ZECHARIAH 1-3 RETURN TO GOD2011 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Zechariah 1-3 Return To God

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2011.

Well, this evening we're beginning now the book of Zechariah as we continue our journey through the Minor Prophets. And we're looking at chapter 1, 2, and 3 of Zechariah this evening. And we pick it up in verse 1 with kind of our introduction to this man named Zechariah. It says in verse 1, In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah,

The son of Edo, the prophet, saying... And then he'll go on to share the prophecies that God gave to him. But here we get this introduction to Zechariah, this introduction to this prophet that we'll be studying over the next few weeks.

He gives us a reference to time. It's the 8th month of the second year of Darius. Darius was the king of Persia, who is the world empire of the day. And Darius was reigning there in Persia, but there's no king in Israel, and so they use the Persian king as the reference to time, since there was not a king reigning in Israel. And so it's in the second year and the 11th month,

I'm sorry, the eighth month of the second year of Darius. And so this is, we studied Haggai two weeks ago. This is just two months after Haggai began his ministry. And so the prophets Haggai and Zechariah were both in Jerusalem together.

and prophesying and ministering around the same time. Soon after Haggai began to prophesy, now Zechariah is on the scene. God is speaking to him and he is going to be sharing a message really of encouragement to the nation of Israel and to the people of Jerusalem.

If you want to dig into some of the historical context behind the things that are happening in Zechariah, you can look at the book of Ezra, chapters 5 and 6. And there you have the time reference of what was going on. The children of Israel had been in captivity for 70 years in Bethlehem.

by the nation of Babylon. They were in Babylon for 70 years because of their rebellion against the Lord. And then after 70 years had been completed, then God allowed the children of Israel to go back to the promised land, back to the land of Israel by King Cyrus.

Cyrus was the Persian king who conquered Babylon. And so he lets the Jews return to Jerusalem in order to build the temple. And so they got back to Jerusalem. Not a lot of them went. A lot of Jews stayed behind. But those that went, they came back to Jerusalem and they began to rebuild the temple. We saw this two weeks ago in the book of Haggai.

And as they're building the temple, there was some opposition. And so they kind of gave up and let the temple lay in ruins for another 14 years while they worked on their houses and remodeled their homes and upgraded the things that they were involved in. And so they were kind of just living their own lives, focused on themselves. And then through the prophet Haggai, God calls them back to work on the temple.

And so this is where the people are. They've been called back by the Lord to work on the temple, and they've begun once again to rebuild. And it's hard work, and there's a lot to do, as we'll see in the coming weeks in the book of Zechariah. The people are somewhat discouraged. They're overwhelmed by how much there is to do, how much work it is. There's just this

big pile of rubble and they've got to sort through it, clean it out and put it back together as the temple. And so Zechariah is prompted by the Lord to speak and his message is really a message of encouragement, to really encourage the people and much of what he encourages them with is the future. He keeps reminding them about the future plans that God has for Israel.

Things that are still somewhat future for us as we look forward to the millennial kingdom. When Jesus comes for His second coming and He sets foot upon the earth and He sets up His kingdom here on the earth for 1,000 years.

Many of the prophecies of Zechariah will be fulfilled in that time. And so here Zechariah is giving the people some hope. He's calling them to look at the future plans that God has for the nation, that they would be encouraged and continue the work that God had called them to.

And so this message of encouragement through Zechariah, who was a priest there in Jerusalem, it says that he is the son of Berechiah, the son of Edo. We don't know much about Zechariah. There's many different Zechariahs in the scripture. This particular one, we don't have a lot of information about except for what we have here in the book. And that he was the head of his father's house and he was a priest there in Jerusalem.

Well, here's his message as he begins 2-6. It says, The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts.

Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they did not hear nor heed me, says the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? Yet surely my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they returned and said, Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us,

According to our ways and according to our deeds, so he has dealt with us. As we begin looking at the prophecies of Zechariah, we begin now with God's call to Zechariah and he addresses the issue of the people in rebellion against him.

Although Haggai has called them back and they've begun to work on the temple, that's the physical structure, God's now focusing more on their hearts. He's focusing on the spiritual aspect of their lives and He's calling them to repentance through the prophet Zechariah. They went into captivity 70 years prior or 80 years prior now because of their rebellion against God.

And God is now asking the people there of Jerusalem not to follow that example, not to continue that pattern. He's asking them to not be like their fathers. He says, look, I was angry with your fathers because of their rebellion, because of their sin.

But God says there in verse 3, "...return to Me." This is the incredible thing that we know about the God that we love and serve. That He is gracious to us. And that even though we don't deserve it, He calls out to us and says, "...return to Me."

The hearts of the people had gone a little bit astray. They still believed in God, they still were offering sacrifices, and they were now beginning to work on the structure of the temple. But there were some issues in their hearts that God wanted to address. He wanted them to return to Him.

And he says, if you return to me, here's God's promise, not just to them, but for all eternity, as you turn to the Lord, He turns to you. We also find this principle in James chapter 4 verse 8, where James says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. So here's this principle.

People who have just recently in the past 20 years returned back to their hometown, back to the place where they'd been taken out of by Babylon. They'd kind of given up working on the temple and now they were just getting back into it.

But their hearts were still astray and God is saying, return to me, come back to me. Don't just do the outward stuff, but let's deal with the real issues. Let's deal with the heart. Not only do you need to rebuild outwardly, but your personal relationship with God needs attention. But here's my promise. God says, return to me and I will return to you.

And as we look at these prophecies here by Zechariah today, there's much we can today also gain. There's much we can consider as we look at these things because as I said, these promises are still true. And as we work on the outside stuff, you know, coming to church and being religious, those are good things. They need to be done but...

But also God's looking at our heart and He's saying, look, if you will turn to Me, if you will draw near to Me, I will draw near to you. He's provided the way, He's made the way, He's provided for us the opportunity to come to Him because of what Jesus Christ did for us upon the cross. And now, it's kind of like the ball's in our court. He said, look, here's what I've done.

I've offered my son as a sacrifice. I've taken care of your sin. I've made the way open into my presence, into a relationship with me. Now it's up to you. Will you turn to me? Will you accept my forgiveness, my goodness, my grace, and turn to me? And if you do, then I will draw near to you. I will turn to you.

And so he's calling the people to return to him. He says in verse 4, Do not be like your fathers. Don't follow that same pattern. What did the fathers do? They stopped at their ears. They refused to listen as God was speaking to them. You see, it's not that God was expecting them to never mess up or never make a mistake or never fall into sin even.

His expectation though is that as He brings those things to light and as He sends His prophets and He calls them to repentance, His expectation then is that they repent. God's expectation of any of us is not that we are perfect. He knows we're going to fall. He knows we fail. He knows that we mess up. But what He expects us to do then is to not just continue repenting,

in that pattern of sin, but as He brings it to our attention, as He reveals it, as He calls us to repentance, then His expectation for us is to respond and to return to Him and then He returns to us. And so He reminds them, "Hey, what happened to your fathers who were in this pattern of not listening to Me?" He said, "What happened to them?" "Well, they're gone." "What happened to the prophets who were prophesying to them?" "They're gone too."

But the Word of God stands. And so the people came to the conclusion there in verse 6, The Lord of hosts determined to do to us according to our ways and according to our deeds. What happened to the nation was exactly what God had declared would take place. He was faithful to His Word. And so the fathers, their ancestors,

had walked in rebellion against God and they'd experienced the consequences of that. And so he's reminding them, look, if you continue to walk in the pattern of your fathers, you're going to experience the same type of consequences and judgment. He's reminding them that sin destroys. And it's a good reminder. We all need to be reminded. The Bible is very clear. The wages of sin is death.

And so as we find ourselves, as we have this revelation from the Lord about areas of our lives, areas of our hearts that are not submitted to Him, we are responsible to return to Him in those things, to surrender those things to the Lord. And He says, I will return to you and I will work in your life. I will work in that area. But if we continue on, the end of verse 6 says, according to our ways He's dealt with us. God will...

Bring judgment to those who live in sin. We've talked about it many times as we've studied through the prophets. You reap what you sow. That cannot be changed. That's the law of God. The wages of sin is death. It will bring destruction unless you return to the Lord. And if you return to the Lord, He will return to you. That's the amazing grace of our God.

Even though we don't deserve, and we'll talk about that in chapter 3, we don't deserve God's goodness. We don't deserve His forgiveness. But His promise is if you turn to Him, He will turn to you. He'll work in your life. He'll transform your life. He'll pour out His grace upon you.

Well now as we go on, we're beginning a series of visions that Zechariah has. We pick it up in verse 7, it says, "...on the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Shabbat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Edo the prophet."

I saw by night and behold a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among the myrtle trees in the hollow, and behind him were horses red, sorrel, and white. Then I said, My Lord, what are these? So the angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what they are.

And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth. So he answered the angel of the Lord who stood among the myrtle trees and said, We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and behold, all the earth is resting quietly.

Here as we look at the prophet Zechariah's message, we see his vision that he has. It's a vision he has by night. And the visions that he has, like visions all throughout the scriptures, are... We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.