Zephaniah 1:17-18. The Book of Zephaniah is very short - just three chapters. The whole thing is one prophecy given to Zephaniah. He starts out by foretelling the coming of the day of the Lord - when God "will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the Earth." The verses I opened to today, 17-18, are part of this "end-time" opening of the book, but it does get more hopeful by the end where God promises to save Zion once he removes the proud and the haughty from their midst. These verses, though, promise humanity a lot of distress and destrution before that: they shall walk like the blind; their blood shall be poured out like the dust; their silver and gold will not be able to save them; and "all the earth shall be consumed" in the fire of God's wrath, "for a full, a terrible and he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth."

Yikes! Let's unpack this a bit. Here, again, we have what seems like the angry, vengeful God of the Old Testament punishing his children with suffering and death. Remember, though, that suffering and death are inevitable - we brought them into the world when we turned from him. So, again, this is describing what actually happens when we turn too far away from God. We suffer greatly, we are blind (because we have turned from the light), and nothing earthly, like riches, can save us. The only thing that will save us is turning back to him. That is the end goal of the suffering. By the end of this book, we see his mercy again - once the proud and the haughty are removed from their midst, those who are left "shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord... [and] shall do no wrong and utter no lies." Zephaniah 3:12-13.

Almost every lesson we learn from the Bible can apply to the human race in general and to each of us individually. Instead of reading this as God wiping out all of humanity, we can read it as him allowing us individually to suffer the consequences of our sin so that the "proud and the haughty" in each of us is removed; we realize that gold and silver and our own ego cannot save us; and we seek refuge in the Lord. We often have to hit absolute bottom before we let go of all of these things, though, but once we do, and turn only to him, everything falls back into place. The history of the Israelites, and of all of us, is this constant cycle of us being in proper relationship with him; then getting too comfortable and relying instead on ourselves and the world; then suffering because of our self-reliance; then, finally, turning back to him.

While this is written as an end-time prophecy, we all do know that we could meet our end at any moment. Even if God is not about to make a full and terrible end to all the inhabitants of the Earth, as Zephaniah is proclaiming here, my end could come tomorrow! I must get rid of my self-reliance, my attachments to worldly things, and my pride, and fully seek refuge in the Lord, so that I can feel fine!

Update (4/25/21) OTOH, maybe we ARE approaching the end of the world as we know it!! (yikes!) (check out this guy's LinkedIn and Website for more info on how he believes the vaccinations are severely compromising our natural immune systems and forcing the virus to mutate to a vaccine resistant strain)