Thursday, August 13, 2015

August 9th, 2015 Pastor Waldschmidt MAJORING IN THE MINORS: Zephaniah


Zephaniah 1:8-9  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.
Zephaniah 3:14-15  Sing, Daughter Zion;  shout aloud, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,  Daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment,  he has turned back your enemy.
Zephaniah-The Lord Hides (Protects)
I.                    Hides His Judgment
II.                  Protects His People
In the name of our Savior who hides us in the Shadow of His wings, dear fellow redeemed children of God,
    Summer nights were the time for street games in front of 36 Oaklawn Ave.  The house I grew up in had a big front porch.  From there mom could keep her eye on her children as we played football and kick the can and tag.  One of our favorite games was hide n go seek.  There were lots of places to hide in the neighborhood.  From the front porch mom could watch as the children scattered to hide behind bushes and in basement window wells.  Sometimes she would help the youngest in the group with hand signals that gave away the hiding places of the older kids or to steer the older ones in the wrong direction to protect the hiding places of the little ones.
Today we continue in our summer sermon series on the minor prophets.  Today we are thinking about God’s Word through the prophet Zephaniah.  His name means “The Lord Hides” or “The Lord protects. “  So today we have a front porch view as we watch the Lord hide.  We certainly can’t see all of the hiding places of the God who fills heaven and earth.  But today let’s watch as the hides his judgment for those reject him and the Lord hides his people away to protect them.
     “Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi.”   When we are learning our books of the Bible it is easy to get Zephaniah and Zechariah mixed around.  Zephaniah was the first of the “Z”s.  Zephaniah was a spokesman of the Lord before the exile to Babylon and Zechariah was a spokesman after God brought the remnant back.   So Zephaniah was the prophet when God was in a way still hiding his judgment, in other words it wasn’t out in the open yet.
     We think Zephaniah was a little older contemporary to the prophet Jeremiah.  He was actually in the royal family, a great grandson of Hezekiah.  During Zephaniah’s time, his cousin  King Josiah would have discovered the Book of the Law of God during a temple restoration project.  That Word of the Lord  had been  ignored and lost sitting up on a dusty  shelf for years .  Josiah began to try to turn the peole back to the Lord.  Josiah ruled for a long time and Zephaniah would have been the prophet  toward the beginning of his reign and Jeremiah would have been the prophet when Josiah died and the people of Jerusalem took off in opposite spiritual direction away from the Lord.
      Have you ever walked along through muddy ground? - So as you walked along, your boots picked up more and more mud and your feet grew heavier and heavier?   That’s sort of the feeling that you get as you read through Zephaniah.  These are words of gloom and doom.  God’s judgment was coming.  Many people could not see or would not see it.  Think of when Jeremiah spoke of the Lord’s judgment and the Bible tells us that all of the people, the priests and all the leaders crowded around him and said, “You must die!”  The Lord didn’t strike them down.  The Day of the Lord was crouching and waiting for the right time.
       Many people didn’t listen to the prophet’s warnings because things seemed to be going  pretty well for Judah.  The Assyrians might have gobbled up the northern ten tribes but Sennacherib’s army had been turned back and life seemed good.  Many, many people worshipped the stars and looked to  idols like Molech for help.  Chapter 1 points out that many were complacent in their sin.  They thought, “The Lord will do nothing good or bad.”  Just because they could not see the Day of the Lord did not mean it wasn’t coming.  The Lord’s judgment was hiding. 
     It seems as though the Lord started the talk of the Day of the Lord’s judgment through Zephaniah when there was a little skirmish with the Scythians, a fierce nomadic people from the highlands of Asia.  But there was another day of the Lord’s Judgment coming-much bigger and more deadly for the nation of Judah.  The Lord was raising up the Babylonian army to destroy Jerusalem and carry the people back to Babylon.  Zephaniah wrote, “The great day of the Lord is near and coming quickly.  Listen the cry on the day of the Lord will be bitter, the shouting of the warrior there.  It will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and ruin.” 
      On that day of the Lord no one would be able to turn to their silver or their gold to make a difference.  “Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath.”  Success money and power all are bulldozed down on the day of the Lord.  How much money they had really wouldn’t mean much when they were bumping along in cages and carts to Babylon.  The day that they never saw coming came upon them in 586 BC as the city of Jerusalem was destroyed. 
     Doesn’t it seem as though the Day of the Lord is very near and coming quickly” for our world?   We seem to have reached the tipping point where our world is sliding deeper and deeper into sin and rebellion with alarming speed.   It’s much easier to see that when we are looking at the sins of the world than when we are looking at our own sin.  The devil has a way of convincing us that our sins are really not all that bad.  We think our sins don’t arouse God’s anger all that much.  We think we have plenty of time to change get rid of wickedness in our lives later.  The truth is that the day of the Lord’s Judgment on Jerusalem only foreshadowed the ultimate day of the Lord’s judgment of sin on the day the world ends.  That day is still hidden by the Lord out there in the future.  But make no mistake it is there.
      The Lord doesn’t hide in judgment in the future like an ambush hoping to smash as many people as he can.  No remember what Peter wrote when he talked about when people were saying, “Where is this coming he promised?” and questioning the timing of Judgment Day?  “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. “  Finally, the Lord who hides is judgment does not want to bring the hammer down.  Through another Old Testament prophet he pleads, “Turn, Turn from your evil ways.  Why will you die?” 
     In the middle of the gloom and doom of the destruction of Jerusalem a song of rejoicing is hidden.  “Sing, Daughter Zion;  shout aloud, Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,  Daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment,  he has turned back your enemy.”  The Lord remembered his promises.  He hid His people away and kept them safe.  He protected them.
      Last year in North Dakota there was a 3 year old who wandered away from his family farm.  The family dog trotted along with him.  The family started frantically searching with the authorities.  The weather grow bad with rain and lightning during the night. Around 2:00 a.m. some of the rescue teams were even called back due to the weather, but the family and ATV riders continued with the search. In the middle of the night a fireman on an ATV spotted something about a mile southwest of the farm. When the rescuer used his headlights to gain more visibility, Cooper, the family dog,  stood up.  The loyal dog was resting on top of the child who was asleep.  The was hiding him, protecting him keeping  the small child warm and dry from the rain. The Lord would keep his promise.  He would keep his people safe in the midst of the judgment going on around them.  God kept the remnant safe.  They would come back to Jerusalem.  Walls and another temple would be built.  The promised Savior would be born in one of those little towns the Babylonian army traipsed through.  The Savior would absorb the dreaded blows of God’s judgment on a cross to protect so that we could be safe on the Great Day of the Lord.
     Because of Jesus we don’t have to fear that Great Day of the Lord.  It is only our Savior Jesus coming back to take us home.  That’s something for us to sing about!  That’s happy news for us to shout.  The Lord has taken away our sin.  The Lord protects us.

     There is a passage in Isaiah that helps when I don’t understand the world around us, that helps when we don’t understand the things happening in our lives.  “Surely you are a God who hides himself O God and Savior of Israel.”  God does hide himself.  He doesn’t tell us everything.  But he does tell us what we need to know.  He is our God and Savior.  HE loves us.  He has saved us from his fierce judgment.  He protects and shields us.  Amen.

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