ZECHARIAH 12 (NOTES OF A READING)
ZECHARIAH 12 (NOTES OF A READING)
CAC God was encouraging the remnant in Zechariah’s day by showing them what thoughts He had in His mind in regard to Jerusalem, and He would encourage us in our day by bringing before us the great thoughts He has in regard to the assembly, for the assembly now has the place that Jerusalem will have in a coming day on the earth. I thought John’s sight of the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God was to bring before us God’s great thoughts as to the assembly, so that we might enter into them. He does tell us that if we wash our robes we can go in by the gates into the city. It is not altogether a future thing.
Ques Is it not a characteristic that He shows you things? We do not have to wait, but He shows it in its [p. 541] spiritual meaning.
CAC So that we might be affected by it. God intended the remnant to be exercised. They prospered by it, and so we may do.
He is causing Jerusalem to be disliked and hated by all nations. It was all His doing. “I will make Jerusalem a cup of bewilderment ... and a burdensome stone unto all peoples”, it says. Though it was God’s chief interest, He would cause it to be seen that everybody hated Jerusalem. All the nations hated it, just as God’s thoughts as to the assembly are hated today, every kind of corruption and imitation has been brought in, all opposed to God’s chief interest.
Rem In Revelation He shows the completed thought of the city and that He never deviated from it.
CAC Yes, and after great opposition to His thoughts in the harlot. Christendom has taken on a character diametrically opposed to the assembly. If all the nations hated God’s chief interest, then saints must be more devoted to it than ever. So the more the assembly is despised and hated, the more we should cling to it. God’s thought is that the assembly should have the same place in our hearts as in His. He would bring that about in a remnant, so He says, in verse 4, “I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah”. I think that is the position today.
Ques Would you mind explaining?
CAC The house of Judah is the people who pray.
Ques. Praise?
CAC No, pray.
Ques Where do you get that from?
CAC It is what it says somewhere. Deuteronomy 33: 7 says, “And this of Judah; and he said, Hear, Jehovah, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people”.
Ques Does Judah rather represent the remnant?
CAC Yes, and is marked by prayer. He prays about things and he wants to be brought to God’s people. They are people who really want to know about God’s house and pray about it. Those are the ones that God opens His eyes upon [p. 542] today. They are the companions to seek, those that call upon the Lord out of a pure heart.
Rem Verse I speaks of God laying the foundation of the earth and forming the spirit of man within him.
CAC Great and wonderful as His works are, God’s eye rests on His assembly today.
Ques What does “And bring him unto his people” mean?
CAC In your place in the assembly. If a man has concern about spiritual relations, and if he has any light at all, he must know that God has His assembly corresponding to Jerusalem, and such a one prays about it. “And the leaders of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength through Jehovah of hosts their God”. That is, a sense of the value that attaches to the saints in Jerusalem comes home to them.
Rem “Every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto Jehovah of hosts” (chapter 14: 21).
CAC Very beautiful. That is the climax to this book.
Rem They that have washed their robes have right to enter into the city.
CAC That is chapter 13. It is a matter of divine sovereignty, but it is open to all to pray for all saints, because then we are bound to look at them in relation to God’s assembly. The Colossians were marked by that-love toward all the saints. We must wake up to that privilege. If we pray for all saints we cannot think of a sect. Whoever heard of anyone praying, ‘God bless all the Presbyterians, all the Baptists, all the Anglicans, all the Wesleyans’, etc? You must pray for them according to their place in the divine mind. “The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength”; that is, we look at saints according as God has put them in the assembly. It is the assembly of God and He has given a great price for it. “The assembly of God, which he has purchased with the blood of his own”. And as our prayers take on this character we shall get increased light as to the assembly. There is no doubt that this is how light came as to it at [p. 543] first. Then you cannot tolerate anything that is contrary to it. “In that day will I make the leaders of Judah like a hearth of fire among wood”, etc. “And Jerusalem shall dwell again in her own place, in Jerusalem”. I take it that is what we ought to do, we ought to burn up anything that is contrary to God’s thought of His people; we should burn it up in our prayers. He means Jerusalem should dwell in her own place, in Jerusalem. It is a day of recovery and God intends that a remnant at any rate should really dwell in God’s thoughts about His assembly. This is the line on which God works if we pray about God’s thoughts. We cannot do that without repudiating all contrary to them. We repudiate it in our own spirits, and as we do so we come to dwell in Jerusalem, in God’s thoughts as to His assembly. He says something wonderful of such. “In that day will Jehovah defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem ... and the house of David as God, as the Angel of Jehovah before them”.
Ques What is the thought of the house of David?
CAC It was the seed royal. These most weighty words are used to show how God will strengthen those who will take up assembly ground and make use of the provision given. There is no end to the strengthening for it. Well, we should entertain the thought of it. There is no limit to the thought of divine strengthening. “Strengthened with all power according to the might of his glory”. That is the manner of the strengthening He will impart to His people, so we need not be afraid. All is intended to have a most energising effect, if we only take up the ground. It moves on the line of the house of Judah, that is the question of prayer, then we move into the thought as to the assembly, and then we take up the power. Nothing is so humbling as lack of power. I suppose the want of power is occasioned by our not taking up the moral exercises in this chapter. It is after they take up assembly ground that the spirit of supplications is poured out. It is looking at the assembly as a divine reality and carrying it on in a spirit of grace and of supplications.
Rem Judah abides forever, and Jerusalem [p. 544] from generation to generation.
CAC Well, it is very interesting to see that God saves the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David be not magnified over Judah. That is, God gives the first place to those that pray.
Ques Would this be linked with the spirit of sacrifice of Judah for Benjamin?
CAC Well, if we pray, we are prepared to suffer for the things we pray for. It is no good for me to pray if I am not prepared to suffer for what I pray for. The glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem would represent abstractly what is true. We say all saints are of the assembly, but if we have not prayed about these things, we have not realised them at all. Many pious persons would assent to what I have said, but without prayer these things are only terms and phrases. Israel will go through the deepest exercises. If we take assembly ground, God raises moral exercises with us. He is not doing so in the sects, He lets them drift along at their own level — so the people go through the deepest exercise as to their treatment of Christ. They would not be fit for the millennium without that, and no one is fit for the assembly who has not gone through this exercise. The most serious thing about us is how we have treated Christ, not our vanity, pride, etc. God thinks little of all the other wickednesses of man in comparison. Taking assembly ground we come to judge how we formerly treated Christ. It is not atonement here.
Rem “Why dost thou persecute me?”
CAC Yes, I think that is the idea. What gives such intensity really to the Lord’s supper is the thought of how we disregarded Him. Now we love Him, and we cannot mourn sufficiently at having disregarded Him. We cannot afford to lose a minute now in making the very most of Him. A Son given, and yet they pierced Him. What profound exercises they go through.
Ques Is it the line of things in Laodicea?
CAC When you come to Laodicea He has no place at [p. 545] all, except outside the door. How have I treated Christ? How have I treated Him this week? Have I acted as one who thinks everything of Christ and nothing of any other man? It is very searching. What a relief it is to come together for the Supper, to make up for the years in which we treated Him so badly.
Rem In John 19: 37, “They shall look on him whom they pierced”.
CAC That was the great sin of the Jews. He ought to have been most precious to them. In christendom His name is professed, but He is pierced all the time. It is thus we are ready for the fountain in the next chapter. We are purified in heart from all uncleanness.