Heaven’s Best Gift (Zechariah)

An audio overview of the lesson by Raul Diaz.

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Here is the Script:

Heaven’s Best Gift (Zechariah)

“The Lord their God will save them on that day as the flock of his people. They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown” (Zechariah 9:16, NIV).

The way I approach the creation of these overviews is to find an overarching theme and expound on it.  Sometimes it is easy to find it, other times are not.  Sometimes it is so simple it is hard to believe it.  This is this week’s case. 

The last chapters of Zechariah are a series of foretelling prophetic utterances that seems chaotic and long winded.  This of course is not true.  So, once you find the logic of the writings it becomes clear.  What Zechariah is foretelling is a series of events that surround three different periods of time on this earth: each of Christ advent to this planet.  Although, our quarterly says it is two, the author of the lesson stated correctly that, “When Zechariah announced the coming of the Messiah, he did not draw a line of separation between His first and second comings. As was the case with other prophets, he saw the coming kingdom of the Messiah as one glorious future. Only in the light of Christ’s first coming can we now distinguish between the two comings.”

The first period happened 2,000 years ago.  The second period will happen during the Second Advent: when Christ comes back in all His glory to take back His redeemed.  The last period is when the Holy City comes to the planet, and the entire planets with all the wicked are destroyed. And, finally, the new earth is created.  Time does not allow us to go through these passages to “tease” them out.  But we do have time to establish the main overarching theme.  As we can see they cover the entire human history since Zechariah’s day.  And, it reveals to the Jews then and to us today, how God is involved in the plan of redemption.  Specifically, how Christ, The Branch (Zechariah 3: 8; 6: 12), the One who was pierced (Zech. 12:10), the Shepherd who was struck down (Zech. 13:7) is involved in every step of our redemption.  Ellen White expounds on this,

“In the darkest days of her long conflict with evil, the church of God has been given revelations of the eternal purpose of Jehovah. His people have been permitted to look beyond the trials of the present to the triumphs of the future, when, the warfare having been accomplished, the redeemed will enter into possession of the Promised Land. These visions of future glory, scenes pictured by the hand of God, should be dear to His church today, when the controversy of the ages is rapidly closing and the promised blessings are soon to be realized in all their fullness. . . .Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, pp. 722, 732, 733.

This concept is greatly revealed in the following passage,

Zec 13:7 Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the LORD of hosts: smite the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered: and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.

Zec 13:8 And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein.

Zec 13:9 And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.

These three verses can span thousands of years.  You see, here we find the cross, how we are sanctified, and what our glorification will be like.  The beauty is that Christ makes it all possible.  He is Heaven’s Best Gift to us.