Thus saith the Lord of hosts: I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem and for Zion.
And I am very sore displeased with the nations that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction.
Therefore thus saith the Lord: I am returned to Jerusalem with mercies; My house shall be built in it, saith the Lord of hosts, and a line shall be stretched forth over Jerusalem.
Cry yet again, saying, Thus saith the Lord of hosts: My cities shall yet overflow with prosperity; and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem.— Zechariah 1:14-17
Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain; and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace, unto it.
Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you.
For who hath despised the day of small things?— Zechariah 4:6-10
I would just like to bring some thoughts that have been with me over the last day or two, and particularly last night. They concern this passage in the book of Zechariah.
The first thing I would like to underline is the unchangeable purpose of God concerning His eternal purpose. God has an eternal purpose. We are aware that we have been called according to that purpose.
We have not merely been saved in order to enjoy salvation. We have not merely been born into God’s family so that we might simply be kept and preserved. By the Spirit of God, we are brought into His own eternal purpose, with which all the things of eternity are concerned.
God does not deviate from that purpose. He does not change His mind concerning it. From before times eternal, God had something settled in His heart concerning His Son, the Lord Jesus, and concerning those who should become the Bride of that Son.
You may look at the long and unhappy history of the human race. You may look today upon what men are doing, and wonder whether, after all this, God has changed His mind. Oh, no. God is not defeated. In His infinite wisdom, He is using even the darkest and most evil forces, in the end, to fulfil completely His own purpose.
God, in His infinite wisdom, is never late and never early. He is always on time. Take Moses. The Lord waited eighty years. That was not too late. In that time, everything had been prepared invisibly.
When God took Moses and brought him out, the time had come for the deliverance of God’s people. Everything was working together—the hardness of Pharaoh’s heart, the circumstances in Egypt, and the preparation of the servant of God.
You may say that forty years in the wilderness was a great mistake. But do not trouble yourself. God had a young man called Joshua, and Joshua never departed out of the presence of Moses. He was being prepared for the Lord.
At the right time Joshua was there to lead the new generation over Jordan. And what was it that Joshua met, not merely outside the walls of Jericho, but as the Captain of the Lord’s host? Everything was on time. It might have seemed late from man’s point of view, but it was on time.
You come to Gideon and God’s purpose to deliver His people from the Midianites. When the Lord apprehended Gideon, it was not because Gideon had any great ambition. It was not that he was looking out for some big thing. No, he was simply being faithful in a small thing. That was all.
But the Lord apprehended him. And when thirty thousand people gathered, God reduced the number. In the end, three hundred could do nothing but trust the Lord.
The time had come. It was not delayed. God did not need thirty thousand in order to accomplish His purpose. Three hundred, wholly dependent upon the Lord, were sufficient.
Then you come to David. David had a day. The Lord had a great purpose for David, but David did not fight for it in his own strength. Twice Saul was given into David’s hand, and David refused to take matters into his own hands.
What an unglorifying situation it must have seemed among God’s people. Yet David knew one thing: the Lord had a purpose, and God was working according to that purpose. Therefore, he was able to leave Saul and let him go free.
There must have been times when David wondered, while he was in the cave of Adullam with those four hundred men, wandering from place to place, whether the word spoken by Samuel and the anointing he had received would ever come to fulfilment.
But some of the loveliest Psalms we have were born out of David’s experience before he ever came to the throne. The dark years were not wasted. God was working out His purpose in David.
Daniel is another wonderful example. Daniel was committed to God. He would not be deviated from his faithfulness, and his enemies were able to use that very faithfulness against him.
Yet we know the outcome. Daniel’s enemies thought that they had him in their power, but Daniel had the living God. The lions’ den became the very place in which God demonstrated His sovereignty.
You and I have got to know the living God. The name “the living God” is used so often in Scripture because He is able to do what He wills to do. He is not an idol, a fixed idea, or the product of our imagination. He is the living God.
If we are to be of any use to God in these days, we must come into a knowledge of the living God. We must know Him as the God who acts, who speaks, who thinks, and who fulfils His purpose.
Let us take the rest of our time this morning to consider something which has been very much with me: the purpose of God.
I do not think it is hardly necessary to say that the whole Bible is bound up with the purpose of God. There is no part of Scripture which is not directly related to the purpose of God.
There is no more urgent need in our day than for the children of God to know the purpose of God, to understand the purpose of God, to be fashioned according to the purpose of God, and, by the grace of God, to become a vital part of that purpose.
It is a very foolish idea, though it is prevalent among some, that if you are saved, you are automatically in the purpose of God, willy-nilly. It does not matter how you live, what you do, or where you go; so long as you are a Christian, you are assumed to be in the purpose of God.
The Scripture clearly shows that it is possible to be a child of God and yet be outside the purpose of God. It is possible to be saved, to be secure in salvation, and yet in the end discover that we have not been fashioned according to the purpose of God.
We may be saved by grace, thank God, and yet not have become an effective, functioning part of the purpose of God. Oh, if we could only see something of the urgency of this!
All through Scripture, we have the record of men and women who discovered the purpose of God, committed themselves to it, and became integral and instrumental parts of it. On the other hand, there were those who served God and were known by the name of God, yet never truly came inside the purpose of God.
This is a vitally important point for us, because I am quite sure that the devil’s great object is to confuse the children of God concerning the purpose of God. If he cannot stop us from being saved, he will seek to make us confused and uncertain as to why we are here and what God is after.
If we understand the purpose of God, then we shall begin to understand much more. Things will begin to fall into place. It is an urgent need in our day.
Never have there been so many Christians in the world, and never has there been so little impact upon the world. In the early days, when there were comparatively few believers, the Roman Empire knew that there was a people united to Christ. They turned their world upside down.
Today there may be vast numbers of professing Christians, yet the impact upon the world is almost negligible. We may have an effect in many ways, but our impact upon the world is very small.
The days in which we live are serious. The future, from the natural viewpoint, is dark. Those who have families and are bringing up children must face the facts and help them from their earliest days to understand the times in which we live.
But beyond all that, there are some very comforting things. One of them is this: God will be completely successful.
Whatever may happen to this world, and whatever may happen to us, God’s purpose is going to be utterly achieved.
The Lord Jesus said:
I will build My church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.
— Matthew 16:18
“I will build My church.” There is no uncertainty in that. There is no insecurity. The Lord Jesus speaks in complete assurance: “I will build My church.”
Never has the Church seemed so divided, so scattered, so poor, and so weak. Yet the Lord says, “I will build My church.” It may seem to be a failure. It may seem defeated. The purpose of God may appear submerged beneath all kinds of contrary things. But let us get this absolutely clear: whether we can reason it out or not, God’s purpose is going to be fulfilled.
Our eyes are going to see the purpose of God fulfilled. Perhaps not in our generation, but one day we shall see that the purpose of God, formed in eternity, has been utterly accomplished.
I believe that this is exactly what John the apostle saw when he was on Patmos. He was exiled there by the Roman authorities. Their intention was to make his life useless and to work him to death.
But there, in the darkness and isolation, John saw the most amazing series of visions. He saw the end of all things. He saw the ultimate purpose of God.
He saw the holy city coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God. That is the end. What a thing to see in prison!
It is one thing to be moved emotionally by a vision; it is another thing for that vision to work itself out in your life. But when everything seems to be failing, God’s beautiful purpose is still moving toward its complete fulfilment.
Romans 9–11 has been a great comfort to me. It speaks of the purpose of God according to election.
These chapters are difficult for many people because they deal with Israel and the Jewish people. But the great point is clear: God has a purpose, and it is not going to fail. God has a purpose which will stand.
You may not yet understand the purpose of God in all its detail. You may not yet see how you fit into it. You may not yet be an integral part of it. But first of all, settle this: the purpose of God is going to be fulfilled.
Whether I am faithful or unfaithful, God will have those who answer to His purpose in the end. If we refuse, He will find someone somewhere who will be wholly for Him.
The purpose of God is centred in Christ. Wherever you look throughout Scripture, this is the point. The whole conflict is related to the purpose of God, and the purpose of God is bound up with His Son.
Psalm 2 presents a tremendous conflict. The nations rage, and the kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord and against His Anointed. Yet at the heart of it all God says:
Yet I have set My king
Upon My holy hill of Zion.— Psalm 2:6
That is the heart of the purpose of God: the Lord Jesus and His Church. The conflict is terrible, but God’s purpose will be accomplished.
Remember the little group which returned to build the house of God in the days of Zechariah. They were in the purpose of God, but they became discouraged. They looked at themselves, at their weakness, at the opposition on every side, and they gave up.
Then the Lord spoke the great word to Zerubbabel:
Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
— Zechariah 4:6
They had no natural strength or worldly power behind them. They were only a little group of people, with everything apparently against them. But the Holy Spirit would accomplish the work.
As we view the situation today, many of us may feel that the purpose of God has failed, or is failing. We look at the work of God everywhere and wonder how God can ever do what He really wants to do.
We might well question it. But if we look at the Lord Jesus, we can say clearly that He is committed to His purpose. In spite of all that seems to be against it, He says, “I will build.”
I want you to see also that the purpose of God is this: God wants a home. God wants a dwelling place—not merely a geographical place, but a home in a people.
This is what He has desired from the beginning. When He created man, He constituted man in such a way that man could only function properly and find his true life in dependence upon God.
The moment man became independent of God, though he continued to live physically, he became an empty creature. God made man in such a way that he could never be truly satisfied apart from God.
We are meant to be part of Himself. Christ is the Head, and we are the Body. We are meant to be the visible expression of God—a vessel in which He can be expressed and through which He can move.
God does not want merely an impersonal channel. He desires a living, responsive vessel, a fellowship in which He can have expression.
When the Lord instituted marriage as a temporal thing on this earth, He instituted it as an illustration of an eternal principle inherent in God. God is love. Love must have something to love, and love must have something that can respond.
God is self-sufficient, but because His character is love, He has desired that upon which He may lavish His love, and which can respond to Him.
We call this the Church. Humanity as a whole has departed from God’s purpose. Therefore, God is calling out a people from humanity for Himself, and we call that people the Church.
The Church is not an afterthought. It is not a new invention. It is the expression of God’s purpose in every age. The Church is humanity brought back to God through new birth.
What is the purpose of God? It is to build us together and build us up in Christ, so that we become members one of another and cannot do without each other.
The purpose is that we should become so blended, so harmonised, and so united that there is a corporate expression of God.
Heaven is not merely a place where people wait, rest, and sleep. Scripture gives us the picture of a city at the end of the dispensation—the holy city, the New Jerusalem.
That city is the expression of God. The people of God become so united with Him and with one another that they become the corporate expression of His life and character.
The tree of life is Christ. The whole present state of humanity is an interruption; it is not God’s original intention. If humanity had taken the tree of life in the beginning, things would have gone on according to God’s intention.
We have an eternity of service before us—an eternity of being instrumental in God’s work. God has not created us merely to sit idle through the ages. We are called into His service.
What is the purpose of God? It is that He might have a people for Himself—a people who are the expression and administration of His life.
The purpose of God, through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and through the grace of God, is to bring out of fallen humanity a people for Himself.
But salvation is only the beginning. We must go on into that for which God has saved us. The Lord Jesus did not come merely that we might be saved from judgment. He came that we might become part of God’s purpose.
The Church is not something outside of the Lord Jesus. It is not something apart from Him. It is the Body of the Lord Jesus. He is the Head; the Church is Christ expressed corporately.
To be saved is to be brought into a direct, living, personal relationship with the Lord Jesus as our Head. Once we recognise the Lord Jesus as Head, we begin to understand something of the Church.
When we are broken before the Lord and brought into a living relationship with Him, then we begin to blend with others. Then we begin to understand what the Church is.
These are deep matters, but they are tremendously important. When the Lord deals with us in this way, individualism begins to break down. Then we begin to discover the Church.