August 4, 2025 • 62 mins
Ever feel like you're screaming prayers into the void? You're in good company. Through the unique voices of Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Amos, we discover an uncomfortable truth: sometimes God's answers look nothing like what we expect.
Tyler Burke introduces us to Habakkuk, the "emo prophet" whose complaints against God reveal something profound about our own perspective. When Israel faced violence and injustice, Habakkuk questioned why God wouldn't act. God's response? "I'll send the Babylonians"—a nation even more wicked than Israel. This wasn't the resolution Habakkuk wanted, but through this exchange, we witness a transformation. Habakkuk's self-righteous pride gives way to humble recognition that God's discipline isn't unfair punishment but loving correction.
Christina pulls back the curtain on Zephaniah's warnings to a people who practiced religious duplicity—worshiping God publicly while bowing to other gods privately. Sound familiar? Today's idols may look different (materialism, self-promotion, political obsession), but they're just as dangerous when prioritized above God. Yet amidst the sobering warnings, Zephaniah delivers one of Scripture's most tender promises: "The Lord your God is with you... He will rejoice over you with singing."
Eddie Perez rounds out the trio with Amos, the farmer-turned-prophet who feared God more than men. Using the powerful metaphor of hands versus face, Eddie distinguishes between knowing about God (praising Him for what He does) and truly knowing Him (worshiping Him for who He is). Our prayer life, Eddie suggests, reveals our proximity to Jesus and determines how we respond when God commands.
Whether you're questioning God's justice, struggling with divided loyalties, or longing for closer relationship with Him, these ancient voices speak directly to our modern condition. The real question is: will we have the courage to listen?
How might your perspective shift if you understood that God loves you too much to let you destroy your soul? Join the conversation and discover what these overlooked prophets have to say to your heart today.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
AI Video (00:05):
Okay, I'll go first.
I just feel like my entirecareer has been one big
misunderstanding.
Misunderstanding.
You told a whole city to repent.
They did, and then you threw ahissy fit because God was
merciful.
That's not a misunderstanding,jonah, that's called being a
baby.
It's not that simple.
(00:26):
I spent three days inside afish.
And for what?
For them to just listen.
It's insulting.
At least you got a clearinstruction.
I keep asking God why are thewicked winning?
When will justice come?
I just get silence, just a lotof the just shall live by his
(00:47):
faith.
It's so vague, vague.
You should try my shtick.
The whole thing is the day ofthe Lord is near.
Every day I wake up and it'sjust still near.
It's a marketing nightmare.
No sense of urgency.
You think you got it bad.
I was a shepherd, a fig farmer.
(01:10):
I was minding my own business,just trying to make an honest
living, and now I'm the posterboy for divine rage.
At least you didn't have todeal with a big magical plant
that grew and then withered justto teach you a lesson, the
emotional whiplash of it all,and the sun was so hot.
(01:31):
So are we going to talk aboutany of this with God or just
keep complaining to each other.
The prophecy is that there willbe no more of this.
The prophecy is that there willbe no more of this, so that's
something to look forward to.
Angus MacLeod (01:47):
Amen, jeremy, thank you so much for doing
those videos for us each week.
They've been quite a blessingto us, and we're just so
thankful that you've taken thetime to do those for us.
Well, today we are continuingour series on the Minor Prophets
, and Pastor Jay is giving usanother opportunity to hear from
three more voices, and I'm sograteful that Pastor Jay's done
(02:11):
this during this series because,like the prophets, they all had
a different voice, they alltook a different tone, they were
all speaking to different typesof people in different areas in
their lives, and being able tohear from so many different
voices has given us just anincredible opportunity to really
focus in on each one, and soI'm very thankful for that.
So today we're going to havethree people come up and share.
(02:35):
The first one is Tyler Burke.
He is our men's director.
He also serves on the ServantsCouncil, and so, without further
ado, I'm going to invite Tylerup.
But first let's hear from oneof the prophets.
AI Video (02:48):
All right, another late night session, another
existential crisis.
It's still happening.
The chaos, the absolutedumpster fire that is our
society Violence, injustice.
I've been screaming into thevoid people, and where is he?
Huh, where's the big man?
(03:09):
Is anyone even listening to myDMs, my prayers?
Because, honestly, if he islistening and he's choosing to
do nothing, what does that evenmean for us?
Did you guys just hear that?
Okay, so he just spoke and hesaid Look among the nations and
(03:34):
watch.
Be utterly amazed, for I amgoing to do something in your
days that you would not believe.
I am raising up the BabyloniansWait, the Babylonians, you mean
those guys, but, but, butthey're worse.
(03:54):
This is, this is not theresolution I was looking for,
people.
Tyler (04:01):
Thank you, jeremy, for that video.
He's doing good.
Can we give Jeremy a round ofapplause for those videos he did
so good.
I think I'm done.
This sums it up.
Just kidding, just like PastorAngus introed me.
My name is Tyler Burke.
I serve as men's director hereon the Servants Council.
(04:21):
Real quick, is there any guy inhere that this is their first
week here at Cornerstone?
Raise your hand.
I see I got something for you.
I won't call you out Anyone.
Yeah, I knew I didn't see.
Hey, can you catch?
That's a shirt for you.
Man, just wanted to invite youguys out.
(04:42):
In September we start lifegroups again.
It's a great place to getconnected.
If you're not connectedsomewhere, if you want to be
discipled more, if you just wantto hang out, even if you want
to serve in the community, wehave something for you.
We have men's group that meets,we have hangouts, we go bowling
, do all kinds of stuff.
I can't even keep up with itanymore, but you're more than
welcome to come.
(05:02):
I invite you to come to it,starting in September.
All right, so let's jump intothis.
The prophet Habakkuk All right,so with Habakkuk, he's a minor
prophet in the time of Israeland during this time.
Kind of what's going on isIsrael is kind of not listening
(05:22):
to God.
Not kind of.
They're not listening to Godand they know better.
They're morally in decline.
They're spiritually in decline,not listening to God, and they
don't have excuses.
They have the Torah, they havethe Ten Commandments, they have
all the other prophets that havetold them otherwise, and
they're still practicing things.
They're still doing things likesexual immorality.
(05:44):
There's still social injusticespracticing things.
They're still doing things likesexual immorality.
There's still social injusticesamong them.
They're taking advantage ofpeople financially amongst
themselves and they'reworshiping other gods.
Right, this could be your firstSunday in church and you've at
least heard the Ten Commandmentsand you know that's a big one.
Right, you don't have anothergod before God, right?
Habakkuk in verse 3 describesthe times as this destruction
(06:10):
and violence are before me,there is strife and conflict
abounds.
This is the situation theIsraelites find themselves in.
Now we have to understand kindof the literary style of
Habakkuk.
It's not just a set ofinstructions, it's like a lament
.
They called it, which is kindof like a poem that expresses
(06:32):
grief and sorrow.
If you kind of think aboutmodern times, it's like emo rock
.
Yes, I grew up in the late 90s,early 20s.
Yeah, you can laugh, it's fine.
You know where we're going withthis.
So emo rock, very depressed,moping, all about yourself, a
why me mentality, and you woreit right, you wore the dark
(06:53):
hoodie, like in this nextpicture there's this guy who has
a lot of potential, growing upwore the dark hoodie, looking
out into the abyss, thinking andself-loathing about everything
that's going on in his life.
Right, it came out of the punkrock, pop rock where everything
was spiky.
Well, then you got into emorock and then now you're Mohawk,
kind of sag to the side and sodepressed.
(07:15):
But not only that.
In emo rock, people evenhighlighted their depression,
their struggle, their why me, asin this next photo you see,
they would highlight the hairthat would cover their face.
Now, if you don't know this guy, he's a great guy.
He used to be a youth pastorhere.
We sent him out in the missionfield, served overseas for a
long time and now he's oursenior pastor.
(07:37):
This was Pastor Jay.
I know you're on vacation,sorry, this was on your Facebook
, so that's open source.
You guys can go ahead and leavethat up for the rest of the
sermon, just kidding.
So this next photo is ofHabakkuk.
I called him kind of the emoprophet, if you will, all right.
(07:58):
So this is important because inthe book of Habakkuk it's a
series of complaints that he hasbefore God, and God gives him a
series of replies and he endswith a song All right.
So let's look at Habakkuk'sfirst complaint.
In verse 2, he says this howlong, Lord, must I call for help
?
But you don't listen.
(08:21):
Habakkuk victimizes himself andaccuses God of being an
accessory to Israel's turmoil.
Now, this is Habakkuk'sperspective, right?
He's accusing God of nothelping them, but they're the
ones that are doing thesepractices, living these
lifestyles.
So do you think that they'rethe ones bringing a lot of the
(08:42):
destruction in their own lives?
The immoral lifestyle of Israelwas their own fault.
They were not the oneslistening to God's commands.
Something to take away fromhere is that how many times do
(09:03):
we accuse God of our ownsuffering in our lives, when
it's we're the ones that's notlistening to him suffering in
our lives, when it's we're theones that's not listening to him
?
This is God's reply toHabakkuk's first complaint.
In verse 5, he says this beutterly amazed, for I'm going to
do something in your days thatyou won't believe, even if I
told you.
Now, god's not one forhyperbole, so he's using some
(09:24):
pretty good words.
You're like, oh man, if Godcame to you and you were praying
, he's like, hey, be utterlyamazed, I'm going to do
something.
You're like, okay, yeah, let'shear it.
And he goes listen, come here,come here, I'm going to send the
Babylonians to you to fix yourproblems for you.
Now, if you don't know who theBabylonians are and only heard
about them in high school whenwe went over history, that's
fine.
But he goes on.
(09:44):
The next verse is describingexactly who they are and how bad
they are.
As Israel is going through allthis stuff, how they're living
their lifestyles.
Right now, maybe at a five, ifyou will, the Babylonians are a
10.
And then they're known fortheir power to overcome and take
nations and inflict thesethings on them.
So that's not the answer thatHabakkuk's looking for.
(10:10):
So this leads us to Habakkuk'ssecond complaint and kind of
reply.
He goes what, wait, what didyou say?
Listen, verse 12,.
He says this God, you're gonnalet them come in and wipe us out
.
Who are they to correct us?
You start to see whereHabakkuk's perception is and it
(10:32):
starts to expose.
God starts to expose the rootissue with what's going on with
them.
Habakkuk's perspective is thishe says we are too holy and
better than others to have thempoint out our sins and then
correct us on it.
Habakkuk is more worried aboutIsrael's self-righteous pride
(10:53):
and reputation than the imminentdanger that's destroying their
souls.
Israel and Habakkuk is blind totheir pride.
So God answers him this way.
He says look.
In chapter 2, verse 1, he sayswrite this down.
Now I don't know about you, butif the ultimate authority in
(11:14):
the universe, god, says, hey,write this down, you should
probably grab a pen or pencil oruse your phone and put it in
the notes, put a lot ofreminders on it, right?
He says write this down.
And in verse 4, he says look atthe proud.
They trust in themselves andtheir lives are crooked because
of it.
But the righteous, the realrighteous, will live by their
(11:38):
faithfulness to God.
And then God goes on to explainto Habakkuk what exactly
they're doing wrong and givesthem a series of warnings.
Listen, god makes it crystalclear that Habakkuk knows why
they're being corrected.
He leaves no room formisunderstanding.
(11:58):
God doesn't and we need tounderstand something God doesn't
unjustly discipline people.
His justice is straight andtrue.
It is our self-centered andprideful perspectives that
distorts our reality.
There's a few verses in theBible, one in Hebrews.
Even James talks about it.
I'm going to share the famousone in Proverbs, chapter 3,
(12:22):
verses 11 through 12, and ittalks about the purpose of God's
discipline.
And we don't like talking aboutdiscipline.
We don't like it.
No one likes to be disciplined.
But in Proverbs, chapter 3, itsays this.
It says my child, don't rejectthe Lord's discipline and don't
be upset when he corrects you,for the Lord corrects those he
(12:42):
loves you, for the Lord correctsthose he loves, just as a
father corrects a child in whomhe delights.
God loves you too much to letyou run around and destroy your
soul.
He will bring his discipline,his discipline and correction
upon you so that you are awareof what's destroying your soul,
(13:06):
just as a parent.
You know, when I was a kid mymom had a lot of heart attacks.
You know, figuratively, I was askateboarding kid, always
running around, busted.
I got scars on my chin of allkinds of stuff.
And listen, I skated withoutthe helmet, went in the street,
did all the things, jumped offthe cliffs.
You know I didn't understandthe dangers of it.
And then God blessed me with ason and now I'm like they're
(13:30):
going in the street riding theirbike with the training wheels.
It's like put a helmet on, dude.
Put a helmet on.
No, hey, you can, I can't seeyou.
Don't turn down that street.
Because, why?
Because now he doesn'tunderstand the dangers that are
around him and when I have tocorrect him, he just thinks that
I'm being a big old meanie.
No, I'm trying to protect himbecause I don't want something
(13:50):
his life stolen from him so thathe will never grow up to reach
his full potential.
God does the same from us.
The problem is our perspective.
In Habakkuk, in chapter three,he writes this song will you see
his perspective begin to change?
In this song he talks about howGod's justice is true.
(14:12):
He talks about how no one canstand up against it or even
object to it.
Habakkuk testifies to how they,israel, and those who believe
in God, will rejoice in God andtrust in him and follow him and
listen to him.
When they, israel, and thosewho believe in God, will rejoice
in God and trust in him andfollow him and listen to him to
provide for them, even in theirdiscipline.
(14:34):
Habakkuk's perspective isrealigned and clear now.
God doesn't discipline becausehe's unfair or doesn't care or
is a big old meanie.
He corrects you because heloves you too much to let you
destroy your soul.
It is true love that God showswhen he corrects us.
The problem again is ourperspectives are wrong.
(14:55):
They're self-centered and notaligned with the truth, and this
is what God is fixing.
This is what God is correctingin us.
He's not going to bend to ourchildlike tantrums and whining.
He is a good and perfect father.
He will do what he must do inorder to protect us, so that way
he can build us up to reach ourfull potential of what he's
(15:16):
created us to do.
So what?
What does this all mean?
We've got to ask ourselves acouple questions.
First, is your perspectivealigned with what God has told
you, what God has given you foryour life, what he keeps talking
to you about?
Are you thinking only about yourdesires and trying to defend
(15:37):
your self-righteous lifestyle,then complaining about the
destruction and the strife thathappened in your life because of
it?
We have to apply the lesson ofHabakkuk.
We need to take inventory ofour life.
Then we need to ask God to showus where we are living in sin
and what we're doing, what we'renot supposed to and when he
(15:58):
does.
We should probably write itdown so we don't forget it and
keep making the same mistakeover and over and over again.
And then, finally, we need togive things to God, which sounds
crazy.
Why would you want to thanksomeone for when they punish you
and correct you?
It doesn't seem natural, but itshows that when God corrects us
(16:21):
, he loves us.
It shows us that we are hischild and so stand firm in his
instruction and, like the finalverse of Habakkuk says, he will
enable you to tread on theheights in your life.
Praise God.
Angus MacLeod (16:44):
Amen.
You know, the older I get, themore I realize perspective is
just about everything.
It's so much.
When you understand howimportant perspective is in just
about every situation in yourlife, the more you try and find
the correct ones, because itaffects so much else in your
life just by perceivingsomething in the right way.
(17:05):
So thank you so much, tyler.
Our next speaker is Christina.
She directs almost everythingout there at the Mercy House.
She does so much.
She was responsible for a lotof the planning and everything
that went into the recentback-to-school events and she
still has more stuff coming up.
So she is also a certifiedminister working on her license
(17:31):
and with that I want to inviteChristina.
But first let's hear from theprophet.
AI Video (17:36):
What's up?
Judah, fam Zephaniah here,coming at you with a major
update.
Listen the vibe out here.
It ain't right.
The Most High is seeingeverything.
Judgment is coming like reallysoon.
He's gonna sweep it clean Everyidol, every last one who's
turned away.
The great day of the Lord isnear, a day of wrath, darkness
(17:59):
and distress.
Not a day for likes, but a dayfor truth.
Hashtag no filter.
Seriously.
Seek the Lord, all you humble.
Seek righteousness, seekhumility.
Maybe then you'll be hiddenwhen his anger comes.
This isn't just for us.
Philistia, moab, ammon, assyriathey're all on the list too.
(18:23):
But here's the real good newsAfter the cleansing, a remnant
will remain, a humble peopletrusting in his name.
And listen, jerusalem, the Lordhas taken away your punishment.
He is with you.
He will rejoice over you withsinging.
He's gathering his people,bringing them honor.
You'll be praised among allnations.
(18:45):
Zephaniah out, stay blessed,stay humble Peace.
Christina (18:51):
A call to purity, repentance and hope.
The message of the book ofZephaniah.
Have you ever watched a scarymovie, the kind where a group of
people are maybe in a cabin inthe woods in the dark on a
stormy night and of course youstart hearing these strange
noises and wonder what'shappening outside.
(19:12):
And there's that one person,ignoring every warning, who
insists on going outside to seewhat that noise is.
I mean we can probably picturethe one person in our friend
group.
Meanwhile the rest of us aresaying let's just stay inside,
we don't need to go out there,let's just stay together, we
don't need to break apart.
(19:33):
But of course that one person's.
I'm just going to go checkwhat's going outside.
And we all know the ending tothat story.
That's my picture of the bookof zephaniah.
God had warned his people overand over, but they walked right
into spiritual danger anyway.
Zephaniah was a prophet.
(19:56):
His name means the Lord ishidden away.
We see in the first scripturethat he was a descendant of King
Hezekiah, who was also adistant cousin to the king at
that time, josiah and both ofthese kings were good in God's
eyes.
King Josiah came to the throneat the age of eight.
(20:21):
He led a major reform duringthat time.
The people had turned away fromGod and they were practicing
other religions or mixing thereligions.
But despite his efforts toreform worship and root out
idolatry, the people's heartremained divided.
We see three parts in the bookof Zephaniah God's judgment on
(20:41):
Judah, the judgment on thenation and, last chapter, hope
of all nations and Jerusalem.
I'm going to read verse.
I'm going to read fromZephaniah 1-2.
(21:13):
My thing is acting up, okay,verse 2.
I will sweep away everythingfrom the face of the earth,
declares the Lord.
I will sweep away both man andbeast.
I will sweep away the birds ofthe sky and the fish of the sea
and the idols that cause thewicked to stumble, when I
(21:36):
destroy all mankind on the faceof the earth, declares the Lord.
We can see some similaritieshere with Noah and his time,
when God brought judgmentbecause of the violence and the
corruption and the corruption.
(22:03):
We can see a parallel here withGod as creator in Genesis and
now he stands as judgment overcreation In Zephaniah 4, or
verse 4 through 6,.
I will stretch out my handagainst Judah and against all
who live in Jerusalem.
I will destroy the remnant ofBaal worship in this place the
very name of the idolatrouspriest, those who bow down on
(22:28):
the roofs to worship the starryhost and those who bow down and
swear to the Lord and also swearto Malik, those who these
scriptures are showing us thatthe people during that time,
which were supposed to be God'speople, had turned away from God
(22:51):
or they were mixing thereligion and the laws of Moses
with the religions around them,and the laws of Moses with the
religions around them.
Jerusalem was supposed to bethe representation of holy
worship, a place for God only,but the people had broken the
first commandment you shall nothave any other God before me.
(23:12):
Even with King Josiah'sreformation, corruption remained
While he tore down pagan altarsand restored the temples we see
in 2 Kings, chapter 23,.
Many people continued toworship and ignore God, even the
priests.
God's wrath was not impulsive,it was just.
(23:33):
This wasn't because ofignorance, because they knew the
word.
It was because of rebellion.
Their secret sins worshipingGod in church and at night going
to the rooftops to worshipcelestial gods would not stay
hidden.
Eventually, sin pours out intoeverything around us.
(23:57):
Sin pours out into everythingaround us.
We see further on in verse 8through 14, the corruption
touched every corner of Judah.
What are today's idols?
They may not be carved statues,but they're just as dangerous.
We have materialism,self-promotion, political
(24:25):
obsession, obsession all day,every day being a couch potato
surfing through Netflix or infront of the Xbox for hours or
scrolling on social media, eventhough these things are okay.
But when we prioritize themabove God, they become like an
idol.
So ask yourself are thereplaces in my life where I follow
(24:45):
God outwardly but compromiseinwardly?
Maybe we go to church, wevolunteer, we say the right
things, we post Bible verses onsocial media, but inside our
hearts we aren't fully in it.
We're just going through themotions.
We try to justify our sin inprivate.
(25:07):
Those sins do we harborunforgiveness, pride, lust,
greed or envy?
Or maybe we talk about trustingin God but live in constant
fear and make choices based oncontrol and not our faith in God
.
The judgment on the nations InZephaniah 2, 1 through 3, he's
(25:32):
speaking to the people of Israel, those that are faithful,
gather yourself, calling hispeople to humble and reflect
Together.
You gather, o nation notdesired.
They were not desired due tosin Before the decree.
(25:52):
Bring forth God's judgmentBefore the day of the past, as
the chaff before the fierceanger of the Lord come upon you.
Before the day of the Lord'sanger come upon you, seek ye,
the Lord, turn to God withsincerity.
All you meek of heart on earthwhich have wrought his judgment,
(26:19):
those who live according to hislaws.
Seek righteousness.
Seek meekness means activelypursuing right living and
humility.
It may be ye shall be hid.
In the day of the Lord's angerthere's a hope of mercy.
God always offers us warningsbefore judgment.
His just isn't limited to hisown people.
(26:49):
During this time he wasn't justmad at Jerusalem, the people of
Jerusalem.
He was also upset with thecountries around them.
They would also face theconsequences.
Why?
Because they were violent, theywould mock and they would
oppress.
Face the consequences.
Why?
Because they were violent, theywould mock and they would
oppress God's people.
You can't mess with God'speople and think nothing will
happen.
In Zephaniah 2.7, it says thatthe land will belong to the
(27:13):
remnant of the people of Judah.
Who's the remnant?
The faithful, the few whopreserved through judgment.
There they will find pasture.
It's an image of peace,restoration.
In the evening they will liedown in the house of Ashkelon.
The Lord, their God, will carefor them and he will restore
(27:36):
their fortunes Once a stronghold, ashklon of the enemy now
becomes a refuge for God'speople.
In Zephaniah 2.8, I have heardthe taunting of Moab and the
reveling of the sons of Ammonwith which they have taunted my
(27:57):
people and become arrogantagainst their territory.
Maybe we don't have physicalenemies, but we have Satan who
comes and taunts us and speaksto us and causes us to fall and
stumble.
Or maybe we're innocent andwe're just in this world and
(28:17):
things happen to us because ofthe sin of the world.
God has heard the taunt and hasseen the encroachment.
In Zephaniah 2.11,.
The Lord will be terrifying andawesome to them, for he will
starve.
All the gods of the earth andall the coastal lands of the
nation will bow down and worshiphim, every, everyone from his
(28:41):
own place.
So right now we see in thisbook where they're talking about
worshiping every other God,even those believers.
But we will all take account,we'll all see.
Even the enemies will be bowingdown and worshiping God.
Even the enemies will be bowingdown and worshiping God.
(29:04):
Ask yourself are you listeningto God's warning, whether
through scripture or conviction?
Do we tolerate what Godcondemns pride, exploitation,
violence?
Do we mock or ignore his ways?
I'm going to do it my way orignore his ways.
I'm going to do it my way,assuming judgment won't ever
(29:24):
come.
When correction does come, dowe respond with humility or do
we push it away?
The third part the hope of thenation.
This was the opportunity for usto recognize our sin, to
(29:47):
recognize our shortcomings.
It wasn't just for judgment.
God was called for restoration,and Zephaniah 3, 9 through 13
reveals the redemptive plan ofGod.
God will purify the nations.
He will unite the people underhis name.
No-transcript Zephaniah 3.17.
(30:16):
The Lord, your God, is with you.
That means he's present all thetime.
The mighty warrior who saves.
He's victorious in everything.
He will take great delight inyou, in his love.
He will no longer rebuke you.
That's after a spanking.
He hugs us right but willrejoice over you with singing.
(30:40):
God is singing a joyful songabout you, the faithful.
As I was reading this lastchapter, we see two threads the
continuation of rebellion, thesobering reality that many will
persist in pride and corruption,the fact that we try to reach
(31:04):
out to the ones we love and theyrefuse to hear God's word.
Or we might be those innocentones.
But along with that there's aclear thread of hope.
Hope for the meek, for humbleand the righteous, for those
that were caught in thecrestfire of this broken world,
(31:26):
for those who live to seerightly.
Even when the surrounding, whenour we are surrounded by
injustice, god sees you and hepromises restoration.
The faithful remnant will not beforgotten.
The Lord will gather his people, remove their shame and give
(31:47):
them a new song.
This is the promise that Godwill make with his people.
If it's not in this lifetime,it will be when the Lord comes.
That's the tension thatZephaniah leaves us.
Judgment is real, but so isredemption, and the door to
(32:08):
mercy remains open for anyonewilling to humble themselves and
seek the Lord.
So now let's not be like theone who walks blindly into
danger, but let's be thatremnant, those who hear, who
repent and return to the Lord.
Thank you.
Angus MacLeod (32:43):
Amen.
Such a challenging word.
You know, it's very easy todistance ourselves from those in
the Old Testament because itwas such a long time ago and we
think what do we really have incommon with those people?
I mean, they didn't even haveiPads.
But the reality is is there areso many similarities.
Just because we don't have astone carved in our home or some
(33:03):
sort of other graven imagedoesn't mean that we don't have
an idol in our life thatseparates us from God.
And so it's incredible when wereally sit down and think and
take a look at some of theseprophets, some of these books in
the Old Testament, and realizethat maybe they aren't so far
off from where we are and thatwe need to do just like they did
(33:25):
and repent and turn back to God.
So thank you so much, christina, for that wonderful word.
Our next yeah, go ahead.
Our next speaker is Eddie Perez.
He is one of our very faithfulkids' church teachers.
(33:46):
He's been ministering to mychildren and yours for years.
Thank you, eddie.
He is also one of our certifiedministers here at Cornerstone,
and so in just a few minuteswe'll have him come and share
with you.
But first a word from theprophet.
AI Video (34:04):
What's up?
Faithful followers Amos livefrom Tekoa Got to drop some
serious truth on you today.
You're all about that good life, flaunting your lavish homes,
but the poor, they're gettingabsolutely crushed out there.
And your worship?
You're out here singing,sacrificing, but your hearts are
nowhere near God.
(34:24):
He sees right past the filters,people.
He's not interested in fakedevotion.
Listen up.
The Lord is roaring from Zion.
You don't want to be on thewrong side of that judgment.
You don't want to be on thewrong side of that judgment.
You can't just swipe past this.
They came at me, tried tocancel me, but you can't silence
(34:44):
the truth.
So here's your call to actionSeek good, not evil.
Let justice flow like a massiveviral river.
Judgment is coming.
Stay just and blessed andalways seek the Lord.
Peace out.
Eddie (35:07):
Well, good morning Cornerstone.
They let the youngest of usthree go last.
I first want to start bythanking Pastor Jay and Celeste
for this opportunity to come andbreak bread with you, and also
I want to thank them for givingus the full counsel of God.
What do I mean by that is that,you know, if we look at our
Bibles, we have the OldTestament and the New Testament.
Some of us might think likewell, the old, why do we need
that?
That must be archaic.
(35:27):
We don't need that anymore.
Give us the new.
But I don't want us to look atour Bibles that way.
I want us to see it as the OldTestament is the New Testament
concealed and the New Testamentis the Old Testament revealed,
and so we need that wholecounsel for us to grow in this
day and age.
Okay, and they bring that too.
(35:47):
So we thank him for that.
So again, we've been looking atthis series of the prophets
right, and it started way backwith Pastor Celeste some weeks
ago and in a way we've kind ofcome full circle.
And here's what I mean by thatthat if we were to take all the
prophets there's 16 of them,including the majors If we were
to put them in chronologicalorder, we would start with Jonah
and then Amos, and then it goeson from there and it's all
(36:11):
centered around this eventthat's taking place the
Babylonian exile.
God was going to kick them outbecause of their disobedience.
We heard from Tyler andChristina, and so when we look
at all the prophets, there'seight of them that were
prophesying prior to that eventhappening, a couple during and a
couple after.
And when we see that, we kindof get a perspective from God,
(36:32):
as Tyler and them already sharedthat God is gracious and
merciful and has love towardsany kind of correction.
He gives us, and that's the waywe should be with one another,
especially as parents towardsour kids, right?
So reminding again what aprophet is they're a mouthpiece
from God to the people, and sothe message they bring is what A
(36:53):
prophecy In Amos 3.7, he shareswith this that God reveals the.
He does nothing withoutrevealing the secret things to
his servants, the prophets.
Okay, so that's why they'rethere and telling all these
things.
So I'm going to spare us allthe different judgments and
things.
It's the same one.
It's taking tears through thesame time period.
(37:13):
They're just doing it over andover.
It's like God was trying to getthem turn back, turn back, but
they wouldn't listen.
So eventually he had to do whathe had to do.
And so that's pretty much therest of the whole book of Amos.
But I want to bring to heart aspecific part of that.
If we look at Amos himselfwhich his name means burden
bearer Amos in verse chapter oneand also chapter seven, it
(37:41):
talks about who he was, that hewas a farmer and that he tended
to trees, meaning that he didn'tcome from a line of prophets,
he was just a regular old guyperson out there that God had
his heart to tell him hey, myburden bearer, I have a burden,
I need you to go share thisright.
And so from that I learnedsomething about Amos he knew God
and he feared God.
(38:02):
Okay, imagine any one of us allof a sudden having a burden
from God saying hey, I need youto go to the mayor of your city
or to the governor of your stateor something like that.
I have a message to send tothem about what they're doing.
It's not right.
How would you feel?
It's like who me?
(38:23):
It's like how, if I go there,things might happen.
They might, you know, put me injail or otherwise, right, but
if we know God and we know it'scoming from God, we have to fear
him and not man, and do what hewants us.
We're here for him, not theother way around.
Amen, all right.
So that's the heart of mymessage, of what I want to share
.
But before I get that, I want topose this question to us Could
(38:44):
judgments like what we've beenhearing already happen today,
2025?
And the reason why I'm posingthis question is because I feel
there's too many of us thatdon't really see God as real.
Yeah, we see the stories andthe Bible's there and stuff and
we hear them, but is he reallyreal today?
And I feel a lot of why some ofus feel that way is because we
haven't had a true encounterwith him by his spirit.
(39:06):
So I encourage you to contendto that end, because that's what
happened in my life and that'spart of the reason why I'm here
right now sharing with you.
Okay, but again that questioncould things like that we've
been talking about happen today?
Well, in Amos 9.1, amos sees aperspective of God that he's
standing next to the altar readyto dispense his judgments.
(39:28):
Well, where do we find thealtar today, right here in the
house of God.
And then in 1 Peter 4, it saysthat judgment begins in the
house of God.
And then also, as Tyler alreadymentioned, but from the Hebrews
verse, it says that Goddisciplines those he loves.
Okay, and then God has, can andwill use the sun and moon as
(39:51):
signs to us, can and will usethe sun and moon as signs to us.
Hmm, oh, april of last year,what did we have in our country?
A solar, a total solar eclipse.
Ah, and where did it begin?
It started in the state ofTexas, at Eagle's Pass, and went
(40:12):
across the nation, kind of likethis Okay, you know that the
circumference of that eclipsewas about approximately 100
miles in diameter.
Hmm, well, from that time notbefore but after, not just
anywhere in Texas, but withinthat where the eclipse took
(40:34):
place 13 pastors have beenremoved in central north Texas
from their pulpits, manydifferent denominations of
Christianity, and many of themwere in their pulpits for many
years and some of them were wellknown.
Hmm, that was just last year,2024, today.
(40:59):
Maybe that helps to convincethat, yeah, god's real and alive
and active with us.
It's not some far-off thing,but we've got to contend to know
his spirit to know these thingsAll right.
So when we look at Amos 5.4,well, first of all, in chapter 5
, Amos begins to sing a songwhich is called a dirge, which
(41:19):
is a very sad song based on anevent that's taken place
typically or after somebodywell-known within the community
has passed, very sad and heavysong.
But he's singing this songbased on what he's seen to come
and God moves on his heart tosay some things about the church
in that song that are veryheavy.
No church would ever want tohear the words in that song.
I challenge you to read it.
(41:39):
But in chapter 5, verses 4through 6, we see the statement
made twice God says first, seekme and live, and at the end of 6
, he says seek the Lord and live.
And so that to me gives thatimpression about we need to have
a proper fear of the Lord onceagain.
Okay, but what is the fear ofthe Lord?
(41:59):
Something that we don't heartypically in our vernacular of
things today, right?
So in Proverbs 9, 10, and alsoin chapter 1, verse 7, it says
that the fear of the Lord is thebeginning of wisdom and the
knowledge of the Holy One,understanding or insight.
And then again.
It repeats in 1.7,.
It says the fear of the Lord isthe beginning of knowledge.
So the fear of the Lord issomething that we begin in the
(42:21):
knowing either about, or, inthis case, who.
Who do we know?
There's a difference betweenknowing and knowing about.
God wants us to know him and Iwant to relate it in a fashion
like this there's a differencebetween the hands and the face.
Now, as parents, when our kidsare little, we kind of know some
(42:43):
of that.
Right, kids come to us withtheir hands.
What are they doing?
What can you do for me or whatcan you give me?
But if we just continueoperating just at that level,
what if I stop?
What's going to happen?
Well, I'll go find anothersource that'll give me what I
want or do what I ask.
Right, it's kind of verysuperficial, not really knowing,
ah.
But if I was to pick up thatchild, to bring them up here,
(43:04):
now they're at my face.
What happens there?
Identity, see each other?
No, differentiating one toanother by our faces?
Right, then we see expression.
Are we happy, sad, mad, allthose kind of things.
Then, if I bring them close, orclose to my heart, I can share
with them, right my ideas andstuff and hear from them.
(43:25):
We converse, we get to know oneanother, okay, so, in relation
to God, we praise him for whathe does and we worship him for
who he is.
We praise him for what he doesand we worship him for who he is
.
We praise him for what he doesthe hands but we worship him for
who he is.
One of my heroes of faith, drDavid Jeremiah, once made this
(43:49):
comment.
He said we will only worshipsomeone we love and we will only
love someone we know we loveand we will only love someone we
know.
I'll say it again we will onlyworship someone we love and we
will only love someone we know.
In addition to that, I know, atthe end of each service, pastor
Jay and others will say theblessing that comes from the
(44:11):
rabbinical blessing in numbersix.
I know some of us kind ofstruggle with that.
Why is that a blessing?
Because it's stated in such away.
Well, what does it say?
It says may the Lord bless youand keep you the hands.
May he cause his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you.
What's that?
Well, in his presence, theshining is his glory and it's
(44:34):
only in his presence that we seehis glory, is his glory, and
it's only in his presence thatwe see his glory, and in that
place is where we gain his grace, favor that we don't deserve.
The next part says may he liftup his countenance upon you and
give you peace.
Well, what's that?
Well, when somebody'scountenance is lifted, what do
they do?
They smile.
Imagine God smiling at us andin that place, knowing, hey,
(44:58):
we're okay, we're good.
Wouldn't that put you at ease?
God's pleased with me, we'regood.
But again, it only comes fromknowing okay.
So how do we walk out this fearof the Lord?
Well, in Amos 8, 11, it saysthat there was going to be a
famine in the land, and itwasn't due to bread, but not
(45:21):
being able to hear the words ofGod.
But wait a minute.
In the New Testament, what doesit tell us?
Our faith comes how?
By hearing the words of God.
So we don't want that to happen.
So what should we do?
We need to spend time in hisword, the love-lovingness from
heaven that lets us know abouthim and who he is.
I've got a picture at my house.
It looks like this Okay, it's adepiction of Psalms 1, and I'm
(45:48):
going to say it, but it's notthe full way.
You'll find it in the Bible.
I'm missing some parts, right,but when I look at it it kind of
reminds me.
Blessed be the man thatdelights in God's law and he
meditates on it day and night.
He's like a tree planted by thestreams of living water, and
his fruit will be ripe in season.
This leaf will not wither andwhatever he does will prosper.
(46:10):
It was a kind of promise fromGod when we dwell with him in
his word and walk with him inknowing who he is.
So it's very important that wespend time in God's word.
But in and when we spend timein his word, we're going to have
questions, right.
That brings me to my secondpoint, and that is in Amos 7, 1
(46:36):
through 9, amos has seen somethings that's going to take
place and he's like, oh Lord,please don't do so, because
they're weak, they won't be ableto handle it.
And guess what?
God hears his prayer and hestops Twice.
That happens.
Wow, that can happen when wepray, apparently.
So it's right there.
But many of us say, like I hearda guy once mentioned to me, why
should we pray?
Because God knows everythingthat's going to happen already.
So why should we be a part ofit?
(46:58):
Well, that's just it.
God knows everything that'staking place, but we don't.
But if we want to be a part ofit, we need to spend time with
him and we're going to let himspeak to us and guide us through
that process.
Who knows?
Part of what he knows alreadycould be our prayers for
somebody who's sick they may getbetter, somebody's in jail, we
(47:20):
prayers for somebody who's sickthey may get better, somebody's
in jail will be released,somebody's heart will be turned
to him and be saved.
But we won't know any of thesethings unless we're spending
time with them to be guided anddirected by who he is.
Okay, find my space, sorry.
I see God sometimes like asilversmith in this process.
A silversmith will quietly sitby the silver patiently watching
over it for a particular matterand what he's doing, and
(47:41):
oftentimes he has to heat it up,which would be kind of like
judgment and correcting us.
He's wanting that in theliquidity of the silver he's
looking for impurities to raiseup so he can pull them off.
He wants things to be pure andthe part that he's willing to
know that it's been through thatprocess is that he'll see us
reflection in it and our heartsare no different.
(48:02):
God's wanting to walk with himand do that stuff that he wants
us to have the value that hewants in that same way.
Um, in the uh.
I heard this gentleman sittingto my left some time ago when he
was in the pulpit.
He said people often look atJesus as going from miracle to
miracle and and in between heprayed.
But pastor said I don't see itthat way.
(48:23):
I believe God or Jesus wentfrom prayer to prayer and in
between miracles, and I believehe wants us to walk that same
way as well.
And lastly, I have a pictureand it's a leaflet inside my
Bible and when something speaksto me that makes a point and
stuff, I want to put it there.
So it always reminds me.
That middle quote is fromsomebody we might know I think
(48:44):
his name is Pastor Jay.
Anybody heard of him and hesaid this of June of last year
and this is what he wrote, orthis is what he said and I wrote
it down that our prayer life isa reflection of our proximity
to Jesus.
I'm going to say that again Ourprayer life is a reflection of
our proximity, closeness toJesus, how's your prayer life?
(49:06):
When I heard that, I took it toheart and right after that,
roughly in August of last year,at my work, I started with
another gentleman where weliterally are praying every day.
We get there a half hour early.
We got permission from thedirector of the office to use a
room and I'm telling you, wepray Beyond that.
A couple of weeks ago I startedeven a prayer box that I put in
(49:28):
the lunchroom and people haveyou know, humbly they responded
to.
We've had several people.
Now we're praying specificallybecause of that process.
God may want to use you thatsame way at your work, but some
of you might say, well, I can'tdo that because they don't allow
those kind of things.
Really Well, I worked 30 yearsfor the city of Phoenix, right
Government office.
Guess what Active then untilthis day there's a group called
(49:51):
the City of Phoenix Employeesfor Christ.
Guess what we did?
Daily Bible studies.
We had monthly lunches.
We invited people to speak theword of God and brought in we
did a couple of times early inthe life of that organization
where we did the National Day ofPrayer right there inside of
City Hall.
So see, god, there's nolimitation when it comes to God,
he can open doors that no mancan shut and shut doors no man
(50:13):
can open.
But you've got to be close tohim, to know him, to know those
processes, and do as he says.
I'm going to finish.
I'm going to tell the storywe're going to finish.
Um, imagine I work for the cityof excuse me, I currently work
for Grand Canyon University as apublic safety officer.
I wear a uniform and I'mstanding at a post as a guard,
(50:37):
you know, for people coming inor out of the campus.
So just imagine with me for amoment that a gentleman walks up
.
He's well-dressed, he's not ina panic, he looks nice, okay,
but he stands across from me andtells me I need you to come
here Now as a guard and stuffand stuff.
And again, my responsibilities.
(50:57):
Some questions kind of raise up.
First of all, who are you?
Are you with gcu?
Or why are you making thiscomment?
You know other questions mightcome up.
Why is he wanting me to move?
You know, and all these kind ofother things, but I'm telling
you what's not happening.
I'm not moving why?
Well, I don't know the guy Igot to figure all these things
out.
What he's asked me to do couldpossibly be to my detriment if
(51:20):
it's something hazardous and I'mjust not.
But I have responsibility in mypost and I don't know this guy
why he's telling me that.
So I got to clear some thingsfirst.
I'm sure it's happening quicklyand stuff, but I'm sure slowing
down that process for our, youknow, for what we're doing here.
I'm gonna to change that samescenario up a bit.
So this time who's coming to meis the director of my office.
(51:41):
I didn't get a chance to askhim if I could use his name for
what I'm doing today, but I knowhim, I know his name, I know
what he looks like, I know hisvoice and what he sounds like
and you know he's a director.
He's a great guy, you know,loves the guy and stuff and he's
done a lot for us.
I I know he cares for us.
Now let's say he came up and hesaid Ed, I need you to come
(52:01):
here.
I may still have some questionslike why does this director
want me?
Did I do something wrong?
Or what's going on, or what'shappening Right, but I'll tell
you what's happening first.
Is I'm moving in his direction?
Is I'm moving in his directionwhy?
Because I know him and he hasauthority.
I'm there for him.
(52:21):
He's not there for me andbecause of that and I know who
he is and what he's got I'mmoving this direction Again,
having questions.
So why do I share all that storyfor you now?
God's no different In his word.
He doesn't ask us stuff.
He commands us, like what Isaid come here, do this to love
(52:42):
one another, to forgive.
But what's our response to him?
Is it like the first one?
He's somewhat stranger to usand we question things before we
move or do anything.
Or do we move towards him outof our love and respect, because
we know him, and maybe we havequestions in the process of how
it's going to play out?
But he's good, he's alive, heloves us, he's God.
(53:02):
How is your response there?
Now?
I've done my part, as best Ican, with the time that I have,
to express the need andimportance of truly spending the
quality time of yourselves inhis word and in prayer to know
him.
He wants us to know him.
He wants us to know him.
But if what I've shared hasn'tbeen enough, then maybe seeing
(53:23):
or reading some words from Jesuswill do it.
Okay, in a moment there's goingto be a scripture on the wall.
All I ask is for the next 10seconds we respectfully and
reverently take time to take inwhat Jesus himself is saying to
us Matthew 7, 21, 23.
Thank you.
Angus MacLeod (54:15):
It's a great scripture to consider,
especially when we think aboutthat for ourselves, because we
know that one day we will allenter that throne room.
We will all enter in before thejudge and he's going to have a
response.
Whether that response is depart, because I never knew you, or
(54:42):
well done, good and faithfulservant, has everything to do
with you.
Good and faithful servant haseverything to do with you.
So I'm gonna ask what is itthat God is saying about you?
What do you think, knowingwhere you're at right now, what
(55:02):
do you think the response isgoing to be from the Lord when
you stand before him?
The question is do you knowJesus?
Have you embraced Jesus?
Because if you haven't, you'renot in the family and we know
(55:25):
that the Lord will have the oneresponse depart, I never knew
you.
But see, it's a very simpleprocess for us to come into
relationship so that we can hearone day well done, good and
faithful servant.
Now, it's not magic magic, butit is simple and it doesn't have
(55:51):
anything necessarily to do withthe exact words that you use,
but it's more the position ofyour heart in recognizing where
you are in relationship to thelord.
So I'm going to ask ifeverybody would stand and with
all heads bowed and all eyesclosed.
I'm going to simply ask you, ifyou recognize that that's you,
(56:14):
that you don't have arelationship with Jesus, that
you're on the path that's goingto hear depart, for I never knew
you we're going to invite youinto relationship.
So if that's you and yourecognize that you have a need
for Jesus in your life, I'mgoing to ask that, if you've
never received Christ before,that you just put your hand up
(56:38):
and let me know, so we know howto pray with and for you, and
then, once I see your hand, youcan put it on back down again
and then we'll all pray.
Put it on back down again andthen we'll all pray.
(56:58):
Thank you jesus, thank you lord.
So now I'm going to just ask ifeverybody would pray this prayer
with me here in just a second,because it says in roman 9,.
It says Because if you confesswith your mouth that Jesus is
Lord and believe in your heartthat God raised him from the
dead, you will be saved.
(57:18):
For with the heart one believesand is justified, and with the
mouth one confesses and is saved.
And that's all this prayer is.
It's just an expression of yourheart position that you want to
come into relationship withJesus.
So if you would pray thisprayer with me, lord, thank you
(57:42):
for loving me.
Thank you for sending Jesus.
I believe Jesus died on thecross for my sins.
I believe he rose again.
(58:04):
Forgive me of my sins.
I surrender my life to you.
In Christ's name.
We pray Amen.
Amen, friends, if that was youand you accepted Jesus for the
first time, we celebrate withyou Amen.
And we want to encourage you togo back to the prayer banner.
Back there We've got somepeople who are ready to pray
(58:24):
with you and also give you somematerials for the next steps on
your journey.
But for the rest of us, let'sconsider what the prophets would
say to us today knowing exactlywhere you are, knowing that God
knows exactly where you are.
He's not calling anybody out,but he is calling on you to come
(58:49):
back.
You see, we have to have theproper perspective that God
isn't wanting to punish us.
He's wanting us to be able tocome into relationship with him,
and that relationship isobstructed by the things that we
have placed there, and thatrelationship is obstructed by
the things that we have placedthere, but he stands willing and
(59:10):
ready to remove those obstacles, to be able to straighten those
things out in our life.
And so, as we open this altar,if you find that there's
something in you, in yourrelationship, in your walk, that
you realize maybe I need tomake this adjustment, now's the
time to come and bring that tothe Lord and say Lord, I've been
(59:31):
wrong, I've been having anissue in this area, but I don't
want to have that anymore.
I want to come to you.
Maybe you just want to get alittle bit closer to the Lord,
in which case you're invited tocome as well.
Lord, we thank you for thisopportunity.
(59:52):
We thank you that all the wordsthat you spoke to the prophets
and to your people then stillapply today and that you're
faithful to say them to us sothat we don't wander off into
destruction.
Lord, I just pray that youwould help us to recognize
exactly where we are at, behonest with ourselves and be
honest with you, so that we canturn from our ways and be able
(01:00:15):
to one day hear well done, goodand faithful servant.
Lord, we pray all these thingsin the mighty name that is Jesus
Christ, amen.
Annie (01:00:25):
What an amazing morning.
We had three different voiceswhere the Holy Spirit was
speaking the same thing throughit.
They didn't just so you know,they didn't come together and
decide what they're going topreach together.
God did that.
We have, I think, if you sawall of the announcements.
There's so much going on at ourchurch right now, but next week
, august 10th, say August 10th.
August 10th Is a water baptism.
(01:00:47):
If you were wondering what thatnext step is, that next step
it's the change, your governmentin your heart, all the way to
the Lord, and so that's our nextstep of water baptism.
If you need to see all of thoseannouncements again, those are
on the church center app.
We also have on August 31st Ibelieve it was is a children
dedication.
We believe that we cometogether as a community to help
(01:01:10):
support those parents, to leadthose kids on the right path for
the rest of their life, and sochild dedication is August 31st.
Angus MacLeod (01:01:19):
We also have life groups that'll be starting up
soon, so I want to encourage youto take a look at the various
groups and activities and thingsthat are going on and find a
place to get connected, becausethat's where the real growth
happens.
Before we go, I want to readthis and pray this blessing upon
us the Lord bless you and keepyou.
(01:01:39):
The Lord make his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you
.
The Lord lift up hiscountenance upon you and give
you peace.
Lord, we pray this blessingover your people, your church,
and we just ask that you wouldhelp us to go out and be the
light in a dark world.
We pray this in the mighty namethat is Jesus Christ, amen.
(01:02:03):
Well, we love you very much atCornerstone.
Thank you for being here today.
Have a great week.
Okay, I'll go first.
I just feel like my entirecareer has been one big
misunderstanding.
Misunderstanding.
You told a whole city to repent.
They did, and then you threw ahissy fit because God was
merciful.
That's not a misunderstanding,jonah, that's called being a
baby.
It's not that simple.
(00:26):
I spent three days inside afish.
And for what?
For them to just listen.
It's insulting.
At least you got a clearinstruction.
I keep asking God why are thewicked winning?
When will justice come?
I just get silence, just a lotof the just shall live by his
(00:47):
faith.
It's so vague, vague.
You should try my shtick.
The whole thing is the day ofthe Lord is near.
Every day I wake up and it'sjust still near.
It's a marketing nightmare.
No sense of urgency.
You think you got it bad.
I was a shepherd, a fig farmer.
(01:10):
I was minding my own business,just trying to make an honest
living, and now I'm the posterboy for divine rage.
At least you didn't have todeal with a big magical plant
that grew and then withered justto teach you a lesson, the
emotional whiplash of it all,and the sun was so hot.
(01:31):
So are we going to talk aboutany of this with God or just
keep complaining to each other.
The prophecy is that there willbe no more of this.
The prophecy is that there willbe no more of this, so that's
something to look forward to.
Angus MacLeod (01:47):
Amen, jeremy, thank you so much for doing
those videos for us each week.
They've been quite a blessingto us, and we're just so
thankful that you've taken thetime to do those for us.
Well, today we are continuingour series on the Minor Prophets
, and Pastor Jay is giving usanother opportunity to hear from
three more voices, and I'm sograteful that Pastor Jay's done
(02:11):
this during this series because,like the prophets, they all had
a different voice, they alltook a different tone, they were
all speaking to different typesof people in different areas in
their lives, and being able tohear from so many different
voices has given us just anincredible opportunity to really
focus in on each one, and soI'm very thankful for that.
So today we're going to havethree people come up and share.
(02:35):
The first one is Tyler Burke.
He is our men's director.
He also serves on the ServantsCouncil, and so, without further
ado, I'm going to invite Tylerup.
But first let's hear from oneof the prophets.
AI Video (02:48):
All right, another late night session, another
existential crisis.
It's still happening.
The chaos, the absolutedumpster fire that is our
society Violence, injustice.
I've been screaming into thevoid people, and where is he?
Huh, where's the big man?
(03:09):
Is anyone even listening to myDMs, my prayers?
Because, honestly, if he islistening and he's choosing to
do nothing, what does that evenmean for us?
Did you guys just hear that?
Okay, so he just spoke and hesaid Look among the nations and
(03:34):
watch.
Be utterly amazed, for I amgoing to do something in your
days that you would not believe.
I am raising up the BabyloniansWait, the Babylonians, you mean
those guys, but, but, butthey're worse.
(03:54):
This is, this is not theresolution I was looking for,
people.
Tyler (04:01):
Thank you, jeremy, for that video.
He's doing good.
Can we give Jeremy a round ofapplause for those videos he did
so good.
I think I'm done.
This sums it up.
Just kidding, just like PastorAngus introed me.
My name is Tyler Burke.
I serve as men's director hereon the Servants Council.
(04:21):
Real quick, is there any guy inhere that this is their first
week here at Cornerstone?
Raise your hand.
I see I got something for you.
I won't call you out Anyone.
Yeah, I knew I didn't see.
Hey, can you catch?
That's a shirt for you.
Man, just wanted to invite youguys out.
(04:42):
In September we start lifegroups again.
It's a great place to getconnected.
If you're not connectedsomewhere, if you want to be
discipled more, if you just wantto hang out, even if you want
to serve in the community, wehave something for you.
We have men's group that meets,we have hangouts, we go bowling
, do all kinds of stuff.
I can't even keep up with itanymore, but you're more than
welcome to come.
(05:02):
I invite you to come to it,starting in September.
All right, so let's jump intothis.
The prophet Habakkuk All right,so with Habakkuk, he's a minor
prophet in the time of Israeland during this time.
Kind of what's going on isIsrael is kind of not listening
(05:22):
to God.
Not kind of.
They're not listening to Godand they know better.
They're morally in decline.
They're spiritually in decline,not listening to God, and they
don't have excuses.
They have the Torah, they havethe Ten Commandments, they have
all the other prophets that havetold them otherwise, and
they're still practicing things.
They're still doing things likesexual immorality.
(05:44):
There's still social injusticespracticing things.
They're still doing things likesexual immorality.
There's still social injusticesamong them.
They're taking advantage ofpeople financially amongst
themselves and they'reworshiping other gods.
Right, this could be your firstSunday in church and you've at
least heard the Ten Commandmentsand you know that's a big one.
Right, you don't have anothergod before God, right?
Habakkuk in verse 3 describesthe times as this destruction
(06:10):
and violence are before me,there is strife and conflict
abounds.
This is the situation theIsraelites find themselves in.
Now we have to understand kindof the literary style of
Habakkuk.
It's not just a set ofinstructions, it's like a lament
.
They called it, which is kindof like a poem that expresses
(06:32):
grief and sorrow.
If you kind of think aboutmodern times, it's like emo rock
.
Yes, I grew up in the late 90s,early 20s.
Yeah, you can laugh, it's fine.
You know where we're going withthis.
So emo rock, very depressed,moping, all about yourself, a
why me mentality, and you woreit right, you wore the dark
(06:53):
hoodie, like in this nextpicture there's this guy who has
a lot of potential, growing upwore the dark hoodie, looking
out into the abyss, thinking andself-loathing about everything
that's going on in his life.
Right, it came out of the punkrock, pop rock where everything
was spiky.
Well, then you got into emorock and then now you're Mohawk,
kind of sag to the side and sodepressed.
(07:15):
But not only that.
In emo rock, people evenhighlighted their depression,
their struggle, their why me, asin this next photo you see,
they would highlight the hairthat would cover their face.
Now, if you don't know this guy, he's a great guy.
He used to be a youth pastorhere.
We sent him out in the missionfield, served overseas for a
long time and now he's oursenior pastor.
(07:37):
This was Pastor Jay.
I know you're on vacation,sorry, this was on your Facebook
, so that's open source.
You guys can go ahead and leavethat up for the rest of the
sermon, just kidding.
So this next photo is ofHabakkuk.
I called him kind of the emoprophet, if you will, all right.
(07:58):
So this is important because inthe book of Habakkuk it's a
series of complaints that he hasbefore God, and God gives him a
series of replies and he endswith a song All right.
So let's look at Habakkuk'sfirst complaint.
In verse 2, he says this howlong, Lord, must I call for help
?
But you don't listen.
(08:21):
Habakkuk victimizes himself andaccuses God of being an
accessory to Israel's turmoil.
Now, this is Habakkuk'sperspective, right?
He's accusing God of nothelping them, but they're the
ones that are doing thesepractices, living these
lifestyles.
So do you think that they'rethe ones bringing a lot of the
(08:42):
destruction in their own lives?
The immoral lifestyle of Israelwas their own fault.
They were not the oneslistening to God's commands.
Something to take away fromhere is that how many times do
(09:03):
we accuse God of our ownsuffering in our lives, when
it's we're the ones that's notlistening to him suffering in
our lives, when it's we're theones that's not listening to him
?
This is God's reply toHabakkuk's first complaint.
In verse 5, he says this beutterly amazed, for I'm going to
do something in your days thatyou won't believe, even if I
told you.
Now, god's not one forhyperbole, so he's using some
(09:24):
pretty good words.
You're like, oh man, if Godcame to you and you were praying
, he's like, hey, be utterlyamazed, I'm going to do
something.
You're like, okay, yeah, let'shear it.
And he goes listen, come here,come here, I'm going to send the
Babylonians to you to fix yourproblems for you.
Now, if you don't know who theBabylonians are and only heard
about them in high school whenwe went over history, that's
fine.
But he goes on.
(09:44):
The next verse is describingexactly who they are and how bad
they are.
As Israel is going through allthis stuff, how they're living
their lifestyles.
Right now, maybe at a five, ifyou will, the Babylonians are a
10.
And then they're known fortheir power to overcome and take
nations and inflict thesethings on them.
So that's not the answer thatHabakkuk's looking for.
(10:10):
So this leads us to Habakkuk'ssecond complaint and kind of
reply.
He goes what, wait, what didyou say?
Listen, verse 12,.
He says this God, you're gonnalet them come in and wipe us out
.
Who are they to correct us?
You start to see whereHabakkuk's perception is and it
(10:32):
starts to expose.
God starts to expose the rootissue with what's going on with
them.
Habakkuk's perspective is thishe says we are too holy and
better than others to have thempoint out our sins and then
correct us on it.
Habakkuk is more worried aboutIsrael's self-righteous pride
(10:53):
and reputation than the imminentdanger that's destroying their
souls.
Israel and Habakkuk is blind totheir pride.
So God answers him this way.
He says look.
In chapter 2, verse 1, he sayswrite this down.
Now I don't know about you, butif the ultimate authority in
(11:14):
the universe, god, says, hey,write this down, you should
probably grab a pen or pencil oruse your phone and put it in
the notes, put a lot ofreminders on it, right?
He says write this down.
And in verse 4, he says look atthe proud.
They trust in themselves andtheir lives are crooked because
of it.
But the righteous, the realrighteous, will live by their
(11:38):
faithfulness to God.
And then God goes on to explainto Habakkuk what exactly
they're doing wrong and givesthem a series of warnings.
Listen, god makes it crystalclear that Habakkuk knows why
they're being corrected.
He leaves no room formisunderstanding.
(11:58):
God doesn't and we need tounderstand something God doesn't
unjustly discipline people.
His justice is straight andtrue.
It is our self-centered andprideful perspectives that
distorts our reality.
There's a few verses in theBible, one in Hebrews.
Even James talks about it.
I'm going to share the famousone in Proverbs, chapter 3,
(12:22):
verses 11 through 12, and ittalks about the purpose of God's
discipline.
And we don't like talking aboutdiscipline.
We don't like it.
No one likes to be disciplined.
But in Proverbs, chapter 3, itsays this.
It says my child, don't rejectthe Lord's discipline and don't
be upset when he corrects you,for the Lord corrects those he
(12:42):
loves you, for the Lord correctsthose he loves, just as a
father corrects a child in whomhe delights.
God loves you too much to letyou run around and destroy your
soul.
He will bring his discipline,his discipline and correction
upon you so that you are awareof what's destroying your soul,
(13:06):
just as a parent.
You know, when I was a kid mymom had a lot of heart attacks.
You know, figuratively, I was askateboarding kid, always
running around, busted.
I got scars on my chin of allkinds of stuff.
And listen, I skated withoutthe helmet, went in the street,
did all the things, jumped offthe cliffs.
You know I didn't understandthe dangers of it.
And then God blessed me with ason and now I'm like they're
(13:30):
going in the street riding theirbike with the training wheels.
It's like put a helmet on, dude.
Put a helmet on.
No, hey, you can, I can't seeyou.
Don't turn down that street.
Because, why?
Because now he doesn'tunderstand the dangers that are
around him and when I have tocorrect him, he just thinks that
I'm being a big old meanie.
No, I'm trying to protect himbecause I don't want something
(13:50):
his life stolen from him so thathe will never grow up to reach
his full potential.
God does the same from us.
The problem is our perspective.
In Habakkuk, in chapter three,he writes this song will you see
his perspective begin to change?
In this song he talks about howGod's justice is true.
(14:12):
He talks about how no one canstand up against it or even
object to it.
Habakkuk testifies to how they,israel, and those who believe
in God, will rejoice in God andtrust in him and follow him and
listen to him.
When they, israel, and thosewho believe in God, will rejoice
in God and trust in him andfollow him and listen to him to
provide for them, even in theirdiscipline.
(14:34):
Habakkuk's perspective isrealigned and clear now.
God doesn't discipline becausehe's unfair or doesn't care or
is a big old meanie.
He corrects you because heloves you too much to let you
destroy your soul.
It is true love that God showswhen he corrects us.
The problem again is ourperspectives are wrong.
(14:55):
They're self-centered and notaligned with the truth, and this
is what God is fixing.
This is what God is correctingin us.
He's not going to bend to ourchildlike tantrums and whining.
He is a good and perfect father.
He will do what he must do inorder to protect us, so that way
he can build us up to reach ourfull potential of what he's
(15:16):
created us to do.
So what?
What does this all mean?
We've got to ask ourselves acouple questions.
First, is your perspectivealigned with what God has told
you, what God has given you foryour life, what he keeps talking
to you about?
Are you thinking only about yourdesires and trying to defend
(15:37):
your self-righteous lifestyle,then complaining about the
destruction and the strife thathappened in your life because of
it?
We have to apply the lesson ofHabakkuk.
We need to take inventory ofour life.
Then we need to ask God to showus where we are living in sin
and what we're doing, what we'renot supposed to and when he
(15:58):
does.
We should probably write itdown so we don't forget it and
keep making the same mistakeover and over and over again.
And then, finally, we need togive things to God, which sounds
crazy.
Why would you want to thanksomeone for when they punish you
and correct you?
It doesn't seem natural, but itshows that when God corrects us
(16:21):
, he loves us.
It shows us that we are hischild and so stand firm in his
instruction and, like the finalverse of Habakkuk says, he will
enable you to tread on theheights in your life.
Praise God.
Angus MacLeod (16:44):
Amen.
You know, the older I get, themore I realize perspective is
just about everything.
It's so much.
When you understand howimportant perspective is in just
about every situation in yourlife, the more you try and find
the correct ones, because itaffects so much else in your
life just by perceivingsomething in the right way.
(17:05):
So thank you so much, tyler.
Our next speaker is Christina.
She directs almost everythingout there at the Mercy House.
She does so much.
She was responsible for a lotof the planning and everything
that went into the recentback-to-school events and she
still has more stuff coming up.
So she is also a certifiedminister working on her license
(17:31):
and with that I want to inviteChristina.
But first let's hear from theprophet.
AI Video (17:36):
What's up?
Judah, fam Zephaniah here,coming at you with a major
update.
Listen the vibe out here.
It ain't right.
The Most High is seeingeverything.
Judgment is coming like reallysoon.
He's gonna sweep it clean Everyidol, every last one who's
turned away.
The great day of the Lord isnear, a day of wrath, darkness
(17:59):
and distress.
Not a day for likes, but a dayfor truth.
Hashtag no filter.
Seriously.
Seek the Lord, all you humble.
Seek righteousness, seekhumility.
Maybe then you'll be hiddenwhen his anger comes.
This isn't just for us.
Philistia, moab, ammon, assyriathey're all on the list too.
(18:23):
But here's the real good newsAfter the cleansing, a remnant
will remain, a humble peopletrusting in his name.
And listen, jerusalem, the Lordhas taken away your punishment.
He is with you.
He will rejoice over you withsinging.
He's gathering his people,bringing them honor.
You'll be praised among allnations.
(18:45):
Zephaniah out, stay blessed,stay humble Peace.
Christina (18:51):
A call to purity, repentance and hope.
The message of the book ofZephaniah.
Have you ever watched a scarymovie, the kind where a group of
people are maybe in a cabin inthe woods in the dark on a
stormy night and of course youstart hearing these strange
noises and wonder what'shappening outside.
(19:12):
And there's that one person,ignoring every warning, who
insists on going outside to seewhat that noise is.
I mean we can probably picturethe one person in our friend
group.
Meanwhile the rest of us aresaying let's just stay inside,
we don't need to go out there,let's just stay together, we
don't need to break apart.
(19:33):
But of course that one person's.
I'm just going to go checkwhat's going outside.
And we all know the ending tothat story.
That's my picture of the bookof zephaniah.
God had warned his people overand over, but they walked right
into spiritual danger anyway.
Zephaniah was a prophet.
(19:56):
His name means the Lord ishidden away.
We see in the first scripturethat he was a descendant of King
Hezekiah, who was also adistant cousin to the king at
that time, josiah and both ofthese kings were good in God's
eyes.
King Josiah came to the throneat the age of eight.
(20:21):
He led a major reform duringthat time.
The people had turned away fromGod and they were practicing
other religions or mixing thereligions.
But despite his efforts toreform worship and root out
idolatry, the people's heartremained divided.
We see three parts in the bookof Zephaniah God's judgment on
(20:41):
Judah, the judgment on thenation and, last chapter, hope
of all nations and Jerusalem.
I'm going to read verse.
I'm going to read fromZephaniah 1-2.
(21:13):
My thing is acting up, okay,verse 2.
I will sweep away everythingfrom the face of the earth,
declares the Lord.
I will sweep away both man andbeast.
I will sweep away the birds ofthe sky and the fish of the sea
and the idols that cause thewicked to stumble, when I
(21:36):
destroy all mankind on the faceof the earth, declares the Lord.
We can see some similaritieshere with Noah and his time,
when God brought judgmentbecause of the violence and the
corruption and the corruption.
(22:03):
We can see a parallel here withGod as creator in Genesis and
now he stands as judgment overcreation In Zephaniah 4, or
verse 4 through 6,.
I will stretch out my handagainst Judah and against all
who live in Jerusalem.
I will destroy the remnant ofBaal worship in this place the
very name of the idolatrouspriest, those who bow down on
(22:28):
the roofs to worship the starryhost and those who bow down and
swear to the Lord and also swearto Malik, those who these
scriptures are showing us thatthe people during that time,
which were supposed to be God'speople, had turned away from God
(22:51):
or they were mixing thereligion and the laws of Moses
with the religions around them,and the laws of Moses with the
religions around them.
Jerusalem was supposed to bethe representation of holy
worship, a place for God only,but the people had broken the
first commandment you shall nothave any other God before me.
(23:12):
Even with King Josiah'sreformation, corruption remained
While he tore down pagan altarsand restored the temples we see
in 2 Kings, chapter 23,.
Many people continued toworship and ignore God, even the
priests.
God's wrath was not impulsive,it was just.
(23:33):
This wasn't because ofignorance, because they knew the
word.
It was because of rebellion.
Their secret sins worshipingGod in church and at night going
to the rooftops to worshipcelestial gods would not stay
hidden.
Eventually, sin pours out intoeverything around us.
(23:57):
Sin pours out into everythingaround us.
We see further on in verse 8through 14, the corruption
touched every corner of Judah.
What are today's idols?
They may not be carved statues,but they're just as dangerous.
We have materialism,self-promotion, political
(24:25):
obsession, obsession all day,every day being a couch potato
surfing through Netflix or infront of the Xbox for hours or
scrolling on social media, eventhough these things are okay.
But when we prioritize themabove God, they become like an
idol.
So ask yourself are thereplaces in my life where I follow
(24:45):
God outwardly but compromiseinwardly?
Maybe we go to church, wevolunteer, we say the right
things, we post Bible verses onsocial media, but inside our
hearts we aren't fully in it.
We're just going through themotions.
We try to justify our sin inprivate.
(25:07):
Those sins do we harborunforgiveness, pride, lust,
greed or envy?
Or maybe we talk about trustingin God but live in constant
fear and make choices based oncontrol and not our faith in God
.
The judgment on the nations InZephaniah 2, 1 through 3, he's
(25:32):
speaking to the people of Israel, those that are faithful,
gather yourself, calling hispeople to humble and reflect
Together.
You gather, o nation notdesired.
They were not desired due tosin Before the decree.
(25:52):
Bring forth God's judgmentBefore the day of the past, as
the chaff before the fierceanger of the Lord come upon you.
Before the day of the Lord'sanger come upon you, seek ye,
the Lord, turn to God withsincerity.
All you meek of heart on earthwhich have wrought his judgment,
(26:19):
those who live according to hislaws.
Seek righteousness.
Seek meekness means activelypursuing right living and
humility.
It may be ye shall be hid.
In the day of the Lord's angerthere's a hope of mercy.
God always offers us warningsbefore judgment.
His just isn't limited to hisown people.
(26:49):
During this time he wasn't justmad at Jerusalem, the people of
Jerusalem.
He was also upset with thecountries around them.
They would also face theconsequences.
Why?
Because they were violent, theywould mock and they would
oppress.
Face the consequences.
Why?
Because they were violent, theywould mock and they would
oppress God's people.
You can't mess with God'speople and think nothing will
happen.
In Zephaniah 2.7, it says thatthe land will belong to the
(27:13):
remnant of the people of Judah.
Who's the remnant?
The faithful, the few whopreserved through judgment.
There they will find pasture.
It's an image of peace,restoration.
In the evening they will liedown in the house of Ashkelon.
The Lord, their God, will carefor them and he will restore
(27:36):
their fortunes Once a stronghold, ashklon of the enemy now
becomes a refuge for God'speople.
In Zephaniah 2.8, I have heardthe taunting of Moab and the
reveling of the sons of Ammonwith which they have taunted my
(27:57):
people and become arrogantagainst their territory.
Maybe we don't have physicalenemies, but we have Satan who
comes and taunts us and speaksto us and causes us to fall and
stumble.
Or maybe we're innocent andwe're just in this world and
(28:17):
things happen to us because ofthe sin of the world.
God has heard the taunt and hasseen the encroachment.
In Zephaniah 2.11,.
The Lord will be terrifying andawesome to them, for he will
starve.
All the gods of the earth andall the coastal lands of the
nation will bow down and worshiphim, every, everyone from his
(28:41):
own place.
So right now we see in thisbook where they're talking about
worshiping every other God,even those believers.
But we will all take account,we'll all see.
Even the enemies will be bowingdown and worshiping God.
Even the enemies will be bowingdown and worshiping God.
(29:04):
Ask yourself are you listeningto God's warning, whether
through scripture or conviction?
Do we tolerate what Godcondemns pride, exploitation,
violence?
Do we mock or ignore his ways?
I'm going to do it my way orignore his ways.
I'm going to do it my way,assuming judgment won't ever
(29:24):
come.
When correction does come, dowe respond with humility or do
we push it away?
The third part the hope of thenation.
This was the opportunity for usto recognize our sin, to
(29:47):
recognize our shortcomings.
It wasn't just for judgment.
God was called for restoration,and Zephaniah 3, 9 through 13
reveals the redemptive plan ofGod.
God will purify the nations.
He will unite the people underhis name.
No-transcript Zephaniah 3.17.
(30:16):
The Lord, your God, is with you.
That means he's present all thetime.
The mighty warrior who saves.
He's victorious in everything.
He will take great delight inyou, in his love.
He will no longer rebuke you.
That's after a spanking.
He hugs us right but willrejoice over you with singing.
(30:40):
God is singing a joyful songabout you, the faithful.
As I was reading this lastchapter, we see two threads the
continuation of rebellion, thesobering reality that many will
persist in pride and corruption,the fact that we try to reach
(31:04):
out to the ones we love and theyrefuse to hear God's word.
Or we might be those innocentones.
But along with that there's aclear thread of hope.
Hope for the meek, for humbleand the righteous, for those
that were caught in thecrestfire of this broken world,
(31:26):
for those who live to seerightly.
Even when the surrounding, whenour we are surrounded by
injustice, god sees you and hepromises restoration.
The faithful remnant will not beforgotten.
The Lord will gather his people, remove their shame and give
(31:47):
them a new song.
This is the promise that Godwill make with his people.
If it's not in this lifetime,it will be when the Lord comes.
That's the tension thatZephaniah leaves us.
Judgment is real, but so isredemption, and the door to
(32:08):
mercy remains open for anyonewilling to humble themselves and
seek the Lord.
So now let's not be like theone who walks blindly into
danger, but let's be thatremnant, those who hear, who
repent and return to the Lord.
Thank you.
Angus MacLeod (32:43):
Amen.
Such a challenging word.
You know, it's very easy todistance ourselves from those in
the Old Testament because itwas such a long time ago and we
think what do we really have incommon with those people?
I mean, they didn't even haveiPads.
But the reality is is there areso many similarities.
Just because we don't have astone carved in our home or some
(33:03):
sort of other graven imagedoesn't mean that we don't have
an idol in our life thatseparates us from God.
And so it's incredible when wereally sit down and think and
take a look at some of theseprophets, some of these books in
the Old Testament, and realizethat maybe they aren't so far
off from where we are and thatwe need to do just like they did
(33:25):
and repent and turn back to God.
So thank you so much, christina, for that wonderful word.
Our next yeah, go ahead.
Our next speaker is Eddie Perez.
He is one of our very faithfulkids' church teachers.
(33:46):
He's been ministering to mychildren and yours for years.
Thank you, eddie.
He is also one of our certifiedministers here at Cornerstone,
and so in just a few minuteswe'll have him come and share
with you.
But first a word from theprophet.
AI Video (34:04):
What's up?
Faithful followers Amos livefrom Tekoa Got to drop some
serious truth on you today.
You're all about that good life, flaunting your lavish homes,
but the poor, they're gettingabsolutely crushed out there.
And your worship?
You're out here singing,sacrificing, but your hearts are
nowhere near God.
(34:24):
He sees right past the filters,people.
He's not interested in fakedevotion.
Listen up.
The Lord is roaring from Zion.
You don't want to be on thewrong side of that judgment.
You don't want to be on thewrong side of that judgment.
You can't just swipe past this.
They came at me, tried tocancel me, but you can't silence
(34:44):
the truth.
So here's your call to actionSeek good, not evil.
Let justice flow like a massiveviral river.
Judgment is coming.
Stay just and blessed andalways seek the Lord.
Peace out.
Eddie (35:07):
Well, good morning Cornerstone.
They let the youngest of usthree go last.
I first want to start bythanking Pastor Jay and Celeste
for this opportunity to come andbreak bread with you, and also
I want to thank them for givingus the full counsel of God.
What do I mean by that is that,you know, if we look at our
Bibles, we have the OldTestament and the New Testament.
Some of us might think likewell, the old, why do we need
that?
That must be archaic.
(35:27):
We don't need that anymore.
Give us the new.
But I don't want us to look atour Bibles that way.
I want us to see it as the OldTestament is the New Testament
concealed and the New Testamentis the Old Testament revealed,
and so we need that wholecounsel for us to grow in this
day and age.
Okay, and they bring that too.
(35:47):
So we thank him for that.
So again, we've been looking atthis series of the prophets
right, and it started way backwith Pastor Celeste some weeks
ago and in a way we've kind ofcome full circle.
And here's what I mean by thatthat if we were to take all the
prophets there's 16 of them,including the majors If we were
to put them in chronologicalorder, we would start with Jonah
and then Amos, and then it goeson from there and it's all
(36:11):
centered around this eventthat's taking place the
Babylonian exile.
God was going to kick them outbecause of their disobedience.
We heard from Tyler andChristina, and so when we look
at all the prophets, there'seight of them that were
prophesying prior to that eventhappening, a couple during and a
couple after.
And when we see that, we kindof get a perspective from God,
(36:32):
as Tyler and them already sharedthat God is gracious and
merciful and has love towardsany kind of correction.
He gives us, and that's the waywe should be with one another,
especially as parents towardsour kids, right?
So reminding again what aprophet is they're a mouthpiece
from God to the people, and sothe message they bring is what A
(36:53):
prophecy In Amos 3.7, he shareswith this that God reveals the.
He does nothing withoutrevealing the secret things to
his servants, the prophets.
Okay, so that's why they'rethere and telling all these
things.
So I'm going to spare us allthe different judgments and
things.
It's the same one.
It's taking tears through thesame time period.
(37:13):
They're just doing it over andover.
It's like God was trying to getthem turn back, turn back, but
they wouldn't listen.
So eventually he had to do whathe had to do.
And so that's pretty much therest of the whole book of Amos.
But I want to bring to heart aspecific part of that.
If we look at Amos himselfwhich his name means burden
bearer Amos in verse chapter oneand also chapter seven, it
(37:41):
talks about who he was, that hewas a farmer and that he tended
to trees, meaning that he didn'tcome from a line of prophets,
he was just a regular old guyperson out there that God had
his heart to tell him hey, myburden bearer, I have a burden,
I need you to go share thisright.
And so from that I learnedsomething about Amos he knew God
and he feared God.
(38:02):
Okay, imagine any one of us allof a sudden having a burden
from God saying hey, I need youto go to the mayor of your city
or to the governor of your stateor something like that.
I have a message to send tothem about what they're doing.
It's not right.
How would you feel?
It's like who me?
(38:23):
It's like how, if I go there,things might happen.
They might, you know, put me injail or otherwise, right, but
if we know God and we know it'scoming from God, we have to fear
him and not man, and do what hewants us.
We're here for him, not theother way around.
Amen, all right.
So that's the heart of mymessage, of what I want to share
.
But before I get that, I want topose this question to us Could
(38:44):
judgments like what we've beenhearing already happen today,
2025?
And the reason why I'm posingthis question is because I feel
there's too many of us thatdon't really see God as real.
Yeah, we see the stories andthe Bible's there and stuff and
we hear them, but is he reallyreal today?
And I feel a lot of why some ofus feel that way is because we
haven't had a true encounterwith him by his spirit.
(39:06):
So I encourage you to contendto that end, because that's what
happened in my life and that'spart of the reason why I'm here
right now sharing with you.
Okay, but again that questioncould things like that we've
been talking about happen today?
Well, in Amos 9.1, amos sees aperspective of God that he's
standing next to the altar readyto dispense his judgments.
(39:28):
Well, where do we find thealtar today, right here in the
house of God.
And then in 1 Peter 4, it saysthat judgment begins in the
house of God.
And then also, as Tyler alreadymentioned, but from the Hebrews
verse, it says that Goddisciplines those he loves.
Okay, and then God has, can andwill use the sun and moon as
(39:51):
signs to us, can and will usethe sun and moon as signs to us.
Hmm, oh, april of last year,what did we have in our country?
A solar, a total solar eclipse.
Ah, and where did it begin?
It started in the state ofTexas, at Eagle's Pass, and went
(40:12):
across the nation, kind of likethis Okay, you know that the
circumference of that eclipsewas about approximately 100
miles in diameter.
Hmm, well, from that time notbefore but after, not just
anywhere in Texas, but withinthat where the eclipse took
(40:34):
place 13 pastors have beenremoved in central north Texas
from their pulpits, manydifferent denominations of
Christianity, and many of themwere in their pulpits for many
years and some of them were wellknown.
Hmm, that was just last year,2024, today.
(40:59):
Maybe that helps to convincethat, yeah, god's real and alive
and active with us.
It's not some far-off thing,but we've got to contend to know
his spirit to know these thingsAll right.
So when we look at Amos 5.4,well, first of all, in chapter 5
, Amos begins to sing a songwhich is called a dirge, which
(41:19):
is a very sad song based on anevent that's taken place
typically or after somebodywell-known within the community
has passed, very sad and heavysong.
But he's singing this songbased on what he's seen to come
and God moves on his heart tosay some things about the church
in that song that are veryheavy.
No church would ever want tohear the words in that song.
I challenge you to read it.
(41:39):
But in chapter 5, verses 4through 6, we see the statement
made twice God says first, seekme and live, and at the end of 6
, he says seek the Lord and live.
And so that to me gives thatimpression about we need to have
a proper fear of the Lord onceagain.
Okay, but what is the fear ofthe Lord?
(41:59):
Something that we don't heartypically in our vernacular of
things today, right?
So in Proverbs 9, 10, and alsoin chapter 1, verse 7, it says
that the fear of the Lord is thebeginning of wisdom and the
knowledge of the Holy One,understanding or insight.
And then again.
It repeats in 1.7,.
It says the fear of the Lord isthe beginning of knowledge.
So the fear of the Lord issomething that we begin in the
(42:21):
knowing either about, or, inthis case, who.
Who do we know?
There's a difference betweenknowing and knowing about.
God wants us to know him and Iwant to relate it in a fashion
like this there's a differencebetween the hands and the face.
Now, as parents, when our kidsare little, we kind of know some
(42:43):
of that.
Right, kids come to us withtheir hands.
What are they doing?
What can you do for me or whatcan you give me?
But if we just continueoperating just at that level,
what if I stop?
What's going to happen?
Well, I'll go find anothersource that'll give me what I
want or do what I ask.
Right, it's kind of verysuperficial, not really knowing,
ah.
But if I was to pick up thatchild, to bring them up here,
(43:04):
now they're at my face.
What happens there?
Identity, see each other?
No, differentiating one toanother by our faces?
Right, then we see expression.
Are we happy, sad, mad, allthose kind of things.
Then, if I bring them close, orclose to my heart, I can share
with them, right my ideas andstuff and hear from them.
(43:25):
We converse, we get to know oneanother, okay, so, in relation
to God, we praise him for whathe does and we worship him for
who he is.
We praise him for what he doesand we worship him for who he is
.
We praise him for what he doesthe hands but we worship him for
who he is.
One of my heroes of faith, drDavid Jeremiah, once made this
(43:49):
comment.
He said we will only worshipsomeone we love and we will only
love someone we know we loveand we will only love someone we
know.
I'll say it again we will onlyworship someone we love and we
will only love someone we know.
In addition to that, I know, atthe end of each service, pastor
Jay and others will say theblessing that comes from the
(44:11):
rabbinical blessing in numbersix.
I know some of us kind ofstruggle with that.
Why is that a blessing?
Because it's stated in such away.
Well, what does it say?
It says may the Lord bless youand keep you the hands.
May he cause his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you.
What's that?
Well, in his presence, theshining is his glory and it's
(44:34):
only in his presence that we seehis glory, is his glory, and
it's only in his presence thatwe see his glory, and in that
place is where we gain his grace, favor that we don't deserve.
The next part says may he liftup his countenance upon you and
give you peace.
Well, what's that?
Well, when somebody'scountenance is lifted, what do
they do?
They smile.
Imagine God smiling at us andin that place, knowing, hey,
(44:58):
we're okay, we're good.
Wouldn't that put you at ease?
God's pleased with me, we'regood.
But again, it only comes fromknowing okay.
So how do we walk out this fearof the Lord?
Well, in Amos 8, 11, it saysthat there was going to be a
famine in the land, and itwasn't due to bread, but not
(45:21):
being able to hear the words ofGod.
But wait a minute.
In the New Testament, what doesit tell us?
Our faith comes how?
By hearing the words of God.
So we don't want that to happen.
So what should we do?
We need to spend time in hisword, the love-lovingness from
heaven that lets us know abouthim and who he is.
I've got a picture at my house.
It looks like this Okay, it's adepiction of Psalms 1, and I'm
(45:48):
going to say it, but it's notthe full way.
You'll find it in the Bible.
I'm missing some parts, right,but when I look at it it kind of
reminds me.
Blessed be the man thatdelights in God's law and he
meditates on it day and night.
He's like a tree planted by thestreams of living water, and
his fruit will be ripe in season.
This leaf will not wither andwhatever he does will prosper.
(46:10):
It was a kind of promise fromGod when we dwell with him in
his word and walk with him inknowing who he is.
So it's very important that wespend time in God's word.
But in and when we spend timein his word, we're going to have
questions, right.
That brings me to my secondpoint, and that is in Amos 7, 1
(46:36):
through 9, amos has seen somethings that's going to take
place and he's like, oh Lord,please don't do so, because
they're weak, they won't be ableto handle it.
And guess what?
God hears his prayer and hestops Twice.
That happens.
Wow, that can happen when wepray, apparently.
So it's right there.
But many of us say, like I hearda guy once mentioned to me, why
should we pray?
Because God knows everythingthat's going to happen already.
So why should we be a part ofit?
(46:58):
Well, that's just it.
God knows everything that'staking place, but we don't.
But if we want to be a part ofit, we need to spend time with
him and we're going to let himspeak to us and guide us through
that process.
Who knows?
Part of what he knows alreadycould be our prayers for
somebody who's sick they may getbetter, somebody's in jail, we
(47:20):
prayers for somebody who's sickthey may get better, somebody's
in jail will be released,somebody's heart will be turned
to him and be saved.
But we won't know any of thesethings unless we're spending
time with them to be guided anddirected by who he is.
Okay, find my space, sorry.
I see God sometimes like asilversmith in this process.
A silversmith will quietly sitby the silver patiently watching
over it for a particular matterand what he's doing, and
(47:41):
oftentimes he has to heat it up,which would be kind of like
judgment and correcting us.
He's wanting that in theliquidity of the silver he's
looking for impurities to raiseup so he can pull them off.
He wants things to be pure andthe part that he's willing to
know that it's been through thatprocess is that he'll see us
reflection in it and our heartsare no different.
(48:02):
God's wanting to walk with himand do that stuff that he wants
us to have the value that hewants in that same way.
Um, in the uh.
I heard this gentleman sittingto my left some time ago when he
was in the pulpit.
He said people often look atJesus as going from miracle to
miracle and and in between heprayed.
But pastor said I don't see itthat way.
(48:23):
I believe God or Jesus wentfrom prayer to prayer and in
between miracles, and I believehe wants us to walk that same
way as well.
And lastly, I have a pictureand it's a leaflet inside my
Bible and when something speaksto me that makes a point and
stuff, I want to put it there.
So it always reminds me.
That middle quote is fromsomebody we might know I think
(48:44):
his name is Pastor Jay.
Anybody heard of him and hesaid this of June of last year
and this is what he wrote, orthis is what he said and I wrote
it down that our prayer life isa reflection of our proximity
to Jesus.
I'm going to say that again Ourprayer life is a reflection of
our proximity, closeness toJesus, how's your prayer life?
(49:06):
When I heard that, I took it toheart and right after that,
roughly in August of last year,at my work, I started with
another gentleman where weliterally are praying every day.
We get there a half hour early.
We got permission from thedirector of the office to use a
room and I'm telling you, wepray Beyond that.
A couple of weeks ago I startedeven a prayer box that I put in
(49:28):
the lunchroom and people haveyou know, humbly they responded
to.
We've had several people.
Now we're praying specificallybecause of that process.
God may want to use you thatsame way at your work, but some
of you might say, well, I can'tdo that because they don't allow
those kind of things.
Really Well, I worked 30 yearsfor the city of Phoenix, right
Government office.
Guess what Active then untilthis day there's a group called
(49:51):
the City of Phoenix Employeesfor Christ.
Guess what we did?
Daily Bible studies.
We had monthly lunches.
We invited people to speak theword of God and brought in we
did a couple of times early inthe life of that organization
where we did the National Day ofPrayer right there inside of
City Hall.
So see, god, there's nolimitation when it comes to God,
he can open doors that no mancan shut and shut doors no man
(50:13):
can open.
But you've got to be close tohim, to know him, to know those
processes, and do as he says.
I'm going to finish.
I'm going to tell the storywe're going to finish.
Um, imagine I work for the cityof excuse me, I currently work
for Grand Canyon University as apublic safety officer.
I wear a uniform and I'mstanding at a post as a guard,
(50:37):
you know, for people coming inor out of the campus.
So just imagine with me for amoment that a gentleman walks up
.
He's well-dressed, he's not ina panic, he looks nice, okay,
but he stands across from me andtells me I need you to come
here Now as a guard and stuffand stuff.
And again, my responsibilities.
(50:57):
Some questions kind of raise up.
First of all, who are you?
Are you with gcu?
Or why are you making thiscomment?
You know other questions mightcome up.
Why is he wanting me to move?
You know, and all these kind ofother things, but I'm telling
you what's not happening.
I'm not moving why?
Well, I don't know the guy Igot to figure all these things
out.
What he's asked me to do couldpossibly be to my detriment if
(51:20):
it's something hazardous and I'mjust not.
But I have responsibility in mypost and I don't know this guy
why he's telling me that.
So I got to clear some thingsfirst.
I'm sure it's happening quicklyand stuff, but I'm sure slowing
down that process for our, youknow, for what we're doing here.
I'm gonna to change that samescenario up a bit.
So this time who's coming to meis the director of my office.
(51:41):
I didn't get a chance to askhim if I could use his name for
what I'm doing today, but I knowhim, I know his name, I know
what he looks like, I know hisvoice and what he sounds like
and you know he's a director.
He's a great guy, you know,loves the guy and stuff and he's
done a lot for us.
I I know he cares for us.
Now let's say he came up and hesaid Ed, I need you to come
(52:01):
here.
I may still have some questionslike why does this director
want me?
Did I do something wrong?
Or what's going on, or what'shappening Right, but I'll tell
you what's happening first.
Is I'm moving in his direction?
Is I'm moving in his directionwhy?
Because I know him and he hasauthority.
I'm there for him.
(52:21):
He's not there for me andbecause of that and I know who
he is and what he's got I'mmoving this direction Again,
having questions.
So why do I share all that storyfor you now?
God's no different In his word.
He doesn't ask us stuff.
He commands us, like what Isaid come here, do this to love
(52:42):
one another, to forgive.
But what's our response to him?
Is it like the first one?
He's somewhat stranger to usand we question things before we
move or do anything.
Or do we move towards him outof our love and respect, because
we know him, and maybe we havequestions in the process of how
it's going to play out?
But he's good, he's alive, heloves us, he's God.
(53:02):
How is your response there?
Now?
I've done my part, as best Ican, with the time that I have,
to express the need andimportance of truly spending the
quality time of yourselves inhis word and in prayer to know
him.
He wants us to know him.
He wants us to know him.
But if what I've shared hasn'tbeen enough, then maybe seeing
(53:23):
or reading some words from Jesuswill do it.
Okay, in a moment there's goingto be a scripture on the wall.
All I ask is for the next 10seconds we respectfully and
reverently take time to take inwhat Jesus himself is saying to
us Matthew 7, 21, 23.
Thank you.
Angus MacLeod (54:15):
It's a great scripture to consider,
especially when we think aboutthat for ourselves, because we
know that one day we will allenter that throne room.
We will all enter in before thejudge and he's going to have a
response.
Whether that response is depart, because I never knew you, or
(54:42):
well done, good and faithfulservant, has everything to do
with you.
Good and faithful servant haseverything to do with you.
So I'm gonna ask what is itthat God is saying about you?
What do you think, knowingwhere you're at right now, what
(55:02):
do you think the response isgoing to be from the Lord when
you stand before him?
The question is do you knowJesus?
Have you embraced Jesus?
Because if you haven't, you'renot in the family and we know
(55:25):
that the Lord will have the oneresponse depart, I never knew
you.
But see, it's a very simpleprocess for us to come into
relationship so that we can hearone day well done, good and
faithful servant.
Now, it's not magic magic, butit is simple and it doesn't have
(55:51):
anything necessarily to do withthe exact words that you use,
but it's more the position ofyour heart in recognizing where
you are in relationship to thelord.
So I'm going to ask ifeverybody would stand and with
all heads bowed and all eyesclosed.
I'm going to simply ask you, ifyou recognize that that's you,
(56:14):
that you don't have arelationship with Jesus, that
you're on the path that's goingto hear depart, for I never knew
you we're going to invite youinto relationship.
So if that's you and yourecognize that you have a need
for Jesus in your life, I'mgoing to ask that, if you've
never received Christ before,that you just put your hand up
(56:38):
and let me know, so we know howto pray with and for you, and
then, once I see your hand, youcan put it on back down again
and then we'll all pray.
Put it on back down again andthen we'll all pray.
(56:58):
Thank you jesus, thank you lord.
So now I'm going to just ask ifeverybody would pray this prayer
with me here in just a second,because it says in roman 9,.
It says Because if you confesswith your mouth that Jesus is
Lord and believe in your heartthat God raised him from the
dead, you will be saved.
(57:18):
For with the heart one believesand is justified, and with the
mouth one confesses and is saved.
And that's all this prayer is.
It's just an expression of yourheart position that you want to
come into relationship withJesus.
So if you would pray thisprayer with me, lord, thank you
(57:42):
for loving me.
Thank you for sending Jesus.
I believe Jesus died on thecross for my sins.
I believe he rose again.
(58:04):
Forgive me of my sins.
I surrender my life to you.
In Christ's name.
We pray Amen.
Amen, friends, if that was youand you accepted Jesus for the
first time, we celebrate withyou Amen.
And we want to encourage you togo back to the prayer banner.
Back there We've got somepeople who are ready to pray
(58:24):
with you and also give you somematerials for the next steps on
your journey.
But for the rest of us, let'sconsider what the prophets would
say to us today knowing exactlywhere you are, knowing that God
knows exactly where you are.
He's not calling anybody out,but he is calling on you to come
(58:49):
back.
You see, we have to have theproper perspective that God
isn't wanting to punish us.
He's wanting us to be able tocome into relationship with him,
and that relationship isobstructed by the things that we
have placed there, and thatrelationship is obstructed by
the things that we have placedthere, but he stands willing and
(59:10):
ready to remove those obstacles, to be able to straighten those
things out in our life.
And so, as we open this altar,if you find that there's
something in you, in yourrelationship, in your walk, that
you realize maybe I need tomake this adjustment, now's the
time to come and bring that tothe Lord and say Lord, I've been
(59:31):
wrong, I've been having anissue in this area, but I don't
want to have that anymore.
I want to come to you.
Maybe you just want to get alittle bit closer to the Lord,
in which case you're invited tocome as well.
Lord, we thank you for thisopportunity.
(59:52):
We thank you that all the wordsthat you spoke to the prophets
and to your people then stillapply today and that you're
faithful to say them to us sothat we don't wander off into
destruction.
Lord, I just pray that youwould help us to recognize
exactly where we are at, behonest with ourselves and be
honest with you, so that we canturn from our ways and be able
(01:00:15):
to one day hear well done, goodand faithful servant.
Lord, we pray all these thingsin the mighty name that is Jesus
Christ, amen.
Annie (01:00:25):
What an amazing morning.
We had three different voiceswhere the Holy Spirit was
speaking the same thing throughit.
They didn't just so you know,they didn't come together and
decide what they're going topreach together.
God did that.
We have, I think, if you sawall of the announcements.
There's so much going on at ourchurch right now, but next week
, august 10th, say August 10th.
August 10th Is a water baptism.
(01:00:47):
If you were wondering what thatnext step is, that next step
it's the change, your governmentin your heart, all the way to
the Lord, and so that's our nextstep of water baptism.
If you need to see all of thoseannouncements again, those are
on the church center app.
We also have on August 31st Ibelieve it was is a children
dedication.
We believe that we cometogether as a community to help
(01:01:10):
support those parents, to leadthose kids on the right path for
the rest of their life, and sochild dedication is August 31st.
Angus MacLeod (01:01:19):
We also have life groups that'll be starting up
soon, so I want to encourage youto take a look at the various
groups and activities and thingsthat are going on and find a
place to get connected, becausethat's where the real growth
happens.
Before we go, I want to readthis and pray this blessing upon
us the Lord bless you and keepyou.
(01:01:39):
The Lord make his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you
.
The Lord lift up hiscountenance upon you and give
you peace.
Lord, we pray this blessingover your people, your church,
and we just ask that you wouldhelp us to go out and be the
light in a dark world.
We pray this in the mighty namethat is Jesus Christ, amen.
(01:02:03):
Well, we love you very much atCornerstone.
Thank you for being here today.
Have a great week.
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