Let's go back to that portion
of scripture he read to us. I'll have a drink of water first. It is not my intention this morning
to go verse by verse this portion of scripture that he's read.
I do intend to do that next Lord's Day morning. And I hope to give
you the light that God has given to me on this portion of scripture. But I really want to focus on
just a very few words at the very beginning of chapter 14. And it is this, and here's the
title of the message. Behold the day of the Lord cometh. What does it mean by day? Well,
He doesn't mean a 24-hour day. As the first six days of creation,
each of those, we believe, were 24 hours in a day. That's not what He's speaking
about. He's not speaking about one specific
day. He's speaking about that period
in which our Lord Jesus He came into this sinful world, and that
began the day of our Lord. And it goes all the way through
to the end of this age, that is, to His second coming. One
writer said this passage is about the very sunrise of the Lord
Jesus and then the sunset of that which we call time. This
is the day of our Lord. We're living in the day of our
Lord. Now you must remember that when
Zechariah wrote these words, there was yet 500 years until
the Lord Jesus would be born in Bethlehem's manger. But he's
not specifically referring to that day of the Lord's birth,
nor to that day of the Lord's death, nor to that day of the
Lord's second coming, although all of those are included in
this day. You might read it this way, behold
the period of our Lord is coming. or the one writer said, the chronicle
of our Lord is coming. That is, when our Lord Jesus
entered into this world, the Spirit of God chronicled many
things that He did that were of significance and necessary
in order for us to understand the gospel of His grace. Now
everything that he did wasn't chronicled. Everything that he
spoke, every word that he spoke, every miracle that he performed,
they're not recorded. But those things that are necessary
for our knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and of a knowledge
of his salvation, these things have been chronicled, they have
been written for us. But there's yet more in this
gospel age that hasn't been chronicled yet. But there are things that
must happen because God purposed all things. You must keep in
mind that all things that happened during the day of Immanuel, God
with us, that is from his birth until his ascension back into
heaven, everything that happened has been recorded. Everything
that needs to be recorded has been chronicled for us. The things
that we need to know. There are a lot of things about
our Lord Jesus you don't need to know. but necessary things,
His identity as God and as man, His works that proved that He
was the Son of God, that is, all of His miracles. These are
chronicled for us. These are recorded for us. And
then His betrayal, His crucifixion, His necessary death, His resurrection,
His ascension, and the acts of the, we call them the acts of
the apostles, but really it's the acts of our Lord Jesus. They're
recorded in the book of Acts. the things that he did as far
as establishing local churches through his preachers, and then
the letters that were sent to all the churches or to various
churches, all of these things are chronicled, they're recorded
for our benefit that we might have a better understanding of
our Lord Jesus. And then of course the book of
Revelation is the book of the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is indeed coming one day. Now both His virgin birth and
His death upon the cross of Calvary and His second coming, these
are all included in the day of the Lord. And we're privileged
to live in the day of our Lord right now. Right now. These are the very times of our
Lord. You see, He ordained all these
times. He ordained all of these things
before the world ever began. And now everything during this
gospel age, we'll call it that, this gospel era, E-R-A, this
gospel period, or this gospel day, everything that is recorded
in the scriptures about our Lord Jesus are necessary for us to
know. It's the reason we want you to
bring your Bible. It's the reason you need to read
your Bibles at home. Because this is the book that
contains the very truth of God. And our Lord Jesus is the truth
of God incarnate. And just as the Word of God,
the Bible, just as the Bible will always prosper and be successful
to those to whom it's sent, even our Lord Jesus, He prospered
and He was successful in all that He did. So this age is the
very working out of the eternal purpose of God. Know this, the
Lord isn't making any new decisions. He's not making any new decrees. All things that happened during
this age of Messiah, during this, the day of our Lord, that Zechariah
said is coming, and it did come in 500 years, all of these things
are written for our, the scripture says, for our learning, our learning. Now to introduce this, he uses
the word behold. Behold. Be amazed, be astounded. He's got some things that he
wants to say, and remember, Zechariah is now finishing up his prophecy. We have been privileged to go
through the book of Zechariah, and throughout the book he has
been He has been speaking to us about the Lord Jesus Christ. And He so often referred to Him
as the man. The man. And then in chapter
14, it's like His book reaches the crescendo, for those of you
who are knowledgeable of music. Here's the very climax of the
book. Here's the high point of the
book. Here's what he's been pointing to all along. And I'm going to
go back and show you the passages where he identifies our Savior
as that man. But now he says to us in chapter
14 and verse number 9, Now he says to us, and here's
the high point of the book. If you want to read the very
climactic point of the prophecy of Zechariah, it's found here
in chapter 14 and verse 9, and the Lord shall be king over all
the earth. This man that he's been writing
about, that he's been prophesying about, This man whom he's been
predicting is going to come, and indeed he did come 500 years
after this. He says, this man is the Lord
and he shall be king over all the earth. Well, how did he get
to be king? Well, he's already been king
by virtue of the fact he's God. He's already been the ruler over
all things. because He's the Lord the Creator. He's the Lord who foreordained
all things. He's the Lord who governs all
the earth. But now as Zechariah reaches
the last of the book, he says, He shall be king over all the
earth. That is, all shall finally know
that Jesus of Nazareth is King of kings and Lord of lords. And he says this in the last
statement of verse nine, in that day shall there be one Lord and His name one. And the question
we should obviously be asking is, who is this one Lord? And Peter answers in Acts 2,
he says, God has made that same Jesus whom you crucified, both
Lord and Christ. So the man Christ Jesus, he's
the King. He is the Lord. He's the governor
among the nations. Now, throughout his prophecy,
Zechariah has been directing us to behold a man. Go back with
me, and I want to show you these. This is a bit of a review for
all of us, but I want you to go back to chapter 1 in verse
8. And I want you to notice how over and over again, Zechariah
is fixated on one man. And I'll say this to you, brethren
and sisters, and those of you who don't know the Lord Jesus
Christ, we must be fixated on this man. Because all of the
Bible is about this man, Christ Jesus, our Lord. For you see,
there's one God, right? We all know that. There's one
God and one mediator. between this one God and men,
well, who is that? Who is that go-between that stands
between us and God? It's the man, Christ Jesus. You see, our Lord Jesus, though
He is God over all, blessed forever, He has never been ashamed to
identify with us. That's quite amazing. And when
He began His earthly ministry, He began His earthly ministry
really in the same way that we began. He was born into this
world. As God overall, He had no beginning. He preexisted time. He preexisted creation. In fact, all things were made
by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.
But this Creator God, the eternal God, He stepped out of eternity
and He came down here and was made in fashion as a man. And He entered into this world
like you did. He was born. But unlike you and
me, He wasn't born of an earthly father. He was born by the power
of the Holy Spirit. He was conceived by the power
of the Holy Spirit. And He grew up a real man. There's nothing fake about Him.
You've got to understand this about our Lord Jesus in His humanity. He wasn't pretending. He wasn't
acting as if he was a man. He was really a man. That baby of Bethlehem's manger
was as dependent upon his mother for nourishment, for protection,
for warmth, for love, as you were when you came into this
world. And this is the amazing thing. Our Lord Jesus is the
man Christ Jesus. And so, Zechariah begins, even
in chapter one, he begins to have us focus on this one who
is a man. So let me show you several things
here. Number one, in chapter one in verse eight, he's a man
riding a red horse. Look at chapter one, verse eight.
I saw by night and behold a man. It's amazing how the writers
of scripture love to use that word behold when it comes to
our savior. Behold, be amazed, be astounded. And Zacharias says it was at
night. And the Lord gave him a vision.
We know the Lord gave him nine visions. This is the first one. And he says, by night he saw
this vision, behold a man riding upon a red horse. This is our
Lord Jesus Christ. Zacharias saw him in his vision.
And he saw him on a red horse. Which is an emblem, the red horse
is an emblem of majesty. It's an emblem of authority.
But the red horse also reminds us of redemption because of the
color of the horse, it's a red horse. And in the scriptures
we know there is mentioned over and over again the blood of the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's riding upon a red horse. It's as though He's riding in
triumph because He redeemed His people from their sins. But remember,
Zechariah is seeing this 500 years before Christ came into
the world. He foresees the Son of God being
made man, like one of us. But that man who lived and walked
in Galilee, who went to Jerusalem, oft times to the feasts, who
wound up suffering, bleeding, dying upon a cross of Calvary,
that man was the God-man. And the reason that man died
upon the cross of Calvary was to save his people from their
sins. There's no salvation apart from
the death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore, the Spirit of
God showed Zechariah, our Lord Jesus, riding upon a red horse
in triumph. Because you see, our Savior,
when He died upon the cross of Calvary, it wasn't an effort
to save. He didn't try to redeem. He didn't work towards saving
sinners and then the sinner has to kind of finish up the work. No, our Lord Jesus was successfully,
He successfully put away the sins of His people. He satisfied
the justice of God. And so Zachariah, his first vision
of Him, It's the first vision he has of him. And he sees him
riding upon a red horse because he is the triumphant redeemer. He is the one who saved his people
from our sins. That word here, behold a man
riding upon a red horse, when he says a man, he's talking about
the perfect man. He's talking about the God-man,
our Lord Jesus Christ. And Zachariah knew, I'm fully
persuaded he knew that the rider on the red horse was his Savior
and our Savior, his God and our God, appearing in one of his
many pre-incarnate Old Testament manifestations. In other words,
our Lord Jesus, he often appeared in the Old Testament as a man. And I think that one of the reasons
he did that was to show us that he is going to come into this
world as a real man, and that he's not ashamed to be identified
with us. You see, he had to be man because
God can't suffer. God can't bleed. God doesn't
have a body. John chapter 4 says, God is spirit,
right? God is spirit. They that worship
Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." God being spirit,
God can't believe, God can't suffer, God can't feel. Surely
God can't die because God's life. So our Lord Jesus had to be made
man. But in being made man, watch
it now, He did not cease to be God. And He was not half God
and half man. He was all God and He was all
man. You say, Jim, I can't wrap my
mind around that. Who can? None of us can fully
comprehend that. But I understand why He had to
be God to know the requirements of God, to know what God demanded. And I understand why he had to
be a man to be able to suffer, to be able to enter into some
of the afflictions, the infirmities that we have to bear. And he
had to be a man to suffer. He had to be a man to feel pain.
He had to be a man to know what hunger was. He had to be a man
to know what weariness was. And he had to be a man to die
because the penalty of sin is death. By one man came sin and
death. By the next man, the last Adam,
our Lord Jesus Christ came forth as a result of his death, life
for all those in whose stead he died. This is the only Savior. He is indeed bone of our bone
and flesh of our flesh. In all respects, he was like
us except for sin. He's the great covenant head
of his people. He's one of us. And I think one
of the reasons that The Spirit of God inspired Zachariah to
mention Christ being a man so many times is to show us that
our Savior, He was willing to be identified among us. He wasn't
ashamed. This man is our mediator. He
appeared here in human form to Zechariah as if to show his willingness
and his readiness to come into this world to save his people
from our sin. It's as though our Lord Jesus
is saying by these many appearances, and I'm only showing you a few
here in the book of Zechariah, but he often appeared as a man
in the Old Testament, as if to declare to us, I'm willing, I'm
willing to be made flesh in order to save my people. I'm willing
to endure everything that God in His holiness must put upon
me. I am willing to bear the wrath
of God in my soul according to the will of God because that's
how much I love my people." He's the man. He appeared here
to Zechariah in human form. He's riding upon a white horse.
Now secondly, Zacharias sees him, look at verse 9, well also
in verse 8, he sees him standing in the middle of myrtle trees. Read verse 8 again, I saw by
night behold a man riding upon a red horse. He stood among the
myrtle trees that were in the bottom and behind him there were
red horses and speckled and What? And I said, Oh my Lord, what
are these? Zechariah identified him as being
the Lord. He called him Lord. And the angel
that talked with me, you see sometimes in the Old Testament,
our Lord Jesus is identified as the angel of the Lord. What does the word angel mean?
Messenger. Messenger. Ambassador. You see, our Lord Jesus is the
messenger from God. He's the ambassador come from
God and He's come from God with good news. And the good news is there's
salvation for sinners through Him. The angel that talked with
me said unto me, I will show you what these things be. Look
at verse 10. And the man that stood among
the myrtle trees answered and said, these are they whom the
Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth. Then answered
the angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees. He always stands with his people.
So I want you to understand this about this man, the king, the
one who is Lord. He's always to be found among
his people. Wherever his people gather together,
that's where you'll find this man, Christ Jesus. With a body
of believers like we have this morning, he's here with us. You see, we're like myrtle trees.
We didn't just grow up on our own. We're plants that God's
planted. We're trees that He's planted.
And amongst all the trees in this forest this morning, amongst
all the living saints of God gathered here, there stands one
in our midst though invisible to our eyes, nevertheless, by
His Spirit, He is right here with us. He's the man who is
always in the midst of the myrtle trees. He's the man Christ Jesus. But He's not only with groups
when God's people meet together. He's the man who's with us even
when we're all by ourselves. Because he said, I will never
leave you nor forsake you. Some of you live by yourself. You have nobody there with you.
Oh, relatives come and go and so forth, but at night you're
by yourself. No, you're not. No, you're not. The man Christ Jesus by His Spirit
is right there with you because you're one of His myrtle trees.
You're one of those that He planted in His forest. And you're growing
in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. He's a man standing amidst the
myrtle trees. And here's the third one I want
to show you. Look at chapter 2 and verse 1. Once again, Zacharias
sees this man. Chapter 2 and verse 1. I lifted
up mine eyes again and looked and behold, behold a man with
a measuring line in his hand. And Zacharias says, I said, where
are you going? See that verse two, where are
you going? He said to measure Jerusalem, to see what is the
breadth thereof and what is the length thereof. Here he is, our
savior, and he's portrayed now as having a measuring line. We
would say a tape measure, like a yardstick we'll say. And he's
measuring. He has this in His hand. What
is this measuring line in His hand? Well, He's measuring Jerusalem. Jerusalem is God's name for the
church of our Lord Jesus Christ. So this could be, number one,
the Lamb's Book of Life. Because He will measure and take
a tally that all of those whose names are written in the Lamb's
Book of Life do receive that salvation ordained for us before
the world began, that we will experience the saving sovereign
grace of God in our hearts. He will make sure that every
name written in the Lamb's Book of Life will measure up to true
righteousness and holiness in Christ. He's got a measuring
line. And I think this measuring line
may also indicate righteousness. You see, hear me, all of you
and those of you who are watching, in order to measure up with God,
okay, in order to be accepted by God, in order to be welcomed
by God, He's going to measure me. And I must meet the standard
that He has set. And the standard He has set,
the standard of judgment, is righteousness. And if you aren't righteous,
you're unacceptable to God. If when you die, you're not righteous,
you cannot be accepted by God, because you won't measure up.
You see, here's what God demands. Please hear me. God demands perfection. He doesn't demand you do the
best you can do, because the best you can do is just not very
good. You say, well, preacher, I'm
probably better than you are. Maybe you are, but I'm not the
standard. I'm just a sinner saved by grace,
but in the Lord Jesus Christ, I made the righteousness of God
in Him. You see, every sinner who believes
on the Son of God, every sinner who looks to Him for salvation,
The Lord imputes charges to him, credits to him or her, that righteousness
which God demands. And with that righteousness,
we measure up. And I'm asking you, how do you
measure up? Because at the judgment, you
see, you're not going to be compared with somebody else. You say,
well, I'll tell you, I'm better than that old drunk down there
on skid row, or I'm better than those prostitutes, I'm better
than those drug addicts. Well, morally, I hope so. But it isn't morality that makes
you accepted with God. It's righteousness. And here's the good news. God has made sinners just like
you and just like me. God has made us in Christ to
be... He's made Christ to be our wisdom
and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, and sanctification
is holiness. You see, in Christ we're both
righteous and holy. We measure up. Don't you think
for a moment that when you stand before God that He will measure
you according to your, if your good works outweigh your bad
works. That's what most people think.
No. Here's the measuring line. Righteousness. You remember the story of Belshazzar? He had a party. He told some
of his servants, he said, go over and get those vessels we
took from Solomon's temple. Bring them over here. We need
some more wine glasses, some more wine goblets. So they had, of course, conquered
Jerusalem. They went and got those, and
everybody's drinking wine, having a good old time, dancing, celebrating. All of a sudden, he saw a hand
writing on the wall. Mene, mene, tekel, ufarsin. What in the world does that say?
I don't recognize that language. Called all of his linguistic
experts in. All the foreign language experts
who taught various languages in high school or whatever. Brought
them in. What kind of language is that?
Said, we don't know. Never seen that before. And somebody
said, I think I know somebody that knows. Daniel. Bring Daniel
in, I bet he can help you with that. Daniel, do you know what those
words mean? I saw a hand writing on the wall and it didn't have
an arm attached to it. And there was no body attached
to the arm. And he wrote those words, can
you help me? I can help you. It's essentially your death sentence. What does it mean? You have been
weighed in the balances and found wanting. Or to paraphrase it,
you have been measured by the man with the measuring line and
you don't measure up. Do you measure up? Boy, that's a question for the
ages, isn't it? And I tell you, in Christ, I
measure up. In myself, I don't. Oh, no. But in the Lord Jesus, I made
the very righteousness of God. That's the greatness of this
miracle of salvation. The Lord shows him a man with
a measuring line. Now, go a little further. Look over at chapter 3 and verse
8, and I've got to go quickly here. And then I'm going to tie
this to another verse, chapter 3, verse 8. Hear now, O Joshua,
the high priest, thou and thy fellows that sit before thee,
for they are men wondered at. Behold, he loves this word, behold. And John the Baptist said, Behold,
what's the rest of what he said? The Lamb of God that taketh away
the sin of the world. Behold, I will bring forth my
servant, and he identified him in all capital letters, THE BRANCH. THE BRANCH. Now go over to chapter
6 verse 12. And here's the last place in
the Old Testament where our Lord Jesus caught the branch, there's seven
times, I don't have time to go to all the references, but look
at this one, chapter 6 and verse 12. And speak unto him saying,
thus speaketh the Lord of hosts saying, behold the man, there's
the word behold again, and there's the word man again, whose name
is the branch. The branch. He shall grow up
out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.
In other words, he's gonna save sinners. He's building a spiritual
temple. Even he shall build the temple
of the Lord, and therefore he'll bear the glory. You don't deserve
any glory, do you? Well, no, I don't deserve any
glory. I'm not building the temple.
I'm not building a spiritual temple. He is, it's his body. It's his church. he shall bear
the glory, and shall set and rule upon his throne, and shall
be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall
be between them both. This is our Lord Jesus again.
Behold the man who is the branch. He's the branch. It's an interesting verse, and
I do want you to take the time to look at this. Hold your plates
here. Ezekiel chapter 34. I want you
to look at this because it's a very powerful verse of scripture
and I want to draw your attention to it. Ezekiel chapter 34. He's been speaking about the
covenant of God's grace And he says in verse 29, I don't have
time to read all these verses. He says, Ezekiel 34, 29. And I will raise up for them,
for his people, read the context for those whose names were included
in the covenant of grace. I will raise up for them, here's
what I want to show you. He says a plant of renown. That's who our Lord Jesus is.
He's the plant of renown. The word renown means glory. You see, our Lord Jesus Christ
is the very glory of God, and He is the plant whom God planted. The Holy Spirit planted the seed
of God in the womb of Mary. And our Savior was born and He
grew up. He's the plant of renown. There's
nobody else like Him because He's not merely a man, though
He was fully a man and a sinless man at that. But He's that plant
of renown, of glory that God planted. And He's the one to
whom all the other plants look. He's the plant of renown. He's
the branch. He's the branch of God's planting.
And He's the one who's building the temple. He's the one who
saves sinners by His grace. Let me go quickly, because I
want to make sure I get through this message. Go to chapter 3
and verse 9. I'm going to have you back up
a little bit, and I want to show you this. He is the, Christ is
the man who is the stone. Look at chapter 3 verse 9. I
already read verse 8. He says, for behold the stone
that I have laid before Joshua. He's the stone. This man is the
stone. He's the rock of our salvation.
Who are you building on? That's what I want to ask you.
Who are you building your salvation on? Who are you building your
hopes on? Better be building your hopes
upon the man who is the stone. The man who is the rock, Christ
Jesus. Now, go back over to chapter
14, and let me close this message. Chapter 14. See, he has been speaking about
this man. And now we know more about him.
And now he identifies this man as being, in verse 9, the king
over all the earth. This is a king far greater than
any earthly king who's ever lived because he's the king over all
things. He's the king of kings and he's
the Lord of lords. Moreover, he's the one Lord. That's what he says in verse
9. So you see, Zechariah, he reaches, it's like he kind of
summarizes his whole book. Then he takes us, as it were,
by the hand, and he says, this man that I've been talking about,
I've been referring to this man, he now says this man is the Lord. He doesn't want to be Lord. He
is Lord. And I'll give you one more reference,
Philippians chapter 2. Look at Philippians chapter 2,
concerning this man. Philippians chapter 2. I begin with verse 6. Concerning
this man who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself voluntarily now, made
himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant,
and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion
as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross. Wherefore, because he died to
save his people, because he died to satisfy justice for all of
those in whose stead he lived and died, wherefore, God also
hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of things
in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is exactly
who Zacharias said he was. Lord, to the glory of God the
Father. This man is Lord. Bow down, proud
sinner, and worship him. Sue for mercy. He's the only
one who can help you. He's the only one who can save
you. This man, Christ Jesus. Well, get your psalm books out.
Let's sing 303.