Zephaniah 3:1
Woe to the city of oppressors, rebellious and defiled!
Sermons
A Religious City Terribly DegenerateHomilistZephaniah 3:1-5
A Religious City Terribly DegenerateD. Thomas Zephaniah 3:1-5
Jerusalem the Rebellious and PollutedT. Whitelaw Zephaniah 3:1-8














I. THE NUMBER AND VARIETY OF HER SINS.

1. Rebellion. This, marking her attitude towards God, is amplified and detailed as consisting in four transgressions.

(1) Disobedience. She had not obeyed Jehovah's voice speaking to her through the Law and the prophets, adjoining on her precepts and imposing on her duties, but, like an ordinary heathen nation, had said, "Who is Jehovah, that we should serve him, or that he should reign over us?"

(2) Insubordination. She had not received correction, i.e. had not accepted with meek submission the discipline or chastisement Jehovah had laid upon her in consequence of her sins, as for instance when he brought against her Shishak of Egypt (1 Kings 14:25, 26), Jehoash of Israel (2 Kings 14:13), Sargon or Sennacherib of Assyria (2 Kings 18:17; 2 Chronicles 32:1), but had resented it, not only adhering to her disobedient ways, but improving on them, "rising early and corrupting all her doings."

(3) Unbelief. Not trusting in Jehovah, she had alternately trusted in Assyria and Egypt. Whereas her confidence in Jerusalem's stability and impregnability ought to have rested on the fact that Jehovah had chosen it to place his Name there, had entered into covenant with the nation of which it was the capital, had established in it his worship, and had promised to protect it, she was constantly basing her hopes on a political alliance either with the northern power against the southern, or with the southern against the northern (Isaiah 36:6; Hosea 14:3).

(4) Irreligion. Having renounced all faith in Jehovah, she had scarcely maintained the pretence of observing his worship - had not drawn near to him, either externally in the way of celebrating those rites he had prescribed, or internally by pouring out her heart before him in supplication of his favour and help.

2. Pollution. This declares what the city was in herself. The completeness of her defilement discovered itself in the wickedness of all classes of her population, but more especially of her civil and spiritual rulers. Of the latter,

(1) the prophets were light and treacherous persons, vain glorious boasters, boiling up with their own conceited imaginings, men of treacheries who published their own false dreams as if these had been the true visions of God (Jeremiah 23:32), and thus caused the people to err (Isaiah 9:16; Micah 3:5). As they exercised their callings without having themselves been called to these by God (Jeremiah 14:14), they were not his prophets, but hers. Scarcely less polluted were

(2) the priests, who, as Jehovah's ministers, ought to have been holy (Leviticus 21:6; Numbers 16:5), but who, through being themselves impure, profaned that which is holy, or defiled the sanctuary and all connected with it - its rites, persons, things, places, sacrifices, and violated the Law (Ezekiel 22:26) "by treating what was holy as profane."

3. Oppression. Revealing her behaviour towards man: her civic dignitaries practised cruelties ferocious and unprovoked upon those over whom they ruled.

(1) Her princes in the midst of her, i.e. her kings and nobles, like roaring lions rushing on their prey (Proverbs 27:15), ground down her poor and unresisting population by excessive taxations and labours.

(2) Her judges, in their administration of law and (so called) justice, were so fixedly bent on their own enrichment, and so insatiably greedy of their evil gains, that they seemed like hungry and rapacious evening wolves which could not leave a bone of their prey till the morning, but must devour it ere the night passed (Habakkuk 1:8; Jeremiah 5:6; Ezekiel 22:27).

II. THE AGGRAVATION AND HEINOUSNESS OF HER SINS.

1. Against Divine grace. She had been guilty of all the foregoing wickednesses, though Jehovah had been in the midst of her. That he chose at the first to establish his presence in her was a favour - a special favour; that he remained in her after she had become rebellious, polluted, and oppressive, was more than a special favour - was an exceeding great mercy.

2. Against Divine example. In all Jehovah's dealings with her he had shown himself "righteous," even proved that he would not and could not do iniquity; nevertheless, she had not followed in Jehovah's steps, but had turned aside into crooked paths and unclean ways.

3. Against Divine instruction. Jehovah had brought his judgment to light every morning by causing his Law to be proclaimed to the nation daily by the prophets. Yet she had rebelled against the light and done the works of darkness.

4. Against Divine warnings. She had seen Jehovah cutting off the nations around, throwing down their battlements, and rendering them desolate, "making their streets waste," etc. (ver. 6); and still she had closed her ears against the warnings these providential judgments gave.

5. Against Divine expectation. Jehovah had hoped she would fear him and receive the instruction and correction he had intended for her; but she had not done so. Rather she had risen early and corrupted herself, thereby proving herself one of the unjust who know no shame.

III. THE RECOMPENSE AND REWARD OF HER SINS.

1. A severe penalty. Woe; and the cutting off of her dwelling. Unless she repented and turned from her evil ways, she would be overwhelmed with the righteous indignation of God, and her place as a nation wiped out - an impressive symbol of the doom threatened against unbelieving and unrepentant sinners under the gospel.

2. A contingent penalty. If she feared Jehovah and accepted correction, her dwelling should not be cut off, and the vials of woe should not he outpoured upon her (Jeremiah 18:7). So are God's threatenings against sinners contingent on their continued impenitence. But this presupposed, it becomes:

3. A certain penalty. Nothing could avert the woe and the cutting off in Jerusalem's case but repentance and reformation, neither of which she showed; and so when within less than a century it became apparent that there was no remedy, the sluice gates of wrath were opened, and she was cut off without compassion (2 Chronicles 36:16, 17). So will it be with those under the gospel, who, being often reproved, vet harden their necks - they shall he utterly destroyed, and that without remedy (Proverbs 29:1). Learn:

1. The danger of sin.

2. The certainty of judgment. - T.W.

Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!
Homilist.
I. A PROFESSEDLY RELIGIOUS CITY TERRIBLY DEGENERATED.

1. The princes are mentioned. They are "roaring lions."

2. The judges are mentioned. They are "evening wolves."

3. The prophets are mentioned. They are "light and treacherous persons."

4. The priests are mentioned.These "polluted the sanctuary," by desecrating the sacred, and outraged the "law," by distorting its meaning and misrepresenting its genius and aim.

II. A PROFESSEDLY RELIGIOUS CITY TERRIBLY DEGENERATED ALTHOUGH GOD WAS SPECIALLY WORKING IN ITS MIDST. "The just Lord is in the midst thereof; He will not do iniquity: every morning doth He bring His judgment to light, He faileth not; but the unjust knoweth no shame."

1. The wonderful freedom which the Almighty allows to wicked men on this earth. Though He strives to improve them, He does not coerce them. He makes no invasion of their moral agency.

2. The tremendous force of human depravity. What a power sin gains over man!(1) Do not hinder Christian propagandism from entering a city because it is nominally Christian. The Gospel is wanted there perhaps more than anywhere else.(2) Do not expect that the world will be morally renovated by miraculous agency. Almighty Goodness does not coerce. There is no way by which mere force can travel to a man's soul.

(Homilist.)

People
Zephaniah
Places
Cush, Jerusalem, Nineveh, Zion
Topics
Corrupted, Cruel, Defiled, Filthy, Oppressing, Oppressors, Polluted, Rebellious, Sorrow, Town, Tyrannical, Unclean, Uncontrolled, Wo, Woe
Outline
1. A sharp reproof of Jerusalem for various sins.
8. An exhortation to wait for the restoration of Israel,
14. and to rejoice for their salvation by God.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Zephaniah 3:1

     6223   rebellion, of Israel
     8791   oppression, nature of

Zephaniah 3:1-2

     5777   admonition

Zephaniah 3:1-4

     5793   arrogance
     8807   profanity

Library
Zion's Joy and God's
'Sing, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem.... 17. He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing.'--ZEPHANIAH iii. 14, 17. What a wonderful rush of exuberant gladness there is in these words! The swift, short clauses, the triple invocation in the former verse, the triple promise in the latter, the heaped together synonyms, all help the impression. The very words seem to dance with joy.
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

A Sermon for the Time Present
I am going to begin with the last verse of the text, and work my way upwards. The first; head is, a trying day for God's people. They are sorrowful because a cloud is upon their solemn assembly, and the reproach thereof is a burden. Secondly, we will note a glorious ground of consolation. We read in the seventeenth verse, "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." And, thirdly,
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 33: 1887

The Song of his Joy
"He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over thee with singing."--Zeph. iii. 17. T. P. tr., Emma Frances Bevan, 1899 Wondrous joy, Thy joy, Lord Jesus, Deep, eternal, pure, and bright-- Thou alone the Man of Sorrows, Thus couldst tell of joy aright. Lord, we know that joy, that gladness, Which in fulness Thou hast given-- Sharing all that countless treasure, We on earth with Thee in Heaven. ... Even as He went before us Through the wilderness below.
Frances Bevan—Hymns of Ter Steegen and Others (Second Series)

A vision of the King.
ONE of the most blessed occupations for the believer is the prayerful searching of God's holy Word to discover there new glories and fresh beauties of Him, who is altogether lovely. Shall we ever find out all which the written Word reveals of Himself and His worthiness? This wonderful theme can never be exhausted. The heart which is devoted to Him and longs through the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit to be closer to the Lord, to hear and know more of Himself, will always find something
Arno Gaebelein—The Lord of Glory

The Mystery
Of the Woman dwelling in the Wilderness. The woman delivered of a child, when the dragon was overcome, from thenceforth dwelt in the wilderness, by which is figured the state of the Church, liberated from Pagan tyranny, to the time of the seventh trumpet, and the second Advent of Christ, by the type, not of a latent, invisible, but, as it were, an intermediate condition, like that of the lsraelitish Church journeying in the wilderness, from its departure from Egypt, to its entrance into the land
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse

The Angel's Message and Song
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the LORD came upon them, and the glory of the LORD shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the LORD . And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 1

Love
The rule of obedience being the moral law, comprehended in the Ten Commandments, the next question is: What is the sum of the Ten Commandments? The sum of the Ten Commandments is, to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength, and with all our mind, and our neighbour as ourselves. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.' Deut 6: 5. The duty called for is love, yea, the strength of love, with all
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

John Bunyan on the Terms of Communion and Fellowship of Christians at the Table of the Lord;
COMPRISING I. HIS CONFESSION OF FAITH, AND REASON OF HIS PRACTICE; II. DIFFERENCES ABOUT WATER BAPTISM NO BAR TO COMMUNION; AND III. PEACEABLE PRINCIPLES AND TRUE[1] ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. Reader, these are extraordinary productions that will well repay an attentive perusal. It is the confession of faith of a Christian who had suffered nearly twelve years' imprisonment, under persecution for conscience sake. Shut up with his Bible, you have here the result of a prayerful study of those holy
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

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