Building God's House #19: Pure Religion, Zechariah 7:1-14

INTRO: I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that “Christianity is a relationship and not a religion,” and that is true. The central component that makes Christianity a relationship is the Gospel- God sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross, to pay for our sins, and to purchase a place in heaven for us. To receive that gift, we must believe that Christ rose from the dead and receive Him into our life as Savior and Lord. He gives us His Holy Spirit to dwell within us so that we have union with Him, we are never separated from Him, and that relationship begins now and will continue into eternity. What a unique, radical relationship!

Every relationship is a two-way street. God initiates a relationship with us through His Son & by His Spirit, but we have to abide in that relationship. We have to stay connected to Christ. How do we do that? That’s where religion comes in- Bible reading, prayer, worship, giving, serving, etc. All of them are religious practices.

Here’s where we could get things twisted, so be careful- It’s not RELIGION that creates our relationship with God; our RELATIONSHIP with God creates the religion. Another way to put it is this- our religious practices flow out of a healthy relationship from the Lord, and what we receive from Him flows back to Him in praise, honor, and glory.

So, how do we know if our religion is right, or pure? We can test it. E.g., there are home tests on gold products to see if they are pure gold. Using these tests as an analogy, let’s test our religion to see if it is pure or not.

Zechariah 7, Now in the fourth year of King Darius it came to pass that the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, on the fourth day of the ninth month, Chislev, 2 when the people sent Sherezer, with Regem-Melech and his men, to the house of God, to pray before the Lord, 3 and to ask the priests who were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and the prophets, saying, “Should I weep in the fifth month and fast as I have done for so many years?” Let’s run 4 tests or do 4 checks on our religion.

1. Check our Religious ATTRACTIONS, vss. 1-3

Vs. 1 gives a time marker to help set this story in historical context- God’s Word came to Zechariah in the 4th year of King Darius.

Our series has been over 2 books- Haggai & Zechariah, 2 prophets sent to get God’s people to rebuild God’s House. Almost 100 years earlier, God’s people had become so disobedient to Him that He judged them by sending the Babylonians to take Jerusalem, destroy the temple, and carry off the people as exiles. They were in exile for 70 years.

God sent the Persians to judge the Babylonians, & He raised up a Persian king, Cyrus, to decree that His people should return home & rebuild His Temple. Many of them did return home, reestablish their worship of God, & began to rebuild the temple by laying the foundation (Ezra). Opposition arose and they stopped building. The Lord’s House lay in ruins for 16 years while they rebuilt their houses & lives & lived in relative comfort. That’s when God sent these 2 prophets, Haggai & Zechariah, to get them back to work rebuilding His House.

This time marker, the 4th year of King Darius, means that this question (vs. 3) came about 2 years after they had begun to rebuild the Temple. Think about their question: Should I weep in the fifth month & fast as I have done for so many years? What fasting were they asking about?

While the Jews were in exile, they started observing 4 fasts:

· to commemorate the day the temple was destroyed.

· to mourn the destruction of Jerusalem.

· to remember Gedaliah’s assassination, Jerusalem’s governor.

· to mark Nebuchadnezzar’s siege of Jerusalem.

We’re going to discover in the next section that God did not command them to do these fasts, but they did them religiously. Why?

One of the home tests for pure gold is the MAGNET TEST. Pure gold is not magnetic, so if the gold item is attracted to a magnet, it's likely not pure gold. Let’s apply the magnet test to their question.

What attracted them to a fast that was created on their own and not commanded by God? Fasting is a religious practice. It is something we can do to build spiritual muscle. It can help us draw closer to God.

But not this kind of fasting, not this kind of religious practice- adhering to a religious substitute for something God requires(more on this later).

It’s possible that we do the same thing- adhere to religious practices that serve as a substitute for true worship & true relationship with God.

2. Check our Religious AFFECTIONS, vss. 4-7

God answers their question with a question (3 actually)- 4 Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, Vs. 5, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me? Vs. 6, When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves? Vs. 7, Should you not have obeyed the words which the Lord proclaimed through the former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it were inhabited and prosperous, and the South & the Lowland were inhabited?’ (before exile)

I don’t know what your experience is with fasting, but it’s not an easy thing. It requires sacrifice and effort. Jesus taught that fasting is an act of righteousness (Matthew 6:16-18). He also said that you shouldn’t do it to be seen by people but only by God. On the surface, fasting seems a holy, righteous, & religious thing to do, but that comes down to WHY- what is the motivation? Are you doing it for you, or are you doing it for God? 1 Corinthians 10:31, Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

God had divinely instituted only one fast, on the Day of Atonement, so these fasts were not divinely instituted remembrances but self-imposed rituals. We need to be very careful about self-imposed rituals. They give an appearance of wisdom & humility & discipline, but they don’t help us fight the flesh (Colossians 2:23, … are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh). So how do we know if we should do them?

Let’s apply the vinegar test: put a few drops of white vinegar on a gold item, if the gold is genuine, it won't react or change color. If the gold changes color, it may not be pure. It’s been my experience that you either love vinegar or hate it. My son can’t stand the smell of it, but some people even drink it- they love it.

We need to test all our religious practices by LOVE. Mark 12:30, And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ Our worship of God is not determined by WHAT we do but WHY we do it!

Here is the question for us- in our religious lives, what are we doing, and even more importantly, why are we doing it? Is it because we love Him? John 14:15, If you love Me, keep My commandments.

3. Check our Religious ACTIONS, vss. 8-10

8  Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘Execute true justice, show mercy & compassion Everyone to his brother. 10Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, The alien or the poor. Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother.

This declaration piggybacks on vs. 7- obeying God’s Word by the prophets, 4 commands: (1) Execute true justice; (2) show mercy & compassion; (3) do not oppress strangers, widows, orphans, or poor; (4) do not plan evil in your heart against others. These are ancient commands given to God’s people (Exodus 20-24), but they have often been guilty of injustice towards these 4 classes of vulnerable people.

God consistently sent His prophets to His people to call them back to a proper form of social justice- justice/fairness for everyone in society.

Social justice is a hot-button word. It’s become so politicized and polarizing that if you just want to be a Bible-believing Christian, one side will call you woke, & the other will call you a fundamentalist. When you are called names on both sides, you’re in a pretty good place. If you don’t like the term social justice, call it social action, or biblical justice, or true justice (v. 9); i.e., Biblical Christianity.

Luke 11:42, But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone.

3 John 1:5, Beloved (Gaius), you do faithfully whatever you do for the brethren and for strangers… 2 Corinthians 9:9, He has dispersed abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever.

James 1:27, Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

True worship impacts our religious life and leaves a mark on others.Apply the ceramic test to our religious actions- scratch gold against an unglazed ceramic plate or tile. If gold is real, it leaves a yellow or golden streak. If it leaves a black or dark streak, it's likely fake.

In the ceramic test of our Christian actions, what mark are we leaving on others? We need to check our religious actions.

4. Check our Religious ATTITUDES, vss. 11-14

11But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their ears so that they could not hear. 12 Yes, they made their hearts like flint, refusing to hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets. Thus great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. 13 Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would not hear, so they called out and I would not listen,” says the Lord of hosts. 14 “But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate.

God wraps up what started with their question in vs. 3.  He asks about their motivation (4-7), makes a declaration (8-10), & here describes their desolation (11-14). They heard His Word, shrugged their shoulders, & covered their ears. Sounds like teenagers, doesn’t it?

What’s worse than the outward visual cues of their obstinacy is what it revealed about the inward attitude of their hearts- they were hard like flint (stone), refused to hear God’s Word by His Spirit through His prophets, and great wrath came from God. He had warned them, but they didn’t hear, so when they called out to Him, He did not listen. Because they were not obedient to His Word to execute true justice, they were dispersed among the nations, & desolation fell upon them.

 ILL: Oklahoma dust bowl in the Great Depression- pics look awful. As awful as the physical desolation of a land is, how much more awful is the spiritual devastation of a life. Matthew 7:18-20,  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

The last test is a visual test. You can look for hallmarks indicating gold's purity (e.g., stamped 24K for pure gold) and observe the color and luster of the gold. When it comes to our religious life, there are external visual clues that often reveal the desolation of our internal spiritual attitudes.

There is a religion that is pure, but it cannot not be divorced from a relationship with God. We must check our religious attractions, affections, actions, and attitudes.