Well, this evening our confessional lesson is from the Westminster, the Westminster Confession of Faith. Chapter on Providence, you can find that on page 923. 923, it's chapter seven. Or excuse me, I'm sorry, chapter five, page 923. And I wanna read paragraphs five and six. on page 923. Again, this is talking about the doctrine of providence. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they might be humbled, and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends. Paragraph six, as for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous judge, excuse me, as a righteous judge for former sins, does blind and harden, from them he not only withholds his grace, whereby they might have been enlightened in their understanding, excuse me, and wrought upon in their hearts, but sometimes also withdraws the gifts which they had and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasions of sin, and withal gives them over to their own lusts the temptations of the world and the power of Satan, whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves even under those means which God uses for the softening of others. So the opening paragraphs of this chapter highlight the absolute sovereignty of God, that everything that unfolds in God's creation is according to his free and immutable counsel. And those opening paragraphs teach us that God can exercise his sovereignty directly upon creation through miracles, or he can exercise his providence through ordinary means, but the purpose is simple. God's purposes can never be thwarted. At the same time, God's sovereignty does no violence to the will of the creature. In other words, even though God is sovereign over all, no creature can ever blame God for their sin. Even as we acknowledge that our sin is part of His sovereign decree, we also have to confess that God is not and can never be the author of sin. To be sure, that's a part of the mystery of providence. Now specifically, when we find ourselves knee-deep in temptation and amidst a fierce battle in our soul, how do we make sense of God's sovereign providence? Well, that's actually what paragraph five is addressing. It reminds us that especially during those times. The things that are happening aren't issues and events that somehow slipped out of God's control. Our temptations don't catch God off guard. He has a purpose in them, and the purposes we endure as his people facing those temptations ultimately are to grow us in holiness. You see, God is unswervingly committed to our growth in holiness. And so there are occasions when providentially he will leave his children to muck around in their sin for a while, to teach us how vile it is and how deep it runs into our being. And again, it's not because God wants us to suffer, but it's because He loves us and He wants us to know that sin only ever ruins and corrupts. and leads to death. So for a season to chastise us for former sins or to discover the corruption and deceitfulness of sin that still exists in our hearts, He may humble us in order to bring us to a more intimate and constant dependence upon Him and to make us more aware and more watchful of the various sins that easily beset us. So that's one of the purposes for which God will use evil and temptation, those things that tempt us and harass us, he's using them to shape us. In other words, he's always using them for our highest good. He lets his children experience the sin that they long for, for a season, to remind us that it's putrid and poison to our soul. Well, then paragraph 10 addresses the way God's sovereignty works in the lives of wicked and ungodly men. And it reminds us that there's a terrifying reality woven throughout the tapestry of Scripture, one that functions as a breathtaking warning that in the righteous judgment of God, He will give men over to their own sin. While we often reflect on the amazing grace of God that draws, illumines, transforms, we've got to reckon with this stunning biblical truth that God in His justice also blinds and hardens those who persist in rebellion. The doctrine of divine hardening is oft-repeated warning in God's Word, and Pharaoh stands as a famous example. God hardened his heart. And even though the Egyptian monarch saw the power and majesty of God in the plagues, and he saw God overcoming all their false gods, Pharaoh's heart grew harder. And this is where some people will say, you know, I've read that account and that just doesn't seem fair that God did that to Pharaoh, that he hardened his heart. But the confession helps us understand and really address that objection in a super important way. If you glance there again at paragraph six, just before it mentions God blinding and hardening, we're told the basis upon which God does this. It's for former sins. In other words, when God hardened Pharaoh's heart, it's not like this Egyptian king was morally neutral or in some sort of state of innocence and God just forced him to be wicked. He really wanted to be a good guy. All of Pharaoh's life he wanted to be Mr. Rogers, but God hardened his heart. No, no. He was a sinner by birth and by practice. He was a perpetual, committed, idolatry, idolater, and it was perfectly just for God to harden this sinner in his natural disposition. And God can do that without at all being culpable for his sin. And our confession tells us that he accomplishes that hardening passively by withholding grace, and actively by exposing the wicked to circumstances that will become fuel for further corruption. And that last phrase in paragraph six tells us the chief means that God uses in hardening is the very same means which God uses for the softening of others. So in Pharaoh's case, every time he saw the power of God, every time he heard the word of God proclaimed to him from Moses, he had to make a decision, submit to it or rebel against it. And every time he rebels against it, his heart gets harder and harder toward the things of God. So with each rejection, he adds to his own hardening and ultimately the judgment that he'll experience in eternity. Now what makes this judgment so dreadful is that those given over to it are often blind to their own condition. They don't know they're lost. They remain convinced of their own wisdom and are emboldened to continue in their deception and often are quite sure of their moral superiority. They're oblivious to the fact that they're walking deeper and deeper into doom, and that the eternal chains of condemnation are tightening around their souls, and that God's given them over to their lusts, to the temptations of the world, and to the power of Satan. And again, what's arresting is that the very means God uses to soften the elect, He uses to harden the wicked and the ungodly. And here's the thing. This doesn't only apply to pagan rulers like Pharaoh or to the general unbelieving world. It applies to God's people, to the visible covenant community. In many ways, this is echoing what we learned this morning from Hebrews 4.12, that the word of God is a two-edged sword that cuts in two direction. It can cut to heal, or it can cut to harden. And God's hardening can definitely take place within the covenant community. Listen to Psalm 81 verses 10 through 12. I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I'll fill it. But my people did not listen to my voice. Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels. This is a picture of God giving over Israel. It's a dreadful picture, isn't it? So let me quickly recap. In paragraph five, God's providence is at work to chastise believers. to help us be more earnest in our relationship with Him. In paragraph six, God's providence is at work to judge unbelief and to further harden hearts. But here's the thing, while God knows, of course, who belongs to the teaching of paragraph five and who belongs to the teaching of paragraph six, we don't. And what's tragic is coming to the realization that there are people who you thought were being chastised, and over time it becomes more and more apparent that there are people who are being hardened. That's why, even in a church where you may know people for decades and decades, you're always calling them to turn from their sin, turn to Christ, flee from unrighteousness, find yourself in the arms of Jesus, turn from your sin, fall before the foot of the cross and ask for forgiveness. We're always going to be saying that because irrespective of what I think or might think I know about another person, it's quite possible that a person can function in the covenant community and never close with Jesus, and we don't want that. That's why we always call people to faith and repentance. This evening, as we return to our study in Zephaniah, we'll see this great tragedy at work in Judah and Jerusalem. And it'll become clear that they're not merely being chastised. They're being judged. And we're reminded it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of God. Well, dear ones, let me ask you to open up your copy of scripture to Zephaniah chapter three. Zephaniah chapter three. We're gonna read verses one through eight. I think we're gonna stop at verse seven this evening, but let's go ahead and read down through verse eight. Beginning of verse 1, this is the true Word of God. Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted, to the oppressing city. She's not obeyed His voice. She's not received correction. She's not trusted in the Lord. She's not drawn near to her God. Her princes in her midst are roaring lions. Her judges are evening wolves that leave not a bone till morning. Her prophets are insolent, treacherous people. Her priests have polluted the sanctuary. They've done violence to the law. The Lord is righteous in her midst. He'll do no unrighteousness. Every morning he brings his justice to light. He never fails. But the unjust knows no shame. I've cut off nations. Their fortresses are devastated. I've made their streets desolate with none passing by. Their cities are destroyed. There's no one, no inhabitant. I said, surely you'll fear me, you'll receive instruction. So that her dwelling would not be cut off, despite everything for which I punished her. But they rose early and corrupted all their deeds. Therefore, wait for me, says the Lord, until the day I rise up for plunder. My determination is to gather the nations to my assembly of kingdoms, to pour on them my indignation, all my fierce anger. All the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. Well, there ends the reading of God's holy word. May it bless it to our hearts this evening. Dearest congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, a favorite phrase of the old Puritan Matthew Henry is, there's none so blind as those who will not see, and none so deaf as those who will not hear. And this evening, that could be writ large over our passage and applied quite directly to Jerusalem. And the warning in Zephaniah could also be writ large over a great many churches. In that way, it forces us to look at and perhaps identify some of the signs that inevitably lead to the moral and theological decline of churches. Now you'll recall that Zephaniah prophesied during the reign of Josiah. And of course, Josiah was the last faithful king in the southern kingdom, and he truly was a godly king. He was a man who was passionate about reforming the kingdom. The problem was, while the people went along with his reforms, much of the southern kingdom was simply going along to get along. They liked the prosperity that Josiah had brought to the land because the Lord was blessing him. But by and large, most of the folks in Jerusalem and Judea at this point in time had hearts that had not been changed. They, they were simply doing external practices with no zeal or passion or heart for the Lord. And that's likely why one of the main themes in this short prophecy is the day of the Lord, the day of God's judgment. And we've learned that Zephaniah doesn't hold back in describing the horrors of God's judgment that's coming to the surrounding nations and also to Judah. Now much of chapter two was describing God's judgment on the nations. And there's a transition from chapter 2 to chapter 3 that the chapter break masks. And so I want to point this out to you. The last prophecy in chapter 2 was against Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria. Glance back at verse 15. This is where it's describing Nineveh. This is the rejoicing city that dwelt securely, that said in her heart, I am it. and there's none besides me. How she has become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down. Everyone who passes by her shall hiss and shake his fist." So Zephaniah is taking the city of Nineveh to task for her hubris. But here's what I want you to see. When we transition to chapter three, we read that Zephaniah is lowering the boom on this rebellious and polluted city. And here's the thing. When this was first heard, they would have thought the prophet was still talking about Nineveh. You see, it isn't until we get to the end of verse 2 that you learn that the prophet's no longer prophesying against Nineveh, he's prophesying against Jerusalem. You see in verse 2 it says, the city that has not drawn near to her God, that has to be Jerusalem. Because Yahweh, the covenant name of God is used there. And then down in verse 5 it says, the Lord is righteous in her midst. Again, this can only be Jerusalem. But the point is when they first heard that, whoa. Pronounced in verse 1, they would have been thinking, that's just what Nineveh deserves. She's got it coming, good riddance, whoa to them. And what a shock it must have been when they realized that the prophet was not speaking of a distant nation, but to their beloved Jerusalem. It wasn't the city of Nineveh alone that had fallen under God's judgment, it's the city of David. That's now under this judgment. And I suspect that Zephaniah's rhetorical sleight of hand here was to bring Judah under conviction for her self-righteousness. And to emphasize that if God's people sin like the world, if they practice idolatry like the world, if they're faithless like the world, they will be judged like the world. I entitled this sermon, Jerusalem, the city that has not. And it becomes clear how I chose that title when we read verses 1 and 2. Let's do that. I want to read those verses again. Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted to the oppressing city. She has not obeyed His voice. She has not received correction. She has not trusted in the Lord. She has not drawn near to her God. This is the city that has not. Notice a woe is pronounced on Jerusalem. Woe is a powerful word in the Bible. In the Bible, it's never a word that tells a horse to stop. Woe means grief, it means anguish, it means calamity, it means wretchedness, and it's typically associated with divine judgment. Think of the language Jesus used for the Pharisees. Woe, that's the language of divine judgment, God's intention to bring calamity on the immoral and the wicked. So a woe is basically an exclamation point of God's divine displeasure. And again, the surprise here is that this is against Jerusalem. Now, Zephaniah tells us why they've incurred this woe in verses one and two. He's gonna heap up reasons associated with Jerusalem as a city. In other words, with the general populace. And then in verses three and four, he's gonna tell us about Jerusalem's leaders. So let's unpack this. There are three descriptors there in verse one that trace the contours of Jerusalem's moral collapse. They're rebellious, polluted, and oppressive. To be rebellious is to reject divine authority, to cast off God's covenant rule. It's to live as though you simply don't care that God's revealed himself to you in his word and through his covenant, right? And the idea here, when it speaks of rebellion, is not simply people who are misguided or uninformed. It's people who are willfully disobedient. They just discard God's truth. They refuse to submit. Like Israel in the wilderness. They stiffened their necks and they hardened their hearts. And we've learned in our morning sermon series in Hebrews that of that first exodus generation, the first exodus generation, they had hardened their hearts. And because they hardened their hearts and would not hear the Word of God and obey it, they weren't able to enter the rest of the promised land. And now some thousand years have passed, it's in the future, and Israel's about to be driven out of the promised land because of their hard-hearted rebellion. So the first thing we're told is Jerusalem is rebellious. I sat down at my desk this afternoon and opened up my browser and Facebook came up. I don't normally do social media on the Lord's Day, but there's a website, a group that I'm a member of called Holland Informed, the best one. And someone was asking for a church that's LGBTQIA accepting. Did you see it, Anne? And I remember thinking how surreal that is. that they would just ask a question that's so ridiculous. Because both the asker and many of the answers to the question demonstrated that they're in rebellion against God, right? It's mind boggling that you say, I'm looking for a church that purposefully accepts and embraces and celebrates the kind of things that God hates. But that's what they're doing. And there were people saying, oh, go to this church and go to this church. And they were just happy to share. That's a picture of Jerusalem in rebellion. And they are under the woe of God. Well, Jerusalem's polluted. Excuse me, is rebellious. She's also polluted. That's a way to say she's morally unclean, morally unclean. And remember, Jerusalem was supposed to be the holy city of God. And yet it had become so impure that it forfeited its ability to even draw near to God. And as we're gonna see in a minute, that didn't really matter to them. They weren't interested in drawing near to God. And then third, the city was oppressive. Jerusalem was to be governed righteously because ultimately the king of Jerusalem was never David, it was Yahweh. The temple was his throne room and Jerusalem was to be governed in equity and righteousness and governed in such a way that the powerful could never crush the weak. And that apparently is just what was happening. So again, you can get the sense that Zephaniah is basically heaping reason after reason for this woe. And we get to verse two. That's where we see Jerusalem's designation is that she has not. She's not obeyed His voice. She's not received correction. She's not trusted in the Lord. She's not drawn near to her God. And this is really a comprehensive spiritual diagnosis. And tragically, it's a terminal diagnosis. The people had closed their ears to God's Word. They had hardened their hearts to correction. They had turned their backs in faithlessness and they had walked away from any real covenant relationship with their God. And what we see here is not merely moral failure but relational betrayal. And it provides us something of a mini-theology of spiritual decline, right? That disobedience leads to hardness and more hardness of heart eventually leads to distrust and that distrust eventually manifests in unfaithfulness and that can only ever lead to a distance from God. And that's a trajectory that Jerusalem is on. And when I hear of churches that are supportive of abominations, that's the trajectory they've gone down. And again, as I said in the introduction, this is something we should constantly be on guard against. You know what? None of those churches that are doing that, none of those churches that are pro-abortion, none of those churches that are promoting immorality did it overnight, right? Satan, he masquerades as an angel of light. He never shows up in a church and says, you know what? This is a faithful church. I got an idea. How about you deny the deity of Christ? No, no, no. It's a little compromise at a time. And you know where it starts? I mentioned this in Sunday School this morning, because we see this repeating itself in history right now. It often starts right here. Women can be deacons. And if women can be deacons, they can be elders. When Paul said that Women should learn in silence in the church, or that men should be elders. That was culturally conditioned. That's not the way it is today. It's a different situation, a different cultural context. You understand, once the devil gets that foothold in the church, that's exactly the same argument that's used to promote homosexuality. That was a cultural context. It was a specific thing. It happens step by step by step. And it's a dreadful trajectory. because it's a trajectory that resides under the woe of God. It's a tragic thing when the people of God lose their spiritual sensitivity. That ought to be something we are evaluating. Every generation of believers are ultimately tempted to trade covenant obedience for cultural conformity. And it always leads to catastrophe. It always leads to woe. In verses 3 and 4, Zephaniah sort of moves his prophetic gaze toward the direction of Jerusalem's corrupt leadership. And he basically shines a spotlight on four groups. Princes, judges, prophets, and priests. First, the princes he describes as roaring lions. So it's an image of power and violence, right? And here's the thing, princes... They had a proper authority to use force, but they were to use their force, they were to use the sword to protect and to govern justly. But the problem is, this imagery indicates that the princes had become predators, and they're devouring the very people they were called to serve. It says the judges were evening See, unlike lions, wolves hunt in packs and they often hunt under the cover of night. And so there's something secretive about the way these judges worked, right? And again, this is one of the great crimes for God's covenant people in the old covenant was to have judges who were bribed and could be manipulated and transformed away from righteousness. And look at the gruesome detail. They leave not a bone till morning, right? So these evening wolves, they're not just practicing injustice. They're living out a kind of predatory greed. They're not upholding the law for their own sake and for their own pleasure. They're exploiting the vulnerable. Then comes the prophets. These are the mouthpieces of God. They're the people that are called to speak God's Word, to speak it faithfully, to speak it truthfully, to speak it clearly. But Zephaniah calls them insolent and treacherous. They're not just false prophets in doctrine, but the picture here is they're corrupt in their character. Their words aren't shaped by God's truth, but by their own self-interest. And finally, the priests. These were the spiritual shepherds of the people. But instead of preserving the holiness of the sanctuary, they had polluted it. They had done violence to the law. And that phrase, It's powerful. You see, God's law was given for life and flourishing, and they were twisting it, mishandling it, trampling it underfoot. So we're getting a very dismal picture of Jerusalem's leadership. It's compromised. The people are in peril. Several things we should think about in this regard. This is a clarion call to pray for the integrity of the church's shepherds and teachers, right? Because church leaders can be a great blessing or they can be a disaster waiting to happen. That's the situation in Jerusalem under the days of Zephaniah. There weren't faithful leaders, presumably apart from Josiah. And in every instance, these leaders will be held to a stricter judgment. Well, verse 5 pauses to provide us a bit of a contrast, a contrast between the unrighteousness of Jerusalem with the righteousness of the Lord who dwells in their midst. Though the city was polluted, God He's pure. Though the leaders were unjust, God never fails in justice. Though the people had turned away, God had not left. He was still present, righteous, holy, steadfast, faithful. Every morning Zephaniah says, he brings his justice to light. In other words, he never fails. The steadfastness of God here stands in stark contrast to the treachery of man. He's the same. yesterday, today, and forever. But here's the tragedy. Despite the fact that God's there, his righteousness is there, his presence remains among them, we're told the unjust know no shame. They weren't fazed at all. by the presence of God. God's holiness in no way convicted them. God's righteousness in no way moved their hearts to repentance. God's constancy with them, God's mercy instead of being met with repentance was met with hardening. They had become desensitized to evil, no thought of God's holiness. And it's a picture that the people, the language indicates the people had lost the ability to blush. A famous Mark Twain quote, you may have heard, humans are the only animals that blush or need to. Well, Jerusalem had forgotten the need to blush. They just accepted whatever moral perversion that they wished. So what are we to make of this? Well, the church has got to make sure we don't presume immunity from God's rebuke or God's woe. There's a picture in Revelation where the Lord Jesus removes lampstands, and that's a picture of a woe falling on a church, and the Lord Jesus saying, actually, that's no longer a church. That still happens today. Think of how many churches, I bet all of we, if we put our heads together, we could come up with hundreds of churches that 30 years ago were so faithful. 20 years ago, they were fairly faithful. 10 years ago, they were marginally faithful. And today, they're residing under the woe of God. Why? because they compromise. The sins of rebellious hearts corrupt leadership and create spiritual apathy. Did in Jerusalem, it does in churches. Well, God's righteousness isn't merely a standard of judgment in this picture, it's also a source of hope. The Lord is righteous in our midst, not only to judge, but to save. The righteousness that condemns our sin is the same righteousness that was satisfied on the cross of Jesus Christ. There, justice and mercy kissed. There, our guilt was transferred to the spotless Lamb of God. Though we've polluted the sanctuary, Christ has purified His people. Though we've done violence to the law, Christ has fulfilled the law on our behalf. Though we were once rebellious, Christ has reconciled us to himself by his own blood. And we need to pray that the Lord would raise up leaders and men of God who tremble at God's word. for leaders who will be shepherds for the church, leaders who will in some way properly reflect the righteousness of the one who dwells in our midst. Well, as we move on to verses six and seven, what we have here is a surprising gospel track, a surprising gospel track. that sadly fell on deaf ears. Listen to verses six and seven. I've cut off nations. Their fortresses are devastated. I've made their streets desolate with none passing by. Their cities are destroyed. There's no one, excuse me, there's no one, no inhabiting. I said, surely you'll fear me. You'll receive instruction so that her dwelling would not be cut off. Despite everything for which I punished her, but they rose early and corrupted all their deeds." You see, God begins here by pointing to the evidence of His justice that's already been displayed in the other nations. I've cut off nations. Their fortresses have been devastated. Again, this is not hypothetical. This is historical. The Lord's already demonstrated His power to judge. Now, we don't know for sure at this point if Zephaniah was referring to the Assyrian destruction or, or the neighboring peoples in terms of the early, earlier acts of divine judgment, but the point's clear. God has already brought down cities all around Jerusalem, cities that were much stronger than Jerusalem. He's raised entire nations who seemed invincible. Their streets are silent, their walls lay in ruins, their once bustling cities are emptied of life. Not even a traveler passes through anymore. And why is God saying this? Because He, He wanted the people of Jerusalem to take notice. He wanted to see the devastation as a warning to them. And there's grace in that, isn't there? Even in judgment, God, God's using this as a teaching moment, an opportunity for them to turn. All those fallen cities were to serve as signposts, reminders that God's not gonna wink at sin forever. He's judging the nations to tell Israel, repent, turn from your immorality, why there's time. It's a kind of gospel track, the judgment is coming. And yet, Jerusalem, refused to learn. They woke up, saw what God had done, and continued in their evil deeds. This is a spiritual principle we probably overlook. God's providence in history is often a megaphone. to call his people to repentance. His judgments, even on others, function as warnings for us. When we see societies collapse under the weight of moral rebellion or institutions crumble from greed and corruption, we ought not to simply analyze them as a headline, but we should see them in tremble. to know that God's speaking. He judges immorality. He judges wickedness, even today. And the issue always comes back to this. Are we listening? Verse seven, we see that this tragedy of their hardened heart We hear the heartache of God's divine reasoning. I said, surely you will fear me. Surely you will receive my instruction. It's though God pauses, again using anthropomorphic language, it's though God pauses to reflect on what he had hoped from his people. He had spoken through judgment, through discipline, through prophets. And yet despite everything the people saw, They didn't repent. And the irony here is so that her dwelling wouldn't be cut off. In other words, this was all meant to spare them from destruction. The judgment of others was intended to be the salvation of Jerusalem if only she would take heed. Again, but they rose early, they corrupted all their deeds. The people were eager to sin. They loved their sin. They had no room left in their lives for the Lord. They didn't draft, excuse me, they didn't drift into sin half asleep. These are folks who got up early in the morning for it. The rebellion was intentional. Their sin had become habitual. And Jerusalem's not gonna be chastised. She's gonna be judged. She's not gonna be chastised. She's gonna be judged. This is why, dear ones, we never take our faith for granted. We never presume upon the grace of God. This is why we always cling to Jesus Christ and what he's done for us. Because it is a very dangerous transition, if I can go back to my confessional lesson, to transition from paragraph five, where we're being chastised, to paragraph six, and we're being judged. That's where Jerusalem is. That's a stark warning. There is hope. There is gospel hope yet. but that'll be next week. This passage leaves us longing for that hope and also evaluating our own hearts, our own lives, our own expression of the covenant community. May God give us wisdom in those things. Amen. Let me give you a moment if you have any questions or comments. I thought it was interesting to see the unity in the scripture. Leponiah goes from the Gentiles to the people of God, and then Paul, Romans 1, goes from the Gentiles. Chapter 2 goes from the people of God. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Actually, I don't know if you've ever heard of Ian Dugud, D-U-G-U-I-D. He's a commentator. He actually worked that out pretty extensively in a commentary. That's a cool, cool observation, yeah. You know what, this pattern that Zephaniah follows is not any different than the one Amos follows in the first chapter and a half, the first two chapters of Amos, right? Amos is going to pronounce woe on all these nations. And it's interesting because Amos in his prophecy, he actually starts with the nation that's furthest away from Israel. And again, Amos was a prophet to the northern kingdom, right? So he goes around all these foreign nations and he announces the judgment that's going to fall on them and the reason for which they'll be judged. Then Amos, says the judgment of God is gonna come on Jerusalem and Judah for their sin and immorality and idolatry. And then it's fascinating because the same thing, he follows the same pattern. You get the sense that Israel's thinking, well, those four nations deserve it. And while the southern kingdom are our cousins and our brothers and sisters in the faith, they probably deserve it too. And then Amos does the same thing, he drops the hammer on them. Where I'm going with this is all these passages are teaching us to inculcate into our lives an important biblical principle, right? The judgment begins with the household of God. It always starts right here. That's why when I'm praying for revival, I pray for it here in my heart, in his heart, in your heart, that it starts here and that God works out because that's the biblical principle. God's gonna judge all of this for sure, but it always starts right here. Yeah. Any other? Just with more of a confessional lesson. When we talk about God hardening Pharaoh's heart, could it be said that that could be a massive act of God in that he's just letting Pharaoh and all wicked people he's just letting Pharaoh be Pharaoh. He just lets the wicked be, they in a sense, dig their own, they harden their own bones. Because that's what it is already. And so God just withholds his grace, and that's really a passive way of hardening their bones. I don't know if you guys heard what he asked. Could we see God's hardening of Pharaoh's heart as something that's primarily passive? In other words, God's simply letting Pharaoh be Pharaoh, right? And it's actually a great question, and it's one that's been debated in the Reformed community for centuries. There are basically two views. It's the hardening retributive justice, but that would be the point you're saying, and that would be the point I would hold to. In other words, yes, he was a sinner, and God's just letting his sin reach its fruit and its dessert, right? Other Reformed people like A.W. Pink, he actually saw hardening as God sovereignly accomplishing the hardening. I have a problem with that because it's hard for me in my mind to think God's doing that without him being then the author of sin. So I've always had a problem with that. So that's why I've always fallen down on the retributive side of that. Yeah, so, but that's exactly right. And I may not have communicated that well, but that's really the idea. And again, I love the way the confession says this, for their sins, da, da, da, da, da. Again, there's no morally neutral righteous people who God's zapping and turning them into wicked little monsters. Yeah, so. Any other? The part that I find arresting, though, is that he uses the same means to harden that he uses to soften. Again, it gets back to all this. This morning and this evening, it comes down to this. The means of grace goes forth. The word goes out. It does its thing 100% of the time. Anything else? Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your Word, even a Word that's a challenge to us because it forces us to think carefully about our lives and the way we seek to be faithful. Help us to be men and women of God who are always living close to Jesus Christ, who keep short accounts with our sin. who long to walk in obedience. Again, O God, we know that our best righteousness is as filthy rags, but we seek to walk faithfully because we love you. Lord, help us to continue to do that, to persevere us and strengthen us. We ask all this in Jesus' name, amen. Let me ask you to stand, dear ones, to receive the Lord's benediction. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. And all of God's people said, amen.