They didn't treat Jesus with high value. They didn't treat him with indifference. They treated him like a slave. And that's why he judged them so severely, because he was their king. You see that?
He was their God. He was Yahweh in human flesh. They were contemptible. They spit on him. Welcome to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John MacArthur.
I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Have you ever read about one of God's judgments and thought that it seemed too harsh, more than what was called for? Maybe the Bible's descriptions of God's anger confuse you because you've always heard that God is loving, kind, patient, and full of grace?
Well, today on Grace to You, you're going to see why God must judge sinners, and why His punishment is never too harsh. and by the end of the lesson I think you'll understand why even God's most severe judgments are right and justified, and they are also expressions of His goodness.
Now if you have your Bible with you, turn to Zechariah chapter eleven, and here's John. 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. 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. 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 verse five. Follow me. 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.
Now, five and six is a little parenthesis. This really gets tough, so hang in there now. What are these possessors?
Now, watch. The possessors who slay them are the foreigners. The foreign oppressors, the nations. And though it is true that God sovereignly handed Israel over to the nations for judgment, it is still true that the nations are responsible for their cruelty. That's clear in the scripture in many places.
God may have designed Israel for judgment, but that doesn't mean when the nation superseded reasonable judgment and acted cruelly that they are without guilt. In fact, in Jeremiah 50, verse 17, it says, Israel is a scattered sheep. The lions have driven him away. First, the king of Assyria devoured him, and last this Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, has broken his bones. Therefore, says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I'll punish the king of Babylon and his land as I have punished the king of Assyria.
In other words, God had ordained the king of Assyria and the king of Babylon to judge Israel, but that made them no less guilty for the sins of cruelty that they perpetrated.
Now that's something you just have to leave with God.
So he says look. They're going to be slaughtered, and I want to feed them once more before the slaughter comes. And it's going to come from the nations that are going to slay them. And these nations are going to hold themselves not guilty. They're going to sense you no guilt at all.
They'll just slay them and they won't feel a thing. And in fact, that's exactly the way. The Assyrians and the Babylonians felt Centuries before 70 AD, when they slaughtered Israel, they didn't feel anything. In fact, in the same chapter, Jeremiah 50. He says, All that found them have devoured them, and their adversaries say, We offend not, because they sinned against the Lord.
They deserve it. They're sinful people.
So we just went in and whacked them, see? Isn't it amazing that the nations could take just enough Bible to justify what they want to do?
Somewhere along the line, the Romans must have determined that what they were doing was a wonderful act of judgment. Then they go further, even it says. They say, Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich. In other words, they've made money on the spoils of the people they've slaughtered. And they actually say, bless the Lord, mockingly.
It wasn't bad enough that the Gentile nations came in and slaughtered. And notice also in verse 5 that the Gentile nations sold them and made money. And that's true. They sold literally tens of thousands of Jews after 70 AD. They sold them into slavery.
Read Josephus, he outlines that.
So they came, they slaughtered, they sold them, and if that isn't bad enough, their own shepherds didn't show them any pity. In other words, the very leaders of Israel themselves didn't do anything to defend their people. The leaders of Israel themselves never did anything to prevent judgment. They never did anything to stop them from being butchered. They never taught them any spiritual truth.
They never gave them the message of God. The priests and the elders and the scribes were so corrupted that they were guilty of lording it over the people. They were guilty of ripping off the people. They were guilty of becoming fat and rich at the expense of the populace. And then verse six says, and this is the ultimate.
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, and they shall smite the land And out of their hand I will not Deliver them. You know something?
It's sad. When foreigners make merchandise of Israel, It's even sadder. When their own leaders show them not enough pity and mercy to teach them the truth of God. and to care for them. But you want to know something?
The saddest thing of all is when God Himself says, I don't pity them anymore either. That's when Ichabod has been written. God turns us back. And you know why God did that? Because they rejected The Messiah.
God says, I will no more pity them. I will deliver the men, watch this, everyone into his neighbor's hand. And he says, notice this. And then I will deliver them. Watch this.
This is fantastic. I will deliver them into the hand of his king. And they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them. Who is their king?
Well, at 70 AD, who was the king of Israel? He didn't have any. They didn't have any. You say, well, what if this prophecy couldn't come to pass? Listen to this.
Judah chose a king. They chose a king right at the time Jesus was there. They had the king, Jesus, the king of kings. They mocked him, they spit on him, they said, We will not have this man to what? To reign over us.
They didn't want that king. Then they turned around and said, we have no king but... Caesar, isn't that interesting?
So, by the choice of the Jews, who was their king at that time of history? Caesar. On the fateful eve of Passover, Pilate brought Jesus out before the Jews and mocking said, Behold your king. And they screamed away with him. Crucify him.
And Pilate said, Shall I crucify your king? And the chief priests who were the leaders answered, We have no king but Caesar. And they made their awful choice. And just what Zachariah said came true. They put themselves in Caesar's hand, and Caesar devoured them.
You see, they decided to kill the true king. To avoid a Roman takeover. Remember in John 11, they were saying, Boy, if we don't get rid of Jesus, the Romans are going to come in here and. Take us over. We got to get rid of this troublemaker.
So they killed the real king to avoid a Roman takeover, and the very thing they feared and killed their Messiah to avoid was the sentence of God that took place on their nation. Destruction by Rome.
Now verse 7 resumes the thought of verse 4. Zachariah apparently carried out his role.
So I fed the flock of slaughter. Watch. And who listened? Even you. Oh what?
Poor of the flock, Stop there. Who missed it? Zacharias says, Well, I did it. I started the teaching, and only the poor of the flock heard. When Jesus came and fulfilled this little Play that Zachariah carried out.
He came to feed the flock, and you know who listened? Only the poor, did you know that? And Jesus knew that from the very beginning. And so at the very start, he said, Blessed are the what? Poor in spirit.
And Paul said in 1 Corinthians, not many noble and not many mighty. Jesus came to Israel and nobody listened but the poor of the flock. Incidentally, the Hebrew word for poor refers It's used in many ways. When it's used in an economic sense, it means those without any means, the poor, the destitute economically. When it's used to speak of disease, it means somebody who is wretched or somebody who is afflicted.
So It's simply saying it was the sick. and the afflicted and the wretched. And the poor And the commoners. Who heard? And that's true, isn't it?
Isn't it um Mark 12, 37, it says, And then the common people heard him gladly. The leaders did. Was the poor. I think it's stated well by John's Gospel, chapter 1, it says, He came unto his own. And his own what?
received him not, but As many as Received you. To them gave he the right to become the sons of God.
So the elect remnant came to be fed. Baron. Writes on this passage these words: He fed all. But the poor of the flock Alone. those who were despised of men.
Because they would not follow the pride of the high priests and scribes and Pharisees. believed on him. He's right. Zachariah carries out another little act in the play. Look at verse 7.
And I took unto me two staves.
Now shepherds used to carry two sticks. Did you know that? Remember Psalm 23? Thy rod and thy Staff Two. You know what the rod was for?
beating off the wild beasts. You know what the staff was for? Gently helping the sheep that was caught over the cliff. One was a firm thing and one was something of gentleness. but they carried two sticks.
Now watch. He says, I took unto me two sticks. The one I called beauty or graciousness. or grace or favor. Or blessing, and the other I called bands, or unity, or binders.
Now, here's the symbolism. Here's the prophet, he grabs two sticks. And I fed the flak holding these two sticks. You say, What in the world is this?
Well, first stick was graciousness. And it speaks of God's loving, gracious, tender care. And you know you have to admit, That when Jesus came, He was gentle. And he was loving. And he was kind.
And he was merciful. And he was gracious, and he was forgiving. The second stick that he had in his hand was called Unity. Or union, or binders, something that ties everything together. And this speaks of the fact that he had a unifying ministry.
What Jesus came to do was to gather one flock. One flock. To get all the lost sheep and all the wayward sheep. And get them all in the fold.
So he came graciously and he came with a ministry of Unity. And it was in that spirit. that he fed. The flock of slaughter. Look at verse 8.
These three shepherds Also, I cut off in one month. And my soul loathed them. And their soul also abhorred me.
Now here we come to a verse that's very difficult to interpret.
Some people say they speak of the priests and the elders and the scribes. And that when the Lord came He was gracious and he was so unifying to the populace. But boy, when it came down to the priests and the elders and the scribes, he really cut them off. And one month means in a short time. He just leveled them.
And if you read in Matthew, you read that he really did let them have it, didn't he? He blistered them with scathing denunciation and judgmental talk. And so it may well be that this is just a denunciation of the priests and the elders and the scribes who so abhorred him as he loathed them. But I would just add this thought where it says, My soul loathed them. Literally, it means my soul was short with them.
And if you follow it through, it has to do with a shortness of patience, where God really says, and I just lost my patience with them. I had given them enough time and it came to an end. It isn't hatred, it is the running out of God's patience.
So he says, my patience was exhausted. And so I cut them off. My patience was exhausted with them, and they hated me. When Jesus came, He had those two sticks. Grace and unity.
And he tried to gather his people. But the false leaders, the elders, the scribes, the priests, Just cut them off. He was exhausted with that. Repeated rejection, repeated apostasy. And then you know what happened?
He turned to the remnant in verse 9 that didn't believe. and said And again, it's Zachariah acting it out. I will not feed you. That which dies, let it die. It sounds like Romans 1, doesn't it?
He gave them up. He gave them over to a reprobate mind. And that which is to be cut off, let it be cut off. And let the rest eat every one the flesh of another. Oof.
Cannibalism. He says, all right, he says, the poor have come and they've been gathered in by the two sticks of grace and unity, and we are one in this unique way. But the false leaders I cut off, and the rest that will not hear, then go ahead and die, and go ahead and be cut off. And he really turns them over to the terrible judgment of 70 AD, where the Romans came, as I said, and judged them. And he says, the rest of them, let them eat each other.
And as I told you, Josephus records the terrible cannibalism that occurred. And so Israel is abandoned to destruction. In verse ten, he says, So I took my staff, called graciousness. And I cut it in half. And I broke My covenant which I had made with all the nations.
Boy, this is so severe, it's just shocking.
Well, what is this you made with the nations?
Well, God says, I have I had a covenant of protecting Israel. And I was, my covenant, my promise was that no nation. Would be able? to destroy Israel. I just broke that.
and I will allow this nation to come in and do their devastation. That's what he's saying. I break that staff called graciousness. I'm not going to be gentle anymore. That agreement is over.
I'm going to let that nation come in in judgment. And they did. Verse 11 says, And it was broken in that day. Boy, the judgment came. Staff of graciousness was shattered.
And then it says I love this, and so the poor are the flock, That waited on me knew it was the word of the Lord. You know who the poor of the flock were? In 70 AD, church. The believing community, and you know what? They knew.
They knew it was the Lord. They knew God was judging. They knew God was coming down in wrath on an apostate nation. They knew. They were the poor of the flock.
They were the believing remnant. They knew. They were the ones that waited on the Lord. They knew God when He spoke, and they knew God when He acted. They knew.
At this point, you're saying to yourself, boy. God was severe, wasn't he? Oh, yeah. Very severe. And just so you don't think.
that he was too severe. He adds this little vignette in verse 12 and 13. Watch this. And I said to them, If you think good, Give me my price. And if not, Don't.
So they weighed for my price. Yeah. Pieces. of silver. And the Lord said to me, That is to Zachariah, who's acting this out.
cast the silver to the potter. A lordly price that I was prized at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.
Now what is that reminiscent of? What is that prophesying? Judas Now listen to this. By the time you get to the end of verse 11, you might be a little queasy in your stomach about God, and you might be saying, God, how could you be so severe? How could you be so strong?
How could you be so judgmental? I mean, so violent. And he says, well, let me just remind you about how they treated me. He says, when it was all done, I said, What am I worth to you? I've come and I've healed and I've raised the dead and I've told you the truth and I've offered you myself and I've offered you eternal life.
What am I worth? Look at verse 12. If you think good, give me my price. And if I'm no good, don't give me anything. But to the world they didn't have any value on him.
So they weren't going to give him a high price. And they didn't want to just ignore him and give him no price, so they said, You're worth 30 pieces of silver. That was worse than no price at all. Because thirty pieces of silver was compensation paid for a slave that had been gored by an ox. Exodus 21, 32.
They said, I'll tell you what you're worth. You're worth a slave's price, that's all. You see the mockery that was? They didn't treat Jesus with high value. They didn't treat him with indifference.
They treated him like a slave. And that's why he judged them so severely, because he was their king. You see that? He was their God. He was Yahweh in human flesh.
And these verses are to bring out the force of the rejection. They weren't indifferent and they weren't valuing him. They treated him like a slave gored by an ox. That's all he was worth. They were contemptible.
They spit on him. And the Lord said to me, Verse thirteen: Cast it to the potter. And so he went into the house of the Lord and threw it to the potter. Do you know that's exactly what happened with the 30 pieces? Judas went back into the temple and he threw the 30 pieces on the ground.
Read it in the New Testament. It's all there in Matthew 27. He threw it on the ground and they scooped it up and they went out and they gave it to a potter to buy his field. Beloved, when the Bible talks, this is God speaking because only God could predict those events, right? And then in verse 14, he says, so.
When it was so severe of rejection. I cut the other staff. Unity. That I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. You know what he means by that?
I destroyed the nation. I broke the other band that held the nation together and the state went into dispersion. It went into dissolution. It was scattered. They killed each other?
They slaughtered each other. They were scattered all over the world. This all happened, people. Every single thing Zachariah said. The message here is clear then.
The message of what we've studied already in this chapter is that before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jehovah will appear. In the person of Jesus Christ, and he'll attempt to feed his flock of slaughter. Only the poor of the flock would follow his word, and the rest, especially the leaders, will reject. The good shepherd, the king, will have no more value to them than a common slave to be mocked and scoffed at. And the people, as a consequence, will be given over to judgment.
Severe, serious judgment. The judgment will encompass death. Famine War. and civil strife. And the result will be the destruction of the nation.
And it happened. The nation went out of existence, the Jews scattered all over the world. Because they rejected the true shepherd. And that's why the other shepherds wailed.
Now, the incredible thing is, and that's the end of the chapter, and that's for next time we study this. They rejected the true shepherd. And the day is coming when they will receive the false shepherd. The Antichrist. That's for next time.
Let's pray. While your heads are bowed, let me just say this to you. It's not easy to preach a message like this. You know, so many times I say to myself, oh, it'd be so great if I could just. kind of have fun with the people and tell stories and say happy things and Talk about real practical stuff in your life, and then God says, But I called you to preach my word, MacArthur, not to decide what to say.
So I do it. But it isn't easy to talk about judgment like this, but I just want to say this: I hope you know the true shepherd. I really do. I hope you know the Good Shepherd. I hope you're one of his sheep.
Say, well, John, how do you get to be one of the sheep? Very simple, really. All you need to do is accept the fact that he died. Rose again. For your sins.
And for your justification. Commit your life to Him. And he becomes your shepherd. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. John's current study is titled, The Return and Reign of Jesus Christ.
Well, friend, perhaps today's lesson has sparked this important and practical question. How can you make sure that you are ready for Christ's return? What steps can you take? Here's how John answered that question some years ago in our studio.
Well, first of all, we don't know when he's coming. He even said, No man knows the day nor the hour, not even the Son of Man.
So in His incarnation, He set aside even that knowledge. The idea is what we call imminence, that His return is imminent. It could come at any moment, and that's the way God designed it, so we would all live in anticipation that it could happen at any point in our lifetime. And that calls us to purity, that calls us to service, because when he comes, it's going to be the end of our opportunity to serve him, and our eternal reward is going to be based on that. And you say, well, you know, are we working for an eternal reward?
Yes, we are, because the Lord promised to give us that reward. And you say, well, isn't that a selfish thing? Not at all, because the way we read the scripture, when we receive that eternal reward, we turn right around and lay it at His feet. It becomes. It becomes the content of our heavenly worship to Him.
So. I'm not looking for crowns stacked up on my head. I'm not looking to have badges on my arm in heaven, but I want to render to the Lord everything I have here because He's worthy of that.
So I think service. and the opportunity to be To be as fruitful as we can be and to walk in as much purity as we can be secures for us a greater degree of capacity in eternity to give honor to Jesus Christ. And I can't think of anything more important than that. I can't either. And friend, if you have more questions about the second coming of Jesus Christ, let me remind you of John's commentary on the book of Zechariah.
It's an ideal complement to our current radio study. It will show you how to live in a way that pleases God as you wait for Christ to come again, and it will equip you to share the hope of Christ's return to others. To pick up a copy of the Zechariah Commentary by John MacArthur, contact us today. You can order by calling 800-55GRACE. or when you visit our website at gty.org.
The Zechariah commentary costs $25 and shipping is free. Again, to order John's commentary on Zechariah, call 855 Grace or go to gty.org. And, friend, today may not be your first day listening to Grace to You, but we regularly hear from people who only recently have discovered our broadcast.
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Now for the entire Grace TU staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace to You television this Sunday on DirecTV Channel 378. And be back tomorrow for another 30 minutes of Unleashing God's Truth one verse at a time on Grace to You.
