tle door into long years of constrained suspension of work
and discouraged hope, I think we shall not be wrong if we recognise in
them something deeper than a reference to the Prince of David's line,
concerning whom they were originally spoken. I take them to be, in the
true sense of the term, a Messianic prophecy; and I take it that, just
because Zerubbabel, a member of that royal house from which the Messiah
was to come, was the builder of the Temple, he was a prophetic person.
What was true about him primarily is thereby shown to have a bearing
upon the greater Son of David who was to come thereafter, and who was to
build the Temple of the Lord. In that aspect I desire to look at the
words now: 'His hands have laid the foundation of the house, and His
hands shall also finish it.'

I. There is, then, here a large truth as to Christ, the true
Temple-builder.

It is the same blessed message which was given from His own lips long
centuries after, when He spoke from heaven to John in Patmos, and said,
'I am Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last.' The first letter of the
Greek alphabet, and the last letter of the Greek alphabet, and all the
letters that lie between, and all the words that you can make out of the
letters--they are all from Him, and He underlies everything.

Now that is true about creation, in the broadest and in the most
absolute sense. For what does the New Testament say, with the consenting
voice of all its writers? 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. Without Him was not anything made
that was made.' His hands laid the foundations of this great house of
the universe, with its 'many mansions.' And what says Paul? 'He is the
Beginning, in Him all things consist' ... 'that in all things He might
have the pre-eminence.' And what says He Himself from heaven? 'I am the
First and the Last.' So, in regard to everything in the universe, Christ
is its origin, and Christ is its goal and its end. He 'has laid the
foundation, and His hands shall also finish it.'

But, further, we turn to the application which is the more usual one,
and say that He is the Beginner and Finisher of the work of redemption,
which is His only from its inception to its accomplishment, from the
first breaking of the ground for the foundations of the Temple to the
triumphant bringing forth of the last stone that crowns the corner and
gleams on the topmost pinnacle of the completed structure. Th