Restoration
Zechariah 10 is a chapter
about the restoration of the Hebrew people.
As I’ve mentioned often in Zechariah, remember the situation of the
people. Yes, they are returning from exile. But there is much work ahead of them. There is the danger of the interlopers who
have come into the land while the Hebrew people were in exile. Their restoration has begun, but it is a
difficult road ahead.
However, there is a point that we need to remember as we move
forward. Restoration comes from the
Lord. The Lord is the one who acts. Let’s look at the message of this chapter and
hear just how much the Lord promises to do for His people.
The Lord reminds His people that it is He who brings the rain! The Lord makes the storm clouds. The Lord brings the showers. The Lord does not forget the fields, even
though the only things dwelling in them are plants!
The Lord brings about good leadership. The Lord makes men mighty in battle. The Lord rallies the warriors simply because
of His presence.
God has compassion when it is undeserved. God forgives when He is clearly the one who
was wronged. He is the one who treats
the rejected as though they are not. He
answers the call when we call upon Him.
He gathers His people in.
He whistles and we come to Him.
He creates home within us.
We don’t deserve any of this, yet He lavishes all of these things
upon His people. It is truly Him and His
hand at work. Salvation comes, and it
comes from His hand.
The Shepherds
Outside of the wonderful words of restoration upon which we have
just now focused, there are some very scary words back at the beginning that I
would like to go back and ponder. The
Lord speaks about the shepherds of His people.
The Lord has nothing too favorable to say about them, either.
God says that His people wander as though they are afflicted with
the lack of a shepherd. In other words,
although there are leaders, the leaders didn’t do any true leading! You see, in the world leadership is all about
the life of the leader. Worldly leaders
get people to make their lives easier. Worldly
leaders get the people below them to do all the hard work. Worldly leaders live off of the fat of the
land. This is how the leaders of the
Hebrew people acted, and I daresay that leaders in the modern era are likely to
follow in such example.
But Godly leaders are to be the opposite. God expects His leaders to choose godliness
over worldly gain. God expects His
leaders to choose Him even when everyone else is choosing the world. God expects His leaders to be an example of
submission to Him in a world that struggles to submit. Rather than leading the charge of His people
into sin, He expects His leaders to be a bastion away from sin. In a nutshell, God expects His leaders to be
different.
But this was not the case with the leaders of God’s people. They led the people into sin. They encouraged unrighteous behavior. Their behavior made it easy for people to
lose faith in God. Therefore, the anger
of the Lord burns against them. What an
awful position to find oneself!
Future Hope in a Familiar Package
As we now turn to the ending of this passage, we see how it is
that the Lord drives home the point of salvation. God has already spoken about how He will save
His people. Now to drive home the point
He reminds His people about the Exodus.
His people shall pass through the trouble of life just like the Hebrew
people of old passed through the sea.
The waves of the sea of life will be struck down by God just like the
waves of the sea were driven back so that His people could walk across on dry
ground. As the pride (wealth) of the
Egyptians (and Assyrians, for the record) was plundered, so shall the world be
laid low in the face of the redemption of God’s people. In summary, when God comes to save His
people, He is capable of fulfilling His promises.
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