The Gospel of Zechariah (2)

Charlie was a true believer, based on his clear presentations of the gospel, his consistent testimony of personal belief, and the life of one in Christ lived out. Not perfect, but being perfected, as all in Christ are.

Charlie’s murder reminds us of the evil in the world. It also gives us a taste of how the early church must have felt when persecution included far more than mockery or cancel culture. The early church witnessed many of their own being killed or beaten for their faith.

When we see a fellow believer killed in such a horrific an public way, we are certainly moved in a profound way. This week, many have stated that even though they had never even met Charlie Kirk, they felt deeply, as though a close friend had been taken. For the believer, this makes sense. After all, anyone in Christ is more than a friend, they are family.

When someone is martyred for their faith, the believing community is impacted. We are reminded that Christ himself promised us that in this world we would have trouble, but to take heart, because He has overcome the world. And make no mistake, Charlie was martyred for his faith. The murderer was involved with the Trans Community.

Haters of God for all of history have defied him by attacking his marks in the world. Murder itself is a serious rebellion against God. Each person is made in the image of God, so murder is an attack on God himself and his authority over life and death.

Another serious rebellion against God is those who reject his design for human relationships and sexuality.

Genesis 1:27 ESV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

In this one verse is the sum of the design of God for humans, and the ultimate rejection of God, the ultimate rebellion against his ways, is when someone murders one of his image bearers, or defiantly rejects his design for their own human body. Transgender ideology that says a human can become something other than what God created them to be is one of the most depraved things imaginable, because it assaults the will of God for His creation in the most egregious way.

Ask an artist how offended they feel when someone uses their work and distorts it to where it is an ugly version of what they created. Any musician who has had to listen to their composition butchered by an amateur. Or perhaps a skilled builder who has had to see their work destroyed by an arson’s fire.

How much worse an offense to the holy God when people take his creation and distort and mutilate it, and claim they have the right to become whatever they want, even if it is opposed to God’s will and design?

Charlie Kirk calmly made the case for these things again and again in his work on College Campuses. He linked the gospel to the moral outrage of abortion and transgender and other immorality, and he was killed for it.

It has shocked the consciences of many. It has evoked the celebration of many. Thousands of people posted on social media celebrating his death, much as is the case for previous Christian martyrs. Evil celebrates the murder of a saint, but what the enemy has intended for evil, God is already turning to good.

Many people have purchased bibles and began reading them because of the shock of Charlie’s murder. Many people said they are returning to church this Sunday, realizing that they have need of the family of Christ. Pray it be so. Pray for a revival of the complacent Christians. Pray that God draw many new believers to Himself as people process the horror of the murder of Charlie Kirk and face the weight of eternity.

So…

What good news is there in a murder? If you think about the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the pivotal moment, the moment that we can pinpoint and say is the moment of our salvation, is a moment that seems to be a moment when justice was miscarried, when the innocent man was murdered. We know that Jesus was not guilty of anything, we know the one’s who conspired to kill him were committing a terrible crime against God, and yet in this moment of great injustice from our perspective, we see the great act of mercy.

Jesus didn’t end up on the cross because of something going wrong with God’s plan to save mankind. Instead, it was the will of God that Jesus die on that cross. The will of God that evil people would conspire to kill the Christ. The will of God that the most perfect being ever to walk the earth be brutally beaten, bled out and die a horrible, anguishing death.

God of course knew that He would also raise Christ from the dead, that ultimately the victory would be his. Yet, Jesus Christ, who stood next to God, was subjected to pain that could only be experienced by Him if He willingly lowered himself to become a man, to voluntarily give up some of His power and sovereignty for a period of time in order to save many people from their sin.

It was indeed God’s will that Jesus die on the cross. He set raised the cross and put it into the timeline before mankind was even created, and still, in His love, He planned out a salvation for people who were only too happy to violate their relationship with Him through sin. It was the Good shepherd taking the punishment for the bad.

Now, the last sermon from Zechariah was about bad shepherds. In 13:3, we read that the bad shepherds, or the false prophets, would be killed by their own parents because they spoke lies in the name of the Lord. Now in verse 7, we will see that while the parents of false prophets, or bad shepherds, would kill their own children for their lies, God would kill His own son, not for telling lies, but to save the corrupted ones who would turn to Him.

Zechariah 13:7–9 ESV

“Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the Lord of hosts. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones. In the whole land, declares the Lord, two thirds shall be cut off and perish, and one third shall be left alive. And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.’ ”

I could spend hours talking just about the first half of verse 7. In this one sentence, we get the essence of God’s love toward mankind. Why? Because God is saying awake o sword, sword here just meaning a weapon to kill, and strike the man who stands next to me. God is calling for an innocent person to be killed. Who can stand next to God? We know that this refers to Jesus, the one at the right hand of God. When Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven in Acts 7, he said He saw the Son of Man, Jesus, standing at the right hand of God.

Hundreds of years before Stephen died because of His faith in Jesus as the first martyr recorded in scripture, God had identified through the prophet Zechariah that Jesus as one who stands next to God. No one else stands next to God. Here in verse 7, He calls upon the sword to be against His Shepherd, the man who stands next to Him. The will of God was for Jesus to die, and because Jesus was submitted to the Father, he willingly allowed himself to be struck down. It is amazing to think of!

Jesus died so that any sinner who puts faith in Him can live!

Isaiah 53:10–12 ESV

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

It was the will of the Lord to crush him, to put Him to grief! However, it says that when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. Are you one of his offspring? Have you put your faith in Him? He made an offering for your guilt, that you could not have paid on your own.

It says out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. by his knowledge shall the righteous one, Jesus make many to be accounted righteous! He shall bear their iniquities! What a glorious God! He loves us so dearly He made a way for us to be counted righteous even though we had the guilty stain of sin that we would never be able to remove on our own. God said He would divide him a portion with the many and he would be numbered with the transgressors. He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Do you get this? He bore the sin of many. Praise God, I am one of the many He bore the sin of! Does he bear your sin? You only need to turn to him and put faith in Him and He will! And finally, it says he makes intercession for the transgressors. Is that hard to believe? He prays, he intercedes on our behalf and for our good. He even intercedes for those who rejects him. We see that He did this even on the cross, when He said “Forgive them, for they know not what they do”. Even in his death, Jesus was praying for people, and the Bible says He continues to intercede for us in the throne room of heaven.

Again, he prayed for us before His death as we see recorded in John 17, one of my favorite passages in scripture, because it gives me great hope to know that Jesus Christ prays for me! He prayed for all who would believe in Him through the testimony of the saints.

John 17:20–26 ESV

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Hallelujah, what a Savior! His work didn’t end on the cross. Yes, when He said it is finished, that marked the end of the atoning work he had come to do, but the cross was not the end of the work Jesus would do for us. He continues today to intercede, that means he prays for us, appealing to God for mercy on our behalf. Yes, Jesus is Savior and Lord of my life, but He is also my advocate, He calls upon the Lord to do good on my behalf.

Zechariah 13:7 ESV

So God commands the sword against the one who stands with Him, Jesus Christ. I said I could talk for hours just on this portion of the verse, but I will spare you for now. Can you tell how exciting this is to me? Oh, who can comprehend the love of God, that He would kill His own son on my behalf and on yours? He loves us so much. But I must move on to the rest of our passage this morning. We see a sort of proverb here. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered. Jesus applied this to himself and his disciples and it came true. As Jesus was tried and convicted, his disciples abandoned him, and not only at His death, but they were scattered afterward by persecution. This is what is meant, I believe, when God extends the prophecy to say He will also turn His hands against the little ones, or some translations may say the lambs. Here we are, the followers of the shepherd, Jesus Christ. It says that even we will experience the persecution of Christ. No, we cannot understand the magnitude of what He went through, the innocent taking the sin of the world. But we can understand the persecution of being in a world that does not accept him, that rejects Him.

Around the world today, people are being struck down in a similar manner because of their faith in Him. He promised that His followers would be no better than their master. If He was rejected, we will be, too. But what a comfort in knowing that the one who offers His strength to us, the one who intercedes for us, experienced the pain of rejection, so He can sympathize and appreciate our pain when we come under attack. It is good to know that He understands the struggle, since He already went through it.

It’s like this: If you are going through a terrible thing, there is comfort in someone who has also gone through it coming to comfort you. For my parents, they experienced an extreme loss when they lost their oldest son, my brother. What pain and what agony! Yet they have had opportunity to minister to others who have lost a child. When you have endured similar circumstances, you can be a comfort to others. Jesus went through rejection and the pain of attacks, so He can comfort us when we endure them as well.

Now in verse 8 it says two thirds will be cut off and perish. Since there is a lot of speculation among the bible scholars on whether that means two thirds of believers, or the two thirds are the unbelievers and the remaining third are believers, I don’t want to be too bold in proclaiming for sure what the two thirds means. But I think it is clear that the remaining third is the remnant, or those who are God’s people.

That third, we see in verse nine will be put into a fire. Now, depending on your brand of theology, this may make some of you uncomfortable. Perhaps you’ve been told that following Jesus means a life of bliss on this earth. Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but look around the world in the news. Followers of Jesus in most parts of the earth endure at the least, ridicule, and at the worst, torture and death for their beliefs. If you are looking for a religion that will make you popular with everyone and get along with everyone, I would advise against Christianity.

We should not be surprised that Christians are hated. Jesus promised this would happen. Paul seemed to think it was a normal part of the Christian life. Peter wrote that persecution ought to give us hope, James said we should be joyful in those trials. No, we won’t have a blissful, pain free life for now, but that isn't really what we are living for. We are not to store up treasure on earth, but secure an eternal treasure that cannot be stolen, that will not rust or decay.

However, the trials are not without value. Why did James say count it all joy? James 1:2–4

James 1:2–4 ESV

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing

Testing brings steadfastness. Steadfastness is the goal. It puts us closer to perfection. The metaphor used here is that of refining gold or silver. The way these metals are refined is they are heated so hot they turn into liquid. Then, and only then, the impurities can be skimmed off. The pure metal that remains is the goal. When we endure things that bring us under the heat, we are refined by them if the testing produces steadfastness.

Scripture speaks of this type of refining over and over.

Psalm 66:8–12 ESV

Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

Yes, sometimes he lets men ride over our heads, he puts us through fire and through water, but he will bring us through it to a place of abundance! Look at David, who even as he was being taunted and persecuted, hoped that the Lord would repay him with good for enduring insults:

2 Samuel 16:9–12 ESV

Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, “Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head.” But the king said, “What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the Lord has said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who then shall say, ‘Why have you done so?’ ” And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, “Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will look on the wrong done to me, and that the Lord will repay me with good for his cursing today.”

Can you say, like David, I will let the man curse me, because it just may be that God told Him to? But would God tell someone to do something like this to us, His children? Would He unleash the sword on His own son? Would He turn His hand against the little ones? Apparently He would. It was His will to crush Jesus, and He refines us through affliction.

Isaiah 48:10–11 ESV

Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

Take heart, Christian. In your trials, if you live a godly life in spite of how others treat you, God is glorified. It is for His sake, that He does it. His name will not be tarnished. Yes, we are to rejoice if we experience trials, because we prove the genuineness of our faith:

1 Peter 1:6–9 ESV

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

The salvation of your souls! What could be more worthwhile than that? What little pain we endure in comparison to the wight of glory, as Paul put it? Paul endured an awful lot, and yet, he called it light, momentary affliction. Does this ring true for you?

I mean this message today. Does it ring true? What is the real gospel? In our world, where Christianity is under attack, do you want to hear “think good thoughts, and good things will come to you, and you won’t get hurt by the world”, or do you want the true gospel, the real good news, the good news that because Jesus suffered to obtain your salvation, if you follow Him, you will suffer too. He was rejected, you will be also.

I don;t have time for a fake gospel. I want real men and real women of God, who don’t look for a comfortable life, but are willing to get hurt as they endure the furnace of affliction. The real gospel doesn’t say if you serve Christ you will never have a child die, or that you will never be treated unjustly at your job, or you will always get along great with your neighbors. The real gospel is that not matter what trial you encounter, your Savior is there with you, enduring it with you, empathizing with you, and praying to God the Father on your behalf.

Are you willing to be purified, to be refined? The fire is getting hotter in many parts of the world. Don’t serve God because you want comfort and an easy life! Serve God with all of your heart soul, and mind, willing to endure the trials because He will bring us out to a place of abundance.

Heaven is going to be wonderful, and nothing we endure now will stop heaven from being perfect. In fact, it is the other way around. The more trials we endure for the name of Jesus Christ, the more reward we will have in heaven. And think about this for a moment. Our problem before we came to Christ was a sin debt we could not pay. That sin debt made us well deserving of the eternal punishment we had coming, but Christ made a way.

He would have done us a favor just to spare us from hell. If he had said, “come to me, and you won’t have an eternity in hell, when you die, you will simply cease to exist. Better to stop existing than to burn forever.” No, he didn’t just spare us from hell. He restored our relationship with the living God and gave us heaven. We can’t see it, or even imagine how great it will be, but He is preparing a place there for all who call upon His name, who turn away from their own ways and seek righteousness.

And the last point in our passage is that the ones refined call upon his name. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, they are my people, and they will say, the Lord is my God! He will answer them!

This is glorious news! Those who call Him, he will answer. Someone asks “how do I repent?”. My answer is to define what repent means. It means turn around. Quit taking a route away from God and start going toward Him instead. Turn around, away from the life you have lived, and turn to Him. Remember the very first sermon I preached from the book of Zechariah?

Zechariah 1:3 ESV

Therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts: Return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts.

Jeremiah 3:22 ESV

“Return, O faithless sons; I will heal your faithlessness.” “Behold, we come to you, for you are the Lord our God.

Hosea 14:1–2 ESV

Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take with you words and return to the Lord; say to him, “Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will pay with bulls the vows of our lips.

Over and over, scripture says, Return to me. Return to me! Backslider, return! He waits for you and will put His robe on you once again! One who abandoned the church, return! The saints will welcome you back! One who wants to experience once again the refreshing that comes with repentance, Return! He will fill you with the water that will quench your spirit. The one full of bitterness, Return! He will replace your bitterness with love and mercy! Return to God!

And what a God, who allows us to return, even when we have left Him again and again. If we have walked away, He waits for us to come crawling back. If we sin, he waits for a confession, and is faithful to forgive.

It was the will of God that Jesus Christ die, and He did not do so in vain. Every person who finds their salvation in Him is part of the reward He receives for His own submission, and He calls us to submit to Him as He submitted to the will of the Father, even to death if that is what He requests. God caused Jesus to die because He loves you.

The ones He loves he also trains. He trains through painful trials, and when we go through those, we are being perfected. I no longer see this as bad news. God has blessed me to go through some tough trials. During them, I have done some things wrong and learned to do them better. I have been humbled to depend on Him and others more and more. I have learned to seek scripture for answers to life’s issues. I have learned that the more time I spend praying and seeking Him, the less I have to worry, even when things are difficult. My God shall supply all my needs according to His riches in glory!

But my greatest need was salvation, and for my greatest need, he supplied from His greatest asset, His own Son, Jesus Christ. In Him we live and move and have our being. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He continues to refine us. And He continues to heard our prayers. Jesus Christ, who is beside the Father, intercedes on our behalf to bring us the most benefit possible from God’s mercy and grace.

God knows what is best for us, sometimes we do not. May we ever rely on Him and trust Him that whatever trials he brings us through, we will always know that He is our strength and shield.

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