Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty.

God in the midst of His Church

Almost all the messages of the prophets to the ancient Church begin with the most awful threatenings and end with the most animating promises.

I. What is here said to the Church by way of encouragement.

1. The Church is encouraged by the assurance that Jehovah is her God, her own covenant God.

2. By assurances of God’s everlasting, unchanging love, and of His gracious designs respecting her. He has formed an unalterable determination to save her.

3. That God rejoices in His love, and in all its sanctifying, saving effects upon His people.

4. That her God is no less able than willing to effect her salvation. He is a God at hand, and not afar off. “The Lord Thy God is in the midst of thee.”

II. What is said by way of exhortation. “Fear thou not.” There are various kinds of fear mentioned in the Scriptures,--filial fear, reverential fear, humble fear, unbelieving fear, slavish fear, etc. The text forbids the Church--

1. To indulge unbelieving fears; or

2. Slavish fear; or

3. A desponding, pusillanimous fear.

The second exhortation is, “Let not thine hands be slack.” Slackness is opposed to zeal and diligence. The remark is no less applicable to our spiritual than to our temporal concerns. Slackness or indolence is the principal cause why so few Christians are eminently pious or useful. Inferences--

1. All the doctrines and promises of God’s Word, and all the gracious assurances of His love, have a practical tendency, and are designed to produce holy zeal and activity.

2. Learn whether our belief of the Divine promises, and the hopes and consolations which we derive from them, are real and scriptural.

3. Is God in the midst of us, resting in His love to us, and rejoicing over us with joy? Then with what emotions does it become us to receive and embrace Him! (E. Payson, D. D.)

God’s activity

This text is cast in the Gospel mould. It has the true evangelical mark. It discovers the revelation of God’s character, which the teaching of Christ and His apostles fully confirms.

I. God’s work upon the earth. This is one of the fundamental facts of our religion,--God is in our very midst. Think of the unworthy conceptions the heathen formed of God, and the imperfect conceptions Jews formed. Christianity brought God in Christ to the homes of men, to the workshops; God became God with us in the very breath we breathe. But Christianity is more than teaching. It is not a school; it is a Church. Doctrine by itself might enlighten men’s minds; the doctrine and Christ’s presence together will conquer the heart. God is great in salvation; God is mighty to save.

II. How does God think about His work? What is His attitude in it, His personal interest in it? The activities of man go into two great divisions--

1. Those who labour for bread.

2. Those who find their wages in the work itself.

The one is the labourer, the other the artist. God takes delight in His work. (William Pierce.)

The connection existing between God and His people

In religious concerns men are always prone to run into the opposite extremes of presumption and despair. Both these mistakes arise from defective or partial views of the character and design of Jehovah.

I. What does the text say concerning God’s relation to us? “The Lord thy God.” He is our Maker; the former of our bodies; and the former of our spirits within us. But as far as we are sinners we are not the work of His own hands.

II. What does the text tell us concerning His residence? “In the midst of thee.” God is everywhere, but not everywhere as Friend and Saviour.

II. What says our text concerning His sufficiency? “Is mighty.” “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

IV. What says our text concerning his work? “He will save.” Save from what?--From our supreme calamity and peril. But some may say, We are saved already. But you may know more of this salvation, feel more of it, rejoice more in it, and communicate it more to others.

V. What does the text tell us concerning His heart? Here is a love accompanied with three characters.

1. A character of Divine delight.

2. A character of Divine permanency.

3. A character of Divine expression. “With singing.” (Willlam Jay.)

The presence of God in the midst of His Church

A revelation of the Divine goodness is essential, in proportion, to human affliction and sorrow This is true in personal and individual experience, and also in the general history of the Church. Where affliction is found, there consolation is found.

I. God is in the midst of the church. He is in the midst of them for gracious purposes. There He is to record His name; there He is by the sweet experience of His promises and there He is by the most abundant communications, beyond all they ask, of that grace which is requisite for their comfort.

II. God is in thy midst of his people to save them. There He communicates the immense blessings of salvation. So gracious is God, so dependent and necessitous is man, that everything may be considered as coming to us in the way of salvation. All that we receive we receive from the hand of God freely. It is one thing to find a Helper, but another thing to find a Saviour.

III. He is mighty to accomplish that salvation. It is not every effort in favour of another that can be considered as salvation. Wherever salvation is wrought by one individual in favour of another it implies weakness on the part of the one, and power on the part of the other. Consider the “mightiness” of the Son of God as essential to qualify Him to become a Saviour. He must be mighty to save, so as to overcome the defects in our own strength, to satisfy the outstanding claims of justice against the sinner, to bring us with Divine approbation before God.

IV. He is resolved on that salvation. “He will save.” The declaration is so put as to pledge the will of God to the accomplishment of the work. It is not on our determination and resolves that the work is suspended, but on the resolution, the determination of Christ.

V. Christ our Saviour delights in our salvation. Though it has cost Him so much, there is nothing gives Him half the pleasure. He is said to “rest in His love.” Infer from this subject two things--

1. The nature of sin.

2. The danger of an unconverted state. (Andrew Reed, B. A.)

God and His people

God is everywhere. His special presence in His Church is the present theme.

I. God’s dwelling among his people.

1. Under the former dispensations of mercy.

2. Under the present administration of the kingdom of God, the dispensation of the fulness of times; the ministration of the Spirit.

3. In the heavenly world.

II. God’s deliverance of His people.

1. The power of God. Including physical power, mental power, moral power.

2. God is mighty in the use of intellectual power to save His people.

3. God is mighty in moral and spiritual power to save His people. God is mighty--

(1) To convert.

(2) To pardon.

(3) To make His people holy.

(4) To protect and secure His people.

(5) To make, His people peaceful, joyful, and happy.

(6) To glorify His people.

III. God’s delight in His people. He fills Himself with joy over His redeemed Church.

1. The presence of God in His Church is its glory.

2. The power of God is the strength of His people (T. E. Thoresby.)

A transfiguring presence

One of Goethe’s tales is of a rude fisherman’s hut which was changed to silver by the setting in it of a little silver lamp. The logs of which the hut was built, its floors, its doors, its roof, its furniture--all were changed to sider by this magic lamp. The story illustrates what takes place in the life when Christ comes into it. The character is transformed, but not the character only; all life is made new when one becomes -a child of God. Everything after that is different. The outward conditions and circumstances may be the same, but they shine now with a new beauty.

He will save.

Mighty to save

These words are full of encouragement.

I. The exhortation which god here addresses to his people. They are called upon--

1. To banish every alarming apprehension. There is much to excite their anxiety.

2. To prevent faint-heartedness and lukewarmness. They were to be up and doing.

II. The grounds on which the above exhortation rests.

1. The deliverance they were to experience. Regarding the passage as applicable to our great and glorious salvation, we are shown--

(1) His ability to save.

(2) His purpose to save.

(3) The feelings with which He saves.

2. The consolations they were to realise.

3. The honour they were to receive. It is only for the heirs of salvation that this honour is reserved, and it is by them alone that true consolation is enjoyed. (Author of “Footsteps of Jesus.”)

He will rejoice over thee with joy.--

God’s joy in salvation

It is obvious, He can save--for He is in the midst of them, and mighty. Here is nearness and power. But He will save--He is inclined, He is engaged. He will save, He will rejoice over them with joy. What is this salvation? It does not exclude temporal preservation and deliverance. We are not to look for miracles, but we may look for Him who performed them. Temporal deliverances are promised conditionally. Salvation includes redemption from the curse of the law, deliverance from the powers of darkness, freedom from the sting of death, release from the dominion and being of sin. This salvation is ensured. This salvation is begun. (William Jay.)

Christ’s joy in His people:--In the time of Zephaniah the iniquity of the Jews was very great, and as a nation they were fast ripening for punishment. Battle and defeat, exile and slavery, were in store for them, but these would pass away, and days of rejoicing would come again. Referring to that time, the prophet calls for songs of hope.

I. The Lord God in the midst of thee is mighty. He doeth what He will with His own, and all things are His. The greatest feel His power, and the least are not exempt from His care.

II. He will save--From all useless dread and alarm, from all unnecessary trials and assaults. There is no promise that a believer shall be saved from suffering and sorrow and temptation; what is promised is, that he shall not be overcome of these. Christ will show Himself as Saviour in the days to come, as truly as in days past. He has saved. He will save.

III. He will rejoice over thee with joy. His people are His by creation, purchase, adoption, and by a begun and progressive sanctification. There is nought in the contemplation of the natural man to call forth the joy of the Saviour.

IV. He will rest in His love. Margin, “He will be silent,” or “keep silence in His love.” This suggests the idea of a love too great for utterance.

V. He will joy over thee with singing. If this is not an amplification of the preceding promises, rather than a new promise, it speaks of a time when the watchful care of the Saviour will be followed by a feeling of ecstatic joy--of a time when the silence of unutterable emotion will be broken in upon by the triumphant voice of Him whose voice is as the sound of many waters. Then, if these things be so, let me say, “What manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness?” (J. B. Omond.)

God’s delight in saving souls

A knowledge of ourselves will show us how much need we have of repentance; and a knowledge of God will encourage us to repent.

I. God’s power to save. We shall not speak of God’s power in general, but as it is manifested in the salvation of His Church and people.

II. His determination to save. If He should leave us to ourselves none of us would be saved. He takes the matter into His own hands, and determines to save those whom He has given to His Son. He does not destroy our free agency; but He overcomes our reluctance, and draws us to Himself by an operation no less powerful than that which He exerted in raising His Son, Jesus Christ, from the dead.

III. His delight to save. Not merely will He feel an inward pleasure; but as a man, overjoyed at any event, involuntarily expresses his joy by singing, or some other outward token, so will God manifest His pleasure to the returning soul.

IV. His immutability towards those whom He intends to save. Man is often alienated from the object of his affections, either by means of some unexpected evil He has discovered, or through his own fickleness and inconstancy. But God changeth not. In this glorious character of God we may see--

1. The evil of sin. Under whatever circumstances it may be committed, sin is directly levelled against Him.

2. The danger of dying in an unconverted state. Will it be no aggravation of our guilt in the day of judgment to have despised such a loving and gracious God?

3. The obligation that lies upon believers to serve the Lord. What should you render unto the Lord for all His benefits? Have no end, no aim, no wish, but to please and honour the God of your salvation. (Skeletons of Sermons.)

The joy of God over His own

This is one of those revelations of the character of God which are sometimes called anthropomorphic. And it is argued that to ascribe human attributes to God is to limit Him. But we may fearlessly rejoice in the inspiring revelation of the text, that society is necessary to the fulness of the Divine nature. God cannot do without His children; He finds His joy in them.

I. It is the joy of a strong being. “The Lord thy God is mighty.” Little natures are capable of little happiness. In our gladdest hours we can but dimly guess what is the bliss of an infinite Being. This joy God found in creation, in which His might was revealed.

II. It is the joy of a helpful presence. “In the midst of thee.” There is delight in being with and doing for those we love. This is God’s joy in His providence.

III. It is the joy of giving. “He will save.” Not in receiving, but in giving, is found the highest and deepest joy. God finds this blessedness in the work of redemption. The incarnation and atonement are but the self-giving of God.

IV. It is a silent joy. “He will rest in His love”; literally, “He will be silent in His love.” Sometimes joy is too deep for speech. It is the unheard running of the still waters.

V. It is an excellent joy. “He will joy over thee with singing.” Not silent all the time. Sometimes He sings. What are some of the notes of God’s song? We may make God glad. The sweetest words that can climb to heaven are, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” He will stop the music of glory, and hush the converse of the angels, to hear it stealing up to His throne. (George Elliott.)

He will rest in His love.--

The Almighty resting in His love

God rules in an unquiet world. Yet is He ever at rest. “He will rest in His love.” The idea in the text is of Deity in repose--silent--looking calmly on all the disorders of the Church and the world, as knowing that there is one attribute of His nature which will suffice to rectify all things for the deliverance of His people.

I. The nature of this rest.

1. It is the rest of a moral satisfaction with all the arrangements He had made for man’s spiritual and everlasting happiness. In this sense God rested from His work of creation. But this contentment of God with the results of His own doings was to receive a yet higher illustration. It was great to make a soul like ours; how much greater to redeem! The Almighty has delight in the provisions made for the spiritual recovery of our race. Behold, then, the great Father of spirits reposing with delighted tranquillity on the appointments and provisions of Messiah’s kingdom.

2. It is the rest of a Divine foreknowledge and purpose. The quietness of an Omniscient mind which, seeing the end from the beginning, will not allow itself to be moved from the fixed order of its determinations. This abstaining from interference is observable in the general order of earthly affairs, and in the lot of individual believers. To all human seeming things are left to take their course. This resting of God in His own moral determination is often remarkably illustrated in Scriptures as in our Lord’s delay in going to sick Lazarus.

II. It is descriptive of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ resting in His love as the great means for the salvation of mankind. It must be a sight of the goodness of God, if anything, that will lead a man to repentance. Then if God so rest in His love, how should we rest in it. How assured and tranquil should we feel in this, God loves me. There is always a firm footing there. (Daniel Moore, M. A.)

The unchangeable nature of God’s love to man

God is not only lovely and loving, He is pure unmixed love itself. This love has numerous objects. Among these His own perfection is the chief. This is a theme so sublime that we are scarcely able to form any conception of it. A number taken from two classes of His own rational creatures are distinguished as the objects of His love,--elect angels and elect men. In what of His love does God rest?

I. In the principle of His love. It is as impossible that this love in itself, or in the essence of it, can ever be anything different from what it is, or hath been, as it is that God Himself can ever be anything different from what He is now, or hath been from eternity. Love, as it exists in Himself, is unchanging and ever-during

II. In the objects of His love. God knows not only how many He has chosen, but knows also every individual object of His choice. There will be no voluntary transference of Divine love from one object, or one class of objects, to another.

III. He will rest in the degree of His will. As God’s love always has been, so it will always continue to be, of the same extent and dimensions. God loves not His people more or less at one time than another.

IV. In the fruits of His love cannot speak of the fruits of His love in detail. They embrace a mighty compass. They include everything, from the first particle of imparted grace to a seat with God the Lamb on His throne. Learn--

1. That believers ought to love their God with the greatest ardour and constancy of which they are capable.

2. In whatever manner God may act by them, His love is neither changed nor diminished.

3. Believers may be encouraged to smile defiance at every attempt to separate them from the love of God. (Robert Muter.)

God’s people comforted

No sooner had Zephaniah laid open the abounding wickedness of Judah than he pointed forward to brighter scenes--to the returning suppliants, under the power of the Spirit, ashamed of their doings, to the remnant of Israel, which shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies. The text is consolatory.

1. The consolation is addressed only to true Christians. No encouragement is therefore given here to open transgressors, or to persistent backsliders. It is necessary to make this distinction, because none are so prone to take to themselves the promises of the Gospel as those to whom they clearly do not belong.

2. The text is spoken on the supposition that the people of God will often be overwhelmed with anxiety--that they shall “fear,” and their “hands shall be slack.” No greater mistake can be made than that of supposing a Christian’s life is a period of continual sunshine. Now illustrate the grounds of confidence which all Christians may have in the unchanging love of their Almighty Redeemer.

I. What are the marks of love?

1. Our love toward an object may be known by the direction of our thoughts; for on the beloved object our thoughts chiefly dwell.

2. By our anxiety in regard to its welfare.

3. By the extent of suffering which we are willing to undergo for the person beloved.

4. By the prominence given to the object beloved.

II. This love, and the relationships implied in it. There is a close relationship between God and His people. He is their God in a peculiar sense. Consider by what names He is called. Mediator, Advocate, Captain, Surety, Head, King of Saints, etc.

III. Consider what Christ has already done for His people. They are His by choice, by purchase, by a new creation, by covenant. And we have the whole past experience of the Christian Church to prove the truth of the text. (James Begg, D. D.)

A duster of grapes

These words were primarily addressed to the daughter of Zion, to Israel the chosen people; and they undoubtedly foreshadow blessings which are yet to be realised. Ten times over in this chapter God assures His people of what He will most certainly do on their behalf. But a much wider circle than the chosen race may appropriate the blessed comfort of these words. Twice over in this paragraph we are told that the Lord, the King of Israel, is in the midst of His people. This is an indisputable fact. He is in the midst of His Church, so that it shall not be moved. Well would it be if each Christian were to devote some portion, however brief, in each day, to meditation upon this marvellous fact. “The mighty God, the King, is in the midst of me. I am God-tenanted, God-possessed. The High and Holy One who inhabiteth eternity has taken up His abode in my heart.” And this marvellous indwelling--more wonderful than if an angel were to indwell an emmet or a humming-bird--is not dependent on frames or feelings or aught in us; but endures through all our changes and fluctuations unto the eternal ages. But if the mighty God is indeed in us, why is there so much weakness and failure in our lives? Alas, the answer is not far to seek--we have limited the Holy One of Israel. What now shall hinder us ridding ourselves of all which has hindered Him from doing His mighty works, so that He may do that which He so much loves, and which we so much need? Then we may expect Him to accomplish the four blessed “I wills” of this precious verse.

I. “He will save.” As God took the side of His people against their foes, and will do so again in the final struggle, when His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, so will He take our side against our sins. He has saved us from the penalty of sin. He will also save us from its power. Your foes may be numerous as the devils in hell, strong and wily; but He will save. Your temperament may be as susceptible to temptation as an aspen leaf is to the wind; but He will save. Your past years, by repeated acts of indulgence, may have formed habits strong as iron bands; but He will save. Your circumstances and companions may be most unfavourable to a life of victory; but He will save. Difficulties are nought to Him; the darkness shineth as the day.

II. He “will rejoice over thee with joy.” The great evangelic prophet gives the key to understand this promise when he says, “As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.” Plato held that love is the attraction to each other of twin souls, made each for the other, and moving towards each other; until each finds in the other the complement and supply of the needs of its own nature. As we need God, so does God need us. There is something in us which satisfies Him, and without which His nature would not be perfectly content. We should have thought that our sin would alienate Him from us for ever. But His yearning for us is greater than His hatred of our sin.

III. “He will rest in His love.” The margin suggests an exquisite alternative, “He will be silent in His love.” Of old the Psalmist said that his soul was silent in its calm expectancy for God’s salvation. Here we are told that God is silent in His brooding tenderness. All the deepest emotion is silent. When we are told, then, that God’s love will be a silent one, we know that it is too intense, too deep, too infinite to find expression. It will break silence presently; but in the meanwhile be still, and know that God is love.

IV. “he will joy over thee with singing.” It is much to hear a lark sing, as if its throat must be torn by the torrent of melody; more to hear a child sing as it comes down a woodland path in spring, chequered with sunlight falling on blue hyacinths and yellow primroses; more still to hear an angel sing, as the lone messenger of God breaks into melody to cheer himself on some distant journey from the Home of Song; more still to have heard our Saviour sing in the days of His earthly ministry, when He joined His disciples in the Jewish Hallel: but what will it not be when the great God Himself breaks into song, to celebrate an accomplished work, an emancipated world, a redeemed race, a Bride won for His Son! (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)