The Story of God: Zephaniah

Zephaniah 2:1-3 - Crystal Reading

Zephaniah 2:1-3

“The phrase “the day of Yahweh” (the Lord) refer both to the ultimate time when Yahweh will punish and restore/re-create the whole world and to the periodic pen-ultimate days that clarify and anticipate it." - Jason DeRouchie

“God’s judgment passed through Egypt to hold the nation accountable and passed over Israel to rescue them from death and slavery. God then instructed the people of Israel to observe Passover every year, so that they would remember his deliverance and defense of the afflicted. For Israel, the Day of the Lord was something to celebrate, until Israel began to resemble their former oppressors.” Tim Mackie

What is your only comfort in life and in death? 
That I am not my own, but belong— body and soul, in life and in death — to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

One of the problems with the ways we tend to talk about the power of hell is that we shift the blame for the cruelty that is ours in the world away from ourselves and toward the heart of the God who is good. Our problem is not that we are good and God is evil. The gospel flips this illusion on its head: God is good and we are evil. Our healing begins with our repentant acknowledgment of this fact; then we can fall into the arms of mercy that are waiting to receive us.” - Joshua Ryan Butler

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn”
In the gospel story, heaven and earth are currently torn by sin. Our world is being ravaged by the destructive power of hell. Sin has unleashed it into God’s good world, and God is on a mission to get it out, to reconcile heaven and earth from hell’s evil influence to himself through the reconciling life of Christ. The time is coming when God’s heavenly kingdom will come down to reign on earth forever, when Jesus will cast out the corrosive powers of sin, death, and hell that have tormented his world for so long. - Joshua Ryan Butler

Zeph 3:14-20