Thanks. Ladies, I appreciate
that. I never get weary of hearing
that, do you? It's always such a blessing.
Let's go to the book of Romans, and we'll go to the first chapter
for just a little bit to introduce the message to you. Romans chapter
1. Let me read the first four verses
to you. Romans chapter 1. The Spirit of God has the writer
to identify himself, and it is, of course, Paul. And he says
he's a servant of Jesus Christ. He's a bond slave called to be
an apostle. He said, separated under the
gospel of God, which He had promised afore by His prophets in the
Holy Scriptures. And then He tells us that this
gospel of God, it's concerning His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord,
which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh,
and then He was declared to be the Son of God with power. according
to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead. Here we see what the gospel is
all about. It's all about our Lord Jesus
Christ. Every service when we gather
together, we gather under the vast, glorious, gracious umbrella
of the gospel of God, which always concerns His Son. If we don't
speak about His Son, of His identity, of His work, of substitution,
His bloody sacrifice upon the cross of Calvary, And His resurrection,
His ascension, His rule, if we don't preach Christ crucified,
well, we haven't preached the Gospel of God. We may have said
some good things, but we didn't say THE good thing. which is
the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who He is, what He did,
the reason that He did it, and indeed where He is now. This gospel is referred to in
a multitude of ways through the scriptures. in the book of Revelation. It's called the everlasting gospel. This is a gospel really that
existed before this earth existed because it was hidden in the
very heart of God from old eternity. And then he brought it to pass
when he created all things and then 4,000 years later he sent
his son into this world to work out salvation. for all of his
people. It's the gospel of his Son. And
I want you to notice especially the second verse, which is actually
a parenthetical statement. That is, as the inspired writer
wrote this, the Spirit of God had him put this in. concerning
the gospel of God, which he had promised afore by his prophets
in the holy scriptures. What was the message of all of
the holy prophets in the scriptures? Could the message be condensed?
Could the message of those Old Testament prophets, and there
were many of them, Could you, in your own mind, can you kind
of give a summary of the message of the prophets? Well, it is given right here. You see, the same gospel that
those men preached is the gospel that the Apostle Paul came to
preach. It's the same gospel as our Lord
preached. It's the same gospel as all of
the apostles preached. It is indeed Paul's gospel. Don't believe that reference
Bible that says that John the Baptist and our Lord Jesus did
not preach the same gospel. In fact, it is suggested there
are six different Gospels. There are not six different Gospels.
There's only one Gospel. It is the Gospel of God, and
it always concerns His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, what did the Old Testament
prophets preach? They preached the Gospel. And I, once we got to Michigan,
after I preached in Dryden, Michigan, and we went on up further, up
near Lake Michigan, I had taken a book with me, and I won't even
mention the author's name, though he's a very good author, but
he had a message in there from Zechariah chapter 13. And I read that message, and
I thought, that is good, but I need to go back and read Zechariah
chapter 12. Then I read that, and then I
thought, I need to go back to the first chapter, and I need
to read the whole book of Zechariah. And I read it, read it all the
way through. In fact, I read it all the way
through several times. And I just, then I laid the message
that I had taken with me, the sermon by this brother, I laid
that book aside just to take the time to read the book of
God. And I was amazed what Zachariah
had to say about our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want you to be
amazed, too. So go back to the book of Zechariah. And I'll, first of all, direct
you to chapter 6. Now, somebody said happiness
is sitting beside somebody who actually knows where Zechariah
is located. Well, if you don't know where
Zechariah is located, go to the middle of the Bible, that is
the division between the Old Testament and the New Testament.
The last book of the Old Testament is Mt. Mekhi, and then go before
that, and you'll discover Zechariah. Zechariah, chapter 6. I'd love to give you a little
bit of historical background. We're all interested in history
to a degree. And this is a benefit to us,
I'm sure. The Jewish nation had been taken
into Babylonian captivity in the year 586 B.C. So we're talking roughly about
590 years, between 580, 590 years
before our Lord Jesus Christ was born into this world. They
were taken into captivity. And the reason they were taken
into captivity, and by the way, that captivity lasted 70 years,
okay? in Babylonian captivity for 70
years. And the reason they were taken
into captivity is because they forgot the gospel. They had the gospel preached
to them in word, in type, in prophecy, in picture. They had been given God's word. And Abraham had been taught the
gospel of God's substitution. And the Lord illustrated that
gospel when Abraham took Isaac up on the mountain. You remember
reading that in Genesis chapter 22. And Isaac was to be offered
as a burnt offering unto God. And when Abraham was just about
to take the life of his dearly beloved son, the Lord said, Stop! Stop! I see you believe Me. I see you love Me. There's a
ram called him the thicket by its horns. You go get the ram
and offer him up in the stead of Isaac. There's the Gospel. Substitution, you see. In the
stead of Isaac. All the Jews knew that story.
They were well acquainted, at least in their minds, with the
Gospel of God which does concern the Lamb of God. Just before
they got to that location, Abraham and Isaac. Isaac said, Father,
here's the fire, here's the wood, here's the knife. Where is the
Lamb? Abraham said, my son, God will
provide Himself a Lamb. There's the Gospel hidden there.
Don't you see Him? Don't you see the Lamb of God
there? And then He's the one who gave His life. Christ gave
His life in our stead. He died. Somebody's got to die.
Somebody's got to honor God's broken law. Christ came to do
that. He came to do what nobody could
do. He came to honor God in every
facet of His holy being. He came to satisfy justice and
He died in the stead of sinners. They had that gospel, you see. But they began to fall away from
that gospel. and the nation of Israel began
to fall into idolatry. Utterly amazing. They knew who
brought them out of Egyptian bondage hundreds and hundreds
of years before this. They knew the necessity of the
blood. God said, when I see the blood,
I will pass over you. They knew that. They knew about
the tabernacle. This was etched into their brains,
into their hearts. They knew that tabernacle, that's
where God said, that's where I'll meet you, and that's where
you'll meet me. They knew that. And the temple
was built. And still the sacrifices were
offered there at the brazen altar. They were well acquainted with
the gospel in their minds. But they began to forsake the
gospel. And they grew spiritually very
cold. And people began to erect idols. We've studied in the book of
Genesis that Dan, in the city of Dan. And the tribe of Dan
was the ones who first of all built an idol. And the Israelites
worshipped idols. And Amos speaks to that in chapter
8. They had an idol in Samaria and they
had an idol in Dan. And so, on account of all of
this, the Lord, the Lord had the Babylonians take over Israel. And they took them into captivity. Nebuchadnezzar took them into
captivity into Babylon, and they stayed in Babylon 70 years. This was a national punishment. Well, Jim, weren't there some
true believers amongst those who were taken into captivity?
Yes. Oh, yes. Because you see, when the majority
of the people are idolaters, and God sends judgment upon a
nation, the righteous suffer with the wicked. And I won't go into great detail
now, but I'd say our God has entrusted
to this nation the Gospel of God concerning His Son. He did
that many, many years ago. And now, and we've seen it over
the last few decades, we're getting further and further and further
away from the Gospel of God, from the Word of God, from the
worship of God. Those who have authority over
us have little to no regard for God. And it would not shock me if
God sends national judgments upon us. See, the last judgment, and I've
been thinking about this quite a bit, the great white throne
judgment, that's for individuals. That's not going to be for nations.
Well, when do nations suffer the judgment of God in this world? And I'll tell you the great concern,
one of the great concerns in my heart is that God's going
to send a judgment upon us. In fact, He's already sent a
judgment, a famine for the Word of God. That's a judgment of
God. How far do you have to go to
hear the gospel of God's free and sovereign grace? I'm preaching to people who live
long ways away from here, folks up in Canada, a group listening
up there, folks in California, folks in Honolulu, Folks up there
in Michigan, all over the country. I hear from people even from
outside this nation. And they all ask me the same
question. Do you know anybody here who's
preaching the same gospel of God concerning His Son that you
preach? The judgment of God is being
poured out upon our nation in a famine for the Word of God.
Not a national famine, though that may come. A famine for food? I don't know. But when those
national judgments are sent of God upon a nation, that is the
physical judgments of God, the righteous suffer right along
with the weak. And this is what happened when
Israel was taken into Babylonian captivity. God raised up a preacher. First of all, Haggai in his book
precedes Zechariah, and then Zechariah. Here's what Zachariah's
name means. You need to write this down if
you don't know it. Jehovah remembers. Jehovah remembers. That's what
Zachariah's name means. Yes, Israel was taken into Babylonian
captivity. Things were difficult for them,
for the people of God. for the people who worshipped,
for the people who longed to see the day of Christ come. People who believed Messiah.
They were looking to Him. They hadn't fallen into idolatry. The Lord had regenerated them.
The Lord had saved them. And they're looking for that
seed of the woman promised in Genesis 3 and verse 15. They didn't believe all that
idolatry mess. They were in idolatrous. They
were looking to the true God, to Jehovah who saves. And they
were suffering right along with the wicked, but the Lord remembered
them. That's what Zechariah's name
means. The Lord remembers. And I don't know what difficulties
perhaps some of you who are the people of God are going through?
I don't know. I'm not privy to everything that
goes on in your lives. There are some of you, I know
you're going through some difficult episodes in your life, and some
of you who are watching as well. And though I don't know, and
maybe many of us don't know, the Lord always remembers His
people. You may be in Babylon for 70
years in slavery. You may be suffering physical
atrocities right along with the wicked. But believe me, no, believe
the Word of the Lord. The Lord said, I'll never leave
you, I'll never forsake you, I'll never forget you. That's
what Zechariah's name means. Jehovah remembers. I think about that thief upon
the cross. There in the Gospel of Luke it
is recorded. And he said to the Savior, Lord,
remember me. That's all I need. That's all
I need. He didn't say, I promise to serve
you, I promise to work for you, I promise to give, I promise
to pray. Get me off this cross, get me
out of this physical trouble I'm in. I'm in, I promise to
do all these things. No. No promises. No deals. All He said was, there's a miserable,
worthless sinner. Lord, remember me. You're the
Lord. Remember me when you come into
your kingdom. And the Lord Jesus said, Verily
I say unto thee, Today you'll be with me in paradise. I'm not
going to forget you believing thief. I'm the one who created
faith in your heart anyway. I'm the one who remembered you,
who thought of you in old eternity when I wrote your name down in
my Lamb's Book of Life. I remember you. I'm dying for
you. I'll be raised again for you.
I'll ascend to heaven for you. I'll always remember you. The
Lord says to His people, your names are written upon the palms
of My hands. I know I don't forget you. Your
mother might forget you, your father may forget you, your husband
may forget you, your wife may forget you, your children may
forget you, your mom and your dad may forget you, but I won't. Jehovah remembers. That's a gospel
story right there. He remembered us in our misery. And therefore the Lord Jesus
came into this world to do something about the mess we were in. A
mess of our own making. He came to save His people from
their sins. Well, Israel then is in Babylonian
idolatry. Now, if you remember your history
of Israel, the Babylonians were, they were overcome, they were
conquered by the Medes and the Persians, called the Medo-Persian
Empire. It was the Babylonian Empire,
and then that was conquered by the Medes and the Persians, the
Medo, or Meadow, Persian Empire. First by Darius I and then Darius
II. But then there rose up over this
kingdom a man whose name was Cyrus. Cyrus the Great. And he looked at all of these
Jews, thousands and thousands of them, in Babylon. He said,
what am I going to do with all these people? They've kind of
fallen into my lap. And he said to them, I'm going
to make a decree. See, the Lord remembers his people.
He moves upon the heart of a heathen king to think about these slaves. Cyrus said, Give me a pen. I've got a pen here somewhere.
Clarence gave it to me. And I won't sign a decree. All the Israelites are freed. Go home. Rebuild your temple. Resume your worship. And he signed it. Cyrus the Great
stamped it. It's official. And so they began
going back, but only 43,000 of the Jews went back. So what happened to all the rest
of them? Well, over 70 years, they had families and some of
them, they weren't. especially during the Medo-Persian
Empire days. They'd been there, I think, about
18 years under the rule of those folks. They had certain freedoms
then, and they got married, raised a family, and maybe opened a
business or whatever. And so a lot of them didn't go
back, but 43,000 of them did. And you can read about that.
You can read what they did when they got back in Ezra. You can read chapter 1 where
you read the edict, that law that was decreed by Cyrus the
Great, that they go home and resume everything. In the third
chapter, I think it is, they're counted all the people who were
there, and they began to rebuild. The first thing they did was
They rebuilt the altar to resume worshiping God. Oh, this is good. We've got to worship God. And then the sacrifices were
reinstituted. See, the Lord didn't forget His
people. And He's not going to forget you. Where you are, what's
happening to you, is it a sickness? Is it tough times in your family? A multitude of things that goes
on in the lives of God's people. And you say, has the Lord clean
forgotten me? David said that in the Psalms.
Remember him saying that? Has the Lord clean forgotten
me? And the answer is a resounding no! He hasn't forgotten you.
Jehovah remembers His people. But he never promised you in
this life a flower-strewn pathway. But he did say this, I'll never
leave you and I'll never forsake you. And he said, I'll give you grace
in your time of need. He said, Jim, I'm a needy sinner. He specializes in saving sinners. And I'll tell you what, He has
mercy that is plenteous. He remembers sinners. I'm so thankful He remembered
me. He saw me in my ungodliness, in my false religion, sent me
the Gospel, gave me a new heart to believe Him. The Lord remembers
His people. And it may seem to you like He's
clean forgotten you, as David thought. But He's not
going to forget you. He didn't forget the Israelites. And they go back. They start
Rebuilding the temple and first father laid the foundation they
worked there. Oh, it's like a year and eight
nine months something like that Work went really well This is
encouraging And then some enemies came man
enemies of the gospel And the Jews got discouraged
and The people of God I'm talking about. They got discouraged. They stopped building. God sent Haggai to preach to
them, to encourage them. And then two months after he
began his ministry, that's when Zechariah began his ministry
among them. He began to preach to them. Keep
in mind, the people had become distressed, kind of spiritually lax, spiritually lazy, weren't as faithful in attendance. There was a coldness that came
over some of the people. Along comes Zechariah, a mighty preacher. And it is
his job, and he does two things throughout his book. Number one,
he preaches comfort for the people of God. And you can kind of take
that to the bank. You can make a note of that.
Comfort to the people of God in this book. And he encourages
the people by preaching the gospel of Christ. You see, the people
have got to be motivated. They've got to be, somebody's
got to light a fire under them, if you might. Maybe I can put
it that way. Now, I know what most preachers
would have done in that kind of case, to light a fire under
people, preach the thunder of the law of God. If you don't
serve the Lord, if you don't start acting right now, God's
going to send judgment on you again. And you're going to suffer chastisements
that you ain't seen nothing yet. You need to do better, or you're
going to lose rewards when you get to heaven. And if you will do better, the
Lord will bless you and give you many things that you want.
That's the way preachers today motivate folks. That's not how Zechariah motivated. How are you going to motivate
a people who even their morals, their outward living, they got
careless even in their living, in their lives? How would He
motivate the people? He's going to motivate the people
by over and over and over again bringing them to Jesus Christ
the Lord of Glory, the Redeemer, the Lamb of God who is surely
coming, who will release people who are prisoners in the bondage
of sin through His substitutionary death. He preached the Gospel. And I'm going to give you an
illustration of that this morning, of Zechariah, a Gospel preacher. I could sit under his ministry.
In fact, the whole time I was in Michigan, on vacation, I just
enjoyed reading the book of God, the book of Zechariah. Could I say this to you? And
I appreciate the men who filled in for me. Let me say that. I'm
very grateful to them. They all did a good job. And
I would say to them, and I would say to all of you, if you're
going to speak to people about the things of God, first of all,
don't read what John Gill has to say on a passage. or any other
writer that you've got any degree of confidence in. Read the Word
of God over and over and over again until your mind and your
heart are saturated with the Word of God. And it may be you
will consult perhaps a commentary or not. That fellow told me,
some preacher told him, said, don't you ever preach from the
passage of Scripture unless you consult five commentaries first. I said, I don't know where he
got that. But I'd say to you, before you ever speak to anybody
about the things of God, before you give a devotional or a message
from here or a Sunday school lesson or whatever the case may
be, read the Word of God over and over and over again because
the power is in the Word. Don't be lax in the study of
the Scriptures. And as I read through Zechariah
over and over, I just rejoiced in what he had to say, and especially
in this passage here in chapter 6. And I'm going, there'll be
several messages on this, but today I'll go here from chapter
6, at least this morning. Look at verse 10. Verse nine, chapter six, verse
nine. And the word of the Lord came
unto me saying, you know, these prophets of God, they spoke by
the authority of God, by divine inspiration, only when the word
of the Lord came to them. And here's what the Lord said.
Verse 10, take of them of the captivity, even Heldi, Heldi,
excuse me, His name means a weary traveler through this world. I think I'm looking into the
faces of a bunch of us whose name is Helldive. We're weary,
sinful travelers through this world. This guy had come back from the
captivity. It says, take them of the captivity
and especially name these three. held I a weary traveler going
through the world." That's you, isn't it? That's me. And of Tobijah, his name means,
the Lord is good to me. I thought, boy, both of those,
That fits me. I'm a weary traveler, a sinful
man traveling through this world, and the Lord's been good to me.
Hadn't the Lord been good to you? We've talked about our aches
and pains this morning and the troubles of the flesh. And yet,
as we go through this world as weary travelers, sinful beings,
though we are, yet the Lord has been good to us. He's been good
to us in choosing us to salvation. He's been good to us in redeeming
us by the bloody death of His Son. He's been good to us in
calling us by His regenerating work of the Spirit of God through
the preaching of the Gospel. The Lord has invaded our hearts
and made a home for Himself. We didn't say, Lord, I'm opening
my heart's door to You. Come on in and make a welcome
for Yourself. No. The Lord said, I'm coming
in. That's effectual grace. I'm coming
in. The Lord said, I'm found of them
who sought Me not. Oh, how good the Lord is to us.
And the goodness of God is seen to you in your life every single
day. Don't moan and groan too much. Be careful lest you murmur against
the providence of God. It's all good. I'll never forget
what Brother Scott Richardson said one time. He said, I haven't
heard any bad news ever since I heard the good news. There
is no bad news. I'm a hell-dye. I'm a weary traveler
going through this world. I'm toboggan. The Lord's been
good to me. And then, Judiah. The Lord has known me. The Lord
knows me. The Lord knoweth them that are
His. He loves them that are His. That's what that means. The Lord
loves me. I'm a weary, sinful traveler
going through this world, but the Lord is good to me, and whatever
he brings to pass, he's good to me, and he's always known
me, he's always loved me. The Lord knoweth them that are
his. The Lord said to Israel, you
only of all the nations of the earth have I known. That's what
he said. I don't know the rest of them.
But I know you." And he, it says here, had come
that same day and gone to the house of a fellow by the name
of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah. And Zechariah tells him, he said,
well then take silver and gold and make you two crowns. a silver
crown and a gold crown, and set him upon the head of Joshua.
Now that's not Joshua whose name is the book of the Bible. This
is another Joshua who is the high priest at this time. Joshua. What does Joshua mean? Jehovah is salvation. You make these two crowns. One
of silver, one of gold. The silver crown is the crown
for the priest. The gold crown is the crown for
the king. You make these two crowns and
put it on the head of this man, Joshua, who stands as a type
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Crown him with many crowns. The
Lamb upon his throne. He is our great high priest,
our intercessor, our mediator. and he is our king who rules
over us in righteousness. And speak unto him saying, thus
speaketh the Lord of hosts saying, behold the man. What man? The man Christ Jesus. Behold the man. That's exactly
what Ron read to us from John chapter 19. Pilate brought out
the Lord Jesus, crowned with thorns, old purple rag thrown
around Him. The Savior had been whipped and
beaten and slapped. Pilate said, Behold the man.
Oh, you're right, Pilate. Look to that man. because that
man is salvation. Here is Zechariah. We're talking
about hundreds of years before our Lord comes. And he says to
these men and to all the captives, Behold the man! His name is the
Branch! The Branch! He comes forth from
a, he's just a sprout. He's gonna come forth as a sprout
out of Jesse, out of David. But he's not only a sprout or
a branch that's gonna come out of David, he's the root of David
as well. He's the branch who will bear
fruit. He will bloom, He will blossom,
He will bear fruit for the glory of God. What is the fruit? We're
the fruit redeemed by His blood, saved by His grace. It says He
shall grow up out of His place. His place was in the covenant
of grace. He shall grow up here. Isaiah 53, He shall grow up before
the eyes of the Lord. Think about that. Our Lord Jesus
grew up. What is Zachariah? What is he
preaching here? He's preaching the humanity of
the Son of God, of Jehovah Christ, the God-man. Well, what's he
going to do? Look at the last statement of
verse number 12. He shall build the temple of
the Lord. Not literal stones and not a
literal temple, but the temple is the church of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He shall redeem the church and
build the church. He goes out into the very quarry
of the world, the sinful world. Here's a world full of sinners.
And here and there, according to His own purpose of grace,
He takes a stone, a dead stone, and makes it to be a living stone. Gives it life in Christ Jesus. And He fits it into His temple.
What's Christ doing? He's building the temple of the
Lord. We are the living temple of the
Lord. So he says in verse 13, even
he shall build the temple of the Lord, Christ will, and he'll
get the glory. You remember the Savior saying,
I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. I'll build my church. He's the foundation of the church.
He's the cheap cornerstone of the church. He's the life of
the church. He's the builder of the church.
Which is all on account of, look at the end of verse 13, and the
counsel of peace shall be between the both, between the Father
and the Son. It's all the fulfillment of the counsel of grace. The
covenant of grace. And then he says, and the crowns
shall be to Helam, another fellow, and Tobijah, to Judiah, and to
him, the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the
Lord. The Lord gives us a crown of
glory. He gives us a crown of life.
Verse 15, and they that are far off shall come and build in the
temple, not build the temple, but build in the temple of the
Lord. Those that are far off, who's that? That's us, Gentiles.
They shall come. Gotta love the Lord's shalls.
And we build on Him, Christ the Lord. All of our hopes are built
on His blood and righteousness. My hope is built on nothing else
but Jesus' blood and righteousness. And Zechariah says, and you shall
know that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto you. And this shall
come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your
God. Obey the Gospel command. Obey
the Gospel command. Zachariah. He's a preacher of
the gospel. And I'm going to show you that
again tonight in the message. To all of you who want salvation,
you need the Savior. God showed you a rotten sinner. You need the grace of God. You
know what I say to you? Behold the man! Behold the man! Even Pilate spoke some very true
words that day. Behold the man. Reminds you of
the words of John the Baptist, Behold the Lamb of God, that
taketh away the sin of the world. Look. Look to Him. Oh, God enabled you to look.
God gave you grace to look. Look to Christ. for life, for
salvation, for righteousness, for peace with God. Look and
live. Look and live. Let's get our
psalm books and turn to 255. 255. I want us to just sing one
stanza of blessed assurance.