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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord
came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, the month of Kislev. The
people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-Melek, together with their men, to
entreat the Lord by asking the priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and
the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for
so many years?”
Then the word of the Lord Almighty came to me: “Ask all
the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the
fifth and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for Me that
you fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting
for yourselves? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier
prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous,
and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’”
And the word of the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This
is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true justice; show mercy and
compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the
foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.’”
“But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they
turned their backs and covered their ears. They made their hearts as hard as
flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty
had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the Lord Almighty was
very angry.”
“‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they
called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘I scattered them with a
whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left
behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they
made the pleasant land desolate.’”
Zechariah 7
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks
be to God.
Author George Santayana wrote
these words in his book, “The Life of Reason”, published in 1905:
“Those who cannot remember the
past are condemned to repeat it.”
The words have evolved through
the years to where we maybe most often here them in a statement similar to this
one:
“Those who fail to learn from
the mistakes of the past are destined to repeat them.”
It was this latter premise
that we find at the heart of Zechariah, chapter 7 as we continue our study of
this next to last book in the Old Testament. Look at the words of this chapter
again here and see if you can see the Lord sending the following message to His
people:
“Change your ways.”
In the fourth year
of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the
ninth month, the month of Kislev. The people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and
Regem-Melek, together with their men, to entreat the Lord by asking the priests
of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets, “Should I mourn and fast in
the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”
Then the word of
the Lord Almighty came to me: “Ask all the people of the land and the priests,
‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months for the past
seventy years, was it really for Me that you fasted? And when you were eating
and drinking, were you not just feasting for yourselves? Are these not the
words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier prophets when Jerusalem and its
surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous, and the Negev and the western
foothills were settled?’”
And the word of
the Lord came again to Zechariah: “This is what the Lord Almighty said:
‘Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not
oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot
evil against each other.’”
“But they refused
to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. They
made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the
words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier
prophets. So the Lord Almighty was very angry.”
“‘When I called,
they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord
Almighty. ‘I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they
were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one
traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.’” Zechariah 7
At the start of this book, we
were given the following time reference:
On the
twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second
year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, son of
Berekiah, the son of Iddo. Zechariah 1:7
Using this as a starting point
for the eight visions Zechariah experienced, we can see that we have moved
forward in time as the seventh chapter begins to the ninth month of the fourth year
of the reign of Darius. Thus, we can
ascertain that we are just under two years beyond the time of the visions when
the word of the Lord comes to Zechariah in this passage.
We know that the Israelites
had returned from their Babylonian captivity at this point and were in the
process of rebuilding their nation, their homes, the temple of God in
Jerusalem, and their relationship with God. It was in this setting that we find
the people of Bethel sending representatives to inquire of the Lord through the
“priests of the house of the Lord Almighty and the prophets” which included
Zechariah. Essentially, they had one question:
“Should I mourn and fast in the fifth month, as I have done for so many
years?”
Well, we find the Lord answering this question through
Zechariah saying:
“Ask all the
people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth
and seventh months for the past seventy years, was it really for Me that you
fasted? And when you were eating and drinking, were you not just feasting for
yourselves? Are these not the words the Lord proclaimed through the earlier
prophets when Jerusalem and its surrounding towns were at rest and prosperous,
and the Negev and the western foothills were settled?’”
Note here that the Lord was getting straight to the heart
of a severe spiritual problem existing within the hearts of the Israelites. For
the fasts and feasts the people had been practicing during the seventy years of
exile weren’t really done in honor of the Lord. Rather, they had been conducted
self-centeredly and selfishly, just like they had been done before the
captivity began. Thus, God was telling His people they had not yet learned
anything from the mistakes of their ancestors because they were repeating the
same transgressions. They had shown God through their actions that they had not
yet changed their ways.
This is why God became “very angry” and sent judgment on
His beloved people, because they “refused to pay attention”, stubbornly “turned
their backs and covered their ears, “made their hearts as hard as flint”, and “would
not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his
Spirit through the earlier prophets.” In the midst of their punishment, the
Israelites called out to God in the midst of their hardship but their cries
fell on deaf ears as the Lord refused to listen as He saw to it that His people
were “scattered” with a “whirlwind among all the nations” where they would be “strangers”,
aliens exiled to foreign lands leaving their homeland abandoned and desolate.
Now, the Israelites had been allowed to return and the
Lord expected that they would change their ways, setting standards for conduct
to that end. Look at what He called on His people to do through His messenger,
Zechariah:
“This is what the Lord Almighty said: ‘Administer true
justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or
the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each
other.’”
Part of getting right with God
again involved the Israelites committing themselves to doing right and living
righteously, getting back to basics and being obedient in carrying out His
word, will, and way. To that end, the
Lord called them to:
1. Administer true justice.
2. Show mercy and compassion
to one another.
3. Watch over the widow and
fatherless, the foreigner and the poor, refraining from oppression.
4. Avoid plotting evil against
each other.
If the people whole-heartedly
did these things, respecting and honoring God through complying with His
expectations, then and only then would they find themselves back in His good
graces and favor for they would be living in a way that was pleasing in His
sight, a way that results in His blessings not His consequences.
Friends, the Lord is calling
to us today through these scriptures from Zechariah. He is calling on us to
examine where we are in our relationship with Him and whether or not we are
honoring Him in the way we are living. Ask yourself these four questions:
Am I administering true
justice in the way I deal with others?
Do I show sincere mercy and
compassion to others?
Do I make a concerted effort
to care for those who are vulnerable in the world, the widows and orphans, the
foreigner and the poor?
Finally, am I intentional in
not conjuring up or participating in wicked schemes against others?
If your answer to these
questions is “yes” then congratulations because you have come a long way in
living as the Lord desires.
If you still have work to do
(like I think most of us do), then the Lord would send us the same message as
He did His people in Zechariah’s day:
“Change your ways.”
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
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