Thank you for that song. Okay, let me see if I can open
up this 11th chapter for you this morning, Zechariah chapter
11. Now here's the key. Here's the
key to understanding what this chapter is about. Go down to
verses 12 and 13. I said unto them, if you think
good, give me my price. If not, forbear. So they weighed
for my price 30 pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, verse
13, he said, cast it unto the potter a goodly price. that I was prized at of them. And I took the 30 pieces of silver
and cast it to the potter in the house of the Lord. Now hold your place there. Go
over to the gospel according to Matthew. And I want you to
go to chapter 26. See, every portion of Scripture,
anywhere you go in the Bible, We're always looking for our
Savior. We're always looking for the
Lord Jesus Christ. And He is indeed in that 11th
chapter of Zechariah because He's the true Shepherd who gave
His life for His sheep or His flock. I go over here in Matthew chapter
26, look at verse 14. And this will tie it together
for you. Matthew 26, 14. Then one of the, Matthew 26,
14. Then one of the 12 called Judas
Iscariot. He went unto the chief priests.
Stop right there a minute. There's a portion of scripture
in the book of Leviticus chapter 26 that gives us some information
about the duty, one of the many duties of the priests, and one
of their many duties was to establish a value on anything that is to
be sold. That's why Judas went to the
priests. He went to the priests. And he
said, and I'll give you the exact reference in a minute, but he
said, He said to them, what will you give me? I'll deliver him
unto you and the priests. This is one of their duties,
to establish value for things that were questionable as to
their worth. And they covenanted with him
30 pieces of silver. 30 pieces of silver. And from that time, he sought
opportunity to betray him. Now go over to the next chapter
of Matthew, chapter 27, and look at verse three. Let me read a
few verses to you here. Verse three, then Judas, Matthew
27, three, then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw
that he was condemned and repented himself and brought again the
30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, and here's
what he said, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent.
And they said, what is that to us? See thou to that. And he cast the pieces of silver
in the temple And he departed and went and hanged himself. And the chief priests took the
silver pieces. After all, they're the ones who
set the value upon Jesus of Nazareth, which was the value of an ordinary
common servant or a slave. They considered him to be of
no more value than a slave. And they said it's not lawful
for it to put them in the treasure because it's the price of blood. And they took counsel and bought
within the potter's field to bury strangers in it. Wherefore
that field was- it was called the field of blood unto this
day, then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremiah
the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver,
the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of
Israel did value, and they gave it for the potter's field, as
the Lord had appointed me." So as you go back to Zechariah chapter
11, obviously now our Lord Jesus is to be seen in this passage
of Scripture. And you'll notice in those verses
that I read to you, here in verses 11, verse 12 and 13, he talks
about I, he talks about me. You see, the Lord Jesus, He's
behind all of this. Even His very betrayal. His substitutionary sacrifice,
His own death, even the price that the priest put upon His
head, 30 pieces of silver, it's the Lord Jesus who governed all
things. Know this, children of God, and
know this, you who are unbelievers. Our Lord Jesus is the sovereign
governor of all things. Even He was the governor in His
own death. Everything that had to do with
His substitutionary sacrifice at the cross of Calvary, our
Lord had purposed all of it before the world began. And He's the
one who would bring it all to pass. Now, in this portion of
Scripture, in Zechariah chapter 11, we have false shepherds who
are after the Lord's sheep. also referred to in this passage
of the scripture as his flock. So you have the false shepherds
who are seeking to devour our Lord's flock, devour the sheep. And you have the shepherd of
the flock, the shepherd of the sheep is our Lord Jesus himself. As we look down through chapter
11, I'll show you a few things here. I'll try to get right into
this. Here's the reality of false religion
or churches, which our God is going to destroy. He's going
to destroy it all, everything that is against Him. Look at
verses 1 and 2, and this is talking about literally the destruction
of the temple in Jerusalem. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that
the fire, the fire of God's wrath, may devour thy cedars." The cedars
were precious trees. And so much in the temple were
made. So much of the temple was made
with the cedar trees. And then he says, howl, fir tree. The fir tree is a notch above,
a notch above the cedar trees. These were highly valued as well. For the cedar is fallen. What's
he talking about? He's talking about the consummate,
the consuming, I should say, or the destruction of the temple.
You see, that temple where our Lord was to be worshiped, In
fact, the first time he went to the temple, he said, you've
made my father's house, which ought to be a house of prayer.
It ought to be a house of worship. You ought to be a house where
God is honored and God is adored. You've made it to be a den of
thieves. And remember how he turned the
money changers' tables over? And he did that in his public
ministry when he first went to the Passover, as in his public
ministry. And he did it at the end of his
public ministry, just before he was crucified. He goes to
the temple. And he says, you've made it a
den of thieves. And they did. And it was no longer
a house of worship. It was no longer a house of prayer. It was a house of formality. It was a house of religious ceremony. It was a house of religious ritual
with no heart worship. And our Lord here in Zechariah
chapter 1, He is predicting the demise of the temple. And historically, and good many
of you know this, in 70 AD, the Roman emperor entered into Jerusalem. and fulfilled our Lord's words,
our Lord said concerning the temple, He said there's not going
to be left one stone standing upon another stone. And I mean
the Romans went in in 70 A.D. and they tore that temple and
the city of Jerusalem all to pieces. And the reason was this. because it had decayed. It was
useless. No longer was God honored. No
longer were blood sacrifices offered unto God pointing to
the Lord Jesus Christ. And of course, when He died,
the veil of the temple was rent, remember, from top to bottom. And we have access to God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. But to the Jews, it was no longer
a place of worship. There was no sacrifices offered
by the priesthood up until the time of our Lord's death. And
then when He died, no sacrifices were necessary anyway, for by
one sacrifice, by one offering, He had perfected forever all
those that were sanctified by God the Father in eternal election. You see, the temple had served
its purpose during the days of Solomon. Remember, David couldn't
build the temple, but he got all the materials together for
the building of it. The Lord said, you can't build
the temple because you're a bloody man. You're a warrior. You're
a military man. He said, your son, by the name
of Solomon, He's going to build the temple, and it's Solomon's
temple. And when that temple was dedicated, thousands of animals
were sacrificed to God, every single one of them pointing to
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, rivers of blood flowed
in that temple. And you'll remember from your
studies, our studies in the tabernacle, just like every piece of furniture
in the tabernacle and everything about the tabernacle, pictured
either our Lord Jesus in one of his offices or the work that
he would do, that continued on to the temple. But gradually
the temple became a place of ritualism, just going through
the motions of religion. And God said, I hate what you
do there. You read in the book of Isaiah.
The Lord says, I despise it. And even when they were offering
sacrifices unto God, there was no heart, there was no view toward
the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the Lord said, you may
as well be offering to me pig's blood. That's what He said, wasn't
it? You might as well offer pig's blood to me. I hate your sacrifices. I hate your offerings. I hate
the ritualism and the ceremonies of temple worship. And here's
what the Lord is predicting here in verses one and two. The destruction
of the temple. The destruction of the temple.
He even says, howl, oh ye oaks of Bashan for the forest of the
vintage has come down. The mighty oaks. He said it's
all coming to everything, everything that Israel valued quite highly. The Lord said, I'm gonna destroy
it all. And the reason for that was because their religion was
corrupt. Now this is not only confined
to that day, this is for today too. Here's the thing about modern
religion. It's corrupt. It's rotten. And God's going to have to destroy
it. I know there are a lot of churches
out here But the Baptists and the Buddhists and the Mormons
and the Methodists and all different kinds of denominations and churches
and so forth, religious institutions, Very, very few true churches
exist in this world. Most of the so-called churches
today are just edifices that magnify the goodness of man,
the will of man, the works of man, and God is not honored at
all. And God's going to destroy it
all. You can mark that down. You read over in Revelation chapter
17 and 18, The Lord says Babylon's going
to fall. And Babylon is God's name for
all false religion. And I'm telling you, most religion
today is false. It's false. And God's going to
get rid of it. And I'll tell you, To those of
us who love the gospel of God's sovereign grace, who love the
message of redemption, who love the message of Jesus Christ and
Him crucified, who love the message of salvation by grace alone,
when that day of the destruction of the false religions of this
world comes, we'll say amen, hallelujah. Read Revelation chapter
19, the first few verses. I'll be glad when it falls. You
see, there are false churches today. I know sometimes people will
tell me about a loved one and say, well, at least they're going
to church. Well, hang on a minute. Hang
on. It's better to have no religion
than to go listen to false religion. I have some folks in my family When they weren't in religion,
we got along pretty good. They got religion. Religion without grace. Religion
without Christ. Religion without the righteousness
and the bloody sacrifice of the Son of God. They got religion. Quit this and quit that and quit
something else. Don't go here and don't go there.
Don't have much to do with them. They don't have much to do with
us, I should say. Better to have no religion. I
don't get excited when people say, well, except I'm sure glad
that they're going to church. Well, it all depends on what
church it is. That does make a difference,
doesn't it? Doesn't it make a difference what you're listening to? Who's
being magnified? I tell you, here's a stark reality. Most churches today are false.
They're useless. They're useless. And I know we
hardly exist on the radar of modern religion because we're
just a few folks. Just a few of us. But our Lord
said, fear not, little flock. That's what he said. I'm sure
I'm preaching to some folks out there, maybe just one person
or two, maybe a couple, a husband and wife, or maybe just a few
folks getting together and worshiping. As far as the world's concerned,
you don't even have church. Why, you're not even religious
because you don't go to some big mega church. I'll tell you
what, God sees your hearts and God sees those who worship Him
in spirit and in truth, who love Him, who love His gospel. who love substitution, who love
satisfaction, who love the bloody death of our Lord Jesus Christ
and His triumphant resurrection. Don't be discouraged. I know
we're surrounded by great big churches and thousands of people. You know, if you want to get
ahead today in religion, you've got to build not a new church,
but a family life center. That's what you gotta have. A
family life center and have a basketball court and a swimming pool and
a track and all of this kind of stuff to keep people entertained. I tell you what I'm trying to
do here is preach the gospel to you to magnify the Lord Jesus
Christ. So we'll worship God. God's to
be worshiped. God's to be honored. We're not
bragging on the flesh. We don't count. All that's counted
here is the money. The men go back and count because
that's got to be done. We don't count heads. We're not numbering you. You're
not another notch on our evangelistic gun. I don't want your money. We don't
even pass the offering plate anymore. Like the fellow said, I don't
want your money, I want you. I want you. We're just trying to be honest
with people. I don't want you to go to hell.
I don't want you to perish. If you get involved with false
religion, you're going down with them. That's what the Lord said. And then there's the reality
of false preachers. Look at verse 3. There's a voice
of the howling of the shepherds for the glorious spold, a voice
of the roaring of the young lions for the pride of Jordan is bold.
What in the world is he talking about? He's talking about in
the days of our Lord Jesus Christ when he was on this earth, Those
false shepherds, they howled. They howled like wolves when
our Lord Jesus rescued one of the followers of those false
preachers. They howled like wolves, like
He took a lamb right out of their mouths. And our Lord called them
devouring wolves, did He not? And they howled. Why did they
hate the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, one of the reasons is because
he was getting more of their followers. In fact, you read
in the Gospel of John, the false prophet says, behold, the whole
world's gone after him. What are we going to do? And somebody said, let's kill
him. The wolves howled because he was snatching out of their
jaws little lambs, the lambs of his flock. and saving them. I'll tell you what the false
preachers do. They slaughter the flock of the
Lord. Look at verse four. And as you
go down through here, you ought to underline the word flock.
Look at verse four. Thus saith the Lord my God, feed
the flock of the slaughter, the slaughter. at trying to slaughter
my flock. Look down at verse 7. And I will
feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock.
Drop down to verse 11. It was broken in that day, so
the poor of the flock, God's flock, waited upon me, and they
knew that it was the word of the Lord. Once again in verse
17. Woe to the idle shepherd that
leaveth the flock. The Lord has His sheep. He chose those sheep. In fact,
He would say in John chapter 10, He did say, Other sheep have
I that are not of this fold, are not of this flock. Them also
I must bring, He said. He's got His flock. And though
they may be for maybe a number of years fooled and deceived
by the wolves, in his own time, our Lord will come by free and
mighty sovereign grace and pull from the very jaws of the wolves
one of his dear lambs and put it in his arms and teach him
the gospel. That's what he did to me. That's
what he did to you. He carries us in his arms. Oh, these false preachers, they
slaughter the flock. In other words, they kill people. You will say, well, they don't
kill people. They kill their souls. They got
a deadly message. Now you hear me. The message of you exercise your
will to make God's purpose to be fulfilled? Those are deadly
words. Deadly words. The words, God
can't do anything for you unless you let him, those are words
of death. Words of death. False preaching. And what do they do? They make
merchandise out of men's souls. Look at verse five. Whose possessors,
they kill them. They kill them. They kill them
with their words. They kill them with their false
gospel. And they hold themselves not
guilty. They say, we're not doing anything
wrong. We're just trying to build a church. And they sell them. They treat
people like merchandise. They are merchandisers of men's
souls, according to 2 Peter. And they say, Blessed be the
Lord. And they'll say, I'm rich. Look what a big church we've
got. Look how much money we've got. Look at our buildings, all
these buildings that we've got. We're rich. The Lord has blessed
us. That's what they say. Don't you
be fooled by multitudes or big buildings. It means nothing. It means nothing. I'm comfortable in this building
and I'm thankful for it. But it's all gonna melt with
fervent fire someday. We take good care of what God
has given to us. We won't go about bragging on
our facilities. And the shepherds, in the verse
five, they don't show them any pity. Because the people in these churches,
they're really not people to them. They're merchandise. They're
merchandise. And these are foolish shepherds.
The Lord says that in verse 15. The Lord said unto me, said to
Zechariah, take yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. Do the things a foolish shepherd
would do, like leading a flock into a barren pasture. That's
what a foolish shepherd would do. It's like taking a flock
to a river that's dried up. There's no water. These foolish shepherds being
false preachers, they don't have a message from God because their
message is not Christ and Him crucified. It's not the grace
of God. It's not what God's got to do
for the poor sinner. Their message is poor God, poor
God, poor Jesus, foolish shepherds, foolish shepherds. And there's the reality here
of the true shepherd and his flock. Notice what the Lord tells
Zechariah in verse four. Thus saith the Lord my God, here's
Zechariah speaking. He says, the Lord said, feed
the flock. You feed the flock. I'm trying
to lead you, the flock of God, into the green pastures of the
gospel of the grace of God again this morning. I say, come with
me. Come with me into the pastures
of the word of God. of God's free and sovereign grace,
of the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Not your works, not your
will. We don't talk about those. We
talk about the will and the work of God. The Lord tells Zachariah, you
feed the flock. They're trying to slaughter them,
but you feed them. But you know when the flock will
really be fed? Look at verse 7. God says, I'll
feed the flock. I'll feed the flock, the flock
of slaughter. Even you, O poor of the flock,
blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God. He says,
I will feed. You see, here I am talking to
you this morning, and I'm endeavoring to feed the flock, to feed you
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm taking you into
the green pasture, but I can take you to the pasture, but
I can't make you eat. But I know who can. The Lord says, I will. I will. I know the false religion, it
says, but he can't. And Christ says, I will. Don't
you love the I wills of the Lord? Oh, the true shepherd is Christ
Himself. And He says to Zechariah, He
says, take two staves. Verse 7. The one He says I call
beauty. The one I call beauty. That's
the gospel of grace. That's the gospel of the grace
of God. And the other I call bands. And that's the preaching
and the teaching of the Word of God of the gospel of grace
that binds us together. What is it that binds us together
here? It's the gospel. It's the preaching
of the gospel. But then the Lord shows what
he's going to do to Israel and to all who will not hear or believe
this gospel. He says, I'm going to break,
I'm going to break the staff of beauty. You know what that
means? I'm going to take the gospel
away from you. I'm going to break it. Understand this. Get this. The greatest blessing God can
give to you, aside from salvation now, the greatest blessing God
can give to you, to a group of people meeting together, The
greatest blessing He can give you is the staff of the gospel
of the grace of God. To put you under the sound of
somebody who is exalting Christ Jesus, the Lord of glory, and then to take the staff that
binds the people of God together, The glue, the glue that holds
us together is the work of the Spirit of God. But the greatest judgment He
can send to you, at least in this world, is to break the gospel
staff and take that gospel away from you. Because you got nothing
then. You're dead while you live. That's
right. And then He broke the staff of
bind, that which binds people together. No more preaching,
no more teaching of the truth. And I'm telling you what, if
He breaks the staff of beauty, of the gospel of grace, if He
breaks the staff of bands, no more preaching the truth to you. Brother Richardson said, you're
gone, Jesse. Isn't that right? You're just
gone. There's no hope for you. What happened to the good shepherd
here? The good shepherd is the one who gave his life for the
sheep. And I started off talking about this, and so I'm going
to finish the message this way. He was the one who ordered everything
regarding his own betrayal, his own suffering, his own death. He's the one who made the iron
ore in the mines that they mined and made the spikes, the nails
that were driven through his hand. He's the one who gave the
power to the soldiers to drive the nails in. everything about His death, He
ordained before the world was made, because that's the only
way God could be just and justify the ungodly, was through His
death. Well, I can't send you home without
admonishing you to come to Christ Jesus. And I'll tell you, His
flock will come. His flock will come. My sheep,
hear my voice. What is the voice of the shepherd? His gospel. Will you hear? Well, I'll tell you what, if
you will hear, it's because He's given you ears to hear. And it's
a sweet message, redeeming grace. Christ said, I lay down my life
for the sheep. I lay it down that I might take
it again. And then he calls us his voice. My sheep hear my voice. I know
them and they follow me. I give to them eternal life.
They shall never perish. The voice of the shepherd is
the voice of the gospel of free grace. Not sinner do, it's sinner
is done. Isn't that wonderful? What more glorious message would
you ever want to hear than it's done? Christ said, John 19 verse
30, it's finished. It is finished. Who finished
the work of redemption? The shepherd did. Our shepherd,
the shepherd of his flock. And I know he did, because God
raised him from the dead and sent him back to glory, welcomed
him back to glory, and said, sit here on my right hand till
I make you enemies of your footstool. Oh, Christ has his flock. I know
false preachers that are trying to butcher the flock. He's not going to kill any of
the Lord's sheep. I guarantee that. Come to Christ. And I tell you
what, if He calls you, you will come. You will. Let's sing a
closing song. Let's sing 314. Let's sing verses
1 and 4. I am thine, O Lord. I have heard
thy voice and told thy love to me. 314.