Wednesday Bible Study- the power wash

A long time ago, I learned a valuable lesson.  If you don't put God where He deserves to be in your life, He puts you on a shelf until you are ready to.  Or, to put it in the words of rapper NF:

(They say) Leave me alone God, I'll call you when I need you again
Which is funny, everyone will sleep in the pews
Then blame God for our problems like He sleeping on you
We turn our backs on Him, what do you expect Him to do?
It's hard to answer prayers when nobody's praying to you


And in this section, we are going to see how that works.  For the third week in a row, we are in a three-chapter prophetic book, and it kind of fits a flow.  Three weeks ago (due to vacation), we were in Nahum, which took the attack to the Assyrians- and by application to the End Times.  That was more fully fleshed out last week with Habakkuk, where the judgment against the nations caused the prophet to tremble.  This week we go to Zephaniah.  Zephaniah was of royal blood- the great great grandson of Hezekiah, serving under the holy King Josiah.  As the beginning of his prophecy- indeed, all three chapters- deals with the sins of Jerusalem, my Bible dates his prophecy from the early years of Josiah's reign, before his reforms really got going- roughly 30 years after Habakkuk.

But I wonder if that is quite the indicator.  After Josiah, the people went right back into the old sins, and were destroyed.  Did Josiah's reforms really take root, or did the people just pay lip service?  In any event, this particular section is all about looking at the fear caused in the Habakkuk 3;16 story and calming them:

Zep 3:16  On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: "Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. 

Both sides of this verse is God telling them what will happen AFTER the cataclysm in Habakkuk, that had such an effect on that prophet.  It is God saying, don't be afraid of what will happen to the nations.  BUT, it is not all rosy news for Israel...

Zep 3:11  "On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me; for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy mountain. 

Zep 3:12  But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the LORD, 

Zep 3:13  those who are left in Israel; they shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue. For they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid." 

This is describing what the Bible often calls "the remnant"- not ALL of the Jews will make it out of Armageddon alive.  "Your proudly exultant ones" are going to be pruned right with the enemies of Israel.  In looking this passage over, I found that the key to understanding was not in the verse itself but several verses before...

Zep 3:6  "I have cut off nations; their battlements are in ruins; I have laid waste their streets so that no one walks in them; their cities have been made desolate, without a man, without an inhabitant. 

Zep 3:7  I said, 'Surely you will fear me; you will accept correction. Then your dwelling would not be cut off according to all that I have appointed against you.' But all the more they were eager to make all their deeds corrupt. 

Zep 3:8  "Therefore wait for me," declares the LORD, "for the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. 

What I boldened here is the change of dealing with Israel that God is about to institute after the death of Josiah.  With all the judgment that God had already unleashed on them, Israel should have gotten the picture.  But instead, they just got worse.

And God then put them on the shelf- where they remain today.  When they reject Josiah's reforms, it is God's last straw, and He puts them on the shelf "for the day".  Which means, it will be AFTER Armageddon that God will return to a personal relationship with Israel.  That doesn't mean He's not going to be involved in their fate ( or else, the Babylonians, the Romans, or Hitler would have surely exterminated them), but He's not going to move through them Spiritually as He had.  They might return to service, to outward obedience, and individuals will still turn to Him, but they will not be that which He works His will in the world.  And for 2,600 years, they have waited.  But He has a plan for them, when the "stiff necked and hard of heart" are at last weeded out:

Zep 3:9  "For at that time I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the LORD and serve him with one accord. 

Zep 3:10  From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering. 

Being on the shelf doesn't necessarily seem like a bad thing when you are in it.  You just go through life with the crowd, doing what they do, counting on some memory of faith to raise your self-esteem.  But if you have TRULY been God's, every day adds a layer of build-up, of uncleanness you feel in your soul and may not understand why.  And if you are like me, about the time you figure out you've got to change, God will bring a "power washer" into the picture to clean you off.  And you'll be wishing that you just stayed clean in the first place.  I've gotten a few blasts over the years, and it isn't fun when it happens.  

Zephaniah teaches us, in application, how much better we will feel after the washing.  Habakkuk tells us just how bad the "power washing" can be.  And for Israel, sadly, the greatest "Turbo Wash" of all awaits.