MInor No.15 Zechariah 3&4 contd

Now, in one sense, and here I'm coming towards a conclusion this evening, in one sense the ministry of priest and the ministry of king is not only fulfilled in the Lord Jesus, it's reproduced by you and me. What are you? Well, you're a priest unto the Lord. You are like that lampstand in the temple to give light to the world.

Jesus is the light that illuminates men and women and causes the glow of the gospel to be seen. But what the Lord was in himself, he reproduces in his church. So he tells us in Matthew's gospel, you're like a city set on top of a hill.

You are as light to illuminate the world. And in this sense, we minister in the same way as our Lord Jesus Christ ministered. As a priest, we serve God.

And one of the functions in the temple was to ensure that the light in the golden candlestick was kept going. They did that, the ancient priests did it by squeezing the fruit of the olive and pouring the resultant oil into the little holders at the top of the seven branches of the candlestick. Now, we can't produce the oil ourselves, but the oil of the spirit is given to us so that we who serve the living God as priests may be empowered to serve him successfully.

And our Lord Jesus was a builder, the builder of the temple, the temple not made with hands, the temple made up of living stones, as Peter says. Now, what are you? You're a temple builder, a co-laborer, says Paul, with the Lord Jesus Christ in the construction of the greatest edifice to the glory of God that there is in the world today. And what's that? It's the church.

So in summary, what have we discovered from chapter three and four? Chapter three speaks of a priest who will serve the Lord. Chapter four speaks of a lamp that has a flow of oil divinely given to it so that it's empowered to illuminate. So you and I are like the priest and like the lamp and also like Zerubbabel who helped to build the temple and we are helping likewise to build the temple of God around the world by human ingenuity? No.

If that was the case, we'd be despairing because we haven't the resources, we haven't the incisive mind to execute the task. Then how? Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. And all this Zechariah saw years and years and years before it was fulfilled and literally happened.

So we praise God for the ministry of this great prophet, speaking of the rebuilding of the temple in his day, but anticipating the building of the spiritual temple of our God, the church of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father, we just commit and commend ourselves again to you.

We thank you for our study from your word and we pray that you will apply what we have learned to our hearts. Keep in our minds that which was accurate and from yourself and expunge all that was mere fanciful speculation and the thinking of just a finite mind. So we commit ourselves to you in your service in the name of the Saviour.

Amen. you you you