Zechariah 1:1
The Bible says in
Zechariah 1:1-3, In the eighth month, in the
second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of
Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, The LORD hath been sore
displeased with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD
of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you,
saith the LORD of hosts. The first thing to notice about these verses
is that it says in Zechariah 1:1 that the word of
the Lord came unto Zechariah. That is true for every book of the Bible,
and for no other book. God has spoken to the human race. Once in a while God
spoke audibly, but most of the time God gave words to the prophets, and the
prophets wrote those words down so that all generations of humans could read
and know the words that came from God. This process of giving words to the
prophets is called inspiration. God used
some kind of supernatural mechanism so that in very unique times and
circumstances the words came to a prophet and the prophet wrote those words
down. That is the reason that we have the book of Zechariah in the Bible. This
process of divine inspiration is described in Second Timothy 3:16. It says, All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness. It also says in Second Peter 1:21, For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man:
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
Every human in every
generation needs to know the first truth spoken by Zechariah because everyone
needs to repent from sin. God is holy, and we are all sinners. Zechariah said
in verses 2-3, The LORD hath been sore displeased
with your fathers. Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts;
Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the
LORD of hosts. No one needs to ever fear rejection from God. If you
turn to Jesus, He will turn to you. There is no question and no doubt what God
will do. The question is: what will you do, faced with your own sinfulness?
Some people turn from their sins and turn to Jesus, but some people do not.
Since Jesus gives salvation, all that it takes is to look to Jesus to find
salvation.
If you are stubborn and
refuse to turn away from your sins and to Jesus, then
you will be like the fathers of the people to whom Zechariah was speaking. They
had sinned just like the rest of us, but they failed to turn from their sins.
If you do not turn to the Lord and find forgiveness from the Lord, then the
Lord must be your judge. He is holy and He must punish sin. As it says in verse
2, The LORD hath been sore displeased with your
fathers.
The Bible says in
Zechariah 1:4-5, Be ye not as your fathers, unto
whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn
ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear,
nor hearken unto me, saith the LORD. Your fathers, where are they? and the
prophets, do they live for ever? We are shown how merciful and kind
that God is by the fact that He gives us an opportunity and a genuine chance to
repent. He does not want to judge us, but He will judge us if we refuse His
offer of forgiveness. In other words God has given each of us a choice. Jesus
does not force His will upon us. He gives us a choice. He also gives us a
chance to learn about consequences from those who have gone before us and did not repent or turn to Jesus. Most of them
have not repented, and we can see the results of what they have chosen. The
Israelites to whom Zechariah was speaking should have been able to do that
also. Their fathers had not repented of their sins, and that was exactly why they
ended up prisoners in the land of captivity. This is an important lesson to
learn. It is not because they sinned that they suffered such punishments. It is
because they sinned, and then refused to repent. Believers need to live a life
of repentance. We are sinners, and we will be until we get to heaven and we are
transformed. Because we sin so easily every day, we can only stay in fellowship
with Christ through His mercy and power of forgiveness. Do not think of
yourself as a good person who earns Gods favor. Think of yourself as a sinner
who relies upon the mercy of Christ every single day. And if you are relying
upon the mercy of Christ instead of your own goodness, then Christ accepts you
completely and fully. Christ receiveth sinful men, even me with all my sin.
As the Lord continued to
try and persuade the children of
Notice also that Zechariah
1:5 speaks of the fathers of the
Israelites along with the prophets. We
know that the fathers had committed great sins and the nation had been judged
because of a failure to repent from these sins. We also know that compared to
other people, the prophets were serving the Lord and walking in fellowship with
Him. Therefore, in what way were the unrepentant fathers and the holy prophets
similar? They are similar in several important ways: everyone is a sinner,
everyone is going to die and face the judgment, and everyone needs the Savior who will forgive them and pardon
their sins.
People should be concerned
about the judgment because there are two ultimate destinations: one is heaven
and the other is hell. Of course, Jesus often spoke about heaven and hell.
Jesus said in Mark 9:42-49, And whosoever shall
offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a
millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea. And if thy
hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed,
than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be
quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy
foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life,
than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be
quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And if
thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the
One of the main points
that Jesus made in this passage in Mark chapter nine is that hell is eternal.
If someone goes to hell, they will be going there forever. They will not perish
nor be annihilated. They will continue to exist in that condition. Jesus said
in Mark 9:43, the fire that never shall be
quenched. Jesus described hell in Mark 9:44, Where
their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. Jesus said
once again in Mark 9:45, the fire that never
shall be quenched. And Jesus repeated in Mark 9:48, Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched. There is something about this human-decision power that
God has given to us: God has given to each of us great power to make decisions.
Jesus said in Matthew 18:18, Verily I say unto
you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever
ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. As each person goes
through life, the Spirit of God will work in each persons heart to convict
that person of sin and to draw that person to Christ. Whoever makes the
decision to refuse and reject Jesus Christ is also making the decision to live
forever in a literal hell away from God and outside of heaven.
Notice also that Jesus
said in Mark 9:49, For every one shall be salted
with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. The second
phrase in this verse, every sacrifice shall be
salted with salt, Jesus got from an Old Testament teaching. It says in
Leviticus 2:13, And every oblation of thy meat offering
shalt thou season with salt; neither shalt thou suffer the salt of the covenant
of thy God to be lacking from thy meat offering: with all thine offerings thou
shalt offer salt. And it also says in Numbers 18:19, All the heave offerings of the holy things, which the
children of Israel offer unto the LORD, have I given thee, and thy sons and thy
daughters with thee, by a statute for ever: it is a covenant of salt for ever
before the LORD unto thee and to thy seed with thee. Because salt is a
preservation, it represents the continuation of something, and thereby it
symbolizes in a spiritual way something enduring everlastingly. The reason that
the sacrifices were salted with salt is that salt is a preservative. There is a
spiritual significance to this. The animals were killed in sacrifice, but even
though they were killed, the proper steps were taken to add preservatives. In
other words death is not the end. Existence goes on after death. It is very
revealing that Jesus said concerning those who are in hell: For everyone shall be salted with fire. In other
words the fires of hell will not destroy them. We think of fire as being a
consuming force, but the fires of hell will not consume. The fires of hell will
work the same way that salt works: it will preserve. Those who make a decision
to refuse Jesus and thus to refuse heaven, are making an eternal decision to
spend eternity in the fires of judgment in hell.
When we talk about hell,
it is important to remember that evidently there will be degrees of punishments
in hell. Hitler will have a much more severe punishment throughout eternity
than the average atheist who pays his taxes and mows his lawn, while refusing
through his lifetime to turn to the Lord. That is why lost souls will be judged
according to their works: in order to demonstrate not only that they deserve
hell, but also to present their own particular punishments because of the
severity of their own particular sins. It says in Revelation 20:11-15, And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it,
from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no
place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the
books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and
the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books,
according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and
death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged
every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake
of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the
book of life was cast into the lake of fire. The amount that a lost
person suffers in hell will be directly related to the amount that they sin on
earth and cause sufferings for others. The opposite is also true: the number of
rewards that a saved person enjoys in heaven will be directly related to the
service that he or she renders to Jesus in this life. It says in Revelation 11:18, And the
nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they
should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the
prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and
shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
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Copyright; 2011 by Charles
F. (Rick) Creech
All Rights Reserved