SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 5/22/2016 11:09 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
The Divine Christ
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.’"”
When we looked at this section in
an earlier SD there was some interesting things that Dr. Wiersbe brought up
that had to do with verse eight where Zechariah talks about “My servant the
Branch,” and he listed the different times that the Messianic term was used,
which was four times in different parts of the OT and how each one of them represented
one of the four gospels, and John MacArthur brings up the same thing in his
sermon on this section. May 8, 2016 is
the date of the SD where this can be found.
Now I want to quote a few paragraphs from John MacArthur’s sermon on this section as he too has some interesting things to say about it: “Now I want to stop here for a minute and I want to tell you something wonderful. To me this is the most beautiful picture of the gospel just as a parallel, because look at it. It shows the sinners filthy rags of unrighteousness, doesn't it? And Isaiah said, "All our righteousness is as, what, filthy rags. We see the sinner filthy and then all of a sudden we see the angel of the Lord Jesus Christ come in, takes away the filthy garments, gives them a new robe of righteousness, a marvelous transformation takes place. That sinner is plucked from the burning of hell, as it were, cleansed with salvation and then offered a life of service to God, as a priest, and the promise of eternally being the dwelling of God. What a tremendous, tremendous message. So the divine choice, the divine condemnation, the divine cleansing, the divine covenant, and listen lastly the one who makes it all possible, the divine Christ. Without Him none of it could happen.
Who is going to do this? A Jew might be standing
there and Zechariah is telling them about the vision, and he's but who is going
to do this? Verse 8, "Hear now, O Joshua the high priest, thou and thy
fellows who sit before thee," that would be other priests, "for they
are," literally they are a symbol, I think it says that in the New
American, "They are a symbol." The Hebrew word means they are a sign
of a future event. He's not just talking about the men, but it tells you they
are a symbol. They are symbols of future Israel. This is a future thing.
People, we're looking way down the road to the end time. "For behold I
will bring forth My servant, the branch." Do you have any idea who that
might be? Who's going to do this? The branch, My servant the branch. He will be
the redeemer. This title is a fantastic title. The branch speaks of His
humiliation, speaks of His rejection and His death. Literally it means the
sprout or the shoot. Isaiah 53, right? He's the root out of Jesse. Isaiah 11:1,
the same thing. He comes from the earth, it's humiliation, rather obscure, but
He manifests growth and vitality until finally He becomes king.”
Now I have skipped what he had to say about the
different places where the term “branch” was used and want to move on to what
he has to say about the stone found in verse nine. “The concept of stone was very important to
Israel. In Isaiah 8:14, the Messiah was called a stone of stumbling and a rock
of offense. But in Isaiah 28:16, He was called a stone of refuge. So He was
either a stone of refuge or a stumbling stone to Israel. Stone was important to
the nations. In Daniel Chapter 2, we saw that He's called the stone cut out
with out hands that smashing the Gentile world powers. Stone is important to
the church because in Ephesians 2:20, Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone.
Stone is Christ. He's the only one who could do this. And He says, "I will
remove the iniquity of that land in one day." And beloved Calvary was that
one day when the lamb of God took away the sins of the world and the one day
Israel's one day will be appropriated in the day when they look on Him whom
they have pierced and mourn for Him as an only son, that's Zechariah 12:10.
That's their day. "And in that day," says 13:1, "There shall be
a fountain opened to the house of David and the inhabitants for sin and for
uncleanness." There is a day and a day when Israel believes and the
fountain floods from Israel to the world. And when that happens, in that day,
verse 10 says, "Says the Lord of hosts, shall you call every man his
neighbor under the vine and under the fig tree." Which being interpreted
means nobody's going to fight any more. Peace all over the earth in the
kingdom.”
In verse ten we see something that will happen
during the millennial kingdom as the people of Israel will be the ones to bring
the Gentiles to the Lord so that they too can be saved.
Lord willing we will continue looking at the book
of Zechariah in our next SD as we move once again to look at chapter four.
5/22/2016 11:31 PM
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