Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome to Heartland Christian Church.

if this is your first time here we are happy to have you.

Let’s get started.

Please Stand.

Somebody give him thanks for something He is or does.

Today we’ll be reading Psalm 51.

Psalm 51 says:

This Psalm was written by David after his affair with Bathsheba.

David admitted to being a sinner, he asked for God’s mercy, and then he repented and asked for forgiveness.

We are taught to follow the Commandments and not to sin, but if we do sin, we are to follow David’s example in this Psalm.

We’re going to sing some songs together in praise & worship, but before we do, let’s recite the Lord’s prayer.

Praise and worship

Communion

Announcements

Sermon:

If you were here the last time I spoke we talked about the importance of prayer and the different types of prayers.

Today we are going old school and will be reading from the Old Testament.

I am starting a 3 part series on the book of Zephaniah.

It has 3 chapters, hence the 3 part series.

Zephaniah is located between the books of Habakkuk and Haggai.

If you reach Zechariah you have gone too far.

We're gonna read Zephaniah 1 -2:3.

Turn in your Bibles to that passage and once you get there please stand for the reading of God’s word.

The title of today’s teaching is The Call to Repent.

In Zephaniah 1-2:3 the Scriptures say:

You may be seated.

Before we dive into Zephaniah I wanted to give you a little background on Him.

Though not much is known about him, we do know that he is the only prophet to trace his lineage back 4 generations and we see this in Zephaniah 1:1

Zephaniah is the 9th of 12 books in a section called the minor prophets.

They are minor because of how small their books are, they are not minor in detail.

There was 70 years of silence before Zephaniah started to prophesy.

There was 70 years of silence before a lot of the prophets would start their work.

Zephaniah or “Zephan ya” in Hebrew means hidden by God.

It is believed that Zephaniah was hidden by his mom during his child hood as the men with royal blood were being killed.

So, today we will be talking about this little known prophet with a big message named Zephaniah, but before we do let’s pray:

“Father God thank you for bringing us here today.

Open our eyes and ears to your words.

Prepare our hearts for your message from this prophet, be with us as we dive into your words and speak to us and show us your will.

In Jesus’s mighty name we pray.

Amen.”

Helen Keller once said:

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all—the apathy of human beings.

—Helen Keller, My Religion

Helen Keller

Is she right?

Is apathy of human beings the worst evil?

The short answer is yes.

Each of the 12 minor prophets have a theme to their writing.

In Hosea the theme is God’s steadfast love for Israel.

In Joel it is divine judgement against evil; Amos - social evils; Obadiah - Judgement of Edom; Jonah - God’s care for the world; Micah - divine judgement against the world; Nahum Destruction of Nineveh; Habakkuk - understanding God’s character and His grace, Haggai & Zechariah- the rebuilding of God’s temple; Malachi - rebuke and repentance; then last but not least, Zephaniah is judgment and repentance.

All the warnings given by the prophets, in one way or another can be traced back to apathy and not caring enough to turn from evil.

This sermon was not an easy one to write.

Do you know how hard it is to get up here and tell people that they need to repent from their sins; especially when I am a sinner myself?

But this is a message that God has wanted me to preach and it’s something that needs to be heard.

Each message of the prophets needs to be heard, read and understood.

The warnings that are laid out in each book are just as important today as they were when the prophets preached them.

The prophets’ messages serve as a reminder of what can happen when Christians, the church, countries and even the world turn their back on God.

The Old Testament is full of story after story of God’s people turning their back on God and His word.

Good leaders would rise up, men of God, ones such as Moses, David, and Hezekiah.

They would keep the commands of God and tell their followers to do the same.

The people would follow for a while and then fall away and worship other gods.

Other leaders would lead their people astray, like Rehoboam, who led his people to worship false idols and statues. 1 Kings 14:22-31 says:

Rehoboam led his people astray and God punished them.

The Egyptian King Shishak went to war against Jerusalem and Rehoboam as we see in 1 Kings 14:25

Once their cities were plundered and wars were fought we found out what happened to Rehoboam in 1 Kings 14:31

1 Kings 14:31 (ESV)

31 And Rehoboam slept with his fathers and was buried with his fathers in the city of David...

Rehoboam was killed and buried in the city of David and his son Abijam took his place on the throne.

You would’ve though Abijam and his people would’ve of learned and turned back to God, but they didn’t.

1 Kings 15:1 says:

and down to verse 3:

Abijam walked in the sins of his father and his heart was against God.

He led his people to turn their backs against God and they paid for it as well. 1 Kings 15: 7-8 says:

Abijam and his people turned from God and they committed the same sins as the people before them, and they too were destroyed.

You would’ve thought they would’ve learned, but they didn’t.

Generation after generation of God’s people turned their back on God and yet, they were punished for their sins.

Their people were destroyed and they were sold into slavery over and over again.

God used prophets to remind those who came after what happened to those before them and warned them of things that were to come.

In Joel God tells His people to turn back to him.

Joel 2:12-13 says:

God told His people to come back and turn their hearts back to Him.

In Habakkuk 2:18-19 we are told not to trust in false idols.

Habakkuk tells us that these wooden idols the people were worshipping were dead and had no breath.

While the God that created the Heavens and earth is living.

In the book of Amos God gives His people more warnings as well.

Amos 8:10 says

God warns those that disobey his commandments that he would turn their joy into mourning and He would make them bald.

So, if you are bald....you might need to talk to God.

In Zephaniah 1:2-6

He says that He will sweep away everything on the face of the earth, man and beast, the fish, birds and mankind.

He cut off the idolatrous priests and the false gods they worshipped.

Just in case people thought that wasn’t enough, he went further and went after the leaders of the people as well.

In Zephaniah 1:8-9

He said He would punish the officials and king’s sons that didn’t follow them and those who engaged in violence and fraud.

In Zephaniah 1:12-13 God issues a stern warning against the apathetic.

Zephaniah 1:12-13 says:

He said that He would punish those who are complacent.

Those who didn’t choose good or evil.

As we saw in the opening quote, Helen Keller called apathy the worst evil.

God hates apathy so much that He gives us a warning in the New Testament as well.