From Fasting to Feasting

The last test cautions against taking advantage of other people or seeking revenge. God said, “Do not plot evil in your hearts against one another.” Righteous living requires letting go of grudges and refusing to devise ways of hurting others, even those who had inflicted hurt on God’s people.

God gave these tests so that His people could hold up their hearts to His pure and holy standard, to make sure they were not just being religious, but instead, pursuing righteousness. Zechariah 8:16-17 contains a similar call to practical righteousness in the way God’s people live. It lists actions God approves and those He hates. We can pursue religious activity all day long and yet be far, far from God. A transforming relationship with God will cause hearts to act rightly toward others.

Early on in our marriage, when we were trying to decorate our apartment, Michele bought pieces of Chinese pottery to put on display. She bought plates, bowls, pitchers, teapots, cups, and all kinds of things. The pieces were white with pale blue designs all over them. While they were pretty, the pieces were also very inexpensive. Michele put them up on the shelves in our house, and they were beautiful and ornamental. One day I noticed that every one of these pieces had either a sticker or even words painted on the piece in the blue paint with a warning message: “For decorative purposes only. Do not use for cooking, drinking, or eating. Could result in poisoning.” The blue and white Chinese cups, saucers, plates, and bowls looked like something you could eat on or drink from, but something inside of them was poisonous and very dangerous.

Pursuing religion without righteousness is much like that. Too many times, our faith is for decorative purposes only. It may be attractive and impressive on the outside, but on the inside the poison of sinfulness and selfishness remains—just like the Pharisees Jesus described who cleaned the outside of the cup and plate but left the inside filled with greed and self-indulgence (Matt 23:25-26). For the Lord, the issue is not what I show everybody on the outside but what is going on in my heart, on the inside.

Only the power of the gospel can cleanse us from the inside. We can give ourselves a spiritual makeover or a religious face-lift and attempt to make ourselves look better but we cannot change who we are on the inside. But God can. He makes us right with Himself through the blood of Jesus Christ, so we can live transformed lives that move beyond our greed, self-indulgence, and selfishness. Through the transforming work of the gospel, we can begin living with selflessness, kindness, and compassion toward others.

A third way that God moves us from fasting to feasting is by teaching us to hear and obey His voice rather than following the voice of our own desires. This passage talks about the people of Judah before the exile, describing their unwillingness to listen to God’s voice. After stating that they “refused to pay attention,” the Lord portrays His people’s deliberate inattention with several powerful and picturesque phrases: (1) They “turned a stubborn shoulder.” This phrase, also used in Nehemiah 9:29, describes the rejection communicated by unmistakable body language when a person turns his back to someone who is speaking. The people had turned their backs on the Lord with a defiant attitude that said, “God, You can talk all You want, but we’re not listening.” (2) They “closed up their ears.” The Hebrew here is literally, “They made their ears heavy.” Similar language is used in Isaiah 6:10:

Dull the minds of these people; deafen their ears and blind their eyes; otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears, understand with their minds, turn back, and be healed.

Like a disobedient child plunging her fingers into her ears to keep from hearing her mother’s instruction, the people of Israel had worked hard not to listen to what God was saying. (3) They “made their hearts like a rock.” The Hebrew word for “rock” is also translated “diamond” in Jeremiah 17:1. The word denotes an extremely hard, impenetrable, and unbreakable stone. The people had made their hearts as hard as the hardest stone.

Though by His Spirit God had sent multiple prophets as His messengers bearing His Word to the pre-exilic Jews, the people were determined not to hear the Lord (v. 12). In effect, they were telling God: “We won’t hear You. We’re not interested in what You have to say. We’ll keep our rituals and we’ll do the religious things that make us feel spiritual, but we’re not going to change the way we live our lives. We will do whatever it takes not to listen to You.”

The subsequent verses reveal God’s response: (1) God became angry with the people (v. 12). (2) God stopped listening to Israel when they called on Him (v. 13). (3) Ultimately, God scattered them “with a windstorm,” a reference to the attacks of nations such as Assyria and Babylon, and “pleasant land” became a “desolation.” Now, decades later, God reminded the current generation of Jews that the reason they were having to rebuild the destroyed temple and the ruined city of Jerusalem was simply because their forefathers had not listened to Him. God’s judgment in Israel’s history stands as a warning to people who are more intent on obeying their own desires rather than obeying God’s voice.

The anechoic chamber at Orfield Labs, in Minneapolis, is the quietest place on Earth. You enter the room by passing through two sound-proof vaults. Once inside, there is absolutely no sound. The chamber has a sound level of negative nine decibels. The human ear can only detect sounds above zero decibels. While a quiet place like that may seem appealing when compared to the busyness and noise of our world, the truth is, you would probably hate it. Though you cannot hear any sound in the room, you will hear things. You will hear your heart beating. You will hear your lungs functioning. You will hear every single noise your stomach makes. You will hear your own ears working. The silent room can actually cause hallucinations. What might seem like a peaceful place actually becomes a torture chamber. No one has ever been able to stay in that room, by themselves, for more than 45 minutes. Human beings cannot take that kind of silence.

Imagine what it would be like if God were to become absolutely silent. What if we stopped hearing from Him at all? What if the only things we could hear were our own thoughts, our own flawed ideas, the echoes of our own past and guilt, and the clamoring opinions and empty words of other people? What if God were simply to become silent? We would drown in hopelessness, despair, and lostness. We can praise God today that He is not silent. Our God is speaking. By His Spirit, He speaks through His Word. The question is, are we, His people, listening? Are we obeying our own desires, or are we listening to His voice? Are we able to tell the difference between what we want and what God wants? Are we able to tell the difference between our own voice and His voice? As we walk with Him, and as He transforms us, He wants to teach us how to follow Him rather than our own desires. He wants to transform us so that we learn to obey His voice.

The fourth way that God transforms His people is by teaching us to trust His faithfulness rather than our own capabilities. In Zechariah 8 the prophet begins to tell the people exactly what God will do as He transforms their fasting into feasting. In the opening verse God reminds His people of His jealous love for Zion, that is, Jerusalem. These words point back to God’s declaration of holy jealousy for His people and His city in 1:14. This jealousy is what moves God to righteous anger and judgment (8:2). In the verses that follow, God makes promises to His people, revealing His faithfulness to accomplish what they are incapable of doing on their own.

(1) He will return to Jerusalem (v. 3). The Lord’s return to Jerusalem is a recurring theme in Zechariah (see 1:16; 2:10). This promise especially anticipates the personal reign of Christ on the throne of David during the millennial kingdom. Indeed, all of the promises made in the verses that follow will have their fullest completion in the future.

(2) He will bless the residents of the city with both long life and new life (vv. 4-5). When a community is filled with only senior adults, it is a sign that youth and vitality have left. However, I have been in countries with a very low average age and was surprised to be told it is actually a bad sign, showing that few people lived to old age. God told the people of Jerusalem, “You will have both. You’re going to have people who live long, but your city will be filled with children as well.” God acknowledges that His intentions toward His people may seem “incredible to the remnant this people in those days.” Yet, in the same verse He inquires, “Should it also seem incredible to Me?” The implied answer is clear. Nothing, including all of the blessings promised to His people here, is too hard for the Lord.

(3) He will bring the nations to Jerusalem and make them His own (vv. 7-8). God’s plan has always been to bring nations far beyond Israel to Himself. By shining the light of His goodness and mercy through the Jewish nation, God desired the Gentiles to come to Him (Gen 12:3; Isa 49:6). Through the Messiah, Jesus Christ, everyone can come to the living God.

(4) He will bring peace, productivity, and power to His people (vv. 9-13). In verses 9-11 the Lord encouraged the people to “let their hands be strong” so that they could complete the building of the temple, fulfilling the “words that the prophets spoke when the foundations were laid,” a reference to the prophetic ministries of Zechariah and Haggai. The work of rebuilding had been unproductive and dangerous in the early stages, but now God promises a different outcome for His people: this remnant of Israel will be blessed and will be a blessing to the nations.

(5) He will drive away the fear they have experienced (vv. 14-17). Because of the sin and rebellion of their ancestors, God had judged them and given the people reason to fear. But now, just as He had once resolved to treat them badly, He resolves to do good to the people of Judah. The verb resolved, used in both verses, derives its meaning from the idea of talking to oneself in a low voice in order to arrive at a conclusion. By the using this word, God was indicating that His decision to do good to Judah was deliberate, fixed, and settled. For that reason, He assures them, “Don’t be afraid.” Then in verses 16 and 17 the Lord warns the people against repeating the kind of evil and dishonesty that had gotten their forefathers into such trouble to begin with.

The prophetic words that fall between the question from the people of Bethel in 7:3 and God’s promise to replace His people’s fasting with feasting in 8:19 are a strong reminder that, in the midst of our brokenness, discouragement, and heartbreak, God can do a renewed work of transformation. He meets us in our broken places to transform us from serving ourselves to serving Him, from pursuing empty religion to pursuing His righteousness, from listening to our own desires to hearing His voice, and from depending on our own capabilities to trusting His faithfulness.

Several years ago our family discovered a lemon tree in our backyard. One summer I was walking near the tree and I saw that its biggest limb had broken. In fact, the limb was broken at least three-quarters of the way through. When I saw that cracked limb, my immediate reaction was to go get my saw and cut the limb off. But then I noticed something: there were lemons all over that broken limb, and the leaves were still green. So I picked all the lemons off of the limb and filled a large basket with the fruit. A few weeks later, I went out again to the tree. The break had gotten even bigger, but there were more and more lemons on that one branch that was broken. So again, I harvested another basket full of lemons. All summer long, I kept getting fruit off that broken limb. It was, by far, the most productive limb on the tree. In fact, because the broken limb bowed itself to the ground, I was able to get even more fruit off of it than I could have if it was standing up straight.

That limb was a reminder from the Lord that just because we’re broken doesn’t mean we can’t still bear fruit. Just because you’ve experienced times of devastation in your life and have gone through seasons of fasting, those times when life became lean and when you were sorrowful, it doesn’t mean that God still can’t use you for incredible things. The Lord can take those times of brokenness in our lives, those times of fasting, and transform them into seasons of feasting, as we trust in Him.