The Divine Plan for Jerusalem, Part 1
Zechariah 1:7-8
Zechariah, the prophet, next to the last book in the Old Testament, a marvelous, prophetic record: we began to study it last time, and it's really an adventure for me, because I am not that accustomed to doing in- depth exposition in the Old Testament, as I am in the New. Generally, with the OT, we do an overview or select passages.
So it's a tremendous challenge to me, and what I've noticed about it is that it's so very, very different than the New Testament. The New Testament, so much of it is a logical progression of thought, whereas the Old Testament is just hammering, hammering, hammering on the same truth over and over and over again. You hear it, and then you see it in a symbol, and then it's in a metaphor, and then it's echoed by an angel and then God says it Himself, and it just keeps banging away. And so we're going to bang away through Zechariah on some of the marvelous things that God had in mind.
Now I've entitled the message tonight, "The Divine Plan for Jerusalem." Needless to say, Jerusalem is a fantastic city. Sometime back we did an in-depth study on the scriptural significance of Jerusalem. Some of you have visited there personally, and just the fact that it exists, and holds all the significance of being “the Holy Land” is quite something. In and of itself, that speaks to the reality of God and God's unchanging, unending faithfulness.
And that's what this section of Zechariah is all about.
Now as we began the book last time, we noted that it is written in a crucial time in Israel's history. A remnant of Jews has just been released and returned from the Babylonian captivity. In 586 B.C., Judah, the Southern Kingdom, was taken into captivity and they had been there 70 years when Cyrus made a decree, releasing them and sending them back. This is about 18 years after that decree was made.
They're back in the land. Within seven months we saw that they had built the altar. Just after the beginning of the second year, they had begun to rebuild the walls of the temple and the foundation was laid and the face of the wall was put up. But then because of opposition, they had stopped.
And so they're back in the land, at least a remnant of them, the ones that weren't so embedded in Babylonian society that they couldn't uproot. They're back in the land, they've got an altar which means they've got the sacrifices going, and they're on the way to build the temple, but opposition brings it to a grinding halt.
But God doesn't want it to stop. God wants that temple built, God wants that wall built, God wants that city built, and God wants that whole thing set up the way He prescribed it in the Old Testament, and so He raises a prophet up to stimulate them to finish the job. And the prophet's name is Haggai.
Two months after Haggai comes a man named Zechariah and between the two of them a revival breaks out in Israel and they begin to do what they started to do. They begin to move on rebuilding things. They get some action. They start putting the bricks again on those walls to build the temple.
The message of the prophets is clear: there is to be a spiritual revival and there is to be a recommitment to do the work, to rebuild the city.
So as we come to Zechariah, the revival has already begun, Haggai being the catalyst for it. And Zechariah just wants to encourage the people in the work. Actually, his is a book of encouragement and comfort. It's tough for a people who are trying to repatriate a desolated country, especially when they're such a small group. And they realize that all around them are potential enemies who could undue everything they've done, just by deciding to do it. It's a fearful situation.
And so along comes Zechariah and he just again, and again, and again, encourages the people that God is in their midst, that God is at work, that God has a plan, that wonderful things are going to happen, no matter what it looks like. So his message is a message of comfort. God is a God of comfort. The name Zechariah means "God remembers." God remembers His people. God doesn't forget.
Now this is to be a book of comfort but it begins with a very discomforting thought in the first six verses, we saw the last two weeks, and that is the fact that God is a God of vengeance, and wrath, and judgment. And the reason that is at the beginning is simply to make sure nobody goes to sleep in the concept of comfort and thinks that it doesn't matter what you are or what you do, God's going to make sure everything's alright. God's just in the business of comforting everybody. No, not at all.
The first six verses show that God comforts the people that turn away from sin.
verse 3
So that there is a basic prerequisite to receiving God's comforting blessing and that is turning away from evil. It's only the people who repent of sin. It's only the people who turn away from it that receive the wonderful blessing of God.
So having laid down that prerequisite, we begin in verse 7, to hear the catalog of all the marvelous comforting blessing that God has for His people.
Now, the prophecy falls into four sections. The first section is the "Call to Repentance"
That’s the first six verses.
The second section begins in 1:7 and we can identify it as
"Comfort through Visions."
God begins to comfort His people and He does so through a series of visions.
The third section begins in chapter 7, and it's called "Counsel Regarding Fasts."
And the last section, beginning in chapter 9 is
“Coming Events."
And the theme of all of that is God has comfort, God has counsel, and God has some fantastic coming events for the people who have heard the call to repentance. That's the gist of the whole book. God's got some marvelous things laid out for people who repent.
Now from 1:7 through 6:15, this message of comfort is given through a series of eight visions. Each of them is distinct, and yet basically they all say the same thing. But they come at it from different angles. In fact, as I looked at them, it's very clear that the first one is almost a summarization of the other seven, and the other seven put out the details. But these eight visions were designed to comfort God's people.
Let's begin at verse 7: "Upon the four and twentieth day," - now that's an important day simply because there have been so many interesting things that have happened on the 24th day.
Five months before on the 24th day, work on the temple had begun.
Two months before on the 24th day, Haggai received a marvelous revelation, and so there's something about the 24th day that's getting to be pretty hot stuff and about the time the 24th day rolls around, everybody perks up.
Verses 7-8
Notice verse 8 begins "I saw by night, and behold," - stop right there. In one night he has all eight visions, apparently. We'll see that as we go. And I would remind you that a vision is not the same as s dream. A vision is given when somebody is awake; a dream is given when somebody is asleep.
Now there were many visions in the Old Testament. In fact, the word occurs 86 times in the Old Testament. It occurs 15 times in the New Testament, and I think occurs 22 of those 86 times in the book of Daniel. So Daniel had a lot of visions. But from back in Genesis 15:1, we have visions. And there it says, "After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision."
So God, for a long time, has been communicating His Word through these visions. In Numbers 12:16, back in the Pentateuch, it says "If there is a prophet among you, I, the Lord, make myself known to him in a vision." God, historically from Abram on, has made Himself known to the prophets in a vision.
You say, "Well, what is a vision?" Well, I don't know, specifically; I never had a vision. But basically a vision is an awareness of reality beyond the senses. You might want to call it a sixth sense, only it's more than just a premonition. It is the ability to see beyond the human senses. It is the ability to go beyond what the human senses can perceive. It is extra-physical sight. For example, the prophet will see something that cannot be seen by anyone else. To the naked eye it is totally invisible, but to this additional sense, God makes it revealed and clear.
So he has these eight visions. Let’s look at vision #1. Now Vision No.1 encompasses the divine plan for Jerusalem and the scary thing about this is that the subject is so broad that it's hopeless to try to cover it all at one time. We’ll take a couple of weeks on it.
Now, Israel had gone into captivity and Jerusalem had been devastated. And the reason Israel had been taken in to captivity is simple: it's a one syllable word, starts with "s" and ends with "n." What is it? Sin. God said to Israel again and again and again, "If you keep sinning, if you keep sinning, if you keep sinning, I must have a holy reaction against it. You're going to pay a high price: captivity."
And the major prophet, who constantly preached this message, just before the captivity, was a man name Jeremiah. Jeremiah was the one who proclaimed the coming captivity, over and over and over and over. He told them, "You're going to have trouble, you're going to have trouble, you're going to have trouble. I'm going to remove you from the land I gave you.
The whole book of Jeremiah is just loaded with the cataloging of Israel's sins that are leading to the Babylonian captivity. He was the key prophet before the exile.
But Jeremiah, among many of his prophecies, made one that is especially important. And it is in the 29th chapter of Jeremiah. And I want you to look at it with me, in the 10th verse. Jeremiah 29:10, because Jeremiah not only told them they were going to go to captivity, but he told them how long.
Here is a verification of Jeremiah as a prophet. He had no idea, humanly speaking, how long they'd be in captivity, but God knew exactly, because when the time was right, God raised up Cyrus, who wasn't even a believer, and God had Cyrus make a decree and the people had the freedom to leave, just at the time God prescribed.
And in Jeremiah 29:10, after all these messages about captivity, Jeremiah says:
Verse 10, 14
Now God says "I'm going to bring you back at the end of 70 years. At the end of that period of time, there'll be a decree that'll send you back to the land. Now that is a prophecy that they heard. It was very, very explicit.
Now keep it in mind, because it is the basis of the vision we'll see in Zechariah. Jeremiah said "You're going into captivity because God always, always, always, always, puts a price on sin, always. You can be sure your sin will," - what? "Find you out."
And yet, even though they were going into captivity because of sin, there is a tolerance within God's judgment that turns to compassion. "God shall not always keep His anger," said Malachi. There is a turning, and God's compassion takes over after His chastening, and He says, "I'll bring you back." And that's the basis of this vision.
Now there are five elements to the vision, we'll notice them as we go, and we’ll probably only get through the first one tonight.
The first one is
1. The Picture
verse 8
Now if there’s anything that just comes out of this passage, loud and clear with neon signs, as tall as a ten story building, it is this: God is faithful. When God makes a promise, He keeps it. God made them a promise: "You're going to captivity, but you're going to Babylon for 70 years and at the end of 70 years, you're coming back." And that is exactly when they came back. God kept His promise.
And by this time, they're back, but things aren't going like they thought. And in the midst of this situation, they're sort of sitting saying, "But the city is in desolation and we're in humiliation, and our enemies have stopped our building." And they need some comfort from God.
And so the first vision comes. And let's look at the picture seen in verse 8, "I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom," or better, that were in the hollow or the glen or the ravine even, "and behind him there were red horses, sorrel, and white." Now stop there.
Now the first thing that struck me is we have this marvelous, graphic vision, and the prophet offers no interpretation.
I think the reason for that is it was very obvious to the people what was being said, and as we look at it, we'll see that as we put the pieces together.
Now, Zechariah has what we would call an apocalyptic or prophetic vision. He is apparently in a trance like situation, much like Peter would have been in on the roof of the house in Joppa when God showed him a sheet and all kinds of things.
It isn't dreaming. It is an ability to see something beyond the human senses. It's a supernatural miracle. And he says, "I saw."
And the first thing he sees is a man. And that's all it says. His identity is not explained, but immediately we get the feeling that he's a super-human man. There’s something different about him. In fact, he is an angel in the appearance of a man. And the man that he sees is riding on a red horse. We would understand that to be not a bright red, but reddish brown. The same term is used to describe Esau, who was not bright red. He was just a red head, like red heads are, not like a red dress. So it can be used in that sense.
So he sees this horse that is reddish brown, as a horse would be. And a rider on this horse. Now, we have to stop at this point and we get a little idea here of what we're seeing because we know what horses represented in visionary situations in the Old Testament. A horse normally represented war. A horse seemed to be a symbol of war.
We see from Deuteronomy to Revelation that generally speaking horses are representative of war. When Christ comes back at the battle of Armageddon, what is he riding? A horse. There are numerous references in the Psalms and Isaiah; we won’t take time to look. But basically, scripturally speaking, the horse is a symbol of war. We find it all throughout the Word of God.
And I would add to that that red is also a symbol in the Bible and it's a symbol of blood and judgment and vengeance.
Where you have red, for example in Revelation chapter 6, a rider on a red horse, there is war, and there is bloodshed, and there is death, because red speaks of blood and judgment and vengeance.
When the Messiah comes, and that's almost a direct parallel to Revelation 19, when the Messiah comes, His garments are stained red with blood. That's the symbol of war and the symbol of death and vengeance and judgment.
So what we have here then is a war horse, prepared for battle, prepared for judgment, prepared for vengeance. And astride this is a rider. Now we can talk a long time about who the rider is. Jewish commentators historically have said it was Michael, but I'm convinced it was other than Michael and we shall see in a moment who it was.
Now I want you to notice where this rider is in verse 8: "He stood among the myrtle trees," that were in the glen or the hollow. Now, I am told that myrtle trees are very common in Israel.
They are actually bushes, and for those who have access to water or are protected by a glen or hollow, they sometimes grow to eight feet, and they can have very glossy, shiny green leaves and be very lovely. In fact, the ones that really flourish develop a star shaped white flower and they're very beautiful. And when you bruise one of the leaves of a myrtle that is flourishing like that, it gives off its fragrance. But its fragrance is only given off when it is bruised.
And so all of the sudden we see here a whole lot of myrtles everywhere. They are common to the land of Israel; they are flourishing in this place.
Incidentally, the word "myrtle" in Hebrew is "hedasa" and a synonym for it is Ester. The name Ester is actually hedasain in the Hebrew, which means myrtle. So that's a name, a beautiful name, to a Jew who would see something very lovely in a myrtle bush.
In fact, it's interesting in Isaiah 41 - I don't want to get all into horticulture here, but this is kind of interesting - but in Isaiah 41, Isaiah 41:19 and Isaiah 55:13, it says that when the millennium comes, there will be tremendous flourishing of the myrtle. So God even likes it. There's going to be plenty of it. God liked it enough to put it in Israel once and he likes it enough to fill up the millennium with them.
Now myrtle branches also were gathered with palm branches and willow twigs at the Feast of Tabernacles, and myrtle branches were used to make the booths in which the children of Israel celebrated the wanderings in the wilderness.
So here he is, this rider, riding a war horse and in a bunch of myrtle bushes. There is also significance to the fact that they are in a glen or hollow
The term most often identifies a low place. That's obviously what it means. And the low place outside of the city of Jerusalem is the Kidron Valley. As the Kidron Valley proceeds to the south, it makes a bend around Mount Zion, and connects up with another valley, known as the Valley of Hennom. And where the Valley of Hennom and the Valley of Kidron meet, there is the lowest place outside the city of Jerusalem.
And in this low place outside the city sits a red horse with a rider on top, amidst some flourishing myrtles, that would flourish in the shade and the water that would run in that area.
Now that isn't all.
verse 8
All of the sudden you don't just have one rider, you've got more. And notice there are red and white and sorrel. You know what a sorrel is? It's a mixture of what? Red and white. So you've got the red horse, the white horse, and the combination.
Now is there any significance to the colors?
No doubt. Red means what? Blood, judgment and vengeance. What does white mean? What is a white horse a sign of? Victory, triumph. When a Roman conquer conquered a city, he rode back into his own city riding a white horse, the sign of victory. When Christ comes, He comes on a white horse.
So what you have there is war that is going to end up in victory, and the mixture on some of the horses. So the scene is a scene of preparedness for war. It's going to be bloody but it's going to be victorious.
Now you say "Who are all these riders?" Well, historically who has served as agents of God's judgment?
Angels.....angels. This is the God Squad. The angelic squadron, and they are led by a confident leader on a red horse.
The horses speak of battle and speed and swiftness and readiness to hasten to God's command. There are messengers of vengeance and messengers of victory, and the commanding angel is the rider on the red horse.
You say "But who is he?" Look at verse 11.
Zechariah 1:11, "And they answered the angel of the Lord that stood among the myrtle trees."
Who's the angel of the Lord? Christ. So the rider on the red horse is the Lord Jesus Christ, the angel of the Lord. He's the commander in chief of the God Squad, about to embark upon the battle.
You say "But what are the myrtles?" Well, listen. Because of the lowliness, because of the commonness, because of the simplicity, because of the beauty, and because of the fragrance when bruised, the only possibility for the myrtle is that the myrtle represents Israel. They are commons, they're everywhere in the land, the people of God.
And what is the hollow? What is the deep place, the glen? That speaks of the suffering and the lowliness and the degradation and the baseness of their present condition. All the little lovely myrtles are sitting in the valley. They're looking up at their city and wondering if they'll ever rebuild it.
And all of the sudden, standing in the midst, is the angelic army, led by the commander in chief, ready for battle. It's going to be bloody, but it's going to be victorious.
Now that's an exciting scene isn't it? And you can hear all the Jews who were listening to Zechariah's sermon going, "Did you hear that? See? It's coming."
Tremendous vision. They are the covenant people. They are the eternally elect nation. They are loved by the Lord and they are the object of His unchanging purpose and the gifts and callings of God, Romans 11:29, are without what? Repentance.
And God is saying, "You may have been in captivity for 70 years and you may be in humiliation and degradation now and you may have a broken down wall and a broken down temple and a devastated land and you may be in the hollow, and you may be down here in the valley, but listen. There is a group of armed super-human personalities gathering to fight your war. Be encouraged."
Boy that is encouraging. The angel of the Lord, none other than Jesus Christ, no other than God Himself, the second person of the Trinity, taking on an angelic form.
So here's the scene: a group of people in a state of humiliation, about to be delivered by their glorious protector, defender, interceder, comforter. He stands ready to fight for them. What a scene. The Lord is in the midst of His people, ready to defend, ready to protect, ready to advocate their cause, ready to comfort them in their time of need.
He's outside the city, ready to judge the nations and put Israel back in the right place, the place that God intended all along. He's going to fulfill God's promise.
Jeremiah said, "God will bring you back in 70 years and God will give you back the land and God will rebuild the land." And this angel, this angel of the Lord, was there ready to guarantee the promise of God. Boy that's a beautiful scene.
And you know what's wonderful about it? It's a beautiful parallel to the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ to His church. Here we are, and Satan is the prince of this world. We're not in control. We're subjected to a satanic system, and we're, as it were, in the hollow. We're in the glen, in the deep place, in the ravine. We're like Israel. We're all gathered around and huddled in the deep place and saying "How long oh Lord?" like the people in the book of Revelation crying out under the altar, "How long oh Lord?" until things are made right.
And yet there in the midst of us is not only the angelic host, but a great leader, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our defender, who is our protector, who is our advocate, who takes our case to the Father, who is our High Priest, and who is our comforter. And who comforts us in the fact that someday He will come and reign as King of Kings and what? And Lord of Lords.
Listen. God is a faithful God. If God says to His people Israel, "I'll keep my promise," then He sets the great defender in motion with the angelic host to keep Him. If God says to the church, "I will keep my promise," He sets the Lord Jesus Christ to the task of keeping that promise. I don't know how it would be to live in this world apart from God.
But I know it would be terribly hopeless to feel that life was unfulfilling and have no promise of anybody who is standing ready to take up your cause.
Do you know what happened in the story in Zechariah? Four years later, the temple was built. 80 years later, the walls were finished. Israel was back.
Those angels did the job, and the myrtle trees got out of the valley and up on the mount. And in the future, God is going to restore Israel, and you and I are alive in a day when we can begin to see it rumble. Back in the land, 1948, and that's the first time in a long time. And they're holding onto that land, and God is beginning to work a work, a wondrous work, to prepare for the re-gathering in the Kingdom. God is a faithful God.
Beloved, that's the kind of God I want to put my life into His hands, don't you? That's the kind of God I can trust with my life. Want a verse to hang on to? How about Philippians 1:6:
“being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
God is faithful. He's faithful to Israel in the past. He'll be faithful to Israel in the future. He's faithful to the church now, and he'll be faithful to you as you commit your life to Him. We have a faithful God. He wants to fight your battles. He wants to fight your wars. He wants to win your victories. And He just wants you to tag along and praise Him for what He's doing. That's your high joy and great privilege.
Let's pray
