The importance of studying prophecy

Well dear friends it's very good to see you all and a big pleasure for me and a great honor to be back here at Mount Sterling. I'm looking forward to being alongside my brother Gideon in the Bible readings over the weekend as well. Zachariah.

We're going to be having some studies in eight of the fourteen chapters of Zachariah and what I would like to do tonight as the Lord gives help is simply get us thinking and pose the question why are the prophetic scriptures important? Why do we need to be involved with them? Why do we need to understand them? On the one hand I know some very dear believers who say oh it's just all so difficult. I've tried studying it. It really doesn't make sense to me.

It's all so confusing. I know I'm saved. I know I'm going to heaven and let's just leave it at that.

And then of course there will be other equally dear friends and fellow believers and well they like to major on it and they want every i dotted and every t crossed and everything fitting into place as though it's some kind of tremendous theological jigsaw puzzle that's been given to us and there's a prize for whoever gets it right first time. Between those two extremes, if they are extremes, there is the settled view that we need that for good reason God has given us the prophetic scriptures and I want to read three scriptures particularly the first of them in Isaiah and chapter 46 and just to think about the reasons why we have the prophetic scriptures and then maybe a word or two as time permits on how we're to rightly understand them. Isaiah and chapter 46 to begin with and in verse 9 of Isaiah 46 we read, Remember the former things of old.

For I am God and there is none else. I am God and there is none like me. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times the things that are not yet done.

Saying my counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure. So one of the reasons there will be many you can think of others but the first reason I want to bring before you this evening as to the benefit to the Lord's people benefit to you and me of studying the prophetic scriptures is that it reveals to us something of the greatness, the glory, the sovereignty of the God we serve. Perhaps familiarity with biblical expressions concerning God himself makes us sometimes think less of him than we ought.

The majestic omniscience and splendor of our God. He's the one who says that one of the things that distinguishes him from all the gods of man's from the beginning he can tell you exactly as something begins what his outcomes will be. But he can make it happen and he does so all in accordance with his own counsel.

Elsewhere in Isaiah as you know God says who have I ever had to take counsel from? Who do I have to consult with? God has without being fussy too much about the the word purposes, purpose. God doesn't have purposes he has a purpose. His counsel and he's working it all out from beginning to end.

He is absolutely sovereign. Wonderful to see that in the chapter before in chapter 45 there's a tremendously remarkable prophecy amongst all the others. Some have calculated that perhaps somewhere in the region of 40 some would say even more percent of our bible was prophetic when it was written.

That is clear predictions were made, statements were made about things that would happen in the future. Some have tried to nail it down to as much as two and a half thousand distinct prophecies of which possibly some two thousand have been fulfilled. But when we go back to chapter 45 God says I'm going to raise up a man I'll tell you his name says God he's going to be called Cyrus.

He's going to be my servant, he will be a gentile monarch, he won't know me, he won't even acknowledge me as God but I'm going to raise up this man he's going to be the leader of an empire that has not yet come into existence. The man himself will not be born for another 150 years. The purpose for which I'm going to raise him up is to help with a problem that has not even yet arisen.

Because what God had in view was this, that because of their continuing idolatry and refusal to repent and the northern kingdom of Israel already haven't gone into Assyrian captivity, God said the same thing is going to happen to Judah, the southern kingdom, except they're going to go into Babylonian captivity and Nebuchadnezzar is going to sack the temple and he's going to destroy Jerusalem and my people are going to go into captivity for 70 years. But at the end of that time when the Assyrian empire has passed away, when the Babylonian empire has passed away, when the Medo-Persian empire, which in Isaiah 45 doesn't exist but will come into existence, when that Medo-Persian empire comes into power, the man who will be heading it up is this man called Cyrus, God says I'm telling you about. All this 150 or so years before.

These aren't vague announcements, vague suggestions, could work out like this, might happen like that. Who can say 150 years in advance, here's a man, he's going to be my servant, this is his name, he's going to head the empire and he's going to be the one who will initiate the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. A godless gentile.

God said it's all part of my counsel. We'll find as we're reading in Zechariah that there won't be time of course to look at every reference as I'm going to suggest it now, but it's very clear as you read through Zechariah, I would almost state categorically that there isn't one preceding written writing prophet that he doesn't quote or at least allude to. Certainly he tells us a lot about Jeremiah and things that he has said.

He doesn't name him necessarily but you can see from the quotation, from the remark, he's got Jeremiah in mind. The potter in the house of God would be one of the instances, for example. He's clearly completely up to date with Isaiah's prophecy, goes back to Isaiah a lot.

He goes back to Ezekiel, he goes back to Joel, he goes back to Micah and he's gathering together things that have been stated by the men who have preceded him. He's only a young man himself and what he's doing under the hand of God, Haggai, the older man, probably old enough to have seen the temple that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed. Zechariah himself was born in Babylon so he'd never seen it.

But as Haggai had come on the scene, a brief ministry and it was pretty much, he does mention some future things, but it's pretty much about the here and now of the people of God. Consider your ways. How are you living now? What's going on today? Consider your ways.

But then to complement that ministry, along comes this younger man Zechariah and most of his ministry was about things that were going to happen in the future. Building on the things that men preceding him had prophesied. You know how Zechariah is going to mention, prophetically, the sufferings of Christ and the death of Christ.

He's going to mention things like the 30 pieces of silver. He's going to mention the fact that there's a day coming when the nation will look upon him whom they pierced. You could almost overlook it when you're reading in John chapter 19.

You could almost overlook it, such a simple little statement, that as John records the Calvary scene and the mocking of the Lord Jesus, particularly by these soldiers and the dividing up of his garments and so forth, the fact that they came and break the legs of the first manufacturer and of the second. They didn't break the Lord's legs. One of them took a spear and he pierced his side.

The expression we might possibly overlook is this. These things, therefore, the soldiers did. They stand absolutely responsible for what they did.

They hadn't the vaguest idea that the reason they didn't break the legs of the man on the center cross was so the scripture would be fulfilled, the bone of him shall not be broken. Hadn't got a clue about that. There was very clearly a sovereign hand supervising the whole thing.

These things, therefore, the soldiers did. In complete accord with what God had stated hundreds of years before. This is our God, brethren and sisters.

And just as the exaltation comes perhaps at the end of chapter 2 for the people on the one hand to sing, but then on the other hand to be silent in awe of their God. May God stir our hearts. May the spirit of God stir our hearts in these meetings to come back to a realization of the genuine awesomeness and majesty of our God.

He knows the end from the beginning. We could draw a parallel. We certainly wouldn't dwell on it.

And this isn't intended to be a statement one way or the other. I'm a visitor in your country. But the current conflict going on in the Middle East.

Of that conflict, many a commentator has said, very easy to start a war. Very difficult to end it. The law of unintended consequences.

Never, ever with our God is there a law of unintended consequences. He knows exactly what's happening. Because, of course, he's outside of time.

As the eternal, for him everything is now. That's wonderful in the macro view of things, isn't it? But dear child of God, whatever your situation is today, God knows. Zachariah's name means God remembers.

You know that. And the infinite God, who is the God of the macro, who raises up and puts down empires, in whose hand the heart of the king is like a river of water, turns it whichever way he wants. He's your God.

The God of the macro is also the God of the micro. He's your God. He's my God.

And there's times when, and we all fail at times, there's times when the adversary would come and perhaps try and weaken you in your faith, and you'd be worried about the way your Christian life has developed and things that are happening and so forth. Just remember, when God moved in mercy, when the Spirit of God enlightened your darkened heart and mind as to your need of salvation, when you put your faith savingly in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you were saved eternally by the grace of God, God knew the end from the beginning. He knew it all.

And he knew the things, he knows the things, not he knew, he knows. He knows the things that are going to arise in your life. There's not one of us, I'm sure, would say with any degree of spiritual maturity that our lives have worked out in the way that we perhaps thought they would.

If we had written the script, the hymn writer says very beautifully, paralleling scripture, our times are in thy hand, our God, we wish them there. And we do, don't we? The awesomeness, the majesty of a God who not only controls and upholds all the universe besides, but the events and the affairs of men, whether they want them to happen or not, whether they work in coordination with God or not, God works out all things according to his own counsel. There's another reason.

Let's look at Revelation chapter 19, please. Quite a few parallels in a way, I suppose, you know, apart from Malachi, whose brief ministry came in the days when Nehemiah and crew were rebuilding the city of Jerusalem, the walls in particular. Apart from that, chronologically, Zachariah is the last of the books of the Old Testament.

The book of Revelation is the last of the books of the New Testament. And in the compilation of the scriptures, which I'm sure, again, was under the superintending hand of God, there's good reason why those are the closing books, the one of the Old Testament, the one of the new. One of the reasons why there's all the plethora of things to do with prophetic scriptures, particularly say on YouTube and things like this, things ranging from the slightly deranged to the absolute bizarre, is because so many people love to launch straight into the book of Revelation.

Well, I think I'm right in saying that there isn't a symbol used in the book of Revelation that hasn't been used already in scripture. If you want to read the last book sensibly, you have to read the ones that come before it. And to a degree, that's true of Zachariah as well.

There's much that he's bringing out. There's much that he's saying, as we've already suggested, where he's going back, he's alluding to things that the earlier prophets have spoken and written about. But when we think of the whole vast subject, and we're getting toward the end of the book of Revelation, in chapter 19, John is going to make the mistake really made in one sense in chapter one as well, as an angel communicating with him.

And as that angel speaks to John, verse 10 of chapter 19, John said, I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, see thou do it not. I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus.

Worship God. Now look at this statement. For the testimony of Jesus.

Is the spirit of prophecy. Some commentators suggest that it's the things the Lord Jesus himself said that are the spirit of prophecy. I would tend to disagree with that idea.

I think the majority view is correct, which is that the sum of all the prophetic scriptures, what infuses them with such richness and stops them, the prophetic scriptures just being dark, impenetrable pages, is that ultimately they're all about how God's going to glorify Christ. Now, brethren and sisters, that should thrill our hearts tonight. Do you know there's a lot of Christians and their horizon as Christians is that the Lord is coming to the air soon to take them home.

I don't need to know anything beyond that, do I? I'm going to heaven. But surely you want to know. Surely you want to know.

How is God going to vindicate, on earth, that lovely man who gave himself for you and for me. That man who's still despised today. That man whom the world would crucify afresh today in a moment if he was here.

How is God going to vindicate him? How is every mark of dark dishonor, as the hymn writer said, going to be told in answering glory? The prophetic scriptures are about that. And if we miss Christ in them, they will simply become a technical exercise. And we don't want that to happen, do we? The richness, the idea of the spirit of prophecy is just like there's a spirit of life going through your body at the moment.

It vitalizes you and it infuses you and it gives you expression and all of these things. The whole body of prophetic truth is ultimately how God will glorify himself in Christ and through the work of Christ. Ultimately, as Paul says to the Ephesians, the whole great purpose of God is going to be to the praise of his glory.

It's going to be to the praise of the glory of his grace. These are the big picture things. And the prophetic scriptures lead us into that.

God who knows all things and controls all things should help stabilize us and establish us because he is our God. He is my God, not only my creator, but my redeemer, not only my redeemer, but my father. And he's the one who knows all things and controls all things.

And then the one he sent into the world to be my savior, the one who very soon I'm going to see face to face. He's the spirit of the whole thing. He's the connective tissue right through the whole prophetic program.

Why didn't God tell us about the emergence of all the great, great oriental empires? Of course, there's nothing to do with my plan. Nothing to do in that sense with how I'm going to glorify myself in the person and work of Christ. So they're very selective.

And it's a wonder God's revealed anything at all. But that leads us on to another thing. We thought of it from the divine standpoint, Isaiah 46.

We've thought of it briefly here in Revelation 19 concerning the Lord Jesus. But turn back a few pages to 2 Peter chapter 3. Verse 9 says, The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering to us, were it not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be? In all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, that is the eternal state, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. So here's a very important fact, truth, matter, about the prophetic scriptures.

Just as when Paul wrote to Titus, he spoke about the grace of God teaching us, great principle, and it teaches us it should have a moral effect upon the life of the believer who, with the help of the Spirit of God, understands something about this. Seeing then that all these things are going to be dissolved, seeing this is the end of the whole great prophetic program, what manner of persons ought we to be? Not arrogant, not self-opinionated, happy that we can give an excellent discourse on Daniel 9, the 70 weeks or the this or the that. In appreciating something of what God has revealed about future events, what moral effect has that got upon my life? And I hope something of that challenge will come through.

We'll see tomorrow morning, if the Lord hasn't come, if we're spared, we'll see how Zachariah's prophecy opens with what you can only refer to as a call to repentance. That's how it begins, the first six verses, all about the need for God's own people to repent, for there to be first of all a change of attitude and mind and heart on the part of God's people. Because effectively God is saying through Zachariah, listen, listen my people, everything this man tells you is going to happen, is going to happen, regardless of your condition, but if you want to be in the enjoyment of it, if you want this to enrich your spiritual life, if you want this to enthuse you, the exiles who've come back, and God bless them for their exercise to do so, they've come back to Jerusalem, yes, they've been disheartened, and yes, the foundation's now overgrown with weeds, and 14 or 15 years have passed, and yes, they've got to get a grip, but until and unless there's a repentant spirit.

God's people now, God says the things that I said are going to happen are going to happen, because I've said so, but it'll just leave you in the wake of them all. Your attitude of heart is what will give you the vision, the strength of purpose, the realization that what you are seeking to build today is not just you today, it's all part of this great thing that God is working out. Do we feel like that in relation to the local assemblies where we are? It's very easy to get a little bit down about things, isn't it? The assembly I come from is a small assembly, it's been whittled away over the years, just recently with the home call of different saints, we're down really just to two brethren, myself one of them, who can in that sense lead a meeting.

We've seen in the last few years, in fact today's the first anniversary of my own dear mum's home call. She was the last, the latest of the saints to be called home from the assembly. It's very easy to look and just get a little bit disheartened.

Don't be ashamed of that. It's a perfectly natural thing, but the thing is it is natural, it is natural. And that's why we need ministry like the men of Zacharias Caliber.

It's almost, I don't wish to be flippant and I don't wish to be disrespectful to the word of God, but in my own thoughts I often think of Haggai in Zacharias as the good cop, bad cop. You know, Haggai comes along and he slaps you upside the head. Come on, get a grip, get moving.

I think it's time for you to sit and neglect the house of God and build your own sealed house. And he grabs them by the scruff of the neck and he shakes some life into them. But then Zacharias comes along, he gives them this view of the future thing, the big thing.

This is what God is doing and this is what you're a part of. And if you will now, if you will now with all your heart, just turn back to God. He's already said he'll turn back to you.

When God says, if you turn back to me, I'll turn back to you. He's not making their turning back a condition of his turning to them. He is going to turn again to them.

Even though the times of the Gentiles has come in. When Nebuchadnezzar sacked Jerusalem, it began the times of the Gentiles. We're still living in them now.

They'll continue until the Lord comes back to establish his kingdom. But God said, listen, the day's coming. I will turn back to you.

I will fulfill everything that I've promised, everything that I've said. I am a God who cannot lie, everything. I know the end from the beginning.

It's all there. And I want you to come on that journey with me. I want you to be in the good of it.

It's going to happen anyway. But I want you to be in the good of it. Brethren, sisters, with the Lord's help, let's not miss the moral effect upon our lives.

That a study of the prophetic scripture should have. Final thought before we close in prayer. And it's this.

A study of the prophetic scripture, any of the scriptures for that matter. But the thoughts are tonight focused on the prophetic scriptures. One of the great controllers of the way in which we approach those scriptures and get the good of them.

Is the system of biblical interpretation that is greatly under attack today. And greatly mocked by many so-called dispensational teachers. Now really, so-called dispensational teaching is simply saying this.

That when we approach our Bibles, we find that God has a distinct program for the Gentiles. He has a distinct program for the Jew. And he has a distinct program for the church.

The way your Bible is constructed shows you that. From Genesis 1 through to Genesis 11 is the first half of your Old Testament. Old Testament is 4,000 years in duration.

The first 2,000 years has elapsed by the time you get to the call of Abraham at the end of Genesis chapter 11. And in that time, those 11 chapters, God is dealing with the human race as one. It's because of the rebellion at Babel in chapter 11 that the nations of men came into being, listed in Genesis chapter 10, judgment there at Babel.

So up until Genesis 11, God is dealing with mankind as a whole. For the next 2,000 years, God is dealing with the nation of Israel. End of chapter 11, into chapter 12 of Genesis, the call of Abraham.

And for the next 2,000 years, takes you right the way through your Old Testament, takes you into the Gospel records, takes you even into the start of the book of the Acts. And God is dealing with the nation of Israel. And he introduces other players onto the scene only insofar as they've got a bearing on his dealings with Israel.

There were other world empires, but we'll be seeing in Zechariah that there's four particular ones that God raised up in relation to Israel. The Assyrian Empire, the Babylonian Empire, the Medo-Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire, the Roman Empire. You say, well, that's five.

I know. The Assyrian one is presupposed. They're the ones that took the Northern Kingdom into captivity.

Specifically, Zechariah chapter 1, we'll see tomorrow, God willing. You've got the great empires of the Persian Empire, and the Grecian Empire, and the Roman Empire, and of course, the Babylonian Empire as well. For the next, well, for those 2,000 years, God's dealing with the nation.

And there's a progressive revelation through these prophets of the fact that Messiah would come and he would be rejected. The tremendous thing to understand, one of the tremendous things to understand is this. Those Old Testament prophets, none of them knew that there would be two distinct advents of our Lord Jesus Christ.

None of them understood rightly that the Lord would come once to Bethlehem and be rejected. And he would then come a second time, still future, of course, to the earth to establish his kingdom, again, a period of about 2,000 years between. Someone like Isaiah, for example, is busy writing as the Spirit inspires the words, and he's busy writing, you know, the passage well enough.

He says, for unto us, a child is born, unto us, a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called. Hang on a minute, Isaiah. You've just written, unto us, a child is born, unto us, a son is given.

That's his first advent. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. That's his second advent.

Isaiah would look, there's at least 10, maybe 12, such scriptures in Isaiah's prophecy that take you from his first advent seamlessly into his second advent, and Isaiah didn't know the difference between them. No reflection on Isaiah. The time hadn't come to reveal that difference yet.

Daniel, for example, he speaks about a resurrection of the just and of the unjust. He doesn't know there's going to be a thousand years between them. That's not revealed until John writes Revelation.

So when we're reading the prophetic scriptures, we must understand that God has got a program for the Gentile. He's got a program for the Jew. He's got a program for the church, which never appears in the Old Testament prophecies.

And then, according to Ephesians chapter 1, there's another dispensation coming. It's called the dispensation of the fullness of the times when God will bring together all those programs that he started running, and it will all beautifully dovetail in the manifestation, the millennial kingdom of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If younger ones, particularly, it's not just the younger ones, but particularly younger ones, and it's a sad thing that it's our keen young ones who are perhaps starting to soak up some of this stuff off these YouTube channels, and there's some slick presentation, somebody, here's the last sign that's to be fulfilled before Christ comes, and this is what's happening, and this is where Iran figures in.

Stop. We never interpret scripture in the light of what's happening today. Just as those who claim, say, to have a gift of tongues or something like that, we say to them, you don't interpret scripture by your experience.

You test your experience by what the word of God says. That must be paramount. And by the same token, let's not chase after every fanciful, slick kind of presentation on this or that aspect of prophecy.

All these men, as far as I can see, are coming from what would be known as a background of reform theology, and the background of reform theology means there's no literal millennial reign of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's all an allegory. It's all just a picture, and you'll become terribly unstuck.

The best thing you can do, sit down with your Bible, and let the one who's the author of it all, the Holy Spirit who indwells you, bring home as you read these prophecies and think about them. Let the Spirit of God fill your heart and mind with wonder and worship for the living God who knows the end from the beginning. And then, let our hearts worship further as we think of how those prophetic scriptures are all mustered together so that they might project the glory of our beloved Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It's the spirit of prophecy. And then, let the Spirit of God touch our hearts to say, seeing then that all these things are going to happen, what manner of persons ought we to be? And interpreting the Word of God in the recognition of the fact that God has these distinct programs running. They're there in the end of 1 Corinthians chapter 10, the next but last verse.

Give none offense, neither to the Jew, nor to the Gentile, nor to the Church of God. And understand that the Church was never the subject of prophecy. It's not there.

There's reasons for that, that obviously, well, our time's gone tonight anyway in a bit more. But just keep that in mind. The Church isn't the subject of prophecy in the Old Testament scriptures.

So, we are looking to the Lord for his help tomorrow. We trust we'll be given that help liberally. And there's so much detail in those chapters.

It's going to be difficult not to get bogged down. But we won't be. We'll have the time, allocate the time, and God willing, with the Lord's help and yours, with the help of the brethren, we will use the time that we've got to get as thorough an overview of those chapters as we can.

And we trust the outcome of it will be a fresh appreciation of the greatness of our God, a deeper love for Christ, and a deeper exercise for the manner of people we ought to be. Trust that God will bless this word. Let's pray now.