The Book of Zechariah #9

 

Ritual vs. Reality
Zechariah 7:1-14
 
We are continuing our study of the book of Zechariah but I want to turn to Luke 18. I want to begin by reminding you of a parable that our Lord taught that has great significance for the theme of the seventh chapter of Zechariah. 
 
Luke 18:9-14
 
One of the great themes of Scripture is true religion vs. false religion. We’ve been dealing with it in the Sermon on the Mount; what we say and hear vs. what we do. Here is one who is depending on his prayers and tithes. On the other hand is one who is repentant.
 
Now with that in mind, turn to Zechariah 7, because that is precisely the problem that is dealt with in this prophecy: true worship as opposed to ritual. God has always defined true worship as something that is from the heart, not a routine, not a performance. And that is precisely the message that this chapter wants to give.
 
Now I want to pull out five features and we'll run through them rather rapidly because I want to finish so you can see the whole picture in one sitting. 
 
1. The Inquiry,
 
7:1-3
 
 
Now let me see if I can give you the picture. We have just finished a series in the book of Zechariah of night visions. They contact very vivid pictures of the prophetic future of God's plan for Israel and the nations as well.
 
The visions conclude in chapter 6, and now two years have passed since Zechariah record these visions.
 
Chapter 7 contains the next Word of God through His prophet Zechariah. The tremendous declaration of those visions is over, and in fact, the historical fulfillment of them has begun. And so now two years later while Israel is greatly comforted in what has happened, God now comes back to them with a message of warning.
 
They came back from captivity at the beginning of the book of Zechariah, they looked at their temple which was in ruins. They looked at their city which was in ruins. And then God moved in and comforted their hearts by giving them these visions through Zechariah to tell them that God would rebuild their city and God would rebuild their temple and not only that, God would give them the Kingdom in the day to come.  And there were some marvelous things that were going to happen and God had these all planned for them. And so they're greatly comforted as a result of those visions.
 
It's now 518 B.C. The temple is rising. In fact, most scholars believe it's probably half way up by the time we come to chapter 7. The people are encouraged; every obstacle has been removed to the rebuilding of Jerusalem because of the decree of Darius recorded in Ezra chapter 6. The situation looks great.
But there's a great danger and that is once they’ve restored their temple and begun to worship, they’ll substitute the form for the reality. And so the Word of God comes to them, and it comes in response to an inquiry. 
 
We are given the date in verse 1, then in verse 2,  men are sent to pray before the Lord and to speak to the priests and to ask them a question.
 
Just a little clarification, before we continue about who is doing the sending and who is being sent. 
 
Most commentaries believe, and I agree, that these men are sent from the city of Bethel, to Jerusalem, and it’s really an interesting combination or Words because “Bethel” actually means “house of God”. 
So these men are being sent from the “house of God” to the “House of God”.
 
And they have now come to Jerusalem because they have a question. They came down to pray before the Lord.  And what was on their hearts was this, do we have to keep on with this fifth month fast? This is really becoming a drag.
 
You say, "Well what is the deal?" Well let me give you a little background. God had only instituted one fast in the history of Israel that was permanent and that was the Day of Atonement.
 
According to Leviticus 23:37 it seems, and it's only implied, it's not directly stated, it seems as though that was to be a fast, that is a time you didn't eat. But that was the only permanent fast that we know of in the Old Testament.
Through the years a number of other fasts had been added by the people. Whenever some big event happened, they would say, "Boy, that was a great event and we'll remember that every year by having a fast." And so they began to pile up the fasts.
 
And this particular fast, it says in verse 3, was in the fifth month, and it was to remember the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple when the Babylonians had come in and wiped out Jerusalem and the temple. That was a devastating thing in the history of Israel and they wanted to remember it with a fast and so they had this fast.
 
And now the captivity is over and years have passed since they've returned and some of them are still keeping the fast. In fact, there are some orthodox Jews today who still keep that fast. But these people have been keeping it in Bethel and they're a little tired of the whole idea and so they say, "Do we have to keep weeping? Do we have to keep separating ourselves?"
 
Now the very fact that they asked the question, indicates that the whole purpose for which the fast was instituted had already passed by and it was nothing more than a ritual. It was simply a routine. They were just going through the motions and it was a rather boring thing to do. And so the fact that they were asking out of it is indicative that it had lost its meaning.
 
And notice the phrase there at the end of verse , "As I have done these so many years." “”Boooringgg”
 
 
They were tired of this deal. In fact, it wasn't the only one. If you'll check over in 8:19 of Zechariah, they had piled up a bunch of fasts.
 
I mean, they had the fourth, the fifth, the seventh and the tenth fast going. They were getting a little tired, every time you turned around there was another fast. And each of these had a significance that we'll get to when we get to that point. And so, should we keep all this stuff up? That’s the inquiry.
 
And so the Word of the Lord comes in answer to this, very straightforward in what I would call
 
2. The Intention
 
verses 4-5
 
In other words, he says, was this ever real? Was there ever any reality in this deal, or were you just cranking it out? I mean, for us it would be saying, "Look, was communion ever anything to you? Was the Lord's day when you came and you gathered in that place because it was resurrection day and every Lord's day from the time of the early church on has been a resurrection celebration, was it ever that for you? Or were you just there and did you just take the communion, and did you just go into the water or did you do it for Me? I mean, was it real worship? Or were you just praying with yourself and patting yourself on the back and announcing to God that you were cranking out your routine?
 
Then notice verse 6
 
He's actually revealing a deeper problem. Their fasts and their feasts were more about them than about God. And it’s interesting that their original question is never answered. Why? Because that isn't the point. The point is, you can worship and you can celebrate with a fast or you can celebrate with a feast any time you want if it's truly done to the honor and glory of the Lord.
 
There is no answer to the question, but the deeper issue is, what is the serious evil that really is infesting Israel? It is this feeling that all these things are merely the performance, mechanical.
 
Don't ever thing because you went through the religious formality that you worshiped God. That's something that has to come out of the heart.
 
Verse 7
 
In other words, you should have listened to the prophets. Obedience to the Word of God is the issue.
 
You know, the sad thing is that's the whole reason they went into captivity because they didn't listen. There was a time when Jerusalem was inhabited, a time when it prospered, a time when the cities or the suburbs around it prospered, a time when people went all the way from the Negev to the Shephelah, in other words, from one end of the land to the other. The Negev is in the south, the Shephelah, the west, and all the land in between, everything flourished and there's a picture of the whole land.
 
And you should have listened to the prophets; then you would never have experienced this thing if you had. You see, when you listen to God's Word there will be joy and there will be peace and there will be prosperity, and that's the key.
 
So he says it isn't ritual, it's hearing the Word of God. It isn't routine, it's obedience. And so you see, their inquiry is followed with the unmasking of their intention. Their whole intention in the feast was wrong. There was no spirit of obedience or they never would have gone into this mess. 
 
3. The Instruction
 
verses 8-10
 
Now this is the main issue, and it is a very simple message:
 
He says, "Look, you kept the feasts and you kept the fasts. What you should have done was listen to the former prophets. In fact, if your fathers had listened to the former prophets, you never would have gone into captivity to start with. And now even through all of that, you still don't listen to the former prophets and you crank out a ritualistic approach to religion. What you should do, he says in verse 7, is to hear the words of the Lord.
 
And he says, "And here are the words of the Lord, here is the instruction, notice it. Number one, execute true judgment. It isn't the fasts and the feasts that I'm interested in, it's your non-partiality." And that's what he's saying, no respect of persons. You're not to prefer certain people over others.
You're not to give certain people justice because they have money, or because they have prestige, or because you seek to win their favor. You are to show no partiality. There is no respect of persons with God.
 
That was a part of God’s original instruction in Exodus chapter 18. 
 
Secondly, he says that, "Show mercy and compassion." Two other words for that would be kindness and sympathy, in all human relationships.
 
Thirdly he says, "Do not oppress the widow, or the fatherless, or the stranger, or the poor." And here you have a list of the helpless members of society, those most easily exposed to the evils of unscrupulous men, exploitation of the weak and the poor and the helpless is not to characterize God's people.
 
And see, all he's saying here is your religion is absolutely useless unless there is in your life justice and kindness and mercy and compassion. Those are the things that speak of a regenerated heart. Those are the things that speak of true religion.
 
Then he says further, "Let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart." The idea of imagine here is to plot, or devise...plotting against others, bringing false accusations in law, suing people could be implied here.
 
You can't come and worship God while you've got some bitterness or some grudge, or some backbiting, or some gossip or some lawsuit either in action or in your mind.
You can't worship God unless the heart is right. And so God is simply saying, I'm not interested in how many fasts you have. I'm not interested in how many feasts you keep. I'm not interested in how you bow or how you bend or how you pray or how you read or how you sing or how you attend services or anything else, how you recite a creed. What I want to know is what's cooking in your heart. And I want to see the spirit of total obedience.
 
So we see the inquiry, we've seen the intention, the instruction and then Zechariah receives a word from the Lord about
 
4. The Insolence
 
In spite of God's instruction, Zechariah faces the fact that the people may rebel as the people before the captivity had rebelled.
 
Verses 11-12
 
He says the generation before you didn't listen, they substituted ritual for reality. And he shows a four-step progression here.
 
They refused to hearken, verse 11, and that simply means they didn't take God's Word seriously, they treated it flippantly, indifferently.
 
Secondly, they turned a rebellious shoulder. That phrase is used in Hosea 4:6 and I believe it's in Nehemiah 9:29 and it describes the conduct of an ox when the ox will not take the yoke.
 
 
 And he is saying they didn't listen, they treated it flippantly and then when I tried to place My Law upon them, they shrugged and turned and they wouldn't take a restraint and they didn't want any authority over them and they demanded a self-styled freedom.
 
And then there's another step in their progression. They stopped their ears. They went all the way to a deliberate refusal to listen to God. The word no longer touched them, it no longer reached them. They hated God's Word and yet they cranked out the ritual.
 
And finally he says, "They made their hearts like an adamant stone." That's another term for diamond. They were hard-hearted as a diamond which is the hardest thing there is.
 
And so, here are these people. They've got all their ritual and God says to them, "I just want your hearts," and they stopped their ears and they make their hearts as hard as stone. Their minds and their wills were set against God and He says you ought to remember history because when that happened, they had a terrible judgment.
 
So the inquiry and the intention and the instruction and the insolence and finally reminds them of
 
5. The Indignation
 
verse 12b-14
 
 God says, "Here it is, here's the message. Because they refused to hear Me and they had a ritual instead of a reality, I judged them."
Simple...the wrath of God. And for 70 years God didn't hear them. Verse 13 came to pass...they didn't hear Me, so I stopped listening to them.
 
What was the answer then to the original inquiry? Do we have to keep the feasts? God's Word came to Zechariah and said that's not the point. The point is was the feast ever for Me anyway? The point is that all you've done is make a form of religion. And so I say to you that God is not interested in the form, He is interested in the reality that's in your heart. And that reality springs from hearing the words of the Lord. And the last generation didn't hear the words of the Lord and they were judged and so I warn you. God does not want us to be indifferent and He does not want us to be disobedient to His Word.
 
Simple message for us, isn't it? There is no substitute for the reality of a love relationship with God.