Zechariah 7

In this be not like the serpent, obstinately to stop your ears to the voice of God's Word. While God calls you to repent of sin, be not as the Basilisk, to stop your ear (Zechariah 7:11). They refused to hearken, and stopped their ears, that they might not hear.

Let there be none among you that wilfully refuse the counsels of the word: it is sad to have an adder's ear, an adamant heart. (Zechariah 7:11-12). If when God speaks to us in his word we are deaf, when we speak to him in prayer he will be dumb.

Tell them of God's holiness and justice, they are not at all affected. (Zechariah 7:12) They made their hearts like an adamant. The adamant, says Pliny, is insuperable, the hammer cannot conquer it: sinners have adamantine hearts.

(2.) Such as live in contradiction to the word (Isaiah 30:8). (3.) Such as are more hardened by the word (Zechariah 7:11). They made their heart as an adamant.

Therefore it does not justify a set time of fasting in the New Testament, where God has left man to his own liberty without giving a like commandment. It is again alleged that in Zechariah 7:5 there were set times appointed for the celebration of religious fasts — the fifth and…

And Hosea called his hearers to the most High, yet none at all would exalt Him. It was their work to stretch out their hands all the day long, but they hardened their necks, and refused to return (Jeremiah 8 and Zechariah 7). But 5thly, consider — all these are servants and prea…

3. We often thirst after comforts, and sense, as the people did, and (Isaiah 58:5) were reproved for their fast: Is it such a fast as I have chosen? And (Zechariah 7:5) Did you at all fast to me, even to me? So may Christ blame us for the like sin, and say, Have you thirsted to…

3. It's a sign of an obdurate heart. (Zechariah 7:11) But they have refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ear, lest they should hear. And so judgment-like is withdrawing, and smells so of vengeance, that God plagues withdrawing with withdrawing: (Ho…

Then shall I never be ashamed, when I have respect to all your commandments. All such actions will be acceptable to God, and serviceable to men; and also aim at the glory of God for the end, that is, their last end, and all such other ends as are subordinate to that, the buildin…

5. It's not enough to do duties, and to lay up fruits, unless they be laid up for Christ; and this is no less a duty than the former. 6. It's no small attainment in a believer, and a strong motive for attaining of Christ's company (without which all will be nothing) when not onl…

And the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple, first observed at the rebuilding of their temple after their return from the Babylonian captivity; as you may read (Ezra 6:16), and from that time perpetuated to the days of our Savior Christ, who, though it were but of human and ec…

May not God say to them of their fastings and prayers, Did you fast to me? Did you pray at all to me? (Zechariah 7:5). Or as here to the Jews, that he was full of their services, even to a loathing; that he took no delight in them, and who has required these things at your hands…

2. Christ rectifies them as to the end: Pray to your Father which is in secret: That is, Pray to God, who is in that private place, though he cannot be seen with bodily eyes: Wherein Christ seems secretly to tax the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who did rather pray to men, than to…

Though a man has never so much sense and feeling in his prayer, yet if his heart be not duly set as to the glory of God, his prayer is turned into sin. It is not the manner of the vehemency only, for a carnal spring may send forth high-tides of affection; and motions that come f…

Always according to the closeness of the application if it succeed not, so does our hardness of heart increase: they that were ministerially stirred, when they pull away the shoulder, their hearts grow like an adamant stone. But they refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoul…

In regard of God, without this disposition his Word will not, indeed cannot take any place in us, or prevail with us for our good: counsels, and commands, and comforts, or whatever dispensations, they fall as water upon a rock, when administered to a hard heart, they enter not,…

3. Others, as they have earth in their ears, so they have a stone in their hearts. Zechariah 7:12: They made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law. The ministers of Christ therefore must be frequently brandishing the sword of the Spirit, and striking at…

You have opened your mouth wide, but have not opened your ear. When God has called you to family prayer and mortification of sin, you have like the deaf adder stopped your ear against God (Zechariah 7:11). No wonder then that you have not that comfortable filling as you desire.

A wicked man, like Jehoram, has his compassion fallen out (2 Chronicles 21:19). Therefore he is compared to an adamant (Zechariah 7:11), because his heart melts not in mercy. Before conversion the sinner is compared to a wolf for his savageness, to a lion for his fierceness, to…

Works of mercy are good, but when a man gives alms not so much to feed the poor as to feed his pride, now he brings forth fruit to himself, and this fruit is worm-eaten. God will say to all such self-seekers as he once said to the people of the Jews (Zechariah 7:5): when you fas…

(6) And vain stoutness to dare God in his own quarters and fight him (Exodus 14:8, 23; Exodus 23:8, 13; Isaiah 36:10-11, 36-37), if it were in his own seas as Pharaoh and the Egyptians would do. 13. There is a wicked hardening of the heart, when men make the Lord his word and mi…

8. There is a promise of glory, of a name above all names made to Christ for his sufferings (Psalm 16:9-11) (Isaiah 53:12) (Acts 5:31), and to such as suffer with him, and overcome (Luke 22:29-30) (Revelation 3:21) (Revelation 2:10). As also, he shall bear all the glory of his F…

No man repented him of his wickedness. Mens hearts are marbled into hardness, (Zechariah 7:12). They made their heart as an Adamant.

Their dissembling tears drop beside God's bottle, their Prayers and Fasts prove abortive. Zechariah 7:5. When you fasted and mourned, did you at all fast unto me, even to me?

There is another hardness of heart which is felt, and this is not so dangerous as the former; for as we feel our sickness by contrary life and health, so hardness of heart when it is felt argues quickness of grace and softness of heart. Of this David often complained in the Psal…

When these two kinds of duties are spoken of together, the latter are evermore greatly preferred. As in (Isaiah 1:12-18; Amos 5:21 etc.; Micah 6:7-8; Isaiah 58:5-7; Zechariah 7, ten first verses; Jeremiah 2, seven first verses; Matthew 15:3 etc.) Often, when the times were very…

If there be so much filthiness in their profession, how much more in their persecution, in their reviling and scorning of the ways of God? If their fastings and maceration be sinful and not to the Lord (Zechariah 7:5), what is their drunkenness, their spewing and staggering, the…