Return from Exile: Zechariah 7-10 (2)

Pray Psalm 50.16-21.
But to the wicked God says:
“What right have you to declare My statutes,
Or take My covenant in your mouth,
Seeing you hate instruction
And cast My words behind you?
When you saw a thief, you consented with him,
And have been a partaker with adulterers.
You give your mouth to evil,
And your tongue frames deceit.
You sit and speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother’s son.
These things you have done, and I kept silent;
You thought that I was altogether like you;
But I will rebuke you,
And set them in order before your eyes.

Sing Psalm 50.16-21.
(Austrian Hymn: Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken)
“All of you My Word despising, who are you to claim My grace?
Praise may from your lips be rising, but you scorn Me to My face.
You approve of all transgressions, scheme against your mother’s son!
I will crush your vain aggressions and destroy what you have done."

Read Zechariah 7.1-14; meditate on verses 8-14.

Preparation
1. What does God require of His people?

2. Why did He send them into captivity?

Meditation
Self-love, properly understood, is the gift of God. But when self-love becomes the driving force in a life, it is a blight, withering everything truly spiritual and holy. Zechariah reminded the people why they had gone into captivity for 70 years. It wasn’t because they were not offering sacrifices and going through the motions of religion. It was that they had no heart for God or His Law (v. 12). No matter how many prophets God sent to remind them to hear His Law and obey it, they simply “stopped their ears so that they could not hear” (v. 11).

And this is where the people were when Zechariah came among them to proclaim the Word of God. The wrath of God fell on the people of God because of their neglect of the Law of God (vv. 11-14). Even though God warned them throughout His Law that this would be the consequence of their failing to hear and heed His Word, the people “shrugged their shoulders” (v. 11) at the preaching of the Word and gave their hearts to self-love rather than to the Lord.

Captivity to the world is the result of refusing to hear and heed the Word of God, beginning with His Law. If we will not hear the Word of God, we will listen to the voices of the world, telling us that we do not need God’s Law and that whatever we must do to secure our own happiness is what matters most. And like the people of Zechariah’s day, we may continue in the motions of religion, but the reality of it will elude us.

Treasures Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
On a trip through Samaria, Jesus stopped at a well to rest and have a drink of water as His disciples walked into town to buy some food. While he waited, a woman came out to get some water. During the conversation Jesus suggested she go get her husband, and she told Him she didn’t have one. Jesus then said to her, “You have well said, ‘I have no husband,’ for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; in that you spoke truly” (Jn. 4.17, 18). For our purposes, what I love about this conversation is her response: “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet” (Lk. 4.19). Isn’t that great? A little cynical humor from the woman at the well. She was caught by Jesus in her life captive to sin, and this was her attempt at a rebuttal.

She finally came to see the truth, through Jesus’ continuing to tell her the truth, and then she reached into her vast Personal Mission Field to share the truth of Jesus Christ with them. A first-rate evangelist.

But let us now hear what Zechariah has to say to us.
Are we about to be caught in the same truisms that this woman was? Will we try and offer him the same clever retort? “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet”? It was funny the first time; but perhaps not the second.

Are any of these accusations true of us?
Do we refuse to heed God’s Word?
Do we shrug our shoulders when convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit?
Do we stop our ears and decline to hear God speak to us?
Have our hearts become hard like flint to His words of consternation?
Have we refused to hear the Holy Spirit preach of the importance of the Law? (Zech. 7.11, 12)

Here is how Jesus feels about the hard hearts of church people: “And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved by the hardness of their hearts…” (Mk. 3.5) And in Psalm 2.12 we are warned to, “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.”

Now let’s hear what Zechariah tells us to do.
“Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother.
Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor.
Let none of you plan evil in his heart against his brother” (Zech. 7.9, 10).

Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Help me hear and heed your words.
And dear God, help me out of captivity to improper self-love, and into proper love for You and others.
“To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice” (Prov. 21.3).

For reflection
1. What should be our response to true prophets like Zechariah?

2. How can we know when self-love is getting out of whack in our lives? What should we do then?

3. Whom will you encourage today to persevere faithfully in hearing and heeding the Word of God?

The duties required are, not keeping fasts and offering sacrifices, but doing justly and loving mercy, which tend to the public welfare and peace. The law of God lays restraint upon the heart. But they filled their minds with prejudices against the word of God. Nothing is harder than the heart of a presumptuous sinner. Matthew Henry (1662-1714), Commentary on Zechariah 7.8-14

Pray Psalm 50.22, 23.
Ask the Lord to increase your love for Him and for your neighbors, for all the people in your Personal Mission Field. Pray for specific opportunities to show love for God and neighbors today.

Sing Psalm 50.22, 23.
(Austrian Hymn: Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken)
“Reckon this, My sinful people, lest My wrath consume you whole:
None shall thwart Me when I seek to crush and break your sin-stiff soul.
He who thanks to Me addressing, follows after what is good,
he shall know the way of blessing coming from the hand of God.”

T. M. and Susie Moore

Two books can help us understand our own captivity and lead us to seek revival and renewal in the Lord. The Church Captive asks us to consider the ways the Church today has become captive to the world. And Revived! can help us find the way to renewal. Learn more and order your free copies by clicking here and here.

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Except as indicated, all Scriptures are taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. For sources of all quotations, see the weekly PDF of this study. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (Williston: Waxed Tablet Publications, 2006), available free by clicking here.