Zephaniah 1:7-11, 14-16
Please listen with me to a reading from the first chapter of the Prophet Zephaniah, beginning at the seventh verse:
“Be silent in the presence of the Lord God; for the day of the Lord is at hand, for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; He has invited His guests. And it shall be, in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, that I will punish the princes and the king’s children, and all such as are clothed with foreign apparel. In the same day I will punish all those who leap over the threshold, who fill their masters’ houses with violence and deceit. And there shall be on that day, says the Lord, the sound of a mournful cry from the Fish Gate, a wailing from the Second Quarter, and a loud crashing from the hills. Wail, you inhabitants of Maktesh! For all the merchant people are cut down; all those who handle money are cut off. … The great day of the Lord is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness…”
So far our text.
In the time of the Old Testament, God’s people already knew that a day of divine judgment was coming. They knew this, because God had revealed this to them through the prophets.
What we just heard from the Book of Zephaniah is one example of this. No class of men is exempt from humanity’s accountability to its creator. No class of men will be exempt from God’s judgment. Three segments of society – which together embrace everyone – are mentioned in the text.
The Lord issues his warning to the wicked among the aristocracy and nobility, who dwell in opulence and live lives of privilege. The Lord also speaks of the dishonest element within the servant and laboring class. And divine judgment will be brought to bear also against corrupt businessmen, merchants, and traders of the middle class.
All men are created equal. After conception and birth, social and economic inequalities are a reality in this world, so that some people have more power and more resources, and other people have less.
But when judgment day comes, all are equal once again. All will be judged on the basis of what they did with the power and resources that had been entrusted to them during their lives on earth.
From those to whom more had been given, more will be expected. Jesus articulated this principle in St. Luke’s Gospel:
“Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.”
But all will be judged. And all will be judged, and punished, righteously. Those who did not do the good they should have done will be judged. Those who did the evil they should not have done will be judged.
In earlier generations, most people in western civilization believed in a coming final judgment. They believed that the wicked would ultimately get what is coming to them, even if they had never been held to account for their evil deeds in this life.
But a lot of people today don’t believe in good and evil, as clearly-differentiated, objective realities. “What’s good and right for you is not what’s good and right for me.” “You can’t impose your morality on others.” Those are the slogans by which so many live in our time.
And the worst possible thing to claim in this postmodern age, is that your morality is actually God’s morality, and should be everyone’s morality. That kind of “intolerance” is probably the single biggest remaining sin today – a sin that is pretty much unforgivable.
And the God of the popular imagination, if he exists at all, is a compliant and indulgent God, who lets each of us define our own morality, and who then blesses us in that self-defined morality. The last thing that today’s unthreatening God will do, is judge people for having a wrong morality, and for living a morally wrong life.
But you know, it’s not just murderers, terrorists, and similar sociopaths who need to be serious and sober-minded as they ponder the judgment that will someday come upon sinful man. St. Paul has some important things to say to all of us in that respect, in his Epistle to the Galatians:
“Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
And the same apostle gives us a similar list in his First Epistle to the Corinthians:
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”
These words were written by a divinely-inspired apostle. These words are God’s words. These words are God’s warning, to each and every one of us.
They are words of warning about what may happen to us, if we end our life in this world, and face the Day of the Lord, with an existence that is marked and defined by such ungodliness. As we are thinking about this, and letting this sink in, God gives us one more severe warning through Zephaniah:
“The great day of the Lord is near; it is near and hastens quickly. The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter; there the mighty men shall cry out. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of devastation and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness…” …
At the beginning of the text from Zephaniah that was read a few minutes ago, we also heard something else about the Day of the Lord: something that was written, we might say, in a different tone, and with a different thrust. We heard this:
“Be silent in the presence of the Lord God; for the day of the Lord is at hand, for the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; He has invited His guests.”
The Lord has indeed prepared a sacrifice – a saving and forgiving sacrifice – which is able to prepare us for the Day of the Lord. In comparison to the many animal sacrifices of the Old Testament – which were a foreshadowing of this true and ultimate sacrifice – today’s appointed reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us about that special and final offering for sin:
“For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.”
A little further on, the Epistle to the Hebrews also explains that Christ our Redeemer
“has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation.”
Indeed, those who are waiting for the Day of the Lord with eagerness, and not with fear, are those who know that their sins were atoned for by the sacrifice of God’s Son on their behalf.
By a daily repentance they turn away from those sins – which would disqualify them from God’s kingdom. And by a daily trusting in God’s merciful promises in Christ, they receive the righteousness of Christ, which covers over all those sins.
Truly, “the Lord has prepared a sacrifice; He has invited His guests.” In Christ we are the Lord’s guests, who are invited to believe in him for our justification and vindication.
We are invited guests at the Lord’s Table now, having been set apart as God’s own forgiven and reconciled people: through the sacred washing of his baptism that we have received, and through the sacred truth of his Word that we have learned and confessed.
In faith, we therefore know that the body and blood of Jesus that we receive in this Supper, are the same body and blood of Jesus that were sacrificed for us on the cross. Each time we commune on the Lord’s Day now, we are made ready once again for the Day of the Lord yet to come.
And on that future Day of the Lord, we will – with this same faith in Christ – also be invited guests at the eternal banquet of our Savior’s everlasting kingdom.
When you know Christ, then – and only then – do you know that your future in Christ is a future of life, and not of death. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us,” as St. Paul comforts Christians in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians.
The way to avoid God’s judgment on judgment day, is to make sure you come to that day clothed with Christ, united to Christ, and justified by Christ.
Your sins – all of your sins, both small and great – would otherwise condemn you. They would disqualify you. But Jesus died for those sins. And Jesus now forgives those sins and washes them away.
In him, therefore – as you are in him by repentance and faith – God the Father no longer sees those sins. And on the Last Day, he will not see those sins.
By God’s grace you are therefore able to look forward to the Day of the Lord with joy, and not with fear; with peace, and not with trepidation: because by God’s grace you are also able even now to look back to the cross of Calvary – where your deliverance from condemnation was won and accomplished – with a thankful heart toward God, and with heartfelt love for God.
“Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause. … For You are the God of my strength; Oh, send out Your light and Your truth!” Amen.