Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Zechariah means "whom the Lord remembers," and I love that because the Lord doesn't forget. You and I, we forget, but the Lord, he never forgets. There are times where I'm pretty sure Israel felt forgotten. And so, that's kind of a thing just to remember out of Zechariah, that God remembers. And that's going to be something Zechariah will remind the children of Israel, that "I have not forgotten you, nor have I forsaken you."

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with a comforting message from an Old Testament prophet for believers today. Having returned from exile and tasked with the rebuilding of the temple, God assured his people that his presence was among them still.

In today's word, Pastor Brett Meador reflects on a series of powerful visions given to the prophet Zechariah for the discouraged people with a call to repentance and reliance on him, trusting he is still at work beyond what we can see.

Kurt: And we're so glad you've joined us on Today's Word as we continue in our Minor Prophet Old Testament series. Pastor Brett, thanks for being here.

Brett Meador: It's always a pleasure. Haggai and Zechariah were both speaking to the same group of people, and it was during that really key time for them when they were rebuilding the temple. While Haggai focused more on the practical logistical rebuilding, Zechariah wanted the people to lift their eyes just a little higher and look more at the prophetic, the spiritual side of what God was doing.

Kurt: We've mentioned this before, but most people are familiar with some of the big prophetic books like Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel. And this Minor Prophet series features really short books, but every bit as powerful, including Zechariah, which actually is one of the longer books of the Minor Prophets. Brett, what can we expect from this book?

Brett Meador: Well, Kurt, Zechariah is rich, and it's full of prophetic visions, symbolism, powerful prophecies about the Messiah. In fact, it's one of the most quoted Old Testament books in the New Testament. Zechariah becomes really important to us when we see the bigger picture.

You see references of the triumphal entry when Jesus would ride into Jerusalem, the betrayal of Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, even the piercing of the spear in Christ's side—all of that was foretold by Zechariah. It reminds us that God really had a long-range plan as it relates to the Messiah.

Kurt: Brett, that really is awesome to know that the prophecy in the book of Zechariah almost 500 years before the birth of Christ would be so detailed in its description. And as you said, God's long-range plan for the world. Well, now let's jump into this message in the book of Zechariah. Here again is Pastor Brett Meador.

Brett Meador: As we approach this new book, it really follows suit that it would follow Haggai. Just two little chapters, Haggai was a short-winded but powerful prophet, and Zechariah is kind of the opposite. He's powerful, but he's very long-winded.

Where Haggai is the guy running around with a tape measure and just very logical—he's kind of your more engineering kind of mind—Zechariah is more the mystical, mysterious type, and he's got all these dreams and what have you. It's very apocalyptic, Zechariah's prophecy is.

But some of the background of Zechariah before we dive into this book: the first thing is his name, Zechariah. It means "whom the Lord remembers." And I love that because the Lord doesn't forget. You and I, we forget. It's amazing sometimes the things you forget, but the Lord, he never forgets. He'll never have to apologize and say, "Oh man, I forgot about you. Sorry about that, my bad." That's not the Lord; that's humanity.

In Israel's history, there were times where I'm pretty sure Israel felt forgotten. One of those times was probably that 70 years of captivity in Babylon. Zechariah lives during a time where he was born in captivity in Babylon and would later make his way to Jerusalem and give his prophecy there in Jerusalem.

It is kind of the opposite of Daniel. If you remember, Daniel started out in Jerusalem, then the Babylonians came in 586, crushed Jerusalem, and Daniel and the guys were taken from Jerusalem and gave his prophecy while in Babylon. So, Zechariah does the opposite of that. But as it turns out, they're both very apocalyptic books. In fact, we're going to see how Daniel and Zechariah have some real similarities.

But the thing I love even in the time of Israel's captivity, I like that Zechariah is the one whose name means "whom the Lord remembers." The Lord never forgot Israel. He never forsook Israel. And that's something maybe you feel sometimes, where you feel forgotten by the Lord. But don't sell the Lord short; he always remembers.

I love that story of Noah on the ark. He was on the ark for just over a year, if you do the math, by the way. You say, "I thought it was 40 days and 40 nights." That's how long it rained. But man, I wonder if Noah felt forgotten there on the ark floating around. About halfway through that, in about 150 days, the Bible says, "And God remembered Noah."

I always laugh because did he forget the one guy that's alive on the earth? Like, "Oh yeah, my bad. I forgot Noah's floating out there. I better do something about that guy." No, the Lord, the idea when it says, "And God remembered Noah," it means that he never forgot him. And that's a beautiful thing. That's Genesis 8:1, by the way.

So, keep that in mind. I love Psalm 8:4 where it says, "What is man that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man that thou visitest him?" It's amazing the Lord remembers us at all or thinks about us at all. That's what the psalmist is rhetorically asking this question: how is it that God remembers anything about us? But I love that he's very specific, like there in Genesis 8:1 where it says, "And God remembered Noah and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark, and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the winds assuaged."

You might be in a dark time, just remember this: that God remembered Noah. And by the way, one of the phrases in Genesis I also love is where it says, "And Noah found grace in the sight of the Lord." God remembered Noah and he found grace. That's what God does for you. You might feel punished, abandoned, betrayed, let go, but I love how God always remembers us and he never lets us go. You might be in an ark season feeling confined. Things stink; your life stinks. I wonder if the ark stunk? Maybe the Lord just did a miraculous ventilation in the ark, but I have a hunch it smelled bad. But God remembers you and he knows what you're going through.

And so, that's kind of a thing just to remember out of Zechariah, that God remembers. And that's going to be something Zechariah will remind the children of Israel, that "I have not forgotten you, nor have I forsaken you." Now, don't be confused. There are actually 30 different Zechariahs in the Bible. Did you know that? There's a lot of Zechariahs, so you can easily be confused.

But this one has a few marks on his life that stand out. How do we identify what Zechariah we're talking about? Well, the biggest identification is who Zechariah is related to. And so, let's start out Chapter 1. It says in Zechariah Chapter 1 verse 1: "In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying..."

Now, before we get into what was said there, this really identifies which Zechariah we're talking about. Now, by the way, remember in the Bible in the Hebrew, there's not really a word that's very much used for the word "grandfather." That's only a word we have. Normally the Hebrew is more descriptive than English. One of those words where we're more descriptive is who our father and our grandfathers are. In the Bible, it's just "father." Like when the Bible calls Belshazzar his father Nebuchadnezzar, it was actually his grandfather, technically. But the Bible is not making a mistake there; that's just the way they handle it. He's the father of him and the father of him, and they just go through the begets and all that.

But Zechariah, the son of Berechiah and also Iddo or Iddo, this Zechariah, it means that, number one, he was a priest. One of the few Bible authors that's actually a priest from being a priest in the temple. Zechariah was a priest because his grandfather Iddo was a priest. You read that in Nehemiah 12:4 and 16.

So, this Zechariah you could say is arguably the most famous of the Zechariahs in the sense that he's quoted 71 times in the New Testament. That's pretty radical for a minor prophet to be quoted 71 times. That's pretty cool. And by the way, one of the things about Zechariah that's important to understand is a lot of people read this book and say, "Man, this is one of those weird books. What's going on with Zechariah?" Well, no, he is a mystic. He's mysterious and he has these dreams and visions and the Lord does that by his Spirit.

You say, "Well, I don't like that," but you've got to remember this is the fun part of the Bible. There's an old saying, "That which is concealed in the Old Testament is revealed in the New Testament." So, one of the fun things we get to do is read the book of Zechariah, and most people at first glance are like, "Man, what in the world is this about?" But a lot of the answers come from where Zechariah is quoted in the New Testament, those 71 times that I'm referring to.

And so, it makes it kind of fun when you read the book of Zechariah to kind of decode what's being said there. But one third of the quotes of Zechariah are quoted in the Gospels by the Gospel writers of Zechariah. But his number one book that he's quoted in the New Testament is the book of Revelation. The book of Revelation quotes Zechariah 31 times.

So, one of the things we always say as Bible prophecy buffs is Daniel's the key that unlocks the book of Revelation and the book of Revelation's the key that unlocks Daniel. But you might throw Zechariah in the mix of those as well as a book that's sort of mysterious. It's very apocalyptic, very much end-times oriented. Both the end times and a local application, like we saw in Haggai and some of the other prophets, we're going to see both a local application of his time period, but mostly we're going to see futuristic apocalyptic kinds of things. Local and apocalyptic in the book of Zechariah, so keep your eye out for that.

Remember that dual fulfillment of prophecy we've talked about, where there's an immediate, maybe application of a lesser sort, but then there's a greater application in a futuristic, whole-world kind of application. One of the things that's fun about Zechariah's prophecies is it's not just apocalyptic in the sense of end times, but it's very Messianic. That is just a fancy word that we use saying the Old Testament writing about Jesus. And there are very specific prophecies that Zechariah is going to say about the first coming of Christ, which are kind of interesting things along with the second coming, both prophecies, first coming and second coming.

Also, like the book of Daniel, Zechariah really confounds the critics, and I love that. You know, the Bible skeptics, those guys that say, "Well, we know the book of Daniel's a forgery because how could he write things about the future with such accuracy?" We say because God knows the beginning from the end. God knows the future, and it's super easy for us to figure that out.

But they have twisted and contorted things to try to figure out ways that the book of Daniel's a forgery. Well, they did the same thing for a long time with the book of Zechariah because of some of the very specific Messianic prophecies about Jesus. So, they said, "Well, the book of Zechariah must be dated after Jesus came on the earth." But we know that the book of Zechariah has very specific dating of 520 BC, and it's very clearly written.

Even in our first verse here, when it says "in the eighth month, in the second month of the year Darius came the word of the Lord to Zechariah." So, we know very specifically. And by the way, both Haggai and Zechariah are very specific on dates. We'll talk about that maybe in a second. But we know that it was 520. Now, if you don't believe that, you say, "Well, it must have been written after Christ." And again, what's the easiest argument for defending the book of Zechariah's not being dated at the time after Christ?

The Septuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and it includes Zechariah. And the Septuagint predates Jesus by 233 years. And by the way, the Dead Sea Scrolls was another amazing find because these critics would always say, "Well, the book of Zechariah or Isaiah or Daniel that we have right now is nothing like the old one. It's been tweaked and people have added stuff, and that's how they get these prophecies." And there are two or three or four Isaiahs who wrote the book of Isaiah and all this stuff, the twisting of scripture that they're trying to do.

But one of the greatest things, the Dead Sea Scrolls when they found them, which also very much predate Jesus' time period, the Dead Sea Scrolls show there's only one difference in the book of Zechariah you and I have right now and the book of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and that is Chapter 8 and 9 are combined into one chapter. Well, that should make me lose my faith. I think I'm going to because Chapter 8 and 9 are combined into one; that should be a showstopper. No, the chapters aren't even inspired. The chapters were added later. I'm thankful for chapters, but it's just so funny. The Dead Sea Scrolls once again confirm the Bible we have today is accurate and it's exactly what it was back in those days.

So, some would argue that there's more Messianic prophecy in Zechariah than all the other minor prophets combined. So, if you break down the book of Zechariah, Chapters 1 through 6, it's an interesting experience from one night that Zechariah has. Chapters 1 through 6, we're going to see eight visions or dreams, you might call them. Which one is it? Well, you be the judge as we read this. He's going to have eight visions and dreams that Zechariah's going to have in one night.

And basically, verses 1 through 6 is an introduction and it's a call to repentance where Zechariah is calling the people of Israel to repent from their sins. In fact, the old preacher G.L. Robinson said this: "One of the strongest and most intense calls to repentance is found in verses 2 through 6 of Zechariah Chapter 1." So, it's a pretty intense call to repentance.

And like I mentioned earlier, the time period's the same as Haggai, 520 BC. They're starting to rebuild the temple and the date, of course, 520, we actually have the actual general vicinity. It says basically "the eighth month in the second year." Now, remember the lunar calendar's different than our Gregorian calendar, so it's either October or November of our calendar. This is two months after Haggai's first sermon, if you remember. We went through the months of Haggai's sermons: October, December. Well, after Haggai's first sermon, two months after that, Zechariah gave this eight-vision prophecy.

So, they're contemporaries of each other and they're preaching really the same thing. "Well, Brett, why don't we just use one of them instead of both of them?" What I love about Haggai and Zechariah, like I mentioned earlier, is how different they are. Zechariah, I already said, the mystic and he's long-winded—we've got 14 chapters here. Haggai gave us two chapters. There's the big difference right there. Haggai is a no-nonsense, to-the-point kind of guy, sort of "kick you in the pants" kind of guy. That's Haggai. Whereas Zechariah is more mystical, cryptic, meditative and maybe says, "Come with me and I'll show you the deeper things of God's kingdom." Like, that's the kind of guy Zechariah was.

And God uses people in different ways. Can I remind you of this? This is something the Lord put on my heart this afternoon that I think the church needs to be real careful, because the Lord uses different kinds of people and you might even say the Lord uses different kinds of ministries. And you'll hear me call out false ministries and false doctrine and false teaching; that's different. But one thing you have to be really careful about is just because somebody has a different personality, maybe a personality you don't even like, doesn't mean necessarily that they're going to be wrong.

I wonder if we lived in today and Zechariah and Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah, Haggai—I wonder how they would all think of each other today or act like each other today. Remember Ezra and Nehemiah? Do you remember the difference between those two guys? They were both contemporaries of each other. What happened when people wouldn't repent? Well, if you remember Ezra, when he'd see people unrepentant of their sins, he would pull out his beard and grieve as he's pulling out the hairs of his beard. And those of you that have beards know that's not a pleasant thing to do. But that's what Ezra does. Does anybody remember what Nehemiah went around doing? He ran around pulling out everybody else's beards. Well, that's horrible; that's not the love of Jesus.

Yeah, but God used Nehemiah and Jesus turned tables of the temple, too. And even Paul and Barnabas, I see this in the church today. There are some people that are more Paul, some people are more Barnabas. Paul was given the responsibility with the grand scheme of things. He was starting the church. That's a huge deal. He was traveling the world starting the church. And if it wasn't for Paul traveling the world, going into cities and risking his life and limb, we wouldn't have seen the church grow from Jerusalem to Judea and then all the way into Europe and even into Rome, where after Rome it scattered through all the whole world. That was Paul who did that.

Barnabas, on the other hand, didn't have that kind of ministry. He was called the Son of Consolation, and Barnabas and Paul had an argument, a disagreement when it came to John Mark. And Paul said, "Get John Mark out of here, I don't have time for this guy." And Barnabas was like, "Yeah, but I love John Mark." And what happened? Well, it seems that John Mark and Paul had a huge disagreement and they went their separate ways. But Barnabas sort of nursed John Mark back to health and sort of cared about him as a Son of Consolation, a comforter, and he was more of a one-on-one discipleship kind of guy. That was Barnabas. Paul? "I don't have time for that."

Well, which one was right, Barnabas or Paul? The answer: both. Paul had to do the grand scheme of things, Barnabas was more of a guy who ministered one-on-one. Thank the Lord for both of those guys. And I'm glad God uses different people. Peter was loud and obnoxious; John was relational and spiritual, but both of them had really cool place in Jesus's plan.

So, be careful when it comes to this whole thing where it's popular to have a podcast about this or that, and we see different behaviors. If they're doing things doctrinally wrong, well yeah, we need to call that out or essential doctrines especially. But when it comes to just different flavors and personalities and stuff like that, I think we should be a little more careful.

By the way, if you read Romans 12 on the giftings of the Spirit within the congregation, there are different kinds of people and there are different roles and different callings upon each person. And thank the Lord that makes up the body of Christ, which is a very unique and diverse kind of group of people. In my own life, I'm thankful that I've got the more comforting, consoling people that I can go to and be encouraged, but I'm also thankful I have people that are kind of "kick you in the pants" kind of people, too. And those two people don't always get along, but I'm thankful for both of them and the Lord uses both of those.

That's very much Zechariah and Haggai, both contemporaries, probably knew each other. Were they friends? I doubt it. I don't know, maybe. But they had the similar calling at a similar time, same exact time. But they're both calling to repentance and that's kind of the deal there. Let's go on in verse 2.

It says, "The Lord hath been sore displeased with your fathers. Therefore, say thou unto them, thus saith the Lord of hosts, turn ye unto me, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will turn to you, saith the Lord of hosts."

I like how it repeats this over and over. Does that remind you of someone who's saying, "saith the Lord of hosts, saith the Lord of hosts" over and over again? Who said that also? Haggai. And we talked about that. By the way, this "saith the Lord of hosts" thing, like I talked about in Haggai, it's talking about armies. There are two main things when the Bible calls the Lord the "Lord of hosts," and the reason that's an important term is that's the Lord that's coming back. That's the returning Christ, the Lord of hosts. And the idea is Lord of armies.

Well, which armies? Both. The armies of the heavenly angels and of maybe even you and me, like when Christ returns, he's returning with ten thousands of his saints. And that's us. But mostly the host, heavenly host, is referring to the angelic armies. You say, "I'm not afraid of angels." You should be. Think about Michael, think about—think about the book of Revelation. Remember there's an angel that stands on the earth in the book of Revelation who puts one foot in the ocean and one foot on the continent. It's not like standing at the beach with one foot—like a mile out in the ocean and another foot a mile inside the continent. These are big amazing powerful angels, and they're the armies that God commands.

But the second thing is also the world's armies. God actually is the Lord over them as well. And one of the things when you read the Bible is you realize God uses even worldly armies, even in our story right here. The Lord used the Babylonian army to sort of correct the Jews from their misdeeds and their sin, and we'll even read more about that here in the book of Zechariah.

So, Jesus's second coming, he's coming as the Lord of hosts or the Lord of armies, the conquering King. This is where I can't really agree with my friends that are, you know, believe in pacifism. Because the pacifist can say, "Well, the New Testament, we never see Jesus fighting anyone." True. But we do see God fighting people. And the Lord is a warrior, the Bible says, he's mighty in battle. And you say, "Well, that's God of the Old Testament." Same thing. Jesus and God are one. And don't forget in the New Testament, Jesus reminds us that he's coming as a conquering King.

So, this whole idea of pacifism and nobody ever fighting wars—like there are some people that say we should have never fought wars. A true pacifist says we should have never intervened in the Holocaust in World War II and stopped Nazi Hitler. I just can't agree with that. And I also can't agree if somebody breaks into my home and my family's at risk, I'm not going to just passively say, "Okay, let you—here's my family, have at it." That's not the way the Lord's wired us. And there's a case to be made for not just pure pacifism.

Now, there is a time to turn the other cheek, and I do worry sometimes that sometimes there might be a tendency to say shoot first, then ask questions later. If that's your attitude, then that's not very much like Jesus, I'm just telling you right now. But there is argument for defending one's family and I believe also defending one's country, and you can even make the argument of other people's safety and even your own neighborhood.

And those that believe in pure pacifism, I think they forget Romans Chapter 13. Let's review that just for a second. It says, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there's no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever, verse 2, therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain."

That's an interesting phrase there: "For he beareth not the sword in vain, for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." So, it's amazing we live in a world today that people are just so confused about power and authority and stuff like that. And we've seen corruption in law enforcement, but it's a tiny, tiny fraction of a percent of law enforcement. And the Bible tells us that the law enforcement and, by the way, military is part of God's team. It doesn't say here that as long as it's not Nero's army or if these guys are carrying their King James Bible; it doesn't say that. It says that these guys that are the powers that be, they're ordained of God. That's what the Bible says.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador illustrating God's sovereignty in his righteous judgment as in the day of the prophet Zechariah, as we pause in our new verse-by-verse study series in the book of Zechariah in Today's Word.

And there's more to learn that you'll want to be along as we continue this message next time. But first, Brett Meador is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church, just outside of Portland in West Linn, Oregon. We invite you to find out more about Pastor Brett and Athey Creek Church by going to TodaysWordRadio.com. If you've missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of his messages online at TodaysWordRadio.com.

Well, next time Pastor Brett will illustrate how with a repentant heart, the Lord stands ready to renew and restore his people, and he'll also restore you.

Guest (Male): Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.