Zephaniah 1:1-3

God is all powerful but He is also gracious, kind and merciful.

There will be a day of judgement but because of God’s grace He delays it…wanting no one to perish but all to come to His salvation in Christ Jesus. There are consequences to our actions, individually and collectively. His righteous justice will prevail.

justice |ˈjəstəs|

noun

1 just behavior or treatment

Zephaniah’s message had both halves of the bad-news-good-news equation. His first words were bad news indeed: The day of the Lord was coming and that meant terrible judgment. The Israelites had acted like their pagan neighbors—they had scorned God’s law, worshiped false gods, and sinned without remorse long enough. Now it was time to repent: They had to turn back to their God or face the consequences.It also speak of the final judgment that will usher in the kingdom of God on earth.

Stumbling blocks are substitutes for God in the life and affections of a person. Because there is nothing in the universe that really may be compared to the Creator, God abhors all forms of idolatry.

Zephaniah 1:1-2-3

1 The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah the 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.

² “I will utterly consume everything

From the face of the land,”

Says the Lord;

³ “I will consume man and beast;

I will consume the birds of the heavens,

The fish of the sea,

And the stumbling blocks along with the wicked.

I will cut off man from the face of the land,”

Says the Lord.

Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Jedidah the daughter of Adaiah of Bozkath. 

2 Kings 22:1

² And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in all the ways of his father David; he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left. 

2 Kings 22:2

¹³ “I will surely consume them,” says the Lord. “No grapes shall be on the vine, Nor figs on the fig tree, And the leaf shall fade; And the things I have given them shall pass away from them.” ’ ” 

Jeremiah 8:13

³ Therefore the land will mourn; And everyone who dwells there will waste away With the beasts of the field And the birds of the air; Even the fish of the sea will be taken away. 

Hosea 4:3