Will you take your Bibles and turn to the prophecy of Zechariah. We will continue to look at the introduction that I want to present to you in Zechariah one, verses one through six. This is actually the second part of this introduction. And certainly, may I remind you that my responsibility to you is to be the voice of the Lord on his behalf; that you might have the mind of Christ and that he might be exalted in your life. Also, that you might be protected from sin and to enjoy the fullness of all of the blessings that are ours in Christ. And the key to this is the systematic interpretation exposition of Scripture, so that we might know what God has said and apply it to our lives. And now, in the providence of God, we find ourselves beginning this study of Zechariah, where we will look at it verse by verse over the next many months. It's sometimes called the apocalypse of the Old Testament. In other words, the book of Revelation of the Old Testament. Let me read the passage to you, Zechariah, one, beginning in verse one.

"In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo saying,

'The LORD was very angry with your fathers.

Therefore say to them, "Thus says The LORD of hosts, 'Return to Me,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'that I may return to you,' says the LORD of hosts. 'Do not be like your fathers to whom the former prophets proclaimed,' saying, "Thus, says the LORD of hosts," 'Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.'" 'But they did not listen or give heed to me,' declares the LORD.

'Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants the prophets, overtake your fathers? Then they repented and said, "As the LORD of hosts purposed to do to us in accordance with our ways and our deeds, so He has dealt with us."'"

We are examining this section of scripture under three real basic headings that I hope will be helpful to you. We're looking at the anger of the Lord, the mercy of the Lord and the judgment of the Lord. The last time we were together, I gave you an in-depth historical overview of the context of all of these things. But remember, Zechariah was a contemporary of Haggai, another prophet. We'll look at that more in a moment. These were God's messengers that he sent to the 50,000 Jewish exiles that returned to Judea after being in Babylonian captivity for 70 years.

By way of review, we looked at the anger of the Lord the last time. Verse two, "'The LORD was very angry with your fathers.'" And he said to them, to return and so forth. Don't be like them, etc. And as you may recall, their ancestors - in other words, the exiles - are looking back now at their ancestors, and they realize that they yielded to the satanic ideologies and practices of their pagan neighbors; they conformed to the surrounding cultures, rather than confronting those cultures and remaining separate from them, and they gradually encountered the cultural abominations of polytheistic idolatry, that of the Canaanites. And we read, for example, what the main problems were with those cultures in Deuteronomy 18 verses nine through 12. They are called the detestable things of those nations, and he warned them not to practice those things. But unfortunately, they, little by little, succumbed to the culture.

May I remind you of what they were? Number one, the sacrificing of children and the fire to appease Molech, which included all manner of gross sexual perversions that would be part of their pagan rituals. They practiced witchcraft, seeking to determine the will of God by examining and interpreting omens and dreams and so forth. They practiced soothsaying, which was basically attempting to control the future through the power of evil spirits.  They interpreted omens; they looked at various things to somehow tell the future based upon signs. They practiced sorcery; inducing magical effects by drugs and other potions that they would make up. They conjured spells; they would pronounce spells on people, and demons would help carry those spells out. They were mediums; one who supposedly would communicate to the dead, and they would communicate with someone, but it wasn't the deceased, it was demons. And then there were spiritists that were intimately acquainted with the demonic, with the dead, and they would call upon the dead investigating things from the dead, so to speak, to try to understand various things that they would want to do or hear. And of course, all of these types of things are common in our culture today, because Satan continues to cause us to believe these lies.

And then later on, we find Solomon comes along and he disobeys the Lord. In First Kings 11 one, it says, "Solomon loved many foreign women." Big, big problem. And we read that he had 700 wives and princesses, "....Egyptian, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian and Hittite." And he had 300 concubines. And his wives led him astray. First Kings 11, beginning at verse four, "When Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of his father David had been." And we looked as well as well in Isaiah five, where we have the sins of Judah that God cursed them for; and by the way, they are the same types of things that we see today in our culture, which explains the moral degradation and free fall that we are experiencing as God has abandoned us to the consequences of our wickedness. Those things included six woes, greedy materialism, drunken dissipation and a party lifestyle, defiant debauchery, where they flaunted their immorality and taunted dared God to judge them. They redefined morality, calling evil good and good evil. They celebrated their gross immoralities, "being wise in their own eyes, clever in their own sight." They had corrupt leaders, drunken authorities and judges who would justify the wicked for a bribe and take away the rights of the ones who were in the right. And of course, all of this continued to lead them away from the Word of God and the proclamations of the prophets, and it produced within them an apathy towards God; and as a result of that, God judged them. First, the northern kingdom of Israel was brutally conquered by the Assyrians. The atrocities that they committed against the people are beyond anything that you can imagine. And then a little bit later, the southern kingdom of Judah fell to the Babylonians. And Jeremiah prophesied the length of their captivity in Jeremiah 25 verse 11, he said, "This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon 70 years." And that 70-year captivity was calculated based upon the violation of the Sabbath rest for the land that was required of them that's articulated in Leviticus 26. The exact number of the violated Sabbaths were 490 which would have been from about the period of Saul all the way to the Babylonian captivity. And that probably began around the fourth year of King Jehoiakim, when Jerusalem was first captured, and the treasures of the temple were taken out. And it ended with the decree of Cyrus that would allow them to return.

And what I want you to see, dear friends, is what a reminder we have here that God is serious about his standards of holiness. He is serious about what he says in His Word, regardless of how the culture will mock Him; and how easy it is for the culture, for the world in which we live, to begin to shape us into its image, as we are warned about in Romans 12 two. And for believers, we can very easily be seduced by the things of the world. We can begin to grieve the spirit and quench the Spirit in our life. We begin to forfeit divine blessing; and we literally begin to live in the dismal swamp of divine chastening, and everything in our life begins to deteriorate. That's what happened in those days, and it happens again today. And of course, for nonbelievers and especially for pretend Christians, it results in a permanent hardening of the heart; a resolute rejection of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and the truths of his word. And often that will lead to an unwitting apostasy that Jesus warns about in Matthew seven, where he says that, "'Not everybody who calls me LORD, will enter the kingdom.'" And sometimes it's a witting, deliberate apostasy that can exclude the possibility of repentance, as we read about in the unregenerate Jewish people that rejected the Gospel in Hebrews six. And Jesus made it clear in Matthew seven that the tragic fate of the majority ofpeople who call themselves followers of Christ, who call themselves Christians, will be that they will be ruled by their flesh, they will love the world, they'll be blinded by Satan, and they will never inherit the kingdom. And so often this is the result of false teachers. And they had the false teachers in those ancient days like we have them today; false prophets.

In fact, Peter reminds us of what they're like here in our church age. In Second Peter two, beginning in verse 18, he says, "For speaking out arrogant words of vanity, they entice by fleshly desires, by sensuality, those who barely escape from the ones who live in error, promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome by this he is enslaved. For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last State has become worse for them than the first. For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, 'A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,' and, 'A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.'"

Well, sadly, this was the fate of most of the Jewish people in the Old Testament, and later on, most of the Jewish and Gentiles in the New Testament. And again, very often, professing believers who have a knowledge of the gospel, can entangle themselves in the things of the world, and they can become like Peter described, "Dogs that return to their own vomit," and pigs wallowing in the mud.

So, God warns the returning exiles, do not follow the rebellious footsteps of your ancestors, even as he warns us today. Verse four, "'Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets proclaim,' saying, "Thus says, the Lord of hosts, 'Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.' But they did not listen or give heed to Me," declares the LORD.'" And of course, we know, as a result, they experienced the curses that he promised in Deuteronomy 28 verses, 15 and following which, in varying ways, are still in effect on the Jewish people in Israel today and will continue until they repent and place their trust in the Messiah, when the Lord returns.

And again, may I encourage you to guard your heart, your mind. Folks, this is so, so subtle. This is how it works; you begin to tolerate little sins in your life. You begin to ignore certain things in Scripture. And you find something out here that you think, "Oh, I like what that preacher said, yeah, it may not be exactly what the Bible says, but that makes sense to me" And you begin to compromise a little here and a little there, and then you begin to teach these things to your family, even if it's just by living them out. And your family starts to conform themselves to the wicked ways that you are adopting. And then that moves to the community, and then it eventually moves to the entire nation. But it always begins with just a little compromise, and little by little, what happens is, we begin to drift away from the word and the will of God, and we begin to embrace things that are dishonoring to him. We begin to pursue the fleeting pleasures of this world, and we start to think like, and act like, and look like the ungodly people in the world. And of course, Romans, one tells us how that will end. It will move down through everything from gross immorality, down to God giving people over to a reprobate, that is, a depraved, worthless mind that will believe things that are utterly insane. And that's where we're at today. The whole transgender insanity is a prime example of that. Folks, sin is intoxicating, and because everybody's doing it, and nobody wants to be isolated and rejected, many times, what happens is we just kind of fall in to the way of the world; kind of a social interconnectedness begins to form within a culture. It's kind of a group think. And don't you see that today with the whole...we saw it, for example, with the whole coronavirus craziness. And then with the woke crowd that we have today.

The secularists, by the way, call this destructive phenomenon, "mass formation." In fact, the social and psychological dynamics necessary for any kind of totalitarian rule to take root, like cultural Marxism in our country today, depends upon this. They have to promote propaganda to begin to get you to think their way. They begin to indoctrinate you through government, through media, certainly through our public schools and colleges. They gaslight you. They cancel you if you disagree with them, to try to silence opposition. And while the secularists may call it "mass formation," what God would call it is "mass depravity;" where people begin to all think alike; a manifestation of the wrath of divine abandonment, whereby God lifts his restraining grace upon individuals and communities and nations and allows them to live out the wickedness of their heart and succumb to the temptations of the enemy. And we see this so rampant in our culture today.

Well, this is what happens when individuals harden their heart and eventually, the leaven of sin influences the whole lump of a person's life, their family, their community, their nation, and God abandons them to their wickedness and judges them. This is what happened to the ancient Jewish people, the wrath of divine abandonment. And then he brings in the Assyrians to the north and the Babylonians to the south. And ultimately, his wrath continues in an eternal hell. So that's a bit of review about the anger of the Lord.

But now let's look at the mercy of the Lord. Aren't you thankful that he is merciful, that He is gracious, that he is long suffering? Notice verse two, "'The LORD was very angry with your fathers. Therefore say to them, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Return to Me,' declares the LORD of hosts, 'that I may return to you,' says the LORD of hosts.'" And folks, here we see his mercy being manifested, really, in two ways: first in his call to repentance, and secondly, and we have to look kind of beyond this passage to see this, but the second reason is that he commands them to rebuild the temple, which I'll explain in a moment.

But first of all, notice his call to repentance. He wants them to return to him. My what a merciful invitation, a call to repentance. You see, God's warnings are always an act of mercy, showing us his desire to bless us and to be in fellowship with us rather than to judge us. And I might point out that there's a word play here in verses three and four, Israel is called to return to the one true God in humble obedience, that he might return to them in intimate fellowship and blessing rather than judgment, but if they refuse, then they're going to return to their land in shame and misery and in sorrow. The same principles apply today. In fact, as I was meditating upon this passage, my mind went to the loveless orthodoxy of the church at Ephesus that we read about in Revelation two. You remember that? Paul brought the gospel to Ephesus, and some of us were just there not too many months ago to see these things; to see the ruins. He did this at the close of his second missionary journey in AD 52 and you will recall, he left Priscilla and Aquila to continue the ministry, and they met the mighty, Old Testament preacher, Apollos, that co-ministered with them. And then on Paul's third missionary journey, he returned, and he spent three years with these dear people, establishing the church, and many idol worshipers came to Christ. And remember, idol makers were furious because they weren't able to sell as many idols, and they threw him out of town. And later, while a prisoner in Rome, Paul writes them a letter, and eventually left Timothy in charge of the church. So Ephesus was kind of the mother church of all of the others. And they what they did is they unwittingly abandoned their love for Christ. Revelation two beginning in verse two, he says, "I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance." By the way, the possessive pronoun "your" is singular, something that you can't see in the English; it's unable to express in our English language won't express this. But this indicates that ultimately, the Lord is addressing the pastor, the pastor who is responsible for the spiritual life of the church that he is shepherding. "I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false. And you have perseverance, and have endured for My name's sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love, therefore remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first, or else, I'm coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place unless you repent." Notice the phrase, "You have left your first love." The term "left" in the original carries the idea of abandonment. You have abandoned, you have forsaken. You've laid aside. You've departed from your first love, that agape love. That selfless, sacrificial love that chooses to love without reciprocation; a love that initiates, not one that merely reciprocates. And what is the first love that he's speaking of? It's that passionate love, that fervent love, like that chaste and pure love of the newly wedded bride and groom. You have forsaken that; you've replaced that with something else. And this is what happens unfortunately in many marriages.

But this is what happened to the ancient Israelites - if I can go back and forth to help you see the parallels. They departed from the place where they had originally been, their passionate love for Yahweh had been replaced with a mechanical, dead orthodoxy, bereft of love for God. And their service to the Lord had become a greater priority than an intimate fellowship with him. Their worship had become emotionless and just perfunctory, obligatory. Worship that just a duty rather than a desire; a habit, more than a passion. What should have been first had now become secondary. And as a result, there they became increasingly vulnerable to the values and the lifestyles of the pagan culture, and they drifted into their idolatry and their immorality, and this is what happened in Ephesus. It's interesting. 40 years had elapsed from those first days. The second generation took over, and everything handed down to them was kind of no big deal. They didn't appreciate what God had done, they took things for granted, and a cold fog of mechanical, perhaps dead, orthodoxy enveloped that church, and some were unregenerate tares amongst the wheat. Others were saved, but they didn't possess a deep love for Christ.

And so he tells them, I want you to do three things. I want you to remember, repent and return. It's the same type of dynamic that he's telling the exiles. I want you to remember and repent and return. Verse five of Revelation two, "Remember from where you have fallen and repent and do the deeds you did at first..." "Remember," the grammar indicates, keep on remembering. Don't ever forget from where you have fallen. It's the perfect tense. So it indicates that this decline has occurred over a long period of time. And this is what God was saying to the returning exiles, and obviously what he says to each of us, and we must all guard ourselves against this unwitting departure, because every time you look at a screen, every time you turn on television, every time you go to work, every time you interact with people all around you, what are they doing, unwittingly and perhaps wittingly, they are drawing you away from the purposes of God. We have to guard against that. This is the great danger of the sophisticated deceptions of Satan and false teachers. I'm constantly reminded, as I pray for each of you, on a daily basis of what Paul said in Second Corinthians 11 three, "I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, that your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." And this is why John tells us in First John two, beginning in verse 15, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world." In other words, do not have an affection, or a devotion, to the things in the world. The world here, the "cosmos."  The satanically controlled systems that operate all around us; the invisible, spiritual world that is ruled by Satan and his demons that promote the values and the beliefs and the morals contrary to the word and the will of God. All of these things are designed to lead us into rebellion against God, to blind us from the great truths of the gospel that we might be saved, and to enslave us in our lusts. "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him for all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world."

So again, the Jewish ancestors of the exiles failed miserably in this regard. But according to His great mercy and grace, God's calling them back, "return to Me" in repentance. But the mercy of the Lord can also be seen in his command to rebuild the temple. Here's where I'll introduce you, just briefly, to Haggai. First let me take you to Ezra, okay, just for a moment. You remember, if you read in Ezra, the enemies of Judah opposed the exiles from rebuilding the temple. And the old people who remembered Solomon's temple saw what they were building,and the text says that they "wept aloud" when they saw the foundation of the house of the Lord being laid because it didn't come close to comparing to the matchless splendor of Solomon's temple destroyed some 50 years earlier. So, construction stopped because of the fierce opposition of their enemies, which included especially the mongrel race of the Samaritans that now lived there.

By the way, the Samaritans were basically ancestors from the Babylonians and the Assyrians; they were colonists that settled the area. This included many that the Assyrian king Sargon the Second had conquered. And these people intermarried with a lot of the Jewish women that escaped the original deportation. And so they blended, you know, the syncretistic worship, all of the pagan idolatry, a lot of the same type of stuff you see even in evangelicalism today. And they had this superstitious blend of Judaism and paganism. And the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other, so the Samaritans tried to stop them from building the temple. And so, for 16 years, what did the people do? They decided to focus on building their own homes. So, God sent Haggai to communicate his frustration to the people. Haggai one, beginning in verse four, he says, "'Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses while this house lies desolate? Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, "Consider your ways! You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied."'" In other words, God is judging them for this. "'You drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put it into a purse with holes.' Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Consider your ways!'" Again, a call to repentance.

And he goes on to say, "'Go up to the mountains, bring wood and rebuild the temple, that I may be pleased with it and be glorified,' says the Lord." And then God describes his judgment for their disobedience. He says, "'You look for much, but behold, it comes to little; when you bring it home, I blow it away. Why?' declares the LORD of hosts, 'because of My house, which lies desolate, while each of you runs to his own house. Therefore, because of you, the sky has withheld its dew, and the Earth has withheld its produce. I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains, on the grain, on the new wine, on the oil, on what the ground produces, on men, on cattle, and on all the labor of your hands.'" In other words, your priorities are out of whack here. You're not listening to me, and so I'm chastening you. He's calling them to repentance and obedience.

And then the Lord encouraged them in verse 13 of chapter one, and said, "'I am with you.'" And he goes on, and he promised that while the Temple of Solomon would indeed be far inferior, nevertheless, he urged them to be courageous. He assured them of his presence and his protection, and he promised that he would be faithful to his covenant blessings. He went on to say that that an exceedingly greater, more glorious temple is going to be built in the future in verses six through nine. In fact, let me read this in Haggai two, beginning in verse six, "'For thus says the LORD of hosts, "Once more in a little while, I am going to shake the heavens and the earth, the sea, also in the dry land."'" Here, by the way, he's speaking of the second coming. "'"I will shake all the nations, and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory," says the LORD of hosts. "The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine," declares the LORD of hosts. "The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former," says the Lord of hosts, "and in this place I will give peace," declares the LORD of hosts.'" And of course, we have a detailed description of the millennial temple in Ezekiel chapters 40 through 48, and that will be built by the Lord in the millennial reign when Christ returns to this earth. And that millennial kingdom will be the consummating bridge between human history and the eternal state. It will be that time when the Lord will finally rule and reign upon this wicked earth with his glorified saints and the kingdoms of the world that have opposed him will finally be overthrown.

Now, this is why it was so important to rebuild the temple. It's because number one, this was where God dwelt among his people in that day; this is where they offered sacrifices. By doing so, the Old Testament believer identified himself outwardly with the covenant God, and with the covenant people. And sacrifices would temporarily satisfy the just wrath against them and point them ultimately to a final and a perfect sacrifice; none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the need for a temple in God's plan of redemption was exceedingly important, and it has been all throughout redemptive history. You will remember that it began, first of all, with a tabernacle in 1444, BC, with Moses. It was a mobile temple, you might say. And then that eventually, in the nine hundreds, turned into Solomon's temple. It was planned by David, and later on it was, it was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC. And then Zerubbabel's temple, that we're talking about them building now, that was started really in about 516 BC. And that was later destroyed by Antiochus Epiphanes in 169 BC. And then you have Herod's temple, which was basically a restoration of Zerubbabel's temple and an expansion of that, that was built some 500 years later, and then the Romans come along in 70 ad, and they destroy that. But where's the temple now? Well, presently, you're looking at it right here. He's dwelling within believers, the hearts of believers, and he will continue to do that until the Lord returns.

But we also know there will be a tribulation temple. It will be constructed by the Jews. The Antichrist will allow that to happen, and it will be desecrated and destroyed. And then there will be the millennial temple that will be constructed by the Messiah, as I just mentioned, by the way, in Zechariah six, we will read more about that. And then finally, there will be a heavenly temple. There will be an eternal temple of the Lord's presence. It will be a spiritual temple where the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb, will dwell. And we read about that in Revelation 21 and 22. And these last two temples, beloved, that are yet future, were a second reason why it was so important for the exiles to build the temple, even if it was inferior, and that's because he wanted to animate their hearts with the promises of coming glory. I mean, folks, if you have no hope, you have no hope. How miserable we would be. And all of this was part of God's plan and purposes for Israel, both then and in the future. And for this reason, he raised up Zechariah to ignite the hearts of the people both then and now. So he speaks the revelation of God concerning the future glory of the Messiah's reign, as we will see as we get into this, his reign upon the earth, and therefore, how their humble temple points to the glorious, future temple where Christ will rule and reign.

I might add as a footnote, but probably a very important one, there is a parallel here with the way Christ is building his visible church today. When you think about it, the visible Church of which we are a part is far from perfect. It has a lot of inferior, components to it. It lacks in purity and power. But isn't it interesting that it is being sanctified by the power of the Spirit, and it reveals the presence of the Lord in this dark world, and it is pointing to a glorious future kingdom. So we see that even now. So, o, the mercy of the Lord towards his stubborn people; he calls them to repentance, and he commands them to rebuild the temple.

And then finally, and we will close with this. This morning, we see the judgment of the Lord. He says, "'Do not be like your fathers to whom the former prophets proclaim, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts, 'Return now from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.'"'" By the way, thisis at the very heart of the gospel, the good news that we as sinful people can be reconciled to a holy God. We have to repent and we have to believe both are gifts from God. What did Jesus preach at the beginning of his ministry? We read about it, for example, in Matthew four and verse seven, his very first word was, "'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. '"And as we look at repentance biblically, we see that repentance includes a brokenness over sin for having offended a holy God, and a longing to be restored to fellowship with him and to enjoy the fullness of his blessings. It is a turning away from sin that we cannot do apart from the empowering work of the Spirit of God. It's a conscious, determined change of direction. It is a surrender to the will of Christ. And that happens when he literally causes us to be raised from spiritual death to spiritual life, and he, by his power, changes the very desires of our heart. Second Corinthians 7:10, Paul describes it as that, "sorrow that is according to the will of God, that produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation."

But not only is there repentance, there must be faith, which is that gift of God that causes the soul to turn to God and trust in the person and in the work of Christ to provide forgiveness, to provide righteousness, to provide eternal life. Please understand that repentance and faith make up the single act of conversion. And in Zechariah one in verse four at the end, he tells us, "'But they did not listen or give heed to Me, declares the Lord." How sad. Like so many people today, they hear the gospel, and they think it's silly, they reject it. But then in verse five, he says, "'Your fathers, where are they?'" Obviously, they're dead. They've been dead a long time ago. "'And the prophets, do they live forever?'" Obviously not, even God's faithful servants die. But where he's going here is, the threats of divine judgment that they prophesied, they don't die. In other words, he's telling them, don't think for one minute that what was prophesied in the past is dead and forgotten. Don't think for one minute that the word of God somehow kind of peters out. No, no. It lives on. The prophetic words of divine judgment that were uttered to their fathers did not die with them. So he's telling them, Do not turn a deaf ear to my warnings, lest you suffer the same fate.

In verse six, "'But did not My words and My statutes statutes…" here is a term referring to the determined purposes of God to punish sin, "...did not My words and My statutes, which I commanded My servants, the prophets, overtake your fathers?'" Didn't that happen? Overtake is an interesting term. It was a metaphorical hunting term, and it implies the unstoppable judgment of God, pursuing and overcoming those who think that they can run away from God in rebellion and get away with it apart from judgment. But notice says, "'Then they repented and said, "As the LORD of hosts purposed to do to us in accordance with our ways and our deeds, so He has dwelt with us."'" As the Lord of hosts purposed. This term is fascinating. It carries with it, the idea of a a predetermined plan that was decreed in eternity past. And what he's saying here is that God's promised decreed judgments are perfectly timed and perfectly just. And he's essentially saying to them, "Hey, folks, look, you've just returned from exile, surely you can see how God pursued your ancestors. So don't trifle with God's words. Don't trifle with his warnings. Don't neglect his call to repentance and faith and obedience. Return to me, the one true God. Do this in humble obedience that I might return to you in intimate fellowship and blessing, because I long to lavish my love and blessings upon you. But if you refuse, you are going to return to the land in defeat and misery and shame and sorrow." Dear Christian, please hear me. Do not be deceived, whatever you sow, you're going to reap right? So hear the words of the Lord, whatever they might be in his word, apply them to your life; know the word, know the will of God. Meditate upon them and live them out. And as a result, he will reward you. He will bless you. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fear his word, as we read in Isaiah 66 God says, essentially, Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. What can you do to impress me? The answer is nothing. But to this one, I will look, to Him who is humble and contrite of heart, and who trembles at my word. And folks, you must tremble at his word.

If you're here without Christ and you're living consistently with the wicked ways of the world, the only thing that will change your heart is the Spirit of God who will bring conviction to it. And know this, that the wrath of God abides upon you, and you will die in your sin unless you repent, and unless God does a miraculous work of grace. And I plead with you to do business with God if you haven't already, because a day is coming, as Jesus said in Matthew 13, beginning in verse 41 when, "'The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.'"

Please hear me, I have friends and I have loved ones who are in hell right now. Some of them are weeping because they realized what they have done and the hopelessness of their situation. And there are others who are gnashing their teeth in absolute fury that God would dare judge them the way he is. The reason he does this is because he is holy beyond anything that we can possibly imagine. I hear people talk about, well, I can't believe God would send anybody to hell. That's because you don't understand the holiness of God. And frankly, I don't either. It's beyond anything I can...you know, the thing I think of is, can any of you create a strand of DNA? Can any of you create an eyeball? Can any of you create a circulatory system or hang the stars in the sky? No. Folks, we are an atom on an amoeba's hind end, when you think about us in comparison to God. And do you really think we're going to dare judge God because his standard of justice doesn't jive with ours? How dare we do that? So I plead with you. You must come to a saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and God will save you, as he's done with so many. I'm going to close in prayer. We're going to sing, have a benediction, and then anybody that wants to leave you can, but we're going to stay another, maybe 5-10, minutes to hear the testimonies of the seven people to be baptized, then we’re going to go out and we're going to do that. So let's pray right now and then we'll sing, okay?

Father, thank you for this time together. Thank you for the power of your word. Speak to our hearts. May the truths of your word bear much fruit to the praise of your glory. I pray in Jesus' name and for his glory. Amen.