We'll take your Bibles and let's go to the last installment of our preaching through the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah. Real quick again, Josiah is king at this time of relatively tiny Judah, the southern kingdom. The nation's been split in two. There's a northern kingdom, southern kingdom, and Judah was always considered the godly remnant.
However, she has not been so godly in recent days. Judah had fallen into idolatry and sin and wickedness, but there seems to be a yet godly remnant within tiny Judah that were truly the people of God. And I think that is precisely whom the remainder of Haggai or Zephaniah is addressed to as we look this morning at verses 17 through 20, and we remind ourselves that we begin Zephaniah with probably the most horrific pronouncements of judgment in all the Word of God, and that we end Zephaniah with unimaginable, glorious restoration and joy and goodness showered on God's remnant people. I've entitled the unpacking of this text verses 17 through 20 of chapter 3 of Zephaniah. You'll have to see it to believe it, because that's really what God says through the prophet.
You'll have to see it before you'll believe it. Beginning in verse 17, the Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exalt over you with joy. He will be quiet in his love. He will rejoice over you as shouts of joy.
You ever seen, you ever pictured God that way? Verse 18, God speaking first person, I will gather those who grieve about the appointed feast. They came from you, O Zion.
The reproach of exile is a burden on them. Behold, I'm going to deal at that time with all your oppressors. I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will turn their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. 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, here it is, before your eyes, says the Lord. In other words, you're going to see it. I know you can't believe what I'm telling you, I'm bringing for you.
But when you see it, then you'll believe it. Now, first of all, Roman number one, let's notice his magnificent promises fulfilled. Now, we fell from the call of Abraham in Genesis chapter 12. God has given this people, his elect chosen people, Israel, special promises. And now we see through the prophet Zephaniah an unfolding of what some of these promises will look like.
So he said, the time of fulfillment is coming. Now, remind yourselves again, when we look at Old Testament prophecy, you'll almost always have a more immediate and partial fulfillment, but yet out in the yonder future, there is the full, you might say, complete fulfillment of the prophecy. So as we go through here, we'll talk about national Israel, or we should say here more particularly, Judah, the southern kingdom, and more particularly, even so, the remnant within Judah, and how God is going to bring to their lives in the near future certain promises and blessings. But the text gives us such terminology, there's no way the grandeur and the glories of these promises are going to be all fulfilled in that ancient time, particularly when he brings them back from captivity. The captivity hasn't happened yet, it's going to happen, and then he's going to bring them back.
But there is a greater, more glorious fulfillment that's going to occur even yet in our future when Jesus returns. But let's talk about, first of all, just thinking of Abraham and the nation Israel that came out of him, some of the magnificent promises that God made to them in Genesis chapter 12 verse 7. He says, I have a land, that's the land of the Canaanite, that I'm going to give to you and to your descendants.
I don't want to say much about this, but I don't think you can just carte blanche say that's all gone now. I think there is something to God's promise to Abraham and his descendants, having a land that is theirs, given to them by God. He promised them nationhood in Genesis 12, too. I will make your name great, I will make you a great nation, he says. He says you'll be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth.
Of course, we see this ultimately in the ultimate descendant of Abraham in Jesus Christ. I'll bless those who bless you, Genesis 12, 3, and the one who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. These are some magnificent promises. Restoration and renewal as she fell away, as God brought judgment and they were brought into captivity. God said, I promise you that will not be the end of you, I will bring you back. And that's what Zephaniah speaks to very specifically. As we see in verse 20 of this text, at that time, I will bring you in, I will gather you together, I will give you renown and praise, not just in the region you live in, but among all the peoples of the earth.
That's a magnificent promise, is it not? Not only that, but something that I guess to the ancient Jew was a real mystery and to far too many professing Christians today it's a it's a mystery and that is God said, I'm also promising to give you transformed hearts. Transformed hearts. In our very text here in Zephaniah 3 verse 9 or rather than chapter we're in, he said, for I will give to the people's purified lips that all of them may call on the name of the Lord. You have to have purified lips which represents a pure or changed heart before you can even call on the name of the Lord. Of course Isaiah gives us a picture of this. As Isaiah saw the scene of the holiness of God and he felt the uncleanness of his own soul, God brought a seraphim to bring a coal from the altar of God and purified his lips picturing purifying his heart, a transformed heart. In Ezekiel 37 can these bones live, these dead dry lifeless bones, can God make new life in an old cold dead heart?
Of course he can and obviously the ultimate fulfillment of this is in the work of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit's work accompanying the message of the Gospel to transform men and women's boys and girls hearts. So God makes that promise in this text. So magnificent promises and he says I'm going to do this, last part verse 20, before your eyes.
It's going to happen. These magnificent promises are going to be fulfilled partially in ancient Israel, partially in a future work of God among Israel on this earth, and then ultimately in the glorified state when we're all gathered together from all peoples, tongues, tribes, and nations as one people before God. And by the way, child of God, church member, you're gonna have to see it to believe it. You think this life down here is special and fun and got good stuff.
You don't know what you're talking about. And that's basically what God says in verse 20 of chapter 3. It's going to be glorious beyond your comprehension, what I have planned for you. Now a couple of sub-points to this magnificent promises that are being fulfilled that I pull out of the text here. First of all, in verse 18 he says you're going to go from grief and longing to feast and belonging. From grief and longing to feast and belonging. I'm not trying to use some clever terms.
I pull this straight out of the text. In verse 18 he says, I will gather. There's coming for you Israel. By the way, right now they're divided, they're split apart, and then through various captivities they're scattered all over the earth.
He said there's a day coming when I'm bringing you back together. Now I believe that refers to the godly, humbled, repentant remnant. Not just a nation of people, but a remnant within the nation who have faith in the coming Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They longed in their captivity to be gathered back together. The text simply says there in verse 18, those who grieve about the appointed feast.
Here they are particularly what is coming. They're going to be in Babylonian captivity and that pagan captivity. The true godly remnant's hearts will grieve, thinking how we long to be in a true and godly fellowship. Back in God's land, back in God's city, back with true, genuine, godly people. Grieved and longing for that. And God says, I'm going to fix that for you.
I'm going to make that happen. You will be gathered together, reunited to your God and reunited to each other and in that sacred land. He continues on in verse 18, he says, the reproach of the exile is a burden on them.
Here they are being held as the out scouring of the earth, being held in contempt and disdain by all the peoples of the land. But he said, there's coming a time when I'm going to bring you all back together and you'll go from grief to celebrating those feasts again together. You'll go from longing for a genuine godly spiritual fellowship before God to actually having that godly genuine fellowship before God. Psalm 137 verses 3 and 4 reflect on how they felt and how they longed for to be restored when they were in captivity. For there our captors demanded of us songs and our tormentors mirth sang, sing us one of the songs of Zion. But how can we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? God said, that's where you are now, but I'm promising you I'm going to bring you back home into a godly fellowship.
You know, I see a real application for us. This is the heart of a faithful pastor. This is the heart of a true and faithful Christian because far too often they find themselves in the midst of a professing Christian congregation that has more Babylon in it than it's got Zion in it. They find themselves surrounded by pseudo-Christianity and going through the motions and somebody did this ritual or that ordinance or that sacrament but their hearts are not changed. And a good and godly pastor and a good and godly Christian can find themselves in congregations where the majority of those around them are just a grief to their heart and how they long like these folks. Oh God, is there a fellowship of genuine believers? There's never a perfect church until Jesus returns and perfects us and glorifies us.
I know that. But I swear I think some Baptist and evangelical churches have worked at being carnals. I remember when Nate and Selena Ware came to Grace Life Church of the Shoals. We just commissioned Nate and Selena to plant a church in New Hampshire. They lived in California and had determined they could not raise the family in California.
By the way, I'd say it amen there. But there's some good people in California but the government is sure wacky. And through a series of providential events they find Muscle Shoals, Alabama. They find Grace Life Church of the Shoals and move themselves and their baby here and they fall in love with us and we fall in love with them because they were longing for that kind of fellowship. And now we've sent them out to New Hampshire and if you talk to them they'll say, oh our biggest struggle is we love Grace Life Church. We long to see that happen here in New Hampshire. So we see this ancient text telling us about an ancient people and among this ancient people there was a true and godly remnant who loved the Lord, who longed to have a godly spiritual Christ honoring, if you will, fellowship together and we have the same thing today.
It's true there is nothing new under the sun. Well not only would they go from grief and longing to God's gathering them back to one day and restoring them so that they'll have the actual feast together and a belonging together. But secondly, another part of the magnificent promise is they'll go from shame and dishonor to fame and honor. They're the people who the world would cast shame on. They're the people whom the world would cast contempt on. But notice what the text says in verse 19. Behold at that time I'm going to deal with all of your oppressors.
Let's talk about that for just a moment. All of them. Not just Babylon, not just the Assyrians. Those were the more present oppressors of this particular time. But God says when it comes to my godly remnant in Israel, one day I'm going to deal with all of those who might oppress you or who have oppressed you.
He goes on to say, I'm going to save the lame in verse 19. I'm going to gather the outcast. In other words, all who looked upon you because culturally they were the lame people. They were the crippled and the handicapped.
They were again held in disdain and contempt among the people. He said, you've lived a journey of being the trampling board of the entire world but that's about to change. I'm going to change all of that. I mean even the weakest among you. That's the idea here.
The lame. There will be no doubt that I will keep my word. I will bring every single one of you back.
Child of God, that translates for the Christian today. Every single one of you going to make it home. Every single one's going to make it home. The outcast. The world rejected you.
The world hated you. But even the most unlikely one to make it back. I'm going to make sure all of you get back into this blessed and holy and righteous fellowship. And then he says, not only that, look at verse 19 again. Last phrase, and I will turn their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. It's as if all the mighty Gentile kingdoms in all of the earth as God recollects the holy remnant of Israel, they will get on their knees and pay honor and homage as those Jews walk by, trusting in their Messiah. Praise and renown, he says, from all the earth.
Everywhere, throughout history, the Jews have been scattered everywhere. But wherever they've gone, wherever they've been exiled, wherever they've been held captive, wherever they may be, God's going to cause all to look at them with praise and renown. And by the way, the ultimate fulfillment of that is in his church.
And that's us. We get in on that glorious final day when Jesus returns and he purifies us and perfects us and we'll be glorified. And you're going to have to see it to believe it.
You'll have to see it to believe what God's got in store. All will recognize God's blessing on his precious people. They'll not be held in disdain anymore. They'll not be trampled on anymore.
They'll not be scoffed and derided anymore. The restoration of the long-depressed, scattered people is coming. He elaborates in verse 20, At that time I will bring you in, even at the time when I gather you together.
Here he says it again, Indeed, I will give you renown and praise, same phrase again, among all the peoples of the earth. And my dear brothers who are staunch amillennialists, I do not know how you remove a future for at least a godly remnant of Israel from the text. I think you can just explain away every one of those particular specific promises that all of them are somehow just fulfilled in the church. I think ultimately all is fulfilled in the church.
I don't see how you can do that. I still love you. We can still fellowship together. You're just wrong until we get to heaven. You'll see it then.
No, I'm teasing. I told you before, if you don't like my eschatology, my end time interpretation, just come back in a few weeks and I'll change it a little bit. Here's the point. Are you listening to me? I'll say it again. God did not lay out future events precisely in a way that we could put brass tacks on it and say this is exactly the way it's going to work out.
You know why? Because we're too prone to look at His coming and not look for His coming. All the peoples will praise you. Now you've got to understand, this is tiny Judah. Northern Kingdom Israel kicked them around, much less mighty Assyria and the Babylonians and the Egyptians. We've been, if you excuse my crudeness, we've been the armpit of the world all these decades and centuries and now all of a sudden God says everybody's going to bow in renown and honor before us. God says you're going to have to see it, aren't you?
But I'm going to do it. Romans 11 is a good text to try to wrestle with the balance of God's plan for a remnant, humble, repentant Israel and the church and what is the difference. Romans 11 28, from the standpoint of the gospel they, Israel, are enemies for your sake. There's a sense in which because Israel rejected Jesus, God grafted the Gentiles in so we gain from their refusal.
But Paul goes on. But from the standpoint of God's choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. Who's the fathers? These very people Zephaniah is prophesying to. It's Abraham. For God's promise to the fathers will not change, Paul says, even though a hardening has come temporarily that the Gentiles might be grafted into God's family.
For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. So it's going to be an all-glorious homecoming. It's going to be an all-glorious restoration. And some of you sitting there like a calf looking at a new gate, you don't get it yet. You're going to have to see it to believe it. My great regret, Dr. Seale is a expository preacher, is I do not have the brain nor the vocabulary to do the text justice.
So when you don't have the brain or vocabulary you just yell louder. There's so much here. Now let's go to the second main thing here. Not only magnificent promises are being fulfilled, but magnanimous love is being revealed.
Revealed. Paul, Paul, God through the prophet Zephaniah is splashing on them some vivid unimaginable truths about the the depth of his love for them. Which is the depth of his love for us. Notice again subpoint A under the magnanimous love revealed.
Notice the determination of his love. Verse 17 again. We looked at it last week.
We're going to look at it some more. He's called the victorious warrior. The entire might of the Godhead has set its face like flint to come to your aid and rescue you. He comes to save as a victorious warrior. He comes not to war against you child of God. He comes to war for you.
To secure you in love. In love. Driven by divine love. This could only picture Jesus Christ. Jesus comes as this victorious warrior. He comes to bring redemption and forgiveness and restoration of the children. What kind of love is this that removes our guilt, that cleanses our impurity, that forgives all of our sin and restores us to loving and holy communion with the God we've so sinned against? He's a warring Savior. It's as if Jesus said, I'll tell you what, I'll come and I'll have a sword in one hand and a club in the other hand and I'll war until I get the job done.
I'll tell you that. Jesus just does not fail. It's been many years ago there was a documentary on the vicious serial killer Ted Bundy. Ted Bundy broke into college girls' dormitories and savagely molested and raped girls and then beat them to death. One of the girls that he had done that to, they interviewed that precious girl's mom and in that interview she revealed that she was a Christian.
And because of that, that mom said, I forgive Ted Bundy. I don't know if I could do that. I don't know how you do that.
No wait, I do know how you do it. You see, for the child of God, when we need to forgive, God through his spirit and the teaching of his word brings us back to the debt we owed God. Brings us to the filthy, offensive, vulgar wickedness that we have expressed to and before our God and yet he forgives us.
That's how it's done. Then we considering our own place before holy God and how he's forgiven us can forgive others. See, pastor, that's a weighty depth of forgiveness, yes, but you know, God doesn't forgive that way. He's never sinned against anyone. God is not a God that can say, well look at all that I've been forgiven, therefore I'm going to forgive all these sinners, these children of mine.
I'll forgive them because God can't do that. He's never sinned. He's always and only dealt with everyone according to the dictates of divine justice, which is what righteousness means.
He's transcendent. He immensely exceeds us in love, in goodness, in kindness, in innocence, yet he and he alone has been violently sinned against, disobeying him and ignoring him and slandering him, diminishing him, dishonoring him. And in addition to that, he's offended by our very nature. We're conceived as little sinners in the wounds of our mothers that is offensive to a holy God. He's offended by our motives and our attitudes.
He's offended by our behavior. We're all under holy, just, retributive wrath that we deserve. Yet in his choice of grace, out of his great love for us, he goes to war to save us, to forgive us, to make us his own.
That's beyond comprehension. That's magnanimous love. He summons his own son. Jesus, his own son, willfully submits to the Father's plan and goes to the cross. He becomes our vicarious guilt offering on that cross, and this mighty warrior becomes the victorious warrior on our behalf. That speaks of the determination. God had some children.
They were his. Sin was in the way. And God said, well, I'll send my best to fix this. Son, you go.
You be the mighty warrior, and you rescue the children. Number two, concerning his magnanimous love. Notice he delights, or rather his delight, in the objects of his love. If we go back up to verse 17, three times, he will, he will, he will.
You could flip it over to get the emphasis to the first person. God says, I will exalt over you in joy. I will be quiet in my love for you. I will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. This is God speaking about himself.
Now, here's a good way to think about this. God delights in being God. He just loves being God. If you interviewed God and said, is there anybody else you'd ever want? Oh no, I've always liked being God. Look, and he delights in the work of his hands, because if he delighted in anyone else's work, it would be less than holy and perfect, and that would be sin on his behalf.
He can't delight in anything less than himself. And before there was anything, God foreordained and God predestined that there would be matter and that there would be time. It was eternity past. The angels might have said, now what are you talking about? He said, well you're going to see it to believe it.
But I'm foreordaining, I'm predestining that I'm going to do something. I'm going to create matter and time. And the Bible says he created light and then he created the darkness. He created a 24-hour day. He separated the dry land and the water, so he made the waters and the dry land. He created the heavens above, the vegetables. On the first day now, he created light, but now on the fourth day, he creates the light holders, the sun, the moon, and the stars. He created the fish for the sea, the birds for the sky, creeping things on the earth, and then he created man. And then God said in Genesis 1 31, this is very good.
I've done a God-taught job on this. God delighted in it, rejoiced over it, exalted over it. But friend, his deepest joy, his deepest satisfaction is in the new creation, creating for himself an eternal people. That is a people he would know now in time and know throughout eternity. You see, he foreordained and he predestined his people.
And by the work of regeneration through the merits of the Son, he brings them to himself. But he's not fully satisfied yet. He's not full of exalting yet. He's not full of joy yet, though the worst saved and secured were not finished. There's coming another day.
You're gonna have to see it to believe it. There's coming a day when he gets done with us. He'll look at us, verse 17, and he will rejoice over us in love.
He'll say, look what I've done. Excuse me, Brother David. Did y'all see David before I got a hold of him? Look what I've done.
He looks like Jesus. Did you see Jeff Noblitt before I got a hold of him? I did foreordain him. I did predestinate him. But in time and place history, I brought the gospel and the Spirit of God to work on his heart. And I restored him and gave him a new heart. He came to me in repentance and faith. And now at the end of the age, I'm glorifying him.
Whoo, kid, do you see what I've done? He said, I'll, but it's not, look, it's not just about the wonder of what he's done, all that we can grant. It's the wonder of the love he has for us that caused him to do what he has done. Look at it again in verse 17. He will exalt over you with joy. He will be quiet in his love. He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
Now don't lose the context. This has to have made some sense to the remnant of Judah, the descendants of Abraham. But it makes full sense to us this side of Calvary. God said, when I look at my children and that day when I get finished with them, God says, I'll be astounded with the work I've done. You know he always takes joy in the work of his own hands and he's going to rejoice over us.
Are you listening to me? You are God's deepest joy. Oh, the unchanging love of God for his children. Oh, the unthoughtable love of God for his children. You see, you may have an unchanging love but you're not all powerful. You may not, can always exhibit it or accomplish what you'd like to accomplish for the one you love, but God can. Not only does he feel a great unchanging love for you, he has the almighty power and might of the Godhead to bring about all that he has planned for you in his love.
It's unthoughtable. He can't change. He would not change and no one else can change him. When our sins stood in the way, he became the victorious warrior and conquered the problem, bridging the gap between us so that we could be united with him. Because where sin abounds, grace did all that much more abound. God's joy is us. That is, since we're the creation of God, our salvation shows forth the wisdom, the power, the love, and the beauty of God as he works through his Son to bring us all the way home to glorification.
Very interesting. Again, God's not yet satisfied in a sense of the Word. In the eternal mind of God, there's a satisfaction. But in time and space history, speaking from an anthropomorphic or human understanding or approach, God's not yet satisfied and God does not yet have his true joy because he's not going to be full of joy till all of his children are home with him, perfected and glorified.
Isaiah 62 verse 5 speaks to this, For as a young man marries a virgin, so your sons will marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you. Ancient Israel, the godly remnant? Yes, but also the church. Jesus is absorbed with us, consumed with us. Hebrews 12 2 reminds us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before him. Look, we all the time preach and we all the time teach, but there was nothing in it for Jesus. He just loved us and died for us.
Yes, in a sense, but no biblically. He died for the joy set before him. In other words, he's getting something out of saving us. Not that you have any inherent thing to add to God, no, no, no, no, but that in God performing this work of all works, of forming a new creation and we being the center of it, God gets something out of it, a deep, deep joy. Who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of God the Father.
Isaiah 53 10, but the Lord was pleased to crush him, that's Jesus, putting him to grief. If he would render himself as a guilt offering and what's going to happen, there's something in it for him, he will see his offspring. The familial preciousness starts coming out. They're mine, they're my babies, they're my children, and I'm doing all that I do because I joy in them. The Bible didn't say he saw his offspring, it says he will see. There's coming a day, Zephaniah is talking about that, when he will exalt, he will rejoice over us in love. Luke 15 10, in the same way, I tell you, there's joy in the presence of the angels. Not joy on behalf of the angels, but joy in the presence of the angels. That's God.
Over one sinner he repents. Zechariah chapter 2 verse 8 tells us that God has a fierce devotion to protect us and keep us, because we are the apple of his eye. The word apple in the Hebrew is the very centermost pupil of the eye. It's the tenderest part of the body. It's the part of the body you guard and protect at all costs. Somebody throws something, you protect your eyes. God says, that's the way I am about my chosen, precious, elect children.
I'm going to guard them as if you tried to poke something in my eye. Wow, what more could God say? He's absorbed with us. No wonder Paul said to the Ephesian church, he said, I'm praying for you guys. I'm praying 3, 18 and 19 of Ephesians, that you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, and the height, and the depth, and to know the love of God which surpasses knowledge. Paul says more than anything else, I want you to increasingly grasp the love of our God. Now we'll close with this very powerful phrase in verse 17. Not only will he exalt over you with joy, not only will he rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
Interesting. In between them the simple phrase, he will be quiet in his love. It was quiet when in love he came for us in Bethlehem. Oh no, over in Jerusalem there was clamoring, noise, and probably feasting, and parting, and lights, and all the high mookity mokes. It's the centerpiece or the center of religion in the world, and they're all doing their thing.
The priests are doing their nightly duties. There's a lot of commotion and noise in Jerusalem, but God came and quiet Bethlehem. It was stone cold quiet when, or at least among the Godhead, when God darkened the earth as his son Jesus hung on the cross, bearing our guilt and our sin, taking the punishment in our place, and there as he did the wrath of God was satisfied in the flesh of Christ, full atonement was made, and in that moment, in that magnanimous love, God permanently silenced the raging thunders of divine wrath that was against us.
Quiet, quiet. When Jesus hung there and took the blast for us, the dark quietness was finally shattered as he cried, it is finished. Then in contradistinction the deep silence of divine satisfaction then permeated all of heaven and permeated the heart of God.
Through the work of the son he has rescued and secured the children. His love has won. Here we have on the cross after Jesus expires the quiet, complete victory.
Mission accomplished. When verse 17 says he will be quiet in his love, I think the idea is how deeply he feels and how totally he's absorbed in his love for us. It's so deep. It's so divine.
It's so holy. There's nothing more to do. There's nothing more to fight for. The battle is over. There's nothing more to say.
There's only the glorious union and silence. A silent love like the deepest ocean depths. The precious devoted mother has been at it for hours. Her precious infant child is wracked with the fever, restless and wrestling and unsettled. Wet cloths, cold baths, medication given. They're both exhausted. And finally about two o'clock in the morning the fever breaks. That precious baby girl lays still now on her mother's breast and both of them fall into the deepest sleep.
And it's quiet. You can't verbalize that love. You can't communicate that love.
You can only experience it. I think that's what God's trying to get across. Dear child of God, my love is beyond words. So in one very real sense when I get it all done I'll just be quiet with you in our communion and our love. Not a word, not a sound, just deep sweet quiet love. This is the greatest delight of our God. The nearness to and the preciousness of his own dear children. And thus we close the exposition of Zephaniah.
