Zephaniah 1:17

"The day of the LORD" in Scripture always deals with the world, with living men and their works on the earth, and finally with the frame and elements of the universe itself… Nothing can be plainer. It is clearly judicial, and it concerns the world people live in.

Critics see nothing here but an invasion of the land by hostile forces. But it is the same great day, the climax of all the ages before it, when the LORD reveals Himself… When that day comes the mighty man will cry out in bitterness, for he cannot save himself from the storm of judgment.

When that day comes the wicked will perish, and distress will come on everyone. They will walk like blind men — that is, trying to find a way of escape and not able to find one. Nothing will be able to rescue them from the fury of that day. Neither silver nor gold will be of any use.

"At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps." Not just those who were openly violent — no one would escape, no class or condition. They "say in their heart, the LORD will do neither good nor harm"… they will be struck at the very point of their unbelief.

There is Judah, and there is Jerusalem. There are the peoples around them — Edom, the Philistines, the Ammonites, the Ethiopians and the Assyrians. North, south, east and west, all come in for this same complete exposure, down to its finest distinctions… Nothing escapes. All is naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. And the Judge of all the world does right: those who have deserved many stripes get them, while others are beaten with few, for God shows no favouritism. He repays every man according to what he has done.

Where there is high truth and low practice, no one can honestly testify to the day of the LORD… It will never do to live in it or on it, because it is not the right food for the soul. Still it is a solemn and necessary truth to hold up before our own eyes and the eyes of everyone else… For instance, we keep finding this self-deceit where a Christian lives in worldliness, which leads him to say that at least his heart is not in it.

This prophecy does not refer to Christians, but to Jews. Yet we may see a close parallel between what Zephaniah unfolds and what the gospel makes known to us. We have to learn, first of all, that man in the flesh is utterly offensive to God because of his sin, and must be got rid of in judgment. The believer can see this carried out for him in the cross of Christ. Man, the world, sin, himself — all are judged and removed from the eye of God in the death of Christ… But in raising Him from among the dead God starts the history of man again… He becomes the hiding place, the shelter, of His people.