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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