Zechariah 9:9

In the book of Zechariah—the prophet Zechariah—it is one of the last books of the Old Testament, one of the Minor Prophets, minor not because of age but because of the volume of what he wrote. Just a little bit of biblical instruction: In the Bible there are Major Prophets and Minor Prophets. The Major Prophets were those who wrote a large volume, such as Isaiah or Ezekiel; they were prophets who wrote a great amount of teaching, and other prophets wrote shorter books of greater length, which are called the Minor Prophets.

Let us read verse 9 of Zechariah. The Lord put this word in my heart this morning, in fact, while I was asking Him for a specific word for us, and I am sharing it with you, especially verse 9. Let us read verses 9 and 10 of Zechariah 9. The word of the Lord says there, “Rejoice greatly, rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout for joy, daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King will come to you, righteous and having salvation. (Samuel, get it ready in English.) Righteous and having salvation, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. And from Ephraim I will destroy the chariots and the horses from Jerusalem, and the bows of war shall be broken; and He shall speak peace to the nations, and His dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.” Amen.

You know that this passage was written several centuries before that prophecy was fulfilled. The prophet Zechariah writes during a dark time in Israel’s life, when Israel has been carried away captive, has been in captivity for many years, and returns to find Jerusalem already destroyed, so they have to rebuild the city. And in that atmosphere of oppression and sorrow over all the glory that had been lost, Zechariah ministers and writes his prophecy.

That is the context of this call to rejoice. It is a dark context; rather, it is a context of sorrow. Israel is under the oppression of many nations, especially Persia, which is the superpower of that era and has dominion over Israel. And there are other nations that also want to destroy Israel and take possession of it. And in that atmosphere of uncertainty and repeated oppression, the Lord sends this word of hope and tells them about a wonderful being who is to come, who will set things right and put everything in its proper place. That is why the prophet Zechariah says these words. Now let us understand, so that we may see something interesting, and that is that it must again be emphasized that this was written—and this is historically known—this book of Zechariah was written hundreds of years before the coming of Jesus Christ, and Zechariah contains many passages that speak about that Messiah who was to come.

It is interesting that many times in the Old Testament the coming of the Messiah is presented against a sad, dark, dangerous, threatening backdrop. And yet it is always accompanied by a call to rejoice and be joyful. If you look, for example, in the book of Isaiah, chapter 9, you can see there this idea of a call to celebration—chapter 9.

Verse 2 of Isaiah 9 says, “...the people who walked in darkness saw a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, light shone. You multiplied the nation and increased its joy. They shall rejoice before You as they rejoice at harvest time, as they rejoice when they divide the spoil.”

Brothers and sisters, we have to remember that many times the Word will call us to rejoice and to think about what Christ makes possible in the midst of times of tribulation and anguish, when things are not going well for us. And at such a time the Lord tells us: Look, although everything is not well with you, although your whole life is not perfectly fine and all the pieces are not in place, even so, rejoice, because My Son will make sure that everything turns out well in your life. My Son will bring light into your life and will bring a solution to your problems. Brothers and sisters, that call from God to defy the darkness, to defy negativity, is wonderful, and He calls us to rejoice in a defiant and militant way in the midst of the trial.

My brother, many times the Lord will allow tribulations and anguish to come into your life in order to prepare the backdrop for the deliverance God wants to bring about in your life. And do you know what guarantees the solution, what guarantees the descent of God’s power into your life? It is when you decide—preventively, as I call it—to rejoice in the Lord, celebrate the Lord, and celebrate God’s deliverance, even though everything within you cries out, “Don’t do it,” because there is nothing to justify celebrating and worshiping. And it is in those moments that we most have to say: No, I am going to worship the Lord, I am going to declare His goodness, I am going to celebrate because the Word says that “...the joy of the Lord is my strength.” And we have to learn to cultivate the joy of the Lord as an act of the will in the spirit and to celebrate the Lord even though everything around us is not well.

There is something, brothers and sisters, that happens when we prophetically proclaim the good things the Lord is going to do for us and refuse to put on the cold, damp cloak of depression that the devil wants to place over our lives: that is the vehicle God often uses to bring His salvation into our lives. I was thinking this morning: I have the authority to tell you that. Do you know why? Because I am not necessarily a person with a very expressive and joyful temperament. I can find ten reasons why things will not turn out well in any event in life, but I have had to learn to rejoice and celebrate, and for me that is not a natural skill; it is a skill I have learned and discovered that it works. It works.

When a person refuses to submit to temperament or circumstances and says: No, in spite of everything I am going to rejoice in the Lord, I am going to celebrate the Lord, I am going to declare God’s goodwill in my life, I am going to declare that He is good and that He has good purposes for my life. And when you begin to do that, it is as though your body and spirit begin to warm up, and then God’s blessing begins to flow in your life, because there is nothing more powerful for defeating the devil than the praise of a child of God in the midst of trials and tribulations, because that is where faith is truly fulfilled. There is a little chorus that says: Praising God when things go well for you—how good that is; praising God when there are no problems—what a good thing; but if you praise Him amid your brokenness, that holy Christ is glorified within you. Amen. You may applaud; that’s all right. Do not applaud me; applaud the Word of the Lord.

We must rejoice in the Lord. Writing about this, the prophet Habakkuk says in Habakkuk chapter 3, verse 17—and you know the passage—“...though the fig tree does not blossom, nor is there fruit on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails and the fields yield no food; though the sheep are cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in Jehovah. Hallelujah! And I will take joy in the God of my salvation.”

Habakkuk is thinking, What is the worst thing that can happen to me? Well, if I lack this, if I lack that, if doors are closed to me here, if my world comes crashing down, I am nevertheless going to make a determination that, in spite of everything, despite everything, I am going to rejoice in the Lord, and I am going to praise the Lord anyway.

Brothers and sisters, you know that you have to practice that, because it will not come naturally to you. Many times I ask myself, What would happen if the worst thing happened to me—the thing I fear most—if I ended up in the condition I most fear ending up in, and if all the scaffolding of life fell away from me, and all the things I consider a source of security were torn away from me? Could I still praise the Lord? And I say, No, I believe I could; I am going to trust that at that moment the Lord’s grace will enable me to praise and glorify Him and rejoice in Him by faith, because many times it is by faith that we have to do things, brothers and sisters.

Do you know something, my brother? The devil cannot handle a person who decides to praise the Lord in the midst of tribulation. Because that faith destroys, shames, and defeats the devil. When you are in times of trial, what the devil will tell you is what Job’s wife said to Job: “Curse God and die.” What God said is a lie; that is evangelical nonsense; God is not as good as He says He is. But at that moment you have to say as Job did: No, I will believe; though He slay me, I will believe in Him, Job says, and I will see Him with my own eyes. And Job certainly saw God’s glory, mercy, goodness, and restoration, and we have to do the same. We have to believe, and again and again the Bible calls us to do that: to believe in the midst of trials. And Jesus Christ makes that possible.

You see, the prophet Zechariah is telling the Jews, in the midst of their tribulation, in the midst of nations looking at them with hostility in order to destroy, possess, and oppress them—the prophet tells them: Rejoice; rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout for joy. Many times, brothers and sisters, what will drive the devil away are those shouts of joy you will give in your home, and the demons will run away like mice to hide in their holes because a son or daughter of God dared to praise the Lord in the midst of tribulation and trial. I say that this is the last card a child of God plays: when all our other cards have failed us and there is nothing else, all we have left is to say, God is good, and His mercy endures forever. I know that He will bring His deliverance. I do not know where it will come from, but I know deliverance will come from somewhere, as one of the prophets also said. God will bring deliverance from somewhere, Esther’s uncle told her: “If it does not come through you, it will come through someone else.” And that is what I have always learned in my life, you know? I believe that God always has a solution for my life. Even if all the doors close, it has become like a motto of my life: if it is not the solution I expect, God will bring the solution from somewhere else. And I have seen that again and again and again.

When we were dealing with this matter of the temple and the difficulties were there, with the uncertainty of whether or not we were going to receive the permit, and every so often another new group would turn up wanting a pound of my flesh, another explanation, another meeting, and all of that, sometimes things seemed difficult. But I would say: Well, Lord, what is the worst that could happen? Perhaps that the temple will not be built? I believe—I stake my heart on it—that it will be built, but in the midst of all that I knew: Well, if it is not there, it is because You have a better and larger temple somewhere else. Do you understand? Because sometimes things do not happen the way we want.

But I know one thing: my God is faithful, what He promises comes to pass, and if He does not bring the solution from one place, He brings it from another, because He is an expert in miracles. And we have to trust that; always make sure that you know that in your life. The Son of God, with His power and His salvation, is always ready to be born again in your life and to rescue you wherever you may be. Therefore, rejoice preventively; be glad preventively. Never give room to depression or sadness. Never remain in that terrible place where the devil wants to put you, in some dark hiding place, feeling sorry for yourself. Move, get up, glorify the Lord, and put on lipstick if you are a woman; and if you are a man, do not put on lipstick—put on something else—but celebrate. Here in Massachusetts you have to clarify those things, you know? But whatever it may be, rejoice and dress well. I believe in that, brothers and sisters. Sometimes, when I do not feel very happy or cheerful, that is when I make the greatest effort to dress well, in order to tell the devil: Hey, you are not going to get your way. This child of God believes that God is powerful. That is how it is, brothers and sisters.

When we are going through trials, many times the devil wants us simply to lie down and die, to stop getting dressed, stop calling our brothers and sisters, stop coming to church, and stop doing good works. And the Word tells them: No, no, never grow weary of doing good. Never grow weary of glorifying the Lord. Never run away from the devil; always face the devil and face life, because I am with you, and greater am I than what is in the world. I will bring you through. That is the essence of the Christian life.

Rejoice greatly, daughter of Zion; shout for joy, daughter of Jerusalem. Behold, your King will come to you. Hallelujah! What a beautiful promise! Your King will come to you. You know that Christ came into the world not as an impersonal, generic, distant King, but as a personal King for each one of us.

One thing that always strikes me is that every time the coming of Jesus Christ was announced, it was announced in personal, very intimate terms. Notice how it says in Isaiah: ‘...for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.’ It does not say: a child is born or a child has been born. No, it says: unto us a child is born. In other words, a child has been born into the family. When Christ was born, he was born in the heart of every man or woman who would receive him, who would accept him. Christ came as a personal being. Christ came to establish a relationship so that you would no longer feel alone, so that you would not feel forsaken, so that you would not think it is only you out there battling life, but that you have Christ with you. The Lord came to reveal himself to you and to me, and if you receive him, the Lord also becomes part of your life; the Lord enters your life. Unto us a child is born; a king will come to you. That speaks to us of the royal character of Jesus Christ. Christ came in a humble way, but he is also King; he is Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. We serve a great King, an almighty King. It says: ‘righteous and bringing salvation, humble and riding on a donkey.’

Look at the qualities here: first of all, he comes righteous; you know, the Lord is righteous. And let me tell you something: these qualities are also for us to imitate. These qualities are for us to imitate. The qualities of our Lord Jesus Christ are for us to imitate. The quality of righteousness—the Lord Jesus Christ is righteous. He came to set right all the injustices of humanity, all the mistreatment of people, man’s oppression of man, war, all these things, exploitation. The Lord came to establish a kingdom of righteousness. And until he comes, we must live righteously with one another, and we must treat one another justly.

He came to save; he is a saving King. He came to rescue us from our sins, to save us from our difficult situations, to bring solutions to our problems, and above all, to reconcile us with the Heavenly Father. And you know what? In a sense, we too must be saviors to others; we too must be merciful toward others, and we must also show mercy to everyone else.

There is one quality here that, to me, is the most important of all. It says that he came riding on a donkey, humbly on a colt, the foal of a donkey, and that, brothers and sisters, is very important. To me, that is the essence of this passage: that quality, Jesus’ humility. You see, one would think: Well, the Lord is the King who is coming to save his people; he is coming to remove the oppression, the yoke of these great nations. He is going to be a powerful King, a King full of strength, an impressive King, mounted on a white horse, with an entire army behind him and a whole court paying homage to him—and suddenly things seem to change here. One is expecting: well, that King who is going to save will have all those attributes. You know what? It says: he comes humbly, riding on a donkey.

I was reading a writer’s commentary on this passage, and this man, who is an expert in the Hebrew language, says that the word translated ‘humble’ is much stronger in its implication than simply the word humble in English. The word means, rather, humiliated, afflicted, downtrodden, poor, insignificant; it is a very negative word.

And why is it important to point this out, brothers and sisters? Because many Hebrews could not understand that Jesus was the Lord, because what was happening? They expected a King full of glory; they expected that King to be what men expect a king to be. And in their carnality they did not read—although they knew these passages were messianic passages—but their carnality and their Jewish national pride did not allow them to see that message I was telling you about: My Son, my King, the one I am going to send to deliver you, will not come as other kings come. He will not come to fight a physical battle against the nations and make you the superpower of the earth. My King will come in a way and in a package you do not expect. He will come humble, simple, and downtrodden—the very opposite of what you would normally expect a king to be.

It is important for us to understand this, brothers and sisters, because I see something: God did not want to do things the way men wanted. God has a controversy with men: pride. And we want to do things with human strength, with the vigor and cleverness of our minds, and with our resources and our talent. And God says: No, what I am bringing, the spiritual victory I want to accomplish in this world, will not be won with human weapons. And I am going to establish a way of doing things that is very different from the way you are accustomed to doing them, and my Son, my King, the one I am going to send, will win with simple weapons, weapons of light, weapons of love, weapons of kindness, weapons of humility.

Brothers and sisters, the most important thing about that revelation is that this is also the way we must fight the battles of our lives: with weapons of light, not weapons of violence. Every day I ask the Lord to help me lay aside the weapons of violence, anger, oppression, human cleverness, and human strength, because I have discovered that when a Christian accepts Christ, he begins to operate under rules and a dynamic very different from those among which men struggle, and that our battles must now be fought with a different methodology: the methodology of weakness and poverty.

I believe that many of us have difficulties in our lives because that great truth has not yet dawned on us, brothers and sisters: we must clothe ourselves with the weapons of light. And like Christ, we must fight with humility, mercy, grace, and forgiveness; and that is the vehicle through which the grace and goodness of God then flow into our lives. Brothers and sisters, let us make a covenant with the Lord to lay aside the weapons the devil uses. The devil will always be able to fight a strong man or a strong woman and defeat them, because the devil is much stronger than any one of us.

But what the devil cannot fight, what the devil cannot defeat, is a broken and humble man or woman who says: Father, I lay aside my weapons; I lay down my sword, I set my revolver aside, I put down the stick I could use to strike someone, and now I clothe myself with your mercy. I forgive those who offend me, I forget what they have done to me, and I ask that your grace descend upon my life and that you reveal yourself in love through me. And you know what? The devil cannot defeat that, brothers and sisters. Where did the Lord Jesus accomplish the greatest victory of all? On the cross of Calvary. There, immobilized, bound, nailed, defeated, humiliated—there the Lord defeated, it says, the principalities and powers and canceled all the devil’s accusations against us.

And that is what we must do. This Christmas, I believe that the essence of the Christmas message is this: God uses humble and simple things to accomplish his greatest miracles, and we must treat one another in that way. In this year that is beginning, brothers and sisters, let us resolve to ride through life humbly, to walk humbly. Let us lay aside harshness. Let us lay aside accusation. Let us lay aside hatred and violence. And let us clothe ourselves with the love and humility of Jesus Christ. Let us walk the path God has traced for us, using simplicity and meekness, the love of God. The Lord came as a simple child. The Lord came as a humble baby; through that humility the Lord made it possible for God’s grace to flow into this world. And we are going to receive blessing this year; we are going to receive blessing, but it will be through walking as Christ walked. Brothers and sisters, I want our church this year, more than ever, to be a church of harmony, love, and mercy.

Brothers and sisters, I want that this year, if there is any conflict among us, if there is any resentment in any of us, if someone owes you something, if someone has not given you everything you think you deserved, if someone has not treated you as well as you think you should have been treated, you would not harbor any resentment against that person in your heart. Seek reconciliation; forgive those who offend you. Walk through life humbly. Walk through life transparently. Let us be transparent with one another. Let us abandon anger. Let us abandon discord. Let us abandon harsh words. Let us abandon violence in the way we treat one another, and let us ride humbly, as the Lord Jesus Christ came. And you know what? Through that, God will make you powerful; God will free you from the struggles you have. God will humiliate the devil and say: Leave my child alone now, because my child is now using the weapons of light, and you must respect him; you must set him free. If we act in that way, God will do his work in our lives. This Christmas, brothers and sisters, I believe that this is the foremost message above everything else: the essence of our Lord Jesus Christ will speak peace to the nations, will speak peace to the nations. Let us be men and women of peace. The Lord Jesus Christ came to destroy the chariots and the horses; the bows of war, it says, will be broken. May God help us, brothers and sisters, to be part of that gentle army on this earth, that army of peace.

That is Christmas. Christmas is peace, and we are going to be men and women who walk in the humility and meekness of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let us stand. Let us receive that call to peace in our hearts. Let us sing that... let us imagine that child, that baby, humble and simple, who came riding on a colt, on a donkey, and that is the spirit in which we must walk. And that spirit gives us incredible power, brothers and sisters. It gives us power to break every bond, to free ourselves from all the difficulties in our lives. It is in that trust in the Lord, in standing on the Lord’s goodness and mercy, in not fighting with our own weapons but letting the Lord set us free, letting the Lord carry us forward, trusting in him, and having grace toward one another. That, brothers and sisters, is the source of every great triumph in life. Let us sing that hymn.

Let us bow our heads for a moment; let us now embrace that call from God upon our lives, a call to peace and mercy. Father, I am the first to confess that many times I lack the meekness Christ came to exemplify, and this afternoon, Lord, together with my brothers and sisters, I ask you to pour a special measure of Christ’s meekness and love and Jesus’ humility into our hearts. Lord Jesus, the world is accustomed to violence and harshness. Sometimes we ourselves think that if we do not use those weapons, we will be abused, exploited, and oppressed. But you have taught us that with those weapons of praise and faith, of declaring your goodness and your faithfulness, and of joy and celebration and love and forgiveness, we can overcome in a way that no man with his human weapons can. Help us to embrace and adopt the spirit of Jesus Christ, Lord, this afternoon, and to be like our Master: people of peace, people of love and goodness.

Lord, we embrace the spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ this afternoon.