True Spirituality (Zechariah 7:1-14)
Rev. William L. Barron, April 16, 2023Part of the Morning Worship at North Greenville Church series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
Zechariah 7 concerns the word of the Lord revealed to Zechariah as an answer to messengers from the house of Bethel asking whether they should keep a fast of weeping and abstinence that had been instituted during the exile. God's answer was that they had perverted His fast, and He was not pleased. He accused them of formalism and impure motives. They had been doing what they wanted and attached God to the side, just as we are prone to do. God told the prophet Amos that He hated their feasts and solemn assemblies and would not accept them. They were not concerned with the heart of the law. This was what sent them into exile. God expected heart faith, not ritual. When they fasted, what were they concerned about? Was it because they were sinners, or simply because they got caught? God's judgment continues: your forefathers didn't listen; are you listening? Why are you having a fast today? To become more spiritual? To impress other people? To obligate God? To make me feel good about myself? These are not Biblical reasons to fast. Feasts are to point us to God, such as the Day of Atonement. It is the same today. Instead of seeking after God, we devise schemes to build numbers connected with our church institutions. We strive to let people feel better about themselves. We should rather be doers of the Word (James 1), visiting orphans and widows and keeping unstained from the world. We must keep God first. What we need today we will see in Zechariah 8, but here we see that the people refused to pay attention, stopped their ears and hardened their hearts. We cannot attempt to escape God's lordship. It is not possible to make Him go away. If we do not discern our sins and repent, God will not hear our prayers (Psalm 66: 18). The result was that the people were scattered in the whirlwind, and the pleasant land was left desolate. Fortunately, this is not the end of the story, as we will see in Chapter 8.
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Zechariah 7 (Listen)
7:1 In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. 2 Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men to entreat the favor of the LORD, 3 saying to the priests of the house of the LORD of hosts and the prophets, “Should I weep and abstain in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?”
4 Then the word of the LORD of hosts came to me: 5 “Say to all the people of the land and the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? 6 And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat for yourselves and drink for yourselves? 7 Were not these the words that the LORD proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, with her cities around her, and the South and the lowland were inhabited?’”
8 And the word of the LORD came to Zechariah, saying, 9 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.” 11 But they refused to pay attention and turned a stubborn shoulder and stopped their ears that they might not hear. 12 They made their hearts diamond-hard lest they should hear the law and the words that the LORD of hosts had sent by his Spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great anger came from the LORD of hosts. 13 “As I called, and they would not hear, so they called, and I would not hear,” says the LORD of hosts, 14 “and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and the pleasant land was made desolate.”
(ESV)