I want to pick it up at Zechariah where we left off the last time. We’ll be looking beginning at verse 7, and if we have time tonight we’ll be going through the end of the chapter. Zechariah is coming, as we mentioned, on last Wednesday evening.
He’s coming to the nation of Israel with a message from God to encourage them to not give up. And to encourage them to look to the Lord. And he’s also going to bring a message that they should be encouraged to rebuild the temple.
As they’ve come back into the land, as Cyrus has allowed them to go back to the land of Judah and to the city of Jerusalem. They’ve been commissioned by God to rebuild the temple. And we read in Ezekiel the fact that the temple would be rebuilt.
And we look at that Ezra was commissioned by God to be there to help them to be encouraged to build that temple. But when they first got there, and we read about the time that Zechariah brought his message to the people. As you remember on Sunday I said they laid the foundation.
The foundation had sat with nothing built on it for a number of years. And Zechariah comes now and he’s going to bring a message that is a message of encouragement to the people. That God has not forgotten them.
Even though they look around at the land that they’ve come back into. And you’ve got to imagine it’s totally different from when they left. Because when they left, even those that were in the last group that left under Nebuchadnezzar.
And some of their children and even some of their grandchildren had never seen Jerusalem. And now they come back and it’s lying in rubble. The temple is destroyed.
The walls are down. And the cities around Jerusalem have been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar as well. And as they come back it would be very discouraging.
It would be almost like coming back to see what Mark Twain thought in the mid-1800s. When he went to Israel and he said this is a forsaken land where there is nothing for the people here. Except swamps, mosquitoes and desert.
And really that’s what Israel is coming back. But God has got a message for them that Zechariah is going to bring. Let’s begin by verse 7 tonight.
And Zechariah has some visions. These are visions that he has while he is awake. They are not dreams.
They are actually visions. But they occur at night. And we are going to be taking a look at two of the visions tonight if we have the opportunity and the time.
7 Upon the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sebat, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,
8 I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.
9 Then said I, O my lord, what are these? And the angel that talked with me said unto me, I will shew thee what these be.
10 And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through the earth.
11 And they answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees, and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and, behold, all the earth sitteth still, and is at rest.
12 Then the angel of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?
13 And the Lord answered the angel that talked with me with good words and comfortable words.
14 So the angel that communed with me said unto me, Cry thou, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy.
15 And I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction.
16 Therefore thus saith the Lord; I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies: my house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem.
17 Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts; My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad; and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.
18 Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw, and behold four horns.
19 And I said unto the angel that talked with me, What be these? And he answered me, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.
20 And the Lord shewed me four carpenters.
21 Then said I, What come these to do? And he spake, saying, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head: but these are come to fray them, to cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lifted up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.
Let’s just follow in prayer. Heavenly Father, as we come before you this morning, or this evening rather, Lord, I pray that you just speak to us through your word. Help us to see, number one, that you’re not done with Israel. That you’ve given promises to the Jewish people, to the nation of Judah, to the city of Jerusalem, to Mount Zion, and to your holy temple. And Lord, that these things are going to be there and that you are not done. And that you will bless and raise up a blessing upon them. Lord, now speak to us through your word this evening and help us to see that your word is even being fulfilled in the day in which we live. And help us to be encouraged by it. This we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
As I mentioned, the people had come back to Judah. They were discouraged. They started to build the temple, but they quit because of the discouragement. As they looked around and saw how do you… Have you ever had that happen where you’ve got something you know you need to do, and you begin to do it, but you go, this task is just too great, how am I ever going to accomplish it? Nobody cares anyway.
Even if I would do it, nobody would even care if it was ever done. Well, that’s kind of what the attitude was here amongst the Jewish people. They came and they’re really discouraged.
Well, as Zachariah comes, the Lord comes to Zachariah, and he appears riding a red horse. Now, this would be a pre-incarnate vision of the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes, and he comes with some others that are riding, it says, red speckled and white horses that are with him.
And these would be angels that came with the Lord, and these have come because they’ve been commissioned by Christ to go throughout the earth to see what the Gentile nations were doing. And as they went about the earth to see what the Gentile nations were doing, because the Lord wanted a report brought back to him that in turn would be shared through Zachariah with the nation of Judah. Now, as the angels come back, they say the Gentiles are at rest.
They aren’t at war. But if you look at what’s happened to Judah, there is no rest. Everything is destroyed.
Now, if you look at what was happening in the Gentile world at this particular time, the Persian Empire was in power. The Persian Empire had brought relative calm to the Middle East. There wasn’t the wars that had once been when Persia was fighting with Babylon.
And prior to that, when Babylon was going throughout the whole Middle East attempting to conquer and to destroy, first under Nebuchadnezzar and then under Nebuchadnezzar’s son and grandson. And so we see that there was peace on the earth as the angels went about amongst the Gentile nations brought about by the power that God had given to the Medo-Persians. And they brought relative peace to that particular part of the world.
But there was no peace for Judah. Judah looked and they were sitting in ruins. And what hope did they have? Well, Zachariah tells them that God is not done with them.
He says that as he looks at this in verse 9, he says, Then I said, O my Lord, what are these? And the angel that I talked with me said unto me, I will show you what these be. And the man that stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro on the earth. And then he answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees and said, We have walked to and fro through the earth, and behold, all the earth sitteth still and is at rest.
And that would be the Gentile nations. Then the angel of the Lord answered, and as you look at where they’re at, the myrtle trees, going back to verse 8, the myrtle trees that were at the bottom and behind them were these horses. Well, the myrtle trees at the bottom.
We’re not given the specific bottom, but it means a lower place. And if you go to Jerusalem, and this is evidently taking place on Mount Zion, near Mount Zion, the lower place there would be the Kidron Valley. And the Kidron Valley sits on the east side of the old city of Jerusalem between the Mount of Olives and Mount Zion, and you have the Kidron Valley.
And this is where they would be, and evidently the myrtle trees, which would be a smaller shrubbery-like tree, that would be growing down in the bottoms, the lower portions of the valley. And as you look at that, you’re seeing, well, this isn’t exactly Mount Zion, and this isn’t exactly the Temple Mount. This isn’t exactly the Temple.
This isn’t even Jerusalem. This is the bottoms. And yet there is where the Lord appears, and there is where the Lord brings His promise from.
Sometimes when we have the lowest points in our life is when God can reveal to us the hope that we have in Him to overcome even the most difficult of circumstances we may find ourselves in. And that’s exactly what the message that Zachariah is bringing. Jesus comes with His angels to offer them hope in the midst of despair.
And He says, even though there’s all of us at rest, I’m going to show you something. And so He continues on here, and in verse 13 He says, The Lord answered the angel that talked with Me with good words and comfortable words. He’s comforting them, and He’s going to tell them some good news.
They need good news, because they have been experiencing only a lot of bad news. And it all started, as we saw at the beginning, and when we looked at the book of Zachariah, with a rebellion of the people of their fathers against the Lord. And we studied that when we looked at Jeremiah, and what happened during the time of Jeremiah where the nation rebelled against God, and God ultimately judged them.
They were judged for a period of 70 years. They were taken into captivity for 70 years. Jeremiah said at the end of that 70 year period, they’d be coming back into the land.
That’s exactly what happened. They’re back in the land. Not all of them, but God gave them all the opportunity to come back.
But we know from historical accounts, that initially only about 50,000 people came back into the land on the first wave of people that were encouraged to go back by Cyrus the Great. And so we see that there’s a small number of people that have come back. Nothing’s really been happening, but God’s saying, I’m going to comfort you, and I’m going to show you some amazing things that are going to happen.
Now, all they have seen up to this point, they’ve seen two kingdoms, the kingdom of the Babylonians and the kingdom of the Medo-Persians. The kingdom of the Babylonians destroyed everything they knew. Nebuchadnezzar took them all into captivity or killed them.
He destroyed their city. He destroyed their temple. He destroyed their homes.
He destroyed their outlying cities. And he came in and wreaked havoc with the nation of Judah. And so Israel and Judah were both destroyed.
Israel by the Assyrians, Judah by the Babylonians. Now they’re coming back to this destruction, and God is going to show them some things. He gives them comforting words, I’m not done with you.
So the angel that communed with me said unto me, Cry thou saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with a great jealousy. Now what does that mean? The Lord has great emotions and attachments. This is His city.
And it is His mountain. And He is not going to allow it to be anybody else’s. And He’s telling the people this, because they’re thinking, well, it’s become the Babylonians, now it’s the Medo-Persians, it’s not really ours.
And the Lord is telling them, well, no, you’re right, it’s not yours, it’s mine. And I’m jealous of it, and I’m not going to let anybody else have it unless I allow them to have it. And the thing is, we need to understand this, and you’ve got people today that look at that verse, and I guess they misinterpret that, and they say, well, God really wasn’t jealous, He was jealous of it then, but He isn’t now.
Well, God doesn’t change. He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. If He had a great jealousy for Jerusalem, and a great jealousy for Mount Zion, a great jealousy for the Temple Mount, a great jealousy for His house, and a great jealousy for His people, the nation that He had created, that jealousy is still there.
And by a jealousy, it means a great emotional desire that they are His and no one else’s. It’s not a human jealousy. It’s something that is a real emotional attachment, and it is nobody else’s, but it is His, and His alone.
And so when you have a world today, you’ve got the UN today that says, Jerusalem should be controlled by the United Nations. You’ve got the Roman Catholic Church today that says, Jerusalem should be controlled by the Roman Catholic Church. You’ve got the Muslims today that say, Jerusalem should be controlled by the Muslims.
Yet the Lord says, Jerusalem is Mine, and it’s nobody else’s. And I have a great jealousy for it, and I’m going to prevent anybody else from having it. He has allowed people to come in, and He allowed during the time of the Gentiles for the city of Jerusalem to be overrun, as judgment against the Jewish people, but it is still His, and He is not done with it, even today.
And we see here that this jealousy is there, and He’s not going to give it up. And I am very sore, displeased with the heathen that are at ease. Now why is He displeased with the heathen at ease? He allowed the Babylonians, and then the Medo-Persians, and also the Assyrians, and also the Egyptians, to come in and attack and war against Israel.
Later on we’re going to see that the Greeks and the Romans are going to come in as well. And why is He displeased with these nations? Well, they were to take and be His hand of discipline or His rod of chastisement against Israel, but they went too far. And He’s very displeased with them because of what they’ve done.
And He says He’s displeased, and what’s that displeasure going to result in? Therefore, thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies. My house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. He says, they went in and they totally destroyed it, but I am the one that is in control, not them.
They went too far. And He said, what I’m going to do is I’m going to come back in and my house will be rebuilt. And as the people are sitting there looking with a foundation, and no walls, and nothing on it, and it’s been that way for a number of years after they’ve come back, Zechariah comes and says, the Lord’s word is His house will be rebuilt.
I will have a line on Jerusalem. That is, I’m going to put a measuring rod, or as we saw that Ezekiel was talking about, a measuring reed to rebuild the temple, to rebuild the city, and it will be my city once again. I’m not done with this.
And you need to understand that in spite of what the circumstances may appear, I’m the one that’s in control, and this is my promise to you. Now, we go on and it says here, Cry yet, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, My cities, through prosperity, shall yet be spread abroad, and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem. Now, the people thought that there was no prosperity left for them, and this had been the first incident where the people had been driven out of the land, now they’re coming back.
We know that they were driven out again, as Jesus said they would be, but we also know that the Lord says, I’m going to whistle, or hiss, and I’ll bring them back into the land, and we’re seeing that occur today. Israel began to prosper again, so that we know even during the time of Jesus, there was a certain amount of prosperity in the land of Israel, albeit they were under the Roman control, and the Romans had a hard thumb, and they also had a wicked man in Herod, and then later on his sons and grandsons, they were in control of the land of Israel, and the city of Jerusalem. But we also know that God’s promise is being fulfilled in the day in which we live, and ultimately it will be completely fulfilled as He comes back in, and we’re seeing the nation of Israel being brought back into the land again.
I just read an article today that said that right now the Jewish people are leaving France in huge numbers. There have been 400,000 Jewish people that have left France in the last few years, and they’re leaving much faster. If you read the newspapers, one of the reasons that they’re leaving is the anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism being driven by the Moslems, and also by many of the French people themselves that are persecuting the Jews.
And one person, they asked this one individual, why are you leaving France? And he said, well, because there was three young boys, and the rabbis were shot and killed right outside of their school, their Jewish school in one of the French cities. And he said, we’re moving where we know will be safe, and that’s Israel. And it’s interesting, they view that being in Israel is safe, even though you’ve got surrounded by Moslems, that want to destroy the whole nation, but they feel safe there.
Why? God has said, I’m going to bring them back, I’m going to restore the prosperity to them, and I’m going to rebuild Jerusalem and my temple. And we’re seeing that the ultimate of that is beginning to occur today. I just saw another map that was showing the old city of Jerusalem, and this is like the little circle I’m holding up with my fingers, that would be like the old city of Jerusalem, the new city of Jerusalem is like my arm around that.
The prosperity that has come to Israel is unbelievable. When we were over there, somebody was talking to our guide, and he said, do you know what the national bird of Israel is? And everybody’s going, I don’t know, what is it? And he says, the building crane. And you look around and you see nothing but cranes all around Tel Aviv, you see cranes all around the new city of Jerusalem, they’re building like crazy over there, and the land has become very prosperous.
During the latest downturn in the world economy, Israel’s economy is prospering. It can only be addressed by what God said, that’s going to be what’s going to happen. We see that the temple was finished and rebuilt under Zechariah, it was added onto and beautified under Herod the Great, but it was still just the second temple.
That one was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, but we know that there’s going to be a third temple built by the Jewish people, but then we also know that there’s going to be coming the final and fourth temple, which we studied, that’s going to be built by Jesus himself, which Ezekiel talked about and which we studied briefly about there. God is saying, that’s going to happen. I will bring prosperity because Jerusalem is mine, Mount Zion is mine, and the temple is mine, and I am jealous for mine.
What is mine? And I don’t want, no one else will have it. Therefore, thus saith the Lord, I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies, my house shall lie built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. Cry yet, saying, thus saith the Lord of hosts, my cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad, and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.
And so we see that the prosperity of the Jewish people has been spread abroad, not only throughout the land of Israel, but also did you know that the Jewish people today in Israel export all kinds of food to Europe, they have many of the technical things that we see, and that we take for granted, that we think that our Czech people on the west coast developed, that really were developed a lot of them in Israel, and then taken and built upon by our Czech people here. The cell phone for example, a lot of that came from Israel. A lot of other things dealing with computers and technical equipment comes from Israel, and it’s amazing the prosperity and how it’s blessing the whole world, and yet the world wants to destroy Israel.
God said, this is going to come. Now, these people are still wondering, well, what about, I look around, Israel, not since the time of David and Solomon, has it been a power in the Middle East, especially during this particular time. There were 50,000 people come back into the land, there may have been a few Jewish people that had stayed behind, but there’s just a handful of people, compared to all the other people that are around them.
And these people, the Babylonians had a mighty army, the Medo-Persians had a mighty army and navy, and as I mentioned, the Greeks and the Romans haven’t even come about yet. So they’re looking at what has been and what is, and they’re going, well, how can this be? How can God even deal with us, because we are no one? Well, what does the Lord say? Then I lifted up mine eyes, and I saw, and behold, four horns. Now, when you see horns in Scripture, it’s talking about powerful nations.
It’s talking about power. For example, if you read in the Psalms and it says, he lifted up the horn, that’s talking about the power of the Lord, in most cases. Here he’s talking about four horns, or four powerful nations.
Well, what are these four powerful nations? Daniel revealed them to us. Daniel also revealed them to these people. When they were in Babylon.
Ezekiel talked somewhat about them. And we see that these four nations would be the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire. So these four horns, or four powerful nations, shall come.
And I said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these? And he answered me, These be the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. And that’s exactly what they were. Those four nations scattered the Jewish people.
The Babylonians, the Medo-Persians, the Greeks, and finally the Romans. They scattered the nation of Israel. They drove them from the land.
And the Greeks and the Romans hadn’t had anything to do with that yet, but they were coming. So what are the people to say? And the Lord showed me four carpenters. Now, what are the four carpenters? The four carpenters are what God is going to use to destroy the horns.
And he says here, And then said I, What came these to do? And he spake, saying, And that’s the angel speaking to Zechariah, These are the horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up his head. In other words, they had totally demoralized the Jewish people. And they had scattered them and driven them from the land.
The Romans did a tremendous job of that in 70 AD. They sold the Jewish people into slavery. They killed many of the Jewish people.
And those that they didn’t kill or sell into slavery, they drove into far distant lands, so they wouldn’t be near their homes or near Israel ever again. And it was that way from 70 AD until they started coming back in the late 1800s. And then started coming back in mass around the midpoint of the last century.
And it said, The horns which have scattered Judah, so that no man did lift up the head. But these are come to fray them. What does that mean, to fray them? The carpenters come to fray a horn.
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