Why Move From Encouragement To Judgment? (Zechariah 11:1-17, Matthew 23:29-39)
Rev. William L. Barron, June 4, 2023Part of the Morning Worship at North Greenville Church series, preached at a Sunday Morning service
Now Zechariah moves from encouraging to threatening prophecies. We see this in the New Testament also, where Jesus pointed to the sin of the Pharisees in killing God's prophets. There are three parts to the threatening prophecy. The first is the judgment on Lebanon and Bashan. He references the shepherds of doomed sheep. The situation is similar to what Isaiah faced, with people who would not listen and seek to kill the prophet of God. All the land would be ruined by the sinfulness of man. The foolish shepherd would bring punishment to fulfillment. Those who would call out the false teachers would get in trouble. Both religious and civil leaders would work only for their own good. God says, "Enough!" and points the hearers to a future judgment, which we see fulfilled in AD 70. Two staffs, named Favor and Union, which had blessed the nation were broken because the people rejected God's way, symbolizing God annulling the covenant. God freed the people to live the way they wanted, rescinding His statutes and laws while also removing His protection. God had delivered Jerusalem from Alexander and Antiochus Epiphanes, but no more. With the breaking of Union, the people were no longer united around God. Josiah had unified the people around the newly found law. In our time, we are unified in Christ. The three shepherds symbolize prophet, priest and king, the threefold office of Christ. With AD 70, all three would be gone from Israel. The people valued the good shepherd at 30 pieces of silver, the price of a slave. This foreshadowed the value Judas and the Jewish council placed on Christ to betray Him. The foolish shepherd's identity could be Herod, all evil rulers, Roman emperors, Jewish leaders or the antichrist. What is the result of false prophets? Woe (vs. 17). In our time, how do we handle the prophetic voice of the Word of God? Is the church drifting from the truth? The warning is a sober one. Without the church coming back to God, our lampstand may be removed, and we will get what we want. We must repent and confess our worldliness.
| Earlier: | Same day: | Later: |
|---|---|---|
| « The Lord Is My Shepherd | None | O God, Where Art Thou? » |
Zechariah 11 (Listen)
11:1 Open your doors, O Lebanon,
that the fire may devour your cedars!
2 Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen,
for the glorious trees are ruined!
Wail, oaks of Bashan,
for the thick forest has been felled!
3 The sound of the wail of the shepherds,
for their glory is ruined!
The sound of the roar of the lions,
for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined!
4 Thus said the LORD my God: “Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter. 5 Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, 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 this land, declares the LORD. Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into the hand of his neighbor, and each into the hand of his king, and they shall crush the land, and I will deliver none from their hand.”
7 So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named Favor, the other I named Union. And I tended the sheep. 8 In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. 9 So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another.” 10 And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. 11 So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. 12 Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. 13 Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the lordly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter. 14 Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.
15 Then the LORD said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 16 For behold, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for those being destroyed, or seek the young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.
17 “Woe to my worthless shepherd,
who deserts the flock!
May the sword strike his arm
and his right eye!
Let his arm be wholly withered,
his right eye utterly blinded!”
(ESV)
Matthew 23:29–39 (Listen)
29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
(ESV)