Yesterday morning happiness is sitting next to somebody who knows where it is. And I think the Lord led me years ago to Zechariah because nobody ever preached from it, and I have no competition in the field. The book of Zechariah was written by a prophet of old. He's called one of the minor prophets. He's a prophet with a major message. There's more in him about cr- in his property, in his prophetic book, I'll get it out in a minute, than in any other book of the Old Testament concerning the future events of Jerusalem and the second advent of Jesus Christ, any Old Testament book. The first six chapters comprise eight visions that God gave to him in one night. Now that was an awful load. You think I give you a lot of material in one night? Just God gave him the whole shot in one evening. In one place or two places, it sta- says that the angel of the Lord told him to lift up your head, Zaki, you're tired, and I get what I have to say. The Jewish people had come back from the Babylonian. If you were here yesterday morning, you remember that. The beginning of the seventh month of the first year, they reinstituted their sacrificial system. On the first day of the first month of the second year, which would be the thirteenth month, they began to lay the foundation for Zerubbabel's temple. They were stopped, and for eighteen years, nothing happened. It was like their prayers went no higher than this. God had forgotten them. God raised up two men. One was Haggai, who came on the scene, and his ministry lasted three months. And then the Lord raised up Zechariah, whose ministry lasted, uh, the rest of his life. Now, Zechariah was given these eight visions in one night that cover the first six chapters of his book, and in those eight visions, God gives to us a total picture of what he was going to do with the Jewish people, Jerusalem, and the temple from the day of Zechariah all the way over to the second coming of Jesus Christ. Now, there's nothing in here about the church. God is speaking to Israel. So the second coming would be the second advent, when our Lord returns to the earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Now, yesterday morning we looked at the first vision, which is found in chapters one verses seven to seventeen. and in that vision God said that he had not forgotten Jerusalem, he had not forgotten the Jew, and that his temple would be rebuilt, Zerubbabel's temple would be completed, even though they'd waited these eighteen years. And also, the Lord told them there that he would yet comfort Zion and would yet choose Jerusalem as his own. The second vision is found in chapter one, verses eighteen to twenty one, four verses made up of two types of groups, horns and carpenters in the King James. A horn is a symbol of power, and uh, the Gentile world powers that came up against the nation of Israel, first uh, Babylon, and then God raised up a, uh, a hammerer, a carpenter, a smith, one that beats on something to fashion something, and uh, this would put down that world power. Babylon rose up, they got too big-headed, and God raised up the Medo-Persian Empire to put them down. Then, after they went into power, they thought got too powerful, and they became- became the next horn. Horn is always symbolic of power. And when they got too big for their own britches, God raised up another country, E- uh, is- man. Greece under Alexander the Great. I was trying to say Alexander and Greece at the same time, and you don't come up with a good word that way. And, uh, he raised up Greece to put down the Medo-Persian Empire, and then guess what? The Greeks had the same problem. He had to raise up Rome to put them down. And Rome went the same way, and we'll get into that this evening. But, uh, as Rome went the same way, Rome fell from within. Rome was a decadent society that went downhill. It's amazing that we, as a nation, or I can include Canada too, the the North American continent, if I may. We are becoming more and more decadent each day, not each year. And even though we still operate under, under much of the Roman system of law, under Roman, some Roman culture, God has yet another hammer that will put down this last power. Rome was never defeated. And the last hammer is God's hammer, the Lord Jesus Christ, when he returns in power and glory at his second. That's the first two visions. The third vision we saw yesterday begins in chapter two and covers the entire second chapter about the city of Jerusalem being rebuilt, and it would be rebuilt so large that, uh, they would not be able to contain all of it, uh, with all the people and the multitude of men and the cattle. And God said, I've put a wall of fire round about her, protection about her. And God is talking about the day that Jerusalem will be his, and the people will know the Lord. And it says finally in verse twelve, the Lord shall inherit Judah his portion in the Holy Land and shall choose Jerusalem. And then it says, be silent, oh all flesh. You don't have a thing to say about this. God is doing it. This morning we pick up with the next vision in chapter three. In the first three visions, we have a picture of what God is going to do physically for the Jewish people. Jerusalem would be expanded, the temple would be rebuilt, they would be protected, and finally in chapter three— uh, chapter two, we see, saw that, uh, it would one day be the Holy Land. In chapter three, the whole picture turns because God has not yet dealt with the problem of sin. You don't just take care of people and do things, good things for people. God is a holy God. God is a righteous God. God is a just God. And because of this, he must resolve the sin problem. I think one of the weakness in our pulpits today, in our ministries today, is the fact that men are not preaching on the character of God, his holiness, his righteousness, his judgment. They look today almost, and even though they would not dare say it publicly, the man upstairs. And God is treated very lightly. So in chapter three, God begins to deal with sin, and as he does, we see a picture of the high priest. The high priest was always representative of the children of Israel. Jesus Christ is our high priest, and he represents us, does he not? He intercedes in our behalf. He's seated at the right hand of God the Father in our behalf. But in the Old Testament, the high priest was representative of the Jewish people, beginning in verse one. And he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord, not seated now, that doesn't take place until later, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. That's exactly what the devil likes to do. Oppose, resist, fight, put down, and he is resisting the high priest. And I love what the next verse says. And the Lord and Jehovah said unto Satan, the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan, even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee. Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Somebody lost a diamond. Um, did you notice the way that was stated this morning? If you put two words together, it almost sounded like it was the Hope Diamond. Go back and think of the announcement. Anybody lost the Hope Diamond out here, the whole world would be here looking for it this morning. But we have something that's more precious than any diamond, the Lord Jesus Christ, and you don't find the world here looking for it. Now, the Lord says, concerning Jerusalem, concerning the Jewish people, is not this a brand plucked out of the fire? Is not this something that was burning? Is not this something that was being taken away, and it is plucked out of the fire and salvaged? And then it goes on. It says, now Joshua, that's the high priest representative of the people, was clothed with filthy garments and stood before the angel. Bear with me, I must give you a literal translation of filthy garments. Joshua, the high priest, was clothed with garments that were covered with human excrement. That's what the Hebrew brings out. Filthy, foul, smelly, the worst thing you could think of. And he stood before the angel, and he, the angel, answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with a change of raiment. Our black folks sometimes have a way of putting into spirituals biblical truth in such a way that comes out simply. You remember their song, I Got a robe, you got a robe, we all, all God's children got robes. You know what that's talking about? Taking off the filthy garments and getting the robe of righteousness that God has for us. Beloved, what God hasn't done for us at Calvary and through the redemptive process that he has given us, uh, through the redemption, I should say, that he's given us in Christ Jesus. The amazing thing here to me is, Satan has nothing to do with this. The high priest has nothing to do with this. It is all done by divine action. The cleansing is done by divine action, and the priest or Satan has nothing to do with it. And I thank God tonight, this morning, that our redemption has been purchased by Christ. It is a gift of God, and we have done nothing but receive that gift. I remember some years ago... Well, I could give several things here, but I remember flying out of Phoenix to Atlanta one day, and we got up in the air, and the captain came on, and he said, we have to fly through nine hundred fifty miles of thunderstorms. As my Jewish friends say, oy vey. And he said, I'm going to have the crew serve you dinner as quickly as possible. Maybe you can get it down before it gets rough. And I was sitting in a window seat, and I could see the buildup of clouds in the head, and I knew ahead, and I knew they were up fifty, sixty, seventy thousand feet. The captain said they stretched all the way from north of St. Louis down to the middle of the Gulf. So that we said, there's no way I can go around them. He said, with radar, we'll pick our way through. I'll never forget as long as I live. The man next to me happened to be that, for some reason or other, they moved me up to first class, you know, where the seat fits. And where they bring you food rather than throw a plastic blai- bag at you, now you just pick up a paper bag in the jetway. And, uh, the man said to me, what do you do? Well, I'm very nebulous about this because I want the opportunity to witness, and, uh, you've got to bait the hook. You don't catch fish unless you put bait on the end of the line. So I said, oh, I'm a minister. Oh, he said, would you pray for me? What do you think he thought I'd say? Yes. I said no. He said, why won't you pray for you, for me? You're a minister. I said, I prayed for me before I got on, and if I get there, you stand a pretty good chance. Well, you see, by then I had him hooked. I had him hooked. And for the next hour, I shared Christ with that businessman from Atlanta, and but just as we were coming out of the storms, I'm glad they lasted that long. Just as we were coming out of the storms, he bowed his head and received Jesus Christ as his savior. The sequel to the story is this, though. A stewardess came up to me, or pardon me, a cabin attendant, um, came up to me, and she said, may I talk with you? Yes, ma'am. Would you come in the back with me? Uh-oh, they're going to throw me out the back door. And I went back with her. She said, sit down. And when I say sit down, you sit down. You're thirty five thousand feet, you don't want to go out the window. She said, uh, you're a Christian, are you not? I said, yes, ma'am. She said, you were witnessing to that man, were you not? I said, yes, ma'am. She said, did you lead him to Christ? I said, yes, ma'am. She said, we had to be seated for an hour and a half, and I saw what you were doing. And she said, sir, I want you to know that for the last hour and a half, I've been praying that you might lead that man to Christ. Who did it? God the Holy Spirit won that man to Christ. There were two instruments. I wrote it up in Israel My Glory. I said, one preached, one prayed. But it was a teamwork to get the job done. Now we have the situation before us here in the, uh, the book of Zechariah of God dealing through the high priest representative of the nation of Israel. And the filthy garments are taken away. He's given clean clothes. Verse five: And I said, let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head and clothed him with garments, and the angel of the Lord stood by. And the angel of the Lord protested. That's a horrible translation. The better translation of that would be, the angel of the Lord stood by giving testimony unto Joshua, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, if thou walk in my ways, and if thou will keep my charge, then shalt thou also judge my house and shall also keep my courts. I will give thee the places to walk among those that stand by. And I don't want to get into that because I really want to leave, uh, uh, um, something that's more important in the next verse. Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee, for they are men wondered at, marveled at, for behold, I, the Lord, will bring forth my servant, the branch. Doesn't that sound like Isaiah? For behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon one stone shall be seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts. Now watch this. And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. What day is that? When will that be? Ladies and gentlemen, to my mind, it is very, very clear what day that will be in scriptures. The Bible tells us that the Jewish people have yet to face a holocaust that is beyond all holocausts, which is the tribulation period. Zechariah himself tells it that two, tells us that two-thirds of all the Jews in the land will die, and my heart aches for my unsaved Jewish friends in Israel when I think of this. But at the end of the tribulation period, some people will make it through, some Jewish people will make it through. And Zechariah chapter twelve verse ten tells us that they shall look unto me, whom they have. They shall look unto me whom they have pierced. That is Christ. That is taking them to Calvary. And when will this be that the nation of Israel will be saved? Romans chapter eleven says, and all Israel shall be saved. That doesn't mean that every Jew walking the face of the earth today is going to be saved. M- Lord Jesus makes it very, very clear to us, I believe, in Matthew twenty four. and without getting into depth in Matthew uh twenty four, it says, and beginning around verse twenty nine, immediately after the tribulation of those days, God will stop the sun from shining, stop the moon from reflecting the light of the sun that's no longer shining. The stars will fall from heaven. Total darkness will fall upon the face of this earth. Did you ever think of that passage? Men love darkness rather than light, and God says, try it for a while, boys. And then in the midst of total absolute darkness, as the lightning shineth from the east to the west, even so also, even so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be. I believe the world will be totally enshrouded in darkness, and what man will see as Christ returns to the earth will be the glory of God, the Shekinah glory. And Christ is the Shekinah glory. And he will return to the earth, and it says every eye shall see him. And I believe that that is the day in which, uh, the nation of Israel, what is left of them, will finally turn to the Lord, and in Zechariah twelve, that we'll look at tomorrow morning, they will mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, for having rejected him for so long. For so long. I've had a lot of phone calls lately. There is a rabbi by the name of Singer, who formerly was with Jews for Judaism. That's not Jews for Jesus, Jews for Judaism, who goes out and is sent out on college campuses to draw back Jewish young people that may have trusted Christ back into Judaism. And I've listened to his entire series of tapes of what he prophes- what he promises and how he takes the scriptures and rips them to shreds and gives untruth after untruth after untruth, but he is so clever that when I began to listen to him, I thought, boy, this guy's got something to say. And then I realized, Hartman, you're being duped by this guy. And I realized that his interpretation of Isaiah fifty three was an absolute lie. The Jewish people for so long have believed a lie. And God says there's a day coming when he will redeem them, and he'll remove the iniquity of that land in one day. And the key to the time is found in the last verse, verse ten. It says, in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, ye shall call every man his neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree. Without going into detail, if you take Micah chapter four and other passages of scripture, when a man sits under his vine and fig tree, it is a picture of absolute peace. The task that God originally had for the nation of Israel was to be so true to the Lord that the testimony of the Jewish people that God had called unto himself would go out to a world that the Gentiles would hear, and they totally failed. And we have a picture here of God after the Jew returns to the Lord en masse in one day, when our Lord returns, will be filled with the Spirit of God. And beloved, what a time it's going to be in the millennial reign of Christ when he is ruling and reign upon the face of the earth, and you begin, pardon me, you begin the millennium with believers only. The curse will be removed. We will live years long beyond what we would ever think we could live. Women will be able to bear children. It says when a child is a hundred, he'll still be a child, and I believe a woman would be able to have a child every year for at least a hundred years. Oy, oy, oy, oy, oy, you ladies aren't giving me the best of looks now. No, you're going to come back in glorified bodies, and you won't have to go through this. Won't be any pain with childbirth. But, do you ever think we might be the babysitters of the world? Oh, where's some secluded island for me? But, uh, this is the picture that God has given us. I don't want to get into the last part of the, um, fourth chapter and the anointed ones and who they are. Uh, this is very controversial. I have my opinion on it. It's written in the book, but, uh, I want to get on to cover a couple of other things before we quit this morning. In chapter five, God has not only dealt with the sin of Israel, he's going to deal with sinners. And in the first four verses of chapter five, we have God dealing with sinners on the face of the earth in a very unusual picture. I turned and lifted up mine eyes and looked, and behold, a flying roll, flying scroll. He said unto me, What seest thou? What do you see? And I answered and said, I see a flying scroll. The length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits. Same size as the holy place. Then he said unto me, this is the curse that goeth forth over the face of the earth, for everyone that stealeth shall be cut off as on this side according to it, and everyone that sweareth shall be cut off as on that side according to it. What this is, can you picture, um, you know, Al- Aladdin, you know, on the flying, uh, carpet? Well, that's a poor description, but it gives you some idea. And it's written on both sides, and I believe that what's written on each side are half of the commandments. And we only have one that swears and one that steals, the middle commandment on each side given. And this goes throughout the entire earth, and as it flies throughout the entire earth, everyone that steals, everyone that breaks, uh, God's law will be cut off. God says, I'll bring it forth, verse four, And it shall enter into the house of the thief and into the house of him that sweareth falsely by my name. It shall remain in the house, the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof. God's going to get rid of sinners. We do not enter the millennial period, the thousand-year reign of Christ, with sinners upon the face of the earth. You have people with old sin natures because some will go in in their natural bodies. The redeemed will come back in glorified bodies. And then we find the, uh, the next vision is a very interesting one. It ties together with Revelation seventeen and eighteen. Then the angel that talked with me went forth and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes and see what is this that goeth forth. And I said, you know what the Hebrew says there? Manna. Manna. You know what the children of Israel ate every day in the wilderness? Manna. You know what manna means? What is it? They ate what is it every day. I'm thankful we're not being fed what is it here every day in the dining room. The food's been delicious. What is it? And he said, this is an ephah that goeth forth. He said that, moreover, this is their resemblance to all the earth. And behold, there was lifted up a talon of lead, and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. And he said, this is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah, and he cast the weight of the lead upon the mouse thereof, mouth thereof. What is an ephah? Anybody bring an ephah in the... It's a measuring, it's the largest measurement, uh, measuring device they had for dry, uh, grain, like, in the time. It would hold about, uh, hold over a bushel, and it was large enough that you could fit a small woman inside. A talent of lead would weigh anywhere from ninety pounds up, and God says that the woman is wickedness. She is put inside that ephah, the talent of lead is put on top of her, and then a very strange thing happens here. Verse nine. Then lifted I up mine eyes and looked, and behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings, for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. Then I s- then said I to the angel that talked with me, whither do these bear the ephah? Where are they taking it? And he said unto me, to build it a house in the land of Shinar, and it shall be established and set there upon her own base. Where is Shinar? It is Babylon. Wickedness personified came out of Babylon, and God sends it back to Babylon. And if you read the seventeenth and eighteenth chapters of the Book of Revelation, in chapter seventeen you have destroyed religious Babylon, and in chapter eighteen you have destroyed, um... wicked Babylon. Totally destroyed commercial Babelism, uh, Babylon, I should say. Destroyed, and the merchants of the earth look up, ah, we lost our business. I am very much convinced that one of the last things, according to Daniel, and one of the last major sins that will show its ugly face on the face of the earth, is the sin of materialism. And if we aren't seeing that today, I don't know when we will see it. Finally, the sixth chapter, and I only just want to touch on this. We have, um, four chariots that came between the two mountains. The two mountains, I believe, were Moriah and, uh, Olives. And, uh, the mountains of brass are mountains of judgment. And, uh, we have here the various horses referred to in the horsemen way back in the first chapter of Zechariah, and God sends the angelic beings out to quiet the space, face of the earth. And we have in the last part of this sixth chapter a very strange event. The word of the Lord came unto me saying, Take of them of the captivity, even of Heldai and Tobijah and of Jedaiah, which are come from Babylon, and come from the same, thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah the son of Zephaniah. Then take silver and gold and make crowns, your Bible may say, it means a crown, and set them upon the head of Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest. The silver and gold were to be taken and made into a crown with the silver and gold intertwined. That's the idea. And speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold, the man whose name is the Branch, and he shall go up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord. That's the millennial temple in Christ. Even he shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear the glory and shall sit and rule upon the throne. He shall be a priest upon his throne, and the council of peace shall be between them both, the high priest and the, and the king, because Christ has, uh, both. And the crown shall be to Helaman, to Tobijah, and to Jedaiah, and to Hen, the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the Lord. And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord, and ye shall know what the Lord of hosts, that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto you. And it shall come to pass if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord. Uh, this shall come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God. It's my understanding that this crown was put into the temple of Zerubbabel, and it was put up at the very highest peak, that when anyone ever came, they would see this crown of silver and gold, the crown that was made for the high priest. And that crown was there to remind them that the high priest then did not have the right to wear that crown, but there was a high priest coming to the nation of Israel someday who would have the right to wear that crown. I believe that crown's in existence somewhere today, and I believe that when Jesus Christ comes as King of kings and Lord of lords, he will wear that crown. Meanwhile, do we not have a crown of righteousness? Are we not gathered by God's love from this old central world into a relationship with Christ, clothed with righteousness? We'll be given crowns one day, and ladies and gentlemen, what are we going to do with those crowns? We're going to cast them at the feet of Jesus for all he has done. There's an old song goes, after all he has done for me, after all he has done for me. How can I do less than give him my best, after all he has done for me? Well, we have zipped through the first half of Zechariah, and I just wanted to give you a glimpse, as it were, of these eight visions given to the prophet in one night that take the children of Israel from the depths of the spawn to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Tomorrow morning, we'll go to chapter twelve and spend the next two mornings in twelve, thirteen, and fourteen looking at what happens at the end when our Lord returns. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you so much for your living word. We thank you, Lord, that though these things are pretty tough to dig out, and Lord, for some folks, they may not have ever heard of these before. We pray, I pray, that it at least might be an introduction to the message that you recorded in your word for us, and that we need to understand that you are in control. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that you are not in control of. Now, Lord, as we take our lives and give them to you, I just pray that we might be what we ought to be in light of what you have declared us to be. Lord, may our life come up to the position that you have placed us in, that we might magnify and glorify our wonderful Savior who gave everything he had for us, that we might be brought into the family of God, into the fellowship with God, and you even allow us a glimpse into the future, to see all that you're going to do. Lord, do things in