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Comforting Promises
Zephaniah, a minor Old Testament prophet, warns of divine punishment through Babylonian conquest. Yet, he offers hope to the faithful, prophesying God's joyful promise of salvation and presence.
Zephaniah 3:15-17
I’m reading now from one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament, Zephaniah. Zephaniah wrote just a three chapter prophecy. He lived and worked about 600 years before Jesus was born. He was a contemporary of a more famous prophet by the name of Jeremiah. And like Jeremiah, the prophet Zephaniah issued some very frightening warnings to the people of Jerusalem and Judah because of their unfaithfulness. They would be swept up in the coming Babylonian Empire and its fierce confiscation of that part of the whole world coming upon them. And the prophet warns them, this is a punishment from God.
But God always has his faithful remnant, those who wanted to remain faithful to His word and loved His Word. And as with the other minor prophets, here Zephaniah also then issues some very sweet and comforting promises to his faithful people. In some ways, our world is probably not so much different from the world of Zephaniah all those many centuries ago. And there are things that are coming upon our world that seem to be quite frightening. And the most frightening for some will be the last day, the day of the Lord, as Zephaniah calls it, when Jesus will return for the final judgment of his people.
And yet, even with such a day in our own future, perhaps as Christians, we can be at peace knowing that the one who is coming is our friend, and that he has paid for our sins and delivered us from this world unto himself for eternal life in heaven. So Zephaniah the prophet, in his last verses here of his prophecy says,
The Lord has taken away your judgments, (Zephaniah 3:15)
By his death he canceled out the punishment that our sins would have brought about. He says
He has cast out your enemy. (Zephaniah 3:15)
Our fiercest enemy is the devil, and through Jesus the devil has been defeated and can no longer rightly accuse us. He says,
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; (Zephaniah 3:15)
The one who’s coming is the one who’s already with us in our midst, already present with us in the word that he gives to us and speaks to us the word of the forgiveness of our sins with the hope of heaven. So thinking about what’s coming, the prophet says,
You shall see disaster no more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Do not fear; Zion, let not your hands be weak. (Zephaniah 3:15-16)
Imagine in all the dread and fury of the end, we can stand up and be at peace, knowing our friend is coming. And so again the prophet says,
The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)
What a precious image that is of our Lord. So happy to know that we will be with him even through the turmoil that comes at the end, and that he is glad to do this for us. He rejoices over us. He quiets us with his love as a mother can quiet her crying child, frightened of a dream in the night by holding her. That’s how we can imagine our dear Lord approaching us and interacting with us as we wait for the coming day of his return.
May God bless us as we wait and keep us trusting in him. Amen.
