Zephahian overview

8/1/2021 Zephaniah final draft

As we begin tonight, I want to highlight a couple of things we see throughout the prophets, first we see God’s patience and we see God’s slowness to anger and his desire for men to repent even those who are revealing themselves as his enemies. But we see a revolving door with his people Israel/Judah, they rebel, God warns and calls them to repent, sometimes they do but it doesn’t last, God’s judgement comes and then comes repentance, but it doesn’t last a generation or two later they return to their idols and rebellion of the one true God. In the end Zephaniah points us to a time when it will no longer be this way When God judges all Nations or that great day of the Lord, when everyone will give an account.

Dark picture will be painted referring to the day of the Lord. Man will face the wrath of God.

But hang in there is hope in God for all those who would believe and put their faith in him.

Zephaniah

Introduction

Not much is known about the author Zephaniah, He traces his genealogy back four generations King Hezekiah whose reign was 715 -686 BC, making him the only prophet known to be a decedent of royal blood, because of this it may have given him the ear of the present king.

Zephaniah dates himself during the reign of king Josiah 640-609. During his reign King Josiah when the book of the law was found and he sought to make some reforms and try to return Israel to the one true God, but Israel had become deeply embedded with foreign deities and many other sins and Zephaniah begins with warnings that a day of reckoning is coming, The Day of the Lord.

Throughout the book of Zephaniah, we see a reference to the day of the Lord. In some cases, it is referring to a near day when the Lords Judgement is coming on Israel, in other cases it is referring to a day of Judgement for the enemies of Israel, and in other cases it is referring to the far day of the Lord when God Judges all nations and all peoples.

I am not going to spend a lot of time defining the differences of each of these cases but focus in on what the day of the Lord looks like, why it is coming, and if there is hope.

Read Zephaniah 1

· Chapter 1 begins with Zephaniah telling us who he is and a little of his family history.

· Transitions in verse 2 and 3 very quickly God’s judgement is coming, many commentaries point out that the language used in the way he states this coming judgement is reminiscent of the flood.

· 2“I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord. 3 “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[a] with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord.

· Genesis 6:7 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

· Zephaniah continues through chapter 1, 2 and the first 8 verses of chapter 3 on the coming Judgement of God on Israel, on Israel’s enemies and the whole earth.

· Then for the remainder of chapter 3 Zephaniah is used to point us to hope, the hope that is found in Christ and serving the one true God.

1. The Day of the Lord- what does this look like just from this passage.

i. A day of wrath Vs. 15 – example God’s wrath on sin was displayed on the cross

ii. A day of distress and anguish VS. 15 – Think of respiratory distress can’t breathe

iii. A day of ruin and devastation Vs.15 – Natural disasters – earthquakes, floods, hurricanes.

iv. A day of darkness and gloom. Vs.15 – Gloom it means an outlook of little to no hope, partial or total darkness.

v. A day of thick clouds and darkness Vs.15 – Smoky mountains Troy and my backcountry trip. It was dark.

vi. A day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and lofty battlements Vs.16 –

1. This reminded me of Edom in Obadiah, they felt like they were untouchable.

2. Also thought about secure places Area 51 and all the stories around it; Nuclear bunkers….

3. These fortified cities and places will offer no escape from the Judgement of God.

vii. A day God will bring distress on mankind so they shall walk like blind because they have sinned against the lord. Vs. 17.

viii. A day when their blood shall be poured out like dust, their flesh like Dung. Vs. 17. Blood is our life flow

ix. A day when the earth will be consumed for a full and sudden end.

1. The day of the lord is serious for those who have put themselves at odds with God, it is a day of Dred and will be a day of suffering.

Revelation 6:12-17

12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood,

13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale.

14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.

15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains,

16 calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb,

17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?" (Revelation 6:12, ESV)

2. Judgement/Wrath is coming and why.

Although we like to focus primarily on God’s grace, and it is a good thing to focus on.

God’s wrath and Judgement is just as real –

Would there be any need for God’s grace if it were not for his wrath?

· What are we saved from, Not our sin, but from God’s wrath for and on our sin.

a. Judgement of God in the bible. Examples of where we see it

i. Genesis 3:17-19 – the fall

ii. Genesis the flood – God’s judgement on the whole earth

iii. Exodus 12:29 – In Egypt where God struck down all the first born of the land of Egypt.

iv. We see it throughout the prophets, we see it in the gospels we see it throughout New Testament, and we see it in Revelations on the Day of the Lord.

v. The Cross is a very clear picture of God’s judgement – the cross was not just Love

a. It was the full wrath of God poured out on Christ the one who became our sin.

b. Remember Jesus in the garden praying the night before his crucifixion.

b. God’s Judgement - Why

i. Israel had become reckless with their worship of the one true God – Zeph` 1:12 – Those who say in their hearts that God will basically not do anything, they say he will not do good nor Ill, basically they had little to no respect for God they had become complacent in their remembrance of God, Man do we not see that today – The world is constantly dreaming up ways to deny and dishonor God- elaborate……

ii. It is easy to point our fingers and shake them at the world or at least I know it is for me, but what about us, the Church? We proclaim that God’s judgement is coming on our nation on our world, and we say things like it is like this because we have taken the bible and prayer out of our schools, court houses and out of our capitals and we need to get it back. No!! that is not the problem The real problem does not lie in the fact that the bible and prayer has been removed from schools, but the fact it has been removed from our homes, why? Not because of law or force, it has been our choice. Other things have taken its place or have become more or equally important. Like what you might say

iii. Judgement on Israel is not coming in this instance because they had stopped worshiping God but because they were not solely worshipping God but had also started worshipping other false gods also.

3. Exodus 20 And God spoke all these words, saying,

4. 2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

5. 3 “You shall have no other gods before[a] me.

6. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands[b] of those who love me and keep my commandments.

i.

ii. What were they worshipping?

iii. 2 kings 17:16-17

iv. Baal

v. Hoist of the heavens, astrology (chapter 1 verse 12)

vi. Milcom - The ammonite deity found in 1 Kings 11:5, 33, or Molech whose worship included child sacrifice, astrology, and sacred prostitution.

vii. They were worshipping these false god’s doing these evil things then turning around and going to God’s temple to worship him or going through the motions, the rituals of worshipping God while giving their hearts to another.

viii. God warned Israel of these things and set up boundaries for them to protect them, but they did not listen.

ix. Here is an example of one, let’s look at King Solomon, we remember him, right? The guy who wrote proverbs the book of wisdom.

7. 1 kings Chapter 11

Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall notenter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. 4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.

a. This is called syncretism or the act of trying to join pieces and parts of multiple religions into one or make them compatible with each other. God warns us of these things with passages like the above and others.

i. John 14:6 – “Jesus says I am the way, the truth and the life no one comes to the father but through me”. That is very plain isn’t it. “

1. We see in this verse the hope found in Christ – The way to the truth, life and the Father is through me.

2. but we also see the Judgement and warning he is making in this verse. – No one comes but through me. There is no other way

ii. Isaiah 45:5 – I am the Lord and there is no other; There is no God but me.”

We would never do that right? Try to worship the living God while also worshipping another so-called god’s, would we? We may not name out another god, but we try to make the God of the bible into something he is not, making him into a god of our choosing.

I believe we can look at Churches across our land and see that in many cases they have departed the God of the Bible, Therefore, the answer to that question would be yes.

How could this happen, inch by inch, foot by foot becomes mile by mile until we no longer are even looking to worship the one true God, but a God of our own making.

1. Ignoring God’s word because it doesn’t fit in our cultural thinking.

iii. One step further than the Bible being taking out of the home is it is being taken out of the Church_ Elaborate – when churches or so called begin to pick the bible apart taking pieces of it. Keep things they like throw out others they don’t,

1. Ignoring God’s word because it doesn’t fit in our cultural thinking.

2. Handling Gods word with ignorance trying to make it align with wrong thinking – using scripture out of context

a. Example after all God is love right… with scriptures like Matthew 22:34-40

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. 36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

· People then take this and other similar passages and have based their whole thinking and teaching of God on, God is Love and that is all I need, I don’t need to know or teach anything else. Just focus on love and throw out everything else all God’s other attributes all doctrine and theology.

· No to love God rightly with all our hearts we must understand who he is and not limit him to something lesser. God is love, he is also Just, Holy, and Righteous

· Here is One way of wrong thinking comes from this

I am going to Love God rightly by loving people. The right way of thinking is I am going to Love people rightly by Loving God first Just as Jesus says.

· Who defines what love is? God does, God Loves us by giving/Showing us truth, through discipline and correction not patting us on the back when we are headed for death.

One easy way to see is in our secular culture.

iv. Secular culture – The morale Push to concede saying this is what is morale and right – this is another religion – and it is has crawled through doors of many churches already with them conceding yes this feels right we want this even though it opposes the God of the Bible, the one true God and it is at the doorsteps of many more.

v. All of these things, all the craziness and sin we see, are only symptoms of the real problem, The problem is the rejection and denial of God himself.

vi. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

vii. Anytime we put our hope in something other than God.

viii. Elaborate on the above things.

ix. Hoist of Heavens astrology – What is your sign so you can look it up in the news paper

Because of these things The Lords Judgement is coming on the whole earth.

b. Hebrews 9:27 – And just as it is appointed for man to die once, after that comes the judgement.

NO one will escape God’s judgement; we will all give an account

8. Is There is Hope?

a. It depends yes and no

b. We see in scripture God almost always offers some form of hope, but when the offer of hope is not received or taken seriously by people, we see time and time again There really is not any hope

i. Read (chapter 3:1-8)

1. Examples Egypt and Pharoah, Nineveh,

ii. Israel Throughout the prophets we see a repeating cycle of God’s people rebelling against him, face God’s judgement and return, then rebel again, and face God’s judgement again and it continues even to this day. but it will not continue forever

iii. . Read Zephaniah 2:1-3 – God offers hope to his enemies

iv. Read 3:8-12, 15-18

v. Zephaniah point us to a day when it will not be this way. When the Day of the Lord comes, and he judges all nations. Judgement and Wrath will belong to those who have rejected Christ; But it will be home coming day for those who have put their trust and faith in Christ.

vi. As Jarrod said last week, we live in times where the world just feels broken it is out of sorts, and our hearts long to fix it, we want God to fix this world. We need to be reminded that our hope is not in the fixing of this world but in a new Heaven and new earth

1 Corinthians 15:19

If in Christ all we have to hope for is this life we should be pitied above all.

We need to refocus our hope not on this life but on the coming life. Long for it, long to be home with Christ where the troubles, and struggles of this life are no more. A

c. How and when is our hope fulfilled

The New Heaven and the New Earth

21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place[a] of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,[b] and God himself will be with them as their God.[c] 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

In closing

d. This Hope is found through God’s Grace.

e. God’s

f. grace is a gift but it is not a gift that can be received with joy and then set aside, it is a gift that leads to repentance and faith in Christ.

i. God’s grace changes us, leads us to repentance

1. 1 John 1:9

ii. There is no true repentance until we understand God’s Grace. We don’t earn grace we are given it if we would believe in Christ and trust in his work on the cross.

Romans 6:23 for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.