Hello, and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
All right, let's go ahead and open up our Bibles to the Book of
Zephaniah.
Be have your Bibles turned to the Book of Zephaniah?
We're going to continue our study.
We have finished chapter one, and there's only three chapters in
the Book of Zephaniah, so we won't be here long.
Obviously, in contrast to the Book of Genesis, this is just a little
dot on the page.
We were in Genesis for, I think it was close to almost two
years.
And so it was a long book.
Now we're in a short book.
But just because a book is short doesn't mean that we can't
learn from it.
Obviously, the smaller prophetic books are called the minor
prophets, but minor just in their length, not in their message.
And so here in the Book of Zephaniah, we see a couple of themes.
One theme that is really the main theme from the beginning is
God's judgment upon those who are rebelling against him.
God judges those who reject him.
God judges those who walk in their own path and the.
And the ways of the flesh and the ways of sin.
And he tells them specifically, who is he talking to?
He's talking to the people of Israel.
More specifically, the people of Judah.
Now, you have to remember, Israel was split into two.
At one point, you had the northern kingdom, which by this point
had already been judged by other nations coming in.
Judah was still intact as it was before.
But we know that in the future, Judah is going to fall because
of their rebellion.
Now, the Book of Zephaniah was written in the time of Josiah, King
Josia.
And I don't know how much you know about King Josiah.
He took over at a very early age.
He was a young boy.
Even in his reign, though, there was a great revival that happened.
That revival definitely delayed God's judgment, but it didn't
hold back God's judgment because ultimately the people turned
their backs after the revival.
And we see that cycle in the Old Testament quite frequently.
And so what we see in this book is a theme of judgment, God's
judgment.
But we also see a theme of God's grace.
He's offering and really grace and mercy.
He's offering an opportunity for these people to repent.
And we kind of ended last week with this thought, anytime there
is revival, there is repentance.
Now, what is repentance?
I want you to think about that concept here this evening, because
a lot of times we think of revival as a stir of the heart when
it comes to emotions.
But real revival comes from a heart of repentance.
And repentance is literally means to turn away from something,
to change course, to stop doing one thing and to do another.
And so the Bible speaks of a need for a repentant heart.
And the Bible speaks of God wanting all to come to repentance.
What that means is that essentially we have to see where
we fall, where we fail, where we are inadequate, and turn away
from that and turn to Christ.
That is repentance.
A lot of people think that repentance means, well, I'm not going
to sin anymore.
That doesn't mean you're going to be sinless.
It just means that you recognize that in and of yourself,
you cannot do what you need to do in your life, spiritually speaking.
And ultimately God can give that change.
And so the book of Zephaniah is about offering the gift of grace
in repentance.
There is a theme in the New Testament that you will see over
and over again.
And it's also a theme that you'll see in the Old Testament,
but it's very clearly stated in the New Testament.
You can find it in First Peter, you can find it in the Book
of James, you can find it all throughout Jesus teachings is this.
God gives grace to the humble and he judges the proud.
He rejects those that are selfishly prideful.
He blesses those and graces those that fall before him in meekness
and humility.
And so that's what God is calling for here in chapter two.
So chapter one, he explains what the judgment will look like
and who will be judged.
And he went through a group, different groups of people.
He talked about those who were the false teachers.
He talked about those hypocrites.
He talked about those people who were mixing the ways of God with
the ways of the world, the compromisers.
He talked about those who were complacent.
He talked about those who were in idolatry.
And he says, all of these people, if you continue on in this
path, you will be judged, and it will be a complete judgment.
And so we get to chapter two, and one of the things that I love
about this book of the Bible is that he gives the condemnation.
But then he gives them the opportunity of comfort and of peace
and of forgiveness.
And that's how God works.
God is going to lay out the truth.
He always will.
He lays down the law, so to speak.
But God always offers that route of repentance.
And through that repentance comes revival.
And we're going to see that here in this passage.
So look with me to Zephaniah, chapter two.
And we're going to look at verse number one.
It says this.
Gather yourselves together.
Yea, gather together, O nation, not desired.
Now, what is he saying here?
He says, hey, you need to get yourselves together and listen to
what I'm about to tell you.
This is important.
This is the word of the Lord.
Now, remember when Zephaniah is speaking.
Yes, Zephaniah is speaking.
But ultimately, this is the word of God to the people there,
and it is the word of God to us.
And so he says, gather yourselves together.
The idea here is to gather in a solemn demonstration of mourning.
Essentially, not mourning as the sun's coming up, but mourning
as in repentance.
He says, you need to wake up to where you are in your life, open
your eyes, come together, recognize where you stand before
God.
And so it's this.
Basically, it's.
It's repent while there is still time.
That's the message that God is telling the nation of Israel.
Repent while you still have a chance.
And that's really the message that we are to preach today.
That's.
That's really the gospel message.
There is a time.
We don't know how long that time is, but there is a time to repent.
There is a time to humble yourselves.
There's a time to trust in God, to seek after him.
And so he says here, this is the time, Verse two.
Before the decree, bring forth.
Before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of
the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger come
upon you.
So all this announcement really is, is that judgment is coming
and you need to be ready.
And so here the prophet pleads with the nation to repent before
it's too late.
You know, there's a lot of people that are willing to say, you
know what?
I'm willing to risk it.
I'll get right when I feel like I can get right.
I'll get right when it makes sense to me.
I'll get right when I can clean myself up.
And the point is, you can't clean yourself up.
You can't do enough.
You got to rely on God as Your only hope for this change in your
life.
And so he says, wake up now.
And he gives a comparison, he says before the day passes like chaff.
And so here the prophet calls for a sense of urgency.
And so he says, hey, this could happen at any point.
And so what is he saying here?
He says this, get right with God and keep getting right with God,
right?
This is not a process of a one time change.
Repentance and revival is not a one time act in your life and then
everything's okay.
There were times in the nation of Israel where they were on fire
for God.
We're even going to see times in the life of Josiah that the people
turned back to the scriptures.
But it's a continual thing.
We have to realize in our life that there is a time of evaluation.
That's why we do special meetings.
That's why we have different people come in and speak.
You know, there's sometimes in my life where I feel like, well,
you know what, I think that I've preached this before.
And we have someone come in and they preach a very similar thing.
And people go, wow, that's great.
They've never heard that before.
Well, you have heard that before, but maybe sometimes when
you hear it from a new voice, it changes, right?
And sometimes what we need to do is we need to wake up, we need
to listen to what we're hearing.
We need to say, you know what?
Because there's one thing I can hear my wife, but sometimes I
don't listen to her.
I don't know if any of you men can relate to that.
I hear noise, right, But I'm not listening.
And then I don't know if any of you fellas, ladies, you should
do this, right?
Keep your men honest.
But my wife goes, what did I just say?
Oh man, that one hurts.
I think you said.
She goes, you're not even listening to me, right?
So it's one thing to hear God, it's another thing to listen to his
message.
So they hear judgment.
Well, what does that mean?
He says it is this type of judgment before the day passes the
chaff.
This is going to be quick.
We know that the Bible says that life is but a vapor.
And so if life is but a vapor, God's judgment is coming quickly.
And that's the message that we need to preach to this world.
Like not, not in a doom and gloom sort of attitude, but in an
attitude of, hey, wake up to the fact that you will be judged
for your evil, you will be judged for your sin.
And so he Says, be ready before the Lord's anger comes upon
you.
And a lot of people have a hard time dealing with that phrase,
the Lord's anger.
But remember, the defining attribute of God is his holiness.
And so when God is angry, he's righteously angry.
He's angry at sin.
And so, so many times we hear that word anger, and we equate that
with sin.
And in most cases, in our human nature, it is sin.
Because most of the time we are not righteously angry, we are
selfishly angry.
But when God displays his anger and his judgment upon people,
he does it in a righteous and holy way.
And so here the prophet is calling for an urgency in repentance.
And so how easy is it for us to let the days pass like chaff and
never get right with God?
I'm gonna get right with him tomorrow, I'm gonna get right with
him next week, this New Year, right?
How about those New Year's resolutions?
Have you ever made a spiritual New Year's resolution?
How long did that go?
Maybe three weeks, three months.
Sometimes we treat our relationship with God like those
New Year's resolutions.
Like, you know what?
This year I'm gonna get in shape.
This year I'm gonna eat healthy.
This year I'm gonna start a new hobby.
And most of the time those kind of pass away when the distractions
of this world come.
And we understand that.
And so many times we treat getting right with God just like
that, like it's an optional thing, like we can get to it when
we can.
What he says here is basically this.
Put this in the forefront of your mind, come together and be sober
about this.
Be sober minded.
And often I believe Satan's most powerful tool is not telling
us that there isn't a God.
Like, none of us are probably going to be convinced that, hey,
you know, atheism is the way to go.
I hope not.
And so that's sometimes what Satan does, is he doesn't package
it like, hey, there's no God or no Bible.
Often his most powerful tool is that there's no hurry, like, you
got time, relax, get to that when you feel like it.
And so what I would say sometimes in our Christian life is
if Satan can't.
If Satan can't take your soul, he can't take your life.
What he can do is he can take your effectiveness, he can take your
desire, he can take your joy, he can take all these things that
God promises us.
But what he can say is, look, you know, you have salvation, but,
you know, just put it off.
Put it off, you're fine.
You're fine.
And the truth is that sometimes when the Holy Spirit convicts
our heart, we put a.
You know, have you ever seen football?
They stiff arm people.
They put their arm out and they push it away.
Like sometimes we stiff arm conviction in our life because sometimes
it's difficult.
It's difficult to deal with conviction.
It doesn't feel good to see that you're wrong sometimes.
It doesn't feel good to sometimes get that right.
But what I would tell you, that if we desire the comfort of
the spirit, the Bible says in the Book of John that the Spirit
is the comforter.
Jesus says the comforter will come and this is beneficial for you.
And a lot of times we desire the comfort of the spirit, but yet
we are not willing to embrace the conviction of the Spirit.
And the conviction of the Spirit is actually what brings us
to that comfort.
The Bible says in the Book of John that also the Holy Spirit will
come to convict the world of its sin.
And that conviction shows us where we're wrong.
But we never get to the comfort unless we address the thing
that we're wrong in.
And so I would say that as a Christian, yes, we have our salvation
taken care of.
But many times in our life, it's because of an unrepentant sin
that we are rejecting the conviction of that's bringing us
difficulty in our life.
And God's going to wake us up.
A lot of times people will think this, well, if I'm a child
of God, he's not going to discipline me.
It's the complete opposite.
God only disciplines, in this case, his own.
Now, ultimately, God will judge all mankind because of their
sin.
But right now, God is trying to discipline, and he will discipline
those that he loves.
But there is a point in our life where we can, what the Bible
says is grieve the Holy Spirit.
And as we grieve the Holy Spirit, we can have a seared conscience.
And so what I want to preach to you here this evening is the importance
of being sensitive to conviction.
For revival, you want revival, you have to have conviction.
You want revival, you have to have repentance.
And so what I would tell you here this evening is what verse number
three says.
So he says, hey, he doesn't just tell them, stop sinning.
Remember we talked about this on Sunday.
It's not just a matter of stopping the idolatry, because if
God alone wanted that to happen, he would just say, stop the
idolatry and leave it at that.
Now, does God want them to Stop idolatry?
Of course he does.
Does God want them to stop all of the things that they were doing
in chapter one?
The complacency, the compromising, all of those things
of being controlled by their flesh and by their sensual ways?
Of course he does.
But then he also wants it to be replaced with something in the
better way.
And that's what verse three is all about.
And I think verse three is the call to action here.
Verse three is the, is the invitation, if you will, right at
our church.
You know, you come to the point where, okay, we're going to
present the action item.
And here's the action item.
He says, seek ye the Lord.
So the response to the preaching, the response to the conviction
is what?
Seeking the Lord.
And he describes the type of people that will seek the Lord, seek
the Lord all ye meek of the earth.
He says, you gotta be meek, you gotta be humble.
You have to be lowly to get to a place where you will seek after
God.
You won't seek after God if you think you've got it all under
control.
You're not gonna seek God in your pride.
You're not gonna seek God in selfishness.
You're not gonna seek God with a, with a self inflated view of everything
that I am and everything that I do.
Says to die, to self mortify your members.
Jesus describes what it means to be his disciple.
And he says, what do you have to do?
You have to bear your cross daily.
Can't look back.
You can't have your hand to the plow and be looking back.
He says, seek the Lord all ye meek of the earth.
And so this is the call to action.
Even the righteous must take heed to this warning.
And so what they would say here is this.
Can I say that I am the person who is seeking after God?
Why I was seeking after him 20 years ago, I was really seeking after
him.
He's not saying that.
He's not saying where you were and where you want to be.
He says, where are you right now?
I oftentimes as a pastor, when I'm counseling folks, they have issues
with maybe like what I used to believe or what I used to do.
And one of the things that I will say is where are you at right
now?
I'm not so concerned with where you were at 20 years ago.
What I'm concerned about is where you're at right now.
Well, right now I'm still dealing with that.
Well then we can deal with that.
But what Satan wants to do is he wants us to look, remember What
Paul says in Philippians chapter three, he says, I'm not looking
back.
I'm pressing forward.
And so a lot of times what happens is that Satan wants us to
think back to things that we did well in the past, things that
we didn't do well in the past.
He says, no, just seek after the Lord all ye that are meek of
the earth which have wrought his judgment.
Seek righteousness, seek meekness.
He very clearly tells them what they need to do.
He says, seek after the truth.
Seek after righteousness.
Seek after that humility.
Why seek?
Mikas.
It may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger.
In more than one place in Scripture, God promises to hide his
righteousness, people, in the day of his great judgment.
This is especially true in the end.
Right at the end, God judges the world, right?
We as his children are not going to have to feel that wrath.
We know that ultimately we are going to be spared from the wrath
of God.
But what I will say is that sometimes when we as Christians look
at that, we think, well, you know what?
I'm spared from it, so I'm good.
The truth is that God calls us not only to tell other people about
this hope to tell other people about the truth, but also to live
like that in our lives, to live with that desire to seek after
the Lord.
And so what does it mean to seek after the Lord?
Well, the Bible tells us in the New Testament many, many things
about seeking after the Lord.
I'll have you look at a few of these.
If you can keep your finger there in Zephaniah, we'll go back.
But look at Matthew chapter six with me.
Matthew, chapter six.
This is Jesus teaching here.
Many of you are familiar with this classic Sermon on the Mount,
and Jesus addresses many different things here, many different
things.
But here in Matthew chapter six, he's talking to them about eternal
treasures in heaven, about how you, basically how you live your
life.
What do you set your focus on?
What's your treasure?
What's your desire?
What's your love?
And Jesus gets to the point where he says, don't lay up treasures
here in this earth.
Why?
Because these break through and steal.
Verse 19.
He says, this is what you should do, but lay up your treasures.
Lay up for yourself treasures in heaven where neither moth nor
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal.
For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
And then he goes on to give this analogy of the light of the
eye.
And you know what your eye is set on is the truth.
And he ultimately talks about that.
Then he talks about, no man can serve two masters.
And then he gets to this idea of worrying.
Because a lot of times when we are so focused on the material of
this world, it then manifests itself into worry, right?
If I'm worried about all the things that are going on around me
in this world, if I'm so attached to what I have and what
I can see and what I know, there's a point in time where I'm
gonna be characterized by worry.
Because I'm around a bunch of things that are gonna be chaotic,
right?
So if my circumstances are chaotic, and that's what I'm living
by is my circumstances or my bank account or my health, if I'm
living as that, as my treasure, then when those things
go up and down, so will also my attitude, my worry and my stress.
And so he talks about the dangers of materialism that can lead
to worry.
Then he gets to verse 25, and he says, therefore I say unto you,
take no thought for your life what ye shall eat or what ye shall
drink, nor yet your body what ye shall put on.
Is not life more than meat and the body than raiment?
And then he goes on to talk about that wonderful passage of Scripture
where he says, even the fowls of the air are fed.
How much more do you think your father's going to take care
of you?
And you say, where are you going with this?
I thought we were talking about repentance and revival.
Now you're talking about materialism and worry.
Because I think they go hand in hand.
And so then he goes through that whole passage, he says, you
know, God clothes the grass of the field.
He's going to clothe you, owe you a little faith.
And then he goes on to say in verse 33, the classic passage, but
seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
Not your own righteousness, his righteousness.
And all these things shall be added unto you.
What is he talking about, all these things?
The blessings of God, the protection of God, the love of God,
the confidence and the peace of God.
He says, you seek first the kingdom of God, the eternal things.
All these other things will be added unto you.
Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself.
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Meaning this.
He says, look, you guys are all worried about the things around
you.
And you're so distracted with these things around you and your
materialism and your worry that you're missing out on what actually
really matters.
And so really, repentance and revival is just seeing things for
how they are and seeing what really matters.
You know, if someone came up to us and told us, hey, you've got
one day to live, right?
You've got, this is your last day on Earth, we would live differently.
We would live.
I think we would live differently.
Some of you might say, actually, I do the same thing.
I just waste my day and get on YouTube and scroll or watch TV.
I don't know about you, but for me, if I had one day, I'd be
doing a lot of stuff.
I'd be preparing, I'd be getting everything set up.
And the Bible teaches us that's how we're supposed to live.
And so if we realize that, hey, you know what?
I don't have much more time, I believe we would have a sense of
repentance and revival and restoration.
And maybe we would even reach out to that person and we would say,
hey, you know what?
I need to get that right with you before I go, right?
And so that's what the Bible says is we should be living like
that.
Repentance, that revival, and that comes from not being gripped
to this world, but seeking after God, seeking after the things
that he wants for us.
Even go down to the next chapter.
Matthew 7.
Ask and it shall be given you.
Seek and you shall find.
Knock and it shall be opened unto you.
And so there's this idea that, you know, part of seeking God is
desiring his power in our life, seeking him through prayer,
seeking him through his word, seeking after those things that he
wants us to follow in our lives.
And so there's so much to be said about seeking after God.
And, you know, I would ask you here this evening, and this is just.
You don't have to answer this.
Please don't answer this out loud.
But I want you to contemplate, really in your mind, what does it
mean for me to seek after God?
And then two am I doing that?
Am I seeking his face?
Am I willing to seek his face even if it's difficult for me, even
if there's conviction, even if I have to change something in my
life?
The Bible says in Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 6, that it's impossible
to please God without faith.
And so therefore, we have to understand that he is a rewarder
of them that diligently seek Him.
So there has to be a point in our life where we take it by faith
that God is going to make all things right, even if it's difficult
in this moment.
And so for the people of Judah, it would have been difficult.
It would be like a total change of their life to throw out
all these things.
Idolatry was so ingrained in their culture.
It was all they knew.
So for them, it was a change of their lifestyle, it was a change
of their culture, it was a change of their family.
And so for them, it was like, man, this is going to be a dramatic
shift.
But God says, you don't have any other choice.
Judgment is coming.
And so over and over again in scripture, we see that call.
I mean, I even think of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 29:13.
Man, that one really cuts the heart.
For me, it says, and ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall
search for me with all of your heart, you know, for me, where that
cuts me deep is sometimes I'm seeking after God, but I'm not seeking
him with all of my heart.
I'm seeking him with half of it or what I have left over.
You know, if I only have.
Let's say I have, you know, just.
I don't know how to explain this.
Okay, let's say I have a five gallon bucket and I've got all the
water filled all the way to the top, right?
And I want to try to put more in there.
What's going to happen?
I'm going to put some rocks in there and that water displacement,
that water is going to pour out, right?
Because I can't have other things in there.
And what happens is our heart so much as we pile in there, all
these things that we desire in this world, and then we're supposed
to seek God with everything and there's just no place for it
because our heart is given over to something else.
And so he says, seek me, but seek me with all of your heart.
Give me everything.
And we know that's his heart from the Old Testament to the New
right?
And the greatest commandment is to love God with all of our heart,
soul, mind and strength, every element of our Life.
Romans, chapter 12.
Give your bodies a living sacrifice.
And so what God wants is our heart.
He wants the heart of the people there in Judah.
He is concerned with their actions, no doubt, but he understands
that their heart is connected to their actions.
And so they could stop for a time.
They could reject the things of this world, but ultimately what's
going to happen is that they're going to go back to that.
Unless it's a heart change.
You know, I know what it's like, so I went to a Christian school
growing up, and our Christian school had demerits.
And so demerits were these things.
Some of you probably know what it is.
You don't do something that's in the rule book, you get a demerit.
Some demerits were more serious than others.
And so if you had 15 demerits.
If you had 15 demerits, you were not able to play sports.
So you'd hit 15 demerits and you'd be what we would call ineligible.
And so you had to take off time until you earned off.
Every week that you didn't get a demerit, you earned off a demerit.
So you guys understand what I'm saying?
So I'd get 15 demerits, and then you'd have a week, and then
you'd get one earned off.
Then you'd be back good again.
So I started to think that my obedience to my teacher was all predicated
upon how many demerits I had.
I saw it as like a storehouse, okay?
So, like, I know that I can talk in class and get a couple demerits,
but I can just earn that off next week.
And so it started to become like this currency.
Like, okay, so if my teacher came around and I had 14 demerits,
I better be quiet.
Cause I wanna play sports this week, right?
So it wasn't a heart issue.
It was more of, like, I'm seeking after myself and I was using
it as, like, what I can do in my currency.
And so I would encourage you to think about it from this perspective.
You know, sometimes if we see God's judgment and his love and his
work in our life and what he's called us to do as that, like, spiritual
currency, we're missing the point.
It's about our heart.
We should desire to do that.
When I can get away, like, you know, if the teacher wasn't looking,
I could get away with it.
So I'm going to do it.
Well, the truth is that, yeah, maybe I could have done something
and gotten away with it.
But we know that in our own lives, we can't get away with it
in the Lord.
Now, I just want to let you know, I was never ineligible for
demerits, okay?
Or anything else.
Okay?
I played sports all the way through.
And that was really what I was caring about at that time.
But the truth is that as a Christian, so many times when we
think about it as like, checks and balances, list and say, okay,
well, I didn't do this, this, and this and so maybe I can get away
with this, this and this.
We're missing the whole point on what God wants from us.
He wants our heart.
Revival is not about keeping rules.
Revival is about wanting to desire God more, seeking God's face
more.
And the more we seek after him, the less we want those things
of this world.
I love that song.
Seek.
Yeah.
How's it go?
And the things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of
his glory and grace.
That's how it ends.
And so really, the desire for a believer should be that I don't
want to love the things of this world.
I want to grow so close to God that the things of this world look
like wasteful, just empty, vain.
And so the more you seek after God's face, the more you will deny
those things of this world.
And so, you know, I think that that's something that I've been really
trying to work in in my own life, transparently.
I want to be known more for when I'm for than what I'm against.
What I'm for will make me against certain things, but I want
to be so strongly for the things of God that naturally, or
let's say supernaturally, I'm against the things that God is against.
And that's how it goes.
And I think that that's how, as a Christian, we should think about
it.
Someone told me, well, when you move somewhere, you will become
like the people, and you should adopt the ways of the people.
You'll start loving the things that they love.
You'll start doing the things that they do.
You'll start eating the foods that they like to eat.
You'll start rooting for the teams that they like.
And I want to tell you, I've been here for seven years, and I'm
struggling with that, okay?
I cannot adapt to all of those things.
But I do see the point of that.
The more you spend time around people, the more the things that
they love, if you love them, will be endeared to you.
Right?
And so if I spend time with a person and I see how much they love
something, I should in turn then grow in my love for that thing.
It's the same thing with being Christ.
Like, a lot of people want to be Christ like, and they want to
desire the things of God, but yet in their minds they're like,
how does that happen?
I just don't feel it happening.
Well, the truth is, it's not about just manifesting in your life,
speaking into the existence.
What it is is just being around God More.
And so I know that that's something that is a Christian cliche.
So what I want to do for the next, just the next few moments is
I want to talk to you about what that means.
Like, how can I seek after God?
What does it mean to hunger and thirst after righteousness?
Well, it's very basic.
It's very simple.
But spending time with the Lord, how do you spend time with
God?
I think one of the things that I would encourage you to do is to
study his Word, meditate upon His Word.
Set out a time in your life where the word of God is special
to you, that it is the first thing for you, and meditate upon
it.
Don't just read the verses and just go through it.
Read and see what God has for you.
See it as a love letter to you.
And don't read it with distractions.
You know, I always liken it to my relationship with my wife, right?
If I wanna spend time with her and talk with her, sometimes I'll
be over here on my phone and like, she's talking, I'm talking,
I'm going like this.
I'm distracted, right?
And so I would encourage you.
I know a lot of us read our Bibles on our phones.
There is a thing on your phone that you can do called airplane mode.
And you can click that and no one can get you or put it on do not
disturb.
Because for me, if I'm reading my Bible on my phone, guess what?
The little thing at the top pops down and news pop, news break,
message text.
And I start going, I better hit that.
I better get to that.
So I would say, you know, you don't have to read the Bible.
Like, you know, if you want to read on your phone, you can.
But I would say remove the distractions.
Another thing is, like, just as much as you're hearing from God,
you need to talk to God.
You need to have a defined, distinct prayer time in your life
that you can say, you know what, Lord, I want to talk to you,
and I just want to pour my heart out to you.
He already knows our heart, but it's another thing to connect
with him.
I think another thing to do would be to spend time with other
people that love God, right?
That's church.
That's fellowship.
A lot of times people will say, well, I don't have to go to
church to be a Christian, right?
But just you making that statement shows where your heart
is in that moment, right?
If you love God, you will love his people and you will want to spend
time around Them.
And so what I would say to you is this.
There is a benefit and a command in Scripture to not forsake
the assembling of ourselves together.
Now, again, I would tell you that the Bible actually says in that
passage to do it all the more as the day approaches.
So what I would encourage you to say is like, we should be doing
church more.
We should be meeting together more.
We should be studying the Bible together more.
And so I would encourage you to think about that.
Sometimes we don't think about seeking God as by being around other
Christians, but I would encourage you to think about what
it means to be around other Christians and so seek the Lord.
And so I would go back there.
Zephaniah, chapter two.
Oh, man.
Cut out there for a second.
Hopefully the batteries are good.
Zephaniah, chapter two.
We're going to end with verse number three.
Again, I just want to reiterate what he said here, because
there is a way to do this in the flesh and there is a way to do
this in the Spirit.
Doing it in the flesh is this.
Let me just give you a real practical way this looks like doing
this in the flesh.
Okay, I got my Bible study ready for today.
I got, I got my five minute prayer time that I needed to do.
Okay, I gotta go to church on Sunday and once I do that, everything's
gonna be okay.
And I'm gonna do this in, you know, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm
gonna do this great.
I'm gonna do it every single day and I'm gonna.
But, but that's good intentions.
But who are we trusting in when we see it from that perspective?
We're trusting in our own strength.
We're trusting in our own wisdom.
If you go back to look at verse three, he says, seek ye the
Lord, all ye meek of the earth which have wrought his judgment.
Seek righteousness, seek meekness.
Jesus tells us that, that, that key factor of humility there
in Philippians chapter two, he took the form of the servant.
We do this with a sense of meekness.
We do this with a sense of humility.
We do this with a sense of totally, completely giving over to
God and the need for his power for this revival.
And so he says, if you do this, it may be ye shall be hid in
the day of the Lord's anger.
So there is this idea of mercy that God is going to withhold his
wrath against those who have meekness.
And so think about it from this perspective, you know, because
you hear those terms mercy and grace you know, you should know what
those terms mean.
They're very similar.
Grace is God gifting you something that you don't deserve.
Mercy is God withholding something from you that you do deserve.
Right?
And so I would tell you to remember it this way, if you're still
with me, you have mercy and meekness.
So when you desire God's mercy, you meet that with meekness,
right?
That's the spirit that you should have.
The spirit of meekness leads to understanding God's mercies.
His mercies are new every morning.
But you can't obtain those mercies without understanding what
it means to be meek before him, humbled in spirit, serving the
Lord.
God gives grace to the humble, but he rejects the proud.
And so if you want to understand and live and rest and
bathe in the mercies of God every day, I would encourage you
to face that with meekness.
That righteousness comes from a sense of meekness.
And therefore we get to receive the mercies of God.
So the mercy in the meekness.
So next week we're going to come back and we're going to look
at the end of this chapter, chapter two, verses four through
15.
And really this is where God goes and he goes outside of Judah,
he says, okay, all of these surrounding nations that have been
influencing you, they're going to be judged as well.
And he goes through and he lists all these nations.
And you might say, well, why does he do that?
Well, one, he's explaining to them that these are all the people
that are influencing you.
And so therefore, there's going to be judgment upon you, there's
going to be judgment upon them.
But ultimately, I think a lot of times what people think is that,
you know what, these people seem to be getting away with their
sins.
So we need to go do that.
Even the psalmist David, he was saying, you know what?
It seems like sometimes that these evil people are getting away
with it.
I think this is one of the ways that God explains to his own
people that, hey, nobody is going to get away with this.
Nobody has it better than you.
The grass is not greener.
On the other side, there will be judgment.
And so the blessing is always in repentance and revival.
And so he's going to go through and explain all those people,
and he's going to explain that, you know, Moab is going to
be like Sodom.
Ammon's going to be like Gomorrah.
And he talks about the complete destruction of all of these
nations.
Now, the unique thing about this is that many of these Prophecies
were partially fulfilled in the time of Scripture.
But we'll see that Zephaniah references something as the day of
the Lord.
And ultimately, I believe that this is not a prophecy of the past,
but a prophecy that is still to come.
And so ultimately, this is a foretelling, a prophecy of God's
complete destruction against the world that has rebelled against
him.
And so I think that Zephaniah is a end times book.
But I also do believe that Zephaniah has application for today.
And I would be very cautious today for anybody who preaches a
message that says, you know what?
You've got time.
Just relax, come as you are, stay as you are, folks.
That's a dangerous message.
Come as you are.
Certainly that's.
You can't come any other way.
But what I would say is that come as you are, but don't leave
as you are.
Come as you are and be changed by the power of God and by the conviction
of God.
And I struggle with that.
I struggle with embracing conviction.
You know what happens to me if, like, I listen to sermons, too.
I listen to a lot of sermons throughout the week, and I hear a
guy preaching on something that I'm really struggling with.
You know what?
My flesh wants to turn that off and go, ah, this guy's probably
not biblical.
This guy's probably.
Let me look at his background.
I'm gonna try to find something wrong with him.
He's inconsistent with this theology.
But, you know, a lot of times it's just, he's.
He's hitting me where it hurts.
And what I have to do is I have to say, lord, you're doing that
for a reason.
And I.
And I will just give you this, and I'll be done with this.
I want to give you something that really helped me out to know
the difference between conviction and guilt.
Because the Bible says, as a Christian, there is no more guilt,
there's no more condemnation, but there is conviction.
So we have to think about the two different things, condemnation
and conviction.
What Satan wants you to do is he wants you to think about the condemnation
on your life.
That's the guilt, the weight.
And every time Satan comes to you with guilt, it's vague, and there's
no avenue of change or repentance offered.
There's no avenue of grace in your guilt.
It's like, let me give you an example of how it looks like in my
life, I'm just a bad husband, I'm a bad father, I'm a bad pastor,
and I just can't get this right, I have no hope.
I can't see the end of it.
That's Satan pulling the condemnation in and trying to put
that upon you.
Where the Holy Spirit is a convictor and the Holy Spirit is
specific.
And the Holy Spirit always gives us an opportunity to see from
the word of God how to get that fixed.
So let's say, let's say the Holy Spirit's convicted me on how
I'm being a father.
And I say, okay, Holy Spirit is telling me that I'm not being
a good dad.
And here's why.
Because I totally missed an opportunity last night to lead my
children in this truth of scripture.
I just was so tired and I was so, you know, whatever, exhausted
in my day that I just said, I'll just get that to another time.
See, the Bible shows us that there is all scriptures given by
inspiration of God as probable for doctrine, for approved, for correction,
for instruction and righteousness.
And so what I would tell you is that if you're dealing with like,
is this guilt or is this conviction?
I would say it's.
If it's specific.
And there's a way to get that fixed in repentance, that's the Holy
Spirit convicting your life.
If, if there's just condemnation, like, I'm just a lousy
person, I can't get this right.
That's, that's the.
I believe that's.
That's Satan trying to pull you down or that's your flesh trying
to pull you down.
And so I believe that the Holy Spirit, as it says there, he will
convict us into the truth.
It will teach us truth.
It will guide us to truth, as the book of John says.
And so the Holy Spirit leads the truth, Satan leads to lies.
And that's how we can summarize that there as we talk about
that.
So repentance revival.
Repentance revival in meekness and mercy.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
If you would like to find out more information about our church
or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org
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Thank you so much.
God bless.
Have a wonderful day.