I think it happened in Kindergarten, but I can’t honestly remember. I remember we were at my dad’s company picnic, a big event put on by Mobil Oil for their employees and families. A kid I knew from school asked me if I wanted to get on the seesaw with him. I looked at him, and he was, shall we say, a bit chunky. I was a skinny little bean pole of a boy and I wasn’t sure how this was going to work. I thought to myself, “Ok, but I don’t think you’ll be getting off the ground!” What I didn’t know was that he had no intention of getting off the ground. What he wanted to do was to get me stuck up there in the air and then threaten to drop me hard whenever he wanted. He was a kindergarten power thug. I learned early that the seesaw requires a certain amount of trust. If the person on the other end is heavier, they control the times when you are in the air. Because they can stay down and leave you hanging in the sky, they also have ample opportunity to jump off and cause you to plummet to the ground. Putting your trust in others based on their temporary ability to look powerful will lead to pain.
The seesaw power play is an important lesson for life. We must share our life with the One that we can trust – and I don’t mean your mate, your boss, or your Congressman. To put your fate in any other is a dangerous game. God has a good word on this subject tucked into an old prophecy. Look carefully at the very first verse of Zechariah 9:1
“The burden of the word of the LORD is against the land of Hadrach, with Damascus as its resting place (for the eyes of men, especially of all the tribes of Israel, are toward the LORD),”
The author says he will share a story of God’s promises concerning the Aramean Kingdom (now Syria) – the land of Hadrach (the regional name) ruled by the throne found in Damascus. Yet, tucked in the end of this announcement is a secret. It is the great lesson of the passage. It is the song of every person who is in despair and awaits justice. It is the call of the woman in the abusive marriage, the child in the home of the angry alcoholic – it is the call of all who await right to wash away wrong, and promise to wash away pain. It is the vision of HOPE placed in trustworthy hands.
Key Principle: The believer must keep his focus on the Lord, where the enduring promises will all be upheld. The world will make promises it has no power to keep.
I want to show you the principle clearly, but we have a difficult passage to tackle to show it. Our task in this lesson is to understand and then yield our hearts to the truth of this passage. Yet, there are a few things we must say about the passage before we start exploration that will help us to understand where the author is going.
- First, the passage is prophetic in character – so its primary purpose was to carry a message of hope to God’s people concerning those who had gotten away with crimes – and to help them be patient with God’s promised judgment on the perpetrators. Prophecy is God’s perspective on events – and in this case the events are FUTURE to the people of 480 BCE when the prophecy was given, but are HISTORY to those of us who read the passage today. The events it foretold took place one hundred and fifty or so years after the message was given.
- Second, if you look even quickly at the passage, you will note that it ADDRESSES issues that are for people who were not believers. The encouragement is written to the believers about the judgment, but the judgment is an indictment to people who would neither read it, nor believe it. Zechariah 9:2
And Hamath also, which borders on it; Tyreand Sidon, though they are very wise. 3 For Tyre built herself a fortress, And piled up silver like dust, And gold like the mire of the streets
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- Third, the passage has a purpose on our lives beyond telling prophecy and history – it is meant for our transformation to godliness. That means we must understand the MESSAGE of the text to the Arameans and Israelites of long ago, but we dare not stop there. We also need to carefully examine the process and principles of the events to reveal God’s character and works which are unchanging.
To do that, I want to look over the passage with two different sets of eyes. The first set will be what the passage said to the people who heard the promises as physical realities. I want to know what God promised to do to Syria and why. I want to know what consolation this offered God’s children and how. But that is not all I want to know. I want to know how the message can be applied to living in the twenty-first century and following Jesus Christ.
To begin with, look at the five pronouncement that were made to historic peoples:
- The passage made a pronouncement to a world power – Syria in 9:1-4.
To WORLD POWERS, God has a special warning we do well to heed even today. God warns them not to trust the things world powers are always inclined to trust:
9:2b…” though they are very wise. 3 For Tyre built herself a fortress, And piled up silver like dust, And gold like the mire of the streets.
Can you see the three traps to world powers? Note the words: WISE, FORTRESS and SILVER/GOLD. World powers become depositories of education and expertise. They grow strong in their defense industries. They become wealthy. Yet without the choice to follow God, they will eventually be disappointed because they put their trust in KNOWLEDGE, STRENGTH and WEALTH. None of these last in any of us, and they won’t last in society. A fool says he doesn’t need God because he is smart, strong or successful. A foolish country bans God from its public square to appease every godless person who may be offended. God shares the end of such misplaced hope and trust.
Zechariah 9:4 Behold, the Lord will dispossess her And cast her wealth into the sea; And she will be consumed with fire. The Bible says that she will simply have her wealth wash to other places and “go down in flames”. Psalm 144:15 says “How blessed are the people who are so situated; How blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!”
- The passage made a second pronouncement to smaller allies of that power – Philistine cities in 9:5-7).
To ALLIES of the powerful that have followed their ways, God offered the warning:
Zechariah 9:5 Ashkelon will see it and be afraid. Gaza too will writhe in great pain; Also Ekron, for her expectation has been confounded. Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza, And Ashkelon will not be inhabited. 6 And a mongrel race will dwell in Ashdod, And I will cut off the pride of the Philistines.
Because they have lapped up the garbage lifestyle and sought vigorously to follow the immoralities of their WORLD POWERS, look at the results. The words of God are these:
You will live in fear as you watch them fall. You will suffer deep pains when their system fails you. You will be angry and disappointed when their assurances fail you. Your rulers who were “in bed” with world powers will find themselves deposed. Your cities will be flooded with foreign voices and your proud heritage will be seen only in monuments on streets filled with foreigners that care nothing for them.
God’s specific word to the ALLIES was that He would:
Zechariah 9:7 “I will remove their blood from their mouth, and their detestable things from between their teeth. Then they also will be a remnant for our God, And be like a clan in Judah, And Ekron like a Jebusite.” God promised to cut out of their lives the false and abhorrent practices of religion they boasted in – the pig offerings they were so fond of. God promised that they would fade as a distinct people and be no more.
- The passage made a pronouncement to Jerusalem – concerning God’s protection for His Temple in Jerusalem in 9:8.
TO JERUSALEM that was still slowly recovering from the captivity, but now a vibrant city with an operating Temple, God said:
Zechariah 9:8 “But I will camp around My house because of an army, Because of him who passes by and returns; And no oppressor will pass over them anymore, For now I have seen with My eyes.”
From 150 years before the coming of Alexander the Great and later Antiochus IV who attempted to desecrate the Temple and subdue it entirely came a prophecy that God wanted more from His Temple and was about to guard the waves that would attempt to destroy the word He wanted to accomplish in His people.
- The passage made to believers – a pronouncement of the Coming King (Messiah) to Judah – 9:9-12.
TO BELIEVERS God offered words that Messiah was going to come. He would ride into the city on the back of a servant vehicle – a donkey, and not simply a white horse. Jesus knew this and called the disciples to get a donkey for that very reason in Luke 19. Look at the passage in Zechariah 9:9
“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; He is just and endowed with salvation, Humble, and mounted on a donkey, Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. 10 I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth. Deliverance of Judah and Ephraim.”
Right after the promise that some would attempt to attack the Temple and God would rescue it, came a promise of PEACE through the Messiah.
The believer of long ago wanted to follow God, but he got TIRED of constantly battling a hostile world. Can you feel what he was going through. Jews for centuries knew what it was like to be Brit Hume the day after you said Tiger Woods could find redemption in Jesus. People wanted his head for suggesting that Buddhism that Tiger espouses, that would make HIM a god, was probably not a good strategy for winning back his family and finding forgiveness – for gods don’t need forgiveness and obviously
Tiger is in need of something. Brit simply made an observation that Jesus Saves people that are broken, and got flayed for it on broadcasts across the country. News flash: Christians believe sinners can be set free; Buddhists don’t believe in sin. Some Americans think that his behaviors seem like sin to them, and denying it and acting godlike isn’t going to keep his family together. I pray that Brit will call him, and that he will take the call. There really can be help there.
God continued to His people in Zech 9:11“As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. 12 Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope; This very day I am declaring that I will restore double to you.” He reminded them of FULFILLED PROMISES as He unfolded NEW PROMISES.
- The passage made a pronouncement to an unknown but rising start – Greece – of the battle with Alexander the Great and His Generals (the Diadoche) who would attempt to subdue the Jewish people, and the Maccabee fights that would come to the people – 9:13-17. The fifth one is especially significant, because Greece was not yet a dominating power in much of the Mediterranean region. It was 150 year before the time of Alexander the Great!
TO THE RISING STAR God warned that they would be used by His hand to accomplish His purposes. in Zechariah 9: 13 “For I will bend Judah as My bow, I will fill the bow with Ephraim. And I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece; And I will make you like a warrior’s sword.
Interesting that God was not going to be surprised when Alexander swept the known world, He was designing what was coming. He knew and He worked behind the scenes making the nations into swords. He is unfolding His story through His people to His world. God ended by warning Greece that He would defeat there overt efforts to dominate His people – something the Macabbees experienced as they fought against the Greek generals following Alexander’s death. We get the Chanukkah story from this time, but the prophecy was 300 years before that time!
14 Then the LORD will appear over them, And His arrow will go forth like lightning; And the Lord GOD will blow the trumpet, And will march in the storm winds of the south. 15 The LORD of hosts will defend them. And they will devour and trample on the sling stones; And they will drink and be boisterous as with wine; And they will be filled like a sacrificial basin, Drenched like the corners of the altar. 16 And the LORD their God will save them in that day As the flock of His people; For they are as the stones of a crown, Sparkling in His land. 17 For what comeliness and beauty will be theirs! Grain will make the young men flourish (grain harvest – the time of engagements), and new wine the virgins (Early winter – the time of weddings).
OK, you have patiently waded through the historical detail. Now what does that have to do with us. Well, the simply fact is that PLAN B life is a START OVER of life when we come to Christ. The passage says there are FOUR STAGES of entering a PLAN B life:
Stage One: In your darkened life (9:1-7) you followed the course of this world. You trusted wealth, wisdom and strength. You thought in your lost-ness that people that were wealthy had it made… that people that were knowledgeable were going places … that people that were built were all the rage. The fact is that wisdom has its place – but also its limitations. Smart people lost their money in this Great Recession, not just dumb ones. Great bodies become great has been bodies. French models become senior citizens too. Plastic can only do so much. Some watched those you believed in fall and became afraid, were dislodged from your comfortable place and couldn’t stop moving because of restlessness. You look back on your DARK LIFE and realize you did STUPID things – things that you know God hated and you feel dumb even today thinking back.
Stage Two: God moved in (9:8-12) and you experienced the touch of God. Jesus came in and camped in your heart, You don’t have to fight all your battles alone, for you know the Master. The One who came as a servant has been enthroned in your heart. You fight with God is over, and your fight FOR God is just beginning. You know He brought peace to your heart, now you hope for that peace to come to your neighbors and your world. He saved you from the pit for a purpose – and you want to fulfill it.
Stage Three: The battle was joined (9:13-15) and though I have peace with God, the enemy is raging in my home town to keep my Master’s name from the ears of people. The powerful world system stands opposed to the truth of Jesus, and I have His empowering to stand amidst the fight. I can use the armor He provides and the powers He supplies! The battle we fight against the enemy of darkness is not imagined – it is quite real.
Stage Four: The promises are realized (9:16-17) and I can fight through this life with confidence! I am NOT ALONE in this fight – for the BATTLE BELONGS TO THE LORD. When Zechariah 9:16 proclaims that “God will save them in that day as the flock of His people”, I am aware that I do not possess in myself the resources to win, but I have them in Him!
The believer must keep his focus on the Lord, where the enduring promises will all be upheld. The enemy can promise, but he cannot deliver. The world can promise but they cannot deliver.
