The Lord Will Return (Zechariah) Series

A man stopped to watch a Little League baseball game. He asked one of the youngsters what the score was.

“We're losing 18-0,” was the answer.

“Well,” said the man. “I must say you don't look discouraged.”

“Discouraged?” the boy said, puzzled. “Why should we be discouraged? We haven't come to bat yet” (Stan Toler, God Has Never Failed Me, but He's Sure Scared Me to Death a Few Times, Honor Books, 1995; www.PreachingToday.com).

I like that boy’s attitude. He refuses to get discouraged no matter how bad it gets.

Sometimes, life gets hard and gets you down. You may feel like quitting, so how do you keep going in those times? How do you keep discouragement at bay and complete the work God has called you to do?

That was the issue facing 50,000 Jews who had just returned home after 70 years in exile to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. Everything was in ruins. They faced opposition from the surrounding nations more powerful than they, and they nearly gave up, stopping the work for 16 years.

That’s when God sent the prophet Zechariah to encourage His people. He did not see a weak nation in a ruined city. He looked down the centuries and saw the [glorious] future of the city and the coming of Jerusalem’s King, the Messiah (Warren Wiersbe, Wiersbe’s Expository Outlines on the Old Testament).

It’s the perspective you need when you feel weak and want to give up. So, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to the next to the last book in the Old Testament, the book of Zechariah, the book of Zechariah, whose perspective not only encouraged the ancient Jews. It still encourages God’s people today.

Zechariah 1:1-6 In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, “The LORD was very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, Thus declares the LORD of hosts: Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, Return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.’ But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the LORD. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they repented and said, ‘As the LORD of hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so has he dealt with us’” (ESV).

Zechariah encourages these ancient Jews to reject the ways of their ancestors, who refused to repent. As result, God’s threats of judgment chased down the evildoers and caught them. Instead, Zechariah urges his readers to return to the Lord, which they did! They came back to the God their ancestors rejected.

As a result, God promises to return to them. Verse 3: “Return to me,” says the LORD of hosts, “and I will return to you.”

So, what does God’s return look like? Well, in the first 6 chapters, Zechariah describes God’s return with 8 night visions, or 8 dreams, about Jerusalem’s future. So, let’s dip into three of those dreams just to catch a glimpse of the future for those who repent and return to the Lord. The first one we’ll look at is in Zechariah 2.

Zechariah 2:1-5 And I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, a man with a measuring line in his hand! Then I said, “Where are you going?” And he said to me, “To measure Jerusalem, to see what is its width and what is its length.” And behold, the angel who talked with me came forward, and another angel came forward to meet him and said to him, “Run, say to that young man, ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst’” (ESV).

Zechariah sees a day when God will protect Jerusalem Himself and fill the city with people and with His own glory.

Zechariah 2:6-13 Up! Up! Flee from the land of the north, declares the LORD. For I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heavens, declares the LORD. Up! Escape to Zion, you who dwell with the daughter of Babylon. For thus said the LORD of hosts, after his glory sent me to the nations who plundered you, for he who touches you touches the apple of his eye: “Behold, I will shake my hand over them, and they shall become plunder for those who served them. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the LORD. And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. And the LORD will inherit Judah as his portion in the holy land and will again choose Jerusalem.” Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling (ESV).