God has promised Israel a kingdom. God has promised Israel salvation. God has promised them a marvelous return, regathering and restoration in the land. At the second coming, there's going to be redemption. At the second coming, there's going to be restoration.
At the second coming, there's going to be a kingdom. But at the first coming, there was a terrible apostasy. There was a terrible rejection. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson.
When you were a kid, did you ever get a decoder ring in a box of cereal, a little toy that allowed you to decipher secret messages?
Well, understanding the Bible is not about decoder rings. There are no secret messages in the scriptures. But to really understand its meaning, you often need an in-depth knowledge of geography, ancient history, and biblical languages. That is certainly true of the chapter John MacArthur examines today on Grace to You. John once said that this might be the most difficult chapter he ever looked at.
John's current study is called The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ.
So now turn in your Bibles to Zechariah chapter 11. And here's John with today's lesson. We've been studying the book of Zachariah and we come now to the 11th chapter. And I've entitled this, The Rejection of the Good Shepherd. The rejection of the good shepherd.
It's a very sad chapter. It's a very grieving chapter. It's a very ugly chapter in many ways. And it, in comparison to chapters 9 and 10, stands out in a rather stark contrast. The chapter pictures The Lord Jesus has a shepherd.
That's not a concept unfamiliar to us. Because the Old Testament talks about God as a shepherd. Psalm 23 says, The Lord is my shepherd. The prophet Isaiah said that he gathers the little lambs. And he gently leads those that are with young, pictures God as a shepherd.
In John chapter 10 of the New Testament. Jesus said, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd cares for his sheep. And so, the concept of God as a shepherd, of the Lord Jesus Christ as a shepherd, is not anything really new. But in most cases in the Old Testament, you find that in the presentation of God as shepherd.
Or even in the New Testament, where Christ is presented as shepherd, the chapter is lovely. There's beauty to it. It's gracious. It's endearing. But when you come to the 11th chapter of Zachariah and you read here Zachariah's presentation of the shepherd, it is anything but beautiful.
It is anything but lovely. It is anything but winsome. It is very ugly. It is very sinful. And that is apparent.
from the very first verse on to the end of the chapter.
Now with that introduction, let's go back to the 11th chapter. God has promised Israel a kingdom. God has promised Israel salvation. God has promised them a marvelous return, regathering and restoration in the land. But suddenly, in chapter 11, the prophet of hope turns into a prophet of doom.
And he turns from the glories of Messiah at his second coming and the glories of Messiah at his kingdom, and he turns to a national apostasy and a national rejection of Messiah that occurred at his first coming.
Now we know at the second coming there's going to be redemption. At the second coming there's going to be restoration. At the second coming there's going to be a kingdom. But at the first coming there was a terrible apostasy. There was a terrible rejection.
And this chapter goes not so much to the second coming of Christ as to the first coming. and it predicts the rejection of the shepherd. The second point in the outline is the main point of the chapter: the rejection of the true shepherd. And this is a very, very severe, a very profound, a very straightforward, a very. Judicial Kind of chapter.
There's really no bright light in it. It's judgment. In fact, This may help you to see it in perspective. Chapter 11 tells us, watch this. Chapter 11 tells us why.
The promises of chapters 9 and 10. never came to pass when Jesus came the first time. Chapter 11 tells us why. The promises of 9 and 10 never came to pass when Jesus came the first time. Because chapter 11 tells us that when he came the first time, They rejected him.
And so that accounts. for the postponing of the promises of nine and ten.
Now, I want us to look at this in the format of shepherds. You'll notice that all three of the points on the outline deal with shepherds. First, there is the ravage of the wailing shepherds. Second, there is the rejection of the true shepherd. And thirdly, there is the reception of the false shepherd.
So the chapter follows the motif of shepherds. Let's look first of all at the ravage or the ruin. Of the wailing shepherds. Verses one to three. This incidentally is the most poetic A section in the whole book.
In Hebrew, it's totally poetic. Let me read you the three verses. Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Whale fir tree. For the cedar is fallen because the glorious trees are spoiled.
Wail, O ye oaks of Bashan, for the forest of the vintage is come down. There is a voice of the wailing of the shepherds. for their glory is spoiled. A voice of the roaring of young lions, for the pride of the Jordan is spoiled.
Now all those three verses are judgmental.
Now watch and I'll show you what they mean. It is obvious here that you see three different sections of land. Verse 1, Lebanon. Verse two, Bashan. Verse three, Jordan.
If you know anything about the basic geography of Israel, you know that starts in the north and descends to the south. And here is judgment sweeping. Fire, verse 1, devouring beginning in Lebanon. and burning up the cedars, sweeping down to Bashan and consuming the oaks, coming all the way down to Jordan and destroying the pride of Jordan. the place where the lions dwelled.
which was all of the foliage around the Jordan Valley. And so there is a judgment that sweeps from the north down to the south. The Holy Spirit, here with poetic imagery and dramatic movement, arranges the words with an almost rhetorical power to describe the ruin and the ravages of the whole land of Israel. There's coming a storm of judgment, God says, and that storm is going to sweep from the north to the south. And the trees are sort of personalized here and made to be sort of the recipients of the judgment.
But this is really only a metaphor. This is really only a picture. This is really only a figure in that sense. The trees stand for the sections of land. Lebanon was known for its cedars.
Do you remember the wood that was used to build Solomon's temple? Were the cedars from Lebanon? Lebanon was known for the mighty cedar trees, massive, beautiful trees, and some of the mountains of Lebanon rise high, way high, and they're just covered with trees. These mighty trees fell. And then there was the area of Bashan.
Now, Lebanon was the north border of the land of Israel. On the Syrian-Palestinian border at the north is Lebanon. And coming down south a little bit and going east a little bit to the east of Jordan was the area of Bashan. The area of Bashan was an area populated by oak trees. And then descending further down into the lower part of the land, you come to the Jordan Valley, which runs all the way to the Dead Sea.
And the Jordan Valley, along the Jordan River, on both sides, was dense foliage. At one time, we understand that there was almost a jungle there. And all of this is going to be consumed in this tremendous judgment that hits the land.
Now, I really believe that the judgment that God is speaking about here is an actual devastation. It's not a literal fire that burns trees, but it is an actual devastation. It's not just a spiritual judgment. But it is a real judgment. Where real people die real death.
where the land of Israel is really judged. In fact, in verse 111, it is told to open its doors. There's no sense in fighting it. You might as well just throw open the doors and let it happen. And once you see Lebanon go, verse two, you oaks of Basham.
You might as well wail. The fir tree might as well wail. Why? Because if the mighty cedar goes, the fir tree isn't going to be able to stand. In other words, when the high and the mighty are fallen, every lesser tree...
is going to be unable to escape. From the high and the mighty, all the way down the line. And some people have likened these trees to the leadership of Israel. And said that this is a spiritual judgment on the hierarchy of Israel, all the way from the high and the mighty, the priests and so forth, and the elders and the scribes and the rulers, down all the way to the common men. And maybe there is that implication also.
But in this judgment, when the mighty fall, everything goes as well. When you see the forest of the vintage come down, in other words, that's referring to Lebanon, when you see the finest forest, the glorious trees, the splendid trees, when they go, And actually, the Hebrew says, the inaccessible or impenetrable forest. That's literally what it means when it says the forest of vintage, the impenetrable Lebanon, the mighty Lebanon falls. When the best goes, everything else better wail, because it's going to go too. And so the fir trees wail, and the mighty oaks wail, and there's a wailing all the way down in Jordan.
Notice this, verse 3. There is the voice of the roaring of the lions, for the pride of the Jordan is spoiled. This is interesting. After the captivity of the northern kingdom, Wild beasts began to multiply around the Jordan. You can check out 2 Kings 17, 25, Jeremiah 49, 19, and Jeremiah 50, 44.
And in those passages, 2 Kings 17, Jeremiah 49, and chapter 50, there. Is the indication that wild beasts proliferated the Jordan area for many centuries? It became literally a place where lions dwelt in the thick foliage. And so verse 3 is saying, the lions will roar when they see the devastation that comes. And there was devastation.
And the young lions is an interesting term. It refers to lions that have been weaned and they're young and they have great appetites and they're very fierce. And these fierce lions are going to roar at the destruction that occurs.
Now, this is poetic imagery. The point here is not that trees get burned up and lions lose their homes. The point is that they are made to be like. Like wailing Elements as figures of the wailing that's going to occur in the land when it's devastated. The idea of destruction is here, people, because three times in these three verses, the verb in Hebrew for destroy is used.
The verb for destroy three times.
So the thought of destruction and of permanent devastating kind of destruction. It's going to occur.
Now notice the response to this. The one human response you find is in verse 3. There is a voice of the wailing of the shepherds. For their glory is spoiled. Here are the shepherds.
Are these just literal shepherds?
Well, possibly. And they're crying and howling like an animal, the Hebrew word, literally howling like a coyote or like a lone wolf. Screeching and wailing because all of their pastures have been devastated. Because all of the grass that they needed has been burned up and destroyed, and the hills are denuded. And again, some say it may be A reference to those who are the shepherds of Israel, the leaders, and it may be.
But the sum of it all, the trees and the grass and the animals and the leadership, it all falls into the same whale as God's great judgment comes. We meet then the wailing shepherds, and they wail because they've been ravaged. The question is. To what destruction does this refer? At what point in Israel's history did this happen?
And I'm going to give you what I believe to be the The soundest and the best interpretation. And incidentally, it's the oldest one. It's the old one that the The old rabbis believed, and it's still currently held by many scholars, and I'm convinced it's true. That, what this is referring to is the destruction of Israel and Jerusalem that occurred in 70 AD. You remember that after Jesus was crucified around thirty or so AD?
Forty-some years later, Nearly 40 years later, There was the great devastation. The Roman army came in and destroyed Jerusalem. And I mean when they destroyed Jerusalem, they didn't just destroy Jerusalem. They destroyed Jerusalem. Good.
1,000, 100,000 Jews died. 1,100,000. They threw 100,000 bodies over the wall just for the sport of it. In the years following that, Hadrian marched through the area north toward Galilee and destroyed 985 towns. literally devastating the state of Israel.
Scattering them all over the world. And only in your lifetime have they come back since 19. 18 and following. And I believe that what he sees here is this unbelievable devastation that occurred in 70 AD. And the reason I believe that is because of what immediately follows.
which is given as the reason for the judgment. And the reason for the judgment is the rejection of the shepherd. And that just fits history beautifully because when they rejected Jesus Christ, it wasn't 40 years later until their whole nation went out of existence. As a nation. Although the Jewish people have been preserved as individual people.
And so we find, first of all, the general warning of the ravage of the wailing shepherds. And then the reason for this ravage comes in the second point. The rejection of the true shepherd. Let's look at verse 4. And all the way through verse 14, he discusses the rejection of the true shepherd.
We can't really reproduce. Today, I don't think vividly enough in our minds unless somebody could make a movie about this. And maybe that wouldn't even do it. We can't really understand the ravaging that occurred in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and the years following. I mean when the Roman army came down, they literally destroyed an entire civilization of people, except for the remnant that managed to escape and be preserved by God to be regathered today.
Utter devastation. During the siege of the city of Jerusalem, the Jewish people even began to eat their own children. Because of the starvation. Incredible destruction. Occurred.
This is the devastation that happened. And this devastation, beloved, was God's act of judgment on the rejection of the true shepherd. The shepherds were ravaged and they wailed, but they wailed as wailing shepherds because they had rejected the true shepherd.
Now, I want to give you some information you have to have to understand this prophecy. I've studied a lot of chapters in the Bible. I don't think I ever studied one that's more difficult than this one. This is a very difficult chapter. I say that basically so that you'll understand.
that if you don't quite get every little thought here, I'm not sure anybody gets every little thought here. Very difficult. Because the style is often poetic. And it Trying to reproduce everything that was in the mind of the Prophet is difficult. But I want you to see the flow of it because the overall flow and purpose of the chapter is very clear, in spite of some of the little nuances in the Hebrew that are very difficult, and I don't want to get bogged down in all of those.
There is an important key. to the chapter.
Now you got to get this. There are many styles of prophetic utterance in the Old Testament. I remember having a course in Old Testament prophecy, and my professor was Dr. Feinberg, and he really knew this. And he opened up to me an understanding of so many kinds of prophetic method that I never understood.
And one of them that he talked about that was interesting, I thought, was the fact that the prophets often made a prophecy by acting out a symbolic act. In other words, rather than just verbalizing something, They literally acted out something. For example, um Well, Isaiah 8 might be a fitting example. Don't turn to it. I'll just read a verse or two real quick.
Isaiah 8. Moreover, the Lord said to me, Take a great scroll and write in it with a man's pen concerning Mahir Shalal Hashbaz. And I took to me faithful witnesses to record, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, the Lord said, I want you to do a demonstration, Isaiah. Get a big scroll and write some stuff on it.
Well, that was a demonstration. That was. Doing something very visible as a symbol of a certain prophecy. Over in Ezekiel 4, I'm thinking of another one. God said to Ezekiel, Take a tile or a piece of clay, like you'd tile a roof with, and lay it before you, and paint on it the city of Jerusalem.
And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mound against it.
Now, can you see this? The very dignified prophet Ezekiel is building himself a little fort. See? He's got his little clay and he's growing Jerusalem and the people are always saying, poor Ezekiel, you know. Slipped one of those wheels that he was talking about in chapter one.
And Something's definitely gone wrong with Ezekiel. And he was acting a symbolic act before the people.
Now that seems to be what is going on in this chapter. God is speaking to Zachariah, asking Zachariah to be an actor. to play a part. to put on a symbolic act. to enter on a stage.
He says now, Zach. I want you to be a shepherd. He said, I want you to play the part of a shepherd, okay? And then he goes on to tell him step by step what to do.
Now everything that Zachariah acts out. is a picture of Jesus Christ.
Now I hope you understand that approach to prophecy. He symbolically carries out certain actions that speak of the rejection of Jesus Christ. And they are very, very, very vivid. things that he does. Let's look at them.
Beginning at verse four. Thus saith the LORD my God. Feed the flock. of the slaughter.
Now first Zachariah is to feed the flock of the slaughter.
Now, the word here to feed is the word tend in the Hebrew. It means to care for, to feed, to lead, to nurse. It's used in Psalm 23 to speak of the ministry of a shepherd. He says, Now, the first thing I want you to do in your role as a shepherd is act out a feeding, feed the flock. And that would mean, of course, to teach them.
I want you to be like the true shepherd, like the spiritual shepherd, and you feed the flock, the word of God.
Now, notice what he calls the flock, the flock of the slaughter. That's not the most endearing term. That doesn't sound a lot like Psalm 23, does it? If we were to put it in modern English, we would say, feed the flock intended for butchering. Because that's exactly what it means.
Feed the flock intended for butchering. The flock is the covenant nation, but the covenant nation has been unfaithful. The covenant nation has turned their back on the shepherd, and he says, you feed the flock intended for butchering.
Now, that's a strange statement. I mean it. I read that over lots of times before I understood what he was saying. He's saying look. Israel has rejected the shepherd, and we'll see that as we go through the chapter.
I'm assuming that at this point. Israel's rejected the shepherd. They are then, therefore, designated as the flock for butchering. But um I'm going to give them I'm going to give him a chance. I'm gonna feed him.
I'm going to try to feed him. and see if they'll eat. That's essentially what I believe he's saying.
So, the Lord here is sort of played by Zachariah in this little play. And Zachariah is to go to this flock that is already, God knows, it's already in the plan, God has known it. They're a flock for butchering. There's going to be a horrible devastation. There's going to be a horrible judgment.
But before the judgment comes, God says, I want to try to feed them one more time. And that's essentially what Jesus did, didn't he? Seventy years before the great Butchering of Israel. God came and tried to feed the flock. Would they be fed?
For the most part, they would not be fed. And so they were a flock for slaughter. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. John's current series is titled The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ.
Now, today John talked about a sobering reality, the judgment ahead for those who reject Christ. And with future judgment in mind, I'd like to play a call-in question we received some years ago. From a listener named Lisa. Here's the question, and then you'll hear John's response. Hello, Pastor John.
My name is Lisa and I live in Palm Bay, Florida. My question is, I know that scripture says to be absent from bodies is to be present with the Lord. Um my question is if You're in the presence of the Lord. Why is it necessary to be judged on Judgment Day? I mean, is it because you get more jewels on your crown?
Is it because of status? in heaven. I'm confused about that a little bit. Um, thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Hey, thank you so much, Lisa. Appreciate your question, and it's a really good question. Um we're talking about a judgment that is a judgment for the purpose of rewards. there will be no judgment on sin. And that's crystal clear from Romans 8, verse 1.
Now there is therefore now no condemnation. to those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because The Lord Jesus on the cross took our full judgment. In other words, he died And paid?
The full penalty for our sins, for all the sins of all the people who would ever believe through all of human history.
So there is no judgment on our sin. But this is what the New Testament calls the Bema judgment, which is a word that really means a reward, like when you watch the Olympics and you see platforms that the winners stand on and they receive a medal. It's that kind of judgment that we're talking about when we talk about facing the Lord. to receive a reward. And that's what Paul says.
In fact, he looks at his own life and says, you know, I'm not the right person to judge myself. He says, even if I know nothing against myself, herein am I not justified. Because obviously he's a little biased in his own favor, as we all are. But he says, I wait for the day. when the Lord renders righteous judgment.
And the fruit of that day, every man will receive his reward from God.
So it's a time of reward. There's no fear in the life of a believer. That in heaven, somehow, and I've heard this said when I was a kid, all their sins are going to be flashed on a screen and the Lord's going to make much out of that. That is not true. Once you leave this world as a believer, All sin will be forgotten.
All that will be left Well Be God's reward. To give us for those things that we have done for Him that were not worthless, but were priceless. That's what we're looking forward to. That's right, friend. And if, like Lisa, you have a Bible-related question, I encourage you to visit our website and take advantage of all the free study tools you'll find there.
There are thousands of free resources that will point you to the answers to your theological questions.
So log on today and see all that's available to you. Our web address is gty.org. And there you will find blog articles, past episodes of this radio broadcast, and more than 3,600 sermons by John MacArthur available in mp3 and transcript format, all free of charge. And if you're not sure where to start, Tri-Grace Stream, that's a continuous loop of John's teaching through the entire New Testament. our website again, gty.org.
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Now for the entire Grace to U staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for joining us today. Be back tomorrow as John MacArthur looks at God's wrath against sinners and why his punishment is never too harsh. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time. Add grace to you.
