Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript: Zephaniah 1:12
**Pastor Dennis Tuuri**

Come today to seek God and to call upon his name. The scripture for today’s sermon is found in Zephaniah chapter 1. I’m going to focus on verse 12, but I’ll read through chapter 2:3. So Zephaniah 1:1-2:3. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. It’s in the last group of the minor prophets for those of you still trying to find it. Not too familiar with them, are we? It’s been my delight this year to teach the prophets at Kings Academy and to go through these various minor prophets particularly, and that’s why I decided that this would be a good text.

I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. So, Zephaniah 1:1: The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, in the days of Josiah, the king of Amon, king of Judah. I will utterly consume everything from the face of the land, says the Lord. I will consume men and beasts. I will consume the birds of the heavens, the fish of the seas, and the stumbling blocks along with the wicked.

I will cut off man from the face of the land, says the Lord. I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will cut off every trace of Baal from this place, the names of the idolatrous priests with the pagan priests, those who worship the host of heaven on the housetops, those who worship and swear oaths by the Lord, but who also swear by Milcom, those who have turned back from following the Lord and have not sought the Lord, nor inquired of him.

Be silent in the presence of the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is at hand. For the Lord has prepared a sacrifice. He has invited his guests. And it shall be in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice that I will punish the princes and the king’s children, and all such as are clothed with foreign apparel. In the same day, I will punish all those who leap over the threshold, who fill their master’s houses with violence and deceit.

And there shall be on that day, says the Lord, the sound of a mournful cry from the Fish Gate, a wailing from the second quarter, and a loud crashing from the hills. Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh. For all the merchant people are cut down, all those who handle money are cut off. And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart, “The Lord will not do good, nor will he do evil.” Therefore, their goods shall become booty, and their house is a desolation.

They shall build houses, but not inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards, but not drink their wine. The great day of the Lord is near. It is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter. There the mighty men shall cry out, “That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of trumpet and alarm against the fortified cities and against the high towers.

I will bring distress upon men, and they shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord. Their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like refuse. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath. But the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy. For he will make speedy riddance of all those who dwell in the land.

Gather yourselves together. Yes, gather together, O undesirable nation. Before the decree is issued or the day passes like chaff before the Lord’s fierce anger comes upon you. Before the day of the Lord’s anger comes upon you, seek the Lord, all you meek of the earth who have upheld his justice. Seek righteousness. Seek humility. It may be that you will be hidden in the day of the Lord’s anger.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for gathering us together to this feast today. We thank you for this Lord’s day, this day of the Lord. We thank you, Lord God, that your kingdom will be established, that all kingdoms that raise themselves up against the Lord Jesus Christ shall be torn down. Help us today, Lord God, not to be complacent about your word. Help us not to be settled in complacency, but to gird our minds up, to make our bodies stiffen up and listen, Lord God, to your word, that it may transform our lives by the power of your spirit.

May we hear the call to repentance today. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that indeed as we seek you and reform our lives, we are indeed your particular treasure, your hidden ones in the person and work of Jesus, our Savior. In his name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

Icons are representations of various saints from the Old Testament, New Testament, and church history. They’re used particularly in Eastern Orthodox churches and they have a long and interesting history, just as art if nothing else.

It’s interesting that in iconography, in the making or production of icons, Zephaniah, the prophet that we read from today, is always pictured with lamps or a lamp. Why? Because Zephaniah is about the coming of the day of the Lord to search out the wickedness in his people. He comes with a lamp to search people out. It’s said of Josephus—Josephus tells us that in the days of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, men actually went through the city—Idumaeans, Zealots, Romans—and would drag people out of the sewers where they would hide.

And the same thing is probably true of Zephaniah’s time. The destruction that he predicts coming upon Judah, the Babylonians who will—are we all right now? Let’s not pretend that didn’t happen. Everything okay now? Great. Praise God.

So Zephaniah describes the coming of a destructive army that’s going to kill people, take them away captive, and he says that they’re going to—God is working through these people, and God will search out the wicked in Jerusalem with a lamp. He’ll look in the dark places of the land. He’ll look down in those sewer systems, and that’s just what would happen. They would drag men and women, children out of the sewer systems to either kill them, haul them away captive, or whatever they’d want to do with them.

Well, today, may the Lord God use the lamp that is his word to search our hearts, the inner recesses of our hearts. Why are we here today? How important is this to us? What does it have to do with the rest of our lives as Christians? May the Lord God search out complacency in my heart and in your heart. Drive it far from us. And may he call us to do what men have been doing ever since the fall: to call upon his name, to seek him daily.

That is—as we just read—the answer to the great trials and tribulations.

Now I mentioned Psalm—I mentioned AD 70. The message of the minor prophets in a nutshell is the death of the north, the death of the southern kingdom, and then the rebirth of Israel sort of in the restoration from captivity. But primarily the rebirth, the true resurrection, the true new creation coming to pass through the personal work of Jesus Christ. So this connection of lamps and searching out judgment—that give people, you know, the judgment of God in the days of Zephaniah and then in the days of the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70—link this Old Testament book to the New Testament.

Okay? And what we’re told is the New Testament is like the Old Testament. In both cases, see, God is searching out sin and he’s doing his will. There’s not some Old Testament God who is wrathful and some New Testament God who is not wrathful. There’s one God, and we read in the text today that it’s his jealousy for his bride, for his son ultimately, that drives him to judge people as they sin against him.

So ultimately this prophecy from Zephaniah is ultimately fulfilled in that destruction of Jerusalem, in the destruction—the ripping apart of the old creation—and the new creation coming in Jesus Christ. Now, that new creation continues to work in that way. In Revelation, we have a description of God’s judgment and wrath against Jerusalem, and that’s in the past. But what it gives us is present today as well.

We’re told that this is basically the way history works. As kingdoms or men raise themselves up or settle themselves in complacency against God, then God comes and judges them, and he corrects those that he’ll correct and he destroys those that he won’t correct.

We talked a couple of weeks ago about abortion, and the Lord God moves in a mysterious way. I want to repeat today something I said a couple of weeks ago, and that is that I think that it’s important that this—I’ll mention in just a minute—that we do what we do on the anti-abortion day of the Lord in this church and have done for twenty-some years.

But I get a little worried sometimes that those growing up in the church here may not quite understand what the big picture is, and they may think that, you know, abortion is these babies being aborted—it’s worse and worse and worse, and history’s getting worse and worse. And that’s what they hear every once a year, at least from us. And I tried to mention—I didn’t make a big deal of it, but I tried to mention—that it’s interesting that since Roe v. Wade, the amount of abortions per pregnancies has, well, they went up, of course, and now they’ve gone down significantly for the last ten years.

And we’re almost—we’re more than fifty percent back to the original rate, and in some communities the rate is much higher than it was then. The District of Columbia particularly. And I think that we’re probably reaching a point where, with except for some exceptions like DC, the abortion rate is kind of returning to what it was prior to Roe v. Wade. Now we’re not happy with that. If that’s all we want to do is turn around Roe v. Wade and get back to, you know, the number of abortions we had prior to Roe v. Wade, we’re complacent, settled, and we don’t understand what God is doing. God wants no abortions.

So what God has done—using sin sinlessly—is to use the courts of this land to rally the church once more, that had forgotten about this issue that was going on all through the country, to rally the church to this issue and get back not to pre-Roe v. Wade days but get forward to the place where women will value children and this culture will protect women and children from those that would kill children. That’s what it’s all about.

And to accomplish that, the Lord God brings judgment on particular people. We talk about Psalm 10—or I do—nearly every year at the anti-abortion day of the Lord. And I just want to read a few verses from it because it ties directly to our text today.

Our main text today is, you know, woe to those that are settled in their complacency, that don’t think God does good and that don’t think God does evil. They’re not denying God. This sermon topic today is practical atheism. They’re not atheists. They’re covenant people. They went to church, they went to the temple, they did all that stuff. They were circumcised. They, you know, partook of the Passover. But for all practical purposes, they were atheists because their everyday life had nothing to do with God, because they no longer believed that God—they didn’t deny God, but they said that God doesn’t do good and he doesn’t do evil.

So, “Who cares” is what they said. That’s the sin that we’re going to address. And in Psalm 10, it’s a description of wicked men, and it tells us over and over again: Why are they wicked? Just like we read in Psalm 14. Verse 4 of Psalm 10: the wicked in his proud countenance. So pride. Say that several times today. Pride.

And when we look at the verses that indicate repentance, we’ll look at those in a few more minutes in more detail. We just read them. But it was the meek to repent—is to demonstrate a meekness, as opposed to a pridefulness. Pride’s the root sin here.

The one whose countenance—let’s see—the wicked are in his proud countenance. Does not seek God. It’s not that he’s denying there’s a God. He doesn’t seek him. God is in none of his thoughts. God isn’t, you know, in here—thinking as he goes through his business day or is taking care of the kids or having food and preparing food. God isn’t in any of those thoughts with him. God has become irrelevant to him. He’s a practical atheist.

God is in none of his thoughts. God’s ways—or his ways rather, the wicked’s ways—are prospering. Verse 6: He said in his heart, “I shall not be moved. I shall never be in adversity.” He denies that God will judge him and bring justice upon sinfulness. He denies that in his heart, and that’s why he becomes increasingly wicked.

Verse 11 of Psalm 10: He has said in his heart, “God has forgotten. He hides his face. He’ll never see.” And then the response to that, and the part of us is to arise, O Lord. Oh God, lift up your hand. Do not forget the humble.

So we see that the problem in our land today—with abortion, for instance, but in all kinds of ways—are that men have become, in a Christian nation, practical atheists. And one side of this is they don’t think God’s going to judge their actions anymore. They preach cheap grace. They make a law of grace distinction. All the judgments of God are put aside. God today, you know, is the gentle Jesus. And they forget that Hebrews tells us that to come to worship at Zion is a scarier thing than going to worship at Sinai. Not less scary. Scary. More scary. Do you hear what I’m saying? We think of it the opposite way our culture does.

Christianity is imbued with an awful lot, I think, in our culture today of practical atheism. And I, you know, I want to pray to God that in my heart and in your heart, we seek out areas of practical atheism and turn from them today. God, we want God’s judgments to be manifest in this church, in our lives, in the culture, because that will remind people that the Lord God actually is at work.

And so the prayers of malediction found in Psalm 10 are to the end that people would have their memories jogged—that God does see. Again, the fool in verse 13 of Psalm 10: “You will not require an account.” He doesn’t believe that his actions will draw punishments from God.

And you know, I hate to have to say this, but evangelicalism broadly speaking in this country—liberal churches—the judgments of God are not something that’s talked about. You know, we don’t read the Old Testament. We look at the New Testament through kind of a different view, a Greek perspective. We don’t see all the verses in the New Testament that take us back to the Old Testament. We think of God as, you know, not a judging God. It’s just not true. And it’s not only not true—God says that very attitude, that he doesn’t do, bring judgments upon wickedness—that very attitude is the reason in Zephaniah’s text that God will come and destroy a people. That he will look for you wherever you’re hiding—in the sewers if need be. He’ll find you and he’ll bring his judgments upon you.

It’s that very thought—that God is not a God who is actively judging in the context of the world.

Verses 17 and 18 also—this is kind of a little prelude to what I’m going to be saying today. But the psalmist then says, “Lord, you have heard the desire of the humble. You will prepare their heart. You will cause your ear to hear. Here to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed.” That’s a summation. We’ll see those same two things. We did—if you noticed them—in chapter 2:1-3.

Who are those that repent? They’re the ones who are meek and who are seeking justice in the land. Justice is, you know, a conformity to a standard. And as a church denies the law of God, the validity of the law of God, it denies the covenantal law, denies covenantal blessings and cursings to a people based on that covenantal law. They’ve moved away from justice, you see. And they’ve done that in their pride and in their lack of humility before God.

So if we seek God, it includes two things: being humble before God and seeking justice in the context of our lives, knowing his law, understanding he judges in the context of the world, and humbling ourselves, knowing that his judgment can come upon us, too, if we’re practical atheists in our lives.

I’m just going to read a couple more texts, and then I’ve got a couple of simple points to make today. The simple points, after these introductory texts I’m going to read, we’ll look at the description of this complacency, this practical atheism. What does it look like? More description in from Zephaniah, in the context of Zephaniah, and then in the verse itself. And then we’ll look at the horrific judgments that Zephaniah 1 tells us comes upon people that are practical atheists. And then we’ll look at our proper response to that gospel. And yes, it is gospel.

We’ll talk about that in a minute. Our proper response to the gospel that Jesus Christ will bring judgments upon the earth and does as history progresses—the proper response is repentance. And we’ll look at that a little bit more from verses 1-3 of chapter 2. But first, a few other scriptures.

Amos 6: “Woe to you who are at ease in Zion and trust in Mount Samaria.”

So, here’s a different prophet—prophet to the north. But what’s the sin? The opening line in Amos 6, where he gives warnings to Zion. The woe begins, and it talked about is those who are will be judged who are at ease in Zion. So, not atheists, not ethical rebels hating God, but those who are complacent in their faith.

And he goes on to say to them, uh, look at the Philistines. Are you any better than those kingdoms? God tells him in Amos. Or is their territory greater than your territory? Woe to you who put far off the day of doom, who cause the seat of violence to come near, who lie on beds of ivory, stretch out on your couches, eat lambs from the flock, and calves from the midst of the stall, who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments and invent for yourselves musical instruments like David.

None of that stuff’s bad. But it’s bad because in their prosperity, they’ve gotten complacent in terms of their Christian faith, their faith in Yahweh in the Old Testament. And this complacency is seen in a settled opinion developing in them again: that God doesn’t judge.

Woe to you who put far off the day of doom. That’s what the evangelical church does today. Yeah, there’s a judgment way off in the future, sometime Jesus returns, there’ll be some judgment maybe then, but not now. And God says to his people then, and he tells us today, that if that’s in your heart, you better wise up, because God brings judgments in the context of the land.

So Amos 6 says that. He says, “You who drink wine from bowls and anoint yourselves with the best ointments, but are not grieved for the afflicted of Joseph.” So here, part of the problem is—not, you know, not being caring about the people that are worse off from you.

Therefore they shall now go captive as the first of the captives, and those who recline at banquet shall be removed. The Lord God has sworn by himself. The Lord God of hosts says, “I abhor the pride of Jacob and I hate his palaces. Therefore I will deliver up the city and all that’s in it.”

God hates pride. It’s pride again—in Amos and Zephaniah, throughout the Bible. It’s pride. It’s a settled complacency. And it’s a pride and complacency that is particularly attractive to a culture like ours that has a great deal of material prosperity. And it’s a particular problem, as we’ll see in Zephaniah, for rich people and for rulers, because they sort of get complacent about their lives and become prideful.

Jeremiah 21—I’m sorry, Job, Job 21. Job is describing the wicked. Yet they say to God, “Depart from us, for we do not desire the knowledge of your ways.” We don’t seek the knowledge of your ways. What good? He says, “Who is the Almighty?” Verse 15 of Job 21: “that we should serve him. What profit do we have if we pray to him?”

Practical atheism. They’re not denying him. They’re saying it’s not important to us. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t hurt. God can’t help us. He won’t come and judge us. It’s all the same thing. We just do what we want to do. That’s the practical atheism that Zephaniah speaks against.

Malachi 3:14 he says, “You have said it is useless to serve God. What profit is it that we have kept his ordinance or that we have walked as mourners before the Lord of hosts?” See, this is a particular temptation to us older people who have tried originally and committed ourselves to being not practical atheists, but practical theists. Things don’t evidently seem like they’re all falling out the way we thought they would. And we can start to think, “What difference does it make? All that, you know, vim and vigor we had in our youth was just misguided. What’s—what’s it all? It just works out.”

That’s the kind of attitude that Malachi and Amos and Zephaniah and Job and the Bible says is very dangerous for us and that results in his judgment upon us. We have to be in this—young men and young women, old men and old women. We have to be in this fight for the long haul. Yeah. Our tendency is to grow settled in our complacency.

The picture at this, your order of worship today, that’s Eli falling off the chair. He had gotten heavy, complacent, always sitting, and thought, “Oh, what difference does it make?” You know, he started—he wasn’t a bad guy, Eli. He was a pretty good guy. But he’d become a practical atheist. Let his sons do what they wanted to do, wouldn’t correct them. And God says he’s settled. He’s complacent. He’s become a practical atheist. But here comes God. And he knocks Eli off the chair and kills him.

So, we got to be in it for the long haul.

Malachi 3:15: “So now we call the proud blessed, for those who do wickedness are raised up.”

So again, the problem is that we can become proud, and this pride leads to this complacency.

Second Peter 3:4 talks about those who say, “Where’s the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” So, what difference? It just sort of happens. It just works out. You know, who cares? God up, down, indifferent. He’s not really blessing and he’s not really cursing. There is no standard. There is no eschatology to our actions or to a culture.

The very things that are the distinctives of this church—a view that God’s covenant blessings and cursings are present in the world—you see, that’s what leads to our long-term optimism, isn’t it? God says that definitively in Christ, in AD 70, by way of prefigurement with the captivity and exile of the north and the south prior to that, and then going on into the church age. Jesus is about judging those who are wicked and complacent and establishing those who are humble, who seek him, who want to know what his scriptures say about justice specifically and how to help people. He’s establishing those people in the land. That’s why the meek inherit the earth.

The meek are the ones described here as the repentance ones. The basis for our optimistic eschatology is this very doctrine: that God is active in the world. That we can’t be practical atheists. Our view of God’s law and its validity in our lives is central to all of this, you see. It’s the antidote to this practical atheism—his law along with his blessings and his curses.

So, these are should be issues near and dear to our heart. They’re the sort of church that we’ve tried to build here. They’re the sort of church we’re going to try to plant in increasing ways in other municipalities and locations. This is what we’re committed to.

Well, let’s look very—let’s look then at this sin of practical atheism described. And turn back now to Zephaniah 1. If you left it, go back there. Open your Bibles up to Zephaniah 1. We want to talk about this, and we’re going to focus on verse 12. But there’s context to this. And I think that verse 12 is a nice summary statement of the complacency and practical atheism of people who are subject to the judgment of God. But there’s other things that are described that are useful.

So he begins, by the way, in verse 1, telling us that he’s writing during the reign of King Josiah. Now Josiah was a good king, and this—I’ll make mention of this a little later, but it’s important to know that the context for this is that the troubles have not yet started happening in the south, in Judah. The northers have been taken away captive a hundred years before. We’re a hundred years later now. A lot of the kings have been bad leading up to Josiah, but he begins the reforms.

We love Josiah in this church. The old guys remember—it’s in his—he takes over and starts to reign. They clean up the temple and they hold—look at this. We find the law of God, and he repents and says, “We need to follow the law.” He tears down the idolatrous places. There’s a period—a short period of prosperity, you know, or rather obedience. And that’s the context for what Zephaniah says. There is prosperity generally in the nation.

Important to know that. All right. And then he talks about what he’ll do. His judgments are described in verses 2 and following. But look down at verse 5. Who is he going to judge? He’s going to cut off—or verse 4 actually: “I will cut off every trace of Baal from this place, the names of the idolatrous priests, the pagan priests, those who worship the host of heaven.”

Well, and going on in verse 5: “those who worship and swear oath by the Lord, but who also swear by Milcom.”

So the description that kind of finds its summation of practical atheism—he tells us a few verses earlier that the end result of practical atheism is worshiping Baal and Milcom. Now you know, we think of statues, and we think of, you know, that, but all worship and its essence in the Old Testament is force worship. It’s worshiping the force. It’s Star Wars worship. There’s a force, and we worship the force, and it manifests itself in different ways.

So Egypt was like this, and God—when he brought judgments against Egypt, he gave me—brought judgments against the force of the Nile, the force of the sun, the force of the crops, natural forces. So a culture that becomes secularized in its view of the dynamics of the world and its forces starts to worship those forces.

Does this sound a little familiar to you? We have a rapid rise of a pagan—not a Christian, but a pagan—environmentalism, because people are worshiping whether they know it or not. They’re structuring their lives around the natural forces of the world, not in relationship to what God is doing or not doing and what he wants us to do. But we become, practically speaking, in this country force worshippers, Baal worshippers. We worship the forces.

Power worship is another way to think of Baal worship, because power—men’s power, power over another—is a force to be reckoned with. Sexuality is tied to Baal worship. The Ashteroths were linked with Baal worship, because sexuality is a force in nature, and men worship forces, and so they start to become more and more obsessed with sexuality.

This is a culture that become complacent in its Christianity, that’s become practically atheistic, that says there’s a god who started everything. He’s off there somewhere. But what we need to do is manipulate the forces. We ought to be like Dracula. We don’t become like wolves. We can control the natural forces of the world. And we wouldn’t do it in strange ways like Dracula, but we do it in scientific ways. It’s worshiping the forces of science, the forces of nature, different forces in our world. And that’s what we have today.

Milcom—that’s state worship. Molech, Milcom, they’re the same thing in the Old Testament. Men who become practically atheistic no longer look at what God says in terms of governing themselves. They become force worshippers. And the one of the biggest forces you can have is the collective voice of the people. And so an idolatrous people are not those that bow down in front of statues—usually, at least in a post-Christian—we can think of this as a post-Christian southern kingdom. They’re those who worship forces and those who worship the civil state. And they don’t bow down necessarily, but they look to those things for their well-being.

How they’re going to run their lives has a lot more to do with the forces of the economy, the forces of nature, the forces of sexuality, and the dictates of the state than with God and his transcendent word, because he’s sort of irrelevant. This is what really works. This is what controls things—the state and the natural forces around us.

So when we talk about practical atheism, it’s what we have in this country, and it finds itself, when it goes to seed, it becomes force worship and state worship.

Let me—I don’t—I don’t want to forget this. I’ve got it in my notes in another place, but I, you know, and I know that we talk about this a lot, but I believe it was man—I think. I don’t remember now. It’s been years since we read all this stuff, but the older guys here know what I’m talking about. Way back when, a Presbyterian guy testified before the United States Congress on the Department of—or school system, the, you know, the modern day schools come from, you know, mid to late 1800s.

And so early in that period or in that period, a man testified and said that the public schools as they’re currently envisioned legend will be the largest engineer for atheism that this sin-rent world has ever seen. Now, this was not some kind of kook. This wasn’t some right-wing fringe nut case of a Presbyterian. This was a Presbyterian theologian of some repute. It’d be like, you know, I guess evangelicalism Billy Graham or somebody like that who’s well respected.

And he goes and says it’s going to become the biggest production of atheism the world has ever seen. And people don’t understand that. Well, the schools aren’t teaching atheism. But what are they teaching? They’re teaching practical atheism. The public schools are saying that God is somewhat irrelevant to all of this. What you really need to know are the forces of nature, how to work politically. This is what happens.

So the public school system—the reason why, you know, we try to get people not to send their kids there, particularly when they’re young and being formed—is because that public school system is devoted. It is consecrated not to atheism, but to a practical atheism where God is irrelevant for these things.

So this is what we have. We’ve got people worshiping the state and ultimately people worshiping the state’s school system by looking to the school system for answers for everything.

Okay? So there are people that worship Baal and Moloch. That’s who these complacent people are.

Verses 8 and 9 expands it out a little bit and says that they’re rulers. Tells us some classes of people: It shall be in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice that I will punish the princes and the king’s children and all such are clothed with foreign apparel.

Now, it’s a little different to foreign apparel then than here. You know, nowadays, most of us are clothed with foreign apparel, right? If you look at your label, it’s China, China apparel or South America, because it’s what a lot of us can afford. That’s it. Well, this foreign apparel is, you know, it’s the rich people. It’s the kings and rulers and the princes that are—and but it is significant. I don’t want to take away the sting of this verse to us in terms of our clothing.

He identifies their alliances, their interests, their practical theism with how they dress. And in this case, they’re dressing like the foreign nations around them. And remember, at this period in time, Israel is a priestly nation—no more. But Israel had a distinct garb to identify it, to minister to the cultures around it. So, I don’t want to draw too heavy of a connection between what we wear, but I don’t want to take the edge off either.

You know, what we wear should be to some degree informed by our Christian position, right? We’re not practical atheists in what we wear, even. And we want to at least think of ourselves as having a distinct witness in the context of the world. And one way of saying that Israel had lost its witness-bearing capacity is by saying it wore foreign apparel. Okay.

So, a practical atheistic church or person is one who no longer really engages in a lot of distinctions. In fact, he’s kind of ashamed of the distinctions. He wants to be like the foreign nations around them. So I think that’s what’s going on here.

In the same day, I will punish all those who leap over the threshold, who lift their master’s houses, or who fill their master’s houses with violence and deceit. This is a little tougher to understand, but it, I think what it means is worshippers who priests, the priestly group. In other words, you didn’t want to step on the threshold of a worship house. These are people that are filling their master’s houses. Some people think it means robbers and thieves. Could be. But I think that what he’s doing here—with the kings and the princes and then with these priests—and he’s already mentioned the false priests already. I think he’s mentioning church officials as well.

And let me tell you something. I’ve seen it. I mean, the easiest thing for a church to do once it hits the level of success and able to pay the bills and pay the pastor and the secretary a pretty good salary, you know, I’ve seen a lot of churches that I that I know of, and men that I’ve met, and they haven’t given into it necessarily. But the temptation there with these men is to drift then to become complacent.

We don’t want to do that. We want to press forward as a church. Okay? We don’t want to be complacent in what the Lord has blessed us with. We’re going to have to head a household meeting. We’re going to talk about that. What’s the future of the church look like? Planning churches, expanding. What are we going to do in terms of, you know, more and more people coming to RCC? We want more and more people to come, because we want to give birth to other churches in this area.

So, we don’t want to get complacent. And that’s an easy thing for priests and those that fill the master’s house to do—is to get complacent about how they run their churches as well.

And then verses 11 and 12: “Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh. What is that? Well, that was the market region of Jerusalem. These are different regions of Jerusalem. So be like Mount Tabor, the Pearl District, that kind of thing. And Maktesh was the economic district. This is where the gold and silver people were. This is where some of the big financial transactions happen.

And what we see here is that practical atheism had certainly found its way into Maktesh. And in fact, geographically, people think that what this verse means is that’s where the judgment begins, because that’s the most secularized. It’s become the most secularized, the most practically atheistic of all the places in Israel.

If we have a Christian nation, we have Christian businessmen, they ought to be explicit about it. If they just blend in with the rest of the marketers in transactions, if we don’t develop biblical views of business and transaction, biblical purposes to the businesses that we work at, try to bring whatever we can and whatever position of authority God has placed us biblical truths into it, then we become Maktesh more and more. If we don’t do that, this culture has gotten rid of signs of theism in the culture, right? I mean, back in the old days—I go to Poland, you go to the park, big cross, huge cross up there in the middle of the park, signs reminding people God is God, judges things, and Jesus is victorious here. We’ve got nothing like that.

And in fact, we’ve had a self-conscious attempt on the part of the ACLU and others to remove any signs of this. Why? Because they don’t—they’re—they want you to forget it when you go to work and when you go out in the to the malls. They want you to forget God. They want you to be practically atheistic.

So, the merchants here are described as well. Merchants who are no longer explicitly devoted to Yahweh in their craft.

So, we’ve got the state, we’ve got leaders in the church, we’ve got the leaders. That’s what Maktesh was—the silver traders, etc., leaders in commerce.

Look, by the way, at verse 12—it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps. No, no, I’m sorry, verse 11 again: Woe, you inhabitants, for all the merchant people are cut down. Those who handle money are cut off. Okay. And he says, so you know, their money isn’t going to do them any good in the day of judgment.

And he says later in the text—can’t see it right now. Oh, verse 18: He says, “Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them.” Okay? So, money—then with silver and gold. And I bring it out because you may still do that sort of stuff. You may be trying to use silver and gold, but you’re no longer cognizant of what it means. It doesn’t do you any good. I return to the gold standard if that’s—I’m not sure it’s what we should do, but if you think it’s what we should do, that isn’t going to cut it. They had the gold standard. They had silver coinage, but they were practically atheistic and the judgment of God came upon them.

So he describes this in a broad sense as, you know, force worship, state worship. He talks about the particular people—the governors in the state, the governors in the church and the governors in the economy. So the whole thing—religion, politics and business—has become practically atheistic.

Now the text itself, then verse 12: It shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps. So he’s searching it out. He’ll punish them. Punish who? He’ll punish the men who are settled in complacency. And some of your translations probably talk about the dregs or the leaves of wine. And the idea—the more literal imagery is given to us here that you got wine that has to be moved around and put into different vessels.

If you just let it sit there, it gets crusted over, starts to evaporate, starts to go bad, and it congeals. The word is like congeal. And so the wine kind of congeals, and then of course it’s lousy. It’s no good for wine anymore. So it’s not saying you’re settled in drinking too much wine. That’s not the imagery. The imagery is one of the really good things that God has given to you. Wine has become congealed, and it’s—it tastes horrible now.

And that’s what you are to me. God says you become complacent in your lives, and you become then congealed, settled, at ease in who you are. You develop this practical atheism. So you’re settled.

And how are they settled? You say in your heart. Now, they don’t say it on their lips. Don’t expect to see people saying it on their lips that God doesn’t do. Although in evangelicalism, much of the doctrine taught is actually on the lips now. But this is against those who still affirm God’s law with their lips. It’s you and I. We don’t come here and say it’s irrelevant. But what’s going on in your heart?

The Lord is searching your heart today with a lamp. And he wants you to understand there may be some practical atheism in there, in terms of some of your activities, some portions of your life.

What does it look like? Well, the practical atheism is reflected in two things. The Lord won’t do good, nor will the Lord do evil. He won’t do good. It’s not just that God’s judgments aren’t in the earth. That’s the second part. But before we get to that, the practical atheism that he’s warning us against, that Jerusalem fell at AD 70 because—and why the judgment came upon God’s people in the north and the south prior to that, five hundred years prior—the practical atheism has a component to it that says that God doesn’t do good either.

He’s not going to do any blessing to us. Now, these are men with blessings. We just saw that, right? This is the time of Josiah. Things are okay economically so far. Pharaoh hasn’t, you know, killed Josiah yet. He’s going to in a few years. Egypt will come through and appoint kings in Judah now. But that time is not now. And in fact, the Assyrian Empire has diminished. The Assyrians took the north away captive. Babylon will be raised up to take the south, but Babylon’s not strong yet. So, Israel has a degree of independence, and it’s got some prosperity going on.

So, when these guys say in their hearts, “God doesn’t do good,” they’re sitting in the midst of goodness. Who does good? It’s a prideful assertion that their abilities, their understanding of market forces, their understanding of political action, their understanding of how things work, you see, with no reference to God—it’s their own abilities that’s brought about their blessings. That’s why he says over and over again, “You’re prideful. You’re prideful. You’re prideful. Humble. Humble. Humble.”

“I give you blessings. I give you cities you didn’t build.” He says, “When they’ve come into the land, right? And I’ll give you houses, because I’m blessing you. And yes, you’ve been diligent. Yes, you’ve understood some things the scriptures say about diligence and marketplace and all that stuff, but don’t think you’re doing it on your own. Don’t think that you can do it through an understanding of politics and understanding of economics without reference to God. Forget it. If that’s what’s in your heart today, that you think you’ve prospered because of your abilities as opposed to God’s providence, then you’ve got practical atheism going on. And we’ll see in a minute what happens to practical atheists.

So, first of all, there are those people who become settled because of prosperity, and as a result of that, they start thinking, “I did it.” They’re prideful. They lift themselves up against God.

Now an application of the text is to those people that aren’t particularly blessed, who work, you know, for years going to work every day and they just can’t get ahead and they start to lose hope as well. And I would want to encourage you that the Lord’s hand is upon you. He’s watching you. He does bring good. So there is that aspect to it. And don’t be lured into a practical atheism when you don’t see the blessings God has given to you. Most of the blessings he gives us are stuff we don’t probably look for. We’re looking for bottom line on the balance sheet. And God’s interested in far more things than that.

I know a couple here that, you know, dad always would like the bottom line to be better. But I get an email, you know, from a man at a Christian school, and this man who thinks probably he’s a failure because his bottom line isn’t what it should be. His daughter is praised in high terms to me. Well, what would you rather have? Couple of houses paid off or a godly daughter that people weep over her commitment to Christ in a difficult place? Well, you see, when we put it that way, we we kind of get our sense back and think, “Yeah, the Lord is doing good. He’s doing good.”

So, so don’t be discouraged. Don’t be lured into a practical atheism that says that God isn’t blessing you. He is.

And then the second part, of course, and I’ve kind of talked about this a lot already, but then the other part is, “Well, God doesn’t do evil either. He doesn’t bring curses upon us either. He’s not going to judge our actions. Who cares?” And that’s the other side of it.

God is slow. He just, you know, he takes his time. He never does things the way we would like to do them. We want things quick. We want immediate, you know, reaction. God’s plans are not our plans. God brings things to pass slowly in time. The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine. Everything is subject to the control, the blessings and cursings of God. And we just have such short time perspectives on things that we can’t see it.

We live—you know, I’ve mentioned this joke before, but screws the guy Steven Wright said that, you know, he made instant coffee in his microwave oven and almost went backward in time. Well, you know, that’s kind of how we are. We’re just going at a million miles an hour, and things are busy, and we want God, you know, to get on our time schedule and work.

I guess—no. I’m doing things a hundred years after the north falls before the southern kingdom is destroyed and taken into captivity. No doubt they were worried the first ten or fifteen years when the Assyrians got within ten miles, and when they actually got up to the wall of Jerusalem itself, and Hezekiah has to go into the temple and pray for God’s deliverance, and God does it. Ten years probably—for a while they, yeah, okay, a hundred years later: we don’t know what happened. We don’t know. Who knows what happened? If he did that in the past, he’s not doing that anymore, so God tells us don’t be like that. Don’t be lured into practical atheism by doubting that my judgments are in the world today.

Don’t, through overconfidence and laziness—and that’s really what this indolence, this settledness can imply: an overconfidence that leads to laziness. Don’t do that. And don’t be tempted by the absence of God’s immediate blessings and cursings to a practical atheism that says that God isn’t at work.

So, you know, material prosperity leads to all of this. A desire to sin greater leads to all of this. As one commentator said, they do nothing to return to God because they believe that God does nothing either good or bad. That’s practical atheism. You don’t think God’s at work in the world—good or bad—and as a result, you don’t do anything either, you see, in reference to God. So, that’s that’s the sort of people that bring forth this judgment.

Calvin, I thought, had a very important comment to make on this text. A number of them actually, but let me just read one. This is from Calvin’s commentary in Zephaniah. He says, “But what I have just said must be borne in mind: that an unhealable impiety is described by the prophet when he accuses the Jews that they did not think God to be the author either of good or of evil. Because God—” there’s lots of things to criticize. Calvin criticizes them. Part of it, he said, they want to sin the more. So if you want to sin, you want to start telling yourself, “God isn’t really involved. If I do this thing, he’s not going to judge me. I did it last week. It was sinful. Nothing happened.” So you start to callous yourself so that you can sin the more. That’s all true, and Calvin talks about that.

But this point is so important. He says: “they did not think God to be the author of good or of evil because God is thus deprived of his dignity. For except he is owned as the judge of the world, what becomes of his dignity? The majesty or the authority or the glory of God does not consist in some imaginary brightness, but in those works which so necessarily belong to him that they cannot be separated from his very essence.”

So we talk about God’s glory—well, it’s not some kind of abstract ethereal thing that’s not directly aimed at it. When God talks about God’s glory, when the scriptures talk about God’s glory, it’s talking about things he does, his interaction with the creation. It is. Calvin says: “what peculiarly belongs to God to govern the world and to exercise care over mankind and also to make a difference between good and evil, to help the miserable, to punish all wickedness, to check injustice and violence.

When anyone takes away these things from God, he leaves him an idol only. Since then the glory of God consists in his justice, wisdom, judgment, power, and other attributes, all who deny God to be the governor of the world entirely extinguish—his much as they can—his glory.”

What’s the chief purpose of man? To glorify God. And there is no more unglorifying thing to God, Calvin says, than to say he’s not the governor of the world, that he’s not sovereign, and that he’s not imminent, that he’s not involved in your life, that he won’t bring judgments—good and evil, blessings and cursings.

When we deny that, when we become practical atheists and look to the forces of the world, the forces of political action, the ability of our own hand, or even when we’re tempted to deny God’s presence because of the suffering that he puts us through—you see, the worst thing we’ve done is we’ve stripped God—as much as we can, which isn’t much, but we have practically speaking—stripped God of his glory. We’ve denied the very purpose for which we were made, which is to glorify God.

Now, this leads then to some pretty horrific judgments. Let’s look briefly at judgments. In verse 3: I will consume man and beast. I will consume the birds of the heavens, snitch the sea. And if you’re thinking, you’re already starting to know what’s happening here. He’s going to bring judgments. And he’s going to bring judgments against a particular group of people.

Oh my, I’ve lost the other page. Well, I can’t find it now. But it, the text goes on in verse 8, I think. How did I do this? The text goes on in verse. Give me a moment to find it.

Yeah. Okay. So, we mentioned this. Okay, look at verse 5: Those who worship the host of heavens on the housetops. God’s description, the first few verses talk about the judgment of God. And he’s going to destroy man and beast. He’s going to destroy birdies and fishies. And he’s going to kill those who worship the host of heaven. What’s he doing? What language is he using? Ask yourself if you know the answer to that question, and if you don’t, you should.

It’s decreation language. Because birds and fish are combined on the fifth day. Man and beast are combined on the sixth day, and the fourth day is the host of heaven. So he starts on the sixth day, but it’s not enough to say he’s going to destroy man and beast. He takes that about birds and fishes, and he talks about those that worship the host of heaven. He’s going to bring about a new creation. So when you have practical atheism in your heart, you’re in danger of deconstruction. You’re in danger of de-creation before the God who is at work in the context of the world.

Now, that’s one element of his judgment. The other element is you’re involved in curses of the covenant. He goes on to use this. So, he’s used deconstruction language first—a reverse creation. And then he goes on to say in terms of his curse: Verse 13. Look at verse 13 after he describes it. He says, “Therefore, their goods shall become booty. Their houses of desolation. They shall build houses but not inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards but not drink their wine.”

So the second description of the great judgment against practical atheism and complacency. The second description is you suffer the curses of Deuteronomy 28. You don’t get the blessings, and you’re suffering covenant curses. He reaffirms the covenant with its blessings and curses in the way he brings the destruction upon such a people. So we’ve got de-creation. We’ve got Deuteronomy 28 being at work.

And then finally, in verse 14: The great day of the Lord is here near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter. And then in verse 15: the day is a day of wrath, the day of trouble, day of distress, day of devastation and desolation. Seven times he uses the term day. And in either in either red, he’s got the day of the Lord.

Now folks, we are here today on the day of the Lord. In the New Testament, in the Greek, day of the Lord and Lord’s day are the same. This is the day God comes to be with his people. And he says that judgment begins with the house of God. People want Jesus to come back. No, they don’t. If they’re engulfed in practical atheism, it’s not going to be a day of brightness to them. God says it’s a day of great darkness, great trouble, great destruction.

Practical atheism is no small matter in the life of his people. A settled complacency and a denial of the blessings and cursings of God in history bring forth de-creation judgment. The judgment of the covenant curses as opposed to covenant blessings. And it says that the day of the Lord in terms of judgment by God is upon such a people. So he describes tremendous judgments against people who are involved in this state of mind.

Now this is gospel. In Nahum chapter 1—don’t turn there, but Nahum is all about the destruction he’s going to bring on Assyria, all three chapters. Going to kill him. Going to kill him. Going to kill him. And here’s what he here’s, listen to this kind of, you know, neck snapping reversal of what he says here.

He says in verse 14: “The Lord has given a command concerning you. Your name shall be perpetuated no longer. Out of the house of your gods, I will cut off the carved image and the molded image. I will dig your grave, for you are vile.” Curses. Verse 15: “Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good tidings, who proclaims peace. Judah, keep your appointed feasts.”

It’s gospel. He says the judgment of God against pagan nations or against a complacent, practically atheistic church. The judgment of God is the feet of good news on the mountaintops, because we want God to destroy every kingdom that raises itself up against Christ so that the kingdom of Christ might be seen as all in all. This is God gospel. The good news today is that God does indeed bless obedience and he does indeed bring temporal curses upon his people.

What should be our response? Well, he says in chapter 2: he says, “Repent,” and your repentance will be demonstrated by a humility, by a seeking of justice before him, a seeking God, by being humble and seeking justice in the context of our land.

If this great sin, as Calvin said, is destroying the glory of God, what should you do? Where do you look? Where’s the lamp shine today in your life? I suggest that the lamp starts with the day of the Lord, the day of worship. Is it important to you that you come to church? Is it important to you that you glorify God in the way that he’s prescribed? Is the worship service of the church an option? It is for many people today. I know it isn’t for us, but that’s one place to begin.

You’re here in body. Are you here in spirit? Are you here understanding that your job in life is to glorify God? And when you do that, when you consecrate yourself to the worship of the Savior, when you get prepared for it, ready for it, engage in it fully, you see, we’re going to talk about worship songs at a meeting this week. How do we evaluate that? What is worship? Worship is glorifying God. Worship is developing the kind of people who won’t be complacent where we’re at in this culture with a few little outposts of, you know, Christian wholehearted Christian commitment.

We want an army to rise up and to expand the manifestation of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. And our songs are to that purpose. They’re to call you out of complacency. Now, there’s songs that bring us comfort and peace. We understand that. But not songs that lull us into a false sense of “it’s okay no matter what we do.” It’s not okay. God says the day of worship is the first place to begin to ask yourself in your heart as the lamp of God’s word brings light to it. What are you doing today to glorify God?

I’m glad you’re here. Praise God for that. Are you here to glorify God? Are you here to recognize that God’s word claims dominion over every square inch of this world, every square inch of your heart and your mind? That’s what it’s about. You see, let’s not be complacent.

Businesses are—have you become complacent as a Christian businessman? Have you become practically atheistic in your approach to your vocation? And that’s a good question to ask yourself. I know it’s hard because we have a business community today that’s like Maktesh. It’s totally secularized and it’s totally force and state focused. But God says don’t get complacent. Don’t get lulled in. God is blessing and cursing in the context of how you conduct commerce.

Education. Young parents, be committed to not raising practical atheists out of your children, but raising them with a Christian education that sees God’s word as the guidance for everything that he—you do and what and that they do.

Let’s set ourselves to the task of not being complacent as a church. If you’re involved in some church ministry, you know, one of the worst things that is true of churches throughout this country is that church ministries are done in a sloppy, complacent, goofball fashion. Let’s not be like that. We’re not like that. Let’s continue. Let’s not slide into that. Let’s be focused and energetic about the ministries of this church, and let’s seek their expansion that they might undergird the expansion of the army of God who take the crown rights of Christ Jesus into your business place, into your home, into the schools that you use—homeschool or private school—and into the surrounding culture and what you do in terms of government.

All those places that are described for us in Zephaniah are the places that we should press the crown rights of Jesus Christ.

Let me just say in closing: young men, I don’t know, let’s say sixteen to thirty, okay? If you’re in that group here, you are more on my heart this morning than the rest of us here. Us old guys, we need to hear that when the bell rings, the old warrior comes out again. We need to do that. It’s good that we can, you know, encourage each other that way. We’ll be okay, the old guys. Okay? We’ll encourage each other, challenge each other, stick poke each other with sticks to keep us moving ahead in our old age.

You young men carry the vision and purpose of this church. You carry the vision and purpose of the household you’ll be called to do. What are you doing today? Are you engaged in your life in a practical atheism that, “well, the thing with God, it’s there, but it’s just kind of one of those things I do”? Or are you engaged in being a soldier of the Lord Jesus Christ, aggressively pressing demands of Jesus Christ?

You know, praise God. I wasn’t going to say—I’m going to say—praise God for Steve Sykes, who takes his business into Oregon City, who moves into Oregon City, who, you know, he’s like the rest of us. We’re all goofed up many ways, but Steve sees the vision. He’s not getting complacent. He wants to press forward.

Young men, may the Lord God stir your hearts today with warnings from him that if you think you can drift along and not pick up the torch and carry it forward that this church has given to you, God help you. May he shake you to your bones knowing that judgment will come upon you if you become practically atheistic and complacent. And may he, on the other side of it, encourage you with the Holy Spirit today to transform your heart to see, “I’m not going to be complacent. I’m not going to be a settled guy in my fun and my adolescence. I’m going to grow up. I’m going to be serious about vocation in the marketplace. I’m going to be serious about pursuing a wife and family and doing all that stuff. And I’m going to be serious about being a good churchman.” That’s what you need to do. That’s what you need to do. The opposite of that is complacency.

May the Lord God grant us all as we come forward today to bring him our tithes and offerings. May he give us a renewed sense of a commitment to seek his glory above all else, recognizing the truth of the scriptures that assert to us that God is at work in our world. And we had better get with the program. And if we do get with the program, if we’re meek and humble before him and seek justice in our homes, in our marketplace, in our cities, you see, as we do that, the Lord God says, “You may be hidden in the day of judgment.” Zephaniah means “hidden one of Yahweh” or “treasure of Yahweh.”

And Zephaniah is a picture to us of what our response is to be: to repent of practical atheism, to seek humbly before God for a renewed sense of commitment and a shaking off complacency. And God says that as you do that, you’ll be one of those hidden ones as well. One of God’s treasures that he disperses in the context of this world. May he grant that to us all.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for today. We thank you for the day of the Lord upon us today. Help us to be shaken down to the roots of our being by these horrific scenes of judgment we just read. Help us to be shaken out of complacency. Help us, Lord God, to renew our commitment to you, to serve you in the context of our lives. And Lord God, give us young men who are warriors. I thank you for the ones you have given us. Thank you for every one of them.

But I pray Lord God, that as they start their families and get involved in their vocations and become good churchmen, that you’d give them a sense of commitment, a driving force to serve Jesus and to see his kingdom—the visible manifestation of his kingdom—expanded in this city and beyond. Bless us Lord God with such courageous, strong, powerful young men to carry on the vision of this church. In Jesus name we ask him for the sake of his kingdom, not ours.

Amen.