I never thought that the book of Zechariah would be so rich and so profound, showing us the way the fulfill God’s economy and to build up the church. But praise the Lord for the ministry of the age which opens up the Bible and brings to light the mysterious and wonderful things in the word of God so that we may see God’s economy, be joined to the Lord as one spirit, and fulfill His intention for His satisfaction.
The book of Zechariah reveals that the way to fulfill God’s economy in the divine history is by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit in our spirit; the only way to fulfill God’s economy is by being filled with the Spirit and by allowing Christ as the Spirit to saturate us and permeate us with Himself, and to produce us as His overcomers.
Furthermore, the book of Zechariah shows us that the building up of the church will be consummated by Christ as the sevenfold intensified Spirit of grace to be the topstone of grace. Hallelujah, today in the age of the degradation of the church Christ as the Spirit has been intensified sevenfold to counteract the degradation of the church and to produce the overcomers, so that God’s building would be consummated and “topped up” by Himself as the Spirit of grace, the topstone of grace!
We as believers in Christ need to realize that the Bible shows us the divine history within the human history, and when we were regenerated we were joined to Christ to be part of God’s history in the universe; now every day we need to exercise our spirit and experience Christ so that Christ may be revealed in us, formed in us, grow in us, and live in us for God’s expression, to build up the church as the Body of Christ.
We need to be lovers of God and not love the world, the self, pleasures or money; we need to see that men today sell their soul for employment, and we need to reject any love of money in our Christian life and not consider our Christian work as a money-making trade. Oh Lord Jesus!
Today we want to see further how Christ, in the divine history, consummates the building up of the church and brings in the kingdom of God, while at the same time Christ with His Overcomers destroys the human government by coming as a stone cut without hand to smash the great human image.
Christ is the Last Craftsman and the Smiting Stone to Destroy Human Government and Bring in the Kingdom of God
In Zech. 1:18-21 God gave the prophet a comforting word of promise to Israel, as God’s answer to Christ’s intercession for Zion and Jerusalem.
In the vision Zechariah received there were four horns – which are the four kingdoms with their kings, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and the Roman Empire – which correspond to the four sections of the great human image in Daniel 2:31-33 and the four beasts in Dan. 7:3-8; these damaged and destroyed the chosen people of God.
The four craftsmen (see Zech. 1:20) are the skills used by God to destroy these four kingdoms with their kings; both Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece were taken over in a skillful way by the kingdom that followed it (see Dan. 5; 8:3-7), and the last Crafstman will be Christ as the stone cut without hands who will come to crush the last kingdom, the restored Roman Empire, and thereby crush the great human image as the totality of human government at His coming back (see Dan. 2:31-35).
King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream of a great human image, which signified the totality of the human government until the end of times: the head was of gold (signifying the Babylonian empire), the breasts and arms were of silver (the Medo-Persian empire), the abdomen and thighs were of bronze (the Grecian empire), the legs were of iron (the Roman Empire), and the feet were part of iron and clay (the continuation of the Roman Empire, which is part autocracy and part democracy).
Today we are at the feet of the great human image: we are in the time of the restored Roman Empire, and the next thing to come is Christ as the stone cut without hand coming to smash the great human image, ground it to powder, and scatter it, and then He will bring in the kingdom of God as a great mountain filling the whole earth.
A similar illustration of these four empires is in Joel 1, where we see four kinds of locusts: the cutting locusts, the swarming locusts, the licking locusts, and the consuming locusts, which come to damage and destroy the people of God.
But hallelujah, today we have the promise in Joel 2:25, I will restore to you the years that the locusts have eaten. No matter where we are and who we are, even though we may have wasted a lot of time, we can pray, Lord, restore to me the years that the locusts have eaten!
Also, we can cooperate with the Lord by exercising our spirit to be produced as His overcomers for His return; when He comes as the craftsman used by God, the stone cut without hands, Christ together with His overcomers will smash the human image and will bring in the kingdom of God on the whole earth!
Praise You Lord, You are the last Craftsman used by God, the smiting stone cut without hand, coming soon to destroy the human government and bring in the kingdom of God on the whole earth! Hallelujah! We want to be one with You and give You our best cooperation so that we may be produced as the overcomers who come together with You to destroy the great human image. Lord, may our living today be in the divine history within the human history, giving You our best cooperation for the fulfillment of Your economy!
Christ with His Overcomers will Defeat Antichrist, Crush Human Government, and bring in God’s Kingdom
When Christ comes as the crushing stone – the stone cut without hands – to destroy the totality of the human government, He will not come alone; rather, He will come with His overcomers, His bride, His increase, as His army (see John 3:29-30; Rev. 17:14; 19:7-8, 11, 14).
Today, during the church age – which is also the age of the mystery – Christ is working Himself into us and He is building us up as the church to be His bride; all spots and wrinkles are removed, we are washed by the water in the Word, we are inwardly reconstituted and transformed, and we will be His beautiful, spotless, glorious bride (Eph. 5:25-29).
The bride will be raptured to the heavens, and before He descends to the earth to deal with the human government Christ will have a wedding in which He will marry His overcomers (Rev. 19:7-9); these overcomers have already been fighting the battle against God’s enemy for years, and they overcame the evil one by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their testimony, and by not loving their soul-life even unto death (Rev. 12:11).
After the wedding, Christ as the Husband will come with His newlywed bride to destroy Antichrist, who by this time will come with his armies against God directly in open rebellion.
At His appearing as the God-cut stone, Christ with His overcomers—the corporate Christ—will strike the ten kings with Antichrist (Rev. 19:11-21), thereby crushing the great image from the toes to the head (Dan. 2:35). This will be Christ’s universal judgment on the aggregate of human government from Antichrist back to Nimrod, thus ending the age of man’s government on earth in the old creation and initiating the age of God’s dominion over the entire earth in the millennium and in the new heaven and new earth for eternity. (Dan. 2:34, footnote 2, Recovery Version Bible)
When Christ with His overcomers appear as a God-cut stone, this corporate Christ will strike the ten kings with Antichrist (Rev. 19:11-21) and crush the great human image from its toes to the head (Dan. 2:35); this will be Christ’s universal judgement on the whole human government from Nimrod to Antichrist.
Christ’s judgement on the human government on earth in the old creation will end it and will bring in God’s kingdom over the entire earth in the millennium and in the new heaven and new earth for eternity! Praise the Lord!
After human government – together with the great dragon and the Antichrist who instigate it – is judged and smashed, the whole earth will be filled with the kingdom of God; the great human image will be replaced with the eternal kingdom of God on earth (Rev. 11:15-17).
In order for us today to be part of the kingdom of God as the increase of Christ, the overcoming-and-smashing stone, we need to let Christ grow in us in life for us to be the church, and allow Him to bring in His kingdom in all our being so that we may be His kingdom today (Mark 4:26-29).
Christ’s increase in us in life is the church, and Christ’s increase in us in administration is the kingdom; as the stone, Christ is the centrality of God’s move, and as the mountain, He is the universality of God’s move.
We need to follow Christ as the word of God, allow Him to produce us as His overcomers, and live a daily life in the divine history within the human history by exercising our spirit, so that we may be part of the corporate Christ who will come as the dispensational instrument to end this age and bring in God’s kingdom (Joel 3:11; Zech. 14:5; Rev. 12:1-2, 5; 10:11-21).
This kingdom will consummate in the New Jerusalem – the ultimate and consummate step of the divine history (Rev. 20:4, 6; 21:10). Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, grow in us in life to make us the church, Your Body, and increase in us in Your administration to make us Your kingdom. We want to be those who exercise our spirit and live in the divine history to be produced as the overcomers who will be part of Your wedding feast and who will return with You to destroy the Antichrist and the human government, and bring in the kingdom of God! Oh Lord, make us spirit-exercising people who allow You to grow, increase, spread, and saturate them, so that we may be produced as the overcomers, the mighty men coming with our God-cut Christ-stone to destroy human government and bring in the kingdom of God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ed Marks for this week, and Life-study of Zechariah, msgs. 2, 9, 12-15 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 1 / msg. 1, Serving God by Knowing the Age, by Realizing the Way Christ Fulfills His Economy, by Seeing the World Situation as the Indicator of His Move, and by Spreading the Truths of the Lord’s Recovery for His Coming Back.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version. Recommending especially the footnotes on Dan. 2:34-35 and Zech. 1:18.
- Hymns on this topic:
# And when Nebuchadnezzar / Was startled by a dream, / He gathered his magicians / To tell him what he’d seen. / A statue as a portrait / Of human governments / From earliest beginnings / Through predetermined ends. / So Daniel told the vision, / The king he was amazed. / Daniel, you will have honor, / Authority all your days. / Like him our vision opened, / Our hearts they must be wise / To see in all these cultures; / The enemy’s disguise. (Song on Daniel and his vision)
# Going to receive the Kingdom / From His God, the Ancient of Days, / Now He cometh with the Kingdom / And its glorious, ruling rays. / He’s “the Stone” which breaks the nations / Into pieces lowliest, / Which “a mountain great” becometh / As the Kingdom manifest. (Hymns #946)
# Raise up some to meet Your need, some Nazarites, / To bring in Your kingdom on earth today, / Taking You as King that You may return / To usher in the end of the age. (Song on becoming overcomers)
About aGodMan
The vision of the four horns and the four craftsmen…was a comforting and encouraging word of promise to Israel as God’s answer to Christ’s intercession for Zion and Jerusalem….The four horns are the four kingdoms with their kings—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and the Roman Empire—also signified by the great human image in Daniel 2:31-33 and by the four beasts in 7:3-8, that damaged and destroyed the chosen people of God. The four craftsmen (Zech. 1:20) are the skills used by God to destroy these four kingdoms with their kings. Each of the first three kingdoms—Babylon, Medo-Persia, and Greece—was taken over in a skillful way by the kingdom that followed it (cf. Dan. 5; 8:3-7). The fourth Craftsman will be Christ as the stone cut out without hands, who will crush the restored Roman Empire and thereby crush the great human image as the totality of human government at His coming back (Dan. 2:31-35). (Zech. 1:18, footnote 1, Recovery Version Bible)