Genealogy of Jesus: Zerubbabel

 OT Lesson: Zechariah 4 (NLT)

Then the angel who had been talking with me returned and woke me, as though I had been asleep. “What do you see now?” he asked.

I answered, “I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl of oil on top of it. Around the bowl are seven lamps, each having seven spouts with wicks. And I see two olive trees, one on each side of the bowl.” Then I asked the angel, “What are these, my lord? What do they mean?”

“Don’t you know?” the angel asked.

“No, my lord,” I replied.

Then he said to me, “This is what the Lord says to Zerubbabel: It is not by force nor by strength, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. Nothing, not even a mighty mountain, will stand in Zerubbabel’s way; it will become a level plain before him! And when Zerubbabel sets the final stone of the Temple in place, the people will shout: ‘May God bless it! May God bless it!’”

Then another message came to me from the Lord: “Zerubbabel is the one who laid the foundation of this Temple, and he will complete it. Then you will know that the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has sent me. Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.”

(The seven lamps represent the eyes of the Lord that search all around the world.)

Then I asked the angel, “What are these two olive trees on each side of the lampstand, and what are the two olive branches that pour out golden oil through two gold tubes?”

“Don’t you know?” he asked.

“No, my lord,” I replied.

Then he said to me, “They represent the two anointed ones who stand in the court of the Lord of all the earth.”

NT Lesson: Matthew 1:12-17 (NRSV)

And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. It is a lovely morning. We have Thanksgiving Day on coming Thursday. Many families gather together and enjoy the family time. It is time to thank our family. It is time to thank our friends. It is time to thank our community. It is time to thank our wonderful country. It is time to thank our faithful God. Often times we failed to thank God properly mainly because we do not see God. These days everything is smart. The cell phones are now smart, and we call them smart phones. The tablets do the same. Some of the new cars can drive by itself, not perfect yet though. And there are smart TVs. I don’t have a smart TV, but I have a small and dumb TV. I plugged in $30 Chromecast to my TV and it works similar to the smart TVs that I can watch YouTube or Netflix on TV. And when I don’t play anything, the Chromecast shows a slide show of random photos from my Google Photos archive. And of course all those photos are Samuel’s photos. One day last week, Samuel was watching the photos for a while and then said to himself, “Mommy’s always there but Dada’s not there.” 

Well, as you all know, that is because I was always on the other side of the camera, taking the photos of Samuel and Mommy. When Samuel grows mature enough, he will understand that I was also always there with him, but on the other side of the camera, where I was not in the picture. We, the grown-ups, all understand that not being in the picture does not necessarily mean absence. But in the eyes of a little children, seeing is believing. If they don’t see, they think we are not there. Likewise, in the eyes of immature faith, seeing is believing. Because they don’t see the physical form of God, they assume that God is not in their life. But when our faith grows mature, we will understand that God is always there in our lives, but on the other side like behind the curtains, making everything work in the theatre. So even though we do not see God with our sinful eyes, on this Thanksgiving Sunday, in this Thanksgiving week, let us ascribe to our Father in heaven, due thanks and proper praise.

Jeopardy

There is one more thing I cannot avoid mentioning. Did anyone watch the jeopardy last week? I didn’t because I don’t have a cable TV channels. But I found very many angry facebook posts about jeopardy last week. Obviously one of the questions was ‘who wrote the book of Hebrews in the Bible,’ and the show said that the correct answer was Apostle Paul. Many pastors across the country or around the globe became furious. I don’t really understand their anger. Scholars differ on this question. Some say that the author was Priscilla, or some other guy, But all the scholars agree on one thing that we don’t really know who wrote the book of Hebrews. It is not likely Apostle Paul for a few reasons. The writing style is different from other Pauline epistles. Paul always wrote his name as the sender of the epistles, but the book of Hebrews has no name. So the scholars say it is very unlikely to be Paul, but they did not exclude him. The consensus is that we don’t know. So you cannot explicitly say that Paul is not the author. And also if the jeopardy question meant ‘who wrote the book according to the King James Bible,’ then the answer is Paul because the full name of the book in King James Version is “The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews.” And this is not something we need to be angry at. We need to be angry at injustice. We need to be angry at discrimination. We need to be angry at the oppressions onto the Christians in other countries. We need to be angry at the ongoing unjust war in Ukraine. But not at jeopardy—it is just a TV show. Anyway, in this week, rather than be angry, we’d better be thankful, rejoice and be glad in it.

Fourteen Generations

Today is the last of the Genealogy sermon series, and the gospel of Matthew also finishes the genealogy at the birth of Jesus Christ. But Matthew added one more paragraph at the end of the genealogy: “So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.” He emphasised that the generations are fourteen, fourteen, and fourteen. So obviously fourteen is very important. In America, beside the twenty-six Alphabets, we also use ten numeric letters. In many cultures before they had the numeric letters, they used their own alphabets as numbers. We still do sometimes in America when we make a list using A, B, Cs as headings. And the Jewish people in the antique days did the same. They used their Hebrew Alphabets as numbers. And thus the names can have numeric values. Let me give you the name of David as an example. In Hebrew writing, there is no vowels, so David’s name spelling is D-V-D. Let’s see the numbers for D-V-D. ד (Dalet) is D which comes in fourth. ו (Vav) is V which comes in sixth. When we replace D with four, and V with six, then David’s name D-V-D becomes 4-6-4. When we sum those three numbers, then the final numeric value of David is fourteen.

Anyone at that time in Israel knew that fourteen means David. So Matthew was emphasising that Jesus Christ is really and truly the descendant of David. Why is this so important? God in the OT promised David that his descendants will sit on the throne forever. But at the time of Jesus, the king was not from the line of David. After the exile, there was a different Jewish dynasty, called Hasmonean. And the present king is not even Jewish. And this emphasis of Matthew was giving hope to the people for the restoration of Davidic kingdom. And it also proves that Jesus is the true king to come.

Zerubbabel

Today, I picked Zerubbabel as the last person in the genealogy of Jesus. His name translates as the seed of Babylon, simply means that he was born in Babylon. And it was one of the common names back then. This Zerubbabel is very important, and we don’t really know about him. He was the governor of Persian province of Judea. Jewish journeys back home to Judea and Jerusalem happened three times. He led the first group. And then he laid the foundation of the second temple. A lot of OT books cover him with importance and significance. God sent him a lot of messages through multiple prophets.

Daniel’s Prayer

Then how were all those possible? How was he able to get the messages from God? How was he able to lead his people to return home? How was he able to rebuild the temple? All those things were possible only by the prayers. We can see some glimpse of his praying through other books of OT, but not much because prayer is private section of life. Jewish leaders at that time had awakened through the punishment of God and they prayed. We can see that private prayer life through Daniel.

Daniel prayed three times every day and he did not cease his prayer even when he was threatened to be thrown into the den of the hungry lions. He did not know that God would save him, neither did he expect that. He just risked his life and prayed without ceasing. That was how the Jewish leaders prayed back then, and that is how we should pray now. Through the prayers of the people, the nation was rebuilt.

Does Prayer Really Work?

Last week, we talked about the prayer as well through king Hezekiah. So now, one question rises here. Does the prayer really work? Well, I believe so, but you need to experience it yourself to be sure. Just to help you, let me give you my testimony.

After I received Jesus Christ into my heart in the Korean army, I loved the Sunday morning worship. At the very moment the worship is over, I immediately began to long for the next Sunday. That was 1996 and North Korean sent a submarine with twenty some heavily armed soldiers. The submarine was found. Within a few days, we killed most of the North Korean soldiers. But several of them fled away, and some civilians were killed by them. To track them, a joint intelligence analysis team was formed including Korean army intelligence, Korean CIA, Police intelligence. I was in the team and we left the Army HQ where my church was. We stayed in the field offices, moving to new places everyday.

All my concern was about the Sunday morning worship service, more than the military operation and intelligence. The team members from the Army intelligence was a one-star general, two colonels, two lieutenant colonels, and me—a corporal. It was a military emergency with Def-Con Two. I so wanted to go to Church, but there was no way I can say to a colonel like ‘Sir, I understand that it is an emergency, and I know that we are crazy busy now. But can I go to church this coming Sunday morning? I promise that I will be back in two hours because I always go to church half hour early.’

Because I could not request it like that, I just prayed to God. Well, nothing happened. I got anxious and prayed more. Still nothing happened. Days passed by and the Sunday was coming closer and closer. I became nervous first, then anxious, then angry, and then furious at God. Finally I argued with God, “Hey God. It’s me Je. Do you understand what I am asking of you for? Did I ask you for money? Did I ask you for a nice car? Did I ask you for a lottery hit? I am simply asking you to let me go to church to worship You! Do you get it? Do you understand?” Just to make it clear, that is not how I pray normally. Saturday night, still nothing happened. I was depressed that I could not attend the Sunday worship service, and I was very disappointed that my prayer was not answered.

Sunday morning around 9AM, I got a phone call at the office. That was from the commander of the army, that is a four-star general. I was just a corporal, so I transferred the call to the intelligence team leader, the one-star general. The four-star general asked several questions about the situation, and one-star general answered them and then he added, ‘Sir, all those things are written on the nightly report which was sent to you by fax last night.’ Then immediately the four-star general became outraged and yelled over the phone like, “Are you seriously talking back to me like that? Is that your attitude to me? Am I your friend? Answer me, Am I your friend? Show yourself in my office—you and your entire team, in ten minutes!” That time, we were quite far away from the HQ. So instead of driving, we all had to fly on a military helicopter, UH-1H. That was my first time to be on a helicopter, and it was quite amusing, especially at the time of taking off. We all went to the commander’s office but he had let me go out because I was not an officer but just a corporal. That was ten to eleven, and I ran to the army church inside of the camp. I worshipped God at the church, and came back to the office. I waited a few minutes in the hallway, then everybody came out. So according to my experience, the prayers are answered. For other Sundays, it got little less busy and a colonel who liked me drove me to nearby churches.

No Answer Is Also an Answer

But I have to say that no answer is also an answer. We may think our prayer is not answered, but maybe God already answered our prayer by not giving us what we asked for, or by not answering it the way we wished it to be. Once I visited a friend of mine in Korea. That time he had a four year old daughter, so pretty and cute. His wife was cooking in the kitchen and the little girl saw her mom cooking and began to ask for a big kitchen knife. Her mom said no, and the little girl began to cry, and then rolling on the flooring, throwing tantrum. What do you think? Do you think the mom answered the prayer of the little girl? What would you do if you were the mommy? Would you answer the prayer and grant her wish by giving the big kitchen knife to the four year old girl? The girl needed to wait at least ten more years for her prayer to be answered. It looks like the prayer was not answered. But actually, no answer was the answer for her own safety and benefit.

Strategy for Prayer

But I have another girl whose prayer was actually answered. One day when I was in Winnipeg, I went to a Real Canadian Super Store. It is a huge grocery store franchise like Kroger here. Beside foods, they also sell other stuffs like pots and pans. And there was a little girl about five or six years old asking her daddy to buy her a cute and small frying pan which you can fry one egg at a time. The daddy said, ‘No, honey. Mommy’s not gonna say yes.’ But the little girl was persistent, begging minutes and minutes but without success. Finally she broke into tears, weeping and crying aloud. While crying she said like, ‘Daddy, it’s not for me. It’s for you! It’s because I love you. I want to make you an egg fry everyday because I love you. I love you daddy! Why don’t you understand? Do you know how much I love you? I want it for you!’ And guess what. It actually worked. Do you hear how well the little girl speaking? This little Canadian girl taught me how to pray—the strategy and tactic for prayers. First thing we can learn from her is the persistence which Jesus also emphasised. That little girl did not stop until her prayer was answered. Second thing we can learn from her is that we must win the argument. If we pray like, “God, bless me and give me lots of money because I want it for myself,” then God would say to us like, “What the… Am I your ATM? Have you deposited money and blessings to me?” I don’t actually know how much the little girl loved her daddy or if she actually made him egg fry literally every single day like she promised, but anyway she won the argument after all.

The third thing we can learn from her is that she was not gentle or quiet. She was crying aloud, not caring other people around, including me. She probably knew that I was watching. In that way, she made her daddy impossible to ignore her. Jeremiah 33:3 says “Call to me and I will answer and reveal to you wondrous secrets that you haven’t known.”1 When the Bible says to call, it is of course not about making a phone call. There was no telephone at the time of Jeremiah. Imagine that you are standing at the outside of the church door, and you saw your friend at the county court. How would you call them without cell phone? You have to shout and make noise to get their attention. And that is why the Bible tells us to shout to the Lord.

Conclusion

I am about to end the preaching today. It was the longest sermon ever. That is because the prayer is very important topic, and also I need more time for the turkey to be fully cooked. Prophet Daniel, Priest Ezra, national leader Zerubbabel restored and rebuilt the nation through prayer. As long as the Christians in this country pray, this one nation under God will stand firm forever. When we pray and shout to the Lord, God will answer us and reveal the wondrous secrets to us. When we pray, Jesus will come and save us. So friends, let us pray without ceasing, and let us not lose our hearts even when we think our prayers are not answered because even no answer is an answer for our own benefits. Amen.