Jesus Christ, Messiah, Priest And King Series

Jesus Christ, Messiah, Priest and King

ZECHARIAH 6:9 – 15

INTRODUCTION.

We have been looking at the eight visions which God gave to Zechariah, but in reality we have been looking at the way in which God is deeply involved in his creation. Were looking at the way in which God is concerned about his people; the way in which he loves his people with a great passion and how his heart bleeds when he sees them disobey him and turn away from him, when he sees them ignore him.

We see that God is in control of all of creation. In the last vision we saw how the chariots were being sent out to bring death and plague to all those who disobey God. Not because He wants pain and destruction; He wants to take pain and destruction out of His creation and replace them with His love.

As I said last time "Here God is affirming His power in creation; He is the ultimate authority and He has the power to overrule all the decisions of the surrounding pagan rulers."

We now move on from the visions to a prophetic oracle which is about the future, but not just the future of the next few days and weeks in the life of the people of Israel of that time, or of the future over the next centuries to the time of Jesus, but over the future to the final day of judgment.

1. The Priest and the King.

We have two leading men, Joshua who is the high priest and Zerubbabel who is the civil governor. We must remember that Zerubbabel is a direct descendant of David, and demonstrates God’s fulfilment of his promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:16 “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever."

Thus it is through Zerubbabel that Luke could trace the lineage of Jesus back to David (Luke 3:27) and Matthew could do the same (Matthew 1: 12-13).

(4th & 5th visions deal with these two men.)

The fourth vision which we looked at showed the need for the high priest to have his dirty clothing removed and replaced with rich and clean garments. (Refers to the cleansing of Israel.) This vision foreshadowed the coming of a priest who would lead Israel in complete purity and without any barrier between him and God. And if there is no barrier between the high priest and God there is no barrier between the people and God. Thus this is a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah.

In the fifth vision, in which the Zechariah saw a golden lampstand and two olive trees, we saw God’s promise to strengthen the people of Israel even though they appeared to be so weak in the face of the pagan nations that surround them. (Zech 4:6) "’Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” It is not the power of the people or of the leaders that will save them, it is the power of God alone that will overcome. And again this is a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah.

In v11 Zechariah is told to take the crown and place it on the head of Joshua, who is the Priest. One would have expected that the Crown should be placed upon the head of Zerubbabel who was the civil governor.

God is saying to the people of Israel that their demand to have a King and to be like the pagan nations at the time of Saul was wrong and was not what he intended for his people. (1 Samuel 8:6-19)

God wanted his people to be led by a priest, one who would be in perfect harmony and communion with Him so that the people would be strong in a difficult world because they would be filled with the strength of God Himself.

In telling Zechariah to crown Joshua rather than Zerubbabel God is again telling the people that their future, their Messiah, is a priest/King because all authority and power comes from God.

God is telling us today that we cannot separate earthly things from heavenly things. God is deeply involved in the affairs of men and women at all levels and it is not possible to avoid God. Wherever we turn, whatever we think God is there.

The question is that if we cannot separate earthly things from heavenly things, and we cannot avoid God, shouldn’t we be developing a deeper relationship with God?

Through Zechariah crowning Joshua God is saying to the people of Israel that though they may be a small and weak people amongst a large number of strong and aggressive nations if they will rely on God, he will provide all the strength and power they need. It reminds me of the incident involving Elisha (2 Kings 6:15,16) when the king of Aram surrounded the house in which Elisha was sleeping. Elisha’s servant awoke in the morning and in great fear as a vast army of the King of Aram around them. (Rather like waking in the morning with your house surrounded by a SWAT force of armed police.)The servant then uttered one of the great understatement Scripture "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. "Don’t be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."