ZECHARIAH

Chapter Fourteen

Introduction

Did you get a little excited when I read verse five?

At the end of verse five, it says, "Thus the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with You." It's a direct address to the Lord which could also be translated, "Thus the Lord my God will come, and all the saints with Him."

At His Second Coming to earth, Jesus will be accompanied by "all the saints" who are "with Him." The Book of Revelation removes all doubt as to the identity of the "saints" who accompany Jesus on that great and glorious day. In chapter nineteen, verse eight, the Church in heaven is described as being "arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." Then, in verse fourteen, the Church is said to "[follow] [Jesus] upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean," as He returns in His Second Coming.

If you are a Christian, you will be with Him at His Second Coming! You and I, along with all of the believers of the Church Age which began on the Day of Pentecost, will be Raptured to heaven. Then the Great Tribulation will break forth upon planet earth and last for seven years. At the end of the seven-year Great Tribulation we will return with Jesus from heaven to earth, and He will establish a Kingdom upon the earth.

It will also bring in a lasting holiness as Jesus establishes a kingdom on the earth.

A last hope and a lasting holiness are the themes of this chapter. We’ll organize our thoughts around these two points: #1 You Will Be With Jesus When He Comes As The World’s Last Hope, and #2 You Will Be With Jesus When He Comes As The World’s Lasting Holiness.

#1 You Will Be With Jesus

When He Comes As The World’s Last Hope

Chapter fourteen zeroes in on the final siege against Jerusalem by the enemies of Israel. It will be terrible indeed, as you read in verse one and two,

Zechariah 14:1 Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, and your spoil will be divided in your midst.

Zechariah 14:2 For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem; the city shall be taken, the houses rifled, and the women ravished. Half of the city shall go into captivity, but the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

Houses rifled… Women ravaged… Only a frightened remnant remain. Unless those days were shortened, no one would be spared. God’s people will be without hope unless God Himself intervenes.

He will intervene!

Zechariah 14:3 Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle.

This Second Coming of Jesus Christ is mentioned frequently throughout Scripture. It has been calculated by scholars that there are eight times more references to the Second Coming of Jesus than there are to His first coming; it is claimed that about one in every twenty-five verses in the Bible refers to it.

Jerusalem will be under siege. All the armies of the world will be gathered together in the Valley of Megiddo. We call it the Battle of Armageddon. All hope for the survival of the human race will be lost… Until,

Zechariah 14:4 And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two, from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south.

Zechariah 14:5 Then you shall flee through My mountain valley, for the mountain valley shall reach to azal. Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Thus the LORD my God will come, and all the saints with You.

The heavens will break open… As lightening flashes from east to west, Jesus will come forth. He will set foot upon the earth at the very spot He departed from the earth at His ascension into heaven. A valley will be created by the power of His coming as the Mount of Olives cleaves in two providing a way of escape for the remnant under siege in Jerusalem.

In addition to geographic phenomena, there will be atmospheric phenomena:

Zechariah 14:6 It shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light; the lights will diminish.

Zechariah 14:7 It shall be one day which is known to the LORD - neither day nor night. But at evening time it shall happen that it will be light.

No one really knows what this means exactly. It will be the most awesome and the most awful day in the history of the earth.

It’s not all doom and destruction. Armageddon is not the end of the world; it is the beginning of something new, the Kingdom of God, on earth.

The earth will be refreshed by the Lord, and it’s people will be ruled by the Lord.

The earth will be refreshed:

Zechariah 14:8 And in that day it shall be that living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and half of them toward the western sea; in both summer and winter it shall occur.

Horrible judgments will have been poured out upon the physical earth during the seven years of the Great Tribulation. A fountain of life-restoring water shall flow forth from Jerusalem over the whole earth.

The earth’s people will be ruled:

Zechariah 14:9 And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be - "The LORD is one," and His name one."

God is the one and only Lord and always has been. That hasn’t stopped mankind from worshipping idols, and from exalting themselves. When Jesus rules over the earth, all idolatry and false worship will be cut-off; He alone will be worshipped.

He will rule from Jerusalem:

Zechariah 14:10 All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem. Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited in her place from Benjamin’s Gate to the place of the First Gate and the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s winepresses.

Zechariah 14:11 The people shall dwell in it; and no longer shall there be utter destruction, but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.

There will be a Temple at Jerusalem and all the people of the earth will go there to worship the Lord. The surrounding countryside will be leveled to accommodate them, and Jerusalem will be "raised-up" to inspire them, as they approach the Lord.

Verses twelve through fifteen return your attention to the Second Coming itself. You see that the Lord will cause both plague and panic to fall upon the enemies of His people.

The plague is described in verses twelve and fifteen:

Zechariah 14:12 And this shall be the plague with which the LORD will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths…

Zechariah 14:15 Such also shall be the plague on the horse and the mule, on the camel and the donkey, and on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be.

Forget about nuclear weapons causing this! The Lord strikes His enemies, and He doesn’t need nuclear weapons to do it. Scripture says that His weapon is a sword that proceeds out of His mouth. I take it to mean the very power of His words.

Those who aren’t dissolved are disheveled by panic:

Zechariah 14:13 It shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the LORD will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, and raise his hand against his neighbor’s hand;

This is the ultimate "panic attack." The enemies of the Lord will fight against one another in a supernatural panic.

Jesus will also empower certain Jews on the earth to fight with Him:

Zechariah 14:14 Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations shall be gathered together: gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance.

The Jews to whom Zechariah was writing would understand this to mean that they would completely defeat their enemies.

The world is headed towards Armageddon. Mankind remains hopeful. We believe we can achieve peace abroad, and that we can defeat our enemies at home. Eventually, however, all hope will be lost. The last hope for the world will be the Second Coming of Jesus.

We’ve seen some characteristics of His rule over the earth. Another is described in the remaining verses.

#2 You Will Be With Jesus

When He Comes As The World’s Lasting Holiness

Holiness will be the great characteristic of the Kingdom Age on the earth. Holiness will be enforced upon all people, and experienced by believers.

You see in verses sixteen through nineteen that holiness will be enforced:

Zechariah 14:16 And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Although most of the world’s population will be destroyed during the Great Tribulation and at the Battle of Armageddon, multitudes from every nation will survive and repopulate the earth. As I understand it, the Kingdom will initially consist only of believers… But as they reproduce, their offspring will not necessarily believe the Lord – even though He is physically on the earth!

Nevertheless, all the inhabitants of the earth – or at least representatives from all the nations of the earth - will be enforced to go to Jerusalem every year to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Why the Feast of Tabernacles and not the other feasts? The Feast of Tabernacles is the only one which will not have been fulfilled when the Kingdom is established.

The Feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, and Firstfruits were fulfilled in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ at His first coming. The Feast of Pentecost was fulfilled when the Church was born, in Acts chapter two. The Feast of Trumpets will be fulfilled before the Kingdom begins when God regathers His people from the ends of the earth. The Day of Atonement will be fulfilled when the Jews see Jesus at His Second Coming and repent and are cleansed.

The Feast of Tabernacles was a seven day period in the seventh month during which the Jews dwelt outdoors in temporary tabernacles, or booths, to commemorate their wandering in the wilderness. It foreshadows life in the Kingdom, when God will tabernacle among His people in the Kingdom on earth. The Kingdom on earth will be its fulfillment.

How will the Lord will enforce attendance?

Zechariah 14:17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, on them there will be no rain.

There will be a return to a more pastoral, agricultural lifestyle. Life on earth will be simpler and, as a result, fuller and more satisfying spiritually. Rain will be essential to physical prosperity. The Lord will withhold rain from those nations who refuse to come to worship Him.

Not all nations depend upon the rain over their own land. Egypt is an example. Egypt depended not so much upon rain in their land as rain elsewhere which would cause the flooding of the Nile. They, and others like them, will not be exempted if they refuse to come:

Zechariah 14:18 If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which the LORD strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Zechariah 14:19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.

Some unknown "plague" will befall Egypt and other nations who do not come. I don’t care to know what it is!

Today we are not called upon to force worship upon anyone. Our emphasis is on faith, not force. We share the Gospel to change hearts.

You see in verses twenty and twenty-one that holiness will be experienced:

Zechariah 14:20 In that day "HOLINESS TO THE LORD" shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in the LORD’S house shall be like the bowls before the altar.

Zechariah 14:21 Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the LORD of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of the LORD of hosts.

The Jews were familiar with the many holy bowls and other implements used in the worship of the Lord at His Temple. "Holiness to the Lord" was engraved upon the high priests headpiece. The mind-blower here is that every common utensil on earth will be elevated to the status of being "holy."

A "Caananite" was a mariner-merchant from Phonecia. It came to be a slang/slur to describe a dishonest, greedy, and therefore materialistic person. The idea here is that the emphasis in the Kingdom will not be on material things. Everything will be holy.

Let’s make application of holiness to ourselves. While we cannot enforce holiness in others, we can and should experience it in our own lives. We’re even told, in Hebrews 12:14, to "follow… holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." You were saved to be set-apart to serve the Lord.

Normally we think of holiness in terms of activities we avoid. That is certainly part of holiness. I want to concentrate on something else. "Holy" simply means set apart for the Lord. Since holiness is being set apart for the Lord, you can set-apart all that you possess and perform. Everything you do can be "as unto the Lord."

Let me give you a common example. Your dishes at home can and should be holy – set apart for the Lord. When you put a meal on them, you are doing it for Jesus… When you clear them off the table, you are doing it for Jesus… When you wash them, you are doing it for Jesus. The dishes you possess are thus set apart as holy to the Lord as the tasks you perform with them are done in a way that reveals your love for Him.

Conclusion

If you are a believer, you will be with Jesus when He comes as the world’s last hope to bring the world lasting holiness. You can have hope and holiness today as you look up for His return to Rapture you.

Not yet a believer? Then you are in trouble. You face the very real possibility of the Great Tribulation. We can’t force you to become a Christian; but you can by faith believe God for the forgiveness of sin and eternal life.