Month: October 2020

439. Refined Silver and Gold

Zechariah 9a And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried.

This is not a pleasant promise, but it is vitally necessary. God will refine us as silver is refined, and He will try us as gold is tried. We don’t want to go through the fire and take the heat, but we must. Silver and gold must be put in the refining furnace and the heat turned up so that the impurities might be burned away. This process refines and purifies the precious metals. How pure it becomes depends on how high the heat is turned up.

This is a good promise for us because our souls are like the silver and gold that needs to be purified. God does the refining on the soul. He uses afflictions of body and soul to refine and purify. The process is painful, but the result is pleasant and beautiful. Hebrews 12:11: “For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Since we don’t know much and we see only dimly, we must take it by faith that the Lord knows what He is doing and that He is always doing a good thing for us, His precious metals. Even if we don’t want to be refined, the Lord is still determined to finish what He started, whether we like it or not. We don’t know what God is doing with us most of the time, but we believe that what He is doing is good; and the refining process is ultimately good for us. For this reason this promise is very important for us and for our faith. It means that whatever we are going through, either good or ill, God is using it to produce luscious fruit and a beautiful result. Believe that He can turn anything into good. It may be hard to believe, but the Spirit grants faith to believe through the Gospel. The Lord will indeed refine and try; He will work all things together for good; He will deliver us from evil; He will make His name, His kingdom, and His will prevail among us. Thank God for His process of refining. He gives what we need. We might say, “I  don’t need this,” but the loving Lord says, “You need this. I am refining and trying.”

438. A Fountain Opened

Zechariah 13:1 In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.

God promises to open a fountain to the Church in the day of the Messiah. The house of David is the Messiah and His followers; the inhabitants of Jerusalem are the Church of all believers in Christ. This is a promise for us; it came to pass when Jesus, the Son of God, entered our world and lived and died for us. Jesus is the fountain.The fountain is the shed blood of Christ. The fountain of blood is for sin and for uncleanness.

A fountain can be a well or a spring, as well as any water fountain that sprays out water into the air. Jesus refers to Himself as being the well of living water that springs up unto eternal life. Jesus says about believers in Christ: “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” Now this is said about the Spirit, whom those who believe in Him were about to receive. Although the fountain is a fountain of blood, the image of living, flowing, fresh water is a metaphor for the Holy Spirit. This water (Spirit and Life) will flow into, through, and out of the belly of the Christian. The blood of Jesus is the water of eternal life. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Conversely, with the shedding of the blood of the innocent Lamb of God there is the forgiveness of Sin. This fountain is opened. It washes away sin and uncleanness. 

When we walk through this world and are exposed to the world’s ways we become contaminated with sin and sometimes we just feel unclean. We may have taken a bath in the open fountain, but then we walk through the world; so Jesus says we need our feet washed. Why do we need to hear the Gospel when we have already believed it and received Jesus? Why do we need to partake of the Lord’s Supper when we just did so last week? Why do we still need our feet washed? Or simply, why do we go to church so often? It is because we still live in a filthy world of sin, we still live in the sinful flesh, and we are still sullied by the devil. We need the fountain, and, praise God for His promise, we have the fountain. It is opened.

437. Spirit of Grace and Prayer

Zechariah 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.

God promises the Holy Spirit. He promised to pour out the Spirit, and it came about on the Day of Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. He tells us to ask for His Spirit and He will give it. If we believe in Jesus we already have it, but we still need the Spirit to infect the soul and to come out of us. So we pray the Lord’s Prayer as Jesus tells us to. 

The promise to us is a spirit of grace. We receive all things by the grace of God. Jesus earned it for us, the Lord gives it to us, and we receive it by faith. Grace is free. Grace is abundant. Grace freely bestows countless blessings and promises. The spirit of grace also comes out of us, and when it does it gives off a sweet aroma, refreshes others, and it looks beautiful. We “forgive those who trespass against us.” We ask for this grace and we freely and often and instantly give it out. The Spirit graces our lives, and He, through us, graces other lives. Receive the spirit of grace, and ask for it. He promises to give it.

The promise is also a spirit of supplications. It is a spirit of prayer. We may ask for this promise and we may receive it in faith. “Pray without ceasing” means to always be ready to pray and grace the lives of those around us; it is living with the awareness of the presence of God with us. Constant “God-consciousness” is not possible, but we can practice it and get better at it; we can be eager to pray at an instant’s notice when we see a need. God will give us this spirit of prayers.

436. The Lord will Destroy

Zechariah 12:9 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.

God promises to destroy all the enemies that attack and war against the Church. Jerusalem = Church. Believers in Christ, who become children of God, who live in the kingdom of God, become the enemies of the big three spiritual enemies, who hate God and His people.They hate God; they hate you because you are God’s. This is truth and fact. It is already a given that we have enemies that seek to kill and destroy and separate us from God.

But we have One who fights for us on our side, and He says He will seek to destroy our enemies, so that one day they will attack us no longer. We have to wait for judgment. Until then, we are at war, with the creator and savior at war with us against the Destroyers. This will come to pass in that day. “In that day” is the day of the Messiah, the Age in which the Son has become human to die for humanity. We who have received the Christ drive away Sin Death, and Satan until the time comes when they are cast into the lake of fire never to bother us ever again forever.

We may use that promise now and speak it today in faith. “One little word can fell him.” That little word is the Gospel: it says that the innocent Lamb of God has died for all sins, forgiven them, and the enemies no longer have a right to our life, health, wellbeing, peace, hope and joy. We need only to hear the Gospel, believe it, and apply it to particular situations, doubts, temptations, and troubles. We cannot destroy, but the Lord can and does. We use His Name, His Blood, and His Word to defeat, drive away, and destroy the works and ways of the Enemy. We may live over the circumstances, not under them.

435. The Lord will Defend

Zechariah 12:8 In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, the angel of the Lord before them.

The Lord promises to defend the Church of believers in Jesus Christ. We need a strong defense since we are constantly under attack from our spiritual enemies. Sin, Death, and the Devil are relentlessly at war with us the children of God, and they are intent on killing and destroying and stealing our life and our secure relationship with the Lord God. They will not succeed because the Almighty Lord is our Defender. The Bible is full of war imagery because the spiritual warfare is serious and deadly. It is vital that we place ourselves in the hands of the Defender. We can count on the Lord to keep His promise: He not only saves and keeps but He also defends and guards. 

The peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. He guards like a precious pearl the precarious bond of faith that keeps us with Jesus Christ our Lord. Our faith relationship is tenuous and precarious because we believe it but we don’t see it. We cannot see the castle fortress that keeps us in the one true faith. We all know people who may have believed in Jesus at one point in their life, but they have since shipwrecked their faith on the rocky shoals of unbelief. We are reminded that our faith may be weak and fragile, but a little bit of faith in Christ is strong enough to save, to keep and defend us, for He is strong.

The further promise is that the weak and feeble in the Church will be as strong and mighty as David. When we are weak, then He is strong. We shall be as David, and the house of David (the Church) shall be as God. There is a safe place to go: go to the gathered believers who preach and hear the Gospel. David was a strong and bold warrior, able to leap tall buildings and such, because he strengthened himself in the Lord. He had and he kept a heart for the Lord; he was “a man after God’s own heart.” This is the strength of David: he trusted the Lord. That is where we find our strength, in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that strong name will defend us.

434. God will feed the flock

Zechariah 11:7And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock.

The Lord promises to feed the flock. The promise came true in Jesus, the Good Shepherd, who feeds and nourishes the Church, the flock of the people of God. The image of the Lord as the shepherd of the sheep comes through the Scriptures in many places, most notably in Jesus’ promise to be our Good Shepherd. Here we the believers are called the flock of slaughter. Jesus Himself became a Lamb who was slaughtered. The suffering and death of Christ is the source of our life and salvation, and of our forgiveness and feeding. 

We also are the slaughtered ones, for Sin has taken its toll on life, and Death reaps the wages of sin, and the Devil robs us of the joy of life. All day long we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we are more than conquerors, for the Lamb of God was slaughtered in our place. And now He feeds us with the milk of life and the grains of salvation, earned by His slaughtering.

This Good News of salvation feeds us, nourishes us, makes us alive, fixes us up, and keeps us going. The Gospel is especially refreshing when we are poor. “Blessed are the poor.” The Gospel turns us from weakness, poverty and wretchedness to strength, riches and pure joy.

The Lord our Shepherd tends the sheep with the rod and staff called Beauty and Bands. He gives the grace and loveliness of the Lord God to live in us, transforming sinners into saints. He gives the unity and fellowship joy of being one with the Lord God of the universe; He binds us with an unbreakable bond between Himself and all other believers. We are fed and cared for in Jesus’ powerful hands.

433. Strengthened and Walking

Zechariah 10:12 AndI will strengthen them in the Lord; and they shall walk up and down in his name, saith the Lord.

God promises to strengthen us and make us walk up and down in His name. “They shall walk and not faint,” prophesies Isaiah. Peter declares to the lame man, “In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk.” Jesus heals the lame man by giving strength to his legs. The Lord will give strength to us in the name of the Lord. The inward man is very strong, much stronger than we realize. Inner strength is more important than bodily strength, and it lasts forever and then joins with the re-strengthened and resurrected body. In such a “spiritual body” we live forever with the Lord.

We are weak, but He is strong. When we are weak, our Lord in us is strong. His strength is made visible in weakness. Inner strength stands firm on the foundation of the words and promises of the Lord. Inner strength stands on the truth and will not be shaken by the deceits of the world and the lies of the devil. Inner strength is not stubbornness but simple firmness that doesn’t give in to lies.

The Lord gives strength all the time, but there are times when we need inner strength more than at other times, when the body is weak it weakens the spirit; and when the emotions are weak and confused they affect the resolve of the will. God gives strength to the emotions, settles them down, and straightens them out. The Lord lifts us up so that we may walk up and down. Walking up and down hills and mountains is not easy and it requires strength. The mountains in our minds and emotions may be easily conquered with the strength that comes from God. When we stand on the Word, believe the Gospel, and apply the promise we are strengthened and able to climb mountains. Faith moves mountains. Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ.

432. God will Hear

Zechariah 10:6 And I will strengthen the house of Judah, and I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them again to place them; for I have mercy upon them: and they shall be as though I had not cast them off: for I am the Lord their God, and will hear them.

God gives several promises here: I will strengthen the Church; I will save the church; I will bring them again; and, I will hear the church. The house of Judah refers to the descendants of Judah, the Jews, the kings of David’s line, the Messiah out of the line of Judah, and finally the Church of believers in Jesus. For us NT believers the Lord will do these things.

The Lord will strengthen. At its weakest and lowest point the Lord speaks a word of promise and hope. You will not remain weak, for I will give you strength. Our strength is in the “joy of the Lord.” Jesus is our strength. He is strong for us when we are weak (and we are always weak). When I am weak, then He is strong. He is always strengthening, but we need it the most at the times we feel weak, powerless, helpless, and beaten down.

The Lord will save. Jesus has saved us once and for all time, and that salvation continues to be in effect every day. And every time we need to reach out and take the hand of Jesus He is there to save us again and again. We are always saved, but there are times when we are not aware of God’s present salvation. Then by faith we take hold of His hand and He lifts us up.

The Lord will bring again and place. Jesus brought us back again to the home, with God, where we belong and placed us in His Kingdom, in His family, and in His strong hands, wrapped in His arms in the bosom of the Father. We are in exile in this cursed world because of sin, in a far country. The Lord comes to us when we are estranged and alienated, alone and isolated, and brings us to Himself. Whenever we feel overwhelmed by the forces of the Enemies of the soul He comes to rescue us and place us in the “safe place.” We go from the pig sty in a foreign country to the feasting party in our Father’s house.

The Lord will hear. The Lord gives so many promises to hear us when we pray, when we cry, and when we are in need that we cannot fail to believe that He hears our prayers. We sound surprised when we see His answers to our prayers. “He really heard me.” We may always be in a state of positive expectation that the Lord always hears in Jesus’ name, for Jesus’ sake, and by the blood of Jesus.

431. Lord makes Mighty Men

Zechariah 10:5 And they shall be as mighty men, which tread down their enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle: and they shall fight, because the Lord is with them, and the riders on horses shall be confounded.

That there will be spiritual warfare is a promise of God. That God and His people will win the war is a promise of God. That the people of God will be as mighty men and tread down their enemies is another promise. There is a war; we win the war; we tread down the enemies. Jesus has crushed the head of the serpent at the cross. Jesus has overcome death by His resurrection. Jesus has taken away sin by his death and resurrection. The battle is won. Eternal defeat is still to come at the Final Battle and the Final Judgment. And we will win.

The believers in Christ are soldiers in the army of God warring against our Enemies with the name of Jesus and the blood of Jesus. Romans 16:29: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” It doesn’t say Jesus’ feet, but your feet. Believers in Christ are the crushers and treaders. The Christian soldiers are waging war along with the angels of God under the leadership of the Son of God. Because we have this promise we may confidently wage war against Sin, Death, and the Devil.

It is hard to believe that our dream of becoming mighty men could actually come true. But spiritually it is true for every believer. But it’s not that we are mighty by ourselves and in ourselves, but the Lord Jesus Christ is the Mighty Man, the strong warrior, in the battle. He is the one who fights for us, and in us, against the Evil Enemies that are fighting to destroy us. Apply the Word of God; overcome by the blood of the Lamb

430. Lord will Save

Zechariah 9:16 And the Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people: for they shall be as the stones of a crown, lifted up as an ensign upon his land.

God promises to save His people in that day. “In that day” is the Day of the Messiah, when Jesus the Savior comes to save us from Sin, Death, and the Devil, and to save us for God, life, and good works. He saves us as the flock of His people. He saves us as a shepherd saves, protects and provides for His flock of sheep. Once He has saved us then He must keep us, maintain, nourish, and fix us up. Salvation belongs to God; He does all the work. He makes us a people under His care in His family. We don’t take the promise of salvation for granted, but we believe in it, live in it and enjoy it.

We, the saved ones, will be the stones of a crown. Each one of us, and all us together, are jewels in the crown of life. The crown is placed on Jesus’ head, and that crown is full of beautiful jewels. Think about this promise: you are a stone in the crown. Each saved person is a jewel, a diamond, a pearl of great price. Jesus humbled Himself, bled and died, and rose again to save the pearl. He saved us with a great price to earn for us a spot in His crown. See yourself as a stone in the crown, a jewel, a pearl of great price; believe the promise and you will think differently of yourself.

We are lifted up as an ensign on His land, or His kingdom. We are, with Jesus, high and lifted up like a blazing flag or emblem in the kingdom of God, so bright and high that everyone can see each one of us. We are “ensigns’ that rally people to us as we let our light (which is Jesus in us) Shine and they glorify God. We may never underestimate our significance and importance to God. By ourselves, without God, we are utterly insignificant, but in Christ we are precious and valuable and brilliant.