SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/22/2016 9:57 PM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 The Human Conqueror
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 9:2-
Message of the verses: We have been talking about Alexander the
Great and how he would conquer nations in the North of Israel and would
eventually desire to conquer Israel, the Israel who had gone back to their land
after 70 years of captivity in Babylon.
Remember that this is a long period of time after Zechariah wrote his
book, but his prophecies would come true.
Let us look
at the first three verses in Zechariah chapter nine: “1 The burden of the word of the LORD is
against the land of Hadrach, with Damascus as its resting place (for the eyes
of men, especially of all the tribes of Israel, are toward the LORD), 2 And
Hamath also, which borders on it; Tyre and Sidon, though they are very wise. 3
For Tyre built herself a fortress And piled up silver like dust, And gold like
the mire of the streets.”
So we said
that the word “burden” could be used in the same way that the word “oracle” was
used in other OT prophet’s books, and we see that the Lord is against Hadrach,
Syria, Hamath, Tyre and Sidon.
God was
going to use Alexander the Great to conquer those nations as he moved down
towards Egypt, and we mentioned that this happened after he had conquered the
Medo-Persian Empire after the decisive battle at Isis. (Not sure that this had anything to do with
what we know today as ISIS.) Now it is
interesting to us as we read this that the Holy Spirit is revealing this entire
battle plan as it would happen before it happened, and we could expect nothing
less.
What does
it mean as we look at the following from verse one “for the eyes of men,
especially all of the tribes of Israel, are toward the LORD?” John MacArthur writes “Just this, that when
Alexander began to sweep to the east, the whole world in fear began to fix their
gaze on him. The Gentile countries,
Syria, Phoenicia, the great sailors of the world, the merchants of the world,
Philistia, the great army, those nations began to look at Alexander with fear
and trembling, and even Egypt and Pharaoh was shaking in his boots. And the tribes of Israel were looking.” He goes on to say that “in looking at
Alexander, they were seeing the instrument of God.” We have to remember that this is not the
first time, nor the last time, as God is still doing the same thing in our
world today, that He used nations like Babylon to conquer His people Israel
because of their sin, and then He used the Medo-Persian Empire to conquer
Babylon because of their sin, and then Greece to conquer the Medo-Persian
Empire because of their sin. We can go
all the way back to the 15th chapter of Genesis to see how the Lord
promised to conquer the nations that were in what would become the Promised
Land by the infinite nation of Israel, and once again it was because of their
sins. “God has always used the wrath of
men to praise Him, God has often used pagan people to bring about His judgment,”
is how MacArthur puts it.
Verse two
speaks of him coming to Tyre and Sidon “though they are very wise.” Tyre and Sidon were great cities in
Phoenicia, who had may merchant ships to bring goods into their land to sell,
and to transport goods to other nations to sell also. They were very wise in how they handled
this. They were also rich according to
verse three: “And piled up silver like dust, And gold like the mire of the
streets.” The problem with their wisdom
was that it was worldly wisdom and not wisdom from the Lord. Worldly wisdom can make you evil and they
were along with thinking they could not be conquered, but they were, for as the
Proverbs say “Pride comes before the fall,” and they fell.
A couple of
days ago I listened to Ezekiel chapter 28 and this chapter speaks of the king
of Tyre, but it is really speaking about Satan, so this worldly king of Tyre
must have had things similar to Satan.
For one thing he had an ego problem, and God would deal with that
problem, and He did.
In our next
SD we will begin to look at verse four.
8/22/2016 10:28 PM
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