Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
11 In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
12 And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;
13 The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;
14 All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.
God continued to direct the prophet Zechariah to speak of the times of the end of the Tribulation and the beginning of the Millennium. That will be a glorious time as Jesus Christ literally takes over the affairs of the earth.
He will still be the Saviour. However, He will also be living in His glorious form more than He did in His first coming. He set aside His glory in order to become a man. He wilfully submitted Himself to His Father and He willingly set aside His glory for the purpose of becoming a man and allowing wicked people to manhandle Him and crucify Him. He laid down His life. He had to do that in order to die and shed His blood for mankind. No man could ever defeat God. Jesus Christ laid down His life for His sheep.
We know that when He comes back He will come back as the glorified Son of God. He will be Prophet, Priest and King. He will be the same Jesus according to Acts 1, but He will come back with greater glory than at His first coming.
Israel will be blessed with the spirit of grace and of supplications. Notice it says there, “they shall look upon me whom they have pierced.” That can be none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. When they look on Him, they will be fully repentant and remorseful. This will not be a show. This will be genuine humility. There will be a mourning as a parent does with the loss of their firstborn son. There is an anticipation when that child is born. There are plans and hopes. All of a sudden that child is gone. That is a hard hit to the parents. The nation of Egypt experienced that in one night because of their hardheartedness.
In our text God says that Israel of that time, will mourn in that way. The sin that they were guilty of will come into much greater realization. They will be happy for the forgiveness that Jesus will grant them, but they will realize just how evil they had been.
That is really the way we should be when we come to the place of salvation. We have all spit in Jesus’ face as lost sinners. We have assumed we were good enough and did not need a Saviour. Those who are saved came to realize that we had lied to ourselves and that we indeed needed a Saviour.
We need to understand that what is being promoted today as mainstream Christianity is a fraud. Yesterday was the American Super Bowl. During the ‘half-time show’ an alternate show was set up to accommodate those who were opposed to the radical agenda of the main show. That alternate show was supposed to offer “Christian” and secular music. Not one of the performers could be classified as Christian. No true Christian would have been in that lineup. The super bowl is not watching anyway. The Lord’s Day should be used in a much better way.
Again, I understand some people could take offence to what I have just said. That shows where your heart is at. You ought to be concerned about the deception you have bought into.
There needs to be a recognition of the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man. “For by grace are ye saved” takes on a deeper understanding when we allow God to show us what the grace really looks like. We would condemn a person for far less than what God is willing to forgive. He truly is gracious. The Bible teaches us that God’s salvation is life changing – heart, soul and body.
The Jews alive at the end of the Tribulation, that get saved, will understand the holiness of Jesus and they will understand the wickedness that they were involved in.
In verse 11 God continued that theme. Jesus Christ will have taken control of the scene at that time. There will be no threat to man and the saints will have that time to grasp what they had been and what Jesus Christ had made them. It will be a mourning of greater consequence than that which Israel had when the tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out, or when Josiah was killed at Megiddo. Those were hard hitting times, but this will be more so. It will be a necessary time to prepare those Jews to enter the time of the Millennium.
Verse 12 gives further details of this mourning. Each family will have the opportunity to come to grips with what they had done. This will affect them all very deeply. There will be no pretending here.
We hear about revivals today that are not a turning to God. Things are changing but not according to God’s Word. Those Jews that Zechariah is directed to write about here will be drastically changed. It will be a genuine repentance and forgiveness and salvation.
Verses 13-14 continue to describe the genuine nature of this conversion. We see in these verses that this repentance must be from the heart and it must be personal. The husbands cannot repent for their wives and the wives cannot repent for their husbands. It will be genuine and it will be lasting. The normal business of the world will stop while the nation of Israel of that time, comes to grips with their past. It will be a necessary time that will bring great blessing to all those present. Keep in mind that all the lost will be wiped out at the battle of Armageddon. They will be gone. They will be in Hell. Those left will be those whose hearts are broken and they are done with rebellion and fighting. They want true, genuine peace and joy. Jesus Christ alone can provide that.
He is the only One Who can provide that today as well. As we have mentioned before, there will be thousands of people who will be shocked at the moment of death when they find out they did not enter heaven. They did not bother to read their Bibles, but instead chose to listen to smooth talking snake-oil salesmen and they will find that they had believed a lie. It will not be that they could not know. As I mentioned, if this offends you, then you are one of the thousands that will be shocked. You do not need to take my word for it at all. Just read the Bible. Don’t pick and choose what you will read. Read the Bible. Get into a good church that honours the Word of God. You will be doing yourself a favour. If you insist on continuing to believe a lie, you will have no one but yourself to blame in the end, but it will be too late.
God will give Israel the opportunity for some true and genuine house cleaning in the future. The business of the world can readily shut down as the hearts and souls of the people deal with this all important matter of God’s gift of eternal life. That is such a precious gift. We should recognize that today as well. It is just as precious for us now as it will be to that generation of Jews then.
It is important to honestly note Who Jesus is. He is not this cool dude who loves to jive with the worst of them. He is the Holy, Eternal Son of God Who demands and deserves all praise and glory. His demand is not in a ruthless, dictatorial manner. It is the fact that as the Creator of all things and the Sustainer of all things, He is worthy of absolute glory and honour.
We, those who are saved, have been granted the opportunity and privilege to take one day of the week — Sunday, as the day to exalt Him in a special way. Yet, most churches have become nothing more than social clubs. Get your coffee on the way in and the lights will be turned down and the rock band will entertain from the front. Then some dude will get up and say some pleasant words that are sure not to offend anyone except those who are seeking truth. It is sad to see how many people accept such worthless expressions as worship.
We have God’s Word. We can see how the early churches operated and we can see what Jesus Christ expected of them. Read Revelation 2-3 and notice Jesus’ assessment of seven churches of that era. Examine your own heart and the heart of your church. Does it match what Jesus says we need to be? If not, there is no better time than today to get things right before the Lord. If you are doing right, strengthen that which remains and press on for Truth.
Pastor Bartel