I. Zech 1:7-17 God’s Zeal for Jerusalem Haggai and Zechariah were friends and compatriots. They

prophesied back and forth to Israel. We have studied their prophecies in the chronological order in which Israel heard them. We are done with Haggai. We turn now to the book of Zechariah.

Zechariah writes in a unique style. We call it “Apocalyptic Literature.” Apocalyptic also appears in parts of Isaiah, Daniel, and the entire book of Revelation. Apocalyptic is unique in four ways.

1st Apocalyptic literature comes to us in visions, dreams, and allegory. The symbols often appear other places in scripture, so to interpret the symbol you need to know the rest of the Bible. Even then, some of the symbols are obscure.

2nd Apocalyptic literature is predictive. it usually predicts the future. It rarely deals with the past or the present.

3rd Apocalyptic literature deals with the unseen world. It helps us see beyond this creation to the unseen spiritual. Ultimately, the unseen world controls time and history.

4th Apocalyptic literature does not start with the details. We interpret apocalyptic by starting with the big picture and then moving to the details.

From this point forward most of Zechariah is apocalyptic literature. Have mercy on the preacher/interpreter.

We studied Zech. 1:1-6 several weeks back. In that passage God told Israel—“Return to me and I will return to you.” In today’s passage, God shows us what it looks like when he returns to his people. He returns with jealousy.

The date is Feb 15, 519 B.C. Only five months have passed since Haggai began to prophesy. On this date Zechariah received a

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series of visions or dream that start at the 7th verse of chapter one and go to chapter six. Our subject today is the first vision.

(Zec 1:7-17) 7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, which is the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Iddo, saying,

8 “I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.

9 Then I said, ‘What are these, my lord?’ The angel who talked with me said to me, ‘I will show you what they are.’ 10 So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, ‘These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth.’

11 And they answered the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, and said, ‘We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.’

12 Then the angel of the Lord said, ‘O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these seventy years?’ 13 And the Lord answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. 14 So the angel who talked with me said to me, ‘Cry out, Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. 15 And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster.

16 Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy; my house shall be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. 17 Cry out again, Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.’ ”

This vision opens with a view of four mounted horses. “What are these?” the prophet asks.

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The Angel of the Lord (usually short-hand for Christ) tells Zechariah that they are God’s agents sent out to “patrol the earth.” The horsemen report back, “all the earth is at rest.”

This was a fact. Persia had just overthrown Babylon and was now the dominant world power. The middle-eastern world was experiencing a unique and unusual rest from war and strife.

Then, addressing God, the angel of the Lord intercedes as if the return from Babylonian exile had not occurred. You have been angry with your people for seventy years, he tells God. They have suffered in Babylonian exile. And then he asks, when will you have mercy?

The Lord responds to the angel with gracious and comforting words. We are not told the content of his words, but as soon as God finishes, the angel tells Zechariah to cry out,

(14b) “Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. 15 And I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease; for while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster.

Here is the idea. Even though God raised up Babylon to judge Jerusalem, He has not given up on his people. In fact, he is filled with jealousy/zeal for them. He summoned Babylon to judge his people, but the Babylonians overdid it. They were too brutal and cruel. God is angry. (Here we see the mystery of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility closely intertwined). He is going to judge the very nation that he raised up to judge Jerusalem. He is going to judge them for doing the work that he called them to do but excessively.

The angel then goes on to complete the message from the Lord of hosts. The Jews are building the temple, but it is very costly. They have limited resources, little time, families to care for, and their neighbors persecute them. In the midst of all this, God gives

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Zechariah a message of hope and joy. His jealousy has motivated him to do good to his people.

The main point is in the last half of verse 14: “I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and Zion.”

Two points will help us understand this statement. First, we will define Jealousy. Second, we will look at the fruits of God’s jealousy for his people.

A. GOD’S JEALOUSY DEFINED Jealousy is a quality that can either be a virtue or a sin. For us,

it is normally a sin. It was the first sin after the fall. Cain was jealous of his brother, Abel, and he murdered him. This kind of jealousy is a fruit of the flesh. Gal. 5:19-20 reads "Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions.” Paul lists Jealousy alongside immorality and idolatry.

Someone else received the promotion that you wanted and you want to take it away. Another woman is married to a kind, handsome man. You are jealous because your husband is not kind or handsome. Ian Murray notes how the mothers in 18th century Northamptom, MA were jealous of Sarah Edwards because none of her 11 children had died in infancy.

This kind of jealousy is selfish. It is a serious sin against love. God hates this jealousy. This is not what God means in the 14th verse of Zechariah chapter 1 when he says “I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and Zion.”

That is because jealousy can also be a virtue. Both the Hebrew and Greek words translated “jealous” can also be translated zealous. In other words, the good jealousy, the jealousy that God feels, is zeal for something which is his own. For example, if your wife flirts with another man it is a virtue to feel jealous. She is yours by the covenant

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of marriage. That is the kind of Jealousy God feels for his people—zeal for that which is his own by covenant.

The OT prophets often describe Israel bride of God. God loves his Bride. We are his spouse by covenant. When we love anything more than God, he feels zealous/jealous for us. It is a deep and abiding zeal for his people, a passion to give and receive affection from us. His jealousy and his love are two sides of one coin. One side of that coin is judgment. His jealousy can flash forth in judgment for our idolatry.

"“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments." (Exodus 20:4-6).

"For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." (Deuteronomy 4:24).

"You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you— for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God—lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth." (Deuteronomy 6:14-15).

Blessing is the other side of the coin of jealousy. His jealousy can express itself as blessing. That is the context of today’s passage. God’s Jealousy appears in the same context in Zech. 8.

"Thus says the Lord of hosts: I am jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I am jealous for her with great wrath. Thus says the Lord: I have returned to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and Jerusalem shall be called the faithful city, and the

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mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain." (Zechariah 8:2-3).

God’s jealousy also blesses in Isaiah.

"For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal (jealousy) of the Lord of hosts will do this." (Isaiah 37:32).

John Frame: “God’s jealousy is not inconsistent with his love or goodness. On the contrary, his jealousy is one aspect of his love. Although God has some love for all of his creatures, as we have seen, he has an exclusive love for his own people, and he demands the same of them. When they violate that love, he behaves like a godly husband—he becomes jealous. There is nothing wrong with that jealousy. It reflects the intensity of his love. When a man’s beloved wife turns away and loves another man, he is rightly jealous. If he were not, that would be evidence that he does not care for her.”1

This is the message of the prophet, Hosea. “God instructed Hosea to marry a “wife of whoredom,” whose unfaithfulness to her husband would serve as an example of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God. Hosea then explained God’s complaint against Israel and warned of the punishment that would come unless the people returned to the Lord and remained faithful to him. [This] book shows the depth of God’s love for his people, a love that tolerates no rivals.2

B. GOD’S JEALOUSY APPLIED This text describes what it is like when God extends his

jealousy in favor to his people.

16 Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy; my house shall be built in it, declares the Lord of hosts, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem. 17 Cry

1 John Frame, The Doctrine of God, (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2002) pg 4592The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Ho). Standard Bible Society: Wheaton

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out again, Thus says the Lord of hosts: My cities shall again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.”

This passage contains six expressions of God’s jealousy or zeal for his people.

1st (16a) “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy.” As Babylon was destroying the temple in Jerusalem, in a vision Ezekiel saw the glory of God depart from the temple. Now God says, “I have returned.” Why does he return? He is jealous for his people.

2nd (16a) “My house shall be built in it.” This was fulfilled. The temple was finished 3 ½ years later.

3rd (16b) “The measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.” This expression means that the city of Jerusalem shall be rebuilt. Over the next decades the city was gradually repopulated and rebuilt.

4th (17) “My cities shall again overflow with prosperity.” This referred to the cities of Judah that surrounded Jerusalem. The Babylonians had destroyed them, but because God is jealous, they too will prosper.

5th (17) “The Lord will again comfort Zion.” The prophets words restate the earlier promise in Isaiah 40. "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins." (Isaiah 40:1-2).

6th (17) “The Lord will again choose Jerusalem.” A restatement of #1,2, and 3.

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C. APPLICATION:How do we journey from 5th century B.C. Jerusalem to 21st

century North America? These prophecies were not spoken directly to us. God spoke them to the ancient Jews. However, as we listen in we learn many crucial lessons about God’s nature and how he relates to his people. I want to focus on three. 1st Be comforted by God’s jealousy. 2nd Be on the right side of God’s jealousy. 3rd Be jealous for God’s name and glory.

1. 1st Be comforted by God’s zeal/jealousy. He is still a jealous God. His jealousy still burns like fire. His

name is still “jealous.” He is jealous for his people. We have seen two ways that this jealousy appears—his hatred of idolatry and his zeal to bless.

The New Testament did not diminish God’s jealousy. Rather, the New Testament actually amplifies God’s jealousy. Why do I say that? I say that because the cross of Christ is the greatest display of God’s jealousy in the Bible, and it is in the New Testament not the Old.

Negatively, God’s jealousy blazed forth like fire and consumed his Son for our numerous idolatries.

Positively, God’s jealousy appears in his willingness to give up his Son for crucifixion in order to be more perfectly united with his Bride, all those who are his by covenant.

Jesus died to display God’s jealousy or his zeal for his people. He died to confirm in our minds forever the words of Ex 34:14. “You shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is jealous, is a jealous God.”

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2. Be on the Right side of God’s jealousy. We have seen how God’s jealousy has two dimensions. It

flames forth as fire to consume those that continually participate in idolatry, or it reaches out with immense blessings to those who obey the gospel.

Those are the two choices each of us face today. How will God’s jealousy come to us? Those who reject the gospel will sit under the fire of God’s jealousy forever. Those who obey God by believing the gospel will experience the intense love to which his jealousy points for all eternity.

Which are you this morning? You don’t get into God’s favor by working. You attract God’s favor by believing what God has done for you and then expressing that faith with daily repentance.

I plead with you to do so today.

3. Be Jealous for God. Phineas was jealous for God. On their way to the Promised

Land the Moabites seduced Israel. Through immoral relationships Israel began to worship the god’s of Midian. After Phineas, the son of the High Priest, in great zeal killed an Israelite and his Moabite girlfriend, God commended him with these words.

“Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back my wrath from the people of Israel, in that he was jealous with my jealousy among them, so that I did not consume the people of Israel in my jealousy. Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace, and it shall be to him and to his descendants after him the covenant of a perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God and made atonement for the people of Israel.’" (Numbers 25:10-13).i

Where do we get Phineas’ zeal/jealousy for God? Rev 3:15-20 gives us a clue.

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15 “ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. 17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.

18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.

19 Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

The Gold refined in the fire is Christ crucified.

We need spiritual eyesalve to see Christ crucified.

When we do we see the shame of our nakedness, and we buy White Garments (Christ’s righteousness/good deeds) to clothe the shame of our nakedness.

In other words, God gives us grace to repent.

D. HOMEGROUP STUDY QUESTIONS

Read Zechariah 1:7-17. In your view, what is the theme verse in this passage?

Read the following passages together. Ex 20:5, Ex 34:14, Deut 4:24, Deut 6:15, Deut 29:20, Is 37:32, Is 9:7, Joel 2:18-19, Zech 1:14-15, Zech 8:2. What do they tell us about God’s jealousy?

How would you defend these passages to someone who objected, “Jealousy is a sin. God can’t sin, so God can’t be jealous.”

In his commentary on Zechariah, Barry Webb writes, “Jealousy is his intense, protective concern for what is rightly his own: his name, his land, his city (Jerusalem), his house (temple) and his people. They are his, and he will defend

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and protect them against all assailants, and avenge every wrong committed against them.”3 If Webb’s words are true, why should God’s jealousy comfort us?

Why is the cross of Christ the culmination of God’s jealousy?

How does God want you to respond to this text? (Hint: Rev 3:15-20).

3 Barry Webb, the Message of Zechariah, (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003) pg 73

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iTwo centuries after Phineas, Elijah was jealous for God. Israel fell into Baal worship. Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel. He put 400 of them to death. Then he fled to Mt Sinai. When he arrived God asked why he was there.

“I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.”" (1 Kings 19:10).

In the same way, God saved us in order to make us zealous/jealous for good works.

"[Christ] gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works." (Titus 2:14).