Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Dreams
Does God still speak in visions and dreams?
It’s such a creative way of communicating.
There’s all these little snippets in Biblical history… are we open to that?
I believe my wife is often prophetic… and her dreams may well be… I wish she remembered them.
Because I hear the highlights.
I started a dream journal for her, just from what she says aloud.
This wasn’t about forks or transformers.
Maybe it was about one of you.
If you’re convicted… let me know.
The only things I know of the dream is two words.
And they were spoken in the sonorous tones of an Old Testament prophet.
Debauchery.
No!!!
Visions and Dreams
“I saw in the night.”
Maybe dreams?
Maybe “Divine Imagination?”
Maybe waking visions?
But he lays out the goal of the book.
After the judgment against Israel culminating in the exile to Babylon, God has brought his people back to the land.
God is eager to restore covenant with them.
New temple, and even Messiah and all the fulfillment of prophecy.
Zechariah, stands with Haggai, encouraging the people to rebuild the temple.
But more than that, he focuses on the coming fulfillment of all the prophecies.
Return to me and I will return to you.
Remember that.
Then he has these visions.
The “word of the Lord comes to him.
And it is in this really cool structure, but primarily focused and directed to the people of his day.
He has visions about God and the nations (that’s external), the judgment on Israel in the past (internal), and the coming fulfillment of all things (both internal and external).
And then some Messianic prophecy in the middle.
And these prophecies are arranged in what’s called a “chiasm.”
That is where the first vision matches the last, the second matches the second to last, etc… like walked up stairs to a pinnacle and then down the other side.
Chiastic Visions
A lightning fast journey through the visions.
First and last, he sees horsemen.
Horsemen
Similar vision in chapter 6
These horsemen / chariots patrol the world and God is angry at them and will judge the nations.
Horns and Winged Women
Weird, but the horns symbolize Babylon that scattered Israel, and then blacksmiths come to shatter the horns, and that’s Persia.
And the second to last vision is similar.
There’s this women in a basket which is “Israel’s iniquity” and then...
And they take it off into Shinar (aka Babylon).
Weird.
New Jerusalem
But the 3rd and 3rd to last ones are great!
This is the building of the new Jerusalem, the promise fulfilled of the LORD choosing and fully restoring Jerusalem.
This is reminiscent of Ezekiel’s extensive descriptions of the new temple and new Jerusalem as it will be in new creation.
He has a similar, but more symbolic vision in chapter 5.
A flying scroll, huge, and it cleans out the city of everyone who steals or lies.
The city is made perfect.
So Zechariah, in vivid imagery, he sees to the truth of the matter.
In symbolic visions, he sees the underlying spiritual realities.
He sees that God will judge the nations.
That hasn’t changed.
He sees the past sin of humanity and God’s efforts to restore his people.
He sees the ultimate future of God’s promise yet to come.
New heaven and new earth, new Jerusalem.
And the question is: what now?
What is God going to do now?
Will he now restore his people and bring Messiah, the Son of Man, the descendant of David?
And so these two middle visions are parallel, and our focus for the next two weeks.
Yeshua (aka Joshua) the high priest.
And Zerubabbel.
The governor, possibly a king or sub king, a descendant of David.
Two very Messianic characters.
And the first thing we want to see is that God opens Zechariah’s eyes to see the spiritual reality here.
To see the deeper truth.
Joshua and Zerubabbel
Now Joshua has a tough job.
He is high priest… but there’s no temple yet.
They’ve started some ceremonies back up… but he isn’t able to do all the things, and many of the things he has been asked to do he is failing at.
In fact it is ridiculous to ask someone to be high priest… even if everyone else is fooled, they have to know they aren’t worthy.
And Scripture isn’t shy about calling out all his ancestors unworthy.
And here he is failing to rebuild the temple and getting called out by the likes of Haggai and Zechariah.
The litany of failure must be real.
And it seems like a political problem, a “religious” problem even, maybe a solvable practical problem.
But Zechariah sees the “real” problem.
Satan, standing at his right hand to accuse him.
What was it Camille shared last week?
“Don’t let Satan get inside your head!”
We don’t see what Joshua is thinking here… but Zechariah shows the truth of what is going on.
It is Satan, aka “adversary” whispering words of accusation at him.
Probably pointing out true things.
Your robes are dirty.
Physically, metaphorically, spiritually.
And it’s all true, God doesn’t dispute that.
God doesn’t answer the accusation.
He just fixes the problem.
He clothes Yeshua in robes white as snow.
(More about that next week).
You could send Joshua to the BEST counselors and address all his practical problems, perhaps… but as long as Satan is standing at his side accusing him, it isn’t going to be solved.
It takes God rebuking Satan and fixing the real issue.
Spiritual problems require spiritual solutions.
Similarly, chapter 5 focuses in on Zerubabbel.
Both of them in a way, they are pictured as two olive trees, anointed ones of God, giving oil to the lamp oof Israel.
And all the pressure Joshua is under??? Zerbabbel is in the same point.
But he isn’t the “priest” guy, he’s the “leader” governor guy.
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