Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: You and I are supposed to know the times and the seasons. The Bible says that we're living in, and how will we know the times and seasons? The Bible gives us all kinds of hints so that we are not overtaken like a thief in the night. Could it be that you and I are living in those last days?

This is not a time not to be a Christian. That's the only comfort we can have is to know that we're going to be saved during this time. And I watch and wait and look for the rapture of the church and the coming of our Lord. It's going to be glorious.

Guest (Male): Throughout history, the control of Jerusalem and its surrounding region has been hotly contested by rival empires, peoples, and faiths. Yet the first verses of Zechariah chapter 12 paint a simple but powerful picture. When people push against God's plan, it doesn't go well. Pastor Brett Meador reminds us from today's word, God's purpose for Jerusalem is a certainty.

Brett Meador: In Zechariah chapter 12, we have this powerful word given to Zechariah the prophet from the Lord about Jerusalem. It's Zechariah 12:1 is where we'll begin. And there it says, "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. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all people round about, when they shall be in siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day I will 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."

Key phrase there that you should notice as a flag is "in that day." And that's a phrase Zechariah is going to use many times there. But we're talking about the Day of the Lord. We've covered this in previous teachings. The Day of the Lord is when God says, "That's it. Time's up." And he intervenes into the world and it starts with the rapture of the church and goes into the tribulation period. That's the Day of the Lord and then even in the Millennial Kingdom, the Day of the Lord is coming.

Then this is going to come to fullness where all the nations of the world are going to gather against Jerusalem. Now, what's amazing about the times you and I live in, and the Bible says don't be ignorant about Israel and don't be ignorant about the times that we're living. Most nations of the world are opposed to Israel this very day and say, "You guys have no right to be in Jerusalem or occupying," they say, as they call it, the land.

But the Christian church needs to understand the history of Israel because the Bible says don't be ignorant about my people, about Jerusalem, about Israel. And yet there's not only ignorance but propaganda and lies that have been pushed about the Jews and about Israel. So I want to show you biblically what the Lord says about Jerusalem in His word and about what's going to happen in the last days. And it's an important thing to know this.

So Jerusalem, what makes it such a big deal? People are arguing about who does Jerusalem really belong to. Well, the answer is God. Jerusalem belongs to God. He says, "Jerusalem is mine." Let me just give you a few scriptures for you to jot down. Why is it so important? Well, it says in Psalm 132:13, "For the Lord hath chosen Zion." That's another name for Jerusalem, particularly Mount Zion, the Temple Mount. "The Lord has chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation." God says, "I'm going to live there." That's a big deal if you believe the Bible, that God says Jerusalem's where I'm going to live.

Joel chapter 3, verse 17. "So shall you know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more." There's coming a day where God is going to send His son Jesus, who came the first coming, died on the cross. The second coming, He's coming to rule and reign and Jesus is going to make His throne there on Mount Zion, Temple Mount, in Jerusalem and He's going to call it His own. So who cares what the world says, that's what will happen.

Not only that, but 2 Chronicles 7:16. "For now have I chosen and sanctified this house," that is the Temple on Jerusalem, "that my name may be there forever: and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually." The heart of God is there at the Temple Mount where the temple used to sit. Now, what's interesting about this where it says that "my name shall be there forever." That's basically when God says, "This is mine." So the Lord assigns His name on Jerusalem. Jerusalem belongs to God and that's what the Bible says very clearly. I just gave you three verses. There's more.

But that's the reason, by the way, and people say, "What's the reason there's turmoil in Jerusalem?" And people say the Arab-Israeli conflict. And that's really only recent, the Arab-Israeli conflict and stuff. But all throughout the centuries, Jerusalem has been a place of turmoil and warfare. You and I are living in a day and some of you are old enough in this room that you actually saw some major Bible prophecy milestones happen and it's an exciting time to be alive, honestly. Because we are living in the days where God is regathering His people, the Jews, into the Holy Land.

During the Jewish diaspora, what was going on in Jerusalem while the Jews were scattered? Nation after nation came trouncing through Jerusalem. You've got the Byzantines, the Muslims came through, after that the Crusaders, the Mamelukes of Egypt, and then the Ottoman Turks, and then the British. Jerusalem was under the British mandate, if you know that about history. While the Jewish city of Jerusalem was trounced by all these different nations and the Jews scattered, anti-Semitism around the world just started to go crazy, especially in the late 1800s.

Meanwhile, there was a guy watching this, a young man by the name of Theodore Herzl. Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist, playwright, political activist, and a writer who was known as the father of modern political Zionism. And this is what he said, "The Jew will never be safe without a place of their own, a homeland." The Jews around the world are in real peril because he saw the handwriting on the wall about hatred and anti-Semitism for the Jews.

And so it was Theodore Herzl that started to get a massive migration back to Israel. And the Jews started going back in the late 1800s. Wealthy Jews from Europe went and bought dumpy land in Israel. Israel was a dump back in those days in the late 1800s. So the Jews came and purchased with their money that they'd earned in Europe and bought much of the land of Israel. They bought it with their own money. This is the first thing you should remember. Jews, most of the land they have, they bought with their own money. They not only bought their land, we also know from the Bible, God gave them that land.

But thirdly, not only did God give them the land, but guess what? The world gave them that land. I'll tell you about that in a second. But back to Theodore Herzl who's saying, "We've got to go to our own land." He said this at the conference of Basel, which is interesting in Switzerland, Congress of Basel. He came up with a plan for the State of Israel. This was his idea to open up Israel again as its own nation or state. Theodore Herzl was known as saying at Basel, "I founded the Jewish state. If I said this out loud today, I would be greeted by universal laughter." He was making the case, "We need a state, we need to become a nation of Israel," and people did laugh at him. "Oh, that's ridiculous. Israel will never have a state again." But after 50 years, they were right on the cusp of becoming a nation again. And people credit this single guy, Theodore Herzl, as the guy who came up with the idea to make Israel a nation again.

It's an amazing story and I'm just giving you the high points. But the world's nations by one vote decided to give the Jews their own nation after the Holocaust, after World War II. The Jews had already been migrating to Israel and Jerusalem. But basically, there's something before that happens though you should know about. Back before the Jews were granted the nation by the world, the UN General Assembly partitions Palestine in November of 1947.

And this is a big deal, even though it doesn't go on the radar much. But this is when the UN General Assembly said, "We need to divide up Jerusalem to be fair. Some for the Jews, some for the Arabs." And so they basically drew a line, and it's a really strange line. Jerusalem's got this squiggly line of the West Bank right down the middle of Jerusalem and splits Jerusalem in half and the UN General Assembly partitions Palestine and divides it, Jews and Palestinians, and did it without any real knowledge or thought of anything as it turns out. But as it turns out, the Jews didn't get the Temple Mount. They only got a certain section of Jerusalem in that partition.

But then, after the Holocaust and all that, May 14th, 1948, the world feels guilty. Israel becomes a nation. And so not only did they buy the land, God gave them the land, but the world in embarrassment, we said we should have rescued the Jews from the Holocaust. They said, "Okay, you do have a land that you can call your own." So the League of Nations or the United Nations, I should say, basically grants Israel a state. And Israel becomes a nation just like Theodore Herzl envisioned, where everybody was laughing at him before.

There's another day on the timeline. May 14, 1948, they become a nation. May 15th, 1948, you have the Arab-Israeli war. Seven Arab nations attack Israel. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, they all attack Israel. And these nations are already, for the day, fairly high-tech weaponry and stuff. The Jews are brand new one-day-old nation. They've got pitchforks and pickup trucks, literally outgunned, outmanned, but biblically proportioned victory. The Jews defend themselves from these seven fairly modern-day powerful nations. The War of Independence is worth studying. It's an amazing thing.

But basically, Israel causes the Muslims, the reason why the Muslims attacked is in their Quran and Hadith, one of the things if a Muslim land belongs to Islam, it needs to always belong to Islam. And they have a vow to say from that point on and forevermore, the Muslim has the duty to conquer those people and get their Islamic land back. So they were making claim that that was Islamic land, so the Jews don't have a right to exist there. And that's been the narrative ever since.

The Arabs have never acknowledged Israel as a state even though the rest of the world did. The rest of the Arab world said no. They called Israel the dagger that splits the Muslim world. And then you have the Six-Day War. This is a key turning point for Israel, but specifically Jerusalem. It was in 1967, this amazing war that the Bible actually predicted. If you read Ezekiel chapter 4, and this is where the Jews, basically the Arab nations were poised to attack Israel. The Arab nations were surrounding Israel and stacking up weapons. But the Israelis, instead of just sitting there, they preemptively attacked in the Six-Day War.

And during that attack taking over Jerusalem, not only the half that was theirs, but they were taking over the Jordanian side as well, including the Temple Mount, which was a big deal. For the first time in many, many centuries, now suddenly the Jews take back the Temple Mount and all of Jerusalem. And if you recall, Moshe Dayan, he did a crazy thing and nobody understands why. Moshe Dayan, he ends up giving the Temple Mount as a land for peace gesture, saying, "The Temple Mount, we'll give it back to you guys, the Muslims."

The reason why is Moshe Dayan wasn't really an orthodox Jew or he didn't really believe in the spiritual part of Israel. He couldn't care less about the Temple Mount. He knew it was the third most holy site in all of Islam, so he said, "Here, you can have your holy site back." But during this time period, Israel gains a large area of land. In the six days, they took the West Bank, the Golan Heights, they took the whole Sinai Peninsula there. That was a huge mass of land that Israel gains.

Long story short, Israel gave back the whole Sinai Peninsula as a land for peace, just trying to make peace with the Egyptians. Land for peace has proven to never work for the Jews, by the way. So the Israelis gave back the Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank and the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip remained a contentious debate. And the world called them occupiers in the West Bank and the Golan Heights up there in the north. And the world has been bitter ever since. "You Jews are occupiers, occupying a land that's not yours." It is theirs. God gave it to them, they paid for it, and the world gave it to them. And they even defended it when they were attacked by Arab peoples over and over and over again.

And again, how much land is that of all the Middle East and the Arab lands? If you look at a football field within the white lines there, if that's all the Arab nations, Israel would be one square foot of land of all that if you spread out and do the math on this. It's not like Israel's asking for a lot. They're just asking for a place they can live in the world and survive without people killing them or exterminating them.

All that to say, the timeline goes after the Six-Day War, then you got the Yom Kippur War, which is an amazing story. I don't have time to go into. Basically, the Arabs attacked again in 1973 on Yom Kippur, the most holy day of Israel, the Day of Atonement. And the Jews were caught unaware. They turned off all radios, all television, that was the rule of the Jews. So they were in the dark and they didn't even know they were being attacked.

But one of the amazing stories, 5,000 Syrian tanks, one of the biggest tank battles in world history happened on this war where the 5,000 tanks were coming over the Golan Heights. The Israelis had one tank up there, one. And there's this amazing biblically proportioned story. The tank commander's name was Ziggy of all things. But Ziggy, this tank commander, he did this thing and this is a legendary thing. The Syrian tanks were coming up and Ziggy popped over the hill and fired and then he'd go back down. Then he'd move over here and then pop over the hill, fire, come back down. Then move way over here, pop over. And he did this for hours.

And the Syrian tank commanders all stopped and said, "Those sneaky Israelis, they've got a whole platoon of tanks back there." And they stopped their forward attack for quite a long time. Eventually, Ziggy's tank was hit and decommissioned. And so the Syrians started to carefully move forward and then when they got over the hill, they realized it was only one tank. A little embarrassing.

But even more embarrassingly still, the Syrians said, "We can get to the Sea of Galilee in four days of battle. We're convinced of that." But they were making it in one day. They were blowing through because not only was there only one tank, how many soldiers were on duty on Yom Kippur when they were attacked? 168 soldiers were on duty that day on the Golan Heights and 5,000 tanks were coming over the hill. This was a brutal, the Syrians could have just rolled right in and taken over, gone through the Sea of Galilee down the Via Maris all the way down to Tel Aviv and just taken over Israel. They really could have.

But they also, after the tank thing, "Those sneaky Jews, they're up to something. They're leading us into an ambush. That's why everything seems so easy." And so they stopped their attack and it gave the Jews a chance to get everybody together and regroup. And the next day in the Yom Kippur War, the Jews started turning the tide and the Syrians were eventually defeated. Egypt was defeated in that attack by a guy named Ariel Sharon. He was maybe you remember him as the Prime Minister of Israel. Before he was a Prime Minister, he was this John Wayne sort of character.

He disobeyed orders when he was down in the Sinai Peninsula. The Egyptians were attacking, but instead of focusing on the Egyptian army, he did something that was against orders. He went around the Egyptian army unbeknownst to the Egyptians and marched his army down to Cairo and made it 100 kilometers just outside of Cairo and he surrounded the Egyptian third army, which is the army that protects Cairo. He surrounded the army that protects Cairo just outside of Cairo and basically got a stranglehold on them and said, "Okay, any questions?" And it was at that moment the whole Egyptian army had to retreat and go back.

Some people wanted to charge Ariel Sharon with disobeying orders, but the Israeli command had to say his plan worked so well he's a war hero because it really did stop the Egyptian. All of these battles biblically proportioned because God intervenes for Israel. He always has.

Today, what's going on in Israel? Well, more and more nations hate Israel. More and more nations say Israel doesn't have a right to exist. And Israel's really had only one good friend, and that is the United States of America. The Jews said that Donald Trump was their friendliest president they've ever had and they named streets after him and stuff because he's the one who said Jerusalem is the capital city of Israel, which it always has been, but nobody in the world acknowledged that until Donald Trump and the United States said, "We acknowledge Jerusalem as Israel's capital city." And we just blessed Israel by calling Jerusalem their capital city. We were a blessing to them. The Arabs have never acknowledged Israel as a people group.

Now, you say, "Brett, what does that have to do with Zechariah 12?" Did you see what it said in our text? The nation, verse 3, the people that burden themselves with Jerusalem, try to fix the Jerusalem problem, try to handle the Jews in Jerusalem, the people especially in the last days when the Day of the Lord comes. What happens to those nations? Those nations when they try to intervene, it'll cut them into pieces. All the other people will be gathered up against it. The nations of the world are gathering against it, fulfilling prophecy. Check out how the New International Version puts our verse in our text. "All who try to move it will injure themselves." The ESV puts it similarly. "All those who lift it will surely hurt themselves." In other words, massive worldwide hernia to the nations that try to lift Jerusalem and handle Jerusalem.

Now, Zechariah 14. Flip just a page because we even get a further description about what's going to happen and I believe this is going to happen after the rapture of the church. And we're living in these times where all this could happen really soon. Check it out. Verse 1 of chapter 14. It says, "Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity."

Half the city. Do you understand those 67 borders? That's half the city. When Obama said, "We need to get back to the 67 borders." Remember when Obama the President said that? He was saying chop Jerusalem in half. Just like the Bible prophecy says in the last days they will seek to divide it in half. And they're going to be successful. They're going to chop it in half. That's going to happen even though we kind of wished that it didn't happen. It's going to happen and it's going to be a horrible thing.

Verse 3. Then shall the Lord, what's going to happen? "The Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle." Does anybody remember when God fought in the day of battle? Can anybody give me an example of that? Remember when Jericho, Joshua fit the battle of Jericho, the Lord showed up with a flaming sword and said, "I'm going to defeat Jericho." And Jericho was crushed, walls fell in, remember that whole story? And the Lord's got several places, even an angel of the Lord fought in the day of battle against the Assyrians and killed 185,000 soldiers in one night. And the Lord's going to intervene. When they divide Jerusalem, the world's gathered nations gather against it, the Lord's going to fight.

Verse 4. It says, "And his feet shall stand that day in the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a great valley; and half of the mountain shall be removed toward the north, and half toward the south."

Now, what does this mean for you and me? What I explained to you in the history of Jerusalem, it's culminated to bring us to a place where the world is perfectly postured to do exactly what the Prophet Zechariah says is going to happen. The world is postured to divide Jerusalem in half. We've had presidents saying that for a long time now. Zechariah says the nations that try to handle Jerusalem, they're going to be broken. And if they're successful in dividing Jerusalem in half, that's when the Lord comes and says, "I'm going to fight for Jerusalem. I'm going to fight for Israel and I'm going to crush the nations that tried to handle Jerusalem." It's called the Battle of Armageddon, by the way, when all those nations gather, the Lord's going to come. It's His second coming.

And you say, "Well, what does that mean to me?" Well, do you remember when Jesus comes in His second coming, who comes with Him? Us. Ten thousands of His saints. You're going to be involved in that battle. Now, good news, you're going to be given a new body and I think when they shoot you, you'll be like, "Haha, you missed! Haha, you missed! You missed! You missed!" It's going to be great. We're not going to they're not going to be able to kill us in that time. It's going to be great to fight on the Lord's side. But this is something that almost seems surreal but it's actually going to happen, the Bible says. And I believe we are seeing every player, every chess piece is moved into position for Zechariah 12 and Zechariah 14 to come to pass.

I love the reminder that you and I are supposed to know the times and the seasons, the Bible says, that we're living in. How will we know the times and seasons? The Bible gives us all kinds of hints so that we are not overtaken like a thief in the night. And that's what we have to look forward to is the Lord coming, rapturing His church. Then they're going to try to divide Jerusalem in half after the rapture of the church during the tribulation. They're going to try to divide Jerusalem in half and the nations are going to war against the Jews and against Israel at the end of the tribulation and that's when the second coming of Christ is going to happen.

I see all the players ready to roll for that event. Could it be that you and I are living in those last days? I think it's real possible. I wouldn't say dogmatically, people have been wrong before and they thought that the World War I was the Battle of Armageddon. The only problem with that is none of the players of that were matching the players we're talking about here in Zechariah. The players in the world today are perfectly aligned for the end time scenario that the Bible talks about. I think it's an exciting time to be alive and I watch and wait and look for the return of our Lord, the rapture of the church, and the coming of our Lord. It's going to be glorious.

Listen, this is not a time not to be a Christian. This is a time to be saved. That's the only comfort we can have is to know that we're going to be saved during this time. So may the Lord give the church ears to hear. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem, even as unrest is on the Temple Mount as we speak. People are arguing about who Jerusalem really belongs to, but we ultimately know you will rule and reign from Jerusalem. But until then, help us to let our light shine in this dark world. Help us to speak the truth in love but with power. May the gospel reach the even the hardest of hearts, Lord, and people accept your love and your forgiveness and salvation. So we pray blessing on your church now 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. Pastor Brett Meador is the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more by going to TodaysWordRadio.com. If you 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, just go to TodaysWordRadio.com and click on the link Locations. Again, TodaysWordRadio.com and click the link Locations. Join us next time for Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador.