God requires us to take care of Israel!
ZECHARIAH 6:1 – 8
INTRODUCTION.
Four chariots coming down from between two mountains of bronze. The eighth and final vision.
We have a wonderful pledge of love from God towards His people here. Despite all that the people of Israel had done in disobeying God, He still loved them.
He loved them so much that He was willing to punish or subdue all those nations who attack or abuse Israel.
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.
The political structure of the region at that time was little different from what it is now. The actual nations which were large and small were different; the dominant and subservient nations were different from now, but there were still many pagan nations who wanted to crush, oppress or take advantage of Israel.
We saw this only recently with terrorists in Gaza capturing and holding hostage an Israeli soldier, followed by Hezbollah from Lebanon doing the same thing with two Israeli soldiers.
The leader of Hezbollah commented, after the ceasefire had been agreed, that he was surprised at the reaction of Israel and its supporting nations to their actions of taking hostages. Those of us who read and know our scriptures are not surprised at all. These reactions are the promise of God, that He will protect His people Israel.
God has found it necessary to punish the people of Israel over the centuries. They were sent into exile into Egypt until the time of Moses. Again they were exiled into Babylonia. After the time of Jesus they were exiled and dispersed throughout the world until the scattering was started to be drawn together again with the re-establishment of the country of Israel in 1948.
During WW2 millions of the Jews were oppressed and murdered, as they have been down through the centuries. This is all part of the rejection of God by the world. We need to be very careful regarding Israel. Israel believes that it is the chosen people of God, because they missed Jesus. This does mean that many of the people of Israel will not know an eternity with God, but this does not mean that God has consigned Israel to the scrap heap of history; they are still His chosen nation and will have a significant part to play in the final days leading up to the Second Coming of Jesus and the final defeat of Satan and the cleansing of the world of all that is evil.
This is not a vision of peace. This is a vision of war and punishment for the oppressors of Israel and for the oppressors of the people of God.
The chariots come out from between two mountains of bronze.
The mountains signify the gateway to heaven, where God dwells. These were God’s warriors going out to do His will amongst the pagan nations. To bring punishment to those who have rejected Him, who will not accept Him as their one true God.
Bronze was the metal used to fashion the weapons of war. Iron was still not a very common metal and was very expensive to obtain. Here is war, a holy war against the pagan nations.
Bronze is also a metal of judgement as seen in:
1. the serpent of bronze (Num 21:9);
2. the bronze altar, carried by the people of Israel through the desert. (Ex 27:2).
Four chariots, hitched up to horses of four different colours. The angel tells Zechariah “These are the four spirits of heaven, going out from standing in the presence of the Lord of the whole world.” (v5) these were the spirits of heaven going out into the world to bring the judgement of God.
What do the four colours mean? Rev 6:1-8.
The first chariot had red horses. 3When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come!" 4Then another horse came out, a fiery red one. Its rider was given power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. To him was given a large sword.
We are not told the direction in which the chariot with the red horses went. I suspect that it went out into all the world. We see from Revelation that the rider of the red horse was given the power to take peace from the earth and to make men slay each other. If we look down through the history of mankind we can see the effect of this rider upon the nations of all the world. The awful death toll in the trenches of WW1 in Europe, as well as the death toll in WW2; the seemingly senseless killing of thousands in Cambodia, the brutality of the civil war in Congo, the genocide of Rwanda; the sectarian killing in Iraq, where the victims are even tortured before they are killed. These are but a few examples which can be taken from a myriad of events that have occurred down the centuries as mankind has shown a lack of peace.
The second had black horses. 5When the Lamb opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" I looked, and there before me was a black horse! Its rider was holding a pair of scales in his hand. 6Then I heard what sounded like a voice among the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a day’s wages, and three quarts of barley for a day’s wages, and do not damage the oil and the wine!"
Here is judgement for the peoples, and it was sent out to the north, towards the nations who were powerful. The nations who had conquered and oppressed Israel. These nations had been used by God to render judgment upon Israel for its disobedience, but that did not mean that they were immune from the judgement of God themselves.
Here is a warning to the powerful nations of today. They will not escape the judgement of God. Their actions will be weighed in the scales of justice. When Tony Blair and George Bush say that God will be their judge, they are speaking the truth, God will judge them for what they have done, remembering that God has different criteria from mankind. We think only about ourselves and our loved ones. God considers all His creation and the eventual eradication of evil from all that He has made. He also considers the protection of His people.
The third chariot was drawn by white horses. 1I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, "Come!" 2I looked, and there before me was a white horse! Its rider held a bow, and he was given a crown, and he rode out as a conqueror bent on conquest.
It has been suggested that the white horses brought conquest from external forces, whilst the red horses signified civil war, internal insurrection.
The fourth chariot was drawn by dappled or pale horses. 7When the Lamb opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, "Come!" 8I looked, and there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.
The horses that went out were powerful horses. The Word of God is a powerful thing and none can stand before it
The horses were straining to go out, they were eager to get on with their missions of judgement upon the evil of creation, they were eager to rid God’s creation of the sin and disharmony that Satan had brought in.
(Joel 3:12,13)
CONCLUSION.
What does this mean for us?
1. God is the Almighty, Creator God, but He is not a distant God. He is directly involved in the everyday minutiae of His creation. He is concerned about creation on the grand scale, but He is also concerned about His creation on the small scale – He is concerned about us. In fact, He is so concerned about us that He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to be our Saviour, to rescue us from the horrors of sin. To protect us from the full fury of the four horsemen of Revelation.
2. God is in control. He has a plan which has been in place since the time of creation. These four chariots went out from the presence of God into the whole world. (v5) Chariots were the storm troopers of the world at that time. They would have had a shocking effect upon the field of battle. God is sending out His storm troopers into the world to take the initiative in international affairs.
3. God loves His people. He loves His people of Israel, despite their rejecting Him. We see also from the scriptures that there will be a great turning towards Jesus in the final days by the people of Israel. They will see Jesus as their saviour. In the meantime, we who were outside of the covenant have been drawn in through the shed Blood of Jesus. We are part of the new Israel, the holy Israel, if we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour.
4. Jesus will return again to gather His children together. We can see in the scriptures so many horrors that will occur in the final days, but we will be spared the full horrors. We will not have to experience the full pain and anguish of the cleansing of God’s creation. We will be spared the full horrors of the fourth horseman, or chariot, Death who goes out and one quarter of the world’s population dies in famine, plague and war.
God loves His creation and the people He has put into it. He loves each one of us so much that He sent His only Son Jesus Christ to die for us upon the Cross of Calvary. We can find it very hard to understand how the world can reject so loving a God, but it does. What we are promised is that there will be a great revival and a turning towards God in those final days before Christ returns.
For us the big question is, ‘Are we ready for the return of Christ?’ Jesus warns us to be ready for His return at any time.
