Mike Bickle emphasizes the importance of understanding God's grace and zeal as presented in Zechariah 7-8. He discusses the balance between fasting and feasting, urging believers to focus on their relationship with God rather than merely seeking personal benefits. Bickle highlights the need for repentance and a deeper commitment to God's purposes, warning against complacency in times of blessing. He encourages the congregation to engage wholeheartedly with God, recognizing that true devotion involves both the positive and negative aspects of grace. Ultimately, the message calls for a passionate response to God's love and zeal for His people.

Father, we come before you in the name of Jesus. Lord, we ask you again for inspiration. Holy spirit. We acknowledge your presence in this room. We acknowledge your presence dwelling in our spirit. And we honor you as the great teacher that takes the things that belong to Jesus, gives them to the people of God. I ask you, Holy spirit, do what you do best and what you enjoy most. Take the things that are in his heart and give them to us. We would glorify him. We would love him with all of our strength in the name of Jesus. Amen. Well, in this eighth session, Zachariah seven and eight, it is a very practical message for our personal lives. It's, I would make it a parallel to Zachariah three and four. It has real strong personal application for the way we live today, unrelated to its bigger message, because it lays out the nature of how grace functions in our life from God's point of view. And that's one of the great crisis in the land. In my opinion, the body of Christ is that the distortion of the nature of how grace is understood and what the Bible says about it. Now that's a secondary message in Zachariah seven or eight. It's clear message, but it's secondary. There's a message about Israel, about Jerusalem particularly, but that secondary message, I believe is a burden on the Lord's heart. So I'm going to touch that a little bit though. I'm not going to spend so much time in it. It's like we did in the, in a Zachariah one, we looked a little bit on the nature of grace and how the message of the free love of God, the zeal of God, the warnings for judgment, the necessity of repentance, the certainty of blessing all work together in the free grace of God. And again, there's a lot of distortion in the land. Most times where the distortion is, people have a tendency to be too positive with no negative or too negative, no positive. And the biblical presentation of grace is profoundly positive, but the element of negative as well. Well, Zachariah is giving his third message. Now you can remember he gives five messages in the book. Chapter one is the very short one, verse one to six, the call to repentance. Chapter two, I mean, and then for six chapters in a row, it's one message, eight visions. That's the one we've just worked through. This is a short two chapter message. And then we have two more messages, chapter nine to 11 and then chapter 12 to 14. Those are separate prophetic oracles and we'll look at that at the next session. Paragraph B, the whole book of Zachariah, including these two chapters, seven and eight, are about the city of Jerusalem and God's zeal for Jerusalem. It's interesting that here in this third message of Zachariah, he reestablishes the emphasis of the zeal of God being the core message. We'll look at that in just a few moments. And again, he calls the people to repentance and to walk in the glory and the grace of God. So this becomes very practical for us. Paragraph D, chapter seven and eight go together, much like chapter three and four go together. Chapter one and two, chapter five and six, there's these clusters within the organization of the book of Zachariah. And I just, the reason I say that, so you don't read one of the chapters separated from the other. That's the key reason I'm saying that. If you read chapter seven, which is a bit negative, you have to read chapter eight. If you read chapter eight, which is incredibly positive, you got to link it to chapter seven to get the message. Paragraph E, it's his third message. And again, it's about the zeal of God burning for a city, burning for a people, burning for a purpose. He has deep desire for a city. It's his city. In the eternal sense, it's a deep desire for a people, his people, but he has a desire for a purpose, a global purpose, and they're all connected together. So we find in these two chapters, again, like chapter one, I'm just going to repeat what I said a moment ago. We see the way God motivates his people in the grace of God. We want to motivate people in grace the way the Bible does, not the way that the popular culture does, but the way the Bible does. That's the only true standard to go forward in the kingdom of God. We know that you wouldn't be here if you didn't know that. Paragraph H, now we find out at the end of paragraph H, this message is two years later, he's given the eight visions, all one message. Those visions went through a night. It's two complete years later. The house of prayer, the temple is going to be finished in about 16 months. So they're getting real close to the completion of the project. So there's a kind of a new optimism in the land because the last time they built the temple, they failed, they sputtered and fell very soon. Obstacles rose up. This time, the political environment has changed. They're being supported by the Persian government or allowed to build. Money is being given to them in various ways. The people are motivated. The prophets are prophesying. They're about a year or so out from the project being completed, 16 months to be specific. So there's a new optimism in the land. And it's that optimism which is the occasion for a very important question from a delegation of men that came from a city called Bethel. And they came to Jerusalem and they said, hey, with all the optimism, with all the breakthrough that's happening, the question, do we still have to do that fasting thing that we used to do? I mean, it's a new day. It's a new hour. Shouldn't we focus on the gain and the breakthrough and the advantages of the kingdom? Why should we focus on what we don't have? Let's focus on what we've gained. I'm talking about just by the advances that happened in the land in the last couple of years. And the answer is that we rejoice in the breakthroughs and the advances and the gaining of taking new ground, but we always long for even more ground to take. So it's not one without the other. When God gives us breakthrough, we long for more breakthrough while being grateful for the breakthrough he gives us. We don't take the occasion of breakthrough and then say that's good enough. That's as good as it gets. Let's just now kick into a casual mode with God. No, we take the breakthrough. It motivates us to press in for more breakthrough. I mean, breakthrough in our hearts, breakthrough in our city, breakthrough in the nation, breakthrough in Israel, breakthrough at every level. Whatever we get in terms of our experience, let it motivate us to be more hungry for even a greater reach and a greater breakthrough of God's presence. Top of page 58. Well, I just covered that, didn't I? Well, let's read it again just for fun. Paragraph B, which translates, it helps me get my brain where I'm at on my notes. Paragraph B, the temple's nearly finished. They're about 16 months out. New season of blessing. They felt it was time to stop mourning over what they lacked. It's time to just rejoice in what they've gained. I'm talking about just the breakthroughs in the natural that they're seeing. So the primary question, the entire land was asking the question. We find in verse 5, it was a question everybody was asking. But a delegation of leaders came from Bethel, a city just about 10 miles away, and they said, we want to ask the official leaders in Jerusalem what the answer is. How do we approach this? But they were voicing the problem the whole nation was asking. By the way, this question has been asked for 2,500 years since they asked it here in Zechariah 7. It's not a new question. This question emerges in every generation, and some that kind of grab hold of it knew they think it's a new insight. It's been a debate for 2,000 years of church history. Does the grace of God motivate us to give our all, or does the grace of God in its freeness cancel out the need to press into God? It's that basic argument. And it's an age-old argument, and it was voiced first in the most clear way right here in Zechariah 7 from this delegation of leaders that came up to Jerusalem from the city of Bethel. Now God gives the answer, paragraph C, in four exhortations. And you can break that down on your own, just kind of get familiar with the layout of Zechariah 7 or 8. The first two exhortations, or prophetic messages, are in chapter 7. The second two are in chapter 8. The first two have a negative tone to it. The second two exhortations have a very positive tone. But again, I want to stress this, and we know it, but we need to articulate it. And find it in the Bible, this answer. It's the positive and the negative, not either or, but both and. That's how Jesus preached it, that's how the prophets and the apostles preached the kingdom of God. Paragraph D. It's interesting that the Lord doesn't answer the question that they ask, do we still have to fast? As Avner said, in the traditional Hebrew way, God answered their question by asking a question. So that's where Abraham and the guys got it. Jesus did that all the time, they would ask Jesus a question, and he would just ask another question, like, wait a second, what just happened? He goes, I'm redirecting the focus of the conversation to where it needs to be. So they ask the question in verse 2 and 3, hey, do we have to keep fasting? God says, verse 5 and 6, who did you fast for and why did you fast? They go, what? No, no, we want to know, do we have to keep fasting? The Lord says, you're asking the wrong question. The right question is, why were you fasting and who were you fasting for? You answer that question and you will find my answer to your question. And it's really clear what God's answer is. But he puts it back on them. He gives his perspective to them, paragraph D. It's a negative perspective. Because what he tells them, and we'll look at it in a moment, he says, I got a question, did you really fast for me and my purposes and my glory? Or were you only enduring these fasts with a little bit of self-pity just so your circumstances would be improved? You were not even thinking of me, you were thinking about how hard your life was. There's nothing wrong with fasting thinking about how hard your life is. That's biblical, but that's not the primary focus. And it not only became their primary focus, it became their only focus. I mean, when I fast, I fast, I want things better in my life. That's biblical, that's practical. But if that's the only reason I'm fasting, I'm going to get into a wrong spirit and I'm going to quit fasting. I'm not going to want to fast. But if I'm fasting for the right person to encounter him more and to see his glory established in me and through me and in the nations, I want to be a part of the big picture that glorifies him and fulfills his purpose. Fasting is approached in an entirely different way. So he asked them, he goes, well, the Lord's speaking through the prophet. He goes, let's take a step back, look at your fathers. How did they approach relating to me and blessing and seeking me? They only did it for their own good with no regard for relationship with me. Do you want to go where they went? Because the question you're asking is going to lead you down the same path they went down. Their life so declined, their spiritual life, they ended up in the Babylonian captivity. He goes, you're already talking like they started talking. He goes, the question isn't how little do we have to give of ourselves to you, God. The question is, how much will you empower me to give myself totally to you? And how deep can our walk go together and the glory of God be manifest through us? That's the right question. He said, your fathers had the complete wrong question. And he said, oh, you delegation that came from out of town. He goes, you're completely asking the wrong question in this critical hour of history. Yeah, but the breakthrough's coming. There's a new optimism in the land. Let's just be happy for the breakthrough. Let's not worry about the big picture stuff. The Lord says, wrong direction, wrong direction. I'm zealous for you. I'm zealous for the land. I'm zealous for my worldwide purpose. I want you zealous with me, captured in my zeal, aware of my zeal, and not trying to minimize anything but how to give yourself more fully to me. That's the answer. It's a really practical chapter. We've got to get into it. Let me see. Where are we at? Let's go to page 59. Let's look at Zechariah 8, verse 19. I don't have it on the notes, but I'm going to put it on the PowerPoint. There were four national fasts. Let's read it. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the fast of the fourth month. This is in the back end of this message of Zechariah 7 and 8. It's chapter 8, the very end. He goes, the fast of the fifth month, the fast of the seventh month, the fast of the tenth month. So you'll find that in chapter 8, verse 19. That was the real thing they were talking about. Okay, that's good. These four national fasts, they were annual fasts. And these four fasts, they were voluntary. They were not in the Bible. But these were voluntary responses of the leadership of Israel because of the tragedy that happened back in 586, you know, about 70 years earlier. The tragedy, the city of Jerusalem was burned. The temple was burned. The people were taken as prisoners to Babylon. I mean, we're talking about a tragedy of an unprecedented level. So while in captivity in Babylon, the leaders said, Hey, we got to start recalibrating our heart to God. We got to get reconnected and get our children connected to a life of seeing the zeal of God and responding back to him in zeal. So they began to cry out. They established four annual national fasts to the captives in Babylon. Again, there's about a million of them eventually. And so it becomes a very established part of the routine of their year. Oh, God. And the answer was, Oh, God, free us. But the other, the bigger, I mean, that was the focus of their prayer. Oh, God, free us. But the bigger issue was, Oh, God, would your glorious purposes come to fullness in Israel? It's more than free us from these horrible work camps. Would you see your glory in Jerusalem and covering the earth? That's what the fasts were supposed to be about. But after a while, they just kind of declined to, Oh, God, get us out of this horrible situation and let us go back home. So I have here on page 59, I have just a quick little summary of the four fasts. You can read that on your own. The fifth one is the one I want to focus on. That's when the temple was burned. I mean, can you think of any greater tragedy than an idolatrous nation? I mean, Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, they were demon-worshiping idolaters, came in and defeated the covenant people. How could a nation with no walk with God, serving demons, darkness, perversion in the whole culture, how could they triumph over the people in covenant with the God of the whole earth? How is that possible? Well, God used them as a tool to discipline His people to wake them up because God was not worried at all that His purpose would come to nothing. It was just a one stage in the long journey of seeing the nation recover their focus on the glory of God. And while under discipline, they were not just supposed to loathe the difficulty of where they were, they were supposed to realign with the big picture of the zeal of God and His purpose for the nation. Some of them did that. Zerubbabel, the governor, Joshua the high priest, a company of them said, we're in all the way, man. We want to seek you for your sake and for your purposes, not just to make life a little easier. Roman number four. Well, let's now read the passage. Chapter seven, verse one. I've kind of given you the overview so I can kind of go rapidly through some of these verses because I've already laid it out. It's in the fourth year of King Darius, so now it's 518. It's in December, 518. So it's about two years since Zachariah's last sermon with the eight visions. So two years have gone by. Things have got a lot better. The visions that Zachariah had proved true. I mean, the devil was rebuked, accusing the nation. They spoke grace, grace to the mountain, and the mountains were moving and the provision was coming. I mean, it was amazing. The angel of the Lord had cried for mercy. Mercy was breaking in on the land. I mean, things were really going forward. So, verse two. Some people. When the people. Now, the New King James, the translation I use, says, When the people sent these men, that I can't pronounce their name, these two leaders and a company of men, a delegation. Almost every other translation. I'm talking about, I checked, I mean, multitudes of them. Instead of saying the people, it says the people from Bethel. The reason I'm telling you this is for one reason. Because when I looked at all the commentaries, they all referenced that. But my Bible didn't have it. I go, where's? Well, actually, I studied this some years ago. So, with a different translation, so I got it. But as younger people are studying it with the New King James, they're going, where's? Huh. They would read the commentaries, you know, five or ten of them. And they go, where are they getting the Bethel part? Because almost every translation locates where the delegation comes from. And so, I don't want you to confuse when you're reading all the commentaries and studying. You're going, did I miss the memo? Yes, the memo is this. The New King James just didn't put that city in there. All the other translations do. I mean, every one of them do. Every one that I checked. So, they sent a delegation down to Jerusalem. Up to Jerusalem. It's always up to Jerusalem. And these guys, they were devout guys. They went to pray. They were sincere. They just had a wrong focus about what was really happening in the land and the kingdom. And they went, verse 3, to ask the priests and the prophets. The prophets, of course, Haggai and Zechariah. They go, here's the question. With things improving so well, should we still weep? Weep means fast. Should we weep and mourn on the fifth month for the destruction of Jerusalem and the burning of the temple? Should we keep doing that? I mean, the temple is about a year away from being done. Hey, the breakthrough came. We're done. They didn't mention the other three fasts. They just mentioned the main one. Because that was the greatest tragedy of all of them. Because if we don't have to fast related to the temple, then we certainly don't have to for those other reasons. So they picked the most dramatic, most important, the greatest crisis and asked that question. I mean, we've done it for years. For 70 years. Can we move on and just rejoice in the breakthrough? Number three, I gave you some of the translations that put the word Bethel in there. And again, I only mention that so you're reading all the commentaries. And I'm trusting some of you are going to study Zechariah for many years. I love to study what others are writing. Somebody says, I just want to get straight from God. Well, God anoints people with a teaching gift. I want to receive from anybody that's anointed with insight. I don't care where they are. I want the anointing of the spirit, the teaching anointing. And it comes through many vessels. I encourage you. Study the writings of anointed men and women, what they say. No one's perfect. No one's getting it all right. But you'll gain a lot of insight. I'm an eager student of what others have written, even in other centuries. Because it's part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit to the church. And I want to receive from them. Top of page 60. The Lord rebukes them. Here's the key point right here. Verse 5. The Lord's speaking. He goes, oh, I heard the question. He goes, they're really not asking the right question. The question they're asking is revealing a much bigger problem they don't know they have. He goes, I want you to go say to all the people, not just to that city. This is a question that the whole land was asking. And again, our whole nation is in this dialogue of the nature of the grace of God. How does it operate? But lest we think we're in some special hour where this debate is so especially important. Beloved, this was a debate 50 years ago, 50 years before that, 50 years before that, 100 years before that. It's been all through church history. It's not a new debate. It's the nature of man to want to reduce the word of God. Even the people of God, historically, there's a cry in our natural, fleshly, carnal minds to reduce what the word of God is saying. To make it fit in our comfortable, carnal lifestyles. And there's no shortage of teachers that will give you Bible verses to help you do that. If that's the spirit you have and that's your approach to the kingdom. So he said, go tell all the people, not just one city. Tell the whole nation. He goes, here's the real issue. When you fasted the 5th month, he goes, okay, I'll give you your question. But I'm going to add the 7th month too. Because it's not just the 5th month, though that was the most important. It's the 7th, it's the 4th, and the 10th. We find out in chapter 8, verse 19. It's all of those. They argued, well, it's not in the Bible. There's only one fast in the Bible, the Day of Atonement fast. And God's answer was, yeah, but you have need of this greater pursuit of me. He said, here's my real question. During that 70 year period, did you really fast for me? And he pauses. For me. You were fasting because your economics were difficult in your housing arrangement. And you didn't like the food or you didn't like the culture in Babylon. He goes, did you fast because my city and my worldwide purpose. And my salvation purposes were disrupted by your sin and your passivity. That which I entrusted to you, you took lightly. Did you fast to recover in those ways? Or did you fast so the food would be a little better? Money would be a little better? The culture would be a little better? He goes, let me change the question. Did you fast for me? Pause. For me. Not for you, for me. Now, I tell you, when we touch God, we get blessed. When we touch God, we get blessed. It's amazing. I love the, oh, I'm spacing because my brain's tired from this. The girl that won the gold medal, gymnast? Gabby, yeah. She had the interview. 20 seconds, she summed up the theology so well. She goes, I do it for the glory of God and the blessings just fall on me. That's how it works. The little 16-year-old girl has profound theology. She goes, I just do it for the glory of God and the blessings just fall down. That's an arrangement we work with. I go, that is great. I'm putting that in my handout. Then he goes on. The Lord says, I got another question. Got two questions. I'm asking the same thing, two different ways. He goes, when you eat and you drink. He's talking about the feast now, not the fast. The holy days. He goes, don't you really do the holy days as just holidays to take time away from me? Your holy days are times of recreation where you find ways to take time off from me. That's not what holy days are. Holy days aren't holidays. They're consecrated times to give yourself in an unusual heightened devotion to remember my goodness. To remember my purposes. To remember my commitments to you. And to celebrate it by giving yourself in a more dedicated way. That's what the Sabbath is about. You hear people say, I take my Sabbath day. And what they mean, some of them, is I take my time off from God and the kingdom. I believe in a day off. But your Sabbath day is your most dedicated time to be fully before the Lord. Your Sabbath day isn't your recreation day. Say, oh, okay, good. Just make that, say, hey, I want a day off. I want some time off from people bugging me. That's cool. I get that. That's not what Sabbath days, that's not what holy days are about. And God says, your holy days declined like your fast days. They were all about you and they were not about connecting with me. So your fasting was misdirected and your feasting was misdirected. Your life is misdirected. He goes, I don't even like the question you're asking me, oh delegation. These guys are going, man, we came to Jerusalem to pray and learn from the prophets. And the Lord says, I'm teaching you well if you will listen. I mean, they were a little disappointed. Number one, it says these 70 years, I have a typo. It should be 606 to 536. That's 70 years. 536. They go, we fasted these 70 years. Let's turn to number five, the important question being asked today. Here's the question that this delegation from Bethel was asking. How do we respond to the grace of God? I mean, the last chapters 1 to 6 was grace preaching. I mean, promise. Glory. I'll cover you. I'll forgive you. I'll anoint you. I'll give you resources above your abilities. I mean, chapter 1 to 6, those eight visions, grace, grace, grace. Your enemies I will take care of. I will supply for you. I will forgive you. I will draw near to you. I mean, fantastic grace preaching that's been going on two years. Zachariah received it all in one night. He's been filling the land with that teaching. The grace message has been filling the land from Zachariah's visions. I'm sure many of the people were excited and telling the news, Did you hear the glory of God is coming back? God has rechosen Jerusalem. He's going to live with this. His glory is going to fill the earth. Yes. Oh, it's awesome. I mean, that message was filling the land. So now two years later, the question is, with so much glory and so much grace, why don't we just kick back and just chill out? I hear young people say, I just want to chill. I go, what's that mean? You just want to live carnal, disconnect from God? Is that what you mean? Or what do you want to do, play video games all day long? What do you mean with chill? Well, you know, just kind of do nothing and see what happens. I go, you know what? I believe in time off. I would encourage you to take time to rest so that you get strength to work. Don't rest in a way that defiles your spirit. Rest in a way that strengthens you so you can do the work. And I don't mean just the raw work. I mean the work of giving yourself to God. Rest in order to be strengthened to work. We only got a few moments on the earth. I don't want to stand before the Lord and have him say, Hey, did you enjoy it down there? He's not going to ask me how many video games I watched. He's not going to ask me how kind of kicked back and chilled I was. He's going to ask me, did you love me with all of your strength? Did you garner your strength in the grace of God and respond to me because I gave you the ability to if you wanted it. He's not going to ask me how much I played. How much I took off. He's going to ask me how engaged I was with him and his purposes. Not how big my ministry was, but how engaged I was. I want to love him with all of my strength. You know why I want to love him with all my strength? He loves us with all of his strength. I mean his heart, his mind, but his strength. I look up at the heavens and see the stars. I go, you're really strong. You're like really strong. He goes, I love you with all of my strength. You'll never love me more than I love you, never. But I want you to love me in an equally yoked way with all your strength. You don't have that much strength, but your all is what I want. God wants us to bring the all into the relationship. Of course his all is real big. Our all is real small. But it's the all that makes the relationship dynamic. Some ask, I'm just going to read here paragraph 5 and 6. Just kind of real quick. How little do they have to give back to God in the pursuit of him because they received grace? Others ask, how much can I give back? How far will you let me go? These questions represent two radically different approaches to the kingdom. Beloved, I want to say this humbly and tenderly, but clearly there's only one that's the right answer. And I tell you, the wrong answer is filling the culture of the church today. Don't be seduced by it, don't be intimidated by it, don't be wowed by it. Because rich and famous ministries are pronouncing it, with thousands of people backing them up. We go by the word and the worthiness of the lamb. That's our plumb line that we live by. Paragraph number 6. Well, doesn't the work of Jesus on the cross cancel my need to pursue him and love him with all of my strength? Or does the work on the cross and the outpouring and giving of the spirit empower me to live to love him with all of my strength? Well, we can go on and on. I say the same thing 20 times, but I love saying it. And you're all stuck here. Page 61. I just want to highlight paragraph 9. I've covered it, but I just want you to note it. Do you not even drink for yourself? Again, he's talking about holy days. Reducing them to holidays. Where it was time off from God. Instead of time off from other things to give themselves to God. It was the same problem they had with fasting. They brought into the feast days. Number 10. The Lord says to them in verse 7. He goes, I'll be straight forward with you. Tell the delegation from Bethel and all the people in the land. Should you not have obeyed me with all of your heart? Isn't that really what this is about? Isn't the Babylonian captivity. My loving discipline as painful as it was. To wake you up for a long term history. Of loving me and obeying me on my terms. Isn't that really what it was about? And already you've been in the land for less than 20 years. You've had a little breakthrough in the grace preaching. For two years since Zachariah got the vision. Things are improving. You're already backing off from me. Already. He said, should you not have obeyed me? Now it's interesting if you read verse 7. He said, your fathers. Here's key. I don't have it just written out here. With the verse here. You have to find verse 7 and read it. He said this. Your fathers in the season of prosperity. That's the key phrase. In prosperity. They interpreted the prosperity. As cause to relax and back away from pursuing God hard. God says I blessed you and in the prosperity. You didn't go harder. You didn't say thank you. I want to give all of myself in the prosperity. You went the other direction. He goes, you go tell that delegation. Zachariah. The question. It's leading them in the same direction their forefathers were. When the blessing of prosperity happened. They backed away from me. They didn't even think they did. It's the frog in the kettle syndrome. They're just doing it little by little. You look back 10 years later. And you don't have a spirit of prayer. You don't have a tender spirit in the word. You love God. But you don't feel his presence. You don't feel the power of his word. Beloved, something's wrong. We were not created. To not feel the power of God's word. The human spirit indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Was made to love the zeal and glory of God. To love his word. If we don't love it. It doesn't mean you're not real. It just means you're in ICU spiritually speaking. You're still alive. But you're sick. And the state of sickness is so prevailing in the body of Christ. They don't love his presence. If the worship, if the music's good. But they actually like music more than even presence. Turn the music off. And it's just roll them and God and the Bible. Turn the music on. Okay, we can do it with music. But we can't do God without music and some high fives and some, you know, a good beat. I get that. But God created us with a spirit with a capacity to engage with him. Now the Holy Spirit lives in us. And he's zealous for us. And he's anointed us. And we're living in this hour, this such significant time of history. And beloved, if we're not growing in love for the word where we feel the power of it. And there's times where we lose that and we get it back. If we're not growing in a spirit of prayer. If we're not growing in a passion for his heart and for his purposes. We're sick. We're in ICU. When you're in ICU, one of the signs of ICU is you lose your appetite. I mean you're still in support systems and you just don't like eating. So much of the body of Christ is in ICU right now. But because so many are, it's normal. Now it's all kind of, you know, wheeling up to one another, you know. And they're rolling beds next to each other and fellowshipping in ICU, you know. What is this? I was made for God. He's zealous for me. I'm going to be zealous for him. I'm going to live with all of my strength. I'm going to pour myself out. I'm not worried about burning out. I don't want to rust out. They've been telling me for 40 years. I'm just saying this to the young people. They literally told me this when I was 20 years old, 30 years old. You better watch out. You're going to burn out. Well, it's 40 years later. I'm not even close to burning out. Not even close. I don't have as much energy as I used to have. My wife says, praise God. She does. I go, what? I love that part. I said, what do you mean? She goes, you know what it's like to talk to somebody at 11 o'clock at night? Hey, do you know what's going on? She goes, gee whiz, I'm glad you're getting old. Rude awakening. You know where burnout, I got to get back to this. But you know where burnout comes? Burnout comes from serving God, not connected to God. Burnout comes from spiritual boredom, yet still doing the work. But your spirit's disconnected and bored. That's where burnout, burnout comes from serving with the wrong spirit, not from hard work. Anyway, I could go on and on. I got to get back to Zachariah. Come on. That sounds like Corey. He's the one I love. Was that Corey? It sounded like him. Okay, there you go. Come on. Normally, he says, come on, church. Well, Roman numeral six, the command to repent. He tells them, I'm going to skip this section. He says, here's what your fasting is lacking. The spirit of obedience. Fasting, he says, as an end in itself, gets you nothing. He goes, oh, delegation from Bethel. Fasting as an end in itself is nothing. But fasting with a focus on me, for me, with me, and with a spirit of obedience. Now that moves my heart. Add a spirit of obedience and add a focus on encountering me and my glory filling this land. My glory. Not your ministry, my glory filling the land. Well, let's skip on to page 62. Now he goes on to the two exhortations, chapter eight. Paragraph eight. We know he's continuing the same dialogue as chapter seven because he brings up the fasting issue at the very end in verse 19. When he brings up the fasting issue, the Lord's saying, I'm still talking about fasting right now. He goes, I'm still talking about the question you asked. I'm just taking a different approach than you took. Top of page 63. I just kind of wanted to take just a couple more minutes, but I want to hit that. There's so much in chapter eight. But again, you're going to study this for years. What this whole seminar really is. It's just a big, hopefully Holy Spirit, but advertisement. Read Zechariah, you'll like it. That's really what I'm doing. I mean, you're going to leave. You're going to go back home. You're going to say, what did you learn? You're going to say, oh my goodness, what did I learn? It was awesome. Yeah, okay, it was awesome. What'd you learn? Well, eight visions in one night. I got that one thing down. It's a funny conversation with the angels. I can't remember where they were, but something's funny about how they did that. Fasting's important or something. Israel wins, God sell us. There, I learned it. I learned it. Now, that's good. That's all you can get in a fire hose seminar. I mean, I go home and talk to my wife about the session three days, I mean, four sessions ago. I can't remember what I said. I go, just get me until next week. I'll tell you. My point is, you're not really getting it right now. You don't get it in a 12-session exposure. What you're getting, I trust, is you're getting marked with the conviction and the hunger for this book. That's what I hope you're getting. And a phrase here or there would mark you, just a few, but the Lord will unpack it, so you've got to study it anyway. I mean, I must keep studying Zechariah all the days of my life. And what I mean by all the days of my life, I mean, I'm going to be billions of years old in the resurrection. I'll still be studying it. Zechariah will be right there. And then, by the way, the anointing of the Spirit works. Some of you will tell Zechariah stuff he didn't know about a million years from now in his own prophecy. He didn't have all the anointing. He'll still learn from you. Anyway, I'm getting off the subject. Paragraph E. Well, I lost verse 2, wherever it's at. Paragraph D. It's interesting, he comes back to the same message, the zeal of God. That's all I wanted to say, the zeal of God. Well, that was the same theme of your eight vision message, the zeal of God. It's two years later. Same message. Zeal of God is the core foundation. His love, his passion, his commitment to the city, to the people, to the purpose. His desire to interact with you with all of his heart and you to respond with all of your heart. Now, let's go to page 63. He says, this is how zealous I am. Paragraph E, verse 3. I'm going to live there forever. Paragraph F. The people are going to be blessed beyond measure. He's talking. Now, these folks here in paragraph F, verse 4 and 5. They are people with natural bodies living in the millennium he's talking about. We will have resurrected bodies living in the New Jerusalem, working and serving God on the Millennial Earth. Because the New Jerusalem is coming down from heaven to the earth. So, we'll live in the New Jerusalem. We'll work with him on the Millennial Earth. Where people have natural bodies. And the gardens are growing. The cities are being built. And for a thousand years, that Garden of Eden blessing in Jerusalem will spread out to the whole earth. It will branch out to all nations. We'll have the greatest time. You'll be teaching. You'll be relating to people. With your resurrected body, you'll enjoy good food. You will eat food. Resurrected body. Anyway, I don't want to go into all that. But these guys are not the resurrected saints here in verse 4 and 5. These are people in the Millennial Earth with natural bodies. Paragraph G. Here's what the people of Zechariah's day said. Well, God really is asking a question. I mean, God, this is like He asked the question, Are you really fasting for me or you? Are you feasting for me or you? Did you ever figure out where your father's mindset led them? Have you figured that out yet? That was another question. It led them into judgment. Do you really want to go that direction like they did? Now, He's asking another question. He goes, Is this message too marvelous? Meaning, is it too good to be true? He's already detecting a note of cynicism in the people. They're going, Zechariah, this is great stuff. I mean, this is awesome. I mean, you've got such a good heart. And Zechariah goes, No. Don't give me the good heart thing. You don't really buy this, do you? Of course we buy it. He says, Is this too marvelous for you to anchor your life in? Or is it so remote that it doesn't really touch you? It's kind of just a good biblical discussion. Does it really affect you? He goes, Do you think it's too good and marvelous for me to do? He goes, Thus says the Lord, these things will come to pass. Mark my word. This is like a parenthetical statement. He's pausing the discussion and saying, I just want you to know, I can tell you're not really buying into this. You like it, but you're not anchoring your life in response to it. Because if you believed it, you would not be asking the questions you're asking about how little you have to engage with me. You don't really believe this stuff. Not really. On a true and false test, undoubtedly you'd say true to all the right answers. But you're not responding with a lifestyle response that proves this is anchored in your spirit. Paragraph H, verse 7 and 8. He talks about the return of the Jewish people from the nations. Now we know they returned from the east in Zechariah's day, from Babylon and Persia. But he said they're going to return from the west too. That's Europe and America. And the returning from the west had not happened yet. I mean, all of this is going to happen in the grandest way after the Lord returns or in context to that, before and after it. But right now, I mean, for some, I don't know, Aubrey, you'd have to give me the info, 100 years or so, the children of Israel have been returning from the west. Is 100 years a good enough number? What's that? 150 years, the rabbi says. They've been returning from the west for 150 years, but there's been a remarkable thing because every decade that goes by, nearly, it accelerates. It accelerates. The returning from the west is building. 1948, it kicked into a whole other gear. I mean, it's building. You know, the last 20 years or so, they've been coming from the north in record numbers. Well, verse 9 and 10. He says, verse 9, be strong. He's still answering the delegation from Bethel. He says, be radical. Believe in this and anchor your life in it and be strong. Don't be passive with me. Burn the bridges. Give yourself fully to me. Don't look for ways out to go the easy road in the grace of God. Give yourself to me. And then he gives them some evidences that his blessings on them, even in their lifetime. He goes, can't you see I've been blessing you even recently? Can't you see it? Go compare how it used to be to how it is now in the last two or three years that you've been obeying me in a new way. My blessings are already increasing. Don't take my blessings to convince you to be passive. Take my blessings to motivate you to be stronger in your dedication to me. 64. He talks about paragraph J. Again, he's saying, look at the blessings. God doesn't just motivate us with the revelation of his zeal. That's the core motivation. And he motivates us, you'll find in chapter 7 and 8, with the long-term promises of our destiny that's bigger than we can imagine reaching to the millennium and beyond. But he also motivates us here, verse 11, 12, 13, and here, there's temporal blessings. He also motivates with warnings of judgment. These are all part of the package of Zechariah 7 and 8 and Zechariah 1 where the nature of grace is seen clearly in both chapters, very consistently the same. Some guy says, well, if we're really doing it for God, we don't care about the blessings. Well, I go with Gabby. I tell you, if you really care about God, God is so generous, he's so kind, he has so much, he likes you so much, he wants to share so much with you. Don't choose God or blessing. Just make blessing second and your relationship with God first and receive everything he gives you and be moved by it. I know some guys and they're so into God they want nothing but God. Well, God says, well, I really want you and I'd really appreciate it if you liked what I do with you. Don't endure what I do with you because you love me. Go ahead and love what I do with you because I do. I love what we have together and I want you to love it. No, God, nothing for me. I don't care how I am with you or what happens. It's just you. And the Lord says, well, yeah, I'm real rich. I've got a lot. I'm real smart. I've got a lot of energy, a lot of love. I'd really like you just to jump in and enjoy it with me. Enjoy me enjoying you. Would you do that? Enjoy me blessing you. Just use it to strengthen your giving yourself back to me. Just use it right. Well, where are we at? No. Let's go top of page 65. I've got to slip in just one last thing. Again, you're going to read this on your own. I mean for years. I don't mean my notes. Oh, by the way, the standard policy here at IHOP is our copyright is the right to copy. All this is yours to copy. I don't mean you can just copy and give to your friend. You can copy it, the electronic. You can change it. Put your name on it. Make your own Bible studies. Put your mother's name on it. Do anything with you want. This stuff, if you like it, it's yours. You don't just say, I don't like that. I'm going to add this. Put this first. Just change it all around. Make your own Bible studies. Well, look where it goes. Paragraph B. C, I mean. We'll end with this. Look where the grace of God message goes. God's zeal for the supremacy of his Son in the earth. That's the zeal he's after. It's not only that. He loves the city of Jerusalem. He loves the people. He loves the purpose. But I tell you, at the very top of everything, the very pinnacle of his heart and purposes, my Son would be delighted in his supreme in all the earth. Not just even for Israel. All the Gentiles will be captured into that vortex of his beauty. They will be wooed into the fascination of my Son. They will come from all the nations to gaze at him and to give themselves to him. Beloved, that's the doctrine of the grace of God and the revelation of the zeal of God. That's where it goes. Amen and amen. Let's stand. Let's just, again, respond for just 60 seconds to the Lord. There's a phrase or two the Lord wants to touch you with before somebody says, hey, let's go get a coffee or something. 60 seconds. Let's just close your eyes for a moment so we're not distracted. Holy Spirit. Oh, Holy Spirit, we love what you love. We want more of who you are. We want to be strong in our dedication to you. We want to be strong. We want to believe the message to give ourselves wholehearted to it. Lord, we thank you. Talk to us. One thing to do different. One thing to think different. Alan, come on up. Even one thing to think different. One idea about God to think different. One idea about grace to think different. What is it, Lord, from this session?