But know this, you are not just safe.
And Jesus safe from tyranny. He has loved you.
He has fought for you on the cross and he's fighting to
deliver you from the tyranny of Satan in the gods of this
nation. All right, this morning I before
we jump into the sermon. Yeah, just just wanted to share
with you again my in this last month, I'm taking every
opportunity I can to plead with you for your prayer and your
support as we launch out. And so that's that slide up.
There are the ways that you can participate in and support the
work of Frontier, wants to be a church planting church, we don't
just want to be a church where the pastor's are interested in
church. Nothing.
But the whole church gets involved in it and this is how
you as a church can get involved.
You can pray for us because we need God's help.
As we go out, you can give we have financial needs, you can
give on the Frontier website. There is a byline there for
Emmaus Church in there giving page and we need financial
resources. And you can also serve and be a
part of our team. Whether that's coming to serve
for a short time or just actually going and committing to
be like theater than his Family coming along side of us.
So we need your help. And what I just asked you guys
to pray and see how God would lead you in supporting and being
a part of this church plant. So that's that's my pitch to you
this morning because I'm excited about what we are doing going to
be doing up in Ankeny. So this morning, we are in the
book of Zephaniah. We are again in our second,
second sermon here, through the book of Zephaniah.
And this book Well, last week was Heavy, it was very heavy and
this week not getting any lighter.
Zephaniah is Hardcore and chapter two is just as hard
core. And as I have been thinking
about this sermon, see we'll just before I started preaching
it. I watch the Marvel movie and
game, many of you have seen this, right?
And there's fanos in that movie, the question that came that was
has been running in my mind ever since watching that movie a few
weeks ago has been is God just another Thanos Is God just some
other demanding detached. Heartless deity up there.
That's going to snap his fingers and just destroy everything.
Carelessly, is God just a heartless being that has some
twisted and perverse sense of justice.
When we read Zephaniah, chapter 2, if you're not careful, you
can think, oh, God, and Thanos seem to have a lot in common.
It can feel that way and so this morning, as we come to this
text, I'm asking that question. Is God just a tyrant like
Thanos? Is God just a tire.
Just another Tyrant leader. Taking his own dysfunction out
on us lesser beings. And what I hope that we will see
this morning, an answer to that. Question is not just simply
know, it's God is Not Thanos. What?
I hope to see that God is not a tyrant, but he's actually the
deliverer from tyranny, who puts us safe in The Joy of Jesus.
That's what I hope that we will see this morning.
So stand with me for the reading of God's word and we will read
Zephaniah, chapter 2, Starting in verse 3.
Seek the Lord. All you humble of the land who
don't do his just commands seek righteousness seek humility.
Perhaps, you may be hidden on the day of the anger of the
Lord. For Gaza shall be deserted.
And Ashkelon shall become a desolation.
Ash Dodds people shall be driven out at noon and ekron, shall be
uprooted, woe to you inhabitants of the Seacoast, you nation of
the chera theit's. The word of the Lord is against
you, o Canaan land of the Philistines and I will destroy
you until no inhabitant is left and uoc Coast shall be pastures
with Meadows for Shepherds and folds for flocks.
The Seco shall become the possession of the remnant of the
house of Judah on which they shall graze.
And in the houses of Ashkelon, they shall lie down at evening
for the Lord, their God will be mindful of them and restore
their fortunes. I have heard the taunts of Moab,
and the revealing of the ammonites, how they have
taunted, my people and made boasts against their territory.
Therefore, as I live declares the Lord of hosts, the god of
Israel. Moab shall become like Sodom and
the ammonites like Gomorrah and Al and possessed by Nettles and
salt pits and to waste forever. The remnant of my people shall
plunder them and the survivors of my nation shall Possess them,
this shall be their lot in return for their pride because
they taunted and boasted against the people of the Lord of hosts.
The Lord will be awesome against them for, he will famish.
All the gods of the earth and to him shall bow, down each in its
place. All the lands of the nation's.
You also owe kushites shall be slain by my sword.
And he will stretch out his hand against the North and Destroy
Assyria and he will make Nineveh a desolation.
A dry waste. Like the desert heard shall lie.
Down in her midst, all kinds of beasts.
Even The Owl and the Hedgehog shall Lodge in her capitals.
A voice shall hoot in the window.
Devastation will be on the threshold for her Cedar work
will be laid bare. This is the exultant city.
Thus, that lived in that Securely that set in her heart I
am and there is no one else. What a desolation?
She has become a layer for wild beasts.
Everyone who passes by her hisses and shakes his fist.
You could be seated in God's presence.
Heavenly father, is we now come to this text?
And we look upon yet another Prophecy in the Old Testament.
That man it's heavy. Making these threats against all
these nations and in our minds Lord and our and our small minds
as we read this. And look at it, it's hard for us
to distinguish you from other angry rulers out there like
Thanos. It is, it's hard and we need
help this morning. We need your Holy Spirit to help
us to clearly perceive what you're communicating to us
through this text. And we need your Holy Spirit to
Help us receive it as what it is.
Is it bread for our souls to help us find joy and safety in
Jesus? So I pray that you would speak
to us and help us this morning in Jesus name, amen.
So, as I said, this text sounds like Thanos, I'm just going to
destroy everyone. What is God up to last week when
we looked at the previous passage, that had a very similar
tone to it we broke the passage up into three sections is going
to be very similar this week. We'll do the same thing.
We're going to look at God's Wrath.
In this text. We're going to look at God's
reasons for his wrath and this text and then we're going to see
something a little bit different, a little bit clearer.
Picture of what God is up to. We're going to see God's Remnant
in this text. So we're going to see God's
Wrath. His reasons.
Ins and his Remnant in this text and will Define what Remnant
means in just a bit. So first God's Wrath.
God here is personally involved in the destruction of Nations
around Israel. The Nations around Israel are
taunting them, their tyrannizing them their ruling over them,
they are afflicting them and God is going to destroy them.
And what you have here, then is a listing of the Nations around
them and in the order. Is.
Well, this isn't the order. This is the only order I can
keep in my brain without looking at my notes.
North, south east and west. You get the compass around
Israel, you get to the West in Verses 4 to 7.
God is going to destroy the Philistines Felicia.
So along the Seacoast, along the Mediterranean Sea.
God is going to destroy all the nations and of the Philistines
in Verses 4 to 7. We can see there that land.
Not only was Posed to be Israel's.
But now these people inhabit it and they are going to be and
you'll see there in Verses 4 to 7 does it's going to be
deserted, it's going to be a desolation.
The people are going to be uprooted destroyed and it says
it's got a weird saying there. It says that it's going to
happen at noon, which is a weird statement.
It's going to happen at noontime theologians of those reading
academics quibble over what that means, basically, it means it's
most It's going to happen in broad daylight.
There's not there's not going to be, they're just going to come
God, doesn't have to surprise them, he's just don't come upon
them and he's going to utterly destroy them.
He doesn't need to involve any trickery or strategy.
He's just going to come in the broad daylight and he just going
to take them out but then not that's to the east or to the
west. Then to the east in verses 8 to
11 God is going to destroy Moab and Ammon now the ammonites And
the moabites In this passage these are blood relatives of
Israel. These are blood relatives of
Israel. Who have who have joined with
other nations and our tear and seek to tyrannize Israel.
And they seek to rebel against God.
These are the ones that if you remember in the, in the Torah
and the first five books of the Bible, you have Balaam coming to
curse. Israel.
This is from these people. Balaam is from These people Bay
lack and in the attempt to curse Israel.
God steps in and causes him to bless them instead in the story.
But here they have continued their desire to curse God and to
curse God's people and they are going to be destroyed for it.
So we have the west and the East, but we also have the South
and verse 12, and verse 12, here is the shortest of the
descriptions of the nation's. It says, you also could shites.
That is to the south south of Egypt in Africa, the kushites
they shall be slain by my sword. And it's what's interesting is
this sharp contrast between 12 and 13. 13 is talked as in the
third person, God's going to do something.
But 12 is something really personal going on here.
God himself is going to strike the cushion seats.
There's a there's a personal engagement of God, it's short
direct and he is directly involved in destroying them.
And then in verses 13 to 15. We see the north we get to the
North part. The compass in Assyria, Assyria
is the Mega Power in this day, they're the big Power and this
is where the city of Nineveh is and Nineveh at that time was a
powerful City. It was like New York City, all
innovation technology, Rich powerful, and a massive City.
They were influential. And what we see here is similar
to what we saw in chapter 1 and chapter 1.
If you remember, God is going to do the reverse of Of creation
and he reversed the days of creation sewing that he's doing
D creation and bringing his wrath here.
We see. God say that a little bit
differently, what we see in verses 14 and 15 is the
creation. Taking dominion over them and
Genesis chapter 1, God calls, Adam and Eve to take dominion
over the Earth and to rule over the Earth.
This is why Adam can name the animals.
He is, He is ruling over them and they're tending, the garden
and all of a sudden here God is saying what I'm going to do to
you as Syria is you are no longer going to have dominion
over the Earth. You are no longer going to be
powerful. Instead animals are going to
rule over. You, you will be beneath the
animals. They will come and Roost and
dwell in your city and you will be, you'll be gone, you'll be
deserted One Theologian when academic says it like this, he
says, the creation seizes power from the greatest of human
Empires and transforms it into a best.
Beastial Wilderness. Organized chaos has supplanted
civilization. That's what's happening here.
That the chaos of Genesis chapter 1 that God brought order
to is now taken over and is ruling over this nation.
So God is going to destroy the nation's, he's just going to
looks. I mean it sounds like Thanos is
going to flip his finger and they're all going to go.
It sounds that way, but there's something more here.
There's something something, even more profound.
We learned last week, invert chapter 1 verses 4 and 5 that
the people were worshiping. Other gods says there, that they
were worshiping milk. Mm, one of the Gods of these
foreign Nations. The people of Israel brought
milk mm and brought bail another God into their Temple and were
worshiping the these gods in the temple.
And what we find in verse 11 is that God is not simply
interested in destroying the nation's but in destroying the
gods of the Nations. And so in verse 11, look at it
again with me says there, the Lord will be awesome against
them and listen to this, he will famish all the gods of the earth
each in its place. All the lands of the Nations.
That weren't famish there and Hebrew.
That's a word rasa. And it makes to me, may clean
means to essentially to starve someone to death that the gods
are going to be starved to death.
They're going to experience a long slow painful death, they're
going to wither as one academic says There Will wither to
nothing for lack of attention. They're just going to just going
to vanish in the night. They're going to starve to
death. And what's interesting is that
when you read some of the ancient cultic Pagan practices
of these Gods, Bales would be created and made these little
wooden statues or golden statues.
And they would be people would Bow Down and Worship them.
And one of the things that would happen is because these, these
Idols would be taken out on procession around the city for
people to Bow Down and Worship to, and big parties would be had
these things would get knocked over that, get beat up and these
Gods would eventually start to look, you know.
Go get some wear and tear on them.
And in these cultures they had entire liturgies for how to
properly bury and discard a God. Because the people at this time,
we'll and what we understand from the scriptures is that
these gods are not just, they're not just pieces of wood that
people think are Gods. These are like, demonic real
spiritual powers that are represented by these, by these
physical. And so in order to retain the
Dignity of the spiritual deity, that they were worshipping the
demon, that they were worshipping, what they would do,
is they would show honor to the beat up Relic and they would
wrap it and Claws and then place it in a river and have a whole
big beautiful ceremony of it passing on Into The Ether of the
spiritual realm and a new Idol would be brought in.
And the reason I think that's important is because when we
read this text, God is not honoring these Idols, he is he's
doing, he's you remember? When Osama Bin Laden was killed
and he was body, was pushed out into the sea and people were
very upset with this because it was, it was disrespectful to the
Muslim faith to not receive a proper Muslim burial.
And so he was pushed out. And so it was seen as a kind of
offense that someone would do, that's what God is.
Is doing here to these Gods. He's not just destroying them
and starving them to death. He's shaming them by, by the
way, in which he is getting rid of them.
He's showing them, their have no value and they are of no power
that he is totally over them. And what we find here, I
believe, if we think carefully about this is very similar to
what we find in the book of Exodus regarding the people of
Israel coming out of Egypt. It's very similar, the Egyptians
and their Pharaoh tyrannize. The people of Israel, they
rebelled against God and the 10 plagues, all of them were a sort
of holy war by God through Moses on the gods of Egypt, they were
all assaults on the gods of Egypt.
And God raised, Moses up to bring those plagues against
them. And as he did, the not only did
God defeat each of those Gods, but then God also defeated the
Army as they passed through the Red Sea together.
This is a see, there's a very similar imagery here going on
between the Exodus and the Book of Zephaniah that God is Not
only interested in destroying Nations but the gods of those
Nations and we see that happening in this in this place
that the The people of God are about to watch, judgment fall on
both the gods and the nation's. So, the next question, then we
see God's Wrath. We see his, we see his judgment
coming to Bear. Why is he doing this?
What is he doing? We need to know why.
God does this. We looked at, we thought about
this last week and it's very similar and I don't want to
repeat everything I said last week, but there's some relevance
here. Osteosarcoma is a nasty cancer.
It's a nasty cancer. I've seen it a lot in children,
especially teenagers. And while it's rare defects, it
affects some teenagers. It's a cancer of the bone.
And most of the time, the affected bone has to be
amputated and cut off. And if it's not removed from the
body that cancer is going to spread its going to go to other
bones, you could go into the blood.
It's a, it's a nasty, it's a nasty cancer.
Now. Doctors in light of that, they
do the horrific. They do the do something
horrific, they take a child and then they Lop off a limb but cut
off that part of the body. And the cases I've seen, it's
typically the lower leg. So usually, it's like a femur
bone or they just amputate below the knee.
Sometimes they try to put in like a steel rod in place of a
bone, but they, but they end up having to literally just take a
child and, and cut their limbs off.
Now, none of us. Think a doctor is a tyrant for
doing that. If anyone else was doing it
just, you know, going cutting off, kids legs.
We'd be like, not only are they are Tyrant.
They need to be put in prison forever and maybe get that get
the chair or something, right? but the reason we don't see a
doctor that way, is because the reason why they do it Is just it
justifies the action. It makes sense of the action.
We know that cancer is deadly. We know that a doctor is precise
and qualified, we know that he's careful, we know that he's
working for the life and for the flourishing of the child, we
know, all that. And so when we see a kid walking
around with crutches, because a leg has been amputated, we know
that's happened for a good reason.
We know that that's happened. We know that's happened for
their life and for their good. And the same, I would argue is
the case for the anger and wrath.
That God Expresses in this text God sees the, I the cancer of
sin. He sees the cancer of idolatry
in the world and he seeks to attack it.
And the reasons why? Because adalat idolatry, offends
God, we talked about that last week, but It offends, God,
because God created the world to flourish.
We were created to image and worship him alone.
And in worshipping him alone is Paradise.
That's that's the picture of the Garden of Eden.
Anything outside of that is death and that's what the people
are ushered into. That's what we are ushered into
in sin is death and that death is comes from idolatry from E
Adam and Eve and us with them. Preferring God over the thing or
preferring things over the person of God.
And so like a good doctor, God hates agents of death.
He hates cancer and he seeks to destroy it.
Where it is, but idolatry as we learned last week, also corrupts
human interaction, these Gods demanded human sacrifice and so
they were sacrificing their children.
To these gods, they were using others as a means to get what
they wanted, manipulative and hateful to others.
It not only causes offense to God, but it causes, it causes
and disrupts human flourishing and Human Relationships.
This is the nature of idolatry. This is what the gods of the
Nations do? This is what bail does?
This is what the idols do? They've caused offense to God,
and they cause disruption and disunity and human relationships
and we can see these things come out in the text.
We can see them come out in verse 8.
What are these nations doing? Worship.
These gods, they are taunting the taunts of Moab, the
revealing of they are taunting God and their taunt revealing
God's people. Israel was small.
They didn't have power influence.
They weren't technologically advanced.
There was nothing impressive about them and Moab and Ammon
knew they could just destroy them.
Easily. And so they would taunt them and
they would revile them for their weird rituals and weird laws.
And the fact that they only there were only to worship God
Alone in verse 10, we can see that they were filled with pride
and taunted Israel again and their pride is most manifest
pride is most manifest in verse 15, where we are.
Told that in that the man, that sounds a lot like America.
At least it doesn't my mind. Nineveh this powerful,
technologically advanced Society.
What do they say in their heart? I am and there is no one, no one
else I am is the name for God in the Old Testament.
This is what this is what God tells Moses to tell pharaoh, who
sent him, tell him I am sent you.
These people have made themselves, God, and this is
ultimately. What idolatry does idolatry is a
is just a means to serve Our own in our own purposes and to make
a god of ourselves. The cancer that God sees in this
text is pride and pride is at the very center is at the very
heart of idolatry when Eve is in the garden and she sees the tree
sees the fruit of the tree and into her, it looks delicious and
she desired and detergent. She not only desired to taste it
but she determined in her heart that she wanted to be like God
and she tried to in essence as we do.
Become God and determine for ourselves.
What is good, right? And what how we are vision of
flourishing and our vision of the good life, rather than what
God has defined for us? Pride exalts, the self, it
exalts, the self and this touches all of us Americans,
today, we have our phrases, you know, the popular phrases, be
true to thine, own self. And it sounds like a Biblical
law, right? Because it is a religious law,
it's a religious form of worship to ourselves or my favorite one.
You see Nacho Libre, if you haven't, you need to there's a
there's a great scene in there where nacho I can't believe I'm
saying this, he looks at a little kid.
He says, I am the gatekeeper of my destiny and I will have my
Glory Day in the hot sun and we all like, yes, go nacho, right?
Or the commercials on TV, these commercials crack me up.
Every time I see him, they'll they'll roll through a product.
Whatever it may be, just, it may be something silly like chips.
And at the end, they'll say you deserve it.
Right. This feeds into our exalted
sense of self our pride. Like yes I deserve it.
Yes. My my vision of the good life
needs to be met. I am God and there is no other
and that seed, not only lived in these Pagan cultures.
It. Also, it also lives in US pride
is the basic denial that there is a distinction, a profound
distinction between who God is as Creator and who we are as
Creatures. And not only did these demons
these Spiritual Beings that took the form of Idols deny that
distinction, and tried to rule in the place of God.
We join them in a conspiracy against God for our own selves.
God's Wrath here is not just an about human corruption, and
human, abuses of one another. It is as r.c., Sproul has said a
response to Cosmic treason to Cosmic treatment treason.
We here, we find a conspiracy between men and women and the
gods of the Nations attempting to overthrow the rule of God,
eliminate him, and eliminate his people.
That is what's happening here. And this is why God is not
pleased. eased and wants to ruin, wants to bring it to an
end because we see also in in verse 11, That God wants.
God wants all of the Nations to worship Him.
That God wants the Nations to worship him.
Not themselves. And not.
Not these Idols. He wants to cause the native,
this is why in verse 11. It says the Lord will be awesome
against them. He will famish.
All the gods of the earth and to him shall bow.
Down each in its place. All the lands of the nation's
he's saying he's going to destroy the gods and now all the
nations are going to worship Him.
And what's interesting here is the word lands.
There is actually better. Slated Islands.
Which is interesting be and the point of that is that in the
writers mind, is that islands are like the farthest reaches of
the Earth. The farthest reaches of the
earth even out there on little tiny Hawaii.
God wants to be worshipped, not just here.
But in all the little tiny specks of land, every Speck of
land on Earth will be ruled by the reign of God and the worship
of him. He wants to rid the entire
world, not just Jerusalem, but the whole world, the whole
Compass of sin of idolatry that will bring Justice Grace love
and the hope of New Creation. So we have something of a holy
war here. It's not just a holy war where
like Israel is going to go out and kill people.
It's God's war. God is going to take Vengeance.
He's going to take, he's going to war against these nations
because of their attempt to destroy him and his people.
And in this way, God is like a good surgeon.
He's ready to douse the world and chemotherapy and surgically
remove the cancer of idolatry, the cancer of sin.
And we know that God is not a tyrant in doing this.
Not only because in doing this he's delivering people from the
tyranny of these Gods but he's also shown himself to be
incredibly patient. The book of Isaiah warns of all
of this 100 years before this God has shown utter patients.
Not only to Israel but he's shown patients to the Nations
around Israel. He's been pleading with them.
Stop doing this worship me. Do not ask you to escape the
Tyranny and to stop tyrannizing, others.
But he not only shows himself patient.
He also shows himself precise, not one ounce of his wrath ends
up in the wrong spot here. A good surgeon does not if he's
going for the foot, doesn't also take out the pelvis.
Right. And what you see with Thanos is
he's arbitrary. He just flips his thumb and it's
just some random half of the universe has gone with God.
It's very precise, only on people who Serve it and only to
the degree that they deserve. It is perfectly just perfectly
precise and accomplishes the perfect end for which he intends
it. He is better than the best
surgeon and exacting Justice. He's better than the Bettors
best surgeon in bringing life and flourishing to people.
But you may say well, why is God even telling us this?
Why do why does why do we care what God is doing with the
Nations around Israel? Well, one you could say is most
of us aren't Jewish. So hey, we should probably be
aware of it, right? But there are a couple reasons
why God does this for the people of Israel here.
First, he wants to, he wants to, he wants to promote their
repentance. He wants to, he wants them to
see what God is going to do with the nation's and he wants this
to excite in them. A desire to get away from
idolatry to repent and to get the idols out of the temple and
out of their lives. This is what he wants it to do
for us. Notice the 4 in verse 4.
The 4 and verse 4, verse 4 starts for Gaza.
Shall be deserted. That tells us that whatever is
being said, from this point on, is based upon what comes before
it. And what comes before, it is the
call to seek the Lord in verse 3.
To seek righteousness. That perhaps you might be hidden
in the day of the anger of the Lord.
He wants the people to see that if they pursue God, if they
forsake their Idols, that they that they and repent, that they
will perhaps find Hope. And the reason for this is
because we know in verse in chapter one and I didn't talk
about this very much less week. I'm just going to talk about it
for just one second. And verse 8 says, the day of the
Lord sacrifice, I'll punish the officials, the king's sons, and
all who array themselves in what foreign a tire, the people of
Israel didn't just take on the worship of other gods, they
dressed like them, they assimilated.
Add themselves into a culture of tyranny and the roots of it
began to produce the fruits of that in in their culture and in
their life. And God wants them to say, you
need to pull away. Take off the entire to get away
from the gods of these other nations, Andrew and repent.
So, God was telling us this so that we would see him and his
threats and be motivated. Dated and be energized to repent
of it. But he also wants to inspire
hope because as we said Israel small, they've assimilated.
They've assimilated to these other cultures because they're
afraid and we talked about this quite a bit last week about why
someone might worship an idol. Why would they dress like the
Assyrians? Because they were afraid of the
Assyrians. They didn't want to stick out.
They wanted to go under the radar.
They didn't want to be a cause for the Assyrians to look at
them and try to try to take over them.
And so they played nice, they played nice with the other
nations because they trusted that, if they did, they would be
safe. But God wants to inspire hope
that you don't have to play safe with other gods.
You don't have to play safe with the nation's, There's Hope for
Israel. There's real hope for Israel.
There's hope for us, not only to be delivered from our idolatry
but also to find safety and to find peace and flourishing.
In the midst of a very difficult world.
And so that leads us into our final Point.
God's Remnant. What God is doing here in
pointing out a? Remnant should?
Hopefully give us lots of Hope as it was intended to for the
people of Israel. When they read this.
As we said, God's justice is precise.
It's only directed at the proud, but those who are humble seek
Him. And forsake Idols, we see here
that God preserves them and they are a kind of Remnant.
So to see this. We're going to walk through this
Carefully in verse 3. You see that perhaps that we
focused on last week? Perhaps may God deliver you in
the day of his anger. Which not a very strong hope
like perhaps sounds like maybe it's not going to happen and as
we said, we assume this is God being sarcastic with them.
But what you see is that the perhaps actually manifests into
real hope in verses 6 to 7 and uoc Coast shall be pastures with
Meadows for Shepherds and folds of flocks and look there in
verse 7, the Seco shall become of the possession of whom the
remnant of the house of Judah. That Israel here has a hope that
God might not just perhaps deliver them, whether they have
a hope that they will actually experience being not only
delivered from the Judgment of God, but here being restored to
their fortunes and walking into a kind of new creation.
A Remnant. It says, we don't use that word
a lot. but with the surgeon illustration, we can make quick
sense of it when a surgeon cuts off a leg That leg is discarded.
The Remnant is the rest of the body, right?
And so when God brings his Justice, he is going to cut out
the cancer of sin and idolatry upon these people, but there's
going to be a Remnant and that Remnant is into that, let the
intention for preserving this Remnant is that it would
flourish and life would come. This is why we did as a nurse at
the hospital with these kids with cancer.
This is The whole reason we would lock the leg off to begin
with. We want them to grow and
flourish. We want them.
We want their life to go on and to become even better than what
it was before. And this is God's intention,
this is his design and this is what we see actually promised
through this prophecy. But God is going to be mindful
of them. He's not going to be careless in
the way in which he administers his Justice.
He's going to be mindful of them and think of them, it says he's
going to restore them. That they are going to make this
part of the nation, their own possession, which if you look at
chapter 1 and verse 13, it says that their houses are going to
be laid waste that they should build houses and this is God,
talking to Israel. But their houses will be laid
waste the they build houses, they should not inhabit them so
they plant Vineyards. They should not drink.
Wine from them, they're putting God is saying, you're going to
live in houses. You didn't build, you don't even
have to do the work. These folks already did it.
You can go and you can live in it.
I'm going to, I'm just going to give you their labor, their
labor is now yours. You can go live in it and you
can not only do that. But you also see in verse 7 that
God is going to give them pastures and Meadows.
Those which means they're going to be able to graze and lay
down, they're going to be able to lay down at night, which has
the their piece you don't lay down at night.
If you're afraid, many of us are Sleepless at night because we're
full of anxiety and stress. And the picture here is that of
abundance and provision of safety.
Of rest that God is going to give these people rest and verse
9. Again draws us back to the
people of Israel as they come out of the of the nation of
Egypt. Verse 9 says, they're going to
plunder the people and they're going to possess them.
The people are going to plunder them just as the Egyptians just
as the Israelites, plundered the Egyptians and taken all the
silver and gold out of the Cities, they left.
And then God plant and then God kills them in the sea.
So now Israel is going to plunder their neighbors and
they're going to profit off of experience, blessing from God,
from all the riches of the Nations around them.
God's judgment came to Israel for the Egyptians to the Red Sea
and they walked through the walk through on dry ground.
And I think this is what God is pointing us to hear.
This is just reminding people of Israel.
This is your second. Exodus is coming.
Your second. Exodus is coming.
I'm going to deliver you from the tyrants of these other gods.
You're going to walk through on dry ground, and your kids are
going to play while the Waters of the wall or up around you.
You while you walk through and you're going to party on the
other side, just like Israel did in Exodus chapter 15.
That is what God is. Telling the people that he is
going to do for them. God is going to Usher them into
pastures of peace and rest, and safety, and to be quite Frank.
This is just God saying, I'm an usher you into a new Eden.
I'm going to bring you into a new creation where you can
finally, finally rest, we sing that first song this morning, it
was great, that line there that the name of Jesus speaks to us
in the midst of anxiety and depression, and has the power to
Deliver Us from that. And that is, what is being?
I hear that is what we see happening in this text.
God is not in heaven, and some tyranny, tyrannical, angry
Thanos with an inferiority complex.
Just ready to pounce on us. The slightest infraction, he
actually loves us, he loves us. He's since Jesus to make a
Remnant out of us and Usher us into his joy that we might
flourish. This is why God sent Jesus to us
to actually fulfill this text in the most fullest form.
Sure it was fulfilled. Historically in various ways as
these nations were destroyed, but it was fully fulfilled in
the person and in the work of Jesus sending Jesus to us to
fight the gods of the Nations. Defeats in to defeat the Devil
so that we could find safety in him and be delivered from the
influence of the tyranny of devils.
And of Idols, Jesus was taunted, as Israel was here.
In Matthew chapter 27, the people taunted him on the cross.
He experienced the taunting here, And in Colossians chapter
2 verses 13 to 15. If you had, that will be up on
the screen here, Colossians chapter 2, listen to what it
says and you who were dead in your trespasses and the
uncircumcision of your flesh. There you go.
Andrew God, Made Alive together with him having forgiven us all
our trespasses by canceling, the record of debt that stood
against us with its legal demands are idolatry.
God cancels it. This, he set aside nailing it to
the cross. And listen, he disarmed, the
rulers, the authorities that were authorities.
There is actually, the in Greek, is the word part of curiosity,
which means it's a lord. So, like, lording God's over
people's lives is the idea here. Rulers and authorities, and he
puts them to what? Open shame.
He taught, he shows them by Triumph thinking over them in
him. Jesus did this.
He actually did it on the cross. Jesus, literally destroys the
gods of the idols. He destroys the gods of the
world, he destroys idolatry. And in the same breath and in
the same work, he He defeats in, for you, your guilt because as
we noted, as I've noted in this, we all share in this guilt.
We all share in the guilt of idolatry, and Jesus here,
triumphs over it. And this week, you get to hear
more about Jesus defeat of that, in the harrowing of Hell.
Which I'm excited for because they know Andrews going to delve
deeper into that for us. So, this is all leading into
Wednesday if you don't know. But know this, you are not just
safe. And Jesus safe from tyranny.
He has loved you. He has fought for you on the
cross and he's fighting to deliver you from the tyranny of
Satan. In the gods of this nation in
Christ. You not only have hope of
overcoming the idols in your life, but to actually lay down,
put your head on the pillow at night and have peace with him.
And this is what God has called you into In your relationship
with Jesus. Whatever Idols you struggle
against today. Whatever Idols tyrannize you God
is determined to destroy them. There is hope for you.
There is hope that you will overcome and that you will be at
perfect peace with God in your life.
He's not a tyrant. He is a surgeon saving us from
demons, death and sin. That's what he's doing and he
set his love upon his Remnant and offers us life abundant
through it. It's a beautiful beautiful hope.
Here he saves us from the penalty of sin and even more
amazing he gives us a new identity in Christ so that we no
longer have to fear and think we need to strategize.
So assimilate with The sin and Idols around us, but we can
boldly look like Jesus and worship him and have have no
fear. So, are you struggling with sin
today? That's the question.
Are there Idols that seem to hold you captive?
Jesus has defeated them. He is the warrior, whose
conquered over the Gods in the battle on the cross, and in his
resurrection from the dead, he gives you life and he gives you
victory over them. They do not define you The God
Who has liberated you. He defines you.
This means as you fight against the gods of this age, your
efforts are not in vain. Even if it seems impossible, I
can't I can't count the number of guys who over the year of the
last. Just five years have come to me
and confessed, sexual immorality and addiction to pornography.
And guys, that confess it to me on a regular basis and they feel
hopeless and they feel trapped. They're being tyrannized by it.
Christ has defeated that God. And you are truly free.
Truly free not only free from the penalty of sin, but free
from the tyranny of that sin in Christ.
And so that means we can press on press on and fight against it
in the freedom that we have in Christ.
Not fearing that our efforts are in vain, not fearing, that it
will eventually overtake us knowing that in Christ, we have
true Victory because he is already fulfilled.
All of this for us on the cross. You don't fight against the gods
alone. God has done it for you in the
person of Christ. God has in a sense, opened up
the Red Sea for you like he did for Israel.
He's defeated the gods of Egypt in your life and in Jesus you
can walk through on Grand dry ground safely.
That is what he's calling you to and do the gods pursue you do
they come calling and taunt you and Ted tempt you.
Listen up, you're safe. They're defeated in the waters
of God's judgment that is the hope that's in this text.
So Church, you are safe in Jesus, in the midst of God's
judgment. We're safe in a world of idols
and little gods, were safe. And Jesus, as we fight our sin
and safety, and Jesus means that we can rest and is Cole
declares, we could partner harder than the kingdom of
darkness together and that for me is good enough.
Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your
word. We thank you that even in texts
where you're calling fire down from heaven, that there is hope.
Lord, that you've chosen to save a Remnant that you've chosen.
Not to leave us under the tyranny of Idols which you could
have done in your Justice. But that you've chosen to send
your son to love us and to deliver us and to give us hope
that we can be victorious in Christ by faith.
So I just pray God, that you would just fill us with hope
this morning and that you would energize us in our fight against
sin together. In Jesus name we pray and ask
this. Amen.
You think I'm long-winded? That dude's got me beat big
time.