ברוחי SPIRIT WORD STUDY BY MY John 4:23-24 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. (24) God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in truth. Zechariah4:6 :ז Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This [is] the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. Zechariah 4:6 is a very popular verse that we use to express our understanding that it is not our strength or power that will accomplish anything of the Lord, but it is His Spirit. To that I say Amen and I totally, 100% agree that we can use this verse as a proof text to that truth. However, in my studies of the ancient rabbis and sages I have also come to realize that God often speaks more than one message is such verses. We, in the Western, scientific, logical, mathematical world would have a real problem with that. In our culture that verse can only mean one thing and one thing only and if we pull out another meaning we are reading into the passage and searching for things that are not there. But the Jews teach 70 faces to Torah, many messages in one passage. That is common in the Semitic cultural, it just doesn t fit ours. But since the Bible was written in a Semitic culture, I search for additional messages like the ancient rabbis and sages.
What is this second message? Let s look at the context. This was written to Zerubbabel, the Persian governor overseeing the protection of the Jews and the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. Over 40,000 Jews returned from exile in Persia to Jerusalem under the Persian king Darius who provided armed support for the returning exiles. The problem was much like we have today. The Jews returned to a land that was settled by other people while they were dispersed from their homeland and these people who grew up in Palestine, were not pleased with these exiles returning. Zerubbabel saw himself protecting the Jews in the building of the temple, but Zechariah, the prophet who went to Jerusalem with them had a vision. In that vision he received the message that the temple would not be built by might or power but by the rauch, Spirit of God. What we overlook, however, is that the temple was built utilizing the might and power of the Jews and Persians. The word for might is chyil. This word carries the idea of self-sufficiency. It is a word used for using sources of power such as wealth or influence to control others and accomplish production. The temple would not be rebuilt with the wealth and power of the Persian Empire, but indeed they were there and protected the Jews. This word for power is koach which is the word for strength. In its Semitic root it is a word used for a lizard or a reptile type animal. A lizard, can look very intimidating and fearsome. So we conclude the word koach means power in the sense of intimidation as the presence of the Persian army backing the Jews up. But koach also means something else. Some lizards, like the chameleon have the ability to change its color and adapt to its surroundings. I believe that Jesus was referring to this passage when he spoke to the woman at the well as this passage likely had a prophetic meaning as well as its present meaning. Jesus told the woman at the well that we do not worship God in a building but in the Spirit. I believe Zechariah 4:6 not only addresses
the building of the temple, but has a secondary prophetic meaning of worship. It looked forward to the time when we would worship God in the Spirit as Jesus said in John 4:24. The word Spirit in the Aramaic is also the word ruch identical the Hebrew word rauch. We could also read it not only as worship in the Spirit but also worship flowing from the Spirit. So if this passage in Zechariah is also speaking of worship, which I firmly believe it does, how does that play out? How many times do we worship and praise God with chyill, self sufficiency. We literally will ourselves into feeling what we think is God s presence by shouting yippee and all that. We dance, we sing, we shout, we clap our hands trying to bring the Spirit, rauch to us and the congregation. Rather than the dancing, singing, clapping and shouting being the result of the Spirit already manifesting Himself in us. Our worship leaders feel their well-rehearsed music presentation, carefully choreographed to start off slow and build to a loud burst or the other way around and ending with a soft, quiet song is what brings about the worship. To try and bring about the presence of the Lord by these manifestations is chyill, self sufficiency, trying to do it ourselves. These manifestations should only come through the Spirit not the Spirit coming from the manifestations. Worse is to try to worship God through the power or koach, more correctly by adapting to the cultural or surroundings. I grew up in a church that had a choir, an organ and piano as well as a soloist giving a special number. This soon lost all meaning and people attending soon just endured all this thinking that was worship. Then a new generation with a charismatic movement came about and people abandoned the so called dead churches and began to have a heartfelt worship experience which abandoned the hymns, organ, piano and soloist and was replaced with guitars, drums, keyboards and a worship team each with their own mic. People sang from the heart, sang when the
Spirit of God moved them but as I attend many different congregations researching my new book on worship and praise I find all the churches I have visited have replaced the choir with a worship team and the organ and piano with a keyboard, drums and guitars. The hymn books are gone and modern songs show up on a screen. They say the churches are getting with the times, but I wonder if they are not just copying the worship services where there was a move from God and like the chameleon they just adapt into the culture. The church across town has a keyboard, drums, guitars, worship team and modern songs on a screen and look at all the people there and they have a move of the Spirit every week, why we can do that and build our church. Fine but is it koach or the Spirit of God? For you see Jesus said in John 3:8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. The Spirit of God moves when He wants to move, He is not subject to any musical performance, hand clapping, shouting to call Him down. The ancient pagans used to call their gods down with shouting, hand clapping, loud, fast music, emotional appeals, drums and instruments. Of course, we don t believe that we can call the Spirit of God down with our chyill self sufficencies or koach doing what works with the congregation down the street. Do we? WORD STUDY NOT BY MIGHT NOT לא בחיל אבכח BY POWER
Zechariah 4:6: Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This [is] the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. I thought of this verse very early this morning as I sat on my porch reconnecting with God s creation. It was a quiet Saturday morning, my neighbors stayed up late celebrating what I think is the Mexican day of independence so the only creatures that were stirring where those non-communicative little creations of God who go about their business every day trying to show us something of God s nature that we are just too busy to listen to and besides you cannot hear what they are saying unless you listen with your heart. An alley cat that I have never seen before came wandering up to me and jumped on my lap. You see when you listen with your heart you can hear what they are saying and although this alley cat just sat on my lap purring he was telling me about Zechariah 4:6.
Many years ago when I was a Baptist pastor in my first church I conducted a home Bible study of about a dozen people from my church who were really quite anxious to evangelize the community like a good Baptist should. I announced that I was flying to Pittsburgh the next week for a speaking engagement and that our head deacon would conduct the Bible study. For whatever reason everyone got excited about my plane trip, believing God was going to put someone in a seat next to mine that I would lead into salvation. In fact they conducted special prayer for the trip and the person sitting next to me and all said they were anxiously awaiting my return to tell of the wonderful evangelistic experience I would have. As luck would have it there was someone sitting next to me and after a half hour into the trip with sweating palms I managed to give a witness making an absolute fool of myself. The person was polite, I am sure he was as anxious to tell his friends about the weird sky pilot he met on the plane as I was not anxious to share my story with the Bible study the following week when they would surely ask about my evangelistic attempts. They were polite, Well pastor, we can t win them all. I felt like such a failure, a pastor, a Bible College and Seminary graduate and I was terrified to share the simply plan of salvation with a stranger. I was so ashamed I was ready dust off my teacher s certification and go back to teaching Shakespeare to a bunch of high school students. However, later that week I was doing my pastoral rounds and called on a woman who was a member of our church but never attended. I rang the bell, no answer, knocked on the door no answer and as I started to walk away I noticed two eyes peering between the blinds. Who are you? What do you want? Go away? I replied that I was the pastor from the First Baptist Church and just
wanted to visit. I heard at least three locks unlock and one bolt come unbolted. An elderly woman in a housecoat stood glaring at me over her glasses and said, Well, since you re a preacher, I guess I have to let you in. But mind you, I don t like people, I have nothing to do with people and the only reason I am letting you in is because you are a preacher and I have to. The only ones you can trust are these. She then pointed to three cats wandering around her living room. As I sat down the three cats came to me, one jumped on my lap and the other two laid by my side. The hostile woman s mouth dropped and she said, I ve never seen my cats do that. They always run from strangers. You must be someone very special. I responded, Believe me, I am no one special, if I have learned anything these past few weeks it is that I am no one special. All I know is that I have a very special God that lives inside of me. He uses his creation to speak to me. Now much softened the woman asked, What are my cats saying to you? I responded, They are speaking to you as well, they are telling us that God is just like them. See how they just love on me? They don t ask who I am, what my job is nor even the color of skin. I could be a mass murderer off the street and yet they will still just show love and that is what God is like, He is just love. Believe me I know how cruel people can be and I don t blame you, but these cats here, they don t care, just as God does not care. He just wants to love us and for us to return that love. If you can trust these cats, surely you can trust God. By this time my new friend was in tears and before long we prayed together as she invited the Savior into her life. I made an absolute fool of myself telling her I was communicating with animals, what sane person says something like that? Yet, I did not feel foolish, definitely not as foolish as I felt on that plane. This morning as I sat with this ally cat on my lap I thought of this incident that happened so many years ago and I thought
of Zechariah 4:6, Not of might not of power. The word for might is chyil. This word carries the idea of selfsufficiency. It is a word used for using sources of power such as wealth or influence to control others. I tried to witness on that plane with chyil, my own self sufficiency, trying to establish control with my credentials as an ordained minister and seminary graduate. I failed miserably, I hated even doing it and I only did it because it was expected of me to do it. The verse also says not of power. This word for power is koach which is the word for strength. In its Semitic root it is a word used for a lizard or a reptile type animal, some believe the word refers to an extinct reptile type animal. A lizard, particularly a large one can look very intimidating and fearsome. I tried to win this guy on the plane through talking about hell and the dangers of rejecting Jesus. I could tell he was laughing at me; I was doing it in my own koach, my own attempts to be intimidating and authoritative. I only appeared to be a fool. Yet with this elderly woman I let go of my own chyil selfsufficiency and koach attempts to establish control and be intimidating, instead I made an absolute fool of myself by suggesting that her cats were communicating with us. But you know what, the Spirit of God had prepared her for this and that is exactly what she needed to hear. As I sat on that porch this morning petting my new little friend, I knew he was reminding me that God doesn t need my strength, power, intelligence, credentials or whatever talents I might have, He only needs someone who will communicate what His Spirit wants to say. If we seek His heart and learn of Him His Spirit will do all the talking and if we are just too full of ourselves, then He will use an ally cat to communicate His message.