Zechariah 8:15-9:4 – Truth, Justice, and the Future Reign

SPEAKER 01 : 0:17

In a world full of noise and half-truths, is there any place that we can still find honesty? Whether it’s in politics, education, social media, or even the courts, it’s harder than ever to know who to trust. So where should we turn when truth feels out of reach? Welcome to Through the Bible, where our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McGee, points us to the only source of truth that we can fully rely on, God’s Word. I’m Steve Schwetz, your host, and we’re continuing our journey in Zechariah, beginning at chapter 8, verse 15. But before we dive in, here’s more from Dr. McGee’s focused series of introductions on the justice of God.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:54

And we are talking now about the justice of God will permeate the entire structure of society in that day. And God’s judgment is so different than ours. We saw that he is not partial. It’s impartiality, not partial to any person or group. And that you cannot pay your way or even promise him. This idea that you’ll promise him that you’ll do better and you feel like that saves you. You can’t buy God, friends. If you sin, you’re going to be judged for that sin unless you can find somebody who will pay the penalty for you. And there’s one who paid that penalty for you. And that’s the Lord Jesus. And God is just. May I say to you, God judged Israel more severely than he judged any nations round about Israel. They didn’t have the light. Israel did. We have the light today. And therefore, I think that God’s more apt to judge us and judge us more severely because of our faith. failure today just because we’ve sent out a few missionaries and we support the Through the Bible radio program, that doesn’t mean by any means that we’ll escape the judgment of God, that we’re sinning as a nation, and God does not overlook that. Now we come to another element of the judgment of God that we need to look at. And that’s found in Job, the fourth chapter, verse 17. Eliphaz there, he was a big wind jammer, a great dreamer of dreams. But nevertheless, some of the things he said were quite true and accurate. And he says in Job 4, 17, shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his maker? Eliphaz thought Job had some secret sin and that God was judging him for that. Now, God does not judge quite like that. God judges according to truth. It’s difficult today to find honest witnesses. And we find out that what Orwell said in his book, 1984, and that really has the attention of a lot of people. And the idea that Big Brother is watching you. Well, friends, Big Brother’s not watching you right now. Almost we’ve come to that, but not quite. But God is watching you.

SPEAKER 01 : 3:24

Thank God His justice isn’t based on popularity, privilege, or promises. It’s based on truth. And while the world may not always be watching, He is. And He’s also made a way through Jesus for sinners like us to be forgiven. Now, we got just a few minutes to share some encouragement from fellow Bible bus passengers. Here’s a note from a listener in the U.S. So thankful to be able to help in praying and giving. I love to hear the letters from around the world. I am also learning so much from the Bible studies, verse by verse, day by day, thanking God for his grace and love. Could I receive bus passes to pass on? I talk to people, and it might be I can share a bus pass with them. Thank you so very much, and God bless you all. Well, thanks for helping us fling the seed through your giving and, even more importantly, your prayers. And, you know, you’re right. Our Bible bus passes are really a great tool to have on hand when meeting people. I use them myself. Each pass features a QR code that links directly to our app and Dr. McGee’s teaching, making them super simple and meaningful to invite others to discover God’s word themselves. Get yours by calling 1-800-65-BIBLE. And now here’s a note. This is from David in Vista, California. My day starts out by listening to the daily message. I find that it refreshes my soul and puts me in the right frame of mind to think of God and our Savior, Jesus Christ. As I start the new day, I strive to have the Holy Spirit guide and help me become the follower of Jesus that we as Christians are called to do. I support your ministry through a monthly tithe with the hope that the gospel will reach the whole world and hasten the coming of Jesus. Well, thanks for your encouragement, David, and your partnership in getting God’s word out. in more than 250 languages around the world. And what about you? You know we’d love to hear your story. Or like David, would you like to support the Bible Bus by maybe supplying a tank of gas? Why don’t you drop us a note or make a gift to the ministry in our app. Or you can call us at 1-800-65-BIBLE or write to us at Box 7100, Pasadena, California, 91109. In Canada, Box 25325, London, Ontario, N6C 6B1. Let’s pray. Father in heaven, as your word goes out around the world, we pray that many will be led to salvation in Christ. In whose name we pray, amen. Here’s our study of Zechariah chapter 8 on Through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

SPEAKER 02 : 5:51

Now, friends, as we come back to this eighth chapter of Zechariah, we are considering here God’s answer to whether a ritual is right or wrong. And it doesn’t depend upon the ritual. It depends upon the individual. If the individual is wrong, the ritual is wrong. The individual is right. The ritual is right. But in chapter eight, God’s purpose concerning Jerusalem is And the nation Israel is unchanged by any ritual. Doesn’t make any difference what ritual that you’re going by, why it is unchanged. And so we have seen here that God says very frankly that he’s going forward to the time when he’s going to make Jerusalem the capital of this earth. And nothing could detour him, nothing could detract him. God says that he intends to do this by his marvelous infinite grace. You remember that Paul, writing to the Romans, he says in Romans 9, verse 15, “…for he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” So then it’s not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Now, Moses, you remember, went to God and prayed about whether God would destroy the children of Israel. And God says, I’m going to hear you, Moses, but I’m not going to hear you because you’re Moses. Because I will show grace to those that I will show grace. And I’ll show mercy to those that I will show mercy. And therefore, it’s not to him that run it. It’s not to him that trots through a ritual. It’s not to him that goes through a lot of church work. It’s to him that is above. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ that shows mercy. And my friend, today, we can say again with Paul, I am what I am by the grace of God. Now, he’s saying that to these people here. And in verse 15, he’d said, so again have I thought in these days to do good unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah, fear ye not. God says, it’s not because you’ve been through a ritual or whether you emitted a ritual. Whether you do or whether you don’t, I’m showing mercy to you. But this is not the end in itself. This will be a very small thing. But God looks down through the centuries and says, the day is coming when I intend to deal with you and will in that day do a glorious thing upon the earth. And he looks down to the millennium. Now you will find here in verse 16, now since they are going to represent God, that doesn’t mean they can do as they please if it’s by the grace and mercy of God. That doesn’t mean, therefore, that you can live any kind of life like some people think. Listen to what God says now in verse 16. These are the things that ye shall do. Have you trusted Christ as your Savior? You’ve been saved by his grace and mercy. But wait a minute. He says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Now, if you love him, you’re going to keep his commandments. not to get saved because you have been saved by his grace and mercy. And your obedience of your life will never add anything to your salvation. Now he says to these people, these are the things that ye shall do. Speak every man the truth to his neighbor. This is the day when lying is acceptable in every walk of life. Business can’t be depended upon today to tell the truth. Advertising today is very inaccurate, and the news media cannot be depended upon to tell the truth. And Washington cannot be depended upon to tell the truth. And it doesn’t make any difference what party you’re talking about. Neither one of them or no one else can be trusted, it looks like today. You can’t trust men in any walk of life, not the military, nor education today in science. In all of these areas, we are finding that truth has suddenly gone out of style. And it’s about time that boys and girls are taught in school that there’s certain moral standards. And one of them is that if you don’t tell the truth, you’re a liar. And there’s no other way around that. Then he says, execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates. Now, in the gates was where the law court was in that day. And how many today have even confessed that they lied to a grand jury or lied when they were under oath? Execute the judgment of truth. Now, what he’s talking about here is not the act of judging. He’s not saying you’re not to judge. You and I are going to judge whether we judge honestly or dishonestly, whether we judge truthfully or untruthfully. We’re going to judge. And what he has in mind here is actually the motive. It means the thing that motivate judging, and that is truth. And this is the thing that he’s saying to do. You see, actually, this is, again, putting the Ten Commandments down. And we find then him saying now in verse 17, “…let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor.” that is, not to covet anything that your neighbors, and love no false oath, for all these things are the things that I hate, saith the Lord. Now, if you want to know what God hates today, and we have all the bumper stickers today saying God is love, well, that’s great, God is love, but God also hates You couldn’t love without hating some things. If you love the truth, you’re going to hate the lie. If you love your child, you will hate a mad dog that comes into the yard to bite the child. You’d kill that mad dog if you love your child. God hates certain things. And I’d like to see that put up on billboards today. God hates lying. God hates covetousness. God hates, my, the different things that God hates. He hates a whole lot of things, friends, that the world is doing today. Now, verse 18, “…and the word of the Lord of hosts came unto me, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh…” The fast of the 10th shall be to the house of Judah, joy and gladness and cheerful feasts. Therefore, love the truth and peace. God says to them, I never gave you any fast days. And these days that you’ve set up to fast and go through a nice little religious ritual, I’m going to turn those days into feast days. Days of rejoicing, days of love and truth and peace. These are the things that are absent in our contemporary culture and society. I wonder if it’s ever occurred to anyone that if we got back and talked the great biblical and moral values that are stated there. I wonder if maybe that might have a tremendous effect upon our society today. Well, some of us believe it would. Now in verse 20, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come peoples and the inhabitants of many cities and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another saying, let us go speedily to pray before the Lord and to seek the Lord of hosts. I will go also. This looks on now to the fact when Jerusalem will become the capital, not only the political capital, but the religious capital of the earth. And it also looks forward to the time that we will find in the New Testament, is called the millennium. It shall come to pass, God says. This is something that is for the future. And he says in verse 22, Yea, many peoples and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts where? In Jerusalem. Now, I take it that does not mean Los Angeles. It means Jerusalem and to pray before the Lord. Now, very frankly, Jerusalem is not an ideal place to go and pray. It just isn’t geared for that today because actually you see more religion there manifested and less Christianity than any place that I know of. But it will become the center of God’s government during the millennium. And we last time referred you to Isaiah, the second chapter. And may I say to you, there are many scriptures along this line. You see why it’s so important today to study the book of Zechariah. Now, great men in our day have zeroed in on the book of Daniel. You go to the average seminary library or any good library, and you will notice that there’s volume after volume written on Daniel. Then you go down a little farther and see how many books you’re going to find written on Zechariah. And there’s a dearth of them written on Zechariah. I have a friend that he doesn’t believe there’s going to be a millennium on this earth. And he doesn’t believe God will ever again turn to Israel and that he will never again turn to Jerusalem, that he’s through with all of that. And he wrote a book on Daniel. He told me, he says, I’ve proven my point in Daniel. And I said, had it ever occurred to you that no prophecy is of any private interpretation? You don’t study the book of Daniel by itself. Now, I said, why didn’t you bring in a little of Zechariah? He looked at me rather funny. He says, well, I didn’t need to. Well, not if you hold that theory that God’s through with Israel. You can’t handle Zechariah. But my friend, Zechariah makes it clear God’s not through with Jerusalem. He’s not through with the nation Israel. Now, will you listen to what he’s saying here? Thus saith the Lord of hosts. Now, this is verse 23. In those days. What day? Well, it’s that expression that we’ve had again and again in that day, that day, those days. It’s the millennium that’s coming. The great tribulation is the beginning of it, but it ushers in the coming of Christ and the reign of Christ that’s called the millennium. And that again ushers in his eternal kingdom on this earth. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, in those days it shall come to pass that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God’s with you. Now, is God through with the Jew? Well, the day is coming in the millennium. Now, the church will be removed from the earth. You see, the church could not be here in a period like this. And I think the number 10 here rather suggests a great number. I’m of the opinion that it represents the fact that the Gentile nations in that day will find Jerusalem very attractive. And they will go there. Why? The Lord Jesus will be there. And that will be the millennial temple. And that will be the place to worship God. Now, that makes this very important, you see. Now, that brings us to the end of this historic interlude. And we come now to the third major division and the last major division of this book. And I’ve labeled it prophetic burdens from chapter 9 through chapter 14. And in turn, I’ve divided the prophetic burdens into two divisions. The first burden are the prophetic aspects that are connected with the first coming of Christ, and that’s chapters 9 through 11. And then you have the second burden, the prophetic aspects that are connected with the second coming of Christ, and that’s chapters 12 through through 14. Now, actually, we have come here to something that I think that’s very interesting. As we enter here this new division, we are going to find that it goes over the same ground, approaching it from a different viewpoint, but the same ground that we had in the 10 visions. It begins with Israel where they were in the days of Zechariah. He was back with a small remnant, very discouraged. They were attempting to rebuild the temple. And he and Haggai were raised up of God as prophets to encourage the people to rebuild the temple. And we find that he begins in that local situation. that which to him was the contemporary scene. And then he moved on down into the immediate future where God was going to bless them. But it would not be a permanent blessing, and this is going to show that in chapter 9. But on down through the centuries, God had a plan and purpose, and there would come the Messiah. And we have the two comings here, coming first as the Savior and coming the second time as the Sovereign. Coming the first time with the cross in view, the second time with the crown in view. Now, in chapter 9, and we get here to this particular chapter, we have actually in the first eight verses, the judgment upon the nations that was accomplished by Alexander the Great. And we’ll find, as we get into this chapter here, some very interesting things. You see, in Zechariah’s day, some could become a little too optimistic. They could say, well, this is going to be the millennium. We’ve returned back and the temple’s rebuilt. No, out in the future, there’s coming another world ruler. And there’s going to be a contrast made between that world ruler and the one that God will send to the earth the first time. And we have here, actually, Alexander the Great. And I think you’ll see that as you get into this chapter here. Alexander the Great, a young man who died a drunkard. At the age of 33, very arrogant, very insolent, highly conceited, but probably the most brilliant general that the world has ever seen. And a tremendous, not only military leader, but a great political leader. A man that had a certain charisma, and he had multitudes of followers. Now, we open in chapter 9 with verse 1, the burden of the word of the Lord. in the land of Hadrach and Damascus shall be its rest, when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord. Now, this is a burden. And we saw when we were in Isaiah that a burden meant a judgment. This is the judgment of God now. And you see coming down from the north, out of the west, is this man, Alexander the Great. And Hadrach is way up in the north, and Damascus is, both outside of the promised land. And then you see that they were at rest. But now there comes on the scene this man coming like a storm down out of the north. And Hamath also shall border by it. Now, Hamath was in the north, even above the Sea of Galilee. And Tyre and Sidon, though it be very wise, and Tyre and Sidon, they were the great wealthy commercial cities of that day. Felt especially Tyre that they were impregnable out upon their island fortress. But Alexander the Great knew how to take them, and he destroyed both of these places. And then we’re told in verse 3, And Tyre did build herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver like the dust, and fine gold like the mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will cast her out, will smite her power in the sea. She will be devoured with fire. Ezekiel has already told us that, but here it is again. Alexander the Great is coming, and he will become a world ruler. All right, until next time, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

SPEAKER 01 : 24:05

You know, I love how Dr. McGee weaves Zechariah’s prophecy together with other powerful books of prophecy. It really brings God’s bigger picture into focus, doesn’t it? If prophecy is a topic that maybe you want to explore a little further, I have a couple of suggestions for you. First, head over to ttb.org. That’s always a great place to start. And look first at the digital booklet download, God’s Grand Finale. It’s a great introduction to Dr. McGee’s teaching on the book of Revelation. And then take a look at our Bible Companion for Revelation. It’s available as a free download or grab a paperback copy from our store. It’s a fantastic resource, especially for use as a small group Bible study. I’ve gone through it with my own small group at church and we’ve learned so much. Again, you’ll find it in our app or at ttb.org. At Through the Bible, our mission is pretty simple, to get the Word of God to you and you into God’s Word. So if you need help finding something specific from Dr. McGee, call us, 1-800-65-BIBLE is the number. That’s 1-800-652-4253. Next time, Dr. McGee takes a fascinating look at Alexander the Great and his surprising encounter with the high priest in Jerusalem. I’m Steve Schwetz, inviting you to hop aboard the Bible bus again for another great adventure in God’s Word.

SPEAKER 03 : 25:28

All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.

SPEAKER 01 : 25:46

Well, ride the Bible bus for five years and you’ll be amazed at what God teaches you from his word about what it means to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. It’s a blessing that keeps on going. That’s what we believe at Through the Bible.