Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: One of the things prophecy does is it gives you kind of a heavenly, eternal mindset. You think of the bigger picture, don't you? Too many people are all about this life. Now some of you, I know what you’re thinking. Brett, you Bible prophecy people, you're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good. But I would say you’re not going to be any earthly good until you are heavenly minded.

Bible prophecy kind of automatically makes you realize we need to be about heaven and not about hope of this life, but it's hope in the next that's the most important.

Guest (Male): Zechariah prophesies the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, a procession that would have seemed noticeably much more humble than that of some noble Roman royalty. But that's what God's people missed about the first coming of the Messiah. He came as someone to serve, not to be served. Coming up, Pastor Brett Meador uncovers the heavenly hope of prophecy in today's world.

Brett Meador: So far in our study, we’ve been kind of tackling the eight visions of Zechariah and they've been quite amazing and a little crazy until you really see the detail and what it means. And then you realize it's about the end times and prophecy and stuff like that. Much of Zechariah is about prophecy, both of the first coming of Christ and also of the second coming of Christ. And we have a little bit of both of that in this single verse of prophecy. It’s Zechariah chapter nine, verse nine is our text for the day.

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, thy king cometh unto thee. He is just and having salvation; lowly and riding upon an ass and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

There’s a bunch of prophecies in here about the coming Messiah. But if you’re a Hebrew person, the word Messiah means king. And they called David the Messiah and King Saul the Messiah, and any of their kings. That was kind of what they called it. But the Jews would agree there is a Messiah that is kind of the Messiah, the one that's coming that they’re looking for, that they hope for. The Jews to this day are looking for the Messiah. The problem is when the Messiah really came, they missed him.

There were more than 300 specific prophecies about the first coming of Christ. Including Zechariah 9:9 that says he will come riding on the colt of a donkey. That would be Palm Sunday when Jesus would ride his triumphal entry as it's called, riding into Jerusalem as the King of Kings, the Messiah. And there was a tiny, tiny little group of people saying, "Hosanna, save now, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord." But most of the Jews were saying, "Yeah, whatever." See, the Jews, when they were thinking for their Messiah, they wanted a Messiah that was large and in charge. But our verse says he's actually going to be lowly.

Now how did they miss it? They took the scriptures talking about his first coming and they swept those under the rug because the Jews—and I don't blame them for this, I mean this is probably what we would have done in their shoes or sandals—we would have said we don't like those either because they needed a king that was a conqueror, that was powerful. They were hoping for a real powerful king.

And so they loved the first part. Shout, O daughter! Rejoice, O daughter of Zion! Behold your king comes! Yeah, our king! They liked that part. And he will come who will be just. Oh, we need justice! Because like in the first century, the Jews were dealing with all kinds of injustice. Enslaved in Egypt for 450 years, under the iron fist of Rome for almost 200 years. They didn’t want someone lowly, riding on a colt. That’s the part of the verse they say, "Yeah, whatever, we like the part where it’s a king coming, and we like that he’s just, and we also like that he has salvation because we need salvation from the Romans." They didn’t realize he would come in two advents, that is two separate comings. They didn’t know that.

So the prophecies about Jesus’ first coming tend to be more the lowly stuff because he came the first time humbly. He wasn't a conquering king; he came as a carpenter from Nazareth. He didn't come to judge the world; he came to be judged by the world in his first coming. Was he lowly or reigning king? In fact, I'd like you to jot down five things that we see here in prophecy. And Zechariah 9:9 is packed full of Bible prophecy, so it gives us kind of a platform.

Number one, the first thing about the Bible and Bible prophecy is it proclaims future events. Now, I already told you there were 300 references to the first coming of Christ in the Old Testament. How many references are there to the second coming of Christ? As it turns out, 1,800. 17 Old Testament books give prominence to the theme of the second coming of Christ. Like the book of Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel—17 of the Old Testament books do that.

Of the 260 chapters in the New Testament, there are more than 300 references to the Lord’s return. And if you do the math on this, one out of every 30 verses in the New Testament is speaking about the second coming of Christ. Is it kind of a big deal? Isn't it amazing that churches are just ignoring Bible prophecy and not want to talk about the second coming of Christ, but they’re missing out on a huge part of the Bible?

So Bible prophecy proclaims the future. Number two, Bible prophecy in sort of the same vein proves that God is God. If there's one thing that you can kind of look at and say does God exist and is he real, all you got to do is take some time and study Bible prophecy. So many people say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've read the Bible," but they really haven't looked hard at all the prophecies of the Bible that have come to pass hundreds of years after the prophecy was given with great specificity, great clarity.

I gave you Isaiah 46, that goes with this. But also Isaiah 48 verses five through seven, the prophet Isaiah says: "I have even from the beginning declared it to thee; before it came to pass, I showed it to you, lest thou shouldst say my idol hath done them, and my graven image and my molten image hath commanded them." The people of Israel were, can you believe it, they were saying we prayed for that and look, Baal and Ashtoreth and Moloch did it for us.

And the Lord says I'm kind of tired of you giving credit to your idols for things that have happened. I’m the one who did that. So the Lord says I’m going to take that argument away from you, so I will declare what happens in the future and then when it happens you’ll know it was me and it wasn’t your stupid fake god Ashtoreth or Baal. That’s what he’s saying here. Verse six he goes on and says: "Thou hast heard, see all this, and will you not declare it?" He says now note this, he says, "I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them."

What didn't they know? Lots of stuff, including the first coming of Christ. The Jews blinded themselves and weren’t willing to take the stuff that God had showed them through the prophets, like Zechariah 9:9. The Messiah’s going to come, he’s going to save, he’s going to be just, but he's also come lowly, meek, riding on the colt of a donkey. And they said we’re going to kind of sweep that and hide it, we don't care about that. They, verse seven, "are created now and not from the beginning, even before the day when thou heardest them not, lest thou shouldst say, behold I knew them."

In other words, the Lord’s taking away argument from the people because he’s saying I will predict what’s going to happen. Bible prophecy sets me apart from all other gods, so-called false gods. The Bible drives the critics crazy because they can't figure out how does God do it. And you've heard me defend different theories about why the Bible—how did Daniel know about Antiochus Epiphanes and all the Maccabean revolt, and how did Daniel predict the Romans and the Greeks and Alexander the Great? Like, how did he do that?

And there’s been critics who’ve tried to make it look like Daniel was a forgery and it was written in 90 AD and all that, which is a ridiculous argument because the book of Daniel was in the Septuagint, the Greek translation, which we know was 233 BC or earlier. So the arguments are weak and the Bible is powerful because it's proven to be God who tells us the future. That’s prophecy.

By the way, of all the prophecies of the Bible, one of the great proofs is the Jewish people. God said over and over in his word, "I’m going to take my Jews when they rebel, I’m going to scatter them all over the world for a long, long time, thousands of years they’ll be scattered. And then in the last days I will start to regather my people." Remember Ezekiel 36 and 37, the prophecy of the dry bones? And he said I’m going to see the bones start to clink together in the desert, the knee bone connected to the thigh bone, and the thigh bone connected to the hip bone. Remember that whole prophecy? And the bones are walking skeletons, but there’s no life breathed in them yet.

He's talking about the Jews being gathered out of the world out of just total diaspora. And then when they’re clinked together as bones, there’s going to come a point where God’s going to breathe life into those bones and there’s going to be flesh on those bones and life. What are we seeing right now? We’ve seen the bones come together. May 14th, 1948 was amazing when the Jews became a nation again. The Jews, the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl and all that, the 1700s, they all started gathering again into the Holy Land.

There was just a bunch of Bedouins there before the 1700s. When do the Jews start coming? A couple hundred years ago they started piling back into Israel. Became a nation in 1948. Now they’re one of the more powerful nations in the world, just like the Bible said. And as it turns out, the Lord even goes further and says and the Jews, the world’s going to hate them and the nations of the world are going to gather against them, and then he even enlists the top nations in the Ezekiel 38 prophecy that Russia, Iran, and Turkey and other nations are going to have a confederation of nations and attack Israel in the last days. Isn't it interesting?

The stage is set for exactly what the Lord says. It was Count von Zinzendorf. Who's that? Is that somebody from Harry Potter, Brett? No. He was a guy from a long time ago that the critics and the atheists said tell us, what is the proof of God’s existence? And I like what Count von Zinzendorf said. He said two words: "The Jews." If you just look at the Jews and what the Bible said would happen about them, you have to take the Bible as the word of God. It proves that God is God.

So proclaiming future events, that's what Bible prophecy does. It, number two, proves that God is God. And then number three, Bible prophecy prompts us to pray. If you’re a Bible prophecy buff, which we all should be, one of the fruits of that is not to panic or not to promote hype. But what are we supposed to do when we read Bible prophecy? I think we look to Daniel. Daniel was a guy who read Bible prophecy, and what did he do? He prayed.

You can jot this down in your notes. It's Daniel chapter nine verses one through four. Daniel in the first year of Darius the king, he’s there in captivity in Babylon and he starts reading Bible prophecy. What was he reading? The book of Jeremiah. And Jeremiah wrote prophetically the Jews will be in captivity in Babylon for 70 years. So Daniel says in the first year of Darius, I understood by the reading of Jeremiah the prophet that we would be in captivity for 70 years. So he knew. He knew what was going on.

So what did he do after that? Did he get all hyped up and did he start a blog? No. I love what Daniel did when he first read Bible prophecy from Jeremiah. It says in Daniel chapter nine, verse three: "And I Daniel, I set my face unto the Lord God to seek by prayer and supplications with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord God and made confession." I love that Daniel, the prophecy that he read from the scriptures prompted him to pray to the Lord. And that's what you and I need to do.

See, when you see stuff that's crazy in our world today, you can sit around and moan about it or you can be critical of it. When people are saying there are many genders, there's no such thing as a male or female and, you know, men can compete and with women and women and men and men can have babies now, and your temptation is to say that's nuts. That's crazy, there's two genders. Yeah, people struggle with this one, but instead of getting all upset, wouldn't it be great if we started to do what Daniel did and say we need to pray. We need to pray for this country that's lost. Daniel's stuck in Babylon, he understood how long he’d be there because of reading prophecy, but what was his response? It was prayer. Prophecy should make us pray.

And by the way, the epicenter of Bible prophecy is Jerusalem. And there's something about that when we study Bible prophecy, hopefully it makes us do what Psalm 122 verse six says. It says pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee. There’s a prosperity that goes to the person who’s praying for the peace of Jerusalem. So prayer is one of the great fruits of Bible prophecy, or at least it should be.

Number four, prophecy is to purify the believers. There’s a purifying effect on the person who believes in Bible prophecy and what the Bible says, that the Lord could come at any moment, the rapture of the church. By the way, let me clarify something. We clumsily say this and it causes confusion, but is the rapture of the church a coming of Christ? The answer is no, in the sense of putting his foot down and staying on the earth.

The first coming was when he was born in Bethlehem, the first coming. That’s the one the Jews missed. They didn't see it. And they pushed the scriptures about lowliness and being wounded and crucified and all that, they pushed that under the rug. The second coming is Revelation 19 when he comes not on a little donkey, but he comes on a white horse. The second coming he’s going to conquer and be King of Kings, and that’s in the future.

But the rapture of the church is where we meet him in the air. The Bible says we'll be caught up. The word "caught up" in the English translation is "caught up" in the King James; in the Latin Vulgate it’s the word "rapture"; in the Greek it’s the word "harpazo". But it just means that the Lord’s going to be in the sky and we're going to come up and meet him, the rapture of the church.

But when you are reading Bible prophecy, one of the things it does is it makes you look forward to and have the hope of Christ's coming for his church, the rapture, or the second coming of Christ at the end of the tribulation. Either way, that hope that we have is something that purifies. How do I know that? Well, the Apostle John writes about this in 1 John chapter three verses one through three. He says: "Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, that we shall be like him."

Has anybody been looking forward to that? Is anybody sick of themselves? Like, you know, it's just funny when you're a human, you just kind of go "ugh" and you try to improve yourself, you try to help and—but "ugh". But when we see him, whether that's the rapture of the church or the tribulation saints that are going to be living in the tribulation, when you see Christ, guess what? We have this great blessing. When you see him, we’ll be like him for we will see him as he is. But then verse three: "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."

The hope of Christ and us seeing Christ, there's something purifying about that. It’s kind of like this, when we talk about the Lord’s return and the rapture of the church or the second coming of Christ, end-time stuff, what it shouldn't do is freak you out or make you get bunkers and guns necessarily and all that stuff. If you want to do that, you can, but it’s not what the Bible says. What should we do then when we read Bible prophecy? Well, we should be praying, we already said prompting to pray, but it also purifies us.

When we have the hope of Christ’s return, we'll find ourselves serving the Lord and walking with him. If you believed the rapture of the church could happen this afternoon, would you go after church over to the strip club and hang out and say, "Well, the Lord’s coming, but let's just get one more strip club visit in"? I would hope not. You'd say, "Man, let’s have a prayer meeting or a worship service or let’s do stuff that’s pure because Christ is coming." There’s something about the person who knows Jesus is coming soon. He says and every man that has that hope of the Lord’s return has a hope that purifies. I love that.

And that's one of the things prophecy does is it gives you kind of a heavenly, eternal mindset. You think of the bigger picture, don't you? And it doesn't become all about this life. Too many people are all about this life. Now some of you, I know what you’re thinking. Brett, you Bible prophecy people, you're so heavenly minded you're no earthly good. But I would say you’re not going to be any earthly good until you are heavenly minded.

Jesus said set your affection on things above, not on this earth where moth and rust and thieves break in and steal this stuff. But when we have that heavenly mindset, we’re right in thinking that way. Heaven and earth will pass away, but live for eternity and don't set your affection on your picket fence here on the earth or your house or your job or your career. You need to set your affection on things that are going to last, things that are eternal. Bible prophecy kind of automatically makes you realize we need to be about heaven and not about hope of this life, but it's hope in the next that's the most important.

This purifying effect is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 24. He said there’s a wicked evil servant and then there’s a good servant. The good servant is looking and watching and waiting for Christ's return. That’s the good servant. The Lord says watch, be sober, be vigilant, don't be ignorant concerning the end times and the last days. Sadly, it's the thing the church is not doing for the most part today.

The very thing we’re told over and over to do: watch, be ready, be sober. So the good servant’s watching and serving the Lord, but the wicked servant there in Matthew 24, "the evil servant shall say in his heart, oh the Lord delays his coming, whatever," and he smites his fellow servant and he drinks with the drunkard. And when the Lord of that servant returns, Jesus said he’ll find him partying down at an hour when he thinks not. It’d be better to be the servant that’s faithful, watching, sober, and vigilant. This is not a day to mess around.

Well, one more point. To proclaim future events, Bible prophecy; to prove that God is God; to prompt us to pray; to purify the believers; but the last and most important one is this: to point us to Jesus Christ. Prophecy is all about Jesus. Prophecy is not to point us to geopolitics and get all excited about that. Prophecy is not about getting your guns and bunker and Cheerios. That’s not what prophecy’s about.

Prophecy is about Jesus. In fact, I love what, you know, when Revelation chapter 19 is kind of that radical end-of-the-Antichrist scripture and then Jesus returns in Revelation 19—the tribulation period is over and then it starts talking about Jesus. But that last phrase in Revelation 19:10 is the operative phrase. It says, "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

When you study Bible prophecy, it should be all about Jesus. We’re looking for Jesus, we’re worshipping Jesus. The point of prophecy is to point to Jesus. You know, it's amazing is the Jews, I told you they kind of missed the first coming. And they could have known from those very 300 specific prophecies, they should have known Palm Sunday, they should have known the very day. It goes back to Luke chapter 19 verses 41 and 42 when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. It says: "When he came near, he beheld the city and he wept over it."

Why did Jesus weep over Jerusalem? He said: "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! But now they are hid from thine eyes." The Jews didn't get it that Jesus was the Messiah because they didn't care about Old Testament Hebrew Bible prophecies concerning his first coming. So Jesus is weeping because they missed it. They missed the joy of the Messiah coming.

You say well, that's bad for the Jews, good for us, we know the Bible. But here's my concern: is the church ready for the second coming? Are we just like the Jews? Sadly, that’s the problem when the church bails out on Bible prophecy and reading about the future coming of the Lord, the second coming. A lot of the church is going to be just like the Jews, and they won’t be looking for Christ or the signs of the times because they haven't been reading about Bible prophecy. So even as the Jews missed the first coming, I think the church—some of us—are going to even miss the second coming because we couldn't care less what the Bible says.

Now, I got to say this before we’re too hard on the Jews. We have to be careful as Gentiles, because "oh those Jews missed it," but we’re just as ignorant in some ways. And so the Bible says this in Romans 11, and this is good news for the Jews, by the way. It says: "For I would not, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits." He’s talking to Gentiles—us—don't be prideful about this or arrogant.

"That blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in." When is the fullness of the Gentiles and the end of the church age, anybody? The rapture of the church. When the church age is over, the church gets raptured. So at the fullness of the Gentiles what’s going to happen? The eyes of the Jews will be opened during the tribulation period.

And it says verse 26: "So all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer," that's Jesus the Messiah, "and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob," that's Israel. "For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins." The Jews missed it the first time, but in the tribulation period God is going to reinvest into the Jewish people and their eyes will be opened.

And those bones of the valley of dry bones that I talked about earlier, the Lord’s going to breathe life into the Jews and they’re going to see that Jesus is the Messiah. And that’ll be in his second coming. You and I, however, should not make the same mistake of the Jews in the first coming, but know the days and the signs of the times. You are not supposed to be ignorant of this. That’s how this verse starts: "Don't be ignorant about that." So studying Bible prophecy is important. Bible prophecy is important, it’s not a waste of time and the Bible says don’t be ignorant about these things.

And you say well, Brett, why are you telling us all this now? Because the rest of the book of Zechariah, as we study through it, is some heavy-duty Bible prophecy. We’re going to talk about some powerful things in the future events that are going to happen in Zechariah. So let’s embrace it and study Bible prophecy.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador concluding a fascinating study of the coming of Christ found in the prophecy of Zechariah, noting there's even more to come as our study series continues on Today's Word. And Pastor Brett will be closing in prayer in just a moment, so I hope you'll stick around for that.

But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area, where Pastor Brett Meador's the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com. If you've missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. Our vision on Today's Word is to proclaim the hope of salvation and help people know Jesus through careful study of the Bible. We invite you to find out more by going to todayswordradio.com.

I also want to mention that in addition to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn, Oregon, we also have locations in Hillsboro and McMinnville. For more information, go to todayswordradio.com and click on the link "Locations". Again, todayswordradio.com and click the link "Locations". Well, here again is Pastor Brett to lead us in a brief prayer to end our time together.

Brett Meador: Lord, how thankful we are for your word that's living and powerful, miraculous. Lord, we see your miraculous fingerprints on this word. I pray, Lord, that you'd give us just a new respect and reverence for your word. And as we study it, Lord, I pray that like Paul we would not shun to declare the whole counsel, the full word of God.

Help us not to pick and choose our topics, but help us to let your word dictate the pace and the frequency of the topics as we go through your word together. Bless this time, Lord, as we continue to plug away in our through-the-Bible study. Give us understanding; give us application now of your word. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Guest (Male): Amen. Pastor Brett Meador closing our time here on Today's Word. And that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue another verse-by-verse study in the book of Zechariah. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.