The 1st Word of YHWH - The Repentance of Israel

In our study of the book of Matthew, we considered the life and ministry of Jesus, the promised Messiah. As we begin this series, studying the book of Zechariah, we take a step back into history to look at some of the prophecies that YHWH spoke to His people Israel pointing to the coming of the Messiah. Throughout the book of Zechariah, we see five distinct times that YHWH spoke to, and through, Zechariah. Hence, our exposition of the book will follow those "Words." We begin by considering the nature of prophecy, the authorship of the book and the theme of the book. As we will see throughout this book, as in other Old Testament prophetical writings, YHWH is faithful to His Word and His Covenant. He has a zeal for His people Israel and for His holy mountain - Zion. YHWH calls out to Israel repeatedly to repent and return to Him. If they would return to Him, He would return to them. He had never left them, but in their leaving Him it appeared that He had left them! Many people act as though God will not deal with our sin. They become lulled into thinking that the judgement of God will not occur. We have only to look at the history of Israel to see that God does indeed judge sin and He chastens those His loves! This message was presented on September 8, 2019 by Bob Corbin.