Would you turn with me to the Old Testament prophet Zakaria?

That's the second book from the end of the Old Testament,

chapter 8.

And while you're turning to Zakechariah 8, let me tell you that there are three dated prophecies in this book, similar to three dated prophecies in Hagai, and they reveal that this prophet

Zakariah was a contemporary of Hagai, and so we know that he was prophesying about 520 BC and in the subsequent decades.

Both Hagai and Zakaria prophesied in Jerusalem to the returned exiles, and both of them had as their

goal to encourage the beleaguered saints to get on with the building of the temple.

Now, I think the main point of the book of Zechariah is found in chapter 8 verses 13 to 15. So I want to read those with you and we'll wind

up with these verses in a little while too.

As you have been a byword of cursing among the nations,

O House of Judah and House of Israel,

so I will save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.

There's that admonition to get on with the work. For thus says the Lord of hosts, as I purpose to do you evil to you when your fathers provoked

me to wrath and I did not relent, says the Lord of hosts so again I have purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Fear not.

So the main point of the good to you. That's the summation of the whole book and then the book is filled with visions and

prophecies of how God is going to save Israel, make her a blessing and do do her good in the coming years. And those promises then

are intended to fill the Saints in Jerusalem with so much courage and hope that they get on with the work at hand.

Now, one of the problems that we face as Gentile believers in the 20th century in reading a book like this is whether or not words

addressed to Judah and Jerusalem can be taken over and used by us for comfort, the consolation and

encouragement. So what I want to do at the outset here, and this is important for all these messages on the prophets,

is give you five principles that guide me in my effort to read Zakaria for us in the church today.

Principal number one, I think these prophecies were aimed primarily at the ethnic people of Israel.

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