High Hills & Tested Trust

Building Momentum
By Jeff Lyle
Bible Text:
Preached on:

Zechariah 4:1-10
Sunday, November 30, 2014

Transforming Truth & Meadow Baptist

1446 Calvin Davis Circle
Lawrenceville, GA 30043
Website:
Online Sermons:

www.transformingtruth.org
www.sermonaudio.com/jefflyle

You are listening to Transforming Truth featuring Jeff Lyle, Senior Pastor of Meadow
Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Pastor Jeff trusts in the transformational power of
Scripture, delivering Gods truth verse-by-verse in each sermon series. Now, lets listen
to todays message.
I'm going to bring you a message this morning called "High Hills and Tested Trust." This
is one of my favorite passages from the Old Testament. It doesn't get a lot of press but I'm
going to tell you, it plays a regular role in my life and maybe in yours this morning.
Zechariah chapter 4, the prophet is receiving a series of visions and he has already
received, I believe, four and then the Bible says in Zechariah 4:1.
1 And the angel who talked with me came again and woke me, like a man
who is awakened out of his sleep. 2 And he said to me, "What do you
see?" I said, "I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with a bowl on the
top of it, and seven lamps on it, with seven lips on each of the lamps that
are on the top of it. 3 And there are two olive trees by it, one on the right
of the bowl and the other on its left." 4 And I said to the angel who talked
with me, "What are these, my lord?" 5 Then the angel who talked with me
answered and said to me, "Do you not know what these are?" I said, "No,
my lord." 6 Then he said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to
Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD
of hosts.
I'm going to read that again because I like it. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit, says the LORD of hosts." You'll just going to have to indulge me, I'm going to
read it again because I really like it. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says
the LORD of hosts."
7 Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a
plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of 'Grace,
grace to it!'" 8 Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 9 "The
hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall

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also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me
to you. 10 For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice,
and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. "These seven are
the eyes of the LORD, which range through the whole earth."
There is some intense imagery in Zechariah 4 and some of you with deatiled, prophetic,
thirsty minds want me to explain all the imagery and the lampstand and the bowls and the
candlestick and you're just going to have to go home disappointed because I'm not going
to explain any of that today. I'm going to explain on the interpretation that the angel gave
concerning the vision because it's in those words that God is going to speak into your life,
especially those of you that have got a mountain in your life and it won't move and that's
just about everybody in the room. So you pray for your heart this morning. Ask God to
give you ears to hear today.
God, I just ask you to move the mountain of unbelief. That's the biggest mountain we
face. Move the mountain of unbelief in our hearts. You are a great and awesome God
and, Lord, let us not speak that but fail to believe it and live it. There is nothing standing
in our way that is beyond the scope of your ability to deal with. You are gloriously good.
You are exalted above all. It is for your renown and your fame and your majesty and
your kingdom that we are here this morning and I pray, Father, that you would give us
eyes to see and ears to hear so that we may rejoice in the goodness of our God this
morning. We ask it in Jesus' holy, eternal name. Amen.
Be seated.
When we work our way to the bottom of this passage of Scripture, there is the twice
repeated word "grace." Grace. Any time there's a mountain in my life, any time there are
mountains in your life, we need to be reminded that God's grace abounds above any
mountain. There is grace for every single need: needs that we are aware of and needs that
are coming that we are not yet aware of. There is only grace for that which you are facing
today. You don't need tomorrow's grace yet. And sometimes when a mountain has stood
in our path for so long, we have said to ourselves, "There is no way I am going to be able
to beat this thing tomorrow."
Well, let me tell you who we're dealing with in this passage. We really have three
primary people, I'll focus on two of them. One of them is the prophet Zechariah who is
getting a word from God Almighty. He is getting God's message mediated through an
angel but God sends a message through an angel to Zechariah but watch this, the message
is not for Zechariah. The message is through Zechariah the prophet but the message is for
another man who has a really funny name, Zerubbabel. Now, we've got a couple of sets
of parents in the room that are expecting children. Avoid that name at all costs, amen?
Zerubbabel Jones doesn't sound real good in our culture but Zerubbabel had lived about
2,500 years ago. He had been a captive in the land of the Persian Empire and he was there
with all of God's people who had rebelled and failed God and yet God had stirred up the
spirit of Cyrus. If you read this account in this chapter, God begins to initiate some work;
he begins to stir up people. He stirred up Cyrus to give a decree that the Jews could go

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back to their homeland. Then he stirred up the spirits of the people to go and put their
hands to the work to rebuild the temple, the place of worship. Then we read in Haggai 2
that he stirred up the spirit of Joshua and the spirit of Zerubbabel. So God started stirring
stuff up. If you serve a sedate God in your mind, if you serve a meek God in your mind, a
timid God in your mind, a bored God or a boring God in your mind, get into the word of
God because he likes to stir some things up. He's not docile. He's a God that is always at
work and he works through grace.
So we're going to begin this morning as Zerubbabel is coming back to build, rebuild the
temple and he's come back and he's begun to lay the foundation but in the process of all
of that, all sorts of problems come his way. He is a man in the will of God, a believer in
the will of God, doing God's work, doing God's work God's way and he's surrounded by
other people that want to do the same thing but trouble comes and we'll go into some of
that. This is the test of his faith. This is Zerubbabel's high hill. This is Zerubbabel's tested
trust. He doesn't know it because this message has not gotten to him yet but it's for him.
He doesn't, and oh man, I'm already getting stirred, he doesn't know that God's already
working on the problem. Zechariah finds out before Zerubbabel finds out and all I'm
going to say before I even get into the word right now is that your mountain is already
being addressed by God this morning. He is already aware of what is going on in your
life. It is not that he is deaf or indifferent, he is already working. He may not have told
you what's happening yet but don't think for a second that he's not moving so I'd better
get to my notes otherwise we'll be here until next Thanksgiving.
Alright, here we go. The grace of God in his pursuit. You're just going to forgive me, I'm
going to read these verses again. Not all of them but we'll go through these 10 verses
again. Notice what God does when he wants to begin to move: he sends a word. This is a
series of revelatory, prophetic visions that Zechariah is receiving and the Bible says the
angel came and talked with Zechariah again, woke him up out of his sleep and said, "Tell
me what you see." Zechariah said, "I see the lampstand, the golden lampstand. I see it's
bowl. I see seven lamps on it, seven arms on the lamp and there are two olive trees, one
on the left and one on the right and they are funneling in the oil into the lampstands." So
Zechariah is saying, "I see it but I have no clue what it is." And the angel of the Lord
really wants to kind of prime the pump a little bit and he says, "You really don't know
what this is, Zechariah? You really don't know what it is?" And Zechariah is saying in
essence, "I see the imagery, I know what I see but I don't understand what I see." You
see, he was awakened. He was questioned, "What do you see?" He was aware of some of
what was going on but not the fullness of what was going on and ultimately if were being
honest, Zechariah was confused by what God was showing him.
Now, I'm not going to have you raise your hand but if I did, most of the hands in the
building would go up when I asked the question, "How many of you have been in the
midst of something that you're pretty sure God's in the mix but you don't have a clue what
he's doing?" My hand, both my hands would go up. They'd wave around like that because
I live there, amen? We are people that are groomed by our culture, groomed by our
education, groomed by Western civilization, to be able to have all the answers, all the
explanations, to be able to sum it up, to be able to give a syllabus, a course, teach it to

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others, put it in a PowerPoint and then market it because God can be simplified in an
hour. Yet God says, "Little children, my ways aren't your ways. My thoughts aren't your
thoughts." We understand that, Lord, you've improved upon our ways. "No, no, no, no.
As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and so
are my thoughts higher than your thoughts." What do we learn for that? That God doesn't
do things the way we would do things. That God doesn't think like we think. That God
doesn't act like we act. And most of the time we want him to. We're supposed to be men
and women made in the image of God but a lot of the times, we want God to be made
after our image.
You see, God pursued Zechariah with something he couldn't understand in order to teach
him something that he must understand. Now watch this: when God works in our lives,
sometimes especially when he wants to do a significant work, especially when there's a
mountain that needs to be moved, he'll leave us in front of that mountain and it will
appear to us at every angle to be immovable. It will feel permanent. It's shadow will send
a cold chill into our spirit. We'll feel impossibly hemmed in, cut off, obstructed from
whatever is on the other side of that mountain and that mountain, by the way could be
anything you want to make it. We're going to tell you in a moment what Zerubbabel's
mountain was. But when God wants to do a work of grace, he'll pursue you with
something that you can't understand and he'll use that thing to teach you something else
that you must understand. We think that the mountain is the issue, it really isn't, it's the
lesson God is trying to get to us through the mountain, amen?
Alright, y'all better buckle up. Here we go. Let's get into verses 6 and 7: the grace of God
in his purpose. Not only his pursuit, pursuing Zechariah, but there was a purpose in all of
it. Why the freaky image? Why the weird symbolism and the mystifying imagery? Why
all of that? Well, the Lord is gracious because here comes the explanation. Look in verses
6 and 7, then the angel says to Zechariah, "This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel."
Right off the bat, this is pretty interesting to me, Zechariah is the preacher and he's
getting this good stuff from God that's blowing his mind, he doesn't understand and right
off the bat, God just wants to send a message to him, "Hey Zechariah, this really isn't for
you. This is all about what I'm doing in somebody else's life." If you've ever preached,
you're aware of that every time you preach. Listen, I like for the message to just boil in
me. I love it and this one is this morning. I feel like an oil derrick and this thing is just
going to start spurting in a moment but some of the time, you just preach what God has
and you don't know why he's given it to you. You don't know exactly who this is for and
Zechariah gets told right off the bat, "Zechariah, I'm giving you a vision and I'm also
giving you a message but the message is through you, not to you. The message is for
Zerubbabel."
What is it? Look at how God sums it up. I never preach messages this short and God gets
like three commas and a period and he's done. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my
Spirit says the LORD of hosts." Now, let's just stop there. I'm going to go through the rest
of it in a moment. This is an essential truth that must be shared. It had to be shared
through Zechariah to Zerubbabel because Zerubbabel was in way over his head and most
people when we're in way over our head, we try to work harder, be stronger, move faster,

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think more deeply, come up with more resources, move and switch angles. We'll come at
it from this side and we'll dunk under, we'll jump over, we'll run around. We'll do
anything we can do in order to solve our problem and sometimes God says, "You're not
going to be able to." Now, I know this probably doesn't line up with some of the theology
maybe some of you have been taught but I just want to tell you something: there are
absolutely some things in your life you will not fix on your own. God is gracious to
remind us seasonally that there are some things that we must absolutely depend on him
for. Not 50/50. Not 70/30 but 0/100. That the Lord has to do it. Not by might. It isn't that
Zerubbabel didn't have might, I mean, Zerubbabel if you'll study the book of Ezra and
you'll look in Haggai, Zerubbabel was a capable leader. He was paired up; they were a
dynamic duo, him and Joshua the high priest, Joshua doing the priestly duties,
Zerubbabel doing kind of the magistrate duties. Together they were doing a great work
and had begun the work and were rebuilding the Temple and restoring the glory of God
to Jerusalem after nearly a century and everything was working together but then all of a
sudden big problems started to happen and we'll go into those in a moment.
This word "might" refers literally in a lot of references to military might. Zechariah tells
Zerubbabel it doesn't matter how many people he's got on his team. "Tell Zerubbabel it
doesn't matter how skilled and organized and systematize they are. Tell Zerubbabel that
he can add another 10,000 people and this mountain is not going to be able to to be taken
care of. Tell Zerubbabel it's not by might." Then it mentions power and that is more of an
individualized power. Zechariah might be tempted to say, "Well, if I can't rely on our
strength together, it will just be me, me and the Lord together. I can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me and I'll just will it into being. I'll speak it into being. I'm just
going to claim it in Jesus' name." And God says, "Nope, it's not going to be by your
might. Whether it be spiritual might or physical might or whatever kind of resource, it's
not by might, it's not by your power." And he says, "Let me tell you what it's all about:
it's about trusting in me," God says.
Now, that is such a simple thought that if you're not careful, you'll just let it go right over
your head. He says, "Not by might. Not by your power. Not by collective human power,
not by individual human power but by something that has nothing to do with you on the
originating end." What is that? God says, "My Spirit." The Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit.
The third person of the Godhead Trinity. He is God who lives in us, the church. Jesus is
seated bodily on a throne in heaven. I understand we say we have Jesus in our heart. I
won't split hairs all day long over you with that but I want to make sure we understand
that we are the temple of God and the body is the temple and the God is the Holy Spirit,
amen? He's the one that lives in us and it is his work through us. Sometimes, brothers and
sisters, he will work by your ingenuity because I believe in being disciplined, I believe in
being responsible. I'm not one of those Christians who says, "Ah, I just want to be full of
the Spirit and whatever happens happens." Listen, that's sometimes a mask for spiritual
laziness. What I want to say is, "Lord, as much as it depends on me, I'm going to offer
you everything that I can. I'm going to present my body a living sacrifice unto you. My
mind, my time, my energy, my gifts, my money, my service. All of it." But sometimes
when you do that, the mountain is still standing there laughing at you and that's when
God says, "I'll be handling this one. It won't be you, son. Zerubbabel, this won't be you.

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Child of God in the 21st century, it won't be you. Jeff, it won't be you. It will be my
Spirit."
How do you handle that because we're a rational, reasonable generation? You start
talking about the Holy Spirit in conservative biblical churches and people start twitching
a little bit. They get a little nervous and they don't know exactly where you're going with
it. Listen, please don't be afraid of God, okay? Some of you might be. Don't be afraid of
God. The Holy Spirit is God. That doesn't mean that everything that goes on and is
attributed to the Holy Spirit is valid but listen, we can't be afraid of God the Spirit. If
we're afraid of God the Spirit, we're actually afraid of the one who moves mountains.
Maybe that's why some of our mountains aren't getting moved. Maybe that's why the
shadows are getting colder and drawing out longer. Maybe that's why nothing is
happening. You say, "Well Jeff, we've planned, we've prepared, we've prayed." I get that
but sometimes it's not by your might. Sometimes it's not by your power. God was saying
through Zechariah to Zerubbabel, "I'll be handling this."
Well, what was he talking about because I think that's important? This is germane. Well,
let me give you some of what Zechariah was facing. He says, look down at verse 7, "Who
are you?" This is God speaking. "Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel,
you shall be made a plain." In other words, I remember being in Tanzania this time last
year and looking out of a window in the room I was staying and the top of it was in the
clouds and the base of it was on the ground. I don't even know how many miles away it
was but it was the most mountainous thing I had ever seen in my life. What was it? It was
Kilimanjaro. I remember looking at that thing and just being awestruck by the majesty of
the Creator that he would deposit such a beautiful image in front of my eyes to just stand
there. And I looked at that and I had all of the senses going, the African sounds and
smells and just the whole moment was surreal but that mountain was huge, the biggest
mountain I'd ever seen in my life. Sometimes I've had problems that felt bigger.
Sometimes I've been in circumstances that were more threatening, at least I felt that way.
Sometimes I have been more overwhelmed by the reality of the presence of opposition
and pain and fear and struggle and the unknown and the worry over tomorrow that it
might as well have been a circumstantial Kilimanjaro towering over me. Then I come to a
passage like Zechariah 4 and I just do something that I don't believe offends the Lord at
all, I put my name in verse 7. As a matter of fact, I'll just encourage you to do it. "Who
are you, O great mountain? Before Jeff, you will become a plain." I see you all didn't get
that. Now, if you're problem free, you're already bored but for the other 99% of us in
here, this is where you get to start letting God speak into your life. This is where you
have an opportunity to not make this an historical text like you're studying ancient Jewish
history but let it be a prophetic text. That's what it is. It's God's word speaking into your
life and so I don't believe that we're dishonoring the Lord by looking at this and saying,
"Well, if Zerubbabel got his mountain dealt with by God, I don't think God will be
displeased if I just take God's word and say that he can deal with my mountain in the
same way. Who are you, O great mountain? Before Jeff." Why don't you say your name?
"Who are you, O great mountain? Before ____ you shall become a plain, razed to the
ground." How's it going to happen? Well, I guess we'd better get stronger. We'd better get
more disciplined. We'd better pray longer. We'd better get a up earlier. We'd better stay

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up later. We'd better give more. No, he already dealt with that. He said, "No, not by you.
It is not by you." God says, "This one is on me. I'm going to do this."
You see, Zerubbabel's present mountain historically, this is what he was dealing with as
he was just trying to do something great for God. Zerubbabel from Israel's past failures as
a nation. You see, they knew they had failed God and they had been chastised severely
and sent off into captivity. So you've got that nagging, guilty voice, "Well, the mountain
is there because you blew it. You created this mountain. You're the one who made the
problem. You're the one who failed. You're the one that sinned. You're the one that
messed up." Has anybody ever heard that voice? Yup. God says, "I'll take care of that." It
could have been fear of the surrounding enemy because as soon as they put their hands to
the work there in Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, the enemy started to try to get in on it.
First they said, "Why don't you let us help you," and Zerubbabel said, "You ain't helping
with nothing. This is a holy work. This is a sanctified work. This is for Yahweh. This is
our God. No thank you." And that got everybody mad and so they wrote letters to the
king and said, "These people are trying to rebel against you. They're going to set up the
temple. They're going to build walls and they're going to be rebellious," and the work got
brought to a halt. Magistrates, legal teams came in and put the work to a halt. By the way,
in the ensuing years, the financial needs and provisions to rebuild the temple dried-up.
We're going to be talking about gaining momentum in your finances next Sunday, that's a
very important message, be here next Sunday and it's going to be from this same season
of history for Israel, out of the book of Haggai. The people started not giving unto the
work anymore and started building up their own lives and Zerubbabel is a leader and, you
know, that's discouraging. The mountain gets taller, the financial burden.
Then there were discouraged and critical workers. You can read all about them in Ezra,
chapter 3 and Haggai 2. It means all the people that were with Zechariah at one point
finally just got discouraged themselves and they quit and they lost momentum and they
lost their vision and they lost the plan and they all started just kind of trickling into lesser
things.
Then there was that renewed interference from powerful opposition. They started coming
in and laying down the law. Oh man, if I had time, I would rejoice to show you how God
took the efforts of the enemy and actually flipped them on its head and those very same
people ended up being a blessing to the project. These people were saying, "You can't
build this," and so they wrote letters and the guy they wrote the letter to did a research
thing in the king's treasure house and archive and he came back up and said, "Wait a
minute, we did authorize this work. This thing has been authorized for years. Hey, tell
those people that sent us the letter that not only does Zerubbabel have the right to do it
but I want those people to fund it." Glory to God, amen? I mean, they sent a letter of halt
the action, a stop order and what they got back was, "No, you're going to pay the bill,"
amen? Give me some of that, hallelujah.
Ultimately, there was a loss of momentum and vision by the people and that's Haggai 1
and we'll deal with that next week, but this is Zerubbabel's mountain. Zerubbabel, not by
his might or power, he couldn't change anybody's hearts. He couldn't stop the authorities.

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He couldn't stop the enemy. He couldn't do anything but stare at the mountain. And he
had been doing this a while and I'm going to tell you something, Zechariah is getting this
message and Zerubbabel doesn't know it. Zerubbabel is over there somewhere just still
looking at the mountain saying, "I don't know what I'm going to do about this thing. I'm
sick of looking at it. I know I can't do anything about it. God, I don't know if you're
listening but I've been praying a long time, Lord, and you haven't done anything. I'm just
convinced you're probably not even listening. I probably made a mistake. I probably
stepped out of your will. I guess we're never going to win. We're never going to
overcome. I'm never going to get my life back. It's just this is the way it's going to be."
And what Zerubbabel doesn't know is God is already preparing everything for Zechariah
and it's on its way. The answer is on its way.
So this is what I want to tell you Mr. and Mrs. Discouraged this morning: hey listen, I've
worn your coat before. I know what it's like to be wrapped up in discouragement. I never
thought I would deal with discouragement to the degree that I have as a Christian. I never
thought I would but I have been there so I'm not poking fun but I am going to address the
issue as one who in this moment is currently very encouraged. Let me just tell you
something: you don't know what God is doing right now in the peripheral. Just because
you don't see it doesn't mean it's not happening. Just because he didn't ask for your input
doesn't mean that he doesn't have a good plan. Just because you haven't seen it
materialize in the natural, in the moment, that doesn't mean that he hasn't already
gathered it all together. Half of the Christian life is waiting on God's timing and brothers
and sisters, when the hill is high, your trust is tested.
Verse 7, Zerubbabel was promised a spiritual treasure. You see, it wasn't just God's going
to deal with the mountain and bring it down to ground level but, "Zechariah, you tell
Zerubbabel that when the temple is done, he's going to bring forward," look at the end of
verse 7, "the top stone," the capstone, the cornerstone, whatever you want to call it. He's
going to be the one who puts the very last brick in place and when he does, Zerubbabel is
not going to be strutting. He's not going to be saying, "Uh-huh, do you see what I just
did?" Look at what's going to happen: Zerubbabel was going to know, "Man, I never
could have done this. I never would have gotten this done. I was doomed. I was helpless.
I was powerless. My might was worthless. My power was nonexistent. I never could've
gotten this done, therefore as I put this capstone in place, let me just give a little grace,
grace, God's grace, and put that bad boy right where it goes." So God used the mountain
that Zerubbabel couldn't move to teach Zerubbabel a lesson that he couldn't afford to
lose. What was it? That God gets the glory. God gets the glory. I want you to say that
with me, "God gets the glory." Shout it, "God gets the glory." One more time, "God gets
the glory." Friends, that's what he's doing in your life. That's what he's doing. If he moved
every mountain before you felt it's mountain-ness, that's not a word but just flow with me
here, if he moved it before you sensed it, you would never seek him. If you just had a
clear pathway all the time, you would be convinced that you are doing things; you are
making things happen; you are gifted; you are slick; you are smart; you are successful;
you are resources and you would be giving yourself the glory.

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So God is too good to let you be too deceived in thinking that you can do this alone and
so he leaves the mountain there long enough for you to tremble in front of it. Let's you
stand in the shadow and that first day we walk up to that mountain and we say,
"Mountain, be moved! Mountain, be moved! Mountain, would you mind stepping aside?"
And we call everybody, "Let's have a prayer meeting over the mountain. Just have a
prayer meeting. Let's all lay hands on the mountain. Lay hands on the mountain." And the
mountain just stands there. So what happens is you expend all of your resources, all of
your ingenuity, all of your ability, all of your plans, everything you thought would do the
trick and the mountain is still there and ultimately you're just standing there and saying,
"I've got nothing left. God, if you don't do something here, I perish," and then God
begins to move. The question is: will you get to that point? Will you go all the way to that
point with him? Because let me just tell you something: many won't. Many won't. They'll
quit. They'll back away. They'll go to a mountain free zone even if they have to run back
to where they were before and God wants you to get to what's on the other side of that
thing because that's where his plan and his best is for you.
But you're not going to move it on your own and Zerubbabel wasn't and when the
capstone, that last stone in the temple would be put in place, it was Zerubbabel that got to
do it and so we get down to verses 8 and 10 and we'll be out of time. Here's the grace of
God in his promises. It's all grace, brothers and sisters. "Then the word of the Lord came
unto me," verse 8, "saying the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this
house; his hand shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has
sent me to you. For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice and shall
see the plumb line in the hands of Zerubbabel." Then I'm going to deal with this last
statement in just a moment here. I love it because you've got the thunder of, "Who are
you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, you'll become a plain." So you get that
climactic moment thee where God is just kind of blowing the minds of everybody. Then
you've got that comforting moment or that encouraging moment where Zerubbabel is
being told, "Zerubbabel, here is what's going to happen at the end." You see, there's a
tendency for us when the mountain has been there so long, we just assume we'll never get
to complete what we started. Zerubbabel must've been tempted to think, "I started
something but I must have missed it or something happened." Maybe, could be, maybe he
even got disappointed with God. I'm sure none of y'all have ever, ever been disappointed
with God but maybe some others have saying, "God, this wasn't the way it was supposed
to be," and they cut out early before God would have ushered in the opportunity for them
to put that final piece in place.
Zerubbabel is here told, "Zerubbabel, your hands laid the foundation." Typically in
ancient Jewish history when there was a building project of this magnitude especially the
temple, it would have been a very formal ceremony as they began to lay the foundation
and Zerubbabel, being the chief magistrate, would have been there presiding over it and
so when the angel of the Lord brings the message of the Lord through Zechariah to
Zerubbabel, he's reminding him of what God saw: God saw Zerubbabel's hands lay the
foundation. He saw that moment where his chief magistrate, Zerubbabel, presided over
the laying of the foundation and God says to him, "I saw you start it and I'll see you finish
it." Everything that was happening circumstantially said Zerubbabel would never be able

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to finish the work. You and I have a promise, Philippians 1:6, "He who began a good
work in you shall complete it." Some of you thought you should be done by now. That's
why you've been struggling with disappointment and discouragement. You're growing
weary in well doing. Your hands are getting weak and your knees are getting feeble and
you're turning out of the way because you're tired, you're bruised, you're battered, you're
hurting, you're discouraged, you're gasping. Maybe you feel a little detached and you're
thinking you're supposed to be at the end but listen, I just want to encourage you with
this: you're not at the beginning. You're not at the beginning but you're not at the end yet.
Do you know where you are? You're in process. He's still working on you, amen? Those
kids can come up here and sing that right now and we'd all just weep, we'd all cry. "He's
still working on me." I don't know the words.
The point being is this: when God initiates something, God culminates it and you need to
hang around. You need to abide. Jesus asked the question, "When the Son of Man
returns, will he find faith?" That's a scary verse. The omniscient one asks that. "When I
come the second time, disciples, do you think anybody will be faithful when I return?"
Listen, in my belief, that's our generation he's asking about. You know, you can disagree
with me and I could be wrong but I just feel it in my soul that this is the generation of the
second coming. I just believe. I don't have a time, I don't have a date, but man, I'll tell
you, I'm looking at everything happening around us and I'm saying, "It can't be too much
longer." And the question Jesus asked, "I wonder who's going to be faithful? I wonder
who's going to be waiting on the mountain to move and still calling on me and still
waiting on me and still believing? I wonder who's going to be toiling in their own
strength, still thinking they're strong enough, wise enough, smart enough, big enough, to
make it happen on their own?"
The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, his hands will completed
it and God at this in verse 9, "Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to
you." God forecasts this moment where Zechariah, Zerubbabel, Joshua, Haggai the other
prophet and all of the people, God says, "When the mountain is moved, when the temple
is complete, when the opposition failed, when every weapon formed against you failed to
prosper, when every force of hell came to derail what I had determined to do, when all of
that is seen for what it is, then you're going to know in your heart of hearts that God did
this thing." Friends, that is what we need. We don't need to be congratulating each other,
being impressed with each other, being awed by each other. That's man glory. That's
idolatry. We need to be people that look at the end of our rope and say, "I dropped the
end of the rope but God caught me when I was falling," hallelujah. Whew. Son. I'm just
about to amen myself. Good night alive.
Let me just finish because I've got another week of this stuff in me. This strange little
verse, strange little clause in verse 10, "Whoever despises the day of small things will
rejoice." Do you know what that's a reference to? All of the old-timers that saw the first
temple. They were probably young kids when the first temple got destroyed. They got
taken off into captivity. Here they are coming back some 70 odd years later and now
they're seeing this comparatively small foundation for the new temple and I believe it's
Ezra that tells us that they were crying. They had sensed horrible loss. "It's not what it

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used to be. It was better back then. We've lost something." But the men and women that
had never seen the first one, do you know what they're saying? They are saying, "Isn't
this great? Isn't this awesome? Look at this, we've got a temple to worship God. The
glory of God is getting restored to Jerusalem." You're in one of those two groups. You
keep trying to recapture the past, you go ahead and get you a big old Costco size box of
Kleenex because you're going to be weeping a long time. The past was what God did
when? In the past and if you're always looking back, wishing and trying to import the
past into the present, you're going to miss your future. And the people that were rejoicing
Ezra says the shouts were so loud you couldn't discern the weeping mourners over the
hallelujah chorus. Everybody was making a noise of some kind. That's the way it is in
churches, amen? Everybody's got some kind of noise coming out of them, amen? Let it
be praise. Let it be glory. Let it be shouting. Let it be rejoicing. Let it be celebrating. Quit
trying to make something that is into something that you wish it would be.
Then he says, "The seven eyes of the LORD, these seven are the eyes of the LORD
which range through the whole earth." Man, I just sat there and gnawed on that thing like
stale beef jerky. I didn't know what to do with that. I was like, "What? These seven are
the eyes of the LORD which range through the whole earth?" That just kind of came out
of nowhere. I didn't get that at all. As a matter of fact, in my ESV Bible, it actually takes
the end of verse 10, "these seven eyes," and starts a whole new paragraph with it because
it didn't seem to go with what was said before. But this is all I'm going to give you: seven
in Scripture, typically if there's some numerology at play, it indicates perfection. Seven is
the number that often represents perfection or completion and when we have seven eyes
of the LORD, you're going to find it in various places in Scripture, you're talking about
perfect knowledge, perfect sight, perfect discernment, perfect wisdom. And so at the very
end of all of this mountain stuff and troubles and then promises, you have this enigmatic
statement that says, "And the seven eyes of the LORD are watching the whole thing."
Let me just invite you to just express your faith if you can this morning. I want you to
think of your mountain and I want you to say something very simple, "God will see to it.
God will see to it." Let's say that together. I want you to think. I'm going to give you a
couple of seconds and I want you to think about your mountain, your problem, your
barrier. Now, I want you to recognize that God's perfect omniscience and perfect wisdom
and perfect discernment and perfect covenant and perfect love and perfect faithfulness are
all in play and so this is a statement of our faith and when we face the high hills and our
trust is tested, this is what we can say very simply, "God will see to it." Will you say that
with me? Let's just say it a few times. "God will see to it. God will see to it. God will see
to it. God will see to it." That's exactly what's going on right now.
Thank you for listening to Transforming Truth with Pastor and Bible Teacher, Jeff Lyle.
For more information about this ministry, visit us online at transformingtruth.org or learn
more about Meadow Church online at meadowchurch.com.

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