The Day of the LORD: Religious Hypocrisy

"I will utterly sweep away everything
from the face of the earth, declares the LORD.
I will sweep away man and beast;
I will sweep away the birds of the heavens
and the fish of the sea,
and the rubble with the wicked.
I will cut off mankind
from the face of the earth," declares the LORD.
--Zephaniah 1:2-3

The first words to come out of God's mouth to Zephaniah could hardly have been more shocking and frightening.  This isn't a statement of "I can" destroy everything.  This is a promise--"I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth."

God got my attention here.  I started reading Zephaniah just because it is one of the few books of the Bible that I can never remember reading.  But once I got through the first couple of verses, I realized that I couldn't just read this one through.  God was very intentional about making this an attention-getting and alarming introduction.  Besides that, He always means what He says.

So I wanted to look into what God was refering to when he mentioned "the wicked."  We get two contrasting answers here in the first chapter.

Religious Hypocrisy
"I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal
and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests,
those who bow down on the roofs
to the host of the heavens
those who bow down and swear to the LORD
and yet swear by Milcom,
those who have turned back from following the LORD,
who do not seek the LORD or inquire of Him."
--Zephaniah 1:4-5


The first kind of wickedness that is mentioned is religious wickedness.

Have you ever been guilty of "worshiping" God and something else at the same time?  Sometimes I feel like my heart is in an almost constant state of dividedness.  God hates this.  Some people may be fooled when you are friendly to their face and malicious behind their back.  But God doesn't have a back to go behind.  He is incapable of being shocked when His people cheat on Him with idols.  He sees, and His anger burns.

What else does God hate about religious people?  When they stop seeking Him.  Well that sure doesn't sound like us!  Oh wait...how often do we make decisions without any reference to God's will?  How often do we willfully choose to do something that we know He doesn't approve of?  More than daily, at very least.  God is angry when we do not seek Him or inquire of Him.

God wants us to take religious sins seriously.  But there are other kinds of wickedness mentioned in this chapter...and the joy of forgiveness later on.

Part 2 coming soon: The Day of the LORD: Worldly Complacency