Articles
When God's Patience Runs Out
One of the biggest concepts that is trumpeted in modern Christianity is that we serve a God of grace and love. No true messenger of the Gospel would ever deny this claim, and certainly the Scriptures verify this idea. Psalm 118:1 says to “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindess is everlasting,” while Paul told the Ephesians that “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” God’s grace is certainly an incredible thing and, as the old song says, “if words could fall like rain from these lips of mine and if I had a thousand years, Lord I would still run out of time…to tell us of your love.”
God, however, is not only a God of grace and love. Too many evangelists today preach a God that freely gives his grace and love with no expectation of real obedience; a God who blesses his followers financially and materially without any return of devotion or compliance to His word. This approach to God does not treat the Lord as the holy and majestic God He is; this God that has been preached is more akin to Santa Claus than the God portrayed in the Scriptures.
The Scriptures speak often of the judgment of the Lord on those who have rejected His precepts; Peter told his readers that “By His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.” There is a time coming where God’s mercy will run out for those who have rejected Him, and there will be a counting of those men who have stood with God and those who have departed from His side.
One of the best pictures we get in the Bible of the Lord’s judgment and justice is in the words of the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah. Tragically, the Minor Prophets are rarely studied in many churches today. Many Christians rarely turn to these brave men’s testimonies, and that is a true shame. Zephaniah boldly proclaims to Judah and the surrounding nations that the Lord’s judgment is coming swiftly. His first words are that the Lord will “Completely remove all things from the face of the earth,’ declares the Lord. I will remove man and beast; I will remove the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, and the ruins along with the wicked; and I will cut off man from the face of the earth,” declare the Lord.”
Zephaniah commands his listeners to “be silent before the Lord God.” The Judah that Zephaniah prophesied to was under the rule of King Josiah – a man that the scriptures say had “no king like him who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him,” (2 Kings 23:25). King Josiah spent his reign trying to bring Judah back from the brink of idolatry, and the people somewhat followed him in his devotion. Josiah’s belief in the Lord meant that he personally was spared the destruction of Judah, and he was allowed to die and be buried in the city of his fathers in peace with the Lord (2 Kings 23:30). Just months after Josiah’s death, however, his son Jehoahaz was said to once more do “evil in the sight of the Lord.” The repentance of Judah under King Josiah was not an authentic return to God; like so many times before, God’s people came to Him in word instead of deed.
Zephaniah cuts through the religious flash and showy displays of devotion that so many other prophets had condemned, and identifies the heart of the Judean people. The Lord says through Zephaniah that “it will come about at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are stagnant in spirit, who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good or evil!’” Judah had stopped believing their God truly interacted any more with them, and believed that God did not really care what they did so long as they professed belief in Him (sound like a familiar situation?)
The prophet says that “Near is the great day of the Lord, near and coming very quickly; Listen, the day of the Lord! In it the warrior cries out bitterly, a day of wrath is that day, a day of trouble and distress, a day of destruction and desolation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and the high corner towers.” The Lord’s mercy had run out for Judah and the surrounding nations. The wrath of God almighty was to be poured out against not only Judah, but the Philistines, the Moabites, the Canaanites, and the Ethiopians; all peoples who had interacted with the Lord and could have known the truth, but rejected the truth for a lie (Romans 1:18-23).
Zephaniah concludes his discourse against these wicked nations by saying that God will “gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out on them My indignation, all My burning anger; for all the earth will be devoured by the fire of My zeal.” Truly the judgment and wrath of the Lord is a terrible thing to fall under!
Yet at the end of this message of destruction and failure and death, there is a glimmer of hope given to the people of Judah. Zephaniah prophesies that from the ashes of this destruction will come a remnant for God’s own possession, “a humble and lowly people [that] will take refuge in the name of the Lord.” The Lord knew that even in such heathen nations as Judah and the surrounding countries, there were still those people who believed and loved the Lord. This small remnant could trust that their Lord would save them just like He saved their righteous King Josiah. Zephaniah finishes his entire prophesy by stating that “at that time, I will bring you in, even at the time when I gather you together; indeed, I will give you praise and renown among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, declares the Lord.”
The remnant had to endure the judgment just like the wicked, and they suffered through the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian captivity just like the idolaters. Yet the Lord never forgot them, and they could keep their faith in the Lord because He never stopped being by their side. We serve the same God that Zephaniah prophesied about, and He remains with His remnant today. We know today that the restored fortunes that Zephaniah prophesied about was not a return of earthly Judah, but the coming of the Messiah Jesus Christ. Our fortunes today are with our risen Savior, and we can put our hope in Him. There is a day of judgment coming once more; fire and destruction await for those who reject the Lord just as surely as fire and destruction came upon the wicked of Judah. If we have faith and hold fast to the Lord, however, we can be saved just as assuredly as that remnant of Judah.
We serve a God of justice and grace, judgment and mercy. He knows who follows Him, and He will never abandon those who are His people. Make sure that you are one of His people today. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient towards you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance,” (2 Peter 3:9). Praise our God for His righteous justice, and praise Him that He will spare us through the blood of His Son!
