Server Outage Notice: TheSeed.info is transfering to a new Server on Tuesday April 13th
| > Sermon Archive > Sermons by Author > Rev. Sjirk Bajema > God’s Judgment Is Upon Those Next Door! | Previous Next Print |
| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) |
ZEPHANIAH 2:4-7
(Scripture: Jud.10:6-14; 1 Sam.4:1-11; Isa.11:1-16)
God’s Judgment Is Upon Those Next Door!
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
If there was any one race of people which were known for their antagonism toward the Hebrews it would have to be the Philistines.
This strong and cohesive nation is recorded many times throughout the Old Testament as those in battle with Israel.
Right from the invasion of the Promised Land through to the time of Zephaniah, they were invariably at war.
And, quite often, the Philistines were the ones on the top.
A number of times they occupied the land so that the Hebrews were heavily taxed by them.
The Hebrews weren’t even allowed to have any metal so as to keep them subjugated!
And that also showed the extensive trading empire of the Philistines in that they had the metal market monopoly.
Of course, when we think of the Philistines, we remember that huge man called Goliath.
This is a name which even today represents strength and size.
He towered over the Israelites, challenging them each day to choose a champion to fight him.
It was the Lord who won against him in the most amazing show of skill as the young and small David killed him with slingshot.
But there were plenty more huge men where he came from!
It is likely the Philistines had originally come from the Aegean area, perhaps Crete.
They had been a seafaring people who, when they first came, were involved in being mercenary soldiers for the Egyptians and other powers.
They had settled along the Mediterranean coast.
Thus it was that for all practical purposes they were Canaanites.
They lived just on the edge of the Promised Land and their religions were identical to those others in Palestine.
Their gods mentioned were Dagon, Ashteroth, and Baalzebub.
So if you were to go through a list of Israel’s enemies in the Old Testament there’s no doubt the Philistines were top of the list.
There was no love lost between the two, although at times of unfaithfulness Israel did intermarry with the Philistines.
We only need to think of Samson in this regard.
These verses regarding the Philistines, which we consider now, are closely linked to what Zephaniah has said before.
In the Hebrew there is a conjunction.
Thus the ESV begins verse 4 with the word ‘For’.
But it could also be the word ‘Because.’
So the coming Great Day of the Lord will be illustrated in what is about to happen to the Philistines.
This is what the first aspect to the sermon covers.
This point is about … WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE PHILISTINES.
Verse 4 tells us this.
And it does so by describing what’s going to come about for the four major Philistine cities.
This is about the independent city states which hold together Philistia.
Here we note there are only four cities.
Four not because it matches the four directions Israel’s enemies come from - west, east, south, and north – but four because the fifth, Gath, has already been wiped out.
2nd Chronicles 26:6 has already recorded what has happened there.
There we read that King Uzziah of Judah broke down the walls of Gath and other cities during a war with the Philistines.
This was already over a hundred years before Zephaniah’s time.
So there are the four major cities that remain.
And we need to note what Zephaniah prophesies about each of those four cities.
For while his prophesy will be devastatingly accurate it is especially to serve as a warning to Judah.
While at times some of the prophets declared God’s Word to foreign nations, like Jonah did in Nineveh, those times were few and far between.
The primary task of the prophet was declaring God’s Word to his people.
The four cities were Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Ekron.
The first of these is a name that still lives on today.
In fact, how often doesn’t ‘Gaza’ appears on the television news or the newspaper headlines?
But don’t think the present city of Gaza is on the same spot.
It’s not.
While the ancient city of Gaza was one of the most ancient cities of the world, and while it was located on the main trading route between east and west, and while at times it had been captured and rebuilt by successive regional and world powers, it is there no longer.
The proud city has become an abandoned site.
The word ‘Gaza’ means strong.
But in an alliteration – a play on words – Zephaniah says Gaza will be abandoned, “deserted”.
It might only be a word play through the consonantal sounds used but how much doesn’t it show the fate of that mighty town?
Because Gaza was big on herself.
She has the history, the location, and so that sense of perpetual importance.
But under the Lord’s hand of judgment she will be become nothing at all.
Then we read that Ashkelon will be left in ruins - “a desolation”.
This city is twelve miles or some eighteen kilometres north of Gaza.
It also likewise has a long history, being even captured by Judah at one stage but after that falling to the Philistines and then subsequently to the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Maccabees, and ultimately to the Romans.
It was set on fire – burnt down - by the Jews in Roman times.
The ruler who tried so much to ingratiate himself with the Jews, Herod the Great, was born here.
But for centuries before him Ashkelon had been implacably opposed against the Jews.
While at times they had seemed to side with the Jews it had only been to gain their own advantage over them.
No wonder the Jews burned it down the way they did!
But that fulfilled what the Lord had prophesied.
What Zephaniah says here, and Jeremiah says later (Jer.47:5-7), came devastatingly true.
Ashkelon was left in ruins – she became the waste Jeremiah declared.
The next city mentioned, Ashdod, was eighteen miles, or some 26 kilometres, north-east of Gaza.
She was one of the principal ports of Philistia.
Thus she was a vital link in their trading empire.
But Ashdod was also known for having the chief temple of the god Dagon.
You might remember the incident in 1st Samuel 5 when the statue of Dagon there in Ashdod fell on its face before the ark of the Lord.
Like other Philistine cities, Ashdod passed through the hands of most of the great powers.
But it too wasted away.
The exact details of that aren’t known.
But the description here is quite vivid.
For to say that at noon Ashdod’s people would be driven out is to indicate that at the hottest time of the day, when the people were taking a siesta, a nap, they would be caught napping!
This is the sense of an unexpected, sudden expulsion.
It is the devastation of a sudden invasion.
Then there is Ekron.
Ekron was north-west of Ashdod, perhaps some 18 kilometres away.
It was the most inland of the Philistine cities and this is reflected in the times when first the tribe of Dan captured it at the conquest of Canaan, and then later, Judah, after which it was retaken again by the Philistines.
Subsequently it too fell into the hands of the greater powers.
It was also known for its religious deity.
In this case it was the god Baalzebub.
This was one of the gods that had held sway over Israel at various times.
In 2nd Kings 1 we read of when King Ahaziah of the northern kingdom, Israel, tried to consult this god but he instead got the word of the Lord through Elijah.
As we saw with Gaza, there is also a play on words in the description given to Ekron.
The way the consonantal sounds are used here draws attention to a complete uprooting of this once important place.
A city that had villages dependent upon it (Jos.15:45f.).
But a city that is no more.
In fact, a city which there is no more trace of anymore!
Interesting though these individual details are, and certainly proof of the Lord’s judgment, it is what the Philistines represent here altogether that is the underlying focus.
The Philistines here are representative of the heathen world which surrounds Judah.
They are part of that which is set up against the Lord God and his people.
And thus it is that they fall under this terrible punishment.
This is not to take away from any Philistines who may have seen the light and become part of the covenant people, as there were those from other pagan nations.
But as a whole they were set against the Lord.
So we have seen WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE PHILISTINES.
Next, in verse 5, we realise … HOW IT WILL HAPPEN TO THE PHILISTINES.
The first thing we note here is the drawing together of the Philistine people under the general ascription of Cherethite people.
This is a reference to their early geographical links with Crete.
The way the Philistines are addressed here begins with a ‘Woe’.
So it is a curse being pronounced.
The word of the Lord is said against them.
A word which clearly states, “I will destroy you until no inhabitant is left.”
But using the word ‘Canaan’ here gives us the real clue to what’s happening here.
Because the Philistines are being used here to represent all the pagan nations in Canaan.
As we have seen that the Philistines represent the pagan nations set against the Lord, here we note this is now particularly about the pagan nations within Canaan.
These were the nations the Hebrews were told they had to completely wipe out of the promised land.
The people who were still there five hundred years later.
It’s the people of Canaan who are under a special curse of the Lord.
Because of their sins which so infuriated God, he had ordered his people to totally destroy those people because of them.
Sins which now were inherited by the Philistines also.
The curse declared by Noah upon his grandson was to be fulfilled in his descendants.
The word of Genesis 9:25 was being fulfilled.
None of them was going to be left.
This is what Moses commanded Israel to fulfil in Deuteronomy 7.
In the verses 1 till 6 there we read, “When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations – the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you – and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated then, then you are to destroy them totally.
“Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.
“Do not intermarry with them.
“Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD’s anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you.
“This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.
“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.
“The LORD has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”
So unless those people became part of Israel and completely gave up their old ways, they were lost.
Then they had no hope.
Congregation, today we must realise the same.
Unless our unbelieving neighbour comes to faith he is doomed to a terrible end.
That’s why we must pray for them.
And when we do that we will be witnesses to them.
In the words of the apostle in 1st Peter 2, verse 12, let’s “live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”
But we see from Deuteronomy 7 that even more important was the fact that Canaan was meant to be the Promised Land.
Just as often as it is spoken that the Canaanites must be wiped out because of their sin it is also said that this land was an inheritance for God’s people – for those the Lord had chosen to be his very own, a place of witness to him in the world.
It is this aspect we turn to now in the verses 6 and 7.
For there we see … WHY IT WILL HAPPEN TO THE PHILISTINES.
The description in verse 6 paints a completely different situation for this area.
The land which had once been the great place of trade and warfare – of hustle and bustle – will become so peaceful.
The symbolism of “shepherds” and “sheep folds” was so graphic for the Jews.
Because that was traditionally what they did.
And here it gives an added aspect – a spiritual dynamic.
But we may have anticipated quite a different scenario for this place after the Lord’s judgment.
Naturally we would have thought of permanent desertion – a desert.
And yet here it is most useful.
But useful to who?
Because it seems the Cherethites are described in verse 6 as still living there.
The original Hebrew indicates they possess ‘pastures’.
Yet it would mean they were doing something they weren’t particularly known for.
Unless, of course, it showed the humble subsistence to which they had fallen.
The depopulated coastlands would become pasture lands, where nomadic shepherds lived in primitive conditions, and where the most complex structures would be the folds made for the flocks.
And on top of all that, verse 7 next tells of this land belonging to the remnant of the house of Judah.
The Philistines, as those here representing the people in Canaan, had lost all right to it.
But the mass of Judah were in better spiritual state.
In fact, those Judeans who would come to have possession of it were of the remnant which remained after the Lord’s judgment.
And it’s clear this is a reference to a faithful remnant.
This is a restoration of his people.
It certainly puts a different angle on what we have seen in chapter 1.
There it was clear there would a terrible devastation upon the Day of the Lord.
It would be a dreadful obliteration, vividly demonstrating the Lord’s wrath.
And yet right alongside God’s holy judgment there is his gracious mercy.
A remnant survives.
There is destruction but not annihilation.
When we consider this aspect of WHY IT WILL HAPPEN TO THE PHILISTINES we are brought to realise that it’s all part of God’s plan for his Church.
He is keeping her.
In his mercy he has elected some to enjoy his favour in the fullest possible way.
We can see that this is a direct allusion to the return from captivity.
And how much won’t they be blessed then!
The Philistine houses which were so much symbols of their wealth would become where God’s people live.
We certainly have to agree with the last sentence in verse 7.
How true it is: “For the LORD their God will be mindful of them and restore their fortunes.”
But could this also be looking forward to something further on than the exilic return?
Rather than what would happen in less than one hundred years has this prophecy something in it to do with the Lord’s second coming?
We need to ask this because there are aspects that did not come exactly true as described here.
For instance, when were the Jews’ fortunes restored?
Could it have been under the Maccabees?
Yet that was only a limited time period of a hundred years or so.
This, though, speaks of a situation so unlike what has been before.
In fact, this is more akin to such as that which Isaiah had earlier prophesied.
And didn’t our reading from Isaiah 11 draw out what will happen after the ultimate Day of the Lord?
And what a situation of peace there is afterwards!
As the verses 6 till 9 said of that time, “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
“The cow and the bear shall graze, their young shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
“The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den.
“They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.”
While some may say that being able to lie down in the houses in Ashkelon means the remnant’s safety doesn’t it much more point out the Lord’s complete victory?
Doesn’t finding pasture connect us with this knowledge of the Lord being all over the earth then?
Congregation, verse 7 declares to us that day when the land of Canaan truly became the Promised Land.
It tells us of a coming time when rather than through a physical nation God’s people would be the spiritual nation that he draws out from all over this world to be with him on the new heavens and the new earth.
The way it appears in the text before us made sense to Zephaniah’s hearers.
It would not have given them much joy that they were being told about being largely decimated.
But for the faithful it would have given hope.
Still, like the view of the mountain range we have heard of before, they only had one angle of vision.
We, after Christ’s doing and dying and rising again, can see it in a lot bigger picture.
And isn’t it a wonderful picture now?
We are the sheep of the same Shepherd.
And we are in his pasture.
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
O Loving Heavenly Father…
Each day we rest in your most amazing love for us.
Each day we count the many blessings we have from you.
Because each day we know you are busy caring for us.
In fact, you have paradise itself prepared for us!
O Lord, may we show that in our lives.
Help us to live as those who are not going to die.
In the Name of the One who arose from death victorious, Jesus Christ, your own dear Son and our Saviour, Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2019, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
Please direct any comments to the Webmaster
