{"id":1730,"date":"2022-04-27T06:12:50","date_gmt":"2022-04-27T11:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/?p=1730"},"modified":"2023-02-20T10:41:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T16:41:51","slug":"lesson-6-zephaniah-gods-judgment-and-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/27\/lesson-6-zephaniah-gods-judgment-and-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"Lesson 6: Zephaniah: God\u2019s Judgment and Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"962\" height=\"644\" src=\"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Lesson-6-Acts-17-27.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1731\" srcset=\"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Lesson-6-Acts-17-27.jpg 962w, http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Lesson-6-Acts-17-27-300x201.jpg 300w, http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Lesson-6-Acts-17-27-768x514.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 962px) 100vw, 962px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>Key Verse<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\"><strong>That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">\u2014Acts\n17:27<strong><br>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key\nVerse Thought: <\/strong>Read the Key Verse and use the following definitions for\nbetter understanding of it: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>seek<\/strong>: <em>to seek God means to\nturn to Him, to strive humbly and sincerely to follow and obey Him.<\/em> <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>haply<\/strong>: <em>nevertheless, but\nstronger meaning though indeed.<\/em>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>This basically sums up the\nmessage the prophets continually presented before the people: to seek the Lord,\nfor He is never far from His people. God never left His people; they left Him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Emphasis:\n<\/strong>We are to understand the importance of turning to God, striving humbly and\nsincerely to follow and obey Him. If Christians would just do that, they would\nfind Him \u2013 for He is not far. He is always waiting for His people to return to\nHim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Lesson<\/strong>\n<strong>Summary: <\/strong>In this lesson, we take a\nbreak from the kings of Judah\nto study another minor prophet book, Zephaniah, as close to where it belongs in\nJudah\u2019s history\nas possible. Remember that we learned about King Manasseh and King Amon in our\nlast lesson. Both of them were bad kings, and even though Manasseh finally\nhumbled himself before God, King Amon continued in his sin never humbling\nhimself before God. From this, we understand that the nation of Judah\nwas in a deplorable condition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The book of Zephaniah begins with, \u201cThe word of the LORD which came unto Zephaniah the son of Cushi \u2026 son of Hizkiah, in the days of Josiah the son of Amon, king of Judah\u201d (Zephaniah 1:1). He was the descendant of good King Hezekiah, and that means he was related to King Josiah. We will study the kingdom  of King Josiah after learning of Habakkuk next week. Zephaniah boldly spoke of the day of the Lord \u2013 and that it was coming soon. He understood God was displeased with His people. Zephaniah warned of immediate judgment and destruction. He encouraged the people to, \u201cSeek ye the LORD, all ye meek of the earth, which have wrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the LORD&#8217;S anger\u201d (Zephaniah 2:3).&nbsp;  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zephaniah warned the people of God\u2019s coming judgment, but he left them with the hope that God promised to restore His people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Y2Q3-Lesson-6-Questions.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Y2Q3 - Lesson 6 Questions (opens in a new tab)\">Y2Q3 &#8211; Lesson 6 Questions<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Y2Q3-Lesson-6-Childrens-Worksheets.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Y2Q3 - Lesson 6 Children's Worksheets (opens in a new tab)\">Y2Q3 &#8211; Lesson 6 Children&#8217;s Worksheets<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are teaching this lesson to younger children, the following is a craft idea to go along with this lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"698\" src=\"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Y2Q3-Lesson-6-1024x698.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1732\" srcset=\"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Y2Q3-Lesson-6-1024x698.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Y2Q3-Lesson-6-300x205.jpg 300w, http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/Y2Q3-Lesson-6-768x524.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">We took a votive candle and glued the following verse on the outside: &#8220;And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles &#8230;&#8221; Zephaniah 1:12.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Verse That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us. \u2014Acts 17:27 Key Verse Thought: Read the Key Verse and use the following definitions for better understanding of it: This basically sums up the message the prophets [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[908],"tags":[754,909,753,72],"class_list":["post-1730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-year-two-quarter-three","tag-lesson-6","tag-quarter-three","tag-year-two","tag-zephaniah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2205,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions\/2205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/biblicalpath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}