Now if you would, take your copy of God’s Word and turn to Zechariah chapter 14. At one point last Lord’s Day Evening I think when we were looking at the very last verse of chapter 13 where God said, “Call on My name and I’ll answer you,” I made the comment that there are many complex portions of Scripture, not least among them in the book of Zechariah, this is not one of them. And then I turned to begin to prepare to preach on Zechariah 14 and realized this is one of them! And so we’re going to ask for God’s help as we pray. We’re going to be reading verses 1 through 11 of chapter 14. Before we do, let’s turn and cry out to God for His assistance. Let us pray.
Our Father, the Holy Spirit had these words penned. Holy men were carried along by the Holy Spirit and these words are the product of His gracious work so that ‘though the secret things belong unto the Lord, what has been revealed belongs to us and to our children.’ Here is Your Word. Here is Your mind disclosed to us. And though there are complexities and difficulties and our own understandings are darkened and prone to misunderstand, we cry to You that the Spirit by whom these words came to be written would come and work on us that in His illuminating ministry we might see the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, be enabled to trust Him and rest on Him and live for Him and give our lives in His praise and in His service. So we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Zechariah 14, reading from verse 1 through verse 11. This is the Word of Almighty God:
“Behold, a day is coming for the LORD, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the Mount shall move northward, and the other half southward. And you shall flee to the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD my God will come, and all the holy ones with him.
On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost. And there shall be a unique day, which is known to the LORD, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light.
On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one.
The whole land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. But Jerusalem shall remain aloft on its site from the Gate of Benjamin to the place of the former gate, to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses. And it shall be inhabited, for there shall never again be a decree of utter destruction. Jerusalem shall dwell in security.”
Amen, and we bless the Lord that He has spoken to us in His holy and inerrant Word.
Certain Knowledge of the Future and Curbed Anxiety?
Sometimes uncertainty about the future holds us back, doesn’t it? Have you ever found that? Uncertainty about the future – we don’t know how we will perform in our finals. Anxiety takes hold; our fears become a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy then, don’t they, as the paralysis of worry sets in? We’ve been hurt in the past; we don’t know if this new relationship is going to work out. Trust comes slow and hard and so rather than risk disappointment we preemptively sabotage the relationship. We are unsure about how our kids will turn out and in our uncertainty our parenting strategy becomes fear-based rather than faith-based. We parent from mistrust and insecurity leaving our children feeling stifled and controlled, sometimes with the tragic result of the very thing we sought to avoid takes place and our children rebel. Uncertainty about the future exerts an enormous influence, or it can, on our present thoughts and attitudes and actions, doesn’t it?
Imagine for a moment though how it would be, how it would be to sit final exams or attend a job interview or build a relationship or parent our children, imagine how it would dispel fear, evaporate hesitation, if we knew for sure that our efforts would result in success. Wouldn’t that change things? It would change everything if we knew it was all going to be okay in the end, right? And if that’s true, imagine with me how it would leave nothing unaffected, no area of life or work or play or family, no thought, no plans, nothing would be unaffected if we knew how the whole of history itself was going to turn out in the end. You know I rather suspect that some of us are not at all sure if we really believe the Christian Gospel, if we can really buy into the Christian vision of the world. And so truth be told, we are neither here nor there. We are attracted perhaps to Jesus; maybe we find the Christian ethic compelling – humility, sacrifice, loving service and so on. And yet at the same time we find ourselves loving the world. It offers, after all, immediate gratification – no strings, no need for guilt. It’s values are shaped by lust and pride and greed and self-interest and whatever else they are, they are much easier to live by than love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
But if you knew how it was all going to end, wouldn’t that help you come off the fence if you knew how it was all going to end? If you knew how history would play out at its conclusion? If you could see the end from our vantage point here in the middle of everything? Wouldn’t you think differently about how you’re responding to Jesus and to His Gospel? Uncertainty about the future exerts a tremendous influence on our present actions. We hedge and we dodge and we procrastinate. We get trapped in indecision. We’re overcome sometimes with fear. But it doesn’t have to be that way, at least not as far as the big picture is concerned; it doesn’t have to be that way. We can know how the end will come. We can know how history will conclude. That is the message of Zechariah 14; understanding it really ought to change everything for us, though, granted understanding it is the trick. But understanding it should dispel fear and help us begin to live in trust and in confidence and perhaps, for some of us, even help us off the fence and begin to buy in, as it were, to the truths of the Christian Gospel.
Zechariah: Certain Knowledge of the Future and the Reigning King
The prophet Zechariah has been encouraging those who came back out of exile in Babylon to the ruined and embattled city of Jerusalem, he’s encouraging them in the rebuilding and resettlement of their home. And much of his encouragement, at least in the second half of his book from chapter 8 onwards, has turned his hearers gaze not to the very end of history but to the middle of it. He points his generation to Messiah, the Shepherd-King who was then to come. He points to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His cross and he explains how to live in the light of His coming. But now as we reach at last the final chapter of his book, this week and next week God willing, we’ll see him lift the gaze of the returned exiles of Jerusalem and our gaze along with them, to a more distant horizon. He points to the conclusion of all time, all history. Zechariah wants to help you down off the fence this evening to bend your knee to the Lord Jesus Christ in view of what he has to tell us about how it’s all going to end.
I want to focus with you on the portion of the chapter we read together, verses 1 to 11, and we’ll come back next time to the remainder of the chapter. Let’s take a look at the text please. The events here unfold in three great movements. In verses 1 to 5, our focus is on the return of Christ; the return of Christ. Then in 6 to 8, the renewal of creation. And then in 9 to 11, the restored city. The return of Christ. The renewal of creation. The restoration of the city.
I. The Return of Christ
Look at verses 1 to 5 first of all – the return of Christ. The scene that opens in verses 1 and 2 is frankly devastating, terrible, disturbing. Jerusalem, the city of God, the church is overwhelmed by the brutality of the nations. Their goods are despoiled, their houses plundered, their women abused and a new exile is imposed. If you were among Zechariah’s original hearers this would have been a profoundly distressing message to hear. Your grandparents remembered what it would have been like when Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed Jerusalem and sent the population off into bondage and now the prophet Zechariah is speaking about another defeat and another exile to come. “A remnant will remain” verse 2 – that would have been small comfort. All in all this would have begun as a deeply disappointing message. And yet as we saw last time, Zechariah does want the church to have appropriate expectations as it faces the future. Here is the world’s final response to God’s Jerusalem, the church of Jesus Christ. It is rejection, opposition, hostility, violence, exclusion, exile. There have been, haven’t there, there’ve been wonderful seasons of influence and revival and Gospel progress in the history of the worldwide church. And we have grounds, I’m persuaded, to look for still more to come. And yet we ought not to imagine that the world will ever turn wholesale to the Lord Jesus and to His church. The world hates Christ, hates Christianity, hates Christians. We are seeing even in our own cultural context today, are we not, evidences of that great fact.
The Mount of Olives and the End of Exile
But look at verse 3. Just as the clouds of suffering and persecution seem almost to blot out all hope entirely, just then the light pierces the darkness. At the high water mark of worldly opposition, just then “the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle.” Here is the Lord our Warrior God, the rage of the world will in the end dash itself to pieces like waves breaking on the rock of divine wrath and justice when He comes in the end to judge. And verses 4 and 5 tell us more about that day, albeit rather obscurely. Verse 4, we learn the Lord God will stand on the Mount of Olives, He will split the mountain in two to make a valley into which, verse 5, God’s people will flee and find safety. References made to an earthquake that occurred during the reign of King Uzziah in the middle of the 8th century BC, the cataclysm that will occur when the Lord comes to destroy His enemies and defend His church will be like that earthquake, still living in the memory of God’s people when Zechariah wrote only on a much larger scale. And like Uzziah’s earthquake, the people of God will flee and they will find a way of escape.
The imagery Zechariah is using is what is called apocalyptic imagery. That means it is using natural phenomena – mountains splitting, a great ravine forming – using natural phenomena as a kind of code not to tell us about the topographical effects of the Last Day as though geography would be the object of our attention when God comes to judge. No, Zechariah is not really interested and doesn’t really want us to be interested in the seismic effects of the end of the world. That’s not the point at all. He wants us to understand, listen, he wants us to grasp simply that God will move heaven and earth to protect and keep safe His people. That’s the point. In graphic, powerful, concrete imagery here, God will move heaven and earth to protect and make a safe way for His people. Not that we should look for the Mount of Olives to literally split in half someday but rather that the presence of God in the last day enlists the very fabric of creation itself in the defense and preservation of the church, even amidst the worst opposition and hostility and violence of the world. And yet that the Mount of Olives is mentioned so specifically here is nevertheless important, I think. According to Ezekiel 11:23, at the first exile when the captives were taken away into Babylon the glory of the Lord departed from the temple in Jerusalem and Ezekiel says, “It stood on the mountain on the east of the city,” that is, the Mount of Olives. Here in Zechariah 14 the message is that the Lord who departed from this mountain has now, at long last, returned to His people and He will never leave them again.
The Mount of Olives, of course, if you’ll remember was the site of much of our Lord Jesus’ own public ministry during the days of His first coming. And it was from this very mountain, according to Acts 1 and verse 12, that He ascended into heaven. Here the astonished disciples were reminded that Jesus would return in the same way in which He departed and in verses 4 and 5 of Zechariah 14 we really are simply being pointed to that very same moment when all exile will be over, all opposition undone. “Then the Lord my God will come,” Zechariah says. Notice that he interjects there personally – “The Lord my God,” as if he can’t contain his joy at the prospect. “Then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him.” He will come back just as he went away. His feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives once more. At the close of history, every eye shall see Him, justice will be done; the angels will be with Him. The saints who’ve gone before us will be with Him and they’ll be joined by the whole church that remains, still suffering on earth, only now at last triumphant taking its place in Christ’s victory procession.
Eyes Fixed on the Horizon: Yearning for the Return of Jesus
While I was back in Scotland a few weeks ago I did all the driving as we went on excursions. And after one outing my father-in-law who was in the car behind us noticed that my driving position on the road was occasionally too close to the curb. I hadn’t yet gotten used to driving on the correct side of the road again and so my road position was sometimes a little off! And so his advice to me was valuable. He was a driving instructor before he retired and actually he helped in a couple of lessons – never have your father-in-law teach you to drive! But he helped me a few times and taught me. And I remember him giving me the same advice when I was learning to drive. “Don’t look at the road immediately in front of you,” he reminded me. “Look ahead to where you are going. Look to the horizon line and the car will follow your eye.” And I think Zechariah is saying something similar to us. Maybe you’ve gotten out of position. Maybe you’re veering dangerously off course in your Christian life. And it may be because your eyes are fixed only on the road immediately in front of you, on your circumstances right here and right now. You need to look much further ahead. You need to look at the horizon line and the trajectory of your life will follow your gaze. If you’re looking only at your immediate context, your immediate circumstances, you will find yourself dangerously out of position. And if you look to the horizon, Jesus is coming back – remember? Jesus is coming back. One day justice will be done. One day everything sad will come untrue. One day everything will be put to rights. One day every wound will be healed and every tear wiped from your eyes. Jesus is coming back. Look to the horizon line and you’ll find that your position on the road is corrected. You’ll find yourself avoiding the obstacles along the way as you begin to remember the end is coming, Christ will come soon, and He will preserve you and keep you until that day.
When was the last time you thought much about Jesus coming back? Have you become so overwhelmed by yesterday and today and tomorrow that you’ve not lifted your eyes to the horizon line for a while? Maybe Zechariah is saying to you tonight you need to lift your gaze and look to the limits of your vision and remember the final end when Christ’s victory will be revealed. And cling to Him and trust in Him and remember His promise and live in its light – the return of Christ.
II. The Renewal of Creation
Then secondly notice here also the renewal of creation. When Jesus returns it is not just the putting to rights the wrongs and injustices of an evil world that will take place; the cosmos itself will respond to the advent of the exalted Christ in a radical renovation. Look at verses 6 and 7 first of all. “On that day there shall be no light, cold, or frost,” Zechariah says. That last phrase is really very difficult in Hebrew and many scholars think it should be translated quite differently than we have it in our version. Even our footnote, which is of no real help to us says, “The Hebrew is unsure,” which is scholarly language for, “I don’t know!” But here I think is probably a better translation. Verse 6, “On that day there shall be no light; the precious ones,” meaning the stars, “will congeal,” or will grow dim. “The stars will cease to give their light at the coming of the Lord.” Isaiah 13:10 – “For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shed its light.” Joel 13:15 – “The sun and the moon are darkened and the stars withdraw their shining.” Matthew 24:29 – “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”
New Heavens and Earth: Images of New Creation in Eden, Temple, and City
As Christ’s advent dawns, creation itself will undergo an astonishing upheaval. “And then shall come a unique day,” verse 7 – a singular, unprecedented day, standing all on its own in history. A day known only to the Lord when a new light will dawn. No longer night and day because there will no longer be sun or moon. But in evening time there will be light. Creation itself is being remade here. Remember back in Genesis chapter 1 the light was made first and then the heavenly bodies, the sun and the moon and the stars? Well here in new creation, a new heavens and a new earth, there is light once more but there are no heavenly bodies because Revelation 21:23, “The city has no need of a sun or moon to shine on it for the glory of God gives it light and its lamp is the Lamb.” Also redolent of the original creation in which a river flows from Eden, so here, verse 8, a mighty river runs. In Ezekiel 47 the prophet Ezekiel foresaw a day when from a renewed temple a river of living water, of life giving water, would flow with such potency that when it reaches the Dead Sea it will turn the salt water to fresh water and it will teem with life. The temple to come in Ezekiel’s vision would be a kind of Eden restored, a sanctuary in which God would once again meet with His people. And Zechariah here is taking up the very same theme, only now it’s not a temple; it’s a new city, a new Jerusalem from which this life giving river flows.
And all of these images – Eden and temple and city – they combine, don’t they, in the book of Revelation? They’re really just complementary descriptions of the new heavens and the new earth that will come when Jesus returns. Revelation 22 verses 1 and 2 – “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. Also on either side of the river the tree of life, with its twelve kind of fruit yielding its fruit each month; the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” God is going to make creation new one day. When Jesus comes back everything will be turned upside-down and made over. Death and decay will be excluded. The world will be full of light and life and at its center will be the presence of Jesus Christ, the throne of God and of the Lamb, from whose throne both light and the river of life will flow. And all existence, everything, will find itself newly centered on Him. He will be, as it were, our sun and our moon. He will be the unending fountain of soul-satisfying living water. Everything in that newly created order will be so configured that its very constitution will proclaim its complete dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ.
A Taste of the New Creation Now
But you know what’s astonishing about all of this is that Jesus told us we can begin to taste something of that glorious coming reality here and now ahead of time. It’s one of the ways that you know it’s coming is that you get to taste the reality in advance. John 4 and verse 10 – “Whoever believes in me as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” The river of life, you know, is already running, already flowing to believing hearts. The New Jerusalem, under construction here, already has the life giving supply of grace flowing from the throne of the Lamb, the Lord Jesus Christ, to every heart that trusts Him. He can be so thirst-quenching. As He will be perfectly to all who dwell with Him in glory He can be so now, here, for you. Living water flows from Him, available to all who would but come to the well of salvation and draw water. Come to the fountain and drink. Come to Jesus. Here! The Lamb who has already won and triumphed and already reigns, who is building the New Jerusalem, His church, and is coming back to take us home to be with Him forever. The water of life is already running, already flowing. Come and drink to the infinite satisfaction of your heart. The return of Christ, the renewal of creation – a renewal you get to glimpse and taste and even participate in ahead of time.
III. The Restoration of the City
And then finally and briefly – the restoration of the city. Look at verses 10 and 11. There’s another cataclysmic reordering of the landscape only this time Zechariah’s point is not that God is providing an escape route for a suffering church, no, no, this time it is to demonstrate the absolute security and supremacy of that church now that the Lamb has won His final victory. All the hills are leveled and the landscape all around becomes a great plain. There is only one promontory, only one elevated place. It is the New Jerusalem. Every eye can see it; it is utterly secure. It will be filled, verse 11, with citizens and there will never again be a decree of destruction. Or as Revelation 22 and verse 3 translates that Hebrew word, “Nothing accursed will ever enter it.” There will be no more curse. It will dwell, the church, the people of God, will dwell in complete, unending security; peace. Never another division. Never another moment’s tension. Never another day when between believing hearts there’s friction. Peace. Security. Unity. “Jerusalem,” the end of verse 11, “Jerusalem shall dwell in security.” That is what heaven will mean, wonderfully – unending, perfect security.
And why? Why is it like that? Why will it be so safe? So peaceful? Verse 9 is the reason. “The Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.” He’s King now of course. Deuteronomy 6:4 declares, “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” He is one already but Zechariah is saying His reign, His unique claim to be God alone will on that day at last be uncontested, unrivaled. All false gods will be brought low. All empty religion will cease. Every idol will be shattered and God will reign in Christ by the Spirit forever. One God, world without end, amen and amen! And because He will reign uncontested, unrivaled, because His victory will be absolute and total and complete, every child of His will rest secure – unmolested and undisturbed – in endless joy face to face with their Savior.
The Death of Fear in the Sure Victory of Christ
Fear dies when you know that victory is assured. Anxiety withers when you know your destiny is secure. The people of Zechariah’s day lived in a city that still bore the evidence of its profound political and military insecurity. They still faced opposition, false religion, deep discouragement, division, and so the prophet shows them and he shows us how it’s all going to turn out in the end. He shows us the perfect victory of the Lamb. He shows us the complete security of the people of God. And he shows us the perfect justice of God on the nations. Maybe some of us need to meditate more on heaven’s eternal joys than we have been. It will help act as an antidote to this world of sin and misery. It may help dispel life’s temporary fears to remember you are not the president and king of your own life. You do not preside over your own destiny and your security does not rest in your hands – not today and not tomorrow and not for eternity. You rest utterly secure in the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ and Zechariah wants to lift our eyes to the horizon line to remind us of that so that our road position might be corrected and we might make our journey safely home. Will you pray with me?
O Lord, we do confess that we often take our eyes from Jesus and our road position veers dangerously. Would You rivet our gaze upon Him, His victory, His triumph, His coming soon? How we long for that day. We pray with the apostle John, ‘Even so, come Lord Jesus!’ While we wait give us grace to keep our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross and scorned its shame and sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Help us to consider Him who endured such opposition from sinful men that we may not grow weary and lose heart but run our own races, make our own journeys, with perseverance, with a road position that keeps us safe on the journey all the way to journey’s end. And so hear us, comfort us, encourage us. Help us to find our security not in our own strength and wisdom but in the victory of the Lamb. For we ask this in His name, amen.