THE THIRD PART: 24 CRUCIAL LINES IN THE BIBLE
God’s Building
Message Nine
Fulfilling the Economy of God in the History of God for the Building of God
Scripture Reading: Zech. 1:7-21; 3:9; 4:6-7, 12-14; 5:5-11; 12:1, 10, Micah 5:2, Matt. 16:18, John 1:1, 14, 1 Cor. 15:45b, Rev. 4:5; 5:6; 21:2
I. Man was created according to God’s kind, in God’s image and according to God’s likeness, so that man can receive, contain, and express God to fulfill the economy of God—Gen. 1:26; 2:7; Isa. 43:7; Eph. 3:2, 8-11: (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
A. The image of God is Christ, so man was created as a vessel according to Christ to contain Christ; if man does not contain Christ as his treasure, he is a senseless contradiction—Col. 1:15; Rom. 9:21, 23; 2 Cor. 4:4, 7; Eccl. 1:2, 14. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
B. Because man was created for God’s original intention, he unconsciously desires Christ, the Desire of all the nations—Hag. 2:7. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
C. God put eternity in man’s heart; eternity is “a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun, but only God, can satisfy”—Eccl. 3:11 (The Amplified Bible); cf. 2 Cor. 4:18. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
D. God created man with a human spirit to contact God and to see God’s economy; “there is a spirit in man”—Job 32:8; 12:10; 10:13; cf. Eph. 1:17; 3:9. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
II. The all-inclusive Christ is the history of God working within the history of man to gain the building of God for the manifestation of God—Micah 5:2; Zech. 6:12-15; Matt. 16:18; John 1:1, 14; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rev. 4:5; 5:6; 21:2: (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
A. While Christ is skillfully working to sovereignly control the world situation in human history, He is skillfully working Himself into us in the divine history to make us the masterpiece of His work, the poem of God, a new invention of God, expressing His infinite wisdom and divine design—Acts 5:31; Eph. 2:10. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
B. Christ in His humanity is the Angel of Jehovah, Jehovah Himself as the Triune God, standing with God’s people in the lowest part of the valley in their humiliation to care for them, intercede for them, and bring them swiftly out of Babylonian captivity—Zech. 1:7-17; Exo. 3:2, 4-6, 13-15; Isa. 63:9; Deut. 33:27: (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
1. Babylon is characterized by the wickedness of business, or commerce, involving covetousness, deceit, and love of money; our Christian life should be without the love of money, and our Christian work should not be a money-making trade—Zech. 5:5-11; 1 Tim. 3:3, 8; 6:5-10; Acts 11:29-30; 20:33-34; 2 Tim. 3:2-4; Heb. 13:5; 2 Cor. 2:17; 12:15; cf. 2 Kings 5:15-27. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
2. Of the cargo sold by Babylon, the first item is gold and the last is the souls of men; souls of men refer to men who sell themselves for employment—Rev. 18:12-13; cf. 2 Pet. 2:3, 15. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
3. This depicts not only the coming Babylon but also today’s world; people sell their soul, their life, themselves, to their occupation, neglecting God and their eternal destiny—cf. Luke 12:13-21. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
4. God’s sovereignty will cause the wickedness in business, which the people of Israel learned from the Babylonians in their captivity, to go back to Babylon (the land of Shinar) —Zech. 5:10-11; Gen. 11:2, 9. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
C. Christ is the last Craftsman used by God to break the four horns; the four horns are the four kingdoms with their kings—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and the Roman Empire—also signified by the great human image with four sections in Daniel 2:31-33, the four stages of locusts in Joel 1:4, and the four beasts in Daniel 7:3-8 that damaged and destroyed the chosen people of God—Zech. 1:18-21; Dan. 7:12; Joel 2:25: (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
1. The four craftsmen are the skills used by God to destroy these kingdoms with their kings; each of the first three kingdoms (Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece) was taken over in a skillful way by the kingdom that followed it—Dan. 5; 8:3-7. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
2. The fourth Craftsman will be Christ as the stone cut out without hands, who will crush the restored Roman Empire and thereby crush the great human image as the totality of human government at His coming back—2:31-35. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
3. This stone signifies not only the individual Christ but also the corporate Christ, Christ with His “mighty ones”—Joel 3:11. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
D. At the time of Christ’s coming back, there will be a meeting of two figures—Antichrist, a figure in the outward, human history, and Christ, the Figure in the intrinsic divine history—2 Thes. 2:2-8; cf. 1 Tim. 3:15-16: (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
1. Christ will come back, descending with His overcomers as His army to defeat Antichrist and his army—Joel 3:11; Rev. 19:11-21. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
2. After the Figure in the divine history defeats the figure in the human history, the thousand-year kingdom will come, and this kingdom will consummate in the New Jerusalem—the ultimate and consummate step of the divine history—20:4, 6; 21:10. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
III. The way to fulfill God’s economy in the divine history is by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit in our spirit—Zech. 4:6; 12:1: (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
A. Zechariah reveals that the building of the church will be consummated by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit of grace to be the topstone of grace—4:6-7, 12-14; 3:9; 12:10; Rev. 4:5; 5:6. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
B. Zechariah charges us to pay full attention to our human spirit, that we may receive and understand the Christ revealed in this book for God’s building—cf. Col. 2:19; Rom. 8:16; Eph. 1:17; 2:22; 3:5, 16; 4:23; 5:18; 6:18. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)
IV. In order to live in the divine history within the human history, we need to apply the cleansing blood of Christ, live in the divine Spirit of Christ, and abide in the beautifying and killing word of Christ to flow out Christ for the unique expression of Christ—Zech. 3:3-4; 1 John 1:9; Zech. 4:6; 12:1; Rev. 19:13-15; Eph. 5:26; 6:17; 1 Cor. 10:16; Zech. 4:12-14; John 7:37-39a. (2004 FTTA-Fall, msg. 7)