Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: The Lord is going to give Zerubbabel an unending supply of energy and power to finish the building of the temple. You might hear Zerubbabel say, "Well, that's a mountain that's too big to be removed." But that's what the power of the Holy Spirit can do. It can move even a mountain.

Kurt: On today's word, Pastor Brett Meador with a reminder of what faith the size of a mustard seed can do.

Brett Meador: It might seem like an impossible project to Zerubbabel, but it's not by his might or by his power. This endless supply of power by the Holy Spirit through Zerubbabel.

Kurt: "Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit," says the Lord of hosts, is a familiar passage given in a vision to Zechariah. Though the work of God needs resources, it isn't the resources of human might or power. In today's word, Pastor Brett Meador reflects on the promise of the Lord to Zerubbabel of the rich resource in the spirit of God to accomplish his work.

Brett Meador: Zechariah chapter four is where we are. We've been going through the visions of Zechariah. In vision five, we're going to start with this first section, the preparation. That starts really with verse one. Let's take a look. It says here in chapter four, verse one: "And the angel that talked with me came again and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of his sleep." You could almost picture poor Zechariah finally getting some sleep after all these weird dreams, and he's got another one.

The preparation in this dream, as it turns out, is that he needs to wake up. But vision number five, we also see not only preparation but also this idea of the presentation, and that's verses two and three. After he wakes out of sleep, verse two says: "And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl on the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof: And two olive trees by it, one on the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof."

So we have the presentation of what he sees. Interesting, he sees something that at first is kind of a normal thing. He sees what you and I might call the lampstand of the temple. You might even call it a menorah. This is what he sees. He sees the menorah with the single middle branch and then the three branches on each side, left and right, which is a total of seven.

The imagery here is that of Jesus Christ. The lampstand is a beautiful picture of Christ and his church in the Old Testament, and you should know that. The center post is sort of a representation of Jesus, and then the branches are the church. That is us coming out from Christ. Jesus spoke about this stuff in John chapter eight, verse 12. Jesus said to them, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

Then in Matthew chapter five, Jesus said this: "Ye are the light of the world." So which one is it? Is Jesus the light of the world or are we the light of the world? The answer is yes. But he's the source. He's the source of light where it first starts. It is just kind of this cool thing of what happens. Christ comes to us and lights our light up, and then we get to be lights in this world.

He says, "Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick." The candlestick speaks of the church, by the way. "And it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Now, some of the other symbology of this whole thing is the oil itself. We see the lamps that have the oil in them.

Where does that oil come from? Well, that's what Zechariah's vision starts getting a little interesting. So far he would have just said, "A menorah, whatever." He's seen that a million times. But he also saw something that was unique, and we'll get into that in a second. Before we leave the idea of the oil, remember, oil in the Bible is a picture of the Holy Spirit. Right.

In Zechariah's time, this would have been a hard thing for him to understand, the imagery that he's about to see, and he's wondering what in the world is going on. So it says in verse four: "So I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my Lord? Then the angel that talked with me answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my Lord."

That brings us then to the interpretation. After the confusion, just like the pattern of all these visions, then we get the interpretation of this vision. We see that in verse six: "Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts."

We talked about Zerubbabel and how he was the one who had waited 16 years and he delayed building the temple. This is Zechariah, along with Haggai, contemporaries, saying, "Zerubbabel, time to get going. Time to build the temple again." If you remember the whole set of circumstances, 586 BC was when Nebuchadnezzar last finally crushed Jerusalem. It was around 520 BC when Joshua and Zerubbabel and these guys start to rebuild the temple.

There were mixed reactions, but the building stops for 16 years. That is where Haggai and Zechariah said you guys have to get back to work, get back to doing the work. The way he is doing this is saying it is not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit. Now you might say, "Well, what does the spirit have to do with this vision?" He gives them this answer that's got the menorah and the oil and the olive trees, but we have to remember the power is of the spirit.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit. So what's the picture about? The power of the lampstand, this one is unique. This vision of this lampstand is a perpetually burning lampstand that never runs out of fuel. That is the idea. Wouldn't you like to have a vehicle like that? Maybe we should invent some olive trees that are growing on the side of your car and then some tubes going down into the motor and it burns olive oil as you're driving down.

There is an idea for somebody. But that is the idea in this vision. The olive tree is producing, instead of normally you would crush the olives and get the oil out of the olive tree, but it is almost like this has pipes in it that are feeding the lamps. It is just a perpetually powered thing. The idea is it is not by might of humans, nor by power of humans, but by my spirit.

So he says in verse seven: "Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it. Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you."

The explanation, just like the endless supply of oil, the Holy Spirit, to the lamps, the Lord is going to give Zerubbabel the power, an unending supply of energy and power to finish the building of the temple. You might hear Zerubbabel say, "Well, that's a mountain that's too big to be removed. Who can build the temple in these days?" But the Lord says, "Who art thou, O mountain? Mountain who? Whatever, it's going to be a plain."

In other words, when you say remove this mountain, that's what the power of the Holy Spirit can do. It can move even a mountain. Of course, in the New Testament, we read about the person who has just a faith the size of a mustard seed having the faith to move mountains. The mountain's going to be flattened. It might seem like an impossible project to Zerubbabel, but it is not by his might or by his power. This endless supply of power by the Holy Spirit through Zerubbabel.

That is the image of the power coming from the trees. Olive oil is going through the little pipes into the lamps, constantly keeping things burning. But all that to say, this vision number five is an amazing thing. Jesus said this in Matthew 17: "Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

This is almost like the word that Jesus is giving to us is the same word that the Holy Spirit is giving through Zechariah to Zerubbabel to get back to building. So this vision five, the olive trees and the candlestick, is all about that. Verse seven: "He shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it." When they bring the stones and start stacking them and building the temple, what is he going to shout to the stones? "Grace."

Why would Zerubbabel shout grace to the cornerstone or the headstone when he finally gets that set? The answer is because it is by God's grace any good thing happens. If anything good happens in your life or you see the work starting to be completed, you have to understand that is God's grace. His grace, his grace, his grace. I love this passage.

Maybe we need to start doing that a little more when we see great feats done that we thought could never happen. Instead of saying look what I have done, just say, "Grace." What is grace? Undeserved, unearned favor God's shown you. That is the only reason we have any good thing. We need to shout grace when we see the accomplishment of good things.

Verse nine says the hands of Zerubbabel had laid the foundation of this house. He has already done the foundation. That was 16 years ago. I love the declaration of this messenger, the angel. He says, "And he will finish it." He is going to finish it. I wonder if that gave him more confidence that his hands, not some other dude, would finish it. Zerubbabel himself is going to be the one to finish it.

You might feel incomplete or like you've started things but haven't finished them. But all these Old Testament stories go back to New Testament truths. Philippians 1:6, for example: "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." In a sense, you're getting this letter from the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, "Dear Zerubbabel, get going. Let's get things started."

Are you good at starting stuff but not completing them? I wonder if some of you might be. This is a word for you specifically to get her done, just like poor Zerubbabel is getting this. You see what happens when that mountain comes, opposition or mixed reactions to what you're trying to do. Realize the Lord is able to move mountains and the Spirit of God will give you power to get that done that he's called you to do. Don't be afraid to finish the work God's called you to do.

We have this amazing vision, the olive trees and the candlestick. But one more word from the Lord. He goes on and says in verse 10: "For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth." What's this all about, the small things?

"Who hath despised the day of small things?" What an interesting phrase. This is the Lord sort of zeroing in on the problem. What is the problem? We know a bunch of the problems from Haggai and from other parts of Zechariah. Do you remember what was the mindset of the people about building the temple? They were preoccupied with something else. Do you remember what it was? Building their own houses. They were all about building their own houses.

To go and start working on the temple was so much work. Their backs were hurting and they were kind of tired of building because they'd been building their own houses. So it seemed like chipping away at the temple was just a small thing. It reminds me of a story. They were building St. Peter's Chapel in London. The story goes that a newspaper guy was walking up and writing about the building of St. Peter's and everybody was working hard.

He walked up to one guy and said, "What are you doing?" "I'm digging a ditch." "Okay," and the newspaper person just started writing. He went over to another. "Who are you?" "I'm the foreman." "And what are you doing?" "I'm directing these guys." Just a bunch of gruff construction guys. But he saw another guy who was loading bricks into a wheelbarrow and he was whistling a happy tune and walking around and just working hard. The newspaper guy walked up to him and said, "What are you doing?" He said, "I'm building a beautiful cathedral."

It's all about your perspective. Digging a ditch or see, that was the problem. It was the small things like, "I'm digging a ditch," and whatever. But it's almost like the Lord is saying you have to get the bigger picture in mind here, Zerubbabel. When he is saying, "For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet." That is the plumb bob. They will start working and they will see the walls going up.

Do you remember this seven eyes thing? We read that in chapter three, if you recall, there in verse nine: "For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof." We talked about the seven eyes of the Lord and we referred to Revelation chapter five, verse six. The seven eyes speak of insight, completeness, and perfection. Number seven.

The eyes speak of insight, wisdom, and understanding, also what we would say omniscience of the Lord. He knows all things. That is what the seven eyes thing is about, the all-knowing nature of God. What is God seeing with his seven eyes? Zerubbabel's tendency to despise the small things. But you have to get into the small stuff to start seeing the big stuff.

One of the things we've seen in the last couple years here at Athey Creek that's so encouraging and fun is all the people who have said we are going to focus on some of those small things at Athey Creek. It's so cool because how many people are blessed by those small things. As I've mentioned before, we have 1,700 volunteers who make Athey Creek go. Whether they are out in the parking lot or children's ministry or the coffee or cleaning up, maintenance crew and sound and lighting and words on the screens.

Volunteers everywhere making stuff happen. Our security team, it's an amazing long list of people. Somebody might say, "Well, that's just a tiny thing to do in the church." But all those small things are what has allowed Athey Creek for us to see the grace of God just pour out. All of those small parts are working to do something that we're just kind of in awe of saying, "Wow, look what the Lord is actually doing."

We get to be a small part of that, all of us. It has been such a cool thing. I wonder if sometimes there might be the problem where if no one's willing to do the small things, then the Lord says, "Well, okay, if you're not willing to do the small things, I'm not going to be able to do the great things." I worry that that could happen, and God forbid that ends up happening to us or anyone for that matter.

Quit despising the small things, the Lord is saying to Zerubbabel. The Jews thought what they were doing was small and not important, that is the building of the temple. Now, I can see why they thought that. Let me just defend them just for a second. Not that I want to, but I will defend them just for a second because remember, these guys are rebuilding the wall of Jerusalem and the temple at Jerusalem, all with lesser materials with threats all around them. Everything was lesser.

Remember when they built the foundation of the temple and the old men were weeping? They were saying it is not like the old temple. They looked at it as junk. If you go to Jerusalem, you know where the Wailing Wall is. You've seen pictures of the Jews there by the Western Wall. You can go into the Rabbi's tunnel, and we do this often times in the evening time. You go down into these caves.

The reason you have to go down into these tubes and caves is that at the Western Wall, if you just got a shovel and started digging, you could dig for another 60 feet and you'd still be up against the wall, even though it's covered with dirt. That's from thousands of years, over 3,000 years in some case of countries crushing Jerusalem, earthquakes, dust blowing, dirt. It's what happens with ancient cities.

We don't have that in Oregon because we've only been around for only a few hundred years. But when you talk about over 3,000 years, civilization built upon civilization, the wall of Jerusalem goes way down. The reason this is kind of fun is when you go down into these tunnels, you can see they dug down to some of the ancient parts of the wall, even the Solomon era of those walls.

It's hard to even get your mind around this, so that's why I'm describing it for you. Some of those stones are the size of a school bus. They're just huge, hewn stones. The women go down into these tunnels and they stuff their prayers just like they do at the Western Wall because this is the Western Wall. It's just below the earth down in this tunnel. You walk way down to the end of this and you get some of these are Herodian stones from the time of Herod the Great.

But some of the stones are actually Solomon era. People will drop their prayers down these shafts because they want their prayers to be left by where the temple used to sit in Jerusalem, and that's why they do that there in Jerusalem. The times of Zerubbabel, Zechariah, Haggai, Joshua the high priest, they were thinking, "What we're doing is small, man. It's nothing like Solomon's era. Just a bunch of trash stones that we're trying to fit together and make a temple."

Remember, the prophet said the glory of the Lord will be greater in this temple than it will be of the former. We learned that's because Jesus would go into Zerubbabel's temple. It's a great story and it's a lesson that all the small things that we blow off because we see them as insignificant, as it turns out, the Lord says, "I care about that stuff."

I love Matthew 25. It says, "His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." So first, be faithful in the small things. That's what the Lord is saying here through this book to us. But he's also cracking the whip a little bit with old Zerubbabel to build the temple. Be faithful in the small things.

I mentioned last week that guy years ago that came up and said, "Brett, I feel that the Lord has called me to teach the Bible." I said, "Great." He said, "And you're supposed to resign and I'm supposed to do Wednesday night Bible study." I said, "Not great." But I do think there's a thing where we want to do great things. We want to be influencers and we want to have engagement and followers and all this stuff.

Sometimes the Lord wants us to start small. Maybe in a class of three-year-olds teaching there instead of a Wednesday night Bible study. Maybe the Lord wants you to start with a class of three-year-olds and then maybe you'll graduate. That's what I did. I started with three-year-olds, went to first graders, taught sixth graders for about 13 years, and then graduated.

During that whole time I was teaching sixth graders, but I also graduated then to high school, junior high, college. For a while, I was a director of college down through the babies for years at a large church. Then when I turned 30, the Lord called me to start a church up here in Portland. Like I told you last week, we had 20 people and then it split in half.

We had a church split the first week. We got down to 10. But that was my beginning. I didn't start with a Wednesday night Bible study with tons of people. I think sometimes the Lord wants us to be faithful in the small things. If I had a dime for every time I was in a little preschool class teaching and the kids' breath was filling the room, if you've ever had that smell, you know that smell.

That is an anointing that takes to do that. But that's also a training ground, and I think if we're faithful in the small things, then the Lord is going to give us greater things to do. Don't despise the small things. That's kind of the idea. Well, all that to say, this vision is not over really yet because we talked about the eyes seeing him despising the small things.

Verse 11 through 13 says this: "Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil out of themselves? And he answered me and said, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my Lord."

Now again, he doesn't have a clue. Zechariah would be aware of the candlestick, he'd be aware that they need oil to burn, but he'd never seen this little invention of the continual supply. In the Hebrew language here, it's a little hard in the English, honestly, but if you read it in the original Hebrew, there are seven golden pipes to each seven branches of the lampstand. The idea is there are 49 total golden straws going in here. Can you picture that? They're like golden straws.

There are 49 straws as it turns out. The implication about the numbers of this is there is more where that came from. The idea is an abundance of oil, never ending, and it's coming from these trees just to keep that lamp burning. It reminds me of the Holy Spirit when Jesus said in Luke 11:13: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" There's an unending flow of the Spirit for those who are willing to ask and waiting on the Spirit.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador providing some helpful understanding in interpreting Zechariah's fifth vision of the olive trees and lampstands from Zechariah chapter four in today's word. If you missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

Right now, Pastor Brett has joined me. Brett, sometimes I hear folks who claim to be Christians but don't attend church. They might say something like, "Well, I don't need to attend church and still follow Jesus," or, "The beauty of the outdoors is my church, and that's where I like to spend my time instead of being in a church building." What does the Bible say about Christians being together in church?

Brett Meador: That's a great question, Kurt. I hear people say, "I'm not into organized religion." I always say, "Well, then our church is for you because we are not organized." Truly the Bible says very clearly in Hebrews 10:24 and 25: "Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."

The closer we get to the second coming of Christ, we should be exhorting people to get to church. You have to be plugged in. As you mentioned, Kurt, the church is not a building, it's the people. When people say, "My church is out in the woods," the fallacy of that is there are no people out there. How convenient. It's so much easier out in the I love being in the woods, and I don't have to deal with the problems of people and personalities and weird relationships.

But that is the point. We need each other in fellowship. We need to encourage one another and we need the correction and accountability and support. So people that are saying, "We're just going to be out in the wilderness and enjoy the creation," you can go out in the wilderness and enjoy creation. That can inspire you to worship God, but it's not really what the Bible talks about.

It says the early church continued steadfastly going from house to house and also in the temple daily, prayer, teaching, breaking of bread, and the apostles' doctrine, which was teaching the word. This is something we're not supposed to forsake and the Bible's pretty clear on that one.

Kurt: Thank you, Pastor Brett, for that clarification from scripture and encouragement of how important it really is to be in church together with other Christians. I want to mention that if you are in the Portland, Oregon area and don't have a church home of your own, we'd like to invite you to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn or our two other locations in Hillsboro or McMinnville. For more information, go to todayswordradio.com and click the link "Locations".

Next time, Pastor Brett will continue in the book of Zechariah, and we'll see essential information about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Today's word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.