BIG IDEA:
HARD HEARTS CLOSE THEIR EARS TO GOD’S COMMANDS AND SUBSTITUTE RELIGIOUS RITUAL FOR LOVING OBEDIENCE
INTRODUCTION:
In the parable of the soils in the New Testament (Mark 4:20), Christ taught that there is only one type of heart that is truly good and fertile – that is the heart that submits to God’s revelation and carries out His commands. But too often people become stubborn and hard-hearted. They shut their ears to God’s revelation – not allowing the truth to penetrate into their conscience. They selfishly choose to indulge their own flesh and seek after pleasure rather than sacrificially loving others and pursuing righteousness and justice. To excuse themselves, they engage in external religious rituals while all of the time hardening their hearts against the pleadings of the Spirit of God. Exposure to God’s Word means nothing apart from obedience. Dedication to God’s Word means nothing apart from obedience. Just look at the Woes Christ proclaimed against the Pharisees – the teachers of God’s Law in His day. One thing God demands: and that is a soft and broken heart that is sensitive to His Word and committed to doing justice, to loving mercy and walking humbly before God (Micah 6:8). This passage exposes the desolation and ruin that will result from hardened hearts that close their ears to God’s commands and substitute religious ritual for righteous obedience.
I. (:1-3) THE SELF RIGHTEOUS QUESTION – ISN’T IT TIME NOW FOR ME TO ENJOY SOME WELL-DESERVED RELIEF FROM GOD’S BURDENSOME COMMANDS?
3 Incriminating Characteristics of this Self Righteous Jewish Delegation:
A. (:1) Comfortable in Their Progress — Historical Context – Rebuilding Work Progressing
“In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev”
B. (:2-3a) Commending Themselves – feeling of entitlement
“Now the town of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regemmelech and their men to seek the favor of the Lord, speaking to the priests who belong to the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying”
B. (:3b) Clueless — Haven’t Got a Clue
“Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done these many years?”
Commemmorating the burning of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC (Jer. 52:12-13)
Viewed the service of God as burdensome.
1. Misrepresenting the Intent of God’s Command
2. Misrepresenting the Extent of Their Obedience
Parallel texts referring to the service of God as burdensome:
1 John 5:3 “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”
Matt. 23:4 “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.”
The Pharisees are the best example of self righteous Jews
Mal. 3:13-15 “You have said, ‘It is vain to serve God’”
II. (:4-10) THE SCATHING RESPONSE FROM AN ANGRY GOD – YOU HAVE TRIED TO SUBSTITUTE RELIGIOUS RITUAL FOR LOVING OBEDIENCE
“scathing” = bitterly severe
How do we know God is angry with them here? Vs. 12 “great wrath”
A. (:4-7) Response #1 – Your Motivation and Perspective Are All Wrong
1. (:4-6) Your Motivation Is Selfish
“Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, ‘Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted? When you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves?’”
cf. 1 Cor. 6 – the body is for the Lord and the Lord for the body
MacArthur: Zechariah pointed out that they were not fasting out of genuine sorrow and repentance, but out of self-pity (cf. Is 1:10-15; 58:3-9).
Mackay: The question is not focusing on the origins of their fasts, but the religious motivation behind them. . . This note of contrition and self-humiliation seems to have been absent in the practice of the exiles. They were sorrowing for what they had lost, but in an exercise of self-pity, rather than with due recognition of the righteousness of God’s judgment against them and their nation. They should rather have acknowledged that they were rightly afflicted by God. Fasting was an exercise designed to induce a right perception of their spiritual condition as before God.
2. (:7) Your Perspective (Your Understanding of History) Is Flawed
“Are not these the words which the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous along with its cities around it, and the Negev and the foothills were inhabited?”
MacArthur: The important matter is not ritual, but obedience. It is obedience to God’s Word that brought in the past great joy, peace, and prosperity to Israel, and that covered the land during the time of David and Solomon. If the present generation in Zechariah’s time substitutes ritual for obedience, they too will lose the joy, peace, and prosperity they were enjoying.
B. (:8-10) Response #2 – You Have Missed the Heart of God’s Commands —
It’s not about external religious ritual . . . but about loving others in a practical way
(cf. the Sermon on the Mount)
Introduction:
“Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah saying, ‘Thus has the Lord of hosts said’”
1. Positively – What God Requires (chiastic structure: A B B A)
a. Summary: Justice
“Dispense true justice”
b. Specifics: Kindness and Compassion
“and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother”
2. Negatively – What God Forbids
a. Specifics: Don’t Take Advantage of the Helpless
“and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor”
b. Summary: Don’t Seek to Harm Others
“and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another.”
III. (:11-14) THE STUBBORN REJECTION OF GOD’S WORD – DON’T EXPECT GOD TO BAIL YOU OUT (COME TO YOUR AID) WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EARS AND HEART AGAINST HIS COMMANDS
A. (:11-12a) Process of Stubborn Rejection of God’s Word
1. (:11) Turned a Deaf Ear
“But they refused to pay attention”
“and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears from hearing.”
2. (:12a) Hardened Their Hearts
“they made their hearts like flint so that they could not hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by His Spirit through the former prophets.”
Look at all that we learn about God’s gracious provision of His revelation in this verse and His employment of human spokesmen
B. (:12b-14) Provoking of God to Severe Judgment
1. (:12b-13) Description of God’s Response
a. (:12b) God’s Response Described as Great Wrath
“therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts”
b. (:13) God’s Response Described as Reciprocal
“’And just as He called and they would not listen, so they called and I would not listen,’ says the Lord of hosts”
3. (:14) Demonstration of God’s Response
a. Dispersion among the Gentile nations
“but I scattered them with a storm wind among all the nations whom they have not known.”
Feinberg: Up to that hour they had been scattered primarily to Assyria and Babylonia. If the text is to be permitted to have its full significance and plain sense, it must look on to the world-wide dispersion of the Jews, consequent upon their rejection of their Messiah, the greatest exhibition of their obdurate disobedience to the words of the Lord and his messengers.
b. Desolation where there had been great blessing
“Thus the land is desolated behind them so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate.”