“Ottawa Obliterated! Vancouver Vaporized! Edmonton Eradicated!” Can you imagine waking up to news headlines like that? Sure, you’ve come to expect such language describing the previous night’s Oilers’ game. But what if those headlines were not about the hockey teams that reside in those cities and how poorly they played the night before, but were news flashes about the cities themselves? Is it possible for such big population centers crammed full of condos and office highrises and the people who live and work in them to be obliterated, vaporized, and eradicated? But that’s exactly what God said would happen to the nations who surrounded the Israelites of old. The awesome Lord, the Lord of Hosts, sent a warning shot across the bow of those nations in our sermon text to tell them that their days were numbered. As we continue our Tweets from Heaven sermon series, we too will want to wake up to the warning the awesome Lord spoke through Zephaniah because one day our community will be obliterated, vaporized, and eradicated.
So what do you remember about the prophet Zephaniah from last week’s sermon? Do you recall the king under which he served? That was King Josiah. Was Josiah a good king or a bad one? He was a good king who sought to lead his nation back to the worship of the one true God. Josiah had limited success, however, and in last week’s sermon text we heard God thunder against those who had become complacent in their walk with him and were more interested in keeping up with the fads and fashions of the day rather than keeping up with their faith (Zeph. 1:8). God also spoke against those who were hedging their spiritual bets by worshipping the Lord while at the same time bowing down to the gods of the Canaanites (Zeph. 1:5).
It didn’t matter that these Israelites were God’s chosen people. If they did not humble themselves and seek the Lord wholeheartedly and take refuge in his forgiveness, they were going to suffer on “the Day of the Lord” – God’s title for Judgment Day in the book of Zephaniah. And neither does it matter that you are here in church this morning. That fact alone will not protect you on the Day of the Lord – not if the hour you spend here is quickly forgotten because you spend many more hours during the week pursuing the fads and fashions of this world.
But it’s hard to keep our focus on worshipping the Lord throughout the week isn’t it? I mean there’s this thing called life we have to get through. There are groceries to buy and put away; bathrooms to clean; cars to maintain; school projects that need completing; and doctor and dentist appointments to make. With daily chores like that who has the time to constantly think of the Lord and his will? The Israelites too had similar chores. Plus they were surrounded by nations that were hostile to them and were eager to destroy them. Still, the Israelites had every reason to remain fully devoted to the Lord. That’s because God promised to deal with those hostile nations. For example, God assured that the cities of the Philistines would be decimated. With a play on words in Hebrew he said something like “Ekron would be eradicated, and Ashdod would become ashes” (Zephaniah 2:4 – paraphrase). But God wasn’t just going to go after the Philistines and other local hoodlums like Moab and Ammon, he was also going to target the superpower of the day, Assyria. Listen to what Zephaniah said God would do to them. “He will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria, leaving Nineveh utterly desolate and dry as the desert. 14 Flocks and herds will lie down there, creatures of every kind. The desert owl and the screech owl will roost on her columns” (Zephaniah 2:13, 14).
Zephaniah spoke these words while Nineveh was still the thriving capital city of Assyria. Destruction wouldn’t come for another twenty years so what the prophet predicted must have sounded as far-fetched as if I were to predict that in twenty years New York City will be destroyed and the skyscrapers, the New York Stock Exchange, the Statue of Liberty, and countless highrise apartments and every other building will become the home of pigeons, rats, and feral cats and remain that way for centuries. But this is exactly what happened to Nineveh and that city is still in ruins today (though the “modern” city of Mosul lies across the river).
God’s prediction of judgment against Nineveh should serve as warning to each one of us because we can easily fall into the same sinful attitude that city was known for. According to Zephaniah the city of Nineveh was a “…carefree city that lived in safety. She said to herself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me’” (Zephaniah 2:15).
“I am.” Haven’t we heard those words used as a title before in the Bible? Sure. That’s how God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush. That title highlighted God’s absolute independence and his absolute constancy. God doesn’t need us to survive. He doesn’t need our offerings or our praises. He simply “is.” God expanded on that title in the book of Isaiah when he said: “I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God…I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things” (Isaiah 45:5, 7).
But now the city of Nineveh had claimed that title for herself. She was so powerful and her city so beautiful that she thought she had no rival. She had wealth and fame, what else did she need? Certainly not God! Don’t we feel that way too when everything is going well in life? When business is good we chalk it up to the fact that we had a smart business plan. When we’re successful on the athletic field, we attribute it to our hard work in the off season. And when we excel in school, well, it’s because we actually pay attention in class and study our notes unlike so many of our classmates! We might not go as far as Nineveh and say out loud: “I am, and there is no other,” but there are times we certainly think it and in so doing we shove God off the throne of our heart. You might be confident about your coming retirement or about your chances of getting into a good school or landing a well-paying job, but don’t forget that God can wipe away those prospects in a flash. And that’s exactly what God did to Nineveh when that city fell to the Babylonians and to the Medes.
Instead of finding your pride and joy in your accomplishments, God begs you to find your satisfaction in him, the great and only real “I Am”! Our text explains why we’ll want to cherish our connection to this one true God. When speaking against Moab and Ammon, enemies of Israel to the east, God said that he had taken note of their taunting and would do something about it. “The remnant of my people will plunder them; the survivors of my nation will inherit their land." 10 This is what they will get in return for their pride, for insulting and mocking the people of the LORD Almighty. 11 The LORD will be awesome to them when he destroys all the gods of the land” (Zephaniah 2:9-11a).
“Awesome Lord.” That’s been the theme of our heavenly tweet. But by now you realize that it speaks of how the Lord will be awesome in judgment. He can stand no rivals – not in the ancient lands of Moab and Edom nor in our modern hearts. But God is also awesome in mercy. He listens to the cries of his children and knows when they are being treated poorly. He may let the hardship continue for a time but he will put an end to it when the suffering is no longer accomplishing his will of purifying your faith and bringing you closer to him. You can trust him on that just as the Israelites of old were able to trust that God would deal with their enemies, and did.
“Ottawa Obliterated! Vancouver Vaporized! Edmonton Eradicated!” It’s hard to imagine that this will happen one day, but it will when Jesus returns. But we don’t have to fear God’s awesome judgment because he has given us awesome grace in the person of his Son, Jesus. Zephaniah said that after Nineveh was destroyed people would walk by and scoff and shake their fists at the ruins (Zephaniah 2:15). That’s exactly what they did to Jesus when he hung on the cross. But the shaking of fists didn’t just happen underneath the cross; it happened above the cross too as God the Father shook his fist at sin which he was at that very moment punishing in the person of Jesus. But God is done shaking his fist at Jesus. He received him back as his beloved Son when he raised Jesus back to life. And he has received you too as his sons and daughters because all who have been baptized with Christ have died with him and have been brought back to life says the Apostle Paul (Romans 6). Therefore God no longer shakes his fist at you for your sins. Instead he gently gathers you to himself. He doesn’t want you going off on your own as did the city of Nineveh. And why would we want to do that? We’re not the great “I Am.” The awesome Lord of the Bible is. He’s awesome in judgment, but also awesome in grace. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
Fill in the blanks.
The prophet Zephaniah worked under King ______________.
This king was a _________ king. The people however struggled with sins of ________________ and __________________ loyalties.
Why was the destruction that Zephaniah foretold for Nineveh a startling pronouncement?
In what way(s) might we have adopted the sinful attitude prevalent in Nineveh?
People would shake their fists at the ruins of Nineveh. How did that also happen to Jesus? Why does that bring us comfort?
