If you turn with me in the book
of Zechariah, I think last week we looked at 15 prophecies of
the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of Zechariah. And 20 times
in that book he says, in that day, and he's speaking of the
day of the Lord Jesus Christ, but he's also speaking of this
day in which we live. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
servant, he's the branch, he's the foundation stone, he's the
one that removed all of the sin of the land in one day. He's
the great king who reigns. He's the priest and king. He's
the savior. He's one who was betrayed by
his friends for 30 pieces of silver. Judas and those high
priests were fulfilling exactly what Zechariah had written 500
years beforehand. And when he was pierced, there
was a fountain open for cleansing. The Lord Jesus Christ is both
God and man. But also our God is faithful. Zachariah's name means God remembers. So it's the second last book
of the Old Testament, if you want to turn there briefly with
me and we'll have a look at it. And I want us to first remember
the big picture of what's going on here. The people of Israel
had been sent by the justice of God, under the judgment of
God, out of Israel, away from a place where they could be worshipped.
Nebuchadnezzar destroyed that temple and took everything that
was involved in the worship of God away from it. They were 70
years, as God promised, in the wilderness of Babylon. They were
told to pray for the prosperity of Babylon. And now, after 70
years had been fulfilled, after God had fulfilled his promise,
see, they hadn't had a single Jubilee year for 70 years, and
God says, every one of my words is going to be fulfilled perfectly
into the letter. So they had 70 years there because
they had 490 years where they'd never had a Jubilee celebration. So these are the people that
have come back under the hand of Cyrus and Darius and they've
come back to Jerusalem and they've come back with those Kings hearts
being moved by God Almighty to provide absolutely everything
they need. Everything they need was provided
by those Kings. These people are people who have
escaped out of Babylon to build the house of the Lord. They've
escaped out of Babylon to worship God. They've escaped out of Babylon
to hear the word of God and everything, everything about it. If you read
the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, you'll see the sovereign hand
of God again and again and again. And when the walls are built,
it's just so evident that God has done this and has done it
in the midst of all sorts of enmity and opposition. Ezra came
back and they built the temple and in the midst of it all they
downed tools. and the prophets Haggai and Zechariah
were sent there to cause the people of God to remember his
faithfulness. How do the Old Testament saints
encourage the people of God exactly the way God's people do today? They just remind them of the
faithfulness of God and he's the one who's the promise. What
does he remember? He's a promise keeper. What does
he remember? What does God remember? God remembers
His Holy Covenant. He remembers the promises that
He made. He remembers that all those promises
are in the Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful. When you read this book, God
is faithful. So let's just begin in Zechariah
1 and I want us to see this picture of what it is to be escaped from
Babylon. Verse 1 of Zechariah, in the
eighth month, the second year of Darius, came the word of the
Lord unto Zechariah. Isn't that amazing? We ought
to think more seriously about simple words like that. The word
of the Lord came. That's the only way you'll ever
hear the Word of the Lord, is when the Word of the Lord comes
to you. And it came to these people by inspiration, it comes
to us by revelation. And when the Word of the Lord
comes to someone, it will come in exactly the same way it came
to the person who penned it. It will come as a Word from God.
You who have known the scriptures, like me, have read something
hundreds and hundreds of times and all of a sudden you'll read
it again and it will have a depth of meaning and a life to it that
will just grip you. The word of the Lord came unto
Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Edo, the prophet,
saying, The Lord have been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them,
thus saith the Lord of hosts, "'Turn ye unto me,' saith the
Lord of Hosts, "'and I will turn unto you,' saith the Lord of
Hosts." Verse four, he says, "'Be not as your fathers, "'unto
whom the former prophets cried, saying, "'Thus saith the Lord
of Hosts, "'Turn ye now from your evil ways "'and from your
evil doings.' "'And they did not hear, nor hearken, "'nor
respond to the Lord. Where are they? Where are they? Your fathers, where are they?
And the prophets, do they live forever? There is a time when
the word of the Lord comes, and it comes with power, and it comes
with conviction, and it comes so clearly to these people. Lord,
give me ears to hear. Let me hear. Let me hearken to
your words. But my words and my statutes
which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they take hold
of your fathers? And they returned and said, Like
as the Lord of hosts thought to do unto us according to our
ways and according to our doers, so has he dealt with us. One
of the things that we misunderstand in the scriptures so often is
that if you hold your Bible and turn and hold Exodus chapter
20 where God gave the Ten Commandments and you go to John chapter 19
verse 30. Where am I? I'm going the wrong way. John
chapter 19 verse 30. under a covenant of works, and
they had made promises to God. So let's just look at some of
those promises. In Exodus chapter 19, after they'd been brought
out of Egypt, after they'd crossed the Red Sea, after they'd had
the manor in the desert, after they had witnessed all of these
remarkable events of God, in Exodus chapter 19, They say, in verse 7 it says,
And Moses came and called for the elders of the people and
laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded
him. And all the people answered together. Listen to this. All
the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has
spoken, we will do. Isn't that extraordinary? All that the Lord has spoken,
we will do. And the Lord said, this is what
I'm speaking. You shall have no other gods
before me. I am a holy god. You are not to have another god
before me. You're not to make any images that look like me,
any likeness, 20 verse 4, that is in the earth or is in the
water underneath. You shall not bow down and serve
them. The Lord your God is a jealous God. You shall not take the name
of the Lord your God in vain. He brought them the Ten Commandments.
They said it's easy. You just tell us what to do and
we'll do it. It's very easy to obey God, isn't it? You shall
rest on the Sabbath. You shall have a Sabbath day
of rest. You will rest in the Lord and
His finished work. You'll honour your father and
mother. You'll not kill. You're not committed adultery.
You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. You shall
not covet your neighbour's goods. This is what Zechariah is saying
to these people. You've made this promise and
your father's made this promise. In Exodus 24, after this had
happened, In verse 3 they say, And Moses came and told the people
all the words of the Lord. And the people answered with
one voice, this is after the giving of the Ten Commandments,
the people answered with one voice saying, All the words which
the Lord has said we will do. And he took the book in verse
7 of the covenant and read in the audience of the people and
they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do and be
obedient. It's repeated again in Deuteronomy
chapter 5 and chapter 26. It's an extraordinary thing,
isn't it? The arrogance of these people
and the blindness of these people that somehow they could obey
God on the basis of what they promised to do, which is why
which is why Zechariah and the prophets come to these people
and say, you made a promise, you entered into a covenant with
God and the covenant was, I will obey and you will bless, I will
disobey and you will curse. That's how people live before
God these days, don't they? That's how people treat God these
days. It's easy to obey the law, they
said. What does the child of God cry
out? Lord, I need a substitute. I
need someone to stand in my place before you. I need someone to
obey this law. This law is going to be obeyed.
God's law is going to be honoured and God's law is going to be
magnified. Nehemiah, the child of God, in
Nehemiah chapter 10, when he came back and he was part of
this group of people the Lord used to rebuild the temple and
rebuild the walls of the temple. He understood what it was when
they made a commitment to go back under the law of God. He said in verse 29 of Nehemiah
10, they entered into a curse. If you live in a relationship
with God where the blessings that you receive are the result
of your doings, You're entering into a curse. And that's exactly what happened.
And that was the first attack on the New Testament church,
wasn't it? You have to put these people
back under the law. You have to put them back under
a covenant of works to obey God and to show your honor of God. In these days it's called tithing,
in these days it's written in the statements of faith of the
religion, religion of this world. It says in Galatians chapter
5, as many are of the works of the law, as many who look to
anything that they have done for the basis of their relationship
before God. If your salvation has begun with
you and your salvation is maintained by you, and your salvation at
the end brings you reward, as many are as of the works of the
law are under the curse. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the law to have done them, to do them. The curse. Don't you love how Paul goes
on to say, how God goes on to say, And then verse 13 is glorious,
isn't it? Galatians 3. Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law. How do you get out from underneath
the law? How do you get out from underneath a works relationship
with God? Christ has to redeem us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. These people had made a covenant
that ended into a covenant with God, and the covenant was a covenant
of works. And there being sent to Babylon
is a picture of those who are under the covenant of works and
cannot keep it. is a picture of what God has
to save us from. We use the word, don't we? We talk of someone who babbles.
You've probably heard people speaking in certain ways that
cause you, what on earth are they talking about? It's called
babbling, isn't it? Babble, Babel, is that place
in Genesis 12 where men set to work to build themselves a tower
so they could reach all the way to God. It simply means, Babel
means confusion by mixing. And that's exactly the religious
world that we live in and it's the religious world that these
people lived in. It's working your way to heaven. And God came down on the Tower
of Babel and he confused their languages and so there is babbling
all over the world. See, man-made religion is always
a confusion. It's always confusing. I was
with a man at a wedding a few weeks ago in Sydney and he was
talking to me about how it's right and proper for the man
who preached at that wedding to tell everyone that God loves
you and Jesus died for you. And by the time we had sat down
and had a long conversation, We've got to realise that if
you've been to a Bible college or been well trained in this
day, you have all these different loves of God. So you've got five
different loves of God, you've got two different wills of God. There's a will of God to save
his elect, there's a will of God to save everyone. You have
two different deaths of the Lord Jesus Christ. He died for his
people, but in some way he died for everyone else in all of the
world. Which one do you choose? It's confusion, isn't it? It's
confusion by mixing. It's mixing the finished and
perfect work of the Lord Jesus Christ with the works of men. That is Babylon, and that's what
these people have been redeemed from. That's where God sent them,
in his judgment of them. Where is God sending countless
multitudes today to the confusion and the captivity of Babylon?
It is the works and the religion of man, isn't it? And he says,
Paul says to the Corinthians, But I fear lest by any man as
a serpent beguile thee through his subtleties. So your minds
should be corrupted from the simplicity that's in Christ. That word simplicity means singleness,
it means oneness. Our gospel is a simple gospel,
isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ did it
all. The Lord Jesus Christ promised to do it all before the foundation
of the world. The Lord Jesus Christ entered
into a covenant with his Father. The Lord Jesus Christ came in
response to those promises. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one that's promised in all of these scriptures. They all speak
of him and they all speak of him as coming as a triumphant
Savior to save his people and to rescue his people from Babylon,
to rescue his people from this world. Did he do it? Did he just fulfill every single
promise, even the most minute ones, like getting Anas' cult
and riding on it through a crowd into Jerusalem, being sold for
30 pieces of silver, being born in a manger in Bethlehem, every
rising from the dead, reigning gloriously in heaven? It's the simplicity, isn't it?
Our God reigns. What's all flesh? Grass. What do you do with grass? Well,
I'll tell you what I do. I walk on it all the time. And
the grass has never hurt me at all. I can just walk on it. All
flesh is grass. God's children walk through this
world as triumphant in their king and savior, don't they?
He reigns and he rules. This world, this world is drunk
with Babylon's adulteries. Just listen to what The scriptures
speak of Babylon. There is still a Babylon today.
These words that happened, that Zechariah had penned 2,500 years
ago, the ink is still fresh on the praise, brothers and sisters.
This is speaking of this world that we live in today. He saw that woman, and upon her
forehead was the name written, Mystery Babylon the Great, the
mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth. And I saw the woman
drunken with the blood of the saints and with the blood of
the martyrs of Jesus. And John was so amazed, in heaven
he wondered at her. But the kings of the earth have
committed fornication with her. The kings of the earth are under
her sway. and the inhabitants of the earth
had been made drunk with the wine of her fornication. Revelation
17. It's just what we live in today,
isn't it, brothers and sisters? We wonder why this world is such
a mess. We wonder why it's so confusing. We wonder and we despair
over what we see going on around us. And if this is what the kings
of this earth and the inhabitants of the earth have made drunk
with the wine of her fornication, no wonder, no wonder things are
as difficult as they are. And her hand, she's robed in
purple and scarlet color and decked with gold and precious
stones, having a golden cup in her hand, full of abomination. God, our Saviour, has come to
rescue his people out of Babylon. And that's what's happening in
the book of Zechariah. Let's go on and read it. They're
in there because of the judgment of God. They'd ignored the word
of God. They are and they did suffer
according to their ways and according to our doings. In verse 7, upon
the 4th and 20th day of the 11th month, as the month of Sabbat,
the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah,
son of Berechiah, son of Ida, the prophet, saying, I saw by
night, he had a vision, And behold, a man riding on a red horse. This is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And he stood among the myrtle trees. He stood among his churches.
He stood among and with his church at the bottom. His church is
made lowly in this world, not sitting on the heights above
this world, but sitting lowly. And behind him were red horses
and speckled and white. So he's a man. Then I said, O
my Lord, He's Adonai, God. What are these? And the angel
that talked with me, the messenger, said unto me, I will show you
what these be. And the man that stood among
the myrtle trees answered and said, These are they whom the
Lord has sent to walk to and fro through the whole earth.
And they answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the
myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the
earth, and behold, all the earth sitters still in ease and rest. And then the angel of the Lord
said to me, O Lord of hosts, how long will you not have mercy
on Jerusalem? The whole world is at ease, aren't
they? The whole world is untroubled by the presence and by the glory
and by the judgment of God. They're blind and they're drunk. No wonder they don't see it.
In Revelation chapter 11, when the two witnesses of God were
laying dead in the street of the great city, dead in the street.
Then the people and the kindreds and the tongues of the nation
shall see their dead bodies And then they that dwell upon the
earth, verse 10 of Revelation, they shall rejoice over them
and make merry and send gifts to one another. God is gone. God is dead. Now we can have
freedom. We don't have to be bothered
by the holiness of God and the justice of God and the sovereignty
of God. They're dead in the street and
they shall send gifts to one another because the two prophets
tormented them that dwell on the earth. And God will raise
up his prophets again from the dead and his word will go out
into this world and he will gather his people out of Babylon. He
will gather his people out of confusion and mixture in religion. He will gather his people out
of the fornication of being involved in the act of creating life outside
of a covenant, he'll bring his people to himself. 70 years were
ordained for him, that's the age of a man according to the
scriptures, isn't it? How often do we need to be brought
by a loving, gracious, and sovereign hand of God back to him? We live
in Babylon. Our flesh lives in Babylon, our
flesh delights in the things of Babylon all the time, and
we need a sovereign hand of God to come and say, I remember,
I remember my covenant. And listen to what he says. How
long, how long, O Lord, how long, verse 12, You've had indignation
for these 70 years, and the Lord answered the angel, and he talked
with me. When God comes, and the word
of God comes to people, he talks with me with good words and comfortable
words. Don't you love that? Good words,
when God remembers his holy covenant, and God remembers and answers
the prayer of faith, Stir yourself up and make yourself known. We're told in Isaiah 66, give
him no rest until he causes the glory of who he is and the glory
of his salvation to be proclaimed in this world. Good words and
comfortable. reminds his people, so the angel,
verse 14, communed with me and said unto me, Cry thou, saying,
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I am jealous. Our God is a jealous
God, and his jealousy is not like our jealousy, his jealousy
for his glory, his jealousy for his people's good, his people's
presence with him, their knowledge of him. I am jealous for Jerusalem
and Zion with a great jealousy. I am very sore displeased for
the heathen that are at ease. This world thinks, doesn't it,
we've got rid of God. We've got rid of a sovereign
God out of the road and we can make our own way. Aren't we doing
a wonderful job of making our own way in this world outside
of God? God's presence and God's sovereignty
and God's world ruling over us. He, God, says, I'm sore displeased
with them that are at ease, for I was a little displeased, but
they and they helped the affliction God had given them warning, and
they had continued on in their journey. Therefore, saith the
Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem to his people, he's drawn them
out of Babylon and he continually has to draw us out of Babylon
every day and every moment and every hour we need to be drawn
out of Babylon. On return to Jerusalem with mercies,
my house shall be built in it. Every time you read shall and
will in the Bible and it's attached to God, you know it's done. My
house shall be built. There was just ruins there, wasn't
there? Nebuchadnezzar ruined it. My house shall be built in
it, saith the Lord of hosts, and the line shall be stretched
forth. I will measure my church, is
what God is saying. I will measure my church, and
I will measure all of the activities around my church. I know, I remember
my holy covenant. And then verse 17, and we'll
finish. Cry yet saying, thus saith the
Lord of hosts, My cities, through prosperity, and we know that
prosperity is a spiritual prosperity, shall be spread abroad, and the
Lord shall yet reign. The call of God's servants in
Isaiah 40 is, you comfort my people. You comfort my people. You tell my people that their
warfare is over. You tell my people, Isaiah 40. You comfort the people with these
words. You speak comfortably to Jerusalem
and you cry unto her. Her warfare is accomplished.
It's finished. The Lord Jesus Christ finished
it. The Lord Jesus Christ can come
to this earth and he can touch heaven. And he can touch earth. He can wrap his arms around his
people in Babylon and he can bring them back exactly as he
promised, according to him. And he will create, when he brings
his people out of Babylon, he will create a place where his
house, where his name is declared, where he reveals himself and
their warfare is accomplished. Her iniquity is pardoned. Her iniquity is pardoned, it's
gone and done away with, because she has received from the Lord's
hand double for all of her sins. She's sinned and she's received
righteousness. She's disobeyed God and she's
counted as perfectly obedient to God Almighty. She's never
loved God and yet she's loved Him perfectly in her Saviour.
She's never obeyed the law of God or heard or hearkened to
the word of God and yet she's perfectly obeyed God. In her
saviour, in her substitute, God remembers his covenant. He remembers
his eternal covenant of grace. He remembers the eternal covenant
in the blood of his son and that's what doubled over means. It means
that all of your sins are laid out before God and it's doubled
over and closed. And what does God see when he
looks at his people? He can only see and he can only
remember perfect holiness, perfect obedience, perfect righteousness,
perfect sins gone, righteousness established, a just and holy
God. Nothing between me and my Saviour. Nothing between me and my Saviour. The Lord Jesus Christ has so
remembered and so acted on that covenant. that now every believing
child of God is a perfectly fit dwelling place for God Almighty. The sovereign God of this universe,
our creator, is now our redeemer and our friend. And he delivers
us from Babylon again and again and again and again. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you opened in
Jerusalem in your Son a fountain for cleansing, a fountain that
covers our unrighteousnesses, heavenly Father, and the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ was shed. It was indeed the blood
of God. And the saints of God rescued
from Babylon and rescued from this world. We proclaim in heaven that we
are washed in his blood and we are robed in his righteousness.
O Heavenly Father, cause us to hear your words, cause your words
to be spirit and life to us, and cause your Son to be lifted
up before us and seen as precious. Father, make us to know how much
we need to be delivered from Babylon that's all around us
all the time. Thank you for such a Saviour.
Thank you for such a Redeemer. Make that blood precious to our
remembering Heavenly Father and let us remember as you remember. Let us find our peace and our
rest in your dear and precious son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We
pray in his name and for his glory. Amen.