SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 4/11/2016 6:24 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 God Comforts His People
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 1:7-11
Message of the verses: “7 On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh
month, which is the month Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the
LORD came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo, as
follows: 8 I saw at night, and behold, a man was riding on a red horse, and he
was standing among the myrtle trees which were in the ravine, with red, sorrel
and white horses behind him. 9 Then I said, "My lord, what are
these?" And the angel who was speaking with me said to me, "I will
show you what these are." 10 And the man who was standing among the myrtle
trees answered and said, "These are those whom the LORD has sent to patrol
the earth." 11 So they answered the angel of the LORD who was standing
among the myrtle trees and said, "We have patrolled the earth, and behold,
all the earth is peaceful and quiet."”
I have
mentioned that some of the material that I am studying is from Dr. Warren Wiersbe’s
commentary, and some is from a sermon series by John MacArthur which was done
by him in 1977, so I believe that this minor prophet that we are now studying
will take us much longer to get through than the other minor prophets that we
have been studying, but the point in Bible study is to understand what you are
studying and not to rush through it and miss what the Lord is teaching to
you. John MacArthur entitles this second
sermon from the book of Zechariah “The Divine Plan for Jerusalem PT-1” and it
only covers verses 7-8.
Warren
Wiersbe begins his commentary from this section (verses 7-11) with these
words: “About three months later, during
the night of February 15, 519, Zechariah had a series of eight visions that God
gave to encourage the remnant and motivate them to finish rebuilding the
temple. These visions focus primarily on
God’s ministry to Israel and His judgment on the Gentile nations that have
afflicted Israel.” He then goes on to
entitle his first sub-title “”The Army (verses 7-11).
Just some
background material that we will need to know and that is that we see two
angels in this section and will see this in other sections of Zechariah’s
book. There is an interpreting angel,
and also we see “The Angel of the Lord,” and this is the preincarnate
appearance of none other than the Lord Jesus Christ. This is not the first time that this has
happened as we saw Him speak to Abraham when Sodom and Gomorrah was about to be
destroyed and also in other appearances also, like when He came and spoke to
Joshua before Israel began their battles with the nations in the Promised Land.
Verse ten
gives us the answer that Zechariah gets from the interpreting angle, and as
mentioned something we will see more often in this book. Now what Zechariah saw was a man among the
Myrtle trees who was the Angel of the Lord, and He had an army with Him. Whenever we see the term “God of Hosts” it
can be translated “God of Heavens Armies,” and so it is no wonder that we see
the Angel of the Lord leading heavens armies.
Dr. Wiersbe
writes “The messengers reported that the Gentile nations were ‘at rest and in
peace.’ After the upheaval of empires and
Persia’s conquest of Babylon and other nations, this would appear to be an
encouraging report, but it really wasn’t.
The Jewish remnant was in distress while the Gentile powers were at
ease. Haggai had promised that the Lord
would shake the nations and redeem His people (Hag. 2:6-9, 20-23), but this
important event hadn’t occurred yet. The
kingdom promised by the prophets seemed to be a dream that would never come
true.”
4/11/2016 6:59 PM
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