Return To Me
Zechariah 1:1-6
September 4, 2016
Tonight we are going to begin a study of a new book in the Bible.
Primarily we are beginning this study because it, like Daniel, will at times walk hand in hand with our Sunday morning study of Revelation.
In fact Zechariah has often been referred to as
“The Apocalypse of the Old Testament”
You’ll see as we get into this study how the two can complement one another.
HOWEVER, that is not the only reason we study this book.
If that were the case, then we’d just be content to reference this book
As we work through Revelation.
We also study this book because of the profound message
That God delivers here to His chosen people.
And the theme of the book (as so often is the case)
Is uniquely tied to the name of the prophet who wrote it.
Zechariah means “The Lord Remembers”
And that is certainly a constant theme in this book.
• God remembers Israel.
• God remembers His elect.
• God has not totally, nor finally forsaken them.
And let me show you why this is such an important message
To Israel at this time.
We need to spend some time on the context here
Because you can’t understand a book apart from its context.
• We know that Judah was conquered and taken into exile in Babylon and we know that the exile lasted for 70 years.
• However God promised Israel that after this period of slavery there would be a return.
Ezra 1:1-4 “Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, so that he sent a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and also put it in writing, saying: “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, ‘The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. ‘Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem. ‘Every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.'”
Now you will see in Zechariah that his first sermon occurred “In the eighth month of the second year of Darius”
That means that Zechariah’s first sermon
Is issued 18 years after that decree.
If you want more dates to put it in context with Israel’s history, here they are.
• Zechariah’s ministry is 16 years after Daniel’s ministry.
• Zechariah’s ministry is 18 years after Cyrus’ decree to rebuild the temple.
• Zechariah’s ministry begins 42 years before Esther is crowned queen.
Zechariah began his ministry in the year 520 BC
• In 536 BC Zerubbabel started rebuilding the temple.
• In 534 BC the building was stopped
• In 520 BC the building resumed
• In 516 BC the temple was completed
WHY DID IT STOP AND START SO MUCH?
We read Ezra 1 about the decree to rebuild the temple.
TURN TO: EZRA 3
(READ 3:1-9)
You see that the people entered this land that had been decimated and the first thing they did was rebuild the altar so they could sacrifice to God.
The 7th month was a big month of feasting for Israel.
• It was the feast of trumpets
• The Day of Atonement
• The Feast of Booths
And all they managed to build was the altar. (536BC)
They were terrified in the land and so they most certainly wanted God on their side.
The next year when they returned again for these feasts
Is when work on the temple foundation finally began
Under the direction of Zerubbabel.
But it wouldn’t last long.
(READ 4:1-5)
• There we find that the inhabitants of the land wanted to help, but Zerubbabel wouldn’t let them, primarily because of their pluralism.
• This made the inhabitants angry and they began to oppose the work and the Israelites gave up and went to their homes and stopped building the temple. (534BC)
But 6 years later the building project would be resumed.
WHY?
(READ 5:1-2)
It was the ministry of Haggai and Zechariah
That brought about the completion of this building program.
That means that Zechariah showed up to address and intimidated people.
They had returned to Jerusalem.
• And incidentally there weren’t many who did. Most opted to stay in
Babylon where they were comfortable.
As I said earlier the story of Esther that we are familiar with
Doesn’t happen for another 42 years. Most stayed in Babylon/Persia
And so a small remnant returned and they were scared.
• The land was dangerous.
• The land was unprotected.
• The natives were restless.
• The people had seemingly given up on building the temple do to fear.
That is when Haggai and Zechariah show up.
Now let me show you some of HAGGAI’S PREACHING FIRST
So that we keep things in order.
TURN TO: HAGGAI 1
(READ 1:1-15)
• Haggai really rebuked the people for being content to live in their own houses while letting the Lord’s house lie desolate.
To Haggai it was seeking worldly comfort over seeking to please God
And he ripped the people for it.
That sermon was preached during the 6th month of the 2nd year of Darius.
In chapter 2 Haggai preached again. This time on the 21st of the 7th month, which would have been the tail end of the feast of booths.
(READ 2:1-9)
Haggai there addressed the sentiment of the people.
• Zerubbabel listened to that first sermon of Haggai and started to build.
• At this point he had been building nearly 2 months but the GRUMBLING of the people was discouraging.
• Haggai pointed out that some of the people thought Zerubbabel’s temple paled in comparison to Solomon’s temple.
• You have to love sticking your neck out to serve the Lord only to have those critics who tell you that you aren’t doing a very good job.
(from studying Haggai and Zechariah it is apparent that
Zerubbabel must have taken a lot of flack)
So in this second sermon of Haggai he encourages Zerubbabel
To keep up the hard work.
This temple may not be as glorious as Solomon’s temple was,
But it will house more glory than Solomon’s temple did.
This is the temple that Jesus would enter.
AND THAT BRINGS US UP TO SPEED.
You have a small remnant who has returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and it has not been an easy assignment.
• The work crew was small…
• The new temple was less than impressive…
• The nations surrounding threatened and were hostile…
Into this situation the Lord sends a prophet named “The Lord Remembers”
• Israel is not forgotten
• Israel is not overlooked
God has not forgotten His people whom He foreknew.
He disciplined them, but He has not forgotten them.
AND HE WILL NOT FORGET THEM
His first sermon occurs “In the eight month of the second year of Darius”
• That means Zechariah stood to preach after Haggai’s second sermon.
• Zerubbabel has been working now for about 3 months on the temple and Haggai has made sure the people are buying in to the project.
But watching the temple go up opened the door for a very important message from the Lord to His people.
And the message is this:
Don’t just rebuild the temple, rebuild the relationship.
Don’t just return to the land, return to Me.
3 points
#1 A CALL TO RETURN
Zechariah 1:2-3
YOU HAVE TO PICTURE THE SCENE.
• We have refugees returning from Babylon and they have begun to sift through the rubble of what was once the temple of God.
• Nebuchadnezzar had leveled it and then burned it, and it had laid there unattended for over 70 years.
After the fall of Jerusalem Jeremiah gave us a very detailed description.
Lamentations 2:1-9
“How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He has cast from heaven to earth The glory of Israel, And has not remembered His footstool In the day of His anger. The Lord has swallowed up; He has not spared All the habitations of Jacob. In His wrath He has thrown down The strongholds of the daughter of Judah; He has brought them down to the ground; He has profaned the kingdom and its princes. In fierce anger He has cut off All the strength of Israel; He has drawn back His right hand From before the enemy. And He has burned in Jacob like a flaming fire Consuming round about. He has bent His bow like an enemy; He has set His right hand like an adversary And slain all that were pleasant to the eye; In the tent of the daughter of Zion He has poured out His wrath like fire. The Lord has become like an enemy. He has swallowed up Israel; He has swallowed up all its palaces, He has destroyed its strongholds And multiplied in the daughter of Judah Mourning and moaning. And He has violently treated His tabernacle like a garden booth; He has destroyed His appointed meeting place. The LORD has caused to be forgotten The appointed feast and sabbath in Zion, And He has despised king and priest In the indignation of His anger. The Lord has rejected His altar, He has abandoned His sanctuary; He has delivered into the hand of the enemy The walls of her palaces. They have made a noise in the house of the LORD As in the day of an appointed feast. The LORD determined to destroy The wall of the daughter of Zion. He has stretched out a line, He has not restrained His hand from destroying, And He has caused rampart and wall to lament; They have languished together. Her gates have sunk into the ground, He has destroyed and broken her bars. Her king and her princes are among the nations; The law is no more. Also, her prophets find No vision from the LORD.”
You can literally hear there the lament of Jeremiah
As he looks at the smoldering ashes of what used to be the temple.
Now, some 70 years later,
These refugees are rummaging through those same ruins.
And Zechariah begins his sermon by saying:
“The LORD was very angry with your fathers.”
That is a statement that DOESN’T need much EXPLANATION.
But it is a statement that needs much APPLICATION.
One should most certainly look at these ruins and what God did to His own temple and certainly ask, “WHAT DID THEY DO?”
That’s a fair question isn’t it?
How did they make God so angry?
If nothing else, while digging through the rubble,
You had better ask yourself
What things you need to do differently this time around.
But before you even ask the question, Zechariah is ready with the answer.
(3) “Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Return to Me,” declares the LORD of hosts, “that I may return to you,” says the LORD of hosts.”
First of all, did you pick up on the way God introduced Himself there?
You should have, He said it 3 times.
He emphatically refers to Himself as “the LORD of hosts”
That is a war term.
The “hosts” is the Hebrew word SABAOTH
Which speaks of heavenly armies
“the LORD of hosts” is a term that speaks of the general of the heavenly army.
He reminds these people beyond a shadow of a doubt
That the destruction of this temple
Was nothing short of an act of war by God Himself.
It was not inability on His part to defeat the Babylonian gods.
God did this intentionally
And He is still that God,
Indicating He should not be messed with.
And in this very pointed introduction
God has a directive for the children of Israel.
“Return to Me…that I may return to you”
First of all, WHAT DOES HE MEAN BY THAT STATEMENT?
The problem of those who lived in Israel at the time of its destruction
Was that they had abandoned God.
• No, they didn’t quit going to church…
• No, they didn’t quit offering the sacrifices…
• THE ABANDONED HIM IN THEIR HEARTS
Isaiah 50:1 “Thus says the LORD, “Where is the certificate of divorce By which I have sent your mother away? Or to whom of My creditors did I sell you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, And for your transgressions your mother was sent away.”
Isaiah revealed the reason for their divorce,
It was because they were unfaithful.
They had abandoned faithfulness to God
And God gave them over to their harlotries.
Isaiah 1:2-4 “Listen, O heavens, and hear, O earth; For the LORD speaks, “Sons I have reared and brought up, But they have revolted against Me. “An ox knows its owner, And a donkey its master’s manger, But Israel does not know, My people do not understand.” Alas, sinful nation, People weighed down with iniquity, Offspring of evildoers, Sons who act corruptly! They have abandoned the LORD, They have despised the Holy One of Israel, They have turned away from Him.”
It was a picture of people who went through all the motions,
But who in their hearts had pulled away from God.
And we hear that reality all throughout the preaching of the prophets.
Isaiah 29:13 “Then the Lord said, “Because this people draw near with their words And honor Me with their lip service, But they remove their hearts far from Me, And their reverence for Me consists of tradition learned by rote,”
All they did was go through the motions,
But they had no heart for God.
In fact they willfully lived in sin
Without any concern for what God thought about it.
They assumed that so long as they maintained their religious ordinances God would be pleased with them regardless of their sinful lives.
God emphatically told them over and over again that this was not so.
Who could forget that powerful sermon that Jeremiah preached right in the doorway of the temple?
Jeremiah 7:9-12 “Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery and swear falsely, and offer sacrifices to Baal and walk after other gods that you have not known, then come and stand before Me in this house, which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’ — that you may do all these abominations? “Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of robbers in your sight? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” declares the LORD. “But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I made My name dwell at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel.”
• 70 + years ago Jeremiah had stood in the door way of this temple and reminded the people how God had destroyed their former place of worship because their worship was unacceptable.
• And Jeremiah assured them that if their worship didn’t change that God would destroy this place as well.
70 years later Zechariah is standing in the rubble of that former temple
Reminding the children of Israel that
How we worship God is more than just ceremony.
He sees these people rebuilding the temple and is in effect saying,
DON’T JUST RETURN TO THE TEMPLE, RETURN TO ME.
That is to say that
• You must turn from your sin.
• You must turn from your pride.
• You must turn from your idolatry.
• You must enter this place not out of a sense of tradition, but out of a sense of love for Me.
And if you will do that, I will “return to you”
WASN’T THAT THE ISSUE?
We’ve all read the book of Ezekiel.
• We listened as Ezekiel told us about the glory of God leaving the mercy seat and going to rest at the east gate of the Lord’s house (Ezekiel 10:19).
• And then we heard him mention how the glory left the city and went to a hill overlooking the city. (Ezekiel 11:23)
The Hebrew term is ICHABOD “No Glory”
The glory of the LORD has departed.
That is the whole point to the book of Ezekiel,
GOD LEFT AND YOU WERE DESTROYED
What good does it do to rebuild the temple if God is unwilling to move back in?
So God gives His conditions.
“Return to Me…that I may return to you.”
GET YOUR HEART RIGHT.
James 4:6-10 “But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, “GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
It’s not about the tradition of your worship,
It’s about the posture of your heart.
Listen to what Isaiah was saying:
Isaiah 57:15-19 “For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite. “For I will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would grow faint before Me, And the breath of those whom I have made. “Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry and struck him; I hid My face and was angry, And he went on turning away, in the way of his heart. “I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and to his mourners, Creating the praise of the lips. Peace, peace to him who is far and to him who is near,” Says the LORD, “and I will heal him.”
Listen to David:
Psalms 50:7-15 “Hear, O My people, and I will speak; O Israel, I will testify against you; I am God, your God. “I do not reprove you for your sacrifices, And your burnt offerings are continually before Me. “I shall take no young bull out of your house Nor male goats out of your folds. “For every beast of the forest is Mine, The cattle on a thousand hills. “I know every bird of the mountains, And everything that moves in the field is Mine. “If I were hungry I would not tell you, For the world is Mine, and all it contains. “Shall I eat the flesh of bulls Or drink the blood of male goats? “Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving And pay your vows to the Most High; Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.”
Psalms 51:17 “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.”
Even Jeremiah, as the city was being destroyed, was saying:
Jeremiah 29:10-14 “For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place. ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. ‘I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will restore your fortunes and will gather you from all the nations and from all the places where I have driven you,’ declares the LORD, ‘and I will bring you back to the place from where I sent you into exile.’”
It was always about humbling yourself and seeking God.
It has always been about valuing God over anything else.
It is always about gaining God.
This is the value of the Gospel as well.
• We leave sin
• We forsake the world
• We turn our back on our dreams
• We loose our relationships
• BUT WE GAIN CHRIST!!!
• He is the pearl of the great value, for which we gladly sell it all.
• He is the treasure in the field, for which we gladly lose it all.
Philippians 3:7-8 “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,”
DON’T MISS WHAT IS IMPORTANT.
Have we not recently learned the lesson from the church at Ephesus?
• Did we not hear Jesus telling them that if they had left their first love and if they
didn’t repent He would remove their lampstand?
• How is that any different than what God did in the Old Testament when
He destroyed the temple?
Don’t miss the point of it all.
It’s about a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
• Don’t just return to Israel…
• Don’t just return to the temple…
• Don’t just return to church…
• RETURN TO CHRIST, RETURN TO GOD
That is God’s message through Zechariah
To all of these who are working so hard on building this temple.
The temple won’t be worth anything if I’m not in it,
And I’m not returning to you until you return to Me.
A Call to Return
#2 A CALL TO REMEMBER
Zechariah 1:4-5
In case you missed the point of those previous two verses,
It gets a little more direct here.
“Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaimed, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.” But they did not listen or give heed to Me,” declares the LORD.”
Now we find out a little more as to what He means by return.
“Return now from your evil ways and fro your evil deeds.”
It was their sin that facilitated their abandonment of God.
They chose sin over God.
And God warned them over and over through the mouths of the prophets
But they would not listen or give heed.
James 1:19-25 “This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.”
James said a man must be “quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.”
That is not a verse about the attitude; that is a verse about how you handle the word of God.
• Be quick to hear what God has to say.
• When God speaks don’t argue with it.
• And when God condemns you don’t’ get angry, be humble.
• For if you argue with God or ignore what He has to say you will never achieve the righteousness He requires.
BUT THAT WAS THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.
God warned them over and over and over and over through the prophets
And they didn’t want to hear it.
Isaiah 30:9-11 “For this is a rebellious people, false sons, Sons who refuse to listen To the instruction of the LORD; Who say to the seers, “You must not see visions”; And to the prophets, “You must not prophesy to us what is right, Speak to us pleasant words, Prophesy illusions. “Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, Let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
And God wants to make sure these people know the effect of all that.
(5) “Your fathers, where are they?”
• I’ll tell you where they are, they are dead.
• Many of them died in Israel during the attack, and the rest died in Babylon.
“And the prophets, do they live forever?”
That is to say, “Do you think God just warns and warns and warns and warns and ever does anything about it?” NO
Zechariah is preaching the same message to you
That Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel,
And a host of other prophets preached to your fathers.
They didn’t listen and look where it got them.
You had better listen this time.
“Return to Me”
We learn a lot from the judgments of the past don’t we?
This isn’t a joke.
A Call to Return, A Call to Remember
#3 A CALL TO RECOGNIZE
Zechariah 1:6
What are they to recognize?
THAT GOD ALWAYS WINS
“But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers?”
THAT IS TO SAY, Did they ever reach a point where My word finally got through to them and they had to face it?
SURE IT DID.
“Then they repented and said, ‘Alas the LORD of hosts purposed to do to us in accordance with our ways and our deeds, so He has dealt with us.’”
He is reminding them that their fathers stubbornly refused God
And it brought about a severe judgment,
But it was only a matter of time before they repented.
It was a shame it took such difficulty to get them to repent,
But they repented.
We just studied it.
Daniel 9:3-14 “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, “Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. “Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land. “Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us open shame, as it is this day — to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, those who are nearby and those who are far away in all the countries to which You have driven them, because of their unfaithful deeds which they have committed against You. “Open shame belongs to us, O Lord, to our kings, our princes and our fathers, because we have sinned against You. “To the Lord our God belong compassion and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against Him; nor have we obeyed the voice of the LORD our God, to walk in His teachings which He set before us through His servants the prophets. “Indeed all Israel has transgressed Your law and turned aside, not obeying Your voice; so the curse has been poured out on us, along with the oath which is written in the law of Moses the servant of God, for we have sinned against Him. “Thus He has confirmed His words which He had spoken against us and against our rulers who ruled us, to bring on us great calamity; for under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what was done to Jerusalem. “As it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come on us; yet we have not sought the favor of the LORD our God by turning from our iniquity and giving attention to Your truth. “Therefore the LORD has kept the calamity in store and brought it on us; for the LORD our God is righteous with respect to all His deeds which He has done, but we have not obeyed His voice.”
After the total destruction of Jerusalem and 70 years in captivity yes,
The word of the prophets finally overtook them.
AND THIS IS IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND.
• You can refuse to return to God.
• You can be obstinate about your sin.
BUT IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL YOU REPENT.
The Bible says that “Every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord”
• Jesus told the Pharisees that there was coming a day when they
would seek Him like crazy but would not be able to find Him.
Of course that day would be once they were already in hell.
• Do you we not remember the rich man in hades begging Abraham
to send Lazarus to warn his brothers?
I PROMISE YOU FRIENDS EVERYONE REPENTS.
Sooner or later the truth of God gets through to everyone.
The tragedy is what it takes for some to crack.
It took the destruction of Jerusalem
And 70 years in Babylon for Israel to crack.
It will take a trip to hell for others, but no one escapes God’s will.
That is why it is so foolish for sinners to be so obstinate against God.
They are going to give their sin up,
It’s just a shame that many do it too late.
And so you understand the warning of Zechariah here.
• Don’t be like your fathers.
• Don’t just return to the temple, return to God.
• Your fathers wouldn’t and look where it got them.
• Don’t make God put you through 70 years of captivity to get your attention.
“Return to Me…that I may return to you.”
Building the temple is a great thing to do,
But don’t miss the point like your fathers did.
I destroyed that temple you’re rebuilding
Because I don’t want the temple, I want your heart.
What an application for each of us as well.
