SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/27/2016 10:30 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Israel is saved from the
Dispersion of the Sheep
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference:
Zechariah 13:7b
Message of the verse: “7 "Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, And
against the man, My Associate," Declares the LORD of hosts. "Strike the Shepherd that the
sheep may be scattered; And I will turn My hand against the little ones.”
First of
all don’t be afraid of the title of this SD, and don’t get mixed up about the
highlighted portion of this verse for we know that this was indeed a prophecy
that was fulfilled after Jesus was arrested as seen in the gospels, and
especially in the gospel of John for once Judas kissed Jesus to identify Him He
asked who they were looking for and once they said Jesus the Nazarene all the
people who came after Him fell to the ground and so now that He got their
attention He said that He would come with them, only let the others go, meaning
His disciples which fulfilled this last part of Zechariah 13:7. However we are going to look at this is a
different way in this SD.
Now we know
that not only were the disciples scattered after the arrest of Jesus, but in 70
AD when the Romans came in and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the temple the
Jews alive at that time were also scattered and many of them are still
scattered to this day even though we now have the nation of Israel and in that
nation we have the Jews having sovereign control of Jerusalem. Now remember
when the Jews were taken to Babylon beginning in 605 BC and in the 9th
chapter of Daniel were are told that God was going to bring them back to
Jerusalem 70 years after that first deportation. The problem was that many of the Jews did not
want to return because they were comfortable living in Babylon. We have the same problem today, and even now
over half of the Jews are now living in Jerusalem many of them are still living
in the United States and other countries because they are comfortable living
there.
There is
coming a time, and I believe it is very close when all of the Jews living will
return to Jerusalem and Paul writes to the Romans that there will come a time
when all Israel will be saved. Now we
know that during the Millennial Kingdom that all of the Jews who made it out of
the Tribulation period alive will live in Jerusalem and the surrounding land
around Jerusalem, for all of the land that was promised to Abraham will be a
part of Israel at that time and Jesus, their Messiah will rule the whole world
from Jerusalem for 1000 years.
Now I will quote from MacArthur about the very last part of this 7th verse: “And then he adds an interesting note at the end of verse 7, "I will turn My hand on the little ones." Who are the little ones? Well, it's hard to be positive about this, but I think the best answer is this, the little ones are the believing remnant of this age and of the church age. You know, there were some Jews that turned to Christ, weren't there? Some of them were Apostles and some of them were in that early church in Jerusalem. And by the third or fourth, fifth chapter you have at least 20,000 of them and they're still Jews today who are saved. From the very beginning there were some little ones. They're the same as the poor of the flock in chapter 11 verse 7. They're the believing remnant. And while the whole thing is scattered and they're all scattered it says God is going to put His hand, turn His hand on the little ones.
“You say, "What does it mean?" Now listen
to me. That phrase "turn His hand upon" is uniformly without
exception used in the Old Testament to refer to chastening and judgment. Now
you tell me. What happened to the early church? What was the first thing that
happened to them once they got grounded? Chapter 8 verse 1, "Against the
church Paul breathed out threatening and...what?...slaughter." What was
characteristic of the early church? Persecution. And God says even the little
ones are going to be persecuted. The idea of placing His hand on them, as I
said, is uniformly used. Check it in Amos 1:8; Psalm 81:15; Isaiah 1:25 and
Ezekiel 38:12, in those places uniformly it's used to speak of chastening. So
God then is going to scatter the whole flock of Israel, and even the little
ones. Even the poor of the flock, the believing remnant, they're going to hit
the persecution. You remember in John 15? Just after Jesus had made such
wonderful promises to His flock and told them that He would do so many
wonderful things for them, He would cause them to bear fruit, He would give
them His Spirit, He would give them His peace, and all this, then He says this
to them, "If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before you."
And then He says, "If they persecute you, remember they persecuted
Me." And then He says in verse 2 of chapter 16, "They shall put you
out of the synagogues, the time comes that whosoever kills you will think that
he does God service." You're going to get it, he says, just like I did.
The little ones were persecuted.
“So, the message is simple. The Shepherd's going to
die. And when the Shepherd dies for the sins of His people, they'll be
scattered because of their rejection. And even the little ones, the Lord will
allow to go through suffering and persecution that the church at its birth
might be pure. And then in the day of cleansing, God's going to gather all that
scattered group right back. And so we see that they'll be cleansed from the
defilement, from the deception, from the dispersion all through the death of
the Savior.”
10/27/2016 10:52 PM
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