Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last time we looked at the first two of Zechariah’s strange night visions as we concluded chapter 1.

The major focus of both those visions is the message from God to His people of comfort and assurance.

The Lord would restore His presence among them and He would judge their enemies and deliver them and again choose them.

This morning as we move into chapter 2 and look at the third vision given to the prophet Zechariah, the message speaks a word of deep and satisfying promise and encouragement.

We must always come back to understand how very important such a message would have been to the people of God in Zechariah’s day.

They were living, remember, in the broken down, rubble filled ruin that was once the magnificent city of Jerusalem.

They had come back after seventy years of exile in Babylon to a burnt out, decrepit city, in the midst of which could still be seen the wreckage of what had been the glorious temple of the Lord.

They had started to rebuild, of course, but the work had stalled and ground to a halt as discouragement set in.

The people faced terrible opposition from the pagan nations that surrounded them and they were in a famine because of their disobedience to God.

They lived no longer as an independent nation under the rule of the Davidic dynasty of prophesy, but instead a puny, vassal province of the mighty empire of the Gentile Darius I, the King of the Medes.

It was a pathetic spectacle – the once mighty nation was impoverished, deeply discouraged, wondering if they hadn’t lost the favor of God forever.

It was into those dire circumstances God sent Zechariah visions and a message of hope.

Hope Measured By God’s Promises

Zechariah in this third vision looks up and sees a man with a measuring line in his hand.

Apparently he was also moving because he asks the man “Where are you going?”.

The answer that the man gives is that he is going to measure Jerusalem to determine its perimeter.

At this time in the vision Zechariah says the angel that was speaking with him (this is not the man) went out, and another angel went out to meet him.

He the first angel said to the next angel to run and catch up with the man.

The sense here is to stop him.

To stop him by letting him know that Jerusalem will be inhabited without walls.

This is an odd conversation unless you assume that the reason for measuring the perimeter is to plan to build a wall that will encompass the city.

Seems like this man is taking the promise of God rebuilding the city and is going to measure to build the city the same as before - with a wall as a border and also a protective barrier.

In chapter 1 and verse 16, God told the prophet, “’In mercy I have returned to Jerusalem.

My house, will be rebuilt within it,’ this is the declaration of the LORD of Armies, ‘and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.’”

The surveyors measuring line that served as an emblem of the renewed building effort now becomes, in the second vision in chapter 2, an image that is picked up and made use of.

The identity of the man is not readily given but it is likely he represents the people of Judah in their enthusiasm for the promised restored city.

This second angel that you see speaks in the remainder of this chapter in the first person as the Lord Himself, which leads us to conclude that although He is not labeled such here, He’s not merely an angel but He is once again the Angel of the Lord, the one who is identified with God and is yet distinct from God, the one who, in the clear light of the New Testament we know to be the pre-incarnate Christ, the Lord Jesus.

And He commissions Zechariah’s interpreting angel, verse 4, to run and catch up with the young man with the measuring line because it would seem the young man’s approach to measuring the hope of their expectation is off.

We might even go as far to say his metrics are all wrong.

This angel is charged with catching up with the man because their hopes are being measured by their idea of God’s promise and not God’s promise itself.

The measurement is that of human expectation or conventional wisdom based on past experience.

God’s promises concerning His people is far more expansive than any human measurement and that is why our hope must be measured by God’s promises!

Conventional Wisdom

In 1983 an aging sheep farmer from Australia named Cliff Young took his place at the starting line among the athletes at the beginning of an ultra-marathon.

And ultra-marathon, you may know, is 545 miles long and usually takes about seven days to complete.

The athletes will sleep at the side of the road on the racecourse, they will sleep for periods of six hours and then run for eighteen, and then sleep for six and run for eighteen and so on.

It’s quite an ordeal.

And as Cliff Young lined up to begin the race he really stood out from the crowd.

While all the other athletes were dressed in the latest running gear, covered in the logos of their sponsors with the high-tech running shoes on their feet, Mr. Young wore overalls with galoshes over his ordinary work boots just in case it rained.

He was thirty years older than the other competitors.

It was the first competitive race he’d ever run in.

Mr.

Young actually didn’t run at all; he shuffled, barely lifting his feet from the ground.

And so as you might imagine, when the starting pistol fired, Mr. Young, unsurprisingly, was left in the dust.

Pretty soon he’d fallen way behind the pack.

But while the other runners slept, you know that six hour sleep at the side of the road, he just kept shuffling along.

He’s never been told the way to run an ultra-marathon is six hours of sleep and eighteen hours of running.

Actually on his farm when a storm approached he would have to try to beat the weather and he would run down his sheep on a two thousand acre farm, on foot, often outrunning the weather, taking him three days.

And on those three days he never stopped running.

He ran for three whole days straight.

And so, he just kept going!

And on the last night of the race while the other athletes were sleeping, Cliff Young passed the opposition.

He ran, with his distinctive shuffling gate, for five solid days and he not only won the race but he beat the ultra-marathon record by two whole days.

All the conventional wisdom ruled old Cliff Young out completely – work boots on his feet, overalls on his back, shuffling along at a snail’s pace, taking no rest.

There was no way, according to conventional wisdom, that Cliff Young would finish the race never mind win it

Conventional wisdom of us as humans does not always provide the best metrics, does it?

Zechariah’s vision is a reminder to the people of his time to not base their hope upon their understanding of the promise or their conventional wisdom for the promise but upon God’s spoken and declared promise to them.

They were expecting and hoping for a city like what they had prior to the exile - a walled fortress of a city.

What they were looking for in hope is not what God had promised.

God is promising a vastly populous city so populous that it must not contain walls for it will overflow its boundaries.

You see God is promising not only a city for them again but that it would receive His divine blessing!

God also declares that the city will not need a protective wall, not because they will be without protection or safety but God is promising that their security is found in Him - He will be their wall around the city and the glory within it!

The measuring line of verse 1 implies hope found in conventional thinking about the kingdom of God, a city protected by walls, its people limited to the returned exiles.

The message of the Angel of the Lord is that the kingdom of God is a countless multitude, a kingdom that needs no walls of merely human construction, for the Lord will protect it and He will be with it and dwell within as “glory in their midst.”

Back then the strength of a city was measured by its walls.

It seems silly to do that now days, but we have our own issue as we want to measure our churches by human standards as well and miss the hope found in the promises of God.

We look for what Rick Phillips in his commentary on Zechariah calls the “ABC’s of Church Growth” – Attendance, Buildings, and Cash.

That’s how we measure church strength and church vitality and church health.

That’s how we know that God is with us – if we’re big and rich and strong, right?

But here we’re being reminded that actually the true measure of the church has nothing to do with scale, nothing to do with wealth, nothing to do with power, and everything to do with the presence of the glory of the living God, dwelling in our midst.

The hope of the church is not its building or its finances or even its number of people the hope of the church is found in God’s promise to dwell in the church!

We need the presence of His glory dwelling among us.

That’s where our hope should based.

The Risky Business of Trusting Gods promises in our individual lives also.

Trusting God’s promises can feel like showing up at an ultra-marathon in overalls wearing work boots on our feet – hardly adequate for the demands of the race.

“Life is so challenging and you want me to trust and hope Your ancient promises when the truth is I prefer my conventional and worldly wisdom of self-protection?

Here I’ll hold back, I’ll keep people at arm’s length, I’ll keep my heart well out of reach.

I prefer my self-protection to the risky business of trusting God’s ultimate protection.

Those who try to manufacture their comforts and their security, in the end, find neither comfort nor security, while those who trust in the Lord run their race to the finish line.

While other runners fall behind, they run the race and cross the line and win the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Their hope is in God’s promise of protection – His wall of fire around them, His promise of presence, glory in their midst.

They know those promises aren’t abstract, ancient and vague.

They know that God has kept His Word and will continue to keep it.

They know because they can point to the cross where those promises were perfectly performed.

There they see what God has done, to what lengths He has gone, to save them and keep them and make them His.

And they know, in light of the cross, that the promises of God are more solid, more real, more secure than any self protection we may try or hold on to.

Let your hope be measured by the promises of God.

Extreme Measure of Urgency For God’s Warnings

In verses 6-9 as Zechariah’s vision continues, we see several calls from God that require an extreme amount or measure of urgency.

Listen, Listen, ho, ho — UP UP as in wake up! FLEE from the land of the North.

In Zechariah’s day few of those who were carried to captivity in the Babylonian Empire returned back to the Promised Land when they were permitted.

The LORD is calling His people to come back to their land.

The sad reality though is that most exiles were more comfortable in Babylon and did not want to endure the challenge of building a work of God.

The LORD is admonishing the Jews still in Babylon to leave the city and join the remnant in Jerusalem.

They were desperately needed in their own land and though they thought they were safe and secure in the comfort of the pagan society - they were not.

Babylon was now under Persian rule and soon Persia was to be judged for her sins.

God is warning to get out while they can.

They needed to heed the warning this time - they ignored it last time and did not have any measure of urgency and God’s judgment caught up with them.

When God provides a warning the measure of our urgency must become extreme - for He is not making idle threats and warnings.