Zephaniah chapter 2. Zephaniah
was the last of the Old Testament prophets before Israel was actually
carried away into captivity in Babylon. You've noticed in our
studies we've gone through these that quite a few prophets told
us that it would happen. Zephaniah is the last prophet
in Israel before it actually does happen. And Lord did it
that way to give Israel a lot of space to repent. He gave them
a lot of time of warning, and then the time actually came.
And that's the way our Lord works. God's purposes ripen slowly,
but they always eventually ripen and come to their full bloom.
And that's why, even though the Lord moves slowly, that's why
we're to seek the Lord with some urgency. because we don't know
when the time will come, his purpose will come to pass. And
that's what Zephaniah tells, is prophesying and telling Israel. And he's just like all the prophets
that we've looked at. He begins his prophecy, and actually
he spends most all of the time of his prophecy, laying out God's
charge against Israel, telling them about God's judgment on
their sin. And we've got to start preaching
that way. That's where our preaching must begin. Because nobody is
ever gonna seek mercy from God until they see their sin. Not
just what their sin deserves, but their sin, their problem
of sin. Seeing that's the only thing
that'll cause us to seek mercy from the Lord. We'll never appreciate
God's mercy until we see what our sin really does deserve.
And in Zephaniah's day, there was much for God to be angry
about. He could have given Zephaniah
a very, very long list of things that offended his holiness. And
if you read through this short book, you'll notice this is a
lot like our day. Idolatry and false religion ruled
the day in Israel. The men who are supposed to speak
for God, the priests, the Levites, the men, the, not the prophets,
but the scribes and the Pharisees, these men who are supposed to
speak for God, who are supposed to be the ones proclaiming the
truth to Israel. What they did is they compromised
with false religion. You know, we'll just, there's
several idols, you know, we'll just, we'll just combine, you
know, what they're doing with what we're doing. Everybody get
along. And when they did that, they
turned the worship of the Lord into idolatry. There was no,
you know, there's part good and part bad. It was all bad. It
was all idolatry. And whenever that happens in
a country, in a region, when there's compromise in the pulpit,
the morals of society go down the drain. That's what happened
in Israel on Zephaniah's day. It's happening in our day for
the exact same reason. It's no wonder God said He's
coming to destroy the land in His wrath. And unless something
happens quickly, same thing's gonna happen in our life. So
Zephaniah's message is very applicable to us. This isn't just some old
history. This is very applicable to our
day. And I don't say all that to scare
you to death. I say that to point you to Christ
and give you hope in Christ. Zephaniah's name, means to hide
or means the secret of the Lord. Well, now it's no secret that
God's holy and God hates sin. It's no secret that one day God's
coming to judge sin. He'll destroy every rebel who
refuses to bow to him. That's no secret. And it's no
secret that God saves sinners. Almost everybody in the world
knows Jesus Christ died on a cross to save sinners. Almost everybody
knows that. But here's the secret of the
Lord that Zephaniah reveals to us. God doesn't have to save you.
That's the secret. God's gonna save somebody, but
God does not have to save you. So the thing for us to do is
to seek mercy from the Lord. And a better way to say that
may be to say we can't do anything to make God save us. God's not
obligated to save us because we walk an aisle or we say a
sinner's prayer. God's not obligated to save us
because we're baptized and join the church. God's not obligated
to save us if we tithe or live what people call the Christian
life. Because God's not obligated to the creature in any way at
all. God's not obligated to us at
all. We are totally dependent upon God to save us. So what
we're to do is to call on God, to seek him and beg mercy from
the Lord and then wait to see what he's pleased to do with
us. This is the secret. Here's another way to say the
same secret. We're in the hands of the Lord to do with as he
pleases. It's not the other way around.
The question is never, what will you do with Jesus? The question
is, what's he going to do with you? Because he's not obligated
to save you. So the title of the lesson this
morning is, it may be that the Lord will save. It may be. Now
look here at verse one of Zephaniah chapter two. He says, gather
yourselves together. Yea, gather together, O nation
not desired. Now the way he begins to describe
us here is a nation that's not desired. What he means is there's
no reason that you can find in us for God to desire any of us. You and I are useless. We're
spiritually useless. We can't do anything to add anything
to God. Matter of fact, He may hurt His
reputation if He's seen with the likes of you and me. You
know, when the Pharisees saw our Lord with the likes of people
like us, to them, to their estimation, that hurt His reputation. They
said, oh, the scandal. This man receiveth sinners and
eats with them. And it's understandable that
they think that because we're undesirable by nature. We're
not beautiful. We're ugly and defiled with sin. There's no goodness in us that
would cause God to be drawn to us. We're nothing but sin. So there's no reason that God
would desire anybody like us. No reason found in ourselves,
but there's a reason found in him. It's his mercy and his goodness. And that's why God, sends this
summons to tell people to gather together before him. Isn't that
gracious? God tells sinners, now you gather
together before me. God gives plenty of room for
repentance, plenty of space. Look here at verse two. He said,
you gather together, O nation not desired, before the decree
bring forth, before the day passes the chaff, before the fierce
anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord's
anger come upon you. Now God's anger, is coming and
it will destroy everything in its path. Just like the fierce
fire just incinerates the chaff. The chaff doesn't have a chance
of surviving that fire, just be incinerated. And that's what
Zephaniah is telling us. The day of God's anger against
our sin is coming and you and I don't have anything to sustain
ourselves from that fire of his judgment. You know, people in
false religion talk about the Lord like he's this mental, emotional
weakling. You know, he just, he loves everybody
no matter what. He just wants to be part of your
life no matter what. If you just let him, he just,
oh, he's a weakling. That's not who this scripture
is describing, is it? And that's not who the rest of
God's word describes either. The whole Bible describes a Lord
who's holy. The Bible describes a Lord who
has a fierce anger against sin. The Bible describes the Lord
coming to destroy sinners in His anger like a lion leaps out
to devour its prey. Now that being the case, that
being what the Word says, who's in control here? Well, it's not
the creature, is it? It's the Lord. He's the one who's
in control. So since we're undesirable, nothing
in us that would attract the Lord to us. He's the one who's
in control. He's coming to destroy sin. What
should sinners like us do? What should we do? Well, thankfully,
the Lord doesn't leave us to our own devices. He tells us
what to do. Look at verse three. He says, seek the Lord. Seek
ye the Lord. You who are gathered here this
morning, you seek the Lord. all ye meek of the earth, which
have wrought his judgment. Seek righteousness, seek meekness. It may be you should be here
in the day of the Lord's anger. Isn't it gracious that the Lord
who we have sinned and rebelled against tells us you seek me. And the word seek here, it means
this is an earnestness. This is an urgency. Seek out
by any means possible. That's what that word means.
To seek out by prayer and supplication. To go to the Lord in prayer and
beg him to reveal himself to you. That's what this word seek
means. Well, this doesn't sound like that pitiful little Jesus
that'd just save you if you let him, does it? This sounds like
the Lord who's on the throne and we're to beg him, we're to
seek you. And he tells us here, how should
a sinner seek the Lord? Well, first of all, we're told
you seek the Lord in meekness, and the meek will seek the Lord.
If you would seek the Lord, seek the Lord as a beggar who doesn't
deserve anything from you. Seek the Lord as the worst sinner
who's got no reason to be proud or haughty before the Lord. When
he says here to all you meek of the earth which have wrought
his judgment, that means those of you who deserve God's judgment. The word wrought, it means to
systematically or habitually see. So the things we've done
deserve God's judgment. Now you who have done all these
things to deserve God's judgment and deserve God's wrath, you
don't have a reason to be proud, do you? Then you seek the Lord
in meekness. Seek mercy in meekness. And someone who's meek is a person
who's humble and dependent. That's how we're to seek the
Lord in humility and completely dependent upon him. We don't
seek the Lord saying now, Lord, I've done this much and you help
me get the rest of the way. No, we seek the Lord in dependence.
We need him to do everything for us. So when you seek the
Lord, you seek him because you need him. You seek him because
you have to have him. You seek him because you're dependent
on Christ to save you. Seek the Lord because you need
the Lord to do something for you you can't do for yourself.
You seek the Lord to make you righteous. We can't do anything
to make ourselves righteous. So seek the Lord who does make
his people righteous. And we can't pay for our sin.
So seek the Lord to pay for your sin. That's seek him to do something
for you. You can't do for yourself. Again, I point this out, the
false religion of the day. This isn't letting the Lord save
you, is it? No, the meek don't let the Lord
do anything. The meek are begging him to do
what we cannot do. And this word meek, it also means,
I thought this was interesting, it means depressed or browbeating. You know, you'll never seek mercy
until your sin makes you depressed. Now, I'm not saying go around,
you know, like the Puritans, you know, just you gotta act
depressed all the time. You know, when a person's depressed,
they're depressed because they can't see a way that their situation
will ever get any better. Their situation is just so bad.
They don't see it ever ending. There's no hope. I tell you when we'll seek mercy
from the Lord. When we see we can't do anything
to make our situation any better. That's when we'll seek. When
we see that everything we do is sin and our sin just makes
the situation worse. That's when we'll seek mercy
from the Lord. to seek the Lord in meekness. Like a depressed person seeks
joy and like a person who browbeats themselves. When I saw that definition,
I thought about the publican in the temple. Remember those
two men that went to the temple to pray? The one was a Pharisee.
He wasn't humble. There wasn't a humble bone in
that man's body. He talked about all the things
he'd done. But the publican, oh, he was depressed. He was
browbeating himself. He was beating on his chest,
crying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. I wish God would
make that the prayer of my heart. That man found mercy. Didn't
he find mercy? Our Lord himself said that man
went down to his house justified. The Lord did for him what he
could not do for himself. He had mercy on you. And here's
something else about the meek. The meek are willing to beg at
the feet of Christ. And that's good. To be just meek,
to know you're worthless, to know the place you belong, is
begging the Lord at His feet. I'll give you three examples
of how that's good. That's where mercy is found,
at the feet of Christ. The first one's the leper. Remember,
our Lord came down from the mountain. He preached what we call the
Sermon on the Mount. And that leper came and fell
at his feet, and he worshipped the Lord. He worshipped him before
the Lord ever did anything for him. And he said, Lord, if you
will, you can make me clean, if you will. That man found mercy. The Lord healed him, made him
clean. He said, I will. And he touched
him, and immediately his leprosy was gone. Then there's the adulterous
woman. Remember the adulterous woman?
They caught her in the very act. They brought her to the Savior.
And they thought they were doing this horrible thing to him, this
humiliating thing to her. What did they do? They threw
her at the feet of the Savior. That's what I wish to do for
us this morning, to throw us at the feet of the Savior. And by the time the Savior was
done with them, he said, woman, where are your accusers? She
said, they're gone, no man, Lord. He said, neither do I condemn
them. She found mercy. He said, now go and sin no more.
And then Mary, she desired that one thing needful. She sat at
the feet of the Savior just to hear his word and she found mercy. Seek the Lord in meekness. Seek
the Lord just like that and you'll find mercy too. That's how the
Lord tells us to seek him. Seek him in meekness. Second,
he tells us here, seek righteousness. This again, it's a problem of
the, the way the flesh thinks is a problem in modern day religion.
Don't seek the Lord to give you blessings here on this earth.
That's not a good reason to seek him. Don't seek the Lord to seek
a fire escape from hell. That's not a very good reason
to seek him. We're to seek the Lord to be made righteous. See,
there's a big difference there. There's a big difference between
seeking the Lord to be your fire escape from hell and seeking
the Lord to make you righteous. Seek to be made right. To be made what you're not, made
right. To be made righteous. That means
without any sin. Seek the Lord that he might make
you without any sin. And the only way that's possible,
that someone like us can be made without sin, is to be found in
Christ, who is our righteousness. I would tell you, don't even
seek righteousness as a thing. Seek righteousness as a person. You seek Jehovah Sidkenu, the
Lord, our righteousness, because that's the only way we can ever
be made without sin. And the way our Savior made his
people without sin. And made them righteous. He took
their sin away from him. He took their sin in his own
body on the tree. The father made our Savior sin
for his people. And He put that sin away with
the blood of His sacrifice. And He made His people the righteousness
of God in Him. He made His people as righteous
as the Son of God Himself. Now, if you desire righteousness,
don't seek righteousness by anything you do. I mean, anything. Because your so-called righteousnesses,
they won't measure up. So seek Christ to be your righteousness. In him, you'll be accepted. A
sinner like us can be made righteous, only be made righteous in Christ. So seek Christ to be your righteousness. The third here, we're told, seek
meekness. Now the prophet's not repeating
himself. First he said, seek ye the Lord, all you meek of
the earth, which deserve his judgment. And now he says, seek
meekness. And that word meekness, It means
condescension and it means clemency. Seek the Lord to condescend to
where you are. Seek the Lord to condescend to
scrape you from the bottom of the barrel and save you. That's
seeking condescension. Again, that's not letting this
pitiful little Jesus save you if you decide to let him, is
it? No, if that's the case, if you have to let Him save you,
you're the one who's in the position of power. We're not described
in the least that way here, are we? No. Christ is the one who's
on the throne. He's the one who has all power
and we're seeking condescension from Him. We're seeking condescension
from the one who sits on the throne to come down where we
are in the dust as beggars and show us mercy. That's the way
we're to seek the Lord. That's what we're to seek from
you. And we're to seek the Lord to give us clemency. Now clemency
is just, it's mercy and forgiveness. Now I tell you, the only person
who will ever seek clemency, it's a guilty person. Even in
our justice system, the only person who will ever seek clemency
is a guilty person. A person who has to say, I'm
guilty. I've been caught red-handed.
There's no denying it. I'm guilty. I don't have any
excuses for what I did. I'm guilty. I did it. I don't
have any hope of satisfying justice. I can't live long enough to pay
back my debts to society. Only that person will seek clemency,
seek mercy. My friend, your only hope is
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what scripture says, that
he's your only hope. Then you seek him. Seek Christ
who satisfied the law, who satisfied God's justice for his people. Seek mercy that's found in his
blood, in the blood of his sacrifice, and his righteousness, his obedience
that he gives to his people. That's seeking meekness. And then fourth, we're told,
seek the Lord to be healed. It may be he should be hid in
the day of the Lord's anger. Now what he means here is this,
you seek Christ to be your substitute. You seek Christ to hide you from
God's wrath against your sin by shielding you, by taking the
punishment that you deserve and hiding you, shielding you from
God's wrath. This is asking the Lord to give
you life by taking your debt, by dying in your place as your
substitute. This is a guilty man asking Christ
to cover my sins in the blood of your sacrifice. Cover me with
your blood. This is a vile sinner who can't
do anything right, who can't do anything holy, begging to
be made righteous by Christ, covering him in his righteousness. The only way we can be made righteous
is by being given the righteousness of another. So this is a vile
sinner seeking the Lord to be his righteousness. So I tell
each of us here this morning, sinner, you seek the Lord. I don't know whether he'll save
you or not. I don't know. But I tell you
this, you better seek him. You better seek him because your
only hope is Christ. You better seek him because your
only hope, you better call on him for mercy because your only
hope is God's mercy to sinners as found in the Lord Jesus Christ.
We better be found seeking the Lord. But even if we seek him,
now you remember this, the Lord's not obligated to save anybody,
but he's our only hope of salvation. The king of Nineveh knew that,
didn't he? Remember when Jonah came preaching, God's gonna in
40 days destroy this city? And the king of Nineveh said,
everybody shave your head, everybody put on sackcloth, nobody eat
nothing. We better repent and call on
the Lord. The king said, who can tell?
Who can tell? If the Lord will turn and repent
and turn away his fierce anger from us, that we perish not.
Who can tell? Well, I can't, the king said,
I can't tell if he will or not, but we're going to ask him to,
we're sure going to beg him to. The Lord doesn't have to turn
his fierce anger away from us just because I ask him, but I'm
going to ask him to anyway, aren't you? I'm going to beg him for
mercy anyway. Now this is true. God does not
have to show mercy to anyone. You know, people say God could
damn everyone or God could save everyone. Well, no, that's not
really so. God couldn't damn everyone because
God is love. God is merciful, but that doesn't
mean he has to show mercy to anybody. But he's our only hope. He's our only hope. But the good
news of the gospel is that's a good hope. Having Christ is
your only hope. Now that's a good hope. Having
a hope in God's mercy, that's a good hope. Because what does
scripture say about God? While He doesn't have to save
you, He delights to show mercy to sinners. So hope in His mercy,
that's a good hope. Then seek Him. Then beg Him to
save you and have mercy on you. I determined this a long time
ago. By God's grace, this is my determination. If I'm going
to perish for my sin, I'm going to perish at the feet of the
Savior, begging for mercy. because He's my only hope. And
I also know that I know God does not have to save me. He doesn't
have to save you, He doesn't have to save anybody. I know
that. But I also know this is true.
No one, no one has ever perished at defeat of Christ, begging
for mercy. You can't find one example of it in Scripture. Not
one. Now someone says, how do you
reconcile that? Man's responsible to seek Man's responsible to
beg for mercy. And God's sovereign. He'll save
whom he will. And someone says, well, how do
you reconcile that? I never felt the need to reconcile. Both are
true. You don't have to reconcile truth.
Both are true. There's an article in the bulletin
about that this morning. You don't have to reconcile truth.
They're both true. God's not obligated to show mercy
to anybody just because they asked for it. Now, he might do
it. He just might. It'd be like him,
wouldn't it? It'd be like his merciful, loving character. But
he's not obligated to do it just because we asked for it. But
like I said, you'll never find an example of anybody truly begging
for mercy that the Lord didn't give him. You'll never find an
example of it. And preaching the truth that
way, preaching God on the throne, God not obligated to do anything
for us and preaching us in the dust as just people who beg mercy
and God gives mercy to just because He would. That doesn't give man
any glory. That puts God on the throne and
that gives sinners a good hope, doesn't it? Preaching it that
way gives a sinner a good hope. If my hope is based upon me asking
right, or me asking enough, or me doing enough to make myself,
you know, rise up high enough to where now I'm eligible for
God to show mercy to me, I'd never have a good hope. Never. But if my hope is in the character
of the sovereign God, that He'll show mercy to whom He will show
mercy, now I've got a good hope. A good hope in His mercy and
His grace. I pray God will give us the grace
and the heart to seek mercy from him. It may be, the Lord is saying. All right, I hope the Lord bless
you.