The End of the Road
Nov 16, 2008 Zech 14
Intro:
This morning brings us to the end of our journey through the Old Testament book of Zechariah. We’ve been immersing ourselves in the time of God’s people, returned from slavery in Babylon in the 4th and 5th century BC, to find their homes and temple and national identity and religion in ruins, and tasked now with the need to rebuild. We’ve seen how God has come alongside them, with strong and beautiful words of hope and strength and passionate love, calling them to a higher way of life, calling them to not despair, calling them to live out of the covenant God has made with them, calling them to holiness and purpose and hope. And we, too, have heard the same call of God to us, a different people in a different time, yet with so much in common: voices competing for our attention and love; challenges that only God can deal with; a deep need to hear God say “My love for you is passionate and strong!”; hearts that cry out for justice in a broken world; and a deep need for reassurance that God really is in control, that He really is good, and that He really is involved in the lives and concerns of His people.
Context:
Last week as we began this last section of Zechariah, we talked about how this is “apocalyptic” literature – a unique type of literature common in the time, where a story is told about a future “day” when a mighty God would fight a terrible battle and be victorious over all and every force of evil, and will then usher in a new day of eternal joy and peace and goodness. And the main point of this type of literature is always to encourage God’s people that the day will come, when all of this struggle and pain and evil, will be decisively dealt with forever. This is still of vital importance to us as Christians – this longing for and belief in a final day when God will fight, win, and restore. In fact, it is one of our seven “Statements of Faith” here at Laurier: “#7: We believe God will bring this age to an end and establish a new heaven and a new earth, in God’s time. Jesus will come again in glory. The dead will be raised, and all will be judged: the unrighteous will be punished and the righteous will be rewarded, both everlasting.”
Now, reading that it is a very “factual”, logical, technical description. When the writers of Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wanted to communicate the same truth to the people in Zechariah’s day, they did so with far more drama, flare, excitement, imagination, and imagery. Let’s read Zechariah 14.
Zech 14
1 Watch, for the day of the Lord is coming when your possessions will be plundered right in front of you! 2 I will gather all the nations to fight against Jerusalem. The city will be taken, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the population will be taken into captivity, and the rest will be left among the ruins of the city.
3 Then the Lord will go out to fight against those nations, as he has fought in times past. 4 On that day his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem. And the Mount of Olives will split apart, making a wide valley running from east to west. Half the mountain will move toward the north and half toward the south. 5 You will flee through this valley, for it will reach across to Azal. Yes, you will flee as you did from the earthquake in the days of King Uzziah of Judah. Then the Lord my God will come, and all his holy ones with him.
6 On that day the sources of light will no longer shine, 7 yet there will be continuous day! Only the Lord knows how this could happen. There will be no normal day and night, for at evening time it will still be light.
8 On that day life-giving waters will flow out from Jerusalem, half toward the Dead Sea and half toward the Mediterranean, flowing continuously in both summer and winter.
9 And the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day there will be one Lord—his name alone will be worshiped.
10 All the land from Geba, north of Judah, to Rimmon, south of Jerusalem, will become one vast plain. But Jerusalem will be raised up in its original place and will be inhabited all the way from the Benjamin Gate over to the site of the old gate, then to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses. 11 And Jerusalem will be filled, safe at last, never again to be cursed and destroyed.
12 And the Lord will send a plague on all the nations that fought against Jerusalem. Their people will become like walking corpses, their flesh rotting away. Their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. 13 On that day they will be terrified, stricken by the Lord with great panic. They will fight their neighbors hand to hand. 14 Judah, too, will be fighting at Jerusalem. The wealth of all the neighboring nations will be captured—great quantities of gold and silver and fine clothing. 15 This same plague will strike the horses, mules, camels, donkeys, and all the other animals in the enemy camps.
16 In the end, the enemies of Jerusalem who survive the plague will go up to Jerusalem each year to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, and to celebrate the Festival of Shelters. 17 Any nation in the world that refuses to come to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, will have no rain. 18 If the people of Egypt refuse to attend the festival, the Lord will punish them with the same plague that he sends on the other nations who refuse to go. 19 Egypt and the other nations will all be punished if they don’t go to celebrate the Festival of Shelters.
20 On that day even the harness bells of the horses will be inscribed with these words: Holy to the Lord. And the cooking pots in the Temple of the Lord will be as sacred as the basins used beside the altar. 21 In fact, every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. All who come to worship will be free to use any of these pots to boil their sacrifices. And on that day there will no longer be traders in the Temple of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
Why the Wait? (vs. 1-2):
Martin Luther, the great theologian and reformer, wrote two commentaries on the book of Zechariah. In the first commentary, he ended after chapter 13 without explanation – leaving chapter 14 completely untouched. A year later he wrote his second commentary, and reportedly began his brief discussion of chapter 14 with these words: “Here, in this chapter, I give up. For I am not sure what the prophet is talking about.” (as quoted by Klein, Zechariah, “New American Commentary”, p. 396.). I find that comforting! But let’s slow it down and walk through it together.
My first pause is with a question – a deep, heart-cry question, that comes out of the horror described in vs. 1-2: “1 Watch, for the day of the Lord is coming when your possessions will be plundered right in front of you! 2 I will gather all the nations to fight against Jerusalem. The city will be taken, the houses looted, and the women raped. Half the population will be taken into captivity, and the rest will be left among the ruins of the city.”
Here is the question: why does God wait until after all this horror to come and rescue? He does come, He does fight, He does win, which we read right at the beginning of vs. 3. But why does He wait until after the plundering, the destroying, the raping, the enslaving, and the ruining? Why do His people have to suffer first? Why do we? God has the power, that is infinitely clear in the rest of the passage; why doesn’t He have the timing? The question goes one deeper when we notice closely the very beginning of vs. 2: “I will gather…”. It isn’t even a matter of God showing up late – the verse says God brings these nations who come and bring such pain on His people.
I’ll return to that main question in a moment, but need to pause here to explore what this tells us about God and about our world view. We tend to view our world fairly simply: God is good and gets all the credit for the good stuff, the devil is bad and gets all the blame for the bad stuff. There is a constant battle back and forth, between good and evil, sometimes the good wins and sometimes the evil. But that is not a Biblical way of understanding our world. The world view that the Bible presents is that God is sovereign, God reigns completely over everything, nothing happens without His permission, and even that which we see as “evil” is under God’s sovereignty. We see it here, God says “I will gather” the nations who oppress the people.
So why the suffering and pain, if God really is in control? Obviously a huge question, for which I don’t have all the answers, but let me suggest one: the suffering is a temporary necessity bringing a much greater result. You see, our perspective is that no pain is best; God’s is that suffering is temporary and the result at the end is better than the start, so it is worth it. Yes, I just said that suffering and pain is worth it. Perhaps the best example: Jesus. He didn’t want to suffer, He wasn’t looking forward to the pain of the cross, He prayed, “Lord, I’d rather not go through this… isn’t there some other way?? Yet, not my will, but yours…” (cf. Matt 26:39). And in that phrase we find our best response when we suffer: “not my will, but Yours, Lord.” We may not see why, we may not understand, we may feel hurt and sorrow and anger and confusion, and that is the very best time to respond with faith: “not my will”, and “Lord I choose to believe that through this suffering will come the best You have for us”, and “I believe that this “sorrow will last for the night, but joy will come in the morning”. And when we get all that, we understand the point of apocalyptic literature like Zech 14.
God Saves (vs. 3-11):
And God does come, God does save, God does fight and win and redeem. That is the message of vs. 3-11. “Then the Lord will go out to fight”… He places His feet on the mountain tops and pushes them aside to create an escape route for His people when their backs are up against a wall, and then God jumps down and stands between His people and their enemies. And because God is standing there in the midst of His people, there will be light everywhere and it won’t be coming from the sun and the moon – the glory of God outshines them all. And then fresh water will flow continually. And God will be King over all. And the great city of God will be restored and safe and full, forever.
God Deals with the Enemies (vs. 12-15):
The story now turns to the enemies. The verses talk about a plague which will strike them and effect every living thing, including the livestock. It is quite descriptive, quite terrible. But imagine it from the point of view of the Israelites, who still had a fresh memory of their treatment at the hand of their enemies. To them, it would sound like justice, like they got what they deserved. They likely would have rejoiced!
The Surprise (vs. 16-19):
With that expected reaction of rejoicing at the punishment of their enemies, the next verses would have come as quite a surprise. “16 In the end, the enemies of Jerusalem who survive the plague will go up to Jerusalem each year to worship the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, and to celebrate the Festival of Shelters.” Pause for a moment to let that sink in… the enemies become part of the community. They get to join in worship. They get to come to the biggest and best party, the “national camping trip”, the ancient equivalent of our Thanksgiving dinner. How do you think you might feel as an Israelite, knowing that your enemies “will go up to Jerusalem each year to worship” alongside you?
Isn’t this the heart of the good news – that there is redemption for even the worst offenders, who turn to God. And then there is reconciliation, forgiveness, restoration, and human relationships no longer marred by past hurts, but instead joined together in unity and together in worship, focused not on us or the past, but focused instead on “the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies”. All nations, together, joining in worship. This is the climax of the “day of the Lord”, the final hope of humanity, the great conclusion to this “apocalyptic” vision of how things are really going to all end up, when God comes and fights and wins and makes everything right in the world.
One more thing (vs. 20-21):
The chapter doesn’t end on that note of victory, however, there is one more thing: “On that day even the harness bells of the horses will be inscribed with these words: Holy to the Lord. And the cooking pots in the Temple of the Lord will be as sacred as the basins used beside the altar. 21 In fact, every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah will be holy to the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. All who come to worship will be free to use any of these pots to boil their sacrifices. And on that day there will no longer be traders in the Temple of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.”
We need a little background here for this to make sense. During the time of the temple, certain pieces of the temple were especially important – they were “set apart” for exclusive use in the temple worship. For example, there were special priestly garments, special altars, special bowls and basins. These things were only permitted for use in the formal worship, usually only the priests were allowed to even touch these things. This is where we get our world “holy” – it means “set apart exclusively for God”. With that background, look again at the verse: now, “on that day” suddenly all the mundane things, bells on horses, pots for cooking, all are now holy – all are now set apart – all of life is now holy and sacred and for God.
Let us not miss the significance of this transition, for it forms our application this morning. What these two verses describe is a complete change in the way that life and “religion” intersect. Before “that day”, the two are separate: there are special pots, and regular ones; worship is done at the temple; there is a time to focus on God and a time to go about your own business. But all of that changes now – no longer is there a differentiation, for all things are now holy. No longer is there secular and sacred, for all things are now sacred. No longer is there “this bit is for God, the rest is for me”, for all is now for God.
And this is where I’d like to apply this chapter for us this morning: have we segregated our lives? Are we living a double life, inconsistent, compartmentalizing our faith into one corner of life, while living something completely different in another corner? Or are we living a consistent, integrated, purposeful life where God is in all and around all and through all? Where all is “set apart” for Him, where He is welcomed and integrated and involved in every part of our lives, and we are glad for it?
I suspect that for some of us, there are some changes needing to be made. Perhaps a need to recommit, to surrender every part, to decide again to “seek first the Kingdom of God”, and to live a consistent Christian life every moment, every day, putting Jesus at the centre, and enjoying God to the full.
Conclusion:
Perhaps the absolute most fitting way to end our study of Zechariah would be for us all to recommit to making God the centre of our lives. That is, really, the theme of the whole book. It began with the cry of God, “return to me, and I will return to you.” It carried through to the incredibly strong declaration of God, “My love for you is passionate and strong!”, and it comes to the climax here in chapters 12-14 with this glorious picture of the end of time, when God makes right every wrong, and brings a final and lasting peace.
This invitation, this cry of love, and this hope of justice calls to us today. It calls us to respond, to love in return, and to commit our lives to justice until “that day”, when God finally comes and brings complete justice.
Today, will hear the call? And will you respond? Let’s take a few moments in silence, asking and expecting the Holy Spirit to speak to each of us. Then I’ll conclude our service with a final prayer.
