The Kind Of People God Blesses

Zechariah 1:2 NKJV

“The Lord has been very angry with your fathers.

The Kind of People God Blesses (Zechariah 1:1-6)

The book of Zechariah begins with the prophet’s call, which is dated to the eighth month of the second year of Darius’ reign (October or November 520 b.c.).

When the word of the Lord came to Zechariah in the fall of 520 b.c., discouragement would have been widespread in and around Jerusalem. First, the city walls lay in ruins. In the ancient Near East, walls were critical to a city because they protected the people from invasion.

Thus, for a city’s walls to be torn down was a great disgrace to the people who lived there (Neh. 2:17; Prov. 25:28). Second, at the center of Jerusalem was the conspicuous absence of the temple.

Seventeen years earlier initial work had begun on the foundations, but that work had stalled and the aborted effort was no doubt an embarrassment to the people. Resumption of the work had begun again in September 520 b.c., but with only a few weeks of work completed, there was certainly no guarantee that this attempt wouldn’t also fizzle out.

Third, the leadership of the province was in a state of flux. Zerubbabel had been appointed as provincial governor only months before and there must have been questions about what his new leadership would bring. He seemed promising early on, but the people had had their hopes dashed before.

Into this age of discouragement, the word of the Lord comes to Zechariah son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo. Given the situation, we might expect the Lord to speak a word of great encouragement. We might anticipate something that would lift the spirits of the people.

But instead the word that comes is an abrupt and pointed call to repent. Before any visions are given or promises proclaimed, the Lord calls Zechariah to preach a message of repentance to the people.

The visions of hope will come, but not for another three to four months. Now is the time for the people to enter into a sustained period of reflection, repentance, and covenant recommitment.

1 Bryan R. Gregory, Longing for God in an Age of Discouragement: The Gospel according to Zechariah, ed. Tremper Longman III, The Gospel according to the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2010), 19.

The call to repentance begins by drawing attention to a history of unfaithfulness, of which the current generation has been made heir. Previous generations had repeatedly provoked the Lord to anger (v. 2).

Years of idolatry, syncretism, hypocritical worship, moral failure, exploitation of the poor, unapproved alliances with other nations, and corrupt leadership had stretched the Lord’s patience to its breaking point. Though notable exceptions existed, the nation had a long history of covenant breaking.

Zechariah calls those of his generation to do what their fathers had not done—repent. Verse 3 puts the matter plainly: “ ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord of hosts, ‘and I will return to you.’ ”

Within the historical context it is clear that the double return is externally centered upon the temple. For the people, returning to the Lord in repentance would be demonstrated as they faithfully rebuilt the temple.

For the Lord, returning would be marked by his dwelling with the people through his presence in the temple. From this verse, we might be tempted to conclude that God does not move toward us unless we first move toward him.

But the text doesn’t allow this and instead we are “challenged by the thrice repeated formula, ‘thus says the Lord of hosts,’ as though we never would have thought of [turning back to God in repentance], had the Lord not drummed the idea into us!”

The message of Zechariah 1:1–6 is that the Lord has taken the initiative to come to his people through the prophet Zechariah and call them back into a renewed relationship with him.

Notice that repentance is primarily a relational act. The Lord says to the people, “Return to me.” It is not first and foremost about “fixing” deviant behaviors or conforming once again to prescribed ethical norms; it is about relationally reconnecting with the Lord.

That is why the fathers are not only faulted for walking in evil ways and adopting evil practices but for not listening or paying attention to God (v. 4). For the postexilic community, repentance had to be more than simply rebuilding the temple.

Their efforts at reconstruction had to be energized by a heartfelt return to the Lord that sought to live in covenant relationship with him.

Verses 4–6a issue a stern warning: if the people do not return, they will face the same fate as their fathers. Repeatedly, the Lord had sent prophets to former generations urging them to turn from their evil ways and return to him (v. 4). But they refused to listen and continued in their pattern of covenant disobedience.

Eventually, after many generations, the warnings of judgment had caught up with the nation and judgment had overtaken them (vv. 5–6a): the northern kingdom was exiled by the Assyrians, and a little more than a hundred years later the southern kingdom was exiled by the Babylonians.

The destroyed walls, the absent temple, and the ruined economy that Zechariah’s generation inherited were memorials to the evil practices of their ancestors.

Zechariah 1:4 NKJV

“Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds.” ’ But they did not hear nor heed Me,” says the Lord.

These verses contain a number of valuable truths that are worth getting in mind at the outset of our study, even as the people of Zechariah’s day must have fixed them in their minds.

  1. God judges sin.

If there is anything past history should have taught the returning exiles, it is that God does indeed judge sin. For hundreds of years the people were unwilling to acknowledge this, even when God gave them ample proof of his displeasure and unrelenting warnings of the destruction that was to come.

There were warnings to the people of the northern kingdom of Israel by such prophets as Hosea and Amos. In the south Joel, Micah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Isaiah, and Jeremiah warned of judgment.

Jeremiah alone prophesied for a period of forty years. During this time, with the exception of a few brief periods of partial revival, the people continued to go their way, arguing that no judgment could come upon them simply because they were the chosen people of God and Jerusalem was God’s city.

Indeed, for all those years it seemed as though these self-righteous and presumptuous people might be right. God did indeed seem reluctant to destroy their city.

Yet destruction came. Jerusalem was overrun, the people were deported, and both the temple and the walls of the city were destroyed. This was a great and inescapable fact of recent Jewish history, and the evidence of it was fresh on every mind.

The walls were still down. The city was still a ruin. The land that had once flowed with milk and honey was now a barren wilderness.

So no one could possibly miss this first point when Zechariah reminded them of it. The prophet said, “The Lord was very angry with your forefathers.”

The hearts of the people would have been forced to echo, “Indeed, he was.”

Zechariah declared, “Where are your forefathers now?”

The people would have answered, “Gone, dead, scattered.”

“And the prophets, do they live forever?”

The people would have been forced to acknowledge that even the prophets had been carried away in the judgment that came upon Jerusalem.

“Did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers?” Zechariah asked.

The people would have answered that the word of God through the prophets had indeed come true and that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah had indeed been overthrown, as they had said.

Could anything be more obvious? God judges all. Although in his patience judgment may be for a time delayed, it does at last come and sinners do have to give an accounting for what they have done, whether good or bad.1

1 James Montgomery Boice, The Minor Prophets: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 488–489.

2. Past judgments are a warning to us to turn from sin.

This is the central point of Zechariah’s opening message to the remnant. They were aware of what had overtaken their forefathers for their obstinate refusal to heed the word of God. They could hardly escape this knowledge.

But the facts of that earlier destruction were not merely items of historical interest. They were examples intended to bring about wholehearted repentance and subsequent obedience.

  In a sense, a godly life consists of perfecting repentance, always doing it more effectually. So what Haggai claimed was true: the people had God on their side because they had returned to Him. But what Zechariah claimed was also true: Israel needed to return with more sincere devotion if God’s promises for the future were to become a reality.”

That is why these stories of God’s past judgments are still relevant for us, even though we may have turned from sin to Christ in our conversion. We can be Christ’s and still live for a time as the disobedient Israelites.

We can go our own way and turn a deaf ear to God’s warnings. Are you doing this? If so, you must learn from God’s judgments and allow them to turn you back from sin. We must all be warned to follow closer after God.

3. Obedience brings blessing.

Sin brings judgment, but obedience brings blessing. This is the point most emphasized in Zechariah’s message: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the Lord Almighty, ‘and I will return to you,’ says the Lord Almighty” (Zech. 1:3).

The point is clear: if the people will return to him, God will return to the people and will bless them. The threefold repetition of the name “the Lord Almighty” underscores its certainty.

But it is what Zechariah is saying too, though in perhaps more spiritual terms. If God seems far away, it is because we are removed from him by our sin. It is not God’s fault. If we return to him, he will return to us and bring blessing.

4. Like God Himself, the word of God is inescapable.

The prophecy says, “But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers?” (Zech. 1:6). The fathers of the remnant thought they could escape God’s judgment, but the word overtook them and they perished.

So it was with the flood generation. So it will be at Christ’s final judgment. No one escapes God’s word. God’s word is eternal. It is longer lasting even than the prophets who speak it.

They passed away (v. 5), yet the word spoken through them lived on and was fulfilled in the people’s experience (v. 6). Jesus said, “Until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matt. 5:18).

The last sentence of Zechariah’s message tells of a past generation: “Then they repented and said, ‘The Lord Almighty has done to us what our ways and practices deserve, just as he determined to do” (v. 6).

He is not speaking about the generation that perished in the destruction of Jerusalem, but their successors, those who saw the hand and justice of God in what happened.

  For while they are to build the temple and the city of Jerusalem and do good deeds like these, he first wants them to be pious, so that they might not think that God would be satisfied with their work of building the temple and the city, as their fathers had thought that it was good enough if they sacrificed.

No, my good man, rather than all good works he wants faith and a heart converted to him. That is all he is interested in. This must come first and be preached first: ‘Return to me, and after that build me a temple,’ and not, ‘first build me a temple, and after that return to me.’

Good works inflate us and make us proud, but faith and conversion humble us and make us despair of ourselves.”

This is the good beginning God wants. He wants it to be said of us, as it was of the believers of the apostle Peter’s day: “You were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25).

Zechariah 1:6 NKJV

Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers? “So they returned and said: ‘Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, According to our ways and according to our deeds, So He has dealt with us.’ ” ’ ”

  The true foundation of God’s kingdom work is always repentant hearts. It always begins there.

Nowhere is that clearer than in the inauguration of the kingdom of God in the ministry of Christ. At the outset of his public ministry, Jesus tightly links together the advent of the kingdom with a sharp and pointed call for the people to repent:

Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” (Mark 1:14–15 esv)

  Sometimes Jesus’ announcement is read as if it were narrowly referring to people forsaking their individual sins and deciding to follow Jesus instead. But this misses the fullness of what Jesus was saying; it was a corporate call as well as an individual one.

Jesus was declaring that God was at last becoming King of the whole world and since that moment had arrived, those who would follow him (and thus Jesus) must be characterized by repentance.

They must corporately turn from their own agendas—whether personal, national, or political—and trust in Jesus and his way of doing things instead.

After some time of preparation, Jesus sends out the twelve disciples in pairs to continue the heralding of the kingdom. As they began their ministry, the heart of their message was also that the people should repent (Mark 6:7–13).

And as those acting in the name of their master, their preaching like his was accompanied with signs that the kingdom had arrived, namely exorcisms and healings.

After Jesus’ resurrection, when it is time for them to spread the good news of the kingdom to the rest of the world, Jesus instructs them “that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47 esv).

But Zechariah 1:1–6, along with the ministry of Jesus, the twelve disciples, Paul, and scores of Christians throughout church history, shows us that the only foundation suitable for Spirit-endowed kingdom work is repentant hearts, both individually and corporately.

As we acknowledge our own sin for what it is—grievous and offensive to a holy God—and turn from it with godly contrition, we open ourselves up again to the renewing grace of God in Christ.

We find afresh the joy of our salvation and experience God’s Spirit upholding and sustaining us (Ps. 51:12). And we find our relationship deepening with the Lord who is always more eager to forgive than we are to confess. As John Chrysostom once preached, “You do not so much desire to be forgiven as he desires to forgive you your sins.”

Over time, as we practice heartfelt repentance and turning back to the Lord in faith, we find that we are being transformed from the inside out, being more and more conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29).

St. Ambrose once recounted an episode of a young man who was returning home after an extended journey. During his time away, the man had been set free from his attachment to a prostitute.

After he had returned home, he one day ran into the object of his former passion who stopped him and said, “Do you not know me, I am still myself?” “That may be,” replied the man, “but I am not myself.” Such is the life built on repentance.

Over time, the Lord transforms us such that we are no longer our former selves; the old passes, behold all things become new (2 Cor. 5:17). If only we would return to the Lord in repentance, imagine what he might do in our own lives, in our churches, and in the world.