The Day of the Lord #4

 

Read Zephaniah 1

Background: Zephaniah was written about two hundred years after Joel, but contains a lot of the same themes, including The Day of the Lord.  In fact, Zephaniah includes more mentions of the Day of the Lord than any other books of the Bible, yet it is one of the least known books within it.  Zephaniah spoke for God in some of the darkest days of Judah, beginning his ministry in between the great kings Hezekiah and Josiah.  Those kings between these two revivalists were some of the most wicked and useless kings of Judah.  Like Joel, he pointed to how bad things were as warning signs of how much worse they would be when The Day of the Lord would come.

Key Verses: 7 Be silent before the Lord God!
    For the day of the Lord is near;
the Lord has prepared a sacrifice
    and consecrated his guests.
8 And on the day of the Lord's sacrifice—
“I will punish the officials and the king's sons
    and all who array themselves in foreign attire.
9 On that day I will punish
    everyone who leaps over the threshold,
and those who fill their master's house
    with violence and fraud.

Thoughts: After announcing what would happen, Zephaniah shuts the mouths of those who would complain that God was being unfair.  They were guilty of idolatry, oppression, violence and fraud. Zephaniah then proceeds with a description of the Day of the Lord much like that given by Joel: near and hastening fast; bitterness and wrath, distress and anguish, ruin and devastation, darkness and gloom, clouds and thick darkness.  Their sin had gotten them there, and all the gold in the world would not get them out.