Jesus Christ, Messiah, Priest and King
ZECHARIAH 6:9 – 15
INTRODUCTION.
We have been looking at the eight visions which God gave to Zechariah, but in reality we have been looking at the way in which God is deeply involved in his creation. Were looking at the way in which God is concerned about his people; the way in which he loves his people with a great passion and how his heart bleeds when he sees them disobey him and turn away from him, when he sees them ignore him.
We see that God is in control of all of creation. In the last vision we saw how the chariots were being sent out to bring death and plague to all those who disobey God. Not because He wants pain and destruction; He wants to take pain and destruction out of His creation and replace them with His love.
As I said last time "Here God is affirming His power in creation; He is the ultimate authority and He has the power to overrule all the decisions of the surrounding pagan rulers."
We now move on from the visions to a prophetic oracle which is about the future, but not just the future of the next few days and weeks in the life of the people of Israel of that time, or of the future over the next centuries to the time of Jesus, but over the future to the final day of judgment.
1. The Priest and the King.
We have two leading men, Joshua who is the high priest and Zerubbabel who is the civil governor. We must remember that Zerubbabel is a direct descendant of David, and demonstrates God’s fulfilment of his promise to David in 2 Samuel 7:16 “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever."
Thus it is through Zerubbabel that Luke could trace the lineage of Jesus back to David (Luke 3:27) and Matthew could do the same (Matthew 1: 12-13).
(4th & 5th visions deal with these two men.)
The fourth vision which we looked at showed the need for the high priest to have his dirty clothing removed and replaced with rich and clean garments. (Refers to the cleansing of Israel.) This vision foreshadowed the coming of a priest who would lead Israel in complete purity and without any barrier between him and God. And if there is no barrier between the high priest and God there is no barrier between the people and God. Thus this is a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah.
In the fifth vision, in which the Zechariah saw a golden lampstand and two olive trees, we saw God’s promise to strengthen the people of Israel even though they appeared to be so weak in the face of the pagan nations that surround them. (Zech 4:6) "’Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty.” It is not the power of the people or of the leaders that will save them, it is the power of God alone that will overcome. And again this is a foreshadowing of the coming Messiah.
In v11 Zechariah is told to take the crown and place it on the head of Joshua, who is the Priest. One would have expected that the Crown should be placed upon the head of Zerubbabel who was the civil governor.
God is saying to the people of Israel that their demand to have a King and to be like the pagan nations at the time of Saul was wrong and was not what he intended for his people. (1 Samuel 8:6-19)
God wanted his people to be led by a priest, one who would be in perfect harmony and communion with Him so that the people would be strong in a difficult world because they would be filled with the strength of God Himself.
In telling Zechariah to crown Joshua rather than Zerubbabel God is again telling the people that their future, their Messiah, is a priest/King because all authority and power comes from God.
God is telling us today that we cannot separate earthly things from heavenly things. God is deeply involved in the affairs of men and women at all levels and it is not possible to avoid God. Wherever we turn, whatever we think God is there.
The question is that if we cannot separate earthly things from heavenly things, and we cannot avoid God, shouldn’t we be developing a deeper relationship with God?
Through Zechariah crowning Joshua God is saying to the people of Israel that though they may be a small and weak people amongst a large number of strong and aggressive nations if they will rely on God, he will provide all the strength and power they need. It reminds me of the incident involving Elisha (2 Kings 6:15,16) when the king of Aram surrounded the house in which Elisha was sleeping. Elisha’s servant awoke in the morning and in great fear as a vast army of the King of Aram around them. (Rather like waking in the morning with your house surrounded by a SWAT force of armed police.)The servant then uttered one of the great understatement Scripture "Oh, my lord, what shall we do?" the servant asked. "Don’t be afraid," the prophet answered. "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them."
In the same way the people of Israel at the time of Zechariah were surrounded by the hosts of heaven, who were there to protect them against all that is evil. In the same way we today are surrounded by the hosts of heaven who will protect us against all that is evil.
This doesn’t mean that we will not face difficulties and problems. Remember the disciples sailing across the Sea of Galilee with Jesus going to follow on after them. A great storm blew up around them, and they were in fear of their lives. Then they saw, what at first they thought was a ghost, but was Jesus walking on the water towards them. Peter asked to be able to walk on the water just like Jesus. Whilst his eyes were fixed on Jesus he was alright, the moment he took his eyes of Jesus and looked at the storm around him, he had problems.
Jesus doesn’t promise to take the problems away, the storm was still there raging away. Whilst our attention is fixed on Jesus, though, He can show us the way through, just as there was a way through the forces of Aram for Elisha, and there was a way through for Peter.
Little wonder, then, does the writer to the Hebrews say, “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith,” (Heb 12:2).
We may not be able to see the spiritual world around us, but it us there and God is in control of both the earthly and the spiritual.
2. The Crown
Zechariah is told to go and collect some of the gold and silver that these men had brought with them from Babylon as gifts for the temple.
He was told to make a royal crown. Why silver and gold? It was common at that time for a crown to be made up of circlets, which could be brought together to make a crown. Hence we have the hymn, “Crown Him with many crowns, the lamb upon the throne”. The plural, in Hebrew, also meant magnificence, something beyond the normal level of wonder and majesty.
Joshua seems to have understood that his was only a symbolic crowning, because he immediately put it to one side so that it could be placed in its rightful place, in the restored temple of God.
This was not his crowning, but the crowning of the coming Messiah, who would be both priest and king. Note that Joshua is the Hebrew equivalent of Jesus – “the Lord saves”. But Joshua knew that it was not he, but the one who was to follow in God’s time.
One who would follow and build a new and eternal temple. (vv12,13)’The branch’, who will build the new temple, the shoot that will grow out of the remnant of the people of Israel. That shoot is Jesus who has built for us an eternal temple and comes from the remnant of the people of Israel, before they were destroyed by the Romans and then dispersed.
Interesting also is the name Zerubbabel, which means ‘Shoot of Babylon’. Zerubbabel was very definitely the one who was responsible for the rebuilding of the temple at that time. The Shoot from the remnant of Israel. Jesus is the one who will build the eternal temple of God in which we will worship for eternity.
(Emphasise v15 here).
Ezekiel 40-48 tells us that the Jews will receive a great deal of help from God-fearing Gentiles. Sympathetic gentiles assisted in the building of the temples of Solomon and of Zerubbabel, but the final rebuilding will be overwhelmed with assistance from the gentiles, so much so that it will be a confirmation to the Jews that their Messiah is Jesus who is the Lord and saviour of Israel and of all who believe in Him and trust Him.
See v15 “Those who are far away will come and help to build the temple of the LORD, and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you. This will happen if you diligently obey the LORD your God."”
3. The Condition.
There is a condition; “if you diligently obey the LORD your God."
Has Israel been so disobedient that God has cancelled His plans for the final rebuilding? Has He decided to cancel the Second Coming?
If He was going to do that, He would have cancelled the first coming when Jesus came and served in obedience all the way to the Cross of Calvary.
Israel may have failed, but God will make sure that they succeed. Israel will be obedient in the last days; it will come to recognise Jesus as its Lord and saviour and will bow the knee and worship Him. For example Ezekiel 36:24-32 tells us that even though the Israelites have been disobedient and have profaned His name, God will make them a holy nation. This will not be the sake of Israel, but for the sake of the holy name of God Himself. He will restore Israel so that He can declare to all the nations that He is an all powerful God who rules all the nations.
“`For I will take you out of the nations; I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. You will live in the land I gave your forefathers; you will be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleanness. I will call for the grain and make it plentiful and will not bring famine upon you. I will increase the fruit of the trees and the crops of the field, so that you will no longer suffer disgrace among the nations because of famine. Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices. I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign LORD. Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!
CONCLUSION.
The end times are coming, and we can read of such terrible times in the scriptures, and there will be. The obedient, though, will not experience that pain, for they shall be snatched up by Jesus as He returns before the four chariots that we referred to last time are freed upon the world.
During the end time tribulation period Israel will repent and will become an obedient people.
What of us?
Are we ready? Are we getting ourselves ready for the return of Jesus? There is so much within scriptures that tells us that He will return, we have the warnings, and even Jesus gave us the warnings.
The Messiah will be Priest and King of all creation, not just the small land of Israel. This includes all that we can see and far beyond, either because it is too far away for us to see, or because it is too small for us to see.
All God asks is that we are ready for Him. Are you?
