Saturday, June 4, 2016

PT-2 God Removes the Lawless (Zech. 5:1-4)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 6/4/2016 10:19 PM

My Worship Time                                                            Focus:  PT-2 God Removes the Lawless

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Zechariah 5:1-4

            Message of the verses:  “1 Then I lifted up my eyes again and looked, and behold, there was a flying scroll. 2 And he said to me, "What do you see?" And I answered, "I see a flying scroll; its length is twenty cubits and its width ten cubits." 3 Then he said to me, "This is the curse that is going forth over the face of the whole land; surely everyone who steals will be purged away according to the writing on one side, and everyone who swears will be purged away according to the writing on the other side. 4  "I will make it go forth," declares the LORD of hosts, "and it will enter the house of the thief and the house of the one who swears falsely by My name; and it will spend the night within that house and consume it with its timber and stones."”

            As we look at verse three it is hard to say what the curse will be for those who commit these sins of stealing or taking the Lord’s name in vain, but something will happen to them.  Now I am not sure where this time period is that Zechariah is talking about in these verses, but perhaps it speaks of those in the Millennial kingdom.  Why would I say that?  It seems to me that during that 1000 years that sin will be dealt with more rapidly than we see it done during the Church age and before that during the period of the Law.  I am not saying that God is not dealing with sin at all during the church age, but as we read through the different prophecies that have to do with the kingdom age promised to Israel we see things being stricter than now.  Now when the remnant came back to the Land of Israel we know that they must have believed that it was by the grace of God and by the fulfillment of His Word that they were there and therefore needed to live lives that were holy to the Lord. 

            We talked about the blessings and the curses of the Law when we studied Deuteronomy and also Leviticus so we know that the Jewish remnant knew about this.  In the eight chapter of the book of Joshua we also see the blessings and the curses were given:  “30 Then Joshua built an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel, in Mount Ebal, 31  just as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the sons of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones on which no man had wielded an iron tool; and they offered burnt offerings on it to the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. 32 He wrote there on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written, in the presence of the sons of Israel. 33 All Israel with their elders and officers and their judges were standing on both sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD, the stranger as well as the native. Half of them stood in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the LORD had given command at first to bless the people of Israel. 34 Then afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the book of the law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel with the women and the little ones and the strangers who were living among them (Joshua 8:30-35).”

            Dr. Wiersbe writes “Lawlessness abounds today and the only commandment many people worry about is ‘Thou shalt not get caught!’  Ethics is something studied in the classroom but not seriously practiced in the market place, and the Ten Commandments are only dusty artifacts in the museum of morality.  No wonder Hosea wrote, ‘They make many promises, take false oaths and make agreements; therefore lawsuits spring up like poisonous weeds in a plowed field’ (10:4 NIV).  People break God’s law and then try to use man’s law to protect themselves, and often they win!”  I am not sure when Dr. Wiersbe wrote this commentary on Zechariah, but things in our country are far worse than when he penned this section from his commentary.

            From our study of the Word of God we know that God will judge all sinners.  However there is good news here if one wants to listen to it and that is that when Jesus Christ died on the cross God judged sin during those three dark hours and so if one confesses that they are a sinner and believe that Jesus Christ died to pay for your sin and then ask Him to forgive you based on what Christ did for you then you will be saved.  “1 Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3  For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4  and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:1-4).”

6/4/2016 10:53 PM

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