Well, turn off all your electronical devices and turn over to Zephaniah, so we continue preaching through this Old Testament prophet. Zephaniah, if you go to Matthew, you go over about four books, not too many pages, they're short books, and you'll find Zephaniah. We come to Zephaniah chapter two, and we're going to do verses one through three.
I keep thinking I'm going to do a long section, and I do plan to next time, but this just grabbed me and wouldn't let me go. Zephaniah chapter two, verses one through three. The prophet Zephaniah, let me go ahead and say this just to bring us up to date, he's preaching to Judah. Judah is the southern kingdom. Israel's divided in two. Ten tribes went to the north.
They're technically called Israel. The supposed godly remnant was the two southern tribes, Benjamin and Judah. But unfortunately, under Manasseh, about a 50-year reign, wickedness flooded the land, idolatry, pagan worship, immoralities, rank injustice among the peoples, and then a young boy at the age of eight becomes king. His name is Josiah. I personally believe that it was Zephaniah who discipled king Josiah as a young man, and he as a young man began to administer radical reforms in all the nations of the southern kingdom of Judah, began to wipe out all the high places and the idol shrines and the pagan worship. But of course, there was something Josiah could not do.
He could not cleanse the heart. He could not cause people to love Yahweh or Jehovah again. That's the work of the Spirit. And unfortunately, though Josiah was faithful and godly and there was something of a revival in the land, it was far too little, too late, and God's judgment is coming. However, when we get to verses 1-3 of chapter 2, the prophet's approach changes. He goes from declaring God's judgment to calling the southern kingdom to repentance and correction.
And if they'll do that, there is some hope. So look at it there with me. Zephaniah chapter 2, verses 1-3. He begins by saying, Gather yourselves together. Yes, gather, O nation, without shame. Before the decree takes effect, the day passes like chaff, before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you, seek the Lord, all you humble of the earth, who have carried out his ordinances, seek righteousness, seek humility.
Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. Roman number one, let's note, repent and heed correction. And what a practical word we have for us in our day as we look at this text.
Repent and heed correction. Now, it begins in verse 1 of chapter 2 with this simple phrase, gather yourselves together. Yes, gather.
I'm convinced this refers to a solemn assembly. In other words, those of you who still fear the Lord come together, have a solemn assembly of humility and repentance and an open heart to receive the instruction and correction of the Lord. Well, in balance, the Hebrew scholars tell us the verbiage of this first verse can be understood in the effect of gather your minds together, not just you gather together, but gather your minds together, or come to your senses, gather your senses.
And sometimes I look at the scholars debate over the best understanding of the text, and so often either one basically comes to the same conclusion. If we're going to gather together as a people in repentance and gather together to go before the Lord in humility to to heed instruction and be corrected, then we must first get our minds right about this thing. We've got to come to our senses and realize we're away from the Lord. We're not walking with the Lord. We're not honoring the Lord. We better come to our senses and then come together as a people before the Lord in repentance.
So both ideas hinge together. But here the prophet is strongly exhorting the people, even in a shockingly way, to come to repentance and correction. He uses a cutting statement here, and this is where I want to plunge off into quite a depth of application for all of us, because first of all, this very truth had a vital impact in my life as a young Christian, a young pastor, but it's vital for all of us. He says in verse 1, continuing the second phrase, O nation without shame. Without shame.
You know, mankind is the only creature God made that can blush, but we've lost our ability to blush. We're no longer ashamed, and that's what he's saying to Judah. All that's going on in the nation and all that's going on in your lives and all the carnality, and for so many of you, outward brazen wickedness and idolatry, and all of that, you're kind of like, well, everybody's doing it. It's not that big a deal, and it's been going on a long time, decade after decade after decade, like it has in America.
You think America's going to get by with what she's doing? Judah didn't get by with it either, but you're shameless. You see, a shameful man is an incorrigible man. A shameless man, I should say. A man that's not ashamed can't be corrected.
He's incorrigible. Now, when we look at the book of Proverbs, we see something, and this really impacted my life as a young man. My first pastor was Charles Owen Dinkins, a country boy from Mayfield, Kentucky, but a godly and good man. A brilliant man in the scriptures. He taught the Bible in college for years, and he had an extensive study on Proverbs where he compared the fool of Proverbs to the wise man of Proverbs.
And he built on that, and that had a real impact on me as a brand new believer, a college student under his ministry. And the fool mentioned in the wisdom literature of Proverbs is a man who will not be corrected. The fool in the Proverbs is the man who's incorrigible. He's the man who is shameless.
He's not ashamed. He's full of himself. Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown in their excellent little commentary says, the fool of Proverbs is one who is stupid and indifferent to God's government. The way God ordained things to work, the fool says, I'll throw that off. In blind arrogance, the fool of Proverbs already knows it all.
His only standard is his own opinion. Proverbs 18 21 tells us he's only interested in revealing his own mind. Proverbs 12 15 says, and notice the contrast to the wise and the fool. Proverbs 12 15, the way of the fool is right in his own eyes.
That's the way these people of Judah were. But a wise man listens to counsel. A wise man humbles himself.
He's ashamed and he wants correction. Proverbs 12 1 says, whoever loves discipline, this would be the wise man, he wants to be corrected, loves knowledge. But he who hates reproof is stupid.
We teach our children and grandchildren not to use the word stupid, don't call anybody stupid, but God does it quite frequently. Proverbs 9 8, do not reprove a scoffer, another word for the fool. Now the scoffer is the one that when you correct him, he just rejects it and he ridicules you, he mocks back, he attacks back, and reviles. And we see a lot of revilers on our computer screens and on television today as they march in the street about their radical positions and they have no logic, no sensibility.
They don't even make a point, they just want to rant and revile. That's the scoffer. He's a fool. Reprove the scoffer and he will hate you, Proverbs 9 8 says.
Reprove a wise man and he will love you. He knows that's God's way to save his life, to bring corrections. But the uncorrectable man, the incorrigible man, is that one who will not be corrected and those kind of people dig their own graves.
That's what's happening in ancient Judah. And it happens in our day. We won't be corrected, we won't be corrected, we won't be corrected. And it happens in our day. We won't be corrected. We don't need to listen.
We like what we're doing. Shameless, uncorrectable. Proverbs 29 1 says of these type people, a man who hardens his neck after much reproof will suddenly be broken beyond remedy. You can go on like this, you can go on like this, you can go on like this and refuse correction, refuse reproofs in your life, don't have any shame in other words, and suddenly God draws a line and says, I'm not dealing with you anymore.
It's too late. I'm letting you go on in your hardness and you will be your own prophet. That is, you will be your own rebuke. Your life will show people what it's like when you go on and on without a humble correction in your spirit. So Judah here in this day is, verse one, a nation without shame, which means they were hardened in their sin. They didn't feel the prick of the guilty conscience. They felt they were above needing to repent. Being corrected and making corrections to their life was beneath them. They were hardened fools.
And the tragic situation, I could say condition, the tragic condition of a hardened fool is that he is blind and hardened to the fact that he is blind and hardened. They don't see it. They don't see it. They don't see it.
They can't grasp it. They are shocked, as Judah was, that anyone, especially this preacher named Zephaniah, who is he, they would say? Who is this guy? What does he mean? Why should we listen to him?
We have nothing to learn from him. How does he feel qualified? And that's always the notion of the fool. You're not qualified to correct me. I think Zephaniah would walk up and say, I'm a sinner just like you, but it's not about my qualification. It's about my calling. It's not about my qualification.
It's about my position. You're to honor God's preacher, God's prophet, in this case. You know, when you believe that you're above needing counsel and correction of God-ordained authority, then you are doomed. I think if there's anything in my life that speaks to whatever blessings God's brought into my life and ministry over these decades, it's that early on in God's providence, I was placed under men who thoroughly taught me the biblical lines of authority that you're to submit to in life. As a young lady, as a young man, if you will submit to authority, not because the authority is always worthier, better than you, that's not the point, but if you'll honor authority to honor God, God will bless you. Young men, honor the men God has put over you. Even if they're lesser men than you are, they still have the position of the elder person, whether it's your employer or your father or your church elders or whatever it may be. When we begin to throw off and think that we don't need correction, we don't need anybody in our life instructing us, we throw off what God has ordered to be a blessing and a safeguard for our lives, and God is not going to change the way he has structured society to function for you.
You are not the exception. You will break yourself against God's precept, but you will not break God's precept and get by with it. Proverbs 16 5 reminds us, everyone who is proud in heart, I'll do it my way.
I'll not receive instruction. I'll not listen to this preacher Zephaniah who's telling our country we've got to repent. Proud in heart, he's an abomination to the Lord.
Assuredly, he will not go unpunished. And here's the one that is so powerful in its metaphor, it casts forth James and James 4 6, but he gives a greater grace. Therefore, it says God is opposed to the proud but gives grace to the humble. The idea of being opposed to the proud is like a prizefighter who draws a line in the sand. It's like God says, okay, I'm setting my feet, now let's go.
But it's even more than that. It's not just that God sets himself to fight against you, it's that God has purpose in his heart. It's not just that God sets himself to fight against you, it's that God has purposed to rage against you in the battle. You're proud, you have no shame, you won't be corrected, you won't honor authority. God says, I set myself up to rage against you in battle.
Who's gonna win that? You know, when you've been a pastor 44 years of one place, there's a heap of men and women that come across your path, that grow into old age, suffering the consequences of a proud, uncorrectable spirit. God's opposed to the proud. A.T. Robertson, the best Greek scholar Baptist ever produced, said in his commentary on James 4 6, pride is peculiarly satanic. You don't align with satan in any other way more so than when you are proud.
You may be pristine, clean in your morals, you may be a respectable citizen. If you've got an uncorrectable spirit that will not honor God-ordained authority, you're more like satan than the guy who's pushing drugs and molesting children. Wow, pastor, God's word.
Well, they were without shame. They would not be corrected, they would not submit, they would not honor the authority of God's preacher. In addition to that, they lived just in wickedness and injustice toward their fellow man. We know back up in verse 9 of chapter 1 where the text talks about the second phrase of verse 9, they fill the house of their Lord with violence and deceit they're violent unjustly toward one another and they're deceiving in their dealings with one another.
And it reminds us, are you listening to me? Bad religion corrupts community ethic. Bad religion undermines societal morality. How we've seen that through the ages as we look at the gods of the nations of the of history and antiquity. You see, the God of the Bible gave us the Ten Commandments.
He's the God of righteousness, he's the God of holiness, he's the God of justice, the God of morality, the God of uprightness and ethical purity, and he's always the same. But you study the gods of antiquity outside the God of Scripture, you find greediness, you find immorality, you find envies, you find jealousy, you find an unethical spirit, and you find that these gods are ever-changing. I'll never forget the first time I was in a Asian culture, I forgot where it was, honestly I don't remember where I was, but I remember the missionary explaining to me, in this culture, you're esteemed by your ability to take advantage of someone else unjustly.
In your commerce, if you could lie or scheme or deceive and get ahead, then you were praised, because that's the way their gods were. Now, we failed a lot in western civilization, and we have not lived up to our ideals in western civilization, but you don't find that wanton, open promotion of deceit in a culture that's been under the Judeo-Christian ethic. Bad religion corrupts community morals. I saw this some time ago in a Pew Research study. They're a widely respected organization, and they interviewed and surveyed the Islamic communities around the world, and they found that by the time they got to the point where they were surveyed, the Islamic communities around the world, and they found that by interviewing these, that about a third, no about a fourth I should say, of Muslims around the world do not believe that suicide bombings are wrong to carry out jihad, to carry out the advancement of the religion. That means over 500 million Muslims around the world believe the slaughter of innocents is okay in the advancement of their religion. That's why I often say this thing of a pluralistic society is a lie.
You can't have a pluralistic society because one religion is by its very nature intolerant of another religion. They can't coexist. Have you seen the little bumper stickers coexist?
Have all the little symbols on them? How can you coexist with somebody that says the best thing for you to do is convert to Islam or die? That's not coexisting.
What's my point? Bad religion, bad doctrine leads to bad morality, leads to a bad community ethic. So back to ancient Judah here. Here Judah has forsaken their God, embraced idols. They've started a whoring after the gods of the surrounding nations.
They're living wickedly and committing injustices typical of people who follow godless religions, those again of the surrounding nations. So they are commanded here. And matter of fact, these are imperatives in the text. They're commanded here to return to the Lord, come to their senses, meet their senses, meet together in solemn humble assemblies, and repent and be corrected. Romans 2. Not only should they repent and heed correction, number two, the time is critically short. The prophet says the time is critically short, verse two. He says, do this before the decree takes effect.
The Chaldeans or the Babylonians are at the gate. You better humble yourself now. You better come to repentance now. The time is critically short. And then he uses that metaphor, the second line of verse two.
The day passes like the chaff before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you. Repeats that twice for emphasis. Now he uses the word chaff. You know what that means.
We've seen that many times. They would bundle up all the wheat and put it in piles and they would beat the stalks of wheat, shaking loose the grain from the husk or the chaff. And then they would take these rakes and they would lift that wheat up in the air. That steady Palestinian evening wind would blow the chaff off.
The heavier grains of wheat would fall to the ground and they could collect them and that's what they would eat. He said, you're going to be like the chaff. There's no weight to you. You think you're something, but there's no weight to you.
I'm going to have you blown away. Just like the farmer gathers his wheat and winnows the wheat to let the wind blow the chaff away. So Judas is very soon to be blown away by the Chaldeans that God is sending as his instrument of judgment against them. And they're without shame still. They don't feel like they need correction.
They don't feel bad about how they're living. They're brazen and hardened and heart so blinded by their sin that they had no sensitivity to their guilt. Hebrews 3 13 cautions us along this line, but encourage one another. You know why you come to church? To encourage one another in the things of the Lord. You know why you come to your small group?
To encourage one another. You know why you come in here prayerfully and humbly saying, God show me. Show me where I can repent today. Show me what I can correct today to be more in line with you.
Why do you do that? That's why you come. You come to church to be encouraged day after day as long as it's still called today so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.
The word hardened could be translated delusion. Sin constantly tells you it's going to be okay. It's just fine the way you're living.
It's okay. Nobody's perfect. Keep thinking this way. Keep doing these things. Keep living in sin. You become hardened if you don't repent and then you know what you do. You do what the Jews did earlier in chapter one. What did the Bible tell us? The Bible tells us they had the audacity, the narcissistic audacity to look at God and say, God you're the problem.
You're the problem. As a boy, I attended a United Methodist Church and I had already begun to go liberal. Some of the old Methodists were great and godly and preached repentance and Jesus loved them. But unfortunately for decades they've been on the downgrade like so many of the denominations. And that particular Methodist Church, and by the way had some godly people there that helped me and I thank God for that. God's always got his remnants sprinkled around, doesn't he? Amen. But one of the founding, I think it was the founding minister of that congregation came back an older gentleman and he preached the gospel.
And I remember as a young boy, it marked me, I remember it so well. As a young boy, I heard some of the younger middle-aged men say he needs to catch up with the time. He's behind.
No, he's not behind. He's just not hardened in sin like you are. Well, that's where Judah is.
And time is so short for them to get this right. They're going to be blown away like the chaff before the burning anger of the Lord comes upon them. Again, last phrase, verse two, before the day of the Lord's anger comes upon you. Roman numeral three. Repent. Heed correction. Number two. The time is really short. Chaldeans are at the gate.
Number three. There's mercy for those who seek the Lord. There's mercy for those who seek the Lord.
Again, in contrast to verse two, again in contrast to verse six of chapter one where the prophet says those who have not sought the Lord. You've been seeking everything else. You've been seeking money and wealth and fame and lands and treasures and immoralities and indulgence and pagan worship. It's time for you to seek the Lord.
Three times this word seek is used. He says there in verse three, seek the Lord. Then he says, seek righteousness. Then he says, seek humility. Again, these are all imperatives.
They're commands. You know, sometimes when you go to bed on Saturday night, you are not really high on coming to church on Sunday morning, but it doesn't matter what you feel like because you do what's right. Then you come in and your emotions catch up with the truth. You obey the truth and then God blessed. That's always worked in my life.
Does it not work that way in your life? The only way Judah can escape the wrath and judgment of Yahweh is found in Yahweh, the Lord. Yahweh is the best translation of the transliterated word of the Old Testament, L-O-R-D in capital letters. Jehovah is what we're used to saying, but Yahweh is a better understanding. So when I say Yahweh, I mean Jehovah. When I say Jehovah, I mean Yahweh.
When I say Jehovah or Yahweh, I mean the Lord. But the Lord gives us the only escape from the wrath of the Lord. We're to seek him. That means to come and worship before him, to come with the humble and obedient spirit before him. Because when you come to the Lord, you come to one of infinite superiority to yourself. You come before the triune God and therefore you come with, he says it, seek humility. You come with humility. Humility is having, now listen to me, humility is when you rightfully understand the utter hopelessness of your condition before this holy God. You just come humbling. And then you come in righteousness.
There's a lot of nuances. Maybe there's a dynamic element to all that is understood in righteousness, but I've never found anything better to grasp what righteousness is and walking in righteousness than this. Righteousness is when you deal with all your relations or in all your relations according to divine justice. You do what's just and right with all mankind. Your wife, your husband, your children, the guys at work, people that work for you, the people, you deal with them justly. This is something they were failing to do as they drifted into false religion.
They drifted into unethical and abusive conduct one to another. So to truly seek the Lord means you abandon all others to find, to know, and to honor the Lord. You come to seek him wholly convinced that he alone is worthy of honor and worthy of worship. You're like the Apostle Paul in Libyans 3.13 where he says, this one thing I do.
Whatever else I'm doing, this one thing I'm going to do, I'm going to seek the Lord. You're like Peter in John chapter 6 when Jesus began to teach increasingly about his kingdom and about what following him as a disciple really looked like, what it really meant. It wasn't just about miracles all the time. It wasn't just about feeding the hungry all the time. It wasn't just about raising the dead all the time.
It wasn't just about healing the sick all the time. And as Jesus began to teach that there's going to be some suffering and caring of crosses, they started to fall away. The crowd started to diminish.
The numbers were declining. And Jesus looks at his inner circle, his 12 disciples. He said, are you going to go away too? Peter said, where are we going to go? You have the words of eternal life. We've decided we're going to seek you. We're going to honor you.
We're going to follow you. Now, he also has the phrase here in verse 3, and he uses this word in different forms twice. Seek the Lord, second phrase, all you humble of the earth.
I think one of the ideas here is that it's a minority of people who are the humble of the earth. Actually, you have the nation of Israel, all 12 tribes. They're divided now, remember, 10 tribes to the north, 2 tribes to the bottom, 2 separate nations, Israel and Judah. But Israel was supposed to be the remnant of God in the earth, and she failed. Then Judah, the southern kingdom, was generally viewed as, this is the godly remnant in the earth. Now the prophet says, now among Judah, there's a humble remnant. So what we have is a remnant, among the remnant, among the remnant. Israel's the remnant. Now, Judah's the remnant. Then the prophet says, but Judas rebelled in sin. Now there's a group within Judah who's actually the godly elect remnant of God. Can I say something to you, church?
That equation is consistent in the church age. You have Christendom, you have Bible-believing Christendom, then you have maybe the Reformed and committed to scripture and the totality of the church life, and then you have remnant, and then you have those that are really trying to do it. You end up with like a remnant within a remnant within a remnant within a remnant.
And then you end up with a remnant within a remnant within a remnant within a remnant within a remnant within a remnant. I realized a long time ago that our ministry was not going to appeal to the broad range of evangelicals, but that we were something of a ministry to encourage perhaps the remnant that was trying to seek the Lord. The Lord knows that we need to keep humbling ourselves, and we need to keep repenting ourselves, and we need to keep being correctable ourselves, and we need to have shame at how often we fail ourselves. But here this godly yet imperfect remnant had not run wholesale into pagan idolatry of Baal worship or Molech worship, worshiping the stars of the heavens, dancing around and prancing around with torches and fire burning here and there in their pagan worship and idolatry, not to mention the perverse and blatant sexual immoralities of those types of worship. This group had not gone down that path, neither had they dived into the syncretism of having Jehovah worship mixed with Baal worship, synchronizing the two, which is so common in evangelical and Baptist churches today. Bring in the world, they tell us, make the church more attractive. Brothers and sisters, there's only one person that were to make the church attractive before, and that's Jesus.
Let's make it attractive to him, and whoever wants that's welcome. So they would indulge in the entertainments and sensualities of Baal worship, plaster a little Jehovah worship on it, give it a little cosmetic orthodoxy, if you will, and call it okay. This group, this humble of the earth, I believe were those who didn't go along with that. You see, the godly humble are those who believe that there's no hope in anyone or anything other than God himself. To them, God and God alone is holy and glorious and worthy of worship. To them, God's wisdom, God's truth is the only wisdom, and it must be embraced and it must be obeyed. And when this godly remnant falls short, they are quick to repent and return to God in confidence that his grace and his mercy is sufficient for them.
In verse 3, the prophet amplifies the character of this remnant even more, as he says in the middle of the verse, who have carried out his ordinances. Their lifestyles look different. Your Facebook page shouldn't look like the world's Facebook page. Some of you present yourself online like you're a heathen, and we've dealt with some of that lovingly, patiently. That's one thing, brothers and sisters, to have sin in your life. It's another to plaster it before the world.
Stupid. Have some shame about it. Don't glory in it.
They followed his ordinances. Not perfection, but it means once Christ saves you and you're truly his, the purpose and pattern of your life is different. You're on a different trajectory than you used to be on. Can we get an amen there?
Isn't that good? God saved us, failed him a lot, but praise God, I've been on a different trajectory ever since. I'm thankful that he humbles me and grabs me. The old preacher said that time, he said, I wish I could sin and get by with it.
Thank God, he didn't leave me alone. Brings me back to be ashamed and be correctable. Then here's this phrase, and we're ending here, but don't you dare turn me off yet. Second to last phrase in verse three, perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. The day of the Lord's anger.
Praise. Perhaps you'll be the ones who will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger. Now the day of the Lord's anger will not be turned back from Judah, but you could be hidden or protected through it. The Hebrew scholars tell us the idea is it's with difficulty, but God may protect you in the day of his wrath. Now not difficult like it's hard for God, but there's a complexity here.
It's not like you just go sit on a mountain and there's just plenty of Gatorade and pizza and fun and everybody else is getting judged down the valley. The judgment's going to be all over, but there's going to be a sense in which God takes what humanly, anthropomorphically speaking, would be a difficult challenge and he's going to make it work out perfectly and you're going to be hidden or protected as the wrath comes. Under this idea of it being difficult, our complexity in its spirit or element, 1 Peter 4, 17 through 19, for it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God.
The household of God will be parallel to the godly remnant here we're talking about. And if it begins with us, what will be the outcome of those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty, same idea, that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless men and the sinner?
In other words, it's going to be hard on everybody, but much harder on those who are not protected and hidden in God. So the raging day of the Lord is a punishment to the hardened ungodly, but the raging day of the Lord is a necessary discipline for the righteous remnant, the humble. And they receive the discipline of God in humble submission.
Hebrews 12, 5 through 7 speaks of this very truth. And have you forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him. For those whom the Lord loves, he disciplines. It's a punishment to the rebels, but it's a discipline to the children. And he scourges every son whom he receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as the sons.
For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? So as the raging waters of judgment crash onto Judah, these are the waters of purification and cleansing for the humble remnant who seek the Lord. That's where I think the prophet is going with this. So here in chapter two, verses one through three, we have a break in the gloomy picture. Chapter two, verses one through three, gives us a strong dose of redemption and hope. While God's holy justice must rather find satisfaction in the retributive wrath that will come on the ungodly, God's holy grace that delivers salvation must find salvation or rather satisfaction in that salvation.
Let me say it again and get it straight for you. Holy justice must find satisfaction in wrath, but holy grace must find satisfaction in salvation. Now God does whatever he pleases, and at the end, God's going to be divinely satisfied either in wrath against you or in salvation for you.
There's always satisfaction. Salvation must be based on satisfaction. Now as we close things down, let's go back to that weighty phrase in verse three, the simple phrase, perhaps you will be hidden. The wrath is coming, but perhaps you can be one of those who will be hidden.
And literally, your translation may not use the word, but that's what the Hebrew word means, to hide. It brings to mind Exodus 33, where Moses said, God, I want to see your face. And God says, Moses, I'm coming by, but here's what we got to do. Moses, I'm putting you down in a crevice in the rock, then I'm putting my hand over the top of you, and then I'm passing by, and you can glance at my back, because if you saw me in the full, you would be consumed by my holiness, because you're not yet sinless. You're not yet cleansed.
You are not yet glorified. But I'll hide you in the cleft of the rock, and you can be hidden from the consuming wrath that will be coming by. That means, I myself, Moses, will hide you from my wrath, providing the satisfaction.
I myself will provide a satisfaction against all your sin, and all that justice and holy justice demands of you, because of your sin. And that brings us to Jesus, does it not? That's what God the Son did on the cross for the elect remnant. You see, Jesus was not hidden from the Father's wrath. He was held under that wrath by the nails on the cross, by Jesus' own choice and loving willingness. He let them nail him to the cross, and the Father said, let them be nails in your hands on the cross, and that will hold you there under the wrath. You will not be hidden, Jesus.
You will take the wrath. On that cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. Now Jesus hides us and shelters us in the shadow of that cross. We are hidden there. The word hidden here in our text, perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the Lord's anger, it can also mean undetectable.
The Geiger counter detects radiation. There's a divine Geiger counter of holiness that detects even the tiniest trace of unholiness or sin. But when divine, I'm not sure, when divine omniscience examines us, there's not even a trace of sin detected, or it's gone. It was placed on Jesus.
It was expiated and satisfied in the death of Jesus on the cross, and we are safe in Jesus both for time and eternity as He hides us in the shadow of the cross. This whole book's about Jesus. You can't study it and not see Him. Are you hidden in Jesus? I'm not asking, did you walk in a howl?
I'm not asking, did you repeat a prayer sometimes, somewhere? I'm asking you right now, can you say, oh Christ, I'm hidden in you. That's the only way to be hidden from the wrath of God is in Jesus.
And by the way, it's free. All you've got to do is come. Are you listening? All you've got to do is come full of shame. I've got nothing but shame. I only have shame, and I believe you're the God who will forgive and save the shameful. If you come and say, well, let's barter a little bit, God. I'm a pretty good guy. No, I've got some sin here and there, but I'm pretty... No, you're going straight to hell. You come full of shame, correctable, teachable, and when you come that way, Jesus says, you're just what I'm looking for. You're just the kind of sinner I'm looking for. Shameful, correctable, humble, sinner.
