Gooding, David: 7 - Zechariah

Now shall we read from the prophecy of Zechariah in chapter one? The prophecy of Zechariah and chapter one. Beginning at verse one: in the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying, The Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Return unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will return unto you, saith the Lord of hosts. Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets cried, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, return you now from your evil ways and from your evil doings. But they did not hear nor hearken unto me, saith 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? And they turned and said, like as the Lord of hosts sought to do unto us according to our ways and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us, and God give us good understanding of his word. The prophet Zechariah is one of the so-called minor prophets. In the Hebrew canon, his book stands in the second division of the Old Testament, unlike the book of Chronicles that we were studying last evening, which stands in the third division of the Old Testament. Zechariah stands in the second division. He is a minor prophet, and yet he carries the story on beyond the point that we were considering last evening. He ministered to the nation when they had returned from exile in Babylon and were endeavoring to rebuild Jerusalem city and rebuild the temple of the Lord at Jerusalem. So he stands, uh, in that last period, we call it the post-exilic period. In fact, it itself is the third major part of ancient Israel's history. So for a moment, I want to impress that on our minds, that there were, in the times before Christ, three major periods of Israel's history, and Zechariah came in the third of them. Just turn over, if you will, please, to the gospel by Matthew and chapter one And we're going to see there before our eyes the three major periods of Israelite history, from the beginning of the nation in Abraham until the coming of the Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew chapter one says, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. It then goes through the genealogy of our Lord and divides it into three parts. Look at verse seventeen. So all the generations from Abraham unto David are fourteen generations, and from David unto the carrying away to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the carrying away to Babylon unto the Christ fourteen generations. Now, actually, there may have been more than fourteen generations in some of those periods. If you compare this record with that of Chronicles. Matthew knows that, of course, but in the kind of language that the literary men of their day spoke, Matthew is making a point to you that there are three major divisions of Israel's history up until the coming of Christ. That is so chronologically, three major divisions. But there is something more than, more important than chronology. Those three major divisions of Israelite history were three major periods of preparation for the coming of the Messiah. God didn't send his Messiah into the world, immediately Adam sinned. And God did not send his Messiah into the world, immediately he had chosen Abraham and begun the Jewish nation. God spent centuries preparing the way for the coming of Messiah, and there were three major parts to that preparation. First of all, people's minds had to be prepared for what you mean by a Messiah, so that they should be ready for the Messiah when he came. Look, for instance, at the first period, Abram unto David. All those long centuries, they were expecting the coming of Abraham's seed. I suspect when Isaac was born, Abraham cub- cuddled the little chap to his breast, thinking, this is the seed, this the Messiah, but it was only a prototype. When Moses was born, the great captain of salvation, I suspect many thought, now, could this be the Messiah? He was only a prototype. At last, King David came, the great King David, the first true king that Israel had had, and they welcomed him as the anointed of the Lord, their long-for Messiah. But he too was only a prototype, and what a good job he was. I'm glad, aren't you, that David didn't turn out to be the real Messiah. What, David, a chappy with a long six-foot spear and a sword or two in his belt, uh, and a rather primitive palace in Jerusalem, running around the place killing Moabites, uh, you know, with a few troops behind his back. Aren't you glad that he didn't turn out to be the real Messiah? He was a genuine prototype of Messiah. And as you look at David, you will see some ideas in him that will prepare your minds for the kind of thing Christ the Messiah will do in an infinitely bigger scale. So when God had brought them as far as David, he got them a long way, but not all the way. And they needed two more periods of long experience before they were in any ways ready to contemplate and conceive of what a Messiah should be like. In the second great period, God allowed them to go off into exile in Babylon. They deserved it because of their sin, but it had a wonderful effect because it woke up these people that hitherto had lived in that postage stamp sized place called Israel. It woke them up to the vast big empires that there were around them, colossal great world empires. And they began to see that the Messiah, if he was going to be really the Messiah, had be a- had to be able to cope not with the government of a little tiny state in Palestine, but he had to cope with the problems of a vast world with two or three mighty, gigantic, great superpowers. Messiah must be big enough to cope with that as well. And so, uh, God, uh, used these three major periods to train their minds and their concepts of what Messiah must be. In addition to that, God had to train the nation itself and prepare the nation to be ready for the coming of Mes- Messiah. Just let's think for a moment of some of the lessons they learned. The first great period of Jewish history must have been very pleasant to live in. Don't you think? On the whole, it was progress, progress, progress. Yes, there were some interludes of failure, but for the most part, that first period of Jewish history, what an exciting time that must have been to live in. You know, when Abraham discovered the reality of God, and then he discovered justification by faith, and then he discovered justification by works, and then along came old Joseph, and God-given wisdom, he ruled the country of Egypt and solved its economic problems. And after that, yes, there was a sorry interlude of slavery, but hey, presto, here came Moses, and you were up and up and up again. The great experience of God as redeemer. And then those glorious moments in the wilderness when they discovered the tabernacle. I hope you've discovered it. They did at that stage, and all the wonderful riches of entering into the prompt of the presence of God and enjoying the fabulous richness of fellowship with God. And then there were those exciting days when they actually arrived at Canaan and had an inheritance to get hold of, and the exhilaration of fighting for it and conquering Ammonites and Moabites and Midianites and all those ugly things, and at last possessing their inheritance, their milk and honey and their cows and their grass, and then to cap it all, the idea of a king, the king who could fight giants never so big and bring them at last free and secure at the head to rest in peace in the blaze of splendor of Solomon's empire. Oh, what days they were of progress. Uh, did I hear you say, but mister, you're enthusiast- enthusing about the Jews, why don't you enthuse about us? We've known periods like that. Have you? Oh, I hope you have. Can you remember, some of you with gray hair, the fun it was and the glory to discover justification by faith? You have discovered it, I hope. And the wonder of the types of Joseph, and then the Exodus and the Passover Lamb, and being redeemed by the blood of Christ, and knowing yourself what it is to set forward on the Christian pilgrimage towards your inheritance. Oh, weren't they days when you first discovered that? Glorious days. And then you discover the tabernacle. If you didn't, you ought to have done. And all the wonder of being able to enter into the holiest of all, not now into some little shrine in the desert, but into the great heavenly tabernacle, right into the presence of God. And oh, how your heart exulted when you discovered that wonderful right of fellowship with God, and the thrill in your younger days of coming across old enemies that were keeping you back from your inheritance, and by God's help and grace, smiting them hip and thigh and being delivered and gaining victory, and entering into the joy of your inheritance in Ephesians and Colossians, and who knows what else in the New Testament. And you've been looking forward to the coming of the Christ, great David's greatest son. Oh, they were days, weren't they? When you first discovered, like Israel discovered, the hope of a coming Messiah, and the thought that he might be here any day. Oh, God help you just for a moment to reminisce and go back to the days when you first discovered all that. You'll get some idea of how Israel felt. And you thought in those days you were nearly ready for heaven, didn't you? Go, if you would have died then straight to glory, you felt very well prepared. And then? Ah, well, with Israel after that, there came another period, and they didn't do quite so well then. I suppose they got middle-aged. I don't know what it was. But funny things can happen to you when you start getting middle-aged. I tell you they can. And remember, some of you, you'll be middle-aged before you think you are. Somehow, I don't know, imperceptibly perhaps, but uh, uh, they began to go downhill. And they slipped and they slided and they slithered. And they got the impression they'd seen it all in Solomon, and now they fell to wrangling and compromising with the enemy, and they went from bad to worse and downhill, till they got all confused with the Gentiles and with paganism and idolatry and goodness knows what else. And they went downhill, and they got away from God, and they got as far down as it is possible for a nation to go, until God had to send them out into exile, down to Babylon. I hope you never have a period like that in your life. Israel did. I suspect there might be one or two middle-aged people here tonight who said, yes, and Mr. Preacher, truth to tell, I've known those days. When I lost the enthusiasm of my Christian beginnings, when the truth of God that once thrilled me no longer thrilled me, and I got out into the world and began to compromise here and compromise there, and things slipped, and uh, I got myself into a muddle. Well, if I speak to anybody like that tonight, and who of us but what hasn't in middle life slidden and gone downhill somewhat? May I urge you to notice that there was a third period, by God's magnificent generosity, there was a third period for Israel. And the Israel that, in spite of her privileges, had slipped and gone downhill and gone into exile, knew a third period, a period of recovery. We're interested in it tonight because Zechariah fits into that third slot with his fellow post-exilic prophets. A prophet sent of God to the people in that third period by God's magnificent grace, to revive the backslider, to bring Israel back, to give them new impetus and new hope and new vision. Carry on until Messiah came. All note it well, for this is a gospel like the rest of God's book. There's scarce a comma in God's book that isn't gospel. The gospel of return, of recovery, of starting again, of redemption from backsliding. Or should I speak to one here tonight who, who feels that he's lost so much of his youth time experience and he's gone too far really to come back? My dear good friend, please notice in God's word what he did with Israel, he can do with you. He's a God of new beginnings and coming back and restoration and new hope and starting afresh. Let's remember it. But now let's think, therefore, and now we put Zechariah into his slot, so to speak. Let's think about this great period of recovery. Just before you, uh, go back from Matthew, would you mind squinting at the text again? You look from verse, um, twelve to verse sixteen. Those fourteen generations cover the period of recovery. Now I ask you to notice that the period of recovery was a period. What a period. That is to say, when Israel repented of her sin in her exile, whither she had gone, and sought God again, it didn't mean that the recovery was complete, one hundred percent complete overnight. Recovery was a period to be worked at, to be prayed over, to be exercised about, to make progress in difficult circumstances. My dear good brother and sister, if you have wandered, you know what I mean. It's marvelous to repent and come back to the Lord, and he's prepared to receive you at once you repent. But coming back can be difficult. Sorting out the complications, making up for the lost tongue. It can be a more difficult thing than it was even starting Christianity, can't it? But it's worth doing. Notice it's no magic, it's no suddenly come back to the high point, but a period of recovery. It was at the early part of that period that Zechariah ministered. Not so early, but what? The people had begun to recover, and then because of their difficulties, they were slackening off. They had very big difficulties, and he was sent of God to encourage them in spite of those difficulties to persevere. He was given of God visions of the future glory that should nerve them and exhilarate them and give them the enthusiasm to carry on with God and go onwards in the path of recovery. Then, as I say, it would have been a period if all had gone well. But alas, man being what man is, the period of recovery didn't go as it ought to have gone. So much was there undesirable that when the Messiah eventually came, Israel rejected the Messiah, guess recognized him. Therefore, the whole process had to be repeated again. And for centuries, Israel has wandered among the Gentiles because of her rejection of her Messiah. But, if you will read Zechariah's prophecy carefully, you will discover that while he is ministering in that first period of recovery, he is made aware by God's Holy Spirit that when the Messiah comes, the nation will reject him, and that therefore there will have to be another period of discipline and another period of exile, and only at the end of unnamed centuries of discipline will Messiah come again and the nation's recovery be one hundred percent complete. Now that makes a very interesting thing, because when we look at the first period of recovery during which Zechariah was ministering, we shall find that in many particulars it strongly resembles that great period of recovery for Israel that lies in the future. A period of recovery in the future that shall lead up to the second coming of Christ, as the first period of recovery led to his first coming. Let me sketch in for you the situation of Israel in the land, uh, during the first period of recovery. The Israelites came back from exile in Babylon. They came back in dribs and drabs. They came back a group here and a group there. They came back under Ezra, they came back under Nehemiah, they came back under their own steam, although they were largely a small people, and they started to work building their temple and building their city. But then you see, when Israel came back into the land in those days, there were a lot of little nations around Israel's land, you see. And when they saw what Israel was doing, they started yapping like a vicious dog at Israel's heels. And not content with that, they did their very best to get the world nation, the big world superpower, to stop Israel. And they made life difficult from time to time as the world superpower that then was Persia tried to stop Israel rebuilding the city and rebuilding the temple. And then eventually the world empire was, was a move to let them start again. And if you have taken in that situation, you can't, uh, I suspect, forget what is happening now, can you? For now, after Israel has been in exile for centuries, eighteen or nineteen hundred years in exile, if you please, Israel is back again in her land. Why, Messiah hasn't come yet. Of course he hasn't, but Israel is back in her land. And precisely what happened then is happening now. The little nations around Israel are yapping at Israel's heels and loudly calling on the United Nations to stop Israel. Ah, how history has a way of repeating itself, doesn't it? Perhaps you'd like to see it in black and white in the New Testament. Look, if you will, at Zechariah, first of all, prophecy of Zechariah, chapter four. Zechariah chapter four. I shall not read it, but if you take notice of it, you will find that this is a vision given to Zerubbabel about the restoration of the temple in Jerusalem. How could they go on with rebuilding their temple when the great power and the little powers were so much against them? And Zeca- Zer- Zerubbabel is given the vision, and Zechariah is given the vision of the lampstand with the two olive trees miraculously supplying that lampstand with a constant supply of oil, so that the testimony of that lampstand is maintained, and the interpretation of the vision is given not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. So Zerubbabel was encouraged in his day to go ahead with rebuilding the temple, to maintain a testimony for God in Israel, in spite of the little nations around, and often in spite of the major world power. Now will you turn over to the Revelation chapter eleven and you will see a prophecy of a situation that is yet to be. The Revelation chapter eleven. And the vision that is there given to John is couched in almost identical terms with the vision that was given to Zechariah and Zerubbabel. Rise up and measure the temple of God and the altar and them that worship therein, and the court which is without the temple leave out and measure it not, for it has been given unto the nation. Verse three: and I will give to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days closed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands standing before the Lord of the earth. You will see the very terms are borrowed from Zechariah's vision in chapter four. because what happened in Zechariah's day with the erection and the maintenance of a testimony in Jerusalem city to the God of heaven by the Jews, in spite of Gentile opposition, what happened then will happen again. In the period leading up to the great coming of Christ in power and glory, God will miraculously maintain a testimony for himself in Jerusalem city, and in spite of the great world powers of the time, and in spite of the great energies of the coming dictator, the man of sin, who will try to banish from earth the very concept of a God of heaven, in spite of his devilish trio, God shall miraculously maintain by his spirit in Jerusalem City a witness to the reality of the God of heaven, that there is a God out there. Antichrist shall rage, and the man of sin shall foam at the mouth. But in spite of all his deification of man, in spite of the fact that, uh, the man of sin shall sit in the temple of God, showing himself to be God and banning the worship of the God of heaven, in spite of it, for months on end in that city, God will miraculously maintain his two witnesses by that same secret as he maintains the rabble and the temple in the period of the first restoration. And we who are given to have these prophecies are given them so that we might take note of what God's program is for the maintenance of his testimony in that coming period. More than that, I- I'm not going to say. Uh, I leave that to you. Let me now return to concentrate on some of the important elements in the matter of recovery. First of all, I want to point out to you what we read in the first paragraph of the prophet Zechariah. First paragraph of the prophet Zechariah, where God is saying to them in verse three: Return unto me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return unto you. God's holy people restored to their land, and they clap their hands for joy. They're making a little bit of a mistake, aren't they? Or perhaps a very big mistake. I was the other year in a Christian church, an assembly in Nazareth that is largely composed of Arab-speaking Christians. Gracious men, these Arab speaking Christians, and gracious women and keen for God and his gospel. And worthily they work in the little narrow souks, uh, uh, of Nazareth, seeking out the lost and preaching the gospel. When I asked one of them, one of the Arabs, how do the Jewish authorities treat you? He said, they treat us very well because we teach Arabs to love Jews. And evidence of it I saw as they sat down for the Lord's Supper, Arabs and some Jews together sitting at the Lord's Supper. What a marvelous sight. To teach Arabs to love Jews, and if you please, Jews to love Arabs. There's only one thing that can really do it, and that's the Christian gospel, you know. If you come to Ireland, you will actually see Englishmen and Irishmen sitting down together at the Lord's Supper. That doesn't get advertised in the press, but, uh, the gospel does have that effect. And converted Roman Catholics and converted Protestants, for both lots need to be converted. And you can see converted Roman Catholics and converted Protestants sitting down together to the Lord's Supper. There's only one thing that will do it, and that's not politics, but Christ. But privately, my Arab friends who interpreted for me as I preached confessed to me that life became a little bit difficult sometimes when starry-eyed Christians came to Nazareth and preached, isn't it wonderful, the Jews restored to their land? Oh, hip hip hoorah, hallelujah, this is the Lord's people restored. And the same Jews have stolen some of the property of the Christian Arabs. A little bit difficult for Christian Arabs to take, yes? Just the fact that Israel is back in her land doesn't mean she's back with God. They made that mistake in Zechariah's day. They thought of return simply in a sense of geographical return, getting back from Babylon physically to the land of Israel, back from being strangers and exiles in somebody else's land to being in their own land and masters of their own place, and they thought that was enough, and that was all there was to it. That's not God's idea of return. God's idea of return was a moral and spiritual return. And the ver- prophet Zechariah plays on the word return, doesn't he? Because, you see, in Hebrew, one of the words for return is also the word you would use for repentance. And alas, the Jews returned in the physical sense, but so many of them didn't return in the spiritual sense of repentance. What is return? What is recovery? It is spiritual return and moral return, and not till there has been genuine spiritual and moral return will you ever reach the age of bliss and the reign of Messiah that all so much look forward to. So let us trace this idea briefly through the four sections of the prophets, and I promise you it will be brief because we have other longer things to say in our second session. Just let us look at, uh, Zechariah and see that it is in four parts, each of them rubbing home that true return, true recovery is primarily a moral and spiritual thing. Zechariah verse, chapter one verse um to the end of chapter six is the first major section of this prophet. And within that section, the great central passage about the return is to be found at the end of chapter one and throughout chapter two. And what is it about? Return in what sense? Look, if you will, uh, to, um, uh, chapter two and verse ten. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. I will come. I will dwell in the midst of thee. Verse sixteen of chapter one: Therefore, thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies. My house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth over Jerusalem. I am returned. Oh, this the first thing about any genuine return. It's the return of the Lord and the return of his presence and the presence of the Lord amongst his people in his temple in Jerusalem. What use of return without that? A return to the land physically without a sense of the presence of God. What a disappointing, frustrating, empty, arid thing it would be. The first great gospel of return is this, that God is willing to return and dwell amongst his people. And therefore he exhorts them and shows them what, uh, provision he is making, so that the people shall be fit and fitted for the return of the presence of God. I wonder if I might turn aside again. I can't forbear sermonizing from time to time. I'm supposed to be lecturing. But, um, my good brother, if ever you have wandered from the Lord, and if ever you have come back again, say what has been the chief joy of your coming back. I guarantee this, the sense of the Lord's presence in your heart. Oh, what a sad thing for a believer that once has known an active, real, practical sense of the presence of the Lord in his life, and then has gone slipping and sliding back into backsliding. All those dreary years, those arid years when you seem to walk alone and the presence of God are far off. Oh, how sad and lost those years. A true return, possibility of once more enjoying the presence of God and the Savior walking with you. Not that he ever abandons a true believer, but if we persist in sinful ways and grieve God's Holy Spirit, we shall not know much of his enjoyed presence, shall we? But there is a way of return, and let it start here. The opening of the heart and saying in repentance, Lord, I come back. I come back to you. Lord, please you come back to me. That's the beginnings of return, isn't it? Not waiting till I am improved and then the Lord coming, but the Lord coming right now. That he might dwell among you and guide those difficult lessons that lie in front of those that come back and want seriously to recapture and progress further. So that he might come back among his people, listen to his provision. It is given us in chapter three and chapter four. In chapter three, the story of the high priest Joshua, as he stood in the presence of the Lord, returns now to Jerusalem, and Joshua representing his people, standing there in his filthy old rags, fit representative of Israel, for they were all filthy, but standing in the presence of the Lord and finding the Lord prepared to accept him as he was and reclothe him and cleanse him and rehabilitate him. And for the believer who comes back, the moment he repents, like a prodigal coming back to the father, the father will put his hands around his neck and kiss him. And oh, how wonderful. He has in the presence of God a high priest, not now a miserable Joshua, as sinful and dirty as we are ourselves, but a high priest impeccable, who stands with the father and pleads our cause, has been praying all the while we were slipping and sliding, praying for us that our faith didn't fail, and at last prevailing and bringing us back, and prepared to go on praying to maintain us with God. All the gospel of return that there is in a God who has provided not a failing Joshua as our representative, but his impeccable son to bring us through. Wherefore he is able to save to the uttermost all them that come unto God by him. Sing he ever lives. When poor old Peter was about to backslide, do you remember our Lord said to Peter, and Peter, I have prayed for you that your faith fail not. And then he added not, and if you ever turn back again, but when you turn back again. The great high priest was going to pray him through and bring him back, and so he will for every genuine believer. And then there was that vision that we have touched upon, given to Zechariah for Zerubbabel. Not only the high priest accepted on behalf of the people, but the vision of the power of God's Holy Spirit, even in those difficult and broken days, to maintain these folks in their testimony for the Lord. Do you feel a little bit ashamed? You say, how can I ever stand again? I've dotted my copy book in my office. They've known me in my backslidden days. How can I stand now? Well, how could the Jews stand when everybody knew that they had so sinned against God that they'd been thrown out and been put down to that, to Babylon, and now they would come back so feeble and weak. The mockery they were of old Tobiah the Ammonite incurred, and yet God graciously coming to them at this day says, listen, not by what power, not by by might, but by my spirit, says the Lord, I can make you stand, I can maintain your testimony, I can cause you to recover. Oh, what a gospel it is, isn't it? With a priest in heaven and a Holy Spirit on earth, there is ample provision for all who want to come back and return. It will lead, of course, to sundry purges of all sorts of kinds. I must leave you to read about them. The second great division of the book, from chapter seven to the end of chapter eight, it likewise deals with recovery. Not now merely the fact that God is coming back, but it deals with the character of Jerusalem that it's got to be in the period of recovery. Verse three: thus saith the Lord, I am returned unto Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain. Verse eight: and I will be their God in truth and righteousness. Oh yes, recovery will mean the presence of God back in Jerusalem, but it's also got to mean that Jerusalem is stamped with the character of the God who dwells in her. She's got to come to be known among the nations as the city of truth, where men deal righteously. And therefore, says God, verse sixteen, these are the things you shall do. Speak ye every man the truth with his neighbor. Execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates. Verse nineteen. therefore, love, truth, and peace. That's God's recipe for return. That isn't always the politician's recipe, is it? My, oh my, we've had some of them in Northern Ireland. Truth? Well, they tell you lies when they know that you know that everybody knows that they're lies. But it's the adult thing to do, isn't it, for politicians, tell lies. I mean, it's children that tell the truth. So they go on telling lies. Oh, what a seething hot bed is international diplomacy of sheer lies. And they say it's the adult thing, all right, but uh, be it the adult thing. It'll never lead to a paradise, there you will never build paradise on lies. It does not serve to increase international tension. Oh, the heartbreak that men can build rockets to go to the moon, and they can't tell the truth and rely upon each other. Oh, but my brother, can you, will you allow me to sermonize a bit more? This is God's program for recovery. And Ephesians takes up the lesson of Zechariah and says, and you, my dear Christian, please speak truth. Everyone with his neighbor, in your business, in your home, in your school. As God's program for recovery. We've got to be known as a city, as a people of truth and righteousness. Do you know I once was preaching, uh, way back in my country, and there happened to be a gentleman in this large congregation who sought me out the next day. I was preaching on Christ's recovery of Peter, how Peter came back to the Lord. This gentleman of some um sixty years sought me out to have lunch with me, and he told me his story. That was the first meeting of Christians he'd been in for thirty years. How kind of God, when the man had been away from the Lord for thirty years, the very first meeting he came to, that the preacher all uninnocently should be talking about our Lord's recovery of Peter and him welcoming him back to the fold. That dear Christian man was restored to the Lord that day. uh Thirty years wasted? How? Well, as a young man, he was a great Christian preacher, but he went into business. He was tempted to do a deal that was a bit shady. He pondered whether he should do it or not. He said to himself, but older Christian men do this kind of thing. I know it's a bit shady, but older Christian men do it, so why shouldn't I? And he did it. It was a momentous consequence, and he went sliding down the slope, became very prosperous, and thirty years of a life gone down the drain away from the Lord. Oh, how important we get hold of this matter in our day-to-day business and relationships. God's recipe for return. We must be known as a people of truth and righteousness. And the third great section is chapter nine to the end of the chapter, eleven, in which you have discussed the character of the king that shall bring in the great age of peace and plenty. Behold, thy king cometh to thee, meek and lowly, riding upon an ass. Ah, yes, he did come, actually. He came riding upon an ass into Jerusalem city, claiming to be her king, but they had the concept that to rule was to get yourself a big position, and then you'll get yourself a lot of perks, and then to lord it over the people. So old Caiaphas was high priest, and he made a big penny out of it too. And Annas helped him, and he made a big penny. And old Herod, well, he had wheedled around the Romans and got control of his part of the world, and he made a good thing out of it as well. That was the concept people had of ruling. You'll find Zechariah complaining about it, how the shepherds, instead of feeding the flock, crushed them and fleeced them, and the big sheep pushed the others out of the way to get more grass themselves. What do you think? And this was their idea of ruling, that the boys that could get their hands on the power feathered their own nests and crushed the others. They didn't care for a Messiah who was meek and lowly. They valued him at thirty bits of silver, says Zechariah, and threw him out. And Zechariah warns them that when they do that, they shall be in for a period of trouble, and God will raise up the kind of shepherd that they like, and then they shall find out what he is like. He'll raise up the very Antichrist. They wouldn't have the king that came in God's name. They shall have another kind of king. Another shall come in his own name. Him they will receive. He will be a career boy after their own temperament, and he will lead them into the biggest disastrous slavery that Israel has ever known under the beast, the man of sin. But you know, it wasn't merely Jewish politicians that had curious ideas of government. Just listen, just, uh, uh, you know, with half an ear to a conversation going on among the holy apostles. Just you imagine it at the Lord's Supper. They'd just taken the bread and the wine, and here were these holy apostles, and they were arguing, and Peter was saying, what do you think? The, the impertinence, John. I'm going to be chief in the kingdom. And John was getting a bit rattled and saying, that's a very unspiritual attitude because everybody knows I am. And Thomas, he was fuming. And they were all disputing and jockeying for place in the kingdom. That's what they thought the kingdom of God was going to be. Hi, said J- John and James to Christ one day. Now, would you give us what we want? What is it, my men, he said? We want a bag, the she-flays, one on your left hand, one on your right, in the kingdom. That's what we're in this business for. Said Christ, can you suffer like I suffer? Oh yes, we're prepared to pay the cost, but we wouldn't be in it, you know, unless it were forgetting the chief places. Why, you'll never bring in paradise like that, will you? You won't even create an assembly that's worth calling an assembly like that. Goodness me, we've got enough leaders. We want some servants. We want those who have learned that the way to rule is to get down at people's feet and wash them. A king meek and lowly. He is God's program for recovery. And finally, God's program for recovery, the second coming of Christ. That's the last great section of Zechariah from chapter twelve to the end of chapter fourteen. The second coming of Christ ending in the millennium, the great feast of tabernacles, when God shall wipe away tears from all eyes and make the nations a feast of fat things. The second coming of Christ. But even that won't be magic, you know. For though Christ will come in great power and destroy Israel's enemies and us as well. Before the age of peace and plenty dawns, Israel shall yet have to go through a period of chastisement. They must be brought to repentance. There are no plums nor grapes except they repent. They shall be brought to great sorrow of heart and mourning before God. They shall look on him whom they pierced. And they, God awaits the time of Israel's repentance, so he can cleanse her and usher her into that period of complete recovery, that period of millennial bliss that he has designed for them and for all that love the Savior. God bless our little thumbnail sketch of Zechariah and incite our curiosity and imagination to study him more. Whether we have in the past backslidden or never have done so, or may do in the future, let's lay hold of a great gospel that can save, and if we backslide, can restore us and has power enough to bring us at last and present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Shall we pray? O God, we thank thee for this prophet, so full of joy and gladness at the possibilities of recovery. We pray, Lord, that thou wilt keep us from straying. But in as much as we all from time to time stray, Lord, let us not wander long, we beseech thee. Bring us back, Lord, by thy grace, lest we wander so far that severe disciplines are needed to bring us back. But, O God, however far we get away, give us that sense of thy love that, uh, gives us the courage to come back and open our eyes to thy great provisions. We thank thee for the prospect for the Savior's coming to take us home. We thank us for those further prospects of Israel's eventual restoration. We thank thee thy purposes shall be fulfilled, and Christ shall yet come, and earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. As we think of those glorious times, blessed Lord Jesus, we raise our hearts to thee just in this moment, and we say, even so, come, Lord Jesus, and may thy coming find us, walking in thy love and fear, and ready for thine appearance. We ask it for thy name's sake.