Can I pray for you in any way? Send any prayer requests
to OurChristianWalk@aol.com.
In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk
** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of
The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn
** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
On the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month
of Shebat, in the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet
Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.
During the night I had a vision, and there before me was
a man mounted on a red horse. He was standing among the myrtle trees in a
ravine. Behind him were red, brown and white horses.
I asked, “What are these, my lord?”
The angel who was talking with me answered, “I will show
you what they are.”
Then the man standing among the myrtle trees explained,
“They are the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth.”
And they reported to the angel of the Lord who was
standing among the myrtle trees, “We have gone throughout the earth and found
the whole world at rest and in peace.”
Then the angel of the Lord said, “Lord Almighty, how long
will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem and from the towns of Judah, which you
have been angry with these seventy years?” So the Lord spoke kind and
comforting words to the angel who talked with me.
Then the angel who was speaking to me said, “Proclaim
this word: This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I am very jealous for
Jerusalem and Zion, and I am very angry with the nations that feel secure. I
was only a little angry, but they went too far with the punishment.’”
“Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will return to
Jerusalem with mercy, and there My house will be rebuilt. And the measuring
line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
“Proclaim further: This is what the Lord Almighty says:
‘My towns will again overflow with prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort
Zion and choose Jerusalem.’”
Zechariah 1:7-17
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks
be to God.
As the first chapter of
Zechariah opens, we find the Lord presenting His restored people with a three
step process to get back to good standing with Him. You’ll recall they first
had to turn away from sin and turn back to the Lord after which they were
expected to repent and then obligate themselves to fulfilling the Lord’s
purposes.
As we continue to look at
chapter one, we find the prophet Zechariah experience the first of eight
visions contained in this book of the Bible. Look at the particulars of the
vision here:
On the
twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, the month of Shebat, in the second
year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Zechariah son of
Berekiah, the son of Iddo.
During the night I
had a vision, and there before me was a man mounted on a red horse. He was
standing among the myrtle trees in a ravine. Behind him were red, brown and
white horses.
I asked, “What are
these, my lord?”
The angel who was
talking with me answered, “I will show you what they are.”
Then the man
standing among the myrtle trees explained, “They are the ones the Lord has sent
to go throughout the earth.”
And they reported
to the angel of the Lord who was standing among the myrtle trees, “We have gone
throughout the earth and found the whole world at rest and in peace.”
Then the angel of
the Lord said, “Lord Almighty, how long will you withhold mercy from Jerusalem
and from the towns of Judah, which you have been angry with these seventy
years?” So the Lord spoke kind and comforting words to the angel who talked
with me.
Then the angel who
was speaking to me said, “Proclaim this word: This is what the Lord Almighty
says: ‘I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, and I am very angry with the
nations that feel secure. I was only a little angry, but they went too far with
the punishment.’”
“Therefore this is
what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there My house
will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem,’
declares the Lord Almighty.”
“Proclaim further:
This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘My towns will again overflow with
prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.’” Zechariah 1:7-17
If we look at verse one of
this chapter, we can see that Zechariah’s first vision happens a little more
than three months after he shared the word of the Lord regarding how the
Israelites could return to His favor. The vision, which on the surface appears
to be more like a dream someone might have, was centered on “a man mounted on a
red horse” who was “among the myrtle trees in a ravine”. In the background were
other horses of various colors (red, brown, and white).
Unsure of what it all meant,
we read where Zechariah asks for an interpretation, a request that the angel of
the Lord honors by having the man on the horse explain that the prophet was
seeing “the ones the Lord has sent to go throughout the earth” who then made a
report to the angel of the Lord that they had discovered “the whole world at
rest and peace”.
Well, almost the whole world
anyways.
This is because the Israelites
were definitely not “at rest and peace” as they had been terribly oppressed by
the Assyrians and Babylonians who took liberties with destroying Israel and
Judah respectively before taking all the Israelites away into exile. This truth
prompted the angel of the Lord to cry out to the Lord in intercession for the
Israelites, asking God how long He intended to “withhold mercy from Jerusalem”
and the “towns of Judah” who He had been angry with, angry enough to impose a
seventy year penalty of captivity in a foreign land.
Well, as we look at the
scriptures, we find God providing an answer to the question at hand, one that
contained “kind and comforting words”.
What made the Lord’s words kind
and comforting?
It was a matter of mercy, a
mercy that was returning to the Israelites underscored by God allowing them to
leave exile and return home. Look at the Lord’s proclamation here, a
proclamation Zechariah was to pass onto the Israelite remnant:
“I am very jealous
for Jerusalem and Zion, and I am very angry with the nations that feel secure.
I was only a little angry, but they went too far with the punishment.”
“Therefore this is
what the Lord says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there My house
will be rebuilt. And the measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.’”
“Proclaim further:
This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘My towns will again overflow with
prosperity, and the Lord will again comfort Zion and choose Jerusalem.’”
Despite the punishment God
imposed on His people, He still loved and cherished them, like a father will
still love his child even though he needs to discipline to make sure they grow
up right. God’s judgment bore the intent to get His people back on the right
path, the path of righteousness He wants all to travel. He chose Assyria and
Babylon to carry out His sentence on the Israelites but note here that both
selected empires had gone too far. In fact, there was a point when Assyria and
Babylon had both wished for the eradication of the Jews. And so now, God was
angry with those nations, those who felt secure. They would now be in the
crosshairs of His judgment.
As for the Israelites, they
would be blessed as God returned to Jerusalem with mercy for His people as they
rebuilt His holy temple as well as their homes, their lives, and their
relationships with Him. God vowed that prosperity would be restored to His
people through their rebuilding process and that they could expect peace and
comfort to again found because He was with them.
Once again, they would be His
people and He their God. ‘
Friends, do we not see this
happen over and over again on our lives and the lives of others?
We sin in life and draw the
ire of the Lord who will discipline us as needed to get us back where He wants
us to be. But like the Israelite people in Zechariah’s day, what we find is
that the Lord is always ready to restore us to His favor, allowing His mercy to
return and be upon us. Truly, it is amazing grace.
So let’s all allow these words
of the Lord and the message of this devotion take us to a place of higher
praise unto the Lord who is willing to forgive us out of love and show us a
compassion that defies understanding, a compassion that is born out of the deep
mercy we only find in the Lord our God.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
No comments:
Post a Comment