Volume 4 - Issue 2 - April 2000
 

THE WORD FO THE LORD TO ZERUBBABEL

By Bishop Gary S. Brooks
 

Zechariah 4:6

Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

After 70 years in captivity to Babylon, Zerubbabel was the chosen by the Lord to rebuild the House of God in Jerusalem. Now Babylon represents to us; bondage to religious confusion, a mass system of religions that are present in the world today.

Zerubbabel’s name is interpreted to mean; descended from Babylon or to flow out of confusion.

There is today a many membered man, with the name tag “Zerubbabel”, that have come out of a background and diversities of religious confusion to worship the Lord as one man in Spirit and in Truth. This same corporate man (a King / Priest Ministry founded upon our Apostle and High Priest Jesus Christ), is chosen of God to restore the House of the Lord in the Spirit.

Ezra 3:1-6 shows us the pattern of this restoration. The first thing re-built was the altar; true worship was restored and they kept the feast of Tabernacles. For the Father, Who is Spirit, seeketh such to worship Him in Spirit and in truth. But the foundation of the House was not yet laid! Verses 8-11 of the same chapter shows us the next phase in restoration, that the foundation of the House of the Lord was laid. And when it was, many of the people shouted for joy, but the fathers wept for joy, bringing to their remembrance the original House!

I find that this is where we are in restoration today, at the revealing of the foundation that is already  laid. “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ”. (1Cor. 3:11)  “And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone; In Whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord”. (Ephesians 2:20-21)

We must recognize that the House of God is built upon the foundation of the ministry of the 12 Apostles of the Lamb and the scriptures of the Prophets of the Old Testament, and that  it has endured throughout church history, and is now being preached  by the Apostles and Prophets of the Spirit  that have been truly called, separated and “sent” by the Holy Ghost. Yet some "preachers"  have brought confusion to the church because they just “went” to preach, having released themselves to have an Apostolic or Prophetic  ministry, and did not understand or rebelled against their need of submitting to authority and to the to the of the due order of the Spirit, and of serving the test of timing for their ministry.

In Zerubbabel’s time, after that the foundation had been laid, his adversaries weakened their hands and troubled them in their building and frustrated their purpose so that the building of the House of God ceased. It was not until God sent the Prophets, Haggai and Zechariah, did the work continue, the Prophets of God helping them, and they prospered through the prophesying of the Prophets and builded and finished the work!

“Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, the hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this House; his hands shall also finish it... For who has despised the day of small things? for they shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven (the 7-fold anointing of Christ; Rev. 5:6, Is. 11:1-2); they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro in the earth". (Zechariah 4:9-10)

Let us receive that encouraging and strengthening Prophetic word of the Lord and be stirred in our hearts to do the work! Let us recognize that this corporate Zerubbabel is the Lord’s chosen servant to bring restoration to the House of God in the Spirit and is the signet ring upon the Hand of the Master (Haggai 2:23), and being joined together, as one man, is equipped and anointed with the fullness of the Holy Ghost to do it!