Zechariah

[00:00:16] Our dear heavenly Father, I believe what the band just sang. [00:00:22] You are our living hope. [00:00:27] There is hope. In the name of the Lord, I pray tonight that the scriptures would be alive to us. [00:00:37] Pray that we would have a sense of your presence. [00:00:42] I pray that that which is best in our soul would be nurtured. [00:00:48] Then I pray that when we come to your table, we could humble ourselves and recommit ourselves to you anew. [00:00:55] In Jesus name, amen. [00:01:02] There are some books in the Bible that you absolutely have to know the backstory to. [00:01:09] And Zechariah is one of them. [00:01:16] 586 years before Christ, the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem. [00:01:25] But it really wasn't the Babylonians. It was God who destroyed Jerusalem. [00:01:31] And he said, the reason I'm destroying Jerusalem is you have become everything I don't like. [00:01:39] I am your covenant God. I have blessed you again and again and again, and you have become everything I don't like. [00:01:50] And the children of Israel were in babylonian captivity for 70 years. [00:01:58] In 538, the medio persian king Cyrus defeated the Babylonians. [00:02:12] And one of the first decrees he made after he defeated the Babylonians was, anybody from Israel who wants to go home, go home. [00:02:24] He said, more than that, I'm going to give you everything we stole from your temple so you can rebuild your temple. [00:02:33] So on three occasions, people from Babylon went back to Israel. [00:02:40] The first group was led by Zerubbabel, the governor, and Joshua, the chief priest. [00:02:50] The second group was led by Ezra, and we have his letter in the Old Testament. And the third group was led by Nehemiah. [00:03:01] Zechariah is a prophet who went back with the first group that was led by Ezra, by Zerubbabel and Joshua. [00:03:15] And he wrote this very odd book. [00:03:23] His name means the Lord remembers. [00:03:27] And the book can be broken into three sections. [00:03:31] The first section is nine dreams that Zechariah had. [00:03:40] And each one of these dreams is a message of God to the people of Israel. [00:03:48] The second section is two, chapters seven and eight. [00:03:55] And they were rebuilding the temple. And they came to Zedekiah and said, since we're rebuilding the temple, do we still have to fast and mourn for the first temple? [00:04:11] And then the last part of the book, chapters nine through 14, are two oracles. [00:04:20] And in these oracles we get introduced to God's great purpose for Jesus Christ and how he's going to make all the difference for the people of Israel. [00:04:32] So that's the big picture. Now let's look at it together. [00:04:39] I hope you brought your bible, but if you didn't, I'll read to you anyway. [00:04:45] In the second year of Darius, Cyrus died relatively young, and Darius took over for him. And in the second year that Darius was the king of Medio, Persia, the Lord spoke to Zechariah the prophet. [00:05:09] Thus declares the Lord of hosts, you know host means armies, right? The lord of armies, return to me, says the lord of armies, and I will return to you, says the lord of armies. [00:05:25] Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out. Thus says the Lord of hosts, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds. [00:05:38] So hes starting out, he says, think about your history. [00:05:42] Everything bad thats happened to you in the last 70 years happened because youve turned your hearts away from God. [00:05:50] And now this is a brand new start. [00:05:54] We get a fresh start. [00:05:56] And let's begin our fresh start with an act of turning back to God. [00:06:07] And then the nine dreams start. I'll describe each one to you. [00:06:14] The first dream he had, he saw a man riding a red horse. [00:06:21] He saw a man riding a sorrel horse and a man riding a white horse. [00:06:30] And a messenger said to him, do you recognize what you see? [00:06:37] And Zechariah says, no, I don't understand this at all. [00:06:42] And the messenger said, these are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the whole earth. [00:06:51] This is a picturesque way of saying, the God who's asking you to return to him, he knows what's going on everywhere. [00:07:02] There's nothing happening on the earth that surprises him. [00:07:07] He knows what's happening everywhere. [00:07:15] And then there was a question asked of God. [00:07:26] O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah against which you have been angry for these 70 years? [00:07:40] The person asked God, you're asking us to return to you, but you've been very angry with us, and we're having a hard time returning to you because we're not really sure that you're still our covenant God. [00:07:59] And God answers them back. You misunderstand me completely. [00:08:05] I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. [00:08:10] I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. [00:08:14] He said, I'm asking you to return to me because I've already returned to you in mercy. And you're not in babylonian captivity anymore. You're living in Jerusalem, the place that I've chosen for my name to abide. [00:08:31] Then he has a second dream. [00:08:34] This dream is even more odd. [00:08:38] I lifted up my eyes and saw, and behold, four horns. [00:08:44] And a messenger talked with me and said, what are these? [00:08:48] And Zechariah said, I don't know? And the messenger said, these are the horns that have scattered Israel and Jerusalem. [00:08:59] The horns represent the countries that had destroyed Jerusalem. God is saying, ah, the time for you to be scattered is over. [00:09:10] These horns are no longer going to be a problem to you. They're no longer going to scatter you. [00:09:18] And then the Lord showed me four craftsmen, and I said, what are these coming to do? [00:09:29] He said, these are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one raised up his head. And these have come to terrify them and cast down the horns. God said, the very people who scattered you, I'm going to judge them now. [00:09:46] You're not alone in being judged for being evil. [00:09:52] Then the fourth dream. [00:09:56] He meets a Guy with a measuring stick, and he says to the Guy, where are you going? [00:10:03] And he said, I'm going to measure JeRusalem. [00:10:08] I need to measure Jerusalem because my spirit is saying to the people who are still in Babylon, up, up. Flee from the land of the north, declares the Lord, for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of heaven, declares the Lord. Up. Escape to ZIon, who will dwell up, escape to ZIon, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. [00:10:36] God said, you're not the only ones coming BacK Here. My spirit is already in Babylon, and I'm calling more of my chosen people home. [00:10:50] And then we get to the fifth dream. [00:10:53] In the fifth dream, Zedekiah saw Satan standing at the right hand of God to accuse Joshua, the high priest. [00:11:07] And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, o Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. [00:11:16] Is not this a firebrand plucked from the fire? [00:11:21] And Zedekiah said, I saw Joshua standing there, and he was standing in absolutely filthy clothes. [00:11:29] And God said to Zechariah, take off those filthy clothes. And he gave him a new a set of priestly robes. It was a symbolic way of saying the priests that God had judged for their iniquity were going to be replaced by a priest who loved God and would walk in his way. [00:11:56] Then we come to the 6th dream. [00:11:59] In the 6th dream, there is a golden lampstand. [00:12:05] You've seen a menorah, right? There was a golden menorah. And standing beside the golden menorah, there were two olive trees. [00:12:15] And Zechariah said, well, what does all this mean? [00:12:19] And the Lord said to Zechariah, the two trees represent Joshua and Zerubbabel, and the lamp represents my presence. I'm asking you to return because I am here, I am present, and I'm going to use Joshua and Zerubbabel. To rebuild this country and glorify my name. [00:12:46] If these haven't been odd enough, the 7th dream is he sees a giant flying scroll. [00:12:57] Now, use your imagination. Imagine you're standing out in your backyard, and over top your backyard comes a giant flying scroll. [00:13:08] And Zechariah said, what is this? [00:13:12] And the Lord said to him, this represents the curse that has gone out. [00:13:21] My curse is on everyone who steals, and my curse is on everyone who swears falsely. [00:13:30] If you were to read the book of Ezra and Nehemiah, you would know that not everybody who came back had good intentions. [00:13:44] And in fact, there were some people who came back who were abusing the other refugees, and they were charging them ridiculous amounts of interest, and they were cheating them out of their land, and they were oppressing widows. And God says to Zechariah, I want you to tell the people who are using this difficult time to take advantage of others, my curse has already gone out, and it's going to rest on every one of their homes if they don't stop abusing their fellow Israelites who've come back to rebuild Jerusalem. [00:14:27] If that's not odd enough, his 8th dream, he sees a big basket, and he lifts the lid of the basket, and he looks inside, and there's a lady in this basket. [00:14:48] And Zechariah says, this is pretty odd. Who's the lady in the basket? [00:14:57] And the Lord said, this is wickedness. [00:15:02] And all of a sudden, two ladies who had the wings of storks flew up, picked up the basket and flew it to Shinar, which is Babylon. [00:15:15] This is God's way of saying, the evil, the wickedness that has been here, it's here no longer. [00:15:24] This is the place you want to be. You do not want to be in Babylon. [00:15:30] And then the dreams end with a dream about chariots and horsemen. [00:15:40] The first chariot had a red horse. The second chariot had a black horse. The third had a white horse, and the fourth had a dappled horse. [00:15:51] And Zechariah said, I think I know what this is. [00:15:55] These are your messengers who go out to see what's happening. And the Lord says again, yes, be very, very sure. I'm watching everything that is happening. [00:16:08] All right. [00:16:12] Why nine dreams? [00:16:15] And why such odd dreams? [00:16:22] In Zechariah's time, we didn't have the New Testament. [00:16:30] And if God wanted to, if God wanted to speak to people, he couldn't speak to them through the gospels and Paul's letters. [00:16:41] He spoke to them through the law, but they didn't get it. So God did just something a little more dramatic to get people's attention. [00:16:51] You can imagine how people listened to Zechariah when he stood up and told these dreams. [00:17:00] I tell you, they are much more interesting when Zechariah told them, I'm trying to abbreviate them to get this sermon in on time. All right. [00:17:11] The point I want to make is God is not hidden. [00:17:18] He finds ways to reveal himself to people. [00:17:25] I wonder what part of your heart is open for God to speak to you and call you to return to him, call you to trust in him in a way more profoundly than you've ever trusted in him. [00:17:40] Has your life become so busy that God would have to do something drastic like these weird dreams to get you to stop and let him speak to you, let him share with you that he does have an eternal purpose, that he is at work in the world. And whether cable news recognizes it or not, he is at work to do wonderful things in the world. [00:18:11] You get 50 people who have an ugly cause, they'll be all over the news. [00:18:18] You get 5000 people doing something good and they won't even get five minutes. [00:18:31] But it doesn't mean that God is not alive. And he's not. And God is alive and he is at work in the world. [00:18:45] And then Hezekiah tells us that there were some powerful men in Jerusalem who were scheming for power. [00:19:01] And so God said to Ezekiel, I want you to call these men who are scheming from power. [00:19:10] And in front of them I want you to put a crown on Joshua's head. [00:19:16] And when you put that crown on his head, I want you to say to those men who are scheming for power that God has crowned Joshua and that he will bless the work that he's doing. And you men need to stop opposing him. [00:19:37] Then we get to seven and eight, the second section of the book in seven. Ah, the people come to Zechariah and they say, we can see the temples coming up, we're building it. Things happen. It's about half done. [00:19:54] All right. Do we still have to fast the way we used to have to fast and mourn for the destruction of the temple? [00:20:04] And basically Zechariah says, God never told you to fast and mourn for the destruction of the temple. You made that up yourself. [00:20:14] And he said, on top of that, you never really fasted to God. Your fast really had nothing to do with God. [00:20:25] It was about you showing other people, ah, how holy you are instead of fasting. Zedekiah said, this is what the Lord wanted from you to render true judgments, to show kindness and mercy to one another. [00:20:48] Not to oppress the widow and the fatherless, the sojourner and the poor. [00:20:54] Let none of you devise evil against one another in his heart. [00:20:59] That's what God wanted. [00:21:01] But you wouldn't listen to that. You wanted to do your showcase fasting and God tried to break through your rituals and you wouldn't listen. In fact, you made your heart hard as diamonds, lest you would hear the law and the words of God, the word that God had sent through his spirit, through the prophets. [00:21:34] You were so committed to doing it your way that you missed what I wanted altogether. [00:21:43] You made yourself miserable and blamed it on me. And I never wanted that to begin with. [00:21:49] I wanted you to be kind and merciful to one another. [00:21:53] I wanted you to render true judgments. [00:21:56] I wanted you to be good to widows and orphans, sojourners and the poor. [00:22:03] I wanted you to stop devising evil in your heart. [00:22:08] But you made your heart as hard as day diamonds when I ask you to do that. [00:22:17] In fact, God said, I never wanted you to be miserable. [00:22:23] I've always wanted to bless Zion. [00:22:26] I've always wanted to be the God in the midst of Zion. A God of faithfulness and righteousness. [00:22:35] I always wanted to be the God who called you to sow peace. [00:22:49] And Zechariah said the very same thing God said to our fathers. He's saying to us right now, do you have to fast because the temple's not built? No, you don't. That was never his plan to begin with. And he said a second time, here's what God wants. [00:23:09] Speak the truth to one another. [00:23:12] Render in your gates judgments that are true. [00:23:17] Make peace. [00:23:20] Do not devise evil in your hearts and love no false oath. [00:23:27] Once again, Zedekiah was saying for God to the people, your misery wasn't caused by God. [00:23:38] Your misery was caused by your own wicked hearts. Your misery wasn't caused by God. Your misery was caused because you invented religions for yourself that God had nothing to do with. [00:23:54] I wonder if God might say the same thing to us. [00:23:58] God gets blamed for a lot. [00:24:00] I hear people blame God for a whole lot of stuff. [00:24:04] And I wonder if God might say to us. You know what? You think that because you misunderstand me, I've always wanted what was best for you. [00:24:15] I've always looked to show you grace. [00:24:18] I've always wanted you to have great peace in your life. [00:24:23] But you've organized your life in the kind of way that you can't receive the blessings I want to give you. [00:24:31] And you live in a state of discontent and sorrow and you blame it on God when in fact, it's your own heart that the problem's in. [00:24:46] And then God said, the feast that you've been, the fast that you've been practicing. [00:25:00] I want the house of Judah have seasons of joy and gladness, cheerfulness and feasts. Therefore, love, truth and peace. [00:25:09] I never wanted you doing that to begin with. In fact, I wanted just the opposite for you. I wanted you to have seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. [00:25:21] Can you believe that God really wants what's best for you? [00:25:26] Can you really, in your heart of hearts, can you turn close enough to him to feel him say, all I really wanted in your life, what was truly best for you? [00:25:41] I wanted you to live a life of joy and gladness. I wanted you to have cheerful feasts. [00:25:48] I wanted you to love, truth and share peace with others. [00:25:56] And then Zechariah makes an appeal. [00:26:01] This is what he said. [00:26:04] Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord to seek the Lord of hosts. [00:26:11] Zechariah said, I myself am going. Come with me. [00:26:18] He said, not only will we be the ones who seek the favor of the Lord, other people are going to come here and they're going to see how God has blessed us and they're going to seek his favor also. [00:26:30] Could I ask you, when was the last time you seriously sought God's favor? [00:26:38] When was the last time you quieted your life down a little bit? And you said to God, I've been valuing the wrong things and I would like you to do something in my heart. So I come to value your favor on me more than I value any other thing. [00:26:59] Church coming to a moment where you say, I recognize how good God is, how beautiful he is, how gracious and merciful he is. And I don't want anything in life more than I want God's favor. [00:27:17] If God's favor is on your life, everything else will fall into place. [00:27:23] If God's favor isn't on your life, I don't care what you have or what you're doing, you will not be content. [00:27:33] And then Zechariah gave his first oracle. Chapter nine. The first oracle is God saying, I want you to compare what I'm doing for you to what I'm doing to the nations around you. [00:27:49] I want you to look at Hadraq. That was a town north of Damascus. I want you to look at Damascus. I want you to look at Tyre and Sidon. [00:28:02] All these are north of Israel. I want you to look at Echelon, Gaza, Ekron. [00:28:13] I want you to look at Ashdod and Philistia. [00:28:17] I want you to look at these other countries and see what I'm doing to them and compare what I'm doing for you. [00:28:25] They got taken away in captivity at the very same time you did. But I haven't blessed them and brought them back. I haven't blessed them and they're not rebuilding their cities, and they're not looking to the future with hope and joy. They're still living in the tragedy of being taken captive. If you want proof that I'm good, if you want proof that I'm blessing you, compare what I've done for you with what I've done for these other people. [00:29:02] And then we get to the messianic passages. [00:29:06] The first one is Zechariah nine nine. It says, behold, your king is coming to you, righteous, having salvation. He is humble and mounted on a donkey. On a colt. The foal of a donkey. [00:29:25] Do you know what that is? Looking forward to the triumphal entry. We just celebrated it when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, and they laid branches and cloaks down in front of him and they showed Hosanna. [00:29:42] Zedekiah prophesied that a full 500 years before Christ did it. [00:29:50] Zedekiah is saying, God has a good plan, but his plan is bigger than what you think. His plan points to the messiah, to the coming of Christ. [00:30:07] And then in chapter ten, oh, I can't pass over this one, Zechariah says, for how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty? [00:30:24] When Zechariah prophesied about Jesus Christ, he said, how great is the goodness of Jesus Christ? [00:30:33] How great is the beauty of Jesus Christ? [00:30:39] And then Zechariah compares Christ and the goodness of God in Christ to the household idols that they're starting to put back in their house after the babylonian captivity. He says, for the household gods are nonsense. [00:30:59] The diviners see lies, they tell false dreams, they give empty consolation. [00:31:07] He says, do you really want to trade Messiah for these ridiculous little household deities that you're keeping in your house? [00:31:18] I wonder what Christ may say to us. Do you really want to trade Christ for these other ridiculous things in your life, these things that you've made so important? Do you really want to trade them for the majesty of Christ in your life? [00:31:43] In chapter eleven, we see Jesus Christ as the good shepherd. [00:31:48] And we have another graphic image. [00:31:51] This shepherd takes two staffs, two shepherd staffs, and he binds them together. [00:31:59] He calls one staff favor and he calls the other staff union. [00:32:05] Ah, Christ wanted to bring the favor and the union of God to mankind. [00:32:16] It was, he was ambitious to do it. [00:32:19] The problem is, when Christ showed up to be the good shepherd and to tend the sheep, they wouldn't listen. [00:32:33] And I took my staff favor and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with the peoples. [00:32:43] And they still wouldn't listen. [00:32:46] And he said, if it seems good to you, give me my wages, but if not, keep them. [00:32:56] And they weighed out for my wages 30 pieces of silver. Then the Lord said to me, throw it to the potter, the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord. To the potter. We know this passage too, don't we? Judas betrayed Jesus Christ for 30 pieces of silver. [00:33:24] He said to Christ, I'll not have you be my shepherd, I'll trade you for 30 pieces of silver. [00:33:30] But he couldn't live with it. And he took that 30 pieces of silver back to the temple and he threw it down in the temple. And the priest said, this is blood money. We can't put it back in the offering. And so they bought a potter's field. A potter's field was, potter was an old word for poor. They bought a field to bury the poor people in Jerusalem who couldn't afford their own burial. And here it is 500 years before it happened. Zechariah telling us that the ministry of Jesus Christ would not be received. They wouldn't receive him as the good shepherd. And he breaks his staff called favor. And he breaks his staff to a called union. [00:34:19] In chapter twelve we get the second oracle. [00:34:24] The second oracle is, it's more esoteric. [00:34:32] But we have another look at Jesus Christ. [00:34:37] God said to Zechariah, and I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that they will look on me whom they have pierced. [00:34:54] They shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him as one weeps for a firstborn. [00:35:04] They will look on him who they have pierced. That's quoted in the New Testament about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. [00:35:14] And even though they reject him as the shepherd, listen what it says. On that day there will be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness, the ministry of Jesus Christ. Even though they wouldn't accept him as their good shepherd. Was still a ministry to cleanse people from sin and uncleanness. [00:35:45] Zechariah says, people will look at the messiah, and if anyone asks him, what are these wounds on your back? [00:35:58] He will say, the wounds I received in the house of my friends. Another passage. Looking forward to the crucifixion. People will look at Jesus and say, what happened to you? And he goes, this is what happened to me in the house of my friends. [00:36:17] And then we have a strike. The shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. And Jesus quotes that at the last supper, he says, all of you will betray me tonight because it is written, strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. [00:36:33] All right. Zechariah wraps this all up. He says, in spite of all of this, there will be some. They will call upon my name and I will answer them. I will say, they are my people. And they will say, the Lord is my God. [00:36:54] Can I tell you? God always has people. [00:36:58] I've heard my whole life, people are going to quit going to church. [00:37:02] It's old fashioned. Science has taken over. Not true, brothers and sisters. [00:37:09] God always has his people. There are always people who call upon his name. There are always people who say, the Lord is my God. And people who God says, these are my people. [00:37:22] It's a question of, will we be one of them? [00:37:27] How do we. Where do we find ourselves in this book? Do we find ourselves as people who are returning to the Lord and seeking him and valuing him? Or do we find ourselves on the other side of the ledger? That I would like to have Christ's blessings, but I don't intrude too much into my life. [00:37:54] And the book ends with, the day is coming when the bells on horses collars will ring, holy to the Lord. [00:38:07] And the very last sentence in the book says, and there shall no longer be a traitor. One who does trade, a businessman, a merchant. There shall no longer be a merchant in the house of the Lord of hosts. Ah. [00:38:26] Do you remember Jesus purging the temple and saying, you've turned my house into a stinking rummage sale. You've turned my house into a flea market. [00:38:43] Zechariah said, 500 years before Christ purged the temple, that God was adamant about coming among us and being the one who drives out the traitors. [00:38:58] All right, I want to wrap this up. I'm sorry. It always takes longer than I think it will. [00:39:03] But that's 14 chapters of a hard book. Come on, give it a look. [00:39:11] All right, here is the essence of the book of Zechariah. [00:39:20] The people say to God, you punished us and drove us into babylonian captivity. And you ask us to trust you. [00:39:30] And God says, that's absolutely right. [00:39:34] I'm not only asking you to trust me, I'm commanding you to return to me. I'm commanding you to seek me. I'm commanding you to get rid of all this religious stuff that you invented that I didn't have anything to do with. [00:39:48] I'm asking you to look at Jesus Christ and see my heart and my commitment to you. [00:39:57] I'm asking you to put being a traitor second to being a follower of Jesus Christ. [00:40:06] And I think it's a powerful word, and I pray that we can all take it to heart. Our dear heavenly Father, thank you for the prophecy of Zechariah. [00:40:22] Thank you that you go out of your way to capture our attention. [00:40:28] Thank you. That when you do get our attention, you remind us that you are a good God. [00:40:36] That it is in your heart to show us favor and to unite us with yourself. [00:40:44] That is in your heart to bless us. [00:40:48] That it's in your heart, through Jesus Christ, to do for us what only God can do. [00:40:54] Then I pray that as we see, that we would draw near to you, I pray that we would seek you with all our heart. [00:41:04] I pray that we would call upon your name. I pray that we would turn to you in hope and cling to you. [00:41:11] And that you would be the good shepherd who shepherds us with the staff of favor and union. In Christ's name, amen.