Good morning. I invite your attention to the
third chapter of the prophecy of Zephaniah. Zephaniah chapter 3. And forgive me, Paul, what time
is this service over? Okay. I'm due to fly back on the 26th
of this month. Let me tell you a story. My wife Sandy and I, We try to
come home once a year in the spring to visit our aging families
and parents, siblings, and to see our grandchildren. We try to spend time on the road
visiting our friends and churches with an interest in our ministry
down there. in the Virgin Islands. On this trip, I think that within
about 30 days I'm preaching, I think 20 times in 19 different
places, but we're just traveling around and we endeavor to do
this every spring. So I go to the Crossville Conference
last spring. your pastor's wife just royally
scolded me when she said, you were in Winston-Salem and that's
so close and you did not come to see us. So I probably will
not make that mistake again. And then this time I called Paul
and told him that I wanted to come see Doris and Henry and
Mindy, and asked if I could stay with him, and Paul consented. So we are here and delighted
to be with you, and we thank you so much for your kindnesses
to us, and we pray the Lord be pleased to meet with us today
as we gather here in the name of His Son. Zephaniah chapter 3. describes
the wickedness of Jerusalem, verses 1 through 7. The Lord describes His faithful
remnant in verses 8 through 13. In that section, He says in verse
11, in that day, and that is A favorite phrase among the latter
prophets in that day refers to the day of Messiah, the day of
Christ. And the Lord says that in that
day, verse 11, you shall not be ashamed for any of your deeds, and that He will take away the
pride from their midst. No one haughty, he says in verse
11, shall be in his holy mountain. He says in verse 11 that all
his people will be meek and humble, and everyone shall trust in the
name of the Lord. In verse 13 he says that the
remnant of Israel, that would be us in this day and age, we
live in that day, And he says that in that day the remnant
of Israel, now listen very carefully, listen to what it says, shall
do no unrighteousness. And what does that mean? It means
what it says. They will do no unrighteousness. It sounds almost like an apostle
who wrote and says that They do not sin and cannot sin. They do no unrighteousness. These
are the Lord's people. And they shall feed their flocks
and lie down, and no one shall make them afraid. Now the result
of the remnant of Israel hearing this word is this, saying, O
daughter of Zion, Shout, O Israel! Be glad and rejoice with all
your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem." This daughter of Zion, this Israel,
this daughter of Jerusalem, these are three synonyms for the church
of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Then the reason why they are
to sing and shout and be glad and rejoice are given. We here find four reasons. First of all, the Lord has taken
away your judgments, all the judgments against you. And second,
He has delivered because He has cast out your enemy. The third
reason for singing is that the King of Israel, the Lord Jehovah,
He is in your midst. And the fourth reason for singing
is that you shall see disaster, or you shall fear no more. And in that day it shall be said
to Jerusalem, do not fear, Zion, Let not your hands be weak." And then the description of our
Savior is given. The Lord your God in your midst,
the Mighty One, and He will do a number of things. Here they are. First, He will
save. Second, He will rejoice over
you with gladness. He will quiet you in His love. Fourth, He will rejoice over
you with singing. And note very well that we serve
the only God who sings. The gods of the heathen have
mouths, but they do not speak. Our God not only speaks, He sings
in our presence, and even says it in the midst of the congregation.
I will sing praise to my Father's name." Then he describes seven
things he will do. The prophet describes four things
he will do. Now he describes seven things
he will do. I will gather those who sorrow
over the appointed assembly or his church. In verse 19, I will deal with
all who afflict you. Number three, also verse 19,
I will save the lame. Fourth, again in verse 19, and
I will gather those who were driven out. The next line is the fifth thing
He will do, I will appoint them for praise and fame. in every
land where they were put to shame. The sixth thing he will do, he
says, is in verse 20, at that time I will bring you back, even
at the time I gather you. And then the seventh thing he
says I will do, found also in verse 20, I will give you, literally
it means a name, it's fame and praise, among all the peoples
of the earth, when I return your captives before your eyes, says
the Lord." I must tell you, this sounds like a very valiant and
gallant and great one who's going to do all this. And then I take my text from
verse 17. The first part, the Lord your
God in your midst, the mighty one will save. And this morning,
God willing, let us consider the subject of Jesus Christ,
my hero. A hero is a man of courage and
nobility, famed for his military achievements. He is an illustrious
warrior. I had heroes when I was growing
up, mostly sports figures. I loved sports when I was a wee
lad. I had sports particularly in
Major League Baseball and Professional Basketball. I would devour everything I could
read in the newspaper. I read their stats. I memorized
the stats. And I would read of their exploits.
And I collected their cards. And I was very proud of my heroes. Unhappily, when I became older,
I learned that their private lives were Not what I thought
a hero should be. I was very disappointed in my
heroes. But I do have one hero who has not disappointed me,
and I mean an earthly hero. I am blessed in that my greatest
earthly hero is my own father. He became my hero for the first
time, as I recall, when I was about five years of age. My family at that time was residing,
and I was the eldest of the children that would come along, but I
was five years old or so. And we were residing in Winston-Salem,
North Carolina. A brush fire broke out right
next to our house. And I was scared. A brush fire
coming very close to where we lived. And it was not long before
I heard the blaring of the fire engine. And the fire engine pulled
up and my father was a fireman. And he jumped off that engine
and grabbed the hose and smiled at me when he ran by. and extinguished the fire, saved
my house. I look back on that occasion
as the day when my father became my hero. And as I grew older,
I learned that he was a soldier in World War II. And time after
time, I would ask him to tell us of those exploits. with the
504th Parachute Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division. In our house,
many military men might have been spoken, but our favorite
general, even growing up, was jumping Jim Gavin. He jumped
with his troops. And I remember my father telling
of going to Fort Bragg and learning to jump and earning his boots.
enlisting like so many others of his generation, perhaps some
of you enlisting for the duration. He would tell us of North Africa,
parachuting into Sicily, fighting at Anzio and Salerno, being wounded
at the Bulge. From time to time I would open
that drawer and look at that purple heart and those medals
and those ribbons that uniform in his closet and these were
all the memorabilia of my hero, my
father. Unhappily, he won't be around
much longer. He's 90 years of age and we came
home for a reunion and we thought it was going to be a funeral.
because of his most recent infirmity, and it made me realize that I'm about to lose my favorite
hero. This one never let me down. But
I have another hero, even better, one that will never leave me,
one that will always be there, one who could Save my house better
than my father could. One who could save my nation
better than he could. One who will never be absent
when I need him. And I'd like to talk to you this
morning about Jesus Christ, my hero, par excellence. Many look upon him as being noble,
but not many look upon him as really a hero. He is to many
effeminate, not manly, weak, not strong. He is to many an
appeasing pacifist, not an illustrious warrior. He is to many submissive
before threats, not courageous against them. He is to many retiring
from conflict, not charging into the fray. He is to many one in
need of a hero, and not a hero to those in need. To many, He
is one who can't do anything unless you let Him, although
He wants to. And that's not my hero. That's not my hero. Holy Scriptures most emphatically
declare Jesus Christ to be a hero. He is a man of courage and nobility,
famed for his military achievements. He is an illustrious warrior. And the Scriptures do so by this
word in our text, translated, Mighty One. Mighty One is that
Hebrew word, gibur, Mighty One. And it means champion. The word
is used of Goliath. Who was Goliath? The champion,
the mighty one, the hero of the Philistines. Well, we who are Israelites have
our heroes too. We have our champions. This word
is used of Gideon in Judges 6.12. He delivered Israel from the
Midianites. This word is used of Jephthah
in chapter 11, verse 1 of Judges. He delivered Israel from the
Ammonites. David is called a man of war in 1 Samuel 16, 18. He
delivered Israel from the Philistine Gebur, from the Philistine champion,
from the Philistine mighty man. David did. We have our heroes,
do we not? These were not effeminate, afraid
men running from the fray. No, they charged into it for
the cause of righteousness and holiness. These were heroes and
champions. These were the kind of men you
want to fight the blaze that threatens your house. and the
armed forces that threaten your country. And Jesus Christ is
such a man. He is the Lord strong and mighty
in Psalm 24, verse 8, and there is that word, gebor, again, the
word mighty. He is Jehovah strong and mighty,
the Lord mighty in battle. In Psalm 45, verses 3 and 5,
His people besought Him in time of need, saying, gird your sword
upon your thigh, O mighty one, our giver, with your glory and
your majesty. And then your majesty ride prosperously
because of truth, humility, and righteousness. And your right
hand shall teach you awesome things. Your arrows are sharp
in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples fall under you."
That's my hero. That's my hero. When my hero fought with Pharaoh
in the Battle of the Red Sea, we read that he was called a
man of war, and he has triumphed gloriously. The horse and its
rider he has thrown into the sea, And the Lord is my strength
and my song and he has become my salvation. That's my hero. Let me tell you about my hero. He's my hero in this text. He
is Jehovah your God in your midst. He is the mighty one who will
save. He is the divine hero because
he is the Lord your God. He is the ever-present hero,
for He is the Lord your God in your midst. His name is Emmanuel,
meaning with us is God. He not only is the divine hero,
the ever-present hero, He is the delivering hero, for the
mighty one will save. Therefore, He rightly deserves
to be acknowledged as my hero. Let me tell you three things
about my hero, Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is my hero in the
battle against my deceiver. And I was deceived because I
am a Gentile by birth. My fathers in Old Testament times
were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel.
We were strangers from the covenants of promise. We had no hope and
we were without God and the world. Paul says we were far off in
Ephesians 2, verses 12 and 13. We lived in what the scriptures
called times of ignorance in Acts 17.30. Those were those bygone generations
when God allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. My forefathers, being Gentiles,
knew nothing of the blessedness of the Israelites. The Israelites
had the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of
the law, the service of God, and the promises. My forefathers,
and evidently yours, had none of those things. When Israel
was worshipping the Lord God Jehovah, my forefathers and yours
were bowing down to trees and rocks and worshipping the sun
and fearing the time it would go down and we could no longer
see our God. We worshipped ourselves and whatever
else we could worship. We had none of these promises. And unless God would intervene,
we were doomed. We could not deliver ourselves.
We had no hero. Our deceiver was too great for
us. And there we were, hopeless. And then one day, an angel came down from God out
of heaven. having a great chain in his hand,
and he laid hold of my deceiver, Satan the devil, and tied him
up and bound him and cast him into a bottomless pit. Satan no longer was ruler over
this world as he had been before, Because Jesus Christ, my hero,
had bound him and cast him out, set a seal on him that my deceiver
should deceive the nations no more till a thousand years were
finished. My hero now rules and reigns
over his kingdom, potentate of all, ruler And my deceiver has
been bound by my hero. And having disarmed principalities
and powers, my hero made a public spectacle of them, triumphing
over them in it. He now rules where Satan once
claimed dominion. And consequently, the Gentile
people, that's me, evidently you, Consequently, the Gentile
people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon
those who sat in the region in the shadow of death, light has
dawned. And my hero is that light. My hero has dispelled the darkness. My hero has overthrown my deceiver. My hero has delivered Gentile
peoples into the same glorious light that he had beforehand
made for his people Israel. That's my hero. He's my hero
in the battle against my deceiver. Second, Jesus Christ is my hero
in the battle for my soul. Because there I was. in the snare of the devil, having
been taken captive by him to do his will. I walked whatever
way Satan told me to walk. I walked according to the prince
of the power of the air, Satan, that prince of darkness. I walked
according to the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,
I was, according to Romans 6 verse 6, a slave of sin, and sin is
Satan's domain, and I was his slave. It had dominion over me. Sin
ruled and reigned over me, and I was its slave. It reigned in my body so much
that I could do nothing more than to obey its sinful lusts. I was dead in trespasses and
in sins, lifeless. I was incapable of delivering
myself from my master. I'm in his snare. I cannot deliver
myself. I have no hero among my peers,
for they are the same slaves that I am. But this Jesus Christ,
who delivered Gentiles from darkness through binding our deceiver,
having bound Satan one day strewed into the snare of the devil, And he said, the Spirit of Jehovah
is upon me for he has sent me to proclaim
liberty to the captives and to set at liberty those who are
oppressed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And he called
my name and my hero personally delivered me out of Satan's snare. I love him. I love my hero. Peter's in prison one night.
He's in chains, guards on both sides, and no
way to get out. And his hero walked in. Walked
in to where Peter was. nudged him, put on your garment,
come with me. The chains fell off, the guards
did not awaken, the gate opened and out he went. Jesus came into
my prison where I was sleeping in the death of sins, nudged
me, by His grace, awakened me from my death, gave me a garment
to put on, set arise, my chains fell off, the door to salvation opened,
and I walked out of prison with my hero. No longer in the snare of the
devil. Now that's my hero. What does yours do? That's what
mine does. Third, Jesus Christ is my hero
when Satan's forces besiege. And they often do. But my deceiver
was imprisoned for a thousand years. 2,000 years ago, and the 1,000 years still continue,
and He's still there, confined. And when 1,000 years are fulfilled,
He shall be released, perhaps already. He shall go out and
deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth,
Gog and Magog, and gather them together to make battle against
the Lord's Jerusalem, this very same Zion, Israel, daughter of
Jerusalem. Satan shall go up with his army
because he does not come out of prison rehabilitated. He's madder than ever. He cannot
touch the one who bound Him, but He can touch those who have
been delivered by Him. And now He comes against the
church of Christ. He shall besiege the holy city,
the Lord's Jerusalem, His church, across the face of the whole
earth. He shall besiege and make war. We who are inside that city,
members of our Lord's Church, may see the situation as being
so dire. We have no hope. We have no hope. And then at the moment when the
battle appears to be the darkest, here comes our hero. on a white
horse, coming out of glory, a sharp two-edged sword in his mouth, eyes flaming fire. The hosts of heaven's angels
are with him, and behind him come Gideon and Jephthah and
David Peter, James and John, all these
heroes who have fought valiantly for the Lord Messiah, here they
come to deliver His church and save His people and all who are
saved are all who trust in Him and they say, here comes our
hero. Now that's my hero. He says that in this final battle,
I'll be the only one standing in your midst. And he also says
this in our text, and here is his promise. The Lord your God
in your midst, the Mighty One will save. He will rejoice over
you with gladness. He will quiet you with His love. He will rejoice over you with
singing. Now this is what my hero does
for all who trust in him. He delivers them from their deceiver. He delivers their souls from
his snare. And he delivers his people when
Satan's army besiege. And there is not a hero in all
the world like this one. You'll never be ashamed of him
if he's yours. He'll never die. He'll always
be here. He'll always deliver when you
need it. And he does it for all who trust
in him. Now trust in Him. O God, our
Father, to the glory of Your name, magnify Your Son as our
hero, our giver, the mighty one, our champion. We pray You do
this to Your everlasting glory in Jesus' name. Amen.