In his sermon 'How God Energized His People,' Scott Brown delves into the prophecy of Zechariah, focusing on chapter 3 and exploring how God revitalizes His people through His Word. The sermon describes the context of the Israelites who had returned from Babylon and faced significant opposition, causing them to abandon rebuilding the temple for 16 years. Through the prophet Zechariah, God calls His people to return to their mission, emphasizing the power of His Word, the necessity of repentance, and the presence of divine support through symbolic visions. These include visions of the red horse, the four horns and craftsmen, the surveyor with a measuring line, and the flying scroll, among others. Each vision reinforces God's commitment to His people, His protective love, and His ultimate plan to build His Church despite opposition. Brown highlights the importance of the Holy Spirit's sustaining power and encourages believers to see themselves as the apple of God's eye, deeply loved and protected. The sermon underscores the need for believers to repent, return to God wholeheartedly, and be energized by a vision of His majesty and glory.

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 oppose him. And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you Satan, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?' Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments and was standing before the angel. Then he answered and spoke to those who stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him.

And to him, and to him he said, see I have removed your iniquity from you and I will clothe you with rich robes and I said let them put a clean turban on his head so they put a clean turban on his head and they put the clothes on him and the angel of the Lord stood by. Then 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 keep my command, then you shall also judge my house, and likewise have charge of my courts. I will give you places to walk among these who stand here. Here, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, for they are a wondrous sign. For behold, I am bringing forth my servant, the branch, for behold, the stone that I have laid before Joshua, that stone that I have laid before Joshua, upon the stone are seven eyes.

Behold I will engrave in its inscription says the Lord of hosts and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. In that day says the Lord of hosts, everyone will invite his neighbor under his vine and under his fig tree. Let's pray. Lord I thank you for giving us this day of rest. Lord, I thank you for blessing us with your word.

I pray that as your word is preached, you would give us understanding, that you would give us a better picture of who you are, that you would draw us closer to you, Lord, that you would make us to be more pleasing in your eyes. In Christ's name, amen. Amen. As we enter into this prophecy of Zechariah, we're gonna try to cover six chapters of this prophecy, so you'll see me grazing over the top of the trees but the theme of Zechariah is return to me my house will be built And it's really written in the context of a people who've gotten discouraged by the opposition that they've been receiving and also the desires for their own pleasures and their own houses. And the captives from Babylon came back and the Lord, you know, gave them all the resources they need to rebuild the temple.

They first rebuilt the altar, which was the right thing to do to return to the shed blood of Jesus Christ in New Covenant terms. And then they began to rebuild the temple and they laid its foundation. And then they received an enormous amount of opposition. And because of that opposition, they stopped building the temple for 16 years. And so Zechariah is a prophet that comes to speak to the people at 16 years after they have laid down their tools and quit rebuilding the temple.

And you know, what do you say to a people who've gotten discouraged, who've gotten distracted, who are off mission? What do you say to people like that? They're your people and how do you how do you appeal to them and they really have they really have gotten off mission and this is the purpose of the messages of Zechariah the prophet he speaks to a people who've lost their mission and as you know this is all part of an expositional study of the book of Ezra, because Ezra is the story of the rebuilding of the temple after captivity. And so this thing has happened to the people they've fallen down and they can't get back up and God sends them a prophet you know this in This reminds me of a situation going on in my in my family now we have a cow that went down and she just can't get up. And so we've tried everything.

We've given her protein and potions and molasses and you know we've tried to lift her up you know with a come-along. We've tried about everything. I you know I even gave her a couple of tic-tacs. I thought maybe that would help. Yesterday we had about ten people around her massaging her legs trying to figure out what to do.

We started singing Amazing Grace to this cow and she started singing back and then she tried to get up but she couldn't quite get it back. But what do you do? What do you do to get people back up, back on mission? What do you do? Well, here's what God did Through the prophets Zechariah now the last time we were together We looked at Haggai because Haggai was another prophet that God sent to the people to help them get back up and start building again.

And he told them that they had become too consumed with their own houses, and they needed to begin to deploy their energies for the building of the temple of God. And we talked about what it means to build the temple of God and all of that. But you know, remember when we were back in Ezra, we're going to go back to Ezra in two weeks after he finished the second half of Zechariah. But Ezra chapter four tells the story of how the opposition began, and then it tells about how the opposition continued for 117 years. Anytime a church wants to rebuild the worship of God according to Scripture, there's going to be opposition and it's not going to stop.

A lot of times it happens to us, we become Christians and we think that because we turn to the Lord everything is going to be just so hunky-dory and you're not going to have any problems. There won't be any opposition. It'll just be peace, peace, perfect peace. And the Bible helps us to understand what that really means. And Zechariah and this whole drama of the people of God there who had returned back to Jerusalem were experiencing it.

So they stopped building after 16 years. God sends them two prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, and then the opposition continues for another hundred years. That's the essence of the book of Ezra and Nehemiah. It speaks of that long window of opposition to rebuilding the worship of God. And so the primary message of Zechariah is, return to me, my house will be built.

This is what Zechariah, as a result of his being a mouthpiece of the Lord says to the people, he says, you need to realize that my house is going to be built. You just need to get back to work. Don't be discouraged. Just get up and start building again. And we need, I think Zechariah makes it very clear that when you join the Church of Jesus Christ No matter how small it might look no matter how embattled it might be It will prevail that the Church of Jesus Christ will prevail Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

And that's really the heart of Zechariah's message. Come on, let's get back building because it is going to be built. You've got to get back to work. And now I want you to also notice what's happening here. And I think you can personalize this in a way.

The Lord comes to a man and he ministers to him in the night. The Lord comes to Zechariah and he ministers to him in these night visions. There are eight night visions and they all take place in one night. And by the way it's not a dream, it's something that he really sees. But the Lord comes to a man who's in the midst of a discouraged people who quit building and and he ministers to him so that he can go back and minister to Zerubbabel who's the civil leader and to Joshua who's the spiritual leader of the people there in Jerusalem, and then to all the people.

And what happens is that the Word of God comes to this man and it revives him. And this is how God revives you. He revives you by bringing his word to you. And this is what's such a tragedy when we neglect the word of God, because we really neglect the chief tool of revival and heartening that we so often need, sometimes in the night, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the middle of the day. But what happens here is that God comes and he ministers to a man who's in the midst of a people who are in despair.

I don't know if you've ever felt like that in your life, but that's what's happening here. And The Lord ministered to him to help them come back to him. So the prophecy here is the longest minor prophet in the scriptures. There's highly symbolic language and some of it's difficult to understand. Some of the interpretations that I might give you today you might say, well I'm not sure if that's it.

No problem. This is highly metaphorical language and it's difficult, It's hard to know exactly what the timing is. But what I want to try to do this morning is I want to give you the essence of it. I don't know if I understand every single detail in the prophetic language in the imagery. But I do think that I understand the heart of what the prophet is saying to the people so that so that they would get back up and start working again.

This this prophecy is highly quoted in the New Testament. There are 71 quotations or allusions of Zechariah in the New Testament. Lots of them are in the book of Revelation. But we're not even going to go to the book of Revelation. I want to try to give you a heart, the heart of what God did to try to bring his people back on mission.

And Zechariah was a young man and in chapter 2 verse 4, we read that the angel says, run to this young man, and the young man is Zechariah. So this is the work of God in a young person in the midst of a people who return to captivity. You just, you can never underestimate what God can do through young people in your church or in your life. And you know we're gonna we're gonna baptize you know two young people today. Don't underestimate what the Lord can do with the young person.

Don't despise the day of small things. Zechariah, it's reported here that there are people going around saying this is a day of small things, and the Lord says, Who says this is a day of small things? You know, that happens to us. We don't really understand the power of God to restore. One thing I want us to also understand is that Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are the last three prophetic testimonies in the Old Testament, the last three books of the Old Testament.

And I think we need to realize that that the Old Testament does not end in captivity. It ends in restoration and vision of future glory. That's what these three prophecies are really all about and It's this prophecy is full of encouragement you know it's it's given to people who see the smallness of who they are and what's going on and Just the frailty and the trouble the opposition You know they feel very very small and what God does is He comes and He wants to expand their vision for what He's doing. You look at your life and you say, this is so rinky Dink. My life is nothing.

And this is how the people of God felt. But God comes and says, no, you don't understand. It's not by might, it's not by power. It's by my spirit, says the Lord. I will build.

Those are words you'll read in Zechariah just like Jesus said I will build my church and you look at your life and you think you know I'm nothing well that's not really true you're seeing through such a dark glass and here Zechariah comes in gives us a real sense of what God is doing in the world. And so, you know, what do you say to a people who've gotten discouraged by the opposition and they've gotten distracted by the pleasures of this world? And there are three things. You have them in the outline here. The first thing is that the word of the Lord comes, that's in verse one, you see that in the outline.

Secondly, there's a call to repentance of a half-hearted people. And then there are eight visions and each vision has a particular message that will try to capsulize. So the first thing that we see if if there's going to be renewal and revival in your life if you're going to get back to work if you're going to get back on mission, it's always the same reason, because the Word of God came. The Word of God comes to you and speaks, and that's why we read in verse one, in the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the Word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Barakiah. This is the power of God coming upon your life.

The only thing that can energize you, the only thing that can bring you back on mission is the Word of God through the illuminating power of the Holy Spirit. If you want to get on mission, cry out for his word in your heart. If you would be revived, it will be because of the Word of God. This is how God revives his people. The second thing is that there's a call to repentance in verses 2 through 6.

The people have to repent and this is perhaps one of the great themes of Zechariah, but it's really it's really only mentioned here at the beginning, pretty much. And you would think that Zechariah would be patting everybody on the back. They traveled for four months back from Babylon. They started the work. They got it going.

They had the sacrifices rolling. But here now after 16 years of disobedience, he's calling for repentance. And I think there's something that we should recognize here. Repentance is not only for those who are just completely given over to the devil, but it's for the faithful few who are struggling, who actually need to get back to work. But they are the people of God.

And what happens to them is that the Word of God overtakes them and then it brings them back. Because they were spending their time on their own houses and they had neglected the work of God and they needed repentance. Now I'm reading a book on repentance. It's a biblical theology of repentance by Mark Bodo. The book is called Return to Me And what he does in this book is he goes through every book of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation to explain the doctrine of repentance that is in every book of the Bible.

And I was reading it this last week and I was surprised to learn he thinks that this text here in Zechariah is the central defining text in the entire Old Testament on repentance. And that it gives the greatest attention to the theme of repentance in the Old Testament, he says. And he uses all the basic words for repentance and brings out what is repentance in the Bible. And there are two elements to repentance. The first is an internal element.

It's when your heart turns to Him and you return to Him. Because you see this language, return to Me. So your heart returns to him. And then secondly, there's an external and observable change in your behavior. This is repentance.

It begins in the heart and then it flows out into your life. You begin to make observable changes. This is one of the great observations that you can make in the modern church. You have lots of people who make professions, but their lives don't change. It's not true repentance.

It's just lip service. And so This doctrine of repentance is embedded in these from verses 2 through 6. And he says, he says, Therefore return to me, says the Lord of hosts. And then, then what does he say? And I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

And then he says, he identifies the sin, do not be like your fathers. In other words, they picked up the patterns of their fathers, and they needed to repent of the patterns of their fathers that they had learned. And he says in verse four, thus now, says the Lord of hosts, turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds. So turning is the issue. Sins are identified and there's a turning away from those sins.

That's really the beginning of all revival. If if ever we get off mission the only way to get back is to repent and to return to turn our faces toward the Lord and say Lord not my will but thine be done. And so the first move of any kind of renewal or getting back to the mission is to repent. And so it just brings us back to that question. What do you say to a group of people who have stopped building because of the opposition and because of their own desire for personal peace and affluence?

What do you say to them? You say, repent, return. And I think, you know, here we are gathered. We all, all of us together just need to ask, Lord, in what ways do we need to repent of being off the mission? And then, And then the prophet brings these night visions.

And he is awake in these night visions. And there is an angel, typically there is an angel who is telling him what is happening. It's a really interesting scene. It's almost like you're in a movie, and you're seeing something happening on the screen, and you don't understand it. But like no other movie you've ever been to, there's an angel standing next to you.

And you turn to the angel and you say, what is that all about? That happens over and over again. The Sakurai doesn't understand. He doesn't understand what this thing is about the myrtle trees or the filthy garments of the high priest. He doesn't understand what the flying scroll is, you know, going through the air, or the women, you know, with wings carrying these baskets.

He says, I don't understand this. So he turns to the angel and he says, what is that all about? And then the angel tells him, or the Lord speaks through the angel in some way like that. So that's the scene. He has these night visions.

And So let's take these visions one by one. There are eight of them and I want to try to summarize them in some way. But they're so vivid and so dramatic and very interesting and hard to understand as well. So the first vision is the vision of the red horse and the rider and these other horses that are among the myrtle trees. So there's this scene and what in the world does it mean?

And if you see on your outline, I've tried to sort of tip you off on to what are the major issues and themes that are here. But this vision relates to the condition of the people's hearts. They were fearful. They were being self-protected. They were discouraged.

They were being opposed. And the Lord comes to them in this vision to speak words of comfort to them. This is a word of comfort. It's a scene that is designed to comfort them. And that's why God gave it to them.

So you have one rider who's on a red horse, and he's ahead of other horses of different colors, and they're down in this ravine among the myrtle trees. And it's such a small thing. But there's also the angel of the Lord is there, and the angel speaks to Zechariah. And there are a number of messages here that the Lord gives to Zechariah to comfort him so that he would comfort the people. And the first element is He states that the Lord has zeal, that the Lord has zeal for his people, that the Lord loves his people.

Hey, they're discouraged and, you know, the Lord wants his people to know that he has zeal for them. Zeal for my house has consumed me, Jesus put it in those terms. That he does care about his people. And so these horses, they're going throughout the whole earth. And in verse 11 we learn, we've walked through to and fro throughout the earth, and behold all the earth is resting quietly.

And in verse 13, the Lord answers the angel who talked, and he answers with good and comforting words. So he's bringing a message of comfort to the people. What are you supposed to say to people who are discouraged? Well you should call them to repent for sure. They must have the word of God, but you want to comfort them.

You want to tell them it's going to work out okay. They've gone throughout all the earth. Everything is resting. Everything is under control. God is under control.

And that's the primary message there. And notice, it's not just the temple, but it's the whole city. And his watchful care is demonstrated. He's saying that he won't abandon his people. He's saying, I won't abandon you.

I've got my men all throughout the earth and here's the story all is calm all is bright God is in control that's the message you know I don't know if you are discouraged or you know somebody who is but you might you might try that one And so also let me just make a note here of this matter of angels. God sends angels to speak to Zechariah and this sort of pops us into the doctrine of angels. We learn something about angelology from this text, but you have angels that are ministering to Zechariah, And that's why in the book of Hebrews, the author of Hebrews speaks of the angels and he says, are they not all ministering spirits sent to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation? God uses angels for this purpose and he uses them in the life of Zechariah and Zechariah is actually asking real angels that he can see questions that has that happened to any of you hasn't happened to me but the Lord in his in his wisdom did it at that time, at that time in history for him. Doesn't mean that he does it all the time, but he did it then.

They ministered to Elijah. You remember when the angel showed up with Elijah? He wanted to die. He just said, Lord, my life is not worth living. And he really did want to die.

But an angel came to him and said, Hey, go eat some food. And then he went and ate some food. He went back to sleep again. And the angel came back and said, Go eat some more food. And the strength that he got from the food allowed him to live without food for 40 more days.

But it's this the kindness of God. God will send you the care that you need, the help that you need, and the time you need it. You know angels are mentioned 300 times in the Bible and and the majority of them are in the New Testament but I'm just struck by the kindness of God to send his word and to send a message and to have an angel there to minister to Zechariah. God did that so that the people of God would be encouraged again. Okay, so that's the first vision.

What do you say to a people who've gotten discouraged? Well, you comfort them. You tell them that God has zeal for his house, that he has mercy, that they'll be prosperous, and you tell them, my house will be built. That's what that first vision is all about. Don't be discouraged.

Be comforted. I'm gonna build my house And then in the second vision or the vision of the four horns and the four craftsmen, so You have you have these two Two entities in opposition four horns, you know, like, you know, like the horn of a rhinoceros. That's the idea. And these four horns are scattering the church. They're scattering the people of God, but God sends four craftsmen.

And those four craftsmen, they actually destroy the work of those who are scattering the church. And the angel is talking with Zechariah, and Zechariah says, what are these? What are these four horns? And what are these four craftsmen? And then he explains it.

And The craftsmen neutralize the divisive and scattering force that these four horns have had in the church. I think that these horns are demonic powers against the church they're related to national and world powers and even perhaps even individuals in the church that become that they that who scatter the church of Jesus Christ one one scholar says that this this word craftsman can mean working with wood, but it can be translated men skilled in destruction. In other words, they're undoing the works of the devil. Like the Lord Jesus Christ who is undoing the works of the devil. He is destroying the works of the devil.

And what God is saying to these people is, you see the works of the devil, don't worry about it. I will destroy them. I'll bring my craftsmen. They will come And they will change this. You know, we live in a very broken world, and we have to recognize that, that there are enemies of the Church of Jesus Christ.

If you're part of the Church, you're always going to be subjected to some kind of trouble, because the forces of God and the forces of the devil are in opposition. And here you have these two, the four horns and the four craftsmen. And you know what do you say to people who've gotten discouraged and who have gotten off mission and they they're distracted by their worldly pleasures you want to tell them that God is going to destroy all the enemies of the church and then in the third vision it's the vision of the surveyor with the measuring line. That's in chapter 2. And this is such a remarkable vision here.

So you have, there's a surveyor and he's measuring. And in verse one and chapter two, here's a scene. There's a man with a measuring tool in his hand and Zechariah says, where are you going? And he says, I'm going to measure Jerusalem, verse 2, to see its width and its length. And so then there was, the angel was talking with him, went out and another angel came back to meet him.

And there's a message that he comes to him with and he says that Jerusalem will be inhabited as towns without walls. In other words, God is saying the city that he's building is measureless. It's bigger than big. You can't measure it. And he's affirming, the Lord is affirming to his people that he's building a kingdom with souls without number.

And he is going to gather his people throughout the whole earth. And Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls. And I love verse 5. I was tempted just to preach on verse 5 for the entire time. Because I think verse 5 might encapsulate a lot of these visions.

For I says the Lord will be a wall of fire all around her and I will be the glory in her midst." In other words, God is telling these people that he's going to be like a wall of fire around them. And inside that protective wall of fire, his glory will be there. And his people should just be at peace that there's a wall of fire around them and they can be free to experience his glory. And this is what the church ought to always be doing, experiencing the glory of God, recognizing that God has built a wall of fire around his church. He will protect his church.

Remember when we were in 1st John and that was so plain that God was promising that he would see his church through all of its opposition, all of its false teachers? In 1st John it's really clear, John says God's gonna protect all the true believers from false teachers. He won't let them be destroyed. And I think that's part of the message that's here. And then he urges them, you know, up, up, flee from the land of the north there's flee from Babylon keep just get away from Babylon and her religion and her her theories about life and Realize that God has built a wall of fire around you go and experience the glory of God And so it's a call for separation from the world In verse 6 particularly The greatest danger to the church is not physical.

It's always spiritual. It's always syncretism. It's always drinking in the pollutions of this world, drinking in Babylon. And what you learn after you've been a Christian for not very long is you're always walking out of Babylon. You know, Babylon just got so deep in you and you're always walking away from Babylon.

That's the life of a Christian. And so then in verse 8 there's another remarkable image, the apple of the eye. Do you see that? For thus says the Lord of hosts he sent me after glory to the nations which plunder you for he who touches you Touches the apple of his eye He's talking about the pupil of your eye Such a critical thing this this treasure that God has given you to you know to lose your eyesight is a great hardship and and But But the Lord here says that whoever touches you is touching the apple of my eye. You need to, have you been touched?

I'm sure you have. I'm sure you've been touched by some work of the devil, by some slander, by some something, some opposition against what's good going on in your life. And what God wants you to know is that whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye. And you just need to rest in that. Do you feel that way?

Do you feel precious to God? Do you feel that He loves you, that He desires your presence, that you... I mean, do you think that you're the apple of His eye? Do you really think... You know, in the midst of our sinfulness, it's hard for us, you know, to relate to that, but I just...

I think somehow the Lord would have us sink into that idea this morning. Do you really see yourself as the apple of His eye? Does God really love his church? Does God really love you with an everlasting love? You know, how much does he love you?

You know, when you have little kids, you know, it happens with every kid. I love you this much. Oh, Really? No, I love you from here to the moon. No, I love you from here to gazillion tide No, I you know, I love you this much.

Well here God is saying, you know, you're the apple of my eye It's one of those ways of saying I love you this much you're the apple of my eye I hope we can sense that today so what do you say What do you say to people who've gotten discouraged from the opposition and they just went back to their old life? You know, what do you say? Well, you tell them, you know, you tell them that God has a measureless city. It's a city without walls and you are the apple of his eye. That's what you tell them.

And then in the fourth vision, the vision of Satan accusing and the Lord cleansing and crowning Joshua Now here you have an accuser you have the devil and you have Joshua the high priest and you have you have these you have these three that are standing together there is first of all you have Joshua and then you have the angel of the Lord and you have Satan the angel of the Lord is between Satan and Joshua. Okay? And Satan, Satan is condemning Joshua, the high priest. He's telling him he's filthy. He's telling him that his turban is filthy, his garments are filthy.

And the Lord says to Satan, the Lord rebuke you. The Lord rebuke you. It's a picture of a church that just feels so filthy they have no sense of the shed blood of Jesus Christ. They've lost a sense of what it means to be clean by the blood of Jesus Christ. And I think what this message here is that God will cleanse you.

He'll give you clean clothes. And there's all kinds of other language in here that helps us to understand what God has done. He speaks to the fact that his people are like a burnt stick plucked out of the fire. A firebrand, you know, taken out of the fire. You know, you start a fire and you take a stick out before it's completely consumed.

And it's charred. And it's been hurt. I mean, it's been burned. This is what happens in the world. You get burned by the devil and it's a picture of getting burned by the devil but You get plucked out.

You get plucked out as a firebrand out of the fire. That's a picture of what God has done. That is salvation. Yeah, you did get burned and the devil is going to accuse you and he's going to keep accusing you. And What you need to hear is the Lord rebuke you Satan because you're clean you really are clean I mean, do you sense that do you do you feel somehow?

Do you understand somehow? That when Jesus Christ saves his sinner he puts all their sins as far as the east is from the west. The Bible says he buries them in the bottom of the ocean. God says that he forgets your sin, But the devil is always around to say, you're filthy. And Jesus Christ says, no, this is a firebrand that I plucked out of the fire.

And that stick is clean in my sight. You know, maybe that's why love is the chief evidence of a true church, is because people, they have a sense of how much God has loved them, how much God has forgiven them. And as a result, they have a great capacity to love others. But that's the picture here. It's really remarkable.

The Lord rebuke you, Satan. Does anybody need to recognize that today? Is Satan condemning you? You've lost a sense of the shed blood of Jesus Christ and how absolutely comprehensive it is that God does really clean his people. Not because anything that they have done but because of the cleanness of Jesus Christ We're not clean because we've made ourselves clean we're clean because Jesus Christ is Clean Jesus Christ obeyed every law that you couldn't obey, and His righteousness is given to you.

That's the gospel of Jesus Christ. So come, believe in the gospel. Believe that Jesus Christ saves sinners. Believe that He'll put your sins as far as the east is from the west. And what do you do?

You repent and you return to Him and He'll make you clean. And you'll see that you've been burned by the world, but you'll also see that he's cleaning you and he's caring for you. This is a whole matter of sanctification. And so the next vision, the fifth vision, this is the vision of the gold lampstand and the two olive trees in chapter four. And this is this remarkable scene of there's this candlestick and there are these pipes and there's olive oil running into the lamps to keep them fueled.

And I mean, I'm pretty confident that the candlesticks, they represent the church. The candlestick represents the church. And Christ, you know, is walking among the lampstands. And these candlesticks are shining, you know, in a dark world because Jesus Christ is the light of the world. So the angels talking to him in verse 1 in chapter 4 and the angel wakes him up, ok, waken out of his sleep.

He's not asleep, it's not a dream, ok? He wakes him up out of his sleep and then the angel says, what do you see? And then Zechariah says, I'm looking at this lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it. And on the stand, seven lamps with seven pipes on the seven lamps. And then there are these two olive trees that are next to the lampstand and there's a bowl.

And so what does it mean? Well, the angel says what it means is this, not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. What's that supposed to mean? He's speaking of the power of the Holy Spirit to sustain you throughout your whole life long. And that there's power not from yourself, it comes from the Holy Spirit.

It's not by might, it's not by power, it's by the Holy Spirit. How do you get through this life? You get through this life through the ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life. And there's this ever flowing river of oil that feeds the lamps. It's this sustaining grace that God has given to his people.

This is why it's so critical for us that we don't quench the Holy Spirit through the worldliness of this world, through the things that we think and the things that we do, the things that we talk about. We can quench the work of the Holy Spirit. We so need the ministry of the Holy Spirit. So this is the sustaining power of the Holy Spirit. When you're opposed, when you're downtrodden, it's the Holy Spirit that can sustain you in the midst of your trials.

The power of the Holy Spirit deals with the obstacles that you have look at verse 7 in chapter 4 who are you oh great mountain before Zerubbabel you shall become a plane." In other words, here's the Lord is saying, look, you know, Zerubbabel you have all these mountains, you have all these obstacles. I mean, they are mountains, they're right there. But the Lord says, Who are you, O mountain? That mountain is nothing. He says that mountain will become a plane.

And again, you know, the Lord's ministering to a people who have gotten off mission because they got discouraged because of the opposition and in verse 9 he says the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple his hands will also finish it so they're talking about Zerubbabel remember Zerubbabel is one of the builders and again he's affirming the power of God to complete his work in his people's lives. He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. You can count on that. You know, even if you've laid down, even if you've gotten off mission, just realize, return to Him and He'll return to you. Get back on mission.

But recognize you're not alone. You have the power of the Holy Spirit working in you. And then in verse 10 there's this question, for who has despised the day of small things? That's a question. Who has done that?

Is there anybody around here who despises the day of small things. Is there anybody around here looking at the work of the Holy Spirit? Is anybody looking around, any around here looking at the smallness of the church and saying, this is just dinkiness, this is nothing? Anybody saying that? Well, the Lord is here to help us to stop saying that because it's a work of God that's being accomplished.

For who despised the day of small things? Verse 10. For these seven rejoice and see the plum line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the Lord which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth. So this is really all about God's ever-flowing supply of grace in a Christian's life.

And the Lord wants the people to remember that as they get back to work, that they have an ever-flowing stream of living grace from God through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit. And then the sixth vision is the vision of the flying scroll in chapter 5 verses 1 through 4. Then I turned and raised my eyes and saw there a flying scroll and he said to me, what do you see? So I answered, I see a flying scroll. Its length is 20 cubits and its width is 10 cubits.

Now the scroll is like 30 feet by 15 feet and it's flying through the air. You know if you've seen anything like that it would probably scare you. Well that's what that's what Zechariah saw. And so the scroll is flying through the air and the scroll as it turns out is the exact dimension of the temple porch Where the Word of God is read on the Sabbath day So this is this is a picture of the power of the Word of God God is reminding Zechariah of the power of his word and he wants he wants him to communicate to Zerubbabel and to Joshua and all the people that the Word of God is powerful and it will do a mighty work and it will deal with those who disregard his Word, who disregard his law and He's basically saying God will make sure that those who break the law of God will be broken on it and God will judge those who despise his word and it will prevail and it's bigger than big it's bigger than you it's bigger than anybody in the room, and it will come and it will do its work.

And the flying scroll, I believe, is a message of the invincibility of the power of the Word of God. You know, in our church, we hope to believe more and more in the power of the Word of God alone. We like the elders here believe that the only hope for this church is the preaching of the Word of God. And this is the tool that God uses to guide His church. And people often come to us and say, where's God leading this church?

And I always want to say, God is leading His church through His Word. And by the way, right now we're in the prophet Zechariah and God is leading his church through Zechariah. God leads his church through his word and it's really it's really our only hope for this church. The power of the Word of God activated by the Holy Spirit. It's the only hope.

And so the invincibility of the Word of God is spoken of here. And he says this is the curse that goes out over the face of the earth. Every thief shall be expelled according to this side of the scroll and every perjurer shall be expelled according to that side of it." So there was writing on both sides. Maybe it was the two tables of the law in the Ten Commandments. But whatever it is, it's going to expose thieves, and it's going to expose liars.

And God will do that. And because the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces. It cuts, but it also heals at the same time. And the Lord has sent His Word to protect His church, so we should be people of the Word. You know, this is why the Lord made it very clear to fathers that they should teach their children when they sit in the house, when they walk by the way, when they lie down and when they rise up, so that the power of God is being manifested in that family and then it happens day by day and we pray that that happens in our church that fathers and mothers rise up and they saturate their homes with the word of God.

It's the sweetest thing you can do for your family. It really is. It helps your children to understand what's going on in the world. It helps them to understand what's going on in their own hearts. It helps them to understand what they see, you know, around them.

The Word of God is powerful and So this flying scroll is a is a declaration of the power of the Word of God So what do you say to a people? Who've gotten off mission you bring them back to the Word of God and you remind them how good and how powerful it is and they can stake their whole life on it. And then the seventh vision is the the vision of the woman in the basket in chapter 5 verses 1 through 11. So in this vision there's this basket it's flying through the air. What a strange thing.

What in the world? Well that's what Zechariah, he said, what is this? So this basket is flying through the air and the lid opens up and there's a woman in the basket. The lid is lead and you open up the basket and there's a woman in the basket and then there are two other women with wings that come and they pick up the basket and they take it back to Shinar which is Babylon And you know the the basket that they're using it's described in technical language as it's a tool of commerce at measuring what you would trade with and I I think what what he's what the prophet is Revealing is that the women the women want to get back to Babylon. They want to get back to the life and the prosperity of Babylon.

And if you notice what happens here, when this first basket is opened up and the woman is sitting inside, verse 7, then he said, this is wickedness. So these women were about wickedness. I believe that he's talking about material girls who want to go back to Babylon and they want that nice life again. It's harder in Jerusalem and they they just want the comforts of Babylon again possibly. There are other theories about what about what this means But Babylon is the place of idolatry and rebellion against God.

It's a place where the world wins your heart and all the outward appearances and prosperity and activities of the world win your heart and you want that back. You want your fashion back, you want your resources back that you used to have in Babylon. So what does God say to a people? He says you need to check to see if you want Babylon because it's wickedness. And then the eighth vision, the final vision of the four chariots in chapter 6 verses 1 through 8.

This is a picture of these these four chariots. They're coming between two mountains. And the mountains were mountains of bronze. And the chariots have all these multicolored horses in them. And This is a vision of the protection and the victory that God is accomplishing throughout the whole earth, that He controls everything for the good of His people, that these four chariots are passing between these two mountains and they speak of God's power.

Three times in this section you read the words throughout the earth. This is the breadth and the reach of the sovereignty of God. That God has his chariots working and they are everywhere and you can't escape them. So there you go, those are the eight visions. Now the focus of these visions, for the most part, is not what the people are supposed to do, but these visions are a statement of what God is going to do.

There is a call to repentance and that is something that we do, but the overwhelming force of these visions is God. It's a vision of God. It's a vision of His glory, His power, His love. It's a vision of how how he has people who are the apple of his eye It's a vision of how he loves his people and he's going to continue the work that he began in their life and So these assurances are given as a result. The focus of these visions is not go out and do.

The focus of these visions is see. See the power and the glory of God. And I think that's that is the key factor for all of us in rebuilding our lives, to have our eyes fixed on the glory of God, the majesty of God. We fill our minds up with the plans of God and the ways of God because they've just been declared in these eight visions. What is God doing in the world?

And when you know what God is doing in the world you're so you're so relieved to just get back to the work again regardless of the opposition and the difficulty and even the cry in your heart that says this is a day of small things realize what God is doing he's doing a mighty mighty work so all these all these visions have their force really in the power and the majesty of God. God will build his church. He is unstoppable and you should follow him. And he says it in such vivid ways. Now a couple applications real quick.

So who are you in the story? Are you a leader like you know Zerubbabel or Joshua? Like Are you a father or a mother? And you have authority over your house? And the Lord's dealing with you to establish His glory in your home like never before.

To give your family a vision of the glory of God. This is what the prophecy of Zechariah was designed to do. It was designed to be communicated to the people of God so that they would have a greater sense of his glory. You know as fathers and mothers do you do your children have a sense of the majesty of God? The power, the beauty, the love, the tenderness of God, everything of God.

Is that the focus? Well that's what God was doing to try to revive his people. He wanted them to have a sense of who he was and he was calling them to a wholeheartedness. You know it's such a blessing to be around people who are wholeheartedly eager to do the work. And that's what God was desiring to do through this prophecy, is to get his people back to work.

And I can't help but think that somehow God wants all of us to examine ourselves of any way that we've laid down the work of God for our own pleasures. And we need to repent and we need to see the majesty of God and recognize that he will do his work in the world. But he doesn't just want his people to return to the work and just start hammering again. He wants them to love him and to return to him with their whole heart. It's not enough just to get back together and start building.

It's far deeper than that. It has to do with returning with your heart to the Lord. And that's what this whole message is about. So I pray God would give us a real sense of it, that we could persevere in the troubles, that we could recognize our sins and come before Him and cry out to Him, but that we would be so fueled by a vision of the majesty of God, the God who holds you as the apple of his eye, the God who plucked you out of the fire and is cleansing you because he loves you. Would you pray with me?

Lord we thank you for these remarkable visions that we have a hard time understanding completely, but we thank you that you have given us a vision of beauty and glory. And oh Lord, that you would take the words that you've given to us in this prophecy and that you would help us to return to you in every possible way we can. Amen.