This is such a solemn subject,
and in the providence of the Lord he's given me two weeks
of COVID and another week feeling unwell, so I've had much, much
more time to contemplate this and in some sense to feel the
weightiness of it. Because this speaks of the circumstance
and the nature of the flesh of all of us and all of Adam's race,
where we love to appease our flesh. And our flesh loves to be appeased
and put at peace. And in matters to do with the
worship of God, it's so much easier to have friendship with
all sorts of people and accept all sorts of things and to not
stand firm. We're prone to love ourselves. and we're prone to desire to
be loved. And the Lord asks a very serious
question of us here, and it's a question that's asked throughout
the scriptures, and it's a question that should be something that
is a matter of fervent prayer for us. Do we honour God with
our lips and have our hearts far from him? I used to tell
my students in India, I've been around Christian things enough
for this last 10 years, that I can play the part of a Christian
before you. I can use the words and I can
use the activities and I can live the life and yet I can be
cold and hard towards God. And when We are forced by God
to take a stand. We will often be forced by God
to take a stand with him or by ourselves. And that's why the
gathering of God's people together is such a precious thing in God's
sight, and the purity of that gathering is such a precious
thing in God's sight, and such an incredibly significant thing
in the lives of all of us. Because if we allow compromise,
as these men here did, and they came with sincerity, and they
came with weeping, and they came to the temple, and they came
to the priests, and they came to the prophets, they came to
all of the right people. And yet they came wanting the
people of God to compromise, wanting the people of God to
accept in God's presence something that God has not ordained. And
I want us to be reminded that God must provide, and what God
accepts is everything to do with the Lord Jesus Christ. So all
false worship, all false doctrine, all false practices are saying
something directly about the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And so therefore it cannot ever
be treated lightly. So I'd like to go back and I'd
like us to be prayerful to the Lord. I think four times in this
passage of scripture, the word of the Lord came. And that's
what we want to hear, isn't it? We want to hear from God. We
are here to hear from the Lord Almighty. I love the declaration
of Him here again and again. He's the Lord of hosts, which
means He is the Lord of the armies of heaven. His arm is not short
that he cannot save. Our great God is omnipotent and
omniscient in all things. So here I trust in church and
us individually and privately before God may find our hearts
revealed and I pray that the Lord is revealed to us in mercy
and grace. The question that is before Zechariah
and the other prophets there is this acceptable worship? Is
it acceptable to God? Throughout the scriptures, God
makes it abundantly clear that the closer you get to God and
the closer you get to his temple and the closer you get to the
sacrifice in his temple and the closer you get to the mercy seat,
the more serious things you are. You remember Uzzah when David
was bringing back the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem.
He thought he'd make a great show, didn't he? He got a new
cart and I'm sure he had fancy horses or fancy bullocks for
it. And it was all very fancy with a great crowd of people.
And as the cart was going along, Uzza was walking along beside
it and the cart rocked and he thought he was fearful that the
Ark of the Covenant was going to fall and he just reached out
his hand and touched the Ark of the Covenant. God killed him
in a heartbeat. Why? God needs no assistance. God
needs no assistance in the declaration of his mercy. And God will be
honoured in his word. And we need to be rejoicing that
that is how our God is. The great comfort of believers,
isn't it? The great comfort we have is
that God is faithful. And if he's going to be faithful
to his promises, he's going to be faithful to his warnings.
How were you to move the Ark of the Covenant? It was made
to be moved, it had rings on it. It was to be moved, for 40
years they moved it and they moved it again and again when
they moved into the Promised Land. How did you move the Ark
of the Covenant? You put those staves through
those rings and the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant only. Our God is unchanged and so what
we see here as real pictures of real events are a spiritual
picture of real events that are happening around us right here
and right now. And so let's read. I love how
it begins. In verse 1, these people had
come, but when it came to pass in the first... I love that word,
it came to pass. It's a very, very common phrase
in all of the pages of Scripture. What came to pass? God's eternal
purposes and covenant came to pass. Every little tiny thing. This is the covenant that's ordered
in Shura in every detail. That the word of the Lord came
to Zechariah, in the ninth, Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth
month, even in Jislew. And it came when? It came to
him at this particular time when they had sent, under the house
of God, Chereza and Regimelech and their men to pray before
God. This is a delegation sent of
the exiles in Babylon. Am I kind? Am I kind? before the Lord. So they came
with reverence and they came with piety, so it seemed on the
outside. You would have thought, well,
well done, you guys. And they came and they came to
speak unto the priests. They came to the temple, which
were in the house of the Lord of Hosts, and to the prophets,
those who speak on God's behalf and those who bring the sacrifice
that God accepts, the Lord Jesus Christ pictured in all those
sacrifices. and the prophets who bring the
word of God. And they have a question, they have a question. Should
I weep in the fifth month separating myself as I have done these so
many years? In verse five it goes on to say
what else they did. When you fasted and you mourned
in the fifth month and the seventh month, even those 70 years, So
this was a religious activity. This was a pious activity. This
was an activity that allowed for these people to think that
they could come to the very temple of God in Jerusalem and go before
the priests and the prophet, seeking approval for what they
had done. seeking to add their activities
that they had created in Babylon to the worship of God, or to
have it commended by these men. So they came, they'd been weeping,
they'd been fasting, And they came prying. And they'd sent a delegation,
there was a number of them, and you can well imagine that they
looked very pious and very righteous, and they looked just like the
Pharisees did when they came before the Lord Jesus Christ,
and just like the Pharisees did after the resurrection of the
Lord Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus was revealed,
I'm sure the Pharisees polished themselves even more and became
even more religious to prove to themselves and men around
them that what they were doing was righteous before God. I love what verse 4 says, Then
came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying, Listen
to what the Lord commands. So these have come as a private
delegation, but because they've come in a matter of public worship
of God, God says, Speak unto all the people. God doesn't even answer them
directly. He says, you speak to the people.
It's interesting, isn't it? Why? Why speak to the people? Because everything to do with
the worship of God affects everyone who is involved in it. It's not
a private affair. It's a public affair. And as
we'll see, this sin is a serious, serious sin. You speak. You speak unto all the people.
This is so serious that everyone in Israel and everyone for the
next 2,500 years or however long the Lord chooses to tarry will
all get to hear this. You speak to all the people.
of the land, and to the priest, saying, and this is what God,
see God looks at the heart. Man looks at the outward countenance,
doesn't he? Samuel made that mistake. God's
people make that mistake. They look at the outside and
God is always looking at the hearts of people. And God brings this extraordinary
rebuke. When you fasted and mourned in
the fifth and the seventh month, those 70 years, did ye at all
fast unto me, even to me? There is so much religious activity
going on in this world as there was in that world then. And throughout
time there has been so much religious activity that has never reached
God at all and has just ultimately been the judgment of God. He
says, I will choose their delusions. God says, I will send them a
strong delusion. Why? Because they refuse to love
the truth. They might acknowledge the truth,
they might defend the truth, but they refuse to love the truth.
And what did they love? They love themselves and they
love their righteousness. Throughout the Old Testament
scriptures those who we are warned against most severely, and we
are warned even right to the end of the New Testament in the
book of Jude. It's Cain and Balaam and Korah,
all of them at extraordinarily sad ends, but basically what
all of those reputed false teachers were saying is that we can worship
God, we can come into the presence of God with our works, and we
can come into the presence of God and bypass God's priesthood.
We can come into the presence of God as we see fit. We can use his words and we can
use his name and we can declare that what we're doing is honoring
to him. And God says twice, doesn't he? Did you, at the end of verse
5, did you at all fast unto me? Was your mourning, and was your
fasting, was your cutting, in a sense, off your fleshly pleasures? Was it unto me, even unto me,
when God repeats things in the scriptures, especially where
these warnings are, they are very serious warnings. It's as
emphatic, it's the Hebrew way of emphasizing something particularly. Verse six, and when you did eat,
And when you did drinks, not only did they have fasts, but
they had feasts. Did you not eat for yourselves
and drink for yourselves? Your religious activity began
with you, gratified your flesh, and ended with you. that Pharisee
at the temple went up to the temple, didn't he? And he says,
I thank God that I'm not like these other people. What does
the Lord's description of his prayer? He prayed thus with himself. He prayed thus with himself.
Verse 7 is God's rebuke of them, which is why He doesn't have
to speak to them. Because in reality, all they were doing
in coming back to Babylon and wanting to pollute the worship
of God in the temple, was to do exactly the same things that
they had been doing in Jerusalem before God destroyed that nation
and destroyed the temple and destroyed that city and sent
them away into exile, killing hundreds of thousands of them. Verse 7, should you not hear
the words which the Lord hath cried? Isn't that an extraordinary
statement about the Word of God? He cries. not crying with tears,
but he is declaring himself and his acceptable worship with such
a proclamation that no one can begin any doubt about it whatsoever, which the Lord had cried by the
former prophets. When Jerusalem was inhabited
in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, men
inhabited the south and the plain. The Jews, the Israelites, when
they went back into the promised land, they had a covenant with
God. And you can read about it in the end of Deuteronomy in
28 and 29. And it was a covenant of works,
wasn't it? They'd entered into a covenant of works at Mount
Sinai. And the covenant of works was
very simple. You obey. what is commanded and you will
be blessed physically. You obey and you will be blessed
physically. You disobey and you will be cursed
physically. I want us to be reminded that
we are, as Adam's children, all born into this world under a
covenant of works, but all of God's children live in this world
under a covenant of grace in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and so the obedience that God requires of us is the obedience
of Christ, the righteousness, the righteous law, obedience
that God requires of us is the obedience, the righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the robe that we wear,
that's the covering that we have. These people lived in those days
under that prosperity Verse eight, and the word of the Lord came
unto Zechariah saying, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, execute
true judgment and show mercy and compassion. Compassion's
every man to his brother, and oppress not the widow, nor the
fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor. Let none of you imagine
evil in his heart. against his brother in your heart. The law covered all aspects of
life. And if the children of Israel
were obedient to God, the abundance of blessings blessed the whole
nation. Not only the whole nation, but
it blessed the strangers in that nation. It was a land flowing
with milk and honey. There was an abundance there. continually reminds his people
that true faith is lived out in obedience to God and love
for our neighbour. In chapter 6 you know these verses
well. He says, Will the Lord be pleased
with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Chapter 6 verse 7. Shall I give
my firstborn for my transgression the fruit of my body for the
sin of my soul? He's saying you can pay nothing.
You can't pay anything, it doesn't matter what sort of a sacrifice
you give. God accepts the sacrifice of His Son and nothing else. And everything about what went
on at the temple spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
every aspect of it. He has showed you, verse 8 of
Micah 6, He has showed you, O man, what is good, and what doth the
Lord require of thee? This is it, but to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God. I remind you, as
we read in Matthew 5 at the beginning of our service, there's one person
who fulfilled the law. And in him, all of God's children
have done it. Listen to the response of these
people. God is saying, I've already told
you. I've already told you. I told
you a long, long time ago. I told you over a thousand years
ago what was required in the worship of me. These fasts and
these feasts that you had concocted in Babylon to remember the desecration
of the temple, remember the murder of Gedoliah of all things on
the seventh month, There's not a single word in
God's scripture that allows for that to be done. That was just
man-made religion. That is just man-made religion. And God despises it because it
attacks the very person and work of His Son. They fasted to themselves. It was a religious activity that
pleased man. Listen to what he says. You're
not to do any of those things, and these are the things you
are to do. Listen to what they did. Verse 11. They refused to
hearken and pulled away the shoulder. That pulling away the shoulder
is a description of what you do when you're trying to yoke
an animal, yoke an oxen, and it turns away. John can tell
you all about horses that don't want to be called to obedience. They pulled away the shoulder.
They stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yea, they
made their hearts as adamant stone, lest they should hear
the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in
his Spirit. by the former prophets. Therefore
came a great wrath from the Lord God of hosts. Why did this wrath come? Why
was that desecration of Jerusalem? You can read about the judgments
of God in Deuteronomy 28 and 29, and you can read in Jeremiah
and Lamentations exactly the fulfillment of those things,
and it's so horrific what happened to the people there. But why
were they led astray? Why did that judgment come upon
them? quite simply because they were
led astray by their prophets and their priests. And they created
a man-made worship of God in the very temple of God that was
a denial, a denial of the very finished work of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ, a very denial of salvation by grace. Listen to what Ezekiel, and if
you read the opening chapters of Ezekiel and Jeremiah you'll
see again and again and again the Lord describes these people
and they even had their religious slogans that they repeated over
and over again. The Lord doesn't see us, the
Lord doesn't care. They changed the very character
of God. It says, verse 22 of Ezekiel
13, Because with lies you've made the heart of the righteous
sad, whom I have not made sad, and strengthened the hands of
the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way by
promising him life in his wickedness. Therefore you shall see no more
vanity nor divine divinations. Jeremiah describes what happens
there. He says in verse 13 of chapter
2 of Jeremiah, For my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain
of living waters, and have hewed out cisterns for themselves. Broken cisterns, which is just
a great big underground bottle, have hewn it out for themselves
that can hold no water. God over and over again says
that he despises their worship. He despises false worship in
this world. He despises any worship which
doesn't bring honour to his son. He despises any worship, so-called
man-made worship, which treats his word and his character and
his glory and his son with contempt. Just read it again and again
and again. He says, how is the faithful
city become a harlot? It was full of judgment and righteousness
lodged in it, but now murderers. Now murderers. I want us to see how serious
These words are to these people. And remember, these people came
in a delegation. They came with prayers, and they
came with seriousness, and they came to priests, and they came
to prophets, and they came to the very temple of God to present
their case before God. Listen to what he says in verse
13. He's already spoken. He doesn't
need to speak again and again to people. He has spoken. But isn't it glorious that throughout
this chapter the word of the Lord came and the word of the
Lord still comes to his people. He says in verse 13, Therefore
it is come to pass But as he cried, and they would not hear,
so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts. There is such a thing as people
so hardened in their hearts, in their religion, that even
though they are crying out to God and singing to God and singing
so-called praises to Him, God is not hearing it. Not only that,
He will not answer their cries. I trust that we find that in
all of this, a cause to be very thankful to our God for the Lord
Jesus Christ coming. He always hears his cries and
he always hears the cries of all the people in him. But listen
to what Proverbs says, we so often in false worship, all false
worship, has a distortion of the very character of God and
a denial of the word of God. And always all forced worship
is an attack on the very character and person and the finished work
of the Lord Jesus Christ. But listen to what Proverbs says,
Proverbs chapter 1. This is the wisdom of God. He
says, How long, you simple ones, will
you love simplicity and the scorners delight in their scorning and
fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof. Behold,
I will pour out my spirit upon you. I will make known my words
unto you. Because I have called, Proverbs
1.24, and you refused, I have stretched out my hand and no
man regarded. What does it look like when the
wrath of God is falling upon a people, a nation, a church,
a denomination? Absolutely nothing to anyone
who is in there. That's what he's saying, isn't
it? These people thought they were
honouring God. They were coming to get a reward and a commendation
from God. And listen to what he says in
verse 25. Listen, this is what God says. This is the Lord Jesus
Christ speaking. When your fear cometh as desolation
and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and
anguish cometh upon you, Then shall they call upon me,
but I will not answer. They shall seek me early, but
they shall not find me, because that they hated knowledge and
did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would have none of
my counsel, they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they
eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their devices. For the turning away of the simple
shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. But whoso hearkeneth unto me
shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. Verse 14, the Lord says, 13,
they cried. He cried and they wouldn't hear.
They cried and I wouldn't hear. But I scattered them with a whirlwind
among the nations whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate
after them. that no man passed through nor
returned for they laid the pleasant land desolate. They had done
it. I suppose one of the things that
has always struck me since the Lord has done a work in my life
I trust, is that he's made the reality of his existence and
the reality of his word and the sacrifice of his son serious. Serious. And I trust that that is the
case with us and I just pray that the word of the Lord might
come to us and that when the times of compromise come upon
us, we might go to the Lord and seek a word that comes from him
by his Spirit and a word that comes from him by his Spirit
that is written. Because again and again and again,
my flesh is as weak as your flesh. And again and again and again,
the challenge is to compromise. Let's make peace. Let's not be troublemakers. Let's be peacemakers, and we
want to make peace. We don't want to be in this world
as a troublemaker. We don't want to be in this world
as someone who's just going around and nitpicking all sorts of things.
But when it comes to the worship of our God, When it comes to
his worship and it comes to his word, I just pray that God makes
us to stand upon the rock like Moses did. And I pray that God,
in his mercy, when he reveals himself to us, will hide us in
that rock. And that he will protect and
guard what he has begun amongst us. Because I'll find it easier to
compromise than to stand. It's hard to stand on your own.
It's hard to stand against a whole world that says that you're wrong. A whole world that says that
you're a false prophet. You read the books of Ezra and
Nehemiah and you see again and again and again that they were
forced and challenged about compromise from all sorts of activities. And yet in Zechariah chapter
7 we have the most glorious promise, don't we? In verse 12 of chapter
6 he says, he shall build the temple. He shall build the temple
of the Lord. This is the temple of the Lord.
He shall build the temple of the Lord in his people. You are
the temple of God Almighty. And I love what verse 15 says,
they that are afar off shall come and they'll build in the
temple. I just love that description.
Where do we build? We build in the temple. All of
my righteousness and all of my building and all of my doing
before God is in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. May God
cause us to be made faithful. Amen.