In 1992, a big budget version of The Last of the Mohicans arrived in the movie theaters.
There are many parts of that movie which stuck with me. One of the more dismal ones is a conversation between Major Duncan and Colonel Munro. Munro is holding a British fort against the French, and it is not going well. Duncan asks Munro about “the situation”, and Munro replies in this way:
“The situation is that his guns are bigger than mine and he has more of them. We keep our heads down while his troops dig 30 yards of trench a day. When those trenches are 200 yards from the fort and within range, he’ll bring in his 15-inch mortars, lob explosive rounds over our walls, and pound us to dust.”
The situation, in other words, was a losing situation. It was a losing situation and Munro knew it was a losing situation.
He felt hopelessness. He felt despair. He felt darkness; felt he was in the darkness (that’s how I would describe it; I would describe that as darkness or coldness).
And that darkness/coldness is what a guy named Zerubbabel was feeling a couple thousand years before Munro and The Last of the Mohicans. Zerubbabel was the governor of the /restoration community that was trying to rebuild Jerusalem and restore The Temple.
And it didn’t look to him or to anybody else like he was going to succeed, like that was going to happen. It looked to him and everyone else that he was going to lose, to fail. It looked to him and everyone else like the rebuilding project was hopeless. And so he and the entire restoration community were in the darkness. They were in the cold.
And that darkness, that coldness, that hopelessness is what God addresses as He continues ministering to the people through the ministry of the prophet Zechariah.
Read Zechariah 4:1-14
When It All Seems Dark.
What to do/think/feel/understand/believe/cling to when it all seems dark (or cold; whichever you prefer).
Zechariah 4 records yet another of Zechariah’s eight “Night Visions”
Zechariah 4 records the fifth of those visions. The NIV calls it “The Gold Lampstand and the Two Olive Trees”.
It is a light source, that is unfamiliar to us today who live in the era of electric lighting but a light source nonetheless, a great light source
In conjunction with that are two olive trees…one on the right of the bowl or lampstand and the other on its left. As Zechariah says later in the chapter (verse 12), these olive trees are pouring out golden oil through two gold pipes into the lampstand/bowl of the lampstand
The lampstand is a complete source of light being fed by these two trees. Zachariah sees that, but he does not understand it. and the the angel begins explaining the lampstand.
Instead, he explains it with a series of statements, rather esoteric yet encouraging statements. The first statement is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty; this is probably the most familiar line in the book.
The second statement is, “What are you, O mighty mountain? Before Zerubbabel you will become level ground. Then he will bring out the capstone to shouts of ‘God bless it! God bless it!’ ”; this is close to my favorite line; it is very similar to what Jesus taught about faith moving mountains (Matthew 21:21).
The third statement is “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple; his hands will also complete it; that is a promise, a direct promise that Zerubbabel will finish what he started; that his work will get done.
And the final statement is “Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel;
Those four statements, each of which are about the completion of the rebuilding project, which Zerubbabel and the others didn’t think would happen, is an expression of God’s involvement with the world.
You put all those things together, then, and this is what then angel and the prophet are telling us: the lampstand is
the ability of God to do or get done what He wants done. That’s probably the best explanation of the lampstand.
The efficiency of God, the sure and certain effectiveness of God, the potential energy of God, God’s ability to do what He wants to do/get done what He wants to get done. That efficacy is a real thing.
How many times does Scripture talk about it? How many times does God tell us in Scripture, “I’m going to do what I want to do. I’m going to accomplish what I want to accomplish. I’m going to achieve what I want to achieve. Nothing is too difficult for Me. Nothing is impossible for me.”
I learned this from the popular comedian Gallagher. One of the jokes he told was this: “Why do they put the little on/off words on a light switch? If the light’s on, you can see that it’s on. If the light’s off, you can’t see to read.”
Light is effective by its very nature; it can’t be not effective. It always overcomes darkness.
It always illuminates, always warms. And that kind of light, the greatest kind of light, was there for the restoration community. It was there behind their rebuilding project. The light was on for them.
That’s the situation as God revealed it to Zechariah;
And we are in that same situation today. This is still the right way to look at our situation today. We too have a God-given, grand designs. For me it is the making of disciples, the advancing of the Kingdom. Maybe for you it is evangelizing or teaching. And at times it looks like this project is hopeless.
At times it seems like we who are working on projects are in the dark and the cold. This is particularly true in our time when we are told that church attendance is going down across the country, church giving is going down (meaning we have less resources to work with), interest in The Faith or any faith is going down. I sometimes despair of making disciples.
But this lampstand is still here. It is still here for us providing illumination and warmth. God is still accomplishing things not by might or power but by His spirit.
Think of Sam in The Lord Of The Rings; as he and Frodo were trudging toward Mt Doom to destroy the Ring, he was rationing their food so there would be enough for the return journey. That’s what we need to do. I don’t know what project God has you working on.
But I do know that, dark and cold and hopeless as it may at times seem, He wants you to keep working on it. I know that His lampstand keeps shining as we olive trees keep feeding it. I know we are not going to fail; we, by His light and warmth, are going to succeed.
That’s the message of the lampstand and the olive trees. It is going to be done. God is going to get it done. He wants you to get it done with Him.
And that’s the One who wants us to return to Him. The One who is our lampstand. The One who gives us light and warmth. The One who levels mountains. The One who accomplishes what needs to be accomplished for us and through us.
Original source can be found here.
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