In Zechariah chapter 8 beginning verse number 1, the Bible reads "Again the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, 'Thus saith the Lord of hosts, ‘I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy, and I was jealous for her with great fury.’ Thus saith the Lord: ‘I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem; and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth, and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the Holy Mountain.’" Now, the word "jealous" in the Bible is different than we use the word "jealous" today, unfortunately. When we say "jealous" today, what we really mean is the biblical word "envious." See, the Bible talks about envy and jealousy and unfortunately, we don't really use the word "envy" anymore in our modern vernacular. We've just replaced it with the word "jealousy," and we've just combined those 2 into 1 thing.
Let me just explain to you the difference. When the Bible says "jealousy," it's talking about being protective of something that belongs to you, whereas envy is the opposite. It's where you desire something that does not belong to you. You want something that belongs to someone else. When someone wants something that we have, we often say, "Oh, you're just jealous. You're just jealous, or you're jealous of him or jealous of her." What we really mean is that we're envious of them. It's important to understand that sometimes words have changed in meaning or people have misused them for so long that that becomes the new meaning. There's a huge difference because when we want something that belongs to someone else, when we desire what is not our own, that is a sin. Envy is bad. It's covetousness. Thou shalt not covet. That's when we desire or envy something of someone else, whereas jealousy is often quite appropriate. Okay?
Now, the kind of jealousy where we're envying, obviously that's wrong. The Bible doesn't use it that way, but that's how we use it in 2015. Also, we hear people talk about for example, a jealous husband. They say, "Oh, you know, he's one of those jealous husbands." Well, biblically, that's actually a good attribute for a husband to have. Obviously, a man should be protective and possessive of his wife because she belongs to him and he doesn't have to share her and he shouldn't share her and he should not want to share her. It's the same thing with a wife. She should be possessive of her husband and not want to share him with other women. She should be uncomfortable with her husband being very buddy-buddy with other women. He should be uncomfortable with his being buddy-buddy with other men. That's actually a righteous attribute. That is biblical jealousy.
The Bible, for example, says that the Lord's name is jealous. He doesn't even say, "Jealous is my middle name." He said, "Jealous is my name." God is a jealous god; it says that over and over again, meaning He doesn't want to share His glory with anyone else. He doesn't want you to worship other gods and just include Him as one. He wants all the glory, all the praise, all the worship, because He's a jealous god. Also, when it comes to salvation, He's not going to share the glory with you because you've done many works and you think that your deeds or your works are somehow getting you to Heaven. That's why the Bible says, "For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast." He doesn't want people to boast about their works. That's why salvation's not by works; it's only by faith.
That way he gets all the glory, because if salvation is by faith alone, then it's all that Jesus did that gets us into Heaven: His death, His burial, His resurrection. Therefore, He gets all the glory. We don't get any glory because we repented of all our sins or did a bunch of good works or joined the church and turned our whole lives around. That would be a glorification of self, when we say, "I did all these things and now I'm going to Heaven." That's boasting, so the Bible teaches that God is a jealous god. This is God speaking in verse 2. He says, "I was jealous for Zion with great jealousy and I was jealous for her with great fury." The Bible says, "Jealousy is the rage of a man," and rage and fury are both 2 very similar words. It makes God angry when His people will serve other gods and have other gods before Him and so forth.
Now look at verse number 3. It says, “Thus saith the Lord: ‘I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem.'" Now, when we stop and read that, it should become obvious to us that if He's returning to Zion, that He must have left because you can't return somewhere that you haven't left. Now, again, just to briefly give the context of the book of Zechariah, this is them coming back from the Babylonian captivity. The children of Judah had worshiped other gods, provoked the Lord to anger, and as a punishment, they were carried away to Babylon where they stayed for 70 years in captivity and God turned away from his people because they turned away from Him. Then, when they were in captivity, they turned back to the Lord. They got rid of their idolatry, and then because they returned to Him, He returned to them. This is a theme in the book of Zechariah, all the way back to chapter 1, this idea of, "draw an eye to God and He'll draw an eye to you."
Then, just in chapter 7, verse number 13, he talks about how, "If you won't hear me when I talk to you, then I won't hear you when you talk to me." This is a principle that's really just hammered in the book of Zechariah over and over again, that if we return to God, He'll return to us. If we listen to Him, He'll listen to us. If we are pure, He'll show himself pure unto us, et cetera, et cetera. That's a biblical principle that Zechariah really drives home. What we need to understand is that when the children of Israel turned away from the Lord and worshiped other gods, He did turn away from them.
Now, a lot of people today have this mistaken idea that God is just always blessing the Jews and they're always His chosen people no matter what and basically, no matter what they do, that land belongs to them. What's being taught in vast majority of churches today is that God made an unconditional promise to the children of Israel. They'll use that term, "unconditional," just a carte blanche of just worship Satan and deny Christ, but the land is still your land. That is a lie. All throughout the Bible, when they didn't have the faith, that land was not given to them. That's why, when they first got there, they couldn't even go in because of unbelief. In the days of Joshua and Caleb, they had to wander in the wilderness 40 years because they didn't have the faith.
Then, once they get in there, they were supposed to possess all the land, but because they lacked faith, what happened? God left the Philistines to inhabit some of the land. They didn't ever get the whole thing because all these other nations took bites out of it as a punishment because the land was not given to them unconditionally. It was given to them upon the condition that they would serve the Lord. Over and over again, that's very clear in the Bible. When they turned away from them, He turned away from them, and then now it says He's returned to them now that they're worshiping Him once again and serving Him. That's why it says, "I'm returned unto Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth and the Mountain of the Lord of Hosts, the Holy Mountain."
When God is blessing Israel, when God is returned unto Israel, what's the result? It's a city of truth. It's a mountain of the Lord of Hosts, a holy mountain. Now, could that be said today of Israel, that it's a city of truth? No, because of the fact that 99% of the people over there don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as the son of God, as their savior. Therefore, it's not a place of truth. Why? Because Jesus said, "I am the truth." Jesus saith unto them, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me," which means that every Israeli who's on their knees praying to the Father, if it's not through the son, their prayer is hitting the ceiling and going no further. God is not listening to any of them and I'm tired of hearing about how God answered the prayer of these Israelis; not if it's not through Jesus, He didn't. No man cometh unto the Father but through Him.
It says, "Having therefore brethren boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say His flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a pure heart and full assurance of faith." The Bible tells us over and over again that we have boldness to come before the Throne of Grace and obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need, but it's always through Jesus. It's always through His blood. It's through His flesh. It's through the savior. He's the high priest. He's the mediator between God and men. See, it doesn't say there's no mediator, there's no mediator between God and men. Is that what the Bible says? No, it says there's 1 mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. That mediator is how you reach the father, is through Jesus. There's no way to bypass that, so therefore, those in Israel today are not talking to God the Father. They're not worshiping God the Father because they're not going through the proper channel and there's only one channel.
The Bible here talks about Jerusalem being a city of truth. That's a city where the word of God is being preached and exalted and where Jesus is lifted up. That could not be said of Jerusalem today, so you can't just cherry pick verses from Zechariah and try to apply them to 2015 when over and over again, in almost every chapter in Zechariah, He keeps explaining what it means to be blessed by God and how it has to do with worshiping Him, serving Him, obeying Him, believing Him, and so forth, all things that they're not doing.
Look at verse number 4. “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, ‘There shall yet old men and old women dwell in the streets of Jerusalem, and every man with his staff in his hand for very age and the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof.’" Why bring that up? Because of the fact that, if there are old men, that shows that people are living a long time. They're living in peace and they're healthy and they're growing to be old. That's a sign of blessing, the fact that they're going to live that long.
Then He also says that the streets will be full of boys and girls. That's also a blessing, when children are being born. By the way, our church is really being blessed right now. All these little kids being born, the Bible says, "Children are in heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They should not be ashamed, but they should speak with the enemies in the gate." God is talking about them being blessed and He talks about how they're going to have old men and they're going to have children growing up in their church or in their nation.
When you go to the churches today in America, sometimes you'll go to churches and it's only old people and there are almost no children. That's a bad sign. God's blessing is when we have the whole spectrum. Now, we're a little bit lean on old people, I admit, but that's because we're a newer church. We've only been around for 10 years. Stick around and we're all going to grow old together, right? Then it will be all the young people now. We're all going to get old, but then we'll also have, God willing, all the little kids and young people growing up. That's a sign of God's blessing. He's just explaining that that's what he's going to do in Jerusalem.
Verse 6, “Thus saith the Lord of hosts, ‘If it be marvelous in the eyes of the remnant of this people in these days, should it also be marvelous in Mine eyes?’ saith the Lord of hosts. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, ‘Behold, I will save My people from the east country and from the west country, and I will bring them, and they shall dwell in the midst of Jerusalem, and they shall be My people and I will be their God, in truth and in righteousness." Now, stop right there. If He's saying future tense, "I'm going to bring them back and they are going to be My people and I am going to be their God," you know what that tells me, is that they previously were not His people and that He was previously not their God.
Go to Hosea chapter 1 and you'll see the same thing. Hosea, chapter number 1. Again, a lot of people have this idea that it was just a carte blanche for the children of Israel no matter what they do, no matter what they believe, that they're just automatically God's chosen people, and that is simply not the case. In Hosea chapter number 1, basically God is talking to people who are in disobedience. It's the children of Israel. This is hundreds of years previously, but obviously the same principles apply. It's the same nation of Israel. He basically tells Hosea to name his sons these various names, and the names have significance. For example, there's a son named Jezreel and then there's a daughter named Loruhamah.
Verse 6, let's start there. "And she conceived and bear a daughter, and God said unto him, “Call her name Loruhamah for I will no more have mercy upon the house of Israel, but I will utterly take them away." Isn't that what he did when he took them to Babylon? No mercy, take them away. Okay? Look at, if you would, at verse 7. It says, "But I will have mercy upon the house of Judah," because at this point, the northern kingdom of Israel was the one that was in sin and He said, "I'm going to take them away," whereas the southern kingdom of Judah was still worshiping God at this point, so He said, "I will have mercy on them." Then, later on, they follow in the footsteps of the northern kingdom and He doesn't have mercy on them.
Jump down to verse 8. It says, "Now when she had weaned Loruhamah, she conceived and bore a son. Then said God, 'Call his name Loammi, for ye are not My people, and I will not be your God." This is even in the Old Testament. This is even before they rejected Jesus and He told them that the kingdom of God would be taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. He looks at people that had previously been His people as a nation and He says, "You're not My people." That's what Loammi, the Lo means "not." Ammi means "my people." Name your kid "Not my people," because that's what I feel about Israel right now. They are not my people. This is quoted. This is a very significant scripture in Hosea.
You can go back to Zechariah, but it's very significant because it's quoted in Romans, where He says to them that they're not His people, but that in the place where it was said unto them that they were not His people, there shall they be called the children of the living God. In Romans 9, He explains that the gentiles who receive Christ, that they will become His people instead of the unbelieving, Christ-rejecting Jews, where the kingdom of God is taken from them and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof, which is made up of all believers, predominantly gentiles. It includes a small remnant of believing Jews, but it's predominantly gentiles.
Look at Zechariah chapter 8, where we left off there, where He talked about how He's going to be their people. Look at verse 9. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts, "Let your hands be strong, ye that hear in these days these words by the mouth of the prophets, which were in the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built." Again, this book is to encourage them in the work of building the temple and to let them know that God's going to bless them now. They're going to be old men. There are going to be little kids running around and you will be My people. I'm going to return to you. You're going to be My people. I'm going to be your God. Things are going to be great; just obey me. Be strong in the Lord and encourage yourselves and I will bless you. You're going to be a blessing again. This is what He's saying to them.
Again, people don't get this today because this is the message that should be preached unto Israel: that they're doomed, that they've turned away from God, that God can't bless them, that they're not God's people, that He's not their god, and that they need to return to Him. It's through Jesus. That's the only way it's going to be. He says here in this scripture, "I'll be their God in truth and in righteousness." Okay? Those are the qualifying factors. It says in verse number 10, "For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast." Now, in our modern vernacular, what we would say there is that there weren't any jobs. When they say, "Hey, there's no hire for man. There's no hire for beast," what they're saying is that people couldn't find a job, and that's like today when things are going bad in our country, you'll hear people talking about the lack of jobs. "We need to bring back the jobs. We need more jobs."
There's nothing new under the sun. They were saying the same thing back then. When God wasn't blessing, there was no hire for man or beast. Then, when things are going good for them, then the jobs abound. Okay? That's what He's saying here. "'For before these days there was no hire for man, nor any hire for beast. Neither was there any peace to him that went out or came in because of the affliction, for I set all men every one against his neighbor, but now I will not be unto the residue of this people as in the former days,' saith the Lord of hosts, 'For the seed shall be prosperous, the vine shall give her fruit, and the ground shall give her increase, and the heavens shall give their dew, and I will cause the remnant of this people to possess all these things.'" Notice He says, "I'm not going to be the same way that I was before."
It's not that God changes in the sense that God's character never changes. He said, "I'm the Lord; I change not." The Bible says, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever." It's not that who He is changes, but His behavior toward us does change based on what we do with His word, based on what we do with truth and righteousness. God does not just treat us the same no matter what. No. If we do right, He treats us well, and if we do ill, He treats us poorly. That's what the Bible teaches over and over again. It's not that God just knows whether you've been good or bad, but He's just going to bless you anyway no matter what because He's just got such a big heart. That's a fairy tale. According to the Bible, how God is to us is based upon what we do.
When we see scriptures in the Bible where it talks about, for example, god repenting and people become confused like, "Well, I thought God never changes, so why would God change His mind," when we look at all the verses where He talks about He's going to do 1 thing and then He repents, it's not that God is indecisive up in Heaven or that God's character changed. God never changes because when you're perfect to begin with, how can you change? God started out perfect; He's going to end up perfect. There's no reason to change. Okay? Now, the Bible talks about there being a change from Old Testament to New Testament, but it's not because God changed and it's not because God did something wrong and He's, "Okay, let's try this again; let's roll out the beta testament. Let's roll out Testament 2.0 because there were some bugs in 1.0 that needed to be fixed."
See, in Hebrews, it talks about how He made a new covenant because He said, "If the first covenant," listen to these words carefully. This is from Hebrews 8. "For if that first covenant had been faultless, there should have been no place found for the second." Now, at first glance you might look at that and say, "Oh, there's something wrong with the first covenant because He said, 'If that first covenant had been faultless, there should no place have been found for the second,'" but here's the next words. "For finding fault with them, He saith," and He talks about how Israel had broken the covenant. That's why He has to bring in the new covenant. God changes His behavior toward us. God changes His attitude or His action toward us based on what we say and do, but it's not that God Himself changed in the sense that He's still the same god that He always was. He still has the same opinions, the same teachings, the same doctrine.
It's amazing to me how people think that the God of the Old Testament is different than the God of the New Testament, when God dwells in eternity outside of Him. Look, a day is with the Lord as 1,000 years, so how long ago was the Old Testament? 2 days ago. We think of it as like, "Oh, yeah, that was thousands of years ago," and we want to just throw out the whole Old Testament and just say, "Oh, yeah, God was really harsh in the Old Testament. He wanted to stone homosexuals and stone adulterers, but that was thousands of years ago." No, that was 2 days ago. From God's perspective, that was just a couple of days ago. I mean, God was killing homos a couple days ago, from His perspective. Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
We can't just get this attitude that God's different. No. God had made changes in the New Testament, but God did not make changes in His personality. That's why when we read the book of Revelation, for example, we see all the same wrath and hell-fire and damnation of the "Old Testament God." You'll hear people in the world refer to somebody believing in more of an Old Testament God than a New Testament God. It's the same God. Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday and today and forever. The Lord does not change. He was perfect. There's no reason to change. The law of the Lord is perfect and a lot of these laws, but the way, are coming back in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. Don't make any mistake about that.
We need to understand that doctrine because people will sometimes accuse God of changing or changing His mind and God only changes His mind in the sense of, "I was going to do this, but then the people changed, so now I've changed my mind about how I'm going to deal with them because they changed," not like, "I changed my mind because I was wrong," because He's never been wrong. People who believe that in the New Testament, God's view has totally changed on for example, adultery or homos or whatever, it blows my mind how sometimes they can say things that sound really blasphemous. They'll talk about Old Testament laws and they'll say that they're bad. For example, I've heard independent fundamental Baptists preachers criticize Islam and say, "Islam is a wicked religion. It's so violent because they believe in stoning adulterers and homos." By doing that, you're actually calling God wicked, because that's what God said to do 2 days ago, 2,000 years ago.
Look, obviously I understand that that's not the law of the land. It's not our job to enforce that or anything because we're New Testament Christians. We're not running things. We never will be running things, but to sit there and say that those laws are bad? No, the Bible says the law of the Lord is perfect. Those are actually good laws. If our government were smart, why would take lessons from the Bible. They'd be studying Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, figuring out how to have a government that pleases God because God made up a great plan for government. God didn't change; it's just that man has changed and so God changes His attitude or action. The reason why this matters is that we want God to be a loving, merciful, and blessing God in our lives, don't we? We want the God of compassion to listen to our prayers, don't we?
Well, how do we get a hold of the God of love, mercy, and compassion? There's only 1 God, but here's the thing. He'll show Himself merciful, loving, compassionate, gentle, pure unto us if we are humble and obey Him, whereas if we become prideful and arrogant and we go after other philosophies or other gods or if we start living a sinful life, then we're going to start dealing with the God that's more of a stern, strict, punishing God. It's up to you. People that are hateful toward God, they're, "Oh, God is so mean." Yeah, He's mean to you because you're in sin. You decide how God's going to treat you and how God's going to deal with you. It's really up to you because God has in His character love, compassion, mercy, but He also has in His character wrath, vengeance, jealousy, and fury, and we have to decide whether we want to be on God's good side or on God's bad side.
He can be your best friend or your worst enemy. What a friend we have in Jesus because we believe in Him, because we're going to church and we love God and we're trying to obey, whereas people who just completely mock and spit upon God's laws, He's the worst enemy that they could ever imagine. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," the Bible says. "God," the Bible says, "is terrible. He's vengeful." Then we think, "Well, no, God's loving and merciful and kind." Now, we talk a lot about the mercy and love and kindness of God because that's the side of God where we hang out, or at least we should try to, right? What's funny is when the world starts talking about how loving and kind and merciful God is, and you just have to think to yourself, "Not to you. You don't believe in Jesus, so you don't have access to the mercy of God," because we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ.
The Bible talks about how before we have Jesus, we're at enmity with God. That's an important distinction to understand. Look down at your Bible there at verse number 13. It says, "And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, oh house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong." What's interesting about this is that it talks about the Jews, the house of Judah, being a curse amongst all nations where they dwell. Think about that. He said, "As you were a curse among the heathen." What would be the opposite of being a curse among the heathen? Being a blessing.
Now, when somebody is staying at your house, for example, let's say you have a visitor from out of town. Sometimes, that person's a blessing, meaning that you enjoy having them around. Maybe they help out a little bit around the house. Maybe they help out playing with the kids. Maybe they bring a lot of fellowship and good times and laughs and joy to the house. Maybe they can even talk to you about biblical things and refresh you spiritually by talking to you about the Bible and just being a blessing where you say, "Boy, I'm so glad that so-and-so visited. It was so good to have them staying with us. What a blessing to have them around." Right? Have you had experiences like that? Somebody visits and it's an enjoyable visit? Then aren't there sometimes visitors that come and stay at your house that are a pain unto you? They're a curse and you're thinking like, "When are they leaving? How much longer is this visit going to endure?" They're actually causing extra work and they're being a pain and maybe they're causing all kinds of strife and friction and anger and you can't have 1 accord with them. They're creating a bad atmosphere in the home and you're thinking to yourself, "This person is not a blessing unto me. This person is a curse." Okay?
What about in a church? There are people who show up to church and they're an asset to the church. They're a blessing to the church. They're helping out. "Hey, what can I do to help?" They're involved in soul-winning program. They're singing out during the singing. They're smiling and greeting visitors. They're friendly. They're doing the soul-winning. They help out with cleaning, whatever, and they're a part of the team and you're glad that they're there and they're a friend. Then there are other people who come into the church and just cause trouble and they're a pain in the neck and you wish that they weren't even there sometimes. People who just show up and they don't help anything, they're just a burden, just a hindrance. They're just there to cause trouble. That would be a curse.
Now let's think about this passage with all that in mind. It says that, "And it shall come to pass, that as you were a curse among the heathen, oh house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong." Let me ask you something. Are unsaved Jews a blessing to the nations where God has driven them, or a curse? What about after they get saved? Isn't this simple? It's so funny how these Zionist Jew-worshiping type Christians, they love to quote Zechariah. It's funny. I never hear them quote these parts of Zechariah. In the course of this series, here we are, we're 8 weeks into this thing. In the course of the last 8 sermons, we've seen a lot of verses that just demolish Zionism and just demolish this Jew-worshiping doctrine, but yet those aren't quoted at all and everybody talks about, "Oh, Pastor Anderson needs to read Zechariah." Well, I'm reading Zechariah, and you know what? I'm finding that Marching to Zion, the film, just rings true because God talks about unsaved Jews being a curse among the heathen.
Then He said, "I'll save you and then you'll be a blessing." To me, that just seems obvious, doesn't it? Isn't it just something that makes perfect sense that unsaved Jews are a curse where God has driven them and that when they get saved, they become a blessing? Now, we pointed out in our film, Marching to Zion, that just in the last 1,000 years alone, it's been documented 47 different times where the government literally made a law that said, just think about this now, 47 times the government has made a law where they said, "We are expelling all Jews from our country. Every Jew must leave the country or they have to convert to Christianity or they have to leave. They cannot be Jews here." Okay. 47 times. Now, you say, "Oh, that's Nazi Germany," but here's the thing. That's not even including Germany. That's not even including Nazi Germany. This is going back hundreds and hundreds of years. This is England, Spain, Italy, just all over Europe.
They're just constantly being thrown out. Now here's the thing. If they were a blessing, would they have been thrown out 47 times? I'm not getting up here saying, "Hey, we need to expel the Jews." I don't believe that. I believe that you should let people believe what they want to believe and "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still." I don't believe that it's our job to impose our religion on other people and force people to convert to Christianity. It should be their free will, right? We preach them the truth, we show them the Bible, but at the end of the day, they make the choice. Hey, if you want to serve the gods that your fathers worshiped on the other side of the flood, go ahead, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Okay? I don't believe in forcing Jews to convert or Muslims to convert, but you have to just ask yourself.
I'm not saying I support that legislation, but you have to ask yourself, "If this happened 47 times, could it be that maybe those 47 countries weren't all just horrible people kicking out these wonderful, nice, loving peaceful people? Maybe they might have had a reason to kick them out 47 times, like maybe they were a curse unto them?" Maybe Zechariah 8 is actually true and that when they're not saved, they are a curse amongst the nations where they live and not a blessing. I heard something in the news lately. I don't really follow the news at all, so if I hear something in the news, it must be something big because I don't pay any attention to the news. It gets boring to me because it's so repetitive, same thing. You can ignore it for 3 months and you come back and it's all the same thing.
I keep hearing people telling me that this Donald Trump, he wanted to ban Muslims, they said. I don't know if that's really true or not, but people were talking about this issue of, "Hey, should we ban Muslims? Should we ban Islam or not allow Muslim?" Here's the thing. Why are they talking about possibly banning Muslims? They're saying, "Hey, we don't want Muslims here." Is it because they see the Muslims as a blessing, or is because they see the Muslims as a curse unto them? Okay. That's what I'm saying. Historically, people have looked at the Jews that were not saved as being a curse. Now, let me say this. Again, I'm not condoning this viewpoint. You know my viewpoint. I've preached on this so many times, I can't even count. God has made all nations of the Earth of 1 blood and I believe that Judaism and Islam, they're all wicked religions, but we want these people to be saved. We love them and want them to turn unto Jesus Christ.
Let me just tell you this. My grandfather was a police lieutenant in Los Angeles, California, Lieutenant [Tackle berry 00:34:34]. There was a movie spin-off based on him, but anyway. Lieutenant Tackleberry was in the vice squad and he was in the LA Police Department for years and he was an unsaved man. Thank God he got saved at the end of his life, before he passed away. Throughout his career as a police lieutenant, he was not a Christian, not a believer, and he hated Jews. When we were growing up, we were going to churches that really taught us Zionism and we thought our whole lives that the Jews are God's people and we have to bless them no matter what, that unconditional promise, the carte blanche. It wasn't until I was 24 years old that I figured out that that's not biblical, just because that was so ingrained in me growing up.
When I was growing up, we were taught Jews are God's chosen people. Bless them. Bless you, the curse, all that. I remember our grandfather would just be railing on how much he hated Jews and we're thinking like, "Whoa. Those are God's chosen people. What are you doing?" My parents just told me, "Well, he's not saved. He doesn't know what the Bible says." Then later, we read the Bible. Why did he feel that way? He was not a religious zealot; the reason that he felt that way ... I'm just telling you a story now. He felt that way because he was in the Police Department and he worked on the vice squad and so here's what he's dealing with: prostitution, child molesters, human trafficking, pornography, all the strip clubs and the bars and the bars and wickedness of LA, because he was on the vice squad. Vice is like when people have a really bad habit, right? The vice squad is the part of the Police Department that deals with just all the worst sinful stuff.
He told us. He would constantly tell us, but we didn't listen. It just went over our heads because we're just like, "No. They're God's people." We just had that so ingrained. He would tell us how they were behind all the crime. He told us. He said, "They're running all the prostitution. They're running the pedophilia rings." He said, "They're running the pornography industry." He said, "They're controlling all this filth and smut." He said, "They are the scum of the Earth." That's not what I'm saying. I'm telling you what Lieutenant Tackleberry, may he rest in peace, said. I'm just telling you, that's where he's just an unsaved guy, not a Christian, not a Bible believer. He's just looking at it from a worldly perspective, saying, "These people are a curse unto Los Angeles. These people are ruining the city. These people are bringing in the worst filth."
It has been true throughout history that they have been responsible. Think about gangster rap. Think about Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, right? The lyrics that these rap artists would rap with were very offensive. I remember when gangster rap came on the scene. I was a kid and it was all over the news of like, "Wow, we've never seen music taken to this level of the stuff that they're saying." They were questioning, "Whoa, is freedom of speech going too far?" I'm just saying, people were freaking out when gangster rap came out because it's so offensive to women. It's promoting violence, promoting drugs, just promoting the worst stuff. Who knows what I'm talking about? Okay. You think to yourself, "Whoa. Where is this coming from?"
Did you know that the first big gangster rap group that broke on the scene, NWA, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, all whatever, DJ Yella or whatever their names are, the point is ... They just had a resurgence of this because there was a movie that came out recently about it. You see shirts everywhere now advertising this group, like a retro throwback to when gangster rap first came on the scene and broke through. Did you know that that group was managed and shepherded and brought into the mainstream by a Jew, a white Jew? You think of it as, "Yeah, it's black people music." No, it's actually shepherded by a white Jew. No joke. He's the one who brought them in and funded it. He got them all in with the big record labels. If you're just doing your own thing, you can't really succeed in the industry. You've got to get to the big record companies and everything. It was all engineered by a guy who's Jewish.
You say, "Well, what's that prove? That's just 1 story." Yeah, except that you look at so many wicked, filthy things. Look at Hollywood. Talk to anybody who actually works in Hollywood and they'll tell you Hollywood's run by Jews. Any time there's an actor in the news, I always just go to their Wikipedia page and just control+f "Jew." It's like, most of the time, they're Jewish. Just to see, "Are they Jewish?" Usually, they are. So many: Adam Sandler, Richard Dreyfus, Jerry Seinfeld, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy. You go down the list of the actors and there's just ... I literally talked to somebody who works in Hollywood, and she said, "Everyone here in Hollywood ..." We were trying to use their services for something and she said, "Everyone who works with us here in Hollywood is either a Jew or a homosexual, and you've offended both." That's what I was told by an industry insider.
If you think about the horrible influence that Hollywood is, and realize that it's run by Jews, and then you realize that here's a Police Lieutenant in Los Angeles who's a very well-known man amongst the police there. He was a very well-respected guy. He told us, "It's all run by ... All the pedophilia here in Los Angeles, the organized crime, the prostitution, it's all run by, the pimps, it's all run by the Jews." He wasn't a conspiracy theorist. He's just there every day, seeing it. Then, you think that even something that seems as far removed from the Jews as gangster rap, you don't really think of that as coming from the Jews, but it did. They're the ones who basically listened to the filth that's coming out of the mouth of these gangster rap artists and said, "Hey, we can make some money off this." They have this ethic that says, "Make money on anything: human trafficking, pornography, child mo-" It's just, their God is money. Okay?
Now you say, "You're a racist. You're anti-Semitic." Hello. Being Jewish is not a race. It's an ideology. It's a religion. It's a culture. It has nothing to do with their race because of the fact that most of them look just like me and just like you. They're white people. Hello, is anybody home? They're Polish. They're Ashkenazis. Look up Ashkena as in the Bible, and notice he descends from Jafeth. They're basically people who've just embraced a Christ-rejecting religion, a Christ-rejecting ideology, and that ideology has really become the ideology of the United States in many ways, to the point where the love of money, which is the root of all evil, has become a part of our culture today in America. That is the Jews being a curse among us when they bring in gangster rap. You didn't know that they brought that in, but they did. Look it up. It's true. You look it up and you'll see that I'm telling the truth.
When they bring in all this filth and smut and Hollywood and they're exporting it to the whole world with Hollywood ... If they would get saved, they'd be a blessing. By the way, when you get saved, your race doesn't change. This has nothing to do with racism. It's just a fact that when you're not saved, and you're Jewish, you're worse than the general population because their culture is a wicked culture. Period. It's a love of money, anti-Christ, just "make money at all costs" type of a culture where they'll make money through the most elicit means imaginable. Let's look down at our Bible. Let's finish up here.
He said in verse 13, "And it shall come to pass, that as ye were a curse among the heathen, oh house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and ye shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong, for thus saith the Lord of hosts, 'As I thought to punish you, when your fathers provoked me to wrath,' saith the Lord of hosts, 'and I repented not, so again have I thought in these days to do well unto Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Fear ye not.'" Of course, what changed? They changed. Now He's doing well to them.
Verse 16. "'These are the things that ye shall do: speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor, execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates, and let none of you imagine evil in your hearts against his neighbor and love no false oath, for all these are things that I hate,' saith the Lord." Now, when it comes to loving a false oath, you want to talk about a false oath? Here's another thing that has to do with Judaism. Let me say this. When I first heard this, I didn't even believe it. I heard somebody say this and I said, "That's an exaggeration. There's no way that's true." Then I went and looked it up and it was true that the Jews have this thing called the Kol Nidre Oath. Who's ever heard of this? Kol Nidre, it's K-O-L, if you want to look this up later, K-O-L-N-I-D-R-E. It's called the Kol Nidre Oath, where once a year, and I first heard this, I didn't even believe it. You're not going to believe me, but I looked it up and it's true.
Just type it into Wikipedia: "Kol Nidre Oath." It has the text of it. Everybody makes fun of you when you point them to Wikipedia, "Ah, Wikipedia's a bad source." Hey, buddy, at the bottom of the Wikipedia page, it gives you all the sources and you can fact-check everything on Wikipedia at the original sources. Everybody demonizes Wikipedia like, "Oh, he said Wikipedia. He just lost all credibility." It's an encyclopedia, people. It's a tool. You go there and you can fact-check everything. It tells you where to go. You've obviously never noticed the footnotes at the bottom of Wikipedia. Anyway, the Kol Nidre Oath that once a year the Jews get together and here's what they say: "Every vow that I made for the last year, every promise I made for the last year, and every vow that I make for the coming year and every promise I make for the next year is null and void."
Are you listening to this? "Every vow I make, every oath, every promise that I've made for the last year, is null and void and every vow, promise, or oath that I make for the next 12 months is actually null and void." They literally believe that it's okay to lie and break their word, break their oath, break their vow to the goyim, to the gentiles. They stick together and they're not going to do each other dirty, supposedly, but all the 99.whatever% of people that are not Jews? It's open season on them and they even get together and have a ceremony where they decide that all their promises are void, all the oaths. It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it, that they actually get together once a year and do this? Even Jews that aren't even that into it, that don't go to the synagogue every week, they'll go to this service. Look it up. It's real.
By the way, while we're on the subject, the Jewish synagogue in Tempe, Temple Immanuel, the rabbi down there, from what I understand, is an open homosexual. The rabbi from Temple Immanuel, the big, giant synagogue in Tempe, he came down here back at the AIDS-Free Christmas last year. He came down here and he stood out here and had the shawl and offered prayers unto Shekhinah out there on the lawn and listen to this. He said, "I felt like I needed to be here as an open homosexual. I needed to be here to protest Pastor Anderson," the Jewish rabbi here in Tempe. I'm telling you, they're not a blessing. They're a curse, okay? Let's keep reading.
Look, if they get saved, they'll be a blessing. Let's keep reading. Verse 18, "And the word of the Lord of hosts came unto me, saying, 'thus saith the Lord of hosts. The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth month," and by the way, the reason I brought that up is because it said "Love no false oath," because God hates false oaths. He hates it. He says in verse 19, "The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth month, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace. Thus saith the Lord of hosts. It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people," and this is a key scripture.
I want you to pay attention to this. "That there shall come people and the inhabitants of many cities, and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, 'Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts. I will go also.' Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts. In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, 'We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.'" Now, this is real important. Let's stop and park it here for a few moments and then we'll be done with the sermon.
This is saying that from Zechariah's perspective, there would be a future time when people from all nations ... There would be people coming to Jerusalem to hear the truth of God's word. Isn't that what it says? To pray before the Lord at Jerusalem. It says that 10 men shall take hold out of what? All languages. Out of all languages of the languages, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew saying, "We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you." Now, people will mistakenly again, try to take this scripture out of its context and apply this to some future period. Future period, like for example, at the second coming or at the millennium or something. Let's see what the Bible says, though. Keep your finger here. Go to Acts 2. Let's see if this prophecy's already been fulfilled, or it it's still coming.
What did He say to Zechariah? He said that there's going to come a day when people will come from every nation under Heaven to come pray at Jerusalem, out of all languages. Okay, let's see what the Bible says in Acts chapter 2. Look at verse number 1. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place and suddenly there came a sound from Heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance and there were," pay attention, "dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven." You see that?
It says, "Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speaking in his own language." Are these people of other languages? Yeah. "And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, 'Behold, are not all these who speak Galileans, and how then do we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born, Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea and Cappadocia and Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.'"
You say, "Well, Pastor Anderson, no, no. These are all just Jews." No, no, no. He said proselytes and Jews. What's a proselyte? Somebody who converted to being a Jew from another nation. He says, "We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God." Isn't it crystal clear that this was already fulfilled in the past? God's telling Zechariah, "You're going to rebuild this temple and this temple's going to be a house of prayer for all nations and people are going to come from all over and they're going to grab hold of the skirt of the garment of a Jew and say, 'We're going to go with you because we know God's with you,' and they're going to come pray at Jerusalem and that's where they're going to learn the truth of God's word." Already happened. Already happened.
You say, "Well, but it's still going to happen again." Look at John chapter 4. John chapter 4. John chapter 4. See, God is done with the Jews, done. Finished. Game over. Insert coin. It's over, okay? Yet, people say, "Well, I still think He's not done. I still think He's going to return to the Jews with mercy. I still think that they're going to be His chosen people once again." No. They are that fig tree that would never bring forth fruit ever again, the Bible says. Look down, if you would, at John chapter 4 because remember, this is Jesus talking before he has instituted the New Testament in his blood, okay? This is during His earthly ministry. He's under the law and so forth. Look what the Bible says in verse number 19.
"The woman saith unto Him, “Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, 'Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews, but the hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship Him. God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.'" What's interesting is that He says here that at that time, He said, "Look. There's this controversy of whether they should worship at this mountain in Sumeria or whether they should worship at Jerusalem."
He's telling them, "You don't even know what you worship. We know what we worship; salvation is of the Jews," meaning that Jerusalem is where you're supposed to worship. We have the right religion down here in the Old Testament scriptures, not their false religion of Sumeria. He says to them right after saying that, "Hey, salvation's of the Jews," He says "But," and people will try to quote this today, "Salvation is of the Jews." They'll try to quote that in 2015 because they didn't get the "but." It says, "Salvation's of the Jews, but, but the hour cometh and now is." He's saying, "Look, here it is because I'm here. I'm the Messiah. When the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth," and He said at the end of verse 21, if you look there, He says "When you're neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father."
Are we supposed to go to Jerusalem to worship God today? No, we're just supposed to worship Him wherever we are, in spirit and in truth. When the Bible talks about them all coming to pray at Jerusalem out of all nations, that already happened. That's an Old Testament prophecy that was already fulfilled in the Old Testament. The evidence is the day of Pentecost. They were there. All nations are all praying and they'd been doing that for years. That wasn't the first time all nations showed up. They had been showing up for years, all nations had been showing up. "All nations under Heaven," it says, and it says that, "They all heard it in their own language," meaning they were of foreign languages.
Today, salvation is not of the Jews today. Wrong. In the Old Testament, it was. What does it mean, anyway, when it says "Salvation is of the Jews?" What does "of" mean? It means that they are the source of it. It comes from them. Why? Because unto them were committed the oracles of God. They had the word of God. They had the Old Testament scriptures and they had the truth. They worshiped the true God back then and so salvation emanated forth from them. They were supposed to be a light to the gentiles to bring salvation to the other nations, but, but "The hour is coming," Jesus said, "and now is, when that's no longer going to be the case," is what He's basically saying, in a nutshell, because He's explaining that they're going to worship Him in truth and in spirit. By the way, Jesus said, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life," and Jesus said, "I'm the truth."
All that to say this. When we read the book of Zechariah, we need to always first of all, understand the context of the book of Zechariah. Understanding what the book's even about and the themes of the book of Zechariah. Secondly, what we need to realize is that, when you're reading a book that's prophetic that was written several hundred years before Jesus came, you have to evaluate whether these prophecies have already been fulfilled or is the fulfillment still coming in the future. When you have a scripture about people coming to pray at Jerusalem and taking hold of a Jew, and saying to a Jew, "God is with you," it's pretty easy to relegate that to the Old Testament. Why? Because salvation is no longer with the Jews anymore. You say, "Oh, yeah, but some of them are saved." Yeah, but they're not Jews anymore, because in Christ, there's neither Jew nor gentile.
See, those today who are saved, they don't call themselves Jews. They call themselves Christians. Don't you think over the last 2,000 years, some Jews have converted to Christianity in every generation? Well, here's what happened when they converted to Christianity. They started practicing Christianity and stopped practicing Judaism and then what did they teach their kids? Christianity. Then, pretty soon, their kids' kids' kids forgot that they'd ever been Jews because they rejected that false religion. Look, my great grandfather was a Mormon, okay? Guess what? My grandkids might not even know that because they're not going to care because they're going to say, "I come from a long line of Baptists." Who cares about that?
The point is that you've got to look at Old Testament prophecies as whether they've already happened or whether they're still going to happen or whether there's a dual-fulfillment. This is clearly something that has already happened. We have a perfect picture of it happening in Acts chapter 2 and we have a scripture in John 4 explaining why it can't happen again, because things have changed. We're in the New Testament now. Beware any time somebody pulls out an Old Testament scripture and brings it out to you as future prophecy, future from 2015. Sometimes, they're right, but you got to go back and study and check because the majority of the time, I see people take an Old Testament scriptures that have already happened and trying to apply them to today. You know, God's talking about how He's going to judge Damascus or something, and then they're like, "Oh, this is happening in the news right now because we're bombing Damascus right now. We're fulfilling God's word." They just apply whatever the scripture, no regard to context.
We need to study to show ourselves the proof. Let me say this. If you're not saved tonight, you're not a blessing to anybody. You're a curse. We need to understand that salvation ... By the way, when God said to Abraham, "In thee shall all nations be blessed and thou shall be a blessing," that was all through Christ, according to Galatians 3. Then we also need to understand that after we're saved, if we want God to bless us, we have to do what's right. See, getting to Heaven is a free ticket. You just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. It's just a free pass into Heaven through the blood of Jesus, but it's not a free pass to God blessing you. God's blessing comes through walking through the path of ... You have to walk through the door of obedience. The path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience. Salvation's free; God's blessings come through daily obedience, that's what the Bible teaches.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank You so much for Your word, Lord, and there's so much false teaching out there. Help us to study books like Zechariah that some people have never even read because they're obscure books that are not that popular. Lord, help us to really study this book and understand the truths that are in it because this is a big issue right now, Lord. This whole Jewish/Hebrew roots movement is being crammed down our throat, Lord. We need to know what the scripture really says. We need to know what Zechariah says so that when somebody pulls this out, we won't just be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. We'll know what the rest of the book says, and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
