Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Or you guys can turn to Zechariah.
[00:00:04] Zechariah, chapters seven and eight.
[00:00:12] We'll continue in this book.
[00:00:16] You know, when I was in high school, I had a tradition that I really loved. And I've talked about this often in my life since then. But on the last day of school each year, a group of my friends and myself would head to none other than Cece's pizza for lunch.
[00:00:37] We would go to Cici's. So I hope you guys love cc's as much as I do.
[00:00:41] It was, it was great.
[00:00:44] You know, the, the five dollar buffet, endless food and pizza and the cinnamon rolls.
[00:00:52] You know, I would usually even skip breakfast or at least eat lightly in anticipation because I would want to take advantage of the $5 all you can eat buffet. It was our annual pizza eating contest.
[00:01:07] That's right. This is a competition between my friends. And I now know those four years. I'm very probably too proud to say I won twice.
[00:01:17] So two time pizza eating champ.
[00:01:21] But I want us to focus on those first few bites. So maybe you can think of a time that you're really hungry or maybe you fasted or you skipped a meal and then you dug into some of your favorite food.
[00:01:34] You're very hungry and maybe it's pizza and you get that warm, cheesy embrace of a mouth hug from a slice of pizza. And it is just glorious.
[00:01:45] You know, that feeling of going from being hungry to being completely satisfied, from going to. From a fast to a feast is what came to mind as I was reading these couple of chapters and I was struck by the discussion on fasting at the beginning and then at the end of chapter eight, how the Lord promises to turn their fasting or it will be like feasting when the Lord is with his people. And I thought of this, but knowing that it's even greater than that could be.
[00:02:16] Now, again this week, our chapter forms another one of these weird shapes. So yeah, I printed out the weird little flyers again for you guys to have. I do, I do recommend that you just slide it. You can fold it in your Bible because I think these can help us read these books. It can help us remember what's emphasized. How is this passage set up? So maybe it can be of use for you in a few years when you open Zechariah and you've forgotten everything and you have a couple reminders, so I'd recommend keeping them. This to remind you is something called a chiasm.
[00:02:47] So this is chiasmania. I won't do this every week, but Only when I think it's helpful.
[00:02:52] And it turns out that, you know, this isn't just a couple of chapters that talk about fasting and then fasting and feasting at the end. But there's a lot more unity throughout it. As I read it felt a little scattered at first, but the more I read, the more I saw that there is this structure, there's this unity throughout that doesn't seem obvious at first. And when you follow this, the way we read these is that, yeah, everything's important. The ones that parallel each other, you can see those little colored lines connecting them.
[00:03:23] Those are kind of parallel topics. Or sometimes you might see phrases that are the same. But it brings our eyes correctly to the center there. That's why I made it a little bit bigger, to show you that I believe this is kind of the main point. This is the center part of these two chapters. And everything else kind of mirrors itself on the way out. So the main emphasis for Zechariah is that one day the people of Israel will be God's people and God, Yahweh will be their God, they will be my people, and I will be their God. That is central to these chapters and really to his overall book.
[00:04:02] And so the prophetic books, yes, this is another. A prophetic book. Just to remind you, Zechariah was a prophet. That means he speaks God's word to the people.
[00:04:12] And so these prophetic books, mostly Isaiah through Malachi, they have collections of prophecies and stories relevant to the prophecies, stories about the prophets and visions and dreams and kind of ways that they act out in a dramatic way of prophecy. So there's all sorts of content that you might see in these books. Now, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, these are the ones we're focusing on, these occurrences after the exile.
[00:04:38] The exile. You know, an exile is when you are taken from a place and forced, banished to go somewhere else. So this happened to the nation of Israel, both the split kingdoms, Israel and Judah, but together, just Israel.
[00:04:50] So this is after this exile was a punishment for their faithlessness, their violation of the covenants that God made with them. And so both of these kingdoms, the nation of Israel, were exiled and forced into another land. Well, they've now returned 70 years later to rebuild the temple, the temples where God's presence dwells. And even the city and the nation of the Lord is what they are trying to build, to re establish, to bring back.
[00:05:20] Now, Zechariah, like Haggai, recounted how Israel had repented from not building the temple, they started to focus on their selves, their own houses, setting up their lives, but they've started to build the temple again. And then we had those interesting eight visions, with the main purpose being that God wanted to show his people that they will be ruled by someone who will be both a priest and a king, which is Jesus Christ. So we now turn to these two chapters. And the main idea of Zechariah 7 and 8 is this.
[00:05:55] The Lord brings life, prosperity.
[00:05:59] The Lord brings life and prosperity to his desolate and lowly people by being their God.
[00:06:08] So the Lord brings life and prosperity to his desolate and lowly people by being their God.
[00:06:16] We're going to kind of tackle this bit by bit. So we're going to start in chapter seven, verse one, and read the first seven verses.
[00:06:25] In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah. On the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Kislev now, the people of Bethel had sent Shareazzar and Regimelech and their men to entreat the favor of the Lord, saying to the priests of the house of the Lord of Hosts and the prophets, should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?
[00:06:48] The then the word of the Lord of Hosts came to me. Say to all the people of the land and the priests, when you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh month for these 70 years, was it for me that you fasted? And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves?
[00:07:06] Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets? When Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her in the south and the lowland were inhabited.
[00:07:16] All right, so in this first section, point number one is called fasting turns to frowning.
[00:07:24] They are upset about this fasting. So this first scene, some people from Bethel, a land in Babylon, they. They sent two men to seek the favor of the Lord. They want to ask the Lord for something. They want his favor. They want to hear some good news.
[00:07:40] So coming to where the temple was being built, they asked the priests and the prophets this interesting question in verse three. So these men that came were probably practicing Jews that had remained in the land of Bethel. They didn't come back with the remnant to rebuild the temple. They kind of just stayed where they were. But they come to ask, should we continue weeping and fasting or abstaining and lamenting? You know, this fasting would have been a Time to lament something terrible. It was not necessarily tied to a feast or a holiday that we know of, but it was probably tied to something that happened to the Jews. So in the fifth month, I think they were commemorating how the Babylonians had destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in the fifth month of the year. So they're probably remembering this time, lamenting and mourning it. But important for us is that the Jews, because of their judgment, exile, which had, you know, they say in verse five, lasted many years. They were weeping over that judgment, but they deserved that judgment, the one that they received.
[00:08:45] But is it time to rejoice yet? That's what they want to know. You know, we've seen some exciting visions of what the Lord is going to do to rescue and restore them that they want to know, is it time to rejoice? Is the Lord finally going to save his people?
[00:08:59] You know, they're. They're asking kind of impatiently. They're. They're kind of like that kid on the way to camp and in the first 10 minutes says, are we there yet?
[00:09:08] Like, are we there yet? Are we there yet?
[00:09:11] And it's, no, you're 10 hours away from the camp still. You were not there yet.
[00:09:16] So I want us to note the tone. I think that's kind of what we're getting. It's this passive aggression. These words are kind of dripping with impatience.
[00:09:27] And we can kind of get that a little bit clear by how the Lord responds.
[00:09:31] Lord answers these many clarifies, whereas they kind of flippantly say, we've been doing this for many years. The Lord says, he specifies, it's been 70 years. He knows the years.
[00:09:43] This is the appointed time. So you might remember Jeremiah prophesied that this judgment would last 70 years. The Lord, of course, knows this, that this time has arrived.
[00:09:52] Further, rather than allowing these men to come to the Lord and interrogate him about when he plans to deliver Israel, he turns the spotlight onto them and begins to ask them questions, questioning their motives, asking, why do you fast? For whom do you fast?
[00:10:09] Why is he doing this?
[00:10:11] Well, he's exposing the empty ritual that they were carrying out, and they were doing it while clearly forgetting the reason that the nation was judged in the first place. They did not have faith in the Lord. It seems like maybe these men still do not.
[00:10:29] So I hope that this example of these men coming to the Lord to interrogate him and him questioning their motives encourages you all to seek the purest and truest religion or the way in which we follow the Lord.
[00:10:44] Rituals are not the Secret ingredient to a happy life. They are not tickets to heaven, you know. Oh, you read your Bible, you pray most days. Oh, do you come to church every week and even take notes?
[00:11:00] Do you sing the songs during worship at church? Do you do good works?
[00:11:05] Do you have a very good Christian resume? You know, all of those things are not bad, but they are worthless if we do not have faith in Christ, if we do not trust Him. But we do these things for our own sakes. We are merely practicing an empty ritual, not doing it for the Lord. We're doing it for ourselves or for our appearance.
[00:11:30] You know, doing it in this way, without faith is akin to a child finally, or maybe even a teenager finally obeying their parents, but doing with an eye roll. Have you ever tried that at home?
[00:11:42] They probably weren't. Yeah, they probably weren't very pleased.
[00:11:46] No, that's not proper obedience. We must obey, as we've heard other parents say, with a happy heart. Obey right away.
[00:11:55] Don't just keep watch on your words, thoughts and actions. You need to keep a close watch on your heart.
[00:12:02] The motivation, the reason that you are doing what you're doing.
[00:12:06] Because once your heart vacates the premises, your good deeds lose their value.
[00:12:12] When your heart leaves, your good deeds are worthless. Rituals do not save sinners.
[00:12:18] The Lord saves sinners.
[00:12:20] Now look back down at verse eight. We'll keep reading. And the word of the Lord came to Zechariah saying, thus says the Lord of Hosts, render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another.
[00:12:33] Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.
[00:12:40] But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear.
[00:12:46] They made their hearts diamond hard, lest they should hear the law and the words that the Lord of Hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets.
[00:12:55] Therefore great anger came from the Lord of Hosts.
[00:12:58] As I called and they would not hear, so they called and I would not hear, says the Lord of Hosts. And I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.
[00:13:17] Point number two. Then his hardened hearts turned to judgment.
[00:13:23] Hardened hearts turned to judgment.
[00:13:28] As we've seen in Zechariah before, the Lord refers to earlier generations of Jews and their failures in order to make a point to the ones to whom he's speaking. So we see this list in verses 9 and 10 of Good Things to do and bad things not to do, specifically to other people.
[00:13:47] Judging with justice being kind, showing mercy to those in in need, not oppressing those who would have been vulnerable, like widows, orphans, foreigners and the poor.
[00:13:57] And now since, you know, we just spoke about these empty rituals, how they don't save you. The Lord now turns and commands obedience to these moral and biblical ethics.
[00:14:09] But here's the key.
[00:14:11] We kind of just hinted at it a minute ago.
[00:14:14] The key is the heart of the people.
[00:14:17] The key is the heart of the people. They should not devise evil in their hearts is what we read. And when the people in earlier times had turned from the Lord, it was because their hearts were hard.
[00:14:28] They had hard hearts.
[00:14:30] Your actions flow from the heart.
[00:14:34] Everything you do flows from the heart. What you say, what you do, what you think is a reflection of what's in your heart.
[00:14:43] These people had hard hearts. A soft, humble heart is one that trusts in the Lord and seeks to obey him.
[00:14:51] The former Jews didn't just have hard hearts, but how is it described in the text?
[00:14:57] They're diamond hard.
[00:15:00] They are diamond hard hearts. Having a hard heart turns people into sort of a way of life where they're kind of walking around blindfolded, feeling around, they're unaware of what's around them, when all they need to do is really think about it. They really need to look and observe and recognize and look inward to their heart.
[00:15:26] But, you know, don't we do similar things?
[00:15:30] Don't we kind of act like this?
[00:15:32] You know, we might shy away from truths that confront us too much. We don't want to look inward. We want to have a hard heart. We want to guard ourselves from truths that might offend us. We want to guard ourselves from truths that might make us radically change our lives and our relationships and how we live with one another.
[00:15:51] You know, some Christians do this in churches when they openly affirm sins.
[00:15:57] These affirming churches, people call them. You know, you might see videos of some pastor saying he or she won't read a certain text or teach a certain. A certain idea in the Bible because they don't think it's actually true or they think it's offensive.
[00:16:14] Which just goes to show, the quickest way to reject true Christianity is to convince yourself that the Bible doesn't or contains errors. It is not completely true. When we convince ourselves of this with our hard heart, convincing that some things are not as true or maybe some things are false, this is the quickest way way to just destroy and unravel the faith.
[00:16:39] But, you know, it's not just these obvious examples of false churches and false pastors. It happens in a more subtle way, too.
[00:16:49] I'm talking about, you know, hardening our hearts and ignoring the Word because of our hard hearts. It happens more subtly, you know, maybe in your own time. You only read parts of the Bible that are easy for you or aren't going to challenge you too much. You know, you don't read Leviticus. You don't read difficult books. You don't seek to grow. You just want to go for what's comfortable.
[00:17:11] You want to go for what is going to maybe affirm you and make you feel good.
[00:17:16] You might write off someone who's teaching that teaches something that rubs you the wrong way or offends you in some way.
[00:17:23] Students, I just want to urge you to be careful that you do not harden your hearts to God's word. But you would have a soft heart. You would be receptive to it. You would be actively wanting to know it more and deeper and read it and read it, and read it and study it and apply it to your lives.
[00:17:42] Don't be like the people we're reading with hard, diamond, hard hearts. No. Love the Word and ask that God would transform your hearts.
[00:17:55] Continuing on. Now we're in chapter eight, verse one, and the word of the Lord of Hosts came, saying, thus says the LORD of Hosts, I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath.
[00:18:15] Thus says the Lord, I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And. And Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city and the mountain of the Lord of Hosts. The holy mountain.
[00:18:26] Thus says the Lord of Hosts, old men and old women shall again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each with staff in hand because of great age. And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets.
[00:18:40] Thus says the Lord of Hosts, if it is marvelous in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, should it also be marvelous in my sight? Declares the Lord of Hosts.
[00:18:50] Thus says the Lord of Hosts, Behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God in faithfulness and in righteousness.
[00:19:07] Thus says the Lord of Hosts. Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets, who, who were present on the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. For before those days there was no wage for man, or any wage for beast. Neither was there any safety from the foe for him who went out or came in. For I set every man against his neighbor. But now I will not deal with the remnant of this people, as in the former days, declares the Lord of hosts.
[00:19:39] For there shall be a sowing of peace.
[00:19:42] The vine shall give its fruit, and the ground shall give its produce, and the heavens shall give their due. And I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all things.
[00:19:53] And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you. And you shall be a blessing.
[00:20:04] Fear not, but let your hands be strong.
[00:20:09] So point number three, based on these verses is Jealous Jehovah returns to Zion.
[00:20:16] Jealous Jehovah returns to Zion.
[00:20:21] Now I say jealous Jehovah. Jehovah is another form of the name Yahweh, the name of the Lord. I call him this because this is a biblical statement. We see it here. We also see it in Exodus 34:14, which says, for you shall worship no other God, for the Lord whose name is jealous is a jealous God.
[00:20:39] Sometimes this is an interesting concept for us to think about. We associate sinfulness with jealousy, as often we do have sinful jealousy in our own hearts. But God is jealous, and it's not sinful. For he is jealous for his own glory and worship.
[00:20:56] That which belongs to him. Glory and worship is not being given to him. It is something he actually is owed and deserves.
[00:21:05] So when you read that the Lord is zealous for Zion, this should be an encouragement. It should be comforting.
[00:21:13] You may not know what Zion means. You see this word a lot. Zion refers to a mountain, Mount Zion, which points us to the heavenly holy mountain where God meets his people. In other words, Zion in shorthand is talking about heaven, the new heavens, the new earth. When Christ returns, that is what what Zion means.
[00:21:33] And God is jealous for this day when his people will all worship him. He is jealous for the worship of his people. He loves all of his people and earnestly desires that they they worship and honor him, which again they owe him.
[00:21:49] And he's jealous with great wrath.
[00:21:52] So we put all this together.
[00:21:54] God longs for justice and mercy. God longs for wrath and worship. So those of you who do not trust and love the Son Jesus Christ will be objects of great wrath.
[00:22:08] But you who do trust and love Jesus will worship him forever in bliss.
[00:22:16] These verses feature God's promise to save the remnant of his people from the wicked world.
[00:22:25] Now here's how he describes this, this land of the remnant that he is going to save this Zion, what we would call heaven. Here's how he describes it. There's a lot of descriptors in this section. So in verse three, in heaven, God dwells there.
[00:22:41] Verse number two, it will be a faithful city full of the faithful. We see that in verse three, number three, it will be a holy mountain, a place of absolute holiness. That's also in verse three, number four. Men and women will grow old there in safety and peace. That's in verse four, number five.
[00:23:02] Children will be happy and safe there. Also verse five, number six, God's people will be saved to there. See that in verse seven, number seven, there shall be peace there. It's in verse 12, number eight, there shall be plenty of fruit produce and do. That's in verse 12. This is much like the Garden of Eden. It should be bringing it to mind the perfect earth that God originally created. And number nine, this is in verse 13, God's people will be a blessing rather than a curse. And this too should bring to mind something that's come before in the Old Testament. This should call to our mind God's promise with Abraham, the Father of Israel. Because Genesis 12:2, Genesis 12:2 says, and I will make of you a great nation. This is God to Abraham, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.
[00:24:01] God plans on not forgetting that promise that was made so many years before. He is going to keep it. He will make his people the people of Abraham, a a blessing.
[00:24:13] Significantly, also the center, the climax of this, our little chiasm structure, is in verse 8, verse 8, we read, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God in faithfulness and in righteousness.
[00:24:36] This uses the language of Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34, so that if you're writing it down, that's Jeremiah 31:31 34, which prophesies about the new covenant that the Messiah would establish. Here's what it says.
[00:24:50] Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
[00:25:12] So Bible readers now and even then should have their ears perked up when they hear this phrase, I will be their God, they will be my people.
[00:25:21] This is not just a nice reminder that Israel is God's chosen people.
[00:25:27] This is a marker pointing forward to the new covenant that had been promised and has now been revealed and established through Christ.
[00:25:36] This is a revelation of what would come that we now have seen in full.
[00:25:41] And faithfulness and righteousness here mentioned at the end are absolutely key and central.
[00:25:48] For no one will see God and be with him unless he or she is righteous.
[00:25:54] That is the standard righteousness. And since the Bible definitively declares that no one is righteous, we need another way to gain access to God.
[00:26:04] We need a way to become righteous.
[00:26:07] So the way anyone is saved is by being united to Christ through faith. You become one with him through faith in his life, his death, his resurrection, and you become one with Him. And in his righteousness and perfection, his righteousness is accounted to you to be saved. And this happens through faith. So if you put your faith in Christ, he gives you and credits his perfection to your account, the standard that you have to meet has been met by him.
[00:26:40] And so that through faithfulness you can inherit his righteousness. But you must believe, you must have faith.
[00:26:50] And this then empowers you to obey in a way that Israel's ancestors failed to do. We kind of even get a hint of that in that Jeremiah passage when he says, I will put my law within them, I will write it on their what?
[00:27:03] Their hearts.
[00:27:05] The heart is key. And God will transform the heart of those who trust in Him.
[00:27:13] Now continuing on, verse 14.
[00:27:17] For Thus says the LORD of hosts, as I purposed to bring disaster to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts. So again I have purposed in these days to bring good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Fear not, these are the things that you shall speak the truth to one another, render in your gates judgments that are true and make for peace.
[00:27:42] Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another, and love no false oath for all these things I hate, declares the Lord.
[00:27:51] Point number four then softened hearts turn to salvation. Softened hearts turn to salvation.
[00:28:00] God plans to deal differently with his people on account of the coming new covenant which is now in place.
[00:28:08] He repeats again, because this parallels with what came before. He repeats many of the same commands that we saw in chapter 7, verses 9 and 10. But God comforts them to fear not. God plans to bring good upon his people, not judgment.
[00:28:24] So instead of making your heart diamond hard, pray that God would help you to make your heart silk pillow soft.
[00:28:32] I couldn't think of a softer thing. There might be a softer thing. It's very soft. The opposite Whatever the opposite of diamond hard would be, Ask the Lord to help you to soften your heart for you, that you would be receptive, that you would obey him, that you would love His Word.
[00:28:51] Now, how do you know if your heart is hard? Maybe it's a little difficult for you to diagnose your yourself.
[00:28:59] Here's a question. Do you find yourself quickly trying to justify what you've done when someone maybe brings up a sin or something's pointed out in your life?
[00:29:12] Here's another when you feel guilt or shame for something you've done, do you run to the Lord first? Or do you try to run from that to other things through your phone, your television, books, activities, or maybe even running to other sins?
[00:29:30] What do you run to? What is your initial reaction?
[00:29:36] I want you to think about that. Is your heart hard?
[00:29:40] Pray for a soft and humble heart toward God and His Word.
[00:29:48] Now let's read the the last part of this passage, Starting in verse 18 the word of the LORD of hosts came to me, saying, thus says the LORD of hosts, the fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah. Seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts, therefore love, truth and peace.
[00:30:11] Thus says the LORD of hosts. People shall yet come, even the inhabitants of many cities. The inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts. I myself am going many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to entreat the favor of the Lord.
[00:30:34] Thus says the LORD of hosts. In those days 10 men from the nations of every tongue shall take hold of of the robe of a Jew, saying, let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.
[00:30:46] Point number five. Then fasting turns to feasting.
[00:30:51] Fasting turns to feasting, you know. Here we see the mirror images of those opening verses of chapter seven, the first couple of levels in that chiasm structure I gave you. These are the answers and the solutions to what came before.
[00:31:07] This is the final answer from the Lord.
[00:31:10] You know, Whereas the arrogant and impatient men that came in the beginning of chapter seven asking and interrogating God about fasting in the fifth month, the Lord's reply here brings the that brings and talks about the fasting that some Jews would do, not just in the fifth month. I don't know if you noticed that, but he lists the fourth, the fifth, the seventh, and the tenth four months.
[00:31:35] These were, you know, significant events happened of judgment in all of those months. So there. This could still kind of attribute to that theory.
[00:31:45] But what he's doing is he's raising the stakes. You talk about the fast of the fifth month. Well, I'll just answer anyone who might have a question about when we can stop fasting, whatever month you might be fasting in, here's the answer.
[00:31:57] So whether they would fast during some or all of those months, the Lord has an answer for anyone who might come and interrogate him, like Sharezer and Regimelech, the answer all of those fasts shall be to the house of Judah. The house of Judah is another phrase that we can just say means God's people.
[00:32:21] All of those fasts shall be to the house of Judah. Seasons of joy and gladness and cheerful feasts.
[00:32:31] Their fasting and weeping will turn into feasting and celebration.
[00:32:36] Your dull and boring and meaningless everyday life will be exciting, lively and purposeful. Your horrific suffering, whether mental or physical or whatever it might be, will be turned to excessive enjoyment. Your anxious depression will turn to settled peace and happiness.
[00:32:54] All of that is yours if you belong to Christ, all of it. If you trust in him, then you receive his free gift of eternal life and all the blessings that come with it.
[00:33:07] But there's more.
[00:33:09] Just like those men who came from another country at the beginning of chapter 7 to ask for God's favor. Verse 20 says that peoples from many cities and nations will come to do the same.
[00:33:21] But in those later times, they won't come to interrogate God about their suffering, but to bask in the bliss of his blessing.
[00:33:28] The prophecy even mentioned specifically, men from the nations of every tongue is another way of saying every language.
[00:33:36] They will all want to come and taste and see the goodness of the Lord.
[00:33:41] Students, we are living in the times where this is is beginning to happen.
[00:33:46] Churches, just churches I've been a member of, have had people from the us, Canada, Mexico, Afghanistan, the uk, the uae, South Africa, Madagascar, China, Japan, Brazil, Colombia, Germany, and probably a lot of nations that I don't even know about all of that, all of those places that is happening now through the work and mission of churches all around the world.
[00:34:11] So what should we do because we're living in these times? Well, first, do the work. If you've trusted in Christ, do the work to pursue people that look, act and are different than you.
[00:34:25] Pursue people that are different than you. It's work. Do the work.
[00:34:31] Second, second thing we can do.
[00:34:34] Consider how you, yes, you, even you can contribute to the church's mission to the nations.
[00:34:43] How can you contribute to the church's missions to the nations?
[00:34:49] And number three, always be quick to welcome those at church who are not from here, maybe are very obviously from somewhere else. Always be quick to welcome them, go the extra mile to seek them out and make them feel loved and welcome because they are.
[00:35:08] They are a part of the fulfillment of these verses as people. And we too are part of the fulfillment of those verses. We from all nations are coming to the Lord of hosts in glory, to bask in his blessing.
[00:35:24] The and these things that I listed, these are the sorts of things that churches just do, you know. Now, to draw your attention back to the center of this handout, it points to the reality that God will have a people and that people will love and worship him as their God. If you have put your faith in Christ, then rejoice and remember that your duty is to be kind, merciful, just and welcoming to others.
[00:35:53] Our duty is to work with the power of God's Spirit to build up the church of God until he returns to his people, until he returns to Zion in the hope that he certainly will return. We can look forward and know that we will be saved.
[00:36:10] We will receive relief and our fasting will turn to feasting, knowing that the Lord brings life and prosperity to his desolate and lowly people by being their God. Let's pray.
[00:36:27] Father, we thank you for your word and that you are redeeming a people for yourself. That will be your people. You will be their God. God, we pray that everyone in here would be among that people. That you would grant faith and repentance to everybody in here that they may turn and see that you are good. That they would have relief from their worries and their troubles, that they would have peace eternal through your Son. We pray this all in his name. Amen.
