Alright join me tonight in the
book of Zechariah chapter 4 as we look at the gospel according
to Zechariah here We're going to like all the books of the
Old Old Testament as well as the New Testament We're going
to have the message of Christ. He is the center theme of all
things He is the theme of the book of Genesis to the book of
Revelation and here is no exception Now we may find him in types
and shadows and pictures in the Old Testament In fact, we find
him in types and shadows and pictures in the New Testament
when he spoke of himself. I am the door. I am the light.
I am the bread of life. I am the water of life. He uses
those pictures to share with us the quality about himself. Here in the book of Zechariah,
we have been introduced to a priest by the name of Zerubbabel. And
Zerubbabel shares with us some great insights about our Savior,
the Lord Jesus. And tonight, we want to look
at some of those here in the fourth chapter And I would like
to begin reading with verse eight, and we'd like to read down through
verse 10. Now it'll be important to go on through this chapter,
but I don't think we have time for tonight. So it says, moreover,
the word of the Lord came unto me saying, and as we mentioned
last week, how valuable it is, how important it is, what a spiritual
blessing it is when God gives us spiritual ears to hear his
word. Before that, it's a nice book. It has nice history. It
has nice stories. Or we may have absolutely nothing
at all to do with it. But once the Lord gives us salvation
in Christ Jesus, once He gives us a new birth, this becomes
a new book. This is a book that shares with
us about our Savior, our salvation, our eternity, our position in
God before the foundation of the world, and shares with us
the reason for His coming, and that is we were ruined by the
fall. So here in the book of Zechariah,
it's no different than any of the other books of the Bible,
Old Testament, New Testament, to be given ears to hear and
eyes to see is a spiritual blessing that only comes from God. I cannot
educate you into the kingdom of heaven. I cannot train you
into the kingdom of heaven. The Apostle Paul shares with
us great insight about the church when he said, Thou art the Christ,
the Son of the living God. But we also find out where that
all came from, and that is it came from God. Flesh and blood
hath not revealed the Son to you, but my Father which is in
heaven. So whatever God gives to us,
how small we may think, how large we may think, anything that we
have that is spiritual comes from Almighty God. And I'm thankful
for the crumbs that fall from the master's table. I'm thankful
for anything that he should share with us. Well, here in verse
nine, it says, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this
house. Now, from a historical standpoint,
Zerubbabel was the one that led in the building of that temple,
the second temple. After the children of Judah and
Benjamin had been permitted to leave Babylonian captivity, been
there for 70 years, they are permitted to go back to Jerusalem,
And they've been permitted to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild
the temple. It has been devastated by the
Babylonians, by king of Babylon came down, destroyed it, carried
off all of the finery that was there. But now they're called
on to go back and rebuild that temple. Now we're going to find
out that that temple was not nearly what the first temple
was. And yet the Lord says, that the
glory of the second temple would be better than the glory of the
first temple. Now how could that be? The first temple had all
of that finery, that gold, everything was just beautiful, and yet the
second temple, the savior of his people, walked through the
portals of that temple. Now, he didn't enter the holy
place, and he didn't enter the holy of holies. That was the
priest's job, and he is not a priest after the order of the Levites.
He is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. He's not going
to get involved in that, but he is going to be a priest that
would get involved in the redemption of his people. He would be involved
in purchasing them on the cross, paying for all their sin debt,
and imputing to us the righteousness of Christ. That's what he's going
to be involved in. He's laid the foundation of this
house. Zerubbabel laid the physical. Zerubbabel is a picture of Christ.
And Christ is the builder of the temple, the spiritual temple,
the church. put in the church daily such
as should be saved. We're all called living or lively
stones. He places us in himself. He places us in the church as
he sees fit. He gives the gifts according
to his grace and according to his sovereign mercy, and his
hands shall also finish it. What a wonderful thing that we
find that the Lord not only builds the church, but he's going to
deliver the church spotless before the throne of grace. He is going
to say, welcome to the church. Welcome to the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world. And the church is
going to say, we didn't do any of those things you're talking
about, but we find out that they were all completed on our behalf. All of the necessary things were
completed by the Lord Jesus Christ. It's interesting to find that
what the scriptures require, what God requires in the scriptures
for us to have is all supplied. There is no potluck. with God. He takes care of the
entire marriage supper of the Lamb. He takes care of all of
the necessities of getting us there. And in fact he shares
with us that he finds us where we are and compels us to come
in. I like what we read about Mephibosheth. There was grace given to fetch
him and he fetched him and brought him to the king's house and he
enjoyed the Blessings of being in the king's house the rest
of his life Then we read here thou shalt know that the Lord
of hosts has sent me unto you and last week and as we've looked
through this book of Zechariah I think it's 52 times or something
like that, that this name of God is used, and it certainly
shares with us that God is the sovereign God. He is the ruler
of heaven and in earth. He has the armies of heaven,
and he rules among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay
his hand or say, what doest thou? He is absolute sovereign. That
is this Lord of hosts, Lord of armies. Now we're at verse 10. For whom hath despised the days
of small things? Question mark. Who hath despised
the day of small things? Now, it tells us in the scriptures
that those folks that saw the second temple being built, those
who had seen the original temple and saw this one, they wept because
it wasn't the same. It just wasn't the same. So they
despised, many of them despised the building of the Second Temple
and what it looked like. It didn't have all the finery.
But they did not realize at that moment that this temple would
have much more glory because the Savior of God's people, which
one shared with Nicodemus, you must be born again. This one
was going to be there. This one is going to be the fulfillment
of all the sacrifices the Passover and everything else in his death
on the cross. He has purchased us, he has redeemed
us, he has paid for all our sin at the cross. So there's a lot
of people that complain about the small things. We mentioned
last week about one of those old prophets that had to be corrected. I'm thankful that the Lord corrects
his prophets. I'm thankful for the correction
that God gave to this prophet when he said, I alone, I alone
contend for you, Lord. That's essentially what he said.
Everybody else is gone, and I alone contend for you. Well, we find
out in the Old Testament in the book of 1 Kings and in the New
Testament under the writings of the Apostle Paul, God shared
with us that there were 7,000 that had not bowed the knee to
Baal. There were 7,000 that had not
given in to Baal. And that's going to be really
important as we get a little further in this verse of scripture when
we meet Zerubbabel holding up a plum, the plummet. So there's no room to go from
the right hand or the left hand. There is an accuracy that must
be kept. Well, here we find that this
prophet of old. that complained about or said
he was, and sometimes he no doubt felt that way, that he was the
last prophet. The Lord said, I have 7,000 that
have not, 7,000 preachers that have not bowed the knee to Baal,
and that's in Israel. This is the corrupt part of the
kingdom, Israel. This is where kings are notorious
for being really bad guys, and yet I have 7,000 preachers of
the gospel that have not bowed the knee to Baal. So here we
have this, the Lord, comes to him not in a fire and not in
an earthquake, even though those two things happened. This prophet
saw those things. He saw the fire and he felt the
earthquake. And yet it says that the Lord
was not in those things. And how that speaks of the noise
of religion today. How it speaks of what supposedly,
I've had people tell me, that they are a member of the fastest
growing religion in the world. I'd be very careful because the
Lord has never had the fastest growing religion in the world.
In fact, faith in Christ is not a religion. Faith in Christ is
a spiritual gift. This is what's important. having
the big noise, and having the brightness that looks like things
are really happening there, we find that when it came to this
prophet, there was a still, small voice. Still, small voice. And we find that pattern throughout
the Gospels. We find that throughout the Old
Testament as well as the New Testament. still small voice. You know when I turn to the Matthew
chapter 6 in the Sermon on the Mount, when I look at the Sermon
on the Mount, I find a lot of instructions there and most of
it is small stuff. Do you remember what he said
about prayer? Do you remember what he said
about almsgiving? Do you remember what he said
about fasting? Keep it to yourself. Don't be
loud and boisterous. Don't be an earthquake about
this. Don't be a bright fire about this. Let it be a still,
small voice. When you do your alms, do it
in private. When you give, do it in private.
When you pray, do it in private. When you do your fasting, keep
it in private. Well, that goes against the grain of every bit
of religion we can think of. Because in religion, we wanted
to be the noisy ones. We wanted people to notice us,
just like we find that the Pharisee wanted people to notice him as
he prayed. And it tells us that when he prayed, he was praying
to God. I thank the God, I'm not like. But he was noisy about it. And
he tells us in the scriptures, don't get someone going before
you saying, this man's praying, this man's praying, this man's
giving, this man's giving, or this man's fasting. Those things
are so valuable. in our relationship with the
Lord Jesus Christ, but they're valuable between God and us and
not noise. Well, we find, turn with me,
if you would, to the book of 1 Corinthians 1. 1 Corinthians
1, we find this passage of scripture that the Lord gave the Apostle
Paul to write and share with us. He's writing to a group of
believers and he's sharing with us just as this could be the
first letter of the Apostle Paul given by the Holy Spirit to the
church in the Dalles or the church in Rescue, California. Wherever
there's a body of people gathering together that love the Lord God
and have been revealed the truth of the gospel. And here in 1
Corinthians 1, verse 26, it says, for you see your calling, brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called. What's he saying? It's not very
noisy. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world,
the oddities, the things that nobody else would even pick. I remember some of my worst days
would be in the last one picked for a game in school, the last
one. Why? Because I was worthless.
Well, God has chosen the foolish things of the world and we by
nature say, well, I'm not that foolish to confound the wise
and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the
things that are mighty. Who has despised small things? Well,
God says, that's exactly what I use. That's exactly where I
go to. That's exactly who I call. That's
exactly what I work with. I work with the small things.
I don't work in that awesome thing that goes on called religion.
I work with my people on a one-to-one basis, and I bring them the gospel,
and it's a still, small voice. You know what about the Word
of God? It is invisible. It is an invisible word that
God scatters. Let's just go a little further
here. It says, the base things of the world, the things which
are despised hath God chosen, yea, the things which are not
to bring to naught things that are. And then he brings out the
why of this. In verse 29, this is the why
he does that. that no flesh should glory in
his presence. So if what we have brings out
our own glory, we're working off of the big things and not
the small things. Because God has chosen the small
things. He's chosen what looks like the
insignificant things. And as we go through the scriptures,
we find what a small thing is a grain of mustard seed. I used
to help my parents and grandparents plant gardens. And I was amazed
at the size of carrot seed. Amazed at the size of tomato
seeds. Amazed at the size of all the
seeds. Now corn, that's gargantuous
compared to most of them. beans, but those other things.
And we used to raise alfalfa. And one time, I helped my dad
plant that. That is the smallest, little,
insignificant seed. And yet, as we find, read with
me in the book of Matthew chapter 13, if you would. Matthew chapter
13, as we find, it isn't the size that's important. It's whose
it is, who plants it, and what's the production out of it. In
Matthew chapter 13, verse 31, it says here, now you can read
anything you want about a parable. I'm convinced that a lot of commentators
haven't read the parable. They make comments on it, but
they don't read the parable. But I just want to read this.
Another parable put he forth unto them saying, the kingdom
of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed. Now that is insignificant. I mean, if we had a choice of
choosing a size for ourself out of all the seeds, this is insignificant. And yet he goes on to say, which
is, a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least
of all seeds, but when it is grown, it is the greatest among
the herbs, and becometh a tree. Now the results is what's important.
It isn't the size, it's the results and God brings the results. Now we find an acorn turns into
an oak tree, a small insignificant compared to the oak tree. And
in verse three of this Matthew chapter 13, would you look at
that with me? We find here a wonderful parable. Brother Mike's gone
over this and it's brought much into the rest of the lessons
on this that he's been bringing and into our own preaching. He
says here in Matthew chapter 13, a sower, chapter 13, verse
three, and he spake many things unto them in parable saying,
behold, a sower went forth to sow. Now, barley, grain of some
kind, but from standpoint of the significance of the seed
when it comes to the word of God. Because he goes on to explain
to us in the book of Luke that the seed is the word of God.
It looks insignificant for someone to stand up and preach the gospel
and that seed goes out and it looks like it's insignificant
because there's nothing you can see about it. There's nothing
you can feel about it. There's nothing you can measure
about it. We know it is necessary that it is the gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ, but there's no measurement that we can give
to it, and yet we find that the Lord uses this illustration about
a sower going forth to sow with what apparently looks like insignificant
seed, and yet when it falls in good ground, brings forth fruit. We plant tomatoes, we expect
tomatoes. Three years ago, I believe it
was, I had tomato plants taller than I am, out of a little seed. When it comes to the gospel,
We have no idea where it's going to land. But when it lands in
good ground, and that means prepared soil, God has already done a
work there. He's already been preparing it.
He's already dealt with it. He's already doing it. He's already
called and written the name of the person in the Lamb's Book
of Life. When that insignificant little, what has no value to
it, hits the right place, God uses it to give us the new birth. Now, I don't understand all I
know about the new birth, and I don't understand all that I
know about the preaching of the gospel, but I know that it is
necessary for the preaching of the gospel before God will ever
give anybody the new birth. But from the bystanders position,
what was it it says, that the Jews, It was a stumbling block,
and to the Greeks, it is foolishness. Foolishness. And God is determined
by the foolishness of preaching to save those that believe. God
has done that. He has, and it apparently, it
is just, Insignificant, plabbering, and yet God works a work with
that. I'll never forget reading about
Ben Franklin going to hear George Whitefield. And someone asking,
do you believe what George Whitefield preaches? He says, no, but he
does. He does. Something had struck
him. There's some of that insignificant
seed had found lodgment and that good ground and brought forth
fruit. And that's what God does. He
does the work's word. It goes out from his own examples. He said, if we had faith, and
you know, I've looked at that wrong so long. If we have faith
as a grain of mustard seed, we can move them out. That tells
us how much we have on our own, nothing. If we had faith as a grain of
mustard seed, we could remove a mountain. I've had preachers,
well, mountains are all kinds and they do it. It just tell
us, we do not have faith on our own. As impossible as it is for
a camel to go through the eye of a needle, that's how possible
it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It's
impossible. And so it is impossible on our
own faith. If we had faith as a grain of
mustard seed, what's he telling us? It's impossible. I must supply
all that faith to you. I must give you faith. I cannot
depend on you because you can't have it. You don't have it. Even
if it was a grain of mustard seed, what could we do if we
had a pound of it? If we had faith as a grain of
mustard seed, we could remove a mountain. Okay, Lord, you got
me. I have none. But the gift of
the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit, is love, joy, peace,
and faith. He gives it all. He gives it
all. In the book of Hebrews, chapter
4 and verse 12, we know that verse, it says the Word of God
is quick. insignificant scattering of seed, which he says, the seed
is the word of God. Yet we find out in the hands
of God that seed is quick, living, and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword. All that we may try to do to
prevent that from being effective in our heart, is in error because
God is irresistible. And if he wasn't? We would never,
ever trust him. We'd never, ever come. We would
all end up in a pit of hell. But thank God that that word
is quick and powerful. It's insignificant to the world.
It's insignificant to us before we're saved. There's nothing
to it. It's just plabbering by somebody standing in a pulpit
or some friend of ours that's trying to talk to us about something
that's really important that we don't think is important.
And yet that word, is quick and powerful and sharper than any
two-edged sword dividing asunder. Isaiah said, turn with me to
Isaiah 55, if you would. Isaiah 55. Now this is that small thing.
The world looks at that insignificant. I don't remember who it was that
said, but this person, a philosopher said, in 50 years, Christianity will die out, and
this is in the 1700s. God has been faithful to preserve
his word in every generation. Every generation, there has been
the word of God. Here in the book of Isaiah 55
and verse 11, it says, So shall my word be that goeth
forth out of my mouth, it shall not talk about powerful word. To the world it's insignificant,
to people it's insignificant until God uses it to crack the
stone to pieces. to bring us the gospel, to give
us life and life more abundant. It is insignificant. It's a small
thing. And yet it is a thing to be reckoned
with because here he goes on to say, it shall not return unto
me empty or not accomplish what I intended for it to happen.
But it shall be that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing
whereunto I sent it." God Almighty saying this about that insignificant
word that is cast out by somebody with the gospel. He said, You
can take this to the bank. It will not return void. It will
accomplish that where unto I have sent it. And we take great faith
in that. We believe that, that God will
accomplish his purpose. And the world says, it's insignificant.
Don't go there. We have something better. Let's
study philosophy. Let's make our lives better.
On and on it goes. Well, back over in the book of
1 Corinthians, it tells us in chapter 10, 1 Corinthians 10,
this is an eye-opener. This is an eye-opener. It really
shares with us 2 Corinthians 10. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 4. 2 Corinthians 10, verse 4. It's a real eye-opener when we
look into the Scriptures and find out what God has to say
about His Word. And it tells us here, 1 Corinthians 10, And
verse four, he says, for the weapons of our warfare are not
carnal. Okay, so we're not gonna look
for carnal events, carnal effects. We're not looking for fleshly
events. But mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. This word of God is so powerful. It's not a weapon of physical. It is not a weapon that I can
convince you of. You know, religion has got to
the idea that we can convince you and train you into the kingdom
of heaven. That we, by persistence and by
getting you involved and making you feel guilty and telling dead
dog stories and all these things, we can get a movement out of
people. But here, the scriptures tell us that the weapons of our
warfare are not carnal. They're not The words of man's
wisdom and the apostle Paul was very clear wherever he went.
I did not come to you with the words of men's wisdom. I didn't
come with psychological words. I came with the word of God,
Christ and him crucified, Christ and him crucified. I preached
Christ and him crucified. Well, it says here through God
to the pulling down of strongholds. Can you imagine applying this
verse to Saul of Tarsus? It brought him to his knees.
It pulled down this man of great religious conviction. It pulled
down this teacher. It pulled down this man of profession. It pulled down this guy who had
all kinds of awards. He had an ear pin. Yet, it pulled
down casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalted
itself against the knowledge of God. That's what this word
will do. It takes philosophers and turns
them into believers. It goes on and says, against
the knowledge of God, bringing into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ. What efficient work, this small,
insignificant, looks like it's not doing anything. Word does,
when God sends it into good ground. So, as we see the words there
over in the book of Zechariah. Let's go over here to the book
of James chapter 1. James chapter 1, verse 18, our
brother shares this. James chapter 1. I heard a man
just recently, I was asked to listen to this guy on the internet,
and I heard this man discuss whether James is even in the
Bible. And he said, it should be left
up to all of us to decide whether any book should be in the Bible
or not. And I said, whoa. Pull your foot out of your mouth. All right, here in the book of
James, chapter one, verse 18. Of his own will begat he us with
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first
fruits of his creature. What is this talking about? Of
his own will gave he us the new birth, through the word of truth. God did something we could not
do. I have to ask you, how much did
you have to do with your natural birth? And then people say they
can get involved in their physical or spiritual birth? My goodness. All right. Now, one other place
over here. 1 Peter 1. And there in verse 23,
1 Peter 1 and verse 23, being born again. 1 Peter 1 verse
23, being born again, not of corruptible seed. This is that
insignificant, it doesn't look like it's accomplishing anything,
powerful word of God, that raises the dead. Powerful word of God
that quickens. Powerful word of God that gives
eyes to see, ears to hear, mouths to praise of his own will. Begat he us. Being born again, not a corruptible
seed, but of incorruptible by the word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. Let's back up to verse 22. And seeing you have purified
your souls and obeying the truth of the spirit unto unfeigned
love of the brethren, see that you love one another with a pure
heart, fervently being born again, not a corruptible seed, but incorruptible
by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. Now we notice
our natural consequent of being born into this world. We're just
like the grass. I am amazed how quickly the cliquetats
are turning brown. We're not even through April.
About that much, about an inch of topsoil cannot support much
when the moisture is gone. So we're just going to watch
it. And that's the way we all are. We're just like flour. like grass,
passing on, but his word will not pass away. Well, let's go
back over to the book. We have just a few minutes. Let's
go back over to the book of Zechariah chapter 10. And there's another
glorious part of that verse of scripture. Zechariah chapter
10, excuse me, Zechariah chapter
four, verse 10. And it says in that verse of
scripture, Verse says, for who hath despised the day of small
things? For they shall rejoice and shall
see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven. They are the eyes of the Lord,
which run to and fro through the whole earth. Now here we
have Zerubbabel. He is the, by this plummet in
his hand, he is declaring that he is the master builder of the
temple. He is the master miller. Now,
that word plummet, most of the time that word is translated
rock. In this particular place, it seems to be a rock that was
either wrapped in tin or wrapped in lead that was used as a plumb
bob. Well, there's one reason for
doing that. You can find it. But that's the way they identified
this. And they put a string on it,
and they held it up, and they could tell whether things were
perpendicular or not. And it doesn't take much. for
the master builder to identify a wall that is either plumb or
not. Now, in the building of the Church
of Christ, there is no room to the right hand or to the left
hand. He doesn't accept anything but absolute righteousness of
Christ. There is nothing we can add. And to a believer, there's nothing
we want to add because we know what we are. We know we are lost
children of Adam. We know that we're ruined by
the fall. We know we have nothing to contribute. Now, it is only after the new
birth that we're ever shown that. Prior to that, we're trying to
apply everything that we could possibly do. The natural man
is born out of level or out of plum. We're skewed. We have such a skew that we can
never stand up straight. The man, man was created upright,
but we fell. And that uprightness is no longer
of an effect. Now there is one that came to
this earth that was born upright. He is level and he is plum. He is straight and he is right. And his name is Jesus. absolute
purity in all forms. We find that he is righteousness
personified. He is the righteousness of God
and he gives us the righteousness of God in him. This word plummet
is usually translated stone, but here the stone is on the
end of a line and it is used for that measuring device in
the hands of a professional. You know what? We don't know. what is right until we're shown
what is right. We will be skewed in our thoughts
until it comes to us from the word of God. Now, God is very
faithful to show us his word. I remember hearing a preacher
preach one time that talked about that law written on our hearts,
and he says, in all times, among all people that God has ever
saved, when we hear the truth, That law written on our hearts
says, that's right. That's right. I can't argue with
the truth. Now, we may not have heard it
before, but when we hear it, we say, that's right, because
it is in line with everything else. It is plumb and it is level. Now, we find throughout the instructions
given throughout the scriptures that there is always this idea
that God has with regard to His Word. And I would like to read
a verse over in the book of Deuteronomy. The book of Deuteronomy, chapter
5. Deuteronomy, chapter 5. Brought out in the Old Testament
this wonderful principle that God left with regard to Himself,
to His Word, and to His people. Deuteronomy, chapter 5. Now,
since the Lord is the one that fulfills all this, we are thankful
that all of these things are given to us in Christ. Because
I can't keep it. I fail miserably. But here in
Deuteronomy chapter 5 and verse 32, the scriptures share this.
Ye shall observe to do therefore as the Lord your God hath commanded
you. Ye shall not turn aside to the
right hand or to the left. What is he saying? I've got the
plummet. I have the measuring device.
What is the measuring device? Christ. His gospel. His righteousness. That's the
standard. I have the plummet. Sir Rubable
has the plummet. And as they go around building
the walls. His plummet will indicate. Now,
His work is always right. God's work is always right. It's
always plumb, always level. There is no imperfections in
it. There's imperfections in the
fall, but no imperfections in the new birth. In the new birth,
there is perfection. It is Christ in us, the hope
of glory. It's the Holy Spirit in us. And
so going on in this verse of scripture in Deuteronomy chapter
5 verse 33, ye shall walk in all the ways of the Lord your
God, hath commanded you that ye may live and that it may be
well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the lands
which ye shall possess. Well, there were some people
here that understood I can't do that. I'll never get that
done. And God had revealed it to them.
There's one that did. His name is the Messiah. His
name is Christ. His name is the Lord. He has
provided all of this on the behalf of his people. We find that the
same word is used over here, about right hand to the left
hand. Remember when the Philistines got a hold of the ark? And they
thought it would be a great success to them, but it was a great defeat
to them. And they found out the only thing they could do is send
it back to Israel. And they put it on a cart. And
they hooked milk cows. Now God had that done on purpose.
I've been around milk cows trying to separate their calves from
them and I've got run over fences with it. They are interested
in protecting their calves. Well these milk cows headed out
and the scriptures tell us they didn't go to the right hand or
the left. God drew them exactly to the right place. lowing or
being very satisfied with their job. They were not worried about
their calves. Now this is so contrary to nature. This is so contrary to milk cows,
but God moved upon them to go directly to the place they needed
to go and they didn't go to the right hand or to the left hand.
Now, if God can do that with milk cows, God is able to do
that for you and I. Reveal the truth of the gospel
in such a way that he keeps us on the plum and the level. Because he is God and he is the
architect of his church. Josiah, one of the kings of His
father, great-grandfather something was David. It's mentioned about
him as not turning to the right hand or to the left hand. He
was straight arrow when it came to the gospel. Now, one verse
before we leave, except the Lord build the house. They that labor,
labor in vain. Psalm 127 and verse 1. except the Lord build the house.
And he's building that temple over there. Zerubbel is the type
of him. He's building the church. Unless
he does it, everything else is in vain. It is in vain. It is his word accomplishing
his purpose. The Lord doth build up Jerusalem. He gathered together the outcasts
of Israel. That's the interesting thing.
and he makes them level. They're the outcasts of Israel.
Well, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto
the Father but by me. How precious it is to see Sir
Rubabal with that plummet in his hand, measuring the building
as Christ is the master builder of his building, and everything
meets the standard. All right, we'll stop there for
tonight, and we'll pick up this verse. There's a little bit left
in it next time.