May it please Almighty God to
bless us this evening as we meditate in His holy word. Let us turn
to the prophecy of Zechariah, and chapter 12, and we'll read
verse 10. Prophecy of Zechariah, chapter
12, and reading verse 10. And I will pour upon the house
of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace
and of supplications. And 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. Zechariah was a prophet of the
Lord. He prophesied as Israel or Judah
were going back to Jerusalem, having been in captivity for
70 years. And he really lived more or less
the same time as Haggai. And they were called upon by
Almighty God to bring the great truth of Scripture to those people,
to encourage them and to strengthen them. and yet also to point out
their true condition. And so as we read together in
this twelfth chapter something of the restoration of the Church
of God and the great mercy and the great favor of Almighty God. And so as we hear the Word of
God in the ninth verse, we read, and it shall come to pass. Again,
it is really encouraging, surely, for us to know that there are
so many positive words in the Word of God. And here is one
when it says, and it shall come to pass. How needful that was
for Judah and Israel in those days, and how needful it is still
for us today to realize we have a God who brings to pass what
he has said. Nothing fails that the Lord says
will come to pass. And it shall come to pass in
that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that
come against Jerusalem. And then he says, and I will
pour out, I will pour out upon the house of David and upon the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications. Well, we read such words and
we perhaps pass over them and yet how needful it is that all
of us are given such a blessing the spirit of grace and of supplications
and this word supplications really can perhaps be translated as
lamentations the spirit of grace and of lamentations and that
means, does it not therefore that we're able to come before
our God and to pour out our hearts before him and to confess our
situation, to confess our failures, which are many. They were in
the day and age in which Zechariah prophesied how they had to be
encouraged. They'd gone back to Jerusalem
and they'd been put off the building and they needed to be encouraged
to continue. And we today need to be encouraged
to pray. We need to be encouraged to be
blessed with that spirit, that spirit of grace and of supplications
or lamentations to God, not to just omit to seek the face of
our God, because the Lord has promised, and we shouldn't forget
that. This is a promise. He says, I
will pour upon the house of David the church of God, And we know
that when something is poured, it's not just like a drip, is
it? When it's poured, there's sufficient
in the pot or whatever it is to pour out. And there is, therefore,
a great, wonderful blessing. And so he says here, I will pour
upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem. We can think of this as spiritual
Jerusalem. It was needful in those days
in natural Jerusalem. We need it today in spiritual
Jerusalem. Well, let us remember the encouraging
words that we have here. The Lord does say in this way,
I will pour upon the house of David. Of course, if that is
to occur, we shall know about it, won't we? It won't just be
something insignificant. It will be something to know
about. We can look back in the history
of our nation. We can realise there have been
those times when the Lord has gloriously poured out of His
Spirit. There have been times of spiritual
revival. And oh, we need that again. Wilt
not Thou revive us again says the Psalmist, that thy people
may rejoice in thee. The Church of God rejoice when
the work of God is evident. And I hope all of us here tonight
desire nothing greater than to see God's work appearing. Let thy work appear is a great
desire. May it be our desire, and may
we truly believe the Lord is able to do this great and wonderful
favour, to pour out upon the Church of God the Spirit of grace
and of supplication toward lamentations. You know, that is the promise
of God and so often we become very lukewarm and we just read
a statement like that and pass over it. It's good when the Spirit
of God comes upon us so that we can plead the promises of
God. We can come and quote to our
God His word and pray that we may see such blessing. But Lord, surely we need it. We need the Lord to return. We
need the Lord to touch our hearts. We need the Lord to great instruct
us and greatly direct us and greatly bless us. And so we have
this, if you like, introduction. And then the prophet goes on
and he tells us, and they shall So therefore the outcome of this
blessing, the outcome of this blessing is to be observed in
the remainder of this verse. And this is what it tells us.
And they shall look upon me, it's upon the blessed Saviour,
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 is in bitterness for his firstborn. So here we
see then the reality really of true religion. You may say, well
what does it mean? It really means this, that we
are convicted of our part of our hand in the crucifixion of
the blessed Saviour. If there had been no sin in the
world, there would have been no need for salvation. There
would have been no need for the Saviour to come into this world. And that is a general statement,
but we can bring it right home, can't we? If it had not been
for our sin, your sin, and my sin, there would have been no
need for the Savior to come. But we have sinned, all of us. We have sinned. We're all guilty
before a holy and righteous God. We cannot stand and say, well,
I'm all right, because we're not. We all need. We all need a great and glorious
Saviour. We all need to know that the
Lord Jesus Christ died upon that cross at Calvary in order to
redeem our soul. It's not just an historical statement. It may have been. It may still
be today. But the reality of true religion
is that we need the application of the work of His Holy Spirit
to direct us to realize that we, you and me, have pierced
the Blessed Saviour. Without our sins, the Saviour
would not have been pierced. because of our sin. This was
the ordained way of God the Father that his only begotten Son should
live that perfect life and die that sin-atoning death upon that
cross at Calvary and should endure all the opposition being nailed
to that cross, and the soldiers piercing his side with that spear. So let us realize, as this makes
his statement, they shall look upon him, me, whom they have
pierced. We might think, well, that's
not me, I haven't done it. But the reality is, we have done
it. We have done it. Yes, it's a
great and sad and terrible situation to realize that it's because
of our sins, your sin and my sin, we caused the Lord Jesus
Christ to be crucified and to be pierced. And so the prophet
tells us here, and they shall look upon me. Now, of course,
We can't do that physically, can we? Jesus has been crucified
many years ago. So how does it apply to us? By
faith we view the suffering Saviour. By faith we realise that it is
our sins that have caused the Lord Jesus Christ to be pierced. It's our sins that have caused
the Lord of life and glory to suffer and to endure the curse
for us. How seldom perhaps do we really
sit and ponder and concentrate on how our redemption has been
obtained. What a glorious truth it is.
And it's beyond our natural comprehension to realize that, as we read in
John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he sent his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish,
but have eternal life. So if today we are to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, and all of us must believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, before we pass out of time into eternity
and believe that He is our Saviour, and that He is that One who did
die, that One who gave His life, who was indeed pierced for us,
and they shall look upon Me, the Lord Jesus, whom they have
pierced. Now, what is the effect? What's
the effect? You and I can read their gospels,
can't we? We can read their accounts, we
can read their epistles, which refer so wonderfully to the Saviour's
death, and just remain hard-hearted, and just remain cold and indifferent. But you know, tonight, as we
think of these words, are we cold and indifferent to the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ? what we may be. You and I need
to be honest, don't we? As to whether this great truth
and this meditation has an effect upon us. And what is the effect? We're told here. And they shall
mourn for him. Mourn for him. We shall mourn
because of the death that he endured in order to remove our
sin. We shall mourn and then there's
a very wonderful picture given to us of what this is like. As one mourneth for his only
son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn. So that brings it home to us,
doesn't it? It brings it down to a level that we can perhaps
understand. Those of us who have had children,
perhaps had sons, we can imagine how terrible and awful it is
to have to mourn the loss of a son. How hard! And how... bitter such a situation
would be. And that's the analogy that God
gives to us to give us some appreciation how we should mourn because of
our sins, because of our sins which cause the blessed Lord
Jesus Christ to indeed endure that crucifixion and all that
ignominy and that suffering and to be pierced. And so we draw
it home to ourselves tonight and think about how we stand
before our holy God. And this is the word of God,
and they shall look upon me. Well, perhaps by faith we have
looked upon the Saviour. We have gone to Calvary. We have
looked at that scene of suffering. But I wonder whether it's really
come down to this level. This illustration is so telling,
isn't it? As one that mourneth for his
only son. Do we mourn for our sins? have caused the Saviour to endure
you see it comes down to our own situation it's very personal
real religion is very personal it strikes home to our heart
and it proves to us whether we do possess the life of God in
our souls whether we do mourn for the Saviour and more because
it was our sins that caused Jesus Christ to endure and to suffer
that terrible death upon that cross at Calvary. And let us
never underestimate how painful that was. You only had to go
back to Gethsemane. And we see there the suffering
Saviour, knowing what was before Him. Sweat as it were, great
drops of blood, falling to the ground and praying unto His Father,
if it be possible, Let this cup pass from me. We see there the
glory of the human nature of the Saviour who took upon us
our form. Yes, He knew what it was to suffer. He knew what it was to endure.
And here He was, suffering not for His sins, for your and my
sins. That was what caused and was
so necessary for the Saviour to die upon that cross at Calvary. And so we have this tremendous
statement. And they shall look upon me,
whom they have pursed, and they shall mourn for him as one that
mourneth for his only son. As I sometimes make the point,
the Word of God is very clear and very positive. And so here
we have this statement. They shall, if you and I have sinned, which
we have, and none of us here tonight can deny, surely, that
we have sinned against a holy God, and because of that, Those
sins are going to be paid for. They've got to be paid for, and
you and I can't pay for them ourselves. We're in desperate
need to know that the Lord Jesus Christ paid to atone for our
sins. And what does that do? That brings
us to Calvary. And what does that do? It shows
to us the suffering Saviour. And what will it do? We're told,
and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only
son. It's a great test, isn't it?
In our little lives. Sometimes we sail along acknowledging
the Lord Jesus Christ died. Acknowledging that he died to
atone for our sins. But I wonder if we mourn like
this. That means that we have a hatred
to sin because sin caused the Saviour to suffer. And you see,
by our own old nature, we love sin. But bless God, if he's granted
us this wonderful blessing to mourn. To mourn. You know what it's like, don't
we? To mourn over loved ones passing away. We've had plenty
of opportunities to understand that recently. Loved ones have
passed away and we mourned, we wept because of their passing. And that's been right and proper.
And yet here we have the analogy that if our religion is true,
we shall mourn in a greater way because of what the Savior has
endured. We won't only look, we shall
mourn for him. Mourn our sins. Cause the Lord
Jesus Christ to endure all incarnate God could
bear with strength enough and none to spare. It's really a
position that is very hard. I suppose I could say impossible
for us to really understand. that the great and glorious God,
the second person in the Trinity, loved us so much, so much, that
he was willing to die and endure the curse for us. Well then,
as you and I might be favoured and blessed to come to the cross,
to stand there and by faith, Not physically, of course, but
by faith, you, the Lord Jesus Christ, in agony upon that cross. We've already spoken about Gethsemane. My God, my God, why has thou
forsaken me? We can go to Calvary and we can
we can see that. My God, my God, why has thou
forsaken me? Yes. What did the Lord Jesus
have to endure? He had to endure the hiding of
his father's face for those three hours of darkness. He really endured hell for us. Yes, and try and imagine enduring
all that burden of your sin and my sin. It's good sometimes perhaps
to try and recollect in our lives what we've failed to do, how
we've sinned so often, perhaps sometimes blatantly, sometimes
with not any care about the reality of it, not really consider that
it's our sins that caused the Lord of life and glory to suffer
upon that cross at Calvary. And yet you see how willing was
Jesus to die that we fellow sinners might live. The life they could
not take away, how willing was Jesus to give. He gave his life so that you
and I might receive life. If he'd not given his life, we
would not have received life. And so the prophet tells us,
and again, it's very wonderful and it's very encouraging to
realize that therefore hundreds of years before the Lord actually
came, there were these prophets raised up by God to give such
a very clear picture of what was to occur. And that should
surely encourage us, and I would say, and I hope, convince us
that what we read is true. It's not fables. It's that which
was ordained by God in eternity past, the glorious way of salvation. And because of that, as by his
grace, you see, we read those first words, and I will pour
upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the spirit of grace, God's grace, to believe what has occurred. And it was done for you and me. So this evening, as we read this,
Tremendous statement. As one who mourneth for his only
son. Again, it's not as though we
perhaps had half a dozen sons and just one was taken. It comes
home very clearly. We only perhaps had one son and
he died. What effect would that have upon
us? Would we not perhaps be exceedingly sorrowful? Perhaps in bitterness
for him. Well, that's the analogy. And that surely shows to us something
of the cost that the Savior endured. And don't forget, our Father
in heaven willingly gave his son to endure
so that his church would be eternally saved. There's a grand and glorious
sweetness in the plan of salvation in which Father, Son and Holy
Spirit were all involved to redeem your soul and redeem my soul. It wasn't something trivial.
It wasn't something by chance. It was ordained in eternity past. Stand amazed at such a truth
and such a consideration. So they shall look upon me. They shall. Have we looked upon
the Saviour? Have we looked upon Him suffering
for us? Have we mourned for Him? Mourned for the agony that He
endured in order to take away our sins? We could not remove
sins ourselves. We could not remove them. Because
sin is mixed with all we do. Nothing perfect in our little
lives. To think that the Savior was willing, therefore, to stand
in our place. Yes, it's a wonderful picture,
isn't it? Substitution. Substitution. It's set forth, isn't it, in
that occasion when Abraham is told to go and offer up his only
son. Well, the greater wonder was
that he didn't have to do it. He didn't have to do it. The
Lord provided a ram caught by its thorns in the thicket. And
that ram was offered up instead. In our situation, the Lord Jesus
Christ did not escape the judgment due to us. He bore the punishment
instead of us. Come back then to these words.
And they shall mourn for him. Again, let's recognise the truth. And they shall mourn for him. And it's good, isn't it, if you
and I are able to examine ourselves and to see whether we have mourned. And mourned perhaps We may have
said, well, I think I have. But here we have this illustration. What a depth it is. What a test,
isn't it? For the reality of our religion. As one mourneth for his only
son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one is in bitterness
for his firstborn. So we have, don't we, a very
clear picture for us to come to some natural understanding
of the cost of our salvation. Well, may we tonight come and
thank and praise and bless God for the Gospel. This is the Gospel. Sometimes we just glide over
it, don't we? Just in a very simple way. We
start at Bethlehem, and we follow the life of Jesus, and we see
his death, and we see his resurrection, and we see his ascension, and
we think, what a wonderful account, but how seldom do we really realize
the cost that was involved. You see, if we do, it puts things
in a right perspective. And also I believe it has a great
influence upon us in our lives. So perhaps we don't then rush
into sin lightly. Perhaps then we think, well,
as we did, perhaps it doesn't matter. It's not very important. I can just be involved in this.
I can just do that. Remember, the cost of redeeming us from
the smallest sin was the life of the Saviour. No trivial cost
was it. And so as we perhaps are tempted,
and don't forget the devil is the greatest tempter. He wants
you and me to ignore such words as this. He doesn't want us to
read them. I mean perhaps you can answer
the question, I wonder how many times you read the prophecy of
Zachariah? Probably not very often. You
may have to say, well I don't think I've ever read that prophecy
of Zachariah. The devil doesn't want you and
me to read such truths as this. Because he knows that if the Holy Spirit applies
these truths to our soul it'll produce a blessing in our hearts
and it will bring honour and glory to our God. Because surely as we view this
scene, and as we view it rightly, does it not bring us to that
position where we truly praise God and praise Him from whom
all blessings flow and this great blessing of salvation. and to realise the cost it was
to redeem our soul. And my friends, tonight, all
of us must be redeemed. We can't get to heaven with any
sin. We all need to have our sins
washed away in the precious blood of the Saviour. It's the only
way that we will be found in glory, clothed in His righteousness. Oh, what a wonderful blessing,
what a wonderful privilege that will be, how amazing it will
be to find ourselves in glory with the Saviour and it's only
because He died. to pay the price of our sin. Every sin. Never think of such
a thing as a small sin. Because figuratively, the smallest
sin needs to be atoned for. And the only way it can be atoned
for is through the sin-atoning death of the Saviour, the Lord
Jesus Christ. Well, tonight, my friends, May
we indeed truly meditate upon this great and wonderful truth,
so that by His grace, one day, we shall truly see Him in all
His glory, coming in the clouds, there to receive us unto Himself. And what a wonderful mercy, therefore,
if we have been amongst those who have mourned, mourned over
our sin, between our soul and our God, in private, by ourselves,
confessing our sins, and truly sorry for our sin, and praying
that we may be kept from sin. You and I cannot keep ourselves. Dear old Peter thought he could
keep himself. He thought he was a strong character, Well in one
sense he was a strong character. But he wasn't strong enough to
keep himself when he was there in that judgment hall denying
his Lord and Master with oaths and curses. It wasn't just a
moderate denial, was it? We're told with oaths and curses
he denied his Lord and Master. But the good news of course in
his case was the Lord looked, turned and looked upon him and
that had a good effect. We can say it had an effect like
this because we're told he went out and wept bitterly. One that mourneth for his only
son and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn. So let us just ponder. Sin is a damning situation. And my friends, we should realise
we need to come before our holy God, truly confessing our sins. And by God's grace, we can lay
hold of his words, which tells us if we confess our sins, he
is faithful and just. to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But in so doing, that won't just
be a casual prayer, supplication. Again, just come back to this,
and it's a grace and lamentation. That means we shall lament our
sin. we shall be truly sorry for our
sin. It won't be just a mere form
of words. It will emanate from our very
heart. Well, my God, show to us our
great need and help us and encourage us to come here and be blessed
with this wonderful favour And they shall look upon me, the
Saviour, whom they have pierced, you and me. And they shall mourn
for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in
bitterness for him, as one is in bitterness for his firstborn. And if we enter in to this truth
by the grace of God, we shall one day be in glory with the
Saviour, praising Him with a sinless heart and that eternally. Amen.