Zechariah is not an easy book to read and understand, but we will try and learn together over these few months. God has important words for His people.
• It’s difficult because God speaks not only to the present situation in Judah (with the people now engaging in rebuilding the Temple) but also to show them that He has a glorious future planned, for this place, through Israel.
Let me give a big picture view of the book. It falls into TWO main parts.
• The first part (chap 1-8) is specifically dated; the second part (chap 9-14) is not.
• After the introduction (1:1-6), chapters 1-6 consist of 8 night visions that came to Zechariah in one night.
• God addresses the needs of the people as they work on the Temple. They are not alone. God is with them and will help them accomplish His purpose of rebuilding it.
• God will restore what has been lost.
In chapters 7 and 8, dated two years later, Zechariah was addressing a delegation of priests that came from Bethel, talking about the subject on religious fasting.
• The thrust of the message is that God is concerned about the hearts of the people and not just the outward religious observance.
• It serves as a warning to the people not to fall back into an outward form of religion when the Temple is completed. God is looking at their hearts.
Chapters 9-14 are not dated and probably were written many years later.
• This section consists of a number of prophecies regarding the Messiah, the coming of Christ.
• It helps the people see beyond their present problems to the great future God has planned.
• It sets the perspective to what they are doing. The seemingly inconsequential task has great significance! The Messiah will come.
No matter what takes place before then – the rise and fall of nations and empires – God’s plan is intact and His promises are sure.
• They will be fulfilled. And for us, we saw them being fulfilled when Christ came.
• We call these prophecies, messianic prophecies, because they point to the Messiah.
• The book of Zechariah is second only to Isaiah in the number of references made regarding the Messiah.
Why give them prophecies, when they are fulfilled only after their lifetime?
• To encourage the discouraged remnant that God’s plan has not be derailed, despite their sin and apostasy. Their failure will not nullify God’s plan.
• God’s covenantal promises remain true. God keeps His covenant.
• His Kingdom will come and Jesus Christ, the Messiah will rule.
It is a message not just for them but for us, especially when we are discouraged by what is happening around the world today, when evil and chaos seem to thrive.
• God still reigns and He is orchestrating situations toward the fulfilment of His plan and purposes.
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Let’s read Zech 1:1-6. “Return to me,” the Lord says, “and I will return to you.”
• This is setting the foundation right, their relationship with God.
Clearly dated – the Word of God came in the 8th month of the 2nd year of Darius’ reign.
• Right after Haggai gave his two messages. Right at the restart of the rebuilding.
Remember their hardships? They had returned from a long exile, attempted to rebuild the Temple but was forced to stop by the hostile enemies opposing them (Ezra 4:1-5).
• They ignored it completely and went on to build their own houses and lives. Without God, they suffered crop failures and drought and little harvest (Haggai 1:10-11)
• They had indeed come home (to Judah) but home to what? A life of poverty and an uncertain future.
Under such circumstances, if the people were misguided, they might have thought that God was still angry with them or that they were left to fend for themselves.
• God spoke through Haggai and Zechariah set their perspective right.
• God did not abandon them. God will help them rebuild the Temple and the walls of Jerusalem.
• Specifically through Zechariah, God promises them success to the present task and the glory for the future of this place. You have present success and a future glory.
First things first. Don’t repeat the mistake of the past. Learn the lesson of the past.
• God did not abandon Israel. Israel abandoned God when their forefathers sinned against Him and rejected God.
• Zechariah’s very first line was: “The Lord was very angry with your forefathers.”
This would seems at first to be an odd start if you want to encourage the people, by telling them that God was angry with sinners.
• But that’s the right start, right? The basis of a good life comes from heeding God’s warnings and doing life God’s way.
• To understand WHY they suffered the punishment of the exile is good discipline.
• Without God, there is no basis to be encouraged. God rules and the future is in His hands. Without God, look at their poor harvests and bad crops, Haggai said.
• Unless and until this new generation understand this, they won’t be able to experience God’s goodness and blessings.
The point is, even when God was very angry, He did not abandon them. He sent the prophets to speak and to warn.
• 1:4 “Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the LORD Almighty says: `Turn from your evil ways and your evil practices.' But they would not listen or pay attention to me, declares the LORD.
• The prophets spoke God’s Word because the Lord says they would not listen or pay attention, not to them but TO ME, the Lord says.
• God is angry with you and He is still speaking to you. What is that? LOVE. Or you can call it being merciful, gracious, kind...
• God speaks but they refused to listen. God did not distant Himself from them.
Don’t repeat the same mistake again. Repent and return to God, because God wants to return to you. Back home in Judah, you can have a new start.
• Remember this, if we are feeling far from God. He has not distanced Himself from us; we have distanced ourselves from Him.
An elderly couple drove down the road in their truck on the front bench seat. As they drove, the wife noticed that in many of the other trucks with couples in the front seat, the woman sat close to the man as he drove.
She asked her husband, “Why is it that we don’t sit that close anymore?”
He simply answered, “It wasn’t me who moved.”
If we are far from God, He hasn’t moved. “Return to me and I will return to you.”
• Some feels that their sins disqualify them from coming to God, but the truth is God wants them to RETURN to Him.
1:3 “Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says: `Return to me,' declares the LORD Almighty, `and I will return to you,' says the LORD Almighty.
• In one simple statement the Lord Almighty (the Lord of hosts) was repeated 3 times.
• Two more times in the following few verses; 5 times in all in this text.
• The sovereign Lord said so. God Almighty declares it! There is no higher authority.
Nothing new. This was the same call throughout the centuries. God wants them to RETURN to Him, to TURN FROM their evil ways and evil practices and TURN TO God.
• God’s door is open. God invites sinners to come back to Him. Where else can the sick goes to if not to the only doctor who has the cure for sin and evil in our lives?
But their forefathers refused to listen and refused to pay attention to what God said.
• 1:5 “Where are your forefathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever?”
• They died. Some died in their sin, others died under the judgment of sin, when the Babylonians came.
• 1:6 “But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers?” God’s judgment came upon them.
• Even the proclaimer of God’s Word, the prophets, they too passed on.
Return to God while you still can.
• There was this window of opportunity, or this window of God’s grace. Obviously.
• The people had been given the chance to respond to God. They had the opportunity to hear from God through the prophets He sent.
• Both are by God’s grace – the chance to respond to God, and the chance to hear from God through the servants God sent to speak the truth.
But that would end. That window closed when the judgment of God came.
• The prophets had been right and God had done to them just as He had said he would do.
• “You should understand – you had suffered years of captivity in exile under God’s judgment, now that you had come home, return to God and be faithful.”
A pastor shared this interesting video-clip.
A group of people is on a commercial flight. The stewardess comes along and says, “Sir, would you like to put on this parachute? It will make your flight more secure and comfortable.” The guy wants to have an enjoyable flight, so he puts it on.
But the thing is very uncomfortable. It is heavy. The straps rub against his neck and shoulders. He can’t sit back in his seat. The other passengers laugh at this silly-looking guy. Finally, he tears off the parachute in disgust, thinking, “This thing is a big nuisance!”
Now let’s change the context. The captain comes over the intercom and says, “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that we have just lost power to all of our engines. We will need to abandon the plane immediately. The stewardess is coming around with some parachutes….”
Everyone grabs the chutes eagerly. They put them on quickly. Never mind the discomfort or how silly they look. They know they will perish without them!
Only the sick understands the need of a doctor; they will cry out, “What must I do to be saved?” Return to God; turn from evil and turn to God.
• This turning around is repentance. It’s a beautiful thing when a sinner repents.
• A true believer repents. A genuine Christian repents.
1:6 “But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers?”
• Generations can come and go but the Word of God remains true.
• God’s promises outlived and outlasted all of them, their forefathers and the earlier prophets.
Heed God’s Word, don’t repeat the same mistake. Return to God while you can.
• In a sense, Zechariah was encouraging the people, not just in the rebuilding of God’s Temple, but also to the REBUILDING OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP with God.
• Learn from the lessons of their forefathers.
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It is futile and foolish to think that we can get away with sin. Listen to God. Return to God and He will return to you.
• Don’t get things right and then settle with God. Come to God and He will help us straighten out our lives and set things right.
• The real problem will not be because God has not spoken, but that men have refused to listen. There’s only this window of opportunity for us to do so.
Where are you in your relationship with God? 1:6 says the remnant repented, having suffered the consequences and now understood God’s ways. Are we among them?
HOLY COMMUNION - 1 Peter 2:9-12
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
11 Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12 Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
