We're gonna read the first six verses of Zechariah chapter one, because that just seems like the thing to do at the beginning of the sermon. Then we're gonna have a whole lot of background before we get back around to this. Zechariah chapter one, verse one says, in the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Edo, the prophet, saying, The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers to whom the former prophets preached, saying, thus says the Lord of hosts, now turn from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they did not hear nor heed me, says the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? Yet surely my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they returned and said, just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, according to our ways and according to our deeds, so he has dealt with us. Unlike some of the other minor prophets, when you transition from Haggai to Zechariah, you really don't have to shift gears. The prophetic ministry of Zechariah overlaps with the prophet Haggai, which we've been looking at. In fact, just flip back a couple of pages to Haggai chapter one, verse one, It says it's in the second year of King Darius in the sixth month on the first day of the month. So Haggai begins, if you remember, by asking for a meeting with the governor, Zerubbabel, and the high priest, Joshua. Those are going to be the same people that Zachariah deals with. Haggai started on the first day of the sixth month and we dated that to August 29th on our calendar, the year 520 BC, but August 29th. Zechariah comes onto the scene according to chapter 1 verse 1 in the 8th month. So sometime in late October to mid-November, just a couple of months after Haggai begins his ministry. And these two men, they work for a common purpose. Can you imagine two prophets, two preachers who seem to have the same goal? Ezra, who led many of the folks back to the land of Judah to rebuild the temple, recorded the history of their experience. And he writes about both of these men in Ezra chapter 5 verses 1 and 2. He says, then the prophet Haggai and Zechariah, the son of Edo, and we'll talk about that in a moment, prophets, prophesied to the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them. So Zerubbabel, the son of Shiltiel, and Joshua, the son of Josedek, rose up and began to build the house of God, which is in Jerusalem. The prophets of God were with them, helping them. So as you remember, the people of Judah had been taken into Babylonian captivity, and they had remained there for 70 years, just like the prophet Jeremiah had warned and said that would happen. And then there is this power shift that took place in the Middle East. If you can stand a history lesson for a few minutes. We didn't get into the political climate when we were going through Haggai, I just want to spend a couple of minutes on it. It's an interesting story, and while it's not vital to your faith, it is maybe helpful to understanding the mindset of the people that these prophets are working with. Remember while the Jews were in captivity in Babylon, Daniel the prophet was blessed by God and he rose to a place of great prominence in the Babylonian empire, yet near the end of his life, He had apparently fallen from that position a bit because the new rulers in Babylon didn't really have an interest in his counsel. That is until the Babylonian king Belshazzar used the vessels from the temple in Jerusalem to host a drunken house party, and God sent mysterious hands to write on the wall. Only Daniel could explain what was written, and the text of what was written was essentially, you've been weighed in the balance and found wanting. You don't measure up. God is going to take you from power. He's going to give. your kingdom to the Medes and the Persians. And that night, Daniel 7 records, the Medo-Persian army conquers the capital city of Babylon and assume control of the entire empire. And so now the Medo-Persians have the Jews in captivity there in Babylon, but also they're in control back home in Judah. There's a Persian king known to history as Cyrus the Great. Cyrus got an idea. Let's allow the Jews to return home and rebuild the temple of Yahweh. Now, where did he get that idea? the king's hearts and the Lord's hands and he moves it however he wills. In fact, Ezra starts his history this way in Ezra chapter 1 verse 1, in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, so that he made a proclamation throughout his kingdom. So the year that that happened would have been 538, maybe 537, probably 538. And Ezra describes Cyrus the Great as Essentially nothing more than a tool in the hand of God. He's going to move Cyrus's heart and mind to do what's in God's purposes. Who would have thought that the Lord would do such a thing? The prophet Isaiah would have fought it for one. Many generations before, long before all that happened, God had sent the prophet Isaiah to prepare the people who were about to go into captivity in the near future to them and to give them a message that God would ultimately redeem them and bring them back to the land and Isaiah 44 28 describes the work of the Lord God and it says who says of Cyrus he is my shepherd he shall perform all my pleasure saying to Jerusalem you shall be built and to the temple your foundation shall be laid The difference between Ezra and Isaiah is Ezra says that Cyrus the Great issued that proclamation to rebuild the temple and Ezra was recording history as it happened. Isaiah, on the other hand, was writing history in advance. About 150 years before there was a Cyrus, the prophet Isaiah names him and says that God's going to use him to rebuild the temple. As a matter of fact, God names him, declares his purpose. God ensured that Cyrus would come to be. He providentially arranged that Cyrus would come to power. And God then placed in Cyrus's heart the desire to have the temple rebuilt. But according to verse one of our text, Cyrus is dead. So I know it doesn't say that, but it says Darius has been king for two years, and Persian kings don't get voted out of office, they die. So to follow along with history for a second, just bear with me. Cyrus the Great issued this decree to release the Jews and allow them to go back to rebuild the temple in about 538 BC. About 50,000 Jews packed up, went back home, and started the temple project. But within nine years of that happening, Cyrus the Great was dead. He died of battle wounds, history tells us, in about 529 BC. But that's okay, because Cyrus has two sons. Cyrus's two sons are named Cambyses and Bardia, which are just great names. Cambyses and Bardia don't like each other all that much. They don't get along. And so Cambyses becomes king of the Medo-Persian Empire and he decides he's gonna go to war against Egypt and he leaves his brother Bardiya back home, gives him control of a province, but says you can't come with the army, you have to stay behind. What follows is one of the mysteries of history that we still don't quite get what happened. because the Persian army goes off to war against Egypt, and pretty soon, the Persian army returns home, and the king's royal bodyguards, led by a man named Darius, gives the report that, look, we won the battle against Egypt, but on the way home, King Cambyses accidentally cut himself and sadly died. He's told, essentially, well that's okay because he left his brother Bardia back home and while the army was away, Bardia assumed control of the throne. And Darius and the bodyguards say, well, that can't be because Cambyses had us kill Bardia before we went to Egypt. So this guy who's ruling now, he is an imposter. We're going to kill him, and they did. So if you're following at home, Darius was supposed to protect the king, but mysteriously the king died by a knife wound while nobody was looking. Darius had executed the king's brother and or the guy who was pretending to be the king's brother. And all of that seems really suspicious, but you still don't have to assume there were ulterior motives, except that now somebody has to be king. And lo and behold, shocker of shockers, verse one tells us there is this king named Darius now. Now is that history lesson vital to your understanding of the Bible? No, not at all. But just imagine for a moment that you were some of those Jewish folks who had returned from captivity. you're not really free. You're still part of this new Persian Empire. They're at war with Egypt. So if the Persians march against Egypt, they're marching through Judah. If Egypt marches against Persia, they're going to march through Judah. The one man whom God had put in his heart to permit the temple to be rebuilt, He's dead. Any hope that his sons would want to, you know, build up his legacy by making sure that happens, any hope of that is gone because they're dead. And now the man who's on the throne of Persia is not exactly a trustworthy agent to deal with. Meanwhile, their purpose was to rebuild the temple, all in hopes that the Messiah would come and reestablish the throne of David. And yet the temple, the project there has been left undone. It's not looking great. The political prospects look even worse. You might start to understand how they could be disheartened at this moment. Maybe not super motivated to move forward. Enter Haggai and Zachariah. Haggai meets with Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest gives them the sort of necessarily harsh and straightforward message of God says it's time to get to work. Within a couple of months, he is echoed then by this prophet, Zachariah, who is also very straightforward. When we look at verses one through six, he gives a straightforward message from God, and he will continue with that sort of teaching in chapter seven through 14, but in between, from verse seven in chapter one all the way through chapter seven, Zachariah gives a series of let's just call them strange prophetic visions, and we're going to have a good time looking at those. Zachariah's theme in this book is mostly futuristic. Haggai came and said, God says right now it's time to get to work and God will bless the work. Zachariah's theme is that the Messiah will inhabit this temple and establish and bring hope for the future of Israel. Zachariah is incredibly focused on the plan of God for his kingdom and the Messiah that the people are hoping for. Maybe most famously, Zechariah delivers the hope for the king's appearance in Zechariah 9. He writes, Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion. Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your king is coming for you. He is just and having salvation lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. You know who fulfills that prophecy. It's Jesus when he enters Jerusalem for the final time. He intentionally arranges it. So he's fulfilling the prophecy that Zachariah unfolds to the people here. A couple of words about the person Zachariah. You'll note there's three special names in verse 1. Zachariah. his father, Berechiah, and his grandfather, Edo. Zechariah, the name means Yahweh remembers. His father, Berechiah's name means Yahweh blesses. His grandfather, Edo's name means in time. So you combine these, it's God remembers, God blesses in his time. His grandfather, Edo, is listed in Nehemiah 12.4 as a prominent member of the tribe of Levi, a family of priests who returned when Zerubbabel came after Cyrus the Great issued this decree. Oddly, his father, Berechiah, is not on that list in Nehemiah 12.4. Nehemiah, and his father, Berechiah, we just noted in Ezra, that Ezra calls Edo the father of Zechariah. And so it is possible that Zechariah returned with his grandfather, but not his father, or that maybe his father has died early on in Zechariah's life. As a member of the priestly family, Zachariah would have had an intense interest in the completion of the temple project. No doubt his purpose in leaving Babylon was he wanted to see that purpose fulfilled. It's the purpose of his family as a priest to work at the temple. That name Zachariah Yahweh remembers is actually quite common among the Jewish people. There are almost 30 people in the Old Testament named Zachariah. He would have been born in captivity. And so returning to Judah would have been the first time in his life that he had seen the city of Jerusalem or the ruins of the temple. In fact, in one vision, Zechariah records in chapter 2, verse 4, an angel is sent to him with the words, run, speak to this young man. Zechariah is a young man. Now because of this historical setting, Zechariah's initial message might seem a little out of place when you think about it. He's part of this remnant who has left Babylon and returned to Judah, and yet he is sent to speak to others who had returned to Judah, and he's given a message that is essentially, you might have returned to Judah, you might have returned to Jerusalem, but that does not mean you have returned to the Lord. Look at verses two and three. The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, thus says the Lord of hosts, return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. This is one of only a handful of times in his book that Zachariah makes an appeal to the past, right? The Lord has been very angry with your fathers. Yahweh has been incensed with our people in the past. Literally, the text reads, Yahweh has been angry with anger. Because repeating a word is an intensifier in the Hebrew. And so the foundational truth of scripture is God's intense anger with disobedience. The understanding of the righteous wrath of God is the basis for grasping the wonderful grace of God. The problem is, when we hear something like, the Lord has been very angry with your fathers, right? Yahweh has been very angry. We assume his anger is like our anger, right? When you're livid, when you are incensed, when you are angry with anger, people better get out of your way, right? I mean, everybody stand back. Jason's on the war path again. And unfortunately, we think of God's anger like our anger, and it's not, right? When I'm angry, you know, when Jason's angry, he is not loving, he is not merciful, he is not... You know, forgiving. He's not kind. And yet, God is love. Always. God is forgiving. Always. God is kind and merciful and gracious and slow to anger. He doesn't throw fits. He doesn't fly off the handle. While it's true Hebrews says our God is a consuming fire, it is also true that God is gracious and slow to anger. He doesn't simply explode. It's usually a slow burn. Declarations of God's anger like we find in Zechariah chapter one verse two are invitations to enjoy the mercy of God through repentance like we find in verse three. Right, return to me and I will return to you. The idea of returning to God is a call to turn from sin. God and sin, God and wickedness, they reside in opposite directions. This is how God's anger is not like ours. I don't think anybody would see my anger as an open invitation to get close to me. In fact, my anger promotes nothing but people getting as far away from me as they possibly can. Have you ever done wrong? Have you ever made someone mad and then attempted to reconcile with them while they were still burning with anger? How often have you found that every attempt at reconciliation is met with their determination to just stay angry with you? They're gonna cling to that fiery burning anger like it's what's gonna keep them warm through the winter. God's wrath comes with an open invitation to reconcile with him. Return to me and I will return to you, says God. The reality is a simple history lesson ought to be adequate to encourage us to repent and reconcile with God. We should learn from our mistakes. We could learn from other people's mistakes. That would be even better. And so they're invited to that in verse four. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, thus says the Lord of hosts. Now turn from your evil ways and your evil deeds. But they did not hear nor heed me, says the Lord. Note how many times Zechariah appeals to the former generations in these verses. Your fathers are mentioned in verse two and in verse four and five and six. Now remember, Zechariah is what we call a post-exilic prophet. He is after the exile when the people return. But we've already looked through a number of pre-exilic prophets whom God had sent to warn the people what would happen. Now Zechariah calls them the former prophets. The consequences of sin came just as God warned that they would through the former prophets. And now that generation, it's too late for that generation to get an, I told you so. But it's just the right time for this generation to get, I told them so. And so this is the message of Zachariah. God was angry with your fathers. God sent prophets to your fathers calling on them to repent and reconcile with him. They would not do it. They suffered the exact consequences God said they would suffer. And now you are being disobedient and God is sending you prophets telling you to return to him and he'll return to you. And if you won't listen, you're going to experience the same kind of consequences your fathers did. Can you learn from their mistakes? In fact, he says the former prophets preached to their ancestors to turn now from your evil way and your evil deeds. One of my favorite Old Testament commentators, Walt Kaiser, makes a distinction between evil ways and evil deeds. He says evil ways are sort of the mindset, the worldview, a heart desire for sin. Evil deeds are a step further. It's actually taking the actions of wickedness and sin. But God here condemns both. God judges your actions and God judges your heart. And he calls us to repent of sin now. Do it now, but they didn't do it. They didn't hear or heed me, God says. In appealing to his people, God points them to the refusal of their ancestors to repent of sin and essentially asks them to consider the consequences. How did that work out for them? In fact, verse five, Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? The lesson of verse five is that the opportunity to repent does not last forever. Their fathers had suffered the wrath of God and died. Even the prophets who were sent to bring God's message to their fathers to repent and turn from sin, those prophets are gone. They've died, guess what? You're gonna die too. So turn now, because you might not have later. We fool ourselves into thinking, I'll deal with this sin later. I've got some other stuff I've gotta deal with, and I'll get around to eventually getting right with God. Such thinking is frequently fatal. The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6.3, now is the day of salvation. Now is the acceptable time. So Zechariah says in verse six, yet surely my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they returned and said, just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us according to our ways and according to our deeds, so he has dealt with us. When you put the main idea of verse five and verse six together, it reminds people your ancestors never returned and they suffered the consequences. You know where they are. I took them from this land. They died in Babylon. Even the prophets, they died because their ministry of calling the people to repentance wasn't heated, their work was done. That call is done for your ancestors and yet something still remains to this day unchanged. Has God changed? Has God's standard changed? Has God's word changed? Plenty has changed, right? Because Jerusalem was conquered, the temple was destroyed, the people were taken captive. God moved in the heart of Cyrus the Great to allow them to come back, but now Cyrus is gone, that's changed, his sons are gone, and all the variableness and volatility of life, what doesn't change? Well, verse six says, yet my words and my statutes. Did they not overtake your fathers? That word overtake there means to catch up to, or to take hold of. Moses uses the same word in Deuteronomy when he tells the people that the blessings of obedience will overtake, will catch up to them. If they obey, they will be overtaken by God's blessings, yet if they disobey, they will be overtaken by God's wrath. The message there in verse six is that God's word has not changed. The prior generation learned the truth that God's wrath will overtake those who don't repent. The warnings of God do not come with empty threats. But this introductory message of Zachariah is a call to also learn that while the warnings of God don't come with empty threats, the invitation of God doesn't come with empty promises. Trusting in the truth that's contained in the words and statutes of God, in scripture, is a sure foundation, right? The grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of God stands forever. The rest of this book God is going to make some sure and precious promises about the coming Messiah King, the Savior of sinners, and he's gonna call on these people to trust in those promises that they will be fulfilled and they will be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ. God's anger is sure. But there is always this call of reconciliation. Return to me and I will return to you, says the Lord. All right.