September 21: Zechariah 1-7

September 21, Zechariah 1-7

Today we jump into another minor prophet, Zechariah. He was a priest and part of a royal family who returned to Jerusalem from the exile. He was writing to a discouraged people and was revealing to them a future hope. There are numerous Messianic prophesies in his book. He was a contemporary of Haggai and obedient to share what God spoke to him about!

Zechariah 1 The Word of the Lord came to Zechariah with a warning to the people to not act like their fathers did and consequently got them into the mess that they are currently recovering from. Their fathers were evil and eventually repented. Their fathers did not come to God and He therefore did not come to them. 

Zechariah had numerous visions from God. The first of many are of him seeing horses of different colors that God had sent to roam the earth and report back to God what they had seen. They had seen a complacent people on earth, God’s enemies. God was jealous for Jerusalem & Zion, and angry with all the nations that were against His people. The people returned to God and God returned to His people. God’s people would experience great blessing because of it. 

He then saw a vision of four horns - those were the 4 nations against Judah and the four craftsmen he saw were coming to take out the enemies. Stay with me…!

Zechariah 2 Is another vision of God’s people and Jerusalem - the basic thrust of these chapters is that God’s people would be numerous and that if anyone goes against God’s people they will be going against God Himself. 

Zechariah 3 There is another vision and this one is blatantly Messianic in nature. Joshua was standing before the Lord and Satan was there to accuse him - & the Lord flat out rebuked Satan and declared that Jerusalem was chosen for God. Joshua the High Priest is in nasty dirty garments and they were to be cleaned - this is a word picture for God taking away our sins through Jesus Christ, our High Priest. The warning - if we walk in God’s ways through Christ God will remove our iniquities. This is more than just a suggestions but this is God declaring it. 

Zechariah 4 More visions… Golden Lamp stand, a bowl, seven lamps, seven lips on top, two olive trees… This vision was for Zerubbabel (who was helping build the temple) and also a future reference for God’s future house (heaven with us). The basic push of this is to take courage with small successes and keep our focus on the end goal - being with God forever in His home. 

Zechariah 5 The vision of the Flying Scroll is used to wipe out the sins of sinners. 

Zechariah has another vision  about a basket and a woman - again this is about the removal of sin (Christ will do that and did that!).

Zechariah 6 Zechariah now sees 4 chariots between bronze mountains. These are God’s messengers - a basic expansion from Chapter 1... 

Again, our attention is brought to the future hope of Jesus. The ‘Branch’ is a symbolic name of Jesus. God will gather His people through Jesus. 

Zechariah 7 During King Darius’s reign, the Word of the Lord came to Zechariah again. People were asking if they should continue fasting like they had been doing. Zechariah reminds them that their fasting was less than genuine and their hearts were not in it. They were selfishly doing what they wanted and when they wanted, but now that they were going to have a temple again, what were they to do? God called them to be truthful and to do what He has commanded them to do - take care of people and be obedient servants of Yahweh. 

To sum it all up: 

• Wow - what a study of crazy ideas, word pictures and instruction. What can we take from this? A basic application is simply to make sure that your heart is for Christ alone and that you are living for His glory and not your own. Only you can answer that with the Lord’s revelation to you. 
• Where is your heart? Are you ready for the return of Christ? Today is the day of Salvation for many of you. Trust in Christ!