Zachariah chapter 12, we're going
to look at starting in verse nine and we're going to go to
chapter 13, verse one. This is a familiar passage with
most of you. Zachariah 12. But before we look
at that, turn to Acts chapter 20. This is a probably a good
summation. Acts chapter 20 and verse 21
is a good summation of the text that we're going to look at in
the Old Testament. Acts 20. And verse 21, Paul, as he was
preaching to the Jews, he says, testifying both to the Jews and
to the Greeks. Here's what Zacharias, a parallel
passage to this. Repentance towards God. And faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ, repentance towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ and then these back to Zechariah in these verses in
Zechariah We're going to behold these lovely graces called faith
and repentance Faith and repentance these graces that God gives obviously
graces because they originate from God to us Graces because
they work in us and for us doing those things faith and and repentance
that God will accept and we could never produce by ourselves. That's
why there are graces. We something that God must produce,
must originate in him and something that he must produce. If he produces
it, he will accept it. And it's that which we could
not. Produce on our own faith and repentance. Let's look at
Zechariah 12. in verse 9 and it shall come
to pass in that day that I God will seek to destroy all nations
that come against Jerusalem and I God will pour upon the house
of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace
and supplications and here's what that resulting work of grace
in the heart will produce They shall look upon me whom they
have pierced. Faith is looking to Christ. This is grace. And repentance, they shall mourn
for Him. Christ pierced for us and we
mourning for what our sins did to Him. As one mourneth for his
only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness
for his firstborn. And in that day shall there be
a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad-Rimon
in the valley of Mitigadon, and the land shall mourn Every family
apart, the family of the house of David apart, their wives apart,
the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart,
the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart,
the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart, all the families
that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart. And in
that day, that day of grace, that day of supplication, that
day of awakening, through the priest gospel to see Christ in
that day there shall be a fountain opened more grace to the house
of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for
uncleanness we're going to look at there's a whole lot in here
we're going to make me look at verse 10 and verse 13 and then
verse 1 of the chapter 13 The first thing we see here, these
two lovely graces given by God, by His own free sovereign will,
is in verse 10, in that day, I, God, will pour upon the house
of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem. I will pour. He
starts the work, this work of faith, this work of repentance,
work of His free, sovereign grace, I will pour. He starts the work
and He will accept the fruit that it produces. Faith and repentance. That's why we say time and time
again, faith is not unto salvation, faith is after salvation. Faith is the result of God opening
the heart. Repentance. You know, repentance. Paul said, I did not detour,
I did not cease to preach. Repentance towards God and faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Without faith, this book says,
it's impossible to please God. And those who do not repent,
Christ said, if you do not repent, you'll perish. There's got to
be a turning from sin. There's got to be a hatred of
sin and a hatred of self, as Job said, I abhor myself. And we saw in Isaiah, chapter
six, Before the grace of the spirit of grace and supplication
came upon Isaiah, he was pointing to you that woe is you and woe
is you. The first six chapters, woe,
woe, woe. Jonah, woe, pointing. When God does the work, then
Isaiah says, woe is me. And this is what we have here.
This is no, not a bright spot in the middle of this book. It's
just a continuation of the gospel of God's grace and the things
that he does for his people that we've seen throughout this whole
Old Testament in these lessons and studies of Old Testament
pictures of Christ. He says, I will pour. It originates,
it starts this thing of faith, this thing of repentance. It
originates and starts by God. And look what he says continuing
on in verse 10. I will pour upon the house of
David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Who's that? It's
the same ones that he's going to do a work in. The same ones
that we see in the 13th chapter. Those whom he pours the Spirit
upon to understand who Christ is, to understand their need
of him. It's the same ones for whom that
fountain's open. The gospel is... I believe it was Gary Shepherd
years ago at Don Fortner's conference preached the message, I've alluded
to this many times, the harmony of the gospel. It's like a circle. It's all tied in. You can't just
pull faith out and say, well, this is something that I do or
repentance. OK, I've got to work that up
or or prayer or, you know, no, it's all in harmony and it's
all centered around Christ. Well, who is he pouring upon
this spirit of grace and supplication? The elect, which here they're
termed the house of David, the inhabitants of Jerusalem, his
elect, those who were called, chosen, set apart, his people,
his church. If that's who he's going to pour
his spirit of grace and supplications and who mourn for their sin and
look upon Christ, that's going to be the same ones that There's
a fountain opened, not for everybody, not for all. I was listening
to a message on the way up St. Louis today and listen to another
one on the way down. But the preacher was talking about it's
absolutely ludicrous to think that Christ bled and suffered
and died for all people. Biblically, it's just it's just
not it's not even biblical, but it's it's ludicrous to even think
that because if he did Then the fountain must be open for all
But it's not. And we see this in this illustration,
in this truth, in the message of God's gospel according to
Zechariah. Thirdly, verse 10, he says, I, God, will pour upon
my people, the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
what? The spirit of grace and supplication. The spirit of grace
and supplication. free sovereign grace he pours
upon his people which produces a free flowing prayer and thanksgiving
the spirit of grace and the spirit of supplication supplication
meaning prayer and thanksgiving but he does that because by nature
no grace and certainly we pray when we want to pray, or as we
leave the care facility, where are you going? Church, say a
prayer for me. Everybody wants a prayer, but
they don't want the consequences of what it took to cause us to
pray, because we're pretty well selfish, we think mostly of ourselves,
but when He pours the Spirit of Grace and causes us to see
Grace, the spirit of grace to know him, to know who he is,
sovereign, majestic and all glorious, to know his son and his gospel
and to understand his gospel, not just to hear it, but. Spirit
of grace and supplications to actually open the heart. Open
the heart. And believe upon, you know, he
that believes upon me shall have everlasting life. It's one thing
to hear about him. It's one thing to see him. It's
one thing to talk about him. But it's another to believe.
And the only way that happens is in the day of God's grace
that he decides he's going to pour. this upon his people and
repentance is shown here that's coupled with faith this is again
verse 10 look at this I will pour upon the house of David
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication
and this is all coupled together you know there's times we pull
these things out and maybe speak specifically more about repentance
and speak specifically about faith but it cannot be ever be
separated from God's Sovereign abilities and sovereign will
and sovereign purpose. It all has to be tied together.
Otherwise, what you get is you just get mere doctrine and you
get, you know, you get educated about words in this book with
no meaning, no, no, no life. But look at what he says in verse
10. They show when they get this, when I pour upon these people.
A people called from every tribe, kindred, nation and time. When
I call them and when I pour my free grace upon them and supplications,
it says they shall look upon me. There's no salvation without
a look to Christ. You can preach all the doctrine
we want to. And if you do not, if you just see Christ and you
don't see Christ in the doctrine, if Christ is not the main theme, But here is, you know, I don't
take these in orders A, B, C. I'm taking them as they're written
out here, but I'm not going to say that this is exactly what
has to happen, but this is what will take place. You know, as
far as the order, the steps, I don't know. I'm not going to
relegate God to His ways or who knows how the Spirit moves in
convincing men of sin. But he says, they're going to
look at me when I'm doing a work in them. They're going to look
at me. They're going to look at my son, the propitiation,
the substitute, me, the Christ, that anointed one, the one one
among the thousand, our redeemer, our savior, the one who Paul
says in another place, holy, harmless and undefiled. They
shall look upon me. Me. Whom they pierced. whom they pierced, who I pierced,
you pierced, cut deep with our sin. Our sin nailed him to that
tree. Now, I want to just stop here
for a second and look at this. They shall look upon meters without
a look to Christ. Christ is the author and finisher
of our faith, Paul says. He creates in us. We're His workmanship
created in Christ Jesus. But we must look to Him. And they shall mourn for Him. It's personal. It's personal. They shall mourn for Him as one
that mourns for His only Son. And then it goes on and says
the house of Hatterim, the house of David, their wives apart,
Nathan. What he's saying here is it's
very personal. You can't mourn for somebody else's. We do mourn
for other people's sins, but that's not... You see what I'm
saying? We can mourn for this country.
We can mourn for people that we know, people that we love,
but until God does a work in them, They, you and I, God will convict
us of our personal, of our sins, what they did specifically to
Christ. It's very personal. Our sin,
this sin, and that sin in particular, he carried our grief, our iniquities
we saw in Isaiah 53. The Lord had laid on him the
iniquity of us all. But when the Lord begins to do
a work, it's not like I wonder about this person, I wonder about
that person. No, my, it's very, very personal. Then with that wretched sight
comes God sent mourning and heart contrition, and that's repentance.
They shall look upon me whom they pierced and mourn for you. I remember I told you years ago
I was reading a book I'm going to take you to the
trailer, it's still there, when I was going to SIU Carbondale.
I went to the room, had the door closed, and I was reading the
name of the book and the author. But when I got done with it,
he was talking about sin and all this kind of stuff, and yeah,
yeah, yeah, I'm kind of bad, all these different things. Then
he concluded, he said, you, that thought, that deed, that look,
that nobody else sees, nobody else knows, that put Christ on
the cross. Man, I got mad. Because I was
used to saying, OK, I've got my problems, I've got my faults,
but the gospel is particular, it's specific, it narrows it
down like that one of old that said, God be merciful to me,
the sinner. And he was in the presence of
that Pharisee. The Pharisee said,
I'm not like this person. That's what we normally do. But
God, when he says the spirit of grace and supplication, we
see Christ just like that one thief on the cross. He said,
you know, receive me. Me, because I'm the sinner. Like there's nobody else. Very
specific. And this sorrow, this mourning,
this is repentance, this grieving is heart grief. It's not intellectual. It's not we're sorrow. We have
sorrow or shame because we've been caught. You know, we talked
to the teachers in the room about the kids when they get, you know,
they try to get away with stuff. And when they get caught, you
know, they're like, you know, they're all scared. But that's
only because they got caught. And also there's people, and
that's the way religion does, you know, God, they whip people
into submission. There will be fear of God because
they're afraid that they're going to get caught. Or, this is not
that kind of sorrow, that kind of shame that we're afraid we
might be caught, or we've been caught, or trying to miss hell. No, it's because we know what
we did killed Christ. There's a lot of difference.
There's a difference, that's the difference between heaven
and hell. That's the difference between religion and the gospel. I better
go do this because I'm about to be sent off to war. What did you say on the way here?
The Titanic? Is that factual or was that just...
It's factual. You got the Titanic sinking and
you got a priest. And you got 109 people, right? That are confessing their sins
to this man and he's absolving them. But what about the other
people? It was too late. They couldn't
confess. He was on the other side of the ship. They were all
dying. So, was there only 109 Catholics in that boat? Was there
only 109 sinners on that boat? That guy's man-made religion.
That is foolishness. That is they're scared to death.
Like they said, there's no atheist in the foxhole. That's what that
is. That's not true repentance. That's not salvation. This right
here. Is God doing something coupled
with the preaching of his truth of who he is and who his son
is? Seeing Christ clearly, the immaculate
one, the just one dying for the unjust, the one that hung on
that tree and did no sin, no guile found in his mouth. A lamb
led the shears to the slaughter, opened out his mouth. perfect
glorious and yet must be our substitute because we Infinite
amount of sin could not pay the debt somebody Like us yet without
sin must pay the debt when you see him Specifically, mourn whom we pierced
and mourn every house apart. Now, God saves through the preaching
of the gospel. God saves through his grace.
But to say that everybody's experience is the same, don't do that. Don't
do that. My experience that God dealt
with me through the gospel, through grace, that's the same. He doesn't
save by works. He doesn't save by any other
method. He saves through the preaching
of the gospel, by his grace, through his son. Faith, repentance
toward God, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But to say that
I mourn for two days and Bruce only mourned for one, then I
have a problem with that. No, we can't do that. Because
now what you've done is you've taken that which is precious
in this book And now we're comparing men to men, women to women. And
Paul says when we compare ourselves to others, that's the wrong thing
to do. Because either for the most part, we'll come out looking
pretty good. Or if somebody who's really spiritual will feel like
we've never arrived. That's why it's personal. You
will be given the grace to look to him and mourn over your sin
specifically. But look at this continuing on. They shall look upon me, they
shall mourn for him. It all centers around Christ.
Once and again, this is just a beautiful scarlet thread throughout
this whole book. Once and again, whether we're
speaking about salvation, or repentance, or faith, or whatever
you want to speak about, it's all about Him. It starts with
Him, continues with Him, He is the son in our galaxy of spiritual
well-being. Everything, you know, it's not
Mohammed, it's not Buddha, it's not this prophet or that prophet. All the prophets, Moses, Abraham,
give testimony to me. The Holy Spirit, what did Christ
say when he left? He says, when I leave, I'll send
a comforter and he will comfort you, specifically dealing with
things about, he will reveal things in this book. as they
concern Christ. Revelation. We will turn to the
revelation of what might be, I think it says the revelation
of Jesus Christ. It's all about Him. That's what
amazes me about the people I work for. The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints. And when they get up there, there's
nothing about Christ. I heard nothing in all the testimonies
that we heard. Nothing about Christ. Just take
it out. The Saints of the Latter Day.
Take out Christ because they had opportunity. They had, Bruce,
I don't know, it was two hours? We were sitting there two hours.
All these people up there testifying. Nobody, I don't even know if
the name Christ was ever even brought up. Take it out. Take it out of the name. Because
Christ had nothing to do with anything that was going on there. All this leads to one great end. Chapter 13, verse 1. The spirit
of grace and supplication. Looking to Christ mourning and
weeping for him and bitterness it points leads to one great
in Forgiveness of sins and then therefore God is awesome a glorified
chapter 1 of verse 13 and in that day It's also it's the same
time say it's all coupled together. How long does this take? I don't
know hours days months. I don't know in that day there
shall be a fountain open and To the house of David, to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem, the ones whom God is working on for
sin and for uncleanness. All these things that we've talked
about, these beautiful graces initiated by God and maintained
by God. It all leads to this one gradient,
forgiveness of our sin. That's amazing, considering what
we are, worms, less than worms. In fact, that Christ had to become
a worm. And because our sins are forgiven
because of God, of who he is in the son, who he is and what
we are, God is ultimately glorified. He says a fountain opened. When I used to live up north
and then further up north, they have these they call artesian
wells, artesian fountains. And they just. Come on, just come out of ground.
I remember a friend of mine used to have a place up in Michigan.
He had one coming out in his backyard. And they made a little
rock thing. Decorated it. Made it look like
a little fountain. And it's just... Years and years
it's just come up. Not a river that has a start
and an end. And then it flows from somewhere
upstream, downstream like the Mississippi. But a fountain. Eternal. Eternal always refreshing
that is like our Lord Jesus Christ a pure flow of grace upon grace
by the father of mercy the son of peace and the Holy Spirit
of comfort all in forgiveness of sins to the people like you
and I and I close with this thought, oh, to be thoroughly cleansed
by the precious blood of Christ, a fountain open. Are you cleansed? Have you taken a draught of that
fountain? May God give us grace to always
look to Him. Bruce, would you close us please?