May 16, 1999; No. 2941
Has the grace of God in Jesus Christ made you happy? Is there a song in your heart to God? Do you possess a deep, abiding, glorious joy in your heart, a peace passing understanding? Do you have true joy - not the fizzled joy of human emotions and not the plastic joy taught in the charismatic movement of getting high on Jesus, a joy which would bypass Christian knowledge of truth, but a real, abiding joy and happiness, a rejoicing in God, a joy which gives light to your darkness and lightens your load, a joy of your Lord?
The answer to these questions is found in the answer to this question: Have you felt your unworthiness and awful depravity before God? Do you see your own hopelessness and helplessness as a sinner weeping over your sin? It is only from fasting that we come to feasting. It is only from a sorrow before God that we are given a joy in God. It is only when one has been taught the shame of his sin that he can be given to know the happiness of the Lord.
The true joy of the Christian, the true gladness of the child of God, is found only in the way of the knowledge of the amazing love and grace of God to a wretched sinner. First emptied, then filled - emptied of ourselves and filled with the grace of God. So we read, in Isaiah 61:3, that the Spirit of Christ has been sent "unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." We find this same truth in the prophecy of Zechariah 8:19, which will serve as the text for our meditation today. Here we read, "Thus saith the LORD of hosts; The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth, shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts; therefore love the truth and peace."
This Word of God was spoken by Zechariah, one of the prophets sent to the remnant of Jews who had returned to Jerusalem from the captivity of Babylon. These were the facts: Owing to the sin of Judah and their disobedience, and after rejecting many warnings from God, Judah had been destroyed by Babylon and carried captive. The city of Jerusalem had been sacked, the temple destroyed. All the glory of Judah was gone. And now, after seventy years, God has brought back a remnant who were rebuilding the temple. During their captivity in Babylon, they had set up four yearly fast days, days of the withholding of food in order that they might mourn over their folly of sin. These fast days were not ordained by God. That is, they were not instituted by the law of Moses. But they had been set up by the Jews to commemorate events in connection with the capture of Jerusalem.
There were four of them. When we compare what we read in our text with II Kings 25, we learn what these four fasts were. There was first of all the fast of the fourth month. This was to commemorate when the walls of Jerusalem were broken down, after a long siege, by the armies of Babylon. There was the fast of the fifth month. This commemorated the time when Nebuchadnezzar burned the temple. There is the fast of the seventh month. This referred to the time when their governor, Gedaliah, was killed. And there was the fast of the tenth month. That was the time when the siege of Jerusalem began.
They had instituted four fast days while they were captive in Babylon to mourn over their folly. And they had continued to observe these fast days after they returned from captivity to the land of promise. They were surrounded by ruins. They were confronted by difficulties. And the question arose among them: What should they do about these fast days that they had been keeping in the captivity? Should they continue them, or should they stop?
So we read in Zechariah 7:3 that they sent a delegation to the house of the Lord and put the question before the priests and the prophets: Should we weep in the fifth month, separating ourselves as we have done these so many years? And our text is God's answer. In chapter 7 God speaks of those who had fasted only as hypocrites. Then in chapter 8, God, speaking to them of the glorious promises for those who had truly humbled themselves, comes to the answer in our text.
The answer is not that the number of fasts should be reduced by one or two. The answer is not even that the Jews should cease observing these fast days altogether. But the answer is something gloriously beyond that. The fast days shall be changed to feast days. The fast shall be to the house of Judah joy and gladness, and cheerful feasts. From fasting they were to come to feasting. Do you understand?
The answer of God, then, to their inquiry as to whether or not they should set aside these fast days was a very startling answer: "Your fasts shall be changed to cheerful feasts. Your times of set occasion for shame over your sin are now to become times of joy and gladness." The spiritual people of God at this time, as we said, were dejected. They had returned from Babylon to Zion, the holy city. They were surrounded by rubble, and the temple work was opposed. Everything their eyes saw was as an arrow to remind them of their sin and folly. To them the Lord of hosts said that in the light of His glorious promises spoken in this eighth chapter (that I will save you and I will be a blessing to you), they were to stop observing those fast days of weeping and mourning and they were to commence feasting and rejoicing. That is a very dramatic change, from fast to feast.
For a fast, in the Scripture, is associated not only with setting aside the normal food that a person would eat, but it is associated with the spiritual life. It is associated with confession and with shame and with mourning over sin. We read in Psalm 35:13, "I humbled my soul with fasting." We read in Joel 2:12, 13, "Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend you heart, and not your garments." In the Old Testament the fast was associated with the confession of sin and the knowledge of sin.
This now was to be changed to feasting. Feasting in the Scriptures is associated with rejoicing in the work and grace of God. It was a spiritual exhilaration of heart in the wonder of the redeeming grace of God. So the Lord's Supper is called a "feast" (I Cor. 5:8, "Therefore let us keep the feast, … for even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us"). The Word of God then is this: not only shall you be a little less miserable and unhappy; but, on the basis of My covenant promises, on the basis of My redeeming grace, you shall be made joyful and glad. In that place where there was only shame and sorrow, God now says there shall be the joy of salvation.
Now understand what that means. That does not mean that we no longer experience sorrow for sin. Nor is this some type of artificial joy built upon self-help ideas, the sugar-coated gospel. No. But God implants in the heart of the sorrowing, penitent child of God a joy. A joy mingled with tears, but a joy. Your fasts shall be cheerful feasts.
The blessing of the gospel is not simply to lessen our sorrow. Not only to grant us fortitude to face the weary business of living. Not simply to produce in us a stoicism. But the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ is to produce in us joy, a joy of heart, a triumphant joy. A Christian is not simply one who is a little less miserable than he once was. But the Christian, as the result of the work of God's grace, is given a true and everlasting, an abiding joy of heart. Note well. This comes only in the way of the experience of one's sin and misery. The order of grace is this: From fast to feast. The order of sin is this: From feast to fast. The command to feast that Zechariah gave did not come to all. It came to those who had been fasting. They are commanded in the light of God's grace in Jesus Christ to rejoice. Those who believe that joy must be without spiritual sorrow, those who are looking for a way to joy by ignoring the reality of sorrow over sin fill themselves with their own air, not with the joy of the gospel. It is only those who have been made miserable on account of their sin who can experience the joy of salvation.
The day of fasting had been instituted by the people of God in Judah who had gone through the experience of the prodigal son. They had come to repentance. The Lord had chastened them by carrying them into Babylon's captivity. By His grace they had come out of the stupor of sin. They had confessed their sins. God had brought them back to the land. Now to such comes this word, this word of joy, this word of forgiveness: Your fast days shall be days of feasting.
The Christian joy is built upon something that is solid, something that is real: the knowledge of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. The grace of God to me, a sinner. That is the foundation of abiding joy.
The Christian joy, therefore, is not simply something of temperament. It is not simply something of a bubbly personality. But the joy of the gospel is something spiritual worked in the heart by the Holy Spirit. The joy of salvation is not a psychological, emotional thing. You do not get this joy by learning a new life-style, a new outlook, a new philosophy on life. But this joy is the dawning of the light of God's grace upon your heart and the filling of yourself in your heart with the amazing love of God, where once there was only despair and devastation. It is the joy of the pardon of sins. It is given to those who fasted.
Do you know your desperate need of the grace of God? Only in that way can you rejoice and be made glad in the grace of God. Do you know your position before the holy God as a fallen and ruined sinner?
You must forget now all about your upbringing and how that is the reason you cannot be happy. You must forget about all the psycho-analyzing of what kind of person you are, and the signs of the zodiac, and all the other stuff. Do you know that of yourself you are a sinner before the face of God? Do you see your alarming position before God? Do you know that you are hopeless and helpless before the true God? Only in this way does the grace of the Savior come to work something marvelous: the joy of forgiveness in His blood, of pardon by grace alone.
Therefore this joy is based upon something that God has done. It is not based upon mere feeling and emotion. The people in the day of Zechariah were not feeling very happy at that moment. Their joy was not based upon anything that they had done. It was not based upon some success that they had which made them feel good about themselves. Everything around them reminded them of their sin and of their failure and what had come to them because of their sin, namely, hopelessness and despair. From an earthly point of view things were not good. And, in fact, as far as the nation was concerned, they would never be good again. The strong reason was to be found in God. And in God alone. And in what God had done. The joy of salvation is not based upon what you have done. It is based upon what God has done once and finally in Jesus Christ. The glory and joy of the gospel is based upon what God has done for us in Jesus Christ, His Son. He has removed the cause of our fasting and sorrow, namely, our guilt. He has removed our sins and restored us in His mercy. Sometimes we say, "How can I be happy? There is such a shame over what I am and what I have done." The call of the gospel is, "Look in repentance to the body and blood of Jesus Christ, where our guilt was removed. Don't look to your record. Don't gauge yourself by your feelings. Look to God and the record of what He has done in Jesus Christ."
Still more. The reason for our joy is to be found in what God will do. If you read this chapter, Zechariah 8, you will find that it is filled with promises of the perfection that God brings to His people in the covenant. The gathering of all of His own from among the nations, till at last they shall all be brought into the city of God where the streets shall be full of boys and girls playing in the streets. "And I will dwell in the midst of them." We are to rejoice, then, in what God will do in all of His promises.
At that moment for the people of God the prospects were not very cheerful. It would be a struggle. They would have opposition, and they would experience much weakness within them. But God had been merciful, and, in addition, He had held out before them His eternal and His sure promises in Jesus Christ. We rejoice in what God will do in His promises. He may be relied upon to preserve us even unto the end. We may rejoice that He will be with us and that we may trust in Him and commit our way to Him.
How then can I rejoice, who am so weak and my foes are so strong? And what about tomorrow? What about the future? The answer is this: Look to what He has done: the cross of Christ. Look to what He will do: fulfill all of His promises. It is Christ who died to deliver and save His church. And it is God who will bring His church to glory in the end. Therefore we may rejoice. Out of the experience of fasting, the knowledge of sin, God works the experience of feasting: a true joy and a rejoicing in Him. Look then to God, to what He has done, and what He will surely do. Then, fasting turns to feasting.
Let us pray.
Father, we praise and thank Thee for Thy Word which is true. According to Thy promise, work in Thy children that true sorrow for sin, and fill us also with that joy of pardon and that joy of confidence in Thee. In Jesus' name do we pray, Amen.
Last Modified: 17-Jun-1999