The Results of Not Listening

Sunday, August 23, 2015
Zechariah 7:8-14 NIV

8 And the word of the LORD came again to Zechariah: 9 "This is what the LORD Almighty said: 'Administer true justice; show mercy and compassion to one another. 10 Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other.' 11 "But they refused to pay attention; stubbornly they turned their backs and covered their ears. 12 They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the LORD Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets. So the LORD Almighty was very angry. 13 " 'When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,' says the LORD Almighty. 14 'I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations, where they were strangers. The land they left behind them was so desolate that no one traveled through it. This is how they made the pleasant land desolate.' "

OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
1) After declaring that obedience to the words of God, deliverered by former prophets, was more important than fasting, what did the Lord tell His people through the prophet Zechariah? (v.8-9)
2) What were God's people to refrain from doing? (v.10)
3) What did God's people do instead and what were the Lord's responses to their rebellion? Why? (v.11-12)

APPLICATION QUESTIONS
4) Have you ever felt that the Lord did not hear you when you prayed? If so, why?

LIFE LESSONS
5) When we refuse to hear the words of the Lord, and to do them, the Lord will not hear us when we pray to Him.