SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/22/2016 12:26 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Divine Punishment
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 8:1-2
Message of the verses: “1 Then the word of the LORD of hosts came,
saying, 2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, ’I am exceedingly jealous for Zion,
yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her.’”
“So the angel who was speaking with me said to me, "Proclaim,
saying, ’Thus says the LORD of hosts, "I am exceedingly jealous for Jerusalem
and Zion. "But I am very angry with
the nations who are at ease; for while I was only a little angry, they
furthered the disaster’ (Zech. 1:14-15).”
As you look
at the verses in chapter eight and compare them with the verses in chapter one
you can see that they are very similar. One
may wonder what the Jealously of God is all about, but it is one of God’s
attributes, and with all of His attributes they are holy and perfect. You can also see that God is upset in these
verses we have looked at, and again that too is holy. MacArthur answers why God is upset “Because
God has a divine covenant with the people of His love and God has seen the
nations, the nations pit at Israel and oppress Israel and go beyond the bounds
that He had prescribed. And that’s what
He means in 1:15 when He says, I want them to have a little affliction, but you
pushed it too far. And He says there’s
coming a time when my jealousy is going to result in judging your nations that
overdid it with Israel.”
We have to
go back once again to when God called Abraham who is the father of Israel and
in speaking to Abraham God is speaking concerning the nation of Israel when He
says in verse three of Genesis chapter twelve “3 And I will bless those who
bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families
of the earth will be blessed.’” I have
heard that you can chart the rise and fall of major nations by how they treated
the Jews, and I believe it. Nations
today that are not treating the nation of Israel rightly just because they are
Jews will answer to God, and I believe that will be sooner rather than later.
I want to
quote what MacArthur writes about the word jealous. “The Hebrew says, ‘I will be jealous.’ And the word jealous, ‘quinethe.’ An interesting
word, it really means redness of face.
When somebody gets strong emotion, their face gets red. And God is saying I burn to do this. God is saying I will some day literally burn with
zeal for Israel. When I can no longer
bear the estrangement from my people brought about by their sin. When I can no longer tolerate the efforts of
Israel’s enemy to destroy her and some day my jealousy will reach out in
vengeance against those nations that have persecuted my people. And you know as well as I do that the day
when the Lord sets up the kingdom is a day of terrible, fearful judgment on the
nations of the world that are unbelieving, right?”
He goes on
to help us explain about what God’s jealousy is all about: “Now when the Bible speaks of the jealousy of
God, it doesn’t mean envy, bu tit is the boundless zeal that comes from a God
who loves holiness and hates sin, who loves His own people who are godly and
hates the ungodly. It is the zeal of
righteousness. It is the zeal of love,
not envy. And because His love for Zion
is so great He is jealous of her account and His love against those who oppress
her, manifests itself in judgment.”
7/22/2016 1:01 PM
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