The Day of the Lord

On November 21, 2017, after a week of house arrest, Robert Mugabe, age 93, resigned as president of Zimbabwe. He had held the position since the country’s independence from Great Britain in 1980. Military leaders acted to remove Mugabe from power when it became clear that he was positioning his wife, Grace Mugabe, 52, to assume the presidency in the event of his death.

Long political reigns are difficult to end, and they often become corrupt. One wonders if this was the case in Judah under the reign of King Manasseh who became king at 12 years old and ruled the country for 55 years. He left an infamous legacy of religious syncretism and idol worship, even the atrocity of child sacrifice, and God promised to punish the nation on his account. “I will wipe out Jerusalem as one wipes out a dish” (2 Kings 21:13).

But Zephaniah preached not during the reign of Manasseh but during that of Josiah, Manasseh’s grandson. Josiah led a national religious revival, collecting monies to repair the temple, removing the idolatrous images from inside God’s holy sanctuary, re-instituting Passover observance, and renewing the nation’s covenant with Yahweh (see 2 Kings 23). If Josiah was such an upright king, why was God still promising, through Zephaniah, to judge His people for the faults of Manasseh?

God was waiting for a fuller repentance. Although the hearts of some kings in the southern kingdom turned toward God, the hearts of God’s people never fully did. And this is why the Day of the Lord was coming in Judah—a day of judgment. And we see another aspect of the Day of the Lord in this book. It is not simply a day of judgment; it is also a day of restoration.

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Your prayers will be an encouragement for Moody’s Web Technologies staff: Peter Distler, Jax Gorman, and Drew Smith. May the Lord use their digital skills and willingness to make our ministries a powerful presence online for people across the globe.

BY Jennifer Michel

Jen Pollock Michel is a regular contributor to Christianity Today’s Her.meneutics blog. Her first book, Teach us to Want: Longing, Ambition and the Life of Faith, is published by InterVarsity Press. Jen earned her BA in French from Wheaton College and her MA in Literature from Northwestern University. She lives in Toronto, Canada, with her husband and five children, and serves on staff at Grace Toronto Church.