Zephaniah - "We Need A Hero"

Who do you think is the greatest hero in the MCU?  What about the worst villain?  Who is your hero?  A hero: a rescuer/protector, great for others, give us hope, inspires us.

“Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”― C.S. Lewis

A hero makes our future brighter.  Today we meet up with a couple of heroes (AND a villain!) - as we look at the book of Zephaniah.  

We are now many years past the exile of the northern kingdom of Israel.  Assyria conquered them a century ago.  Zephaniah was a contemporary of Jeremiah, who is sometimes called, The Weeping Prophet.  Weeping why?  Because the kingdom of Judah is next.

Zeph traces his ancestry back four generations.  He is the only prophet to do that.  But it is significant - he is descended from King Hezekiah - which incidentally makes him distant cousin of the current king, Josiah.  But a bit of history here is enlightening.  Josiah is a hero.  Hezekiah, Josiah’s great-grandfather, was one of Judah’s most beloved kings.  Also a hero.  And his grandfather, Manasseh, was a villain.  The worst.

-Hezekiah was king for 29 yrs (Read 2Ki 18.1-8)(~715-686BC)

• Year 6 of King Hezekiah of Judah - Assyria conquers/exiles Samaria/Israel (2Ki 17.6)(cf 2Ki 17.7-19)(2Ki 18.9)
• 8 yrs after taking Samaria/Israel, the Assyrians attack Judah in great force (2Ki 18.13, 18.17) - Hezekiah trusts in the Lord (2Ki 19.19), and the Lord repels the Assyrians (2Ki 19.32-36)
• Later Hezekiah becomes mortally ill - he again turns to the Lord, and God extends his life (2Ki 20.5-6)

-Manasseh his son reigned 55 yrs (697-642BC - a bit of overlap w his dad) - he did evil, rebuilt the high places which his dad had destroyed (2Ki 21.9).  He even sacrificed one of his sons to Molech.  An all-time villain.  Judah’s doom is sealed under/because of Manasseh (2Ki 21.10-15)(2Ki 23.26, Jer 15.4).

-Amon, his son, 642-640, also did evil (2Ki 21.19-26).

-Josiah becomes king in 640-609.  The boy king.  8yrs old (2Ki 22).

-In the 18th year of his reign, they find the scroll of the Law

-Huldah the prophetess (2Ki 22.14-20) - prophesies good re Josiah

-2Ki 23 - revival/cleansing of the temple, Jerusalem, even as far as Samaria, passover observed —> 2Kings 23.21-23

Summary of Josiah - 2Ki 23.24-25

So we have this boy king.  8 yrs old.  Any 8 yr olds in here this morning?  Would any of you like to be king?  Or queen?  And 18 years into his reign, the priest "discovers" this scroll of God’s Law in the temple.  Apparently it’s been missing for generations?  And they break it out, and revival breaks out.  Big revival.  Huge.  People waking up to the reality of God and their need for Him.  All this then creates a question of, when exactly did Zephaniah come on the scene with his message? 

When Hilkiah discovers the book of the law, and Josiah hears it, and says they should go inquire of the Lord, they don’t go to Zephaniah.  There is no mention of Zephaniah - which is strange, because he would have been a relative of Josiah’s.  Nope, Josiah and Hilkiah go to Huldah.  We also have:

• The remnant of Baal (1.4) - implying that the revival had already busted out

Zephaniah is writing sometime after the revival of Josiah.  And there were many good things which came out of that.  Not enough to turn back God’s plan to exile Judah into Babylon, but many good things.  And yet, we read that there is a remnant of Baal.  There is still a remnant of Baal.  There are areas where things are still occupying God’s rightful place.  Everything has not been removed.  It is the church of Sardis, about which we read in the book of Revelation:

Revelation 3:1-6

“To the angel of the church in ^aSardis write: He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars, says this: ‘I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Wake up, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die; for I have not found your deeds completed in the sight of My God. So remember what you have received and heard; and keep it, and repent. Therefore if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what hour I will come to you. But you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their garments; and they will walk with Me in white, for they are worthy. He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

And the problem is, these are things about which we should be ashamed.  In 2.1 God calls them a "nation WITHOUT shame".  And that’s how it goes -> things about which we SHOULD be ashamed, they don’t bother us.  We tolerate them.  We get used to them.  We even celebrate and boast in them.

And here’s the point.  Look at what the Lord is saying.  I, I will completely remove.  I will remove everything.  You have not completely removed everything, so I will completely remove.  The day of the Lord.  The day of the Lord.  It’s moving day.  Or should we say, removing day.  The day of the Lord is about removing our shame.

This is what God says.  I am going to remove all things.  To take away, to sweep away, to put to an end, to destroy.  You are not finished sweeping, your spring cleaning is not yet finished.  So I am about to show you how it’s done.

It’s the ol’ hunny-do list.  Anybody here have one of those?  That list of things you need to get done, various projects around the house, and it just never seems to get done.  If anything, it gets bigger.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could check off everything on that list?  Wouldn’t it be great if you could finish all those projects?  Clean everything out?

God is saying, there are some more things you need to do here.  Some more things you need to clean out.  Some more things you need to remove.  Some things you ought to be ashamed of.  Some things you need to burn.  Things you need to replace.

But of course we are not talking about a physical house here - we are talking about that house which is our life.  Our heart.  God sees the heart.  He cares about our heart.

There are three specific heart conditions which the Lord is addressing in this letter:

1.5 - “…those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milcom”

• Here we have those who say one thing and do another.  These are those who want it both ways, to have their cake and eat it too.  Divided loyalties.  A little bit of Jesus, and a dash of the world for favor.  All paths lead to God.  Pluralism.  
• These are the lukewarms.  One foot in the door, and the other foot out.  Those who suggest, What matters most is faith.  You just gotta have faith, faith in something (even faith in a couple of things?).  But what actually makes faith work is not HAVING it, i.e. the presence of faith - it is the OBJECT of our faith.  It’s NOT enough simply to believe.  It’s not that you trust in any old something.  You need to determine, is that something trustworthy?
• We could also be talking about syncretism.  Folks name the Name of Jesus, but then fall back into the traditions of their ancestors, the cultural norm.  They haven’t fully trusted in Jesus - or perhaps they are succumbing to pressure from culture or family.

1.6 - “…those who have not sought the Lord nor inquired of Him”

• Here we find the sins of omission.  It’s not simply a matter of the bad things I have done.  It is the good things which I have NOT done.  I stop short.  I don’t even start, in fact.  We look around us in our fallen fleshy mindsets and we think, well, I’m not as bad as THAT person.  And we pick some bad example, some all-time villain, the worst of the worst - Adolph Hitler.  Josef Stalin.  Osama bin Laden.  Manasseh. I’m not as bad as them.  But our pride deceives us.  All we like sheep have gone astray.  And we were not designed to simply avoid the bad stuff.  Any inanimate object can do that.  Any old rock can be a don’t-er.  No, we are called to be do-ers.  We were designed for glory.  God’s standard is glorious perfection.  Breathtaking goodness.  He designed us for love and kindness and patience and mercy.  He calls us to love Him with all our hearts and to love our neighbor as ourselves.  He designed us to journey in relationship with Him, to trust Him and seek Him, to love Him.  Love.  Love does.

• And what we find is that even God’s chosen people repeatedly fall short.  They stop short.  They neglect to inquire of the Lord.  They fail to seek Him.  God, what do You want?  Lord, show me what you want.  Speak Lord, your servant is listening.  But in my flesh my tendency is to live apart from Him.  To live as if He doesn’t exist - or doesn’t care.  To not depend on Him.  And again, the barometer for this is our prayer life.  You want to know how your heart is doing in the matter of depending on the Lord?  Look at your prayer life.  Look at the degree to which you are seeking Him and inquiring of Him.  Do you and I stop to pray?  Do we begin by praying?  Do we continue with prayer, in prayer?  Pray without ceasing, Paul says.  Again, we’re not talking about a work - we’re not trying to earn favor with God by doing prayer as a work.  It is a heart condition.  God is looking for hearts which are completely His, He is looking to remake hearts which will be completely His, which trust completely in Him.  And yes, the tendency of my heart apart from Him is to live apart from Him.  To not depend on Him, to not seek Him or inquire of Him.  Practical atheism.  When I get in a bind, when something goes wrong, when I’m at my wits end, THEN I’ll remember Him, but sadly sometimes it takes just that for me turn to the Lord.

1.12 - Those who say “The Lord will not do good or evil.”  

• Not only do we tend to live life as practical atheists, there is an explicit mindset which dismisses God from the conversation because He simply appears to be absent.  Silent.  Rather non-involved.  I wonder if this perception can sometimes be reinforced by dads/parents who are absent.  Absent dads.  Silent dads.

• Here we come into the vicinity of what is called deism.  There is a God, but He is silent.  He is not immanent.  He is not involved.  He is not present and accounted for, sir.  Perhaps a God who winds up the universe like an old timepiece and then just lets it go, leaves it to its own devices, and stays on the sidelines.  No need for a daily walk with Him here.  He is just a higher power.  Unknowable.  Incommunicado.  He has not spoken, His Word is not necessarily binding.  He is found instead in the divine gleanings of exalted human reason, supposedly what people can believe about God without faith.  Without the supernatural.  General providence as opposed to special providence.  Thus a historical deist would perhaps look to Jesus as a great moral teacher, an example to be followed, but not God incarnate.

We want not so much a Father but a grandfather in heaven, a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’

–C. S. Lewis The Problem of Pain

• A modern deist would have no problem even confessing the deity of Christ - as long as doing so would improve their own well-being and happiness.  It is God on my terms.  aka “Moral Therapeutic Deism.”  The therapy of whatever it takes to make me happy.  Free thinking Christianity.  Not dogmatic.  Not archaic.  Progressive.  Ironically these modern deists stumble over God’s obsession with His glory (cf Is 48.11) - which appears to them to be self-centered and narcissistic - when in fact their own worldview is entirely the same.  They are simply inserting themselves into God’s proper place in the equation.  Me first.  Isn’t this something of what the so-called progressives of our day are pursuing, a worldview where they perhaps claim to be Christians, and yet dismiss all hint of dogma in favor of prevailing cultural views?  I am the master of my fate, the captain of my ship.  Master of my domain.

• It resembles atheism in that both worldviews demand that people be absolute sovereign of their own destiny and morality.  Not only can I have what I want, but no one–least of all a non-existent or irrelevant God–has grounds to even express disapproval.  I am only held accountable to myself and a standard of natural law that rarely, if ever, enforces itself.

• Moral relativism takes it even a step farther and declares that there is no standard by which what I want can be measured at all.  Since nothing is “right,” everything is.  Do what you want, and try not to hurt anyone - unless they are standing in the way of your happiness. It is, perhaps, the ultimate example of the grandfatherly indulgence that humanity has come to expect and demand.

We also find this thinking in some unbelievers who say that because evil is not punished that God is either not good, not in control, or altogether nonexistent.  The age old problem of evil.  God will not do evil.  Evil is not punished.  So either God doesn’t exist.  Or He doesn’t care.  Or He is not in control.  Either way, I’m free.  Not strings on me.  Heading on down the primrose path.  There is a way which seems right to a man, but it leads to death.

Here’s what I know - the cross is empty, and so is the grave.  The cross is actually bloody - Jesus died on that cruel Roman cross for you and for me.  And the grave is empty.  Game-changer.  He rose on the third day - defeated death, and proved Who He claimed to be.  Jesus.  The Way, the Truth, and the Life.  The only way to God.

To this we thus find Zeph talking about the great day of the Lord.  The great and terrible day of the Lord.  We saw this in Joel (1.15, 2.11, 3.14).  And this day of the Lord is near.  It is oh so near.  Near and coming quickly.  It is coming, as surely as night follows day.  And it is coming to the whole earth.  All the earth.  Zeph uses this phrase more than any other book in the Bible.

1.2-3 - “I will remove all things from the face of the earth…and I will cut off man from the face of the earth.”

1.18 - “…for He will make a complete end, indeed a terrifying one, of all the inhabitants of the earth.”

3.8 - “…My decision is to gather the nations…and pour out on them My indignation…for all the earth will be devoured…”

Note the scope of the judgment.  Global judgment.  Yes, God is angry with His wayward people.  Yes, He has appointed the Babylonians to conquer them.  But the whole earth is guilty before Him.  All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  And the wages of sin is death.  And yet His plan from the get go was to bless a chosen people who would extend His blessings to every nation.  To all the families of the earth.  Through the Seed of Abraham.  Because note the scope of God's salvation:

2.3 - “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth…”

3.9 - “For then I will [gather the nations and] give to the peoples purified lips, that all of them may call on the name of the Lord.”

Thus we see that God here is revisiting the mission strategy He laid out in Gen 12.  I will bless you, and in you ALL the families of the earth will be blessed.  Every nation.  Hearts which are completely His produce hearts which are completely His.

Look at the contrast in 3.11 vs 3.12  

• Rebels, proud, exulting, haughty, no shame
• Humble lowly, taking refuge in the name of the Lord, no wrong, no lies/deceit, no shame, mountain of the Lord

Look at 3.20 - “At that time I will bring you in, even at the time when I gather you together; indeed, I will give you renown and praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes,” says the LORD.

1Pet. 4:17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

Here we see God’s vision for His people: 3.16-17 “In that day it will be said to Jerusalem: “Do not be afraid, O Zion; do not let your hands fall limp.  The LORD your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior.  He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.”

The LORD our God is a rescuing hero.  Precisely what we need…

Judgment on Judah - 1.2-2.3

Judgment on nations - 2.4-3.8

-note the judgment on Nineveh/Assyria (2.13-15), who had repented under the preaching of Jonah, and note the object lesson: “So if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall.” (1Cor 10.12)

The Remnant - 3.9-20