For Gaza shall be forsaken, And Ashkelon desolate; They shall drive out Ashdod at noonday, And Ekron shall be uprooted. Woe to the inhabitants of the seacoast, The nation of the Cherethites! The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, land of the Philistines: “I will destroy you; So there shall be no inhabitant.” Zephaniah 2:4-5
00:00And Zephaniah then goes on to describe the judgments which are coming.
00:04I won't read all of that, but he starts with judgments coming upon the different nations which surround Israel.
00:10Interestingly, the first one he mentions is actually Gaza.
00:15If I can come to it in chapter 2, verse 4.
00:24It says, Gaza shall be forsaken and Ashkelon desolate.
00:29Ashkelon is just up the road from Gaza, by the way.
00:32So it speaks about something happening in the area of Gaza.
00:35But it goes on to speak about different countries.
00:37It speaks about Ammon, which is Jordan.
00:41It speaks about Moab.
00:43It speaks about Assyria, which is the northern part of Iraq.
00:46And it says that all these countries are going to be affected by this time of trouble.
00:50They were affected in the time when the Babylonians came in as well.
00:53So Babylon didn't just invade and attack Israel and Judea.
00:57It also attacked the countries surrounding it, and particularly the country to the north of Babylon, which was Assyria.
01:04So we have a general state of trouble, but also something specifically located around the land of Israel.
01:11It also goes on to speak about the judgment coming upon the rebellious and wicked city that has not obeyed the Lord,
01:19has not received correction, not trusted in the Lord.
01:22And if you look around the world today, we live in a world which is full of rebellion and pride and rejection of the Lord.
01:30Wherever you look, whatever country you're in, whether it's Britain or Russia or America or any of the countries of the world,
01:36there is a general spirit of rebellion against God, which is taking hold upon people and becoming increasingly strong in the days in which we live.
01:44Jesus said it'd be as in the days of Noah, at the time of his second coming.
01:49And you read in the book of Noah, in the book of Genesis about Noah,
01:52it was a time when there was great wickedness on the face of the earth,
01:55and every imagination of the heart of man was only evil continually.
02:00And the earth was filled with violence.
02:02And so God was displeased with what was taking place on the earth.
02:05Interesting, by the way, the word for violence in Genesis is Hamas.
02:11So, put that one, think about that.
02:15But there is a source of violence, particularly coming from terrorism, from drug pushing,
02:20from all kinds of things taking place, influences in the world, which are towards violence and destruction.
02:26And of course, manifesting itself in some of the horrible wars which are taking place around us in the world today.
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