who are not as familiar with that latter or that former part in your Bible known as the Old Testament, is the second-to-last book in the Old Testament. We have a word for that, the penultimate book, second-to-last in the Old Testament. And in just a moment, I'm going to read in your hearing verses 1 through 17, but I'm going to give you some time to find it because this is not a very common book in the Bible. Last week was the end of the book of 2 Peter, and maybe for some of you, you're like, wait, where did that come from? I didn't really give a lot of announcement beforehand that it would be the end. I did title the sermon with the word end in it. It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. But we were dwelling in 2 Peter 3 on eschatology, which is the study of the end times, and we were thinking specifically about the eschaton, which is all those events that are going to happen in the end. That's what the word eschaton means. And that all those events, the breaking through the clouds of the Lord Jesus Christ, the resurrection, and the judging of the living and the dead, the final judgment, the renewing, the burning of everything and renewing of everything, the new heavens and the new earth, All of those things cast their shadow, if you will, back upon us and intrude into the now time and serve as a motivation, Peter said, for our holiness and our purity now. I hope you caught that last week. But as I was thinking of where we are going to go next, I just was not happy with moving away from thinking about the end. I wanted to come back to thinking about the end. To use another popular culture term, I wanted to go back to the future. I wanted to go back to that robust set of promises that God has given us in the person and work of Jesus Christ and through his apostles and prophets and dwell on them a little bit. And so as I thought through it, I thought, you know, I want to go back to Zechariah. Many of you who have read the book of Zechariah know, and those of you who have not read it or can't remember, I'll tell you now, there are eight night visions in the book of Zechariah. And what I'd like to do from now until we finish is take you through, very systematically, in an expositional way, those night visions for a few different reasons. Number one, these night visions are going to give us a picture, a very vivid and beautiful and robust picture of what Jesus is going to do at the end of time. And you know, sometimes we need to step out of the genre in scripture of just the epistles. There's different genres in scripture, which means different forms of writing. And oftentimes we spend our time in the epistles where Paul or Peter are just giving what is called didactic teaching, very kind of linear logic, tightly knit arguments that explain what's going to happen. But sometimes we need to shift genres and go to a genre of vision or prophetic ecstasy, as the scholars call it, and think about these same things in terms of vision. In terms of, listen, images and figures, okay? And that's exactly what Zechariah is going to do for us. And one of the beautiful things about this, hearkening back to what Peter said in 1 Peter 1, verse 10 and 11, you recall that he said that Concerning this salvation, the prophets, listen, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ, and listen, the subsequent glories. Now we're all familiar, especially when Christmas time comes around, that the Old Testament prophets prophesied about the first coming of Jesus Christ, right? His birth in the manger, his coming into the world. This is what we celebrate at Christmas. But what we often forget is that those same prophets, in just as many prophecies, and I would submit to you even more prophecies, prophesied about his second coming in many different images. And one of the reasons why today we have Judaism and Christianity is, for this reason, oftentimes the prophet would look at two different events, what we understand to be the first coming of Jesus Christ and the second coming of Jesus Christ, as if they were looking at two mountaintops. This is called prophetic foreshortening. They were looking at two mountaintops, and when you're looking at two mountaintops and they're aligned, those two events look like the same event. A suffering Messiah and a reigning glorified Messiah. And this is why, listen, a Messiah who would suffer and a Messiah who would set up his kingdom is precisely what the Jews expected when Messiah would come. And so when Jesus didn't bring his kingdom in, in the way that they thought it should be brought, they said, well, he can't be the Messiah. But what they didn't realize is, and this is what the prophets didn't totally realize, is that these are two separate events, and those two mountaintops are separated by a chasm of time. And so the first coming is here 2,000 years ago, and the second coming is whenever Jesus comes. But there's this huge gap of time that we understand to be the church age. Isn't it interesting, listen, isn't it interesting that even the apostles thought this? When Jesus was resurrected in that first chapter in the book of Acts, He comes and he talks to them and for 40 days he's teaching them about what? The kingdom of God. And what is the first question that the apostles ask him? Lord, is it at this time that you're now going to establish the kingdom? They were waiting for it, too. They were waiting for that breaking in, that eschatological breaking in when he would put down the Roman occupation in Palestine and establish the kingdom at that time. Even the apostles were expecting that. And Jesus said, it's not for you to know times and seasons that the Father has arranged, but you will receive power when the Spirit comes. So what I want to do is I want to look at this exquisite passage of scripture. I'm going to read verses 1 through 17, but I'm just going to warn you, really today and for the next two weeks, we're just going to be in one verse. We're going to be in verse 8, and I'll tell you why in a moment. But hopefully by now you've found Zechariah chapter 1, and I want to ask you to come back to that text, this rich and exquisite text, and listen to verses 1 through 17. Zechariah chapter 1, verses 1 through 17. In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Edo, saying, Do not be like your fathers to whom the former prophets cried out, thus says the Lord of hosts, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds. But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they repented and said, as the Lord of hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so he has dealt with us. On the 24th day of the 11th month, which is the month of Shabbat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Edo, saying, I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses. Then I said, what are these, my Lord? The angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what they are. So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, these are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth. And they answered the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees and said, we have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest. Then the angel of the Lord said, O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah against which you have been angry these seventy years? And the Lord answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. So the angel who talked with me said to me, Cry out! Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion, and I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease. For while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. Cry out again, thus says the Lord of hosts. My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem. Thus far the reading of God's word. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever. Would you bow your heads with me and let's ask the Lord for help as we come to this word. Father God, we are excited to get into this night vision. We pray, Father, that as we come to, admittedly, a different genre of scripture, perhaps a genre that many of us, even in our devotions or reading of scripture, have read and scratched our head and had a question mark above our head and just figured we'd go on to something else because we did not understand. We pray that through the ministry of your word this morning, you would help, Father, your servant to unpack and divide this text in such a way that your spirit will take up the raw materials of your word and bring illumination to our hearts and minds. And Father, what we pray is that you would, as you have promised and expressed through your servant Paul in Ephesians chapter two, lift us up to the heavenly places in the ministry of the word this morning, that we would see Jesus Christ shining in all his brilliance and all his glory and all his majesty and that father, we would be enraptured by this sight, by this vision, and that the only adequate and reasonable response would be to bow our knees in worship and adoration and affection to our Lord Jesus Christ. Would you do that this morning through your word we pray, in Christ's name, amen. Well, the first thing I'd like to do this morning is talk about this thing called hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is the science and art of interpreting the Bible. And whenever you shift gears as a minister in the ministry of the Word, you shift gears from, as I said, an epistolary text to an apocalyptic text, a prophetic text, a visionary text. You also need to shift gears for your people in how we read a text. So what I want to do is I want to give you, I want to give you very simply four ingredients for seeing Jesus in all of scriptures. One of the things that my professors taught me in seminary is this, and I've always remembered it. If a minister can take an Old Testament text and preach that Old Testament text in a synagogue and no Jew is offended by it, then he has not done his job. Why? Well, one of the most important and all-encompassing reasons is that Jesus is on every page of Scripture. And we see through the book of Acts as you examine the sermons of the apostles, those powerful, vibrant, penetrating sermons, that they took Old Testament text, which by the way, there wasn't really an Old Testament at that time, it was the Bible, and they showed Jesus even though his name was not in the text. And in the same way, if we, as ministers of the new covenant, are not looking back in the Old Testament with lenses provided for us by Jesus and his apostles, such that by looking through those lenses we don't see Jesus, we are not doing our job. And I would submit to you, dear Christian, that as you read your Old Testament, nor are you doing your job, or if I could say it in a less threatening way, You are not getting out of the Old Testament all that is there for you to get out of it. We must read the Old Testament with Christocentric lenses. Now, how do we often read the Old Testament, particularly when we get to the prophets, and even more particularly when we get to the minor prophets? Well, there are a lot of what's called oracles. And oracles are basically judgment sermons to the nations, judgment sermons to Israel. I mean, there's just judgment going on all over the place. And somebody has, I think, very wisely said, reading through the Minor Prophets, it's like judgment spaghetti. Just judgment, judgment, judgment. And every once in a while, ooh, a messianic meatball. You get this messianic prophecy of Jesus. Well, what I would submit to you this morning is that once again, if we have a hermeneutic that is looking for Jesus, and not just in a dispensational, literalistic way where it's like, unless I see the words Jesus of Nazareth, he's not in the Old Testament. The apostles didn't think that. The apostles took images and figures and tropes and genres and details of Old Testament figures and were able to see types and shadows of Jesus even in the tabernacle. And so what I would submit to you is that we can come back to this plate of spaghetti and have extra, extra, extra meatballs. And that's how I like my spaghetti. Whenever I come to an Italian restaurant and the waitress says, OK, what do you want? I say spaghetti. And I say, I want extra meatballs. And she says, yes. I said, no, no, no, you don't understand. Whatever you think is extra meatballs, times that by five, and that's what I want, OK? I want a lot of meatballs. And if we can read the scriptures Christocentrically, we could find more and more messianic meatballs, not only for his first coming, but also his second. So let me give you four things. Four quick, I'm just going to call them quick and dirty rules for reading the Old Testament with a Christocentric lens. Number one, and I want you to turn very quickly to Luke 24-27. We must have what is called a redemptive historical hermeneutic. And a redemptive historical hermeneutic does this. It traces throughout history the story of redemption. Do not come to your Bibles as if this Bible is just a book crammed full of propositional statements. Like some nerd who's just going to go into it as a systematic theology textbook, go to the index and find a text that's going to fight against the Jehovah Witnesses or fight against this heretic and that heretic. It can be that. But the Word of God is for us a story of redemption. And that story of redemption starts as a seed. Very literally. In fact, the first prophecy of the coming of Messiah is in Genesis 3, verse 15, where God is divvying out the judgments for the man, the woman, and the serpent as a result of their disobeying the covenant arrangements that God had placed them in in the garden. And when he is divvying out the punishment for the serpent, he says, the seed of the woman will crush the head of the seed of the serpent. Now in that time it was very abstract, it was very unclear, we were not certain, the redemptive community at that time, what that meant. But that seed soon begins to sprout and we see very quickly as redemptive history moves forward with scripture, a little seedling. a little sapling, and then it grows bigger and bigger and bigger. And before we know it and when we thought, why? Because they had hoped that this figure named Jesus of Nazareth would have been the Messiah. After all, he claimed to be in the Messiah. But then he was crucified and he died. And remember, as I was saying at the beginning in my prefatory comments, they were the common first century Jew who saw the two mountain peaks in one moment. And so they were waiting for that Messiah to bring in the kingdom. And instead, what happened? Well, he suffered and he died. So they're walking to Emmaus and this shadowy figure joins them. And they don't know who it is. Well, we know later it was Jesus. But he says, well, what's wrong? Well, where have you been? Have you been living under a rock? I mean, everybody knows that this man came claiming to be Messiah, but he was crucified. And we're sad. We hope that he would be the redemption of Israel. And in verse 25, in Luke 25, Luke 24, verse 25, Jesus tells them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets had spoken. And now jump to verse 27. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. This is our blueprint, beloved, for reading the Old Testament. You, as a Christian, should read the Old Testament and be looking for Jesus. Start with Zechariah. You kind of, as fertile soil in your mind and in your heart, the rich tapestry of images and figures and types and shadows that Moses and all the authors of the Old Testament have bequeathed to Israel, and by extension to us, as the foundation upon which you read the book of Revelation. I think that that would cut through and eliminate a lot of nonsense that we typically read in the book of Revelation. So when we come to Zechariah, he is going to use catchwords. He's going to use phrases. He's going to use what is called motifs. A motif is a theme that he's not necessarily going to explain, but I'm going to help you understand them by going back to those catchwords and themes and images. And I don't want to use the word impose, but using them in Zechariah to understand what he's saying. Thirdly, let me say this. God is invisible. We all know this. God does not have a body. Even our children know this from proper catechesis. And it's because God does not have a body that in the Old Testament, in many ways, many diverse ways, he revealed himself to the children of Israel, maybe in bodily form, or maybe in a pillar of cloud, or a pillar of fire, or many different images, and many different visions, and many different manifestations, so that their weak faith could grab onto and comprehend the God who cannot be seen. This appearance is commonly referred to as a theophany. A theophany is an appearance of God, and that's going to be important in just a moment when we come back to it. So in the book of Zechariah, he's going to give theophanies and images of the invisible. And then finally, turn to Matthew 13, 52. Finally, if you will take all these rules and implement them, and I know many of you have already been doing this, it's one of the reasons you're at this church, you believe in Christocentric preaching, you believe that Christ is the center of all scripture, you often are quoting Spurgeon, who says, drop me anywhere in the Bible and I'll make a beeline to the cross, okay? You know this, but some of you, this is new for you. But if you will implement these hermeneutical rules, then you will be like that scribe that Jesus described in Matthew 13, 52. Therefore, every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old. What is old? What is old is what the Old Testament types and images and figures have bequeathed to us, but the one who believes in Jesus can see a new meaning that is not new in the sense that in the New Testament all of a sudden it became that. It's new in the sense that we come to that realization and we see it because God, who planned it millennia ago as he inspired his authors to write it, determined that when the veil over our eyes was lifted and we were able to see Jesus, we then come back to the scriptures and in looking for him, should see him. New things come out of old images for the one who has been made new by the Spirit of God. So that is by way of introduction. But now secondly, and I'm gonna start talking to the boys and girls at this point because maybe it'll be easier for some of us to understand. And I really want the boys and girls in the congregation to answer a question that I'm gonna encourage the parents to ask when you get home, okay? But we'll get there in a moment. But let me give you a background. Let me give you a background of Zechariah very briefly. First off, Zechariah means God remembers. And that's gonna be very important because God is going to remember his covenant. But the time in which Zechariah is writing is what is called the post-exilic period. That's the time after the exile, after the 70 years in which the children of Judah, technically, were taken captive by Babylon and were in Babylon for 70 years. The southern kingdom fell in 587-586 BC and the temple was destroyed and Judah was taken off captivity. Now something very interesting happened in that time, boys and girls. We read in Ezekiel 43 this morning that the glory of the Lord was in the temple of Solomon. the Shekinah glory of the Lord, the glory cloud that appeared after Solomon dedicated the temple with his prayer. There was a glory cloud, which once again is an image of the invisible God for the people of Israel with weak faith. And that glory cloud was there. But because Judah was disobedient, boys and girls, Ezekiel saw that very same glory cloud lift up from over the temple and go out east over the Kidron Valley and disappear. The glory of Israel had left the midst of the people of Israel. And they said, I'm sure, like many Israelites had said before when the glorious departed, Ichabod, the glory is gone. And the Israelites longed for that glory. And to add insult to injury, they were taken because of their disobedience to Babylon. And for 70 years, two generations, almost two generations, they had not seen the glory, no images of the glory. All they had is that which they had memorized in their hard drive of God's holy Torah, his holy word. But under Darius, a Persian king, The Persians who had taken over the Babylonians under Darius, who was actually a gracious ruler. He would be what we, you know, describe today as one who believed in religious plurality. He was willing to let people worship their own gods as long as they, you know, respected the god of the Persians. But he declared that the Jews could go back to Palestine, to go back to Israel, and they could rebuild their temple in hopes that that glory cloud would return. So they get back, and as you know, under Ezra and Nehemiah, they're building the temple, but when Zechariah is writing, this is a little bit before Haggai, only the wall had been constructed and the temple had not been built yet. And the Israelites, the Jews who had come back into the land, they were more of the poor who were coming back into the land first in this first return. And they were bemoaning the fact that that glory was not there, that temple was not there. And here's what they were wondering. Listen, boys and girls, and all of us. Will the glory of Israel be in our midst again? Will the glory of God be in our midst again? That's what they're wondering. And that's what Zechariah is going to address in this night vision. So, they were in the midst of political turmoil. They were still similarly in a place where the Israelites were under Pharaoh. They weren't under slavery in a very literal sense, but they were still under the occupation of the Persians. They did not have their own kingdom. They did not have the promises of the Davidic covenant. They did not have a king ruling over them. And they longed for these things. It was a time of political turmoil, kind of, sort of like what we're going through today. And one of the reasons I wanted to go through Zechariah is because I want to invite you this morning and for the Sundays to come to take your eyes off the political quagmire and turmoil that you see now, which is only going to ramp up the closer we get to November. And put your eyes on another kingdom, an unshakable kingdom, a kingdom that cannot be shaken, a kingdom, boys and girls, and men and women, that if you believe in Christ, is yours and can never be taken away, a kingdom in the middle of which is the glory Shekinah cloud of God, who will be with his people forever. There will be no sun because the glory of God will illumine the new heavens and the new earth forever. That's the kingdom that I want us to focus on. That's the kingdom that I want us to put stock in. That's the kingdom that I want to put a spring in our step and wind in our sails as we look out into this world. and think, though this is horrible, there's something better for me, there was something better for Abraham, there was something better for Isaac, there was something better for Jacob and David and all the patriarchs and kings of Israel, and there's something better for you waiting on the other side of the second coming of Jesus Christ. So what we're going to see as Zechariah, come back now to Zechariah, as Zechariah says, what the angel does in verse 13 of chapter one, is gracious and comforting words. And if I could give you the main theme, it would be this. God is going to restore the former glory. But until then, he's going to assure us that the same God who gave the promise to Abraham was still in their midst. And even though it may not have been that physical manifestation of glory, there's another kind of glory that he is going to promise and give to his people that we will see. Now, there's three characters. three characters in verse 8, and this is where we're going to spend the next three weeks, three characters that you must understand because these three characters that Zechariah describes and sees in verse 8, and by the way, boys and girls, this is what you see in this picture. Maybe mommy and daddy printed it. If not, there's some in the back and you can get it for next time. These three characters are characters that are going to come back up in the night visions of Zechariah. They're not necessarily going to come up in these three distinct manifestations, but what they represent is going to continue to come up in the eight visions of Zechariah. And those three are the rider upon the red horse, The deep, now let me just give a note here, in your ESVs it says that there was a rider on the red horse among the myrtles and the glen. Next week I'll explain to you why glen or ravine or if you have a King Jimmy at the bottom is a bad translation and next week I'll explain it to you, but it's the deep, the sea. So the rider on the red horse, the sea, and then the myrtles. I'm going to explain these figures, okay? And when I do, over the next three weeks, you're going to have a roadmap for what Zechariah is going to do. This morning, I want to focus on the first. That's all we're going to spend time on, on the first. So number three, consider the identity of the rider on the red horse. Now, who is this rider on the red horse that he sees in the midst of the Myrtles? Who is it? Well, as one of my pastors always say, and I now copy him, I'm going to give you the bottom line up front, and then deductively, I'm going to work back and explain why that's the answer. Boys and girls, the rider on the red horse is the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. Now, you say pre-incarnate, what are you talking about, carne asada tacos? Let me explain that, okay? How can Zechariah, who lived about 500 years before Jesus was born, how is it that he in a vision can see Jesus Christ? That's why we say the pre-incarnate, before Jesus took on flesh, He, in various different ways throughout the Old Testament, revealed himself through images and even sometimes taking on bodily forms of theophany in the Old Testament. So we say that this is the pre-incarnate revelation of Jesus Christ. Now let me come back to the text now and explain to you why I'm saying this. Look at chapter 1. I want you to notice first off in verse 8 that Zechariah sees the man on the red horse. But now jump down to verse 10. So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered. So we're still talking about the same man, okay, who's riding on the red horse. But now, verse 10, he says, these are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth. Now, verse 11, and they, those are those who are on the other horses, they answered, the angel of the Lord. So what I want you to do, boys and girls, and everybody else, is put an equal sign between the man who is mounted on the red horse and the angel of the Lord. The angel of the Lord is the man who is upon the red horse. Now what does that mean? Well, in the Old Testament, you see this phrase, Malach Yahweh, or Malach Adonai. It means the angel of the Lord, and it has a definite article, the equivalent of a definite article in Hebrew, which is the angel of the Lord. Now, it's different from an angel of the Lord. And every time you see, there's been complete dissertations that have been written on this, every time you see the angel of the Lord in the Old Covenant, it is a pre-incarnate revelation of Jesus Christ. Sometimes when you see the angel of the Lord, it seems to be distinct from the Lord, but then other times when you see it, like Genesis chapter 16, where the angel of the Lord speaks to Hagar and gives her a message and a promise about Ishmael, he seems to be speaking as God. And scholars have rightly said that the angel of the Lord is God, but specifically it is the second member of the Trinity who is revealing himself to the people of Israel before his incarnation. This is the pre-incarnate Christ. Now, there's a few more things we need to do here because there's the angel of the Lord in the text, but then there's also this other angel. Notice in verse 9, Then I said, what are these, my Lord? And notice that Lord there is in lowercase, because that is not the covenant name of God, Yahweh, that is Adonai, which could be like, you know, a wife calls her husband Lord, probably not the best contemporary example, okay? But in the medieval times, you know, you would call the king or you would call a commander who was over you Lord, not in the divine sense, but in the sense that they're over you, they're your superior. Who are these, my Lord? And the angel who talked with me, So this is a separate angel from the angel of the Lord. This is common in prophetic literature. This is what is called an interpretive angel, and that's why you see here, Zechariah has an interpretive angel who's taking him through the vision, and here is the man on the horse who is the angel of the Lord. But now I want you to come to verse 12, because I want to answer an objection that some of you might have. Look at verse 12. Then the angel of the Lord, which we have identified as the second member of the Trinity, the pre-incarnate Christ, said, O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah against which you have been angry these 70 years? The objection that somebody would raise is, now wait a minute, Josh, if you're saying that the angel of the Lord is Jesus, who's God, in verse 12 he's praying to God. So is God praying to himself? Well, that's probably the same question you had of our Lord when He was in Gethsemane, right? And in Gethsemane, the second member of the Trinity is praying to God. But we know that God is a Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and we tell our children, well, Jesus was praying to His Father. And it is very interesting here that Zechariah distinguishes between the angel of the Lord and the one to whom he prays in verse 12, which is the Lord of Hosts, the Lord of Armies. And so we can see the Lord of Hosts here as his father. to whom the pre-incarnate Christ is praying. Now follow along in verse 13. And the Lord, now that is the covenant name of God that this is coming back to the man on the red horse. This is coming back to the angel of the Lord. He answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. So he's giving to the angel the response, that is not listed here, of the Lord of hosts. He's giving it to the angel, and now the angel says, verse 14, the angel who talked to me said, cry out, thus says the Lord of hosts, I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. So we have this chain of communication that's somewhat complicated to follow, but if you distinguish between the angel of the Lord and the angel who spoke with me, we can make that distinction. Now, I want you to follow me here. Now that we see that this is the second member of the Trinity, I also want you to see this. The horses that he sees, the red sorrel, sorrel is light red and white. These horses represent the horses upon which the rest of the hosts of the army of the Lord are sitting, And later, the ones who go out to reconnoiter, that go out to spy out the land, and they bring back a report. And this is an image of the army of God. So we have the man on the red horse, who is Jesus Christ, and he is commanding his host to go out and spy out the land because he's getting ready to do something drastic. He's getting ready to judge. He's getting ready to bring fire. Now, Meredith Klein, some of you know that name, he's an Old Testament scholar, he's with the Lord now, he made a suggestion that I think is probably right, and I'm going to give it with that qualification. He says the reason why Zechariah gives this three-fold description of red, light red, and white is not that the three colors are to be taken as symbols individually of something, but taken together as an image. And he suggests, by showing in different places in scripture, how it's really supposed to give an image of fire. And the reason why is he goes back to two incidents in the life of Elijah and then Elisha, where when Elijah was taken up, remember, those who saw him said, behold, the chariots of Israel and the fiery horsemen. the fiery horseman of the host of heaven who is coming to take up Elijah. And then later in 2 Kings 6, remember when Elisha was there and the Arameans were surrounding the Israelites, and Elisha's sidekick said, okay, we're doomed. And he said, oh Lord, open his eyes to see. And his servant's eyes were open, and his servant saw surrounding all the host of the Arameans the fiery horses of God's hosts who brought judgment by striking them with blindness. And so what we see here in this image of these horses under the commander of the Lord of hosts is that God, Jesus Christ, is getting ready to judge the earth. He's getting ready to bring fire upon the earth of those who do not obey his word and look to his Messiah. Now let me give you two examples of how this is the case. I want you to notice that when we draw back on the rich tapestry of biblical theological images, there are two in particular that buttress this idea that Jesus is the man on the red horse and he's getting ready to go into the land and purge it. You don't have to go there, but you'll recall in Joshua chapter 5, verses about 12 to 15, right before, listen, right before the Israelites go into Canaan and purge the land of all the wickedness from the Canaanites, a figure appears to Joshua. A figure appears to Joshua and he recognizes himself as the commander of the army of hosts. It's the same imagery. We have the commander of the army of hosts who is commissioning Joshua as the new Moses to take the people of Israel in and cleanse the land. And it's interesting in that text that that commander tells Joshua, Take off your sandals, because the place on which you are walking is holy ground. It is a revelation of theophany of God himself. That is, right before the time when he goes in to purge the land. I find that incredibly fascinating. What God is doing, the second member of the Trinity, is he's bringing judgment upon the hostile powers of the earth, and he's making a place for the kingdom of the saints, just as he did for Israel as they made a place for themselves in the conquest of Canaan. But now, we've looked backwards, let me look forward now. When you come to Revelation chapter 19, and by the way, in our course of Zechariah, we're going to be dipping into Revelation quite a bit. In Revelation chapter 19 verse 11, John the Revelator says, Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, the one sitting on it, is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. Now I want you to look at Revelation 6 too. We see another image of another man on a horse. And I looked and behold a white horse and its rider had a bow and a crown was given to him and he came out conquering and to conquer. Who is this? This is Jesus Christ. I remember one time I was dismayed as I went to study Revelation chapter 6 and I have a stack of dispensational commentaries on Revelation literally about this high and every single one of them to the man and one woman I think said that this rider on the white horse in Revelation 6 was the Antichrist. I said, wow. What a contrast! Is it Christ or is it the Antichrist? It's Jesus! It's Jesus Christ coming to make war upon the hostile inhabitants of the land as the new Moses in a new conquest and a final conquest. And we see in Revelation 19.15 that from his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron, and he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. Here we see that Jesus is depicted as a warrior judge. A warrior judge. And this same warrior judge is this man who is upon the red horse in the night vision of Zechariah. But I want you to notice, thirdly, under this head, and I'm wrapping up here, that in the book of Zechariah, this is beautiful, we see a dual covenant status of our Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas in Zechariah chapter 1, we see him mounted on a horse. That is the warrior judge. That is the one who comes to judge the living and the dead. This is the one who is our covenant Lord to whom we do obeisance. We give our submission to his authority, and we give our affection and our allegiance to him. He is our covenant Lord who is seated on the red horse. But in Zechariah chapter 9, verse 9, We see that our Messiah is mounted on another animal. It is not a horse, but it is a donkey, a humble animal. And we see in this mounting on a donkey that our Lord is going to be humiliated. And in fact, it is the gospel authors who quote Zechariah 9, verse 9, as Jesus is coming into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. And what some of you may not know is this, in ancient Near Eastern treaty ceremonies, It was a donkey that most commonly was used as a figure to represent the responsibilities of each covenant party. That donkey was cut down the middle, and both sides were spread on either side of the path, and that path was blood, and those two parties had to walk through that path of blood as if to say, if I do not keep my stipulations of the covenant, may I be like this slaughtered donkey on the ground. And Jesus Christ was slaughtered on the cross. He was humiliated and blood was gushing forth because, listen to me, he took the stipulations of the covenant upon himself. And the punishment that you deserve for having broken the law of God was taken by this humble donkey, Jesus Christ, as he was slaughtered and came under the wrath, the full, unmitigated wrath of God himself, so that you would not have to take it forever in hell. Zechariah gives us the gospel, beloved. He gives us a picture of our covenant Lord and our covenant servant. So how do we apply all this? Well, let me just say this. Zechariah, who gives us images of our Messiah, in our time, we don't exclusively have these images. We have the incarnate Jesus Christ. An image was made incarnate for us in this time. And the vision of the man on the red horse with the other horsemen was the assurance to Zechariah, and by extension to us, of the earthly presence of the heavenly reality in a vivid display of power. The divine presence which Israel had in the past experienced as the visible glory cloud, though not outwardly observable in Zechariah's day was nonetheless really present. The Lord of angels and his holy retinue was there and Zechariah was beholding it and he was taking it back to his brothers and he's saying, brothers, even though we don't see the glory cloud, the glory cloud is nonetheless in our midst. And was it not, was it not Jesus who said, I'm sending my spirit, I am here, I have come in fulfillment of prophecy, but when I leave, I'm leaving you a helper, and that helper is the spirit, and he will dwell, he is with you, but he will be in you. He will dwell in your midst, just as the spirit of God dwelt through theophanic form in the glory cloud and the pillar of fire, in the tabernacle, over the tabernacle, So now the Spirit of God dwells in you, the tabernacle of God, through faith in Jesus Christ. God's presence is keenly felt in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is the glory cloud of the new covenant, and He is with us. He is among the myrtles, and He is by the deep. And Peter reminds us that though we don't see Jesus, we love Him. He says in 1 Peter 1, 8 and 9, Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. But the author of the Hebrews says in 2, 8, At present we do not see everything in subjection to Him, but we do see Him. who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. The final thing I'll say is this, isn't it interesting that Zechariah sees these visions at night? When you take a cursory survey of the New Testament, you will see a common motif that comes up over and over and over again, is that this world and its worldly thought and its system and its zeitgeist is darkness. And Jesus, who is the light of God, shone into the darkness, but the darkness received it not. In fact, Paul even says, you don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against cosmic earthly powers, heavenly powers of this present darkness You see even Satan now is the prince of the power of the air and his darkness is the domain of this time but see we beloved are beacons of light in this darkness and it is as we cling to this promise and this image and this vision of the man on the horse who stands as the presence of the glory, Shekinah glory of God, in our midst, through the promise of the Spirit and the fulfillment of it within us, as we have this, we walk as lights in this world. And my question for you this morning is, is that descriptive of your life? Are you a light to those around you? When they see you, do they see something different? And does that difference permeate down to the very fiber of your soul where resides the promise of the glory cloud of Israel who has given you the glory which is to come in the new heavens and the new earth. Live as those, beloved, who are lights in the world. And we do that by looking to Jesus And when we do, the countenance of His face and His light will shine upon us in grace. If you do not know Jesus Christ this morning, I hope that this vivid picture of the man upon the red horse, the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, will serve as an invitation to you and a call and an exhortation to turn from your sins and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father God, thank you for these blessed images of the Spirit. Father, I pray that I know that much has been given to your people this morning. And I know that a lot of digesting, as it were, needs to take place. And I pray that you would do that through your Spirit. But Father, give us now, as it were, this fresh picture of Jesus. the rider upon the red horse who will go out into the land just as the new Joshua and purge it of all its wickedness when he comes to judge the living and the dead. And may that promise be the wind in ourselves, the spring in our steps, and the motivation in our hearts to live for you by your grace and for your glory. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Let's stand for the glory of Padre