Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: Somebody went through and made a list of all of the things Zechariah tells us that some of the other books don't tell us. That the world confederacy will be against Jerusalem. This one world government's actually going to hate Jerusalem. That comes from Zechariah.

Even stuff about the crucifixion of Christ, that he'd be pierced in his side. There was prophecy Zechariah gives about the first appearance of Christ, but also his second coming. We can just keep going. There's a huge list of things Zechariah gives us.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with prophecy of biblical proportion. Our study of Zechariah has revealed that it's a book packed with important prophecies that are even developing before our eyes as we watch nations try to meddle with Israel. But turning to chapters 12 and 13, Pastor Brett Meador also notes what will happen to these nations and the response of the Jews when these things eventually come to pass in today's word.

Brett Meador: Zechariah chapter 12. Maybe as you're plugging away in this study with us, maybe some of you are starting to see why there's a lot of church pastors that don't really like to go through or they avoid the book of Zechariah. Picture yourself trying to teach through this book if you're an amillennialist or a preterist. It'd be impossible. There's no way you could explain any of this. It would just be like, "Wow, that's a weird book," and then pass through.

But when you have what I believe is the biblical prophetic eschatology, and that is there's a very clear event list that's going to happen. I believe the Rapture of the church is the next thing on the list of things the Lord's going to do, which ushers in the Day of the Lord. And the Day of the Lord is when God intervenes and he starts by pouring out his wrath upon a Christ-rejecting sinful world and for seven years that period, the Tribulation, is going to rage.

But during that time, it's going to do two things: shake up the sinful nations but wake up God's people, the Jews. And that's the major reason why the Tribulation exists is to wake up the Jews. And that's really part of the theme that we're going to see: the waking up of the Jews seeing that, wow, we crucified the Messiah. The Jews are going to see that and Zechariah the prophet is foretelling those days when that happens during the Tribulation period and even into the beginning of the Millennial reign. And then after the Tribulation period, then Christ returns. At the end of the Tribulation period, Christ returns, Battle of Armageddon, of course, and then the Millennial Kingdom starts from there on out. Zechariah's going to touch on all these things.

So again, it's very specific and very detailed. So while a lot of Bible churches or so-called avoid parts of the Bible, you and I should be looking at these things because it'll help you understand what God's plan is. And I get sometimes people say, "Brett, why don't you teach all the different views?" And I always like to say because I don't believe them. It's hard to teach something that you think is kind of nonsense. And so I don't spend any time with that. And there's plenty of resources and you can study for yourself about what your end times view is in a pre-trib Rapture view.

And it's very to me it's very clear. And by the way, if you see a "through the Bible" teaching church—verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book—I will almost 99.999% of the time guarantee they are a pre-trib Rapture view church because they're the only view that can without turning red in the face teach through the Bible. Does that make sense to you guys? That's an important thing to know. And I think it's a huge, huge thing.

But let's talk about a few of the whys. One of the reasons why it's important is it changes the way you live. If you don't believe the Rapture of the church is going to happen in any time future or maybe you don't even believe in the Rapture at all, that's going to change your worldview. For me, it'd be really depressing, especially if you're like one of these "Kingdom Now" or dominion theology people. We're going to usher in the Kingdom of God and things are going to get better and we're going to make things better in the world and then Christ will return. We will usher that in. How are we doing with that if that's really our job description right now? I'd say we're miserably failing right now.

So that would be really depressing. But good news: the Bible actually says things are going to get worse, and then the Rapture of the church. And so that all makes sense. I believe we should be encouraged, even as 1 John chapter 3 says. "He who has this hope," the hope of the Lord's return, "purifies himself." There's a purifying effect. And that's why the Lord wants us to live as the Matthew 24 the faithful servant who's watching and waiting and ready for his return.

Let me remind you what the wicked servant is said of. This is the wicked servant in Matthew 24:48-51. It says, "But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, 'The Lord delays his coming,' and shall begin to smite his fellowservants and to eat and drink with the drunken, the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him and in an hour when he is not aware of."

By the way, I think sadly that's where a lot of Christians are today, frankly, where they have no sense of awareness of the days we're living in, which is so profound because we're living in crazy days. Very obvious to me. But anyway, they're not aware of that. Verse 51: "And the Lord will then cut him asunder and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites, where there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Are you suggesting that people that are not watching for the return of the Lord are going to hell? I'm not going to make that argument here. We can talk about this, but here's the thing: do you even want to be categorized in that category? Do you want anything to do with these people that are mentioned here? Well, it's the wicked servant, which is interesting. They are a servant of the Master in this paradigm that Jesus is arguing for, and they're called wicked because they say, "Oh, the Lord delays his coming." I don't want any part of that, no matter who you are. That's not a good posture to take.

Well, be that as it may, Zechariah chapter 12 is dealing with all these end times truths and evidence and a lot of things that we're going to talk about. I mentioned earlier that "in that day" is mentioned just here in chapter 12 seven times. Seven times "in that day." What day is that, anybody? The Day of the Lord. Jerusalem is mentioned nine times, 37 times in the book of Zechariah is Jerusalem mentioned.

By the way, when I mentioned the other day that Jerusalem's mentioned in the Bible over 800 times, some of you were like—went home and started counting. It's actually—you're like, "No Brett, it's like 167." Nope, it's actually if you include all of the idioms for Jerusalem, of which there's a lot of them in the Bible. But it's actually if you do the count including the City of the Great King, the Zion—there's like a bunch of different names for Jerusalem—it's 811 exact count.

Remember, this is an important number. The reason? The Muslims claim no, Jerusalem is a Muslim city. How many times is Jerusalem mentioned in the Quran? Zero times. That's important to know. And it didn't become Islam until very recent. As I like to remind people that it was Yasser Arafat—we were all alive when Yasser Arafat was in power for the Palestinians—it was his great-uncle who declared Jerusalem the third most holy site in all of Islam.

But the Temple Mount is the most amazing site of all. And one thing I haven't gone over is kind of sort of after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem. For a while, the Romans actually made the Temple Mount a pagan temple of Rome. They did that with the Temple Mount for a while. After that, the Byzantinians, the Byzantine people built a public building on the Temple Mount. It was just a place for public meetings.

After the Byzantines, then it became possibly a church. But after that, does anybody know what it became after that? A garbage dump. The Temple Mount for a long, long time just sat there as a garbage dump. That's kind of amazing and you kind of think about it now the world is warring over this single little piece of ground that one time was just was left as a garbage dump.

And then later the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built there. But the Temple Mount is a big deal in the Bible. And why is it such a big deal for the Muslims? Well, I'll tell you why it's a big deal and I'll put it in really simple terms. Remember when you were a little kid and nobody wanted to play with this toy over here, but then when you went over there and started playing with that toy, all the preschoolers came and said, "Hey, I want to play with that"? And you're like, "Nope, I'm playing with it." That's what happened. Same thing.

The Jews got back into Jerusalem and the Zionist movement started getting more and more filled. Nobody could care less about the Temple Mount at that time. But the Jews were like, "No, this is our holiest site." And the Jews started caring about it and actually taking care of it in the Zionist movement.

But then, like I said, Yasser Arafat's great-uncle eventually said, "No, that's ours. Mine." And that's our third most holy site. And he claimed that's where Muhammad ascended. That's why it's the third most holy site. Isn't it interesting: Jesus ascended from Jerusalem and now the Muslims, 600 years later—Muhammad came 600 years later—and they're trying to claim that no, Muhammad ascended from Jerusalem, trying to cancel out Jesus from ascending. It's really kind of embarrassing how painful the whole thing really is academically, but the world just buys it all hook, line, and sinker.

But the reason we should care about this, if you read the book of Zechariah, you might as a Gentile, as we Gentiles might say, "Whatever. Who cares what's going to happen in Jerusalem or the Jews in Israel and stuff?" But remember, we're told several places in the Bible that we should care. In fact, probably the classic scripture you should remember—and I refer to this often—that tells us we're not to be two things: arrogant or ignorant. Those are the two things we're not supposed to be.

Romans 11:25-27: "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, 'There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.'"

Zechariah's going to talk about this time period when this happens. This parallel—this is a parallel scripture with Zechariah 12 and 13 and 14. So that's kind of where we are. Let's do a quick review of the previous chapters. In section one, we had chapters 1 through 6: the visions, the eight visions of Zechariah. And then section two, we saw the questions by the people: chapters 7 and 8.

But that third section is the first and second coming of Jesus, including the Millennial Kingdom, the Tribulation; all those things are included in chapters 9 through 14. These last chapters tell us so much about the future of Israel. The list is actually long. Somebody went through and made a list of all of the things Zechariah tells us that some of the other scriptures they don't tell us. Like we learn so much: that the world confederacy will be against Jerusalem. This one world government's actually going to hate Jerusalem. That comes from the book of Zechariah.

The victory of the Jews that are going to be empowered by the Lord, even though they're going to hang by a thread, the Jews will ultimately be victorious. That comes from the book of Zechariah. The conviction of Israel nationally by the Spirit of God. God's going to convict their hearts. They're going to see the presentation of Jesus as their rejected Messiah. We're going to see the national Day of Atonement reinstituted in Zechariah, and on and on.

Even stuff about the crucifixion of Christ, that he'd be pierced in his side. There was prophecies Zechariah gives about the first appearance of Christ, but also his second coming. All kinds of things and we can just keep going. There's a huge list of things Zechariah gives us. So don't neglect Zechariah in your reading when you're studying Bible prophecy because there's so much we learn here.

So let's take a look. Zechariah 12, starting in verse 1: "The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him."

We've looked at this briefly, but I haven't really talked in depth about this. But for you science brains, Albert Einstein types, the language here of Zechariah is really fascinating because the word "stretching" is an interesting word. It means to extend, but it's also the word that they would unfurl a scroll. If you unroll a scroll, that's kind of the language we're using.

When Albert Einstein was doing his theory of relativity, dimensionality, and the idea of the universe and stuff, Einstein formally believed that there was a static universe. And then with working with other calculations, he came to the conclusion that the universe has to be continually expanding. And the language of the Hebrew Bible is shockingly accurate when it comes to the description of the universe when it says "the Lord which stretcheth forth." It doesn't mean that he did it past tense. The idea is he is stretching forth actively right now. The universe is still being unfurled like a scroll.

This is math I don't even understand. But some of the tensor calculus and stuff that Einstein and his buddies use, when the Bible touches on science, it's always amazing to me how the Bible is always right. Even though it's thousands of years old, long before—we did a whole teaching on science and the Bible and how it's amazing how the Bible doesn't get stuff wrong. There should be some crazy scripture that just goes, "Oh, well, that's really wrong."

Like when the world was trying to argue during the days of Columbus that the world was flat. They should have read the book of Job and Isaiah. One says the earth was a sphere, and then the other said that the earth was hung upon nothing. They should have read their Bibles. The Bible gets it right. "Well Brett, I happen to know where the Bible's wrong." Where's that? "Well, the Bible says the sun rises in the east, and we know that the sun doesn't rise in the east." Well, call your meteorological guy down on the news station because he still calls it the sunrise and the sunset. It's an idiom of human speech.

We're not making a scientific statement when we say the sun rises. From the perspective of humanity, it looks like the sun is rising in the sky. We know it's technically not, so we've got to not be kind of weirdos when it comes to trying to find little chinks in the armor of the Bible as it relates to science. But science has proven the Bible correct over and over again. And if there's anything that does go against the Bible and it's so-called science, I would be very skeptical of that if I were you. You'd be wise to do that.

So God is sort of in this statement setting the stage to say you should probably listen to me on this one, because I am stretching forth the universe. It's like that's pretty good credential. Should we listen to the one who stretcheth forth the universe? We should probably listen. That's the point of this statement right here is to say time to listen to this voice because this is the voice of the Lord who stretcheth forth the foundation of the earth.

But notice that last phrase in verse 1: "and formeth the spirit of man within him." When is the spirit of man formed within him? That's an interesting thing to talk about, really. By the way, one of the other beefs I have with Mormonism along with many: the deeper you get into Mormonism and studying what the Mormons believe, you really should watch out because it gets weird. But have you ever wondered why do Mormons have so many children? And by the way, I like big families. And the Bible does say be fruitful and multiply, so that's all good. Big families are awesome.

But the real reason, if you get into Mormon theology or doctrine I should say, they believe that there are millions of spirit children that are residing with God that need to come to earth. And they need to come through birth by a Mormon woman. Unless a Mormon woman gives birth to that child, then those spirit babies are still disembodied or whatever. So the Mormon woman has a baby, and then the spirit that's hanging out with God comes down and resides in that carrying, loving Mormon family.

Mormons believe that before people are born, they're in a spirit form with God. And one gains a body by coming to earth, acquiring the necessary experience, tools you earn to get eternal life and salvation and enter the celestial level. It goes on and on. But the point that I make is that's just wrong. But where did they come up with that? Joseph Smith. There's a lot of weird things in there.

But this verse actually shows you that that's not true. The Lord says he's forming the heavens and laying the foundation of the earth and formeth the spirit of man within him. We know that John the Baptist had a spirit even in the womb of Elizabeth. When the news was—I love that scripture in Luke chapter 1 verse 41. This should make anybody who had an abortion think, "Oh, that was a wrong thing to do," because it's not just a blob of fetal tissue, it's a spirit.

The Bible talks about how we're made up of body, soul, and spirit. And the spirit is formed within man, that is within humanity. It came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. John the Baptist kind of hears the news of Jesus's coming and the baby leaps in the mother's womb. That's pretty cool.

So basically that's an interesting statement here: the spirit of man is formed within him. But another reason, out of hundreds in the Bible, why abortion is something that we should not even accept at all because it's the Lord forming a person in the mother's womb. Be that as it may, verse 2: "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: and all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it."

So in that day, the Day of the Lord that we've talked about, is going to come. And the Day of the Lord begins with this sort of scene, the stage being set where the world's going to come against Jerusalem. And like we've spent the last couple weeks talking about this verse pretty thoroughly.

In that day, verse 4, saith the Lord: "I will smite every horse with astonishment." Now I'm not sure what an astonished horse looks like. But you know, I don't know. Like old horses go, "Ah!" Well keep that in mind just for a second. "I'll strike every horse with astonishment and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and I will smite every horse of the people with blindness."

So there's some key things here that you should know about in verse 4. It's an interesting thing because you and I say, "Well, who rides horses anymore in the world in battle or military?" And the truth is there are a few armies that still have a mounted cavalry. But I'm not sure that's what the Bible's talking about. You have to go to the Hebrew words here that are just translated to be horse and rider because that would have been the machinery of war back when the Bible was written but also even when it was translated by the King James and what have you.

But the Hebrew word is kind of interesting. We already covered the Hebrew word for horse and rider. We did that recently, but just a quick reminder. The word for horse is this word *sus*, which can be any number of things. It can be a horse, it can be a chariot horse, but it's also a leaping creature or a swallow or crane or something that flies. That's the Hebrew word: this vehicle of speed that can fly maybe or run really fast is kind of the idea of the Hebrew word. It doesn't just limit itself to just the word horse, interestingly enough.

The word rider is this word *rekab*, which just means something that's mounted and ridden. You could say *rekab* Harley-Davidson: you're riding it, you're mounting and riding is the idea. It could be any number of weapons or modern-day weapons. So we need to be careful when we read these old words that are translated horse and rider. If you're Zechariah and you're wanting to say something about military weapons, or you're John the Apostle in the book of Revelation, how do you describe an Apache helicopter? Or an F-18? Or a—how do you talk about this stuff? Well, you'd probably call it a horse and rider or something like that.

So that's kind of interesting. Now another thing is these words "madness" and "astonishment." And the words are fascinating because basically you can picture people that are military in nature—soldiers, armies. But *shiggaon* is the Hebrew word for craziness, furious madness, wild helpless panic is the idea that's going to happen when it says his rider will be stricken with this idea of madness. The horse will be the vehicle of whatever they're riding. Something unexpected will happen, a stupefication, numbness or senselessness, like you'll be almost stopped in your tracks. You know when somebody freezes up? That's kind of the idea of this word *timmahon* in the Hebrew word.

So *shiggaon* and *timmahon*: madness and astonishment are the words that Zechariah uses here. So maybe along with blindness used here, the vehicles will be acting up or not work correctly. They maybe all stop. There's all kinds of speculation we could do with this. You know those electromagnetic pulse weapons that detonate a few miles above the atmosphere that disables anything with circuitry in it? That's stuff that exists, and it will probably disable so many types of military vehicles. People will probably wish they had a horse right about then. When the machinery goes down, you're going to wish that you had a horse.

Huge electromagnetic pulse weapons disabling military vehicles, but there's going to be this astonishment, madness, and blindness. By the way, the same words here, those three, the big three that are talking about blindness, madness, and astonishment, the same words are used talking about those who disregard God's word, interestingly enough. In Deuteronomy 28:28 it says, "The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart," the people who just say, "Yeah, whatever," to God's word. That's going to happen. So it's interesting to me that those two things are correlated. So basically the armies that come against Israel and specifically Jerusalem are going to go mad, blind, and astonished.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador with helpful insight of the prophetic glimpse of end times events provided in the book of Zechariah as our verse-by-verse study continues from today's word. And stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me to help us with a question that many Christians struggle with. But first, our teacher Brett Meador is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church in the Portland suburb of West Linn, Oregon. If you've missed any portion of our time today, you can find this message online at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com.

Alright, I have Pastor Brett with me. Reading God's word, the Bible, is obviously very important for Christians to grow in their faith. But what about a person who struggles finding the time? Brett, what advice can you share with that person? Where to start and how to remain consistent in reading God's word?

Brett Meador: I think I'd like to encourage people to start with low pressure. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I think the Bible is so huge, and people feel like, "Well, I've got to read a lot." And I've noticed there's a lot of people even with dyslexia or comprehension issues, and they just throw it out and say, "I can't read the whole Bible."

But I would encourage you: start small. Start with just saying, "I'm going to read three verses every day." Or if you're a good reader, one chapter a day. And I wouldn't start in Leviticus. I would maybe start in the Gospel of John. What a beautiful expression of Christ and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. So start in John.

Some people start in Genesis, but that's a heavy lift, but it is interesting. But take your time. And I think day by day, daily in the word. Remember the people of Israel would get up in the morning there in the wilderness wanderings and they'd see manna in the morning. And they got manna daily. And what happened if they tried to store up the manna? It would grow worms and get stale and ugly and moldy. What they needed to do is daily get fresh food. I think that's what we need from the word of God. Just daily take small bites and see how the Lord might just use that. But the word will always reward you.

Guest (Male): That's such a practical and really encouraging way to think about getting into a daily reading program of the Bible. Thank you, Pastor Brett, for that. Well, I want to mention that if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or today's word, just go to todayswordradio.com. Well, next time, Pastor Brett will look at God's divine influence and how it has always been a part of the people of Israel. Today's word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.