Zechariah's burden was to help the returned people of Israel to see God's purpose. At that time God's purpose was to recover the temple as the center of His interest. Through Zechariah the Lord seemed to be saying to them, "I do not want your fasting and weeping. Forget about these things. I would even ask you to forget what I did in the past to deal with you. You need to know what I want you to do today. I want you to realize that My desire is that the temple would be built up by My people to be the center and reality of My interest on earth." Today God's intention, His desire, is that we would be one with Him. He has brought us back to the very site, to the ground, even to the foundation of the temple. God wants us to see that His interest, desire, and burden are to finish the building of this temple.
God has a burden. This burden is that He may gain a people in this age to know His heart, to realize His desire, and to be one with Him to build up the Body of Christ. This is what God wants. God's desire is related to His economy. God's economy is to have Christ as everything, to have Him as the center and the circumference, the centrality and the universality, of God's move on this earth. We all need to see this.
Throughout the book of Zechariah Christ is revealed. In chapter one we see Christ as the Man riding on a red horse to take care of God's suffering people; in chapter two, as the One who is measuring Jerusalem; in chapter three, as the One, the High Priest, typified by Joshua the high priest and signified by the stone with seven eyes; in chapter four, as the One, the real King, typified by Zerubbabel; and in chapter six, as the unique One who is qualified to bear the office of both the priesthood and the kingship for the consummation of the building up of God's temple. Now we must go on to see that this all-inclusive Christ is altogether wrapped up with human history. Human history from Adam to the last person of the human race is nothing without Christ. However, according to God's economy, Christ is intimately involved with human history. This means that Christ is wrapped up with every crucial aspect of the four empires signified by the great human image in Daniel 2. As we will see, the Christ revealed in Zechariah 9—14 is a Christ who is involved with human history in a fine, particular, and even intimate way.
The visions in chapters one through six of Zechariah were mainly for consolation to the children of Israel, whereas the prophecies in chapters nine through fourteen are mainly for their encouragement. Without Christ there is neither consolation nor encouragement. The consolation in Zechariah 1—6 is Christ, and the encouragement in Zechariah 9—14 is also Christ. In this message we will consider the first of the prophecies of encouragement.