This is all so full of prophecy! God encourages with visions of the future. For 15 years the people were in a lull from building the temple. ...it was time to move on.
God also sends messages after the temple is built. Enemies will be destroyed and Zion's king will come. You can see in 9: 8, that the king will come in on a donkey and this happens with Jesus in Matthew 21:5...the Lord will appear at the second coming, also, so you have a mix of near and far fufillmemt when you read all this.
Chapter 10 says that God is angry with the shepherds...this is anger at leaders that have led the "flock" astray. There is a lot of responsibility required to be a teacher or leader in God's kingdom. You aren't just responsible for your self, but for others. 10:4 is really cool because more than 500 years before the coming of Christ, we see Jesus as the cornerstone for the church.
We move to two shepherds and Zechariah has to act out the roles of the two shepherds. The first shepherd shows how God will reject His sheep because they rejected Him. The second shepherd shows how God will give His people over to evil shepherds. The staffs of the shepherds are Favor and Union..Favor is broken because the covenant relationship is broken. Union is broken because the fellowship between Judah and Isreal are broken... Israel is going to reject the true shepherd...Look at 11:12.."so they paid me 30 pieces of silver"..this is a huge insult..this is a price paid by an owner whose slave is gored by an ox. It is also what Judas is paid for betraying Jesus....The Messiah was sold for the price of a slave.
Chapter 12 is a future battle...Armegaddon. Jerusalem's enemies will be destroyed. 12:10 talks about how the Holy Spirit will be poured out on Believer's at Pentecost. It discusses how the people are going to mourn Jesus "the one they pierced"....
Chapter 13 discusses a cleansing of sin...mercy from the Lord will come. The shepherd will be struck and the sheep will scatter....notice that Isreal's Jews are still scattered everywhere today..they are not all in the Promised Land.
When you read "the Day of the Lord" or "on that day", that is the second coming of Christ...I like to underline that with a green colored pencil so that it sticks out to me. Chapter 14 is so cool......the Lord (Jesus) will come and reign....His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives and it will be split in two from East to West. Note this in your mind, because when Jesus ascends to Heaven, the angel tells the Disciples that Jesus "will return in the same way He left"....Jesus ascends from the Mount of Olives.
Quite frankly, I had no idea that so much prophecy was in this book. 8 more days to the New Testament readings. It will be so cool to see that Scripture is fufilled. There will be more Scripture to be fulfilled with the second coming. I believe that it will all happen....everything God as said will happen has happened, so why not the rest?
Look what comes up from the depths of the sea.
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Do not fear.....heard that this morning in church....funny how that happens....
ReplyDelete12:10 is really cool like you said......the one they pierced....mourn for his only son.....that is Jesus.....this is written before he comes!
14:5...my bible says that the bible contains almost three times as many predictions of the second coming of Christ as it has for the first coming....that is awesome!