We continue our study of the revelation of the Old Testament, as it is sometimes called, namely, the book of Zechariah. So will you turn to Zechariah nine, we're going to be looking at verses 11 through 17 as we continue to go through these great prophetic passages, verse by verse.

Before we do, I want to make a few comments regarding what we have witnessed yesterday. We've witnessed God's protection of Israel. We've seen down through history, how he continues to preserve a remnant, despite overwhelming forces that would destroy them, and despite the best efforts of Iran and her proxies, Israel remains strong, yet still in unbelief; and we're thankful for our Commander in Chief, we're thankful for our military. What a contrast to the buffoonery that we have seen in the previous administration, and we continue to see in so many of the liberals in our country and around the world. In fact, I would submit to you that the greatest threat to America is not Iran, it's not China, it's not Russia. It is basically sin and rebellion against God that is manifested so clearly, especially in the Democratic Party and in many of the Republicans. It's so sad to see this. But friends don't be deceived. Destroying Iran's nuclear facilities will not bring lasting peace. In fact, that country is, for the most part, controlled by a satanic religion; Islam is a Satanic religion. By the way, the church is growing. The true church is growing in Iran, and we rejoice in that. God is going to build his church. But we must remember that, as Jesus said, Satan is the ruler of this world in John 12:31. We are told by our Lord that he is the father of lies, that he is a murderer from the beginning. In First John 5:19, we read that the, "whole world lies in the power of the evil one." And we're all familiar with the passage in Ephesians six and verse 12, where we read that, "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places." And of course, his greatest strategy is to deceive people into believing things that are simply false - false religions, false ideologies, and on and on it goes.

But a day of judgment is coming again. If you go back to what Jesus said in John 12:31, we read, "'Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.'" And God has revealed much of his plans to us concerning how he is functioning in the world, until that day comes, and we have seen this, especially in his plans concerning the coming kingdom as we continue in our study in Zechariah.

Now, I want to caution you a bit as we prepare to go back into the text, I want to remind you that God's promises to Israel, even though Israel is not a, by any means, the Christian nation that it will one day be, but God's promises are still valid. God has not permanently disenfranchised Israel. I do not believe that. The material blessings that God has promised Israel are still in effect. They are not merely spiritual blessings promised to the church. If they were then the Old Testament scriptures were written for the church and not for the people of that day, the covenant people. And so, bear in mind that when we read these passages, God means what he says. Those things that he clearly promised, he means. Otherwise, we have to say that well somehow, he changed his mind, or that somehow, he just can't communicate clearly. But I believe with all my heart that God has given us his word to be understood. Scriptures should be understood. They are not some book.... it’s not some book that needs to be deciphered by scholars because nobody else can understand it. Now, certainly there are passages, and in Zechariah there are many passages that are hard to understand, and we can't fully know all of it, but if we stick with the text, we're going to stay very close to what God intends to say.

Now, good and godly people are going to differ on various doctrines in the Bible. Certainly, people are going to differ on eschatology. And the difference here is not a test of Orthodoxy; and it's very unfair, It's very unloving, it's certainly untrue to call those who differ with you a heretic, even though I'm constantly called a heretic, but that is just unfair. Maybe you've seen the dust up lately between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz, a very heated exchange. And of course, Carlson embraces replacement theology, and he hates Israel. He mocks and greatly misrepresents dispensationalism, which, by the way, has a variety of different aspects to it; not everyone agrees even in that system. But dispensationalism, again, is, is basically a system of theology that sees Scripture as the unfolding, discernible economies that God uses over the course of history to bring glory to himself to accomplish his purposes.

And before we look at the text, let me remind you, because I know some of you that are listening have asked and are a bit curious in terms of my position, the position of this church. That is that God chose Israel to be an example. We see this in his word, and Israel is an example of how he pursues the salvation of individuals. It's an example of how he judges and blesses nations. And though the nation of Israel is certainly an apostate nation, we read that he is going to restore them. He is going to save them. And through the nation of Israel, we see how he is going to restore fallen humanity. They are a microcosm, if you will. And Israel, as a microcosm, helps us to see how God deals with individuals. Helps us see how God deals with nations. We see how he judged Israel because of her rebellion against him. And Israel is much more, I believe, than just a lesser type that is somehow surpassed by the church. Israel and the land are microcosms of what God is going to do with all of the nations in the coming kingdom. And we are convinced that God is faithful to his promises that he gave to Israel, which will include Gentile believers, as I will elaborate upon in a little bit. These are consistent with the biblical covenants. So I believe that God said what he meant, and he means what he says, there's no ambiguity. When I read my Bible, there might be things we don't fully understand, but it's not like I have to go and search for some spiritual typological meaning. There's no ambiguity. Because if there's ambiguity, then there's uncertainty, and where there is uncertainty, there is confusion, and where there is confusion, there is the undermining of faith, because we just don't know what he says.

So we believe that the biblical covenants must be allowed to speak. They frame our understanding of the biblical storyline. The biblical covenants inform our theology, especially our ecclesiology, that is, our understanding of the church; and our eschatology, our understanding of things that will happen before the Lord returns. Those covenants are the Noahic Covenant that we see in Genesis nine, there's the Abrahamic covenant that's in Genesis 12:15, 17,18, and 22; there's the Mosaic Covenant in Exodus 20 through 24 which is superseded ultimately by the New Covenant. There's the Priestly Covenant in Psalm 89 and the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31, and we even see elements of it in First Corinthians 11. And the New Covenant guarantees the eventual fulfillment of all the other covenants. And these provide, if you will, the skeleton upon which the flesh and blood of God's plans and purposes must reside.

Now to those in the dispensational camp, may I warn you, you must never subordinate God's covenants to artificial or arbitrary, or even obvious dispensations, as some dispensationalists are prone to do, you must not let your understanding of what a dispensation might be govern your theology and your eschatology. Likewise, those in the camp of Covenant Theology must be careful not to obscure these covenants with artificial covenants, that of redemption, of works and grace, and essentially, as Paul Henebury states, quote, "...make the Hebrew Bible more for the church than for the Hebrews to whom it was originally given." By the way, if you want to read more about all of this, I suggest, if you're into more scholarly works, get the two-part volume, or the two volume set by Paul Henebury called "The Words of the Covenant."

Now some have asked me, "Do you read those in the other camp?" Well, of course, I do. In fact, some have asked, you know, how do you study? Well, I will spend, first, several hours exegeting the passages in the original language to make sure I understand what is being said, and then I will typically read, over the course of a week, at least a dozen different commentaries, and sometimes a lot of ancient literature, like some that I'll share with you here in a few minutes. And half of what I read in commentaries come from a literal, grammatical, historical hermeneutic, which would lead to pre-millennialism. And in my mind, kind of progressive dispensationalism or biblical covenantalism, if you will. And then the other half of the commentaries that I read are written from the other perspective, more of a Covenant Theology, amillennial perspective, and they will use the spiritualizing, reinterpreting model, the topological model, where they see types and the hermeneutics of the Preterists and Amillennialists and Post millennialists and so forth. And certainly, I'm convinced of the former rather than the latter, because I believe that when you spiritualize the text, you end up robbing yourself of an understanding of the authorial intent of the passages and the clear meaning of language. And many times, what I see happening in that camp is they tend to interpret everything in such a way as to make sure that it was fulfilled at Christ's first coming.

But indeed, I believe that we must bow to the divine authority of every passage of scripture, and we must allow God to speak to us concerning the coming kingdom through the framework of the biblical covenants. Quoting Henebury quote, "So many Christians tie the conclusion of much Bible prophecy to the first advent. But this forces them to tangle with a great swell of prophetic literature, employing their ingenuity to make it mean what it does not really say." He went on to say, "This writer would plead for a second advent interpretation of the majority of the prophecies, which are often applied to the first advent and are morphed out of recognition in the process." He went on to add this, "We are two millennia past the cross, and the world is just as sick and corrupt as it was the day that the Son of God was crucified or the Apostle Paul was imprisoned. There is no good reason to hold that Jesus is reigning on the Davidic throne today, or that seemingly plain statements in the Old Testament were, in fact, intended to be viewed as types all along to be given their real meaning only once the New Testament was written." End quote.

Now for some of you that might get lost in the weeds of all of this theology, and especially when we get into the text and look closely at what the Word of God has to say, let me give you a big picture overview, just for a minute, so that you can see God's plans and purposes. Just bear in mind as you look at Scripture, what you see is that God created everything to ultimately bring glory to himself. And prior to that, he, in his sovereignty and his uninfluenced will, decreed what was going to happen. And because he is omnipotent, he can pull it off. That's the amazing thing. In fact, that's at the heart of Bible prophecy. It's absolutely astounding for us to see the prophecies that were written, and then hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later, even 1000s of years later, they come to pass. And what we see is that God even ordained evil to enter into his perfect universe through the voluntary choices of moral creatures. And why did he do that? To dramatically display his glory through his holiness, his wrath, his mercy, his grace, his love and his power. And we see that Satan tempted Adam and Eve, sin entered the world, God cursed the world, and he set into motion a plan to reconcile this fallen race unto himself. And through Christ, we see that God's goal of putting his glory on display can come into fruition. And therefore, he sent a Lamb, who is also a Lion. The Lamb came to redeem sinners, to pay the penalty for our sins, so that we would be fit to enter the kingdom. And the Lion, who is the same person, is the one that will come and conquer and establish his kingdom. And he came the first time to accomplish our redemption through the shedding of his blood, ensuring the efficacy of the New Covenant, through which the other covenants concerning his kingdom would be accomplished; and when he returns again, he is going to destroy Satan who opposes him. He's going to fulfill all of the covenants exactly the way he promised to Israel, and ultimately, as well, through the church, to the church, he's going to reign, I believe, literally, upon a renovated earth for 1000 years, which will be the consummating bridge between human history and the eternal state. He's going to eventually then hand the kingdom over to the Father, and then there will be a recreation of a new heavens and a new earth, which will be the eternal state.

Now that's a big picture, a real slight summary, shall we say, of all of these things, and Christians may disagree, especially on the final events, but folks, by and large, this is a biblical worldview. And unless you have a biblical worldview view of who God is and what he's up to, you are just walking in darkness. It's so sad to see so many people like that. Let me, let me say it a little bit differently. Life apart from Christ, is absolutely meaningless. It's absolutely meaningless if you don't know Christ as your Savior. If you are not worshiping Him, your life is just wandering around and you have no hope, you have no real joy, you have no power, no purpose. And this is why so many people hate Christ. It's sad. This is why we have gender confusion. This is why we have sexual perversions, sexual exploitation. This is why we have drug cartels and human trafficking. This is why we have murders and rapes and wars and, and I don't know Islama-Nazis in Iran. I mean, this is why we have all of this stuff. But for those who are united to Christ in saving faith, those people have meaning, they have purpose, they have hope, they have joy that transcends even the greatest trials in life. Those are the people that will obey God and not man, and as a result, they enjoy that intimate communion with the lover of their soul. God dwells within them.

Now practically speaking, as we look at the prophetic literature, once again, I want you to rejoice - even if you don't understand all of it -  rejoice in the fact that we serve a sovereign God who has ordained the end from the beginning, and he is accomplishing everything exactly the way he has intended to ultimately bring glory to himself and joy to the redeemed. And to think that we are all part of his sovereign purposes, you know, as insignificant as we really are; it's an amazing thought, isn't it? We're all part of the family of God. We are all valuable, powerful cells in this amazing spiritual organism called the body of Christ; to think that he rescued us from the domain of darkness and he transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, and to think what Jesus said that "'I am the light of the world. He who follows Me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.'" And dear friends, I hope you have light and you're not just walking in the darkness. He wants us to enjoy fellowship with Him. He wants us to be blessed, to be encouraged. He wants to give us joy. In fact, right before he went to the cross, Jesus said this in John 17:26, "'I have made Your name, '" as he's praying to the Father, "'I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.'" Amazing. That's what he wants for us, and when you have that, when you're united to Christ, everything changes. Moreover, he says, "'If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am there you may be also.'" I mean, this is the great hope of the redeemed. So be encouraged.

Now with that, with that introduction, let's look at the text. Zechariah nine, let me read it to you, beginning in verse 11.

"As for you, also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.

"Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope; this very day, I am declaring that I will restore double to you.

"For I will bend Judah as My bow, I will fill the bow of Ephraim. And I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece; and I will make you like a warrior's sword.

"Then the LORD will appear over them, and His arrow will go forth like lightning; and the Lord GOD will blow the trumpet, and will march in the storm winds of the south.

"The LORD of hosts will defend them. And they will devour and trample on the sling stones; and they will drink and be boisterous as with wine; and they will be filled with a sacrificial basin, drenched like the corners of the altar.

"And the LORD their God will save them in that day as the flock of His people; for they are as the stones of a crown, sparkling in His land.

"For what comeliness and beauty will be theirs! Grain will make the young men flourish and new wine the virgins."

Now I've entitled this "God's Covenantal Loyalty to Israel," and bear in mind that God's purpose here is to remind the people that have come back from Babylon, these post exilic Jews that are discouraged, that he has not forgotten them. So don't lose heart. He is reminding them that I am faithful to my covenant promises to you, even though you may not see it. Remember Zechariah's name literally means "Yahweh remembers."

Now in order to help us understand this, I've got three simple points in an outline, we're going to see the grounds of his covenantal faithfulness, the goal of his covenantal faithfulness, and the glory of his covenantal faithfulness. Now look at the text. He says, "As for you also..." bear in mind now he's been he's been talking about the coming Messiah and the eventual destruction of Gentile powers in verses nine and 10. So he says, "As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit." Now here, dear friends, we see the grounds of his covenantal faithfulness. Think of it this way, he's saying, though you're currently frustrated, you're longing for your Messiah to deliver you and bless you, know this, that my grace is upon you through the shedding of my blood, the blood of the covenant.

Now what would they have understood in that context? Well, we could go especially to Genesis 15. You will remember there, God sealed his covenant with Abraham. It was an unconditional, unilateral, irreversible covenant. Actually, you see it in especially in Genesis 12, Genesis 15 and again, in 17; an everlasting covenant that had four elements to it. There was the promise of a seed that would come from his loins that would ultimately be the Messiah, the promise of a specific land for his descendants, a promise that they would become a great nation - and out of Abraham would come many nations - and a promise of divine blessing and protection for his posterity; and frankly, all of the nations of the world that would be blessed through his descendants. And you will remember that in Genesis 15, God instructed Abram to cut the animals in half, spilling their blood there on the ground, which would represent what would happen to the person that violated the covenant. That's how they saw those things in those ancient days. And normally both parties would walk in between the two halves of the slaughtered animals, which would basically be a pledge of self-malediction, or self-curse, that this would happen, you know, to us - this is what would we deserve if we violate this covenant.  But you will remember that God alone walked through the pieces demonstrating that the fulfillment of the covenant was not dependent upon the faithfulness of Abram and his descendants, but upon God alone.

Now with that in mind, we come to Zechariah nine and verse 11, and that statement, "blood of My covenant with you." This hearkens back to that covenant promise, but it also looks forward to the blood sacrifice of the final lamb. His blood was the seal of the New Covenant. You can read about that specifically in Hebrews nine, I believe 13 and following. So the Abrahamic covenant is an inviolable promise sealed by the very blood of Christ. My, what encouragement this would have been to them. And he goes on to say, "I have set your prisoners free..." speaking of liberation from the Gentile oppressors. And he says, "I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit." This is imagery that they would have understood because they knew the story of Joseph very well that was thrown into a waterless pit. It was common for prisoners, and people you didn't like, to get thrown in a waterless pit. Jeremiah was the same thing. Both of them were cast into, frankly, empty cisterns. By the way, if there had been water in them, they would have died, but they were in waterless pits. So this was a common way of incarceration, especially of prisoners in ancient days.

And so what we see like with Joseph and Jeremiah, both of them struggled greatly. Both of them felt abandoned, but God delivered them. The point is, God is saying, I'm going to do that with you as well Israel. Now, what they didn't know is that within about 250 years, they would suffer unimaginable persecution under the Greek ruler of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes, who was a type of the antichrist that we see in Scripture; the Antichrist during the Great Tribulation. And remember now, Satan hates Israel because of God's plans and purposes and protection for her. And this is what continues to fuel anti semitism even to this day, and it will continue.

Now let's look again, closely at the text. He says, "I have set your prisoners free..." The verb tense here is past. In fact, in the Hebrew it’s called a prophetic perfect tense, and the grammar underscores, therefore, the absolute inevitability of God accomplishing what he has promised to do, "I have set your prisoners free." And so he's saying that he's going to remain faithful to the unilateral covenant that he made with Abraham and his descendants, which I might also add that this includes the Gentiles. This includes us. We are also beneficiaries of, and recipients of, the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. We read, for example, in Genesis 22 verse 18, God said to him, "In your seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed also." We know that Paul described Israel in Romans 11:16 through 24 as the "natural branches" from a "cultivated olive tree," some of which have now been broken off for the present time due to the hardening of their heart. And he describes how the Gentile church is the "wild olive branches" that have been grafted into the quote, "rich root." The covenant privileges, if you will, originally promised to Abraham. So indeed, the church shares - the Gentile church, we as Gentile believers - share in these promises with Israel. But we never take her place as a nation, as Romans nine through 11 makes clear. And this becomes even more clear when you examine the promises of the New Covenant in Jeremiah 30 through 33 that describe both physical blessings associated with Israel's restoration and the promises of the new heart that serve as the basis for receiving the physical promises of the millennial kingdom.

And therefore, when Gentiles are saved, I want you to think of it this way, we become the spiritual descendants of Abraham. Why is that? Well, it's because, by God's grace, we obeyed the single requirement of the New Covenant, and that is faith in Christ. Galatians three beginning in verse seven, "Therefore be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'All the nations will be blessed in you.'" And then in verse 14, "...in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith." Isn't that a wonderful promise?

So in verse 11, "As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit." And this is the great promise of the Messiah. So we've seen the grounds of his covenantal faithfulness, namely the blood of Christ, that's linked to the covenant promises.

And then secondly, notice the goal of his covenantal faithfulness. He says in verse 12, "Return to the stronghold..." Now this is interesting. In Hebrew stronghold is "biṣṣārôn." It's similar tothe Hebrew words for "the daughter of Zion," which is "baṯ ṣîyôn."  They sound very similar, and so the people of that day would have made that connection. So the stronghold here is the city of Jerusalem, the daughter of Zion; he's saying, come back home from exile, return to Jerusalem and worship Yahweh. So this is a call for them to continue to return, physically and spiritually. "Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope..."  What is that? Well, it's that unassailable, it's that unwavering, motivating hope, anchored in the covenant promises of God accomplished by the coming Messiah. "O prisoners who have the hope; this very day..." In other words, this season in your life right now where you're struggling so severely under all of the oppression, trying to get your houses in order and get the temple up and begin your worship and honor Yahweh, as you should; those of you that are just trying to survive, those of you that are discouraged and fatigued, weary of Gentile dominance..."O prisoners who have the hope....I am declaring that I will restore double to you." My what a wonderful promise. How encouraging that must have been. And of course, this harkens back to the same promise that he made through the prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 61 beginning in verse seven, we read this, "Instead of your shame you will have a double portion, and instead of humiliation, they will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore they will possess a double portion in their land, everlasting joy will be theirs." Then in verse nine, "Then their offspring will be known among the nations, and their descendants in the midst of the peoples. All who see them will recognize them because they are the offspring whom the LORD has blessed." My what a what a glorious future. What a magnificent promise. This is the confident goal of God's covenantal faithfulness, when Israel will finally fulfill Exodus 19:6, where they were intended to be a kingdom of priests, and that will happen when Christ establishes his kingdom.

Now next, the Lord makes a promise that must have been very exciting to them, but also very confusing; one that would certainly prove his love to them and and his power to accomplish whatever he wills. He says, "For I will bend Judah..." Judah, speaking of the Israelites in the south, "I will bend Judah as My bow, I will fill the bow with Ephraim..." that's the Israelites in the north, "....And I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece; and I will make you like a warrior's sword." In other words, what he's saying here is, I'm going to turn the entire nation of Israel into weapons of war and I'm going to empower them in order to defeat the Greeks someday. And history tells us that 350 years later, this prophecy was fulfilled when Israel finally defeated the Grecian armies of Antiochus Epiphanes in the Maccabean revolt.

Now, let me give you a little background here in the intertestamental period, which is that period of time between Malachi and basically the New Testament when Christ comes. During that time, Israel endured horrific oppression under Antiochus Epiphanes, who ruled the Seleucids. That was a Greek state formed after the death of Alexander the Great. And you will recall that one of his successors was General Seleucius, or Seleucus, I should say, and he was given Syria, and he was given Babylon to rule. And Antiochus Epiphanes was the eighth king in the Syrian dynasty, the Seleucid Empire. He reigned from 175 to 164 BC. And let me take you to Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian in Antiquities of the Jews. This is from book 11, chapter five, by the way, I'm not going to read obviously all of it. It's very in depth. But if you want to read some fascinating history of treachery and battles and all the ways God preserved the people during that time, you could read this. But I'm going to read just a little of it to you. We read that, "King Antiochus, returning out of Egypt for fear of the Romans, made an expedition against the city of Jerusalem. And when he was there in the 140 and third year of the kingdom of the Seleucid day, he took the city without fighting. Those of his own party opening the gates to him. And when he had gotten possession of Jerusalem, he slew many of the opposite party, and when he had plundered it of a great deal of money, he returned to Antioch."

Now, we know that two years later, he comes back to Jerusalem. He pretends to make peace with them. He pretends like he's coming in peace, but it was all a treacherous ruse. So he comes into the city and he takes it over. He plunders the temple, including a great deal of gold, many costly ornaments. Josephus tells us things like the golden candlesticks, the golden altar, the table of showbread, the burnt the altar of burnt offering, we read that he even took the veils made of fine linen and scarlet. And then Josephus says this quote, "And when the king had built an idol altar upon God's altar..." probably an idol of Zeus, "...when the king had built an idol altar upon God's altar, he slew swine upon it and so offered a sacrifice. He also compelled them to forsake the worship which they paid their own God and to adore those whom he took to be gods and made them build temples and raise idol altars in every city and village and offer swine upon them every day." Talk about wicked he even forbade the Jews for making any kind of sacrifices to Yahweh; worshiping Yahweh. They were not allowed to circumcise their sons. And it goes on and on. And then we read from Josephus that those who disobeyed quote, "were whipped with rods, and their bodies were torn to pieces and were crucified while they were still alive and breathed." They also, "strangled those women and their sons, whom they had circumcised, as the king had appointed. Hanging their sons about their necks as they were upon the crosses. And if there were any sacred book or the law, found it was destroyed, and those with whom they were found miserably perished also."

So if you were a Jewish mother and you circumcised your little child, they would take the child, hang it around your neck and crucify you. Now, eventually, the Jews had enough of it. And in 167 BC, Judas Maccabeus, also called Judah Maccabee, rebelled against this wickedness along with his brothers. And it goes into great detail of all the family background and everything, but he was a guerilla warrior. And if you go to Antiquities of the Jews, book 11, chapter six and following, Josephus records numerous battles that they fought when Judas raised up an army against the Greeks, and how God granted them victory after victory, even though they were greatly outnumbered. And on one conquest, just to give you a flavor of it, Lysias, who was the regent that was appointed over Syria while Antiochus was gone actually fighting the Medes and the Persians. He was appointed by Antiochus Epiphanes, and he amassed a vast army, and he used elephants to go against the Maccabeans. Let me read you a little bit about the battle. Josephus says, "Now, round about every elephant, there were 1000 footmen and 500 horsemen. The elephants also had high towers upon their backs and archers in them. And he also made the rest of his army to go up to the mountains and put his friends before the rest and gave orders for the army to shout aloud and so he attacked the enemy. He also exposed to sight their golden and brazen shields, so that a glorious splendor was sent from them. And when they shouted, the mountains echoed again." So this is how they're trying to intimidate the Jews, now, okay? "When Judas saw this, he was not terrified but received the enemy with great courage and slew about 600 of the first rank. But when his brother Eleazar, whom they called Uran, saw the tallest of all the elephants armed with royal breast plates, he is supposed that the king was upon him, and he attacked him with great quickness and bravery. He also slew many of those that were about the elephant and scattered the rest, andthen went under the belly of the elephant and smote him and slew him. But the elephant fell upon Eleazar, and by his weight, crushed him to death. And thus did this man come to his end when he had first courageously destroyed many of his enemies." Give you a little flavor the type of men these guys were.

So indeed, in 13 it says, "I will make you like a warrior's sword." "Warrior's sword" - in Hebrew, "gibôr" - and it means mighty man; a man that would be noted for his physical strength and ability to fight. And so these were fierce warriors. They were the elite soldiers empowered by God's, you might say they were the special operations soldiers of Israel's army. You will remember in Second Samuel 10, verse seven, when David unleashed, quote, Joab and all the army with his, quote, "mighty men," the "gibborim," the mighty men. First Chronicles 11:11 and the following it speaks of some of these mighty men. It says, "These constitute the list of the mighty men whom David had: Jashobeam, the son of Hachmonite,, the chief of 30; he lifted up his spear against 300 whom he killed at one time." These were some bad dudes. By the way, I might add that none of these men suffered from gender confusion. I can assure you of that.They carried swords and spears, not makeup kits and wigs and rainbow flags, all right? I mean, thank God for what the Liberals call toxic masculinity.

Now, while the Maccabees achieved initial success, I might say that the Seleucids eventually regained control of Jerusalem after the death of Judas Maccabeus in 160 BC; but the remnants of the Maccabees under Judas' brother, Jonathan Apphus, continued to resist in the countryside. And finally, in 141 BC, Simon Thassi succeeded in expelling the Greeks from their Citadel in Jerusalem, and they had an alliance now with the Romans - the Roman Republic - and that paved the way for the establishment of the Hasmonean kingdom, until the Romans eventually installed Herod the Great in 37 BC.

By the way, as a footnote, prior to this, in 164 BC, when the Maccabees captured Jerusalem in one of their earlier victories, the Jews celebrated their victory with a holiday called Hanukkah. Maybe you've seen Hanukkah. It means dedication or consecration, and it referred to the therededication of the temple there in Jerusalem. Hanukkah is also known as the Feast of Lights, or the Feast of Dedication in the New Testament because of a legendary, and I underscore that word, we're not sure this this happened, but tradition says it did; the legendary miraculous provision of oil for the eternal light in the temple, which was the symbol of God's presence. When they when they did this, there was only enough oil, only enough provision, for one day. But they decided to go ahead and light the menorah and the oil miraculously burned for eight days, allowing them to prepare new ritually pure oil. Anyway, just a little footnote so that you know the background.

Now back to Zechariah's prophecy, the promise in verse 12 that God will restore double to them as a result of them returning to him, has yet to be realized, but it will be realized in the kingdom age, as we read earlier in Isaiah 61 seven and verse nine as well, when they will possess a double portion in their land and everlasting joy will be theirs. Now I also want you to remember that like the conquest of Alexander the Great that we studied. The Maccabean revolt, and the victory, shadows the Gentile nations, I should say foreshadows, the Gentile nations that will come against Israel in the last days. And in all these ancient conflicts, we see God demonstrating his power and his protection, his preservation and his salvation. In fact, Hosea says this in chapter three, verse five, "Afterward, the sons of Israel will return and seek the LORD their God and David their king; and they will come trembling to the LORD and to His goodness in the last days." The greater king of David, referring to the Lord Jesus Christ; the "last days," referring to the millennium.

I would also point you back to our studies in Daniel's prophecies and where it is revealed in Daniel eight, and also in Daniel 11, how the Greek armies of the Seleucid Empire and the cruel Antiochus Epiphanes, foreshadow the rule and the defeat of the Antichrist. As we see pictured now in verses 14 through 17, we're going to see finally, the consummating glory of his covenantal faithfulness. We've seen the grounds of it, the goal of it, and here is the glory of it. Verse 14, "Then the LORD will appear over them, and His arrow will go forth like lightning; and the Lord GOD will blow the trumpet, and will march in the storm winds of the south." This is a picture of the terrible sandstorms that would come out of the south, out of the desert, that still happened from time to time there in Israel. And obviously now this looks beyond the Maccabean revolt. It looks beyond to the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, who will come to the aid of his people in the moment of their greatest peril. In the hour of their greatest peril, the Lord will save them. So many passages, let me give you a couple. Later on, Zechariah will tell us in chapter 12, beginning in verse eight. "In that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the one who is feeble among them in that day will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. And in that day, I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against his Jerusalem." Later in Zechariah 14, beginning in verse three, "Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. In that day, His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will split in its middle from east to west by a large valley, so that half the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south."

Verse nine, "And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day, the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one." Verse 12, “Now this will be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the peoples who have gone to war against Jerusalem; their flesh will rot while they stand on their feet, and their eyes will rot and their sockets, and their tongue will rot in their mouth." So indeed, the Lord God is the champion, not only the champion of Israel, but the champion of all the redeemed.

Notice verse 15 in Zechariah nine, "The LORD of hosts will defend them. And they will devour and trample on the sling stones." By the way, this is illustrating the absolute futility of stones being hurled by slings at the enemy, and those stones were absolutely devastating. If you got hit by one, it would, it would tear you up, especially if it hit you in the head. Just ask Goliath, and he'll give you a little hint about that. So he says, "The LORD of hosts will defend them. And they will devour and trample on the sling stones;" again, illustrating the futility of their attack, "and they will drink and be boisterous as with wine; and they will be filled with a sacrificial basin, drenched like the corners of the altar." This is all so foreign to us, but it would not have been foreign to them in that day. You see in the Old Testament, God's judgment upon wickedness is often portrayed as a sacrifice to God which satisfied his divine justice. For example, in Isaiah 34 six, "The sword of the LORD is filled with blood. It is sated with fat, with the blood of lambs and goats, with the fat of the kidneys of rams. For the LORD has a sacrifice in Bozrah and a great slaughter in the land of Edom." And of course, the greatest sacrifice is going to be there at the battle of Armageddon, when the Lord returns, as we read in Revelation 19 verse 15, "From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty." Folks, this is the glory of his covenantal faithfulness; this is what it points to.

Verse 16, "And the LORD their God will save them in that day as the flock of His people; for they are as the stones of a crown, sparkling in His land." What a stunning picture of the precious nature of God's people. Verse 17, "For what comeliness and beauty will be theirs! Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine the virgins." So indeed, a day of the double portion of blessings will be their eventual reward, and the reward of all of the redeemed that will be in the millennial kingdom. It will be the time when Israel, and all of us from the church age, will enjoy the prosperity; will enjoy the peace of the long-awaited kingdom when the Lord Jesus Christ returns and reigns in righteousness.

So as we close this morning, beloved, don't miss this. Here we have a magnificent prophecy, once again, of God's covenantal loyalty to Israel and to his covenants that he gave to them, and by extension, to everyone who has placed their faith in Christ. And I want to challenge you, especially in the days in which we live right now, fix your eyes on the promises of Christ's coming. We may not know all of the details, but we know he's coming. We know the kingdom is coming; the glory that He has promised. Don't get distracted. Don't get discouraged. Don't get deceived into believing that all is well, because, after all, we've dropped some bunker buster bombs, and we're the greatest military in the world. You know, some of that may be true, I don't know, but I don't put any confidence in any of that. I put my confidence in the Lord. And so that's where you have to keep your focus; to know that you are part of his glorious plan, that he has saved you by his grace. And I would submit to you that if you have no sincere love for Christ, if you have no desire to honor him, if you have no yearning to know him, if you have no longing for his kingdom to come, for his will to be done, on earth as it is in heaven, then I will guarantee you that you have no real lasting joy. It's always dependent upon your circumstances. You're happy when things are good, and you're depressed when they're not, and you have no real purpose in life, and certainly you have no hope of heaven. And so as a minister of the gospel, I would plead with you to humble yourself, acknowledge your sin, place your faith in Christ, and he will forgive you of your sins, and he will change your life and give you the hope of heaven, clothing you in the righteousness of Christ Himself. Isn't it wonderful that we have that hope? Let's pray together.

Father, thank you for the great truths of your word. Press them upon our heart that we might be animated all the more in our lives to honor you, to long for your coming, to look for your coming. And between now and that time, or now and the time that you take us home, may we be vigilant to look for opportunities to share the gospel and to bring others the understanding of what you have provided through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus. Make us evangelists Lord, bold evangelists; and help us to disciple those that come to Christ that they might grow in him and enjoy the fullness of all that is theirs in their union with the lover of our souls. We commit all of this to you. We give you praise in Jesus' name. Amen.