Transcript

Well, take your Bibles as you turn off whatever electronic thing you have, and let’s turn back to Zephaniah. If you go to Matthew, go four books to your left, and that should be Zephaniah. Not far over there, Zephaniah, chapter two. Now Josiah is the king of Judah again. The Israel is divided.

There’s the northern kingdom called Israel, made up of 10 tribes. The Southern kingdom, Judah, is the one we’re looking at, the one that’s being focused on by the prophet here. Judah was meant to be the godly remnant, but Judah herself had become quite ungodly. Idolatry filled the land. Wickedness filled the land.

Anytime you chase false gods and embrace false doctrines, you have bad morals. So wickedness fills the land. But Josiah, under the discipleship of Zephaniah, has been a part of eradicating the idol shrines and temples in the land and removing the wickedness from the land. But unfortunately, it was too little, too late.

The wheels of God’s justice had been turning slowly, but turning exceedingly fine, and it was time for him to bring judgment against Judah. Now, when we come to chapter two, God has already spoken to Judah about that there’s hope that there should be repentance, that there is a godly remnant within the remnant, if you will.

Again, Judah was the remnant of holiness, but she had failed. And now there’s a remnant within Judah that can be hidden, the text says, from the wrath of God, if they will but repent, and turned to God. And now he shifts, starting in Zephaniah chapter 2, verse 4, to pronounce judgment on the surrounding nations.

And he’s doing this primarily to provoke Judah to turn to the Lord and trust the Lord. So we turn to Zephaniah, chapter 2. Beginning in verse 4 and going through verse 11, the Prophet writes, for Gaza will be abandoned and Ashkelon a desolation. Ashdod will be driven out at noon and Ekron will be uprooted.

Woe to the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the the word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan land of the Philistines. And I will destroy you so that there will be no inhabitant. So the sea coast will be pastures with caves for shepherds and folds for flocks.

And the coast will be for the remnant of the house of Judah. They will pasture on it. In the house of Ashkelon they will lie down at evening for the Lord their God will care for them and restore their fortune. I have heard the taunting of Moab and the revilings of the sons of Ammon, with which they have taunted my people and become arrogant against their territory.

Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, surely Moab will be like Sodom, and the sons of Ammon like Gomorrah, a place possessed by nettles and salt pits and a perpetual desolation. The remnant of my people will plunder them, and the remainder of my nation will inherit them.

This they will have in return for their pride. Because they have taunted and become arrogant against the people of the Lord of Hosts. The Lord will be terrifying to them, for he will starve. All the gods of the earth and all the coastlands of the nations will bow down to him.

Everyone from his own place.

You’ve heard the expression many times. Doubtlessly you’ve used the expression at least a few times. And that expression is this. I’m going to pay him a visit, or I’m going to pay her a visit. When we say that phrase, what we mean there’s two basic things involved there. We’re going to see a particular person, a personal visit, and there’s a particular purpose for that visit.

Well, God visits his people, and God visits the peoples of the earth. And we know there’s appointed for all of us a visit with God. Hebrews chapter 9, verse 27 tells us it’s appointed for men to die once. And after this comes the judgment. Now, as we talk about God paying a visit, and that’s what I’ve entitled this exposition, When God pays a visit.

When God visits the peoples on the earth, there’s usually two things involved. Number one, judgment. Number two, salvation or deliverance. He visits them for judgment, or he visits them for salvation and deliverance. Judgment, Zephaniah, chapter one, verse four, tells us. So I will stretch out my hand, emphasizing God’s personally making a visit here against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.

And I will cut off the remnant of BAAL from this place and the names of the idolatrous priests. Along with the priests, I’ll personally come and visit them in judgment and and then also in salvation, like in Psalm 106, 4. He visits with his people. The psalmist writes, remember me, O Lord, in your favor toward your people, visit me with your salvation.

When Jesus was born, the Bible tells us that God has come and God has visited us and accomplished redemption for his people. Now here we have, in this part of chapter two, Zephaniah announces that God is paying a visit to the pagan nations around Judah. These are God’s enemies because they are God’s people’s enemies.

God is not going to put up with people claiming his land as their own and mistreating his people whom he’s chosen for himself. We need to remember that in this modern age, as people rage and rail against the nation of Israel, we should be reminded that God’s covenant, that that’s my land I gave to the descendants of Abraham.

Those are my people in that land. And I take it personally when you take claim to my land and mistreat my people. Now, the nations surrounding Judah could have risen up and said, but wait a minute. There’s pagan as we are, there’s wicked as we are. They don’t serve you properly, Yahweh.

They don’t honor you properly, as they should. No, but God was said, they’re still mine. My elect covenant has not changed. Jesus, who is the Yahweh of the Old Testament, let me say this one time because it’s unclear to me at times or has been in the past, we see the word Jehovah, we see the word Yahweh, we see the word capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D in the Old Testament, Lord, what that is, is that’s the name for God.

And when the translator translated the name for God, they fell back into the Jewish custom that God’s name was too holy to be spoken. So they went with the word Adonai in the Hebrew and just kind of substituted it for the actual Hebrew word so that they wouldn’t have to say the actual name of God.

It was just too holy to say. And then over the years, Adonai is translated from the Hebrew into Jehovah. Transliteration means a letter for letter bringing over into our language. But actually the Greek, or rather the Hebrew word for God, that’s used over and over, that’s translated. L O R D is the word Yahweh in the English transliteration.

So it’s best for us to use the word Yahweh. Though I’m not saying it’s wrong to use Jehovah, but they’re the same person. All right, so I’m going to use Yahweh. Yahweh, of course, is Jesus, and Jesus is Yahweh. And we need to remind ourselves as we look at this chapter and God’s bringing this judgment on the nations around Judah, that Yahweh is not just the Lord of the Church or the Lord of Israel, He’s Lord of all.

That’s one of the things we’re getting at. He’s Lord of the nations. Exodus 19:5 reminds us now then you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant. Then you shall be my own possession among all the peoples. For all the earth is mine. There’s not a spot, anywhere, any place at any time on the globe where Jesus cannot put his finger and say mine.

It’s all his. The psalmist said in Psalm 50, verses 9 through 12, I shall take no young bull out of your house, nor male goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle on a thousand hills I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is mine.

If I were hungry, I wouldn’t tell you, for the world is mine. He’s Lord of all. When he returns, he’ll have across his chest King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Now, the major prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, along with Amos, prophesied against the nations. Matter of fact, every prophetic book has denouncements or judgments prophesied against the nations of the earth, except for Hosea.

And it’s interesting, as we look at these prophecies, not much is told us about the specific evils or the specific sins of those nations. Most of the time just that God is going to judge them. I think the point is their wickedness was obvious. The prophet goes into quite a bit of specifics when he talks about Judah or Israel being punished for her sins, because that was God’s people and they had the light of God and the truths of God and the law of God.

So the specific error was spelled out. But not so much when God pronounces these judgments on the nations. I think two things are clear. Number one, it is the Lord God of Israel, Yahweh. He is the one personally bringing the judgment. And secondly, it’s to pronounce that he is Lord God, not just of Israel.

He’s Lord God. Of all things. And I might even add a third thing. It’s all done. The punishment on the nations is done to provoke rather Israel to return and come back to faithfulness to God. Now, as you look at verse four of our text, you have the conjunctive word there, which shows you that the rest of the chapter is connected back to the first few verses.

For God’s will be abandoned. On and on and on we could go. So what he’s talking about here is that the rest of this chapter points back to and builds on verses one through three. God is saying, if I’m going to come against the nations and judge them with such severity as I am going to do, how much more, Judah, should you revere me, should you repent, and should you turn back to me?

The point is, if I would judge the nations that had little to no light compared to you, Judah, you have the law of God. You had Moses, you had the patriarchs, you have the ordinances, the Passover meal, the sacrificial system. You had light upon light upon light of my truth.

You know who God is. So if I’m going to judge the nations who are guilty, but compared to you have very little light, how much more serious is it going to be, Judah, if you don’t turn back to me, if you keep sinning against me? But I think one of the points here again, in verses one through three of chapter two, God has extended grace and goodness and an offer of hope to the nation.

I think one of the things God is pointing out here, I’ve been very good to the nations of the earth, and so I’ve been very good to you, Judah. I’m the God who causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends the rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

And I am the God who hold all men accountable. So this is meant to provoke Israel or Judah specifically to love and honor of God, the God who is good to all. God’s judgment on the nations was God’s discipling, if you will, of Judah. Now, these nations that are listed that we’re going to look at here in just a second, they lie in close proximity to Judah, and they were Judah and King Josiah’s primary enemies.

These nations were a threat to them. But God is going to show that he is the almighty sovereign. He is Yahweh, and he will crush these enemies of his people with divine justice. Well, Roman Numeral one, as we try to unpack this, there’s a lot here, and I apologize if we run through quickly.

You can’t remember it all, and I can’t remember it all, but I have 11 pages of notes to help me. But try to get what God wants you to get. And the Spirit of God is so good to do that as you’re sitting there, usually he’s already dealt with you in your quiet time and your meditation, your study of the Scripture.

And then your preacher gets up and proclaims that truth. And the Spirit of God in you gives you the amen. Yes, I’ve been seeing. I’ve been seeing. Amen. I know that’s God’s truth. So look for that amen of the Holy Spirit as we unpack this text. Well, first, God is going to pay a visit to the Philistines.

We’ve heard a lot about them in the past, have we not? The Philistines. Now, the Philistines settled in this region, canaan, in about 1200 BC and the Philistines lived in close proximity. Actually, they’re living on part of the Promised Land, and they had a peaceful coexistence with Israel over most of the years.

The exception would be the period of Saul and the period of David. But here, Zephaniah in verse 4 mentions four major Philistine cities. Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Ekron. And he lists them from south to north. Verse 4, he says Gaza is going to be abandoned. Similarly, Ashkelon will have a light fate.

It will be left in desolation. Ashdod, he says, will be driven out at noon, probably means how quickly they will fall. By noontime it’ll be all over for Ashdod, and then Ekron will be uprooted. Now, all of this is going to happen through the agency of the Assyrians that God will use as his agent of judgment.

It is God personally bringing the judgment. But he judges them through the sovereignty that he extends over the Assyrians to use them as his rod of punishment. Now, the major issue of these Philistine cities is that they occupied the territory that belonged to God and belonged to Israel. This was God’s land.

Remember, Isaiah talked about this being Emmanuel’s land. It’s important to understand that in one sense, none of us own anything. It’s all God’s. But in a very particular and specific way. This territory, this geographic area of the world, was God’s unique abode, and God had given it to the descendants of Abraham.

Now, when we look at verse five, he begins with that word, woe. We’ve seen that word a lot. W O E Prophets have used this a lot in the Old Testament. Matter of fact, it’s used 41 times by the Old Testament prophets. And it always means an announcement of doom.

Woe, he says, to the inhabitants of the coastlands, to the nation of the Karathites. That’s another word for the Philistines or Philistia. Then he says in verse five, the word of the Lord is against you. Powerful phrase. It has two reference points that display its meaning. The word means the word that spoke everything into existence.

Secondly, the word that is the overmastering agent of all of history. In other words, this word, this word of God is all powerful. For example, in Psalm 33, 9, 10. For he spoke and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast. This one who is God, who has the word of God, is against you.

And it’s all powerful. Isaiah 13, verse 3 tells us, Isaiah, I have commanded my consecrated ones. I have even called my mighty warriors to proudly exalting ones to execute my anger.

So he’s brought the powerful word, his spoken word, against them. And God’s word will not return void. It will not be nullified. And then the last part of verse five, he talks about how he’s going to destroy you, the Philistines. And there will be no inhabitant here. The Lord God is the dreaded warrior.

The doom of the Philistines is certain because it is the Lord God Yahweh, who brings it upon them. And of course, there’s certainly again a word here for Judah. God is God of all. Now, remember, Judah had been so enamored with the world around them. Do you get that way sometimes?

So drawn in to the cultural relevance and the newest thing and the modern things that would be in the world of the Philistines. So God says, what about this? What if I crush them to nothing? Then what are you going to look to? What if I crush all of this stuff and get rid of it?

Then who are you going to worship? Who are you going to look up to? Then God is saying, why don’t you go ahead and turn to me now do you understand? Brothers and sisters, there’s coming a time when all that will be left is God. Everything else will be gone.

Now look in common grace. We enjoy the things of this world that are not inherently sinful. A good meal, fellowship with our families, fine suit of clothes. None of those things in themselves are evil. A lot of things we enjoy watching our kids and our grandkids grow up and play ball and do stuff.

But this world and all it contains is passing away. And God says, if I’m going to get rid of it, Judah, why don’t you go ahead and look to me now? Verse 6. So the sea coast will be pastures with caves for shepherds and folds for flocks. And the coast will be for the remnant of the house of Judah, and they will pasture on it.

And the houses of Ashkelon, they will lie down at evening for the Lord their God will care for them. So the destruction of the Philistine cities is going to be so thorough that it’s just going to be a pasture land. When God gets through, all traces of former Philistine civilization and commerce will be razed, removed.

There will only be grass and bramble and overgrowth where there were once bustling, powerful cities. Now, the irony of it. Notice what he says here as we look at this verse. Verse 7. The remnant and the coast will be for the remnant of the house of Judah. In other words, God says, I’m going to give you what they now possess.

And they, the remnant of Judah will pasture on it. And the houses of Ashkelon, they will lie down at evening. What a metaphor. What a powerful metaphor that these, these cities once known for rallying troops against Judah become a quiet pasture land for the Judean flocks. The ruins of wicked Philistia become a peaceful pasture land for God’s elect people.

This reminds us that everything is about God’s people. Have I ever told you that before? Everything that’s ever happened, everything that is happening, and everything is going to happen is for our good and his glory. God is really passionate about his people. And he tells Judah here that I’m going to bring these nations to the ruin.

And even though their land is ruined, it’s going to become a sweet, restful place for you. God does bring corrective judgment on his elect Judah, but he loves them deeply, and he loves them with an everlasting love. And he is their shepherd who secures a haven of rest for them.

Now notice, he says, a remnant of the house of Judah. Not all of Judah, there’s a godly remnant. Who didn’t turn to idols, who didn’t chase the synchronized Yahweh BAAL worship that was so popular in this day. This remnant is those that God chose. The remnant is those that God disciplines.

The remnant is those that. God keeps. And the remnant is those whom God plans to use in his plan of redemption. It is through the remnant of Judah and the descendants thereof that God will bring his Savior, the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Then in verse seven, he says, for the Lord their God will care for them.

God cares for them with sweetness and kindness, even loving kindness. He will restore their fortune. The Bible says here in verse seven, the houses of Ashkelon, he said earlier, they will lie down in the evening. His precious elect, Judah, will have this tenderness, this care, this pasture land, if you will.

Literally, this is going to come true for ancient Israel because Judah is his precious child he’s caring for. Here they will lie down in what was formerly the raging cities of the Philistines now becomes a peaceful and comfort abode for those who are the remnant of Judah. A place that once planned war against you to destroy you has now become your haven of rest.

It reminded me of the New Testament, verse Hebrews 10, 12 and 13. But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, set down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time onward until his enemies be made a footstool for his feet. God the Father is seeing to that everything that is opposed to Jesus Christ will be placed under his feet as a footstool.

It’s a metaphoric picture of everything under Jesus as he’s at perfect rest.

So his enemies are going to be his footstool, but our enemies are going to be pasturelands for our peace and our rest. God delights to supply for us the luxuriant couches of our enemies and even provides a pillow for our feet on their territory. You know why? Because everything God does is to the end of the good and the blessing of his people, and all for his glory.

Now, so those are the cities of the Philistines. And now we move forward, beginning in verse 8. Next he pays a visit to Moab and Ammon. Moab and Ammon. We begin in verse eight, and we have the words I have heard the taunting of Moab and the revilings of the sons of Ammon, with which they have taunted my people and become arrogant against their territory.

So here the Moabites and the Ammonites are people who were known to have taken advantage of Judah when the Babylonians invaded Judah, and they were fleeing Judah for their lives, and they were refugees, and they were particularly taunted and mocked and persecuted by the Ammonites and the Moabites, and God saying, I remember all of that.

Obadiah speaks of this persecution of the Moabites and the Ammonites against Judah as they fled from the invading Babylonian army. The point is, the Jews were always, and by the way, the Jews still are God’s chosen people. The land God had promised them is his land. And he will not abandon his claim to the land or his claim to his people.

Now look at verse nine, if he would. Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord of hosts, what a statement for God to make. As I live, I’m going to make sure this is done. Like you might threaten a person. If I live till tomorrow, I’m going to blank, blank, blank.

That’s kind of what God is saying here. The nations Moab and Ammon foolishly neglected to remember that to hurt and persecute Israel was to attack Israel’s God. Now we need to remind ourselves where Moab and Ammon came from. Lot, after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, was made drunk by his daughters, and they had an incestuous relationship with their father.

And the descendants of this incestuous relationship became the countries of Moab and Ammon. So they had a very wicked beginning. And the Lord has now decided he will punish Moab and Ammonia and severely punished them just like he punished Sodom and Gomorrah. Notice it there in verse nine. Therefore, as I live, declares the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, surely Moab will be like Sodom and the son of Ammon, like Gomorrah, a salt place possessed by nettles and salt pits and in perpetual desolation.

The remnant of my people will plunder them and the remainder of my nation will inherit them. So, like you said with the Philistines, ultimately, Judah, your remnant, is going to have everything that they have, everything they now own and everything they now control. Judah will be yours. So he’s going to punish them like he punished Solomon Gomorrah.

Noticing the severity and the thoroughness of the punishment, he says, as I live, I’m going to make sure that this happens. Then he calls himself in verse nine, the Lord of hosts, which is the idea of one who has sovereign rule over the entire universe. The strength and the superlatives that come out over and over as God describes with what fierceness and absoluteness and thoroughness, he’s going to come in judgment.

He says their land in verse nine is going to be but nettles and salt pits. In other words, it’s going to be completely ruined. It’s going to be an infertile wasteland. When I get through with it. God says

Lot had taken this area, when he and Abraham had decided was Abraham’s idea that they part ways because their herdsmen were having conflicts. And Lot chose the fertile valley towards Sodom, and Abraham chose another area. But that was all to be God’s land. It was all to be land controlled and owned and possessed and enjoyed by the descendants of Abraham.

So now what’s going to happen is going to all be returned to the rightful owner. So we have strong words of judgment. But again, mingled in together with that are these words of hope. Last part of verse nine. Again, the remnant of my people will plunder them and the remainder of my nation will inherit them.

Now in verse 10, we continue on. And they say, this, or the prophet says, this they will have in return for their pride. Pride in their pride. They taunted Judah and mocked Judah and became arrogant, thinking they were so great. They made themselves out to be, I mean, the everything of everything.

And God says, I want you to know, as I am the Lord of hosts, I’m giving you my word as I live. I’m bringing them down to size. Listen to me.

God is going to see to it that there is not one proud heart that he does not bring down to size. So, child of God, be a repenter. Now. Strive toward humility. Now, you don’t want God have to do it his way later on. Now, for the wicked, ultimately their humility will be at the great judgment.

But for the child of God, like Judah, Judah’s a picture, a type of the child of God in a way. We get our discipline now because we belong to him. So yield to God’s purposes to crush your pride. Charles Haddon Spurgeon used to talk about people who would come and go out of his church.

They’d come in and stay a while and leave a while. And he used to say, well, they come to us unhumbled, they stay a while unhumbled, and they leave again unhumbled. If you’re gonna be in a true church, it’s gonna require one thing, a gospel humility. You’re either humble and wanna follow the Lord, or you’re proud and want a church that fits you well.

These Ammonites and these Moabites were full of themselves. And God said, they’re gonna be brought down to size in return for their pride. I’m doing these things. God will always remove all that you look to that made you proud. All you possess and land and territory. As with the Moabites and the Ammonites, God says, I’m going to remove it from them.

And I’m going to give it to my freshly humbled remnant of Judah.

When he says they’ve sinned, that’s again Moab and the Ammonites against the people of the Lord of hosts. Again they forgot afresh that mocking and persecuting God’s people was the mocking and persecuting of God. Remember how Paul explained it in Acts 9:3:5 as he, Saul of Tarsus, at that time was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him, and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

Not why are you persecuting the church? Not why you persecuting Christians, you’re persecuting me. He said to him, who are you, Lord? He said, I’m Jesus, whom you are again persecuting. Because when you come against my people, even though my people may not be what they ought to be, they’re still mine.

And when you come against them, you come against me. And that’s the way the Lord, through the prophet, is fashioning this, that coming against Judah was coming against God. And God said, I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to have it. I’m going to deal with it. Verse 11.

He continues on the Lord will be terrifying to them, for he will starve. All the gods of the earth and all the coastlands of the nations will bow down to him. Everyone from his own place, terrifying to them. You know, there’s only one terrifying God and one alone, because there is only one true God who is just, who is omniscient and who is omnipotent.

And when you think about that, if he’s perfectly just and knows absolutely everything, including everything about me, including the thoughts and intentions of my heart, and he is omnipotent and can bring to bear on me all the force of holy judgment, then he is a God who is terrifying.

He is the God you must fear joining. Joel 2:11 speaks of how terrifying he is. In Joel 2:11, the prophet wrote, the Lord utters his voice before his army. Surely his camp is very great, for strong is he who carries out his word. The day of the Lord. Remember, that’s always judgment that has its final fulfillment when Jesus returns.

The day of the Lord is indeed great and very awesome, and who can endure it? And then again, when Jesus comes in Revelation 6:15, Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong, and every slave and freeman, that’s every person who’s unsaved, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, crying out that they might be saved from what they called the wrath of the Lamb.

Verse 11 continues on. And God says, I’m going to starve all the gods of the earth. Of course, it’s metaphorically speaking, because the gods of the earth were all these dumb idols made of stone and wood and clay and whatever else they could make a God out of. He said, I’m going to starve them to death.

I’m going to show them for what they really are. They are impotent, they are false,

literally. To starve means to make them thin. He said, I’m going to remove the people who made them. I’m going to remove the people who worship them. I’m going to remove the people who kept them up and fixed them and repaired them when they started falling apart. So I’m going to starve out, in figurative speech, I’m starving out these false gods that have been adopted and accepted in my land.

They’ll have no one left to support them. So they will figure speech, starve to death. Then a powerful turn. What a phrase here at the end of verse 11. And all the coastlands of the nations will bow down to him. That’s Yahweh, everyone from his own place. Now, there’s certainly an apocalyptic element, but also a contemporary element that Yahweh worship was typically to be done in Jerusalem.

And that’s what people understood. It’s in the promised Land and centered in Jerusalem in the temple where people know and worship God. And here the prophet says something that had to be sort of mind blowing to an ancient Israelite, and that is that all the nations, Gentiles included, are going to bow and worship Yahweh.

Now this is partially fulfilled. And when the Judeans returned from exile, they settled in the region that was once the Moabites land and once the Ammonites land and some remnant of Moabites and Ammonites were there. And they kind of, whether genuine or not, went along with the Jews in worshiping Yahweh.

So there was a worshiping, a bowing down and honoring of this God, God of the Jews from other nations. But of course, there is a final and apocalyptic truth to this also. That when Jesus returns, as Paul told us very clearly In Philippians chapter 2, verses 9 through 11, for this reason also God highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.

That’s the phrase the prophet uses here, of them bowing to Yahweh, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Now, when that future event occurs in the coming, glorified, eternal state, that’s when all of this world will become Jesus World.

It is right now. But for God’s sovereign purposes, he’s temporarily allowed Satan to be, quote, God of the world, end of quote. He’s the one who’s behind this present mechanism and bureaucracy and world system that we see. But there’s coming a day when the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.

I love that phrase. Every year I listen to Handel’s Messiah all the way through. At least twice in the weeks leading up to Christmas, because every word in it is scripture. Often I’ll put the scripture on my dash and I’ll listen to the different songs. Handel wrote that glorious musical called the Messiah.

And when it gets to this verse, it just really stirs my soul. Revelation 11:15. Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven saying, oh, let it be, Lord Jesus. The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he will reign forever and ever, and all the nations will bow to him.

Yet is it not true that in this gospel dispensation, as it has been said, the sun never sets on the worshipers of the one true God? The gospel has gone into all the earth, and there are true believers among most peoples, tongues, tribes and nations. So as the sun moves, we know it’s not moving.

But figuratively speaking, as the sun moves and it shines on every inch of the earth, there’s at least a remnant of people who call on the Lord through the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that’s really happening to a great extent, that people are bowing for him from all the nations today. Now, right quick look Back at verse seven. Look back at verse seven and we’ll close with this thought. This kind of grabbed me as I was meditating on it, and I want to close with this.

He talks about again how he’s going to judge the Philistine cities. He’s going to bring them to nothing. Then he says, for the remnant of the house of Judah, they will pastor on what was once the Philistine cities. In the houses of Ashkelon, they will lie down at evening.

Here’s the phrase. For the Lord their God will care for them. You know what? That literally is translated in the original Hebrew. It’s not care for them. It’s just the Lord their God will visit them.

The Lord their God, the prophet said, is going to pay his people a visit. And in this context, this is not a visit of judgment. It’s not a visit of corrective discipline. It’s a visit of salvation and loving kindness and care.

God paid us a visit about 2,000 years ago, did he not,

when Mary was with child, the virgin, and she gave birth to Jesus. That’s God coming to pay a visit. He lives sinlessly on the earth. He goes to the cross for the sake of the children, is nailed there, and is punished in our place for our sins. A vicarious atonement was buried and raised for our justification, ascends up into heaven, where he forever intercedes for us, and then he will visit us again.

Revelation 19:11 13 says, and I saw heaven open, and behold a white horse. And he who sat on it is called Faithful and true. In righteousness he judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems. And he has a name written on him, which no one knows except himself.

And he is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. Now you’ll either receive Jesus to visit with you in his grace and mercy in his first coming, or you will bear an audience with him in his judgment, and you will visit with him at his second coming.

But he would visit with you right now. He will visit with you right now if you would but visit with him.

The Bible reminds us in Revelation 3:20, behold, I stand at the door and knock. Sitting under the preaching of the Word, something is speaking to you, something is nudging you.

Stand at the door and knock. And if anyone how’s that for your Reformed theology? Doesn’t bother mine. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and will dine, visit. Same idea with him and he with me. He desires today, this moment, right now, to visit you.

And you say if he visits. You know, often when you go visit somebody, you bring gifts. Jesus will visit you bringing the whole of eternal salvation. And it’s free. It’s free because he’s paid for it already.

Now there’s one final visit, one last visit where God will visit with us, and that is this final visitation at the marriage supper of the Lamb. That’s when we will visit with Jesus for the very last time in the glorified eternal state you say. Pastor, why would you say we will visit with him for the last time?

Because after that time, we will never leave him again. So there will be no visit, just abide. We’ll just abide with him forever and ever and ever and ever. Oh, dear friend, you heard the testimonies of these two men this morning. Have you visited with him? Because if you’re willing to hear his voice and open the door, he will come in and visit with you, forgive you of every sin, cleanse you of all wrong, purge from you every defilement.

Pastor, you don’t know what I’ve done. You don’t know where I’ve been. I do care. But it doesn’t matter because he is mighty to save.

Satan has convinced far too many of you to focus on yourselves and your shortcoming and your sinfulness and your weakness and not focus enough on Him.

Look at him. He is mighty to save, and he desires to visit with you.

Let’s pray together.