The Lord Shall Be King

And the LORD shall be king over all the earth; in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.

Zechariah 14:9

Many of the prophecies found in the books of the Old Testament prophets deal with the future second coming of the Lord and His literal, earthly reign.  It’s nice sometimes to sit back and think about what a great thing that will be.  Think about the Lord Jesus Himself ruling and being the King.  He will be King over all of the Earth.  That will be a wonderful day.  There will be no more corruption in high offices because Jesus will be the King.  There will be no more lying politicians because Jesus will be King.  There will be no more unjust judgment because Jesus will be totally in charge.  What a great world that will be.

The verse also says that, in that day, there shall be one Lord.  There are many false gods and false “lords” running around today.  In fact, there are probably more people in the world today who believe in false gods than believe in the one true God.  In fact, there are many people who try to put themselves in the position of “lord.”  But not in that day.  In that day, there will be one Lord, the Lord Jesus.  Everyone will know that He is Lord.  There will be no doubts and no questions.  Can you imagine a world in which everyone knows the name of the Jesus and in which nobody questions the fact that He is indeed the Lord?

Sometimes looking around at our current world can get demoralizing.  It is then that we should stop looking around and start looking up.  Jesus is coming again!  That is our “blessed hope.”  There is coming a wonderful day!

Wounding the Saviour

And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands?  Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

Zechariah 13:6

And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter.  And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.  And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

Luke 61-62

I know that I wrote about this verse (Zechariah 13:6) last Saturday, but I just can’t get away from it and the thought that it contains.  In the future, someone will see Jesus and will ask Him about the wounds in His hands.  He will reply that they are “Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”  He was betrayed by His own people.  And, as Christians, that is what we do when we take our eyes off of Him and sin.

Peter knew all too well the pain that this type of failure would bring.  He is the one who bragged that He would stand by the Lord Jesus to the end.  And, just as Jesus had said, Peter had vehemently denied even knowing Him three times before the night was over.  Jesus didn’t need to scold Peter.  He didn’t need to punish him severely.  All He needed to do was look at Peter.  That look brought to Peter the realization that He had denied the Lord and that he had wounded Him.  The deepest and most painful wounds are often those emotional wounds inflicted by those closest to us.

Peter felt the pain of wounding His Lord, and “went out and wept bitterly.”  When we fail the Lord, how does it effect us?  Have we ever “gone out and wept bitterly” over our own sin?  This is a convicting thought to me and thinking about it makes me want to work even harder to avoid any sin that would “wound the Saviour.”

Wounded in the House of My Friends

And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands?  Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

Zechariah 14:6

To me, this is one of the saddest verses in the Bible.  It is a prophetic verse dealing with the Jews as a nation, but I think that we can apply it several ways.  The question that He is asked and the answer that He gives are pointed and convicting.  They should make us think and they should make us even more thankful for His grace and His mercy.

The question is simply this: “What are these wounds in thine hands?”  That is a simple enough question.  They see that He has been wounded in His hands and, not knowing Him well enough, they are curious as to where He got those wounds.  His answer as to where those wounds in His hands came from is almost haunting and rings a tone of conviction still today:

“Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”

He didn’t go into great detail.  He responded with a simple and perfectly fitting response.  While I was obviously not physically there as part of the mob that cried “crucify him!” “crucify him!,” two thousand years later, I can still feel the sting of that sentence.  I can see Him going to the cross with my sin.  While I may not have physically crucified Him, it was my guilt and sin that crucified Him.  Jesus is the “friend of sinners.”  He “came unto his own, and his own received him not.”  He came to His own people, and they crucified Him.  He was wounded in the house of His friends.

To make further application to us today, how often have we “wounded” Him?  How often have we sinned and grieved Him?  While we didn’t physically put the nails through His hands, could He say of us “I was wounded in the house of my friends?”  Let us think of this verse the next time we are tempted to sin.  What a convicting thought.

The King is Coming

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Zechariah 9:9

This verse is a great picture of the Lord.  It is a great prophecy of Jesus.  It gives us hope and tells us a few things about the Saviour.  It tells the people to “rejoice greatly.”  Not just “rejoice,” but “rejoice greatly.”  That is for us.  We should be rejoicing greatly!  Why?

“Thy king cometh unto thee…”  Our King is coming.  If there is no other reason in the entire world that we should be rejoicing greatly, this one still stands.  We have a “blessed hope.”  We are looking for the imminent return of our King!  What a glorious day that will be and what a reason to rejoice greatly.

Do we need another reason to rejoice greatly?  How about this: When the King comes, “he is just, and having salvation.”  The Bible tells us that He is just and the justifier.  He pardons us and justifies us.  In Him is our salvation.  All of these things are in Him and He is coming!

As exciting as those things are, this verse is primarily prophetic, dealing with His first coming.  He did come to the Earth lowly, and He did ride on a donkey instead of a regal horse.  It’s great to find these prophecies and see just how literally they came to pass.  It gives us an even greater confidence that those prophecies which still lie in the future will also come to pass.

All of these wonderful things are found in one verse in a book that is often overlooked.  The Bible truly is an amazing book.  The King is coming and is bringing salvation with Him!

Simple Instructions

These are the things that ye shall do; Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates:  And let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbour; and love no false oath: for all these are things that I hate, saith the LORD.

Zechariah 8:16-17

I like simple instructions.  I like it when I am told exactly what to do.  I like it when there is nothing left to interpretation.  I like “the cookies on the bottom shelf.”  And these are nice, simple instructions.  Now, saying that I like simple instructions doesn’t always mean that I always obey the simple instructions.  It sometimes seems like the simplest things are the hardest ones to get right.  But at least there is no doubt about what is expected.  These verses give us a few things that the Lord expects us to be doing: “There are the things that ye shall do…”

“Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbour…”  We are supposed to tell the truth.  That is simple.  But how often do we fail in that most simple instruction?  How often are we guilty of stretching the truth or being purposely vague in our dealings?  Just a simple dose of truthfulness would work wonders for us.

“…execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates.”  Truth is again mentioned, highlighting it’s importance.  And we are told to execute the judgment of peace in our gates.  We are not supposed be fighting with everybody.  The New Testament sums it up like this: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness…”  (Hebrews 12:14)  We are supposed to be at peace with people.  We are not supposed to be going around starting arguments and fighting with everyone.

“…let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor.”  We are obviously not supposed to be doing evil to our neighbors, but we are not even supposed to be thinking evil toward or about others.

Those are simple instructions.  Are we following them?

Results of Ignoring God

… they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.  Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.  Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts.

Zechariah 7:11-13

In this passage, the Israelites had rejected and ignored God.  They had turn a cold shoulder to Him, stopped their ears when He tried to speak to them, and hardened their hearts so that they would not follow His commandments.  And, as would be expected, they were about to come under His judgment.  But there is one more result of ignoring God that might be even worse than coming under judgment:

“…as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the LORD of hosts.”

God had spoken to them and they had not listened.  Now, He tells them that, even if they decided to speak to Him, He was not going to hear them.  Having God tell you that He is not going to listen to you would be a fearful thing.  But that is exactly where these people found themselves.  What a fearful thing.

God is very, very merciful and longsuffering.  But turning a dear ear to Him over and over and over again will result in His turning a deaf ear to us.  We need the Lord.  We desperately need Him to hear us and answer our prayers.  What could be worse than the Lord ignoring us?  It is, however, easily avoidable.  When He speaks to us, we need to listen.  Ignoring God is a terrible thing!

Cold Shoulders and Hard Hearts

Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.  But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear.  Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the LORD of hosts hath sent in his spirit by the former prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the LORD of hosts.

Zechariah 7:9-12

God sent the prophet Zechariah to tell His people that they had done wrong.  He also sent him to tell the people how they could get right.  They needed to “execute true judgment and shew mercy.”  But the people responded in a way in which many people today respond to the Lord, and a way in which we have probably responded to the Lord at one point or another.  The Bible tells us that they did three things, each of which is a common thing that we can all understand.

1. They “pulled away the shoulder.”
– We are all familiar with this imagery.  We usually call it “giving someone a cold shoulder.”  When we don’t want to hear someone or when we want to purposely ignore them, we turn our shoulder away from them.  It is a deliberate movement designed to ignore someone.

2. They “stopped their ears.”
– This one is usually found in children, but we are guilty of it ourselves.  When we really don’t want to hear something, we just plug our ears.  That is what God’s people did to Him.  They didn’t want to hear what He had to say and so they “stopped their ears.”

3. They “made their hearts as an adamant stone.”
– We would refer to this as having a “hard heart.”  I find it interesting that they didn’t just have hard hearts, they “made their hearts” like that.  We do the same thing.  When God tried to speak to us and we refuse Him or ignore Him, we are hardening our hearts.  Every time we reject Him, our hearts get a little harder.

Sadly, these reactions to the Lord and to His Word are still common today.  And, sadly, these reactions will still bring the same wrath and judgment today that they did in the book of Zechariah.

Judgment and Mercy

And the word of the LORD came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother: And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor; and let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart.

Zechariah 7:8-10

These are great verses showing us what God wants us to be doing.  You will find all of the things mentioned in these verses throughout the Bible, in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.  Apparently, they are things that God takes seriously.  In verse 10, we are told to not “oppress the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor…”  We are supposed to look out for those among us who need help.  We are not to oppress them further, as each of them already has at least one major problem with which to deal.  But verse 9 says something that I found very interesting:

“…Execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions every man to his brother.”  At first glance, those would seem to be two contradictory statements.  We would think that executing judgment would be the opposite of showing mercy and compassion.  I thought maybe that meant to execute judgment on the evildoers, but show mercy to the upright.  But that’s not what it says.  It says that we are to show mercy and compassion to “every man his brother.”  We are supposed to be merciful and compassionate to everyone.  How does that fit in with executing judgment?

To be honest, I don’t fully understand it.  But I do know that this is exactly what the Lord has done for me.  He has shown great mercy and compassion to me in sending His Son to die for my sins.  And He executes true judgment when He forgives me and shows me mercy, again because of what Jesus has done.  The second part of I John 1:9 tells us that He is “faithful and just to forgive us our sins…”

I may not fully understand everything, but I can understand the fact that I need to show mercy and compassion to those around me.

Despising the Day of Small Things

For who hath despised the day of small things?  for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.

Zechariah 4:10

I like the question that begins this verse: “For who hath despised the day of small things?”  It’s easy to despise the day of small things.  It’s easy to despise small things.  Often, we get wrapped up in the “big things.”  We want to do the big things.  We want to think about the big things.  We want to remember the big things that we did yesterday or last week or last year.  While the “big things” are great, the small things are just as important, if not more important for one simple reason:

When you think about it, the big things are made up of small things.  And the small things are made up of even smaller things.  For example: a good and common Christian New Year’s resolution is to read the entire Bible through, from cover to cover.  That is a good and noble “big thing.”  But, unless you are a speed reader with a large pot of coffee, you are probably not going to just sit down and read the entire thing at once.  You are going to have to read a couple of chapters today and couple more chapters tomorrow.  Those are the “small things.”  It might seem insignificant to just read one or two chapters, but if you continually neglect those “small things,” you will never finish the “big thing” of reading the entire Bible.

That is the nature of most things.  Most grand undertakings are actually just a compilation of many minor undertakings.  Building a house is a big project, but it is a big project that is made up of hundreds of small projects.  It is the same in life.  If we will take of the every day, small things, the big things will usually take care of themselves.  Let us be careful to not despise the day of small things!

“A Change of Raiment.”

Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel.  And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him.  And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.

Zechariah 3:3-4

I do not profess to completely understand all of Zechariah’s visions in this book.  Some of them seem fairly clear and others are hard to understand.  I do not understand everything about this particular vision, but I can understand the symbolism of being clothed with “filthy garments” and being given a “change of raiment.”  I can especially understand these things when the change of raiment is coupled with God causing “thine iniquity to pass from thee.”  What a glorious picture of salvation!

These verses bring to mind a couple of other verses:

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”  – Isaiah 64:6

“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”  – Romans 3:21-22

The Bible tells us that our righteousnesses are “as filthy rags,” just like the “filthy garments” spoken of in these verses.  That is the best that we can do.  Humanly speaking, our best is like a filthy rag.

The Bible also tells us that the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ is available to all that believe on Him.  I like the wording of Romans 3:22, “unto all and upon all them that believe.”  “Upon all” sounds a lot like a garment, doesn’t it?  We were wearing the filthy rags of our sin (and even our righteousness), but trusting in Jesus Christ gave us a clothing of His perfect righteousness.  What a wonderful salvation!