SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/15/2016 9:42 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-1 The True Shepherd
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 11:4-14
Message of the verses: “4 Thus says the LORD my God, "Pasture
the flock doomed to slaughter. 5 “Those who buy them slay them and go
unpunished, and each of those who sell them says, ’Blessed be the LORD, for I
have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no pity on them. 6 "For I
will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land," declares the
LORD; "but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into another’s power
and into the power of his king; and they will strike the land, and I will not
deliver them from their power." 7 So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the
afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I
called Favor and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock. 8 Then I
annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with
them, and their soul also was weary of me. 9 Then I said, "I will not
pasture you. What is to die, let it die, and what is to be annihilated, let it
be annihilated; and let those who are left eat one another’s flesh." 10 I
took my staff Favor and cut it in pieces, to break my covenant which I had made
with all the peoples. 11 So it was broken on that day, and thus the afflicted
of the flock who were watching me realized that it was the word of the LORD. 12
I said to them, "If it is good in your sight, give me my wages; but if
not, never mind!" So they weighed out thirty shekels of silver as my
wages. 13 Then the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter, that
magnificent price at which I was valued by them." So I took the thirty
shekels of silver and threw them to the potter in the house of the LORD. 14
Then I cut in pieces my second staff Union, to break the brotherhood between
Judah and Israel.”
We surely
have some more difficult passages to look at in this section. God tells Zechariah to play the role of the
shepherd as seen in verse four, even though the flock was doomed for
slaughter. He would become “a type of
the Messiah at the time when our Lord was ministering on earth” is how Dr.
Wiersbe puts it. When you look at the
three years that our Lord ministered on earth one can see that the Jews were
about to be scattered around the world because of their unbelief, and because
they crucified the Lord of Glory. Dr.
Wiersbe reminds us that when we studied the books of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
especially Ezekiel that we say what he described as “action sermons” and he
believes that this section is an action sermon given by Zechariah. One of the reasons is that he was carrying
the two instruments of a shepherd, and while he was carrying this he was paying
strict attention to the poor of the flock which shows us that he is using an
action sermon. Dr. Wiersbe writes “According
to verse 11, some of the ‘poor of the flock’ were watching him, so apparently
this was an ‘action sermon.’”
Zechariah
named one of the staffs “beauty” or “favor, grace” and the other he named “Bands”
(Union). He would feed the flock and
even get rid of three unfaithful shepherds.
Dr. Wiersbe stated that there is no use trying to identify who these
were, but we will wait to see if John MacArthur has any more information on
this when we look at his sermon on this section.
Next we see
that he broke the two staves which shows us that God’s favor to His people had
come to an end, as the covenant with God and His people had come to an
end.
We know
that God is longsuffering, as this is one of His attributes, but there comes a
time when sinners refuse to repent and believe on Him when all that He has done
to reach time will end, thus His longsuffering will come to an end for them,
and this is not a good thing at all. We
read about this in John 12:37 “But though He had performed so many signs before
them, yet they were not believing in Him.”
Also in Matthew 23:37 “"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the
prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather
your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and
you were unwilling.”
We will continue looking at this section in our next SD.
8/15/2016 10:06 PM
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