Zechariah 1:7–21

0:00 Thank you for inviting me to preach today. If you don't know me, my name is Sam. I was a member here from March of 2014 through April of 2021. I briefly served as an elder just before leaving. This is the church that nurtured me spiritually, nurtured my family. I'm eternally grateful for this church, for these pastors, for this congregation.

0:35 I left to revitalize Hunsinger Lane Baptist Church three and a half years ago. By God's grace, he's blessing that work, giving a lot of fruit to our labor. That's in large part because of what Third Avenue did for Hunsinger. So when I left, Third Avenue sent about 25 people from this church to come and to help and to revitalize that culture, to be a model of what healthy membership looks like.

1:10 this church has been praying for Hunsinger, your pastors, especially Greg, especially Greg, has made, they've all made themselves available to help me, to help our congregation think through challenging pastoral situations. Half of our elder board is made up of former members of this church. So whether you know it or not, by being a faithful member here, faithfully giving here, faithfully multiplying the time of your pastors here so that they can give counsel to other churches in the area, you've been like Gaius in 3 John.

1:57 You've been a fellow worker in the work that's happening 20 minutes from here, revitalizing Hunsinger Lane. So thank you. Thank you. This morning we're going to be in Zechariah 1. Zechariah 1. You can find that on page 793 of the Red Bible in the chair in front of you. I just want you to know up front, I always really struggle with these one-off sermons. I never really know what to do with them.

2:30 How do you even decide on what text to pick? So what I've decided or what I typically do now is just whatever book I'm preaching at Hunsinger, I just kind of find one of the early sermons in that series and I preach that one because that's what's on my mind. So today we're going to be in Zechariah 1 because that's what I'm preaching at Hunsinger right now is the book of Zechariah. Zechariah chapter 1. Let me pray for us before we begin. Father, we ask that you would do what only you can do through the power of your word and spirit.

3:07 Father, we pray that you would bind up the brokenhearted, that you would encourage the faint-hearted. Lord, we pray that you would break and shatter the hearts of the prideful. Lord, we pray that you would convert the lost. Lord, there are 10,000 things that need to happen in this room and only you can accomplish them by your word and spirit. So we pray that you would do that this morning. In Jesus' name, amen. Have you ever cried while watching a movie?

3:42 I have. One of the most emotionally powerful experiences I've ever had was watching the film Life is Beautiful. this really extraordinary depiction of a father's love for his son. Even though some movies I've seen a thousand times, I still swallow hard every time I see Sam Gamgee pick up Frodo on the slopes of Mount Doom to carry him up.

4:14 I still swallow hard every time Rudy Ruediger finally gets checked into a real game at Notre Dame to play defensive tackle. I mean, this is why the industry of storytelling is a billion-dollar industry every year. Because human hearts are not logic machines. We are not computers running off of syllogisms.

4:46 That's not how we work. This is why we so often hear people say things like, I know this is wrong, but it's because we're not just brains. Our whole being, our affections, our hearts can be captured by experiences and stories and ideas and images and pictures, which is why the Bible is not just a book of logical syllogisms.

5:26 It is not a book of just cold, hard propositions. God speaks to us in all sorts of ways. God teaches us who He is by making propositions, telling us the Lord is holy, the Lord is good. He also teaches us who He is by telling us history. exposing to us His own mighty acts in the world. God teaches us about suffering and evil not by giving us an apologetic textbook with the answer to the problem of evil in the back of the book.

6:10 He gives us a hymn book. So we have psalms to sing in affliction. the bible has syllogisms it also has stories and songs and speeches and even symbols why does god speak to us like this why does he speak to us in all of these different ways and the answer is because god wants our hearts he wants all of us our whole life and so on the one hand we need to be told straightforwardly God forgives sinners and then on the other hand we need to be told the parable of the prodigal son this is how God works in our life informing our minds and shaping our imagination and drawing our hearts

7:11 which is why, beloved, which is why we so desperately need in our lives the book of Zechariah. This is why we need Zechariah. Now, Zechariah doesn't typically occupy kind of a big space in our minds or our hearts devotionally because it's a scary book. The first half of Zechariah, all he sees are these strange visions and it's full of these wild symbols and bizarre sights and it's really confusing and frightening so we don't read it.

7:47 You know, saints, God didn't put Zechariah in the Bible to give Bible scholars something to do. He put Zechariah in the Bible to comfort sinners. That's why it's there. God gives us these visions in Zechariah so that we would learn to see. So that we would see what is truly true and really real.

8:24 All these visions, these confusing, strange visions in Zechariah, they're not here to confuse us. They're here to comfort us. that's what we'll see this morning. Zechariah chapter 1. Zechariah chapter 1. Let's begin in verse 7. On the 24th day of the 11th month, which is the month of Shabbat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse.

9:08 He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. Then I said, What are these, my Lord? And the angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what they are. So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth. And they answered, The angel of the Lord, who was standing among the myrtle trees and said, We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.

9:43 Then the angel of the Lord said, O Lord of hosts, how long will you have mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah against which you have been angry these 70 years? And the Lord answered, gracious and comforting words. to the angel who talked with me. So the angel who talked with me said to me, cry out, thus says the Lord of hosts, I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion.

10:20 And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease. For while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts. And the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. Cry out again, thus says the Lord of hosts. My city shall again overflow with prosperity.

10:50 And the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem. The main point of this passage, and therefore the main point of this sermon, is this. Return to the Lord because he reigns and redeems. Return to the Lord because he reigns and redeems. The first half of Zechariah is a series of visions. We just read the first one of them. All of these visions are designed to make an argument pushing Israel to do what what is the banner that flies over this entire book in Zechariah 1-3. Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. That's the whole point of every vision that Zechariah sees in this book. And what we see in this particular vision is Zechariah

11:53 giving motivations, motivations for Israel to repent of their sin and return to him. So that's what we're going to look at in this passage. Three motivations that the Lord gives to Israel so that they would walk in repentance and return to the Lord. Motivation number one. Motivation number one, return to the Lord because of God's redemptive reign. Return to the Lord because of God's redemptive reign. Again, look at verse 7.

12:27 On the 24th day of the 11th month, which is the month of Shabbat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying, I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and he was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red sorrel and white horses. Now, you might read a description like that and think, what in the world is this? Well, if you're asking that question, you're in pretty good company because that's exactly the question that Zechariah asks. Look at verse 9.

13:03 Then I said, what are these, my Lord? Great question, Zechariah. So glad he asked the same question I was asking when I was reading this passage. It continues, the angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what they are. So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth. And they answered the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees and said, We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.

13:38 So what is the vision here? What is he showing, Zechariah? It may seem strange and complicated, but it is actually quite simple. Let's just think about the context for a moment. It's roughly 520 B.C. Israel has returned from being in exile. They are now back in the land of Canaan. And the prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, have now come onto the scene and they are calling the people to repent of their sins.

14:10 And the main way, the fruit of their repentance is going to be that they are going to rebuild the temple. And ever since they have been back in the land, This is something that they've struggled to do faithfully. Because even though they're in the land, they are still in some sense in exile. They are still in some sense under foreign dominion. You can see that in verse 7. Do you notice this?

14:41 Zechariah calculates time not according to the king of Judah, because there is none, but according to Darius, the king of Persia. it's his kingdom and his reign and his power that looms over the nation of israel so israel may be back in the land but the shadow of the exile is still falling over them and it's in this historical context yahweh shows zachariah this vision a man riding on a red horse and as the camera zooms out you find that behind this lead horseman is an army of horses vibrant, healthy horses that's the point of the colors they're not meant to be fantastic or bizarre these are just regular Hebrew words for horse colors so it's not like rainbow red it's like chestnut red

15:41 and reddish brown and brown and white the idea is that this is what horses should look like These are healthy horses that are being shown to Zechariah. In other words, this ain't no mangy petting zoo. This is a cavalry. This is a well-cared-for cavalry. And in verse 8, Zechariah, his vision singles out one particular horse and one particular writer at the front of the pack.

16:15 Verse 11 identifies that particular writer as the angel of the Lord. Now if you've read the Bible, you have encountered this person before. The angel of the Lord shows up in the Old Testament as the messenger of the Old Covenant and also the captain of the Lord's army. Right, so remember Joshua 5. Joshua crosses the Jordan River.

16:47 And who does he meet there on the borders of Canaan? The angel of the Lord with sword drawn, ready to lead Israel into battle in Canaan. To carry out God's redemptive mission in the world. Zechariah is here seeing Yahweh's angelic cavalry. This is why nine times, nine times in this chapter, Zechariah refers to the Lord as the Lord of hosts, the Lord of hosts, Yahweh of armies.

17:23 Why do you think that's the image that comes to his brain? Because here in this first vision, this is what he sees. He sees God's army. He is not looking at a barn. What he sees is something like that scene in Peter Jackson's Return of the King. Remember the city of Gondor is being attacked by orcs, and then the camera zooms out, and just over the horizon, you see thousands and thousands and thousands of horsemen.

18:01 The cavalry of Rohan has come to save the day. That's what Zachariah sees. That's the image. And look at what these horses are doing in verse 10. The man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the whole earth. Now the idea of patrolling horsemen would have been very familiar to the Israelites in Zechariah's day. The Persian Empire was built on the backs of a vast network of elite horsemen.

18:33 They were the postal service. They were warriors. They were border control. They conducted surveillance. They were a military intelligence and messaging system. In the Persian Empire, no horseman was ever more than one day's ride away from another so that the military could spiderweb messages across the country as fast as possible. So again, another Lord of the Rings illustration. This is like Sauron's ring raves, right? Going all through Middle-earth, looking for traitors, looking for gathering intelligence.

19:07 It's the same idea here, except in the Persian Empire, you have thousands and thousands of horsemen checking, surveying, protecting. So every time an Israelite might look up at a ridge and see one of these horsemen, they would get the idea. You are being watched.

19:43 So God shows Zechariah his horsemen, his garrison, going to and fro, surveying not just the land of Persia, but all the earth. See what God is doing in this image? You see the power he is projecting? You know, God could just tell Israel, hey everybody, when you're scared, remember, I'm sovereign.

20:19 True statement. It's fine as it stands. But God shows Israel this cinematic vision so that when an Israelite is rebuilding the temple, and he looks up on the horizon and he sees some threatening Persian horseman with a giant spear glowering at him in the distance, he would say to himself, God's got bigger horses than that.

20:54 You think that's scary? God's army is way bigger than this guy. So why don't we just get back to rebuilding the temple? why don't we just get back to doing what the Lord told us to do? These horsemen are assigned to Israel of God's almighty rule, his sovereign reign over all creation. Therefore, Israel, therefore, don't fear the nations.

21:28 Don't fear the ungodly. Repent and return to the Lord. Beloved, listen. Whatever you are tempted to think rules over the earth, it does not have ultimate power. God is the one who reigns and rules. And it is His reign that is the biggest reality in the universe.

22:01 Whatever it is you fear is ruling is not in charge. Saints, cancer does not rule. You might look at it and think, well, that has the power of life and death. Only Christ has in his hands the power of life and death. President Biden and President Trump do not ultimately rule. God has bigger horses than all of them.

22:33 And this is what we need to remember. This is what we need to remember. When like Israel, fear, fear is animating faithlessness. The Israelites are scared of rebuilding because of opposition. Just like we can be slow to obey God because of fear. If I share the gospel with that person, they're going to reject me.

23:04 If I hold my ground on this particular issue with my children, then they are going to make my life difficult. Beloved, how do you remain faithful at your job when they tell you, look, just put on the pride flag and use the pronoun or your career is over? What do you do when the choice is seemingly, well, I can provide for my family by worshiping the idol, or I can choose the other way?

23:47 What is it that fuels faithfulness in that situation? You remember, God has more horses and bigger horses than any of these people. God has infinitely more resources to care for me than this business or the S&P 500. So we can trust Him. Okay, Sam, but you said redemptive rule.

24:22 What do you mean by redemptive rule? Return to the Lord because of his redemptive rule. I see from the picture that God's in charge. What does this have to do with the redemption of his people? Well, look at verse 8. Notice where the horses are standing in this passage. I saw in the night and behold a man riding on a red horse and he was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen. So Zechariah says two things about where these horses are standing.

24:53 First, they are in the myrtle trees. And I would just encourage you, at some point this week, go home and read Isaiah 41 and Isaiah 55. Isaiah promises that when the Lord redeems Israel from exile and when he brings about the new creation, he's going to make the desert bloom like a garden, like the Garden of Eden, a garden full of myrtle trees. Isaiah 41, 19 says. Myrtle trees represent God's ultimate intention to reclaim creation for Himself.

25:31 Remake all the lands of the earth into a garden paradise of life. Isaiah 55, 13. Instead of the thorn, Genesis 3, instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. And instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle. And it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. So these horsemen signify not just that God is in charge, but that He is bending all of His sovereign power toward one great end, the reclamation of all creation and the redemption of His people.

26:16 Zechariah is encouraging Israel to rebuild the temple. And at the same time, he is showing them here that God is at work rebuilding his cosmic garden temple. And the second thing we see is that these horsemen are standing among the myrtle trees in a glen. Not the best translation, in my opinion. You could also translate it in the deep. and in the bible the deep represents death and destruction and chaos so on one hand we see god's army occupying god's garden temple but in the same picture somehow this this temple is situated in the realm of chaos and death the idea here is that god knows that israel is living in the shadow of the exile under the threat of death and he wants them to know that even there, even there, God reigns and his redemptive plan is going to prevail.

27:28 Beloved, we need to be encouraged by the same truth. Right? In this world, we live in the chaotic waters of death and destruction. And few things, Few things in life have the power to strip our confidence in God's promises like sustained suffering. And here's what this passage is saying to us.

28:05 Behind every promise God makes, behind His every intention to reclaim the world for Himself so that we can enjoy Him and know Him and live in His presence, behind every good word that He has spoken stands His own infinite might arrayed by a host of angelic warriors heaven bent on bringing every single one of His good promises to pass.

28:43 Saints, do you want to know what would have to happen in order for just one, just one of God's promises to fail? The armies of earth and hell would have to overpower the armies of heaven. This is how God committed it is to redeeming, to saving. I mean, beloved, when the Bible gives you a picture of God at work carrying out His intention to save and to redeem, when the Bible gives you a picture of what God looks like, what His disposition is toward you to save you and redeem you, it does not show you a lazy deity half-heartedly piddling at something he'd rather not be doing.

29:42 It shows you a picture of the God who is so fervent zealous in his desire to redeem and fulfill his promises is he marshals the entire host of heaven to see it through. So remember that, beloved. Remember that the next time you're struggling to believe one of God's promises. Repent and return to the Lord because of his redemptive reign.

30:20 Motivation number two, Zachariah gives us. Returned to the Lord because of God's gracious words and jealous love. Now all of this brings up a huge question. If the horses are God's army and they're supreme over all creation, why is the world the way that it is? Why does Darius prevail while the descendants of David remain under oppression? And as Zechariah, his vision continues, that question is answered. Verse 11. And they, the horsemen, answered the angel of the Lord, the captain of the army, who was standing among the myrtle trees, and they said, we have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest. Now you might think, oh, that's good, right? Peace is good. Rest is good.

31:03 Everybody wants peace. This report is not good news for Israel. This is, in fact, Israel's problem. Let me explain why. I remember watching a TV show. The opening shot of the TV show, the camera is kind of floating through this leafy American suburb in the 1950s and all the lawns are green and everybody looks happy and you have dads going out going to work and children playing in the front yard and it all looks so peaceful and wonderful and the camera continues to fly and it goes kind of into the city center and everything is looking relatively normal until you start to see some things going on in the background. There are these military policemen with red armbands who are directing traffic and stopping people in the streets until the camera finally zooms out and it's flying over Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. and you see a Nazi flag flying over the Capitol. And it's unsettling because you realize, oh no, this is portraying a world where the allies

32:10 lost the war if you were sucked into that fictional world you would not think oh i'm so happy for this peace an untroubled world under nazi control is not good peace because that means the bad guys have won that's Israel's situation the northern tribes are destroyed the southern tribes come back as a scattered mix now they're all under the oppression of the Persian Empire peace isn't good for them it means the bad guys have won which is why at this point the angel of the lord steps in to represent israel before god and he intercedes for them verse 12 then the angel of the lord said oh lord of hosts how long will you

33:15 have no mercy on jerusalem and the cities of judah against which you have been angry these 70 years the angel pleads this anguished cry of the people of israel representing the people of Israel, how long, O Lord? And look at the Lord's response. He doesn't say, how dare you question my judgments? The Lord does not say, as we might, if we ran the world with an incalculable angelic host, who are you to question how I do things? I'm in charge here. Do you see my horses?

33:52 Instead, we get verse 13. The Lord answered gracious, or you could translate it good. The Lord answered good and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. Why should Israel return to the Lord? Because he reigns supremely and he speaks graciously. And saints, I don't want to move over this point too quickly. This is scandalizing. You know, sometimes we have this vision of the history of Israel, like, oh, they're just trying so hard to obey God, and they're doing their best, but the law is just so exacting, so unattainable that they just can't live up to it. And so God judges Israel and sends them into exile, even though they were trying so hard. That is not what we see in the Old Testament. Israel could not have obeyed the law less had they tried. They were twisted in their rebellion against God. They

34:56 weren't just occasionally missing a Sabbath here or there. They were throwing their children as live sacrifices into a fire to worship Molech. Hundreds of years of disobedience. And it's to these people. It's to these people the Lord speaks good and comforting words.

35:30 Why would God do this? It has nothing to do with their character. And everything to do with His. Look at verse 14. So the angel who talked with me said to me, Cry out, thus says the Lord of hosts, I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. The source of gracious words, the source of good and comforting words to sinners has nothing to do with us.

36:06 It all comes from God's jealous heart. This is the greatest news in the world. God's jealous love for his people. We don't think about God's jealousy. We think of that word as negative and petty and small. But jealous love, like the love between a husband and a wife, is not a fault. It's faithfulness. God's jealousy for his bride isn't petty. It's zeal. What does it mean for God to be jealous over his people?

36:40 If you get this, if you understand this, you will understand why God marshals the powers of heaven to redeem his people and why he answers a thousand years of disobedience with good and comforting words. This is how one theologian described it. God's jealousy is the infinite intensity of divine affection. It is God's zeal for His exclusive claim on our worship and supreme love.

37:18 It is His untiring zeal of His glorious divine nature. It is the infinitely intense energy of God's affection as he dwells with his people. It is his limitless, fervent zeal to glorify himself in the lives of his people. We should then never consider God to be half-hearted in anything that he wills.

37:50 His very essence is an eternal act of immeasurable love. That's God's jealousy. Saints, every good and glorious thing that God has obligated himself to do for you has nothing to do with how much we love him. and everything to do with how much he loves us.

38:24 It is his own infinite wellspring of divine affection that animates God's goodness to us. In other words, God's love for his people is not a light bulb. How do you get light from a light bulb? Well, you've got to put it together, right? Someone does. And you have to delicately put all the parts in the exact right spot and wire everything just perfectly.

38:55 And then, if you've done everything right, you can get a little bit of light for your bedroom. Tons of input from you and a little bit of output from it. God's love for his people is not a light bulb. It is the sun. Right? this giant nuclear reactor that burns so bright that at 93 million miles away, we cannot look at it. And saints, to think you have to do something to get the sun to burn is less silly, saints. It is less silly to think you have to do something to get the sun to burn than to think you have to do something to animate God's love for you, to make promises to you.

39:49 He obligates himself to do good to us. He promises to do good to us because his love is like the sun, not a light bulb. And God's jealousy is why his disposition toward his people again and again and again is to surge toward them with comfort and grace and love and gracious words even when they have been so unfaithful to him. Beloved, have you ever considered?

40:23 Have you ever done this thought experiment? What is the Lord doing in heaven in the very moment when you are sinning? When you are being unfaithful to him, and he sees you being unfaithful to him, what is he doing? And the answer is, he's being faithful to you.

40:56 That's what he's doing in that moment. When people mistreat us or sin against us, we have the opposite response. We think, well, they've hurt me, so I'm going to hurt them. I've got a little bit of license to be unfaithful. Not so with God. Our sin never thwarts God's jealous love. It never causes his jealous love to diminish or abate or extinguish. And so God speaks to sinners like us with gracious and comforting words, not because of anything that is in us, but because of his own jealous love that is in him.

41:35 Beloved, do you really think your sin has the power to get God to love you less? Do you know what it would take for you to get God to love you less? You would have to do something to get God to stop being God. That's what it would take to take down God's jealous love for his people. And friend, if you hear that and receive that as some sort of allowance to sin, friend, I would just suggest that if that's a motivation in your heart when you hear that, then it might be that you don't really know God.

42:18 If you walk away from this portrait of God's faithfulness and desire sin more, friend, I would just warn you, I think you have a sick heart. And I think you should do what this passage is calling you to do. Repent of your sins and trust in the Lord. This is the nature of God's love. It is zealous, jealous, unending, unswerving. This is why we should return to the Lord, because his gracious words come from his own jealous heart. Finally, point number three, motivation number three, return to the Lord because he judges and saves.

42:54 Verse 15, I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease, for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. God in his wrath used Babylon to bring justice against Israel, but they took it too far, and so now God is going to judge Babylon and Persia. Notice what God says here, the nations are at ease, but God's going to judge them. Beloved, what a reminder to us.

43:26 Do not envy the ease of the godless. Do not be fooled by their apparent rest. I mean, they don't have to strive for holiness, and they don't have to stick their shoulder into the world, and they don't have to look like fools for Christ's sake, and they don't have to give away their money like I do. They just get to spend all of it on themselves. Look at the ease and the peace and the rest that they have. And while the nations are at ease, Zechariah says, the Lord is angry. He is wetting his sword for judgment.

44:00 Beloved, this is why again and again and again, we need to remind one another to live in light of the final day. Whatever is happening right now, whatever peace and prosperity you're creating in this life, it is not ultimate. A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions. And it is a fool's errand to live for earthly peace and earthly rest and earthly prosperity. All of it is a gallon of milk.

44:32 It expires so quickly. Live in light of the final day. Keep the judgment of God in the foreground of your life. Friend, I know if you're not a Christian, thinking about a 2,500-year-old prophetic vision from a Jew you probably never heard of may seem like the most irrelevant thing in the world for your life. But I just want to encourage you to think about this with me for a second.

45:04 Don't you see how Zachariah is actually addressing one of the biggest questions that plagues us as humans? What do we make of the fact that wicked people prosper? Why is it that the people who are the most selfish and the most indulgent, why is it that sometimes people who are just downright evil seem to have the most comfort and ease and prosperity? And worse, if you look at world history, most of those people get away with it. Oh, we like to think that everybody kind of gets their just desserts, but that's actually not true.

45:38 Most of the most wicked, self-indulgent people in the world die in luxury. I mean, where's the justice? How do we make sense of a world like this? Friend, here's the answer. God sees. His anger burns. And one day he will exercise justice. And that's not good news for wicked rulers like the king of Babylon.

46:14 But friend, it's also not good news for us. because this passage says that God is going to judge the nations and nations are made up of people people like us who are impatient with our children or who lie or who have any number of sins and things in our past that make us full of shame and guilt friend if you're at ease in life and if you're at rest and you've given no attention to the state of your soul before God my hope is that this passage profoundly troubles you genuinely I hope it ruins your lunch later today I hope you can't stop thinking about it because it's showing us the Lord is angry at sin, and he's going to judge wickedness.

47:17 And friend, don't live so foolishly as to think that whatever comforts and ease and rest you are currently enjoying is just going to continue on. It won't. You need God to save you from his judgment against your sin. And friend, that's exactly what he promises to do. Look with me at these final verses. Verse 16. Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy.

47:52 My house shall be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts. And the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. Cry out again, thus says the Lord of hosts. My city shall again overflow with prosperity. And the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem. Just very quickly, let's consider these final verses. What is Zechariah wanting Israel to do? Rebuild the temple. That's what repentance looks like for them.

48:25 But here the Lord says, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. And my house shall be built in it. The Lord comes to Israel with mercy, not because they've built the temple, but in order so that they will. Yahweh has returned to Jerusalem. God visits them. And as a result, this destroyed temple is rebuilt. And the measuring line is stretched out over Jerusalem, which means the whole city is restored.

48:57 And the end is overflowing good and comfort to the people of Israel. When did this happen? I mean, in one sense, we could say it happened in Zechariah's own day. The Lord was merciful to them. They did rebuild the temple. But the prosperity here promised never came. They were still oppressed, still afflicted. They didn't know God's mercy and comfort in the way that this passage suggested. And that's because everything that happened in Zechariah's day was just a picture.

49:33 A signpost of something greater to come. Zechariah is ultimately here telling us about a day when the Lord would literally visit Jerusalem. The Lord would literally walk the streets and heal their sick and bind up the brokenhearted and save them from the hand of their enemies and build an indestructible temple unlike anything the world has ever seen. And hundreds of years after this passage, there was another man named Zechariah living in Israel.

50:13 And speaking about the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited, he's returned, and redeemed his people. And he's raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David. As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us. To show the mercy, there's that word, the mercy promised to our fathers. And to remember as a jealous God his holy covenant. The oath that he swore to our father Abraham to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him, that's the language of priests in a temple, might serve him without fear.

51:05 Beloved, Yahweh visited Jerusalem with mercy in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And when he came, he fulfilled everything that this passage pointed to. His very body was the temple of the living God, Emmanuel, God with us. And like Solomon's temple, he was destroyed under God's wrath. He suffered the covenant curses, not for his own sin, but for ours. He was destroyed in the place of sinners. And then three days later, Yahweh again returned to Jerusalem, rebuilding the temple that is Jesus' own body.

51:48 Friend, if you're not a Christian, this is how we're saved from God's judgment. God has visited us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. He suffered God's wrath in our place. He rose again, rebuilding in his own body an eternal temple. So that if we go to Christ, we can forever dwell with God. Friend, I would just encourage you to do what this passage says. Repent of your sins and trust in Christ. Repent of your sins and trust in the Lord.

52:23 Beloved, finally for us. God now lays out a measuring line over Jerusalem. He is rebuilding a city, not of brick and mortar, but of people and souls. And you and I are evidence of this reality. Zechariah promised that when the temple was rebuilt, the Lord would again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem. Zion and Jerusalem, Zion and Jerusalem.

52:56 Where does that word pair show up in the New Testament? Hebrews 12, 22. You Christians, you by faith in Christ have come to Mount Zion to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. Saints, God reigns and speaks and saves and he tells us all this so that we can live in his presence through Christ. And why does God want us, his Jerusalem, to live in his presence?

53:29 Why is God doing all this work? Look at the last thing Zechariah says. To comfort us. That's why God marshals the hosts of heaven. That's why God becomes a man to visit the streets of Jerusalem. That's why he dies on a cross for us and rebuilds in his own body the temple of the living God. It's so that sinners can come to God and know all the comfort that he has for them.

54:02 Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for the hope of the final day. Thank you for your jealous love for your people. Father, we pray that we would walk in repentance. In Jesus' name, amen.