Well in Acts chapter 17 I'd like
to take a little diversion this week that we might not just skip
over these remarkable words that Paul is described as saying. He was opening, he went to Thessalonica,
having passed through two other cities with multitudes of people
in them, and he came there and he preached the Gospel to them. And he says, in preaching that
Gospel, he opened and alleged, out of the Scriptures, he reasoned
with them out of the Scriptures, he opened and alleged that Christ
must need have suffered and risen again from the dead. And that
this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ." And then the
glorious response of that preaching of the gospel is the same glorious
response that happens all throughout time and in the lives of all
of God's children. And some of them believed. Some of them believed. I was going to spend some time
looking at the Lord Jesus on Calvary's tree in the latter
part of our time here, but I wanted us to consider, and it's so easy
to just read those words, that Christ must needs have suffered
and risen again from the dead. We come in the scriptures to
the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ and we need to stop and
make it a moment of sealer and ponder, ponder what it was for
the Lord Jesus Christ to suffer the infinite and eternal wrath
of Almighty God. He suffered at the hands of men.
He suffered in his body, he suffered emotionally. What must it have
been for him at this time, hanging on Calvary's tree, hanging naked
there, and to have people walking by and reviling him and mocking
him. What it must have been for him
to have had that happen in the presence of his mother. Simeon said to her, A sword shall
pierce your heart as well, to Mary, when Simeon held that little
baby and said, I've seen God's salvation. I'm ready to leave
this earth now. I've seen God's salvation. He suffered in his body. He suffered
in his soul. He suffered separation from his
father. Most of all, He suffered bearing
sin. The one thing, the one thing
that tore at him and tore at the very essence of his holiness,
the very essence of what it was for him to be God, was the fact
that he was going to be made sin. And on Calvary's tree, he
was made sin. I want us to turn to the book
of Zechariah. You just go back to Matthew and
then two books back from Matthew. It's the second last book of
the Old Testament. Zechariah is a glorious book of promise
and prophecy and picture of our Lord Jesus Christ. It has in it, in chapter 12,
one of the great promises of the Old Testament Scriptures.
In chapter 12, verse 10, it says, and I will pour out upon the
house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace
and supplication. They'll be poor and needy and
they'll call on him. And they shall look upon me whom
they have pierced. Now the Lord Jesus Christ quotes
this. in Matthew 26. He declares this to be himself,
so there's no question about who's been spoken of as being
pierced. They shall look upon me whom
they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one
that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day there
shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem. A great mourning,
verse 12, and the land shall mourn, and every family apart,
and the family of the house of David apart, and their wives
apart, and the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their
wives apart. all the families, verse 14, that
remain, every family apart and their wives apart. Chapter 13's
remarkable. I'd like you to spend some time
with me looking at it in a minute after we've sung another hymn,
but let's read it first. In that day there shall be a
fountain open to the house of David and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem for sin and uncleanness. The House of David is the Israel
of God, isn't it? We're talking about the House
of the Lord, the building that he shall make, which Zechariah
earlier on has made it very abundantly clear that there is a particular
elect people that are the House of David. And it shall come to
pass in that day, saith the Lord of hosts, that I will cut off
the names of the idols out of the land, and they shall no more
be remembered. And also I will cause the prophets
and the unclean spirits to pass out of the land." How much do
we need for our land, the land of our being, the land of our
souls, to be cleaned. And it shall come to pass that
when any shall yet prophesy. Then his father and mother that
beget him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live, for thou
speakest lies in the name of the Lord. And his father and
his mother that beget him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.
And it shall come to pass in that day that the prophets shall
be ashamed every one of his vision. And he that hath prophesied,
neither shall they wear a rough garment to deceive. But he shall
say, I am no prophet, I am a husbandman, for man taught me to keep cattle
from my youth. And one shall say unto him, what
are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, those with
which I was wounded in the house of my friends. And this is that
remarkable verse, isn't it, I pray the Lord lays it upon your hearts. Because this is the very heart
and soul of the Gospel and the very heart and soul of the sufferings
of our Lord Jesus Christ. And these are the scriptures,
no doubt, that Paul went to again and again in his teaching in
those places that he was sent by God. Awake, O sword, against
my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, saith the
Lord of hosts. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep
shall be scattered, and I will turn mine hand upon the little
ones. And it shall come to pass that
in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut
off and die, but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring
the third part through the fire, and I will refine them as silver
is refined, and I will try them as gold is tried. The Lord's
people are going to be tested and tried in this world, and
they'll be brought through a fire. and they'll be refined. And the
end result of it is at the end of verse nine, isn't it? They
shall call upon my name, and I will hear them. Isn't that
glorious? God will hear us. I will say,
this is the promise of our great God, it is my people, and they
shall say, the Lord is my God. We can sing again with those
thoughts on our mind and we'll come back and contemplate them
briefly soon. Number 50. Before the throne
of God, I have a strong and perfect plea. A great high priest whose
name is love, whoever lives. I love this man, my name is written
on his heart. I know that while he let me stand,
no time can give me thanks enough. When Satan tempts me to despair,
and tells me because Good riddance to you, O Adam,
the King of glory and praise. I'm so pleased the Lord chooses the
tunes for us to sing. As if they'd read my notes. Some of our friends from overseas
send their greetings, and Clay Curtis has his conference this
weekend, and they are a sweet fellowship there in New Jersey.
So if you get a chance to listen to the messages from the folks
that are preaching there, you will find that they will be a
blessing to your souls. So Clay is thankful that we are
mindful of him. So I sent him a note this week. We had a terrible windstorm,
Fortunately, in the mercy of the Lord, the power was restored
in time, just in time. We have a great God, don't we?
We have a great God and the greatness of our God is measured in all
sorts of ways. That text we read out of Psalm
70 was to magnify Him. to take what is indistinct and
make it clear, to take what is small and at a distance and make
it as big. And we want to make it so big
that it just fills the vision of all. All the Old Testament
prophets spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They spoke of the sacrifice of
the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus was on that
Mount of Transfiguration, Moses and Elijah were there with him.
And Moses and Elijah were there distinct. And Peter and the others,
Peter, James and John, were there to witness this. And they were
speaking, Moses and Elijah had a conversation with the Lord
Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ arrayed
in such glory that there was no doubt about his deity. His deity shone through his humanity. And Peter was, as he always speaks
first before he has an opportunity to think, our friend Peter, and
I'm really pleased that he's like it. He says, let's make
three booze. Somehow he had no idea what was
going on. But the remarkable thing is that
they were talking with Moses and Elijah. The Lord Jesus was
talking with Moses and Elijah. And what did they speak? They spoke about one thing. This
is what the Old Testament prophets are all about. All of the law
and all of the prophets are about this one thing. They spoke of
the deceased, the death, the exodus, which he should accomplish
at Jerusalem. Now all of us are going to die
one time or another. Some of us, if the Lord tarries,
some of us might die and be transformed as we die and go to meet the
Lord in the air. But we don't accomplish nothing
by our decease. But he accomplished, that's what
they were talking about, that which he should accomplish by
his death. And I love what happened. That
cloud came upon those men there, and Moses and Elijah disappeared
off the scene. Why? Because it's all about him. I love how Mark describes it. They saw no man anymore save
Jesus. And that is the essence of the
preaching of the Gospel, isn't it? That you will see no man
anymore. You won't look at yourself. You
won't look at other men around you. You'll see no man save Jesus. That was Paul's intention, wasn't
it? When Paul met the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus,
he met the Lord Jesus Christ as he appeared to be in the Mount
of Transfiguration. He was blinded by the sight of
him. And he saw no man other than Jesus. And he had one aim
in all of his preaching, which was to take those Old Testament
scriptures, to do the work that Moses and Elijah had come there
representatively on the Mount of Transfiguration to do before
all the people, to talk about his death and what he should
accomplish. So that's why I'd like us to spend a little bit
of time just looking at Zechariah chapter 13. It is just one of
the many prophecies the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of in
Genesis 1.1, and he's spoken of at the end of Malachi chapter
4, and he's spoken of in every little picture all the way through
the rest of the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
one that we see all the time. But in Zechariah, it speaks of
that day, and there's no question about what the day is because
of what chapter 12 says. In that day, there shall be a
fountain opened. I love the fact that it's a fountain
opened. A fountain has its source, in
a sense, as it were, hidden away. It's not like a stream that you
can go to. A fountain just blows out of
itself. There shall be a fountain opened
to the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And
what's the fountain opened? The fountain opened is for sin
and uncleanness. And there's no question about
what that fountain is a representative of, isn't it? When that Roman
soldier, without knowing what he was doing, thrust that spear
into the side of the Lord Jesus Christ, out came a fountain,
out of him came water to wash us clean,
and blood in whose blood we are cleansed. A fountain is opened. Zechariah
speaks. of fountains and speaks of flowing
oil. Turn back to chapter 4 for a
minute with me. There are these two olive trees
and I love this picture of what is going on in the lives of all
of the Lord's people and what's going on in places where the
true gospel is preached. This is what is happening, that
God is dealing directly and personally with his people. He saw these
two olive trees, verse 11, it says, and then I answered and
said unto him, what are these two olive trees upon the right
side of the candlestick and on the left side thereof? And I
answered again and said unto him, what be these two olive
branches which through the golden pipes empty the golden oil out
of themselves? And he answered and said, knowest
thou not what these be? And I said, no, my lord. And
he said, these are the two anointed ones, the Lord Jesus Christ is
the anointed one, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth.
So see the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves. The golden oil is the work of
the Holy Spirit, the blessed Holy Spirit, and it comes through
two pipes. to the hearts of God's people
as he takes his word and applies it to their souls. And I love
the fact that it's in two pipes. It means that it's directed directly
to them. God ministers directly to his
people through his spirit's work in their lives, through the preaching
of the gospel. And the pipes means that it's
hidden from the world. The operations of God are hidden
from the world and they are protected from the world. And they assure
that that golden oil, that blessed Holy Spirits taking the things
of the Lord Jesus Christ and revealing them to his people
is done in such a way that it's supplied personally and directly
to the hearts of his people. I don't know about you, but I'm
just extremely thankful about that. I'm so thankful that our
gospel comes with a power from on high and is applied directly
to the hearts of God's people. And where the Holy Spirit comes,
He's going to take the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, He's
going to take the things of His suffering and His death, the
glories of His resurrection, the glories of His finished work,
and He's going to apply them directly to your hearts. The
Lord opened Lydia's heart. The Lord removes a heart of stone
from a person and He gives them a heart of flesh and He puts
His Spirit within them. The Lord is doing a heart work
in the lives of His people. But one of the glorious things
he's going to reveal to them, he's going to reveal to them
personally and powerfully and particularly and efficaciously
and continually until they no longer need to walk in this world
by faith. He's going to continually take
the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, the things of His glory
and the things of His suffering, and He's going to make them known
to you. He will reveal them to you. And
so one of the glorious things in these scriptures is that again
and again we have pictures of the suffering of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and I love how Peter says, and the glories that shall
follow. The sufferings of the Lord Jesus
Christ and the glories that shall follow. the glory of Him being
resurrected, the glory of Him honouring His Father, the glory
of this Word sitting before us being fulfilled in every tiny
jot and tittle, the glory of Him having His Bride with Him,
holy, spotless, unblameable, unapprovable in His sight, the
glory of Him being seen sitting on the throne of this universe
and ruling all things, the glory of Him taking these words and
making them spirit and life to us. He says in verse 10 of chapter
12, they shall look upon me whom they have pierced. There's no question that when
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, there was a piercing of him by
the Roman nails, and there was a piercing of him by the wicked
words of the Jews. There was a piercing of him by
those nails in his hands and his feet. There was a piercing
of him by that crown of thorns on his head. There was a piercing
of him by all of the stripes on his back. They made his back
like a plowed paddock. They put furrows on his back.
They exposed the bones of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then they
hung him on a tree and mocked him. But we'll look upon him, we'll
look upon him. But what we need to do and what
the scriptures continually want us to do and continually drive
us to see again and again, that even though he was crucified
by the hands of wicked men, the essence and the heart of the
gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ was put to death. He was
made to be seen, and he was crushed by his father. Which is what
verse seven says. It says, awake, O sword, against
my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow. Smite the shepherd, and the sheep
shall be scattered. and I will turn mine hand upon
the little ones. He turns his hand upon the little
ones in love and in gathering to himself. Please don't think
he's turning this hand of the sword. The sword having slain
the shepherd is now put away forever from God's people. Awake,
O sword. Awake, O sword. Let's go back to Genesis chapter
3 and try and have some understanding of this sword. You remember the great picture
of the gospel there is in Genesis 3.15, there is the great promise
in Genesis 5.15. I will put enmity between thee
and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise
thine head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." It's the first mention
of the defeat of Satan and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ,
but in his glory he is bruised. In Genesis 3, there's just a
remarkable picture of the fall and a remarkable picture of the
antidote to the fall, isn't there? Adam and Eve sinned. Adam was not deceived in his
sin. But both of them fell. Both of
them fell. And they fell into that terrible
deception, didn't they? That terrible deception which
all of us are plagued with for the rest of our days. Did God
really say, Did God really say? It's a cause to doubt the word
of God. Is God really being unjust with
you in your circumstances? Is he withholding some good from
you that you can take by your own hand? A doubting of the character
of God, a doubting of the judgment of God. And the promise of Satan,
you shall be as gods. It courses through the veins
of every one of Adam's children. There they were in this league
with Satan. And what's the gospel say to
them? Cast them off and get rid of them forever. God comes to them and calls to
them and he finds them. He's not asking a question of
Adam, where are you? He's not asking a question to
seek any knowledge. He's asking for Adam to come,
to come into the light of who he is. And there is a judgment upon
this world and a judgment upon all humanity and a judgment upon
Satan. But then there's a glorious gospel
before they are sent out of this garden into this world, into
this world that now lives in the light of the reality of those
promises made all that time ago. But in verse 21, There they were
in their fig leaves, in their rebellion against God, in their
fig leaves of their own making. And he says, unto Adam also and
to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin and he clothed
them. The thing that's fascinating
about that in the original is skin. He made a coat of one skin. I have no doubt that this is
the first death in all of this creation. It's a glorious picture
of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't it? It's a glorious picture of
the Gospel. God goes to them and he finds
them and he calls them to himself. And there they are, stand before
him, and to take their fig leaves off they have to stand before
him naked. not pretending to be anything, not pretending to
have anything in themselves. And then God kills an animal
in the garden and he clothes them. Their shame is clothed
by the hand of God and not by anything that they do and their
fig leaves are removed from them. No wonder Abel knew the gospel
and Cain went to church regularly with sacrifice. But in verse
25, the Lord sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, 23, sorry,
to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out
the man and placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims,
and here's this sword, and a flaming sword which turned every way. A flaming sword which turned
every way. to keep the way of the tree of
life. Brothers and sisters, unless
you get to eat of the tree of life, you cannot live forever. To get to the tree of life, this
flaming sword, this flaming sword which turns every way, You must go past that sword,
that flaming sword. It turns every way. It turns every way to see everything. It's the sword in the hand of
a cherubim. It's the sword in the hand of
God. It's the sword that God in Zechariah
13 unleashes. And he says, this sword is called
upon to awake. This sword of God's holy justice
has appeared in very many ways, very much often throughout all
of the Old Testament. It's appeared to have been unsheathed,
you would think. it would appear to have been
unsheathed. When Noah's flood, you would think it was unsheathed.
On the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus, you can think
about all of the victories, the extraordinary victories that
the Lord Jesus Christ won for his people. But now this sword
is awakened in another way altogether, altogether. This sword is awoken
by God against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow. The sword of God's justice, the
sword that blocks the way to the tree of life is awakened
by God and it's awakened against the man that is my fellow, the
man of my fellowship. There is a man who is God, a
man who is equal with God. And against this one, and the
Lord calls him my shepherd. He owns him as his shepherd.
He owns him as his fellow, this man. This Lord of hosts, the
Lord of the armies of heaven, this sword is raised against
him. And the sword has one purpose,
hasn't it? smite the shepherd, smite the
shepherd, slay the shepherd, says the sword of God's justice. Unless the Lord gives us insight,
into the transaction between God the Father and God the Son
on Calvary's tree. We'll never understand what went
on. We'll never understand that this
was the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God. We'll never
understand Isaiah 53. No wonder the Jews hide it from
the Jewish people. Isaiah 53 says here, who has
believed our report and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
The believers have the arm of the Lord revealed, and they do
believe the report. For he shall grow up before him
as a tender plant and a root out of dry ground. He has no
form nor comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no
beauty that we should desire him. That's how he is in this
world today, isn't he? He is despised and rejected of
men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it
were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed
him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows, yet we did esteem him stricken and
smitten of God and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions,
and he was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. We all, like sheep,
have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his
own way. It's exactly what Adam did in
the garden. And the Lord, the Lord, See,
the great transactions between God the Father and God the Son
and the Holy Spirit recorded in the Old Testament in picture
and type and prophecy everywhere. The Lord hath laid on him the
iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He was brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as the sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. He was taken from prison and
from judgment. And who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living. For the transgression of my people
he was stricken. And he made his grave with the
wicked and with the rich in his death. Because he had done no
violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Let's read this
verse 10. It's remarkable, isn't it? Yet
it pleased the Lord to bruise him. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. That word bruise is to crush
him. It pleased God the Father to crush his son. When he found
sin on his son, the sins of all of God's elect people. God the
Father raised that sword in Zechariah 3 and he slew his son with the
sword of his holy justice, with the sword of his infinite inflexible
law. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him, and he hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul
an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. He shall prolong
his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his
hand. He shall see the travail of his
soul. God the Father saw the travail
of the soul of his son, and shall be satisfied. Satisfied. Our God is satisfied. There are
two great S's in salvation, aren't there? Substitution and satisfaction. God made him a substitute for
us. He made him sin and he's satisfied. He shall see his seed and shall
prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in
his hand. He shall see the travail of his soul and shall be satisfied. By his knowledge shall my righteous
servant justify many. And there we have a great description
of justification. If you want to know what justification
is, read Isaiah 53.11. To be justified is to have someone
else bear your iniquities. completely and perfectly. If He bears them, you can't bear
them. Sin can't be in two places at
once. God cannot, in His holy justice,
punish His Son for sins and then punish you for them. They're
His sins. He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a
portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoiled with
the strong, because he has poured out his soul unto death, and
he was numbered with the transgressors, and he bear the sin of many."
It says twice in this this passage, doesn't it? That he actually
bore their sins. He bore our sins in his own body on the tree. He carried them to Calvary. He
carried them to Calvary and made intercession for the transgressors. The response of God's people
is in the next verse. It says, sing. It says, sing,
O barren. And that's what happens at the
end of Zechariah. If we go back to Zechariah just
to close. Zechariah says, I will turn my
hand at the end of verse 7, that sword's awoken and it's slain
the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered. The sheep have
been scattered all throughout this time and eternity. And the
Lord is this great shepherd who goes and gathers those sheep.
And I will turn my hand upon the little ones, and it shall
come to pass that in all the land, and so the Lord, two parts
thereof shall be cut off and die, but a third shall be left
therein. There will be a separation, and
God will gather his people to himself. And I will bring the
third part through the fire. He'll bring you through trials.
This notion that you come to Jesus and life is going to be
a party from here on in is not biblical, it is nonsense. You
come to the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll have the troubles
that are promised. But, but, you come to the Lord
Jesus Christ and you'll have Him in the midst of the troubles.
And it's not about the troubles anymore, it's about the presence
of who's with you. Because that's what he goes on
to say, doesn't he? He's going to refine them as
silver is refined and I'll try them as gold is tried. And they,
what will happen when they're tried and refined? When the fire
comes upon them? They shall call upon my name.
And what will he do? He'll hear them. He'll hear them. And what will he say to them?
What will he say to them? He says, it is my people, my
people. And what will they say in response? The Lord is my God. I love the personal pronouns
of ownership. How did the Shulamite and Song
of Solomon declare it to be? When the shepherd is smitten
and he gathers his little ones to himself, what does she say? My beloved is mine. My beloved
is mine. And she doesn't finish there. She says, I am his. That's the glorious work of our
savior. But our great God, because of
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, can say, these are mine. He can
speak to them. He can commune with them. He
can be in perfect fellowship with them. And wonder of wonders,
He's done it from eternity, brothers and sisters. And He's done it
all in His Son. That's why Moses and Elijah left
the scene. and they saw Jesus only.