Thank you. Excellent. Excellent. Let's go
to the book of, well, you know where we're going. Zechariah
chapter 4. If you were here this morning,
you know where we're going. Zechariah chapter 4. Now, I'm
going to read these verses. I'm not going to read the entire
chapter. But this has to do with the rebuilding
of the great temple of Solomon. It was rebuilt by a man by the
name of Zerubbabel. That's a man God used. And I'm going to kind of break
into this. Look at verse 5, chapter 4, verse
5, Zechariah. Then the angel that spoke with
me, talked with me, he answered and he said unto me, knowest
thou not what these things be? And I said, no, my Lord. And then he answered and spake
unto me, saying, this is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel,
saying, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith
the Lord of hosts. Who art thou, O great mountain,
before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain? And he shall bring forth the
headstone thereof with shoutings, crying grace, grace unto it. Moreover, the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation
of this house, and his hands shall also finish it. And thou
shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you, for who
hath despised the day of small things. For they shall rejoice
and see the plummet in the hand observable with those seven. They're the eyes of the Lord
which run to and fro through the whole earth. Our subject
is no mountain too great, no mountain Great. As I said, this passage has to
do with the rebuilding of the temple. And the man God used
to rebuild this temple was Zerubbabel. He's a beautiful picture of our
Lord Jesus in a number of ways because it's the Lord Jesus who's
building his temple, his spiritual temple, that is, his church.
Our Lord said, I will build my church and the gates of hell
shall not prevail against it. He laid the foundation for this
spiritual temple, the body of Christ Jesus. And he's the one
who will lay the top stone to it and all the glory and praise
shall go to our great Zerubbabel. It's interesting, his name and
studying his name It means he's the blessed one of Babylon, or
the blessed one in Babylon, and also it can be interpreted as
that one who is the seed of Babylon, or one born in Babylon. And you know, that's very much
like our Lord Jesus, because if you've studied in the book
of Revelation, as we have, we know that Babylon is usually
God's name for false religion. That's God's name for it. Babylon,
it's called the harlot church. That's all a false religion.
Doesn't matter which name, what label it goes under, Babylon
is all a false religion. Well, that's in Babylon, in the
literal city of Babylon, that's where Zerubbabel was born. And
our Lord Jesus, who is himself God manifested in the flesh,
he was born in the middle of, we might call it spiritual Babylon. Because at that time, Judaism
is false religion. It's a works religion. See all
those Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and all the rest
of them, they believed in earning your way to heaven by keeping
the law of Moses. And right in the midst of all
of that, in the midst of all that false religion with their
ritualism and with all their ceremonies, God put His Son. He sent Him into this world. And He put Him down, as it were,
right in the middle of false religion. And throughout His
public ministry, this is where He received His greatest opposition. from the religious folks, from
those who are endeavoring to establish a righteousness of
their own rather than bowing to and being submissive to the
righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So our Lord Jesus is beautifully
typified by this man, Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel. Now we know the temple
in Jerusalem had been destroyed about 586 B.C. You'll remember back in the book
of Exodus, and I'll just kind of give you some history here,
just kind of jog your memories a bit. God gave to Moses instructions
for building the tabernacle. God said, that's where I'll meet
with you. That's where you'll meet with me. God would not be
met with anywhere else in all the world except at the tabernacle. And that tabernacle pictured
our Lord Jesus Christ. Because God only meets with us,
folks like us, fallen daughters and sons of Adam, he only meets
with us in Christ Jesus. There's no other access to God
except through Christ Jesus. And back in those days, if an
Israelite wanted to worship God, You want to meet with God. You
want to deal with God. There's only one place you can
go, that's to the door of the tabernacle. And you present an
offering, an offering that was offered unto God, the blood was
shed, and all of that typified and pictured our Lord Jesus and
his blood sacrifice at the cross of Calvary. And that's where
God met with Israel. Now that was a mobile tabernacle. and it was portable. It could
be moved and it was moved from one location to another. And
when they went into the promised land, the tabernacle went in
with them. And I don't know, something,
I forget exactly the number of years, 400 to 430 or 40 years,
that tabernacle was utilized by the Israelites. And then we
know the Philistines, they stole the Ark of the Covenant. And
that pretty much did end the tabernacle. And eventually, and
we don't have time to go through all of that, eventually that
Ark of the Covenant made its way back, and David, David, he
put that Ark of the Covenant in a tent that he made. And that's where it stayed. And
then David, he said this, he said, you know, I live in a nice
house. I live in a house made of cedar. And it just isn't right for that
Ark of the Covenant to be in a tent. So he said, I'm gonna
build a temple. Well, God wouldn't let him build
the temple, because David had bloody hands. But David did accumulate
the vast amounts of silver and gold and all the things necessary
to build the temple. And then after his death, when
his son Solomon assumed the throne of Israel, and Solomon, of course,
he built the temple. It was a magnificent structure.
It took seven years for him to build it. It was finished, it
is said, about the middle of the 10th century. So let's just
say roughly about a thousand years before the birth of our
Lord Jesus Christ. It stood there in Jerusalem. That was the place where God
was worshipped. This is where the people came
out. They rendered worthy, the word rendered to God that praise
that He is worthy of. The reverence and the worship
that he's so deserving of. It stood in Jerusalem. But over
the years, Israel fell away from the worship of God. Now they
continued to bring their sacrifices, but it was mere, we'll call it
formality. That's all it was. And actually,
as you look at the history of Israel, Basically, the history of Israel
can be put forth this way. Their failures and God's faithfulness. That's what you can conclude
about the history of Israel. God's faithfulness to them to
keep the promises he made to Abraham, the promises he repeated
to David. And he blessed them above all
nations of the earth. Now, as a nation, they were a
typical people. They were a picture of the redeemed
of the Lord, the true Israel, that is the church. Not in every
way. They're not a picture of the
church in every way, but in many ways they are. And we had fallen,
and we still stumble and fall. We're still sinful people. But
our history is very much like the history of Israel. Our failures
and God's faithfulness. God's faithfulness. You review your life just for
a moment and it won't take you long. If you're honest and if
the Spirit of God gives you a right attitude, you'll have to admit,
My life is a life of a sinful woman, a sinful man. Yes, I'm
a believer, and I hope you are. Yes, I do trust the Lord Jesus
Christ. I preach his blood. That's how
we have access to God, is through the blood of the Savior. I preach
his righteousness, righteousness freely imputed to every sinner
who believes him. But yet through our faith, there
is much failures. But all along the way, God has
remained faithful to his covenant promises. He's remained faithful to his
oath. He's remained faithful to his purpose of grace. And
nothing can ruin that. Nothing can hinder God from fulfilling
that which He's purposed to do. You may as well get it out of
your mind that there's something a sinner can do to ruin what
God has set out to do. That is impossible. God is of
one mind. Who can change Him? Who can possibly frustrate His
purpose? Can you? Can any man? And Satan. I hear people talk
about, you know, God is almighty. And then they'll talk about what
God can't do. He is almighty and he can do and he does do
whatever he set out to do. He said, I will do my purpose. That's what God said. And nobody
can hinder him. Nobody at all. Well, Israel,
they rebelled against the Lord on many occasions and their religion
became a matter of formality. And then they fell into idolatry
and worshiped other gods. And God punished them. And he
used a heathen king by the name of Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar,
the Babylonian king, invaded Jerusalem, he took people captive,
he took them back to Babylon, and he destroyed the temple in
586 B.C. Now the Lord had spoken of this, and he had then spoken also of
the overthrow of Babylon. Let me read you just a few verses
briefly. Go back to Jeremiah chapter 25.
This is interesting and you can pursue this when you have the
time to do it. I'm just gonna kinda whet your
appetite a little bit here. But go back to Jeremiah chapter
25. Now the Lord had spoken of what
he would do to Jerusalem and to Judea as a result of their
idolatry against him. Look at Jeremiah chapter 25,
look at verse eight. Therefore, thus saith the Lord
of hosts, because you have not heard my words, behold, I will
send and take all the families of the north. I'm gonna gather
all those people up north, your enemies, saith the Lord. And
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, God said, he's my servant. You
say, but he's a heathen king. He's God's servant. Every person,
everything that exists serves the purpose of God. You know
that? You say, I hope I can be of service to God. Oh, you will
be. He is going to use you. He used
Pharaoh. Pharaoh was God's servant. God
sent Moses and said, you tell Pharaoh for this same purpose,
I raised you up. Who raised up Pharaoh? He said,
the devil did. Well, you're wrong. The Lord
did. The Lord raised him up to be
at enmity against Israel so that ultimately God would set forth
the way he releases sinners, and that's through the death
of the Lamb of God, the blood of the Lamb of God. So the Lord
says, Nebuchadnezzar, he's my servant, and will bring against them this
land and against the inhabitants thereof and against all these
nations round about and will utterly destroy them and make
them an astonishment and a hissing and perpetual desolations. Moreover,
I will take from them the voice of mirth. and the voice of gladness,
and the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the
sound of the millstones, and the light of the candle, and
this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment, and these
nations, they shall serve the King of Babylon 70 years. Let's keep reading. And it shall
come to pass, when 70 years are accomplished, that is, after
he's finished using Babylon, he says, I'll then punish the
king of Babylon. And that nation, saith the Lord,
for their iniquity hath no land of the Chaldeans, and will make
it perpetual desolations. And I will bring upon that land
all my words which I have pronounced against it, even all that is
written in this book which Jeremiah hath prophesied against all nations. And God punished them. Look a
little bit further in chapter 29 and verse 10. Chapter 29 and verse 10. For thus saith the Lord, that
after 70 years be accomplished. Now here's what he's talking
about. When Nebuchadnezzar invaded the land and destroyed the temple,
he took these Jews into captivity. and they're gonna stay there.
During that time is when Zerubbabel was born. But they're gonna stay
in captivity 70 years, and they did. Keep reading. For thus saith
the Lord, that after 70 years be accomplished at Babylon, God
says, I'm gonna visit you, and I will perform my good word toward
you in causing you to return to this place. And they will
be led to this place. They will be led back to Jerusalem
by Zerubbabel. Keep reading. God says, for I
know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord. Thoughts
of peace. He's always had thoughts of peace
toward his people. And not of evil. He's never had
thoughts of evil toward his people. We've always been his covenant
children. He's always viewed us in Christ
Jesus. We're the beloved of the heart
of God. If I could put it this way, He
loves us more than we can ever comprehend. He loves us as He
loves the Son. That's how much He loves us. And He says, I know the thoughts
that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace and
not of evil, to give you an expected end, to give you a desired end. And it's not the desired end
of the people, but the desired end that God has purposed to
bring them to. This is God's desire. And that
which God desires, God gets, right? He's never disappointed. Look at verse 12. Then, then
shall you call upon me, and you shall go and pray unto me, and
I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find
me, and ye shall search for me, or when ye shall search for me,
with all your heart. And I will be found of you, saith
the Lord, and I will turn away your captivity. And I will gather
you from all the nations, and from all the places whither I
have driven you, saith the Lord. And I will bring you again into
the place whence I cause you to be carried away captive. And then one other passage in
chapter 31. Chapter 31 beginning at 35. Chapter 31 of Jeremiah beginning
at verse 35. Thus said the Lord, which giveth,
now watch this, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and
the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night,
which divided the sea when the waves thereof roar. The Lord
of hosts is his name. And now here's what he's showing,
the absolute certainty of his faithfulness and of his goodness
and of his grace to his people. Now watch how he says this, verse
36. if those ordinances ever depart from before me. What ordinances? That the sun provides light by
day, and that the moon and the stars provide light by night,
and that the waves of the sea shall come in and go out. He
says, if those ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord,
well, that's when the seed of Israel also shall cease from
being a nation before me forever. He says that you'll be my people
till those things happen. You think the sun's gonna stop
shining? As some people say, it's gonna burn out one of these
days. Well, I wouldn't count on it if I was you, not to the
end of time. And the stars and the moon at
night, God says they'll be up there. Now if they cease to be
up there, that's when I'll cease loving my people. He's using
that, you see, to establish us in the absolute certainty of
His grace and goodness to us. Read on. Look at verse 37. Thus saith the Lord, if heaven
above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth
searched out beneath, if you can do that, If there's ever
anybody who can measure heaven, the first heaven, the second
heaven, and the third heaven, and if the foundations of the
earth below are searched out, when you can go to the center
of the earth and look through it and check it all out, God
says, that's when I'll cast off all the seed of Israel for all
that they have done, saith the Lord. What's He setting forth?
The certainty. of his continued grace and his
goodness to his people. And so, there is in Babylon the
Lord's people. And within that, the thousands
of people who were taken, there was a remnant according to the
election of grace. Now, kind of to go back dealing
with history a little bit, You remember when Darius, also called
Darius, king of Babylon, excuse me, Belshazzar, king of Babylon,
when he drank from the vessels of wine, he was having a party,
and he sent somebody over to get the vessels that they had
stolen from the temple. They stole 5,400 pieces of gold
and silver from the temple. That's what happened when Nebuchadnezzar
invaded Jerusalem. They stole 5,400 pieces, 5,400 pieces of silver and gold. And
he said, we don't have enough goblets to drink wine out of.
I got so many people here at this party. Go over there and
bring some of those in. They drank wine. That's when
he saw a man's hand writing on the wall, no body attached to
it. The hand wasn't associated with
a body. Han wrote, mene, mene, tekel,
lufarsin. You're weighed in the balances
and found wanting. And that very night, the kingdom
was taken from Babylon and given to the Medes and the Persians.
Well, over a period of time, the Medes gave way to the Persians. That is, the Persians took over
the Medes. And they ruled. They ruled. And in the purpose of God, a
man by the name of Cyrus ruled in Persia. Persia is present
day Iran, okay? Present day Iran. And the king
took over. And when he did, he had God worked
in his heart and he said, I'm gonna free all these captives. and I'm gonna send them home.
And he did so in two groups, two colonies. The first group
was, I forget exactly, 45,000 and something. He said, I'm sending
you back to Jerusalem. And he said two men, two men
would lead the way. One of them was Joshua, who was
the high priest. We talked about him a little
bit this morning. And then the second man was Zerubbabel, Zerubbabel. And these are the two men that
God used in a mighty way. They led these former captives
back to Jerusalem. Now of this man, Zerubbabel,
he's in the lineage of our Lord Jesus. He's in that divine lineage. And if you read in Matthew chapter
one in verse 13, And in Luke chapter 3 and verse 27, you'll
find that in both Joseph's genealogy and Mary's genealogy, you'll
find the name Zerubbabel, it's with a O, but it's the same man,
Zerubbabel. He is a picture of our Lord Jesus,
but he is also in the lineage of the Savior. He's in the lineage. He can trace his ancestry back
to David. He's of the seed of David, and
he's an apt picture of our Lord Jesus. Now, when the first Jews
got back to Jerusalem, they were anxious for a restoration of
worship of God. Go to the book of Ezra with me. The book of Ezra. And let's go to chapter one.
Ezra chapter one. It follows, Ezra follows 2 Chronicles. Ezra. Ezra's name, his name means
helper. Helper. Ezra chapter one. So, led by this man, Zerubbabel,
along with Joshua. They go back to Jerusalem. Ezra
chapter one, verse one. Now in the first year of Cyrus,
king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah
might be fulfilled, which we read, the Lord, he stirred up
the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, that he made a proclamation
throughout all of his kingdom, and he put it also in writing.
And this is what it said, Thus said Cyrus king of Persia, The
Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth,
and he hath charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem which
is in Judah. Who is there among you of all
his people? Who wants to go? Let his God
be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah
and build the house of the Lord God of Israel. He is the God
which is in Jerusalem. And whosoever remaineth in any
place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him
with silver and with gold and with goods and with beasts beside
the free will offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. And so he gives this order. And
eventually they begin to build the house of God. Now, you say,
what got into Cyrus? He was a Persian king. He's a
heathen king. He's an idolater. What in the
world got into him that he all of a sudden decided, I'm going
to liberate the Jews. You want to go home? Go on home. Well, scripture says, the heart
of the king is in the Lord's hand as the rivers of water.
And he turneth it, whithersoever he will. And so they go back. Now look at Ezra chapter three
in verses one through three. And when the seventh month was,
the seventh month was come, and the children of Israel, were
in the cities, the people gathered themselves together as one man
in Jerusalem. And then stood up Jeshua, or
Joshua, he's the high priest, the son of Josedach, and his
brethren of the priests, and Zerubbabel, who's the son of
Shealtiel, and his brethren, And they built in an 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
thereof unto the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening. So they begin the worship of
God. And we know all of these offerings picture the Lord Jesus
Christ. They have no meaning if you separate
them from Christ. You understand that? They have
no meaning at all. They have no purpose unless we
understand to see through those right to Calvary and see the
Lamb of God being offered up by God Himself that God might
be a just God and a Savior. Now look further into chapter
three, verse eight. And in the second year of their
coming unto the house of God at Jerusalem, in the second month
began Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, and Jeshua, the son
of Zadok, and the remnant of their brethren, the priests and
the Levites, and all they that were come out of the captivity
unto Jerusalem, and they appointed the Levites 20 years old and
upward to set forward the work of the house of the Lord. Then
stood Joshua with his sons and the brethren, Cadmeal and his
sons, the sons of Judah, together to set forward the workmen in
the house of God, the sons of Hinnadad, and their sons and
their brethren, the Levites. And the builders laid the foundation
of the temple of the Lord. They set the priests and their
apparel with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with
cymbals to praise the Lord. after the ordinance of David,
king of Israel. And they sang together by chorus
in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord, because He is
good. For His mercy endureth forever
toward Israel. And all the people shouted with
a great shout when they praised the Lord, because the foundation
of the house of the Lord was laid." It's a wonderful time
of celebration. and joy, but no sooner had the
work begun, they ran into opposition. As soon as the foundation had
been laid, difficulties arose. There were people who were opposed
to the building of the temple. Look at chapter four. Now, when the adversaries of
Judah, they're doing a good thing. but they have adversaries. Now
when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children
of the captivity built the temple under the Lord God of Israel,
they came to Zerubbabel to the chief of the fathers and said
unto them, let us build with you. We're religious people too. Of course, they're in false religion. They're idolaters. But they said,
listen, we wanna join in with you. You can get more work done,
all of us working together. See, that's a real ecumenical
atmosphere, isn't it? Ecumenical attitude. For we seek,
watch it, verse two. We seek your God. as ye do. And we do sacrifice unto him
since the days of Esarhaddon, king of Asher, which brought
us up hither. But Zerubbabel, who's a man of
wisdom, and Joshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of
Israel said unto them, you have nothing to do with this. You
have nothing to do with us to build a house unto our God, but
we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel as
King Cyrus, the King of Persia commanded us. This is none of
your business. You're not joining with us. Y'all
are a bunch of idolaters. You worship God through idols
and stones and rocks and trees. We worship God through blood
sacrifice. You want us to give in to you
and let's just join our religions together and build this temple
to the glory of some God? It'll never happen is what Zerubbabel
said. Not gonna happen. We're not gonna
compromise. And that's what we say, isn't
it? That's what we say. We're not gonna compromise. There's
one way to worship God. They say, I think there's good
in all denominations. There's bad in all denominations. Men are liars. Let God be true
and every man a liar. The only truth is Christ Jesus
the Lord. He's the only truth there is.
And anybody who doesn't worship God through Christ Jesus, they
don't know the gospel and we're not going to join in with them
to try to build the church larger. That's not going to happen. And here's what these men did.
Look at verse four. Then the people of the land weakened
the hands of the people of Judah and troubled them in building.
And they hired, watch this, they hired counselors against them
to frustrate their purpose. All the days of Cyrus, king of
Persia, even unto the reign of Darius, king of Persia. What they did, they hired lawyers
and advisors who managed to cut off all the supply lines, and
Zerubbabel and those men helping to rebuild the temple. They didn't
have the goods that they needed. This was an interruption of construction. You know how long it lasted?
14 years. 14 years. But right toward the end of those
years, God raised up two men. Look at Ezra chapter five, verses
one and two. He raised up two preachers. Don't ever minimize the necessity
of preaching. Don't do that. Look at verse
one of chapter five. Then the prophets, two prophets,
Haggai and Zechariah. They prophesied unto the Jews. What do you think they preached?
All you gotta do is go to the New Testament. All the prophets
preached Jesus Christ and then crucified is what scripture says.
All of them. Our Lord Jesus opened the eyes
and the understanding of His disciples after His resurrection
that they might understand that all of the Scriptures pointed
to Christ Jesus and all of the prophets wrote and spoke of Him. That was their message. He was
their message. They prophesied unto the Jews
that were in Judah. They preached. They preached. What did they preach? They preached
grace. They preach substitution, they preach satisfaction. And
that encouraged the people, and here's the result, verse two.
Then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Sheateel, and Joshua the son
of Josedach, and began to build again. Preaching does a lot of good.
That's a lot of good. To build the house of God which
is at Jerusalem and with them were the prophets of God helping
them. And Haggai and Zechariah said, give me a hammer. Give
me a saw. We're gonna help you. But then
you see that which encouraged the people was the preaching
of the word of God. That's what we need today. It's
not more programs. It's not entertainment. None
of those things, just the preaching of the bare naked word of God. That's what God uses. It pleased
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them to believe. And so they went to work building.
I go back to Zechariah, but I got to really move on fast now. Back to the book of Zechariah. All right, at the time of this
text, It's toward the end of those 14 years where construction
is at a standstill. People are disappointed, they're
down in the dumps. They came back to Jerusalem full
of hope, full of joy, just this is gonna be wonderful. And then
the enemies of the gospel stepped in and said, well, we're gonna
help you. And of course, Zerubbabel said, not going to happen. They
said, well, if you're not going to let us help you, we're going
to hinder you. We're going to do everything we can to interrupt
your building project. And they did, in the purpose
of God. And that interruption went on
for nearly 14 years. People were down in the dumps,
they saw no possibility that the temple would ever be finished.
It was to them, all of these oppositions to them was as a
great mountain, a great mountain, too great for them. We don't know what we're gonna
do. Let's throw up our hands and quit. Might as well go back
to Babylon. People get discouraged. A huge mountain was in their
way, too massive for them to ascend. Their hearts sank as they looked
at, there's just the foundation of the temple, maybe a few walls
that wouldn't start it. Broke their hearts. And under
these circumstances, when they're at their wits end, God encouraged
Zerubbabel through the preaching of the word. And the Lord says,
this is the man he's going to use. And he says this in verse
six, now, now that you know the history, I don't have to tell
you much more because it just kind of falls into place. Verse
six again, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel. And this
is what the Lord said, not by might, Now you might think that
might and the word power mean the same thing. They don't. He
says, not by might nor by power. The words don't mean the same
thing because the word might indicates an army of strength. A bunch of people together manifesting
their greatness and their strength. But the Lord says it's not going
to be that way. That's not the way this mountain
is going to be moved. These obstacles are going to
be overcome. It's not going to be by might. It's not going to
be by a bunch of people getting together and doing something. Let's do something preacher,
let's just do something. It's not going to be by us joining
together, joining forces. And then, nor by, he uses a different
word, power. And that concerns one individual. Whereas the word might has the
idea of an army of strength, this one is one person, not by
power. See, churches today, people have
this idea, if we can just, if we can get us a preacher who's
full of charisma, got a lot of drawing power, great orator,
Nice, very friendly, outgoing, everybody will love him. If we
can hire a preacher like that, boy, that'll cause the church
to grow. No, God says it's not gonna happen that way. Read something about George Whitefield.
You ever read about George Whitefield? You read his sermon, you say,
boy, that don't seem very powerful to me. Or Jonathan Edwards, he
read that sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, holding
a candle over his notes. And he just read it. And then
God did something. God did something. It's not by might of a bunch
of people. It's not by the power of one
man's persuasiveness. A man who has a charming voice,
A man who's non-offensive. No, the Lord doesn't build his
church that way. I can't tell you how many emails
and how many pieces of mail that cross my desk. I can't tell you
how many there are that talk about growing your church. How to grow your church. It got
all kind of ways. I got news for all of them. Number
one, when it talks about growing your church, it's not your church
and it's not my church. It's the Lord's church. That's
the first thing. And the second thing is, he said he'll build
it. And I know what he uses. Preaching the gospel of Christ
Jesus. That's what he uses. That's it. And the Lord blesses his word. You see, I'll tell you who builds
the church. The great Zerubbabel. Now there
are mountains, there's no question about that. Let me just give
you a few other things here since I got your attention. There are
some mountains that have got to be dealt with. There's Mount
Sinai. I'll guarantee you that's an
obstacle to us. It's an obstacle to us. Because
Mount Sinai demands perfection. In fact, don't even touch it.
It'll kill you. That's what the law will do.
It'll kill you. I'm just going to do the best I can. I'm going
to live by the Ten Commandments. They'll kill you. There is no
life in the law. The law was our schoolmaster
to drive us to Christ Jesus. As we see, we can't keep the
law. We can't keep its demands. There's
a big mountain. Well, who removed it? Christ
Jesus removed it. Because He obeyed the law in
His life and He paid the penalty for us breaking the law in His
death. And He moved that obstacle out
of the way. And that's never going to cry out against you
again. It can. It's been satisfied by Christ
Jesus. And then there's the mountain
of our own sins. Boy, how great are our sins?
Past, present, and future. It's more than you can ever count.
You can't ever number them. But he took care of that mountain
too. He buried the mountain of our sins in the depths of the
deepest sea and yet covered it totally. And they're never gonna
be brought up against us again. You ever heard any of these people
say, I'll be brought up against you at the judgment. Well, God
says their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. That's
what God said. They're gone. And then there's
the mountain of our enemies. He handled them too. He crushed
the head of the serpent. He quickened us by his grace,
overcoming our natural rebellion as a big mountain. And all the rest of our enemies
also. Our Lord Jesus laid the foundation
Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which
is Christ Jesus. And he's building his spiritual
temple. He uses what Peter says in 1
Peter 2, living stones. Living stone. Where does he get
them stones? He goes out here in the great
quarry of mankind. and he chisels them out, and
he shapes them, makes them beautiful in his righteousness, and he
fits them right into the temple. And lo and behold, they fit.
They fit right in, because it's one building that he's building. And one of these days, he's going
to lay the top stones. And it says here in verse seven,
who art thou, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, thou shalt
become a plain. There's somebody who can level
these mountains. Now you can't, I can't, nobody
else can, but he can, and he did. That's what he does for
his people. and he shall bring forth the
headstone. He's gonna put the top stone
thereof, and it will be amid all this shouting, the shouting
of his people, grace, grace unto it. Why do you think he said
grace twice? I said because grace began it
and grace is gonna finish it. That's all right, isn't it? That's
why he said grace twice. Grace started the work and grace
is gonna complete the work. It's grace that killed us and
grace that made us alive. It's grace that stripped us and
then grace clothed us in the righteousness of Christ Jesus.
Grace reigns first, grace reigns last, and all in between. Grace
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life. That's what
we read. And who did God use to do this?
Let me just read again, look at verses eight, nine, and 10. Moreover, the word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation
of this house. His hand shall also finish it. I love that. He started it, he's
gonna finish it. And if you get in the way, he'll
just roll over you and there won't be a smudge left of you.
His purpose of grace just keeps on going. Join in with us or
get in the way and be removed forever. That's the way it is.
And thou should know that the Lord God of hosts has sent me
unto you. For who hath despised the day
of small things? All the children of Israel said,
it's not many of us building. And look at all this opposition
against us. We don't have much stuff left
to build with. Well, don't despise a day of
small things. Ain't nothing small in the hands
of God. He can take a little and make
it go a long ways. And shall see, he says, shall
see the plummet. What is the plummet? It was an
instrument in the hands of the builder to make sure everything
was straight Corners were just right. Everything's in perfect
alignment. Christ Jesus will make sure righteousness
is established. He's already done that by his
death upon the cross of Calvary. In the eyes of the Lord, the
providence of God goes this way and that way through the whole
earth. He'll make sure this comes to pass. And let me give you
one other passage, and I'll try to quit. Look over in chapter
six and verse 12. Chapter six and verse 12. Speak unto these people, saying,
thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, behold the man whose
name is the branch. Now he's already been mentioned
back over here in chapter three. Look at chapter three, verse
eight. "'Hear now, O Joshua, the high priest, "'thou and thy
fellows that sit before thee, "'for they are men wondered at.
"'For behold, I will bring forth my servant.'" What's his name?
The branch. That's who he is, talking about
Christ Jesus. Now go back there to chapter
six, verse 12. "'Behold the man whose name is
the branch. "'He shall grow up out of his
place. And he shall build the temple
of the Lord. Even he shall build the temple
of the Lord. And he shall bear the glory.
And shall sit and rule upon his throne. And he shall be a priest
upon his throne. And the council of peace. What's
that? That's a covenant of grace. Shall be between them both. and
the sun. Had no mountain too great. Lord
Jesus handled it all. Isn't that precious? That's a
precious passage of scripture, isn't it? Well, I hope God will
bless it to you. Let's get our black folders once
again, and we're gonna sing the words of number 15, Rock of Ages,
And we're only going to sing the words out of there. If you're
interested in the tune, it's in the songbook. But you know
what the tune is, so you'll need to look at the music. But the
reason we're singing out of that black folder, number 15, because
it's got all four stanzas. And our songbook, for whatever
reason, those guys who put it together disappointed me greatly,
because they left out one of the verses of Top Lady's great
song. And that's a shame on them for
doing that. So we found a way to kind of
get around it. we can sing the words out of the Black Chorus
Book. Number 15, Rock of Ages. Let's
stand together. Rock of ages, plan for me. Let me hide myself in thee. Let the waters and the blood
From the riverside we flow, we are still in love.