Thank you, David and Susanna,
for that special song. Let's go to the book of Zechariah
again this morning. We're going to chapter number
nine. Book of Zechariah, chapter nine. I want to read two verses of
scripture from this portion, Zechariah chapter 9, and I want
to read verses 9 and 10, and then I'll be considering these
first 10 verses this morning as we consider for our subject,
Thy King Cometh. That's the title of the message,
Thy King Cometh. And you'll recognize some of
these words just came from the passage that Ron read. In fact, the words that Matthew
wrote many years ago came right from this. Okay, Zechariah 9,
verse 9, Rejoice greatly, Oh daughter of Zion, and just by
way of note, this is the only time in the whole Bible that
this expression rejoice greatly is used. So here the daughter
of Zion, and Zion stands for all of the people of God, all
of those who are brought to know and believe and rest in the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's who Zion is. Rejoice greatly,
O daughter of Zion. And then he says, shout, O daughter
of Jerusalem, for Zion is indeed Jerusalem. It's the city of peace. And here's the reason. Behold,
thy king cometh unto thee. Thy king cometh unto thee. And then he tells a little about
the king, a few words about the king. He is just and having salvation. He's lowly and riding upon an
ass and upon a colt, the foal of an ass. And I will cut off
the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem And
the battle bow shall be cut off. That is, he will overcome all
those that he intends to save. He will overcome all of their
objections, all of their resistance, all of their unbelief. That will
be cut off. And he shall speak. This is a
wonderful word, peace. he will speak peace unto the
heathen. And as to his dominion, the dominion
of this king, well, it shall be from sea to sea, and from
the river even to the ends of the earth. Now, let me tell you
what this is all about. These first 10 verses, actually
throughout this chapter, this is a word of good news to the
Gentiles. This is about how God is going
to send the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus, good news
concerning His person, and the work that He would accomplish
at the cross of Calvary. The Lord is going to send forth
this good news in the Gentile territories. Now, up until this
point, of course, I'm sure you know your Old Testament history. The gospel of our God, the work
of God has been conducted mainly within the nation of Israel.
And the Israelites were a very privileged people to hear and
to be the recipients of the very word of God. But now the prophet,
he is sent of God with this message, the word of the Lord is going
into all the world. And you'll remember that our
Savior said to his disciples before his ascension, go ye into
all the world and preach the gospel. Yes, the gospel went
first to the Jews. But now it goes out to Jews and
Gentiles because God has a people. He is a people out of every nation,
kindred, tribe, and tongue, out of every language. And they must
hear the good news of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And in these first few verses,
indeed in all of this chapter, there's good news that the gospel
is going to go forth to the heathen, and by the heathen is meant folks
like us. We're heathen. And sometimes
we might think, well, we send missionaries to the heathen in
another country. We're heathen by nature because
we don't worship the God of the Bible. We worship a God of our
own imaginations. And people who do that are heathens. But yet the Lord says He's going
to send forth the gospel to people who don't know Him. To people
whom He calls bastards. That is, people who are not by
nature of the chosen nation of Israel. The gospel is going to
go forth to a people scattered throughout the world and scattered
throughout all the years of what we call time. And the Lord is
going to bring them unto Himself, that is, unto the dear Savior,
by His almighty grace. He's going to bring them to this
King. And so here are the key words,
Thy King cometh. Thy King cometh. Now what Zechariah
is setting forth is the gospel day. The gospel day, we would
set it forth or give a definition of it from the first coming of
our Lord Jesus unto his second coming. We're living in the gospel
day. There's no question about that.
Our Lord has, he's come. He settled the issue of our redemption
by his work upon the cross of Calvary. He laid down his life
for the sheep, is what the scripture says. He has paid all of our
indebtedness. He has reconciled us to God. He has put away all the sins
of His children. And He has brought in for us
everlasting righteousness. And during this gospel day, during
these days of the gospel, from the first coming of our Savior
to the second coming of our Savior, which we don't know when that
will be. Some people say it's going to
be Soon? Well, there's one thing's for
sure. It's closer than it ever was. It's drawing nearer every
day. You say, well, things are so
bad in the world. Surely he's coming back very
soon. Well, there had been other times
in this world where things were very bad. You look at the first
few centuries when the children of God were martyred for the
cause of Christ, when they couldn't even meet out in public. I mean,
they didn't even have a church building for the first 200 or
300 years in this age in which we live. They met in caves. They
met in homes. Things were very, very difficult.
They're not that bad here now. It's like Paul wrote to the Hebrews. He said, you haven't suffered
yet under blood, or Peter did, rather. You haven't suffered
under blood. There's nobody being martyred
in this country. And in some other countries,
yes. But in this nation, we still have the freedom and the liberty
to preach the gospel of the grace of God as we understand by the
leadership of the Spirit that which is the true gospel. So
we keep on preaching. But He will come back. And during
this age, this is what the Lord is doing. He's drawing unto Himself
a people by His almighty grace and power. He's overcoming all
obstacles, all resistance. Like it says there in verse number
10, cut off the chariot from Ephraim. And the horse from Jerusalem? And the battle bow? What is that
saying? The Lord is going to break down
every enmity that exists in the hearts of His people. All opposition
against Him. He will crush it. He will break
down your resistance, your unbelief in your heart if you're one of
His. And He will come into your heart as the King of kings who
reigns over you to give you life and forgiveness of sins. So this
is about the gospel age, the gospel day in which we're living.
He has already said in the last verse of the eighth chapter that
there will be a people who will lay hold of the skirt of him
who is a Jew, that is Christ, and people will say, we want
to go with you. And that's what the Lord does. He does a work within our hearts.
And like the woman with the issue of blood for 12 years, we touch
the hem of His garment, we're healed of our disease of sin
by His stripes suffered upon the cross of Calvary, and we
say by the power of the Spirit of God, we will willingly go
with You. We will willingly follow You.
You see, the Lord doesn't pick us up by the nap of the neck
and throw us into the kingdom of God saying, I'm going to save
you whether you want to be saved or not. He does a work of grace
within the heart and He makes us willing, willing to be saved
His way. By His grace, by the death of
the Son of God, we're made willing to be saved in God's way. And then indeed, does save us
by his grace. When we get to chapter nine then,
he's gonna begin to set before us more fully the good news that
Gentiles will be converted by the grace of God. Let me just
read a little bit, okay? Chapter nine, verse one. The
burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach, the burden
The message from God that comes from His Word. It could be a
message of judgment and oftentimes the prophets of God had a burden. It was a burden of the judgment
of God upon sinners. Or it could be a burden to set
forth a joyful message. And the joyful message is salvation
has been accomplished by the Lord Jesus. Look and live to
Him. Look to him and live. The burden
of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach. Stop right there. What does Hadrach have to do
with anything? Now, for those of you who've
been coming to Sunday school, or even if you haven't been coming,
if you've been reading the lessons, here's where Hadrach was. It
was a land of Syria, near what we have been studying, Antioch. Antioch. This is a prophecy that
the word of the gospel is going to go into Gentile territories
and it will first of all really resonate within the region of
Syria called Antioch where Christians were called Christians first. That's where Christians were
called Christians to begin with was in Antioch. And we know that
Antioch of Syria became the sounding board for the gospel of the grace
of God. We've been studying here just
the last two or three Sundays that from Antioch, the church
there sent forth Barnabas and they sent forth the apostle Paul
on Paul's first missionary journey. They went out preaching the gospel.
Where did it go forth from? From the land of Hadrach. See,
this is good news. The prophet of God is announcing
some good news that God has shared with him, that God has burdened
him to give forth, that in the times of Messiah, in the times
of Christ, the gospel will go beyond the boundaries of Israel,
and it will go into Gentile countries. Specifically, it will go forth,
first of all, and primarily to begin with, anyway, to the land
of Hadrach or Antioch. And then from there, the gospel
go forth to the uttermost parts of the world. And then he says,
in the land of Hadrach and Damascus. What do we know about Damascus?
You say, where have I read that word before? Well, we read of
a man named Saul of Tarsus. You remember Saul of Tarsus.
He was on his way to what city? Damascus to arrest anybody who
believed in the way of salvation by Jesus Christ alone. And in
route to Damascus, the Lord smote that man, knocked him off his
horse. He was a man who was a great
enemy of the gospel. And the Lord, what's the Lord
doing to Saul of Tarsus there on the Damascus road? He's breaking
down the battle bows. He's overcoming the obstacle
of Saul of Tarsus. What did Saul of Tarsus have
in his heart? He had in his heart such enmity
against Jesus of Nazareth that he sought to arrest everybody
who was a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ. Everybody who believes
salvation by grace alone, through faith in the Son of God, he's
gonna arrest all of them. And he's going to Damascus, because
there was such a key area, a key city. But something happened to him
along the way, just outside the city, that he never got over. The Lord dealt with him. He was
smitten by the grace of God. Do you know anything about being
smitten by the grace of God? brought to the end of yourself,
knocked off your high hordes of pride and arrogance, made
to realize how needy you are as a sinner and that the only
one who can save you is the Lord of glory, the King who reigns,
Christ Jesus, the Lord. And the only way he could save
was by his substitutionary death upon the cross of Calvary. Well, we know Saul went on into
Damascus, and there God had arranged for a preacher to talk to him.
Told him, God chose you. That you should see the just
one. The just one. The righteous one. the one who is the Lord our righteousness. You see, Saul of Tarsus, he had
been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, the greatest teacher
of his day. And Gamaliel believed the more
you do for God, the more God will give you. And the more obedient
you are, you're earning points, as it were, with God, and he'll
let you into heaven based upon all of your faithfulness and
all of your works. This was his belief. And Saul
of Tarsus, believing that it was by his works alone that he
was saved and accepted of God, all of his beliefs, all of his
doctrinal understanding was for naught. And he saw, he realized
salvation is by grace alone. It's not even what I do. He saw the just one. And Ananias
said, the God of our fathers, he chose you. He chose you to
see the just one, to see the righteous one, to realize that
you don't have any righteousness and Christ is the Lord, our righteousness. And he was birthed into the kingdom
of God, born again. of the Holy Spirit. And here
is the prophet of God saying that in the land of Hadrach,
in Antioch of Syria, and in Damascus, the gospel is going to come in
power. What an amazing thing that the Lord would send the
gospel to folks like you and me. Isn't that utterly amazing? That he would pour out his grace
upon us. Notice what he says in the second
verse. And Hamath also shall border thereof, and Tyrus and
Sidon, though it be very wise. And Tyrus, that is Tyre and Sidon. You remember reading those. in
the New Testament, did build herself a stronghold, heaped
up silver as the dust and fine gold as the mire of the streets.
Behold, the Lord will cast her out. He will smite her power
in the sea, and she shall be devoured with fire. What's this
all about? Well, Tyre and Sidon, they were
areas known for their great wisdom. And the Lord was going to show
a group of people, a vast number of people in Tyre and Sidon.
They weren't near as intelligent as they thought they were. Oh,
they had some understanding and education about natural things,
but they had no spiritual knowledge whatsoever. They had no knowledge
whatsoever. In fact, Tyre means a rock. A rock. They felt like all of
their knowledge, all of their intelligence was the rock upon
which they stood. But the rock upon which they
thought they stood was in reality shifting sand. That's all it
was. There was no stability there. The rock, the only rock that
can save is Christ the Lord, who is the rock of ages that
she sang about a while ago. The rock in which Moses was hidden
by the hand of God. He's the rock upon which we build
the foundation for all of our hopes of salvation and for glory. But here's Tyre, they said, we're
the rock. And also Sidon. And this was
a city that had a wall around it. It was 150 feet in height
and 150 feet in depth. They're gonna keep out every
enemy. But there was one that they couldn't keep out. They
couldn't keep God out. because He purposed to come in
by His almighty grace and save a people for the glory of His
name. And you may be sitting here this
morning or somebody watching by way of the internet, and you
may even be thinking, I'll never believe that. And you got a 150-foot
wall around you. And Lord, nobody's going to convince
me this is the truth. Well, I'll tell you one who can
convince you if he's pleased to do it. A 150-foot wall around you, though
it be 150 feet high and 150 feet thick, it won't keep the Lord
out because he just goes right through. You see, our hearts
are hard, like tiry, like a rock, hard like a rock. But the Lord
can make His gospel to penetrate through the rock. In fact, He
takes the rocky, the stony heart away and gives your heart a flesh,
a sensitive heart. A heart of flesh, what does that
mean? A sensitive heart. You know the quick underneath
your fingernail? Hey, you can grab the edge of
your fingernail unless you bite your nails real short. You can
grab the edge of your fingernail, it doesn't hurt at all. But get
up under that fingernail in the quick, in the Bible that's called
flesh. And I'll tell you what, The Lord
can go to where it troubles you. He can go right to your heart.
He can break down the walls of opposition and can send in the
convicting power of His Spirit. Like in verse 4, look, the Lord
will cast her out. He'll smite her power in the
sea. She shall be devoured with fire. In other words, the Lord will
send the convicting power of His Spirit like a fire to consume
all of your carnal comforts. In the third verse, it talks
about how Tyree had a stronghold and she had silver as the dust
and fine gold. She was dependent upon carnal
things. And the Lord is able to wipe
out your dependence upon carnal things and show you, you have
no Savior. You have no salvation. So what
if you have silver and gold? You see on television all the
time, buy gold, buy gold. I don't know. I ain't gonna buy
any gold. I'm not gonna buy any silver.
If you want to, you go ahead and buy the silver and buy the
gold. Well, I'll tell you what, when God sends judgment upon
this world, it'll consume all of that, and when the Lord takes
you away, somebody else will enjoy your silver and gold. That's
the way that goes. We can't put any dependence upon
anything that we've hoarded up or that we've accumulated. The
only salvation for your soul is in the person Christ Jesus. That's what you need to say.
And the Lord is saying he's gonna send his convicting power. And devour, in your own mind,
he'll devour everything that you're dependent upon. All of your works, you'll see
them in your own mind, you'll feel in your soul that God has
just devoured them, and you'll realize you've never done a good
work. You think you're going to stand
before God in your goodness? You've never done a good work.
In fact, even the people of God can't do a good work unless,
number one, God ordained it. Number two, He purifies what
you do. We don't have anything to boast
about. You see, that's what the Lord does. He pulls the rug out
from under us and he leaves us totally dependent upon the Christ
of God. He's the only one who can help
us. He says in verse five, Ascalon
shall see in fear and Gaza also shall see it and be very sorrowful. They'll be sorrowful for their
sins. For her expectations shall be ashamed, and the king shall
perish from Gaza, and Ascalon shall not be inhabited." What
he's saying is the Lord will bring all of the expectations
of the wicked to a sad ending. Unless you are led by the grace
of God to cast all of your cares, all of your sins, all of your
neediness upon the Lord Jesus Christ, unless you as a poor
sinner flee to the only Savior of sinners, everything's going to be lost. And you're going to be brought
to shame. You hear me. You must stand before God. And if you want to go ahead and
keep believing that you can stand before God in your own righteousness,
have at it. I'll tell you what God demands.
He demands perfection. He demands everlasting righteousness. And I'm telling you, you cannot
produce it There is only one who is the righteousness of needy
sinners. That's the Lord our righteousness,
the Lord Jesus Christ. For he, God, hath made him to
be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in him. In Christ we're righteous. In
Christ we're holy. And he says in verse six, and
a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod and I will cut off the pride
of the Philistines. People who are not by nature
the people of God, the Lord's gonna make them to be his people
by his grace. And he says in verse seven, I'll
take away his blood out of his mouth and his abominations between
his teeth. What does that mean? It means
the Lord will cause bloody people, people who are out for the blood
of the children of God, He'll take that thirst for blood away
from them. What was Saul of Tarsus doing
on the road to Damascus? Or what did he intend to do?
He was a bloodthirsty man, wasn't he? He was a bloodthirsty man. But after the Lord got through
with him, he had no more thirst for the blood of the children
of God. He wasn't a bloodthirsty man any longer. But he that remaineth by the
grace of God, he shall be as a governor or as royalty in Judah. You know who the people of God
are? You know how we're described in the Word of God? We're children
of the Lord. We're royalty. We're the king's
children. Look at verse 8. God says that
I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because
of the opposition, because of him that passeth by, because
of him that returneth, and no oppressor No oppressor shall
pass through them anymore, for now I have seen with mine eyes,
I have seen the Christ who will lay down His life for sinners,
and my people are safe in Him." The Lord encamps around His people. Now, do the children of God still
have enemies? Well, sure we do. But the Lord
is encamped around us. Think of Job. Think of Job. Satan saw power to afflict him. First of all, take his children
away, his possessions away, and then take all of his health away.
God said, do all of those things, but you can't have him. You can't
have him. The Lord knows who our enemies
are. And he says, this far you can go, but no farther, because
you can't have my people. And you who are the children
of God, I don't know, I don't know what the people of God,
what you folks, some of you who are watching, I have no idea
the trials that you're facing. And we have some folks in our
congregation now who are hospitalized, and they're, Their lives, in
some cases, seem to be dangling between earth and heaven. And they don't know what's going
to happen to them. Well, I'll tell you this, they're safe forevermore
in Christ because the Lord says, I will encamp around My people. I encircle My people. And doesn't
it say in the book of Psalms that the angel of the Lord encampeth
round about them that fear Him. You who are the Lord's people
never fear anything or anybody because the Lord of glory, the
King who reigns, he set himself around you. Oh, how safe we are. Therefore, in verse nine, he
says, rejoice greatly. Rejoice greatly, O daughter of
Zion. He says, shout. O daughter of
Jerusalem, behold, thy king cometh unto thee. Thy king. Listen,
he doesn't want to be king. He is the king. You're not going
to make him king. I know there's some people who
say, well, Jesus Christ is going to be king one of these days.
He's king right now. The Lord gave Him all power in
heaven and in earth to give eternal life to as many as the Father
gave Him. He's the King. He's the King
who reigns. And He reigns over everybody.
He reigns over all of His friends and all of His foes. Thy King
cometh. He's coming. In the Old Testament,
how would you summarize the feelings of the people of God in the Old
Testament? Our King is coming. You see that
word cometh is kind of in the present tense. It's always true. He's always coming. And in the
Old Testament, they knew somebody's coming. That's what all the prophecies
and predictions and pictures were about. Somebody's coming.
And then people like Simeon and Anna, they said, he's come. He's
come to seek and save that which was lost. He came to die. He came to sacrifice himself. Having met all the demands of
God, Having laid down His life for His sheep, He's gone back
to glory. He ever lives to intercede for
us, and He's the King. The King went back to glory.
Read Psalm 24. Lift up the gates. I will lift
up the gates of heaven. The King is coming in. The King
is coming in. Where is He going to sit? He
sits at the right hand of God. He's the King. You don't make
him king, you bow before the king. That's what you do. What's the king doing today?
He's reigning. He's reigning over everybody and everything.
And the king is coming back. And watch this. Behold, thy king
cometh unto thee. He comes to us, listen, he comes
to us through the preaching of the gospel. He comes to us by
His Spirit. During the day, He comes to us
by His Spirit. Oftentimes, and we're just, we're
thinking about the Lord, and you're comforted in the fact
that He knew you, and He knows you, and He chose you, and He
redeemed you, He called you, and you're comforted because
He comes to you. See, you need to take these things
personally. Let's shout. Let's rejoice. Because
thy King cometh unto you. Unto you. And just when you need
Him, you'll find out He's there. The King comes to you. Well,
what do we know about Him? He's just. He's righteous. Peter
said, He's the just one. That's who He is. He's the righteous
one. Well, what's he got in his hands?
He's coming to you. What's he got in his hands? Lo
and behold, it's salvation. He comes with salvation in his
hands. Do you remember Samson killed
a lion? And then he came back that way
and some honeybees had built a nest or a honeycomb in the
carcass of the lion. And he saw all that honey, he
picked up that honey with his hands, Samson did. And he started
eating it, he took it home and said, Mom, Dad, brought you some
honey. I got hands full of honey. That's what Christ does for us.
He comes with hands full of honey. Hands full of sweet things. Oh
yeah, rejoice greatly. Behold, be amazed, thy king. You're king. He comes to you. He's got salvation. He's lowly. He's a man of sorrows and acquainted
with grief. He said, I'm meek and lowly in
heart. He's riding on an ass and upon a colt the foal of an
ass. That was when he entered into Jerusalem just a few days
before his death. It was on Monday of crucifixion
week. He says in verse 10, I'll cut
off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow shall be cut off, and he shall speak peace
to the heathen. Let me give you this, and I'll
quit. He made peace. How'd he do that? By the blood
of his cross. What does this mean, he shall
speak peace? That's through his gospel. And
he speaks peace to the hearts of his children. And it says,
peace be unto you. Your sins, which are many, have
all been washed away. And you're one of my children. How powerful is he? His dominion
shall be from sea even to sea. There's no end of his dominion.
Thy king reigneth. That's something to take home
and just mull over the rest of the day. Every day of your life,
thy king reigneth. He comes and he reigns, and he
reigns to fulfill his purpose, and he reigns to work all things
together for the good of his people. Let's sing a closing
song. If you would, turn to 326.