Zephaniah chapter 3.
Let's go back there. If you're visiting today, we're going through the Old Testament prophecies of Zephaniah. Josiah is the king during this time. Now, we're talking about the southern kingdom of Judah, supposed to be the godly remnant. The northern kingdom is supposed to represent, if you will, and literally be at that time, the rebel kingdom, the sinful kingdom. But unfortunately, Judah has been trying to catch up in sin, in wickedness, in rebellion to God. Two kings, Manasseh and Ammon, have preceded King Josiah, and they literally led the country to hell.
That's no exaggeration. You see that so vividly in the graphic energy behind the prophet's exegesis, if you will, of the situation in Judah. The depth of sin and rebellion that they're actually in. So young King Josiah, and I believe he was discipled by godly prophet Zephaniah, begins radical reforms in Judah to clean things up.
And according to history, they did a lot of good at that. But unfortunately, it was too little too late, and as with all awakenings and with all reforms, a lot of the reformation was more external than internal. The king commanded it, so we got to take down all of our shrines to Baal and Astra and the other false idols they begin to worship instead of Jehovah. So too little too late, but when you get to chapter three, in a particular way, the prophet is sharing with us God's thought pattern, if you will, of how he's going to deal with Judah in her sins and what he wishes she would do to avoid the corrective punishments that God will have to bring if she does not turn. So we've entitled this part of the text, Zephaniah 3, one through seven, morning by morning new mercies I see. I picked that up from verse five, where the prophet says that God's speaking here first person now, every morning I bring justice to light, and he cannot be, how does he word it?
He does not fail is the way he words it. He said every morning, morning by morning by morning by morning, I bring the truth to you, Judah, particularly what true righteousness or justice is. So it speaks of God's faithfulness, even in the midst of their long-term rebellion. God says morning by morning anthropomorphic expression. God doesn't get up in the morning, by the way, because he never goes to bed. He's always awake, but for us to understand his vigor, his dedication in being faithful to Judah, he says morning by morning by morning, I never failed. I was always there to testify to you, to protect you, to teach you, to draw you back to me, i.e. to save you, morning by morning by morning.
Let's quickly read the whole text. Chapter three, verse one, woe to her who is the rebellious and defiled, the tyrannical city. She heeded no voice. She accepted no instruction. She did not trust in the Lord. She did not draw near to her God.
Now he gets particular. Her princes within her are roaring lions. Her judges are wolves at evening.
They leave nothing for the morning. Her prophets are reckless, treacherous men. Her priests have profaned the sanctuary. They have done violence to the law.
Now the tone shifts, does it not? Verse five, the Lord is righteous within her. He will do no injustice. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He does not fail, but in contrast, talking about the people now, the unjust knows no shame.
Referring back to God speaking now on his own behalf. Verse six, I have cut off nations. Their corner towers are in ruins. I have made their streets desolate.
No one passing by. Their cities are laid waste without man, without inhabitant. In other words, I did this on your behalf, Judah. Verse seven, I said, God speaking again, surely you will revere me. Accept instruction. The idea is surely now, now you'll revere me. Now you'll accept instruction for all I've done for you. So her dwelling will not be cut off according to all that I have appointed concerning her.
I don't want to bring the appointed judgment she deserves if she'll just revere me and accept instruction. Verse seven, last phrase, but they, this is Judah again, were eager to corrupt all their deeds. Now in introduction, we had a little theology lesson again to remind us of what our mindset should be looking at any passage of scripture.
And I told you that everything in the Bible centers on these two pillars, if you will. Everything God does, let me amplify that, everything that has ever happened, everything that is happening, and everything that is going to happen is to the end of God's glory. And to the end of the good of God's chosen covenant people. Show me a passage of scripture that that's not there in some way. Everything God's ever done or will do is to the end of glorifying his own name and to the good of his covenant chosen people.
You can even tie those two together because they're inseparable. He glorifies himself through the way he is good to his covenant chosen people. Now we used some text to support that, but that was all in last week's message, so I'll skip through that. And let me mention again, though, this to you, that as you look at Old Testament prophecy, it's good to understand that there's an immediate understanding for the people in the context to whom it was written. But very, very often you might say the majority of the time it's clear that it's pointing to even more future prophetic, if you will, destinations. So there are usually varied prophetic destinations in a prophetic passage of scripture.
It must have made sense to the people of that day. There's an immediate fulfillment, but like in this text, we'll see something of the coming millennial kingdom that God has a plan for. Now don't misunderstand me, not just national Israel, most of national Israel is going to hell. But there will be Israelites that come to true faith in Jesus Christ, experience true conversion, and there's a future for them being gathered that I don't think you can read out of the scriptures. But beyond that, there's another prophetic destination, and that is Christ, his cross, his preserving of his church, which is the pinnacle of revelation. It's the pinnacle of prophetic destinations, and I would include in that the eternal state. When Christ returns the second time, banishes and removes all sin and evil, and he glorifies all of us, all that have ever believed on him, Jew Gentile alike, and has one glorious church with him in the eternal state forever and ever and ever. So we'll see glimpses of these things here and there as we go through this book of prophecy. Now we talked about Roman numeral one.
Again, this is a review. The wretched wickedness of the religious establishment. Let me say again to you, Judah, like Israel, when it was a whole one kingdom, not divided, but whole, was to be God's representative in the earth. All of Israel was a theocracy. It's not like what we understand in America today, where you have the religious institution and then the governing institution.
No, it was one thing. Their judges, their kings, their princes, etc., were to be godly men who functioned according to God's law. And then, of course, there was the folks who are prophets and priests who were to administer directly in a religious sense in the kingdom. But it was all one big religious establishment. And I like to say that because I think there's a close parallel and a clear word for modern religious establishments that have become wicked, that have become evil. The United Methodist Church, for example, as they have turned to embrace and promote homosexuality and a number of other bizarre perversities.
The whole religious system. Now, trust me, there are good and godly Methodist folks out there who love Christ, who must be deeply grieved and heartbroken. I've even been stopped on the sidewalk in Florence. I didn't know the man.
He recognized me. He said, Brother Jeff, would you pray for our churches? We're going through a terrible ordeal with what our governing body in the Methodist Church is doing. Here's what I'm telling you. That's been the cycle of church history, though.
Dr. Seale, I'm sure you'll talk about that a lot in your class. How they start righteous and Bible-centered and then they begin to drift off. The whole Methodist movement, if you go back to the beginning, was the work of John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield.
And maybe you could throw in there Jonathan Edwards and others as we had this great awakening a few hundred years ago. And the 13 colonies, there were numbers of people converted and over in Europe and over on the American continent. And a new church came up out of that called the Methodist Church. Now, unfortunately, from my perspective, they leaned toward the Arminian, not the Calvinist perspective. The Baptists were more Calvinistic in the early days. But nevertheless, who were they preaching to?
Well, the early Methodist leaders were preaching mostly to the Anglican Church. The established religious establishment calling them to repent of trusting and being sprinkled as a baby. Calling them to repent of belonging to a religious bureaucracy or organization and calling them to come to faith in Jesus. So it's been the cycle throughout the ages, and we see this cycle throughout the ages of antiquity as God did with Israel, in this case, specifically to the southern kingdom, Judah. He's calling them back, but there's a wickedness, and I use the phrase wretched wickedness because wickedness is not strong enough for what the prophet unfolds here.
Matter of fact, he talks about, he says, woe to them, verse one. Then he calls them rebellious. That means to take your stand against something. But in this case, they're rebellious because they're taking their stand against God.
That's strong stuff. You see, it's one thing to sin as you're purposing to serve God. It's another thing to willfully, premeditatedly, intentionally take your stand against God. That's what they were doing.
He called them defiled. This means they're rebellion cultivated and indulgence in vile, sinful behavior. Thus, we have what the scholars call the be-be-be-be. Jehovah bail cult.
They would meet for their religious meetings, and they would have an outward semblance of biblical Judaism, if you want to call it that, of true religion. But then it was just a facade. It was just a cosmetic because in the inside, they were worshiping bail and indulging in the sensual, sexual, immoralities of bail worship. God said, you're full of this kind of rebellion and defiling in your lives and in your worship. The tyrannical city, he calls her. And on and on we could go.
But again, this is a review, and I'm trying to skip through here. We come down to sub-point A under the wretched wickedness of the religious establishment, which was the wickedness among the people of the world. Wickedness among the governing authorities. And he goes through there and he talks about the princes. He said, you're princes.
You're those in line to be king, if you will, or had some sort of magisterial authority in the city. He said, you're like roaring lions. The prophet wants to bring out the most graphic, ferocious figure to tell you how wrongfully they will be behaving. Then he says, you're a priest.
No, not that. He says, you're princes, rather. He said, they are like roaring lions. Then your judges, I should have said, are like wolves that devour. And in this day, the wolves would gather in packs as the sun went down, and you would hear their eerie howls throughout the hillside, which let you know you didn't go out there by yourself.
And then he said, these wolves just eat all night long and won't even leave the bones. The point is, he said, the princes and the judges of the country are just radically oppressing and misusing their authority and taking advantage of the common man and trampling them. They're viciously devouring those people under them. Brothers and sisters, any time a country goes godless, it's full of oppression. Now, we have a whole religious system in this country that likes to talk about oppression.
Matter of fact, if they can't find some, they'll make some up. Then they'll establish themselves as the saviors of the oppressed. That's not what we're talking about here. This was really a vicious, harsh oppression, maybe somewhat similar to what happened to godly Germans. And when Hitler and the Nazis were running the country, there was such a vicious misuse of authority to oppress those who didn't walk lockstep with them. He says, not only the governing authorities, but he moves on to the religious authorities.
And this is the last verse of review. He says, your prophets are reckless and treacherous. The idea is they're proud. Reckless means they don't think about anything.
They're not taking into account the gravity and the seriousness of how they're misusing their office. They just keep using it for selfish gain and for sinful indulgence. They're reckless. Then tyrannical, is that the word he uses there in verse 4? Treacherous, I should say, which has the idea of being a traitor. They're a traitor against God.
They're a traitor against their own people. These are the preachers. The preachers.
Let me ask you something. Do you think Jewish flesh is just necessarily more corrupt than American flesh? We see the same stuff today. Men who feel the pulpit but are traitors to the God they say called them to preach the Word of God. Their priests, he continues on, have profaned the sanctuary. They've done violence to the law. They've perverted the very work God called them to do.
They're using the ceremonial law, the sacrificial system, and other things, and they're taking the moral law of God based on the Ten Commandments, and they're perverting it and twisting it and misusing it for their own gain and again for sinful indulgence. Well, just a couple of cross-references there to somewhat parallel it over to our day. Brothers and sisters, this book is contemporary. Every truth in it has powerful application in every generation. You know, in one way it's very simple.
There's nothing new under the sun. The rebellion of the ancient world and the ancient people of God is seen very clearly in the modern age. Now, I would say the ancient people of God in the modern age of the people of God. I say that generically. I should say those who profess to be the people of God because we find out it's going to become more clear after we get through verses one through seven that God is actually looking for.
Now, listen to me. A remnant within the professors of God. A subunit of genuineness in all this mass established bureaucracy of religion that's hollow and has no true holy and genuine heart in it. Anyway, Jeremiah chapter 5 verse 31 has the same idea. Remember, Jeremiah is a contemporary of Zephaniah during the reign of Josiah. He's preaching at the same time.
Well, you say, Pastor, just wait a minute. God just said the prophets are reckless and treacherous. Yeah, that's the, listen, that's the prophets of the established denomination of the day. That's the prophets in the system. That's the prophets of the establishment. You understand Jeremiah and Zephaniah were out on the fringe. They wouldn't let them in. Matter of fact, it's a wonder they didn't get killed because they were not preaching what the establishment religion of the day wanted them to preach. They were faithful. Jeremiah says, Jeremiah 5 31, the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule on their own authority. In other words, they do what they think is best and right, not what God said is best and right in their ministry. And then what an indictment, and my people love it so. But what will you do in the end of it?
He said, here you have false prophets, false priests leading you in error, and you people who claim you love me, you love the error your preachers are giving you. I saw a video just this last week of a clown preacher who rolled out on a roller coaster, and if I tell you the song they were singing, the sector song, it'll be in your mind the rest of the sermon, so I'm not going to tell you. But it had to do with the roller coaster. I mean, just the money they put in that extravaganza, and they do that every week with some new gigantic show. And you know what?
He has a big crowd. I'm getting out on a limb here. I'm getting away from my text, but I'm going to say this.
Are you listening? It could be that most Baptist or evangelical congregations are built on Bible phrases, silly women, Bible phrase, foolish children, Bible phrase, emasculate men. I should say boys. Women who are not principled women, but fall in every whim and every emotion, and what stirs them and what's in them, and what's in them, and what's in the emotion, and what stirs them, and what's exciting. Children that drag mom and dad because it's fun and exciting, and men that don't have a backbone except the backbone of a jellyfish. You'll never have a true work of God without men who are men of conviction, stalwartness, steadiness, and men who understand there are some things that do not change, period. I have a lot of those men. I have a lot of those men. You know how I know that?
They've been proven over the decades. Well, let me climb back off my limb and get back into my notes. How about that? Jeremiah 27, 14 talks about this very day. So you do not listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you saying you will not serve the king of Babylon. In other words, these false prophets are saying, oh, everything's fine. Everything's good. God's not going to judge us by bringing Babylon on us to destroy us and take us captive. Oh, everything's great. This is working good.
Look at our crowds. Last phrase of Jeremiah 27, 14, for they prophesy a lie to you. In other words, you have gone too far. You have crossed God's line.
You are going to be invaded by Babylon, and you are going to serve the king of Babylon as your corrective punishment. Here's another interesting one from another prophet of the Old Testament, Micah 2-11. If a man walking after the wind and falsehood had told lies and said, I will speak out of you concerning wine and liquor, he would be a spokesman to this people. They're saying, isn't that a great pastor?
He's telling us to go drink liquor. Do you know that's happening in Bible-believing churches today? Lots of them. We had a couple come to me. It's been some time ago at the end of the service. They said, Pastor Jeff, can we speak for you a moment?
I said, well, sure. And they said, I think it was the Atlanta area. They said, we belong to Atlanta.
They said, I think it was the Atlanta area. They said, we belong to a Bible-believing, Reformed church. But they so promoted alcoholic beverages, whatever fellowship we're having, the main topic of conversation is, what kind of liquor are you going to bring to the church fellowship? That's a fact. That's a fact. Now, the elders have no plan to come to your house this evening and open your cabinets. At least not yet.
No, we don't do that kind of thing. But brothers and sisters, to promote that kind of sinfulness in church meetings? So the prophet is saying, you're so morally bankrupt, so ungodly in your viewpoint and your appetites, that if a false preacher came before you and preached indulgence and alcohol, you would applaud him and clap for him. Well, that's just what the prophets were saying to this people in this day.
And unfortunately, as I pointed out to you, I don't know that we're a whole lot better in the professing congregations of our day. Now, so we've looked at the wretched wickedness of the religious establishment. Now the prophet goes a step further and notice the incomparable covenant faithfulness of God. Wow. In the midst of that, God says, then let me tell you something about me.
All right. First of all, we've got to remember that God's covenant faithfulness to Israel began with Abraham. Abraham is minding his own business from all we can tell from the text, not seeking God, living in dark paganism, and then God shows up to Abraham and says, I want you to leave Ur of the Chaldees.
Go to a place I'm going to show you. I want a people. Have I ever told you that God wants a people? I want a people that'll be mine, a nation that'll be mine, and Abraham, that's what I'm going to do with you.
Out of your descendants, I'm going to build a great nation, and I'll bless this nation and those who bless you, I'll bless them. And furthermore, Abraham, your descendants will be like the the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. And here's what he said in Genesis 17 about this, I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant. Now I know there's brothers I think are good men that interpret this differently, but I don't know how you take these very clear, specific promises and say, well, they're all allegories, they're all metaphors, it all just points to the church.
I just can't accept that. Doesn't mean we can't go to church together, doesn't mean we can't love each other, but I think your eschatology is a little wacky. If you don't see that when God said, Abraham, it's for you and your descendants, and it's everlasting, has no end. So God said, I'm going to be faithful to you. Abraham, you and all the nation that comes out of you, I'm going to be faithful to you. I have a purpose for you, Abraham, and the nation that will come out of your descendants, and I will keep that covenant. Now again, Abraham was minding his old business. Abraham didn't really have a part of the covenant. God said the covenant is all dependent upon me.
Now see, this makes me want to walk out on this ledge again, because this is good stuff. What a picture of Jesus. He went to the cross, and you weren't looking for him, nor expecting him, but he had decided to make a covenant, this time not just the nation of Israel, with individuals out of every nation, tongue, tribe, and peoples, and he's been faithful to do that.
That's why you're sitting here today. He's faithfully building his people, his church. Matter of fact, in Genesis chapter 15, before this event in verse chapter 17, he showed Abraham how committed he was to be faithful. He had them cut some animals, and animals were cut, and there one was put on one side of the cross, and one was cut on the other.
And there one was put on one side, and one was put on the other. And then in symbolic fashion, the text tells us that God walked between those cut into animals. Actually, the word covenant from the old Hebrew means to cut a covenant. The idea is we'll sacrifice an animal, we'll cut it in two, because may it be done to us if we don't keep our covenant agreement and be faithful. But here, God by himself walks between the sacrificed animals, as if God were to say, I will be faithful to you, and if I'm not, may somebody more powerful than me tear me apart and cut me in two like these animals.
And by the way, there's nobody able to do that. God says, I'm going to be faithful to you, Abraham. I'm going to be faithful to your descendants. Now, there's two parts to this covenant faithfulness that come out in our text that God has to Abraham's descendants, i.e. for us in this prophetic passage, the southern kingdom of Judah. A. I'm faithful in my presence among you. God's faithful presence among them.
They're doing all these things. Look at verse five. The Lord is righteous, what a phrase, within her. Just like Christ is righteous in us. He's righteous within her.
In other words, he's still right there with them. And all of this sin, and all of this wickedness, and all of this rebellion, and all of this blasphemy, and destruction to his namesake, he's there within them. He will do no injustice, the text goes on.
Here we have it again. Every morning, he brings his justice to light. Now, while we're particularly dealing with the sin of the injustice that they lived in among the people, I think it has to be broader than that. The word righteousness is not just a word. The word righteousness and the word justice are closely linked. And the word righteousness is the idea that in all of your conduct, you honor God's justice. In all of your dealings with your fellow man, you follow the just dictates of God.
Nobody does that perfectly yet down here, but that should be the purpose and the pattern of our lives. But they were right opposite of that. And God says, all you are doing, and all you are sinning, and all the rebellion, and all the hardness, and all the callousness of your consciousness, I still made sure I got up early every morning, and I worked harder than you did in trying to save you.
Morning by morning by morning, I brought my justice to the light. It's like having some cousins come stay at your house for a week or two that you didn't know were coming. And you love them, but you don't like them.
And they're gross. And you get up about daylight, and you go to the table, and there they are again. The next morning you get up, you go, there they are again. The next morning you get up, go to the table, there they are again.
Are they ever going home? Kind of a figure that comes to my mind, but on a very positive side. Every morning when Judah woke up, God was sitting there, here I am. I brought you my prophets. They preached you the truth, if you listen to the right ones, not your religious establishment preachers, the true preachers, the Zephaniah's and the Jeremiah's, and you won't hear them.
I brought you the law and the ordinances that continually reflect to you and teach you of my ways and my wisdom and my attributes. In addition to all that pointed to Jesus, all of them did. Every morning they woke up, God was already awake to work hard to save them, but they would not do it. The last part of verse 5 says, He does not fail. Glory, glory, glory. Abraham Lincoln used to say that he wanted his preacher to preach like he was fighting a swarm of bees.
I feel like that right now. This covenant faithful God, listen to me, has made a covenant with us and He does not fail. So when your Church of Christ friends say, do you believe in eternal security?
Oh, you don't even know the half of it. He's established a covenant with me and He will not fail. You see, I don't have to coerce the flesh to get people to be faithful to serve God at my church. I just get them so in love with God's goodness and faithfulness through Jesus Christ, they want to serve Him faithfully in my church. If that's not enough for you, that breaks my heart, but I can't fix you. If that's not enough for you, that's how I'm going to be faithful, putting first the kingdom of God, i.e. particularly being faithful to build a true local church for the glory of God, getting in on that work. If what God has done in covenant faithfulness is not enough to keep you, then I certainly can't keep you. God forbid I'm going to put on an entertainment thing or a clown show to keep you amused enough to come back. As if Jesus is so unattractive, you have to have worldly amusements to keep you interested.
If that's where your heart is, you ought to go out here and get on your face somewhere in the hallway and beg God to help you. So God was faithful. He protected them. Well, first of all, He called them out of nothing. He's kept them through the ages, delivered them out of Egyptian bondage, led them through faithful men, protected them over and over again, and has continually kept His presence with them.
So even though I've gotten ahead of myself, B in the outline would be God's faithful protection of them. And notice how He amplifies this out in verse six. Now remember, what did I tell you when we started the sermon? Everything's about the glory of God and the good of God's people.
So here's what He's going to say. Here's what I've done to other nations for your benefit. I've crushed other nations because they were going to crush you.
That's how faithful I've been to protect you, Judah. I've cut off nations, He says, verse six. Their corner towers are in ruins. Now, when the corner towers of these ancient walled cities crumbled, that means it's over. They're going to be taken over and occupied. I've made their streets desolate. In other words, God said, I did a thorough job of crushing your enemies with no one passing by.
Their cities are laid waste without a man, without an inhabitant. Now, this is no doubt the Synthians. We know from history that the Synthians were mighty in power, and the Synthians marched south and conquered Assyria.
And that's a feat right there. But for many decades, Assyria was the most feared army in the world. They crushed Assyria, which was going to attack Judah, protecting them. God was doing that. They go further south to Philistia and just march through her like she's not there because the Philistines were threatening Judah. And then they continue south toward Judah but go around her and doesn't touch her. That's history.
That's fact. God says, look what I've done to protect you from the Assyrians and from Philistia, and I didn't let them lay a hand on you. I didn't let them do that.
I didn't let them lay a hand on you. God is faithful in protecting his covenant chosen people. Conjunction here, but because of their continued hardness of heart, deep wickedness, and sinful rebellion, God will soon bring corrective judgment upon Judah.
We know from Bible history and secular history that Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian army, in just a few years after this was written, invaded Judah, destroyed Judah, and took many of them off into Babylonian captivity. But you have to understand something. God loves you so much, God will correct you. God loves you so much, he will discipline you. The Bible says if you love your children, you'll discipline them.
And God says, I love my children. Now why wouldn't God just let you go on and dabble in sin and be a rebel? Because the way of sin is death. He don't want you to hurt yourself or destroy you. You keep living in sin, you're going to destroy your emotional health, your physical health, you'll destroy your marriage, you'll kill your mental sanity, over and over you'll start killing stuff in your life. And God loves you too much to let that go on.
Because we are too foolish to have the wisdom to see where we're going in this. Some of you young people sitting here, listen to me, you're enticed by what all your friends are doing, by how they're popular. I used to teach our young people in the youth group years ago, you've got to learn how to stand alone. There'll be some Friday and Saturday nights you don't get to go out because the people are going out or doing things you shouldn't do as a child of God. Now if you want to do them, that's fine, but you need to come before this church and say, I renounce my commitment to Christ. I think I'll just live in the world now and leave Jesus behind. Don't be a hypocrite about it.
Be clear and upfront about it. Now, by the way, we have abundance of grace and mercy and long suffering for folks who are struggling and striving. Can I get amen there?
A brother and sister struggling somewhere and they're showing some effort, our arms are around them to help them and hold them and help them get through it, but I'm talking about a brazen disregard for the things of God and just a willful pattern of going out and living in worldliness and sin. Well, that's where Judah had come to and that's why God corrects her in this punishment that is coming. Well, notice their faithfulness, see, in sin and wickedness, as if we haven't said enough, but the prophet keeps saying it too. Verse seven, God speaking for himself again, surely they will revere me. After I remind them that I'm present with them all the time, after I remind them of the great protections I've given them, destroying Assyria and Philistia to save them, surely now they will revere me. Sort of a human way of expressing God's heart and then accept instruction. In verse seven, the idea is to actively serve me. Surely they'll revere me and actively serve me.
By the way, can I challenge you clearly this morning? If you revere God, you're striving to actively serve God. Don't tell me you revere God and pop in church once a month, throw a nickel in the plate, figuratively speaking. You don't revere God. You know how I know that?
The fruit's not there. Jesus died for this church and for all churches that are true to him. At least we could do is live for it, for it's good, for it's building up. You know what Pam and I've discovered through these decades? It's an amazing thing.
You might have heard this before. It's an amazing thing, even with your blunders and your weaknesses and your failures, but if you have generally purpose to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and for us that's building up his local church. It includes other things, but primarily building up his local church. If you work faithfully and as best you can to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, then all these things will be added unto you.
All the things you hope for about your children, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. God will just say that those fall in place if you'll put first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So here Judah is, God's speaking, surely they will. Then he says, I don't want to do what I'm about to have to do.
Have you ever told your children I don't want to spank you? That's kind of what God's saying here. So her dwelling, middle of verse 7, her dwelling will not be cut off according to all I have appointed concerning her. In other words, he's saying I've already got the judgment coming to you. It's all figured out in my eternal divine mind. I'm bringing it to you if you don't revere me and turn to me. It's coming.
Young person, can I say to you, you are not going to get by with your sin. You think it's cool? You think it's funny? You think it's okay?
You think everybody's doing it? You just wait. There's a payday someday. God does not fail there either. He said, I never fail to be with you, but sometimes he's with you in corrective judgment and discipline. You say, pastor, this humbles me.
This breaks me. We didn't come to church to have fun. We came to church to have joy in God, and you can't joy in God with unrepentant of sin being like Judah was. So, they were faithful in rebelling against God. How does he word it there? Last part of verse 7, I get these thoughts as we close, but instead of revering me, instead of accepting my instruction that is actively serving me, instead of giving me a reason to avoid the judgment I've already decided to bring against her, instead of embracing all of that, they were eager to corrupt all their deeds.
You know what that means? You know what the original Hebrew there means when it says they were eager? It means they got up early in the morning to work hard at sinning. For even everything I did for them, and have done for them, and been faithful to them, they still got up every morning to sin. Cowles, in his commentary, said it this way.
Now get this. They got up early in the morning working with might and main to do a long hard day's work in sin. That's what the text is saying. I think I'll say that again. They got up early in the morning working with might and main to do a long hard day's work in sin.
Wait a minute. God said something in this passage about what he does in the morning. Verse 5, third phrase. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He does not fail. So while every morning they rose up early in the morning working with might and main to do a long hard day's work at sin, God likewise rose early every morning to press all of his might to save them.
Wow. There's another prophetic destination here, if you will, because this truth points us to not a different but a maturation, a perfection of the truth God is saying about his faithfulness to Israel, to Judah here particularly, when they were unfaithful to him. Morning by morning they rose up just to sin hard, but morning by morning God dedicated himself to his chosen covenant people to save them. God said, I'm working hard too to save you. The next time you sin, and you know you're sinning, are you listening to your pastor? The next time you sin and you know you're sinning, I want you to think, but my dear Savior, the Lord Jesus is working hard right now to keep me saved.
Wow. What kind of God is that? I'll tell you what he is. He's a good God. He's a loving God. He's a faithful God.
He's a covenant-keeping God. Jesus said to his doubters and skeptics, of all that the Father gives me, I lose not one. Jesus said, I'm going to keep my covenant faithfulness to keep those children that the Father and I have chosen for ourselves.
I want to keep them through time, and I'm going to keep them through eternity. The question is, have you come to Jesus? To close, let's look at Romans 5-8.
It'll be on your screen, Romans 5-8, because this is the perfect parallel truth. God through Christ demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. That phrase, while we were yet sinners, means, listen to me now, while we were willfully working hard at being in a status or a state that God hates. While we were, yet sinners, while we were in a state before God that he hates, Christ died for us. I don't know, you either put your head down and weep or shout for joy.
There's only two options there. A lot of times it's some of both. When he says God demonstrates, now get this, the word demonstrates means to set up and be displayed. Just as God says, haven't I, Judah, been displayed before you as always being with you and always being in the act of protecting you? In a far greater fashion, through the Lord Jesus Christ, God has put on display for all the universe. As a matter of fact, the Bible indicates that the angels, the holy angels, didn't understand how all this was going to work out when Jesus came. But as the story began to unfold and they saw the dimensions and the glories and the wonder and the power of God in sending Jesus to save the children, they marveled over it, the Bible says, because they saw the glory and the power of God because God has, look if you will, we had a day here at church a while back for our homeschooled co-op kids. They don't just do homeschooling, they co-op and teach in classrooms too, so that our homeschool kids aren't dumb, so they don't stay smart too. I say that because some people think homeschool kids are dumb, but they're not.
A lot of them are really smart. But they have a display of all their body of work and you could come by and look at their table and see their charts and their crafts and their things they produced and had written and developed and that's what God is saying. I've put on display the whole body of work of the Godhead.
I've demonstrated how immense is the glory of my power, my wisdom, and my beauty in saving my chosen covenant people. Because while we were in that state which his soul hates and while we were in that state of the depths of wickedness and willful rebellion, while in that state it has the idea of you're in this status and you're continuing in this status. You haven't changed a thing, you haven't fixed a thing, you haven't repented of anything, you haven't turned over a new leaf, you haven't pledged to do better. While in that condition, Christ died for us. You were still sinners and continued on as sinners. Nothing changed about you or in you, yet Christ died for you. You were born in sin, you commit sin, you make a pattern and a practice of sin before a holy God, before regeneration, you were spiritually dead in sin, and you were justly, divine justly, condemned by sin. Yet in continuing in that state, Christ died for you. You think, well, I must be special. Oh, no.
Oh, no. You deserve eternal wrath and punishment like every person on the earth who don't know Jesus. Your righteousness is filthy rags. It literally means the oozing pus of an infected sower.
Filthy rags soaked in the oozing pus of infection. You aren't special. God is special. God is special. I want you to leave here humbled to the dirt, but full of glorious joy.
I call it crushing joy. I'm crushed by the reality of it, but all the joy of knowing Jesus makes it all right before the Father. No wonder the songwriter wrote, hallelujah, what a Savior. In this moment, young person, say, oh, Christ saved me. I come bankrupt.
I come offering nothing. Well, in the state that you hate, I believe somehow for God's own glory, you sent Jesus to die for me, and I take him today. The Bible promises whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. I thought you said it was his chosen covenant people.
Well, that's how you know who they are. They choose to receive Jesus because you'd never choose him on your own. You'd just wake up the next morning and work hard in sin again on your own. We're all a bunch of rescued, wicked people. Oh, me, morning by morning, they got up to sin, but morning by morning, new mercies I see.
