And what I mean by that is we will be looking at Alexander the Great. There's a period of time that Alexander the Great fulfilled what these verses are talking about. and that's the Greco-Macedonian Empire that Daniel even prophesies about. He raised up, God allowed Alexander the Great as an instrument in his hand to bring judgment to these nations that were persecuting or judging, oppressing Israel. So everything that God said, he accomplished. Remember how God tells us that even Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, these are instruments in God's hand. So Alexander the Great, though his name is not going to appear in scripture, the prophecy concerning Alexander the Great, did you get notes? OK, good. is being fulfilled here. What's going on, son? It's not working as in what? The program? Well, you better restart the whole computer. Oh, I see. Let's begin by reading verses 1 to 8. I don't think we'll get beyond that even though verse 9 is the prophecy concerning Christ that we kind of looked at during the Easter holiday. The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach and Damascus shall be the rest thereof when the eyes of man as of all the tribes of Israel shall be toward the Lord. And Hamath also shall border thereby Tyrus and Sidon, though it be very wise. And Tyrus did build herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will cast her out, and he will smite her power in the sea. She shall be devoured with fire. Ashkelon shall see it and fear. Gaza also shall see it and be very sorrowful. And Ekron, for her expectations, shall be ashamed. And the king shall perish from Gaza. And Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. And a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod. And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. And I will take away his blood out of his mouth and his abominations from between his teeth. But he that remaineth, even he, shall be for our God. And he shall be as a governor in Judah and Ekron as a Jebusite. And I will encamp about mine house because of the army. because of him that passeth by, because of him that returneth, and no oppressor shall pass through them anymore. For now have I seen with mine eyes. Let's pray. Father, today we just want to thank you that we have the privilege of opening the scriptures, learning more about you, learning more about your work, Father, we know history is your story of how you controlled the nations. You raised up one nation, destroyed another. And Father, we know your word was fulfilled literally, perfectly. And so Father, today help us to have faith, to grow in our faith in the word of God. And Father, help us to learn more about what you did on this earth and your greatness and your power. But thank you, Lord, even if we don't get to today, the promise of Christ, the fulfillment of that promise, that prophecy of his first coming. And we thank you, Lord, again, for the fulfillment of your scriptures, in Jesus' name, amen. So now we're coming to the end of the Old Testament. We're kind of approaching, as you know, boy, we're on the last section of Zechariah, and then we have only the prophet Malachi, four chapters, and then it says in my Bible, the end of the prophets, and then the New Testament. So we are getting to the end here. Not that we're going to get there quickly. I don't promise that. But we are approaching the end of Zechariah. And you notice he says the burden. We dealt with that burden. This is where God is talking about judgments. The burden. You know, he felt this burden. But this this vision now that he's getting is an uh it'll it'll talk much about the person and work of christ we're gonna start getting into a lot of prophecies about the lord look at verse nine we we read this During the Easter holiday rejoice greatly Oh daughter of Zion shout Oh daughter of Jerusalem behold the King cometh unto thee he is just having salvation lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a cold the fall of an ass and That's when Jesus remember that fulfillment the triumphal entry into Jerusalem Palm Sunday So this is amazing. So we will be seeing, as you read, if you want to get ahead and kind of read and try to pick out prophecies of Christ. But it talks about in chapter 14, his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west. And there shall be a very great valley and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north and half of it toward the south. So Jesus will come back literally upon the earth and he's going to stand on the Mount of Olives. So we have the first advent of Christ, his first coming, and then we have the second coming foretold here. Now, a lot of the prophets, remember, they deal with the immediate future, like what's going on. The fall of the Northern Kingdom, the fall of the Southern Kingdom. And then we have judgments against these nations. Syria, Philistia, Edom, Ammon, Moab, Assyria, Nineveh, the capital, Babylon. So we have all these judgments, remember, in the prophets. We've looked at a lot of that along the way, and we will be dealing with that today. But, And also we saw from time to time prophecies concerning Christ. We try to make application of, okay, here's Jesus. This refers to his second coming when he establishes his kingdom. So we saw a bunch of prophecies already throughout. But now there's going to be a treasure here of prophecies. And we got chapters 9 to 11. You're going to break down. chapters 9 to 14, you got 9 to 11 and 12 to 14. These burdens, the first burden describes the judgment through which Gentile world power over Israel is finally destroyed and Israel will be endowed with strength to overcome all their enemies. The second burden is the judgment through which Israel itself is sifted and purged in the final great conflict with the nations and transformed into the Holy Nation of Jehovah. So we have two burdens that we're going to be looking at. Alright, number one, the main title of number one is Preparation for the King. Verses 1 to 8. Preparation for the king Now in this section We are going to be looking at The conqueror letter a the conqueror This is Alexander the Great and Now, Alexander the Great, this is predicted in the book of Daniel. Obviously, I'm not gonna go to the whole book of Daniel, but you have Daniel chapter two, is the third world power is gonna be the Greco-Macedonian Empire. And then it's pictured again in chapter seven as the leopard. And the shaggy goat in Daniel 8. Go to Daniel chapter 8 verse 21 though. Daniel chapter 8 verse 21. And the rough goat is the king of Grecia. and the great horn that is between his eyes is the first king. So that's talking about Alexander the Great. Now what happened with the command under the armies, under the command of Alexander the Great? He was the young commander of the Macedonian forces. He crossed the Hellespont into Turkey shortly after the death of his father Philip in 336 BC. He defeated the armies of the frontier governors of King Darius at Granicus and later overwhelmed the armies of Darius himself at the decisive Battle of Issus in 333 BC. After that, he marched against Damascus, Tyre, Sidon, what we're reading here, the cities of Philistia. Just as this passage foretells, that's what happened in history under Alexander the Great. So you have the conqueror. We'll come back to him a little bit about the history there. I have account from Josephus Flavius Josephus is a well-known Jewish historian and he tells us how did Israel escape Alexander the Great because it mentions here when he gets done with the Philistine Philistia nations or cities then he comes into He goes against Jerusalem. What happens? Well, I think we may get there, I don't know. So, letter A, the conqueror, Alexander the Great, letter B, the conquered, here it's laid out. Hadrach and Damascus, number one, verse one. And so the burden of the word of the Lord was against, it's against these people. God is against. God is going to judge them. And that's what we're seeing, the land of Hadrach and Damascus. So Hadrach lay far north of Palestine and was bordered by the Euphrates River. Damascus was the capital of Syria and still is today. Thus, Alexander's army would march from north to south. And it talks about the eyes of men. When the eyes of men, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord. What are people doing? They're looking unto God for help. And then it says, as we see later, for now have I seen with mine eyes, in verse eight, You know, God is also watching the nations and his people, Israel. So we have Hadrach and Damascus, then verse two, Hamath. And Hamath also shall border thereby. Hamath was said to have bordered Damascus and was also mentioned as a Canaanite tribe in Genesis. If you look back to Genesis chapter 10 verse 18. Genesis 10 verse 18. And the Arvidite and the Zemurite and the Hamathite and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad. So they're mentioned in the Hamathites in Genesis 10, 18. So not only was it Damascus, as we're reading here, but then you have Hamath, which is bordering there, and they were going to be judged as well by Alexander the Great. And then you have the great Phoenician cities, verses two to four, Tyre and Sidon. Tyre and Sidon were situated on the coast with the Mediterranean Sea to the west and Palestinian border to the east. These were Phoenician cities that amassed a great deal of wealth through their shipping and trading industries. Tyre had become an impregnable fortress. It was very prosperous and proud. Now remember, God despises pride. God judges pride harshly. Now, Tyre, in history, they originally abandoned their original building site. Then they built a fortress on a nearby island. It was just off the coast of her ancient city that was surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea. So it was well protected, and because of that, It even withstood a five-year siege by the Assyrians and a 13-year siege by the Babylonians. So after 13 years, it was still standing strong. So it was a very strong fortress, but it would not stand forever. Go to Ezekiel 28. What does God say? Ezekiel 28, verses four and five. He's talking here about Tyrus. Verse two, saying to the Prince of Tyrus, because thy heart is lifted up. Then verse four, with thy wisdom and with thine understanding, thou has gotten thee riches. Has gotten gold and silver into thy treasures. By thy great wisdom and by thy traffic hast thou increased thy riches. And thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches. So it talks about judgment is coming because of this. God was going to judge them. That's what Ezekiel 28. is talking about. So what happened? Alexander the Great destroyed the city in a seven-month siege. Think about the 13, all the years that it withstood those other sieges, and what they were unable to do, Alexander the Great did. He captured, he plundered, he destroyed the city. So what did he do to get to the island? He used the rubble and dirt from the site of the old city to build a land bridge to the island. And then he marched his army across the land bridge and breached the city walls. Once inside, he plundered the city, killed most of the inhabitants, destroyed what was left. Modern archaeologists tell us there is no trace left of the old city, Tyre's original building site. What Ezekiel prophesied literally came true. It talks about it's gonna be scraped clean. And that's what happened. It was completely destroyed. It became as bare as the top of a rock. And so the place of the former island city has today become a place where fishermen cast their nets. That also is prophesied here. So we see God's word being fulfilled and he used Alexander the Great. Then we go on in our text, go back, we start seeing Ashkelon, Gaza, Ekron, Ashdod. These are four Philistine cities. Verses 5 to 7. So you have Tyrus and Zidon. Verses 3 and 4 destroyed. Now, verses 5 to 7. Ashkelon shall see it and fear. Gaza also shall see it and be very sorrowful. Ekron. For expectation shall be a shame. And the king shall perish from Gaza, and Ashkelon shall not be inhabited. And Abbas shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. Now again, we could go back, and we did already deal with this in Amos. Amos chapter one, verse six to eight, when I go there. Zephaniah chapter two, verse four. Even Jeremiah, we didn't study the prophet Jeremiah, but we talk about them. A lot of their prophecies coincide with the minor prophets. And they, he also prophesied the destruction. They prophesied the destruction of these same cities. So this is what God is accomplishing through Alexander the Great. First, they're gonna be stricken with fear. They know he's coming. The expectations, the hopes are going to fail. Gaza would lose her king. And Ashkelon would be so devastated she would no longer be inhabited. Ashdod would be occupied by foreigners. And the pride of the Philistines would be shattered, cut down, and destroyed. And it says here, verse 6, and a bastard shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. Remember, God judges pride. The Babylonians and Assyrians, remember, they were judged because of pride, along with many other nations. Also, God destroys their idolatry, verse 7. And I will take away his blood out of his mouth and his abominations from between his teeth. But he that remaineth, even he shall be for our God. That's an amazing statement there. So it's talking about idolatry here. Forbidden food with blood. Abominations that they offered to idols. They were so entrenched in their idolatry, it's described as clenching this food in between their teeth. This was soon to be an end. The Lord was going to destroy their idolatry, and he did it through the conquest of Alexander the Great. He nearly wiped them off the face of the earth. But isn't it amazing in verse 7, the second part, God says, but he that remaineth, even he shall be for our God and he shall be as a governor in Judah and Ekron as a Jebusite. So what we're seeing here is another promise of God's mercy. The Jebusites, long before them, some of the Philistines, like the Jebusites, would be absorbed into the society of God's people and live there and serve the Lord. We could go back and see that. Some people converted unto God and they lived among the Israelites. Obviously, this foreshadows the day when Christ brings salvation to the Gentile nations, the people of all peoples of the earth. And then in verse 8, the people of God will be protected. from Alexander's marauding forces by the Lord himself. Verse eight, and I will encamp about mine house because of the army, because of him that passeth by, because of him that returneth. No oppressor shall pass through them anymore, for now have I seen with mine eyes. Let me give you this account by Josephus. I don't have it written out for you, but I'm gonna read it. So the story is told. You know, I mean, he was going to destroy Israel, Jerusalem as well. So what happened? This is lengthy, but let me. So here's what he says. When Alexander was besieging Tyre, he sent a letter to the high priest who lived in Jerusalem. requesting him to send him assistance and to supply his army with provisions. The priest declined to do so because, as he said, he had sworn an oath of loyalty to King Darius, which he would not break so long as Darius was alive. This infuriated Alexander, and he determined to besiege and sack Jerusalem as soon as the coastal conquests were behind him. When the seventh-month siege of Tyre and the two-month siege of Gaza were over, Alexander started for the Jewish capital. Jadus, the high priest, was terrified, not imagining how he could meet the victorious forces of Alexander and fearing the worst for his people. He therefore ordered the Jews to make sacrifices to God and ask for deliverance from the advancing danger. That night, after the sacrifice, God spoke to Jadus in his sleep, telling him to take courage. He was to adorn the city with wreaths, and then open the gates and go out to meet the invaders. The people were to be dressed in white garments, and the priests in their robes, prescribed by the law. Josephus continues, when Alexander, while still far off, saw the multitude in white garments, the priest at their head clothed in linen, and the high priest in a robe of hyacinth blue and gold, wearing on his head the mitre with the golden plate on it, which was inscribed the name of God, he approached alone and prostrated himself before the name and first greeted the high priest. Alexander's men were astonished at this. And Parmenion, his second in command, asked why he had bowed down to the Jewish high priest. Alexander replied, it was not before him that I prostrated myself, but the God of whom he has the honor to be high priest. For it was he whom I saw in my sleep, dressed as he is now, when I was in Dior in Macedonia. As I was considering with myself how I might become master of Asia, he urged me not to hesitate, but to cross over confidently. For he himself would lead my army and give over to me the empire of the Persians. Since therefore, I have beheld no one else in such robes. And on seeing him now, I am reminded of the vision and the exultation I believe that I have made Oh, sorry, I was looking for more information. It's only one line. I had made this expedition under divine guidance and thus, and that I shall defeat Darius and destroy the power of the Persians. That is the account. He didn't destroy Jerusalem because of that. So they were miraculously delivered from Alexander the Great by doing what the high priest did and by God speaking to Alexander of his own account, this is what he saw and why he didn't destroy Jerusalem. So again, they were miraculously delivered by God. So it's an amazing thing, the history of what God did through Alexander the Great. We will come back to him after, not today, of course, but after we look at the final verse in our text here, verse nine, you'll see the comparison of Christ and Alexander the Great. It's an amazing comparison of our Savior. All right, let's have a word of prayer and then we will get ready for our service. We're running a little late. Father, we do want to thank you for your hand in history. Thank you even, Father, how you deliver judgment unto the nations through Alexander the Great. Father, we know that Lord, you can use any nation as an instrument in your hand, any world power to bring judgment. And so Father, help us to truly fear you and to worship you and to be right with you as your children and also as a church and also as a nation, that we would fear your coming judgment As we read about these nations fearing Alexander the Great, Father, we know we fear no man, but we fear you. So Father, help us today to learn how to fear you more in the right way. We ask it in Jesus' name, amen. All right, stretch your legs, turn around, say hello, sit back down.