Clash of the Horns and Carpenters Part 1: full transcript and answers

▶ 0:00 Zechariah 1 verse 18 through 19, it says, “I lifted up my eyes.” This is Zechariah, and I saw four horns. I said unto the angel that talked with me, “What are these horns?” The angel answered and said, “These horns have scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem.” When he talks about Zion, Judah, Jerusalem, he’s talking about his church. Now, if you remember in our teaching in Daniel, Daniel chapter 2, the statue, the golden head was the king of Babylon, the Babylonian empire. The silver chest and arms was the Persian empire, the king. The brass waist and thighs were the kingdom of Greece, and the iron was Rome, and the feet and the legs were still Rome, but it was a divided Rome.

▶ 1:06 Jesus had come and messed up their whole theology. All right, mixed people. Also, in Daniel 7, you remember the lion was Babylon, the bear was Persia, the four-headed leper was Greece, and the beast that was unlike all the other beast was the Roman empire that followed. Okay, so there were four horns, four kings, four nations, Gentile nations that tried to scatter Israel, God’s people. Got it? Now, we also got to remember in Daniel that there were spiritual powers behind these nations. Okay?

▶ 1:57 In Daniel 10:20, the heavenly messenger said, “Now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia.” Now, he wasn’t returning to fight with Cyrus or one of the Darius or one of those Persian kings, he was going to fight with the spirit behind those kingdoms and those kings. And then he says, “When I’m done with the prince of Persia spiritually, I’m going to deal with the prince of Greece, the supernatural source power behind the kingdom of Greece.” Okay? So, there’s two things. We got the natural kingdom down here that is actually carrying out things that hurt God’s people, scatter God’s people, and prevent God’s people from serving God and and and the promotion of His kingdom.

▶ 2:54 And then we got the spirit behind them. And the Bible says in Ephesians, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but with what?” Yeah, principalities and powers and spiritual wickedness in high places. See, heavenly places, spiritual places. And we got to remember that. We’re in a spiritual war. All right? Now, verse 20 says, “The Lord showed me four carpenters.” Four craftsmen, skilled laborers, craftsmen. And I says, “What are these What are these guys for? What do these guys do?” And he says, “These are the horns which have scattered Judah so that no man did lift up his head, but these four carpenters are come to fray or put them in fear, and cast out the horns of the Gentiles, which lift up their horn over the land of Judah to scatter it.

▶ 3:54 Now, what is Judah in the New Testament? The church. What is Zion in the New Testament? The church. What is Jerusalem in the New Testament? The church. See, all these things were written for us to learn. Now, 2 Chronicles 24:12 tells us they hired carpenters to repair the house of God. So, what does a carpenter do? He works on God’s house. Got it? Simple. Now, who’s working on God’s house during these four kingdoms? All right. Going back to this picture of the four kingdoms, we have Daniel. Daniel was there interpreting dreams, interpreting visions.

▶ 4:48 He was thrown into the lions’ den because he prayed and wouldn’t stop praying. And God closed the mouth of the lions. Daniel was there to interpret the writing on the wall and tell the king of Babylon that he was going to die that night and Persia was going to take over and it happened right after he got through. See, he actually put the kingdom of Babylon and Persia in fear. He actually brought those kingdoms down because he was a carpenter building God’s house and building God’s people. Amen. Now, we got the three Hebrew children, remember? The king made a idol and said everybody’s got to worship it at the sound of the music and these three guys said, “We’re not worshipping your idol.

▶ 5:41 It’s against our God.” They said, “Well, we’re going to throw you into the fiery furnace.” He said, “Go ahead and throw us into the fiery furnace. We’re not worshipping your God.” Well, he threw them into the fiery furnace, we all know, and there were four people in the fiery furnace, and one of them was the son of God, Jesus Christ himself. And then they came out of the fiery furnace without even a smell of smoke on them, let alone damaged physically. And then the king changed the laws of the land because of these carpenters that had a mind to build God’s people. Hallelujah. Okay, the third one is we have Esther and Mordecai. Esther married this heathen king following the advice of her uncle. Her parents had obviously killed in the captivity.

▶ 6:35 And she and her uncle were taken captive. He raised her and God had a purpose for her marrying this heathen king to save Israel from the bad man, the bad people, Haman. And uh then she did all that. Haman was hung. And Mordecai was given the king’s ring, made the second in command of the kingdom just overnight, just like that. See, can God do a quick work? Yeah, he did it there. And then the king said, “You write the laws the way you want.” And so Mordecai wrote the laws, sealed it with the king’s thing, and the people of Israel got God’s people defending themselves and survived this extermination that Haman had planned. You see? See, they were carpenters. Then you have Ezekiel.

▶ 7:27 Ezekiel prophesied. He was taken captive in the third captivity. And he was prophesying all this time to the people of God. All right. And he was carried away at one point back to Jerusalem, where the Jewish leaders were telling the people that they weren’t going to go into a third captivity and leading the people astray. And Ezekiel was sent to minister to God’s people’s leaders who were telling the people wrong. And when they rejected his message, as we will find in Ezekiel when we study it, God slew one of the leaders. Backed up the message of Ezekiel. And so, yes, it’s not just the Gentiles that can scatter God’s people.

▶ 8:22 And cause them not to be able to lift up their head. Lift up your head is a is a is a phrase in the Bible where we worship, we serve, we acknowledge God up in heaven. Lift up your head to the coming king. See? And uh they don’t like us serving God. They don’t like us teaching the Bible. And so, Ezekiel was that fourth carpenter. Okay? Now, let’s go. Remember? He told us in Romans 15:4, all things written before time was written for our admonition, our learning, upon whom the ends of the world have come. 1 Corinthians 10:11, all things happened to them that were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world are come.

▶ 9:14 So, what do we learn? What do we learn from this story? This illustration, God put Israel through this to teach us something. So, how many are ready to learn something? Hallelujah. Now, so we go to the days of Jesus when Jesus came to build the church. See, he come to restore. Elijah came to restore all things. Did you know that? And John the Baptist, Elijah was going to come. The spirit of Elijah was in John the Baptist to restore all things. So, John the Baptist started preaching repentance and Jesus was coming and all this stuff. And he was going to restore and build his church.

▶ 10:06 Jesus come to build his church. So, what do we learn by looking at Zechariah? All right. What are the horns that scattered and oppressed God’s people that were prophesied to happen by Ezekiel? I mean by Zechariah. Okay. Civil leaders. You got the Roman Empire. You know, they killed Christians. They put them in the arena. They put the lions on them. They persecuted Christians. They had their armies destroy the temple and all the rest. Herod had every child from 2 years old to uh and down killed because he wanted to kill Jesus. He heard there was a baby Jesus born a uh a a spiritual king and he didn’t want anybody king but him and so he had all the 2-year-olds down, but Jesus had moved down to Egypt by that time.

▶ 11:01 You see. Pilate wound up giving the command to kill Jesus. The second Herod killed John the Baptist. See, they opposed God’s people in the midst of this time of restoration. Jewish leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and Caiaphas, the high priest, they all opposed Jesus and those that followed him. Their doctrines were horrible the Bible says. Jesus said beware of their these people’s doctrines. Doctrines are important. See, your doctrine affects your thinking and your thinking affects your behavior. So, doctrine is very important. He said these people are hypocrites. Jesus said they were hypocrites.

▶ 11:52 They say and they do not. They don’t even do what they say to do. He said they’d make two times the child of hell. They convert people to the religion, their way, and they make them two times more the child of hell than they are. So, where were the Pharisees, Sadducees going? To hell. Were they believers? Yes. Were they followers? No. You see, there’s a difference between a believer and a Christian. A Christian follows. They may make mistakes, but they get up, dust themselves off, and get going again. A believer just believes anything they believe is okay because they believe it. But a Christian believes what God said to believe. Can I hear an amen? Hallelujah.

▶ 12:43 I had to tell somebody this week. You know, you’re not a you’re not you’re not a Christian, you’re a believer. And you’re you’re a believer because you are for this law that the Bible is against. You are a believer. You just believe you think God’s going to honor everything you believe. But a Christian follows the word and they won’t vote for or approve of things that the Bible doesn’t approve of that’s a Christian. Even at the cost of being persecuted, mocked, and rejected by those around them. Jesus said the father of these people was Satan himself. You see, the supernatural force behind the religious Pharisees and Sadducees was Satan himself.

▶ 13:39 See, just like Daniel showed us that there was a spiritual force behind these four kingdoms. There is a spiritual force behind people that opposed Jesus and his truth. Are you there? And that’s what we as a church and as an individual Christian have to learn to focus on, the power behind the people that are opposing. Cuz if we can break the power behind them, we can win the people. So, we don’t have to get mad at people. See? Now, then there’s the Jewish scribes. They were professional interpreters of the Bible. They’re the one writing the books of the day, positive thinking, possibility thinking, purpose-driven thinking, prosperity thinking, faith thinking.

▶ 14:32 They were the ones that were making all the money. Telling people what the Bible said because the people were too lazy to read the book and find out what God said. Hallelujah. And this is what Jesus said about them. He says, “These scribes have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, God’s going to judge us, folks. People are saying, “Don’t judge, don’t judge.” God says, “You better be preaching judgment because I am judging.” See, and mercy. The mercy here is in the context that he will save and forgive the sinner that will repent, his mercy. You see, so they won’t be judged. And then faith is the conviction of truth.

▶ 15:29 Not the conviction of your opinion. See? Faith is you’re convinced of his truth that you can repent, his mercy will forgive you and cleanse you, and you will escape the judgment. That’s the weightier matters of the law. And what do people not want us to talk about today? The judgment. Don’t judge. Judge not that you be not judged. Jesus said, “That’s the heavy stuff of the scriptures. That’s the important stuff.” Now, not only did Jesus say that, but he said that or the people said the scribes, when they speak, they don’t speak with authority. When Jesus speaks, he speaks with authority.

▶ 16:21 In other words, Jesus, when he spoke, he came across that he had the right to say it. Heaven backed him up. But when the scribes talked, why? They were teaching their own opinion. So there was no power in what they said. How many of you heard ministers preaching there’s no power behind what they’re saying? Absolutely. How many of you spoken things that there was no power behind what you said? Because it was your opinion. They were sign seekers. Now, he was healing the dead, casting out demons, I mean, raising the dead, casting out demons, healing the sick, walking on water, calming the storm, and they want a sign. How do we know you’re the son of God?

▶ 17:12 Show us a sign. My goodness, he The Bible says he did so many signs that the heavens couldn’t contain the books that would be written of what he did. And what he spoke. But see, and uh they just want to justify their own opinions and the way they live. He also said that the Bible also says he mocked Jesus, made fun of Jesus, and they were displeased with people following and worshipping Jesus. You see, they don’t like it when you separate yourself to really live for Christ. See, and the more you separate yourself to Christ, the more people are not going to like you, including your family. And this is where a lot of Christians cannot overcome. They want everybody to like them, and they want to serve Jesus.

▶ 18:08 Well, my friend, when you read the book, the more you follow Jesus, the more people don’t like you. Why? Because you expose them. And they don’t like it. So, they’ll call you a holy roller or religious idiot or whatever. Are you hearing me? And these were the ones that people went to to find out what the scriptures said. They feared Jesus. See, they were afraid of him. Just like it said over there. That these carpenters come to put them in fear. Okay? They feared Jesus. They said he cast out demons by Beelzebub, the chief of devils.

▶ 18:59 And then they killed Jesus because they were afraid of him. They didn’t like people following him. They wanted people to follow them. They made their money off people following them. And then, we have the pagan religious leaders. Rome was is was built around paganism, idolatry. Uh Caesars were considered gods and to be worshipped. And they tried to kill Paul. You see, these are the four horns that opposed the building of the church. Are you with me? And see, he gave us the perfect illustration over there in Zechariah. See? Now, Luke 20:46, Jesus said, “Beware of the scribes.” In Luke 11:44, “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.” In Matthew 5:20, we get the summation of it all.

▶ 20:08 “Except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no way, no case, enter the kingdom.” Did you hear that? He didn’t say, “Except your faith exceed.” He didn’t say, “Except your belief exceed.” He didn’t say, “Except your grace exceed.” He said, “Except your standard of living, doing right, exceeds the scribes and the Pharisees, you can’t get into the kingdom because they’re not getting into the kingdom.” Now, how many of that’s that’s just clear? That’s just plain. And how many American Christians have been brainwashed into believing because they believe in Christ, they’re automatically going to heaven?

▶ 21:06 No accountability. So, Bible morality is the entrance into the kingdom of God. Can I hear an amen? Amen. Along with believing in Jesus, there’s no there’s no other way. Jesus is the way. But we got to put some action behind it. Now, the craftsmen, who are the craftsmen? We found out who the horns were that were opposing the building and the restoration of God’s people. Now, who are the craftsmen that are going to put these these opposers in fear and cast their power out over the people. See? Their influence over the people. Okay? You got John the Baptist and you got Jesus. Both of them were filled with the Holy Spirit.

▶ 21:58 This is very important. Both of them preached the word. Not their word, God’s word. And that word was repent and bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. That was their message. Repent and what? Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance. Not just turn, not just in your mind say I’m wrong, but you what? Start doing right. And it takes a while for some of us to overcome. It’s okay. God We’re in a growing session. But we should be growing, shouldn’t we? Yes. Yeah. See, so a lot of people think because they cried the altar and they feel bad because they’re doing wrong that oh, I’ve arrived. No, you arrive when you stop doing wrong.

▶ 22:52 Amen? Now, John did no miracles. Now, this is important, too, because I got saved in Pentecostal church, Assembly of God, and the Pentecostals really pushed, “Man, if you want to reach the world, you got to have miracles.” And uh Oral Roberts was saying, “A miracle a day, expect a miracle every day.” And my goodness, it’s a guilt trip on you if you’re going to preach the gospel, you got to have some kind of performance to back it up, to prove to the people, you know, and man, I I couldn’t do any miracles. I’d preach my heart out, but I wasn’t doing any miracles. I was trying. I was trying to do what my leaders told me to do, but nothing was happening. Now, people were getting saved. People were turning their life around, but I wasn’t doing any miracles. And finally, God had to awaken my brain, my spiritual brain, and say, “Son, it’s okay not to do miracles.

▶ 23:50 John the Baptist didn’t do any, and he brought a multitude of Israel to God.” Hallelujah, just preaching repentance. So, I got out of that guilt trip. Now, Jesus did miracles. They rejected John, who didn’t do miracles. They rejected Jesus, and he did do miracles. Herod, the Bible says, feared John. Now, what do we read over there? That the carpenters would what? Put him in fear. And here, Herod is afraid of John, just like Zacharias said. And John, when Herod came to his meeting, John looked at Herod and says, “It’s not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.” Cuz Herod had divorced his wife and stole his brother’s wife, married her, and came down there to Jerusalem to uh in Judah reign and rule.

▶ 24:59 And Herod said, “What you did is wrong.” Herod And Herod didn’t repent. He cut John’s head off. And then this is why I was talking to someone just yesterday. And this is why they don’t want to really live the Bible and speak the Bible because they don’t want the repercussions. That’s exactly what they told me. “If I do what you’re telling me to do people aren’t going to like me and I can pay a price for that. I I’m not going to do that.” And I go, “Yeah, that’s the problem with the American Christians. We don’t want to put our life on the line. We don’t want our family disliking us or our friends disliking us or people on the job disliking us. We’re trying to please everybody but God.

▶ 25:52 Can I hear an amen?” Cost him. He was martyred. Jesus the Bible said had no sin. That’s why he became the perfect sacrifice. Pilate, the Bible says, was afraid of Jesus when he heard who Jesus was when they told him who Jesus said he was, the Son of God. He got afraid. But he still ordered Jesus to be crucified. So he martyred Jesus and in martyring Jesus Jesus through his death destroyed the power of Satan. See, there’s that supernatural power behind these forces. See, he destroyed in his death Satan’s power.

▶ 26:43 See, when when you come to Christ, Satan no more has any authority over you. Do you understand that? He can’t follow you and bother you. He can tempt you and test you. That’s his job. But he can’t possess you, you know, he can’t do anything to you because his power has been destroyed, rendered powerless over people that follow Jesus because Jesus has all the authority. So, we can’t blame Satan. Now, there’s the apostles. 12 of them and then 90 more that we know of they weren’t apostles, but 90 other followers that preached the gospel. They were taught by Jesus for 3 and 1/2 years. How many of you know that would be a good idea? Is for a minister to seriously get 3 and 1/2 years in the Bible before they start opening their big mouth.

▶ 27:45 Personally taught by Jesus Christ and his word. Then, as the Bible says in Luke 24, he opened their understanding. After he rose from the grave, he had been teaching them 3 and 1/2 years, but it wasn’t until the he rose from the grave that he give them the understanding of what he had been teaching. What’s my point? My point is you can hear me preach every Sunday. You can read your Bible all through the week. You can hear people on the radio, but until he opens your understanding, you’re not going to get it. And he opens our understanding little by little, line upon line, precept on precept. I hear Christian talking way above their experience level. Like they’ve experienced it when they haven’t passed level one yet. You’re You’re going to get level 12 until you pass level one.