Our Strength, or God’s Spirit?Zechariah 4:1-14

Main Idea: Our greatest need is God’s Spirit, not our own strength.

1. God’s Spirit Conquers the Greatest Obstacles (4:1-7).
2. God’s Spirit Overcomes the Smallest Beginnings (4:8-10).
3. God’s Spirit Uses the Unlikeliest People (4:11-14).

Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined San Francisco Bay on September 25, 2013, to watch two boats battle one another for the oldest trophy in international sport, the America’s Cup. That year, Oracle Team USA overcame a 1–8 deficit to defeat Emirates Team New Zealand 9–8 in the largest comeback in the race’s 162-year history.

Larry Ellison, the billionaire who sponsored Oracle Team, reportedly spent more than $100 million to win the race. He commissioned a 72-foot catamaran yacht that weighed seven tons, sported carbon fiber sails 131 feet tall, and reached incredible speeds of over 50 miles per hour. He hired an experienced 11-member crew to man the ship and put veteran captain Sir Ben Ainslie in charge.

But none of those things were the most essential part of the ship’s victory—not the expert crew, not the high-tech sails and engineering, not the big money, not even the tactics of the captain. None of those things were the most essential part. As with any sailing race, victory ultimately depends on the wind.

Perhaps the best-known phrase from the book of Zechariah is, “‘Not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.” The Hebrew term for “Spirit” is ruach, a word that also means “wind” in some contexts. The Greek word for “Spirit” used in the New Testament, pneuma, also can mean “wind.”

It is important to understand that God’s Spirit is a person, a part of the triune God along with the Father and the Son. God’s Spirit is not merely a force, a presence, or a power. Still, there is something instructive and insightful in the fact that the word for “Spirit” can also mean “wind.”

Consider just a few of the implications:

(1) Like God’s Spirit, wind is unseen but creates visible results. Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it pleases, and you hear its sound, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).

(2) The wind’s strength can only be accessed when the conditions are right. A sail must be turned toward the wind in order to be moved by it. In the same way, God commands believers to be “filled by the Spirit” (Eph 5:18). The Spirit only operates fully in believers when our hearts are in a posture of surrender.

(3) Like the Spirit, wind has greater power than human effort. While the wind-powered yachts in the America’s Cup reached speeds of 55 miles per hour, an 8-man Olympic rowing crew cannot even reach half that speed. The wind makes the difference. To an even greater degree, we need God’s Spirit—God’s divine wind in our sails—in order to live for Him and serve Him with power.

If you have been saved, the Holy Spirit of God is in you. To belong to Jesus is to have the Holy Spirit. In Romans 8:9 Paul writes, “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” So failure to have God’s Spirit is failure to belong to Jesus. However, if you do indeed belong to Jesus Christ, then God’s Holy Spirit has come to live inside of you. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6:19, “your body is a sanctuary of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God.” On the basis of His presence in our bodies, God’s Spirit is available to “fill” believers (Eph 5:18), which speaks of His control, dominance, and power in our lives.

Our greatest need is for God’s Spirit, not our own strength. That’s the message of Zechariah 4. This is true in every area of life, including marriage and family, business and career, and ministry and church. Absolutely, undeniably, and essentially, we must have God’s Spirit, because God’s Spirit can do what God alone can do. Chapter 4 describes the fifth vision that the Lord gave to Zechariah to proclaim. The vision can be understood by viewing it through the lens of Zechariah 4:6:

So he answered me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of Hosts.”

God wanted Zechariah to take the message of this vision to a specific person, Zerubbabel, the governor of the land of Judah. Along with the rest of the remnant who had returned to the land, Zerubbabel was given the task of rebuilding the temple of God in Jerusalem. Under Zerubbabel’s leadership, the work had started over a decade before. He had led the people to lay the temple’s foundations, but nothing had happened since then. For the temple—which represented God’s presence, His blessings, and His power—to be left incomplete was a burden to the heart of the Zerubbabel and the people. Seeing it still in ruins so long after they had returned to rebuild it must have been discouraging and defeating for them. More than that, they probably doubted whether they would ever be able to build the temple, since they had been powerless to do so for such a long time.

In the midst of their hopelessness and discouragement, the Lord sent a message of hope to Zerubbabel. Take a moment to consider each part of the text of Zechariah 4:6. Not by strength. Strength refers to the military power of Zerubbabel and his people. God was saying, in effect, “Zerubbabel, the answer is not in the power of your armies or your weapons or your horses or your chariots. That’s not how you’re going to accomplish this task.” Or by might. Might refers to human manpower. God was telling Zerubbabel, “Getting people motivated so that they put their all into this effort will not get this work done.” Instead, God promised to achieve what needed to be accomplished by My Spirit. Only God’s Spirit could accomplish the task that was in front of God’s people. As the vision unfolds, this passage reveals three things that only God’s Spirit can do.

God’s Spirit Conquers the Greatest Obstacles (Zechariah 4:1-7)

The angel who has been interpreting the visions wakes Zechariah up as though the prophet had been sleeping, and the angel begins to show him objects related to worship in the temple. Zechariah sees a golden lampstand, a furnishing for the temple that would look much like a candelabra. The Hebrew for “lampstand” is menorah. This lampstand seems to be similar to the one in the tabernacle described in Exodus 25:31-40 or to the 10 lampstands that were in Solomon’s temple as described in 1 Kings 7:49. This lampstand has a significantly different source of oil from either of those lampstands. In both the tabernacle and the temple, the duty of the high priest was to trim the wicks of the lampstands each morning and evening and to fill the lamps with oil so that they would keep burning (Lev 24:2-3). In Zechariah’s vision, however, the prophet sees a bowl, or a reservoir of oil, suspended above the lampstand. The bowl has seven channels coming out of it for each bowl, making a total of 49 conduits. Oil pours down from these channels into the lamps in an abundant supply. Zechariah also sees olive trees standing on either side of the lampstand, one to the right and other to the left. Later in the passage, Zechariah will note that these trees are tapped with “two gold conduits, from which golden oil pours out” (v. 12). Instead of requiring human effort to keep the lamps burning, the Lord has provided a perpetual supply of oil.

The imagery thus far is straightforward. The golden lampstand symbolizes God’s people, Israel. The oil—produced by the olive trees, supplied by the suspended bowl, and delivered by the 49 channels—represents the work of Holy Spirit, empowering Israel to be a light to the nations, directing them to God.

When Zechariah asks the angel the meaning of what he is seeing, instead of giving an immediate explanation of the symbolism of the lampstand, bowl, and olive trees, the angel explains the spiritual truth behind the symbols: “Not by strength or by might, but by My Spirit.” The vision portrays an endless supply of God’s Spirit, an endless supply of God’s power for His people to accomplish God’s purpose, supplied by God Himself. In the vision the bowl is above the lamp. This indicates that God’s power is not something that human beings work up. God’s power is something that He sends down. When the channels are open in our lives to receive His Spirit’s power, He is ready to send down everything we need to do His work.

Then in verse 7 the Lord gives this message to Zerubbabel: “What are you, great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become a plain.” The “mountain” refers to the opposition that stood in front of Zerubbabel as he tried to do God’s work in rebuilding the temple. God’s enemies living in the area came against Zerubbabel and the Jews with words of discouragement and hostility. Imagine their taunts: “You cannot rebuild this temple. You have barely gotten started, and you will never finish. You might as well quit. We are going to fight you at every turn.” In the face of that mountain of opposition, God was saying, “What are you? Zerubbabel will flatten you by the power of My Spirit.”

God’s Spirit can overcome mountainous obstacles in our way and reduce them to level ground so that we can do what God is calling us to do. God promised that, by His Spirit, Zerubbabel would one day “bring out the capstone accompanied by shouts of: Grace, grace to it!” In other words, the leader of God’s people would complete the temple and place the final touch on its highest point, and the beauty of the rebuilt house of the Lord would be evident to everyone who saw it. All this would come about through the work of God’s Spirit, not because of Zerubbabel’s strength or the might of the people.

God’s Spirit can conquer our greatest obstacles. Too many times, though, we allow our obstacles to conquer us. In his book Fuzzy Memories, humorist Jack Handey wrote, “There used to be this bully who would demand my lunch money every day. Since I was smaller, I would give it to him. Then I decided to fight back. I started taking karate lessons. But then the karate lesson guy said I had to start paying him five dollars a lesson. So I just went back to paying the bully” (Fuzzy Memories, n.p.). Too often, that is what too many of us do. Instead of finding the strength and courage to defeat the obstacles that oppose us, we decide that it is easier just to keep paying the bully.

By the power of God’s Spirit, when there is a bully, a mountain, or some other opposition or obstacle standing in front of you, daring you to even try to trust God, you can say, “Who are you, great mountain?” Whether you face the mountain of discouragement, the mountain of financial crisis, the mountain of past failures, the mountain of addiction, the mountain of criticism, the mountain of the misplaced guilt from your past, or the mountain of doubt about your future, you can stand in front of that mountain and say, “What are you, great mountain?”

And if you listen carefully, you may hear the mountain reply, “I am a great mountain. What are you?” Standing on our own, we would never have an answer for the mountains we face. But standing in the power of God’s Holy Spirit, when the mountain says, “I’m a mountain. What are you?” we can say, “I am a child of God, living in the power of God’s Spirit. The blood of Jesus Christ has redeemed me. His Spirit lives inside of me. Mountain, you will become level ground in front of me.” Praise the Lord!

There may be a mountain you have faced for years, just as Zerubbabel faced the mountain of the incomplete temple. Each day of continued opposition and the increasing sense of defeat makes the mountain seem larger and more overwhelming. By now, you may think that you simply will never overcome it. And, in the deepest sense, you are right. You cannot overcome your obstacle. You cannot flatten the mountain on your own. But the Holy Spirit of God can overcome it. He lives inside of you, and He will empower you. The greatest obstacles can be conquered. As you trust in Him, God’s Spirit conquers even the greatest of obstacles.

God’s Spirit Overcomes the Smallest Beginnings (Zechariah 4:8-10)

In verses 8-10 Zechariah’s fifth vision continues with a word of encouragement for Zerubbabel. In verse 9 the Lord acknowledges that Zerubbabel had laid the foundation for the temple. He had started on the rebuilding project a number of years before, in 537–536 BC (Ezra 3:8-11; 5:16). When the rebuilding began, the priests had dressed in their robes and held trumpets while the Levites stood with cymbals in hand to lead the people of Israel in praise. Together, the people shouted and gave thanks to the Lord for His goodness and His eternal love. There had been tremendous celebration when the foundation of the Lord’s house had been laid. Now the year was 519 BC. Over 17 years had passed, and the foundations had become a bitter visual testimony to an unfulfilled hope.

How encouraged Zerubbabel must have been to hear this promise from God: “Zerubbabel’s hands have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands will complete it.” The language here uses synecdoche, in which the parts, “Zerubabbel’s hands,” represent the whole, the man himself. Repeating the figure of speech—“Zerubbabel’s hands have laid the foundation” and “his hands will complete it”—emphasizes the fact that Zerubbabel, who had personally begun building the temple, would also personally fulfill his God-given task by completing it. When Zerubbabel finished the temple, the angel promised, “Then you will know that the Lord of Hosts has sent me to you.” With those words, which repeat identical pledges made in 2:9 and 2:11, the angel offered not only a confirmation of Zechariah’s prophetic ministry, but also an assurance of the validity of all the visions the angel had shown the prophet.

As a result, the angel asks this rhetorical question: “Who scorns the day of small things?” The word translated “scorn,” buz in Hebrew, means to despise or hold in contempt. It indicates showing disrespect for someone or something. The word is used in Proverbs to caution fools against despising God’s wisdom (Prov 1:7; 23:9), to warn about the danger of disrespecting a mother or father (Prov 23:22; 30:17), or to judge those who hold God’s Word in contempt (Prov 13:13). The angel’s question in 4:10 also carries a cautionary tone. The NET Bible captures this warning especially well: “Who dares make light of small beginnings?”

“The day of small things” refers to the day when Zerubabbel and other returning Jews had started work on the temple. The longer Zerubbabel and company went without completing the building, the more insignificant that foundation seemed to be. You may have watched what happens in your community when someone starts to build a house but never finishes it. You drive down the road and see the building has been started. Workers dig the footings and pour the concrete for the foundation. They start to put up the walls or go even further. Then one day you drive by and you notice that construction has stopped. Maybe the builder ran out of money, or perhaps something tragic happened in the life of the family that was building the home. But for whatever reason, the building just sits there unfinished. Eventually, weeds begin to overtake the foundation. Rain starts to rot the wood of the uncompleted walls. A building that had looked promising at the beginning becomes more and more insignificant as the days pass with no progress.

A similar thing had happened with the temple in Jerusalem. More than a decade and a half before, Zerubbabel had laid the foundation. He had marked out all the footings to show where the temple was going to be. He and his workers, along with the rest of the returning Jews, must have been brimming with excitement to think that they were going to rebuild the house of God. Then, because of opposition and challenge, the work stopped. For days, then weeks, and eventually years, nothing happened. Now there were among God’s people those who despised the day of small things, who held the construction of the temple in contempt. They said, “Nothing is going to happen. Nothing has happened in 10 years. Nothing has happened in 15 years. Nothing is going to happen, ever.” As time passed, the project began to look less and less significant and more and more ill advised.

The Lord’s message for Zerubbabel was that when His Spirit touches something that looks small and inconsequential, God will do something significant. Perhaps those who scorned the day of small things were the older Jews who believed the new temple would be lackluster compared with the former temple before the exile (Ezra 3:12-13). Or those who scorned that day may have been the surrounding enemy nations who were at ease as the returning remnant of Israel sought to rebuild Jerusalem (Zech 1:15). Whether the scorn came from enemies on the outside or critics from within Israel, God Himself promised to rejoice as His mission for Zerubbabel was achieved: “These seven eyes of the Lord, which scan throughout the whole earth, will rejoice when they see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.”

The language at the end of verse 10 holds some difficulties. The phrase “the seven eyes of the Lord,” reminiscent of the stone with seven eyes in 3:9, suggests the Lord’s omniscience. The Hebrew translated “plumb line” can also be interpreted to mean “separated stone,” which might be a reference to the capstone in verse 7. If the meaning is “plumb line,” Yahweh, who sees and knows all, promises to rejoice as the construction of the temple begins again under Zerubbabel’s supervision. If the meaning is “capstone,” then Yahweh’s rejoicing comes at the temple’s completion. In either case, the idea is very similar: though Zerubbabel’s detractors scoff at his attempts to rebuild the temple, the Lord will overcome meager beginnings through His Spirit.

Just as Zerubbabel had an assignment from the Lord to rebuild the temple, every follower of Jesus has a specially designed life assignment from God. For each of us, there is a project God has for our lives. While all believers have the same ultimate purpose of living for God’s glory (1 Cor 10:31), the way that purpose fleshes out in the details of our lives every day differs for each Christian. But many of us have been in the same place that Zerubbabel was. God has given us an assignment, and maybe we have started it but we have unfulfilled dreams, uncompleted goals, dead visions, or half-built projects. We have laid the foundation but now we feel stuck. God’s Word assures us that, through the power of God’s Spirit, we can finish what we have started. God’s Spirit can overcome small and even frustrated beginnings and, in the end, the small things that some people despised will become finished projects over which people rejoice.

A friend of mine says that every church has a “Cold Water Committee.” These are people who have appointed themselves to discourage the dreams of other people and throw a bucket of cold water on them. Sometimes they even throw the cold water “in Jesus’ name”! As a pastor, people come to me often with ideas and dreams they believe the Lord has given them. At times, some of their ideas seem outlandish and impossible, and I am tempted to join the “Cold Water Committee” myself and tell them all the reasons their idea will never work. But then I remember that I serve a God for whom nothing is impossible (Matt 17:20). I am thankful for people who have encouraged me to pursue God’s calling on my life, rather than dousing every dream I have had. We need people like that in our lives. And, even when no one else sees the vision God has given us, the Holy Spirit of God who lives in us will encourage us and overcome the smallest beginnings. In Philippians Paul assures believers, “I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil 1:6).

God’s Spirit Uses the Unlikeliest People (Zechariah 4:11-14)

At the conclusion of the fifth vision, Zechariah asks the angel who has been revealing the vision to him two questions that both reiterate and clarify the initial questions asked in verse 4. The first question, found in verse 11, concerns the olive trees on either side of the menorah. The second question, found in verse 12, is more specific, asking for the identity of the two olive branches beside the gold conduits out from which “the golden oil” (literally “the gold”) flows.

After further conversation in verse 13, the angel gives the answer to the first question: “These are the two anointed ones . . . who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.” According to the angel, these branches are people, the “two anointed ones,” which means “two sons of oil.” The phrase indicates that two men had been set apart and anointed by God as His special representatives. While the identity of these two men is not explicitly mentioned in this text, the context strongly indicates they must be Zerubbabel the governor and Joshua the High Priest (Barker, “Zechariah,” 631). Zerubbabel, a member of the line of David, embodies the political leadership of Judah. Joshua the High Priest, whom we met chapter 3 and will meet again in chapter 6, personifies the spiritual leadership of God’s people.

Joshua and Zerubbabel were unlikely people for God to use. These two branches, through whom God’s Spirit flowed and by whom God promised to complete His work in Jerusalem, were not Moses, not Aaron, not David, not Solomon, but Joshua and Zerubbabel.

Consider Zerubbabel. He was, by all accounts, a godly man, yet he had an ungodly name. His name means “descendant of Babylon.” Zerubabbel’s very name brought to mind a wicked kingdom. Although Zerubbabel descended from the kingly line and was the grandson of King Jehoiachin of Judah (see Ezra 3:2 and 1 Chr 3:17-19), he was not a king himself. Instead, he was a governor, a vassal ruler under the authority of a pagan king.

Now consider Joshua. He is a high priest with no temple. We last found him in chapter 3 being cleansed from the horrendous filth with which he had been clothed. He has a famous and beautiful name, which means “Yahweh delivered.” Yet, any time we teach or talk about him, we have to distinguish this Joshua from the storied leader of Israel who first took control of the promised land of Canaan. Imagine meeting a man in heaven one day who introduces himself as “Joshua from the Old Testament.” Your elation at meeting him would no doubt diminish a little when he told you, “Now, before you get too excited, I need to tell you: I’m Joshua the high priest, not Joshua the son of Nun who fought the battle of Jericho.” This is Joshua with a lowercase “j,” Joshua the minor character in a book written by a minor prophet! He served alongside a mere governor. Still, God promises that He will use these unlikely men to do great and mighty things.

Conventional wisdom says that you have to have great resources to accomplish great things. It says you have to be a great person to accomplish great things. We tend to believe we can only do great things if we have large financial resources and talented people and innovative ideas. The truth is that our abundance of resources and abilities do not really help God accomplish His work, and our lack of resources and abilities cannot hinder God from doing His work. God works not by our might or strength but by His Spirit.

Consider a few examples. In Judges 3:31 a man you have probably barely even heard of, Shamgar, delivered Israel from the Philistines singlehandedly. He won a great victory by killing 600 Philistines with nothing more than an oxgoad, a stick sharpened at one end to drive along slow-moving oxen. Shamgar was an unlikely hero—as was Moses. When God asked Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, he was afraid no one would listen to him or follow him. God asked him, “What is that thing you have in your hand?” Moses answered, “It’s a rod, just a stick.” And God used that rod to convince the people to follow Moses, to turn the Nile River into blood, to bring great plagues on Egypt, to part the Red Sea, and to perform miracles in the wilderness (Lee, “Two Sticks”).

God uses ordinary instruments and unlikely people to do great things. We might be tempted to say, “I’m not much. I don’t have much. I don’t know much. I can’t do much.” Those things don’t matter to God. Here’s what matters: Are you willing to take who you are and what you have and place all of yourself into His hands? Zerubbabel, the unlikely governor descended from the line of David, points forward to the coming Messiah who would sit on David’s throne and rule the nations (Isa 9:7). Lower-case “j” Joshua reminds us of the coming Yeshua, whose name belongs in all caps, underscored, and bold print, whom the Bible calls our Great High Priest “who has passed through the heavens—Jesus the Son of God” (Heb 4:14). Through Him, we can turn a discouraging deficit into a stimulating success. Are you willing to turn the sails of your life toward His Spirit so that His Spirit can be the wind in your sails and take you where He wants you to go? God’s Spirit can conquer incredible obstacles and turn mountains into plains. His Spirit can make great things out of small beginnings. His Spirit can use the least likely people for His glory. His Spirit can do what our might and strength could never do as we give ourselves to Him.

Reflect and Discuss

1. The people of Judah had allowed the temple in Jerusalem to remain incomplete. What aspects of our spiritual lives do believers sometimes leave unfinished?
2. The Lord reminded Judah that they would accomplish their work by His Spirit rather than through military power or human effort. What substitutes for the work of God’s Spirit may we be tempted to rely upon?
3. What are some of the mountainous obstacles we face in our lives and ministries?
4. Why do those difficulties often seem to become bigger as more time passes?
5. How does God’s Spirit work in our lives to overcome our biggest challenges?
6. When you have a God-given vision, how do you respond to those who “scorn the days of small things”?
7. In what ways does the Holy Spirit encourage us when others “throw cold water” on God’s calling for our lives?
8. Why do you believe God often chooses to use unlikely people in His kingdom?
9. This chapter listed a few unlikely people mentioned in Scripture whom God used. Who are some others? How did God’s Spirit use them?
10. What adjustments do you need to make in your life in order for the Holy Spirit of God to use you to the fullest extent?