Major Points from the Minor Prophets

So we're starting at verse 14 onto verse 18. The great day of the lord is near, near and coming quickly The cry on the day of the lord is bitter. The mighty warrior shouts his battle cry. That day will be a day of wrath a day of distress and anguish, a day of trouble and ruin, a day of darkness and gloom. A day of clouds and blackness, a day of trumpet and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the corner towers.

I will bring such distress on the people that they will grope about like those who are blind because they have sinned against the law their blood will poured out like dust and their entails like dung, neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the lord's wrath. In the fire of his jealousy, the whole earth will be consumed but he'll make a sudden and end of all those live on the earth. And then again chapter 3 going from verse 6. 6 to 17. I have destroyed nations their strongholds are demolished.

I have left their streets deserted with no passing through. Their cities are laid waste They are deserted and empty. Of Jerusalem, I thought, surely you will fear me and accept correction. Then a place of refuge would not be destroyed nor all my punishments come upon her. But they were still eager to act corruptly, corruptly, and all they did.

Therefore, wait for me. Declares the lord. For the day, I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them, all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire, my jealous anger.

Then I will purify the lips of the peoples, that all on them may call the name of the lords. And serve him shoulder to shoulder. From beyond the rivers of Cush, my worshipers, my scattered people will bring me offerings. On that day, you, Jerusalem will not be put to shame for the wrongs you have done to me. Because I will move from you your arrogant boasters.

Never again will you be haughty on my holy hill but I will leave within you the meek and humble. The remnant of Israel will trust in the name of the lords. They will do no wrong They will tell no lies. A deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouths. They will eat and lie down, and no 1 will make them afraid.

Sing, daughter Zion shout aloud Israel, Be glad and rejoice with all your hearts, daughter Jerusalem. The Lord has taken away your punishment He has turned back your enemy. The lord, King of Israel is with you. Never again, will you fear any harm? On that day, they will say to Jerusalem.

Do you not fear Zion? Do not let your hands hang limp? The lord your god is with you, the mighty warrior who saves you. He will take delight in you, His love, he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with your singing. Andy?

Well, a very good evening to you. Please have Zephyr open in front of you. We'll pray and then we'll get started. Father we do thank you for your word. We thank you that so often we get to sit and hear your word preach to us, read to us.

Look, we pray that you'll help us never take that for granted, but to hear it as it is your voice, your living word. Lord help us as we hear. Please help me as I try to explain and get us into this and help us to understand it, but please assist us by the assistance of your Holy Spirit to understand your word. We ask this in your name. Amen?

Well, now we, we all ignore warnings from time to time. It's, you know, it's living on the edge a little bit, isn't it? We ignore the odd warning. Sometimes we do it because we think we know better than the person that's warning us. Sometimes we decide that in actual fact, all things considered, we don't mind living with the risk.

Of the thing that we're being warned about. So my children really do not understand why anybody still smokes cigarettes. Why does anyone do that? They pick up a a packet from the the floor that they find on the street and they look at the gory pictures on it Most of the packet is covered with a warning saying if you smoke these you will die and yet people still smoke them. It's bizarre, isn't it?

Why would you ignore such an explicit warning as that. See, with warnings, sometimes the consequences of ignoring warnings can be trivial, So a few years back, I remember sharing this once with people. Sarah, my wife, managed to run out of petrol in the car twice in the course of 1 month. Now she came home, you know, it's slightly embarrassing, but did the light not come on on the dashboard? Yes.

The light did come on on their dashboard. The warning light was there. Now, admittedly, it's probably not the most drastic warning light on your dashboard of your car. There are other lights if they come on, you probably would take action. But that, you know, when the petrolite's been on long enough, surely, you go and fill fill up the car.

But she decided that she was going to live with the risk. And, you know, she bought all the consequences. Now, that's a little embarrassing, though, not very serious. But sometimes ignoring a warning like the warnings given by the prophets we've been looking at at the end of the old testament sometimes that's very serious and utterly foolish to do so. Now tonight, we're going to look, a little bit of the story behind this, as well as look at the content of this book.

So bear with me. I hope you'll find this exciting. A lot of people see these books at the end of the old testament, these minor prophets, as they're called, as they get called the the clean page books. You know, in in the in a church bible, they're the ones that with no dirt. On the pages, you know, it's not whatever it is that you dribble on your bibles as as we have sermons.

They're clean pages because we just don't open them. But we're gonna really try to get to grips with this and just just get the flow of it tonight. Obviously, we can't do everything, but we're going to have a real good go at it. Zephaniah was he probably uttered this prophecy, the contents of this book, somewhere at the start, at the beginning of a king called Josiah. Like my boy here.

Good king Josiah. Now those were actually, and especially the days leading up to it. Some of the worst days of the kingdom of Judah. Their worst time, this is the southerners. So hezekiah had been a really good king.

We did his story a few months back. You may remember. Hezakiya, very, very good king. You remember he prayed for the deliverance of Jerusalem. All the Syrian armies were around the city, like hundreds of thousands of soldiers under the mighty king Sennakarib, the brutal ruthless 1.

And yet Josiah prayed, let put it all out before the lord, And that very night, an angel of the lord came down and gave the victory, slaughtered 185000 soldiers and sent sanakarib, the mighty king, back home with his tail between his legs, is a wonderful, wonderful king. And despite hezekiah's maybe perhaps questionable end. He'd led the nation well, but his son who succeeded him was utterly wicked utterly wicked. Manassa. Now it's hard to oversell just how wicked this man was You gotta get this for the build up to where we're going with Zephaniah.

You had a really wicked man here, and he invited into the kingdom of Judah just about every false god that was going. He just did a pick and mix from all the nations around him and invited them all into the kingdom. And he seems to have been particularly fond of Bail, Asherah, and Molek. So the idolatrous stain on the nation was as vivid as ever in the days of of Josiah, and you can you can see it as you look at chapter 1. Have a look down and see the marks of this in his in his, in his book here.

So verse 4 of chapter 1 mentions the widespread worship of baal. You see that? You mentioned by name, a widespread you know, it's it's riddled with bale worship. Bale was the fertility god. He had all of his sort of phallic shrines.

And then you have, verse 5 mentions those who swear by the lord and swear by Molek. So this is a sort of pluralism thing, you know, worshiping all the gods hedging all your bets. So you've got the you've got the god of Israel and then you add another 1 on this case, moloch the god to whom children were burned in the fire. Fancy putting those 2 in the same breath, going to the 1 then the other. Sickening, isn't it?

And then verse 9, this is a slightly interesting 1. Verse 9 talks about those who avoid stepping on the threshold. What does that mean? Well, that's referring to a brilliant little story in 1 Samuel, where the Philistines had captured the ark of the covenant, they're taking it, they took it back, they defeated, they defeated the Israelites, took back the ark, god's golden box and they took it back to their city in in Philistia, and they put it in the temple of Daigon, their god. And then they all went to bed, got up in the morning and they found that the statue of Dagon had crashed down in the night and fallen face long before the arc.

That's a brilliant that's an omen, isn't it? Really? Right there. So what do they do? You know, get the cranes out, the levers, they get their old, get old, dagon back up onto his feet, and a dust him off, go off to bed again.

In the morning, there is day gone. He's fallen down. His heads hit the thresh hold of the door and his neck's broken and his hands have come off. It's quite it's quite something, isn't it? And so we're told actually in 1 Samuel, a a a superstition arose there where they didn't step on the threshold of the door anymore.

So this is an an allusion to the worship of Daigon. It's amazing, isn't it? So under Manasse, the nation became a people who would worship pretty much anything. They invited anything in no matter how vile it was, they would worship it. And when I say worship, I mean, they give themselves to it.

They live for it. They make a big fuss of it. They also, a second issue really with the with the people is that again, and we get this all the time in the minor prophets, don't we? They had no time for the word of god. Just not listening to god.

It's fingers in the ears. We're not listening. And hezekiah sought, it's a good king- remember, hezekiah, the last of the good kings really in until until Josiah. Good King Jaciah, he had sought the council of the prophet Isaiah. That's a big name.

Huge book in the Bible. And, but Vanessa, his son, he came along. He only wanted to shut isaiah up. So his father had listened to him. Manassa no time for Isaiah.

Eventually, according to the rabbinical literature, get this, manasseh hunted the prophet down. So he went chasing Isaiah. Isaiah had to go on the run. And, Isaiah was on the run. He saw a, I think, his hollow cedar tree And so he hid inside the tree running away from Vanessa.

Manassa found him and ordered his men saw the tree down with Isaiah inside it. This is a gory gory end. You can hear you can see that sort of alluded to in Hebrew's chapter 11 where the author talks about heroes of the faith and says some were sawn in too. It's talking about Isaiah. So these are bad days, aren't they?

Bad days. Of worshiping every god and shutting up the the the real god. But the days of Zephaniah, so by those by that time, Judah had probably received No word from god, really, because when you treat the prophets like that, you tend to get no word from god. No word of god really for a generation. They're in a pretty sorry state.

They'd rejected god's law and actually you'll see in a minute as we look at the story, they'd virtually forgotten there even was a law of god. That's how far they'd gone. And when you reject god and instead embrace false gods, When you stop listening to god's word and just embrace the wisdom of the world around you, well, the consequences are always, a nosedive in lots of different realms. Morally, it's definitely a nosedive, spiritually, it's a nosedive. Now there are some staggering details when you look at the history books and you and you start to join the dots.

The 1 that struck me most is if if as you look through 2 kings, and it talks about Josiah's what what Josiah does in the kingdom. It talks about Josiah going to the temple in Jerusalem in his days and having to and and decide to do renovation, he removes the asherah pole from the temple. Now think about that just for a second. This is like a phallic shrine being removed from that holy temple having to take that out. Then get this, the next thing he has to do is he has to go tear down the accommodation for the male shrine prostitutes at the temple of the lord in Jerusalem.

That's pretty far gone, isn't it? You can read about that in 2 kings. Amazing. And Zephaniah would have wandered the streets of Jerusalem and seen the sights have smelled the smells of that kind of a people utterly pagan. In fact, in 2 kings 21, you read this summary.

I just want to really rub it in. It says this about manasse, manasse king of Judah, has committed these detestable sins, says the lord. He has done more evil than the Amorites who preceded him and has led Judah into sin with idols. Did you get that? Did you get the the the the summary that's going on there?

Way back, god told Abraham sent Sherry's earlier, that they must wait before going into the promised land. Why? Because the peoples in that land had not yet reached the the the full level of of evil. He says this in the fourth generation or 400 years, really, it's talking about, your descendants will come back here. So it's a long wait.

Why? God says to Abraham for the sin of the amorites has not yet reached its full measure. Now just put that 2 and 2 together there. It's going to take more than 400 years for these pagans to reach the full depths of their depravity and their wickedness yet in just 1 generation from Hezekiah to Minassa. Manassa brings the nation down from the relative sort of heights of Hezekiah to a state worse than the evil of the Amorites at their worst.

That's quite staggering, isn't it? And Moses, the law bringer, had warned that just as the land Vomited out the people before them. So if they would be immoral the same way, it would vomit them out. And that's really what's going on. And Judah is a disaster.

Then Manass dies has an interesting end actually, but his son, Amon, takes the throne and follows in his father's footsteps. Just carries it on and you think, is there no hope? But mercifully, amon, is killed after just 2 years. He's assassinated. Obviously there's some uprising in the people.

There seems to be some stirring amongst the people. And Amon's 8 year old son, Josiah takes the throne. He's given the throne. Of course, it's probably underneath the supervision of the high priest, Hilkaya, who seems to be a pretty good man. Now my guess is that it's around about this time, if we're really trying to pinpoint it, that Zephaniah brings his prophecy.

So it's probably in the childhood of Josiah. Now this, you're in this sort of crossroads. Here you've got an opportunity. It's like almost like a blank slate with this boy. A chance for Judah to break out of this reckless spiral into oblivion.

How would this boy turn out? Which way is he gonna go? And that's really the question that you're hanging there as you read this this prophecy. Now, the book of Chronicles tells us that just 8 years into Josiah's reign, so when he's about 16 and there are some in this room who are not much older than that and some that not much younger than it. It says that Josiah started to seek the god of his father, David, which is probably quite a hard thing to do in that culture.

And 4 years later, this young king decides that he is going to lead the nation back to the god of his forefathers. And Josiah takes radical action, he starts to remove some of the shrines that what was going on in Jerusalem with the the temple and to remove some of the full scots from the the surroundings of the cities. And he turns his attention then to the temple. Now get this. This is important part of the story.

2 Kings chapter 22 tells us. That when Josiah turns his attention to the temple, he sees it's in a bit of a dreadful state, and he wants to renovate it. So he sends his secretary a man called Shafran to go down to the temple and make sure the funds are in place and assign the workers and, you know, sort everything out. And so Chaffan goes down to the temple and he meets Hillkiah. And Hillkiah comes out saying, Hey, Chevron, we've found something really interesting.

Probably buried somewhere underneath the altar of bale here. We found this dusty old book. Hey, it's the book of the law of Moses. Have you ever heard of that? That's an amazing, amazing book.

It's a really good read. You should read it, Shafam. Take it to the king. So Shafam takes it away and reads through the copy of this book, obviously no 1 seen 1 in a long time. And as he reads it, he decides he must let the king know.

He's got to go and tell the king. So he returns to the king, and it's sort of understated, really. He starts by just giving a financial report. It's like 1 of those, church business meetings where he go, you know, other finances and stuff. You know, we've got so many thousands of whatever.

And after he's given this report, he says, are by the way, Jesiah? They also found a book in the temple, and I'd love to read to you from it, and we're told that when Josiah heard god's law being read out again. He tore his robes. He was utterly devastated He had heard the words of Moses written written down and and and preached out see long ago god had told the people how they should live but not just how they should live but the consequences if they did not. I don't know if you remember when we when we went through the book of deuteronomy, and it had this picture of of 2 groups of people going up these 2 mountains.

1 1 shouting from the top of the mountain, 1 group shouting the blessings of keeping god's law, and then the other 1 shouting back the curses of not keeping god's law. And this is all read out All kinds of horrible curses that would befall the nation and Josiah is devastated by it. Now the words words of zephaniah as we read through this prophecy if you read it would probably in the light of that, not have come of as any sort of a shock. To Josiah. But Zephaniah preaches the word of god, preaches this message to the people of the city.

He's preaching in Jerusalem. Let's go through. Let me just take you through the book now. So there's your setting. Now let's have a look at the book itself.

I want you just to get quickly to grips with it. It's actually it that sometimes these books look a bit impenetrable and you hear them read and you think my goodness, I don't know what's going on there. And I guess most of you felt that way when we had the reading, I almost did sitting here and I've prepared a sermon on it, but the book's actually got quite a simple structure. Me take you through it. Chapter 1 really in broad brushstrokes.

Chapter 1 concerns God's judgment on Judah. It's quite clear. And so you get this judgment on Judah with great distress and wailing. That's really what chapter one's about. Then chapter 2 moves on to focus on judgement.

If you look at it, on judgement on the nations, you'll see lots of nations are named and and judgments against them. And that continues all the way through until chapter 3 verse 8 where we get the third chunk starting from verse 9 onwards, which is the redemption of a remnant from Judah with great rejoicing and singing. So you got on 1 side of the book you've got this distress and wailing with the judgment. The other side of the book, you've got this redemption and you've got this rejoicing and singing. So it ends on a high.

But now, listen, the repeated phrase of the book, if you were to look through it, and I guess if I gave you time, you'd spot this because you're all quite sharp, is the day of the lord keeps getting mentioned. The day of the lord, and and 1 in that really bloodthirsty reading we had at the beginning, the great day of the lord. But there's the day of the lord, the day of the lord, the day of the lord, all the way through it. Now it was these prophets during the last years, you know, that during the end of the old testament period, he started to use that phrase, the day of the lord. I wonder if you've ever thought about what it means because it's a bit of a slippery title, actually, the day of the lord.

In general terms, what it means is the day when god steps in and acts decisively, or to put it a bit more clearly, it's a day the day when god settles accounts with the wicked, and vindicates the righteous. Do you see the 2 sides to it? Settling accounts with a wicked vindicating the righteous. It's a big red letter day when that is going to happen. As far as I can see, it almost always then has a connection with judgment.

It's a day of judgment. And it's certainly, that's true here in the book of Zephaniah. Now, also, it's a phrase that evidently people at the time were familiar with. So Zephania is not using some strange jargon that nobody would have heard before. In fact, in Israel, during the days of Amos, people talked about the day of the lord with great excitement They were really excited about the day of the lord coming.

A red letter day when god is going to visit the earth and he's gonna vanquish our enemies. That's the day of the lord for them. But Amos unleashes a stinging critique in Amos chapter 5. Listen to what he says. He says this.

Woe to you. Who long for the day of the lord. Why do you long for the day of the lord? That day will be darkness, not light, It will be as though a man fled from a lion only to meet a bear. As though he ended his house and rested his hands on a wall, only to have a snake bite him.

Just when you think you're safe, something comes to get you. That's what the day of the lord will be like to you because these were a people blind to their own condition and that is dangerous, isn't it? Blind to their condition? Waiting for a day when the wicked would be judged not knowing that actually who are the wicked? You're the wicked, and judgment is coming for you.

Now, likewise, Zephania speaks to his generation some time later, actually, in Jerusalem and listen, for the original hearings in Israel and Judah. The day the lord, its immediate happening was really quite obvious, especially if we know our history here. In their immediate context, it was the day when there perspective kingdoms fell. So already, the day of the lord has come to Israel. They've been basically annihilated.

And have been taken off into captivity. And these were days of horror, and that's what we had read out by Ben earlier. That the the enemies who overthrew these people we we heard about them, didn't we in previous weeks, they were utterly merciless. You know, leaving big piles of skulls as a sort of memorial for having taken a city. They butchered men and women and children mercilessly So that chapter that Ben read out for us, from chapter 1, those verses, just look at what they're saying.

Let me just read a little bit from the end verse 17. The lord says, I will bring such distress on all people that they'll grope around like those who are blind because they've sinned against the lord. Their blood will be poured out like dust in their entrails like dung. Neither will their silver or their gold be able to save them on the day of the lord's wrath. That's what came upon Jerusalem and on Samaria earlier.

Just as god had warned, the wickedness of those kingdoms reached its fullness and the land vomited them out, and that's what happened. But that's not the whole story. So we're sort of covered really what you'd get if you were an israelite living in the days of Zephaniah. That's really what you're being warned about, but there's something more in this book. Because that's not the full extent of what the day of the lord refers to.

I told you it was a slippery term. If you look carefully, and you'll start to see it in Zephaniah if you look carefully, Zephaniah has constructed this oracle, this book with some very interesting features. It's got within it what a lot of, you know, commentators like to call bookends So let me show you the bookends of the book and they start and finish every major section so that you've basically got these 2 big sections. It's book end book end book end. I don't know what you call that.

We're having a book end between 2 book ends. Follow- try and follow with me. So let me give you an example. You'll see it in the book. So chapter 1, It's all about judgment falling on Judah.

Remember, but it begins with verses 2 to 3. Have a look at what they say. Verse 2. I will sweep away everything from the face of the earth declares the lord. I'll sweep away both men and beasts.

I'll sweep away the birds in the sky and a fish in the sea, and the idols that cause the wicked to stumble when I destroy all mankind from the face of the earth declares the lord. That's a little bit bigger than just, you know, the Assyrians coming down, isn't it? And taking Jerusalem. And then that section closes. Like I said, within the next bookend, With the second half of verse 18, you'll see in your bible there's even they put a little gap in there for you to see it more clearly.

Verse 18 of chapter 1, In the fire of his jealousy, the whole earth will be consumed for he will make a sudden end of all who live on the earth. See how it's it's bigger, isn't it much bigger this day of the lord? And then again, just just for completeness, have a look, about halfway through chapter 3 chapter 3 verse 8 after you've had the judgment on the nations, nation, nation, nation, nation, nation, then we bookend it again. And what does the bookend say? Verse 8, I've decided to assemble the nations to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them all my fierce anger, the whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger.

It's big, isn't it? That's the that's the big. That's the real day of the lord. The real big deal. And so when we come to the new testament, We find that the writers are not shy to pick up that same phrase.

They pick up that phrase the day of the lord, and then they take it to his ultimate conclusion and show us what it's really, really all about. It's full blown expression. That horrific day of overthrow of slaughter, an an exile at the hands of the Assyrians, which must have been absolutely awful, dreadful. Yet just a shadow. Let that sink in.

Really, just a shadow connected to the real thing. Just really a signpost pointing through time to the reality. The big thing that's really going to come. It's a reality that concerns the whole world, where all will be held to account. And can I just say Really, for quite similar reasons, don't you think?

Are we not a world that rejects god and embraces all kinds of other? Things to worship? You know, we are, don't we? We give our lives. We give ourselves to all kinds of other things and don't give a thought about our creator.

We are massive idolaters just like these people were. We make them look tame, actually, the number of idols we have in our lives that we swapped for god that we reject god for. We ignore the call of god through the word of god. Aren't we a world that is rejecting everything that god has to say and his people that wanna bring it to us, then we should tremble. Because there's a big day of the lord coming.

And as we look at these things, I want you to just picture that dashboard and the light has come on and it is flashing at you. This is sobering, isn't it? Flash, flash, flash. If you ignore it, you ignore it at your folly and your peril. Have a look at it.

It's a reality, first of all. 3 things about it. It's a reality. The apostle Paul preaching in Athens to the great minds of his day, upon the areopagus. He declares in Athens.

He declares this about god. He, god, has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. And he's given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. You hear what Paul's saying? God has set a day.

Ladies and gentlemen, He said today, the date is ringed in god's diary with a big red biro, I guess. God's unfailing, unchangeable plans have been set. What he has said he will do, there is no, there's no going back on this. It's there. The date is day, set a day.

Judge is coming. Jesus will return as judge. And we do not know when, but listen, we do know that that day is closer today than it was yesterday, don't we? We do know that the clock is ticking, and we've got to remember that. We should live remembering that, shouldn't we?

Really, here is the application of the book, so please tune in. The clock is ticking. That day is coming. Now the trouble is we live in a world that really doesn't believe it. It lives like it's not happening.

Popular culture makes the return of Christ just an item from mockery. Have you noticed that? Where the world where you've got the bumper sticker version saying Jesus is coming back, look busy. Is that so trivializing it all. But we're not the first people to be complacent.

Have a look at Zephaniah chapter 1 verse 12. Very interesting. At that time, says the lord, I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish those who are complacent. Like wine left on its dregs, you think the lord will do nothing either good or bad. You see that?

Just ignoring and rubbishing the warnings of judgment. And then centuries later, you've got the apostle Paul talking about mockers So the apostle Peter even, mockers who in the last day, he says, the days he's living in, the days that we're living in, saying, Where is this coming that he promised ever since our fathers died? Everything goes on as it has been since the beginning of creation. Do you ever meet people like that? Or at least who live like that.

Like, this is just nonsense. Don't go on all about you Jesus' coming back stuff. It's just if it was gonna happen, it was it's the other that happened by now. Surely. Why are you holding on to that hope?

See, there's nothing new here. There's always been those who will mock god's warnings. I wonder if there are those who in your hearts even tonight are mocking that warning, living like as if it's a non issue. Not gonna happen probably. But it's a reality.

It's a reality. And just like those who were in the days of Noah, and Noah's preaching and didn't respond. No 1 responding to Noah and his preaching. No 1 responds and will respond so often today. You ever thought about how the rainbow in the skies, you know, every time I read that story obstructed by this, The rainbow in the sky serves a dual purpose to us, doesn't it?

First of all, you know, we we know the scripture tells us that it it's it's a promise that god's put there that he will never destroy the earth again with a flood. But think about the other flip side of that. It's reminding you he did. And that the Bible says he will do so again. It's up there reminding you.

He did do it once. Why are you saying he won't? He did. He did judge the world, and he will do it again. It's a reality.

Second thing is this, it will be dreadful It will be a dreadful thing. So not only of is the return of Christ as judge a reality. It's a dreadful reality. Manasa set up I mean, get try and get the picture of this. Manasa set up shrines in a valley near Jerusalem for the worship of Mole.

And that was where people brought their children to be burned. But when they when the people returned from Exxon, they came back to the city, it was such a wicked place that they turned it to be a place that that was used just for throwing out rubbish. It's where, you know, if your cat died, you'd take your cat down there and throw it. Throw it into the dump. Dead animals, dead rubbish, trash, rubbish, refuse, excrement.

That sort of stuff, anything you wanted away from you because it was dirty and filthy and unclean, you put it all into that valley where those hideous wicked things had happened. Now Jesus was the most loving and compassionate man who ever lived but he spoke more about the reality of hell than anyone else in the new testament. He called it outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, he said. He spoke of it as as a prison, somewhere where you're trapped and confined. And he spoke of it as being like that city dump, where the saying was that the flames never go out and the worms never get hungry.

Because there's always food for them. It's a dreadful reality. Now I don't know if you've been following the debate about euthanasia this week. We sort highlighted it this morning again, didn't we? 1 thing struck me is listening to it on on LBC the car, and it just makes me want to hit the radio mostly.

But 1 thing that strikes me is that in Western culture, we have, you know, we don't really believe anymore in the reality of god's judgment or anything of its horror. That debate would take a completely different shape if it did. Instead, we believe that death will only bring an end to trouble and to suffering. That's that's how we see death now. It's an end.

It's a snuffing out and that's much better. Peaceful when things are snuffed out, isn't it? And and all I have to live for is enjoyment here and now, really. That's how we think. And so there's this constant refrain on the radio.

I heard it a dozen times, these little sound bites. Life must be worth living, says the person phoning in. It must be enjoyable. If not, then I want to go on my own terms when I choose. It's the world we live in.

Nobody phones in to raise the issues of eternity. You just say, well, hang on a minute. Would you have a reality check here? Why? Because we no longer believe that anything comes after death.

As Burton Russell put it, when I die, I shall rot That's really what people believe now, isn't it? That is so far from the Christian worldview, so far from the worldview that the Bible has. Used to set the tone of our culture. No longer does. The return of the judge is a reality.

It is a reality. It will happen, and it is it it will be a dreadful reality, dreadful for the wicked. But the third thing, if you'll bear with me with the time, it will be fair. Just brief it will be a fair thing. In fact, it's the only thing that can really be fair.

Can really bring justice. Think of all the wicked men and women who have lived and who have died without getting their just desserts in this life. Doesn't it outrage you? Hitler, Mengele, Mow, Popods, you know, the classic people. Doctor Mengele tortured and massacred Children in a death camp experimented on them, treated them like animals.

And then was never caught, retired down somewhere in South America and died taking a swim off his retirement home. I mean, where's the justice? Mao's great leap forward, they estimate killed 45000000 people. In 4 years. Could any punishment really suffice for that?

In this life, could any punishment suffice, and of course, it couldn't. Not if when we die, we rot, but if there will be an eternal final judgment just will be done. It will be a fair judgment. Justice will be done. The great and fearful day of the lord will bring complete and final justice Have a look at Zephaniah what Zephaniah says, Zephaniah 3, a description of the lord.

Zephaniah 3 verse 5. He says this the lord within her within Jewish is righteous. He does no wrong. Morning by morning, he dispenses his justice. Every new day, he does not fail.

Yet the unrighteous, no no shape. It's an amazing picture of god, isn't it? It will bring justice. So is that it then? Is that it?

Will there be no hope for this day that is coming? And really, you know there will be because there is always hope in god's word. There was hope in the days of Zechariah, and you can see it in the last section. So have a look. In chapter 3 verse 9 onwards.

See, in this section, god speaks of a remnant. Starts using that word a lot, actually. The remnant is just basically a number. We don't know how many, but a number he's talking about There is a number that god knows who will be redeemed, who will be saved, and not because they're inherently righteous. No.

But because god himself will purify them, have a look at chapter 3 verse 9. Chapter 3 verse 9 then I will purify the lips of the peoples, not just not just the Israelites, not just Jerusalem. I will I will do a purifying work on the peoples. That all of them may call on the name of the lord and serve him shoulder to shoulder. It's amazing, isn't it?

God himself will rescue a remnant, a number for himself. They're his, and he will have them. He's not just a judge, but a rescuer god. He was then, and he still is now. Jesus might well be as as Paul calls him the judge that god has appointed for that day to judge the world, but he is also the savior, isn't he?

The fearsome wrath that we deserve he endured on the cross. On the cross, Jesus absorbed for you and I the day of the lord. He took the day of the lord on it and absorbed it on the cross. And because of that, his redeemed can sing a new song, chapter 3 verse 17. Have a look at it.

The lord your god is with you. The mighty warrior who saves He will take great delight in you, talking about his number. In his love, he will no longer review you, but will choice over you with singing? What a beautiful image of a saved people? Like a father taking a little baby and putting it to bed and blessing the child singing a song.

Safe, secure, mine says god. What of my number? 1 of my remnant. Now for the first hearer, what's the important question? What do I want to know the answer to?

Zephaniah, How can I be amongst that number? How can I be 1 of them? When the saints go marching in Zephaniah, I wanna be in that number. What must I do to be saved? And Zephaniah's reply is clear verse chapter 2 verse 3, look at it.

He says this, Ryan the middle of it. It's kinda like the keystone of the book, isn't it? Right bang in the middle, seek the lord or you humble of the land. You who do what he commands seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be sheltered on the day of the lord's anger.

There's hope held out to you. There's a shelter here. Seek that shelter, shelter in him. Before the day of the lord arrives. Now whilst they it is still the day of salvation and the clock is ticking, and the alarm hasn't gone off.

Whilst the the warning light is flashing still, and the disaster hasn't hit, seek him now. Find shelter for the day of judgment. It's a good promise, isn't it? But we can do better. We live under better promises.

Those are just shadow promises. We live under the reality promises. We have a redeemer who gave his life so that we might live. We have 1 who took the day of the lord for us. And so we live in days when we're told twice in the new testament.

Everyone who calls on the name of the lord will be saved. So there stood desire. There he is. Presented with the law of god. It's been red, clear as a bell to him.

What did he do? What did he do? Well, he took radical action having torn his clothes and wept for his sin. He dedicated his life to giving his all forgot. That's all he wanted to do.

So much so that the Bible records the testimony of his life as this, listen to this for an epitaph. Since 2 kings chapter 23 verse 25, says neither before nor after Josiah, was there a king like him? Why? Who turned to the lord as he did? With all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength in accordance with all the law of Moses, not for desire the idols.

No. He turned with all his heart. No divided heart. All for god. Josiah heard the warning loud and clear.

He didn't ignore it. He didn't make excuses. He didn't try to argue. Josiah bowed the knee. He sought shelter in the lord right there and then.

And he surrendered his whole heart to god. And so must we? Will we follow his example? Father, let us not ex ignore your your gracious warnings to us. Our sin and the sins of our generation, of a world around us are an absolute horror.

We deserve nothing but your wrath. But we thank you for sending us a redeemer, a rescuer for saving our lord for sending our our lord Jesus Christ as savior. Help us. Please to follow the example of your servant Josiah and to turn to you each day. With all our hearts, soul, mind, and strength.

We ask this in your name. Amen.