Let’s open our Bibles this evening to Zechariah chapter 12, and verse 10 (Zech 12:10) and as you’re turning there, I want to make you aware of the fact that I have a new toy up here. It’s a stop clock for our conference and it has on it 45 minutes. Now that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop tonight at 45 minutes but when there’s 15 minutes to go you’re going to hear a bleep so I’m just learning you ahead of time and you have to have these kinds of things for conferences cause if one guy goes long, then it throws the whole schedule off. So, we’re kind of testing it out for this Saturday. So, I’m going to hit the start button right now and here we go.
Alright! Zechariah chapter 12, verse 10 (Zech 12:10). Lord willing, I’d love to finish the chapter this evening. Maybe we’ll do it before the buzzer goes off and if the stopwatch doesn’t work, we ask the deacons to put in a trap door under here so if a guy goes too long, we just push a button and he disappears to the alligators below. Zechariah has four parts to it as you know.
Structure
The first part is an introductory call to repentance. Then comes eight-night visions and I’m seeing the screen here but I’m not seeing it back there, does that would have to be turned on? Remote on the music stand, okay. Now we got two remotes. So hit the red button. Okay, I see it going on. There we go. So look at this you guys, look how savvy we are, technologically. We don’t have one remote control, we have two and it’s all this stuff that’s going to bring in the mark of the beast so I don’t know why we’re using all this, right? Part two of the book is eight-night visions encouraging the nation of Israel to rebuild temple two. Part three of the book is questions and answers. So, there’s a question about, should we keep mourning the destruction of the temple? And God through Zechariah in those chapters rebukes the people for empty ritualism and then the book concludes with two burdens.
The first burden relates to the first coming of Christ and the second burden, that we’re studying now, chapters 12 through 14, refers to the second coming of Christ. So we come to chapter 12 and we have the physical and spiritual salvation of Israel.
Zechariah 12 (Israel’s Physical & Spiritual Salvation)
Her physical salvation is described in verses 1 through 9 (Zech 12:1-9) and she’s going to need physical protection from God because the nations in their drunken state are going to attack Israel in the last days. All the nations will invade Israel, verses 1 through 3 (Zech 12:1-3). But then in verses 4 through 9 (Zech 12:4-9) we learn that God is going to physically protect Israel and what’s interesting is God is not just interested in physically protecting His people, He’s interested in spiritually protecting them. Spiritually bringing them to life. Matthew, 16, verse 26 (matt 16:26) Jesus says: For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world loses his soul. Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? So what good is it to physically protect His people if they never come to Christ for salvation, you know, to be saved. So, by the time you get to verse 10 through verse 14 (Zech 12:10-14), the subject changes from physical protection to spiritual protection which is God’s ultimate goal and the first part of verse 10 is the means that God is going to use to spiritually restore His people and that is the work of the Holy Spirit. So that’s why I’ve entitled this lesson “The Holy Spirit’s Work” or “The Work of the Holy Spirit”, because without the work of the Holy Spirit nobody can get saved, Amen? 5:48
All the way back in Zechariah, 4, verse 6 we saw a glimpse of the Holy Spirit. Where it said, as the returnees were sort of overwhelmed with rebuilding the temple, it says in Zechariah chapter 4, verse 6 (Zech 4:6): Then he said to me, This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the LORD of hosts… So it’s the Spirit that’s going to help you rebuild temple two and it’s the Spirit that helps us in our daily lives, amen? So that’s what I remember is the first reference to the Holy Spirit and now we’re getting to Zechariah, 12, verse 10 (Zech 12:10) this second burden. Where he’s talking about the salvation of Israel in the last days and he basically gives us the means of the cause of this national salvation, it’s the work of the Spirit. So notice if you will Zechariah, 12, and verse 10 (Zech 12:10) where it says: I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced… So you’ll notice there the expression “House of David” “Inhabitants of Jerusalem”. So it’s very clear who this is talking about. This is not talking about some kind of revival, internationally, although I would love it if God sent that. That’s not what it’s talking about here, it’s talking about the salvation of the Jewish nation in the events of the tribulation period and a lot of people will say this, they will say, until this happens, you can’t say the modern state of Israel is a work of God. So people will try to argue that until Israel is in faith, you can’t look over to Israel in the Middle East and say, God put them in that land. But that whole mindset is refuted just by figuring out where the Jewish people are before the Spirit is poured out on them. I mean, where are they residing? It says it right there in verse 10, they’re in Jerusalem. So only when they come back into Jerusalem in unbelief, then and only then, will the Spirit be poured out on them. So the question then becomes, well, how did they get back into Jerusalem before the Spirit was poured out? Well, God put them there. So if God put them there, He must be doing a work now, regathering them in unbelief, we’re actually seeing it happen in our very lifetimes, before the Spirit of God is poured out. So we pointed out over and over again in our different studies at this church that the book of Ezekiel predicts a regathering in unbelief before the Holy Spirit is poured out upon Israel. Ezekiel, 36, verse 24 (Ezek 36:24) God says: For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land… That’s happening right now. The verse 25 (Ezek 36:25) says: Then… So there’s a sequence here… Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean… I’ll put a new Spirit in you. You see the same type of prediction in Ezekiel, 37, verses 7 through 11 (Ezek 37:7-11) about the valley of the dry bones coming together. There’s a valley, there’s dry bones in the valley, they form a skeleton but it’s very clear here that there was no breath in the skeleton. Verse 10 (Ezek 37:10), Ezekiel says: So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life… These bones are the whole house of Israel. So first the skeleton comes together, that’s work A and then breath comes into the skeleton, that’s work B. So God is very clear here that there is a re-gathering in unbelief first and then the Holy Spirit is poured out later. 10:43
So I like to bring up these kinds of verses because a lot of people just flat out refuse to believe that Israel in the land today is significant because they’re not yet in faith and the answer to that is not yet, but soon they will be. So we teach here basically two re-gatherings of Israel.
There’s a present first regathering and then there’ll be a permanent second regathering. In regathering A, she returns to part of her land, in regathering B, she returns to all of her land. In regathering A, she returns in unbelief, in re-gathering B, she returns in faith. In regathering A, she is restored to the land only but in regathering B, she is restored to the land and the Lord. Regathering A sets the stage for the tribulation of discipline for Israel, regathering B, sets the stage for millennial blessing and so we are some of the most privileged people ever to live in church history because we’re living right in between those two re-gatherings. The first one started to happen May 14, 1948. So you’ll notice that when the nation is brought to salvation, it is the work of the Holy Spirit and we need to understand that what leads people to Christ is ultimately the Holy Spirit. You can’t screen people into salvation. You can’t argue people into salvation. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will use our words, sometimes He’ll use our arguments, sometimes He’ll use our defense of Christianity, sometimes He’ll use our apologetics, but those human abilities don’t lead people to Christ, ultimately. What ultimately leads someone to Christ is the convicting ministry of the Spirit. So if you have unsaved people in your life, whether they be family, friends, co-workers, rather than or maybe you’re married to somebody that’s not saved, an unmarried spouse, the first order of business that you do, when God convicts you to share your faith with them, is you start praying for the convicting ministry of the Spirit in their life, because only the Spirit convicts, opens the eyes, can have the ability to see what you’re talking about. The Bible is very clear that the natural man understands not the things of the Spirit, for the things of the Spirit are spiritually discerned. So Jesus talked about this ministry of the Spirit when He said, I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away the Helper, that’s the Spirit, will not come to you, but if I go I will send Him to you and He, when He comes, He will convict, that means persuade, the world, so He’s doing this for everybody, concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the father and you no longer see Me and concerning judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged and we can spend a lot of time unpacking these verses, which we’ve done. If you go back to our John series, we spent a lot of time explaining these verses, but the only reason I’m bringing them up now is just to demonstrate that the Spirit has to be at work for anybody to be convicted or to experience the conviction necessary to come to Christ and this work of the Spirit is predicted on a national scale in the tribulation period. God is going to re-gather Israel in unbelief and then He’s going to pour out His Spirit upon them. A parallel passage to this could be Joel, 2, verse 28 (Joel 2:28) where it says: It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh… And that’s speaking primarily of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit nationally and a whole nation, the nation of Israel is going to come to spiritual life. 15:38
You’ll notice that the Spirit here is called the Spirit of grace and that’s exactly what the nation of Israel is going to receive. Grace means unmerited favor. They have spent two thousand years as a nation having rejected their Messiah and if anybody will need grace, it will be them as God changes the nation from being a Christ rejecting nation to a Christ accepting nation and so it’s a tremendous thing that God is going to do for Israel yet future and if it were not for that grace they couldn’t be saved. Now, that’s not just true for Israel, it’s true for all of us, isn’t it? I mean, the only reason any of us have open spiritual eyes in salvation today is because God decided to grant to us grace, unmerited favor, favor that we don’t deserve. Ephesians, 2, verses 8 and 9 (Eph 2:8-9), you know those verses well, it says: For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest anyone should boast… So God has designed salvation in such a way that when you receive it, you receive it not on the basis of our own merit, but on the basis of grace which means no one can strut around in heaven, you know, proud as a peacock, because the only reason we’re there is because of the grace of God and you’ll notice there in verse 10 (Zech 12:10), he’s not only called the Spirit of grace, he’s called the Spirit of supplication. Supplication means to supply. God is going to supply a need. God is actually an expert in meeting our needs. Philippians, 4, verse 19 (Php 4:19) Paul says: And my God will supply all your needs… Not our greeds, by the way, but our needs… according to His riches in Christ Jesus… God knows what the need is and He’ll supply it and in this case, the primary need that Israel has, which is the primary need any human being has, is to be saved. Now, most of us are focused on our felt needs. You know, Lord, I need my next run month’s rent, I need my car paid off, I need this, I need that and those are what we would call felt needs. But God sees beyond our felt needs, He sees the real need that we have that we can’t necessarily feel all the time. That’s the need to have a right relationship with him. That’s our primary need as sinners and he’s in the business of supplying that need and that’s what the work of the Holy Spirit is going to do for Israel in the end times. You’ll also notice what’s going to happen when the Spirit is poured out on the nation. Zechariah writes in verse 10 (Zech 12:10): I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced… They’re going to figure out that their Messiah is Jesus Christ, who came two thousand years ago, who they betrayed by turning Him over to Rome to be pierced. The word piercing is very, very important because it’s way ahead of its time. If a human being had written this, it wouldn’t say pierced, because the Jews when they killed people, they stoned him to death. Leviticus, 24, verse 16 (Lev 24:16) if a man claims to be God, you will certainly stone him… Numbers 15:32-36: We found the man picking up sticks on the Sabbath. What should we do? Moses says, stone him with stones. Stone him to death with stones. When Jesus claimed to be God the Pharisees picked up rocks, John, 8, verses 58 and 59 (John 8:58-59) to throw them at Him. So it’s very clear as you go all the way through the Bible that the method of execution by the nation of Israel against people that they thought were false prophets was stoning and this verse, five hundred years in advance says that when the Messiah comes you will not stone Him to death, but you’re going to pierce Him. You find this described in Isaiah, 53, verse 5 (Isa 53:5), mentions the piercing of Christ seven hundred years in advance. But He was pierced through for our transgressions.
Psalm, 22, verse 16 (Psa 22:16) predicts this piercing a thousand years in advance, it says, they pierced my hands and my feet and here it is again five hundred years before it happens, it predicts His piercing. So my point is obviously this book was not written by a human being, if this was written by a normal human being, five hundred years before the time of Christ, it would have never predicted the piercing of the Messiah, it would have predicted Him being stoned to death at the hands of the Jews. But God knew what would happen. God knew that Rome would come to power about 63 BC and Rome would bring back to life a horrible form of capital punishment, which actually the Assyrians had invented. That’s the folks Jonah didn’t want to preach the grace of God to and you can see why. They were some of the most bloodthirsty diabolical people ever on planet earth and they’re the ones that came up with the crucifixion. Rome just reached back into history and said, you know, that’s a swell way to execute people. It’ll keep people in line, it will keep them afraid and so they started to take the criminals and nail them to a cross and obviously when you crucify someone, you put nails into the hands and feet and when you are crucified, as you probably know, you’re hanging there on the cross and you’re basically suffocating and to get more air, you you sort of push yourself up to get the next breath of air and so that’s why they would come in they would break the legs of the victims, the crucified victim, so that they would die faster. In the case of Jesus Christ he was already dead so His bones were not broken. That, by the way, fulfills another prophecy concerning the Passover Lamb, His bones should not be broken, and they took a spear and they thrusted it into His side. The later chapters of John’s gospel about John, 19, describes this and out of His side flowed blood and water, which medical authorities tell me is symptomatic of a ruptured heart. In other words, they knew He was dead. So Jesus was pierced through crucifixion, He was pierced in His hands, He was pierced in His feet. He also had the spear thrust into His side and that’s what Zechariah is predicting here, the Jewish Messiah is going to be pierced. So how could Zechariah have known of that form of capital punishment five hundred years roughly before it even came on the scene in the land of Israel? Well, the Holy Spirit knew, who gave Zechariah this vision, that eventually Rome would come to power and would implement crucifixion and that’s why it says here pierced, which is obviously prescient, way ahead of its time, because if a human being wrote this ,it would not say pierced because as I’ve tried to explain, the Jews when they killed people, they stoned them to death. There wasn’t necessarily piercing involved. So when you see something like this pierced in verse 10 (Zech 12:10), that’s a prediction five hundred years in advance of the crucifixion before the Jews even knew what it was. 25:09
Isaiah, 53, verse 5 (Isa 53:5) where it mentions piercing, that is a prophecy seven hundred years in advance about crucifixion before the Jews even knew what it was and when Psalm, 22, verse 16 (Psa 22:16) predicts that the Messiah would be pierced, that’s a prophecy of crucifixion a thousand years in advance before the Jews even knew what it was and so there are all these things that God has built into His word to show us that this book must be from God. God’s prophecies are literal and reliable and when it says pierced, that’s exactly how Jesus died. He was pierced, He was pierced in His hands, He was pierced His feet and He was pierced in His side, He was not stoned to death. Acts 2:23, Peter in his sermon on the day of Pentecost makes reference to this, he says: this Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you… That’s the Jewish leaders… nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death… In other words, you are the ones that turned Him over to Rome so that He could be pierced exactly like Bible prophecy demands. So verse 10a (Zech 12:10) is really a description of the Spirit’s work in the last days concerning the nation of Israel that will bring them to spiritual life.
Zechariah 12 (Israel’s Physical & Spiritual Salvation)
You go to the second half of verse 10 (Zech 12:10) and it talks about the result of coming to life spiritually. Verse 10, about the middle of the verse, it says: and they will mourn for Him… That’s Israel… as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn… So the prophecy is when the nation comes back to life, they’re just going to start sobbing, because they’re going to figure out that the antichrist is not their Messiah. Their Messiah actually came two thousand years ago and it’s going to be something that overwhelms them emotionally. So this is the consequence of coming to faith. It’s describing the consequence for the nation of Israel. Now, I want to bring this up because a lot of people will say, okay, if you’re a Christian you should have exerted emotion when you got saved and if you didn’t cry when you got saved, then you’re not a true Christian. So, it’s faith plus emotion equals salvation in their mindset and they’ll quote a verse like this that says, look Israel’s going to cry and the response to that is, yes! Israel will cry, but that’s not a requirement for everybody to get saved. This is a unique circumstance for Israel. The only requirement necessary to be saved is to believe. Lewis Sperry Chafer says:
Belief-God’s One Condition for Justification
“…because upwards of 150 passages of Scripture condition salvation upon believing only (cf. John 3:16; Acts 16:31).”
Lewis Sperry Chafer, vol. 7, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1993), 265-66.
Some of the more well-known ones are Genesis, 15, verse 6 (Gen 15:6) of Abraham. It says: Then Abraham believed in the Lord and he reckoned to him to righteousness; it doesn’t say Abraham believed and he cried. John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes and… Cries, no!… whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life… Acts, 16, verses 30 and 31 (Acts 16:30-31): Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Said the Philippian jailer… They Paul and Silas said, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved… It doesn’t say, believe and emote. Now if a person exhibits emotion when they get saved, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I know a lot of people where that happens. What we’re saying is that’s not a requirement and you can’t build a requirement out of this verse, because this verse is talking about a unique circumstance for national Israel, yet future. When they get saved, they will cry, but that’s not a requirement today in terms of proclamation and the reception of the gospel. 30:12
The New Testament uses the word repentance. Repentance, metanoeo means to change your mind. In other words, you hear the gospel, you shift your confidence away from your own human works on to Jesus. So your mind just changed, because your confidence changed. So when you believe, you automatically repent. When you repent, you automatically believe. The way the New Testament uses those words in terms of our justification, it uses those as synonyms. So people say, well, should we believe or should we repent? And the answer would be yes, because when you believe, in other words trusting Christ, you automatically change your mind, which is what the word repentance means. Meta, change, as in metastasize. Noeo, notion, things to come out of the mind. Metanoeo literally means to change your mind. So when we preach the gospel here, we don’t say, okay, first you need to believe, secondly you need to repent, thirdly you need to emote and the reason we don’t do that is because the New Testament gives one condition for justification, which is faith, rightly understood which is a synonym for believe, which is a synonym for repent, you changed your mind, you’re trusting in Christ. Now, if a person emotes and cries as you see on TV when the evangelist give the altar call, you see people, you know, sort of crying a river sometimes, that’s fine if you want to do that, if the Lord deals with you that way a lot of people cry a lot of people showed no emotion whatsoever. Emotion is not required, the only thing God requires is to believe, which is a synonym for repent. Israel will cry but it’s not required, it’s just describing something that they are going to do by way of prediction nationally in the last days and by the way, emotion, there’s an entirely different Greek word for that. It’s not metanoeo, it’s metamelomai. You recognize the word mellow. You tell someone to mellow out. Metamelomai means change of emotion. metamelomai is never used as a substitute for metanoeo. If God wanted to say you have to believe, then you have to repent, then you have to emote. He would have used the word metamelomai which He does not use. He just uses the word metanoeo. So I bring this up because a lot of people think they’re saved because they cried at some point. If you think you’re saved because you cried, then Judas himself was saved, right? Judas cried a river when he betrayed Christ. Matthew, 27, verses 3 through 5 (Matt 27:3-5) says: Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse… Matthew 27:3… and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood… So if crying and emoting means salvation, then Judas obviously went to heaven and we know that didn’t happen because Jesus of Judas said, it’ll be better for him if he’d never been born. So hell itself will be filled with people that cried, because crying doesn’t save anybody. It’s not a requirement for salvation. The only thing that’s required is to believe, which means trust, which is a synonym for repent and if a person happens to cry or emote, fine but that’s not any sort of requirement and Israel is going to cry but that’s not required of them to be saved. What’s required of them to be saved is to believe. They, nationally will cry but that is not a requirement. So we try to teach this in a way where people won’t be confused as to what is necessary for salvation. The tracts we put on the rack out there, we work very hard at trying to keep the gospel simple. Most gospel tracts will tell you that you’re saved by grace through faith and then you keep reading the tract and it’ll give you four works you got to do also. Well, you need to cry, you need to, you know, emote, there’s got to be some remorse, there’s got to be this, there’s got to be that, all of that is just false teaching. The only thing necessary is to trust in the Messiah. The Bible says that, what did Chafer say? Over a hundred and fifty times and when you trust in the Messiah, your mind automatically just changed and so you repented simultaneously, that and that alone is what saves a person. Emoting is nice and it can happen but it’s not a requirement. Israel is going to emote as we see here but that’s not a requirement. 36:12
So they will emote though and they’re going to emote as one mourns for an only son, as one mourns for a firstborn. The whole nation is going to start to sob, because they’re going to recognize they’ve spent all of these two thousand years away from their true Messiah Jesus who they rejected two thousand years ago. When in fact, their Messiah was that man Jesus Christ. Now the story in the Bible that typifies all of this is the Joseph story. Joseph’s brothers betrayed him, left him for dead and then his brothers were reunited with Joseph once he was second in command in Egypt. So they rejected him the first time, they received him the second time and when they received him the second time there is lots of sobbing and weeping in the Joseph story. Genesis, 50, verse 20 (Gen 50:20) it says of the brothers: …you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good… Genesis, 45, verse 14 (Gen 45:14) says: …Benjamin wept on his neck… Genesis, 46, verse 29 (Gen 46:29) says, Israel, the father Israel: …as soon as he appeared before him, he fell on his neck and wept on his neck a long time… So they rejected Joseph when he was 17. But when he, at the age of 30, was elevated to second in command of Egypt and they recognized who he was, they embraced him, they accepted him and when they accepted him, there was a lot of crying going on. That’s a type of future Israel. Two thousand years ago the nation rejected Jesus but when in the tribulation period and the spirit of God opens their eyes, they accept Jesus, not at His first coming but at His second coming, just like the Joseph story, the nation will sob uncontrollably. They will sob as one mourns for a first born and you move from there into verse 11 (Zech 12:11) and it says: In that day there will be great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddo… Now, this is a story that goes all the way back to 2nd Chronicles chapter 35, verses 22 through 27 (2 Chr 35:22-27) and it deals with the death of Josiah, one of the last godly kings of the nation, and when he died in this valley Hadadrimmon, there was great weeping. So, Charles Feinberg says:
Charles L. Feinberg – God Remembers: A Study of Zechariah (Wheaton: Van Kampen, 1950, p. 223.
“The mourning of Hadadrimmon…in the valley of Megiddo was on the occasion of the slaying of the godly King Josiah by Pharaoh-Necho of Egypt…[2 Chronicles 35:22-27]. The Chronicles passage reveals how great was the lamentation over the king. And rightly so, for ‘this was the greatest sorrow, which had fallen on Judah. Josiah was the last hope of its declining kingdom…In Josiah’s death the last gleam of the sunset of Judah faded into night.’”
So that was their last godly king and when he died, everybody just wept uncontrollably and Zechariah says, when the nation through the work of the Holy Spirit understands that their Messiah came two thousand years ago in the person of Jesus Christ, the crying and the mourning that they’re going to experience will be on par with the mourning and crying of the nation at the death of Josiah. There’s sort of a parallel here in the valley of the Hadadrimmon and it talks about the plain of Megiddo. That’s the valley of Har-Magedon where the final conflict is going to take place in human history and you’ll see a description of that in the book of Revelation chapter 16, verse 16 (Rev 16:16) it says: they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon… Har means mountain and magedon means Megiddo and so when it mentions there, the plain of Megiddo, nearby mount Megiddo, it’s talking about this same final conflict at the end of human history. 41:42
So as this great conflict is taking place that we call Har-Magedon, the nation is having their eyes opened and they’re recognizing that their Messiah was actually Jesus Christ who they rejected all of these two thousand years and the whole nation just starts to weep uncontrollably. Just like Joseph brothers wept when they were reunited with Joseph, when they saw him a second time after they had rejected him and threw him in the pit and left him for dead at the age of 17. So mount Megiddo or the plain of Megiddo is a very real place. So you’ll notice how real and literal all of these things are, Hadadrimmon was real, Josiah was real, Megiddo is real, the piercing is real of Jesus and so you look at this and it’s quite obvious that you can’t just treat everything like a symbol. These are real people, real geographical places and then we go to verses 12 and 13 (Zech 12:12-13) and it says: The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves… So this is describing a national revival. So you notice that all the families are going to mourn as the Spirit of God opens their eyes to the reality of Jesus Christ. So essentially, the mourners are going to be the greatest in the nation to the least. You’ll notice that the house of David is going to mourn. The house of David represents the kings, those in a position of regal authority over the nation. David is king is spoken of in 2nd Samuel, 7, verse 16 (2 Sam 7:16) and that’s talking about the fact that the kings are going to mourn. Notice also that the house of Nathan is going to mourn. Who was Nathan? Nathan was the prophet that confronted David. You can read his story in 2nd Samuel, 7, verse 17 (2 Sam 7:17), 2nd Samuel, 12, verse 7 (2 Sam 12:7). So when it says Nathan is going to mourn, it means that the prophets are going to be mourning. The kings are going to mourn, the prophets are going to mourn. Who else is going to mourn? Levi is going to mourn. What tribe did the priests come from? Levi, and then it talks about the Shimeites are going to mourn. Well, who are the Shimeites? Those are non-priestly Levites. So to be a priest in Old Testament Israel, you had to be a descendant not only of Levi, from the tribe of Levi, and we’re not talking about Levi jeans, right? It’s a tribe, you had to be from the tribe of Levi and you had to be a descendant of the high priest Aaron. Only if those true criteria are met does someone qualifies as a priest. But what do you do if you’re a Levite but you’re not a descendant of Aaron? Then you’re just called an ordinary Levite, a non-priestly Levite and in Numbers, 3, verse 21 (Num 3:21) the Shimeites were in that category. So this mourning is going to be so intense, it’s going to cover the kings, it’s going to cover the prophets, it’s going to cover the priests and it’s even going to be experienced by those from the tribe of Levi that were ordinary Levites and weren’t necessarily priests and we’ll see if our clock works here. 46:26
Alright! So that, what does that mean? That means that on our conference on Saturday the speaker is supposed to stop, right? But that’s not what it means tonight. That just means I’ve got 15 minutes left. Can I get an amen on that? Alright! Who else is going to mourn? The wives are going to mourn. So the wives of the kings, the wives of the prophets, the wives of the priests, the wives of the Levites who are not priests, they’re going to mourn as well. You see how comprehensive this revival is going to be? And then you just notice the repetition of this phrase “Every family will mourn by itself”. The family of David by itself, their wives by themselves, Nathan by itself, their wives by themselves. The family of the house of Levi by itself, wives by themselves, the Shimeites by itself, wives by themselves. So why does it keeps saying “by the itself”, “by themselves”? It’s talking about individual revival, which is what true revival is. A true revival is when individuals become revived and that sort of has a spillover effect if it’s a large quantity of people. I mean, if a whole bunch of people start getting saved individually and the culture is blessed because of it, you’re in the middle of a revival because the way God does revival is He starts with the individual. So all of these individuals are going to be revived and as they’re revived, their houses are going to be revived cause everybody in the house is saved and as the house is revived, the city is revived and as the city is revived, the tribes are revived and as the tribe are revived, the whole nation is revived so revival is not one of these things that’s a top down situation were everybody’s forced to conform to something. The way revival works is every individual gets saved and starts to live for God and that’s going to happen with every single Israelite and by the time you get to the end product the whole nation is saved but God didn’t start with the whole nation. He started with each individual Hebrew. He started with each individual Jew. That’s why it keeps saying “by itself”, “by themselves”. So the kings are revived and the king goes home and says to his wife, Hey honey! Guess what? I’m revived and she says, well, that’s great, cause I just got revived myself. Well! Let’s go tell the kids, and the kids say, hey mom and dad! That’s great, cause we already got revived. So all of these individuals are getting revived, which leads to a national revival. I don’t know of any nation that has ever experienced something like this, but this is what Zechariah is predicting for the nation of Israel in the last days and that’s why keeps mentioning the Spirit, only the Holy Spirit can do this. Only the Holy Spirit can open people’s eyes and minds like this. So you can’t do it through creative oratory, you can’t do it by taking over social media, you can’t do it by getting on every single radio and television channel on planet earth, you can’t do it by writing bestselling books. Now, don’t get me wrong, the Holy Spirit can use those things but those things don’t cause revival. What causes revival is the work of the Holy Spirit and we just have never seen it happen to a whole country and yet this is what God has in store for Israel. When God protects Israel from her physical enemies, you can see His agenda is much bigger than just doing that. You know, we’re all impressed with that and that’s a wonderful thing when Israel wins wars against overwhelming odds but that’s just small potatoes as far as God is concerned. He doesn’t want to just physically protect His people, He wants to spiritually regenerate the whole nation, starting with each individual Jew to the point where the whole nation is saved. So this is really a comprehensive statement. When is this going to happen? Paul says in Romans 11:25-26: For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery— so that you will not be wise in your own estimation— that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in… So right now Israel is in a state of blindness, temporary blindness, because God is at work through the Gentiles, primarily. But her state of blindness is partial and it will last until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. In other words, when the very last Gentile destined to be reached in the church age has been reached, God says, that’s it, the church is then translated to heaven via the rapture and God now puts His hand back on national Israel to bring the whole nation the faith. To physically protect them and to bring the whole nation to faith and that’s why verse 26 says: and so all Israel will be saved… not might… just as it is written, THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB… So this is a comprehensive revival and it’s sort of encouraging because as you study the Old Testament, there are statements of their comprehensive wickedness all of the time. Jeremiah 5:31 says: The prophets prophesy falsely, And the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so! But what will you do at the end of it?… In other words, the prophets are corrupt, the priests are corrupt and the people put up with it because they’re corrupt and when you look at other passages of scripture like Ezekiel, 22, verses 23 through 31 (Ezek 22:23-31) it says, the princes are corrupt, the priests are corrupt, the officials are corrupt, the prophets are corrupt and the people are corrupt and you read these statements of comprehensive wickedness over Israel and it’s so encouraging to read something like this here in Zechariah, 12, verses 12 and 13 (Zech 12:12-13) which says, by contrast one day, the prophets will be saved, the kings will be saved, the priests will be saved, the ordinary Levites will be saved, all of their wives will be saved, all of their families will be saved, the whole nation will be saved. So comprehensive wickedness in Israel’s future is going to be replaced with comprehensive salvation. 54:37
One more verse and by the way, there’s a slide that shows you the comprehensive revival that’s spoken of here.
When it talks about David, it says the kings will be saved; Nathan, the prophets will be saved; Levi, the priest will be saved; Shimeites, the ordinary Levites and citizens will be saved and then look at verse 14 (Zech 12:14) the very last verse, it says: all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves… Family saved, wives saved and the family unit is saved because everybody in the household is saved. Now, does that mean that every single Jew on planet earth that has ever existed will get saved in the end? Because after all Paul says, all Israel will be saved. So a lot of people have this view that every Jew you get saved, but look at the end there at verse 14, actually the beginning verse 14: All the families that… what?… remained… So the Bible is not saying every single Hebrew on planet earth in the tribulation will be saved, what it’s saying is, those that remain will be saved. That is a hint into what is coming in the next chapter. Zechariah, 13, verses 8 and 9 (Zech 13:8-9) which predicts that two thirds of the Jews will be killed. Zechariah, 13, verses 8 and 9 (Zech 13:8-9) says: It will come about in all the land, Declares the LORD, That two parts in it will be cut off and perish; But the third will be left in it. And I will bring the third part through the fire, Refine them as silver is refined, And test them as gold is tested. They will call on My name, And I will answer them; I will say, They are My people, And they will say, The LORD is my God… So you’ll notice the Bible here is not predicting every single Hebrew in the tribulation period will be saved. In fact, it’s predicting the two thirds of the Jewish population is going to be wiped out in the events of the tribulation. But the third that remains, all will be believers. In other words, by the time you get to the end of the tribulation period every single living Hebrew on planet earth will be born again, they’ll be in faith and so when Paul says, all Israel will be saved, he’s obviously not talking about every single Hebrew that’s ever existed. He’s talking about this remnant that Zechariah is predicting here and so when it says, the families that remain, they’re the ones that experienced salvation and that becomes a natural segue way into the next chapter which tells you exactly who’s going to remain, one third will remain and this is the whole point of Jacob’s trouble, which is the tribulation. The tribulation is for the salvation of the Jewish nation. It’s to kill off the two thirds of unbelievers and to protect the remnant of one third and bring that one third to saving faith. Jeremiah, 30, verse 7 (Jer 30:7) says: Alas! for that day is great, There is none like it; And it is the time of Jacob’s distress, But he… That’s Jacob… will be saved from it. So we’re going to see more on that in the next chapter. 58:56
Zechariah 12 (Israel’s Physical & Spiritual Salvation)
So it’s a wonderful chapter here chapter 12, the physical salvation and spiritual salvation of the nation, but it’s not going to be an easy road, because it’s going to result in an eradication of two thirds of the Jewish population and no unbelieving Jew wants to hear this, because the mantra in Judaism is never again. Hitler as you know, killed a third of the Jews, the Holocaust and what they say is that will never happen again, we will never allow that to happen again, never again. What the Bible is saying is it will happen again and it’ll be worse. It will not be a third, it will be two thirds and yet this is what God has to use to bring His nation to faith and so it’s just tempting to read these things and think, oh smooth sailing! It’s not smooth sailing at all, you’re dealing with a time period of tremendous spiritual warfare, yet future for the nation of Israel and so we’ll look at that spiritual warfare, Lord willing if the rapture doesn’t happen first, next week in chapter 13. But there’s good news at the end because the third will be saved and that will lead to the kingdom and you get a description of the wonderful millennial kingdom in chapter 14, which then ends the book. Alright! I’m finished talking. I’m over time by 15 minutes according to that…