Zephaniah 1:2-5 

Is there no other way, Oh God,
   Except through sorrow, pain and loss?
To stamp Christ’s likeness on my soul,
   No other way except the cross?
And then a voice stills all my soul,
   That stilled the waves of Galilee,
Cans’t thou not bear the furnace,
   If midst the flames I walk with thee?
I bore the cross, I know its weight,
   I drank the cup I hold for thee.
Cans’t thou not follow where I lead?
   I'll give thee strength, lean hard on Me!
   –Author unknown 

What God Hath Promised 
God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
God hath not promised we shall not know
Toil and temptation, trouble and woe;
He hath not told us we shall not bear
Many a burden, many a care.
God hath not promised smooth roads and wide,
Swift, easy travel, needing no guide;
Never a mountain, rocky and steep,
Never a river, turbid and deep.
But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the laborer, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
   –Annie Johnson Flint 

Zephaniah 1:2-5 

“This betrayal of Christ in the name of Christianity is one reason for the moral and spiritual malaise with which this country is afflicted. The melancholy fact is that the churches no longer influence the development of national character. People go to church mainly because of an impulse to participate in a service of worship, not because of any spiritual guidance they expect from the clergy man.”
   –Editorial from a major metropolitan newspaper  

Historian Edward Gibbons’ five reasons for the decline and fall of Rome:
   1) The undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society.
   2) Higher and higher taxes; the spending of public money for free bread and circuses for the populace.
   3) The mad craze for pleasure; sports becoming every year more exciting, more brutal, more immoral.
   4) The building of great armaments when the great enemy was within; the decay of individual responsibility.
   5)  The decay of religion, fading into a mere form, losing touch with life, losing power to guide the people.  

“It was (Charles) Spurgeon who noticed a weather vane that a farmer had on his barn. It was an unusual weather vane, for on it the farmer had the words, GOD IS LOVE. Mr. Spurgeon asked him, ‘Do you mean by this that God’s love is as changeable as the wind?’ The farmer shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I do not mean that God’s love changes like that. I mean that whichever way the wind blows, God is love.'”
   –Dr. J. Vernon McGee, Edited Messages on Zephaniah 

Zephaniah 3:9-20 

In the Crucible
Out from the mine and the darkness,
Out from the damp and the mold,
Out from the fiery furnace,
Cometh each grain of gold.
Crushed into atoms and leveled
Down to the humblest dust
With never a heart to pity,
With never a hand to trust.
Molten and hammered and beaten
Seemeth it ne'er to be done.
Oh, for such fiery trial,
What hath the poor gold done?
Oh, 'twere a mercy to leave it
Down in the damp and the mold.
If this is the glory of living,
Then better to be dross than gold.
Under the press and the roller,
Into the jaws of the mint,
Stamped with the emblem of freedom,
With never a flaw or a dint.
Oh, what a joy, the refining,
Out of the damp and the mold.
And stamped with the glorious image,
Oh, beautiful coin of gold!
   –Author unknown