Good evening. Well, Zechariah. Again, Zechariah, as I've said before, is not the book that you choose to study. It's not the book that you read over and over. And that's unfortunate. It is filled with apocalyptic visions. It's apocalyptic literature. You know, it's like the book of Revelation. For some reason, the book of Revelation is more interesting to us, but Zechariah Fantastic and you need to have it. You got to have it Especially I'm really want to stay in these visions as I'm in Romans 11 on Sunday morning Because they prove once again from the Old Testament compared with the New Testament that God's plan for Israel is standing It's a promise and it will come to pass and I really get annoyed with with With folks that are taught not the folks themselves people that teach that it has no place there are people out there that teach you today that that Israel has no place in the world and that the people of Israel are a mongrel race, and they're nothing like what they were in the Bible, and that's just over. God replaced Israel with the church, and I don't know why you people talk about Israel. There's more people like that than you might think, so anyway. I don't particularly like that. So as you look at this, here's the big overview there on the yellow sign there, yellow slide. The visions go through chapter six. I moved introduction last week. Tonight I'll move a little bit faster, but also slow. And then the next two weeks, I'll start moving a little bit faster. But just to give you a glance at what we're looking at, we saw this slide last week. These eight visions, we see horsemen, which represent God's sovereignty in Israel's restoration. We are going to see four horns which are oppressive nations, persecution and the dispersion of the Jews. We are going to see a surveyor who is preparing for the restoration of Israel. We are going to see a priest who is going to represent the renewal of the priesthood in Israel. The lampstand which is fueled by olive oil or the Spirit who is Messiah, the priest king. There is a flying scroll. which speaks of judgment for disobedience over the nation. There's an Ephah, which is speaking of, I believe, the return of evil upon Babylon, which is an oppressing nation of God's people. And then in Vision 8 is the chariots, Yahweh's final and universal dominion, His victory. And so all of these come together, none of them have happened. None of these have happened, and so you look at Zechariah's prophecy and you think, well, these haven't come to pass. When would they come to pass? Well, you've got to have Israel for these to come to pass, so it's important. Well, look, I know, isn't that amazing what I just did? Let's do it again. Those are the two we'll look at tonight. We'll look at the horsemen and the four horns, as well as the craftsmen. Vision 1 speaks of horsemen patrolling the earth. So His first vision, let's look at verse 7, in fact I've put the passages up on the board. Verse 7 says this in the New American Standard Bible, on the 24th day of the 11th month, which is the month Shabbat, In the second year of darius the word of the lord came to zechariah the prophet the son of barakaia The son of ito as follows mind you that we it said the same thing about zechariah in the first part of the passage We looked at last week, but it's just getting I guess letting you know seven verses later. This is still the same one The year is 519 bc Of course back then they weren't measuring B.C. because no one knew when Christ was coming. This is 20 years after the Jews were sent home by Cyrus. Because remember they were sent home in 539 B.C. The Jews have been back in their home for 20 years. We'll speak of them having just returned from exile, but it's been 20 years. Some of you might not even be 20 years old in here. So 20 years they've been there. It's not a short time. As I suggested to you last week, one of the good ways, if you don't have a commentary, you don't like study Bibles, is to have a New Living Translation. Here's the way the New Living Translation puts verse 7, which I think is good. Same thing as New American Standard Bible, but three months later, that's three months after he began in chapter 1, verses 1 to 6. Three months later, on February the 15th, the Lord sent another messenger, the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechi, the grandson of Ido. So it tells you the dates. Again, it doesn't say 519 B.C., but a New Living Translation is, and if you know anything about translations of the Bible, there's very, what we call, wooden translations. They're very word for word. They go with the Hebrew in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New Testament, and they're trying to be as word for word as possible. Examples would be the New American Standard Bible, 1995 version. The King James Bible is that way. The ESV is somewhat that way. It's a little further down the line. Not so literal, but still literal and readable. Anyway, sorry. LSB for sure, the new, I just want to say Lexham, but the Legacy Standard Bible is very much a literal translation. If you want to go somewhere that's a little more readable but still good, you move more, as I said earlier, more of the English Standard Version of the Bible. The NIV Bible, New International Version, by the way, is an excellent Bible. Don't ever let anyone tell you it's not. I don't know why, but that Bible has fallen under so much criticism through the years. Somebody said one time, it's the nearly inspired version. Folks, it is the Bible. Every doctrine of conservative theology is in it. It's an excellent readable Bible. It's great for just sitting down and just reading through the Bible. The New Living Translation is a little bit further down the line in that and it makes it even more readable, very conservative translators. A little further down the line is the Old Living Bible. And then way down in just complete lost world is one called The Message. And that's more of a commentary on the Bible. I'm not saying it's bad, but it's not the Bible. Sadly, what I've learned through the years is that churches today are opened up, and that's the Bible they use, the message. But when people grow up, and very few do, but some that grow up and grow out of those churches, they come into a church where we read the New American Standard Bible, and they go, that doesn't even sound like the Bible. Isn't that backwards? We grew up on this, so the King James Version, if you're like me, and then you read the message and you go, that doesn't even sound like the Bible. They start with that and come to this and go, this doesn't sound like the Bible. Anyway, if you like the message, read it alongside a good version of the Bible and it might be helpful for you. Anyway, New Living Translation, I think it's an excellent Bible. I had two Hebrew professors at Dallas Seminary who worked on the translation. And we're very diligent in that. A couple of Greek professors worked on the New Testament. So these are conservative theologians and all they're doing is saying, here's what it says. We don't know the 11th day of the month of Shabbat is unless you want to go look it up in the commentary. So it just says, hey, February 15th. How about that? That's more helpful. So let's take a look at his first vision here. He says, I saw at night, and behold, a man was riding on a red horse, and he was standing among the myrtle trees which were in the ravine, with red, sorrel, and white horses behind him. Then I said, My Lord, what are these? The angel who was speaking with me said to me, I will show you what these are. And the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, So there's a lot of things to notice here. You can see it's a vision at night. There was a man. There's a red horse. There's myrtle trees. So night vision. A night vision is very much like Daniel had. Not very much, it's the same thing. Daniel had night visions. be different than a day vision. But it was at night, and God is speaking to the prophet at night, showing him these visions. And it's a vision of a man. We'll see that this man, quote-unquote man, is actually the angel of the Lord, the angel of Yahweh, in verse 11. It's the same ones, angel of Yahweh. Some speculate as to who this angel of Yahweh is. Is it Jesus? Is it God in flesh? Well, who's God in flesh anyway? Isn't that Jesus? But we're 500 years before Jesus is born, so could Jesus been born before he was born? Now that throws you for a loop, doesn't it? Could Jesus appear? Would we know him as Jesus of Nazareth? No. He hasn't been born in Bethlehem and raised in Nazareth, but God, when he appears as a man, we assume it's Jesus. Why wouldn't it be? This man who is revealed, the angel of the Lord. The horses there are red and sorrel. Sorrel is notoriously difficult to translate. It also means red, although some translations say brown, the KJV says speckled. And you can see that it's a difficult word to translate because translations have different words for it. So there's a red horse, a sorrel horse, whatever that might be. What, you're a horse rider, Ruth, what's a sorrel horse today, what would you say? red. So you've got a red horse and a red horse. So it has got to mean something else, it is a different Hebrew word, they sound a lot alike but one way or the other it is a different color horse we believe, and a white horse. What do you think of when you think of these horses? Think of the book of Revelation there are four horses, but there are not four here. And we see a white horse, a red horse in Revelation, a black horse, and a pale horse. And they have, they are described, here they are not. And we see them they are among the myrtle trees. You know what a myrtle tree is? Some of you may know. It's not a crepe myrtle, but it's a myrtle tree. I should have gotten a picture, but these grow in the Kidron Valley. If you know what the Kidron Valley is, Kidron Valley, you've got the city of Jerusalem sits up on a hill, Mount Zion, and you go down a little valley, and you come up, and you're on the Mount of Olives. Right there in between at the bottom is the Kidron Valley. Up a little ways is the Garden of Gethsemane, but myrtle trees, they would grow down in the Kidron Valley. So, Zechariah never tells us why, what these things mean. He doesn't tell us what the horses mean per se, or I should say the colors mean. He says myrtle trees, you can spend a whole couple hours going through myrtle trees in the Bible. And I found personally, after I came out of that study, I didn't know what it meant. Myrtle trees are used at the you build your booths at the the the feast of booths in Israel They they're beautiful. They grow down in the valley where the water flows other than that I have no idea why it's there if what it means and I encourage you not to come up with any interpretation as to what it perhaps means and Now I'm reading John MacArthur's book on Zechariah, and he does a good job of talking about the myrtle trees, what they might mean, but I'm not going to give you the mites. At least I'm going to be minimum on the mite, and at the end of it I don't think it really matters what the myrtle trees are here, but they're among the myrtle trees. I think he's just pointing, he's at the bottom of this valley, and they're looking, and this angel was speaking to Zechariah saying, I will show you what these are. So anyway all I've done here, and it's one of the things I try to do when I teach is just show you how you notice things You can look it up You can follow it you can chase it But you could read a lot into a text when you don't have the meaning given to you by the text And you read things into it, and you go hey the myrtle trees must mean this Be careful you can start a whole cult doing that kind of thing so just say hey, there's myrtle trees We're just making observations it never translates it so I'm not going to In verse 10, we see this man who's standing among the myrtle trees. He answered and said to Zechariah, these are those, looking at the three horses and the man on them, these are those whom the LORD, and there you see LORD in all caps, that's Yahweh, these are those whom Yahweh has sent to patrol the earth. What are these horses I'm seeing, Lord? Or the man on the horse? These are those who were sent to patrol the earth. So they answered the angel of the Lord, there you go, that was the man a minute ago, who was standing among the myrtle trees and he said, we have patrolled the earth and behold all the earth is peaceful and quiet. So we're in 519 B.C. 20 years after Babylon has fallen and the Persians have sent the Israelite captives back into their land. They've gone back, they've begun to build the temple. They stopped building the temple because the surrounding peoples got mad at them. Haggai has come along the scene and said, start building. He's a little bit more forthcoming than Zechariah. And so what do we see? Well we see horses and they are sent to patrol the earth and they said that the earth is peaceful. Let's take a look at a few things. To patrol the earth, the word patrol means to go back and forth. And when I thought that the first thing that pops out of me is reading the book of Job when God is speaking to Satan. Where have you been? He says. What does he say? Going back and forth on the earth and roaming all around it. Well, these are angels. It's angel of the Lord. What have you been doing? This appears to be, if we want to draw a quick conclusion, what angels do, what demons may do. They go all around the earth looking. Remember, God is saying, where have you been? Well, I've been going back and forth on the earth. And God says, have you considered Job? And Satan says, I never met him. Now he knew Job because Job was very, very much a godly man. So they're going back and forth on the earth and they're doing reconnaissance. They are checking out the earth so that they can give this report to God. You note the presence of the angel of Yahweh, as I question, is it Jesus? You can't go away and say we know absolutely for sure that the angel of the Lord is Jesus, but I think it's a safe assumption. No problem concluding that. The earth is at peace, but is it good peace? Now, you've been in captivity for 70 plus years. People have oppressed you, taken you out of your home, and they said, another kingdom just, yeah, y'all going home. Do you want some justice? If you're a Jew peace on the earth at this time is not what you want. You are waiting for justice So peace on the earth isn't good and you know, I showed you that picture last week on the mountainside That Darius had etched into the side of the mountain There's that there it is from a long view and there's a close-up of it at the bottom So peace during Darius's reign is confirmed on the rock of behusen 328 feet above the highway connecting at batana and Babylon. It portrays the surrender of those who had rebelled against the king, while the inscription tells in Persian, Elamite, which is Iranian today, and Babylon, at least that's where Iran is. That's all right. Mine talks to me when I don't want it to talk either. I hear you. But it is an inscription that gives in at least three different languages the story of the political unrest in Persia during the first two years of Darius' reign. And it praises his feats of valor. And the reason I put this up is to show you there is peace on the earth and it is known historically that there was peace on the earth. And this little inscription that is attributable to Darius is up there to prove that. Darius boasted that in 19 battles he defeated nine rebel leaders and subdued all the enemies. In verse 11, all the earth is peaceful and quiet. As I said that's not necessarily a good thing. Having just returned from exile the Jews didn't want peace on the earth. That's not what they were looking for. This wasn't good news. They were expecting as Haggai the prophet who was in that day they were expecting as God said the shaking of all the nations. Now that's like the shaking of the nations just think of you know in little globe or something with all the snow or something this is God shaking it. They knew what Haggai meant. Haggai was a modern prophet to them, a contemporary prophet I should say. And they're saying, wait a minute God you've been saying you're going way back in Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Isaiah even you're saying you're going to get Babylon. You're going to get those nations. And yeah, they're gone. Persia is now leading the charge in world domination, but there still are enemies. When are you going to step forward and do what you said you're going to do, Lord? This is a sign of God's favor towards them if God were to begin to discipline these nations. Verse 12, the angel of the Lord said, Mind you, this is the angel of the Lord. If this is Jesus pre-incarnate, he's speaking to Yahweh Sabaoth, the angel of the Lord said, O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no compassion for Jerusalem and the cities of Judah? Jerusalem is the capital city. Judah is the surrounding territory, and there's other cities within that. With which you have been indignant these 70 years." So again you see the Jews 20 years after their return going, Lord, you put us through 70 years. When are you going to deal with them? around and everyone is living in peace. We don't want our enemies living in peace we want to see you getting them. That's the context here. So the 70 years is always an interesting topic. Jeremiah chapter 25 and chapter 29 both speak that tell Israel that they are going to be in captivity for 70 years. Remember when we were studying Jeremiah what the false prophets were telling Israel in those days? How many years they were going to be in captivity? Jeremiah says it is going to be 70 the false prophets were saying what? It's only going to be two years. The ones that we're finally realizing we're going to go into captivity, we're going, don't listen to Jeremiah. It's only going to be two. And that really fits with the modern preachers. People don't want to hear doom and gloom. We want to hear things that encourage us, which I think, I think doom and gloom is encouraging when you know that it's going to be your enemies that are in the doom and gloom and that God is going to bless his people. But I'm just, So for 70 years God has left these folks in captivity. Now when does the 70 years begin? I believe that in 519 BC They're not basing the 70 years from 605 BC when they first went to captivity because that's much longer than 70 years That's pushing a hundred But if you factor in that Israel went into captivity originally, their first captives like Daniel, Hananiah, Ezariah, Mishael went into captivity in 605 BC. So they're over there in Babylon in 605, they're a remnant of the Judean royalty. So in other words, Nebuchadnezzar had kidnapped these boys along with a few others and is telling Israel, look if you don't obey us, going to kill your boys. In the meanwhile they are educating Daniel and those three boys. So that when Nebuchadnezzar goes back and gets more Jews as he did in 597 he is going to have them governed by their own people. And Daniel as you know the story of Daniel he is ascending above all of his peers and so they are growing up. But God goes back I should say back to 605 when He first took them in 605 if that is when the 70 years began we know that it ended in 539 B.C. And that's only 66 years, 605 to 539. So is God just round about 70? I mean, I don't know. No one really has a great answer. I will say this, that Nebuchadnezzar came to town before 605 and surrounded the city and began to threaten it. And then Israel didn't go back in 539 B.C. They took time to get things together. I mean, they'd been living in Babylon for 70 years to get your things together. Some had never been back home. By the time they get back there, it's probably not quite 70. But, hey, if it's 605 to 535 B.C., that's the 70 years. Are you still with me? But if you take the last deportation, which is 586 BC, which is when Nebuchadnezzar completely annihilated the city. He sacked the city and destroyed the temple. That's a better word. That was in 586 BC. It looks like they finished their temple in 516 BC. That's exactly 70 years. So you can take it from 605 to 535, whatever happened in 535, or you can take it from 586 to 516, and I think that's what he's talking about here. We've been without our temple for 70 years. How much longer, Lord, will you allow this? It's been 70, and Jeremiah said it would be 70 years. Verse 13, the Lord answered the angel who was speaking with me, Zechariah says, with gracious and comforting words. And you would expect God the Father Yahweh to answer God the Son we assume is the angel the Lord with gracious words. Yes, son. Here's the answer Zechariah is listening in So the angel who was speaking with me said to me proclaim so we've got Yahweh speaking the angel the Lord God the Son we think And then an angel is now a third figure here. The angel or a messenger who was speaking with me said to me, proclaim saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, that's Yahweh Sabaoth, I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and Zion. Know that it's Jerusalem and Zion. You ever get confused what's a Zionist and what is Zion? Mount Zion is the place where the temple and Jerusalem sits. That's Mount Zion. Mount Zion is a location, it's a short, small location, conquered by King David himself. But it comes to mean, in other parts of the Old Testament, for the whole of Israel, for the whole of Jerusalem, for the whole of nation. So if you're a Zionist today, a Zionist is someone who is A, pro-Israel, B, pro-Israel becoming an independent sovereign nation, which they are. but the sovereign nation without the wars with their own temple ruling in their own land. That's not the case. They're not in their own temple. They have to share their land. And you know the story about what goes on in Israel every day. But God is saying, look, you want to know what's going on? I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem, his capital city, and Zion, the place where the temple is. Jealousy is perfectly divine for God. We typically think of jealousy today as something that, well, that's immature and it can be. He has every right to demand faithfulness from His covenant nation after all He has done for them. Israel, and we could move that by extension to Christians. If God has redeemed us, if He gave His life for us on the cross, and He did, I should say since He did, then shouldn't He be jealous if we go elsewhere to find satisfaction elsewhere? Does He have a right to be? That's a good kind of jealousy. Let's take a look at jealousy real quick. I think it's important, and I'm gonna be hitting this a little bit on this Sunday morning as well. The Bible warns that human jealousy can be evil and lead to destructive anger and rage. All the passages that go to that. We can be jealous for all the wrong reasons. Someone has something that we want, doing something that we don't like, we get angry, we get bitter, that's bad jealousy. Yet, the righteous jealousy burns for the glory of God's word and worship, as when Jesus took a whip and cleared the temple. He did that, I only quoted the John passage here, but he does it in Matthew 21, and in Mark, what is it, Mark 11, where he goes into the temple. So you see it early in his ministry, in John's gospel, and in the synopics, he does it late in his ministry, it was last week. He does it twice. Jesus goes in, and what's he so mad at? He's in God's house of prayer, And he sees people exchanging money and making a profit in God's temple, a place of prayer, and it angers him. He is zealous for the worship of God alone, and he sees the worship of other things happening there. That's a good zeal. In fact, the words zealous and jealous are actually the same. They just have different connotations in English anyway. Though at times negative, to be jealous can also be understood to mean to be zealous in a positive sense. So God's jealousy, remember, and I've said this before, you may or may not know this, but this was Oprah Winfrey's testimony as to why she no longer is a Christian because when she found out that God is a jealous God, she said, well I don't have anything to do with a jealous God. To her that's about a teenager's on a on a playground being jealous or something and she didn't want to have a part of that God. It's unfortunate because God is a jealous God. In fact, He says it in the Ten Commandments, I am a jealous God. The picture of a jealous husband. A husband zealous for his exclusive relationship with his wife. That's a man who's married to a woman who finds his wife flirting with another man. That's a man who has a right to be jealous. That's his wife. She has no right to be flirting. He has every right to be jealous for that. Ezekiel developed this idea in his two parables of Israel as God's adulterous wife who gives her love away to idols and mighty men, thus provoking God's jealousy and fury. And he is extremely vivid in that. I will not repeat it. God is jealous and will not tolerate whoring after other gods. To him, it's about when you go after another god, you worship anyone but God, it's whoring. It's like being a whore, a prostitute. That's how bad it is. We have little bits and pieces of this in modern Orthodox religions. You go into an Orthodox type church, I don't mean a Greek Orthodox church, but a church that's right, you'll find places and things within almost every church where people are tempted to whore after other gods. God's people are bound to Him by covenant and so they must be exclusively His. God doesn't allow. I do not allow my wife to have any other boyfriends, husbands. I wouldn't allow. See we laugh at that because it's so absurd to think otherwise. That's how absurd it is and so much more to God that hey, I created you. I made you and I saved you. Why are you going elsewhere? No creature or image may intrude into that sacred relationship that God has given to His people, Israel, and to His people by extension, Gentiles who have received Israel's Messiah. You also see jealousy as a fierce warrior rushing into battle. The Lord will go forth like a warrior. He will arouse His zeal like a man of war. He will utter a shout. Yes, He will raise a war cry. He will prevail against His enemies, Isaiah 42, 13. Zeal this is an anthropomorphism this in other words. This is attributing a manlike quality to God who isn't a man Depicting and an adrenaline enhanced strength and alertness of God the divine warrior who clothes himself in righteousness salvation vengeance and zeal I was gonna put a picture of William Wallace You know, it's rushing into battle freedom This is a zeal The military picture of jealousy shows us God's overwhelming motivation and strength to overcome his enemies, not a psychological and physical response, but the untiring zeal of his glorious divine nature. Why is this important? This is God's feeling for his people Israel. Did he just get over it one day and say, no, I'm done with this, this didn't work, I'm gonna go to another nation, another people, Israel is too stiff-necked? No, God is jealous for his people. He doesn't change, does he? God does not change in His nature, so He would not change His promise to Israel. I know I'm pushing this a lot, but I know that there's a lot of people in our church of recent and recent weeks that come from an amillennial persuasion who have been led to believe that God is through with Israel. I don't like that. They've been led to believe that dispensational beliefs, which believes that Israel and the church are distinct, are wrong. I don't want you to think that, because I don't want you to be wrong, and I have a responsibility to tell you what's right. If I'm wrong, I'll go before God, but I would not lead you astray. This is what God's word says, we're going with it. Are you with me? All right, you hadn't left yet. We see jealousy like burning like a fire, whether of love or of anger. For the Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God, according to Deuteronomy 4.24. Think about God as a consuming fire. If you've ever stood out behind a fire in your backyard, and you're feeding all the wood or whatever roughage that you put into it, man, that gets big, it gets hot. It consumes. Huge pile, the next day is reduced to ashes. That's pretty amazing. God is a consuming fire. People take Him very lightly, and that's to their detriment. The pillar of fire, remember, or the cloud of glory, it signified God's presence and protection of Israel as they went forth in the wilderness. Don't mess with the fire. God will consume you if you bother His people. There is an infinitely intense energy of God's affection towards His people. Again, all wrapped up in that word jealousy. Don't ever forget it. Jealousy for God's people, Israel. The justified jealousy of God, divine jealousy manifests itself in God's zeal for the salvation of His people. 2 Kings 19 says, the zeal of the Lord of hosts guarantees their deliverance and enjoyment of the eternal kingdom. This is God's zeal. This is what will bring Israel into their salvation and their eternal salvation with God in eternity. God's jealousy is the fervent energy of His holiness. Joshua 24, 19, He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He has every right to be. I will be jealous for my holy name. They will know that I am the Lord, Ezekiel 39, 25. So we can define God's jealousy as His limitless, fervent zeal to glorify Himself in the lives of His people. Now again, I can't stress this enough, so I'm gonna keep repeating it. Repetition is how I learn, so I want you to learn. God is concerned for this nation. This is 500 years before Christ. God didn't wait for Christ and for them to reject Christ, for God to say, I'm done with this nation. What God has promised in the book of Ezekiel, yes, Ezekiel 2, but Zechariah, He is going to bring to pass because of His fervent, zealous, jealous behavior towards His children. So we're back to Decariah 115. God says, but I am very angry with the nations. He's zealous for his people. In verse 14, but I am very angry with the nations who were at ease. For while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster. Think about that one. I'm very angry with the nations. The nations. The nations are those who oppressed his people. I'm angry with them who are at ease. They're at ease. Remember, they're at peace. For while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster." Now I think what he's saying is, I was only a little angry at my people, that's why I took them into exile. But you'll note that God raises up pagan nations to oppress His people, to discipline them. Problem is they went too far. And so he becomes more angry. The nations in mind would be at the very least Assyria and Babylon because Assyria was the nation that oppressed the northern kingdom of Israel, Babylon the southern kingdom and Judah. These were nations that were used for God's discipline of Israel. In other words, or I should say in Isaiah chapter 10 verse 5 God says, Assyria is the rod of my anger. They're the belt I use to whip my kids. Essentially so a Syria went too far. It's like God said, okay, I'm gonna let you do this You're gonna go this far. They went further. God also tells that to Satan with Job Okay, Job or Satan you can go you can take his health. You can take his wealth. You can take his family But don't touch him Later on, he gives him a little bit more, and Satan has to stay within those confines. These nations, whether they heard from God or not, or they were just released by God, they went and oppressed God's people, and they mocked them in the process. And this would include Moab, Edom, the Ammonites. We see other passages in the Old Testament where when Israel went to exile, you see the Ammonites and the Moabites cheering loudly. You remember those pictures when our twin towers fell in 2001? 9-11? And the video footage of the Arabs cheering while thousands of our people were dying? That's what's happening in Israel. That's what happened, I should say, during the exile. And God sees it and He remembers it. These nations went too far, taking advantage of their divine right to discipline God's people. God hates anti-Semitism. Hates it. People today that are taught to hate Israel, Now, I was thinking the other day, you know, most Jews, at least in Israel, worldwide, you don't have to be in Israel, are anti-Gentile. I hate anti-Gentilism. It's a terrible thing in our country. They may not like us, but God hates anti-Semitism, for sure, because these are His people. This is what He's gonna do for His people. We look back and we say, God, they hate you. Yes, God knows that. But I will bless those who bless my people. That's why I think, I'm not the only one that thinks it, but I think it could be one of our only saving graces of the United States, is our friendship with Israel. Rejoice in that, that's a good thing. Therefore, verse 16, thus says the Lord, I will return to Jerusalem with compassion. My house will be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts, and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem. Now, in this context, yeah, the house is, just about to be built. So let's go through the building of God's houses. First in the Old Testament we see the tabernacle. God erects a tabernacle, it's a tent, a portable tent where God is worshipped. Once the tent is brought into the land where God has brought His people and there is a capital, David reigns and then he wants to build this temple. God says, nope your hands are full of blood, your son is going to. So Solomon builds a solid temple. That temple is destroyed in 586. It's rebuilt here. And so God is saying, I'll return to Jerusalem with compassion. My house will be built in it. So someone will say, well, yeah, we know that they built it. But that temple that was built in 516, completed in 516, it endured until the first century, what we would call the first century. When Herod the Great beautified it and made it the incredible structure that it became. In fact, what's left of that old house, you can see the rubbage of it all around and the western wall is the only thing standing. The western wailing wall. That's part of Herod's temple. That was a beautification of what these gentlemen under Zerubbabel rebuilt. That temple, as you know, was destroyed in AD 70. That temple hasn't been rebuilt. This temple that's talking about here, we could move that to the next context, but he's talking about 520 BC, 516 BC. We await another temple. The next temple is the temple that will be built during the tribulation time period where the Jews can go back in and have their sacrifices again. They will reestablish their priesthood, but that temple will be destroyed. How do you know? Well, the temple that was rebuilt, one would say that, keep in mind that the context of Ezekiel is the same context as this. Just a few years after this, Zechariah comes around. Ezekiel speaks in these long, boring chapters, chapters 40 through 48 in the book of Ezekiel. They will put you to sleep before you get to chapter 42, I promise, if you're reading them at night. And even if you're reading them during the day, you're going, I have no idea what this is, why this is here, whatever. But what you will find is a blueprint. A blueprint for a temple. And you think, if Ezekiel's writing this about a temple during the exile, then surely Israel's gonna go back and build the temple that Ezekiel's talking about. He's very specific. I mean, he's not like saying there's gonna be a temple and it's gonna be real big. He gives the dimensions. That is not the temple that they went and rebuilt. Not even close. In fact, Ezekiel's temple is about the size of the modern city of Jerusalem. if not even bigger than that. This little temple was just built on the old foundation of what was once there. So you're thinking, all right, what about the Ezekiel Temple? Is that just figurative? No, those of us who believe that the Bible should be taken literally believe that the next temple, so the next temple is the Tribulation Temple, which will be destroyed, and then Jesus returns, and those of us who believe Ezekiel believe that that will be the temple built in at Jesus' return. So there's been a bunch of temples. This is, so we say they got the tabernacle, you got Solomon's temple which was destroyed, and this is the third temple. So this is the third temple that God is speaking of in verse 16. My house will be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts, and a measuring line will be stretched over Jerusalem, which is really probably just saying, I'm going to judge the entire city. I'm going, a measuring line, I'm going to measure it all, and it's all going to be just like the rebuilt temple. proclaim, thus says the Lord of hosts, my cities will again overflow with prosperity and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem." Now if this was just a temporary prophecy we could say, ok well that may have happened around 516 B.C. and so we can just rip Zechariah out of our Bibles and we don't need that anymore because that was all fulfilled back then. But God's not talking about something temporary. God's talking about Zion and Jerusalem being His chosen city, chosen hill of worship forever. Fits with everything else He said. His measuring line is a symbol of restoration whereby Jerusalem will be rebuilt. I said both near and far, that's in that near fulfillment and the far fulfillment in the future. Jerusalem is the city, Mount Zion is the hill of God's temple, it's where David's offspring will reign, kings, Jesus our Lord specifically. Since Zechariah wouldn't only be concerned about the near fulfillment of Jerusalem, or surely, not since, it's just a question. I mean, it's what I think. Would you think that? If Zechariah only concerned, is God saying, I'm only zealous for a short time and then I'm gonna get over it? No, I think this is God's attitude then, now, and for eternity for Jerusalem. It's an important city. It's amazing that it's in the news so often, in our modern day. So when we pull back this is the first vision is in verses 8 to 17 The meaning of this vision is this Charles Feinberg summarizes what we just read is although Israel is not yet in her in a promised position God is mindful of her providing the means of his judgment on the persecuting nations and reserving glory and prosperity for Israel in the benevolent and and beneficent reign of the Messiah. God has His eye on the nation of Israel. He's watching it. He knows everything that's happened. He knows about the Holocaust. He's not Adverse to that he knows it he decreed it. He brought them back in 1948 He is he saw the 1948 war. He saw the 1967 war He saw the 1973 war and every war that happens every other year there. He knows it. They don't love him They don't give him the respect he deserves, but he's still fighting for them. Why is this his chosen people? He's got to preserve a remnant by preserving the nation. So that's vision one. God says, I've been out there and I've seen it, I'm looking at it, I know what's going on, I'm gonna take care of it. Vision one. In vision two, it's much quicker, verses 18 and 19 through 21, Zechariah says, then I lifted up my eyes and looked and behold, there were four horns. So I found a picture with four horns. I wanted to find something that was really mean looking, but. Lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, there were four horns. So I said to the angel who was speaking with me, what are these? And he answered me, these are the horns which have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Horns in the Bible, a horn when used figuratively symbolizes strength as a military general, a horns of a military general, Psalm 18.2, or a king, Psalm 89.17. This horn of power, or the power of a nation. On the head of an animal, horns elicit fear. And you can see animals that have these huge horns and antlers, they strut around, they know their Bad dudes. If you're a deer hunter, you know a very proud 12-point buck versus a spike. You know, the spike just goes out and doesn't care if you shoot him. Would prefer that you shoot him. A 12, 14-point buck stays on the edge of the trees. Sends the doe out first. If you know how to watch a deer and you're sitting there and the sun comes over the horizon and you see a doe trot out, A doe will go out, and she's eating, and she'll look back, and you know something's following her, and you know why. Oftentimes, it is a very large buck, and if you will let the girl do her thing, the buck will follow. And he comes out, he knows, he didn't get 16 points on his rack by coming out and just running out for no reason. And they come out, and they strut, and they look like this, and they look up, and you shoot them, and they're dead, and then you eat them later. You see animals, they know they've got impressive antlers. It's a mark of power. Are you with me on the horns? Thought that might entertain you. Yeah. So he sees four horns, he sees four powers. The horns scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. So we know it's not a deer. The whole nation of God's chosen people, when we see four horns, we're thinking of four powerful nations that scattered Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem. What are some nations you know that did that? Assyria, Babylon. We go back prior to that we know that the... Greeks, Romans, Persians in that day, that would be Greeks and Romans coming later. We know that the Egyptians did. These are powerful nations. The Philistines were part of that. Israel's oppressor in the north was Assyria. They took them out of existence in 722 B.C. And Daniel's prophecies, the four who oppressed Judah, were Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome. We went through that week after week. And so God is saying, I've seen the horns, that's the vision, they scattered My people. In Zechariah's day those four could have been Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Medo-Persia because Greece and Rome haven't come yet. We're in the days of Persia I should say. And then the next part of this vision, the final part, after you see the four horns, the nations that scattered Judah, they've essentially broken everything to pieces. You need someone to put it back together. So there's four craftsmen. Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen. I said, what are these coming to do? He said, these are the horns which have scattered Judah so that no man lifts up his head, but these craftsmen have come to terrify them, to throw down the horns of the nations who have lifted up their horns against the land of Judah in order to scatter it. So, again, this is not the way we talk today. This is apocalyptic literature. That's why you come. You want to learn Zechariah. Who are the craftsmen? They symbolize the nations who defeated Israel's enemies. Well we know that the Persians defeated the Babylonians. Later we'll see that the Greeks will defeat the Persians. And after that we'll see the Romans defeat the Greeks. Who's going to defeat the Romans in that final portion of the world empire? The Messiah. And we see that Daniel chapter 2. Daniel chapter 2 you see Daniel sees the statue, the gold represents Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon. The silver represents the Medes and the Persians. The bowels represent the Greeks. The two legs of iron and toes represent Rome. What comes in in Daniel chapter 2? A little stone cut out without hands out of a neighboring mountain just rolls over. That's the Messiah. The virgin birth. We get an equivalent vision in Daniel chapter 7 where he sees a lion a bear propped up on one side, a leopard with four wings, and a real ugly beast, representing the same nations. But right after we see those in chapter 7, we see one like a son of man who inherits an eternal kingdom. The fifth kingdom is always Christ. And so, in this case, we don't know who are the craftsmen. It looks like, if you take that context, the Persians have already won Craftsman, they took care of the Babylonians, but someone's gonna have to take care of the Persians, because they're gonna oppress Israel. Someone's gonna have to take care of the Greeks, because they're gonna oppress Israel. Someone's gonna have to take care of the Romans, and we believe that's Christ, if that's the Craftsman. Or, they just generally denote the peoples or nations that God used to overthrow Israel's past enemies. Either or, it's God saying, I know what people have done to my people, and I'm gonna get them. And that's God telling his people, I'll take care of this. letting them know He's sovereign. What is clear in Scripture is that all of Israel's enemies, past, present, and future, will ultimately be defeated. You can hate Israel all you want. You're not going anywhere. And they will win in the end. The horns that did these great things to Israel, Judah, and Jerusalem have, by Zechariah's time, Zechariah's prophecy, already been conquered and absorbed into the Persian Empire. So the craftsman could be identified the world empire of Persia along with a few of Persia's allies. It could be, it's again, I don't think it's that important. It's just that God will do it. Their function was to terrify and throw down the powers that an arrogant defiance of God went beyond all bounds of punishing and scattering God's covenant people. I mean you could take, in our day we saw Hamas go in and take a peace loving people, having a party on October 7th? I get January 6th and October 7th mixed up. There's so many dates, you know. October 7th, that is peace-loving people hounded by satanic liars that come in and do what they did, holding hostages. Who knows what they did to those women? I just saw a picture today of that woman holding her two children, they found that they were dead. Little baby, little cute girl, mama holding her babies. Oh, they just killed them. And that's okay, no, no. God takes note of every one of these. These are the ones that God is talking about in Zechariah. In verse 15, the nations feel secure or they're at ease. Now they're to be terrified and overthrown. It's coming, it's coming. Quick application for Zechariah 1, 7 to 17. Zechariah's visions accentuate God's sovereignty over the world's affairs. I think that's always something to consider, over the world's affairs. The reconnaissance mission symbolizes God's omniscience, knowing the plight of all peoples. He's looking everywhere, doing recon everywhere. He knows everything that's happening. He knows everything we say. The question of how long, asked by the angel of Yahweh in chapter 1 verse 12, expresses the assumption that God is directing the affairs of His people. How long? God knows. We may want it to happen today or tomorrow. God's got it. Faith in God's sovereignty is essential to the walk of faithfulness as we await the future return of Christ. This is always God's final plan. Christ is gonna come and sum it up. How are we to act in the interim? Faithfully. trustingly that God is in charge. And folks if you don't know what God is going to do with Israel then you are kind of lost. You are just living in a world of well God will wrap it all up and Jesus is coming back. That's really what an amillennialist does, Jesus is coming back. Don't bother me with the details. The details are, that's the fun. You know that's like having a million dollars and never getting to spend it. You know, we're all going to get a million dollars. But I like to enjoy the million dollars. I mean, if I knew what that was like. But this is God saying, I'm giving you the details now. Know that I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do. It's a great way to live. Fresh from persecution, the apostles raised their voices together in prayer to God and began with the simple cry, Sovereign Lord. May that also be our cry as people of God. Sovereign Lord, I don't know what's happening, I don't know why it's happening, I don't know why I'm in this situation, but I know you're in charge, and you see me, and you love me. May I be faithful to the end. So I don't make a drawn application from the second vision, just a couple of observations and we're done. Talking about the horns and the craftsmen. God allows pagan nations, or just difficult situations in our lives, to discipline his own people when they begin to drift away from him. Can any of you identify with that? You begin to pull back from God and just, you know what, I'm gonna party a little bit, have a little fun, God loves me, I'm gonna do my thing. If you belong to God, he has a way of not letting that happen. Or not letting you get too far. Or you go far enough and God says, all right, I'm bringing you back. But there's scars on you after that. And this is God allowing his nation to do what they're doing. God will punish pagan nations, but he disciplines his people for the purpose of strengthening them. So when we talk about punishing versus discipline, God is disciplining those he loves. He will punish those who hate us, who hate God's people Israel, but he is disciplining us in the process. That's how you make people, by disciplining. And ultimately, we await the coming of Christ to reign on the earth. A truth told in both testaments of the Bible. That is our hope. When all is lost, you know, that's what we pray, don't we? Lord Jesus, come. Come today, Lord. I like to make fun of myself for thinking that. And here's what I do. Maybe this may be an application for you. I sit back and I just start looking at what I have. And then I realize even the ability to perceive what I have. The ability to see with my eyes at all versus living in the dark. The ability to eat. The ability, I go to bed and at tonight, it's a cold night, isn't it? I'm gonna turn my heater on, I got a heater. I have a house to go into, as do you. I got a car to go home in. If I get hungry, I'm gonna open my pantry, I got food. I can heat it up, it's got electricity. I have everything, and so do you. And Lord, things aren't so bad. I read a story, read many accounts of stories like this back in the days long before, and it's really just a generation prior where they didn't have air conditioning. But in the cold winters of, say, a Jonathan Edwards living in Connecticut, you wake up, you're the preacher of a church, and it's Sunday morning. What do you do? Your church isn't. I mean, I get here and Brian Smith's already showed up. He's got coffee brewing, heater's on, lights are on. Great place to come in. You come out of the cold or the heat. Great, right? Isn't it nice? What a deal. Thank you, Brian. That's what he does. He allows it to happen. In those days, you had to send somebody. Jonathan Evans had to send some runner, some kid, hey, go to the church. See if people can get there. See if it's frozen. Get us a fire going so the people who don't have cars, they don't get on a freeway back then. That's why people go, ah, it's too far to drive, 30 minute drive. Give me a break. Sit in your car, turn your heating on your, your steering wheel on. I got heaters on my seat. My seat is very comfortable. So what if you have to drive an hour? These people walked across snowy fields with frostbite, set for four-hour church sessions. Why, there wasn't anything else to do in the afternoon. Look at what we have. So when we start saying, Lord Jesus, come, because we had a bad day, go ahead and catch yourself and say, God, thank you. Look at what we have. God's sovereign, he's got it all in Paul's hand, right? All right, now the visions go through. There's eight visions that go through chapter six. In the next two weeks, I'll finish those visions. So we'll be through chapter six in two weeks. Stay with the visions. It's good to go through, read it, and make some notes about what you think it means. Get you a study Bible or a commentary that I've suggested, or at least a new living translation. Read through it, make some observations. Again, I know it's not as fun a reading as Daniel, but I don't wanna lose you. with me, commit to keep coming to Zechariah, you'll be happy when it's over. Plus on April 2nd we'll still be in Zechariah when Dr. Spiegel will be here and I think it will be helpful what he is saying. You know when you bring in a guest speaker, a guest speaker comes in you see me every week. I mean I'm on overload, you've got to be tired of seeing my mug. My wife is too, she is looking for a new preacher just to have some new blood. But Michael will be here, and he's gonna say essentially the same things I'm saying, and you're gonna go, man, he's good. And that's just the way it works. But put it together based on what you've learned in the past, what we're getting from this, and what we'll get from him. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that the study of eschatology would make a difference in our daily lives, that we reminded who you are, what you're doing, that this wouldn't just be a study of a book, That we've never studied, but it'd be a book that the study of it would actually change our daily lives that we know you're in charge You take care of everything You hear all things you hear us When we pray to you Lord, there are billions of people all over the planet But when we pray it's as if you were right here just with us only listening to us Only you can do that and we thank you for that Grant us the comfort that's already been given to us. I guess I pray that you would open our eyes to the comfort that's already there. Thank you for your word that gives us all the more comfort. You are doing exactly what you said you would do in your time. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. You've been listening to a sermon by Dr. Lance Waldie, senior pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Cypress, Texas.