Zechariah 11:12

We are moving on now in this wonderful prophecy of Zachariah. You might recall that in the breakdown of the book we showed you that there are eight visions that occupy chapters one to six. We're done with that now, we didn't cover them all for clear reasons, but we've got some idea of how now to go back to the book and study them for ourselves.

So, in those eight visions, a progressive developing panoramic view of how God intends now to take up his people Israel and to restore them, to not only restore the land and the temple, but to restore them spiritually and to deal with the wickedness of their enemies and all these things that's all been developed in chapters one to six. Our brother has reminded us that in chapters seven and eight there were four messages given by Zachariah and particularly it was to do with extra biblical habits that they had developed, fastings and things like that, they wanted to know should they continue with them. Something of a parenthesis really, not unimportant, but a parenthesis in seven and eight.

Then there are two burdens that occupy the final six chapters. A burden laid upon Zachariah that deals with chapters nine through eleven and has very much the first advent of our Lord Jesus Christ in view. The second advent begins in chapter twelve, or at least the second burden I should say, begins in chapter twelve, has the second advent of Christ when he comes to establish his kingdom, has that more in view.

So quite a simple breakdown in that sense. Nine, ten and eleven, the first burden, the first advent. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, the second burden and the second advent is the main theme.

If you go back in your Bible please and just look at chapter nine, a little phrase there in verse number sixteen of chapter nine, the Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people. Chapter ten, the idols have spoken vanity, verse two, the diviners have seen a lie, have told false dreams, they comfort in vain, therefore they went their way as a flock, they were troubled because there was no shepherd. Mine anger was kindled against the shepherds and I punished the goats, for the Lord of hosts hath visited his flock, the house of Judah, and hath made them as his goodly horse in the battle.

So just on the surface we can see that in this first burden, chapters nine, ten, eleven, the flock, the flock, shepherds, sheep. So now we come to chapter eleven and in our Bible study now we're actually going to be straddling the divide that is there between the first and the second burden. We're going to be dealing with the last chapter of the first burden and the first chapter of the second burden.

The way we're going to approach it, we're going to read verses one through three of chapter eleven, have a little discussion about those, then we're going to look at verses four right through to about verse fourteen, and then we're going to look at verse fifteen to seventeen, then we're going to look at chapter twelve. So that's the breakdown as I see it and as we hope to take it through. The reason I've divided it like that is because there is a pronouncement in verses one to three, a pronouncement in symbolic language of how judgment is going to fall now upon Jerusalem, it's going to fall upon the nation, but particularly because of the shepherds, the leaders of the people.

I'll get myself, there's a good old Scots word, it's called fankle. When you get in a mess with something, you say, oh, I'm in a wee bit of fankle today. So a wee bit of a fankle with these cables.

Anyway, there we are, we'll manage it. Verse one. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars.

Howl, fir-tree, for the cedar is fallen, because the mighty are spoiled. Howl, O ye oaks of Bation, for the forest of the vintage is come down. There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds, for their glory is spoiled.

A voice of the roaring of young lions, for the pride of Jordan is spoiled. There's a similar language device used in Psalm 29. You know that lovely psalm about the voice of the Lord, seven times over, the voice of the Lord, the voice of the Lord.

And David, the shepherd, he's sitting on the hillsides there in Israel, and it's as though he's looking westward, and he sees a storm gathering in the Mediterranean Sea, and he's actually watching as this big storm cloud comes, and it sweeps round as it does, it comes down now from the north, and he speaks, he sees the effect of this storm, and he sees the voice of the Lord, he hears the voice of the Lord in it all, the forks of the lightning, and the sound of the thunder, and it causes the cedars of Lebanon to break, and trees to skip like calves, and it causes the animals to give birth prematurely. This storm that sweeps down, it's a literal storm. And then, against the background of all the storm, he says, and in thy temple, in thy tabernacle, is quietness, and every whit of it speaks of thy glory.

Well, that's Psalm 29. I'm breaking my own rule, aren't I? Context. But you see, it's a literary device.

It's using the everyday thing to illustrate something. And now what's happening is coming down from the north is the judgment of God. Coming down through Lebanon, it's cedars, it's proud cedars, and coming further south still now, the mighty oaks of Bashan are broken.

This is a ferocious storm and a fire that is coming down. It's deforesting the whole area, their economy, there is the voice of the howling of the shepherds. These are the men who are supposed to be feeding the people, caring for the people, looking after the people.

To be a shepherd is a delegated task. And God has delegated to men the care of his people Israel, and they have failed miserably, utterly. God has delegated the responsibility of shepherding to men today.

And permit me to say so, I think perhaps one of the greatest lacks that we have amongst God's people today is sacrificial spiritual shepherding. Brethren, sisters, the flock is just longing to be fed. It was a bit of a crude expression, but the brethren used to say, tether the sheep by their teeth.

In other words, feed them. First Peter 5, feed the flock, feed the flock. Brethren here who are elders, I'm getting that way myself now in years, so I'm qualified to speak about this.

Brethren, we're failing if we're not teaching the saints. We're failing if we're not feeding them. We're failing if we're not going after them.

We're failing if we're not keeping care of them. Sheep need shepherds. If they weren't sheep, they wouldn't need them.

Of course sheep are wayward. Of course sheep are stupid. Of course sheep do things which are beyond description for being daft.

That's why they need shepherds, and God's people need shepherding today. And if a man desires the work of an overseer, a shepherd, he desires a good thing. It's very good in the sight of God, you know, but it's sacrificial.

It will take up more of your time than you feel free to give. It will keep you awake at night. It will cost you tears.

It will change you. As you help to shepherd God's people, but we need it. I think without doubt we've said that Zechariah has much of the previous work of the earlier prophets in his mind.

He's wanting to consolidate what they've said, to reinforce what they've said. He's probably got Ezekiel 34 in mind. Boy, that's a chapter about shepherds if ever there was one.

He's probably got that in mind, and he's now saying here's these shepherds, and because of their failure the flock is going to perish. In this solemn chapter it begins with this storm of judgment coming down from the north, and it's going to finish with the dissolution of the Jewish state. Their identity as a nation is going to disappear.

Not forever, thank God, but that's going to be the result. So, before we move on, we're going to deal in a moment once we've had some thoughts about 1, 2, and 3. We're going to come across another very strange device here. That is that in verse 4 down to 6, the Lord speaks to Zechariah, and he says to him, thus saith the Lord my God, feed the flock of the slaughter.

Feed the flock destined for slaughter. Having said that, that message from the Lord comes down to verse 6, and Zechariah says in verse 7, and I will feed the flock of slaughter. But the important thing to see is, and it's an unusual device, is that not only with divine consent, but by divine order, Zechariah is to, as it were, take the place of, he is to imitate, he is to stand in for Messiah.

He's the one who will truly come and feed, but in this chapter, and it's important to see it this way, Zechariah is the man involved, but God is instructing him to role play the work of Christ in his first advent. So, we'll see that in a moment. We've read verses 1 to 3. We've probably already forgotten them, so have a look and just glance down them again to see what they contained, and we'll give a few moments for our brethren to comment before we read on from verse 4. Perhaps I'll just jump in.

Sure, help us brother. It's an enigma sometimes to figure out these cedars and fig trees, and can I suggest, I don't know whether you'd agree, but it says, open thy door, O Lebanon, that a fire may devour thy cedars. But it says that the fir tree should howl because the cedar is fallen, because the mighty are spoiled.

Am I right to think that the cedar is fallen parallels or is the same thing as because the mighty are spoiled, and then the oak, they are to howl as well, for the forest of the vintage or the fortress has come down, referring to the same thing. But verse 3, a voice of the howling of the shepherds for their glory is spoiled. That word glory is the same as that word the mighty are spoiled.

So the mighty are spoiled is the same as the glory are spoiled, therefore the cedar is fallen. Would it be equivalent to the howling of the shepherds? So I'm just wondering whether the cedar falling is the shepherds failing. Okay, thank you.

You would know, Brother Gideon, that the cedar often stands for the proud. The straight, beautiful cedar of Lebanon, something in its pride. We've already seen it earlier.

We referenced Isaiah 6. The nation was like the proud cedar. God brought it down, though he left the stump. I think what we're seeing more, though, is a picture of this judgment coming down that's, first and foremost, it's going to destroy the economy.

It's going to destroy the wealth and the income of these people. These shepherds are just out for themselves. They do not care for the flock.

We'll see later that they take the flock, they sell the flock, and then they bless the Lord for making them rich. And so some have linked the fact that the cedar, the fir, these were used in the temple, of course. So they would see an idea, perhaps, that as this storm of divine judgment comes down, it's leveled at everything that they boasted about in their temple and all this kind of a thing.

But it's going to devour Lebanon. It's going to devour Bashan. We know that the pastures of Bashan, they were very attractive to the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh.

We have cattle. This is a great place for cattle. So everything that brought an income, the vintage, the young lions themselves are roaring because their cover around the Jordan area has been lost.

And the idea now is a devastation of the forestry and the vintage and everything that made that area rich. Even when Solomon was building the temple, Hiram went to this area to take the wood that would be transported for the temple to be built. So it was a great center of wealth, a great resource, and God's going to destroy it and he's going to take away the income of the shepherds particularly, and they're going to lament for that, but they're not going to lament for the flock.

They're just going to lament for what they lose. I think that's why the subject is introduced in this way. Can I just ask a question Phil? So we just got done looking at the promise of the temple being rebuilt in a priesthood and servants.

We missed something here. Where are we at right here? As far as Zechariah's actual prophecy is concerned, what stage of history are we at? Give us some help with the context here. We've gone from one to where? Okay, yeah, all right.

I see your point now. Zechariah is at this stage, there's been almost certainly a gap of quite a number of years between the scriptures that describe his visions and the scriptures he's describing now, to the point that some modernists would suggest that it wasn't the same Zechariah or it was somebody else just bolting things on to what Zechariah's prophecy actually was. So there certainly seems to be a number of years have elapsed and in that time of course the temple will have been finished and things will have settled down in Jerusalem.

And the Lord now is using Zechariah some years later, a more mature man, an older man, to reveal other truth. So we are post the building of the temple we've been speaking about and we're right really on the very edge of the 400 year silence that there will be between the end of the book of Malachi and the beginning of the New Testament scriptures. Am I right in that? Yes, historically it's the setting of the book, right? Yeah.

Is this thing working? Sorry, just before you say, does that answer your question? Yes, thank you. The thing is if we were looking at something that was so positive, the rebuilding, coming back into the land and the rebuilding, but the condition of the people, what we find out even with Malachi is they themselves had not been fully restored to the Lord. And then that ultimately is shown with the rejection of the Savior.

So we think that things are going up and things are getting better, but actually there's still a problem that hasn't been dealt with. Yes, that's right. And through the 400 year silence, of course, they're going to take the law, they're going to take the things that have all been recovered, and they're going to start to coat them in their own traditions and ideas and everything else till they emerge 400 years later.

It's a long time. They're going to emerge 400 years later. The messenger who Malachi prophesies is going to come, his own name means messenger, of course, he speaks of a messenger to come.

That's John Baptist, who in turn has his own ministry. It's not about me, it's about the one who God has sent and he introduces Christ. So in that 400 years, the shepherds and principally and originally the shepherds would have been the prophet and the priest and the king.

They've got no king now. There's no further prophets have arisen after Malachi, not till John the Baptist. So they've been replaced in the everyday Jewish life by the scribes, by the elders, by the chief priests, and they've got their own system of doing things.

So that's where we're at, I think, when Zachariah, that's already begun, probably begun to crystallize, and now Zachariah comes on the scene to give this further series of prophecy, unload these burdens. I appreciated the reference you made to the psalm that dealt with the storm and evidently this storm, a firestorm, according to verse one. So you've referenced to Lebanon, you've referenced to Bashan, that's the high ground to the northeast there of the Sea of Galilee.

So Lebanon in the north, northeast, and then the Jordan Valley is brought in as well. Now I'll just throw this out for consideration. We talked at the break about the northern invasion of the land of Israel in the future without specifying the time, but it also is spoken off in Ezekiel 38 in terms of a storm.

Let me read this verse. In the latter days they'll come, verse 9, thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou and all my bands and many people with thee. Now in that day there will be shepherds of Israel, the leaders of the people, who have put their confidence in a man who's going to let them down, and they're going to howl, and then it's the time of Jacob's trouble coming in.

So I've wondered if this reference here, we're going to get to the Antichrist at the end of the chapter, if this is in that future time when there's the northern invasion coming sweeping down in. Yeah, well I think there's actually two things in view. I think we'll see fairly clearly in the chapter that AD 70 is in view.

That's when Rome destroyed Jerusalem, but they didn't come sweeping down from the north. That's right. So, but nevertheless, you know, I think we will see that particularly, we're leaping ahead here, but we'll come, we'll catch ourselves up, verse 9, either dieth, let it die, that is to be cut off, let it be cut off, let the rest eat every one the flesh of another.

This is all a reference to the Jewish wars that in AD 70 culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem. The third Jewish war, some couple of hundred years later almost, saw the end of any real national identity. About one and a half million Jews were slain in these wars, according to Josephus.

So there's a reference to AD 70, a future judgment, but then the fact of the fire sweeping down from the north, the judgment from the north, I think is to be linked with verses 15 through to the end of the chapter, 15, 16, 17, when Israel gives themselves over to a false shepherd, the idol shepherd. And I forget who it was I was speaking to now at lunchtime, maybe it was yourselves, I can't remember, but there's an element, a liberal element of Judaism today, and they believe that Messiah is a state of things. When they don't have, when their right to exist is recognized, when they don't have to spend all their time and treasure on defense and all this sort of thing.

A young man told me this on a train, he was reading the scriptures and we were speaking, and he said to me, when we can relax, our borders are secure, we've got the world's best scientists and technologists and all the other ologists. And he said, we will build a nation state that will be the envy of the world. And when we achieve that state, that is Messiah.

What blindness? Romans tells us that, what ignorance? And it's all based on their wealth, their position, their prosperity, and it's all going to be destroyed in those first three verses. The judgment of God coming down from the North, I would clearly link it as our brother has helpfully done with the invasion of Ezekiel 38, 39 by countries like Russia, Iran, Turkey, others with them. And the Yemenis probably from the South and other combatants from the East and the West.

So that is still to come. But the point for us to see at the start of chapter 11 is that there is a tremendous judgment that is going to destroy what these wicked shepherds have set their heart upon, which is the accumulation of wealth and position, and God is going to destroy it all and is going to introduce us to truth concerning the first advent of Christ. Is there a sense, Brother Phil, just in connection to what also Brother Isaiah had asked, is there a sense here that there was that which was relevant to them at that time, as you mentioned, perhaps nearer to the time of Malachi and shepherds, and then there is that which is relevant and pertinent to the time of the Lord Jesus.

That's why the 30 pieces of silver will come in. And then there is that which is what Brother William is saying, the idol shepherd that will come, and that points us to the future. So you're looking at a three-dimensional thing.

You are, and I think you'll agree that Zachariah doesn't particularly give us a timetable, even when it comes to the invasions later, when it comes to the battles. They're not in any chronological order. It's easy to see one thing and see another.

He's not interested in giving us a timetable. He's interested in showing us how God is going to move through moving the picture now to that of shepherding. He's going to remove the bad shepherds.

There is one shepherd who's going to feed them. And just between a few verses, we could jump for at least 2,000 years already. So from just the 30 pieces of silver to the coming of the idol shepherd, at least 2,000 years have passed.

So you could see it might not be necessarily just close chronology that is in view. So in these three verses, we have the wailing shepherds howling, wailing. Then we have the worthy shepherd who's rejected for 30 pieces of silver, and then the worthless shepherd at the end.

I wish I had your mind for alliteration, Brother. I was about 38 before I could say my alphabet, I think. Anyway, we're going to read again in Zechariah 11 after those first three verses, very packed verses.

But we've got the idea now of a coming judgment. And verse number four, thus saith the Lord my God, feed the flock of the slaughter, the flock destined for slaughter, whose possessors slay them and hold themselves not guilty. And they that sell them say, blessed be the Lord, for I am rich.

And their own shepherds pity them not. For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord. But lo, I will deliver the men, every one into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king.

You say, but you've been teaching us that they don't have a king anymore. But remember that the rulers of the people said to Pilate the governor, when he said, shall I crucify your king? They said, we have no king but Caesar. Mm-hmm.

What a dreadful thing to say. And in those few words, they destined themselves to what we're reading here. Yes.

The one they chose to have as their king. God says, very well, I'll deliver you into his hand. The Romans did such dreadful, dreadful damage to the nation of Israel one way or the other.

More to come. Verse six again. I will deliver the men, everyone into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king.

And they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them. Now we reach verse seven, and it's Zechariah that's speaking. God has spoken to him, feed the flock of the slaughter.

Now Zechariah, in his role play of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, without divine consent and instruction, this would be blasphemous almost. But it's not blasphemous.

God is ordering, he often ordered his prophets to do things which were seemingly very, very strange. But here he's saying to Zechariah, I want you to role play the Messiah at his first advent. And so, Zechariah is speaking, but he was speaking as though he was the Lord Jesus coming.

I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves, the one I called beauty, or graciousness, the other I called unity. And I fed the flock.

Two staves. 23rd Psalm comes to mind, doesn't it? Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Well, he takes two staves, graciousness and unity.

Three shepherds, in the Hebrew text, there's a definite article here, so it's the three shepherds, particular ones in view. We've already suggested that in place of prophet, priest, and king, they've now got their chief priests and their scribes and their elders. These shepherds, these men who have shepherd responsibility delegated to them, those three shepherds also, I cut off, I disowned in one month.

And my soul loathed better, my soul became impatient with them. No more time for them, no more patience with them. And in return, their soul also abhorred me.

You're reading what the relationship would be between our Lord Jesus Christ and the chief men of the day when he was here. Then said I, verse 9, I will not shepherd you. That that dieth, let it die.

That that is to be cut off, let it be cut off. And let the rest eat every one the flesh of another. A reference here really probably to Ezekiel 6. And I took my staff, even beauty, and cut it asunder that I might break my covenant, which I had made with all the people.

And it was broken in that day. And so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord. And I said unto them, if you think good, give me my price, and if not, forbear.

So they weighed for my price 30 pieces of silver. That was the compensation for a slave gored by an ox. That's how they saw him.

And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter, a goodly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the 30 pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

What a solemn passage of Scripture. We're going to give ourselves to that now. Verse number 4, down to verse 14.

I'm going to have to hasten us on a bit because of time, but we mustn't miss the import of it. First of all, I would like the brethren's input on whether we've got the right idea as to Zechariah's role in this, whereas effectively he's role-playing things concerning Christ at his first advent. So comment on that first, please.

I'm with you, Brother Phil, on this and what the Lord is asking him to do from verse 4 to verse 6. He's doing and acting it out from verse 7 onwards. So as you said, the two staffs of the shepherd, one to guide and one to chasten. But here he has two staffs as well.

Not exactly clear that it's one for chastening and one for guiding, but at least the two staffs, beauty and bands. And just as the Lord said that I will deliver the man, everyone, into his neighbor's hand, verse number 6, he likewise says now in verse number 9 at the end, and let the rest eat every one the flesh of another. So that one another is the parallel here.

So just as the Lord has rejected the shepherds and his people because the shepherds represent them, so now Zechariah is acting out. So I'm personally in agreement with you on this whole thing. He personalizes it in the expressions that are found here.

And then clearly when it comes to the idol shepherd, the Lord said unto me, take unto thee Zechariah, yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. Yes, yes. So Zechariah has got this very important burden to fulfill here.

And to summarize what the Lord has said to him is that all the shepherds I have set over the country, over the nation, whether they be prophets, priests, or kings, they've all failed you. They've all failed. And what I have in mind is a shepherd who will not fail you.

But in the meantime, I'm going to judge those shepherds and I'm going to take down the flock with them as well. Now, the only way that that can be, shall we say, morally right is reflected in Isaiah 53. All we like sheep have gone astray.

National. We have gone every one after his own way. That's individual.

So there's no unfairness. There's no injustice here at all. And it has to be seen against the back cloth of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

He comes as their Messiah. Yes. He's recognized by Nathanael in John one rabbi.

Thou art the son of God. Thou art the king of Israel, but look how much of the Lord's recorded public ministry involve sheep and shepherding, which of us is not delighted in John 10, for example, and scriptures like that and Luke 15 and the shepherd going out after the lost sheep. And there's so much.

He says to his disciples, don't go out onto the Gentiles. Just go to the lost sheep of Israel. And there's a shepherd here and he loves them.

He loves them. They've never had a shepherd like him. And he's the good shepherd who's going to give his life for the sheep.

Yet what was their response? Even the common people, we know that the leaders hated him, but the ordinary people, how often he went out of his way to feed the poor of the flock and he sought the lepers and the outcasts and the fallen women and those who were sick and those who were weak and the poor man born blind and his parents don't speak up unless they're cast out of the synagogue. And what a gracious, what a gracious ministry our Lord Jesus had. That's the first stuff.

Graciousness. Beauty. Oh, what a beauty that was about Christ.

I hope dear saints, younger believers particularly, as you're reading your Bibles, don't just have a dutiful reading of your Bible every morning, but look for Christ and read much about Christ and visualize him as he's moving and walking and as he's tenderly dealing with people. And there's a beauty about Christ. There's a graciousness about him.

And that's the first of the staffs. He came to feed the flock and especially the poor of the flock. But ultimately, of course, it was that very flock that was going to say, away with him, crucify him.

That's why the flock were destined for the slaughter. And the slaughter, particularly in view, I judge, is AD 70, when the Romans will destroy the temple and through those so-called Jewish wars that went on for a couple of hundred years after that, the nation was flattened and lost all national identity. Verse five, the possessors of the flock, the possessors, the shepherds, slay them and hold themselves not guilty.

And they're enriching, they're acting in their own self-interests and their own shepherds pity them not. The leaders of the nation acting in self-interests said, the Lord Jesus, all that ever came before me were thieves and robbers, right? And the chief priests, they stirred up the multitudes to ask for Barabbas and to put Jesus to death. And then his blood be on us and on our children.

Oh my, the flock of the slaughter. Yeah. Yeah.

These are the men who thought nothing of devouring widows' houses. I mean, the Lord was very, very clear to them, wasn't he? I mean, boy, they hated him. They hated him because he pinpointed exactly where the hearts were and where they were failing in their responsibilities.

And they were just, as we say, just looking after themselves. No pity, no thoughtlessness, no thought at all, thoughtfulness for the flock. And the Lord came and the way in which he sought to feed the poor of the flock.

We've got the statements down through verse six, that God isn't going to pity them. He isn't going to deliver them. But the response comes, I will feed the flock of slaughter.

Even you, oh poor of the flock. And that's when he took the first of the staves, graciousness. The other was called Bann's unity.

Sorry, I cut across you there, brother. No, I was just going to ask, who are the poor of the flock? How do I identify them? I think the poor of the flock are those who were most in need of shepherd care. People like the widows in the land.

And the men would think nothing of devouring their houses and taking things from them. The common people heard the Lord gladly in the days of his ministry. Yes, that's what I'm wondering.

I think they were the poor of the flock. Right, right. The poor in spirit.

Well, it brings you to the Sermon on the Mount and the Lord blessed are those who are poor in spirit. So there was a small remnant that was looking for redemption in Israel. Yeah, yeah.

And I had wondered if it's focusing in on that remnant aspect of things, the poor of the flock. They felt their own weakness. Yes, I think that comes in just a little later, doesn't it? When it speaks of the fact that they recognized that he'd been sent by the Lord.

This is verse 11. This is when he breaks the band of beauty. It was broken in that day.

And so the poor of the flock that waited upon me. Right. Knew that it was the word of the word of the Lord.

It was to his disciples. He didn't proclaim on the on the hills of Galilee or Judea. The Lord didn't proclaim publicly that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things and be killed and so forth.

He just told that to his own. And they missed it. And even then they didn't believe it.

Yeah, that's for sure. So let's just tidy this up a wee bit then. Verse seven, he's going to feed the poor of the flock.

Beauty, one of the guiding staves that he takes, the graciousness of the Lord Jesus. Unity. And he so desired to see the people of God united again.

Why did he go out of his way in John four to meet that woman who was a Samaritan? Because the Samaritans were the outcome of the Assyrian captivity of the northern kingdom. That's when the kingdom was divided. And how is it that you're a Jew? Ask of water of me, who am a Samaritan.

The Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. But how gracious the Lord was seeking unity, seeking that there would be one flock and all the time seeking to act as that merciful and gracious shepherd. So the shepherds who should have been fulfilling their responsibilities, verse eight, the Lord disowned.

By the time you get to Matthew chapter 12, they have ascribed his great works to the power of Beelzebub. The Lord's got nothing more to say now to these rulers of the nation. He's cut them off, disowned them.

And my soul became impatient with them. He hated their hypocrisy. He hated the way in which they dealt with the people, the lies that they told and all the things that they did.

And in return, their soul also abhorred me. Them that hated me without a cause, Psalm 69, they're more than the hairs of my head. And they hated him because of who he was, but they hated him for what he was, honest and true and a true shepherd of the people.

So we can see that as you brought out your brother so well, an application to the people when the Lord was here on earth. I've wondered if there, these three shepherds, if there is a final fulfillment in one month when he comes in manifestation, the beast was taken with him, the false prophet, and then Satan is bound in the bottomless pit, the unholy Trinity, if you will. And it would be dealt with in that 30 day period between 1260 and 1290 days, Daniel 12.

A good point made about the three individuals, but they were certainly not shepherds. No, but Israel had put their confidence in him, right? Well, not in Satan, maybe, but. Well, he's behind them.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I can see your point. He gives power to the beast.

He's the one who's empowering the others. Yes. But I think contextually it's the first Advent that's in view.

I can see the link that you're making, but I think contextually it's the first Advent that's in view and the way that the Lord simply disowned now the rulers of the people. He was never rude to them in the sense that, you know, he never said anything that they didn't deserve to be said. But, you know, when you think of John chapter eight, for example, we'd be not born of fornication.

We have Abraham to our father. And he said, well, if you had Abraham to your father, you do the deeds of Abraham, but you do the deeds of your father, the devil. You know, only the Lord could say that kind of thing.

So he said it straight and he said it true. He was never rude to them or rude about them in that sense, but he just disowned them. They were worthless.

They were doing nothing for the nation. He himself sought to act as the good shepherd. Now there's a covenant mentioned in verse 10.

I took my staff, even beauty, the graciousness, and I don't just cut it asunder. The force of the word is I smashed it, just destroyed it. That I might break my covenant, which I had made with all the people.

We're not to think of a covenant in the sense of the Abrahamic covenant, the Davidic covenant, the Palestinian covenant, not in that sense, but, um, in Ezekiel 34, there's a similar expression used and it's the thought of, of a promise of protection that there'd always been this, this protective, uh, um, armor around the nation. Uh, and now because of their disobedience, I was going to be removed. They had as a nation rejected him and it was broken in that day, verse 11.

So the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord. You know, it must have been a great puzzle, mustn't it? To those did disciples who followed the Lord and they've got all this teaching about the kingdom and, um, Matthew 19, you know, uh, Peter comes to the Lord on behalf of all the disciples. He says, Lord, we've given up everything to follow you.

What's in it for us? What are we going to get? I think we quoted it earlier, didn't we? In the regeneration, 12 apostles will sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel. And you can imagine Peter going back and they're all saying, what are you saying? Did you ask him? He said, yeah, I did. Well, what did he say? Well, boys, apparently we're all going to be sitting on thrones and judging the 12 tribes of Israel.

Wow. We don't see this happening. In fact, we just see the authorities getting worse and worse on us.

And I don't know, I don't know how's it all going to happen. And so the Lord begins to teach them how he must suffer, how he must die. And so I think that's what you really have in verse 11 there.

Those that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord. Very perplexed people for sure. And then we switch to them.

I take it that we're back to the shepherds that are mentioned, the three shepherds of verse eight. I said unto them, if you think good, give me my price. And if not, forbear.

I've acted as a shepherd to these people in public these three years. The blind have been made to see, the lame to walk, dead have been raised. The people have been taught the word of God.

I've acted as a shepherd. I fed them. I've led them.

What estimation do you put on that? Give me your price. What would you pay me for that? If you don't wish to pay me at all, that's fine because I'm not in it for the money. Forbear.

I don't want the money. I want to know what value you put on it. And the value they put on it was they weighed for my price 30 pieces of silver.

And as we've said, that was the prescribed compensation for a slave if he had been gored by an ox and was unfit to serve anymore. They just gave him the price of a worthless slave, 30 pieces of silver. The remarkable thing is, of course, that when the day came and Judas made a deal to betray Christ, this was what they settled on.

Oh, the sovereign hand of God over the whole thing. I'm sure the men knew this scripture, but they were blinded, blinded by their own greed and everything else anyway. And how remarkable a prophecy it was.

So the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter, a goodly price that I was prized at of them as far as they were concerned. And I took the 30 pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. That's a strange one.

Why would there be a potter in the house of the Lord? If 30 pieces of silver were suddenly thrown at him, what would he do with it? He would think, well, why am I getting these? I mean, he would have bought a parcel of land. We know that from the book of the Acts. So it's a bit of a tricky one.

This isn't it? Some commentators say, I don't know that I agree with them, but some commentators say that it was a figure of speech, cast it to the potter. So we'll give it to the dogs, a figure of speech. Now a genuine question, Ben, because I need to be taught as well.

What do we understand by the potter in the house of the Lord? Ah, you were stuck as well. Well, at least that gives me a little bit of relief. Now we know, we know prophetically that the potter was going to be involved.

The potter's field was going to be purchased with that money. So we do know that. And we do know that the money was cast by Judas at the feet of these men in the temple.

So probably it made no sense to Zachariah. And if we only read Zachariah, it doesn't make any sense to us. But when we see it fulfilled in the new Testament scriptures, it kind of comes together.

Is that the answer, do you think? Yeah. Matthew says it was fulfilled, fulfilling the words of Jeremiah. The difficulty is it's more a quote from Zachariah.

Yeah, that's right. Although Jeremiah does make reference to the potter. So perhaps Matthew had both prophets in mind? Yeah, that's what some would suggest, that it was a direct quotation, you know, that Jeremiah initiated the thought perhaps with his thought of the potter, the clay was marred in his hands, and so forth.

So I don't know, it's a bit of a puzzling passage that, and I won't try and blag it, you know, it is a puzzle. But I think when we take all the elements of it, and we see them in the light of the New Testament fulfillment, then it brings some sense into it. Can we just practically for just a second, maybe you already mentioned the importance of shepherds today, but I was just looking at the distinction between the two as you look at them.

The first ones in verse three, it was about their glory. It was about a title. And then when we come to this shepherd, it was about a work, it was about a care for the sheep.

So when it comes to shepherds in assemblies today, it's not about a title, it's about a work. Very good. And that's the same thing we have here where this shepherd, he wasn't coming, he wasn't worried about being paid, but it was his care, his desire, and it cost him things, obviously cost him ultimately the cross.

But you even see him as he's walking here on earth, when that woman with the issue of blood touches him, good went out from him. It cost him to care for the flock. Very good.

Good point, well made, Brother David. And I would have that same feeling as probably the Lord had for these men, you know, when he disowned them, no respect for them, no time for them in that sense. When you find that today there's men who will want to sit and be recognized as an overseer in a local assembly all the time, the wind's blowing softly, and as soon as there's a problem arise, they resign.

Shame on them. Shame on them. They were never shepherds in the first place.

So there's great lessons for us to learn here and take to heart. That's a good point, well made, Brother. Now- I was going to add one point there, Brother Phil.

It says there's a goodly price. Yeah, they thought so. And that word goodly is there again in verse two, the mighty.

And verse three as well for their glory. So it has the same root to the word. So the mighty, their glory, goodly price.

So they thought that it was a goodly price. But here is the irony. It was a good that was spoiled, a good that- a glory that is spoiled.

So the Spirit of God links that to the spoiled glory with this. It's not good at all. No.

Well, it's- in that sense, I suppose you've got a slight play on the words there. But to add insult to injury, they said it's a goodly price. It's the price of a disabled slave.

But actually, you're not even worth that. This is more than you're worth. It's a goodly price.

It's more than you're worth. You're not even worth the price of a disabled slave. What a shocking indictment against them.

Now, Brother, we do have to move on. We have to move on just to consider the fact that then in verse 14, I cut asunder mine other staff, even bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. So now, if there was the desire when the Lord first came to see the nation united, to see them brought back together again, if the response of the nation had been the response of Nathanael in John 1, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art the King of Israel, then all these things could have happened.

But as soon as they rejected him, they attributed his works to Beelzebub, the rulers did, the people, the common people who once heard him gladly, nevertheless, had their voices, crucify him. And so, when the nation, given the opportunity by God in grace to repent under the preaching of Peter in Acts chapter 2, to repent of the specific crime of crucifying Christ, brethren, I want that in ignorance he did this. The Lord had said, Father, forgive them.

They know not what they do. There was no sacrifice for murder. There was no way out of the charge of murder, but there was a way out for the unwitting manslayer.

That's what the cities of refuge were about. They rejected all of that. And when ultimately, even when they saw the powers of the age to come, the man at the gate called Beautiful, the lame man shall leap as an heart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing.

They saw all of that. Stephen in Acts chapter 7 rehearsed the nation's history before them. Which of the prophets have you not stoned? You've always been stiff-necked.

You've always been rebellious. And they stoned the dear man to death. And God said, that's enough.

That's enough. And he set the nation aside. Not forever, but he set the nation aside.

And as we know, the gospel went out in chapters 8, 9, 10, respectively to the different representatives of the sons of Noah. In other words, the human race involved in those three chapters. And so in chapter 8, the Ethiopian eunuch, son of Ham.

In chapter 9, Saul, son of Shem. Chapter 10, the Roman centurion, son of Japheth. And so there's a very clear point there where the stave of unity was broken.

This was not the time for Israel to be regathered and restored. They had rejected it. They had brought it upon themselves.

They were now the flock destined for slaughter. And that happened in AD and 70. So they rejected him.

The Lord Jesus taught, I am come in my father's name and ye receive me not. Another shall come in his own name. Him you will receive.

And him ye will receive. Does that bring us now to the foolish shepherd? It does. It brings us very neatly to verse 15.

And the Lord said unto me, take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. I don't know what they are by the way, and they're not named. I don't know what the instruments of a foolish shepherd are, except possibly the use of force and violence and all that kind of thing that they've been accused of.

For lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land which shall not visit those that be cut off. Neither shall seek the young one nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still, that he shall eat the flesh of the fat and tear their claws in pieces. Woe to the idle shepherd that leaveth the flock.

The sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eye. His arm shall be cleaned right up and his right eye shall be utterly darkened. This is the judgment upon the idle shepherd, the worthless shepherd, the one who Israel will put themselves under the protection of.

They've rejected Christ, the true shepherd, the good shepherd, and they will put themselves into the care, in adverted commas, of this dreadful man who will not only not care for them, but he'll brutalize them. I mean, what shepherd tears their claws in pieces so that they're unable to stand? So that's what they've destined themselves for. They've rejected Christ in his first advent and they're signed up now to be under the domination of this idle shepherd, this wicked shepherd.

Daniel says that by peace he shall destroy many. He also shall stand up against the prince of princes. Yes, shall be broken without hand.

That's right. Yeah. Very summary judgment for him, but that's the fate of the nation.

Now, at the end of chapter 11, and I'm just going to bring a point, uh, right through. I will raise up a shepherd in the land. So there's a sovereignty of the Lord all in this whole thing.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking of, of, of revelation 17 or 10 horns. God will put it in their hearts to fulfill his will. Absolutely.

So this man thing that it's all under their own control. It's all they're doing. Yeah.

But at the end of the day, it's the divine hand that is steering, steering the flow and the tide of prophecy. All this, this man, it was allowed, allowed by the Lord. The Lord will raise up this idle shepherd.

Yes, indeed. Now, um, so the second burden, uh, the one that covers 12 through 14, the one that's principally looking at the second Advent, the burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, Seth, the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens lay at the foundation of the earth form of the spirit of man within him. Behold, says this God, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people around about when they shall be in the siege, both against Judah and against Jerusalem.

The idea now is the symbology of a large cup that normally people would unite in drinking from. Perhaps the idea in modern day would be the so-called punch bowl into which people would dip their cups, not all slobbering around the same thing, you know, but they would, they would, they would put their cups in, they would all partake of it. And this is for their pleasure, for their refreshment and everything else.

But suddenly it's going to become a cup of trembling. It's going to be a cup of shaking. Uh, it's almost going to be like it's poisonous.

What they thought was going to be wonderful is now turned out to be dreadful. And they think that they're going to come and evade Jerusalem very easily, but Jerusalem is going to become a cup of trembling in that day. Verse three, will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people? All the burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces.

The, all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. The idea is it's there like almost a big boulder. And you've seen these strength contests where, where people try and lift a big stone and all this sort of, there used to be contests like that, by the way, in these days, apparently.

So history records, uh, men would try and lift one of these big stones to prove their strength. And if their balance went wrong, they'd actually pull it over on themselves and crush themselves. So that's how it's going to be a burdensome stone.

What seems easy pickings and an easy target. God says, I'll make that cup, a cup of poison and trembling in that day. I'll make Jerusalem a burdensome stone and the, all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

Somehow they'll not be able to prevail. Verse four in that day, Seth, the Lord, I will smite every horse with astonishment and his rider with madness. And I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah and we'll smite every horse of the people with blindness.

You can imagine these great battle horses. And if suddenly they're blinded, and these things are blundering around these horses, weighing a ton of peace, you know, there's going to be the utmost confusion. This is how God's going to do it.

And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the Lord of hosts, their God. Well, in that day, will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood and like a torch of fire in a sheaf. They shall devour all the people round about on the right hand and on the left.

And Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. The Lord also shall save the tents of Judah first that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah. In that day shall the Lord defend the of Jerusalem and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David and the house of David shall be as God as the angel of the Lord before them.

We'll leave the reading there at verse eight. You will see that how many times first three, four, six, eight, nine, 11 in that day, it carries onto verse 13 as well. So it's got that future day involved and this burden, which begins at chapter 12 is all about the future of Jerusalem when it comes under assault by a conglomerate, a conglomeration of nations.

Now in this warfare, Zechariah doesn't always distinguish between the assault of Ezekiel 38, 39, nor the assault that there will be that we hear a little about in Psalm number 83, or whether it be at the final stage of the campaign of Armageddon, when all the nations are gathered. He just says, whoever it is, whenever it is that they assault Jerusalem, they're going to find this is not an easy target because God is fighting for them. I feel this chapter 12, 13, 14.

We are narrowing down from the nation as a whole down to Jerusalem to Jerusalem. Yes. So chapter 13, I found an open inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Chapter 14, quite a parallel to this chapter 12 as well, debating, I will gather all nations against Jerusalem. So Jerusalem is suddenly now the focus. If you ever doubt prophetic scripture, look at today, Jerusalem is the hottest real estate in the world.

Nearly all the conflicts of the world today can be traced somewhat that there's little piece of land in Jerusalem, up at the Temple Mount. Yeah. Why does Iran and Israel hate each other so much? It's because of Jerusalem.

It's because of the small little area called the Temple Mount. If Israel was just the one they say, all right, we give away, we give up and we're not going to claim Jerusalem and you could come and take it all over and all that. Everything will be solved, but that will never happen.

No. So like today, and it will also be in the future, Jerusalem will be the point of world conflict. Yes.

The root cause of all the trouble in the world. Yeah. This again will be the final days when Jerusalem will be the final battleground.

You're using my time to open your Bible reading. But I'm just giving you the Jerusalem thing. You're absolutely right, Brother Gideon.

Ultimately then, its final fulfillment would be Revelation 16. When all the kings of the earth, of the world are gathered together, they lay siege to Jerusalem. Yes.

Well, verse nine, I think confirms that, doesn't it? All the nations that come against Jerusalem. Just a point of contrast quickly to help you along, Brother Phil. All the people run about, verse two, verse three, all peoples and all the people of the earth and verse number six, all the people run about.

Yeah. So it's all the people versus Jerusalem. That's right.

And I think that's why, as we mentioned, Zechariah doesn't distinguish necessarily between invasions of different kinds because there's going to be various ones. There's going to be the conflict of Ezekiel 38. There's going to be the conflict of Psalm 83.

There's going to be other conflicts as well, but he groups them all together. And the point that I must make, if you don't mind, please, important though it is, I think we can get the gist of those first nine verses. You know, that whenever enemies in a future day, in that day, in that day, in that day, when they come against Jerusalem, God is waiting for them.

But when we come to verse 10, and I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications. This is coming back to Joel's prophecy. The Holy Spirit is going to be poured out upon the nation, the nation collectively.

But it's conditional upon the fact that they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day, shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem as the mourning of Haradrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. Now, what we need to bring in, Brother Gideon has made, has alluded to it, and we must understand it is such an important subject, the subject of the day of atonement.

If you don't know about the day of atonement, you'll not understand the Hebrew epistle, for example. Now, the day of atonement, when you think that they had the tabernacle, they had the brazen altar, they had the priesthood, the Levites, the sacrificial system, they had the offerings for sin, Leviticus 4, 5, and so on. The whole thing could not work.

You think of Leviticus 4, if a man sinned and it come to his knowledge that he has sinned, then shall he bring, and an offering is prescribed. So, you're looking at one and a half million people or thereabout, and if a man sinned, every time he sinned, he had to bring a sacrifice, it's just not going to work. So, on one day in the year, Leviticus 23, it's mentioned again in chapter 16, on one day in the year, Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, and this is where we find the high priest officiating over a sin offering that is a remarkable, because it is one sin offering, but it involves two goats, and lots are cast upon the goats, one for the Lord, and one to be the scapegoat, and the goat upon which the Lord's lot fell is summarily slain.

The moment it is slain, divine justice is satisfied. You say, well, doesn't the blood have to be taken in? It does. The blood is taken in right through the sanctuary, through into the holiest of all, and there its blood is sprinkled before and on the mercy seat, and it's under the gaze of two cherubs, those angels beaten out over the mercy seat, and it's as though they are testifying to the fact that God is righteous on the basis of that blood shed for the sins of the people to be forgiven.

The high priest goes out. What does he do then? You say, well, he confesses the sins of the people on the head of the live goat. The live goat's led away.

Symbolically, their sins are removed. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What comes between the high priest coming out having taken the blood in and the sins being confessed upon the head of the live goat? What comes in between you mustn't miss? Great mourning.

M-O-U-R. Great mourning on the part of the people. Affliction of soul is the way Leviticus puts it.

There must be affliction of soul. They must feel the weight of their guilt that has caused the death of this victim and the fact that God in mercy through the death of that victim is going to take their sins away. Affliction of soul.

Now, that happened every year for them, but it's also part of Israel's developing history. And when Christ died at Calvary, it was the death of the first goat. The goat upon which the Lord's flock fell.

Galatians. He removed the curse from the nation because he became a curse for them. And a work has been done that enables, it's the ground of the new covenant with the nation, it's the ground of their sins being forgiven.

If you want to apply it today in modern gospel doctrine, this is the truth of propitiation. This is the truth whereby the death of Christ is sufficient to meet the need of sinners worldwide, whoever they are, whatever they've done, thank God, whosoever will may come. That's the propitiatory work of Christ.

Until there's that affliction of soul, the process can't go any further. And this that we're reading off here is the prediction of the affliction of soul of the nation in a day to come. When about to be apparently destroyed by their enemies, they finally, they finally look to God in genuine need, desperation, they call upon God to deliver them.

Heaven opens and they're given the insight to recognize with amazement that the one who's coming to deliver them is the one they delivered up to the cruel death of Calvary. And they'll look upon him whom they pierced. And when they do so, they'll mourn.

That's the affliction of soul. That's the truth of Isaiah 53 and five. They will say as a nation, but he was wounded for our transgressions.

He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement with a view to our peace was upon him. And by his stripe, we are healed.

That's the verse I was saved through, by the way. So it's not only for Israel. What a wonderful day it will be when with affliction of soul, the nation carries forward the truth of the day of atonement, because as soon as there was affliction of soul, then the high priest confessed upon the head of the life goat, the sins of the people.

And it was led away by the hand of a fit man into a place uninhabited. That's when it will come to pass as far as the East is from the West. So far have I removed their transgressions from them.

What a glorious day is coming to Israel, but it's going to take the full weight of the tribulation to bring them to that point. We mustn't miss that then. They shall look upon him, me whom they have pierced is the reading.

They will look upon me whom they have pierced. There will be tremendous mourning. That's national.

In that day, shall there be a great mourning in Israel as the mourning of Harad Rimmon in the Valley of Megiddon. But look, the land shall mourn every family apart. The family of the house of David apart, their wives apart.

The family of the house of Nathan apart, their wives apart. The family of the house of Levi apart, their wives apart. The family of Shimei apart, their wives apart.

All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart. It will lead to the outpouring in fulfillment of Joel's prophecy of the spirit of God upon the nation. There'll be granted a new heart.

They will love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and mind. The nation will be restored. What a glorious day that will be.

It's lovely to think that though Christ is waiting to be eternally united in heaven with his bride, Jehovah is waiting for the restoration of his wife. Israel is the wife of Jehovah. If you haven't read Hosea lately, read it again.

He'll teach you about it. And Israel has been serially unfaithful to their God. Serially unfaithful spiritually, that is.

That's why the Lord in Matthew 12 referred to the Jews as a wicked and adulterous generation. He speaks of them in the language of marital infidelity because they've left their God, they've left their husband, they've gone a-whoring after false gods. And God still loves them.

And he's going to bring them back and give them a new heart and cleanse them and remove all their filthiness. And the nation has got a glorious future ahead of it. That's all there prophesied in these verses.

Now, brethren, I'm sorry it turned into a ministry meeting rather than a Bible reading, all on account of my own foolishness. And I apologize for that. But there's still a few minutes left now for Gideon and other brethren to make their comments, please.

Just a quick point, brother. This is mentioned in John 19. They shall behold him whom they have pierced.

John 19 is quite a few of Zechariah. Behold the man, that's your chapter 6. Behold your king, that's chapter 9. And then he says when he came to Christ and they break their legs and came to saw that he died already, that it should be fulfilled. Scripture should be fulfilled.

A bone of him shall not be broken. But John very carefully says, and another scripture seeth. Not fulfilled.

Another scripture seeth. Not yet fulfilled. He didn't use the word.

They shall behold him whom they have pierced. Now, the amazing thing is, who is that him in John 19? No doubt is the Lord Jesus. And now here in Zechariah chapter 12.

They shall look upon me. And they shall look upon me. Is this not what Jehovah is saying? Yes.

Jehovah me? Yes. Jesus Christ of John 19. And then he switches the pronoun whom they have pierced.

And they shall mourn for him. So the me is the him, is the Jehovah, is the Christ on the cross. Yes.

You have the same idea that he who hurts Israel hurts the apple of mine eye. Same thing. He that pierced Christ has pierced me.

And that's the thought of the identity of the two things. Very, very special. And John, you know, he beautifully shows us the fulfillment, not just of these things, but of the Passover as well.

You know, the Passover, we've got every family apart here. We know that there was a lamb, the lamb, your lamb, and so on. But remember with the lamb, as with the burnt offering, it was divided into its head and its inwards and its legs.

John in 19. He's the only one to tell us about the legs of the Savior. In fact, there's no other reference in the New Testament to legs other than in John 19.

John points us to the head, crowned with thorns. And he points us to the inwards, exposed by the spear. And he points us to the legs, unbroken.

And he said, here's the true Passover. Here's the true burnt offering, the head, the inwards, the legs. This is the one John brings before us at Calvary.

And this is the one they will look upon with divinely given enablement to understand what they're seeing. They will look upon the one whom they pierced, and he will be their literal salvation in that day. You've mentioned the Day of Atonement.

It wasn't a period feast. It was one day in the year. And what we're looking at here is not a slow church age, you know, process, but rather a concentrated spirit rot, gut-wrenching mourning that's accomplished in this nation at the coming of the Lord Jesus in manifest glory.

A remarkable thing after centuries of rejecting him. And they've come to an end of themselves, haven't we? And again, I think, Brother William, the application in the gospel is very real. That the death of the first goat, the truth of propitiation, the work of Christ sufficient to meet the need of every sinner at every time.

Praise God for that. But then, unless there is that affliction of soul, unless there is that recognition of one's own guilt and an affliction of soul over the fact that Christ loved me enough to die for me, then until there's that affliction of soul, the truth of substitution doesn't kick in. The sins cannot be taken away.

So we've got the truths of propitiation, substitution, ones that ought to be very, very carefully divided. And all there in that tremendous teaching of the Day of Atonement, just one sin offering, but two goats. And it's the key to the Hebrew epistle.

It's the key to understanding this that we've just been speaking about. The great Day of Atonement, when Israel has their sins taken away as far as the east is from the west. Very good.

05.06 Any more, Brother Gideon? You just took an intake of breath there to correct me. No. You could tell me yes or no, that's all.

Because it's... 05.07 Okay. 05.07 Romans 11? 05.07 Yeah, go on. Shall all Israel be saved? 05.07 Yeah.

Yes. 05.07 It's national? Yes. Yeah.

05.07 It's national? And remember that by the time this happens, two-thirds of the nation of Israel will have been destroyed. 05.07 05.07 Two-thirds of them lost. So it's a very small remnant that is left there to actually witness this and to exercise national repentance.