Sunday, December 21, 2014

DBRP_Dec22_2014 Zech1-2 Is59 Rev13


 

We read both chapters of the little book of Haggai yesterday, and heard how Haggai motivated his discouraged audience to return to the task of rebuilding the temple. Haggai certainly must have known and worked with our next author.

We turn now to Zechariah 1. There are between 27-30 men named Zechariah in the Old Testament, and the name means ‘Yahweh remembers’. The HCSB Study Bible gives a good overview of Zechariah:

[Zechariah] sought to inspire those who had returned from captivity to rebuild the temple and rededicate their lives to the Lord. The message of encouragement involved surrealistic visions and vivid poetic images, focused on a reversal of God's judgment, and called for a reversal of the people's behavior.

That comment is right about the surreal visions! This book is called the ‘Apocalypse of the Old Testament’. (The Apocalypse is another name for the book of Revelation.) Since we are also reading Revelation, you will get a double dose of this genre and prepare to see interesting correspondences.

Mears gives this interesting comment, and this is something I want to watch for as we go through this book:

Someone has said that to correctly read the visions of this book, you must shine two lights on them— the light of the cross and the light of the crown. Otherwise, you will find that you don’t have the proper perspective or background to understand Zechariah’s visions. The prophet, looking far into the future, saw two aspects of the future Messiah— one Person, but two appearances. First, he saw Him in humiliation and suffering; then he saw Him in majesty and great glory. Jewish people who do not believe that Jesus is the Messiah ignore the Christ of the cross. Christians too often ignore the Christ of the crown. Both are wrong.

Notes:

[The messiah speaks:] 8After a period of glory, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies sent meb against the nations who plundered you. For he said, “Anyone who harms you harms my most precious possession.c9I will raise my fist to crush them, and their own slaves will plunder them.” Then you will know that the LORD of Heaven’s Armies has sent me.

https://www.bible.com/bible/116/zec.1.nlt

We turn to Isaiah 59. Although chapter 58 didn’t use the word ‘hypocrisy’, that is what God was preaching against. After telling us the kind of fasting that God desires most, God gave beautiful promises to those who live as He teaches.

Notes:

15b The LORD looked and was displeased

[when he saw that//to find] there was no justice.

https://www.bible.com/bible/116/isa.59

We turn to Revelation 13. Following the 7th trumpet blast in chapter 11, the vision in chapter 12 is an overview. The woman who gives birth to ‘he who will rule the nations with a rod of iron’ is not just Mary. This is an overview. I encourage you to dig deeper to find out more about the picture of the glorious woman. I will give you my take about the dragons’s seven heads and seven crowns. The dragon, as we will see will do his best to masquerade as God. He is doing that still today. Look out, and don’t be fooled! An important teaching in that chapter is to explain about the source of the spiritual battle we now see being played out in the world.

https://www.bible.com/bible/116/rev.13

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