It's good to be in the Lord's house with you. I trust y'all had a good Thanksgiving and used it to express your thankfulness to God. As the Lord gives Zachariah this series of eight night visions, each one of the visions is aimed at some aspect of his overall message to encourage the people to get to work on the temple rebuilding project. Two leaders are particularly important in Judah at this point in time. Zerubbabel, who is the governor, and Joshua, who is the high priest. Last week, we looked at the fourth vision. In chapter three, that vision of Joshua the high priest taught the lesson that there is no one righteous except those whom God makes righteous. God alone saves from wrath. cleanses from sin and calls us to serve him. Now the fifth vision of Zachariah draws on Zerubbabel, the governor. If the former vision taught us that we're saved and called to service by the power of God alone, then this next vision teaches we can only succeed in serving the Lord through the power of God alone. Zechariah chapter four. Now the angel who talked with me came back and wakened me as a man who was wakened out of his sleep and he said to me, what do you see? So I said, I am looking and there is a lamp stand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at its left. So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, what are these, my Lord? And the angel who talked with me answered and said to me, do you not know what these are? And I said, no, my Lord. So he answered and said to me, This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel. And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of grace, grace to it. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple. His hands shall also finish it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven rejoiced to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the Lord which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth. Then I answered and said to him, What are these two olive trees at the right of the lampstand and at its left? And I further answered and said to him, What are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the gold oil drains? Then he answered me and said, do you not know what these are? And I said, no, my Lord. So he said, these are the two anointed ones who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth. In January of 1990, Avianca Flight 52 from Bogota, Colombia crashed in New York State about 15 miles from reaching the landing strip of the airport. It was a Boeing 707 and it had followed all of the safety protocol demanded by the international airline regulations. The regulations stated that a plane has to carry enough fuel to reach its destination or its alternative destination. And in addition to that, expect about an hour's worth of weather or flight delays. Well, poor weather and poor communication caused flight 52 to be waved off from its first attempt at landing at the airport. And ultimately, 73 of the 158 passengers on board were lost when the airplane was placed into a holding pattern and ran out of fuel and crashed. Whether it's a plane, or a passenger van, or a person, nothing can continue running on empty. If the fuel burns out, a crash is imminent. When you are serving the Lord Jesus, he does not promise a stress-free existence. There are challenges that are real. There is work that is hard. There is opposition that will be intense, and the struggle is long. You will be tested psychologically, emotionally, physically. physically and spiritually, and unless you find a sure and steady source of fuel, you will end up stressed out and burnt out. as Joshua the high priest and Zerubbabel the governor dealt with the pressures of office, they faced this challenge of spiritual service and it was overwhelming. How could they overcome the political difficulties of being subordinate to a pagan Persian king? How could they deal with the economic realities of restarting a nation and society from scratch? How could they overcome the social challenge of motivating people to work? And how could they face the military necessities of defending their nation against hostile neighbors? Doing all of this while fulfilling the spiritual expectation from their creator to rebuild the temple. How could they do this knowing that they're not up to the task and they still expect to succeed? The answer to that question comes in verse six of our text. It is the central idea of this vision in Zechariah chapter four. Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. The people of God have no assurance that they will live a struggle-free life. There will be diversions and deviations and delays that will detour you from reaching your destination, and you will burn out unless you tap into a reserve of the Holy Spirit of God, which is an ever-present source of power. The successful service of God is accomplished through the enabling power of the Spirit of God. This is true in every area of life. You are, after all, called on to serve God with your whole life, so in your personal life, in your relationships, in your marriage, in your school, and your career, and your business, and your family, and your church, and your ministry for the Lord. Every part of life, this is true, that the successful service of God is accomplished through the enabling power of the Spirit of God. As we go through this chapter, this vision of Zachariah, we'll see in verses one through six, the Spirit can accomplish the impossible. We'll see in verses seven through 10, the Spirit of God can utilize the insignificant. And then we'll see in verses 11 through 14, the Spirit of God can enable the unlikely. See first, the Holy Spirit of God can accomplish the impossible. Let's look at verses one through six again. Now the angel who talked with me came back and wakened me as a man who was wakened out of his sleep. And he said to me, what do you see? So I said, I am looking and there is a lamp stand of solid gold with a bowl on the top of it and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. Two olive trees are by it, one to the right of the bowl and the other to its left. So I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me saying, what are these, my Lord? Then the angel who talked with me answered and said, do you not know what these are? And I said, no, my Lord. So he answered and said to me, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. Now, If you remember in Zechariah's visions there are several characters that we have seen. The angel who talked with me is an angelic messenger which serves as a kind of guide or narrator for Zachariah's visions. And in verse one, this angel is described as coming to the prophet and woke me up like a man who was woken out of sleep. So now, was Zachariah asleep? No, he says it was like that. These peculiar visions of the prophet Zechariah are not dreams in that sense. It is not a product of too much pepperoni pizza before bed or going overboard at Thanksgiving dinner and ending up in a turkey trance. These are divinely inspired visions. And Zechariah is told, look, you have to be awake. You have to be alert for this. The angel demands his attention and asks in verse two, what do you see? Which is a great question. What does Zachariah see? The answer isn't exactly easy, but I'm gonna give it my best shot to explain it. Some helpful background information first. An oil lamp. of some kind used for light was as common in ancient Judah as light bulbs would be in your house today. without electricity, they use these burning oil lamps as a source of light. And olive oil would have been a common fuel of choice. Now, when I tell you the word for this lamp is the Hebrew word menorah, you are gonna start picturing the seven candlestick lamp stand for Hanukkah, the modern Jewish candlestick holder. That is not what Zechariah is seeing here. What Zachariah is seeing is like nothing else in scripture, like nothing else discovered by archeologists, like nothing else described in history. The oil lamps of ancient Israel, would have had a bowl or some kind of container to hold the oil, and they would have been made of pottery, so the potter who made these lamps would often just pinch the end of the side, creating a small channel or a narrow area aimed at making the oil flow into that area toward the tip of the lamp so that there would be a wick sitting in the edge of the oil that could be lit and draw the oil to it. I almost hate to bring it up, but imagine a genie in the lamp kind of lamp for a minute. Okay, it has a place to hold the oil and it has a kind of spout or a channel, a narrow area that the oil would flow out of toward the end to a lamp or a wick that would be lit. A lamp like that, if you're picturing it, a lamp like that would be for you to walk around with, to take light with you where you went. But you could have a stationary lamp, a stationary light would be on a lamp stand. So it would have an upright and it would have a large bowl on it and there would be several channels or pipes around the edge leading to multiple wicks. So you could have several lights, more light in that stationary place. Zechariah's vision here, it is hard to fathom. He says he sees a single lamp stand And on the top of that single lamp stand is a bowl, and from that bowl, there are several channels, he uses the word pipes, leading out of it, as I understand it, to seven smaller bowls around that bowl. And ultimately, each one of those seven smaller bowls have seven channels to seven lights that are lit. So there are seven sevens. There are a total of 49 burning wicks. Each one of those 49 wicks are attached to one of the seven smaller bowls, and those smaller bowls are attached to the larger bowl through channels for the oil to flow, which all of those are connected together. And if that's not enough, you might think, well, You know, I wonder how often that big bowl in the middle has to be refilled with oil. Zechariah notes in verse 3 that there are two olive trees on either side of the lampstand. And when we get down to verse 12, we find out those two olive trees don't just happen to be there for no reason. Branches from those trees are dripping olive oil into two receptacles that are connected to two pipes that are leading to the main bowl with the olive oil. So Zachariah's vision is one strange lamp stand. 49 burning olive oil lights around the edges of seven smaller bowls connected by channels to a central main large bowl which is being fed by two channels that are connected to these branches of olive trees. Now if you hear all that and you're trying to process it and you still think, what? It's okay, you're in good company. That's exactly Zechariah's reaction to what he sees. Look at verse four. I answered and spoke to the angel who talked with me, saying, what are these, my Lord? Obviously, he's not seen anything like this before. And the angel who talked with me answered and said, do you not know what these are? And I said, no, my Lord. The fun part of this vision, I think, is that the angel does not really explain the vision to Zachariah when he asks for an explanation. Instead, the angel's like, well, you don't know? Now he's gonna, the angel's gonna circle back around to the symbolism later on in the chapter, but instead of explaining the vision and telling Zechariah what all the parts of what he's seeing means, the angel bypasses all of that explanation and goes directly to what the main point of the vision is supposed to teach. Verse six, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. The strange prophetic vision teaches a simple spiritual lesson. The spirit of God can overcome the impossible. What Zerubbabel, governor of Judah, could not accomplish through military might, what he could not hope to achieve through influence and political power, does not create the slightest obstacle for the Holy Spirit of God. vision, this super menorah, whatever we want to call it, is unlike anything Zachariah has ever seen. It's unlike anything Zerubbabel or any other person has ever seen. It is not the work of human ingenuity. Its continuing function is not the product of human effort. The lights are burning, the oil is flowing. Nobody's gonna have to trim the wicks or adjust the flow. Nobody's even gonna have to refill that bowl because those olive trees are connected to it as this never-ending source of fuel. It's gonna burn forever. Similarly, if the prophetic messages of Haggai and Zechariah are true, and they are, then the plan of God to prosper his people and accomplish his purpose, it stands in no danger of ever being put out. That is an indescribable reassurance for God's people to simply serve God faithfully. Zerubbabel is facing political challenges, military threats, social turmoil, but the success of his service is not in whatever might or power he can conjure up. It is in the enabling power of the Holy Spirit of God, which flows down. This is true of any audience in any situation at any time. Psalm 33 verse 16 says, No king is saved by the multitude of an army. A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. It is God alone who does these things. The singular defining characteristic of salvation and success in Christian life is not human effort, but it is the enabling grace of the Holy Spirit of God. And our God, for whom nothing is too hard, can accomplish what seems impossible. Second, the Spirit of God can utilize the insignificant. when you truly grasp that it is the enabling power of the Holy Spirit that grants all success, then you will stop thinking about your own power and your own ability being the source of success. Frankly, all of us are insignificant. If the apostle Paul could call himself the least of the apostles, the chief of sinners, nothing more than a disposable clay pot, then we would be foolish to argue that we're something more grand. Yet it's through such humility and weakness that the Holy Spirit of God proves divine strength, the Lord Jesus. said that through faith in Him, you could say to a mountain, move from here, and it will be moved because nothing will be impossible. Jesus was actually calling on the Old Testament imagery found in Isaiah and Zechariah. Look at verse seven. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, you shall become a plane. And he shall bring forth the capstone with shouts of grace, grace to it. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple. His hands shall also finish it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven rejoice to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the Lord which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth. Now does this vision mean that Zerubbabel will possess the personal ability to accomplish all the tasks that are set before him? No, he doesn't have that personal ability. It's not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts. If the mountains crumble, they're going to do so at the command of the Creator who spoke them into existence. But there are times where that Almighty Creator so loves His people that in the course of their life, He brings them on a path to that mountain in the way, sets it as an obstacle before them, and then brings it crashing down in a display of his power and love. Listen, trying to make everything in scripture symbolic is a poor way to read scripture. So, for example, I'll always tell you, Goliath is not symbolic of all the giants in your life you have to defeat. That's not how we read scripture. But it seems evident that this great mountain is intended that way in verse 7. We don't know of any literal mountain that is a challenge to Zerubbabel. This is symbolic. Zerubbabel is facing metaphor here. mounds of opposition and obstacles that have to be overcome, but he's not a mountain climber, he's not got a Komatsu PC8000 or a Caterpillar D11, but that mountain is still gonna become as flat as an Illinois cornfield through the power and plan of God working in his life. Remember the challenge of this book, the people of Judah, had begun rebuilding the temple, but after laying the foundation, the project stalled. It stopped partially because the people were facing other challenges. They decided were too important. We read that back in Haggai, right? You say, it's not time for the temple. We've got other stuff to do. It stopped partially because the people were unenthused with the modest temple project that they saw. It would never be as grand and beautiful as the old temple that Solomon built. When the foundation was laid, they saw how relatively modest it would be when it was finished and they, according to verse 10, they despised the day of small things. Yet in verses nine and 10, God makes this promise. Though Zerubbabel can accomplish nothing in his own might, in his own power, he says the hands of Zerubbabel laid the foundation of this temple, and his hands will finish it. He will be there to put the capstone, the last bit of work, on the temple. the almighty God who sees all things and knows all things and controls all things, he is going to use that seemingly insignificant temple for his glory. Listen, I don't want you to miss the connection between Haggai the prophet and Zachariah the prophet. You know, sometimes I have to wonder how well Haggai and Zechariah would have gotten along. Haggai was the very practical, right, go up the mountain, get the wood, build the temple, and Zechariah comes along, I'm having visions, like, I don't know. I don't know how well their personalities would have meshed, but the message that both of them brought meshed perfectly. In Haggai 2, the prophet relayed the promise of God that, I will fill this temple with my glory. And now Zachariah receives this vision of a light-giving lamp unlike anything he has ever seen. And together, these promises are fulfilled when Jesus, who is the light of the world, will enter into this temple and glorify God in everything that He says and does. The foundation might seem insignificant, But when Zerubbabel completes this work and Jesus ultimately enters into this temple, the whole world's gonna know better. The Spirit of God can accomplish the impossible. The Spirit of God can utilize the insignificant. Third, the Spirit of God can enable the unlikely. The final verses of the vision turn back to the original question Zachariah asked about what is it I'm looking at? What is it all these things mean? So I'm gonna remind you, Zachariah sees these 49 burning wicks attached to seven different lamps that are each attached by channels to this large bowl of oil, which is connected by two channels to these branches of olive trees dripping golden olive oil into it on either side of that lamp stand. And he asks in verse four, what are these? And instead of the angel explaining the meaning of everything he's seeing, the angel jumps all the way ahead to the overall meaning of the whole vision. Here's what the whole vision means. It's not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts. So the spiritual message is clear. The symbolic meaning is still a little bit hazy. In verses 11 through 14, turn back to that symbolic meaning. What are these ever-burning lamps and oil and trees? Y'all, I'm just gonna disappoint you now. I'm gonna leave you a little bit fuzzy on the details of that this morning. But I want you to see why. Zachariah asks three questions and he only gets one answer. Look at verse 11. Then I answered and said to him, what are these two olive trees at the right of the lampstand and at its left? And I further answered and said to him, what are these two olive branches that drip into the receptacles of the two gold pipes from which the golden oil drains? So what are these two olive trees? What are these two branches? What are they doing dripping into these two pipes? What are these things about? In verse 13, He answered and said, Do you not know what these are? And I said, No, my Lord. So He said, These are the two anointed ones which stand beside the Lord of the whole earth. We have to accept sometimes when the word of God is intentionally vague, and this is one of those times. Zachariah, to me, seems to be clearly asking, what are these two trees? What are these two branches? What are these two pipes? Three questions, he gets one answer. These are the two anointed ones which stand beside the Lord of the whole earth. Well, what are? The two trees are? The two branches are? The two pipes are? Like, we don't know. But we do have a pretty good indication of who, in verse 14, these two anointed ones who stand beside the Lord of the whole earth, we have a good indication of who they are. These two visions in chapters three and four, One is of Joshua the high priest, and the other is of Zerubbabel the governor. That seems to indicate to us that those men, Joshua and Zerubbabel, are God's chosen vessels to bless his people. I think the inference, if you just wanna know, you know, Jasonology, what is it, I think, I think the inference would be that the olive trees represent God himself, the oil represents the never-ending power of the Holy Spirit, and so Zerubbabel and Joshua are the branches through which the power of the Holy Spirit flows through them and blesses his people. If you see it differently, I'm open to that. Come explain it to me, I wanna know. But what I'm confident about is verse six is the central meaning of the vision. Even if I'm not sure what all of the individual parts of the vision are symbolic of, the meaning of the vision is not by might nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts. I'm also confident the Holy Spirit of God is seen here empowering these two godly men, Joshua and Zerubbabel, to accomplish God's purpose. And yet, how unlikely these two characters seem to be as God's chosen vessels to bless his people. Think about them for a second. Joshua, how unlikely is that guy? Well, let me just say it like this. Someday when you get to heaven and you get told you get to meet Joshua from the Old Testament, you're not even thinking about this guy. You're thinking about the guy he was named after. Right? You want to meet Joshua? You'll be thinking about the guy who led the people after Moses and fought in the battle of Jericho. Not the Joshua who stood before the Lord in Zechariah 3, covered in filth, covered clothes, and had to be saved and cleansed. But at the very least, he's got a good name. Right? Joshua. It's Yeshua. Yahweh is salvation. It's a great name to be a deliverer and a leader of God's people. Zerubbabel, his name, get this, it means a child of Babylon. While he is the grandson of King Jehoiachin, he's never going to be king himself. He is a governor, he answers to Cyrus, king of Persia. Zerubbabel is a Babylonian born middle manager. There is nothing in the power and personality of Joshua or Zerubbabel which would lead us to expect great historical achievements by them. Yet Joshua the high priest we saw last week points us forward to the greater Yeshua, Jesus, the son of God, the great high priest of his people. Zerubbabel? He appears again in the New Testament. You're free to look at Matthew chapter one or Luke chapter three. Zerubbabel is on the genealogy of Jesus as the many times great grandfather of our Lord and Savior. Zerubbabel's hands described here set the foundation of the temple and God says his hands in verse seven will set the capstone of the temple. And then later, his many times great grandson, Jesus, will be the glory of the temple. Jesus will be the Lord of the temple, entering into the temple of the Lord, filling it with glory and the ever burning light of the world. And all of this, y'all, all of this is because of Zerubbabel's can-do attitude and determination, right? No. If it was, Zerubbabel would have burned out and crashed. Whatever you face in serving the Lord, I promise if you attempt to do it in your power, in your own might, in your own determination, you will burn out. There is a crash coming. The message of this vision is clear and just as helpful for us as it was for Zerubbabel. Every faithful child of God will be tested psychologically, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and unless you find a sure and steady source of fuel, you will end up stressed out and burned out. And so remember, it's God who is at work in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. The successful service of God is accomplished through the enabling power of the Holy Spirit of God. It's not by your might, it's not by your power, it is by God's Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.