SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/25/2016 8:05 PM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 The False Shepherd
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Zechariah 11:16
Message of the verses: “16
"For behold, I am going to raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for the
perishing, seek the
scattered, heal the
broken, or sustain
the one standing, but
will devour the flesh of the fat sheep and tear off their hoofs.
The first
thing we need to notice here is that it is God who is going to raise up this
shepherd. This reminds me of looking at
the book of Habakkuk and hearing the answer to the prayer that Habakkuk asks
God, and not believing what the answer is when God says that He is going to
raise up the nation of Babylon to punish the nation of Israel, actually the
Southern Kingdom of Judah. God is going
to do that and God is going to raise up this false shepherd we know as the
antichrist. We have to realize that
nothing ever happens outside of the plan, the sovereignty of God. We know that God will not be up in heaven biting
His nails wondering what will happen next on planet earth. Think about the book of Job and at the
beginning of it when Job never has anything happen to Him by Satan without God
allowing it to happen.
When this
shepherd comes no one will want to be victim of what he is going to do for we
have a list of some of the things he will be doing in verse sixteen, and none
of them look like something good is going to happen to those under his
care. So we see first of all that he
will not care for those older sheep that are perishing.
Next we see
that he will not go after the younger sheep that are the ones who get lost, for
he is not like the person in the parable that Jesus tells when the shepherd
goes after the one sheep that was lost, caring for even one little lost sheep.
Next he
does not heal those that are broken, and this is a very important job for a
true shepherd. Take a look at Psalm 23
to see how the Good Shepherd cares for all His sheep, along with John chapter
ten.
Next we
look at those who are the ones standing, and John MacArthur writes that this
refers to the strong sheep, those who are standing still and require minimum
amount of help. The only thing that
these sheep need is to be feed. Now once
again remember that Zechariah is acting out this part like a play or what we
have called an action sermon. We have to
believe that the reviews for this part of the play will not get good reviews as
they will probably think “what a terrible shepherd he is playing.
The shepherd does do something, and
it is not good either for we read “but will devour the flesh of the fat sheep.” He doesn’t waste his time eating the skinny,
sick sheep, but goes for the fat ones.
Lastly we want to look at the very
last portion of this verse “and
tear off their hoofs.” MacArthur writes
“Have you ever eaten spare ribs when you’re really hungry? And you want every morsel? Have you ever eaten a pork chop the same way
or a T-bone steak and you’re bending the bone, you’re getting it there? You’re scraping in there and your wife has just
told you there’s no dessert and you’re going to get everything. And you literally are tearing the bones
apart. Sometimes you do it with
chicken. You watch people, you give them
a wing and they’ll spend a half an hour on it.
That’s this guy. He is not only
eating the flesh of the fat, but he’s tearing the hoofs to pieces to get every
morsel, to consume every last bit.” Now
I suppose that is ok for eating food but the antichrist is going to be doing
this to humans, now I don’t mean eating them like described here but killing
them none the less.
Now the question is why would the
people of Israel accept this false shepherd?
Well think about when they were crucifying Jesus Christ and what did
they say but “we have no king but Caesar.”
9/25/2016 8:58 PM
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