours. But that doesn’t mean we’re in the great tribulation period at all, nor is there a chance of us going through it. Now we come to a section beginning actually with verse 4, and it goes on down through verse 8 of chapter 3, where you have the judgment of the nations. And this reveals that God judges all the nations of this earth. You see, the God of the Bible is not a local deity. He’s not one you put on a shelf. He’s not one that is local or national. And that has been the great danger of the white rapes, of attempting to, as we have said, Christianize the people. And what we have done is we brought the gospel, but then we turn around and try to make them live as we live and to adopt our customs and our method. Well, there are a lot of different people on topside of this earth today, and they’re all people for whom Christ died. And our business is to get them to hear the gospel, get the word of God to them, and then let them work their Christian life into their own customs and into their own patterns of life that they have. Just as when the gospel is brought to our ancestors. I’m told that mine were pagans eating raw meat, living in a cave. Well, the gospel did a great deal for them. And the early missionaries that came to my ancestors didn’t try to make them like they were. And apparently, they developed their own civilization. And we should do the same thing with others. Now, the God of the Bible is the God of this universe. He is the Creator. of mankind and of the universe, and he is the Redeemer of mankind. Now, notice, he’s going to judge these other nations, not just his own people, and he judges other nations for sin. You see, God has put up certain standards that have become worldwide. They have been written into the Ten Commandments. God gave them to Moses because all nations have a sense of right and wrong. Now, they may vary on what is right and what’s wrong. A missionary was telling me about a tribe that he had worked in out in the South Seas, I guess off the coast of Asia, not very far. And they were headhunters. They had been cannibals. Now, he said they had a high sense of honesty. He said that you could take your pocketbook with your money in it and put it down in the center of the tribe where they dwell, and you could leave it there for a week. Nobody would touch it. They had a high sense of honesty. But he said, of course, they didn’t mind eating their mother-in-law for dinner. They’d have her for dinner, and you never know just exactly what they meant when they said they had their mother-in-law for dinner, whether she came over to eat with them or whether they ate her. But you see, they had a high sense of honesty. And that is something I don’t think you’d be able to do in this country today. You leave your pocketbook for a moment. Lady told me that left her pocketbook in a department store, left it on the counter. She turned around. And then when she turned back in less than a minute, the pocketbook was gone and no trace of it anywhere. But of course, the thief wasn’t going to have his mother-in-law for dinner that evening. You see, standards apparently vary. But God has given to the nations of the world a certain standard. And I think that you find them in all of the nations of the earth. No nation could be as civilized. nation. They didn’t recognize some of these. Now, when they depart from the living and true God, then they go into the deepest kind of paganism and heathenism and reach a place where God gives them up, as we have seen. Now, will you notice, he begins his judgment of the nations. Verse 4, “…for Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation.” They shall drive out Ashdod at noonday, and Ekron shall be rooted up. Now, you see, they’re mentioned here for the cities of the Philistines. Now, they are going to be judged. Now, somebody says, well, why didn’t they mention Gath? Because that was a prominent place. Well, at this time, Gath was pretty much under the control of the southern kingdom. But these four cities, Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron, are to be judged. And he says, Gaza shall be forsaken, and Ashkelon a desolation. Now, it’s interesting, Gaza is forsaken today. Ashkelon is a desolation. There is a place called Ashkelon, but it’s not over the ruins of the old one. The old one is right down by the sea. And I’ve been there. The ruins of the temple of Dagon are there. And then we’re told they shall drive out Ashdod at noonday. Now, Ashdod was driven out. And the interesting thing, they did it at noonday. Now, in that land, those people always take off at noontime. That is, they have what is called south of the border. A siesta. In some places in South America, you couldn’t get into a store from 12 to 2. You’re just wasting your time if you want to go shopping because nothing will be open. But you could get into that store at 9 o’clock at night. They take off a siesta in the heat of the day. Here’s Ashdod, and it gets pretty warm there, though it’s by the sea. It gets very warm there in summer. And it will be destroyed. They’ll drive them out at noonday. In other words, they take them off guard. Now, Ashgod was completely obliterated. Israel has built their apartment after apartment. And they also have a port there today, one that they’ve made. It’s one of the principal ports now. They’ve recently put an oil refinery there. But in that day, it was absolutely cleaned off. And no ruins there at all. And Ekron, it says, shall be rooted up. Well, it was rooted up. It was removed. And now he says, verse 5, Woe unto the inhabitants of the seacoast. All these places along the Seacoast. The nation of the Cherethites. And some of these would call them Cherethites. And may I say to you that I’m not sure that you could argue with either pronunciation because generally it’s Cherethites. But what about the word church? And that’s a C-H. You don’t call it Kirch. However, they do call it in Scotland the Kirk. And it means the same thing. The nation of the Karathites. Now, the Karathites were people that actually came from the island of Crete. And they evidently were Philistines. The word Philistine actually means an immigrant, somebody that emigrated to that country. And that, by the way, ought to answer the question that some people have raised, the liberals especially. What right did Israel have to drive out the Philistines? That was their native land. It was not the native land. Israel was there long before the Philistines were there, actually. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were in that land and their offspring. were in that land, then went down to the land of Egypt. And in that interval, the Philistines, that means emigrants, came into that country. Now, they are to be judged. He says, the word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, the land of the Philistines. I will even destroy thee, that there shall be no inhabitant. And by the way, when was the last time you saw a Philistine? They’ve disappeared. “…and the sea coast shall be dwellings and cottages for shepherds and foals for flocks.” And that took place and existed for actually over a thousand years, almost 1900 years. Now, verse 7, “…and the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah.” They shall feed there. In the houses of Ashkelon shall they lie down in the evening, for the Lord their God shall visit them and turn away their captivity. Now, verse 9, it moves over from the west to the east, and the nations over there that were contiguous to the land of Judah. Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, surely Moab shall be like Sodom, and the children of Ammon like Gomorrah, even the possession of nettles and salt pits, and a perpetual desolation. The residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them. Now, I’ve been in a few countries, and the poorest country that I’ve ever been in is the modern nation, the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. And it occupies the land of Moab. And the land of the Ammonites, in fact, the capital over there is Ammon. And you just don’t find it any more desolate than it is there. All has been fulfilled in the past. Now, verse 10, this shall they have for their pride, because they have reproached and magnify themselves against the people of the Lord of hosts. They are judged for their pride. And pride is the way the devil sinned at the beginning, as you know. Now, let me continue to move on here. “…the Lord will be terrible unto them, for he will famish all the gods of the earth, and men shall worship him, every one from his place, even all the coasts of the nations.” Now, God is going to judge the nations of the world because they’ve ignored him. They’ve not recognized him when they knew him. They glorified him not as God, but they became vain in their imaginations. Their foolish heart was darkened, and they began to worship the creature rather than the creator. And that’s the reason God will judge them. Now, verse 12, “…ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by my sword.” Well, Ethiopia is in Africa. You see, this is a worldwide judgment. He will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria. Now, Ethiopia is in the south, but now we move to the north and Assyria is to be judged. At this time, they were making quite a splash in the world and will make Nineveh a desolation and dry like a wilderness. And that’s the way it is today. The modern city of Mosul is across the river from it, and it’s a miserable place, so I’m told. But Nineveh, all of that area, is still a desolation. Now, God says, verse 14, “…and flocks shall lie down in the midst of her, all the beasts of the nations, both the cormorant and the porcupine.” That’s a hedgehog, I’m told, shall lodge in the upper lintels of it. Their voice shall sing in the windows. Desolation shall be in the capitals, for he shall uncover the cedar work. In other words, their buildings are to be torn down. Now, verse 15, “…this is the rejoicing city that dwelt carelessly, that said in her heart, I am, and there’s none beside me. How is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in? Every one that passeth by her shall hiss.” Wag his hand. Why, they’ll kiss in a sense that it will be a sort of an explosive expletive that comes from a person who is surprised. Why, I thought of Syria and Nineveh. These were great cities up here, a great nation. And just look at it in desolation and ruin. They hiss. The breath is just blown out of them, as it were. And he’ll just shake his hand back and forth as being absolutely stupefied to see what’s taken place. God’s judgment of the nations. Now, God judged nations in the past, and God judges nations today. The Lord Jesus says he’s going to judge nations in the future. And God today, as we saw in the last book in Habakkuk, that God was moving in that day in a way that the prophet never suspected. And my friend, God is moving in the nations of the world. He has judged them in the past. He will judge them in the future. Now, next time, we are coming to the third and the last chapter, and the tone and tenor of the book is going to change because we’re going to find out the dark side of love when we move into the third chapter. So until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.
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In our next study, Dr. McGee explains why he called Zephaniah’s prophecy the dark side of love. I hope you’ll hop aboard and invite a friend along for the adventure. Until then, you can contact us through our app, email us at biblebus at ttb.org, or call 1-800-65-BIBLE. And when you’re in touch, let us know how you listen. As we’ve said before, this information helps a lot, so thanks for letting us know. I’m Steve Schwetz, and I’ll save a seat on the Bible Bus just for you.
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Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.
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Through the Bible is a five-year study of God’s entire Word, and together we discover God’s purposes in history and our lives, found only when we believe in Jesus Christ. Do you know Him yet?
