God has been calling His people to repentance throughout redemptive history. One such call came from the prophet Zechariah. During a time of difficult rebuilding and in the face of great opposition, God used Zechariah to warn His people about the sins of their forefathers and to call them to return to Him. Similarly, God’s people today need to heed the word of the prophet Zechariah given to God’s people long ago: “Return to Me and I will return to you.” 

It's good to be with you this morning. We will be looking at Zechariah. It's one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. If you want to turn there, we'll be reading that in just a moment. I hope to answer a few questions this morning.

We've certainly been this week in talking a lot about repentance. One of the questions I want to answer both for myself and for us is why don't we repent? I mean certainly the scripture is full of exhortations, commandments, and encouragement to repent, but why don't we? I had a situation I was involved in some years ago and it took me a while to repent of it even though it's a strange way to use the word because it wasn't it wasn't a sinful behavior but we owned goats. Now I grew up in the city I didn't grow up in the country I didn't grow up around animals other than a dog here or there and grew up in the suburbs and yet about seven years ago we moved to the country.

We have seven boys and one girl and we just thought well this this neighborhood living we need more land we need more space we we want to have kind of a multi-generational vision here of maybe having land and living together as As some of y'all do as well and and so we had this land and don't know what much what to do with it And and there's grass everywhere. There's weeds everywhere. I don't know an attractor. I can't afford one. And so we thought goats They eat lots of stuff.

They eat lots of weeds. They eat lots of grass And so we we had these friends they had these goats and they were the dwarf goats and they're they're small and they're cute We thought aren't they cute aren't they sweet and we had them and sure enough they would eat some grass here and there, but then they also began to eat the flowers and the trees and the things we didn't want them eating. And then they began to leap upon the cars and make hoof marks in the hood and scratch up the windows and destroy Everything around us we grew to hate those goats Literally hate them my kids would they'd be outside they on the car We opened the door and yelled them they'd hop off and run away and they didn't care much for us either I mean we couldn't pet them. We we couldn't really love on them. They didn't care for us We didn't care for them.

My kids would would often beg me dad. Can we just shoot them? But we have a gun It's right here Can't we just shoot them and and I went on for months and months and months and we were miserable. I think they were miserable We were supposed to be milking them. We weren't milking them.

I tried that once or twice. It was terrible I want to know part of those goats and yet I would not get rid of them for so long And I kept telling myself yeah but they eat the weeds And you kind of diminish all the destruction and the horrible things that are going on. And we do that with sin, don't we? And we ask ourselves, why am I still doing this? We can be just like and think like Paul in Romans 7.

Oh, why do I do this, the wretched man that I am, this sin that I've committed over and over that I hate, it makes me sick, but I'm still doing it. I won't get rid of it, I won't repent. Why is that? Why don't we repent? We hear sermons on it, we know what the word of God says, the Holy Spirit certainly ought to be convicting us and yet these sins kind of linger and remain and stay.

Why don't we repent? Well, let's look at our text this morning. And I think Zechariah the prophet will help us some here as we study and work through this, maybe helping us to see why we don't repent and encouraging us to certainly walk in the way of repentance. Zechariah 1.1 says, In the eighth month, the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Barakiah, the son of Edo, saying, The Lord was very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, Thus says the Lord of hosts, Return to me, declares the Lord of hosts, that I may return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

Do not be like your fathers to whom the former prophets proclaim saying thus says the Lord of hosts returned now for your evil ways and from your evil deeds but they did not listen or give heed to me declares the Lord your fathers where are they and the prophets do they live forever But did not my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, overtake your fathers? Then they repented and said, As the Lord of hosts purposed to do to us in accordance with our ways and our deeds so he has dealt with us. I want to give you a little bit of context here. Hopefully, most of you are familiar with Zechariah a little bit. Maybe you've read through the book as you've read through the Bible and you've gotten to it and you've gone through.

And if you do, you get to about chapter 9 and you find a familiar passage there where it speaks and prophesies the Messiah coming in riding on the the foal of a donkey and there Jesus fulfills that prophecy. Then in chapter 12 there there's another messianic prophecy and again in chapter 13 and yet we may not know much about Zechariah. I really don't. I've never heard a sermon from Zechariah before, or never preached a sermon from Zechariah before, but he lived and ministered at a very interesting time in the history of God's people. He was what was called post-exilic.

I love that word because it sounds very fancy and like I'm smarter than I am but it just means he's after the time of The exile if you know the story, you know that God's people over and over again generation after generation Fell into sin they rebelled against God that committed immorality Idolatry We heard the sermon yesterday about King Manasseh and all the wickedness and the evil that he committed and the people of Israel committed. And God would send his messengers, the prophets, over and again to warn them, to call them out of sin, back to worshiping him rightly, back to obeying him. And right before this time there's been 70 years of exile. Before that it was the Prophet Jeremiah who was calling God's people once again to repentance. If you remember 200 years before that it was it was Isaiah and the other prophets calling the ten northern tribes to repentance and they wouldn't repent they got carried away into captivity and really into obscurity by the Assyrians and Jeremiah's day it wasn't the Assyrians but the Babylonians and God brought the Babylonians the Chaldeans and he came and punished judged his people for their sins and carried them away into exile.

But in Jeremiah's prophecies, he had promised them that this would be 70 years and that he would begin to bring his people back to Israel and reestablishing them, the temple would be rebuilt. It was about this time shortly before the, again, the ministry of Zechariah that the Lord did begin to bring the people back in Ezra chapter 1. And you can turn there, you can just listen along, and we're gonna be in Ezra for a few minutes here as we get kind of the context of what's going on. We'll also be looking at Haggai, or Haggai. He was a contemporary of Zechariah.

They both prophesied at the same time, literally the same month they were prophesying. But in Ezra chapter 1, we see the word of the Lord beginning to be fulfilled. Ezra 1, chapter 1, verse 1, in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia so that he made a proclamation throughout all the kingdom and also put in writing thus says Cyrus king of Persia the Lord the God of heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all his people may his God be with him and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel. He is the God who is in Jerusalem.

Let each survivor in whatever place he sojourns be assisted by the men of his place with silver and gold, with goods and with beasts, Besides freewill offerings for the house of God that is in Jerusalem. Then rose up the heads of the fathers houses of Judah and Benjamin and the priests and the Levites everyone whose spirit God had stirred up to go to rebuild the house of Lord that is in Jerusalem." So this is the context, This is what's happening. This is about 16 years before Haggai and Zechariah begin prophesying that amazingly, if you notice here, a pagan king, Cyrus the king of Persia, God stirs up in his soul, in his heart, that He would be overseeing, that he would be commissioning the rebuilding of the house of God. That's to me an amazing thing, an encouraging thing. We'll see that throughout this story.

It is not just Cyrus but Darius. In both the hearts of these pagan kings, God is working and moving to bring about His will, to bring about the rebuilding of his house, the re-establishing of his people. And that ought to give us encouragement today. Whatever you think of our current president or the leaders around the world and all the difficulty and the stress and the concerns of North Korea and China and Russia and Washington D.C., God is sovereign and can move even in the hearts of unbelieving and godless people to bring about his purposes as well for the benefit of his people. That's what he does here in Cyrus.

And he stirs up also in the hearts of his people to go back to Israel. Again, they've been in exile. Some of these people, maybe most of them had never been in the Promised Lands. Because God had told them, go to the city wherever you're exiled to, build houses, plant vineyards, get married, establish yourselves, establish your families, pray and work for the peace of where you are. Well, now they're going to leave there, they're going to go back to a land most of them have never seen, a land where they're going to have to start over, a land where much of their history and the temple certainly is in ruins, and they're going to have to go work.

And so people do. God stirs it up, and the scriptures tell us there's about 42, 000 people that God works and stirs and moves and they go back and they begin the rebuilding of the house of God as Cyrus has commissioned and even is funding and yet there are those there in the land of Israel that were foreigners And if you understand anything about how the Chaldeans and Babylonians worked, when they would come in and they would take over a place, they would remove a lot of the people and they would scatter them elsewhere to their kingdom, and they would bring other people in, other governors and supervisors and people, and give them the houses and the land. So the Israelites, they come back to Israel and it's not just them, it's foreigners. It's people who do not worship the one true and living God. And it sounds familiar, doesn't it, to where we live.

We're not just in a Christian nation or Christian lands or Christian cities. We're surrounded by people who do not worship the one true and living God. In Austin, it's becoming even more so, and not just in the sense that you have kind of heathenistic, pagan Americans who seem to worship nothing or nominal Christians, but We now have a giant Hindu worship center, I'm not even sure what to call it, near where we worship and not too far away. There's a Baha'i worship center, there's a Buddhist worship center, there are mosques, there are Mormon tabernacles. I mean, it's just all over the place.

We're now being inundated, surrounded by people who are literally foreigners to the one through God. And yet we have work to do like they had work to do. We have to build the kingdom of God and to do that. And they faced opposition from these people. Initially, the foreigners were there in Jerusalem.

When they began to rebuild, they came along and said, hey, we want to work. We want to be a part of this I have no idea what their motives were I I don't believe it was probably good godly motives they maybe were trying to hinder them they were trying to spy on them maybe thinking that hey we'll build two and then we're gonna bring our gods right in here. But for whatever reason, maybe the Jews saw through that, but they were rebuffed by the Jews. Jews said, no, this is our work, you have no part here. They weren't ecumenical as we use the term today.

I see a lot of that in our culture, and certainly it was about 20 years ago, the big ecumenical movement. It was the idea that we just need to all bring everybody in. Everybody in. I was at a ministers association meeting years ago. And I was a brand new pastor.

I was young. I was in my early 30s. All new to me. And we're at this meeting. And a female pastor comes in.

And she wants us to be more ecumenical, and she didn't mean bringing the Catholic priest in to meet, she wanted us to bring in the Buddhist guy and this other guy, and by the grace of God, the people who were leadership said, no, we're not doing that. We are Christians, we are ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is our work, this isn't their work. The Jews seem to understand that and so they said, no, this is not your work, this is our work. And so, of course, they angered the people there and it wasn't just, again, average run-of-the-mill people, these were governors and rulers, those in charge of them and over them and so they they told on them they sent a letter now it's not King Cyrus it's Artaxerxes and Asra goes on to tell us how they told on them the governor says there are these these troublemakers here and they're trying to rebuild this temple and our Xerxes is well let me look into it he he looks into it he finds that yeah these Jews they're troublemakers they've caused a lot of problems for almost every king that's dealt with them rebellion after rebellion and And certainly we know that's true of the history of the Jews of that time.

There were times when they rebelled against whoever the Lord had put them under. And so he made a decree and said, no, they need to stop building. And he gave them the authority and power to harass them. And so the Jews stopped building. The scripture in Ezra tells us they were discouraged.

Ezra 4 says, And the people of land discouraged the people of Judah and made them afraid to build, and bribed counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia so this has been the context this is what's happening so for 16 years they've stopped building for 16 years they've stopped working God had stirred in their spirits to go and to rebuild his house to go back to Jerusalem and do what he has promised to do and equip them to do and even funded them to do and they got discouraged and they got afraid and they stopped. I think we can relate to that, can't we? Probably many of us in the room that we've made good beginnings and good starts and something's gone wrong in our families, in our marriages, in our churches, we've been discouraged, maybe fearful. We've stopped. It's too hard, it's too scary, it's too much risk, there's too much heartache, yet we see just like them, we become discouraged and we're like fine, we'll stop.

Maybe even as it was in their case, maybe it's the fear of the government. I'm so glad I live in Texas not just because I think it's this great state But because the home school laws in Texas are are really home school friendly. Some of you may live in states. That's not the case I'm glad live in a country where we can gather and worship and have conferences and without any fear at all But there There are certainly people here at this conference who I've heard speak or I've talked to, they don't live in such friendly states or friendly countries. They live in places where if you say the homosexuality is a sin, you're probably going to get arrested if you say it publicly.

Fear of the government, fear of persecution, fear of conflict in the church, fear of difficulty, of heartache, can lead us to be discouraged and stop doing the work of God. That's what happened to the people of Israel right before here the ministry of Zechariah. But this didn't happen during the reign of our desert Caesar Cyrus This was in the rain the scripture tells us here in verse 1 during the time of Darius And God raised up two prophets Haggai and Zechariah and in the book of Haggai It's only two chapters amazingly that all the prophecies that we have of Haggai, they cover four months. That's it, if you read it, it's in the second year and the sixth month, the second year and the seventh month, the second year and the ninth month. That's all the ministry of Haggai that we know about in terms of his specific prophecies.

And so first God raises up Haggai and he comes and he encourages the people to start building once again, even before the king has given them permission, without the government's approval, without going back and saying, hey, we know you told us not to. Is it OK if we start? No. He says God has spoken to you. God has commanded you.

You need to to get back about doing the the work of the Lord. This is in chapter one of Haggai. He says, thus says the Lord of hosts. And listen to that, because we were going to get back to the Lord of hosts in a minute. But again, the Lord identifies himself to his people as the Lord of hosts.

He says, "'These people say the time has not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord.' Then the Lord of the Lord came by the hand of Haggai the prophet. Is it a time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies in ruins? Now therefore thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have sown much and harvested little. You eat but you never have enough.

You drink, but you never have your fill. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm. And he who earns wages does so to put them into a bag with holes. Thus says the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. Go up to the hills and bring wood and build a house that I may take pleasure in it, that I may be glorified, says the Lord.

You looked for much, and behold, it came to little, and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why, declares the Lord of hosts, because of my house that lies in ruins, while each of you busies himself with his own house. Therefore the heavens above you have withheld the dew, and the earth has withheld its produce, and I have called for a drought on the land and the hills, on the grain, the new wine, the oil, on what the ground brings forth, on man and beast, and on all their labors. Then Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Joshua the son of Jehozadak the high priest with all the remnant of the people obey the voice of the Lord their God and the words of Haggai the prophet as the Lord their God had sent him and the people feared the Lord." I know this is a lot of context. You're like, well, is he going to get to Zechariah or is he not?

And this is the sixth month here. And Zechariah, it's the eighth month. So we're just two months away. Just bear with me here a few more minutes because there are carryovers here from one prophet to the other there's messages God is sending them and and he's confronting them and it helps us to see why through the other prophet Zechariah he comes and continues to say to them repents. What are they repenting of?

Well on one hand they're repenting of being afraid of man and not fearing God. They were afraid of man, they stopped the work, they were discouraged instead of obeying the Lord and fearing him. And we don't talk much these days and least American Christianity about fearing the Lord There may even be some that would that would say well, we're not supposed to fear God, right? What God is not giving us the spirit of fear, but power love and a sound mind that we're no longer under condemnation But not it's not that kind of fear It's the kind of awesome respect that we ought to have for Lord God and certainly when it comes to do we obey man or do we obey God, we fear God more than man. We obey God.

And so the prophet Haggai comes and confronts them and the Lord says to them, why are you busy with your own lives, your own houses, working in these other areas and not busy building my house and my kingdom? Consider your ways. Ask us to consider our ways this morning. Consider our ways. Are we so busy with our own things, our own lives, our own plans, that we aren't busy doing the Lord's work, building His kingdom, glorifying His name?

I'm Not saying that we ignore our homes or ignore what God has given us or ignore our jobs and certainly not ignore our families. An NCFIC certainly doesn't encourage any of that. But are we too busy with our own things, our own entertainments, our own plans that we aren't serving the Lord in his house, in his church. Consider your ways. The people feared God and they began to obey the voice of the Lord.

The Scripture tells us about 24 days later that once again, the governors and the rulers there in that area got upset, they were concerned, they weren't being obedient, they were starting to rebuild the house, and once again they told on them. Sounds familiar? Anytime the work of the Lord begins to grow and expand and God's kingdom begins to grow. The rulers and authorities in this world who do not love our God will get upset and scream and cry and threaten. So now they report to the new king, to Darius.

Darius inquires and they ask the leaders, who are you? Why are you doing this? It's in Ezra chapter five, there the leaders respond, we are servants of God. And there they acknowledge that the house of God lies ruins because of the sins of their fathers God was angry with our fathers So they also tell them that they're not doing it out from under any authority But the King Cyrus actually commissioned it So Darius goes and he investigates in Ezra chapter 6. Darius responds back to the governors and he says, basically, Cyrus did tell them to do this.

He gave them the commission, leave them alone. And once again, a pagan king recommissions the building of the house of God. It says, if they need gold, silver, if they need things, give it to them. Amazingly, he even says, whatever is needed, bulls, rams, or sheep for burnt offerings to the God of heaven, wheat, salt, wine, or oil as the priests at Jerusalem require, let that be given to them day by day without fail, that they may offer pleasing sacrifice to the God of heaven and pray for the life of the king and his sons." Amazing testimony again from the mouth of the king that probably wasn't ever really a true believer. Leave them alone.

Let them work. Give them whatever they need, even what they need to sacrifice for the God of Heaven. Of course there are strings attached, there always are, and you're working with the government, that they may pray for me and my sons. Amazing in the work of God as he brings about in the hearts of these kings, in the hearts of his people, to get back to the work that he called them to do in their day. So this is our context.

This is what's happening around Zechariah when he comes forth and the Lord raises him up to prophesy to his people and to call them to repentance and we might say well wait a minute they've already repented they've already left Babylon they've come back to Jerusalem and yeah they they had stopped for a season and weren't about the work of God but now they're rebuilding they're back about the work They started 24 days after Haggai comes and confronts them. They begin the work and now this is another month or so later after they've begun the work that now Zechariah comes with them and he calls them to repentance. I think we have to understand two things. One is we've already heard throughout the weekend that God calls us to a life of repentance. It's not just a one-time repentance.

Certainly in the presence of salvation, we first come to God in Christ. We come confessing not just our sins, but that we're a sinner. We need forgiveness. We need redemption, and we can't do it ourselves, but we cast ourselves upon his mercy in Christ Jesus that's the beginning of repentance with its life of repentance of God continually calling us to a holier life a godlier life And that's part of what Zechariah here is doing. And they have repented of one thing, but yet they still need more repentance.

There's something else that's happening here in the time of Zechariah, and that God is preparing them for what is yet to come. So they're now building the temple. They've repented of that. They've stopped just focusing on their own lives, their own homes, and they've gotten back to the work of God. They're building his house.

But when the house is built, they're going to have to start again worshiping God rightly in the house and living before God rightly in their lives. And they're not doing that still. More repentance is needed. So Zechariah comes to them and on behalf of the Lord of Hosts says to them, return to me. Return to me.

As Scott Brown said, I'm talking introducing this the other the other night, this is considered one of the quintessential passages in the Old Testament on repentance because of the language that's used by Zechariah from the Lord, return to me. Against that idea that you veered off the path even just a little or perhaps even turn and going almost the opposite direction, come back to me, says the Lord, return. Zechariah is calling these people who have in many ways repented, returned, and are serving God, obeying God, and fearing God in some aspect of their life to continue on. Perhaps here we also see a danger that what they're working on at their time are the externals. Now the externals certainly matter.

The clothing we wear, the kind of lives that we live, the things that we show and do on the outside to people, it absolutely matters. I mean there's a reason I'm wearing a suit and tie today and not shorts and flip-flops because it's not that this is biblical in the sense that Jesus wore it or that's commanded to wear it, but it communicates something to you, doesn't it? But it's also very possible that I can look this way on the outside and be dead on the inside. So the externals do matter, and they're beginning to work on the externals, and certainly for them, those externals mattered greatly because the sacrificial system and the worship of God in his temple was central to their life of worship. But if they just worked on the externals and they didn't get to the internal things of having a heart right before God, all the external things were wasted.

Certainly we see that in the time of Christ. There were so many who, they had the externals, they had the robes and the phylacteries and all the tassels and the things that, the fastings, and externally, they looked great. I mean, people just marveled at how spiritual they were. And yet, Jesus said to them, you are a brood of vipers, you are whitewashed tombs, you look on the outside, but inside you are dead. So we can repent of external things, we can dress modestly and change our music habits and change a lot of external things and you come to church and go to conferences and yet if we are not changed on the inside all those things are wasted they're worthless there's not true repentance inside as well as out and so what Zechariah is doing is Haggai has called them to repent of not building the house of God now Zechariah is calling to continue to repent doing so on the on the inside with internal things and obedience to God to return to Lord in every way and here this call is not coming so much from Zechariah, he's just the mouthpiece, the prophet, the call is coming from God who refers to himself multiple times here as he does in Haggai as the Lord of hosts.

As we heard yesterday, the word Lord there should be in all caps in your your translation that's the covenant name of God Yahweh. He is reminding them as he calls them to repentance of who he is and who they are. He is the God who not only has created them but has called them to be his people. He is the covenant making and keeping God in part he's encouraging them reminding them that he loves them that covenant love that covenant relationship that he has chosen them of all the nations and peoples of the earth he has chosen them because of his love. Not because of them, but because it pleased him to do so.

He chose them. He is the Lord. He is Yahweh. He is their rock, fortress, and deliverer, their savior. But he also says to them he is the Lord of hosts.

And host just means a large army, a large group, and it is possible the Lord means that he is sovereign over all the hosts of the world, all the armies. And certainly in their history, they could see how God was sovereign over the hosts of Assyria and brought them to discipline them or the hosts of the Chaldeans and he brought them to discipline them. Perhaps he means he is sovereign and God over the host of Israel, of all the people. I think more than likely though, what he means when he says he's the Lord of hosts is that he is Lord and God and commander of the armies of heaven. Now the question is here for them and for us is is this a threat or promise?

For God to say to them I'm the covenant making and keeping God, certainly that's to remind them of His precious promises, His love, His covenant faithfulness, but also to remind them of their lack of faithfulness and to say He is the Lord of the hosts of both heaven and earth, it could very well be a threat, a warning. Certainly in this passage he reminds them of what he did to their fathers. See, whether this passage is to us and to them a threat or a word of comfort, encouragement, it really depends on whether we're walking in obedience to the king or not. If you live in a kingdom and you're a rebel in rebellion towards the king, and you're not following his laws, you're not keeping his commands, and you're trying to overthrow him, you're trying to get away from him, you're against him, then the king's armies are a threat to you because they should be. But if you are an obedient citizen loving the king, honoring him, obeying him, then his armies are a protection to you.

So whether the Lord of hosts should comfort you today or cause you to tremble in fear really depends on where you stand with God. If he is the covenant-making, keeping God to you and who you have placed all of your faith and eternal hope. If he's the God that you were seeking to walk in obedience to and be more like him and your love and life than the armies of the hosts of heaven, the Lord of hosts is a comfort to you. He is your shield, your fortress, your deliverer. He is your stronghold that you run to to protect you.

You look out and see all the enemies of the world and yet you remember the hills are filled with chariots of fire. And the Lord of hosts is your stronghold and your comfort. But if you're a rebel, you thumb your nose at God if you're in rebellion against him, if you're walking in sin and saying, you know, I don't really care, Lord, I know what your word says, but I'm going to do what I want right now. Thank you very much. Thank you for my ticket to heaven, by the way, but I'm good.

I got this. Then the Lord of hosts is not a comfort to you it's a warning to you where the Lord comes him in three times here when he calls them to repent that's how he refers to himself Yahweh of hosts and Haggai again in his prophecy in the seventh month, again right before this prophecy, again the Lord is using the same phrase, Lord of hosts, talking about himself and speaking to the people, and there it's a word of encouragement and comfort. He says, Yet now be strong, O Zerubbel. He was the leader of this project. Be strong, O Zerubbel, declares the Lord.

Be strong, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land, " declares the Lord. Work, for I am with you, declares the Lord of hosts. According to the covenant that I made with you when you came out of Egypt, my spirit remains in your midst. Fear not, for thus says the Lord of hosts yet once more a little while I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry lands and he speaks further about blessing them and providing for them Bringing peace and glory into the house of God, which I believe is a messianic prophecy that what he would ultimately do About 500 years after that bringing about the incarnation of the Son of God, but he says to them I am the Lord of hosts therefore be strong work fear not When he comes and calls his people who are in covenant with him to repentance at the same time he says to us, be strong.

Fear not, work. Perhaps some of our repentance this weekend as we reflect upon what God's doing in our life, what he's called us to do, is to get back and to get back to work and what he has already called us and asked us and equipped us to do. And it differs from person to person, church to church, and the work that God gives us, there are various gifts, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, various ministries and various effectiveness results. And what has God called you to do? Again, consider your ways.

What work has God given you in his house? His kingdom among his people, have you stopped doing it? Did you become discouraged? Maybe even your homes, your families, you started well, you began well, you worked for a season, and it got hard. You got discouraged.

You got afraid. Fear not. The Lord of hosts is with you. His Spirit dwells in you and among you. He is working.

He will shake the heavens, the earth, and the sea. He will provide. He will sustain. He will protect. Work, for I am with you.

In the midst of this call to repentance, other things Zechariah says to them and reminds them is what he's done before. Return to me, I'll return to you. Don't be like your fathers. Now we can look back at the history of Israel and think that God perhaps means the fathers all the way back from the beginning or perhaps all the way back to the time of Moses because they are the same Hebrew word for anger that's translated there. And my translation is, wrath is used for God's people.

Deuteronomy 9 says, No, then it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stubborn people. Remember, do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God to wrath in the wilderness from the day that you left the land of Egypt until you arrived at this place, you have been rebellious against the Lord. Even at Horeb, you provoked the Lord to wrath. The Lord was so angry with you that he would have destroyed you." Other times during the time of the prophets, Isaiah, Ezekiel, or times of the kings, even David and others, that God over and over again was provoked to wrath at his people. Not so much provoked to wrath that those who are not his people, Certainly God has hatred, the Scriptures say, for the wicked every day, but these are his people, his covenant people that he loves, that is chosen, and yet over again the Scripture says he's angry with them because of their sin.

He frowns upon them. More than likely, when here Zechariah reminds them of God's anger with their fathers, he's speaking of their literal fathers or grandfathers. Those who during the time of Jeremiah when God had called out to them to repent and turn from their wickedness, their idolatry, their immorality, their injustice, their abuse of the widows and the orphans, they would not listen. He called to them over and again. Remember Ezra 5 again, this group of men that start the rebuilding and they're questioning who they are and what's going on they said because our fathers had angered the God of heaven he gave them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon the Chaldean who destroyed this house and carried away the people to Babylonia.

Perhaps it's their fathers and grandfathers here that Zechariah refers to, that they had angered the God of heaven. And this is, again, a warning to us. We might be tempted, certainly in this day where so many think there's such a huge disconnect between Old Testament and New. I think, well, that was then. I mean, Jesus has come, he has taken on the wrath of God.

Surely, God doesn't still get angry with his people. Yet, we are warned throughout the New Testament that God disciplines us when we sin. If we walk in disobedience to God, then we may certainly still incur his displeasure. We don't fear wrath. We don't fear condemnation.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and yet we still can displease and anger God, and he will discipline us. As Hebrews 12 says, no discipline is pleasant at the time. You're not going to like it. Now, God still does and can get angry with his people. Again, these weren't pagans, these were his people.

They were in covenant with God just as we are. They were in covenant by faith just as we are. They were called to obedience just as we are. And yet, things have changed some. We don't build the temple any longer.

We don't have the sacrificial system. Jesus has fulfilled all of those things, and yet, we too struggle as they do to keep his moral law, to walk in righteousness and holiness before him. They struggled with injustice, with wickedness. The prophecy of Isaiah again, this was even before the time of Jeremiah, he says, Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from my sight, cease to do evil, learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. Come now and let us reason together, says the Lord.

Though your sins are as scarlet, they will be as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool. You consent and obey, you will eat the best of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you'll be devoured by the sword. Truly, the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Those don't sound like foreign commands to us, do they? Things of a far-gone era, a different time in the history of God's people to plead for the widow, to take care of the orphan, to seek justice, to reprove the ruthless, to wash ourselves from iniquity, to remove evil from our deeds, to do good.

This is the same call that God had given to their fathers and called them to repentance. But listen to what the word of Zechariah says, but they did not repent at first. The word of God had come and it was clear. There was no confusion among God's people what he had called them to do, what they were supposed to do in obedience. There was no confusion, there was no lack of hearing on their part, that the prophets were speaking, that God was calling them repentance, but they did not repent.

Didn't repent. Scripture actually says in 2 Chronicles that they would not listen or give heed. They even mocked the messengers of God. 2 Chronicles 36 verse 15, it says, The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent word to them again and again by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they continually mocked the messengers of God, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people until there was no remedy." That's what Zechariah, the Lord through Zechariah, reminds the people of that day, says to us today, remember your fathers, don't be like them.

I came to them over and over again, I spoke my words to them, I commanded them, I called them repentance, and at first they wouldn't repent and finally they do repent, but it's too late, they're carried off, they're punished. They could have avoided all that had they repented at first. I'll get back to the question I asked earlier, why don't we repent? It's not complicated really. I mean there's no great works of penance we need to do, there's no mountain we need to climb, there's no great deeds, no flailing of the flesh that we need to do, there's none of that.

It's just a returning, a turning back to God, a confession of sin, a turning away from sin, a turning back to God, and yet we instead cling to sin, and we have the same problem their fathers did, and that is we take sin lightly and we take God lightly, and We play with sin. I think we tell ourselves, well, yeah, but it's not that sin. It's not as bad as his or her sin. It's just a minor sin. It's a small sin.

Or, yeah, it's serious sin, but I got control of it. Or almost like the alcoholic, I can quit any time. Not a problem. I can repent whatever I want. Just not today.

Not today. And it's like those stupid goats that I hated so much and kept for way too long. They kept destroying things that I wouldn't get rid of them, kept hoping we could fence them in somehow, you can't fence a goat. Just kept it around and kept them around and destruction, destruction. We do that with our sin because we take sin lightly.

We think it's like a little kitty cat. And yeah, it might scratch us. It'll hurt. It might bite us, but it's so cute. We play with it, and we pet it, and we put it in his cage, and we feed it.

Sin is not a kitty cat. Sin is a viper. We take God lightly in what he says about sin, and that's what their fathers did. God warned them. He told them of the destructiveness of sin and what he would do to them They continued their sin and they just wouldn't listen They took God lightly Well God's word from beginning to end warns us and warns us and warns us about the dangers of sin and about his discipline if we do not walk in his ways.

How many scriptures are there? How many books the Bible could we turn to and over and over again God warns us of the wickedness of sin. We can go to the Proverbs, there in Proverbs 5, where we're warned that the adulterous woman, yet her words, they are smooth as oil and and they taste like honey, but in the end she is bitter as wormwood and her steps lead to death. And so many Christian men think, well, maybe. Maybe.

Yeah, probably. But I want to find out. So many people play with this particular sin, and it's egregious. And it's everywhere in our culture. Where it used to be, There she was on the street corner, now she's on the computer and the cell phone.

And there with the speech and the flattering speech like oil and honey, yet still the Word of God says she is death. We're warned over and again to flee immorality, to flee idolatry. Yet the people of God over and again fell into those two sins time after time after time and we take that lightly, we take God's light, we think, yeah, but that won't come near to my door. How many times the people of Israel say yeah destruction may be coming but it won't get me. It won't get me.

Yet here the Lord reminds them of their fathers and says to them, where are they? I mean, you're back in Jerusalem, you're back rebuilding the house of God, but where are they? Many of them had died when the Chaldeans came and there was war and so many were killed by the sword. Others were carried off into captivity and died there. They didn't ever get to come back.

And we might ask the same question today, especially as we try to take sin seriously and take God's Word seriously, His warning seriously, and look around in our churches, and not just our churches, but at this conference and ask the question, some of the people who used to come here to the conference or attend our churches or even speak at these conferences, where are they? Where are they? They're not here, some of them. And I'm not talking about people who have chosen to go vacation elsewhere or go to church elsewhere, I'm talking about people who no longer claim to be Christian or who are no longer pastors and speakers because they played with sin and destruction did come to their house and ministry. And we take these things lightly.

God calls us to repentance and we think, yeah, it won't get me. It got that other pastor, but it won't get me. It got that other Christian, it won't get me. It got that other family, it won't get us. I mean, theirs was a roaring lion and they played with it mine is just a kitty cat no well the scripture warns us relation 6 do not be deceived God is not mocked whatever a man sows this he will also reap for the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life." We were warned over and over again.

I think of Romans 8 there where we were told that the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. And then Paul further warns that if we're not putting to death the deeds of the body, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will die. But if we're doing that, we will live. It's John Owen, the famous paraphrase of that, that either we will be killing sin or sin will be killing us. That's how we need to take these things.

If God calls us to repent of anything in our life, anything in our family, our ministry, we don't need to take these things lightly and say, well, it'll be okay. This is just a small thing. No, if it's sin, the Scripture describes it as sin. If God comes, just calls us to repent, we need to repent immediately and not put it off as their fathers did, thinking that this is a light and small thing. We have to take God and his word seriously.

We will sow what we reap. Ultimately, their fathers did repent, but it was too late. Ultimately, when God brought judgment in the nations around them to punishment the Chaldeans, to besiege them, and the horrible things that happened in those days, they finally said, God, you're right. They finally confessed their sin, they finally turned back to God, but judgment had already come. Look at their confession, as the Lord of hosts purposed to do to us in accordance with our ways and deeds so he has dealt with us.

Just as God said, this is what the Lord says to his people, he says, where are they? They're gone. And listen to their own testimony, they'll confess, yeah, we were wrong, God called us, he told us, we wouldn't repent. And now we're getting what we deserve. And maybe you're in that time in your life as well, maybe you are finally coming to repentance, you've heard these messages over and over, and especially at this conference, and finally you're saying, God you're right, I'm confessing and yet you may have consequences to deal with in your life because you've walked so long and in rebellion to God and yet God's grace can still abound.

God's word even to these fathers who wouldn't repent when he carried them off in the exile was still speaking love and peace and grace of them if they would repent. He would bless them but they would be in exile. They wouldn't be in Jerusalem, there would be no temple, there would be none of that worship, but they could still walk with him, they could still marry, they could still bear fruit for his King, they could still do these other things and yet they they did have to live with the consequences of walking rebellion and not heeding God's call to repentance. God wants better things for their children. He doesn't want them to go through that.

Isn't that what we want for our children and grandchildren? We don't want them to commit the same mistakes that we did. We don't want them to walk in disobedience to God for year after year, decade after decade, committing the same sins, struggle with the same problems. We want them to repent quickly, early to walk in God's ways, to not play with sin or take these things lightly. So God's call to the people of that day, His call to all of us is to repent.

Now don't wait, don't be like your fathers. I warned them and I warned them and they would not listen they would not take these things seriously they know what I heed my word and so they died in captivity and now you're back you're in the promised land you're building but you need to keep repenting return to me you've heard many definitions explanation for repentance I'm not gonna be labor that at all because there's been so many good explanations but just to read from John Calvin, this may have already been read before, but so we understand again this idea of returning to God, of repentance, he says the Hebrew word for repentance is derived from conversion or returns, that word is translated here. The Greek word from change of mind or of intention. And the thing itself corresponds closely to the etymology of both words. The meaning is that departing from ourselves, we turn to God, and having taken off our former mind, we put on anew.

On this account, in my judgment, repentance can thus be well-defined. It is the turning of our life to God. When we call it a turning of life to God, we require a transformation not only in outward works but in the soul itself. Only when it puts off its old nature does it bring forth the fruits of works in harmony with its renewal. It's the call to repentance.

God says to us, return to me. Consider your ways. Let's consider our ways this morning. In what ways, in what areas do we need to return to God? And maybe you'd say, yeah, but I have all these other ways where I'm walking with God, I'm doing the work of God, I'm being obedient to God.

Yeah, but still, what ways do you need to repent? What areas do you need to return to God? We're constantly, by the work of the Holy Spirit, being sanctified, being conformed to the image of Christ, and my guess is every one of us, if we're honest and truly understand who the person of Jesus Christ is and the kind of obedience he led in his perfection before God, that there are probably a multitude of areas where we need to work. Do you love as Christ loves? Do you love like that?

Do you serve as Christ served and still serves? Does your attitude reflect that of the attitude of Christ? Does your humility reflect his humility? Are you fervent for the things of God as he was fervent? Do you worship God in spirit and truth as you ought to do you love God with all your heart so mind and strength that if I didn't get you on the first few I hope I got you there if not we need to talk as you you misunderstand or overestimate who you are and what you're doing no we all have areas our life we need to repent and return to the Lord.

I hope you've gotten that this weekend over and over through the messages that this isn't a time for us to come and pat ourselves on the back or ever to think we have arrived, whoever we are, wherever we are, whatever we've done and think, you know, I've repented already. I did that when I was seven or eight or nine. Now I'm good with God. I've been saved by grace through faith, but no, it's this life of repentance we're called to." And so his people had repented in some areas and he continued to call them to repentance, return to me. And here's the promise, he says, then I can return to you.

Again, we understand this is not in a salvific way. This isn't God saying that you've lost your salvation if you'll do good things, then I'll return to you and you'll be saved again. Certainly we reject that whole idea of the Romanist view that you can be justified one moment, and then through certain sins, you can lose your justification, have to, through your good deeds, re-earn it. We reject that as false gospel. It's not in any way what God here is saying.

We saw him saying in Haggai, he said, if you not realize that you plant vineyards and yet you harvest little? I mean, you have all these olives and yet you have little oil, you you drink and yet you're still thirsty, you eat, you're not satisfied. Do you not realize, God says to his people, that it's because you're not obedient? I would love to be blessed to you in these things and I will but you have to return to me first. I'm not going to pour my blessing on an obstinate and rebellious and stiff-necked people.

Return to me and I will return to you." And through the rest, really, the prophecy of Zechariah, certainly right after this, that's what he says to them, that the prophecy of God as his people are about the work of repentance and about the work of rebuilding. The prophecy comes and there's these images of these horses and riders and sometimes in Scripture, they're revelation, horses and riders, well, that's bad. Judgment's coming, but in this case, it was good. Yeah, for the nations around them, yeah, some of these horsemen were bad news, But it was a promise of peace for Jerusalem, a promise of God's rebuilding, a promise of hope. Again, it's a question for them, a question for us whether we want to walk in the discipline of God or whether we want to walk in His blessing.

Whether we would really enjoy the smile of God or we're okay having the frown of God, which is it? If you're gonna walk in sin, if you're gonna refuse to repent and not heed the words of God, his call to repentance, then you're not gonna walk in his favor, you're not gonna walk under his smile but under his frown. You might say going back just like they would say, well yeah, but we're afraid. You don't understand the costs. Christ paid enormous costs.

Is there anything too great to pay? Any risk too great to take? Anything too important to give up? God calls us to repent, to return to Him, that we might walk in His ways. I'm going to close with this, 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

And again, that we take these things not just as ancient history of a different people, a different time, under a different dispensation or different rules or laws or different things of that nature, but to see as the New Testament writers, the apostles, tell us to heed these things as a warning. In 1 Corinthians 10, Paul writes it to the church at Corinth, to believers, to those who are just like us, and yet it's a church filled with problems. And there's immorality, he tells them to flee it, there's idolatry, and they're playing with sin, they're even in chapter 10, they're actually going into a pagan temple and taking the cup that he says the cup of demons and participating in the meals that were part of the sacrificial system in those pagan temples and they're thinking we're fine, we don't really mean it. They're playing with sin, they're fighting and they're arguing, they're factions, they're dissensions, they're suing one another, they're lacking in love. In all of Paul's exhortation to them and calling them to repentance, he points back to God's people, to Israel.

He says, "'For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them, and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well pleased, for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now these things happened as examples for us, for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as is written. The people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play.

Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and 23, 000 fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents. Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall." The prophecy of Zechariah, his call to repentance, his warnings and reminders of God's people of old, the fathers who had disobeyed God, not he that called repentance, not only was it example for their children and grandchildren, Paul says that's an example for us.

Yeah, they were spiritual people, they were God's covenant people, they were walking by faith with God, and yet with most of them God was not well pleased. And they fell into idolatry unimaginable, that they committed immorality and often that at the same time they grumbled and complained. I can identify with that. They tested God. They craved evil things.

Yet Paul isn't saying, aren't you glad you're not like them? He says, Christian, be careful. You are just like them. You have that same sin nature that they did. You have that same call of God that they did to walk before him in holiness, blameless, obedience.

The same temptations are there. Morality, idolatry, evil things, grumbling, complaining, testing God in so many different ways. Be warned. Repent. The call of God that went out to the people of Zechariah's day and the work that he'd given to do, it goes out to the people of our day.

And we face the same struggles, the same temptations, the same craving for evil, the same flesh that's there attempting us to disobey God and to be to be selfish, to be hateful, to be disobedient, to dishonor. The same temptation the Corinthians face to have factions and arguments and fightings in the church, the same temptations to grumble and complain, the same problems of being fearful and discouraged. God's call to us and repentance is also a reminder to us of who He is. Three times God says, I am the Lord of hosts. You notice that when God calls him to repentance before, in the middle, and at the end, he refers to himself as Yahweh of hosts.

The God who calls you to repentance today is the God who loves you, the God who is in covenant with you by faith in Christ, the God who has the armies of heaven and all of the world in His creation at His disposal to surround you, protect you, encourage you, bless you, guide you, deliver you safely into his home. Let's pray together. Father, we so desperately need repentance. We need to hear the word from your prophet. We need to be reminded of those who've come before us, not just who have walked in godliness as good examples, but those who have strayed from the path, who have fallen into sin and the price that they have paid.

That we might take you seriously, heed the warnings in your word, that we would deal with sin rightly, that we would turn from and turn back to you, that there might be seasons of refreshing, that we might honor and glorify you. Father, we ask you continue to speak to us throughout the rest of this conference. Be with the men who will speak to us the rest of today and give us ears to hear it. And may we be swift to apply it, not putting off repentance, but now in this day and hour turning to you. We ask this in the name of our Savior, Jesus.

Amen.