SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 8/3/2016 9:57 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
Preparation for the King
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 9:1-8
Message of the verses: 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. 4 Behold, the Lord will dispossess her And cast her
wealth into the sea; And she will be consumed with fire. 5 Ashkelon will see it
and be afraid. Gaza too will writhe in great pain; Also Ekron, for her
expectation has been confounded. Moreover, the king will perish from Gaza, And
Ashkelon will not be inhabited. 6 And a mongrel race will dwell in Ashdod, And
I will cut off the pride of the Philistines. 7 And I will remove their blood
from their mouth And their detestable things from between their teeth. Then
they also will be a remnant for our God, And be like a clan in Judah, And Ekron
like a Jebusite. 8 But I will camp around My house because of an army, Because
of him who passes by and returns; And no oppressor will pass over them anymore,
For now I have seen with My eyes.”
Before we
begin to look once again at these verses I want to say that as I looked at the
focus section of this SD it occurred to me that the “Preparation for the King”
has been going on since the world began, and perhaps even before the world
began in what we call eternity past. As
we look at the trinity, and we call those who are in it the Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, and before eternity began there was great love for the Son from the
Father. In our study of the gospel of
John we see from verse seventeen "For this reason the Father loves Me,
because I lay down My life so that I may take it again.” We also see this two other times in John’s
Gospel: “Joh 3:35 “The Father loves the
Son and has given all things into His hand.”
Joh 5:20 "For the Father
loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the
Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” The point in all of this is that we can see
the preparation for the King throughout the Word of God, even in the way that
the nations are aliened at this point in history. It may seem like there is a lot of difficulty
in our world today, and it may seem like when you look at the world today that
you think that God is not in control, but He is and He is preparing the World
for the coming Messiah and it gets closer every day.
Now as we
look at verse one we see in that verse “for the eyes of men, especially of all
the tribes of Israel, are toward the LORD,” Dr. Wiersbe suggests that this “may
mean that Alexander’s victorious march caused people to look to God for help,
but it could also mean that God’s eyes were on the nations and especially on
His people Israel. The NIV marginal
translation says, ‘For the ey of the Lord is on all mankind, as well as on the
tribes of Israel.’ Merrill Unger
suggests that as the people were watching Alexander, they were actually
watching God at work, for ‘history is His story.” This statement from Merrill Unger is similar
to the point that I was trying to make in our first paragraph.
Now we will
look at something similar later on when we look at these verses through the
sermon that John MacArthur preached, but Dr. Wiersbe writes “After a two-month
siege of Gaza, Alexander took the city and then went to Jerusalem. He was unhappy with the Jews because they had
refused to pay him the annual tribute that they usually gave to the
Persians. The high priest in Jerusalem
called for the people to fast and pray, and he presented sacrifices to the Lord
to seek His special protection.
“The night
before Alexander and his army were to arrive at Jerusalem, the high priest had
a dream in which God told him to adorn the city, tell the people to dress in
white garments, and open the gates to their visitor. The high priest and the other priests would
head the procession dressed in their holy robes. This they did, and Alexander was so impressed
that he welcomed them in peace. The high
priest told Alexander about Daniel’s prophecies concerning him, and Alexander
even offered sacrifices to Jehovah in the temple. Thus, the city and the people were spared.”
Zechariah
had promised that this would happen, that Jerusalem and Judea would be spared, “8
But I will camp around My house because
of an army, Because of him who passes by and returns; And no oppressor will
pass over them anymore, For now I have seen with My eyes.”
We will continue looking at these verses in our next SD.
8/3/2016 10:23 PM
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