Zechariah 1:6 But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers?… The text comes from the first of Zechariah's prophecies. In it he lays the foundation for all that he has subsequently to say. He points to the past, and summons up the august figures of the great pre-exilic prophets, and reminds his contemporaries that the words which they spoke had been verified in the experience of past generations. He declares that, though the hearers and the speakers of that prophetic Word had glided away into the vast unknown, the Word remained, lived still, and on his lips demanded the same obedience as it had vainly demanded from the generation that was past. I. THE MORTAL HEARERS AND SPEAKERS OF THE ABIDING WORD. A familiar theme. Look at it from the special angle, to bring into connection the eternal Word, and the transient vehicles and hearers of it. All the past hearers and speakers of the Word had that Word verified in their lives. Not one of them who, for the brief period of their earthly lives, came in contact with that Divine message, but realised, more or less consciously, the solemn truth of its promises and threatenings. Wherever they are now, their earthly relation to that Word is a determining factor in their condition. "Wherefore we should give the more earnest heed to the things that we have heard." II. THE ABIDING WORD WHICH THESE HEARERS AND SPEAKERS HAVE HAD TO DO WITH. Just as reason requires some unalterable substratum below all the fleeting phenomena of the changeful creation, — a God who is the rock basis of all, — the staple to which all the links hang — so here we are driven back and back, by the very fact of the transiency of the transient, to grasp for a refuge and a stay, the permanency of the permanent. It is blessed for us when the lesson that the fleeting of all that can flee away, reads to us, is that, beneath it all, there is the Unchanging. Zechariah meant by the "Word of God" simply the prophetic utterances about the destiny and the punishment of the nation. We ought to mean by "the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever," not merely the written embodiment of it in this book, or that primarily, but the personal Word, the Incarnate Word, the everlasting Son of the Father. It is His perpetual existence rather than the continuous power of the truth which is the declaration of Himself, that is mighty for our strength and consolation when we think of the transient generations. Christ lives. Therefore we can front change and decay in all around calmly and triumphantly. Since we have this abiding Word, let us not dread changes, however startling and revolutionary. Jesus Christ does not change. There is a human element in the Church's conception of Jesus Christ, and still more in their working out of the principles of the Gospel in institutions and forms, which partakes of the transiency of the men from whom they come. III. THE PRESENT GENERATION AND ITS RELATION TO THE ABIDING WORD. Zechariah did not hesitate to put himself in line with the mighty forms of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea. He, too, was a prophet. Some simple exhortations. 1. See to it that you accept that Word. Open not only your minds but your hearts to it. Hold it fast. In this time of unrest make sure of your grasp of the eternal central core of Christianity, Jesus Christ Himself, the Divine-human Saviour of the world. Accept Him, hold Him fast, trust to His guidance in present day questions. (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But my words and my statutes, which I commanded my servants the prophets, did they not take hold of your fathers? and they returned and said, Like as the LORD of hosts thought to do unto us, according to our ways, and according to our doings, so hath he dealt with us. |
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