Zephaniah
July 17
Zephaniah 1:4, 2 Chronicles 34:14-28
God’s Word is found
While the Temple of the Lord was being cleaned up and repaired, Hilkiah the High Priest found the written instructions that God had given to Moses. “I have found the book of the Law!” he exclaimed, and he gave it to Shaphan who took it to the King Josiah.
When the book was read aloud, Josiah ripped his clothes in despair and said, “Go find out from the Lord about what is written in the book. God is angry with us because our fathers have not been doing what the book says.”
Then the Lord gave Josiah this message: “Because you humbled yourself, tore your clothes, and wept before Me, My judgment against Jerusalem will not come until after you have died.”
Has the Bible become outdated?
Have you ever skipped a meal or gone without food for a whole day? If you have, you obviously survived. But if you don’t eat for days and days, you will run out of energy and become weak. In the same way, if we don’t get our spiritual food by reading the Bible every day, we won’t have the strength to face our daily struggles and resist temptation.
Without the written Word of God to guide them, God’s people had wandered off the path and lost their way. They had thrown away the map of life, thinking that they no longer needed the law that Moses gave them hundreds of years before. It just seemed so out-of-date! Idols were in fashion now—and God’s rules told them that idol-worship is wrong. The people didn’t realize that the Word of God is actually so up to date that it even tells us what will happen in the future. If only they had read it and listened to the prophets, they would have known what was going to happen to them (2 Chronicles 34:24-26).
Verse for today
Therefore my people will go into exile for lack of understanding. Isaiah 5:13
