The Lord is righteous in her midst, He will do no unrighteousness. Every morning He brings His justice to light; He never fails, but the unjust knows no shame. I have cut off nations, their fortresses are devastated; I have made their streets desolate, with none passing by. Their cities are destroyed; there is no one, no inhabitant.” Zephaniah 3:5-6.

Again verse 5, the first two sentences above, is shown to maintain context. It was covered in the last post on 8-9-20. By telling the Jews that He was in their midst God is showing that He always had an internal witness within Jerusalem.

We now turn to Zephaniah 3:6 wherein God speaks through the prophet to remind those in Jerusalem and throughout Judah of the external witness to His power and righteous indignation.

“I have cut off nations, their fortresses are devastated; I have made their streets desolate, with none passing by. Their cities are destroyed; there is no one, no inhabitant.” Zephaniah 3:6.

There are folks who can walk across a cemetery, stepping over grave after grave, reading the epitaphs as they go and noting the ages at death, 35, 67, 98, 17, 23, even 0, who will walk away without realizing their own mortality.

Each person is going to live forever. Yet that is not what the gravestones tell us. There is a terminus and all of us will spend more time dead than we ever will alive.

If the gravestones could speak out they would all say one thing, “Choose wisely.”

“The voice said, ‘Cry out!’ And he said, ‘What shall I cry?’ ‘All flesh is grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades, because the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.’” Isaiah 40:6-8.

“Lord, make me to know my end, and what is the measure of my days, that I may know how frail I am. Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths, and my age is as nothing before You; certainly every man at his best state is but vapor. Selah” Psalm 39:4-5.

“When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity, You make his beauty melt away like a moth; surely every man is vapor. Selah” Psalm 39:11.

“…you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” James 4:14.

The word Selah in a psalm means either pause, as in a musical pause because the psalms were sung, or it means, stop and consider what you have just read, think about it.

Just as men ignore the words of the gravestones so they ignore the words of history. This is why history is either ignored in schools today, or twisted. Children without a sense of history are cast adrift with no purpose, no heritage, and no sense of mortality.

As a result of this lack of history men do not realize the following about God.

“Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales; look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing. And Lebanon [the forest] is not sufficient to burn, nor its beasts sufficient for a burnt offering. All nations before Him are as nothing, and they are counted by Him less than nothing and worthless.” Isaiah 40:15-17.

Nations mean nothing to God; it is the individuals within those nations that God cares about. God has placed each person who ever lived in the best nation at the best time in history for them to learn of Him.

“THAT IS CRAZY!” Yes it is, how anyone can be saved out of Babylon, Nineveh, communist countries, darkest Africa suffocating in voo doo wielded by demon possessed witch doctors, and about 1400 years of murderously intolerant Islam, seems impossible.

Yet they are, or God would not have done it this way. Think of Nineveh, and then read the book of Jonah.

Think of Babylon then remember that Nebuchadnezzar took thousands of Jews, including the prophets Daniel and Ezekiel, back to that city. Many of them would have told the Babylonians about the one and true God.

Missionaries who have gone into Africa and preached the gospel were often approached by villagers who told them that they knew there had to be something like this out there; they just did not know His name, Jesus.

There have been stories of Muslims in their own countries who have had dreams of Jesus telling them of Himself.

Places where God has no witness, and all Christians have been killed or driven out of many areas in the Middle East, He sends His Spirit to be a witness. God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

It is the works of Satan and his stooges, evil men that make the majority of the world’s countries antagonistic to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

“There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.” Romans 3:10-11.

“…there is none who does good, no, not one.” Romans 3:12b.

Satan and his knee-jerk puppets the liberals and atheists are attempting to eradicate Christians from America as they have done in other countries.

These people want to turn our land into a heathen third world country, worse yet they would like to fill the void with Islam.

Islam is the religion that mutilates women’s genitals, and assigns them a place in society as slaves to evil men who humiliate them in every way possible.

Islam is the religion that beats a teenage girl to death for being raped while on the way to the restroom.

There is a mercy in Islam that says that someone will go to heaven if they die a virgin. So when a virgin is sentenced to death for some reason, the imams rape her to make sure she goes to hell.

Islam is a religion that kills unbelievers if they will not convert, or they just kill unbelievers. Do you really believe that terrorism is the result of a few radicals?

No, it is the teaching of Islam that authorizes the horrific acts they commit throughout Europe including murder and random rapes.

Islam is the religion of peace that godless men want to import into America.

There is no such thing as an atheist among any of them who are thinking persons; only God haters.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools…” Romans 1:18-22.

Later in Romans chapter 1 atheists and people like them are characterized as, among many other things.

“…backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents…” Romans 1:30.

Militant atheists are not atheists, they are haters of God.

It is evil like this that has caused nations to be completely cut off by God. Streets are desolate, with no one passing by; these cities are destroyed with no inhabitants. Many of them become permanently deserted.

Nineveh still was in power when Zephaniah prophesied against Jerusalem. Yet this city of the Assyrians which was about 60 miles across and had 100 foot high walls wide enough for chariots to ride around three abreast was demolished and lost to archeologists until it was found in the 1800’s.

The ancient city of Babylon was after many centuries, demolished and abandoned until recently when Saddam Hussein started rebuilding it before his execution. However that has not stopped the rebuilding of the city of Babylon, though I cannot say what progress has been made since.

The Hittites which were in power from about 1700 B.C. until destroyed circa 1200 B.C. about 600 years before the book of Zephaniah was written.

The Hittites occupied territory which is in Turkey their holdings also included the cities of Aleppo and Carchemish. They were powerful enough to raid other city states and raided and destroyed both Aleppo and Babylon, both of which were rebuilt.

The Hittites were harassed by raiders from other peoples at a time when their kings were basically incompetent; when they were weak they were finished off by the Assyrians. I have also read that this was also at a time when the men started wearing women’s clothing.

The Hittites were for many years considered a Bible myth until artifacts were found in the late 1800’s and another Bible “myth” was found to be true.

Hrappa and the city of Mohenjo-daro are both on the Indus River and are two ancient cities in modern day Pakistan which were destroyed long before the book of Zephaniah was written and probably unknown by Israel. Still they are examples of God’s judgment on the ungodly.

Hrappa existed from circa 3300 B.C. to 1300 B.C. little is known about this city and its demise. Examination of the remains of these people showed a history of violence because of an extreme number of injuries, disease was also prevalent and it is thought that this civilization died out due to injury and disease.

Mohenjo-daro existed from circa 2500 B.C. to 1900 B.C. Mohenjo-daro is not the actual name of this city interestingly enough because the name Mohenjo-daro which was given later on means “Mound of the Dead Men”. It is felt that flooding of the Indus was the cause of the city’s end but the name gives one pause.

There is a theory that the city was invaded by Aryans who were expanding into India itself. The word that the Aryans used for war by the way meant, “need for cattle”, there has to be a plausible excuse to kill people I guess.

Both Hrappa and Mohenjo-daro were cities which were carefully laid out, though not identically. Many of the buildings were similar and they even had channels for their waste water to drain into covered drains which lined major streets. You would not think this of such ancient cities.
Mohenjo-daro was lost for 3700 years until it was discovered again in 1919-20 A.D.

And what of the Mayan civilization circa 2600 B.C. to 1697 A.D. which mysteriously began to die out well before the Spanish invaders conquered them in 1697 A.D.

Along with the Mayan’s amazing developments in mathematics and astronomy with an advanced civilization which is now buried in the jungle they had a particularly cruel streak.

Like the Aztecs the Mayans engaged in human sacrifice by cutting the heart out of their prisoners, with the added feature of the ghastly torture of their more important prisoners before the ritual death.

The Aztec civilization ran from circa 1300 A.D. to when they too were conquered by the Spaniards in 1521 A.D. Just as the Mayans, so the Aztec’s religion called for human sacrifice. Usually of prisoners they had taken in raids and warfare these were taken to the priests and had their hearts ritually cut out while still beating.

Though the number is disputed, the Aztecs claim to having killed 80,400 men in this manner within a period of four days. It is demonized and demon crazed populations like this who have rejected the living and true God that brings the wrath of God down on them.

Well, we have mentally walked through two graveyards and noted the graves of men and the graves of civilizations, can anything speak more loudly of the frailty of men and of entire nations.

“O Lord, how great are Your works! Your thoughts are very deep. A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this. When the wicked spring up like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever.” Psalm 92: 5-7.

When God calls out to Jerusalem and says:

“I have cut off nations, their fortresses are devastated; I have made their streets desolate, with none passing by. Their cities are destroyed; there is no one, no inhabitant.” Zephaniah 3:6.

You would think that Jerusalem would repent, especially after the northern kingdom of Israel was carried off less than a hundred years earlier by the Assyrians who were far crueler than the Aztecs or the Mayans.

Yet the survivors in Jerusalem would cling to their own self-righteousness and idolatry right up to the destruction of their temple and the carrying off of the majority of their people. And still they will rebel and cling to their gods.

“I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me, you will receive instruction’ – so that her dwelling would not be cut off, despite everything for which I punished her. But they rose early and corrupted all their deeds.” Zephaniah 3:7.

God’s question “Surely you will fear Me” is a rhetorical one since God is omniscient. The question is actually for our sake as we consider the chapter; surely the people of Israel would fear God after considering all of these things?

Yet for all the words of God spoken by Zephaniah to the people, “they rose early and corrupted all their deeds.” There was no change of heart and no change of direction.

The officials, the roaring lions, continued to tear their weaker brothers to pieces along with the widows and orphans among them. The judges, like starving wolves violently eviscerated the helpless, and crushed their bones.

The prophets and teachers continued to lie to the naïve for profit. And the priests rolled in their own filth like so many swine.

And everyone continued to serve their abominable idols defiling themselves before them and sacrificing their children to them. God surely will not judge us, His chosen people.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!” Luke 13:34.

The Tyrannical City, Part 4 taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 4-12-17, updated on 8-13-20.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.