Thank you, Joe. If you would
open your Bibles tonight to Zechariah chapter 1. The book of Zechariah chapter
1. The last two Lord's days we've
spent some time going through the book. looking for our Lord
Jesus Christ and finding Him. And this evening, now I want
to begin to virtually go chapter by chapter speaking about the
very message of the book of Zechariah. Let me read to you the first
six verses. In the eighth month, in the second
year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the
son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying, The
Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers. We read that
this morning. We studied that this morning
out of 2 Chronicles 36. Again, verse 2, "...the Lord
hath been soared as pleased with your fathers. Therefore say thou
unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts." And here's what the
Lord said to Zachariah to say to the people, He said, turn
ye unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn unto you,
saith the Lord of hosts. Be ye not as your fathers, unto
whom the former prophets have cried, saying, thus saith the
Lord of hosts, turn ye now from your evil ways and from your
evil doings, But they did not hear nor hearken unto me, said
the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live
forever? But my words and my statutes,
which I command in my servants the prophets, did they not take
hold of your fathers, and they returned and said, like as the
Lord of hosts thought to do unto us according to our ways and
according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us. You will discover
as you study the Word of God that about 27 or 28 people are
identified in the Word of God as having the name of Zechariah. In the Old Testament, 26 or 27,
in the New Testament, 2, One would be Zacharias, who's
the father of John the Baptist. And the other one is a brief
reference to this man, Zacharias, who is the prophet of God in
this context. We don't know much about him.
We know that when he left Babylon, He was very, very young. Look over at chapter 2 and verse
4. Chapter 2 and verse 4. They said unto him, Run, speak
to this young man, meaning Zechariah. speak to this young man and tell
him Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls for the
multitude of men and cattle therein." He was just a boy when that first
wave of Jews went to the land of Judea. according to the law
of Cyrus. See, the Lord raised up Cyrus. In fact, Isaiah spoke of Cyrus
years before he lived. And the Lord referenced this
man, Cyrus, as being his shepherd. The one who the Lord appointed
to take care of his sheep. And of course in that is a picture
of our Lord Jesus. In many ways Cyrus is a type
of Christ. This man Cyrus was appointed
by God to save the Jews. Not save them spiritually of
course, but save the Jews physically and bring them back to their
homeland. But it's a picture of our Lord
Jesus who is the great shepherd of the sheep whom God appointed
and anointed in the covenant of grace to be the shepherd. God calls him in Zechariah chapter
13 and verse 7, my shepherd. He's God's shepherd because God
chose him. God appointed him and God ordained
that he be the shepherd of the sheep that God gave him in the
covenant of grace. You see, our salvation never
has been dependent upon us. Never. God has never looked to
His people for fulfillment of His law, for payment of our debt. or for the establishment of righteousness. He has always looked to our Shepherd,
the Lord Jesus Christ, for those things. And Cyrus was a picture
then of our Savior. But under the law or decree of
Cyrus, the Jews were freed, released, to go back to the homeland. If you read in chapter 2 of Ezra,
you'll find the exact number, 42,360 Jews. But in addition
to that, there were over 7,000 maids and handmaids and servants in addition to many hundreds
of singers who went back to Israel, back to the homeland. So really
upwards of 50,000 people under the ruling of Cyrus left Babylon They were released from all obligations
to the Persian Empire. The Persian Empire had conquered
the Babylonians. And here, this Cyrus, when he
became king, he said, got all these Jews on my hands, what
am I gonna do with them? He said, I'm gonna release you
folks to go back to Judea and rebuild your temple. Now, he's
a heathen king. This is a man who himself did
not know God. But you see, the heart of the
king is in the Lord's hand. And he turneth it whithersoever
he will. And the Lord worked and spoke
to Cyrus and said, let my people be released and send them back
to Judea and instruct them to rebuild the temple and reinstitute
the worship of God because He said, and indeed, Joe read that,
this is what Cyrus said, He is God. He is God. So this man, young man, just
a boy, Zechariah, he left along with the other thousands of Jews
and went back to Judea. We don't know a lot about him. But we do know this. Go to the
New Testament. Just hold your place there in
Zechariah. Go to the New Testament, chapter
23. We do know this. And in Matthew chapter 23, our
Lord is denouncing the Pharisees. He is speaking in Matthew chapter
23 of their hypocrisy. speaking not only to the Pharisees,
whom the Jewish people considered to be the holiest people on earth,
and we know there are no degrees of holiness, but in their minds,
they were the holiest people that they were. Listen, you either
are holy or you're not holy. And you're not holy through your
doings, you're not holy through your working, you're not holy
through your striving. If you're holy, you're holy in
Jesus Christ. He is our holiness. How holy
is a man or woman or boy or girl got to be to be accepted by God? Well, you just got to live a
holy life. That's not good enough. How holy
do you have to be? You have to be as holy as God. And the Lord Himself has made
Christ Jesus to be unto us wisdom, and righteousness and sanctification,
that is holiness, and redemption. In other words, he's all things
to the people of God. He is our holiness. He is our
holiness. The Pharisees just thought they
were holy. They were separatists from things
that they considered to be wrong. but they were self-righteous
men who sought to get to heaven and gain acceptance with God
upon the basis of their works." That belief is deadly. It's deadly. Salvation's in Christ
only. It's in His bloody sacrifice. It's in both His obedience in
life and His obedience up to and including death. Death by
sins. So our Lord Jesus is denouncing
the Pharisees and He's denouncing the scribes. And He says this
to them, chapter 23, verse 29. He continues. I obviously don't
have time to read all the context here, but verse 29. Woe unto
you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you build the tombs of
the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous And
this is what you say, if we had been in the days of our fathers,
we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the
prophets. Wherefore, ye be witnesses unto
yourselves, that as ye are the children of them which killed
the prophets, fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. ye serpents, ye generation of
vipers, how shall you escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore,
behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and
some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall
you scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city
to city. that upon you may come all the
righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous
Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, who's the son of Barakias, whom
ye slew between the temple and the altar." Who was the very
first martyr of the Old Testament? Abel. Abel. What got him in trouble with
his brother? The belief of salvation by grace
and salvation by the blood of the God-appointed, God-approved
sacrifice. He did not go for what Cain believed. Bring the best that you do to
God and God will accept you on the basis of that bloodless offering. Abel looked by faith to the bloody
sacrifice of that seed of the woman who would come, even our
Lord Jesus Christ. And for that, he was murdered. He believed in salvation by grace. And a war broke out then between
the grace people and the works people. And it goes on, it continues
even to this day. There can be no peace in this
war. There can be no getting along. People say, well, I don't know
why all religions can't get along. Most religions do get along.
All false religions essentially teach the same thing. Salvation
by your doing. But those who believe the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ, we understand it's salvation by
grace. By grace. That's what Abel believed. And that's also what Zacharias
in the Old Testament called Zachariah. That's what he believed. And
as Abel was the very first martyr, this man, Zachariah, was the
very last martyr. He, you see, was not only a prophet,
but he was also a priest. Going about his duty, the duty
of a priest, which was to offer sacrifice to God. being of the
priesthood of Israel, one of his responsibilities, in addition
to being a teacher of the Word of God and burning incense to
the Lord, picturing the intercessory work of our Lord Jesus Christ,
his job was to offer sacrifices. And as the Scripture says here,
somewhere between the temple and the altar, the brazen altar,
The Jews rushed him, and we know from Jewish historians, they
stoned him to death. That's what happened to Zechariah.
In fact, of all the Zechariahs mentioned in the Old Testament,
two of them are martyrs. And Zechariah, who is the prophet
of God, is one of them. The last one martyred. Now as
you go back to the book of Zechariah, you would think that since the
book is indeed named Zechariah, you would think that he'd be
the main character of the book. But that's not the case. The
main character of the book is our Lord Jesus Christ. He's the main character. In fact,
He's the main character of every book of the Bible. Every book
of the Bible. He's set forth as being the angel
of the Lord. And as we go through the book
of Zechariah, you will discover that this angel of the Lord is
God's messenger to Zechariah. And over and over again, he will
speak to Zechariah the Word of the Lord. Remember this, God
will not speak to nor be spoken to by any son or daughter of
Adam except through a mediator. God's invisible. And when our
Lord intended and willed to speak to a person on this earth, the
angel of the covenant, the Lord Jesus Christ, would take a pre-incarnate
form. as he did with Zachariah, and
delivered to him the message of God. He is called the angel
of the Lord because he's God's messenger. The word angel simply
means messenger. But this angel of the Lord who
spoke over and over again through the book of Zechariah, he is
not a created angel. He's the creator angel. He's the one who made all things.
And he's continually addressing Zechariah in this book. Notice in chapter 4 and verse
1. Well, I'll go to chapter 1. Look at chapter 1 verse 9. Then
said I, O my Lord, what are these? And the angel that talked with
me. The angel that talked with me.
I want God to talk to me. God's a consuming fire. God outside of the Lord Jesus
Christ should strike fear in your heart. He brings death upon those who
dare to approach Him aside from or apart from a mediator. If
God's going to speak to Zechariah and Zechariah's going to live,
He's going to have to speak to him through this angel. It's
a very special angel. Look at verse 14. So the angel
that communed with me, chapter 1 verse 14, he said, cry thou
saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, I'm jealous for Jerusalem
and for Zion with a great jealousy. Look at verse 19. I said unto
the angel that talketh unto me, What are these? Is this communication
between this angel of the Lord? Look down at chapter 2 and verse 19. Verse 4, it said
unto him, or verse 3, And behold, the angel that talked with me
went forth, and another angel went out to meet him, and said
unto him, Run, speak to this young man, saying, Jerusalem
shall be inhabited as towns without walls, for the multitude of men
and cattle therein. For I said, the Lord will be
under her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory
in the midst of her. An angel. speaking to him. So
over and over and over again, here's this angel. In chapter
1, verses 11 and 12, he's called the angel of the
Lord. Verse 11, then answered the angel of the Lord. And I
won't go through, I've got a bunch of references here I could go
through, but this is the messenger of the covenant of grace. He's the Lord of glory. Or, as John labeled Him, He's
the Word of God. He's God's spokesman. He speaks to us. This God-Man,
Christ Jesus, speaks to us. Now in the last two weeks, I've
tried to set before you Christ in the book of Zechariah. Christ
in His incarnation. Behold the man who is also God. Chapter 13, verse 7. God's fellow. God's associate. God's equal. I've tried to set before you
the fact that our Lord Jesus in chapter 9 is set forth as
that one who entered into Jerusalem. but who was rejected and sold
for 30 pieces of silver. Zechariah talks about that fountain
open for sin and for uncleanness. There's the death of our Lord
Jesus Christ. The blood that he speaks about
is called the blood of the covenant. See, the blood of our Lord Jesus
is the seal of the covenant. Your baptism is not the seal
of the covenant. Your repentance is not the seal
of the covenant. Your faith is not the seal of
the covenant. The seal of the covenant is the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the blood of the everlasting
covenant we read in Hebrews chapter 13. As Paul set forth in chapter
9 of Hebrews, speaking after the manner of men, and how else
can we speak but after the manner of men, he likens the will of
our Lord to a man's last will and testament, which goes into
effect when a man is dead. Our Lord Jesus had a last will
and testament, and when He died, His blood sealed that covenant
It's very much in effect. Very much in effect. And all
whose names were written down in the Lamb's Book of Life in
His last will and testament shall most assuredly be the heirs of
everlasting life. That's His will. That's His covenant. Nobody can break the covenant
of God. You can break the covenants of
men, perhaps. You might even be able to break
the last will in testament of somebody. If you're left out
of the will and you thought you should have been included. But
you're not going to break God's will. Because God's will is from
everlasting to everlasting. Sealed by the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. As a result of our Savior's work
of substitution and satisfaction, God made Him Lord and King, and
indeed, Zechariah presents Him that way. So, our Savior is indeed
the main character in the book of Zechariah. And so, a small
amount of people were released by Cyrus to go to Judah. And they were very enthusiastic. Now go with me to Ezra chapter
3. I'd asked Joe to read chapter
1, which I appreciate him doing. Now look at Ezra chapter 3. This
was a remnant that was very excited and very enthused and very zealous. They wanted to get to work on
the temple. Chapter 3 of Ezra, and I'll begin
reading in verse 1. Ezra chapter 3. By the way, I'll just go ahead
and make good on that figure that I gave you. Look back in
chapter 2 and verse 64. The whole congregation together
was 42,303 scored. There's the number. And then,
besides their servants and their maids, of whom there were 7,337,
and there were among them 200 singing men and singing women.
So a great, great bunch of people came out of Babylonian captivity,
released by sirens. So, we get to chapter 3. And when the seventh month was
come and the children of Israel were in the cities, the people
gathered themselves together as one man to Jerusalem. There
stood up Jeshua. Think of Joshua. Joshua. Same word in the Hebrew. Who
is the high priest. So identify him in your Bible
if you haven't done so already. Joshua, he's the high priest,
the son of Josaphat, and his brethren the priests, and Zerubbabel. who is Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel,
he is the prince, and he's the governor. Back there in chapter
1, you remember, Joe read to us Shesh-Bezar? That was his Babylonian name. He's Zerubbabel. And he's the
prince. He's the governor now of Judah. He's the prince and the governor
of Judah. He's the son of, back to chapter
3 verse 2, Shealtiel and his brethren, and builded an altar,
builded the altar of the God of Israel to offer burnt offerings
thereon, as it is written in the law of Moses, the man of
God. And they set the altar upon his bases, for fear was upon
them because of the people of those countries. And they offered
burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord, even burnt offerings
morning and evening. They kept also the Feast of Tabernacles,
as it is written, and offered the daily burnt offerings by
number, according to the custom, as the duty of every day required,
and afterward offered the continual burnt offering both of the new
moons, and of all the set feasts of the Lord that were consecrated,
and of everyone that willingly offered a freewill offering unto
the Lord. From the first day of the seventh
month began they to offer burnt offerings unto the Lord, but
the foundation of the temple of the Lord was not yet laid.
They gave money also unto the masons, and to the carpenters,
and meat, and drink, and oil, unto them of Zidon, and to them
of Tyre, to bring cedar trees from Lebanon to the Sea of Joppa,
according to the grant that they had of Cyrus, king of Persia."
Understand, Cyrus is king over the whole thing. So he sent word
to these other neighboring countries, whatever these Jews need to rebuild
the temple, give it to them. Give it to them. And they did. Now it took them all of seven
months to rebuild the brazen altar. And that's where they
started. They didn't start rebuilding
the temple. They started by rebuilding the
altar that had been torn down by Nebuchadnezzar's forces. Because
you see, the main thing was the worship of God by means of the
sacrifice. This is what's so critical. You
see, there will be no need for a temple. There's no need for
the temple to rebuild unless the blood has been shed. There
has to be this sacrifice unto God to satisfy His justice that
had been aggravated because of the sins of Judah. And so they
first of all rebuild the brazen altar and reinstitute the sacrifices. That included the morning sacrifice
and the evening sacrifice. And remember when we went through,
we went through the book of Exodus, we talked about the morning lamb
that had to be offered, the evening lamb that had to be offered,
9 o'clock every morning, the lamb's got to die. Three o'clock
in the afternoon, a lamb's got to die. When it came to the Feast
of Tabernacles, on eight days, many, many animals died, all
of them picturing and pointing to our Lord Jesus Christ. This is significant. This is
very important. You see, we learned from our
message this morning, the captivity in Babylon was due to the idolatry
of the children of Israel and the failures of those people
to worship God by burnt offerings. while they had stopped the Passover. It was Josiah who reinstituted
the Passover and said, brethren, we've got to offer the Passover
lamb to the Lord. And I open up all my livestock. Y'all come and get a lamb. Come
and get a goat from my herd, from my flock. You take it and
offer it to God. shed the blood, the blood that
put them in remembrance of the price of redemption from Egyptian
bondage. They had neglected that all of
those years. And now once again, they begin
to offer the sacrifices to the Lord. The people are full of
zeal. They're full of commitment. And
once they get this built, and reinstitute the sacrifices, then
start on the temple. And as soon as they started to
work on the temple, then opposition arose. It came from the Samaritans. And they came down and they hassled
the Jews about rebuilding the temple. So you know what happened? The building stopped. There was no more building of
the temple. And it didn't start up until
16, 17, maybe 18 years later. Now, you need to know this. Back when these 40-some thousand,
nearly 50,000 people came into Judea, there was that little
boy, Zachariah. And an older man, his name was
Haggai. They're there. And here's this work stoppage
due to the opposition. The first one who began to preach
was Haggai. And he encouraged the people,
got to build this temple. Got to build this temple. This
temple's important. This is where God's going to
be worshipped. And then, two months after he began his prophetic
ministry, Zechariah. Go back to the book of Zechariah.
I hope you've got a ribbon or you've got it kind of marked
in your Bible so you can find it rather quickly. A hay guy, he began to preach.
And you know what happened? People were encouraged. And it's
like the Lord sent a revival. They started building. They started
building. Two months after he started preaching,
a much younger man, Haggai, according to the historians, for what it's
worth, Haggai, he was an older man. He didn't preach very long. He had been in Judea, having
returned with the thousands of other Jews. He had been there
with them 15, 16, 17 years. And he sees the work stoppage
and it hadn't been started again. And so he begins, and you can
read his very short book. He only had four visions. He began to encourage the people
and to give them comfort. The Lord is with you. This is
what God has willed. He's going to build the temple
using you to do it. And then the Lord raised up Zechariah. Well, what did he do? He also
encouraged the people to continue building the temple. Look at
Haggai chapter 1 and verse 1. Now watch the dates. You don't
have to remember this, but it is interesting. In the second
year, Haggai chapter 1. In the second year of Darius
the king, in the sixth month, In the first day of the month
came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel
the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son
of Josedek the high priest, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts,
saying, this people say the time has not come, the time that the
Lord's house shall be built. Then came the word of the Lord
by Haggai the prophet, saying, is it time for you, O ye, to
dwell in your sealed houses, and this house lying waste? Now therefore thus saith the
Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You've rebuilt your houses,
but here's what you hadn't done. You hadn't built the house of
God. You've neglected the house of
God. Alright? He went in the sixth month of
the second year of Darius. Now go to Zechariah chapter 1. In the eighth month, In the second
year of Darius came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah the
son of Berechiah the son of Iddo, the prophet, saying, The Lord
is sore displeased with your father. So two months after Haggai
began preaching, and he's encouraging the people, God sent him another
preacher. And their ministries overlapped
there for a few years. This one is Zechariah. He's a
much younger man. Haggai is kind of on his way
out. And Zechariah is just beginning
his ministry. And he begins to follow up the
ministry of Haggai saying, be encouraged. The Lord is going
to build his house. Let's get busy. Let's get busy. And so, the building began. One Haggai, an older man, preaching
to encourage the people, the Lord is with you. A younger man,
the second man, Zechariah, he's also encouraging the people.
The Lord sent out His disciples, I remind you, two by two. Here
goes two preachers. Scripture says, in the mouth
of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. Here
both preachers preaching the same thing. They agree. They agree in their message.
And what they're saying is, we know times are tough. We know
the enemy is real. But this is the Lord's house.
This is what He has commanded us to do. This is why Cyrus released
us from Babylon. Go home. Rebuild your temple
because your God, He is God. Worship Him. Worship Him. The Lord raised up these men
to preach the truth. And that which was being done
was the building of the temple. Now understand this, the building
of the temple pictures the church of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 6, you're the temple
of God. Over in 2 Corinthians, what concord
hath the temple of God with the devils. We're the temple of God. You see, here's what the Lord
is doing today. Let me just bring this down and
I'll wind this message up. What is the Lord doing today?
He's building His temple. That's what He's doing. He's
building His church. There's a passage, we'll look
at it later on in the book of Zechariah, where the Lord says
to Zerubbabel, despise not the day of small things. Just because
the work looks small in your eyes, don't think that the Lord's
purpose is failing. Christ said, I will build my
church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
There can be no hindrance to the building of the Kingdom of
God, to the temple of our Lord. Look here in Zechariah again,
chapter 1. Watch how the Lord speaks through
Zechariah. Look at verse 16. Thus, therefore,
thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies. My
house shall be built. My house shall be built. saith the Lord of hosts, and
a lion shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. Cry yet, saying,
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, My city's fruit prosperity shall
yet be spread abroad, and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion,
and shall yet choose Jerusalem. Be encouraged! Be comforted!
I know we're a small group of people, And if we're not careful,
we can get discouraged and say, well, we're small. And in terms
of today's religion, our church doesn't even hardly register
as being a church. And I'm preaching to people who
your group is even smaller than ours. But despise not the day
of small things. The Lord is building His temple. He is building His church. He
is gathering His people unto Himself. This is a certainty.
It's the purpose of God. Look at chapter 2 and verse 4. Say to him, run, speak to this
young man saying, Jerusalem shall be inhabited. That's what we're
saying. Jerusalem shall be inhabited.
The Lord will build His temple. Look at chapter 4, verses 6 through
9. Then he answered and spake unto
me. Chapter 4, verse 6. This is the word of the Lord
unto Zerubbabel. saying, not by might nor by power,
but my spirit saith the Lord of hosts, who art thou, O great
mountain, before Zerubbabel, who's a picture of our Lord Jesus
Christ? Thou shalt become a plain." and
He shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings crying,
Grace! Grace! Unto it Grace began the
work, and Grace will finish the work." Don't be discouraged. That's faithfully laboring the
gospel of grace, the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, knowing
that the Lord will do His work through the power and might of
our Lord Jesus. Look at verse 8. Moreover, the
word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel
have laid the foundation of this house, and his hand shall also
finish it. And thou shalt know that the
Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. Christ began the work, and He's going to finish the
work. Look again at chapter 6 and verse 9. The Word of the Lord came unto
me, saying, Take of them of the captivity, even Heldi, Tobijah,
and of Judiah, which are come from Babylon. And come thou the
same day, and go into the house of Josiah. the son of Zephaniah,
take silver and gold, make crowns, set them upon the head of Joshua,
the son of Josedek, the high priest, and speak unto him, saying,
Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose
name is the branch, he shall grow up in his place, and he
shall build the temple of the Lord." Don't you love the shalls
of the Lord? He shall build the temple of
the Lord. And I'll give you one more. Chapter
8, verses 7 and 8. I read this last week. Thus said
the Lord of hosts, Behold, I will save my people. This is what
this is about. What are we doing? Why are we
laboring in the Gospel? Well, we're preaching the message
that God told us to preach. Because this is the message that
number one, glorifies God. Number two, this is the message
that God uses to call out lost sheep and bring them into the
fold of salvation. And number three, we preach this
gospel because this is the message that encourages and comforts
the people of God. Be encouraged. The work is not
dependent upon you, it's dependent upon your Almighty Savior. He's doing the work. He's doing
the work. He said, I will save my people
from the east country, from the west country. Verse 8, I will
bring them. They shall dwell in the midst
of Jerusalem. They shall be my people. I will
be their God in truth and in righteousness. It'll all be done
in a manner that's honoring to the very truth of God. We don't
use tricks. We don't use satanic lies. We use the truth, the powers
in the truth of who God is and what we are and who Christ is
and His successful work of redemption. That's the truth. The truth of
sovereign electing grace and saving, purchasing redemption
in the effectual calling of the Spirit of God. And righteousness has already
been established by the Lord our righteousness. So I say, don't be discouraged. So what happened in Jerusalem?
People got discouraged. And what upset them was opposition. Don't let the opposition bother
you. Well, they've always hated the
truth. And the opposition will hate the truth until God takes
them all into eternity and casts them into hell. But the Lord
will do His work. Be much encouraged. I'm encouraged. I say, well, every once in a
while, somebody says, you know, we didn't have too many today.
Well, I tell you what, we've got a whole lot of people that
we owe the Gospel to and we have a great responsibility to preach
to whoever's here. We can't control how many come. We don't have a board up here
that tells how many we had last year on this Sunday and how many
we have today. We don't do that. The Lord said,
I'll build my house. I'll build my church. Well, what's
it for us to do, preacher? Stay faithful to the truth. Because
that's what God uses to grow His temple. And I'll tell you,
He will build it. He will build it. And when the
last stone is laid in place, We'll all go to glory and say,
grace, grace unto it! That's what we'll say. Grace
began this work and grace will put the top stone on the work.
Oh, great Zerubbabel, our governor, our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.