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"Should you not have obeyed the words which the LORD proclaimed"

Text: Zechariah 7:7

THE CHALLENGE TO CHECK OBEDIENCE

The fasts of the 5th and 7th months were for a single day. After the Fast, the people feasted.

“When you eat and when you drink,
do you not eat and drink for yourselves?
Should you not have obeyed the words which the LORD proclaimed
through the former prophets when Jerusalem and the cities around it
were inhabited and prosperous,
and the South and the Lowland were inhabited?”
Zechariah 7:6-7

1. “When you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink for yourselves?”

a) Order of the day:

i) Fasting and mourning.

ii) Eating and drinking.

b) What was on the heart and mind of the people who fasted?

i) They were thinking of themselves.

ii) The LORD was not much on their mind at all (whether fasting or dining).

2. “Should you not have obeyed the words which the LORD proclaimed?”

a) The former prophets (prophets of the past before Zechariah’s time).

b) They proclaimed the words of the LORD.

c) They pleaded with the people to obey the LORD God.

d) But their messages fell on deaf ears. There was no obedience evidenced.

3. There was a time when God had blessed Judah with prosperity

a) Jerusalem and the cities of Judah had been blessed.

b) They were well-inhabited.

c) There was good prosperity (e.g. the reign of King Uzziah; 2 Chronicles 26).

d) In the days of King Ahaz, Judah declined morally (2 Chronicles 28).