The Future Glory of Jerusalem
Zechariah 2:1-13
I was having a little prayer time with some of the staff before the service tonight. We always pray about all the things that are going to be going on and for some reason I was feeling very tired and so I just said, "Lord, keep me awake, especially during the sermon." But, we will endeavor to do that tonight. Sometimes it sort of catches up with you and yet we are excited about what God is going to say to us in the second chapter of Zechariah. Take your Bible, if you will, and let's look at it.
Zechariah Chapter 2. This has been kind of an exciting adventure for me to spend some time in the book of Zechariah, a book which I have studied off and on in bits and pieces, but never really looked at verse by verse carefully all the way through and it's just been very enriching and very rewarding for me. We come to the second Chapter of Zechariah tonight and the subject on hand is the future glory of the city of Jerusalem. I suppose one of the greatest experiences of anybody's lifetime should he or she be so fortunate to have this experience, is to be able to visit the city of Jerusalem. I've been there a couple of times and every time I go I am sort of swept away in my thinking. I stand there and its as if before my eyes the whole of world history goes by me from Genesis to Revelations. I used to think when I visited the city of Rome that I couldn't comprehend all of the history that was there. So much has happened in that marvelous city that it's just mind boggling to try to sort it all out and get it all into concentrated sequential thought. Well if that was the problem in Rome I'll never forget having left Rome the first time I arrived in Jerusalem and all of the history of that magnificent place began to flood in on my mind. And what was most exciting about Jerusalem was not so much what had been done but what would be done. What was coming for that city. Most of them don't know that, but God has a marvelous exciting unbelievable plan for the city of Jerusalem. It is the special city. In Psalm 132:13, it says, "For the Lord has chosen Zion," and very often Jerusalem is called Zion because Zion is a prominent mountain on the south edge of the city. "The Lord hath chosen Zion," and then the verse says, "He hath desired it for His dwelling place." God has chosen that city. That's His special city where He did dwell and where He yet will dwell.
The exiles in Babylon when they had been carried away from their beloved city wrote some songs about it and they in looking back at what they had must have sung with melancholy. The Bible says in Psalm 137, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?" And then the mournful reflection, "If I forget thee O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her skill, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, if I prefer not Jerusalem above my highest joy."
Since the Psalmist says, "They hung their harps on the willow, maybe they didn't even sing it, maybe they only chanted it, but for them they would rather loose a right hand, or loose a capacity to speak than forget the loveliness and the significance of Jerusalem. David said, "Beautiful in situation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion, in the far north, the city of the great king. God in her palaces has made Himself known as a stronghold," Psalm 48:2-3. The Psalmist prays to God on behalf of the city in Psalm 102:13-14 it says, "Thou shall arrive and have mercy upon Zion, for the time to favor her, yea the set time has come, for thy servants take pleasure in her stones and favor the dust thereof." The Jews throughout have loved the city. In fact many Jewish in America who die have placed in their casket a little receptacle filled with Jerusalem dirt because of the treasure that city is to them.
David cried out in Psalm 122, "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. They shall proper who love thee because of the house of the Lord I will seek thy good." And of course David is saying it's because God's habitation is there that I care about that place. Back in the first chapter in Nehemiah we can reflect upon the love of one man for the city. In Nehemiah 1:2, it says, "I asked him concerning the Jews who had escaped who were left of the captivity concerning Jerusalem. And they said unto me the remnant who are left in the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach." Nehemiah is asking about the remnant that's gone back. He's still in Babylon. "The wall of Jerusalem is broken down, its gates are burned with fire. And it came to pass when I heard these words," says Nehemiah, "That I sat down and wept and mourned for days and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven." A broken heart because of the city that was so beloved.
In the second chapter of Nehemiah and the first verse, "It came to pass in the month of Nisan, in the twelfth year of Artaxerxes the king, that wine was before him, and I took up the wine and gave it unto the king," he was the wine taster for the king, "Now I had not been sad in his presence. Wherefore the king said to me, 'Why is your face sad seeing that you are not sick. There's nothing else but sorrows of heart. Then I was very much afraid. And said to the king, 'let the king live forever.'" You always say that to the king. Having gotten done with the amenities, he then went on to the point, "Why should not my countenance be sad when the city, the place of my fathers' sepulchers lies waste and its gates are consumed with fire." He's typical of many who have loved the city of Jerusalem.
Fourteen miles west of the Dead Sea, almost straight up in fact, thirty-three miles east of the Mediterranean, located on a rocky plateau about two thousand five hundred feet above sea level and three thousand eight hundred feet above the Dead Sea sits the city of Jerusalem. It is a naturally fortified city because it is on a plateau. It can be entered only from the north. It had an incredible water supply bubbling up from the Gehan Spring. The mean temperature of the city throughout the year is 63 degrees. It is perfectly situated away from any major roads or any major rivers or any major sea so it was never really in the way of all the armies and troops that traveled around, so it had some sort of seclusion. But for not these reasons, but for some reason beyond that in the mind of God He chose this wonderful place to be His holy habitation and the city of Jerusalem dominates the Old Testament and it dominates the New Testament.
Let me give you a little fast history, hang on. It first appears in Scripture as the city of Salem, ruled by a man by the name of Melchizedek. In Genesis 14 he is called the king of Salem. Most people assume the name Jerusalem or Salem comes from the Hebrew shalom, which means peace. Twenty centuries before Christ it existed as the city of Salem. The next time we see Jerusalem in history it appears as a Canaanite stronghold with an allegiance to Egypt. Soon after that we see it in reference to Joshua. This is 600 years after the Genesis record or 1400 years before Christ. Joshua in Chapter 10 sets his sights on this city as he conquers Canaan. And in Chapter 15 Joshua says that this territory, including this city, has been given to Judah when the land was divided among the tribes. But even though it was 1400 years before Christ that the city was said to belong to Judah, it wasn't until 1003 B.C. that David stormed Jerusalem, which was then a fortress of the people called the Jebusites and according to II Samuel 5, David took the city, which was later to bear the name the city of David. The city never really became much under David. It wasn't until David's brilliant son, Solomon, that Jerusalem reached its golden age.
And under Solomon the wall was extended, an incredible palace was built, an amazing and marvelous wonder of the world the temple was accomplished, and Jerusalem became something astonishing, something astounding. But after Solomon the ages that flowed on brought no comparable glory to Jerusalem and by 586 B.C. or about 400 years after Solomon, the city was a rubble, destroyed by Nebuchnezzar. Nehemiah went back and rebuilt it but it remained rather insignificant from then on. Finally in 70 A.D. after the birth of Jesus Christ some 70 years the city was wiped out again and destroyed by the Roman army, as we saw last week. Jerusalem arose rather meekly from the ashes a little after 70 A.D., but by 132 A.D. whatever was left was crushed by the Emperor Hadrine from Rome. And until modern times even in our modern era Jerusalem has been kicked back and forth between the Turks and the Christian nations, the Moslems and the Christians kicking it back and forth.
And finally in our generation the marvelous rebirth of the state of Israel has occurred, a miracle of sociology, a miracle of the perpetuity of a race of human beings. I dare say nobody has ever met a Jebusite, a Hivite, a Amorite, a Moabite or a Edomite, or any other ite around the Bible, but we sure have Israelites because God has preserved them in their own land. They've come back, but the hold it very tenuously don't they, surrounded by enemies. In fact surrounded on every side of them that is land they are locked in with literally bloodthirsty enemies and their hold is tenuous and they are always on the edge of war. Incredible as it is from Melchizedek in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis to 1977, the story of Jerusalem weaves its way through history. Cities come and go but not that city, it just continues. The city of Melchizedek, the city of David, the city of Christ, the city of Paul, the city of Salidine, the city of General Allenby, the city of Ben Guion, the city of Moshedian, it is ever the perpetual city and someday it'll be the city of the seat of David, the Lord Jesus Christ yet again.
This final chapter hasn't been written. It's final hero hasn't arrived yet, but He will. For about 2,000 years now the Jews have been going to the Wailing Wall at one point or another to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, to plead with God to send a deliverer and break Gentile power, and I imagine if you were to go up to the wall, and you wouldn't dare do this, and pull out of the cracks the little notes that the Orthodox stick in the cracks and read them, they would say O God for the peace of Jerusalem. And God will answer. Jerusalem has not only been the center of redemptive history it will be the center of redemptive consummation in the great future that God has planned. It is, incidentally, sill to be the habitation of God. It is the only intended capitol for the kingdom and as Melchizedek was its first king so one after the order of Melchizedek will be its last king, but until then the Bible says Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles.
In Daniel 9:26, listen to what Daniel said, "In that city," said Daniel, "even unto the end there will be war." Even until the end, they will never know peace until the Prince of Peace arrives. Oh there will be a false peace, won't there, set up by the anti-Christ, but not the real thing. In fact, the greatest war that the land will ever know hasn't happened yet, has it? What war is it, Armageddon, the plane of Megiddo? I couldn't help but think as I stood on the Mount of Ezralon and the stables and also on the other side on the stables of Solomon and looked over the plain of Megiddo, which Napoleon said is the greatest battlefield he's ever seen in the world, I couldn't help but think of what was yet to come when the book of Revelation says the blood will be as deep as the bridles of the horses for 200 miles, a blood bath that's inconceivable. And at the end of that great battle of Armageddon comes the Lord Jesus Christ. Apparently from what the bible tells us the people who are fighting in the battle of Armageddon will all of a sudden will see Christ coming out of the sky and they'll turn to fight against Him and He'll destroy them and set up His glorious kingdom. When the delivered comes Jerusalem will be exalted. And you can't help when you're there but realize that, and I kept thinking to myself, "If they only knew what was going to happen here."
Isaiah's call will be fulfilled, Isaiah 66:10. You know what he said? Listen. "Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, be glad with her all ye that love her. Rejoice with her for joy all ye that mourn her, for thus said the Lord, 'Behold I will extend peace to her like a river.'" The day is coming. Look with me at a couple of texts in Isaiah: chapter 1:26, And I will restore thy judges as at the first and thy counselors as at the beginning and afterward thou shalt be called the city of Righteousness, the faithful city. Zion shall be redeemed with justice and her converts with righteousness." There's coming a different day, a saving day. Look at 62 of Isaiah, and this is one of the great pictures of the future of the city of Jerusalem called Zion again here because it's of the significance of Mount Zion. 62:2, "And the nations shall see thy righteousness and all kings thy glory and thou shalt be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name, and thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God." Here is Jerusalem will be a sparkling jewel studded crown, tremendous thought. And verse 4 is so beautiful, "Thou shalt no more be termed forsaken, neither shall thy land any more be called desolate."
Now go down to verse 11, "Behold the Lord has proclaimed until the end of the earth, say ye to the daughter of Zion, behold thy salvation commeth, behold his reward is with him, his work before him and they shall call them the holy people, the redeemed of the Lord and thou shalt be called sought out, a city not forsaken." Will God forsake Jerusalem? No. It's a city not forsaken.
Someday when Jerusalem is righteous, when Jerusalem is cleansed, when Jerusalem is washed of its shame and its pollution it will become what God originally intended it to be. It will become a holy city. In Isaiah 4:3, "It shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and he who remains in Jerusalem shall be called holy." Isaiah looks at the future and he says someday everybody there who is left will be holy, and that's the way it is at the beginning of Messiah's kingdom. Everybody there will be holy because all the ungodly and the unholy will have been judged. When the Lord, and here is the key in verse four, "When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and have purged the blood of Jerusalem from its midst by the spirit of justice and the spirit of burning. And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion and upon her assemblies the cloud and the smoke by day and the shinning of a flaming fire by night for upon all the glory shall be a defense and there shall be a tabernacle for a shadow in the daytime from the heat and for a place of refuge and for a culvert from storm and from rain.
God says there will come a day when everything's going to be different and I'll be there and my Shekinah will be there as it was in the wilderness and the light will be there and the fire will be there by night and I will be a refuge but it'll only happen, verse 4 says, after the Lord has washed the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the blood of Jerusalem. There's got to be a cleansing first, there's got to be a dramatic change in the nation Israel.
And Jeremiah 30:9 says, "They shall serve the Lord their God and David their king whom I will raise up unto them." And of course that's a reference to the Messiah Christ. And he said this in Ezekiel 34:23, Ezekiel said, this is really a beautiful statement, he said, "I will set up one shepherd over them. He shall feed them and be their shepherd." There's coming a day then when there will be a washing and there will be a purifying and there will be a cleansing and they will be given a new king and a new shepherd none other than the Lord Jesus Christ.
In Ezekiel 37:21, "Say unto them, 'Thus saith the Lord God, behold I will take the children of Israel from among the nations to which they are gone, and gather them on every side and bring them into their own land, and I will make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all, and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all, neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things nor with any of their transgressions. I will save them out of all their dwelling places in which they have sinned and cleans them. So shall they be my people and I will be their God and David my servant shall be king over them and they shall all have one shepherd and they shall walk in My ordinances and observe My statutes to do them and they will dwell in the land I have given unto Jacob." And then the next verse 26, "I will make a covenant of peace with them and it will be an everlasting covenant and I will place them and multiply them and set My sanctuary in the midst of them forever, My tabernacle shall also be with them, ye I will be their God, they shall be My people, and the nations shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel and my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them forevermore." Great promises! God has great plans for that place, restoration, salvation, cleansing, a delivering of their king and their Messiah.
Isaiah 32:17 says, "And the work of righteousness shall be peace and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance forever, and my people will dwell in a peaceable habitation," listen to this, "in sure dwellings and quiet resting places." Peace for Jerusalem. That must seem incredible to anybody whose ever been there. It's coming. We are in Zechariah believe it or not.
And Zechariah 9:10 says, "And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim and the horse from Jerusalem and the battle bow shall be cut off," in other words no more weapons of war, no more articles of war," He shall speak peace to the nations and his dominion shall be from sea to sea, from the river to the ends of the earth."
I'm telling you people that's the marvelous message to Israel. That ought to gladden the heart of every hoping Jew. God isn't finished. The glory of Israel is yet to come. There's will be a day when Jerusalem is glorious beyond anything we have ever dreamed, and that kind of message of hope would be thrilling to every Jew and to every Christian who holds in his heart a special place for that city because it's the city where our dear Lord was crucified and rose again. And this is precisely the message the Zechariah delivers to his saddened and humiliated people.
In Zechariah Chapter 2 the vision is to tell them this wonderful news about Jerusalem. They're in a situation of terrible degradation, humiliation, and sadness. The wall of their city is smashed. Their once glorious place is in rubble. All that they had known of the golden age of Solomon is gone. They are helpless, they are impotent, they are huddled a small and insignificant minority wondering how they will defend themselves. They had been threatened by their enemies and cease to rebuilt their city. They are cowering in fear that it's all over. And Zechariah comes with this third vision and gives them the message that God yet has a marvelous future for Jerusalem. And what He's really saying to them is go ahead and built it and commit yourself to building it because you're not dealing with a passing fancy, you're dealing with an eternal city. I mean he's saying you're going to win in the end so you might as well give it everything you've got right now. Your work isn't going to perish. You're a part of an eternal plan.
You remember that the first vision of the rider on the red horse predicted hope for downtrodden Israel. The second vision presented of the horns and the smiths presented the fact that the nations that had triumphed over Israel would be crushed. And now the third vision says your hope will be realized when the nations are crushed and Jerusalem is glorified. Now I want to look at six parts to this vision and I think you'll see how it unfolds.
First of all the design proposed, the design proposed. Now watch verse 1. "I lifted up mine eyes again," remember what we said last time about that? After each vision on this one night and he got eight of them, he would drop his head in meditation and prayer and then he would lift his eyes again perhaps at the prodding of interpreter angel who helps him to understand each vision and he would see another one. "So I lifted up mine eyes again and looked and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand." Now he looks up in his vision and it's as if God has given him another sense. He can see what is un-seeable. He can see what is imperceptible. He is given eyes of a supernatural character to see imagery that God wants him to see. And he sees a man and the man has in his hand a measuring line. If you want the simplest definition of that a tape measure, a builder's line. Back in Chapter 1 verse 16, we saw this. He says, "A line will be stretched forth upon Jerusalem. In other words when the city is going to be rebuilt somebody's going to measure the dimensions of the new city and here is that vision right here, and he sees a guy with a tape measure, and he's a surveyor, and he's laying out the city.
Now we could talk a little about who he is, who is that man? Who was the rider on the red horse? the angel of the Lord or Christ? Who is the final one of the hammerers who crushed the final kingdom? Christ. Very possible that the man with the tape measure is Christ. I can't be dogmatic about that and so I don't want you to think that that's an absolute conclusion, but I kind of lean that way on the basis of Ezekiel 40. Don't turn to it. I'll read it to you. Ezekiel 40:2, Ezekiel had a vision not unlike this one. "In the visions God brought me to the land of Israel, set me on a high mountain in which there was a structure like a city on the south. And he brought me there and behold there was a man whose appearance was like the appearance of bronze with a line of flax in his hand and a measuring reed and he stood in the gate."
Now a similar scene is Ezekiel's experience and he sees this man and there's little question there that it is Christ, that it is the Messiah, that it is the Son of God, and so it is very possible that here in Zechariah's vision it could be the same, although we wouldn't want to say absolutely. But I would say this: it is definitely true that the one who will rebuilt the city and the kingdom will definitely be Christ, won't it. He's the one. So, perhaps it's Christ.
Well Zechariah doesn't waste any time in asking what the surveyor is doing so in verse 2 it says, "Then said I, where goest Thou?" He talks to the surveyor and he said to him, "To measure Jerusalem to see what is the breadth of it and what is its length." Now he's going to measure the city. Now the question immediately arises here to any interpreter what city is he measuring? Is he measuring the actual city of that time? Well that would be a little difficult because there was no city. It was a rubble. There was no wall and it wasn't until about 80 years later in 444 B.C. that Nehemiah actually got the walls built and this is somewhere around 519 or 20 B.C. so it wouldn't be much to measure and also because all of the other visions have definitely a prophetic element it seems best to see it in the future. And my conclusion, and we'll see how this is supported as we go, you can trust me for it now, is that he is laying out the dimensions of the future Jerusalem, the ultimate Jerusalem, the Jerusalem of the kingdom. And that in some way accounts for the bewilderment of Zechariah in this situation. It is apparent that Zechariah can't figure out what he's doing and it could be due to the fact that if he were measuring out whatever were the dimensions it would have been very obvious to Zechariah, but apparently he is measuring something that is so vast and so large that it is beyond anything Zechariah can currently relate to. And so he's bewildered.
And so we see the design proposed as the man with the tape measure lays out the future city. That leads us to the second element in the vision what I call the destined plan. The design that's being proposed is then clarified in the destined plan is made known in verses 3 and 4. In the midst of Zechariah's bewilderment, watch what happens, "And behold the angel who talked with me," and that's the interpreter angel who appears all the time in the early part of Zechariah, "Went forth," and what happened here is no doubt Zechariah can't figure out what's going on and so the interpreter angel moves into the scene perhaps ostensibly to check with the man on what he's doing. And as the interpreter angel goes about to find the answer it says at the end of verse 3, "Another angel went out to meet him." And so over here you have the man in the scene, and over here you have Zechariah, and in the middle you have these two angels who all of a sudden begin to converse.
So another angel went out to meet him and said to him, that is the other angel said to interpreter angel, that is the best way to see this. The other angel stops interpreter angel as he proceeds to get information from the man he sees in his vision and he says to him, "Run and speak to this young man." In other words he says interpreter angel you go back and tell Zechariah this message. Go back and tell the young man this message and this is the message: "Jerusalem shall be inhabited like towns without walls, for the multitude of men and cattle in it." Stop right there. You go tell him that the reason he can't figure it out is because it will be so vast that it will be as if there is a city without walls.
Now when you think about a walled city, I don't know what you think about, but if you were to visit Jerusalem you would realize that from one wall of Jerusalem to the other wall is about a ten-minute walk right across the middle. I mean when they walled off a city it wasn't much. And apparently he is bewildered because of the vastness of it and so the angel sent from God to give interpreter angel a message says tell him it going to be so huge it'll be like town without a wall it'll be so large. Imagine what a comfort this was when Zechariah preached this to a bunch of people huddled in the Hennin valley wondering if they'd ever even get a wall. The prophet says, "I have a message from God and the message from God is that someday Jerusalem will be so big it'll be like a city without a wall. It'll be inhabited. Look what it says, "For the multitude of men and cattle in it." And you know what they were beginning to do, Haggai had got them started building what, the temple, and Zechariah was encouraging them build that temple, build that temple. And I know there were some pragmatic Jews who were running around saying look you guys, you must me nuts. What good does it do to build a temple if you don't have any walls to protect it? We got to build the walls first. We should be building the wall not the temple. We won't have any temple.
In fact back in Haggai 1:2, it says, "The people say the time is not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built." In other words the popular opinion was this is ridiculous to build a temple without a wall. And so Zechariah says you keep on building the temple. It's more important that you get God in perspective and make sure He's defending you than that you have a wall and no temple. Take care of the spiritual priority is what he's saying. And so it's a tremendous encouragement for them to hear the message from the angel is that Jerusalem will have so many people it'll overflow its boundaries and it'll be like a city without a wall. Jerusalem will rise to final glory. It will not be ultimately destroyed. Don't worry about building your temple. God will be your wall.
Look at verse 5. "For I, saith the Lord, will be unto it a wall." I will be the wall. Trust me. Someday Jerusalem will be a city that is inhabited like an open rural country without walls. The root verb in the Hebrew peras means to exceed limits, to overflow its bounds, to spread or expand and the millennial Jerusalem, the Jerusalem of the king, the Jerusalem yet when Jesus returns will be so big and so populated with people and animals that it will go way past its walls, it will spread all over the place and God will be its wall.
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