Chapter 4, the Golden Candlestick. The angel that talked with me
came again and waked me as a man that is wakened out of his sleep,
and said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked,
and behold, a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the
top of it, and its seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the
seven lamps which are upon the top thereof. and two olive trees
by it, one upon the right side of the bowl and the other upon
the left side thereof. So I answered and spake to the
angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my Lord? Then
the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest
thou not what these be? And I said, No, my Lord. 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 a 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. His hand 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 shall
see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven They
are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro through the whole
earth. Then answered I and said unto
him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of
the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? And I answered
again and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which
through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves? And he answered me and said,
knowest thou not what these be? And I said, no, my lord. Then
said he, these are the two anointed ones, or if you have a marginal
reading there, these are the sons of oil that stand by the
lord of the whole earth. Let me just remind us this evening
that we began several months ago looking at the return of
the Israelites, the nation of Israel, out of 70-year captivity
in Babylon. We began studying in the book
of Ezra. There are two great deliverances
in the Old Testament when God delivered his people. The first,
of course, is the best known and maybe the better of the two
as to picture the deliverance of men from the bondage of sin. The Israelites were in bondage
in Egypt and they were redeemed by blood and they were delivered
by power. But this other deliverance is
also a great deliverance without an Arab being shot, the nation
of Israel was set free to return back to their homeland, those
who have been taken into captivity. We saw how that Cyrus, who God
calls his shepherd, Cyrus, named 200 years, I believe it was,
before he was born. Now he became the king of Persia,
and he issued this proclamation. This is the first part of Ezra
chapter 1. Cyrus issued this proclamation. The Lord God of heaven hath given
me all the kingdoms of the earth. And when you read in the book
of Esther, Arthur Xerxes was the king. You realize just how
large that kingdom was. I think there were 70-some nations
or kingdoms which were subject to Persia at that time. But anyway, Cyrus said, 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. Now Cyrus made the proclamation,
but we saw that it took more than that to get those Israelites
to leave. God the Holy Spirit had to stir
up those who left, and they returned under the leadership of Zerubbabel
as their governor, and Joshua as their high priest, and they
came back to build the house of the Lord. And we have seen
how that after they laid the foundation, and there was much
shouting and weeping when they laid the foundation of the house,
and then there were some enemies who caused the work to cease. They stopped the building on
the house of the Lord. And then we have read, and we've
kind of used this as a springboard to look at Zechariah, but in
Ezra chapter 6 and verse 14, we read, and they prospered through the
prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Ido. In other words, the work had
pretty well come to a halt and then these two men, God raised
up these two prophets, began to prophesy to encourage them
and to rebuke them, yes. You know the word of God The
scripture says, is given by inspiration and is profitable for doctrine,
that is for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction
in righteousness. The same word has all of these
functions, doesn't it? And these messages of these two
prophets, they're prophesying. It worked that in this case with
the Israelites and they began to build And we've looked at
nine of these visions that God gave to Zechariah, and we've
looked at four of them thus far, and tonight we've come to the
fifth vision here in chapter 4. But I want to point this out,
that these visions, they were part of the prophesying which
caused the elders to prosper in building the temple. The vision
spoke of the sure success. God is encouraging them, yes,
and rebuking them at times, yes, but to build, to build the house
of the Lord. And we recognize that they also
speak, they have a double meaning. That's one reason that I'm enjoying
preaching from these visions because they did speak to the
situation as it was at that time, the building of the temple, but
also Zerubbabel serves as a type of Christ. And the sure success
we know of the Lord Jesus Christ in building the temple of the
Lord, not a physical temple like they built with stones and mortar,
but a spiritual temple in which every child of God is a living
stone and is made a member of this spiritual temple of which
Christ is the foundation and the builder. And he's building
this temple, as it says in Ephesians chapter 2, as a habitation for
the Spirit of God. Now tonight, I have three parts
or three divisions in looking at this vision. First of all,
the vision itself in verses 1 through 5. Actually, verse 2 through
5. And he said unto me, What seest
thou? Now he had, it's almost like
he had gone to sleep here and he's awakened out of his sleep
and another vision is given unto him. What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and
behold, a candlestick, all of on the 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 upon the
right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side. Just to picture that in your
mind, this lamp stand, or candlestick rather, that Zachariah saw in
this vision, is all of gold, and there's a bowl on the top
of it, and there's seven lamps also attached to it. And each
of these seven lamps have seven pipes, seven pipes to feed that
lamp with oil from the bowl which is on the top of the candlestick. Now I've read this many times
over the last several weeks, and I encourage you to think
about that in your mind. It's this candlestick with a
bowl on the top of it, and then seven lamps, and to each one
of these lamps there's seven pipes. There's 49 pipes. 49 pipes that go from the bowl to
the lamps, and then there are these two olive trees which are
feeding the pure oil into the bowl. Zechariah must ask again,
as I'm sure all of us do, what does this mean? What does this
mean? Notice in verse 5, the angel
asked him, knowest thou not what these be? And he said, no, no,
my lord. I think about that Ethiopian
eunuch when he was riding in his chariot. In Acts chapter
8, remember, he was reading from the word of God, and Philip came
along. Philip asked him, understandest
thou what thou readest? And he said, how can I, except
some man guide me? God has used men, and in this
case, this angel. to instruct Zachariah in the
meaning of the vision which he was given. So that's the first
part of the message is the vision itself. It's a golden candlestick
and it has a bowl on the top of it and seven lamps and each
lamp has seven pipes to feed on either side of it, feeding
the golden oil into the bowl. Now second, the meaning is given
in verses 6 through 10. The prophet said he couldn't
unless someone showed him Then he answered, verse 6, 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. Now the vision, let me just give
us this summary here, the vision conveys this truth, this is the
truth, Zerubbabel, the governor, and
of course the nation of Israel along with him, by this vision,
this golden candlestick with the bowl and the seven lamps
and the pipes, this is what this vision is conveying to Zerubbabel. The work of the Lord, now get
this, the work of the Lord It's never accomplished by human
power, not God's work. It never is. In that day in building
the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and in our day of preaching the
gospel, it's not by the power of man. It's not by the power
of man. That's the first thing that this
vision conveys, not by might, notice in verse 6, not by might,
nor by power, But by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Paul
planted, Apollos watered, and God gives the increase. The work of the Lord is never,
and never has been, and never shall be accomplished by the
power of men. I can imagine if Zerubbabel was
like me, he'd just probably imagine now if we had a thousand or a
hundred thousand men here doing this work, this thing would really,
really go along well. No, it's going to go along, and
it's going to be accomplished not by the number of men, and
not by the riches of men, and not by the power of men, but
no, by the power of God Himself. the work of the Lord. It's never
by might, it's never by power, that is the power of man, but
it is rather by God the Holy Spirit. We have a hard time learning
that. We really do. The candlestick here being of
gold, that conveys the idea of the beauty, the preciousness,
and the indestructibility of this work of the Lord. The nation
of Israel with the temple of the Lord was to bear God's message
of Christ to the world. The light of the world is Christ,
and God chose that nation as a light bearer to the nations
of the world. And this work would be accomplished
not by might, not by power, God said, but by my Spirit. The message to Zerubbabel in
that day and the message to the Lord's Church throughout the
ages is always the same. Here are two things. Number one,
there is an exhaustless source of grace for every need. For
every need that God's church has, there's grace sufficient. For every need for every child
of God, there's grace sufficient. We're never going to run out
of oil. That's the picture. They're never
going to run out of oil. There's always grace sufficient,
no matter what work it is that God calls men to do. There's
always grace sufficient for the work. Look back with me to 2nd Kings,
just a moment. Keep your place here, but in
2nd Kings chapter 6. You're very familiar with this
history. Because we use it quite often
as an example or an illustration. But it's something that we must
never forget. And that is, there's more for
us than there are against us. I'm talking about God's people,
God's church. Even though the Lord Jesus Christ
referred to us as a little flock, fear not, little flock, for it
is your Father's good pleasure to give unto you the kingdom.
But yet there's always more for us than there is against us. Here in 2 Kings, this is brought
out to us with Elisha's servant in chapter 6 and verse 15. And when the servant
of the man of God was risen early, I'm sure he went outside to wash
the sleep out of his eyes. And lo and behold, what did he
see? Behold, and hosts encompassed
the city, both with horses and chariots." He saw the place where
Elisha and he was, and they were just surrounded by a large army,
a large host of chariots and horses. They were just a small
group, and here's this large army surrounding them. And that's
all he saw. And sometimes that's all we see.
That's all we see. We just see the mountain, as
we'll come to in just a moment. We just see the mountain that
this servant, that's what he saw. He saw a mountain of forces
against him. His servant said unto him, That
is, Alas, alas, alas, my master, how shall we do? What are we
going to do? What's going to happen to us? And he answered, Fear not. Isn't
that one of the most common sayings in all the scripture? Isn't it? How many times over do we read,
fear not, fear not. That tells us that God's children
are given to fear, doesn't it? We're given to fear because of
the forces that are so great against us. But Elisha said,
fear not. There's no cause for fear. Who's
in control there? Fear not. For they that be with
us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed
and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes
of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was
full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. Yes, he saw a great host of horses
and chariots of the Syrians, but what he didn't see until
God opened great host of angels that encamped around Elisha and
around every child of God. That's what the scripture says. It encamps around every one of
God's children. We need to remember this. There's
an exhaustive the grace that God has for His
people in every need. Just like when those three Hebrew
children were cast into the furnace, there's no way they're not going
to be burned. But they weren't. They came out of that fire, there
wasn't even the smell of smoke on them. There's an exhaust,
that's what I'm, an exhaustive source of grace for God's people. And that's what God is telling
Jeroboam here through this candlestick that is continually supplied,
continually supplied with oil. Remember the Apostle Paul learned
this lesson and he said this, therefore I take pleasure in
infirmities. Well, what'd you say, Paul? You take pleasure in infirmities? Well, that's what he said. In reproaches, you take pleasure
in being reproached for Christ's sake? Being beaten and thrown
into prison? Oh, yeah. In necessities? going without,
sometimes food, sometimes clothing and things of that nature. Persecution
in distresses for Christ's sake. Now this is the reason, Paul
said, that I take pleasure in these things because when I'm
weak, when I'm weak, when these things press me down and show
my inability and my weakness, that's when I'm strong. How does
that work? Because that's when I look to
Christ. That's when I trust in Christ.
When I'm pressed down and I have nowhere else to look and all
of my schemes, just like Jacob. Remember when he was coming back
and he had his scheme to meet his brother? He thought his brother
was coming to kill him. He's coming with 300 armed men.
And Jacob begins to divide his flocks into different divisions
and his family into different divisions and sends them on ahead,
you know, and tells them what to tell his brother. And you
know his brother was coming to greet him and kiss him and welcome
him back into the land of Canaan. Just as God had told Jacob. Just as God had told Jacob. So that's the first thing that
we see that Zerubbabel is taught by this golden candlestick, an
exhaustless source of grace. And number two, an endless list
of difficulties. Look here in our text again,
beginning with verse 6. Then he answered and spake unto
me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel,
saying, art thou, O great mountain, before
Zerubbabel. Thou shalt become a plain, and
he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shouting, crying,
Raise, raise unto him. There's an endless, just as there's
an inexhaustible source of grace, so there's an endless list of
difficulties that God's people meet with and experience in this
world. And the difficulty for it's derubbable
is presented here to us as a great mountain. As a great mountain. How are we going to deal with
this? This problem, whatever it was,
a great mountain. And yet, before it's derubbable,
it becomes a plain. There may have been more than
one difficulty, but no matter, no matter how great and how many,
it shall become a plain. And I could not help but remember
our Lord's words when he said, if you have faith, and doubt
not, you shall say to this mountain, be thou removed and be thou cast
into the sea, it shall be done. To Zerubbabel, the message is
that the work shall be complete. The head of the top stone will
be laid, and it's going to be seen. Notice what he said there
about the headstone. Who art thou, verse 7, O great
mountain, whatever the difficulty was, great, great, great difficulty,
no doubt, but before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain. And
he shall, he is a rebel, he shall bring forth the headstone thereof
with shoutings crying, Grace, grace unto him. It shall be seen
that it was all of grace. God does the work, and he does
it in such a way that he gets all the glory, that men and women
are able to see it's all of grace. There's no other way this could
have happened. On the day of Pentecost, there was 120 people
who wasn't there. After our Lord's three and a
half years of ministry here and preaching the gospel, 120 believers
gathered in that upper room. And yet, what a great mountain.
What a great mountain before them to preach the gospel in
all the world, to take the gospel in all the world and preach it
to every And yet it became a flame before them. Not by might, nor
by power, but rather by God's Spirit. And we know the gospel,
the gospel not only went forth, but was The temples, in church history,
you read that the temples of those pagan deities were empty,
and they were used, many of them, as places of worship of the true
and living God. Notice verses 8 and 9. This is
the Word of the Lord. Moreover, the Word of the Lord
came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation
of this house. His hands shall also finish it. And thou shalt know that the
Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you." So Rubbleville, he's the
governor. He began the work. No doubt,
maybe they had a ceremony like many times men do when they build
a building. They lay a foundation stone and
invite dignitaries to come. You know, here's the governor.
Maybe his hands actually were on that stone, that foundation
stone. But God's, and this is the Word
of the Lord, He laid the foundation stone, He's going to put the
top stone on. That's what He's going to do.
Because that's what God has determined. God laid the foundation, the
Lord Jesus Christ, the foundation stone of the Church, and He is
going to finish it. Our Lord said, This is the Father's
will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me
I should lose nothing, but should raise him up again at the last
day. And then verse 10 is a rebuke.
It's a rebuke. For who hath despised the day
of small things? Who is guilty of this, despising
the day of small things, as though God was somehow limited? Who hath despised the day of
small things? The rebuke here is for despising
the littleness of their outward resources and overlooking their
great power, their great glory. Her true glory, the church's
true glory has never been her outward resources. I know that
I'm fascinated, I'm sure you are too, when I see some of these
beautiful, beautiful temples, so-called Christian temples.
I mean the artwork and the decoration and the paintings and the tile
work. is beautiful, but that's not
the glory of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The glory
has always been God's presence, God's presence, not the outward
resources, people meeting under a tree in some third world country
who have a heart that loves God and meet together to worship
Him God's more glorified there than in many of these stately
buildings. The world, the flesh, we're overwhelmed
by these things. God isn't. God isn't. He looks on the heart, doesn't
He? Not the outward. Samuel learned that lesson, didn't
he, when he went to anoint one of Jesse's sons to be king? nice-looking young man. That's
him. God said, that's not him. Next
one comes along. Oh, this has to be him. No, that's
not him. And so all six of them pass before
him and finally he says, are these all of your sons? Well,
I have one more. I have one more. But he's out
there feeding his sheep. Bring him in here. He's the one. Why? Because God looks at the
heart. Not the outward. He looks at
the heart. And the picture here is People
despise the day of small things, forgetting who, notice the rest
of that verse, he shall, for they shall rejoice and shall
see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven,
they are the eyes of the Lord which run to and fro through
the whole earth. You see, the church's true glory
is the eyes of the Lord And seven represents perfection,
we know that. And his eyes, the eyes of the
Lord, are over all the earth. And he sees nothing that's going
to keep this building from being erected. He sees nothing. There's no power. There's no force that's ever
God and His purpose. And His purpose was this house
of the Lord would be built in Jerusalem. And that economy,
I would say this too, that economy will continue, would continue
until the Lord Jesus Christ came. The fulfillment of the Old Testament
preachers. Now let me close, third, the
two olive trees. Zechariah, if you notice here
in verses 11 through 14, he asked first about the two olive trees,
and he's given no answer, and so he asked then about the two
olive branches. And the writers say this is to
give emphasis, this is to give emphasis to the answer, the two
olive branches. But I want you And I'm sure you
are aware there's differences of opinion as to what these two
sons of all, there in verse 14, two anointed ones, two sons of
all, what that refers to. But look with me, this is what
I see here. In verse 12, and I answered again
and said unto him, what be these two olive branches, which through
the golden pipes emptied the golden oil," now notice this,
"...out of themselves." These two branches or trees,
they emptied the golden oil out of themselves. I believe that
this refers, first of all, to Christ. who is the Messiah, that
word means anointed, He is the anointed one, and God the Holy
Spirit, who is the Unction, He's referred to as the Unction. And it is from Christ, through
the power of His Spirit, that the golden oil of the grace of
God is supplied. There's a continual supply so
that the lambs, the ministers of the gospel, may continue to
preach and that has taken place and continues to take place unto
today. Well, I pray that the Lord would
bless this word to all of us here tonight, and if nothing
else, let us go away encouraged knowing that what God begins,
he's going to finish. When He begins a good work in
your heart, convicts you that you need a Savior, that you're
guilty of sin, and points you to the Lord Jesus Christ, He's going to finish that work.
He's going to bring you home to glory. This work's not going
to miscarry, not His work. Same thing is true about that
temple. That temple was going to be built. Zerubbabel laid
the foundation stone, he's going to put the top stone on. No question
about it. I pray the Lord will bless this
word. Let's sing it.