Hartland Summer Conference 2021: Revelation's Cosmic Conflict

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Hartland Institute of Health and Education

The Book of Zephaniah

Rodney Bowes

01 The Great Day of the Lord

Thank you Robin, we appreciated that song very much.

We want to also welcome our online audience on Facebook.

Thank you so much for joining us this evening.

I hope that you have your Bible open still to the...

How many of you have heard a sermon before based on the book of Zephaniah?

It's not a very common book to hear a message from this tremendous book in the Old Testament.

It's a little prophet there, minor prophet with a major message.

Before we begin, I just want to ask you a question.

Do you remember what you were doing on December 25, 2004?

I guarantee it's going to come back to you after I tell you a little bit of a story from Tom and Arlette Stoop.

You see, they were vacationing in Indonesia.

They were enjoying a beautiful time overlooking the Andaman Sea.

You know, they were just enjoying their time together.

It would have been December 26th in that particular time zone.

And so on December 26th, They were out just looking at the ocean.

Something very unique, something very strange.

All of a sudden, the beautiful ocean receded.

And it just kept going back and back, and all of a sudden everyone got their phones and they were running out and taking pictures of the retreating sea, and everyone was just so amazed at what was happening.

He said, you know, I've spent time in California before and the ocean is not supposed to act this way.

All of a sudden he turned to his wife Arlette and he said, run!

They turned around and they ran as fast as they could as, you remember the story now, the massive tidal wave, the tsunami of 2004 came and washed over that entire region, killing 230, 000 people, leaving millions without homes, without power, without everything.

It was a time where people had to be serious about the reality that was happening.

Our message tonight from Zephaniah is a powerful message.

It is a message that will comfort those who are grieving And it will make those who are comfortable, uncomfortable.

Let's pray as we open God's Word together.

Father, I thank you very much for the opportunity that we have to be together here tonight to hear this message that comes from the book of Zephaniah.

It was not only for a people back then so long ago, it is for us right now today in 2021.

I pray that you will bless us, that the Holy Spirit will touch every heart, every life.

Those who are here in this auditorium and those who are watching online, bless us, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.

So your Bible is open to Zephaniah chapter 1.

We're gonna look at the majority of the first chapter here, Zephaniah chapter 1.

Starting in verse 1, it says, The word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah, the son of Cushi.

Before we go any further, I like to know what names mean in the Bible.

Is it interesting to you to know what a name means?

Zephaniah means Yahweh has hidden or Yahweh has treasured.

I think you will find that both of those definitions of the name Zephaniah are very appropriate because what we see happening in the book of Zephaniah is judgment.

Do you believe that we're living in serious times?

The majority of the world has no clue what time it is according to the prophetic clock.

If you were just to walk down the streets of whatever city you wanted to walk down and ask people if they think that it's the end of time, the majority of people will at this point say, I don't think so.

You know, the pandemic is over in many people's mind, and life is coming back to normal, right?

The reality is, if we look at all of the signs as Bible students, we can see that the day of the Lord, as We read in verse 14, that's going to be our focus.

The great day of the Lord is near, and it does what?

It is close, but it's going faster and faster and coming sooner and sooner.

Let's learn a little bit more about this prophet Zephaniah.

So, we're looking at Zephaniah chapter 1 and verse 1.

It says here, he was the son of Cushi, the son of Gedaliah, the son of Amoriah, the son of Hischia, that's Hezekiah, thus in the days of Josiah, the son of Ammon, king of Judah.

What was happening in the time of this king Josiah?

It's very interesting for us to note the background of what took place during the reign of this particular king.

King Josiah, who can tell me, when did Josiah begin his reign?

Let's turn in our Bibles now, and let's go back to 2 Chronicles, and pick up the story and learn about Josiah in verse or in chapter 34.

We're going to learn about this child, this boy King.

Josiah, it says in verse 1, was 8 years old when he became king and he reigned 31 years in Jerusalem.

Verse 2, and he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord and he walked in the ways of his father David, he did not turn his side to the right hand or to the left." Now, notice this, this is very important.

In verse 3, "...for in the eighth year of his reign, " How old would he be at that 0.16 years old.

"...while he was still young, he began to seek the Lord, God of his father David, and in the twelfth year, how old would that make him?

In his twelfth year, the twelfth year, he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places and the wooden images, the carved images and the molded images.

Let's turn back now to 2 Kings and let's pick up the story here in 2 Kings 23.

I want for you to notice, it is very important for us to see the reforms that took place under this King Josiah.

Josiah was a young, young king who made a determination to follow God in his youth.

Is it good to see young people following God?

Let's read a little bit about what happened during the reign of King Josiah and we will see I believe that this is the same type of revival that we need in our churches today.

02 Prepare to Meet Thy Creator

Again, it's good to be back studying God's Word together.

I hope that you have your Bible and we're going to look at part 2 of a message from The book of Zephaniah.

Once again, we're looking at this book that in my opinion does not get enough study.

Very very seldom have I heard or myself even studied from Zephaniah, but this has been a personal study of mine that has really challenged me.

It's been very thought provoking as we've looked at this.

So, just in a review, and then we're actually going to put a study guide in your hand for this particular 1.

Sometimes it's good to have different teaching style, and this 1 is, we're going to put a study guide in your hand for this particular 1.

Sometimes it's good to have different teaching style and this 1 is we're going to put a study guide in your hand.

You're going to follow along with your Bible and a pen.

So hopefully you can have both of those things ready to go.

Alona is going to pass the study guides out, put them in your hand.

But I just want to remind you that Zephaniah's ministry was a catalyst in a mighty revival in ancient Israel.

His message provoked, in my opinion, 1 of the greatest revivals that we read about under King Josiah.

And again if you want to study that you can look at 2 Chronicles chapter 34, 2 Kings chapter 23 and you can read about this amazing reformation that happened.

But our message today is called how to be part of the remnant.

Now in part 1 we talked about Zephaniah's name.

Who remembers what Zephaniah's name means?

And as many of you are familiar, Yahweh is the covenant name of God.

Yahweh has hidden Or it means Yahweh has treasured.

Those are the 2 ways that you can understand Zephaniah's name.

Once again, Zephaniah wrote specifically about The judgment of God.

I want to again call your attention to Zephaniah chapter 1 and verse 14.

The great day of the Lord is near, it is near and hastens quickly or greatly.

The noise of the day, now before we go on, we must understand that judgment is a reality and it always has been.

God does not let sin go unchecked forever and ever.

God is just and his love, which we've heard a lot about God's love, is his love cannot let his people go through pain forever.

And so there is a point where God steps in.

We see it repeatedly throughout the Bible.

And here, the writing of Zephaniah, the word of the Lord which came to Zephaniah says, the great day of the Lord is near.

And that is used many times in the Bible to reference the second coming.

There have been distinct times of judgment, but this is a foreshadowing of the greatest of all days, when Jesus Himself will descend.

So, with that in mind, the day of the Lord is good news if you are in Jesus.

If we have given our life to Christ, if we have allowed His love to permeate us, if we have allowed that to happen, it's good news.

But to those who have not, that's what Zephaniah chapter 1 is about.

The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter.

There the mighty men shall cry out." Verse 15, it says, it's a day of wrath, trouble, distress, devastation, desolation, darkness and gloominess.

So, in chapter 2, in Zephaniah chapter 2, we find judgment upon the surrounding nations.

Chapter 1 focuses on the investigative judgment of Judah and specifically of Jerusalem.

God was looking specifically at his chosen people.

But here we see the general investigative judgment and the judgment itself.

Notice with me in verse 4, Zephaniah chapter 2 and verse 4, it talks about the judgment on Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Ekron.

In verse 5, it talks about Canaan, the Philistines.

Again, in verse 7, we see Ashdod again, verse 8, Moab, Ammon, and we see that God is a God who loves us.

But his love is so amazing that he will not let sin go on forever.

That's why in the very end of Daniel chapter 7 that we see that judgment is given and pronounced in favor of who?

So within the context of judgment, the whole book of Zephaniah is in the context of judgment.

As we think of this and we compare it with Revelation's cosmic conflict and we think of the time in which we live right now and we think of Revelation chapter 14 and verse 6, it says, for the hour of his judgment is come.

We are living in the time of the investigative judgment.

So with that in mind, let us be introduced to the concept of the remnant in the book of Zephaniah.

First we look at verse 7 and also verse 9 of chapter 2.

It says, The coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah.

So here we're introduced to the idea of remnant.

In verse 9, at the very end of verse 9, it says, and the remnant of my people shall possess them.

It was not just Jerusalem Or it was not just those who live in Judah who are going to possess the nations.

It's the remnant of God's people who are going to be saved.

Now, on your study guide you have a couple of blanks.

There are 9 Hebrew words and 3 Greek words that are used to describe what we find in English as the term remnant.

But if you do a study and you look at all of them and you see how they all go together, they have some concepts that are shared by all the definitions.

The remnant is those who are preserved how?

Another key term that's used to describe this is they are the residue.

Sometimes you don't want residue, like on your dishes, right?

If you're washing your dishes, you don't want residue of your food.

But, residue can be very important and life-saving, especially when the Bible talks about this concept of the remnant.

The remnant is actually what keeps life going.

Another idea that is very important is those who have escaped.

Those who have escaped, And we're going to see that very clearly as we open God's word together and we see how the name of Zephaniah is repeated over and over and we see how God's people, His remnant, have escaped the judgments.

Then, another concept is those who have been delivered.

Series

The Book of Zephaniah

02 Prepare to Meet Thy Creator

Transcript

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