Joseph Shulam: Zechariah - Hope Beyond Exile - Part 1
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. We started with the Minor Prophets, and we have arrived at the book of Zechariah. That is the 11th book of the 12 books of the Minor Prophets. They are called Minor Prophets because most of them are short. They could be from one chapter, like Obadiah, and they could be with two chapters and three chapters. Haggai is two chapters for example, and many of the others are three chapters. Zechariah is the longest of the Minor Prophets. It has 14 chapters, and it's a very interesting book. The reason that it's interesting is because Zechariah gives us the dates on which some of those events happened, which is unusual. We can pinpoint the dates exactly when he wrote, when he had the visions, and during which king's period this book is taking shape.
Zechariah prophesied in the 6th century BCE, before the Christian Era or the Common Era, and he gives us the date directly, as in verse 1 of Zechariah chapter 1:
"In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying..."
So, we have the name of the emperor, Darius the Great, and we have the month and we have the year that this prophecy is being recorded or happened in the life of Zechariah. We know the name of his father, the name of his grandfather, and the name of the king in whose time he prophesied. The secular date, this would be the year 520 BC. And we could say the exact date that this prophecy was delivered to Zechariah, the son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.
Now, the book of Zechariah is directly related to the book of Haggai for several reasons. First of all, they prophesied about the same time, in the same place, in the same period, and dealing with some of the same problems. Except the book of Haggai is two chapters, and the book of Zechariah is 14 chapters. And they are both what's called post-exilic books. In other words, it's after the exile of the children of Israel to Babylon. So they are after the exile, post-exilic. Together with the post-exilic books that we have, Ezra, Nehemiah, the most famous ones, we have Haggai, and we have Malachi, and Zechariah.
These are the Jews that were probably born during the 70 years of Babylonian exile. And by that time, Babylonia was already conquered by the Persians. And this is the time of Darius the king. And these Jewish boys in exile have come to Israel, and they have established both a spiritual entity, rebuilt and rededicated and re-established the priesthood and the temple in Jerusalem. And they had also a political entity. Zerubbabel, that was from the house of David, according to tradition, was the political ruler, and a priest called Joshua was a descendant of the Levites, and he was the priest that officiated in the temple. But he had Messianic, how should I say, inclinations, and kind of symbolized the Messiah that is going to come several centuries later, born in Bethlehem, raised in Nazareth, crucified in Jerusalem. And his name is also Yeshua.
So, what do we have? We have here a book that is divided into two sections: chapter 1 to 8 and chapter 9 to 14. And we're going to teach this book in two sessions as well, from chapter 1 to chapter 8. And of course, we can't cover every aspect of the book in the minutes that are allowed to us to share with Brad TV and our brothers and sisters in Korea and around the world, but we're going to do our best because there are some very, very important things that happen and that relate to us in the book of Zechariah.
Israel is returning home from the Babylonian exile. Obviously, not all the people, obviously not the people that went to the Babylonian exile 70 years earlier, but their children, sometimes their grandchildren. And they are supported by the Persian royal house, and they are sent back to the land of their forefathers and to Jerusalem with money and with the authority of the Persian Empire. And why would the Persian Empire, and Darius specifically, want to do that, to send the Jews back to their own land that was given to Abraham, to Isaac, and Jacob in the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, long, long time before?
The reason is this: Persia became an empire, and the other empire in the Middle East was Egypt, and it was there for a long, long time. But the land of Israel controlled two of the major highways of the ancient worlds: El Camino Real, that is the Royal Highway, the King's Highway, that crossed from Egypt across the Negev Desert to the other side of the Dead Sea and up the Jordan River, and then connected with the road to Damascus, and the Way of the Sea, that went from Egypt along the sea coast of the Mediterranean and arrived to Mount Carmel, turned east through the Valley of Jezreel and under the Sea of Galilee, connected to the same highway to Damascus, and from there, of course, to the rest of the Mesopotamian fertile crescent.
So, Darius wanted people who are faithful to him, who he sent and he financed, to control this part of the country in order to control the highway. That's why he sent the Jews, the Israelites, to the land of their forefathers and gave them money to restore the temple and to rebuild Jerusalem and the country so that they would be kind of the front guard from any problems with Egypt and Africa that would want to control that very strategic thing called the two highways, major highways between three continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe. It has very important strategic value to control the highways.
So, Zechariah, a prophet probably born in Babylon, sent over here to this land, and he receives visions. God reveals to Zechariah, in visions the things that he is concerned with in Israel. The first vision is already in the first chapter, and I'm going to read it for you. The words of the Lord to Zechariah, from verse 5 and verse 6:
"Your fathers, where are they now? And the prophets, do they live forever? Yet surely my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers?"
In other words, your forefathers, the prophets of Israel, they died, but the words that I gave them, they survived more than your fathers.
"So they returned and said, 'Just as the Lord of hosts determined to do to us, according to our own ways, according to our deeds, so He has dealt with us.'"
In other words, this is kind of a declaration that God gives to Zechariah, a commission, if you wish. And he says, "Listen, the prophets are dispensable. They come, they prophesy, they speak, they die, but my words, the things that I promised your forefathers from my prophets, they are now in vogue. They are now in action. What you are seeing happening now is not only by the grace of Darius the Great, the king, the emperor, but it is because I promised it to your forefathers. I told your forefathers that if they're unfaithful, they will go out to exile, and I told them that I will return them from the exile. So what you are seeing now is not because of the prophets. It's because I am keeping my promises to your people."
That's the opening shot of the book of Zechariah, the person who is appointed by God to carry the messages of God to the people of Israel upon their return back to the land. So again, we have the date, in verse 7 of Zechariah 1, on the 24th day of the 11th month, which is the month of Shevat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, the son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo the prophet:
"I saw by night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse, and it stood among the myrtle trees in the hollow, in the valley, and behind him were horses, red, sorrel, and white. Then I said, 'My lord, what are these?' So the angel who talked with me said to me, 'I will show you what these are.' And the man who stood among the myrtle trees answered and said, 'These are the ones whom the Lord has sent to walk to and fro throughout the earth.' So they answered the angel of the Lord who stood among the myrtle trees and said, 'We have walked to and fro throughout the earth, and behold, all the earth is resting quietly.'"
In other words, the earth's okay, it's resting quietly. We have gone around, there is no alarm. The earth is resting quietly. Now, we have the exact date in which this prophecy comes to Zechariah the prophet. We have it on the second year of Darius, and the month and the date are given to us in verse 7 of chapter 1. If we translate that to our calendar, it would be December the 18th, 520 BCE. That in itself is an amazing and interesting fact. That is rare even among the major classical prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and the other classical prophets. We have the exact date that this vision came to Zechariah. Now the question is here: What does this vision mean? What is God trying to say to Zechariah, that is relevant for us?
So the first thing that I want to say: Zechariah, Haggai, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Malachi are post-exilic. We are today the land of Israel. We are post-exilic. We are the first generations after two thousand years of exile, like these men that are mentioned in the text of the book of Zechariah. Most of us were born in exile. I was born in Bulgaria. The brother standing in front of me and recording this video was born in Israel, but his parents and grandparents were not born in Israel. Most of the population of Israel, when I was growing up in my neighborhood, had no one born in Israel.
In the 1950s, when I was a child, my class at elementary school had hardly anybody born in Israel. We had people born in Persia, people born in Yemen, people born in Poland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and England. Yes, we are post-exilic ourselves. So whatever we're reading here in Zechariah, God's prophetic promises to Zechariah for his day in some ways are appealing to us as well. We can understand the difficulties and the challenges that Zechariah and the people of Israel were facing in his generation. We still have the same enemies that opposed Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah, and Haggai. We have the Arab neighbors that oppose the return of the Jews from Persian exile and Babylonian exile then; and the same Arab neighbors are opposing us today.
At that time, they had to build the walls of Jerusalem and the temple, restoring them with one hand holding the sword and the other hand holding the trowel for the building. We have similar challenges today, dear brothers and sisters. But here comes this story of the angel of the Lord revealing to Zechariah a red horseman or a man on a red horse in a valley, a deep ravine, a deep valley that has myrtle trees in it. He is a messenger of God that is sent to go to and fro on the face of the Earth and report what's happening on the earth. He comes back and says, "Oh wow, the Earth's fine. It's resting quietly." The problem is not in the Earth. The problem is with the people that have returned from the exile in Jerusalem. That's where the problem is.
Now, this prophet Zechariah is fascinating, and I want to take just a few more minutes to discuss the vision that God is revealing to Zechariah in the rest of chapter one. We may have to do more than one session, more than two sessions about Zechariah because of its importance. I'm reading now from chapter one, verse 13 on down to verse 17 of chapter 1 of Zechariah:
"And the Lord answered the angel who talked to me with good and comforting words. So the angel spoke with me and said to me, 'Proclaim, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am zealous for Jerusalem and for Zion with great zeal. I am exceedingly angry with the nations at ease, for I was a little angry, and they helped—but with evil intent." Therefore thus says the Lord: "I am returning to Jerusalem with mercy; my house shall be built in it," says the Lord of hosts, "and the surveyor's line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem." Again proclaim, saying, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: 'My cities shall again spread out through prosperity; the Lord will again comfort Zion and will again choose Jerusalem.'"'
This is a very encouraging prophecy in the days of Zechariah because they faced some of the same problems that we face today after returning to Jerusalem from exile. God is assuring Zechariah that He cares for Jerusalem and for Zion and that the restoration in Jerusalem and Zion is at the height of His priority. I believe it was then the height of His priority and today the height of His priority. Why is it today? Because the Messiah ascended to Heaven from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, and the promise is that the Messiah is going to descend back to Jerusalem. So God cares about Jerusalem as much now as He did then because Jerusalem is the city of the great King. It's the seat of the Messiah.
Now, what is this issue of the myrtle trees? Myrtle trees appear in several of the prophetic visions in the Bible. They appear in several texts in Isaiah and in the other prophets in relationship to other trees. The other trees are all useful; we could make furniture out of them, weapons out of them, and do all kinds of things with the other trees, whether it's an oak, a terebinth, or some of the other trees. They are useful. But the myrtle tree is not a useful tree. What is the advantage of the myrtle tree? It doesn't have any fruit. You can't make furniture out of it, but it smells good.
In the texts that come from Isaiah and from the other prophets that have the myrtle tree in them, the function of the myrtle tree is symbolizing the presence of the Holy Spirit, the good smell. Why is this so? Because the spirit in Hebrew is "ruach." The Holy Spirit is "ruach hakodesh," and smell is "reach." It is the same Hebrew root, and "reach" and "ruach" are the same root. That's why the myrtle tree appears in these visions.
Please read at least a few chapters from the beginning of Zechariah, or read the whole Zechariah—it's only 14 chapters—and be prepared for the next lessons of Zechariah, which every one of them is going to be fascinating. God bless you and bring you closer with the good smell of the Spirit of God in your life.
Joseph Shulam: Zechariah - Hope Beyond Exile - Part 2
Read the transcript below, or watch a video of the teaching by Joseph Shulam.
Shalom. This is the second lesson on the prophet Zechariah. Why was the lesson divided into two? Because Zechariah is naturally divided into two parts by the content and the vision of the Prophet.
Chapters 1 through 7 is a lot of hard condemnation and judgment on Israel for its sin and God's Wrath that takes Israel to Exile to Babylon. The second half of Zechariah is the opposite. It is God's care and Promises of rebuilding and restoration and the Nations and their part in God's scheme of redemption not only for Israel but for the whole world.
So we did the first part in the first session, and this is the second session on Zechariah that we will start with Zechariah Chapter 8. Hopefully, we'll be able to discuss the main points and the highlights of chapter 8 to 14 in the prophet Zechariah. But I want to start with the very opening of chapter 8 of Zechariah, verse 1: The word of the Lord or the word Jehovah in Hebrew, the God of the hosts of Heaven, came to me, saying:
"'I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and with great Fury am I jealous for her.'"
Wow, that's great news, that's wonderful news! The God that condemned Jerusalem and Zion and the leadership and the priests and the Kings and the prophets themselves for their dishonesty, for their unfaithfulness, for their idolatry, for their hypocrisy, now right in the middle of the book says, "Oh, don't think that I have abandoned Zion, don't think that I'm finished with Israel, finished with the Jews, no, I am very zealous, very jealous for Zion!"
In verse 2:
"I have been jealous for Zion with great jealousy, but also with great wrath, fury in this jealousy."
Look, I'm a father of two children, a son and a daughter, they're in their 50s now, and there were periods when they were in their upper years of being teenagers that I was also jealous for them, cared for them, loved them, but also had some anger with them. That's a normal parent. There is no parent that is a good parent that doesn't have chapters in his life and his relationship with his children that he is not happy, not happy with the choices they make, not happy with the way they walk before the Lord. God is our Father, Father of Israel first of all, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, God of the whole world, but has chosen Abraham and his seed, a very special Choice as his prized possession, and he says, "Yes, true, I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, but also some anger, some fury in this jealousy for my children, for the people of Jerusalem, the people of Israel."
"But I promise", God says in verse 3:
"That I will return to Zion and I will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem will be called the city of Truth, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain."
Ah, I have goosebumps going through my whole body every time I read this text because we're waiting for this. For the Christians I can say this, 90% of all the eschatological texts in the New Testament have relationships with Isaiah and Zechariah, but also with the other prophets of Jeremiah, Amos, but the bulk of the eschatological material in the New Testament is related to Zechariah, Isaiah, Amos, Ezekiel. I'm repeating this. God says, "I will return to Zion and I will dwell inside of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem will be called the city of Truth, the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain." I live in Jerusalem since the age of one, I live in Jerusalem, I am now almost 77 years old, and I am waiting, eagerly waiting for the return of the Lord to Zion, actively waiting, not passively, and doing everything that I can with my life and with Netiviah to enhance and speed and help and be involved in preparing Jerusalem for the Fulfillment of these promises.
Look at verse 4. We have parallels of this in Jeremiah and in Isaiah and in Ezekiel and in Amos. Zechariah is not in a vacuum. "Their old people, the old men and the old women will return to the streets of Jerusalem and eat Shawan with his Cane in his hand because of how old they are because of the days of their life, and the City of Jerusalem streets will be full of boys and girls, children playing in the streets."
Oh, my, I played in the streets of Jerusalem, my neighborhood played in the streets of Jerusalem. A couple of weeks ago, I was driving and I saw somebody crossing the road with his dog, and I recognized him as one of my childhood friends, 40 years plus, I haven't seen him, I haven't talked to him. I honked, he looked, I opened the side window, he came and said, "I said, 'Albert,'" he said, 'Drazy,' that was my nickname in the neighborhood. We all played in the streets of Jerusalem, and our children, our grandchildren playing in the streets of Jerusalem. It's a fulfillment of God's promises to Israel, and it's happening.
And it's in Jeremiah a couple of times, "The streets will be full of children playing in its streets," and in chapter 8, verse 6, "Thus said the Lord of hosts, is it something strange that the remnant of the people of those days are restored, are back to the land that I promised to their forefathers?" Now we have the text in Romans, chapter 11, verse 25 and 26, in which the Apostle Paul says in the fullness of the time of the Gentiles, all Israel will be saved.
But this is one time in the New Testament. It appears like nine times in the prophet Isaiah, and we have it here, verse 7 of chapter 8 of Zechariah:
"Thus said the Lord of hosts: I am the savior of my people from the land of the East, and from the land of the West - of the setting of the Sun. I will bring them back, and they will dwell in Jerusalem, and they will be my people, and I will be their God in truth and in righteousness."
This phrase, "They will be my people," the future tense, and "I will be their God" appears more than 20 times in the prophets, in the Hebrew prophets, in the Bible. It appears in Zechariah, appears in Ezekiel, few times like Ezekiel 37, it appears in Jeremiah 36 and 37. It is a phrase that is very interesting. Why? Because it's in the future tense, because in the future tense, Zechariah is prophesying something that is happening now, 2,750 years ago, and we are seeing it happening every day.
We're seeing Aliyah immigration every day coming from war-torn countries like Ukraine by the thousands, and Netiviah, our ministry is in the process of working to bring thousands of Believers, Jewish Believers from Brazil to make Aliyah to Jerusalem, to Israel. Yes, it's happening. God promised and He keeps His words and holds our hands in those days.
"These things that the prophets have spoken will be a foundation of the house of the Lord, and the Holy Temple will be built."
Ah, that's very interesting.
In those days, the prophet says the wages of a man and the wages of a beast of burden will not be out of proportion. It will be in such a way that the remnant of the people of Israel will be like the first days of God's relationship with Israel when He brought them out of Egypt. That's the context. It will be a seed of Shalom, of peace, "the Grapevine will give its fruit and the land will give its produce, and the skies, the heavens will give their dew and I will be the one who establishes the remnant of these people and all the rest around." What, what promises, wonderful promises.
I mean, compared to the first half of Zechariah with all condemnation, 90% condemnation, now it's 90% rebuilding, restoration. God is talking in Zechariah from chapter 8 to chapter 14 about the restoration of Israel. Verse 13:
"And as you have been a curse among the Gentiles, the house of Judah and the house of Israel, I will save you, and you will become a blessing"
and hold the hands of the Nations, relate to the Nations, that's the context, it's happening.
Christians all over the world are realizing that they have a relationship with Jerusalem or Israel, with the Jewish people much more than they have with Rome or Constantinople, much more than they have with the Church Fathers that were anti-semites, hated the Jews, hated Israel, and separated Israel from God and from His kingdom, that's not going to happen anymore according to Zechariah.
And then he describes what the Israelites are going to do in verse 16: Ye will be men of Truth, men of Truth with his neighbor, with his friend, of justice and of peace, that will be judged in your Gates and you will not think evil each of one another in your hearts and you will not have false swearing, you will love all these things.
And then he goes into the different 10 fasts that we have in the Torah and in our tradition. The Jews are sometimes, we are sometimes our worst enemies, yeah, but this is going to stop according to Zechariah, they will join together they will walk together and the Gentiles in verse 22 of chapter 8 will join us. Great Gentile Nations will want to come to Jerusalem. Isaiah chapter 2 and Isaiah 66 and other chapters in Ezekiel and in Jeremiah and in Amos that talk about this the quotation of Jacob, of Saint James in Acts chapter 15 from Amos chapter 9 verse 11 to 13 is exactly what Zechariah says.
Amos was many years before Zechariah before the Exile and Zechariah is inside the Exile to Babylon. Many Gentiles great Nations will join Jerusalem and will come to visit Jerusalem, visit the Lord in Jerusalem, wow, fantastic prophecies, but I've got to go progress. Let's talk about the neighbors and how they will be Ashkelon and Tyre and how the people from the sea will come over and they will bring their broken idols as witness that they have gotten out of idolatry.
Yeah, chapter 9 verse 9:
"Rejoice, O Daughter of Zion, proclaim the daughter of Jerusalem, here is your king who is coming, a righteous and a savior, poor person riding on a donkey and on a baby of a donkey."
Okay, I don't know how to say it in English. This is a prophecy that Yeshua fulfills. I mean, I tell you, Jerusalem is a very strange city today, it was strange then too, but today is more strange, why? Some Christians that have fallen off the wagon so to say, come, they buy a donkey from an Arab, and they dress up with Biblical clothes, and they come proclaiming that they're the Messiah.
One was Chris Davidson, a young man with a wife and a baby, and he put the wife and the baby on the donkey, and he's leading him down Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, proclaiming that he is the Messiah because his name was really Chris Davidson and his passport I've seen it, yeah, crazies are full, they're playing. But the real one is coming too, and the real one came in the first century, riding on a donkey as King of the Jews.
Yes, this comes from Zechariah 9 verse 9, fulfilled by Yeshua.
Wonderful! God proclaims the return to the land of Israel, to the agriculture of Israel, to the acceptance by the Nations as Israel, as God's chosen people. The children of Zion, will be accepted, and the children of Greece will rejoice. And they will bring the sword of Heroes with them. Yeah, to be on the side of Zion. Yes, what a wonderful thing! People will come from the south in chapter nine, they will come from the north, they will conquer the wasteland, the stony land. God will save them.
Verse 16: "On that day, like a shepherd saves his own flock", on his own land, and it will be a beautiful time. Verse 17 of chapter nine will be where everything will be fruitful: the men and the fruit and the wine, the grapes, everything, and the rain will come in its season.
In chapter 10, all these wonderful things will happen. Now, what is going to happen after that? Okay, there will be a restoration of Israel. What is going to happen after that? When we get to chapter 11 of Zechariah, we see that a coalition is mounted by Lebanon and by the neighbors and by the Nations to fight against Jerusalem. If you hear the news almost every week, we have some such Declaration of the United Nations in New York by the nations trying to deny the fulfillment of these prophecies by denying the right of the people of Israel on the land of Israel that was given to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was not given to Ishmael or to Esau.
Chapter 11, verse 7: God says,: "I will be the shepherd of this flock of slaughter". There's no other nation in the history of mankind, that there have been more attempts to wipe it out from the face of the Earth than the Jewish Nation. You've got it in the Book of Esther. Haman says it's not worth keeping these people, let's wipe them all out. And then he hung on the tree with his family. We have Hitler, we have before Hitler, the Crusaders, after the Crusaders: the Catholic Church, the Spanish Inquisition, the Portuguese Inquisition in Brazil and South America trying to wipe out all the Jews, converting them by force to Catholicism. Now they're waking up in South America and Central America, in the Philippines, in India, in Brazil. They are waking up, they say, "Oh, wow, wow, we are Jews, Pinto, Alvarez, Dacosta, Nunes, hundreds of families who were forced to convert, and we have the records of them, the records exist, and we know who they are before they were forced to convert. So yes, Hallelujah, but over here you have the prophecy:
"I will shepherd the flock of slaughter, yeah, particularly the poor of the flock. I took myself two staffs, one is called Beauty and the other one is called Bonds. I fed the flock."
And our God is saying that he is going to unite, unite the parts of Israel, the Sephardic with the Ashkenazis, with the Ethiopian Jews, with the Yemenite Jews, with the Moroccan Jews, with the Brazilian Jews. We will be restored to be one nation, that's in Zechariah, but because of time I've got to skip, hurry up to chapter 12, which is one of the very important chapters.
Chapter 12, in English King New King James Version, reads:
"The burden of the word of the Lord against Israel. Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the Earth, and forms the spirit of man within him."
In other words, he describes who is talking, the God who created the world and the heavens, the God who put life into the man that was made from mud. He says:
"I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding people, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone."
a heavy burden, a heavy rock, that I will make Jerusalem a very, very heavy stone. For whom? For all the nations, all who would have heave it away will surely be cut in pieces. Though all nations of the Earth are gathered against it, there will be a world war against Israel, against the Jewish people according to Zechariah. And I see the clouds of that war already gathering in New York, in the United Nations, and I see our neighbors, the Palestinians, the Arabs around us, and the Iranians not far from us and Russia is breathing down their neck. I see it. I see the sound of their war machines, their threats of nuclear war, their threats to wipe out Israel. I see it. Whatever the prophet is talking here is brewing right now, but God says in verse 6:
"On that day, I will make the governors of Judah like fire pen in the woodpile and like a fiery torch in the sheaves of the dry wheat, of the dry grass, they shall devour all the surrounding people on the right hand and on the left hand. But Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, in Jerusalem"
That is the third time in Zechariah. What Paul said one time, now it is the third time:
"The Lord will save the tents of Judah first, so that the glory of the House of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall not become greater than that of Judah. In that day, the Lord will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem, one who is feeble among them on that day shall be like David. The House of David shall be like God, like the angel of the Lord before them. It shall be in that day, I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem."
That's the word of God, folks. It's good for your nations in Korea, in Japan, in China, in the Philippines, in Australia, in the United States. It's good for your nation to take sides right now with the right side. The right side is Israel and Jerusalem, folks. That's the word of God, not the word of Joseph Shulam.
And now we come to one of the main Prophecies of Zechariah that is relevant for us today:
"I will pour out on the House of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of Grace and supplication. Then they will look on me, whom they have pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for him as one grieves for the firstborn."
The Hebrew text is fabulous. It's the English text is not bad, but the Hebrew text is clearly pointing out to the one who was pierced, to Yeshua himself. Wow, this is 2700 years old, folks. Two thousand six hundred fifty years old Prophecy in the Bible, and you can read it in Hebrew, in Greek, in English, in Portuguese, in Korean, in Japanese, in Chinese, whatever you want, you can read it, it's there, it cannot be erased.
On that day, there will be a great mourning in Jerusalem for the Dead, like the mourning at Hadad Rimon in the plain of Megiddo, and the land shall mourn, and every family shall mourn, the House of David, they and their wives will mourn, and the House of Nathan, they and their wives, and the House of Levi. And we're now in chapter 13, the foundation of the House of David will be opened, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness, you know, there will be a restoration of atonement from Jerusalem, not sacrifice. He's not talking about, but the power of the cross, the power of Yeshua, the blood that was shed in Jerusalem thousands of years ago, will be effective even in those days.
But I'm skipping to chapter 14. Chapter 14, the last chapter of Zechariah, is talking about God's sword against the Shepherds, against the men who in my companion, say the Lord of hosts, strike the Shepherds, and the sheep will be scattered. Then I will turn my hand against the little ones, and it shall come to pass in the land, says the Lord, the two-thirds of them shall be cut off, talking about the nations that come against Israel. And after that, he says that on the Feast of Tabernacles, of Sukkot, all the nations will have to come to Jerusalem to worship God, to recognize God. And if they don't, their countries will have no reign. Think about Brazil, the Amazon Valley without rain, it'll be a desert. Think about the great mountains of Washington State without rain, without snow, it'll be desert. But the nations will come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Lord in the Feast of Sukkot, that's Zechariah. God bless you all, please read it for yourselves and pray about it for Holy Spirit enlightenment in your lives.
