Judgement and Harvest

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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Please turn in your Bibles to the book of Zechariah in chapter 14

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I'm going to begin reading in verse 6 through the end of the chapter. This is

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God's holy and infallible Word And it shall come to pass in that day that there will be no light

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The lights will diminish It shall be one day which is known to the

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Lord neither day nor night but at evening time it shall happen that it will be light and In that day it shall be that living waters shall flow from Jerusalem half of them toward the

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Eastern Sea and half of them toward the Western Sea and Both summer and winter it shall occur and the

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Lord shall be king over all the earth And in that day it shall be the

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Lord is one in his name One All the land shall be turned into a plain from Geba to Ramon south to Jerusalem to 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 wine presses

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The people shall dwell in it and no longer shall there be utter destruction, but Jerusalem shall be

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Safely inhabited and This shall be the plague with which the

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Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet

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Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths

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It shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the Lord will be among them

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Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor and raise his hand against his neighbor's hand

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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

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Such also shall be the plague on the horse and the mule on the camel on the donkey and All the cattle that will be in those camps so shall this plague be

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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

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Lord of hosts and to keep the feast of tabernacles And it shall be that which are over of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the king the

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Lord of hosts on them There will be no rain 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

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Lord strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the feast of tabernacles 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 and that day holiness to the

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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

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Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to the Lord of hosts

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Everyone whose sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them and that day there shall be no longer be a

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Canaanite in the house of the Lord of hosts May the

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Lord be pleased with our consideration of his most excellent word

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Please pray with me. Oh Lord, we thank you for your prophet your servant

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Zechariah We thank you that he points us to Christ We ask

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O Lord that your people would see how Judgment has come and has fallen upon Christ and they are delivered

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I pray that they would be rejoicing today that they have found shelter and protection under your watchful care

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And O Lord strengthen and build up your church Help us to see more and more of the excellency and glory of Christ and we ask these things in Jesus name

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Amen Please be seated because of our longer than usual liturgy

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I opted to Break off the message today at verse 16, though It may be better to have gone further and deeper at least through verse 19.

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We're going to take up The larger part of the Feast of Tabernacles discussion next week

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Lord willing today the title of the message is judgment and harvest judgment and Harvest if you were wanting to have like a thesis statement a central idea to focus on God's judgment yields a harvest.

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This is a very interesting scriptural principle God's judgment yields a harvest those of you who are taking notes first a

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Plague judgment for the enemies of Jerusalem. That's the first point That's the major bulk of the text that we'll be considering today verses 12 through 15 a plague judgment for the enemies of Jerusalem Second a harvest of souls

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Second is a harvest of souls a plague judgment for the enemies of Jerusalem Did you know that the people of God are redeemed through judgment?

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Do you know that judgment and justice precedes deliverance for God's people

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What to remind you of the Exodus? The people of God were placed under the heavy tyrannical hand of Pharaoh for 433 years and you could

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Venture many guesses as to why the Lord has done that to them But in the fullness of time he purposed that judgment would fall upon Pharaoh and Egypt and that his people would be delivered and That judgment came in the form of the death angel

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But there's another little twist another little irony here in the way that God's people have been delivered historically

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Judgment had to fall upon a Passover lamb there's kind of like two judgments a

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Judgment upon the wicked and a judgment upon a sacrifice It seems that God's people are

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Delivered they're saved through judgment As we've been studying this incredible book

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Zechariah in this chapter I want to point you back to the beginning in verse 1 of chapter 14.

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It says behold the day of the Lord is coming and Your spoil will be divided in your midst

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For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. Do you remember this from a few weeks ago?

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The city shall be taken The houses will be rifled. The women will be ravished half of the city's going into captivity

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But the remnant of the people shall not Be cut off from the city judgment comes upon God's people his wayward people as we learned in 8070 they rejected

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Jesus as the Messiah. He came and he wiped them out But there's another judgment

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Verse 3 the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as he fights in the day of battle

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Our God used Egypt to chasten Jacob's band for a time for 433 years

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He uses a Syria to chasten his people

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He uses Babylon in more close context to Zechariah to chasten his people he used

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Rome in the time of Jesus to to chasten To push his people in a direction to to purify them to Have them endure trials that they might yield their fruit in its season but then the judgment turns

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He does not forget his promises to his people. He does not forget his promises to Make Jerusalem his dwelling place

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And he says I'm going to fight against those nations I want you to turn back to our text that we're focusing on in verse 12

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We don't talk about judgment enough. It's not popular You're not going to hear television preachers preach on judgment doesn't play well with the masses

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But we have to understand the very reality of judgment our friends and neighbors who do not know

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Christ if they persist in their Unbelief, they will suffer the just wrath of God not only now but forever

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Then this should sober us this language is very startling in verse 12, isn't it?

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It's very picturesque The the plague that's going to come upon those whom

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God used to strike the people who fought against Israel These people are coming against Jerusalem.

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They're plundering Jerusalem now the judgment flips back on them

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Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet. That is a horrific picture their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets and their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths

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The Lord is going to strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem I want to pause here.

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There's a Soberness to our thinking a warning but also a cause of our rejoicing

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If we be not in Christ There is a horrific future in store

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We probably take it too lightly that our friends and neighbors are going to hell

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But we're not moved by that The terror that the

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Lord will pour out on them in the last day Can you imagine the person just going about their business living as if there is no

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God today? And our friends and our extended family we see this in an instant in a moment their life may be required of them and they're going to face the righteous judge in His justice must be meted out

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You see there can be no redemption no salvation if there's not judgment

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Justice For those of you who are in Christ the horrors and terrors of God's judgment have fallen upon the

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Sun and This should break our hearts in one sense and cause us to be filled with joy and have a

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Reciprocal love for the one who gave himself for us you understand our sin was judged in Christ He didn't wink at our sin or just say

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I'm going to not gaze upon it any longer He took his just wrath directed at us and because we were united to Christ He poured it out on Jesus in our place

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If he doesn't do that there there's no salvation for us and How can he be silent and how could he not act?

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When they trample the blood of the Son of God underfoot and treat it as a not common thing

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Who say that I don't need that salvation how great will be the fury of God's wrath upon the wicked judgment is strangely a means of Reconciliation The enemies of God have the tables turned and there is the great vindication of the warrior

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King Jesus here in Zechariah 14 Can you imagine this picture we we tend to be literalistic and try to Imagine every detail happening a certain way according to a safe a certain timeline, but can you imagine the utter?

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Destruction who of those who have waged war against God and his people Look at verse 13

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It shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the

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Lord Will be among them Do you remember the first couple weeks of the kovat?

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situation how crazy people were acting We know that there was a lot of forces at work a lot of propaganda a lot of things happened there people are fighting in stores over toilet paper and bottled water

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Imagine if the power grid was attacked as they're talking about China wants to attack our power grid.

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Can you imagine? What would happen to all the people who couldn't plug their phones in?

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Couldn't turn on their air conditioning All the refrigeration would be shut off.

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Can you imagine the panic in the streets that would happen? It shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the

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Lord will be among them So you have a picture of the enemies of God maybe encircling

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Jerusalem and certainly Zechariah's audience may have thought that and then can you imagine they're they're thinking we have

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We're already plundering them. We're taking and stealing all their goods we're routing the the

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Israelites the Jerusalem people there and and then a panic sets in a panic that comes from the

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Lord and Everyone seizes the hand of his neighbor and and in the confusion in the chaos the

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The marauders start fighting and killing each other They raise hands against one another and they were they were going in this direction

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Towards to be the enemies of God and his people and now they're going against themselves

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Says in verse 14 that Judah also will fight at Jerusalem And this picture of its military

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Has a militaristic feel to it. There's certainly other spiritual elements. It seems that God's people in some way

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Participate in their defeat. We've already learned that that the Lord and the visitation of his judgment is going to bring his

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Righteous angels and also his holy ones with him that's come right out of Zechariah That language and imagery

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The people of God are going to be in some measure involved in their defeat and look how the tables have turned and The wealth of the surrounding nations shall be gathered together

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Gold silver and apparel in great abundance the beginning of the chapter they were plundering

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Jerusalem now They're coughing up their own wealth in Jerusalem See judgment is coming

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God's righteous justice will be served on the earth and this should be terrifying

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For us as we consider those whom we love even the animals and their their ways of making

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Grow agronomy and in their business their agribusiness and even their cattle it says in verse 15

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They're gonna be touched with the plague such also shall be the plague on the horse and the mule and on the camel and on the donkey and and all the

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Cattle that will be in those camps. So Shall this plague be?

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I'm gonna ask you to turn back really quickly to Exodus chapter 3 this is very foundational to the identity of the

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Jewish people It's very familiar to us and I'm gonna read

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We'll begin reading. This is Moses at the burning bush And Moses been called out to be

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His spokesman his prophet his leader. Let's look at verse 14 and God said to Moses I am who

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I am And he said thus you shall say to the children of Israel. I am has sent me to you

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Moreover God said to Moses thus you shall say to the children of Israel the Lord God of your fathers the

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God of Abraham The God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you This is my name forever.

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And this is my memorial to all generations Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them the

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Lord God of your fathers the God of Abraham of Isaac And of Jacob appeared to me saying

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I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt and I have said

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I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the

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Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites to a land flowing with milk and honey

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Then they will heed your voice and you shall come you and all the elders of Israel to the king of Egypt And you shall say to him the

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Lord God of the Hebrews has met with us and now please let us go three days journey into the wilderness

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That we may sacrifice to the Lord our God But I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go even not even by a mighty hand

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So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all my wonders which

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I will do in its midst and after that he will let you go and I will give this people favor in the sight of the

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Egyptians and it shall be when you go that you shall not go empty -handed But every woman shall ask of her neighbor namely of her who dwells near her house articles of silver articles of gold and clothing

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You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall ponder the

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Egyptians Israel's birth as a nation Follows this pattern it seems this

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Story is rehearsed again in Zechariah God is going to fight for his people

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There's another illustration. I'm going to read to you. I'm gonna ask you to just to turn back to our text

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I'm gonna read very quickly from second Kings second

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Kings You can go ahead and go back to Zechariah 14 this is the defeat of Sennacherib and This is very in the days of Hezekiah I'm going to read a little portion of this because this also is picturesque of what happens here and Zechariah Second Kings 1932 says therefore thus says the

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Lord concerning the king of Assyria He shall not come into this city nor shoot an arrow there nor Come before it with a shield nor build a siege mound

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Against it by the way that he came by the same He shall return and he shall not come into the city says the

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Lord for I will defend this city to save it For my own sake and for my servant

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David's sake I want you to listen very carefully Sennacherib's army is gathered the king of Assyria and his forces have gathered to attack

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Verse 35 says and it came to pass on a certain night That the angel of the

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Lord went out and killed in the camp of the Assyrians 185

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Thousand and when people arose early in the morning there were corpses all dead

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See when the Lord raises up in battle You can imagine the people of God Sharpening their spears and their swords and thinking about this looming battle and the impending doom

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That's coming upon them a superior force They wake up and the army is dead

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Judgment has fallen upon the enemies of God we can never forget

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That our God is a God of justice His name and his honor will be vindicated his and our enemies will be defeated

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Well, there's another point. I'd like to make before we close and let's continue in Zechariah 14

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Plague of judgment comes upon the enemies of Jerusalem Their flesh is going to dissolve their eyes are going to dissolve their tongues are going to dissolve.

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There's going to be great panic Everyone's going to start fighting against his neighbor The wealth of the nations which had plundered

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Jerusalem are going to find themselves plundered and like the issue with Assyria they're gonna wake up and find all of their forces dead

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The very means of existence their horses and their mules their camels their donkeys

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Or even the cattle their their means of work and their food sources are going to be plagued but judgment

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Can yield a harvest Look at verse 16, and it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations

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Which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the

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King the Lord of hosts and to keep the

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Feast of Tabernacles The Feast of Tabernacles was one of the three pilgrimage feasts that every

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Jewish man was required to attend annually and It signified two very important things one of which we've already cited the exodus from Egypt and the harvest this usually occurred starting in a range of days five days after the day of atonement and the people here constructed makeshift tents just as their forefathers did while roaming the desert after being set free from Egyptian bondage

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The Feast of Tabernacles would be akin to our Christmas. It was the biggest

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Feast day really for the Jews in terms of what it became by the time

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Jesus Was on the scene in the incarnation it commemorated

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God's salvation It obviously pictured the shelter and the temporary nature of the shelters they had but it also

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Pictured God's provision for them and his faithfulness In John chapter 37,

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I mean sorry John 7 beginning at verse 37 Jesus at the

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Feast of Tabernacles said this He stood up in the midst at the peak of the feast said on the last day that great day of the feast

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Jesus stood up and cried out saying if Anyone thirst let him come to me and drink

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He who believes in me and the scripture as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of Living water and the text says he spoke concerning his spirit

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By the time of Christ the feast had become very elaborate Including the use of candelabras those giant torchlights

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They were now in the time of Christ singing the Egyptian halal the psalm 113 through psalm 118 portion they were singing the

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Psalms of ascents And Jesus in John chapter 8 says a couple of things that are connected to what we have just Understood and learned from Exodus that are very important.

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I'm going to read those read those to you to hear quickly John chapter 8 the occasion is the

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Feast of Tabernacles in the background of this great feast.

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They're singing the halal Psalms They're they're singing the Psalms of ascent It's at the peak of the feast

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Jesus says the words we just read and then not so long afterward

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He says I am the light of the world

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He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life

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He elsewhere says in this chapter Defending his own

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Self -witnessed you remember the language of Exodus Chapter 3 who's sending us tell him that I am has sent you

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Jesus says he's he's questioned about his self -testimony He says the

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Jews said to him you're not even yet 50 years old and have you seen Abraham and Jesus said to them most assuredly

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I say to you before Abraham was I am

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They knew what he was saying they took up stones to throw at him

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Because they believed this to be Blasphemy, he is the fount of living waters.

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We learned a couple of weeks ago He is the light of the world

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He is The great I am he is the true bread from heaven how can he be rejected and in fact in a very beautiful way he says in John 7 and John 8

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I am the realization and the fulfillment of all of the Feast of Tabernacles I Was your protection in?

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Provision I'm the one who brought you out of Egypt. I'm the one who is the real

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Passover I'm the one who's going to satisfy Justice I'm the one who's going to impart to you and bestow upon you my righteousness

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You have to be righteous or you pass through the judgment There's a promise in this in gathering and this harvest

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That the nations who aren't judged the individuals who aren't killed

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Are going to go up from year to year to worship the King the

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Lord of hosts and to keep the feast Brethren these things are fulfilled

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Before our very eyes today You see in verse 8 it says that living waters in that day living waters shall flow from Jerusalem and we have seen in Zechariah the connection to Pentecost and the working of the

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Holy Spirit Doesn't it follow if if these things happen at the arrival of Christ and his

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Satisfaction of divine justice his his victory over sin and death his ascension on high

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He rules and reigns the earth from then till now even to the future Doesn't it follow that if?

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streams of living water The outpouring of the Holy Spirit has gone out from Jerusalem that a harvest would sprout up in the nations and Doesn't it follow that that harvest would be brought in in the great in gathering

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The gospel triumph in the world and their inclusion and corporation into the life of the church

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Streams of water have flown out to all the lands They've been irrigated it follows that naturally that they would produce a harvest of nations that could be

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In gathered back into Jerusalem Christ's salvation and the outpouring of his spirit his redemption has gone out into all the earth

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The church as you know, so joyously look at our faces It's comprised of people from every tongue tribe and nation

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All those who drink from the living waters of Christ are saved

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All those who reject him suffer great judgment It's interesting.

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Isn't it that the judgment of God upon Christ is our salvation?

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Paul says the judgment of the Jews is the salvation of the

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Gentiles Salvation for the people of God comes through judgment but when

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God's judgment comes and Injustice is meted out it yields a great harvest of souls

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We'll learn more about that next week Lord willing I Have a couple of words of application here and we'll close

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You have been redeemed through judgment. None of your sins have just been Ignored and forgotten

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It's important for us to have a robust doctrine of God's judgment God's wrath if you be in Christ has been poured out on Christ His justice has been

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Satisfied for all who are united To him we should ponder this.

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This should be a weekly part of our liturgical preparations for coming to the worship of God that When we confess our sins and we're assured of that pardon that our hearts should leap within us because God's justice has been upheld and so has his mercy and his grace.

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They've kissed in Christ If there is no judgment there could be no salvation

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In that that judgment moment on the cross. It's it's too edged, isn't it?

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The striking of the Shepherd is salvation for his people

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But for what of those what happens to those who don't believe? their eye sockets dissolve

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Eyes dissolve in their sockets their tongues Dissolve in their mouths their skin dissolves as they are standing secondly

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You have to understand that you're going to pass through some fiery trials

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That the genuineness of your faith may be tested and purified Zechariah's Judgment scene is not a rosy picture.

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It's not just easy smooth sailing for the people of God There are many hard things we have to pass through to see the final victory

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Third we have to tell everyone Of his mighty deeds

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Brethren salvation is of the Lord Exhort with them plead with them admonish them to come and drink from the founts of living waters

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So that the judgment do would be applied to Christ for their Salvation what a wonderful Message this is

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Your sin all of it not part of it all of it you don't have to earn it

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But you have to come and you have to drink and you have to submit and you have to be united to Christ And forth you may find this hard to believe but I think

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Very much sound hermeneutics proves this to be true. You and I are Upholding today the keeping of the

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Feast of Tabernacles Tabernacles Because Christ is the object of that adoration and that typology and all of those images the the

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Candelabra the the water the feast the harvest the coming out of Egypt all of it finds its realization in Christ So Zechariah 14 is alive and well and and present here with us

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It seems that it'd be fitting for us to keep our feast

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And to find in Christ all of our salvation all of our shelter all of our protection

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All of our provision and all of our hope for the future Let us keep the feast

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Please pray with me now Lord we are so thankful that your judgment yields a harvest it yields a harvest for The Gentiles to be brought in it yields a harvest that the

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Jews can come and repentance and turn back to you O Lord help us to understand and appreciate the reality of judgment

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And justice and its role in our salvation O Lord we thank you and we cry out to you with hearts of Thanksgiving We're so pleased and so delighted

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O Lord that you would bear our guilt That the judgment would fall upon you and not on us because we have been united to you by faith

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And you have loved us and embraced us and taken us to be your bride O Lord Give us hearts that are full of joy and Thanksgiving in this

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And O Lord help us to have a heart for the lost We know that if the fountains of living waters flow out of Jerusalem and from out of the heart of every believer and the outpouring of his spirit

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We know that you are saving souls who seem far from you today far outside the camp

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Oh Lord help us to be energized and passionate and zealous to see a great harvest of your people