Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Remember when we talk about the Day of the Lord, which I already told you is kind of the theme of this book, Zephaniah, the Day of the Lord. And the question you have to ask yourself is, is he talking about the near application of this prophecy or the far application, the end times? Or is he talking about both?

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with an Old Testament prophet's message for us today.

Brett Meador: That's what you kind of have to ask yourself as you're reading this prophecy of Zephaniah because it's a dual fulfillment of prophecy. And you can see how both will happen.

Guest (Male): As Pastor Brett Meador opens to the book of Zephaniah, the power of God's mercy and grace shine bright against the dark backdrop of destruction and judgment upon the nations. But seeing the prophecies about the Babylonian invasion of Israel that is now history will also alert us in today's world of the coming tribulation and how it plays into God's plan of redemption.

Brett Meador: I want you to grab your Bible and turn to Zephaniah chapter one. I like that story of little Timmy. The phone rings and he answered it, and it was one of those telemarketers, those people that are trying to sell something. He said, "Young man, is your father or mother home?" And the little boy, Timmy, said, "They're busy." And he said, "Well, where are you?" "Under the coffee table." He said, "Are there other adults in the house?"

The telemarketer is starting to get a little nervous, like what's going on with this kid? He said, "Are there other adults in the house?" He said, "The firemen." He said, "Well, can you get one of them?" "They're busy." "Who else is there?" "The police." Now the telemarketer is really worried and he says, "Come on, you need to please, little Timmy, get the police." He said, "They're all busy." And he said, "Well, what are they doing?" And the little boy said, "They're looking for me!"

I like that. Zephaniah, the one who the Lord hides. That's what his name means. He's the one who the Lord hides. Now, by the way, I like the idea of being hidden in the Lord under the shadow of his wings. The Lord hides us. The Lord is a shield or a shade for us, and he covers us and hides us. I love that because through this name Zephaniah, the one whom the Lord hides, it's also translated as the one who protects. The hiding is also the protecting of the person that the Lord loves.

And boy, as a guy who's got a heavy word, I think it's good to be hidden in the Lord when you're giving the message that Zephaniah gives. When you give messages that are heavy, oftentimes people don't respond very well, and I like that Zephaniah is hidden in the Lord. Well, this book is a dark and gloomy book to a lot of people, but there's always in every book of the Bible the hint of goodness and glory. And we'll see that in chapter three. Chapter one and two speak of trouble that's coming, even sad and brutal and gloomy days. And chapter three starts to introduce the day of redemption or the day of joy.

So let's dive right into it here. We start in chapter one, verse one. It says there, verse one, "The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah, son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah." Some of these people you remember. Amon, the son of Manasseh, which was one of the most evil kings in the history of Israel. Gedaliah, we gave him a nickname, "Get-a-lif-ah," because he was a guy who needed to get a life, if you remember that.

I wonder if I'm going to get in trouble when I get to heaven with some of these nicknames. Cushi and Zephaniah, these names are all Bible names that you could consider for your kids if you're expecting. Anyway, Josiah is probably the most noteworthy in this. When it says "in the days of Josiah, son of Amon, king of Judah," this is when the Lord brought the word to Zephaniah. So he was a contemporary of Josiah. Now Josiah was one of those amazing kings. He started to reign at the ripe old age of eight years old, if you recall.

It's an amazing thing because at the age of eight he began to reign. At the age of 16 he committed himself to serving the Lord. And by the age of 20 he'd remodeled and started to restore the temple in Jerusalem. He started to get a lot done at a very young age. He was one of those can-do kind of leaders. But he also was famous for tearing down all the altars to Baal and all the corruption that had reached Jerusalem and Israel. Josiah is the one who cleansed all that out and wiped it out.

The problem is, though, if you read the whole story, Josiah had a life transformation by the word. Remember when they were cleaning out the temple, Hilkiah and Shaphan, the priest and the scribe, found the Pentateuch, really is what it was. And they thought, "What's this?" And they got out this scroll and they thought, "Oh, wow, we forgot about this." The Word of God was largely forgotten during that day, but they found an old scroll in the temple. So they bring it to Josiah, and Josiah hears the word read into his ears and he rips his clothes thinking, "Oh man, what have we done by forgetting or losing the Word of God?"

And so he was one who had the scriptures read in the ears of the people, and the people said, "We will do what the word says." Now, there's something you should know about that story, by the way, that's interesting because that revival with Josiah, you could call it a revival—they tore down all the idols. It's a good revival. How long did it last? The answer is 30 years. And then the people were right back to worshipping Baal and Ashtoreth and all the other gods and goddesses of the Canaanites. How is it that somebody so radical as Josiah could transform such an amazing set of actions with only 30 years of revival, and then it's right back to the old paganism?

What happens there? I'll suggest something to you that I think we need to be praying about today, and that is Josiah had a transformation in his heart, but the people just went along with Josiah. What do you mean, Brett? Well, it's like Josiah really did, and I'll use this terminology, he tried to legislate morality. That's the problem. He said, "You guys, we're going to follow the word." They're like, "Okay, whatever. Whatever you want to do, Josiah." But they hadn't had transformation. The people hadn't had a real conversion in their heart. They just were going along with this young king.

This is something we have to be considered of because today, we want to legislate morality, and that's never worked throughout history. What needs to happen is not as much legislation as regeneration. People need to be saved. People need to be transformed by the Lord, and their hearts need to be changed. That didn't happen during the time of Josiah, and so that's the problem with this time period. Even Zephaniah's prophecies, that's why they would come out so heavy during the time of Zephaniah, same time as Josiah, because there was not a real transformation of their hearts.

Some of these abortion laws, it's interesting how both sides are scurrying in our country right now. Blue states, red states. Some states are saying, "We're going to protect abortion." Others are saying, "Man, we're going to minimize or even try to get rid of abortion altogether." And I have to admit, I get excited when I hear about the idea of shutting down abortion. That would be awesome. Because it's murder. It really is murder. And biologically we could go into all the arguments about why it's murder, but biblically there's no question. Abortion is evil, sinful, and wrong.

So you say, "Brett, we need to legislate that." Well, you can, and we probably should, and we can try. But here's the problem, you guys. People need their heart changed. You can go out and try to clean the fish before you catch the fish, but it doesn't work very well. You've got to catch the fish first. And that's been the problem with any of the legislating of morality throughout all of history is you can make the law, but until you see people's hearts change, it's just going to go right back like it did in the days of Josiah.

So which one's the greater work? Preaching the Gospel or marching in the streets with anti-abortion signs? I'll tell you what the better one is: preach the Gospel. Because that's what changes people's lives and changes their minds. Then you can see transformation that will be lasting and important. I'm not saying to not—I'm always misquoted by people on stuff like this. Brett said he doesn't like legislating things about abortion. I didn't say that. And I'll vote and I'll do all that stuff, and I'm pro some of these bills that they're trying to stop abortion or minimize it. I'm glad we're trying to stop abortion, that's great.

But I do think we really should not forget you've got to change people's hearts. You can't just change the laws. But in the days of Josiah, there was a pseudo-revival is what I'm going to call it during that time. Zephaniah was born in the latter part of the reign of Manasseh. That's when he was born, Zephaniah was. So that was the most wicked king in the history of Israel, Manasseh. And then Josiah's father was just a short-reign king, and then Josiah, and that's when Zephaniah would prophesy. So somewhere around 650-ish BC is when Zephaniah prophesied.

Well, he goes on in verse two. He says then, verse two, "I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast. I will consume the fowls of heaven and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling blocks with the wicked. And I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord. I will also stretch out mine hand upon Judah and upon all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place and the name of the Chemarims with the priests." The key words here is the Lord says, "I will consume, I will consume, I will cut off, I will cut off." He says that both those twice.

And remember, when we talk about the Day of the Lord, which I already told you that's kind of the theme of this book, the Day of the Lord, there's a lot of this kind of language. And the question you have to ask yourself is, is he talking about the near application of this prophecy or the far application, the future, the end times? Or is he talking about both? That's what you kind of have to ask yourself as you're reading this prophecy of Zephaniah because it's a dual fulfillment of prophecy. And you can see how both will happen. Did the Lord cut off man and beast from Israel? The answer is yes, it did happen historically.

After the Babylonians came in and crushed Jerusalem, even after they came after 70 years of captivity and rebuilt and restored Israel and Jerusalem, there was so many years where it was just in desolation. And there's still evidence, by the way, of that throughout the ages. When the Ottoman Turks came through and taxed people with trees, they cut all the trees down in virtually all of Israel. It changed the actual climate of Israel to where it was dry and desert and barren. 150 years ago, if you went to Israel, it was almost desolate. You'd find a few Bedouin tents with people living in these tents, the Bedouins, but largely no animals, no people.

Animals are starting to come back to Israel, but there's still a lot of species that are no longer there that were there during the Bible. Remember when David, he slew a lion and a bear? Like, David did this amazing act, but how many lions and bears are in Israel today? Zip, zero, they're gone. There's very few animals. There's some panthers, a few panthers in the Negev desert. There's the ibex and some hyrax-type animals and stuff, but largely Israel was just starting to come back with animal life. It was desolate and barren.

And Mark Twain, when he was there over a hundred years ago, wrote all about his visit to Israel, said, "Man, I didn't see man or shrub or animal for days" as he was traveling through the Holy Land. That's an interesting read, by the way, Mark Twain's visit to Israel. But be that as it may, that did happen, the desolation that's kind of talked about here, but it's going to be perhaps even worse during the second iteration of this prophecy of the Day of the Lord. "I will consume man and beast," he says, "and I will cut off the priests of Baal." The word there in verse four, the Chemarims, is an interesting study because there's not a ton written about them.

We do know they were priests of Baal, but these particular priests would wear dark, long black robes. They were sort of the Goth dudes of that day. There was a darkness, kind of an evil darkness is sort of the idea to these Chemarims. And the Lord says, "I'm going to cut those guys off." And can I just remind you that as Christians—and this might hit some people the wrong way—but we are called to be children of the light. And sometimes I wonder about the thing where people try to have a darker demeanor. And I understand there's a lure to that, especially in our younger generations.

Once in a while you'll still see a Goth kid run around. But think about that for a second. Why do we try to kind of go with a darker look when the Bible says, "Man, you are not children of the night, you're children of the day, children of the light"? And I think that there is a funny thing that darkness and evil always kind of goes more toward that darker look. Well, these Chemarims were known for their dark look, their dark demeanor. And children of light, children of joy, that should be the Christian, the believer. I'm reminded of Philippians chapter four.

Because you might say, "Well, I am a dark-demeaned person." Well, the Bible says, "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice." That's not a suggestion, that's a command from God to be those who rejoice. "Well, what if I don't feel like it?" Tough bananas. You've got to still rejoice. "Well, what if I don't have anything to rejoice about?" Well, if you're not a Christian, then we have a whole bunch of other things. You can dress however you want, I guess. But if you're a Christian and you're saying I don't have joy, well, you should because you're not going to go to hell, and you're going to go to heaven. That alone is a reason to rejoice.

Well, that's the idea of these Chemarims, these dark long-robed black-robed priests. The Lord says, "I'm going to cut them off," the remnant of the Baal worshippers and what have you. Well, verse five. "And them that worship the host of heaven upon the housetops, and them that worship and swear by the Lord and that swear by Malcham." Now those that are worshipping the host of heaven, those are the guys studying the astrology charts and up on the rooftops looking at the stars, astral deities that they believed in in those days. It was paganism through astrology.

And then Malcham is another name for the god that we've talked about many times before in our study. Malcham is also called Moloch. And the reason that one's so dastardly to us is because that's the one that they would build this big iron statue of Moloch or Malcham. And his arms would be outstretched like this, but in his belly they if you went to the back side there were these hollowed-out areas where they'd stoke up these fires so high that the iron arms would get to be almost like incandescent red-hot. And then they would think that they would please Moloch the god by sacrificing their babies on the arms.

They'd place these newborn babies on the arms of Moloch and sizzle them there and burn them in the Valley of Gehenna, of all places. Remember what Gehenna is called? What is it? Hell. It was a valley in Jerusalem. Right now it's a little city park and it's real pretty, and every time we drive by it I say, "There's the valley of hell, you guys," and it's all pretty now. But it was pretty ugly back in Solomon's day and in these people's day because the reason they called it the Valley of Gehenna is because that's where they sacrificed babies to Moloch, or as it's called here, Malcham.

Isn't it interesting that these people swear by the Lord? And the word Lord there, notice it's all capital letters. That means it's the word Jehovah. So these guys are two-timers, man. They're worshipping Jehovah—"Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great, we worship the God of the Jews"—but we're also worshipping Malcham. And this is breaking some of the most fundamental things: "Thou shalt have no other god before me." There's only one God that is to be worshipped, all others are false deities. And these people were playing games. They were worshipping Jehovah on one hand, but they were also studying the stars of heaven and also worshipping Malcham.

Now, you say, "Well, good thing we don't do that anymore." Interesting, there's still Christians that go around talking about what their sign is. Do you know that thing of what's your sign, man, back in the '60s or whatever? Now when people talk about your sign, that's just astrology. And there's real evil origins in some of that stuff. And if you're reading the astrological charts or even messing around with it or dabbling in it, that's just loving Jehovah and playing with dark evil stuff at the same time. It's just the way it is. I think we should run from anything that even is close to anti-God or anti-biblical.

Be careful with all the stuff that's out there. There's a lot of things that are seemingly innocent, but they actually are really quite ugly. You say, "Well, good thing we're not worshipping Malcham anymore." Oh, we're worshipping Malcham worse than ever today through abortion. It's the same thing. They believed that they could be more prosperous by sacrificing their babies on the arms of this god. We believe we can be more comfortable or blessed or, "You're not ready for a child," and you can have your sex, but if you get pregnant, "Oh, we can just abort the baby." And we're doing it for the same reasons, only by millions and millions.

In those days it was more by the thousands and thousands. Bad enough. The hardness of men's heart on this one is so stunning that people think that somehow it's okay. And there's some states that are trying to argue right now for the idea of being able to abort a baby even after it's born, which we call that murder. That's actually a homicide. It's tragic, the hardness of people's hearts in one direction. And then there's other people saying, "Wait a minute, just look at the biology of it. When does the heart beat? When does the baby start to feel and when does it think?"

And if you really go with the biblical thing, life begins at conception and the Bible's real clear on that. I think that the world is going to answer for that someday. Mark my words. If the Lord should tarry, which I think the time is short, but if he does come years and years from now, I believe there's going to come a day where we're going to look at abortion maybe even worse than the way we view slavery. You know how slavery, we think, "How could we have thought that was okay back in the day and how can the world have ever tolerated slavery?" The whole world was into slavery. But now we look back and go, "That was evil."

Well, I have a hunch that if the Lord tarries long, there's going to come a day, just because of seeing it—we're seeing 3D imaging of babies in the mother's womb right now. And if you just have any sense at all, you realize, "Wow, that's a little person that God is forming in the mother's womb." And it's shocking that people try to just deny that and call it fetal tissue. That's just denying science. Isn't it funny that the people that claim to believe in science are the ones who actually really don't? They're the ones who really do not believe in science.

Bible says there will be those following science falsely so called. That's what's happening today in so many topics, not just abortion. But that's one of them. So they sacrificed the babies in the Valley of Gehenna. Let me make even a more horrifying imagery of today. We sacrifice babies in the Holy of Holies. What do you mean, Brett? Well, Paul said, "Don't you know that your body"—what about my body?—"my body, it's my body." No, your body is a temple to the Holy Ghost.

And so if you are carrying a baby in your body, that body is a temple where that baby is being raised. And I believe there, the womb is a place where it should be the safest place on the planet, but actually is the most hostile place in our day. Now, I always have to say this because the statistics say one in three women have had an abortion. So there's always this guilt, and when I talk about this people feel like they're getting smacked by their pastor about the abortion issue. Well, yeah, abortion is murder and it's wrong, and I'm going to keep saying that over and over again.

But I also need to remind you that as it turns out, abortion is not the unpardonable sin in the Bible. If you've had an abortion, praise be to the Lord, he can forgive all of our sins. And it's not just the young mother, it's also the young father that's guilty. I mean, there's a lot of guilt that goes around with the sin of abortion, but it's not the unpardonable sin. The Lord is able to take our sins and forgive us. And man, if you confess your sins, what is he? He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So if you're dealing with that, and that's perhaps the third tragedy that I see in abortion, is the long fallout that happens for the poor woman who had an abortion and Planned Parenthood didn't care at all about her psychology of the situation. They just said, "Oh yeah, get rid of the baby, it's great, you can go on your life, just continue." But they don't talk about the psychology 10, 20 years later. That's where we as church ministry pastors have to come back and say, "Man, we've got to try to help these poor ladies that are still dealing with guilt and heartbreak."

It happens somewhere around 10 years more than ever I've noticed after an abortion has been performed, the poor heart of the woman that's been broken. And good news: the Lord is the healer of broken hearts, and he is the one who takes our sins and even our worst things, and he can forgive us and give us a brand-new start. I love that about the Lord.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador drawing the comforting truth from the book of Zephaniah, how the just and holy God of the Bible is full of grace and mercy. And there's much more to come as we continue this verse-by-verse study of Zephaniah next time on Today's Word. And right now Pastor Brett Meador has joined me. Brett, sometimes I hear folks who claim to be Christians but don't attend church. They might say something like, "Well, I don't need to attend church and still follow Jesus," or, "The beauty of the outdoors is my church, and that's where I like to spend my time instead of being in a church building." What does the Bible say about Christians being together in church?

Brett Meador: That's a great question, Kurt. And I hear people say, "I'm not into organized religion," and I always say, "Then our church is for you because we are not organized." But no, truly the Bible says very clearly, Hebrews 10:24 and 25, "Let us consider one another to provoke to love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching." In other words, the closer we get to the second coming of Christ, we should be exhorting people: get to church! You've got to be plugged in.

And as you mentioned, Kurt, the church is not a building, it's the people. And so when people say, "My church is out in the woods," the fallacy of that is there's no people out there. And how convenient! It's so much easier out in—I love being in the woods and I don't have to deal with problems of people and personalities and weird relationships. But that's the point. We need each other in fellowship and we need to encourage one another and we need the correction and accountability and support.

So people that are saying we're just going to be out in the wilderness and enjoy the creation, you can go out in the wilderness and enjoy creation, that can inspire you to worship God, but it's not really what the Bible talks about. It says the early church continued steadfastly going from house to house and also in the temple daily: prayer, teaching, breaking of bread, and the apostles' doctrine, which was teaching the word. This is something we're not supposed to forsake and the Bible's pretty clear on that one.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Pastor Brett, for that clarification from scripture and encouragement of how important it really is to be in church together with other Christians. Well, I want to mention that if you are in the Portland, Oregon area and don't have a church home of your own, we'd like to invite you to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn or our two other locations in Hillsboro or McMinnville. For more information, go to TodaysWordRadio.com and click the link: Locations. Well, that's all the time we have. Next time Pastor Brett will continue in the book of Zephaniah and we'll see God's gracious and merciful plan for Israel is something that he also has made available to us.

Brett Meador: Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.