SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/9/2016 11:19 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 The Assurance
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 3:8-10
Message of the verses: “8 ’Now listen, Joshua the high priest, you
and your friends who are sitting in front of you-indeed they are men who are a
symbol, for behold, I am going to bring in My servant the Branch. 9 ’For
behold, the stone that I have set before Joshua; on one stone are seven eyes.
Behold, I will engrave an inscription on it,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ’and
I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. 10 ’In that day,’ declares
the LORD of hosts, ’every one of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his
vine and under his fig tree.’"”
We have
been looking at the announcement that is given by the Lord to Israel through
Zechariah and have looked at different verses to show about who the “stone” is
as it is another image of Messiah found in the Scriptures. We now want to look at the “seven eyes” on
the stone probably speak of our Lord’s omniscience; see Zech. 4:10 and also
Revelation 5:6, two verses we will now look at.
“10 “For who has despised the day of small things? But these seven will
be glad when they see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel-these are the eyes of the LORD
which range to and fro throughout the earth."” “6 And I saw between the throne (with the
four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having
seven horns and seven eyes, which
are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth.” We looked at the meaning of this verse when
we studied the book of Revelation last year.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “The NIV margin translates it ‘seven facets,’ making
this stone a precious and beautiful jewel because of the way it is engraved
(cut). But the text refers to an
inscription that God engraved on the stone, not a jewel, and it doesn’t tell us
what the inscription says. Some of the
Church Fathers interpreted this engraving to mean the glorious wounds of Christ’s
body, but we have no indication from the text that this interpretation is
warranted.”
As we look
at the last part of verse nine we will see the key message which that God will
remove Israel’s sins in one day. Dr. Wiersbe
points out that this miracle of grace is described in Zechariah 5 and also in
12:10-13:1. I believe that this will be
done when the Lord returns at the second coming, at the end of the tribulation
period. It is good to also remember that
Paul wrote to the Romans that all Israel will be saved, so this has to go along
with this section as far as I am concerned.
Zechariah 12:10 says “"I will pour out on the house of David and on
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me
whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only
son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” This surely happens at the second coming of
Christ. Now as far as on day there is a
verse in Isaiah 66:8 which says “"Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen
such things? Can a land be
born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as
Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons.” As I think about this verse I know that many
believe that this will happen at the end of the tribulation when Christ
returns, but I also think of when Israel was declared a nation in May of 1948,
and this also happened in one day.
God has
promised a promise of peace to the nation of Israel which has surely not
happened yet, as the closest time that that happened was under the rule of
Solomon, but even then there were some small wars they had to deal with, so
this promise had to be fulfilled in the Millennial kingdom.
Dr. Wiersbe
concludes this section by writing “Knowing that God would forgive and cleanse
His people and restore the ministry of His priests must have encouraged Joshua
greatly. In the next vision, God will encourage
His servant Zerubbable.” This will be in
the 4th chapter of Zechariah which we will begin in our next SD on
Zechariah, and after that we will go back and look at both the 3rd,
and 4th chapters of Zechariah by looking at two sermons from John
MacArthur which may have some similar things which I will try not to cover
again, but will look for some things that we have not gone over as yet. Zechariah is a marvelous, but difficult book
to study and to understand, but well worth the effort.
5/9/2016 11:41 PM
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