Invite your attention to the
prophecy of Zephaniah chapter 3 Verse 17 is my text My subject
is Jesus Christ Joyfully sings over his church Zephaniah chapter 3 verse 17
Jesus Christ Joyfully sings over his church. There's a lot of
singing going on in this chapter. Look in verse number 14. Sing,
O daughter of Zion, that's the church. Shout means sing loudly. O Israel, be glad means to sing
loudly with gladness and rejoicing with all the heart, O daughter
of Jerusalem. Why? Well, I believe there might
be about four reasons here. First, Jehovah has taken away
thy judgments. Second, he hath cast out thine
enemy. Third, the King of Israel, even
Jehovah, is in the midst of thee. Fourth, thou shalt not see evil
anymore. Well, I think that's worthy of
a song, is it not? In that day, it shall be said
to Jerusalem, the church, fear thou not, and to Zion, let not
thine hands be slack. And here's the reason, and here's
the text. Jehovah thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty. Observe what he will do. He will
save. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. He will rest in his love. The translation probably is better,
he will quiet you in his love. and he will joy over thee with
singing." Here are the Lord's people told
to sing, and then they are told that their God sings. Consider
that we have the only God who sings, the only God. Our God is the only God who has
a mouth that can utter words and sounds. Other idols have
mouths but they cannot speak. Our God can speak not only that
he sings. He is recorded as singing in
at least a couple of instances in the book of Hebrews Chapter
2 we read, in the midst of the church I will sing praise to
God. That was Jesus Christ quoting
Psalm 22 verse 22. Jesus said I will sing in the
midst of the church. We have an instance of him doing
so when he instituted the sacred ordinance of the Lord's Supper.
The scriptures declared that when the supper was over They
sang a hymn and then went out to the Mount of Olives. Now consider
it for a moment. Jesus and his disciples sitting
around and they sang a hymn. He sang with them. Jesus sings. He sings with us. Notice his name is Jehovah thy
God in thy midst. His name is Emmanuel, God with
us. He says he walks in the midst
of his churches. He says where two or three are
gathered in my name, I am there in your midst. And he's here
this morning. He is. He's here. He said he
would be. And he is here as he said he
would be. As we sang this morning, he was
up and down the aisles listening and singing. He sings with us
in the midst of the congregation, I will sing. He sings with his
people when their songs are worthy of singing. And here he says,
I will sing over you. not merely with you. I will sing
over you, and I will do so with rejoicing. I will joy over thee
in singing. You're going to hear me sing,
and it will be a joyful song, and I will quiet you with my
love. In your trouble, in your toil,
in your tribulations, I'm going to sing to you." And he does. His songs encourage us. His songs
sometimes are like lullabies to us, but our Jesus sings to
us in fulfillment of the prophecy. He sings throughout the Song
of Solomon. That song or that book also has
the name of Canticles. Canticles has to do with love
songs. The whole book of the Song of
Solomon is Jesus Christ singing to his church, and she's singing
back to him all the way through. So it does not take long to read
it this afternoon, perhaps. Read that Song of Solomon and
read of Jesus Christ singing to his church. But here again,
I stress the fact that he is singing over his church. We do not have a specific instance
in which he did so, that there is none recorded. Unless, unless
it is in the hymn that is in your hymnal, and if you will
locate in your hymnal number 268 Hymn number 268, and there you
will find the hymn, How Firm a Foundation, Ye Saints of the
Lord, Is Laid for Your Faith, in His Excellent Word. Now what
you're going to find is this, that hymn originally, and unhappily,
the people who put the hymn in your hymn will left out two verses,
and I just kind of wish You know, hymn book composers would not
do that. I mean, two great verses to this
hymn are not in your hymnal, but I'm going to tell you what
they are. And you probably know what they are. You'll remember
them. But if you will notice, this hymn of seven verses, five
in your hymnal, the first verse is an introduction to the hymn.
And then the remaining verses are quotations from Jesus Christ
to his people. Hymn number 268 in your hymnal,
you'll notice that verses two, three, four, and
five begin with quotation marks. Did you notice that? Verse one
does not. The other verses begin with quotation
marks. Why is it? Here's the reason
why. These verses in quotation marks
are Jesus Christ singing over his church. Now I'm going to
show to you also the scripture references because each of these
verses is from a text of scripture in the Old Testament and also
in the New Testament and the hymn writer has done a great
job of taking the words of Jesus Christ in comforting his church. He has done a great job of taking
the words of Jesus Christ and putting them into rhyme and meter
in verse so that we could sing and hear Jesus Christ singing
to us as he rejoices over us with singing. Look at that first
verse. How firm a foundation. Well,
what good is a foundation unless it is firm? When you go to build a house,
you put it on a rock. And if there is no rock, you
make one. You dig down, you put footers,
and you make a foundation. You put a rock, you make one
out of concrete. And the deeper it is, the wider
it is, the bigger it is, the firmer is your foundation. How
firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, we have one, is
laid for your faith in his excellent word. Well, there's no other
place for your foundation. for saints of the Lord that is,
no other place. We do not back up what we say
with a confession of faith unless this is our confession of faith. We do not prove something is
good by quoting John Gill's Body of Divinity, though unsurpassed
as a systematic theology it may be. Our faith does not find its
foundation in Spurgeon's sermons, though the compilation of them
is perhaps the most worthy of any man of some sixty-some volumes. And they're worthy, but not for
your foundation. A.W. Pink was a great writer
and a great expositor, and I love and appreciate what he's written,
but it's not my foundation. The foundation is this in God's
word, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. What more
can he say than to you he had said? You who under Jesus for
refuge have fled. What more can he say? I mean,
when God got through writing his word, he said, if anybody
adds to this, I will put a curse on him. And if anyone takes from
this, I will put a curse on him. What's he saying? I have said
enough. I have said enough. We need nothing
more. Somebody comes along and says,
well, we have another testament of Jesus Christ. Suits you well. Go ahead and have it. Our God
has said enough. Here it is in his word. What
more can he say? There's nothing else to say,
ye saints of the Lord. So ye saints of the Lord, I want
you to listen to what Jesus Christ is going to sing today as he
rejoices over you with singing. Verse 2, unhappily, verse 2 in
this hymn is not in your hymnal, but it comes from Jesus' words
in Deuteronomy 33, verse 25, where he said, as your days,
so shall your strength be. Now, our many days on this earth
present us with many different circumstances. Sometimes we are on top of the
mountain and sometimes the mountain is on top of us. Sometimes we are healthy and
wealthy at home and at other times we are homeless and poverty
stricken and sick and infirm. A good number of us considerably aged here today. Someone was speaking with me
a little earlier and said, you know, that the Lord had been
good, but you know, life is sometimes hard. And I says, well, wait
until you get to be 70. And she said, well, I'm 90. So, but you know, life is different
every day. Every day. And yet the promise
here is, as your day, so shall your strength be. Paul the Apostle
says, I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know how to be abased. I know
how to abound everywhere and in all things. I am instructed
both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer
need. I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me. Now that is our comfort from
Christ. He's going to sing it to us.
He says, in every condition, in sickness, in health, in poverty's
veil, or abounding in wealth, at home and abroad, on the land,
on the sea, as thy days may demand, shall thy strength ever be. Whatever you need for that day,
he'll give it to you that day. I have heard of people say, I
wish I had dying grace. I wish I had dying grace. Well,
are you dying? Well, no, not yet. Well, then
you don't need it, do you? When you need dying grace, the
Lord will give it to you. Right now, I need living grace.
May he give plenty of it. But whatever I need for this
day, he's going to sing this song and he says, whatever your
need for today, I'm going to give it to you. And then we come
to verse number three in the hymn. It is found in your hymnal. It paraphrases Jesus' words in
Isaiah 41, verse 10, where he said, fear thou not, for I am
with thee. Be not dismayed, for I am thy
God. I will strengthen thee, yea,
I will help thee, yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand
of my righteousness. Well, I tell you right now, I
need to hear that from time to time. And Jesus not only says
it to me, he sings it. He sings it to me. Fear not! I need to hear that. Why should
I fear not? I am with you. When I was a wee
lad, I was afraid of nothing when my father was with me. We
could walk anywhere. Walk through the darkest cemetery
at midnight and never fear a thing because he's with me. He's with
me. Well, he's no longer with me. Lord has taken him home. But I have someone who is even
a greater comfort to me. And when I walk through a world
of darkness and death all around me, His words comfort me. He sings to me when we walk through
the cemetery of this life. Fear not, I am with thee, O be
not dismayed. I am your God. I will still give
you aid. I'll hold you up. You will not
fall. I will uphold you by my righteous,
omnipotent hand. And notice that the words are
in quotation marks. He sings it to us. It's a lullaby
that he sings to his people. He sings to them to let them
know that in every condition, there he is. Do not fear, I am
with you. I tell you, if I can but know
that Jesus is with me, I believe that even through the valley
of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. And he sings with
me all the way through it. Then we come to the next verse. Verse 4 in the hymn as it first
appeared, and this verse is also in your hymnal. It paraphrases
his words in Isaiah 43 verse 2, where he said, when thou passest
through the waters, I will be with thee. And through the rivers,
they shall not overflow thee. When thou passest, notice he
did not say when you go into the water, when thou passest
through the water. No, he did not say water. He
said waters. Waters. There are more than one
or two floods through which we must go in this life. More than
one or two. And he'll be with us in every
one of them. When thou passest through the waters, I will be
with thee. He showed it to Israel. He delivered
them out of Egyptian bondage with a strong hand and an uplifted
arm and led them out of the land. And then the children of Israel
looked, and lo and behold, here came Pharaoh after them, coming
to take them back to Egypt and put them back into slavery again. And the children of Israel were
making their progress, and they were coming to a place where
two walls, as it were, were coming together and hemming them in.
This wall is a mountain range. They cannot go over the mountain.
They cannot escape Pharaoh by going over the mountain. And
over here there is the Red Sea. They cannot go through the Red
Sea, cannot walk through it. There are no bridges, there are
no ferries, they cannot swim in. And Pharaoh coming up behind
them. They have come to the place where
there's no hope. No hope. until Moses said, stand
still and see Jehovah's salvation. And they stood still. And the
Lord put his cloud between Israel and Pharaoh, put Pharaoh into
darkness. And the children of Israel began
to hear God's breath begin to blow. God blew with his breath. And the water of the Red Sea
began to part bit by bit. There is a place in the Red Sea
the water is beginning to part. That parting goes deeper and
deeper and they look and there it is. They can now see the very
bottom of the Red Sea and God kept blowing it with his wind.
God blew with his wind through that night and every bit of the
mud and the slime on the bottom of the Red Sea. became dry, became
dry. The water stood up as a wall
on both sides of the dry ground. Now folks, this is not some little
alleyway. The children of Israel numbered
at least 150,000 men, plus wives, plus children. We're talking about probably
a couple of million people or more who need to get through
that Red Sea. The Lord made a way through the
Red Sea wide enough for them all. The Lord made a way through
the Red Sea and they walked through on dry ground looking at the
wall of water on both sides of them. Probably looking at the
the fish and such that were there watching them going through and
they're looking and lo and behold that wall, that wall of water
never comes down upon them, they go through. marveling at the
way that God has delivered them. They reached the other side,
every single solitary one of them. Not one drowned, not one
fell in the mud. There was none, for the Lord
had dried the seabed for them. They're on the other shore, and
Pharaoh says, ha ha, they can do it, so can I. And here he
comes, and the children of Israel began to wonder, oh, Lord, look,
Pharaoh's coming. And the Lord says, you'll see
him no more. And the Lord pulled his hand
back, and the Red Sea came in and drowned Pharaoh and all his
host, all his chariots, all his horses in the Red Sea. And the
children of Israel knew what it was. We passed through the
water, and he was with us. We passed through. They journeyed
for 38 years in the wilderness, and then it was time to go into
the promised land. And to get into the promised
land, they've got to cross the Jordan River. Now, the Jordan
River is not really all that big a river, except on this day. On this day, the scriptures declared
that it was overflowing all its banks. It's high flood season,
folks. It is flood season. The Jordan
River has overflowed every one of its banks. It is now much
bigger, much broader than it was before. And Joshua now tells
the children of Israel, walk across. What'd you say? Walk across. Joshua, it's flood stage. It is deeper than ever before,
broader than ever before. You said, walk across. And Joshua
says, well, that's what the Lord said. He said, walk across. How? Walk across. Now bring the Ark
of the Covenant. They brought the Ark of the Covenant,
put it on the shoulders of the men. And the men walked right
up to the Jordan River. It's overflowing its banks. They
wait for it to part, but it does not until they put their feet
down on the water, and then the water parts. Take another step,
and it parts even further. And they walked through the Jordan
River on dry ground, just as they had at the Red Sea. And
all the children of Israel walked along behind them, every step
of the way. The flood bothered them not. No one got wet. They passed through
the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan River. Now, do you
suppose he can do that for you? I mean, he's still the same.
He's still the same. You got floods in your life.
You got rivers in your life. You got seas in your life that
threaten to drown you. You got enemies pursuing you
and the sea in front of you. You wonder what's going to happen?
Here he sings. Listen to him sing. When through
the deep waters I call thee to go, the rivers of woe shall not
be overflow. For I will be with thee thy troubles
to bless and sanctify to thee thy deepest distress. That's
his song when you walk through the water. He's singing to you.
He's singing to you. The next verse. paraphrases Jesus'
words in three texts, Isaiah 43 verse 2, 2 Corinthians 12
verse 9, and Zechariah 13 verse 9, we'll reread. when thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. My grace is sufficient for thee,
for my strength is made perfect in weakness. And I will bring
them through the fire, and I will refine them as silver is refined,
and I will try them as gold is tried. They shall call on my
name, and I will hear them, I will say, It is my people and they
shall say Jehovah is my God. All right. He'll bring through
the waters and he'll bring through the fire. Always will do so. There are three Hebrew men, young
men. Their names are Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego. And the king said, When you hear the music, bow
down to my idol. And they'd already said they
would not. And the music was sounded. And everyone bowed down
except these three men. And there they are standing.
Oh, what a sore sight that was to the king. Everybody bowing
except these three Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Bring them to me. I'll teach
them a lesson and make an example of them. And so they brought
them to the king. And the king said, burn them
in my furnace. Now this furnace was considerably
bigger than any furnace you have ever seen before, I suppose.
Unless you work in a steel mill, perhaps. But it was a big one. You could walk into it. You could
walk around in it. It was probably a couple of stories
high or so. Why he needed a furnace that
big, I do not know, but everything Nebuchadnezzar did had to be
grand, epic scale. And so he built this big furnace,
and he said, heat it seven times hotter than ever before. And
so they did. The men began to man the bellows
and they heated up this furnace, seven times hotter, got it as
hot as it would go. And then Nebuchadnezzar said,
throw them three Hebrew men into my furnace. And they threw them
into the furnace. And he sat down at the door of
the furnace to watch them scream and holler and to perish in his
flame. Did anyone hear anything? No,
King, we heard not a word. Did they not scream? No, King,
they did not scream. You did throw the men, did you
not? Yes, King, they were thrown. In fact, your men who threw the
men, they were burned to a crisp. Well, then perhaps they didn't
have enough time to scream and holler. And he looks in there
and he says, wait a minute, I see them. There's, no, no, no, there's
four of them in there. How many did we throw in? Only
three, O king, only three. Well, they're walking around.
They're talking. One of them looks like the son
of God. I believe that is the son of
God. God has sent his son to walk into the furnace with the
three Hebrew children. And he did, he did. Jesus Christ
was there in that furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Jesus Christ was there. You know
what he was doing? Here's what he was doing. He
was singing to them. When through fiery trials thy
pathway shall lie, my grace all sufficient shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee,
I only desire thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. And he'll
sing that to you when you go through your furnace too. You
have troubles? You got an affliction here and
there? If you'll just listen carefully,
he sings to you with rejoicing. There is still another verse.
that quotes or that paraphrases Jesus's words in Jeremiah 31
verse 3 and Isaiah 46 verse 4, where Jesus says, yea, I have
loved thee with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving
kindness, I have drawn thee. And even to your old age, I am
he. And even to whore hairs will
I carry you. I have made, and I will bear. Even I will carry and will deliver
you. down to old age. I have loved
you, he says, with an everlasting love. Everlasting all the way
into the past to before the foundation of the world and everlasting
all the way into the future when time is no more. An immutable
love. A love that never changes. A
love that remains the same even when we are old and feeble and
infirm. There, there just may be some
of us here today. Like that. I recall the first
time I stood in this pulpit. Easter weekend, 1984. I believe
that was 35 years ago. 35 years ago. Oh, we were young then. How many
of you were here 35 years ago? Okay, good number of hands. Good
number of hands. But you don't look as young now
as you did then. He says, even down to whore hair,
when your locks have turned white and silver, I'm still the same. I still love you. I noticed some
of you came in this morning in wheelchairs. I see some parked
over here. Some of us are now walking with
canes. We're just not as spry as we
used to be. And he says, though, he sings
to us when we're in that shape. He does. He says, I'll carry
you. You remember when you were a
new lamb? You know how it was with the
new lamb? The shepherd comes out and calls his flock to go
with him, and the sheep They come and they follow the shepherd
as he leads them and he looks back and there's a little lamb,
a fresh born lamb. It's all enchanted with the world
around it. You know, there's a rock it has
never seen a flower over yonder and it's looking here and there
and the shepherd walks, come little lamb! And the little lamb
follows and then the little lamb is not very strong and legs are
not very sturdy, and it cannot keep up with the flock, and the
shepherd is leading his flock, and he looks back, and the older
sheep, they're keeping up, but the little lamb, it's having
trouble keeping up with the rest of the flock, so the shepherd
says to the sheep, y'all stay here just one minute, and he
goes back, and he gets the little lamb, picks it up, puts it in
his bosom, and walks with it. He did that with us when we were
wee lambs, when we could not keep up with the flock. He came
back and carried us. He came back and carried us. And then we could walk with the
rest of the flock. And we did so for many years.
But now some of us can no longer keep up. I mean, you see the
wheelchairs, you see the canes, we cannot keep up with the flock.
We wish we could. We did it one time, but things
are different now. You know, our legs just won't
handle it. Our strength is not there. And
the shepherd is leading his flock out to the pasture, and he looks
back and there's the old sheep. Come on, old sheep. Lord, I'm
trying, but my legs won't handle it. I don't have the strength."
Don't worry about that. The shepherd comes back and he
says back to the sheep. You stay here just a minute.
He goes back and gets the old sheep now. Picks it up. He says,
I carried you when you were a lamb and I can carry you now. And
he sings, even down to old age all my people shall prove my
sovereign eternal unchangeable love. And when hoary hair shall
their temples adorn, like lambs they shall steal in my bosom
be born. And he sings to us as he carries
us all the way to glory. Listen carefully. He'll sing
to you. One more verse. It quotes Jesus Christ in Hebrews
13, verse 5, where he said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake
thee. I will never leave thee, nor
forsake thee. And actually, this is not the
best translation of the verse because it is one of those verses
that it's just almost impossible to exactly translate. For one reason, there are five
negatives in this one, in those short words. In the Greek text,
there are five negatives. Greek professor, seminary Greek
professor preaching in a rural church one time and he said to
the people, you know, the country people, he said, you know, he
says, the Lord, I don't know if you know this or not, but
the Lord said five negatives in one verse. He's given you
five assurances of what he will do and some The elderly lady
said to him, well he might have to say it five times, you Greek
professors, but once is enough for me. And that's true, if he
says it once, that's enough. But, even more so, in these five
negatives, there are two sets of double negatives. Double negatives. Now double negatives in English,
bad grammar. As in, I don't got no money.
That's a double negative. It's bad English. But in Greek,
it's perfectly acceptable to use a double negative and it
gives reinforcement to the thought. But as I said, how can you translate
it into English and still have good grammar? John Trapp said, It may be translated,
I will not not lead thee, neither will I not not forsake thee. There's your five negatives,
two sets of double negatives. And the hymn writer has done
an admirable job with this. The hymn writer has taken the
words that were spoken to Moses and Joshua, I will never leave
thee. These words were spoken to Jacob,
I will never leave thee. These words were spoken to Israel
in the wilderness, I will never leave thee. These words were
spoken to believers today. If you'll listen to them, you'll
hear him sing. The soul that on Jesus has leaned
for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes. That
soul though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never, no never,
no never forsake. Did you see the five negatives?
The two double negatives? I will never, no never, no never
forsake. He never will. He never will. I concur. The Lord is my helper. I will not fear what men will
do unto me. And this is Jesus Christ joyfully
singing over his church. People ask, who's your favorite
singer? Who's your favorite singer? I
can answer that question in a heartbeat. It's Jesus Christ. I love to
hear him sing. The ear of faith can often hear
him. I'll never, no never, no never
forsake. And I hope you can hear him.