God Speaks | Lesson Five

Show Notes

In this episode, Jean Stockdale explores the book of Zephaniah, focusing on the call to repentance before the impending judgment on Judah and the surrounding nations. She highlights the promise that God will hide and protect the righteous during the day of the Lord's anger, relating it both to the Babylonian captivity and the tribulation. Additionally, Jean shares powerful testimonies of ministry impact in Africa and encourages believers to seek righteousness amid suffering.

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We're going to jump right in to Zephaniah. And has anybody else pondered the fact that Zephaniah, that the New Testament does not start, I mean, there's just a little baby bit of our Bibles or the New Testament. And, you know, this much is the Old Testament. I did notice, I don't know if you have, that when the Old Testament began to be written after the 400 years of God being silent, that they begin to choose names that were easier to speak. We got your Johns, we got your James, we got your Marys, a lot of Marys, a lot of Marys. And evidently somebody said, let's drop all of this from the Old Testament. Let's try something new. So here we are with Zephaniah. Now, Zephaniah was the great, great grandson of King Hezekiah. So he came from a royal lineage and he could have had a very easy life. He could have lived in luxury, but he was able to hear the call of God on his life and to respond to that call. And he lived a life that was full of rejection and hardship and persecution. So today I wanna share with you three points. They all start with R because you know I love a good alliteration. So the first one is the righteous. Look with me in Zephaniah, right, here we are. So in these days, look with me if you would, chapter two, verse one, gather yourselves together. Yes, gather, O nation, without shame before the decree takes effect. The day passes like the chaff before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth who have carried out his ordinances. Seek righteousness, seek humility in the day of the Lord's anger. Zephaniah, Zephaniah is calling the people to gather together. He's wanting them to assemble and it is implied that he is asking them to assemble to come into a holy convocation that they might seek the Lord, knowing, as Bethany taught us last week so beautifully in chapter one, that judgment is going to fall. They are going to be carried into captivity by the Babylonians. And so he says, folks, it's time for us to gather and to pray and to seek the Lord. The incredible thing is, as I have studied this book, this little book, it's amazing to me that after Judah saw what happened to the northern kingdom, they have been conquered and taken away by the Assyrians. After they saw that, it amazes me that they did not get their act together. Did anybody else have that thought? When we were raising our boys and they were very little, I'm telling you, if one of them got a spanking, the other one straightened right up. You didn't have to say a word to him. And so I just wonder, Judah was so deep in her sin and she must have thought, well, we're bad, but we're not as bad as that northern kingdom and they deserve what they got, uh-huh. And we'll just continue on right now as we are. It just amazes me. And then I read this in Jeremiah that God had the same thought. Jeremiah was a contemporary of Zephaniah, but Jeremiah wrote this. In the days of King Josiah, the Lord asked me, have you seen what unfaithful Israel has done? He's referring to the northern kingdom. She has ascended every high hill and gone under every green tree to prostitute herself. And I thought, this is what God is saying, I thought after she had done all of these things, she would return to me, but she didn't return. And her treacherous sister, Judah, the southern kingdom, saw it. I observed that it was because unfaithful Israel had committed adultery that I sent her away and gave her a certificate of divorce. Nevertheless, her treacherous sister, Judah, was not afraid and also went and prostituted herself. Judah loved her sin. She did not want to repent. She did not want to walk in God's ways. She wanted to have her own way. She wanted to walk in the path that she deemed was the right path. And it was so contrary to the Lord's laws. And it says in chapter one that even the priests, the priests who were the keeper of the law, the teachers of the law, the one who's treasured the law, even they were engaged in unbelievable debauchery and were leading the people in the same. And Judah clung to her idols. They had attached and deified, they had attached honor and deified wood and sticks and clay, and they had called those idols a god and they were trusting in them. Now, Israel has struggled with idolatry since really the beginning of time. And it's just unbelievable. We see her involved in child sacrifice and all sorts of sexual sin. There were temple prostitutes and all sorts of things that were so contrary to God's law. And now God's calling them into account through a number of the prophets. And Zephaniah is saying, we need to get together, folks. We've got to get together and we've got to seek the Lord. It's time, it's time to put down those idols and in Jesus' name to return to the ways of the Lord. Now, you know that Craig and I were supposed to go to Africa this year. So, you know, we were so disappointed. We've been going to Africa for a number of years and Cambodia and the Philippines and Nepal. We've been into South America. We've been to lots of places teaching in the word of God and encouraging those who are on the front lines in these very difficult countries. And we were all set to go and we had teaching. We were gonna do women's conferences and marriage conferences. And we were gonna teach pioneer evangelism. And it was so disappointing when we knew that the Lord was redirecting our path and Mr. Stockdale ended up having surgery. Because of that, he is still in the recovery mode. That's a very hard and very painful surgery. And we both had to really struggle, even though we knew that God had told us this was not the time. And I've got to tell you, at this age, we're beginning to wonder when is the last time coming? Every trip we go over there, we think, can we do this again? Y'all, it's a 30 hour travel over there. No air conditioning, a different kind of food, really delicious food, but very different. And it is hard, it is hard, but we love it. And we love those people. And it was really, really a death of a vision for us not to get to go. But the incredible thing is what God has done. Because we were thinking, no, we didn't get to teach. We didn't get to minister. We didn't get to serve those people. And we wanted to so badly. Well, the Lord opened up this incredible opportunity. And Craig, now he didn't do it in the month of July, but he started in August. And he has been able to preach into Kenya and into Uganda and I believe into Tanzania. And they have been just in his ministry into those places online, sitting in his recliner, stuffed around with pillows and his legs up with his iPad on his lap. He has been able to reach over 2,000 people have come to Christ in two months. In two months. Yesterday, we saw over 400 people bow the knee to Jesus Christ. And they are being discipled and churches are being planted and it is an amazing thing. And Craig and I just marvel at what God allowed us to do. Well, not only that, I was asked by one of the pastors we work with, if I would be willing to do a few marriage conferences. Now, Craig was not doing well in July, but we did the first one the very end of July. And it was incredible. I had never done one of these online like this. And he wanted to have, he asked for three Bible teachers. And the tricky part is, I had to teach at two in the morning, let's just take a moment for that. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, two in the morning. Now, at my age, I should say, I'm awake all hours of the night. So I'm really, might as well get up and teach. But anyways, that is because of the time difference. And so I took the two o'clock slot, taught on Eve. I had two other friends.

teaching with me. One taught on Mary the Mother of Jesus, one on Mary Magdalene, and then we closed it out, and our friend closed out the conference, and we all went to bed, and he continued on with some teaching and training for them, for the women over there. Well, he had recorded part of it, and he put it on TikTok. Now folks, these people live in mud huts out in the villages. It's just incredible to me, their hunger for the Word of God. In fact, one of the girls that taught with me said she got so far off her time because the people kept applauding and yelling for the things of God, just to be taught the things of God, just to hear it received. Many of them, in fact, most of them do not have Bibles, and it was an incredible event. So, the next month in August, he contacted me again, and he said, Jean, there's a gathering, a church in a village quite a distance, and they saw online what we did last month, and they have asked if you will do a women's conference for them, and he said the thing is, they are going to pay for the event, they're going to take over all the responsibilities. All you have to do is you and your buddies have to show up to teach at two o'clock in the morning. And I said, well, yeah, I'll do that. And so, I got my buddies together. We did it a little bit differently this time. I taught the first one on Eve, and then they taught their sessions, and then I came back and did a fourth session, and on the fourth session, I shared a little bit about Rahab. I wanted them to understand that God's plan for His people was not just for the Israelites, and wanted to make sure they understood that any who will come, all are welcome to come in repentance and faith to believe in Christ, and He will receive anyone on those terms. And so, I wanted them to get that, and so I closed out with a little bit of Rahab, then I gave a gospel, shared the gospel, and then gave an invitation. When I gave the invitation, I asked them to raise their hand if they had received Christ, and let me show you a picture of what I saw. I was working on a computer screen, and this is what I saw. Now, they're inside a church that was built with handmade bricks. They have Walmart chairs. I don't know where they get Walmart chairs, but they're all over Africa, and just precious, precious people. And so, after we had all done all of that, and they had responded to the invitation, and I prayed over them, and I told them I would—a lot of blessing it had been for me to be with them. Then I went to bed, and when I got up, I had gotten a report from our evangelist that was working with us over there. He had done the interpreting, and I said, so let me have the report. And he said, well, there were 110 women that showed up, and he said, of those 110, 110 prayed to receive Christ. And I hate to say it, but I told Craig, that can't be right. I said, we need to call him because we're missing something in communication, and he said, no, 100 percent of those women that heard the gospel received Christ. I was absolutely stunned, and I will tell you, every time I said something about a woman in the Bible, they cheered. Evidently, they did not know that God has included women in his story, and they were just loving that. And so, I said, wrote back and said, could you tell me just a little bit about this? Because that is a little bit hard to understand. And he sent me this report. They're going to put it up there on the screen. Let me read along. As the word of God exposed, this is what our interpreter wrote to me, the deception of their traditions, centuries of brainwashing melted away. The women recognized they had been hiding inside a deceptive cult just to fulfill local traditions and fear-driven interests. In a scene of radical weeping repentance, all 110 broke down, renounced the cult, and enthusiastically accepted Jesus as their true Savior. Now, get this. As a result of their newfound faith in Jesus Christ, massive piles of traditional ritual robes, sacred beads, and cultic tools were broken down and voluntarily cast aside during prayers. Praise God. And I tell you this because when we read about idols in the Bible, most of us cannot really connect with that because most of us have never had even a temptation to worship stones or sticks or mud or clay or carved image. But let me tell you, all around the world, there are people that are captured by that. I won't tell you the name of the cult. You probably wouldn't recognize it, but it is one that's on the rise in Western Africa. And people are buying into it because it makes sense to them. And sometimes I think that we so long to see something in all of the Christian life of faith and our relationship with Christ, all of it is sort of in this ethereal world that people are drawn to the idols because they can actually see them. A golden calf, you can actually see. A golden ephod, you can actually see. Peter said, blessed are you who believed without seeing. But I tell you one day, one day, girls, one day, we're going to open our eyes and be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all of these years of believing without seeing will be swept away in an instant, in an instant. But we here in America have made many things into an idol, like money and celebrity and power and position and addictions and sexual perversions of all type in our nation. And all these things have become idols to us because technology is another big one. It is because we have begun to value those things in our nation more than we value a relationship with God. So Judah found herself in this place where she loved her idols more than she loved her God. Folks, this isn't that many generations from the Red Sea party or the River Jordan party or living in the promised land or being fed by manna and quail. This isn't that far from that. And yet this nation has so fallen that God is bringing in pagan nations to conquer them, people worse than them, to conquer them and judge them for their wickedness, primarily attached to the worship of idols. So Zephaniah is calling the people to gather together so that they can pray and seek the Lord. And he says, seek the Lord before the day of the Lord, the day of the anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you. Seek the Lord before God comes against us with the Babylonians. Seek the Lord. He is calling people to repentance. And he goes on to say this glorious little nugget that if you read fast, you might have read right over it. He says in verse 3, all the hubble of the earth seek the Lord. Those of you who have carried out his ordinances, seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. Now, beloved, listen to me. Zephaniah's name in Hebrew means the Lord hides. The Lord hides. And what he is saying is, if you will repent and if you will return to God, he will hide you in the day of the Lord's anger. Now, you remember, Donna's taught this and Bethany taught this, that the prophecies of the Old Testament very often had double meanings. And so this prophecy that he has been bringing is about the Babylonians, the day of the anger of the Lord. The Babylonians are coming. They are going to capture these people. And many of them will be sent back to Babylon and there will be 70 years of captivity. That is going to happen. But commentators believe this is also a reference to the tribulation.

Meditators believe is that what he's saying right here is another day of God's wrath is coming But if you are in Christ if you have been seeking righteousness and truth if you have before the tribulation comes God will hide you Protect you and keep you most Well, there's a lot I'm just gonna say a lot of people don't know Don't agree on whether the church is going to go through the tribulation or not But I'll tell you Seth and I didn't believe we were he believed now things are going to get really really horrible and really really dark But what he's saying is when that comes Those of you who know the Lord you will be saved you will be hidden you will be secure Craig and I've walked through lots of difficulties in our the last 20 years frankly have been challenging in our lives I've learned a couple of things about when tough things come Tough things come one of them is you have got to establish what you believe about the sovereignty of God Because if you're not sure if he allowed this to happen You're going to become angry at him and disappointed with him. You also have to settle in for the long haul I've learned this in my own life. I could not find a scripture to back this up, but I believe it's a biblical principle that most seasons of suffering are long and it is because God does not waste that suffering He uses it to groom us more and more and more into the image of Christ So we can suffer as well so we can leverage that suffering and we can tell others He is faithful and true. He is a good good father. I can't explain this I can't figure this one out but I'm believing by faith in my God who is sovereign and holy and righteous and true and Though I am suffering and I don't like it though. I am tired though. There is fatigue There those misery and all of these events that are painful and difficult all of us go through them But I tell you when we come out on the other side if we have let God do his work We look more like his son and that's what we want. We want the improvement we want the Want to be created more and more in the likeness of Christ We just don't want the pain and we shrink back from that and let me just tell you again If you try to separate all that from the sovereignty of God you are going to become very disillusioned So let's move on to the next point Zephaniah says gather together and repent seek the Lord seek him down before it's everlastingly too late He loves you. He said he will send Christ to die for you And if you receive him, he will protect you you will be hidden with him in Christ Jesus That's what he is after beloved and he is calling Zephaniah is calling people of Judah to repentance, but by extension he is calling us To seek the Lord before it's too late to seek righteousness and truth to become a student of this word To fall in love with Jesus all over again over and over and over and over if you're in a dry spell Let me just tell you we all have them get out of them. Come back to Jesus Come back to Jesus, but every believer has seasons when life just gets so in the way Craig spent eight days in the hospital and I slept on a couch that wasn't even comfortable to sit on and I began sleeping in my clothes because people were coming in at all hours That was tough. That was tough Watching my husband writhe in pain. That was tough Watching him on heavy doses of pain meds so much that he would get him He couldn't remember the stuff we'd already talked about I'll tell you a funny story about it another day cuz my time's running out But that was tough and now the caregiving of him watching him struggle through all this my husband's always been an Incredibly physically fit a strong strong man, and he's been at the place that if he drops something He can't pick it up. He does like this over to me Because he can't bend over yet Life beloved is hard, but God He is good, he is good I can't explain all of this we've been through a bankruptcy we've been through cancer We've been through a broken back and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't have time to tell you about but I tell you this I tell you this he is good He is good. So seek righteousness Seek truth. He will hide you in Christ and in Christ beloved you and I Have the promise and assurance he is walking with us through these hard times and one day One day we'll be with him forever Hope in the midst of the heart the restoration of joy We are having joy out there at the cottage But we are having some days to work hard to retain it does anybody understand what you yeah Yeah, you understand then what I'm talking about. All right, let me move along here. I'll just be okay. Here we go Let's go to what I call the retribution Look with me now in verse 4 for Gaza will be abandoned and Ashkelon a Desolation and they will be driven out at noon at Ashdod and Ikron will be uprooted So what God is telling him and he is telling the people is that even though Babylon is going to come and take them captive that one day God's gonna square it up and make it right and he Says these four big nations all around Israel and Judah are going to come under God's Judgment for the life they have lived. He starts with Philista to the West he goes on to Moab and Ammon Those were both Originated from an ancestral relationship lot had with his daughters and that did not bode Well for those people and it was situated to the east they notoriously Abused God's people and they said horrible things. They denigrated God's holy name Not only that but Egypt or caught it might say Cush in your Bible located to the south They were next on the list He declared he would wage war against them and they'd be slain by his sword when you make God your enemy There's you are not going to win you are not going to win and finally he mentions a Syria and her capital city Nineveh and said it is gonna become so desolate the only birds and wild animals are gonna be able to live there That's what I called the retribution and finally, let me show you this Sweet little nugget So you will see that even in the midst of all of this terror and all of this judgment and all of these hard things hope in the midst is Rising and joy beloved joy is ours in Jesus Christ The joy of the Lord is our Street, but look with me if you will in verse 7 now He has already said that he's going to take this coast land and turn it into pasture land in verse 7 The coast will be for the remnant of the house of Judah. They're gonna pasture on it. They will live in houses and Ashkelon and they will lie down at night I think he's saying that part of the land would be used for a pasture green pasture for all their livestock and then they're gonna live in the cities and they're going to be at peace from all war and it goes on to say the Lord will care for them and Restore their fortune restore their fortune. Now. I want to tell you this does not necessarily mean financial fortune It could mean more and more spiritual blessings and open heaven and Blessings are just raining down upon these people who are now back in the land after 70 years We don't know exactly so there's a remnant and the truth of the matter is God has always Had a remnant and so what he's saying is even though the days are dark and they are going to get darker God will preserve The righteous ones who have not bowed the knee when they return they will be the nucleus for Rebuilding the nation of Judah and he also goes on to say this is in verse 9 that he's talking now about Moab and Abnon and he said that place possessed by nettles and sand pits. It will be a perpetual Desolation he just wiping them all out and he said but the remnant of my people will plunder them and the remainder of my nation will inherit them

Remember when they left Egypt and they plundered the Egyptians when the Jews left and the people just gave them gold and silver and they used those things ultimately in the tabernacle. But look what he's saying is I will always have a remnant and my hand of blessing is always going to be on the remnant, the righteous, those who walk in truth, humble hearts, broken spirits, contrite before me. Those people will be blessed either in this life or in the next, beloved, because they have followed me with a whole heart. And for those of us on this side of the cross, beloved, if you are here today and you have met God on his terms of repentance and faith, you have been placed in Christ, in Christ. And in Christ, you are safe, you are secure, and you are so loved, you are so loved. God is with us, God is for us, God is in us, and he will prevail. Oh, beloved, don't lose heart. If you look around at our world, it is very easy to lose heart. You look around at our city, very easy to lose heart, to wonder, God, what are you doing? What is happening? God is still on the throne. I used to drive a little car, it was a little Honda Accord, and it wasn't a very heavy car. And I was driving out there close to my house, and we have real curvy roads and we don't have shoulders, we have ditches, and we have buzzards, because sadly, many little critters get hit, and a buzzard won't eat anything alive, but he loves dead stuff. And so, they're kind of nasty birds, but God's creation, I try not to say mean things about them. Anyways, I'm driving my little car, and I come around this curve, and as I did, there's a buzzard in the road, right on the edge there, and he is eating something dead. And he did not want to give up his meal. And so he's there, and you could just see it in his little buzzard brain, he's looking at my car, and he's looking at that, and he looks back at me, and decides he should fly away. So what happens is, he takes a run and start, they're really big birds, takes a run and start, and begins slapping his wings, and evidently, he got caught in the downdraft of my little car, and he could not get himself going. And he was pedaling, I'm telling you, and trying to flap his wings, but he was not making, he just wasn't getting anywhere. And pretty soon, he was just eating with the top of my car, and he's looking at me, and he's trying like this, finally is able to break free, and to soar. I want to just tell you something, ladies. Listen, we are so loved by the Father, and even though the world, and the flesh, and the devil are pulling at us, he has given us the right and the power to rise up on eagles' wings. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, oh, what a refreshing day to look into your word. Father, this is a heavy, weighty series about the Minor Prophets, and Lord, help us to be faithful, to take to heart that we need to walk in righteousness and truth. We need to pursue being personally righteous and practically holy, living lives that reflect Christ. And yes, we stumble, and yes, we disappoint ourselves, but you are the lifter of our head. And so, Father, I just ask for every lady out there, you'll just give her a fresh vision of who she is in you, how loved she is, how treasured. She's your daughter. She is a co-heir with Jesus Christ. Lord, bless each and every one. And Father, as we go throughout this week, help us just to be mindful, mindful that God is good. In his name we pray, amen and amen.