The Day of the Lord is Near | Zephaniah
Brian Hedges | August 3, 2025
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to the Old Testament prophet Zephaniah. If you’re following along in one of the Bibles in the chair in front of you, it’s page 788.
While you’re turning there, let me show you this trilogy of movie posters, and see if you can discern what these movies have in common: Planet of the Apes, Deep Impact, and The Day after Tomorrow. Look at those films. What do they have in common? They’re all science fiction, for one thing, and I love science fiction movies, so I’ve seen all these. Maybe you’ve seen these films. But they’re not only science fiction films, they are films that portray a particular picture of the future, and actually a pretty bleak picture of the future. They are apocalyptic films; they are films that are imagining what the future of the world is, the future of the human race, and whether it’s a planet that’s run by apes or it’s a comet that strikes the earth and causes tsunamis and hurricanes and disasters and deep impact—or whatever it is—this is a pretty bleak picture of humanity.
It’s quite interesting, if you look at popular culture over the last hundred years or so, I think especially since maybe World War I or World War II, there have been multiple books written and then films made that are giving us this really bleak picture of the future. It’s not very hopeful. It’s the expectation of doom and gloom. It’s basically an apocalyptic view of the future and what’s to come.
Of course, there are Christian versions of this, if you think of films like Left Behind and the whole Left Behind series of novels, if you think of that particular way of interpreting the book of Revelation and some of the prophetic Scriptures.
To be true, we could say that some of this is owed to the Old Testament prophets, because when you read the Old Testament prophets there are these notes of judgment and notes of wrath. In fact, in both Old Testament and New Testament you have these pictures of what’s to come that talk about the day of the Lord being a day of wrath and judgment.
But as we’re going to see this morning in the book of Zephaniah, that’s not the whole picture, because the Old Testament prophets—and you find this in the New Testament as well—not only talk about a coming judgment, they also talk about a coming restoration. They talk about a coming salvation. They talk about a new creation. You have that even in this short little Old Testament prophet, Zephaniah.
This is the eighth in our series through the minor prophets, and we get a little window into who this prophet was in the first verse. Zephaniah 1:1 says,
“The word of the Lord that came to Zephaniah son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amariah, the son of Hezekiah, during the reign of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah.”
So, most likely this means that Zephaniah was the great-great-grandson of King Hezekiah, and he was one of those city prophets similar to Isaiah and Micah before him, so he prophesied in the city of Jerusalem. Much of this prophecy is targeted to Jerusalem, to the rulers of Jerusalem, the religious leaders of Jerusalem and the business people of Jerusalem. This is a prophecy that takes place during the reign of Josiah, under which there were quite a few reforms. Josiah was the last of Judah’s good kings, so Zephaniah may have been instrumental in that, as he was calling people to repentance and to seek the Lord, and there was some kind of renewal movement that happened during that time.
This would have been one of those seventh-century prophets, before the Babylonian invasion, the Babylonian exile, so contemporary with Nahum and Habakkuk and Obadiah.
We’re going to look this morning at this book, and let me start by showing you the flow of the book. I’m taking this essentially from the Old Testament commentator Alec Motyer, whose commentary is just outstanding and very helpful for me. He divides the book into three sections.
Zephaniah 1:2-2:3 he calls “The End of the World: Is There Any Hope?” As we’re going to see in just a minute, this is the darkest part of this book, as Zephaniah talks about the coming day of the Lord and all the judgment and wrath that accompanies that day.
Then Zephaniah 2 Motyer calls “Judgment and Hope: An Enigma.” What you have in chapter 2 is really a call to seek the Lord, with just a little glimmer of hope. It’s kind of an enigma. Is this day going to be a day of judgment or is it going to be a day of salvation? You’re not sure; there’s a question mark as you’re reading through chapter 2.
But then, when you get to Zephaniah 3, it is “The End of the World: Hope in All of Its Glory,” where you have I think the brightest, most hopeful, most promising part of this book.
You might think of it along these lines—think of this metaphor—in Zephaniah 1, it’s almost all darkness. It’s just about as dark as you can imagine it to be. In Zephaniah 2, it’s darkness with just a little glimmer of light, but not very much. But when you get to Zephaniah 3, by the end of chapter 3 you have the blazing light of the noonday sun, and it is one of the most bright and hopeful portions of Old Testament Scriptures and especially of the minor prophets.
I want to break it down in this way—this is my outline for the morning. I want to talk about:
1. The Day of the Lord
2. The Call of the Lord
3. The Promise of the Lord
That essentially will take us through Zephaniah 1, 2, and 3, beginning with the day of the Lord.
1. The Day of the Lord
I’m going to read Zephaniah 1:7-18. This will be the longest block of text that I read this morning. As I read it, I want you to notice the emphasis on the day of the Lord. This is language we’ve seen before. It’s in, for example, the prophet Amos. We’re going to see it’s also in the prophet Joel. This is language that also shows up in the New Testament.
The day of the Lord would often be a cataclysmic day of judgment that was on the horizon in the history of the people of God. But sometimes it seems that the day of the Lord is also looking further ahead to something that’s going to happen in the very last time, something with a more eschatological flavor. And I think you have that, to some degree, here in Zephaniah.
So, notice the emphasis on the day of the Lord and how Zephaniah describes this day in Zephaniah 1:7-18. He says,
“Be silent before the Sovereign Lord,
for the day of the Lord is near.
The Lord has prepared a sacrifice;
he has consecrated those he has invited.
“‘On the day of the Lord’s sacrifice
I will punish the officials
and the king’s sons
and all those clad
in foreign clothes.
On that day I will punish
all who avoid stepping on the threshold,
who fill the temple of their gods
with violence and deceit.
“‘On that day,’
declares the Lord,
‘a cry will go up from the Fish Gate,
wailing from the New Quarter,
and a loud crash from the hills.
Wail, you who live in the market district;
all your merchants will be wiped out,
all who trade with silver will be destroyed.’”
You can see in those verses that he’s just progressively working through the upper echelons of society—the royal family, the king’s household, the religious leaders in the temple, trying not to step on the threshold of the temple, and then the business district, the people involved in the market. And he’s saying there’s going to come judgment in all these different dimensions of society.
Pick it up in verse 12.
“‘At that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps
and punish those who are complacent,
who are like wine left on its dregs,
who think, “The Lord will do nothing,
either good or bad.”
Their wealth will be plundered,
their houses demolished.
Though they build houses,
they will not live in them;
though they plant vineyards,
they will not drink the wine.’
“‘The great day of the Lord is near—
near and coming quickly.
The cry on the day of the Lord is bitter;
the Mighty Warrior shouts his battle cry.’”
Just note that; lock that in your mind, this portrayal of the Lord as a mighty warrior. In this case, it is a mighty warrior who is coming against Jerusalem. God is coming to fight against his own people.
Then verse 15:
“‘That day will be a day of wrath—
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of trouble and ruin,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness—
a day of trumpet and battle cry
against the fortified cities
and against the corner towers.
“‘I will bring such distress on all people
that they will grope about like those who are blind,
because they have sinned against the Lord.’”
That’s recalling the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah.
“‘Their blood will be poured out like dust
and their entrails like dung.
Neither their silver nor their gold
will be able to save them
on the day of the Lord’s wrath.’
“In the fire of his jealousy
the whole earth will be consumed,
for he will make a sudden end
of all who live on the earth.”
That’s pretty bleak stuff, this prophetic woe, this oracle of doom and judgment and wrath that is coming on Jerusalem; but not just Jerusalem, but on the whole earth. He will make a sudden end of all who live on the earth. So there’s a universal scope, it seems, to this doom oracle.
It is, perhaps, one of those passages that informs the New Testament prophets and apostles. Think of the apostle Peter. Peter, in 2 Peter 3:10, says,
“The day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.”
So, you have this emphasis. You have it both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, the prophets and the apostles, on this coming day of the Lord, and it seems like an apocalyptic movie—I mean, day of wrath and judgment and doom and gloom and all the rest.
We’ve talked about this quite a bit in this series. It pops up again and again in the prophets. Part of what we’ve been trying to do in this series is not only faithfully teach what those passages teach, but also try to wrestle with those teachings and contextualize them so that we can understand them in our own day. So let me remind you of some of the things that we’ve said. We’ve said in this series that God’s wrath is actually a proof of God’s love; that, just as a jealous husband is going to feel angry if his wife is unfaithful to him, in the same way, God is this jealous lover, and he loves his people so much that when they are unfaithful to him his wrath is an expression of his love. And when things come that destroy that covenant relationship, it rightly arouses the wrath and the anger of God.
We’ve said that God’s judgment is also essential to God’s justice; that it would be a bad thing to live in a world where God does not judge sin, because it would mean that evil has the last word. It would mean that injustice prevails. It would mean that the judge of all the earth does not actually do what is right. So if you care about justice, if you care about righteousness, if you want to see God actually do what is right in the world, it’s important then to have a God who judges sin.
Let me just share another thought with you that I think can be helpful for us as we try to make sense of passages like this about the wrath and judgment of God. I think we can say that our response to God’s wrath and judgment in Scripture is actually a test of our honesty, of how honest we are with the Bible and how honest we are in dealing with the true God, God as he has revealed himself to be.
Anytime you’re in a relationship with someone, you have to accept the person as they are, not just try to make them what you want them to be. That’s true in our relationship with God. So often what happens—this happens in every culture of the world, it’s happened throughout history—there are parts of the Bible and there are things about God that kind of cross our presuppositions in our culture, and they’re not the way we would conceive God to be if we were left to our own assumptions.
Let me give you an example of this. I recently finished reading a biography of Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was, of course, the third President of the United States, he was the chief architect of the Declaration of Independence, and in many ways he was a good president. There were some questions about some of his morals, but in many ways he was a great man. But Thomas Jefferson was not a Christian. He was nominal in his commitment to the Anglican church, but certainly not a confessing Christian in any sense of the word. He denied the deity of Jesus Christ, he denied the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, he did not believe in the resurrection.
In fact, later in his life Thomas Jefferson produced his own version of the Bible, The Life and Teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, where he essentially took out all of the miracles, all of the supernatural elements, all of the references to Jesus as the Son of God, and just left the ethical teaching of Jesus.
Now, here’s what’s really interesting. Jefferson actually did believe in a final judgment, and he believed that people would be judged basically on the basis of their good works, whether they did good or whether they did evil. But he didn’t want anything to do with the supernatural elements of the Bible.
In other words, Thomas Jefferson’s understanding of God and the Bible perfectly fit the Enlightenment ideals of his world, and Jefferson worshiped a god made in the image of Thomas Jefferson.
Now, today our temptation is quite different. We’re not tempted, probably, to do away with the supernatural elements of the Bible, and we certainly want to embrace a doctrine of God’s love and grace and mercy. Jefferson really didn’t want anything to do with a gospel of grace. He didn’t believe the gospel; he believed you were judged on the basis of your works. We have the opposite tendency, but what we are tempted to do is deny the wrath of God, the judgment of God. We are tempted also to whittle away those parts of Scripture and those parts of the character of God that don’t fit with our presuppositions about what a good God would be like. In other words, we’re also tempted to worship a god made in our image, the image of the postmodern, maybe even the postevangelical person who lives in the West.
But Old Testament and New Testament alike, prophet and apostle, hold forth this fuller, more well-rounded, comprehensive view of God that combines wrath with mercy and judgment with grace and goodness with holiness and gives us this more complex picture of who God is. It’s a test of your honesty in dealing with God that you’re not just worshiping a god that you make up in your own mind but God as he really is, if you actually embrace all of these different facets of God that are presented to us in Scripture.
Now, we have to ask why. Why does God reveal himself in this way? Why does God talk about and give us these prophetic messages about wrath and judgment and the day of the Lord and so on?
2. The Call of the Lord
Invariably, what you see across the Scriptures is that such words are accompanied with calls to repentance, calls to seek the Lord. So that leads us to the second point, the call of the Lord. The day of the Lord is described in Zephaniah 1 in order to call the people of God to response in chapter 2. You see that in Zephaniah 2:1-3. I’ll just read these three verses.
“Gather together, gather yourselves together,
you shameful nation,
before the decree takes effect
and that day passes like windblown chaff,
before the Lord’s fierce anger
comes upon you,
before the day of the Lord’s wrath
comes upon you.”
So he’s talking about the day of the Lord, and now he’s saying, “Respond before this happens.”
As I mentioned before, it’s very probable that Zephaniah’s preaching was actually instrumental in bringing about something like a renewal and revival under the reign of King Josiah.
Then verse 3 says,
“Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land,
you who do what he commands.
Seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you will be sheltered
on the day of the Lord’s anger.”
So it’s a call to seek the Lord. Now, seeking the Lord is exactly what they had not done, and Zephaniah 1:6 addresses the oracle of woe to those who turn back from following the Lord and neither seek the Lord nor enquire of him. They haven’t been seeking the Lord, but now the call comes, “Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land. Seek righteousness, seek humility.”
So we need to ask, what does that mean? What does it mean to seek the Lord? Because this call comes to us as well. We are also called, when we hear about the judgment of God and wrath of God, to seek the Lord. What does that mean? Let me suggest several things.
(1) First of all, seeking is more than just giving mental assent. It’s not simply going through the motions and saying that we believe certain doctrines. That is not seeking the Lord, because that was happening in Zephaniah’s day, in the day of the minor prophets. It’s one of the things that they are critiquing over and over again. People are still offering sacrifices, they’re still going to the temple, they’re still going to the festivals in Jerusalem; but they’re honoring the Lord with their lips while their hearts are far from God. So they’re not really seeking the Lord. It has to mean more than just the formal and externally religious aspects of Christianity for us. Seeking the Lord has to involve our hearts.
(2) We could also say that seeking implies intentionality and making God our priority. There’s a difference between a casual acquaintance with God and a devoted pursuit of God.
Now, I can illustrate that from the realm of athletics or music. So athletics—you know that I love golf. I’ve been playing golf as a recreational golfer since I was a teenager, but I had never really put much into it until a few years ago, when I decided, “You know what? I love this game. I’d like to be better at this game, so I’m going to try to get better.” So I started taking golf lessons and I started reading books about golf and listening to podcasts about golf. I probably talk about golf so much that you’re tired of hearing me talk about golf! But I love the game.
I can say that I’m not a great golfer, but I’m a much better golfer than I was, because I’m a golf seeker. You can say that. I’m seeking to be better at golf, and it’s become something more of a priority for what I do with my recreational time.
That’s true in every realm of life. There’s a difference between just being casually involved in something and actually being devoted to the pursuit of it. Think of music. There’s a big difference between someone who just likes to dink around the piano or the guitar and someone who actually gives the hours and the time to perfecting that skill so that they can be a part of a band or an orchestra and they can play music with great skill and artistry.
We could say that seeking the Lord similarly requires some kind of intentionality on our parts. It means we have to give something to it. We have to make it a priority in our lives.
You might think of it in the realm of relationships. We know that there’s a difference between someone who’s just casually dating and then that couple who crosses a line and they decide that they are now in a committed relationship, and then they actually make a covenant commitment to one another in marriage.
I think there are a lot of people, and maybe even some of us this morning, that we essentially are casually dating God, but we’re not in a committed relationship. We’re not involved in a devoted pursuit. We come to church occasionally; we may even crack open the Bible occasionally. We pray when we’re in a crisis. But if you look at our day to day lives, Monday through Saturday, there’s nothing in our normal, everyday life that would indicate that we’re really pursuing God, that we’re really seeking God. What Zephaniah is saying here is you need to seek the Lord.
Now, what would that look like in your life today? What would it mean for you to become actually a seeker of the Lord—not just a church attender, not even a church member, but actually a seeker of the Lord? Well, it’s going to show up in both your public life and in your private life.
Publicly, it’s certainly going to mean a commitment to a community of believers. It’s going to mean a commitment to worship. It’s going to mean that you come to worship with an anticipation of hearing what God will say. You come to worship anticipating praise and worship and prayer, bringing your heart before the Lord. It’s going to mean involvement with a body of believers and service to others. It’s going to mean that you start to align the way you prioritize your life in a way that honors the Lord and his commands.
But it’s also going to show up in your private life, because it’s going to mean you’re setting aside time to be with God, solitude with God, time with God—prayer, speaking to God, listening to God speak to you through his word. Seeking the Lord will always involve both the spiritual engagement but also the personal humility of humbling ourselves before the Lord and then changing as God requires change. That’s why this passage says—read verse 3 again—“Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, you who do what he commands…. Seek righteousness, seek humility.” Humility and righteousness are essential to seeking the Lord.
Now, I just want to ask us before we move on here—you ask yourself this question—“Am I seeking the Lord?” Not just casually involved with God, but am I in a devoted pursuit of God? Do I seek the Lord in public and private? Am I seeking the Lord such that he’s a priority in my life, that there’s intentionality and discipline in my pursuit of God? That’s the call.
It’s always the earnest call of the prophets when they hold before us the judgment of God and the day of the Lord. It’s always in order to call us to more earnest pursuit of God.
3. The Promise of the Lord
But there’s more. It’s not just the call of the Lord and the day of the Lord in Zephaniah, but there’s also, finally, the promise of the Lord. Let me remind you of the flow of this book again. Zephaniah 3—Motyer’s words here: “The end of the world: hope in all its glory.” This is where you really get the promises in this book. This is where you get the gospel in Zephaniah. It’s in chapter 3, from about verse 9 through 20, and what I want to do is read these verses to you, and as we go let me point out some things. What we’re going to see is what the Lord does and who the Lord is. Together these encompass the promise of the Lord. So, Zephaniah 3:9-20. He says,
“‘Then I will purify the lips of the peoples,
that all of them may call on the name of the Lord
and serve him shoulder to shoulder.
From beyond the rivers of Cush [modern-day Ethiopia]
my worshipers, my scattered people,
will bring me offerings.
On that day you, Jerusalem, will not be put to shame
for all the wrongs you have done to me,
because I will remove from you
your arrogant boasters.
Never again will you be haughty
on my holy hill.
But I will leave within you
the meek and humble.
The remnant of Israel
will trust in the name of the Lord.
They will do no wrong;
they will tell no lies.
A deceitful tongue
will not be found in their mouths.
They will eat and lie down
and no one will make them afraid.’”
Now, those several verses are remarkable verses that are promising that God is going to do something, and you can see it in all the “I will” verbs—“I will purify the lips of the people and I will remove from you your arrogant boasters and I will leave within you the meek and humble,” and so on.
I love the way Alec Motyer describes this. This is his outline. He says that in these verses you have
Babel reversed
Jerusalem renewed
Eden restored
(1) So, Babel is reversed. You really have that in verses 9-10. You remember the story of the tower of Babel? You have this in Genesis 11. This is ancient Babylon, by the way, and it’s people who are building a city, and they want to build this city, this tower—it’s probably a ziggurat—they want to build it to the heavens to make a name for themselves. And God judges the hubris and pride of these people, and he does so by dividing their languages. So you have this multiplicity of languages that emerge out of that whole Babel story.
What Zephaniah is prophesying is actually the reversal of that, when he says, “I will purify the lips of the peoples,” it’s not just the people of Judah; it’s the peoples, “that all of them may call on the name of the Lord.” He says, “From beyond the rivers of Cush my worshipers, my scattered people, will bring me offerings.” He’s looking down south!
In fact, if you read this in the light of Zephaniah 2, chapter 2 is oracles of judgment on the nations surrounding Judah to the north and south and east and west, but with this hope that all of the coastlands are going to bow before the Lord. In other words, this is Old Testament language that informs the missionary hope of the church that there is a global, international, multi-ethnic community of people who will worship God because of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ that goes out around the world. This seems to be the prophetic hope and promise of that right here. It is the reversal of Babel, as the human race, scattered and divided in all their languages and cultures, is now united in their common worship of God.
(2) It’s also Jerusalem renewed, which you have in Zephaniah 3:11-12, and the remnant of Israel trusting in the name of the Lord. Of course, the ultimate fulfillment of that is found in Revelation 21:22 when you have the new Jerusalem, this heavenly city, that comes down to earth.
(3) Then you have all the Eden language also, in Revelation 21-22. And you have that here, verse 13: “They will do no wrong, they will tell no lies, a deceitful tongue will not be found in their mouths.” That’s a description of this community, and it happens to be one of the very few places in the New Testament where Zephaniah is quoted. Revelation 14:5 quotes from that verse. Then this final line: “They will eat and lie down, and no one will make them afraid.” It’s a picture of the kind of peace and provision and security that comes under the pastoral shepherding heart of God as he brings about renewal to his people and he restores them to the idyllic scene and nature of the garden of Eden, the peace and shalom and prosperity of the created order.
All of this is showing us that the prophetic forecast in Scripture is never just doom and gloom; there’s always this ray of hope. There’s always the promise of God’s saving, renewing, restoring work. It’s never just wrath and judgment; it’s always also the promise of salvation, because this is who God is and what he’s like.
We see this, then, in Zephaniah 3:14-17, and I just love this passage. This is, I think, one of the most remarkable passages in the minor prophets, verse 17 especially. This is the first verse from Zephaniah that ever really struck me—this was probably thirty years ago or more when this verse first came on the radar for me. Let me read it and then point out the things we see about God. Verse 14:
“Sing, Daughter Zion;
shout aloud, Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
Daughter Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away your punishment,
he has turned back your enemy.
The Lord, the King of Israel, is with you;
never again will you fear any harm.
On that day
they will say to Jerusalem,
‘Do not fear, Zion;
do not let your hands hang limp.
The Lord your God is with you,
the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.’”
What an amazing portrait of God! This is showing us that God, Yahweh, is the indwelling King of his people. He’s the King. You see it—the Lord, the King of Israel—in verse 15.
One of the things some of the scholars point out is that from this point forward in the minor prophets, any time you have this royal language, the language of a king, it’s language not talking about a human king but talking about Yahweh the King, God himself, the King over his people. And he dwells in the midst of his people; he’s the indwelling King.
Then we see him as the mighty warrior in verse 17. Remember, in Zephaniah 1 God is portrayed as a mighty warrior, but there he’s a mighty warrior who comes in judgment. He’s bringing wrath against his people. But here he’s a mighty warrior who comes bringing salvation. He is the mighty warrior who saves.
Then these last lines of verse 17 portray God as the singing lover. “He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Isn’t that remarkable? We serve a God who sings, a singing God. Why are Christians singing people? One reason is because we serve a God who loves song. He’s a God who sings. The language that’s used here is really the language of a lover delighting in his beloved. If you want more on this, you should maybe look up Sam Storm’s little book The Singing God. There’s a great chapter in that book on this verse, where he asks, “Is God a bass or a baritone?” and it’s all about the God who sings.
Now, why is that significant? Why is it that God is a God who sings? Let me illustrate it this way. You can probably relate to this if you’re married.
Once you become married, you really spend the rest of your life learning to read the heart of the person you’re married to, to discern his or her moods and emotions, to know their heart. Now, I’m no expert in this; Holly can tell you. But I’ve learned some things over the years, and here’s one little thing that I’ve learned over the years: when I come home at the end of the day—and often she’s home before I am—if I come home at the end of the day and I open that door and I hear her singing, I know she’s had a good day. I know she’s in a good mood. I know that she’s happy if I hear her sing, because that’s what Holly does when she’s happy; she sings. I know that she’s in a good place on that day.
The Scriptures here are telling us that God is a God who sings! You know why? Because he is a happy God! He’s a happy God, and when God looks on his people, and yes, when he looks on you, he looks on you with delight, this passage says. He rejoices over you. He sings over you in his love for you.
Is that the way you think of God? I think a lot of us, when we think about God’s attitude towards us, we would tend to think God’s probably mildly frustrated with me, or disappointed with me, or maybe he’s really mad. Maybe God’s really angry with me. But this passage is telling us that God is a God who delights in his people, such is his grace, such is his love, and he sings over you with joy.
He sings over us, and this promise of who God is and what he does leads us to joy as well. You see that in the final three verses, Zephaniah 3:18-20. As I read them, just note here the reversals. There’s been all of this judgment, all of the doom and gloom. Jerusalem’s going to fall, Babylon’s going to come, the people are going to go into exile. But look at verses 18-20 and you can see a reversal to all of this.
“‘I will remove from you
all who mourn over the loss of your appointed festivals,
which is a burden and reproach for you.
At that time I will deal
with all who oppressed you.
I will rescue the lame;
I will gather the exiles.
I will give them praise and honor
in every land where they have suffered shame.
At that time I will gather you;
at that time I will bring you home.
I will give you honor and praise
among all the peoples of the earth
when I restore your fortunes
before your very eyes,’
says the Lord.”
Here’s the picture: the exiles are regathered and are brought home, the oppressors are overcome, the mourning turns to praise, the shame turns to honor, the sorrow turns to joy. When you put this in the fuller context of the New Testament promise of the coming kingdom of God, it means that every tear will be wiped from our eyes. What we are hoping for, what we are looking for is not simply an apocalypse of doom and gloom, but we are looking for a world made new by the power and the grace of God.
We see that ultimate reversal right in the middle of history, and we remember that Jesus Christ hung on the cross. In a very real way he faced the day of the Lord on the cross. He faced a day of judgment. He faced doom and darkness—in fact, three hours of darkness—as he hung there bearing the judgment and wrath of God, doing it for us! Then he’s buried, and then there’s the reversal, as Jesus comes back to life and he’s raised on the third day, showing us the power of the promise of God to bring life out of death and restoration to those who have been exiled by God for their sins.
Friends, this is our hope today, our hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in the promise of the Lord.
So here’s the summary—we’re almost done here. We’ve seen the day of the Lord, the call of the Lord, and the promise of the Lord. When you read all of this together, again in the fuller context of Scripture, it reminds us that the future we are looking for is not like those apocalyptic movies; it’s actually a very bright future. It’s a future that is full of hope as we look to the return of our Lord Jesus Christ and his power to make all things new, to the glory of God. Let’s pray together.
Gracious God, we thank you this morning for your word. We thank you for the gospel that gives us hope. We thank you that we have this full portrait of who you are in Scripture, a God not only of justice who judges that which is evil, but a God of mercy and grace who delights over your people and even sings over your people. We thank you, Lord, for the promise of new creation and for the hope that we have in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We ask you, Lord, to give us hearts to lay hold of this hope today and to seek you as the prophets calls us to. Help us, Lord, to not just go through motions in our worship but to really turn our hearts to you. Help us not to forget you when we leave our place of worship, but to make you a priority in our day to day lives. Help us, Lord, to be these people described in this book, people who seek humility and seek righteousness and who seek your face.
We pray that as we come to the Lord’s table this morning that you would draw near to us as we draw near to you. We pray that you would work in our hearts those things that please you, the right affections and desires, repentance from our sins and renewed hope and faith in your promises. We pray that in this time of worship that we now enter into, worship at the table and worship through song, that you would be glorified in our worship and that we would remember the kind of God that you are and take hope and take refuge in you. So draw near to us, we pray in Jesus’ name and for his sake, amen.
Brian G. Hedges
