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Transcript 645C — Zechariah 13 and 14 Explained
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Brother Camping, I would like to ask you if you could explain Zechariah 13 & 14 to me. I have a very hard time understanding when it says that His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives. I heard you say there is no future for national Israel. But how do you explain these two chapters?
HC: The question is raised concerning Zechariah 13 and 14. Verse 1 of Zechariah 13 tells us what Zechariah 13 is all about: "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness." Now when was there or will there be a fountain opened for national Israel or for anyone else to have their sins paid for?
CALLER: That's at the cross.
HC: That's at the cross, at the cross, precisely. In other words, Zechariah 13 is prophesying concerning the coming of the Messiah as He goes to the cross. That we can be very certain of. And if you look at verse 9 it emphasizes this. Or look at verse 7: "Awake, O sword, against my shepherd." Now who is God's shepherd, that came to pay for our sins? The Lord Jesus Christ. And was the sword against Him? Yes, indeed. He is the one who died for our sins. And of course the church was scattered. The disciples were scattered at the time that He went to the cross.
But the ones who are saved, typified by the third of verse 9, "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." Now we have been refined because Christ has endured hell, the furnace of fire, if you will, on our behalf. And so we can say, "The Lord is my God." And Christ says of us that we are His people.
So Zechariah 13 very distinctly is talking about the cross. Now Chapter 14, however, is talking about Judgment Day. It talks about all the nations against Jerusalem to battle. And Jerusalem in this context is not literal Jerusalem. And if you read it carefully, you can see that it could not be, because it says the city shall be taken and the houses rifled and the women ravished. And yet it says half the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Well, how can it be taken and have half the people still remain there? It doesn't make any sense. If it is taken, it means that the whole city would be destroyed.
But this language is talking about the church, the congregations that will be assaulted at the last time by other gospels, by Satan. And those who go forth into captivity are those who fall snare of these other gospels. And yet half will not be taken. That is, the true believers will remain faithful to the Word of God.
And then it says in verse 3 that the Lord shall go forth and fight against those nations. Now this is picked up in Revelation 19 and Revelation 20, where it talks about Christ coming in judgment. Ant He speaks of it as warfare, as a battle, because the whole relationship between the dominion of Satan on the one hand and the Kingdom of Christ on the other is one of warfare, and this is going to talk about the final battle. And the final battle is Judgment Day. It's not really a battle, but it's the time when Satan is judged, and is cast into hell.
Now let's look at verse 4: "His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives." And it goes on and talks about how the mount is going to be split and then in verse 5 it says, "Ye shall flee to the valley of the mountain, for the valley of the mountain shall reach unto Azael. Yea, ye shall flee as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Aziah, king of Judah. And the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee." Ah... Now at the time that He sets His feet on the Mount of Olives, it says, "The Lord my God (that's the last part of verse 5) shall come and all the saints with him."
All right now, in the New Testament God speaks about this. God tells us what this is going to be. We read in I Thessalonians 3:13, "to the end He may establish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints." Now when is He coming with His saints?
Well I Thessalonians 4:14-17 tells us this. It says in verse 14, "If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him." That's at the end of time, you see, because it says that the dead in Christ shall rise, and the resurrection of the believers is the last day, we learn from John 6.
And so Zechariah 14 is talking about the end of time. It's talking about Judgment Day, when Christ comes on the clouds of glory and He gathers in His elect, and at the same time the resurrection of those who have died occurs.
CALLER: But this is not literal then.
HC: No. You see, His feet standing on the Mount of Olives is a figure to indicate that He is coming in judgment. We find the same kind of a figure, for example, in Micah 1:3: "For behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His place and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft as wax before the fire and as the waters that have poured down in a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this and for the sins of the house of Israel," and so on. In other words, God is talking about judgment coming and using a figure of Him coming down and treading, or putting His feet on the high places of the earth. And that is the figure that's used in Zechariah 14:4. It is a figure employed to indicate that Christ is coming in judgment.
But as He comes in judgment He comes with His saints, as verse 5 teaches, because it is also the time of the Rapture. And that agrees precisely with the New Testament.
CALLER: Yes. How about verse 16?
HC: Verse 16 says, "And it shall come to pass that everyone that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles." Now you see, the ones who are left are the true believers. They are the remnant chosen by grace out of all the nations of the world. And they are the ones who continue to worship God eternally. God is using Old Testament language of the ceremonial worship in speaking about our worship of the Lord throughout eternity.
CALLER: I thank you so much, Mr. Camping.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.