Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: We get the privilege, you and I, to live in the last days where Israel becomes a nation again and all these prophecies, Ezekiel 36, 37, have come to pass perfectly. We're watching them unfold right before our eyes.

In Zechariah, we're going to see things are going to unfold both the tribulation period, then the second coming of Christ, and we're going to see here in chapter 8, the future of Israel and the millennial kingdom, and it's all very literal.

Guest (Male): On today's word, Pastor Brett Meador assures the trustworthiness of biblical prophecy. From what the Jews were to do following Babylonian captivity, to Jesus's first coming, to the millennial kingdom, Zechariah gave key details about God's plan for His people.

Pastor Brett Meador notes there's much foretold about what we've already observed and yet to come of God's plan for the end times as well as we look into Zechariah chapter 8 on today's word.

Brett Meador: There's a story of a guy, Anatoly Borisovich Sharansky, also known as Natan Sharansky. He was a dissident Soviet Jew. He kissed his wife goodbye as she left Russia for freedom in Israel, and his parting words to her were, "I'll see you soon in Jerusalem."

But Anatoly was detained there in the Soviet Union and finally imprisoned. The reunion that he'd hoped for, for he and his wife in Jerusalem seeking freedom there and as a Jew back to their place of their country, that's what they were hoping for. But he realized that that was postponed, maybe he never even would see her ever again. That was the possibility.

During those long years, he was in the actual Russian prisons there for more than nine years, stripped of all of his personal belongings. His only possession that he was able to keep was this little miniature copy of the Psalms. During one of his imprisonment times, he was refusing. They said, "Give us your little book," and he said, "No," and he would fight for it.

They said, "Listen, you either give us your little book or we're going to throw you in 130 days of solitary confinement in the hole." He would not give up his little Psalm book, and so they threw him for 130 days in solitary confinement. Finally, after 12 years having parted with his wife 12 years earlier, in February of 1986, as the world watched, Sharansky was allowed to walk away from Russian guards towards those who would take him to Jerusalem.

But in those final moments of captivity, the guards tried again to confiscate his little Psalm book, but Anatoly threw himself face down in the snow and refused to walk onto the freedom world without his little Psalm book. Those words kept him alive while he was in prison, as he said. He would not go onto freedom without the little book.

This is an amazing story, really. He becomes a political leader and he became various ministerial roles in Israel, a human rights activist, Israeli politician, served other roles, but kind of an amazing guy. But the little book of Psalms, he was willing to go into solitary confinement for 130 days, and he was willing to even stay in prison rather than let his little book of Psalms go.

Do we really love the Bible? It's funny when people that go through tough times, that becomes their lifeblood. The Bible becomes more precious the more in trouble you are. That's something you see throughout the world. I don't know about you, but as the days get darker, as we witnessed that horrible shooting down in Texas, how do you make sense of all the things that happen?

There's nothing worse, I think, than trying to make sense of so many children in a grade school shot by, I believe, perhaps demonically inspired, maybe possessed. I sense real evil. Everybody wants to talk about gun control, but people don't even want to talk about mental illness.

Even those people talking about mental illness don't want to talk about demonic control and spiritual evil. I sense that this is kind of where our nation has gone. The more immoral we become as a nation, the more we move away from God, the more really, sadly, we're seeing the world just go crazier and crazier.

We need to get back to teaching what the Bible actually says and stand on it, and stand on it firmly. Because the Bible tells us about how to be parents, what's evil and what's good, and our world is calling so much evil, they're calling it good and they're calling good evil. We've got it all backwards.

So the longer we go down this path, the more evil we see. There's all kinds of evil going on. In Chicago, do you know how many children are being killed every weekend in Chicago? It's amazing to me. Here's a place where gun control, it's illegal to have a firearm and bullets in Chicago. It's illegal.

But that's the deadliest place in America, really, is Chicago. So we're trying to figure out practical, trying to figure out stuff, but the truth is we're spiritually depraved as a nation. We need the Lord. We need to have people be saved and converted to Jesus and repent of their sins.

Then we need to apply the morality of the Bible. Because when we're living like the Bible tells us as moms and dads, husbands and wives, and even stuff we're going to cover here in Zechariah, the Lord's going to talk about things that He actually hates. Yes, God hates stuff.

One of the things He hates, I think, is one of the key problems with what we're seeing with mental illness and with shootings in America. One of the problems, other things the Lord says He actually hates, it's listed here in Zechariah. It's one of the culprits of the problem.

I love the Word because it's a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. You won't get it on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC. You won't get the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path from all those news sources. You'll get the lamp and the light from the Word of God. That's why it's so good to be able to open up our Bibles and learn what the Bible actually says.

Zechariah is talking about a broad scope of history. He's talking about the first coming of Christ and he's talking about the second coming of Christ. So all that to say, we have a lot to look at. We're going to pick up where we left off in Zechariah chapter 8.

One of the things that we're doing as we study through the Bible, and one of the funny things, it's hard to find good studies in the book of Zechariah. If you ever go look for good studies in the book of Zechariah, there's only one group of people that you'll find actually teaching the book of Zechariah, and that's pre-trib, pre-millennial preachers.

You won't find an amillennialist preacher or a Catholic priest or someone who's in Presbyterians, the guys that believe in replacement theology. There's no literal Israel that the Bible cares about. The church replaced Israel. As soon as you get into some of that other kind of stuff, you'll never hear them talk about Zechariah.

I'll tell you why. Because if you're an amillennialist, Zechariah doesn't make any sense whatsoever. It would be impossible to explain what Zechariah is talking about if you hold an amillennial view. Now, if you're new to this, the pre-millennial, don't be confused as you zoom in. I'm a pre-trib. I believe the rapture of the church is going to happen before the tribulation.

There's some that believe in the middle, some people believe at the end or at the end of the tribulation, the rapture of the church. But they're all pre-millennialists, that it's all going to happen pre-millennial. That's important. Then there's the post-millennialists and the amillennialists.

Amillennial means "a" means "no," no millennial kingdom. So the amillennialists don't believe in any literal millennial kingdom. It's all figurative. Some of them believe that we're already living in the millennial kingdom. Boy, that'd be depressing right now if that's the case. Wouldn't you be depressed?

Like, "Oh yeah, that shooting, that's happening during the millennial kingdom when there's no more transgression and an end of sin and the lion will lie down with the lamb and there'll be peace and prosperity." That's a knucklehead view if you ask me. Just watch what's going on in the world.

Now, some of those don't believe we're living in the glorious part of the kingdom yet and we have to usher in the kingdom. That's the Kingdom Now theology. You'll notice churches that are into the Kingdom Now, they're all about becoming more powerful in the world politically, influencing-wise.

It's a little tricky because we don't want to be ineffective, but what we want to do is be all about not furthering our strength and the popular influencers or stuff. What we want to do is promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Like a pre-millennial pre-trib church, what you'll find is they're sharing the Gospel and they're about teaching the Bible and getting people to come to Christ. We believe that the kingdom comes when Jesus decides to come. It's not man that makes the kingdom come.

The dominion theology or Kingdom Now, they think man's going to make that happen. We believe Jesus just taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So God's going to do that when He wants to.

Talk about there's so much in the Bible, the Jewish wedding and the way the bridegroom comes for his bride and it's the picture of Christ and the church, and the whole thing fits so perfectly. But the problem is when the church tries to become politically influencing and socially influencing and all that, they can be way off course very quickly.

Now, some people say, "Well, Brett, you pre-tribbers, yours is a new eschatology. You kind of made up yours in the last several hundred years." Now, I don't agree with that, but even if I give that argument to them because I believe Peter and James and John and Paul were all pre-tribbers, and you can read that in the Bible. They believed in a pre-trib rapture of the church.

To me, that's really easy to defend. But one of the things that the amillennialist will say is, "You guys believe in some new invented eschatology. We believe in the oldest eschatology," and they're proud of that. Now, by the way, when it comes to doctrine, I'm into old. I believe in old dead guys that are talking about stuff. I don't like the new stuff.

Watch out for the new guys and new books, new Christian doctrines, whacko. All things doctrine, I love the old stuff. But when it comes to Bible prophecy, there's a couple things you need to be reminded about and this will help us with our understanding of Zechariah.

Do you remember what it says there in Daniel chapter 12 where Daniel is told at the end of his prophecy, "But thou, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end. Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased."

What an amazing thing. The book should be sealed to the time. Do you guys remember what it says in the book of Revelation at the end of that book? Yeah, "Don't seal that book." Revelation 22:10, "And he said unto me, 'Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand.'"

What's this about? Seal up the words, it's not for you, Daniel, it's not for your time. So seal up the words. Then at the end of Revelation, at the end of the New Testament, hundreds and hundreds of years later, the revelation of Jesus Christ given to John the Apostle, don't seal up those words.

Then back to our Daniel 12 and it says, "Seal not the sayings of this book," but it says in verse 4, "but knowledge shall be increased." Now, you can make the argument that that's technology and science, and I would make that argument and I would with this scripture because that's what will happen in the end times.

But some would argue also that knowledge about the things that would be sealed up would increase. How is Daniel supposed to know when he's talking about end times eschatology and the end of the world, how is he supposed to understand what's going on?

And again, I would have been an amillennialist 500, 600 years ago because Israel didn't even exist. You'd say, "Well, it must be figurative. Israel's no longer a nation." That's why Martin Luther was an anti-Semite because he said, "Those Jews killed Jesus and they're no longer God's chosen people."

That was his conclusion, and he wrote some horrible things about the Jews. Did some good stuff too, little thing called the Reformation, but his Jewish anti-Semitism was over the top. Hitler used Luther to defend the Holocaust, just so you know.

But how did that happen? Why did Luther have such a weird view? It's because Israel didn't even exist as a nation. The Jews were in Russia and other places around the globe, but not Israel, Palestine, the Holy Land.

So what's happening? We get the privilege, you and I, to live in the last days where Israel becomes a nation again and all these prophecies, Ezekiel 36, 37, have come to pass perfectly. We're watching them unfold right before our eyes, literally, perfectly literal.

That's why the amillennialists should have checked their amillennial card at the door and said, "Forget that. Look at the Bible prophecy that's happening right now." Now, I got to say in defense of amillennialists and preterists, they're very smart people. I'm not trying to insult them. They're some of the smartest, honestly, because you have to be really smart to try to come up with a construct that sort of works.

But because of the stupidity of some eschatology buffs and prophecy people predicting things like who the Antichrist is and days and hours and stuff like that, a lot of the intellectual people said, "Yeah, the pre-trib view is a bunch of whacko people." And the problem, I have to give it to them. It's just what it is.

But it does fit with Bible prophecy because the Bible says in the last days people will say, "Where is the promise of His coming? It's always been the same, and you guys that are into this..." There's kind of an insulting vibe in the Bible. So it's all fulfilling Bible prophecy.

But in Zechariah, we're going to see things are going to unfold both the tribulation period, then the second coming of Christ, and we're going to see here in chapter 8 the future of Israel, a literal future, by the way. I love that. This is why the preterists struggle with the book of Zechariah because we're talking about a literal Israel in the future.

And the second coming of Christ and the millennial kingdom, and it's all very literal. Time and time again, the Bible is proven to be literally right. And when I say literally, it's not like the teenager, "Oh, I'm just literally dying." No, I'm saying, no, the literal interpretation of the Bible is actually very rewarding.

If you just take the Bible literally, it's very rewarding. And by the way, you should always take the Bible literally unless, unless the Bible says that it's figurative. Like there's places in the Bible where the Bible says this is a type or a figure or a parable or something like that.

And the Bible gives us very clear symbols and signals when something's not to be taken literally. So that's important too. Now, as we divide Zechariah into some chunks before we move on, because in section one of Zechariah, we covered chapters 1 through 6. Those were the eight visions of Zechariah, and we finished those last week.

Section two, chapters 7 through 8, were the questions by the people. Remember in chapter 7, "Lord, should we fast, weep, and mourn all these years as we've done so long, these many years?" And the Lord says, "You can do it if you want to, but I'm not in it. I'd rather you be nice to people. Remember that? Don't oppress the poor and stuff like that. Be merciful and stuff like that."

And we're going to kind of finish section two as we get into chapter 8, and there's more questions by the people that we'll see. But then in section three, the last section, chapters 9 through 14, that's really dealing largely with the first and the second coming of Christ.

Now, don't forget, the Jews looked at this as a single event, the coming of Christ. But they didn't realize the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, would speak of the coming of Christ in two advents.

The first coming, born in Bethlehem, living his life, dying on the cross, raising from the dead, ascending in heaven. That's the first coming, and they didn't know that that was going to happen. They didn't understand that, and I don't blame them. I'm just saying they didn't get it.

And when they read the Hebrew scriptures about their Messiah being bruised and wounded, beaten, dying on a cross, and stuff like that prophetically, they just kind of swept that under the rug because they didn't want a king that was beaten and bruised. They wanted a conquering warrior.

So they capitalized on the scriptures that were glorious conquering king scriptures, but they kind of just ignored the other ones that were the meek and lowly scriptures of the Messiah. So they missed His first coming because they didn't recognize it. They'd swept those scriptures under the rug.

So here in chapter 8, we kind of pick up in that second section, the questions by the people. Let's take a look, verse 1 of chapter 8. It says there, "Again, the Word of the Lord of hosts came unto me, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great fury.'"

Again, this word "jealousy" stumbles people. And what's interesting is the heart of the Lord. The Lord is going to correct the wrongs. Do you kind of sense this? I think if you could use this word "jealous," because there's an evil definition of jealousy, but there's also a good jealous. Did you know that?

There's two words that it can be an ugly, weird jealous. If you're jealous of someone who has something you want, "I'm jealous that they got to have that car or that boyfriend or girlfriend or whatever you're jealous of." Yeah, that's ugly and evil.

But there's a good jealousy, and it's usually not a jealousy of someone, it's a jealousy for someone. I think some of you, it even used the word "fury" and "jealousy." Maybe this is what some of you felt when you heard of the shooting in Texas, and you heard about these little children that were shot by this 18-year-old kid and you felt fury as I did and there's a sort of a jealousy for those children.

I think some of us are wired where you want to do something. Like, "I've got to do something about this." But sinfulness creeps into humanity pretty quickly thereafter. But God has a righteous fury and a righteous jealousy for His people Israel.

I hope you understand this. The Lord is not jealous for or of the Jews or of the Babylonians or of the Romans, He's jealous for His people the Jews. Jealousy, if you look it up in the Hebrew, the Hebrew word for this, there's two definitions, one's the negative one, but the good version is defined like this in the Hebrew Bible.

In a favorable sense, to denote a consuming zeal focused on one that is loved. Isn't that interesting? That's the definition in the Hebrew. The second one, in a favorable sense, to denote consuming zeal focused on the one who's loved.

And so the Lord loves His people the Jews. He's got a heart for the Jews. And yet, nation after nation has trounced over the Jews time and time again. Interesting, one of the things we're going to see in Zechariah is the nations that try to handle Israel, whether good or bad or ugly.

The Lord's got a problem with these nations trying to handle the Jews. How have the United States done with this, trying to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict? There is coming someone who will seem to solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Who will that be?

Antichrist. So if we ever have a president of the United States that signs a contract that's legit and brings a peace between the Arab-Israelis, at least for three and a half years, then he's probably the Antichrist.

And honestly, Trump actually did some good work with the Abraham Accords. Interestingly enough, the reason I talk about that is because the book of Zechariah's going to tell us the nations that try to handle the Arab-Israeli conflict, especially as it relates to Jerusalem, they're going to be handling a cup of trembling. Zechariah's going to teach us that.

And the idea of a cup of trembling is like you don't want to mess with it. If you try to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict, you'll be crushed, you'll be broken. And there'll be those nations, Zechariah's going to tell us in 12 and 14, that there's going to be nations that are going to try to divide Jerusalem in half.

And those nations are going to be crushed by that. Boy, it's an amazing prophecy we're going to see here in Zechariah. It's coming. But all that to say, Jesus is the only one who will truly deal with the conflict.

Antichrist will come and appear to sign a peace treaty and he'll have that for a short while, but about three and a half years into that treaty, the Antichrist will be shown for who he really is. Jesus is the one who's going to really bring in a true peace.

Now, seeking to divide Israel, the roadmap to peace as we've called it over the years and stuff, the Lord is not done with the Jews. He is jealous for them. Don't ever forget that. I think that there's a couple issues.

People say, "Brett tells us how to vote." I've never done that. Never told people how to vote. But I'll just tell you this, if you're a Christian who believes the Bible, there are some things that are always on the ballot that are kind of, I think, worthy of us Christians doing some research and understanding what the Bible says.

One is abortion. That's an issue the Bible's very clear on. And the Bible doesn't look at it as a fetal tissue. The Bible says that that little person in a mother's womb, that should be the safest place on earth, by the way, and it's a place where God is doing a miraculous work in creation of a person.

And there's no question about that one. But the other political issue that is just very clear in the Bible is what a nation does about Israel. What is a person's position on the nation Israel?

And if you want to see America blessed, the Bible says, "I will bless the nation that blesses Israel, but I will curse the nation that curses Israel." And you can track that in our history of United States. When we've had leadership that goes to kind of curse Israel, we end up being cursed.

And it's trackable. But when we've had leadership that was trying to bless Israel, you can track how we've just been in times of prosperity. It's quite amazing. Books have been written about that, about the blessing and cursing of the United States by our position, based on our position, even point for point, event for event, you can track blessing and cursing.

So it's kind of an interesting thing. All that to say, God is jealous for His people and we should remember that as Americans, as the Gentile church. So God says, "I am jealous, and I'm jealous for her with a great fury." That's something you don't want to mess with, God in great fury. I don't want any part of that. That's just verse 2.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador pausing in our verse-by-verse look into Zechariah, illustrating God's love for Israel. And there's much more to come in our study in today's word, and I invite you to stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here to share some comforting words from our Savior.

But first, our teacher, Brett Meador, is the senior pastor of Athey Creek Church, just outside of Portland, Oregon. Each day, Pastor Brett will bring you an in-depth study of God's Word. If you missed any portion of our time today, you'll find all of his messages online at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com.

All right, Pastor Brett has joined me. For a person listening right now who's going through a difficult time in life, be it a health issue, financial, or even a hard time with someone close to them, I know Jesus gave some encouraging words to us in scripture. Brett, can you share some of those with us?

Brett Meador: I would love to, Curt. Jesus said so many things. I think some of my favorites personally are John 14:1, "Let not your heart be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in me." I think that Jesus mentioned that to the disciples in a very dark and troubling time for them.

And so if you're going through those times, you can hear the word of Jesus there. Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in Jesus, that He's there and that He's going to take care of things. And also Matthew chapter 11, there's that great reminder, Jesus, I think these words are greatly comforting.

"Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." I love that Jesus doesn't say "figure it out first" or "good luck," but He invites us, "Come unto me." There's so much that I find there to just be real. You just go to Christ and He'll bear that burden, whatever it is that you're trying to bear.

I love that the Lord never leaves us or forsakes us, that Jesus is with you. Your trial is real, your difficulties are real, but Jesus is even more real and powerful than we could ever imagine. And I think those words that Jesus is able to speak to us, He calms the storm.

I love during the storm when Jesus said the disciples were toiling and thinking they were going to drown, but Jesus said, "Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid." And I think those are the words that I would think of if I'm in troubled times.

Guest (Male): That is very encouraging. Thank you, Pastor Brett. And if you'd like more information about Today's Word Radio or Pastor Brett Meador, just go to todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. And that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue looking into Zechariah's various prophetic statements from today's word.

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