Covenant Judgment (Zephaniah 1:2-28)

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Good morning church. You want to go ahead grab your Bibles. You can open up to Zephaniah. Zephaniah chapter one, if you’re using the Pew Bible, the page number is there in the bulletin. If you’re not using the Pew Bible, it’s near the end of the Old Testament. That’s the best I can give you, somewhere in that range. So Zephaniah one. We’re beginning our three week series in Zephaniah this morning. And as you’re turning there, though, if you’ve spent any time in education, either as a teacher, especially, but as a student also, you have heard this question more than once, why do we need to learn this? Of what practical use will this be in my life? Once I graduate or finish this class, I asked this about math. Many, many times. Continue to ask it about math, honestly, calculator in my pocket at all times like, there’s no help here, you know. Is it going to be on the test? And if not, it’s out. It’s done. It’s you know. So let’s be honest. How many of us feel that way when we get to certain parts of the Bible also, why do we need to learn this? And I don’t think there is a test, so it’s not going to be on the test. So what are we even talking about here? So happens with genealogy, some of the long stuff about the tabernacle or temple construction, and then maybe especially when we get to the Minor Prophets, those prophets from Hosea to Malachi, the 12 books called minor only because they’re shorter than the major prophets, like Jeremiah and Ezekiel guys like that. But you look at them and you kind of go, I don’t understand this, and I’m not sure I need to understand this. A lot of times we come to it, why are they so hard to understand? We’ve got no context for these books, right? There’s no historical context when we start reading them. So we don’t know, like, what’s going on in history. There’s no geographical context. Are we speaking to the northern kingdom, the southern kingdom? Are we speaking to somebody else? A lot of harsh words, like a lot of judgment in these passages, like Jonah, we love we get that one that’s a narrative. But the rest of them are, like, I don’t know, and a lot of them are harsh words against nations that don’t even exist anymore. So like, surely, that’s not important for me to know. And yet Paul tells us in Second Timothy, All scripture, even the Minor Prophets, All scripture, is God breathed, and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. In righteousness, so that we, the servants of God, will be thoroughly equipped for every good work. So Zephaniah Paul just said, is useful for us, even if it’s not speaking directly about us. We might almost say it was not written to us, because it wasn’t but it was written for us, and I understand that what happens to the Assyrian Empire, which we’ll come to next week in the series, is not really a live issue for most of us today, considering it collapsed in 612 BC. But what that shows us, tells us about God and His sovereign rule over history. That is a live issue for us today, and that’s why we need to learn Zephaniah. And yes, it will be on the test, if by the test we mean lives in conformity with the whole counsel of God. So with that in mind, though, and knowing that this is hard for us, what exactly is the context of Zephaniah? Let’s start with Zephaniah one, one, so that we can set it in its context. Here’s Zephaniah 101, kind of the PROLOG to the book, The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah, son of cushy, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah during the reign of Josiah, son of Ammon, king of Judah. So first question, who is Zephaniah? And the short answer is, we don’t have any idea, really. Maybe he’s a Cushite, which is why he’s called a son of cushy that would be the Upper Nile region, modern day Ethiopia, maybe. But really unlikely, honestly, more likely. He is actually King Hezekiah, great, great grandson. He’s the only prophet who’s given a genealogy that goes back four generations, and that was important to establish, you know, the throne connection that was in common for kings. So maybe he is a royal descendant. That’s more likely, though not definitive by any means. Beyond that, we know nothing. His personality doesn’t really show up a ton in the book. That’s kind of it. That’s all we got. We know a lot more, though, about when he’s preaching, and that’s during the reign of Josiah. Now, Josiah, who became a king as a boy, grew up to lead a reform movement in Judah, he led the people away from paganism and back to the right worship of God after decades of rule under his wicked father and especially grandfather, Manasseh. Now it seems like in Zephaniah, we are in the early stages of this religious revival. So most likely the book of Deuteronomy, the Book of the Law, has been found while they’re restoring the temple, because there are a bunch of allusions to Deuteronomy in Zephaniah. So most likely it’s there, and Zephaniah is the one kind of given the swift kick in the rear to keep this thing moving along, and that’s probably when he’s prophesying. So we’re in maybe 620 BC, let’s say note also that this book begins with the word of the Lord. This is Yahweh S word. These are not Zephaniah’s thoughts or ideas. He’s not a motivational speaker. Now, these are God’s words, and Zephaniah is his mouthpiece, even truer here than it is in some of the other prophets. In fact, Zephaniah has this funny habit of speaking in the third person about God. You know, he says this, he did this, and then he just randomly breaks into the first person, I will destroy this nation with no indication that he’s changing. This is just God speaking, and that is important, and why? Of course, it’s in Scripture. It’s very different from what I’m doing today. You’re hearing my thoughts and my ideas, hopefully based on the Word of God, but the word has authority, and Zephaniah’s word has authority because it is God’s word. So what does God have to say? We’ll see across all three weeks, a remarkably simple message. Zephaniah never deviates from it. It is a message of doom on the one hand, but of hope on the other. And like most of the prophets, we kind of gotta go through the doom in order to get to the hope. And so this morning, in chapter one, we’ll look at three judgments in particular kind of three scenes, if you will. We’ll take them one at a time. So judgment number one, creation unmade. Let me read Zephaniah one, two to six. I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares the Lord. I will sweep away both man and beast. I will sweep away the birds in the sky and the fish in the sea and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble. When I destroy all mankind on the face of the earth, declares the Lord, I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all who live in Jerusalem. I will destroy every remnant of Baal worship in this place, the very names of the idolatrous priests, those who bow down on the roofs to worship the starry host, those who bow down and swear by the Lord and who also swear by Molech, those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor inquire of him. So right away as we hear the judgment pronounced that God’s going to sweep away all of this. It recalls the flood story. The language is very clear. I will wipe from the face of the earth. That same phrase, right from the face of the earth, I will wipe from the face of the Earth every living creature I have made. God says in Genesis seven, verse four, so right before the flood is coming. So we’re echoing that flood story, when God floods the whole earth because of the wickedness of all humanity. And actually, the order that it’s presented here is interesting too, because it also takes us back to Genesis. Takes us back to the creation story. If you remember your days five and six, you’ll remember that God creates fish, then birds, then beasts, and then finally, like the cherry on top of the creation, Sunday, humanity, man and woman. Well, here what happens in verse three, he sweeps away, man, Beast, birds, fish. It’s exactly in reverse. It’s like he is unmaking creation. He followed, you know, the step by step guide from Ikea or whatever, to assemble the thing, and then he’s just following it in reverse to take it apart again and put it back in its packages. Hit the rewind button on creation. Why? Because just like in Noah’s day, humanity has grown so wicked that they are ripe for judgment and as creator, which, again, we’ve just reinforced here with all these creation echoes. As Creator, He has the right to rule us and judge us. That was our catechism question this morning, right? We ought to then live like he’s our Creator. We have to live lives that glorify Him as creator, because we were creator, but we haven’t. They haven’t here, and so as a creator, He has got the right to rule, to judge, like a computer programmer who’s deleting an AI program once it turns on him, Skynet style, like that’s what he’s doing here. Now, why this terrible judgment? The answer is the same as always. It’s because of the wicked, because the wickedness in our hearts. You notice that the idols that cause the wicked to stumble there in verse three, the word idols isn’t actually there. It just says the stumbling blocks, or even the ruins, like, you know, the stones that are there that you could trip over, is all that it’s talking about. But idols is exactly right, of course, because that’s what we stumble over, those things that take us away from the right worship of God, and that’s where I think this connection comes in. Again, with creation. Why do we mention the beast, the birds, the fish, as these like stumbling blocks, because they have become stumbling blocks to the people. They have become the idols that are being worshiped. If you know anything about pagan worship, you know that a lot of the gods look like creation look like animals, to what Paul talks about Romans 122, and 23 although they claimed to be wise, this is all of us, by the way, although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the Immortal God for images made to look like creation, human beings, birds, animals, reptiles. We’re worshiping the creation rather than the Creator, and because we introduced this virus into creation, of our sin. Now, well, the whole creation is infected and needs to be wiped clean, but then we get a shift in verse four, kind of an abrupt one, because we shift from all of creation to Judah, specifically to God’s covenant people. And he even mentioned Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, which is where the temple is, where God dwells on Earth, and this is just about unthinkable that God Himself would turn against. I mean, his throne in Jerusalem. This is supposed to be an invincible place, because the invincible God lives there, the shock of this, I think, would be lost on us as we read, especially because we know Jerusalem gets destroyed, the temple gets knocked down in the end, multiple times, in fact, but this would be a little bit like Jesus showing up today. And you know, we talked about this in our membership class this morning, when Jesus says, you know, this is my church, and I’m build my church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That’s Matthew 16. If Jesus were to show up today and say, I will destroy my church, I’m gonna throw wide the gates of hell and let the hordes of demons out to destroy you. Like, that’s what Zephaniah just said. We’re like, no, like, this is the one place where I know he protects it, and instead, he’s he’s waging war against it. And it’s even phrased poignantly And ironically, because he says he’s going to stretch out his hand. You know why? God stretches out his hand to save especially the pious Jewish person. They would hear that phrase, and they would think, the Exodus. The exodus. That’s what happens. Here’s Exodus seven, verse five, the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt, bring the Israelites out of it, deliver them from their bondage so they hear I’m going to stretch out my hand toward Jerusalem, and they’re like, right? Of course, salvation is coming. No. God’s wrath is coming. The God of the Exodus is now against Jerusalem. Well, what’s changed? Why is he stretching out his hand against them? What’s changed is that now they’re idolatrous, so that there is a Baal worship going on even in Jerusalem and even among the priests. Reads literally, there among the pagan priests, with the priests. It’s really oddly phrased in Hebrew, but it’s there. It’s you got this whole idea of like, right? You know the priests of Baal, but the priests also, like the people who are supposed to be directing you in the worship of Yahweh are worshiping Baal. And so you can see the whole thing. It’s almost like we’ve got this idea that because we’re God’s covenant people, we’ll be fine. He’s not gonna judge us. And God here is saying exactly the opposite, because you’re my covenant people, you ought to know better, and so the judgment will be more severe against you, similar to what God says through his prophet, Amos, chapter three, verse two, he says, You only speaking to Israel. You only have I chosen of all the families of the earth they’re expecting, they’re about to get their cheeks pinched, you know, like I just love you so much, therefore I will punish you for all your sins. I mean, this is a terrible analogy because it’s so small, but, you know, blow it up in your mind kind of thing. It’s like, when you’re your dad’s the coach, and you’re thinking, well, it’s gonna be easy on me, because, you know, he’s dad, he loves me. And that’s always, like, coaches are always hardest on their own kid, right? Like you should. Know better in this family, we hustle. Kind of feel like that’s what’s happening here, because there’s this covenant relationship in place. Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, remember how you started? Why am I listening to this? Why do I need to know any of this? We don’t worship Baal. So what does this have to do with any of us? Except let’s talk about Baal for a moment, because, who is Baal? He is the God of productivity, fertility. So he’s the God of good harvests, you know, abundant crops. He’s the God of good husbandry, lot of cattle, lot of sheep, everybody’s having and by like, good homes, lot of kids, which was important back then, since your kids were your labor force in the fields. And so one of the ways you worship Baal is through ritual prostitution. Because if He’s the god of fertility, well when we enact this fertility ritual, hopefully it spurs him on to give us the fertility we’re longing for. So let me translate that into modern parlance. Then Baal is the god of fat bank accounts and sexual libertinism. Safe to say, we still worship Baal today, don’t we? Yeah, he’s alive and well, and even in the church, because Baal is such a practical God, He gives us what we want and what we think we need. He meets those immediate, felt needs. Baal is worshiped in the church anytime what helps, what works, replaces what’s true. Let me give you an individual and a corporate analogy, so this might look like a Christian who’s gonna adopt meditative yoga practices for mental health reasons. Nothing wrong with yoga, by the way, if you’re just like stretching, okay, it’s fine. That’s not religious, but there’s a religious background to yoga. Of course, you bring some of that stuff in, the mantra, all that stuff you’re bringing it in, okay? You are now practicing paganism because it works right, because it gives you the mental health piece that you are longing for. Or take a corporate analogy, this would be when a congregation lowers its membership standards, refuses to practice church discipline, let’s say to keep one of the big givers around. These are real analogies, real possibilities, of course, and so I think we need to be very careful and listen to this message very carefully. Zephaniah then singles two groups out in particular, these Baal worshipers. First are those who worship the starry hosts up on their roof. Now, what’s interesting, of course, is it doesn’t say they reject God. They’re not done with Yahweh. They’ve just added in some other gods to help them out. The word for that, of course, is syncretism. These are people who trust God, or at least claim to trust God, but are pretty sure he needs backup in order to meet those immediate, felt needs. What would this look like today? By the way, I think the clearest example, I don’t know if it’s most common, I think money is probably the most common. Can’t serve God and mammon right, that kind of thing. But one of the clearest examples today is the evangelical Church’s relationship with politics, where it’s like, yeah, Jesus, we want your kingdom to come. And the only way that’s gonna happen is if we get these politicians into office, pick your side. By the way, it doesn’t matter. They got idolatrous worship on both sides, all right? And so that’s what that looks like, like that kind of idea. So that’s syncretism. It’s interesting, though, that they’re on the roof. Now, why are they on the roof? Because you can see your stars from there. That’s what’s happening. But it’s such an interesting picture, too, because it’s such a domesticated, individualized religion. At this point, this is what I do in my personal space. I’m going to worship my god in my way, very different, even from the temple cult, right, where people came together to worship rightly, as they were being instructed today. What would, of course, look like? What’s happening right here? But No, instead, everybody’s on their own, doing their own thing, an indirect violation, by the way, of the second commandment, which says, You shall not bow down to anything in heaven above. But this is why syncretism is so bad, because you you end up with two kings. So I don’t know if you can see there in verse five, it says, those who bow down and swear by the Lord again good, they’re worshiping the Lord and also swear by Molech. And there’s a footnote there, because it doesn’t actually say Molech. So the nib is choosing to amend the text. I’m not sure they should here. In this case, the phrase is actually their king, their kings, and that’s it. Exactly they worship. Yah. Are they, but they also worship someone else, like the king is such a good word too, because you got another master calling the shots at this point. And realistically, since you’re picking your master who’s calling the shots, you are so you have another king, and it’s you. It’s the sin of Eden all over again, I will be my own God. So we have this sin of commission, syncretism. But then there are also these sins of omission, which is the second group that singled out in verse six, those who don’t seek God, who don’t inquire of him, who, in other words, don’t let God be God because they’re made themselves their own gods. It’s just a good reminder that worshiping God demands effort, devotion we should be seeking that’s active, inquiring of him. We should want to know Him, to know His will, so that we can seek to do what pleases Him, and all of that. That’s not for a pious minority. That’s not for the, you know, the super Christians. You’ve been in Journey group. You know, we’ve done this before. I’ve been in large rooms have done this. They’ll have people raise their hand like how many of you consider yourselves a Christian. And you know, most of the womb will raise their hand at that point, and then they’ll say, How many of you consider yourself a disciple? And everyone goes, always, it’s the exact same movement. It’s hilarious. Kyle was in the room. He knows every single time, just without fail. And that’s kind of what’s happening here, right? I’m not one of those who you know, like, seeks the Lord, inquires of him, but I’m a Christian, sure, like there’s no difference. The New Testament rarely calls us New Testament. It mostly calls us disciples. You can’t be a Christian and not be a disciple. And that’s exactly what’s being said here. You claim to follow Yahweh. Guess what? You ought to be following Yahweh, then. And so things like seeking the Lord, listening to his voice as he speaks to us through His Word, inquiring of Him in prayer, gathering together to encourage one another, like these are our top priorities then, because they’re the expression of our faith in God. That’s judgment. One, creation unmade. Second one. Then sacrifice offered. Verses seven to 13, be silent before the Sovereign Lord. For the day of the Lord is near. The Lord has prepared a sacrifice. He has consecrated those He has invited. On the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, I will punish the officials and the king’s sons and all those clad in foreign clothes. On that day, I will punish all who avoid stepping on the threshold, who fill the Temple of their gods with violence and deceit. On that day, declares the Lord. A cry will go up from the fish gate, wailing from the new quarter and a loud crash from the hills wail you who live in the Market District, all your merchants will be wiped out. All who trade with silver will be destroyed. At that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps. Punish those who are complacent, who are like wine left on its Dregs, who think the Lord will do nothing, either good or bad, their wealth will be plundered. Their houses demolished. Though they build houses, they will not live in them. Though they plant vineyards, they will not drink the wine.
So this section begins with the simple word Hush. And I may be reading into this, but I think this is a little bit like when a parent is rebuking a sassy teenager, and the eyes start to roll, and you can see the response form on their lips, and you go right before the response is even offered, like, I’m not done talking yet you don’t get to talk now, like that’s what the Lord is saying here. Of course, our silence is a sign of reverence and respect before him. Our silence is our way of saying, Yes, we will keep listening to what you have to say. We do this because the day of the Lord is near. And for those who lived as contemporaries of Zephaniah, the day of the Lord was the blessed hope as it is for us, they were eagerly awaiting the day of the Lord, because that was the day when God would bring salvation, which means he would route Israel’s enemies, put them to flight, and restore the fortunes of this waning nation. But then the prophets, starting with Amos, but Zephaniah also turn it around, the day of the Lord is going to be the day of God’s wrath against you, because on that day, he will punish all sin, and that means the sins of your enemies, but the sins in your own heart too. Yeah. And so it says, God prepares this sacrifice, and then he invites the consecrated. You’re like, This is amazing. This is, like, the Passover celebration or something. This is a good this is festival time. We’re excited. But then you read verse eight, and you realize Judah is the sacrifice. The word there, by the way, is slaughter, actually. So it’s Judah that’s about to be slaughtered. And so who are the consecrated, who are being invited? There are two options. One would be the pagan nations that God is bringing against Judah, Babylon, Persia, to punish them for their sin. The other option is, and if you were here with us for revelation 19. You’ll remember this image, the birds, the vultures, who are invited to feast on the carcasses of God’s people after they’ve been slaughtered. Now, why is this happening? Well, we’re narrowing our focus. Still remember, we started with the whole earth, and then we got Judah specifically, and now we’re actually looking at Judah’s leadership in particular, because, of course, they set the tone for the people. You know, there’s a saying in church, for example, as the senior pastor goes, so goes the church. And that’s kind of what’s happening here in Judah as a whole. And the bad news is the leaders are engaged in egregious idolatry, not good for the nation. It’s actually interesting that it mentions the king’s sons, specifically not the king, because Josiah is good. He is seeking the Lord. He is trying to bring revival.
Now, King’s sons could just mean his officials. Certainly what that phrase can mean could also mean his literal sons, because if you know anything about what happens after Josiah, two of his sons ascend to the throne, and they’re both bad, Jehoahaz and Jehoiakim. Are we already seeing problems? I mean, Josiah is still young at this point, most likely, maybe the kids aren’t even born yet, but God is prophesying what will take place that they will fall away. The issue, of course, is their foreign clothes. This is the worst sort of cultural appropriation, because they’ve picked up not just the dress of foreign nations, but the habits and beliefs of those nations as well. I mean, worshippers of Baal, for example, wore special clothes to mark themselves off as worshipers of Baal. You can see this in First Kings 10 Jehu, for example. And so it’s a little bit like a middle schooler who wants to be part of the cool crowd. So what’s the first thing you do dress like the cool crowd, so you kind of fit in. But what happens soon thereafter, you don’t just dress like the cool crowd, you start to act like the cool crowd. And so pretty soon, your new fancy clothes smell like cigarette smoke or whatever it is we’re doing at that point, that’s what’s happened here. Oh, I think this foreign clothes is, I mean, it’s interesting, because, like, clothes are actually a temptation for us, even today, like not just the cultural drift, but the the clothing piece of it in areas like materialism, modesty, even the message itself, materialism, right? Where that we spend more money than we ought on clothes so that it’s got the right label, because that’s how you show people you’ve succeeded, you’re one of the cool kids, or modesty. I don’t need to explain much there, but even the message, because, again, clothes serve as a cultural marker. We’re trying to say something about who we are as a billboard for what’s going on in our hearts in so many ways. So I’ll give you a ridiculous example. But I tried to bring all three together in one, and I came up with this. This would be like a teenaged girl in a you know, cleavage, revealing low cut skin, tight belly shirt that cost $200 even though there’s very little fabric there that’s promoting a song with lyrics so godless, even Satan blushes when he listens to it. And you’d kind of go, okay, that’s saying something about who you are now, because, again, we’re talking about the leaders here. Imagine that same thing, except it’s the women’s Bible Study leader at church, like that’s what Zephaniah is rebuking here. And of course, you can see why this is significant, because if you get the wrong god, which we have even verse nine, you can see that, why are they avoiding stepping on the threshold? Because that was a superstition associated with paganism, in part because at one point, the Philistines captured the ark of God, and the statue of Dagon fell down and his head broke off on the threshold. And ever since then, they don’t walk on the threshold. So you get the wrong god, but that wrong God will lead to wrong living. You’ll move from the sort of love that the Lord calls us to to the sort. Of self worship that every other pagan religion calls us to, and that’s why they’re practicing violence and deceit in the temples of their gods, because that’s what you do if you’re gonna worship Baal. Well, that means you gotta do whatever it takes exploit people to get more money, more power, whatever it might be. Then we get this geography of the slaughter that’s coming. It starts in the north, the fish gate, which is where an attack would come from. That’s where Jerusalem was vulnerable. But it is, most importantly, a total destruction, because you get the Old Quarter and the new quarter. You’re getting issues in the hills right, like the rural part surrounding town, and right there in the middle of the town, in the Market District, there’s whaling everywhere, and the Market District is mentioned specifically and at length, because, well, that’s where the money is, and they’re worshiping Baal, who is the god of a healthy bank account. Now what happens in this geographical region? God himself makes a thorough investigation. He’s going out with lamps, right? He’s checking every corner. Reminds me a little bit of the story of when God’s about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and his angels come down first to see if the report is true. God is slow to anger. He always checks first, of course, he’s omniscient. He knows everything, but he even makes a show of his checking, so that we see how just his punishment is. But as a result of this thorough investigation, no sin will be left unpunished. It’s like Psalm 139 David’s talking, and he’s like, look, if I go up in the heavens, you’re there. If I go down to the depths, you’re there. I can’t escape you, and that’s a good thing if you want God to see you because you’re lost in the woods. And that’s a bad thing if you don’t want God to see you because you’re doing something shady. God is always there and here, of course, they’re in the shady back alley kind of stuff. Again, we could reference Amos, very similar Prophet just earlier, Amos nine, three and four, though they hide from my eyes at the bottom of the sea. There, I will command the serpent to bite them. I will keep my eye on them again. That sounds like a good thing, right? God’s gonna keep his eye on us. I will keep my eye on them for harm and not for good, because they are sinning against him. No one’s getting away with anything. Your sin will find you out as numbers says it. And then he uses this startling image to show the depths of sin. He said it’s like leaving sediment in wine. When wine is in the fermenting process, it forms sediment. If you let the sediment sit there in the bottle, it ruins the wine, turns it basically into sour jelly. And that’s what’s happened here to God’s people. They haven’t removed the impurities from their lives, and so it’s turned their hearts sour and solid stony, we might say, and so they become spiritually complacent. Why? Because they assume God isn’t active. He doesn’t do anything. He’s not acting for good or for bad. He’s far off. He’s uninvolved. And so here we have to see they don’t doubt that God exists. Everyone at this time believed God exists. They just doubt that he matters. They’re practical atheists. In other words, we’re to talk about this again in today’s terms, practical atheists are the sort of people who go to church regularly, maybe more regularly than you do, who read their Bibles and then get up and go serve their other kings. Money, both how you make it, how you spend it. A big one for us. Today, we’ve talked a lot about, of course, family in this part of the world, the priorities, the schedules, even the values. How many of us want our kids to grow up to experience the fullness of the blessing of the American dream, and not the kingdom of God or just the pursuit of happiness. What makes me happy versus what would please God? And I love the end here, because it’s almost admitting, like, even if you’re self centered and self actualizing, this is a terrible choice to make. Still, like, if you love yourself, don’t do this, because God loves you too much to give you what you want, and so all that time and effort, and it takes years, by the way, for a vineyard to produce fruit enough to make wine, years and years and years. It’s all for naught, because moth and rust eat treasure and sin devours pleasure. In the end, kind of takes us to that last section, by the way, sin, punishment, third judgment. Verses 14 to 18, the great day of the Lord is near, near and coming quickly. The cry on the day of the Lord is bitter. The mighty warrior shouts his battle cry. That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom and day of clouds and blackness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the corner towers, I will bring such distress on all people that they will grope about like those who are blind because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust and their entrails like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath. In the fire of His jealousy, the whole earth will be consumed, for he will make a sudden end of all who live on the earth. So here we expand on the coming Great day in what is, by the way, quite possibly the finest poetry in the whole of the Bible. So much rhyme, alliteration and all the rest. But the point is so clear, the day is near, the time is short, so get moving. It’s going to be so bad in that day that even the mighty warrior will weep. The battle hardened veteran is going to break down and bawl like a baby on that day. You won’t want to be caught in it. And these short, staccato sentences don’t even have verbs in them, by the way. Add to this sense of urgency, there is no time to waste. In verse 15 alone, we have the word day show up six times, which is interesting, by the way, because there are six days of creation, and then the Lord rests on the seventh. And you can see that reversal happening again, right? We move from light and order in Genesis one to gloom and chaos. Here, we move from life in Genesis one to death and destruction. The battle that we see here. And what do we notice? Fortresses, military preparations can’t help you in that day, blood is going to be spilled. You’ll be disemboweled. Money can’t help you in that day. You can’t buy off the foreign invaders by sending a tribute to the king. And so the whole earth will be consumed. God will make a sudden end to all, not just Judah, although there is this tiny hint of hope here, because if there’s global wrath, does that mean there’s the possibility of global salvation? We’ll have to hang on to that thought as we keep going. Now I’m reading this, and you’re looking at me like this is so painful to read to hear
it sounds like we have an angry, vindictive God, no way. And this poetry is so carefully composed you can see it because at the center of all of this is the reason why there is a center, by the way. So I’ll put it up on a slide here to show you. It’s called a chiasm that we’ve got here. So you’ve got the day of wrath expressed at the beginning, and then at the end, the day of wrath is executed. And then in between, you get the human defenses, the military fortresses are unhelpful, and human wealth is unhelpful, not going to save you dead smack in the middle and in Hebrew thought it’s the center that’s the most important. You don’t build to the climax. The center has the climax. The center of it all is the reason why verse 17, because they have sin against the Lord. That’s why. Look, this is bad news for practical atheists. God knows, God sees, and God acts. He will act justly. In the end, he’s not inactive or irrelevant, but intimately involved in creation with his people. And so this simple, direct, relentless message, let me give it to you. It’s our big idea. Take one, okay, take 110. Years first time you got in a two part. Big Idea. Okay, big idea. Take one. Take your sin as seriously as God does. That is what Zephaniah has said here, take your sin as seriously as God does. Like, what clothes do you have on right now? What cultural drift do you see in your life? Where are you practicing syncretism or hypocrisy? Do you have a stagnant or waning devotion like what if you today made as thorough an investigation into your own heart as God will make one day Psalm 139 again, right right after David says, I go there. I go, there. God’s always there. He says, search me and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts, see if there’s any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. What if that was your prayer today? Take your sin that seriously. But there is a deeper message beneath the surface of the text. The terms that are used here are too careful to be coincidental, so I want to take another pass very briefly through it all. So chapter one, verses two to six, that first section, we already saw all these references to Genesis six to nine and the flood. This is when God establishes His covenant with Noah, not to destroy the Earth by flood again. Then that second section, verses seven to 13, we have the sacrifice and the consecration of the guests, same language that’s used in Genesis 15:8. Abraham sacrifices the animals before God, as God establishes His covenant with Abraham, Abraham is the guest at that one and then verses 14 to 18, God appears to his people with darkness, with gloom, with trumpet sounds. That’s like Exodus 19, when God establishes His covenant with His people at Sinai. Do you see each section alludes to successive covenants that God made with Noah Abraham and Moses. God, in it these covenants, he binds himself to his people, promising great blessing or great cursing if they will not obey. But at the heart of all of those covenants, the covenant promise. We saw this in Revelation, again, I will be your God and you will be my people. It’s a relationship, right? And that’s why that word jealous in verse 18 is so important. It’s a covenant term. Now this is good jealous. Isn’t like middle school jealousy, right? This is good jealousy, like the jealousy a husband ought to feel for his marriage like this is the jealousy of a God who loves you too much to let you destroy yourself. God loves his people like a perfect husband loves a flawed wife. Even gave us that picture in the Minor Prophets, when Hosea he’s commanded to marry wayward Gomer, who leaves him and goes back to her pimp, Hosea has to go after her, buy her back, buy back his own wife from her pimp. And why does God have Hosea do that? It’s this enacted parable. That’s what I’m doing with you. You’re the wayward wife. You’re the one committing spiritual adultery, but I will go and get you again. And so it holds out the possibility of reconciliation, the hope of salvation, if his people will turn from sin and return to him. After all, this is a covenant of grace. Grace. God wants us to be in relationship with him. That’s why he keeps making covenants with sinful people. Doesn’t that change how we read the judgment passages then? And so that’s gonna give you the big idea. Take two. Let me just rephrase it. It’s the same thing. Take your sin as seriously as God does. I could say it a different way, take your covenant relationship as seriously as God does. That’s the exact same sentence. I just used different words. He keeps his promises to us. He’s faithful when we devote ourselves to Him and be faithful in return, especially when we consider where we are now, because we are under the New Covenant, the covenant of Christ established by his blood, I mean because of Jesus, and only because of Jesus, we pass not through the waters of the flood, but through the waters of baptism, or when Abraham cuts all those animals in half as he establishes, as God establishes His covenant with him, the reason you do that, you spill the blood on the ground, and Abraham supposed to walk through it, saying, basically, if I break the covenant, may this happen to me? May I be slaughtered? May I be the sacrifice bleeding in desert dust, except Abraham doesn’t get to walk through the blood, because God puts him in a deep prophetic sleep and he has a vision instead of God passing through. Because what does God do when we break the covenant? God is sacrificed in the person of Jesus Christ, whose blood is spilled in desert dust. And then Jesus fulfills the law of Moses and keeps it perfectly in our place. Taking the curse of the Law on himself, he becomes a curse for us so that we can receive the promises of the Covenant in his place. He did that for us. What will we do for him in return? I mean, how could we but love Him and serve Him and worship Him? Jesus’s life, death and resurrection should be the end of all practical atheism. How could we possibly say that God is inactive or irrelevant? Is he far off or uninvolved? I don’t think so. God Himself, the second person of the Trinity, God the Son, clothed himself in our wicked culture. He put on our clothes, human skin, to redeem us from it. He drew near in the incarnation. He is deeply involved in our lives. He sees and knows and experienced all of our wickedness, and so he acted in our behalf to rescue us from the coming judgment. Jesus Christ is God’s mighty warrior, our hero, as Hebrews 12 says it he. Me, and when he came to save us, he shouted his bitter battle cry, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? That was the cost of the covenant. That was the bride price God paid to wed us to himself. That’s how seriously he takes his covenant with us. How seriously will we take it? Let’s pray, Lord. We worship you imperfectly, half heartedly, more often than we would care to admit. But we worship you because we see who you are and what you’ve done for us, the covenant you’ve cut with us the covenant you’re willing to enter into with us. When we turn to you in repentance and faith, we see the cost of that covenant in the blood of Christ, Jesus and so Lord, seeing the depths of that love and mercy and compassion, seeing the seriousness of our sin and the judgment it deserves, we turn back to you. There’s not one of us in the room who doesn’t need to confess sin right now, in light of all that we just heard, we see our syncretism, we see our hypocrisy, our cultural drift, our practical atheism. We own it God. We nail it to the cross of Christ, and we pray that you would forgive us and change us for Your name’s sake, Amen.