Zephaniah 1:12 And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees… God is omniscient. Why, then, should He represent Himself as searching Jerusalem with candles, as though there were the remotest possibility of any acts escaping His detection? These representations are simply intended to work powerfully on our minds. For whom is it that the Almighty institutes this close and piercing search? Not the perpetrators of any very secret and hidden sin; but men who are "settled on their lees," whom prosperity has lulled into a kind of practical atheism, so that they deny the providence of God or His interference in human affairs. God would not employ this strong figure if there may not be a great deal of this sensual indifference, this haughty indolence, even in those in whom prosperity may not seem to us to have acted injuriously. I. THE NATURAL TENDENCIES OF A STATE IN WHICH THERE IS NO ADVERSE CHANGE. Take the case of a man on whom, from his youth up, everything has seemed to smile. When there is not unbroken prosperity there is often a sudden tide of success. This may apply to both public and private life. To these the description "settled on their lees" may apply. Prosperity is really far harder to bear than adversity. It is a great touchstone, and marvellously exposes the weakness of man's virtues. There is a direct tendency in prosperity to the fostering and strengthening the corruptions of our nature. The more a man obtains, the more will he desire. The bent of our dispositions being towards the earth, if nothing ever happen to turn them from earth there is little ground for expecting that they will centre themselves on heaven. Prosperity has a tendency to keep men at a distance from God. A religious man may be prosperous, and prosperity not prove the grave of his religion; but the prosperous man who is yet a stranger to religion is amongst the moot unpromising of subjects for moral attack. II. WHAT ADVANTAGES FOLLOW UPON UNCERTAINTIES AND REVERSES OF FORTUNE. 1. Change admonishes us of the transitory nature of terrestrial good. Every change, but yet more a succession of changes, speaks, saying, "Arise ye, and depart hence, for this is not your rest." It is a gracious appointment of Providence for most of us that we are not permitted to "settle on our lees." The great practical, personal truth is, the necessity, the paramount necessity, of moral renewal. To disciples the Lord presented the necessity of being converted. Regeneration is no argument against the need for conversion. (Henry Melvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The LORD will not do good, neither will he do evil. |
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