Immanuel Sermon Audio
Zephaniah (36:66)
All right, find the book of Zephaniah. If you don't know where it's at, look it up in the table of contents. It's a short book, only three chapters, Zephaniah. Put my first picture up there, Miss Julie. Anybody know what city that is? It's not Denver, Salt Lake City. Anybody been to Salt Lake City? If you have you been to Salt Lake City? Lots of Mormons in Salt Lake City in that area. Here's a few pictures from around Salt Lake City of Mormon interest. There is the Tabernacle, Mormon Tabernacle. Next picture is the Conference Center. This is where they have their big annual meetings, and you can see in the back the Mormon Tabernacle choir performs at those meetings, so they got this big building. What's on the next picture? This is the Family History Library. Any of you that went to Salt Lake City been to this? A few of you have been there. So at this place, they have a lot of genealogical records. This is downtown Salt Lake City. It's open to the public. It's free of charge, operated by the genealogical arm of the LDS church. Why would Latter-day Saints have such a strong interest in genealogies and records? Because that's kind of a strange thing for a denomination to invest in. Anybody know why they're so interested in that? Yeah, basically trying to, Catholics would maybe describe it that way, pray people across the river, Mormon church practices in several practices and beliefs in several sacraments that they believe can affect salvation on those who have already died. The most common sacrament that you hear about is baptism for the dead, and they take a very obscure verse in the New Testament, and they build this huge practice on it. Basically, they believe you can go back, you can figure up all your ancestors, all those who came before you, genealogies. If they weren't good, faithful, temple-worthy Mormons, well then you can go to one of the Mormon temples, and they have these temples all over the place, and if you are a good, faithful, temple-worthy Mormon, then you can take these sacraments on their behalf. You can be baptized by proxy in their place, and these people who maybe are not in heaven can end up in heaven, and so here's a few temples. You saw that last picture of temples. This is the temple in Lubbock, Texas. I have no idea where it's at in Lubbock, but that's the one in Lubbock. You can find it online. There's one in Oklahoma City that we used to drive by every time we drove into Oklahoma City from Kingfisher. You drive right by the Mormon temple there. Some Mormons are only allowed to enter these temples while they're being built, while they're under construction, and they always have like a little open house ceremony, the community can come, and then they seal it off, and only certain people are allowed to come in there. These guys are very interested in these genealogical records, finding their ancestors, a huge database in Salt Lake City. Everything in 1992 BYU Brigham Young graduates started a company, and that company eventually turned into Ancestry.com. You've seen the commercials on TV where you get on, and you find a leaf, and you can find this and that, and I don't want you to feel like if you have an Ancestry.com account that you're like part Mormon, you're not. It doesn't mean that you're like indirectly tithing to the Mormon church. You're not. These guys sold the business, and it's a publicly traded company now, but they made a big fat chunk of change when they sold it, I promise you that. Ancestry.com says they have 13 billion records available online. That's a lot of records, and they've just got into a thing, maybe you've heard about this on TV where you can get on, and you can send them a hair, something they can test DNA, and they can tell you what your ancestry is by nationality or people group or whatever, and they're beginning, they have so much information online when you get on, it's just available. They're beginning to run into problems and lawsuits with privacy issues, and what can be put online, what cannot be put online, and they're trying to figure all that out. So they got 13 billion records. Unfortunately, they do not have Mr. Zephaniah on there, and it would be nice if they went back that far, and they had good old Zephaniah, because there's some questions about his genealogy that we're going to talk about in just a little bit, interesting that this is the only minor profit that begins with a genuine genealogy, not as long as some of the genealogies in the Bible, and most of the other minor prophets or several of them say, "I'm the son of so and so, I'm the son of so and so," but Zephaniah gives us a little bit longer for generations here of his family tree, and so we're going to talk about that in just a minute. So we're in the minor prophets. Zephaniah is the book that we're looking at tonight. Zephaniah is probably just to read through it one of the easier minor prophets to read through. You can read through Zechariah and come out scratching your head thinking, "I don't know which way is up and which way is down," and you can come through parts of Joel and Hosea and come out saying, "I have no idea what these guys are talking about right here." Zephaniah is pretty straightforward. There's not a lot that's really confusing in this book. If you put it in the history of Israel, he falls right during the period of rebellion and exile. So the conquest is Joshua. They go in and they fight for the Promised Land. You know the period of the Judges, a very sketchy time in Israel's history. Then there's the monarchy. They needed a king, Saul was the first one he flamed out, then David was the next one. He flamed out, then Solomon was the next one. He flamed out. Then after Solomon, the kingdom's divided. Israel in the north, Judah in the south. Both of those nations rebel against God. Eventually, both of those nations get sent into exile and then eventually God brings a remnant back. Just to put him in with some of the other minor prophets you can see here, Hosea, Amos, Micah, and Jonah all wrote and ministered and preached before the fall of Samaria, before Assyria took the northern kingdom into exile. Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah, all about the same time, they've seen Assyria come and haul the northern kingdom away and they're waiting for somebody. They know from what God has promised. They know that somebody's going to come and haul off the southern kingdom of Judah into exile, but that hasn't happened yet. So they're right in that window and then the rest of the minor prophets, Joel and Obadiah, Dr. Jerusalem is conquered, Hagia, Zechariah, Malachi after they come back from the exile. Is there a timeline up there? I can't remember if I put one or not. There it is. So you can see Zephaniah in red, right between Israel, northern kingdom going into exile, right before Judah, the southern kingdom goes into exile. That's when he's preaching and here's some interesting stuff about Zephaniah, okay? Who is Mr. Zephaniah? He traces genealogy back four generations and all the way back to Hezekiah. Notice I didn't put King Hezekiah, I just said Hezekiah, that's what he says, Hezekiah. And then we also know that he lived and ministered during the reign of King Josiah. So if you know your kings, Hezekiah, a good king or a bad king, good, not perfect but good, Josiah, good king, bad king, good, both good kings, not perfect kings, but both of these guys generally considered to be good kings. So just look at the first verse, Zephaniah 1-1. The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushy, who was the son of Gedaliah, who was the son of Amoriah, who was the son of Hezekiah, notice it doesn't say King Hezekiah, it says Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the son of Amor and King of Judah. So there's a lot of interesting debate and speculation about this family tree, meaning he goes back four generations and he goes back to this guy named Hezekiah and he stops there, who was he related to? Is he one of the kings, great, great, great, grandchildren or is this some other Hezekiah? You realize there was more than one Hezekiah living in this part of the world at this time, could have just been some other family. On the one hand, you have people that say, "No other minor prophet includes a genealogy like this at the beginning," and he does, and he goes back to this guy named Hezekiah, it seems like he does that, assuming everyone's going to know who Hezekiah is. Why else would you put that in there unless you go back and you stop at somebody that's sort of famous or noteworthy? Otherwise, you just say, "Hey, I'm Joel, the son of so-and-so, I'm Amos, the son of so-and-so." So he goes back to somebody and they say, "It has to be the king, that would make sense." The other group says, "Why wouldn't you just point out the fact that Hezekiah was the king?" If you wanted to make the point that you're of kingly lineage, why would you not go ahead and say that he is the king, like you said Josiah's son of Ammon was king in Judah? He made a point to say that Josiah was the king, why didn't he go back and make a point to say that Hezekiah was the king? My estimation for whatever it's worth and it's not worth much is that it has Hezekiah the king, meaning that Zephaniah is not only a priest, but he comes from the kingly family, the line of David, right, in an indirect way through Hezekiah the king. Put a genealogy up here, I know those names are really small and I know you can't read them, I didn't put it up there so you could read them, okay? So don't feel bad, don't throw anything at me. Here's what I want you to see. Down the right side are all of the kings of Judah, all of them listed out. Down the left side, that sort of curved line, those are the kings of Israel, the northern kingdom and you can see where that line ends and the other one ends. The name in red, I know you can't read it, but it says Hezekiah and you can go down four generations Hezekiah to Manasseh to Ammon to Josiah and we know from Zephaniah 1-1 that He traces it back to somebody named Hezekiah and that He says He lived during the days of Josiah and you can just see, count down from that red box, I know it's hard to see, but Josiah, He's way down there at the end. This story is almost over right here. This line of kings is just about seeing the end before Babylon comes and hauls them out of here and the name right under Hezekiah is Manasseh. He's known as one of the absolute worst kings in the history of Israel, a totally, totally rotten guy and his kids and green kids were not great folks, but Josiah turned out to be okay and I want to read about Mr. Josiah, so hold your spot in Zephaniah and flip back to the left and look at me at 2 Kings, chapter 22, just so you know something of the king who was alive when Zephaniah preached, 2 Kings 22. Look at 2 Kings 22. Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Jedidah, the daughter of Adiah of Bose-Keth and he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and he walked in all the way of David, his father and he did not turn aside to the right or the left. In the 18th year of King Josiah, the king sent Shaphon, the son of Azaliah, the son of Machulam, the secretary to the house of the Lord, saying, "Go up to Hezekiah the priest that he may count the money that has been brought to the house of the Lord, which the keepers of the thresholds have collected from the people." He talks about workmen and making repairs and buying timber. He says, "Trust these guys, they're going to be honest," and then jump down and look at verse 8, "Hezekiah the priest said to Shaphon, the secretary, lo and behold, I have found the book of the law and the house of the Lord." Who would have thought to look for it there? And they go when they're making these repairs and they find the Old Testament, they find the law and apparently they've been living without it for some time. And what happens when Josiah and Hylkiah and these guys find the law is that they read it, they read it to the people and revival breaks out amongst the people. Zephaniah, most scholars will tell you, preached and wrote and ministered as a prophet before they found the law in the temple and before this revival broke out. So somewhere between little Josiah, 8 years old, they put him on the throne, then 10 years later when he's 18, they start looking around, digging around, cleaning up the temple, they find the Bible. Here in that 10 year window you put Zephaniah and he's looking at a group of people led by an 8 year old king and this king's father and grandfather were knuckleheads and totally led Judah into sin and he's looking at all of this ugliness in his nation and he has some serious things to say about it on God's behalf. And so that is Mr. Zephaniah and that gives you some idea of when he's preaching. Again, put that, there it is, it's still up there, that genealogy. You just look at that flow of that story and you come down from that red box, Manasseh, Ammon, Josiah and then it's pretty much over. That's when Babylon starts coming and hauling people off into exile. They're really, really, really close to God bringing judgment on them for their sin. And so with that point being made, look at the outline of the book. It's a lot about judgment, judgment against Judah because they're wicked, judgment against the nations because they're wicked, judgment against Judah and the nations because they're both wicked and then finally at the end there's promise of restoration and there's a little bit of hope. So that's the overall outline. Pretty simple book. We're not going to read it all. You can do that. Like I said, it's not a difficult book to work through, especially when you understand the setting and you understand the outline. I didn't put this on your outline this week and I don't have it up on the slide. But I did look up what does Zephaniah mean and the meaning that I found is that it means the Lord conceals, the Lord hides, which is an interesting name for a prophet whose job is to speak for the Lord and to make things known. So sometimes you look at these prophets and you say, oh man, his name is perfect for what God called him to do. And sometimes you say, well, his name is Zephaniah really doesn't have anything to do with what God called him to do is just what his name was. So there you go, Mr. Zephaniah. What you see in this book, three chapters, is that the whole thing is about God. It's about who God is. It's about what he's like. It's about what he's going to do. And you understand Zephaniah preaching before this revival breaks out under Josiah and He'll kiah the priest. Everything is spiritually very, very dark. And Zephaniah's job is to go to these people and you saw on the timeline, they're really close to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar coming and marching against the city, flattening the temple, destroying it all and hauling the people into exile. That's right around the corner. And his job is to come and to say, look, judgment is coming. God's not going to put up with your sin. He's not going to tolerate your sin. And here's why. And so the whole book points the people back to who God is and why that matters. So what do we learn about God? Number one, God alone is God. That's a pretty simple lesson. And the people had totally forgotten it. God alone is God. God is angry because these people are idolatrous. And we'll just read a little bit from chapter one. Look at Zephaniah one. We've already read verse one. So begin in verse two. Here's the message. How do you like this for the opening line of a book? I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth. There you go. God's not happy. I'll literally sweep away everything from the face of the earth that clears the Lord. 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 with the wicked. I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth that clears the Lord. I will stretch out my hand and then he narrows this a little bit. I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. That's his people. I'll stretch my hand out not to save them like he did in the Exodus. The arm of the Lord is powerful to save. Now he says, I'm going to stretch out my hand against them and I'm going to cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and you could circle that word. You see the sin of the people in the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests. Those who bow down on the roofs to the host of heavens. So they're worshiping Baal. They're worshiping these other idols. They're worshiping the stars. Those who bow down and swear to the Lord. Now that's interesting, right? They're still bowing down to Yahweh. So it's not like they've just totally turned their back on Yahweh. It's just that they forgot that God alone is God. They wanted to add to their existing deity to the Lord, the God of Israel. They didn't get rid of him. They just added Baal and they added the stars and it says right here in verse 5, they swore to Milcom, another God of the Canaanites. They've turned back from following the Lord who do not seek of the Lord or inquire of him. So they have forgotten that God alone is God. I think sometimes we make the exact same mistake. Julie put the second picture up there of Miss Oprah. Ah, there she is. Doesn't that give you warm fuzzies, Miss Oprah? There's a video you can Google it. I thought about showing it and I didn't want lightning to strike the sanctuary. So I didn't load it up tonight. In this video, I think it's a couple years old. I think I saw it for the first time a couple of years ago. It's Oprah. It's about a five minute video or something. It's Oprah in a bunch of celebrities and they got together and they had an old fashioned camp revival and it's Oprah and I won't name any of the other names but you would know a lot of the faces and the people there. They go out and they set up sort of an old time looking stage and they have these umbrellas out and they all sort of dressed up in kind of old period clothing, whatever. They go out there and they sang a bunch of "Gospel Songs" and they had "Gospel Preaching" and they interviewed all these people that were there at it, including Oprah. I think the direct quote from Oprah was, we had such a great time, Jesus showed up and showed out. You listen to that. If you didn't know anything else about Oprah, you would think, "Man, this lady's like leading revivals. This is fantastic. I mean, watching the video. If all you knew about her was the video, you sit there and you say, "Wow, this is just really amazing. All these celebrities coming together and talking about Jesus." Then you've got all these people who leave and Jesus isn't part of their life, but you understand that's the society we live in. People don't see a problem with that. I'm going to go here. I'm going to go with this revival. I'm going to get a little bit of Jesus. It's going to pump me up. It's going to be encouraging. Jesus is going to show up. Jesus is going to show out. And then I'm going to forget about him and I'm going to go do my own thing. That's exactly what they're doing in Judah, in Zephaniah's day. They're going to the temple. He says they're bowing down to the Lord and they're bowing down to this God and they're worshiping the stars of the heavens and they're worshiping Millcom and they're worshiping the bales on and on and on and on and on. It goes. These people have forgotten that God alone is God. Let's move on. God alone is God. Number two, God is active. He's active. Chapter one, verse 10 to verse 13. On that day declares the Lord a cry will be heard from the fish gate, a whale from the second quarter and a loud crash from the hills. I know that you're not familiar with all those places but it's places within the city of Jerusalem. He's talking about the capital of Judah. There's going to be crying, there's going to be wailing, there's going to be loud crashing. Verse 11, "whale, O inhabitants of the mortar, for all the traders 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." Underline that word complacent. Those who say in their hearts the Lord will not do good nor will he do ill. That's kind of an interesting thing to say, right? The Lord will not do good and the Lord will not do ill. Their good 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. What you have in Zephaniah's day, Julie, will you go back and put that list of kings up? Yeah, the genealogy, all those little bitty tiny names, yeah, that one. What you've got is a bunch of people who have been sitting around in Jerusalem. Jerusalem is this far right column of names, all these king, king after king after king after king after king, and they've heard all these prophets. They've heard Elijah, and they've heard Elijah, and they've heard Isaiah, and they've heard Jeremiah's around about the same time Zephaniah is, and you've heard all these prophets that walk in, and what do these prophets keep saying? God's going to punish you for your sin. God is going to get you, he's coming, and these people in Jerusalem, they look over at their friends over on that left line of kings in Israel, in Samaria, and they saw what happened to those guys. They got wiped out by the Assyrians, but they're sitting pretty in Jerusalem, and they feel very comfortable, and they feel very secure, and they have this idea that God loves Jerusalem, he will never turn his back under Jerusalem, and he's not going to do anything. Nothing is going to happen. You prophets keep showing up saying that judgment is coming, and nothing ever happens. God doesn't come to do good. He doesn't come to do ill. He doesn't care. He's not interested. He's not involved. They've basically turned God into the God of Deism. He's up there. Chapter 1 says, "They still bow down to Him in a sense, it's empty and it's meaningless, but in their hearts what they really think is nothing's going to change, it's just going to be the same." You keep talking about judgment, and nothing ever happens. Hold your spot in Zephaniah, and flip all the way to the right, to the almost the end of your Bible, and look at 2 Peter chapter 3. This sort of attitude did not die with Zephaniah. It was around in Peter's day, and it didn't die in Peter's day, it's around in our day too. Here says about it, 2 Peter 3, starting in verse 1, it says, "This is now the second letter that I'm writing to you beloved, and both of them I'm stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember, stirring up your mind, reminder, remember the predictions of the holy prophets, Zephaniah, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah. Remember what they said. Remember the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires, and they will say, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the Father's fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation." You keep saying God's going to blow everything up, He never does. Not going to happen, verse 5, they deliberately overlooked this fact that the heavens existed long ago when the earth was formed out of water and through water by the Word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. Scholars debate that, but I think it's pretty clear that what He's saying is you're forgetting that God did bring worldwide judgment once upon a time, it's called the flood. You forgot it. Forgot it, verse 7, "By the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are being stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly." So Peter dealt with the same thing. You and I deal with the exact same thing. People who laugh and say, "Oh, you Christian, you're always talking about the end is coming, Jesus is going to come back, God's going to judge everybody, it's going to be bad for unbelievers, nothing ever happens." People have thought that way in Zephaniah's time, in Peter's time, and in our time in Zephaniah would remind them God is active. Do not think He's going to sit back and do nothing forever. He's patient, He has a plan, He has a time appointed, but He's going to do it, and these people learned at the hard way that God did eventually bring judgment on them. Number three, God is just and merciful. He's just and He's merciful, and this is sort of the riddle of the Old Testament that we keep seeing. We know we're almost to the end of the Old Testament, but we've saw it all the way back in the book of Numbers. We've seen it in the book of Psalms. We've seen it all the way through the Old Testament scriptures. There's this idea of how can God be both of those things. Is He more one than the other? Is He both? Look what we read in chapter 1, verse 15. Talks about a day of wrath is the day. It's 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, blasts and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. That's a bad day. It's a day of judgment when justice is served. Look at verse 18. God says, "Your silver and your gold will not be able to deliver you. You won't be able to buy your way out of it. You can't pay for protection. You can't pay me off." In chapter 2, verse 3, this is a fascinating verse. We're thinking about this day that's coming, a bad day. 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. Look at that one more time. Seek the Lord you humble. The ones who do His just commands. Seek righteousness, seek humility and perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord. Maybe some of you guys have heard the old story about there's a farmer and this was back during the dust bowl days and he's doing his best to grow a crop and it's just dry, dry, dry and finally gets a little pitiful looking crop growing and here comes this big prairie fire coming across right towards this farm and he does his best to sort of build barriers or burn barriers, different things. He does what he can do but really he just loses the whole thing. It's just all charred and then when he's done he's walking through his field and up close to the farmhouse he sees a hen just well done. Black as can be and he's frustrated and he's angry and he's sad and he walks up to that old burn dead hen and he kicks that hen and when the hen goes flying out run three chicks. They lived because they took shelter in a safe place and Zephaniah is saying that's what you need to do. There is a day coming that's going to be like a blazing prairie fire blowing here that's going to destroy everything and you need to seek the Lord and do it with humility and perhaps, perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the Lord. You understand that's what happened to believers when Jesus Christ died on the cross. We're not going to look at it tonight, we've looked at it before in our Old Testament study. You can just jot down Romans 3, 25 to 26 and it talks about God being both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. And you understand in sort of a symbolic picture esque way what Jesus did on the cross is just sort of cover us and we took refuge under him when the wrath of God was poured out in all of its fullness. And like that chick, Jesus died, he absorbed all of it and we run free just like in the story, just like what Zephaniah is talking about here. So God is both just and he is merciful. Number four, he's the judge of all the earth or the judge of all the world. And you can read in chapter two to chapter three the things that it says about God judging these nations, talks about Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, talks about the Charathites, talks about Askelon, Ashkelon again, talks about Moab, the Ammonites, talks about Gamora, talks about all of these nations, the Kushites, Assyria, Nineveh, God is going to judge all of these nations. And again, I know that I'm just beating a dead horse because we're here at the end of the Old Testament and you see the same thing over and over again. But you know there's a lot of people who like to laugh at the Old Testament and say it was just all about judgment, it's just anger, anger, anger, anger. Well, it is that there is a lot of it, especially in the minor prophets who are trying to warn people about what's to come. But there is balance to that in the scriptures and the balance you can jot down Revelation seven, nine to twelve and it talks about a multitude being before the throne of God and they come from every nation, every tribe, every people, every tongue, every language. And both of those things are true when you look at the picture of God in scriptures. He is the judge of all the nations and He will punish them and do what is right. He is also the Savior of people from all nations. He's the judge of all the world and lastly, as I just stole my own thunder, God's the Savior of His people. We'll just read the end of the book and wrap it up. Verse 39, "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." That phrase, calling upon the name of the Lord, ought to make you think of Romans 10. Those who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Help on the name of the Lord and they'll serve Him with one accord, "From beyond the rivers of Cush, my worshippers, the daughter of my dispersed ones, shall bring my offering. On that day you shall not be put to shame because 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 mountain." Meaning in verse 11, you are rebellious and haughty. But I'm going to do something in you and among you to change that. You can't change that, but I'm going to do something. I will leave in your midst of people humble and lowly. This is the remnant. And they will seek refuge in the name of the Lord. You can jot right out there, Zephaniah 3.12, and you can just make a little note and you can say, "Zephaniah 2.3, perhaps you may be hidden in the day of the anger of the Lord." They will 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 the 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 exalt 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, and you shall never again fear evil. And right out there beside Zephaniah 3.15, you can just write Revelation 21 and 22, 2021 and 22. That talks about Jesus Christ coming back. He's the King of all kings. He's in the midst of his people, and there's no more evil in all of the new creation. And 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." You talk about verses inspiring songs, we sing the song "Mighty to Save," there you go. He is a mighty one who will save. So the next time you hear a praise song and you're tempted to say, "Oh, that's just a cheap." We just sing the same thing over and over again, they just made up some of it's in the Bible, so you don't like the Bible. He just said that. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. That's an amazing verse. You spend the next week just thinking about that. Not only does it say that God's going to do something among these sinful people to make them not sinful, we don't exactly understand in Zephaniah how that's going to happen. You and I understand that it happened through Jesus Christ. He says, "I'm going to make you who are sinful, not sinful, and I'm going to be in your midst among you." And in Zephaniah's day you say, "How can a holy God be in the midst of a sinful people? It just doesn't make sense. God keeps saying he can't do it." He's going to make these people holy. He's going to be in their midst. And then in our minds we go to Revelation and we say, "We're going to be there with the multitude of people from every tribe and nation and language, and we're going to be praising God and singing to God in heaven. It's going to be great." It's part of the truth. The other part of the truth is that God sings not to but over his people, meaning God himself looks on his people and he celebrates with a song saying, "I did a really good job in saving these people." He says, "He pats himself on the back." Absolutely. He pats himself on the back. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He won't do it regretfully. He won't rejoice over his people at the end and say, "Oh, I don't know if it was worth it." All we went through with Jesus and the man of sorrows and rejected and the cross and the grave. Oh, man, look at these knuckleheads. He rejoices over his people with gladness. 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 don't think he needs a sound system and I bet it's louder than any sound system you've ever heard and he's going to exalt over his people with loud singing. That's going to be amazing. I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival so that you will no longer suffer approach. At that time I will deal with all your oppressors and I will save the lame and gather the outcast and I will change their shame and praise and renown and all the earth. At that time I will bring you in the time when I gather you together. 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. Here's what I want you to see on that last section, God is the savior of his people. The only time you get a glimmer of hope in Zephaniah, it comes from God saying what he's going to do to save his people. It doesn't come from God saying one of these days I got my fingers crossed that you guys are going to get your act together and pull yourselves up by your spiritual bootstraps and we're just going to get along great. One of these days I'm going to do something so amazing. I'm going to take prideful, haughty, rebellious people and I'm going to make you pure and clean so that I can dwell among you and be with you and that not only can you worship me face to face but that I can exalt over you with a loud song and celebrate what I've done for you and I restore your fortunes and all the peoples look at you, my people who I've saved and they're amazed at what I've done for you. That's great hope and that's the way Zephaniah ends and it's pointing us, you saw the timeline, it's pointing us straight to Jesus and in the order of the canon, the books of the Bible, we're really close, we're right on the doorstep of the New Testament and in history we're just right there, just one turn of the corner away from being at the birth of Jesus. On that we'll end Zephaniah, I'll pray.