Zechariah chapter 7. Zechariah
chapter 7 and I'd like to read verses 8 through 14 of this book
of Zechariah. The gospel according to Zachariah.
Zachariah is a gospel preacher. He's going to declare the gospel
here in this passage of scripture. He's going to declare it very
succinctly and distinctly. He's going to share with us some
things about the gospel that is so vital. When we preach the
gospel as Zachariah preached the gospel, we must preach the
truth about God. That is essential. Zachariah
preached the truth about God. When we preach the truth about
God, we're going to be preaching that God is an eternal being,
that God has ever been. There's never been a time he
wasn't. And he is in his eternality. He is the creator of heaven and
earth. He's the creator of all things. And for us, to completely
and totally understand that He is the Creator of spiritual life,
we must be born again. We cannot fathom that. We may
contend that God created the heavens and the earth, and He
created all the grass, and He created all the trees, and He
created all the animals. But when God convinces us of
His very being, we will understand that He is the One that breathed
into us salvation in the new birth. God is a God of sovereign
mercy. He owed nobody anything. And
yet we find that in the Gospel that God is a God that said,
I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. And whom I will,
I harden. That's what he said. We must
preach this God. Now he's an offense to natural
man. This God is an offense to natural
man. Nobody wants to hear about a God that will do these things. And yet it's the truth of the
gospel. He is a God and he's a God of sovereign grace. When
His grace is extended, it is sovereignly extended, He is a
sovereign God. We will find that the Scriptures
teach so plainly, and this is a succinct part of the Gospel,
is that He is a sovereign God. That He has sovereign grace and
sovereign mercy. He sits and rules in a sovereign
throne. Over a world that he is sovereign
over he's king of kings and Lord of lords So it is essential when
we preach the gospel that we preach this God now when we preach
the gospel we're also going to preach that of the truth about
man and Zachariah is going to do that for us tonight in several
ways. He's going to preach the truth
about man man is not almost dead He's dead in trespasses and sin.
There is nothing in him that can respond to this holy God.
I was corrected today or tried to be corrected. I said, man,
natural man can do nothing good. Well, what about someone doing
it for someone else? I says, when it comes to our
ability to correspond with a holy God, we can do nothing good. That's what God said and nobody
seeks after me. That's what God said. So Zachariah
is going to share and he has in the past and he will continue
through this book because he's a gospel preacher. He's going
to declare the God of the Bible. He's going to declare that this
God that mankind, even the Jews, he's going to share with us,
that even these Jews, even these children of Judah that came back
to Jerusalem, even these children that came back of the loins of
Abraham, they by nature wanted nothing to do with this God. They would not submit to this
God. And when we preach the gospel,
we're also going to be preaching about Christ, the Messiah, the
Savior. We're going to be preaching a
Christ that is not frustrated. Never has been, never will be.
He has always been King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So when we
preach Christ, we're preaching a successful Christ. We're preaching
a Christ that is going to fulfill the words about Him as found
in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, and summed
up in the name that He was given by the Heavenly Father, by the
Holy Spirit, and He consented in the covenant of mercy to do
this. They shall call His name. You shall call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people from their sins. He is going
to be active, involved in that, and if it wasn't for that, nobody
would ever be saved. We find here in the book of Zechariah
chapter 7, beginning with verse 8, notice these words, The word
of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying... Now this is an essential
part about paying any attention to anybody that's declaring the
truth. Did God speak to him? Did he
get that out of the word? Did he get it out of the Bible?
Where did he get that from? Well, if it's out of the Bible
and it's kept in context, we must preach it. It must be declared. And here we find that the word
of the Lord came into Zacharias saying, thus speaketh the Lord
of hosts. Now, in this title, we've noticed
a number of times as we've gone through the book of Zechariah
and referred to other places in the Old Testament, this name,
Lord of Hosts, has great meaning to the church. This name, Lord
of Hosts, has great meaning to everybody that has been saved
by the grace of God. This means that He is the Lord
of Armies. And it's in the past. I want
to do just this one thing. Go with me over to the book of
Daniel. Before we continue reading, back up to the book of Daniel
for just a moment. And we have Nebuchadnezzar giving
us one of the greatest descriptions of the Lord of Hosts. In the
book of Daniel, chapter 4. Would you turn there with me?
The book of Daniel, chapter 4. We have in this passage of scripture
a great king. His name is Nebuchadnezzar. He's
a pagan king. He's a king of Babylon. And he
is giving... God gave him seven years from
ruling the people of Babylon. Turned him out. And in the end,
God gave him some words that are recorded here in the book
of Daniel. The Holy Spirit gave them to Daniel to record. Now
whether Daniel was there to hear them, it doesn't matter. These
are the words that Nebuchadnezzar spoke when God gave his sense
back to him. He found out that he was not
who he thought he was. He thought he was all powerful,
he was the sovereign king, and he found out that there is one
higher than he is. And that's God, the Lord of hosts. Here in the book of Daniel chapter
four, it says in verse 34, at the end of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar,
lifted up my eyes into heaven, and my understanding returned
unto me. What a phenomenon happened right
here when Nebuchadnezzar was able to understand some things.
He never understood this before. Whether this was salvation, I'm
not going to say one way or the other, but what he had to say
is the truth about God. And that's the truth that Zechariah
is bringing over in the book of Zechariah when he uses, as
the Holy Spirit leads him, uses this name Lord of Hosts. He is
talking about the God of the Bible. He's talking about the
God of the Gospel. This great, almighty, all-powerful,
all-eternal, all faithful, never changing God, this God. All right,
Nebuchadnezzar says, return to me, I bless the Most High, and
I praise and honor Him that liveth forever. He came to understand
something about the eternality of God in this. And that's the
God of the Bible. That's the God that Zechariah
is going to preach. Jeremiah preached the same God.
Isaiah preached the same God. Guess what? Amos did too. And
so did Obadiah. They preached the same God. This
God of the Bible. The God of the Gospel. The God
of the Gospel. He's not a frustrated God. He's
a God that reigns and rules and does according to His will. This
is what He goes on to tell us here. He says, I praised Him
and honored Him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting
dominion. That means He's King forever.
No time He's not been King. We're not waiting for Him to
become King. He's always been King. By the grace of God, we
are brought to acknowledge that. We're not making him king. God
did that before the foundation of the world in eternity past.
God made the son king. All right, he goes on to say,
and his kingdom is from generation to generation. In every generation,
there has been his elect children, and he has called them out of
darkness to his marvelous light. Every generation, somewhere in
this world, there has been the gospel presented, gospel preached,
the seed has gone out, and God has honored it by giving life
to his people. And they, by the grace of God,
have been that generation to generation. Now notice the next
one, and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing. Now that's the sum and substance
of natural man before a holy God, reputed as nothing. They
are nothing, we are nothing, unless God intervened. Goes on
to tell us there, and he doeth, this is God, this is that sovereign
God, this is that holy God, this is that unchangeable God. He
doeth according to his will. He doeth according to his will. If you haven't read the article
by Mike Loveless in the last week's bulletin, you need to
do that because he brings out a point of all the mess that's
going on, God is not frustrated. He is doing His will. It looks
like chaos. But God is ruling according to
His eternal purpose. He goes on, He says, He doeth
according to His will in the army of heaven and among the
inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay His hand or stop
Him from doing what He pleases to do. God is not going to be
frustrated. Never has. I brought out today,
God's never lost the battle. If He sets His eyes on someone
from eternity past, He will bring them into the fold. And when
they're brought in, when I was brought in, I was thankful that
he would do that, that he would overcome my influence and my
thoughts and my lostness and my death and all of that stuff
would overcome it. So none can stay his hand or
say what do us out. Now that's the God that Zachariah
is preaching over here in the book of Zachariah chapter seven.
This is the Lord of hosts. This is the Lord of hosts. So
as we go back to the book of Zachariah chapter seven, It tells
us here, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts. Execute true judgment,
show mercy and compassion, every man to his brother. And oppress
not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor. Let
none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. That's
the standard. That is the standard. How many have kept the standard?
You know, the same thing is brought out over in the book of Micah. Would you turn back with me to
the book of Micah? Micah chapter 6. Now it's interesting, a point
was brought out in the Bible study tonight on the Zoom meeting,
you know, how often I miss two words or three words when I'm
reading. It was brought out that Jonah Went to Nineveh and preached
and said, yay, 40 days, this place is going to be thrashed.
And you know, the very next verse it says, and the people believed
God. Nothing is said about Jodah's
preaching. The people believed God. Now that's what the gospel does.
People believe God. They're not saying, well, brother,
so-and-so told me this. They're saying God said this.
All right, here in the book of Micah, in the book of Micah,
in chapter six, Micah chapter six, we have these words given
to us. And I remember many years ago
at a camp, a preacher got up and said, this is what we need
to do. And you know, you just look at yourself and say, how
can you get that done? This is the standard. This is
Christ. This is the standard that God
requires. You know what? We find out in
the scriptures that God is righteous. And the soul that sinneth, it
shall die. Did you know in order to save
a person, someone's gotta die. And those that go through this
life without the salvation that is given to them are going to
die. The soul that sinneth, it shall die. That is a promise
of God. Why? Because he's righteous.
He has a standard. And the standard is brought out
over here in the book of Zechariah. This is God's standard. Try to
keep it if you can, but you can't. There is no righteousness in
us and all we can do is count our self-righteousness. Well,
Micah brings this out in the book of Micah chapter six, verse
seven. Micah chapter six and verse seven. It says there, will the Lord
be pleased with thousands of rams? That just takes us right
back to the dedication of the temple or 40 years in the wilderness
with a tabernacle. or with 10,000 rivers of oil,
10,000 rivers of oil, shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed
thee, O man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of
thee? Now that's an interesting thought,
demand. That's what that word means.
What does the Lord demand of you? Well, he goes on to say
here, but to do justly, to love mercy
and walk humbly with thy God, and that's the demand. Now that's
the standard that's required. We just read part of it over
here in the book of Zechariah. That's the standard that is required. Who has that standard? Who is
able to complete and fulfill all of that? None but Christ. None but the Messiah is able
to fulfill all of that. He is the righteous Son of God. We are thankful when He reveals
unto us that in our salvation He imputes that righteousness
to us, that He gives us that position. It's not ours by work
or merit, it is ours by grace and mercy. We have that standard
then. We are given Christ. We are in
Christ. We have all of the rich blessings
of God in Christ Jesus the Lord. So these standards that God has
laid out in the scriptures are fulfilled in only one, and that
is in the person Christ Jesus. We could go through these every
day, memorize them, try to put them into effect. Now it's not
wrong to live right. It's not wrong to live a good
neighbor. It's not wrong to be honest.
It's not wrong to treat our neighbor as we want to be treated. That's
not wrong at all. But just remember that that does
not buy our way into heaven. We are only made righteous in
Christ Jesus the Lord. There's a standard, and we cannot
keep that standard. And in fact, the part that is
trying to keep it is of the flesh, because the Spirit hasn't been
quickened, or we wouldn't be trying to do that. The flesh
is trying to keep that. And Christ said to his disciples,
the flesh profiteth nothing. there's no profit in the flesh
so the flesh is trying to do all of this that preacher He's
trying to encourage the flesh to be righteous. He's trying
to encourage the flesh to do right. Nobody wants a bad neighbor. We all want good neighbors, but
that is not going to purchase redemption. Christ alone is the
one that is able to purchase redemption. Well, let's go back
over here to the book of Zechariah once again, and we find that
Zechariah had been very honest in preaching the God of the Bible. That is a very important part
of the gospel. This God of the Bible, this God
that is eternal, this God is sovereign, this God is merciful,
to whom he will have mercy. This God that is gracious, but
he has sovereign grace. He is going to dispense it to
whom he pleases, where he pleases, at the appointed time he pleases.
It's not on our demand. It's on his gift. And then we
realize how gracious he is to do that very thing. When we go
back over here to the book of Zechariah and Zechariah is explained
to us about the Lord of hosts. Once again, he said, this is
the one I'm preaching to you is this God, the God of the gospel. And this is what the standard
is. The standard is Christ. We cannot follow this, or we
might be nice to widows, and we might be nice to the fatherless,
but the stranger sometimes, or the poor, or the beggar, and
let none of you imagine evil against that mind. Imagine evil against his brother
in your heart. But they, now notice this, he's
honest about man. That's the gospel. That preacher
that brought me the gospel, he just summed it up this way, ruined
by the fall. I found out later, he found that
somewhere else. Someone else was preaching that,
ruined by the fall. It's the truth of the gospel.
You know what? Natural man doesn't wanna know the truth about God
and natural man doesn't wanna know the truth about themselves.
Our flesh is so decorated. Our flesh is so fluffed up that
we don't want to hear the truth about the gospel. We don't want
to hear the truth about God. He's the righteous judge. And
we don't want to hear the truth about ourselves to realize that
we started as dead in trespasses and sin. We started dead on the
ground. and it is he that comes and gives
us life. Well, let's notice, these are
those who have been brought back from Babylon captivity, back
to Jerusalem. These are the family of Judah
and Benjamin. These are the ones that are gonna
carry the line down to Jesus Christ himself. This is Judah.
This is their reaction. Yea, they made their, oh, excuse
me, verse 11, but they refused to hearken. What's that mean? To hear. And pulled away the
shoulder. Now, I found that that was an
interesting thought. It means in an image from Bish
refusing to bear the yoke. I've tried, I've watched guys,
well, I'm gonna just talk about horse. I've watched guys try
to saddle a horse. If they don't subdue that horse,
I'm so thankful for the picture of my savior dealing with a cult
that had never been ridden, and by his sovereign grace, He approached
it, got on it, and that colt never bucked a bit. Never been
ridden. Not accustomed to this. We are
like this beast of burden that refuses to be yoked. And then Christ calls unto us,
Matthew, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. But if we back
up one verse, we find out why. He's revealed the truth about
himself to us. Take my yoke upon you and learn
of me, for I am meek and lowly. What a wonderful, okay, he says
they pull away the shoulder. They stop their ears that they
should not hear. This, he's talking about the
people of God, the Jews. They refused. They had spent
40 years in the wilderness. How many years there in the land
Palestine? Taken off into captivity for
70 years, come back out. You know what? The same thing
happened when the Ark came to rest. Eight people, you'd think,
we got it down now. We've got the problem fixed now.
We got rid of all the troublemakers. All those guys who wouldn't come
into the ark we got rid of. What happened? Those guys that
rode out that ark had children. What did they pass on to their
children? Inherent depravity. And it isn't any time at all,
we're back where we started. We're down at the Tower of Babel. Mankind can't change itself.
If ever there was a time when our place where we live should
have fixed it, it didn't happen. Now, I don't think there's anybody
minds someone having a nice place to live in and having food to
eat, but that is not what we have for salvation. God is the
fixer of wrecks. Fixer of deaths. All right, it
goes on to tell us here, they pulled away the shoulder, they
stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yea, they made
their hearts an adamant stone. Isn't it interesting when we
get over to the book of Ezekiel, that Ezekiel was preaching the
gospel and said, God said, I'll take your stony heart. I'll take
out your stony heart. How did it get there? You put
it there in the fall. You put it there by your sin.
You chose this, lest they should hear the law and the words which
the Lord of hosts has sent in his spirit. Now, the spirit was
just as active in the Old Testament with regard to the preaching
of the gospel, because it says, the Lord of hosts has sent in
his spirit by the former prophets. All those prophets that went
before, led by the Spirit of God, had preached the same truth
to them, and the same results were there, except the Lord of
Hosts, Isaiah. Except the Lord of Hosts. Would you just turn over there
to the book of Isaiah chapter one and verse nine. Isaiah chapter
seven, excuse me, chapter one. Isaiah chapter one. Isaiah chapter 1 and we find
this comment made by this gospel preacher As he's declaring the
truth about God and the truth about man He says here except
and here's that same name of God Lord of hosts Except the
Lord of hosts had left unto us a very small remnant of Now he's
the reason, he's the cause. If he hadn't been involved, there
wouldn't even be a very small remnant. Except the Lord of hosts
left unto us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom,
and we should have been likened to Gomorrah. Now, go way back
over to the book of Joshua, if you would. The book of Joshua,
chapter 24. Joshua chapter 24. It's an interesting chapter here,
this last chapter of the book of Joshua. In this chapter, faithful
Joshua passes away. Faithful Joshua, preacher of
righteousness. His name means savior. His name
is Hebrew for he shall save his people from their sins. We find
in the Greek, his name is Jesus, for he shall save his people
from their sins. Well, here in the book of Joshua,
it'd be well if we started with verse one of this book of Joshua,
but we're not going to. I'll leave that to you. But it
is a wonderful history of the children of Israel. It starts
from the very beginning when Abraham is called out of a far
place. He is a worshiper of other gods. In verse two it says, your fathers
dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time. Now that's
not the flood that we commonly recognize as Noah. That's from
the other side of the Tigris and Euphrates River. Even Terah,
the father of Abraham, and the father of Nacor, and they served
other gods. These guys were polytheistic
to the core. Thousands of gods have been identified
by this culture of people. And God went down there, and
I love what Stephen had to say about it. In his great message
about the history of Israel, he said the God of glory appeared
unto Abraham in Ur of the Chaldees and called him out of there.
Now Abraham would have never left without that call. He'd
still be down there. His body would be down there.
He's called out of that place just like he calls us out of
our earth of the Chaldees, wherever we are in the religion that we're
in. Well, he drops down through and he talks so much about the
history of Israel, how they spent time down in Egypt, how God set
them free, how he brought them through the wilderness, how he
settled them in the promised land, how he did all these things
and fulfilled every word that he had ever Israel now look with
me if you would at verse 15 Joshua chapter 24 and if it seemed evil unto you
to serve the Lord choose you this day whom ye will serve whether
the gods which your father served that were on the other side of
the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, which are on this side
of the flood when you're down there in the land, in whose land
you dwell, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Now, that's a good statement,
isn't it? Joshua's calling on people to
do what they can't do though. It's just like the preacher in
the pulpit standing up and saying, trust Christ, believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. That is the best advice you can
give. Trust Christ, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And a
preacher of the gospel will recognize the fact that unless God gets
involved in this, they will be just like they are when they
leave. Why do I know that? Because in the verse 19 of this
chapter, now this verse is brought out to me. It says, this is what
God said. This is what God says right there.
He says, choose you this day. It's a choice.
Well, look at verse 19. Joshua said unto the people,
ye cannot serve the Lord. You cannot serve the Lord, for
He is an holy God. He is a jealous God. He will
not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. By just being
Israelite, He's not going to do that. By doing good, He's
not going to do that. By just saying, I trust God,
it's not going to happen. He goes on down there, and the
people say, oh, we can, we can, we can, we can. No, you can't. Unless God intervened and that
leads us over to the book of Isaiah chapter 53 Because in
Isaiah 53 this great preacher of grace Isaiah is revealed by
the grace of God in the gospel this is God's eternal purpose
and He has purposed this. Declare the gospel. Declare the
God of the Bible. Declare the Christ of the Bible.
Declare the condition of natural man. It's not going to be popular. It's not going to meet anybody
readily. It's not going to be accepted.
People will say, I believe in a God. Yes, they do. Even the
devils believe that. But this gospel will be believed
when God does this, Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 and Isaiah 53 and verse
1 Joshua would raise his hand and say that is it Moses would
raise his hand and said, this is it. Jeremiah, Zechariah, Amos,
Obadiah, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all agree here because
the revelation of Jesus Christ has been given to them. They
will come back to this passage of scripture or this principle
of scripture and say, just as Isaiah did, who hath believed
our report? Now it's just a report. We're
just reporting the truth. We're reporting the gospel. From
then on, we have nothing that we can do with it. But he goes
on to say, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? It's revelation. It's the revelation
of Jesus Christ. That's the only way we can ever
have the standard of God. That's the only way we can ever
meet the standard of God. Someone must die. We mentioned
many times over there in Egypt when the children of Israel,
I'm not sure that they knew it at the moment when they were
required to have the Passover, but it was soon revealed to them,
this is the night you're leaving. In every household, when God
came to the land, he said, I, when I see the blood, I will
pass over you. Every household had a death.
In Egypt, it was the death of the firstborn. In the camp of
Israel, it was a substitutionary lamb, but there was blood in
every household. There was death in every household
and so there will be death. There will be death. Everyone
must die and it will be in Christ or it will be themselves in the
book of. of Romans chapter 11. Let's look
there for just a moment, the book of Romans chapter 11. We
find the Apostle Paul is shared this great truth that Isaiah
was writing about, Zechariah is writing about over here in
the book of Zechariah and in the Romans chapter 11. Romans
chapter 11, and there in verse five it says, even so then at
this present time, and you know I'm sure that as exuberant as
Paul was about the gospel, and as exuberant as he was about
preaching the gospel, He just wrote that down and says, amen.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. For even at
this present time, it's no wonder he said in the 15th chapter of
the book of 1 Corinthians, and last of all, he was seen to me
as one born out of due time. Why? At this very time, at this
present time also, there is a remnant according to the election of
grace. There is a remnant according
to the election of grace. How precious is that? How precious
is that? He could shout hallelujah all
the way through the writing here. I can just imagine, because I
do that when I'm reading it. Can you imagine reading it and
writing it at the same time? The exuberance he had as he saw
the fulfillment of the gospel through his pen, as God moved
his pen to write these great truths that we rejoice in. What are they? God is a great
God. He is an eternal God. He is a
holy God. He is a righteous God. He's the
God of all life. He's the God of resurrection.
Jesus Christ is the only Savior. There's none other name under
heaven whereby we must be saved. He is the only Savior. He is
the God, the very God himself. And God went to the cross You know, I spent some time over
there in the book of Daniel today. Is it chapter 9? I think it's
chapter 9. And you know it says there that
the prince went to the cross not for himself. Hallelujah. Not for himself, but for us. That's why he went. He was cut
off for us. Not for himself, but for us.
Well, and then let's go back for just a moment or two again
in the book of Zechariah and finish that chapter and what
it has to say. This is God speaking. This is that Lord of Hosts speaking.
He says there that their hearts were as an adamant stone unless
they should hear the law, verse 12 of Zechariah chapter seven.
Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone. lest they should
hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts has sent in
his spirit by the former prophets. Therefore came a great wrath
from the Lord of hosts. Now guess what's in verses 13
and 14. Therefore, it has come to pass
that as he cried and they would not hear, So they cried, and
I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts. This is the word to
those he called, and you would not come." Now we know the problem. We know the problem. Natural
man will not come, but the judgment has fallen. I scattered them
with the world men among all 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." Isn't that a description of the fall?
Laid a pleasant land desolate. What a problem we have. That's
what we face. Isaiah also wrote, he said, how
long am I going to do this? How long do you want me to do
this? Nobody's going to listen, but
those that God turns on the ear. Nobody's going to see until God
gives them sight. Nobody's going to believe until
He gives them belief. Nobody's going to have repentance until
He gives them repentance. He is going to be the Savior
every bit of the Savior of his people. They will not say that
they contributed one cent to their redemption. They will all
with one consent say worthy is the land that was slain. He is
the one that redeemed me from my sin, redeemed me from my death,
and brought me out. And so the Lord of Hosts, what
a glorious name Zachariah uses, what a statement he makes about
this is the standard. Now, if you want to look at it
in the flesh, say, okay, do the best you can. Look at it in the
flesh. But it's not a spiritual attainment. You can't meet this standard.
Christ is the standard. And the natural state of man?
Nobody will come. Except the Lord call them. and grant them the new birth,
and then they will bow. We don't make Jesus Christ Lord. That was done by God before the
foundation of the world. And in our salvation, we acknowledge
that. We didn't know it before, but
we acknowledge that. And God's people are thankful
for his free and sovereign grace and mercy. And we're thankful
that as Zachariah preached, those who heard, heard God. Thank you for your time tonight.