Pastor Josh Massaro delivers a powerful message emphasizing the importance of humility and repentance in the face of God's impending judgment as presented in the book of Zephaniah. He cautions against complacency, urging listeners to recognize the dangers of allowing worldly influences to infiltrate their faith and practices. By highlighting the consequences for both leaders and ordinary believers who compromise their values, Pastor Josh stresses that even those who seem righteous must remain vigilant. He reminds the congregation that true repentance leads to grace, and that a personal relationship with God is essential for spiritual vitality. As the service unfolds, listeners are encouraged to seek a deeper understanding of their faith and to embrace the call to humility and submission to God's will.

Pastor Josh Massaro's sermon at Middletown Baptist Church serves as a profound examination of Zephaniah’s prophetic message, highlighting the duality of God’s character — His love and His justice. With an engaging tone, Pastor Josh welcomes the congregation and expresses his hope that the message will provide spiritual nourishment. He sets the stage for a deep dive into the book of Zephaniah, emphasizing the importance of understanding God’s holiness and the reality of His judgment against sin. The pastor delineates that while God is indeed loving and gracious, He remains a righteous judge who will not ignore rebellion against His laws. This foundational understanding is critical for believers as they navigate their faith in a world rife with distractions and competing ideologies.

Throughout the sermon, Pastor Josh draws attention to the historical context of Zephaniah's warnings to Judah, where spiritual complacency had taken root. He articulates how the people had allowed worldly influences to seep into their worship, paralleling the ancient struggles with modern-day temptations. The pastor candidly shares his own experiences with material desires, making the message relatable and poignant. He challenges the congregation to evaluate their lives for any signs of compromise, urging them to recognize that the pursuit of worldly success can lead to a loss of spiritual vitality. He warns against the dangers of blending faith with secular values, a theme that resonates deeply in a culture increasingly characterized by relativism and moral ambiguity.

As the sermon progresses, the emphasis on repentance becomes pronounced, with Pastor Josh passionately calling his congregation to action. He uses vivid imagery to describe God’s pursuit of His people, likening it to searching with candles in the dark — a metaphor for God's relentless desire to bring His people back to Him. He asserts that true revival begins with the acknowledgment of one's sins and a sincere turn towards God. The pastor concludes with a hopeful message, reminding listeners that despite the gravity of judgment, grace is always within reach for those who humble themselves before God. This sermon ultimately serves as both a warning and an invitation, urging the church community to embrace a life of holiness and submission to the divine will, reinforcing the idea that in repentance lies the path to restoration and a deeper relationship with God.

Takeaways:

• Pastor Josh emphasizes the importance of repentance and humility to receive God's grace.
• The message warns against complacency in faith and the dangers of apathy.
• God's judgment is inevitable for those who refuse to acknowledge their sinfulness.
• Materialism can lead to spiritual blindness, distracting believers from their relationship with God.
• True revival begins with a heartfelt return to God through repentance and humility.
• The episode highlights that even good leaders must remain vigilant against worldliness.

Links referenced in this episode:

• middletownbaptistchurch.org

Thank you for joining our podcast. Visit our website at https://middletownbaptistchurch.org/

Subscribe to our YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@middletownbaptistchurchde5091

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This podcast is produced by Ralph Estep, Jr., host of the Ask Ralph Podcast, a daily podcast on Christian Finance you can find it at https://www.askralphpodcast.com/

Pastor Josh: 00:00:00

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:06

My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:10

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:16

Now, come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today, day by day.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:24

I hope you've had a.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:26

A good day so far, and I can tell you I've had a good day.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:31

One of the reasons why I'm having a good day is because this is actually the third time that I've been able to preach today.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:37

So third sermon I'm excited to do three.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:40

If I could preach three times every day, that would be a dream.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:43

But don't get a chance to preach three times every day unless you guys want to come up to the church.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:46

And I would just love to do that sometimes.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:48

That's why.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:48

That's one of the reasons why I got the podcast going.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:50

It just lets me talk to the.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:52

To the microphone there.

Pastor Josh: 00:00:53

So hopefully tonight I don't get confused with the two other sermons that I preached earlier on today, but I had a chance to preach at a Christian school and then also do a memorial service up at the Veteran Memorial Cemetery.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:05

And so if you have your Bibles, let's turn to the book of.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:09

Does anyone remember where we started last week?

Pastor Josh: 00:01:12

Zephaniah.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:13

I've got some good students here.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:14

If you didn't remember that, that's okay.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:16

You will get that for the next however long we're here.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:20

Going to be getting the book of Zephaniah.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:23

Now, Zephaniah is a book of the Bible in the Old Testament.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:27

And so if you don't know where it is, you can flip around there in the minor prophets.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:30

Eventually you'll find it.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:31

And I like that name, Zephaniah.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:33

You don't hear a lot of people name Zephaniah these days.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:36

Maybe if we have another child in the future, that name's coming around.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:39

No, Alicia says no.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:41

No Zephaniah.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:42

But anyway, Zephaniah means God.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:44

God hides, God protects.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:47

And we're going to see here in this case that God does protect his own, that God honors those who humbly submit to him in faith.

Pastor Josh: 00:01:54

But we also know that God as a just God, is a God who must enact justice and judgment upon those that rebel against him.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:03

And so God is amazingly holy in every aspect.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:09

And so when he does enact justice, when he does demonstrate punishment upon those that are Guilty.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:15

It's done in a way that's perfect.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:16

And so one of the things that sometimes we struggle with is God demonstrating judgment upon different people.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:23

In the Old Testament and the New, and even today, there are some people out there that teach that, you know, if God is loving, he will not judge those that are in sin.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:30

And that's contrary to his character because God must be that righteous judge.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:34

In his holiness, he must deal with sin.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:37

But we also do know that God in His holiness, offers a way for forgiveness, and that is through repentance, that is through humility, that is through that opportunity to trust in him and him alone.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:49

And we see that theme throughout the New Testament.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:53

We see it in First Peter.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:54

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Pastor Josh: 00:02:58

And that's essentially what Zephaniah is doing here.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:00

He's.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:00

He's giving a prophecy.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:01

And not all prophecies are necessarily things about the future.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:05

They are in many cases that way in the Old Testament.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:08

But really all prophecy is.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:10

Is speaking forth truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:12

And so what Zephaniah is doing is he's speaking the word of God to the people there in Judah.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:17

And he says, look, if you continue on in this path, God will judge.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:22

This is a certainty.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:24

And so that's a warning.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:25

Zephaniah is preaching now.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:26

He is preaching the literal word of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:28

That's how God spoke to his people, through the prophet.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:31

And so Zephaniah is preaching repentance, he's preaching judgment, he's preaching God's grace, but he's also preaching God's justice.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:40

And we have to celebrate, as much as we celebrate God's love and his grace and his holiness, we also have to celebrate his justice and his righteousness.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:50

And so what we see here in Zephaniah is last week we started this, and he talks about this complete and utter.

Pastor Josh: 00:03:58

You know, in this case in verse two, he says, I will utterly consume all things from off the land, say at the Lord.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:02

He's talking about a complete judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:04

He's talking about a judgment upon a nation if they reject.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:07

And we're going to pick up here in verse number seven tonight.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:11

Last week we talked about these individuals who were posing as priests.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:16

They were posing as religious people, but they were hypocrites.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:19

They were mingling the truths of God with the truths of the false God BAAL and the false God Moloch.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:27

And they were taking in those practices and they were mingling that with the practices that God had told them to follow.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:33

And therefore they were living hypocritical lives.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:35

And God said, I'm going to judge that.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:37

I'm going to judge those spiritual leaders that are misleading those people there in Jerusalem, there in Judah.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:43

And so really, the first chapter is God going through all the different types of people that he will judge if they don't find repentance, if they don't come back to him in repentance.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:52

And so we're going to pick up in verse number seven.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:54

And he says this.

Pastor Josh: 00:04:56

He says, hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:00

Now, what is he saying here?

Pastor Josh: 00:05:01

Well, essentially God is addressing the royalty in Judah.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:04

Now he.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:05

He shifts gears from the broad spectrum of all of Judah and from the religious leaders of Judah.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:11

Now he's going to speak to the leadership.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:13

He's going to speak to the royalty there in Judah.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:17

And what does he say?

Pastor Josh: 00:05:18

Well, verse number seven is a nice way to say, be quiet.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:22

Instead of trying to respond to me, instead of trying to get ahead of me and give me excuses, you need to just listen because I'm going to tell you the whole story.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:29

And so God addresses the royalty of Judah in a way that they aren't used to hearing.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:34

He tells them to be quiet and listen to his pronouncement of judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:38

And he says, a sacrifice of judgment is going to be made against a wicked nation.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:42

He says, hold thy peace at the presence of the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is at hand.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:48

This is speaking specifically to the judgment that will be seen there at that time coming in the near future.

Pastor Josh: 00:05:53

But also we know that, that ultimately the day of the Lord is evidently going to be coming at the end time completely, to judge all those that are in sin, to judge all of those that have rebelled against God for all of history.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:06

So he says, for the day of the Lord is at hand, for the Lord hath prepared a sacrifice and he hath bid his guest.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:13

And so what it says here is that God is ready to judge.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:16

And this needs to be a reality for many people, because for a lot of people, they put off repentance.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:23

It's kind of like this idea of, well, I'm going to just hope that it goes away, and eventually God's judgment will go away.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:28

But what we see is this is an inevitable thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:31

Verse 8.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:32

And he says here, and it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord's sacrifice.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:35

So he's talking about the day of judgment, that I will punish the princes and the king's children and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:45

And what's he Talking about here?

Pastor Josh: 00:06:47

Well, he says that this warning is not just for individuals that are under the king's rule, but this is for the king and the princes and all of the family.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:56

And so this is a complete judgment upon that.

Pastor Josh: 00:06:58

And even in the case of context, remember who is the king at this point?

Pastor Josh: 00:07:02

Does anyone remember, we read about it early on.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:05

He's a good king.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:06

Josiah.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:07

Josiah is the king.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:09

And so this is a warning even for those that would be considered, hey, they're godly leaders.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:13

This is a warning to stay on track.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:15

This is a warning to say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:07:16

I need to be cognizant.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:17

I need to be aware of the ability for me to drift off if I become complacent.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:24

I've heard a lot of preachers get up and say, I would never do this or I would never do that.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:28

I used to do that all the time with my children before I had children.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:31

I remember when Alicia and I would go out to, like, eat at a restaurant, and we would see these kids that were, like, making noise.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:36

I remember saying, man, I will never let my children act up in a public place.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:40

I just don't know what these people are doing.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:42

And then I realized when I started to have chillin.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:44

It's not as easy, okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:07:45

It takes some discipline, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:07:46

And if we're not aware of that, the default setting will be that there will be chaos.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:51

There will be.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:51

There will be confusion.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:53

And so the warning here is not just for an unruly king.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:56

It's for a king who is a.

Pastor Josh: 00:07:58

What we would consider a good king, following the word of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:00

But there always can be the path of divergent.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:03

It always could go off, and it could always be a time where we could fall into that trap of prayer.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:09

And then he says here, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:13

Or you could say it this way, clothed with foreign apparel.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:17

And so the priests and the leaders of Judah were ashamed of their national identity.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:22

So much so that they love to look like the enemy.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:26

They love to look like those pagan nations that were around them.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:31

They wanted to be so much like the worldly nations around them that they would actually emulate those nations around them.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:38

They would wear their apparel.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:40

They would identify with those pagan nations.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:43

And so what is he speaking to here?

Pastor Josh: 00:08:45

He's speaking to worldliness.

Pastor Josh: 00:08:47

We talked about that on Sunday morning about separating ourselves from the influence of this world, because who we associate with will eventually lead to who influences us, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:08:56

So if I associate with the world, I'm going to eventually be influenced by the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:01

I'm eventually going to compromise to the ways of the world and ultimately fall into a path of living like the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:08

And so the judgment, the condemnation, is against the individuals who clothe themselves with foreign apparel to look like those people that are around them.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:16

Because they were looking at it from this perspective.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:19

Look at these foreign nations.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:20

Look at their success.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:21

Look at the pleasure that they're having.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:23

Look at the freedom that they have, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:09:25

The seeming freedom of living a life of that pagan worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:29

And it seemed to many of the people that were living in Judah at the time that these foreigners were actually having more success than they were.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:35

And so what they would say is, hey, we'll still practice worship the way that God tells us to worship, but we want to look like the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:42

And I'm going to tell you in practice today what that looks like is, hey, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:09:47

We're the church, but we want to look as much as we can like the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:51

Instead of saying we want the world to be influenced by the church, we take the world and allow the world to influence what we do within the church.

Pastor Josh: 00:09:59

And that doesn't always look like what we expect it to look like.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:03

Sometimes we say, well, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:10:05

We look the part.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:05

We look good, we look like a church.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:08

And I would say, that's one step of it.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:10

But I'd also say how we act, how we think, how we respond, how we deal with people.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:15

You know, there's ways that the world teaches today.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:17

That is not what the Bible says is a unified church, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:10:21

Get what you can, cut other people down, talk behind their back.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:24

The Bible says, no, that's not the way to go.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:26

And so these individuals were adopting the strange apparel of the world, and they were expecting to receive the blessings of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:34

And so all of those people there were allowing themselves to be infiltrated by the ways of the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:40

And God judges that God is opposed to that.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:43

Verse nine, it says, in the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold.

Pastor Josh: 00:10:49

Now, that's a phrase I had to look up, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:10:52

Because I'm like, is God really mad when they leap on the threshold?

Pastor Josh: 00:10:56

What is he talking about here?

Pastor Josh: 00:10:58

What we can see is that this was an idiom.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:01

This was a phrase that would have been used at that timeframe about changing their perspective on things, jumping ship, if you will, go into another place.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:10

And so there's a lot of commentators that would talk about this.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:13

This would be basically bringing pagan customs and superstitions into the house of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:19

We saw that obviously throughout the Old Testament, they would take elements of pagan worship and they would try to cross over that threshold and bring that into the house of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:29

And that's what we were talking about before.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:31

Taking things that are worldly focused, idolatrous, pagan, fleshly, and trying to infiltrate that with the stamp of the church.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:40

And so I would warn us against that because what it says here is that it says that, that ultimately it says which fill their masters houses with violence and deceit.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:48

And so the outcome of bringing that into our midst is what it says there, violence and deceit.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:56

And the Bible has a lot to say about that.

Pastor Josh: 00:11:58

But what we can see here is that ultimately when we compromise our values, when we compromise our truth, and when we try to mingle the ways of the world and God is never going to be pleased because why it leads to sin, it leads to violence, it leads to division, it leads to deceit, it leads to these lies that ultimately produce themselves in actions that are not God honoring.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:19

I talked to the Christian school group today and I was talking to them about, hey, you hear all the rules and how you should act and how you should live and how you should be different.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:27

But a lot of times we see that from a perspective of performance.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:30

Really, how can I try to follow all the rules?

Pastor Josh: 00:12:33

How can I look the part?

Pastor Josh: 00:12:35

And what the Bible says is really, this is a heart issue.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:38

It's never really an issue of how much you have in your willpower.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:43

Because there are some people that might have a stronger willpower than others.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:46

But eventually what the Bible tells us is that we're all gonna fail if it's fleshly focused, whether it's good intentions or not.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:52

Like, I could sit here today and I could wake up and I could say, I'm gonna try my best not to and then fill in the blank with that sin.

Pastor Josh: 00:12:59

And I might go a period of time in my day where I feel like I've accomplished that.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:05

But the very moment that I trust in my own flesh to accomplish these things is the moment that I'm focusing on self.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:11

That's self worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:13

A lot of times we think of idolatry as a figure outside of ourselves.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:17

Like, so we think of a little statue of BAAL or a big statue of Moloch, or maybe even today we understand, you know, like the phone can become an idol.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:27

But do you know that the Bible says that we can actually put the focus on ourselves and lift ourselves up to a point where we have become our own idol?

Pastor Josh: 00:13:36

We're humanistic in our focus in our society.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:39

Today, there is a strong push, and there always has been.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:42

And it's packaged different ways, but there's always been a push for humanism.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:46

It's always about inflating yourself, lifting yourself up.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:49

From the very beginning in the garden, right, the original lie was, hey, you can be like God.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:54

And that has progressed and progressed into.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:56

Look at our society today.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:58

That's this.

Pastor Josh: 00:13:59

That's what we're seeing over and over and over again.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:02

And Satan does that through as we see there, Verse nine, deceit.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:06

And so what happens here is that God is telling them that he will judge those that specifically are leaders, but all folks that allow the worldly ways to infiltrate into their lives and then affect their lives.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:21

Now, of course, there's repentance, and of course there's grace.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:25

And of course there's ultimately God's forgiveness to those that come back to him in humility.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:30

But what he's saying is, you need to wake up to this.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:32

Because what's happening here, and we're gonna see it here in a few verses, there was a sense of complacency with these people in Judah.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:40

They were the ones that thought they were better than the Northern Kingdom.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:43

And the Northern Kingdom had fallen.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:44

They were the ones that were pagan.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:45

We're okay.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:46

Everything's gonna be all right.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:48

And so there is this sense of complacency.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:50

And with that sense of complacency comes apathy, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:14:54

I become complacent, and then I become apathetic, Meaning I don't care about what's going on.

Pastor Josh: 00:14:59

We're okay, God.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:01

We don't need anything.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:02

We're good.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:03

Don't try to change what we're trying to do.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:05

Isn't that what we are in our society today, in our churches today?

Pastor Josh: 00:15:08

Like, hey, what if God pulls me to do something else?

Pastor Josh: 00:15:11

No, I don't want to do that, because that's not what I'm comfortable with.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:13

I'm complacent, I'm apathetic.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:15

And so what we see here in this case is that God says, you need to wake up to the reality of what you're actually doing.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:22

And so judgment is upon those leaders.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:24

But then we see verse 10.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:25

He shifts gears.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:27

And now the judgment is going to be promised to the merchants.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:30

And the merchants are those at this time period that would deal with the money.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:34

And obviously they were selling goods.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:36

And we're going to talk about two different industries.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:38

But really what he's addressing here is those that are putting their trust and their faith in finances.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:44

They're putting all Their hope in their money.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:47

So we're seeing God go right down the line and show all the things that he hates.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:50

He hates those religious hypocrites.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:53

He hates those compromise compromisers, the ones that bring the worldliness into worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:15:58

And now he's going to talk about those who love money.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:01

We know what the New Testament says about that, that the love of money, not money itself, but the love of money, is the root of evil.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:08

It's the root of all different types of sin.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:10

Because of our prideful hearts.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:14

And I mentioned this morning to the Christian school and I've said this within our own church.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:19

A good thing can become a bad thing if it becomes the first thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:24

I can tell you there's a lot of things in our life that in and of themselves are not sinful.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:27

Right?

Pastor Josh: 00:16:28

Money in and of itself is not sinful.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:30

A hobby in and of itself is not sinful.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:32

Loving another human being is not sinful unless that comes first before our love for God.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:39

And so what he's going to say here is this verse 10.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:41

And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord, that there shall be the noise of a cry from the fish gate and then howling from the second and a great crashing from the hills.

Pastor Josh: 00:16:54

Now, if you were to read that in and of itself, you would say, what is he talking about there?

Pastor Josh: 00:16:58

The fish, the fish gate.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:00

Well, the fish gate was a specific gate there in Jerusalem.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:03

That would have been the gate that the fishermen would use for their commerce.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:07

They would bring in the fish from the different areas and they would come and they would trade.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:12

So it was the gate to the fish market.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:14

So it was a place where they would get money.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:16

It was a place where they would bring in those finances that they were loving so much.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:21

And then we see in verse number 11, he says how ye inhabitants of Maktesh, for all the merchant people are cut down.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:31

All they that bear silver are cut off.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:33

Now, I had to look up what Maktesh was, but Maktesh was a place where the silver merchants would be.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:39

And they were obviously known for loving money and pushing things upon people and allowing themselves to be overtaken by the love of that money.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:48

And so what does the Lord say here?

Pastor Josh: 00:17:50

Well, he says that the merchants and those with money, that they.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:54

That they would put their faith and trust in their riches.

Pastor Josh: 00:17:56

Now God promises to cut those people down in their idolatry, the idolatry of money.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:03

And the Bible tells us that this isn't just a, an Old Testament concept.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:07

This is a New Testament concept.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:09

Colossians chapter 3, verses 5 and 6.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:12

Mortify, therefore your members.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:14

You know what that word mortify means?

Pastor Josh: 00:18:15

It means kill it.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:16

Mortify, therefore your members which are upon the earth.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:19

And he talks about these different sins.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:21

He says, fornication.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:23

And we know that fornication is anything, anything sexual outside the bond of marriage.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:29

Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:38

So the Bible actually says that when we love money and we covet money, that is idolatry.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:44

And what basically happens is that money becomes our idol.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:48

And you don't have to have a lot of money to love money.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:51

I think that was sometimes a concept that I didn't grasp when I was.

Pastor Josh: 00:18:56

When I was a young man out of college, I was working at a Christian school.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:00

And if you know anything about Christian schools, any teacher that's working at a Christian school is not gonna become a millionaire off of the salary of that Christian school.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:07

Okay, if there is a Christian school that's like that, let me know, okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:19:10

I'm gonna spread the word around.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:11

But the reality is we were getting paid very little.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:14

And I would hear a preacher get up and say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:19:16

The love of money is the root of all sin.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:18

And I'm like, well, trust me, I can't love the money that I don't have, okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:19:23

And I had to have someone sit down next to me.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:24

And they say, it's not about how much you have, it's about how hard you're trying to hold on to that.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:28

Right?

Pastor Josh: 00:19:29

And so I didn't have much money.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:30

So I love that money so much that I'm like, I can't do anything with it.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:33

And that's all I can focus on.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:34

The truth is, it doesn't matter how much is in our bank account.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:37

What matters is our heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:38

It always goes back to that.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:39

And so what we can see here in this case is that God hates that.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:42

He lists all these sins and he says, and covetousness, which is idolatry, for which things sake of the wrath of God, cometh on the children of disobedience.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:49

And so the Bible speaks very strongly in the Old Testament and the new of those folks who desire money more than anything else.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:56

These folks were desiring money more than God.

Pastor Josh: 00:19:58

They were desiring the silver more than God.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:00

And therefore God says, I'm going to judge you unless you repent.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:04

And so the judgment was placed upon the originally those spiritual leaders that were misleading them with false teaching.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:11

There was judgment upon the leaders who had compromised to the worldly ways.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:15

There was judgment upon those that love money, the merchants.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:18

And now we're going to see in verse number 12, judgment promised to the complacent.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:24

And these are the people that we would say that they're not out there doing these horrible pagan things.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:30

They're people that are just complacent.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:33

It says, and it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with candles, man.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:39

This shows that God is serious about this.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:41

Even when it gets dark, he's going to search with candles and punish the men that are settled on their lees.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:48

Now, this is interesting here.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:50

What he basically says is this.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:52

That word lees is a archaic term for complacency.

Pastor Josh: 00:20:56

And so he says, I'm going to punish those who are settled in their complacency.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:00

The Lord promised judgment against those who felt that God was distant or detached from their lives.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:06

And so because of that perceived distance from God, they just became complacent.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:11

They didn't care anymore about their relationship with God.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:15

And so the Lord says, I'm going to judge those people who have gone to this place of complacency.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:21

And what now, what was their.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:23

How could we say that they were complacent?

Pastor Josh: 00:21:25

Well, it says there, verse number 12, that say in their hearts, the Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:34

And some people believe in this case that, you know, God isn't interested in my matters.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:39

He's not interested in my life.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:41

This is the classic theological teaching of Deism, that God is this great clockmaker, that he sets everything in motion and he just backs up.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:49

He doesn't want a personal relationship with me.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:52

He doesn't care about my life.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:53

He has bigger things to deal with.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:55

And that's really what they're saying here.

Pastor Josh: 00:21:56

Some people believe that God is just this great clockmaker who creates the universe, winds it up, and then just lets it go.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:04

Those who believe this way don't understand the closeness that God desires for us in our relationship.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:12

Those who believe that there is no God or that he doesn't want anything to do with man totally miss out on what the Bible actually says about the character of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:21

God wants a personal relationship with us.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:24

He wanted a personal relationship with Israel.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:26

He wants a personal relationship with you.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:28

And so these people are saying, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:22:30

The Lord will not do good, neither will he do evil.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:32

He just is just up there.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:33

He's just this being up in the sky.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:36

And isn't that.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:37

I mean, even more so maybe A few years ago.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:40

Nowadays we're seeing on the rise atheism, just basically, there is no God.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:43

Or.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:44

Or agnosticism, which is like, well, there might be a God, but how could I ever know?

Pastor Josh: 00:22:49

But even so, even with people that would claim to be religious in our society today, they're not really understanding that it is a personal walk with God.

Pastor Josh: 00:22:58

It's more just, hey, there's a big man upstairs.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:00

He cares about certain things.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:02

But you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:23:03

How could I really even know?

Pastor Josh: 00:23:04

I don't know.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:05

If you've ever shared the gospel with somebody.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:07

If you have shared the gospel with somebody, at some point, you've probably heard the answer to this question.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:13

Okay, if I was to ask you, hey, are you going to heaven?

Pastor Josh: 00:23:16

I think that's a kind of an interesting question to ask someone because you can always kind of tell where they stand when they answer.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:22

And a lot of times people will say yes.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:25

And then you say, well, why do you think that?

Pastor Josh: 00:23:27

And then you'll see sometimes the human nature come out, well, I think that I'm a good person.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:33

I think my good outweighs my bad.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:35

So that individual is trusting in their own works, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:23:38

That individual is trusting in this idea that, hey, I might be a good person.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:41

There's other people that would say, oh, no, I.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:44

I'm not going to heaven.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:45

I'm a bad person.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:46

And they have no concept of that.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:48

There could be forgiveness for that.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:49

I've already done enough wrongs.

Pastor Josh: 00:23:51

But then you'll also find people that will say this, well, I hope that I will go to heaven, but how can we ever really know?

Pastor Josh: 00:23:59

And these are all fallacies.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:00

These are all terrible interpretations of scripture.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:03

The Bible says in First John, chapter five, these things are written unto you that believe in the name of the.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:08

Of the Lord, that you can know that you have everlasting life.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:11

There is an assurance when it comes to our faith.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:14

And so these people here that are listed in verses 12 and 13, they were.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:19

They were complacent.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:21

I was reading excerpts of the book the decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and some of you are like, wow, that's a heavy read.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:30

Okay, I was reading excerpts of it.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:31

I wasn't reading the whole thing, but recently I was reading through it and I saw this basically highlighted.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:40

There were attitudes that were characterized in the end of the Roman Empire that I would say are a lot similar to what we have today in our society.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:48

It said this.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:49

The people regarded all religions as equally true.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:53

We see a lot of people saying that today.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:55

Right.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:55

Well, all you gotta do is be, you know, serious about something and that's enough.

Pastor Josh: 00:24:59

The philosophers regarded all religions as false.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:02

Like basically, it's all about man.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:04

If you're a religious person, it's just a distraction.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:07

And then it said the politicians regarded all religions as equally useful.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:11

Meaning there were people that use religion for their own purposes, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:25:16

And we saw that in the fall of the Roman Empire and we're seeing that happening today.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:21

And so there is this judgment that comes upon these different people and they don't care.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:26

They don't care.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:27

Verse 13.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:28

Therefore their good shall become a booty and their houses a desolation.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:33

They shall also build houses, but not inhabit them.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:36

And they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:39

And so the Bible tells us very clearly here that these people are so complacent that they don't even care.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:47

They're building things, they're planning for things, and they don't even care about the judgment that is to come.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:52

Their minds are so focused on what they have in front of them, they don't care about what God says.

Pastor Josh: 00:25:57

And I can tell you that that is very similar to our society today.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:01

There are people out there preaching the truth.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:03

There are people out there warning people, but that is not enough for many people because they just don't care.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:07

I don't want to hear it.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:08

Don't tell me this.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:10

And I'm going to tell you here today, don't be opposed to hearing about God's judgment because that allows us to understand that God is a righteous judge.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:20

And I would even say that as a Christian, if you are a born again believer, don't shy away from the preaching of the word of God that steps on your toes, that gives you conviction.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:29

I know that sometimes I would be.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:31

I heard a lot of preaching in my life because I went to a Christian school.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:35

We would have chapel on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:37

I would go to church on Wednesday night.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:39

I would go to church on Sunday morning, Sunday night.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:41

I would get sermons basically throughout the week, all week.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:44

And that was a good thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:45

But also I do remember when preachers would get up and hit the topics that I was convicted on.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:50

You know what I would do?

Pastor Josh: 00:26:51

I would just.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:52

I wouldn't really physically do it because that would be kind of weird.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:55

But I wanted to just put my fingers in my ears and just go, I don't want to hear this.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:58

I don't want to hear this.

Pastor Josh: 00:26:58

I don't want to be responsible for this.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:00

And sometimes we don't do that physically, but sometimes Spiritually, we just say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:27:05

I just don't want to think about that.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:06

But the truth is that when that conviction comes, that's a good thing, because that's God trying to call out to you.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:11

That's God pricking your heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:13

And you have to make that decision on whether or not you're going to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:17

Are you going to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit's call in your life for conviction?

Pastor Josh: 00:27:20

All of us want the comfort.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:22

The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is a comforter, and we, hopefully, you strive for the comfort of the Spirit.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:29

That's an exciting thing, to be comforted by the Spirit.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:31

If you've never experienced that, folks, that's something that is undeniably a miracle, that you can feel the comfort of the Spirit in the midst of a difficulty, and we welcome that.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:42

But a lot of times, we don't welcome the conviction of the Spirit.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:45

And the conviction of the Spirit is what leads us to a place of comfort, because we need to get that right.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:50

God chastises.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:51

He disciplines his own.

Pastor Josh: 00:27:53

And if there's an individual, and I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and I'm gonna say, if there's a Christian that says, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:27:58

I haven't felt the Holy Spirit's conviction in a very, very long time, there is an issue there.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:03

There is a problem there.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:05

A little while back, I don't know what happened to me, but I must have hurt something in my back that made my right pinky go numb.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:14

I could not feel my pinky.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:15

And it was the weirdest thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:16

It was like two weeks, and I kept saying, like, man, I just don't feel my pinky.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:21

And Alicia was like, oh, you probably tweaked something in your back.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:24

And I'm like, yeah.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:25

So all of a sudden, I would just keep hitting it and bumping it and getting it cut and bruised, and I was like, I'm not even feeling this.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:30

Eventually, I got the feeling back, and I started, man, why do I keep hurting my pinkies?

Pastor Josh: 00:28:34

Because I was so used to not feeling anything that I would just bump it around and not do anything, not care about it, jam it back.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:40

I didn't, you know.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:41

And then I started feeling that again.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:42

I'm like, wow, that's weird.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:44

That feels different.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:45

And for some of us, the Bible speaks of searing our conscience, so much so that we don't even feel the conviction of the Spirit anymore, folks.

Pastor Josh: 00:28:51

That's a dangerous place to be that we have grieved the Holy Spirit so much that we have now seared our conscience to the fact that when the Holy Spirit is calling us, we go, yeah, I just, I'm complacent.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:02

I don't care.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:03

The Bible says that is the characteristic of these people back at this time is they were so numb to the call of God to be repentant, that they had just been so set in their ways that God says, I have to wake you up.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:15

And so please, if anything, be sensitive to the preaching of the Word of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:20

Be sensitive to what the word of God is leading you to do.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:23

The Bible says that when that conviction comes, that is a time to embrace and repent and submit.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:27

Because remember that principle.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:29

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:32

I don't know about you, but I want God's grace.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:34

I'm desperate for God's grace.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:36

I need God's grace every single day.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:38

And so how do I find that grace?

Pastor Josh: 00:29:39

By humility.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:40

In saying I admit that I am wrong God.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:43

First John, chapter one, verse nine.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:45

If you confess your sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:49

That doesn't mean that we just keep getting resaved over and over and over again.

Pastor Josh: 00:29:53

What that means is that yes, I'm saved and yes, I am a child of God, but yet there is something in my relationship with God that I have driven a divide in, in my life.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:03

It's like, I use this analogy a lot with Micah.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:07

I can pick on Micah, cause he's not here.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:09

Micah's my nine year old son.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:10

And you know, I know that he loves me and he knows that I love him.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:14

He knows that nothing can change in the fact that I'm his dad.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:18

But there have been times where I've gotten onto him and he's gotten in trouble and he's gotten so mad that he goes, I'm not talking to you, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna turn around and go somewhere.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:26

All right.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:26

There has been a break in our fellowship, but there's not a break in our relationship.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:31

Right?

Pastor Josh: 00:30:32

And so in the relationship, I am his dad, he is my son.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:35

But he has turned his back because he's mad at me.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:38

And there needs to be that restoration.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:40

And so sometimes as Christians, it's not that we lose our salvation, it's because we are so upset with something that God is doing or we're so focused on what we're doing that we have turned our backs against him.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:49

He's waiting for that Repentance.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:51

He's waiting for that relationship.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:53

But we have turned and we need to come back.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:55

And that's what biblical revival really is.

Pastor Josh: 00:30:57

Biblical revival is not when we go out and get a tent and a preacher yells really loud at us.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:03

That can happen at a revival.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:05

Okay, I'm not.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:06

I'm not opposed to getting under a tent.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:08

I like tent meetings.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:09

I'm not opposed to a preacher getting a little animated.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:11

Animated.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:12

I'm not opposed to doing extra music.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:13

But that in and of itself is not the revival.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:16

The revival is what happens in our heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:18

Revival starts with repentance.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:20

Revival starts with, I need to change what I'm doing to get back to a refreshment and a renewal in my love for God.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:27

That is revival.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:28

Revival is not more people.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:30

Now, more people can be a result of revival, but revival is something that happens in the heart of the individual, between God and the child of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:39

And so what we can see here in Zephaniah is that God is pursuing them, but he's also warning them of the dangers of rejection, rejecting the conviction.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:50

And so what we see in verses 14 through 16, and this will be the last thing we look at here tonight, is the description of the intensity of the judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:31:59

Verse 14.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:00

The great day of the Lord is near.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:02

It is near and hasteth greatly.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:04

Even the voice of the day of the Lord, the mighty man, shall cry there bitterly.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:09

Man, I don't know if you just caught that, but what does it say there?

Pastor Josh: 00:32:12

It says, in God's judgment, even the voice, the day of the Lord, the mighty man, shall cry there bitterly.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:18

Doesn't matter how strong that we are, how powerful that we think we are, God will bring in his judgment, wrath upon everyone, and everybody will feel that.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:30

And so what I can see here is that it doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter how much power you have, it doesn't matter how much position you have.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:38

Ultimately, God's judgment will reach us in a place that we will feel.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:42

Verse 15.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:43

That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, against the high towers.

Pastor Josh: 00:32:58

And I will bring distress upon men that they shall walk like blind men because they have sinned against the Lord.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:04

It shows the reason.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:05

God's not arbitrarily just doing this because he doesn't like these people.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:09

It's because of their sin.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:11

And their blood shall be poured out as dust and their flesh as the dung.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:15

Neither there's in this man.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:16

Catch this in verse 18.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:18

Because there's the certainty of judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:21

And then he says, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:33:22

In judgment, there's nothing that you can do.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:26

Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:31

There will be people.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:33

There has been people throughout history that have claimed, hey, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:33:39

I've got enough money.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:40

I can fight this, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:33:42

When I stand before God, or if, you know, if God's judging me, I can say, you know, I have enough.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:47

I can buy my way out of this.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:48

You can't buy your way out of God's judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:51

You can't use your silver and gold.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:53

You can't use your power.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:54

You can't use your persuasion to get away from the Lord's wrath.

Pastor Josh: 00:33:57

It says, but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of his jealousy.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:02

And I'm thankful that I serve a jealous God.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:06

I know that sometimes people see jealousy as a negative thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:08

But remember God.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:09

Remember his defining attribute.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:11

His defining attribute is his holiness.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:13

And so when God is jealous, he's perfectly jealous.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:17

And what that means is that God doesn't want us to go around and share our love with other people.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:21

It's the same thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:21

Like, I'm jealous for my wife.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:23

And the concept, like, okay, I love my wife.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:26

I don't want to share her with anybody else.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:27

Okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:34:28

There's nothing wrong with that.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:29

I think that's biblical, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:34:30

That.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:31

That's that healthy jealousy, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:34:33

It's not jealousy.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:33

Like, well, I'm jealous of that person's getting good.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:35

And that's a selfish jealousy.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:37

And so God is jealous over his children because he doesn't want his children going to Moloch and going to these pagan gods.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:43

He doesn't want them to go to the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:45

He doesn't want them to go in their own power.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:46

He wants them to see him for who he is and to experience that love.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:50

And so it says, they're devoured by the fire of his jealousy.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:53

For he shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.

Pastor Josh: 00:34:58

And so this speaks to this idea that no matter what we think we have in our own strength, men might trust in silver and gold, but it will not do them any good in the day of God's judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:10

When we stand before God, we cannot appeal to how much money we have, what positions we had within the church, whatever it is, we cannot stand before Him.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:19

The only thing that can stand on our account is the blood of Jesus Christ.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:22

That's the only thing that matters.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:25

Because you know that in Matthew, chapter seven, what happens?

Pastor Josh: 00:35:27

You guys know the story.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:29

There are all these people standing in front of Jesus, and these people are getting judged.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:34

And they're like, wait, I did things for you.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:38

I cast out demons.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:40

I prophesied in your name.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:42

And he says, depart from me.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:43

Right?

Pastor Josh: 00:35:44

I didn't know you.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:45

You're a worker of iniquity.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:46

What was the difference?

Pastor Josh: 00:35:47

He didn't know them.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:49

There wasn't a.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:50

And it's not that God doesn't know these people.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:51

He knows them intellectually in his omniscience.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:54

He's saying, I don't know you personally.

Pastor Josh: 00:35:56

And so that's the only distinction at the end of the day, it's the blood of Jesus Christ on our account.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:00

That is what we can stand on when it comes to our hope and our faith.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:03

And so I would encourage you to think about that not just for your own life, but for the way that we deal with other people around us, how we share our faith with people.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:12

Does God want us to be holy people?

Pastor Josh: 00:36:14

Yes.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:15

But it's the heart of it.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:16

It's the heart of holiness.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:18

The heart of holiness is that God has done this for me, and I'm responding in repentance and in humility.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:27

And that's all of what chapter two is about.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:30

We're going to get into our study in chapter two.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:32

And it's the desire of God that we seek him, that we seek after Him.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:38

And I would encourage you to never lose your desire to seek after God.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:43

The moment we get into that place of complacency is the moment that we fall into that delusion that.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:49

Remember at the very beginning that deceitfulness.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:52

And what I would tell you is this.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:55

We have to.

Pastor Josh: 00:36:56

And you'll hear this phrase over and over again in my preaching because it's infiltrated my own life and it's helped me understand why sometimes I go astray.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:05

And it's this, think biblically about things sometimes.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:08

I know the theological truth, but I don't think about it biblically.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:13

I take it from the perspective of, I know the Bible says this, but this is different in my situation.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:18

I would encourage you to think about everything through the lens of Scripture.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:21

And what does that mean for me today?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:23

What that means for me today is this.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:25

As I come into a place in my life where I might say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:30

Trust my heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:31

Right?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:31

I'm gonna trust my heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:33

You Know, I'm gonna use a silly analogy.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:36

It's this, like, maybe you're watching a movie, and the main character at the end of the story says, you know what I'm gonna do?

Pastor Josh: 00:37:44

I'm gonna go to my friend and he's gonna give me this advice.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:47

And the friend goes up to him and says, just trust your heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:50

Trust your heart and everything will be fine.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:52

And at the end of the movie, the person trusts their heart and they come out on top and everything works out.

Pastor Josh: 00:37:56

And what we could be tempted to do is think, well, if it worked for that person on Netflix or whatever movie you're watching, then that must be able to work for me.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:06

And I know this is silly, but you guys see how this worldly wisdom seeps in.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:09

And so we start thinking, I know the Bible says this, but it worked for that.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:12

And so therefore, what I'm going to do is I'm going to trust my heart.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:15

What does the Bible say about that?

Pastor Josh: 00:38:16

Well, thinking biblically, the Bible says that our heart is wicked, it's deceitful, it's going to lie to us because our heart wants what the heart wants.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:26

And that's the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:30

And so, just in that little simple conversation, that simple analogy, we can see how something from the world can infiltrate our minds and sound good, but it's not, because it's not thinking biblically.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:40

So we go back to repentance.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:42

Let's think about repentance and judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:44

If I start telling myself, well, everything's okay because I don't see the world on fire right now, maybe some of you are like, I think the world is on fire.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:50

But maybe in your own life, you might say, everything's going okay, I must be okay.

Pastor Josh: 00:38:54

The truth is, is that it's sometimes when we least expect in our lives that we can fall into the trap of complacency.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:02

Because I'm hoping that most of you are not struggling with BAAL worship.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:05

If you are struggling with BAAL worship, come talk to me after the service.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:08

We need to have an intervention or Moloch.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:12

Okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:39:12

Either one of those might be getting you in trouble here.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:16

But here's the thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:18

So a lot of times it's not that, but sometimes it's.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:22

And sometimes it seeps in very, very subtly.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:26

We start to make a little bit of a compromise.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:29

We allow the worldly ways.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:31

We wear the foreign apparel.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:33

Now, I'm not talking about, like, foreign apparel.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:35

Like, we have our international meal and people dress up.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:37

I'M not talking about that.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:37

I'm talking about the apparel of the world, right?

Pastor Josh: 00:39:41

And we try to look like the world enough just to get into that system and just get enough of that.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:46

And the Bible says, hey, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:39:48

Don't be the way of the world.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:49

And so that might be a temptation for you.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:51

You might say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:39:52

I've allowed the world's ways.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:54

I've worn the foreign apparel.

Pastor Josh: 00:39:55

I've allowed myself to get to a place where I try to be a little bit like the world and a little bit like what God tells me to be.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:02

But then it might be this, it might be that you are that person.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:05

That's.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:05

Maybe you're not literally a fish merchant or a silver merchant, but you've allowed your possessions to grip you, to hold you in.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:15

You know, it's not wrong to have something.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:17

It's wrong if that something has you.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:19

And so I would encourage you to think about that materialism in your life.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:22

Man, I struggle with that.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:25

I can be honest with you guys.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:26

I'm always honest with you guys.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:27

I try to be honest with you guys.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:28

And I try to be as transparent as I can be as a pastor.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:32

Sometimes it's hard when I'm driving through my neighbor and I see my neighbor gets this new car.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:36

It's like, I want that.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:37

Why can't I have that?

Pastor Josh: 00:40:39

Or I see a house come up on the market and I go, I want that bigger house.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:42

I want that nicer thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:43

And that materialism can seep into my life.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:46

And without me even knowing, that's what my lifeblood is, that's what I desire.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:49

Well, if I could just have this, I'll be happy.

Pastor Josh: 00:40:51

I'm going to tell you every single time in my life, when I have obtained something that I thought I want, it might have been good for a moment and then it fell off.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:00

It's like, what?

Pastor Josh: 00:41:01

I want more.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:02

I want something different.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:03

I want something better.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:04

That's what that's talking about there with those merchants.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:06

They just wanted more and they wanted more, and they just kept consuming and desiring.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:10

Folks die to the material desires.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:13

Is it wrong to have material things?

Pastor Josh: 00:41:15

No.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:15

Jesus had, you know, clothes and food.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:17

He didn't have a house.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:18

But we know at least at that time, Jesus had to take in certain things.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:22

And there was, you know, they had money, they had to buy food.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:26

And so there wasn't anything wrong with having something.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:28

But it's that idea of desiring materialism before anything else.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:31

And then we see, I think, the group of People that we all probably fall into the most is that complacent group, that group that just isn't affected by God's word.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:41

It isn't affected by God's teaching.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:44

And we just say, you know, it'll be okay, it'll be okay.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:46

When is pastor gonna get done?

Pastor Josh: 00:41:48

My football team's on at 1:00.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:50

We gotta get out of here.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:50

We gotta get food.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:51

I mean, I've been there, I've been sitting in a service and all I could think about is what I was gonna eat after the service.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:56

I'm like, oh, where are we going to eat today?

Pastor Josh: 00:41:57

I can't wait for that now.

Pastor Josh: 00:41:59

Not so much anymore.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:00

I'm kind of distracted during the preaching, but back when I was in the pews, that's sometimes what I would think about.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:05

And the truth is that Satan will not always use just out and out evil things to distract us.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:11

He'll just use things that we like and he will distract us with that.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:16

Fathers, he'll distract you in how you're raising your children.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:19

Wives will distract you on how you're raising your children.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:22

It, it'll be all the way across the board.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:24

He's trying to get us to keep our eyes off of the thing that matters.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:27

Now we have an election coming up, okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:42:30

And everyone's waiting their bated breath about what, you know, we're going to say about this.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:33

I'm going to say this.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:35

I think you should get involved.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:36

I.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:37

This is my personal preference.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:39

Vote how God is leading you to vote.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:40

Be involved.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:41

Don't just be a bystander, okay?

Pastor Josh: 00:42:43

That's my opinion.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:44

You could have a different opinion.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:45

I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but I'm going to tell you to vote for the way that God leads you to vote and according to his word.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:50

But I will say this, I will say this.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:54

Politics can become a distraction.

Pastor Josh: 00:42:58

I'm not saying that it is a distraction in and of itself, but it can be a distraction.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:02

And so what we have to do is we have to deal with it and think about it.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:04

What do we say biblically?

Pastor Josh: 00:43:06

Think about it biblically.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:07

Now I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you for the most part, I can tell you one thing.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:13

There will be a lot of people next week, or however long it takes, there will be a lot of people that are going to be upset.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:21

That's one thing I can say very clearly in our country that I feel like I'm very confident I'll be right there.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:26

Will be a lot of people upset.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:28

And the truth is, one way or the other, people are going to be upset.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:31

And what I would tell you to do is pray.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:34

Pray for the Lord to work.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:35

But what I will say is that understand that our world is not shaken.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:39

If somebody is somewhere that we don't agree with our King of kings and our Lord of Lords is Jesus Christ, there are people that we can vote for.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:48

There are people that we can trust.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:49

There are people that we can say, you know what?

Pastor Josh: 00:43:51

I think that they're better here or better there.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:52

But what I will tell you is that Jesus Christ is the one that we look to.

Pastor Josh: 00:43:56

And so, again, this is not a message to say, you, you better go do this, you better go do that.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:00

But I will say, and I would encourage you to be a part of this, to speak the truth of the word of God.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:07

And so this is always going to be my guide because this will never fail me.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:12

The people have failed me.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:14

People have failed me.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:16

My possessions have failed me.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:18

Everything.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:18

My health has failed me.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:20

And so what do we do?

Pastor Josh: 00:44:21

We point the truth to what has never failed.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:25

And the Bible says, the grass will fail.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:28

The grass will fade, the flesh will fail, but the word of God will stand forever.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:33

And I will tell you that the word of God is where we set everything in.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:36

So repentance.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:38

What does that mean?

Pastor Josh: 00:44:38

That means that when the Word of God is spoken to me, I listen.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:42

And so I would encourage you to do that, not just this week, but for the rest of your life.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:47

And know that as God judges, he also offers.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:51

He offers forgiveness.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:53

He offers grace.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:54

But that only comes to those that humble themselves in submission to the Lord.

Pastor Josh: 00:44:57

So we're going to look at next week what it means to seek the Lord in the midst of judgment.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:03

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:07

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:10

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:19

You can also email me directly at joshmusaroiddletownbaptistchurch dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:27

Please subscribe and follow along for future podcasts and updates.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:32

Thank you so much.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:33

God bless.

Pastor Josh: 00:45:34

Have a wonderful day.