Life Meets Doctrine

So now what? What changes in light of this good news? What is the difference and how can we respond? Let’s respond by simply listening. Hear Zephaniah 3:14-20 as I read it out loud. Everything – everything! – is different now because of Jesus. Now let’s finish this morning by taking one of the most beautiful lines in this passage and letting the word wash over us: Zephaniah 3:17: He will exult over you with loud singing.

He. We are talking about a just, righteous, perfect God. A God who does not lie, does not make empty promises, does not turn his back right when you need him most. He is the God of the universe, the Creator of everything, the Sustainer of all life and breath. He is the God who gets angry, vengeful, ready to destroy and devastate. He is a God to be reckoned with; he can not be ignored, neglected, or treated lightly.

Will exult. This righteous Sustainer of all life and breath – the owner of the realty called cosmos – exults. What does that mean? Exult is the overflow action of joy. It is the physical expression of a deeply rooted, freely overflowing joy. There are moments in life when you have exulted. You were in an intense sporting match and somehow your team won. Your body leaped and twirled and spun around with joy. You exulted. You just endured hours of labor and your baby is placed in your arms. Your breathe deeply and smile and wonder at the miracle in your arms. You exulted. You are caught up in romance with your wife and you get away for a weekend alone. You talk and play and reconnect in a way that you haven’t for years. All you can do is embrace your wife and tell her you love her. You are exulting. Exulting is a full-on physical expression of deep joy.

Over you. Remember at the beginning we talked about God just putting up with us? This is where that thought gets blown out of the water. The Sustainer of all of our lives exults over you. You – the one no one else knows. You – the nasty person you sometimes feel like inside. You – the one who feels like God would never accept you for who you are. You – the one who is lost in the crowd and the only reason God lets you in is because you didn’t get out of line. You – the one who is trying and trying but keep losing your grip. That you. Not the clean, religious, fake you. The real you. God Almighty rejoices over you. He doesn’t just put up with you. Because of Jesus Christ, God Almighty takes deep joy and deep delight over you.

With loud singing. Have you ever stopped to think about God singing? People sing because talking won’t do. There’s just too much joy. People sing because they have to give vent to their joy, their love, their delight. That is how songs get written; that is why we sing on Sunday mornings. Our hearts overflow with love and mere talk won’t do. When your heart is brimming with joy, saying doesn’t work; only singing. What does it sound like when God sings over you? God created the universe with a spoken word – just a spoken word. Imagine what happens when he sings! One pastor makes a small attempt to imagine what it might be like:

When I think of the voice of God singing, I hear the booming of Niagara Falls mingled with the trickle of a mossy mountain stream. I hear the blast of Mt. St. Helens mingled with a kitten’s purr. I hear the power of an East Coast hurricane and the barely audible puff of a night snow in the woods. And I hear the unimaginable roar of the sun 865,000 miles thick, one million three hundred thousand times bigger than the earth, and nothing but fire, 1,000,000 degrees centigrade, on the cooler surface of the corona. But I hear this unimaginable roar mingled with the tender, warm crackling of the living room logs on a cozy winter’s night.

This is the song of God. And it is for you. Beautiful singing from a beautiful God for a beautiful people who belong to his Son, Jesus.

Thought I don’t like this last part, I must share it because Zephaniah does and the rest of the Bible does. The song of God is for those who have placed their trust in Jesus. It isn’t for everyone. The wrath of God is still destined for those who have not placed their trust in Jesus. If you are here today and you have not placed your trust in Jesus Christ, you are still the object, the recipient of God’s wrath, anger, justice, vengeance, destruction, and devastation. I urge you: place your trust in Jesus! Bank all of your hopes, your life on Jesus Christ. Forsake your life, lose your life, deny yourself, count the cost, and say Yes to Jesus Christ.

Here is the promise of God. As you trust in Jesus Christ, he will exult over you with loud singing, thrilled to know you and have you as his own beloved child. Let us hear the song of God today as we partake in communion.

God gets angry for good reason and someone must bear this wrath of God. He will not sweep it under the rug; he will not overlook sin. He will not just feel anger; he will unleash his anger.

• Let me be clear about God. He does not make empty threats. Some of us have people in our lives that make empty threats to try to manipulate us to do something, but they would never follow through on those threats. It is just emotional manipulation. God is not that way. When he speaks, he will make good on his word. He will follow through on his promise. He will do what he says. In this case, that sounds like bad news. When God has repeatedly told us of his anger, and when God has told us that he will unleash his wrath on us because of our sins, we have much to fear.
• Therefore, in Zephaniahs 3:8 we see who God is gathering to bear his wrath: Therefore wait for me, declares the Lord, “for the day when I rise up to seize the prey. For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms, to pour out upon them my indignation, all my burning anger; for in the fire of my jealousy all the earth shall be consumed.
• Stop right there. What do you expect in the next verse? What are you looking for? If it is much like the last 41 verses, you should only find an angry God finally dispensing his punishment, venting his fumes, pummeling mankind with his wrath. Please let this picture sink in. God has said he is going to gather all the people groups of the world for what is about to happen. He is going to call this to the attention of the whole world. He wants everyone to see it, feel it, fear it. This isn’t a sideshow; this isn’t a small thing; this is God gathering the nations of the world at the mainstage.
• What does the next verse say? It is shocking. Zephaniah 3:9: For at that time (the time of God’s wrath and anger and vengeance) I will…change the speech of the peoples to a pure speech, that all of them may call upon the name of the Lord and serve him with one accord. What just happened? How could this be? Is this the same God speaking? Is he schizophrenic? What is going on? Just one verse before he was gathering the nations to unleash his anger and now he is promising to give them pure speech so that they can call on the name of the Lord. Something happened. Something world changing, something universe-altering, something mind-blowing. What was it?

SOMEONE BORE THAT WRATH OF GOD. THAT IS WHAT HAPPENED. AND HIS NAME IS JESUS CHRIST, THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD.

The Gospel According to Zephaniah: Consider the breath-taking moment that just happened, sandwiched between Zephaniah 3:8 and Zephaniah 3:9. Jesus is there. God poured out his wrath for the nations to see – on Jesus. He has gathered nations and peoples and cultures from all over the world to see his wrath being poured out – on Jesus. God said the day of his wrath would be dark and gloomy and history tells us it was. God said the day of his wrath would be a day of clouds and thick darkness and history tells us it was. God said a grown man would cry on the day of his wrath. A grown man did. A strong man cried out at the weight of God’s wrath. A strong man bore the wrath of God and screamed in agony. That man was Jesus, and he bore God’s wrath for you.

That is the Gospel according to Zephaniah. We are all sinners, objects of God’s wrath and anger and destruction and devastation, but someone absorbed that wrath for us. It was Jesus.

SECOND – God gets angry for good reason. Some of us had dads who would get ticked and yell and hurt for no good reason. The smallest thing might set them off, and you were left defenseless. God does get angry; he gets ticked off. But he gets angry for good reason.

• Psalm 145:8: The Lord is gracious and slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

My question is simple. What is it that is making God so angry? Let me highlight a few:

• God is angry when we try to worship 2 gods. Zephaniah 1:5 says God will cut off those who bow down on the roofs to the host of the heavens, those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom. Some of you are trying to hedge your spiritual bets. Sure, you want some of God. You might go to church even and try to be a better person. But just in case, you want to read the stars, the horoscopes, this spirituality, that system of belief, keep in good company with other religions, not turn your back on your favorite sins. You are trying to worship God and worship yourself at the same time. God says this makes him angry.
• God is angry when we get complacent. As I would read and listen to Zephaniah, I was repeatedly struck by Zephaniah 1:12: At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are complacent; those who say in their hearts, “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do ill.” The original language and culture here have a great picture for us. What this verse literally says it that God is going to go looking for those who are thickening on the dregs. What does that mean? The dregs are the nasty stuff left at the bottom of a keg (or bottle or flask). It thickens and thickens if you don’t clean the keg and it threatens to spoil the whole batch of alcohol. God is saying that when we are spiritually complacent we are like ruined wine, stuck on the side of a keg, and we could spoil the rest of the party.
• God gets angry when we make fun of his people. Zephaniah 2:8: I have heard the taunts of Moab and the revilings of the Ammonites, how they have taunted my people and made boasts against their territory. Be careful what you say about God’s people; be careful what you think and say about God’s church. There is no perfect church, no perfect Bible study, no perfect pastor, no perfect Christian. When you moan and groan and complain, you aren’t helping at all. And when you speak ill with ill intent of God’s people, you are making God angry.
• God gets angry when we get proud. Zephaniah 2:15: This is the exultant city that lived securely, that said in her heart, “I am, and there is no one else.” What a desolation she has become, a lair for wild beasts! Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist. Pride is the original sin of Satan; it was the deepest sin in Adam’s fall; and it is rooted so deep in all of us, too. Don’t be fooled by pride or self-esteem or self-confidence. God gets angry when we trust in ourselves, when we look to ourselves for hope, when we say in our hearts, “I’m the only one; I’m the best one.”
• God gets angry when leaders oppress others. Zephaniah 3:3-4: Her officials within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves that leave nothing till the morning. Her prophets are fickle, treacherous men; her priests profane what is holy; they do violence to the law. Let me submit to you that your leaders need your help. With all of our hearts we don’t want to motivate by the fear of roaring lions, we don’t want to stalk and devour like evening wolves, we don’t want to be fickle, people-pleasing men, we don’t want to make light of the holiness of our God, and we don’t want to preach anything less than the whole counsel of God. But we need your help; we need your accountability. Pray for us as leaders to not make God angry.
• You are the destined recipient of God’s wrath, the one who has carried out these sins that God hates. You might think you were not mentioned in the list above. If you think that way, then you have simply proved that you are prideful. You can not escape this wrath of God. It is destined for all of us. We may have been more complicit that others, and we might think we are less guilty. But the Bible says we have all sinned, we have all fallen short of God’s glorious standard. Therefore, we all sit under the wrath of this angry God – the one shown to us in Zephaniah.

FIRST – God gets angry. He gets ticked. The words of Zephaniah are clear:

CHAPTER ONE

• Zephaniah 1:2: God starts his speech with this: “I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth,” declares the Lord. Right from the beginning you know this is going to be a rough message. He doesn’t beat around the bush, he doesn’t soften the blow, he doesn’t give any encouragement or consolation at all. Just a promise of death.
• Zephaniah 1:3: He goes on to say he will cut off mankind from the face of the earth. His anger is barreling towards all mankind, rolling faster and picking up steam; along the way he is going to wipe out animals and nature, too.
• Zephaniah 1:9, 12: He will punish officials and complacent men.
• Zephaniah 1:14-15: When Zephaniah describes the day of the Lord, he says it will be a day of wrath, distress, anguish, ruin, devastation, darkness, gloom, clouds, thick darkness, trumpet blast and battle cry; it will be something that makes grown men, strong men cry. Stop and consider that word picture that God gives us. He says that on the day of his wrath, grown, strong men will cry like babies. I’m grown, but I wouldn’t say I’m strong. You know what kind of man I’m talking about though. He is a man who stays in shape, exercises, eats well; he probably has a job that requires muscles and lifting; maybe he builds stuff or does heavy labor. That guy, the tough one, is going to cry.
• Zephaniah 1:17: There are some word pictures in this verse that I will simply let you read. I don’t even want to elaborate on them. The anger of God has been stirred; it is clear.
• Zephaniah 1:18: The first chapter ends just as vengeful as it began: In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth.

CHAPTER TWO

• Summary: God isn’t only angry with his own people; he is also angry with foreign nations, people groups who don’t know him or his law.
• Zephaniah 2:4: God is going to leave Gaza and Ashkelon completely deserted and desolated.
• Zephaniah 2:5: God says woe to the Cherethites; the word of God is against them; he will destroy the Philistines until no inhabitant is left.
• Zephaniah 2:8-9: God is going to wipe out Moab and the Ammonites just like he did Sodom and Gomorrah. Some of you know about Sodom and Gomorrah; it was bad, brutal, and sudden. If you don’t know how bad it was you can read Genesis 18-19.

CHAPTER THREE is back to Judah and Jerusalem. Zephaniah essentially adds to the lists of Judah’s sins that stir God to more anger and wrath.

THE REST OF THE BIBLE only agrees.

• Zephaniah is not the only book of the Bible that talks about God’s anger and God’s wrath. It is all throughout Scripture. Just consider Psalm 7:11: The Lord is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. Or consider 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 that says when Jesus comes back he will come in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God…. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction.

This past Sunday, I had the privilege of preaching at Core. Here are the notes from that sermon, broken down into parts for easier reading.