Zephaniah 3:1-20 · The Future of Jerusalem
Hope Again!
Zephaniah 3:1-20
Sermon
by Derl G. Keefer
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Charles Swindoll wrote a book titled Hope Again, with the subtitle “When Life Hurts and Dreams Fade.” On the back cover describing the contents of the book the publisher entices the reader with the following words:

Hope is more than mere wishful thinking. Hope is a vital necessity of life — a gift that God wants to give to you. And in a world that regularly writes dreams off as foolish and drains the hope from the heart with dark pessimism, Hope Again is a voice crying in the wilder­ness ... a word of enthusiasm for life in the midst of any difficult situation you are in.

Zephaniah’s audience could identify with that need for hope! They were overwhelmed with grief and prolonged distress, along with a history of defiance of God’s commands and demands dating back to their two previous kings, Manasseh and Amon. The prophet’s purpose was to shake the people of Judah out of their doldrums and complacency and return to God.

Zephaniah’s main theme is the coming of the day of the Lord, when God will severely punish the nations. It will not be a day of rejoicing and celebration in which the enemies of God’s people will be destroyed and the people of Judah exalted. According to the prophet there is coming a time of accountability and judgment.

You can catch the progression of Zephaniah’s thinking in his short book. Chapter 1 includes God’s thunderous judgment and punishment for all who defy him. There is wrath and pronounce­ment of destruction. “I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea. The wicked will have only heaps of rubble when I cut off man from the face of the earth, declares the Lord” (Zephaniah 1:3 NIV). As the Life Application Bible introduction to Zephaniah says, “We can sense the oppression and depression his listeners must have felt. They were judged guilty and they were doomed” (p. 1366).

In chapter 2 there is a whisper from the prophet of hope. He calls on the people to beg the Lord to save them and perhaps he will listen and respond (2:3). Later Zephaniah writes that there will be a remnant of survivors from the judgment and calamity that will fall on them as a people. “Restoration” is a hopeful word! (2:7).

The hope rises to an increasing surge of passionate care and love from God who will bring salvation and forgiveness to those who are faithful to him. There is almost a lilt, a rhythm, as the prophet writes,

Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout aloud, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! For the Lord will remove his hand of judg­ment and will disperse the armies of your enemy. And the Lord himself, the King of Israel, will live among you! At last your troubles will be over, and you will fear disaster no more. — Zephaniah 3:14-15 (NLT)

Hope to press on ... hope to endure ... hope to stay focused ... hope to see dreams fulfilled ... that is what God is giving them in the midst of judgment and despair!

That need still exists! In a world filled with hopelessness and abandonment, we need to hear the voice of God saying that he will live among us! He will bring hope in the midst of fear. He has brought that hope in the being of the Messiah, Jesus!

Zephaniah has two themes in his prophecy ... one is negative and the other positive.

First Is A Negative Theme (Zephaniah 1—3:13)

As you browse through Zephaniah’s message to Judah you begin to feel a deep dark dread. It begins as he delivers God’s mes­sage, “I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord” (1:2 NIV). These words have all the earmarks of catastrophe written! This negative theme includes:

Fear. One day in hot July, a farmer sat on the porch of his shack, smoking his corncob pipe. Along came a stranger from the city who asked, “How’s your cotton coming?”

“Ain’t got none,” he replied. “Didn’t plant none. ’Fraid of the boll weevil.”

“Well, how’s your corn?”

“Didn’t plant none. ’Fraid o’ drought.”

“How about your potato garden?”

“Ain’t got none. Scairt o’ tater bugs.”

The city stranger finally asked, “Well, what did you plant?”

The farmer answered, “Nothin’, I just played it safe."1

Some of us are fearful of action because there may be some­thing out there in life that we are not prepared to meet, so we play it safe and do nothing. Paralysis grips us.

Despair. This is a horrible feeling of being overcome by the sense of futility and defeat. We have the feeling that we are alone and no one cares about us.

“I am now the most miserable man living,” wrote a famous American leader. “If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better.” Who was that famous leader? Abraham Lincoln.

In his book, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Ray Basler comments that in the darkest days of the Civil War, Lincoln constantly wrestled with unrelenting depression and despair. Basler writes about those twin feelings ...

It can strike anyone. No one is immune. Not even a nation’s president. Here is this marvelous man with magnificent character, feeling absolutely alone ... Surely, the president ought to sleep well because of his protection, because of his wise counsel, to say nothing of his financial security. Yet there he was, tossing and turning through the night, haunted by dark and debili­tating thoughts.2

The people of Judah were haunted by those feelings as they tossed and turned at night. Do you?

Sorrows. Webster defines sorrow as “Mental anguish or pain caused by injury, loss or despair."3 Because of Judah’s unfaithful behavior and action, they brought on themselves as a nation and as individuals more sorrow than they could stand. Add in natural ca­lamities and you have a recipe for sorrow.

Today we also have sorrows that come as a result of our own foolish decisions plus experiences we have no control over ... ill­ness, death, financial reverses on Wall Street, war, and hatred that come to our street. Is it any wonder that we are filled with negative feelings in life?

Other negatives in the lives of Zephaniah’s readers included burdens, homelessness, war, injury, and family disputes. Situations have not changed over the millenniums, have they?

CSS Publishing Company, Sermons for Sundays in Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany: From Tragedy to Redemption, by Derl G. Keefer