May 7, 2023 - Sunday Service

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Please stand. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. Here the Lord call you to his worship through his word.

The Heavenly Throne and the Call to Worship

After these things, I looked and behold, a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I heard was like a trumpet speaking to me saying, come up here and I will show you things which must take place after this.

Immediately I was in the spirit. Behold, a throne set in heaven and one sat on the throne. And he who sat there was like a jasper and a stardust stone in appearance. And there was a rainbow around the throne in appearance like an emerald.

Around the throne were 24 thrones and on the thrones I saw 24 elders sitting, clothed in white robes and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices.

Seven lamps of fire were burning before the throne which are the seven spirits of God. Before the throne was a sea of glass like crystal and in the midst of the throne and around the throne were four living creatures full of eyes in front and back.

The first living creature was like a lion. The second living creature like a cat. The third living creature had a face like a man and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within and they did not rest day and night saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come.

And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever and cast their crowns before the throne saying, you are worthy, oh Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.

For you created all things and by your will they exist and were created. Let us pray. Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You made the heavens and earth by your great power and your outstretched arm.

Your invisible attributes, your eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen through what you have made. The heavens declare your glory. We praise you for your righteousness. You are the governor and sustainer of all things.

In you all things hold together. In you we live and move and have our being. You give to all life and breath and all things. You work all things after the counsel of your own will. You have numbered even the hairs upon our heads.

Not even a sparrow falls from a tree apart from your will. We praise you, our God, for these great works of creation and providence. Above all, we praise you for redemption. There is no other God besides you, no other savior, no other rock to whom the ends of the earth may turn and be saved.

We rejoice that you so love the world that you gave your only begotten son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be the savior of the world and gave your spirit to abide with us and in us and teach us all things.

Oh, Lord God, we pray that you would be with us in our worship today, that we may have fellowship with you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we ask for all these things in the name of that savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.

Corporate Confession of Sin and Assurance of Pardon

Please kneel as you are able for the corporate confession of sin. Let us join together in confessing our sins. Almighty and merciful God, we confess.

That we have sinned against you and one another in both our actions. We recognize that in Jesus our light has come, yet often we choose to walk in the shadows.

And ignore the light.

Gracious God, forgive our sins and remove from us.

The veil of darkness.

Illuminate us by your word so we may shine with the radiance of Christ's glory.

Please stand for the assurance of pardon. He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion. For if we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

My brothers and sisters in Christ, if you be in Christ, rejoice for your sins are forgiven. They have been removed from you as far as the east is from the west, amen. Please take up the Trinity hymnal and turn to hymn 164.

This is a great day for me because two of my favorite hymns are the two we're singing today. O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing is by far my favorite. That's hymn 164, O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing. Please take up the insert and look for Psalm 20, our Psalm of the week.

The Lord reply in your distress, Psalm 20. I'm going to ask Alyssa to play through it one time and then we will join in. Chapter six, Hebrews chapter six.

Therefore leaving the elementary teaching about Christ, let us press on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of instruction about washings and laying on of hands and the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.

And this we will do if God permits. For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance since they again crucify to themselves the son of God and put him to open shame.

For ground that drinks the rain, which often falls on it and brings forth vegetation, useful to those for whose sake it is also tilled, receives a blessing from God. But if it yields thorns and thistles, it is worthless and close to being cursed and it ends up being burned.

But beloved, we are convinced of better things concerning you and things that accompany salvation, though we are speaking in this way. For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love you have shown toward his name and having ministered and in still ministering to the saints.

And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end so that you will not be sluggish but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

For when God made the promise to Abraham, since he could swear by no one greater, he swore by himself, saying, I will surely bless you and I will surely multiply you. And so having patiently waited, he obtained the promise.

For men swear by one greater than themselves and with them an oath given as confirmation is an end of every dispute. In the same way, God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose interposed with an oath so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Let us now join our voices together confessing our ancient Christian faith in the singing of the Apostles' Creed.

Take up the Trinity Hymnal once more.

And turn to hymn 455, and can it be? 455. In this manner, therefore pray ye. Our Father, which art in heaven, thy kingdom come,.

Thy will be done. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That is the kingdom and the power. Pray that we may glorify God in all that we do as we live and work in the creation that displays his power and be pleased to dispose all things to his own glory.

Pray that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced. Ourselves and others brought into it and kept in it, and the kingdom of glory hastened.

Our prayers.

Pray that God, for Christ's sake,.

Would freely pardon all our sins. And we are encouraged to ask this because by his grace, we are able from the heart to forgive others.

Lord, hear our prayers.

Pray that God would either keep us from being tempted to sin or support and deliver us when we are tempted.

Lord, hear our prayers.

Just as we are in every way, yet without sin, I pray, God, that you would instill in your body. I pray that we would, that when we're alone in secret, we would do that which is right before, do that which is right before.

You would open our, find the way out. When we're in anger, gossip, or whatever it is, we pray, Lord, that you would show us and soften our hearts that we may find a way out.

Our Father, taking an encouragement and prayer from you alone. In our prayers, we praise you, ascribing kingdom, power, and glory to you. And to testify of our desire and assurance to be heard, we say together, amen.

Ascension Sunday and Psalm 24

Please stand and take up the insert once again. On the 21st of this month is Ascension Sunday. And in a very real way, this is Ascension month. And our church, as you know, takes its name from the Ascension.

And this psalm that we sing for the psalm of the month, Psalm 24, is a great Ascension psalm. And as we sing this, we should not only remember the event of the Ascension, but also its impact on us, which is great.

This tune is familiar to us. It is the tune of Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise. And so let us sing for the first time this month, Psalm 24, the earth and its riches.

Zechariah 11: The Flock, the Two Staffs, and the 30 Pieces of Silver

You turn in your Bibles to the book of Zechariah, in chapter 11. Zechariah, chapter 11. This is God's holy and infallible. Open your doors,.

O Lebanon,.

That fire may devour your cedars. Wail, O Cyprus, for the cedar has fallen, because the mighty trees are ruined. Wail, O oaks of Bashan, come down. There is the sound of, for their glory is in ruins. There is the sound of roaring lions.

Thus says the Lord, my God, feed the flock for slaughter, whose owners, those who sell them say, blessed be the Lord, for I am rich, and their shepherds do not pity them, for I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord, but indeed, I will give everyone into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king.

They shall attack the land, and I will not deliver them from their hand. So I fed the flock for slaughter, in particular, the poor of the flock. I took for myself, and I fed the flock. I dismissed the three shepherds.

In one month.

My soul loathed them, and their soul also. Then I said, I will not feed you. Let what is dying die, and what is perishing perish. Let those that are, and I took my staff beauty, and cut it in two, that I might break the covenant which I had made with all the peoples.

So it was broken on that day. Thus the poor of the flock, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord. Then I said to them, if it is agreeable to you, give me my wages,.

And if not,.

Refrain.

So they weighed out for my wages, 30 pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, throw it to the potter, that princely price they set on me. So I took the 30 pieces of silver, and threw them into the house of the Lord for the potter.

Then I cut into my other staff bonds, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. The Lord said to me, next take for yourself the implements of a foolish shepherd. For indeed I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are cut off, nor seek the young, nor heal those who are broken, nor feed those that, but he will eat the, woe to the worthless shepherd.

The sword shall be against his arm, and against his right eye. His arm shall completely wither, and his right eye shall be totally. May the Lord be, Oh Lord, I pray that you would, in the power of your Holy Spirit, illumine our understanding of this treasure of your scripture.

Oh Lord, I pray that you would strengthen my feeble mind, and stammering tongue, that I might proclaim the excellencies, and the glories of Christ, and that your people would be encouraged, built up, and strengthened, and leave with hearts filled with thanksgiving and rejoicing.

We ask these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Zechariah 11 and the Judgment on Wicked Shepherds

Please be seated. Chapter 11, you have many questions. I've already mentioned arguably, and many fine men better than me have said that it is among the hardest of chapters in all of scripture to interpret.

And I think at the outset, I want to offer an encouragement to you in your own devotional life, that the word of God often yields its treasures after heavy labors and mining. We read our text of scripture, we don't understand it, we move on.

This requires us to have a greater degree of meditation, and attention, and concentration, and focus, and to come back maybe to understand it better. I don't want to add confusion to the interpretation.

I actually am striving for simplicity in the proclamation of this text. And the dire darkness of this text is eclipsed by the bright shining hope of Christ. And it's in this text that is so bleak and dark.

I hope to reveal. If you're taking notes, the flock is prepared for slaughter. Number one, the flock is prepared for slaughter. Second, the title of the message, two staffs, two staffs. 30 shekels of silver.

30 pieces, I should say, of silver. And fourth, the good shepherd. I'm gonna say that one more time, and I think you'll see how each of these pieces fits under those headings. First, the flock is prepared for slaughter.

Second, two staffs. Three, 30 pieces of silver. And four, the good shepherd. Last week, Zechariah in verses one through three offered us a prophetic and poetic lament. And he called the wicked shepherds to sing a song of lament.

Zechariah is singing it, and he calls the wicked shepherds to sing their own funeral song. He says, judgment is coming. It's coming swiftly. Come sing with me of your destruction. The raging fire of God's wrath is upon the wicked shepherds.

The future desolation of Israel is assured because, we learned last week, they have always persisted in rejecting God as their shepherd. And when the good shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ himself, came, they rejected him, too.

Therefore, their condemnation, their guilt, their punishment is due and deserved. Israel is going to be desolated. National Israel, as they know it, will be decimated. But God is merciful to sinners, and there is always a remnant who are protected.

Zechariah himself, we learned last week, will be rejected and killed. He is the last of the old covenant martyrs, we argued last time. And we saw how, in all of these things, these build up in their tension, starting back in chapter nine, with the promise of Jesus coming and the triumphal entry, all of these things speak about Christ.

Zechariah 11 is all about Christ. Now, you're reading it, how can it be? It doesn't say Christ, but what's going on? How can Zechariah 11 be about Christ? Well, I think the Lord's going to show us. First, the flock is prepared for slaughter.

We're considering verses four through 14 today. Thus says the Lord my God. The prophetic word, this is the word from on high, this is the word of God through the mouth of the prophet to the people, this is what he says.

Feed the flock for slaughter, whose owners slaughter them and feel no guilt. Feed the flock for slaughter. The people of his pasture, the sheep of his hand, the wicked shepherds look upon the sheep, God's people, as mere articles of commerce.

They're not looking then with the love and affection that a shepherd should have for his people, his flock. They see in them wealth and they see for themselves riches and gain. And this theme is replayed throughout the scriptures and it should be noted today, the church is full of false shepherds who fleece the sheep for their own good.

What a terrible sin it is to use this office, the pastoral office or to use the civil magistrate, another form of being a shepherd, to use it to fleece the people of God. These owners slaughter them and feel no guilt.

Those who sell them say, blessed be the Lord for I am rich. They invoke the holy name of God in their iniquity. The grossest violation of the third commandment, they said the Lord has blessed us, look how rich we are.

We have made our money on the backs of his people. Their shepherds do not pity them. In verse six it says, for I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land. They bless the Lord's name. They perform this great wickedness under the guise of righteousness.

We begin here to see and we clued into this last week, the necessity of God's judgment on the shepherds. But now we have to be confronted with the shocking reality that the people themselves need to experience God's judgment.

The people were also wicked. They too have rejected the good shepherd. God has been their shepherd, but they reject him. Christ would come and he would be rejected by those he came to save. And so the people are worthy of God's condemnation and judgment.

One of the hard things for us when we look upon a loss and unbelieving and dying world, we should be moved with compassion. We should desire to preach Christ that they would know the good shepherd, that they would be brought into the fold.

But we also have to see the rightness and the justice of God in condemning sinners who reject Christ. We have to love God's justice just like we do love his mercy. It is good for the wicked to perish in their sins because they reject Christ and his salvation.

The people of God historically have struggled to relinquish control of themselves and their feelings, their thoughts, their allegiances, their trust to have God be their shepherd. They would like to go their own way.

And you and I have to purge every impulse to go it alone. We need the Lord. We desperately need to be under the care of the good shepherd. This is a very bleak picture. What it says in verse six, we're gonna find out in our text is there is not only a promise of outside oppression, which is gonna be ultimately realized in the Roman conquest, but also there's a strife within.

"'I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land,' "'says the Lord, but I will give everyone' "'into his neighbor's hand and to the hand of his king.'". Their own neighbors, those lands that have already been articulated in these recent sections, those people who live on the outskirts of Israel, they're going to be attacking them.

Their own neighbors are going to be at war with one another. Can you imagine on your own street having to fear your neighbor and his bow and his spear and his sword? They're going to be given into the hand of a foreign and wicked king.

"'They shall attack the land,' it says in verse six, "'and I will not deliver them from their hand.'". Here's the picture. When Israel, and even in the divided kingdom, to some extent, if you want to describe it this way, when they had their allegiance to God, the covenant he makes with the nations is you can't touch a hair on their head.

But when they refrain and they pull back from God, he pulls back his restraint from them and the nations come in. And this has been the recent experience of Israel in Babylonian captivity. Even now, they're under the weight of Persian reign and rule in some sense.

So God has delivered them and he's brought them back, but they still have an impulse, they still have a feeling of their oppression. And if they will turn from him as their good shepherd, and there must have been some turning away, which is crazy in light of all of the things that have happened in Zechariah's prophecy of being brought into the land, the rebuilding of the temple, his refining of the priesthood, giving them a hope and a future, their hearts have been far from God and they've turned away.

He says, "'I will not deliver them from their hand.'". And now, Zechariah in verse seven takes on the drama and it works itself out in this illustration. Some things are happening in Zechariah's time and it's also very picturesque of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It says, "'So I fed the flock for slaughter, "'in particular, the poor of the flock.'". It's hard to read, it's painful to consider. "'I took for myself two staffs, "'the one I called beauty,'' you may say favor in your Bible, "'and the other I called bonds,'' it might say union in your Bible, "'and I fed the flock.'".

The shepherd has two staffs. And in Ezekiel, the two staffs represented Judah and Israel and Ephraim. Here, there are two staffs and they represent this. If you're taking notes, this is very important.

The first, beauty or favor, refers to God's relationship to them, his provision, his salvation, his grace, his mercy, his favor. So this vertical dimension of the people of God entrusted with the oracles of God and covenant community with God, God dealing benevolently with them.

That's what beauty represents here. That's what favor represents. And the other is called bonds or union. The second staff refers to God's fraternal relationship he put with his people. The promise we've already learned about was a promise of a possibility of the reunification of David's kingdom, a glorious prospect.

Surely when the long-promised Davidic king would come, that Ephraim in the north and Judah in the south would be united as one body under their glorious head, which we know would be the person of Christ.

But that's not what happens. In verse eight, it says, I dismiss the three shepherds in one month. I should point out to you that the identity of the three shepherds is unknown. But I have a working theory and I found some surprising support with this from Boyce.

I think ultimately the three shepherds represent the three offices of the prophet, priest and king. I believe in the time of Zechariah, false prophets were rising up. And I believe that Zechariah and his office as a prophet in the church, as a priest, that he would purge out the leaven from the people of God.

And he exercised what we would know as something like church discipline upon them. I believe there were also priests who were failing to perform their duties. They were wicked shepherds. They had that office which communicated God to the people and represented the people to God and they were corrupt.

This is certainly true in the time of Jesus. And there were kings, there were magistrates, many of them probably lesser magistrates, but they too were violating the very law and covenant of God. So Zechariah kicks them out.

I understand now how Zechariah could be a target for martyrdom. He's expelling wicked men from their offices. He says, I dismiss the three shepherds. In one month, my soul loathed them and their soul also abhorred me.

I should point out to you that in James chapter three, it says, let not many of you become teachers knowing that you're going to incur a stricter judgment. It's a terrifying thing to be reminded for Mark and myself, some of you aspire to the office of an elder, possibly, that there's going to be a stricter judgment for us.

Because we have the capacity to use the things of God in an improper way and lead the people astray, which is a mighty wicked thing. We have to take heed to ourselves and our doctrine, brother. And every minister everywhere has to look at his life and make sure he's doing all these things for the right reasons and allegiance singularly to Christ and him alone.

Zechariah, taking on the mantle of a good shepherd, a type of Christ unquestionably, he purges the church of these three shepherds in one month. He describes his soul as loathing them and their soul also abhorring him.

He said, I will not feed you. There's something else I'd like to make a connection with in relation to this. I believe that there were prophets, priests, and kings in the time of Jesus and they were wicked and they had to be purged in order for the world to see the true prophet, priest, and king.

The scribes and the Pharisees were the prophets of the time of Jesus. The chief priests, you remember Annas and Caiaphas and how they conducted themselves. They took the glorious temple of God and made it a den of merchandise.

They profited on the sale of approved animals to be slaughtered. They profited on the changing of the money. The people had the right coin to put in the temple coffers and they made money on the transfer of that wealth.

And there were kings. There was the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. Those who were that trial, the 70. They had a trial for Jesus and they put him to death. There was figures like Herod Agrippa and Pontius Pilate representing Caesar.

The scribes and the Pharisees were described, we read it last week, as a brood of vipers. The chief priests were unfit for their offices. The kings in Jesus' time, like the time of Zechariah, were wicked.

The Sanhedrin is condemned. Herod Agrippa is condemned. And Pontius Pilate is condemned. All because they failed to recognize the good shepherd. This Jewish contingent, their successors, will be utterly desolated.

The other kings condemned in judgment. Can you imagine the Sanhedrin's horror in 80, 70 when they had put themselves in political allegiance with Caesar and his troops and his army to find that that allegiance was very, very, very thin.

They themselves would be slaughtered in the streets. Their allegiance not recognized. They would be killed. Their blood would flow down the roads of Jerusalem because they put their confidence and hope in another shepherd, another leader, another king, not Jesus.

Well, the two staffs represented here are going to play a more important role here. Let's continue. He says, I'm not going to feed you. And let what is dying die, and what is perishing perish. And here's the most horrifying of it all.

Let those that are left eat each other's flesh. Last week, I told you at the final siege of Jerusalem, they opened the temple doors where people in the gate of the city, and they opened it up, and the army rushed in.

And the reason they finally opened up the doors is the Jewish people of God committed to ritual sanctification and holiness were eating one another as cannibals. Oh, how far had they fallen? They're not gonna touch a dead thing.

They're gonna be very careful with blood. They're never going to consider being a cannibal. But now, because God's restraining love has been pulled back, the nations swarm them, and they come in, and they're eating one another.

What a terrible judgment to fall on the people who have called themselves God's own covenant people, Israel. Now, the striking and fearful part, I took my staff beauty favor, and I cut it in two, that I might break the covenant which I had made with all the peoples.

This is gonna happen 500 plus years later, but it's a sober warning to the Jewish people then, and to people in the church now. The Lord tarries, and he tarries a long time, but eventually, his justice will be served.

Israel had rejected God how many times in the Old Testament? And now, their rejection is so severe, that vertical relationship that goes from God down to the people, that favor that rested upon the people is now severed.

He breaks covenant with national Israel. He tells the peoples of the nations to go ahead and swarm in and take the plunder of Israel. It says in verse 11, so it was broken on that day. But there is one glimmer of hope here.

It says that the second part of verse 11, thus the poor of the flock who are watching me knew that it was the word of the Lord. There are people there, there's a believing remnant who are hearing Zechariah, and they discern, and they acknowledge, and they see their need of repentance and they repent, and he turns to the nation.

And here's where it gets interesting for us. He says, I said to them, if it is agreeable to you, give me my wages, and if not, refrain. So they weighed out for my wages 30 pieces of silver. Now, you're going to hear some language that's sarcastic from Zechariah, because this is not a lot of money.

Those of you who are interested in economics, it's very interesting that the value of gold and silver doesn't change for a very long time in the Bible. It's very interesting. Your dollar isn't worth what it was yesterday.

30 shekels, 30 pieces of silver was what you would have to pay if your gore, if your ox gored another person's slave. They didn't prize slaves very highly. So this 30 pieces of silver is an outrageously paltry sum for the prophet of God to receive.

So Zechariah takes it, and the Lord tells him, throw it to the potter, that princely price they set on me. That's not a kingly ransom. This is a mocking of the amount that he has been given as the prophet of God.

So I took the 30 pieces of silver and threw them to the house of the Lord for the potter. Now, immediately, your mind has to be racing. I'd like you to turn with me to the book of Matthew in chapter 27.

How could God break covenant with Israel? How could he give her a certificate of divorce because of her repeated adulteries? I'm gonna read, turn to chapter 27. I'm gonna read the first instance of this language of 30 pieces of silver.

Matthew 26, beginning at verse 14. Then one of the 12 called Judas Iscariot went to the chief priest and said, what are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you? I wanna pause here. Judas is a shepherd of a high order.

He's one of the apostles. He's a worthless shepherd. He's a wicked shepherd. He's going to hand over the Lord Jesus. He sees the political maneuverings. He knows that Jesus's days are numbered and he figures I might as well profit a little bit from his betrayal, from his being handed over.

What are you willing to give me if I deliver him to you? How crazy is the language of Zechariah 11? And then this, and they counted out to him 30 pieces of silver. So from that time, he sought opportunity to betray him.

So within one week of this, basically, they're coming for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Passover's at hand. In about a week, Judas is gonna hand over Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. I turn over to Matthew 27.

You should still be there. Beginning at verse one. When morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put him to death. When they bound him, they led him away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor.

I want you to listen carefully. Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that he had been condemned was remorseful and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders saying, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.

Then he said, what is that to us? You see to it. Zechariah is a picture of Jesus, the good shepherd. And in this moment, he's a picture of Judas. Verse five, he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple, the same language of our text in Zechariah 11 and departed and went and hanged himself.

But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, it's not lawful to put them into the treasury because they are the price of blood. And they consulted together and bought them with them the potter's field to bury strangers in.

Therefore that field has been called the field of blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what the prophet was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, and they took 30 pieces of silver, the value of him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced and gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me.

I want to give you another little lesson, a side note lesson on the authority of scripture. The critics and the liberals struggle. You guys know where I'm going with this on this idea of Jeremiah the prophet because he's quoting Zechariah 11.

Certainly this is a scribal error, they might say. And maybe our confidence in this prophecy should be unraveled because of this inconsistency. Maybe it's just a copyist error. They'd say, well, I feel better about that.

Well, when you dig into this more deeply, you realize that the Zechariah writings are found in the Jeremiah scroll. The scrolls that they use had Jeremiah and other prophets, including Zechariah in that scroll.

So when he says the prophet Jeremiah, the people of God understood, and they understood that this was the scroll that Zechariah was found in. There is no controversy here. This isn't a scribal error. Our God is able to preserve every jot and tittle of his word.

We have absolute confidence. Don't be an egghead and think yourself spiritual and scholarly when you call into question the validity of God's word. Every breathing mark, every horn is true because God is able to preserve his word for us, his people.

The prophecy quoted in Matthew 27 is found in Zechariah 11. And that scroll, that writing is found in the scroll of Jeremiah. But that's not all. Sidebar finished. They took the 30 pieces of silver. They gave them for the potter's field as the Lord directed me.

What about the providence of God? The language is weird in Zechariah. What's the potter doing in the temple? I don't know. Why do they decide to buy the potter's field? Well, can you imagine what's in the potter's field?

The potter's field was the least valuable property in Jerusalem and the surrounding area because every time he attempted to make a piece of pottery, he would have some breaks. He would take those broken pieces and he would throw them into the field.

This land is utterly worthless. So they take the money, the paltry sum, the betrayal of Jesus Christ, the king of glory, he sold over and betrayed for 30 pieces of silver to buy a worthless piece of land.

I believe Judas is the embodiment of apostate Israel, of the wicked shepherds, because he himself is one. How close was Judas Iscariot to the king of glory? He saw all the miracles. He saw his sinless perfection.

He heard all of the messages, all the sermons. He saw his compassion on the sinners and the sick and the blind and the lame and the deaf. How hard was his heart to reject the king of glory? But I'd like to draw another analogy and this is my own.