SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/8/2016 8:15 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
Messiah will March in Triumph
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 9:14-10:1
Message of the verses: “14 Then the LORD will appear over them, And
His arrow will go forth like lightning; And the Lord GOD will blow the trumpet,
And will march in the storm winds of the south. 15 The LORD of hosts will
defend them. And they will devour and trample on the sling stones; And they
will drink and be boisterous as with wine; And they will be filled like a
sacrificial basin, Drenched like the corners of the altar. 16 And the LORD
their God will save them in that day As the flock of His people; For they are
as the stones of a crown, Sparkling in His land. 17 For what comeliness and
beauty will be theirs! Grain will make the young men flourish, and new wine the
virgins.
“1 Ask rain from
the LORD at the time of the spring rain-The LORD who makes the storm clouds;
And He will give them showers of rain, vegetation in the field to each man.”
Before we
begin to look at these verses I want to point out that we are looking at what
is going on during the Millennial Kingdom with Jesus Christ, the Messiah as the
head of it. The first part of chapter
nine spoke of Jesus’ first coming and then when we turned the corner at verse
nine when Zechariah speaks of Jesus riding into Jerusalem in what is commonly called
“Palm Sunday, but then in the next verse, verse 10 we jumped right into the
Kingdom age as Dr. Wiersbe entitled this section “Messiah’s conquests at His
second Advent” which covers 9:10-10:12.
We begin by
quoting the first paragraph from Warren Wiersbe’s commentary “The image here is
that of a storm, not unlike what we read in Psalm 18:7-15 and Habakkuk
3:3-15. Messiah will march forth with a
voice like thunder and arrows like lightning and His army will march with
Him. He’ll shield them from danger and
death and will enable them to defeat their enemies.”
We will be
looking at different images as we continue looking at these verses. The first image we looked in the paragraph
above, and now the next image changes from a storm to a feast. We then see the prophet picturing His
soldiers shouting like men who had too much wine to drink, but they are drunk
on the blood of their enemies. It
reminds us of the bowls that catch the blood at a Jewish sacrifice spoken of in
Lev. 4:6-7.
The next
image comes from 9:16-10:1, and this time the army is pictured like a flock of
sheep which the Messiah will save by His power.
Remember out study in the 10th chapter of the book of John
where we see our Lord say “I am the Good Shepherd.” I don’t think that many people would think
about taking a sheep to war with them, but as we look at different passages
from the Old Testament we see that Israel is pictured as God’s special
flock. “Know that the LORD Himself is
God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the
sheep of His pasture (Psalm 100:3).”
In 9:16 we
see again that the image changes from sheep to precious stones “And the LORD
their God will save them in that day As the flock of His people; For they are
as the stones of a crown, Sparkling in His land.” Back in chapter three we saw Joshua become a
king and priest and the High Priests of Israel wore on their garment twelve
stones, each on representing the different tribes of Israel; however these
stones now represent God’s people which will reveal the beauty of their God.
Now I have
read different commentators to help me better understand what the earth will be
like when the Lord does it over for His Millennial Kingdom and some have stated
that it will be similar to when the Lord first created it. Now as we read 9:17-10:1 we see that there
will be rain in the season in order to grow crops, and we know that there was
no rain on the earth until we get to the story of Noah in the sixth chapter of
Genesis, so things may be similar to what it was when the Lord first created
the earth, but not exactly according to those verses. However Dr. Wiersbe writes the following
about the rain: “The promise of rain
given in Zechariah 10:1 may have a spiritual meaning behind it, because the
Holy Spirit is spoken of in terms of rain (Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 29:39; Hosea
6:3; Joel 2:23-32). God promises to pour
out His Spirit on Israel (Zech. 12:10) and bring them to repentance and faith
in Christ.”
8/8/2016 8:45 PM
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