Well, good evening. Let's take a look at Zechariah. We'll look at chapters 2 to 4 tonight and look at visions 3, 4, and 5. How many of you went and got a New Living Bible, New Living Translation? It's like 10 bucks. I was recommending it for the reading of Zechariah for sitting down reading. You know there's two kinds of Bible reading to me. There's the kind where you sit down and you're not looking for notes. You're just looking to read. You got three or four or five chapters you want to read. You don't even make yourself understand everything. You just read. Very easy reading, New Living, NIV, perfect versions for that. But study Bible, to study the Bible you want more of a New American Standard Bible, King James, English Standard Version, the New Legacy Standard Version is an excellent one out there nowadays. But two kinds of Bible reading, there's the pleasurable, I'm going to read through it, then there's the study, I'm going to go word by word, verse by verse. And the New Living Translation is what I recommend for getting through a book like Zechariah. Alright, let's take a look. Some Zechariah's visions at a glance. You've got to get these visions down and we'll get a full picture of them as we go through and as we complete them. Vision 1 is of horsemen. I told you that I don't really think that the colors of the horses matter. I don't want to read a lot into the red and brown speckled and what have you. It could be, the Bible doesn't say, so I don't think it is worth making a big deal about. But they are horsemen God has sent out to scout. They are doing reconnaissance of the earth and it specifies God's sovereignty because He's looking over and out for Israel and their restoration. They've been scattered. They're not in a good place the horses come back and say, but the rest of the world is. God's people are not settled but the rest of the world is in peace. This is not a good thing. The four horns are the powers that have scattered God's people and then there are four craftsmen who are going to restore God's people. There's the surveyor. We'll look at that today. Also, the what's the word I'm looking for? Yes, that's where it is see if I'm not looking now. Plum line, the measuring if you are a surveyor of some sort. He is looking at Israel's restoration. The fourth vision is of Joshua also called the branch. The renewal of the priesthood and Zerubbabel pointing to the Messiah. You are going who? It means you hadn't read Ezra before if you don't know who Zerubbabel is. There is the lamp stand we'll look at that tonight. And then we'll look next week the Flying Scroll, the Ifa, and the chariots. Tonight we look at I have to entertain you. If you entertain an audience, you have to make sure you're better the next week. That's why I never really entertained. It's just the wave. That's right. You know, I hadn't thought about that. It's the wave. So let's take a look. Chapter 2, verse 1. Vision number 3. First vision was the horses. Second vision was the craftsman and the horns on the craftsman. Vision number 3. Then I looked up. I lifted up my eyes and looked, and behold, there was a man with a measuring line in his hand. So I said, Where are you going? And he said to me, To measure Jerusalem, to see how wide it is and how long it is. And behold, the angel who was speaking with me was going out, and another angel was coming out." Now the angel, who's the angel that's been speaking to him? It's the angel of the Lord. It's Yahweh. Most likely we believe this to be Jesus Christ pre-incarnate. If that's what the angel of the Lord is. So you've got that angel talking and there's another angel. Another angel is coming out to meet him and said, run and speak to the young man. To that young man. Specifying Zechariah. This is where we believe Zechariah was a young man. So run out and speak to him. It's kind of a strange, they're all strange visions. No doubt about it. So he's speaking to the angel and he's going to measure the city and another angel comes out, runs up to the young man saying, Jerusalem will be inhabited without walls. Even though one's out there to measure the walls the distance of the city the other one comes out says no tell him it's going to be measured without will be inhabited without walls because of the multitude of men and cattle within it. For I declares the Lord will be a wall of fire around her and I will be the glory in her midst." Now when does that happen? This is a prophecy in 519 BC. Has that happened? Did it happen when Jesus came? So if it hasn't happened and God says it will happen, what are we to conclude? It's going to happen. You have to have a Jerusalem. Again I push the agenda here in this church that Jerusalem matters, that Israel matters. If it doesn't matter to an amillennialist, and today again I'm on to the amillennialists, what are you going to do with passages like this? Spiritualism? Let's just go with what they say. God seems pretty fired up about restoring this city. Verse 6, ho there. Anyone have a translation that says something different? Come, come. I prefer, ho there. Oh there, flee from the land of the north. This is obviously a stark call. Flee from the land of the north. Now the land of the north here is specifying Babylon. It's 519 B.C. The Jews were let go out of captivity 20 years prior in 539 B.C. but only 50,000 came back. So a bunch of them stayed there. That's the only place they know is home. It would be something akin to you growing up, you were born in the United States of America. Your parents, however, are of German descent. And you've lived here all your life. And something happened, they decided to go back to Germany. And somebody's calling you from Germany going, come back home. And you're going, this is the only home I know, Babylon. or the United States, this is all not, Germany is not home, I wasn't born there, my parents may have been. And so many people who were born and raised in Jerusalem, I'm sorry, in Babylon, over the 70 years they were there, are going, we're not going anywhere, and they didn't, they didn't go back. And God is calling them out of there. Ho there, flee from the land of the north. Now if you'll look on a map, you'll have Jerusalem, Judea, and you just go straight to the east, and you get to Babylon. But you can't travel, at least back then you couldn't, it's just completely across the Arabian desert. The only way to get to Babylon is to go up, follow along the rivers and come back this way. So coming from the land of the north, if you're going from Babylon, I know it's backwards to you where I am, but if you're in, we'll do it right ways. Babylon here, you go up the Euphrates River and then you come down out of the north. And so that's why it's saying coming out of the north. flee from the land of the north, declares the Lord, for I have dispersed you as the four winds of heavens, declares the Lord. Ho Zion. Now here Zion is a phrase or a word I should say used for God's people. Literally it is the city of Jerusalem. Here it's, Ho Zion, escape you who are living with the daughter of Babylon. Leave that place. That's not your place. God says, I put you there to exile you, to punish you, to discipline you. Your discipline is over. Seven years are over. Come back home. Verse 8, For thus says the Lord of hosts, or Yahweh sebeoth, After glory he has sent me against the nations which plunder you. For he who touches you touches the apple of his eye. That's a good thing to underline there. This is how God feels about His people. God feels about His people. The only way to really make a similar parallel for us would be the way we feel about our first born child. Not so much the second born child. Only because my second born is here tonight. It's a way of, she looked at me like, what are you saying? It's the way you feel about your child, your children. It's mama bear syndrome. And that's just something we might be able to relate to. To touch Israel is to touch God's children. Come, leave that nation. He who touches you touches the apple of his eye. Verse 9, For behold, I will wave my hand over them, so that they will be plunder for their slaves. Note that. Plunder. Who is they here? They are the oppressors of God's people Israel. And I love this because we live in a day where Israel is being oppressed horribly by terrorist groups. And then people around the world just don't like them and don't want to send aid to them. And if you go to the Ivy League, you're just taught to be pro-Palestinian. Don't do that. Don't encourage that. Don't think that there's anything right about that. There's not. Note that in the wave of a hand, God can change this. And He doesn't just change with the wave of His hand. He takes The people that are pressing His people with the wave of a hand and feeds them to those people's slaves. In the wave of a hand, in the blink of an eye, you wonder how can God do what God's going to do? Well, God can do it like that. We don't need to worry about how, just believe that. For behold, verse 9 again, I will wave My hand over them so that they will be plunder for their slaves. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me." Now this is God talking to Himself. Who's talking? Yahweh Sabaoth. Then you will know that God has sent me. Who's He talking about me? Because the me's capitalized in my text. This is not teaching, hey there's a Trinity. But it sure is allowing for it, isn't it? This is God the Father directing God the Son, and we know as prophecy unfolds to the end of Revelation, God the Father sends God the Son. And God the Son is the Messiah, and it is God the Son who will accomplish all of this. Verse 10, sing for joy. And be glad, O daughter of Zion. That's Jews. For behold, I am coming, and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord. Many nations will join themselves to the Lord in that day, and will become My people." If you're talking about nations that are not Israel, you're talking about Gentiles, and many will come. Then God says, I will dwell in your midst and you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. The Lord will possess Judah as his portion in the Holy Land and will again choose Jerusalem. Don't miss that once again. How can you adopt an end times view or any view of the Bible that says Israel is not literal? Unless you take something like this and say, eh, he doesn't really mean Judah and Jerusalem even though he keeps saying it. He really means something else like the church. Or when you see God saying that He's going to do what He's going to do, did God get so sick of people in Israel that He said I'm done with you? When all He has to do is wave His hand and it all changes? Take the Bible literally. I know that we are reading literature that is speaking figuratively, but behind every figurative phrase is a literal meaning, is it not? I mean, you can say anything figurative, we use figurative language all the time. What are you doing? I mean, because it always comes to my mind, one day I'll think of a different one, but, hey, what are you doing tonight? Well, I'm chewing the fat. No one assumes that I'm eating a piece of steak with fat on it, just chewing it all night. No one assumes that. It's a figure of speech that you think, well, it's just, someone's hanging out at his house, which is also a metaphor, right? He's hanging out, are we all on hooks at the house? Hanging out, chewing the fat, shooting the breeze, rapping. You might be wrapping presents, you might be going along with the rap music, or you could just be shooting the breeze, chewing the fat. So behind all of that figurative language, you know exactly what that person is doing. What are you doing, son? We're hanging out, we're chewing the fat, and we're just wrapping. Okay. What is he doing, Cheryl? He's just at the house watching TV with John. They're talking. Easy interpretation. So you're going, okay, we can't take it literally. No, no one in their right mind takes a figurative language literally, but we know what he's talking about once we interpret it. And since God is going to do what God is going to do there at the end of verse 12, he says in verse 13, be silent all flesh before the Lord for he is aroused from his holy habitation. Why don't you all just be quiet? Just be quiet and quit your yapping about God, what God hasn't done, what God should do, God is going to do, and He says what He's going to do. So there it is Plum Line 3, let's just overview it. It's a man with a plum line, he goes over, and a plum line is just a measuring thing. If you want to get a straight line back then you just something with a weight at the bottom and you let it stop and that's the straight line. It's just a way to measure. But, as he's measuring Jerusalem, an angel runs after the man, telling him not to bother, for Jerusalem would be an unwalled city. No reason to measure it. It's going to be unwalled. It's walled. In fact, 80 years after this prophecy, Nehemiah came in and built the wall. Why didn't somebody tell Nehemiah, hey, 80 years ago, Zechariah said, we're not going to build a wall. Because that wasn't the end time city. needed protection. He was sent to build the wall by the King of the day. So, he ran after him, don't bother it's going to be an unwalled city. Also, Yahweh announced that He would be a wall of fire around the city protecting it. Although Isaiah 60 verses 10-11 if you want it to be argumentative depicts the future Jerusalem with walls, both prophets in their own way I believe are emphasizing the same truth that future Jerusalem is eternally secure with or without a wall. God is going to secure His city. Is it secure now? No, not at all. It's sitting duck. There's garbage that goes on there every day. So we get the true meaning is that Jerusalem will be inhabited to the point of overflow, hence no walls. And Yahweh will be in the midst of His people blessing them for eternity while ruling in Jerusalem as their King. Hasn't happened has it? Yahweh will punish the nations appropriately, for they had attacked His people, that is, the pupil or apple of His eye. Those who plundered His people would in turn be plundered. When this came to pass, Yahweh Himself would be vindicated as true to His word." All right, let's go to the next chapter, chapter 3. Then He showed me Joshua the high priest. This is chapter 3, but it is vision number 4. Joshua the high priest this is another Joshua. It's not the same Joshua that lived during Moses day were 900 years after that time period Joshua means Yahweh saves Yeshua Joshua Yahweh saves is the high priest. This is a real man and he's standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him of The Lord said to Satan. You ever heard somebody say, well, God can't stand in the presence of evil? What's he doing here? Angel of the Lord is standing there with Satan. And Job, every time Job shows his face to God, he goes, eh, can't see. Doesn't, does he? You know, God stares at evil in the face every day when He looks at you and me, doesn't He? God stands in the face of evil. Don't ever let somebody say, well, you can't do it. God is standing. He is the angel of the Lord standing right there with, right there next to Joshua the high priest. And the high priest, remember, is the mediator between God and man. Very high position. Without the high priest, there is no one to mediate the sins of man. The Lord said to Satan, verse 2, the Lord rebuke you. Satan, indeed the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Again, is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Now you should write there in your Bible Amos chapter 4 verse 11. Because 300 years prior, Amos chapter 4 verse 11 speaks of Israel as a brand plucked from the fire. It's a, you ever look in a fire and there's, you go, oh my goodness, I didn't mean for that to be in there. It's about to burn up and you pluck it out to save it. What's left of whatever it is you left in there, God is saying this is what Israel is. This is what they've gone through, but I am plucking them out of the fire, I am saving them. That's what this is. Lord rebuke you, and by the way the word Satan here, in fact let me show you, the vision Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of Yahweh being accused by, in the Hebrew text it's Hasatan, Hasatan, and ha is thee in Hebrew, so ha Satan, and it's got the double S in that, but it's not necessarily, it doesn't say this is the devil right away, We know from what we know from the New Testament much more. So if we're reading, we're already reading what we know from the New Testament back into the Old Testament. And I would just say as best you can don't do that just yet. He's standing before one called the accuser. The Satan is the accuser. when you have the definite article which is a the, it is the accuser. Who is the accuser? Well he is kind of a good case of Biblical theology. Biblical theology is something that is introduced in an early book of the Bible and flows throughout the Bible picking up steam to the end where we can understand him much more at the end. That is an example of Biblical theology. What little we know the progress of Revelation tells us more. The term Satan when used without the definite article which is ha, Usually refers to a human adversary when Satan appears with the article of thee as it does here and in Job chapters 1 & 2 it is a title for a being who seems to serve as a prosecuting attorney in the heavenly court the heavenly court is a place that Satan himself has access to He has access to God every day and he goes to God even currently One day we read in Revelation 12. He's gonna be kicked out but currently he can go at any time and stand before God and say Lance Waldie, hypocrite. And he stands there and he accuses. He does it with Job. He's doing it with Joshua the high priest. In Job 1 and 2, chapters 1 and 2, he is brazen toward God, exhibiting a hostile attitude towards God. He's not on his face. He's not humbly asking for the ability to speak. He's just saying bold, brazen, I would quite say rude. I put brazen because I didn't want to put rude, but rude is just what he's being. Though he does not speak in Zechariah's vision, God's response to him suggests that he has hostile intentions. So he is accusing the high priest, the one who mediates before God, on behalf of men. And he says, is this not a brand plucked from the fire? Verse 3, now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments. Filthy garments here, the word filthy here has to do with excrement. Sorry, I had to bring that up, but he's not just dirty, he's disgusting. And there's the devil to sit there and accuse. Now you might, I don't know if Joshua's done something to bring about this accusation other than being human. I want you to think about when you're accusing somebody of anything, one who accuses you're never more like Satan than when you're accusing, that's what his name means. You're never more like Jesus than when you're forgiving. One is accusing, pointing the finger, one is forgiving. Just remember that next time you get into this accusational back and forth with your spouse or friend or somebody in the news media. Accusing, accusing, accusing, that's really a lot, that's acting like Satan. But forgiving, that's acting like Jesus. Now this filthy garment, if you ever committed something, a sin, maybe in your mind it's not so bad or it's really bad. When that happens, I think that's when Satan is at his, see? God's standing before God going, see, see, I told you. I told you about him, God. You keep blessing him, but I told you. Has God ever done, Satan ever done that with you? Every day, no doubt. Maybe he knows our names, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he just knows we're part of the church of Jesus Christ. He's there to accuse. I mean, let me just stay on that for a second. One way to really get at him, And I'm not saying you should spend your day trying to get at Satan. It's better to spend your day trying to bring glory to God. But just, in order to avoid sin, just don't give him any ammo. No fuel. I'm not gonna do that. If your problem is looking at pornographic literature, I promise you God is standing before, Satan is standing before God going, see, look at him, he can't stop. He won't stop, God. He doesn't love you, God. Go ahead and not do that. When you wanna use foul language in a situation, go ahead and not do that. And not allow him, where he's just shut up, if he can't say anything, isn't that a wonderful little slap to that devil's face? Not gonna give you the satisfaction of accusing me. Again, live your life to glorify God, not get Satan, but I don't know, sometimes it feels pretty good when you avoid what is oppressing you. Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel, verse four, he spoke and said to those who were standing before him, saying, remove the filthy garments from him. Again, he said to him, see, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes. Isn't that what God does? Isn't that what the angel of the Lord does? I have taken your filthy, disgusting life. It causes you to look and stink, to look horrible and to stink. I have taken that off and I have clothed you. Who's at work here? He's the one doing it. Don't miss that. God is the one doing it. I have done, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes. Then I said, let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on him. So this is part of the garb of the priest, this turban on his head and clothed him with garments while the angel of the Lord was standing by. And the angel of the Lord admonished Joshua, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, If you will walk in my ways, and if you will perform my service, then you will also govern my house, and will have charge of my courts, and I will grant you free access among those who are standing here." You could just sum it up by saying, if you'll do what I say, I will bless you. The high priest represents the people. The high priest represents the best of the best. I mean you figure if you're going to represent sinful man to a holy God, you're going to be the cream of the crop. I think we should expect that from people in ministry. Our pastors should expect that. Too often we don't, we put up with it. I think we should expect it in our political rulers, but good luck with that. Now listen, verse 8, Joshua the high priest, you and your friends who are sitting in front of you, probably his fellow priests and Levites, Indeed they are men who are a symbol for behold I am going to bring in my servant and you see that my servant the branch For behold the stone that I have set before Joshua on one stone are seven eyes at this point late at night You're going I'm done. I'm going to bed A stone, a branch, a stone with seven eyes. Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it, declares the Lord of hosts, and will remove the iniquity of that land and the day." I mean, if you're like me and you're reading that, you go, I must have missed something in three paragraphs earlier. I guess it's just time to quit reading for the day. Does anyone else feel that way? I mean, when I read something that off the wall, I'm pretty sure I phased out three paragraphs prior. But we haven't phased out. Even if you just phase back in, it's still strange. In that day, verse 10, declares the Lord of hosts, every one of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and under his fig tree. Sit under a vine and a fig tree is like sitting out at the end of a long day having a glass of tea or whatever it is you drink. Sitting out together in peace. We note the removal of Joshua's iniquity who represents all people as the high priest going before the Lord God, Yahweh. He was thus a symbol of better days ahead. What is going on right now? You have just come back from exile. Your temple is not built yet. Your priesthood is in shambles. You have no king. And God is saying, you're filthy and I'm gonna make you clean. Don't worry. This is hope. How could this happen? How in the world could God make this happen? Through the branch, the branch itself. The Lord would raise up a servant here called the branch to purify the land of its sinful condition and to restore prosperity to the community. Now, we know that Jesus did that, but in the New Testament when Jesus came, the Messiah is there, they killed Him. So, did they lose? Did God say, I'm done with this? As Jeremiah prophesied, this branch, he speaks of the branch in chapter 23 and chapter 33, this is the ideal Davidic ruler. We know Jesus descends from David. We believe this to be Jesus, but in Zechariah's day the branch was represented by Zerubbabel who was David's offspring. So Zerubbabel, you've got Zerubbabel who is the, okay keep in mind we go back to the last king in Israel, the last legitimate king in Israel was a guy named Jehoiakim. And Jehoiakim was taken into exile and his uncle was put in. Remember his name? Zedekiah. Zedekiah is now the king. He was legitimate but he wasn't supposed to sit on the throne. Their real king is in Babylon. So Jehoiakim the last legitimate king and he goes into exile and he lives there. We're told he lives there for like 37 years. He eats every day at the king's table. does. He lives beyond Nebuchadnezzar to the second ruler named Amel-Marduk and he eats at Amel-Marduk's table. That's just written in 2 Kings chapter 25. So from there the kings stop, but the genealogy continues. So read the genealogies when you return to like Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 3 you see that Jehoiachin had a child, and had a child, and had a child, and one of those children was named Zerubbabel. generations later Zerubbabel comes back. Zerubbabel is the rightful heir to the throne in Jerusalem. And Zerubbabel is the one who comes back and is leading the people, leading the Israelites. He rebuilds the Temple, but he can't be king because the Persians are kings at this time. But the genealogy remains through that. So when you read about Zerubbabel we read about him here, we read about him in Haggai, we read about him in Ezra, we read We read about the same guy who had the right to be king, who once he died, he had a son, who had a son, who had a son, and that genealogy connects it to Jesus. So when he's talking about this branch in that day, in that particular day, he's talking about Joshua the high priest and the branch Zerubbabel. One's a priest and one's a king, that's their government. One's the priest and one's the king. Prior to the kings, it was just the priest that was the government. Wouldn't that be, remember when Israel wanted a king? Give us a king, we want a king. All the other nations have a king. And God's saying, no, you don't want a king. You're gonna have to pay for the kings. You're gonna have to pay all the taxes that go with kings. You're gonna have to pay for them and their families. Secret service has to come around, their own version of it. But their entire government was a religious government under a priest. When you added the king, now you've got the priest and the king, and they come from two different tribes. Very important that you know this. The priests come from the tribe of the Levites. under the lineage of Aaron. The kings come from the tribe of Judah. The Levites are the third-born tribe, and the Judeans are the fourth-born tribe. A king cannot be a priest. A priest cannot be a king. Can't be. So, he's talking about two people that matter monumentally in Israel, one is this high priest and one is this king. Zerubbabel is foreshadowing the coming of the Messiah. He is the branch. So you've got in the short run the branch is Zerubbabel, in the long run the branch is Jesus our Messiah. Just so you'll know. A stone with eyes. Stone with eyes, what do you think, what could that mean? Well it doesn't say, so speculating is kind of funny sometimes. Most likely the stone is a capstone of the rebuilt temple, so once the temple is built, you put the last piece on it, the capstone of the temple, and the seven eyes, I don't know. Most commentators, most good ones, believe that they symbolize Yahweh's watchful care, inscription would identify the structure as the Lord. So they are going to build the Temple, they don't have it. The priest can't do what he has to do unless there is a Temple. Build the Temple, put the priest, let the priest put the capstone on it, God's eyes are all around it, seeing all over the world as God sees, He is sovereign, He is all knowing. Or it could just be that the stone is the golden plate attached to the High Priest's turban inscribed with the words, Holy to the Lord as we read about in Exodus chapter 28. Like the stone in Zechariah's vision, this golden plate was associated with the removal of sin. In this case, the seven eyes would be the facets of the stone. I don't know what the stone is. I don't know what the stone is. I don't know what seven eyes are. It's pretty strange. But we see seven throughout the Bible, don't we? If we want to become numerologists for a minute, seven is typically a number of totality. Later in the book of Revelation, chapter five, we see the spirit is a what? Spirit. Sevenfold spirit. These eyes, it may just be a number for comprehension. God sees all, knows all, don't know. But whatever it is, it's good. Would you agree? Alright, good. So we'll move on from there. The meaning is that Joshua the priest, representing the priesthood, will rule the Lord's house and courts. And, you know, if we were to look at Ezekiel chapters 40 and 48, this is talking about the millennial reign of Christ. Once Jesus returns, there's this temple that Ezekiel speaks of in those nine chapters that's never been built. You would expect that since Ezekiel was part of the captivity, part of the exile, he was the preacher in Babylon, and he's writing his prophecy about the dimensions of the coming temple. And he's very specific in there. It's reading a blueprint, it puts you to sleep. You would think that Zerubbabel would have gone back and said, all right, let's unfold the pages we have on Ezekiel. He told us how to build this temple. Not even close. In fact, the temple that they rebuild is so small, that the people that saw the previous one who lived through the exile were weeping. Everyone's rejoicing, it's in Ezra chapter three, I believe around verse 11, where everyone's rejoicing when the temple has been put down again. This is great, but the older folk who had seen the previous one are going, this is ridiculous, this is a shoebox. So why would they go back and build something small when Ezekiel has something monumentally huge, bigger than the entire city is today? that's not the temple to rebuild. But you do see that this temple with the specific dimensions given in the Ezekiel temple you're figuring God is not going to be that specific if He's talking metaphorically or if He's talking in some way spiritually. I'm going with the literal part and I believe Ezekiel is talking about this literal temple that's built in Jerusalem at the Second Coming that Jesus Himself builds. But you'll note in this temple this throws a lot of people so stay with me. In the Ezekiel temple, in the temple, remember Jesus is reigning on the earth. There will be a high priesthood and there will be blood sacrifices. What? Why would we need blood sacrifices? Isn't Jesus reigning? Why would we need anything to die? Isn't the blood of Jesus enough? Yes. But why do we celebrate the Lord's Supper today? Why do we take a vial of juice that's supposed to represent wine I should say. Why don't we take a little piece of unleavened, that's what I'm looking for. You've got these blood sacrifices that are indicative of our Lord's Supper. You take that unleavened piece of bread, why are we drinking juice and eating a piece of bread? We're remembering the death of Jesus, aren't we? We're remembering what He did. When we get to the millennial reign of Christ, Jesus is the president of the world, as it were. There are people born there that will know only one thing, that Jesus is president. And their parents will tell them, Jesus, these are people that haven't died yet. And your kids are gonna say, what are we doing? Who's He, Mom? Oh, that's Jesus. I'm telling you about Jesus. Well, okay, what about Him? We're going to go to the temple today, we're going to offer blood sacrifices. Why are we going to do that, Mom? Because this is what Jesus did. He shed His blood. We're going to the high priest to commemorate and remember what Jesus did. The high priest will be functioning on the earth with Jesus reigning. I'm not making that up. That's the only way to make sense of Ezekiel chapters 40 to 48. There is a temple that is the size of Jerusalem today. There is a high priesthood and there is our King, Jesus. Actually Jesus may just be God ruling over it. It looks like the real King in Jerusalem is going to be David. What? Yep, David. That's what it says, David is going to be the one. Now, if he's talking about David and speaking of Jesus, fine, I can live with that, no problem. But, it does say David. So, this is what's going on. The Joshua the High Priest, who represents the priesthood, will rule the Lord's house and courts in the millennium, and God's servant, the branch, who is the Messiah, will rule. You with me? Alright, let's go to chapter four. Vision five. Look at the overhead, so as I'm reading it, you can see, kind of get a picture of what it's saying. You've got two trees, you've got, that's a menorah. By the way, lampstand is the English from menorah. So when you're reading the Hebrew, it says there was a menorah. That's the Hebrew word for lampstand. That's, when you're talking about the lamp, it's seven, Spouts and you got three bowls feeding the spouts back then you didn't flip a switch You had fire that burned oil the oil when the oil runs out. You got to pour more oil in it If only we had a tree full of olive oil connected to that it would burn perpetually. That's what you're seeing here So then the angel was speaking to me with me and returned and roused me as a man who was waking from his sleep He said to me. What do you see? I love this. I mean, I don't, but if you've ever just been asleep, imagine yourself sacked out, and some schmo comes up and says, hey, wake up, what do you see? I see me hitting you if you don't get out of my way. Why did you wake me up? He's roused from his sleep. What do you see? I think that's funny. No one else thinks that's funny? I think the Bible's funny. I see Zechariah with his bed head going, what, wait, what? I don't want to be interpreting anything that I see first thing when I wake up from a dead sleep. And I said, I see and behold a lamp stand, a menorah. all of gold with its bowl on the top of it and its seven lamps on it with seven spouts belonging to each of the lamps which are on the top of it. Also two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl and the other on the left side. Then I said to the angel who was speaking with me saying, what are these my Lord? So the angel who was speaking to me answered and said to me, do you not know what these are? Again, I just asked what these are. It's like the angel's going, what are you an idiot? How do you not know? Well I just woke up from a dead sleep, maybe if you had asked me later in the day. So the angel was speaking to me, do you not know what these are? Verse 6, he says, ah no I don't my Lord. Verse 6, then he said, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, not by might nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts. A passage you've no doubt heard, you've seen written on shirts. Zerubbabel is the king, or the kingly one. Looking forward to the Messiah, Zerubbabel. God is saying, I'm gonna do all of this, but I'm gonna do it not by might, nor by power, but it's gonna happen by my spirit. God is saying, I'm gonna do this. If God doesn't do what God says he's gonna do throughout any part of the Bible, especially here, then he just changed his mind and said, eh, I guess I don't really wanna do that to Israel anymore. But he's going to do it. What are you, O great mountain? Verse seven. Before Zerubbabel, you will become a plain. Does he mean Zerubbabel literally here? No. Before the Messiah, you will become a plain, and he will bring forth the topstone with shouts of grace, grace to it. Perhaps that topstone that we're just talking about in verse nine of chapter three. In other words, the Messiah will come on the scene and He will bring forth a mountain, He will make it a plain. And He comes forth with, what are the two better words? There are no two better words, grace, grace. Also the word of the Lord came to me saying the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house and his hands will finish it. So at this point the foundation has already been put down and he's saying Zerubbabel will finish it. He is the high priest. He is the builder. I should say Zerubbabel is not the high priest. Zerubbabel is the governor of the land who could be king. The king lays the foundation and by his hands he will finish it. And that's really looking forward to what the Messiah who comes in the line of Zerubbabel will do with that next temple. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you, for who has despised the day of small things?" And I put right on my Bible Ezra 3.12. In other words, he's talking about laying the foundation. And what I said earlier from Ezra 3 is that what Zerubbabel did put down as the foundation was small. And God is saying, for who has despised the day of small things? In other words, don't despair. This temple here is small. Don't let that get you down, because what's coming will fill the entire world. But these seven will be glad when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. The plumb line, that's the vision we saw in chapter 2. And the plumb line is this, Zerubbabel is indicative of the Messiah. The plumb line is measuring. This figurative language is when the Messiah comes and brings in. rules over this great city. These are the eyes of the Lord which range to and throughout the earth." Perhaps that's what he's talking about with that stone earlier. That's why I said God's seeing everything. Verse 11, then I said to him, what are these two olive trees on the right and the lampstand and on the left? And I answered the second time and said to him, what are the two olive branches that are beside the two golden pipes? He asks him twice and he never gets an answer. What are the two olive branches that are beside the golden trees, which empty the golden oil from themselves? So he answered me saying, do you not know what these are? See, that's what a teacher does when somebody asks a question. You just repeat the question. Because you don't know. He doesn't answer it. And I said, no, my Lord, I don't know. Verse 14, and he said, these are the two anointed ones who are standing by the Lord of the whole earth. Oh, that helps, thank you. Who are the anointed ones? Anointed ones literally in the Hebrew, I like this, this is the two sons of oil. Oil is what you do when you anoint and you commission. A king is anointed. A high priest is anointed. These are the two. The two stand next to each other. Is this who the world is going to be reigned over by? Two people? Well, remember I said earlier, you can only have a priest and a king. The king comes from Judah, and the priest comes from Levi. The two don't overlap. In the Old Testament, when you see a king trying to act like a priest, they suffer for it. Now, I know David does, but David offers a sacrifice, but I think even when it says that, it's saying David offered, I think David has given it to the priest to offer it. I don't think David is actually doing it. But King Uzziah, he tried to offer a sacrifice, that didn't go over too well for him. King Saul tried to offer a sacrifice, that didn't go well for him either. The king can't do that. Well Jesus, in the end, isn't Jesus our mediator between God and man? 1 Timothy 2.5, there's one mediator between God and man, the man, Christ Jesus. So how can he mediate if he is the king? Well, and that's where you come in, you get into this mysterious figure we know as Melchizedek. Melchizedek, who was both priest and king of Jerusalem before it was called Jerusalem, it was called Salem. Jesus comes from the lineage of this priest, and here's the beauty of the lineage of Melchizedek. Okay, follow me on, I know it's late, got 15 minutes before you can really sack out. Okay, so you've got Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, remember? And Jacob has 12 sons, the third born of which is Levi, and that's where the priesthood comes from. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Levi, that's four down. Now, Melchizedek lives long before Levi. He lives during the days of Abraham. Abraham wins a battle in Genesis chapter 14, and he comes before this mysterious priest king named Melchizedek. And remember, back then the Canaanites ruled the land. They were all wicked, but not Melchizedek. He bows before Melchizedek, and Melchizedek blesses him. Now, when Abraham bows before Melchizedek, Abraham hasn't had Isaac yet, who hasn't birthed Jacob yet, who hasn't birthed Levi in the priesthood. So what will be born, we say, is in the loins of Abraham. And Abraham is bowing before this superior priest. So the book of Hebrews makes the point about this. It says that Melchizedek's priesthood existed long before Levi and Aaron. Long before that. He is superior and it speaks of Jesus as being a priest in the line of Melchizedek. Therefore Jesus, the Messiah, who we know is from the tribe of Judah, is also from the lineage of Melchizedek. He is the priest king. It's not Joshua and Zerubbabel. It is in 519 BC, but it's pointing towards what God is going to do in the future when the one priest king rules. Who are these two? It's probably just an answer that they wouldn't have understood, but we understand as revelation has progressed. We know it to be the ongoing giver of the oil that feeds the fire that lights the world. What is Jesus but the light of the world? Well, sounds fantastic. It's actually quite simple. This lamp stand with bowls fueling the lamps themselves fueled by the olive trees. The angel never explains the significance of the lamp, but clearly it pertains to the rebuilding of the temple. the regathering of the city. This points to God as the light of the world, whether Solomon's temple he's speaking of, the Millennial Temple, or the Eternal Temple where God Himself is the temple, the light. The seven lamps represent the eyes of Yahweh, both omnipresent and omniscient, all-knowing. And here's a good little picture I found on the web, two large trees with the light, the meaning, the rebuilding of the Temple is charged to Zerubbabel and Joshua, and it will occur by the power of the Lord by His Spirit. Their power, like the lampstand which receives a continual flow of oil, will come from the Spirit, not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit. Now again, we step back, what is Zechariah telling us? He's telling us what God is going to do to Jerusalem, to Israel, to His nation. He's very specific even though He's speaking in colorful language. So, let's just do a quick review of these. I've got some beautiful pictures I found for you. You like pictures, right? This person that do these pictures is awesome. So, vision one. So you've got the horses and the horses go out. What is God telling the people? He's saying, I've patrolled the earth. I see everything. Everyone's in peace and my people are not. Don't worry. I'm gonna change that, God is saying. These are the four horns. These are the nations that uprooted you, that hurt you, that oppressed and persecuted you. And these are the craftsmen. The craftsmen are the ones that are gonna get their revenge on those nations that persecuted and hurt my people. And then you see the Messiah, that lamp stand, that tree left and the tree on the right, Jesus standing over this city with the wall of fire. Isn't that beautiful? It's just a picture of it. That would be something similar of Herod's temple. And let me say something. I had a woman ask me a really good question Sunday. She said, Herod's temple, is Herod's temple this? Her temple is this. When we say Herod's temple, we know Herod wasn't a good guy. What temple did Herod build? What temple did Zerubbabel build? What temple is coming? It's a great question. And I said, Herod's temple is Zerubbabel's temple that we're reading about right here. Herod took this small temple and built a really large wall around it. He beautified it. So when you hear the word Herod's temple, or when you see a picture of like the Western Wailing Wall, that's the last remnant of Herod's temple, all that is is Zerubbabel's temple with Herod having beautified it. Think of Herod the Great as an interior decorator. He made it look nicer, but Zerubbabel built it. And when that temple went down, what temple are we waiting for next? what's called the Tribulation Temple, which will be a very, it'll come and go pretty quick. And then the Millennial Temple. This is that Millennial Temple that our Lord, who is the olive tree on the left and the right, fuels, he is the plumb line, he is guarding it. We are living under his power and authority. Here you've got the figure on the right, Satan, accusing the high priest in the presence of the angel of the Lord. God's saying, I'm going to restore the priesthood. They can't do it, so I will do it. You can accuse them all you want, Satan. I know you're probably right that they are full of sin, but I'm full of grace and I'm going to clothe them I'm going to do with the wave of my hand what I said I was gonna do don't ever forget that friends God is going to do with Israel what he said he's gonna do if he doesn't he's a liar We know God isn't a liar And then we've got the tree, the vision, behold the lampstand, where this menorah is fed, these two trees representing the one Messiah. There are more, but we haven't gotten to those yet, so. All right, let's pray. Lord, we thank you. We thank you for your word. I pray that you would truly make us thankful for your word. Each and every day that we live, that we have your word to inform us, to encourage us. I pray that you would send us home tonight in reflection of this, finding our own applications for it, our own encouragement from it, that you would give to us from having spent an hour sitting and listening to your word in Zechariah. I pray, Lord, you would give us insight, that you would give us wisdom from it. In this, we pray humbly in the name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon by Dr. Lance Waldie, Senior Pastor of Harvest Bible Church in Cypress, Texas.