SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/25/2016 9:21 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Significance of the Horses
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 6:4-8
Message of the verses: “4 Then I spoke and said to the angel who was
speaking with me, "What are these, my lord?" 5 The angel replied to
me, "These are the four spirits of heaven, going forth after standing
before the Lord of all the earth, 6 with one of which the black horses are
going forth to the North Country; and the white ones go forth after them, while
the dappled ones go forth to the south country. 7 "When the strong ones went out, they
were eager to go to patrol the earth." And He said, "Go, patrol the
earth." So they patrolled the earth. 8
Then He cried out to me and spoke to me saying, "See, those who are
going to the land of the north have appeased My wrath in the land of the
north."
We are
actually looking at the significance of the horses and the chariots that they are
pulling in this section. Now the angel
who was speaking to Zechariah is the one we have been calling “interpreter
angel,” the one who has been with him throughout these visions. Zechariah wants to know what these
horse-pulled chariots are. Zechariah
wants to know what the Lord is showing him from this vision. John MacArthur writes “Now the best way to
translate the Hebrew there, ruwach is
these are four winds. Further, four
winds or four spirits would be best seen as angelic spirits.” (In the NASB we already see the word “spirits”
in this verse.) “These four angels, four
divine agents of judgment. And the
angels are coming out of Heaven to carry out God’s judgment. Notice, they are four spirits who ‘go forth
from standing before the Lord…’ And that little phrase is a give-away that
these are angels because that is the role that angels have. They stand before the Lord to do His
bidding. And you can see that as you
study the Scriptures in many places.”
Let us take a look at the 7th chapter of the book of
Revelation to see something similar “1 After this I saw four angels standing at
the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that
no wind would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree.” Luke 1:19 tells us about Gabriel who is
standing before the Lord in His presence:
“The angel answered and said to him, "I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of
God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good
news.” So we are convinced that these
are angels who will do God’s bidding in judgment. One more thing we should look at from verse
five “before the Lord of all the earth.”
This speaks about the Lord’s millennial title as also seen in 4:14 and
Micah 4:13.”
I think the
best thing to do at this point is to quote a very long paragraph from John
MacArthur’s sermon on the 6th chapter of Zechariah.
“Now, verse
6 gives us further detail about this and this is where it gets kind of tangled
up and I'll do my best.”The black horses which are there go forth into the
north country and the white go forth after them and the dappled go forth toward
the south country and the bay"...or the strong horses..."went forth
and sought to go that they might walk to and fro through the earth. And he
said, 'Go from here. Walk to and fro through the earth.' So they walked to and
fro through the earth." Now, we'll stop there for a minute. Remember now,
the horses are symbols of divine judgment. The chariots are symbols of angelic
spirits. So angelic spirits drawn out by divine judgment against the ungodly
world is the picture. Angelic judgment agents, just like you have in Revelation,
where you have seven angels blowing seven trumpets, seven angels pouring out
seven bowls of judgment. The black horses, famine and death, and the white
horses, victory and conquest, go to the north. Why? Well, because historically,
that's where the greatest foes of Israel always came from. Nobody ever attacked
Israel from the east, never. In the first place, they were practically
impregnable from the east because of the tremendous distance that you had to
march straight up to get to the city of Jerusalem, which sat on a plateau, and
because you would have to cross the worst part of the Arabian desert. So
whether it was Assyria or Babylon or later in history, the Seleucids, or later
in history, the Romans, the worst of Israel's enemies always came down from the
north. They never attacked from the west. That was the Mediterranean Sea. They
never attacked from the east because that was the Arabian Desert. But they
would come down from the north. And the dappled strong horses went to the south
because Israel had had great enemy to the south and the enemy to the south was
whom? Egypt. And so you find here that God is then bringing about a final
judgment of vengeance particularly upon the nations that have mistreated
Israel. And that's not inconsistent because you can usually determine a
nation's righteousness by how it treats the people of God. In fact, in the 25thchapter
of Matthew when you have the judgment of the nations, Christ will judge the
nations on the basis of their treatment of His people, Israel. In the 12thchapter
of Genesis, the Abrahamic Covenant, if anybody blesses you, he'll be blessed;
if anybody curses you, God says he'll be cursed. So the armies of God's angelic
hosts go to the north and they go to the south. None of them go east and west
simply because the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Desert prevented any kind
of thing like that. Now, in verse 7, again, you have an interesting note. You
don't have any red horses going anywhere. Why not the red horses? Well, the
best we can say is that most likely the red horses are the last thing. For some
reason they're kind of held in check until the black and the white and the
dappled gray have done their work and then comes in the terrible bloodshed that
follows. There's really no other reason to assume why they aren't mentioned
unless they don't go out at the same time. But finally they all go and you have
in the middle of verse 7, "Go from here. Walk to and fro through the
earth. So they walked to and fro through the earth." Now, it's interesting
to mention that even though these angelic hosts just go north and south, that
is merely the exit and they cover the globe. God's final judgment will cover
the world. Nothing escapes; nothing is left out, worldwide judgment on the
nations. Now, you say, John, when is this gonna happen? Well, it's gonna happen
when Jesus returns. Read Matthew 24 and 25. Christ will come in His glory. You
compare that with Zechariah. He'll stand on the Mount of Olives. The Mount of
Olives will split wide open and at that point, the nations of the world will be
gathered into the valley of Jehoshaphat and they will be judged and all
individuals who are ungodly and all whose ungodliness has been manifest in
their mistreatment of God and His people will be condemned and punished by
being sent to eternal perdition. That's the judgment that's gonna happen. Now,
later on at the end of the kingdom there will be a final sentencing. But God
comes down and slays them and sends them to await the final punishment. The
last verse of the vision, verse 8, offers us the best key to the interpretation
and this I call the satisfaction. The symbol, verses 1 to 3, the significance,
4 to 7 and the satisfaction, verse 8. Listen to this. "Then cried he to me
and spoke to me saying, 'Behold, these that go toward the North Country have
quieted My spirit in the north country.'" What does this mean? There is a
loud crying and whether it's interpreter angel or God Himself, he is speaking
for God. And there's a loud cry. God says, these have quieted My spirit. What
does that mean? That means that my spirit was always in turmoil until vengeance
was accomplished, you see. And now God's spirit is at rest. He is appeased by
judgment. He is satisfied, particularly...notice verse 8...He is particularly
satisfied from those who have gone to the North Country because it was from the
north that the worst of all enemies came...Babylon. And, listen. In the book of
Revelation what does the writer of Revelation call the final form of evil?
Babylon. And so it is when the ultimate Babylon is put down that God's spirit
is at rest. In Zechariah, chapter 5, in our last study, we saw that God was
going to deal with Babylon and He called it there the land of Shinar, that
ultimately, evil will be summed up under the name Babylon because that's where
it all began, at the Tower of Babel, organized, systematic, worldwide evil. And
so when God at the end comes and goes with His host against Babylon, the final
system, and wipes it out, then God's spirit is at rest. Now, Israel can never
come into its kingdom till this happens.”
6/25/2016 9:51 PM
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