Zechariah 1

1:38Okay. So if you noticed, Haggai and Zechariah overlap a little bit. For Haggai, we had the sixth and the seventh and the ninth month. Well, Zechariah is going to start in the eighth month. So look at verse one. In the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Edo, saying, The Lord was very angry with your fathers. Let's pray before we start. Father, we thank you for these twin prophets that began their prophecies, their prophetic ministry together as you gave them messages.

2:27And Lord, they're so different. Haggai is said that he gets his messages from you through his hand, and Zechariah is getting these messages from night visions and in other ways. But Father, we're grateful that we get to study them even today. We're grateful that you took care of your people, that you were faithful to them, and you kept all your promises. We're grateful that you're faithful to all. As well. Help us, Lord, as we study this chapter and help us learn from it about you. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, as we go through this chapter tonight, what I want you to do is try and be thinking of all of the things that we learn about God from this chapter.

3:23Sometimes when we read the Old Testament, it can be our habit to kind of knee-jerk into saying, okay, what's this got to do with me? What's this got to do with me? And I think sometimes a better automatic habit is to say, what does this tell me about God? Who is God? How do I relate to him? So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to look for God's attributes, different characteristics of God, different ways that he works, because we see all kinds of different things in this chapter. God is interacting with his people. He's clearly communicating with them and telling them about himself and what he expects from them. So again, verse 2, he starts out this vision by saying, the Lord, Yahweh, that's his name, was very angry with your fathers.

4:09What is he talking about? The Lord was very angry with your fathers. Maybe, but I think this could actually be that same generation, right? Because this is only a few years later. Think back a little further. Who would their fathers be? Right. True. Yeah. They could worship the golden calf, but then even further on, they perpetuated that idolatry all the way into being sent into exile. So the ancestors of the people who are back in the land now, God has said, I was very angry with your fathers. The Lord was very angry with your fathers. Verse 3, therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts, return to me.

5:03Two babies at one time. Therefore say to them, Thus declares the Lord of hosts, return to me, says the Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets cried out, thus says the Lord of hosts, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds. But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they repented and said, as the Lord of hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so has he dealt with us. Okay, so as you read further, it becomes a little more obvious who the fathers are, right?

5:53He's saying that God said to them, verse 3, thus declares the Lord of hosts, return to me, says the Lord. Lord of hosts, and I will return to you, says the Lord of hosts. So he's telling the people right now, come back to me, and I'll come back to you. Return to me, have fellowship with me, repent of what you've done, and I'll return and have fellowship with you. Verse 4: Do not be like your fathers. So the implication is that they didn't do that. They didn't return. Do not be like your fathers to whom the former prophets cried out, Thus says the Lord of hosts, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds. But they did not hear or pay attention to me, declares the Lord. So he's quoting probably a summary of some different prophets that are saying to Israel over and over and over and over again, return to the Lord, return to the Lord, return to the Lord. And they're rejecting and rejecting and rejecting. Or maybe it might be a more specific quote. You can write down Jeremiah 35, 15 is a really similar quote to that, as a summary of the message of those former prophets who are saying, What God has promised about the exile is coming very soon. Return, return, return. Well, they're not listening to the voice of the prophets.

7:14They did not pay attention to me, declares the Lord. Your fathers, where are they? In the prophets, do they live forever? But my words and my statutes, which I commanded, my servants, the prophets, did they not overtake your fathers? So they repented and said, as the Lord of hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so has he dealt with us. So he's saying, even your fathers, in the end, they didn't repent before this judgment came, but after it came, all they could say is, yeah, he told us this was coming. He told us over and over and over, didn't he deal with us just like he said he would?

7:55And so he's saying, look, your fathers aren't around anymore. The prophets aren't around anymore, the prophets that were speaking to them. But remember my words and remember that it happens exactly as I say it will happen. Okay? Listen to this or turn there. This is Lamentations 2:17. It says this almost exact same thing. Of course, what's just happened in the book of Lamentations? Jerusalem is sacked. The temple is destroyed. And that's why we have the book of Lamentations. And he says in Lamentations, verse 17: The Lord has done what he purposed. He has carried out his word, which he commanded long ago. He has thrown down without pity. He has made the enemy rejoice over you and exalted the might of your foes. So that is what they say after these events happen. They say, The Lord has done exactly what he purposed. He's done exactly what he said he would. And God is saying. To this generation that have returned from exile, pay attention to my words.

9:06Return to me. I'm telling you, return to me. Don't ignore me like they did. What do we learn about God in that section? What are some of the attributes we learn about God? He does what he says, right? He keeps his word. He's always faithful to his words, and his words never fade away. You can't just dissolve part of the Old Testament and assume God won't fulfill those. No, they stand forever. Even though the prophets are gone, even though the apostles are gone, the words that God has spoken are still here, and they're going to stand forever. What else do we learn about God?

9:53He does get angry, right? We talked about that this morning. He says in verse 2, the Lord was very angry with your fathers. He was very angry with your fathers. What else do we learn? Yeah, he wants to have fellowship, and he's gracious, he's merciful to offer that even when people are sinning against them, he's still saying, you can return. Right now, you can return. You're sinning against me just like your fathers did. They didn't return. You can return.

10:26He still has grace toward them. Anything else? You said it. He's forgiving, right? He's willing to take them back. If you return to me, I will return to you. Anything else? The sins of man. Right. The sins of man do not thwart God's purposes. So maybe if we were putting that into an attribute, we'd say something like his sovereignty or his power over everything that man can't stand in God's way, even if they are sinning. One more, I was thinking towards the end, when the fathers say they repented and said, as the Lord of hosts purposed to deal with us for our ways and deeds, so he has dealt with us. That the Lord is also just and fair. It's not like he has been this unrighteous judge that has done something unfair to them. No, he told them a thousand times. And then he dealt with them exactly how he said he would. He's just and he's fair and gracious towards us. All right, we're going to move on to the next section. Oh, yes.

11:48Yeah. It's fresh. That they needed to do what he said, to keep his statutes, his commands, and his laws. Right. Right. From the beginning. Right. Right. Yeah, that's right. He was always saying that. Okay, look at verse 7. On the 24th day of the 11th month, so now we're at the very end of that same year, which is the month of Shabbat in the second year of Darius. The word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, son of Edo, saying, 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. This is where we get, this is how he starts the next prophetic section. So in this month, this date doesn't get repeated, which makes most people think that all of these visions that we're about to get, that we're going to study for the next couple months, all of these visions are happening in one night, these night visions that have come to him. I think there's eight. Don't quote me on that, though. But he's getting these visions all still in this year. And he's going to see these things and ask what they mean, and he's going to be told what they mean. Okay? So let's study them together. By the way, something I forgot to say at the beginning: this name, Zechariah, was actually like. One of the most common names in the Old Testament. I think we have a record of 29 different Zechariahs in the Old Testament or in the Bible, New Testament, too. And it means Yahweh remembers. The Lord remembers, remembering his faithfulness.

13:48His grandpa might have been the priest Edo. If you remember reading about him, he was in several of the lists that we see in Ezra. Okay, verse 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. Then I said, What are these, my Lord? The angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what they are. So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth. So he gets this vision of first a man on a horse, on a red horse, and then there are other horses there that he sees. We're not sure what all the colors there are there. In my translation, one of them is translated sorrel, but that word could be, they don't really know. It could be yellow, could be brown, could be speckled. But there's these different kinds of horses, and they're among the myrtle trees, and this is what he sees. And he calls it the low place. So it seems like this is a place they knew where it was, maybe if they're in Jerusalem. The Kidron Valley or something like that. But there were these myrtle trees there. The myrtle tree, if you remember, was a tree that they used a lot for the Feast of Booths. So all the Jews would have known what these trees look like. So they could picture these myrtle trees in the low place with these horses standing there. Okay?

15:21It gets a little fuzzy who's talking when. So look at verse 8. He sees the man riding on the red horse, and then he was standing among the myrtle trees. Verse 9: Then I said, What are these, my Lord? And the angel who talked with me said to me, I will show you what they are. Well, so far there hasn't been an angel talking with them, so maybe this is the man. Then, verse 10, so the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, These are they whom the Lord has sent to patrol the earth. 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. We're going to stop there, okay, for now.

16:08So he sees these horses, he sees these trees, and he says, What does this mean? And he's told, I'll tell you what this means. These are who I've sent to patrol the earth. And they say, We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest. So, how would you take the primary meaning? Of what this vision is. What's the message of this vision? Somebody's patrolling the earth with the Lord. Right? Yeah. We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest. So it seems like God has set apart these horsemen to patrol the earth. Maybe they're a force of angels on horseback or something like that, and they're going all over the earth and making sure it's peaceful and that it's all under God's control. And they say, We have patrolled the earth, and everything is at peace.

17:12Notice what he doesn't talk about. He asks the angel what this vision means, and the angel doesn't tell him about a red horse or a white horse or the myrtle trees, right? And so, you know, probably a habit, especially of early Christians, was to start right away and say, okay, we know that the color red in the Bible means judgment. So the first horse means judgment, and the color white means victory. So that horse means God's going to have victory. And the myrtle tree is used in the Feast of Booth, which is about God's faithfulness. So he's trying to communicate a message about his faithfulness. And it could go on and on and on. I read one guy that says the leaves on a myrtle tree look like the shape of an eye. But, you know, kind of. All leaves, kind of, not all of them, but a lot of leaves look like the shape of an eye. And so his point was that since they look like an eye, God is saying he sees over all the earth, you know. But that's not what the message of the vision is, right? God doesn't give symbolism to all of those things. It seems like he's just saying, look, there were these patrolmen on horseback, and they have done what I told them to do. They have gone all over, and they have said it's at peace. The earth is at peace, the earth remains at rest.

18:37What do we learn about the Lord from this first message? Right, he cares what's going on in the world, he sees what's going on in the world. What else? It's his to patrol, it's his to control, right? He's got these forces under his control, and it is at rest. This probably was a timely message for them, right? If these are people who are scared of building this temple, and they've already started a couple months ago building this temple again, and they're constantly worried about rumors of, oh no, we're going to get a new Persian king, and that king's going to tell us we can't build the temple because it's kind of flip-flopped on them before, right? They had one king. That said, go build the temple, and then they had another king that wanted them to stop, and then they had another king that said, No, this king said, I want you to build the temple. And so it is kind of volatile. And so I think it would have been kind, God's kindness to them to say, No, the Lord's in control, the earth is at rest. Let's keep going. Look at verse 12. Verse 12. Then the angel of the Lord said, We have a new name there. Do you notice the angel of the Lord? Does anybody remember in other texts? And of course, this could just be an angel of Yahweh. But usually, when we hear the name the angel of the Lord, who are we talking about? Yeah, probably Christ, right?

20:22We see in several places in the Old Testament that there's a figure called the angel of the Lord, but he doesn't act like the other angels. You know, the other angels, when people bow down to the other angels, we see in Revelation, they say, no, no, no, no, don't do that, right? They're not going to accept that because they don't want to sin. They don't want to take his place. But there's one angel of the Lord who does that on several occasions. He accepts worship as if to Yahweh. He lets people bow down and worship him. And so this angel of the Lord is at least some figure of the Godhead and what makes the most sense. is to say that it's a pre-incarnate Christ, Christ before he became a man, that he is showing up as the angel of the Lord. So perhaps this is the man on the horse. So verse 12. Then the angel of the Lord said, O Lord of hosts. So now he's talking to, if it is Christ, he's talking to the Father. But he's talking to God here clearly. O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem in the cities of Judah against which you have been angry these 70 years?

21:36Why does that sound familiar? 70 years. Right. They were in captivity for 70 years. You can turn or listen to Jeremiah 25. That when the people were first going into captivity, Jeremiah beforehand had told them this. Jeremiah 25, verse 8, Therefore, thus says the Lord of hosts, because you have not obeyed my words. Behold, I will send for all the tribes of the north, declares the Lord, and for Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, my servant, and I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and against all these surrounding nations. And I will devote them to destruction and make them a horror, a hissing, and an everlasting desolation. Moreover, I will banish from them the voice of mirth. And the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the grinding of the millstones, and the light of the lamp. So he's saying, all of these things, normal happy life things, bread being made and weddings happening, all of these things, they're gone. Because, verse 11, this whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon 70 years. Then, after 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the Lord, making the land an everlasting waste. And you remember that that's exactly what happened. That from the time they were first taken into exile to the time when they were first allowed to return, that was 70 years. Now, it's a little tricky because also, from the time the temple was destroyed to the time when the temple was finished, that's also 70 years.

23:33It's kind of interesting. But I think that what Jeremiah is talking about is this first 70 years. From the first time that Babylon came and took Jews to the first time they're able to return, I think that's the 70 years that Jeremiah is talking about because he says Babylon after the 70 years is going to be sacked. So, anyways, back to Zechariah. Write down, we don't have time to go there, but the end of 2 Chronicles, right before Ezra, it mentions that 70 years again. It says that it's fulfilled whenever they, by the decree of Cyrus, return to the land. Okay, so back to Zechariah. The angel of the Lord said, O Lord of hosts, how long will you have no mercy on Jerusalem, in the cities of Judah, against which you have been angry these 70 years? So he could be pointing backwards to that 70 years that they've just completed and said, You're angry with us for all that time. How long is this going to last?

24:36asked the angel of the Lord. Or he could be talking about the 70 years that the temple is being destroyed. But look at verse 13. And the Lord answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. 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, and I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease. For while I was angry but a little, they furthered the disaster. 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. 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.

25:35So the angel of the Lord says, how long is this going to last? You said the 70 years, but how long are the people still going to suffer after this? And Yahweh answered right back with gracious and comforting words. First, he says, I'm exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion. So rather than totally forsaking Jerusalem and Zion and being done with his people, he says, no, I'm jealous for them. They're mine. Right? I want them back.

26:13The opposite, verse 15, I am exceedingly angry with the nations that are at ease. For while I was angry, but a little, they furthered the disaster. So yes, God used them as a tool to destroy his people, but then they went above and beyond in their wickedness. And God made God even more exceedingly angry. Verse 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. So that measuring line, we hear about it elsewhere as the measuring line they're going to destroy with the measuring line. But here I think he's talking about they're going to have to measure things because stuff's going to be built in the city again. The measuring line is going to be stretched out all over the city because they're going to have to construct. You remember when we studied in Nehemiah, which is Nehemiah, is Nehemiah before or after what we're studying right now?

27:14It's after, right? It's after. You remember the four chunks? We're still up here in this first chunk, Ezra 1 through 6, when we hear about Haggai and Zachariah. And then Ezra comes back, and then Nehemiah comes back and rebuilds the wall, and then they repopulate the city. Well, the book of Nehemiah is that story of them rebuilding the wall and repopulating the city. And we're still before that. So I think that that could definitely be a prophecy that is fulfilled right there, that they're building stuff all over the city because they've built the wall, and now people are coming back. So the house is going to be built, and the measuring line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem, all over the city. They're going to build stuff. My city shall again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem. So, okay, what do we learn about the Lord in this section?

28:11He's jealous for his people, right? That's an attribute of God that we don't think about that much. His jealousy. In fact, I don't know if you've heard this, but this was Oprah's reason. Have you heard this before? This was Oprah's reason for rejecting Christianity. Growing up in the church, it was at least what she said was that the God of the Bible is a jealous God, and she couldn't worship a God who was jealous because she didn't like jealousy. It's on YouTube, you can look it up.

28:47But so she's attributing that jealousy with wickedness. Of course, we know there's no wickedness in God, so what does he mean when he's saying he's jealous for them? He's the only God who wants you to be the only God. Right, he is the only God. They are his people. He loves them like a husband loves a wife, and a husband should rightly be jealous for the affection of his wife. And so it is righteous for the Lord to be exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and Zion. It's his.

29:21What else do we learn about the Lord in this? He's compassionate, right? He answers in verse 13: the Lord answered gracious and comforting words to the angel who talked with me. So the Lord is compassionate and gracious. He's kind, ready to comfort. He's also merciful, which goes with compassionate down in verse 16. Therefore, thus says the Lord, I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. So they don't deserve this. I could rightly punish them for. Forever, but I've made promises to them and I return to them with mercy. I give them what they don't deserve, even though they sinned against me. What else?

30:12Right. Right. We hear again about his anger, and now it's exceedingly angry at the other nations. We'll hear about that some more in the next prophecy. But he's exceedingly angry with the nations, and he's jealous again. He's chosen again his people. The temple is going to be put back there. It's going to be the center again. Anything else? Rosemary? It's interesting that God says, My house will be rebuilt. Sounding as if he wants that house. And it's interesting to me that he should want the house when he has a whole entire universe, you know, and maybe other universities, too, that I don't know about, but I see it more as a New Testament at the heart of our heart.

31:04Yeah. It is an interesting point to say that when they came back from exile, it was God who said, I want you to build this house. I'm actually reading a book right now. Don't read it. It's called Irresistible, unless you want to feel some righteous anger. It's called Irresistible by Andy Stanley. And his whole point is that basically God never wanted that temple. Because you remember, whenever David said, I'm going to build you a temple, God said, you know, have I ever asked for a temple?

31:44But then he lets Solomon build it. And then he quotes Jesus about how no stone's going to be left on top of each other. And he says, See, look at that. God never wanted this temple. But he forgot this middle part, right? Where God's saying, Build my temple, right? Build my temple. Go there. My house shall be built in it. Yeah. I think a huge and important piece to that puzzle is a proclamation for the land that worships in a place, a specific place. He tells Moses. I mean, he doesn't say, he doesn't tell them yet quite as they're entering it, but it says, I'm going to worship at a place. There is a place to find a specific location. Right. I mean, he progressively reveals that to others.

32:34And I think, wrapped up in that, is something else we learn about the character of God from this section, and then we can move on to the last part. But that God has given his people specific instructions. I don't know how you sum this up in a single word, but God has given his people specific instructions. He expects them to follow his instructions. And he allows them to worship him. But it's part of this obedience and worship relationship. That he has for them. Okay, look at verse 18. The last part of chapter 1. And I lifted my eyes and saw. So he's looking somewhere else now. So he's not looking at the myrtle trees with the horsemen. He's looking somewhere else. I lifted my eyes and saw, and behold, four horns.

33:23What do you think horns usually symbolize in the Old Testament? Power, right? Power kings. In Daniel, they're these empires. But he sees four horns, and I said to the angel, who talked with me? What are these? And he said to me, These are the horns that have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. Okay, so the first part of the vision, he looks up, he sees four horns. We don't know much about, you know, what they look like. There's just four horns there. And he says, okay, what do these mean? And he's told, these are the powers that scattered Jerusalem. And so some people line them up with what we see in Daniel, and they'll say that these are the, you know, the Babylonian Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and the Roman Empire, or something like that.

34:24Yeah, that's what I was just about to say: it could be Assyria in Babylon and Persia. He's not specific, and the angel doesn't tell him, right? He just says four horns, and it could be just that these enemies came from four directions or something like that. It could just mean a totality of basically these powers, whoever they were, and scattered Jerusalem. That's what these horns represent. Okay, now, why is he seeing these? Look at verse 20. Then the Lord showed me four craftsmen. And that's a general word. It could mean any kind of craftsman, a stone worker or a gold worker or a carpenter or something. The Lord showed me four craftsmen. And I said, What are these coming to do? And he said, These are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one raised his head.

35:17And these have come to terrify them, to cast down the horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter it. Okay, so it's a little confusing there for a second because he doesn't answer right away. He says, These are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one raised his head. So this is a dejected, right? The people are looking down as they're carried away into slavery. But these craftsmen are coming to terrify the horns, to cast down the horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter it. And so these nations that have come to scatter Israel, there's going to be. Someone who comes and terrifies them as well. And of course, that's the same message we hear about in Habakkuk. We talked about that. I don't remember when. We talked about Habakkuk recently, where he's talking to God, and he says, help with this injustice in the land. And God says, oh, I'm going to help. I'm going to bring Babylon. And of course, Habakkuk is astonished because Babylon is wicked. And God says, you know, but I'm going to deal with them as well. And this is the way God works. And this is what God is saying again in this passage: is that, yes, the horns, God has allowed them to come and scatter the people, but God's going to deal with those horns too. It's his people that he's taking care of. He is punishing them and disciplining them, but then bringing them back for mercy to build the temple again and build the city again. So what do we learn about God in that last section?

37:01Right. He controls the nations. He controls kings. He knows the future. He controls the future perfectly and meticulously. What else? Yeah. That's right. He what? Yeah, he vindicates his people that if the nations thought that the Israelites were foolish all this time for worshiping this God, he vindicates them. He shows that, no, he really is the God who's in charge. Pat? Oh, okay. Jesus was craftsman. Yeah. Scary craftsman. Scary craftsman, yeah. Maybe, maybe they weren't scary looking.

38:06Who knows? What else do we learn about God? He's got a plan, right? And it will happen. All right, so let's just review a little bit. I might not say everything you said, but in this chapter, we have, he's telling them, return to me, and I'll return to you. Don't be like your fathers. Don't follow their example where they never repented. So maybe an application for us there is to have that heart that repents. And he tells them in that section to trust his word. His word stands forever. We can trust it. It's not going to disappear. So we can have hearts that repent. We can have hearts that trust the word of God. And we learned in that section that God is wrathful, but God is gracious. His word is eternal, and he's just, and he's fair. In the next section, he talked about.

39:00Patrolling the earth. He sees this vision of patrolling the earth, and we get this picture of God's control, his omniscience over every nation, that he's got his agents doing his bidding and patrolling the earth. And so, an application there is certainly that we can trust him, that he's got everything under his control, right? We can pray to him, pray for our leaders, and pray for the nations. In the next section, we talked about how God is angry with the nations, but he's ready to have mercy on his people. That it's time for them to build the temple, it's time for them to rebuild the city. And of course, that would have been so encouraging since they have just started building this temple again. This tiny little community that's returned in the middle of all these grand nations, especially the Persian Empire, is hearing that the Lord is going to bless their efforts, even though they look small and insignificant.

40:01And we learned in that section that God is comforting to his people. He's jealous for his people. He wants their worship. He's merciful towards them. And he's faithful to them to keep blessing them as he's promised. And then in the last section, we learn that he's got this plan for the future. He's all-powerful. And though people might think that they have one-upped God and beaten his people or something. Like that, that God is actually still in control even when that happened. He's in control of everything.

40:36And so we learn about his power and his plan. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this time to be together. We're thankful for this passage. Lord, I pray that you would give us an eagerness, like we always pray, to know your word and to study it. As we keep going through the book of Zechariah and we read some prophecies that are so easy for us to understand and some prophecies that are a little trickier, I pray that you would teach us about yourself.

41:19It's hard to love our spouse or buy our spouse a gift without knowing something about them, without knowing who they are and what they like. And in a similar way, the more we know about you and the more we learn about your character as it's revealed in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, the more we learn about what you've done, helps us come and worship you. It helps us live our lives in a way that's pleasing to you.

41:55And so, Lord, I pray that the things that we learned about you and your character, Tonight would stay in our minds as we go throughout this week. We're grateful for your word that lasts forever and stands forever and will never go away. We thank you for each other. We pray that we'd love each other and encourage one another. In Jesus' name, amen.