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
S26 || Israel's Refinement and the Messiah's Return || Zechariah 13:7-14:3 || Session 26 || Verse by Verse Bible Study
Prepare to unravel the enigmatic prophecies of Zechariah 13 and 14 with us, as we promise a journey through prophetic symbolism that intricately connects to the life and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. As we explore the language where the "sword" symbolizes the cross, we also ponder the prophecy's unfulfilled aspects and the mysterious future they may foretell. Our conversation ends with the anticipation of the Messiah's return and ultimate victory over the forces against Jerusalem, providing hope and assurance of God's unwavering commitment to fight for His people.
You know, when you reason through the entire Word of God, you get to some passages that are high mountain peaks where the air is clear and pure, and you get to some valleys where you're into some thick areas that are a little bit muddy. So we're going to be in one of those passages today. Hi, my name's Glenn and I'm here with Steve. We are in the book of Zechariah, chapter 13. We're in some places here where the Bible is not as clear, but it's also just as valuable as some of the mountain peaks. It's all for our benefit. So if you have your copy of the Word of God, turn to Zechariah, chapter 13. We're in a passage that is following on the heels of the prophets being purged from the land. Today we're going to find out in the last part of chapter 13 about the Messiah, the Good Shepherd. So we'll go ahead and start reading in Zechariah 13, verse 7. Awake O sword against my shepherd and against the man my associate. Declares the Lord of hosts, strike the shepherd that the sheep may be scattered and I will turn my hand against the little ones. It will come about in the land. Declares the Lord that two parts in it will be cut off and perish, but the third will be left in it and I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver is refined and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my name and I will answer them. I will say they are my people and they will say the Lord is my God. Note again in verse 8 that this will happen in the land, which is always the land of Israel.
Speaker 1:The land is a key theme throughout the entire word of God and it is a promise that was given unilaterally back in Abraham and Isaac and Jacob's day, that God made a promise that the land would be theirs forever. So he's still dealing with the land, the land of Israel. That's in verse 8. Verse 7 talks about the shepherd and of course the shepherd is the good shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ. He claimed to be the good shepherd and the one who would give his life for the sheep. He told us that in John, chapter 10, verse 11. Jesus actually quoted this exact verse here in Zechariah, quoted it about himself in Mark 14, 27, saying that his death on the cross would scatter the sheep. I find it quite interesting, steve, that Jesus claimed that this verse applied to his death, don't you?
Speaker 2:Yes, I do find it interesting, Glenn, that Jesus refers to this. I think it also shows that this is something that was designed and part of God's plan. Paul makes reference in Romans 3 that God needed to be just to handle sin, but then he also needed to be the justifier, because only he could be the justifier. I think again, and the reason why Jesus is referring back to it, is that it's showing that God, 500 years or so before Jesus was ever even born, was telling the people of Israel there's going to be a Messiah that's going to come, yet the people are going to strike him and do him harm.
Speaker 1:We find here that it speaks clearly of Jesus and again Jesus applied this to himself in his death Awake O sword? Well, swords aren't asleep or awake. So it's giving human characteristics to an inanimate object, a sword, which gives us a clue that the sword part of it is symbolic but the rest of it's not. That again gives us just one more clue as to how to interpret these passages. We find that the militaristic aspect he was actually killed not by a sword but by a cross. We learned earlier in the book about chariots and horses and things like that the bows, the military aspects of this, often symbolic of future military actions, but things like a shepherd. Jesus really is a literal shepherd for the sheep of his flock in the church. Therefore we find these things that he can fulfill literally some things, but other things are clearly symbolic and if we just follow the textual clues, we know which those are. The sword, here again is the cross. Therefore these military aspects were fulfilled in the first century. Then at the last part of verse 7 talks about turn my hand against the little ones. Bible teachers hold this to be God turning his hand against the Jewish people in 70 AD. We would tend to shy away from that interpretation simply because the poetry here in the verse is in the Hebrew form of a couplet, and the little ones is the response line to the first part, that the sheep may be scattered, which are the sheep of the followers of Jesus Christ were pushed out after his death. That's the sense here of this passage. So again, zechariah 13.7, clearly talking about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. We then get into some very clear passages here in verse 8. It says in verse 8 that there will be two parts of the people that are cut off and perish and the third will be left in Jerusalem. So we have two-thirds of the population of Jerusalem that are supposed to be killed. God here says that these two-thirds are going to die and one-third will be left. The one-third that remains will call upon the Lord. So again, our eternal question in the book of Zechariah is when does this apply?
Speaker 1:Steve, we would hold this to not be fulfilled in history in 70 AD, simply because, one after 70 AD, it was not the case that one-third of them stayed around and called upon the Lord. Two, it's not the case that all of them were killed enough to where they would stop a rebellion. After 70 AD. The proponents of that as being fulfilled of a lot of biblical prophecy don't realize that even as bad as 70 AD was, it was in Jerusalem. There were Jews still in the land enough to where 60 years later there were two different rebellions of the Jews against the Roman government.
Speaker 1:70 AD did not stop the Jewish people from rebelling against Rome. There were again two more major rebellions that the Jewish people had against the Roman government over the next 60 years and it just wasn't the case that one-third of the Jews called upon the Lord after that attack. We would still hold this to be fulfilled in the future. That attack, we would still hold this to be fulfilled in the future. We're going to see in chapter 14 that there's going to be a future attack to our day on the city of Jerusalem. That is going to go into quite a bit of detail in chapter 14.
Speaker 2:I agree with everything you said, glenn. I do want to point out that in verse 8, it says and all the land and you mentioned Jerusalem specifically. It can certainly be applied to Jerusalem in 70 AD, everything that you were talking about, but I do think that he's talking about here that two-thirds of all the Jewish people in the land are going to be cut off and that one-third of them are going to be refined and come through all of this destruction and savagery that he's going to be talking about here that is taking place and going on.
Speaker 1:It's very interesting that he mentions that Again. Verse 9 talks about I will refine them as silver is refined, and test them as gold is tested. Silver and gold have impurities in them and the goldsmiths, the silversmiths, will heat them. There's a process there where they can draw off all the impurities and make it purer and purer. Here's a question, steve. We can take down to our day the process of refining gold takes out the impurities, but you have to heat it, you have to put it through the fire. That's what he's talking about it. You have to put it through the fire. That's what he's talking about here. It's painful to go through a fire. Is there a place in our lives where God can put us through the fire, so to speak, or put us through a difficult circumstance in order to draw out impurities? Can God do that in our life, put us through painful circumstances so that he can take things out of our life that shouldn't be there in the first place?
Speaker 2:Painful circumstances, sometimes other circumstances of just kind of a decision-making. Are we going to follow God and the commitment that we've made to him and wait on him, or are we going to try and do something on our own and wait on him? Or are we going to try and do something on our own as mentioned with my particular story, when I finally turned my life over to Christ, in order to you do with it what you want to do with it? I'm tired of trying to do it on my own that there was a three-year period where I worked. That wasn't the best situation and I was not really happy. Yet I stayed faithful in my commitment to let God move me on and after those three years he did move me on to a company that I was very well pleased with and I was able to provide for my family.
Speaker 2:That was, in a way, an unpleasant situation. So while sometimes it can be painful, other times it's unpleasant to put it through fire. That's what brings the impurities out, so that they can be drafted off the top where you can get a pure metal out of it.
Speaker 1:That brings us to the end of chapter 13,. But let's not miss the main point in chapter 13. The main point what he was just talking about is towards the end of the chapter is that there will come a time where two-thirds of the Jewish people will be killed and the one-third that's left are going to turn to the Lord. That this was a refining process to get the people to turn back to God. And we now know in the church age that turning back to God means accepting the Lord, jesus Christ, as their personal Savior and following Him as their Messiah. Until that happens, then these passages are not fulfilled. Until we have at least one-third of the ethnic Jews turn to Jesus, then these passages are not fulfilled. Am I correct, steve? You?
Speaker 2:are correct. At the very last part of verse 9, he says and I will say that they are my people and they will say the Lord Yahweh is my God. The Lord Yahweh is my God. That's a result of them being purified and coming through all of this conflict. Now, I don't think, Glenn, that this can be attributed to the church. I don't think two-thirds of the church is going to be purified and only a third of the church is going to be left, while Zechariah is clear that throughout all of it, it's applying to the actual people of the nation of Israel, the Jewish people, the Hebrews. That's what it's applying to. I don't think that this can be applied to the church or to the body of Christ. What do you think?
Speaker 1:I think it's very clear who it applies to. Look at 13.8. It will come about in all the land. Again, what land? The land, the same land that's talked about everywhere in the Old Testament, is the land of Israel. That two parts in it will be cut off and perished and, as you said, steve, there's no analogy in the church age to where two-thirds are ever cut off from what they were there originally and they cut off and perish. That's not a New Testament concept, that is an Old Testament concept in the sense of Israel, ethnic Israel. There's a time there where there was a remnant and it talks about that in Romans 11 and other places where there's always been a remnant and God's going to prune those that shouldn't be there in the first place to make sure that the church stays pure. We are talking here about ethnic Israel in the land of Israel, and two parts of it are going to be cut off and perish in the time of the end. That's going to happen in chapter 14. It's going to tell us about more specifics of it.
Speaker 1:What I find interesting here, steve, is that chapter 13 was quite difficult in trying to interpret exactly where it fits and many Bible commentators kind of struggle with it with the language there. Chapter 14 is just the opposite. Chapter 14 is so clear that the real challenge in chapter 14 is not determining what it says. The challenge in chapter 14 is making it fit into our preconceived theology that we bring to the text. Because that's where people today struggle is they have a preconceived set of beliefs. Zechariah 14 kind of goes against that. But if we just take what it says, then Zechariah 14, at least most of the chapter is quite clear in what it's saying. Let's go ahead and read, steve, if you could read the first three verses of Zechariah 14.
Speaker 2:Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided among you, for I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and a half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city. Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fights on a day of battle.
Speaker 1:Remember, the context of the entire book of Zechariah is thoroughly and completely, entirely Jewish. It talked a great deal about Judaism and Jewish things Jerusalem, zion, judah, the house of David. It mentioned other Jewish tribes and events. When it gets here to, the spoil will be taken from you and the nations against Jerusalem. It's continuing this very Jewish context that's in the whole book. This part here that we just read continues this Jewish theme. It's very Jewish. It's talking about the city of Jerusalem. That's where the context is. That'll, of course, help us interpret how to apply this. He's clearly saying in these verses we just read, to the Jewish people that there will come a time when they will be attacked militarily and their possessions will become spoil for the attacking nations. However, he goes on to explain a little more about it. At least let's summarize before we dive into it and start unpacking it. What is he saying in those verses we just read?
Speaker 2:He's given a description of what's going to happen at some point to the city of Jerusalem. In verse 1. There he kind of gives a summation there's going to be spoils that are going to be taken from you, but don't worry, in the end you're going to divide those spoils that are taken from you. Then in the next two verses he gives a little bit more detail of what he means by that. He says I'm going to bring the nations down to Jerusalem. They're going to sack the city, they're going to ravish the women. But yet in verse three he says but yet I'm going to fight for the city of Jerusalem. I'm going to fight for the people, just like God fights in the day of the battle.
Speaker 2:That reminds me of whenever Joshua was taking the people into the promised land. And he's out looking at Jericho and studying it to see how it's going to be taken over, kind of contemplating, and he sees this figure that's up ahead of him with a sword in his hand and he walks up to the figure and he says hey, are you with us or are you with them? And the figure standing there turned to him and said no, I'm the captain of the host of the Lord. We talked about that when we went through Joshua, that this was most likely a pre-incarnate Jesus that was standing there and giving confidence to Joshua that he was going to go with them and fight with them as they went in to fight and clear out the land there in the promised land.
Speaker 1:We have here in verse 1 talking about spoils. It mentions the word here the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. So the word spoils is a military term. Spoils happen when one army goes out and attacks another army or another city and defeats it and then takes the possessions. Those are the spoils of war. Spoils are things that happen when a conquering army defeats a people or another army.
Speaker 1:He's saying in verse 1, the spoil taken from you will be divided among you. As you said, Steve, he's giving a summary of what's going to happen. Then in the following verses he explains the process of how that's going to happen. Verses he explains the process of how that's going to happen. There's going to come a time when Jerusalem is conquered by nations outside of it, but then those spoils that are taken are going to be returned. They're going to be divided among you. Again, that's his summary that he gives in verse 1. Then he goes and, starting in verse 2 and following in the chapter, explains how that's going to come about. Let's look at verse 2 again, because that's going to give us a big question that's going to arise here, kind of a moral question In verse 2, who, Steve, is causing the action against Israel. Who does it say there is causing this?
Speaker 2:It's saying the Lord Yahweh, is going to do it. He says I will. The I is referring back to the Lord in verse 1. He says I'm going to bring the nations against Jerusalem. I'm going to gather.
Speaker 1:When we ask the question who is causing the action against Israel? There's really two people mentioned in that verse, or at least two entities. There's one, the Lord, saying I will. So very clearly God saying I will, but then he also mentions the nations against you. Right, we have this question that pops up periodically is how could this be that God is in control and there's human beings that have free will, decisions that they make? We have here again God saying I will gather the nations against you. We have nations, groups of individual human beings that make decisions as human beings do about human things. The nations are going to come against Israel.
Speaker 1:The moral dilemma here gets even worse because, if we look at this, it says against Jerusalem to battle and the city will be captured, houses plundered. That means the possessions are going to be stolen, the people are going to be killed, the women raped and half the city exiled. We have here a conquering army coming and doing evil things, but yet God says I will gather them. The question arises how could this be? How could God say I'm going to go use evil people to do evil things for my purposes? And this question arises how could a good God purport to be using evil people for evil things. Why does he punish the evil people and do good things? Well, we have here a couple of things that we'll take a quick minute to explore. First of all, god is not the cause of sin. God is not causing the rape here and he's not causing the murder and he's not causing the stealing the nations are why? Because that's what evil people do. Nations left to themselves would be up against Israel all the time. It's only by God's grace and his restraining power that they don't do it constantly, all the time, same thing with us. The only thing that keeps us from being as evil as we could be is God's restraining power, his providence, or else we would be as evil as we could be and we're not. That's one is that God is constantly restraining evil from evil people all the time, and he merely has purposes that are beyond our wisdom, that he has plans that he's bringing about, and he uses nations and human beings to do this.
Speaker 1:I'm reminded of a perfect example of this over in the New Testament. In Acts, chapter 2, verse 23, peter is confronting the Jewish leaders about what they had done previous to that which is kill the Lord Jesus Christ. In Acts 2,23,. Peter confronts the Jewish leaders and says this quote this man he's talking about Jesus this man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. Close quote Peter is saying there that Jesus' death on the cross was the exact words he uses as predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. God had a predetermined plan and he knew it would come about. As sure as all certainty that Jesus would die on a cross on that particular day in that particular time. That was the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. But what's the other part of the sentence? He says to the Jewish leaders you nailed him to the cross. Who did it? You did it by the hands of godless men. Who were the godless men?
Speaker 1:Pilate, herod, roman soldiers. Pilate, herod, roman soldiers. The Jewish leaders, of their own free will used. Pagan people had no claim to be following God. Pilate, herod, roman soldiers that freely did what they wanted to do, but yet their free will decisions were accomplishing the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.
Speaker 1:Through this we see God using the free will actions and the free will decisions of human beings, some of them claiming to follow God, some of them not. But he uses this to accomplish his predetermined plan and he knows in advance what's going to happen and how it works. And he knows in advance what's going to happen and how it works. That's how, here in Zechariah 14.2, god can say I will gather the nations against you and evil is going to happen. But God's not responsible for it because the pagan nations are the ones doing the moral evil. But yet it is the predetermined plan and there's no conflict there.
Speaker 1:But yet it is the predetermined plan and there's no conflict there. There is a primary cause of God and a secondary cause of human free will decisions causing the evil. That's what we see here. It is both true in many places in Scripture that God can bring things about and that people make free will choices. And it's not a contradiction, steve. That's the moral dilemma we wrestle with here. But that's all the theological philosophical wranglings. What is the real down-to-earth shoe-leather message here for this verse 2, when he says these nations are going to be coming up against him?
Speaker 2:The down-to-earth part is in verse 3, when he says but yet I'm going to fight for the people of Jerusalem, I'm going to go to battle for them and protect them. That's what we can take out of this In our personal life. When we're fighting against the world and fighting against the principalities and the powers of the air that Paul talks about, the spiritual battles, we can be assured that God is going to be there to fight for us and to go before us. I think that's what we can take out of this as far as a practical thing.
Speaker 1:Not only that, but look at the exact language here in verse 3. The Lord will go forth against and fight against those nations, as when he fights on the day of battle, he's going to fight like he's at war. Now I reminded earlier in the book, chapter 2, verse 9, God talked about defeating the nations that came up against Israel. And in 2.9, he says I could just wave my hand and they're defeated. So if God is so powerful that all he has to do in Zechariah 2.9 is wave his hand and all the enemies of Israel will be defeated, what will it be like when now he fights as in battle? Now he's not just waving his hand, he's putting on full battle armor, he's getting all his weapons, he has full intentions of going to war and he focuses his full power and fury and force against the enemies of his people. Steve, what will it be like to face the full intensity of God's wrath?
Speaker 2:It's going to be devastation to the ones who he's fighting against. There's going to be a losing battle for them and there's going to be a lot of bloodshed on that day. As you were talking about God bringing these nations down and the conundrum of him doing that, yet the people using their free will, action that some want to make something out of that. This isn't the first time. Back in chapter 1, he mentions, as Zechariah starts out, this is a time period when they're coming back after being in 70 years captivity, where God used Babylon to come in and take the city from them and take them off into captivity because they had not obeyed his law in regards to letting the land lay fallow for 490 years. But in chapter 1, when he says that I used the nations to discipline you, Israel, but they went too far and I'm going to punish them, this isn't something that's new. This is something that God has done throughout the history of the nation of Israel, using other nations in order to discipline them. But yet he's also shown mercy on them.
Speaker 2:In the book of Judges, a nation or a tribe or a people come and oppress them to the point that they cry out to God, and what does he do? He sends a judge in order to take care of the situation. They have a period of peace and once again they disobey and do what's right in their own eyes, but yet when they get to a point and cry out to God, he was faithful to send a judge. This is a picture of that, I think as well. These nations are coming down, but God, once again, is going to come and fight for them. Only, this time he's not sending a judge, he's coming himself.
Speaker 1:He come and fight for him. Only, this time he's not sending a judge, he's coming himself. He's going to come himself. That's exactly right. So let's summarize where we are so far. He's already hinted that there's going to be a force of all these nations that come up against Jerusalem and they're going to plunder the city, and it's going to be very, very terrible. But he's also told us he's going to put on his full battle gear and, ultimately, these other nations are going to be defeated.
Speaker 1:Now the following verses that we're going to get to next time are going to tell us exactly how that's the case. It's very clear, surprisingly clear, how he claims this is going to happen and we're going to see some huge, huge movements of Scripture. Some vast sections of the Scriptures are all going to come into play in some end times, thing that we're going to see next time as we see the Messiah come in his full glory and rescue his people in Jerusalem. Steve, that's going to be a great, great section. It's one of the high points of the entire Bible that we're going to get to next time.
Speaker 2:Not only the entire Bible, but especially Zechariah. We're going to finish him out with a bang, so to speak. We want to thank our audience so much for watching and listening and, as always, may God bless you.
