Sermon Transcript
Zephaniah— Dan will be preaching from chapter 3, verses 8 through 20. Therefore wait for me, declares the Lord, for the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger. For in the fire of my jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed. For at that time, I will change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.
From beyond the rivers of Cush, my worshipers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering. On that day you shall not be put to shame because of the deeds by which you have rebelled against me, for then I will remove from your midst your proudly exultant ones, and you shall no longer be haughty in my holy Mount. But I will leave in your midst a people humble and lowly. They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord, those who are left in Israel. They shall do no injustice and speak no lies, nor shall there be found in their mouth a deceitful tongue.
For they shall graze and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion, shout O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away the judgments against you; he has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst; you shall never again fear evil.
On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing.
I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival so that you will no longer suffer reproach. Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors, and I will save the lame and gather the outcasts, And I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you in, at the time when I gather you together, for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the Lord.
Greg and Mandy on the, on the bells earlier. We don’t have bells often, but that was a nice addition today. The— thank you. Yeah, great. Yes, uh, the combination of those notes that they played— Nate was explaining this to me this week— those notes played in that are called the Dies Irae or the Dies Irae depending on how American you want to sound.
David will play them again for us right now.
Yeah, right. Dies Irae is a Latin word word meaning the day of wrath. And the tune, those particular notes, uh, come from a 13th century Gregorian chant based on the book that we are studying today, Zephaniah, specifically chapter 1, verse 15, which Nate read some of earlier. A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities. And then we have that tune.
Thank you, David. It sounds ominous, doesn’t it? As if fury and wrath is imminent. And because of that, this 13th-century Gregorian chant, this tune, has found its way into all kinds of movies. So composers of cinema scores use it to indicate approaching devastation.
So for instance, Star Wars Episode 4, Luke comes back and his aunt and uncle’s house has been burned they have been killed by the Empire. As the scene changes to this Imperial ship coming over top, you hear those notes.
Or in Lord of the Rings, the scene where Bilbo lets go of the ring so that it can pass to Frodo. It’s this intense moment because it’s difficult for Bilbo to let go of it, and the camera shot is zoomed in on the ring in his hand. And as an audience, we’re supposed to understand this great tension within Bilbo because the immense power of the ring and its weight, like what the ring can do, all the destruction it can cause. And then we hear those notes.
In The Lion King when Scar sends his hounds to chase after Simba. Those notes indicate the collapse of the empire. It’s the opposite of hope. It’s death. It’s grim.
It’s wrath. It’s dread.
The movie scene that it makes me think of, though it was not used in this scene, It should have been, but it wasn’t. If you remember the movie Tombstone, Kirk Russell plays Wyatt Earp. It involves the famous O.K. Corral shootout. It’s quasi-historical.
There’s this gang of cowboys led by Curly Bill, and Curly Bill’s gang has attacked Wyatt Earp’s family. They have killed one of Wyatt’s brothers, and now Wyatt Earp is going to go after Curly Bill and his gang. And Wyatt says to one of the gang members, you go tell your boss I’m coming and hell is coming with me. Would have been the perfect moment to hear.
All right, thanks David, that’s awesome, thank you.
That’s the tenor of those notes. I’m coming and hell is coming with me. When we read Zephaniah, that’s the mood, at least at the beginning. Those notes, they’re written by some monk. They were specifically intended to evoke the emotion and the meaning of the beginning of Zephaniah.
So as we read and study this little ancient book written by a prophet of Israel’s God and about about 630 BC. We will see the approaching wrath, its cause, and then the largest twist in Scripture. The approaching wrath, its cause, and then the largest twist in Scripture. So, first, the approaching wrath is disturbing. What we’ve read so far Things like, God will pour out His indignation, His burning anger, in the fire of His jealousy the earth shall be consumed.
Those verses certainly aren’t rosy. But other places in the book, Zephaniah is actually quite a bit more graphic.
Chapter 1, for instance, Zephaniah records the Lord saying, I will bring distress on mankind so that they shall walk like the blind, Their blood shall be poured out like dust, their flesh like dung; neither shall their silver nor their gold 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 in a full and sudden end. You can hear those notes now, can’t you? Dun dun dun dun.
It’s the day of wrath. If descriptions like that don’t disturb us, they should. It’s okay to be disturbed. It’s supposed to bother us. It’s supposed to make us take this stuff seriously because we can’t mess around with God.
He’s in charge. We cannot escape Him. He is not some philosophical proposition to be considered. He is reality, and he is the ultimate judge of the earth who will come in wrath. And I know for some of us we may say something like, you know, if that’s how God is, then I don’t want any part of him because I refuse to believe in a God of wrath.
And if that’s you, I want to say first, I love your heart because you’re probably full of compassion. And I just ask, would you stick us to the end. But for now, I’ll say one as a foreshadowing to the end. If we don’t believe God has this kind of wrath, then we will never really understand what Christ has done for us. That’s one.
And 2, if we don’t believe in wrath, then there is actually no hope for the world, because without wrath there is no hope. It’s a bold claim, so let’s get into it. Um, the cause of wrath is prideful neglect of God’s law. The people of Zephaniah’s day were in some ways a lot like us. They weren’t really paying much attention to how God said to live.
They were instead looking around to neighboring cultures around them to decide right and wrong. They’re kind of asking, hey, what’s everyone else doing? That doesn’t look so bad. I think I’ll try it. I mean, if I like it, then I’ll keep doing it.
I’ll kind of decide for myself what’s right and wrong in best for me. That’s what they were doing. You can read all about it, 2 Kings up to about chapter 22 is, is when Zephaniah would have come on the scene. And God calls that kind of attitude pride, verse 11 of chapter 3. Similarly, the opposite of pride, which is humility, is seen in chapter 2, verse 3, as following God’s commands, submitting to him, saying, I’m not in charge, God is.
Humility is what they were supposed to do, but they were not doing that. They were constructing their own ideas about right and wrong and how to live, really putting themselves in the seat of a judge instead of God being there, which is pride. I mean, it’s elevating yourself to a place where you do not have authority to be. Now, here’s the problem with that, which we may not think about. If we don’t submit to a higher authority than ourselves, A lot of people will get taken advantage of.
A lot of people will be the victims of injustice. As soon as we declare ourselves to be the authority to choose right and wrong, we can and we often will justify anything, especially if we have power. Those in power, if they can decide right and wrong for themselves, will stack the deck in their favor. Favor and not in the favor of others. This is why oppressors oppress, because they can.
It’s one of the problems God is fixing in the passage. Verse 19, He says He’s going to get rid of all the oppressors.
But if there’s no one there to hold them in check, there’s no one to tell them no. They are not under any higher authority than themselves, and so marginalized groups get run all over. There’s not many things worse in the world than someone who does wrong but has decided it’s okay for them to do it because that person will go out unrestrained in the world, conscience-free. This is why abuse scandals end up getting covered up because those in power believe it is right for some reason to cover it up. Maybe they think it’s for the greater good, but they have created their own set of right and wrong and they think they don’t have to listen to anyone who disagrees.
They They have no fear of someday being judged because they believe they are the judge. There is no higher law than themselves. Now what are you going to do if you are the victim of such an ideology? Someone has decided it is right for them to do something that puts you at a disadvantage. So you have been hurt, you have been marginalized, maybe you have been robbed of an opportunity.
So you go through all the channels that society has constructed in order to get justice for yourself, yourselves, for yourself, but those channels you quickly realize they’re all part of the same power structure as the one who hurt you, so they’re not going to do anything for you. What are you going to do when society is the only judge but society agrees with the bad guy? What are you going to do? Where can you go for justice if there is no judge of society?
You say, oh well, we could have a revolution, overthrow that judge, put in a new one. And that has happened throughout history, you know, the oppressed rise up and gain power for themselves and okay, fine, fine, that probably needs to happen sometimes. But do you know what happens historically when a formerly oppressed group gets power? You know what happens? They become the new law.
They turn around and oppress someone else. Maybe it’s the people who were just oppressing them, maybe it’s someone else, but it’s someone. It’s Hunger Games. Revolutions don’t actually solve the real problem. What you need is a fair, impartial judge who creates a real right for everyone, who is above society, not part of it, who is incorruptible in himself.
If you have one of those, then you can have real and full justice for the earth. But as soon as you remove such a judge, you’ve lost all hope for justice in the world because there’s no one there to serve it, at least no one trustworthy, at least no one the world has found as of yet in any of the structures that we have hoped might produce it. And even in our best systems, there’s still a lot that falls through the cracks, right? We have an unjust world. Lots of wrongs have not been set right.
So we may not like the idea of a coming judge, you know, duh, duh, duh, duh. We may not like that, but the only thing worse than having a judge is not having one.
I’ll tell you, if you hang out with marginalized communities, if you go to their churches, they love verses about God coming in judgment of the world. They talk about it all the time because they know it’s their only hope. I mean, in some cases, they’ve been crying out for justice for generations and no one has ever come. Society has failed them. Them, right?
There’s nowhere else to go. So they are clinging to the hope that one day there will be one who will come that will hold all the wrongs accountable, that God will come in wrath and punish injustice. They long for that day. They think it’s the hope of the world. And if a wrathful God like that doesn’t sound like someone you can get on board with, then it probably indicates how privileged you are.
Maybe you have never really seen in your own life and experience injustice go unjudged. Maybe you’ve never seen it.
But for those who have, they say, come on, God, Bring it, come in judgment. Your law is good, people have abandoned it, that’s why there’s so many problems. So come and enforce what you say is good and right and fair, come set things back to how they should be.
So good news, there is a judge of the earth. Which means there is hope for the world.
But simultaneously, bad news, if there is a judge of the whole earth, it means we will be judged as well.
Fair enough, some of us have more blood on our hands than others, true. But let’s ask ourselves this, has anyone ever had a legitimate beef against us Have we ever advantaged ourselves to disadvantage others? Have we ever participated in systems of injustice? Have we ever hurt someone on purpose? Have we ever known that what we were about to do would hurt them and we just went ahead and did it?
Are we totally innocent of that? When the judge of the earth comes, and he will, and holds every single wrong that has ever been committed accountable, Will we have anything to worry about?
Of course we will. If you don’t believe me, just ask your spouse.
Have I ever hurt you? You know, if the judge of the earth came and saw every moment of how I’ve ever treated you, do you think I’d come off scot-free?
If you don’t have a spouse, you can ask your parents. You can ask the guy at work who you know holds a grudge against you. You can ask the competitor in the workplace, you can ask your kids, you’d ask a former spouse, they’d probably have a lot to say. We have all caused a tremendous amount of pain to others in this world, which leads— which leaves us with a giant dilemma, right? We want a judge for the earth, and we need one, but we’re terrified of being judged ourselves, or we should be, which is why Tim Keller said, if there is no judge of all the wrongs ever committed, if there isn’t one, then there’s no hope for the world.
But if there is a judge of all the wrongs ever committed, there’s no hope for me.
No judge, no hope for the world. But if there is a judge, there’s no hope for me? Because the very thing that I need punished in others, I have somehow, someway participated in myself, and what does that mean for me? Which brings us to our final point. This is the largest twist in Scripture.
The reason why it’s a twist is because it is not what we would expect to happen. What we would expect, what we think God would say, maybe even what we hear in church sometimes is, hey, since the judge is coming, you better get your act cleaned up. That’s what we would expect. Behave better. You know, he sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good.
For goodness’ sake.
Da-da-da-da.
Right? Straighten up, fly right so you don’t get judged. That’s what we would expect.
But that’s not the best understanding of the message of the Bible. That’s not actually the real message of Zephaniah because listen to Zephaniah chapter 3 starting in about verse 8. The Lord says, my decision is to gather the nations, to assemble the kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger. For in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed. For in that time I will change the speech of peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord.
Verse 11, on that day you shall be incinerated. No, not be put to shame because of the deeds you have rebelled against me. Verse 15, the Lord has taken away the judgments against you. Verse 17, he will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love.
He will exalt over you with loud singing. Verse 19, he will change your shame into praise and renown in all the earth. The tenor switches dramatically. Instead of doom, it’s delight. All of the totally deserved wrath and indignation is removed, and the people who were rebelling, now they receive praise, verse 20.
It should catch us off guard. It’s meant to. It’s not what we would expect. The largest twist in Scripture is our shame is turned into praise. Praise.
It’s verse 19 again. It makes no sense. It makes no sense that the guilty would not only have their guilt removed, but on top of that, that the guilty would be praised by the judge.
Their renown would spread through the earth, and the judge would make it happen. It’s shocking. I mean, imagine Wyatt Earp going to Curly Bill’s gang, right? Wyatt Earp says, I’m coming and hell’s coming with me, and hell should come with him. Curly Bill’s gang should get the full fury of wrath because of what they’ve done.
It should be curtains for them. Clouds are rolling in, but then it switches and they don’t get the wrath, and instead Wyatt Earp comes and praises them.
It’s a twist. It sounds strange. It’s not even fair, really. But it is what will heal us.
It is the cure that we need for the corruption in our souls. Like it says, starting in verse 9, in that day, people will call on the name of the Lord with pure speech and serve Him. And these were, again, the same people who were rebelling and making up their own rules for right and wrong and taking advantage of others. How? Why?
Why will their speech be changed? Why will their actions be changed? How did the leopard change his spots? Is it because God beat them into submission? No, because verse 11, they were not put to shame for their rebellion because the judgment they deserve is taken away, verse 15.
And actually verse 19, their shame will be turned to praise and God the judge in fact will sing over them with delight.
That’s what changes them. If you haven’t experienced praise and reward and acceptance right at the very moment that you deserve, duh, duh, duh, duh, I pray that you do.
May you experience it. There is no approach to transformation of a soul that is more effective than that. When a person knows for sure he or she deserves, really deserves the worst, but instead gets the best from the very person who has the right to judge them, when a person gets that, it reorders our hearts.
There’s a plotline in the show, which you can judge me for this, it’s fine, in the show Ted Lasso, which if you haven’t watched Ted Lasso, disclaimer, it’s on Apple TV, but disclaimer, the language they use and the inappropriate relationships depicted in that show are wildly out of control, okay? So don’t let your 10-year-old watch it. Maybe not your 15-year-old, okay? And even for you, if hearing inappropriate language or seeing wildly inappropriate relationships, if those are stumbling blocks for you, don’t watch it either, okay? But there are so many stories of redemptive grace in Ted Lasso mixed in with all that mess that I find the show pretty inspiring.
And there is this plotline where an assistant coach betrays the head coach of this English soccer team. I’m American, so I can say soccer. The assistant coach publicly slanders the head coach. He takes shots at the team. He even leaves the team to go help a rival team.
The assistant coach is just as petty as you can imagine. He’s filled with all these insecurities, inferiority complexes. He’s doing everything he can to destroy his former head coach and the original and his original team, even though they were the ones, they were the coach and the team, they gave him a shot when no one else would. So the assistant coach is this ultimate betrayer. And as a viewer, you hate this guy.
You’re wishing for his downfall. He’s pathetic. You just want him to go away, which is how all the characters on the show feel about him. Everyone has this justified vendetta against the assistant coach. So there is pressure on the the head coach to retaliate.
Everyone wants the head coach to da da da da all over the assistant coach, you know, give him what he deserves, make his life miserable, call him out, bury him, pile the shame on him that he deserves. The head coach doesn’t do that. He doesn’t go after him. He doesn’t retaliate. He doesn’t even defend himself against the slander being thrown at him by the assistant coach.
Instead, the head coach receives all of that slander. Instead of reflecting it back on the guy who deserves it, the head coach takes it on his own shoulders and he carries it. And in fact, the head coach goes further. He praises the traitor every chance he gets. He says, he’s a good coach.
This other team’s lucky to have him. And in the end, the head coach welcomes the traitor back on the team. It is the exact opposite of what you think would happen. It’s even the exact opposite of what justice says should happen. But of course, it was the exact thing needed to transform the traitor’s heart.
It’s better than justice, really. It’s grace.
Do you see Jesus doing that for you? That on the cross, He takes all the slander that you deserve for all the evil you’ve ever participated in, that justice says should come back on you, but the judge doesn’t send it back on you. Instead, he puts it on his shoulders on the cross. You know, earlier we read the very verse where this tune comes from, verse 1— I mean chapter 1, where God says blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. But ultimately, that was Christ He says, instead of your blood being poured out, it was my blood that was poured out.
Instead of your flesh being torn apart, it was my flesh that was torn apart. He carries our blame, our shame, all the accusations against us, and he turns to us who are guilty, even though he is the judge, and he praises us. And not only praises us, but sings over us in delight. Verse 17, he will exult exalt over us with loud singing because of how pleased he is that we are his. Not like quiet, soft whispering in our ears kind of singing so only we hear it.
Did you notice that? Not like that. He sings loud, public, so everyone can hear it.
Those right there, they are mine.
I’m going to guess not many of us have been sung over with such delight very often by anyone, because other than people singing Happy Birthday, right, we are probably not the subject of very many songs, are we?
For me, I think the only time someone has been so pleased with me that songs just burst out in my honor, someone singing praises over me, about me, for me. The only time that has happened, I think, is one of my sons, and I asked him if it was okay to share this story. He said yes. One day he started without any prompting from us, so I don’t know how this started, I don’t know how long it’ll last, okay, but when I— it’s still happening. When I first get home from work and he first sees me, he bursts into a song, one that he made up, like, and it’s loud.
It’s his own song, and he says, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy is the best, Daddy is the best, Daddy is the best.
When I walk in the door every day, he does it every day. Daddy, Daddy, Daddy is the best, Daddy is the best, Daddy is the best. It is pretty great.
I don’t know how long it’ll last. I know time’s limited. I am sure going to miss it when it’s gone. It is amazing to have someone praise you like that.
Now imagine someone singing praises over you like that when you have betrayed that person. Like if I’ve been a terrible father that day, which happens sometimes, he probably doesn’t sing then. But imagine if he did and I get the same song, someone delighting in me when I don’t deserve it.
What would that do to your heart? It changes you. Someone praising you right in the middle of you betraying them, right in the middle of you when you would deserve it the least, you are celebrated, you are sung over with loud singing, even though they know what you’ve done. It changes you. How does God get Himself a people of pure speech who honor Him and serve Him?
Jesus sings over you like that.
Do you hear Him when you walk in the door, as it were? Every moment through your day, no matter how shameful it’s been, He’s singing, that one is mine!
I love them!
While simultaneously taking on Himself all of your shame. It’s Hebrews 2:12, He endured the shame of the cross. He even considered it a joy because of His delight in you.
Now, let me ask you this. When you’re deciding how to live your life, You know, who you will follow, who you will submit to as, you know, judge and authority. Maybe you have your voices of friends and TV and social media and your own ideas, okay? And then you have someone who loves you and accepts you and delights in you like Jesus does.
And you’re going to choose whose counsel you’re going to follow, who you’re going to listen to for how to live your life. Who will you pick?
I’ll tell you, I’m going to pick the one who sings over me even on my worst days, who sees me to the bottom but yet loves me to the sky and then bursts into song over me in joy when I should be shamed.
There is only one who does that, only one, and it’s Jesus.
So why in the world would you ever stay on the outside of a love like that? Why would you choose to carry your shame on your own? Why would you choose to bear the weight of your own guilt before the judge? And why would you fight against someone like that having authority in your life? If he loves you like that, and he does, he’s never going to lead you anywhere that will not be the best for you.
You don’t even love yourself like that. You don’t sing over yourself on your worst days, but he does.
So if you haven’t told him, Jesus, I’m yours, do that today. Let’s pray. Father, our biggest delight is that you delight in us. It’s amazing that you would see us to the bottom and love us to the sky and sing over us with joy and take our shame, carry our guilt.
Lord, we pray that we would be captivated by you, that we would want nothing else but more of you. We thank you for an ancient message that speaks of your delight in us.
May we surrender to You. I pray all those things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
