However easy to forget, the great controversy between Christ and Satan is the ultimate driving force behind reality. Wars, crime, violence, and the whole seething and boiling cauldron of human tragedy are but surface manifestations of the underlying conflict that began in heaven (Rev. 12:7), a universal struggle that impacts not just every human but all creation (Rom. 8:20–22).
One thing, though, we must never forget: the great controversy isn’t over Middle East oil or over the epochal geopolitical shifts in military and economic hegemony. It’s over the salvation of the human race, one soul at a time. Nations come and go, power structures come and go, grand themes of history and ideology come and go; only the saved, those covered in the robe of Christ’s righteousness, last forever. Satan doesn’t care about money, power, politics, not in and of themselves—he cares about souls, about taking as many down to ruin with him as possible. Christ, through His death, has made it possible to save everyone from that ruin. The essence of the great controversy is, at the core, folks choosing eternal ruin or eternal life.
Study Zechariah 1 and 2
A Call to Repentance
1 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to Zechariah the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying, 2 “The LORD has been very angry with your fathers. 3 Therefore say to them, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Return to Me,” says the LORD of hosts, “and I will return to you,” says the LORD of hosts. 4 “Do not be like your fathers, to whom the former prophets preached, saying, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Turn now from your evil ways and your evil deeds.”’ But they did not hear nor heed Me,” says the LORD. 5 “ Your fathers, where are they? And the prophets, do they live forever? 6 Yet surely My words and My statutes, Which I commanded My servants the prophets, Did they not overtake your fathers?
“So they returned and said:
‘ Just as the LORD of hosts determined to do to us, According to our ways and according to our deeds, So He has dealt with us.’”’”
Jerusalem in Zachariah's day was still largely in ruins. Babylon had destroyed the city, now the exiled people of Judah had returned to the ruins of their homeland, but the task of rebuilding was a very difficult one.
The message is one of encouragement, as well as a calling to Himself, of this small group of returned exiles.
Continued reading from scripture:
The Man Among the Myrtle Trees
7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.
8During the night I had a vision—and there before me was a man riding a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses.
9I asked, “What are these, my lord?”
The angel who was talking with me answered, “I will show you what they are.”
10Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained, “They are the ones the LORD has sent to go throughout the earth.”
11And they reported to the angel of the LORD, who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have gone throughout the earth and found the whole world at rest and in peace.”
12 Then the angel of the LORD said, “LORD Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy years?” 13So the LORD spoke kind and comforting words to the angel who talked with me.
14 Then the angel who was speaking to me said, “Proclaim this word: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, 15but I am very angry with the nations that feel secure. I was only a little angry, but they added to the calamity.’
16“Therefore, this is what the LORD says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there my house will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,’ declares the LORD Almighty.
17“Proclaim further: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the LORD will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.’”
Four Horns and Four Craftsmen
18 Then I looked up—and there before me were four horns! 19 I asked the angel who was speaking to me, “What are these?”
He answered me, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, Israel and Jerusalem.”
20 Then the LORD showed me four craftsmen. 21I asked, “What are these coming to do?”
He answered, “These are the horns that scattered Judah so that no one could raise his head, but the craftsmen have come to terrify them and throw down these horns of the nations who lifted up their horns against the land of Judah to scatter its people.”
