The Prerequisite Blessing
Zechariah 1:1-6
Well, tonight we have the wonderful privilege of beginning a new book study. One that I have wanted for a long time to study and had my appetite recently wetted when I was talking to someone else who had the same desire and so we come tonight to the book of Zechariah. Take your Bible and turn to Zechariah. Happiness is sitting next to somebody who knows where Zechariah is. We hope you'll be able to find it alright. This is a great book. And I've not done much study in the Old Testament on Sunday morning and Sunday night, because I have a desire, personal desire, to finish the whole New Testament. But I wanted to take a little break from that and get into the Old Testament at this particular point because I feel this has such tremendous impact as a prophetic book and there is so much that is here. We need to understand. There's a great message from the Lord here. And even though this is a book written many centuries ago, maybe even as many as six centuries before Christ. As old as it, it is still written by an unchanging God.
And its word is as good as if it were penned this morning. And so it's a tremendous book. It is really incredible from many angles and I'm going to give you just a little bit of an overview before we look at the opening verses. Many people feel that it is the most difficult book in the Old Testament to interpret. And that maybe true and therein lies something of its challenge and I'd like to get all the hard stuff out of the way so that when I get old in the ministry I can just play golf and do the easy books, you know. So I'm wailing away on the hard ones right now while I'm young and aggressive and all that. And this is a hard book and so we approach it with a sense of prayerfulness and a sense of humility knowing that many who have gone before us have found it to be very difficult.
But primarily the thing that just really knocked me over as I was reading through it and through it again and again in the last month or so is the fact that it is a book about Christ, and that was really exciting to me. It is a primarily a book about Jesus Christ. In fact, on almost every page Jesus Christ appears in this book. And that really contemporizes it for me. He is the main character throughout. Now let me show you what I mean by that as we begin. Just a couple of highlights. Look at Chapter 1, verse 9. And here you have Zechariah talking to a particular personality. "And then I said oh my Lord what are these? And the angel who talked with me said unto me I'll show thee what these are."
Now here he is having a conversation with an angel. Look at verse 14. "So the angel that talked with me said unto me," now here's the same angel again and he's called the angel that talked with me. Verse 19, "And I said unto the angel who talked with me," Chapter 2, verse 3, "And behold the angel who talked with me went forth." Chapter 4, verse 1, "And the angel who talked with me came again." Verse 5, "Then the angel who talked with me answered and said unto me." Chapter 5, verse 5, "Then the angel who talked with me went forth." Verse 10, "Then I said to the angel who talked with me." Chapter 6, verse 4, "Then I answered and said unto the angel who talked with me, what are these my Lord."
Now, it is somewhat clear here that there is an angel who is talking to Zechariah. The question is who is the angel? And the answer is he is really a mouthpiece for God, Himself, and another very special angel. Let's look at scriptures and see this other special angel. Go back to Chapter 1, verse 11. And 1:11 says "And they answered the angel of the Lord." Now look at 1:12, "Then the angel of the Lord answered and said," Chapter 3, verse 1. "And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord." Verse 6, "And the angel of the Lord protested unto Joshua." Then who in fact is the angel of the Lord in the Old Testament? Jesus Christ.
In a sense then, along with God and through the angel that talked with him, Zechariah was having a conversation with none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when I say that Christ is the main character of the book, that becomes very evident. It is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when you get into the last section of the book, you find again that Christ is everywhere. Look at, for example, Chapter 9, we'll skip a few chapters in there, but look at Chapter 9, verse 9. And now you're getting from Chapter 9-14 into the dominantly prophetic part of the book.
"Rejoice greatly oh daughter of Zion, shalt oh daughter of Jerusalem, behold thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation lowly and riding on an ass on the colt the foal of an ass." Now who is that? That's Christ and that's Christ at what point in His life? Entering into the city of Jerusalem on what we commonly know as Palm Sunday, when He came in on the colt, the foal of an ass. There you have Him, the king, who is Christ. And in 9:9 the king arrives, Christ arrives.
Look at Chapter 11, verse 12. "And I said unto them if you think good, give me my price. And if not forbear so they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver." What do you have there? A prophesy of the betrayal by Judas. So here the king arrives in 9:9 and the king is rejected in 11:12. Then in Chapter 12, verse 10 we see him again. "And I will pour upon the house of David and on the inhabitance of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication. And they shall look on me whom they have pierced." And who is that? That's the king crucified. So you have the king arriving, rejected and crucified, and also received and they mourned for Him as one mourns for his only son. In other words, there is this predicted revival, the salvation that comes to Israel.
Chapter 13, verse 8-9, you have Christ in judgment. "And it shall come to pass that in all the land says the Lord two parts shall be cut off and die. The third shall be left. I will bring the third part through the fire and refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They shall call on my name. I will hear them. I will say it is my people and they shall say the Lord is my God." And here you have the salvation of Israel at the time of the tribulation. So the king is judging and his judging or refining brings out a people tested and proven.
In Chapter 14, verse 9 you have the king reigning in His kingdom. "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth. In that day there shall be one Lord and His name one." Only one religion existing in the whole world in the kingdom, the worship of the true Christ. And that worship is expressed in Chapter 14, verse 16 where it says from year to year through the kingdom, they go up to worship the king, the Lord of hosts. So you can see that from the beginning of the book where there is a historical dialogue with the angel of the Lord to the latter part of the book where there is prophetic information about the coming of Christ, Jesus Christ is the key to the book of Zechariah. Scofield has an interesting note that I think we ought to just remind ourselves of. He says this, "No Old Testament prophet has more prophesy concerning Christ, Israel, and the nations in so short a book. Zechariah predicts," and here it is, "the second coming, the reign of Christ, His priesthood, His kingship, His humanity, His deity, His building of the temple of the Lord, His coming in lowliness, His bringing of permanent peace, His rejection and betrayal, His return to Israel as the crucified one, and His being smitten by the sword of the Lord."
All of that is the book of Zechariah. In fact, the whole significance of the life of Christ and His reign in the future is here. So we say the book is mostly messianic dealing with Christ. Christ is seen in the book by many titles. He is called Jehovah's servant. He is called the branch. He is called the man. He is called the king, the priest, the true shepherd, and so forth. Now the book was written to be a comfort to Israel to let them know God was on their side. And they were to be blessed by God. It is a comforting book. In fact, the very name Zechariah means God remembers.
And God is remembering His people in this book. God is comforting His people. God is on their side. And of course, Jesus is the great comforter. We forget that. We think that the Holy Spirit is the comforter, but may I remind you that in John Chapter 14, verse 16 Jesus said, "When I go away I will send you another comforter." Which means He, Himself, was also the comforter. And so Christ here is the comforter of His people. It is a book of comfort through Christ. And if appears in the Old Testament as the angel of the Lord, He is comforting His people. If He appears in the future as the coming king, He comes to comfort His people.
In Chapter 1, verse 13, notice it, "And the Lord answered," and here's the key to the book really. "And the Lord answered the angel that talked with me with good words and comforting words. This is a book about comfort. Chapters 1, verse 17 at the end says "the Lord shall yet comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem." So it is a book about comfort, present comfort for Israel and the need in which the book was written. Future comfort for them in the time the Messiah comes.
Now in addition to this, the comfort comes in this book through some very deep mysteries and that's why it's a hard book. There are some very strange symbols in this book. For example, Chapter 1, verse 8, you have the first of a bunch of mysteries, deeply mysterious elements. "I saw by night," and this will be our study next time Lord willing, "I saw by night and behold a man riding a red horse and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom and behind him there were red horses, sorrel, and white. And I said, oh my Lord, what are these?" That's a tough question. And then you go to verse 18. "I lifted up my eyes and I saw behold four horns and I said to the angel who talked with me, what are these." You go to Chapter 2, verse 1, "I lifted up mine eyes again and looked and a man with a measuring line in his hand and I said where are you going? And he said unto me to measure Jerusalem to see what is the breadth of it and the length. And behold the angel who talked with me went forth and another angel went out to meet him."
Now that's something that's difficult to understand initially. Chapter 4, "The angel who talked with me came again, waked me as a man is wakened out of sleep and said to me what seest thou? And I said I looked and behold a lamp stand of gold and a bowl on the top of it and seven lamps on it and seven pipes to the seven lamps which are on top of it and two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on the left side of it." And those will be on the quiz. "And so I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me and said what are these my Lord." Difficult mysteries.
Chapter 5, verse 1, "I turned and lifted mine eyes and behold a flying scroll. And he said to me what do you see? And I said I see a flying scroll. It's length is twenty cubits, it's breadth is ten cubits and he said this is the curse that goes forth over the face of the whole earth." You can go right on down in the chapter. It just goes on and on like this with very difficult things. Verse 5, you've got another one. He says, "What do you see? And he says there's an ephah going forth." And he goes on to discuss a talent of lead and a woman sitting in the midst of the ephah and on and on it goes. Now those are mysteries. Chapter 6 there's some chariots there. And so the way that Israel is comforted is by what this angel tells them and the angel is Christ, but the angel speaks to them in mysteries.
And we'll see the meaning of those as we go. There are some fantastic things in this book also relative to the restoration of Israel. If you're having any doubts about whether God is still working with the nation Israel, this book ought to settle those. In Chapter 8, verse 8, for example, "I will bring them and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem and they shall be my people and I will be their God in truth and righteousness." In other words, there is coming a restoration for Israel. Chapter 10, verse 9, "I will sow them among the peoples and they shall remember in far countries and they shall live with their children and turn again and I will bring them again out of the land of Egypt, gather them out of a Assyria, bring them into the land of Gilead and Lebanon and place shall not be found for them."
There's coming a day when scattered Israel will be brought back and overcrowd their country. There are fantastic prophecies about the birth of children in the millennium. There are prophecies about the evangelism in the millennium. There is a complete description of the anti-Christ. There is a second-coming judgment passage. There is a description of the battle of Armageddon. There is a description of the judgment of the nations, the martyrdom of the believers in the great tribulation, the salvation of Israel and the ultimate salvation of the nations. All of those things in this little book.
Tremendous book full of visions and prophecies and signs and celestial visitors and the voice of God and it traces redemptive history right on out to its climax. But you know, it's also a very practical book. It talks about repentance. It talks about God's divine care for the believer. It talks about salvation. It even talks about practical Christian living if you can imagine. Some very practical things. So I just tell y'all that to wet your appetite. There's a lot in this thing. This isn't some dreary ancient thing. This is hot stuff. And you know, as I thought about why does this book flourish with so many fantastic things?
Well, do you know what is so very interesting about it is that prophecy as such, the prophetic ministry of the Old Testament prophets is about to end when Zechariah writes. It's about to end. And Israel is going to know prophetic silence for 400 years. Silence which will be broken by a man named John the Baptist. But for 400 years there will be prophetic silence. No prophets, and it appears that as the prophetic period closes it pleased God to just have a mighty outburst of prophecy to indicate that prophecy was not dying a slow death. It wasn't stopping just because it ran out of gas. It was going out in a blaze of glory.
As strong as when it was born. Now that gives us an overall view of the book. Now I want to give you a view of the historical setting of the book. What's going on? Who's Zechariah? Where did he live? Why did he live? And what was happening in Israel? Now here we go. Are you ready? Keep alert now, get your brain in gear. We're going to just go flying by some history real quick. Don't try to write down everything. When we come to the book of Zechariah we encounter the people of Israel at a critical moment in their history. Eighteen years have passed since Cyrus the Great had conquered the Babylonian Empire.
Do you remember Daniel said there would be four great world empires? Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. Babylon has come and gone. Nebuchadnezzar is gone. The Medo-Persian Empire rules, Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonian Empire. Now this was a great day for Israel. Israel had been taken into Babylonian captivity. The Babylonians when they conquered the world conquered Israel and hauled them off to captivity didn't they, in 586 B.C. But when Cyrus the Great came along and conquered the Babylonian Empire it was a dawn of a new day, because now there was a new empire, the Medo-Persians and they had on their hands all these Jewish captives. They had been there 70 years when Cyrus made a decree and Cyrus decreed they could all go back to their land. Now the whole record of the history behind Zechariah is recorded in the book of Ezra. So if you want to read about it, read the book of Ezra.
We won't take time to jump back and forth or we'll be here forever. And so Cyrus rose to power and in 538 B.C. he made an edict. Granting the Jews the right to return to their land. In common parlance, that would be known as the repatriation of Israel. Going back. So after 70 years of being out of their land, 70 years of captivity, 70 years of punishment for national sins and you remember Jeremiah, the prophet had told them it was going to come.
At last they are granted a royal permission to return and rebuild Judah and Jerusalem. It's recorded in Ezra Chapter 1, verses 1-4. Well, you know what happens in 70 years? People get their roots down even in a foreign land. And many of the Jews were pretty well settled. They'd gotten involved in enterprises. They'd married and so forth. And so when the decree, would you believe only a small remnant went back to Israel? Just a small remnant and they returned under a leader by the name of Zerubbabel. So off they go. A small remnant. They were an enthusiastic remnant, believe me. When they got back, according to the 3rd Chapter of Ezra, when they got back to Israel when they came back from the Babylonian captivity, in seven months they had rebuilt the sacred altar and they were again performing the sacrifices prescribed in the Old Testament. They were back with their worship commanded by God. Forty-three thousand of them returned. That's all, but they were enthusiastic and in seven months that had reinstituted the sacrificial system.
And not long after the beginning of the second year in seven months the altar, by the beginning of the second year they had actually begun to rebuild the temple itself, which became known as Zerubbabel's temple. The foundations were laid, the base of the wall was laid. And then you know what happened? Bad things. The Samaritans came down and tried to stop them. Remember that? And the Samaritans hassled them about building the temple. So you know what happened? They stopped. So they just had the foundation and just up a little ways. It took Nehemiah later to come to get the rest of the thing going and build the walls around the city.
They were discouraged and the work stopped. But you know the ruler who had caused the stoppage, the Samaritan ruler was assassinated. And when he was assassinated you would have thought they would have taken advantage of the opportunity, but they didn't. And so it was still just left the way it was. But God wanted that temple built. God wanted that worship reinstituted so he brought along a man, a prophet. And the man's name was Haggai. He was a prophet at the same time as Zechariah. And his ministry was to exhort the people to build that temple. And he only gave four messages that are recorded in his little small book, the book of Haggai. Right in front of the book Zechariah. Four short messages challenging them to build that temple. And you know what those four messages did? This is great. You know what they did? They brought a revival in Israel. They literally brought a revival and things started cracking again.
And in the midst of the revival God raised up another prophet, Zechariah. Zechariah came two months after Haggai. We know that because if you compare Zechariah 1:1 with Haggai 1:1, it's very clear. "In the sixth month," Haggai 1:1, "in the eight month," Zechariah 1:1. Two months apart came these two prophets. You say well, what was the difference? Well Haggai got them started and Zechariah kept them going. And he gave a lot more than four short messages. He kept it up for a long time. And his message to the people of Israel was keep doing it, God hasn't forgotten you. I know it's tough and the opposition is tough and you're trying to rebuild your country, but keep going. Let God be your comfort. Let God be your comfort. Let God be your comfort. Chapter 9 he turns a corner and says and the future is fantastic if you obey God in the present.
So he comforts them in the process. He wants to bring the revival to a full complete end. Now that's the message of the book. It is God comforting His people through the prophet in a time of hardship while they were rebuilding their country and their temple and all through the book Zechariah keeps saying God wants to bless you. God wants to bless you. You're going to receive this and you're going to receive that and oh God's going to comfort you and in the future you're going to have this and you're going to have this and you're going to have this and all of these marvelous blessings are promised them.
But there's a great big giant pre-requisite for any of it and that's the first six verses. And if you don't get those, none of the blessings will belong to you. And so we have called it, the message, pre-requisite to spiritual blessing. Zechariah just kept going along and saying boy now that you're building the temple oh let me encourage you to keep on being obedient. To keep on serving the Lord, to keep on doing what is right. God has so much for you. God has so many fantastic blessings, but there is one gigantic condition. And that condition is the essence of the first six verses.
Let's look at them. There is one key thing here. Verse 3, "Therefore say unto thus saith the Lord of hosts, turn unto me says the Lord of hosts and I will turn unto you says the Lord of hosts." Now what you have there is the key to the whole book and it is the concept of repentance. Verse 4, "Don't be like your fathers. Turn from your evil ways and from your evildoings." In other words, the place of blessing is always the same. It is when a person turns away from sin. That's the message of the first six verses. Repent and turn away from sin and stand in the place of blessing.
Why does this book begin with that? It begins with that because Zechariah wants to eliminate any false security on the part of ungodly people that God is going to give all these blessings and all these blessings and all these blessings and it's just going to be totally indiscriminate. You can just stand there and get it all. And just so nobody gets smug and secure, he says but there is a pre-requisite to all of it and any of it and that is turning away from sin. God does not bless regardless of people's spiritual condition.
Took Shore, the restaurant owner in New York who recently died a couple of days ago was on the new made the statement one time "I wouldn't be where I am in the nightclub business if it wasn't for the big man upstairs." But the blessing of God was never on his life, because he never stood in the place of blessing be