I was informed this morning that a mega church that originates out of Colorado and has a satellite church - I guess you could call it a church - in this area, is embarking upon a study of Hollywood movies. They're going to be exegeting Hollywood movies on all of their campuses. And this is not new. I've heard of this before. But folks, that is a testimony to the way Satan has infiltrated the church and has deceived the church. We will not be doing that this morning. We are going to open up the inspired, infallible, authoritative, all sufficient Word of the living God this morning. So will you take your Bibles and turn to Zechariah 11?

This is actually the second part of a discourse out of Zechariah 11 that I've entitled "Israel's Impending Tragedy for Rejecting Their Messiah.” Amazing prophecies that magnify, not only the sovereignty of God, but also the providence of God, to cause all things to come together in such a way as to accomplish his purposes; and certainly, it also underscores the inspiration and the authority of Scripture, and glorifies, therefore, the Lord our God. So let me read the passage to you, Zechariah 11, one through 14. We're actually going to be looking at verse seven through 14, but I want to read it as a whole, beginning in verse one.

Open your doors, O Lebanon,

That a fire may feed on your cedars.
² Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
Because the glorious trees have been destroyed;
Wail, O oaks of Bashan,
For the ⁱmpenetrable forest has come down.
³ There is a sound of the shepherds’ wail,
For their glory is ruined;
There is a sound of the young lions’ roar,
For the pride of the Jordan is ruined.

⁴ Thus says the Lord my God, “Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter. ⁵ Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no pity on them. ⁶ For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land,” declares the Lord; “but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into another’s power and into the power of his king; and they will strike the land, and I will not deliver them from their power.”

⁷ So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock. ⁸ Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me. ⁹ Then I said, “I will not pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be annihilated, let it be annihilated; and let those who are left eat one another’s flesh.” ¹⁰ I took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples. ¹¹ So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the Lord. ¹² I said to them, “If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!” So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages. ¹³ Then the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.” So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord. ¹⁴ Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.

I have divided this section into three categories. We looked at the first two the last time. Number one: The Impending Destruction of Israel. And secondly: The Impending Devastation of False Shepherds and Those Who Embrace Them. And this morning, we're going to be looking at the third category, and that is: The Impending Denial of the True Shepherd and the Slaughter of Those who Reject Him.

Now it's important to keep all of this in context. I'm going to give you a very brief review and make some other introductory remarks that I hope will help you understand how to deal with these prophetic passages. First of all, reviewing the impending destruction of Israel. In verses one through three, that prophecy described the coming destruction of Jerusalem that occurred in AD 70 during the first Jewish Roman war, followed by numerous additional conflicts, including the Jewish Roman war in AD 135 when the homosexual Roman Emperor Hadrian marched through the area and destroyed 985 towns and villages, bringing utter ruin to the land of Israel, scattering the people all over the ancient world. I have been, and some of you were with me, at the Temple of Hadrian in Ephesus, Turkey. It's a very well-preserved Roman structure. You can go online and see it. It's dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian. And Hadrian, I might add, was deeply involved in emperor worship, both in his own deification, as well as in the pronouncement of, and the promotion of, the cult of Antinous, his deceased male lover. Long story there. If you go to the Istanbul Archeological Museum, you will see a life size statue of Hadrian who is standing with his left foot on the neck of some fallen barbarian. I have tosmile whenever I think of these things. I remember when I was looking at that - he is not as tough as he used to be. I mean, one arm is completely missing, right? And his power, his kingdom, is forgotten. So he wasn't much of a god.

But secondly, we looked at the impending devastation of false shepherds and those who embraced him, in verses four through six.  And that section begins with the Lord commanding to act out a parable to underscore the reality of the prophetic truths that are written. Remember in verse four, "Thus says the LORD my God, 'Pasture, the flock doomed to slaughter.'" In other words, I want you to act out before the people of Israel on my behalf, so that they can see what is going to happen; so that they can see the horror that awaits them as a result of their future rejection of the Messiah. And this section speaks of the corrupt leaders - both civil and religious - the apostate priests and elders and scribes, who will one day fleece the people and try to control the people for political and financial gain and eventually be destroyed.

Now, I want to give you a reminder. Despite the fierce judgment of God that he has brought upon his covenant people Israel for rejecting their Messiah - and we've seen that, and we've read about this, both in the Old and the New Testament - bear in mind that the Scriptures teach that there will come a time of national conversion and restoration of the nation and the very purpose of Zechariah's prophecy to the ancient Jews that have returned from exile is to remind them of God's covenantal faithfulness. That yes, judgment is going to come, that they're going to reject their Messiah, but there will be restoration.

And it's also important to understand that the church is a distinct organism from Israel. It is not an updated Israel. There is no such thing as an Old Testament church, as some will teach. Nor is the church what is sometimes called the "New Israel." There's no evidence of that terminology anywhere in Scripture. In fact, in Ephesians chapter two and three, you see that the church was something totally new. It was something unknown in the past. It was a distinctive organism that began at Pentecost in Acts two. The church is a mystery - in other words a secret - in the Old Testament. They didn't understand that; there wasn't anything about that written. Paul refers to this several times. For example, in Ephesians three, beginning in verse three,

"...by revelation there was made known to me the mystery, as I wrote before in brief.

"By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ,

"which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit;

"to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel."

Now practically speaking, with respect to soteriology - in other words, the doctrine of salvation - there is only one people of God. For example, we read in Romans 10, beginning in verse 12,

"For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who will call on Him;

"for 'WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.'"

And the primary characteristics of the church, this new organism that came about in at Pentecost, is really two-fold. There is going to be oneness, and there is going to be newness. As we look at the Old and the New Testament saints - whether they are Jew or Gentile - they were all saved by grace, through faith; all fellow citizens of the household of God; all fellow members of the Body of Christ; all fellow partakers of the Messianic promises consistent with the New Covenant. A new heart and the permanent indwelling the Holy Spirit that didn't happen in the Old Testament; all ministers now of the New Covenant, as we see in Second Corinthians 3:6. But the church that began at Pentecost is a distinct organism from ethnic, national Israel; God's ancient covenant people. We, as Gentiles, are the wild olive branch that has been grafted into the rich root of Abrahamic covenantal blessings. We're made fellow partakers with Israel with respect to the promises of salvation. But all of the promises pertaining to national forgiveness, like we would read in Ezekiel 16; all of the promises pertaining to the spirit being poured out on Israel, resulting in justice and prosperity and peace under the Davidic King, as you would read in Isaiah 32; all of the promises regarding the regathering, the restoration, the material, physical blessings that are mentioned in the Old Testament, all of those were given to Israel, not to the church. And they will be fulfilled ultimately at the second advent. And therefore, the church has not replaced Israel. I do not believe that. That's a doctrine that is called supersessionism - that the church has now kind of superseded Israel - a position that historically is rooted in antisemitism and perpetuated by an allegorizing, spiritualizing system of interpretation that enables the interpreter, frankly, to avoid what the Scriptures so clearly communicate. It assumes that God did not really mean what he said that he meant something else, and only the scholar knows what he was really saying. And the real truth is unavailable to the poor pedestrian who doesn't have the education and the sophistication to simply understand these things, and therefore just take God at his word. And historically, two groups of people have embraced supersessionism. If you look at it, you will see two groups believe that somehow the Jews are permanently disenfranchised from God's plan. One group is those that despise the claims of Jesus of Nazareth. And the second group is those who despise the covenant people of God. And this hermeneutic allows them to, frankly, expunge God's covenant people from his plans for humanity and out of the storyline of the Bible. And having come out of academia, I can tell you that it's real easy for scholars, for professors, to adorn themselves with the trappings of erudition and esoteria, so that these things really are in the domain of the scholar and of the mystic, that other people, frankly, can't understand. And they write these things up, and they preach these things, they put them in commentaries, and people go, "Oh, wow, this is really sophisticated. This has got to be the truth." And in a subtle way, I believe the danger here is that you are assuming that you can join in with God when it comes to divine revelation. And it undermines the Scriptures. When you look at something and God says so clearly one thing, and you say, "well, that's not really what God said, he meant something different." Well, how can you trust anything that the Bible says? Where are we going to draw the line? What scholar are we go to, to understand what the Word of God says? That's a real danger.

So again, the church that began at Pentecost is a distinct organism from national Israel, and we're seeing in these passages, some of the things that God has promised to Israel. And also,there's so many things that spill over into the blessings for we, as Gentiles. In fact, and this is just one more part of my introduction that has already gone on way too long. Because this is so exciting to me. It's so exceedingly humbling regarding a Gentile, like me. All of my people came out of Scotland and Ireland and England, and who knows where else, but we're Gentiles. God has saved me, and most of you are Gentiles. And here's what Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, says in Ephesians two and verse 11, he says, "Therefore..." By the way, the"therefore" is because of what he just said, that we are His workmanship, we're created in Christ Jesus.

"Therefore remember that formerly you, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called 'Uncircumcision' by the so-called 'Circumcision,' which is performed in the flesh by human hands -  

"remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

"But now in Christ Jesus you who were formerly far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.

"For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall,

“by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of the commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace,

"and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity."

Then he says this,

"AND HE CAME AND PREACHED EACE TO YOU WHO WERE FAR AWAY, AND PEACE TO THOSE WHO WERE NEAR;"

In other words, to the Gentiles and the Jews alike.

"for through Him, we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.

" So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household,

"having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,

"in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord,

"in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit."

Oh, my goodness, what a marvelous passage of scripture. The implications of all of that are absolutely staggering to me.

So we come to our text now under the heading: The Impending Denial of the True Shepherd and the Slaughter of Those who Reject Him. Remember, in verse four, we read, 'Thus says the LORD my God, 'Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter.'" Again, you Zechariah, I want you to act out before the people of Israel what is going to happen here so that they can understand. They'll have a living illustration. So there's a role play going on here. And while the Good Shepherd would have redeemed all of those who embraced him, only a believing remnant is going to be saved. And we're going to see that portrayed here in all of this. And Zechariah's action is now going to expose the ultimate, future, national apostasy of Israel when they reject the Lord Jesus, followed by the judgment of the Romans in AD 70.

So he begins his role play here of the Good Shepherd's compassion for the poor and for the lonely - the common people - which obviously was a dominating characteristic of Jesus' earthly ministry. Notice verse seven, and this is where we begin. "So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock..." referring to those who suffered persecution from the political the religious leaders, especially the believing remnant. It reminds me of Psalm 10 and verse 12, "Arise, O LORD; O God, lift up Your hand. Do not forget the afflicted." As well as Psalm 18, verse 27, "For You save an afflicted people, but haughty eyes You abase."

Now bear in mind, when Jesus did come, many of the people enjoyed listening to Him. We read about that in Mark 12:37. And we know that that many of them believed in him, and many more than were added to the church, remember, at Pentecost. Indeed, the Lord shepherded his people. Jesus said in John 10, verse 14, "'I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me...'" He said in verse 27, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.'"

Well, next, Zechariah role plays some more, the beneficence of the good shepherd that would one day come and live among them, as Jesus did. Verse seven in the latter part, it says, "And I took for myself two staffs..." Now, shepherds would typically have a staff, a stick or a rod that they would use to guide the sheep. The rod was basically a club that they would use to ward off animal attackers in particular, and then they would have a crooked staff. You've all seen pictures of those, to retrieve sheep. Sheep are notorious for getting into wrecks. They're notorious for getting hung up into things, falling into holes; and this is a way of grabbing hold of them and giving them a helping hand to get them out of the entrapment. And you will remember, in Psalm 23 and verse four, "Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." And so this is a picture, here, of that. So he takes two staffs, and he says, "the one I call "Favor..." - "nōʿam" in the original Hebrew - a feeling of favorable regard, graciousness, pleasantness. This is what this first staff represents. In fact, you will remember Ruth's mother-in-law was appropriately named from that term "Naomi," which means "my pleasantness." And so this symbolized favor; symbolized the Lord's shepherding with respect to his favor, his compassion, his care, his graciousness, his tenderness in caring for the sheep and protecting the sheep of God, as he did when he eventually came.

And then he's got another staff here, “…the other I called Union..." - ""ḥōḇelîm." It's plural of "ḥēḇel" in the Hebrew; it's a participle describing a tying or a binding, which was the intended purpose of the Lord Jesus' grace that he shed upon the people to unite them together with the living God and with each other. And so this speaks of the unification that Jesus would eventually offer by his gracious provision of salvation by grace through faith. And we can really look back and see this being manifested in two primary ways. One, in his gospel, that would unify Jews and Gentiles into one body. And I've already read some about that, but let me remind you of what Jesus said in John 10, beginning in verse 14,

"'I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.

"'I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.'"

And I can put a little picture of myself there; I was part of that group, and so were you. John 11, beginning in verse 51, fascinating text where the wicked high priest unwittingly says something that is actually a prophecy that would come true. It says that he prophesied that, "Jesus was going to die for the nation, and not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad." And so again, this staff is a picture of what Christ would do when he would come, and he would unify the people.

Not only Jews and Gentiles, but also his gospel would, secondly, unify the harmful division between Jews. Now, bear in mind, historically, this division began all the way back into the days of Rehoboam. You remember, you had the divided kingdom - you have Israel to the north, Judah to the south - and many times they were bitter enemies. And you will recall in Ezekiel 37 beginning in verse 16, there is a drama of uniting two sticks together to illustrate how God is going to regather Israelites into the land, how he's going to restore the union between Israel and Judah during the Messianic reign. And you can see this as well in that great text in Isaiah 11 and verse 12, Jeremiah three and verse 18. And even now, we can see the beginnings of this restoration, as Israel has become a state, a nation now in 1948. People are coming back to Israel. There is restoration beginning to happen, a re-gathering. And again, that's a testimony of God's faithfulness, a testimony of his divine providence.

So back to the end of verse seven, "I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and theother I called Union; so I pastured the flock." And once again, now bear in mind, Zechariah is providing a living illustration of the good shepherd who would one day come and manifest his favor towards the afflicted and his healing, his teaching ministry. So all of this foreshadowed the Messiah's benevolence, frankly, in his ministry towards both his covenant people Israel and Gentiles, as well.

As a footnote, it's fascinating to realize that by the time of Jesus' ministry, there was virtually no disease, no sickness in that whole region; absolutely astounding. And as I think about it, think of all the ways that he continues to show his favor towards us, how he has united us through saving faith to Christ and united us to each other in fellowship. And I pray that all of you have been reconciled to the true and living God through faith in Christ. So indeed Jesus, the Good Shepherd, brought them favor. That's what this is pointing to; favor with a holy God that they had offended. And to think now, bear in mind, this prophecy was given 600 plus years before it happened.

Verse eight, "Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month..." "Annihilated" means "to do away with." Not necessarily "kill." Other places you can see it's used, it is interpreted "to cut off” or "to disavow,” to “renounce." "I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me." Now, there are numerous interpretations regarding the identity of these three shepherds that would be done away with in one month. I probably, this week, spent at least two hours examining all of them, and some of them have some merit, and some of them are downright stupid. I call it "pothead interpretation." You know, it's like they've got to be on something to come up with this, my word, or some agenda driven interpretation.

So I will give you what I believe, in my humble opinion, is the best interpretation. And the way to do that is to look at this in a way that is consistent with what Zechariah has been emphasizing throughout his prophecy. And that is the three mediatorial offices in Israel: prophet, priest and king. You will recall in the fourth vision, he remembers his promise to intercede and to cleanse and to restore his people by the person in the work of the Messiah, who was Israel's great high priest and ultimate king. And that was the centerpiece of Zechariah's vision. And again, it emphasized Christ's high priestly work of intercession and of imputation. Likewise, in Jeremiah 23 beginning in verse five, and it goes especially through verse 22, the prophet Jeremiah made it clear that the Messiah would one day be the prophet, the priest and the king that would succeed in all the ways that Israel's prophets, priests and kings had failed. Now to be sure, by the time of Jesus in the first century, the prophets were mostly false, and the priests were mostly apostate; and the scribes and the priests and the elders that functioned as kings - as rulers amongst them underneath the Romans - all of those guys were as crooked as a barrel of snakes. All you've got to do is read the New Testament and you see, these guys were seriously depraved. And true to Zechariah's prophecy, what's really interesting is, one month after the Romans breached Jerusalem's last defense in August of AD 70, the city was conquered. The temple was destroyed. So he's saying here, "Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them..." and so forth. And so it just took that one month, and at that point they were destroyed, including all ofthe three shepherds - the prophets, the priests and the kings. In fact, what's interesting, if you look at Josephus' great work, "The Jewish War" at book six, and here's what the heading reads, "Containing the Interval of About One Month from the Great Extremity to Which the Jews were Reduced to the Taking of Jerusalem by Titus."

Now I would also add that it would not have escaped the notice of these ancient people receiving Zechariah's prophecy - these post exilic Jews -that one month after the Babylonians breached the wall of Jerusalem in 586, Jerusalem fell. And so the point here in Zechariah's prophecy is, folks, what happened once is going to happen again. And it did.

Again, "Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me." In other words, they hated him. They schemed to put him to death. Now think about it. They ignored all of the words of the prophets concerning the coming of the Messiah in Jesus' day, including all these things that Zechariah is speaking about concerning the Messiah. They ignored Isaiah 7:14, that he would be born of a virgin. They ignored Micah 5:2 that he would be born in Bethlehem. That they ignored Isaiah 53 that he would be a suffering servant, despised, rejected, and so forth. And they ignored Zechariah nine and verse nine, where we read, "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your King is coming to you; he is just and endowed with salvation, humble and," catch it, "...mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey." And they missed this when Jesus came into Jerusalem? There were over a million Jewish people hailing Him.

So the punishment came in AD 70, and in one month, all of the phony, corrupt Christ hating shepherds were annihilated. It says, "...for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul was weary of me." And I was thinking about this, I have known, and I know people to this day, that fit into this category, religious phonies, those that are Christian in name only, those that are part of what I would call "churchianity." They really don't know who Jesus is. They reject the God of the Bible. They reject his Word, and God undoubtedly is impatient with them. And certainly, they are weary of him, because what I have found is they don't want to hear who the real Jesus is. They don't want to talk about that. Yes, God is long suffering, but there is limit to his patience. There is a point that only he knows when he gives people over to a depraved mind to suffer the consequences of their iniquities.

Verse nine, then he goes on to say, "'I will not pasture...'" could be translated, "tend" or "shepherd," "...you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be annihilated," that is cut off, "...let it be annihilated..." In other words, he's saying that when this happens - when they reject the Messiah - I'm not going to intercede on their behalf. I'm going to let the natural course of things occur. I'm going to let them rush on to their own ruin. He's going to abandon them to the consequences of their apostasy; same type of thing that we read the end of Romans one. Sohe says, "...and let those who are left eat one another's flesh." This is a horrific statement. It's speaking of starvation that would come through the famine. I would encourage you, if you would like to know about this, you could go to again, Josephus, look at at book six. And I believe it's around 199 and following that you could read a graphic description of this; of a starving woman named Mary, who killed her infant boy, roasted him, ate a portion of him, concealed some of it, saved the rest of it, and so forth. It just, I mean, it's one of the most macabre historical accounts that I've ever read. But it would be good for those of you that can stand it to read the horrifying realities of what happened then. And what I want you to understand when you think about this, is that God is infinitely holy and he will judge sin. The horrifying realities of that famine will sober every fool that mocks the holiness of God and challenges his right to judge sinners. Oh, how it humbles me to know that I am a recipient of his grace; a debtor to his grace, deserving the very worst. Folks, divine judgment is far worse than you can ever imagine, and divine blessing is far greater than you can ever imagine, and both are eternal.

Well next, Zechariah portrays the Messiah in a way that demonstrates the removal of God's favor on Israel because of their rejection. Verse 10, "I took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made with all the peoples." "Amim" - peoples, nations - and this is a reference to the divine restraint that God had placed upon the enemies of Israel to prevent them from utterly destroying his covenant people. You can read about this, for example, in Deuteronomy 18, in Genesis chapter 12. And it's fascinating to think that despite all of the violent attempts of so many nations down through the years that have tried to destroy the Jewish people, they continue to exist and even thrive. Beloved, there's no way that you can explain that apart from divine intervention. No other ethnic group in the history of the world have endured such intransigent persecution. Even after the Romans destroyed them in AD 70, we see that a remnant survived and began to thrive. Even after Hitler's Final Solution, killing 6 million Jews, the remnant survived, and they thrive to this day. And even in our lifetime, after the repeated attempts of Arab/ Muslim neighbors, whose goal in life is to exert terminate Jewish people - combined with all of the virtually universal antisemitism that we see in the world - we still look at the Jewish people, and they survive, and they thrive. Why is that? It's divine protection. They're God's covenant people, and he has a plan for them.

Verse 11, "So it was broken on that day," referring to the staff of Favor, "and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realize that it was the word of the LORD." Now I have toask myself the question: what day was Jesus' staff of Favor broken, resulting in the lifting of divine restraint against Israel's enemies? I wonder what "that day," that period of time perhaps, would have been? To put it differently, I wonder what event in Jesus' ministry was what we would call "the straw that broke the camel's back." Well, I believe it was when the Jewish leaders attributed Jesus' miraculous healing powers to satanic possession. That's what set it all into motion. That was it. Let me read about it. Matthew 12, beginning of verse 22,

"Then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to Jesus, and He healed him, so that the mute man spoke and saw.

"All the crowds were amazed, and were saying, 'This man cannot be the Son of David, can he?'

"When the Pharisees heard this, they said, 'This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons.'"

If you drop down to verse 30, Jesus says,

"'He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters.

"'Therefore, I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.

"'Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age or in the age to come.'"

Drop down further to verse 39 and following, "An evil and adulterous generation crave for a sign...'" Because, see, they were wanting a sign. You know, do something really cool here, so that we can believe in you. But he knew their hearts. And he says,

"'and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;

"'for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.'"

Then he says this, and you talk about making people absolutely furious, he says to them,

"'The men of Nineveh...'" that was one of Assyria's royal cities; I mean, these people make Hamas look like Sunday school children, okay? I mean, you can't hate people any more than the way the Jews hated the Assyrians. "'The men of Nineveh will stand up with this generation at the judgment, and will condemn it because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.'" And what happened next? You can look at chapter 13, and Jesus, we read, begins to speak in parables. You see now the die is cast, the day of grace is over; judgment is now certain. And Jesus would then begin to obscure the truths that he was speaking; he would obscure those truths from those that had hardened their heart. It was an act of judgment upon them. Some men love darkness rather than light. Fine, you know what I'll do? I'll let you just live in the dark that you enjoy. By the way, that was also an act of mercy, because any more exposure to the light that they rejected would only increase their condemnation. So we read in Matthew 13:10,

"And the disciples came and said to Him, 'Why do you speak to them in parables?'

"Jesus answered them, 'To you, it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.

"'For whoever has, to him more shall be given, and he will have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him.

"'Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing, they do not hear, nor do they understand.'"

"'In their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,

"'"YOU WILL KEEP ON HARING, BUT WILL NOT UNDERSTAND; YOU WILL KEEP ON SEEING, BUT WILL NOT PERCEIVE;

"'"FOR THE HEART OFTHI PEOPLE HAS BECOME DULL, WITH THEIR EARS THEY SCARCELY HEAR,, AND THEY HAVE CLOSED THEIR EYES, OTHERWISE THEY WOULD SEE WITH THEIR EYES, HEAR WITH THEIR EARS AND UNDERSTAND WITH THEIR HEART AND RETURN, AND I WOULD HEAL THEM."'"  

And of course, later then, in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus excoriated the hypocritical scribes and Pharisees, exposing all of their wickedness. And 40 years later, the Romans came and destroyed them again.  

Verse 11, "So it..." the staff of divine favor and protection, "...was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD." Now bear in mind there were both Jews and Gentiles that heard Jesus when he came, and by God's grace, they knew what he was saying was true. Others walked away. I'm reminded of Jesus, when he absolutely shattered the works righteousness apostasy of many who followed him. And he expounds on the doctrines of grace, which many would call Calvinism today. I know it's offensive to so many people, but Jesus, essentially was a Calvinist. All you have todo is read John six. In John six, beginning in verse 66, "As a result of this," it says, "many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.

"So Jesus said to the twelve, 'You do not want to go away also, do you?'

"Simon Peter answered Him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.

"'We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.'"

So again, in verse 12, the role playing here - depicting the Messiah - is going to continue, and it's going to focus on how Israel would value their shepherd - the good shepherd - that came to them; and it's also a preview of his betrayal. Verse 12, "I said to them, 'If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if not, never mind!'" Obviously, he expected them to undervalue his infinite worth. So what happens? It says, "...they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my wages." That's the amount paid for a male or female slave who had been gored by an ox, Exodus 21 verse 32. And by the way, they would stone the ox that did it. The point here is this is just a shameless insult. This betrays their utter disregard for the Lord Jesus. This betrays their venomous hatred of him. And isn't it interesting that this is the precise amount Judas received for betraying Jesus, as we read in Matthew 26:15. Which, again, that I want to underscore. This is another literal fulfillment of Bible prophecy given some 600 years before it happened.

We come now to the final scene of this prophetic parable, where we witness a symbolic act depicting the temporary conclusion of the good shepherd's relationship with the flock that was now ripe for judgment. And also, I might add, a preview of what would happen to Jesus' betrayer. It says in verse 13, "Then the LORD said to me, 'Throw it to the potter...'" And what we're going to see is this is ultimately where that money ended up.

Let me give you the story quickly in Matthew 27 beginning verse three.

"Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders....Hethrew the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself.

"The chief priest took the pieces of silver and said, 'It is not lawful to put them into the temple treasury, since it is the price of blood.'

"And they conferred, together and with the money bought the Potter's Field as a burial place for strangers.

"For this reason that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

"Then that which was spoken through Jeremiah the prophet, was fulfilled: 'AND THEY TOOK THE THIRTY PIECES OF SILVER, THE PRICE OF THE ONE WHO PRICE HAE BEEN SET by the sons of Israel;

"AND THEY GAVE THEM FOR THE POTTER'S FIELD, AS THE LORD DIRE3CT3ED ME.'"

So again, verse 13, "'Throw it to the potter, that magnificent price at which I was valued by them.'" It's interesting. "I," here, is first person - a first-person pronoun. This affirms now that the Messiah, the Lord Jesus, is Yahweh. This is confirmed, as well, later on in chapter 12 and verse 10. So the point is: this is the value that they placed on Yahweh. "So I took the thirty shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD." In other words, he threw it down in the house of the Lord so it would ultimately end up in the possession of a potter. And finally, having cut the first staff of Favor into pieces - again symbolizing the broken relationship between Yahweh and Israel - verse 14, "Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel."

Now bear in mind again, since the days of Jacob, Israel lacked lasting unity. Even in the days of Saul, in the days of David, in the days of Solomon, the unity was very fragile. And to this day, there is no unity among Jewish people. They fight like cats and dogs, and it's so sad; but it's not without hope, because God has promised that under the reign of the Messiah, he is going to unite the nation together. Ezekiel 37 in particular, speaks of this a day when the two staffs will permanently be united. Let me read this to you in Ezekiel 37 verse 16,

"'And you, son of man, take for yourself one stick and write on it, "For Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions"; then take another stick and write on it, "For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions."

"'Then join them for yourself one to another into one stick, that they might become one in your hand.'"

And then the prophecy continues in verse 21 and following,

"'"Thus says the Lord GOD, 'Behold, I will take the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, and I will gather them from every side and bring them into their land;

"'"'and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king will be king over all them; and they will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms.'"'"

My what an astounding promise and what glory that will bring to the Lord our God. Of course, this awaits a future fulfillment when Christ returns, when Yahweh will, "'pour out upon the house of David,'" according to Zechariah 12 and verse 10, "'and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.'"

So the message was clear to those ancient Jews returning to Babylon: the Good Shepherd is coming and that he's going to be rejected, and he will also remain faithful to all of his covenant promises. He's eventually going to bring his people to genuine repentance and faith. And sadly, to this day, the Jewish people suffer because of their unbelief. Judgment was promised, and they're continuing to experience elements of that. And it's going to get far worse during the time of the Tribulation, when, at the end, only a small remnant will come through and be saved. But the good news is the King is coming. He is preserving a remnant of these rebellious people, along with many Gentiles that he is elected by his uninfluenced will according to his grace alone.

And in closing, folks, I just want to encourage you when you look at these prophecies, I hope it animates your heart to a deeper place of worship. I pray that it causes you to say, oh, my goodness, how can God possibly predict all of these things and all of these things come true, unless he is a sovereign God, unless he is an omnipotent God, unless he is an omniscient God, unless he is a holy God; and because of all of this, all I know to do is fall on down on my face and worship him and thank you for his saving grace. And it also causes me to marvel at his word. It causes me, and I hope you, to want to know it, to meditate upon it, to proclaim it. But more importantly, it causes me to want to know Christ better and better. To be like Paul when he said that "I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." So as we look at all of this, I trust that by the power of the Spirit, these things will move you to these ends;  that you might enjoy all of the blessings that belong to those who have been saved by his grace; and let's pray that Jesus will come, and he will come quickly. Amen. Let's pray,

Father, thank you for these eternal truths. Change our lives because of them. Thank you that you are a holy God, but you are also a loving and compassionate God, and therefore you will maintain justice and integrity in your holiness. Thank you for your faithfulness to us. Continue to grow us in the grace and the knowledge of Christ. And for those that may not know you, that might be within the sound of my voice, I pray that you will overwhelm them with conviction, and that today will be the day that they bow the knee to Christ and cry out for undeserved mercy, repenting of their sins and embracing him as their only hope of salvation. I pray this to the praise of his glory. Amen.