Well we continue in the prophecy
of Zechariah and we come this morning to Zechariah chapter
4 and I've called this message the Lord's Grand Design and I'll
tell you why a little bit later but we read to start with those
verses in Matthew chapter 16, where the Lord Jesus is with
his disciples, and he's asking them, who is it that the people
are saying that I am? And they say, well, some say
that you're John the Baptist, come again, because John the
Baptist had been beheaded by then. And some say that you're
a reincarnation of Elijah the prophet or Jeremiah. And he says,
but who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter always being
the spokesperson for the rest, the first one, you know, when
you're in a group, there are always those that hang back and
there are others that are always very rapid to come to the fore. And Simon Peter answered and
said, thou art the Christ. the son of the living God. I
mean, those words are so rich and shockingly, to the Jews,
to the Pharisees, to the leaders, that would have been absolute
blasphemy. for Simon Peter to call a mere
man who just looked like anybody else, no comeliness that we should
desire him. He said, you are the Christ. You are the promised
one of God. You are God come in the flesh,
God incarnate, the son of the living God, of the very essence
of God. That's what he's saying to him.
And Jesus said, you're blessed. You're blessed, Simon. Flesh
and blood. Others have not taught you this.
but my Father, which is in heaven. And he says, so I say to you
that you are Peter, you are the little pebble, the little stone.
But upon this rock, what rock? The rock of Christ, the rock
of faith in Christ, the rock which is Christ, I will build
my church. And the gates of hell, which
are defensive things, gates are to stop people getting in, but
the gates of hell shall not prevail against this church, which will
come and be triumphant. And I will give you the keys
of the kingdom of heaven. Don't think that this is what
the Catholics say it is, where the Pope is the rock and he's
given the keys to determine who gets into heaven and who doesn't.
Not at all. What this means is that he will
give to Peter and all his preachers the ability to open and to explain
gospel truth so that People are saved out of this dark world.
You see, the rock is Christ. The scriptures say that. The
New Testament says that, speaking of that rock which gave water
to the Israelites in the wilderness wanderings. That rock was Christ. The New Testament says it quite
clearly. That rock was Christ. He is the chief cornerstone,
which means the chief foundation stone, the stone from which all
the rest of the building fits together, frames together. You
see surveyors putting markers in the ground, and everything
goes from that one fixed position. He is that chief cornerstone.
He is the key foundation upon which Jesus said, I will build
my church. Upon this rock, I will build
my church. It's him. And what is his church? It's his kingdom. It's the kingdom
of God. What did he come preaching? The
kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe the kingdom of God is at hand. The church
is the kingdom of God. The church is the eternal dwelling
place of God with his people. Again and again throughout the
scriptures you read, I will be their God and they shall be my
people and I will dwell with them. The eternal dwelling place
of God and his people. It's the new Jerusalem which
is above. It is heaven physical Jerusalem,
there's still a place in that same place in the Middle East,
a pile of stones there, which is such a place of sinful controversy
in this world. Yet, it was only ever a picture
of the true Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, Zion, which is above
heaven. What is it? for Jesus to build
his church? I will build my church, he says.
What is it for Jesus to build his church? It is God, because
he is God. Accomplishing the progress to
triumphant completion, stone by stone, of his kingdom of redeemed
sinners, from their ruin by the fall, we're in ruins by nature,
we're ruined, we're a mess, by the fall, to the heavenly bliss
of eternal glory. And how is it accomplished? By
sovereign grace. By sovereign grace. That's the
greatest glory of God. Show me your glory, said Moses.
This is my glory, said God. Come here, stand in this cleft
of the rock. I'll show you my glory. This is my glory. I will
be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and I will have compassion,
mercy on whom I will have mercy. Sovereign grace and discriminating
mercy, for it is whom God chose that he shows this mercy to.
Not to everybody without exception, but to the multitude that no
man can number. And he builds this building,
he builds his church, this edifice from foundation stone which he
is the foundation stone, to the headstone, the topping-off stone,
as it says. That term's used in buildings
in this country, big buildings, they talk about the topping-off
ceremony, when the building is finished. Have you heard this
message? Have you heard it with your ears
and understood the words with your mind? And have you believed
it? You know, how Paul says in Romans
10, How shall they hear? Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. But how will they call on somebody
that they've not heard of? And how will they hear without
a preacher? And how will they believe unless they've had it
preached to them? Have you heard? Have you believed?
Have you called on the name of the Lord? then you're confirmed
as a citizen of this kingdom of God, of this heavenly Jerusalem. You're qualified for entry. You
know, getting into a country can be quite a thing. I can't
just go and live in the United States of America because there
are strict rules as to who's allowed to go in. You're qualified
for this kingdom, how? by redemption from the curse
of the law, from the curse of sin. For as a sinner, you cannot
enter, but if you've been redeemed by Christ from the curse of the
law, you're qualified, you're made meet to enter it. You're
certain to inherit it, for you're an heir of it, a joint heir with
Christ, to enter in and to experience endlessly, endlessly. This life
is full of trials. and discouragements for believers
as well as unbelievers, hindrances, disasters. This sin-cursed world
is all around with all of those trials and tribulations, but
Romans 8 and verse 18 tells us that these things, these trials,
are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be
revealed in us, not just revealed to us, but in us, in us, not
worthy. The troubles, the issues that
we go through are not worthy to be compared with that glory.
Is that always in your mind, whatever you're doing, whatever
daily business you're going about, wherever you are, is it always
in your mind there, informing your thoughts, informing, setting
your attitudes, giving you hopes of glory, aspirations for the
kingdom of God to come? Do all the other projects in
this life, and we have projects all the time, do all the other
projects of this life shrink into their true perspective in
the light of this great grand design of God? It's the Lord's
grand design. There's a TV program that I like,
I've been watching it for 20 years, where people take on huge
great projects to turn, say, a derelict site or an inadequate
little house and turn it into a grand design of a family house
on the most unlikely of sites or in different situations. And
I would say after 20 years of watching this, and the engineer
in me is always fascinated by this sort of thing, The thing
that it tells me again and again is don't set out on a grand design
because they nearly always end up breaking their marriages,
killing themselves, getting ill, all sorts of things. They get
into terrible trouble because their grand designs are at enormous
cost. They nearly always go way, way,
way over budget and way, way, way over original time. and it
causes great strain. But what the scripture talks
about is the Lord's grand design, and he shall not fail. He doesn't
fail. He knows the end from the beginning,
for he ordains the end from the beginning. This is the Lord's
grand design. How is it to you? Is it, yes,
yes, I believe that. You say yes, but give me some
help. Give me some help. Give me some
help for my unbelief and my doubting. Well, Zechariah 4 gives that
help. It's a historical allegory of
this process of God, of Christ, I will build my church and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. That's what it is.
It's a historical picture, a literal picture, but at the same time,
it's full of things that the Lord would teach us. It's coming
to prepare this. It felt to me like, you know, I
don't know if they still have them these days. I think everything's
in packs now. But when I was a kid, you would go into the
village sweet shop, and on the shelves of the village sweet
shop would be jars and jars, all sorts of things. There'd
be pineapple chunks and pear drops and caramels and all sorts
of things like that. And then there'd be mixtures,
mixtures. Oh, it was so tempting to a child
was to have a handful of these sweets. Well, this feels like
an incredible jar of the most amazing spiritual sweets. And
I put my hand into that jar and you want to grab everything.
But you know what, the thing they always said about the child
that grabbed too many sweets, he couldn't get his hand back
out of the jar, he had to drop some. And so maybe we'll come
back and have another message on this next time, I don't know,
we'll see how it goes. But there's so much in this chapter,
in these 14 verses. Let me remind you of what the
book of Zechariah has been about so far. And again, excuse me
for repeating myself, but some might just be picking this up
at this stage. This is 500 years approximately before Christ came. And it was the end of the 70
years of exile for the people of Judah, the people of God.
For their idolatry, God had always said he would send them away
into exile. into bondage, into captivity,
and they went. Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians
came and took them away for 70 years, exactly as he had said. And while they were there, they
yearned for Jerusalem. They yearned for this city, which
had been beautiful. The Temple of Solomon was magnificent. The Queen of Sheba came to Solomon,
couldn't believe what she saw, the magnificence of it, the wonder
of it. And while they were there, by
the rivers of Babylon, The people of Judah, the Jews captured and
taken away in captivity. It says in Psalm 137, by the
rivers of Babylon, where we sat down, they asked us to sing one
of the songs of Zion. How can we sing a song of Zion
in a foreign land? How can we sing it? And their
tears fell down. They'd come back now from the
rivers of Babylon. Here they were back in Jerusalem,
but they were given an order, a command, by a heathen emperor,
at the command of God, for the heart of the king, the heart
of Cyrus the emperor, was in the hands of the living God.
And he moved Cyrus to send them back, and not only to send them
back to build a temple in Jerusalem and to restore it, but to give
them the resources and the means and the authority that they needed.
And they'd gone back, a large number had gone back, but not
all, and they'd met opposition. and they'd met difficulties,
and they were downcast, and they were losing heart, and they were
questioning the point of rebuilding. Why not just conform to the world
around? I just want an easy life, was
what I'm sure many of them were saying. And God raised up prophets
with a message from them. Two particularly. The one before
Zechariah, which is Haggai, and then Zechariah himself. And their
purpose in the scheme of God was to motivate the people to
get on with this building, this rebuilding of the ruins that
had been left by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, the flattening
of Solomon's magnificent temple, the rubbish and the mess that
it had made and left. You know, of all peoples on earth,
of all peoples, God is with his people in this world. That's
the first vision that is given to Zachariah. God isn't with
all peoples without exception. He is with his people. His people,
chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. His people, called
out under the preaching of his gospel. He is with his people
in this world. That's what the first vision
given to Zechariah showed. You're losing heart in building
Jerusalem and this temple, but the second vision is that it
will be completed, because God has said it will be completed.
The world powers are trying to crush God's church, but they
shall be frayed by his preached word. That was the second vision.
Thirdly, God says to the returned exiles, your work that you're
doing, rebuilding the temple and Jerusalem, is a key piece
in the completion of the triumphant kingdom of God. Therefore, come
on, build it, build it. It's a picture that must be there.
The Messiah is going to come. He must have these courts to
walk in. He must have this temple to preach
in. He must have the streets of Jerusalem
to minister the gospel in. He must be taken to the cross
and die there as the Passover lamb. It must be completed. And
then, fourthly, in chapter three, he showed how individual sinners,
symbolized by Joshua, the high priest of the day, who was clothed
in filthy garments, and those garments were taken away, and
he was clothed with the garments of salvation by one called the
branch, which is Christ, by one which is the foundation stone
with seven eyes, which is Christ. He shows how individual sinners
are cleansed from their sin and clothed with salvation. And then,
fifthly, this vision in chapter four, this vision assures them
that by God's power and God's spirit, their work shall be completed. You know, my first point is this,
it's in verse 10, in verse 10. This was the first sweet from
the jar that I picked out. Who hath despised the day of
small things? because they'll rejoice. They've
despised it. They shall see the plummet in
the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven, the eyes of the Lord,
which run to and fro in the earth. It seemed such hard work for
so little to be accomplished. You know, the years had gone
by, 14, 15, 16 years had gone by, and they were seeing so little
progress. They'd been given the means,
they'd been given the authority, they'd been given the command
to go and do it, and they'd lost heart. And in the face of opposition,
they'd stopped. Is it not often the same for
us today? We long to see sinners coming
out of darkness into the marvellous light of Christ, and we long
to see Thriving churches established some of us can remember when
there were plenty of places that you could say if I go there I
will hear the gospel of grace faithfully preached I will be
in the company of Many many people who believe the same thing will
be brothers and sisters together a true family of God and it seems
in this country I know not so much in the United States, but
in this country, it seems that that is completely at an end.
It's finished. There's so few places where you
can go without jumping through various denominational hoops,
it would seem. We need internet for fellowship
today. There's just a handful of us
here and those of you gathered with us out on the internet at
the moment and those that download the messages. But the visible
church in this country is negligible. What a day of small things. And we tend to despise these
days and say how bad things are. But do you know something? God
promises rejoicing in Christ. Philippians 3 verse 3, who are
the true people of God, the true circumcision? We worship God
in the spirit. We rejoice in Christ Jesus. God promises rejoicing. Look,
who has despised the day of small things? Those people that had
despised it, were downcast. They shall rejoice at the triumph
of Christ. They shall rejoice in Christ
Jesus. They shall abandon all confidence
in the flesh. Christ was typified by Zerubbabel. Zerubbabel was a picture of Christ,
the hand of Zerubbabel. Who was he? He was the rightful
prince. He was the rightful heir to the
throne of Judah. He was a picture of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And he, they say, that you will
see him with a plummet, with the plumb line, with the instrument
of building measurement in his hand. It's saying to us this,
however, these days feel like the days of small things. Jehovah,
Jesus. shall perfectly measure out his
triumphant kingdom by finishing the temple. He shall finish it.
Look at verse 9. The hands of Zerubbabel have
laid the foundation of this house. His hands also shall finish it. And thou shalt know that the
Lord of hosts has sent me to you. This day of small things
is like it says elsewhere in a hymn. Coopers him, isn't it? God moves in a mysterious way.
He says, the bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet shall be the
flower. This bitter bud of this day of
seeming small things, God assures us it will blossom into the incomparable
sweetness of the full bloom of God's eternal kingdom. So then,
what's the temple's significance? Let's think about that for a
while. The temple is the earthly dwelling place of God. It's where
God dwelt with his people. That's what it pictured at any
rate. If you turn to 2 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter six and
verse 16, Paul writes to the Corinthians there, he says, what
agreement hath the temple of God with idols? And now this
is the bit. For you, you church, you company
of believing people in this world, you are the temple of the living
God. What, not that building, not
that church. You know, people talk about,
I'm going to go to church. The church is the body of people,
it's not a building. You know, the right idea is that
the church meets in the chapel. The church is the people of God,
and they meet in the chapel, which is the place where they
meet. The church isn't the building. The temple of the living God
isn't a pile of stones and mortar. It's people. You are the temple
of the living God, as God has said. This is it. God says, I
will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people. That's what the temple is. It
pictured the people of God, his elect, his church, the physical
body of Christ in this world. The physical body of Christ?
What do I mean by that? Look at John chapter two. In
John chapter two, we see a remarkable miracle from Well, let me see. Verse 13, the Jews' Passover
was at hand and Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found in the
temple, which temple? This temple that's a rubble and
the returned Jews were building this temple. He found in the
temple, those that sold oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the
changes of money sitting. And when he had made a scourge
of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the
sheep, and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money, and
overthrew the tables, and said unto them that sold doves, take
these things hence, and make not my father's house a house
of merchandise. And his disciples remembered
that it was written, in Psalm 69, verse nine, the zeal of thy
house has eaten me up. Gospel zeal, the zeal for the
truth of God. Here is Jesus, just one man,
and all of this trade going on. I can imagine me trying with
a small whip in my hand, going to the high street in Limington
on a Saturday, and it's an absolutely thriving market. It's thriving,
it's busy, it's bustling. Can you imagine me trying with
a small a small scourge of cords in my hand, driving them all
away and shutting them all down. Well, that is what the Lord Jesus
Christ did here. He drove them out of the temple.
The zeal of his house had eaten them up. And then answered the
Jews. The Jews that had seen this happen, the rulers, said,
what are you going to show us to show that you've got the authority
to do these things? And Jesus answered and said to
them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it
up. Then said the Jews, forty and
six years was this building, was this temple in building.
In the days of Zerubbabel, they took forty-six years to build
it, and will you raise it up in three days? But listen, this
is it. He spake of the temple of his
body. He spoke of the temple of his
body, because Christ is the presence of God with his people on earth. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we
read in Colossians 2 verse 9, dwelt the fullness of the Godhead
bodily. is what the temple was picturing
above all else. The temple was picturing him,
his kingdom, his heavenly glory. It pictured heaven. It says in
Revelation 21 verse 3, the tabernacle of God is with men and he will
dwell with them and they shall be his people and God himself
shall be with them and be their God. It defined the only way
to come to God, the only way to approach God, the only place
where sacrifices were acceptable to God, because it all pictured
Christ. Because there's no other way
to come to God other than Him. There's no other place for prayer
to be made other than through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
why we always pray to the Father, through Christ, through the Son.
It was where God said he would hear prayer, as I just said. Jesus, the God-man, was zealous
for his temple, for the temple. If God is to complete his heavenly
temple, his dwelling place populated with the innumerable multitude
of his elect from eternity, and surely he will complete it, then
this picture, which is the temple being built in these 40-odd years
in Jerusalem in the days of Zerubbabel, It must be completed. It must
be restored. How is it going to be restored?
Where's the power going to come from? Where's the power? How
is it going to be done? It's going to be done by a prince.
It's going to be done by God's spirit. It's going to be done
by God's gospel truth. It's going to be carried forward
by his witnesses. from foundation stone all the
way to the headstone. The hands of Zerubbabel have
laid the foundation of this house. His hands shall also finish it,
and you shall know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me." Let's
think about Zerubbabel, the prince, for a moment. Zerubbabel was
the rightful heir to the throne of Judah. I'm not gonna go through
it now for the sake of time, but you can look in the scriptures,
you can see how he's descended from the rightful king of Judah. He's the rightful heir to the
throne of Judah, but he'd been in exile and he was sent back
as the leader of the people. He's a descendant of David, of
King David. He's a picture of Christ, who
is great David's greatest son. Jesus said, I will build my church,
I will build my temple, I will build my dwelling place with
my people. And Zerubbabel pictures that
building of his church by the Lord Jesus Christ. As I just
said in verse 9, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation
of this house, and his hand shall also finish it from foundation
stone. Do you know that glorious temple
of Solomon was left in utter ruins? There were those who went
back with Zerubbabel and Joshua the high
priest who were pretty old. And if you look in Haggai chapter
two, just turn back one book, two or three pages in your Bible,
Haggai chapter two and verse three, You see there again, verse
two, speak to Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of
Judah, and to Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest,
and to the residue of the people. So he's in the right lineage,
but ask them this, who is left among you that saw this house
in her first glory? Who, and they would have been
pretty old, because they'd been away for 70 years. Maybe they
were in their 90s, one or two of them. Is there any of you
left that when you were young men in your teens, you saw Solomon's
temple in its first glory, the beauty of that temple? And how
do you see it now? How do you see it now? It's lying
in ruins. It's a mess. There's, you know,
when a ruin, when the roof comes off somewhere and the walls start
to fall down and the foundations are moved and all of the nasty
plants start to grow up, you know, it's just a mess. It's
a mess amongst all the rubble and the creatures that you don't
particularly want to come across are living there and taking refuge
there. And he says, are there any of
you left? Any of you old men left that saw it? And what is
it now? Does it not seem to you as nothing? It was a mess. The rubbish had to be cleared
for the foundation stone to be laid. The site had to be prepared. The walls had to be built stone
by stone. You know, the walls are the walls
of the temple. They're a picture of salvation.
Isaiah 26, verse one. Salvation will God appoint for
walls and bulwarks. And how far? The walls are built
up, verse seven, all the way up to the headstone. He shall
bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying grace,
Grace unto it. The foundations of the temple
of God's saving grace and mercy are built on the person of the
God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, pictured by Zerubbabel here.
This was God's purpose from eternity. This was God's glory. This was
God's glory in sovereign grace to save his people. If you look
at Psalm 89, you don't need to look, I'll read it out to you.
But verse 34, he says this, this is how certain God is of success. This temple foundation was laid,
this temple which pictured The temple of the body of the
Lord Jesus Christ, that foundation of that temple body of Christ
was laid in Mary's womb when God the Son partook of his children's
flesh. You know what it says in Hebrews
2.14, that in order to save his children, his people, he had
to partake of the children's flesh and blood. Our God had
to partake of his children's flesh and blood. And that foundation
of the temple of the body of Christ was laid in the womb of
Mary, when the Son of God partook his children's flesh. And then,
throughout his earthly life, why did he not just come and
in an instant accomplish salvation and return to heaven? No, it
was a ministry. 33 years he was here. Throughout
his earthly life, all his words, all his actions, all his miracles,
all his thoughts, all of his prayers, were building the walls
of salvation, stone by stone, until he said in John 19 on the
cross, it is finished, it is finished, until it was finished.
From the ruin of the fall to citizenship of heaven, sinners
like us are saved. Saved? Put in a state where there
is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
And where does the power of this come from? Look at verse six.
Look at verse six. 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. God's true church is a work of
God's Spirit alone, not the power, not the might, not the resources
of man. You know, They try and teach
in Bible seminaries and Bible colleges how to establish and
how to grow a church and how to make it successful. And they
adopt the means of business as how to grow a business. Growing
a church is not like growing a business. It's not by power,
nor by might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. The
people that do that, that try to establish a church, they produce
something that has a certain allure to fleshly instincts,
but in actual fact, they erect nothing but a dumb idol. They
erect nothing but an empty shell that has no hope. It's worthless. What they erect is worthless
come the day of judgment. Because why? They've missed the
golden oil. Verse 12. What are these two
olive branches which, through the two golden pipes, empty the
golden oil out of themselves? Well, just very, very quickly,
and we've only got a few minutes left. The candlestick and the
oil, verses two and three. He said to me, he's woken out
of his sleep. We often need God to wake us
out of our sleep. We need God to alert us to his
message. He waked me out of my sleep and
said to me, what do you see? And I said, I've looked, and
behold, a candlestick, all of gold, with a bowl on top of it,
and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven
lamps which are upon the top thereof, and two olive trees
by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on
the left side of the bowl. And he didn't know what they
were. What are these? Well, it's another representation
of God's church in the world. In Revelation chapter 1, in verses
12, 13 and 20, there's Christ walking amongst the seven golden
candlesticks, which is the representation of his church in the world. And
he tells us quite clearly, we don't need to guess, because
the end of the chapter says quite clearly the candlesticks are
the seven churches, which seven is symbolical of all the churches.
What do candlesticks do? Candlesticks don't give light
themselves, but they hold the light, which is Christ, the light
of the world. The churches in this world, the
people of God, the companies of God's true people in this
world, hold the light of Christ. He is the light of the world.
They hold that light and they shine that light. We don't hide
it under a bushel, they shine that light. The seven-branched
candlestick burned continuously, seven is the number of perfection,
the number of completeness, burned continuously in the inner temple,
speaking of the presence of God always there. And the truth of
God, the golden oil, is imparted by God alone, by his spirit,
not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, feeding the light
of God into the candlesticks his church in this world. Through
the persons of, look what it says in verse 14, the two anointed
ones that stand by the Lord of all the earth. There's an echo
there of Revelation 11, the two witnesses of God. When the temple's
been measured, there's an echo there of the two witnesses who
are the preachers and the people of God in this world, bearing
testimony to the truth of this, to the truth of God in this fallen
world. And by this shining light of
God, The temple is built from foundation to headstone. There's
so much more. I realize I've just skimmed very,
very superficially over the surface of that. There's so much more
to see here, and so probably we'll come back next week to
dig a bit deeper. But then believers as living
stones, this is what I want to leave you with in the few minutes
we have left. What is it, I asked that question early on, what
is it for Jesus to build his church, the Lord's grand design? Look at two passages that you've
looked at before, but let me remind you, because this is where
you see what that chapter four of Zechariah is saying to us.
In Ephesians 2, come to verse 19 of Ephesians 2, and let's
read down to the end. Paul is writing to New Testament
believers. He's writing to you and me. He
says, now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners
but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household
of God, and are built upon the foundation of the apostles and
prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
That doesn't mean built on the literal persons of the apostles
and prophets, but the message they preached is what it's built
on, and that message is the message of Christ, Jesus Christ himself
being the chief cornerstone. Now listen, in whom all the building
fitly framed together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you also, individual believers, are building together,
your living stones, building together for an habitation of
God through the Spirit. And then look over at 1 Peter
chapter 2. 1 Peter chapter 2 and verse 4. To whom coming? Coming to the
Lord, coming to the gracious Lord. You're coming to Him as
unto a living stone. You know who wrote this epistle?
the apostle Peter. The very one that Jesus said
to in Matthew 16, you are Peter, you are the little stone. He's
not the living stone. Peter writing this is not saying
you're coming to me, Peter the first Pope, he's saying you're
coming to Christ as unto a living stone. disallowed indeed of men
the stone which the builders rejected, the stone which the
religious folk rejected because it didn't fit with what they
thought it should be. He's disallowed indeed of men,
but the Lord Jesus Christ is chosen of God and precious. He
is the Lord's anointed. He is the messenger of the covenant. And he says, you also, you believers,
as lively stones, living stones, are built up a spiritual house.
It's as if you're quarried out of the quarry of humankind. and you're shaped into the stones
to build the house of God. You're a holy priesthood to offer
up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore
also it is contained in the scripture, behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone Zerubbabel shall build this temple from the foundation
stone to the headstone. Behold, I lay in Zion a chief
cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him
shall not be confounded. From the perspective of this
day of small things concerning the church of God and the kingdom
of God, What gives confidence that you will be in that triumphant
kingdom of God come the day when all this is ended? Answer? We've been shown a picture. Ours
are rubbable. Not the literal Zerubbabel, but
what Zerubbabel, the one who he represented, our blessed God
and Savior, Jesus Christ. He has laid the foundation. He is the foundation stone. He is building the walls of salvation
and will certainly bring forth the headstone with shoutings
crying, grace, grace unto it. Does that strengthen and encourage
you? It does me. In this world of sin and trials
and sorrow and pain and death, God's finished grand design is
magnificent beyond words. None of this world's sorrows
can compare with it. None of the things that we suffer
now, they're not worthy to be compared. Well, as I say, I hope
we'll be able to come back and find more in Zechariah chapter
four next week. But now let's come to our final
hymn.