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FTGC-24

210421AM
Welcome to week #24, the climax of human history. Jesus Returns as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, breaking into Earth’s atmosphere with billions of angels and millions of saints. And what is humanity’s response? Like an Avenger movie, the whole world unites to come and fight off this alien intruder. The creator of mankind is the enemy to fight, to fallen, sinful earth dwellers.
Everything has been building to this point since the Fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden. Humanity is in rebellion against God. But finally, Satan possesses an extraordinary man called the “man of sin”; and empowers him to become the Jesus everyone wants, the false Messiah, the fake Jesus that gives to people what they really want—sin, rebellion, and darkness.
What happens when the whole world goes to war against God? Armageddon, World War 3 is very short—Jesus speaks and all the rebels melt before Him.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords has returned—just like He said he would.

Transcript

Welcome to Zechariah 12 through 14. This is our 24th week in the 52-week study through the Bible. You can see right here week 24, and there’s our text, Zechariah 12 to 14. If you look at that slide it’s in your face. It’s one of those dramatic pictures, but it hardly captures what we’re looking at. We’re looking at the most prophesied event in the Bible and we’re looking at the most utterly feudal, almost mindless, behavior of humanity. What we’re going to see today is when all humanity assembles to fight against God.

Before we get there, it’s in the book of Zechariah, and you probably have gotten there in your Bible, but Zechariah was a very interesting character in the Bible. His grave is one of my favorite places to visit when we go to the Holy Land. The grave of Zechariah is right on the side of the Mount of olives, looking directly into what we would call the Temple Mount. You look right over the Eastern Gate and you see the Dome of the Rock, you see all the parts of modern-day Jerusalem. The reason I love the tomb of Zechariah is that when he wrote these words, especially if you look at verse 3 of chapter 12, it says though all the nations of the Earth are gathered against Jerusalem.

When Zechariah wrote those words, he was looking at Jerusalem destroyed by the Babylonians. He was looking at rocks that had burn marks and scorch marks and black soot on them. He was looking at a ghost town, desolation like you would look at what New York looked like after 911, the terrorist attack. It just looked like a disaster and God said, I’m going to make all the nations of the Earth gather here. It took a lot of faith for Zechariah to write those words down and say, I am the prophet of God and I’m telling you, thus says the Lord, all the nations of the Earth are coming here and they’re going to fight against God. That’s why I like to go there. Each year when we take groups to the Holy Land, we sit there. I have them sit looking out at the city of Jerusalem outside of his grave on benches. They are looking from the Mount of Olives toward the city of Jerusalem. I read these verses, the ones we’re going to look at. You can just look past me teaching and think in the background the city of Jerusalem is spread out before you.

World War III, what we know as Armageddon when the whole world goes to war against God. This is what God told us what’s going to happen. Do you remember way back in Psalm 2? “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the Earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the LORD and against His anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bands apart and cast away their cords from us.'” We don’t want our Creator anymore. We don’t want our judge. We don’t want our Redeemer, get away from us. That’s the foolishness that God sees in the hearts of His created in His likeness human beings. Look at what verse 4 says, “He who sits in the heavens shall laugh.” Psalm 2:4, “the LORD will hold them in derision and then He’ll speak to them in His wrath.” He does. When He speaks to them in His wrath, they melt there. They’re incinerated by the wrath of God.

Look at Revelation 19, that’s the moment this happens. “And I saw the beast, the Kings of the Earth and their armies gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army.” Who’s sitting on the horse, the Lord, Jesus Christ. Where is He coming from? He’s coming in the sky. He’s headed toward Armageddon the Valley of Megiddo. He is up there in the sky and all the nations of the Earth are with all their armaments ready to fight. You know what it says, He speaks and they’re instantly killed.

Let’s go through this amazing study. Jesus says Jerusalem, as we’re going to see in Zechariah 12 to 14, is God’s clock that’s counting down to this moment, the return of Christ. The most prophesied event in the Bible and the close of world history is tied to that little city. We saw that when we were in Ezekiel 37 to 39 last week. All the world will slowly get fixated on Jerusalem, that’s God’s plan. Then, history will culminate right there in Jerusalem when Jesus descends to the Mount of Olives. What’s that going to be like? It’s going to be the fulfillment of a lot of prophecies because look at this, Jerusalem is mentioned over 1,000 times in God’s word. Jerusalem is the most mentioned place in the Bible. God talks about Jerusalem 814 times in 766 verses, plus He calls it Zion 160 times, plus He calls it the city of David 46 times. Jerusalem is vital to God’s plan. Here, God promised that Jesus would be the lamb of God when He promised a Redeemer to Abraham. Here, David was promised a future son that would have an endless kingdom. The second coming of Christ establishes that kingdom. It’s here, most important to every one of us, God has worked His plan of redemption. Jerusalem is huge in the Bible.

Here’s just a quick kind of tour I’ll give you of the city of Jerusalem. This is what we call the Old City today. This is what it looks like. You’ve probably seen the Temple Mount, the Dome of the Rock right there. The Four Quarters of Jerusalem. We have the Muslim Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Jewish quarter, and the Armenian quarter. This is what I want you to see. This is the Old City. If you go to Jerusalem today, that little area, the Old City, is a little less than a square mile and it’s packed full of little alleys and souks and all kinds of incredible places. I personally could just wander around the Old City of Jerusalem endlessly with my Bible. Between drinking a cup of coffee and reading the Bible I would be happy as a clam enjoying, immersing myself in all those centuries of biblical history.

Look at this. Most people don’t realize that right outside the walls of the Old City Jerusalem headed down the hill between the Kidron Valley and the Hinnom Valley is the City of David right there. See the City of David is like a tongue that’s sticking out of the City of David. It’s just a ramp that comes down. Let me show you a different view of it. This is the Dome of the Rock that everybody can pick out of a picture anywhere. It’s on the biblical site called Mount Moriah. Beside it right here is what’s called the Kidron Valley. This is ground zero. This is the Mount of Olives where Jesus is going to return. Kidron Valley right down here is where Gethsemane is, where Jesus would go back and forth with His disciples. He’d walked down this hill and back up this hill. This right here is the City of David. The city of David that I just showed you. Here’s the Hinnom Valley.

Just for you to know, the book of Joel tells us, for all of you that love prophecy, this is where Jesus will return right here on the Mount of Olives. This is the Hinnom Valley and where the Hinnom valley meets the Kidron Valley. See, the Kidron Valley comes right around and right here they meet. It is called the Valley of Jehoshaphat. You know what Joel said? That’s where the judgment of all the survivors of the tribulation is going to take place. The angels are going to bring them. Jesus talks about this in Matthew 13 and also in Matthew 26. He brings all of them here and in chapter 25 of Matthew in verse 41, He’s going to say, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” That is right here. This is the great judgment called the Sheep and Goat Judgment where the angels bring everybody that’s alive on Earth and sets them down and the Lord separates them. He separates them between the sheep, those that believed in Him and followed Him, and the goats, those that rejected Him and the lost people, the goats. The rebels are going to be immediately waiting for the final judgment, but all that is right here in front of the City of David.

Look what’s at the bottom. When Abraham was coming north from Hebron, down where he lived bringing with him Isaac, he came up this valley and came right up on his way to Mount Moriah, to offer Isaac. He goes by the City of David, then called Salem, where Melchizedek was. See, so many events are right here clustered, and that’s why this is such an important place to study.

Here’s my journal because I want to jump into this. There are three chapters, and because there are three chapters, we’re going to have to look at them in many different ways. There are so many biblical truths and so many doctrines. One of the things that’s hard for me is we’re done with the Old Testament, but we’re starting the New Testament next week. We start the New Testament when I give you the kickoff class. Remember, for those of you that are just maybe trying to figure out what this video is, we are looking at a one-year-long study of the Bible that we call the 52 Greatest Chapters. If you go to our Facebook page you can find the entire study with the details of what you need, how to do the study, the devotional method, and the chapters we’re studying.

We’re on the 24th week this week, and it’s Zechariah 12 to 14. Next time I’m going to introduce for you, look at this when we start the New Testament, Matthew 1 and 2 and we’re going to just be hitting the greatest chapters in the New Testament. Just the first six weeks are Christ’s birth and King Herod and the Magi. Then we’re going to go into Jesus’ longest sermon we know as the Sermon on the Mount. Then we’re going to go into the Great Commission and the whole resurrection chapter. The 28th chapter is the resurrection of Christ, His showing Himself to His disciples and then Him taking them up on the mountain top. We’re going to actually go there. I’m going to show you, I believe personally, the mountain. It has an article before it, it’s not a mountain it’s the mountain. Galilee, most likely, is the most prominent one that you see. Everybody that visits there. It’s called Arbel and it just towers over the sea of Galilee. We’re going to go there and study the 28th chapter. Then the Good Samaritan you’ve always heard of, the Prodigal Son you’ve always heard of. Then, John chapter 1, what a fascinating study. Jesus reveals Himself with seven titles with the beginning of all these sevens in the book of John. He tells us that He is the Eternal Word, the Creator, as well as the Messiah, the Promised One, who is Jesus, our Savior. Just a little peek at where we’re going.

We’re in week 24 and we’re in Zechariah 12 to 14. From my notes that I’ve worked on just like you’re going to all week long, I have been studying this, like I’m sitting across the table from you. I really see that in my mind. This morning when I got up early and was sitting out there finishing up Zechariah, knowing that I was going to meet with you today, I thought about maybe in Heaven, all the alumni of the 52 Greatest Chapters can get together. We’ll have to message each other because I’m hearing from more and more of you and thank you. Thank you for your encouraging messages.

Bonnie and I are full-time missionaries. We travel on the road. We’re staying right now in missionary housing, driving a missionary car, working in a missionary studio, teaching virtual classes to the next generation, to young people all over the world. We hear from them and when we start the New Testament next week, and maybe by the time we get to the Great Commission chapter, I’m going to show you all the other members of our studies that are joining us. They’re from 30 different countries around the world. We never thought that after three decades in pastoral ministry we would be talking to you and you would be our small group, scattered across the world, but we’re training classes of young people preparing to serve the Lord. I hope that’s what you want to do.

In our journal we always write the week we’re on, the chapter we’re studying, then our title, and you’re going to see I have many different titles. They’ll come out throughout this study. One is The Final Siege of Jerusalem and Christ’s Return. The summary is that God explains, look at this, that He, who created all things, controls and holds the future for Israel. The God who created the universe says I’m watching out for Israel, and they’ll never cease to be a nation. A lot of people say, aren’t you afraid to go to Israel? I say, no, the safest place in the world. I know at the end of the world it’s still standing. I know the Mount of Olives is going to be there. I know that the Temple Mount is going to be there. If you want to go someplace that for sure is not going to get destroyed by climate change or a nuclear holocaust, go to Jerusalem because it’s there at the end and so are God’s people.

Here are the lessons I found. Look in your Bible, Zechariah verses 1 and 2, I found that God stretched out the heavens. The Greek word in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew Old Testament is cosmos, lays the foundations of the Earth, the geos. He’s the One who forms the spirit/breath in men, that’s the Greek word pneumos. Wow. What an introduction. That’s Who we’re studying about, that’s Who’s returning, that’s our God and we worship Him. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

In verses 2 to 6, God made Jerusalem the center of world history. I’m going to show you these markings that I took pictures of so you could see how important all this wording is. I’ll show it to you, but this is just my summary. God made Jerusalem the center of world history. Then God introduces His Son to us. When we get to chapter 13 the people of Israel are still in Jerusalem at the end when God does a cleansing of the land. In other words, no amount of Iranian warnings and Palestinian uprisings and United Nations decrees are going to change the fact that Jerusalem is forever the place that God has placed His name and said, this is my city. These are my people and I’m going to make them a very heavy stone, verse 3 of chapter 12, for the whole world.

Israel was in the news today, again. In one of their military plants where they develop things, they were doing some testing on something kind of like Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets. One of them blew up and Iran was ecstatic. They said Israel had a failure. Israel said, Hey we’re testing some of the most advanced weapons in the world and if one blows up, we’re learning from it. Why would we even hear about that? Because the eyes of the world are on Israel because Jerusalem and the people of God and the nation of Israel are a very heavy burden for the world.

Then, sadly Zechariah 13:7-9 tells us 2/3’s of all the Jews alive on Earth, right now there are about 10 or 15 million, 2/3’s of them if this happened today would die in this final Holocaust where the Anti-Christ, Satan and all the forces of the world are closing in on Jerusalem. They’re coming closer and closer and they’re starting to just decimate the population of the Jewish people in Jerusalem. When they get down to only 1/3 left, they will be hitting what God calls, and what the book of Romans chapters 9, 10 and 11 calls, the remnant, those are the believing ones. Among them will be the 144,000 that we’ve already heard about many times, we will study in a few months when we’re in Revelation. This remnant is there in Jerusalem, the 144,000 sharing the Gospel. All of a sudden those people say, there’s no help for the ones who have not yet believed, but in You, and they look up and they say, Messiah, Savior, Jesus. In that moment, He comes through the clouds, that’s the second coming of Christ, but we’ll see that later.

Zechariah 14:1 is the day of the Lord, which is very much described in the book of Joel. It’s also the tribulation period, 6 to 19 in Revelation, and it’s culminated by the second coming of Christ.

The next lesson I found is verse 2 of chapter 14 is that Armageddon isn’t just at the Valley of Megiddo, it involves all the nations of the Earth it says in verse 2. It says Jesus touches down on the Mount of Olives, so that’s ground zero, and that’s why I love going to the Holy Land. The Mount of Olives is where Jesus ascended back to Heaven. The Mount of Olives is where He descends and rescues His chosen people and begins to reign on Earth. The Mount of Olives is where He prays His prayer in what we call Gethsemane. It was right there on the side of the Mount of Olives. That’s where His disciples came and were looking up and saw Him ascend into Heaven. It’s ground zero for so much of redemptive history. Zechariah 14:5-7 says the saints and the raptured come with Him. As Jude says that Enoch prophesied in the first eschatology of the scripture. What do we mean by that? Let me read to you what it says in the book of Jude. If you want to turn there it’s a little book that’s just before Revelation. Here we go, Jude, and it says this, verse 14. Jude only has one chapter so Jude 1 verse 14. “Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men saying ‘Behold, the Lord comes with 10 thousands of his saints, to execute judgment on all and convict all of their ungodly behavior and their ungodly deeds, which they have committed in an ungodly way, and the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ “ Did you catch that? The second coming of Christ is the Lord coming with myriads of saints. That’s all the raptured church and all the saints of all the ages that are coming with Christ at His return.

Verse 8 are the millennial changes. We’re going to see as we study through these verses today that the Earth starts changing. When Jesus touches down on the Mount of Olives everything starts changing. There starts to be healing and a transformation. All of the pollution is going to go away. All of the curse is going to be abated and pulled back, not fully removed but pulled back, and no longer affecting Earth. That means poisonous animals, poisonous, venomous, spiders, and snakes. Carnivorous, the attacking beasts, aren’t going to be that way anymore. Thorns and thistles and all of that. The Earth is going to become like the Garden of Eden again, fruitful, lush, paradise. No more climate change or climate fixing and Jesus rolls back the effects of humanity’s mismanagement of the Earth and the curse. The millennial changes take place.

Look at this. The total annihilation of God’s enemies. Did you catch that there are no unbelievers that enter the millennium? Believing humans populate the Earth after Christ’s return and live for a thousand years with no sickness, with no predators, with no wars, there are no jails, there are no murderers. It says that Christ is ruling and if anybody is doing anything out of place they die. That’s the way to rule. Keep everything just and safe and that’s His rule. In justice, in holiness, in love. He gives everybody perfect health and perfect weather and environment and everything. Look at this, this is fascinating, we’re going to see this in a minute. They go back to the Old Testament feast three times a year, everybody comes. I’ll show you something funny about that.

I got done reading all of this this morning and this is what I wrote. That’s what you’ll learn about when you go to our Facebook page and get this copy. The goal of this course is not only to give you an overview of the scripture but a mastery of the main points, the outline of the Bible, the key doctrines, the key attributes, the key theological truths that you need to know. Knowing what those key chapters are is knowledge, but Paul warned us knowledge puffs us, makes us proud. What humbles us? To use the Bible as a mirror.

I’ll never forget once when I was pastoring in New England at the beginning of our ministry. It was hectic days. Bonnie and I were just starting in ministry, and we had two little, tiny children that we were taking care of. We lived in this parsonage, this 160-year-old house that all the pastors had lived in. One of the things about it was that it didn’t have any hallways. It was built for fireplaces, it was just a big square with four rooms, and you had to walk through each room to get to the other room, on two floors. There were eight rooms in the whole house. When I would get up in the morning I had to walk from room to room and disrupt everything. I’d have to walk through the room to get to another room, to get downstairs, and to get to my study. I had to walk through the nursery. Everything was connected. I would tiptoe around, not turn on any lights, and go out to my early morning Bible studies.

I did that and I went to my 5:30 AM Bible study, it was wonderful. Then I went from there to my next meeting and picked up a donut and a cup of coffee. I was even on the news that day because they were filming at that coffee house. Finally, after meeting with people and being on television I got to my office. Then my 82-year-old secretary said, Pastor, may I ask you a question? I said, Yes. She said, Do you mean to have your sweater on backward? I looked down and I had on a cable knit, big collared sweater with three buttons. In the dark, I’d put the three buttons on, and the collar was here, and the three buttons were in the back. I’d never had the lights on by a mirror and no one at all in my Bible studies even told me, they just thought it was the new fashion. I thought, oh, we need to look in the mirror before we leave the house even if it wakes someone up.

This is the mirror we need to look into, the Bible. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3 that this is the mirror, and we hold it up and we look at ourselves. The way we do that is we look at God’s truth, and then we say, God, I see what You need to change in my life. That’s what our application prayer is about. On the screen, after reading chapters 12 through 14, these three chapters, this is the prayer I prayed this morning. This is how I would like you to start patterning your time in the word, mining for lessons and truths that you can see God use in your life. Then ask Him to do this, like this: Lord, thanks for inspiring Zechariah to look across the ruins of Jerusalem and proclaim Your plan. I know it must have been hard when everything You told him to say looked impossible. But You are Creator and Lord of Heaven and Earth, and You were pierced for me, and You made the Heavens and the Earth and me. I want to love You and serve You all of my days. Help me to see Your fountain of grace and mercy flowing through many lives as I share Your Gospel all my days. In Jesus’ name, amen.

In our passage, we’re going to see that God opens a fountain, as you see in that prayer, of grace and mercy. Did you know each time you share the Gospel, and someone comes to Christ, that fountain is flowing? In Zechariah, it’s flowing for the unbelieving Jews that had denied Christ that come to faith. Everybody is saved the same way. The famous words that Paul uses for salvation, “whoever calls on the name of the Lord”, comes right out of the minor prophets, it’s right out of this time period. For the Jews who call on the name of the Lord, they’re saved just like we are saved.

 

Next slide. Let’s look at what you find when you carefully read a passage through every day of the week. After reading this all week long I want to show you what I marked. Number one, I love this, this is one of my favorite things to show you from Zechariah. This is how to share the Gospel with a Jewish person. As you read chapter 12 notice who’s talking, the Lord in verse 1, then the Lord says in verse 2, “I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling.” Then in verse 3, “in that day, I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone” and in verse 4, “I, the LORD, will strike” and “I will open my eyes.” Verse 6, “I will make the governors of Judah.” Now look at verse 7, “the LORD,” this just continues right here. The same person is talking in verses 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8. Look, they’re still talking. “And it will be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour out,” in verse 10, “on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and supplication.” Now look at this, “then they will look on me.” Now, wait a minute. That’s the same person talking. Lord, I, I, Lord, I, I, I, Lord, I, I, is me. See what I wrote? My note. You probably can’t. When was Yahweh pierced? Only as Christ on the cross. See right there. I have used this over and over with Jewish friends.

Bonnie reminded me of one dear Jewish fella who came to me once. He saw me reading my Bible and he said, what are you doing? I said, oh, I’m reading the Tanakh, I’m reading the Old Testament, I’m reading your prophets. He was so interested he sat down next to me and said, show me what you’re reading. I did this exact same pattern on the screen. Then I looked at him when I came to verse 10 and I said, and it says, “Then they will look on Me whom they pierced. And they will mourn as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for one who grieves for His firstborn.” I said to this man, when was Yahweh, the Lord, pierced? This elderly man sweetly looked at me and he stood up and he walked away because they can’t answer that. They have been taught that the Messiah has not come, but do you know what I did? I showed him like Jesus showed the disciples on the road to Emmaus, He showed them Himself in all the scriptures. There is Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. Oh, he’s all over the place. He’s all through the sacrifices. He’s all through the pictures and in all those promises of the Scepter arising and Shiloh coming. This is saying that He is God the Son, the servant of Isaiah 53 pierced for our sins.

 

Let’s go through chapters, 12 through 14. The first thing I saw is the One who stretches out the heavens, that’s the cosmos that I already talked to you about, that’s our Creator. The One who laid the foundation of the Earth, and I already know who did that because John 1, Colossians 1, 1 John 1, and Hebrews chapter 11 tells us, it was Jesus. He’s the Creator and He’s the one that breathed the spirit of life into man. He is the Lord, the Judge and verse 2 says He is going to make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples. The whole world is going to lay siege against Jerusalem. Look at verse 3, “I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone.” See what I wrote up here in the margin of my Bible? God made Jerusalem the center of the world, all the world’s focus is there. That’s why there are more news correspondents in Jerusalem than anywhere else in the world, except for Washington DC and maybe New York City with the United Nations. Why is that? They would not want to miss anything. I’m sure COVID has culled their numbers, but normally there’s always global news being shot in Jerusalem. It’s becoming just what the Bible says.

Over here, this is Israel, I wrote in verse 10 at Christ’s second coming. Let me describe that again. The Anti-Christ has caused all of the Jewish people to come to Jerusalem for their last stand, banding together for the inevitable destruction, and within them, they’re hearing the Gospel. Remember the angel has been preaching in chapter 14, the 144,000 from chapter 7 through 14. These people in the world have heard the Gospel and the Jews have heard the Gospel. The two witnesses are in Jerusalem until the midpoint of the tribulation when they die and are taken back to Heaven, killed by the Anti-Christ. The Jewish people have heard the Gospel and now comes the moment of truth. Death is staring them in the face. The Lord pours out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace.” You say, how come they get such special treatment? They don’t.

Did you know, in 1962, God poured out on me, the Spirit of grace and supplication? All of a sudden, I began to be convicted of my sins. I began to fear for my soul. I began to know God was a holy God and that I had sinned in His sight. I remember asking my mom, what should I do? She said you need to call on the name of the Lord, you need to ask Him to save you. How did I come to that point of wanting to be saved? He poured out His Spirit of conviction, His gracious work in my heart. See God is the One that stirs our heart. That’s why if you want to share the Gospel pray for people, that the Lord will convict them, that He’ll stir their heart. Share the Gospel with them. Share like you see here in my Bible. They’re all this chain linked, a Gospel for Jewish people that I already showed you but share the Gospel with them. Share the word of God with them. Pray for the Spirit of grace and supplication.

Next, in chapter 13 the city and the peoples are still there. That’s why I said if you want to go to the safest place on Earth go to Jerusalem because “in that day, a fountain shall be opened for the house of David, and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and uncleanness.” God is going to preserve that city and those people till the end. Just one thing I wanted to show you here, that 2/3’s of all the Jews in this climactic moment at the second coming of Christ are going to be cut off. The Lord says I’ll bring 1/3 through the fire and if you want to remember Romans 9 through 11 talks about the remnant and Paul explains that huge doctrine.

Look at chapter 14 because this introduces us to the big doctrine, the most prophesied doctrine of all, the second coming of Christ. Do you know what it’s called? The day of the Lord. This is chapter 14 of Zechariah. “Behold, the day of the LORD is coming. I will gather…” look at this. It doesn’t just happen; this is orchestrated by God. “I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem and the city will be taken, the houses rifled, the women ravished. Half the city will go into captivity and the remnant, the people will not be cut off from the city.” See God has His remnant that He’s protecting.

Now, if you want to see something interesting, in Ezekiel 8, at some point you can track down this incredible message from God. When the Babylonians were coming to take Jerusalem, before the Babylonians got there, Ezekiel saw an angel. The angel comes and puts a mark on the forehead of everyone that Ezekiel says mourns over sin and longs for God. What is that? Believers. That’s the mark of a Christian. We hate sin and we love Christ. We hate sin and we want to be like Christ when we love God’s righteousness, and holiness, and we see our sinfulness. God marks all the true believers in Jerusalem and when the Babylonians come, they don’t kill those that are marked. That’s how the Lord preserved the faithful remnant that carried the scrolls, the scripture, into the Babylonian captivity. It was those that read them, that studied them, that were the forefathers of Ezra who copied them. Do you remember we studied all that in the 119th Psalm? How did Ezra’s family survive? God marked him. An angel of the Lord invisibly marked them so they wouldn’t be killed. That’s what happens here. You can read that; we don’t have time to go through every possible doctrine.

Look at the rest of it. Right here, this is ground zero, this is Zechariah 14 verse 4. “And in that day, His feet, Christ’s feet, will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall split in two.” This is a major change in the geography, the real ground zero, and the Lord will come with all the saints. That’s us. You know what I wrote there that every believer gets to go to the Holy Land. I tell people all the time, you can go to the Holy Land with me now, or some other group, or you can come back on horseback. Jesus is bringing all the saints with Him. I’m coming on that trip. Are you coming on that trip? I wonder if anybody’s still watching this video, if you’ve hung with us this long and you don’t even know the Lord yet.

I got an email this week from someone that said I actually bowed my head and prayed while you told us to. Bonnie and I hear from people just about every week, that for the first time they realize that they need to ask the Lord to save them. All of a sudden, this person says, I just was so aware of my sinfulness I just bowed my head. They actually paused me from talking anymore, they stopped the video and they just said, Lord, I believe. I want Jesus to forgive me of my sins. I want Him to cleanse me. I don’t want my sin, I want You. That’s calling on the name of the Lord. If you’ve never called the name of the Lord, you can today and then you can come with the Lord and understand His word.

Look at the millennial changes. See, I wrote starts the millennial changes. “And in that day it shall be that living waters will flow from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea.” What’s the eastern sea? That’s the Dead Sea. “And half of them toward the western sea.” What’s that? The Mediterranean. All of a sudden everything starts changing. When Jesus touches down on the Mount of Olives, the millennial changes start. I already covered these earlier when we were going through prophecy in chapter 24 of the Psalms, but I’ll tell you now that the salt seas start having life. The dead sea has life. The ground starts blossoming like a rose. There’s going to be plentiful food for everybody, there is going to be no more famines, no more earthquakes, no more hurricanes. All that starts in the millennium and the Lord shall be king over all the Earth that day. That’s what the scriptures say.

Look what happens in verse 12, chapter 14, total annihilation of all those armies. It says, “This shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem:”. All those armies. Remember, He’s flying in and touches down and as He touches down, this is what happens, “Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues will dissolve in their mouths.” Then starts the promised millennium and you can read about that this week.

Where are we? We’re right here with Zechariah, he’s postexilic. See, this is the captivity, the exile. He is post, which means after that he’s in the land. He is right here after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians. Do you remember this is the Southern Kingdom, the Northern Kingdom I’ve talked about so many times? This is the book of 1 Kings, the book of 2 Kings showing all of these Kings that are reigning. The Kings of Israel go from bad to worse in their moral condition as seen by the Lord. 975 BC to the end of the Assyrian captivity. The Southern Kingdom exists until the final carrying away into the Babylonian captivity.

Just for you to see, because now we’re ending the Old Testament and I have to wrap everything up here, do you see the book of Genesis that we covered? That covers from the fall of man through to just before the Exodus. Then the rest of the Old Testament that we’re finishing up ends right here in the exile. There’s a 400-year silent period, then the New Testament starts and we have the greatest event in all history, the death of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Then of course the New Testament period right here. Then in the future, which we’re looking at now, Israel’s restored.

However, in the time between now, the end of the Old Testament, and next week when we get into the New Testament, look at this. Here’s the Babylonian empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, remember Daniel’s beasts. Look what happens. This is where the Septuagint is, during the Greek Empire. It’s about 200 and some years before the birth of Christ. The Bible of the New Testament world, the Old Testament translated into Greek, that’s what Septuagint, L X, means. It’s translated in Alexandria, Egypt by a group of 70 Jewish scholars. That’s the Bible Jesus used in his ministry. Again, we’re looking at Zechariah right here. Remember Esther, the book of Esther, takes place right here in chapter 6 of Ezra during the Persian Empire. Malachi is in the late Persian Empire. Ezra and Nehemiah come into the city of Jerusalem during the Persian Empire after the decree of Cyrus and during the decree of Artaxerxes.

This is the time period of the latter part of the Old Testament, the Assyrian Empire. Then Daniel has this vision of the succeeding empires, the Babylonian, the Media-Persian, Greek, the Roman and this is the Anti-Christ empire. That’s why it’s so vital for us to understand in light of the second coming of Christ. This is what Alexander the Great did. He was from Macedonia, and he pushed all the way to India. That’s the great Greek empire and what that did is that opened up what we call the Hellenization, the Greekification of the ancient world so that they all spoke a shared language, Koine Greek.

Then the next thing that happened is the Medo Persian Empire that was destroyed, not destroyed but eaten by the Greek Empire. It shows us all these ancient enemies of Israel that were always coming and marching on them, but Alexander comes and takes them and puts them into his empire. Then after the Greek Empire comes the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire takes all of Alexander’s empire and the Medo Persian empire and the Assyrian empire and makes this Roman world. This is the New Testament world and the little lines you can see are the Roman roads. Alexander got them all speaking Greek and Rome got them all traveling on these roads so that the Gospel could go global.

That takes us to the coming day of the Lord, Zechariah 14. The day of the Lord is used 19 times in the Old Testament. It’s called the day of the Lord; it describes the historical judgments and future divine judgments. It’s called a Day of Doom, Day of Vengeance, Day of Wrath when God visits the Earth, the great day of God almighty, and it has terrifying judgments. That’s what we see happening in Zechariah 14. The return of Jesus to rescue Israel or what we call the second coming is the most prophesied event in the Bible. Jesus affirmed Daniel who affirmed that four-part image that talked about the coming of this man of sin. Then He gathers all the nations against Jerusalem for the second coming.

Now, a picture can take a thousand words and make things very clear. This is the Daniel 69 weeks. This is the interval we call it in which Jesus was crucified and then ascended back to Heaven. The temple was destroyed in AD 70. Jesus is in Heaven. He comes to take us home in the rapture. It kicks off what we call the Tribulation. Chapters 12 through 14 are right here, the second coming of Christ to end the rule of the Anti-Christ and to launch the kingdom of God on Earth, which is called the millennium. The Lord goes forth and fights against all the nations and His feet stand on the Mount of Olives. See, the second coming of Christ is a very important doctrine, it is huge in the scriptures.

The second coming is the Anti-Christ marching toward Megiddo, the Kings of the north coming toward Megiddo, the Kings of the south coming toward Megiddo, and the Kings of the east. They converge and they’re up there getting ready to march on Jerusalem to finish off the last of the Jews when Jesus returns, as it says in Revelation 19 and Zechariah 12. It says this, the Lord will strike all the people who are fighting against Jerusalem. All those people coming from all four points of the compass, dissolve, and the Mount of Olives splits. The Earth begins to be transformed into the living waters and the paradise it’s going to be.

Now, remember this right here is the event that we just spent all this time talking about. What happens after that? Matthew 25, I mentioned, down in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, the sheep and goat judgment. Then that millennium starts, God’s temple visitor center, the final rebellion. See all these events. There are so many of them I’m just going to show you these quickly. Israel’s persecuted. Jerusalem’s ravaged. They flee. The remnant survives. Jesus delivers. Starts His reign on Earth. See, look, these are all Zechariah. Look at all these verses, and the topography begins to change.

There are entire courses that are only about what Zechariah prophesies when you go to seminary. Look at this, abundant crops. The feasts of the Old Testament are re-instituted. All the nations come to Jerusalem. Israel is at peace in the land God promised. Jesus Christ rules over all the nations and judges them. There’s universal peace, it says in Zechariah 9:10. Jerusalem is the capital of the world. See what I said? The second coming of Christ is the most prophesied event. All of these things are tied to the second coming. It’s the most amazing thing. That’s World War III. That’s Armageddon. That’s when the whole world goes to war against God.

So how do you apply that? Let me give you a couple of ideas. The Creator returns. He is the One who was pierced. He’s our Redeemer, but He’s the Judge. Since we’re in submission to Him, what does He want? He wants us to acknowledge we were designed by Him. Did you know, there’s something you can do that no one else can do? God designed you to do something. Did you know God designed me for this? Since I was a little boy, I loved studying the Bible and anything that helps me understand the Bible more and I’ve collected books. I have thousands of books, over 7,000. My poor wife, when we got married, you know what we had in our car as we moved to our very first apartment? 1/2 of our car was my files of all my studies of the Bible. She put up with all that because that’s what I was called to do. What has God called and gifted and designed you to do? I know one thing all of us have been called to do, to share the Gospel. All of us have been called to be in fellowship with other believers. Did you know that the One who bought us wants us to glorify God by obeying Him? As you study Zechariah this week, keep asking the Lord what He wants you to do. When I come and answer to You for what I did with my one precious life You gave me, I want to say I came to do Your will and I lived my life and I want to hear Christ’s well done good and faithful servant. That’s what I’m living for. It’s the simplest way to live.

As you think about it, this is my wonderful wife, Bonnie, who brings this class to you by recording it. Pray for us as we do what I’m doing right now with you. I teach in classes all day long with students from 30 different countries who are now meeting in our virtual classrooms, provided by different missions. We can teach them to do what I am teaching you to do. That is, to go into all the world and make disciples of Christ because He is coming back. God bless you, have an incredible time in Zechariah 12 to 14 this week, and when we come back, Lord willing next week, we’re going to start the New Testament.

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