"Zephaniah, Part 1" Zephaniah 1 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Let me invite you to open your Bibles to the book of Zephaniah.

Zephaniah, the fourth to last book in the Old Testament.

If you are using a Pew Bible, it's page 789 in the Red Bibles and page 740 in the Black Bibles.

That's a puzzle.

And because I suppose that it might take a minute for you to find your way there, as you are making your way to the book of Zephaniah, I'd like to read to you a little passage from a book that's recently become one of my favorites.

In 1855, a Portuguese man by the name of Pedro Carolino published a little book titled English as She Is Spoke.

It was a little manual to teach Portuguese speakers how to speak English.

It's a great idea with one little problem.

Mr.

Carolino did not speak English.

And what he produced is an incredible mess of comedic masterpiece, unintentionally contrived.

It's a hundred plus pages of sublime nonsense.

I'd like to read for you one little passage from this text.

It's from a dialogue that he titles The Fishing.

And it goes like this.

One of the characters says, That pond, it seems me many multiplied of fishes.

Let us amuse rather to the fishing.

The other character responds, Here, there is a wand and some hooks.

A wand?

What?

Silence! There is a superb perch! Give me quick the rod! Ah, there it is! It is a lamprey.

Which, if you don't know what that is, look it up.

It looks like something from Star Wars.

You mistake you, it is a frog.

Dip again it in the water.

Perhaps I will do best to fish with the leap.

In the last sentence, are you ready?

Try it.

I desire that you may be more happy and more skillful who a certain fisher would have fished all day without two can take nothing.

If you say that enough, it might start to make sense eventually.

Why do I begin by reading to you from the comedic masterpiece, English as she is spoke?

It's because I think that unfortunately it is true that it's all too common for genuine Christians, Christians who love Christ, who love God's Word, to find themselves in the position wherein portions of our Bibles have become like so many quarters that get stuck in the crevices of our couches.

They're down there somewhere, and we know they have value, but even if we were to go through the trouble of pulling them up, they'd probably end up being about as comprehensible and as relevant to my life as a passage from English as she is spoke.

And so we don't bother.

In the next three weeks, we're going to look at the book of Zephaniah one chapter at a time, and one of my goals is to persuade you, if that's you, that the confession you hold, the teaching of the Apostle Paul, that you believe that all scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable.

It's true.

That confession that you believe, it's true.

All scripture, even these portions of the Bible, are breathed by God and profitable for you.

This morning, what we're going to do is begin to look at the passage before us, the book of Zephaniah, by examining the first chapter.

And so the first thing that I would like to do is just that is to read from the scriptures the entire chapter, Zephaniah chapter 1.

Zephaniah 1 · chapter mention

And in fact, a couple chapters, excuse me, a couple verses in chapter 2, which conclude this portion of the book.

So would you begin this morning by looking down at your Bibles with me and let's read from God's word, beginning in Zephaniah chapter 1, verse 1.

Zephaniah 1:1

The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, son of Gedaliah, son of Amariah, son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, son of Ammon, king of Judah.

I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord.

I will sweep away man and beast, I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea and the rubble with the wicked.

I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth, declares the Lord.

I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal in the name of the idolatrous priests with thee along with the priests, those who bow down on the roofs to the hosts of the heavens, those who bow down and swear to the Lord, and yet swear by Milcom, those who have turned back from following the Lord, who do not seek the Lord or inquire of him.

Be silent before the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is near.

The Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests.

And on the day of the Lord's sacrifice, I will punish the officials and the king's sons and all who array themselves in foreign attire.

On that day I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold, and those who fill their master's house with violence and fraud.

On that day, declares the Lord, a cry will be heard from the fish gate, a wail from the second quarter, a loud crash from the hills, wail, O inhabitants of the mortar, for all the traitors are no more, all who weigh out silver are cut off.

At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent, who say in their hearts, The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill.

Their gods, their goods shall be plundered, and their houses laid waste.

Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them.

Though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink wine from them.

The great day of the Lord is near, near, and hastening fast, the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter.

The mighty man cries aloud there.

A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blasts and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements.

I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung, neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord.

In the fire of his jealousy all the earth shall be consumed, and a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.

Gather together, yes, gather, O shameless nation, before the decree takes effect, before the day passes away like chaff, before there comes upon you the burning anger of the Lord, before there comes upon you the day of the anger of the Lord.

Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands, seek righteousness, seek humility.

Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord.

This is the word of God.

Zephaniah is tucked comfortably into a little corner of our Bibles, but it is tucked into a particular part of our Bibles, very intentionally so.

Zephaniah is the ninth of the twelve little prophets that we in the Protestant tradition call the minor prophets.

And minor not because they're less important, but because they're smaller than what we call the major prophets, like Isaiah and Jeremiah.

Zephaniah is placed particularly here in our Bibles because it's the last of the pre-exilic prophets.

The three books in our Old Testament that come after Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, all lived and ministered after Judah's return from the Babylonian exile.

Zephaniah is placed last among those prophets who prophesied before the exile.

And he's placed in this order in our canon, in our books of the Bible, not because he came chronologically last, in fact, Habakkuk lived after him.

He's placed here because the particular message of his prophecy is a summary of the prophetic message.

Whereas some of the minor prophets, like Obadiah that we looked at some weeks ago, focus on specific historical circumstances.

Obadiah, for instance, focuses on God's relationship to Edom.

Zephaniah zooms out and looks at the big picture of the drama of God's redemptive plan.

Zephaniah, in this way, is a special book in that it displays for us in a big picture sense the attributes of God, both his wrath and his mercy, both his justice and his kindness.

And it shows for us, in a big picture fashion, God's great plan for judgment and redemption, a universal judgment and a universal redemption.

And an outline of the book of Zephaniah could really be pretty easily given based on the three chapters we find in our Bibles.

Chapter one really is an announcement of God's judgment, particularly on his covenant people.

Chapter two then zooms out to look at God's universal judgment on all peoples, on all people everywhere.

And then chapter three celebrates with some of the most exquisite and joyful, exuberant language in the whole Bible God's great joy in the universal redemption he's bringing to his people of every tribe, tongue, and nation.

In the next three weeks, we'll look at these three chapters consecutively.

And this morning, beginning with chapter one.

But even having said that Zephaniah really is a big picture prophecy, there is a little bit of historical circumstance that's given to us to help us understand this book, and you'll find that in verse one.

Notice in your Bible, at the end of verse 1, we find that this word of the Lord came to Zephaniah in the days of Josiah, king of Judah.

You recall that Josiah was a king of Judah in a time in which Judah had fallen into idolatry, and Josiah became a reformer, for even from the time that he was very young, he began to rid the land of their pagan idols and to restore the Lord the people of the land to covenant faithfulness.

And the reason that Josiah had to be so vigorous in this act is because his grandfather Manasseh, who had ruled Judah for fifty-five years, had done his utmost to pollute the land as thoroughly as he could with idolatry.

For fifty-five years, we learn in 2 Kings chapter 21, Manasseh had filled the land with pagan worship, even filling the temple of the Lord with idols to worship pagan deities.

2 Kings 21 · chapter mention

He encouraged all kinds of immoral practices, including child sacrifice, which he participated, and encouraged others to do the same.

We in fact read at the end of the life of Manasseh this prophecy from the Lord.

And I will stretch over Jerusalem the measuring line of Samaria and the plumb line of the house of Ahab, and I will wipe Jerusalem as one wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down.

And I will forsake the remnant of my heritage and give them into the hand of their enemies, and they shall become a prey and a spoil to all their enemies, because they have done what is evil in my sight, and it provoked me to anger since the days their father came out of Egypt, even to this day.

This is the final of a series of prophecies God gave to the people of Judah to tell them because of their covenant breaking they were going into exile.

This is a word, a decree from the Lord, declaring that he's going to bring their enemies, in particular Babylon, to destroy Jerusalem, to destroy Judea, and to take his people captive.

That's the time in which Josiah lived and began to usher in his reforms, but those reforms, as spiritually beneficial and necessary and God-honoring as they were, did not undo this decree.

And so Josiah and his contemporary, the prophet Zephaniah, lived in the shadow of this oncoming destruction, this judgment on Judah.

And God raised up Zephaniah in the time of Josiah to give this prophecy that looks, in fact, past the destruction that's coming at the hands of Babylon to an even greater day of judgment.

The coming day of judgment from at the hands of Babylon, the exile into captivity, really becomes a platform for launching into an understanding of an even greater judgment, a judgment from the Lord Himself upon all the nations.

The final day of judgment that God will bring upon every tribe, every people, all individuals on the face of the earth.

And that's what this book of Zephaniah is about.

This morning, as we begin to look at chapter one, as I said, next week we'll get into the teaching in Zephaniah chapter 2 about God's universal judgment over all peoples.

Zephaniah 2 · chapter mention

But particularly in chapter 1, the focus of God's judgment is on his covenant people, those who say they worship the true God.

So this morning, if you would say that you are a Christian, if you would say that you worship the God of the Bible, that you love Jesus, then this is a verse of judgment for you to take very seriously.

This is a prophecy from God to you to teach you how to think about divine judgment.

If you say that you are a Christian, Zephaniah chapter 1 is going to teach you four things you need to know about God's judgment.

Zephaniah 1 · chapter mention

Four truths you need to know about divine judgment.

The first one is this it's that God's judgment is complete.

God's judgment is complete.

You see this in verse 2.

If you look down in your Bibles in verse 2, the Lord begins with this stark announcement in verse 2 I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord.

It's just this stark, absolute decree that God is going to judge everything.

And you may ask the question, well, everything has a context, right?

Does everything mean everything?

And in verse 3, God begins very specific and tells us the answer is emphatically yes.

Look at verse 3.

It says, I will sweep away man and beast.

I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea.

And that should sound familiar.

Do you remember the order of creation in Genesis 1 in the creation story?

God creates the fish and the birds and the beasts and then man.

And what we have here is the reverse of that.

This is the undoing of creation.

God's going to wipe away everything.

And this is only emphatically repeated at the end of verse 3, where God again says, I will cut off all mankind from the face of the earth, declares the Lord.

And then the whole prophecy is summarized at the end of verse 18.

In verse 18, God again says, In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed, and a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.

All the earth and everything in it is going to be judged by the Lord.

That is, in the same way that his creative act was sovereign and complete, so his judgment will be sovereign and complete.

Everything that has been created will be brought to judgment.

God's judgment is absolutely universal and complete.

Now, we're going to speak more about the universal nature of God's judgment next week, so I will hasten to the second point, but not too quickly.

Because I would suggest to you that if you call yourself a Christian, it is possible that this stark truth, that God is going to bring everything into judgment too quickly slips through your mind.

In one ear and out the other, and you move on with your life.

But if you confess to believe the Bible, then you believe there is a day in which God is going to make everything that you live for in this world disappear.

And every goal and hope and aspiration that you have in this world will vanish like a fog.

If you believe that God is going to bring a divine judgment on everything in the world, it ought to make a profound difference in the way you live right now.

That's the kind of life the Apostle Paul lived.

He was sustained by this reality that God is going to bring universal judgment on everything.

That sustained him when he endured trials, when he made plans.

What sustained him was the truth that he said, we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.

For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

So I would just ask you before we hasten on to contemplate for yourself, Christian, are you living for the eternal?

If we had a video on your life, and you know that God actually, in fact, has a video on your heart, would your life be characterized by living for the eternal?

Because God is going to bring a judgment, and that judgment will be complete.

Well, secondly, we not only see that God's judgment is complete, we also see that it is impartial.

It is an impartial judgment, and I say that because the first place that God directs his attention as he announces this judgment upon the whole world is on his own covenant people.

God is going to judge his people first.

You see that in verse 4.

Look in verse 4 where God says, I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

That's the first place God is directing his attention is to his own covenant people.

And you notice something interesting about this turn of phrase here, I will stretch out my hand.

That's really a motif in the Exodus story.

I mean, the whole story that tells us about how God made Israel his covenant people comes in the book of Exodus, where he redeems them out of Egypt and he tells them over and over, I'm going to stretch out my hand.

And as he stretches out his hand, you find that it's the redeeming hand that he brings them from slavery, he brings them into the freedom of the promised land, he makes a covenant with them and pledges himself that I'll be your God and you'll be my people.

But this people has stiffened their neck and they have been stubbornly disobedient to that covenant, and now as a consequence, God is going to bring the curses of the covenant upon them.

He is going to judge his people.

So you see that this is an impartial judgment that's based on your knowledge.

The more you know the truth about God, the more you're accountable for, and it goes to the heart.

That's exactly where God first takes this judgment, not just to his covenant people, but then he takes it into their hearts.

You see at the end of verse 4.

He says, I'm going to cut off from this place the all the remnants of Baal.

All the remnants of Baal.

That is, every shred of the elevation of idols over the true God.

Now it's, of course, so easy to just glibly glide over Baal and suppose that it's somehow different.

But I think it's helpful just to remember what that means to the original audience of this text.

Who was Baal to the people who first heard Zephaniah's prophecy?

Baal was the god of productivity to the Canaanite peoples, Israel's neighbors, the God of productivity.

His job, he was in the business of making the land, the animals, and people fertile.

He is the God of a booming economy, of personal wealth, of productivity, of sexual freedom.

And wherever people put their security and value in the things of this world over the God who made this world, they're worshiping Baal today because that's all Baal was.

He was just a way for that culture to conceptualize the elevation of the things in this world to give me security and satisfaction and make me happy.

There's fundamentally no difference between worshiping Baal and worshiping the materialism of this world.

Worshiping the elevating the desires of my heart and the achievement of my dreams and a status in this world is fundamentally exactly the same thing that the Canaanite people were after.

And God, the first place he directs his judgment is to his covenant people who pledge their faithfulness to him, but then live their life chasing after Baal, the materials of this world.

And God says, I will rid them of all the remnants of Baal.

He's going to our hearts.

And that's what you find as you go through the rest of this text, is you find this searching judgment where God is going deeper and deeper and deeper and rooting out every remnant of the elevation of the things of this world over the creator of this world.

You notice first in verse 5, where God says he's going to bring judgment on those who bow down on the roofs to the host of heaven, those who just utterly abandon the worship of God.

But then he gets even further in verse 5 and says, He's going to bring judgment on those who bow down and swear to the Lord, so those who are actively engaged in worshiping the true God.

They not only say it, but they're actively engaged in the worship of the true God, and yet swear by Milcom.

And Milcom is one of the Canaanite gods, and in fact, in your English translation of the scriptures, your text might say something like, and they swear to their Molech.

So the parsing of this particular Hebrew word is of some debate.

In either case, Milcom is one of the Amorite gods.

Molech is the particular god that Manasseh encouraged the people of Judah to offer their children to in sacrifice.

In either case, what God is after is.

Is those who are actively engaged in the worship of God and at the same time looking to the things in this world to bring them security and happiness.

Divided hearts.

He goes further in verse 6 and says, Those who have turned back from following the Lord because they don't seek the Lord or inquire of him.

That is, if verse 5 is about those who have divided loyalty, verse 6 is those who have just a lazy loyalty.

They would say that they believe in God, but then they don't do it.

They don't pursue the Lord.

They don't seek righteousness.

They don't try to obtain joy in the Lord.

They just say it.

And then they walk out the door without following him.

That's the people that God is first directing his judgments to, those who take the name of the Lord and don't follow him.

He goes even further in verse 8.

Notice verse 8, he says, I will punish the officials and the king's sons who array themselves in foreign attire.

What?

Foreign attire?

This is some kind of weird xenophobia?

Absolutely not.

Just think for a second about some of the common little tropes that we have about kosher law.

So it's common to hear American Christians saying that in in Christ I'm under the new covenant, I don't have to keep the Torah, that's why I can eat bacon and I can eat shrimp.

I had shrimp last night in our home.

It was delicious.

Praise the Lord.

Also, you will hear people saying, and I don't have to wear uh I can wear mixed fabrics.

I can wear a pot and colliester blend.

Hallelujah.

That's because Deuteronomy chapter 22 forbids the wearing of mixed fabrics.

Deuteronomy 22 · chapter mention

There's not only kosher food, there's kosher clothing in the Torah.

Numbers chapter 15 and Deuteronomy 22 both instruct the people of Israel to make tassels of blue to put on their garments, to remind themselves, to look at the tassels and remember to keep the commandments of the Lord and not to follow their own hearts.

Numbers 15 · chapter mention

So part of the Torah was God was instructing the people of Israel to wear particular kind of clothing, clothing that would have looked really weird and would have been mocked by all of the people around them.

But that was part of the point.

That clothing was to remind them to keep the commandments of the Lord and not to follow the heart, their own hearts, or follow after the prestige of those around them.

And what we're finding in verse 8 is that people in Israel were characterized by arraying themselves in foreign attire because they wanted the prestige and the acceptance and the praise of man more than the acceptance and praise of God.

What God is really after is he's after your heart.

And finally, you see in verse 9, on that day, God says, I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold, those who fill their master's house with violence and fraud.

And this leaping over the threshold is typically understood as a reference to the kind of pagan practices you see modeled in 1 Samuel chapter 5.

1 Samuel 5 · chapter mention

So this chapter in which you remember the story, when the Philistines capture the Ark of the Covenant and they take the Ark of the Covenant to one of their temples for their God Dagon.

And the next day they come and they find that the God Dagon has been knocked down.

God's demonstrating his sovereignty over the false gods of the nations.

But there's this little line in that text that says that the priests of Dagon, when they enter the temple, they leap over the threshold, like baseball players leaping over the outfield lines.

Some kind of superstition in which they're trying to obtain some favor from their gods.

And what God is pointing out is he's pointing out that in Israel there are people who pledge their loyalty to him, but then look to the world to find their security and their happiness.

That's the first place he's directing his judgment.

What do all of these characteristic disob covenant-breaking actions have in common?

Divided hearts.

Hearts that put trust in the things of the world to provide happiness, shelter, security, and life.

And what God wants is God wants your heart.

You know, if you're a musician, you can make a whole career on having one good album or one-hit single.

You can be a one-hit wonder and make a whole career out of it.

But there is no such thing as a one-hit wonder Christian life.

What God wants is absolute loyalty because your heart loves him.

That's the fruit of a heart that loves Christ.

A heart that walks into service and pledges loyalty to the Lord and then walks out the door and then lives as though the materialism in this world is what is really going to bring you happiness and satisfaction is a heart that is subject to the judgment that God has described in Zephaniah chapter 1.

Zephaniah 1 · chapter mention

It is simply a truth that the God that we serve is absolutely, infinitely glorious and deserving of your love and devotion.

And that every time that we sin and excuse ourselves, we blind ourselves to the reality that because God is holy, all holy, only holy, altogether holy, always holy, that our sin is sinful, always sinful, only sinful, altogether sinful all the time.

The judgment that God is bringing is an impartial judgment that starts with his covenant people, those who pledge themselves to him.

God's judgment is an impartial judgment, but it's also, thirdly, it's a fixed judgment.

It's impartial, first directed towards the people of God, and it's fixed.

That is, it's immovable, it's decreed, it can't be escaped.

You see this over and over and over in the text, and I want to introduce this theme to you in verse 7.

Notice in verse 7 of the text it says, Be silent before the Lord, for the day of the Lord is near.

And again in verse 8, and on the day of the Lord, and again and again and again and again in this text, you encounter the day of the Lord.

15 times in chapter 1 alone.

It's an unmissable motif in this chapter that God is bringing a fixed day in which he has decreed to bring judgment upon humankind.

There is a day fixed when God will bring judgment.

And what he does in the second half of chapter 1 is he begins to describe this to us.

So you'll notice in verse 10.

Verse 10 reads, On that day declares the Lord, a cry will be heard from the fish gate, that's the northern part of the city, and a wail from the second quarter, that's a residential district, and a loud crash from the hills to the western side of the city where the rich folks live, and a wail from the inhabitants of the mortar, that's where the the rest of the people live.

For all the traders will be no more, all who weigh out silver are cut off.

All trade has stopped.

And what God is describing here is this is just a poetic way of depicting all life stopping, coming to a standstill, because God's judgment has come, this fixed judgment that God has promised He will bring, in the day that He brings it, all human life will come to a screeching halt.

And there will be no more time to reevaluate, to adjust course, or to make different decisions.

Everything will come to before God, and we will all give an account because this fixed judgment when it comes, there'll be no escaping.

And the reason there'll be no escaping is because who's bringing it?

Look at verse 12.

God says, at that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps.

That's an incredible picture.

Some of the early translations of the Bible hedged on some of the anthropomorphic language here where God is pictured as holding a torch in his hand, searching, rummaging through room after room, opening the closets and breaking down the doors.

But that metaphor here we find in the scripture for a reason.

It's to make us stand up and realize that God before whom we stand is a God who the psalmist says, even the darkness is as light to you.

And when he comes to bring judgment, he is going to search every room in your house.

He is going to search every room in your heart, and every secret thing will be exposed to him, and you will give an account for everything.

There will be no nook or cranny in your life that will be hidden.

Everything will be open before the Lord because he's coming with a torch right into your life.

This sovereign God is fixed a day in which he's coming.

And notice verse 12, the kind of response he wants from us.

He says in verse 12, He's coming to search Jerusalem with lamps, and he says, I will punish the men who are complacent, who say in their hearts, the Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill.

And some of your translations either have a footnote on that word complacent or might have a different rendering.

Literally in the Hebrew, it's this little expression about those who thicken the dregs, thicken the dregs of their wine.

I don't know very much about winemaking, but my understanding is that in the ancient world, the way part of the winemaking process was that you would put new wine on top of the sediments of grapes long enough to fix the color and body of your wine, and then you draw it off before it got too thick and syrup being coagulated and began to mold.

And that's the idea here is that there are people who are allowing that to happen.

It's a metaphor for those who are complacent, who say, God's not gonna really do anything.

Yes, I believe.

Yes, I confess that I believe in God.

Yes, I believe in the cross.

Yes, I believe in the second coming and the resurrection.

I believe all that stuff.

But tomorrow I'll repent.

After I get through this next phase in my life, I've got to get a promotion.

There's something else I have to do, and then I'll repent.

Then I'll seek the Lord.

And the Lord says, I'm coming with the lamp into your heart, into your life, and you don't know when, but that day is fixed, and when it comes, you will not hide.

There's a day when the sovereign God of the universe is coming into every single one of our lives, and he will punish those who are complacent in heart.

Every single person who professes to be a believer in Jesus Christ ought to sit up straight at the reading of this text.

Because the God that we confess, we stand before, and there'll be no hiding when he brings this fixed judgment.

There is a sovereign God that you confess to believe him, and God is asking you to take him seriously.

Because in that day, verse 13 says, Their goods shall be plundered, their house laid waste.

Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them, though they plant vineyards, they will not drink the wine from them.

So whatever it is that you're chasing in this life and saying, After I get X, Y, and Z, then I'll seek the Lord.

Just know that even if you get X, Y, and Z, it will not matter in that day.

All that will matter is that you know and you love and you are loyal to, and you trust in, and you humbly cling to this God.

That will be the only thing that matters in your life for eternity.

Do you know this God?

Last little phase of this prophecy in verses 14 down to the end of the chapter, really what the prophet does is he culminates in giving us this poetic little whisper of what that day is going to be like.

It is a day that I think I can just say is terrifying.

The description here entails sights and sounds and shrieks.

And I think the best thing to do is just to read it and to beg you, to plead with you, to sit up straight in your heart and contemplate the reality that you are going to stand before this God.

Zephaniah says to you, The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast.

The sound of the day of the Lord is bitter, the mighty man cries aloud, there a day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty mountains.

And God says, I will bring distress on mankind, so that they shall walk like the blind, because they have sinned against the Lord.

Their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung, and neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the Lord.

That is a terrifying day.

For all who have, as verse 17 says, sinned against the Lord, and that includes every single person in this room.

There is a fixed day when God is bringing an impartial and complete judgment upon everyone, but it's starting with those who name the name of the Lord.

And just as an attempt to persuade you, if there's a gut reaction in your heart to suppose that this is uh maybe an Old Testament railing prophet who just needed to calm down a little bit, because in the New Testament we have a God of love.

Let me remind you, friend, that in fact the heat just gets turned up even hotter in the New Testament.

For example, the writer of Hebrews says this He says, Anyone who set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

So, how much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the spirit of grace.

For we know him who said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, and again, the Lord will judge his people.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

That's the God of the New Testament.

That's the God before whom you stand.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Zephaniah will compel you to wake up and to consider the reality that there is a holy God who will bring complete, impartial, and fixed judgment.

But there's one last truth about God's judgment in this text that you need to know, and that is that it is avoidable.

That God's judgment is after you, it's after your sin, but it is avoidable.

And we get whispers of that through the text.

If you just for a second track with me, there are a few whispers of this way to avoid God's wrath through chapter 1 in these imperatives that we find.

First in verse 7, where we're told to do something, we're told to be silent before the Lord.

Then in verse 11, wail, O inhabitants, wailing of wailing of a funeral, wailing over the reality that there's death.

These texts tell us that we're to be silent and to wail, that is, to be humbled, to cover our mouths, to stop making excuses and justifying our sin, and wail over the reality that there is a holy judgment coming, and I deserve it.

Because I've sinned against a holy God.

Then verse 2, chapter 2 rather turns the corner and takes us further on how to avoid this judgment.

Where the prophet says in chapter 2, verse 1, gather together, yes, gather, shameless nation.

Gather together before the decree takes effect, before the day passes like chaff, and there comes upon you the burning anger of the Lord, before there comes upon you the day of the anger of the Lord.

So respond.

There's a way to respond, and he's compelling you to do it now.

Before the day of God's fixed judgment comes.

There are leaves outside that are green, but they will not stay that way forever, and your life will not stay this way ever again.

Now is the time to respond to God's offer of mercy.

And you do that by gathering.

And the particular word that he uses here for gathering is very interesting in that.

It's a word that is used only ever else in the rest of the Hebrew Bible for gathering straw that would be burned, the chaff of the harvest that would be burned.

And he tells you, silent, wail over your sin, gather together before the burning anger of God like straw.

And what are you to do now?

Verse 3 says, You're to seek the Lord.

All you humble of the land who do his just commands, seek righteousness, seek humility.

Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord.

You're to seek the Lord.

Now there's just two things to note in this text.

One of these is to protect us from a misunderstanding of verse 3, where it tells us to seek righteousness and seek humility.

The wrong way to understand this text is the prophet is not telling us, okay, the way that you escape God's judgment is you go out and you be better.

You do gooder.

You seek justice and try to be a good person and try to take God more seriously, and then you'll be good enough to stand in the judgment.

And that's wrong.

The nature of seeking righteousness is recognizing that you don't have any.

You seek something that you don't have.

So you're standing before God, humble, silent, in awe, weeping over the fact that you've sinned, that a judgment is coming, and you know you need righteousness, and you don't even know how to have a humble enough heart to get into the kingdom, and you're empty-handed and you're there ready to ask for mercy.

And the text then says, yes, now seek the Lord, standing there like chaff gathered for the flame, knowing this is what I deserve, but I'm standing before you for mercy.

Which leads us to the second observation to make about verse 3, and that is, if you're thinking logically about verse 3, think about if you hadn't been churchified and taught that seeking the Lord is a good thing.

Well, everything in this text up till now has been telling us that the Lord is after you with righteous judgment for your sin.

And now the text turns around and says to seek him, standing before him, like chaff, before the burning anger of the Lord.

What it sounds a little bit like telling the rabbit to seek the fox.

But this text tells us to do exactly that that the only place that you can find refuge from the flood of God's judgment is in this holy God Himself.

He himself is the only one who can protect you from the storm of his judgment.

And if you profess the name of the Lord Jesus, then you know that the reason for that is because as we read through this book, we find that this sovereign God, this holy judge, got off his bench, got off his throne, and came into this world to endure that judgment in your place, so that he can rescue you from it.

You see that even echoes of this in Zephaniah.

There's not an explicit messianic prophecy in Zephaniah, but there are whispers of the coming redemption that God is going to provide.

You'll notice that in verse 15.

So just look back at verse 15 for a second and notice the echoes in the life of Christ that we see in verse 15.

Verse 15 describes this terrible day of God's wrath, like this, a day of wrath.

That's a day of distress and anguish.

And how did Jesus describe the day in which he with his disciples prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before he would be crucified?

Well, he told his disciples he was sorrowful, even to the point of death.

And Luke says he drops to the ground full of agony praying to the Father.

And he goes to the cross, then the rest of verse 15 says that day is to be a day of ruin and devastation, of darkness and gloom, of clouds and thick darkness.

And as Christ hangs on the cross, what do we find?

We find a day of thick darkness in which the whole land is miraculously covered by a supernatural darkness.

And there's a great earthquake that bursts open the tombs in Jerusalem.

What's happening is that that is the day of God's wrath.

There is a day of God's wrath that precedes the day of the Lord in the future, and that day was 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem when the God of the universe pulled full force the wrath that He's reserved for the wicked upon the brow of His Son.

And when God the Son got off his throne and willingly absorbed the wrath that God rightly should pour upon the wicked on the cross, he made a way to redeem you from the judgment you deserve.

He made a way that you can seek the Lord and you can find refuge from the storm of his fury.

That's why we find three days later in the Gospels that there are women seeking to anoint Jesus' dead body in his tomb, and as they come to the tomb, they find it empty, and an angel seated upon the place where he once lay, who told them, Do not be alarmed.

You seek Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified, but he is not here.

He has risen.

And when you seek Jesus Christ, you will find that you have found a risen Savior who has already endured the day of God's terrible wrath, so that all who seek him will find in Christ you have eternal life.

And you will not come into judgment, but you will pass from death to life.

What Zephaniah chapter 1 is compelling us towards is the real is an evaluation of our hearts before this God who deserves all of our trust, all of our love, and all of our obedience.

Zephaniah 1 · chapter mention

And that comes in looking at the face of Jesus Christ, the Lord who endured the very wrath that we deserve, so that we can find our rest in Him.

Could you pray with me?

Lord, thank you.

For giving us your word that reveals the truth about God, a truth that we would otherwise have no access to, the truth.

Lord, that's beyond anything that we can think or imagine.

Lord, as we read in your word of the coming judgment that you have fixed, Lord, it even goes beyond the scope of our comprehension.

So God, I pray that you would give us humility that we lack.

I pray that you would give us honesty so that we would see our sin rightly, see our need for forgiveness, and see that in Christ we have full, abundant mercy and forgiveness more than we could ever dream of.

God, I pray that you would give us hearts that seek you, that love you, that adore Jesus Christ, that cling to him in gratitude.

Lord, I pray that you would make us a people who are overwhelmed by the reality that we get to know Jesus.

And so by your spirit, you would compel us to live lives that are worthy of Christ, worthy of his gospel, worthy of the calling you've given to us.

I pray this in his name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.