The Peril of Rival Gods
I will cut off those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom. (Zephaniah 1:4-5)
Zeph. 1; I Sam 7:3; II Kgs. 17:33; Lk. 16:13; I Cor. 10:21; Jas. 1:8
What Is God Saying?
The Lord is saying through Zephaniah that there are things that do matter. The people were beginning to think that anything goes. It doesn't make any difference. If you go in for that kind of thing, you can worship Baal and run with the crowd. Then, if you feel like it, you can bow down and swear to the Lord. You've got all the bases covered. How can you lose? It was the mood of the times. ‘I will search Jerusalem with lamps,’ says the Lord, ‘and I will punish those who are thickening upon their lees (the wine needs to be stirred up, poured from one vessel to another; otherwise it will thicken and lose its strength), those who say in their hearts, The Lord will not do good nor will he do ill’ (Zeph. 1:12 ). A lackadaisical attitude toward the priorities that God had established was no small thing to the Lord. And as if to underscore this, we find the famous lines that have come down through the centuries with the title of dies irae (read vs. 15).
But if and when the Lord's people give themselves wholeheartedly, purely, exclusively to the Lord without rival affections or divided loyalty, “On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, 'Do not fear O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The Lord, your God, is in your midst .... He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will renew you in His love"' (3:16-17). The sun still shines in radiant fullness behind clouds of indifference and faithlessness. God's love never falls, and it is expressed in lines that are scarcely equaled for tenderness and beauty anywhere in the Bible, ‘He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will renew you in His love.’
How Does This Apply To Us?
Zephaniah speaks to the mood of our times. Principles are neglected. Standards of decency have evaporated as if into thin air. Guidelines for moral behavior, like traffic-worn divider strips on the highway, have grown so faint as to be useless, and ‘everyone does what is right in his own eyes’ (Jud. 21:25). This is the prelude to social tragedy. It is also the atmosphere where personal and spiritual disasters are only accidents waiting to happen. Divided loyalty is not a matter of indifference. Jesus Christ must be the Lord of all, or He is not Lord at all. He has words that flash like lightning across the dark landscape of the slumbering soul, ‘No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon (Lk. 16:13). The imperative speaks without reservation to every follower of Christ. We must make a choice. We cannot go on living between two options. Everything is not OK. Some things are not for us if we are for Him.
Pray With Me
Lord, be in this moment, and from this moment, be my only hope, desire, and God. In Your mercy, You have warned against the peril of divided loyalty. The vinedresser must cut off the fruitless branch. Because you care so much, You must do the same. You are willing and able to rescue all Your children in mercy, yet Your voice has spoken. ‘I will cut off.’ You are not willing that any should perish. You have gone to the depths of hell in the rescue of men. Still, there comes the stern word, spoken in love, ‘No man can serve two masters!’
So let there be no rival gods for me. Let there be not a single passion that cannot stand up under the light of the Father's knowledge. Let there be no single loyalty that cannot square with the Father's will. Let there be no single ambition that cannot receive the Father's approval. Let me not think of You as a far-off goal, a hoped-for plus, or a fringe benefit when, in reality, I depend on other people's kindness, the wheel of fortune, or the strength of my will.
I would not go on hesitating between two opinions. I would build my life on the words of the psalmist who sang in his victory song, ‘Some boast of chariots, and some of horses: but we boast of the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse, but we shall rise and stand upright.’
Create a clean heart, O God, free from entangling alliances and restless fears. With Your self-giving love in Christ always before me, create a clean break in me, O God, until I trust in the Lord with all my heart.
To the praise of Your all-sufficient grace in Jesus Christ, my Lord. Amen.
Moving On In The Life Of Prayer
Let us keep giving God the best of our hours, energy, abilities, talents, and the love and faith of our hearts in prayer. Honoring God in worship, obedience, and trust will result in the fulfillment of His promise in this prophecy with its modern message: not the day of wrath, not the day of clouds and thick darkness, but the day of God's rejoicing over us with gladness and the day when God renews us in His love.
