Ten times in this eighth chapter
of Zechariah, God's prophet announces God's determination to save His
people with these words. Ten times he says, Thus saith
the Lord. Ten times. Nine of those ten
times, he announced this determination of God's heart from eternity
to save His people. and with the announcement identifies
certain things that made it appear as if God's determination could
not possibly be accomplished. And those nine times he announces
the promise, the determination, the purpose of God, saying, Thus
saith the Lord of hosts, as if to say, He who is determined
to save, is able to save, he is the Lord of Hosts, the Lord
God of Sabaoth. He rules over, controls all the
hosts of heaven, earth, and hell all the time, so that none of
the hosts in heaven, earth, or hell can resist his will, withstand
his power, thwart or even hinder his purpose. Thus saith the Lord
of Hosts. And if the Lord of Hosts says
it, you can bank on it. This is what they call a sure
thing. It is a sure thing. What God has determined, God
shall bring to pass. No matter how things appear to
be, what God has determined, God shall bring to pass. Indeed, what God has determined
is exactly what God is bringing to pass. Now, I want us this
morning to look at the prophetic promise given in verses 20 through
23. Thus saith the Lord. It shall yet come to pass. It
shall yet come to pass because he who rules all things shall
bring it to pass. He's the Lord of hosts. What
shall yet come to pass? It shall yet come to pass that
there shall come people and the inhabitants of many cities. This is coming to pass. There
shall come people, and the inhabitants of many cities. Now, let's see
what this great, glorious promise of grace includes. And the inhabitants
of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily and
pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts I will
go also, yea, many people. And strong nations shall come
to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before
the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts,
In those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take
hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take
hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go
with you. For we have heard that God is
with you." Now, contrary to the opinion of most, particularly
most in these days, who make comments on the prophecy of Zechariah,
this promise has absolutely nothing to do with the salvation of the
Jews as a nation in a physical sense, except as they were used
of God typically representing the whole Israel of God, his
church, and the salvation of his people. Now I want you to
see clearly that it cannot, these words of the prophet cannot possibly,
honestly, be applied to any age except this gospel age in which
we live. In fact, the ancient Jewish writers,
all of them, were unanimously in agreement that the words of
Zachariah here referred to the days of the Messiah, and they
got it right. These words speak of the days
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the true Messiah who has come,
who now sits upon the throne of David and rules over all flesh
to give eternal life to as many as God has given him. The promise
is being fulfilled around the world in this gospel age, the
day of our Savior. Now, as it was in the beginning
of this age, so it is now and so it shall be until all God's
elect have been saved by His omnipotent mercy. Notice the
words of the prophet, many shall come. Many? Well, if you compare
the many that are gathered here today
with the many that are gathered in one of those mega-churches
you read about, or pass by as you drive over to Lexington,
where they get together and have a whoopee good time every Sunday,
don't look like many at all. Why, just a few, just a few.
And it appears often that these that God speaks of as many can't
possibly be us, because God's people at any given time and
at any given place in this world seem to be few. That's always
been the case. It is now. Either that or they
who despise the gospel of God's grace and play games with the
souls of men and gather multitudes around them, worship God and
we're ignorant of Him. One of the two must be so. But
it says, many shall come, many all taken together. looked upon
as one body of believers, described in the book of Revelation as
finally accumulating to 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands and
thousands of multitudes that no man can number. Many shall
come. Many shall come. Many people
shall come from many cities. Well, exactly how many are going
to come? 144,000. That's exactly how many
are going to come. That many and no more, or you
can't be serious. Read Revelation chapter 7. That's
144,000. speaks using a specific definite
number to represent a huge indefinite number, a number of multiples
of twelve, indicating the absolute completion of all the Israel
of God and all the tribes of His Israel. How many shall come? As many as God has ordained to
eternal life, they shall come. That many, all of them, and none
but them, as many as the Lord God loved from eternity and chose
to salvation, as many as Jesus Christ, God's Son, redeemed with
His blood, they shall come, all of them, none but them, but all
of them, as many as the Lord our God shall call, they shall
come. Who's coming today? Who in this
assembly here today shall come to Christ Jesus the Lord? As
many as the Lord God calls shall come. That's how many shall come.
That makes me cry, Lord, God calls me and calls me to come.
Calls me now to come to your Son and worship Him, to seek
and pray to the Lord of hosts, to call upon His name. As many
as were ordained to eternal life believed. Coming to the Lord and coming
into the house of God literally is exactly the same thing. It's
not talking about coming into this local assembly, which is
the house of God, but rather it's talking about coming into
the church of God, being born in His kingdom by His Spirit,
born of God. We come to Zion to worship and
to pray before the Lord and come speedily. come with willing hearts. I was saying a little bit ago,
force me to be saved by grace, and yet never are sinners spoken
of in scripture. Never are they spoken of as those
who come unwillingly, forced against our will. with our full
consent. The only way you will ever come
to Christ is if He graciously forces you to be willing in the
day of His power. Forces you. Makes you willing.
Willing to come speedily. Let's come to the house of our
God and worship Him speedily. being convinced that we are sinners
in need of mercy, being convinced by His Spirit that Christ alone
is righteousness, Christ alone has righteousness, and Christ
alone gives righteousness. Let us come speedily, knowing
that His precious blood alone can put away sin and make us
clean. I think it was last Sunday, so
let's say, not the labor of my hands, can fulfill thy law's
demands? Could my zeal no respite know? Could my tears forever flow? All for sin could not atone.
Christ must save, and Christ alone. Nothing in my hand I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling,
naked come to thee for dress, helpless look to thee for grace. How could I fountain fly? Wash me, Savior, else I die. They shall come speedily to seek
the Lord. I like that. Not just to seek
His blessing, but to seek Him. Not just to seek His mercy, but
to seek Him. These days, religion does one
of two things. It inspires folks with one of
two things. Either inspires you to come and seek the Lord's blessing,
or inspires you to come by threatening you with the Lord's wrath. Believers
come to seek Him. To seek Him. Because they've
seen Him. Because they taste and see that
the Lord is gracious. They come seeking to know Him,
whom to know is life eternal. Now, look at the last words of
verse 21. I love this. I will go also. We meet up with a friend, family,
that's come from a long ways off. Come on, let's go worship
God. I'll go with you. Maybe that's
what he's talking about. Maybe that's what he's talking about.
But I think this is what the prophets say. He says, this is
God's promise, this is God's determination. Many shall come,
come speedily to seek the Lord of Hosts. He said, I will go
also. I shall go to seek Him. You see, none know so well as
those who have tasted that the Lord is gracious. None know so
well as those who have experienced the Lord's grace. None know so
well as those who have been washed in the Savior's blood how gracious
He is, how good He is, how precious His blood is. None know so well
as they how desperately we must have Him. I will go also. Ye sinners, seek his face, whose
wrath you cannot bear. Fly to the shelter of his cross,
and find salvation there. Now, look at verse 22. Yea, many
people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts
in Jerusalem, Jerusalem speaking of the church of God, and to
pray before the Lord, to worship before the Lord. The people spoken
of here are God's elect, scattered among the strong nations of the
Gentiles. They're called strong nations,
and that's a rather strange word. Let me tell you how it's translated
in various places in the Scriptures. Great nations, mighty nations,
strong nations. You know how else it's translated?
Feeble. Boy, that can't possibly fit
with this. Oh yeah. You see, these who come
are strong, proud, arrogant, warring rebels with stout hearts
and obstinate wills and will not come. But before God, they
are feeble. They can do nothing for themselves
and nothing for God. These strong, great, mighty,
feeble Gentiles who come to Christ, come to Him with willing hearts
because they've been made willing by His omnipotent, irresistible
grace in the day of His power. Now, I've been working my way
down to verse 23, and we're going to camp here. Thus saith the
Lord of Hosts, in those days it shall come to pass that ten
men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations." Now,
that's key to understanding of whom the passage is speaking.
Ten men. Where'd they come from? Ten men
came from all the languages of the nations. Well, that can't
be. That's not possible. I don't
have any idea. I've forgotten the last count
of the number of known languages there are in the world. But is
a heat site more than ten of them? This can't possibly be.
Not if you try to make it speak of literally ten men representing
Jews scattered among the nations. No, no. Well, let's see what
it means. The promise is that ten men shall come and shall
take hold of the skirt of one man. But these ten men are said
to come out of all the nations of the earth. I said in the beginning,
these words cannot possibly, with any honesty, be interpreted
as speaking merely of the salvation of the Jews as a nation. But
if we understand these ten men to be representatives of the
whole Israel of God, of all gods of that scattered among the nations,
the passage makes perfect sense and is perfectly clear. Did I
just draw that out of my hat, or is there a basis for it in
scripture? Let me give you some passages you might want to look
at when you get home. In Acts chapter 2, you remember
when the Lord Jesus had ascended back to glory? And Peter declared
that he was seated on the throne of his father David as the scripture
said he would be. The act by which the Messiah's
coming would be identified in the prophets would be the pouring
out of his spirit upon all flesh, Joel chapter 2. In Acts 2, you'll
remember that devout men of every nation under heaven heard the
apostles preach the gospel in their own language. Has that
got something to do with this? I think so. Peter exclaimed when
the folks looked down and said, well, these men are drunk. They
didn't have any idea what was going on. We've spent a little
time there. Folks who don't understand what
God's doing in the hearts of His people always think we've
lost our minds and we're intoxicated on something. They don't have
a clue what's going on. Peter said, fellas, you don't
know what you're talking about. These fellas aren't drunk. No,
no. If you'll go back and read Joel chapter 2, This is what
Joel said would come to pass today. Now nobody understood
it. Nobody understood it until it
came to pass. That's a good rule of thumb you
can make on it. In this book, nobody ever really
understood any prophetic word until it was accomplished. And I'm going to tell you something,
all these yahoos who are selling books by the millions about prophecy
today don't have a clue what they're talking about. They're
just muddying water, stirring up stuff. They don't have a clue
what they're talking about. When it comes to pass, we'll
look back and say, well, boys, this is it. This is what the
prophets were talking about. And Peter stood on the day of
Pentecost and saw Christ fulfill His word. And he said, Hey boys,
this is what Joel was talking about. I've been wondering about
it all my life. Here it is. All right. Then in
Acts 2.21, he quotes Joel's prophecy saying, Whosoever shall call
on the name of the Lord shall be saved. He's saying grace is
not for the Jews alone, like we thought it was. That never
was God's purpose. That never was God's intention.
Oh, what arrogant, racist fools we were to think such. No, no. Joel was telling us, whosoever
among all the nations, shall call upon the name of the Lord,
shall be saying, See here, these men from all the nations, upon
whom God poured out His grace and His Spirit, who now supplicate
His throne." This is what Joel's talking about. And Paul, writing
to the Gentiles at Rome, takes up the very same quotation from
Joel 2.21 and declares there's no difference between the Jew
and the Gentile. No difference at all. Whosoever
Jew or Gentile anywhere in all the world shall call upon the
name of the Lord shall be saved. Whoever it is that says, let
us go and pray to the Lord of Hosts. That's the word. Call
on Him. Worship Him. Not just cry out,
Jesus save me. That's as useless as cussing. That's got nothing to do with
salvation. To call on His name, Larry Brown, is to worship Him.
Worship Him as your Lord. All right. Then at the close
of the book, the Apostle John sees multitudes in Revelation
5. chapter 7, again in chapter 14, whom he describes as people
out of every kindred and tongue and people and nations, a great
multitude which no man can number of all nations and kindreds and
people and tongues, a great multitude of all nations, numbering 10,000
times 10,000, singing songs of praise to the Lamb for the salvation
He's accomplished. But why does He use the number
10? I've been scratching my head
about that for weeks. Why the number 10? Why did God specifically
command his prophet to say, ten men shall come out of all languages
of the nations to lay hold upon the skirt of him that is a Jew?
I'm not much for what men call numerology. People make too much
of most things when they're just subtly hinted at in scripture,
but there is clearly a sense in which specific numbers are
commonly, not always, but commonly used in the scriptures to represent
specific things. The number three is used commonly
with reference to the Trinity, God the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit. The number seven is commonly used to speak of completion and
of grace, of perfection and of grace. God's whole work of creation
in seven days. The seventh day he rested from
his work. All these things speaking of
perfection, completion, and grace. The number six. You know, today
folks make a great deal about the number of the beast, six,
six, six. Ever since God saved me, I've
been around religious fools who, you know, as they talk about
credit cards, we're going to use number 666, that's the mark
of the beast. Don't want that number. Brother Maurice Montgomery,
I think I told you some time ago, there was a house that looked
so strange down on this street. He's driving right dead into
the house. Maurice told me it was set for sale, literally,
for years, and nobody looked at it. Nobody looked at it. You
know why? Some glad day, when this life
is over, I'll fly away, group game, grubby dog. Nobody buy
it. You know why? The house number
was 666 Trompto Drive. We can't move in that house.
That's anti-crime. We can't do that. Change it to
6-6 and a half or 6-6-7. Whatever it was, they changed
it. It was sold like that. You know what 666 is? That's
the number of man. Frustration. Failure. Defeat. That's what the number
of the beast represents. Man. Frustration. Failure. Defeat. But this number 10, it's
also used in a clear way, it appears to me, representing holiness,
justice, and fullness. Let me give you some examples.
How many commandments were there? The full revelation of God's
holy law sums up in ten commandments. Do you know how many curtains
God required Moses to make of fine twine linen with which to
make the tabernacle? Ten. Do you know how many boards,
how long the boards were on the sides of the tabernacle? Ten
cubits. Do you know how many pillars
there were with their sockets and hooks and fillets of silver
on each side of the tabernacle? You got it. Ten. Ten. David is
spoken of as a type of our Lord Jesus Christ who slew his tens
of thousands. And our Lord Jesus, by His grace,
has conquered ten thousand times ten thousand. When Boaz, another
great type of our Savior, redeemed Ruth the Moabitess for his wife, he called ten elders to be witnesses
to the thing. Now, I don't suggest that the
matter is an absolute rule of interpretation, but it does seem
obvious to me that ten represents holiness, justice, and fullness. These ten men, then, represent
the whole election of grace. the whole Israel of God, the
whole church of God's elect that must and shall be saved out of
all the languages of all the nations in all the earth throughout
all the ages of time. The ten, speaking of a complete
body of believers, a complete body of the redeemed, not one
shall be lost. Here's the best part. What does
the Lord of Hosts tell us that these ten out of every nation,
these chosen, redeemed sinners shall do? How is it that these
fallen sons of Adam come to pray and seek the Lord? How does a
man come to God? How dare you? How dare you? How dare you even think about
lifting your eye toward heaven. How dare you? The publican, knowing
the condition of his own depraved heart, smote upon his breast
and would not so much as lift his eyes upward toward heaven. How dare you come to God? Just one way. They shall take
hold on the skirt of him that is a Jew. The only way you can ever come to
God is on the coattails of a man who is a Jew. The only way you
can ever come to God is by the merit and worth and name and
authority and righteousness of Jesus Christ, who is the only
real Jew there ever was. He's the only one. There never
was another one. The Spirit of God tells us, Romans
2.28, he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, but he is a Jew
which is one inwardly. Now Paul is talking about the
heaven-born child of God, but that heaven-born child of God
is nothing less than Christ in you. He and he alone who is Jesus
Christ, the incarnate God, is the true Jew who is full of perfect
righteousness, in whose heart there is no guile. But what's
his skirt? I hope you don't have to ask
that. When thou wast polluted in thine own blood, cast out
from your mother's womb, I passed by thee. I saw thee in thy blood,
polluted, naked, dead, rotting, stinking, when no man cared for
thee, and thy time was the time of love. Remember the next word? And I spread my skirt over thee,
and said unto thee, And thou becamest mine. Why, this skirt
represents the righteousness of Jesus Christ, that perfect
robe of righteousness with which all prodigals are robed by the
Father's own hand when they're brought home to Him by His grace.
That robe he spreads over us effectually, causing us to look
to him and live. That robe he spreads over us,
breathing life into us, causing the living sinner to lay hold
on his skirt. The word is not quite like it's
described in the gospel narrative of the woman with the issue of
blood. You remember when the Lord Jesus passed by? She said,
if I could just touch the hem of his garment, if I can somehow,
by some means, one way or another, before he gets out of reach,
come into contact with him, I'll be made whole. And she touched
him. But this is a much stronger word.
He says, all these who come out of the nations, speedily, knowing
their need of him, shall lay hold of the skirt. The word means grasp with all
their might. Here's the picture. Mama takes
her baby and leaves her with somebody for the first time.
And Mama knows the baby's all right. And the woman who's taking
care of her knows she's all right. This grandma or somebody else,
anyway, she leaves her for the first time. But the baby is in
new surroundings. And the baby's absolutely scared
to death. Mama's fixing the lever. And
Mama takes off. She grabs her mother's skirt,
just holds on as if clinging to life. But Mama shakes her
off and says, you stay here. You stay here. We take hold on
the skirt of Christ's perfect righteousness, and He will never
cast us And we hold to Him, continually coming to Him, because we have
found Him gracious. There are some in this world,
bless God, who shall take hold of His skirt. And taking hold
of His skirt, they say, we'll go with you. Mary Chris, how
dare you come to God? I'll go with Him. He'll get me
in. and keep me in, for He's opened
a new way whereby sinners can come to God called the blood
of His cross. I must needs go home by the way
of the cross. There's no other way but this.
I shall ne'er get side of the gates of life if the way of the
cross I miss. We will go with you." Well, what
made Him willing to go? What is it that will make you
willing to come to God, laying hold of Christ, trusting Him
alone, letting go of everything else? We have heard. Faith comes by hearing. And hearing
by the Word of God. We're born again, not of corruptible
seed, but incorruptible by the Word of God that lives and abides
forever. We've heard. But some of you have been listening
to me preach this Word. all your lives, some for many
years, and you still are among the strong, obstinate, hard nation. No, I won't go. I know he's all
right. I know I need Christ, but not
like that. No, I won't go. I won't take
hold of his skirt. I've got to hold on to some righteousness
of my own. I'm not about to give up everything
of my own. I won't go. Oh, but if you hear
His voice in the Word, we will go. We will go. The hour is coming
and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of
God. And what happens to those who hear? And they that hear
shall live. Live. Oh, Son of God, cause the
dead today to hear Your voice. What did they hear? We have heard
that God is with you. We've heard that God is with
you. We've heard that your name is
Immanuel, God with us. Well, that's not exactly what
the passage means. We rejoice to know His name is
Immanuel, God with us, but God with us would be meaningless
without this. God with Him. Not God is with Him, or God was
with Him, or God shall be with Him. God with Him. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word
with God, with God. You see, He and God are one. That means He's able to save.
And He and I are one. That means He'll save me. And
I know He shall, because He has cast His skirt over me and called
me to hear His voice that says, Live. And called me to take hold
of His skirt with both hands. Darling, when you're out working
and you're about to slip and fall and you've got a hammer
in one hand and a saw in the other hand, what are you going to do? You drop them both and grab hold
of something with both hands. And when you grab it with both
hands, you can't hold anything else. Will you grab hold of Christ
with both hands? O Spirit of God, cause the dead
to hear your voice and grab hold of Him. Amen.