Following the True Shepherd
Repent and Return

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Good morning church; welcome everyone. We’re continuing our series through the book of Zechariah. We are in part eight of this series. Today, we’ll be covering two chapters; chapter 10 and 11. In this message today, we’ve entitled it, “Following the True Shepherd.” Following the true shepherd, when the bible talks about where we’re going and and whom we’re following. It often uses the imagery of the shepherd and His flock. We often see Jesus as the good shepherd, the great shepherd and we as the flock of His pasture, of His sheep.

As He was talking about shepherds, God often, in His word, warned Israel about following false shepherds or shepherds who aren’t from God. Now, we use that word, “follow,” today, it is not so much following shepherds. We talk about following twitter, podcasts or something like that. We live in the smartphone age, right? We’ll say, ‘How many followers do you have on twitter?’ ‘How many followers does this podcast have?’ Up until last year, the Apple corporation actually used the word, “subscribers.” If you were using their podcast app, it would say how many subscribers. Then they took a poll and found out that people felt like, if you call us subscribers, it sounds like we’re paying for it. Whereas, if you’re a follower, you don’t have to pay money, you just have to pay attention. So, we talk about followers today; we talk about following. I guess we would call them leaders; people who are marking the way we think about things

Who you follow reveals a lot about who you are, what you believe and where you’re headed. I don’t know why we always think about the last part. We might think, ‘Well, I identify with this person. I like to follow what they say because I like it.’ I don’t know if we ever asked the question, ”Where is this person headed? If we follow this person, where does that lead us? Where do we end up if we follow them?”

Some of us might say, ‘Why follow this politician or this public figure?’ Maybe you just say, “I follow my family and friends or I follow my own thoughts on things.” If you’re a young person, maybe you’re trying to follow the cool kids at school or the latest Hollywood-produced movie character. Many people follow a modern cultural prophet type; someone who’s telling us what really matters is your identity. Then, they encourage us to identify ourselves based on our skin color, based on our gender or based on our sexuality. We certainly live in a day of identity politics, if you will, and identity conversations. There’s so many ways that we can say I follow this or I’ll follow that, but I wonder if we ever really think about where we are going to end up , if we follow that philosophy or that person.

Well that’s what the prophet Zechariah is talking about in chapter 10 and 11. He’s talking to the people of God and he’s telling them to be careful who they follow and to make sure they follow the true shepherd, the true leader. In Zechariah 10 and 11, he’s continuing the oracle that began in verse one of chapter nine. There’s a continuation in chapter 10 and 11 of that oracle. In this word, he proclaims the importance of God’s people following the Messiah, the Christ, as their true shepherd. I believe it’s important that we follow the Messiah, that we follow Jesus as our true shepherd rather than following some other.

As we look at the text today, we’re going to be covering two chapters. We’ll discover four important reasons for following Jesus as our true shepherd. We’re going to cover chapter 10, so we’re going to do a little bit of reading. For chapter 11, we’re going to break it up into three parts. Chapter 10 is kind of a continuous piece, so we don’t want to break it up. Let me just read that and then we’ll talk about it.

Zechariah 10:1-12 (ESV) 1 “Ask rain from the LORD in the season of the spring rain, from the LORD who makes the storm clouds, and he will give them showers of rain, to everyone the vegetation in the field. 2 For the household gods utter nonsense, and the diviners see lies; they tell false dreams and give empty consolation. Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd. 3 “My anger is hot against the shepherds, and I will punish the leaders; for the LORD of hosts cares for his flock, the house of Judah, and will make them like his majestic steed in battle. 4 From him shall come the cornerstone, from him the tent peg, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler—all of them together. 5 They shall be like mighty men in battle, trampling the foein the mud of the streets; they shall fight because the LORD is with them, and they shall put to shame the riders on horses. 6 “I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph. I will bring them back because I have compassion on them, and they shall be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the LORD their God and I will answer them. 7 Then Ephraim shall become like a mighty warrior, and their hearts shall be glad as with wine. Their children shall see it and be glad; Their hearts shall rejoice in the LORD. 8 “I will whistle for them and gather them in, for I have redeemed them, and they shall be as many as they were before. 9 Though I scattered them among the nations, yet in far countries they shall remember me, and with their children they shall live and return. 10 I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria, and I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, till thereis no room for them. 11 He shall pass through the sea of troubles and strike down the waves of the sea, and all the depths of the Nile shall be dried up. The pride of Assyria shall be laid low, and the scepter of Egypt shall depart. 12 I will make them strong in the LORD, and they shall walk in his name,” declares the LORD.

We’re looking for three important reasons for why we follow Jesus as our only true shepherd. Here is the first reason:

1. Because no one else cares for us like Jesus. I want you to notice the word, “shepherd.” You’ll see it in chapter 10 that we have just read. You’ll see it in verse two and again in verse three. In a moment, we’ll read chapter 11 and we’ll find that the word, “shepherd,” occurs nine times. “Shepherd” occurs 11 times total; twice in chapter 10 and nine times in chapter 11.

These two chapters are about a shepherd. In contrast to false shepherds, this is a good shepherd , a true shepherd. It’s a continuation of this oracle. It began as an oracle; here, it is a prophecy. It’s a prophecy for Israel that began in Chapter nine, verse 1.

I want you to look at verse three. I want you to circle the word, “cares,” in your text and in your notes. He says, “for the LORD of hosts cares for his flock.” This is the key I think to understanding chapter 10. Chapter 10 is a continuation of chapter nine which talks for the people of Israel during this time. This was written in 518 BC, 518 years before the birth of Jesus. They’re looking into the future with this prophecy. It’s all in the future for them.

There’s coming a Messiah, a Promised One. The name, “Messiah,” is equivalent to the Greek word, “Christos” or “Christ,” which means “the Anointed One.” It’s the One that’s been promised to Israel since the beginning; they’re looking for Him. Zachariah says that He is close and here’s what He is going to look like when He comes. Here’s the thing Zechariah wants you to know about Him; He cares for you. These false shepherds that you tend to follow don’t care for you, but He cares for you.

It starts off in verse one with an imperative verb in the Hebrew; we see it in the English here. The word, “ask,” is the very first word; it’s a command word. The Lord says to us that He wants us to ask Him for stuff. Stop looking for your needs to be met in other places; learn to ask Him. I’m reminded of other places in the scripture where it says, “You have not because you ask not.” Jesus taught, “Ask, seek, knock.” This is, this is the “currency” of the New Kingdom; asking, like children. Instead of earning the “currency” of the New Kingdom, we learn to ask. We learn to ask of the Lord. He says, 1 “Ask rain from the LORD in the season of the spring rain.” In other words, ask for rain for your crops.

If you’re looking at the King James Version or some other translation, instead of saying “spring rain,” it says “the latter rain” or the “latter day rain.” That’s because there were two harvest seasons in Israel. There still are. We only have one harvest season here in our part of North Carolina, but there are other places in the world that have multiple harvests. Israel has two. When they are planting in the late harvest, they’ll have a rain that’s pretty dependable that comes like in the late fall when they’re planting. What they really look forward to is the latter rain, the second rain or the Spring rain. That comes in early Spring because that’s when the crops have already formed roots and they’re getting ready to bear fruit. They’re getting ready to come to fruition and that latter day rain really makes the harvest big, but it’s less dependable. So he is saying to pray for the latter rain.

Now, Dr. Unger comments on this. He says that we’re talking about the fact that God really cares for your harvest. He really cares for you. But, we also see here that this could be looked at, not just practically, but also spiritually. We’ve seen this through the prophets like Hosea 6:1-3 and Joel 2:23-32. Water might be symbolic of the Holy Spirit. He says, “Ask.” Joel says, in the latter days, in the last days, He’s going to pour out His spirit on His people. We see that at Pentecost, whenever ten days after Jesus ascended, the disciples were praying. Many see that as “the latter rain,” “the spring rain,” if you will. He’s, basically, saying ‘ask and I’ll give you the Spirit.’ This is prophetically announced.

Zechariah contrasts this with some other kinds of shepherds that people follow. One is the household gods. You might be saying, ‘Well, we’re not having trouble with that at our house. We don’t have any household gods.’ But, if you look that word up in the Hebrew, the name is “teraphim.” earthly gods.

You can find this same phrase, “household gods,” back in the book of Genesis. Rachel, the wife of Jacob, stole the household gods from her father, Laban. He pursued them, wanting them back. People would set up a little altar in their house in those days; it was something very common in that time period. They put these little figurines on this little altar, maybe have some candles and incense. They would pray before that altar. We laugh at that today and say, ‘Well that’s silly.’ But yet, we have them, we just don’t worship them the same. We tend to carry them in our wallets and call them Visa and Mastercard. We have different names for our idols today, who we depend on or what we depend on for that which we need.

Verse 2, “and the diviners see lies.” This is another category of a leader or a shepherd. A diviner is someone who looks for omens and signs and tries to give you direction, like a horoscope or something like that. Maybe, there’s the implication here of the demonic empowerment that such one might use. These are the kinds of things that God’s people have turned to and, as a result , it says in the latter part of verse 2, “Therefore the people wander like sheep; they are afflicted for lack of a shepherd.” Does that sound familiar? The idea of people wandering around with no real leadership because the leaders they’ve chosen for themselves are uttering nonsense. They’re not offering true consolation. Jesus makes that observation of God’s people. It says in Matthew 9:35-36 (NLT) “Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” It’s not so much that we don’t have shepherds, it’s just that we have shepherds that don’t really care for us, but Jesus cares. We see it in verse three that He cares.

I want you to look at the text with me for a second and notice all the “caring” words that we see here. Verse four says, “From him shall come the cornerstone, from him the tent peg, from him the battle bow, from him every ruler—all of them together. that from him from the Lord shall come.”

Does the word, “cornerstone,” sound familiar? If you’re a student of the scripture, you know that, in the book of Psalms, it talks about One that’s coming who will be the cornerstone.

Psalm 118:22 says, “The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” This is Jesus. He’s the cornerstone of the church. The cornerstone is that which supports the foundation of a building. He’s the founder of the church of believers. He’s the tent peg, he holds the roof up, he’s that post in the middle of the tent. The picture here might be of the tabernacle in the wilderness, of that center post that holds up the roof. Jesus is the one who finishes it off.

Jesus is also the battle bow, which is a piece of archery and archery term of the bow. Jesus is the defender and from Him come all the good shepherd’s every good ruler. We see that He cares for us in that way.

Zechariah says that Jesus will fight for us in verse five and verse six. He says, “I will strengthen” in verse six. Verse six is full of caring words: strengthen, bring them back because they’re scattered, I have compassion, I have not rejected them and I will answer them when they pray.

Verse eight says, “I will whistle for them.” I am thinking about the Lord whistling and it cracks me up a little bit. I’m not a great whistler. I can do some “Andy Griffith” whistling; you know, like at the opening of the show. I can do a little bit of that kind of melodic whistling, but I don’t have one of those piercing whistles. I would ask for a demonstration but it might be a little bit disconcerting here. I’ve got a whistle at home that I had back in the days when I was a baseball coach for my kids; the kind that you wear around your neck. It’s a metal whistle man. If you blow this whistle indoors, it will hurt your ears. Maybe, that’s the picture we have here, because, if you look at the word, “whistle,” in the Hebrew, it seems to imply the idea of the use of a reed. This is something that a shepherd might use. He might be carrying it with him and when he sees that lamb that gets off track, he whistles for that lamb. We whistle for our pets. We use the word, “whistle.” It’s a word that you don’t often see ascribed to the Lord. But here, He will whistle them in. He will call them. Who? The people of God, specifically Israel; that’s who this is primarily to .

We’re “peeping over their shoulders,” church, because we’re not Israel, but we have the same Messiah. Apparently, there’s a season where they’ve been scattered. In verse nine it says, 9 “Though I scattered them among the nations.” He is going to whistle and gather them in.

They’ve been severely scattered since 70 AD, when the Romans overthrew Israel and destroyed the temple mount. They were scattered all the way up until 1947 when, for the first time in human history, a nation that ceased to exist came back into existence again. That’s when Israel reformed in 1947. Since then, they are being gathered. You can almost picture the Lord whistling them in. They’ve been gathering, though. They were scattered in four countries. Verse 10 says, “I will bring them home from the land of Egypt, and gather them from Assyria, and I will bring them to the land of Gilead and to Lebanon, till there is no room for them.”

Do you see all of these caring phrases: strengthen, bring home and redeem. Maybe, you’re here this morning and you just need to come home. “I will bring them home,” He says. Notice all of these “I wills”; it’s all future tense for Zechariah. It hadn’t happened yet. It was coming. And there’s a sense in which, even after His first coming, parts of it still haven’t happened and won’t completely happen until the second coming, but, shouldn’t we see evidence of it sort of already happening if we live in the last days? I think so. Since I do believe that we live in the latter days, the last days, I think we’re already seeing evidence of Him gathering His people, Israel. He says, “I will bring them home,” in verse 10. I was just thinking about how it’s happening today.

Looking at the news today, look at what’s happening in Ukraine. The president of Ukraine, President Zelensky, is a Jewish man. There’s so many Jews in in Ukraine right now that Israel is trying to negotiate to try to give them a pathway of escape so they can moved to Israel. Sometimes, that “whistling” actually looks like persecution because most of the people who have returned to Israel were persecuted wherever they were and they’ve come back to a place where they can find rest and peace. I think He’s gathering them there because one day there will be a great revival of them turning to Jesus whom they rejected at His first visit, His first appearance. They will receive Him in great numbers at His second appearance.

Did you know that there’s already a revival that has begun like that in Israel today; it’s already happening. People are coming back. There’s a famous Russian Jewish billionaire who has moved to Tel Aviv as a result of what’s happening in Ukraine. His name is Arkady Volozh; he’s the founder of a company named Yandex. He built the company to three billion in assets and value on the stock market. You’ve probably never heard of Yandex, but if you were Russian you would have heard of it because it’s like Google, Amazon and Twitter combined into one company. It’s the Russian version of that. He’s a multibillionaire; at least he was until March. In March, because Russia attacked Ukraine; the whole attack in response to the stock market and so far forth of Russia. He has fled to Tel Aviv and his $3 billion company is now worth 500 million overnight.

Sometimes, whistling to bring people home hurts, but He’s bringing the Jews home. God’s not finished with Israel. There are promises in the bible that are being fulfilled now that should encourage us, church, that what God says in His word is not just mythology, it’s not just strange poetry that’s hard to read as it is in chapter 10, but it’s prophecy that’s being fulfilled even now and will ultimately be fulfilled. We can live without fear as a result because we know that our Shepherd cares.

It says in 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT) “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.” Why should we follow Jesus as our true shepherd rather than some other person or philosophy? It’s because He’s the only one who cares; He truly cares.

Here’s the second reading, we’re going to read the first three verses of chapter 11. It’s the last part of what I would call the poetry section of this oracle. Zechariah 11:1-3 (ESV) 1 “Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars! 2 Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the glorious trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been felled! 3 The sound of the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is ruined! The sound of the roar of the lions, for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined!”

Now, what’s this about? I would say that it’s about the leaders of Israel that have failed in their shepherding. Here’s the second reason that we follow Jesus:

2. Because leaders who reject Jesus will eventually fall.

Leaders who reject Jesus will ultimately fall. If we follow people who aren’t following Jesus, we will get off track. They will always fall and we will fall with them.

If you’re looking at these three verses, you may say, How is this about leaders? It looks more like a message from Smokey, the bear on controlling forest fires. What is this about? It sounds like trees to me. I thought we were talking about trees and fire. Well, there’s some imagery here that we have to unpack. “Open your doors, O Lebanon.” Lebanon is a place north of Israel. Bashan is a place east of Israel, and then Jordan is down in verse three. What we have here is the same pathway that conquerors like Alexander the Great followed when they conquered Israel. They would start in the north because they’re coming from the west. They would start in the north and work their way down. Most conservative commentators that look at this, see that this is the destruction of Israel because they rejected the Messiah and so, this points to 70 AD, when the Romans destroyed Israel.

What do these trees represent? When they destroyed Israel, they burned everything to the ground. It was devastating. In fact, for almost 2000 years, if you visited Israel, you just saw desert up until recent days. When you go now, it looks like the “land flowing with milk and honey.” There are orchards,fig trees, grape vineyards and olive orchards. It’s amazing how it flourishes today, but, for a great many years, it looked like this. It’s talking about judgment, “Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars!” Open your doors because I’m going to devour you with fire. It’s talking about cedars, Cyprus oaks. These are all types of trees, grape trees.

You might be thinking, Well, how do you know that this is talking about leaders? Just keep reading; these “trees” cry. 2 “Wail, O cypress, for the cedar has fallen, for the glorious trees are ruined! Wail, oaks of Bashan, for the thick forest has been felled!” I’ve never heard an actual tree cry, okay, so this is not really trees; this is a metaphor. So, what are we talking about?

Look at verse three. 3 “The sound of the wail of the shepherds, for their glory is ruined! The sound of the roar of the lions, for the thicket of the Jordan is ruined!” These trees are shepherds. The leaders of Lebanon, the leaders of Bashan and the leaders of Jordan, which is Israel, are going to be weeping about something. They’re weeping because of their destruction because they chose a path to reject the Messiah. As a result, they were rejected.

This is a terrible segment of the passage. It speaks of a day when the Messiah will come, caring, but they will reject him. Zechariah has got the word right here. At His first appearing, the shepherds reject Jesus. The shepherds reject Him. So, they find themselves wailing in rejection as well.

If you want to know what Jesus says about the last day, study Matthew, chapter 24. It came about because the disciples were walking through Jerusalem. Most of the disciples were “blue collar”guys. They grew up in the country; they grew up around Capernaum, around the Sea of Galilee. When they came to Jerusalem, they were looking around saying, ‘Wow, Jesus. Look at the temple. Look at this. Look at that. There’s the royal house.’ Everything was just so beautiful; there was white Jerusalem stone. They were looking at how beautiful everything was. Jesus says this to them, in Matthew 24:2 (ESV) “You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” They wondered when this would happen and Jesus talked about the last days. Well, it happened in 70 AD; it’s being talked about here. Not only that, but according to the historian, Josephus, a million Jews were killed by the Romans during this time in 70 AD .

So, that’s the second reason that we don’t follow false teachers or false shepherds. It’s because they are under judgment. I don’t know if you have ever just gotten on the interstate and said, ‘I’m not gonna follow my GPS. I’m just going to follow the car in front of me because I like the way the car looks.’ But, where’s that car going? It doesn’t matter. That’s a cool car and you want to follow that car. That’s stupid. That’s so foolish. Yet we do it; we just follow it because it feels right. We don’t ever ask, ‘Hey, pull over for a second. Where are you going?’ No, we like the way they look, we like the way they talk. ‘Wait a minute, I’m following this group because there’s twenty other cars following and so, since everybody’s doing it, it must be good.’ No, we would never do that. That’s ridiculous. But, we do that and we never even check to see if they’re going to be running off a cliff or not.

These shepherds reject Jesus. Let’s keep reading. We’ve got more to cover. We’re going to read verses four through 14. What we’re going to see here is a picture of Christ’s first coming and how Zechariah predicts, how the Spirit gives him the prediction that Israel will reject Jesus and forsake Him. It’s a very challenging segment. You won’t notice it in your bulletin because we had to cram the text in there for you. We had so much text, but if you’re looking at your bible, you’ll see. We’ve shifted from poetry language to pros and so it’s a little easier to read, but it still takes some “unpacking.”

Zechariah 11:4-14 (ESV) 4 Thus said the LORD my God: “Become shepherd of the flock doomed to slaughter.” Let me pause there for a second. This is God talking to Zechariah and He tells Zachariah, ‘I want you to play the part of a shepherd. When you preach this part of the sermon to God’s people, I want you to pretend like you’re the Messiah and I want you to put on the garb of a shepherd. Take off your prophet clothes and go get some shepherd clothes. Get yourself two staves.’ You can kind of picture that he’s going to do an object lesson, okay? Get that in your mind, as we’re reading.

5 “Those who buy them slaughter them and go unpunished, and those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, I have become rich,’ and their own shepherds have no pity on them. 6 For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of this land, declares the LORD. Behold, I will cause each of them to fall into the hand of his neighbor, and each into the hand of his king, and theyshall shall crush the land, and I will deliver none from their hand.” 7 So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered by the sheep traders. And I took two staffs, one I named Favor, the other I named Union. And I tended the sheep. 8 In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me. 9 So I said, “I will not be your shepherd. What is to die, let it die. What is to be destroyed, let it be destroyed. And let those who are left devour the flesh of one another.” 10 And I took my staff Favor, and I broke it, annulling the covenant that I had made with all the peoples. 11 So it was annulled on that day, and the sheep traders, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the LORD. 12 Then I said to them, “If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them.” And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver . 13 Then the LORD said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the LORDly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter. 14 Then I broke my second staff Union, annulling the brotherhood between Judah and Israel.”

This leads us to the third reason that we should follow Jesus as our only true shepherd:

3. Because Jesus was forsaken that we might be accepted.

I want you to look at verses 12 and 13 to help “unpack” these verses, these four through 14 verses, because what we have here is one of the most astounding prophetic words that’s fully fulfilled in the New Testament with the man, Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve disciples. He fulfilled these two verses exactly in his rejection and betrayal of Jesus. We look at these two verses about the 30 pieces of silver.

Here’s Zechariah and the Lord has given him this word. He wants him to dress up like a shepherd and hold two staves, whose names are “Favor” and “Union.” Favor is like a word for grace. As long as I’m shepherding with grace, I’m going to be forgiven. God will overlook things that I do wrong and He’s going to take care of me. “Union” says that I’m going to keep you together as a people so you’re not scattered. I’m going to cause the Northern Kingdoms and the Southern Kingdoms, Judah and Israel, to be one. This is like an object lesson. God wants Zechariah to do this to get the attention of God’s people so that they can see how the Messiah will come. When He comes, He will come with two staves, one of grace and one of unity. He’s not going to come as a warrior. He is going to come as a shepherd. He’s pointing to this first appearance and how He’s going to come.

Zechariah is not the first prophet in the Old Testament that God told to play a part. The prophet Hosea got a tough part. God tells him to play this part for me. I want you to play the part of the father. I want you to go down to the “red light district” and I want you to marry a harlot and take her as your wife. She’s going to keep running back; she’s going to keep going back to the “red light district” just like Israel does. Israel keeps going back to its idolatry and committing adultery to Me, her husband. That was a tough one for Hosea. That was a tough object lesson.

He gave Ezekiel an object lesson during the time when they were destroying Jerusalem. God said, ‘I want you to lay on your bed on your side. I want you to lay siege to yourself. Build little towers and stuff.’ The people would come to see the prophet Ezekiel. He hadn’t been out of the bed in a long time. In fact it said for 390 days, he lay in bed. That’s a long time. I’m surprised he could walk after it was over, but he lay siege to himself for 390 days. You read it; it’s in the Bible.

As an object lesson, I started to bring both of the staves that I have in my office right now. One of them’s pretty weird. One of them looks pretty good; it looks like a shepherd’s staff with a hook. The other I bought in Uganda and it’s got gorillas all over it, so I decided against the object lesson.

Zechariah is doing an object lesson. I can see him standing before the people of Israel and preaching about the coming Messiah, saying that when He comes, you’re going to reject Him and then, He’s going to reject you because you won’t follow Him. You are going to give Him His worth. You’re going to say He’s worth 30 pieces of silver. You’re going to say that that’s what He’s worth.

Thirty pieces of silver is the number that people who followed the Torah, the law would have known, because in Exodus 21:32 that was the value paid for an injured slave, for someone who had been partially incapacitated. That was the fixed value; thirty pieces of silver, that you’re going to reject Him. It’s very specific. You’re going to reject Him and then, the thirty pieces of silver are going to be thrown into the house of the Lord,which is what Judas Iscariot does. He regrets his decision. He throws it back to the temple treasury and they say that this is blood money and they can’t put it in the treasury. So, they go by the potter’s field. Right there, it says, “Throw it to the potter”—the LORDly price at which I was priced by them. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the LORD, to the potter.” He threw it to the Lord to the potter and they bought a potter’s field. The reason they bought it was so that people that were unable to pay for their grave site would have a place to be buried. That passage was literally fulfilled. As far as the imagery, it might have seemed strange whenever Zechariah was acting it out, but it came to pass the Jews who had waited for centuries for the Messiah to come, instead, followed their shepherds, those oak and cypress trees. Those trees, those shepherds, were followed instead of following the true shepherd, he says, in verse eight, it says, 8 “In one month I destroyed the three shepherds. But I became impatient with them, and they also detested me.”

There are many different views about what these three shepherds mean. Most of the first century, early church fathers thought that these three shepherds pointed to the three types of leaders: prophet, priest and king. All three of these rejected Jesus; the prophets, the priests and the kings of the first century rejected Jesus.

Dr. Unger says that in one month He displaced them or destroyed them. He thinks that points to the month of His crucifixion and resurrection, that it all happened. They rejected Him and the people followed them by and large, only a remnant followed Jesus. As a result, He broke His favor with them and He broke His union with them and they were scattered all over the planet. He was forsaken that we might be forgiven. He came and was forsaken to make it possible for us to be forgiven.

It says in Mark, chapter 15, it’s written of Jesus, Mark 15:34 (ESV) And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” God sent His son, Jesus, who took our condition. We were the “flock doomed for slaughter,” that he talks about here. We were the sheep following the wrong shepherd, but He came and became forsaken that we might be accepted. Think about what Jesus did for us on the cross. He was separated from the Father so that we could be one with the Father. He took on our sins so that we could take on His righteousness. He gave His life and died in our place so that we could receive His eternal life. He was forsaken, that we might be accepted.

It reminds me of Chris Tomlin’s song, “I’m forgiven because You were forsaken. I’m accepted, You were condemned. I’m alive and well, Your spirit is within me because You died and rose again. Amazing love, how can it be? That You, my king, should die for me.” That’s what He did. That’s what Jesus did. Here we see, 500 years before His first appearing, the Lord was already preparing His people to recognize Him when he came, but He also said that most of you will reject Me and follow false shepherds. And so, we see it written here. Do you know this amazing love of the one Who cares for you, Who was forsaken, so you might be accepted.

Zechariah 11:15-17 (ESV) 15 “Then the LORD said to me, “Take once more the equipment of a foolish shepherd. 16 For behold, I am raising up in the land a shepherd who does not care for those beingdestroyed or seek the young or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hoofs.17 “Woe to my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! Let his arm be wholly withered, his right eye utterly blinded!

So now, we have Zechariah playing the role of a shepherd that will not care for the sheep, the one that actually the whole world will follow after. Here we see that it’s in the singular; a shepherd, not shepherds. So, it seems to be pointing to some future fulfillment of one who comes as a false shepherd, as a false messiah, as one who would be like a counterfeit someday in the future. There’s one coming that would be like the antichrist; one that would be like Christ, but not. And so we see here in early prediction.

John MacArthur sees the antichrist in this description (as do most conservative scholars), “one of several Old Testament passages referring to this Antichrist personality, this false shepherd, foolish shepherd, idol shepherd that is to come.” He takes these last three verses and preaches for an hour about this being the antichrist who is to come. I believe that it certainly points to the antichrist here, but it also points to any shepherd who doesn’t follow Jesus and how that person leads us into the wrong places.

This is our fourth reason to follow Jesus as the only true shepherd:

4. Because the shepherds of this age are foolish and worthless .

I pull those two words right from the text, “foolish” and “worthless.” We see people today who reject the bible as an authority and they say, ‘No, I want to do it my way. I don’t want to follow the owner’s manual or the Creator who made us. I’d rather put the oil where the gas goes and put the gas where the water goes. I’m going to ignore the owner’s manual, I’m not going to follow it. I’m going to try it my own way.’ We see the shipwreck nature of where that’s leading . What people don’t realize is that they follow shepherds who don’t care for them. These shepherds looked good, but the problem is they don’t care for those being destroyed. They don’t care for those that are falling into addiction, bankruptcy and broken marriages. They don’t care for them. They don’t care for the young. They don’t seek the young. They don’t care what they’re doing to our young people. They don’t care for healing. Those that are wounded by their leadership, they’re not interested in healing and the ones that are healthy, guess what they want from them. They want to devour them. They want to devour them. They want to get everything they own because they make their living off of those who have these shepherds. They live off of the flock; they don’t care for the flock.

You can see this in the last days as it builds up, I would say that there has been a spirit of antichrist ever since Christ ascended. Where do you get that, Gary? Well , John said it in his first letter, 1 John 4:2-3 (ESV) “…every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.” There’s this spirit against Jesus, you can talk about God and people will kind of listen, you name Jesus and they either come your direction or they call you a fanatic. He’s a divisive name for people. They don’t want to talk about Jesus because He makes some claims that He lives up to. So, there’s a spirit of antichrist today, there’s a spirit of going against the word of God.

The whole world is against what the word of God says today. We see shepherds leading us astray and then we see what will happen to the shepherd. In verse 17, it goes back into kind of a poetry here after being in prose for a while. It speaks of his ultimate demise. “Woe to my worthless shepherd, who deserts the flock! May the sword strike his arm and his right eye! Let his arm be wholly withered, his right eye utterly blinded!” This is the so-called anti christ, the so-called false shepherd will be exposed for who he is and his power and his wisdom will be demolished.

The apostle Paul writes about this one. He calls him, in the King James Version, “the son of perdition.” In this ESV translation, he’s called the “son of destruction.” It means the same thing. We’re talking about the antichrist here. 2 Thessalonians 2:1-8 (ESV) “Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed… For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God. … Only he who now restrains it will do so until he is out of the way. And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming.” The apostle Paul wrote this to the Church at Thessaloniki because they were experiencing great persecution and they were wondering if it was the last days. He tells them that it’s going to look like this: There’s one coming that, at first, is going to look like a good guy. He’s going to look like a worldwide savior. Even for a season the whole world and Israel will look to him, but then at the 3.5 year mark (and you can read Daniel and Revelation to see where I get my years,) he will reveal himself by putting his image in the Holy of Holies in the Temple and he will call himself God . At that point, Israel turns away from him and actually turns and looks for the Messiah for the first time. Then, he reveals himself to the world and then the clock’s ticking for the Lord to return. What restrains him now, it says in 2nd Thessalonians that only he who now restrains it will do so. I believe that’s the Church, which is empowered by the Holy Spirit. As long as we’re here, as long as the Spirit of God is in the world, the spirit of the antichrist is being restrained, but the day is coming when the Lord will take the church away. He will snatch the church away, rapture the church away. Then, the days of the tribulation will come and the antichrist will be fully unrestrained and allowed to announce himself to the world.

Who are you following today? What we’re reading today in Zechariah was written almost 2600 years ago. What we see today is the fulfillment that has been happening over and over again. You can trust this word, Christian . You don’t have to be afraid. You can face this world today knowing that Jesus is coming again. The teachings and philosophies of this world are devouring us and tearing us apart. They’re eating our children, they’re eating our young people, they’re tearing us apart by following false narratives and philosophies and false shepherds. There’s only one true Shepherd.’

The most important point, I hope you heard today, was the first of the four. There’s only One who cares for you and His name is Jesus. He really cares for you. It reminds me of another song. This one was written in 1932. It talks about Jesus. “No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There’s no other friend so kind as He. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There’s no other friend so kind to see. No one else can take the sin and darkness from me. Oh, how much He cared for me.” He’s the only one. He’s the only shepherd that really cares for us.

Who are you following today? Have you checked to see who you’re following today? He’s the only one. He’s the only true shepherd and He’s coming again. He has come and He’s coming again.

Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for this word. It’s a hard word. It’s a challenging word, but Lord, You tell us the truth and You tell us about the true shepherd. I pray for that person today that would say, ‘I’m tired of following the path I’ve been on. It has led me to destruction. It has led me to brokenness. It’s led me to a place where my relationships have been torn apart. It’s led me to a place of addiction. It’s led me to a place of hurt. It’s led me to a place of brokenness.’ Tell the Lord, ‘I’m sick of it. I’m sick of following this path I’m on. I’m ready to turn and follow Jesus.’ That’s His invitation today. Come, follow Me . “Come unto Me, ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Would you follow Jesus today? He’s the only true shepherd. He cares for you. You can pray right now, “Dear Lord, Jesus, I’m a sinner. I need a Savior. Would You save me? I believe You died on the cross for me, that You were raised from the grave and that You live today. Come and live in me; forgive me of my sin. Make me the person you want me to be. I want to be a child of God and I want to follow You.” If you’re praying that prayer, believing, what matters is the faith that you believe in Him and you want to follow Him. He will save you. Others are here today and you’re a believer, you follow Jesus, but you’ve been afraid of the world news or the economy. These things are worrying you. Don’t you recognize the fingerprints of God? He’s bringing things to a conclusion that Jesus is coming again. Oh Lord , we pray to You now. We ask You to help us order up our days, order up our lives and our houses so that we give You praise with every breath. We wait for your coming and Your return. May we tell others about You, Lord. Help us to stay focused on You and not to be afraid. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.