Zephaniah 2:11 says, “The Lord will be awesome to them, for He will reduce to nothing all the gods of the earth; people shall worship Him, each one from his place, indeed all the shores of the nations.” What an incredible verse! Can you read it and pass by it without being amazed by the grace of God and his sovereign wisdom? If so, maybe it’s because you’ve never really thought about what this fairly obscure prophet is saying. After promising in Ch.1 that the Day of Yahweh is coming, bringing judgment on Judah and Jerusalem for mixing the worship of idols with that of the Lord, the prophet pleads with Israel in 2:1-3 to gather together and seek God in genuine repentance. Throughout the rest of the chapter, he warns that the judgment of the Day of Yahweh will include all nations (he mentions nations at all four points of the compass from Israel), bringing death and destruction to all who are proud and self-serving.
But consider the implications of v.11. Do all the people of earth consider Yahweh to be awesome today? Not even close. And yet, the Lord has promised that they will on that Day, because he will utterly destroy every idol and every false god, proving himself to be the one, true God. On that Day all people will worship him. Every single man, woman, and child on the earth. He’s not talking merely about people from every nation or place, as if he were speaking of the church today, not even 99 out of 100 or 999 out of 1,000, but each one from his place, and not just certain nations but all the shores of the nations – an expression describing the farthest and most remote places on the globe. In other words, there is coming a day then every person on the whole earth will look to God with awe and worship him gladly.
This verse ought to grab our attention and cause us to gaze on the Lord with wonder and amazement! Pray that that Day might come soon, and that God would glorify himself in all the earth.