"In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. 2 Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer, Regem-melech, and their men to plead for the Lord’s favor 3 by asking the priests who were at the house of the Lord of Hosts as well as the prophets, “Should we mourn and fast in the fifth month as we have done these many years?” 4 Then the word of the Lord of Hosts came to me: 5 “Ask all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and in the seventh months for these 70 years, did you really fast for Me? 6 When you eat and drink, don’t you eat and drink simply for yourselves? 7 Aren’t these the words that the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and secure,along with its surrounding cities, and when the southern region and the Judean foothills were inhabited?” 8 The word of the Lord came to Zechariah: 9 “The Lord of Hosts says this: Make fair decisions. Show faithful love and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor, and do not plot evil in your hearts against one another. 11 But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they closed their ears so they could not hear. 12 They made their hearts like a rock so as not to obey the law or the words that the Lord of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of Hosts. 13 Just as He had called, and they would not listen, so when they called, I would not listen,” says the Lord of Hosts. 14 “I scattered them with a windstorm over all the nations that had not known them, and the land was left desolate behind them, with no one coming or going. They turned a pleasant land into a desolation.”
Zechariah 7:1-14
Beloved, the emphasis of the message in our text today, is to draw an even closer connection with the past to the present. In the earlier generation, just as in Zechariah's day, the people needed to comprehend that God desired inner spiritual reality rather than external formalism. The basic mistake of the preexilic nation had been its clear failure to obey the Word of the Lord which resulted in devastation and captivity. The same fundamental falter, which Zechariah asserts is being made by the restored community.
They were lapsing into the same social, moral and ethical sins that brought on the ruin of their fathers and that sin was their failure to obey the Word from their hearts. The people must learn the lesson that the nation's life centers around its attitude toward and response to the Word of God. Therefore, God uses the consequences of past disobedience to serve as a warning for the present. I believe, we, the church, can today, learn much from this lesson.
Good Morning Beloved,
Thank you all for joining us today
Heavenly Father,
Today, I think You for the truth we are about to receive, in Your written Word,
for the gifts of discernment, and interpretation given by Your Spirit
I pray Lord, that You would reach down, touch
our hearts as we search, and look, and examine – that we would be honest with ourselves and our eyes be open enough to really see what’s going on in there. And if by chance, it’s sin, that we would just confess those sins, and in true repentance, turn toward You. Father, we give thanks, that You have called unto us in grace; You have pleaded with us, and You have warned us, that there is yet a place of blessing, if we want it.
Lord, I just pray, for those of us who would come, that under no circumstance would we turn away, but that we know there will be open arms to embrace us, unto the end, that we might settle every issue with You
we ask and pray this
in Jesus’ name
Amen.
I would like to invite you now, to open your Bible with me, to the book of Zechariah, chapter 7, verses 1-14. Many believe these passages are difficult to understand, many are prophetic and apocalyptic. This rich new text and marvelous Word comes to us from the book of Zechariah, allow me to just read this to you, so that can settle it in our hearts and minds. Zechariah 7:1-14.
"In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer, Regem-melech, and their men to plead for the Lord’s favor by asking the priests who were at the house of the Lord of Hosts as well as the prophets, “Should we mourn and fast in the fifth month as we have done these many years?”
Then the word of the Lord of Hosts came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and in the seventh months for these 70 years, did you really fast for Me? When you eat and drink, don’t you eat and drink simply for yourselves? Aren’t these the words that the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and secure, along with its surrounding cities, and when the southern region and the Judean foothills were inhabited?”
The word of the Lord came to Zechariah: “The Lord of Hosts says this: Make fair decisions. Show faithful love and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor, and do not plot evil in your hearts against one another. But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder; they closed their ears so they could not hear. They made their hearts like a rock so as not to obey the law or the words that the Lord of Hosts had sent by His Spirit through the earlier prophets. Therefore great anger came from the Lord of Hosts. Just as He had called, and they would not listen, so when they called, I would not listen,” says the Lord of Hosts. “I scattered them with a windstorm over all the nations that had not known them, and the land was left desolate behind them, with no one coming or going. They turned a pleasant land into a desolation."
Let's begin with verse 7, which is a reminder to the people in greater detail what has been previously said in the Word from the Lord. Then the Word of the LORD came to Zechariah saying, God demands justice. Once again, Zechariah in words renewed to him by the direct inspiration of God's Spirit gives the gist of the message of the former prophets.
And in chapter 7, verses 4-5, "Then the word of the Lord of Hosts came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth and in the seventh months for these 70 years, did you really fast for Me?" It forms the introduction to His authoritative declaration. If the wayward people and priests are to obey the Word of God, they must hear it clearly, plainly and unequivocally. Therefore, we have the repeated stress of inspiration and of Divine Authority.
Then, the next several verses reveal social, moral and ethical areas where repentance is needed. And in verse 9, he reminds the people of God, His call to practice justice. "The Lord of Hosts says this: Make fair decisions. Show faithful love and compassion to one another."
It is therefore note-worthy, that within man's duties to his neighbor are stressed.
And as we read in I John 4:20-21, for if one does not love his brother who he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? "If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For the person who does not love his brother he has seen cannot love the God he has not seen. And we have this command from Him: The one who loves God must also love his brother."
These social, moral and ethical commands are the most ordinary tests of obedience to God and lie so near the surface that no deep spiritual discernment is necessary to form a correct estimate of them or to understand that failure to perform them is proof positive of disobedience to God's Word.
Let us look at the four commands or tests of their spiritual reality that the Lord gave the people in verses 9 and 10. The first test, commanded is to: "Dispense True Justice." Dispense, or shephoke, is imperative and means a judicial decision based on the truth or objective evidence.
As written in Ezekiel 18:8-9, which says, "He doesn’t lend at interest or for profit but keeps his hand from wrongdoing and carries out true justice between men. He follows My statutes and keeps My ordinances, acting faithfully. Such a person is righteous; he will certainly live.
Administration of justice is to be according to the truth. This judgment based on truth is justice exercised with utter impartiality, with an unbiased weighing of all evidence and reaching a non subjective, non-personal, rendering, as in Leviticus 19:15-18, which teaches us, "You must not act unjustly when deciding a case. Do not be partial to the poor or give preference to the rich; judge your neighbor fairly. You must not go about spreading slander among your people; you must not jeopardize your neighbor’s life; I am Yahweh.
“You must not harbor hatred against your brother. Rebuke your neighbor directly, and you will not incur guilt because of him. Do not take revenge or bear a grudge against members of your community, but love your neighbor as yourself; I am Yahweh."
This was a personal requirement as well as one that was to affect the conduct of public officials.
It is the task of seeing and making just moral, religious, spiritual, political, social and economic decisions. Both individuals and leaders in Israel were also exploiting people for personal gain. Their behavior in such matters revealed the state of their hearts and the character of the nation.
Today, we are still to strive to bring about such a proper and fair ordering of our society. The proper desire was perhaps best said by Amos, in Amos 5:24, "But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never failing stream!"
The 2nd test or command is to: "Practice Kindness and Compassion." Practice literally means do or work. Practicing kindness, sweetness, a steadfast love, or the Hebrew word, hesed, or chesed, which means that someone who is in a position to help, freely does. The word compassion is related to the root word for womb. It indicates a maternal kind of love that grows and matures others, a watching over those more helpless.
They are, therefore, to have a brotherly attitude toward each characterizing those born from the same womb. Kindness and compassion are to be the order of day between a man and his neighbor. Kindness and compassion are the two great demands of righteousness and love.
Then, in verse 10, which addresses categories of people, those who are more susceptible to being cheated, oppressed, or simply forgotten in society. "and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise evil in our hearts against one another.
The 3rd command or test is "do not oppress" the helpless and less fortunate. The widow and orphan have much in common with the sojourner, that is a stranger or alien, and the poor. They represent the most common victims of oppression, as described in Deuteronomy 10:18, "He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing. 19 You also must love the foreigner, since you were foreigners in the land..."
And Isaiah 1:17, teaches us, "Learn to do what is good. Seek justice. Correct the oppressor.
Defend the rights of the fatherless. Plead the widow’s cause.
Verse 23, in the same book and chapter says, "Your rulers are rebels, friends of thieves. They all love graft and chase after bribes. They do not defend the rights of the fatherless, and the widow’s case never comes before them.
These are the more defenseless members of society without the social position, power or economic means to stand up for themselves and therefore are particularly exposed to the unscrupulousness of godless men. Exodus 22:22-24 very powerfully says, "You must not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, they will no doubt cry to Me, and I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will burn, and I will kill you with the sword; then your wives will be widows and your children fatherless."
Therefore each is singled out as not to be taken advantage of in their helplessness. Those who do so plainly manifest their greed and godlessness. Oppression is denounced ever so frequently in the Old Testament, that there is no real need of an exhaustive list of reference or supporting Scriptures here.
The 4th command is, "Do not think evil." God's people were not even to think evil of one another. After mentioning outward manifestations of wrong doing the prophet cites the root of evil from which such wrongs come but can not be so readily seen; the evil plans of the heart. True morality measures the thoughts and deeds according to the motives of the heart. The secret longing of the heart must be pure as found in Micah 2:1, which says, "Woe to those who dream up wickedness
and prepare evil plans on their beds! At morning light they accomplish it because the power is in their hands."
This prohibition excludes not only designs but desires to get back at, in revenge or even an attitude of ill-will, vindictiveness or animosity. It is in the heart where true religion must begin. The clear inference is that the people of the restored community need to repent, changing their way of their thinking and living, best they make a 180 degree turn and begin to practice this ethical teaching and that would turn their fasting from mere formalistic legalism and therefore, a hypocrisy into seeking the face of God. God seeks truth in the inward life and expects it be manifested to those about us.
And then we come to man's rebellion, the positive demands of verses 9 and 10 certain conditions are added that would have kept flagrant injustice in check if man had only listened and obeyed God's Word. There's a variety of expressions are used to convey this thought of man's obstinate rebellion.
The three indictments of verse 11 together along with verse 12, represent a pertinacious progression of evil. Though repeatedly warned and lovingly entreated by the Lord, there remains a refusal of the pre-exilic people to obey the word as stated in verse 11. However, they continue to refuse to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and immobilized their ears from hearing God's Word.
The accounting of how people had responded to the LORD's message in the past lists four rebellions.
1st, "They refused to pay attention." They looked the other way as if they had not been spoken to. When they were bidden to do something they simply refused obedience. Not only did they persist in wickedness and injustice but they refused the admonitions and exhortations frequently given in God's name.
It was a deliberate act on their part, not only of not giving the proper attention to the message that was being presented to them, but in refusing to act upon it. They had heard it, and they deliberately decided to do nothing about it. They refused to listen to the LORD's words, mend their ways and repent.
Jeremiah 5:3, "Lord, don’t Your eyes look for faithfulness? You have struck them, but they felt no pain. You finished them off, but they refused to accept discipline. They made their faces harder than rock, and they refused to return."
Then, we read the 2nd rebellion was, "they turned a stubborn shoulder." Instead of receiving God's Word, being moved to serve Him with joyful and glad hearts, as it says in Deuteronomy 28:47-48,
"Because you didn’t serve the Lord your God with joy and a cheerful heart, even though you had an abundance of everything, you will serve your enemies the Lord will send against you, in famine, thirst, nakedness, and a lack of everything. He will place an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you."
And finding His yoke easy and His burden light, Matthew 11:28-30, which says, "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Instead, they turned from it. The picture in the language is of an animal refusing to be bound by the constraint of a yoke and continually rebelling against indicated directions. Pre-exile Israel had refused to give heed to God's Word being rebellious against its control and authority over their lives.
That brings us to the 3rd rebellion is, "they stopped their ears." Literally, they made heavy their ears. This is but a persistent refusal to heed God's Word, so that the word spoken or preached no longer reaches them. Beloved, there are none so deaf as those that refuse hear! This was done by filling their minds with prejudices against the Word of God and resolving that nothing said to them would they consider.
The figure of speech use here, "they made their ears heavy" implies the meaning, they deliberately refused to listen to God and accordingly were therefore, responsible for their unresponsiveness.
As described in Isaiah 6:10, "Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes;
otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds,
turn back, and be healed."
One of the most tragic moral consequences of men turning away from doing the will of God is that they have ears yet they don't hear and eyes yet they do not see and so, God holds them accountable. Then, verse 12 states that they were blocking off any spiritual response to what the LORD was saying to them and then gives God's reaction. And they made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the LORD of Hosts sent by His Spirit through the former prophets; therefore great wrath came upon them from the LORD of Hosts.
In the 4th and final rebellion is "and they made their hearts like flint." A climatic point is reached here. With such deliberate and persistent rejection of God's Word as verse 11 depicts over time must produce a hardened, cold and unresponsive state of heart described here. Which occurs, when one's heart becomes so utterly immune to the influences of the Word it warrants its comparison to an impenetrably hardened substance, liken to flint or a diamond, a substance that can mark however, cannot be marked on.
We see a picture of this in Ezekiel 3, "I have made your forehead like a diamond, harder than flint. Don’t be afraid of them or discouraged by the look on their faces, even though they are a rebellious house."
Notice "they made their hearts," so they are morally responsible for their state. Nothing is so hard, so intractable, so inflexible, just as with the heart of a presumptuous sinner, they can thank themselves for their present condition.
Major pharmaceutical companies make billions of dollars selling drugs that assist in preventing an arterial disease, known as Atherosclerosis, which means hardening of the arteries, a serious condition that can lead to heart attacks, which kill thousands of people each year.
This however, a far more serious condition than Atherosclerosis, as it is hardening of the heart, and it cannot be prevented by any pharmaceutical wonder drug. The prophet Zechariah sternly warned the Israelites. Yet, they had hardened their hearts and refused to listen to the words of the Lord. Symptoms of this deadly condition were their refusal to execute true justice, their failure to show mercy and compassion, verse 9. As a result, the Lord became terribly angry, therefore, stopped listening to them, as we discover in verse 13.
Beloved, while it's terribly important to keep plaque from forming in our arteries, it's far more important to keep our hearts from becoming callous to people who are important to God: widows, orphans, aliens, and the poor, those mentioned in verse 10.
Believe me, its crucial to follow your doctor's orders to prevent our arteries from hardening.
However, it is even more detrimental to obey and keep God's Word, so that we prevent our hearts from becoming hardened like flint, to the needs of others.
Ask God to reveal someone who needs the help of someone with a caring and compassionate heart. For to love Christ is to have a heart for others. What they refused to hear and received into their hearts so that they might obey was the law. The law is literally the Torah. The Torah is the Jewish name for the first five books of the Bible, and the prophets is the name for the rest of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Here we also have a very remarkable statement of the Bible's own claim to Divine inspiration. Though the former prophets were the human agents, there was a Divine agent, God's Holy Spirit, who is active in giving His Word. Therefore even in days of old, there was a correct understanding of inspiration as the work of God's Spirit. It is Word worthy of all the honorable claims in its behalf and cannot be disobeyed with immunity.
Long term disobedience can only have but one result. Therefore great wrath came from the LORD of Hosts." The people's disobedience to revealed truth resulted in His Divine anger. For God is not mocked, and how ever great His patience and long suffering, His anger is in the end poured out upon all who are obstinately impenitent.
We see God's justice in verses 13 and 14. Zechariah tells of several other resultant calamities that overtook this disobedient generation. In verse 13, which states that they are cursed with powerlessness in prayer, then verse 14, they are scattered among the nations, their land became desolate. "And it came about that just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen" says the LORD of Hosts;
Just as the LORD had cried to them by His prophets for so long, so often, and so patiently, yet they would not hear, so they cried to Him in their distress for deliverance and He would not hear.
The first inevitable result of disobedience is powerlessness in prayer. In the years of calamity God turned a deaf ear to their cries just as they had perilously turned a deaf ear to Him when He called to them in their prosperity about their sins. They had been forewarned that if God kept calling to them and they refused to give Him audience that they would keep calling and He would not hear just retaliation.
And it came to pass - the solemn and awful words which have not only verified themselves in the terrible history of the Jewish people for last 2000 years, but still stand as a warning to the individual sinner whether Jew or Gentile, that those of unbelief who will not heed God will not enter into His rest.
Some additional results of the judgment of God are given in verse 14. But I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them, so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate."
Since they demonstrated no kindness or compassion neither did God withdrew His. Instead of hearkening to their prayer, He scattered them with the violence of a tornado among the nations. He scattered them about like chafe before a whirlwind. The words scatter, to storm or to race and whirl hurl them by a storm wind, away upon the nations express a strong violent scattering like a might hurricane or tornado would scatter objects. So Israel was scattered among the nations with a reckless abandon as a whirlwind might display in scattering objects in its fury. The rebellious found His authority incontestable and His power irresistible, this Master they had spurned and defied.
Here, the conclusion lays the guilt of the whole desolation of the land upon the disobedient forefathers. Since they had violated all the laws of their land, so God took sway all the glories of it. Thus we have this picture of complete emptiness and desolation. Even the roads were void of travelers for no one passed through the land. And the people had no one to thank for it but themselves for their own wickedness made the pleasant land, the land of desire and delight, the land flowing with milk and honey, desolate, deserted and empty. The hardness and unbending of their hearts turned the land to ruin, a hard and unyielding place.
In Closing...
By pointing out the true issue of indifference and disobedience to the Word of God. Instead of a comparatively insignificant issue, God points to the motive, to the underlying cause of evil of which they had not yet truly repented. These traditions were nothing to God in and of themselves, so long as there was no real sorrow for sin and a heartfelt desire to do His will as expressed in His Word.
Therefore, in comparison their ritual observing of fasts or traditions was an unimportant matter. Obeying the Word of God was the all-important question they faced. If they would honestly face this issue the question the Bethelites asked would automatically be answered. The question we need to ask ourselves is, "Am I being indifferent to the Word of God?"
"True enough; they were broken off by unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but be afraid. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you either. Therefore, consider God’s kindness and severity: severity toward those who have fallen but God’s kindness toward you—if you remain in His kindness. Otherwise you too will be cut off. And even they, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, because God has the power to graft them in again. Romans 11:20-23
We can see that things moved far from the first question about observing a tradition to consider the basic attitudes that were being revealed. This is often the way when we approach God. We do not perceive what our real problem is. The matter that perplexes us may well be the symptom of something much deeper, which has to be dealt with first of all.
Beloved, are we sure that our conduct is able to stand up to scrutiny? When we worship God, engaging specifically in religious duties, are we giving Him the first place? Is our thinking putting Him first, a place that is rightfully His? Do we have the same awareness of God and what He desires us to have in our everyday conduct? We may not think of ourselves as oppressors, as those in verse 7-10, but are we? Surely this can only true of tyrannical rulers and criminal organizations? However, oppression occurs whenever we see others who are vulnerable, ignorant and poor, then take advantage of their situations, according to our own benefit.
God is still calling on each of us, we are each responsible for our own response! Now that He who spoke before by the prophets has spoken to all of us through His Son, Jesus Christ, should we not be even more prepared to respond? And do so correctly?
I pray that we will all consider our response thoughtfully and prayerfully.
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
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