Simply teaching the Bible, simply

** The audio quality of this recording is impaired due to a technical fault. Please accept our apologies. ** This first part of our two-part study in the book of Zephaniah was given by pastor Barry Forder at Calvary Chapel Portsmouth on 13th March 2022. Zephaniah was the great grandson of king Hezekiah. In the opening verse He traces his genealogy back through four generations, possibly to demonstrate his right to speak and his understanding of the corruptness of Judah’s kings. Following Hezekiah there had been over half a century of evil rule by Manasseh and Amon, but then, 8 year old Josiah came to the throne, surrounded by Godly influences - including his cousin, Zephaniah. Zephaniah's thunderous message of the coming wrath of God on account of Israel's idolatry clearly had an impact on this young king, for in 2 Chronicles 34 we read: "in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images. And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem. And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about. And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem." (2 Chron 34:3-7).