Sermon: The Day of the Lord is Near

Well, our text this evening is Zephaniah chapter one. You can find it on page 7 88 of your pew Bibles. Uh, that is, uh, four books back from the end of the Old Testament, one of the minor prophets. Uh, this is not a, a book maybe that you, uh, usually are, are reading or maybe have ever heard a sermon preached on before. Um, and as it's one of the, the minor prophets, I would, I'd like to spend a, a good amount of time

setting up the context for us as we, as we, uh, read the text tonight, but also, uh, as for the, uh, coming weeks. But before we, before we read our text, let's, let's pray to our God. Father, we ask as we do each week that you would speak to us by your word and that you would make our minds and hearts and wills into fertile soil, ready to receive the truth and to grow by it. Shape our minds by what we hear in it tonight.

Shape our hearts and our affections that we might love and pursue what is good. And we ask it all in the name of Christ our savior. Amen.

Zephaniah chapter one, starting in verse one, the word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah, the son of Kisha, the son of Giah, son of Amiah, the son of Hezekiah. In the days of Josiah, the son of Amon, king of Judah, I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth to declares the Lord. I will sweep away man and beast. I will sweep away the birds of the heaven and the fish of the sea, and the rubble with the wicked,

I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth to declares the Lord. I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And I will cut off from this place, the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests, along with the priests, those who bow down on roofs to the hosts of the heaven, those who bow down and swear to the Lord. And yet swear by milcom those who have turned back from following the Lord

and who do not seek the Lord or inquire of him, be silent before the Lord God. For the day of the Lord is near. The Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests. And on the day of the Lord's sacrifice, I will punish the officials and the king's sons, and all who array themselves in foreign attire. On that day, I will punish everyone who leaps over the threshold and those who fill their master's house with violence

and fraud on that day, declares the Lord. A cry will be heard from the fish gate, a whale from the second quarter, a loud crash from the hills whale, oh, inhabitants of the mortar for all. The traitors are no more. All who weigh out silver are cut off. At that time, I will search Jerusalem with lamps and I will punish the men who are complacent. Those who say in their hearts, the Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill.

Their goods shall be plundered and their houses laid waste. Though they build houses, they shall not inhabit them. Though they plant vineyards, they shall not drink wine from them. The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast. The sound of the day of the Lord is bitter. Um, the mighty man cries aloud there, A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, A day of darkness

and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. A day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements, I will bring distress on mankind so that they shall walk like the blind because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them On the day of the wrath of the Lord.

In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed for a full and sudden end. He will make of all the inhabitants of the earth. Amen. As I say, a, a book like Zephaniah is not perhaps in our regular diet of Bible study. The prophetic books and the Old Testament can be hard to follow 'cause the context tends to be vague to us. Um, we can hear a, uh, a, a chapter like this one full of, uh, uh, wrath and it's difficult to read,

but we don't really understand what is being said and why it is being said. So let's spend some time going through the story a bit before we dig into the text. So Zephaniah prophesied in the southern kingdom of Judah less than a century after the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel, and less than 50 years before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, which signals the fall of the southern kingdom. You'll recall that after the kingdoms of David

and Solomon, the nation of Israel split into two a northern kingdom, the tribe, excuse me, the tribe of Israel. All of the tribes in Israel except for Judah and the southern kingdom, the tribe, the nation of Judah, which was the tribe of Judah, which followed the line of David. Both kingdoms are beset by kings and people who pursued false gods, the gods of the nations around them. The northern kingdom even begins its life with a na

national presentation of false worship. King Jeroboam, the king in the north, knowing that the people are gonna want to go south to Jerusalem, which is in the southern kingdom, makes a savvy political move, but it's a spiritually deadly move. He makes two calves and sets one in the northern city of Dan and the other in the northern city of Bethel. And then he infamously says this, behold your gods o Israel who brought you out of the land of Egypt,

that northern kingdom of Israel lasts about 200 years. Jonah, Elijah, Elijah, and others prophesied during that time. And then Assyria comes and destroys it. Assyria by the, by the direction of the Lord, uh, destroys this northern kingdom, uh, for their unfaithfulness. Judah, the Southern kingdom lasts 150 years longer before it is destroyed by Babylon for the same reason, and the people are sent into exile. It is during those 150 latter years

that prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zephaniah have their ministry. Zephaniah's ministry coincided with the reign of Good King Josiah. You may remember him. It's very likely that there is a close influence from Zephaniah to Josiah of the 16 prophetic books in the Old Testament. Zephaniah is the only one there in verse one who tells us the name of his great-grandfather. And the reason for this is that Zephaniah was making

it clear that he is also from the royal household. King Hezekiah of Judah was the great grandfather of both Zephaniah and Josiah. And you'll recall that during the reign of King Josiah, the lost book of the law is recovered somehow over time and over faith. And with faithlessness only four books of the first five books, the Pentateuch, uh, were being used in Second Kings 22. The high priest finds the fifth book, the book

of Deuteronomy in the temple. He reports it to the king's secretary. And after the book is read to Josiah, he tears his clothes and begins a campaign of reform throughout the land, a campaign to purge the worship of false gods from his nation. Now this, this false worship by the people is central to the Book of Zephaniah. This is exactly what Zephaniah is talking about. The people at the time were worshiping all sorts

of local gods will count four different local gods. Uh, tonight it seems likely to me that these two things, the the finding of the book of the law and the uh, prophetic ministry of Zephaniah, uh, happened very much in concert with one another. Uh, the calling people to repentance from their false worship that we find in Zephaniah is strengthened and confirmed, uh, by the reading of the law and vice versa. And Josiah is likely strengthened

and confirmed in his mission by both of these influences and goes forth to wipe away the false worship from Judah. Two Kings 23 tells us that Josiah not only made a public declaration of his loyalty to God, he called upon the people to do the same. He deposed the so-called priests who were leading in the idol worship, and there were vessels in the temple that had been made. They were stored in the temple, but they had been made for the worship of Baal and Asra

and Josiah has them destroyed. There were ASRA polls and he has those destroyed. There were cult prostitutes operating out of the temple, the Lord, and he drives them and their attendance out. He destroyed the places of false worship around the country, including the altars of child sacrifice to Molik. And we're told that even King Solomon, you recall King Solomon's, uh, difficult end of his reign, he had erected altars in the palace to ash, turre,

osh and milcom or molech for his Sian, Moabite and Ammonite wives. Josiah destroys them, and then he turns his crusade to different parts of the land and even beyond his land. So as Syria, which had come in and destroyed the northern kingdom, was apparently weak at this point in history and soon to be destroyed itself. And there was not much resistance, therefore to Josiah making raids into the northern kingdom, which wasn't even his kingdom.

But he makes raids into there and destroying the places of idol worship that are there. Even those, one of those two idols that j Boem way in the back, way back in history had put up, he destroys, uh, that false, uh, idol in, uh, the land of Israel. The thoroughness of Josiah's efforts demonstrates how ingrained idol worship had become in Judah. It was everywhere. And as we see, even Josiah's sons will turn from their

father's ways toward foreign gods. It's to this deeply ingrained habit of false worship that God is speaking in our text today. One more essential thing that I want you to remember about prophetic literature in the Old Testament, the the pattern of prophetic ministry in the Old Testament is always comes with a, a, a, an implicit call to repentance. That is the underlying message, even when not explicitly stated the message of destruction

and desolation, carry this message to the hearer. This is what is coming for you if you do not turn to the Lord independence and for mercy. So remember Jonah and his ministry to Nineveh. Why did he not want to fulfill his calling in Nineveh? Because he knew that when he went and preached the coming judgment of the Lord upon them, that they would likely repent and be shown mercy. He didn't want them to have the opportunity to repent.

So when the, when remember as we read through these books that when the word of the Lord comes the word of judgment, the call to repentance is always the implicit message. Every scorching word of coming wrath is meant to press the hearer toward the Lord of mercy. The grace of the Lord undergirds every action that he takes. God makes this explicit in chapter two, which Ben Prizer will, will lead us through next week. But I'm gonna read just the first couple verses so

that we can see this sort of as a summary of our text today. Gather together, yes, gather oh shameless nation before the decrees take effect before the day passes away like chaff before there comes upon you, the burning anger of the Lord before there comes upon you the day of the anger of the Lord. Seek the Lord all you humble of the land who do his just commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you may be hidden on the day

of the anger of the Lord. So with that as our backdrop, let's turn to our text or tonight, um, we find within our text a relatively common, uh, literary form in the Old Testament, which is called a chiasm. A chiasm. All that means is that our text today has the outline that goes like this, A, B, C, B, A, uh, it's and the, the, the purpose of a castic, uh, for, uh, presentation is to draw our attention to the center point.

So essentially, if you don't understand what that meant, essentially there are three themes talked about in our text today. First, the wrath of God coming upon all mankind. Second, the wrath of God coming upon Judah and Jerusalem. And third, the nearness of the day of the Lord and the sacrifice that he will make on that day. This third point is the central and emphasized point of this passage. So let's proceed through each of those three divisions

in turn and we'll talk a little as we go through of, um, things that may apply to us today. So, so verses two and three and also verses 14 through 18 are talking about God's wrath against mankind. Starting in verse two, we have the, the Lord speaking in some of the most striking words of judgment anywhere in the Old Testament. The whole earth stands condemned under his judgment, his just judgment. His wrath rests upon every living creature upon the face

of the earth because of mankind's unfaithfulness. There is an undoing of the C creation here in verse three, in Genesis, on day five, the sky and the seas are filled, and on day six, the land is filled. And in verse three of Zephaniah, one man and beast, birds and fish are all swept away as if to symbolically undo the creation itself. We see that the guilt of sin is a universal guilt. The the wrath that is to come is not merely on Judah.

There is no one righteous, no, not one man is the, the capstone of creation and the bearer of the image of God. And he was placed by God on earth to ru to both rule over and point his creation to its creator. Thus, as they have turned against their holy creator to worship false gods, things that aren't even gods, his wrath is especially kindled and provoked. Maybe you are unfamiliar with, uh, the, the, the message of the Old Testament prophets, but are familiar with Paul.

And maybe you thought that, uh, the this idea of God's wrath coming upon mankind for their wickedness begins with Paul in Romans one, but that's far from the truth. Rather than a new teaching, Paul is teaching, uh, a summary statement of the prophetic tradition when he teaches regarding humanity's wickedness and the wrath that they, that we deserve. Mankind stands guilty before God and that guilt deserves his wrath down.

Uh, to verse 14, we are shown a vivid picture of the desolation that is to come when his wrath falls. That day is a day of distress, of anguish, of ruin, of devastation, darkness and thick darkness, gloom, clouds, and a day of war. Humanity, apart from the mercy of God, will not know what hit them and their bodies and their life's blood will be wasted. Nothing that they have accumulated for themselves will be able to rescue them from

God's righteous judgment. Again, this is the fate of the entirety of mankind apart from the mercy of God. So upon hearing this message, the only right response is to call out to God for mercy.

From there in verse starting in verse four, the eye of the Lord zeroes in to his covenant people in his plan of redemption as it has unfolded throughout history, the Lord has called to himself a people to show his grace and mercy. He has, he has rescued them from slavery, given them blessing and land, and has consistently inserted his sovereign hand into their national life to protect and guide them. He's given him his law and placed his name upon them.

They are the primary human objects of his grace at this point in history, and they have proven over and over again unfaithful to him. They have over time decided that the fellowship with the nations around them and the gods that they worshiped who were not actually Gods was better than the fellowship of the gracious and sovereign creator. Imagine it. Go back to what, what we said before. Imagine it being said to the people of, of Israel

and them simply accepting the statement. Behold, your God's ois Israel who brought you out of Egypt like it was Baal and Molech who did that miracle parting the Red Sea.

Consider what a rejection this is and what faithlessness this is. By the time the, the horrible worship practices and all of, all of these other gods has infested the lives of God's covenant people, these, these practices are truly reprehensible. Josiah had to go throughout not only the land to root out all of these terrible altars, but he had to root it out in the royal palace and even the temple itself. Verse four illustrates God's white hot anger

with a heartbreaking irony. He promises to cut off Judah and Jerusalem, the remnant of Baal over and over again throughout the Old Testament, starting with Joseph and then Elijah and Micah and Isaiah, we are told that the Lord is preserving for himself a remnant of zone people who will be faithful to him from within Israel itself when threats faced her from the outside. This is a, a great word of comfort. What what more hopeful statement is there

for Israel than the Lord himself has preserved a remnant here. However, he notes that those in Jerusalem at the time, the priests who are responsible for his worship are remnant that belong to Baal. They will not be preserved, they'll be destroyed. And no more fearsome words can be said to someone or about someone. God will stretch out his hand against you.

The judgment from God is on the city, but not only the city, it's on the nation itself. Verse 10 begins an evocative section in which the desolation of Jerusalem is described. Fear and destruction, descend followed, not merely by the absence of commerce, but the presence of plunderers. The people are judged for their complacency. Listen to what they say. They say The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill. God is irrelevant to these people.

And when he stretches out his hand, they will learn too late of his terrible might.

He describes the worship practices of those who worship the sun and the stars. They bow down on the roofs and then he points out that, uh, the same ones who do this and who swear by the name of milcom or also known as uh, molech, those who also swear by the name of Milcom, they also bow down and swear to the Lord. Now this is an essential thing for us to understand about the temptation to toward idle worship among God's people, both then and now.

For us, It is not that these people thought that they had rejected God and instead were following after Baal. That's kind of how we think of it. They've, they, they've decided in their heads, I no longer follow God. I now follow Baal. That's not what they've done at all. They've mixed it, they've mixed it all the two together. It's that they said that Baal did the things that God has actually done and they said that God was

to be worshiped properly in the ways that mulch was worshiped. It was what that they ignored who God is and uh, the the God that made them in their image. But our God is a jealous God and to try and blend worship of him with idol worship is verse six, to turn back away from him and stop seeking him. So in summary, to attempt to blend the worship of other gods with the worship of our God is to not worship our God at all.

It's appropriate then to pause and reflect here this, this blending and misattributing is not merely a problem of those will soon be destroyed in Jerusalem in our text. This is a danger that we face in every age of the church. I'm sure that you know that there are certain saints that Roman Catholics will pray to for certain outcomes. For example, praying to St. Christopher when you travel, just as the Romans prayed to Hermes when they traveled, there are many things

that people try to blend with their Christianity. Many second masters that people try to serve. The idol of greed with Christ's name falsely attributed to it is a pernicious heresy that we call the prosperity gospel.

The idol of romance and sex causes the constant asking in our culture of the oldest and most damaging of questions, half God really said as God really said that that is wrong. I feel like he wouldn't give me these desires for things that he doesn't want me to fulfill. This is the same question Eve asked when she justified to herself that the fruit looked pleasing to the eye and good for eating. The idol of personal fulfillment causes lots

of problems in the church. Sometimes it finds itself in a consumeristic attitude toward fellowship and worship. The sermon and the music need to attract me in. The preacher needs to give lip service to my pets social or theological issues. The music needs to get me jazzed up. The church exists for my improvement. It is my spiritual gym membership. Other times personal fulfillment. An idol of personal fulfillment causes us to look

for reasons behind God's commands to justify them as if the command itself was not sufficient. I will call this the butterfly gospel. If you just embrace your inner whatever warrior, whatever it is, uh, you'll be truly happy. You will be who you were meant to be. As if your level of happiness determines whether or not you should obey your God, you aren't a butterfly and whether or not you feel great doing your God-given

duties, you still are expected to do them. These idols that we face call out to us for satisfaction. They say you deserve to have your wants and needs met. They say your happiness is paramount. They say anything that gets in the way of fulfilling your deep desires is evil and not God's will for you. They wanna speak these things to you in God's name, but they are lying to you. Our God calls out to you and he says, you will find your meaning

and true purpose in the pursuit of my glory. He says, come to me, you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest. He says, my glory is your purpose. He says, die to yourself.

Finally, let's turn to the center of our text verses nine, or excuse me, seven through nine and verse seven, the hearers are told to be silent for the day of the Lord is at hand. Now, throughout the scripture we find this phrase the day of the Lord. It's used in different senses, two different senses, and so it's usage can be fused. We see both of the senses that the phrase is used in our text today. The right way to understand the phrase the day of the Lord

is that day when the Lord will come and enact his justice and judgment upon the earth. Here in Zephaniah, most literally and directly, it means the coming judgment upon Judah and Jerusalem, the fall of Jerusalem that will happen within 50 years.

But as we have been shown here, the guilt of sin extends far beyond Israel and Judah and it is mankind that will ultimately face judgment and justice at the hand of their holy creator. That day of judgment two is called the day of the Lord. It's not that the, the phrase has two meanings. It's one meaning has a specific iteration here talking about the destruction of Judah, which foreshadows and prefigures and points to the fuller

and far more terrible iteration at the end of all things. But looking at this immediate outworking of this phrase, the Lord we are told in verse seven, has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated those in attendance.

Question one is, who are these guests? The consecration of them gives us a clue. These guests are to be set apart as the inter instruments by which the sacrifice will be conducted. These guests are the consecrated instruments of the sacrifice. They are reserved by the Lord as instruments for his righteous use. Which raises the question, what is it that will be sacrificed? And the answer is in our text today, Judah herself

complete with the officials and the sons of that king who, who rule and the lead the people into idolatry. Josiah was a righteous king who pursued the Lord and sought to drive out the idols, but his sons and his grandson, the last four kings of Judah, are all described by second kings as doing what was evil and the sight of the Lord just as their fathers did. They are the ones who array themselves in foreign attire, meaning they follow the worship practices

of the nations rather than what their God has commanded. They leap over the threshold like the Philistines did to worship Dagon. They are the ones who fill the temple with violence and fraud. And the Lord promises here to throw down Judah just as he had thrown down Israel for its unfaithfulness. Unless they turn to him and seek his mercy. We are led also by the text to consider the coming of the awful day of the Lord in its final

and eschatological sense. Its end times since I said that it's only used in these two ways in the Bible, either immediate destruction or the destruction that is at the end, but but very significantly. Peter in his sermon in Acts two, uses the phrase, uh, in this end times way, but with an important and beautiful nuance. Peter quotes from Joel too. Joel also preached about the day of the Lord, which was to come. And you'll recall in Acts two, Peter is preaching

after the Holy Spirit has come to explain to the the crowd, the the falling of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples saying, quoting from Jo Joel, in the final days, the spirit will be poured out on all flesh. Young men and women shall prophesy and see visions and terrible wonder shall appear in heaven all before the great and magnificent day of the Lord comes. And the quote closes with a promise to all mankind, and it shall come to pass that everyone

who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Not just Israel, not just Judah, but anyone who seeks mercy from the Lord will receive it. It is significant that the day of the Lord is the day that the Lord brings his terrible wrath upon the people whose sin so justly deserves that wrath. The day of the Lord came for Judah in 5 86. The day of the Lord will come for the earth that day when he will judge mankind for their sins.

But what Peter reminds us of here in Acts two is that for some or better stated for one, the day has already come.

Let me ask it this way, Christian, where has your wrath gone?

The wrath that you so justly deserve? Where is it? Does it wait for you? Is it to come for you? No. It has been poured out upon your savior in the most personal and real sense. The day of the Lord has come and it has another name for you and I, brothers and sisters on the other name for you and I for the, that day of the Lord is good. Friday, We started our text tonight with the most fearful and hopeless of sentences.

God saying, I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth. I will sweep away man. And now I'd like to end our tech, our reading tonight with the most joyous and hopeful of sentences that we could hear. And that is, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Amen And amen. Let's pray together.

Oh Lord, what can we say? But thank you. Thank you for your mercy. Thank you for your sovereign grace. Thank you for the promise of mercy to all those who call upon your name in faith, I pray that all within the sound of my voice would know deep in their hearts the joyful rest of union with Christ by faith that those who are swayed and tempted by the idols of this world would cast them down just as Josiah did. We pray that you would increase in us both.

The joy of knowing our wrath has been satisfied already, and the deep, deep sense of gratitude for the gift of salvation that spurs us on toward holiness and love. We pray all of this in the matchless name of our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.