Hypocrisy warned.
"And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts," etc. The severe rebuke of the previous verses seems followed up in these verses by a very solemn yet very merciful warning, intended apparently to save the Jews from the various evils to which their hypocrisy had exposed them. The language of God to their fathers, as referred to in verse 7, appears still (note "thus spake," according to Pusey, Wardlaw, and others, in verse 9) the theme of discourse. And three successive points of importance, in connection with this language and its consequences, seem described to us here, viz.
I. A MOST GRACIOUS PURPOSE. What was it really that, by the "former prophets" (verse 7), God had demanded of men? Under one aspect, as before shown by us, "repentance towards" himself. Under another aspect, so it seems hem explained in verses 9, 10, only what was good for themselves. How many blessings, e.g; if God's laws had been really kept, and their fathers had only done as God asked of them, would have been found in the land! We may describe them as being chiefly four, viz.
II. A STUBBORN REFUSAL. How had this message of goodness and mercy been received in the days referred to?
1. With every outward sign of dishonour. Such as
2. With every inward feeling of rebellion to correspond. This shown:
III. A TERRIBLE DOOM. When such condescending goodness met with so perverse a return, what could ultimately ensue but "great wrath "? According to the moral laws of God's spiritual kingdom, which are as fixed, could we only believe it, as the natural laws of his physical creation, here was a clear case of cause and effect. This is declared to us:
1. By the nature of the judgments. See how they correspond to the offence. Israel had refused to hear God. So God now refuses to hear the.
2. By the sentence of the Judge. God speaks of all that afterwards came upon them as being inflicted
From this review of that portion of the past history of Israel here referred to, we get a sample of many other histories as they will appear at the last. This is true:
1. Of many individual lives. Lifelong entreaty, lifelong forbearance, lifelong rebellion, followed up by more than lifelong death, impossible as that sounds,—such will be in brief, and yet in full also, the history of many a soul.
2. Of many individual communities; both nations and Churches. How many cities, kingdoms, empires, and races, once great on the earth, might have all that is really essential to their history told in a precisely similar way (see, for one example, Genesis 13:13; Genesis 18:20, Genesis 18:21; Genesis 19:9; 2 Peter 2:8; Jud 7)! See a succession of examples in the succession of world empires in Daniel. See, also, as to religious communities, similar lessons taught by comparison of past and present condition of some of the Apocalyptic Churches.
3. Of the whole world of the ungodly. What a long history of gracious messages and of stubborn refusals will be found at the end of the whole completed history of the race of Adam and Eve (Romans 3:19, end; Jud Romans 1:14, Romans 1:15)!
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH