May 12, 2024
From The Series: When God Rebuilds…
Part 15 “Return to Me”, says the LORD
Zechariah 1:1-6
Mountain View Evangelical Missionary Church
Good
morning again. This is a reminder that
we are continuing our series titled: When God Rebuilds… and working verse by
verse through the Book of Ezra. What we have discovered was that the Lord had
stirred the heart of King Cyrus, the king of the Persians, and Yahweh moved
Cyrus to allow the Jewish people to return to their homeland and to rebuild the
temple in Jerusalem so that they could resume the proper worship of their God.
Not
all the people returned at first, but a faithful remnant of about 50,000 people
returned to Jerusalem and the surrounding area. Civil leaders, religious
leaders, musicians, temple workers, priests, merchants, and farmers played a
role in rebuilding the city of Jerusalem and the temple. There was also
jealousy and resistance from surrounding people who wished to participate but
were prevented because of the genealogies (they could not prove their priestly
heritage) or because they wanted to introduce pagan rituals into temple
worship. This refusal resulted in a 16-year bureaucratic halt to God’s work
being attempted.
A
new king ascends the throne and the work is permitted to resume. This occurred
during the second year of the reign of King Darius which we would mark as the
year 520 BC on our calendars. This would be a busy year prophetically speaking.
God would raise two prophets to speak encouragement and warnings to His people
in Jerusalem. One was named Haggai and the other was named Zechariah. Both have
books named after them in the Bible.
We
have been looking at the first two prophecies from Haggai that occurred in the
second year of the reign of King Darius. Haggai eventually gave a total of four
prophecies from God to the Israelites all within the second year of King
Darius’ rule, and the final two came on the same day in the ninth month. During
our last two messages together we examined what Haggai spoke to God’s people in
Jerusalem.
In
the first message from Haggai, we saw that God issued a Divine challenge from
Himself to His people for them to stop procrastinating behind their selfish
projects and to join Yahweh in the rebuilding of the temple. About a month
later Haggai delivers another message from the LORD in which God encourages His
people to be strong and continue the work because the LORD has made a covenant
with His people and He was with them in the endeavor.
About
a month after this second message from Haggai occurs, a new prophet named
Zechariah emerges on the scene. Zechariah begins to call on the Israelites to examine
themselves while he encourages and exhorts them to more holy behavior. One
commentator put it this way, “Haggai’s task was to rouse an outward expression
through their actions in the rebuilding, Zechariah’s task was of an inward
nature to lead the people to a spiritual change”. Zechariah, whose name means
“Jehovah remembers” was both a prophet and a priest whose father and
grandfather were also priests in the service of God. Zechariah eventually
shares a total of eight visions through three different prophecies over a span
of two years.
If
you can remember back to the second week of March, just before we took a
four-week break to study the Providence of God leading up to Easter, we saw
that Haggai and Zechariah were both mentioned in the fifth chapter of the Book
of Ezra.
Let
me remind us of that, “1Now Haggai
the prophet and Zechariah the prophet, a descendant of Iddo, prophesied
to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, who was
over them.” We can see from this passage that the reach of these prophets extended
past just the city of Jerusalem, their reach extended out to the surrounding
countryside into the area that was previously known as the Kingdom of Judah.
This would have been the southern half of the original united Kingdom of Isreal
which Saul, David, and Solomon ruled over.
Now
that we have seen a little about who Zechariah was and when he ministered to
God’s people, why don’t we open our Bibles or turn on our devices and look with
me for the Book of Zechariah, starting at chapter 1, verse 1.
READ Zechariah
1:1-6
Let’s
dig into this passage a little deeper and begin by looking at verse 1. We see
that we are still in the second year of King Darius, which would translate into
our modern calendar as the year 520 BC. Interestingly there are over 30
individuals named Zachariah in the Bible, but this Zechariah is identified by
also listing his Father and Grandfather’s names. The father’s name Berekiah
translates as, “Jehovah Blesses” and the grandfather’s name Iddo translates as,
“His Time”. When you place the names together from all three generations you
end up with, “Jehovah remembers to bless in His time”. You can tell from the
names that these men were from the priestly class. Do you have any
multi-generational names like that in your family?
Zechariah
was a generational priest, but we can see that he was also more than what his
father or grandfather were, Zechariah was also a prophet. Verse 1 identifies
Zechariah as a prophet, and then Scripture makes it clear that the words that
he was about to speak to the people of Jerusalem were “the word of the LORD”.
This phrase occurs fourteen times in this book and it is the same phrase that
is used to identify Haggai as a prophet of Yahweh as well. Priest and prophet,
that was a lot of responsibility for one man to bear. Zechariah’s prophecies
were much more intense than Haggai’s and they are more concerned with the
spiritual care and condition of God’s faithful remnant in Jerusalem and the
region of Judea.
Now
I’m going to point out some things here in Scripture that may make some people
uncomfortable or upset even. I may say some things that are going to challenge
your worldview that you may have built around some inconsistent teaching that
you may have heard over the years. My real challenge to you is to listen to
what Scripture is saying and less to what people are saying about what
Scripture is saying. Do I have your attention now?
Good.
Let’s look at verse two. “The LORD was very angry with your ancestors”. In the
original Hebrew, they simply repeat the word for anger or wrath twice. One
commentary translated this phrase literally as, “angry with anger”.
Another term for this is, “wrath” or the “Wrath of God”. So here is where I am
going to challenge some of your worldviews that have built up around who God is.
I
do not understand how the “God is only love” crowd can read a verse like this
and make sense of it. Wrath is an attribute of God. It is one of the facets of
the Father’s being that makes Him complete. The Father is not a two-dimensional
being. There is real depth and breadth to His being.
I
started reading a very interesting book this week titled, “God’s Devil: The Incredible
Story of How Satan’s Rebellion Serves God’s Purposes” by Dr. Erwin Lutzer. The
author introduces an interesting concept early in this book, in the second
chapter titled, “The Star that Bit the Dust” Dr. Lutzer tries to explain why
Satan rebelled against God, Satan’s
Creator. We often forget the fact, that Satan is a created being just as man is
a created being, therefore Satan is inferior to God the Father.
In
the second chapter, Dr. Lutzer makes this statement speaking to the reason for
Satan deciding to rebel against God, “Did he misjudge God, thinking that His love would
eclipse any possibility of stern judgment?”. Dr. Lutzer is speaking of God’s
love here, don’t miss that. Stop right there for a moment. Think about that
statement right there for a couple of minutes. Did Satan misjudge God when he
rebelled against the Creator? Isn’t that the sin of our society today? We are
discounting God’s anger towards sin. We are going to explore this in more
detail in a few moments, but it really struck me when I was preparing this
message and considering we are about to begin a month-long celebration of sin,
that so many people, and a lot of them are in the church leadership of
Evangelicalism, are misjudging God’s anger towards sin.
The book continues “We
do not know, of course, but keep in mind that Lucifer had only seen God’s
perfect love. The concept of justice simply did not exist. As long as there was
no disobedience in the universe, there was no need for the demonstration of
God’s anger. Lucifer did not foresee the lengths to which God is willing to go
to preserve His honor.”[1]
Over the years, I have
read several books on the attributes of God, A.W. Tozer has written an
excellent book, and so has A.W. Pink, and while they mention God’s love and His
perfect love, these authors go on to show a complete and well-rounded
description of God’s other attributes. I encourage each of you to read books
like these that are written on the subject of the attributes of God.
But, think about what
Lutzer is saying here: How did Satan make such a monumental miscalculation when
it came to God? Well, according to Lutzer, rebellion had not entered creation
yet. Rebellion, or what we call sin, had not made an appearance yet in God’s
creation because the only created beings at this point were the angels and they
were obedient to this point. Preachers often make the statement, and I have
been guilty of this myself, that sin entered creation when Adam disobeyed God.
But that statement is not completely accurate.
If we think of sin as
a rebellious act against God, then sin entered Creation when Satan rebelled
against God and the Book of Revelation indicates that a third of the angels
were swept up in the rebellion as well and chose to follow Satan. Until this
rebellion occurred, God was only exhibiting His love for His creation. If there
was no sin, there was no need for justice and no need for God to reveal how
jealously He protects His character of Holiness and Righteousness.
I bring up the fall of
Satan today to introduce to us some of the other attributes of God. We must
stop thinking of the Father as some sort of two-dimensional cartoon character
who is undeserving of our honor and respect. He is holy and just and we must
respect the fact that as Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, He gets to set
the terms for our relationship with Him. Obedience is a huge prerequisite for a
positive relationship with the Father. Perfect obedience is not required, but a
proper heart attitude towards God is required to have a fulfilling relationship
with Him. This proper heart-attitude begins with a complete and scriptural view
of who God is, and what He expects from us.
With God’s character
in mind, let’s examine verse 2 again and delve into what is meant by God’s “angry
with anger”. Another word to describe God’s angry with anger would be the word
“wrath”. I’m going to lean heavily on my book The IVP Dictionary of Old
Testament: Prophets and in particular the article on Wrath written by D.T. Lamb
to explore the concept of God’s wrath. I don’t wish to scare you into
obedience, I desire that you should come to a full understanding of who God is
and then you will want to obey from a position of love and respect.
Dr. Lamb defines wrath
as it pertains to God, “Wrath is a strong negative response by God to human
sin, often leading to expressions of judgment.”[2] We,
as people, need to avoid falling into the trap of assigning human traits to a
Holy God. We cannot equate God’s anger with the imperfect human anger that we
often display toward each other.
Lamb continues in his
article, “To address this problematic aspect of biblical anger, several
scholars describe divine wrath as pathos, not passion. In their understanding,
Yahweh’s anger is not a spontaneous loss of self-control (passion) but rather a
rational, predictable response to sin (pathos). Whereas capricious anger can be
condemned, the pathos anger of Yahweh is therefore righteous and legitimate.”[3]
Again, I’ll repeat, what the scholars are
saying here: we cannot equate God’s anger with the imperfect human anger which
we often display toward each other. Our anger is often fuelled by our passions
and is primarily an emotional response to the actions of others. But with God,
it is different. Although the Bible describes several emotions God has like
jealousy, love, and mercy, God is not emotional! God is not ruled by His
emotions, and His passion, rather God reacts rationally to the experience of
witnessing our disobedience.
We must constantly check our views of God
against what Scripture describes to us about God. It is so easy to allow
the input of myths, movies, and bad teachers to influence our depiction of who
God is. Yahweh is not a cold and constantly angry god who sits atop a mountain
looking for excuses to punish his creation.
Instead, in scripture we read how God
revealed to Moses the following about Himself. Exodus 34:6-7a reveals, “6 And he (this is speaking of Yahweh here)
passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The Lord,
the Lord, the compassionate and
gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining
love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not
leave the guilty unpunished;”.
It is my intention here this morning that
we come away with a complete and well-rounded view of who God is. Not some caricature
that too many paint God to be to make Him more attractive. I wish to show the
Biblical God to those who are serious about following what He calls us to do.
God is not some philosophy professor who presents different theories from which
we are free to absorb what we like and reject what we don’t like. That is why I
list the scriptures in the bulletin that I quote from each week, I don’t want
you to take my word for what I say to be true, but I plead with you to read the
scriptures, to be like the Bereans, and see what God’s Word says on the matters
we are discussing. Don’t just check what I say, but check what you have been
thinking up to this point and make sure that your thoughts align with
Scripture. I’m not trying to win a debate here, or convince you of my way of
thinking, I am trying to reveal to you what God says about Himself and His
desire to be in a right relationship with you.
I say a “right relationship” because we do
not get to dictate the terms with which we come to God. He does. Often, God’s
wrath is a stumbling block to those who do not have a complete view of who God
truly is. Several scholars have observed that in the Old Testament wrath is not
a permanent aspect of God’s character. It does not characterize him in the same
way that love, mercy or compassion do, since it is always caused by the sin of
humans. In short, anger is provoked.
Jump down to verse 4
in this morning’s passage for a moment. Yahweh is explaining through Zechariah something
important here. “4 Do not be like your
ancestors, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Turn from your evil
ways and your evil practices.’” What were the evil ways that the
prophets were warning God’s people to turn away from?
The prophets were
warning against the sins of Israel and Judah which included drink offerings to
other gods, worshiping foreign idols, making offerings to Baal, and building
high places to Baal. There were also types of oppression and injustice that
provoked God’s anger which were diverse, involving, for example, wicked
covetousness, conquering foreign land, shedding the blood of the innocent poor,
robbing the poor, and taking advantage of widows and orphans.[4] How many of these
things is our Western society guilty of today?
Lamb talks about two
primary causes of divine wrath in the Prophetic Books as seen here in
Zechariah: relational anger and righteous anger. Relational anger focuses on
the “vertical,” divine-human relationship. Yahweh was enraged because Israel
and Judah were constructing idols and worshiping other gods.
Righteous anger
focuses on “horizontal,” human-human relationships. Yahweh was angry because
humans were mistreating other humans. Just as he had compassion for Israel
while they were oppressed in Egypt, they should have had compassion for the
weak in their society. Their oppression of their neighbors prompts divine
wrath. While Yahweh’s relational anger involves the first four of the Ten
Commandments, his righteous anger involves the last six commandments.
So what were the
Israelites to do about this to appease the anger of God? How could they court
the mercy of Yahweh? Was receiving the mercy of Yahweh wholly dependent on
their completion of the reconstruction of the temple? The answer lies in verse
4 in the warnings that the previous prophets were proclaiming to the people
while they were still in their sin. ‘Turn from your
evil ways and your evil practices.’ Or, to put it another way, repent.
Look at the words of God right there in the passage, “The LORD Almighty says, ‘Turn…’”
That is what repenting means. Repentance is not simply feeling guilty about
getting caught doing something bad against God. Maybe thinking, “I shouldn’t”
but doing it anyway. Repentance is a turning away from your sinful ways and
habits. But, if we turn away from our sinful ways, where are we to turn to?
The Legacy Standard Bible
translation puts it this way, “‘Thus says Yahweh of
hosts, “Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.” ’ But
they did not listen or give heed to Me,” declares Yahweh.” We are not
just to turn away from sin, we are to return back to God. We are to flee
from our sins and return to the Father!
This was the entire
purpose of the conquering of the Assyrians and then the Babylonians on God’s
special people. The exile was done to cause the Israelites to turn from their
wicked ways and return to Yahweh. They were to stop taking for granted the
protection of God, His mercy, and His patience and to return to Him in
obedience and in gratefulness. This is the heart attitude that Yahweh was
calling them to, through the prophet Zechariah.
Can you see a parallel
in our country today? Are you beginning to understand why I pray for our
leaders by name each week? Our leaders must be called upon to repent. To turn
from the influences of lobbyists and idealogues and return to the Lord
and seek only His counsel. This can be done through the work of the Holy
Spirit. We have read for several weeks how God has stirred or moved the hearts
of rulers to accomplish His goals. The same can happen today, Lord willing, to
our leaders in our country, province, towns, and county.
I genuinely desire their
salvation through Jesus Christ for our leaders who do not have it. For those
that do know Jesus, but are not ruling in accordance with His laws and guidance,
I implore them to repent and return to the ways of the Lord.
But what about you
personally? We have examined things on a national level, and we have looked at
what is required of our leaders, but what about you sitting in this sanctuary
this morning, or those who are reading these words on the internet? Is there
something in your life that you need to repent of and return to the Father? Is
there an area of your life where you have erected a false idol that you need to
tear down and return to the Father and sit under His teaching?
Or, perhaps you have
never known the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. Perhaps, you are still
under the bondage of the original sin and you have not understood the gift and
the freedom that awaits you. We were all rebellious at one time. Scripture
tells us that it is the work of the Holy Spirit that gives us eyes to see and
ears to hear the truth contained in God’s Word on these matters. Maybe you
think that you have to clean up your life and your act before God will accept
you back into His arms.
That is false thinking
friends, That is exactly the type of lie that Satan will whisper in your ear to
keep you away from Jesus Christ.
Another of the Old
Testament prophets wrote this, “13 Rend
your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord
your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and bounding in
love, and he relents from sending calamity.” Joel is telling us that God
wants to see a heart change first not a change in our actions before we come to
the Father for mercy. The Lord knows, that when the heart changes first, the
change in our actions will follow because we will have the indwelling of God
through the Holy Spirit guiding our thoughts and actions.
How is this possible
you may ask? The world and other faith systems tell me I must first earn my way
back to God. The false systems claim I must make sure my good deeds outweigh my
bad deeds, or I must give money to buy absolution, or I must pledge allegiance
to an earthly leader before I can gain favor with God.
It is by comparing the
claims of Christianity against these false claims that I was able to determine
the truth of the Bible. All false religions require the actions of man before
they can come to salvation. Christianity is the only one that says, “You can’t
do it. You can not pay what is owed for your sins”. Instead, the Son says,
“Here I am, send me”.
So a perfect God gave
up His perfect union for a time and supernatualy took on human form and lived a
perfect life so that He would be an acceptable sacrifice to the Father. The
perfect person, Jesus Christ was nailed to a rough Roman Cross by some of the
very imperfect beings that He had created and sustained. They raised Him up and
mocked and ridiculed Him as His human flesh hung from that tree. Then for three
hours the wrath of God, which had been stored up against humanity was unleashed
on the Son who bore our just punishment.
For what purpose you
may ask? All so that we could be reconciled back to the Father in a proper
relationship when we accept the gift of the Son’s sacrifice on our behalf. A
gift that we call Grace. We can not earn it, and we certainly do not deserve
it, yet it is there for us to accept and claim as our own.
The prophet Micah
speaks for us when he addresses this question to God directly, “18 Who is a God like you, who pardons sin
and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not
stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. 19 You will again
have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our
iniquities into the depths of the sea.” Keep in mind that this is a
promise given by one of God’s prophets some 700 years before the appearance of
Jesus Christ. This was not a promise for just those in exile. The Father
delights to show mercy to us, all the sinners, because of His love for the Son.
When we realize this
and accept this gift, we are also allowed to experience some of the love
between the Father and Son because we become co-heirs with Christ. We become
adopted children of the Father. God then pours His love into us, so that we may
go out and share that love with others, joining the Father and Son in the
Kingdom work that will bring even more Glory to the Father.
CONCLUSION
The
second part of Zechariah 1:6 says, ““Then they repented and said, ‘The Lord Almighty has done to us what our
ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do.’ ” That’s a pretty big
statement right there. In the preceding verses, Yahweh lays out the reason for
the all that His people had gone through during their 70 years of Babylonian
captivity. He laid all of the responsibility at the feet of the Israelites, and
they accepted it without question.
I wonder if we have that same level of acceptance
for the hard times that we may be experiencing. Is there something that God is
calling you to repent of and return to Him? If not individually, I know as a
Nation, there are numerous sins that we have made acceptable and we should be
repenting of and turning back to God to ask for forgiveness.
Why were the Jews so accepting of the punishment
of Yahweh? Because they knew the character of Yahweh. The full character, and
not some cleaned-up version of their own making. They knew because of the Holy
and Just Nature of Yahweh that repentance was required on their part and
because of His love and mercy, they would be received back and cared for once
again.
I had wanted to touch on some other aspects of
this text, such as God withdrawing His presence for His people, or the
withdrawing of the glory before the fall of Solomon’s temple, but we have run
out of time.
Pastor
Paul’s Points:
1)
Sometimes, God punishes His people to have them return to Him.
2)
Simply returning is not enough, we must repent as well.
Questions
to meditate on this week:
1.
What
happens when a society ignores God?
2.
Does
God withdraw His presence or fellowship from us?
3.
If
so, when does God return to us?
[1]
Erwin W. Lutzer and R. C. Sproul, God’s Devil: The
Incredible Story of How Satan's Rebellion Serves God's Purposes
(Chicago, IL: Moody Publishers, 2015), 43.
[2]
D. T. Lamb, “Wrath,” ed. Mark J. Boda and Gordon J.
McConville, Dictionary of the Old
Testament: Prophets (Downers Grove, IL; Nottingham, England: IVP Academic;
Inter-Varsity Press, 2012), 878.
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