Zechariah 7:8

The word of the Lord came unto Zechariah, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, saying, Execute true judgment, and show mercy and compassions every man to his brother... And oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor. Let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. But they refused to hearken, and pulled away their shoulder, and stopped their ears... Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone... Therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts... But I scattered them with a whirlwind among the nations, whom they knew not. Thus the land was desolate after them... for they laid the pleasant land desolate.

God calls His restored people to live out His own nature—justice, mercy, and compassion—or to suffer the desolation that comes from a hardened heart.

The Setting: Zechariah's Ministry to the Returned Exiles

Zechariah the prophet was given a ministry to the people of Judah after they had returned from Babylon. Remember the history of Israel: after entering the Promised Land they were led by judges, until under Samuel they demanded a king. God gave them Saul, then David—a man after God's own heart, not because he was sinless, but because he was repentant where Saul would not repent. After David came Solomon, to whom God gave great wisdom, though he too was no perfect king.

After Solomon, his foolish son Rehoboam divided the nation into the northern kingdom of ten tribes and the southern kingdom of Judah and Benjamin. The northern tribes never had a good king and were ultimately destroyed and scattered by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC—the so-called lost tribes. Then in the 6th century BC, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Judah, leveled the temple, and led the people captive for 70 years.

When Babylon fell to the Medo-Persian Empire, Cyrus—prophesied by name through Isaiah 150 years before his birth—released the people in 538 BC. About 50,000 returned to rebuild the temple. The work stalled for some 20 years amid discouragement and opposition, until Zerubbabel and the prophet Zechariah encouraged the people to press on. As Zechariah told Zerubbabel in chapter 4, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."

Outward Religion, Wicked Hearts

Here they were, rebuilding the very place where God would meet with them, and yet their hearts were still wicked. That is so often the case with us. We can fall into a pattern where we go to church, serve, give, carry a Bible, even put a fish or a dove on our car, and yet our hearts can be far from the Lord. That is exactly what was happening among the people in Zechariah's day.

So God gave him a word to speak. In chapters 7 and 8 there are four messages: a rebuke of their hypocrisy (7:4-7), a call to repentance (7:8-14), a call to restoration (8:1-7), and a call to rejoice in the future glory of the temple—not because of its appearance, but because the Messiah Himself, Jesus, would one day come to it. Tonight we look at the second message, the call to repentance.

Execute True Judgment

The word of the Lord came to Zechariah, and God sent him to the people with this command: "Execute true judgment," or render true justice. It is amazing how quick we are to return to our own ways. These were the very people who had gone into captivity because injustice abounded in Judah and Jerusalem. God sent them to Babylon as a refiner's fire, for purification. You would think the ones who returned, the dedicated remnant who said, "We won't stay in Babylon," would be the best of the best. Yet within twenty years of returning, the nation was once again filled with injustice.

We are so fast to go back to the things of this world. Think of Abram: he heard God's call to leave his country, and as soon as he arrived a famine drove him straight down to Egypt for help. Egypt is so often a picture of the world, and he was drawn to what he knew. As the song says, we are prone to wander, and it is good that we recognize it. Paul warns in Galatians 6 to restore a fallen brother gently, "considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." It is dangerous to think, "I've got this licked." Take heed when you think you stand, lest you fall.

God's Nature Is Just

God takes notice when a people fail to exercise justice, and He will judge, because justice is His nature. He doesn't merely do just things; He is just. Even unbelievers who deny God have a real, solid sense that justice should be done—consider how many are gripped by the Casey Anthony trial in Florida, longing to see someone pay. Where does that sense come from? It comes from God, in whose image we are made.

The Scriptures prove this. Micah 6:8 encourages me, because God does not say, "Do right, but figure out for yourself what right is." He tells us: "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good... to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Proverbs 21:3 says doing justice and judgment "is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice"—more than a burnt offering, more than a hundred-thousand-dollar check written on a giant cardboard check.

In Isaiah 5, God describes His vineyard, Israel—the choice vine He planted, cleared of rocks, and cared for. He came looking for the fruit of justice and judgment. But "he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry." Oppression is the exact opposite of justice. And I have no problem fast-forwarding 2,500 years to June 1st, 2011: God says the same thing to you and me—execute true judgment.

Show Mercy and Compassion

God not only wants us to execute true judgment, He wants us to show mercy and compassion. As with justice, God is mercy. In Exodus 34:6, when God declares His nature, the very first word He uses is "merciful." His throne is a throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16), and the seat upon it is called the mercy seat. I'm thankful it isn't the judgment seat. Those who come to Him by grace through faith meet Him at the mercy seat; those who reject Him will meet Him at the judgment seat. We have not been appointed to wrath.

So God requires mercy just as He requires justice (Micah 6:8: "love mercy"). And mercy is a mark of sonship. Jesus says in Luke 6:36, "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful," and in Matthew 5:7, "Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy." It is not our nature to be merciful—we default to wanting justice for everyone else and mercy for ourselves. When others wrong us we cry "eye for an eye," but when we sin, oh how we love mercy.

I love the mercy of God; I stumble upon it on every page of Scripture. Mercy triumphs over judgment, and I could stand in awe of that truth for weeks—because I deserve judgment every second of every day. He is "the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort" (2 Corinthians 1:3). Psalm 86 says He is "good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy" (v. 5), "full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy" (v. 15). Why would you ever want to serve any other God?

Tender Mercies That Never Fail

The word "compassions" here is often translated tender mercies. Lamentations 3:22-23 says, "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness." You will never come before His throne and hear, "I just ran out of mercy; the last guy used it all up." His tender mercies do not fail. Mine do—I have to pray for His grace to be merciful—but His never do, and as I walk in the Spirit, the fruit of love and mercy can be produced in me (Galatians 5:16, 22).

David uses this same word in Psalm 51, his prayer after committing adultery with Bathsheba, murdering Uriah, and lying for an entire year while his nation hailed him as a compassionate king. When Nathan said, "Thou art the man," David prayed, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." This is what made him a man after God's own heart—not Goliath, not the psalms, not the music—but that he threw himself upon the mercies of God in repentance.

Defend the Defenseless

God continues in verse 10: "Oppress not the widow, nor the fatherless, the stranger, nor the poor. Let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart." These were the very things that sent them into captivity. The widow, the fatherless, the stranger, and the poor—the disenfranchised—are the easiest to overlook, to wrong, and to defraud. People prey on the defenseless because it is harder to prey on the rich.

Israel was judged for failing to defend the defenseless. Isaiah 1 says, "Wash you, make you clean... cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Yet their princes were "rebellious, and companions of thieves... they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them." A century later Jeremiah 5 says they grew fat and shining, surpassing even the deeds of the wicked, refusing to judge the cause of the fatherless or the needy.

Every time I teach Isaiah at the Bible college, this raises the subject of pacifism. After a nation has been at war for a decade, it breeds a generation that wants peace at any cost—as in the early 1970s, and again today. Pacifism and non-confrontation have their place; Jesus speaks of turning the other cheek. But if it is in the power of your hand to defend those who cannot defend themselves and you do not, you are guilty of sin. These two things—non-confrontation and defending the defenseless—must go hand in hand.

This is again a matter of sonship. Deuteronomy 10:17-19 says the Lord "regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger." Because He cares for them, we who are His children must too.

Imagine No Evil

Then God says, "Let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart." Don't plan deceit. John says, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him" (1 John 3:15). Proverbs 6 lists seven things the Lord hates, including "an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations." Micah 2:1 pronounces woe upon those who "devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds"—lying awake plotting how to get someone, then practicing it in the morning because it is in the power of their hand.

Notice how these passages line up with what we've studied over recent weeks: "Bear one another's burdens," "Love one another as I have loved you," and here, "Shew kindness and mercy... render true judgments." Every one of these is a characteristic of God. He is calling us to be like Him in the way we relate to one another.

They Refused to Hearken

Sadly, verse 11 says, "But they refused to hearken." The word is the Hebrew shema—not passive hearing, like a siren passing by, but hearing that engages the mind and produces an active, willful, obedient response. It's like being in a noisy room of a hundred chattering voices and suddenly hearing your name; you stop, you listen, and you go. That is shema—hearing, obeying, hearkening.

But they refused. They "pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ears, that they should not hear." They "made their hearts as an adamant stone"—hard as a diamond—lest they hear the law. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord. Not because God is merely angry and mean, but because they committed two evils, the same two Jeremiah 2 names: they forsook the fountain of living waters and hewed out for themselves broken cisterns that hold no water. They wouldn't listen, and they hardened their hearts and turned away.

The Desolation They Brought on Themselves

Verse 13: "Therefore it is come to pass, that as he cried, and they would not hear; so they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord." That is heavy. God cried out through the prophets and they would not listen; so when hardship came and they cried out, He would not hear. As Isaiah 59 explains, His arm is not too short to save, nor His ear too dull to hear—but their sins had separated them from Him. So He scattered them with a whirlwind and the pleasant land was left desolate.

It was their own doing. When someone comes to me whose life is in desolation, it is not ultimately their parents' fault or their social standing—it is their own sin separating them from God. And the word to them is: hearken to the word of the Lord. Turn to Him, and let your turning be not in word only but in deed—evidenced in rendering true justice, showing kindness and mercy, defending the defenseless, and refusing to devise evil. Let this work of God be visible in our lives.

Yielding to the One Who Works in Us

God is calling us to be like Christ to one another. He works in us "to will and to do of his good pleasure," but we must yield ourselves to Him. Has anyone in this room ever found this just happening naturally—that you were naturally kind, naturally merciful? I haven't, and your veiled smiles tell me you haven't either. So what do we do? We pray, "God, would You fill me." Let us respond and worship, coming before the Lord and asking Him to work this in us.

Closing Prayer

Father, I want to be the kind of person who renders justice, shows kindness, and mercy. So Lord, I ask that You would work this in me. I see the evidence of You working in my life and in my heart, because You have changed so much—and yet there are areas that still need to be changed. So God, teach us what it means to worship You in spirit and in truth, that we would lay these things down before You—our very lives—and allow You to transform us. We praise You, Father. Amen.