27. Zerubbabel and the Olive Tree

From the sermon on April 5, 1990

When God directed my work, he said, “The work that I prophesied through my young servant Zechariah twenty-five hundred years ago will be accomplished through you.” Therefore I assume Zachariah was young when he was called as a servant of God.

Zechariah described that God would bring ‘the Branch’, who would be a stone with seven eyes, and then remove the sin of this land in a single day. God would also cleanse Joshua, who was made filthy by Satan, and put a clean turban on his head and then his associates, who are men symbolic of things to come, would be gathered. The Messiah had to come first in order to accomplish all of those things.

The role of the Messiah was to become a stone with seven eyes.

Today, let’s take a look at the prophecy through the name of Zerubbabel. Joshua was the highest religious leader, and Zerubbabel was the highest political leader in Israel at that time. It is very interesting that God showed Zechariah the two leaders as metaphors for Olive Trees.

Zechariah recorded what he saw in detail. “Then the angel who talked with me returned and wakened me, as a man is wakened from his sleep,” (Zech. 4:1), which means the angel came back to him in a vision a while after he showed Joshua, the high priest to Zechariah.

The angel asked him, “What do you see?” Then he answered, “I see a solid gold lampstand.” Communicating in a vision is very unique. What we see in the real world cannot be suddenly changed, but in a vision, the entire scene can be suddenly shifted. For example, when the angel asked him “what do you see?” a new scene suddenly appeared to him.

I have told you several times about my experience. When God ordered me to open the Bible, among the written scriptures