I believe it was Shelby and I
went over to visit with Faith and Audrey Grace during the day
for a few hours. We were out at Morrison's having
lunch. And you may know they're switching
over to Piccadilly's. I don't much like that, but they're
doing it anyhow. And they had a clown going around
making balloons and entertaining the kids. A little child sitting
right next to us saw that clown. And I guess she must have been
four or five years old, somewhere in there. And she was petrified,
just petrified of that clown. No reason to be afraid, but she
thought there was. She was utterly petrified. She
screamed and squalled and screamed and squalled. Finally, I asked
the mother, I said, is it all right if I try to pet her a little
bit? You have to do that these days. And she said, by all means. So I picked the girl up, sat
her on my lap and hugged her up. And I said, honey, it's all
right, be afraid. sometimes I get afraid. And that
didn't take away her fear, but it seemed to make her feel better.
Just to know somebody as big as I am sometimes gets afraid
too. I can't tell you how delightful
it was to me some years ago, going through some difficulty,
some trouble, some opposition, some things I didn't know how
to handle, and I had some apprehension and some fear. And I read these
words in Psalm 56. You don't need to turn there,
just listen. Here is a man bigger than me,
stronger than me, a greater man by far, a man after God's own
heart, a man of faith. And he speaks in his time of
trouble and says, what time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. And it just did me good to know
David too had his fears. Now, I don't have any question
that you have yours. We don't like to talk about them.
We don't like to discuss them. We don't like for other folks
to know about them, but we all have our fears. Now, whatever
it is that causes you to fear, whatever it is that makes your
soul tremble and your heart quake, I have a message for you tonight,
and you'll find it in Zephaniah chapter three. Start at the book of Malachi,
right at the end of the Old Testament, and go back three books, and
you'll find it. Malachi, Zechariah, Haggai, and then Zephaniah. Zephaniah
chapter three. The title of my message this
evening is An Antidote for Fear. I thought about saying a tranquilizer
for your soul, but maybe an antidote for fear would be better. Either
way will be all right. The book of Zephaniah is a prophecy
of judgment. It exposes the sins of the nations
and it exposes the sins of God's people. We deserve wrath just
as much as anyone else. We are just as guilty as the
rest of the world. What evil other men and women
have done, we have done also. If not in deed, certainly in
thought. You see, the nature of the most
vile reprobate who ever lived is your nature and mine. The
heart of the vilest sinner who ever walked on this earth is
your heart and mine. No difference. His thoughts are
our thoughts. His deeds are our deeds. We don't
like to own up to that, but that's just fact. That's just fact. And yet while God pours out his
wrath upon others, he pours out his love, mercy, and grace upon
us. No wonder the apostle Paul, moved
by inspiration, writes these words, who maketh thee to differ
from another? What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? God ever
make us aware of our sin. Not too much it'd kill us, but
make us aware of our sin, lest we pop our suspenders and dare
strut before God as though we were something. And because God
has been gracious to us, the prophet here in Zephaniah chapter
three calls upon redeemed sinners to sing and rejoice even in the
midst of trouble. Doesn't matter what trouble comes,
As Brother Scott said, there's no bad news since we got the
good news, so let's rejoice. Look here in verse 14. Sing,
O daughter of Zion. Now you can't grasp this until
you read the first two chapters down to this part of the third
chapter in this book of Zephaniah. When you get home, sit down and
read it. If you can't tonight, do it tomorrow sometime. Read
all three chapters. This is a book where God pronounces
judgment upon judgment upon judgment upon judgment. And now he says,
Sing, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Be glad and
rejoice with all the heart, O daughter of Jerusalem. Now, child of God,
no matter what it is that troubles you and breaks your heart, No
matter what it is that weighs your soul and dampens your spirit,
here's good news. I'm saying to you what the prophet
here says in verse 16. To Jerusalem fear thou not, and
to Zion let not thine hands be slack. You say, well, Brother
Don, how can you call on us? in the midst of trouble and difficulty?
How can you call on people whose hearts are breaking, whose souls
are heavy to sing and rejoice? How can you tell folks who are
facing foreboding circumstances to not be afraid and to let not
their hands be slack? Well, just hold your Bibles open
on your laps here, and let me show you in verses 15 and 17.
Here the prophet of God gives us nine reasons to rejoice. Nine reasons to sing. Nine reasons
not to fear. Nine reasons to be steadfast
and immovable in the work of the Lord. Now, obviously, I'm
not going to do much preaching tonight. I'm just going to read
Scripture to you and let it preach itself. First, look at this. The Lord hath taken away thy
judgments. By so, God's put away your judgments. The rest of the world is under
the wrath of God, but for you, the people of God, He's taken
away your judgment. The rest of the world by sin
and guilt is under judgment, but the Lord has taken away your
judgments. Now, I'm not talking to you about
what the Lord wants to do or hopes to do or tries to do. I'm
telling you what God Almighty has done. The Lord hath taken
away thy judgment. By a work of his free, almighty,
sovereign grace, the Lord Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior,
has taken all judgment away from us. Taken it away. All judgment,
all wrath, all condemnation, he's taken it away. He's taken
away our sins, the cause of judgment. That's what redemption is. I
don't think Mark had any idea of what I was going to be preaching
this evening, or Judy either, but the song she sang and the
scripture he read fits right in with what I'm talking about.
As far as the East is from the West, so far hath he removed
our transgressions from us. That means, Bobby, they're gone.
And if sin's gone, there's no reason for judgment. If sin's
gone, there's no basis for condemnation. If sin's gone, God Almighty has
taken away our judgment. He has taken away spiritual death,
which was the consequence of judgment. The Lord God sent us
Adam to death because of sin, and we died in our father Adam
because of sin. We came into this world born
in the spiritual condition of death and depravity, but now
He's come by the power of His Spirit and given life to the
dead, so that He has removed from us the consequence of judgment.
More than that, the Lord Jesus Christ in His sovereign grace
and mercy has taken away the sentence of judgment from us.
He has taken away the curse of the law in its entirety. Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse
for us for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a
tree. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus. I recall listening to Brother
Mahan years ago preaching from this eighth chapter of Romans,
where the apostle says, there's therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. And he gave an illustration.
Back in the late 40s, when he was pastor at Pollard Baptist
Church in Ashland, before the church at 13th Street was established,
he was just a young man, and there was a lady who had been
converted, and she was a notorious woman, to say the least. And Henry had had her An aspirin
in the bulletin she's supposed to say she'd been converted a
little while He found out she could sing and she's gonna sing
God's praises one of the deacons came and he was upset He said
now pastor. She's gonna have to live this
down And Andrea said I turned to this text of Scripture and
said there's therefore right now No condemnation to them that
are in Christ Jesus any of them and she's gonna sing today. Do
you understand what I'm saying? The Lord's taken away your judgment.
Redemption has been accomplished, and now redemption is applied
to our hearts by the power of God's grace so that he sprinkles
our conscience with the blood of Christ and purges the conscience
that believes on the Son of God from all the guilt of sin and
judgment. Look at the next line. He hath
cast out thine enemy. cast out your enemy. Have you ever had to face an
enemy and you might have to go back a few years to when you
were a kid and you know you got into your scrapes here and there
and some big fellows around and he terrified you. You couldn't
tell anybody. Back in the days when we grew
up, if you were scared, you didn't tell anybody, you just lived
with it. If you had something you were afraid of, you just
lived with it. But man, you knew, this fella's out to get you.
Ain't that a thing you can do? And you just wish, somehow, somebody
just move him out of the way. Just move him out of the way.
Will you listen to me? Satan, that roaring lion who
roars against us, seeking whom he may devour, has been cast
out by our God. Can you grasp that? Don't ever
get the idea that somehow Satan is a rival to God. He is the
creature of God and the servant of God and he does nothing except
that which is good for the people of God. Roar as he may. Roar
as he may. When Satan lifted his heart with
pride, the Lord said, I'll cast you down to the earth. When Satan
said, I'll be somebody, the Lord said, I'll bring you to confusion.
When Satan said, I'll topple the throne of God, the Lord said,
this is the purpose I've purposed in all the earth. The Lord God
sends His Son into the world in the fullness of time, and
when He died to redeem us at Calvary, the Scripture tells
us plainly, our Savior said, now is the Prince of this world
cast out. Now this is what that means.
This is what that means. Satan, up until the time that
Christ came and redeemed us, he sent blindness to the nations
of the world. He deceived the nations of the
world. We were just down in Mexico and you'll see pictures of those
people worshipping genitalia, people sacrificing their children. What does that? Blindness. Spiritual
blindness, but it's not just there you read such barbaric
Idolatry throughout Gentile history throughout the ages until Christ
comes and cast Satan out and now the gospel goes into all
the world and God gathers together his elect and when he gets done
as The time of the income he said I'm gonna lose Satan again,
and he'll deceive the nations again but he cast him out and
the Lord God our Savior and sends forth His Spirit into the hearts
of chosen sinners at the appointed hour of mercy, love, and grace,
and He binds up the strong man and casts him out and takes possession
of his house. Shall the prey be taken from
the mighty, the prophet asked? Shall the lawful captive be delivered? Oh, yes. The captives of the
mighty shall be taken away. The prey of the terrible shall
be delivered. For the Lord God says, I will
contend with him that contended with thee. And the day is coming
when our Lord Jesus shall at last cast that serpent, that
roaring lion, that fiend of hell, the dragon of darkness, he will
cast him into the bottomless pit. When God gets done with
him, he's gonna wrap his chain of judgment around him and throw
him away. The Lord has cast out your enemies.
Look at the next line. Here's the third thing. The king
of Israel, even the Lord is in the midst of thee. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the king of Israel. He is the king of his church.
And he is in the midst of us. Oh, child of God, the Lord's
with you. He's with you. Sam, sometimes I'm very keenly
aware of his presence. And sometimes I think he's hidden
his face from me and he's covered me with darkness and with judgment. But all the time, he's with me. When I sense His presence, He's
with me. And when I don't sense His presence, He's with me. When
I feel His strength, He's with me. And when I don't feel His
strength, He's with me. Listen to what He says. 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. The Lord Jesus Christ is always
God at hand. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again,
I say rejoice. Let your moderation be known
unto all men. The Lord's at hand. He's near to support and supply
us all our needs. He's near to assist and strengthen
us, to protect and defend us. When Zephaniah says the Lord
is in the midst of thee, he means at least these three things.
It'll do you good to get up. He is essentially present with
us. He's present with everyone in
this sense because He's the omnipresent God. He is God everywhere present. But He is more than just essentially
present with us. He is providentially present
because He's determined in all things to do us good. Therefore,
He's constantly with us to do us good. And He's graciously
present. because he promised he would
never leave us nor forsake us. Now, here's the conclusion of
that. Since the Lord, the King of Israel, is in the midst of
thee, look at this fourth thing, thou shalt not see evil anymore. Oh, my God, my Father, my Savior,
my King, Oh, for faith to believe you. Thou shalt not see evil anymore. What a promise. But pastor, that
can't be so. I've seen so much evil. Not if
you're His. Not if you're his. It may seem
evil, and it may feel horrible, and it may taste bitter, but
I'm telling you, Rex Bartley, you'll never see evil. This is what he says. There shall
no evil happen to the just. No evil. No evil. No evil. If we could just see things as
God sees them, we'd see no evil to us. This is what he says. He says to me as his preacher,
he says to Isaiah, his prophet, say ye to the righteous that
it shall be well with him. The Lord will not turn away from
you to do you good. All right, look at the fifth
thing. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. When Zephaniah was delivering
this message, after saying, the Lord is in the midst of thee,
he seems to think, oh, I meant to say this too. The Lord who's
in the midst of you, the Lord who promises you shall see evil
no more, that Lord God, He is God Almighty. You can believe
Him. He is the mighty God. He who
is in the midst of us is the Lord Jehovah, the being of beings,
the eternal, immutable, all-sufficient God. He is the Lord thy God. Ours by covenant grace. Ours
by the miraculous incarnation. The birth of his dear son. God
is with us. And ours by the gift of faith.
He who believes. He who looks to Christ. Takes permanent possession of
God himself as his own. Listen to what the psalmist says.
The Lord is my shepherd. My shepherd. Mine. Bobby gave me a nice little pocket
knife here a while back. It's mine. He handed it to me. I took it and stuck it in my
pocket. It's mine. It's mine. Listen to me. How can I say this with reverence
and yet with the joy positive faith. The Lord God Almighty
is indescribably more really mine than that is. He's mine. And he's yours if you believe
him. He's mine. He is the Lord thy God and he
who is the Lord thy God is the mighty God. The omnipotent creator
of The all-powerful mediator and savior, the all-power in
heaven and earth has been given to him, this man who is our God. And therefore, he's able to save
us to the uttermost. He's able to deliver us out of
the hand of every enemy, to keep us in the midst of every trial
and temptation, to sustain us in every difficulty, and to bring
us at last safe into his heavenly kingdom. All right, here's the
sixth thing. He will save. he readily undertook to save
us in the covenant of grace. He came here in the fullness
of time to seek and to save that which was lost. He wrought out
salvation for us by his obedience unto death. And he sees to it
that salvation is applied to every chosen redeemed sinner
at the appointed time of love. But more than that, soon he's
coming again to gather us to himself and put us in permanent
possession of that salvation which He has accomplished and
obtained for us. He saves us freely, fully, and
everlastingly. He saves from sin, Satan, the
law, hell, wrath, and death. He'll save us from every temporal
trial, every earthly trouble, every spiritual enemy for time
and eternity. Oh, blessed Word. He will save. Whatever it is, Mark Henson,
that God sends your way today or tomorrow or ten years down
the road, whatever it is, this is the Word of God to you. It's
good for a man to patiently wait for the salvation
of the Lord. When you feel like, man, I gotta
do something. Don't do anything. Don't do a thing. I can't tell you how many times
I wish I hadn't done anything. Every time I decide I'm gonna
straighten something out, I make a mess of it. I mean, every time in
my life I tried to straighten this situation out, I made a
mess of it. And you're not gonna talk me into doing it again.
It's just not gonna happen. God helping me. I'm gonna wait.
Wait and see what God does. And when God gets done, He will
save His people out of every trouble, out of every trial,
out of every heartache. Now stay with me. It gets better. The Lord hath taken away thy
judgments. He hath cast out thine enemy.
The King of Israel, even the Lord, is in the midst of thee.
Thou shalt not see evil anymore. The Lord thy God in the midst
of thee is mighty. He will save. Now read the seventh
line of our text. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. Now I'm gonna tell you what. If I hadn't read that in the
book of God, you couldn't convince me of it by any amount of reasoning. But I read it right here in this
book. You got it in front of you. Shall God indeed rejoice
over us? Yes, He rejoices over His elect
with great inexpressible joy. Notice how the prophet speaks.
He seems to be searching for words to describe God's joy over
His people. And if this were the word of
a man, we would say, well, he's speaking redundantly. But God
never speaks redundantly. He's searching for words because
He would have us to understand that God's joy over us is inexpressibly
great. He will rejoice over thee with
joy. That's like saying he'll be happy
with happiness. He'll be joyful with joyfulness. As a bridegroom
rejoices over the bride, so the Lord our God rejoices over us. I recall nearly 30 years ago,
that lovely lady there, I was standing in front of a congregation
of 400 or 500 people, and they played that wedding march, and
I turned around and looked, and there she came. Man, she's mine. She's mine. You fellas who tried
to get her, just eat your heart out. She's mine. She's mine.
And that doesn't begin to describe Bob Pontzer, how the Lord God
rejoices over you. He'll rejoice over them. Look
at this next line. He will rest in his love. What does that mean? This is what it means. The Lord
Jesus Christ, our God, finds great complacency, delight, and
satisfaction in loving us and in expressing his love to us. It's pleasing to Him to love
me. It solaces Him to love me. He says to us, thou hast ravished
my heart. I think I can safely say this,
there is not a greater fuller verbal expression of Christ's
love in all the Bible than these words. He will rest in his love. Oh, what infinite condescending
grace. God not only loves us, but he
loves to love us. He loves to love us. He will rest in His love. He
is pleased that He chose us as the objects of His love. Oh, my heart be ravished with
His love. This phrase might be translated,
He will be silent because of His love. Can you imagine A mother whose
child was taken from her or lost when she was young. And she hasn't
seen the child in years and years and years. And then suddenly,
the child and the mother are reunited. And much as she loves
that child, she just hugs the child to her breast with speechless
joy. She just, she can't say a word.
Listen now. He will be silent because of
his love. Our Lord will never upbraid us
because of our sin. Because he put it away. He will never speak a word of
anger and wrath against us. Not ever. Not ever. I always made it a policy, I
recommend it to you. I disciplined our daughter growing
up. If I told her to do something, she didn't do it, she got paddled.
First time. I insisted that she mind us.
But not once, not once, did I ever strike at that child in anger. If I was angry, we'll wait till
anger's over, if it takes a while. And then we'll deal with the
problem. Our father chastens us. And he, he makes our back
bare and lays the whip to us. Now he just does. but not because
he's angry with us. He does it because he loves us. Now look at this last thing.
He will rejoice over thee with singing. Again, the prophet is
searching for words to describe the Lord's love for us. He rejoices
over us with joy and joys over us with singing. He's telling
us that God himself is delighted that we're his people, his chosen,
redeemed, called ones. We are his Hefzibah, in whom
he delights. His Beulah, to whom he's married. And he is infinitely more pleased
with that fact, Oscar, than we can ever be. He rejoices in his love. Amen. All right, Lindsey, you
come and lead us in the hymn, if you will.