Wonderful Lessons from a Strange Book

11/23/25

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Sermon Transcript

What is the strangest book in the Bible? And no, the answer is not Mark, even though that was the source of our Scripture reading.

I think the strangest book in the Bible is the book of Zechariah. Please open your Bibles to the book of Zechariah. If you’re not sure where that is, go to Matthew and turn left.

I think Zechariah is the strangest book in the Bible, and I don’t say that lightly because it’s got some competition for that title. Revelation is certainly a strange book. Much of Daniel is strange. Even Jude is a little strange. But Zechariah—I think it wins the award.

After all, in how many other books of the Bible do we find a little tiny woman named Wickedness who is placed in a basket and carried around by two other women who look like storks? Yep, it’s in chapter five.

Zechariah is a strange book. But why? Why is Zechariah so strange?

Well, maybe Zechariah had to be strange. Maybe whatever message God was conveying through the prophet Zechariah could only be conveyed with such strange imagery as we find in that book.

Well, that theory sounds pretty good at first, but it doesn’t really hold water. Why not? Because Zechariah was not alone. There was another prophet who was prophesying to the same people at the same time with the same message, and that was Haggai.

But where the book of Zechariah is long and difficult and obscure, Haggai is short and plain and straightforward. And while Haggai was very old when he prophesied, Zechariah was just a young man. And yet they preached the same message to the people.

And the message was: rebuild the temple. Rebuild the temple. That was why they were sent by God—to encourage the people to finish what they’d started and to rebuild that temple that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar years earlier.

And that message was so important that God sent two very different prophets at the same time to convey it in very different ways.

But why was that message to rebuild the temple so important? The Jews at this time were a seemingly insignificant Persian outpost in a small backwater town. Surely, just a footnote to all the great historical events that were happening all around them in the world of Zechariah’s day.

I mean, who really cared if they rebuilt their temple? Why did it matter?

Well, God cared. That’s why it mattered. That’s why it mattered.

Things were not what they seemed when it came to this little group of Jews. It was only to this group, of all the people in the world, that God sent Haggai and Zechariah, His prophets. It was only to this little group that God lifted the curtain so that they could get a glimpse of the wonderful things that God was planning for them in bringing the Messiah to the world.

And that is why their rebuilding mattered. God was planning to use them and their faithful children to welcome Christ into this world.

Yes, Zechariah is a strange book. And yes, Zechariah is a difficult book. But this strange and difficult book is a wonderful book, filled with wonderful lessons for God’s people.

And I want us to look at five of those lessons this morning.

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Lesson #1 — God Uses Small Things to Accomplish Great Things

Our first lesson comes from the fourth chapter of Zechariah, and it is this: God uses small things to accomplish great things.

Why bother? What does any of this matter? Who cares what we say? Who cares what we do? Who even knows what we say? Who even knows what we do?

We seem so small and insignificant compared to everything around us in the world today.

Do we ever think like that? Do we ever get discouraged and wonder if we’re making any difference at all in this world?

If so, we are hardly the first generation of God’s people to think that way. Because the returned exiles in Jerusalem in the days of Zechariah also thought that way.

The older people among them, like Haggai, they had seen the original temple with their own eyes before it was destroyed. And now they were looking at this new temple being constructed. And they were comparing it to the original.

And I think that comparison was causing some of them to despise the new temple. Despise it.

“It’s so small. It’s not like what we had before. It’s not even worth building. If we aren’t going to build some giant temple, then let’s just not build any temple at all.”

That was the attitude of some, and God had a question for them. And if that’s ever our attitude, God has the same question for us. And we find the question in verse 10, Zechariah chapter 4:

“For who hath despised the day of small things?”

We must never despise the small things. Why? Because that is how God works in this world.

God takes small and overlooked things and turns them into great and wonderful things. That’s how God works.

God uses a small, faithful remnant. He did that then; He does that today.

1 Corinthians 1:28 — God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are.

When the time came for God to fulfill His great plan to bless the world through the gift of His Son, God did not send Jesus at the head of a heavenly army, seen by all. God sent Jesus as a baby asleep in a manger, seen by only a few.

And when it came time for God to establish the eternal kingdom of His Son, God did not create some huge earthly empire. Instead, when the kingdom came, it was like a grain of mustard seed, which is the smallest of all the seeds on earth (Mark 4:31).

And so God asks: Who hath despised the day of small things?

And that is our first lesson from Zechariah. We must never—never—despise the small things that God uses to accomplish great things.

And what great thing was God planning to accomplish in the days of Zechariah? God was going to bring the Messiah to this world to bless the world—the entire world.

God did that about 500 years after the days of Zechariah. And to encourage the people to remain faithful, God allowed Zechariah to briefly lift the curtain so that they could see what was coming—so that they could see Christ, get a glimpse of the wonderful gift that God was planning.

And by looking today at what God revealed to Zechariah about Jesus, we can learn four more lessons from this book.

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Lesson #2 — Jesus Is Both High Priest and King

Our second lesson comes from chapter 6, and it is this: Jesus is both high priest and king.

When Zechariah was written, the people had a high priest. His name was Joshua. But they had no king of their own. Instead, their king was the Persian king, Darius the Great.

Yes, they had Zerubbabel. And yes, Zerubbabel was from the royal line of King David. But he was no king. Zerubbabel was no king. The throne of David was unoccupied, and it would remain unoccupied until Jesus occupied it (Luke 1:32).

And all of that was revealed to Zechariah.

God promised that someday they would have a king again, so that once again they would have both a high priest and a king.

But we know that the people of Zechariah’s day, who first heard that, were expecting two different men to occupy those two different offices.

How do we know that? Because we know the king had to be from the tribe of Judah under the Davidic covenant, and the high priest had to be from the tribe of Levi under the Mosaic covenant. The same person could not be both priest and king under the old covenant.

But God was planning a new covenant. And someone was coming who would unite that office of high priest and king in one person.

And God showed all of that to Zechariah through one of the most remarkable events ever recorded in Scripture.

We find that event in Zechariah 6, verses 9 through 13, where Zechariah is told to make a crown and to place it on the head of Joshua, the high priest of Israel.

That is not something Zechariah saw in a vision. That is not something Zechariah dreamed in a dream. That is something he did. He made that crown. He placed that on the head of the high priest in Zechariah chapter 6.

And that was a very dangerous thing to do. Why? Because if Darius the Great had gotten wind of it, he would have lifted that crown off of Joshua’s head by lifting Joshua’s head off of Joshua’s body.

And so why did God command the crowning of the high priest? God commanded it to show the people that someday there would be a high priest ruling as king. Not two people, but one person. And not under the old covenant, because it’s impossible under the old covenant, but under a new covenant.

And who was that one high priest and king? Zechariah answers it right here.

Zechariah 6:12 — “The man whose name is Branch,” the Branch.

Jeremiah 33:15 tells us the Branch is Christ Jesus.

God wanted the people to look up and to see the wonderful things that He was planning for His people—things that would come about in part because of their faithfulness to God, their continued faithfulness to God.

And there are few verses in the Bible more beautiful or more meaningful than Zechariah 6:13:

“He shall be a priest upon his throne.”

That is Jesus.

Jesus is King of kings (Revelation 19:16). Jesus is our great high priest (Hebrews 4:14). And that is the second lesson we learn from Zechariah.

Jesus is both king and priest, and we are His royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9).

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Lesson #3 — Jesus Is Not Like Any Earthly Ruler

The third lesson we learn from Zechariah comes from chapter nine, and it is this: Jesus is not like any earthly ruler.

Now Jesus was about 30 years old when He began His earthly ministry, and He was about 33 years old when He died on the cross.

But about 300 years earlier, there had been another ruler who also died when he was about 33, and that was Alexander the Great.

Why “the Great”? Well, because by the time of his death as a young man, Alexander had somehow managed to conquer almost the entire known world. There are still cities around today named after him.

Jesus and Alexander the Great—we could learn some valuable lessons by comparing them as rulers, but we don’t need to do that ourselves.

Why not? Because Zechariah does it in Zechariah chapter 9. And after we look at what Zechariah tells us, I have to say, Alexander the Great’s not going to come out looking that great.

Zechariah 9 is a truly remarkable prophecy. The opening verses of that chapter tell us about a great force from God that would start in Persia and Damascus and move down the Mediterranean coast to Tyre, and then move against the cities of Philistia.

Well, when did that happen? And who or what was that great force sent by God?

Well, we can answer those questions by opening up any encyclopedia. Because when we do that, we’ll see that about 200 years after Zechariah, Alexander the Great won a great battle against the Persians.

But you know, it might have seemed natural to Alexander at that point to then pursue the Persians inland, into Persia, to try to conquer them. But Alexander didn’t do that, because he knew if he did that, his supply lines would be cut off by the Persian navy.

So what did Alexander do? He worked his way down the Mediterranean coast, taking the port cities of the Persians, cutting them off from their navy—going all the way down to Egypt and then coming back up to take care of the Persian ground forces.

That’s what Alexander did. And you know what? That was a brilliant strategy.

You know what else? That brilliant strategy had been revealed by God 200 years before.

But what about Jerusalem? Did Alexander destroy Jerusalem along with all the other cities he invaded? And the answer is: he did not.

History tells us that. And Zechariah tells us that.

Zechariah 9:8 — “Then I will encamp at my house as a guard, so that none shall march to and fro; no oppressor shall again march over them.”

God protected Jerusalem from Alexander the Great. History confirms that. Zechariah prophesied that centuries before the fact.

And if Alexander the Great was “great,” it was only because God made him so. Alexander was used by God to further God’s plans to bring Christ into this world.

And how would the coming Christ compare with the great Alexander? We find that comparison in the very next verse:

Zechariah 9:9 — “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.”

Let me tell you something—that is very different from how Alexander entered a city.

But that’s how Jesus entered the city. And that’s very different from how the Jews of Jesus’ day expected Him to enter their city. But that’s how Jesus entered their city.

And that difference proved to be a stumbling block for many of the Jews of Jesus’ day. But they should have known, because Zechariah had prophesied it centuries earlier.

Yes, Jesus is king. But Jesus is not like any earthly king. Jesus came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45).

Jesus is not like any earthly ruler, and that’s our third lesson from Zechariah.

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Lesson #4 — Jesus Is the Solution to Our Problem

Our fourth lesson comes from chapter 13, and it is this: Jesus is the solution to our problem.

Well, what is our problem? You know, we hear that question a lot today. What is our problem? We know that something is terribly wrong, and we know that things seem to be getting a lot worse very quickly. But why? What’s the problem?

The world doesn’t know. Well, why not? Because the problem facing the world today is a word that has been largely deleted from the world’s vocabulary. The problem today is a word that has been canceled. The problem today is a word that we don’t hear much outside these walls.

And that word is sin.

Sin. Sin is the problem today.

The problem today is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

And we find both that problem and the solution to that problem in a single verse in Zechariah:

Zechariah 13:1 — “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.”

“On that day”? What day?

Well, we can just look into the previous chapter to answer that question, because Zechariah 12:10 tells us it was the day when they would look on Him whom they pierced.

This day is the day of Christ.

Hebrews 9:26 — “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.”

That’s the day. That’s the day of Zechariah 13:1. That was the day when the fountain was opened for the house of David, for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin.

And what was that cleansing fountain? Well, when we think of a fountain, we think of water. And when we turn to the New Testament, what do we find that combines water with cleansing from sin?

We all know the answer to that question:

Acts 22:16 — “Why do you tarry? Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord.”

And we also know that the cleansing power in our baptism comes not from the water into which we are immersed, but from the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ.

1 John 1:7 — “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from sin.”

There is a wonder-working power in the blood, as we sang. Or, as we also sang:

“There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Emmanuel’s veins.
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.”

Zechariah proclaimed that wonderful truth 500 years before Peter proclaimed it in Acts chapter 2.

Our problem is sin, and Jesus is the solution—the only solution—to our problem.

That is our fourth lesson from Zechariah.

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Lesson #5 — Jesus Was Punished in Our Place

Our fifth lesson also comes from chapter 13, and it is this: Jesus was punished in our place.

We know that Jesus suffered and died on the cross so that we could be saved by His perfect sacrifice (Hebrews 13:12). But why? Why did Jesus suffer?

Well, the Bible answers that question: Jesus suffered on the cross because Jesus was punished by God on the cross.

Jesus suffered in our place by being punished in our place. Jesus, who knew no sin, bore the punishment for our sin.

2 Corinthians 5:21 — “For our sake He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”

1 John 4:10 tells us that Jesus was the propitiation for our sins. What that means is that God was appeased by the death of Christ. Jesus suffered the punishment that we deserved, and that punishment appeased God the Father.

Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law. How? By becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13).

Isaiah 53:5 — “But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement”—the punishment—“that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.”

Isaiah tells us that, and Zechariah told us that.

And it was revealed to Zechariah in one of the most startling statements found anywhere in the Bible—anywhere:

Zechariah 13:7 — “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me, declares the Lord of hosts. Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.”

“Strike the shepherd.”

We know Jesus is that shepherd because Jesus told us so. That was our Scripture reading earlier:

Mark 14:27 — “And Jesus said to them, ‘You will all fall away, for it is written: I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’”

And that verse adds an important pronoun. Zechariah 13:7 leaves open the question of who’s doing the striking here. But Jesus answers that question in Mark 14:27:

God the Father is doing the striking.
“I will strike the shepherd.”

Verse 7 of Zechariah 13 is staggering—staggering.

God the Father strikes God the Son. And God did that for us—for the sheep. The same sheep that would be scattered, the same sheep that would leave Jesus to die alone outside the gate.

Romans 5:8 — “God shows His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Isaiah 53:10 — “It was the will of the Lord to crush Him.”

And that is the fifth and final lesson we learn from Zechariah.

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Conclusion

Now we’ve learned five wonderful lessons from this strange little book. We could have learned many, many more.

God gave the people of Zechariah’s day only a brief glimpse of Christ. But that brief glimpse was enough for them to rebuild their temple and to remain faithful to God for 500 years—until the day when their faithful children, Mary and Joseph, welcomed Christ Jesus into this world.

Just that glimpse of Christ was enough to strengthen them and encourage them to remain faithful for the centuries of silence between the Old and the New Testaments.

God gave Zechariah just a glimpse. But what has God given us?

We have seen the fulfillment of all that Zechariah glimpsed. Jesus has come to this world. Jesus has given Himself as a perfect sacrifice for the world. Jesus has risen from the dead. Jesus has established His eternal kingdom. Jesus has ascended back to God the Father as our great high priest and as the King of kings and Lord of lords, to reign at His right hand.

While Zechariah had only a glimpse of Christ, we have the complete revelation of God’s word. We can see clearly what Zechariah could see only in part.

Hebrews 12:2 — “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

And the most wonderful thing is that Jesus wants us to reign with Him. The most wonderful thing is that Jesus wants us to live eternally with Him in the presence of the Father.

And if we are not strengthened and encouraged by that, then we just can’t be strengthened or encouraged.

But what must we do?

Peter was asked that same question in Acts chapter 2 when he preached the very first gospel sermon on the day when the church was established. And the answer to that question has never changed. The answer in Acts 2 is still the answer today.

What must we do?

Acts 2:38 — “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

“For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.”

That promise is for you.

But have you obeyed that command? God has done everything so that you can be saved. What have you done? Have you obeyed the gospel of Christ?

If not, why are you waiting? Don’t you want to live eternally with Jesus?

“Just one glimpse of Him in glory will the toils of life repay.” And what a wonderful glimpse that will be. What a wonderful day that will be.

If we can help in any way, please come while we stand and while we sing.