Zechariah 6:9-15

All right, well, good evening again. Being the Old Testament this evening,! The book of Zechariah.! Zechariah chapter 6.

! If you read through the first several chapters of Zechariah, you read a lot about judgment.

You read a lot about cleansing. And you read some about restoration. Then you get to Zechariah 6, which is where we'll be this evening, the first several verses of Zechariah 6.

There's another prophecy, or another vision, I should say. There's many, many visions that Zechariah had and those visions are self-explained within the text.

And the vision that he has at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Zechariah is one of horses coming. And those horses are bringing judgment. But they're not bringing judgment on Israel.

They're bringing judgment on those that held Israel captive. So Israel, again, coming out of their captivity. And that's who Zechariah is riding to.

And we got to remember the time frame that this was in. We, you know, when the Israelites came out of the captivity, they were in captivity for about 70 years.

And when they came out, they came back to Jerusalem. They came back in three different waves. Back to Jerusalem. Zechariah, a contemporary of his was Haggai. They both wrote around the same time and wrote really about many of the same things that went on there.

And so all that being said, we get to the second part of chapter 6, which is what, with the Lord's help, we'll be preaching tonight. So Zechariah chapter 6, beginning at verse 9, says, And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Take of them of the captivity, even of Heldai, of Tobijah, of Jediah, which are come from Babylon.

And come thou the same day, and go into the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah. Then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest.

And speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold, the man whose name is the branch, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.

Even he shall build the temple of the Lord, and he shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon his throne. And he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the council of peace shall be between them both.

And the crown shall be to Helam, and to Tobijah, and to Jediah, and to him, the son of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the Lord.

And they that are far off shall come, and build in the temple of the Lord. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you. And this shall come to pass, if ye will diligently obey the voice of the Lord, your God.

Back to verse 9, we'll read the first two or three verses here. Starting in verse 9, And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Take of them of the captivity, of Heldi, of Tobijah, of Jedidiah, which are come from Babylon, and come thou the same day, and go unto the house of Josiah, the son of Zephaniah, then take silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest.

This sounds very odd. It sounds odd to us. And I can assure you that this would have sounded very odd to these Jews. From the get-go, the office of king, and the office of priest, were two separate offices.

And they were not to be intermingled at all. But here is God giving commandment to His people, to go to the children of the captivity. Go to those that have come out of Babylon.

Go to these few men here. And folks, these few men that are listed here, we don't really know a whole lot about them, as far as the scriptural account goes. Really don't know a whole lot about them, as far as history goes.

But we do know that Almighty God recorded their names, because they helped, and they aided in this prophecy of the Messiah. This prophecy of the Christ that was to come.

That's what we're reading about here. But this notion of taking a crown, and sitting upon the head of the high priest, and this notion about the priest sitting upon a throne, this would have been foreign to these Jews, and they wouldn't have understood what was going on.

But folks, the Old Testament scriptures, they back up, and they corroborate the need for a Savior, and the need for a mediator, that could not only take away sin, one that could not only intercede on their behalf to God, and one that could not only rule over the people, but one that could do both of those things perfectly, both of those things absolutely, absolutely, and both of those things justly, and Joshua here, that is brought up in the scriptures, he was not the fulfillment of this prophecy.

The fulfillment of this prophecy was none other than Jesus Christ. He is the branch that is brought up here. He is the one that Almighty God was prophesying through this to come.

There are folks out there that will have you to think that Joshua, the priest that is brought up here, was the fulfillment of that prophecy. Folks, it is not true. There is no account in scripture of Joshua, the son of Joseph, ever acting, ever doing anything, in the office of king.

This was a prophecy, and Joshua was part of the prophecy. He was nothing more than a sign of the Messiah, of the king priest, that was to come in Jesus Christ.

And I say hallelujah for that king priest that we have. Take the silver and gold, and make crowns, and set them upon the head of Joshua, the son of Josedic, the high priest.

Now, if you read your Bible, and you know anything about the history of Israel, you know that this is not the Joshua that came in with the conquest into the promised land.

We're talking about almost 900 years after that Joshua came. That Joshua came in, he crossed the Jordan River, he started into Canaan land, they took down Jericho, we all know the account, or we should know the account.

And that was almost 900 years before what we are reading right here. So just to clear your mind of that picture in case it was there, is the only reason that I'm saying that.

Verse 12 says, And speak unto him. Speak unto who? Speak unto Joshua. He's telling Zechariah to speak unto Joshua. Speak unto him, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts.

I praise God for all the times in Scripture that we see the words, Thus saith the Lord, and thus speaketh the Lord of hosts. Thus saith Almighty God. Thus saith Jehovah God.

Folks, this lets us know that this was not some imaginary thing that Zechariah was coming up with in his mind. This wasn't something that just flung out of someone's brain.

This is what Almighty God in heaven on high commanded of His servant to say unto Joshua. And the same goes for the New Testament accounts.

The same goes for all the parables that Jesus Christ spoke. The same goes for everything that Paul wrote, everything that Peter wrote, everything that John wrote, everything that we read, is thus saith the Word of Almighty God.

There are people out there that will have you to believe that just because Jesus Christ didn't speak it Himself in the New Testament, it must not be. They will say, Paul said that, or Peter said that, or John said that.

Folks, it is all the Word of God. And it is all centralized around one figure. And that figure is Jesus Christ and He alone. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Thus speaketh, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Behold the man whose name is the branch, and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord.

Now Joshua had a hand in the building of the physical temple of the Lord. He had a hand in that, but we are talking about a branch. What is so significant about this branch, folks?

Where had Israel just come back from? They had come back from captivity. God told them in verse 9, He said, Go to those that came out of Babylon. Go to those that are just returning unto Jerusalem.

Just returning to the very city, to the very area that has My name upon it. You go to them. Folks, Israel had been cut down at this point.

And it was their own fault that they had been cut down. Judgment had come from Almighty God. Judgment had come from Him. He says all throughout the major prophets begging Israel to repent.

Begging Israel to turn from their wicked ways. Begging Israel to come back to Him. Or otherwise, judgment's coming. And judgment came. Judgment came.

About 586 B.C. Judgment came in a big way. They came in. Nebuchadnezzar came in. He completely erased Jerusalem and took the Israelites into captivity.

And that judgment remained for about 70 years. So, they were coming back from that. Israel was nothing more than a stump. They were a stump. But folks, out of a stump can come life.

Does God not specialize in that thing in the Scriptures? Out of something dead? Out of something that looks like it has no hope or no chance for any future.

God raises life out of that. You take Sarah's womb for instance. Her womb was dead, but God brought life out of her womb. God specializes in doing such things.

You take Joseph for example. Joseph was exalted out of the prison and eventually he became second in charge of planet Earth. I understand it was Egypt, but Egypt was the world power at that time.

God brought something good and brought life and brought something meaningful out of a hopeless situation in that. God did the same thing with you if you're sitting here born again.

He took someone that was dead in their trespasses and sin according to Ephesians chapter 2. Someone that had no hope. Someone that had no life about them. You weren't sick with sin.

You weren't laying there injured in need of help. According to Scripture, you were dead and a dead man cannot help himself. A dead woman cannot help themselves. But God reached down.

He reached down in that sea of sin that you were in and He scraped you off of the bottom and He brought you up out of the water and He set your feet upon a solid ground and He established you're going.

Hallelujah. He brought life out of a dead situation. That's what God is promising that this branch will do here. He will bring life out of a hopeless situation.

situation. Out of a situation. Because all these surrounding nations, they knew what kind of shape Israel was in. They knew that they were coming back. And as they were coming back in these waves, as they were coming back, and a few came back here and a few came back there, they could see that is not the Israel that our ancestors spoke of.

That is not the mighty people. That is not the numerous people that our ancestors spoke of. And God says, out of that situation, I'm going to bring a branch.

I'm going to bring a branch. I will bring Messiah. This is the same Messiah that was promised in Genesis chapter 3 when God said that the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent.

It's the same Messiah. And for the same purpose, for the same purpose to bring glory unto God by redeeming sinful and rebellious man back unto him by buying sinful people into the family of God.

As I preached this morning, there is nothing we can do. There is nothing we can do ourselves other than believe and repent. Because Christ has done it all.

We cannot give enough money. We cannot help the poor enough. We cannot feed enough hungry mouths. We cannot clothe enough naked bodies to buy or merit our ways into heaven.

But this branch was promised. This king priest was promised by almighty God. And I promise you that if God said it in the scriptures, it will come to pass and it has come to pass.

And if anything in the scriptures that God said would happen, hasn't happened yet, you hold on because it is coming somewhere down the pipe. I promise you God is not a man that he could lie.

God is not a man that he should lie. God is immutable. He is unchangeable. And nothing that he has said in the scripture will go without coming to pass. The branch is coming.

The branch and he shall grow out of his place and he shall build the temple of the Lord. And again, Joshua, that is mentioned here, had a hand in building the physical temple of the Lord.

Yes, he along with Zerubbabel that we don't read about here, but Joshua being the priest, Zerubbabel being the governor over the people, they both had their hands and their parts in the rebuilding of that temple.

But folks, we are talking about a prophecy here and we are talking about a mighty king priest that almighty God has promised. He will build his temple. What is that temple?

It is you and I. It is those that have been born again. It is those that have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. It is those that have truly repented of their sin and their unbelief and they have believed on the only begotten son of the father.

Those are the temple of God. Even Peter backs that up in 1st Peter in chapter 2. He says that we are lively stones fitted together into the temple of almighty God.

Christ will build his temple. The church is the temple of Christ. The church is the temple of almighty God. Folks, this building and I appreciate it. Don't you get me wrong.

This is not the church. This is a church. This is a meeting house where we gather together to worship God, to sing the songs of God, to gather around the word of God and to hear the word of God.

But this is not the church. If you are Christ, then you are the church. I'm Christ. I am the church and we all have separate duties.

We all have separate jobs within that body, but we all form the body of Christ and we all form the church. We all form the temple and only Jesus Christ can build that temple.

There is no preacher out there that can do anything for you as far as salvation is concerned. There is nothing that you can do as far as salvation is concerned and saving yourself.

Christ builds his church. Christ builds his temple and he is the only one that is authorized to do so. Not to mention he's the only one with the power to do so.

He shall build the temple of the Lord. Even he shall build the temple. Notice the repetition there. The branch that is being brought up here shall build his temple.

Then he says it again. Even he, not Zerubbabel, not Joshua, not anyone else that will come along a little bit later.

Christ, the branch shall build his church. Even he shall build the temple of the Lord and he shall bear the glory. Joshua could not bear the glory.

Joshua could not bear the glory of the building of the temple of the branch. Only the branch can bear that glory. In fact, that is the sole purpose of redemption for mankind is to glorify God and only Jesus Christ bears that glory.

Only he is deserving of that glory and only he is worthy of that glory. He shall bear the glory. The branch, the branch shall bear the glory and shall sit and rule upon his throne.

Again, we're talking as far as this scene that we are reading about here in these few short verses. Again, we have Joshua, a priest being placed upon a throne with a crown on his head.

Showing, showing a vision to the people of a king priest. Something they had never witnessed. Again, folks, those two things were not to be intermingled.

In fact, you read in 1 Chronicles in chapter 26 when Uzziah tried to do that. Uzziah went into the temple unauthorized. He went into the temple to burn incense. That wasn't a king's job.

That wasn't Judah's job. That was Levi's job to do that. And Azariah, the priest followed him in and any other priest came in with him. And the Bible says that they went in there and they rebuked the king for going in to burn incense to the Lord.

And what happened to Uzziah? He was smitten with leprosy. Before the priests even finished speaking, they saw the leprosy come up on his forehead.

And that's how he died. He died estranged from Israel. He died estranged from the family. He died estranged from the people of God because he had leprosy. Because he was a king.

And his job was not to do the priestly duties. This was completely foreign to these Jews. And God says it's going to happen. It's going to happen.

You will have a king. Folks, what is the point of it? What is the point of having someone that can do the priestly Priestly duties and do the kingly, the king top duties?

Because we needed that. We needed one mediator. There was one mediator that was promised and that mediator must be able to do all things on our behalf.

He must be able to offer sacrifice for sin and he must be able to rule the nation and the nations for that matter. He must be able to do all those things.

He must be able to remove guilt and he must be able to establish righteousness forever. That's why we needed a king priest and that's why the branch was promised here.

That's why he was promised and he shall bear the glory. He shall sit and rule upon his throne and he shall be a priest upon his throne and the council of peace shall be between them both.

You be careful what you read. You be careful what commentaries you refer to because there are many people that will say here at the very last line of this verse where it says the council of peace shall be between them both.

That will say, well, he's talking about between Joshua and Zerubbabel. No, folks. Zerubbabel is not brought up in this entire chapter. That is not what's being talked about here.

We are talking about where it says the council of peace shall be between them both. We are talking about the office of priest and the office of king. The council of peace shall be between both of those.

It shall be between the office of priest and between the office of king. And I praise God for that, folks, because it is only through Jesus Christ that you and I have peace with the almighty God.

We have been brought nigh by the blood of Jesus Christ and we have peace with God because of the blood of Jesus Christ and for no other reason. Jesus offered up himself a perfect, blameless, spotless sacrifice, completely unblemished, came here, left the glories of heaven and came here and dwelt among sinful men, came here and tabernacled amongst a bunch of sinners to do what?

He said, I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. He said, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. That's why he done it. That was the will of the Father.

We know from Peter's writings, it is not God's will that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. Hey, we could repent all day long but without the blood of Jesus Christ to cleanse us from our sins, that repentance would mean nothing.

The council of peace is in the office between the king and the priest. And that's where God promised it would be here.

And that is where it is currently and presently. And that's where it will be on into the future. Again, these Jews that would have been hearing this, this would have been big news to them.

This would have been foreign news to them. But to us who have the entirety of Scripture, to us to have the closed canon of Scripture, and we know the story, we know how it goes from Genesis 1-1 to Revelation 22-21, we understand who this branch is.

We get who this branch is. Verse 14, and the crowns shall be to Helam, and to Tobijah, and to Jediah, and to him, the sons of Zephaniah, for a memorial in the temple of the Lord.

God's saying here, don't you put those crowns on. Don't you wear those crowns. Those are to remain in the temple. As a memorial.

As a reminder. This is the same thing, this is the same reason that the Israelites took up the stones when they crossed Jordan, going into Canaan.

They took up the stones. As a memorial. For what? For future generations. This would have been the exact same thing. The exact same thoughts going on here.

He says, these crowns that you made of the gold and the silver from those that came back from Babylon. And there are people that will make all kinds of weird notions of how they wound up with that gold and silver coming out of the captivity.

Folks, that is unimportant. It doesn't matter where it comes from. God knew they had it. And He said, you go to these men, and you take of their gold and their silver, and you make crowns.

And you put them in the temple as a memorial. As a reminder. This is God wanting His people to remember. Wanting His people to recall that there has been a branch promised.

Maybe He didn't come in their time. Maybe He didn't come in 400 B.C. Maybe He didn't come in 300 B.C. or 200 B.C. But all of those that were entering into the temple, and they saw those crowns up there, and they said, this is the memorial.

This is the sign of a promise that Almighty God made. That a branch was coming. That Messiah was coming. That a king priest was coming. And praise God, about 2,000 years ago, He was born to a virgin in a manger in a little town called Bethlehem.

Praise God, the branch came. The king priest came. Just as God would say. But until that happened, these Jews had a memorial.

They had something they could look at and say, this is the promise that God has made. And God cannot break a promise. God will not lie to His people.

Grasp a hold of that, Christians. All the promises we have in Scripture. Now listen, there are some promises made to the Jews that don't belong to us. There are some promises made to the Jews that do not belong to the Protestant church.

God made those promises to Jews and Israel and the Jewish people and He will make good on those promises one of these days. But there are promises guaranteed to you and I.

In fact, there are promises guaranteed to everyone, including Jews. One of those promises is as you all have heard me say, hundreds, maybe thousands of times by now. If you repent and you believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will be saved.

It was prophesied in Joel 2 when he said there was coming a day that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered. And Paul reiterates that in the New Testament when he says whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

That is a promise directly from the Scriptures. And God will make good on that promise. He made good on it with me. He made good on it with me. And if you're here born again, He made good on it with you.

The crowns will be a memorial in the temple of the Lord. Verse 15, and we'll be done. And they that are far off, praise God. You know who that is?

That ain't talking about the ones that were still back in Babylon. Remember, the Israelites came in waves. They didn't all come at once. But that's not them. And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord.

That's me. And that's you. That's us. That's the surrounding nations. Folks, the gospel was never meant for just one group of people.

It was never meant for that. God told Abraham that through his seed, all the nations of the world would be blessed. That included Moab. That included the Hittites.

That included the Parasite. That included all the surrounding nations. It includes you and I. It includes all the Gentiles. And it includes any Jew that will repent and believe the gospel.

Those that are far off came and built in the temple. They that are far off. Folks, once upon a time, you and I were far off. You may have went to church 20, 30 years before you got saved, you were still far off.

You were still far off from God. But praise be to God for the blood of His precious Son that brings us nigh unto God.

It brings us near unto God. And because of His sacrifice, our sins are washed away and we can come boldly to the throne of grace that we can obtain mercy in a time of need.

It is only because of the blood of Jesus Christ that we have that privilege. But once upon a time, we were far off. Folks, it's a scary thought. Even though I'm born again, and even though I know I'm right now on my way to heaven, if I die tonight, if I die this very second, or this minute, I know where I will be.

But it is a scary, shattering thought to me to think that at one time I was far off from God, and I was His enemy. I was His enemy. How do I know that?

Because I was a friend of the world, and everything that was in the world, and the Bible says in James chapter 4, friendship with the world is enmity with God. I was a friend of the world.

I hated God. I hated everything about God. I hated His word. I hated His people. I hated it all. I was His enemy, and I was far off. But praise God, He got a hold of my heart one day, by way of the Holy Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit showed me what shape I was in, and the Holy Spirit showed me exactly who God was, exactly what Christ had done, and exactly what God could do for me. Hallelujah. That is salvation.

That is salvation. Me stopping depending upon myself, and depending on God. That is salvation. And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord.

We have all been building on the temple of the Lord. You were a stone, and I was a stone. We have all been building this temple up unto our God that He can live in, and that He can dwell in.

Not that He may live in or dwell in, but that He does, and that He can. Folks, He cannot dwell, and He will not live in an unclean vessel. We must be made clean first by the blood of the Lamb.

And that is how He makes us into lively stones to build His temple. And they that are far off shall come and build in the temple of the Lord. And you shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.

You shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me unto you. That's very important because of the last line we're about to read. And this shall come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Why is that so important? This shall come to pass. What shall come to pass? The coming of the branch? No. That was an unconditional promise that God was making here.

God says He shall come and He shall sit on His throne and He shall do this and He shall do that. God people's obedience did not depend upon the coming of the Messiah did not depend upon the people's obedience.

God promised that He was coming. He was coming. He did come. And He has since gone back to heaven. But it says again, and this shall come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God.

What is that referring to then? That is attached to the clause just before this. That is attached to the clause. What is the clause? And you shall know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.

You will know that the Lord of hosts, the Lord of armies hath sent me unto you. In other words, what Zechariah was saying here was if you obey, you diligently seek and you diligently obey what God says, you will know that what I have told you is coming to pass.

Not that it will come to pass. Again, Jesus' coming did not depend on man's obedience. It didn't depend on the obedience of the Jews. It certainly doesn't depend upon the obedience of the Gentiles.

He had been promised in Genesis 3 and He has come. But He says, you shall know I have been sent from God. In other words, you will know that God sent me and that God sent me and I have spoken these words unto you that they are true and that the branch is coming.

That's what that means. There are people out there, folks. There are atheists, there are people that contend the Bible that will use that very verse to try and disprove the Bible. And that's why I'm telling you what I am now.

They will say, well, the Jews didn't obey and the branch still come, Messiah still come. folks, that was unconditional. That was unconditional.

It wasn't dependent on anyone other than God. He is the one that completely depended on. But I love the last verse. They that are far off shall come and they shall build in the temple.

And you and I have been placed in that temple. You and I are indwelt by the Spirit of Almighty God, which is God Himself. And without His Spirit, you are none of His according to Romans chapter 8.

So the question is, have you seen Christ? Have you experienced Christ? Do you know Christ in His glory? Do you know Christ in the glory that this scripture here says that He would bear?

Have you seen Him? Have you seen Him in the scriptures? Have you heard Him in the preaching? Not just tonight, I'm talking about any point in your life. Have you heard Christ?

And have you heard the voice of God calling to you? Saying that you are far off. But you can be brought near unto Me. You can be brought near to Calvary.

And Calvary is where the cleansing takes place. That's where the blood of Jesus Christ was shed for the sins of all men. And anyone that repents of their ways and believes on Him will receive life and life everlasting.

God bless you all. That's the message.