Reasoning Through the Bible
Taking a cue from Paul, Reasoning Through the Bible is an expository style walk through the Scriptures that tells you what the Bible says. Reviewing both Old and New Testament books, as well as topical subjects, the hosts methodically show how Scripture is one cohesive story. Critical Thinking with a little bit of theology and apologetics and you have what this podcast is about. Just like Paul on Mars Hill, Christianity today must address woke, deconstruction, and progressive Christianity, all topics that are addressed if we go purposefully through the Bible. Join Glenn and Steve weekly on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday as they reason with you through the Bible.
Reasoning Through the Bible
S6 || God's Promises to Zion || Zechariah 2:10-3:2 || Session 6 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Can the often-overlooked book of Zechariah hold the key to understanding God’s grand design for humanity? Join us on a compelling exploration where we unpack Zechariah chapter 2, a vision of divine promise where God's presence among His people ignites joy and unity across nations. We'll navigate through the prophetic landscape of Zion, Judah, and Jerusalem, unraveling their significance in the context of a future where Jesus reigns supreme. With "in that day" as our compass, we journey through these scriptures, shedding light on the anticipated unity and restoration under God’s timeless sovereignty. Discover how the book of Zechariah reveals reassuring truths about God’s faithfulness and protection through Jesus’ sacrifice, reminding us that believers stand tall and justified despite Satan the Accuser's whispers.
The Old Testament book of Zechariah is one of the minor prophets and it's been long ignored by many in the church. But, as we're finding as we go through it, there's some very, very important teachings about God, his nature, how he handles his people, and useful things that we can take to heart and hold on to. Today, in a world of discouragement and confusion, the book of Zechariah gives us hope and gives us reassurance and gives us something solid to rest on as we go through the Christian life. If you have your copy of the Word of God, turn to Zechariah, chapter 2. Hello and welcome. My name's Glenn. I'm here with Steve. We do verse-by-verse Bible study through the Word of God. Today we're in Zechariah, chapter 2, and we're in the midst of a vision. The Messiah, the Lord, is speaking and he's in the midst of a vision about Jerusalem and the temple. Steve, can you?
Speaker 2:read Zechariah 2, verses 10 through 13.
Speaker 1:In this passage we very clearly have God saying Be joyous, because I'm going to dwell in your midst and there's going to be people from all over the world that are going to be in fellowship with me. One of the questions that immediately arises before us is when did this happen? Was this something that was in the past, or is it a present thing with the church age? Or is it in the future? I think if we just look at the passage carefully, it will tell us. First of all, there's several specific geographic locations that are mentioned in here. Verse 10 is Zion, that is a particular hill near Jerusalem. Verse 11, many nations. Now notice there very carefully. It does not say people from many nations, like Acts chapter 2 said no. It says many nations will come to me. So yeah, in the church age there's people today in the church that's from many nations, but we don't have many nations, we don't have peoples as a whole.
Speaker 1:The text of Zechariah 2.11,. In that day, many nations will join themselves to the Lord. Verse 12, judah, the Holy Land, jerusalem. Those are all specific geographic features of a particular land, namely the land of Israel and the places around Jerusalem. It's really difficult to spiritualize these things into something other than the literal, physical locations of these particular geographic features. There are no textual clues in here that would give us room in our interpretation to take this as some sort of allegory. There's no textual clues in here that would give us room in our interpretation to take this as some sort of allegory. There's no textual clues in here that would give us that freedom other than the normal use of the language. Therefore, we cannot take verse 11, dwell in your midst, to be the church age. Rather, this is speaking of a time when Jesus will return to the earth and rule from Jerusalem.
Speaker 2:I think this is in line, glenn, with one of the themes of the Old Testament that is coming to completion. Here he says many nations will join themselves to the Lord. You've made a good point to say that this is nations themselves, not people from nations. Going back to Genesis, chapter 10, at the Tower of Babel, god scattered the nations. Then he took and said I'm going to create a nation for myself out of no other nations. He chose Abraham.
Speaker 2:Abraham believed God. He counted it to righteousness. He gave Abraham the three promises of great nation land and that all the other nations would be blessed. Galatians tells us in that seed was Jesus Christ. But God is also wanting to restore the nations. He scattered them in Genesis, chapter 10, and we see him wanting to bring the nations back together and worship him. He's wanting the nations to acknowledge that he is the one and true God, and I think that that is what we see here. That's this arc of story coming to completion, that is a sub-theme of God dealing with the nations, and that he has created this nation of Israel for Himself, by Himself, out of no other nations around.
Speaker 1:The other thing we see here is the phrase in that day. Verse 11 introduces this phrase in that day, and that phrase is used many times in Zechariah as well as other of the Old Testament prophets. We have to take that phrase and see what it's meaning. It's not legitimate to take a meaning to the text and then try to make it say something we're not immediately calling this future. We have to say what does the context say? So in verse 11, in that day, many nations will join themselves to the Lord. Again, not many people, from many nations, it's nations. So in that day we're going to have countries, nations that join themselves to the Lord. Many nations have not yet joined themselves to the Lord. We take that in that day to be a clue that this is a future event. As we go through, if you're not aware of when he says in that day and whether that's present or future, then your hermeneutic and your interpretation just gets confused and you have to stretch the text beyond its context. In that day, because of here, it's not been the case that many nations have joined. Therefore, this is a future event. Look at what the passages are saying.
Speaker 1:Verse 10, in that day, god will dwell in the midst of Israel. It talks about the hill, zion, judah, holy Land, jerusalem, all these physical features that have no context here for giving us the freedom to allegorize it for another time than what it was. Verse 11, many nations will join themselves. Verse 12, the Lord will possess Judah and Jerusalem. We take this to be a future event that happens in that day, which must then be when Jesus returns. So therefore, this has not yet happened. We can take it to be that when Jesus comes back, there will be a time where God is dwelling in Jerusalem. There's a ring of fire around the city, in the sense that he's protecting it from the nations. The Messiah Jesus will wave his hand and destroy all the nations that have come up against his people and he will rule. We will finally have a righteous judge with the power and the righteousness to have world peace and to have fairness in leadership.
Speaker 2:That's going to be a glorious time, steve, it is going to be a glorious time. That's how we can tie this back to the previous verses what you just quoted there from verse 5 that we talked about in our last session, where he says the glory will be in your midst, and now he's talking about himself I will dwell in your midst, and then you'll know that he has set me. So this is all physical territory. It's all physical land, physical cities, physical buildings, physical hills. All of these things are something that is present today and it's going to be present in the future.
Speaker 1:What's not legitimate is to take all these physical clues and just either skip over them or to try to allegorize them into something that the context of the passage doesn't allow for. Now all of that really leads us to the real takeaway here, which is what God's basic message is, his basic message we can apply to our day. The basic message is that we had a people that were discouraged and God's coming down encouraging them and telling them I'm going to be with you. And we can take that message and apply it to the church age, because we, of all people in the church, have God with us, we have the Holy Spirit in us. We can take this message and use it today, because he has done the same thing.
Speaker 1:When we were non-believers, we were lost and discouraged and headed away from him in a path of death, but he gave us life, he brought us near, he gave us encouragement and comfort. So therefore, we today, because he's promising this to the Jews then we as his people, as Christians, then we can take these same comforts. He will be in our midst. What did Jesus say in John 14? He says I will be with you. He says I will come to you. He gave very tender words. These are the words of a loving brother, a loving father. So therefore, we have great comfort in the fact that the Lord is not going to leave us as abandoned orphans. He will come back and he will bless us and he will comfort us and he will destroy our enemies. We can take great comfort in that in the church age today.
Speaker 2:If he came the first time, and through His death, burial and resurrection, then in a physical form, then he's going to come again in a physical form, just as it's talked about here. That is encouragement in our day. We have faith. It's not blind faith. We've talked about that as well. Skeptics like to say oh, you just have blind faith. No, the word faith, pistis in Greek, means firmly persuaded and convinced. That's the faith that we have. So it's not just a leap of faith or blind faith and we're convinced in it. But we are anticipating and waiting for Jesus to come again, just as it's noted here. He came first time in a physical form. Next time he's going to come back in a physical form, albeit it's going to be a glorified body.
Speaker 1:The other thing we could take away from this Steve, that's also just a giant gold nugget is in verse 12, god says that he will possess Judah. Therefore, there's no doubt who he's talking about here. Some Bible teachers make a false distinction between the ethnicity of the Israelites and the people from Judah. Well, he says here, and he makes it completely crystal clear, that he's going to possess Judah, which are the Jewish people. Therefore, he is reiterating that the Jews are his chosen people.
Speaker 1:To take that even two steps further at this point, when this prophecy was given, how many times had the Jews disobeyed God up to this point? Well, we'd lose count. We don't have enough fingers and toes, or there's not enough calculators in the world. I mean, just read the rest of the Old Testament all those times where they had disobeyed and he had sent prophets and they claimed oh yeah, we're going to repent. Now they disobey again.
Speaker 1:The reason they were in Babylon was because they had disobeyed and God had punished them by sending them out of the land, and they were still disobeying. Even though they were in Babylon, they still disobeyed. Ezekiel 36 tells us that here. He wouldn't need to call them to repentance if they were living righteous lives. Even after the punishment of sending them to Babylon, they were still sinning, their hearts still weren't right. Nevertheless, god. But God, he says come back, I'm going to bless you, I'm going to fill the cities, I'm going to protect you and I'm going to possess Judah. Steve, that's a great word of encouragement that, even though the Jews had disobeyed hundreds of times, uncountable numbers of times, god was still faithful to his people. If he's faithful to them, then he'll be faithful to us, will he not?
Speaker 2:He will.
Speaker 2:And if he's not going to be faithful to the promises he gave to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then how can we be assured that he's going to be faithful in the promise that we have been given eternal life?
Speaker 2:This is encouragement from that perspective, in that his faithfulness to the nation of Israel is something that is encouragement for us. There's nothing in the Old Testament that says that when the people reach a point of final rejection, that God is going to be through with them. There's no final rejection mentioned in the Old Testament of Israel, this concept that, oh well, they rejected their Messiah Jesus and therefore God is now through with them and done with them and moved on. Now the church is the new Israel. Well, we don't receive the land promises and the new church. So this concept that God is not going to be faithful to those promises, I think is one that's a dangerous one Because, again, if we are not assured he's going to keep these promises that he gave to them, then how can we be assured that the promises that he gave to us is going to come to fruition?
Speaker 1:Excellent point, steve, because we have these promises that God is faithful. He did make those promises in all those times, not just a few. There's many places in the Old Testament, right here in Zechariah being one of them, just to repeat, just to make sure we're clear. There's many good-hearted Christians, but they're incorrect, that would say that, well, the Jews rejected their Messiah. Therefore, god has finished with them.
Speaker 1:Well, and as you said, there's no real place that says that, yes, as a country, as a nation, they did indeed not accept and rejected Jesus Christ, but that was just one of many hundreds of times where they had rejected the Lord. Think of all the times he was always bringing them back, always bringing them back, always bringing them back, not because of them, but because he is faithful. His promises are ones they can depend on. If he broke His promise to the Jews and rejected them because of unfaithfulness and disobedience, then there's no reason why he couldn't do the same with us in the church age with our faith in Jesus Christ. But because he is faithful to the Jews, we can be assured that our trust in Jesus Christ will give us righteousness before him and we will be right with God in the end.
Speaker 2:One last illustration in this before we move on, glenn, for our listeners Go back to the Exodus, and we've done a study in Exodus. We've encouraged our listeners to go through that study. They're coming out. They come to the Mount Sinai. Moses has been up there receiving the Ten Commandments from God and he's been up there for a while. Some of them get restless and they go to Aaron and say Moses has been up there too long. We don't know what's happened to him. Make us a god. Aaron says get me your gold. He does it. He makes a golden calf. They start worshiping it and attributing to that golden calf as the one that brought him out of Egypt.
Speaker 2:God knows this is going on, tells Moses on the mountain. Says your people down there have completely lost it and they've gone off and they're not worshiping me anymore. They're attributing to a false God what I have done. I'm going to wipe them out. And what does Moses do? Moses pleads their case and says no, lord, what would that speak of you and the promises that you made to your people to take them out? It would be used against you, for the Egyptians would say you just brought your people out here so that you could do away with them. God relented and moved forward. Now we went through all of that. What that means when we went through Exodus. The point I'm making here is it's not about Israel being faithful to. It's about God's faithfulness, and that's what I think people get wrong. It's what it says about God's promises. I think that's a perfect illustration that Moses made. What will the other nations, what will Egypt, say about you, lord, if you destroy your people out here? It was applicable then and I think it's still applicable today.
Speaker 1:It was applicable then. And it was applicable in Ezekiel, chapter 36, where he judges Israel by casting them amongst the nations. He goes through a long story there I sent you prophets and you disobeyed. So I judged you and you still disobeyed. He says there in that chapter because of my name, I will bring you back and I will take away your iniquity and I will take away your heart of stone and cause you to keep my statutes. It was because of my name, God says so. It wasn't because of anything good in them. All Israel did, all the Jews did, was disobey. And God says I made a promise, I'm going to keep it.
Speaker 1:So therefore, our weak flesh in the church age, we can take comfort that he's not going to walk away from us because of our sin. People that believe oh, I have to hang on and not sin. If I do a mortal sin, then he's going to cut me off. No, no, A thousand times, no. He kept coming back. Yes, there's a price to pay. We don't get away with sin. He spanked and judged Israel because of their disobedience. He'll take us to the woodshed as well. You won't get away with sin, but he doesn't cut you off, he draws you back. He always is faithful, not because of anything we have done, but because he is faithful. That brings us to the end of chapter 2.
Speaker 1:Let's go ahead and start Zechariah, chapter 3. It says the next vision. It's the vision of a high priest. We're introduced to a Joshua the high priest. Let's read in Zechariah, chapter 3. Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan the Lord rebuke you. Satan. Indeed, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?
Speaker 1:Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and standing before the angel. He spoke and said to those who were standing before him saying Remove the filthy garments from him. Again, he said to him See, I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes. Then I said Let them put a clean turban on his head. They put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments, while the angel of the Lord was standing by. The angel of the Lord admonished Joshua, saying Thus says the Lord of hosts If you will walk in my ways and if you will perform my service, then you will also govern my house and also have charge of my courts, and I will grant you free access amongst those who are standing here, Steve, who are the people in the story? There was at least three people in the story, so who's in the vision.
Speaker 2:There's Joshua, the high priest, there's the angel of the Lord and there is Satan, and Satan means the accuser. We have this picture of a person and an accuser and the angel of the Lord who we take to be the pre-incarnate Jesus, second person of the Trinity. We did a session on who the angel of the Lord is in the Old Testament. Encourage the listeners to go listen to that. But those are the three entities, so it's almost like they're in a courtroom scene.
Speaker 1:Satan's name does mean the accuser or the adversary. What is he doing in verse?
Speaker 2:1?. In verse 1, he's doing what his name means, which is he is accusing Joshua. He's making accusations against him.
Speaker 1:The devil always reminds us of our faults and our failures. He always reminds us, he's always pointing out, he's always accusing us before God. One of the questions that we could ask ourselves is have we ever felt like Satan was standing at your right hand, speaking accusations into your ear, reminding you of all of your faults and all your failures? Have we ever felt like I'm standing before God and Satan's just sitting there saying he did this wrong. They fell here, they sinned there, ever felt like that?
Speaker 2:Yes, I have, many times. Yes, I have.
Speaker 1:What does the Christian have that we can take confidence in, that we shouldn't have to worry about such a situation?
Speaker 2:We have Jesus Christ as our advocate, as our defense attorney, as our high priest ourselves, our intercessory person that pleads our case, and when he pleads our case.
Speaker 1:What has Jesus done for us that takes away all of the accusations of Satan?
Speaker 2:He has paid the price he's paid, the ransom that was due for our sin, and it's paid in full. It's finished, nothing else to do. We have full assurance that Satan's accusations really have no meaning anymore.
Speaker 1:Satan is here standing at the right hand of Joshua the high priest, and he's making accusations before God against the high priest. And so just what we just said Jesus has taken away all of our sin and guilt In 1 John 1, 9,. If we confess our sins, he is faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, not just some. He is faithful to cleanse us from all unrighteousness and all means all, and that's all. All means. That doesn't stop Satan from making the accusations, but it takes away his ammo before God. What's interesting here, steve, is that in this story, what was the high priest?
Speaker 2:wearing. He was wearing filthy garments.
Speaker 1:He's wearing filthy garments. The high priest was supposed to wear these fancy, clean, priestly garments, but here the high priest was wearing filthy garments. That represents some sort of sin. He's not doing what he should have been. Satan had a lot of ammo to use against this high priest. But you know what's interesting in this story? Steve Satan is mentioned here as standing at the right hand of the high priest, accusing him before God, but then the vision just goes on and he's never mentioned again. He's mentioned right here as being there standing before God, accusing the high priest, but then the vision goes on with a lot of other things. Satan is never mentioned again. He's not dealt with. The high priest doesn't have to worry about him. So I find this interesting because doesn't have to worry about him. So I find this interesting because, yes, satan's standing there making the accusations. But do we have to worry about Satan standing there making accusations against us before God? Do we have to worry Because he is? Satan is there today making accusations against you and I before God. Do we have to?
Speaker 2:worry about that. We don't have to worry about that. You get the sense that that's what Satan was saying. Look at this high priest here, Joshua, who's representing the nation of Israel. Look at him. Look at how filthy he is. See all the times that he's rejected you as God and all the things that he's done. Look at all his filthiness that he has. But what did the angel of the Lord say? He rebuked Satan. Then he said remove the filthy clothes and put clean clothes on. Put the righteous clothes on him, Put the proper clothes that are on him. It's a picture of restoration.
Speaker 2:Here is a Satan accusing the nation of Israel over and over. Look at all the bad things that they've done and they're not worthy. They're not worthy of standing here before you. But yet the angel of the Lord rebukes them, takes the old clothes off, restores them by putting clean clothes on, and that's a picture of what he does for us. I think I think you'd agree, Glenn, as far as personal salvation for us. Satan does the same thing. Look at that person there. Look at that, Steve Allen. Look at how filthy he is, all the things that he's done. You can't restore him, but yet he does. When I placed my faith in him. He counted it as righteousness. I was put on clean clothes of righteousness. That's what God sees today is what Jesus Christ has put on me In the vision, satan appears at the beginning making accusations.
Speaker 1:That's what he does, that's his job.
Speaker 1:He has no other role, no other activity. He's only an accuser. The vision goes on when we get down to verse 9,. God takes away the iniquity. Whatever ammo Satan had to accuse him against sin, god removes it. Just what you said, steve those of us that are washed in the blood of Christ. Whenever God looks at us, he doesn't see the filthy garments, he sees the clean clothes. He sees the new garments of Christ. Satan's still doing the same thing.
Speaker 1:Revelation 12.10 speaks of Satan as the accuser All the way up into Revelation. That's Satan's job. He stands there, he accuses and that's all he does. He has no other role other than accusing us, and we shouldn't listen to him, because when God looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Christ. Christ's righteousness is credited to our account, it says in Philippians. Therefore, we can stand before God, we can go into the very throne room of God, it says in Hebrews, and appear there because of Christ's righteousness, and the things that the accuser could accuse us with are taken away from us. We have an advocate, jesus Christ. That is our defense after Satan makes the accusation Today, we should not be afraid of Satan.
Speaker 1:Christians should not go around worried about Satan attacks simply because we have been cleaned up, we've been washed in Jesus' blood, we have Christ's righteousness credited to our account and he is there protecting us. We may have Satan standing there accusing us. He may be whispering in our ear, he may be accusing us before God, but we can stand righteous and justified before God even in the face of false accusations. And, steve, I just find that to be tremendous.
Speaker 2:It is tremendous. I really like going through Zechariah.
Speaker 1:There's such wonderful things. These Old Testament passages don't get brought out enough, and as we go through this, we find such wonderful, wonderful teachings that are practical to us. Today, it tells us these great things about our God and the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. That's where we're gonna stop today, but we trust that you'll be back with us next time as we continue to reason through the book of Zechariah.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for watching and listening. May God bless you. Thank you.
