It will come about at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are stagnant in spirit, who say in their hearts, "The LORD will not do good or evil."

Zephaniah 1:12, NASB

The setting for this passage is Jerusalem, about 30 years prior to its destruction. Josiah, the first good king in many years, reigned over Judah, but despite the fact that he helped to bring about a nationwide repentance, the Lord deemed that the repentance was too late. And the reason for this? God's people had become stagnant in spirit! But what exactly does that phrase mean?

The King James version uses an archaic yet highly descriptive wording for this phenomenon: They had "settled on their lees". That was a nice way of saying they were effectively just sitting around on their big posteriors doing nothing. Most of the other modern versions translate the phrase using the term "complacent". And that is what they were. They were so casual in their approach to God that even when they worshipped Him, they were also worshipping Baals right alongside of God. And they apparently had grown so complacent that they didn't see anything wrong with such wicked activities.

So, God announced that He was going to destroy them!

Now we might think that is a well and good, especially since it has nothing to do with us in our modern times some 2,500 years after this event, but we would be wrong. And the reason we would be wrong is that we have grown just as complacent - just as stagnant in our spirits - as has the people of Judah. Just think about what we accept as "normal" today: We allow the wholesale slaughter of over one million babies to be put to death before they can be born each year in America. We celebrate our "diversity" with the rainbow, a symbol that God originally used after He had wiped out the world because they had gotten to the point that every inclination of their thoughts was "only evil, all the time" (Genesis 6). The rainbow was to be a sign between God and men of the new covenant He had made when God stated that He would never wipe out the entire world with a flood again, even though men might sin. Modern day man has now co-opted that sign of the covenant to flaunt their sin. 

Can you think of a single time in which mankind has broken a covenant with God that it turned out well?

Add to these sins the state of our society in which pornography is readily accepted, where men use the vilest of language in the most casual of settings, and where hateful speech and gossip seem to be the most accepted forms of communication. Even people who consider themselves somewhat religious often only attend a worship service once or twice a year, if convenient, and only if something entertaining is going on. The rest of the year is often reserved for "me time".

And we are accepting (and sometimes participating in) these sins as if we can do them with no fear of reprisal from our Creator, Whom we have deemed in modern times as being so filled with grace that He will just have to accept our wicked conduct and be pleased that we are at least honoring Him as God and Jesus as Lord on those rare occasions that it suits our fancy to do so.

In short, we have become stagnant in spirit! The question we should all be asking is "will God continue to allow us to do so without punishment for much longer?" I believe in our hearts we all know the answer to that question. Perhaps it is time to replace that stagnant spirit that we have grown so comfortable with a new and refreshed spirit that can only come from the One who offers us clean, living waters that have the power to revive our very souls. It is something to think about, wouldn't you agree?