Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Okay, you guys can open to Zechariah, chapter three.
[00:00:10] Zechariah three.
[00:00:14] Okay, so just to start, I'm, you know, I'm.
[00:00:18] I'm sure you guys are all on the very edge of your seat, gripping the chair. What is this? Why did I give you a second handout?
[00:00:27] I know that has been occupying your brain non stop since you saw them, but I think this is a helpful way for us to kind of see the visions. You know, all eight of these visions. We've covered three of them. Gonna do the next and last five today.
[00:00:45] They can be confusing. There's a lot of imagery that might be hard to understand, at least at first glimpse. It takes a little bit of digging and work to kind of uncover it. But I want us to. I don't want us to kind of lose sight of the fact that these are connected. And I think trying to communicate a meaning. They're not random at all. They are connected in this structure. So this is something that's called a chiasm.
[00:01:10] The history of the word is basically chi is a Greek letter. It looks like an X. So you kind of. You can even kind of see half the shape of that X as it goes in and out.
[00:01:19] That's kind of where it gets its name.
[00:01:21] So basically the reason that an author might do this and use this is to make a certain point more clear, which as you, if you read, just sat down and read all eight of these visions, it might be difficult to kind of unlock what exactly is the point of all these? Are they all completely separate? What's the overall overarching message? But what this structure does is it kind of brings our eyes right to the center. The center is. Is the gem. The beautiful thing that we want to uncover and dust off and examine and see its beauty. And so in the center here, we see exactly what is happening. We see the high priest and the Davidic king leading Israel. We'll see both of those visions today. So we haven't talked about those, we've just done the first three. But we kind of see this symmetry going back and forth from in, from the outside to the inside.
[00:02:18] And I think that's, you know, what Zechariah and the Lord are doing through this. You know, this could seem a little funny. Why, you know, is this really. Here is Austin just kind of making things up, rewording things to make them look. And I don't, I don't think I am. I think all around the world for ages, to the point where we're not influencing each other. Authors do this sort of thing even in a. In a really good book where you read, you'll see something similar at the beginning and an end and a climactic point in the middle and things that sometimes kind of mirror each other. So this sort of structure is used even in some of your favorite novels.
[00:02:54] So it's not outlandish. We're not making this up. I think this is something that's in here. And the reason I want to bring up this, and we'll refer to it a couple of times, and you can just kind of keep that in your Bible for now.
[00:03:08] Just a couple of reasons. One, I want to remind us that the Bible is beautiful. It's really cool. It's not random chunks of words and passages and stories with weird names and other things in between.
[00:03:22] It is a beautiful work of literature. It's not randomly thrown together to merely keep a record.
[00:03:29] God is not just communicating something, but he's doing it beautifully and with great order because he is a God of order and beauty.
[00:03:37] I also bring this up because with a lot of prophetic books, which. The prophetic books are basically Isaiah in your Bibles through Malachi, it's a big chunk. We sometimes spend a lot of time trying to figure out the historical setting for every single thing that a prophet might have said. And sometimes we can find what exactly was going on, and other times we're a little bit in the dark. We don't quite know. But sometimes if we do this too much, we might miss beautiful arrangements like this where the author is trying to show us that the way I'm putting this together is communicating a message that I don't want you to miss. So you don't want to get bogged down with certain details. I'm not saying details are bad, but we want to see what the author is trying to show us. And I think that's what we see here. He has arranged this book in such a way to communicate a message.
[00:04:27] So we see these eight visions in this structure. It brings our attention especially into those center. Two, so we see that at the center there's Joshua, the high priest. We've heard about the last week. And even in Haggai, Joshua was present. And also present in Haggai was Zerubbabel, the governor.
[00:04:46] And he is representing the kingship line, the kingly line. He is a descendant of David.
[00:04:54] And so the last section of chapter six, I believe, which we'll talk about at the end tonight, it's not a vision, it's a speech or an oracle. It kind of repeats the theme of those middle two visions of a priest and a king. And so I think that is even kind of the key to helping us see that this structure is really there.
[00:05:12] Now let's, you know, dive into the text. So the main idea of Zechariah3.6 is that the Lord will bring salvation through judgment. The Lord will bring salvation through judgment via the one who is both priest and king. The Lord will bring salvation through judgment via the one who is both priest and king.
[00:05:36] Let's start by reading Zechariah 3. We're going to kind of take it on in chunks, since it's a bigger passage. So Zechariah 3 says, Then he showed me Joshua. So this is another vision. The high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.
[00:05:53] And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, O Satan, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?
[00:06:03] Now, Joshua was standing before the angel, clothed with filthy garments.
[00:06:08] And the angel said to those who were standing before him, remove the filthy garments from him. And to him he said, behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.
[00:06:20] And I said, let them put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by. And the angel of the Lord solemnly assured Joshua. Thus says the LORD of hosts, if you will walk in my ways and keep my charge, then you shall rule my house and have charge of my courts. And I will give you the right of access among those who are standing here. Hear now, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your friends who sit before you, for they are men who are a sign. Behold, I will bring my servant the branch. For behold, on the stone that I have set before Joshua, a single stone with seven eyes, I will engrave its inscription, declares the LORD of Hosts. And I will remove the iniquity of this land in a single day. And that day declares the LORD of hosts. Every one of you will invite his neighbor to come under his vine and under his fig tree.
[00:07:15] So point number one.
[00:07:17] The Lord will sanctify the high priest. And sanctify is just a word that means to purify, to make holy. The Lord will sanctify the high priest. So in this fourth vision, Joshua, the high priest, he's the main player.
[00:07:32] Again, it's one of the center two of this chiastic. Structure. The priests were responsible. So this is what he did. They were responsible for going before God, especially the high priest, to kind of intercede or to make atonement or to ask for forgiveness for the people's sins. That was the job of the priest. They went before God to ask for forgiveness.
[00:07:52] So in this vision, in verses one and two, we see first Joshua, the high priest. So the highest of the priests, he's accused.
[00:08:01] He's accused by one that, you know, in my Bible says Satan. You might have a Bible that says the accuser. I think it's literally the word is the accuser.
[00:08:10] But I think it's appropriate to interpret this as Satan, but the accuser. And Satan, he tries to accuse the high priest of wrongdoing, and it is actually this accuser who ends up being rebuked by the Lord.
[00:08:27] And interestingly, in this rebuke, God refers to Joshua as what? Something interesting.
[00:08:33] A brand plucked from the fire.
[00:08:37] And this, you know, draws on some Old Testament imagery. But the point of this image is this. The high priest, therefore he's kind of representing all of the priests, the whole priesthood. He's the representative head. The high priest was judged for their sin, but God has now taken them out of the fire of judgment to redeem them and make them pure again.
[00:08:59] The brand plucked from the fire, the fire represents their judgment in the exile, and they are being plucked out and saved from this judgment.
[00:09:08] So then it makes sense that Joshua's priest costume is filthy and God has it removed. We could probably make some educated guesses at the significance, but we don't have to. The vision tells us what this means.
[00:09:21] Verse 4 says, and to him he said, behold, I've taken your iniquity away from you and I will clothe you with pure vestments.
[00:09:34] Iniquity is a fancy word for sin. So what the God is saying is, he's saying God is. He's removing Joshua's sins, which is amazing. We can easily see how this relates to how Christ removes sins from the faithful. But there's actually even more than just the removal of sins in this picture. Did you notice it?
[00:09:55] God replaces the filthy clothes with pure, clean clothes.
[00:10:02] And in the same way, God removes sin from the faithful and adorns them with his own righteousness, with his own perfection, his own purities. So he removes sin from the faithful and adorns them with his own perfection.
[00:10:20] So for those who have faith, God removes guilt and gives purity. God removes guilt and gives purity.
[00:10:31] And God turns then to Joshua to charge him to obey his commands.
[00:10:37] But the problem with this is that the priests.
[00:10:40] Yeah, well, they're people, too.
[00:10:42] They are, you know, a special class, but they are still people, which means they sin.
[00:10:48] They are still sinners. So for the priest to perfectly obey his commands and keep their garments perfectly clean is an unsustainable system.
[00:10:56] So in the presence of the high priest, you know, the Lord knows this. In the presence of the high priest and his helpers that are sitting in front of him. In this vision, the Lord promises something, promises to bring the branch.
[00:11:10] Now, what is this branch?
[00:11:12] A lot, maybe. All of your Bibles probably capitalize the word branch.
[00:11:17] It's referring to a couple of other passages in the old testament. So one, if you want to write these down, is Jeremiah 23:5.
[00:11:24] Jeremiah 23:5 says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. So see here the 4 David Kingdom, a righteous branch will be raised up.
[00:11:46] And then Isaiah 11:1, Isaiah 11:1 says, There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse. Jesse is David's father, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
[00:11:59] So there are these prophecies about a branch specifically tied to David. The king Jesus is the branch. He is the branch. And this branch Jesus will accomplish what the high priest and the whole priesthood is unable to fulfill, where they always fail to keep the commandments, where they fail in their eternal sufficiency and power. The branch Christ Jesus will do the job.
[00:12:27] And the branch is also, in this vision, kind of interestingly likened then to an odd stone with eyes, which is kind of, you know, a weird picture, you know, stone with seven eyes. Now, the word eyes here is actually kind of a confusing Hebrew word, so I think it could even be understood as kind of gleaming spots of water running from this stone. But I don't want us to kind of get too messed up in the weeds of the details there. I'm sure there's a lot of really cool insights, but I want us to focus on what the branch will do.
[00:13:01] So look at verse nine. What will the branch do? He will remove the sin of this land in a single day.
[00:13:10] That's what he will do.
[00:13:12] Christ Jesus on the cross, the true and eternal and better high priest. He will remove all sins from the people in a moment as he dies in a single day. You see, Christ is clearly the perfect fulfillment of all that's being said here in this vision.
[00:13:32] And it's all connected to this high priest, how Christ will supplant Joshua as the perfect high priest.
[00:13:40] And now on the flip side, the kingly side, we see Zechariah 4. So look down in your Bibles and Let's go through Zechariah 4.
[00:13:48] We see. The angel who talked with me came again and woke me like a man who has awakened out of his sleep. And he said to me, what do you see?
[00:13:57] I said, I see. And behold a lamp stand, all of gold, with a bowl on top of it and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that are on the top of it. And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right of the bowl and the other on its left.
[00:14:11] And I said to the angel who talked with me, what are these, my lord? And the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, do you not know what these are? I said, no, my lord. Then he said to me, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel. Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts.
[00:14:29] Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain.
[00:14:34] And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of grace, grace to it.
[00:14:39] Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hand shall also complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.
[00:14:58] These seven are the eyes of the Lord which range through the whole earth. Then I said to him, what are these two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand? And a second time I answered and said to him, what are these two branches of the olive trees which are beside the two golden pipes from which the golden oil is poured out?
[00:15:15] He said to me, do you not know what these are?
[00:15:19] I said, no, my lord. Then he said, these are the two anointed ones who will stand by the Lord of the whole earth.
[00:15:26] All right, so this brings us to point number two. The Lord will build his house through the king.
[00:15:32] The Lord will build his house through the king. So this is the fifth vision. It's kind of the other centerpiece of that structure. I pointed out on the hand downs. You can see how the focus has changed from the high priest now to z rubble bowl representing the kingship as a descendant of David. And there you Know what are the details? There's this. Well, there's this lampstand. And this lampstand has seven lamps on it. And there's an olive tree on either side of the lamp.
[00:15:59] The lamp stand has a bowl on it, and on the bowl are seven lamps. And each of those have seven things that feed oil into the lamp. There's a lot going on with this lampstand. It's a little hard to follow, really hard to picture. I don't really have a clear picture of it, but we can at least recognize the number seven, I think, being significant here as completeness. Perhaps this is showing that the tabernacle temple, which had a similar lamp in it, is to be made complete. Now, the. The fulfillment of these visions is going to complete the work of what was happening in the temple.
[00:16:35] And the angel seems also to, I think, in a funny way, to expect Zechariah to know exactly what all this means. He keeps saying, you don't know what this means? Zechariah says, no, I don't.
[00:16:46] So you know. Anyway, he tells them that the lampstand is Zerubbabel, at least in a way. So in some ways, Zerubbabel, who represents the kingship, is going to complete the temple and he's going to complete the sacrificial system as a whole. And this is confirmed for us. If you look in verse nine, we see that again.
[00:17:06] So this governor, King Zerubbabel, will complete the temple.
[00:17:12] And this leads the faithful to rejoice.
[00:17:16] This is a good thing. They rejoice at the sight of his plumb line. Now, plumb line, I believe, was an instrument that would kind of measure, you know, to see if a wall is straight. I would imagine it was something used kind of in the building process. So you. You see him erecting the walls and checking to make sure that they are straight. So it's kind of this picture of the construction of the temple and then still explaining the lampstand. The angel of the Lord then clarifies that they are the seven eyes of the Lord.
[00:17:45] I think what we're trying. What is trying to be understood here is that the Lord sees the whole earth. He sees its wickedness.
[00:17:52] He sees the faithful children.
[00:17:55] God sees the whole earth.
[00:17:59] But then Zechariah turns to the two olive trees. It's in verse 11, the two olive trees, they're on. So there's the lamp and these two olive trees and the olive trees in verse 14 apparently are representing the two anointed ones.
[00:18:16] Well, this is a little difficult to Interpret, you know, it's just a little difficult. I don't. It's hard to know exactly what these two olive trees are, but what we see is that these two are those that give oil.
[00:18:32] They are olive trees that are bursting with oil for the seven lamps to burn.
[00:18:38] And so we can make guesses, you know, is this Haggai and Zechariah? Is this Joshua and Zerubbabel? Who exactly are these two trees? I think is less important than recognizing that these two trees are fueling the lamp, fueling the light of the Lord that sees through all the earth.
[00:18:57] It will never go out. God's eyes will never shut. He will never be blinded. He will see the earth, all that is in it.
[00:19:09] So it seems that that is the primary takeaway.
[00:19:14] Now, the Bible sometimes uses lamps like this as an image of Israel's kingship. So I think we're right to see how Zerubbabel. This is kind of a kingly royal vision.
[00:19:26] For example, First Kings 11:36 says, yet to his son I will give one tribe, that David my servant, may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem.
[00:19:37] So the point of all of those details is, if you remember nothing else, I want you to remember this. The point is this. The Lord will never let the lamp be snuffed out.
[00:19:47] In other words, the Lord will never let the throne of Israel be destroyed. It will be eternal. It will never go out. It will never die. There will be a king forever.
[00:19:59] Forever and ever and ever. The king will be eternal. So we have this high priest in last vision now, this king. We need someone to fulfill these roles. We know this is going to be Christ. Let's see how it unfolds.
[00:20:14] Now we're in chapter five. We're going to read the first four verses again. I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold a flying scroll.
[00:20:25] And he said to me, what do you see? I answered, I see a flying scroll. Its length is 20 cubits and its width 10 cubits.
[00:20:33] Then he said to me, this is the curse that goes out over the face of the whole land. For everyone who steals shall be cleaned out according to what is on one side. And everyone who swears falsely shall be cleaned out according to what is on the other side.
[00:20:49] I will send it out, declares the Lord of hosts. And it shall enter the house of the thief and the house of him who swears falsely by my name. And it shall remain in his house and consume it. Both timber stones.
[00:21:03] So in this sixth vision, get to point number three on your handouts. God's word Will condemn all people.
[00:21:11] God's word will condemn all people. So there's this flying scroll and it's, it's a rather large scroll.
[00:21:19] It was, you know, you know, maybe like, yay big, pretty, pretty big scroll.
[00:21:27] But the big idea is that the whole world will be condemned by the word of God.
[00:21:32] So like last week, you should consider again, we should all think about this. The condemnation that we all deserve, that in reality, every single person's name can be written on this flying scroll.
[00:21:48] We are sinners. God's word proves us as guilty. The second we hold up our lives next to the word of God, we just pale in comparison.
[00:21:58] You know, James 2 reminds us that if you keep the whole law and stumble at one point, you're guilty of it all.
[00:22:04] We do not stand up to this standard, so we should remember that.
[00:22:10] But I think as we recognize the importance of obeying the word of God, I want to encourage you all quite simply to read the Word of God.
[00:22:22] That's a very simple application. Read the word. But it really can't be much more complicated. We need to know God's word and what it says if we want to obey it and listen to him.
[00:22:35] So read, read, read, read, read. Read the Bible, read it. Read the Bible from front to back and when you're finished, do it again.
[00:22:46] You know, don't worry about doing a bunch of fancy things. Just read it front to back. It is a book after all. That's how we read every other book. Read it front to back and you know, especially if you struggle to kind of remember, what is this book about? What's the storyline of the Bible all about?
[00:23:03] Just keep reading it. That is how you kind of pick up those details. Please read the Bible and seek to obey it.
[00:23:16] God's word will condemn all people.
[00:23:20] So now let's read the rest of chapter five.
[00:23:25] Here's another vision. Then the angel who talked with me came forward and said to me, lift your eyes and see what this is that is going out. And I said, what is it? He said, this is the basket that is going out.
[00:23:39] And he said, this is their iniquity in all the land.
[00:23:43] And behold, the leaden cover was lifted and there was a woman sitting in the basket.
[00:23:49] And he said, this is wickedness.
[00:23:52] And he thrust her back into the basket and thrust down the leaden weight on its opening.
[00:23:57] Then I lifted my eyes and saw and behold two women coming forward.
[00:24:02] The wind was in their wings. They had wings like the wings of a stork. And they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. Then I said to the angel who talked to me, where are they taking the basket? He said to me, to the land of Shinar to build a house for it. And when this is prepared, they will set the basket down there on its base.
[00:24:22] So point number four, the Lord will remove all wickedness.
[00:24:27] So the whole world is condemned before God. And now point four, the Lord will remove all wickedness. So in this seventh vision, we see a basket containing a woman called Wickedness.
[00:24:39] So clearly she represents the sins of all people.
[00:24:43] So the wickedness of the people will be shut in this basket and trapped in there. It'll be trapped. It's then carried away by some women with stork wings. Verse 11. To where? The land of Shinar.
[00:24:58] That's right.
[00:25:00] As much as you probably want me to tell you all about, you know, the women with stork wings and what that exactly means, I want to focus on this land of Shinar.
[00:25:08] Well, this city is, you know, it's associated with Babylon, so we can understand why they might be taken there. Babylon had exiled the people, but another important event in Bible history happened there, the building of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11.
[00:25:26] So it's a notorious place of God's judgment that the sins of all people are being taken to, and they'll build a house for wickedness.
[00:25:37] And the basket will be the base, the foundation of this house of sin.
[00:25:43] So it seems that this basket of wickedness is intended to say that God will take all wickedness and judge it like he judged the people building the Tower of Babel. That was in some way kind of a pattern of how God condemns the wicked. So this is a new tower of judgment with wickedness at its foundation.
[00:26:05] This city of judgment, if you look at your. This little handout based on the structure I have is contrasted. So the seventh vision contrasted with the ever expanding city of God. That takes a really big rule to measure how the Lord scattered the nations and he was established, if you remember, he was establishing. And they were trying to measure the length and width of the city, and it went on and on forever. And now we see this other city kind of contrasted with it, this city of wickedness, where all of sin will be pushed out into.
[00:26:42] And the idea is that there is a place of judgment and a place for God's people.
[00:26:48] There's a city of God and a city of man, a place of judgment and a place for God's people.
[00:26:55] So students, turn from that wickedness, come to the Lord.
[00:27:00] You will be granted citizenship in the city of heaven, if you have faith in His Son in the branch.
[00:27:09] Now, Zechariah 6. Let's read the first part of that.
[00:27:13] This is the final vision.
[00:27:16] Again I lifted my eyes and saw. And behold, four chariots came out from between two mountains.
[00:27:22] And the mountains were mountains of bronze.
[00:27:25] The first chariot had red horses, the second black horses, the third white horses. And the fourth chariot, dappled horses, all of them strong.
[00:27:34] Then I answered and said to the Lord who talked with me, what are these, my Lord?
[00:27:38] And the angel answered and said to me, these are going out to the four winds of heaven. After presenting themselves before the Lord of all the earth. The chariot with the black horses goes toward the north country. The white ones go after them, and the dappled ones go toward the south country.
[00:27:54] When the strong horses came out, they were impatient to go and patrol the earth. And he said, go patrol the earth.
[00:28:01] So they patrolled the earth.
[00:28:03] Then he cried to me, behold, those who go toward the north country have set my spirit at rest in the north country.
[00:28:13] So here again, if you were here last week, you remember, we also saw some horsemen with various colored horses. So the return of the horses and the horsemen.
[00:28:24] But there's a difference.
[00:28:25] And I do think these are the same horses, though the colors vary a little bit.
[00:28:29] They're not among tiny, little itty bitty myrtle trees, the ones that represented tiny, insignificant Israel. They're also not in a valley anymore, a place of lowliness where Israel was.
[00:28:45] The horses are attached to chariots. They're described as strong.
[00:28:51] They are doing something different. There's a different mission. So they both patrol the earth. You remember the first and the last, they patrol the earth. But the first one to kind of gather information, it was a recon mission.
[00:29:03] And now they're going to conquer, they're ready for war. They're suited to show strength and power for the conquest of the four winds. Verse 5. Four winds, again, is referring to the whole earth, all corners and edges of the earth.
[00:29:20] And what I find most significant again, is the contrast between the reports that's brought back after the patrolling.
[00:29:28] So I'll remind you in that first vision, what they come back and say is that the nations, the ones who oppressed Israel wickedly, they were at rest, they were at peace, enjoying their lives.
[00:29:43] But now God fulfills the judgment promised in other visions through these chariots.
[00:29:49] And what or whom do we find at rest?
[00:29:52] It's not the nations, it's the spirit. God's spirit is at rest.
[00:29:58] The work will be finished and God will rest in heaven.
[00:30:03] That is what we are looking forward to. The nations will be judged. God's spirit, which dwells with his people will be at rest.
[00:30:13] God's mighty power will destroy the wicked through judgment, so that he and his spirit will, which unites us all, will be at rest. We'll have peace throughout all of the renewed earth.
[00:30:24] What a wonderful thing for us to strive for and have hope in.
[00:30:31] Now let's read the last section of Zechariah 6.
[00:30:37] And the word of the Lord came to me.
[00:30:40] Take from the exiles hell died Tobijah and Jediah, who have arrived from Babylon and go the same day to the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah. Take from them silver and gold and make a crown and set it on the head of Joshua, the son of Jehozadak, the high priest.
[00:30:56] And say to him, thus says the Lord of hosts, behold the man whose name is the branch. For he shall branch out from this place and he shall build the temple of the Lord.
[00:31:07] It is he who shall build the temple of the Lord and shall bear royal honor and shall sit and rule on his throne. And there shall be a priest on this throne. And the council of peace shall be between them both. And the crown shall be in the temple of the Lord as a reminder to Hellam Tobijah, Jediah and hen the son of Zephaniah.
[00:31:28] And those who are far off shall come and help to build the temple of the Lord. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. And this shall come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.
[00:31:44] So point number six then is the priest king, the branch shall build the temple. The priest king, the branch shall build the temple.
[00:31:55] So here's, I think, the key to unlocking the significance of these visions. So this was not a vision. It's, you know, an oracle, a speech of sorts of. And it particularly hones in on and uses language from visions four and five, the first couple of points we covered tonight.
[00:32:16] So in this oracle, we see some men returning from exile and they, you know, we don't know much about them. There are some guesses and some things, but nevertheless, what we want to notice is that they offer up so silver and gold for a crown to make a crown. And where do they put this crown?
[00:32:38] Well, they place it on the high priest. They place it on his head.
[00:32:42] Now remember, you know, those middle two visions with the green lines on that little handout?
[00:32:50] They, you know, we see Joshua as high priest and Zerubbabel as the representative of the kingship. And they're showing us the priest and the king are absolutely crucial and central to people, the people of God.
[00:33:06] But now there's something interesting, you know, you can understand. Oh yeah, they'll have a priest and a king, and that'll be great.
[00:33:11] But now the priest is being crowned.
[00:33:14] The priest is wearing the crown.
[00:33:17] If you might wonder if it, you know, you might wonder. I, I would, you know, in our, our world today, is it so wise for a leader to be in the religious sector and also in charge of the government? We're Baptists, for heaven's sake. We're supposed to separate church and state.
[00:33:35] But good news is that this is not a passage telling us how to organize our government and our churches. This is a passage telling us how God shall lead his people.
[00:33:46] This leader must be a priest, king.
[00:33:50] I mean, you can imagine the power if there was one man who had the powers of our president, the powers of our congress, the powers of our supreme court, all in one.
[00:34:00] It would be bad in this case, but it's good if the one in authority is the holy and perfect God of the universe.
[00:34:10] So the only person that can have this title of priest and king is the Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:34:17] Hebrews 8:1 tells us.
[00:34:20] Now, the point of what we are saying is this. We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.
[00:34:30] Christ Jesus is the high priest. As he ministers from heaven, he fulfills this role of Joshua.
[00:34:37] Also in the New Testament, in First Timothy 6:15, we read that the Lord Jesus Christ will display at the proper time.
[00:34:44] He was blessed and only sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. So not only is he the high priest in heaven, Jesus Christ is the king in heaven. He rules over all things. He's already in this position.
[00:34:58] And he's the only man worthy to wear the priestly garments and the royal crown.
[00:35:04] This makes him the sovereign, the ruling authority in all of our lives.
[00:35:11] That means we must obey his every word. We must seek to please him, to love him, to have affection for him, to honor and live like him.
[00:35:21] You know, in this age, we feel loyal about a lot of things. We feel loyal to our sports teams. We feel loyal to our close friends. We feel a lot of times loyal to our family. But your true loyalty must always be in Jesus first, nothing else.
[00:35:39] You know, this truth also makes him the priest who intercedes.
[00:35:43] You know, as a sinner, you need someone to plead your case before God. This is called an advocate, a helper. You need somebody to do this.
[00:35:54] No one can do such work besides Jesus Christ.
[00:35:59] The best attorney and the best debater of this world cannot persuade God, but Christ Jesus can. He is himself God.
[00:36:08] No human priest can do the work of the Son of God.
[00:36:12] No human priest can do that.
[00:36:14] This passage further calls the crowned high priest. Again, we see this term the branch, so we know this is a title given to the Messiah. We read Jeremiah 23:5, Isaiah 11:1, both promising the coming of this branch.
[00:36:32] And we. We also may have noticed in Isaiah the imagery of a stump.
[00:36:36] I think this is significant. This is telling us what. What Christ will do. See a stump. It's a tree that's been chopped down. It is dead, no life in it. But then we see this branch. It's like a sprout that puffs out, showing that the death of the tree is no more. There is life once again. And Christ Jesus is that branch, the sprout that comes from what apparently is dead, bringing resurrection not only for himself when he dies, but for all who have faith in him.
[00:37:05] And while again being tied to the high priest. In this scene, the branch is said to branch out of the stump of Jesse, the kingship royalty.
[00:37:14] This priest king also shall build the temple. We've talked a lot about the temple. Maybe. I hope you're not growing weary of the temple. Just remember when we're reading temple that we are thinking of the place where God dwells with his people, and God desires to dwell with his people.
[00:37:31] So this temple project, it's taken a lot of time and effort, but it's all for the purpose of pointing them forward to the Messiah that will build the temple.
[00:37:40] So it's encouraging them to anticipate and look forward for the one who will ultimately and finally build the dwelling place of God and Christ.
[00:37:52] We've quoted from John 2. He is that temple.
[00:37:56] He is that temple.
[00:37:58] And also, finally we see he shall rule as a king. In the second sentence of verse 13, says that the priest shall be on his throne, and the counsel of his peace shall be between them both.
[00:38:15] The priest and the king can set and rule from the same throne because the same man is both priest and king. So I know that's a lot of information. Let me summarize what we just kind of ran through.
[00:38:29] The people need a priest to advocate for them before God.
[00:38:34] Jesus does that.
[00:38:36] You need Jesus as priest.
[00:38:38] The people need their sins covered or atoned for.
[00:38:42] Jesus does that. You need Jesus as savior.
[00:38:46] The people need a king to rule them.
[00:38:49] Jesus does that. You need Jesus as king.
[00:38:53] The people need to be able to dwell with God.
[00:38:57] Jesus does that. You need Jesus as your escort to heaven. And the people need peace with God to dwell with him.
[00:39:04] And Jesus provides that as well.
[00:39:07] You need Jesus as peacemaker between you and God. It is all about Christ. There's a lot of details easy to get lost in the weeds in these chapters, but I want you to see that this is pointing us to the Savior. And there's no other way to dwell with God except by faith in this priest king, the one man, the God man who could fulfill all of these things and indeed did.
[00:39:29] And then finally, I don't want to skip over these last couple of verses, but as we close, I want to look at 15 and we see that the people who are far off will come and help build the temple.
[00:39:41] Indeed, while Jesus body is the temple and he is in heaven, there is an earthly representative of his body of the temple. That is the church.
[00:39:52] Jesus and the apostles call the church his body often because of this and his body, the temple is being built on up and multiplied by God. It now contains people of all sorts of nations. People from far off have come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal savior. And that's what these visions and these chapters are communicating, that the Lord will bring salvation through judgment through the one who is both priest and king.
[00:40:22] Let's pray.
[00:40:24] Father, we thank you for your word and its beauty.
[00:40:27] God, help us to be honest and reflect on our own conditions, whether we know you or not, whether we have faith in the one true God, in the priest king God, may we be able to see our need for one to intercede for us. Help us to see sins that we leave unnoticed. Help us to maybe realize that we are dead sinners in need of a Savior for the first time.
[00:40:54] Lord, help us to see that we need a King to rule us, that we should happily and joyfully and affectionately obey you and seek to live like Christ as we learn more about him through the Word.
[00:41:06] And Lord, help us as we go into our groups to reflect more and to understand even better as we discuss.
[00:41:13] We pray this all in Christ's name, Amen.
