Zechariah Chapter 7

Zechariah chapter seven begins the second part of the book. The Jews from Bethel ask whether they should continue to fast or if they could stop. It opens up the subject of fasting generally and allows us to see what God has to say about the subject.

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Welcome to the Acts 242 Podcast. This chapter, Zechariah chapter 7, opens up a new section in the book. You know, the first six chapters that we've been talking about week to week up until this point have really been uh one, at least a lot of people think that they were all visions that happened one right after the after another in the same night. It all happened in the second year of the reign of King Darius, and um, but that part of the book is now closed. And when we come to chapter 7, it begins with the words in the fourth year of King Darius. And so we realize immediately that since uh Zechariah put down the pen, shall we say, two years have gone by. And in those two years we know that there was a lot of blessing that flowed out to the people of Israel. And we also know that there was a tremendous amount of progress that happened on the building of the temple. We know that because the temple, it says in Ezra, was completed in the sixth reign of Darius. And so if here we're in the fourth year of the reign of Darius, it's only two more years before the temple is completed. So there was a lot of progress that happened, and the Lord, remember, um, it had been in that second year of Darius and Hegai that the Lord said, From this day on, I will bless you. So the second year of Darius was that turning point when the 70 years was completed. Here we are, two years into that. And what we find is kind of this uh next section of the book, which is chapter seven and chapter eight, take up this question that is asked. It's people from this uh town of Bethel. Uh they send a question, and so it reads, 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. Okay, and now it's gonna step back and it's gonna tell us, you know, the occasion upon which this word of the Lord came. It says, Now the town of Bethel had sent Sher Sherizer and Regamelech and their men to seek the favor of the Lord, speaking to the priest who belonged to the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets, saying, Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain as I have done these many years? Okay, so understand that Bethel, uh, which name means uh house of God, I don't believe it was very far from Jerusalem. And as people had returned, of course, many of them, maybe most of them, had settled in Jerusalem, but there were other uh areas around where people had also settled, and one of those areas was clearly Bethel. So they come to Jerusalem. You know, this temple is making progress. I assume they're starting to celebrate the feast there. We know that the altar had been set up for over 20 years at this point, because that was one of the first things that was set up. So they come there, they seek the favor of the Lord, and they have this question. And it's clear at this point from the prophecy that Zachariah had given two years previous, which no doubt had circulated by this time, it's clear that the Lord has come back and has desired to bless them. This is a tangible uh proof, if you will, of the exegesis that I tried to give of the interpretation, if you will, of those uh first visions, those first eight visions. It was the Lord saying to the people, come back to the land, I'm here to bless you. And yes, there's going to be trouble, but I am here and I'm gonna raise up this Messiah, come back, I'm going to bless you. Well, here these ones in Bethel had received that message, apparently had understood it to mean something to that effect. And so they're coming and they're saying, Well, should we, you know, continue to fast then? I mean, we fasted desiring the Lord's blessing. Now he's saying he is going to bless us. Two years have gone by and we've begun to see all of these blessings. You know, should we stop fasting? We don't want to displease the Lord now by stopping the fast, you know, what should we do? So the Lord could have chosen to answer through many different people, but he chooses to answer through this prophet Zechariah, who had delivered the message which had likely occasioned this question. So the Lord's answer is going to come now in five parts. And the first part is just these few verses when he asked this question. The Lord just essentially turns to them and says, When you uh fasted in the seventh month, fifth, and seventh month, was it actually to me that you were fasting? And we have to realize in this that there are two, and maybe more, but at least two different ways that a person can fast. The first is dates on a calendar. Okay, we come to the month of May, and we're gonna say, on the tenth day of that month to the 12th day of that month, say, I'm going to fast. I can drink water, I can eat after dark, say, or something like that, but for the days I'm going to fast. This is the Muslim fast during the month of Ramadan, or during the time of Ramadan. I don't know if it's an actual month or not. And then also we have Lent, where again it's a calendar thing, and you the Catholics restrict the amount of food that they eat or the kind of food that they eat. And any of us can do this. We can say, you know what? I'm gonna fast now for X number of days because I think it's a good thing and it will please the Lord. That is one kind of fasting. We could just generally call that religious fasting. There's dates on the calendar, you just know that you got to do it, you kind of get geared up for it and uh and kind of, you know, whatever, maybe try to eat a little extra ahead of time. I don't know what people do who participate in those things, but in any case, you you gear up for it and you just kind of suffer through it, and you think, phew, that's over. Now I can eat, let's feast and and have lots of food and and uh and build back up our reserves. And you and you kind of go on and say, well, I you know, that was pleasing to the Lord, we we did our thing. That is religious fasting, wherein you believe that the fast itself, the actual abstinence of food in and of itself is somehow a thing that is pleasing to God. The pain somehow brings this great reward. This is not what the Lord is looking for in fasting. The Lord Jesus is very clear about that in the New Testament. He's when he he is actually specifically asked about fasting, he's asked, why don't your disciples fast? He says, Well, the bridegroom is here. You know, I am here, so why would we fast? It's a time for rejoicing. He said, but there is going to come a day in which the bridegroom is taken away, and then they will fast in those days. And indeed, we find throughout the book of Acts that the disciples did fast after the Lord was taken away. They would fast uh somewhat frequently. But what we don't find in the book of Acts, and what the uh is this kind of religious fasting where its dates on a calendar, there's no indication anywhere in the New Testament, or as far as I know, even in the Old Testament, where a fast of any kind is proclaimed. There is like the feast of unleavened bread where you can't eat leaven, but you still eat bread. I mean, that's I don't think that's a fast, but we do find different individuals fasting. We find Daniel fasting, we find the apostles fasting, we find it in this very positive way where the Lord is honored. And the Lord Jesus speaks of this. He essentially, remember where he says if you've got wine and you try to put it in old wineskins, why it's gonna burst those skins and you'll lose both the wine and the old wineskins. He says the same thing about a new uh patch on an old piece of clothing. He says it's gonna tear and you'll lose both the patch and the clothing. Well, the point here is that there's a certain way, the fasting is very pleasing to the Lord as long as it's actually done properly. And properly doesn't mean for the right length of time and cutting out the right amount of foods, and it's not about Allah. Fasting done properly is true fasting of crying out to God in anguish of soul. That is pleasing to God. It's a seeking the Lord with your whole person, including your body, because your body is very much part of who you are. That is a fast to the Lord. What these people were doing, it was dates on a calendar. And the Lord shows that by just basically saying, uh, when you eat and drink, do you not eat for yourselves and do you not drink for yourselves? He's saying, look, throughout the rest of the year, are you eating for me and drinking for me? No. You're eating for yourselves, you're drinking for yourselves, you're doing everything for yourselves. And then you come to these dates on a calendar and you try to stop eating for me. He said, That's not what I am after. Um then he says, he says, Are not these the words which the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets when Jerusalem was inhabited and prosperous, along with the cities around it, and the negative and the foothills were inhabited? He says, Look, it wasn't for lack of fasting that you ended up in the situation you ended up in. I sent you prophets and you didn't listen. That's why you ended up here. It wasn't because you hadn't done the right stuff and hadn't fasted enough. Now, doesn't that remind you of ourselves at times where we end up in some sort of trouble and we start scratching our head and we start thinking, oh now, what haven't I done? Maybe I haven't been to meeting enough in the last little bit, or maybe I haven't done this enough, or I better really get these things in order. And I mean, sure, I mean, maybe we do need to get things in order, and the Lord is dealing with us, but but it's not about keeping a set of a checklist and then we'll be blessed. It's about a relationship with the Lord and listening to the Lord. And these people in this fast were just treating it like, you know, we just got to do this thing, and then the Lord will be on our side, then it will fix everything. That's the principle of law. Well, the Lord says, Look, there were issues that you had. It wasn't about fasting. You should have listened to me, and you didn't. All right, so we come now. That was kind of the the first answer. He calls them back and reminds them. They come, they ask this question, and he calls them back and he says, Look, this is why it's not about fasting. But the Lord is going to directly answer this question, or relatively directly uh answer this question in the end of chapter 8. But he he lays the groundwork here and he's going to go through these additional uh four sort of answers, shall we say, or pieces to this answer, with the last being a very relatively direct answer. So verse eight begins kind of the first uh, well, maybe you could say the second chunk of this answer. Then the word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying, Thus has the Lord of hosts said, dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion each to his brother, and do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor, and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. But they refused to pay attention, turned a stubborn shoulder, stopped their ears from hearing. They made their hearts like flint, so that they could not hear the law and the words which the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. And just as he called, and they would not listen, so they called, and I would not listen, says the Lord of hosts. This again, he's kind of building on what he's already said. He's going into it now in further detail, and he's again emphasizing the problem is not about fasting. The problem is about this relationship and your failure to listen to me. I'm God, I'm the Lord, I'm your Father, and yet I'm giving these instructions and you're just ignoring me. So he said, I determined that there would come a point at which, just as I called and you would not hear me, so you were going to call, and I would not listen to you, and you could essentially see what it felt like. Well, that was what happened during this fast, because they fasted the first year, and more bad stuff happened. And they fasted year after year after year after year for 70 years. I mean, people lived and died with this fast. Many people would have lived and died with this fast never being answered. And I'm sure that the children growing up who were hungry, I don't know how much the children were forced to fast or not or whatever, but I'm sure that they were asking, why are we doing it? God isn't listening to us. And I don't know what the parents or whoever would answer, but here the Lord is saying, Do you see what it feels like? This is what I felt like for 490 years when you refused to listen to me. And more specifically, when I sent the prophets over the last years, and you refused to listen to them. Now, again, doesn't this speak to my own heart? Isn't there a time, or have you ever experienced a time when you have cried out to the Lord in some anguish and in some some terrible need, and you don't hear anything in response? And you cry out again. You say, But Lord, I I need you right now. And again, nothing. And not that this is the only reason. There could be many reasons why the Lord would choose to not answer us, but this is one of them. Where he has been speaking to us, and we've been saying, Yeah, no, I'm I'm gonna go my own way. And so he says, Okay. And he brings in this trouble, and he says, That's what it feels like. And you need to learn your lesson, and you are going to cook in this fire, if you will, of judgment, until I say, Okay, that's enough, and I turn off the flame. And that is uh the first part of this answer. And so he says, I scatter them with the storm winds among the nations, whom they have not known. Thus the land is desolated behind them, so that no one went back and forth, for they made the pleasant land desolate. This thought of going back and forth just means activity. You know, like I think of bees on a beehive, you see them just going all around. Well, if all of a sudden there was no bees on the beehive, and everything was just still, you would know that something was really, really wrong. And he said, That's the way it is in the land. I just took everyone and I took you out of the land, I put you into terrible situations, and I I refuse to listen to you. And he says, It's because you wouldn't listen to me. That's why your fast has been ineffectual in part, anyway. Because you would not listen to me. No. Just to wrap up, what is the answer for this? If you are in a situation like this, what is the answer? Well, the answer is not to do as these people and begin to fast in these fake ways, shall we say? He says the answer is do not oppress the widow or the orphan, the stranger or the poor. Do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. In other words, practice true righteousness, truly seek the Lord, not by a checklist, but by true honest desire seeking the Lord. Think of Daniel. How blessed a portion he had, and yet he was in the pressure cooker, shall we say, right along with everybody else. In fact, he was, he was worse, he went into the lion's den. And yet, what blessings he experienced because he truly sought the Lord. And so if we are in this situation, it is time for us to perhaps fast in a real way and truly uh seek the Lord. That's the first part of this answer. The next uh three parts, or the last three parts, will come in chapter eight.