As Christians, we are all committed to the belief that Jesus Christ is going to return to earth for the purpose of establishing the kingdom promised to Israel and all those who have trusted in him. We anticipate the reversing of the Adamic curse and the creating of an earth that is all that God ever designed it to be, where Jesus Christ reigns as King of kings and Lord of Lords. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Scripture says that only God knows the date of Christ's return, but we do know where he will return and what will happen when he comes back.
You'll hear those details and find out just how much the Bible says about future events as John MacArthur begins a study today on Grace to You titled The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ.
Now, this series comes from the book of Zechariah. It's one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. Zechariah doesn't get nearly as much attention as many other Old Testament books, and of course, from the very start of his 56-year pulpit ministry, John concentrated on the New Testament. But Zechariah was significant enough to John that it was among the earliest books of the Bible he taught through. Here's what John had to say about that.
That was a lot to tackle early in my ministry to go after the book of Zachariah. And somebody might say, well, why would you do Zachariah?
Well, Zachariah is the most messianic. apocalyptic and eschatological book in the Old Testament. It doesn't get what it deserves. Primarily, it's a prophecy about Jesus Christ, focusing on his coming glory as a means to comfort his people Israel. And the book is filled with visions, and prophecies, and signs, and celestial visitors, and even the voice of God.
At the same time, it's intensely practical and deals with issues like repentance and divine care and salvation and holy living.
So, God used Zachariah to bring an abundant outburst of promise for the future that lasted over 400 years before God spoke again through the prophet John. Wow, so 400 years of. Silence as far as biblical revelation is concerned. Yeah, and then of course God picked up the story when the Messiah came. Zachariah declared that he was coming, and he was coming in glory.
But the next time God Writes Revelation, it's the story of his coming in humiliation, and his coming in glory is still ahead of us.
So while Zachariah Predicted the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, it really looked at his second coming, and that's the power and the interest in this wonderful book. Friend, this section of Scripture, Zechariah chapters 9 through 14, is packed with details about Christ's return that you can't get anywhere else in the Bible.
So make sure you stay here for this exciting, unique series called The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ. And here's John. Take your Bible, if you will, and look with me at the book of Zachariah. If you're not familiar with where it is, is Right near the end of the Old Testament, Zachariah and Malachi end the Old Testament, so it's two books. Back from Matthew.
Zachariah, and we're looking at the ninth chapter. Zechariah chapter 9, a great, great prophetic word comes to us in this chapter. As Christians, we are all committed to the belief that Jesus Christ, the Messiah of Israel, the Savior of the world, and the King of kings, is going to return to earth for the purpose of establishing the kingdom promised to Israel and all those who have trusted in him. We as Christians anticipate this kingdom. We anticipate the reversing of the Adamic curse.
And the creating of an earth that is all that God ever designed it to be, where Jesus Christ reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Now, many of the details of that coming kingdom and of Jesus Christ's return to establish it are indicated to us in Scripture. And a major element in the prophetic scriptures of the Old Testament deals with the coming of the kingdom. The prophets talk frequently, for example, of how history is going to come to an end. of how the nations are going to be judged. Of how God's king, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, will come and reign supreme.
How that He will fulfill the promise to David given in 2 Samuel chapter 7, how that he will fulfill ultimately the promise given to Abraham. This one will come and not only conquer the nations, the Gentiles who oppose God, the peoples who are set against God, but he will redeem Israel, and into that kingdom will go all the believing saints of all the ages. This is a great, great theme in the Bible. And you know, sometimes I think that we're very close to the time when Jesus is going to come and do that. And I'm not alone in thinking that.
I guess Christians have always felt that way, frankly. The New Testament is full of statements like: the coming of the Lord is at hand. My little children, these are the last times. Christians have always believed they lived on the edge of the return of Christ. There are things that are happening today that make us convinced more than ever that this is true.
Let me just give you an illustration. Going away for a minute from Zachariah chapter 9, I want to call your attention to a most interesting passage in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel has much to say about the coming of Jesus Christ and particularly about what is going to happen in regarding a great war that will occur. In the 39th chapter of Ezekiel, we find something of the aftermath of Armageddon. The great battle of Armageddon will occur at the end of the tribulation, just before the Lord Jesus returns to establish his kingdom.
The Battle of Armageddon, described in the book of Revelation as well as in Ezekiel. And in Zachariah, will be a battle where all the nations of the world are at war, and Christ will come. And defeat them all and establish his kingdom. There's some interesting things about the phases of that particular battle, and there are some phases of it. In 39 of Ezekiel, let me read to you.
Therefore, thou son of man, prophesy against Gog, and Gog seems to be an ancient term designating Russia or the Russian area. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. I will turn thee back and leave but the sixth part. In other words, God is going to destroy five-sixths of this great army from the north that descends upon Israel in the tribulation. And God is going to destroy them.
And then you come to verse 4 and you find a most interesting thing: Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou and all thy hordes, and the peoples that are with thee. I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, to the beasts of the field to be devoured. Thou shalt fall on the open field, for I have spoken it, says the Lord God. The first thing we read in this prophecy is that the birds, the ravenous birds, will devour the carcasses of the five-sixths of the remains of this northern army. And if you are to compare with that, Revelation chapter 19, we won't turn to it, verses 17 to 19, you find a similar statement.
That after the Holocaust that is Armageddon, God calls the birds of the heavens, the ravenous birds, to come and to feed on the flesh of the kings and the captains and the great men and the hosts of all of those that have been slain in this great battle.
So there's a great feast of the birds at that time. There are many things that are occurring in our world today that make us wonder if Jesus isn't coming very, very soon. And so we look at the book of Zechariah not with a sort of an indifferent eye, but with a great amount of interest. And as we come to the ninth chapter and we hear the prophet Zachariah, we can go back to that place now, begin to tell us what is going to happen when Messiah comes, it can have much more meaning if we understand that it could be well in our lifetime that this indeed occurs. We know it's coming, don't we?
We believe it could be very near.
Now, Zachariah in the ninth chapter writes about the overthrow of world power and the establishment of Jesus Christ as the king. In fact, from chapter 9 through 14, which is the end of the book. From 9 to 14, that whole section. Is prophecy related to what I call the downfall of the nations and the salvation of Israel? The whole end of the book: the downfall of the nations and the salvation of Israel.
Now let me set the scene for you by way of reminding you. Remember now that when Zechariah lived, the children of Israel had just returned from the Babylonian captivity. They had come back to a land that was just in rubble. It had been destroyed and they had been taken off for 70 years of captivity. They had come back and they had begun to rebuild, but they had been halted in the process and their land was pretty well a shambles.
It was in ruins. The former glory was only a memory. The nations all around them were not only indifferent, but threatening because there was no way that they would be able to defend themselves against an attack. They knew nothing of what they had once known and so God wanted to encourage them to rebuild the city and to encourage them with the fact that He was still their God and He was still on their side and He would still take care of them and He would still protect them. And so he sent along two prophets, Haggai and Zachariah.
Both of them were to encourage the people to return and continue the building. And both of them were saying to the people, God will be with you. God will help you rebuild. The city will be restored. The nation will be protected.
You will gain a measure of reputation back that you used to have. God will take care of you. And so Zachariah begins his... Marvelous letter in chapter 1 in verse 13 by saying, And the Lord answered the angel that talked with me with good words and comforting words. This book was written to be a comfort to Israel.
And at verse 17, cry yet, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, My cities through prosperity shall yet be spread abroad, and the Lord shall comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem. In other words, the message was a comforting message, like Isaiah 40, where Isaiah says, Comfort ye, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, Israel. God is comforting them in the confidence that though they've come back from captivity, though their land is a rubble, their great and glorious city of Jerusalem is in ruins, though this is true, God is going to comfort them in restoring all the things that are needful. And so, all throughout those first nine chapters, we heard the message of Zachariah. As he said, God is with you.
God will help you rebuild. And then, as we move to the ninth chapter through the 14th chapter, that vision expands into a prophetic future. And what the prophet now sees is not the immediate rebuilding of Jerusalem in the time of Zachariah, but the great restoration of the whole kingdom of God that comes in the end time. And so he just moves in one great giant step from history to the fulfillment of prophecy at the end of the age. And so the emphasis here is that God loves Israel.
And that because God loves Israel, He will fulfill His promise. And His promise is not only to rebuild Israel historically, but His promise is to fulfill the promise of the kingdom in the end time. And that becomes the theme of the end of this. Wonderful. Prophecy.
So God, and I want you to note this in your thinking, God had promised them a temporal restoration. God had promised them a historical city that would be built, and it was built just a few decades after Zachariah's time. God promised them that and he made it come to pass. But notice this: this was only designed by God, mark it, as a token or a pledge of what God was planning to do in the end. It was simply a way to prove to them that God meant his promises.
So that every Jew from then on could say, well, when somebody asked me whether God will bring a kingdom, I remember that he also said he would restore our city in history, and he did that. And if he kept his word then, I have confidence he'll keep his word in the future. And we'll see this as we go through the text, but this is something you want to remember in studying the Old Testament. Very, very frequently, whenever God gave a future prophecy, He also at the very same time gave an historical element to that prophecy so that there would be like a signpost along the way, and when they saw the historical part come to pass, they would then believe God for the future prophetic element. We'll see that as removed.
Now the final section is divided into two parts. I'm just going to give you a little logistics here in about 15 seconds. Part number one is 9 through 11, and in that, the prophet deals with the political setting up of the kingdom. He deals with the politics of it, the destruction of the nations, establishing of Israel in priority and prominence, etc. 9 to 11 primarily deals with the political element.
Now, 12 through 14 is primarily emphasizing the spiritual or the salvation of the nation, drawing them back to God.
So, as we begin in chapter 9, although we'll see salvation here, the main emphasis is on the political picture. And remember. God often, when referring to a future promise or a future judgment, secured people's faith and confidence that it would happen in the future by adding an immediate or more immediate historical fulfillment so that they could see tangibly a token of God's promise for a long, long distant future. In Daniel's case, an illustration. Daniel prophesied the Antichrist in the end time.
But he also prophesied the coming of a willful king. Not many years after he lived, who did come, and his name was Antiochus Epiphanes. He was the Greek who was prophesied by Daniel.
So at one and the same time, you have Daniel picturing the Antichrist way at the end of history, and yet not so far from him predicting another man who came and desecrated the temple by the name of Antiochus Epiphanes. And Antiochus, you see, is given in the prophecy as a signpost so that when people say, well, that part came to pass, they'll say, well, then the next part is also guaranteed by the token of God's fulfillment of part number one.
So, very often in prophecy, you have a localized or historical element which keeps us on the track and keeps our confidence up that what God promised for the future, He will also perform.
So God connects us to the future. with historical fulfillments.
Now, let's look at chapter 9, and I want to just distinguish between two major points. This I have called The saga of two conquerors. The saga of two conquerors. Conqueror number one is in verses one to eight. Conqueror number two is in verses nine to seventeen in this chapter.
The saga of two conquerors. Now mark this. Conqueror number one is predicted. Listen. As the historical element of the prophecy to keep you on the track.
The real message is Conqueror number two. But God gives the first prophecy, which we can look back at and know was fulfilled to the very letter, as a guarantee or a pledge or a token that He's going to fulfill part two.
Now, the first conqueror I call a human conqueror. Because that's what he is. Verses 1 to 8: His name is not given in the text, but his name is readily obvious: Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great. And here is the whole idea.
God predicts the details of the conquering of Alexander the Great and says this human conqueror will come, and when you see him, you can know that you're on the right track to seeing the fulfillment of part two. But there's a further element: it's this. Alexander the Great. Now watch this. Who was an unrighteous Ungodly pagan.
And he was only a human being. Was used by God as an agent to destroy the nations and to save Israel.
Now mark that. A pagan. Godless Apostate? Human being named Alexander the Great was a tool of God. To punish or judge the nations and to save Israel.
And in so doing, He is a picture. of what the future Christ will be. And the message the prophet is giving is this. If God can judge the nations and save Israel, And do it through a godless pagan human being. Imagine what he will do in the end time through God in human flesh.
The divine conqueror. When he comes.
Now that's the thrust. Let's look at verse 1 and see the human conqueror. The burden of the word of the Lord in the land of Hadrach And Damascus shall be its rest. when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord. One thing about the Old Testament, you need me, because some of it's really hard to find.
You say, that's a wonderful verse. You won't know what that has done in my life.
Well, it does say something. Let's see if we can understand what it says. I always start by looking at each word. The first word I looked up was burden, and it's the word masa. And it means to take up or lift up, and it was a word that was used as a burden, a heavy burden.
You lift it up and you take it up. And it came to be used for something that was a great burden on the back of the prophet. And he would literally take up a cause and he would unbear his heart. He would unbear his burden. He would declare a woe or a heavy judgment.
And the word came to be synonymous with a prediction of a threatening act of judgment, a judgment oracle, a judgment prediction, a judgment prophecy.
So here is the prophecy of judgment, the Messiah on the mind of Zachariah. This particular judgment is coming from the word of the Lord to the land of Hadrach.
Now this is a very obscure place. We don't really know what this is. Archaeologically, we can't really dogmatically identify Hadrag.
Some think it is the ancient village of Hatrika. which is similar. Mentioned in the annals of the Assyrian kings, which was around Damascus in the Syrian area, to the east and north of Palestine. From the Sea of Galilee you'd go east and north a little. But there's another explanation that's very interesting.
If you take the two terms, had and rach, Had means sharp and rach means soft. And so it is the land sharp soft. Say, what does that have to do with anything?
Well? One of the finest Old Testament scholars, Leupold, says, That this is no doubt a reference to the dual kingdom that existed in that day, which was the kingdom of the Mies and what? The Persians, the Medo-Persian kingdom. You see, the Medes were sharp. They were like swords.
They were the conquerors that produced Cyrus and Darius. And the Persians were the effeminate softies. that turned the whole thing into a debauchery. In fact, the Persian became a synonym for effeminacy. And so it may well be that in a veiled way.
You have the Medes and the Persians hidden in the Hebrew word Hadrach, and the reason it's hidden here is so that they don't start a war when Zachariah pronounces the prophecy. That's a possibility.
So it's either a place or it's a title for the Medo-Persian area. But no matter what, it's talking about the area of Syria, the Medo-Persian area. It is either a name in general for that or a specific city, Hatarika, which. was written of in the Assyrian ancient writings. You'll notice also though that the center of it, the place where this judgment is going to rest, is in Damascus.
Now Damascus is a famous city, maybe the most ancient city in the world. It's really a thrill to go there. I've been there. And it's the only city I know of. This is funny.
But do you know that one of the funny things about Damascus is that the Arabs built a train station, a huge, big train depot, right in the middle of town. Great huge thing, and they have no railroad in the entire country. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? I thought that was interesting.
I have nothing else to say about it. That's it, folks. Yeah. But Damascus is a very, very ancient city. And that city was to be the seat where this judgment fell.
Now this was one of Israel's worst enemies. Syria. in which the capital was Damascus. From the time about 900 to 721 BC, he was a terrible, fearful opponent of Israel. And so the resting place or the target of judgment is going to be Damascus, and it'll hit Damascus, and then it'll spread.
At the Battle of Isis, incidentally, the Battle of Isis is a very, very, very famous battle, 333 BC. This battle in Southeast Asia Minor Alexander defeated Darius, defeated the Persians. and begin to break the back of the Medo-Persian Empire. And immediately when he defeated them, that just threw open the door to Syria. And Alexander then moved east from Greece.
And he moved through Syria, and when he had knocked off Syria, Damascus and Hadrach and that area, he then swept to the coast and he got to the Phoenician countries and he swept through the Phoenician countries and he came to the south part of what we know as the land of Israel, to the Philistine cities, and he swept through there and he was on his way to Egypt. on his way to conquer the great powers of the world. Lightning swift conquests moving toward Egypt occurred after he'd won the Battle of Isis and broken the back of the Medo-Persian Empire.
Now, the Holy Spirit here in this chapter reveals the whole plan to us. The whole battle plan is here. And incidentally, this is written centuries before Alexander was born. That's why it doesn't name him, he didn't exist. And yet every detail of his crusade is here.
First, he defeats the Medes and the Persians, and he knocks off this city of Damascus. And with it, notice verse 2: Hamath. And Hamath is also a very, very important city. Hamath was like a territory within the Medo-Persian Empire, which was like a kingdom state, and Hamath was the capital city. It may be well that the modern village of Hama.
Is the place where ancient Hamath existed.
So he comes in, and for all intents and purposes, he just wipes out. Syria. the great power of Syria, the great city of Damascus.
Now you'll notice at the end of verse 1. It says, when the eyes of man, as of all the tribes of Israel, shall be toward the Lord.
Now he says, This judgment is going to come, and when it comes, the eyes of mankind in Hebrew, in other words, humankind, people. The eyes of people. The eyes of mankind, this is a collective thing, as well as the eyes of the tribes of Israel shall be toward the Lord. And you say, well, what does that mean? Just this.
That when Alexander began to sweep to the east. The whole world. in fear. began to fix their gaze on him. The Gentile countries, Syria.
Phoenicia, the great sailors of the world, the merchants of the world, Philistia, the great army. Those nations began to look at Alexander with fear and trembling. And even Egypt and Pharaoh was shaking in his boots. And the tribes of Israel were looking. You say, but John, it says here, they were looking toward the Lord.
And that's the whole point here. The point is that in looking at Alexander, they were seeing the instrument of God, you see. They were seeing the Lord coming in judgment through this man. God throughout history has used ungodly men to act in judgment. Read the book of Abakot.
God uses the Chaldeans, the ungodly Chaldeans, as his instruments. And you remember how Cyrus Cyrus, who was an ungodly pagan, was used by God to open the door to lead Israel back to its land. God again and again has used the ungodly. Do you know that even Herod became a servant of the Lord, didn't he? In his own unwitting, foolish rebellion against God, God used him to bring about.
What ultimately amounted is the death of Jesus Christ. the act that redeemed all the redeemed of all the agents. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. The study John began today is called The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ. And friend, as we continue John's series, you'll see that Christians have so many reasons to be hopeful as they look to the future and await Christ's return.
So if you've never taken an in-depth look at Zechariah 9-14, I would encourage you to download John's current study, The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ. Get this series for free when you get in touch today. You'll find the free downloads at our website, gty.org. And while you're there, take advantage of the thousands of other sermons available to you for free. That's more than 3,600 sermons that you can download in MP3 and written transcript format.
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Now, for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson with a question. How can you be sure that Jesus Christ will return and rule the world? John MacArthur shows you some compelling proof tomorrow as we continue his study, The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ. Be here for another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time. on Grace to You.
