Zeph. 3:15-19

The LORD hath taken away thy judgments, he hath cast out thine enemy: the king of Israel, even the LORD, is in the midst of thee: thou shalt not see evil any more.

In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear thou not: and to Zion, Let not thine hands be slack.

The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.

I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assembly, who are of thee, to whom
the reproach of it was a burden.

Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee: and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame.


Zephaniah spent the first half of the chapter explaining how the Children of the Lord did not listen, and how the Lord had sent greater and greater reproofs, difficulties, and judgments into their lives in an attempt to get their attention (1-7). It doesn't seem to have been for lack of trying, because God makes it clear that He is the one who finally restores them, as a poor and afflicted people, to righteousness (8-13). It seems that it was only when they gave up trying to live up to being the Children of Promise that they were able to simply BE the Children of Promise; that is to say, the Lord showed them how little and powerless they were next to those around them that they might no longer focus on proving to their neighbors that God was there, but instead, learned to let His praise be sufficient.

It is significant that Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Josiah, that is, during one the greatest revivals pre-Babylon Israel knew. Zephaniah was warning not an apostate people, but the people who had remembered who God is. Yet they still transgressed against the Lord. They restored the Temple worship, but had they restored worship from their own hearts?

This was a people who had a vision for turning their country into a beacon of God's Righteousness and Power. And what does He tell them? That He will take it away from them and crush them. Why? So that when He removes their enemies, He might be their king.

It should then come as no great surprise when the greatest plans I form for influencing the world for my Savior are torn down before my own eyes. Perhaps I went to a Christian school with the mission of preparing Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values. Perhaps I entered fired with enthusiasm and visions of myself actually doing that. Perhaps by the time I graduated, I had accomplished little more than run some Xeroxes for a Congressman who is going nowhere within the Washington power circle. And perhaps a few years after graduation I have succeeded only in getting a paper-routing job for an agency I once described in a DRW project as not only a complete waste of taxpayer money, but an unconstitutional usurpation of power.

Zephaniah indicates that this is the Lord's way. My problem is not with what I am doing. It is that He must first break me of my conceptions of myself as King Josiah leading His people back to righteousness. He must be King in Zion, I must be content that He glorify Himself as such. Then it will not matter whether I am Zephaniah, preaching destruction in the middle of the great revival, or Jeremiah, watching over the destruction of Jerusalem and being arrested for preaching sedition, or Ezra restoring the covenant, or Nagge (Who? No idea. Luke 3:25).

Then I will sing for joy, being glad with all my heart that Christ is glorified, not His servants. The King will be in the midst of us. I will not be struck with debilitating fear that somehow I will mess up rebuilding His kingdom, for I am not rebuilding it. I am only loving and glorifying him, and whether that lands me with the three boys in the fiery furnace or with the generation entering the Promised Land with Joshua, I have only the encouragement "Let not thine hands be slack!" I work not FOR Him, but IN Him. He alone is mighty. He alone rejoices, and covers me with His joy. He rests in His own love - for indeed, "It is Finished" in Him. That rest is mine only because I am in Him. It is rest from my own strife. Rest from my own glory. Rest from my own desires to be great for God. I am not a trumpet announcing His Kingdom. I am a conduit of His rest, of His love. I am that Kingdom, living and showing that Kingdom in my life.

We need not fear for His Kingdom. He is the King and will care for it. He will drive out the enemy in due time. The affliction will end, the shame will end, instead there will be praise and fame. Why? Because it is no longer my glory that will come of it. Because I know better than to think that I have rendered assistance to my Lord. Because I am a broken vessel and trustworthy not to hold in the water of His mercies with which he will water the nations.