America, You Are Next - Zephaniah 1 (Pastor Christian Torres)

Now, I want you to pay attention. It wasn't anything in Israel, it wasn't their military size, it wasn't the type of people they were going to be.

We're going to be in the book of Zephaniah chapter 1. Zephaniah chapter 1, not to be confused with Zechariah, which is just two books over.

Or even Nehemiah. Here we go.

If you turn too quickly, you might miss it. So if you're having trouble finding it, the table of contents at the beginning of the

Bible is a beautiful tool. So a couple of weeks ago,

I was thinking about what I would preach. And it's always the hardest decision to make, because there's so much in Scripture to preach about.

I recently evangelized to this individual, sharing the gospel, and the question arose, oh, if I believe in Jesus, I'll be saved.

Saved from what? And I realized I didn't do a really good job at explaining what you are saved from.

And so that started my journey into figuring out, okay, let me study more about the judgment and condemnation coming, so that I can prepare for the next time

I go and evangelize. The book of Zephaniah is three small chapters of God's judgment.

By no means is this a minor prophet. The message is major, because in just three small chapters, he covers the destruction of the entire world.

And I want to read that with you. So on your handout, I listed the five W's of Zephaniah.

Because maybe some of us haven't read this book before, or it's been a long time. So who wrote the book of Zephaniah?

You guessed it, the prophet Zephaniah, who was a possible descendant of King Hezekiah. Something interesting about this book is that there's actually a genealogy in verse one.

Most minor prophets don't have genealogies. They don't have, well, he was the son of this, and the son of this, and the son of this.

They're usually just shepherds. Minor prophets are usually shepherds who were out shepherding, and God goes, hey,

I want you. But this one, it looks like he was royalty. Zephaniah prophesied around 640, 630

BC. Now this is important, because you need to understand that the Babylonian attack on Jerusalem was in 586.

So he is prophesying just a few years before Jerusalem was destroyed, the pre -Babylonian exile.

And he was also prophesying during the reign of King Josiah. And for those of us who know the Old Testament history, we know that King Josiah was one of very few kings of Judah who did the right thing.

There were only about seven out of like 25. It was insane. And he was likely a contemporary,

Zephaniah was, with the prophets Habakkuk, Daniel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. I find that super interesting, that these people probably knew each other.

I mean, that's so fascinating to me. Where was he prophesying? Judah, the southern kingdom that separated from Israel after King Solomon.

So what was the message? If I had to summarize the book of Zephaniah, what is it?

The prophet Zephaniah spoke of impending doom and judgment on the nation of Judah.

In just three small chapters, Zephaniah prophesied the destruction of the entire world.

And brothers, let me apologize if at any point I say Zachariah, I mean Zephaniah. Why? Why is this judgment coming?

Rampant idolatry and injustice rule Judah. Nothing can stop judgment from coming.

So I'm going to ask that you please stand with me as I read this scripture. Zephaniah chapter 1, verse 2 through 7.

Yeah, we don't usually do this, but after attending other churches, I love this practice of standing when the word of God is being read.

Zephaniah chapter 1, starting in verse 2. I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, declares

Yahweh. I will sweep away man and beast. I will sweep away the birds of the heavens and the fish of the sea and the rubble with the wicked.

I will cut off mankind from the face of the earth, declares Yahweh. I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal and the name of the idolatrous priests along with the priests, those who bow down on the roof to the host of heaven, those who bow down and swear to Yahweh and yet swear by Milcom, those who have turned back from following Yahweh, who do not seek

Yahweh or inquire of him. Be silent before Yahweh God, for the day of Yahweh is near.

Yahweh has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests.

Skip down to verse 14. The great day of Yahweh is near, near and rushing fast.

The sound of that day of Yahweh is bitter. The mighty man cries aloud there.

A day of wrath is that day. A day of distress. A day of anguish.

A day of ruin and devastation. A day of darkness and gloom. A day of clouds and thick darkness.

A day of trumpet blasts and battle cry against the fortified cities and the lofty battlements.

I will bring distress on mankind so they shall walk like the blind because they have sinned against Yahweh.

Their blood shall be poured out like dust and their flesh like dung. Let us pray.

Father, first and foremost, I am sorry for my sin. Seeing this tear, I am so sorry.

Father, I pray that the word that I read may affect me first, that I may learn first to learn from their mistakes, to humble myself to your lordship, to be just that more sensitive to your

Holy Spirit. Lord, I pray that if there's anybody here with a hard heart,

I pray that you may open their eyes and open their ears so that they may see that judgment is coming.

Lord, let us honor your word and let us apply your word. In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated.

That's pretty bad, right? That's fairly bad. So why is this judgment coming on Judah?

The first thing is idolatry. Are you saying worshiping a golden statue led to all this?

Oh, yeah. Let's focus on Zephaniah chapter 1, verse 4 through 6.

Let's exegete this passage real quick. Here God says, I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

I will cut off from this place the remnant of Baal, sometimes pronounced Baal, and the nation of the adulterous priests, along with the priests, those who bow down on the roof to the host of heaven, those who bow down and swear to the

Lord, and yet swear by Milcom. So a couple things about these idols here. We see two noted.

We see Baal and we see Milcom. Now, Milcom is a very strange name for an idol, so I had to do some research here.

Baal was a Canaanite god, and Milcom was a Amorite god.

Baal means lord or king, and Milcom also means the same.

So I find it interesting that these idols just basically have the same title, just in different languages. Israel was so susceptible to idolatry, no matter where they went, this temptation followed them.

I mean, they were miraculously delivered out of Egypt into the promised land, and the moment things get a little tough, they build an idol.

It's almost like an instinct for these people. Some things just never change, and I'm here to tell you, church, that we are no different.

We build idols all the time. We might not use gold and silver anymore, but we build them up.

One key feature of these so -called gods, they always demanded child sacrifice.

They always demanded the death of the firstborn. Hey, you want to make me happy? You want me to answer your prayer?

Slaughter your firstborn. These were the idols that they were worshiping. When I look at my country,

I am deeply saddened to see the same thing. We just call it abortion now. We just call it abortion.

And I don't mean to offend. I, Christian Taurus, don't mean to offend. I really don't.

But the word of God is the word of God, and I've been called to preach. So I don't care about your political view.

I really don't, because the word of God says that it's murder, and that's just it. I can't change what the word of God states.

It is what it is. These ancient

Israelites worshiped these gods because these gods allowed the

Israelites to do whatever they want. Idolatry, murder, theft, swearing falsely, these things pleased these idols.

And so when I look, and I'm thinking, why on earth would you worship a god that requires the death of your children?

That doesn't make any sense to me. And then I started thinking, what if this so -called god allowed you to do whatever you want?

Anything is permissible. You can do whatever you want just as long as you give me blood first. I thought, man, there's no way that we could.

And yet again, abortion clinics are popping off left and right. So again, some things just never change.

R .C. Sproul once said a quote, and it really did stick with me. He said, every idol, if we peel away the paint, is a mirror.

Every idol we set up is simply a mirror at ourselves. It doesn't matter what you worship.

I hear people say, well, drugs used to be my idol. Alcohol used to be my idol. Sex used to be my idol.

Whatever. That wasn't your idol. You were. You were the one that put that before God.

You were the one that chose to do those things. Nothing forced you to put that idol in your life.

You did. We set up idols all the time. And you might think, well, we're not

Israelites. We're way better than Israelites. We don't set up golden statues. No.

As a matter of fact, we got more sinful. We just melted the gold and put it in our pockets. And we still worship the idols.

Come on. We don't need no idols to worship it. We worship ourselves. We worship money. Just look at our country.

Look at the world. We worship power, sex, and money. Those three things.

Those three things control the world. And it controlled Judah. Man, poor

Zephaniah. I can't believe, you know, if God called me to be a prophet, and I'd like a happy message.

I'd like something nice. Man, three chapters of the end of the world? No one's going to listen to me. But that's exactly what this is causing.

I'm sorry. This is exactly what's causing the destruction in Judah. This rampant idolatry.

And with idolatry, there will always come injustice. With idolatry, there will always come injustice.

When you put something before God, you will end up abusing your neighbor. 100%.

Every sin affects more people than you think. You think, oh wait, my own sin will affect myself.

No. Your sin affects other people. 100%. Whenever I'm not doing good, in my sanctification, my brothers suffer.

Who here is part of an accountability group? Praise God. That's right. Now I know I'm not the only one.

You ever walked in with a bad week? You just didn't read the Bible enough. You kind of saw a few things you weren't supposed to see.

And you don't want to speak up in accountability because they get to ask me the same question. I don't want to be held accountable.

Because obviously if I ask you, hey, how are you doing? You have every right to turn around and go, how are you doing,

Pastor? Accountability is not for the weak. It is not for the weak.

It gets bloody. But hey, it works out in the end. I promise you.

There's always mercy in the end. When you sin, there is injustice. The Prophet Jeremiah, who unfortunately got to see this judgment come on Judah, he saw the

Babylonian siege. He wrote this. Jeremiah chapter 7, verses 9 through 11.

Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known?

And then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say we are delivered?

Only to go on doing all these abominations. Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of thieves in your eyes?

Behold, I myself have seen this, declares the Lord. All right,

I'm guilty. You know, nobody can escape that. I'll take that.

I'm guilty. Committing any sin is idolatry.

Committing any sin is thinking my way is better than God's way. I know

God said never to lie, but I feel like in this particular case, me lying is better.

I put myself before God. Lusting. Every sin has its roots in idolatry.

When I look at the world, there are certain regions, certain parts of the world that struggle more with a particular type of sin.

But you know what sin every civilization ever has always struggled with? Idolatry.

Every single civilization has had some sort of idol to worship. I use that as an apologetical reference of, hey, we are designed to seek for God.

But as Romans 1 states, we choose darkness over light. The problem, church, when we seek after God, we sometimes look into ourselves for the light.

And that's pretty common in this generation. This particular generation specifically, look to yourself.

You are the light. The truth is in you. Inside of you there's only darkness.

Only sin. Sorry, I was speaking to myself. I don't know if anyone here else relates. Romans chapter 3 is very specific about the evil that we can form.

The evil that lies inside of us. It always leads to injustice.

I can always tell the health of a nation based on how it treats their defenseless, the people that can't speak for themselves.

Guys, in 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. I was very happy.

Very happy that children got to live. Let me hit you with some statistics.

There were more abortions in 2023 than in the past decade. Are you kidding me?

We got rid of Roe v. Wade. So certain states were able to ban it completely.

And you're telling me the next year we had more abortions? More! We reached 1 ,026 ,700 deaths.

You think God cares about the laws that we put into place? No. He cares about the heart of the people.

What's the point of creating laws? What's the point of putting Bibles back into schools if we're not going to read them?

I keep hearing that. We got to put Bibles back into schools. Guys, like 2 out of 15 youth will bring their

Bible to church, and that's just in church. You think they're going to read it in school? The change begins at home, in your families.

Stop looking for old politicians to bring about revival, sanctification.

It's not going to happen. It's never going to change. Look, voting is cool and all, and you should as an

American. Of course you should vote. But don't look for politicians for salvation.

It didn't work then. It isn't going to work now. You think nine judges can change the heart of America?

Mm -mm. The overturning of Roe v. Wade was something worth celebrating.

But based on the uptake in abortions, guys, we have so much work to do. And if judgment was coming to Judah for this particular sin of worshiping these idols,

America is next. Millions of babies have been slaughtered in this nation.

First of all, let me say I love this nation. I am willing to die for this nation. But I am seeing the same thing that damned

Judah, damning my own country. Oh, Christian, that was inappropriate.

No, the prophet Isaiah preached naked for two years. I think I'm all right here.

All right, I think I'm all right. We will not escape this. This isn't a matter of whether we can avert judgment from coming or not.

It will come because of our injustice and our idolatry. We live in Babylon.

Some of you have gotten too comfortable. Some of y 'all have set up shop on this planet. You're too relaxed.

A couple of months ago, during one of my staff meetings at work, they were going around doing this really nerdy thing of, hey, say something that you're thankful for.

And I go, all right, I'll play. When the turn came to me, I said, I'm thankful for national security.

I truly am. I'm thankful that my house isn't currently getting bombed with missiles.

You know, as I'm looking at Israel and what's going on, I'm thankful that that's not me living in terror, not knowing whether or not, oh,

I don't know, I might have a house, I might not. My children might have a school. They might not. That, I don't have that type of anxiety here.

So I thank God for the national security we have. But we have gotten way too comfortable.

The people in Zephaniah's time got real comfortable. We're the people of God. We pray, we read the

Bible, we go to church, we do all this in a bag of chips. All right? Read a couple chapters later, they get destroyed.

Look at what Jeremiah says in the middle of his passage. We are delivered. I want you to take a good look at the world.

We are not exempt. Did you know that we live in the safest part of the world?

Canada and North America in general is, generally speaking, the safest part of the world.

American Christianity specifically has gotten way too comfortable. Too complacent.

If you continue reading in Zephaniah chapter 1, it actually says here, you know,

I didn't actually intend to read this, but if I can find it. Hmm. I can't find it.

But there's a passage in here that says that Yahweh God will search Jerusalem and punish those who are complacent.

I was debating whether or not to actually include this verse because... Twelve? Oh, thank you.

Yes, I had it highlighted. In orange. I was like, I can't see it. Yeah, because the orange highlight is just...

Zephaniah chapter 1, verse 12, at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps. I will punish the men who are complacent.

Those who say in their hearts Yahweh will not do good, nor will he do evil. Guys, if the shoe fits, put it on.

Seriously. I'm not trying to be mean here. If the shoe fits, do put it on. And if you don't like the way it fits, then grow up.

It's just that simple. We were all there at one point. I, Christian Torres, was there at one point.

I didn't believe in Christ. I didn't put my trust in Him. Then this man called

Jesus came along, opened my eyes, and I saw what I was doing in my own life.

In my injustice and in my idolatry, He didn't look at me with condemnation.

Jesus didn't look at me with hate as I, if I were God, would look at me. He looked at me with love.

We'll get to that in a second. Can anyone be saved?

Clearly this portion in Zephaniah is directed to the inhabitants of Judah, but as what is natural with biblical prophecy, it has a partial fulfillment and then a full fulfillment.

We see that, hey, this message is for Judah. Babylon will come. And you know why they will come?

Because I have prepared you as a sacrifice, and they're my guests. And they're about to eat your flesh. It's going to happen, and it did.

But it also has a futuristic fulfillment of this will happen. I've read the book of Revelation.

It goes into just a little bit more detail, and there's a lot of blood, so tread carefully. Let's read

Zephaniah chapter 2 verse 1. Can anybody be saved?

Alright. Let's read. Gather together. Yes. Gather, O shameless nation, before the decree takes effect, before the day passes away like shaft, before there comes upon you the burning anger of Yahweh, before there comes upon you the day of anger of Yahweh, seek the

Lord. All you humble of the land who do His just commands, seek righteousness, seek humility.

Perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the anger of Yahweh. Notice the first thing that God says to do.

Gather together. You know, it's actually pretty hard to repent when there's division in the body.

It's actually very difficult. You know what the most racist time, I use the word racist slightly because there's only one race, but the most racist time out of the week is

Sunday. We choose to separate ourselves. Oh, I go to a white church. I go to a black church,

Asian church, Hispanic church. We do that ourselves. Forget denominations.

How about color? Let's go back to that. First thing He says is gather together.

And we preach this a lot at this church, but I'm going to preach it again because some of us, including myself, are hard -hearted at times.

There is only one church. It doesn't matter where you go. If the word of God is preached and Jesus Christ is honored as God, you are my family.

You are my family. I visited a couple churches over the past couple months, and it is such a pleasure to visit these churches.

I get to see how they worship, how they teach, how they minister. I come back with notes.

Every single time I go, I take notes. Ooh, I really like when they stood up when they read the word of God. That's really nice. Ooh, I didn't like when the lights and the smoke machines came on during the altar call.

I didn't like that. But I do recommend if at some point you have another church that you'd like to visit, as a pastor, it's not going to offend me if you visit another church, because it will open up your imagination, open up your perspective on, oh, we are doing this right, and then maybe we should do this differently.

It's just one church. We're all the same church, as long as we worship Jesus Christ and honor his word as holy.

So during this time, with a little bit of background information on King Josiah, King Josiah, who lived during this time, was eight years old.

Eight years old when he became king. His father, Amon, served a very unsuccessful two years in his kingship, and he was murdered by his own people.

So not a lot of happiness in this kingdom currently. So he was made king when he was eight years old.

Scripture says that he followed the Lord like his father David. That he wasn't like his daddy or his granddaddy.

He was different. He sought the Lord. And when I read the book of Proverbs, I also read, oh, man, those cities and those countries with children kings, oh, woe to them.

We don't find that here. He actually did the right thing. He started removing idols.

Alright, this new president, oh, he's cool. Yeah, he's removing idols. That's awesome, man. He's getting rid of the, all the poles that they used to burn children with.

Get rid of that garbage. We don't need it. He was 26 years old when he looked at the temple of God and said, man,

God's temple is a dump. We need to fix this. Is this where we come and worship Yahweh? It's clear we haven't used it in a long time.

So let's start cleaning it up. And in the midst of them cleaning it up, guess what they find?

The book of the law. They find what I think is Deuteronomy.

It had been so long since anyone entered that building that the word of God was considered lost.

Lost. And you know what the irony is? It was lost in the church.

So if you simply looked, you would have found it. It wasn't like it was lost in some tomb like the

Ark of the Covenant. We're going to find it. No, it's, it was lost inside of the temple where it should have been.

The priests came by to King Josiah and they read the book of the law because at this time

King Josiah was ignorant. He knew about Yahweh and he knew that, hey, he doesn't like idolatry. I don't need to know the word of God to know he hates idolatry because he's been saying it since day one.

But when the word of the law was written, scripture says he tore his clothes. He started weeping on the floor because he saw how far the nation of Judah had landed.

Moreover, he read about the destruction that was promised. The same way

God promises to never leave us or forsake us, it's the same promise that he's using on judgment on the world.

You can bank on it. I got a little bit here in 2

Chronicles chapter 34 verse 27 to 28.

Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God, this is what the prophet is telling

King Josiah. Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God, when you heard his words against this place and its inhabitants and you have humbled yourself before me and have torn your clothes and wept before me,

I also have heard you, declares Yahweh. Behold, I will gather you to your fathers and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace.

And your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place and its inhabitants.

And they brought back word to the king. When's the last time your heart was tender?

I find that such an interesting wording. Like, I was expecting soft. Tender. I usually use the word tender for meat, so to me it sounds kind of weird, but for your heart to be tender, it means that God has to just simply do this and you fall on your knees.

When's the last time the Holy Spirit whispered and you broke down? How hard -hearted has your heart become that even the

Holy Spirit speaking to you doesn't tenderize your heart? When the word of God is spoken, you go, oh, oh yeah,

I've heard that before. Tenderize your heart. Humble yourself.

The way to be saved has been the same way since the beginning. Humility. Seek the

Lord and repent. King Josiah, listen. I'm going to be straight with you as your

God and Father here. I'm going to destroy Judah. And there's nothing you can do.

There's no policies that you can put in place. I have to punish you. I have to punish this land.

But you specifically, because you humbled yourself and you repented of your sin, you will not see the destruction.

You won't get to be part of it. Brothers, when Jesus Christ causes the salt of the earth, what does that mean to you?

Some of us simply read that and go. We give a little flavor to the world.

Welcome to Witten Baptist Church, Flavortown. No, that's not what it is. It isn't simply just flavor. In the ancient days, salt was a preserver.

They didn't have refrigerators or deep freezers. All they had was salt.

If you wanted to preserve a piece of meat, you dumped it in salt. It did not stop the decaying process.

It slowed it down. What God did with King Josiah is this.

I'll push my judgment just a little bit more to the right. You won't get to see it. You will be spared.

You know how many times humility and repentance has pushed back the judgment of God? A lot.

When we as the salt of the earth witness, evangelize, and minister what you're doing to God is saying hold up just one more day.

Hold on just one more day. How many of you all know

Corporal Desmond Doss served in World War II, Combat Medic? First of all, fantastic movie.

I love the Hacksaw Ridge. His story is really fascinating, not just because I was a combat medic, but because he was a conscientious objector, which means he didn't carry a gun in a war.

He fought in one of the bloodiest wars in World War II. Here's his story.

I had to print it out because I didn't want to miss anything. Due to his Christian convictions,

Corporal Doss served as a conscientious objector refusing to take a life. Corporal Doss was the first and only conscientious objector to receive the

Medal of Honor during World War II. In the Battle of Okinawa at Hacksaw Ridge, he managed to save 75 injured soldiers without a rifle.

You know what his prayer was? Father, let me get one more. Let me get one more.

Your repentance and your humility can give light to other people around you and they could repent.

By your righteousness, other people can see what you do, your changed life, and go, there's something different.

I don't know what it is, but I've never seen this before. Hey, you want to come to church?

Yeah, just come. It's Witten. Trust me, you'll fit right in. What do I got to wear? Trust me, you can wear whatever you want.

Just come. That person walks in here, sees the love, sees the fellowship. God is really among you.

God is truly here. I thought this was all religion. I thought this was all fake. Simply by your good testimony, that person was brought here and they encountered the grace of God.

We prevent the judgment from coming. It isn't going to stop.

America will be no more. Sorry if that offends us hardcore patriots like me.

Every American flag will burn. Hey, burning an American flag right now is a crime. Charge God with it.

Every flag will burn because when the kingdom of God comes on this earth, there will be one nation all under King Jesus.

There ain't no voting. There's no Congress to decide, no judicial court. King Jesus, take it.

He is king and he is coming. Not just seeking the

Lord but seeking humility. Zephaniah chapter 3 verse 2. Check this out.

She listens to no voice. She accepts no correction.

She does not trust in the Lord. She does not draw near to her God. That was the description of Judah.

You don't listen. You've sat under the teaching of Bible filled preaching for years and you still do not listen.

You accept no correction. Man, you hold on to the idol. You hold on to it tight even as it burns your hand.

Scripture says you serve gods that you don't know but you reject the God that you do know. A God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loyal love and he relents from sinning disaster.

And still you don't listen. You accept no correction. You don't trust in the

Lord. You don't draw near to your God. You know why people will go to hell? Because they refuse to say,

God, I am sorry and mean it. God, I am truly sorry.

I see the sin that I've committed. I am sorry. Obviously it's more than just the words.

It's the heart behind it. But the general gist is this. You refuse to apologize and change.

And I refuse to believe that everybody in here is a Christian. And I'm not talking about the guests. I'm talking about the members.

If everybody in here was a Christian, Memphis wouldn't be the same. You kidding me?

You understand what a room full of Holy Spirit filled believers can do to this city? No. We're not all

Christians in here. Examine yourself. Hell is way too hot to base it on a prayer or base it on, well,

I go to church. I read the Bible. You think that we as pastors repeat that a lot just for shock value.

We don't. We hear that often. In counselings, well, I read the Bible. Wow. Is that the sum of your

Christianity? That you read the Word of God? How about you apply it? You wore a cross? Cool. Represent it.

The New Testament talks about this. You have the outer appearance of godliness, but deny its power.

And you think we don't realize. We do. But hey, that's where I come as pastor

Christian and go, I was there before. God offers mercy. He will save you from judgment.

But make no mistake, the God that saved us is also the God that will destroy this world quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Alright? So let's say that seeing the impending judgment, you go, woo, alright, my

Lord, I'm sorry for the sins that I've committed. Cool. What happens after that we're saved?

What happens after God relents from sending His disaster on me? Let's turn to Zephaniah chapter 3, reading in verse verse 14.

Yeah, verse 14. And we'll read through the end here. Sing aloud,

O daughter of Zion. Shout, O Israel. Rejoice and exult with all of your heart,

O daughter of Jerusalem. Yahweh has taken away the judgment against you.

He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, Yahweh is in your midst.

You shall never again fear evil. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem, Fear not,

O Zion. Let not your hands grow weak. Yahweh, your God, is in your midst.

A mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with His love.

He will exult over you with loud singing. I will gather those who mourn for the festival so that they will no longer suffer reproach.

Behold, at that time I will deal with all of your oppressors.

I will save the lame and gather the outcasts. I will change their shame into praise and their renown in all the earth.

At that time, I will bring you in. At the time when I gather you together, for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth when

I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says Yahweh. You know what you get to receive once you believe in Jesus Christ?

Grace and mercy. Zephaniah 3 .15 The Lord has taken away judgment against you.

You are now justified. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Do you understand the severity of that statement? You probably don't if you don't understand where you were going and what you were facing.

That the same God who was about to condemn you with the words of His mouth is now the

God singing over you. The sword that at one point was going to pierce your heart is now going to pierce the heart of your enemies.

Oh my goodness. If God's judgment is just that severe, imagine

His grace. If He despises sin just that much, if He's going to destroy

His enemies, what will He do with His friends, with His children? Grace and mercy is sweet when we realize our sin.

So if you are here today, I really hope you didn't hear a sermon.

I hope you heard the Word of God. I tried my hardest to keep the

Word of God as faithful as possible. I'm not here to entertain you. I'm not here to even pique your interest in the

Word. That's between you and God. All I'm doing here is preaching.

Jesus Christ is worthy of your trust. He's worthy of your surrender.

He's worthy of your humility. Don't be afraid. Some of us are afraid to show weakness, emotion, or sin.

You know why it's so hard? Because you open yourself up to judgment. That's what it is. You open yourself up to judgment with vulnerability.

But when you find God, you will find grace. When you find

God, He's not going to look at you and go, you disgusting filth, get away from me.

You were dead and now you're alive. You were lost but now you're found.

You got a loving Father. I want to finish with this and I want to spend a considerable amount of the rest of my time that I have up here going through Zephaniah chapter 3 verse 17.

The Lord your God is in your midst. A mighty one who will save.

He will rejoice over you with gladness and He will quiet you with His love. He will exalt over you with singing.

First thing we have to note about this passage is the proximity of our God. We don't worship a

God who's far away. We worship a God who's near. When we sing those words, we're singing it to Him.

Directly to His face. In the book of Revelation, we see that Christ walks among the churches.

Today, Christ is walking among us. Going through each of the aisles, looking at each of the hearts.

Because man hear singing, man hear words. He looks at the heart. Sure you may be praising, but are you worshiping?

You're praising, but are you worshiping? He is here. How does that change your prayer, knowing that He's here?

How does that change your attitude knowing that He's actually in this room? And that I'm not really preaching for y 'all, I'm preaching for Him.

I'm looking at Him and man, I hope I made Him proud. That's it. Thank you.

That's ultimately my biggest fear, is knowing Christ is sitting in this room.

Man, the closeness of God for the saint is such a beautiful thing. But the closeness of God should be terrifying for God's enemies.

He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with His love. He will exult over you with loud singing.

Finish with this. I'm not a father. I'm not, obviously.

Yes. I'm not a father. And I'm sure that any of the pastors here could execute this passage better.

Because every pastor here, except for me, has had a child. And I'm sure they have a story of singing to the baby, singing sweet songs as the hopeless and crying baby, and then making some sort of allusion.

Oh yeah, the baby's us and God sings over. I'm sure they could. But I don't have that luxury. So I'm going to use something that I can compare it to.

Last Tuesday I was at SOG. And, you know, I have a broken hand. So I'm not there to fight.

I'm there to support. And I'm happy to go and support. And there were these two kids that were fighting.

And this particular kid was considerably smaller than the other kid. And after round one he was very tired and demoralized.

I was like, dang gum it. I can't win. I mean, he's bigger than me. I go over there and I go, brother, you got this.

You can do it. You have more energy. You have more agility. You can do this.

Round two. He was a lot faster. I would almost say he won that round.

Word of encouragement. A word of love. That's all.

The Lord sings over you. Don't live so miserably when Yahweh God is singing praise over you.

You fathers, have you not decided when they do something great in sports?

I saw you particularly. It was awesome to see you. Fantastic. I'm going to ask the ministers to come forward.

We currently have two. I'm going to ask any Christian who is in good standing with the Holy Spirit to come up here and minister with us.

I'm asking you men, you leaders, to step up and minister alongside with us. Brothers, the word of God has been preached.

What else can I do? Yeah, music people.

Surrender to the lordship of King Jesus and you will be saved from your sin. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God and he will forgive you.

I'm going to ask you to please stand and legitimately follow the Holy Spirit. Don't just sit there listening to music.