Be silent before the Lord GOD! For the day of the LORD is near; the LORD has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests. And on the day of the LORD’s sacrifice—“I will punish the officials and the king’s sons and all who array themselves in foreign attire. On that day I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold, and those who fill their master’s house with violence and fraud. “On that day,” declares the LORD, “a cry will be heard from the Fish Gate, a wail from the Second Quarter, a loud crash from the hills. Wail, O inhabitants of the Mortar! For all the traders are no more; all who weigh out silver are cut off. At that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, those who say in their hearts, ‘The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill.’ Their goods shall be plundered, and their houses laid waste. Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them; though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink wine from them.” – Zephaniah 1:7-13 ESV

Warrior;

Bible Teacher J Vernon McGee calls the Minor Prophet books of Zephaniah and Habakkuk, the Darkside of God’s love. Chances are you have never heard a sermon from the book of Zephaniah.  It is a book of Judgement; Near Judgement, Judah was going to be judged and wiped clean.  However, there was also a Judgement far off, called the DAY OF THE LORD.  Wikipedia says this about the Day of the Lord: The phrase alludes to a judgment for eternal rewards in 2 Corinthians 1:14 where it says, “we are your rejoicing, even as ye also are ours in the day of the Lord Jesus”. The Book of Revelation describes the day of the Lord as an apocalyptic time of God’s almighty wrath, which comes upon those who are deemed wicked. The Gospel Coalition defines the DAY OF THE LORD thusly: “The phrase “the day of the LORD [Yahweh]” refers both to the ultimate time when Yahweh will punish and restore the whole world through Christ’s first and second comings. Unrepentant sinners should fear the day of the Lord, but those forgiven and redeemed can anticipate it with hope.” This is when God’s wrath will be poured out.  Punishment for violating the law of Love, is part of the Law of Love. As with so much of the Bible, too many people stop for a feel-good verse, but don’t continue on to understand the underlying message of THE WORD.  John 3:16 is by far one of the most popular, and favorite verses in the Bible, but if you continue to read the next 2 verses you will see the FULL LAW OF LOVE. It is written: For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (John 3:16-18)

Leader, we are living in a time like Zephaniah prophesied about. We don’t dress like we should dress; we leap over thresholds- we steal things, spouses, animals, houses, identities, mortgages, social media status, livelihoods, Hope and Futures. Bitterness, Envy, and Covetousness rule America. Our hearts are bitter, and we are keeping a pound of flesh, every record of wrong…we KEEP SCORE! Look at the decay in The Church; we fill our Master’s house with violence and fraud. However, the worst of all? We have become complacent, as those who say in their hearts, ‘The LORD will not do good, nor will he do ill’. We stopped believing that choices today matter, and that God is no longer involved in the day-to-day machinations of His children. Chuck Smith calls this, ‘Settled on your lees’. Settled on your lees is an old biblical idiom that refers to the lees (dregs, sediments) of wine or other liquids that settle in the bottom of the containing vessel– if it is not disturbed. The idiom refers to someone, or something that is at ease, not disturbed, or worried. However, it also has a reference to a false assurance. Notice how it is used in other prophets’ writings; Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his LEES, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gone into captivity: therefore his taste remained in him, and his scent is not changed. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will send unto him wanderers, that shall cause him to wander, and shall empty his vessels, and break their bottles. (Jeremiah 48:11-12) Smith’s Bible Dictionary adds that LEES is the coarser parts of a liquor, its sediment, or dregs. “Wine on the lees” means a generous, full-bodied liquor. (Isaiah 25:6) Before the wine was consumed, it was necessary to strain off the lees; such wine was then termed “well refined.” (Isaiah 25:6) To drink the lees, or “dregs,” was an expression for the endurance of extreme punishment. (Psalms 75:8)

Conduit, it was important in the process of creating, “well refined wine”, that they continue to pour the settled wine into another vessel and let it settle again. That process went on multiple times until it was WELL REFINED. If they got complacent, lazy, and wanted the QUICK, EASY, WAY or WINE, then they would cease to REFINE THE WINE. If they did not pour the wine from vessel to vessel, the leaves began to sour, to stunk- they polluted the wine. The idea tied to this idiom is the IDEA OF BEING POLLUTED, living in pollution, not concerned about the pollution, or the condition. God is going to deal with those who have SETTLED ON THEIR LEES. Who says that it DOESN’T REALLY MATTER, that God is removed. The prophet Ezekiel got a chance to peer into the POLLUTION of the religious leaders in Ezekiel Chapter 8, hear the Word of the Lord; Son of man,” He told me, “dig through the wall.” So I dug through the wall and discovered a doorway. Then He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked abominations they are committing here.” So I went in and looked, and engraved all around the wall was every kind of crawling creature and detestable beast, along with all the idols of the house of Israel. Before them stood seventy elders of the house of Israel, with Jaazaniah son of Shaphan standing among them. Each had a censer in his hand, and a fragrant cloud of incense was rising. “Son of man,” He said to me, “do you see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the darkness, each at the shrine of his own idol? For they are saying, ‘The LORD does not see us; the LORD has forsaken the land.” (Ezekiel 8:8-12) Remember God made a covenant with Himself in regard to man. As with all covenants there is a blessing and a curse. The Blessing is that God did not make us for the Day of the Lord, it is a day of wrath! Hear the Word of the Lord, “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him.” (1 Thessalonians 5:9-10) However for those who refuse to bow to the Supremacy of Jesus Christ as LORD and MASTER- Hear the Love of God and the Word of God; “The great day of the LORD is near, near and hastening fast; the sound of the day of the LORD is bitter; the mighty man cries aloud there. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the LORD; their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the LORD. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth”. (Zephaniah 1:14-18) Remember, it is God’s PREFERRED WILL that NONE SHALL PERISH. However, He gives us FREE WILL. “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!