Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right, let's jump right in. We're in the book of what? Everybody, let's say that together.
[00:00:06] Zechariah, I know it sounds a lot like Zephaniah. You're like, didn't we already do this?
[00:00:11] But it's not. It's actually a very different book in a different time frame, different author, and a different story altogether. Zephaniah, I think, has three chapters. This has 14. So you've been getting used to three chapters for a little while now. Three or four chapters. Get ready for 14 of them here today.
[00:00:28] Let's open with a word of prayer, and then we will get into God's word here.
[00:00:36] Jesus, we gather here today grateful to you as we just sung about moments ago, grateful to you for the forgiveness of our sins.
[00:00:46] A fountain, as we see in that song. And even in your word, you went to the cross, you shed your blood on our behalf so that we could have a relationship with you, so that our sins could be cleansed. You took the wrath of God upon yourself so that we did not have to. And this morning we begin saying thank you for that.
[00:01:07] And I pray that our hearts would even struggle to move beyond that truth, that reality this morning, and that we would rejoice in that.
[00:01:16] We also thank you that we're able to come before you a holy God, with confidence. And so as we spend time in your word this morning, we ask that you would move our hearts and shape us to be a little bit more like you and who you want us to be as we walk as your children here today. For those of you here today, maybe who don't have a relationship with you, Lord, I pray that you would do again a mighty work in their minds and their hearts this morning to see you for who you are. In Jesus name, everyone said Amen. Amen. All right, let's jump right into this book. There's a lot of things here, and I know that in your bulletin you only have so much room, and I would say I apologize for that. But you grab a notepad or something, come prepared in that regard.
[00:02:01] And also, I've said this before, and maybe you might not know this in the next couple days, on usually Tuesday and following, if you want to be able to look back at the notes. There's going to be a lot of stuff, especially today, that I'm not going to be able to talk about in this book. It's packed full of some incredible things, things that we're just not going to have time to see today. But I encourage you, go back you can look at some of the notes. There's a lot of information in this really fascinating book that we often skip right over.
[00:02:28] So let me give you a little bit of background, help you understand how we land here today. And then we'll look at the snapshot, the setting, and then the basics is what you can start writing in on your outline.
[00:02:38] The Old Testament has how many books in The Old Testament? 39. 39 books. If you didn't know, now you do. Starts in Genesis. And we've looked at a bunch of these already. We. We are almost at the end.
[00:02:50] I know. No one's saying, aw, we are almost at the end of this journey through the Old Testament. We looked at Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1st and 2nd Samuel, 1st and 2nd Kings. We haven't looked at 1st and 2nd Chronicles. We'll do that in a couple weeks, actually. And then we've looked at Ezra and Nehemiah. I'm gonna pause right there because Ezra and Nehemiah is actually the. The timeframe that we are in today.
[00:03:16] So Ezra and Nehemiah. This. Ezra and Nehemiah happened after the Captivity. But in your Bibles, when you're flipping through your Bibles, you'll see Ezra and Nehemiah. And then it continues to go on. And we look at books like Psalms and Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Psalms, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah is where we are today.
[00:03:41] And then we'll look at Malachi next week. And then after that will be in first and second Chronicles. You're like, wait a minute, I told you we skipped that. So we're going to come back to that and conclude, right? You're like, okay, that was a lot of words really, really fast. I encourage you memorize the books of the Old Testament and New Testament in order, and one day you'll say them just that fast.
[00:04:01] I don't know if that's something to strive for or not. Probably not.
[00:04:05] But it is helpful to know the books of the Bible in order and so you can find things really quickly. I encourage you work in that direction if you're not to know the books of Bible so you can get really familiar. There we are in the book of Zachariah, and I told you, we paused at two other books, Ezra and what?
[00:04:23] Nehemiah. That's the time frame. Because that is actually the time frame that the Israelites have come back out of captivity. They were in Babylon for about 70 years and they came back out of that. And then from there, God has still a message for his people because they were in captivity for that period of time and God gave them a lot of promises while even both before they were in captivity and in captivity saying, when you go back to Jerusalem, when you go back to Judah, good things are going to come. When you get out of captivity, good things are going to come. And that's important for you to have kind of tucked away in your mind right now. Let's look at the snapshot, kind of give us some framing for this, and then we'll look at the settings. So here, this book outlines God plans, God's plan for the Jews.
[00:05:11] That is, after they've come out of where captivity in Babylon points to the coming Messiah. Though the author wrote when the people had recently returned to Israel and were rebuilding the temple. Pastor Les talked about that last week. He also, he Zechariah also focus on Jerusalem's future restoration and Jesus's reign earth. And because of this, Zechariah is packed full of prophecies about Jesus. Now, we have looked in past weeks, we have looked about, looked at a lot of prophecy both about what's coming for Israel going to be in captivity, and then Israel leaving captivity and Jesus coming down the road. This book references Jesus has more New Testament and prophetic pointers, if you will, towards Jesus than any other book. Minor prophet. They're called minor prophets because they're shorter. But this prophet especially is not minor in any, in any sense of the way other than it's 14 chapters, not something like 40 in Isaiah or Jeremiah, a bunch of other chapters. So we know the setting that's going on. And here's what we see. The people have come back out of Babylon. And I want you to get this with me because this is really important to understand as we step into this book.
[00:06:30] The people have stepped out of captivity and they are looking forward to getting back. They're looking forward to Jerusalem being a beautiful city once again. They're looking forward to the temple being rebuilt. They're looking forward to God really stepping in and blessing them in a powerful way. Well, here's what has happened.
[00:06:47] They come out of captivity. They come into the city of Jerusalem and they see the walls have been, are broken down still. The temple is still destroyed. And they say, all right, let's rebuild. This is what we saw last week. They start to rebuild, but it's been a few years, and then a Few more years and a few more years and they start to get really disappointed. Have any of you been disappointed before?
[00:07:12] And they start to think back about all those things that the other prophets have said.
[00:07:17] The other prophets said, when we go back to Jerusalem, it's going to be something that God blesses us in. It's going to be something that there's. It's a beautiful city, the temple is going to be restored, the walls like, it's going to be a wonderful thing. Well, here they get back to the city and do they see a wonderful thing?
[00:07:32] No.
[00:07:34] And then they begin to doubt. Have any of you had some issues with doubt before?
[00:07:39] When you start to think, wait a minute, God told me something was going to happen, or I know the character of God in this particular area, and yet when I look at the world around me, it doesn't seem to match with the character of God. You know what I'm talking about when you're like, all right, God says he's good and he's merciful and he's faithful and he's kind and he'll provide for me. And yet I look at the situation in my life and it doesn't seem to match the character of God. Are you with me so far? This is what they're experiencing right now. The character of God and the promises of God don't seem to match the situation that I'm in right now. And this is very frustrating.
[00:08:17] This is disheartening for.
[00:08:20] And they begin to ask this question, is God going to be faithful?
[00:08:26] Is God going to follow through on the promises that he made?
[00:08:31] What is God doing right now?
[00:08:34] I thought he was a God who acted and a God who did things to serve and to bless us. And yet I'm looking at my home right now and it's still in shambles. What is God doing? That's the question.
[00:08:48] And I want you to wrestle with that thought, maybe think personally for you where you might have been in a position or maybe are right now in a position of your life where it's frustrating, it's disappointing, you're disheartened, you're thinking, God, what are you doing right now? I know your character and I know my situation, and they don't seem to match. I want you to think about that, feel that for just a moment. Let's look at the basics in your outline and then we're come back to that.
[00:09:12] That situation. The author we know is Zechariah. He was most likely born in captivity in Babylon and came out of that. He is One of the priests here we're gonna see here as well, probably from the priestly tribe, that is Jesus. Maybe you didn't know this. Jesus actually references this prophet, if you like to jot things down. Matthew 23:35 and Luke 11 both talk about Jesus referencing this prophet and how he died between the altar and the temple. And really it's an interesting thing that Jesus references back to him because of his faithfulness to God. When is the time frame we talked about where Ezra and Nehemiah were? This is around 5:20. I put some years later. It could have been, and this is uncertain, that the book was written in two parts at two different time frames. That's why you see that on the screen there. Possibly 480ish or so. The book is split into two main sections. And then the audience we know as well, he is someone speaking to this people group who's incredibly frustrated. They're disheartened. And because of that, they're starting to stray from the Lord. All right, let's get into your outline here. Because they are straying from the Lord, the book opens with a clear and important call to return to the. Can you say it with me?
[00:10:35] Return to the Lord. And this is where the book opens. The prophet wants to be really clear here that God has a message for you. I know you're disheartened, I know you're frustrated, but still.
[00:10:47] So he references something you can read in your Bibles and on the screen here. Chapter one, verses two through four. Read with me.
[00:10:53] The Lord was very angry. Here's Zechariah speaking to the people. The Lord was very angry with your fathers.
[00:11:00] Therefore say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, return. Can someone say return?
[00:11:06] Return to me, says the Lord of hosts. And I will return to you, says the Lord. Do not be like your fathers who were the former, who the former prophets cried out, saying this. Thus says the Lord of hosts, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds. But they did not hear nor pay attention to me, declares the Lord. Here's what God is telling Zechariah. He's saying, hey, go and talk to them. Tell them if you want God to show up, and then you need to turn back to God. Don't be like your ancestors who continued to rebel against God over and over and over again. And prophets came to the ancestors, your ancestors, saying, return to God. You might remember if you've been with us for a while, when we were going through Isaiah and Jeremiah, I had a little boat. You remember that?
[00:11:49] And it was supposed to image a certain boat that had its maiden voyage and then crashed. What was that boat or ship? I should say the Titanic. And I referenced how the ship or the Titanic was. Which represented Israel. And the nation of Israel was going in a particular direction and the prophets were yelling out to the captains or to the kings of the nation, saying, turn the boat around. Return to the Lord. Because if you continue to go down this path, what's gonna happen? You're going to hit an iceberg and you're going to sink and die. Or for them, you're going to run into a place where God is gonna send another nation and take you into captivity. Many of you will die. The. So turn the boat. What? Turn the boat around. And so here's what Zechariah is saying. There's been a bunch of other prophets before who have come and told you, turn the boat around. And here he's like, I'm doing the same thing, friends. Return to the Lord. If you continue down this track, it's not going to go well with you.
[00:12:45] And something else kind of conclude even point one pretty quickly. Here he realizes how frustrated they are.
[00:12:53] And here's what he's saying.
[00:12:55] Yes, maybe this resonates with you. Life is hard right now.
[00:13:00] But that doesn't mean that you should ignore God's way.
[00:13:04] Another way of putting it, if you'd like to write things down, write this down somewhere.
[00:13:07] Don't stop following God just because you're no longer in a hard place. Here's what he's saying. You were in captivity and crying out to God. Now you're out of captivity and you suddenly think you cannot do things God's way even when things are good. It doesn't mean that I stop pursuing the Lord. And that's what he's saying. You think things are all good now because you're out of captivity. So you can do things your way now. Not the case. Return to the Lord.
[00:13:34] And some of them are confused, thinking, wait a minute, we're building the temple. This is good, right? This is really, really good. And here's the other thing that he's telling them. Maybe write this down somewhere.
[00:13:44] Don't do the work of God in place of being obedient to God.
[00:13:50] Don't do the work of God in place of being obedient to God. They might be thinking this, I'm building the temple. We're trying to do the right things and follow some of the rules on the Sabbath. We're trying to do some of that to make God Happy with us. But on the other side, during the week, if you will, we're doing things our own way. And Zechariah is saying, you're missing it. This is exactly what your forefathers did. They tried to obey the law on the right certain days and festivals, but also their hearts were far from God. For us here in 2026, this truth is still something we need to hold onto. We can't do the work of God. In place of being obedient to God, I'm serving in church. I'm doing things in this ministry. I'm doing things in this. I'm teaching this class over here. I'm serving in this way. And yet my time with the Lord is abandoned.
[00:14:36] This is what we're hearing from the Lord. Don't neglect being obedient specifically to him, thinking that I'm doing His work. And so it's okay.
[00:14:46] We shift a little bit here in point 2, and this is where things get a lot less clear for us, especially reading this as people in 2026 here today. Visions in the night. How many of you have had strange dreams before?
[00:15:03] All right, well, this might resonate with you a little bit today.
[00:15:06] Zechariah had a strange dream, and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. There's a lot here as we look at some imagery in chapter, the second part of chapter one, verse through chapter six. There's a lot here that we simply do not have time to unpack in great detail. But what I do want to do is name them and speak to what they could be speaking about here. Before we do, though, as you look through both the Old Testament and the New Testament, there are going to be times, you see prophecy. Prophecy is when something is spoken about right now, or imagery of the future, or words about something that's going to happen in the future that have not yet come to be. And so as you read through God's Word, especially in the Old Testament, you're going to see a lot of prophecy. You're going to see things, talking about the future. Now, I want to give you four, really, principles to guide you as you read prophecy. And I'll just touch on these. And again, if you like to write things down, you can write some of this down.
[00:16:04] Firstly, of these four tools to have in your back pocket when you read through prophecy and God's Word, it's this. Firstly, recognize the genre of scripture that you are reading.
[00:16:16] So there are different genres of scripture. Some are narrative, some are poetic, some are apocalyptic. And oftentimes that means that's going to be prophetic. There's talking about something in the future or perhaps end times.
[00:16:30] So pay attention to the genre of scripture. That's the first thing. The second thing is this.
[00:16:36] Pay attention to pairs, to symmetry in the text or scripture or passage that you are reading.
[00:16:44] Thirdly, use scripture as much as possible. Use scripture to interpret the symbols. So sometimes you'll read a verse and you'll be like, I don't understand what that's talking about. And sometimes the answer is in the next verse.
[00:16:58] So keep reading scripture, will interpret scripture many times.
[00:17:03] And lastly, fourthly, remember Jesus in all of that. A Christological focus, looking towards Christ in the future. Now, as we look at these dreams, we're going to apply those principles. We're going to pay attention to the genre. This is a strange dream of something that is yet to come or is not yet happening yet. We're going to pay attention to pairs or to symmetry. We're going to pay attention to symbols and. And we're going to pay attention to Jesus in them. With that said, I listed off for you these, these different signs or visions that he has here. There's eight of them. So put that on the screen here. I know some of them are kind of small for you to be able to read. Let me just touch on them here. And you might be looking at this and going, this doesn't make any sense to me. You will be in the very same boat as Zachariah because he saw them and he's in this dream and there's this angel there. And he will see something. And then he'll ask the angel, what does that mean? And then he'll see something else. And he'll ask the angel, what does that mean? And then he'll see something else. And he'll ask the angel, what, what does that mean? And the angel then begins to describe and give answers to some of the questions that he has. So we start off with this. Some horsemen. There are four horsemen that are serving the Lord. And it parallels the last of them. There's four chariots. And these horsemen in the first vision are going around the world to the four corners, if you will, north, west, south and east. They're going around the world and they're showing God's prominence and provision and power around the world. And then at the eighth vision that you'll see there, there's chariots. And some believe that this is then God's hand of judgment working around the world, that God's presence is around the world. And God's power is demonstrated around the world in the first place. And the eighth vision there in the beginning of this dream and the end of the dream, the second, you can see there as well, there's horns also. Four horns and four craftsmen. It shows here these horns most likely representing massive or powerful nations in the world that have come to hurt and to harm Israel. And then these craftsmen come and destroy those horns showing. Here's an example we had. Assyria came in to destroy Israel and to take Israel captive. And later on, God used Babylon to go and take out Assyria. And then later on, God used Persia to take out and remove Babylon from the world scene. God has the power to bring up nations and remove them as he wishes. And then in the third vision there that you can see on the screen, we see a man. We see Zechariah is having this dream, and he sees this man with a measuring line. How many of you have a tape measure at home, Right?
[00:19:53] He has this tape measure, if you will. And he's measuring the walls of Jerusalem. And Zechariah, right. Cause he doesn't know what's going on. He asks the angel, what does that. What does that mean? And the angel says, well, he's measuring the walls of Jerusalem. And then another angel shows up on the scene and tells this angel, and hey, tell that guy to stop measuring the walls. Because the future kingdom of Jerusalem is not gonna have walls like you see there. It's gonna be walls of fire that the presence of the Lord is going to bring. And God is going to protect the city of Jerusalem, not physical walls. And by the way, this yells, if you will, the millennial kingdom, or when Jesus comes and reigns on earth for a thousand years. The fourth vision we have, I think one of the most interesting and even personally powerful visions here. When there's a. There's. There's Zechariah again. He sees a vision of. There's Joshua. And Joshua is standing before the throne of God. This is not Joshua who fought the battle of.
[00:20:57] This is a different Joshua who currently is the high priest at the time. So this different Joshua, he's standing before the Lord and. And next to him is Satan, which you're like, whoa, wait, what? And Joshua, Satan and the Lord, they're there. And Satan is accusing Joshua before the Lord. And then an angel is there also next to them. And Joshua is currently wearing dirty robes.
[00:21:25] And the angel then changes his clothes and puts a new turban on his head, basically cleanses him. And. And here's what we See God saying I have the power to make you who feel dirty. What clean.
[00:21:39] God does that here. And again uses some terminology that points us towards Jesus being on. One day Jesus is going to show up. Just like that scene where Joshua went from dirty to clean. Jesus is going to show up. You can see this in chapter three of your Bibles, capital B, a branch, a messianic, literally pointer finger saying one day is going to come where Jesus does a work to save mankind. And we see this, it's actually the terminology is a fount that's going to be seen that brings about cleansing of all mankind, which by the way, I think is fantastic. We just sang a song about a fountain, right? The fountain of Jesus blood washing us clean. Literally here, chapter three of Zechariah points to that.
[00:22:27] The fifth vision you can see on the screen there is a golden what?
[00:22:31] Lampstand. It's like a menorah. And then we see here two olive trees there next to it. And there's these pipes from these olive trees that are feeding this menorah or giving it oil and it's burning there. And this again shows the power of God. Because here's why these people step out of the dream with me for a minute. These people here are trying to build the what?
[00:22:55] The temple, right? And they're getting frustrated, they're getting disheartened because the temple does not look as good as they would like it to look. And they're getting really frustrated, they're getting disheartened, they're thinking God doesn't care about us anymore.
[00:23:08] And here's what this vision shows us. And you can see this phrase here in chapter four, verse six. Look in your Bibles. Chapter four, verse six. Here's what God says. He says, I'm going to do this rebuilding work not by your might or by your power, but by my might and my power and my spirit. That is what God is telling Zachariah and the people even as well.
[00:23:31] God is the one to empower the people. And then the last two here that we haven't yet touched on, we see a flying scroll. Have any of you had a dream of a flying scroll before?
[00:23:40] No. Okay, I guess he still has us beat with strange dreams.
[00:23:44] This flying scroll, it's about 30ft long, it's about 15ft wide, and, and it's flying out in the earth. And what we see is there's the judgment and the word of God on this scroll. And what this picture is that we get is God's holiness, his moral law, going about the earth, exposing sin in the earth and hopefully through that. Right. Destroying dishonesty and purging it from his community.
[00:24:12] And then seventh, this is.
[00:24:15] I don't. I think this might have a beat for one of the most strange ones here.
[00:24:19] There is a woman in a basket. And he sees this basket. Zechariah does. He sees this basket kind of just out there. And he asks the angel. What does he ask the angel?
[00:24:30] What does that mean? Right? And then they take the lid off of the basket and this lady's head pops out of the basket. You're like, what on? What is going on here? And then takes the lid and pushes it right back on the top of the basket because, I don't know, you don't want to see that anymore. And then we see here that this woman is named Wickedness and she's thrust back into the basket. And then these two other women with stork wings, like a stork, like a bird come over, pick up the basket and fly it off to Babylon.
[00:25:03] Right? Yeah.
[00:25:05] Things you might be dreaming about tonight.
[00:25:10] In all of this, we see some confusion. We don't get a whole lot of explanation through all of this. And you can do deep dives into all this and see what you come up with as well. But what we do see is clear these things, many of them have not happened yet.
[00:25:25] And Zachariah is asking the question, what on earth is going on here? And God, I believe, is going to reveal this to him as time goes on. Now we need to conclude the right way. The end of chapter six. So if you're not in chapter six, flip, flip over to your Bibles to chapter six. Because we have this powerful, what's called like a sign act demonstrated here with the person Joshua. Now this is not Joshua who fought the battle of.
[00:25:48] It's the other Joshua who's also a high priest. And here's what Zechariah is told by God. He said, God tells Zechariah this. He's woken up from the dream. He says, hey, Zechariah, go get Joshua and go get some other leaders. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to take a crown and. And I want you to put this crown on Joshua's head and I want you to sit him on a throne and I want you to recognize who this person is. There's a term, the branch again is used. And here we see. I just wanted you to. You're going to get this very clearly. There's some key things here in this picture. About Joshua. Firstly, his name is Joshua. Secondly, he has a crown on his head. And thirdly, he's a high priest.
[00:26:29] What does that point to in your mind?
[00:26:33] Jesus. Right? A high priest, a king, and also his name is Joshua. Did you know Joshua and Jesus are the same name?
[00:26:43] This person points us to this future king, who's also going to be an intercessor between people who are broken and messy, giving us opportunity to experience this fountain, if you will, of his blood being poured out for us. So. So that we can approach the throne of God. So that when Satan the accuser tries to stand before God and accuse us, what's Jesus going to be there to do?
[00:27:05] Show us that we are cleansed. Friends, this is really good, good news.
[00:27:10] It's also important to see here the next section.
[00:27:13] It's not actions that's going to make us right with God, it's our heart. Worship starts in your heart. You can write that in a point three on your outline.
[00:27:21] This moves us forward in the timeline at least two years and actually two years, because we see that the beginning of chapter seven, we see that it's now the fourth year of King Darius. And so here we see two. Really. I just want to focus on two chapters really briefly here because the author Zechariah points out a rhythm here and I want to just draw this out for you, that Israel has a regular rhythm of rejection. Of rejection or rejecting God. You can see this on the screen. And chapter eight shows us that God has a regular rhythm of what?
[00:27:55] Restoration. And we see that throughout chapter seven and chapter eight you can see this verse 11 of chapter seven. It's on the screen here.
[00:28:05] Zechariah is saying this. You have refused to pay attention and turn a stubborn shoulder and stopped up your ears that they may not hear. Go to the next slide there. Verse 12 of chapter 7. They made their hearts diamond hard. Not just like stone hard, diamond hard.
[00:28:21] Lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts has sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. In other words, they are continuing to reject God. And if you have been with us through this journey in the Old Testament, you have seen that Israel is continually refusing and rejecting God. Rejecting God and rejecting God. It's this regular rhythm of rejection.
[00:28:44] And so how does God feel about this?
[00:28:46] He's angry.
[00:28:48] You all know what it's like to be angry, right?
[00:28:50] Especially when you told someone to do something like a hundred times and they kept ignoring them or killing them. Like, then that's how God is. Like, what is going on here. And then we see chapter eight. God has a regular rhythm of restoration. He continues to show up to his people and say, I'm going to work in you, even though you keep rejecting me over and over and over again. Here's what it says. The tail end of chapter eight, God says this. I'm going to restore the nation of Israel and the city walls of Jerusalem. And you can see this on the screen. Pretty soon, one of these days, the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go and treat the favor of the Lord and seek the Lord of hosts. I myself am going. Here's what he's saying right now. Jerusalem seems like it's broken down, which it is. The temple still in somewhat shambles, which it is. But one day, can someone say, one day, One day this will be a beautiful place.
[00:29:47] And the people of the world will say to each other when they're hanging out in woodland or hanging out in Davis or wherever they are, saying, hey, I'm going to see the presence of the Lord. Do you want to come with me? And where are we going to go? We're going to go to the city that keeps rejecting God. But God has a rhythm of what?
[00:30:03] Restoration. And he's going to make this city beautiful again. A place to go.
[00:30:09] Let's look at the last section here.
[00:30:12] A future hope. A future hope. Because God has a rhythm of restoration. And so it makes sense that he's going to do amazing things. And in chapters nine through 14, we have this really, this path that God lays out for how he's going to bring about the restoration of Israel and what that's going to look like. Now, if you might be in the place of wondering, does Israel still matter today? Here we are in 2026. Does Israel still matter? Does the nation matter? Does the location matter? And you might have been wondering that or have kind of conflicting views in that regard. I would just encourage you if you read through Zechariah, chapter 9 through 14, it makes it really clear that God really cares about this space in the world and even his people, which makes sense because he made a promise to Abraham, right?
[00:31:00] And God is a God who is faithful. Amen.
[00:31:03] God follows through on his promises. So here's what Zechariah now is going to communicate to the people. And here's what he's saying. It may be hard right now, but God is working in the background.
[00:31:17] God is preparing things in the background. You may not see it right now, but just because we started this whole message this way, just because you might be frustrated, downhearted, angry. You might not see the character of God connecting with your circumstances. There seems to be a huge gap between God's character and your circumstances. Here's what God is saying here in these final chapters. I am working in the background and I have not abandoned you. And here's what we see in chapters chapter nine, verses one through eight. Israel, can I listed all of these off for you. If you like alliteration, if you like having words with the same beginning, you can really enjoy this next slide there. For, for us that walks us through this last section, Israel now can rejoice. And I'm going to read it all. If you can't read what's on the screen there. In chapters nine, verses one through eight, we see that Israel can rejoice because here's a very clear prophecy of Jesus coming. Chapter nine of Zechariah says this.
[00:32:13] Get excited. Rejoice because your king is coming humble and mounted on a.
[00:32:19] A colt. The foal of a what? Donkey. When is this prophecy fulfilled?
[00:32:27] When Jesus comes, right? And he's riding into the city and people are declaring hosanna. Hosanna.
[00:32:34] People, Israel can rejoice. Israel can also. In chapter 10, Israel can rest.
[00:32:39] God will again answer the people's prayers and he will be a good shepherd in place of all of the bad shepherds in. In Israel, he's telling them you can rest. Chapter 11 tells us this. Israel, even though you rejected your king, he still is going to be your rescuer.
[00:32:59] This passage, this whole chapter, tells us through amazing prophecy that Jesus is going to come as a shepherd to care for his sheep. And I want you to just think with me through some of the prophecy here that we see in this chapter.
[00:33:11] Chapter 11 tells us this. There's going to be a shepherd who's going to come, and the other under shepherds or the other people who should have been shepherding Israel are not going to like Jesus. And they're going to hate him actually. And this shepherd, Jesus is going to get upset with them. All right, you might be getting to see some parallels here. And these people aren't going to like him so much that they're actually going to try to get rid of him for 30 pieces of silver. And those pieces of silver are actually going to get thrown back into the temple.
[00:33:43] This is all, by the way, in chapter 11 of Zechariah thrown back in the temple. And then also we have a connection to a potter. Or as you know, the field in which Judas killed himself was a potter's field and it was bought with the 30 pieces of silver. These are all here clear prophecies in chapter 11 of Zechariah that point to the end of the life of Jesus and how he would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.
[00:34:08] We also see in chapter 12 through the first part of verse 6, verse 6 of chapter 13, that Israel will stand resolute. There's another R word for you among his attackers. Here's what Zechariah says. At some point in time, there's going to be people coming from all over the world coming to attack you. And you will not fall, you will not crumble under the weight of. Of all of these other nations in the world attacking you. Now, some of you still watch the news and you see that Israel is attacked by other countries sometimes, right?
[00:34:41] And here we see something.
[00:34:43] God is not going to allow the nation to be removed from the face of the earth. Over the last 4,000 years, there have been many, many nations that have risen up, had great power, and are no longer in existence today.
[00:34:56] Not true of the nation Israel. And then chapter 13, verses 7 through 9 tells us this, that God is the Lord will refine and respond to Israel. And we see this, that God's going to use the time when Jesus is struck, when that one is when he dies. People are spread throughout the known world. This is Acts 2 and following actually.
[00:35:18] And how God is going to bring people back together through his spirit number six. There in chapter 14, we see that though Jesus is going to return. Remember I talked about the city when it's attacked? Here's what Jesus says. When the city is attacked, I'm going to show up. And you can read this for yourself. This isn't me making this up. He says, I'm going to show up on the Mount of Olives and I'm going to bring with me my holy ones. And it says this. Jerusalem shall dwell in security.
[00:35:46] In all this, we see that he is not abandoning them. And the last and final point here in the end of chapter 14, we see this. Jesus will reign. What supreme? Can we say? Supreme together, supreme on the earth.
[00:35:59] This is hope for them. And again points to the power of Jesus in all spaces. Even though the people in Israel right now, in the time frame of Ezra and Nehemiah, they're disappointed, they're frustrated. They're not seeing how their circumstances are matching with the character of God. God is saying this. I'm working in the background. I have a plan that goes beyond anything that you can see, that even will outlive you in this fourth section of the book. It's a lot here. One of my biggest takeaways is it can be really, really hard to watch the things either going on in my life sometimes that are really hard, or even your lives or the lives of people around us that we love and that we care about. And to see that discrepancy, if you will, that feels like a discrepancy between the circumstances and the character of God. And here's what we see here. No matter what we're walking through, God has not abandoned us.
[00:36:51] No matter what is going on, he is doing a mighty work and we can find rest there. Amen. We can find rest.
[00:36:59] We're going to move and point ourselves towards the Savior portion of your outline as we move through this last section. There's a lot here that we covered. I told you that at the beginning. I want to just point out three, two particular prophecies that we see in Zachariah. There's many more, but pointing us to Jesus. I referenced this earlier. In chapter nine, verse nine, we see this. It's on the screen as well. It says this. Their people of Israel are to rejoice. O daughter of Zion, shout, daughter of Jerusalem, see, your king comes to you righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt the full of a donkey. Here's what this is pointing us towards. It's Zachariah saying to really all of the other kings out there, all of the other conquerors who would have ridden into a city on their mighty steed, riding in on their big old beautiful horse, saying, I'm going to conquer the world. Here's what this passage tells us.
[00:37:55] The most powerful king in all the earth is going to ride into his city on a donkey.
[00:38:00] And so be ready for that. Now I look at this, and if you look with me even at the whole portion of chapter nine, I would imagine, just join me in this thinking together here, that the people who were shouting Hosanna as Jesus rode in on the donkey, they were thinking of this passage. They were thinking, oh, I have read, we have studied this passage where there's this king, right, riding in on a donkey. I'm looking forward to this day. And then finally, Jesus is riding in on a what? On a donkey. And they probably, if they had their scroll, not the flying square scroll, that was in a vision, but if they had their scroll, they would have. They could have opened up and been like, it's right here. And this king who's riding it on a donkey is going to remove earthly oppression on the nation of Israel. So now they're thinking, according to what the Bible says, Jesus should get rid of the Romans, right? You can see their political, their biblical case for that. According to what the Bible says, this king is supposed to remove the opposition to Israel. The Romans are opposition to Israel. Of course that's what Jesus is going to do.
[00:39:09] And then a few days later, Jesus is standing on a platform in front of the judgment seat of Pilate.
[00:39:20] And now the people are thinking, I thought this guy was supposed to remove all opposition, but he's not. And so what do they yell instead of Hosanna, Crucify him. And perhaps for some of them, they're thinking he was supposed to fulfill this, but he didn't.
[00:39:39] It can be really frustrating when our interpretation of Scripture doesn't match what Jesus is doing.
[00:39:44] And that's, for many of them, could have been what they were thinking. And here's what I want to say here before we look at point two, the second part of this is this. The reason for that is because they were wearing the wrong glasses, the wrong prophetic lens, if you will. They saw this and said, yes, there's the king, and he's going to remove the oppression on our city. And they missed this piece, if you will, of the lens. Their timeframe was let's Jesus should do it right now. And. And Jesus is saying, I'm gonna do it one day. That day is coming, but it's not today. Firstly, I'm gonna remove the sin oppression on the people. Before I move the physical oppression on the people, let's look at point two. And so because of that, they yelled, what?
[00:40:26] Crucify him. That's the second point here. Under Savior, you can write this in Jesus, the crucified Christ, at some point in time. This is seen in Acts 2. Actually, they will mourn, they will be sad because they realized that they crucified the king. Zechariah, chapter 12, verse 10. You can put this on the screen here as well. They will look on me, the one whom they have pierced, and mourn for him as one mourns for an only child. If you remember, Peter, after his sermon, he preaches this powerful message. And it says this. They were cut to the heart.
[00:41:02] And we see prophetically here chapter 12 of Zechariah. And then again, we see in chapter 13 that they're going to strike the shepherd, the sheep are going to scatter. What happened to the disciples? When Jesus was hanging on the cross, where were they hanging out? Right there with him. No they were, they were gone.
[00:41:18] And then also we sang a song about this a moment ago.
[00:41:21] Chapter 13, verse 1. On that day a fountain will be open to the house of David to cleanse them from iniquity, to cleanse them from impurity, from sin. This reveals Jesus over and over and over again.
[00:41:34] Jesus Christ in. Christ is not his last name. It's to point. All who say Jesus Christ to say this. He's the Messiah, he's the anointed one. He's the long awaited one.
[00:41:45] And just as you had to wait a while for Jesus to show up on the scene, we still have to wait a little bit. He's not here yet again, taking over and reigning in the earth supreme. But one day that's coming, right?
[00:41:56] One day he's coming again. And so in this whole book we are reminded over and over again, don't lose sight of the big picture. Don't lose sight of what Jesus is doing. You may not see it and it may not match up with the situation, the circumstances that you are in, but don't lose sight of Him. Amen.
[00:42:15] Let's look at the application really briefly here. You can write some of this in. I made them short for us all and this is what I drew from the application portion, specifically aiming at God, humanity and me.
[00:42:28] Firstly, what jumped out at me as I read through this book is this humans can't stop God from doing what he wants.
[00:42:35] We just can't. We can look around us, at the political arena around us, or the social arena around us, or watch the things on social media or whatever it might be and just think, ah, God's not getting what he wants. God can do whatever he wants. He can do whatever he wants. And that does not mean everything that happens is God glorifying or God is happy about. But I find great peace and I hope you do as well, knowing that he's still in control no matter what's going on.
[00:43:06] Humanity.
[00:43:07] It is sad and I'm thinking now about the people who are in Jerusalem working to rebuild the temple, which by the way, they did do.
[00:43:16] Ezra and Nehemiah encouraged them in this way and they end up rebuilding the walls as well. But in this beginning phase, I'm reminded of this, it's very possible and sadly too common to be working for God and still have a hard what a hard heart.
[00:43:32] You might think of seasons of your life where you're doing the things, but you know your heart is far from God.
[00:43:42] Sadly, this is all too common.
[00:43:47] It's very possible. And so I would encourage you, as you think about even that point right there, where is your heart with the Lord?
[00:43:54] Is there a space where you let God speak to you? Or is it mostly just, I do all the things to look good to everyone else. I'm doing the work of God, but my heart is far from Him. This is true not just to followers of Jesus, but for others as well.
[00:44:07] Lastly, a question putting in the first person here. Is God working in ways that I don't see?
[00:44:13] And am I willing to keep walking in faith or keep walking in obedience when I am frustrated? How many of you have been frustrated before?
[00:44:21] When I am disappointed. You've all been disappointed before. When I am grieving, how many of you have grieved before? Maybe that's a person, or maybe that is a future that you desired, whatever that might be. I'm grieving that I'm thinking, God, this is not what I want. These people in Israel are possibly very well, grieving that this is not a beautiful city, that they thought that it would be a beautiful temple, that they thought that it would be. And so they began to stray from the Lord because they were in disappointment, they were in frustration, they were grieving. And so the question for me is this, am I willing to keep in faith, keep in obedience, even when my circumstances are hard?
[00:45:00] I hope you might think through that question as well. And if you've never trusted in Jesus, your Lord and Savior, maybe you're thinking, the things in my life have been hard and I'm trying to be good enough for him. This book clearly points out that one day we're going to stand before the throne of God.
[00:45:17] And the only way you can have those dirty robes clean is by the blood of Jesus Christ applying his blood to you. And it says this, that when we take the fountain of Jesus blood, if you will, and. And put it on our dirty robes that we think are clean and good works for God. He says they're not. It's still dirty rags. The only way to make them clean, like those robes from Joshua that we talked about earlier, is by saying, jesus, I need you.
[00:45:44] I need you.
[00:45:46] Let's pray together.
[00:45:48] Father in heaven, thank you that we can come before you and call you, Father, call you Lord, to lay our concerns and our worries, our frustrations, our grief, whatever that might be before you, and ask you to give us peace, give us endurance when things are hard, to help us, to see that you have not abandoned us, even when it might feel like we're alone.
[00:46:15] And for anyone here today who might be feeling that right now, be in a season right now of that frustration, of grief, of disappointment. Lord, I pray that you would help them to have a vision of you working in a mighty way.
[00:46:28] A vision of you doing a mighty work in their life, that you have not abandoned them. That your power still is supreme and that we would find faith.
[00:46:38] You would give us that faith to keep going.
[00:46:42] Thank you for your spirit being the one to give us the power to do the things we can't. We know we can't, not by our might, not by our power, but by yours alone. So thank you for your spirit that lives inside of us to give us the ability to do that. In Jesus name, amen.
